The number of 5G connections worldwide surpassed 1.5 billion at the end of 2023, four years after the arrival of the technology, making it the fastest-growing mobile broadband technology to date, according to a research report from GSMA Intelligence.
5G, the fifth generation mobile network, has been around for a few years (since 2019), but despite its remarkable expansion in the number of connections it has not been used to its full potential in terms of creating digital transformation, economic impact, and commercial value.
But now, innovations in 5G networks will change this scenario, allowing 5G to stand as a potential cornerstone for intelligent connectivity, fuelling economic expansion, revolutionising industries, and introducing innovative services. How?
NB: This is not another post breaking down the ins and outs of 5G technology (there are countless articles you can find online for that), but rather a focus on how 5G can pave the way for innovative new services.
5G Standalone (5G SA), the key to unlock a new era of innovative new services
To elaborate on how the new 5G capabilities are driving the innovation of new services, it is worth mentioning that there are two main deployment modes for 5G networks: standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA).
5G NSA networks are hybrid 5G networks that uses a 5G radio access network (RAN) and a 4G LTE core network (the previous generation). Most global network operators have embraced this deployment method as the norm for launching 5G, facilitating a faster transition to the latest generation of cellular networks.
5G SA networks are end-to-end networks with 5G cores and 5G radio access network. This allows fully realisation for 5G, providing all its benefits such as massive capacity, ultra-low latency, faster speeds, enhanced security and reliability. It enables the full set of 5G services:
- Enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), which primarily focuses on speed, capacity and mobile, improving the services to consumers. After the initial rollouts of 5G NSA networks, this became the inaugural service offered by MNOs.
- Fixed wireless access (5G FWA), delivers high-speed broadband, as an efficient and scalable alternative to wired connection supporting enterprise and home applications. It has been one of the early success of 5G NSA networks.
- Ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC), which supports mission-critical communications where data transfer requires minimal lag and high reliability. Enabled by 5G SA.
- Massive IoT (mMTC), which can connect a massive number of IoT devices in a given area. Enabled by 5G SA.
Moreover, 5G SA enables another critical capability for the development of innovative services, network slicing. The fundamental concept is to ‘slice’ the original physical network into several logical (virtualised) and separate networks. Then, these sliced networks can be set up to efficiently satisfy different service requirements and application needs. For example a ‘slice’ of the network could be used to provide IoT services to a enterprise customer, providing guaranteed service level agreement (SLA) and differentiated quality of service.
All these new capabilities that 5G SA brings, create new opportunities to reinvent offerings and deliver value to customers, especially enterprise businesses. But the slow deployment of 5G SA restrict the variety of new services that can be offered using 5G, and reduces the possibilities to monetise the network. As of January 2024, out of the 261 commercial 5G services available worldwide, only 47 are provided by 5G Standalone (SA) networks (GSMA Intelligence). From my point of view, more investment and better spectrum policies are required to speed up the deployments.
5G fixed wireless access (FWA) has been one of the early 5G success stories in several markets
Deploying new network requires a huge infrastructure investment and operators need to find use cases to monetise the new network. Mobile operators’ first action (with a new generation network) is always to boost revenue from users (ARPU) by adding more capacity and speed to the mobile broadband offering (like you’ve noticed with your mobile phone company, possibly paying a higher monthly rate). But with 5G, new use cases will drive revenue growth. The first early 5G success history is FWA that brings new revenues, opex reduction and capex optimisation.
FWA networks have some history leveraging 4G for commercial services, but 5G is transforming FWA into a more competitive solution compared to traditional broadband offering (cable and fibre), with speed over 10 times 4G FWA.
Furthermore, 5G FWA has the potential to close the digital divide by extending high-speed broadband to areas that were unreachable by fixed networks.
According to insights from Ericsson and GSMA Intelligence, at the end of 2023, 123 operators in 62 markets worldwide had launched 5G FWA services, meaning that more than 40% of commercial 5G networks included a 5G FWA offering. Moreover, FWA is capturing more than 90 percent of the fixed broadband net adds in the US since 2Q2022.
With 130 million of connections by the end of 2023, FWA is still in the early stages, representing approximately 1 % of total fixed broadband connections as of Q4 2023. Therefore, I believe that 5G FWA has a significant potential for growth.
IoT adaptability enabled by 5G
5G technology also has the ability to support an extensive number of IoT devices, which have a diverse range of speed, bandwidth and quality of service requirements, depending on the use case that they serve.
Besides, the integration with edge computing (computer power close to where is needed) will facilitate data-intensive applications across thousands or even hundreds of thousands of IoT devices.
Furthermore, 5G is capable of addressing various IoT scenarios due to its flexibility :
- massive IoT, for applications such as smart metering, that send small amounts of data volumes (not very often) and that work with low power required for long battery life (meaning years), using mMTC.
- critical IoT, for applications such as autonomous machinery, that requires minimal lag and high reliability, using URLLC.
- broadband IoT, for applications such as video surveillance, that require higher throughput, lower latency, and larger data volumes than massive IoT , using eMBB.
But as I mentioned in one of my previous post, massive internet of things, I think that the best approach is to use hybrid IoT connectivity, providing the most efficient connectivity solution for each particular scenario (using 5G, NB-IoT, non-cellular LPWA and even short-range technologies). Note that the majority of existing enterprise use cases could be served with 4G private networks, NB-IoT and non-licensed LPWA but 5G provides more flexibility and the capability of offering differentiated quality of service (QoS) and guaranteed service level agreements (SLAs).
AI empowering 5G capabilities
The true potential of 5G can only be fully realised when combined with the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and IoT. AI empowers 5G capabilities in numerous ways, enhancing network performance, optimising resource allocation, and enabling new applications and services.
From my perspective, the primary focus should be on building AI-powered functions for 5G, like:
- cellular intelligence: involves using AI to monitor and predict the radio environment of 5G networks. AI can offer real-time insights into network performance, predict the network performance, identify areas for enhancements to meet specific use case requirements, and recommend optimal configurations.
- 5G digital twin: virtual replica of the 5G physical network that allows accurate simulations and prediction, offering a way to visualise and manipulate the network’s response to various scenarios, without the need for extensive real-world testing.
These capabilities will be used to serve diverse use case such as:
- network management and operations: by continuously analysing data from the network, AI can predict traffic patterns, equipment failures, and other critical events, allowing for proactive management and maintenance. Besides, digital twins can simulate the behaviour of 5G networks under various conditions, helping to identify potential issues and optimise performance.
- network deployment: 5G cellular intelligence capability can predict the optimal place to deploy a new 5G site, e.g. to optimise the deployment of FWA to a enterprise customer.
- optimise the guaranteed SLAs and differentiated QoS: AI facilitates efficient network slicing by customising slices and optimising allocation of resources to ensure that each slice operates efficiently without interfering with others, ensuring optimal performance for different use cases.
- improving security: AI enhances the security of 5G networks through advanced threat detection and mitigation techniques (anomaly detection, encryption..)
5G, a game-changer for Enterprise Businesses
Let’s integrate all these elements to create a robust foundation: 5G FWA for efficient, reliable, and scalable broadband connectivity; 5G SA and network slicing for differentiated QoS and guaranteed SLAs; and IoT adaptability combined with AI. By adding Wireless-WAN (WWAN) and software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), we get ease of management, performance flexibility, enhanced security, and scalability. This powerful combination offers a recipe for innovative enterprise applications and growth.
Additionally, we could add another capability to the recipe: private 5G networks, that are nonpublic mobile networks that can use licensed, unlicensed, or shared spectrum. Private 5G networks are meant to augment existing capabilities and introduce new possibilities that other systems are not able to support.
By utilising all these powerful tools, enterprise businesses can replace old MPLS connections with enhanced capabilities and access cutting-edge services at a lower cost. Some examples of enterprise businesses using 5G SA are:
- Remote Work and Collaboration: Supports virtual meetings and collaboration across global teams, making remote work seamless.
- IoT and Smart Devices: Facilitates automated operations, predictive maintenance, and efficient management of resources.
- Real-Time Analytics and AI: Enables immediate insights and data-driven decisions, enhancing business intelligence
- AR/VR Applications: Improves customer experiences, training, and simulation, providing immersive interactions
- Autonomous Vehicles and Robotics: Optimizes logistics, enhances safety, and improves operational efficiency.
But this just the beginning. It’s time to develop more innovative services leveraging the capabilities that 5G SA and AI provide. This is a great opportunity for service providers and innovative companies to reinvent offerings and deliver value to customers, especially enterprise businesses.
