What I learned from the MWC2018. Just some bullets, based on MWC Daily publications.
USA and China would be first to launch commercial 5G. The technology would initially be used to support fixed wireless access in North America, while in China the focus would be on industrial IoT services.
5G use cases are: videostreaming, VR & AR streaming, industrial IoT, massive IoT, smart cities, connected cars and so on.
5G means huge increase in network efficiency, with costs being a tenth when compared with 4G infrastructure / Borje Ekholm, CEO Ericsson
5G security needs to be defined and put in place before the 5G networks is rolled. Security in 5G will be a bigger issue than in 2G/3G/LTE, as it involved such applications as connected cars and remote surgeries for which security is a critical factors. / Evolved Intelligence
NVF will be critical for upgrading network equipment to handle new standards like 5G, while eliminating complete system overhauls / Peterson, Boingo
FCC, USA plans to hold auctions for 28GHz spectrum in Nov. 2018 and for 24GHz soon after. FCC also revealed plans to decide if it would be possible to allocate some frequencies in between 3.7GHz and 4.2GHz for the commercial terrestrial use. As well, FCC will take care about siting laws ready to use soon after frequency auctions.
Large Europen MNO’s are not ready to densify their mobile networks, which is crucial for 5G success. So Rethink Technology Research warns that European networks would be ill-prepared for the 5G use-cases like industrial IoT and smart cities. As a result Europe will lag behind the other nations like US and Japan.
China Mobile plans to start large-scale 5G trials 2q2018 across 17 cities (!) with 11 types of services including 4K video streaming, m-telemedicine and connected drones. China’s regulation put a target to have 5G commercial networks launched by 2020. China Mobile plans to use 3.5GHz for coverage and will trial 4.9GHz for capacity expansion. China Mobile will pilots mMIMO and networks slicing in large-scale networks, as well as “real-life services”.
In Sprint they are trying to be the first to launch a truly mobile 5G (just do not ask me what really means ‘truly’). Does this mean Sprint will launch the 5G NR in 2018, or does it mean that the company’s customers will wait until 2020 when 3GPP will approve 5G standard?
It is interesting to know that Sprint sees such tasks as: use the advanced AI capabilities to move to higher-level application-based machine decision management. They see various possibilities for B2B, ranging from the use of wireless sensors that control irrigation on farms in remote areas to autonomous vehicles.Ericsson and China Mobile to jointly establish an IoT Acceleration centre in China dedicated the 5G industrial IoT.
Huawei signed 45 5G MoU with operators. First deployments are expecting before 2018 end.