,Drivers and Motivation for 5G
Betsy Covell1 and Rainer Liebhart2
1Nokia, Naperville, USA
2Nokia, Munich, Germany
1.1 Drivers for 5G
Main drivers for the evolution of mobile networks in the past were mobile voice (2G/3G/Voice
over Long Term Evolution [VoLTE]), messaging (Short Messaging Service [SMS], WhatsApp) and
Internet access (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access [WCDMA], High Speed Packet
Access [HSPA], Long Term Evolution [LTE]) whenever and wherever needed. Focus was on end
consumers equipped with traditional handsets or smartphones.
Consumer demand continues to be insatiable with an ever growing appetite for the bandwidth
that is needed for 4K and 8K video streaming, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR),
among other use cases. On the same token, operators want the network to be “better, faster and
cheaper” without compromising any of these three elements.
The biggest difference between 5G and previous “Gs” is the diversity of applications that 5G
networks need to support. Objects ranging from cars and factory machines, appliances to
watches and apparel, will learn to organize themselves to fulfill our needs by automatically
adapting to our behavior, environment or business processes. New use cases will arise, many not
yet conceived, creating novel business models. 5G connectivity will impact the following areas:
Real world mobility. The way we travel and experience our environment;
Virtual mobility. The way we can control remote environments;
High performance infrastructure. The way the infrastructure supports us;
4th Industrial Revolution. The way we produce and provide goods.
We already have indicators about these long‐term trends and disruptions and they are not only
driven by the Internet and the telecommunication industry but by a multitude of different
industries. 5G will be the platform enabling growth in many of these industries; the IT, car,
entertainment, agriculture, tourism and manufacturing industries. 5G will connect the factory of
the future and help to create a fully automated and flexible production system. It will also be the
enabler of a superefficient infrastructure that saves resources.
Smartphones are becoming more and more a commodity which means that consumers will
differentiate themselves increasingly with new gadgets such as VR devices, connected cars and
devices for connected health.
With the decline or at least flattened Average Revenue Per User/Average Revenue Per
Device (ARPU/ARPD) in many markets worldwide (typical ARPU is around $30 per month, while
ARPD is not more than $3 per month) the telecom industry is more and more considering new
revenue streams besides traditional business models. This is where we see new business drivers
and requirements, from vertical industries, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the digital society.
In the past, the main driver for the mobile industry was connecting people, in the future it is
about the “connected world” meaning connecting everyone and everything at any time. This will
create new and additional revenue streams for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Connecting
“things” like cars (e.g. 125 million vehicles to be connected by 2022), robots, meters, medical
,machines bring new challenges to the next generation of mobile networks. To name only a some
of them:
Ubiquitous, pervasively ultra‐fast connectivity;
Resilient and secure networks;
Massive radio resources and ultra‐dense networks; and
Instantaneous connectivity.
Vertical industries and applications do have very diverse requirements with regards to
throughput, latency, reliability, number of connections, security and revenue (see Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 Market characteristics (people and things).
This requires a highly flexible architecture of the new generation of mobile networks, on radio
and core network side, as well as at the transport. Flexibility also includes a high degree of
automation in deploying and maintaining networks, parts of a network or single resources (e.g.
network slices). Flexible architecture is achieved by different means, from flexible frame
structures and intelligent radio schedulers to edge computing, slicing, Software Defined
Networking (SDN) and fully automated Orchestration capabilities. We will explain the most
important technical solutions throughout this book in the chapters to follow (see also Section
1.6).
What are the concrete use cases that will drive the market? Nobody knows the answer today, but
we can have a look at the industries that are forced into digital transformation by changes in
their markets. There is an extensive list of possible use cases for various industry sectors where
5G may play a crucial role to interconnect people and things, to name only a few of them:
Healthcare. Bioelectronic medicine, Personal health systems, telemedicine, connected
ambulance including Augmented/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) applications.
Manufacturing. Remote/motion control and monitoring of devices like robots, machine‐
to‐machine communication, AR/VR in design (e.g. for designing machines, houses, etc.).
Entertainment. Immersive experience, stadium experience, cooperative media
production (e.g. production of songs, movies from various locations).
Automotive. Platooning, infotainment, autonomous vehicles, high‐definition (HD) map
updates, remote maintenance and SW updates.
, Energy. Grid control and monitoring, connecting windfarms, smart electric vehicle
charging.
Public transport. Infotainment, train/bus operations, platooning for buses.
Agriculture. Connecting sensors and farming machines, drone control.
Public Safety. Threat detection, facial recognition, drones.
Fixed Wireless Access (FWA). Replacing fixed access technologies like fiber at the last mile
by wireless access.
Megacities. Applications around mission control for public safety, video surveillance,
connected mobility across all means of transport including public parking and traffic
steering, and environment/pollution monitoring.
Among the listed use cases motion control appears the most challenging and demanding one.
Such a system is responsible for controlling, moving and rotating parts of machines in a well‐
defined manner. Such a use case has very stringent requirements in terms of low latency,
reliability, and determinism. Augmented Reality requires high data rates for transmitting (high‐
definition) video streams from and to a device. Process automation is between the two, and
focuses on monitoring and controlling chemical, biological or other processes in a plant,
involving both a wide range of different sensors (e.g. for measuring temperatures, pressures,
flows, etc.) and actuators (e.g. valves or heaters).
1.2 ITU‐R and IMT 2020 Vision
The International Telecommunication Union – Radio Sector (ITU‐R) manages the international
radio‐frequency spectrum and satellite orbit resources. In September 2015 ITU‐R published its
recommendation M.2083 [1] constituting a vision for the International Mobile
Telecommunications (IMT) 2020 and beyond. In this document ITU‐R describes user and
application trends, growth in traffic, technological trends and spectrum implications, and
provides guidelines on the framework and the capabilities for IMT 2020. The following trends
were identified, leading in a later phase to concrete requirements for the new 5G system defined
by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP):
Support for very low latency and high reliability communication;
Support of high user density (in one area, one cell, etc.);
Support of high accurate positioning methods;
Support of the IoT;
Support of high‐quality communication at high speeds; and
Support of enhanced multimedia services and converged applications.
Regarding the growth of traffic rates, it was estimated (based on various available forecasts) that
the global IMT traffic will grow in the range of 10–100 times from 2020 to 2030 with an
increasing asymmetry between downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) data rates.
ITU‐R is not defining a new radio system itself but has listed some technology trends for both the
radio and network side they deemed necessary to fulfill the new requirements and cope with
new application trends and increased traffic rates. Technologies enhancing the radio interface
capabilities mentioned in M.2083 are, e.g. new waveforms, modulation and coding techniques,
as well as multiple access schemes. Spectrum efficiency enhancements and higher data rates can
be achieved by techniques such as 3D‐beamforming, an active antenna system, and massive
Multiple‐Input‐Multiple‐Output (mMIMO). Dual connectivity and dynamic Time Division
Betsy Covell1 and Rainer Liebhart2
1Nokia, Naperville, USA
2Nokia, Munich, Germany
1.1 Drivers for 5G
Main drivers for the evolution of mobile networks in the past were mobile voice (2G/3G/Voice
over Long Term Evolution [VoLTE]), messaging (Short Messaging Service [SMS], WhatsApp) and
Internet access (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access [WCDMA], High Speed Packet
Access [HSPA], Long Term Evolution [LTE]) whenever and wherever needed. Focus was on end
consumers equipped with traditional handsets or smartphones.
Consumer demand continues to be insatiable with an ever growing appetite for the bandwidth
that is needed for 4K and 8K video streaming, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR),
among other use cases. On the same token, operators want the network to be “better, faster and
cheaper” without compromising any of these three elements.
The biggest difference between 5G and previous “Gs” is the diversity of applications that 5G
networks need to support. Objects ranging from cars and factory machines, appliances to
watches and apparel, will learn to organize themselves to fulfill our needs by automatically
adapting to our behavior, environment or business processes. New use cases will arise, many not
yet conceived, creating novel business models. 5G connectivity will impact the following areas:
Real world mobility. The way we travel and experience our environment;
Virtual mobility. The way we can control remote environments;
High performance infrastructure. The way the infrastructure supports us;
4th Industrial Revolution. The way we produce and provide goods.
We already have indicators about these long‐term trends and disruptions and they are not only
driven by the Internet and the telecommunication industry but by a multitude of different
industries. 5G will be the platform enabling growth in many of these industries; the IT, car,
entertainment, agriculture, tourism and manufacturing industries. 5G will connect the factory of
the future and help to create a fully automated and flexible production system. It will also be the
enabler of a superefficient infrastructure that saves resources.
Smartphones are becoming more and more a commodity which means that consumers will
differentiate themselves increasingly with new gadgets such as VR devices, connected cars and
devices for connected health.
With the decline or at least flattened Average Revenue Per User/Average Revenue Per
Device (ARPU/ARPD) in many markets worldwide (typical ARPU is around $30 per month, while
ARPD is not more than $3 per month) the telecom industry is more and more considering new
revenue streams besides traditional business models. This is where we see new business drivers
and requirements, from vertical industries, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the digital society.
In the past, the main driver for the mobile industry was connecting people, in the future it is
about the “connected world” meaning connecting everyone and everything at any time. This will
create new and additional revenue streams for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Connecting
“things” like cars (e.g. 125 million vehicles to be connected by 2022), robots, meters, medical
,machines bring new challenges to the next generation of mobile networks. To name only a some
of them:
Ubiquitous, pervasively ultra‐fast connectivity;
Resilient and secure networks;
Massive radio resources and ultra‐dense networks; and
Instantaneous connectivity.
Vertical industries and applications do have very diverse requirements with regards to
throughput, latency, reliability, number of connections, security and revenue (see Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 Market characteristics (people and things).
This requires a highly flexible architecture of the new generation of mobile networks, on radio
and core network side, as well as at the transport. Flexibility also includes a high degree of
automation in deploying and maintaining networks, parts of a network or single resources (e.g.
network slices). Flexible architecture is achieved by different means, from flexible frame
structures and intelligent radio schedulers to edge computing, slicing, Software Defined
Networking (SDN) and fully automated Orchestration capabilities. We will explain the most
important technical solutions throughout this book in the chapters to follow (see also Section
1.6).
What are the concrete use cases that will drive the market? Nobody knows the answer today, but
we can have a look at the industries that are forced into digital transformation by changes in
their markets. There is an extensive list of possible use cases for various industry sectors where
5G may play a crucial role to interconnect people and things, to name only a few of them:
Healthcare. Bioelectronic medicine, Personal health systems, telemedicine, connected
ambulance including Augmented/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) applications.
Manufacturing. Remote/motion control and monitoring of devices like robots, machine‐
to‐machine communication, AR/VR in design (e.g. for designing machines, houses, etc.).
Entertainment. Immersive experience, stadium experience, cooperative media
production (e.g. production of songs, movies from various locations).
Automotive. Platooning, infotainment, autonomous vehicles, high‐definition (HD) map
updates, remote maintenance and SW updates.
, Energy. Grid control and monitoring, connecting windfarms, smart electric vehicle
charging.
Public transport. Infotainment, train/bus operations, platooning for buses.
Agriculture. Connecting sensors and farming machines, drone control.
Public Safety. Threat detection, facial recognition, drones.
Fixed Wireless Access (FWA). Replacing fixed access technologies like fiber at the last mile
by wireless access.
Megacities. Applications around mission control for public safety, video surveillance,
connected mobility across all means of transport including public parking and traffic
steering, and environment/pollution monitoring.
Among the listed use cases motion control appears the most challenging and demanding one.
Such a system is responsible for controlling, moving and rotating parts of machines in a well‐
defined manner. Such a use case has very stringent requirements in terms of low latency,
reliability, and determinism. Augmented Reality requires high data rates for transmitting (high‐
definition) video streams from and to a device. Process automation is between the two, and
focuses on monitoring and controlling chemical, biological or other processes in a plant,
involving both a wide range of different sensors (e.g. for measuring temperatures, pressures,
flows, etc.) and actuators (e.g. valves or heaters).
1.2 ITU‐R and IMT 2020 Vision
The International Telecommunication Union – Radio Sector (ITU‐R) manages the international
radio‐frequency spectrum and satellite orbit resources. In September 2015 ITU‐R published its
recommendation M.2083 [1] constituting a vision for the International Mobile
Telecommunications (IMT) 2020 and beyond. In this document ITU‐R describes user and
application trends, growth in traffic, technological trends and spectrum implications, and
provides guidelines on the framework and the capabilities for IMT 2020. The following trends
were identified, leading in a later phase to concrete requirements for the new 5G system defined
by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP):
Support for very low latency and high reliability communication;
Support of high user density (in one area, one cell, etc.);
Support of high accurate positioning methods;
Support of the IoT;
Support of high‐quality communication at high speeds; and
Support of enhanced multimedia services and converged applications.
Regarding the growth of traffic rates, it was estimated (based on various available forecasts) that
the global IMT traffic will grow in the range of 10–100 times from 2020 to 2030 with an
increasing asymmetry between downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) data rates.
ITU‐R is not defining a new radio system itself but has listed some technology trends for both the
radio and network side they deemed necessary to fulfill the new requirements and cope with
new application trends and increased traffic rates. Technologies enhancing the radio interface
capabilities mentioned in M.2083 are, e.g. new waveforms, modulation and coding techniques,
as well as multiple access schemes. Spectrum efficiency enhancements and higher data rates can
be achieved by techniques such as 3D‐beamforming, an active antenna system, and massive
Multiple‐Input‐Multiple‐Output (mMIMO). Dual connectivity and dynamic Time Division
