(Economic Watch) After 5G, 5.5G may enter the commercial stage in 2024
China News Service, Beijing, October 28 (Reporter Liu Yuying) Since commercialization three years ago, 5G technology has continued to evolve. Some experts predict that 5.5G, with a network speed 10 times faster than 5G, may enter the commercial stage in 2024. .
At the 2022 Global Mobile Broadband Forum held this week, Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer of GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications), said that the general intergenerational life cycle of recent generations of mobile communication networks is 10 years, and will be in the fifth year or so. There is a watershed, 2.5G, 3.5G and 4.5G have all brought about the effects of significantly enhanced performance, significantly improved network management efficiency, and significantly reduced energy consumption. 5.5G will also play the same role.
Standards are at the forefront of the wireless communications industry.
At present, the International Organization for Standardization 3GPP has started the formulation of the 5G R18 version, which is planned to be frozen in 2024 as scheduled, and will achieve the goal of ten times the capacity improvement of 5.5G.
According to Alex Sinclair, according to the 3GPP standard rhythm, 5.5G is expected to enter the commercial stage in 2024.
Wireless technology needs to continue to evolve on the basis of 5G to meet the needs of the development of a smart society in the next 5 to 10 years.
So what is 5.5G, and what changes will it bring to human society?
Walid Mathlouthi, director of the Future Network and Spectrum Management Division of the ITU (International Telecommunication Union), believes that uplink and downlink speed, coverage and delay are the three major indicators to measure the quality of mobile communication networks, and 5.5G will undoubtedly be greatly improved on the basis of 5G.
It is understood that 5.5G, as an upgraded version of 5G, its iconic downlink 10G, uplink gigabit and endogenous intelligence capabilities will become the backbone supporting the development of the digital economy.
For example, the development of the Metaverse requires a major upgrade of communication networks.
High immersion, low latency, and anytime, anywhere are the main elements of the Metaverse, which puts forward higher demands on the network, especially to improve the experience of virtual social networking, Metaverse games, immersive collaborative office and other scenarios. The existing network conditions are insufficient.
Gao Quanzhong, general manager of Huawei's 5.5G, introduced that 5.5G's downlink capabilities of 10Gbps (10 Gigabit) and millisecond-level delay will become a bridge between the virtual world and the real world, enabling MR (mixed reality), XR (extended reality), metaverse Industrial scale development.
Synaesthesia can provide the ability to go beyond connection, integrate communication and perception technology, and provide possibilities for innovation in broader application scenarios.
In addition, 5.5G will have a major impact on the industrial world.
Michael Dowling, academician of the German National Academy of Engineering and member of the founding team of Industry 4.0, said that from the perspective of German production practice, factories equipped with 5G often achieve better Internet of Things, greatly improve production efficiency, and provide consumers with more services. Well, I believe that 5.5G will continue to promote changes.
Previously, 5.5G has made some key progress.
In addition to breakthroughs in standardization work, breakthroughs in key technologies, such as ultra-large bandwidth and ultra-large antenna arrays, have verified the 10 Gigabit capability of the network.
Huawei, a communications equipment manufacturer, and a number of telecom operators have released a series of innovative results.
Partners such as Huawei and China Mobile have carried out original system development and test work for many iconic technologies such as full-duplex, passive IoT, and synaesthesia, and released two innovations: 5G-Advanced (5.5 G) End-to-end four industry models and "5G-Advanced New Capabilities and Industry Development White Paper".
Wang Tao, Executive Director of Huawei and Director of the ICT Infrastructure Business Management Committee, introduced another key breakthrough, that is, the 5.5G IoT panorama is clearer, and the three IoT technologies supported by 5.5G, NB-IoT, RedCap and Passive IoT, span Going forward, we have the ability to incorporate all the Internet of Things.
Although 5.5G has made progress in terms of standards, technologies, and application scenarios, there are still other barriers to entering commercial use.
For example, on spectrum issues, Wang Tao said that it is necessary to make full use of the spectrum resources of Sub100GHz to provide resource guarantee for 5.5G.
Millimeter wave is the key spectrum of 5.5G, and operators need to obtain spectrum above 800MHz to realize 10Gbps capability; 6GHz is a potential new spectrum with ultra-large bandwidth, and various countries need to consider releasing 6GHz spectrum after the WRC-23 logo.
In addition, there are also industrial ecological issues. Wang Tao said that taking the IoT ecosystem as an example, operators and equipment vendors should plan networks for IoT scenarios, taking into account the needs of people and things; the module capabilities and costs of terminal manufacturers should be adapted to the application. Scenarios, industries and application developers should incubate applications in advance.
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