In June 2022, Ericsson published its popular report, Ericsson Mobility Report, focusing heavily on the development of 5G and 4G around the globe.
Of course, 5G is creating innovation and will continue doing so in the coming years in the cellular mobile landscape by its innovative and game changing digital services and experiences. We are now at an early stage of 5G; the markets are transforming by the gradual adoption of 5G and further strengthening of the 4G technology.
4G itself was quite a big jump compared to predecessors’ technology of 3G. This is because of the big shift in the radio access technology (OFDMA), which offered possibilities of pooling in more spectrum, much lower latency, and new techniques like carrier aggregation, MIMO etc.
Customers were experiencing buffer-less video and also HD-quality video most of the time. The video communication, meetings over Zoom, and online classes almost became seamless and much smoother.
Motivation for continuation
So, the operators around the world still have a good motivation to keep the 4G network alive for the foreseeable future but would gradually sun-set the older technologies like 3G and 2G. Between 3G and 2G, 3G is likely to be taken down first as 4G is already offering comparatively better data services and there’s no reason to continue with older generations like 3G for data services.
But the feature phone dependencies and legacy IoT solutions would demand that 2G networks remain operational for some more time until the feature phones are completely replaced by smartphones and the legacy services are migrated to 4G at least.
Ericsson has predicted that the total number of 5G subscriptions will reach 1 billion by the end of 2022. In the Ericsson Mobility Report, few major services have been highlighted, which the operators are offering in the market.
In the consumer segment one popular use case is the Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) solutions for the home and offices. 5G FWA terminals will provide high-speed internet and data services at indoor locations and could very well be a substitute for the fixed broadband connections at homes and offices. In areas where there is no fiber and copper, customers can use 5G FWA as an alternative.
The next one for the consumer segment would be the enhanced mobile broadband services (eMBB) which would be multiple times faster, with lesser latency and highly reliable data access services on the go. The superiority of 5G services would allow the customers to use mission critical services and professional services which otherwise were not possible in the earlier generations. Mission critical services are those services that require guaranteed bandwidth, higher availability, and almost zero disruption -- services like e-health and e-money are two examples of such services.
Gaming, augmented reality, and virtual reality
Gaming would take a completely new and different shape in the 5G network; due to the higher bandwidth and speed, the games could be played at 100% real time, online and in the cloud. Multiple players would play and interact at a real time without any delay and disturbances. The operators are coming up with new gaming services and offering to customers bundled services with the 5G subscriptions.
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are also finding their own use cases for the consumer segments; we call these AR/VR services as immersive experiences, the immersion of the digital world into the physical world. If you can place yourself in the context of the actors in the game, it would give you a much more fulfilling and rewarding experience while playing the game.
This can be a game or, it can be any digital session like education or, a meeting whereby you can get a similar physical presence over the digital platform. All of this would significantly change your experience and engagement. Through the AR/VR technologies, the consumers are literally put into the context rather than watching and experiencing it from the periphery. Exploring the streets of Paris by just merely looking at the computer screen vis-à-vis getting a virtual presence on the scene makes a lot of difference in terms of gaining knowledge and experience.
Where the impact will be most felt
The most common segments for the adoption of these newer technologies are manufacturing sector (smart factories), next generation cities (smart cities), transport sector, and ports. For the factories, it is about improving the production process by reducing waste, enhancing automation, and increasing the overall efficiency of the factories.
Enterprise segments like Smart Factory are much more sensitive than household consumers; it would be different in terms of service quality, security, and reliability. If the objective is to implement remote operation and maintenance, the communication to the machines should be extremely reliable and available all the time.
Same goes for if we would like to automate the process and improve efficiency through deployment of RPA, IoT etc; we have to have an extremely sensitive and responsive network so that real time decisions can be made without any delay and time lag.
The network operators are now willing to work with individual industry clients to tailor make specific services and solutions per client and also per industry type. The 5G overall infrastructure architecture is not only promising higher bandwidth, higher speed, and lower latency, but also guaranteeing service level at all times so that there is no disturbance and disruption in the operation of the enterprise clients.
Some of the provisions like dedicating a particular network, dedicated infrastructure, and dedicated computing were not at all possible in earlier generation technologies but the 5G network infrastructure makes all these a reality, and the operators would be willing to explore new technological solutions and the business model associated with the new technology.
Edge computing, network slicing, private networks for enterprises, and IoT are few technologies that will keep the enterprises’ customers interested when the operators will be approaching them for enhancing their operation.
As per information last retrieved in May 2022, 210 networks around the world have launched 5G and around 809 networks are providing 4G services. There are 1,400 devices declared for 5G and 1,062 of them are commercially available now. The 5G smartphone prices are showing a declining trend and with the increase of devices, the prices will further decline.
Initially in Bangladesh, the operators’ strategy would be to target the hot spots and the urban areas first for 5G deployment. For the enterprises, the operators will deal with customers case by case and choose some priority sectors first. Some of the early adopters are likely to be the manufacturing sector as there can be significant gain through automation.
Md Munir Hasan is a telecom professional. He worked in Grameenphone from 1997 to 2019 in different roles and responsibilities. His last role was Director and Head of Network Planning in Technology. Phone: 01711500023, Email: [email protected].
