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An eBook from the editors of

October 2016

5G: What To Expect Before 2020 2

LTE Advanced Pro: The Next Step

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12 Network Redesign 16 5G Spectrum Opportunities 19 The 5G Marketing Conundrum

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LTE Advanced Pro: The Next Step By David Meyer

With 5G still not properly defined, a lot of mobile operators are, for now, turning their attention to LTE Advanced Pro. Nokia calls the technology “4.5G Pro.” Others describe it as a stepping stone to 5G. “The promises of LTE-Pro, or as some might refer to it as ‘5G-Lite,’ are in many ways very similar to 5G,” said Larry Davis, the national sales manager for telecom test equipment firm Anritsu. “3G was a replacement for 2G, and 4G replaced 3G. 5G will not be a replacement for 4G—5G is an evolution of 4G, so the types of features and capabilities we’re talking about now set us up on the road,” said Glenn Laxdal, Ericsson’s chief technology officer for North America.

LTE Advanced Pro may not use the higher frequencies and wider channels that 5G will use, but it certainly takes the industry closer to the upcoming standard’s promises of higher speeds and lower latency. By aggregating licensed and unlicensed bands, it should allow downlink speeds of over 3 Gbps. Modifications to the LTE frame structures should mean 2ms latency (down from 10ms for LTE Advanced) and more capacity. Power efficiency improvements should boost battery life – essential for Internet of Things (IoT) applications, given the difficulty of changing batteries in millions of sensors—and the introduction of 3D beamforming will boost capacity and coverage.

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Real World Pilots and Tests Telia Company, the Nordic-Baltic operator, has been piloting LTE Advanced Pro since December 2015, when it and equipment vendor Huawei demonstrated downlink speeds of up to 1 Gbps. According to Allan Kock, Telia’s director of radio networks, rolling out the new technology is “determined very much by the usage in your networks.” Most of Telia’s networks are already running with the aggregation of two carriers, a setup that typically denotes LTE Advanced. Beyond that, operators are moving into LTE Advanced Pro territory. “We have started to aggregate three but on a smaller scale,”  5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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said Kock. (The three carriers Telia is aggregating are typically 2.6 GHz, 1800 MHz and 800 MHz channels.) “Massive MIMO—from 2x2 MIMO to 4x4 MIMO— will in itself double the throughput in the network,” Kock added, while also expressing interest in the introduction of narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), a development that should prove useful in addressing the Internet of Things. “For Telia Company, more than 100 million devices will be connected within the Nordic footprint,” he said. “We need capabilities to manage volumes.” However, Kock warned that rolling out LTE Advanced Pro too quickly could prove wasteful. “There’s always a cost in upgrading the network’s performance and capabilities,” he said. “We have been doing certain demonstrations, saying what is the full potential of the network, but it is not worth [it] if there are no devices out there on the market which can utilize it.” Mats Svärdh, Telia’s vice president of network and infrastructure, concurred. “It’s very much the devices which are lagging behind,” he said. “The technology in the network is typically a year ahead… Four carriers or 4x4 MIMO technology is not really that mature yet. When we do examples where we demonstrate new potential, we do it with equipment which is commercially not yet available.” Telia is also interested in LTE Advanced Pro’s potential for dual connectivity with Wi-Fi in small cells—an area where it has already been dabbling, but where it

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welcomes the enhancements in the new release. “You can have circumstances today where you can have a dropped call, because it’s not interacting on the right level. These enhancements in LTE Pro are making it more efficient to deploy small cells,” said Kock, who added that the developments would aid Telia’s upcoming rollout of Voice over LTE (VoLTE). Telia’s experience chimes with what Ericsson’s Laxdal is seeing. “I think it’s fair to say that the advancements that drive capacity enhancements are those that operators are most interested in,” Laxdal said. “The advanced carrier aggregation feature, FD-MIMO – both of those capacity enhancements will be very good for the operators as they continue to add more capacity to the network.”

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He added: “For example, when you start to deploy 3.5 GHz small cells, that’s inherently TDD spectrum. Operators will be able to aggregate TDD spectrum with FDD spectrum to create a capacity enhancement. That, I think, is a pretty key advantage.” The flexibility to aggregate licensed and unlicensed spectrum channels was also of interest to operators, Laxdal said. Within North America, Laxdal identified densely populated markets such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles as those that are “most capacity-challenged” and therefore the first that operators would target.  5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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“Because most major operators are involved in every one of the most dense markets, every operator wants to move forward with these capacity-enhancing features— more and more carrier aggregation, more and more utilization of different kinds of spectrum,” he said. Joe Madden, principal analyst at Silicon Valleybased research firm Mobile Experts, pointed out that the big operators have to utilize these new features of LTE releases 13 and 14, as their markets are no longer growing. (He dislikes the “LTE Advanced Pro” terminology as “it’s really just a set of features being introduced.”) “I expect the mobile operators to make heavy use of the unlicensed bands. A key area is licensed assisted access for LTE-Wi-Fi aggregation,” Madden said. “The mobile operators have saturated their market and so now we’re looking at the operators treating this more as a steady business and thinking about how to optimize their delivery of data, reduce the cost of delivering data, and entering new markets.” However, Madden also noted that the increasing prominence of small cells could create opportunities for companies like Cisco and Spidercloud to sell their products directly to the enterprise – so long as the mobile operators play along. “It’s a new source of capital,” he said. “If the mobile operators pay for everything, we will move at a certain pace, but if enterprises bring their capital into play, then the deployment can move much faster.”

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“I think it’s fair to say that the advancements that drive capacity enhancements are those that operators are most interested in.”

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GLENN LAXDAL, CTO FOR NORTH AMERICA, ERICSSON

Testing the Technology One thing operators will need to bear in mind with LTE Advanced Pro is the testing requirements that will ensue, argued Anritsu’s Davis. “While many LTE-Advanced general purpose test tools, such as spectrum analyzers, signal generators, and VNAs, will suffice for LTE-Pro (albeit with software and firmware upgrades in many cases), significant steps will be required to address new signalling, services, conformance and layer 2+ performance challenges,” Davis said. Davis explained that chipsets, devices and network elements will all need to be tested to check that they conform to the requirements of LTE release 13 and 14. “Network timing will also become increasingly important with the introduction of LTE-Pro. As small cells are deployed to support denser coverage and capacity, GPS signals used for local timing will become a challenge. Urban environments will often preclude clear access to GPS signals,” Davis said, adding that the industry will also need to keep an eye on battery life as user equipment keeps pace with LTE Advanced Pro’s increased performance. n

 5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

Testing solutions for today and tomorrow 5G networks will mean new features and technologies in support of a vast range of emerging applications and use cases. While exciting, these advancements also mean testing new technologies and network elements in ever-increasing combinations to ensure correct interoperability. Count on Anritsu to help you solve the unique testing challenges of 5G deployment.

Learn more and download our white paper, Understanding 5G: www.goanritsu.com/FW5G

1-800-ANRITSU www.anritsu.com

© 2016 Anritsu Company

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5G Likely To Go Fixed First By Joseph Palenchar

Major telecom companies have viewed wireless as a potential pipeline into the home as far back as 2000, when AT&T and Sprint launched short-lived rollouts of fixed wireless-data services to homes and businesses at what are now considered molasses-like speeds. Today, 5G technology is driving major telcos to take another look at fixed wireless, which now promises to deliver HD and 4K Ultra HD pay-TV service as well as high-speed broadband to residential and business customers. The companies see the potential to deploy the services faster and at a lower cost than running fiber or copper to homes. Analysts and infrastructure suppliers foresee fixed services initially delivering shared-data speeds exceeding 1 Gbps to neighborhoods via a dense network of pole-mounted base stations fed by fiber or wireless backhauls. The base stations’ reach would extend blocks, not the miles of traditional cellphone base stations, because of the high-band frequencies they would use.

The fixed-5G potential appeals to companies such as AT&T and Verizon, which could expand their wired high-speed-data and IPTV footprints to new geographic markets and more neighborhoods within existing markets, analysts said. It could also appeal to cellular carriers that want to tap into new revenue streams to offset declining mobile ARPU. Cable-TV operators will also likely look at fixed 5G to expand into new geographic markets, Madden added.

“The economics have gotten better, the semiconductors are cheaper, more bandwidth is available, and the appetite for video is greater,” said Joe Madden, principal analyst for Mobile Experts, a research and consulting company. “That’s why I think it [5G fixed wireless] has a chance for success.”

Whether the services will be economically viable depends in large part on the capacity of neighborhood base stations. “Each base station should be able to serve 20+ subscribers simultaneously [with IPTV and broadband data], or the business case will break down,” Madden contended.

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 5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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Economics could limit rollouts to a patchwork of markets and neighborhoods, Madden added. The business case “will be very limited to regions with two attributes: high revenue potential and limited competition,” he said in a June 2016 blog post. “Neighborhoods with fiber to every home will be passed over. Cities with multiple strong broadband competitors will be bypassed as well.” Fixed First, Mobile Second If the business case proves sound, fixed-5G service will launch before mobile 5G service, analysts and suppliers predict. “Fixed is the low-hanging fruit,” said Manish Jindal, Ericsson’s North America VP and head of strategic development. The reasons for a fixed-first 5G rollout include: • the need for a dense network of high-band base stations whose signals extend blocks, not miles, prompting service providers to focus on fixed service before launching mobile service; • mobile-service deployments that are more challenging than fixed deployments; • and fewer potential drawbacks in deploying prestandard 5G equipment for fixed service. In addition, said 5G Americas President Chris Pearson, “as the mobile wireless industry looks for the first time at high-band spectrum, fixed is the first area to learn from.” A fixed-first strategy works well for service providers that “have a business need to profitably expand their fixed business and do so in an economically sensible fashion,” added Ken Rehbehn, principal analyst at 451

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“As the mobile wireless industry looks for the first time at highband spectrum, fixed is the first area to learn from.”

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CHRIS PEARSON, PRESIDENT, 5G AMERICAS

Research, an analyst firm. “5G can help them achieve that goal.” Mobile-focused operators could likewise turn to fixed 5G to tap a new revenue stream in a mature cellphone market. Mobile operators that invested in 2G, 3G, and 4G have “increased their ARPU with every new generation,” Madden said. “But mobile ARPU has peaked and is on its way down. As you add more Mbps, can you get more revenue from customers to pay for the 5G network investment? Carriers have concluded they won’t get the additional revenue, so they’re turning their attention to other sources of revenue and will compete for broadband access to homes and offices.” The Business of Propagation Physics also plays a leading role in driving service providers to fixed service. “Low range dictates the business case,” Madden said. Because 5G will roll out initially in high-band spectrum requiring a smaller cell radius, it might take 10 times the number of today’s base stations to roll mobile 5G service throughout existing 4G footprints, Madden explained. That’s “an investment that will be very difficult to get a payback on.”

 5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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Madden foresees targeted investments in fixed-broadband service followed by the addition of 5G mobile service in select high-traffic locations. Initial 5G rollouts will occur in highband spectrum, said 5G Americas’ Pearson, because “to get to wide channels and high speeds, you need wide swaths of spectrum, which exist at 28 MHz and up.” To that end, the FCC in July set aside 3.85 GHz of licensed spectrum in the 28, 37 and 39 MHz bands for 5G services with wide channels of 200 MHz and 425 MHz. Current low-band cellular channels usually range from 5 MHz to 10 MHz in width.

because of the need to interoperate with other 5G networks and with [mobile] devices that don’t exist yet.”

Fixed Vs. Mobile Challenges Fixed service will also precede mobile service because it’s less problematic to use pre-standard 5G technology for fixed applications, said 451’s Rehbehn. “Mobile is intrinsically more complex because of handoffs between networks and devices, so it is important to achieve a level of maturity and completeness in the standards that govern the interface between network elements and mobile devices.”

With fixed wireless, on the other hand, “there’s more control” by service providers who “rigorously specify” interconnect standards and limit the number of equipment suppliers to two or three, Rehbehn continued. That doesn’t require a solidified global standard, he said.

“You can have pre-standard implementation of a 5G mobile network,” he continued, “but it will be an orphan

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Ericsson’s Jindal agreed. “With mobility, you need full standardization and interoperability between devices [handsets] and base stations for devices to seamlessly work in different regions or different countries. Since [fixed] CPE [customer premises equipment] devices  5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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will be stationary, limited interoperability is required, giving the fixed wireless broadband use case a time-tomarket advantage.” The industry also sees the potential for software upgrades of pre-standard fixed equipment to the full 5G standard, which is expected to be finalized at the end of 2019, or earlier, by the 3GPP. Commercial deployment of full-standard 5G mobile service is expected to start in 2020. From AT&T’s standpoint, “Our preference is to deploy standards-based equipment to get global economies of scale,” said Tom Keathley, AT&T’s SVP of wireless network architecture and design. AT&T, however, is also working with the industry in a way that could “accelerate pieces of the standard” so AT&T could deploy equipment that will be “standards-compatible with an upgrade,” he added. “We’re focused on fixed because fixed is likely the first use case we could do with 5G,” Keathley noted. Fixed 5G could extend broadband services For telecom companies such as AT&T and Verizon, 5G is a potential path to expanding their respective wired high-speed data services and IPTV footprints to new geographic markets. In the 28 GHz, 37 GHz, and 39 GHz bands set aside by the FCC in July for 5G, analyst Peter Rysavy of Rysavy Research said: “You can provide a competitive TV-plusbroadband service using millimeter-wave frequencies for

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“We’re focused on fixed because fixed is likely the first use case we could do with 5G.”

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TOM KEATHLEY, SVP OF WIRELESS NETWORK ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN, AT&T

the last hop.” In large part, that’s because IPTV services stream linear TV channels on demand, conserving bandwidth, whereas traditional cable-TV operators stream all channels at once to a home, he explained. “We could do U-verse over 5G,” added AT&T’s Keathley. “Once you have a gigabit pipe, there’s literally no service we couldn’t put over it. Video delivery over such a pipe is a given.” One challenge, however, is posed by the need for a base station’s available bandwidth to be shared by multiple households, reducing the speeds that multiple households could simultaneously enjoy, Rysavy said. With a millimeter-wave-band base station potentially delivering an aggregate speed of 1 Gbps over a single 200 MHz channel, Rysavy explained, five households might each be able to simultaneously stream four 4K TV channels at 20 Mbps each while the households also take simultaneous advantage of 100 Mbps internet connectivity. An aggregate 2 Gbps speed might be needed for 10 homes to share those services, he added. Another complication is that speeds could slow appreciably with distance from the base station. “It

 5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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might be 1 Gbps at one distance and half that at twice the distance,” Rysavy said. The potential exists, however, for accelerating speeds and extending distances. For one thing, the FCC’s July 2016 report and order created two 425 MHz blocks for 5G service, each potentially delivering higher throughput than a 200 MHz channel. And because the FCC set aside 12 200 MHz blocks for 5G, service providers could use carrier aggregation to combine channels to boost speed. “Carrier aggregation will be a part of 5G,” said Sanyogita Shamsunder, Verizon’s director of network infrastructure planning. Speed will also get a boost from such technologies as beam forming and massive/multiuser MIMO, Ericsson’s Jindal said. In tests so far, Verizon has used 100 MHz and 400800 MHz channels to achieve “multigigabit speeds, depending on the level of MIMO,” said Shamsunder. To enhance reliability, she added, Verizon-developed pre-standard 5G technology enables a home’s outdoor transceiver to switch between nearby base stations as environmental conditions change. Some technologies could also boost range, enhancing the business case. “In our lab simulations, we can get 300 to 500 meters [964 to 1,640 feet], taking foliage into account,” Ericsson’s Jindal said. In suburban settings with about 1,000 homes per square kilometer (0.62 square miles), a base-station

range of 300 meters (984 feet) would reach almost 200 homes, the infrastructure supplier added.

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Very advanced base stations might be able to extend that range to 600 to 800 meters [1,968 to 2,624 feet] in the 28 GHz band, Rysavy added. Fixed 5G Rollout Details Although AT&T hasn’t yet declared if it’s financially advantageous to roll out fixed wireless in millimeterwave (above 24 GHz) bands, the company hopes to have the answer “early next year” after more trials, said AT&T’s Keathley. The company then hopes to validate its initial conclusions through a pre-commercial pilot with friendly users in 2017—likely in late 2017, he said. AT&T’s pilot might consist solely of broadband service, but the company could consider TV services for the pilot, he noted.  5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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For her part, Verizon’s Shamsunder said that based on Verizon’s lab and field tests to date, “as a technology solution, it is viable now.” To help determine businesscase viability, Verizon plans pre-commercial pilot tests in homes late this year and early next “to test reliability of connectivity” with various applications, including broadband data and 4K TV, Shamsunder said.

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Verizon’s technology could possibly be ready in late 2017 for commercial deployment, Shamsunder added. For national carriers Sprint and T-Mobile, fixed service is likely farther off in the future, said Rehbehn of 451 Research. “They don’t have the sales force set up for it, and it would be a distraction from wresting market share from the largest players.” Though fixed 5G will be new to households, the customer premises equipment (CPE) delivering IPTV and broadband over 5G won’t look much different from what households are already familiar with. CPE “will be consistent with what service providers are doing today,” said 451’s Rehbehn. “Why reinvent the wheel?”

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That means a small box, like the one installed by Verizon for FiOS service, would be affixed to the exterior of a house. The box would connect through a home’s coaxial-cable network to TV set-top boxes and modem/routers available from the providers. Multiple small antennas might be embedded in the box, but depending on terrain, a roof-top antenna might be needed to deliver the best customer experience, said Verizon’s Shamsunder. Harkening back to the days of car phones and glassmount rear-window antennas, Verizon and AT&T also see the potential for window antennas, though the solution won’t work in office buildings with shielded windows. n

 5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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Network Redesign By David Meyer

One of the biggest differences between 5G and the preceding generations of mobile broadband will lie in the frequencies it could use: 15 GHz, 28 GHz, even as high as 71 GHz. These bands will be able to carry a lot more data, which is part of the point of 5G, but they will also propagate over much shorter distances than the bands used for 4G today. That will require a very different approach to network design, with lots of smaller cells in denser configurations rather than the larger, more spread out macro base stations we see today. As it happens, the mobile industry is already moving towards so-called densification, particularly in

metropolitan areas, as a way of coping with the increasing data demands of people in such areas. There are two ways to achieve this densification: small cells and C-RAN, which stands for “Cloud RAN” or “Centralized RAN” depending on who you ask. “From an engineering point of view they compete, but they serve the same purpose, which is to densify the network,” said Joe Madden, principal analyst at research firm Mobile Experts. Both techniques have been in use for some time, in different ways. With small cells, the original idea was to effectively put little base stations inside people’s home, in order to improve coverage. However, that became a

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 5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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less compelling use case than boosting capacity in areas where it was needed. “The technology had to be realigned to be deployed in urban areas where there’s a lot of congestion,” said Madden. “It required two to three years to redesign, and a lot of coordination between the small cell and the macro network. … It’s [now] a commonly used tool, but it’s not everywhere. There are many places in the world where this level of traffic density has not been reached.” Santiago Tenorio, Vodafone’s head of network strategy and architecture, noted that European operators have also been held back in small cell deployment by siting cost issues that he thinks are a result of the “small cell hype.”

“In general, when you go to municipalities or landlords, the amount of money they are asking for is making small cells difficult.” SANTIAGO TENORIO, HEAD OF NETWORK STRATEGY AND ARCHITECTURE, VODAFONE

“In general, when you go to municipalities or landlords, the amount of money they are asking for is making small cells difficult,” Tenorio said. “London is one of the worst cases.” From the user perspective, faster speeds are the clear advantage of small cells. Increased reliability, however, may be more elusive. “There is more complexity here,”

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said Madden. “There have been some problems in handing in and out of small cells…especially when dealing with multiple vendors.” Deploying C-RAN Then there’s C-RAN, which decouples the baseband unit part of the base station from the radio head part, and centralizes it in a remote location. This is an efficiency play that ties in with the trend towards network function virtualization (NFV), as it can involve virtualizing the baseband and pooling resources on a bunch of standard processors. “The centralization process is well underway—it’s been done in places like Korea and Japan for more than five years,” Madden said. “In the U.S., it’s now common practice to deploy radio heads in a centralized RAN configuration, but the virtualization of Layer 1-3 processing is not yet implemented in many commercial systems… A lot of things have to happen in real time… Those tech hurdles are being overcome. It will still take some time for full virtualization to make it into widespread use.”

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Operators are enthusiastic about the shift, where it’s needed. “Verizon is migrating to C-RAN architecture in urban areas based on dark fiber availability and where high usage drives the need for network densification with small cells,” said Adam Koeppe, Verizon’s vice president of technology planning. That fiber availability is no small matter, as it is essential for enabling sufficiently speedy communications  5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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between the cells and the servers on which the baseband resources are pooled. “I don’t know if it changes the overall economics all that much,” said Dean Bubley, the founder of Disruptive Analysis. “You can probably save some money by centralizing electronics, but…the fact that’s going to mess you up is how you do that high-speed connection. You still need to use fiber or microwave one way or another.” It helps to be an operator like Verizon, which has plenty of its own fiber. “Baseband equipment will be centralized at C-RAN hub locations enabling pooling gains and also improves capacity and performance gains from LTE Advanced features such as COMP [coordinated multi-point operation],” said Koeppe. “Centralizing baseband equipment also makes it more attractive to consider virtualization of baseband software.” According to Vodafone’s Tenorio, European operators have to contend with the fact that they don’t have as much dark fiber lying around as the Koreans and Japanese. “These people had dark fiber available anywhere, and that is not the reality in Europe. I doubt it is going to be the reality any time soon,” Tenorio said. “We have to make the concept work over backhauls that are not as ideal as dark fiber.” That means making it work over, for example, fiber with just one available wavelength, or technologies such as microwave.

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IoT and Virtualization However, Tenorio sees great opportunities in the new architectures (as do others) for supporting Internet of Things (IoT) applications, of both the consumer and industrial varieties. And there, he sees a particularly juicy role for the operator, particularly when it comes to mission-critical applications that require extremely low latencies. “Going down to ultrafast latency will require a change in mindset. The server will have to be closer to the customer,” Tenorio noted. If, for example, the network is being used to support vehicular safety communications in a city, “that means the customer, say the municipality, will embed these servers into our network. Our network will host…servers and applications that belong to the customer. If anyone thought we were going to be dumb pipes, well, think twice.”

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One big question is what this new world of virtualization will mean for telecom vendors. “Moving into a software-defined network, everything becomes software,” said Allan Kock, Telia Company’s director of radio networks. “In the past, the telco vendors have solutions which are very tightly connected to the hardware. … You have a lot of interfaces, it takes physical work and is very comprehensive and complicated.” Added Kock: “With a software-defined network you can roll it out in seconds, you can replicate functionality within minutes. Vendors need to look into the IT world  5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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and what has happened there, and understand to what extent you can virtualize.” The move into virtualization will probably tempt a lot of software development houses into the telco world, said Kock, who explained that Telia has already virtualized its IMS network functions and is examining the lessons of that rollout before it soon uses virtualization for Wi-Fi calling and Voice over LTE. Vodafone’s Tenorio agreed, pointing out that, if everything is hosted on a standardized platform such as VMware or OpenStack, operators could be tempted to “bring in a specialised vendor in a way you couldn’t before, to do just traffic management functions and only that.”

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officer for North America, pointed out how complex radio is. “It takes a lot of R&D in order to deliver this very high capacity in the radio network. It’s not that anybody can step in and develop this radio technology,” he said. “But this is also a very competitive game.” Madden, too, is skeptical. “I don’t see opportunities for outside companies to take over from the major equipment vendors,” he said. “There’s a lot of proprietary implementation of making the mobile network work well… to make handover seamless, to scale back to 3G and 2G where necessary. I expect OEMs to retain control over the software that runs on their network. In the end they may give up producing the hardware, but will still be very much in control of the software.” n

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“I don’t think we’re there yet and I don’t think it’s as easy as it seems today, but we are certainly driving the core in that direction,” Tenorio said. “There’s room for new players to come and throw their software into functions [although] now it’s much easier to go with your current vendor’s suite to encompass new functions.” Vendors aren’t so sure about this new threat. Glenn Laxdal, Ericsson’s chief technology  5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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5G Spectrum Opportunities By Jason Bovberg

The common perception of 5G is that it will use very high-bandwidth communications—in the gigabit range—and there are two ways to achieve that. One method is a form of carrier aggregation, using LTE channels along with some unlicensed bands to essentially stitch together multiple blocks of spectrum to reach a gigabit of data. However, that methodology doesn’t use the new frame structure that the 5G standards bodies are working on to enable the very low latencies and fast data speeds necessary for the kinds of applications that 5G will empower, such as highresolution video and virtual reality. To realize the fast response times and low latency necessary to enable the applications that consumers want, the industry must embark on the other

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methodology for achieving very high-bandwidth communications: Move to new bands. Players around the world are already working to deploy LTE services into unlicensed spectrum via a variety of techniques and technologies, whereas others are looking at new spectrum bands for new opportunities and operations. What spectrum bands will be open to wireless players prior to 2020, and how might the industry play in these bands? Available Spectrum Bands In the United Sates, the high-band licensed spectrum for 5G to be auctioned and used for 5G will initially be the 28 GHz, 37 GHz, and 39 GHz spectrum bands. “The FCC adopted rules in July 2016 to provide these three licensed spectrum bands to the industry,” says Chris Pearson, president of 5G Americas. “The United States is the first country in the world to provide highband spectrum to its wireless industry for 5G.” These three bands are extremely important and should be a positive force toward increasing research, development, innovation, and investment by 5G operators and vendors in the United States, Pearson added. Joe Madden, principal analyst at research firm Mobile Experts, says, “The FCC licensed those bands years

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ago to companies that wanted to offer Local Multipoint Distribution Services (LMDS), which was a good idea 15 years ago, when people didn’t have good broadband to their home, but ultimately that business model failed. So now there are spectrum licenses that are pretty much unused. The reason why the United States is ahead of other countries is because we have these LMDS licenses that are already in play in the market.” Madden adds that there are also some possible bands in the 20 GHz and 24 GHz ranges, licensed bands between 4 GHz and 6 GHz, as well as a new shared license band that’ll be opening up between 3.7 GHz and 4.2 GHz. Pearson also notes that the FCC has put forth a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) for an additional 18 GHz of spectrum in bands ranging from 24 GHz to 86 GHz. Specifically, the NPRM proposes additional bands for consideration of: • 24–25 GHz (24.25–24.45/25.05–25.25 GHz) • 32 GHz (31.8–33.4 GHz) • 42 GHz (42–42.5 GHz) • 48 GHz (47.2–50.2 GHz) • 51 GHz (50.4–52.6 GHz) • 70 GHz (71–76 GHz) • 80 GHz (81–86 GHz)

propagation and mostly known antenna designs. We believe the second phase, which will cover up to the LMDS bands at 31 GHz, will overcome LTE interoperability and propagation issues. Mobile networks may have to be re-designed to require some beam forming and some multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO). The third phase should cover the spectrums above 20 GHz through the V- and E-bands. New system designs and technologies with massive MIMO and beam forming will be needed when these technologies are rolled out to address the higher path losses associated with these bands.”

Network test and measurement company Anritsu, according to a spokesperson, takes a larger view, maintaining that the path to 5G can be divided into three phases in terms of spectrum bands: “We are currently in the first phase, which constitutes frequencies below 6 GHz. It covers the LTE evolutions, including LTE Advanced, and has the benefit of known

Evolving standards associated with these bands, and the need for interoperability as we move toward 5G, place an emphasis on the necessity to validate the performance of chipsets, components, devices, and networks. Anritsu says controlling the costs of testing— an important factor considering that economics is a key element for 5G success—will be vital.

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How Might the Industry Play? Two main 5G drivers, according to Anritsu, are mobile broadband and Internet of Things (IoT) services, including mobile-to-mobile (M2M) applications. “Mobile networks have to evolve so that consumers experience faster data speeds and lower latency, all while accessing increasingly data-intensive services. New capacity through the usage of higher-spectrum bands and technologies such as beam forming are key elements to achieving this goal.” Madden believes the industry will focus 5G deployments on fixed broadband at first. “I think right now operators are looking at fixed broadband as a better business case, basically competing with cable operators and DSL and other wired broadband providers. In many neighborhoods, especially in the United States, there’s only one broadband provider, so mobile operators will have an opportunity to break that monopoly and take a significant share of the broadband customer base.” Madden envisions 5G technology going to the field with that fixed-broadband business model in mind. “It can be expected that operators will review all of their spectrum assets, technical options, and business strategies before deploying 5G on their existing spectrum or new spectrum.” CHRIS PEARSON, PRESIDENT, 5G AMERICAS

“Over time, they’ll fill in with more base stations, a more seamless network, and they’ll be able to transform that into mobile services where you can get high-resolution videos when you’re on the go.” He estimates that the timeline will probably reach further out than 2020, and that a migration to a truly mobile 5G service won’t happen until 2025. A lot depends on how quickly the industry progresses in standards as well as with the development of 5G infrastructure and 5G devices. That being said, says Pearson, “it can be expected that operators will review all of their spectrum assets, technical options, and business strategies before deploying 5G on their existing spectrum or new spectrum.”

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20-Year Cycle For the foreseeable future, Madden doesn’t think 5G is going to have enough impact to move the needle on a trillion-dollar industry. “When it comes to the size of revenue potential out there, we need some new apps to mature and develop, and we need the appetite for mobile data at extremely high speeds to grow much bigger than it is now, for 5G revenue to come anywhere close to the range of a trillion dollars.” The 5G standard is not merely the next step in line from 2G to 3G to 4G. “This step will be more about enterprises and fixed-broadband access for quite some time,” says Madden, “because those are the places where the money is. For it to impact mobile consumers and become as ubiquitous as 4G is today, we could be looking at a very long timeline. I’m looking at a 20-year cycle.” n  5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016

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The 5G Marketing Conundrum By Jason Bovberg

The global wireless industry is hurtling toward an inevitable 5G future, and yet even with 4G, carriers have struggled to educate consumers about their services and technologies, often leading to confusing and sometimes misleading marketing messages. The “G” in 3G, 4G and 5G stands for “generation,” meaning that 5G will be the fifth generation of wireless network technology, but the standards for 5G have not yet been set—which could wreak havoc on marketing teams once again. How might the wireless industry communicate its progress toward 5G to a mass market still digesting

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LTE? What are the challenges in the way of a 5G reality, and how might carriers overcome them? Marketing Challenges Currently, one of the biggest challenges in marketing 5G is that there is no uniform definition of what 5G is. A number of different groups are pushing for their version of 5G to become the standard. “We view 5G today as a collection of multiple technologies, many of which are incredibly difficult to describe to consumers,” says Dan Hays, principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ strategy and consulting group. “For example, large multipleinput, multiple-output (MIMO) antenna arrays might make some end users think that their smartphones will suddenly sprout a bunch of spires protruding from all angles!” But the marketing problem is a historical one, beginning with 4G—or even further back. “Consumers don’t really have a good sense of what 4G means, except that it’s the current generation

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of technology and that it’s faster than 3G was,” says Jan Dawson, chief analyst at research firm Jackdaw Research. “On top of that, you have various carriers using proprietary ways to talk about more advanced flavors of LTE as well, which is further muddying the waters.” Dawson says that as 5G starts to roll out, people are going to expect it simply to be faster. However, it will likely coexist with various flavors of LTE, which are also faster than standard 4G, and so the marketing message will be nowhere near as straightforward as in the past. “Given what happened with 4G, where at least some carriers used ‘4G’ to refer to something other than LTE (including both WiMAX and HSPA+) in the early going,” Dawson says, “I can easily imagine lots more confusing marketing from the carriers.” Hays agrees. “We’re already seeing these same challenges rearing their heads with 4G,” he says. “Even as the industry has adopted new LTE releases and technologies such as channel bonding, the impact on consumers has been quite difficult to convey. We’re starting to hear some operators talk about benefits such as ‘50 percent faster speeds’ but without much in the way of benchmarks or concrete measurements. And some improvements, such as reduced latency, just seem to make consumers’ eyes glaze over altogether.” To the extent that one or more carriers try to gain a firstmover advantage, we could well see some pre-standards 5G technology being marketed as 5G. “More broadly,” says Dawson, “5G isn’t just about speed, and depending

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“Even as the industry has adopted new LTE releases and technologies such as channel bonding, the impact on consumers has been quite difficult to convey.”

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DAN HAYS, PRINCIPAL, PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS’ STRATEGY AND CONSULTING GROUP

on exactly what the carriers deploy, where, and what for, it could well be that it’s going to be very tough to market 5G in a way that makes sense to consumers.” Beyond the problems with any “G” label—a marketing term, not a technical term—there are two challenges that stand out with 5G, according to Peter Jarich, vice president of Consumer and Infrastructure for analyst firm Current Analysis. “First, we’ll have claimed 5G deployments before 5G is standardized. That will create some confusion. Second, much of what 5G promises—massive Internet of Things (IoT), missioncritical communications—doesn’t align with consumer use cases. Trying to link 5G capabilities to consumer marketing might be tough.” Communicating 5G Today, there are many opportunities to improve the way we talk about mobile networks, even in the era of LTE. Most carriers are focused on speed, but they have ways to differentiate from the pack. “They can talk about other meaningful aspects, such as the quality of in-building coverage, the simplicity of bills, and the ease

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of resolving issues through online customer care,” says Hays. “Operators are investing in many of these areas but not really fully capitalizing on the benefits.” According to Hays, the best thing that the mobile industry could do right now—with regard to 5G— is to talk about the end game and the investments the industry is making. “However,” he says, “some investments such as technology trials are not tangible for most customers, so the focus should be more on why they should stay with their service provider because of how good the future will be.” Operators need to be careful with this kind of approach, however, because making promises today is essentially a commitment for the future—one that might not be easily forgotten. “Frankly, I think it’s a mistake for any of the carriers to begin talking about 5G yet,” argues Dawson. “In a form that will be accessible to consumers, it’s still years away, and most of the carriers are still marketing their more

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“Frankly, I think it’s a mistake for any of the carriers to begin talking about 5G yet.”

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JAN DAWSON, CHIEF ANALYST, JACKDAW RESEARCH

advanced LTE technologies with a variety of different proprietary brands. So adding 5G to the mix will be utterly unhelpful.” According to Dawson, carriers would be better off reserving talk of 5G to the communities to which it matters today: investors, the industry, and possibly some enterprise customers looking to make long-term commitments. But they should keep anything relating to 5G far away from most customers for at least a couple of years. For Jarich’s part, he isn’t sure there is any one answer. “The reality is that each player within the industry will have its own agenda,” he says. “I’m also not sure the mass market is that important, given the use cases. Instead, vertical market outreach around specific capabilities and use cases may be more valuable.” The well-hyped 5G wireless standard, when it finally arrives in the real world, will no doubt bring a new foundation for IoT, self-aware networks, exponentially faster speeds, improved coverage, and a host of other benefits. But here in 2016, still in the standard’s infancy, carriers may need to take care not to get too far ahead of themselves in the consumer market. n

 5G: What To Expect Before 2020 // October 2016