PARTNER CONTENT: 2018 is a pivotal year in the development of 5G. The industry has already seen critical progress across a range of areas, including standardisation, technology readiness and deployments, which show that 5G is here – now.

While it is true that 2019 will be the year in which we really begin to see broad deployments of 5G networks, the groundwork being done now will ensure that both from technical and commercial viewpoints, these launches will be successful. In the meantime, operators are already seeing opportunities for 5G to offer new growth, and enterprises and industry are keenly eyeing the potential.

Standards and spectrum
Following the finalisation of the 5G New Radio specifications for non-standalone operations in December 2017, in June standards body 3GPP completed the specifications for standalone 5G NR. This not only delivers the potential for 5G deployments independent of LTE, but also brings in a new end-to-end network architecture, enabling new business models and paving the way for a new breed of services targeting enterprise customers and vertical industries.

Accompanying this, regulators around the world are working to bring more spectrum suitable for 5G services to operators, whether millimetre wave or mid-band. Some already allocated frequencies are being repurposed for 5G, reducing time-to-market among front running operators.

Allocations of 5G spectrum have recently taken place in European markets, such as Italy, Spain and the UK; and in Asia in South Korea; while other markets, including China, the US and Germany have plans to open up more frequencies soon, further driving growth in the 5G ecosystem.

What is particularly noteworthy this time around is that regulators around the world are looking to 5G as an enabler of economic growth, particularly in the way it can transform industries and enable new applications across a wide range of markets including transportation and healthcare. This means they are working swiftly to support 5G launches, to enable them to reap the greater rewards.

Taken together, the availability of standards-based 5G technology and the allocation of spectrum suitable for 5G services is creating a stable platform for operators to rapidly move from testing to commercial launches.

Technology ready
This stability for operators comes alongside the availability of standards-based products from vendors. This means operators are able to move quickly with their 5G plans, in the knowledge that they are working with standards-based solutions that will be able to support their long-term business goals.

In February, at Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona, Huawei staked its claim on technology leadership by unveiling an end-to-end 5G product line, covering core network, bearer network, base stations, and terminals – putting it in an unrivalled position among vendors. And the portfolio is fully compliant with 3GPP standards.

This has enabled Huawei and more than 50 partners to build 5G networks in high-profile deployments in large cities globally. Importantly, these are not all small-scale, test networks: in a number of instances, operators have deployed broad 5G networks to deliver next-generation connectivity across wide areas, enabling many different use cases to be explored.

Huawei is involved in a number of flagship projects, including Hangzhou 5G City and Shenzhen 5G Park in China; and trials in Seoul (South Korea), London (UK), Milan (Italy) and Berlin (Germany), with leading operators including China Mobile, LG Uplus, BT, TIM and Deutsche Telekom.

Significantly, Huawei has signed six commercial 5G agreements in the Middle East, an area where operators are pressing ahead with the launch of commercial 5G services.

This broad range of 5G deployments is enabling a wide range of applications to be developed and trialled ahead of commercial launch, across areas including smart cities and transportation; healthcare; AR/VR; culture and tourism; and smart agriculture.

Industry collaboration
Of course, 5G will not be delivered by one company alone. Fortunately, 5G is seeing massive support across the whole supply chain, from chipsets to infrastructure vendors, operators to the vertical market partners needed in order to deliver industry-focused applications and services to market.

It is worth remembering that the standardisation process for 5G saw the industry working together to prioritise and speed the development of the non-standalone version of 5G NR, and then quickly follow-on with the standalone implementation. 3GPP said that only two years elapsed between 5G being “hype” and the availability of standards – a rapid advancement.

While previous technology standards have been driven by the telecom sector, this time around 3GPP has members from sectors including agriculture (for example John Deere and Husqvarna), automotive (Toyota, Volkswagen, Volvo), factory automation (Siemens), aerospace (Lockheed Martin, BAE) and broadcast (European Broadcasting Union, BBC), indicating how wide interest is in the transformational potential of 5G.

In addition to their partnerships with operators, vendors are working hard to ensure interoperability of various parts of the 5G chain. Huawei, for example is working with Qualcomm and Intel to ensure interoperability between infrastructure and chipsets, delivering compatibility at the most fundamental level.

Groups are also already in place to address specific 5G network capabilities, such as network slicing, end-to-end security, network management and orchestration, and vehicle communications (V2X). These efforts will enable operators to benefit from the full potential of 5G, using technology developed through collaborative industry efforts.

Mobile broadband driving 5G
Even before the take-off of services enabled by the unique features of 5G – such as ultra low latency and support for massive IoT – there is a business case for operators based on the delivery of enhanced mobile broadband capabilities.

Recent stellar growth of mobile broadband traffic is showing no sign of slowing, and 4G networks are hard-pressed to keep up with demand – and this can have a very real impact on users of mobile networks. But this is coupled with continued erosion in the pricing of connectivity services, making it difficult for operators to balance the investments needed to meet demand with profitability.

5G can provide the additional capacity needed to ease bottlenecks and ensure that customer experience is not negatively impacted. It can also deliver greater efficiency, which can enable operators to trim the cost-per-bit of delivering such services, and thus improve profitability.

These factors are why operators are focusing on enhanced mobile broadband and fixed wireless access (WTTx) as core services in their initial 5G pilots and commercial launch plans.

And a key driver will be the growth of mobile video. While mobile video became possible with the rollout of 3G networks, and has been growing rapidly in an LTE world, 5G offers the potential for video to become as popular as mobile voice, with the reliable delivery of high-quality services available to users worldwide.

Future growth
2018 will be seen as a pivotal year for 5G, and next year will be equally important, if for different reasons.

Although some operators have already staked their claims on early 5G launches, it will be next year that we will see widespread rollouts, with broad coverage, across multiple global regions. This will take the work that has been done this year and act as a catalyst, as vendors, operators, application developers and vertical industry partners look to bring new applications and use cases to market, underpinned by the unique capabilities of 5G.

2019 will also see the delivery of the final part of the 5G puzzle: consumer smartphones. Huawei has said it will launch 5G devices toward the middle of the year, with other leading device makers set to follow suit, meaning that as the industry heads into the Christmas holiday sales period, consumers will have a choice of 5G smartphones.

This will lead to an acceleration in consumer 5G use cases, particularly around AR, VR and gaming – all of which will benefit from the improved latency and higher speeds on offer. Coupled with industrial use cases, operators will be able to tap into a whole new set of opportunities, underpinned by their core enhanced mobile broadband propositions