During this year's World Telecommunication Day, the topic of 5G evolution attracted many operators' attention and discussion. After unveiling 5G-Advanced last year, the 3GPP determined the first 28 research items for Release 18 in December, taking the technology research and standardization of 5G-Advanced to a new stage of practicality.
China Mobile initiated the program "5G-Advanced Innovation-Industry Chain Convergence" together with industry partners last year. On June 6, 2022, China Mobile shared the program's achievements at a conference and announced new plans to implement the next stage of 5G evolution based on high-quality networks, intelligent and simplified networks, and low carbon goals. Recently, China Unicom has proposed its three technical solutions for 5G-Advanced: smart new vision, smart high uplink, and smart super sensing. China Telecom has launched the Super TimeFreq Folding solution for 5G-Advanced. This new solution integrates large uplink bandwidth, low latency, high reliability, and ultra-large capacity into a single network, better enabling operators to support core industrial production with high performance 5G networks.
5G Evolves to 5G-Advanced to Continue Benefiting Various Industries
5G is quickly finding itself becoming an important enabler for the Internet of Things (IoT), manufacturing, positioning, and many other applications, helping increase production efficiency. Joe Barrett, President of the GSA, believes that "many fields will benefit from the improved positioning accuracy of 5G-Advanced, particularly in terms of reducing the costs of deploying Mobile IoT." He noted that both the members of GSA and all major vendors will continue to promote the standardization of 5G-Advanced and support its development.
The GSMA shares a very positive outlook for the new use cases of 5G-Advanced. Henry Calvert, GSMA's Senior Director of Group Technology, said that the world will soon see 5G-Advanced unveil new use cases for both consumers and industry markets. He sees XR becoming one of the most exciting new experiences that 5G-Advanced will bring to consumers. From virtual reality (VR) to augmented reality (AR), this new technology will enable interactive digital worlds to be constructed on top of the physical world. The potential of XR goes far beyond consumer entertainment. Various industries are exploring XR to discover new ways of working.
The GSMA is currently working to set up a 5G Advanced community, with the aim of bringing stakeholders together from all parts of the industry to help collaborate in defining the new technology and the use cases it will enable in future. "We are about scalable adoption. We want to unleash the connectivity of the new standards commercially. And that's really about understanding the use cases and the business case for the new technology."
Global Efforts from Operators Promote the Evolution of 5G
Undoubtedly, telecom operators are the main force on the road to 5G-Advanced. Etisalat UAE, a leading 5G operator in the Middle East, puts a lot of stock on 5G's evolution. According to its CTIO, Khalid Murshed, it sees exploring 5G's evolution as a major component for handling the growing scales, complexity, and technical challenges that have come along with 5G's increasing importance. As 5G develops rapidly to bring innovative applications to various sectors, continued evolution of its technologies is essential for the industry looking to meet industry requirements.
"The research and standardization of 5G evolution are now in a substantial stage. The research items of 5G-Advanced include 5G's use cases: enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC), Internet of Things (IoT), and vehicle to everything (V2X). 5G-Advanced will also incorporate many new use cases, such as high-capacity uplink, AR/VR, high-precision positioning, and network and device energy saving," Khalid Murshed shared.
Zain Group, a leading mobile network operator in the Middle East, is now accelerating its migration from 4G to 5G, including 5.5G, to enrich user experience across multiple markets. Based on a memorandum of understanding (MoU) it signed at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Zain will focus on optimizing its network architecture to ensure the 5G capabilities required to implement uplink centric broadband communication (UCBC), real-time broadband communication (RTBC), and harmonized communications and sensing (HCS).
5G development has entered a new chapter globally. With its continuous evolution, we believe that the next stop of 5G will be even more exciting.