Future of 5G in Pakistan

The ongoing pandemic spree not only negatively impacted the humanity in many ways may it be physical or psychological but on the positive side it acted as a catalyst towards the growth of Digital technology and exposed us to the opportunities that were around us, but we never evocatively used & explored these, the best example is the development and adoption of the use-cases like e-education, e-medicine, e-shopping, collaboration channels etc. which primarily been driven over 4G technology in Pakistan but to make overall experience more immersive and effective we got to step up and embrace 5G without any further delay. The present situation proved that things that would have happened in decades are turning into reality in years with this step change at Global level though enforced by pandemic otherwise could have taken years. The rapid technological developments happening at such fast scale in the world around us are explicitly showing us the direction where we need to put our efforts with agile mindset. 5G technology is not a sales pitch anymore but a necessity to improve the way of life and end the digital divide to bring every single person under the mobile broadband coverage. It’s rightly said that data is the oxygen and new oil to uplift the digital economy that will open up new opportunities and bring a drastic change in our way of life considering the fact that our young generation is bustling with innovative ideas and entrepreneurial energy.

As per the Telco industry stats we have 183 million subs in our country that makes the tele-density of 85% and only 101 million subs have coverage to broadband. While around 35 million population is still without any coverage. 4G coverage is still somewhere at 64% but the data speed and overall user experience is not at par where an average user gets 2.3 Mbps which doesn’t even qualify 4G/LTE data rate as per the 3GPP Release specifications. The number of people using the existing spectrum in given footfall & unit area is significantly higher therefore not only we have less amount of spectrum but more amount of people using given spectrum. This substandard user experience has led to the terms 4G gone down to a mere marketing phrase rather than technological reality. The major factor is the limited spectrum which is available in small chunks to the Opco’s and as per spectrum holding, Jazz is considered to be at the top, but it still requires plenty of bandwidth to give real LTE experience to an end user. Here comes the role of the big brother, PTA who must open the spectrum auction at reasonable base price but still it has kept entire Telecom industry as spectrum starved pushing Opco’s to deploy more towers to adopt frequency re-use not realizing that there is a limit to spectral efficiency measures using different techniques as MIMO (2T2R, 4T4R, 8T8R), Carrier Aggregation (few handsets support it) etc.

Our Telecom industry has been kept spectrum challenged from the very beginning that not only impacted customer QoS experience but also slowed down our Digitalization progress & journey mainly due to the absence of a robust spectrum policy & roadmap as well as the aggressive revenue maximization approach of the Regulatory body. The 4G technology as a result primarily thrives over 1800 MHz in a very constipated way as well as 850 MHz that comes with its own challenges. The 2G lost its luster and the lion share in 1800 MHz as voice business priority diminished gradually and data demand gained more prominence in an impactful way. The 1800 MHz (technology neutral band) spectrum re-farming ultimately became the lifeline and harbinger of 4G technology complemented by 850 MHz. Moving forward the sanity demands that 5G should not be treated like 4G in terms of allocating the spectrum as every Operator would require at least 100 MHz to unleash the full potential of this new technology.       

5G is a technology that comes with some fundamental benefits like dramatic increase in the data rates up to 10 Gbps, massive increase in concurrency that makes it possible for 1 million devices to connect per sq. KM and ultra-low latency ~ 1 ms with eloquent use cases like enhanced MBB, Cloud gaming, immersive entertainment through AR/VR, Autonomous vehicles, remote surgery, smart industrial solutions, HD video streaming etc. and finally significant increase in the efficiency of spectrum. While we highlight the importance of spectrum for 5G but it is also the combination of New Radio (NR), Distributed Core, fiber as an underlying connectivity, uninterrupted power infrastructure to maintain the site availability and device penetration supporting 5G. The Telco’s have devised different strategies as per their need around 5G deployment architecture and different industry players are developing use-cases relevant to their need & country dynamics. The most notable sectors under 5G umbrella where multiple use-cases are being developed are Media & entertainment, Public Safety, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Public Transport, Energy & Utilities and Agriculture. The Telco’s in order to realize the 5G services are adopting as per the geographical density a spectrum layer strategy that comes with the combination of frequencies from low, mid & high band in order to extend 5G coverage to urban, sub-urban, rural & remote areas and make it ubiquitous.

The high data rates with ultra-low latency are possible with higher frequency ranges, therefore the regulatory authorities in different countries are releasing and setting on auction mainly the C-Band (3.5-4.7 MHz) which is termed as sweet spot or mid-band for achieving optimized coverage & capacity to be energized on sites in the urban areas whereas densely populated urban areas & hotspots would be employing mmW spectrum (24 GHz – 40GHz). The low band spectrum (<1 GHz like 600 MHz, 700 MHz, 850 MHz) to be mostly deployed in wide areas like sub-urban and rural. This spectrum trilogy is the best optimal solution being adopted by the 5G planners to implement 5G technology particularly in matured markets like US and South East Asia. Therefore, in order to have a real 5G experience, Regulators have to release the right amount of spectrum to the Opco’s and in big blocks rather in small chunks which otherwise will make it difficult to create, optimize and evolve the network as it grows.

Another important aspect is the technology architecture itself on which 5G and its relevant use-cases particularly related to eMBB and Ultra Low latency (uRLLC) will thrive where I mean the deployment techniques of the New Radio (NR), Transport & Cloud Core. The 5G evolution is happening across the world by first adopting the Non-Stand Alone (NSA) architecture using the existing 4G LTE infrastructure, some using Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) but in order to unleash real 5G powerful use-cases, Telco’s have to leapfrog to Stand Alone mode (SA) where the fiber will become paramount importance as the macro sites in terms of traffic capacity will become unrecognizably heavy and in order to address the fiber densification challenges, the Cloud services need to be extended to the edge to place compute & storage capabilities at macro site level rather than placing the processing at the Datacenter. By placing edge closer to the user, the 5G and its use-case experience will be enhanced and more effective. This could be achieved through Mobile Edge Computing or Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) which will optimize to a larger extent the performance for the ultra-low latency and high bandwidth services. It means network will become more software-driven and programmable and to achieve that level, Cloud-native Open-RAN (O-RAN) based 5G network is being deployed in the matured markets which has a very compelling value proposition from architecture as well as cost perspective. O-RAN concept is gaining traction in the Telecom market and the technology is backed by an O-RAN Alliance which has transformed the RAN industry by decoupling the intelligence towards open, virtualized and interoperable Radio Access Network and its standards, fully compliant to 3GPP regime, has enabled a competitive and pulsating RAN supplier ecosystem with innovation happening at fast scale thus improving the efficiency of RAN deployment and operations. This gives an enormous opportunity to the small industry players to get into the 5G ecosystem and develop, innovate product & services that were once provided by few big vendors in the market. 

To summarize, the 5G will come into full action with the New Radio (NR), Low-Mid-High band spectrum combination, fiber connectivity to the last mile, Cloud orchestration & automation, OSS/BSS for monetizing 5G, extending the Cloud to the edge through Multi-Access Edge Computing to support Compute & Storage at macro site, and to energize the entire 5G Engine, an uninterrupted power infrastructure where the role of TowerCo’s come into play. Pakistan telecom industry which is still trying to catch up with a snail’s pace must take advantage of the developments happening across the world not only in deploying and developing the 5G use-cases but also actively participate in the new ecosystem of technology suppliers that has opened up with the advancement of O-RAN, the technology piece that was in the past limited to few vendors and now unlocked its doors for all the local suppliers to bring more innovation in order to step up further improvement in radio access network space. Last but not the least, the doors to the Digital era can only be opened by developing a strong public-private partnership based on the principles of trust and fairness to achieve the unimaginable and democratizing the economic life.

(Written by “Talat Qamar”, Director Operations-EDOTCO Group, Twitter @Talat_Qamar)

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