How Carriers Can Enable a Golden Decade of 5G

What does it take to facilitate a golden decade of 5G?

In many industries and applications, the promise of 5G is already being realized. In the healthcare industry, 5G helped healthcare institutions respond to the immediate needs surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and ease overwhelming pressures on healthcare facilities by enabling robotics, and remote diagnostics and ultrasounds.

Yet the potential of 5G is still waiting to be tapped across the consumer and industrial markets, where the latter offers the possibility of new carrier revenue streams through the increasing commoditization of industry applications at scale.

With 5G usage growing more quickly and aggressively than originally predicted, unlocking business value and opportunities from industrial 5G applications will take a unified, industry-wide effort instead of solely resting on the shoulders of carriers.

Ronald van Loon is a Huawei partner, and was recently able to attend two powerful keynotes at the “Global Mobile Broadband Forum” on this topic from Ryan Ding, Executive Director of the Board, President of the Carrier BG, Huawei, and Ken Hu, Deputy Chairman, Huawei on Maximizing Wireless Network Value for A Golden Decade of 5G, and 5G for Good, Innovate for New Value, respectively.

While 5G is frequently hailed as the enabler for a global fourth industrial revolution and a widespread industry disruptor that can generate new economic possibilities and delightful user experiences, advancing development can only occur through the integration of telecom with other industries.

Unprecedented and Aggressive 5G Growth

Compared to previous generations, 5G is developing at an accelerated rate. Consider 4G, which took about 10 quarters, and 3G, which took 11 quarters, to reach 17.9 million connections, something 5G achieved within its first year of rollout. 

Fast forward to Q3 of 2020, where there’s 130 million 5G users. 5G is already surpassing development expectations, which Huawei believes will remain true in the future, with growth accelerating when adoption hits a 20% tipping point. Mr. Ding presented an accompanying prediction; that China and South Korea will achieve 20% of 5G users among all mobile carriers.

Currently in South Korea and China, more operators are considering business value when designing carrier plans, and traditional services are evolving to include 5G. 

The need to build and optimize 5G networks is becoming a top priority for carriers as they prepare to expand coverage across a variety of scenarios for both consumers and enterprises. This includes both suburban and urban areas, and indoor environments to establish strong 5G service accessibility for users, which requires enhanced 5G connectivity so carriers can provide a consistent, excellent user experience.

As both user adoption and business expectations grow, everyone is looking to what’s next for 5G. Yet Mr. Ding reinforced that though consumers want speed, industry clients have more diverse needs that require new capabilities, robust network service reliability, and the agile networking solutions imperative for industrial 5G applications.

Advancing Broad Social and Economic Impact of 5G

Mr. Ding stated that “5G is not only a 5G of operators; the entire industry must work together to integrate the telecom industry with other industries to achieve the success of all industries.” To this end, industrial requirements must be integrated into 5G, and 5G technologies must be actively integrated into industries.

More effort needs to be focused on understanding industrial requirements, while simultaneously adapting industrial requirements or standards for 5G wherever possible so that 5G development can be enhanced. Over the last several decades, operator capabilities have been developed for consumer services, but now new capabilities must be created within the context of the unique requirements and value drivers for both business and consumer services.

• Business services: Operators must develop network planning, deployment maintenance, and optimization capabilities, taking into account different SLAs, such as cameras and remote controls. Also, there must be more emphasis on uplink bandwidth, which is more valued than downlink bandwidth, when developing foundational network capabilities for industrial applications.
• Consumer services: Operators must focus on the downlink experience and peak data rates to better serve customers and their desire for faster speed, enriched video based interactions and calling capabilities, and customized service packages, like those created for gamers, for example.

These capabilities can enable 5G cases that positively impact businesses and spawn economic and social value. It can also potentially alleviate harsh work environments, such as those in the mining or port industries, where 5G cases in China are moving to commercial implementation in over 5,000 commercial innovation projects.

For example, in the port industry crane operators have historically controlled cranes while suspended 40 meters above ground in physically challenging conditions that lead to chronic neck and back pain. But 5G has accelerated Smart Ports, where crane drivers operate equipment remotely using monitors in an experience akin to playing video games. As described by Mr. Hu, this has led to a 20% increase in efficiency, labor cost reduction of 50%, and easier job recruitment.

Evaluating 5G Needs to Drive Adoption and Investment Forward

In the early phases of COVID-19, 5G provided unusual, innovative solutions for the healthcare industry, such as allowing experts to virtually guide healthcare practitioners through the complex steps of safely and correctly putting on their PPE (personal protective equipment) in isolated environments. 

However, as 5G enables new opportunities beyond the scope of the pandemic, it’s important to explore 5G adoption and implementation via application assessment where the real needs are to drive practical investment.

Ken Hu delved into this during his keynote, in which he pointed out that “everyone is willing to use 5G, but from an industry perspective, just because you’re willing doesn’t mean you actually need it. And when you may need it, it might not be a practical need.” He outlined the following assessment criteria to guide determination of real needs:

• Technical relevance: Evaluating if 5G is an ideal option for a certain application compared to other application technologies.
• Business potential: Assessing if a given demand can be replicated across different industries at scale, and if a universal business model can be developed to encourage continuous investment and ecosystem development. 
• Value chain maturity: Examining maturity level of devices, integration abilities, and level of openness to ensure 5G can be easily adopted.
• Standardization: Industries that are highly standardized are typically a better fit for 5G adoption, such as the port industry, for example, which can more easily establish smart port communication standards related to 5G. 

As 5G continues to develop across various industries, the distinction between consumer and enterprise scenarios becomes more visible. Consumer applications are more standardized in relation to B2B applications, which have more diverse uses across industries. Thus the requirements are different for network planning, construction maintenance, and operations. 

Enabling 5G adoption for these two different scenarios will demand more focus on innovation, as well as improving innovation capabilities. While China is already seeing over 5k innovative projects, with Chinese carriers receiving over 1,000 business contracts in less than a year, other markets should advance exploration into the potential of 5G to seize new business value and opportunities

Preparing for 5G in the New Normal and Beyond

During the conclusion of his speech, Mr. Ding encouraged the entire industry to have faith, develop the best possible networks, and make the most out of them for shared value.

This is a sentiment that can be embraced across markets and industries so that we can further advance broad, untapped potential of 5G for diverse scenarios and achieve greater realization of the benefits of this transformative technology for society, businesses, and individuals.

For more information about the current and future possibilities of 5G, along with Huawei’s insights into industry trends and developments, check out the 2020 Global Mobile Broadband Forum.