Huawei CEO Outlines Importance of 5G Technology
Emma Okonji Huawei’s Deputy Chairman and Rotating Chief Executive Officcer, Mr. Ken Hu, has said the fifth generation mobile technology (5G) will become the critical infrastructure in a super-connected world, which can be realised only through open cross-industry collaboration, intensive technological innovation, and evolutionary commercialisation strategies.
Hu made the assertion, while delivering a keynote speech on “The Road to 5G” at the recent Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, Spain.
“The driving forces for 5G include demand for a superior user experience, the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoTs) , and the requirements of vertical industries in the upcoming industrial revolution,” Hu said.
According to him, fully deployed 5G networks will have the capability to reach over 100 billion smart nodes, and the capability is extremely valuable for many applications.
“Additionally, 5G’s onemillisecond latency will pave the way for self-driving vehicles and industrial applications that require extremely low latency.
Meanwhile, 5G will have a peak speed of 10 Gbit/ second, so that downloading an 8 Gigabyte high-definition movie takes almost no time, from more than an hour with 3G, to seven minutes with 4G, to six seconds with 5G. More than just an upgrade, 5G will become a powerful platform that enables new applications, new business models, and even new industries, as well as many disruptions,” Hu said.
To get to 5G, Hu said that telecommunications operators must first collaborate openly with vertical industries, and let business needs drive standards development and technological innovation.
Second, the industry needs intensive technological innovation, such as Huawei’s recent breakthrough in developing a new air interface for future 5G networks.
“After years of research, Huawei has successfully developed an adaptive and software-defined air interface architecture that uses technologies including Sparse Code Multiple Access (SCMA), Filtered-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (FOFDM), and polar coding. These technologies improve spectrum efficiency at least three-fold, while at the same time allowing for more connections and ultra-low latency,” he added.
He explained that the industry needed to innovate in key areas such as network architecture and all-spectrum access.
To get to 5G right, Hu said the industry should adopt evolutionary technology commercialisation strategies, in which the operators make full use of innovations designed for future 5G networks.
“We believe that such strategies will help mobile operators maximise their return on investment in 4G, stimulate market demand for 5G, and extend their market leadership from 4G to 5G,” Hu said.
Huawei announced a 4.5G commercial blueprint in last month, where it said that 4.5G, which will come in 2016, would leverage 5G innovations to 4G networks, helping operators increase revenue by delivering a better experience to consumers and offering new applications that provide vertical industries with enhanced network features such as more connections and lower latency than is available from current 4G networks.