Say hello to 5.5G

The latest upgrade is important for unifying how wireless broadband gets delivered

Just when you got your head around 5G, there’s a new number to learn in the wireless broadband industry. At the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, much of the buzz was about 5.5G.

This is an expected upgrade to the fifth generation of wireless broadband and it’s part of consolidating all the frequencies involved.

These “bundles of spectrum in lower frequencies” are an important aspect of the 5.5G upgrade, Paul Scanlan, chief technology officer of Huawei, tells the FM.

Since 5G launched a few years ago, there have been many changes to how network operators use their allocated spectrum. Many 2G and 3G services — especially in developed markets — have been superseded by 5G but those frequencies are being reused. Operators in emerging markets need to keep the 2G and 3G services running because so many people still use older technologies.

Scanlan says that in an energy-scarce country like South Africa, “5G has higher energy efficiency than 4G”. This means the base stations use less electricity and the smartphone less battery.

While 5G is 34% better than 4G and a 5.5G base station has 64 antennas instead of four, Scanlan says these are easy to dismiss as “just tech advances”.

But the move to 5.5G and aggregating spectrum is crucial for the way people — and more importantly, businesses — are using this technology.

“When we launched 5G, we saw user behaviour change,” Scanlan says. “Suddenly the content is changing and the way it is being used is changing.”

Take security cameras. “All of that data is uplink stuff,” he says, because of the changing nature of automated manufacturing that uses high-resolution cameras for monitoring. The footage is analysed with sophisticated software and algorithms, which ensure the processes are being followed correctly. This is done using artificial intelligence (AI), which Huawei also uses to predict potential problems, such as a drill that starts to wobble or vibrate as a sign of mechanical problems.

As robotics in industry increases, says Scanlan, the system needs “cameras everywhere, monitoring for quality control”.

These networks are essential in the fourth industrial revolution. Many of the several thousand new 5G networks in China are being installed by private companies, often in factories. This super-fast wireless broadband is necessary to automate mechanical robots but, crucially, latency is low. Latency is the time it takes for a message sent from one computer to reach another, which is essential for real-time processes.

Because latency is significantly reduced with 5G, the signals are sent to the equipment faster. But these wireless networks also provide the necessary throughput (or the amount of data sent) for the huge volumes of data generated by streaming high-definition video cameras that monitor mechanical processes.

For instance, Huawei has installed many 5G networks in Chinese coal mines, where robot drills are used in potentially dangerous underground areas.

As much as we think of 5G as a consumer technology, its greatest potential is already being seen in the business sector.

The move to 5.5G and aggregating spectrum is crucial for the way people use this technology