“The industry’s approach to 5G is far more coherent than it was with previous technologies and that will be crucial to a successful roll-out. We know what 5G is, what it will be made up of and what the underlying technologies will be.
“Unlike 4G, 5G is not just about mobile phones, it is also about creating a network that will be capable of supporting the billions of devices that will make up the IoT.”
According to Timmons, while 5G will bring users a speed boost – with download rates perhaps exceeding 1Gbit/s – it will bring greater uniformity and consistency and much improved latency.
“That, frankly, is far more critical than raising data rates,” he said. “5G will offer ultra-low latency that will enable the kind of control systems that you wouldn’t currently trust to a wireless network and which currently rely on dedicated fixed networks or expensive wireless networks.”
The upgrade to 5G is being designed for the IoT, which means that, unlike previous technology standards, those involved with setting them will include automotive manufacturers, hospitals and a broad range of manufacturers.
“5G will need to be capable of supporting billions of connected devices, but capacity is just part of the standardisation process.”
Qualcomm is one of a number of companies looking to submit proposals in March 2017 for the first round of work associated with 5G standards.
“I expect to see initial standards for 5G released in late 2018 and there’s no reason not to expect to see the first 5G ready mobile devices appearing in 2019 or 2020,” he suggested. “Crucially, the standard will be both flexible and scalable as it will have to be able to address an extreme variation in requirements – from strong security and ultra high reliability to extreme user mobility or ultra low energy.”
There has been a tendency on the part of the mobile industry to associate new technology with new spectrum, Timmons suggests. “We actually have a large amount of spectrum available to us. What 5G will bring is much greater flexibility in how we use it as it will be addressing a much wider range of use cases and deployment scenarios.
“We’ll have to look at unlicensed spectrum and 5G will probably also see more band sharing with organisations, for example, that have an exclusive license to operate in one place.
“Spectrum propagation isn’t good enough, but I believe MIMO will solve that. You can expect to see the use of MIMO extended beyond four antennas to 128 or more on the network side, allowing the use of frequencies of more than 6GHz.”
Discussions continue about the need for additional spectrum at EU and government levels, Timmons said. “While additional spectrum will be welcome,” he concluded, “I worry that governments will end up selling bands in chunks that will prove to be too small.”
