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Silicon Valley Dispatches: The Current State of 5G
CURRENT PERSPECTIVES SILICON VALLEY DISPATCHES: THE CURRENT STATE OF 5G
By David Witkowski
[Editor’s Note: David Witkowski is a columnist and RCA member who offers his perspectives on the current state of play in the wireless industry.] As we near the mid-point of 2022, we are beginning to see acceleration in deployment and use of 5G. It is likely many of you have seen 5G in news stories, or mentioned on social media — coverage that is perhaps not necessarily flattering. As a member of the Radio Club of America, you are likely a person that your coworkers, neighbors, family and friends may turn to for insights on 5G, so let us dive into what 5G is, what it is not, and where we are in the rollout of this new technology.
5G STANDARDS
First off, let us review the process for defining and creating cellular technologies. What we popularly refer to as 3G, 4G, 5G, etc. are the candidate technologies that meet or exceed the International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunication Sector’s (ITU-R) performance metrics for cellular networks, as published in the International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) specifications, and which derive from recommendations from Task Groups working under the ITU-R. IMT-2000 defined 3G cellular and enabled the proliferation of feature phones, connected personal digital assistants, and some limited machine-to-machine use cases. IMT-2010 (later revised to IMT-Advanced) defined 4G cellular, the network we mostly use today for smartphones, mobile broadband connections, machineto-machine uses, and (in limited cases) fixed broadband for homes. IMT-2020 defines 5G cellular, and is the first generation of cellular specifically defined to support not only connected personal devices but also other use cases such as machine-to-machine, low power sensors and actuators, mixed (augmented and virtual) reality, fixed broadband, vehicular systems, and ultraaccurate positioning. In short, 5G is not just about faster smartphones; it is a foundation for building entirely new markets and opportunities. The IMT-2020 reflects this expansion of scope by defining usage scenarios which include Enhanced Mobile Broadband (for smartphones and consumer devices), Massive Machine Type Communications (for the Internet of Things), and UltraReliable Low-Latency Communications (for mixed reality and vehicular applications.)
OTHER STANDARDS
We often think of 4G and LTE as the same thing, but in fact, they are not interposable terms. LTE stands for Long Term Evolution, a body of standards created by the Third Generation Partnership Project. 3GPP Release 8 was the first standard intended to meet the IMT-2010 standard for 4G. However, not many people know that there are other 4G technologies, including those in the IEEE 802.16 family trademarked as WiMAX. In fact, there was a time in the early 2010s when Sprint deployed some 4G networks using WiMAX. 3GPP Release 15 was the first to meet the IMT-2020 standard for 5G’s Enhanced Mobile Broadband usage scenario, and defined the term New Radio as the successor to LTE. Release 16 added support for vehicular applications, Internet of Things, time-sensitive networking, and positioning. In late March 2022, 3GPP took the final steps towards extending the features in EMBB, MMTC, and URLLC via Release 17. However, 3GPP NR is not the only 5G technology. 5Gi, submitted by Telecommunications Standards Development Society India (TSDSI), is an accepted 5G standard. DECT 5G-SRIT is also an accepted 5G standard.
Evolution of 5G: 3GPP Release Roadmap.
There are many paths on the road to 5G.
5G — WHAT IT IS AND IS NOT
Each of the 5G technologies operates in different spectrum bands, at different levels of output power, and often have widely varied applications. In addition, while 5G is a revolutionary technology, it implements what is called Control – User Plane Separation, wherein the logical path for authenticating and managing cellular devices can be separate from the logical paths for delivering data to the same device. For the first time, the 3GPP roadmap contains support for gradually shifting 4G networks over to 5G operation, rather than requiring separate networks. The 3GPP roadmap allows several transitioning methods including Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS allows a 4G LTE radio to support 5G NR connections via dynamic software reconfiguration), Non-Standalone Mode (NSA allows 5G NR radios to operate in parallel with 4G LTE radios), and a host of other profiles that allow combining 4G LTE and 5G NR radios with either 4G (ePC) or 5G (5GC) computing cores. Knowing details about the wide variety of 5G technologies, it is frustrating when my company encounters selfproclaimed experts — on social media or in local government permitting and appeal hearings — making wildly uninformed statements about 5G’s impacts on human health, the environment, or interference with other existing wireless technologies. This lack of understanding even shows up in press releases from government agencies; notably the Department of Transportation (DoT) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Their dire pronouncements about possible impacts to commercial aviation from 5G in the 3.7 – 3.98 GHz range sparked a weeks-long national media frenzy that has now taken hold in the public’s mind, especially amongst the communities whom I often refer to collectively as the “foil-hattery”. One foil-hatter told me she would no longer fly on commercial aviation until “they shut down all the 5G towers”. A local government official contacted us, asking if we would investigate whether 5G sites were causing a neighborhood’s garage door openers to fail. (As it turns out, high-power LEDs used for an illegal cannabis growing operation were the cause.) At the start of the pandemic, a licensed medical doctor in San Francisco told an audience of foil-hatters that 5G caused the SARS-CoV-2 virus to emerge spontaneously in humans, arguing that previous pandemics coincided with the release of new wireless technologies over history — leading to several instances of vandalism and even destruction of cellular towers, and installation crews physically threatened. After an investigation, the State of California vacated his medical license, and he has since left the Golden State. The point I am making is that many people erroneously think 5G is one thing; but, as we see from my previous discussion, it is in fact several different things. It is thus inaccurate to describe 5G in broad and blanket terms as a cause of any real or perceived problem.
PERCEPTIONS AND MISPERCEPTIONS
There has been a lot of negative press about 5G not living up to its promised potential. Given it is only two years since the first systems went on the air, I think it is far too early to declare any success or failure. Those of us who have been in the industry over the past two decades will remember the joke that GSM (one of the first cellular standards in Europe) stood for “God, send mobiles!”, because while Europe had built a network, there were few handsets available to subscribers. ITU-R defined the
Mobile industry contributions to global GDP.
4G standard several years before the introduction of the smartphone — indeed, the smartphone and the application ecosystem was the “killer app” for 4G LTE and in 2021, the mobile industry contributed $4.5 trillion dollars to the global economy, or 5% of worldwide gross domestic product. The story of 5G remains unwritten, and we cannot judge success based on early usage scenarios that focused on faster mobile throughout and fixed wireless. As leaders in the wireless industry, we must be voices of reason and logic in our communities, and I urge all of my readers to educate yourselves and get involved in public discourse about 5G at your local council meetings, planning commission hearings, etc. If we do not speak up, misinformed and conspiratorial voices will dominate the civic conversation, and our local governments will make decisions accordingly.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Witkowski is an author, advisor, and strategist who works at the intersection between local government and the telecommunication industry. He is a Fellow of the Radio Club of America, an IEEE Senior Member, the Founder and CEO of Oku Solutions LLC, and is the Executive Director of Civic Technologies Initiatives at Joint Venture Silicon Valley. He served in the U.S. Coast Guard and earned his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Davis. He held leadership roles for companies ranging from Fortune 500 multi-nationals to early-stage startups, and currently serves as Co-Chair of the Deployment Working Group at IEEE Future Networks, Co-Chair of the GCTC Wireless SuperCluster at NIST, as a member of the Connected Communities Forum at the Wireless Broadband Alliance, and as an Expert Advisor to the California Emerging Technology Fund. He is the author of several books and many articles about the state of the industry.
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