The world's first 5G standard was completed in December 2017, laying the foundation for 5G pre-commercialization in 2019. By then, consumers can also expect to experience 5G smart phones.
So what is the next step in the 5G standardization process?
Lorenzo Casaccia, Qualcomm’s vice president of technical standards, stated: “The average person may think that the completion of the first 5G standard means that the arduous 5G R&D and standardization work is drawing to a close. But the reality is that despite our being in December last year, An important milestone in the 5G standardization process has been achieved, but there is still a large amount of work to be done to continue to promote the continuous evolution and expansion of 5G to fully realize the huge opportunity of 5G up to 12.3 trillion US dollars, so that the 5G vision becomes a reality. '
According to Ke Shiya, 3GPP has clearly defined three important directions in continuing to promote 5G standardization, including:
1. Improve 5G new air interface non-independent deployment (NSA) specification, use existing LTE core network to achieve 5G commercial deployment 2. Develop 5G new air interface independent deployment (SA) specification based on next-generation core network 3. For 5G in 3GPP Release- Prepare for evolutionary work in 16 and future releases to further expand the 5G ecosystem
Perfect the first 5G new air interface specification to achieve commercial readiness
The Release-15 5G new air interface non-independent deployment standard completed in December last year focuses on the provision of Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) services and lays the foundation for 5G new air interface design to support future evolution. But this is only a start, and 3GPP is still further Improve the Release-15 specification, focusing on repairing standard vulnerabilities (called 'modification requests' in 3GPP) to facilitate commercial deployment of 5G products and services.
Qualcomm has been using its standard early prototype prototypes to test in a real-world environment and to promote early commercialization of 5G by continuously feeding back and improving product designs. For example, Qualcomm has been working with numerous infrastructure vendors and global carriers. Industry-leading interoperability testing, and many mobile operators and terminal manufacturers in the industry also announced the use of Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modems for 5G testing and product design. In addition, within 3GPP, Qualcomm is defining the 5G conformance testing framework. One of the leading manufacturers, this framework is another important aspect of achieving 5G pre-commercial in 2019.
Formulate 5G new air interface independent deployment specification
The 5G standard, which was completed in December 2017, supports the 5G new air interface non-independent deployment specification. It refers to the use of existing LTE radio and core networks as an anchor for mobility management and provides network coverage, while adding 5G new air interface carriers. .
The 5G standard completed in December last year aims to support 5G large-scale trials and pre-commercial implementation based on the 5G new air interface non-independent deployment specifications in 2019. Release-15 will include 5G new air interface for non-independent and independent deployment. Currently, 3GPP is developing Release. The -15 5G new air interface independent deployment specification will use the new next-generation 5G core network architecture (NGC) and is expected to be completed in June 2018. 5G new air interface non-independent and independent deployment will share air interface physical layer specifications, and These general specifications have been completed in December 2017. Therefore, the focus of the 5G new airspace independent deployment is to build an upper-layer architecture with user and control plane functions, and support the next-generation core network architecture, including network slicing, and a more refined QoS model. And more advanced security architecture.
Promote the continuous evolution of standards and the ecosystem will be further expanded
The commercialization of 5G new airline eMBB services is a huge step forward for the entire industry, but it is only the tip of the iceberg for the great potential of 5G technology. 3GPP has already started to implement 5G in 3GPP Release-16 and future versions. Prepare for the evolution of the work. Just as LTE has evolved since it was introduced in 3GPP Release-8, many new features and use cases have evolved, and the new 5G air interface will continue to evolve and expand.
3GPP Release-16 and its future versions will focus on expanding the mobile ecosystem into new areas, including new services and terminal types, new deployments and business models, and new frequency bands and spectrum types. 5G new air interface technology in Release-16 and future versions Has a rich roadmap for development (Figure 1), including low-latency and high-reliability communications (5G new URL URLLC), license-free and shared spectrum sharing of new spectrum sharing examples (5G NR-U and 5G NR-SS), automatic Car communication in the use case (5G new air interface C-V2X), and the continuous evolution of 3GPP low power wide area (LPA) technology (NBIOT/eMTC). 3GPP has approved multiple research and work items for the next phase. Other related projects will be approved in the coming months.
Figure 1: Abundant 3GPP 5G new air interface technology roadmap beyond eMBB
As the R&D driving force of the 5G industry, Qualcomm has already started the development of the next phase of 5G new air interface technology and paved the way for the follow-up 5G new air interface standards. At the 2018 MWC Conference, Qualcomm demonstrated the next phase of 5G new The three expanded areas of the AirPort Technology Roadmap demonstrate the continued leadership of Qualcomm in the development of basic 5G new air interface technology, and the long-term commitment to promote ecosystem development with innovations.