Academician Wu Hequan: 5.5G does not require full network coverage, and recommends joint construction and sharing

IT Home reported on December 7 that the 2023 World 5G Conference with the theme of "5G Transformation and Painting the Future" was co-organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Henan Provincial Government, and hosted by the Henan Provincial Department of Science and Technology, Zhengzhou Municipal Government, and the Future Mobile Communications Forum. It was held from December 6 to 8 at the Zhengzhou International Convention and Exhibition Center in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province.

According to the " ICT Industry Observation " public account, Wu Hequan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, delivered a keynote speech entitled " 5G Model Innovation and Relaunch " at the main forum.

Wu Hequan said that in response to the problems in 5G market applications, it is necessary to provide 5G + capabilities before 6G commercialization, and 5G-A (5.5G) is about to be released. However, as 5G-A large-scale commercialization approaches, operators may worry about the protection of historical investments and asset returns. "The return on the previous round of investment is not enough, and whether the new investment is worth it."

IT Home Note: 5G-A stands for 5G-Advanced, which is commonly referred to as 5.5G. It is the transition stage between 5G and 6G. It will surpass the existing 5G in terms of speed, latency, connection scale and energy consumption. It is expected to achieve peak speeds of 10 Gigabits for downlink and 1 Gigabit for uplink, millisecond-level latency and low-cost connection of hundreds of billions of things.

According to the definition of the international standards organization 3GPP, there are six technical standards from Release 15 to Release 20 between 5G and 6G, of which R15 to R17 are the first stage of the 5G standard, and R18 to R20 are the second stage of the 5G standard.

Wu Hequan also said that for the general public, conventional 5G needs can be directly supported by the existing 5G network, and some 5G-A functions can be implemented on the existing 5G network only through software upgrades, without the need for new investment.

For some users with higher demands to use 5G-A networks, new base stations need to be built. Wu Hequan emphasized that the goal of 5G-A is not to replace 5G, but only to supplement 5G in hot spots or specific scenarios. Although the goal of 6G in the future is seamless coverage, it only refers to the ability to reach.

In terms of public network deployment, "5G-A is only an upgrade of 5G in terms of function and coverage. 5G-A does not need to cover the entire network. It is only a 5G supplement in hot spots, which can save investment." Wu Hequan said that China Telecom and China Unicom are jointly building a 5G network. The two companies share spectrum and base stations and independently build core networks. The model of jointly building and sharing wireless access networks can also be extended to 5.5G network construction.