Can lightweighting become the spark that sets 5G off?

At the 31st PT Expo held recently, 5G became the biggest highlight. It was the fourth anniversary of the license issuance, and 5G has achieved fruitful results. In the four years since the license issuance, the development of 5G applications from 0 to 1 is undoubtedly a success. my country has built a world-leading 5G network, with more than 50,000 5G application innovation cases, which have been integrated into 52 of the 97 national economic categories. The next problem to be solved is the replication from 1 to N.

Compared with public network communications, 5G private networks are becoming more and more popular among industry customers. It is understood that industry users have increasingly urgent demands for network reliability, data confidentiality, and device control. More and more industry customers have clearly put forward the actual need to build 5G toB private networks.

However, 5G private networks have the characteristics of high equipment costs and complex network operation and maintenance. The demands of vertical industries are also differentiated and fragmented, resulting in unattractive cost-effectiveness, which to some extent affects the willingness of enterprises to adopt 5G private networks.

Perhaps, it is time to do some subtraction for 5G private networks.

"In terms of network coverage, if 5G is significantly more expensive than other solutions, its competitiveness will be reduced. In the long run, we still need to improve the competitiveness of the 5G technology solution itself, including cost competitiveness," an industry expert told reporters.

Taking the core network as an example, lightweight core networks are very necessary for enterprise private networks. Most of the current solutions are designed based on the public network. The capacity is too large and often exceeds the needs of enterprises, which in turn means higher costs. Lightweight solutions can better meet the needs of enterprises. If a modular solution can be made, it will also be conducive to future capacity expansion.

The lightweight 5G core network (5G Lightweight Core Network, referred to as lightweight 5GC) is developed based on the mainstream private network construction model. It has become the development direction for the industry to accelerate the exploration of flexible, convenient and cost-saving 5G industry private networks. Realizing the lightweight of the standard 5G core network has become a major trend in the development of 5G toB.

At present, the industry has begun to reduce costs for 5G. The goal of Redcap is to solve the cost problem of terminals, and lightweight core networks and base stations are to solve the cost problem of network equipment, which is also to reduce costs. 5G may still be too expensive for most companies.

"Some solutions based on 5G public networks are difficult to copy and customize, and are currently difficult to promote. However, for some more flexible needs, lightweight 5GC can be used to remove some redundant functions to meet the needs of enterprises. From a cost perspective, enterprises are more likely to accept it," said an expert from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

So what is the market space for this part? Industry experts said that at present, the market space is not as large as the public network, but it may be enough for small and medium-sized manufacturers.

Wen Ku, chairman of the China Communications Standards Association, also said during the PT exhibition that in the future we must continue to deepen the coverage of 5G networks, continue to maintain the concept of moderately advanced network construction, expand the scale of 5G applications, insist on building research and development and application in parallel, accelerate the implementation of lightweight core networks, customized base stations and other network equipment, carry out 5G enhanced technology research and development, and accelerate the development of 5G lightweight chips.

Nowadays, in terms of network products, customized network products based on industries are gradually enriched. Customized 5G base station products such as mining 5G flameproof base stations and power 5G high-precision timing base stations, as well as lightweight core networks, industry-customized UPF/MEC and other network equipment have begun to be deployed in projects. There is still a broad development prospect in the future.

Some industry analysts have also suggested that another way to solve the problem of high costs for 5G industry applications is to place core network clouds on demand and order them on demand, which can further lower the threshold.

The future prospects of 5G for the industry are very broad, but currently it is constrained by price issues and the scale of replication is progressing slowly. If labor becomes more and more expensive in the future and companies have higher and higher demands for automation, the situation may change.