"Flooding" or rational construction? Operators should deploy 5G in a rhythmic manner

Nowadays, 5G has become a hot topic around the world. Countries have started to deploy 5G, and various 5G-related information has emerged.

According to the White Paper on the Economic and Social Impact of 5G, 5G will provide a peak rate at least ten times higher than 4G with a new network architecture, ushering in a new era of extensive interconnection of all things and deep interaction between people and machines, and is the basis for truly realizing the interconnection of all things. 5G will accelerate the digital transformation of the economy and society. It is estimated that in 2030, in terms of direct contribution, 5G will drive total social output, economic added value, and employment opportunities of 6.3 trillion yuan, 2.9 trillion yuan, and 8 million yuan respectively; in terms of indirect contribution, 5G will drive total output, economic added value, and employment opportunities of 10.6 trillion yuan, 3.6 trillion yuan, and 11.5 million yuan respectively.

As the popularity of 5G continues to rise, companies inside and outside the industry are eager to try and make a big move. In this environment, should operators deploy 5G in a "flooding" manner or rationally?

Current limitations of 5G

Obviously, in order to obtain huge profits for related industries, 5G commercialization is bound to face a series of challenges.

As of January 2019, more than 200 operators in 83 countries around the world are building 5G test networks or conducting related candidate technology trials. At least 94 projects involve testing massive MIMO, and 86 operators from 46 countries have announced that they will launch 5G commercial services by the end of 2022.

In early June this year, the issuance of 5G commercial licenses marked the official entry of China into the first year of 5G commercialization. In order to implement the requirements of the 2019 Central Economic Work Conference to "accelerate the pace of 5G commercialization", national ministries and provincial governments have increased policy support, and the three major operators have also accelerated the construction of 5G base stations in various regions.

Technology and safety

The current 5G is a version that continues to evolve based on 4G. In terms of technical standards, it is still a "semi-finished product". The main standards frozen are to support the eMBB part of the three major application scenarios, and the other two scenarios are still being improved. Many core technologies - multiple access, multiple antennas, frequency division multiplexing, coding, full-duplex, etc. cannot be truly commercialized, and more time is needed for research and development and technological breakthroughs.

The current networking of operators is mainly based on Option 3x in NSA, and it will need to evolve to SA in the future. The basic architecture and chips of 5G are not mature enough. 5G base station equipment has high power consumption, high noise and poor capabilities. The relevant equipment versions are also in the update and iteration state, and the overall upgrade and evolution is needed.

At the same time, the current 5G uses the 4G core network, and the security functions are mainly implemented by high-level protocols. The applicability of its security features still needs to be determined. Among them, NFV is a new 5G technology that realizes the mapping of network underlying physical resources to virtual resources. Although it is beneficial to the configuration of dynamic resources of the entire network system and strengthens network security and orchestration, the virtualization management layer is more easily breached, increasing the risk of data leakage.

In the 5G era, a single physical network cannot meet the performance requirements of vertical industries in various scenarios. Individualized and differentiated business needs have given rise to network slicing with "isolated services, controllable functions, and scalable resources". However, the current management progress of network slicing lags behind the network element side, and relevant standards need to be improved. There are no specifications for system interfaces, and there may be risks of channel crossing and illegal access to network nodes between different slices.

The combination of 5G and vertical industries means that the types of devices 5G faces are no longer single, the application scenarios are more complex, and the corresponding keys are diversified, which poses huge challenges to the protection of terminal users' location privacy, the secure storage and processing of contract credentials, and the identification of fake base stations.

Market demand

First, let's talk about the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things has been developing for many years. Although it has made some progress, it is still in a state of slow development. One of the important reasons is that the wireless connection standards of the Internet of Things are diverse and there is no uniformity, which makes the hardware cost of the Internet of Things high and restricts its rapid development. 5G is only a boost to the development of the Internet of Things, and it cannot completely break through the current technical limitations of the Internet of Things.

Currently, 5G hardware equipment is expensive and consumes a lot of power, which will inevitably lead to increased costs for operators. The operation and maintenance costs of 5G make it impossible for operators to continue to reduce traffic prices. Therefore, in the short term, when faced with the choice of using 5G or fixed-line networks, users still prefer stable and fast broadband.

The second is virtual reality technology. In current home scenarios, Wi-Fi is more widely used, but the development of home virtual reality is also very slow. This indirectly reflects that the popularization of virtual reality has no significant relationship with mobile communication technology. 5G may play a driving role, but the effect is relatively small. The fundamental reason is the technical limitations of virtual reality itself.

Moreover, judging from the current situation of 4G, 5G will face the problem of public concerns about radiation during its construction. Some people can accept Wi-Fi, but may not accept having 5G antenna equipment at home, even if it meets national requirements.

The second is telemedicine. The medical industry is quite special. There are many variables in the actual operation process. Even the most experienced and skilled doctors will face great risks if they perform telemedicine without adequate preparation.

For this kind of fixed scenario, fixed networks will be more stable and reliable, and the cost and resources required are far less than the current 5G construction. Some people may question that the use of 5G will solve this problem in some remote places where it is difficult to lay optical cable resources. However, based on current technology, 5G still has a great demand for optical cable resources.

Finally, there is the Internet of Vehicles. As of 2019, the total mileage of China's highways has reached 4.8465 million kilometers. To achieve full 5G coverage, tens of millions of base stations will be needed. Without considering other factors, it will be a huge investment to ensure continuity. In addition, the current 5G Internet of Vehicles still has limitations in security and interference management, and the information transmission standards of related manufacturers are inconsistent and the business model is unclear. In addition, the sensors that the current autonomous driving technology relies on are often expensive, and the technology upgrades very quickly. For cars, the frequency of hardware upgrades is much lower than that of these perception devices.

5G can indeed promote various industries, but the business ecosystem in which 5G is implemented still requires joint research and exploration by various industries in the industrial chain.

5G deployment status of the three major operators

In June 2019, with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issuing 5G commercial licenses, the three major operators also accelerated the deployment of 5G commercial networks.

In order to reduce the cost of 5G construction, enhance the market competitiveness of 5G networks and services, and improve network efficiency and asset operation rate, China Unicom and China Telecom announced to build and share together, adhere to the investment and operation principle of "who builds, who maintains" and the charging policy of "inter-network settlement, more construction and more settlement", build a network together, share access network, build core network separately, share 5G frequency resources, and give each other full resource support. At present, such a construction method can save investment in duplicate construction and save pipeline and optical cable resources. However, if we look deeper, in the case that these sites involve the differences and similarities between 5G base station manufacturers and the original base station manufacturers of both parties, the original 4G needs to be rectified; based on the current NSA architecture, the shared 5G base station is connected to the respective 4G core networks of both parties at the same time. When SA is commercialized on a large scale, a 5G core network will inevitably be built in the evolution of the network, which will increase the difficulty and complexity of later maintenance; the co-construction plan needs to consider related solutions such as handover in the border area, voice strategy, interoperability and network optimization.

The cost of 5G base stations is much higher than that of 4G base stations, so the planning and deployment of each 5G base station should be considered from the perspective of long-term return on investment. At present, the three major operators are building networks in accordance with the 2G/3G/4G network construction ideas: casting a wide net and building on a large scale, which not only increases the construction investment cost, but also requires greater operation and maintenance costs and electricity bills for the operation of these base stations. 4G has been developed for many years, but there are still problems such as insufficient coverage in remote areas, insufficient capacity in hot spots, and stagnant promotion of VoLTE. Therefore, the construction of 5G cannot be achieved overnight. Its evolution also requires time and progress. The relevant industrial chain needs to be incubated and the relevant business model needs to be explored.

In the 5G ecosystem, we cannot simply rely on the co-construction and sharing of operators. Instead, operators and relevant vertical industries need to deepen cooperation, concentrate funds and advantages, focus on key areas such as industrial Internet, energy, and education, solve the industrial layout and coverage needs of industry users, jointly explore 5G applications, realize integrated collaborative efforts, and achieve win-win results.

Construction layout should be more stable

Compared with 4G networks, the high frequency of 5G will inevitably increase the density of base stations, making it difficult to select new sites, and the available pipeline and optical cable resources are limited. In addition, the power consumption of 5G is 2 to 4 times that of 4G base stations, which will undoubtedly increase the construction and operation and maintenance costs of operators. Therefore, while accelerating the pace of 5G commercialization, the three major operators should make overall plans, make rational use of existing resources and investments, and take a long-term view. The competent departments of the industry should take the responsibility of planning the overall pattern of the 5G deployment of the three major operators, taking a comprehensive approach and proceeding step by step.

At this stage, 5G is not yet fully mature in terms of technology, equipment, and applications. In the future, operators will inevitably upgrade 5G base station equipment, which means that this batch of expensive base station equipment may be abandoned before the operators recover their costs, resulting in huge financial losses. Operators should seek stability in construction layout, consider the long-term, and explore a win-win situation.