How can operators easily get on the battlefield in the 5G era? 4.5G will take on the heavy responsibility

With the arrival of 5G, maintaining 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G networks will become a huge burden for operators. How to help operators easily get started in the 5G era, while providing the original network capabilities, and making the network more efficient and convenient, requires building a bridge from 4G to 5G before 5G arrives. Now it seems that 4.5G is this bridge.

"For new businesses, behind them are the driving force of technology, the support of the ecosystem, and the transformation of operator capabilities. These are issues that need to be resolved before 5G can be truly commercialized on a large scale in the future. From a technical point of view, the 4G network will become a basic network built by operators. From the perspective of operators, in order to achieve 5G leadership, they must cultivate and build new business capabilities on the 4.5G network in advance." said Xiong Wei, President of Huawei's LTE Product Line and President of Wireless Internet of Vehicles Product Line.

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4.5G: Building full-service capabilities to seize the first-mover advantage in 5G

Today, the penetration rate of traditional businesses of operators in most countries around the world is already very high, and there is not much potential to be tapped. For operators, only by striving to make breakthroughs in new areas can they hope to achieve new revenue growth. "This year, everyone is talking about vertical industries. This is a blue ocean market and will become the basic capability for future industrial upgrades. Operators can develop their businesses by promoting the upgrade of this industry, thereby obtaining more opportunities and achieving revenue growth." Xiong Wei said.

"However, the existing network cannot support these emerging businesses, which is why we have repeatedly emphasized the importance of 4.5G," said Xiong Wei.

Xiong Wei believes that it will take at least 3-5 years for 5G networks to achieve large-scale commercial use. During this period, 4G is not enough and 5G is not available. If operators want to develop emerging business markets, the best solution is to deploy 4.5G networks to support a variety of vertical applications, such as 4K video, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), driverless driving and the Internet of Things, so as to cultivate and build full-service capabilities and gain 5G first-mover advantage.

At the same time, 4.5G can also help operators adapt their network structure and prepare for the subsequent rapid upgrade to 5G. Xiong Wei explained that there are many technical differences between 4G and 5G, and the deployment of 4.5G can help operators smoothly transform their networks to adapt to the future deployment of 5G and cultivate users' interest and habits in 5G applications.

LTE becomes the basic network for MBB, and the next ten years will be the golden decade

So, in the era of 5G, how long will 4.5 last?

Xiong Wei believes that 4.5G and 5G will coexist for a long time. In fact, today, after many years of large-scale commercial use of 4G, only 30% of the world's wireless base stations are 4G base stations; many 4G frequency points have been issued worldwide, with an average of two to three per country, but so far, only one frequency point has been built per country on average, and there is still huge room for development; many users are still using 2G and 3G terminals, and need to gradually migrate to 4G; except for a few hot spots, 4G services still have huge room for growth in a large number of regional markets; even in areas with a high level of information technology application, full services are in the initial stage, and are far from reaching their peak from network capabilities to business development. In terms of terminals, after several years of hard work, the cost of 4G chips is only one dollar more expensive than 3G chips, which fully meets the foundation for large-scale promotion.

"Based on the above points, we can see that 4G still has huge potential. We believe that the next ten years will still be the golden decade for 4G, and 4G will continue to maintain rapid growth. Most operators around the world hold the same view." Xiong Wei said.

"On the other hand, for operators, operating 2G, 3G, 4G and even 5G networks at the same time is not only very costly, but the capabilities of multiple networks are overlapping and unnecessary," said Xiong Wei. "Therefore, the basic network in the future must be based on the 4G network, and the 5G network must be gradually built according to business needs."

4.5G helps operators achieve continued success

As the initiator of 4.5G, in October 2015, the technical specifications proposed by Huawei were named LTE-Advanced Pro standards by 3GPP, and the concept of 4.5G was thus recognized by authoritative standardization organizations.

Today, 4.5G has been commercialized on a large scale around the world. As of July 2017, global operators have deployed 68 4T4R commercial networks, and many flagship models on the market support 4R terminals. Huawei has deployed 100 4.5G commercial networks around the world and has deployed VoLTE in collaboration with 109 operators in 57 countries. Facts show that after deploying 4.5G networks, many operators around the world have significantly improved their network capabilities, which has led to a significant increase in network experience rankings and attracted a large number of new users.

Thanks to Huawei's efforts, the performance of 4.5G networks is still improving. Recently, Huawei and British operator EE successfully completed the test of 4.5G LTE-Advanced Pro related technologies. Under EE's dual-band 4T4R commercial network, the measured downlink peak rate of Huawei Mate10 Pro reached 970Mbps, which is more than six times the 4G peak rate of 150Mbps. This is also the fastest commercial peak rate to date. At the 2017 Global Mobile Broadband Forum, the guests watched the flight demonstration of a manned drone based on a 4.5G commercial network. The drone's beyond-line-of-sight control and data transmission performance were amazing. Xiong Wei said that this is the "Digital Sky Project" being developed by Huawei's Wireless Application Scenario Laboratory Wireless X Labs. Through low-altitude network coverage, it injects vitality into drone application innovation and enables low-altitude digital industrial economy.

"4.5G and 5G will coexist for a long time and will play an important role." Xiong Wei*** emphasized, "At this stage, doing a good job in 4.5G can reserve 5G basic capabilities in advance, accelerate the maturity of 5G services, and cultivate user usage habits, so as to ensure that we seize the initiative when 5G arrives."