5G is a ways off, but gestation is shorter this time

• Hype about pre-5G, 5G bound to happen but at least it’s more measured today
• China aggressively deploying technology; will serve as roadmap for others to follow

THE last time I set foot in the world’s largest mobile exhibition and conference dubbed the Mobile World Congress (MWC) was more than a decade ago in 2006, where it was being held for the first time in Fira de Barcelona, Spain, having shifted from the Palais de Festivals in Cannes, France.

It was a memorable event because the world’s largest mobile players – comprising operators, vendors, service providers, and in fact everything and anything connected to the mobile world – were present to not only show off their wares but to showcase new technology to the media, analysts and industry people.

Last month, I had the privilege to go back to the MWC, albeit not in Barcelona but in Shanghai, China. Dubbed as the MWC Shanghai, the event was primarily about showcasing mobile technologies and services with the Asian context in mind.

As I reflect on attending the MWC Shanghai, with a decade or so in between to compare with from the last one I attended in Barcelona, I do find that there are similarities and differences between the events.

The first similarity I noted is that after a decade, the general themes of the mobile industry are still the same. Back in 2006 it was all about the third generation (3G) promise. Faster networks compared to that of the second generation (2G), services other than voice, multimedia messaging, location services et al. Fast forward 11 years, it was about the promise of 5G, even faster networks and more powerful services.

These themes haven’t changed at all, nor has the hype that goes with it.

Vendors are touting bigger and better things to come – some more than others – but as I’ve argued many times before, I understand why that has to be done. Gestation for many of these services take time, and hence the need to drum up marketing and PR by these giants.

To be fair though, there has been progress made in these last 10 years. The main one to note is the fact that Asia has become the focus on mobility growth in this last decade. The GSM Association (GSMA), the organiser of MWC, noted that the Asian mobile industry generated US$1.3 trillion in economic impact in 2016, a figure that is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.

Overall, the GSMA, citing Ericsson, noted that mobile broadband connections are expected to increase from 53% in 2016 to 72% by 2020. By that time, there will be three billion smartphones, up from one billion in 2016. And mobile data traffic is expected to grow by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.2% over the period 2016–2020.

According to Ericsson’s 2017 Mobility report, Asia Pacific has the largest share of mobile data traffic owing to the fact that it’s the most populous region. This will continue into 2022, when the total mobile traffic in the region is expected to exceed 30 exabytes. A rapid growth in mobile broadband subscriptions is expected, with China alone expecting to add 495 million mobile broadband subscriptions between the end of 2016 and 2022.

It’s no doubt that China alone has become the powerhouse in the world, housing the world’s largest mobile operator, China Mobile, with approximately 850 million subscribers, of which some 550 million or so are on fourth generation (4G) technology. Running for the sixth year now, MWC Shanghai has shown that China has indeed become a major player in the race towards 4G, and soon-to-be pre-5G and 5G.

So while there is hype surrounding these events, the mobile landscape has also drastically changed. When digital mobile technology first appeared in the 1990s, so much of the development came from Europe and to a lesser extent the United States.

Today, the focus is firmly on Asia, with over a billion subscribers to target alone in China and India. Not forgetting Southeast Asia too – which is home to 10 Asean nations with about 620 million in population – which will continue to be the focus in the years to come.

China leading 5G

The rise of China has not been lost on the country’s two major vendors – Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp – as well as its three major operators, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom.

Once considered as playing second fiddle to the West where mobile technologies are concerned, these players have now positioned themselves as leaders rather than followers – not only in terms of sheer growth numbers but in everything including producing new technologies and setting the global standards for the technologies produced.

Take ZTE for example. At the recent conference session at MWC Shanghai, ZTE’s chief scientist Xiang Jiying (pic, right) boldly proclaimed that ZTE has found a way around the high-loss propagation disadvantage suffered by higher band frequencies of 3,500MHz, such as those needed by pre-5G technologies.

Speaking at a presentation at the Network Evolution Summit during MWC Shanghai he said, “ZTE believes that lower-frequency 5G NR (new radio) can absolutely achieve equivalent or better network coverage than 4G due to the link gain generated by new technologies such as Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA), beam-forming, and terminal dual-transmission channel precoding.”

Xiang explained that the key to improving the spectrum efficiency with the air interface is a new modulation technique called SDMA, which he argued could increase the system capacity several times without additional frequencies, time and space resources. It is also an important means to improve the network capacity and resolve the shortage of spectrum resource of operators, he added.

Xiang claimed that ZTE took the lead in deploying SDMA technology in both the future 5G networks and the existing 4G networks, significantly improving data rates. The company also said that its pre-5G massive multiple in, multiple out (MIMO) solution is being tested by operators such as SoftBank and China Mobile.

Xiang had earlier told Digital News Asia (DNA) on the sidelines of MWC that this technology – massive multiple in, multiple out (MIMO) – can not only improve capacity but also coverage such that 3,500 MHz pre-5G technology can attain comparable coverage to that of 1,800 MHz coverage.

He also revealed that ZTE’s pre-5G massive MIMO is in prototype phase now but is close to production, and that trials are being conducted in Australia, Spain and Italy besides in China and Japan.

Next page: Expectations, reality and challenges