- The rollout of 5G has been slow and has not delivered the expected benefits.
- But when the advancement of 5G finally arrives, there are blue skies ahead.
- Discussions about 6G are well advanced, but we don’t think it will be several years before it becomes a reality.
At this point, it seems fair to say that the arrival of 5G has been a bit of a disappointment.
A few years ago, carriers and technology companies heralded the arrival of 5G and were hyping its potential. It has huge capacity and low latency. It will benefit autonomous driving and connected homes. 5G makes it all possible.
And it wasn’t. At least, it hasn’t happened yet.
The rollout of 5G has been slow and sometimes disruptive. Deploying new network standards is always a difficult task and requires buy-in from governments, standards bodies, and other stakeholders.
Still, there are reasons to be hopeful. At Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona in late February, many companies discussed new 5G technologies such as 5G Standalone and 5G Advanced. These may eventually reach he 6G.
More advanced 5G technology is here
5G didn’t take off because carriers didn’t have access to critical bands of spectrum in the first place, forcing carriers to roll out versions of 5G using hybrid systems piggybacking on 4G LTE. became.
5G standalone has even greater potential. This is, yes, an independent 5G network. This means it runs on proprietary technology independent of 4G. More simply, this is the version of 5G that was once promised.
The concept of 5G standalone is not new, but it took a while to arrive. The main reason is the technical challenge of building his 5G core with wide coverage. 5G standalone allows 5G to flourish as intended.
Another technology, called 5G-Advanced (also known as 5.5G), effectively advances 5G and promises improvements such as faster data speeds and reduced latency.
“We are truly on the cusp of 5G advancement,” Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer at mobile network lobbying group GSMA, told Business Insider. “That will be decided by the end of this year.”
Carriers and technology companies are actively discussing 5G advanced. Huawei calls its version his 5.5G, but this is actually just a marketing term for the same technology.
Sinclair said 5G-Advanced specifications are expected to be completed in the first half of this year. Huawei said at MWC that its version of 5G-Advanced will be in “commercial use” in 2024.
New ideas could make 6G a reality
It could take another six to seven years for this standard to gain meaningful adoption and reach the promised land of ultra-fast movie downloads and reliable surgical robots. So a lot of the discussion about 6G at MWC seemed a bit premature.
Anshel Sag, Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, describes Qualcomm’s Giga-MIMO technology, an antenna array designed to increase 5G data capacity while extending signal range, as an interesting approach that could move the industry forward. I explained that it is.
“This provides the additional performance bandwidth that we will probably need when we reach 6G in the next six to seven years,” Sugg said.
Sugg said the industry is in a situation where 5G networks “haven’t delivered on the promises they made five years ago,” and that Qualcomm’s approach could be the “right path” toward 6G. He said he believed it.
That’s still a long way off. Sag said that without a completely standalone network, none of the benefits of 5G-Advanced are worth it, so businesses should focus on 5G standalone deployments for now. Sag described 5G-Advanced as a “motivation to bring standalone 5G to fruition sooner.”
“I think it’s a little strange that we’re talking about 6G right now because we haven’t actually fully deployed 5G standalone,” Sugg said. “And I think 5G on a standalone basis is going to be what people expected 5G to be.” “
