5G technology explained | 5G technology in china

 Xinhuanet, Beijing, April 2 (Ling Jiwei) Recently, at the "Future of 5G" media sharing conference held by Qualcomm, Dr. Xu Wei, Qualcomm's head of R&D in China, introduced Qualcomm's latest progress in 5G R&D and The new trend of 5G technology evolution.

                                        Image source – Google| Image by ceps.eu

Xu Hao’s research focuses on the design of wireless communication systems. He has led much basic technology research, prototype design, and standardization projects of wireless communication technology from 3G to 5G. At the same time, he also led the Qualcomm China team to launch research projects on the Internet of Things, robotics, and artificial intelligence. At the sharing meeting, Xu Hao explained the current overview of 5G standardization and commercialization, Qualcomm's vision for the future development of 5G, and reviewed Qualcomm's basic research and development in the 5G field and the promotion of 5G standards and commercialization by these technologies. Xu Hao also focused on the next step of 5G research and development and the technological evolution of future standards.

   Xu Wei said that although 5G defines three application scenarios, the first standard version related to 5G does not cover all application scenarios enhancements. For example, the mass Internet of Things. After carefully evaluating the 4G-based Internet of Things, the Rel-15 and Rel-16 versions of 5G did not rush to promote the 5G mass Internet of Things technology, but only planned to introduce 5G mass IoT in Rel-17. Networking and new technologies such as NR-Light. Similarly, in the first version of the 5G standard, the industry did not introduce 5G car networking technology, so there is no 5G NR C-V2X technology in Rel-15.

 In the process of standard evolution, brand new 5G technologies are constantly being introduced. "When considering the application and development of 5G, we need to have a very clear control and understanding of the available resources and time planning, so that we will have a clear plan for the current and future development of 5G." Xu Hao, for example, Rel- 17 is the third version of the 5G standard. Rel-17 has not officially started yet, but we already know some possible directions, such as the new NR-Light, which is a simple version of 5G based on the existing 5G. To support wearable device technology.

Xu Wei believes that if 5G wants to achieve the initial design indicators and goals, all resources need to be allocated and controlled scientifically. For example, to achieve the highest rate requirements, we must use the millimeter-wave frequency band, because only in the millimeter-wave frequency band can we have a large bandwidth to achieve a faster rate; at the same time, we will make better use of the frequency band below 6 GHz in the world.

Before millimeter-wave commercialization, Qualcomm conducted a large number of millimeter-wave OTA tests and channel measurements. The 5G network simulation experiment conducted in San Francisco used existing 4G base stations to achieve 62% millimeter-wave outdoor coverage. The network capacity was increased by up to 5 times, and the cell edge burst rate and median burst rate were greatly improved. From the perspective of indoor deployment, if the Wi-Fi coverage in the subway station is replaced with a small LTE base station or co-located with 5G millimeter waves, the downlink coverage can reach 96%, and the uplink coverage can reach 97%. And the median burst rate of the downlink can reach 4.6Gbps. This is a 5G indicator that cannot be achieved with 4G or with network technologies below 6GHz.

"We must look at the design goals and indicators of 5G to understand why millimeter waves must be used because technologies such as millimeter waves must be used to achieve an increase of more than 10 times or more than 100 times compared with 4G. "Xu Hao said.

Xu Wei believes that the biggest advantage of millimeter waves is its bandwidth rather than coverage. From this perspective, millimeter waves have very flexible coverage methods. For example, millimeter-wave base stations can be used for coverage in subway stations, stadiums, or concert halls, instead of using millimeter waves to build a nationwide network.

According to Xu Hao, the second version of the 5G standard, Rel-16, adds more enhancements to the millimeter-wave beam and also introduces integrated access backhaul (IAB) nodes, which are mainly for millimeter-wave deployment. Provide more convenience. The second is to enhance the carrier aggregation of millimeter-wave and mid-band. "Now there are many deployments of sub-6GHz and millimeter waves in the world. The next step we consider is to further improve the peak rate and data capacity through the carrier aggregation of the millimeter-wave and the intermediate frequency band."

The sudden new crown pneumonia epidemic has brought a lot of uncertainty to the commercial use of 5G. However, Xu Hao firmly believes that overall, the impact of the epidemic on 5G commercial use is short-lived and limited.

In China, 5G network construction continues to accelerate. According to public information, China's three major operators plan to build more than 500,000 5G base stations in 2020. It can be seen that they are promoting 5G network deployment very quickly. On the terminal side, global smartphone manufacturers are actively deploying 5G terminals. In the past three months, the intensive release of 5G terminals has also responded to the needs of global operators and consumer markets. According to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of March 26, my country had 76 types of 5G mobile phones, with a cumulative shipment of over 26 million units.

Xu Wei said that although the epidemic will have a certain impact on 5G commercial use, in fact, with the continuous emergence of new applications, the demand for mobile connections is increasing, which also brings many development opportunities to 5G. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, from January to February this year, the cumulative mobile Internet traffic reached 23.5 billion GB, a year-on-year increase of 44.2%; in February, the average mobile Internet access traffic (DOU) per household reached 8.88 GB, a year-on-year increase of 45.5%. Therefore, during the epidemic, the demand for mobile Internet was higher than before.

Xu Yu said that Qualcomm is providing timely support to customers and partners in China, working closely with partners in all aspects of R&D, manufacturing, and sales, and supporting partners' 5G terminal releases. Qualcomm also hopes to strengthen cooperation with all partners to better promote the development of 5G.