5G is Not Far Away. Are We Ready?

Disaggregation, non-static models, and ‘breaking the box’ thinking are some ways to do it. These together with innovative usage can make 5G truly powerful.

By Pratima H

What if you are flying an airplane and then asked to change some of its parts? All that as you play the part of the pilot and engineer at the same time? Not easy. But sometimes, that’s a reality,

This is something that the telcos and industry players are experiencing as they enter a new sky of happy turbulence with the arrival of 5G. But what makes it worth it is the destination. If the new parts snap in the right way, the plane would become a new bird altogether. Faster, more beautiful, smoother, and headed towards a new runway.

Panel moderator Pradeep Gupta, Chairman, CyberMedia set the tone well as he urged experts with a big bundle of questions and what-ifs. They discussed the imperative and outcomes of 5G in a special Voice&Data webinar. And it turns out that 5G’s presence and disruption would be quite pervasive and deep.

What 5G can do?

The connectedness of every kind of area – from factories to vehicles would be the first impact footprint of 5G’s advent. “The cables connecting interconnecting machines, servers, etc., would disappear. The next wave would be beyond machines, like the farming sector and sensors around flood controlling systems, soil, plants, etc. As we have more processing capabilities going ahead, we will see a huge transformation,” argued Deepak Sanghi, Sr. VP, Architecture Engineering and Planning, IP, Optical and Transmission Networks, Bharti Airtel Ltd.

Gupta seconded that and hoped that would transpire soon, reminding that agriculture productivity is an essential area to work upon. “I wish what we are discussing here comes true.”

Pankaj Kitchlu, Systems Engineering Director (India-SAARC) Juniper Networks illustrated many Industry 4.0 use cases too. “When we finally go to standalone 5G we will see a huge change. The ‘less than one-millisecond' latency would reflect a huge transformation. Two things are happening in society at large – enterprise and public safety. These areas will get the most impetus from 5G’s real-time power.

Now with 5G, enterprises can go to another level – like a machine to machine interaction, AI, cloud-native technologies, guided vehicles, and whatnot, he shared. “The quality of services would be very different. Texting takes a byte. Gaming takes some more. A surgery or a rescue operation would need a different level of service. The right policy within the radio, transport, and core will allow to pick up a granule or a mountain – as required. It would allow to give it the treatment it desires and convert it into a service-based function in the ecosystem. The platform is ready and it allows people to scale up services.”

What 5G would need?

Lt. Gen Dr. S P Kochhar, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India gave the viewpoint on edge computing and new devices.

“We are trying to work in an expanded space with severe constraints of time. We need adaptability and flexibility in networks. That is also required in users – like in the form of disaggregated data plane and computing at the edge. Even cybersecurity would have to be looked at in a different manner. That was always a separate layer. It would not happen so in 5G. It would need to have the same flexibility and agility as 5G and hence, be built organically like 5G. Security can no longer be a layer. It was ok in 4G but now in 5G, it has to be different. It needs to have the same type of characteristics as 5G.”

Security has to be connected everywhere, seconded Kitchlu. “Rather than getting a device that is retrofitted – you have to have security on each layer. It has to be connected. Especially with the new wave of attacks – like DOS, etc.- we are witnessing. Real-time enforcement in terabytes of capacity is what we are moving towards.”

Gupta also asked if telcos are equipped to upgrade the existing infrastructure for 5G and also what network innovations can we expect next.

Sanghi replied that there is a lot of talk going around standards. “In the last year, the world has seen many networks on 5G. It is good to be first in the race at times. But for India, it is also important to bring something new with some efficiency. We keep hearing news about large-scale trials, spectrum aspects, small-multiple series of experiments that have begun at Indian as well as global operators. Yes, the 5G is a different platform. That new paradigm of building this platform has a lot of demanding tasks in terms of flexibility, agility, and openness. The radio part, backhaul, and core architecture, etc. – all that has to come together. Managing transition is difficult than managing anything green-field, especially when services are running on it. We need to get out of the ‘box’ thinking and static thinking. An operator has to have capabilities to acquire multiple strengths, be it hardware or software.”

Yes, 5G is going to be more than a big sweep of transformation. It would have many cascading effects and a lot would need to change to make the most of it. We have barely scratched the surface of this big phenomenon that is going to change our lives in many ways.

5G’s possibilities would be limited by imagination, as the panel concurred.

pratimah@cybermedia.co.in