5G+: How 5G Change the Society [1st ed.] 9789811568183, 9789811568190

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Zhengmao Li Xiaoyun Wang Tongxu Zhang

5G+ How 5G Change the Society

5G+

Zhengmao Li Xiaoyun Wang Tongxu Zhang •

•

5G+ How 5G Change the Society

123

Zhengmao Li China Telecom Group Co., Ltd Beijing, China

Xiaoyun Wang China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd Beijing, China

Tongxu Zhang China Mobile Research Institute Beijing, China

ISBN 978-981-15-6818-3 ISBN 978-981-15-6819-0 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6819-0

(eBook)

Original Chinese edition published by China CITIC Press, 2019 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Foreword I

In today’s era, people’s lives have fundamentally changed because of the development of mobile Internet, behind which is the continuous innovation and development of mobile communication networks. China Mobile has built the world’s largest 4G network in the 4G era, providing mobile broadband with the widest coverage and the best experience, which has created China’s leading advantage in global mobile communications. As early as when started building 4G, China Mobile began to plan for 5G. 5G is not just a buzzword in the communications industry, it has become the focus of the entire society. The government, society, and enterprises all place high expectations on it. At present, the internal and external situations we are facing are undergoing profound changes, which can be summarized as the “Four Accelerated Transformations”. That is, the accelerated transformation of the economy from high-speed growth to high-quality development, the accelerated transformation of the information and communication technology from the basic driving force for economic development to the core engine leading economic development, the rapid transformation of basic telecom business from large-scale operations to scale-based value operations, and the transformation of information and communications market from “elements” competition to “elements + capabilities” competition. 5G has gone beyond the scope of pure mobile communications and is becoming a new engine that leads scientific and technological innovation, realizes industrial upgrading, develops the digital economy, stimulates social investment, and promotes economic prosperity, and it plays an increasingly important role in promoting high-quality economic development. As a telecom operator with the largest network scale, the largest number of users, and the leading brand value, China Mobile always insisted on taking technological innovation as the key driving force for creating world-class companies, and has played a vital role in the development of China’s mobile communications from 1G blank, 2G following, 3G breakthrough, 4G running, and 5G leading, so that 5G plays an important role in developing process of the future. In the 3G and 4G era, China Mobile has promoted the construction of a complete industrial system for the

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first time in China’s information and communication industry through the construction and operation of 3G TD-SCDMA, and it has also driven the China-led 4G TD-LTE international standard to go global and large-scale applications. Facing 5G, China Mobile has made outstanding contributions to the proposal of 5G demands, the formulation of 5G international standards, the leadership of 5G key technologies, the construction of 5G end-to-end industries, and the exploration of 5G to empower various industries. For instance, China Mobile has led dozens of key 5G standard projects in the international standards organization, ranking first among global telecom operators. The 5G network architecture standard led by China Mobile has become the first global new-generation mobile communication network architecture. In addition, 5G scale trials and application demonstrations have been conducted in 17 cities, and a 5G joint innovation center has been set up around the world, and China Mobile has also innovated nearly a hundred 5G application scenarios so that more people can enjoy the benefits brought by the standardization of information and communication technology. In today’s world, the information technology represented by the Internet and communications has gradually become the core foundation for human development. Relying on the development of big data, cloud computing technology, AI, and other technologies in recent years, human society is entering the era of intelligence from the information age, starting the fourth industrial revolution, and driving human society to a new era. Different from the previous mobile communication systems, 5G would surpass the scope of mobile communication and become the technology cornerstone of the fourth industrial revolution. It will work closely with information technology such as big data, cloud computing and AI to connect everything, aggregate platforms as well as empower industries, and play a faster and better role in human science, technology, and social development. In the process of promoting 5G technology and industry, we have deeply considered the technical essence and development rules of 5G, and gradually formed a 5G action plan with “5G+” as the core concept. Besides, we use this book to explain China Mobile’s thinking on “5G+” to the industry and the whole society. China Mobile’s “5G+” contains four aspects: First, 5G+4G. This refers to vigorously promote 5G and 4G technology sharing, resource sharing, coverage collaboration as well as business collaboration, and accelerate the construction of the world’s largest 5G quality network with extensive coverage, advanced technology as well as excellent quality. Relying on the dual-frequency synergy advantages of 2.6 GHz and 4.9 GHz, China Mobile aims at creating a 5G network of three-dimension, intelligence, and high-performance, building a leading infrastructure for cloud-network convergence based on NFV/SDN for SA independent networking, and also improving end-to-end 5G network capabilities and service capabilities. Second, 5G+AICDE. Namely, to continue to promote the five core capabilities, including the in-depth convergence and system innovation of 5G with emerging information technologies such as AI, the IoT, cloud computing, big data, and edge computing, to create a ubiquitous intelligent infrastructure centered on

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5G, to build the integrated service capabilities of connection and intelligence, the slicing service capabilities of industry IoT private network, the integrated service capabilities of one-stop cloud-network, secure and reliable big data service capabilities, and telecom-grade edges cloud service capabilities, and to form a pattern of mutual communication and deep convergence between 5G and AICDE. Third, 5G +Ecosystem. China Mobile has united the strengths of all parties in the society to comprehensively build a new 5G open ecosystem with resource sharing, ecological symbiosis, mutual benefit, and harmonious development. Enhance the 5G industry cooperation by promoting terminal maturity, carrying out application innovation, and creating quality content. Also, China Mobile will work with partners to create a new era of 5G with basic services, enabling services, and exclusive services. Fourth, 5G+X. Application is the foundation. Through the above three “+”s, we would truly achieve 5G+X, of which the X refers to various applications in various industries. By accelerating the wider application of 5G in multiple industries including industry, agriculture, transportation, energy, and medical, it will further promote the industry digitalization and achieve greater comprehensive benefits. In addition, by implementing the “5G+” plan, China Mobile has made 5G truly the main artery of social information flow, an accelerator for industrial transformation and upgrading, and a new cornerstone of the digital society. We pay tribute to the past, get ready, and set off again. Facing the future, China Mobile will fulfill the corporate political responsibility, economic responsibility and social obligation, and make new contributions to economic, and social development as well as people’s better life. With the goal of “three beings,” China Mobile will deepen reform and innovation, and strive to cultivate world-class enterprises with global competitiveness. In the new round of information and communication technology and industrial transformation, China Mobile will seize opportunities, accelerate the transformation of development methods, accelerate the 5G commercial deployment, implement the “5G+” plan deeply, and build a scale-based “convergence, integration, and wisdom” value management system, contributing its wisdom and power to stimulate new momentum for economic growth, creating new opportunities for social development, providing new experiences in digital life, helping industrial transformation and upgrading as well as high-quality economic development, which better meets the needs of human society for a better digital life, and helps ICT to benefit all humanity. In order to allow the public to better understand “5G+”, enable the industry grasp “5G+” more comprehensively, and let various industries integrate more deeply into “5G+”, colleagues of China Mobile wrote this book together. Starting from the past and present life of 5G, the book has systematically refined the “new platforms, new strategies, new opportunities, new technologies, new architectures, new ecosystems, new experiences, new kinetic energy, and new models” of 5G+, and has further introduced the work done by various industries to promote and apply 5G in China and around the world. Being clear in logic and detailed in contents, it enables readers to easily understand the origin, concept, connotation, implementation, and action of 5G+, thus it is well worth reading. At the same time,

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this book is the first systematic, in-depth and comprehensive elaboration of China Mobile’s “5G+” plan, and it has important guiding significance for promoting the progress and development of 5G industry in China and even the global world. Beijing, China

Jie Yang Chairman of China Mobile

Foreword II

Since the beginning of this century, which is marked by the widespread application of 3G mobile communication digital technology, the modern mobile communication technology has been upgrading to the next generation in a pace of every ten years. Currently, 5G technology has become the focus of the next round of revolutionary development for global ICT industry. The improvement in bandwidth, connectivity, latency, and reliability brought by 5G technology will generate new opportunities for the digital transformation of variety of industries, which will potentially change the way our economy and society runs greatly. It is predictable that all innovations of ICT field in the next decade will more or less rely on 5G network. In other words, without the support of 5G, new technology can hardly roll out properly. There is still 10 years ahead for the sustainable development goal of UN in 2030, and there is no doubt that 5G will assist in the deployment of the plan comprehensively. 5G is strategically important for the development of global digital economy. The digital economy is a form of modern economic generated with the in-depth development of the information technology. It not only benefits the digitalization of modern industry, agriculture and social management, but also activates the creation of new industries, services and business models. Finally, it will reform the mechanism of social production, consumption, and management. The applications in vertical industries make the strong vitality for 5G. As one of the key achievements of modern information and communication technology, 5G is believed to be a key factor to generate the development of industrial internet as applied in the field of manufacturing. New features such as eMBB, uRLLC and mMTC, in addition with the new capabilities such as edge computing and network slicing will greatly benefit the transformation of traditional manufacturing and service industries. It will significantly change the traditional equipment platform, industrial process and manufacturing management in the industrial chain. The continuous emergence of cross-field convergence applications between 5G and industrial Internet, V2X, and smart services will dramatically promote digital transformation and build the foundation of the digital economy. Consequently, 5G will play a huge role in future development and large-scale commercialization in many industries such as ix

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education, health, agriculture, transportation, energy, commerce, and finance. At the same time, 5G will eventually promote the construction of smart society for all aspects on the chain from management to service. The emerging of communication technology and the evolutionary development of the communication industry cannot be achieved without the cutting-edge, trustworthy and up-to-date standardization work. The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency within the United Nations system that is responsible for global communications technology and communications services. During its 155-year of operation, the development and publication of global communication standards and the allocation of wireless communication spectrum have been the focuses of its work and responsibility. The current 5G technology and its previous 3G/4G technology standards are all international mobile communication technology standards worked on by ITU in different periods. All ITU technical standards are created with the full participation and effective cooperation from the global information and communication industry. China Mobile is an important member of ITU. As one of the leading telecommunication service provider globally, China Mobile has been actively participating in the standardization work within ITU and rapidly increasing its own influence in this organization. I am pleased to see that China Mobile has been praised by its peers in the world for its brilliant appearance on the international standardization stage over the past 20 years, from the active promotion of China’s independent innovation 3G standard, to the leading role in 4G technology, and then to become absolute Tier 1 service provider in terms of the creation of 5G standard. Over the years, China Mobile has used new technologies to promote its market and successfully assists the development of variety of industries. I would like to extend my warm congratulations to China Mobile. In order to further promote both the construction and commercialization of 5G comprehensively, China Mobile worked on this book. This content of this book is organized on the basis of China Mobile’s deep understanding of the 5G era. It comprehensively and systematically introduces the “5G+” plan proposed by China Mobile. From the perspectives of technology and ecology, it outlines a new blueprint for the converged innovation across industries where 5G acts as an important pillar of the future digital economy. This book also comprehensively and profoundly explains the significance of “5G+” concept. Starting from the origin of 5G technology, it explains on the core elements of “5G+” and illustrates how a series of innovative solutions based on 5G can provide new energy to our modern economy, covering many aspects including people’s living, working and social governance. It also introduces the deep convergence of technologies such as 5G and AI, 5G and IoT, 5G and cloud computing, 5G and big data, 5G and edge computing. Cases of various industries such as energy, finance, and industry described in the second half of this book vividly present the prospect of a highly informational, automated and intelligent society in the future. I have known many of the authors of this book for many years. They are extremely hard-working which made the publication of the book possible. The authors carefully outline the development context telecommunications technology and comprehensively studied the market trend. Meantime, they refined their

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accumulated experience in this field, which is eventually compiled into this book to share with the readers. I have been deeply inspired by the book, especially the development plan of 5G in China Mobile. Congratulation! Geneva, Switzerland

Houlin Zhao General Secretary of ITU

Foreword III

It is increasingly recognized that 5G technology is as important as infrastructure and will play a significant role in Industry 4.0. As the mobile industry continues to invest and roll-out 5G networks, it is exciting to look at the real-world impact that 5G can have. For example, the increased capabilities of 5G in manufacturing allow for labor augmentation, live remote monitoring and reconfiguration of robots, and AI-based analytics for processes, inefficiencies and predictive maintenance. This will dramatically increase productivity and revenue whilst reducing carbon emissions, and is only one industry that 5G is going to revolutionize. China remains one of the global 5G leaders, being one of the first countries globally to launch the technology with significant operator investment and growing enthusiasm amongst consumers and enterprises. ‘The Mobile Economy China 2020’ report from GSMA Intelligence forecasts that 5G will account for almost half of the country’s mobile connections by 2025, representing an adoption rate on a par with other leading 5G markets such as Japan, South Korea and the US. The mobile industry in China will also generate ¥6.38 trillion of China’s GDP in 2024, and invest ¥1.29 trillion in mobile CAPEX between 2020 and 2025, 90% of which will be on 5G. In 2016, the mobile industry was the first to commit to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In China, we have seen the greatest advancement toward SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) as well as progress on quality education (SDG 4), and the reduction in inequalities (SDG 10). China Mobile is making a significant contribution to the SDGs by using 5G to provide remote medical treatments for children with life threatening diseases and to support climate action by disclosing their carbon footprint through CDP, which is the first step to help achieve the net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. This book provides insight on China Mobile’s strategy on 5G—5G+, by illustrating six new facets, namely; platforms, strategies, opportunities, technology, architecture and ecology. It also presents how 5G combined with AI, IoT, Cloud, Big Data and Edge Computing can benefit the future in vital areas such as healthcare, education, and manufacturing, and other best practices of 5G.

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The GSMA is committed to working with China Mobile, mobile operators and the wider mobile ecosystem, as well as adjacent industries globally to improve our ability to execute on our industry’s digital transformation initiatives and deliver on the SDGs, all the time adapting to providing impact in shorter timeframes and responding quickly to shifting demand. By coming together and collaborating across industries and sectors, I am confident that mobile enabled technologies and 5G can transform lives and societies around the world, to deliver a BetterFuture. London, UK

Mats Granryd General Director of GSMA

Preface: “5G+”—The Future Is Coming

On June 6, 2019, at the time of finishing this book, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in China officially issued the 5G commercial licenses to China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, as well as China Broadcasting Network, marking the first year of 5G commercial use in China. It is worth mentioning that instead of issuing a temporary license, as usual, this time has skipped the 5G trial commercial phase and directly entered the official 5G commercialization. Compared with the previous plan of 5G commercial use in 2020, the commercial use of 5G in China, has been accelerated by a whole year. Prior to the issuance of 5G licenses in China, South Korea, the United States, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom have already opened 5G services, so 5G is changing from a concept to a real thing happening around us. The mobile communication system of human beings has gone through four generations, and since the 1G in the 1980s, it has basically maintained the development rule of 10 years for one generation. 1G made mobile phone calls possible, 2G greatly reduced the call cost and introduced SMS and WAP, 3G began to have video and Internet services, and 4G laid the foundation of mobile Internet. It can be seen that the development of the mobile communication system has always been centered on the mainline of improving the connection ability with bandwidth and rate as the core. For 5G, this situation has changed. It no longer blindly pursues the experience rate of everyone’s communication (10 to 100 times that of 4G), but more emphasis has been placed on meeting the needs of various scenarios such as the IoT, edge computing, and industrial applications, which has only two indicators when compared to 4G, namely the peak rate and mobility. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has defined eight key indicators including latency and connection density. At the same time, unlike 4G network equipment that is a combination of hardware and software, 5G network architecture naturally has the characteristics of software, cloud, service, etc., which brings the flexibility of 5G to be right there with the Internet. It is these new changes that make it possible for 5G to go beyond connectivity and further converge with other technologies, enabling industries to achieve the goal of “5G changes society”.

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China Mobile has played an important role in promoting the development of China’s communications technology industry from “blank of 1G, following of 2G, breakthrough of 3G, running of 4G, leading of 5G”. Based on a deep understanding of the essence and core values of 5G technology, China Mobile has proposed the “5G+” plan. We hope to elaborate on China mobile’s thinking on the “5G+” plan through this book. The connotation of “5G+” plan is embodied in four aspects. The first is 5G+4G. 5G and 4G jointly constitute the network infrastructure, providing customers with data and voice services, which is a key link to solve the current network operation and network performance. The second is 5G+AICDE (i.e., AI, IoT, Cloud computing, Big data, and Edge computing), which is the core of the 5G + action plan. “By promoting 5G+AICDE, the industry space is huge.” Third, 5G +Ecosystem. We hope that we can build an open ecological system together, give full play to the ecological radiation and influence brought by 5G, and promote the integrated development of 5G and all walks of life. The fourth is 5G+X. On the basis of the previous three aspects, the most extensive 5G+X can be truly realized. For example, 5G+ smart medical care, + smart campus, + smart transportation, etc., can truly bring rich and colorful changes to economy, society and people’s livelihood, and finally to integrate 5G into various industries and serve the public. 5G+4G: China Mobile has built the world’s largest and best quality 4G network in the 4G era. The number of 4G base stations has reached 2.41 million [1], the number of 4G users has exceeded approximately 723 million, and the average monthly traffic per user is approximately 5.7 GB [2]. In the 5G era, it is necessary to continue to play the value of 4G quality networks. The 2.6 GHz 5G frequency band obtained by China Mobile is close to the 4G frequency band, and the 5G and 4G will coexist for a long time. This not only requires the two networks to effectively cooperate in the future, but also requires that the joint network construction and efficient coordination of 4G and 5G should be considered at the beginning phase of 5G scale network construction, so that rapid and continuous deployment of 5G network can be realized by utilizing the LTE network advantages of the original 2.6G band at the initial stage of 5G network construction. 5G+AICDE: So far, human beings have experienced three industrial revolutions of mechanization, electrification, and informatization: steam power technology and railway construction triggered the first industrial revolution (1760–1850), which had given birth to modern factories, urban economies and new camps of the world, leading human beings into the era of machine production; the invention and application of electric power and internal combustion engine triggered the second industrial revolution (1850–1950), which had given birth to a new form of large-scale industrial production and diversified industrial structures, pushing human society into the electrical age; electronic computers, Internet technology, and space communications technology have jointly triggered the third industrial revolution (1950-early twenty-first century), which had given birth to unprecedentedly developed social exchanges, new business models, and a sharp increase in total factor productivity, propelling human society into the “information era”. Throughout the history of the human industrial revolution, we find that the realization of the industrial revolution is increasingly dependent on a number of

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technological innovations superimposed and wave-driven, and it is increasingly difficult to achieve it through breakthroughs in individual technologies or growth of individual industries. The convergence of clustered technologies is an important catalyst for the occurrence of the industrial revolution. Today, the third industrial revolution is in full swing. With the emergence of new technologies such as mobile Internet, big data, AI, cloud computing, IoT, and edge computing, the fourth industrial revolution featuring digitalization, networking, and intelligence is accelerating towards us. To promote these technologies to form chemical reactions of 1 + 1 > 2, a powerful technology base is required, namely the communication system. 4G can rely on its high bandwidth to form a single chemical reaction with certain technologies such as mobile Internet and big data. Because of its multi-scenario and multi-indicator design concept, 5G can serve as a technology hub to bridge AICDE (AI, IoT, cloud computing, big data, edge computing). Compared with the single chemical reaction of 4G, 5G brings a scale chain reaction, which effectively catalyzes the systematization of innovative technologies, thereby promoting the wave of a new generation of industrial revolution. 5G+Ecosystem: Since 1G, the mobile communication industry has formed an ecosystem by itself. This ecosystem contains a variety of “species”, including users, telecom operators, network equipment suppliers, terminal equipment suppliers, application service providers, system integrators, content service providers, and so on. The upgradation of each generation of mobile communication system is accompanied by the change of the ecosystem. From 1G to 2G to 3G, due to the limitations of communication system capabilities, the ecosystem formed by mobile communications is almost closed. Even with the existence of content and services such as Monternet and the Internet, it is far from reaching a mobile communications ecosystem. The existence of new ecosystem outside the core, so the changes of the ecosystem are quantitative changes at most, it is far from reaching the existence of a new ecosystem that outside the core of the mobile communications ecosystem. Therefore, the changes in the ecosystem are mostly quantitative changes. The arrival of 4G has ushered in the first qualitative change of the ecosystem. The greatly enhanced communication rate and bandwidth have enabled a new ecosystem of mobile Internet to be built on top of the mobile communication ecosystem, and a variety of applications for video, social, and life services have flourished. If 4G brings a qualitative change within the communication ecosystem, then 5G would bring a qualitative change in the communication system and multiple industries in society. Unlike the traditional generations of mobile communication technology, 5G is no longer defined by a certain service capability or a typical technical characteristic. It represents not only a technology with a higher rate, larger bandwidth, and stronger capability, but also a network integrating multiple services and technologies. Through the participation of the whole society, 5G is combined with various vertical industry applications such as drones, robots, AR/VR, and videos to build a 5G ecosystem. 5G+X: On the basis of the previous three “+”s, 5G has the possibility of convergence and coordinated development with all walks of life in society. The empowerment of 5G will profoundly change the development path of various

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industries in the society, and spawn smart energy, smart transportation, video entertainment, smart cities, smart industries, smart healthcare, smart finance, smart education, smart agriculture, etc. The new mode of convergence and development of 5G with all walks of life willfully and deeply innovate, transform, and subvert traditional social production, people’s life, and social governance models, so as to truly integrate 5G into thousands of industries and serve the public life, opening a new era of ubiquitous intelligent industrial Internet. The “5G+” plan will be fully implemented to make 5G a main artery of social information flow, an accelerator for industrial transformation and upgrading, and a new cornerstone for building a digital society, helping to enhance comprehensive national strength, high-quality economic development, and social transformation and upgrade. Although 5G has provided people such a wealth of imagination and has gained widespread attention from society, it still has a long way to go from technology to industry. At this stage, people should have a more rational understanding of 5G. First of all, 5G is a strategic battleground for building national competitive advantage and national security, and it is a new engine for economic transformation and industrial upgrade. Countries around the world attach great importance to 5G and even jump start for it at any cost. But we need to see that because 5G generally adopts higher frequency bands, this means that more base stations, transmissions, and office sites need to be built, the large capital expenditures, social responsibility, and economic benefits need to be balanced. Second, the advantages of combining 5G with the industry have been widely publicized. The government, sector, and industry are shaping beautiful scenes of the 5G-empowered industries. Special needs of some industries for edge computing, low-latency communication, and security isolation have gradually appeared. However, at the current stage, the 5G NSA route is more mature than the SA route. In the initial stage of 5G, NSA can only be used as a means to deal with market competition pressures. However, NSA only supports the eMBB scenario and cannot fundamentally meet the needs of the empowering industries in 5G era. We need to see that 5G requires a technological iterative process. Finally, 5G has become a hot topic in society. 5G’s cool business experience and scenarios have aroused great interest from users. Carriers and various industries have collaborated on demonstrations at any cost, making the whole country think that 5G is on the string and everything is ready. After the actual commercial deployment of 5G, it remains to be seen whether the scenarios demonstrated now will still exist in the real customer scenario. 5G is a long-distance race, and the symbolic first run or false start does not determine whether we can continue to lead in the future. Only by laying a solid foundation can we achieve a steady and long-term development. Therefore, we also call on industry colleagues and all sectors of society to promote the technological maturity, industrial prosperity and industrial cooperation of 5G, so as to make “5G+” a reality as soon as possible. Beijing, China

Zhengmao Li Xiaoyun Wang Tongxu Zhang

Acknowledgments

5G has received much attention since its inception and become a hot spot and focus from the entire society. On June 6, 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China issued 5G licenses to four companies including China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Broadcasting Network, marking the first year of 5G commercialization in China. China Mobile has always attached great importance to the evolution of communication technology standards. It started 5G-related work in 2012 before the official commercialization of 4G. In terms of 5G technology innovation, the technical standard formulation, network testing, promotion of 5G maturity, and application in various industries, China Mobile has made a series of groundbreaking work innovatively in other fields, reflecting the value and role of China Mobile as a first-class carrier with international influence. In March 2019, Yang Jie, Chairman of China Mobile, pointed out that China Mobile will continue to maintain its leading role and promote 5G transformation and development at the 2018 conference. Focusing on “4G changes life, 5G changes society,” and adhering to emphasizing both the public customer market as well as vertical industries of the government and enterprises, The “5G+” plan will be implemented. This is the first time that China Mobile has announced the “5G+” action plan to industries. “5G+” is a major innovation based on China Mobile’s profound interpretation of 5G connecting everything, aggregating platforms, and enabling industries. We propose that “5G+” is the main artery of social information flow, an accelerator for industrial transformation and upgrading, a new cornerstone of digital society, a new means to promote the improvement of comprehensive national strength, high-quality economic development as well as social transformation and upgrading, and it is the key to building new advantages for the fourth industrial revolution. In order to deliver the public the better understanding of “5G+”, China Mobile colleagues wrote a book “5G+: How 5G Changes Society”, which systematically explains the origin, connotation, implementation and action of “5G+”. First of all, I would like to thank a team of young experts in China Mobile Research Institute, who are Duan Xiaodong, Yang Guang, Ding Haiyu, Zhang Hao, Yu Jiang, Deng Wei, Lu Lu, Deng Chao, Yu Wei, Huang Shi, Gao Tianyao, Shi xix

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Lei, Wang Lu, Fu Qiao, Chen Zhuo, Sun Tao, Wang Yihui, Zhu Lin, Wang Xing, Liu Ya, Wang Guiying, Chen Jiayuan, Geng Liang, Yuan Xiangyang, Liu Tongtong, Guo Song, Shao Jiang, Luo Feng, Li Chang, Li Meijie, Liu Qiang, Chen Qiqi, Dong Jing, Gao Yanfu, Liu Chao, Wang Dan, Zhang Yuexin, Cao Xi, Cao Lei, Han Liuyan, Zhang Tingting, Jiang Tianming, Li Shibo, Tong Hui, Wang Yiru, Sun Xiaowen, Song Jiahui, Ding Yuchen, Zhu Yutong, Fan Yamei, Liu Lei, Cai Hui, Liang Ping, etc. They contributed detailed industry research analysis and rich technical research results to this book, and are co-authors of this book. Secondly, I would like to thank three leaders and experts whom I have so much respect for generously writing prefaces for this book. The first is Mr. Yang Jie, Chairman of China Mobile Communications Corporation. Chairman Yang has always attached great importance to the promotion of China Mobile’s 5G as well as the main ideas and framework of “5G+” in the book come from Chairman Yang. At the joint press conference of Shanghai MWC China Mobile’s “5G+” action on June 25, 2019, Chairman Yang Jie pointed out that “5G is not simply 4G+1G. It will be more revolutionary, presenting higher value, and can provide infrastructure support for industries of cross-domain, full-scale, multi-level, and fully release the magnifying, superimposing, and doubling effects of digital applications on economic and social development.” This perspective has become the essence of the book. The second is Mr. Zhao houlin, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), who has made great contributions to China’s telecommunications industry and rapidly improved China’s status in the international telecommunications industry. The third is Mr. Mats Granryd, President and board member of GSMA. Mr. Mats Granryd leads GSMA to promote a series of projects and promotional activities. He has rich experience in the mobile industry and is an authoritative expert in the field of information and communication domestic and abroad. He has profound and unique insights in major technical fields. Their prefaces have fully affirmed the significance of “5G+” and its huge impact on industries as well as have put forward valuable suggestions and ardent expectations for the development of “5G+”. 5G is not just a matter of carriers, nor it is just a matter for the communications industry. In Chap. 13, several experts in terms of the internet, manufacturing and financial industries are invited. They are Zou Xianneng, Vice President of Tencent Cloud, Pan Weidong, Executive Director, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Pudong Development Bank; Zhang Cheng, General Manager of SAIC’s Prospective Technology Research Department; Chen Weiqiang, Vice President of Hisense Group, and Ding Yun, President of Huawei Carrier BG. From perspectives of their own industries, experts have elaborated on the great significance of “5G+” to the industry, as well as the great changes and opportunities and challenges brought by all walks of life. The promotion of “5G+” is the common direction of all industries, and I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all experts. “4G changes life, 5G changes society”. 5G is not only a revolution in mobile communication technologies, but also an industrial revolution. This reform will bring a good opportunity for scientific and technological innovation nationally, industrial expansion and economic prosperity. China Mobile will vigorously

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promote the implementation of the “5G+” action plan, uniting all walks of life and all sectors of society to jointly promote national success in the 5G field, enhancing 5G to bring new development momentum to more industries and domains, stimulating economic and social development, and satisfying the people’s longing for a better life.

Contents

Part I

“5G+”: New Platforms, New Strategies, New Opportunities

The Pre-existence of 5G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 The First Generation Mobile Communication: Analog Communication—Opening the Mobile Era of Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 The Second Generation Mobile Communication: Digital Communication—Shannon Endowed the Beauty of Communication Digital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 The Third Generation Mobile Communication: Mobile Interconnection—Starting a New Phase of Mobile Internet 1.4 The Fourth Generation Mobile Communication: Mobile Broadband—4G Changes Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Present 5G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Three Major Needs of 5G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 User Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Business Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3 Operational Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Three Major Scenarios of 5G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Nine Indicators of 5G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Development History of 5G Technology Standards . 2.4.1 Version Features of 3GPP R15 . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 Version Features of 3GPP R16 . . . . . . . . .

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From 5G to 5G+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 5G Is not the Simple Addition of 4G+1G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 5G Will Undergo Chemical Reactions with Other Technologies and Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 The “5G+” Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 “5G+” Is an Important Cornerstone of the Fourth Industrial Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3.4.1 3.4.2

Part II

The Fourth Industrial Revolution Is Breeding and Rising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “5G+” Is the Cornerstone of the Fourth Industrial Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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New Technologies, New Architectures, New Ecosystem

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System Architecture and Technological Basics of 5G . . . . . . 4.1 Overall Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Key Technologies of Radio Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 New Architecture (CU-DU Architecture) . . . . . . 4.2.2 New Design (Flexible Frame Structure) . . . . . . . 4.2.3 New Frequency Band (Multi-band Cooperation) . 4.2.4 New Antenna (Large-Scale Antenna) . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Key Technologies of Core Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Service-Based Architecture (SBA) . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.2 Software-Based Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.3 New Generation Core Network Protocol System 4.3.4 Separation of Control Plane and User Plane . . . . 4.3.5 Network Slicing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.6 Edge Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.7 Analysis of 5G Network Big Data . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.8 More Comprehensive 5G Security Capability . . . 4.4 Key Technologies of Transport Network . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 Idea and Architecture of SPN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Network as a Service (NaaS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5G+4G: Creating High Quality Network Capability . . . . 5.1 The Ability of 5G and 4G Network Are Coordinated 5.2 5G and 4G Network Resources Are Cooperated . . . . 5.3 5G and 4G Network Evolution Are Cooperated . . . .

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5G+AICDE: Creating New Integrated Service Capability . . . . . . 6.1 5G+AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.1 5G Ignites the Explosive Growth of AI Applications and Builds the Core Engine of Intelligent Society . . 6.1.2 AI Empowers 5G, Constructing a New Generation of Mobile Communication Network Driven by Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.3 Create 5G Network of AI-Native and Create AI as a Service Innovation Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 5G+IoT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 5G Promotes the in-Depth Development of IoT . . . . 6.2.2 Building IoT as a Service (IoTaaS) Innovation Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5G+Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 The Combination of 5G and Cloud Computing . 6.3.2 Create Cloud as a Service for 5G Network and Build One-Stop Cloud & Networking Convergence Service Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5G+Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.1 5G and Big Data Promote Each Other . . . . . . . . 6.4.2 Relying on 5G Big Data Platform to Construct Data as a Service (DaaS) Capability . . . . . . . . . 6.4.3 Security Management and Privacy Protection of Big Data in 5G Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5G+Edge Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.1 Chemical Interaction Between 5G and Edge Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.2 Construct Telecom Edge Infrastructure Services and Foster MEC as a Service Capability . . . . . .

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5G+Ecosystem: Constructing the 5G Open Ecosystem . . . . . . . . 7.1 From 1G to 5G, Technological Innovation Brings Ecosystem Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 What Is 5G+Ecosystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Integrated into 5G+Ecosystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5G+X: Beyond the Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 5G Brings New Experiences of a Better Life 8.2 5G Upgrades the Manufacture Mode . . . . . . 8.3 5G Upgrades the Social Governance . . . . . .

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5G+: Main Artery, Accelerator and New Cornerstone

5G+: Future Main Artery of Social Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 5G+Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1.1 Inside Hospitals: 5G Robot-Assisted Ward Rounds—Communication Without Waiting . . . . . . . 9.1.2 Outside and Between Hospitals: Remote Ultrasound Robot—B-Mode Ultrasound Can Be Done at Home and Other Places Outside Hospitals . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1.3 Outside and Between Hospitals: 5G Remote Real-Time Consultation—Ordinary People Can Also Consult to Medical Experts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1.4 Outside Hospitals: 5G Ambulances—Grasp a Slim Chance of Survival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1.5 5G Telesurgery—Break the National Boundaries of Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1.6 5G End-to-End Solutions to Smart Healthcare . . . . .

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5G+Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2.1 5G Lifelong Learning—Enjoy Quality Education Resources Anytime, Anywhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2.2 5G Smart Classroom—Enriching Teaching Content, and Turning Passive Learning into Active Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5G+Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.1 5G HD Video—Super High Quality Audio-Visual Feast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.2 5G Cloud AR/VR—Revolutionary Interaction Mode and Full Immersion Experience . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.3 5G Cloud Games—Playing on the Thin Client Terminal and Enjoying Leisure Time . . . . . . . . . . . . 5G+Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4.1 5G+Intelligent Connected Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4.2 5G+Civil Aviation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10 5G+: Future Accelerator for Industrial Transformation and Upgrading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1 5G+Industrial Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1.1 “5G+” Promoting Industrial Upgrade to Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1.2 Usage Scenarios of Smart Factories . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1.3 “5G+” Empowering Industrial Manufacturing . . . . 10.2 5G+Smart Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2.1 Development Trends and Challenges of Intelligent Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2.2 Typical Usage Scenarios of 5G+Smart Grids . . . . . 10.3 5G+Smart Shipping Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3.1 5G+Shipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3.2 5G+Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 5G+: Future Cornerstone of a Digital Society . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1 5G+Security Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.1 Present Modes and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.2 “5G+”, Enabling New Mode of Security Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 5G+Environmental Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.1 Current Mode and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.2 “5G+”, Enabling New Mode of Environmental Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.3 5G+Government Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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11.3.1 Interpretation of Policies and Regulations . . . . . . . . . . 164 11.3.2 Current Mode and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 11.3.3 “5G+”, Enabling New Mode of Government Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Part IV

“5G+” in Action

12 Global Organizations in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.1 ITU (International Telecommunication Union) . . . . . 12.2 GSMA (Global System for Mobile Association) . . . . 12.3 GTI (Global TD-LTE Initiative) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.4 NGMN (Next Generation Mobile Network Alliance) 12.5 5GAA (5G Automotive Association) . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.6 The Linux Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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13 Industries in Action . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1 Tencent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2 Pudong Development Bank . 13.3 SAIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.4 Hisense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.5 Huawei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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14 China Mobile in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.1 “5G+” Technology Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.1.1 Define 5G Requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.1.2 Promote 5G International Standards . . . . . . . . . 14.1.3 Leader in 5G Key Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . 14.2 “5G+” Industry and Ecological Construction . . . . . . . . 14.2.1 The Builder of 5G End-to-End Industry . . . . . . 14.2.2 Pioneer of 5G Empowering Industries . . . . . . . 14.2.3 “5G+” Industry Convergence Practice of China Mobile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.2.4 China Mobile and the Industry Realize “Five Upgrades” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Outlook: Beyond 5G and 6G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Acronyms

3GPP 5GAA 5G-ACIA 5GC AAU AGV AI AI AMPS API APP AR AT&T ATG AWS S3 BBU BSS CAPEX CDMA CDN CG C-ITS CNCF CPE CRS CSIS CU DI DME DO

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project 5G Automotive Association 5G Association for Connected Industry and Automation 5G Core Network Active Antenna Unit Automated Guided Vehicle Analog Input Artificial Intelligence Advanced Mobile Phone System Application Programming Interface Application Augmented Reality American Telephone & Telegraph Air to Ground Simple Storage Service Baseband Unit Business support system Capital Expenditures Code Division Multiple Access Content Deliver Network Computer Graphics Cooperative-Intelligent Transportation System Cloud Native Computing Foundation Customer Premise Equipment Cell Reference Signal Center for Strategic and International Studies Central Unit Digital Input Distance Measure Equipment Digital output

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DPI DTU DU DWDM EC2 ECC eMBB eMTC EPC ETSI E-UTRA FCC FDD FDMA FP7 GDPR GSM GSMA GTI HTTPBis IaaS ICT IDC IMS IMT-2000 IoT IP ITU ITU-R JSON LADN LFN LPWAN LTE MANO MEC MES MIMO mMTC MOOC MSIP NaaS NB-IoT NFV NFVI

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Deep Packet Inspection Data Transfer unit Distributed Unit Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing Elastic Cloud Computer Edge Computing Consortium Enhanced Mobile Broadband Enhanced Machine Type Communication Evolved Packet Core European Telecommunications Standards Institute Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Federal Communications Commission Frequency Division Duplex Frequency Division Multiple Access Framework Programme for Research General Data Protection Regulation Global System for Mobile Communications Global System for Mobile Communications Alliance Global TD-LTE Initiative Hypertext Transfer Protocol Bis Infrastructure as a Service Information and Communication Technology International Documentation Centre IP Multimedia Subsystem International Mobile Telecom System-2000 Internet of Things Intellectual Property International Telecommunication Union ITU-Radiocommunications Sector JavaScript Object Notation Local Area Data Network Linux Foundation Networking Low Power Wide Area Network Long Term Evolution Management and Orchestration Mobile Edge Computing Manufacturing Execution System Multiple Input Multiple Output Massive Machine Type Communication Massive Open Online Course Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning Network as a Service Narrow Band IoT Network Function Virtualization Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure

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NGMN NR NSA NTT NWDAF OAM ODU OFDM OICT OMO OPEX OSS OTT PaaS PDU PHY PLC PLC PMU PTN QCI RESTful RNC RRU RSPG SA SaaS SAE-GW SBA SCL SDN SEP SLA SMF SOAP SON SPL SPN SPT SR SR-TP STL TACS TCP

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Next Generation Mobile Networks New Radio Access Technology Non-Standalone Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Network Data Analytics Function Operation Administration and Maintenance Optical channel Data Unit Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Operation Technology, Internet Technology, Communication Technology Online Merge Offline Operation Expenditure Operation Support System Over The Top Platform as a Service Protocol Data Unit Physical Layer Power Line Communication Programmable Logic Controller Phasor Measurement Unit Packet Transport Network QoS Class Identifier Representational State Transfer Radio Network Controller Remote Radio Unit Radio Spectrum Policy Group Standalone Software as a Service System Architecture Evolution Gateway Service-based Architecture Slicing Channel Layer Software-Defined Networking Standards-Essential Patent Service-Level Agreement Session Management Function Simple Object Access protocol Self-Organized Networks Slicing Packet Layer Slicing Packet Netowork Special Purpose Technology Segment Routing Segment Routing Transport Profile Slicing Transport Layer Total Access Communications System Transmission Control Protocol

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TDD TD-LTE TDMA TD-SCDMA UHD UMTS UPF uRLLC V2X VHF VNF VOC VoLTE VR WAP WCDMA WIFI XR

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Time Division Duplex Time Division Long Term Evolution Time Division Multiple Address Time Division-Synchronization Code Division Multiple Access Ultra High Definition Universal Mobile Telecommunications System User Plane Function Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications Vehicle to Everything Very high frequency Virtual Network Function Volatile Organic Compounds Voice over Long-Term Evolution Virtual Reality Wireless Application Protocol Wideband CDMA Wireless Fidelity Extended Reality

Part I

“5G+”: New Platforms, New Strategies, New Opportunities

Chapter 1

The Pre-existence of 5G

Communication is the basic requirement of human beings, and there is a long history of human communication. For thousands of years, people have been using languages, symbols, bells and drums, fireworks, bamboo slips, paper books and other information transmission, and changes in communication methods have profoundly affected human life. With the emergence of electrical signals, the communication technology has brought about earth-shaking changes to human society. In a sense, electrical signals have replaced flying and running as a transmission medium of information, which means the end of ancient communication methods, and has opened a new chapter in modern communication methods, especially the constantly emerging milestones in the field of mobile communications have also pushed communication technology to a higher level. Therefore, it is necessary to review the development history of mobile communication.

1.1 The First Generation Mobile Communication: Analog Communication—Opening the Mobile Era of Communication In 1960s, research institutions such as Bell Labs in the United States proposed the concept and theory of mobile cellular systems, which is the theoretical prototype of the first generation of mobile communications. Subsequently, North America, Europe and Japan started the research and industrialization process of the first generation mobile communication technology at almost the same time, and put it into commercial use successively in the 1980s. The first generation of mobile communication system mainly adopted the analog technology. The first-generation mobile communication system had a small capacity. In order to increase the system capacity, a technology called Frequency Division Multiple © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Z. Li et al., 5G+, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6819-0_1

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Access (FDMA) was adopted. FDMA divides the total bandwidth into multiple orthogonal channels, and each user occupies one channel, just as highways are divided into lanes, with each car driving on only one of the assigned lanes. While the first generation of mobile communication technology brought great success, it was also subject to some of its shortcomings. Because the first generation of mobile communication technology adopts the analog signal transmission, whose capacity is very limited, and generally can only transmit voice signals. There are problems such as low voice quality, signal instability, insufficient coverage, poor security and being vulnerable to interference. In addition, the communication standards of different countries were inconsistent, making the first generation mobile communication unable to “global roaming”, which greatly hindered the development of the first generation mobile communication technology. Therefore, the second generation of mobile communication technology was on the horizon.

1.2 The Second Generation Mobile Communication: Digital Communication—Shannon Endowed the Beauty of Communication Digital In order to solve the defects of the first generation mobile communication simulation system, a new technology came into being, namely digital communication technology. This represents the arrival of the second generation of mobile communication with digital communication as its core. The so-called digital communication is to use the simple “1” and “0” to represent complex information. The ancient beacon communication is actually a simple digital communication. The two states of the beacon (on and off) are “1” and “0”, which can be used to communicate whether there is an enemy attack. There is also the Morse telegram code still in use today, which adopts different combinations of dots and strokes to represent different characters and constitute the information to be transmitted. The dots and strokes here can also be considered as the deformation of “1” and “0”. GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) proposed by Europe and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) proposed by the United States are the most representative of the second generation of Mobile communication technology, but CDMA started later than GSM, and as soon as it just came out, it has lost half of the country. Unlike GSM, which is deployed globally, CDMA’s worldwide deployment is mainly concentrated in the US, South Korea and China. Compared with analog communication, digital communication makes up for the technical shortcomings of the analog communication era to a certain extent. First of all, digital signals have the characteristics of strong anti-interference ability and no noise accumulation. The noise interference on the signal can be effectively reduced through appropriate modulation, channel coding and corresponding decision mechanisms. Secondly, the encryption method of digital signals is easier and more flexible, which can more

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effectively guarantee the security of signal transmission. With the continuous development of hardware technology and the constant improvement and optimization of digital circuits, the volume of terminal equipment in this era has been greatly reduced, and the cost has been further reduced as well. In order to increase the capacity of the second generation mobile communication system, GSM also adopted a TDMA (Time Division Multiple Address) scheme, and TDMA divided radio frequencies into different time slots and assigned them to different users. Compared with FDMA technology, TDMA has the advantages of high communication quality, good confidentiality and large system capacity, but it must be precisely timed and synchronized to ensure normal communication between mobile terminals and base stations, which is technically more complex. In the 2G era, voice service and SMS have become mature. SMS makes people’s communication more convenient and more efficient. Once launched, they have been adored by users. At the same time, the smaller and more exquisite mobile phones of the 2G era replaced the popular cellular phones. These mobile phones are not only easy to carry, but also feature-rich. With the addition of MP3 and camera functions, mobile phones are not just communication tools, they greatly enrich people’s lives.

1.3 The Third Generation Mobile Communication: Mobile Interconnection—Starting a New Phase of Mobile Internet In addition to supporting traditional voice and SMS, the third generation mobile communication technology could also support data transmission and realize the combination of wireless communication and Internet and other multimedia communication. The data transmission rate was generally above a few hundred kbps. 3G mainly has three standards: CDMA2000, WCDMA, and TD-SCDMA. The industry regards CDMA technology as the mainstream technology of 3G. The GSM equipment uses time division multiple access, while CDMA uses code division spread spectrum technology, which can increase the network capacity to more than three times that of GSM. In the 3G era, the transmission speed of data services has been greatly improved. More and more people are using mobile phones to surf the Internet. The network connection at any time and any place facilitates people’s lives and connects the whole world more closely. With the development of the 3G era, traditional voice calling and SMS are gradually weakened. Compared with the traditional way of calling, network voice is more convenient and cheaper, while video calling can let two people from far and wide see each other’s smiles and motion through the phone, which further shortens the distance between people. However, the SMS that emerged in the 2G era was gradually replaced by some social software in the 3G era, typical of which are WeChat

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1 The Pre-existence of 5G

and QQ. Compared with the traditional SMS, WeChat is more convenient and rich in content, and it has become a necessity for people to communicate today.

1.4 The Fourth Generation Mobile Communication: Mobile Broadband—4G Changes Life LTE (Long Term Revolution) is the long-term evolution of 3GPP based on the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) technology standard developed in 2004, and it has a peak download speed of 299.6 Mbit/s and a peak upload speed of 75.4 Mbit/s. If the 3G era combines mobile phone terminals with the Internet, 4G will revolutionize the Internetization of mobile phones. The network speed in the 4G era is almost 10 times than that of 3G, and high-quality video calls, files and pictures transmission will be unimpeded. The high speed in the 4G era can almost meet all people’s needs for the Internet and bring more convenience to people’s study and life. The robust growth of 4G has also indirectly changed the way people travel. Bikesharing, car-sharing and other software have entered people’s lives in recent years. People can see the nearby public transportation tools on the mobile apps, and they can unlock them by scanning the codes. This huge amount of information processing is due to the development of 4G technology. 4G has also changed the way people pay. They don’t need to carry a wallet when they go out, but only a mobile phone to scan the code to complete the payment, which is both convenient and fast. Like many developed countries, the use of paper money is gradually decreasing in many countries. With the popularization of 4G networks, smart homes have developed vigorously in recent years. 3G technology could not meet people’s needs, while the 4G era has provided users with a better experience. People can use their mobile phones to remotely control electrical appliances such as the refrigerators, air conditioners, and sweeping robots in their homes, which have provided more convenience to people’s lives.

Chapter 2

The Present 5G

4G has spawned mobile broadband and greatly improved the user experience of the mobile Internet. Communication technology has gradually upgraded from traditionally meeting users’ voice and messaging communication needs to gradually meeting users’ video, gaming, financial and other living needs. Mobile Internet has become an integral part of life. With the outbreak of the mobile Internet, more and more new application forms, including HD, UHD, AR/VR, etc., continue to emerge, and the mobile Internet traffic has increased significantly. At the same time, due to the rapid development of applications such as bicycle sharing and video surveillance, the narrowband IoT can no longer meet the development needs of the IoT business, thus the network bandwidth and connectivity need to be further expanded. In addition, the development of IoV and industrial control networks has imposed more stringent requirements on mobile network delays, requiring the network to provide a delay experience comparable to that of optical fiber. There is a growing demand for next-generation mobile networks with high bandwidth, large connections and low latency. Meanwhile, IT technology and CT technology are deeply integrated. More and more IT technologies, including cloud computing and virtualization will continue to be used by CT to promote the transformation of traditional communication network to software-based and service-based. In addition, the rapid development of AI continues to penetrate the network field, making network intelligence possible. The convergence and innovation of new technologies such as IT technology, AI and mobile communication gave birth to the fifth generation of mobile communication technology.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Z. Li et al., 5G+, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6819-0_2

7

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2 The Present 5G

2.1 Three Major Needs of 5G 2.1.1 User Needs Mobile Internet and IoT are the main development directions of the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) industry in 2020 and beyond. In the future wireless will be the main way to connect. Users’ expectations for mobile communications will be higher and user needs will be more diverse. Mobile Internet mainly focuses on human needs and pays more attention to the quality of user experience. With the continuous enhancement of the media interaction capability of mobile terminals, rich commercial applications such as HD/UHD mobile video, 3D video and AR/VR are emerging one after another. Mobile Internet users want immersive audio-visual effects and local business experiences, which requires the next generation of 5G network to provide access rates comparable to those of optical fiber. At the same time, users also expect that the 5G network can provide a real-time online experience, and no network delay is perceived in services such as multiplayer online games and remote video calls. In addition, the application scenarios of mobile communication in the future are becoming more and more extensive. In high-speed mobile environments such as high-speed trains, automobiles and subways, and in ultra-high density scenarios such as stadiums and large open-air gatherings, mobile Internet users hope to obtain consistent service experience, and 5G network is required to provide excellent services in these special scenarios. Compared with the mobile Internet, the IoT introduces the connection between things and people. A number of industrial applications are emerging. Compared with people-to-people communication, IoT business has put forward new demands for mass device connection and differentiated service experience. The rapid development of the IoT requires 5G network to be able to connect all applications, services and devices, such as people, things, processes, content, knowledge, information, goods, etc., and the future is no longer a single connection. With the emergence of a large number of industry applications, diversified business applications require 5G networks to support a wide range of services with completely different performance requirements, and to meet the differentiated needs of different industries. The realization of multiple connections and the expansion of various industrial applications will stimulate the rapid growth of the number of connected devices, which requires 5G network to provide ultra-large capacity and large-scale device connections. Whether it is the mobile Internet or the IoT, users have put forward the same requirements in terms of cost, security, power consumption, and so on. While continuously pursuing high-quality business experience, users are also looking forward to the reduction of communication cost, hoping that 5G mobile communication can provide more cost-effective services. While using mobile payment, medical care, safe driving and other applications, users hope that 5G mobile communication will be more secure and more reliable. 5G mobile communication network needs to create a green environment for people keep enhancing terminal battery life and continue to reduce terminal power consumption.

2.1 Three Major Needs of 5G

9

2.1.2 Business Requirements The next generation of mobile communication network will enter the era of beyondconnectivity, mobile communication services and applications will be completely changed. In addition to traditional voice, SMS and data communication, a large number of new services and applications are emerging. The main services of 5G in the future can be divided into two categories: mobile Internet services and IoT services. Based on 3GPP service classification, mobile Internet services can be divided into streaming, conversation, interaction, transmission, and messaging, while the IoT services are mainly divided into acquisition and control. With the continuous enhancement of mobile terminal media transmission capabilities, streaming media and session services will continue to develop in the field of UHD and 3D areas. Services such as HD video and VR pose a higher challenge to 5G networks, requiring higher user experience rates, such as a 12 K(2D) uncompressed video transmission rate of 50 Gbps. After compression, its transmission rate needs to reach 250 Mbps and requires lower latency. The application scope of interactive services will also continue to expand, such as online games, AR, cloud desktop, etc. According to Juniper, there will be 200 million augmented reality users in 2018, and more than 100 million cars will have augmented reality capabilities in 2020. These commercial applications require big data interactions, real-time HD video interactions, challenging the transmission rates of uplink and downlink users, and also require fast response to achieve a user latencyfree experience. Transmission services like cloud storage and OTT messaging services will also become mainstream applications in the future. According to IDC statistics, by 2020, 30% of global digital information will be stored in the cloud. Challenges brought by this trend to 5G mobile communication networks are mainly reflected in large data transmission, high traffic density, and signaling overhead. The 5G network is required to be able to achieve the speed experience of optical fiber and meet the huge traffic generated in dense scenes. In the future, the IoT business applications will be rich and diverse, business characteristics will vary greatly, and 5G networks will be required to meet their differentiated needs. For low-rate acquisition services, such as smart metering, devices that support large-scale connections are required. Such terminals have low cost, low power consumption, and a large number of small data packets transmitted. For high-speed data collection services, such as video surveillance, higher requirements are imposed on uplink transmission rates and traffic density in dense scenarios. For latency-sensitive control services, such as automotive networks, their high-speed mobile capabilities require millisecond-level latency and almost 100% reliability.

10

2 The Present 5G

2.1.3 Operational Requirements Traditional network operations are passive ones. Usually, when network failures and congestions occur, network monitoring and alarms are used to replace network equipment. With the arrival of 5G, eMBB, uRLLC and mMTC are all supported. Traditional passive operations cannot meet development needs, and the following issues need to be solved through active operations: (1) Problems in network energy efficiency and network cost In the future, mobile Internet and IoT will develop explosively, and carriers’ networks are supposed to provide massive terminal devices with service flows equivalent to about 1,000 times of current network flow. Therefore, with the continuous improvement of network energy efficiency and the continuous reduction of network cost, it will be crucial to make network deployment and maintenance easier. (2) Issues related to intelligent pipeline optimization of small flow packet processing mechanism At present, the existing mobile communication network equipment such as small stations and room separation equipment lacks automatic means to achieve real-time monitoring and dynamic control, resulting in carriers’ inability to perform real-time, comprehensive and accurate management and control of existing network resources as well as automated operation and maintenance. Relevant functions urgently need to be defined in the new generation of mobile communication system. In addition, the existing mobile communication network is still insufficient to deal with signaling storms. A large number of 4G mobile Internet users frequently send small packets of data, such as WeChat’s short chat, but the existing mechanism of 4G networks usually generate a large amount of signaling interactive data when sending small packets, which has a large network overhead and low effect. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize the network implementation mechanism to reduce the signaling interaction process caused by packet transmission in the new generation of mobile communication system. (3) The demand for multi-network convergence Presently, the coexistence of 2G/3G/4G/WLAN networks increases the construction and maintenance costs of carriers, while the interoperation between multiple networks is complex and reduces the user experience. 5G needs to strengthen multi-network convergence capabilities, promote collaboration and even convergence between 3GPP and non-3GPP standards, and promote TDD/FDD convergence, so that the converged 5G network can reduce the cost of the network of different carriers (including traditional carriers, new carriers and virtual carriers), and meanwhile enable users to choose the network with the best performance without user intervention, providing a seamless experience for different services and users. (4) Intelligent network optimization based on business needs and user behavior Traditional 1G/2G/3G/4G are mainly human-oriented networks, with relatively single network model and parameters. The future network will support the booming mobile Internet business and IoT business, and network models and parameters will be further diversified. 5G needs to enhance the ability of intelligent perception of

2.1 Three Major Needs of 5G

11

users’ business types and usage habits, and analyze users’ behaviors and business characteristics in combination with cloud computing and big data, so as to conduct automatic adjustment and optimization of corresponding network parameters and configuration, and provide the possibility for differentiated pricing. (5) Flexible and effective use of all possible discontinuous spectrums to meet the needs of different communication scenarios The fragmentation of 5G spectrum resources has further increased. In the face of numerous fragmented frequency bands, wireless networks are supposed to support the flexible selection of the optimal frequency and resource combination based on the features of differentiated service applications, and select the applicable frequency spectrum from the available frequencies so as to support the business needs of different scenarios, providing the best service experience and reliable services with guaranteed service quality, low cost and low energy consumption.

2.2 Three Major Scenarios of 5G According to ITU’s vision, 5G is designed for three scenarios, namely eMBB (Enhanced Mobile Broadband), mMTC (Massive Machine Type Communication) and uRLLC (ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications), to comprehensively improve capabilities including peak rate, mobility, latency, experience rate, connectivity density, traffic density and energy efficiency. At the same time, 5G will meet the needs of “person-to-person communication” and “thing-to-thing connection”, and it will also be combined with UHD video, AR/VR, IoV, industrial IoT and other vertical industries to penetrate into all sectors of society (Fig. 2.1). The eMBB refers to the enhancement of mobile broadband service, whose core meaning is to further improve the speed of user data experience based on the existing

Fig. 2.1 Three major scenarios of 5G

12

2 The Present 5G

mobile broadband service scenarios. The average user experience speed of 4G is about 30–50 Mbps, and it usually takes a few minutes to download a 500 M video on a mobile phone, which makes the user experience better. The average uplink user experience of 4G is about 6-8 Mbps, and 4G is used for uplink data packet transmission, especially for 4 K and 8 K HD video live broadcasting, which is seriously unable to meet user needs. However, the uplink user experience speed of 5G eMBB can reach more than 50 Mbps, which can fully support 4 K and 8 K HD video live broadcasting, which will greatly improve the user experience. The mMTC refers to the large-scale IoT. 5G can support one million connections per square kilometer, completely breaking through the traditional communication between people, and making large-scale communication between people and things, things and things possible. In addition to supporting massive connectivity, 5G can also support a variety of IoT terminal types, such as IoT terminals with only callers and no called parties, or terminals that only monitor the called parties at regular intervals. In addition, for many IoT terminals that can only be powered by batteries to reduce the power consumption of the terminal as much as possible, 5G simplifies the connection model in protocol design and reduces the power consumption of IoT terminals as much as possible. The uRLLC refers to ultra-high reliability and ultra-low-latency communication. For example, scenarios such as drones and industrial robots require the network to be highly reliable and the network delay to be as low as possible. The end-toend delay in the uRLLC scenario is about 1/5 of 4G, which can reach 1–10 ms. Besides, 5G endogenously supports edge computing, which can effectively support the rapid response needs in scenarios such as drones, realizing rapid and timely execution command. In response to the requirements of high reliability, 5G supports the establishment of dual channels between the terminal and the network, and the two channels are backups of each other to ensure connection reliability. Typical 5G application scenarios involve various areas in the future such as people’s living, working, leisure, and transportation, especially dense residential areas, offices, stadiums, outdoor gatherings, subways, expressways, high-speed rails, and wide-area coverage. Typical applications include 5G autonomous driving, 5G remote driving, 5G smart grid, 5G smart factory, 5G drone logistics, 5G drone HD video transmission, 5G telemedicine, 5G VR, 5G AR, 5G panoramic live broadcast, 5G security, 5G child safety, 5G smart park, 5G smart farm, 5G distance education, 5G new retails, 5G retirement assistance, 5G smart home, 5G super ambulance, etc.

2.3 Nine Indicators of 5G According to the ITU definition, 5G has the characteristics of higher rate, lower latency and larger connection. It will bring richer application scenarios, including enhanced mobile broadband scenario, low-latency high-reliability scenario and lowpower high-connection scenario.

2.3 Nine Indicators of 5G

13

Faster experience rate 4G*100 (0.1~1 Gbps)

Greater connecvity density 1 million/km2

Lower air interface latency 4G*1/5 (1ms)

Higher flow density (10~100 Tbps/km2)

Higher peak rate 4G*20 (10~20 Gbps)

Faster mobility 4G*4 (500+ km/h) energy efficiency

Spectrum efficiency

Cost efficiency

Fig. 2.2 Flower of 5G

Figure 2.2 is the very famous “5G Flower” first proposed by China Mobile and accepted by the ITU. The flower of 5G represents the nine core business indicators of 5G, among which, petals represent the six performance indicators of 5G and green leaves represent the three efficiency indicators. The petal apex represents the maximum value of the corresponding indicators, such as peak rate of 20 Gbps, flow density of 100 Tbps per square kilometer, business experience rate of 0.1–1 Gbps, connectivity density of 1 million connections per square kilometer, space latency of 1 ms (ms), and the maximum supported movement speed of 500 km per hour (Table 2.1).

2.4 Development History of 5G Technology Standards In order to actively promote the standardization process of 5G, ITU made clear the global 5G work schedule in 2015, and then 3GPP also carried out relevant standardization work under its architecture. In the 5G Workshop held in Phoenix, the United States in September 2015, 3GPP discussed 5G scenarios, requirements and potential technology points, and formulated a work plan for 5G standardization. Subsequently, 3GPP started research work on 5G vision, requirements and technical solutions in R14 (Release 14) phase in February 2016, and released a 5G research report in December of the same year. In December 2017, at the 78th plenary meeting of 3GPP, the working group of RAN (Radio Access Network) released the NSA (Non-Stand-Alone) standard for 5G new air interface, and the working group on business and SA (Stand-Alone) released the new core network architecture and process standard for 5G. At the 80th plenary meeting of 3GPP held in June 2018, the RAN working group officially announced the freezing and release of the 5G independent networking standard, and the CT working group officially released the

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2 The Present 5G

Table 2.1 Key performance index values of 5G ITU Classification

Index

5G ITU demands

Notes on 5G ITU demands

For eMBB scenarios Downlink

Peak transmission rate (Gbit/s) User experience rate (Mbit/s)

Uplinks

Systems

20 100

High-band technology considered Only proposed for dense urban scenarios

Peak spectral efficiency (bit/s/Hz)

30

Assuming that the downstream uses 8 streams, 64QAM

Peak transmission rate (Gbit/s)

10

High-band technology considered

User experience rate (Mbit/s)

50

Peak spectral efficiency (bit/s/Hz)

15

User plane delay (ms)

4

Control plane delay (ms)

10

Traffic density (Mbit/s/m2 )

10

Mobility

Depending on scenarios

Interruption time of cell handover (ms)

0

Energy efficiency

0

System bandwidth (MHz)

Assuming that the uplink uses 4 streams, 64QAM

≥100

Only proposed for indoor hotspot scenarios Refer to Figs. 10 and 11

Supporting up to 400 MHz bandwidth for high frequency bands above 6 GHz

For uRLLC scenarios Systems

User plane delay (ms) Control plane delay (ms) Reliability Stop moving (ms)

1 10 1E-5 0

For mMTC scenarios System

Connectivity density (10,000/km2 )

100

Only proposed for dense urban scenarios

2.4 Development History of 5G Technology Standards

15

Fig. 2.3 Standardization progress chart of 3GPP

detailed design standards for the new core network of R15 (Release 15) under the 5G independent networking. These marks the completion of the first complete standard system of 5G, which can realize the independent deployment of 5G and provide new end-to-end 5G capabilities, and will fully meet the needs and expectations of the communication and vertical industries for 5G, and bring new business models to carriers and industrial partners (Fig. 2.3).

2.4.1 Version Features of 3GPP R15 In the R15 standard, 3GPP has mainly completed the standard formulation of eMBB scenarios and uRLLC scenarios in the three major service scenarios of 5G, which can meet the commercial needs in the initial stage of 5G deployment. The wireless base station side of the R15 standard version focuses on the technical direction of “new architecture, new frequency band, new antenna, new design”, strives to achieve 5G innovation breakthroughs, and build an end-to-end 5G smart network system centered on users and services. The new architecture supports both distributed and centralized deployment of the access network; the new frequency band requires 5G to support mid-to-high frequency bands, including millimeterwave frequency ends above 6 GHz; the new antenna allows support for large-scale antennas to greatly improve system efficiency. Through three-dimensional beam formation, large-scale antennas can form beams with more concentrated energy, more three-dimensional coverage and more accurate direction. For the new design, in order to meet the diverse needs of vertical industries and meet the diversity and complexity of deployment scenarios, 5G provides more optional frame structure designs in interface design. The frame structure can be flexibly configured according to diverse application scenarios such as 5G basic communication services, the IoT and IoV.

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2 The Present 5G

The core network side of the R15 standard version has undergone tremendous changes, which has become the most core symbol of 5G transformation. Its transformation philosophy mainly includes IT, Internet, extreme simplification, service, etc. Among them, the IT-based requires 5G to adopt a software-based core network, which can be arranged and scheduled based on a unified IT infrastructure; the Internet-based situation breaks the traditional 4G fixed network elements and rigidly connected rigid networks, making 5G networks a flexible network that can be dynamically adjusted based on a service-based architecture. The protocol system between network elements also adopts the HTTP2.0 protocol of the Internet; simplificationbased provides forwarding performance by introducing a minimal forwarding plane, and the centralized and flexible control plane improves efficiency; service-based refers to the flexible use of technologies such as network slicing and edge computing to meet diverse network needs and scenarios through a service-oriented architecture.

2.4.2 Version Features of 3GPP R16 One of the key goals of 5G development is to enable the transformation and upgrading of vertical industries. However, 5G networks based on the R15 international standard still have certain challenges to fully meet the business requirements of high speed, low latency, and high reliability. For example, the HD image and video backhaul of the networked UAV not only puts high demands on the user’s uplink rate, but also requires the network to achieve seamless coverage of high-altitude users, but the R15’s 5G network is still unable to meet these requirements. In addition, for some business scenarios in the industrial Internet that need to meet low latency, high reliability, and high speed at the same time, 5G networks based on R15 may also be difficult to meet. In order to continuously improve the technical competitiveness of 5G networks, bring better service experience to users, and expand wider vertical industry applications, 3GPP has established more than 70 standardization research projects in the R16 phase, focusing on the uRLLC and mMTC scenarios. Besides, the 5G standard enhancements in areas such as smarter networks, more extreme performance, richer spectrum, and wider applications are expected to be completed in December, 2019. (1) Smarter network Facing the needs of 5G network automation and intelligence, the focus is on 5G network automation. 5G Network automation introduces a new Network element “NWDAF (Network Data Analytics Function)” into the 5G system architecture. By collecting, analyzing and giving feedback on access network, core network, network management and other information, it provides new capability support for Network optimization, network slicing quality assurance, and flexible network organization. (2) Better performance In order to deeply explore the potential of 5G networks, 3GPP has established large-scale antenna enhancement technologies to further improve network spectrum efficiency and user experience rate, 5G cellular positioning technology,

2.4 Development History of 5G Technology Standards

17

terminal energy-saving technologies that optimize 5G user experience, and nonorthogonal multiple access to support large connections standards such as technology enhancement. (3) More abundant spectrum In order to expand the available spectrum range of 5G systems, 3GPP expands to unlicensed frequency bands on the one hand, and conducts research on methods such as independent deployment of 5G air interfaces below 7 GHz unlicensed spectrum as well as joint use of LTE/NR with existing licensed spectrum; on the other hand, it will expand to higher frequency band and carry out relevant research on deployment scenarios and available technologies of the 52.6–100 GHz frequency band. (4) Wider application In order to adapt 5G network to broader vertical industry application needs, 3GPP has established uRLLC enhancement and industrial Internet enhancement technology for smart grid/autonomous driving/industrial Internet applications, V2X technology of 5G IoV for intelligent transportation applications, and air-space- integrated communication as standard enhancement directions. Among them, uRLLC enhancement is mainly for new scenarios such as smart grid and factory automation. By adopting mechanisms such as dynamic resource reuse, intelligent-based repeated transmission, and network redundancy for different types of service transmission, which can meet the requirements of lower air interface delays (such as 0.5–1 ms) while improving end-to-end reliability to 99.9999%.

Chapter 3

From 5G to 5G+

As a revolutionary technology, 5G has a large sphere of influence, which is not limited to technology itself—5G will without doubt usher in the new era of IoT and intelligence-based and will fully help develop intelligent economy so that to promote the development of intelligent society and profoundly change our way of producing and living. To integrate 5G with all fields of economy and society, and to amplify, superpose and multiply the efficiency of 5G in all fields to the greatest extent, China Mobile will fully implement the “5G+” plan, making 5G the main artery of social information flow, the accelerator of industrial transformation and upgrading, and the new cornerstone of digital social construction. In this way, it will promote the comprehensive national strength, high-quality economic development as well as social transformation and upgrading. At present, the fourth industrial revolution features digitalization, networking and intellectualization is growing up, and “5G+” is the key to build the new competitive edge of the revolution. Whoever has mastered the development opportunity of “5G+” will probably have the initiative in future development.

3.1 5G Is not the Simple Addition of 4G+1G On the basis of 40-year development of modern communication, 5G is not the simple addition of 4G+1G, but an important symbol of the era of ubiquitous intelligence. Data from GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications Alliance) reveals that from 1G to 4G, mobile communication has realized the universal interconnection of 3.5 billion users in the world, established a closely connected and interconnected information network, infiltrated all fields of life in an all-round way, and become an indispensable part of people’s life. Each generation of communication technology is constantly evolving on the basis of the previous generation, but 5G is not a simple change on the basis of 4G, instead, it breaks the space limit of information transmission, and the application scenarios that © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Z. Li et al., 5G+, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6819-0_3

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3 From 5G to 5G+

can be realized are not limited by imagination. On the basis of 1G to 4G, 5G expands the three new features of ultra-wide bandwidth, ultra-wide connection and ultra-low delay, laying the foundation for the sustainable interconnection between people-people, people-things, and things-things. Strong connectivity of 5G will promote the full flow of data and information in a wider range, and promote the implementation of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data and edge computing in all fields of economic society. 5G network can carry such high-traffic mobile broadband services as virtual reality, augmented reality, 4 K/8 K ultra-high definition video, and better serve the large-scale Internet of Things based on mass machine-type communications, and provide better support for intelligent manufacturing, autonomous driving and other services requiring low latency and high reliability. Based on the 5G network, various industries can carry out more technological innovation, product innovation and business model innovation based on big data and artificial intelligence to promote highquality development in more vertical fields. For example, the automotive industry will realize all-round changes from manufacturing, production to driving, and travel due to 5G; intelligent manufacturing based on the Industrial Internet, unmanned factories, remote monitoring and operation and maintenance based on AR technology will also accelerate the quality change of manufacturing, efficiency change and dynamic change. With 5G as the platform technology, the application of intelligent technology integrating artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, etc. will also change people’s lifestyles. Various intelligent, personalized, and convenient service needs will be further met, and the quality of life will be further improved. It is believed that as a key infrastructure for comprehensively building a digital transformation of the economy and society, 5G will promote the transformation of traditional industries and innovation in the digital economy, and become a new engine for development in the next ten years or longer, to better support and serve the construction of digital China and promote the economy and social development. Therefore, the development of 5G will also be a social and systematic project. Looking into the future, promoting 5G to achieve cross-domain, comprehensive, and multi-level convergence in depth from multiple dimensions and all aspects of society will fully release the empowerment (“5G+”) effect and create greater value.

3.2 5G Will Undergo Chemical Reactions with Other Technologies and Industries Throughout the development history of mobile communication, the development and maturity of each generation of mobile communication is a relatively long-term process. According to GSMA statistics, 3G was officially launched worldwide in 2000, and it took about 8 years to achieve a 10% share of the global mobile communications market; 4G was launched globally in 2008, and took about 7 years to have a global market share of 15%. 5G is not built in one day. It must be started first

3.2 5G Will Undergo Chemical Reactions …

21

from urban hotspots and places with strong market demand, and then continuously develop and push forward. In terms of technology, 5G and 4G achieve synergies through common mode and sharing in terms of hardware, architecture, network, and spectrum. Spectrum sharing, in particular, is the “road” through which “vehicles” such as voice and data are transmitted. As is known to all, radio spectrum resource is a kind of scarce and non-renewable important resource, and it is also a precious strategic resource of the country. The mobile communication industry is one of the important industries relying on the spectrum resource. Spectrum sharing allows 5G+4G to play a greater role with limited resources. Each generation of mobile communications has long coexisted and developed with the previous generation and even the more previous generation. According to GSMA statistics, since 2G was officially put into commercial use in the early 1990 s, it still occupied nearly half of the global market share until 2015, and its user scale was almost equivalent to the total number of 3G and 4G users in the same year. The root cause of long-term coexistence of multiple generations of technology is that they can complement each other. The new generation is better positioned to offer higher rates and richer applications, while the previous generation has longer commercial life, wider coverage and higher maturity. Therefore, giving full play to the technological advantages of the new generation and making rational use of the existing investment of the previous generation can realize the network investment and value maximization on the basis of ensuring business capability and user perception. In the next few years, the scale of 4G users will continue to grow steadily. According to GSMA’s forecast, 4G is expected to become the main connection for global mobile communications by 2025, accounting for 53% of the global market share, and 5G will cover 40% of the global population by 2025, and the global proportion of connection scale will be 14%. It is expected that 5G will not replace 4G as the world’s main mobile connection until 2030 (Fig. 3.1).

2G

53 %

3G

29 % 14 %

4G 5G 2015

2016

2017

2018

4% 2019 2G

2020 3G

Fig. 3.1 2G/3G/4G/5G will coexist for a long time

2021

2022

4G

5G

2023

2024

2025

22

3 From 5G to 5G+

5G is a general purpose technology who has a number of features, the two most significant of which are the strong complementarity with other technologies and the wide range of applications. Therefore, 5G can be cross-integrated with other cutting-edge technologies, and can also be applied to various industries to achieve ecological innovation. In 1995, Professor Bresnahan and Trajtenberg first proposed the concept of general purpose technology. Although a unified and authoritative definition has not yet been formed in academia, it is generally believed that general purpose technology is a revolutionary technology that has a huge, farreaching and extensive impact on human economic society [1]. On the one hand, a new generation of revolutionary technologies appears in mobile communication every decade. As the main direction of the new generation of mobile communication technology, 5G can provide more ubiquitous, more powerful and more secure connections; on the other hand, 5G will also continue to improve social productivity. According to the forecast of McKinsey institute, it is expected to drive a cumulative global GDP growth of 12.6% in the first decade of 5G’s commercial use. The strong complementarity with other technologies means that while the general purpose technology itself is constantly evolving and innovating, it can also promote the innovation and popularization of other new technologies and continuously create new products and applications; the universality of application field means that the general purpose technology can realize a wide variety of applications from the single SPT (Special Purpose Technology) at the initial stage to a variety of application at the later stage [2]. The most representative of the general purpose technology is the steam engine and the electricity. On the one hand, the convergence of steam engine and locomotive, shipbuilding, textile and other technologies gave birth to mechanized products such as steam locomotive, steam ship and steam textile machine, while the convergence of electric power and machinery manufacturing, radio communication, chemistry, material science and other technologies created electrified products such as electric locomotive, telegraph and electric light; on the other hand, the steam engine can be applied to various fields of production and life such as mining, smelting, textile, and machine manufacturing, and electricity can also be applied to various fields of production and life such as electric lights, telephones, and transportation. Like the steam engine and electric power, 5G can also be widely used in various fields of production and life such as transportation, industry, energy, public service. It can also integrate and innovate with technologies such as automobiles, industrial manufacturing, and machinery to create a variety of innovative applications in areas such as autonomous driving, smart production, and smart cities, affecting all aspects of human society (Fig. 3.2).

3.3 The “5G+” Concept

23

Fig. 3.2 Two characteristics of general-purpose technology

3.3 The “5G+” Concept The meaning of “+” includes connectivity, aggregation and empowerment. “Connectivity” means that 5G connects everything, that is, to further break through the limitations of connecting time and space through 5G to achieve wider interconnection and always online of everything; “aggregation” means that 5G will aggregate everything, namely integrate other information technologies on the basis of 5G to realize aggregation innovation and build a brand new information infrastructure; “empowerment” means that 5G empowers everything, which means 5G promotes subversive changes in various types of life and production scenarios, and builds a new wireless life production method. Therefore, “5G+” is based on 5G, and by connecting everything, aggregating platforms, and empowering industries, it continuously meets people’s information consumption needs for a better life, creates new kinetic energy for economic development, expands new boundaries, helps industrial transformation and upgrading and high quality economic development, which is a new paradigm of quality change, efficiency change, and dynamic change that promotes economic and social development. On June 6, 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued 5G commercial licenses to China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Broadcasting Network, marking a critical period of enabling functions in the economic and social development process for 5G. As a super-large state-owned enterprise in the information and communication industry, it is the embodiment of China Mobile’s fulfillment of political, economic and social responsibilities to promote the full convergence of 5G with all areas of the economy and society, and releases the role of 5G in magnifying, superimposing, and doubling economic and social development to the greatest extent. China Mobile fully implements the 5G+ plan, giving full play to the enabling role of 5G, making 5G the main artery of social information flow, an accelerator for industrial transformation and upgrading, and a new cornerstone for the construction of a digital society, helping to enhance the comprehensive national strength, high-quality economic development, and social transformation and upgrading, and making new and

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3 From 5G to 5G+

greater contributions to achieve the “two hundred years” goal and the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. To boost China’s overall national strength, which means to improve China’s information infrastructure and competitiveness in cyberspace through 5G development, boost innovation breakthroughs in core technologies in the field of information and communication, and enhance its international voice and rule-making power in the field of mobile communications. To promote high-quality economic development, China Mobile needs to build a ubiquitous smart infrastructure with 5G at the core, so as to deepen the convergence of the new generation of information technology and the real economy, promote the vigorous development of new business forms and models such as “Internet+” and “smart+”, giving impetus to supply-side structural reform, promoting sustained and sound economic development, and injecting new driving forces into China’s economic growth. To help society transform and upgrade, it is to promote better and richer information and communication services through 5G to benefit the general public, reduce the cost of information consumption in the whole society, effectively bridge the digital divide between urban and rural areas, assist government decisions, improve the efficiency of government affairs, effectively support the equalization of basic public services and the precision of social governance, and strive to solve the problem of imbalanced and inadequate social development, so that millions of people could have a greater sense of gain, happiness, and security in the 5G development. “5G+” is not just a slogan, but a real implementation plan. According to the current development of the industry, its composition mainly includes “5G + 4G”, “5G + AICDE”, “5G + Ecosystem”, and “5G + X “. By promoting 5G+4G collaborative development, 5G+AICDE convergence and innovation, and 5G+ ecological co-construction, the application extension of 5G+X will be realized, making 5G truly the main artery of social information flow, the accelerator of industrial transformation and upgrading, and the new cornerstone of digital society construction. The core connotation of 5G+4G is that “network is the foundation”. By promoting the sharing of 5G and 4G technologies, resource sharing, coverage collaboration and business collaboration, we will build a nationwide, technologically advanced and exquisite 5G high-quality network, continuously enhance the end-to-end capability of 5G network, and provide high-speed, ubiquitous, safe and reliable high-quality network services. The core connotation of 5G + AICDE is that “convergence is the key”. As an access method, only when being deeply integrated and systematically innovated with emerging information technologies such as AI (Artificial Intelligence), IoT (Internet of Things), cloud computing, big data, and edge computing, can 5G give full play to the important role of critical infrastructure, nurture emerging information products and services, and become the core engine for the development of various industries. On the one hand, AICDE makes 5G network more powerful and speeds up the building of a new intelligent information infrastructure integrating connection, perception, transmission, storage, computing and processing, on the other hand, more powerful 5G networks can also accelerate the development and popularization of the application of AICDE technology. By

3.3 The “5G+” Concept

25

promoting the convergence and innovation of 5G + AICDE, we will build a 5Gcentered ubiquitous intelligent infrastructure, build more new capabilities, launch more new applications, expand more new scenarios, and create more new business formats. The core connotation of 5G + Ecosystem is that “cooperation is the trend”. The development of 5G is not a one-man show for telecom operators, but a “chorus” of multiple participants. 5G development requires joint information and communication companies, traditional industry companies, industry organization associations, social innovation forces, universities and research institutes, etc. to build open ecological innovation capabilities. By combining 5G with a variety of vertical industry applications such as drones, robots, AR/VR, and video, the 5G ecosystem will be built to promote 5G to create a wider range of applications in various fields and realize greater value of 5G. The core connotation of 5G + X is that “application is fundamental”. By realizing “5G + X” through the first three “5G+”, it will accelerate the application of 5G in a wider range and more fields, and achieve greater comprehensive benefits. By focusing on the key scenarios that are most closely integrated with 5G, the demonstration effect and the strongest scale effect, in-depth cooperation with various industries, it gives play to the empowering effects of 5G in key links of key areas, and jointly innovate formats and new models to accelerate the digitalization process of various industries, helping reform the quality, drive, and efficiency of all industries, and finally to create development opportunities, and promote industrial prosperity.

3.4 “5G+” Is an Important Cornerstone of the Fourth Industrial Revolution 3.4.1 The Fourth Industrial Revolution Is Breeding and Rising From the mechanization of the first industrial revolution in the 18th century (1760– 1850), the electrification of the second industrial revolution in the 19th century (18501950), and informationization on the third industrial revolution in the 20th century (early 1950–21), human society has undergone three industrial revolutions [3], new technologies, new products, and new industries have continuously emerged, and people’s production lifestyles and consumption patterns have changed dramatically. 250 years ago, the number of products produced and consumed by humans was only 100 to 1,000, today it is 1 billion to 10 billion [4]. The economic growth and structural changes of the whole society over the past 250 years are the result of the combined effects of the three industrial revolutions. Steam power technology and railway construction triggered the first industrial revolution, leading humans into the era of machine production. In 1785, the improved steam engine made by watt freed itself from the restriction of machines on the water supply and quickly became popular in light industries such as media,

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Fig. 3.3 Output growth of major industrial products during the first industrial revolution

printing and textiles. The wide application of machines has also driven the development of machine manufacturing, driven the demand for raw materials such as steel and coal, and promoted the development of chemistry, metallurgy and mining. After that, the demand for convenient and fast transportation of raw materials and goods in production eventually promoted the technological innovation of the transportation industry. In 1807, the steam-powered steamboat was successfully commissioned, the steam locomotive was launched in 1814, and the 34-car train in 1825 was successfully commissioned; in 1840, Britain established five major industrial sectors: textile, metallurgy, coal, machine manufacturing and transportation, and the industrial revolution was basically completed. From 1771, when the first factory was built in Britain, to 1840 when the number of factories and workers was the largest in the world, the average daily productivity of each worker increased by 20 times during the 70 years, and the output of cotton cloth, pig iron and coal increased by 10–15 times [5] on average (Fig. 3.3). The invention and application of electricity and internal combustion engines triggered the second industrial revolution and pushed human society into the electrical age. Based on the invention and application of electricity, the second industrial revolution has achieved four outstanding achievements. First, the discovery of AC power and the establishment of power stations have promoted the development of the power industry and the electrical appliance manufacturing industry to a new stage, making electric power become a large-scale new energy source to replace steam power. Second, the advent of internal combustion engines and industrial assembly lines in 1870 triggered revolutionary changes in the transportation field, and at the same time promoted the development of the petroleum extraction industry. In 1900, the world’s oil output was 20 million tons, a 25-fold increase from 1870. Third, the invention of the telephone by American Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 and the success of the wireless telegraph experiment further strengthened global connections through new means of communication based on widely used electric power

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infrastructure. The fourth is that Nobel invented explosives in 1867, and the chemical industry had begun to take shape, which greatly promoted the development of military science and technology. Computers, Internet technologies and space communications technologies have jointly triggered the third industrial revolution and pushed humanity into the “information age.” In the middle of the 20th century, three epoch-making products appeared in the field of information and communication: personal computer, Internet and mobile phone. These three technologies merge and promote each other, and jointly set off an unprecedented Internet revolution. In 1973, the concept of the Internet was first proposed, the regional Internet with servers and large enterprises as nodes became the embryonic form of Internet development, and the era of Internet business began to brew; since the 1980 s, computers and Internet, originally used only for government and military agencies to conduct space exploration, have gradually penetrated into businesses and families, and technology enterprises represented by Google and Amazon have emerged. Around 1995, PC became the necessary product of work and entertainment for high-income families, and the Internet which is the unit node of small and medium-sized enterprises and families, officially entered into thousands of households. The full popularity of smartphones after 2000 has greatly promoted the development of the Internet, making it increasingly mobile, universal, and globalized. Taking China’s Internet market as an example, the penetration rates of device such as laptops, mobile phones, tablet computers and TVs are complementary to each other (Fig. 3.4). Throughout the history of the human industrial revolution, the combination of new communication technologies and new energy systems usually creates a “ubiquitous and cheap” key factor input, thereby leading to the innovation of major production paradigms and transformation of socioeconomic. This is because the emergence of new energy technologies has promoted the development of • The 3G standard was established in 2003 • The smartphones represented by Apple broke out in 2005

The age of the Universal 2020-future

• Tablet PC became popular in 2010 • AT & T developed a catalog and database service in 1993 • The World Wide Web became the technology of the year in 1995

The age of the mobile internet 2000-2020

• Search engine and web portals broke out in 1998 • The Internet became a household name in 2000 The age of the PC internet • The ARPANET project proposed in 1966

1980-2000

• The Internet concept proposed in 1973 • The ARPANET project disconnued in 1966 ARPANET Internet prototype 1960-1980

The Fourth Industrial Revoluon

Fig. 3.4 Development stages of the third industrial revolution

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human civilization in a more complex direction, and more complex civilizations need to be processed and integrated with advanced new communication technologies as the medium [6]. The introduction of the printing technology of steam news media become the main tool of information transmission. The wireless telegraph, telephone and other telecommunications technology and the convergence of power infrastructure greatly promoted the progress of social civilization, the combination of the Internet and mobile Internet with renewable energy gave birth to the infrastructure of the third industrial revolution. Today, the third industrial revolution is in the ascendant, the fourth industrial revolution has accelerated towards us, and human society is once again in an era of convergence of information and communication technology and energy systems. Data will be the oil and electricity of the 21st century. Unlike oil, data will never run out and data can be shared. According to Morgan Stanley, a new big data-driven technology cycle could double enterprise technology investment over the next 10 years, generating $1.6 trillion in investment, more than double the average of $740 billion generated during the previous three burst cycles. Data will be the best energy, and connection will be the most critical element. The big data system, together with the new generation of mobile communication, the next generation of Internet, the IoT and other new communication technologies, will become the leading force of the fourth industrial revolution. With the collective emergence of modern technologies such as mobile Internet, big data, AI, cloud computing, and the IoT, the fourth industrial revolution will be a large-scale industrial interconnection process featuring digitalization, networking, and intelligence, and it will have three major development trends: First, making the development of the digital economy enter the fast track. Digital economy is an economic model with network as the carrier, digital knowledge and information as the production factors, intelligent manufacturing as the driving force, big data online as the platform for connecting things, and sharing economy as the direction. From a global perspective, the size of the global digital economy in 2017 was US $12.9 trillion [7], and by 2025 this number will reach US $23 trillion [8], nearly double the number in 2017. China’s digital economy has developed rapidly with an average growth rate of 20%, during the decade from 2008 to 2018, the proportion of the digital economy in GDP doubled from 15.2% to 34.8% [9]. In terms of industrial digitalization, in particular, the scale of the economy driven by the convergence of the digital economy has increased nearly 10 times, and the digital economy is expanding exponentially faster than humans predict. Second, the interconnectivity of everything is moving towards the smart Internet of everything. Data is the basic element of the operation and development of digital economy, and also the most important energy source in this era. The generation, transmission, storage and processing of data cannot be separated from the Internet of things. With the ubiquity of the network and the cost of information storage approaching zero (20 years ago, the annual fee for storing 1 GB of data was as high as more than 10,000 US dollars, and today it is less than 0.03 US dollars on average [10]), human society, physical world, and information world have achieved ternary convergence. In 2018, global connected devices reached 17.8 billion, of which 7 billion was connected to the IoT, an increase of 1.1 billion over 2017 [11]. Facing the future, with the acceleration of the pace of

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Fig. 3.5 The scale of investment driven by the technological cycles of previous industrial revolutions

intelligence, human society will accelerate from the stage of “connection explosion” to the new era of “terminal intelligence, network intelligence, platform intelligence, application intelligence and service intelligence”. Third, new technology speeds up the development of all things. Moore’s Law has promoted the leap in the entire Internet and information and communication industry. In the past ten years, the eight technologies of “ABCDEHI5G” (that is, artificial intelligence, block chain, cloud computing, big data, edge computing, smart home, IoT, and 5G) have achieved mass breakthroughs almost simultaneously. The organic convergence of these technologies is essential to accelerate the IoT towards the era of the Internet of everything, and it contains great energy to amplify, superimpose and multiply economic and social development (Fig. 3.5). Each change of the times will redefine the situation of world’s competition. The fourth industrial revolution focusing on the connection of all things and information technology will be a global data revolution, and it is radiating the breadth of the entire industry at an exponential rate. It has profoundly affected human society from multiple angles, including industrial production models, business models, social operating systems, human lifestyles, and the world economic structure. It will seize and use the opportunities of this round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, and firmly grasp the new wave of information and digitalization.

3.4.2 “5G+” Is the Cornerstone of the Fourth Industrial Revolution “5G+” development is continuously accelerating. 2019 was the first year of commercialization of 5G. Some leading carriers in South Korea, the United States, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and China have officially announced the provision of 5G

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3 From 5G to 5G+

commercial services. It is widely believed that 5G will open a wider range of largescale commercial services in the world in 2020. According to GSMA’s forecast, 170 carriers worldwide will provide 5G commercial services in 54 countries/regions in 2020, and there will be 70 million 5G users worldwide. By 2025, there will be 409 carriers in 117 countries/regions providing 5G services, and the number of global 5G users will be close to 1.4 billion, which also means that at least one communications carrier in half of the world’s countries/regions will provide 5G commercial services to local people. According to industry forecasts, it is expected that there will be 6.5 million 5G base stations worldwide in 2025, and 5G networks will cover 58% of the world’s population. By contrast, GSMA statistics show that 3G networks have achieved 50% of the global population coverage in 10 years, 4G took about 6 years, and 5G development is significantly faster than 3G and 4G. 5G is expected to cover more than 90% of the world’s population in 2035, and more than half of the world’s connections will be provided by 5G networks (Fig. 3.6). “5G+” is a prerequisite for intelligent connectivity. 1G to 4G solves the interconnection between people. If the 3G era has established a global connection platform of “person to person”, the 4G era has expanded the platform to the data flow of “person to information”, then 5G is to build a ubiquitous platform of “information to information”, breaking the connection limitation between “people to people”, “people to things”, and “things to things” in space and time, to break the “data island” and build a world of interconnected things. Information from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that in the future, about 20% of 5G facilities will be used for communication between people, and 80% of 5G facilities will be used for thing-to-thing and thing-to-people. The reason why 5G can realize the interconnection of everything is that, on the one hand, 5G itself has the feature of

Fig. 3.6 By 2025, more than half of the world’s countries will have 5G networks

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wide connection, which can support a million connections within a square kilometer. Based on the urban area of about 16,000 square kilometers in Beijing, when 5G can complete the city’s deep coverage, it will be able to support more than 10 billion connections in actual operation. On the other hand, 5G can be coordinated with 4G, satellite communications and other networks. In areas where 5G coverage is inaccessible or insufficient, the coverage advantages of other networks can be exerted. Currently, 4G network coverage in leading countries and regions has exceeded 90%. For example, according to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China has achieved 95% 4G network coverage in 2018 and the number will further increase to 98% by 2020. In areas where forests, islands, oceans, and other ground networks are difficult to cover, satellite Internet can provide effective connections. 5G and multi-networks can work together to build a connected network of space and earth, global coverage, and global services. The intelligent connectivity is the capacity to further realize computing on the basis of connection, and computing will generate a large amount of data while collecting a large amount of data. “5G+” is the best carrier for carrying massive data. Intel predicts that by 2020, an average of 1.5 GB of traffic will be generated per connected user per day, and autonomous vehicles will generate 4 TB of data per day, and the amount of video data generated by a cloud video provider will reach 750 PB per day. The number of connected smart devices will exceed 50 billion, and because of population, China’s total data will reach 800 EB. Such a huge data torrent can only be carried by a 5G network with a peak download rate of 20 Gbps. At the same time, part of high-frequency data is related to the security of people’s production and life, so there is a high demand for network delay, and only 5G network can meet such demand. For example, Jiangsu Mobile’s 5G remote driving test data shows that, when a remotely driven vehicle advances at a speed of 36 km per hour, and it is calculated based on the 0.1 s delay of the 4G network, from the signal to the vehicle making a brake, the vehicle must have driven another one meter forward, it may have hit by this one meter. The 5G network has a delay of about 0.005 s. In the same situation, the cloud end sends a command to the vehicle to brake, and it only advances 0.05 meters, which is no different from a person controlling the brake. “5G+” is a catalyst for technological innovation. There are two ways of technological innovation. One is to seek breakthroughs on the basis of existing technologies, and new technologies can replace existing technologies; the other is to merge with other existing technologies and use fusion methods to achieve breakthroughs. On the one hand, the technology itself has developed to a certain degree, and it is difficult to make new breakthroughs. On the other hand, relying on a single technology or from a single perspective is also difficult to solve increasingly complex practical problems. Therefore, it has become a major trend to seek technological breakthroughs by means of fusion. The most typical example is the fusion innovation of mechanical technology and electronic technology in the 1970 s. When the speed of the gear and the integrated electronic components of the integrated circuit are close to the limit, the organic combination of the two technologies gave birth to the mechatronics technology, and brought new products such as CNC machine tools and automated machine tools, and the mechanical processing has also been taken to a new

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height. Entering the era of digital economy, the trend of technological convergence and innovation is becoming more and more obvious. On the one hand, the combination of digital technology and industrial, agricultural, manufacturing and other industry technologies has led to the rapid growth of smart factories and smart agriculture; on the other hand, technologies complement and amplify each other in a combined way, such as using digital technologies to accelerate the development and commercial use of new materials through data modeling, digital twinning, 3D printing, etc. Meanwhile, the performance of new materials may be better than that of silicon semiconductors to further improve the calculation and storage of data. “5G+” can play a leading and catalytic role in driving technological breakthroughs in various fields through cross-fusion. As a new generation of general-purpose technology, 5G naturally has strong complementarity with other technologies. Through the convergence and innovation of 5G and AICDE, not only can 5G networks become more intelligent, but also can it effectively promote the application and development of AICDE technology and by addition, more new products and applications of higher quality can be incubated around various scenes of life and production. Taking 5G + AI as an example, 5G can promote the development of AI applications, and AI can also promote the intelligent upgrade of 5G. Compared with 4G networks, 5G has a very large increase in user throughput, end-to-end latency, and connectivity density. Thanks to this enhancement, 5G network can carry many intelligent businesses that 4G networks cannot carry at present, such as intelligent transportation, smart home, smart grid, smart agriculture, industrial automation and other AI-driven intelligent businesses can be better developed. AI has been around for more than 60 years, and our communications networks are not quite new. However, 5G is the most complex network faced by carriers, and the maintenance of many 5G networks cannot be met by traditional artificial methods. Therefore, AI means are urgently needed to support the intelligent operation and maintenance of 5G networks. Finally, it is a “dual-core” driver built by 5G + AI, which can not only break the limitation of data collection, but also improve the ability to mine data and refine it into useful information or knowledge, promote the intelligent development and utilization of data, play a greater role in commanding transportation, industrial Internet, smart cities, etc., so as to achieve precise service, product diversification and personalized model, promote more data-driven innovation to penetrate into all aspects of the economy and society, and spawn more new technologies, new formats and new models. “5G+” is a new driving force for economic development. The widespread application of 5G will greatly improve the production efficiency of enterprises and reduce some existing job positions. On the other hand, it will create a lot of employment opportunities related to equipment manufacturing, telecommunications operations and Internet services. IHS estimates that by 2035, the 5G value chain itself will directly create 22 million jobs globally, of which 43 percent will be created in China, given its population base and investment scale. According to the forecast of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (hereinafter referred to as the CAICT), the official commercialization of 5G in 2020 would directly create 540,000 jobs in China, and this number will reach 8 million in 2030. Affected by industrial linkages and ripple effects, 5G will create 11.5 million indirect jobs in

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2030, 1.4 times the number of direct jobs. In addition, 5G equipment manufacturing and information services will be the main drivers of job growth. According to HIS’ forecast, manufacturing will account for 28% of the total 5G output, making it the vertical industry with the largest amplitude of response to 5G. By 2035, manufacturing is expected to account for the largest share of all economic activities created by 5G, about 34,000 100 million US dollars, accounting for 28% of the total 5G output. The information and communications industry ranks second with an output of more than $1.4 trillion. From the perspective of application scenarios, cloud VR/AR, IoV, wireless home entertainment, connected drones, wireless medical services, and intelligent manufacturing will become the six application scenarios with the largest market potential and high relevance to 5G technology. “5G+” will make a huge contribution to global economic growth. In the next two decades, 5G will be fully popularized in the global economy, which will have a profound and lasting impact on global economic growth. IHS predicts that during 2020–2035, 5G will contribute 0.2% of GDP growth, creating an annual value increase of 3 trillion US dollars, equivalent to an Indian economy. The CAICT predicts that the economic added value directly created by 5G in 2030 will be about 3 trillion yuan, and its contribution to the GDP growth of that year will reach 5.8%, mainly from the telecommunications operator’s communication service income and Internet enterprise information service income As well as the revenue of equipment manufacturers’ networks and end devices. According to the prediction of CAICT, during the period from 2020 to 2030, the key driving force of 5G’s GDP growth will change successively, and the primary driving force is telecom operators’ 5G network investment and terminal purchase expenditure of various users. In the medium term, the GDP pulling effect of 5G-related services will surpass the 5G-related manufacturing links; by 2030, the GDP generated by information services provided by providers will account for more than half of the total contribution of 5G to GDP in that year.

Part II

New Technologies, New Architectures, New Ecosystem

Chapter 4

System Architecture and Technological Basics of 5G

Compared with the upgrading and evolution of previous generations of mobile communication systems, 5G brings leap-forward and subversive changes in system architecture and key technologies, and thus produces new service types, business models and derivative benefits. In the design of 5G system architecture, the requirements, scenarios and indicators of 5G are fully considered, and the ideas and technologies in the field of IT and Internet are adopted and combined, so that the 5G system not only greatly improves the communication ability, but also has the flexibility of IT system. In order to fully understand what architecture features and iconic innovations of 5G, and understand their original design intention, technical principle and implementation, this chapter will start from the overall architecture of 5G, and then elaborate on wireless network, core network and transmission network.

4.1 Overall Architecture In order to fully meet the 5G scenarios and requirements defined by ITU, 5G strives to build new capabilities of low latency, high reliability, high speed and large connection through end-to-end systematic technological innovation. These new capabilities will meet the differentiated business needs of individual users, enterprise users and vertical industry customers (Fig. 4.1). The new architecture of CU-DU separation is introduced into the access network to realize the centralized control and cooperation of radio resources, thus making the networking mode more flexible. In order to reduce the air interface delay and improve the user experience, the 5G air interface adopts a new flexible frame structure design to speed up-and-down conversion and reduce the waiting time. At the same time, the subcarrier bandwidth increases, and the time of the minimum scheduling resources would reduce. In addition, by using new beam management, new reference signal, new coding, more antennas and larger bandwidth, the ability of 5G cellular network can be improved in an all-round way. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Z. Li et al., 5G+, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6819-0_4

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4 System Architecture and Technological Basics of 5G

5G Service

Internet User Data Access Management

Core Network

Policy Control

Capability Exposure

Orchestraon

Session Management

Authencaon

Mobility Management

Registraon

Cloud-based Core Network Transport Network

Small Base Staon Macro Base Staon Medium/Low frequency

Micro Base Staon Medium High frequency

BBU

Radio Network

BBU BBU

BBU

BBU

Terminal

Fig. 4.1 System diagram

5G transport network realizes intelligent scheduling from a global perspective by introducing SDN (Software-Defined Networking), to achieve the purpose of intelligent operation and maintenance. The sliced packet network SPN (Slicing Packet Network) is introduced to realize the end-to-end network slicing. 5G transport network adopts many new technologies to further reduce network delay and improve the switching capacity (the core layer increases from 640G to 12.8T). 5G core network starts from four system design concepts: IT-based, Internetbased, simplicity-based and service-based, thus promoting the transformation of the architecture. The design of IT can make use of low cost and unified infrastructure to realize flexible resource management and function deployment. From fixed network element, fixed connection to dynamic configuration and flexible connection, the design of Internet makes rigid network more flexible. The simplicity-based design greatly improves the efficiency of transfer plane and the capacity of control plane. The new architecture of service can be configured on demand for different vertical industry scenarios to realize network slicing and edge computing.

4.2 Key Technologies of Radio Network

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4.2 Key Technologies of Radio Network Facing the diversified business requirements, 5G wireless network has carried on the new design. It has four key technical characteristics: new architecture, new design, new frequency range, and new antenna.

4.2.1 New Architecture (CU-DU Architecture) The architecture of wireless system has undergone a series of changes in 3G/4G/5G. In 3G, the core network controls the base station through RNC (Radio Network Controller) node, while in 4G, in order to reduce the latency, the RNC node is removed and the base station is directly connected to the core network. Because of the new networking requirements in the 5G era, including multi-base station cooperation, open network capability and ultra-low delay transmission, the network architecture of CU-DU is introduced into 5G, as shown in Fig. 4.2. Among them, the centralized unit (CU, Central Unit) is responsible for completing the high-level protocol stack function (RRC and PDCP layer) with low real-time performance, while the distributed unit (DU, Distributed Unit) completes the low-level protocol stack function (RLC/MAC/PHY layer) with high real-time performance, as shown in Fig. 4.3.

Fig. 4.2 Evolution of wireless network architecture

Fig. 4.3 CU-DU functional segmentation

RRC PDCP RLC MAC PHY RF

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4 System Architecture and Technological Basics of 5G

opcal fiber/ PTN

BBU BBU

DU

CU+DU CU small base staon integrated with DU

Fig. 4.4 Actual deployment pattern of CU/DC (combination and separation)

From the point of view of multi-base station cooperation, using the architecture of CU-DU can better fit the structure of multi-base station information cooperation. More generally, for any deployment scenario of heterogeneous network (macrostation + micro-station), the architecture of CU-DU can play a role in multi-base station, thus improving empty port performance. In the actual deployment, CU-DU can be deployed in a more flexible way, either by CU/DU combination or by CU/DU separation, as shown in Fig. 4.4. When CU/DU is combined, a special hardware architecture can be adopted. Its actual function is similar to the traditional BBU (Base band Unit), which is composed of the main control board and the base band board. When CU/DU is combined, CU and DU can only use the same manufacturer’s equipment. When CU/DU is deployed in a separate manner, CU and DU may use devices from different vendors, at which point CU must adopt the standard interface. When CU/DU is separated, it is generally recommended that CU use a common server architecture.

4.2.2 New Design (Flexible Frame Structure) Another new change in 5G wireless network is the introduction of flexible frame structure. The use of unified empty port design meets the needs of different frequency bands (middle and low frequency, millimeter wave), different scenarios (eMBB and uRLLC), and different duplex modes (TDD and FDD). In other words, compared with the relatively fixed frame structure of 4G, the frame structure of 5G can adopt a variety of parameters (upstream and downstream ratio, subcarrier bandwidth, system bandwidth, etc.), which means it can flexibly adapt to different requirements. In terms of system bandwidth, the maximum bandwidth of 4G single carrier is 20 MHz. Larger system bandwidth is introduced in 5G: in low and medium frequency band systems which is below 6 GHz, the maximum system bandwidth is 100 MHz; in millimeter wave bandwidth, the maximum system bandwidth is 400 MHz. The increase of system bandwidth can effectively deal with the common scenario of 5G’s wide bandwidth (e.g. 3.5G carrier frequency has 200 MHz bandwidth and millimeter

4.2 Key Technologies of Radio Network

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wave bandwidth often has GHz bandwidth), in order to avoid unnecessary excessive carrier aggregation. In terms of subcarrier bandwidth, 4G uses fixed 15 kHz subcarrier bandwidth. In the 5G system, various subcarrier bandwidth is optional: in the middle and low frequency band systems which are below 6 GHz, the subcarrier bandwidth of 15/30/60 kHz can be selected to transmit data, and in the millimeter wave system, the subcarrier bandwidth of 60/120 kHz can be selected for data transmission. In the aspect of frame structure, 4G adopts static frame structure. In 5G, the frame structure adopts a configurable static/semi-static frame structure. Furthermore, some subframes can be configured as flexible subframes in the 5G system. When the actual data arrives, the semi-static/dynamic configuration is configured and specific upstream or downstream subframes, thus effectively improving the spectrum efficiency and reduce the delay. In the aspect of subframe length, in 5G system, due to the motivation of ultralow latency transmission in the middle and low frequency and the effective use of time domain fragmentation resources in millimeter wave band, compared with LTE subframe length which is designed 1 ms, 5G introduces shorter subframe design, and the shortest length can be reduced to 1/7 of LTE’s. Short frame is not only a necessary technical means to meet the needs of one millisecond user delay in the International Telecom Union, but also one of the indispensable technical means in the subsequent vehicle networking and industrial Internet applications.

4.2.3 New Frequency Band (Multi-band Cooperation) Multi-band cooperation mainly includes three aspects: (1) high, middle and low frequency band joint networking, (2) the interaction between 5G and 4G bands, that is, independent and non-independent networking mode, (3) the use of multi-band joint transmission to ensure upstream coverage. (1) For high, middle and low frequency band joint networking, 5G’s ecosystem covers the carrier frequency range from hundreds of MHz to dozens of GHz. These carrier frequencies have their own different characteristics and are suitable for different scenarios. Generally speaking, the 5G band can be roughly divided into three different ranges: • Low frequency band (generally below 2.5 GHz, such as 700/900/1800 MHz frequency band): the network deployment of this frequency band is similar to 4G’s FDD deployment; the bandwidth is small (20 MHz), the number of antennas is small (2 to 4 channels), and its main function is to provide continuous coverage, ensure deep coverage, provide mobility management and control plane switching, and so on. • Medium frequency band (generally 2.5 GHz to 7 GHz, such as 2.6/3.5/4.9 GHz frequency band): the network deployment of this frequency band is similar to 4G’s TDD deployment: large bandwidth (such as 100 ~ 200 MHz), large number

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4 System Architecture and Technological Basics of 5G

of antennas (8 to 64 channels), and its main function is to provide basic coverage and ensure the average performance of the whole network; • High frequency band (it generally refers to the frequency band above 7 GHz, such as 24/37 GHz frequency band): the network of this frequency band is deployed in a brand-new deployment form. The bandwidth is very large (usually uses GHz bandwidth), the number of antennas (for example, 1024 antenna array reduce the number of channels through analog phase shifters), and it is mainly deployed in hotpot/indoor areas to ensure the maximum experience performance of single point area. The networking of 5G needs to consider the different characteristics of the above three frequency band. Improve the user experience and ensure the efficiency of deployment as much as possible, through the form of hybrid networking. (2) Between 5G’s and 4G’s frequency band, different from the previous 4G’s single networking, two different networking modes are introduced in 5G, that is, independent and non-independent networking mode, and the cooperative work of different frequency bands is also involved in the two networking modes. In the independent networking mode, the user lives on the 5G. Only when entering the area without 5G coverage, it will fall back to 4G. The interaction between 5G and 4G is mainly through the core network, which belongs to the networking mode of 4/5G loose coupling. In the non-independent networking mode, the user lives on 4G, that is, receiving signaling from 4G control plane in the idle state. When the user data arrives, the available 5G is configured for the user through 4G and the corresponding data transmission is carried out, which belongs to the tight coupling networking mode of 4/5G (Fig. 4.5). Independent and non-independent networking methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. Independent networking can better support network slicing, and can use some 5G unique control plane design, but independent networking requires a brand new 5G core network, whose deployment depends on the industrial maturity of

eNB

gNB

Fig. 4.5 NSA and SA network diagram

eNB

gNB

4.2 Key Technologies of Radio Network

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5G core network. The industrial maturity of non-independent networking standards, wireless and terminals is comparatively good, and the deployment is fast, but it is difficult to support the advanced characteristics such as network slicing, and the control plane delay and other indicators also need to be further optimized by products and standards. (3) In the aspect of multi-frequency band joint transmission, in the large bandwidth system, because of the limited transmission power of the terminal, the upstream edge rate of 5G system is similar to that of 4G system, which may become the bottleneck and deficiency of the whole system performance. The main method to solve the upstream edge rate in 5G is to use lower frequency carrier to carry out upstream transmission. In the case of non-independent networking, 4G carrier can naturally be used to enhance the upstream performance of 5G’s higher frequency band, and 4G and 5G upstream carrier can be jointly transmitted by upstream shunt technology. In the case of independent networking, the situation is more complex. One method is to enhance the terminal, such as adding high power and dual transmission characteristics; the other is similar to the mode of non-independent networking: intercepting a segment from 4G carrier for 5G upstream transmission, which is called upstream supplementary carrier.

4.2.4 New Antenna (Large-Scale Antenna) Large-scale antenna is an important feature of 5G system. Compared with the design of 4G system’s 2–8 antenna, 16–64 channel devices in 5G become the mainstream in the middle frequency band, as shown in Fig. 4.6. In millimeter wave frequency band, more antennas are the mainstream design. Millimeter wave frequency band also needs to use analog devices such as phase snifters to reduce the number of channels to achieve the purpose of control costs. In the system design of 5G, there are three main optimizations for large-scale antennas.

Fig. 4.6 Antenna shape (16 × 64 channels)

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4 System Architecture and Technological Basics of 5G 4G System

5G System

data channel

data channel inial access channel

inial access channel

Fig. 4.7 Initial access channel shaping

The first is the initial access channel shaping. The 5G system introduces the function of multi-beam initial access, so that the initial access and data transmission can achieve a relatively balanced coverage, as shown in Fig. 4.7. However, the introduction of multi-beam access also increases the complexity of the system to a certain extent, including which beams to be measured in switching and the measurement, and so on. These are also defined in detail in the standard. The second optimization is the hybrid operation mode of MIMO. In 4G system, there are two operation modes of MIMO. The first is based on channel reciprocity shaping, that is, the channel information is obtained and shaped by measuring upstream reference signal. And the second is based on code book shaping, that is, channel information is obtained and shaped by terminal feedback. Each of the two methods has its own advantages and disadvantages. In the 5G system, the main MIMO operation mode is the mixture of the two methods, that is, first the high dimensional channel (such as 64/16 channel) is reduced to the low dimensional channel (such as 2 channel) through the channel reciprocity, and then the feedback is carried out through the code book, as shown in Fig. 4.8. The third optimization is a new design of the reference signal. The most important reference signal in 4G system is the public reference signal CRS (Cell Reference Signal), which undertakes most of the system functions of reference signal, including precision synchronization, demodulation, feedback and measurement. CRS is the core design of 4G system. However, with the increase of the number of antennas and the introduction of heterogeneous network topology, the defects of CRS gradually Fig. 4.8 Enhanced MIMO operation mode of 5G

MIMO operaon mode of 4G shaping based on channel reciprocity

or

shaping based on code book

MIMO operaon mode of 5G channel dimension reducon based on channel reciprocity shaping based on code book

4.2 Key Technologies of Radio Network

45

appear, including the expenses under multiple antennas, adjacent cell interference, forward compatibility difficulties and so on. In view of this, at the beginning of the design of the 5G system, CRS is intentionally removed, and its functions are assigned to a number of other reference signals, including tracking reference signals, demodulation reference signals, and channel information feedback reference signals. Through the flexible combination and configuration of reference signals with multiple independent functions, the optimal balance between expenses and performance can be achieved.

4.3 Key Technologies of Core Network The main symbol of the change of 5G network architecture is the change of core network architecture. Compared with 4G, 5G core network has achieved revolutionary changes in architecture, platform, function, protocol and other fields, supporting 5G to realize network personalization, service, large capacity, high performance and low cost. It is embodied in four aspects: (1) IT-based: oriented by the development direction of cloud computing infrastructure, the representative IT technology, such as functional software, computing and data separation, are introduced. It is transformed from proprietary network devices to cloud “Network Function”. (2) Internet-based: it is transformed from a “rigid network” with fixed connections between elements of a network to a “flexible network” that can be adjusted dynamically. The service-based architecture and the new core network protocol architecture based on HTTP/2.0 Internet protocol are introduced. (3) Minimal-based: “Great truths are always simple”. In order to find the “great truth” of data forwarding and user access, 5G needs the minimal architecture and functional design, so as to improve the performance of data forwarding and the flexibility of network control as much as possible. (4) Service-based: the design of 5G network is for vertical industries, and the core of its technology is to realize “Network as a Service”. Through network slicing, edge computing, low latency large connection and so on, the transformation of network from universal service to personalized and customized service is realized.

4.3.1 Service-Based Architecture (SBA) In order to realize the development of 5G service in the next ten years, the design of 5G network architecture takes into account the future-oriented technology, so the Service-based Architecture (SBA) emerges as the time requires. The service-based architecture decouples the complex “single network element” into the modular “service”, so as to realize independent upgrade and gray release, and

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4 System Architecture and Technological Basics of 5G

Fig. 4.9 Network architecture

greatly improve the network agility. This means that each single network function consists of several services. The customization and introduction of network functions are like building blocks: enable small service modules form a systematic network architecture on demand (Fig. 4.9). The service-based architecture of 5G core network is a subversive change in network architecture in 5G era. It has incomparable advantages over traditional network architecture, such as flexible orchestration, decoupling, openness and so on, and is an important means to rapidly meet the needs of vertical industries in the 5G era. The black box of the core network has been opened, relying on the 5G core network of the service-based architecture. The mobile communication network will certainly show great ability on the way of the internet of everything in the future.

4.3.2 Software-Based Architecture Network function virtualization (NFV) and software definition network (SDN) promote the transformation of traditional communication network based on hardware and software integration equipment. 5G core network will be implemented based on the software architecture of general device, cloud-based infrastructure and virtualization (capacitor) network element. The network between 5G network elements will be based on SDN to realize the rapid opening and configuration of the network. NFV is the core technology to realize the decoupling of software and hardware of communication network. Through general server and virtualization technology, NFV completely decouples hardware and the function of network element. The

4.3 Key Technologies of Core Network

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function of network element exists in the form of software, which supports rapid creation, dynamic migration and flexible expansion and contraction of capacity. It greatly improves the flexibility of the network. SDN realizes the separation of network equipment, the centralized construction of control plane, the dispersion of forwarding plane, and the flexible and fast unloading of network traffic. SDN architecture provides the open ability of network connection, improves the flexibility of network connection and forwarding, and provides the technical basis for the optimization of network connection and the dynamic adjustment of resources. 5G network will have the unified management and scheduling ability of the whole network and the whole region, realize the whole life cycle management of the network, and can flexibly configure and adjust the network connection and routing within and across the data center. The network will form an internal open architecture, open ability will be further enhanced, and customer-oriented services can be quickly launched.

4.3.3 New Generation Core Network Protocol System After 3GPP established the 5G’s adoption of SBA as the infrastructure of the core network, the interface protocol design between the network functions of the 5G core network control plane has become the key to the further landing of the service architecture standard. SBA interface involves multiple layers of protocol selection, that is, transmission layer, application layer, API design method, serialization method, and interface description language (IDL). Each agreement has a number of options. After in-depth analysis and heated discussion in the industry, it is finally determined to form a service-based interface protocol system based on the combination of TCP, Http/2, JSON, RESTful and Open API 3.0 (Fig. 4.10). Compared with the unique Diameter protocol of the traditional telecommunications networks and GTP protocol, the new protocol system can realize rapid deployment and continuous integration, release new network functions and services, and facilitate the development of carriers’ own or third-party services.

protocol stack

alternave protocols

result OpenAPI 3.0

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OpenAPI 3.0 YANG

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JSON BSON CBOR ProtoBuf

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HTTP/1.1 HTTP/2 Diameter GTP

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TCP UDP QUIC SCTP

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Fig. 4.10 Service-based interface protocol stack

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4 System Architecture and Technological Basics of 5G

Fig. 4.11 C/U separation of 5G core network and flattening of architecture

4.3.4 Separation of Control Plane and User Plane In the traditional mobile network, the network element has the ability of control plane and user plane at the same time. In recent years, with the rise of SDN technology, 5G’s architecture has been re-examined in the design of architecture functions. Like the core concept of SDN, the functional separation of control plane and user plane) (C/U separation) enables 5G network to achieve two advantages: the control plane centralizes the deployment, centralizes control, and optimizes the reorganization; the user plane simplifies functions, deploys flexibly, and forwards efficiently. The separation of C/U makes the function of control plane and user plane optimized and reorganized, making it possible to flatten the network architecture further. As shown in Fig. 4.11, the mobile network architecture ranges from four-tier forwarding in the 2/3G ear to three-tier forwarding of eNodeB, S-GW and P-GW in the 4G era. In the 5G era, the data flow starts from the base station can be forwarded to the second layer of the user plane gateway in one step. A flatter architecture brings shorter paths, lower delays, and higher efficiency for the network.

4.3.5 Network Slicing Network slicing is an “exclusive network” that provides end-to-end logic or physics based on a unified infrastructure and unified network resources. This makes 4G transform from “one network with multi-purpose” to 5G’s “multi-network with private purpose”. 4G is designed for the “human network”, which makes it less efficient to use a network to serve when the network extends to the “real network”, facing the differentiated network capabilities and indicators. In the 5G era, through “network slicing”, a network can be virtualized into multiple different networks, and the “multi-network private” can be realized. “Network slicing” is an iconic technology that distinguishes 5G from 4G. It serves vertical industries through logical “private network”. It is a powerful grasp for future carriers to expand industry customers, give birth to new businesses and improve network value.

4.3 Key Technologies of Core Network

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Network slicing is an “end-to-end” network capability, which involves terminal, wireless access network, transmission carrier network and core network. To realize end-to-end network slicing ability, it is very important to cooperate terminal, wireless access network, transmission carrier network, core network and management side. The terminal needs the ability to identify different services and carry the corresponding network slice to identify the access network; the wireless network needs to have the ability of scheduling resources with network slice granularity; the transmission network needs to realize time division network slicing based on time slot transmission; the core network, as the key to realize end-to-end slicing and the center of end-to-end management, combines different network functions on demand to flexibly construct core network slicing. Network slicing is not only a “network dedicated line”. It has three important characteristics: resource isolation, function customization and quality assurance: Resource isolation: slicing serves a specific application scenario, and different slices are isolated from each other and do not affect each other. Function customization: network capability, network performance, access mode, and service scope/deployment policy can be customized. Quality assurance: according to the requirements of the vertical industry, SLA quality of service requirements will be met.

4.3.6 Edge Computing Supporting edge computing is one of the core competencies of 5G, which requires data flow to be able to divert and route near the user in the network (Fig. 4.12).

5G core network control plane

PCF

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DN UPF

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5G core network user plane

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5G-AN

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Fig. 4.12 Local shunt architecture that supports “edge computing”

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4 System Architecture and Technological Basics of 5G

5G supports the local shunt capability of edge computing, and there are three main schemes: (1) Shunt data flow through the IP address of the packet destination. According to the local shunt policy of network configuration, 5G user plane side gateway determines whether the packet needs to be forwarded locally by checking the destination IP address, port number or URL of the packet. This scheme is mainly aimed at upstream business. (2) Shunt data flow through IP address of the packet source. According to the shunt policy of network configuration, the 5G user plane side gateway carries on the local diversion to the packet that needs to be uninstalled locally by identifying the source IP address and port number of the packet. (3) “Local data Network” management capability LADN (Local Area Data Network). The 5G core network configures the service range of the edge computing service to the terminal. When the terminal reaches the coverage of the local data network, the local PDU session can be established independently by using LADN APN. When the terminal moves out of the coverage of the local data network, the network automatically interrupts its local session data.

4.3.7 Analysis of 5G Network Big Data The first introduction of NWDAF into 5G core network opens the way of network intelligence. As the entity of network data collection and intelligent analysis, NWDAF can obtain data from 5G network function layer, application layer and network management layer, and use intelligent algorithm to carry out calculation, model training, reasoning judgment, prediction and so on. The results of these analyses can be output to all authorized data consumers to achieve intelligent network applications. The introduction of NWDAF has opened up many fields in the network through the comprehensive collection of intelligent analysis, flexible output of user contract data, network data and business data. This will be conducive to the realization of 5G network self-optimization, autonomy, self-healing intelligent closed-loop optimization ability. It is very important for 5G network development, business expansion and security, diversified needs and operation and maintenance.

4.3.8 More Comprehensive 5G Security Capability 5G has further strengthened the ability of security in personal information and network information. 5G further enhances the protection of user identity, so that the permanent identity of the user is not transmitted on the air interface, and the visiting network also needs to obtain the identity information of the user from the home

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authencaon parameter request

gNB access authencaon

AMF/SEAF

AUSF+UDM

WIFI

Fig. 4.13 Authentication architecture of 5G

network. This leads to the inability to confirm identity information directly between the visiting network and the user terminal. In the network architecture, when the signaling of the network is transmitted within the carrier’s network, it can follow up the situation of the carrier network and encrypt it. When roaming, when signaling is transmitted across carriers, the transmission of network signaling across carriers is guaranteed. In addition, in the user data transmission, the transmitted packets can also be encrypted between the access network and the core network according to the security requirements. In a word, 5G enhances the security capability in user information, signaling control, data transmission and roaming architecture. 5G authentication strengthens the authentication ability of the home network to the user terminal, makes it get rid of the dependence on the visiting network, and realizes the unity of the authentication mechanism among the different places, such as the place of belonging and the place of visit (Fig. 4.13). Faced with the customized security requirements in the vertical industry, 5G networks can provide proprietary and enhanced security service capabilities. Through the network slicing technology, it provides more comprehensive security capabilities for the industry customers, such as the secondary authentication of the network layer, so as to achieve the authentication mechanism before the establishment of the data channel for specific services. For the first time in the authentication process, the requirement of trust that is not controlled by the carrier is used. Generally speaking, on the one hand, 5G builds a secure 5G network, including more comprehensive data security protection, richer authentication mechanism support, stricter user privacy protection, and more flexible inter-network information protection. On the other hand, according to different industry security policies and security requirements, customized security configuration is provided from the aspects of networking, isolation, cryptography algorithm, authentication mechanism and so on, so as to provide a variety of industries with guaranteed, flexible and customizable security services.

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4.4 Key Technologies of Transport Network As the “liaison” between radio and core network, the transmission network shoulders the important mission of efficient service transmission. With the diversified business applications of 5G, the introduction of new wireless air interface and the deployment of new core networks, new requirements for transmission networks are put forward: (1) Larger network capacity: in order to support sustainable video, holographic and virtual reality applications, transmission networks need to provide large bandwidth to achieve throughput capabilities greater than 1Gbps per user. (2) Lower latency: in order to meet the strict requirements of interactive experience and industrial control, the transmission network needs to achieve the end-to-end delay of 2 will be formed, © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 Z. Li et al., 5G+, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6819-0_6

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and the core competence such as AIaaS, IoTaaS, CloudaaS, DataaaS, MECaaS will be the core foundation of 5G+AICDE strategy.

6.1 5G+AI 6.1.1 5G Ignites the Explosive Growth of AI Applications and Builds the Core Engine of Intelligent Society Just as 4G network gives birth to many mobile Internet applications, 5G network is bound to give birth to richer and more unimaginable new applications. Because of the characteristics of high bandwidth, low latency and large connection, as well as the wide application of cloud-based and virtualization-based technology, 5G network will effectively help AI technology to solve the problems such as high cost of client equipment, difficulty of data acquisition, uneven quality, low controllability of information transmission security and so on, so as to promote the large-scale, universal development and application of AI technology, and support the construction of digital economy and society in an all-round way. It will also bring new intelligent production mode and way of life to human society. At present, the three most common applications of AI technology are autopilot, virtual reality and Cloud service robot. 5G network can provide comprehensive technical support for these applications, solve the problems faced in promotion and bring new production and lifestyle to human society. Based on massive data, AI applications not only bring higher network demand with the rapid development, but also bring higher network demand, mainly reflected in three aspects—network connection number, bandwidth ability and low delay requirements: first, in autopilot related applications, the number of sensors used for largescale data acquisition will lead to a surge in the number of network connections. Second, in virtual reality (VR/AR) related applications, massive data interaction, processing and so on will lead to a surge in network bandwidth demand. Third, the real-time performance of AI interactive applications requires higher network’s low delay. The emergence of AI applications in various industries will pose a great challenge to the existing 4G network capabilities of carriers, and the key capabilities of 5G network, such as large connection, large bandwidth, low delay and so on, will support the rapid development of artificial intelligence applications. In a word, in 4G era, telecom network once contributed to the prosperity and development of mobile Internet business, and in the coming 5G era, new telecommunications network of large connection, large bandwidth and low delay will contribute to the explosive growth of AI business applications and open a new chapter in intelligent production and life.

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6.1.2 AI Empowers 5G, Constructing a New Generation of Mobile Communication Network Driven by Intelligence While the performance and application flexibility of 5G network have changed, the complexity of network operation is also significantly improved, which brings unprecedented challenges to the operation and maintenance of 5G network. Because of its outstanding advantages in solving the problems of high complexity, high frequency of change and high uncertainty, AI technology can greatly help 5G network to meet the challenges of high complexity of network operation and maintenance, high energy consumption of network equipment, high demand for business flexibility and diverse network state, so as to achieve more efficient and low-cost network operation and maintenance, and achieve a better business experience that is closer to the needs of users. Taking the typical problems faced in 5G network operation delivery as an example, this paper illustrates to readers how AI technology empowers 5G to provide intelligent-driven network operation delivery capabilities for various industries. First, in the aspect of 5G network flexible delivery capacity, 5G network slicing enables carriers to achieve on-demand customization, real-time deployment, dynamic guarantee of network services for different characteristics of various industries and improve the dynamics and flexibility of network delivery. However, this requires carriers to select appropriate slicing and finer granularity sub slices according to customer needs, and then send slicing indicators to access networks, transmission networks, core networks and other fields. In this process, not only end-to-end horizontal management is needed, but also vertical association from physical layer, resource layer, slicing layer to application layer is needed. Compared with the traditional network, the complexity of network design, deployment, delivery, operation and maintenance brought by network slicing is a great challenge to carriers. The traditional operation mode cannot meet the needs, so it is necessary to introduce AI technology to solve the above complex problems. The regression prediction, clustering and optimization decision technology of AI, combined with the monitoring and fitting of user requirements, as well as the real-time analysis of network state data, can form a slicing strategy. Then through the policy sending and automatic execution, the slicing network can be delivered flexibly and quickly. Therefore, the introduction of AI is to help carriers achieve the best balance between slice flexibility and slice management complexity. Second, in the aspect of 5G business experience guarantee, relying on 5G network capability and rich business development, 5G business experience will also show a diversified and personalized development trend, such as immersive experience, realtime interaction, accurate perception of emotion and intention, to get what you want, etc. The support and guarantee of 5G network for business experience will subvert the traditional model and usher in new challenges. Taking immersive experience perception as an example, how to comprehensively evaluate the multi-dimensional experience of users, such as hearing, vision, interaction and so on, to realize the

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dynamic guarantee of network connection resources, has become a complex and uncertain problem, and the traditional best-effort network resource management is difficult to meet the requirements of user experience. Therefore, 5G network needs to carry out real-time comprehensive evaluation and perception of user experience with the help of AI speech recognition, emotion analysis, image detection, comprehensive decision-making and other technologies, and use AI optimization control and intelligent decision-making ability to realize the dynamic management and scheduling of network resources based on user-perceived requirements. Thirdly, in the aspect of operation and maintenance of 5G network, the most representative innovative technology Massive MIMO of 5G wireless access network is taken as an example. Compared with the single broadcast beam and pattern arrangement of 4G network 3D-MIMO, it is very difficult to optimize Massive MIMO antenna in 5G network. The main technical difficulties include more broadcast beams, larger weight template selection space; adjacent cell beam timing configuration affects interference coordination, configuration complexity is further improved; continuous networking to the overall area coverage, interference, capacity joint optimization is very difficult. The traditional antenna optimization scheme based on expert experience will not have the feasibility of large-scale application of 5G Massive MIMO current network. Therefore, the 5G network needs to have the intelligent optimal configuration ability of Massive MIMO antenna. By using machine learning method, the antenna weight template is automatically configured to match the propagation model, data flow and user distribution characteristics of the coverage area, and to optimize the performance of coverage, interference, capacity and so on. Furthermore, with the above characteristics and performance feedback, the network can update the algorithm model iteratively by using reinforcement learning and other techniques to realize the dynamic adjustment and iterative optimization of antenna configuration.

6.1.3 Create 5G Network of AI-Native and Create AI as a Service Innovation Ability 6.1.3.1

AI-Native Prospect

In the era of rapid development of the Internet, the construction of 5G network of AI-Native and the deep integration of 5G and AI can greatly improve the efficiency of the network, reduce the operating costs, and realize the intelligent visualization, intelligent operation and maintenance, intelligent planning, intelligent security and so on, thus making the 5G network more intelligent, efficient, convenient and secure. The construction of AI-Native’s 5G network mainly includes the following four development prospects.

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(1) The network moves with people The traditional 2/3/4G network is a static network, and the network capacity, network service, network resources and network parameters are all based on planning and remain unchanged for a long time. In the face of the influx of a large number of differentiated needs and services in the 5G vertical industry and the increase of diversified applications on the edge, the network rigidity and service lag caused by the traditional network service mode of “human adaptation network” will not be able to adapt to the development of new needs. The software-based 5G network combined with AI technology, based on the network massive data, deeply analyzed the network operation status, industry and user behavior characteristics, which accurately and reasonably provides accurate network services for users, and realizes network closed-loop autonomy, guides the more reasonable layout of 5G network resources, and improves the user experience and the overall efficiency of the network. (2) Customization The traditional 2/3/4G network provides public users with limited unified tariff packages and standardized services and services, with little choice for mass users. The demand of proprietary network for some vertical industry customers is very limited because of the complexity of network deployment and the rigid business form that cannot be dynamically upgraded. 5G customized network services are of great significance to meet the personalized needs of the industry and users. The massive growth of network data and the rise of AI have brought new opportunities for user-oriented custom business. Data acquisition and intelligent machine learning can be used to recommend network services in line with users’ intentions, and the “one person, one policy” network service customization can be accurately realized. In the aspect of enterprises and industries, data acquisition and intelligent machine learning can also be used to deeply mine the business characteristics of enterprises and industry customers, comprehensive perception of network capabilities, and provide customized network services. (3) Intelligent security Combining AI with service and network security management can greatly improve the application level of network security technology and effectively ensure business and network security. Based on the massive data of the network, the powerful understanding and reasoning ability of AI is used to quickly analyze and judge the potential security risks, to warn in advance, and finally to ensure the safety of network, business and social production and life. (4) Intelligent operation In the future, 5G network needs to schedule, optimize and troubleshoot the network resources according to the dynamic situation, so as to realize the intelligent operation of the network. Machine learning technology is used to predict and evaluate

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user behavior, network services and corresponding resource requirements, combined with the dynamic situation of the network to carry out active operation and maintenance, to ensure the dynamic adjustment of network resources, and to maximize the use of resources. Through the network optimization technology based on AI, the massive data that characterize the features of intelligent network are analyzed, and a reasonable intelligent quantitative model is established, and the network service is processed in real time based on the model, so as to ensure the best running state of the network. Through the troubleshooting technology based on AI, based on the massive historical fault data and fault resolution data, the fault event and feature matching rule base are created, and the optimal solution is automatically selected for the network alarm data to ensure and manage the whole communication network. (5) AI as a Service (AIaaS) Relying on big data of 5G network and AI platform within carriers, we should give full play to the advantages of AI computing power, build the ability of connection and intelligent integration service, empower external applications, and promote the development of the industry. The focus is on the network, service, management, security, market and other major areas, giving full play to the advantages of carriers, providing AIaaS capabilities, and speeding up the landing of intelligent applications.

6.1.3.2

AI-Native 5G Architecture

In order to realize the deep integration of AI and 5G and really promote the development of digital economy, it has brought new requirements to the network structure, technical system, talent reserve, organizational structure and operation mechanism of the communication industry. The 5G network architecture of AI-Native needs to take into account the characteristics of AI technology and communication technology. On the one hand, the AI capability is integrated into each link of 5G network, which makes AI become an important 5G capability. On the other hand, facing the characteristics of AI technology and new requirements for the network, the network ability can be more suitable for AI applications. By constructing the network technology system and architecture of AI-Native, AI+5G integration and wisdom can be realized. Figure 6.1 shows the 5G network architecture diagram of AI-Native, which requires unified planning from several levels, such as terminal, network element, network management, AI engine/capability and so on. It has more open, flexible and dynamic control and management capabilities, and has four core capabilities. (1) Basic network element self-optimization: Network element is the basic equipment that carries 5G+AI capacity. In addition to 5G communication protocol processing, signal receiving and receiving and data transmission, the network element requires that it can realize the perception of network element itself based on the obtained local data and use AI algorithm and strategy to make self-loop analysis decision. At the same time, it can carry out the control decision for

6.1 5G+AI

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