At the Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2022 (MBBF 2022), James Chen, president of the global sales department of Huawei Carrier BG, delivered a keynote entitled "Making Strides Towards 5G Success."
In his speech, Chen said, "We've seen fast progress in 5G. To fully unlock the value of 5G, we need to accelerate deployment, explore 5G business cases and make the most of every band, every hertz and every watt. Together, we can take 5G from a leading brand and leading technology to a leading experience and a leading business. And we can make 5G a commercial success."
Chen described how 5G is driving industry development in many regards. Compared with 4G, 5G networks are 10-times faster, delivering speeds greater than 1 Gbps. 5G users also consume two times more data than 4G users – more than 20 GB per month – and that amount is expected to keep growing. This creates huge opportunities for carriers in three areas: user experience, IoT and industrial digitalization.
- User experience can generate more revenue than ever before, as carriers shift away from traffic-based business models. This can be achieved by offering 5G packages priced based on other factors like speed, latency and uplink experience.
- IoT is also a booming market with rapid growth in both consumer and industrial IoT services, which is expected to create 100 billion IoT connections.
- Finally, in industrial digitalization, 5G provides high-quality connections and services like private lines and networks that are helping carriers expand into the B2B market. With 5G, carriers can diversify their portfolios beyond connectivity and identify new sources of revenue.
Despite these opportunities, 5G rollout is still inconsistent across different countries. Right now, 5G coverage is only available for 29% of the global population – much lower than 4G, which covers 92%. According to Chen, to fully unlock the value of 5G and make it a commercial success, it is necessary to accelerate 5G network deployment and make the most of "every band, every hertz and every watt."
First, spectrum will have to be better utilized. All spectrum bands can be used for 5G, but different bands, such as TDD bands, FDD bands and mmWave bands, produce optimal performance in different scenarios. Second, massive MIMO will need to be used in every band to get the most out of every hertz. Third, building on the 10x energy efficiency of 5G over 4G, ongoing innovation will need to be made at three separate layers – equipment, sites and networks – to enable every watt to carry more bits and help build 5G networks with optimal performance and energy efficiency. AI will also need to be applied in 5G networks to make the most of limited network resources.
At the end of his speech, Chen noted, "5G is changing the mobile landscape, but this is just the beginning. Huawei will continue to innovate in technologies to maximize the value of each band, hertz and watt; help global customers build 5G networks with the best experience, optimal energy efficiency and highest efficiency; and continuously create value for customers. Together, we can make 5G a commercial success."
The Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2022 is hosted by Huawei, together with its industry partners GSMA and GTI. This annual forum gathers mobile network carriers, vertical industry leaders and ecosystem partners from around the world to discuss how to make 5G a commercial success and other hot topics like green development, intelligence and 5G evolution.
