5.5G is not only 0.5 more than 5G

2021.08.16

5.5G, also known as green 5G, can reduce energy consumption through smart energy-saving technologies, new materials, new energy technologies, and new network architectures, empowering all industries to achieve low-carbon The achievement of the "dual carbon" goal of Zhonghe has contributed to my country's energy conservation and environmental protection cause.

Recently, China Telecom and China Mobile have successively released financial reports for the first half of this year. In the continuous 5G network construction and sharing with China Unicom, China Telecom has 460,000 5G base stations in use; as of the end of June, China Mobile has opened 501,000 5G base stations. Base station.


The financial report data of the two companies shows that my country is about to usher in the milestone moment when the number of 5G base stations exceeds one million, and the development of 5G will enter a new watershed.

Therefore, accelerating the development of 5G-Advanced or 5.5G is already on the line.

Duan Xiaodong, vice president of China Mobile Research Institute, said: “5G-Advanced will define new goals and new capabilities for the follow-up development of 5G, and 5G will therefore generate greater social and economic value.”

 

Both enhance the old scene and expand the new scene

The first phase of 5G standards has begun to be commercialized, but 5G standards and technologies are still developing and evolving.

On April 27th, the standardization organization 3GPP formally confirmed the name of 5G evolution as 5G-Advanced at the 46th Project Cooperation Group (PCG) meeting, marking a new stage in the development of global 5G technology and standards.

Duan Xiao Dong told a reporter from Science and Technology Daily: "The core goal of 5G is to serve thousands of industries. Although the global 5G development has achieved gratifying results, how to release the potential of 5G and truly serve the industry is still a very important topic before us."

Wen Ku, secretary-general of the China Communications Standards Association, emphasized: "Although the development of the 5G application industry has achieved breakthrough results, it is still in the low application level and the initial stage of commercial scale exploration. It is necessary to accelerate the application demonstration and exploration process to drive key technologies in various integration fields. Breakthrough and industrialization development, forming large-scale applications from 1 to N pre-replication."

According to Deng Wei, deputy director of the Institute of Wireless and Terminal Technology of China Mobile Research Institute, facing the requirements of low latency, high reliability, and high-precision synchronization and positioning required by complex industrial scenes, the current 5G network capabilities still need Further evolution.

"5G needs to continue to evolve to meet the needs of more diverse and more complex full-scenario IoT; at the same time, it will enhance the vitality of 5G, lead the development and evolution of the 5G industry, and accelerate the intelligent upgrading of thousands of industries." Zhang Ping, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed out, 5.5 G mainly focuses on the expansion of vertical industries, and its network capabilities can better assist vertical industries.

He introduced that in addition to 5G’s original mobile bandwidth enhancement, ultra-reliable and low latency, and the "triangular capabilities" of massive machine communications, 5.5G adds uplink ultra-wideband, broadband real-time interaction, and communication perception fusion capabilities, making the original The three major standard scenarios of 5G in China are expanded into a more capable "hexagon", which not only enhances the old scenario, but also expands the new scenario.

 

Dual-chain integration and development of 5.5G has become an industry consensus

As Wen Ku said, China's 5G industry is developing rapidly, and various applications have put forward higher demands on the network, posing new challenges to network architecture, performance, latency, and security.

On August 3, China Mobile and its industry partners released the "5G-Advanced Innovation Chain Industry Chain Integration Action Plan", which aims to clarify the 5G-Advanced innovation chain industry chain integration action goals and key measures.

Huang Yuhong, vice president of China Mobile Research Institute, said: "5G-Advanced dual-chain integration will continue to improve 5G network capabilities and industrial innovation capabilities, and provide new momentum for the transformation and upgrading and high-quality development of various industries."

Gao Tongqing, deputy general manager of China Mobile, introduced that the "5G-Advanced Innovation Chain Industry Chain Integration Action Plan" points to the three goals of "excellent network, intelligent life, intelligent simplicity, low carbon and high efficiency".

Deng Wei said that 5G-Advanced is mainly to provide corresponding technical support to meet the needs of the digital and intelligent transformation of society in the future.

After the technical direction is clear, the key lies in how to accelerate its maturity and make it serve the economic and social transformation of digital intelligence as soon as possible. This requires the cooperation and cooperation of the industrial chain.

Gao Tongqing advocates the industry to vigorously promote cross-field and cross-disciplinary integration and innovation, deepen the synergy of industry, university, research and application, lead and create demand and jointly define standards; at the same time, focus on the new needs of 5G evolution, solve industry pain points, and ensure the innovation chain Accurate, efficient, and coordinated to achieve breakthrough innovations in 5G evolution technology; in addition, to condense industry forces, keep up with the pace of standards, carry out prototype development and experimental testing, achieve two-way rapid response and iterative optimization, and create a new innovation chain industry chain integration development Paradigm provides strong support for the digital society.

Wen Ku said: "5G-Advanced has become an industry consensus. The innovative 5G-Advanced solution will help China Mobile and the entire Chinese communications industry develop high-quality 5G networks, and provide users in various industries with more high-quality and intelligent products and services."

Wang Tao, Huawei's executive director and president of ICT products and solutions, emphasized that in order to realize the 5.5G industry vision, 5.5G needs spectrum reconstruction, uplink enhancement, full-scenario IoT, synesthesia, L4 autonomous driving network, green and low-carbon, etc. Continuous innovation in 6 directions.

 

Upgrade from "interconnection" of all things to "smart connection" of all things

The industry has this consensus that 5.5G is not only an upgrade of communication technology, but also represents a new ecology and new opportunities, bringing more wisdom to many scenarios.

VR live broadcast, 8K high-definition video, panoramic live broadcast and other applications allow people to initially experience the capabilities of 5G based on eMBB (enhanced mobile broadband) scenarios. What surprises can the 5.5G network bring us?

"Compared with the basic version of 5G, 5.5G is finally expected to further increase the network capacity by more than 10 times." Wang Tao predicts that the future 5.5G network will be able to carry more IoT devices and eventually carry more than 100 billion connections.

From Wang Tao's introduction, first of all, 5.5G can more finely meet the application scenarios of the Internet of Vehicles and the Internet of Things such as autonomous driving, low-altitude logistics drones, etc., especially to increase the safety factor of autonomous driving to help its commercial landing. Secondly, 5.5G is also known as green 5G. It can reduce energy consumption through smart energy-saving technologies, new materials and new energy technologies, and new network architectures, empowering all industries to achieve low-carbon energy conservation across the entire industry chain, and helping the country’s carbon reach. The achievement of the "dual carbon" goal of peak, carbon neutrality, and support for my country's energy conservation and environmental protection undertakings.

5G has achieved remarkable results today, but it still cannot meet the needs of all walks of life.

According to the 5.5G vision proposed by Huawei, the three new application scenarios of Uplink Ultra-Broadband (UCBC), Broadband Real-Time Communication (RTBC) and Communication Sense Convergence (HCS) expanded by 5.5G will further tap the core value of 5G technology.

 

For consumer-oriented 4G and 5G networks, the downlink is more important than the uplink, but for all walks of life, there are scenarios where the uplink is more important than the downlink. The UCBC scenario will strengthen the 5G uplink capability and expand the bandwidth by at least 40 times on the existing basis, which can meet the upload requirements of machine vision and massive broadband Internet of Things in scenarios such as enterprise manufacturing.

The RTBC scene will support large bandwidth and low interaction delay, and the bandwidth at a given time delay will be increased by 10 times. The immersive experience of people such as XR Pro and holographic applications interacting with the virtual world will therefore obtain broader development conditions.

The HCS scene supports the integration of communication and perception, and can provide centimeter-level high-precision, low-power indoor positioning services. In the next 10 years, autonomous driving will enter people's lives more and more, but to achieve L4 and L5 autonomous driving, driving road coordination is indispensable, which requires the network not only to provide connectivity, but also to have perception capabilities. Therefore, the integration of communication and perception becomes particularly important.

Wenku believes that a huge task facing my country is to meet the needs of 5G application innovation, solve application fragmentation and other issues, and accelerate the implementation of innovative applications in virtual reality, Internet of Things, smart manufacturing, smart medical, and Internet of Vehicles.

However, 5G is only a starting point today, and 5.5G is only a node on the road to upgrade network capabilities. What kind of capabilities the future network will give mankind still requires us to continue to innovate and explore.