EE World spoke with Spirent\u2019s Stephen Douglas about the company\u2019s annual 5G report. 5G development continues, with AI showing its influence.<\/em><\/p>\n Around 2014 or 2015, I first started hearing about 5G development, mainly in terms of 5G New Radio (5G NR). With the release of the first 5G standards in December 2018 and the start of 5G non-standalone (NSA) deployments that soon followed, the hype took off.<\/p>\n If we follow the believed ten-year development cycle of wireless generations, we\u2019re now halfway through 5 G\u2019s development and deployment life cycle. Sure, 6G has been in discussion for several years, almost since the first 5G deployments. That continues, but as 5G moves into the second half of its deployment cycle, we\u2019re finally seeing the enhancements begin to appear. Those enhancements center around business use cases, which consumers don\u2019t see. Meanwhile, the consumer pundits call 5G a flop. Search \u201c5G flop\u201d or 5G failure,\u201d and you\u2019ll see articles calling 5G a failure published within microseconds following the release of the specifications.<\/p>\n Whether or not 5G is a true flop, we still don\u2019t know. That\u2019s because much of 5 G\u2019s capabilities were designed for business use cases, and businesses take far longer to upgrade equipment than consumers.<\/p>\n Signs of life are appearing, at least according to Spirent\u2019s 2025 5G report, It\u2019s halftime for 5G<\/a>. Now in its sixth year, Spirent\u2019s report revealed a few surprises, as Stephen Douglas told EE World. Fixed-wireless access, IoT, network slicing, private networks, and other technologies appear to be on the cusp of making 5G something other than a failure.<\/p>\n Before 5G\u2019s first release (3GPP Release 15), all the talk centered around fixed-wireless access (FWA) as the first release of 5G. Why? Because fixed access is far easier to implement than enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB). But no, the telecom operators thought consumers would want mobile 5G first and be willing to pay for it. We all know how that turned out, especially when the limitations and deployment costs of mmWave became apparent.<\/p>\n A typical 5G FWA gateway uses 5G as a backhaul and Wi-Fi as a fronthaul. Both need testing to ensure an acceptable customer experience. (Image: Verizon)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Today, we see ads for 5G home internet, also known as fixed-wireless access (FWA). That\u2019s one of the testing trends highlighted in the report. \u201cFWA is going beyond its original deployment in rural areas and is now being tested and deployed not only in urban areas, but in enterprises and multi-unit dwellings,\u201d said Douglas. Indeed, 5G repeaters<\/a> just may bring mmWave out of the ashes and into buildings, though most 5G FWA deployments use lower frequencies.<\/p>\n Douglas noted that 5G FWA uses the same sub-6 GHz frequency bands mobile phones use, which brings up a congestion problem inside homes, particularly in the evenings when home internet gets heavy use. This led to another trend: testing customer-premises equipment (CPE) for customer experience. Home 5G routers convert cellular signals to Wi-Fi, and thus, Douglas sees more emphasis on CPE testing, not just network testing that ends at the CPE. Fortunately, we now have standards for testing in-home Wi-Fi<\/a>. \u201cWi-Fi is not so good at home,\u201d said Douglas. \u201cService providers often receive complaints about service related to in-home Wi-Fi, not the 5G network connection. One user can clog a home network. Wi-Fi 7 should take care of that.\u201d Even so, Wi-Fi 7 will also need testing<\/a> for customer signal strength, data rate, and, most of all, customer experience. Testing is moving beyond conformance to performance.<\/p>\n While FWA has proven popular with consumers, 5G development includes many other features, including the so-called reduced capability (RedCap<\/a>). Introduced in 3GPP Release 17, RedCap specifies IoT devices that don\u2019t need high bandwidth but must run on little power, sometimes for years, on a single battery. Douglas noted that by now, many RedCap-capable IoT devices are available, and testing is moving from the devices themselves to the network\u2019s ability to connect with them.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve heard about network slicing since the early 5G development stages. That\u2019s ten years already. Related to private networks, network slicing allocates a dedicated network resource for a specific use case \u2014 for example, a factory, campus, hospital, or first-responder setting. Private networks have been getting more press lately as businesses look into possible benefits. In this second half of the 2020 decade, Spirent\u2019s report highlights:<\/p>\n Private networks can also incorporate RedCap-capable devices. RedCap devices can go beyond and, in some cases, replace NB-IoT devices used on LTE networks.<\/p>\n Network slices let private networks and applications run in configurations defined for a particular use. Image: CEVA<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Other areas that Douglas stressed were AI and security. The two are, of course, related in that AI could enhance security and make it easier for hackers to circumvent security measures. \u201cSecurity testing is going beyond the specs, Douglas told EE World. He noted an uptick in what he called \u201cchaos testing,\u201d where cloud-native networks are stressed beyond the usual limits and specifications.<\/p>\n Finally, there\u2019s AI. In 2024\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s<\/a><\/span>\u00a0AI or die<\/a>,\u201d I reported on how people at OFC had the jitters about AI-generated data overrunning networks. Because of that, Douglas noted that he\u2019s seeing network upgrades where core networks are upgrading from 100 Gbps links to 400 Gbps, jumping over 200 Gbps. He\u2019s also seen edge networks jumping from 10 Gbps links to 100 Gbps, especially as edge computing comes into use.<\/p>\n Are we really at halftime? It depends on your perspective. While development cycles typically last about ten years, network lifetimes far exceed that. Indeed, networks going back to 2G are still in use. 4G development may have started in the mid-2000 decade, but those networks are still in use worldwide, with their sunset still many years away.<\/p>\n What trends and challenges in networks do you see in 2025 and beyond?<\/p>\n \n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" EE World spoke with Spirent\u2019s Stephen Douglas about the company\u2019s annual 5G report. 5G development continues, with AI showing its influence. Around 2014 or 2015, I first started hearing about 5G development, mainly in terms of 5G New Radio (5G NR). With the release of the first 5G standards in December 2018 and the start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12020],"tags":[2993,38902,243],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-96910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5g-technology","tag-development","tag-halftime","tag-quarter"],"yoast_head":"\nFixed-wireless access comes of age<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nNetwork slicing and private networks<\/h3>\n
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![\"5G](\"https:\/\/www.5gtechnologyworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/5GHB22_CEVA_Fig2-300x247.png\")
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