By all accounts, the buzz surrounding 5G is growing like crazy. Announcements from the carriers outline the progress of their rollouts, vendors are showcasing cutting-edge technology breakthroughs, and headlines are abuzz over the new use cases and applications 5G will enable for businesses and consumers.
The problem is, despite the technological advancements and the long hype-cycle the industry has already undergone, true 5G deployment is still in its infancy.
To use a baseball analogy, we’re in the bottom of the first inning of a 16-inning game, with plenty of rain delays expected. Many of those hiccups and delays are being forced by a single underlying theme: There is a distinct lack of uniformity in 5G.
This theme is seen in the:
1) spectrum being used,
2) network layout decisions different spectrum and topologies create, in terms of equipment size, in the various mounting structures needed to ensure consistent coverage, and
3) reluctance by state and local governments to adopt permitting standards.
All are causing considerable delay in rolling out 5G.
Standards uncertainty
The complex, ever-changing regulatory landscape is a significant issue, and it continues to impact the strategy, planning and execution for both carriers and infrastructure providers. In order for 5G to be fully incorporated and deployed, the industry requires not only consistent regulatory support, but also the buy-in from local and state governing bodies. Without universal adoption, the infrastructure required to support 5G will take longer and may culminate in further legal battles.
Following the FCC’s 2018 orders, which promoted the deployment of infrastructure needed to support 5G, local and state governing bodies have begun providing general parameters for 5G small cell facilities. These guidelines cover schedules, fees, coverage areas and other factors. But recent events have further clouded the picture. Regulatory amendments and clarifications have been repealed, or at least have reduced the impact of last year’s FCC orders.
At the same time, nearly half of U.S. states are enacting their own small cell wireless bills. While this is a necessary step towards gaining 5G acceptance, the state laws will likely have growing pains of their own in terms of implementation.
These uncertainties create difficulty in projecting infrastructure costs and service delivery dates with a side effect of causing carriers and infrastructure providers to slow-roll capital investment or delay entry into certain markets.
Spectrum allocation
5G spectrum has been (or soon will be) allocated in the high, mid, low and unlicensed bands, with each carrier getting a mix of spectrum in which to deploy 5G services. One of the trade-offs for the speed and bandwidth enabled by 5G technologies, however, is range. In the millimeter wave spectrum, for example, 5G signals may be only able to travel 500 or so feet from the tower, and less so in areas where buildings, trees and other objects can block signal strength.
To gain blanket 5G coverage - something no carrier is promising - would mean huge propagations of 5G antenna arrays. Instead, carriers and vendors are exploring more flexible architectures utilizing 5G in combination with existing LTE to help fill coverage gaps as buildout continues. They’ll need to continue to work together to get to a place, likely far in the future, where 5G is close to ubiquity.
The economics of the different spectrum allocations is also an issue. Research from McKinsey says that a “low- to mid-band 5G network, especially in bands below 2 GHz, would look and cost much the same as current LTE networks,” with deployment costs similar for cell sites of comparable density. However, using high-band spectrum, “would require a fundamentally different architecture with much denser networks. The total cost of ownership of deploying small cells at this density would be four to six times higher than for LTE macro-cell deployment.”
Equipment differences
Equipment size is a big uniformity conundrum in 5G. The different spectrum allocated to carriers has necessitated different types and sizes of equipment that can be used to support 5G services. Some “small cell” equipment isn’t so small - equipment can range in size from a small briefcase to a large suitcase. And that also causes challenges with pole and structures needed to support this equipment.
The biggest issue: Poles and structures aren’t designed for multi-carrier configurations, which impacts ROI models. With 2G, 3G and 4G, the industry practice was for huge towers with antennas from multiple carriers on a single tower that covered a large area. 5G has flipped the equation - the “towers” are smaller, lower and closer together. In some cases, they’ll be pole-mounted, and in others, they’ll be mounted to existing infrastructure.
One problem, however, is the fact that an existing utility pole which already provides space for a small cell facility may not be able to accommodate another carrier or second 5G-capable small cell facility.
The current way to solve this is rip and replace: remove the pole, install a new one, relocate existing equipment and install equipment from the second carrier. This clouds the ROI picture, because adding the second carrier becomes as expensive, if not more so, than the first one. This methodology will require a rethinking from the industry - and collaboration amongst carriers - to solve.
The lack of 5G uniformity throughout the 5G ecosystem is creating headaches - and slowdowns - for 5G deployments in cities and towns across the U.S. Still there is progress, albeit slow progress. According to TeleGeography, there are 34 3GPP standardized commercial 5G networks operating globally, with 77 expected by the end of this year. Ovum expects 156 million 5G connections worldwide and 32 million in North America by the end of 2021.
5G is most definitely a multi-inning game and we’re still in the very early stages. Addressing these uniformity challenges head-on as an industry now may help alleviate some of the future rain delays and move us more quickly to a 5G future.
