5G has been the Next Big Thing in telecom for some years now, but 2020 - the year in which just about everything went sideways, and virtual - provided a major impetus for the development and rollout of 5G networks. Operators have accelerated building out their 5G infrastructures, seeking to increase growth in demand - and need - for fast data communications engendered by the world's experiences with COVID-19. As a result, 2021 is set to be the year 5G becomes the default broadband network in many advanced countries around the world.
But the 5G networks of the future are significantly different than the legacy mobile networks of the past - and that means the way they are to be deployed, managed and run needs to be different as well, if operators are to realize the full benefits 5G can provide. Operators need to carefully consider their needs and capabilities, and deploy technologies that will achieve the best results - in advance of the extensive new 5G-driven business models they are planning in the coming months.
For many carriers, embracing 5G is going to entail automating many aspects of the way they manage their networks - and as more operators roll out more extensive 5G networks in the coming year, more and more of them are going to realize that automated intelligent management systems are their best bet to 5G success, by being able to take advantage of all the benefits 5G can provide for them and their customers.
Ofir Zemer,
CEO,
Cellwize
For users, of course, the main benefit of 5G will be the blinding-fast service they get, especially when it comes to data, along with near-zero latency and a much bigger pipeline for data. But operators stand to benefit greatly from 5G, too. The softwarized and virtualized RAN technology that is part and parcel of 5G will enable them to offer more dynamic and robust services at lower costs to more customers. 5G's virtualized network functions and new architectures (NFV, SDN) will give operators options they never had before – such as slicing their networks in order to relieve pressure on demand in specific areas or time frames.
While operators will be able to implement 5G network slicing for all segments of their customer base, it is their enterprise customers who will likely benefit from these services the most. With operators now able to match 5G resources with enterprise customer needs, companies will be able to organize large-scale teleconferences that will be able to accommodate large numbers of participants without having to worry about lost connections, operate large-scale sensor networks (of IoT devices), automate more services, or even hold virtual reality meetings in which avatars of participants will “project” themselves into one room - from anywhere in the world.
While the compute power to do all this locally has been around for a while, the ability to do it remotely has lagged, because of the limits of the data network. With 5G network slicing, the resources enterprises need to accomplish those things will be there when they need it - whether in the form of the general network, or a private one operators set up for them.
This is why automated, intelligent management systems will be so important to 5G deployment, where networks are more complex than ever. For the first time, operators have the resources they need to truly satisfy their key customer demands, providing “perfect service” without gaps, hiccups, or latency issues. But that assumes they will have the agility to nimbly redirect resources as needed - essentially predicting where needs will arise before they actually happen.
Automated intelligent management systems can provide them with those capabilities. Using machine learning and advanced artificial intelligence, automated management systems can efficiently predict where needs are going to arise. These systems analyze available resources, current demand, scheduled events, weather, traffic patterns, usage patterns, and a thousand other factors to understand how customers are using the system - and where and when a demand spike is likely to occur. The system can then prepare to deploy the resources needed to cover that demand spike, ensuring they are in place before the network is overwhelmed.
Automated intelligent systems can help out with the hardware aspects of the network as well. 5G owes its super-speed - as much as ten times faster than 4G - to the shorter millimeter wavelengths it uses for transmission, which means that 5G networks require a lot more equipment in order to cover the geographical areas of the 4G networks they will eventually replace.
More equipment and more vendors to manage means more quality control issues and more possibilities of a disruption in the network (due to the failure of a femtocell or other equipment). Automated management systems can quickly identify where an outage or other problem is taking place - allowing for the redirection of resources to mitigate the problem.
