To facilitate the rapid evolution of 5G access networks and the successful adoption of 5G services, Ericsson has announced 5G Plug-Ins, which are software-driven innovations that enable existing networks to cater for the evolution towards 5G.
Ericsson 5G Plug-Ins are designed for the radio access network and leverage Ericsson 5G Radio Test Bed and Ericsson 5G Radio Prototypes already deployed and in field trials in Japan, South Korea, the US and Sweden. Ericsson said that the 5G Plug-Ins are available for operator trials starting in 2016 and will be available for commercial networks starting in 2017.
According to Ericsson, LTE will continue to expand and evolve, addressing both an increased number of subscribers and their growing demands for extreme coverage for data and video, as well as new low power wide area (LPWA) applications for the Internet of Things (IoT). In parallel, the development of 5G will encompass an evolution of today's radio access technologies and the addition of new, globally standardized technologies, often in higher frequencies. These higher frequencies have a shorter transmission range than current cellular networks and are prone to attenuation from foliage and weather-related factors, which can impact performance and reliability.
Ericsson 5G Plug-Ins include:
- Multi-User MIMO Plug-In: building on Massive MIMO, Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO) transmits data to multiple user devices using the same time and frequency resources and coordinates beamforming. MU-MIMO provides a better user experience, enhances network capacity and coverage, and reduces interference.
- RAN Virtualization Plug-In: RAN Virtualization improves network efficiency and performance by enabling Virtual Network Functions (VNF) to be centralized on a common platform supporting both 4G and 5G.
- Intelligent Connectivity Plug-In: where 5G and 4G coverage areas overlap, Intelligent Connectivity enables the network to robustly anchor and intelligently route data based on application requirements and network resource availability, increasing the combined data throughput of 4G and 5G resources.
- Latency Reduction Plug-In: this Plug-In shortens access procedures and modifies the frame structure to enable instant network access and more frequent transmissions. This in turn reduces time-to-content while enabling real-time communications for key 5G applications such as smart vehicles.
Arun Bansal, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Unit Radio, Ericsson
5G will be driven by new use cases requiring higher performance - from connected cars with perfect driving records, to immersive augmented reality for remote surgery, to multi-K movies on mobile devices.
Peter Jarich, Vice President, Consumer and Infrastructure Services, Current Analysis
5G has gained undeniable momentum over the last year. Yet, without spectrum allocations or ratified standards, operators need a migration tactic allowing them to leverage current network investments in synch with their 5G evolution strategies.
