5G the most powerful invention of telecom industry is anticipated to bring revolutionary changes across industries with its improved capacity, faster speed low latency features. Promised to satisfy numerous use cases for different verticals, industry leaders from various backgrounds are opting for this new-age technology to make advancements in their business for timely delivery of products and services to customers and give them brand new experiences.
- New 5G trends grabbing the eyeballs in 2021
Acceleration of 5G deployment and provision of various use cases will give rise to several 5G trends as mentioned below changing the traditional mode of operations and/or processes to advanced mode with the usage of new-age technologies.
- Networking automation is rising
As more and more 5G networks will be developed over the next few years, it will enable for more automated networking activities to build the wireless network in a minimum span of time. Automation is critical for establishing 5G networks due to its increased complexity with multi-technology, multi-band, multi-architecture, multi-layer and multi-RAN industry players. These multiple networking components impose additional challenges to mobile network operators who are already on the verge of pressure to expedite 5G deployment and meet network demands. Therefore, automation is very important at every level of network installation, deployment, maintenance, and the overall business process to ease their tasks and leading to successful 5G rollouts in the upcoming years.
- Edge computing will drive revenue
Networks can be operated from the edge with the rise of edge computing and the evolution of faster networks like 5G making it to the forefront of development of next-gen technology. Development of smart wearables such as smart watches, cameras with the implementation of 5G and edge computing is enabling more data collection as a specific use case with crowdsourcing platform and can be applied to analyse customer data for evaluating customer experiences. Further, enterprises can target them with customized products and services’ offerings thereby increasing their customer base and brand presence in the market.
- Roadmaps to O RAN architecture will be crucial
Traditional RAN solutions are based on proprietary hardware and take huge amount of time to develop and make it commercial. 5G, the newest version of networking technologies requires latest radio versions to be used and significant cost and time investment to swap with its previous generation radios and carries around 60% of investment in CAPEX. With the implementation of Open Ran, operators expect to build an interoperable telco network and curb their cost investment in a short span of time. Open Ran has gained exposure and operators around the world are looking to hit this technology to deploy 5G networks with a multi-vendor architectural platform at a faster pace in 2021. It works as a building block for different interfaces which are opened and connected as required to serve connections between three critical units namely Radio Unit (RU), Distributed Unit (DU), and Centralized Unit (CU) as fronthaul, midhaul and backhaul connections from the network. Operators are turning towards ORAN to develop their complex 5 G wireless networks with the facilitation of an ecosystem comprising multiple vendors. For instance, one vendor for radios and another one for processors which could lower its capital expenditure (CAPEX) due to increase in vendor competition and improvements in network system. Chances are, smaller operators with limited resources would likely opt for this technology to save their costs and save time in development and deployment of new-age networks like fifth generation network, 5G.
- Inception of 5G private networks
5G private network has been the center of attraction for enterprises as they are on the way to embrace Industry 4.0 and transform digitally, expecting to receive desired secured network services across their own sites and enterprise-owned buildings. An infrastructure for digital enablement with a mixture of next-gen communication technologies such as network slicing, 5G New Radio (NR), and new-age technologies namely cloud-native technological architecture, automation, edge computing) in the IT field, makes 5G private networks an ideal choice for achieving organizational digital transformation thereby growing its demand rapidly in the market. Mobile network operators are taking this opportunity to scale their business and develop private 5G networks and conducting 5G tests and trials on various places to commercialize it on a broader range and satisfy enterprise needs leading them to earn more revenues.
Conclusion
With new predictions coming in, every industry will be refurnished as they adopt new technologies clubbed with 5 G wireless networks to bring innovation in their business processes and meet customer demands. As we entered the second month of 2021, we expect more new trends to bloom that will spread its fragrance bringing more positivity in the lives of the consumers and enhance businesses to achieve more productivity and sales enablement opportunities for telecom operators, enterprises and service providers that would ultimately make their presence stronger with a competitive edge in the market.
References:
https://www.5gradar.com/features/5g-industry-predictions-for-2021
https://www.lightreading.com/cloud-nativenfv/5g-trends-to-watch-in-2021/a/d-id/766342
https://www.thefastmode.com/expert-opinion/18565-5g-trends-to-watch-for-in-2021
https://www.ericsson.com/en/blog/2020/10/paving-the-way-for-the-5g-device-ecosystem
https://www.nokia.com/nokia-today/what-is-open-ran-and-why-is-it-important/
https://www.parallelwireless.com/the-importance-of-open-ran-for-the-middle-east/
