There was much sound and fury when the 3GPP delayed the next stages of its 5G standards process because of Covid-19. In fact, pushing the timescale for the finalization of Release 16, and then of Release 17, by three months will not make a material difference to most operators. Far more important to their plans are vendors’ timescales to support the key elements of the new specifications – not just on paper, but in a way that is readily deployable, even by operators without huge inhouse engineering teams, and truly standardized.
The last stages of new standards have often been lengthened in the past, with dire warnings about the impact on sales and the availability of new services. But in the case of Releases 16 and 17, there are very few MNOs which are champing at the bit to implement the new specifications right now.
The huge majority, if they have deployed 5G at all, are still grappling with 5G New Radio Non-Standalone (NR NSA), which uses the 4G core, and have not even started to plan for the more advanced elements of Release 15, such as NR Standalone (SA) and a 5G core. The challenges of activating dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) highlight just one example of how many Rel 15 features are not yet fully deployable, never mind Rel 16.
The few operators which have a deployment roadmap ahead of this curve are relying heavily on their own engineering resources, and those of vendors, to implement something that is highly customized (Verizon is not the only operator to have some pre-standard or uniquely tailored elements in its 5G network). They will certainly be in a position to engineer their networks to be software-upgradeable to Release 16 when it appears.
And for greenfield players which might have planned to leapfrog incumbents by moving straight to NR SA together with some Rel16 features – especially those geared to industrial applications – a three-month delay may be a welcome breathing space to prepare the ground for launch.
This is not to say that there is no pent-up demand for some of the key features of the upcoming two releases. Most of this comes from certain enterprise and industrial sectors.
While Release 15 was geared to enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) performance and efficiency, its successors present a complex menu of features – none of which will be deployed universally, and some, probably, not at all – which are mainly targeted at extending the range of 5G use cases. In particular, there is a focus on the other two points of the famous 5G triangle – massive-scale IoT (enhanced machine-type communications or eMTC in 3GPP parlance); and ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC), which includes critical availability.
These new capabilities are central to the 5G business case. If the technology remains focused only on eMBB, it will be hard for most operators to justify the investment in a network, to support applications which do not necessarily generate additional revenue, and which could have been supported, for some years at least, by LTE.
And some industries, particularly in the manufacturing, transportation and healthcare sectors, are increasingly keen to harness the newer capabilities of 5G to support their own digital transformations. But while they may be impatient, the operators have to identify a strong business case for the hefty cost of deploying and supporting networks that have to meet demanding service level agreements, or monetized hundreds of thousands of tiny devices using tiny amounts of data.
These issues remain unclear for most, except in a few east Asian countries where there is significant coordination between industries and operators, to fund and prioritize enterprise mobile systems. For most MNOs, there are big decisions to make. For instance, whether to build a private networks business, as Deutsche Telekom is doing, so that enterprise requirements have a separate profit and loss; to stay focused on familiar eMBB applications for the time being and defer the cost of deploying new standards; or to try to support many different sectors with different needs, via network slicing (an important focus of features in all three 5G standards releases, but not yet mature for deployment for high reliability services).
And the risks loom large too – for instance, support for unlicensed spectrum is an element of the new standards which many MNOs will be glad has been delayed a little, since it will help enable new providers, especially in potentially lucrative enterprise markets.
And while those decisions are being made, even more standards releases wait just over the horizon – more 5G evolution after Release 17, and then, of course, ‘6G’. That is not real yet, beyond academic and industry studies of using very high ‘terahertz’ spectrum for mobile communications. Outside of those legitimate studies, the 6G discussion has become part of the current politicization of the ‘race’ to 5G, mainly between the USA and China, and bound up with their larger battles over trade, cybersecurity, industrial policy and the new Cold War.
In that context, a few months’ delay to Releases 16 and 17 do not look earth-shattering. But the threat to the whole standards-setting process – flawed and slow though it may be – is important, and could be a result of the current tendency for geopolitics to drive mobile technology innovation into two camps, allied either to the USA or China. While that may stimulate new vendors and developers on both sides, and so broaden the ecosystem for all, it could also compromise global cooperation on standards, reducing economies of scale and access to new ideas. And that could make the ‘6G’ landscape a far tougher one for all stakeholders.