5G at five, and what’s next for mobile networks?

As the digital revolution continues at a dizzying pace, it is easy to lose track of some of the key development milestones in the technologies that enable it.

5G rollout has just reached such a milestone, with 2024 marking the fifth anniversary of the first commercial 5G deployments. This is a significant landmark, because each new generation of mobile network technology has come to market roughly every ten years. The International Telecommunications Union has already named its 6G development framework IMT-2030, raising the expectation that 6G will follow the same pattern. We can therefore say that 5G is around halfway through its initial rollout, so it is a suitable time to take stock of how 5G technology is developing, and where it stands in relation to 6G.

This blog explores the latest iteration of 5G technology, 5G Advanced. It considers the new value it creates for operators and business and personal users and looks at how 6G is set to take these capabilities to the next level.

5G Advanced adds new capabilities

The 3GPP Release 18 for 5G technology has been named 5G Advanced because of the significant advances it delivers in 5G capability.

Alongside increased capacity and uplink and downlink speeds, it offers a wide range of new and improved features for more functional, flexible, and sustainable networks.

• Programmable networks – 5G Advanced makes mobile networks more flexible by making them programmable. Here at Ericsson, we are enabling these programmable network features for our customers, so they can align the features and behaviours of the network to whatever business goals or customer demands they face.
• Positioning – High-precision positioning means specific applications can be built on the network for locating devices accurately and reliably.
• AI powered intelligence – 5G Advanced has the architectural enhancements and standardized AI solutions needed to build consistent, scalable intelligence capability across 5G networks.
• Power management – This AI-powered intelligence is used to optimize power consumption, delivering power efficiently where and when it is needed, with minimal waste.
• Self-healing networks – The network uses intelligent monitoring and automated remediation capabilities to spot and fix network issues quickly, for example by rerouting traffic or varying bandwidth.

How 5G Advanced creates new value

The added capabilities of 5G Advanced open up many new and enhanced business applications.

• Enhanced positioning adds value in a wide range of applications, from accurate tracking of vehicles and other mobile business assets to improved personal safety and fraud detection through precise geolocation of personal devices.
• Faster deployment of new features using Cloud capabilities, along with programmable servers, means operators can implement new customer solutions quickly and flexibly.
• Intelligent power management means longer battery life for user devices, and helps meet the growing demand for lighter, smaller devices in areas like wearable technology.
• Self-healing, intelligent networks deliver the ultra-reliable, low loss, low latency connectivity essential for autonomous vehicles and other IoT and IIoT applications.

The ability to use software to segment and adapt network services flexibly and quickly makes it easier to deliver the differentiated services that give users more choice and enable operators to monetize value-added services.

The path to 6G

While 5G marks its fifth birthday with the launch of 5G Advanced, research and development are well underway for 6G, the mobile technology generation that promises to create a seamless reality, where the digital and physical worlds as we know them today have merged.

Delivering this vision will build on the innovations of 5G Advanced with further step improvements in network capacity, speed, reliability, and reach, alongside growth in the intelligence, flexibility and adaptability of networks, and new functional capabilities to meet the needs of this merged digital and physical world.

What next?

5G Advanced adds a new set of capabilities that grow value for operators and customers alike. It enables more flexible, resilient, intelligent 5G networks to meet the rapidly growing requirements of a connected digital, world, and paves the way for the next step change in network capability that 6G will bring.

To find out more, and to continue the conversation, reach out to me on LinkedIn or visit this page