The communications giant is ahead of schedule to gambling the next 5G commercial window period

With the advancement of 5G standardization, commercial trials and exploration are increasing. 2020 is considered the first year of commercial use of 5G. Prior to this, various companies rushed to seize the opportunity.

Recently, Ericsson Mobile Market Report pointed out that 5G is expected to be deployed first in dense urban areas to support eMBB (Enhanced Mobile Broadband) services. The report predicts that by 2023, 5G technology will cover more than 20% of the world's population. By then, the number of 5G users will exceed 1 billion.

Since the first generation of analog cellular mobile communication technology was applied in the 1990s, the communications industry has experienced four major generations of technological changes. When operators do business promotion, they use the intergenerational title of technology 2G, 3G, and 4G to advertise, so users are familiar with these technical vocabularies.

Companies in the industry chain of the mobile communications industry include equipment manufacturers represented by Ericsson, ZTE, Huawei, and Samsung; operators such as AT&T and China Mobile; and terminal equipment manufacturers such as Apple, Xiaomi, and Huawei. Different from the 4G era, 5G needs to realize the mobile interconnection of objects, devices and equipment. Therefore, terminal equipment also includes automobiles, wearable devices, and various types of electronic devices.

Among them, Ericsson and operators, as well as smart manufacturing, medical and other fields to carry out 5G cooperation. At the same time, Ericsson also has to face rivals such as Huawei, ZTE, and Nokia. For example, Samsung and Huawei are typical multi-operator operations companies. They not only produce server communication equipment, but also produce various types of terminal equipment. They also participate in the formulation of 5G standards.

Ericsson explores 5G applications

Enhanced mobile broadband, high reliability, and low latency are the three key features of 5G. Although there is still a long period of time away from commercial use of 5G, the characteristics of the upgrade bring a lot of imagination to the industry, and equipment vendors are already gearing up. But before 5G really arrives, it is still difficult to determine which area the killer application will appear in.

Zhang Zhiwei, chief marketing officer of Ericsson Northeast Asia, told 21st Century Business Herald that the first complete 5G standard will be formally introduced in June 2018, which will lay the foundation for the large-scale application of 5G, and mature after June. Large-scale commercial platforms will also appear. "According to Ericsson's investigation, it is estimated that the economic scale brought by 5G technology in China will reach 158.9 billion U.S. dollars by 2026. Many industries will benefit from 5G. Important fields include the energy industry, smart manufacturing, public safety, medical care, Cars, media entertainment, etc."

Taking Ericsson as an example, it has explored four major application directions. Zhang Zhiwei introduced that one of them is the cooperation between Ericsson and SCANIA, one of the world's three major heavy truck manufacturers. Due to safety limitations, the safety distance between the car and the car is more than 25 meters. Through the low delay and high reliability of the 5G connection, the car and the car can maintain a relatively close communication. The 5G can realize the car and the car. The distance from the 25 meters to 3 meters. Zhang Zhiwei further explained that: "Its actions such as acceleration and braking will be transmitted back to the vehicle at the same time. The vehicle ahead will be accelerated, the vehicle will be automatically accelerated, the front vehicle will be braked, the rear vehicle will be automatically braked, and the formation will be subjected to high-speed response and operation. During the driving process, if the delay can be reduced from tens or hundreds of milliseconds to several milliseconds, these high-speed communications will allow the vehicle and the vehicle to react almost at the same time to ensure safety. We are now testing a 3-car group, followed by There will be more exploration."

Ericsson’s Guangzhou R&D center is focusing on R&D vehicle networking solutions. Li Pengfei, general manager of Ericsson’s Guangzhou R&D Center, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter: “Ericsson’s Guangzhou R&D Center put forward the concept of Che Lianyun for the first time from 2011 to 2012. At that time, it was car and infotainment. Geely and SCANIA used us. The vehicle alliance cloud program. So far, the application of our car linkage program is growing at a rate of 40,000 vehicles per month."

The second exploration is remote industrial control. Ericsson partnered with ABB and Volvo in a mine in northern Sweden to work on an unmanned mining vehicle project. The use of 5G technology can realize the control of unmanned mining vehicles on mines, thereby reducing manpower and increasing the efficiency of mining. In addition, Zhang Meng, director of industry marketing for Ericsson Northeast Asia, said that Ericsson’s completely unmanned solution for cooperation with FAW in specific areas can be applied to mining areas, ports, and parks.

Telemedicine is the third exploration. Ericsson and King's College London jointly developed remote surgery under the 5G scenario. The fourth exploration is related to smart manufacturing. The Nanjing Ericsson factory has already started a trial with a screwdriver. Zhang Zhiwei said: “This is the simplest industrial control case for mass IoT. The precision screwdriver needs to stop every 3000 times. In the past, maintenance was based entirely on people, and now it can be automated through information technology. Further, the automation of materials management is followed, followed by assembly and production lines. Low latency, highly reliable Internet of Things can make the entire industry chain Completely transformed, so smart manufacturing is also the focus of the next 5G application."

In addition, the first phase of the 5G standard (3GPPR15) was completed by the 3GPP by the end of 2017 to ensure that large-scale trials and deployment can begin in 2019. However, the verification of certain functional characteristics of 5G has made some progress, which is enough to provide Gigabit speed in the current network. It is expected that the 5G technology and services will be displayed at the upcoming large-scale sports events (such as the 2018 South Korea Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, 2018 in Russia's international football championships, and the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics).

Who will laugh at the end?

In terms of the domestic market, Huawei is also the largest player in the 5G market. The strength of the old communications equipment business is strong, and mobile terminals are also growing rapidly. Because of its complete chain capability, Huawei's 5G commercial systems are fully-stacked, including terminals, base stations, core networks, and transmissions. For example, at the wireless physical layer conference of the 3GPP at the end of last year, China's PolarCode (Polarization Code) scheme was beaten by Qualcomm to promote the LDPC scheme and became the 5G control channel eMBB scenario coding scheme. LDPC becomes a data channel coding scheme. Channel codec belongs to the physical layer technology in the basic communication framework. The main technical basis of enhanced mobile broadband eMBB, one of the three major technical features of 5G, is channel coding. PolarCode plays a key role in transmission. Huawei’s victory over Qualcomm this time has a symbolic significance for China’s status in the international communications field.

From the perspective of performance, Huawei's rapid expansion, Ericsson is slimming streamlined. However, in the 5G layout, various companies are in the initial stage of submission.

Each generation of communication technology is accompanied by the rise and fall of a generation of business empire, and the industry has evergreen and century-old stores are in an abnormal state. The 2G era is the world of Nokia and Ericsson. At that time, the European unified standard for GSM communication systems was officially commercialized. Sweden's Ericsson and Finland's Nokia began to enter the global market. Perhaps it is the demand for wireless communication with the sparse population coupled with Nordic people's ability for industrial innovation. Nokia completely defeated Motorola with a strategic mistake at the beginning of this century and officially became the overlord of the communications industry.

In 1996, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), headquartered in Geneva, proposed the IMT-2000 standard, requiring that communication technologies that meet IMT-2000 requirements be accepted as 3G technologies. It is worth mentioning that China’s telecommunications industry expert Zhao Houlin was elected as the new Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union in 2014 and became the first Chinese Secretary-General in the 150-year history of the International Telecommunication Union for a four-year term. This also proves that China's telecommunications development has taken a pivotal position in the current international.

The ITU plays an active role in promoting the development of the 3G standard. The specific technical standards are completed by the 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards organizations according to ITU's recommendations. At present, the European ETSI, the US TIA, the Japanese TTC, the ARIB, the South Korean TTA, and the Chinese CCSA constitute 6 organizations partners of the 3GPP.

For 4G era, each operator gives 4G standards to their respective authorities. 3GPP develops and promotes the 5G standard in advance: it must increase the speed and reduce the delay. The 5G network user experience transmission rate must meet the download speed of at least 100Mbps (12.5M/s). With a 50Mbps (6.25M/s) upload speed, the network delay time must not exceed 4 milliseconds, and a stable network connection can be maintained on a 500km/h high-speed train. The speed of the 5G era laid the foundation for this. Major companies have added bricks and tiles to this foundation. Ericsson's 5G test results are 5 Gbps per second, and Huawei proposes to achieve 10 Gbps. The 5G network peak reported by the media, one second can download a 1G movie is also based on such expectations, the actual feeling of how much speed can reach, but also look at the commercialization of follow-up operators.

One of the factors in which the communication speed is mainly limited is the frequency of the electromagnetic wave. The higher the frequency, the faster the speed. In the 4G phase, the frequency of electromagnetic waves of Chinese operators is mainly concentrated in the 2GHz-3GHz. In the 5G phase, international companies currently use 28GHz for commercial testing. On the other hand, due to the increase in frequency, the wavelength of the electromagnetic wave is shorter. In reality, it is necessary to cover the signal in the same area. 5G adds a larger number of base stations than 4G, which means greater infrastructure investment. It can be said that With the commercialization of 5G, the cost of signal coverage is the biggest problem.

At the same time, indoor signal coverage also requires more indoor base stations. Zhang Zhiwei said: "The challenge for 5G is in the interior. Even if it is a 1:1 station, 5G may not be able to get in. This is a huge challenge."