The white paper was developed in partnership with Hong Kong Telecom and the GSA
MUNICH, GERMANY- Hong Kong Telecom, the Global mobile Suppliers Association, and Huawei have jointly issued a white paper outlining the complexity of indoor 5G network deployment.
The white paper, which was released during Huawei’s Operational Transformation Forum 2018, held in Munich this week, also discusses 5G indoor service network requirements, the evolution of existing network and challenges in target network deployment.
The white paper highlights that over 80% of service usage on 4G mobile networks occurs indoors — and that a greater number of mobile services are expected to take place indoors as 5G spurs service diversity and extends business boundaries. As a result, indoor mobile networks in the 5G era will become essential to operators’ competitiveness, the white paper states.
“Various services such as virtual reality and telemedicine will flourish in the 5G era. Indoor 5G digital networks will be essential to help ensure optimal user experience, efficient operation and maintenance (O&M), and intelligent operation. The industry urgently requires further research into the network requirements of indoor 5G services and network deployment strategies,” Danny Dicks, research consultant at GSA, said.
The white paper discusses key requirements and performance indicators for indoor 5G target networks based on the features of the three major types of 5G services (enhanced mobile broadband, ultra-reliable low-latency communication and massive machine-type communication).
Using test data and theoretical analysis, the white paper analyzes the challenges facing indoor 5G target network deployment. These include coverage, capacity expansion, reliability, O&M and operation. It also describes a series of deployment strategies in terms of architecture, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), solution selection, capacity planning, network reliability, network O&M, and operation. These strategies provide guidance for indoor 5G network deployment, including:
-Capacity: Build elastic capacity to flexibly meet service requirements.
-Reliability: Use coverage, capacity and topological redundancy.
-Deployment: Use E2E digital deployment to lay a foundation for network O&M.
-Network O&M: Visualize network status for manageable and controllable indoor 5G networks.
-Network operation: Make operation of indoor 5G networks intelligent by using a network operation platform between network and application layers.
“Traditional passive indoor distributed systems cannot meet the requirements and challenges of indoor network upgrade and evolution in the 5G era. Only the innovative digital all-optical architecture can carry multiple systems and services to support more innovative services, faster data rates, flexible network expansion, efficient E2E operation, and smooth 5G evolution. This way, operators can effectively cope with the growing service types and service experience requirements in the 5G era,” said Sheldon Yau, SVP of HKT wireless network planning & design.
“In the 5G era, indoor networks will be crucial to high-value mobile networks. Indoor coverage digitalization is the inevitable future of the industry. In the next five years, Huawei will further increase its investment in the business solution development of indoor digital coverage. The company will also step up its cooperation with operators and industrial partners to work with all parties to develop brand-new business models and industrial ecosystems,” said Liang Shiming, GM of Huawei’s indoor coverage digitalization unit.
