5G is now mainstream, with more than 200 commercial 5G networks having already launched around the world and close to 1,000 5G devices already shipping—of which about half are non-smartphone devices, according to figures from the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA).
Those 5G New Radio networks and devices are, by and large, based on 3GPP’s Release 15—with Release 17 recently frozen, the standard has already been improved upon and 5G technology further developed. As outlined by Tantra Analyst Founder and Principal Prakash Sangam in a session at the virtual Test and Measurement Forum event, Release 16 primarily focused on improving 5G NR for use by smartphones and for enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) use. Release 17, he says, changes the trajectory of the standard.
“Previously, 3GPP would develop standards for smartphones and mobile broadband … and then the industries would take it and optimize and modify it to their needs,” Sangam explains. “That changes with Release 17. Release 17 is designed, keeping the needs of the industry verticals in mind, and it is to address a wide array of industry verticals,” among them, healthcare, logistics, transportation and precision agriculture.
Among the new concepts introduced in Release 17 are:
-Adapting 5G to support extended reality and the metaverse, including optimization of latency and power usage and distribution of processing across the network/device/edge computing.
-Extending 5G into new and even higher spectrum bands as well as unlicensed spectrum.
-Establishing a technical relationship between 5G and non-terrestrial, or space-based, networks (NTN). Non-terrestrial networks should be seen as complementary rather than competitors to terrestrial 5G networks, Sangam explains, particularly for broadband services in war-torn areas or in the wake of natural disasters, or in rural areas where terrestrial networks can’t be cost-effectively deployed; as well as for coverage of the seas. NTN could provide either broadband or IoT services under those conditions, he noted.
-5G Multicast/Broadcast: This concept has been outlined in standards releases going back to 3G but has yet to gain commercial traction. However, in 5G the multicast/broadcast implementation is simplified, Sangam said, which could lead to uptake, and there is fresh interest in using the feature to provide public safety information as well as the possibility of the broadcast functionality being used for upgrades of autonomous vehicles.
-Release 17 also introduces the “Reduced Capability” or “RedCap” device concept. 5G already is built to support very high speed, device density and capacity—RedCap is meant to extend the standard to support more lower-complexity, lower-cost devices, such as IoT devices and wearables. Sangam describes this as one of the most important features of Release 17, this ability to support a large variety of “in-between” devices that have requirements that aren’t as demanding ultra-low latency and reliability, but still have higher needs than the most bare-bones, long-lived IoT sensors. simliresi
A number of Release 16 features are also being enhanced in Release 17, including:
-Increasing the capacity and deployment flexibility of Integrated Access Backhaul.
-More precise 5G positioning, to address the needs of industrial verticals with centimeter-level location accuracy indoors and accuracy within five meters outdoors.
-Expanding upon the use of the cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) sidelink with better power savings and reliability, with potential use cases in public safety.
-The concept of “small data” transmission. Sangam notes that this is in line with industry vertical needs for support of wireless sensors that have to transmit very small amounts of data on an infrequent basis. If you were to set up a full 5G call flow to transmit those small amounts of data, Sangam explains, “the actual overhead for setting up a channel or link is much more than the amount of data to be transmitted. So in such cases, you waste a lot of resources, you waste a lot of battery power and so on, for very little data.” Small data transmission enables transmission of data even when the device is not in its fully connected mode, which would improve the battery life of such sensors.
-In what might seem like an oxymoron, Release 17 delves into achieving 5G’s Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) in unlicensed spectrum.
Release 17 also outlines a number of continued enhancements to previously established features, from improving MIMO beam-forming and beam-steering as well as reducing system overhead, to improvements in battery life by enabling unused radios to be turned off; making Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) more efficient and better at managing more devices as 5G penetration increases; and 5G coverage extensions, particularly in the uplink.
Recorded sessions from Test and Measurement Forum, including Sangam’s session, are available for viewing here on YouTube.
