Since its commercial launch in 2019, 5G is gearing up to enter its next transformational phase, which will be driven largely by 5G-Advanced — an upgrade to The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) release that will bring about substantial improvements driven by the introduction of new features and functionalities. It will act as a tipping point for enabling new use cases and creating fresh business opportunities in both the enterprise and consumer sectors.
At present, 5G has correlated largely with use cases that require Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) performance, which is mainly smartphones and several new device types, including Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and hotspot router products. The technology has yet to attract new and lucrative business opportunities in either the consumer or enterprise segments beyond eMBB. Moreover, with performance currently being the key driver in the 5G domain, extending reach from smartphones to other connected devices in both consumer an enterprise sectors, the attach rate for devices beyond smartphones is minimal at best.
However, this is set to change with future 3GPP 5G releases, including Release 16, Release 17 and beyond. While some cellular improvements will come about organically from the advent of 5G-Advanced, others will be the result of the introduction of new features and applications that are essential for a plethora of use cases and applications.
Figure 1: Current shift to 5G-Advanced driven by performance
While performance is an important 5G issue for now, the transition requires not only new modems, but also improved radio system components, which includes more filters, smarter tuning, envelope trackers, etc. Moreover, the growth in Radio Frequency (RF) content means that there is a greater need to have better radio designs that have improved integration, power management, and efficiencies.
The new features and functionalities that 5G-Advanced brings will see a massive uplift in applications as they are designed to sustain a whole new raft of uses cases and device types. These new features—notably Sidelink, Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) support, Reduced Capability (RedCap) (5G New Radio (NR)-Light), accurate positioning, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) enablement—are all 5G evolution vectors. These are designed to help unlock and more efficiently support both existing and a broad range of new use cases and more challenging applications, ushering in the next wave of 5G expansion. These new market applications will impact not just the consumer market, but also represent a huge opportunity in the enterprise sector across its multiple verticals.
However, to address these new features will require additional new RF components and the support of new frequency bands, adding greater complexity to the radio system on top of what is already being addressed. For example, providing support for geolocation and accurate position to a device, or using Sidelink to allow Device-to-Device (D2D) communication will all need to integrate new components. In addition, new designs and use cases will manifest from 5G RedCap with the introduction of more cost-efficient, smaller footprint devices.
Figure 2: 5G-Advanced features to unlock new use cases and applications
Such an expansion in 5G use cases designed to unlock these next-gen advanced experiences will lead to the development of greater numbers of device form factors and market segments, and advances in those that need to be more fine-tuned and sophisticated, which will lead to a large increase in the volume of devices taking market growth way beyond mobile phones. The areas most likely to be impact by the shift to 5G-Advanced and its new features are:
- Mobile phones/smartphones
- Automotive
- Smart city
- Consumer Internet of Things (IoT)
- IoT edge networking
- Industrial IoT
It remains to be seen how long it will take before all 5G-Advanced features will make it to the marketplace and which market forces are likely to drive their implementations. It is now necessary for the mobile industry to accelerate its 5G-Advanced agenda if they want to capitalize on its full potential. With the evolution toward 5G-Advanced, there is still much to be done to fully unlock the value of the 5G ecosystem and realize its full potential.
Figure 3: New 5G-Advanced features to drive explosion in use cases and market opportunities
The addition of these new 5G-Advanced functionalities will place an increasingly demanding impact on hardware and on the growth in new device designs, with some necessitating the use of additional hardware. Improved power efficiencies and management will also be fundamental requirements. This will have a major bearing on the preference, management, and configuration of modem and component selection and packaging, with an added increase in the number and complexity radio system components and modules. In turn, adding such features will create additional product design considerations and constraints that will all need to be resolved, which adds yet another layer of complexity.
To achieve these new feature paradigms, providing a long-term evolution to deliver on the wider 5G vision, there must be a need to harmonize supply chain components. With such a large number of use cases expected to be supported, it will be imperative that a radio system framework is created for targeting a particular use case, whether that is for automotive, robotics, etc., creating much needed scale. If no such framework is used, then customization of individual use cases will escalate costs and lengthen time to market.
Moreover, a new breed of component will be required to service these applications, further adding to the complexity of the radio system. Indeed, under such a market environment, it is expected that many of these new use cases will be mission-critical, so the radio system must be near-perfect; otherwise, it jeopardizes their existence before they have even had chance to get started.
