All roads to the future of wireless and the full potential of 5G travel through 5G Standalone, which is beginning to pick up steam. As of August, the Global mobile Suppliers Association reports that 115 operators in 52 countries and territories have put some kind of investment into 5G Standalone networks, or 21% of the 535 operators known to be investing in 5G.
Danny Tseng, director of technical marketing for Qualcomm, called 5G Advanced “the second wave of 5G innovations that’s coming to the second half of this decade.” Speaking from the show floor at Mobile World Congress Las Vegas, Tseng said that 5G Standalone will “will take mobile broadband to the next level, bringing better reliability, lower latency and mobility,” as well as new services and features for specific verticals.
The benefits of 5G SA fall into three broad areas, Tseng said: Low-latency services such as extended reality and cloud gaming; support for the evolution of IoT, particularly Reduced Capability (RedCap); and the ability to more efficiently and effectively support standalone 5G private networks. More specifically, he pointed out, 5G SA also offers opportunities to take advantage of new energy-saving features as well as leverage artificial intelligence in the network and devices.
5G Standalone is the pre-requisite of 5G Advanced, which also represents “the start of the evolution towards 6G,” Tseng said, explaining that some 5G Advanced study items are expected to eventually become part of future 6G systems. That can include the evolution toward a full-duplex system (simultaneous transmission of data in both the uplink and the downlink) and expectations for 6G coverage spectrum to include new, upper-midband spectrum in the 7-16 GHz range.
Artificial intelligence and its applicability in wireless communications was a hot topic at MWC Las Vegas—and is also a priority for Qualcomm.
“We’re absolutely working very hard on on-device AI, looking at AI on the devices but also in the networks and in the cloud,” Tseng said.
AI is already showing up in standards work as well, he noted. For Release 18, study items include wireless AI and the ability to achieve greater operating efficiencies in the network, from reducing signal overhead on channel-state feedback to providing more accurate positioning services and supporting predictive beam management that enables better mobility and better use experience.
Watch the full interview with Danny Tseng below and learn more about Qualcomm’s work on 5G Standalone and AI here: https://www.qualcomm.com/research/5g
