Fujitsu believes that 5G-Advanced will contribute to the realization of technologies necessary for immersive multi-modal VR, smart home and smart city
5G-Advanced (5G-A) is expected to be commercially launched around 2026, Hiroyo Masuda, senior architect of 6G infrastructure, strategic planning division of advanced technology development unit at Fujitsu, told RCR Wireless News.
“Normally, market introduction of any feature will first be possible with user equipment (UE) that is compatible with the functions of all releases and takes six months to a year after specifications are completed, but it may take longer to deploy features for new use cases of 5G-Advanced,” the executive said.
“Although the ASN.1 freeze of Release.18, which is the first version of 5G-Advanced, is planned for March 2024, it will take another three to six months for the specifications to become stable. Taking this into account, we assume that 5G-Advanced will be introduced to the market around 2026,” Masuda said.
The executive highlighted that 5G-Advanced services will have the potential to expand beyond consumer services to other markets, which will likely contribute to monetization of communication service providers.
Commenting on the main features of 5G-Advanced, the executive said that the most significant features would be AI/ML implementation and the introduction of personal IoT. “Network developers started to use AI and ML technologies in RAN to improve radio quality, and for 5G SA, new features have been added to networks, which are necessary for applications to use AI/ML. 5G-Advanced will enable efficient collection of information on devices that cannot be directly connected to the network, such as sensor information,” the executive said.
“We think that 5G-Advanced technology will bring us closer to the realization of technologies necessary for immersive multi-modal VR, smart home, and smart city, areas where challenges are remaining that are difficult to solve with 5G,” Masuda said.
Masuda added that the adoption of AI/ML in the 5G-Advanced field is very important in the sense that it will be a trial for the full introduction of AI/ML in 6G. “For 5G-Advanced, there is the possibility that the adoption of AI/ML will only lead to a partial optimization, as it will be applied to already built networks, but we think that the effects of the introduction can be measured and the results fed back to 6G. We thus expect innovation through the application of AI/ML to 6G networks, rather than innovation in 5G networks.”
Commenting on the general belief that 5G-Advanced technology will act as a bridge that will connect 5G with future 6G networks, Masuda said that some of the services expected in 6G are already under consideration in 5G-Advanced. “Since the adoption of AI/ML is promoted not only in 5G-Advanced but also in the whole industry, we believe that networks using AI/ML will be available from the beginning of 6G systems and architectures can be planned accordingly,” Masuda added.
RCR Wireless News published an editorial report dubbed “5G-Advanced deep dive: state of standards, products and use cases”, in which key industry leaders and analysts deep dive into 5G-Advanced progress in terms of standardization, as well as the new features and use cases that it will enable. Click here to access the report.
