US Wireless Industry Awaits ITU Specs on 5G as R&D Under Way

Once those specs are released, carriers can establish dates for other parts of the transition to 5G, the experts said. They said regardless of the dates, 4G will continue to coexist with the newer technology for perhaps a decade or more. That fits with other predictions at the TIA show (see 1506030021) and at January's CES (see 1501070035).

Also, 2020 is widely expected to be the year when carriers begin introducing 5G services, TIA panelists said. "That means it's only five years away, so a lot of work needs to be done," said Intel Director-Spectrum Strategy Reza Arefi. Prototyping and experimenting with bands to support applications that may be of interest to 5G systems is ongoing, and a parallel international process is standardization of IMT systems, he said. "We need to work backwards" from ITU's date "to make sure everything falls into place," he said. "It's a lot of work, but everybody is committed to meeting that deadline."

"I think everybody is in pretty solid agreement that they'll look at the work being done" with ITU 2020 "and work backwards date-wise," said Sprint Senior Research Scientist Nick Baustert. The industry needs to be "working toward a unified, global set of requirements," he said. There's "a little bit of a list" of actions to take before deployment can begin, he said. "Detailed investigation of the key elements of '5G' are already well underway, once again utilizing the highly successful partnership ITU-R [radiocommunication sector] has with the mobile broadband industry and the wide range of stakeholders in the '5G' community," ITU's website said. "In 2015, ITU-R plans to finalize its 'Vision' of the '5G' mobile broadband connected society."

IMT 2020, on which work began in 2012, is expected to get the formal OK by the ITU Radiocommunication Assembly in October "to produce a new set of IMT standards encompassing 5G," emailed an ITU spokesman Thursday. ITU-R Working Party 5D, which began the IMT 2020 work, meets June 10-18 in San Diego, he said. The meeting will "finalize all the necessary studies and documentation to set the base for the development of IMT-2020," he said.

FCC's Role

The FCC has a role in 5G, by working on spectrum issues, and is watching the development work, agency officials said.

The FCC, "working closely with some of the key driving companies" behind 5G, values flexibility of whatever technology carriers use and isn't pushing for a formal plan or document outlining the transition, said Office of Engineering and Technology Policy and Rules Division Deputy Chief Michael Ha. "There is nothing that limits people from deploying 5G, 4G, 10G as long as they meet some of the technical specifications" of protecting neighbors from interference, he said: "Industry has been working very diligently" on 5G.

Commissioner Michael O'Rielly is "interested to see what happens in those standard-setting bodies," he said Thursday at the conference. He wants to ensure there aren't efforts in those bodies, which he didn't identify, "to manipulate or tilt the playing field," he said. That could be "a nationalistic perspective, certain countries have a certain viewpoint" where they want to be 5G leaders and regret they lagged the U.S. on 4G, O'Rielly said. "I don't want to be involved in a standard-setting body, but I don't want the process to be abused."

Private-sector panelists Wednesday also said they don't want the government enforcing mandates on 5G, such as through a formal road map. "I don't think you'll find disagreement on this topic," said Cisco's Fran O'Brien, a principal engineer there. "What we're seeing is a good thing," and defining how 5G will be used is "more important" than having a national policy, he said. "We didn't have a policy that said you shall put in LTE and have nationwide coverage quickly." It happened because there was a need, O'Brien said. What carriers want is access to spectrum, panelists agreed. "The more spectrum the better," said ZTE's Tom Mao, a principal architect. He predicted a "very busy" period in technical work in the wireless industry.

Unlicensed spectrum and spectrum sharing will have a role to play in 5G, and using Wi-Fi to offload data from wireless networks also will have a role, said panelists including Mao. That doesn't mean licensed spectrum isn't the preferred route, though some creative uses of it will be required, speakers said. Unlicensed can be "unpredictable to say the least," and "licensed will be the more dependable on quality of service assurance," though there's room for unlicensed, Baustert said. "There will be room for both licensed and unlicensed and shared licenses," Arefi said. And the use of Wi-Fi "is going to increase and not decrease, with all these new capabilities that generations of wide area networks bring, there is always something else to do, some gap to fill," he said.

The FCC sees "a place and a space" for unlicensed usage, even though carriers will likely keep looking to licensed spectrum, Ha said. What the agency wants is for "the right technology that's actually fit for the band" to be used, he said. "The message of course to the FCC is always more spectrum is good," O'Brien said. "But the FCC has been very innovative" in recent years "to open up spectrum."

Panelists said it's not premature to be discussing 5G even with it five years off, and some discussed what might be held back for an eventual 6G. They joked that a scenario in fives years is that whatever is being deployed then will be considered 5G, with some saying they hope that doesn't happen. "I want this to be a set of requirements that we have to have," with "the ability to be designed into the system from day one," such as security, O'Brien said. "It's hard to predict what we're going to leave on the floor" that doesn't make it into the technology and waits instead for 6G, he said, because it's unclear what will go into 5G.