Asreertebat – Filipe Rodrigues, Lead 5G Architect Mobility at Cisco believes 5G is ultra-reliable communications. The change to 5G required new spectrum ,new hardware on radio .That
requires investment into purchase spectrum assets . he belives There is no increase health risk associated with 5G technologies and his advice for the people that are concern, is always to maximise the distance between your brain and your phone.
We had an interview with him about the 5G challenges.
-First, please give statistics 5G internet coverage in the world? Which are leading countries in this area
R: First we need to divide 5G tech into 2 subcategories: 5GNSA and 5GSA
5GNSA ( Nonstand alone) is a way that operators can harvesting the benefits of the 5G technologies without a disruption on the core network that was running for years. That as nerveless limitation. Most of the networks deploy are using that. That is enough for your smartphone to show the 5G symbol. These technologiesaredeployed in around 160 -170 operators in around 60 countries to my knowledge.
5G SA ( Stand alone) is transformational as is adoption of the internet technologies into our communication platforms . Is a long term trend that started with VoIP and is now changing completely the core by using Application programable interfaces (API) to communicate between service.Same as services like amazon or google use, just slightly more that 20 operators have deployed in 16 countries 5G SA
– what are the Health Risks of 5G and are it true?
There is no increase health risk associated with 5G technologies. The fundamental underlighting radio wave is not structural different from the wireless radio waves that we are exposed. Due to the public concerns, there are studies that prove that 5G is safe. If indeed we compare 5G with a 2G technologies, it can be argued that 5G can be even more safe as we need less power due to the densification of radio nodes/Towers. Normal cases of use also required less that you have your device next to your brain (like when we were calling with 2G phones). We are now using video calls, browsing seeing videos. Our brainis less and less exposed to those waves.
So 5G is very safe. My advice for the people that are concern, is always to maximise the distance between your brain and your phone.
– what industries in the first line on benefiting 5G?
I believe 5G will benefit mostly manufacturing and logistics as we get private spectrum these industries can start enable more Industry 4.0 use cases and facilitate their operations by enable better and more reliable connectivity.
We probably will see more and more the AR/VR with devices that will enable us to be view and enhance our experience of the world.
Autonomous robots and autonomous driving. I see that in very near future we will get our deliveries with a robot, and we take anautonomous taxi. This will fundamentally run in 5G infrastructure.
-What are the advantages of 5G compared to previous generations?
-Bigger network capacity (mode users/devices and more throughput)
-Support for higher throughputs and lower latency (time that a packet must travel to reach the destination from or to the internet)
-A big word is ultra-reliablecommunications. 5G is bringing a capability of us relying that a network will serve the traffic that we need and potentially enable use cases like:
-Remote control of cars
-Remote medicalprocedures
-Real time video transmissions
– The complexity and diversity of the 5G specifications are one of the most challenging problems in developing 5G. What is your opinion about that?
It depends:
The Service providers are used to navigate the specifications and know what to do and to prioritise the technical requirements based on use case. Complex use cases are typically done based on business need. But the change for a 5G SA and underlying tech poses a difficulty on the transition as we need new skills to operate and run. Is a call transition to microservices infrastructure that transition is not easy but will be a rewarding one, will allow SP to provide more API to the externallworld . This will enable new services to be build on top of this API.
– What are challenges to upgrade to 5G or higher? (Cost – technical knowledge-equipment, etc.)
The change to 5Grequired new spectrum (that is why you have auctions)
new Hardware on radio and for specific case of 5G SA a new core network. That requires investment into purchase spectrum assets on the auctions. Deploy the new radios, and this is where Open RAN i.e the use of a open architecture and running the radio devices on a normal datacenter can help decrease this huge cost.
On top 5G SA comes with a total different core with new technologies, what we call cloud native technologies. This means that a operator will run same type of infrastructure like an application on the web will that is nerveless a big shift that requires new development and skills. This transition is being difficult, operators transit from hardware appliances to virtualized workloads to a could native workload that is being both transformational and difficult .
-What facilities do the leading countries provide to the operators in this field?
Spectrum is the main facility need to be provided. One important thing is to actually allow business to use spectrum for themselves. The reality is that US allow CBRS spectrum , Germany have private spectrum band, UK , Japan, Australia. This is not available everywhere but is a key enabler for some industrial use cases .
– What are different between 5g and 6g ? (in speed – delay-cost….?), Is difference very huge or not?
R: Hard to say because 6G is still being defined as we speak. I believe 6G will be a convergence of tech between wifi and 5G .So a child of this great technologies that we use every day. We will move without thinking about I am connected to wifi , 5G , 6G . We will not think about connectivity anymore will be assure. As we have evolved AR/VR applications 6G will have a strong component into low latency,high-capacity and ultra reliablecapabilities.
– According to the latest news, developing of 5G in US postponed for 1 year, because of concerns in aviation industry wish and some problems of 5G in airplane radars. Does 5G networks have unsolved problems?
Not at all. Fundamentally the problem arises due to altimeter on some planethat is an old device and it can be sensitive to Radio frequency interference. Some US operators have frequency very close to the ones that the Altimeter is operating on and due to the capability of this devices to distinguish the 5G communication from his own system to detect the distance from the ground.
And the problem might not arise itself. Is just as a precaution that networks are being operated in other frequencies near airports. And planes are being adjusted with better altimeters that don’t face that problem.
– In respect of coming 6G networks in some countries, do you believe the word will jump of 4G to 6G or not?
I don’t think someone will jump from 4G to 6G . The network evolution is normally done at a pace of 10year i.e from 4G to 5G took us 10 years and the cost of an LTE implementation today is more that 1/3 of what was 10 years ago. So it will be economical for the operators to deploy 5G before 6G. Also 6G needs to be defined and we need device manufactures (Apple, Samsung etc ) we need radio vendors to create radio products and we need use cases to justify the investment.
Filipe Rodrigues is a 5G technologies leader in Cisco. Works to accelerate the transition to 5G and the integration of 5G technologies into the service providers and into the industry . Is passionate about tech and in particular mobile communication.
