5G White Paper
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Executive Summary
With the global commercialization of the 4G LTE standard, the wireless community is now looking forward to
the next generation mobile network. According to ITU, the official name of the next generation mobile network is
IMT-2020, hereafter termed 5G for short. It will be launched in 2020. Worldwide initiatives on 5G research have
been extensively carried out, starting with an investigation on user demands, on application scenarios, and on
technical trends, among other research topics.
Mobile Internet and Internet of Things are widely identified as the two major driving forces for 5G. Further
development of Mobile Internet will touch every aspect of daily life, whereas Internet of Things will be a virtual
neural net on earth. As a result, wireless networks circa 2020 are expected to be 1000 times greater in capacity and
capable of connecting 100B devices. Besides being end-user friendly, 5G networks should also be MNO friendly
in terms of easy deployment and upgrade, low cost operation and maintenance.
More than 1000MHz of new frequency bands should be identified to fill the spectrum resource gap by 2020,
first in bands under 6GHz and then above 6GHz. New spectrum utilization policies such as authorized shared
access should be explored.
To satisfy the user needs, 5G network capabilities can be defined by several key performance indicators with
the following target values:
Peak data rate ≥ 10Gbps,
Minimum guaranteed user data rate ≥ 100Mbps,
Connection density ≥ 1M connections/ km
2
,
Traffic density ≥ 10 Tbps/ km
2
,
Radio latency ≤ 1 ms,
E2E latency ≤ 10 ms,
Mobility up to 500km/h.
Besides the performance requirements, 5G network needs to achieve 5~15 times spectral efficiency, 100+ times
energy efficiency, and 100+ times cost efficiency.
Even though we are still far from being able to draw a clearly defined picture, 5G networks can be envisioned
as Soft, Green and Super Fast:
• Soft: to bring agility into implementation of each network element from core network to access network,
as well as the building blocks of air interface,
• Green: to heighten efficiency in utilization of any resources supporting wireless communication from the
network side to the user terminal side,
• Super Fast: to approach immersive and tactile user experience in various anticipated extreme scenarios.
To achieve the visionary features, the traditional principles in designing a wireless network should be
profoundly revisited with following innovative R&D themes:
• Rethink Shannon to start a green journey on wireless systems,
• Rethink Ring & Young for no more “cells”,
• Rethink signaling & control to make network applications and load aware,
5G White Paper
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• Rethink antennas to make BS invisible,
• Rethink spectrum & air interface to enable wireless signal “dress for the occasion”.
Following the above R&D themes, the latest development in the wireless communication technical domain is
extensively investigated to identify potential candidate technologies for 5G on:
• Radio technologies: EE-SE co-design, massive MIMO, full duplex, alternative multiple access, new
waveforms, advanced modulation and coding, software defined air interface, sparsity exploitation, high
frequency communications, and spectrum sharing and flexible spectrum usage,
• Network technologies: C-RAN, SDN/NFV, SON, UDN, multi-RAT, and D2D,
with other particular considerations on wearable devices, M2M and security. To assess the new technical
paradigm opened by 5G, challenges on evaluation and test methods need to be figured out.
The campaign on 5G standards has just begun and will last to the end of this decade. FuTURE FORUM will
work together with global partners until the final success.
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Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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1. INTRODUCTION
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1.1 TOWARDS 2020 AND BEYOND
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1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE WHITE PAPER
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2. SCENARIOS, REQUIREMENTS AND KPI
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2.1 OVERALL VISION FOR 5G
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2.2 SCENARIOS AND REQUIREMENTS
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2.2.1 Scenarios, Services & User Demands
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2.2.2 Network Deployment, Operation & Maintenance Requirements
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2.2.3 Spectrum Requirements
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2.3 KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
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3. NETWORK VISION AND R&D THEMES
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3.1 NETWORK VISION
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3.1.1 Soft Networks
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3.1.2 Green Networks
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3.1.3 Super Fast Networks
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3.2 R&D THEMES
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3.2.1 Rethink Shannon
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3.2.2 Rethink Ring & Young
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3.2.3 Rethink Signaling & Control
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3.2.4 Rethink Antenna
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3.2.5 Rethink Spectrum & Air Interface
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3.2.6 From R&D Themes to Technology Components
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4. RADIO TECHNOLOGIES
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4.1 EE-SE CO-DESIGN
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4.2 MASSIVE MIMO
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4.3 FULL DUPLEX
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4.4 ALTERNATIVE MULTIPLE ACCESS
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4.5 NEW WAVEFORM
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4.6 ADVANCED MODULATION AND CODING
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4.7 SOFTWARE DEFINED AIR INTERFACE
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4.8 SPARSITY EXPLOITATION
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4.9 HIGH FREQUENCY COMMUNICATIONS
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4.10 SPECTRUM SHARING AND FLEXIBLE SPECTRUM USAGE
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5. NETWORK TECHNOLOGIES
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5.1 C-RAN
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5.2 UDN
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5.3 MULTI-RAT
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5.4 SDN
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5.5 NFV
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5.6 SON
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5.7 D2D
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6. SPECIAL ISSUES
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6.1 BEYOND SMART PHONES
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6.2 M2M
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6.3 SECURITY
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7. EVALUATION AND TESTING
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7.1 TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION
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7.2 TEST & MEASUREMENT
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8. TIMELINE AND COLLABORATION
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9. SUMMARY
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REFERENCES
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GLOSSARY
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
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APPENDICES
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A.1 EXTENDED TEXT FOR EE-SE CO-DESIGN
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A.2 EXTENDED TEXT FOR MASSIVE MIMO
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A.3 EXTENDED TEXT FOR FULL DUPLEX
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A.4 EXTENDED TEXT FOR ALTERNATIVE MULTIPLE ACCESS
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A.5 EXTENDED TEXT FOR NEW WAVEFORM
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A.6 EXTENDED TEXT FOR ADVANCED MODULATION AND CODING
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A.7 EXTENDED TEXT FOR SOFTWARE DEFINED AIR INTERFACE
.......................................................................................
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A.8 EXTENDED TEXT FOR SPARSITY EXPLORATION DESIGN
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A.9 EXTENDED TEXT FOR HIGH FREQUENCY COMMUNICATIONS
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A.10 EXTENDED TEXT FOR SPECTRUM SHARING AND FLEXIBLE SPECTRUM USAGE
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A.11 EXTENDED TEXT FOR C-RAN
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A.12 EXTENDED TEXT FOR UDN
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A.13 EXTENDED TEXT FOR MULTI-RAT
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A.14 EXTENDED TEXT FOR SDN/NFV
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A.15 EXTENDED TEXT FOR SON
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A.16 EXTENDED TEXT FOR D2D
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A.17 EXTENDED TEXT FOR M2M
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A.18 EXTENDED TEXT FOR SECURITY
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1. Introduction
1.1 Towards 2020 and Beyond
Since the world’s first 4G (LTE: Long Term Evolution) pre-commercial network was launched by the Swedish
mobile network operator (MNO) Telia on May 27, 2009, the deployment of 4G networks has accelerated all over the
world. According to the latest report of the Global mobile Suppliers Association, there are more than 300 LTE networks
(among which 41 are TD-LTE) deployed in 111 countries by the 2nd quarter of 2014, with more than 0.245B
subscribers and 1900 terminals in the market. In Dec 4, 2013, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology
(MIIT) of China issued the official 4G license to three MNOs in Mainland China. This came to mark the point where
the world’s largest mobile communication market had officially entered the 4G era. According to the interim report of
China Mobile, as of June 2014, there are more than 410K deployed TD-LTE base stations (BSs) and 1.4M subscribers.
It is recorded that the commercialization progress of the 4G standard has been much faster than for the 3G standards,
and is in fact the greatest in the history of mobile technology. With the global commercialization of LTE, the R&D
effort on 4G standards has been hugely successful in achieving commercial return. Worldwide R&D efforts on wireless
technology now aim at opportunities leading to the next generation wireless standards.
Meanwhile, the rapid adoption of smart phones has triggered the Internet paradigm shift, from desktop to handheld.
As a result, it has introduced an exponential increase in wireless traffic over the last years. It is observed that the
wireless data traffic of China Mobile increased 80 times within the last 5 years. On the other hand, the introduction of
Internet of Things (IoT) raised the challenges not only in terms of network capacity, but also on the number of wireless
connections. It is expected that the wireless network in 2020 should be capable of providing 1000 times more capacity
and 10~100 times more connections compared with the current network. In early 2012, International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) launched a program entitled “International Mobile Telecom (IMT) for 2020 and
Beyond” which targets to define the standard of next generation wireless network, “5G” in short. According to ITU, the
commercial networks of next generation wireless standards will be launched around 2020 and last well into the
following decades.
Triggered by ITU, initiatives on 5G research have been kicked off by various stakeholders in the wireless community
to answer, among others, the following questions in the first stage: What is 5G? What are the major driving forces?
Which technologies can solve the technical challenges? What’s the timeline for 5G networks? FuTURE FORUM, as an
international platform in Mainland China, assembled experts from both domestic and foreign companies, institutes,
universities to found a 5G Special Interests Group (5G SIG) to draw an overall picture, for those questions, toward 2020
and beyond.
1.2 Objectives of the White Paper
The objective of this white paper is to present the perspectives on:
• Vision, application scenarios and requirements,
• Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and R&D themes,
