Testing, Measurement Seen More Complex for 5G Networks Than for 4G

Scale is one of the biggest challenges for 5G, said Dean Brauer, Verizon vice president-network and field operations. “As we are deploying 5G networks, the number of nodes and the types of nodes is growing exponentially,” he said. Integration and how to make 5G networks “work well with our 4G networks” is a challenge, he said. Testing is also difficult, he said. “We have to be able to measure and monitor the networks very well, in real time, at a scale that we haven’t seen before,” he said.

Moving to 5G will simplify operations for carriers but also add complication, Brauer said. “When you get to a stand-alone environment you no longer have to anchor to your 4G network, so from a performance perspective and operational perspective you get some simplification in how you can operate your network,” he said: But at the time carriers can slice their network so the network's complexity “goes up significantly from what we’re used to in our 3G and 4G networks.”

The size and speed of 5G deployment are a potential problem for providers, said Sophie Legault, director-transport and datacom business unit at testing company Exfo. Carriers “really want to deploy a lot of the network very, very fast so that’s definitely a huge challenge,” she said. 5G also has a “vast array” of new features, including the use of new spectrum bands, synchronization and high-speed transport, which require a trained workforce, she said.

“The network is more dynamic now,” Legault said. “From an operations perspective you have to be able to understand that and cope with that change,” she said. Service assurance has “to be dynamic and be scalable in the same way that the network is,” she said.

Networks have evolved “to become almost completely automated with zero-touch services,” said Sameh Yamany, Viavi Solutions chief technology officer. “You don’t want to actually do a lot of manual configuration,” he said: “The idea is to be able to quickly bring in a new vertical, a new service, and have the whole network adjust itself, create a slice, use the analytics within it, the machine learning, to be able to orchestrate different characteristics for this slice. This is the goal of all the transformation that we have been seeing happening in the telecom and cloud services providers area for the last few years.”

The “challenge here” is that how you manage, guarantee and test the slice, “all the testing requirements, all the verification requirements, has to also be built within the slice,” Yamany said. The change requires new technology and a “new data-oriented culture, data-analytics culture” for providers, he said.

How regulators globally are handling spectrum for 5G differs on pricing and licensing models and on how legacy networks are refarmed, said Ceri Howes, Opensignal head-regulatory, during a spectrum discussion. Most providers are using the same bands, with 3.5 GHz in about half of early 5G launches, she said. “By far, we’re seeing that kind of mid-band spectrum as the real sweet spot,” she said. The highest number over the last year was in 700 MHz and the C band, she said. The 700 MHz band “is really emerging as a key coverage band globally,” she said.

Last year had record auction prices for mid-band in the U.S. and Canada, and for high band in Australia, Howes said. “We already have really high deployment costs for 5G in the first place," so prices “really could impact deployment and the end-user experience down the line if governments keep seeing 5G auctions as a cash-cow,” she said. Not all auctions have been successful worldwide, she said: “In some cases the operators aren’t really biting.” Howes said some 20 countries have announced plans to release spectrum for 5G this year and countries in Latin America and Africa “are going to start picking up the pace.”