5G Opens Wireless Opportunities for Cable, CableLabs Conference Told

“There’s lots of opportunities,” Berner said of 5G. “If you think about that last 100 meters … you’ve got to get a wire there,” he said. “And that is an opportunity, but it is an interesting opportunity because having gone through the work to segment networks for DOCSIS … do you continue beyond that point and run fiber to the premises? Or do you say, I want to resell that as a wholesale connectivity provider, or do I want to put a 5G small cell on the end of that and cover a bunch of homes instead of running fiber to home?” There "is no question that technology will be determined over the next few years, but it’s not that far away, and we need to start planning to see if we’re better off using that capability and technology for sale at retail or to wholesale to someone else who may show up in our backyard,” he said. Rogers is a Canadian cable operator that sells wireless services.

A 5G standard is still several years off, to be defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) by late 2020, Berner said. Some use the terms today, but it’s just branding, he said. “If it feels a little bit better than it is now, they call it 5G.” Rogers thinks the biggest improvement with 5G is it allows operators to slice networks for different use cases with different wireless requirements. There could be separate slices for automotive functions and the IoT, he said. That’s different from today’s approach, in which carriers act like a “kid with a hammer,” seeing everything like a nail, he said.

The coming standard is “a major leap forward” from 4G, said Bjorn Ekelund, Ericsson head of device technology. It will offer improvements for data rates, traffic volume density, latency, energy efficiency, device density and reliability, he said. That will support a variety of use cases, including wireless connections to plethora of sensors, fiber replacement in the last mile, Internet-connected smart vehicles, remotely controlled robotics and human IoT applications, he said. Whereas 4G was optimized for data, 5G will support diverse requirements and could be a fixed broadband equivalent, said Timothy Burke, Liberty Global vice president-strategic technology. "The ambitions are great."

On a panel on small-cell infrastructure, wireless industry officials said 3.5 GHz spectrum could be a boon for building owners. But reaching the full potential of 3.5 GHz will require cooperation among the four wireless carriers, they said. The FCC is looking at a further order on the band (see 1603110083), a test for greater sharing, but some carriers haven't been enthusiastic about recent proposals (see 1604110033). The big business opportunity for 3.5 GHz is enhancing in-building coverage, said Ericsson Business Development Director Fred Terhaar. On a hotel conference floor, for example, use of the band could allow a building owner to improve indoor coverage by installing one neutral small cell shared by the four wireless network operators, said Neville Meijers, Qualcomm small cells vice president.

While a neutral model has cost advantages, “the rub” is that the big four carriers haven’t wanted to cooperate, said Jeremy Bye, Cox Communications vice president-carrier and wholesale. They will need to change that attitude to take advantage of the neutral sharing offered by 3.5 GHz, he said. Carriers should look at sharing network capacity on 3.5 GHz as opening up new avenues for revenue on which they can compete, like healthcare, augmented reality and other areas of the IoT, said Phil Kelley, Crown Castle senior vice president-corporate development and strategy.