Carriers Moving Slowing to Launch 5G Stand-Alone Networks
There are many reasons why carriers worldwide have moved slowly to 5G stand-alone (SA) networks, said Dawood Shahdad, Boost Mobile vice president-core network and innovation labs, during an RCR Wireless telco cloud and edge forum Tuesday.
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5G SA is a “more fundamental shift” and “more radical in nature” than previous transitions, like the move from 3G to 4G, Shahdad said. It’s also the first major step that industry is taking “to try and marry the two different worlds” -- web and IP methodologies and the established 3rd Generation Partnership Project framework. This has led to complexities and a steep learning curve for providers, he said.
Carriers were already in the middle of a “major transition,” moving to virtualized networks, and then suddenly everyone was talking about Kubernetes and containerization (see 2408260046), Shahdad said. “This happened in lockstep with the emergence of 5G SA.” There also hasn’t been a single path for carriers to get to 5G SA, with many options on the table, he said, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic hit just as 5G SA was being introduced.
There hasn’t been “a clear use case” yet for 5G SA, said Lori Dawson, senior director-service engineering at UScellular. “We’re not doing remote surgeries,” and autonomous vehicles aren’t “widespread.” 5G SA is also still not fully mature, she said. “Regardless of the vendor chosen, it’s still a relatively new product,” but adoption will come as 5G SA matures.
5G is a “fundamental technology shift,” said Anil Kollipara, vice president-product management at Spirent Communications, which means “many more moving parts and many more options” for networks. Carriers have had to change their mindsets, he said. Because of disaggregation, operators have “a much larger role to play to put all these pieces together.” The deployment cycle for 5G SA is also longer and more complicated than that for previous generations of wireless, he said.
In addition, carriers have faced challenges getting staff on board with the right skill sets, Kollipara said. “We’re used to building [3rd Generation Partnership Project] applications, but cloud native is relatively new to us.” It’s also taking time to develop use cases “that really generate some revenue and opportunities for the operators,” he said. There won’t be “remote surgeries anytime soon, but I believe we are turning a corner.”
Fixed wireless access probably offers the most opportunities, Kollipara said. “It’s very simple -- customers want connectivity” and “fiber cannot reach everywhere.” More use cases will come, he said. Shahdad said that as a new network, Boost skipped the early stages of 5G, since it started as 5G SA. “In many ways, we consider ourselves lucky.”
AI has been a “buzzword” in the telecom industry for a while, but its impact is only starting to “crystallize into tangible applications,” said Peter Boyland, an Opensignal principal analyst. The most compelling application may prove to be network orchestration and management, he said. “This has got the potential to greatly improve the user experience, reliability and energy efficiency across the telco world.”