The hype around 5G networks is very much real and Asia is poised to become one of the world’s top regions for the new telecom technology. According to a report from GSMA Intelligence, more than half of 5G connections in 2025 will have come from Asia, pioneered by the likes of Japan, South Korea, Australia and Singapore. To date, many innovators in this region are actively engaging or developing telecom infrastructure for 5G, with many poised to launch 5G networks within the next three to five years.
The Network Infrastructure for 5G requires seamless teamwork
Coinciding with the race to 5G infrastructure is the mushrooming of 5G-related innovation.
Asia is becoming a hotbed for testing labs setup in collaboration between governments, telecom operators, educational institutions and technology providers.
Hand-in-hand with the internet of things (IoT), these facilities seek to develop new applications that will utilize 5G networks and its benefits to make life smarter.
But everything good comes with a cost, even the 5G networks
While 5G creates massive interests and opportunities due to its underlying potential and the massive enabling nature of the technology, on the telco infrastructure side, it will also create unprecedented challenges.
Energy consumption will be one. A survey of over 100 global telecom operators jointly conducted by Vertiv and 451 Research has revealed that over 94% of respondents expect the 5G networks deployment to increase overall network energy cost.
How do you address the biggest concern related to 5G networks deployment?
Personally, the biggest concern for 5G with regards to infrastructure can be characterized by three How’s:
- How to build?
- How much to build? And,
- How to address scalability and efficiency in a massive scale?
To reduce latency and enable 5G technology, decentralization is happening in the telecom network infrastructure. In short, some network functions are being migrated towards the customer and away from the core telecom network. The migrated network functions form part of what we call “edge” site locations, and can be used to host application services or direct peering.
We’ve talked a lot about the benefits and advantages of deploying edge computing applications and the same is true for 5G networks. Edge computing will play a big role in enabling 5G as it enhances speed and also reduces physical distance between the technology and the customer.
There is no doubt that the opportunities for 5G are immense but there are also challenges that need to be addressed.
Different telco operators will have different challenges and considerations, resulting in different deployment models and scale across the region. Based on my discussions with some of the region’s biggest operators, they are still learning and trying out 5G deployment architectures with cost as their top of mind concern.
Thoughts? Let’s discuss further, send me an email or listen to the recording of our webcast on Telco’s Hopes and Fears for 5G.
