4G vs 5G - Differences between 4G and 5G technologies

What are the differences between 4G and 5G technologies? Why is there so much hype around 5G? What is really the need for yet another "G", while most of us are happy with 4G speeds? This blog post makes an attempt to highlight the differences between 4G and 5G:

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(Also Read: 4G LTE vs. WiMax)

The following are some unique features of 5G, which makes 5G significantly different from 4G:

• 5G supports upto 1 Gbps speed (vs. 30 Mbps - 400 Mbps speed supported by 4G)
• 5G can offer 1 - 2 ms latency (when compared to 50 ms latency provided by 4G)
• 5G infrastructure can be sliced into multiple virtual networks / network slices with different performance criteria and shared across different services / customers / partners (4G doesn't support this capability)
• 5G requires installation of small cell towers in many locations called small cells (vs. the large towers installed for 4G services)
• 5G use cases are focused beyond just offering a higher speed for mobile phones - such as Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality, IOT and Fixed Wireless Services. 

Criteria	4G	5G
Speed	300 - 400 Mbps (lab) 40 - 100 Mbps (real world)	1000 Mbps (lab) 300 - 400 Mbps (real world)
Latency	50 ms	1 - 2 ms
Frequency	2 - 8 GHz	Sub 6 GHz (5G macro optimized), 3-30 GHz (5G E small cells) 30-100 GHz (5G Ultra Dense)
Use Cases	Enhanced Mobile Broadband Online Video Online Gaming	Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality Internet of Things (IOT) Holographic Calls Fixed Wireless Enhanced Mobile Broadband Self-Driving Cars Robotic Surgeries
Technology Rollout	ALL major operators around the globe	Verizon (5G Home Service in Oct 2018) Several trials going around the globe
Mobile Device Availability	Yes	No (Trials going on. Mobile 5G planned for 2019)
Network Slicing	No	Yes. Supports 5G Network Slicing.
Cell Towers	Large Towers in concentrated communities	Small Cells installed in almost every street corner
Architecture	Connection Oriented	Service Oriented

The need for 5G is driven by some of the highly advanced 5G use cases such as AR/VR, Holographic calls and Self-Driving Cars. In addition to speed, 5G is focused on reducing the latency and scaling to several millions of connections. 

The hype around 5G is largely due to the new 5G use cases that are latency sensitive. Moreover, 5G allows operators to support Network Slicing - they can carve out a portion of their network logically to support a specific customer or a specific use case. For example, highly secure defence and public safety services will be operating on a network slice which is different from the network slice carrying Over the Top (OTT) video traffic. 

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Top MEC vendors to watch - The race to the edge !

Multi-access Edge Compute or Mobile Edge Compute, in short called as MEC is seeing a lot of interest from the service providers. There is a virtual race to the edge. The large cloud computing infrastructure providers such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon are positioning their infrastructure for MEC use cases. A number of new startups have sprung to solve the MEC problem. 5G and MEC are complementary in nature. 

(Also read: Differences between Cloud, Fog and MEC - Removing the mist)

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5G use cases require the network infrastructure to support ultra-low latencies for applications such as AR/VR, IoT and Smart Cars. MEC comes with a promise of hosting several applications / services at the edge, thereby solving the latency problem for 5G use cases. When large operators are expanding their 5G foot print to a number of cities, by deploying several 100s and 1000s of small cells, it becomes imperative that MEC nodes get deployed along with the small cells. 

Several product vendors are jumping into the MEC bandwagon. In addition to the usual suspects such as Cisco, HP and Dell a number of startups have joined the race to the edge. 

1. FogHorn’s Lightning platform embeds Industrial IoT edge intelligence locally, at or near the source of streaming sensor data. The highly compact and feature-rich solution delivers unprecedented low latency for onsite data processing, real-time analytics, ML and AI capabilities in the smallest compute footprint. FogHorn offers a fully-integrated, closed loop edge to cloud solution, rapidly iterating ML models to adjust to changing operating conditions.
2. Rigado Cascade provides IoT teams with secure edge computing, a containerized application platform, scalable management tools and a variety of connectivity options. All of this is made available in a simple ‘Edge-as-a-Service’ monthly subscription.
3. Saguna Edge Cloud solution creates edge-cloud-computing environments inside the access network; close to end users and connected devices. It claims to be fully compliant with the ETSI MEC standard and 3GPP 5G specifications. Saguna's MEC solution provides Ultra Reliable and Low Latency Communication (URLLC) enabling 5G features over existing 4G networks and setting the stage for 5G roll-out.
4. ClearBlade IoT Edge Platform powers activities at the edge of your IoT solutions including real-time business rules, filtering, online / offline modes and messaging. With a small footprint and no external dependencies, you can turn almost any edge gateway into a platform powerhouse. The same software at the server and the edge gives you endless possibilities.
5. Enea provides virtualization software building blocks to telecom operators to build a virtualized edge, by partnering with various systems integrators and telecom equipment manufacturers. The blocks allow them to build intelligent, manageable, and high performance NFV infrastructure in a rapid and cost effective manner, for service providers to deploy new, value added services for enterprise and end user customers. 
6. Asocs Cyrus is an on-premise edge cloud that provides unlimited mobile capacity and secure connectivity, while analyzing mobile device and IoT data. This enables enterprises to improve productivity, increase revenue and deliver new services and applications.
7. CPLANE's Multi-Site Manager orchestrates cloud resources across the entire service life cycle – from the data center to the mobile edge. CPLANE SDN provides a complete spectrum of virtualized and physical network provisioning and management. It allows operators to Connect distributed cloud resources to everything they need – when they need it – reliably and securely.
8. Vasona's SmartAir Edge solution maximizes the value of RAN investments and deliver superior wireless experiences from the mobile edge. From an aggregation point between the radio access network (RAN) and the core network, Vasona’s SmartAIR® reacts quickly to end-user network demands and acts to address threats to quality of experience (QoE) precisely where and when they are detected. Vasona’s standards-based software intelligently improves QoE and creates an ideal ecosystem for low-latency services. 
9. MobiledgeX is a wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom building MEC solutions that global service providers can consume. MobiledgeX is a marketplace of edge resources and services that will connect developers with the world's largest mobile networks to power the next generation of applications and devices. Recently, SK telecom announced that they are going to partner with MobiledgeX. 

SD-WAN startups, vendors & acquisitions

One of the popular Software Defined Networks (SDN) use-cases is Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN). A number of SD-WAN startups and vendors are trying to solve the WAN challenge in their own unique way. Several of those startups got acquired in the last few years. IDC predicts that SD-WAN market will reach $4.5 billion by 2022. No wonder, why the SD-WAN market is sizzling hot with a lot of mergers and acquisitions. This blog post tracks the SD-WAN startups, SD-WAN vendors and SD-WAN acquisitions.

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Start-ups offering SD-WAN Solution:

1. Pertino / Acquired by Cradlepoint / Acquired on Dec 2015 / Cost: Undisclosed
2. Ocedo / Acquired by Riverbed / Acquired on Jan 2016 / Cost: Undisclosed
3. Velocloud / Acquired by VMWare / Acquired on Nov 2017 / Cost: Undisclosed
4. Viptela / Acquired by Cisco Systems / Acquired on May 2017 / Cost: $610 million
5. Talari Networks / Acquired by Oracle / Acquired on Nov 2018 / Cost: Undisclosed
6. 128 Technologies - Acquired by Juniper / Acquired on Oct 2020 / Cost: $450 million
7. Aryaka - Not acquired
8. BigLeaf - Not Acquired
9. CatoNetworks - Not acquired
10. CloudGenix / Acquired by Palo Alto / Acquired on Apr 2020 / Cost: $420 million
11. COSGrid Networks - Not acquired
12. Ecessa - Not acquired
13. Gluware - Not acquired
14. Lavelle Networks - Not acquired
15. Mode - Not acquired
16. Multiapplied Networks - Not acquired (SaaS)
17. Mushroom Networks - Not acquired
18. Open Systems - Not acquired
19. Silver Peak - Acquired by HPE Aruba / Acquired on Sep 2020 / Cost: $925 million
20. SimpleWAN - Not acquired
21. Turnium - Not acquired
22. TeloIP - Not acquired (SaaS)
23. Versa Networks - Not acquired
24. Zenlayer - Not acquired
25. Untangle - Not acquired

Other Vendors offering SD-WAN Solution:

1. Barracuda Networks
2. Cyient
3. Citrix
4. Elfiq Networks
5. FatPipe Networks
6. Juniper Networks
7. Nuage Networks (Nokia)
8. Ribbon Communications (previously Sonus Networks)
9. Teldat
10. Virtela Networks (NTT Global)
11. Forcepoint
12. Watchguard

Also read: SDN Acquisitions

Popular 5G Test Tools

The key difference between 4G and 5G is the changes to the radio technology. 5G radio has to scale to higher bandwidth and lower latency requirements. 5G standards are defined by the 3GPP standards group. 5G NR (New Radio) specification includes lower frequencies, from 600 MHz to 6 GHz and speeds higher than 4G systems, estimated at 15% to 50% faster. Test solutions are available in the market to test 5G's signalling and protocol compliance. 

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1. Anritsu Radio Communication Test Station (MT8000A) measurement solution supports world-leading 5G chipset vendors. MT8000A is for evaluating the RF TRx characteristics at development of 5G NR chipsets, communications modules, smartphones, and other radio equipment. It is also for researching new applications using 5G NR. It supports wavebands from sub-6GHz to mmWave used by 5G for mmWave TRP/EIRP measurements in combination with RF converters, OTA chamber, etc., as well as RF Protocol tests such as Beam Management tests.
2. Spirent Vertex Channel Emulator is a versatile platform that offers unprecedented scalability while supporting emulation of many channel models. The simple plug-and-play design is built to test a broad number of applications that require varying channel densities. Supported applications range from basic two-channel SISO to complex, high-density scenarios needed to prepare for 5G, such as 3- and 4-component carrier aggregation, higher order MIMO OTA, and 3D bidirectional beamforming.
3. Viavi TeraVM Core Network Emulator - One of the biggest challenges facing NEMs and mobile operators as they launch 5G is developing products against constantly changing and maturing 3GPP specs. TeraVM Core Emulator can remove the pain of Core Network dependencies by giving RAN engineers a controllable and repeatable test environment that helps implement 3GPP standards rapidly and simplify the development lifecycle of 5G gNBs and the introduction of 5G services to the market. TeraVM is an application emulation and security performance solution, delivering comprehensive test coverage for application services, wired and wireless networks. 
4. Keysight provides comprehensive 5G test solutions that cover Layer 1-7, and across multiple segments from chipset to devices to networks. Keysight test solutions provide testing capabilities across multiple RF channels, multiple carrier mechanisms, and multiple data protocols.

5G deployment status - Tracking the 5G rollouts across the globe

Service Providers are competing all over the globe to deploy 5G services, soon. This article tracks the status of deployments of 5G services  in various countries and cities, across the globe. Unlike 4G, the initial launch of 5G services in 2018 weren't targeted at mobile phones. The initial set of 5G use cases were targeted mostly at enterprises and businesses. In 2019, service providers started rolling out 5G based services for the mobile phones. 

(Learn more about 5G technology here)

USA

Verizon is the world's first service provider to launch a non-standard version of 5G in four different cities in US. They launched their first 5G service called 5G Home, a residential broadband service to their customers in the following cities. The initial speeds offered by Verizon is 300 Mbps. Verizon has announced the launch of 5G Home services in 4 cities, so far - Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Houston. (Read: 4G vs. 5G). 

Verizon announced that they're planning to rollout a standards based 5G NR solution in 30 markets before the end of 2019. Verizon launched their standards (5G NR) based mobile services in select areas of Chicago and Minneapolis, during the first week of April 2019. They announced that the customers should expect speeds of 450 Mbps during their initial launch.  Verizon launched their mobile 5G services in Denver on 27th June and in Providence on 1st July 2019. Verizon launched mobile 5G services in St. Paul, on 18th July 2019. In August 2019, Verizon expanded their coverage of 5G mobility services in Phoenix, Washington DC, Atlanta, Detroit & Indianapolis. So far, Verizon has launched their 5G mobile services in 18 markets - Boston, Houston, Sioux Falls, Dallas, Omaha, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Providence, St. Paul, Atlanta, Detroit, Indianapolis, Washington DC, Phoenix, Boise, Panama City, and New York City.

AT&T launched standard mobile 5G and mobile 5G devices to 12 cities in 2018, and another 5 cities by early 2019. You can find a detailed 5G market update, including details on the cities where 5G will be launched by AT&T at AT&T 5G Evolution market. AT&T has achieved peak theoretical wireless speeds of 400 megabits per second for capable devices. AT&T is offering the commercial 5G solution to select “businesses and consumers” in 12 cities, beginning Dec. 21, 2018. They expanded the service to 7 more cities in on Apr 9th, 2019. They are using a Netgear based 5G Mobile hotspot, as part of the initial launch. Altogether, AT&T 5G services are now available in 19 cities - Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, San Antonio, New Orleans, Houston, Jacksonville, Louisville, Dallas, Atlanta, Waco, Charlotte, Raleigh, Austin and Oklahoma City. AT&T added New York City (NYC) to its list of regions with 5G coverage, in Aug' 2019.

In Feb 2019, AT&T announced its plans to launch 5G services in two more cities, by end of 2019 - Minneapolis and Chicago. 

Sprint announced that they'll be deploying "Mobile 5G" in 9 markets in 2019 - including Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Kansas City, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix, and Washington D.C. In May 2019, Sprint turned-on the services in 4 markets - Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Kansas City. In July 2019, Sprint turned-on 5G services in Chicago, its fifth city to launch the service. 

U.S Cellular, a small regional wireless service provider in US announced that they'll launch 5G services in second half of 2019. It is not clear, what kind of services they are going to launch and in which geographies.

T-Mobile announced that is planning to rollout 5G services in US by 2H2019. They expect to double their current 4G speeds, with the 5G launch.  T-Mobile launched 5G services in 6 cities in US in June 2019 - Atlanta, Cleveland, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York.

Europe & Middle East

5G Observatory Quarterly Report published by the European Commission (EC) reported that the number of 5G trials by mobile operators in the 28 countries of the European Union (EU) reached 138 by mid-December 2018.

EE, one of the largest service providers in UK has announced that 5G services will be turned-on in 6 cities by mid-2019. Those cities are&nbspLondon, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, Birmingham and Manchester. EE launched 5G services in May 2019 in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, Birmingham and Manchester.

Vodafone announced in March 2019 that they've live 5G sites up and running in Bristol, Cardiff, and Liverpool. They said, they'll launch 5G services in 19 markets across the U.K this year. In July 2019, Vodafone launched 5G services in U.K in seven cities. Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, and London.

In Aug 2019, Vodafone Ireland launched 5G services in 5 cities - Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, and Waterford. They had earlier announced that they'll be launching the services in Q4 2019. They beat their own self-imposed deadline. The other service providers in Ireland Eir and Three Ireland have also announced that they would be launching 5G services in 2019. 

Telecom Italia has launched mobile 5G services in the cities of Rome, Turin and Naples in July 2019.

Deutsche Telecom (DT) launches 5G in Poland in Dec 2018 with Huawei Equipment. Their services will be available for select customers and partners. 


DT launched 5G smartphone services in Germany in July 2019. Vodafone launched 5G services in July 2019 in Germany. Vodafone turned on the 5G services in Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Dortmund, and Munich municipalities. 

Austrian telco A1 rolled out 5G services in Gmünd, Austria, in collaboration with technology partner Nokia in 2019. The operator was able to achieve 5G speeds of up to 10 Gb/s in a 5G data call on the live network. A1 is offering 5G-based high-speed broadband services, to Gmund residents. Austrian telco Hutchison Drei launched 5G services for their enterprise customers in June 2019.

Telstra, Australia's largest operator launched limited 5G services in 10 cities during May 2019. The 10 cities are Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Gold Coast, Hobart, Launceston, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, and Toowoomba. Telstra is planning to extend the coverage to 35 cities in the next one year.

T-Mobile Austria said it will launch 5G in 25 sites, by March 2019. T-Mobile also started a trial in Innsbruck, last year.

Telia launched a pre-commercial 5G network in Helsinki in September 2018. The service provider has also turned on 5G networks in Stockholm, Sweden, and Tallinn, Estonia, for tests, by partnering with Ericsson. In March 2019, the operator announced that they are doing Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) tests with Nokia. 

Several service providers from Switzerland are competing with each other to launch 5G services. Swisscom said on 10th Apr 2019, that it aims to complete the nationwide expansion of its 5G network with 90% population coverage by the end of 2019. In Apr 2019, Swisscom launched the 5G network, and related services in 54 cities, including the major centers of population such as Zurich, Bern, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne and Lucerne. Swisscom has advanced its plans to launch 5G (original plan was to launch in 2020). Another service provider in Switzerland, Salt Mobile, is targeting a 5G services launch in 3Q'19. Sunrise, announced in April that its 5G network is available in 150 locations in the country. The operator is currently providing the Sunrise Internet Box 5G for fixed wireless access services, initially for users it describes as “Sunrise 5G pioneers”. Sunrise has not yet announced any plans to offer 5G for smartphones.

APAC

South Korea Telecom has become the first nation in Asia to launch commercial 5G networks in Dec 2018 in Seoul and 6 other major cities. SK Telecom also started deploying 5G infrastructure in K-City, country's first city for self-driving cars, during the beginning of 2018.

Multiple South Korean operators, specifically South Korean Telecom, Korean Telecom and LG U+, said in 2018 that they would launch 5G services in March 2019. However, they made an announcement in March 2019, that the launch would get delayed. On 5th April 2019, KT, SK Telecom and LG U+ announced the widespread availability of mobile 5G services. Samsung S10 5G phone is the only option available for customers to avail the 5G services. The service providers mentioned that LG V50 device will be available in a couple of weeks.

In China, China Unicom has plans to launch 5G services in May 2019. Shenzhen has a 5G-enabled site that went live in April 2019. China Mobile is currently testing 5G in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Suzhou and Wuhan, and plan to build out 10,000 5G base stations by 2020.

Japan’s four carriers - NTT-Docomo, KDDI, Softbank, and eMobile have committed to build nationwide 5G networks by 2022, with initial services planned to go live by early 2020. 

5G services in India are going to be launched as late as 2021 or in 2022. TRAI Secretary said in a recent CII event that "The telecom sector will move to 5G by 2022 and access to digital platform will become highly advanced in the next five years". Bharti Airtel, one of the prominent players in India conducted 5G trials and reportedly achieved 3 Gbps speed during the trial. 

Recently, Arthur D. Little, a leading consultancy, published a "5G Leadership Index", ranking different countries based on the progress that they've made with 5G trials and deployments. Surprisingly, South Korea ranks higher in that index, even when compared to countries like USA, which is making the most noise. 

5G Use Cases

2G was for text / phone calls, 2.5G was for emails, 3G was for web, 4G was for video and 5G is for use cases that we can't possibly imagine. (Also read: 4G vs. 5G)

Some 5G use cases that are being explored are:

1. Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) - With data speeds of 1Gbps, 5G is suited well for enhanced mobile broadband. Enhanced Mobile Broadband services are accessed by consumers in places such as trains, public transport systems, shopping malls and airports. There is an ongoing debate on whether 5G network would kill WiFi. eMBB uses WiFi to provide coverage to users and would use 5G network for getting the backhaul connectivity to Internet. eMBB will complement and may increase the penetration of WiFi coverage.  
2. Fixed Wireless - Verizon is the first 5G wireless service provider in the world to offer Fixed Wireless services to customers. Verizon announced that 5G coverage will be available to 4 different 5G cities, as part of the initial launch. Fixed Wireless services eliminate the need to dig the road and lay cables in the last mile to provide Internet connectivity to homes. It also reduces the cost of dispatching a technician to customer homes. (Read: Why is there a lot of buzz on Fixed Wireless Services?)
3. Robotic Surgery - 5G supports ultra low latencies (1ms or less), which makes it ideal for latency sensitive use cases such as Robotic Surgery. Robotic Surgery allows a doctor to remotely diagnose a patient and perform surgery. This allows hospitals to provide quick treatment to patients, saving lives and money. Technologies such as Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC), are helping service providers to improve the latencies of 5G network, to support use cases such as Robotic Surgeries. 
4. Smart Cars - Smart Cars consume a lot of bandwidth and at the same time, require quicker responses from the network. A fast moving car cannot wait for seconds to decide whether the object crossing the road is a vehicle or a human. Most of the intelligence of Smart Cars reside in the Cloud and the car requires continuous connectivity to the network. 5G supports higher bandwidth and lower latencies which enables use cases such as Smart Cars.
5. Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality (AR/VR) - Imagine visiting a zoo or playing soccer with your friends across the continent, from your living room. 5G supports VR/AR use cases enabling consumers to play high definition games or consume high quality entertainment. 
6. Private Wireless Network - Enterprises today rely heavily on WiFi for ubiquitous access to Internet and Intranet, from within the campus. WiFi also helps Enterprises to configure and manage policies for users. 5G allows Enterprises to install and manage a secure Private Wireless Network for its users. (Also read: Will 5G kill WiFi?)
7. Live TV - The increase in the bandwidth and the reduction in latency allows service providers to stream Live Television on top of 5G network. SK Telecom demonstrated the broadcasting of live TV during the beginning of 2019. 
8. Holographic Call - Vodafone UK demonstrated the first live holographic call using 5G. Holographic call allows you to create live interactions with someone who is geographically miles apart. It saves travel costs and time for Enterprises and Consumers. 

5G Network Slicing allows service providers to support all of these different use cases using the same network infrastructure. With service providers actively deploying 5G services across the globe, we can expect to see many more 5G use cases sprouting in the industry.