What is slowing down 5G deployments?

Why is 5G deployment taking a lot of time? If 5G is so good, why not just go ahead and deploy 5G infrastructure in every street corner and let the consumers enjoy the higher speeds. If 5G technology is so cool, why not deploy 5G everywhere and transform the world, immediately. Well, deploying 5G isn't a cake-walk. 5G may appear like a race horse, but unfortunately there are so many barriers that the race horse has to cross. Today, service providers are facing a number of challenges, which is slowing down the deployment of 5G.

1. Getting approvals from the city administrators - In the past, 4G radio infrastructure was deployed on cell towers. Those cell towers had dedicated space allotted to them. However, 5G radio infrastructure (aka "small cell") has to be deployed on top of the utility poles in almost every street corner. Getting approvals from the city administrators to deploy such large number of small cells in the community is quite complex. For example several cities have banned the introduction of 5G technology in their communities - as they are afraid of the impacts of the 5G radiation. Mill Valley in California is one such city that has opposed the deployment of 5G infrastructure in their community. Brussels has also put a hold on the 5G testing due to radiation concerns.

2. Delayed Spectrum Auction - 5G uses a wide range of spectrum from low bands below 1 GHz, to mid bands from 1 GHz to 6 GHz, to high bands 24 / 30 GHz to 300 GHz (also, known as millimeter-wave). Service providers need to get hold of these spectrum to deploy 5G infrastructure and rollout 5G based services. However, there is significant delays in different countries to kick start the auction of 5G spectrum.  Countries like Germany started auctioning the 5G spectrum only in the first quarter of 2019. Countries like India haven't yet started with the spectrum auction for 5G. 

3. Cost of deployment - This is one major factor which is delaying the launch of 5G services in several countries. Even the leading 5G pioneers such as AT&T and Verizon hasn't increased their capital spending for deploying 5G infrastructure. Service providers in countries like India are already fighting a price war and are debt-ridden. They cannot afford to spend more money on 5G. According to LightReading, installing a small cell device in the community would require $35,000. A recent CTIA report forecasts that US will have nearly 800,000 small cells by 2026. Service providers are not sitting on a cash pile to fund such massive 5G infrastructure in a short time. So, they would launch 5G services only in communities where it would make a difference and phase out the 5G deployment in other areas over the coming years.

4. Standardization is still in progress - Today, 3GPP has approved the standards for a non-standalone implementation of the 5G network  - which means, the 5G New Radio (NR) will rely on a 4G core network to offer 5G services. 3GPP is expected to approve the standards for a standalone 5G network, later this year. This will hinder the implementation of features such as network slicing, which is one of the differentiators of 5G when compared to the 4G network. The initial launch of 5G services, will not support such features that rely on a 5G core. 

5. Delays in virtualizing the core network -  Service providers have been talking about network virtualization for a long time now. However, they are yet to achieve a 100% virtualized network. While a number of service providers have moved their IT applications to the cloud - they are yet to achieve a significant milestone in their network virtualization journey. AT&T is the only service provider who is vocal about their network virtualization journey. AT&T has plans to virtualize 75% of their network services by 2020. But, many of the other service providers are still lagging in their virtualization journey. 5G requires the core network to be virtualized. Both the service providers and the network equipment vendors are not ready yet with virtualized services for 5G's core network functions.

6. Lack of a killer app - 2G was for making voice calls, 3G was for web browsing and 4G was for video and gaming. However, it is still not clear, what is going to be the killer app for 5G. There are a dozen use-cases for 5G - ranging from robotic surgeries to autonomous cars. But, who would let a robot to do your heart surgery over a 5G network? Who is ready to ride on an autonomous car powered by 5G? Service providers are talking about fancy use-cases that require a mature 5G technology. We are in a chicken 'n egg situation. Service providers cannot pump-in more money on 5G, without  a killer app that justifies the return on investment. Use cases such as robotic surgery, autonomous cars and hologram services require a reliable and ubiquitous 5G network.

Several service providers across the globe have already launched the initial version of 5G services. Most of them are in "experimental" stage, trying to either understand the technology or understand the market potential. Like every new technology, 5G would take its own sweet time to get into the hands of a common man (or woman!). We'll have to wait for the next three to five years to see a ubiquitous 5G network.

5G vs WiFi6

5G is getting a lot of coverage these days - thanks to all the telecom service providers, networking equipment vendors, standard bodies and open source communities that are rallying behind the next generation mobile wireless technology. Cisco appears to be the lone wolf touting the WiFi6 horn, which is the next generation WiFi technology. Vendors like Cisco are trying to establish synergies between 5G and WiFi6, so that, both the technologies can continue to make the access to Internet, simplified for all of us. However, many people still think that these two are competitive technologies. Recently, I did some research about whether WiFi will get killed by 5G? And, I concluded that WiFi and 5G will co-exist for the years to come. This article will focus on highlighting the similarities and differences between 5G and WiFi6.

	5G	WiFi6
What	Next Generation Mobile Wireless Technology (following 4G)	Next Generation WiFi technology (after WiFi5). it is also called as IEEE 802.11ax.
When	5G was commercially launched in Q4'18	WiFi6 is going to get launched in 2019. Access points and Routers supporting WiFi6 are already available in the market. However, IEEE will ratify WiF6 standards in late 2019.
Who	3GPP standardizes 5G. 5G is targetted at residential customers and enterprises (for ex., industries, communities, government agencies etc.,)	IEEE standardizes WiFi6. WiFi6 is targetted at residential customers and enterprises (for ex., industries and communities)
Why	Supports higher speeds, lower latency and increased device density, when compared to 4G	Supports more speed, lower latency and increased device density, when compared to WiFi5
Where	5G is getting deployed in several parts of the world. Countries such as USA and South Korea are leading the 5G race.	No active deployments yet. Cisco launched a suite of WiFi6 enabled access points, recently in Apr'19.
Frequencies	5G supports a wide range of spectrums from low bands below 1 GHz, to mid bands from 1 GHz to 6 GHz, to high bands 24 / 30 GHz to 300 GHz (also, known as millimeter-wave).	WiFi6 Supports both 2.4 GHz and 5GHz
Use Cases	Supports use cases such as Autonomous Cars, AR/VR and IOT	WiFi6 supports use cases such as Enterprise, Residential and IOT services. Early adopters of WiFi6 will include businesses that need to deliver immersive experiences and performance in high-density environments such as hospitals, schools, venues, and retail stores.
Speed	Supports up to 1Gbps speed (per device connecting to the 5G network)	WiFi6 supports up to 9.6Gbps speed (shared by the devices connecting to the WiFi router)
How does it achieve speed?	5G achieves speed through an enhanced radio (5G NR / 5G-Nextgen Radio), that supports Massive MIMO technology. Radios with Massive MIMO have few tens to several hundreds of antennas are used for propagating radio signals. In addition, 5G supports beam forming, which enables the radio device to send signals concentrated on one direction, avoiding signal loss and interferences.	Achieves speed, by supporting MU-MIMO & OFDMA. MU-MMO stands for Multi-user, Multiple input, Multiple output. It allows routers to communicate with multiple devices at a given time. Wi-Fi 6 allows the router to communicate simultaneously with up to eight devices. OFDMA stands for “Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access,” which allows a single transmission to deliver data to multiple devices at once.
Security	5G provides native support for EAP, which is an authentication protocol that allows pluggable authentication methods. In addition, 5G prevents spoofing attacks by supporting a featuere called "Home Control" (When a device is roaming, the home network verifies if the device is actually present in the serving network, before allowing the user to roam in the visited network)	WiFi6 makes the support for WPA3 mandatory. WPA3 makes it harder for hackers to get access to your data.
Battery Life	Saves Battery Life (5G promises to lower the energy consumption to 10% of current consumption)	Saves Battery Life (using Target Wake Time function, that lets the router to check with WiFi devices at scheduled times, allowing devices to go to sleep mode and save battery life)

Where would 5G compete with WiFi6?

5G would compete with WiFi6 in some of the Enterprise use-cases. A few examples are given below:

• Enterprises can buy a 5G small cell device (small cell tower) and deploy it in-house to offer 5G coverage to its employees, slowly replacing WiFi with 5G. Service providers can themselves deploy 5G in Enterprises for cell densification and Enterprises can reuse that infrastructure to avail Private Wireless network services. Service Providers can carve out a 5G network slice for the Enterprise related services. 
• Today, WiFi networks are deployed and managed separately by the IT administrators in Enterprises. Reusing 5G infrastructure, instead of corporate WiFi would reduce the administrative overhead for the Enterprises. 
• Because of the evolution of the WiFi standards, Enterprises have to continuously upgrade their WiFi gear, once every 3 - 5 years. With 5G, that overhead can be outsourced to the Service Providers. Service Providers will take care of upgrading their wireless infrastructure periodically. 

There will be some competition between WiFi6 and 5G in some IOT use cases too.

Where would 5G complement WiFi6?

5G can complement WiFi6, in some use cases. A few examples are given below:

• In Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) use cases, the customer premise equipment (CPE) can connect to the 5G network for Internet connectivity and can locally offer connectivity services through WiFi6. 

• 5G can complement WiFi6 in residential Fixed Wireless use cases (such as the 5G Home service launched by Verizon, recently). 5G would eliminate the need for service providers to dig the lawns of their customers to provide broadband services. With 5G, service providers can reduce the cost of their dispatch operations and enable customers to activate their Internet connectivity services through self-serve mechanisms. 

• Even in Enterprises, WiFi has a higher penetration through laptops and mobile devices supporting WiFi. While it is easier to eliminate WiFi from mobile devices and transition them completely to 5G, it is not going to be easy to get rid of WiFi from laptops. Moreover, rolling out WiFi6 is going to be lot cheaper than rolling out a 5G network in an Enterprise. It would  also take lesser time for the Enterprises to rollout WiFi6 than 5G. So, WiFi6 would complement 5G in select Enterprise use cases.

The battle between 5G and WiFi6 is not a battle for existence or survival - but, it is going to be a battle to grab more deployment foot print. We'll have to wait and watch to find out who grabs the most market share.