Scaling up Cost-effectively

While the buzz around 5G sounds too good to be true, preparation, groundwork, and getting networks ready the new standard hold the key to its successful roll out. Here is why CUPS will play a key role in the upgrading the network

- Arun Kumar

As the years roll by, there will come a time when the future generation will discover how videos sometimes used to pause and buffer while streaming. When they realize that, the reactions would be puzzled looks as though saying: what was that buffering thing all about? 5G is just around the corner and by the time posterity arrives, 5G would have made significant inroads and digital life in the super-fast lane would be business as usual.

Ask anyone about their first impressions on 5G and they’ll say bufferless streaming and fast downloading of content on smart devices. But there’s more to it. By Q2 of 2020 the strides that 5G will make will only get swifter; 5G will impact massive IoT projects, critical communications and enhanced mobile broadband. Apart from unlimited mobile internet experiences, 5G’s ultra-low latency is transforming autonomous vehicles, smart logistics, VR and AR, remote surgeries and the like.

Densely populated cities, financial and commercial centers are where 5G’s presence will be felt the most in 2020 initially. That’s because it’s the Centralized Business Districts (CBD) that will offer the millimeter-wave (mmWave) aspect of 5G. Unlike Wi-Fi that uses 2.4- or 5.8 gigahertz band, 5G mmWave ranges from 24 GHz to a lightning 100 GHz. This will be supplemented by the 6 GHz ranges as well. To experience such radical speeds, telecom carriers have to upgrade their existing network elements with the new mmWave technology. On the contrary, 5G speeds will be on the lower end of scale (low-band) or mid-band of the scale in rural areas, to use frequency ranges from 600MHz to 2.5GHz.