S T R A T E G I C W H I T E P A P E R

5G is coming Are you prepared?

With the anticipated growth of Internet of Things (IoT) during the next few years, there will

be more users, more devices and a more diverse range of device types than ever before.

Additionally, other new services and applications will require reduced latency, improved

reliability, longer battery life for devices and more consistent user bit rates. 4G LTE, with

all its evolution, will not be enough to handle this new wave of heterogeneous data traffic.

What is needed is 5G. Learn what is driving 5G, what 5G networks will look like, when it

will be deployed and how you can prepare for 5G today.

Table of contents

Introduction / 1

More of everything / 1

What is 5G and what is driving it? / 2

Why is 4G not enough? / 2

What will 5G networks look like? / 3

Service driven / 4

Evolutionary / 4

Federated radio access / 5

Programmable policy-based networking / 6

Time line to 5G / 7

Preparing for 5G / 8

Why Alcatel-Lucent? / 8

Conclusion / 9

Acronyms / 9

References / 10

1

5G is coming — Are you prepared?

Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

Introduction During the next few years, the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to explode and place new requirements on mobile networks that will not be able to be handled with the evolution of the 4G LTE network. The popularity of IoT devices is expected to drive device connection density to the extreme, eventually reaching 200,000 connections per km². It is expected that the high density of IoT connections will also add excessive signaling to the network due to the connection-oriented nature of LTE which requires that a connection be established prior to sending data. In parallel, other new services and applications will place other pressures on the 4G LTE network leading to new requirements for reduced latency, improved reliability, longer battery life for devices and more consistent user bit rates.

What is needed is 5G – a next generation network. This strategic white paper describes the drivers and requirements for 5G and provides a vision of what the 5G network will look like. A time line to 5G is also presented, based on standardization activities that are under way as well as when mobile operators are expected to deploy 5G networks. This paper also lets mobile operators know what they can do today to prepare for the 5G of tomorrow.

More of everythingIt’s no secret that we live in a connected world and that it’s becoming more and more connected every day. Statista predicts that the number of mobile users worldwide will almost double from 2010 to 2020, increasing from 5.3 billion to 9 billion. The number of mobile devices in use is also increasing. According to the Radicati Group, the number of mobile devices in use will increase by over 57% between 2014 and 2018, reaching 12.2 billion in 2018. The number of devices per user is also going up. The Radicati Group forecasts that by 2018, each business user will have an average of 1.96 mobile devices, increasing from 1.36 devices in 2014.

The number of people using and downloading mobile apps is also increasing each year. Portio Research expects that the number of mobile app users will increase from 1.2 billion in 2012 to 4.4 billion in 2017. This is more than a 3 fold increase in 5 years. They also predict that the number of mobile app downloads per year will increase over 4 times, growing from 46 billion to 200 billion during the same period.

Moreover mobile connections are not just being made by people, but increasingly by machines. These range from lower level machines, such as sensors and meters, to IoT devices with embedded electronics, software and sensors that can collect and transfer data over a network. Examples of IoT devices include implantable or wearable health and fitness devices, smart thermostats, smart street lights as well as manufacturing maintenance and repair sensors. IDC predicts that the IoT installed base will climb from 9.1 billion in 2013 to 28.1 billion in 2020.

The net result of more devices, more device types, more connections and more mobile applications is more mobile data traffic with a greater diversity of requirements. Statista forecasts that mobile data traffic will increase from 2.5 exabytes/month in 2014 to 24.3 exabytes/month in 2019. This is an increase of almost 10 times in five years.

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5G is coming — Are you prepared?

Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

What is 5G and what is driving it?Simply stated, 5G is the fifth generation mobile networks or the next major cellular evolution after 4G. About every ten years, the next generation of mobile networks appears, with each generation improving upon the last. As with each new generation, 5G is expected to be more spectrally efficient, support many more users, offer higher data rates and provide a more consistent user experience. With the anticipated growth of IoT devices and connections, 5G is also expected to support much higher device connection densities, prolong device battery life, widen network coverage and make signaling more efficient.

Today, there are preliminary requirements for 5G developed by leading mobile operators working with the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) forum and the International Telecommunication Union-Radiocommunication (ITU-R) 2020 project, but it will be another year or two before these are finalized. Key requirements along with some proposed target values are:

• Device connection densities up to 200,000 devices/km2

• Consistent user experience with bit rates of 0.1 to 1 Gb/s depending upon specific use case

• Peak bit rates of 10 to 50 Gb/s

• Latency reduced to as low as 1 ms for extreme cases

• Device autonomy to enable devices to last days, weeks, months or years without recharging

• Higher reliability and availability

• Mobility up to 500 km/hr

• Wider coverage

Why is 4G not enough?LTE, designed primarily to serve smart phones and improve users’ wireless internet experience, has been a great success. First deployed 6 years ago, 4G LTE has become the fastest-growing mobile technology in history. Today it globally supports approximately 500 million subscribers.

Since its launch, LTE has evolved to support higher peak bit rates and improve interworking with other radio access technologies such as WLAN. It will continue to evolve for the next ten years or so with expected key features to include:

• LTE radio interface improvements, such as 3D Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) and wider Carrier Aggregation (CA)

• Deployment of LTE carriers in unlicensed and shared spectrum

• Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) improvement with Dual Connectivity (DC) and Coordinated MultiPoint (CoMP)

• Enhanced interworking solutions for Multiple Radio Access Technologies (Multi-RAT), especially between LTE and WLAN

• Improved coverage with in-band support for machine-type devices

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5G is coming — Are you prepared?

Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

At the same time, networks and networking topologies are anticipated to evolve with the introduction of new platform technologies such as:

• Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Network (SDN)

• New forms of interworking based on multi-connectivity solutions such as IP binding and Multipath Transmission Control Protocol (MPTCP)

• Virtualized RAN (vRAN), a concept developed by Alcatel-Lucent introducing a new “local node” hosting centralized baseband processing and RAN optimization features

With all these new features, why can’t we simply evolve LTE? The answer is simple. The set of requirements for 5G is not economically or technically achievable with the evolution of 4G. Some of the main challenges include:

• Advanced mission critical services and immersive virtual reality will eventually require extremely low end-to-end service latency of less than 1 millisecond. This will challenge the basis of the LTE framework and the hybrid retransmission approach used to handle error correction which effectively limits latency to approximately 10 milliseconds.

• With wide spread adoption of IoT devices, the RAN will need to handle extreme device connection density, up to 200,000 devices per km². Because LTE is connection-oriented, the signaling overhead will become a major issue as soon as the device density increases. What is required is a connectionless service.

• Desire by mobile operators to offer a more consistent Quality of Experience (QoE) rather than simply promoting raw peak bit rates will push the RAN to support a more flexible optimization for a more uniform delivered bit rate.

• The need to optimize the radio interface to simultaneously meet a wider range of use cases will drive the need for a more adaptable radio and core network solution than LTE/EPC.

• Ongoing traffic growth in high density zones will eventually exceed what can be supported in the spectrum bands in which LTE was designed to operate, leading to a need for new radio access technologies optimized for new spectrum bands above 20 GHz.

• Need to evolve the security infrastructure to handle a significantly large number of attached devices will encourage the adoption of more distributed solutions based on chain of trust using verifiable credentials

These new requirements for the mobile network suggest that a new 5G radio interface is necessary and able to operate in frequency bands similar to existing cellular networks to provide wide area coverage for all devices and device types. Furthermore, to provide massive broadband capacity, it will be necessary to complement this new 5G radio interface with existing LTE and WLAN carriers on both the macro and small cell layers as well as with new higher frequency (e.g. millimeter Wave or mmWave) 5G carriers on small cells to augment capacity in high density urban areas.

What will 5G networks look like?Alcatel-Lucent views the 5G network as:

• Being service-driven

• Evolutionary in its development

• Using federated radio access mixing a new configurable and flexible 5G radio access technology with LTE and WLAN to deliver massive capacity

• Using programmable policy-based networking to adopt the network to the user

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5G is coming — Are you prepared?

Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

Service drivenBecause of the many types of devices connecting to the network and the many uses of mobile broadband, 5G will have many new use cases –each with its own set of requirements. For example the use case, “Massive Internet of Things”, will require connectionless service provision, while a “Mission Critical” use case will require low latency and high reliability services. 5G will have to meet the requirements not only of each use case, but also of different types of terminals, radio environments, network loads as well as business and pricing models. This will result in a flexible set of customizable services that mobile operators can build into unique service offers.

Evolutionary5G is expected to start being deployed in 2020. By then, most major operators will have completed the rollout of their LTE networks over multiple carriers mixing licensed and unlicensed spectrum tied together with carrier aggregation. HetNet solutions using dual connectivity to link the macro and small cell layers would also be in place and operators would have started deploying NFV and SDN based technologies enabling the introduction of new virtual RAN sites in major cities as well as a virtualized core network.

By 2020, the penetration of smart phones in developed markets will have stabilized. New connections will mostly be for second and third personal devices along with machines and sensors leading to a rise in short bursty traffic. This rise will burden the LTE network with increased signaling traffic.

Figure 1. Evolutionary view for 5G rollout showing how 4G LTE is expected to continue to evolve prior to launch of 5G services

Radios

Radios

IT

IT+ router

4G Evolve

Radios

BBUhardware

mmWave

MassiveMIMO

NFV

NewradioI/F

Policy

Connection-less

SDN

CA

Smallcell

LTE-U

DC andMultiX

CoMP

5G

vRAN vRAN

vEPC

vEPC

vIMS

vIMS

Cell site RAN site PS core IMS core

At this point, ongoing capacity demands in dense urban areas and continued IoT traffic growth will demand higher capacity and a more efficient and cost-effective solution than that offered by any further evolution of the LTE network. Additionally, operators will want to launch new revenue-generating services such as those outlined in NGMN 5G use cases. Taken together, these different triggers will

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5G is coming — Are you prepared?

Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

encourage operators to deploy 5G radio technologies. Alcatel-Lucent expects their first step will be the deployment of a new 5G carrier on macro cells to act as a control layer and offer improved Quality of Service (QoS), higher capacity and reduced cost per delivered byte for a wide range of services including especially short packet bursts of IoT traffic.

As 5G is deployed, operators will also maintain access to their 4G LTE capacity by using carrier aggregation and dual connectivity between 5G and 4G carriers, minimize the need for inter-generational handovers. This represents a paradigm shift in the mobile industry as it will be the first time a new generation will be designed to reuse rather than replace the capacity of the previous generation. Figure 1 depicts how the 4G network will evolve to 5G.

Federated radio access5G radio access will be federated. This means that low and high band 5G radio technologies will be combined with existing LTE and WLAN capacity using carrier aggregation and dual connectivity. Table 1 shows how 5G low and high band carriers deployed across macro and small cells can be combined with LTE and WLAN to offer a federated access solution.

Table 1. 5G radio access approach showing how low and high band 5G carriers deployed on macro and small cells can be combined with LTE and WLAN to offer a federated access solution.

CARRIER DEPLOYMENT 5G USERS 4G USERS

5G in bands under 6 GHz Macro and small cell CoverageConnectionless serviceLow latency serviceWide-area capacity

—

5G in bands above 20 GHz Small cell Local area capacityExtreme low latency

—

LTE in bands under 6 GHz Macro and small cell Wide-area capacity Coverage Capacity

WLAN Small cell Local area capacity Local area capacity

On the macro layer, low band 5G and 4G carriers will be used together. 5G devices will use a 5G carrier as their primary and connectionless service bearer and any other 5G or 4G carriers as secondary resources for connection-oriented service. Legacy 4G devices will continue to use LTE carriers.

On the small cell layer, a mixture of low and high band 5G carriers, 4G carriers and WLAN will be used together. 5G devices will use a low band carrier from either a macro cell, if available, or small cell for primary and connectionless service bearer and any other available low and high band 5G or 4G carriers and WLAN as secondary resources for connection-oriented service. Figure 2 shows how 5G low and high band carriers deployed across macro and small cells can be combined with LTE and WLAN to offer a federated access solution.

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5G is coming — Are you prepared?

Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

Figure 2. 5G federated radio access combining 5G low band on macro and 5G low and high bands on small cells with LTE and WLAN carriers

5G (<6 GHz)

LTE (<6 GHz)

Legacy 2/3G

5G (>20 GHz)

5G (<6 GHz) 5G (<6 GHz) 5G (>20 GHz)

LTE (<6 GHz) LTE (<6 GHz) LTE (<6 GHz)

WLAN WLAN WLAN

5G low band carriers are likely to be based on Universal Filtered -Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (UF-OFDM), an extension of the Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) technology used by LTE. This extension uses an additional variable filter stage in the transmitter, improving spectrum emission shaping and providing a flexible guard space between symbols. Working together, these two features offer higher performance and robustness than LTE, especially for narrow bandwidth transmissions typical of the short bursty transactions used by IoT services, messaging and device signaling while also enabling short transmission intervals to offer reduce latency bearers.

The technology used for 5G high band carriers will depend on the exact band adopted. If the ITU-R identifies at least one band that is not too high then one option is to adopt the same scalable OFDM based technology as for low bands but with wider sub-carrier spacing and corresponding shorter sub-frame timing. This would offer native support for lower latency services and adapt well to the lower mobility and propagation delay spread that is associated with small cells access.

To ensure federated usage of the low and high bands between macro and small cell layers and between 5G, 4G and WLAN access, common upper layer procedures need to be adopted for both low and high bands as part of the 5G standard.

Programmable policy-based networkingIn order to provide the flexibility to program the network to support the range of required 5G use cases, the 5G network requires a tighter coupling of wireless control, networking control and policy-based service management. This will be accomplished by using NFV and SDN to enable the 4G packet core, mobility controller (MME) and policy management functions (e.g. Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) and Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF)) to evolve into a truly flexible and configurable solution. Such a solution will allow operators to rapidly deploy innovative services and network solutions that are optimized to specific 5G use cases, environments, device types and end user needs.

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5G is coming — Are you prepared?

Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

Figure 3. 5G programmable policy-based networking framework

Wireless and networking control

• Charging• Mobility• Security• QoS• Monitoring• Optimization

Policy, resourcesand topology

Networking

controlWirelesscontrol

Policy-based service management

Policyframework

ServiceAPIs

Applications

Applications

NetworkAPIs

Time line to 5GResearch work on 5G started about five years ago with significant research projects in Europe, China, Korea, and Japan. At the same time, ITU-R started working on setting the fundamental requirements for 5G, followed more recently by the NGMN, an operator pre-standards organization, with the release of its 5G White Paper at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015.

Moving forward, the 3GPP will start working on a more detailed set of standards for 5G. Their initial focus will be on setting requirements, followed by formal study items to baseline the architecture and radio technologies. This will lead to work items between 2017 and 2019 to define the complete 5G specification, resulting in the first release being issued as part of 3GPP Release 15.

In parallel ITU-R is expected to launch a formal call for candidate radio technologies for its IMT-2020 project and prepare for the critical World Radio Conference (WRC) in 2019 where new radio bands above 20 GHz are expected to be identified.

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) are expected to hold technology trials in 2018 and limited customer trials in 2019, with early commercial 5G deployments starting in 2020-2021. Please refer to Table 2 for a time line of 5G standards and deployments.

Table 2. Time line for 5G standards and deployments

YEAR ITU-R 3GPP MNOS

2015 IMT-2020 visionWRC-15

Requirements Requirements (NGMN)

2016 RequirementsStudy items (Rel-14)

2017 Call for radio technologies Architecture evolutionRadio technology selection

2018 Start of evaluation process Stage 2 (Rel-15) ITU-R submission

Technology trials

2019 WRC-19 Stage 3 (Rel-15) Limited customer trials (Korea)

2020 IMT-2020 recommendations 5G enhancements (Rel-16) Start of commercial service (Japan, Korea)

2021 Wider deployment (USA, Europe)

2022 mmWave carriers on small cells

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5G is coming — Are you prepared?

Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

Preparing for 5GThe path to 5G is a journey, not a destination. The more prepared one is, the easier the journey becomes. With 5G, preparation starts with the definition of the requirements. Operators should work with the NGMN to ensure their requirements for 5G are considered upfront. Participating in a 5G technology trial is another excellent way to get ready for 5G. Mobile operators who do so will gain an excellent understanding of how the technology works and what its limits are–making commercial deployments easier.

Also, since 5G will build on 4G LTE foundation technologies (including macro cells, small cells and WLAN HetNets, LTE Advanced (LTE-A) features such as CA, and NFV and SDN technologies, like vRAN and virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC)), mobile operators should consider deploying these technologies sooner rather than later. For example:

• Small cells and WLAN provide more capacity and increase end users’ QoE today and secure sites for 5G tomorrow.

• LTE-A CA delivers higher LTE capacity by combining spectrum assets. With 5G, CA will enable additional higher band spectrum to augment traditional cellular spectrum to enable the delivery of massive capacity.

• vRAN and vEPC drives better scale, flexibility and performance. This will position mobile networks to handle the next big wave of traffic expected with 5G.

Mobile operators should partner with a vendor who will deliver the capacity and flexibility they need to grow and evolve their 4G LTE network today, while having the multi-disciplinary capabilities, vision and leadership to guide them on their path to 5G.

Why Alcatel-Lucent?Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs has a pivotal role defining and developing 5G technology. This includes: conducting research on 5G radio access with a focus on air interface design, scalable MIMO antenna systems, novel solutions optimized for short packet transactions, mmWave propagation and performance simulation, networking solutions for integrating 5G with LTE and WLAN radio technologies, end-to-end studies on the impact of new 5G use cases and the introduction of NFV and SDN technologies on mobile networks. Bell Labs is working with leading mobile operators and universities and is a key member of European funded research projects such as METIS and 5GNOW.

Additionally, Alcatel-Lucent is actively engaged with the 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G PPP). This is a new program under the European Commission Horizon 2020 research and innovation program with the objective to deliver solutions, architectures and technologies for 5G communication infrastructures of the next decade. Alcatel-Lucent is one of the five founding members, is a 5G PPP board member and is engaged in several research project proposals on topics including 5G air interface, novel architecture, machine-to-machine communications and network management.

Alcatel-Lucent is also well positioned to help operators build a strong 4G foundation to start down the path to 5G. We are leaders in LTE and small cells and have products designed with a focus on evolution. Our LTE Express Overlay solution fully supports LTE-A features in both distributed and centralized architectures and offers a smooth evolution path towards vRAN and ultimately 5G. Alcatel-Lucent is also firmly committed to the evolution of the mobile networking infrastructure with virtualization and cloud-based architectures, and currently has vEPC and vIMS solutions commercially available with the vRAN coming soon. Our portfolio also includes all the professional services mobile operators need to evolve their networks and services from 4G to 5G efficiently and effectively.

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5G is coming — Are you prepared?

Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

ConclusionAlthough mobile operators are still building out their 4G networks, they need to prepare for 5G now. Since 5G will build on 4G LTE foundation technologies, mobile operators should consider deploying advanced LTE technologies sooner rather than later. This will not only benefit them today, but also position their networks to evolve easily and quickly to 5G tomorrow. With 5G deployments slated to start in 2020 and 2021, mobile operators should already be working with the NGMN on definition of 5G requirements and be making plans to participate in 5G technology trials.

As leaders in LTE, small cells and virtualization, Alcatel-Lucent is well positioned to help mobile operators build a strong 4G foundation to start their journey on the path to 5G. Alcatel-Lucent is a leader in 5G research, and plays a vital role in its definition and development through major research projects. These projects are conducted by Bell Labs and through our partnerships with mobile operators, universities and key 5G organizations, like 5G PPP, NGMN, ITU and 3GPP.

Acronyms3G 3rd Generation Network

3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project

4G 4th Generation Network

5G 5th Generation Network

5GNOW 5th Generation Non-Orthogonal Waveforms

5G PPP 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership

ANDSF Access Network Discovery and Selection

Function

CA Carrier Aggregation

CoMP Coordinated Multipoint

DC Dual Connection

EPC Evolved Packet Core

HetNet Heterogeneous Network

IMT-2020 International Mobile

Telecommunications-2020

IoT Internet of Things

IP Internet Protocol

ITU-R International Telecommunication

Union-Radiocommunication

LTE Long Term Evolution

LTE-A Long Term Evolution- Advanced

MIMO Multiple Input Multiple Output

MME Mobility Management Entity

mmWave millimeter Wave

MNO Mobile Network Operator

MPTCP Multipath Transmission Control Protocol

Multi-RAT Multiple Radio Access Technologies

MWC Mobile World Congress

M2M Machine to Machine

NGMN Next Generation Mobile Networks

NFV Network Function Virtualization

OFDM Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing

PCRF Policy and Charging Rules Function

QoE Quality of Experience

QoS Quality of Service

RAN Radio Access Network

SDN Software Defined Networks

SC-FDMA Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple

Access

UF-OFDM Universal Filtered - Orthogonal Frequency-

Division Multiplexing

vEPC virtualized Evolved Packet Core

vIMS virtualized IP Multimedia Subsystem

vRAN virtualized Radio Access Network

WLAN Wireless Local Area Network

WRC World Radio Conference

www.alcatel-lucent.com Alcatel, Lucent, Alcatel-Lucent and the Alcatel-Lucent logo are trademarks of Alcatel-Lucent. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The information presented is subject to change without notice. Alcatel-Lucent assumes no responsibility for inaccuracies contained herein. Copyright © 2015 Alcatel-Lucent. All rights reserved. PR1502009140EN (March)

References

• Statista http://www.statista.com/statistics/218984/number-of-global-mobile-users-since-2010/

• Statista http://www.statista.com/statistics/295635/total-number-m2m-connections-worldwide/

• Mobile Statistics Report, 2014-2018, Editor: Sara Radicati, PhD, The Radicati Group, Inc., http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Mobile-Statistics-Report-2014-2018-Executive-Summary.pdf

• Global Smartphone User Penetration Forecast by 88 Countries: 2007 to 2020, Peter Lin, December 23, 2014, https://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=reportabstractviewer&a0=10435

• The Mobile Economy 2014, GSMA, http://www.gsmamobileeconomy.com/GSMA_ME_Report_2014_R2_WEB.pdf

• Mobile Applications Futures 2013-2017, Portio Research, http://www.portioresearch.com/en/mobile-industry-reports/mobile-industry-research-reports/mobile-applications-futures-2013-2017.aspx

• Market in a Minute: Source: Worldwide and Regional Internet of Things (IoT) 2014–2020 Forecast: A Virtuous Circle of Proven Value and Demand Internet of Things, IDC, http://www.idc.com/downloads/idc_market_in_a_minute_iot_infographic.pdf

• Telegeography GlobalComms Forecast Service, https://www.telegeography.com/research-services/globalcomms-forecast-service/index.html

• Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) 5G Initiative http://www.ngmn.org/home.html

• ITU-R IMT-2020 Project http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/study-groups/rsg5/rwp5d/imt-2020/Pages/default.aspx