Research Article: 5G: Vision and Requirements For Mobile Communication System Towards Year 2020
Research Article: 5G: Vision and Requirements For Mobile Communication System Towards Year 2020
Research Article
5G: Vision and Requirements for Mobile Communication
System towards Year 2020
Copyright 2016 G. Liu and D. Jiang. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The forecast for future 10 years traffic demand shows an increase in 1000 scales and more than 100 billion connections of Internet
of Things, which imposes a big challenge for future mobile communication technology beyond year 2020. The mobile industry is
struggling in the challenges of high capacity demand but low cost for future mobile network when it starts to enable a connected
mobile world. 5G is targeted to shed light on these contradictory demands towards year 2020. This paper firstly forecasts the vision
of mobile communications application in the daily life of the society and then figures out the traffic trends and demands for next
10 years from the Mobile Broadband (MBB) service and Internet of Things (IoT) perspective, respectively. The requirements from
the specific service and user demands are analyzed, and the specific requirements from typical usage scenarios are calculated by
the defined performance indicators. To achieve the target of affordable 5G service, the requirements from network deployment and
operation perspective are also captured. Finally, the capabilities and the efficiency requirements of the 5G system are demonstrated
as a flower. To realize the vision of 5G, information a finger away, everything in touch, 5G will provide the fiber-like access data
rate, zero latency user experience, and connecting to more than 100 billion devices and deliver a consistent experience across a
variety of scenarios with the improved energy and cost efficiency by over a hundred of times.
5G
(2020)
4G
(2008)
3G
(2000s) IMT-Advanced
2G
(1990s) IMT-2000
1G LTE
Digital LTE-A
(1980s) GSM WCDMA WiMAX
DECT CDMA2000
Analog DCS1800 CT2
PDC TD-SCDMA
NMT CT0 PHS
IS-54
TACS CT1 IS-95
AMPS IS-136
This paper discusses the vision of the mobile commu- evolution of the way humans interact and provide users with
nication towards year 2020 first, and the capabilities of 5G ultimate experience through more immersive services such
system are derived on condition that a sustainable ecosystem as augmented reality, virtual reality, ultra-high-definition
of mobile communication system could be built to meet the (UHD) 3D video, and mobile cloud. The further development
market demand of year beyond 2020. of mobile Internet will trigger the growth of mobile traffic by
a magnitude of thousands in the future and promote a new
2. Vision for Mobile Communication wave of upgrades and a revolution in mobile communications
technologies and the industry as a whole.
towards 2020
Looking ahead to the year 2020 and beyond, there will be
The global deployment of LTE cultivates the mobile users to explosive growth in mobile data traffic as shown in Figure 3.
be used to the mobile data in their daily life tremendously. The It is estimated that the global mobile data traffic will grow
video service and social applications, for example, WeChat, by more than 200 times from 2010 to 2020 and by nearly
Facebook, and Twitter, have changed our life very much with 20,000 times from 2010 to 2030. In China, the growth factors
the capabilities of LTE, especially high data rate and low are projected to be even higher, with mobile data traffic
latency. It is believed that the mobile communication will being expected to grow by more than 300 times from 2010
penetrate into every element of future society and create to 2020 and by more than 40,000 times from 2010 to 2030.
an all-dimensional, user-centered information ecosystem. A For developed cities and hotspots in China, the growth of
fully mobile and connected society is expected in the near mobile data traffic will exceed the projected average growth
future, which will be characterized by a tremendous amount for all of China. For example, from 2010 to 2020 in Shanghai,
of growth in connectivity, traffic volume, and a much broader the mobile data traffic is projected to grow by 600 times.
range of usage scenarios [10]. In Beijing and during this same period, it is estimated that
Accordingly, the Mobile Broadband (MBB) service and hotspot traffic may grow by up to 1,000 times.
the Internet of Things (IoT) will be the two main drivers in The IoT has extended the scope of mobile commu-
the future development of mobile communications, and they nications services from interpersonal communications to
will provide a broad prospect for the next generation mobile smart interconnection between things and between people
communication system (5G), the overall vision of which is and things, allowing mobile communications technologies to
depicted in Figure 2. penetrate into broader industries and fields. Looking ahead
Mobile Broadband service disrupted the traditional busi- to the year 2020 and beyond, applications such as mobile
ness model of mobile communications, enabling unprece- health, Internet of Vehicles (IoV), smart home, industrial
dented user experiences and making a profound impact on control, and environmental monitoring will drive the explo-
every aspect of peoples work and life. Looking ahead to year sive growth of IoT applications, facilitating hundreds of
2020 and beyond, MBB service will promote the continued billions of devices to connect to a network creating a true
Chinese Journal of Engineering 3
1,000,000x smart phones will contribute most of the traffic and IoT
100,000x terminals will contribute less, even though the number of
10,000x devices is much larger.
1,000x Towards year 2020 and beyond, the typical trends could
100x
10x be summarized as follows.
1x
Global China Shanghai (i) Explosive Growth of Data Traffic. There will be explo-
Beijing hotspot
sive growth in traffic; the global data traffic will
20102020 increase by more than 200 times from 2010 to 2020
20102030 and about 20000 times from 2010 to 2030.
Figure 3: 20102030 growth of mobile data traffic [10].
(ii) Great Increase of Devices in Connection. While smart
phones are expected to remain as the main per-
sonal devices, the number of other kinds of devices,
including wearable devices and MTC devices, will
Internet of Everything. This will give rise to emerging continuously increase.
industries of unprecedented scale and instill infinite vitality
to mobile communications. Meanwhile, the massive amount (iii) Continuous Emergence of New Services. Different
of interconnected devices and the diversified IoT services will kinds of services, for example, services from enter-
also pose new challenges to mobile communications. prises, from vertical industries, and from Internet
As illustrated in Figure 4, the total number of devices companies, will be exploited.
connected by the global mobile communications network
will reach 100 billion in the future. By 2020, it is projected that To meet the service and market demand towards year
the number of mobile terminals around the world will surpass 2020 and beyond, the IMT-2020 is targeted to be deployed by
10 billion, of which China will contribute over 2 billion. The year 2020 (5G) and meet new and unprecedented demands
number of IoT connections will also expand rapidly, reaching beyond the capability of previous generation systems. 5G
the size of the global population of 7 billion in 2020, of which will break through the limitation of time and space to
China will contribute 1.5 billion. By 2030, the number of enable an immersive and interactive user experience. 5G will
global IoT connections will reach 100 billion, of which China also shorten the distance between human and things and
will make up over 20 billion. Among all types of terminals, implement seamless integration to achieve an easy and smart
4 Chinese Journal of Engineering
75
12 20
Global China
50
6 10
25
0 0 0
2010 2020 2010 2020 2030 2010 2020 2030
2030
China Population Population
Global IoT connection IoT connection
Figure 4: 20102030 growth of mobile device and IoT connection (unit: billion) [10].
interconnection between people and all things. 5G will pro- stored in the cloud. Such massive data activity will require
vide users with fiber-like access data rate and zero latency transmission rates to be comparable to optical fiber com-
user experience. 5G will be capable of connecting 100 billion munications, which will lead to enormous traffic challenges
devices. 5G will be able to deliver a consistent experience for mobile communications networks particularly in hotspot
across a variety of scenarios including the cases of ultra-high areas. Over-the-top (OTT) services, such as social network-
traffic volume density, ultra-high connection density, and ing, will be counted among leading applications going for-
ultra-high mobility. 5G will also be able to provide intelligent ward, and the associated frequently occurring small packets
optimization based on services and users awareness and will will devour signaling resources. At the same time, consumers
improve energy and cost efficiency by over a hundred of will continue to demand better experiences on mobile
times, enabling us all to realize the vision of 5G, information communications wherever they are. A consistent service
a finger away, everything in touch. experience is expected in all kinds of scenarios, including
ultra-dense scenarios such as stadiums, open-air gatherings
3. Services, Scenarios, and and concerts, and high-speed moving scenarios such as high-
Performance Challenges speed trains, vehicles, and subways.
IoT is focused on communications between things and
As described in Figure 2, the future mobile communication between things and people, involving not only individual
system will penetrate to every corner of the society and bring users, but also a large number of various vertical industrial
us the immersive user experience. To derive the requirements customers. The IoT services types and relevant requirements
for the 5G system, the typical service and user demand will of IoT services are very diverse. For services such as smart
be the mandatory requirements for the 5G, while the typical home, smart grid, environmental monitoring, smart agricul-
deployment scenarios will also bring some bottlenecks to ture, and smart metering, the network will be required to sup-
be solved by 5G system, especially from the domestic and port a massive amount of device connections and frequently
commercial application perspective, for example, the cost occurring small data packets. Services like video surveillance
and efficiency. This section identifies the service and user and mobile health will have strict requirements on transmis-
demands beyond year 2020 according to the possible popular sion rates, while services such as IoV and industrial control
services and user behavior in 5G era and derives the specific will demand millisecond-level latency and nearly 100% reli-
requirements of 5G system from the typical usage scenarios ability. In addition, many IoT devices may be deployed in
perspective. remote areas such as mountains, forests, and bodies of waters
or in areas where transmission losses can be a problem, such
3.1. Services and User Demands. Mobile Internet is aiming as indoor corners, basements, and tunnels. Therefore, the
at people-oriented communications with a focus on user coverage of mobile communications network needs to be fur-
experience. Towards the year 2020 and beyond, the increasing ther enhanced. In order to penetrate into more IoT services,
popularity of ultra-high-definition (UHD) and 3D and video 5G should be more flexible and more scalable, to support
immersion will significantly drive up the data rates. For massive device connections and meet diverse user require-
example, with a hundredfold compression, the transmission ments.
of 8 K (3D) video will require a transmission rate close to Users expect better, yet more cost-effective, services and
1 Gbps. Services, such as augmented reality, desktop cloud, experiences with mobile Internet and the IoT. In addition to
and online gaming, will not only pose a challenge for uplink satisfying cost and experience demands, 5G will also need to
and downlink data transmission rates but also generate meet extremely high security requirements, particularly for
stringent demand for the so-called imperceptible latency. In services such as e-banking, security monitoring, safe driving,
the future, vast amounts of individuals and office data will be and mobile health. 5G will also be able to support lower power
Chinese Journal of Engineering 5
Office
Tens of Tbps/km2 traffic volume density
Dense residence
Gbps user experienced data rate
Stadium
1 million connections/km2
Open-air gathering
1 million connections/km2
Subways
Over 6 persons/km2 high density
Highway
Millisecond end-to-end latency
High-speed trains
>500 km/h mobility
Wide-area coverage
100 Mbps user experienced data rate
consumption to build a greener mobile communication users, percentage of different services, and service require-
network and to enable much longer terminal battery life, ments such as data rate and latency. The key performance
especially for some IoT devices. indicators for 5G are listed in Table 1, which include user
experienced data rate, connection density, end-to-end delay,
3.2. Scenarios and Performance Challenges. 5G will touch traffic volume density, mobility, and peak date rate.
many aspects of life in the future, such as residence, office,
leisure, and transportation. The 5G scenarios include at 4. Sustainability and Efficiency Requirements
least dense residential areas, office towers, stadiums, open-
air gatherings, subways, fast ways, high-speed railways, and To provide the immersive services to the users in an afford-
wide-area coverage. These scenarios, which are characterized able way, the cost and efficiency of 5G system need to
by high traffic volume density or high connection density or be considered when it is deployed and maintained after
high mobility, may be quite challenging for 5G as described the commercial deployment. As forecasted in Figure 3, the
in Figure 5. mobile data traffic by year 2020 could grow by more than 1000
Some typical services, such as augmented reality, virtual times, while it is not possible for the user to pay for the mobile
reality, ultra-high-definition videos, cloud storage, Internet of data approximately to the data volume. To achieve this, the
Vehicles, smart home, and OTT services, will occur in these high cost efficiency of the network will be a key to make a
scenarios. The performance requirements for 5G are derived successful 5G. To reduce the cost per bit of 5G, the spectrum
for each scenario, according to the predicted distribution of efficiency of 5G, the flexibility to adaptation to differentiated
6 Chinese Journal of Engineering
usage scenarios and services, and simplified network opti- Table 2: 5G key efficiency indicators.
mization and maintenance are highly expected from 5G.
Efficiency indicators Definition
4.1. Sustainability. Several problems are anticipated if todays Spectrum efficiency
The data throughput per unit of spectrum
(bps/Hz/cell or
networks are used to handle the explosive development of resource per cell (or per unit area)
bps/Hz/km2 )
mobile Internet and IoT as follows.
Energy efficiency The number of bits that can be
(i) The energy efficiency level, overall cost per bit, and (bit/J) transmitted per joule of energy
complexity of network deployment and maintenance The number of bits that can be
Cost efficiency (bit/Y)
cannot effectively handle the 1000-time traffic growth transmitted per unit cost
and a massive amount of connected devices in the
future next decade.
(ii) reduce the complexity caused by the coexistence of
(ii) Coexistence of multiple radio access technologies
multiple radio access technologies, network upgrades,
(RAT) causes increased complexity and degraded
and the introduction of new features and functions, to
user experience.
improve users experience;
(iii) Existing networks cannot realize accurate monitoring
(iii) make intelligent optimization based on awareness of
of network resources and effective awareness of ser-
users behavior and services contents;
vices, and therefore they cannot intelligently fulfill the
diversified requirements of future users and services. (iv) provide a variety of network security solutions to
meet the needs of all types of devices and services of
(iv) Widely distributed and fragmented spectrum will
mobile Internet and IoT.
cause interference and coexistence complexity.
To solve these problems, 5G should have the following 4.2. Efficiency Requirements. Spectrum utilization, energy
capabilities to achieve sustainability. In terms of network consumption, and cost are the three key factors which
construction and deployment, 5G needs to must be addressed in sustainable mobile communication
(i) provide higher network capacity and better coverage, networks. In order to achieve sustainability, 5G needs to make
while decreasing the complexity and cost of network significant improvements in the following aspects:
deployment, especially the deployment of ultra-dense (i) Spectrum efficiency: 35 times.
networks;
(ii) Energy efficiency: 100+ times.
(ii) have a flexible and scalable architecture to adapt to the
(iii) Cost efficiency: 100+ times.
diverse needs of users and services;
(iii) make flexible and efficient use of various spec- The definitions of these efficiency indicators are listed in
trum resources, including paired and unpaired spec- Table 2.
trum, refarmed spectrum and new spectrum, low-
frequency and high-frequency bands, and licensed 5. Key Capabilities of 5G
and unlicensed bands;
5G systems must dramatically outperform previous genera-
(iv) have stronger device-connection capabilities to deal
tion systems. 5G should support the following:
with the access requirements of huge amounts of IoT
devices. (i) User experienced data rate: 0.11 Gbps.
In terms of operation and maintenance (O&M), 5G needs (ii) Connection density: 1 million connections per square
to kilometer.
(i) improve network energy efficiency and the O&M cost (iii) End-to-end latency: millisecond level.
per bit to cope with data traffic growth and the diverse (iv) Traffic volume density: tens of Gbps per square
needs of various services and applications; kilometer.
Chinese Journal of Engineering 7
5G
4G
(v) Mobility: higher than 500 Km per hour. user experienced data rate, system capacity, and
connection density).
(vi) Peak data rate: tens of Gbps.
(ii) New waveforms, like filtered-OFDM, UFMC (Uni-
Among these requirements, user experienced data rate, versal Filtered Multicarrier), window-OFDM, and so
connection density, and end-to-end latency are the three forth, to maximize the spectrum utilization.
most fundamental ones. Meanwhile, 5G needs to significantly (iii) Massive MIMO technologies to increase the spec-
improve the efficiency of network deployment and opera- trum efficiency, user experienced data rate, and sys-
tions. Compared with 4G, 5G should have 3 to 5 times tem capacity.
improvement on spectrum efficiency and more than 100
times improvement on energy and cost efficiency. (iv) New channel coding such as polar code and LDPC
The performance requirements and efficiency require- (Low Density Parity Check Code), to increase the
ments define the key capabilities of 5G, which can be spectrum efficiency.
illustrated as a blooming flower in Figure 6. The petals and (v) Software defined air interface and end-to-end net-
leaves rely on each other. The petals represent the six key work slicing to increase the system flexibility to
capabilities in terms of performance and can fulfill the diverse support all kinds of services and to enhance the
requirements of future services and scenarios. The leaves overall network cost efficiency.
represent the three key capabilities in terms of efficiency and
can guarantee the sustainable development of 5G. The top of There are three solutions to satisfy the increasing spec-
each petal means the maximum value of the corresponding trum demands for 5G services. Identification of more spectra
capability. both below and above 6 GHz for IMT is the solution with
highest priority. Bands below 6 GHz are the core spectrum
bands used for IMT, with C band being a key band in the
6. Candidate Technologies and Spectrum near future. The second one is to refarm spectrum used by
To achieve the above 5G requirement objectives, there are legacy systems. The third one is to promote new technologies
some emerging technologies proposed by many organiza- to share spectrum of the other radio services.
tions and companies including the following:
7. Conclusions
(i) Novel multiple access, such as SCMA (Sparse Code
Multiple Access), MUSA (Multiuser Shared Access), 5G will be able to sustainably satisfy the requirement of the
PDMA (Pattern Division Multiple Access), and 1000-time traffic growth. 5G will provide users with fiber-like
RSMA (Resource Spread Multiple Access) (this kind access data rate and zero latency user experience. 5G will
of technologies can increase the spectrum efficiency, be capable of connecting 100 billion devices. 5G will be able
8 Chinese Journal of Engineering
Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the National Science and Technol-
ogy Major Project under Grant no. 2015ZX03002005-002.
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