FOCUS: Russian operators palpate 5G, seen to take best from predecessors

By Yekaterina Yezhova

MOSCOW, Jun 6 (PRIME) -- Stiffening grip of competition pushes Russian operators into evolving technologically, and their interest in promising 5G seems logical. MTS and MegaFon, champions by subscribers, have already got their feet wet with the new connection standard, which will most likely service the Internet of Things (IoT), analysts said.

“In conditions of tough rivalry, operators cannot leave the technological race. Incomes from traditional services of mobile connection – voice and SMS – do not rise any more, and income growth from data transfer tends to decline,” Vitaly Solonin, head of the wireless department at J’son & Partners Ñonsulting, told Russian Connection.

“That is why operators see potential in provision of connection mainly not for humans, but for things. In this pursue, we need dramatic changes both in the field of radio interface and network architecture, or the creation of a new standard.”

Primarily, emergence of 5G results from the scarcity of existing frequency resources allocated for mobile connection. Additional frequencies are necessary not only for loading “heavy” video content by air and virtual reality, but also for connecting tens of billions of devices within the IoT concept.

“According to forecasts, the 5G standard will engage some 10 million IoT devices by 2024,” Solonin said.

“The 5G standard will make it possible to exploit not only the licensed, but also the non-licensed spectrum, including high frequencies, which are spare,” the analyst said. “Frequency resource for 5G has not been determined yet. Bands of over 6 gigahertz will be most likely used.”

The leading operators have already started working at the new connection standard. MegaFon pioneered in teaming up with Chinese electronics giant Huawei in 2014.

“MegaFon has been the first Russian operator to announce its participation in upcoming elaboration of the 5G standard and its technological features to adapt it to realities of the domestic telecom market, frequency bands and landscape. In its turn, Huawei will test equipment of a new standard in MegaFon’s networks,” head of MegaFon’s press office Yulia Dorokhina told Russian Connection.

MTS signed cooperation agreements with Swedish telecom equipment producer Ericsson in 2015 and Finnish electronics giant Nokia in May.

Earlier MTS said that 5G networks will allow users to share information online at a speed of more than 10 gigabits per second, which is 30 times faster than the speed currently available on 4G networks. The novelty will ensure minimal latency of data downloads and greater network throughput capacity. MTS and Nokia will also work out a strategic plan to introduce 5G and the IoT solutions.

The operators will try to unroll 5G partially at the FIFA World Cup, which Russia will host in 2018, as huge load on networks is a great chance to test the standard.

Solonin said 5G is an integrating standard that will take the best from the existing technologies: an option to use a wide range of frequencies; low power consumption; high effectiveness of the radio frequency spectrum; and a much higher speed.

“The main drawback of 5G is that the standard has not been described in technical specifications yet. It does not exist as such,” Solonin said.

Mass market will be ready for a full-fledged launch of 5G no sooner than the rest of the world: the presumable start is seen in 2020, when the International Telecommunication Union plans to implement the new standard, and the country’s mass consumption could take place no sooner than in 2025, the expert said.

“The 5G standard is more oriented at the IoT, like connected sensors and meters, TV sets, household appliances, industrial management systems, urban objects, or ‘smart cities’, and cars, among others. The need of mobile users to have a fast access to content have been almost fully satisfied for several years in advance with 4G LTE and its further modifications, like LTE Advanced. It follows that support of 5G by smartphones will not be urgent most likely for next three–five years,” Solonin said.

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