By Sudhir Kunder, Country Director, DE-CIX India
With 5G, we’re finally getting to the pinnacle of communication technology. Machines can talk to other machines, and the speed at which humans can talk to each other will increase.
Having said that, 5G is radically different from its predecessor, 4G. Until now, getting the most out of your mobile broadband device required patiently waiting for its data speed to increase.
Second, while it is true that 5G is a mobile technology, it also represents a major breakthrough in the areas of smart cities and smart business planning. Priorities in digitalization are shifting as regions strive to become more resilient in the face of future disruptions and take advantage of the current high volatility, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous market environment. Due to the increased need for data collection and transmission, modern businesses must be adaptable enough to establish new connections at each of their sites and activities.
To make their networks ready for the fully digital future, they need the flexibility to tailor bandwidth, latency, security, and resilience to specific business needs and application demands.
5G network will be amazingly helpful in this regard. The general public has the impression that the new mobile standard does nothing more than deliver “super-fast Internet” to mobile devices like smartphones; however, this is only the beginning of what 5G is capable of doing. The transmission of high-definition content to mobile devices is merely one aspect of this larger phenomenon.
There are a great many economic and industrial fields that stand to gain the most from the introduction of 5G technology. As a result of the introduction of Industry 4.0, connected factories have emerged as a prominent example. There are a wide variety of potential applications, including but not limited to agriculture, construction, transportation, energy generation, healthcare, and more.
With all of the advantages that a cutting-edge smart factory that is enabled with 5G can provide, the network’s connection to the outside world must be just as smart. This connection must ensure low latency, high bandwidth, highly resilient connectivity to external networks, and secure connectivity. For the internal network that is responsible for supporting this external connectivity, Interconnection Platforms deliver performance that is comparable to that of 5G connectivity.
Five essential complementary technologies are listed:
Mobile Edge Cloud (MEC):
Numerous industrial 5G applications call for incredibly low latency, which means that the data processing and storage must be situated physically closer to the machine. These end devices do not have sufficient resources to process the vast amounts of data that are collected by sensors. The mobile edge cloud is an infrastructure that is located near the base station and provides computing and storage capacities at the “edge” of the network.
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
Software-defined networks (SDN) allow for greater agility and flexibility in network design by decoupling the control level from the underlying data level (which is typically comprised of physical circuits) in routers and switches. Therefore, the entire network of SDN switches can be managed by a central controller, which can be either physical or virtual, and data packets can be prioritized or blocked according to the requirements.
Network Function Virtualization (NFV)
Virtualization is used in the process known as network function virtualization (NFV), which involves the replacement of expensive and inflexible hardware solutions with software that can run on standard hardware (for example, servers that are commercially available). This combination allows for faster deployments, upgrades, and downgrades, as well as greater service migration flexibility. The utilization of standard hardware helps to cut down on operating costs as well.
Service Function Chaining (SFC)
Service function chaining allows for the flexible and efficient use of network functions for a variety of applications, making it easier to implement use cases that would normally require a complete network service consisting of several service functions performed in a specific order (e.g. first a firewall, and then a deep packet inspection). In this scenario, NFV needs to be capable of preserving the packets’ original order. Chaining network services allows for the automation of the process of setting up virtual network functions, which is the primary benefit of doing so.
Network Slicing
The term “network slicing” refers to an architecture that supports multiple independent and parallel logical networks on the same physical hardware infrastructure. The level of service that is made available by each of these network segments is determined by factors such as the amount of latency or bandwidth that is available. End-to-end communication is mapped to each of the individual segments or slices. When it comes to implementing network slicing in 5G environments, SDN and virtualization are absolutely necessary components.
The FIFA World Cup in Qatar in 2022 is the most recent proof of the concept of how powerful and potent 5G can be. With 2.46 million attendees, we were able to observe data utilization of 533 TB – GSM Technology, 136 TB – WiFi Technology, and 7.5 million calls with a call drop rate of 00.03%.
In conclusion, it is indisputable that the 5G mobile standard will bring about significant improvements in both the business world and society as a whole. However, faster transmission of data over mobile devices is not likely to stimulate the creation of apps that generate revenue on their own. In order for this to take place, there must first be established a number of necessary supporting technologies and infrastructures. The new mobile standard will not be able to enable new use cases or bring value to businesses until these technologies are able to cooperate with one another and 5G is widely adopted.
In spite of the mounting evidence that 5G will be the standard of the future, the majority of these use cases for India’s digital agility requirements will not be able to be met without the assistance of technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), and extended reality (XR).