Prof. Magedanz from Technische Universität Berlin, explains the role of 5G networks deployment and its innovation potential, as a part of EAI Distinguished lectures program.
5G is ranked top in the enablers for the digital transformation, as far as the devices we use need to be connected to some infrastructure to be controlled. Ideally, remotely or deliver some data from these devices to this kind of infrastructure. According to Prof. Magedanz, 5G serves a lot of capabilities, which are needed by different application domains.
5G as a key enabler/catalyst for the Digital Transformation
On the one hand, there is a need to provide the capacity of 5G for multimedia applications, but there is also a need for connecting factories. Nevertheless, there are also rural areas that lack fiber, so the question is how the satellite networks should be involved in this too. In all these areas, according to Prof. Magedanz’s research, 5G majored in taking the best of technology influences. The technology, which is currently available is just the start of 5G deployment, but the real products, which are delivering 5G promoted features will only be available in three to four years. It is highly expensive to build the radio stations or antenna systems throughout the country for the 5G deployment. This means that according to a time plan, in 2025 we will probably see that the 5G coverage will be available in most of the key areas and transport routes. Nevertheless, there is still a problem with rural areas.
What is 5G: where does it start and end
5G use cases include gigabytes in a second, 3D video – 4K screens, work & play in the cloud, augmented reality, industrial & vehicular automation, mission-critical broadband, self-driving cars, smart city cameras, voice and sensor networks.
Key communications changes with 5G are that the network functions are becoming software only (convergence with IT), network infrastructures are more flexible (growing on-demand, adapting to changes), enabling the parallel deployments of multiple dedicated networks. Except for that, network functions can be installed in compute nodes at the edge of the network, new types of local private or public access networks are developing and existing ones are integrating.
Thomas Magedanz (Ph.D.) has been a professor at the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany, leading the chair for next-generation networks since 2004. In addition, since 2003 he has been Director of the Business Unit Software-based Networks (NGNI) at the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUS in Berlin. In the course of his applied research and development activities, he created many internationally recognized prototype implementations of global telecommunications standards that provide the foundations for the efficient development of various open technology testbeds around the globe. His current interest is in software-based 5G networks for different verticals, with a strong focus on edge computing, network slicing, and private industrial networks. The Fraunhofer 5G Playground represents, in this regard, the world´s most advanced Open 5G testbed which is based on the Open5GCore software toolkit, representing the first reference implementation of the current 3GPP 5G standalone architecture.
The honorable Distinguished lectures program serves as an inspiration featuring great talks by the world’s most prominent researchers. Let us introduce to you our featured world’s top speakers presenting a topic as our distinguished guest lecturers.
Watch EAI’s previous Distinguished lecture – Prof. Xuemin (Sherman) Shen on Reinforcement Learning for Resource Management in Space-Air-Ground (SAG) Integrated Vehicular Networks
