ITU to study 5G network standardisation requirements

The ITU is working on standards to make wireless comms match the speed and reliability of fibre optics.

The ITU has established a focus group to identify the network standardisation requirements for the 5G development of International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) for 2020 and beyond.

These ‘IMT-2020’ systems will enable wireless communication to match the speed and reliability achieved by fibre-optic infrastructure.

The potential application fields of IMT-2020 systems, in addition to voice and video, span from health care to industrial automation, virtual reality, automated driving and robotic systems controlled with an imperceptible time lag.

One-millisecond end-to-end latency is necessary for technical systems to replicate natural human interaction with our environment, a goal that experts say should be within reach of future networks.

In 2012, ITU established a program on International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) for 2020 and beyond, which provides the framework for IMT-2020 research and development worldwide.

ITU’s Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) is coordinating the international standardisation of IMT-2020 systems. ITU-T is expected to play a similar convening role for the technologies and architectures of wireline networks.

“Air interfaces and radio access networks are progressing rapidly, but there is a need to devote more attention to the networking aspects of IMT-2020,” said ITU Secretary-General, Houlin Zhao.

“Wireline communications will transform significantly in support of IMT-2020, and the coordination of ITU’s standardisation and radio communication arms will ensure that the wireline and wireless elements of future networks develop in unison.”

“Following on from the successful development of IMT-2000 and IMT-Advanced, the standards for all of today’s 3G and 4G mobile systems, the work to be carried out by ITU-T on the network aspects will be an important complement to the activities undertaken by ITU-R in developing the radio interface standards for IMT-2020,” added ITU Radiocommunications Bureau Director François Rancy.

ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau Director Chaesub Lee said, “Today’s network architectures cannot support the envisaged capabilities of IMT-2020 systems. Innovation in standardisation is essential across core networks, access networks, virtualised data clusters and masses of smart networked units. Moving beyond convergence, the concepts underlying networking must evolve to support the development of integrated fixed-mobile hybrid networks.”

“5G will power a wide range of new user experiences, but the bottleneck remains the speed of the network. Everyone in the ICT ecosystem needs to work together,” said Huawei Head of 5G Research and Development Wen Tong.

“This is the most important condition for us to realise 5G, and this is the reason Huawei is contributing to ITU’s efforts to consider what the road to 5G demands of all parts of the ecosystem.”

The new Focus Group, which is open to participation by any interested party, will provide the launching point for ITU-T’s contribution to IMT-2020 standardisation. The group will follow an intensive work plan to complete its study prior to the December meeting of ITU’s standardisation expert group responsible for future networks, cloud computing and network aspects of mobile communications, ITU-T Study Group 13.

IMT-2020 research and development is underway in a wide range of industry and public sector bodies. The Focus Group’s scope of activity will be concentrated in identifying the standardisation needs of the wireline elements of 5G networks, building on an analysis of IMT-2020 studies being undertaken by other entities.