What Is 5G?
5G is the fifth-generation mobile network and the most recent iteration of telecommunications technology following the 4G network. 5G technology, bringing improved latency, capacity, and speed, is expected to enable new business models and use cases in a wide range of market segments. The most impacted market is telecom, which will be required to deploy large amounts of networking infrastructure, such as virtual and open radio access networks (vRAN, Open RAN) to support the new spectrum and resulting use cases.
5G Base StationBoosting data throughput
Autonomous VehiclesNavigating streets
Untethered RobotsWorking in warehouses
SurgeonsOperating on patients remotely
DronesPlanting and harvesting crops
Figure 1: Emerging services at the edge of the 5G network
It’s expected that the automotive industry will become the largest market opportunity for 5G Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, representing 53% of the overall 5G IoT endpoint opportunity by 2023, according to Gartner. The company also forecasts strong demand for 5G-enabled outdoor cameras used by city and building operators to enhance physical security.
Other 5G-relevant market segments are factory automation and logistics, in which robots perform manufacturing tasks and carry materials around warehouses. In medical, ultra-low latency 5G networks will support remote, collaborative surgery with doctors and patients in different geographic locations. Agricultural use cases include automated tractors and drones helping to plant and harvest crops.
These are just a handful of the emerging opportunities. Rapid evolution has already begun:
- The 5G infrastructure market is projected to reach $95.88 billion by 2030 (Grand View Research, 2022).
- 75% of all data will be computed, near latency free, on the edge by 2025 (Gartner, 2018).
- COVID-19 has pushed more than 70% of telco 5G projects onto a fast development and deployment track (Wind River®, 2020).
- There are already 7M 5G towers globally, and that figure is on the rise (Operator Watch, 2020).
This means three things:
- Service providers want to accelerate. Transformational technologies are needed.
- 5G networks will be distributed across thousands if not millions of nodes. This number is only expected to grow, and complexity is inevitable.
- Service providers need to handle the intricacies of volume, optimization, and OpEx controls.
How 5G Works
In simple terms, 5G enables data transmitted over wireless broadband connections to travel with potential peak speeds of up to 20 gigabits per second. (The peak speed of 4G is only 1 gigabit per second.) These speeds exceed wireline network speeds and offer latency of 5 milliseconds or lower. This is beneficial for applications that require real-time feedback. 5G enables increased amounts of data to be transmitted over wireless networks, thanks to more available bandwidth and advanced antenna technology.
Earlier generations of cellular technology focused on connectivity, whereas 5G takes that connectivity to the next level by providing connected experiences from the cloud to customers. 5G networks are virtualized and software-driven, and they exploit cloud technologies.
Example of Industrial 5G Use Case Features and Benefits
| Feature | Benefits |
|---|---|
| High-speed throughput | Higher levels of user communications, plus higher capacity for number of users, connected devices, and traffic demands |
| Lower latency | Fast handling of time-bound VoIP traffic, applications that require low latency, and streaming videos |
| High-motion mobility | User support for fast, mobile methods of transport |
| High reliability | Low latency, high availability down to two nodes, providing reliable communication |
| Advanced manageability | Reduced operating expense and better management by operators and carriers |
| New spectrum | Use of millimeter wave bands and radio carrier aggregation |
| Ultra-low energy | 10+ years of battery life |
| Improved and expanded security | Security built into the specifications |
Similarly, Verizon’s eight “currencies” of 5G provide good insights into 5G's requirements:
- Throughput
- Service deployment
- Mobility
- Connected devices
- Energy efficiency
- Data volume
- Latency
- Reliability
Wind River supports these requirements with our products and solutions, notably with:
Wind River Studio Wind River LinuxSolving 5G Industry Challenges
Open RAN could enable up to 30% TCO reduction over three years.
—Analysys Mason, 2022
There are numerous ways in which Wind River works to address the challenges that 5G brings:
Manage complexity
Complex distributed networks with large numbers of base stations require complex management. Since 5G uses a smaller wavelength than 4G, many more base stations must be deployed than was the case with 4G, making network management more complex. Additionally, services must be dynamically scaled as needed.
Helping to simplify network management, Wind River Studio Cloud Platform provides live scalability (from one-to-many nodes and from edge to core) and a single-pane-of-glass interface that can be used to manage thousands of remote systems. The platform is highly reliable and telecom grade, supporting 99.9999% (six nines) guaranteed uptime.
Deliver high levels of performance in latency, capacity, and determinism
5G standards and technologies enable performance several orders of magnitude greater than that of 4G, presuming 5G network infrastructure is adequately designed for the task. Engineered to satisfy stringent 5G performance demands, Studio ensures ultra-low latency in virtual radio access networks (vRAN), which is critical for supporting real-time applications such as voice over LTE (VoLTE) and enabling future 5G services. Wind River Linux, based on a Yocto Project implementation, is carefully tuned to deliver deterministic, low-latency performance, matched to the use case in a small code footprint, enabling it to be deployed in network appliances for both small (i.e., single device) and very large network infrastructures.
Transition from 4G to 5G
Network operators are looking for network solutions that deliver carrier grade performance, massive scalability, and rapid service instantiation for 4G networks while laying the foundation for 5G networks in the future. Already successfully deployed in existing 4G networks and the majority of early 5G rollouts, Wind River Linux helps ensure a smooth and cost-effective transition for telecommunications equipment manufacturers (TEMs) and network operators.
Maintain security throughout the lifecycle
Operators need to ensure that their network remains secure over the entire lifecycle. Helping to continuously safeguard deployed network systems, Wind River provides ongoing threat mitigation against common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs). The Wind River security team is constantly monitoring security vulnerabilities, including specific security notifications from U.S. government agencies and organizations such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, as well as public and private security mailing lists and the CVE database.
Minimize operational cost and total cost of ownership (TCO)
The operating cost to support and maintain a roll-your-own or commercially available operating system can be significant. Lowering the TCO for building, deploying, and maintaining network infrastructure, Wind River open source products such as Studio and Wind River Linux provide a fully supported solution, including:
- Commercial hardening and packaging, including a full set of user documentation, installation, and configuration
- Long-term support for the lifecycle of an operator’s network infrastructure
- Continuous monitoring and fixes for security vulnerabilities
- An extended list of Linux board support packages (BSPs) across a variety of architectures
- IP compliance with reporting and OpenChain Conformance
- Customer-specific capabilities and alignment with upstream services
Benefits of 5G
5G will impact most industries. The advantages it could bring include:
- More bandwidth
- Lower latency
- New technologies (e.g., remote precision medicine, connected cars, and virtual/augmented reality)
- Higher-frequency abilities
- Better mobile wireless internet capabilities
- The possibility of a 5G mobile network consisting of low-band, mid-band, and mmWave frequencies
Challenges and use cases in different verticals include:
- Telecom: Service providers need advanced tools to manage complex, distributed 5G networks with many more base stations compared to 4G networks that operate at lower frequency.
- Automotive: Autonomous vehicles will rely on 5G networks for navigation, control, and vehicle-to-vehicle communications.
- Manufacturing: Factories will gain real-time, closed-loop control over mobile robots used to perform manufacturing tasks and transport materials around warehouses.
- Aerospace and defense: Sea, air, and space systems will collaborate in real time, dramatically reducing time-to-action and increasing security.
- Medical: Ultra-low latency 5G networks will support remote, collaborative surgery with doctors and patients in different geographic locations.
- Agriculture: Automated, unmanned tractors and drones will help plant and harvest crops, thereby greatly reducing labor costs.
What Is 6G?
Autonomous vehicles will need reliable 5G and, ultimately, 6G for safe navigation, control, and communications.
6G will be the future iteration of 5G. To date, the commonality among all network improvements has been speed and bandwidth, and that is expected to hold true for 6G.
Since 6G networks will operate at higher frequencies, their bandwidth and latency will be significantly higher than those of 5G networks.
Another major goal of 6G internet will be to support communication with latency of only a microsecond.
How Can Wind River Help?
Wind River Linux
Open source Linux is the default environment for developing embedded solutions for the intelligent edge. Wind River Linux provides the industry’s most advanced embedded Linux development platform, with a comprehensive suite of products, tools, and lifecycle services to help customers build and support intelligent edge devices in segments such as telecommunications, aerospace and defense, industrial, medical, automotive, and more. Wind River Linux’s tunable, deterministic ultra-low latency makes it the infrastructure of choice for the top telecom equipment manufacturers worldwide. Wind River provides an offering to keep your code base up-to-date, track and fix defects, apply security patches, and customize your runtime to adhere to strict market specifications and certifications. Additionally, Wind River can facilitate your intellectual property and export compliance and significantly reduce your OpEx costs.
Wind River Studio
Verizon’s 5G edge network already runs on Wind River Studio, and other service providers will follow suit.
Wind River Studio is the first cloud-native platform for the development, deployment, operations, and servicing of mission-critical intelligent edge systems that require security, safety, and reliability. It provides a production-grade Kubernetes platform for managing a distributed edge cloud infrastructure. Studio’s unified set of development, security, and operations pipelines allow you to connect your mission-critical edge devices to the cloud and build products and releases.
- Wind River Studio Cloud Platform: Starting with a distributed cloud, Studio provides a production-grade Kubernetes cloud platform for managing edge cloud infrastructure. Based on the open source StarlingX project, Studio compiles best-in-class open source technology to deploy and manage distributed networks.
- Wind River Studio Analytics: Effectively manage a distributed cloud system by consuming and processing the data to produce meaningful insights for decision-making.
- Wind River Studio Conductor: Achieve complete end-to-end automation to scale from a handful to thousands of nodes in a geographically dispersed distributed environment.