The 5G-Advanced

- Overview

5G-Advanced (or 5.5G) is the next evolutionary step in 5G technology. It will bring new levels of enhancements beyond connectivity and provide a wider range of advanced use cases for vertical industries. 

5G-Advanced will support advanced applications with enhanced mobility and high reliability, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to improve network performance. It will also further improve spectral efficiency and energy savings.

- Building on 5G Usage Cases

5G is designed to connect and transform society. From the start in Rel-15, 5G has addressed three main usage scenarios: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communication (mMTC) and ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC) in line with the ITU IMT-2020 requirements.

5G can deliver eMBB, thanks to its support for high bandwidth in new 5G spectrum, and low latency, due to its new radio and core network architectures. Rel-16 and Rel-17 bring support for new features and additional frequency bands that further expand 5G’s eMBB capabilities. Together, these capabilities take the eMBB support for entertainment, education, and media production services to new levels.

5G provides support for mMTC use cases that require massive numbers of low power and low cost devices that can operate under the most challenging coverage conditions. It can be used to provide latency-tolerant services for smart meters, sensors and actuators, characterised by small and infrequent data transfers. These are typical 5G mMTC usage scenarios that employ 3GPP LTE-M and NB-IoT solutions, for which co-channel compatibility with NR is ensured.

URLLC is designed to provide high reliability and low latency connections for services in various vertical industries, such as autonomous driving, logistics, and healthcare. Rel-16 and Rel-17 extend the application of URLLC into industrial environments to support Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and automation in manufacturing, process industries, mining, and smart electric grid applications.

Beyond the three main use case families, 5G brings support for additional services, such as intelligent transportation systems (ITS) using NR-V2X for advanced use cases, public safety, and the Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS).

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- The 5G-Advanced Era

The release of 3GPP Release 18 marks another major evolution of 5G technology and will lead the industry into the 5G-Advanced era. 5G-Advanced aims to develop 5G to its fullest and richest capabilities. It will provide the foundation for more demanding applications and a wider range of use cases than ever before through a truly immersive user experience based on extended reality (XR) capabilities. 

Expected to be commercially available in 2025, it will provide a solid foundation for more demanding applications, including true mobile extended reality (XR) services, high-precision location presence and timing technology. 

5G-Advanced features will infuse the network with more intelligence, improve fundamental radio and system performance, and introduce AI/ML techniques in the RAN, core and management network domains for operational excellence. Energy efficiency will be at the heart of 5G-Advanced, both in terms of maximizing device battery life and reducing network power consumption.

Additionally, 5G-Advanced will be fully backward compatible, meaning it can co-exist with 5G NR Releases 15-17 and serve legacy 5G devices.

- Boosted 5G Services Usage

5G-Advanced will offer a variety of smart connections, including services focused on uplink communications and connecting people moving at high speeds, such as those on trains and planes. 5G-Advanced will also effectively support highly immersive and interactive applications that will be widely deployed in entertainment, training and education.

At the same time, 5G-Advanced will further strengthen the support for low-cost, low-power devices, such as industrial wireless sensors, smart watches and smart glasses, etc., and the following bandwidth 5 MHz. It will also support time-sensitive networking, timing-as-a-service, network-based precise positioning and GNSS-based enhanced positioning.

In addition, 5G-Advanced will support unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as non-terrestrial networks (such as those provided by satellites) that fully seamlessly interoperate with terrestrial networks. 5G-Advanced will also leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to enable efficient network configuration, operation and optimization in a sustainable manner.

Over time, 5G-Advanced can evolve to support integrated sensing and communication, ambient IoT, tactile and multimodal communication services, mobile virtual world services, and service robot networks with ambient intelligence.

5G-Advanced will serve a wide range of industries with different ecosystems, different needs and different regulatory environments. 3GPP encourages and facilitates cross-industry collaboration to fully explore use cases for 5G-Advanced capabilities.