The introduction of 5G continues to gather pace in 2021. According to a recent study by Wind River, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the development and rollout phase of 5G projects for over 70% of telecommunications companies. According to the industry association GSMA, communications service providers worldwide will invest over 900 million dollars in 5G network infrastructure over the next five years.

The expansion of vRAN as a catalyst for 5G ROI

Virtual Radio Access Networks (vRAN) are the next stage of network virtualization and are closely linked to network edge applications. Verizon completed its first fully virtualized 5G data session in 2020. Many other global operators were also considering how they could benefit from the significant savings in capital and operational costs of the new architecture. However, these cost savings will not be the only catalyst for the growing momentum behind vRAN in 2021. The technology has also proven to be a catalyst that will accelerate the deployment of a distributed cloud architecture. This is because it is needed for vRAN and a host of other applications to realize 5G ROI. This is true across a range of industries, including manufacturing and industrial, automotive and healthcare.

Industrial private networks

Mobile edge computing is central to the 5G growth strategies of almost all network operators. Many of the applications and services that promise the most lucrative revenues in 5G are operated at the network edge. Changes in spectrum allocation mean that many global companies can now build private LTE/5G networks to support their own specific applications at their own sites as part of campus networks. Many companies - including Siemens, Bosch, BMW, Volkswagen and Lufthansa - invested in their own infrastructure in 2020. This momentum will continue to build in 2021 as greater awareness of the benefits of mobile edge computing becomes established. This relates to both cost savings and significant improvements in work efficiency and productivity.

Stand-alone 5G networks will be launched worldwide

With 5G deployment accelerating significantly, Wind River expects the first commercial availability of standalone 5G infrastructure towards the end of 2021. With the maturity of MEC (Multi Access Edge Computing) and low latency use cases such as IoT in industrial and manufacturing or automotive automation, standalone 5G is a critical success factor. Companies hosting services over legacy 'non-standalone 5G' (NSA) mobile networks based on existing LTE infrastructure will see far lower revenues from 5G.

The industry has high expectations for the optimization potential of key technologies such as 5G and edge computing. To take full advantage of new 5G applications and systems at the network edge as early as possible, industrial and manufacturing companies have already announced plans to work with partners to develop their own private 5G networks.

"It will be critical for network providers to accelerate the rollout of 5G in their core network. Global network operators looking to deploy 5G vRAN technology, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) or many other industrial edge applications will therefore inevitably need to virtualize the edge of their networks. This is significantly more complex than retrofitting virtualization infrastructures in the data center and requires new approaches that are specifically designed to help new and evolving use cases succeed." - This is how Paul Miller, CTO at Wind River Systems, summarizes the to-dos when it comes to 5G.