5G: A Network Like No Other

More performance, more users, more challenges

The 5G Opportunity

The 5G era has begun. 5G subscriptions are expected to cross over the 1.5 billion mark by the end of 2022¹. Carriers and service providers have launched over 90,000 commercially available networks.²

But what will 5G mean in everyday life? 5G’s faster speeds and higher bandwidth will make augmented reality, immersive gaming, and seamless videoconferencing everyday experiences on smartphones and lightweight, always-on laptops.

5G will also open up the door to IoT and real-time services by providing a feasible and secure way to link to the devices and things around us to save money, save time and save lives.

The Arm Podcast · Viewpoints: Building a More Connected World

A Network Like No Other. Combining high performance and open standards for broad-based innovation, 5G will be deployed for more applications and use cases than other wireless protocols, explains Arm's Eddie Ramirez.

The 5G Challenge

The performance and data requirements of 5G, however, also mean we have to rethink the technology behind wireless.

Enhanced mobile broadband (eMMB) for consumers, ultra-reliable low latency communication (uRLLC) for industry, and massive machine-type communication (mMTC) for IoT each require distinct demands for speed, latency, reliability, security, connectivity, and bandwidth.

Mobile network traffic worldwide is expected to rise from 78EB per month to 370EB by the end of 2027.³ Average latency, meanwhile, will drop from 50ms with 4G to 10ms and some applications requiring 1ms.⁴

Capital equipment, energy consumption, and operating costs could grow by 2x to 3x⁵ without innovation in equipment design, software, semiconductors, network architectures, and other technologies.⁶

What Is the Biggest Barrier to 5G Adoption?

Cost
Implementation Challenges
Lack of Compelling Applications

Multiple Applications, One Network

Different applications mean diverse performance challenges

A New Approach to Devices

Mobile devices account for 71% of website visits, over 50% of gaming revenue, and 93% of photos. They are also a premier attack surface for hackers. With 5G, these trends will only go up.

Arm Total Compute takes a holistic approach to device design, encouraging semiconductor makers to combine CPUs, GPUs, and other technologies in creative ways to deliver more performance and immersive experiences for an ever-widening set of applications. Total Compute also encompasses the security enhancements such as MTE delivered in Armv9.

Arm also collaborates with Unity, Microsoft, Google, and others to ensure software can be written faster and run faster on these devices.

A New Approach to Infrastructure

Higher throughputs and more complex workloads mean digital Infrastructure will arguably change even more. Traditional base stations will be replaced by disaggregated Radio Units (RUs), Distributed Units (DUs), and Centralized Units (CUs).RUs will contain multicore, server-class chips managing dozens of antennas in real-time with ML. Processor requirements could grow by 150x for some systems, according to Analysys Mason (see right).DUs and CUs, meanwhile, will need virtualization and containers to handle the explosion of new traffic. RUs, DUs, and CUs will be sometimes separated geographically, sometimes housed in a single server, and sometimes delivered via the cloud and edge.With hardware and software coming from a growing spectrum of vendors, integration complexity and compatibility will also become a challenge.