How North America will realise the promise of 5G with network densification

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece Francesca Greane, Marketing, Content and Community Lead forThe BIG 5G Event 2020, discusses the role of Network Densification in realising the promise of 5G.

Digital usage trends—such as 220 million connected vehicles on the road by 2020 and videos accounting for 82 percent of internet traffic by 2021—all point to the need for faster and more converged networks, but there is still uncertainty around how these networks will actually be achieved.

Indeed, network costs are expected to double with 5G, and North American operators are expected to start running out of capacity in at least 50% of sites starting 2020. Depending on the area (urban or rural), carriers will be able to meet the increased traffic needs by densifying their networks with macro-sites or small-cells. And while urban environments will bring the increased revenues, there is pressure on from a federal level to equally cater for rural connectivity needs.

As the CFO of Sprint, Tarek Robbiati, put it in an interview with Wireless Week: “We are not building a network that is 4G; 4G is almost a thing of the past. We are building a 5G network for the future and 5G networks are fundamentally different to 4G networks. They are all around high capacity and the more spectrum you have the more capacity you have, the more spectrum you deploy the more you can connect customers and the more speed you can give customers across your network and that requires a fair bit of densification.”

Some of the primary ways to achieve network densification include increasing the number of antennas and small cell sites as well as upgrading to sector-splitting and massive multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) technologies yet, even though the technology is largely there, the market is still lacking in commercial examples of building, launching and monetising a densified commercial network.

To help tackle this, experts from Boingo Wireless, Heavy Reading and Verizon will be joining The BIG 5G Event’s upcoming webinar on March 10th in order to explore North American commercial experiences of densifying a network and applications of cutting-edge technologies that will accelerate this process and bring valuable ROI.

Breaking down topics such as the concept of mMINO and applications, how beam forming will improve network performance, what network topology needs to be put in place to make mmWave work, network slicing to support 5G applications and so much more, this is an exclusive opportunity to gain business-critical insights around network densification as you plan your 5G roadmap for 2020, 2021 and beyond!

Simply click here to register for the webinar for free.

To discover the latest trends for 5G in North America, claim your ticket to The BIG 5G Event 2020 (May 18-20, Dallas, Texas). Gain insights from senior representatives from Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T and more as they detail their plans for 5G rollout in 2020 and beyond. Simply click here to get your ticket.