S T R AT EG IC W HI T E PA P E R

5G is coming
Are you prepared?

With the anticipated growth of Internet of Things (IoT) during the next few years, there will
be more users, more devices and a more diverse range of device types than ever before.
Additionally, other new services and applications will require reduced latency, improved
reliability, longer battery life for devices and more consistent user bit rates. 4G LTE, with
all its evolution, will not be enough to handle this new wave of heterogeneous data traffic.
What is needed is 5G. Learn what is driving 5G, what 5G networks will look like, when it
will be deployed and how you can prepare for 5G today.

Table of contents
Introduction

More of everything

What is 5G and what is driving it?

Why is 4G not enough?

What will 5G networks look like?

Service driven / 4
Evolutionary / 4
Federated radio access / 5
Programmable policy-based networking / 6

Time line to 5G

Preparing for 5G

7
/

Why Alcatel-Lucent?
Conclusion
Acronyms
References

9
9

10

Introduction
During the next few years, the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to explode and place new
requirements on mobile networks that will not be able to be handled with the evolution of the 4G LTE
network. The popularity of IoT devices is expected to drive device connection density to the extreme,
eventually reaching 200,000 connections per km. It is expected that the high density of IoT connections
will also add excessive signaling to the network due to the connection-oriented nature of LTE which
requires that a connection be established prior to sending data. In parallel, other new services and
applications will place other pressures on the 4G LTE network leading to new requirements for reduced
latency, improved reliability, longer battery life for devices and more consistent user bit rates.
What is needed is 5G a next generation network. This strategic white paper describes the drivers and
requirements for 5G and provides a vision of what the 5G network will look like. A time line to 5G is
also presented, based on standardization activities that are under way as well as when mobile operators
are expected to deploy 5G networks. This paper also lets mobile operators know what they can do
today to prepare for the 5G of tomorrow.

More of everything
Its no secret that we live in a connected world and that its becoming more and more connected every
day. Statista predicts that the number of mobile users worldwide will almost double from 2010 to
2020, increasing from 5.3 billion to 9 billion. The number of mobile devices in use is also increasing.
According to the Radicati Group, the number of mobile devices in use will increase by over 57%
between 2014 and 2018, reaching 12.2 billion in 2018. The number of devices per user is also going
up. The Radicati Group forecasts that by 2018, each business user will have an average of 1.96 mobile
devices, increasing from 1.36 devices in 2014.
The number of people using and downloading mobile apps is also increasing each year. Portio Research
expects that the number of mobile app users will increase from 1.2 billion in 2012 to 4.4 billion
in 2017. This is more than a 3 fold increase in 5 years. They also predict that the number of mobile
app downloads per year will increase over 4 times, growing from 46 billion to 200 billion during the
same period.
Moreover mobile connections are not just being made by people, but increasingly by machines.
These range from lower level machines, such as sensors and meters, to IoT devices with embedded
electronics, software and sensors that can collect and transfer data over a network. Examples of IoT
devices include implantable or wearable health and fitness devices, smart thermostats, smart street
lights as well as manufacturing maintenance and repair sensors. IDC predicts that the IoT installed
base will climb from 9.1 billion in 2013 to 28.1 billion in 2020.
The net result of more devices, more device types, more connections and more mobile applications
is more mobile data traffic with a greater diversity of requirements. Statista forecasts that mobile
data traffic will increase from 2.5 exabytes/month in 2014 to 24.3 exabytes/month in 2019. This
is an increase of almost 10 times in five years.

1
5G is coming Are you prepared?
Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

What is 5G and what is driving it?

Simply stated, 5G is the fifth generation mobile networks or the next major cellular evolution after 4G.
About every ten years, the next generation of mobile networks appears, with each generation improving
upon the last. As with each new generation, 5G is expected to be more spectrally efficient, support many
more users, offer higher data rates and provide a more consistent user experience. With the anticipated
growth of IoT devices and connections, 5G is also expected to support much higher device connection
densities, prolong device battery life, widen network coverage and make signaling more efficient.
Today, there are preliminary requirements for 5G developed by leading mobile operators working
with the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) forum and the International Telecommunication
Union-Radiocommunication (ITU-R) 2020 project, but it will be another year or two before these are
finalized. Key requirements along with some proposed target values are:
Device connection densities up to 200,000 devices/km2
Consistent user experience with bit rates of 0.1 to 1 Gb/s depending upon specific use case
Peak bit rates of 10 to 50 Gb/s
Latency reduced to as low as 1 ms for extreme cases
Device autonomy to enable devices to last days, weeks, months or years without recharging
Higher reliability and availability
Mobility up to 500 km/hr
Wider coverage

Why is 4G not enough?

LTE, designed primarily to serve smart phones and improve users wireless internet experience, has
been a great success. First deployed 6 years ago, 4G LTE has become the fastest-growing mobile
technology in history. Today it globally supports approximately 500 million subscribers.
Since its launch, LTE has evolved to support higher peak bit rates and improve interworking with other
radio access technologies such as WLAN. It will continue to evolve for the next ten years or so with
expected key features to include:
LTE radio interface improvements, such as 3D Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) and wider
Carrier Aggregation (CA)
Deployment of LTE carriers in unlicensed and shared spectrum
Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) improvement with Dual Connectivity (DC) and Coordinated
MultiPoint (CoMP)
Enhanced interworking solutions for Multiple Radio Access Technologies (Multi-RAT), especially
between LTE and WLAN
Improved coverage with in-band support for machine-type devices

2
5G is coming Are you prepared?
Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

At the same time, networks and networking topologies are anticipated to evolve with the introduction
of new platform technologies such as:
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Network (SDN)
New forms of interworking based on multi-connectivity solutions such as IP binding and Multipath
Transmission Control Protocol (MPTCP)
Virtualized RAN (vRAN), a concept developed by Alcatel-Lucent introducing a new local node
hosting centralized baseband processing and RAN optimization features
With all these new features, why cant we simply evolve LTE? The answer is simple. The set of
requirements for 5G is not economically or technically achievable with the evolution of 4G. Some
of the main challenges include:
Advanced mission critical services and immersive virtual reality will eventually require extremely
low end-to-end service latency of less than 1 millisecond. This will challenge the basis of the LTE
framework and the hybrid retransmission approach used to handle error correction which effectively
limits latency to approximately 10 milliseconds.
With wide spread adoption of IoT devices, the RAN will need to handle extreme device connection
density, up to 200,000 devices per km. Because LTE is connection-oriented, the signaling overhead will
become a major issue as soon as the device density increases. What is required is a connectionless service.
Desire by mobile operators to offer a more consistent Quality of Experience (QoE) rather than simply
promoting raw peak bit rates will push the RAN to support a more flexible optimization for a more
uniform delivered bit rate.
The need to optimize the radio interface to simultaneously meet a wider range of use cases will drive
the need for a more adaptable radio and core network solution than LTE/EPC.
Ongoing traffic growth in high density zones will eventually exceed what can be supported in the
spectrum bands in which LTE was designed to operate, leading to a need for new radio access
technologies optimized for new spectrum bands above 20 GHz.
Need to evolve the security infrastructure to handle a significantly large number of attached devices will
encourage the adoption of more distributed solutions based on chain of trust using verifiable credentials
These new requirements for the mobile network suggest that a new 5G radio interface is necessary and
able to operate in frequency bands similar to existing cellular networks to provide wide area coverage
for all devices and device types. Furthermore, to provide massive broadband capacity, it will be
necessary to complement this new 5G radio interface with existing LTE and WLAN carriers on both the
macro and small cell layers as well as with new higher frequency (e.g. millimeter Wave or mmWave)
5G carriers on small cells to augment capacity in high density urban areas.

What will 5G networks look like?

Alcatel-Lucent views the 5G network as:
Being service-driven
Evolutionary in its development
Using federated radio access mixing a new configurable and flexible 5G radio access technology
with LTE and WLAN to deliver massive capacity
Using programmable policy-based networking to adopt the network to the user

3
5G is coming Are you prepared?
Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

Service driven
Because of the many types of devices connecting to the network and the many uses of mobile
broadband, 5G will have many new use cases each with its own set of requirements. For example
the use case, Massive Internet of Things, will require connectionless service provision, while a
Mission Critical use case will require low latency and high reliability services. 5G will have to meet
the requirements not only of each use case, but also of different types of terminals, radio environments,
network loads as well as business and pricing models. This will result in a flexible set of customizable
services that mobile operators can build into unique service offers.

Evolutionary
5G is expected to start being deployed in 2020. By then, most major operators will have completed
the rollout of their LTE networks over multiple carriers mixing licensed and unlicensed spectrum tied
together with carrier aggregation. HetNet solutions using dual connectivity to link the macro and small
cell layers would also be in place and operators would have started deploying NFV and SDN based
technologies enabling the introduction of new virtual RAN sites in major cities as well as a virtualized
core network.
By 2020, the penetration of smart phones in developed markets will have stabilized. New connections
will mostly be for second and third personal devices along with machines and sensors leading to a rise
in short bursty traffic. This rise will burden the LTE network with increased signaling traffic.
Figure 1. Evolutionary view for 5G rollout showing how 4G LTE is expected to continue to evolve prior to launch of 5G
services
Evolve

4G

5G

LTE-U
Small
cell

Radios

DC and
MultiX

CA

Radios

mmWave

Radios

CoMP

Massive
MIMO

Connectionless

BBU
hardware

vRAN

IT+ router

vEPC

New
radio
I/F

vRAN

vEPC
SDN

Policy
vIMS

NFV
IT

Cell site

vIMS

RAN site

PS core

IMS core

At this point, ongoing capacity demands in dense urban areas and continued IoT traffic growth will
demand higher capacity and a more efficient and cost-effective solution than that offered by any further
evolution of the LTE network. Additionally, operators will want to launch new revenue-generating
services such as those outlined in NGMN 5G use cases. Taken together, these different triggers will

4
5G is coming Are you prepared?
Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

encourage operators to deploy 5G radio technologies. Alcatel-Lucent expects their first step will be the
deployment of a new 5G carrier on macro cells to act as a control layer and offer improved Quality
of Service (QoS), higher capacity and reduced cost per delivered byte for a wide range of services
including especially short packet bursts of IoT traffic.
As 5G is deployed, operators will also maintain access to their 4G LTE capacity by using carrier
aggregation and dual connectivity between 5G and 4G carriers, minimize the need for inter-generational
handovers. This represents a paradigm shift in the mobile industry as it will be the first time a new
generation will be designed to reuse rather than replace the capacity of the previous generation. Figure 1
depicts how the 4G network will evolve to 5G.

Federated radio access

5G radio access will be federated. This means that low and high band 5G radio technologies will be
combined with existing LTE and WLAN capacity using carrier aggregation and dual connectivity.
Table 1 shows how 5G low and high band carriers deployed across macro and small cells can be
combined with LTE and WLAN to offer a federated access solution.
Table 1. 5G radio access approach showing how low and high band 5G carriers deployed on macro and small cells can be
combined with LTE and WLAN to offer a federated access solution.
CARRIER

DEPLOYMENT

5G USERS

4G USERS

5G in bands under 6 GHz

Macro and small cell

Coverage
Connectionless service
Low latency service
Wide-area capacity

5G in bands above 20 GHz

Small cell

Local area capacity

Extreme low latency

LTE in bands under 6 GHz

Macro and small cell

Wide-area capacity

Coverage
Capacity

WLAN

Small cell

Local area capacity

Local area capacity

On the macro layer, low band 5G and 4G carriers will be used together. 5G devices will use a 5G
carrier as their primary and connectionless service bearer and any other 5G or 4G carriers as secondary
resources for connection-oriented service. Legacy 4G devices will continue to use LTE carriers.
On the small cell layer, a mixture of low and high band 5G carriers, 4G carriers and WLAN will be used
together. 5G devices will use a low band carrier from either a macro cell, if available, or small cell for
primary and connectionless service bearer and any other available low and high band 5G or 4G carriers
and WLAN as secondary resources for connection-oriented service. Figure 2 shows how 5G low and
high band carriers deployed across macro and small cells can be combined with LTE and WLAN to
offer a federated access solution.

5
5G is coming Are you prepared?
Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

Figure 2. 5G federated radio access combining 5G low band on macro and 5G low and high bands on small cells with LTE
and WLAN carriers

WLAN

WLAN

WLAN

LTE (<6 GHz)

LTE (<6 GHz)

LTE (<6 GHz)

5G (>20 GHz)

5G (<6 GHz)

5G (<6 GHz)
5G (>20 GHz)

Legacy 2/3G
LTE (<6 GHz)
5G (<6 GHz)

5G low band carriers are likely to be based on Universal Filtered -Orthogonal Frequency-Division
Multiplexing (UF-OFDM), an extension of the Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and
Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) technology used by LTE. This extension
uses an additional variable filter stage in the transmitter, improving spectrum emission shaping and
providing a flexible guard space between symbols. Working together, these two features offer higher
performance and robustness than LTE, especially for narrow bandwidth transmissions typical of the
short bursty transactions used by IoT services, messaging and device signaling while also enabling
short transmission intervals to offer reduce latency bearers.
The technology used for 5G high band carriers will depend on the exact band adopted. If the ITU-R
identifies at least one band that is not too high then one option is to adopt the same scalable OFDM
based technology as for low bands but with wider sub-carrier spacing and corresponding shorter
sub-frame timing. This would offer native support for lower latency services and adapt well to the
lower mobility and propagation delay spread that is associated with small cells access.
To ensure federated usage of the low and high bands between macro and small cell layers and between
5G, 4G and WLAN access, common upper layer procedures need to be adopted for both low and high
bands as part of the 5G standard.

Programmable policy-based networking

In order to provide the flexibility to program the network to support the range of required 5G use cases,
the 5G network requires a tighter coupling of wireless control, networking control and policy-based
service management. This will be accomplished by using NFV and SDN to enable the 4G packet core,
mobility controller (MME) and policy management functions (e.g. Policy and Charging Rules Function
(PCRF) and Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF)) to evolve into a truly flexible
and configurable solution. Such a solution will allow operators to rapidly deploy innovative services
and network solutions that are optimized to specific 5G use cases, environments, device types and
end user needs.

6
5G is coming Are you prepared?
Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

Figure 3. 5G programmable policy-based networking framework

Policy-based service management

Wireless and networking control

Policy, resources
and topology

Wireless
control

Network
APIs

Policy
framework

Service
APIs

Networking
control

Charging
Mobility
Security
QoS
Monitoring
Optimization

Applications
Applications

Time line to 5G
Research work on 5G started about five years ago with significant research projects in Europe, China,
Korea, and Japan. At the same time, ITU-R started working on setting the fundamental requirements
for 5G, followed more recently by the NGMN, an operator pre-standards organization, with the release
of its 5G White Paper at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015.
Moving forward, the 3GPP will start working on a more detailed set of standards for 5G. Their initial
focus will be on setting requirements, followed by formal study items to baseline the architecture and
radio technologies. This will lead to work items between 2017 and 2019 to define the complete 5G
specification, resulting in the first release being issued as part of 3GPP Release 15.
In parallel ITU-R is expected to launch a formal call for candidate radio technologies for its IMT-2020
project and prepare for the critical World Radio Conference (WRC) in 2019 where new radio bands
above 20 GHz are expected to be identified.
Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) are expected to hold technology trials in 2018 and limited customer
trials in 2019, with early commercial 5G deployments starting in 2020-2021. Please refer to Table 2 for
a time line of 5G standards and deployments.
Table 2. Time line for 5G standards and deployments
YEAR

ITU-R

3GPP

MNOS

2015

IMT-2020 vision
WRC-15

Requirements

Requirements (NGMN)

2016

Requirements
Study items (Rel-14)

2017

Call for radio technologies

Architecture evolution
Radio technology selection

2018

Start of evaluation process

Stage 2 (Rel-15)
ITU-R submission

Technology trials

2019

WRC-19

Stage 3 (Rel-15)

Limited customer trials (Korea)

2020

IMT-2020 recommendations

5G enhancements (Rel-16)

Start of commercial service (Japan, Korea)

2021

Wider deployment (USA, Europe)

2022

mmWave carriers on small cells

7
5G is coming Are you prepared?
Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

Preparing for 5G
The path to 5G is a journey, not a destination. The more prepared one is, the easier the journey
becomes. With 5G, preparation starts with the definition of the requirements. Operators should work
with the NGMN to ensure their requirements for 5G are considered upfront. Participating in a 5G
technology trial is another excellent way to get ready for 5G. Mobile operators who do so will gain
an excellent understanding of how the technology works and what its limits aremaking commercial
deployments easier.
Also, since 5G will build on 4G LTE foundation technologies (including macro cells, small cells and
WLAN HetNets, LTE Advanced (LTE-A) features such as CA, and NFV and SDN technologies, like
vRAN and virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC)), mobile operators should consider deploying
these technologies sooner rather than later. For example:
Small cells and WLAN provide more capacity and increase end users QoE today and secure sites
for 5G tomorrow.
LTE-A CA delivers higher LTE capacity by combining spectrum assets. With 5G, CA will enable
additional higher band spectrum to augment traditional cellular spectrum to enable the delivery
of massive capacity.
vRAN and vEPC drives better scale, flexibility and performance. This will position mobile networks
to handle the next big wave of traffic expected with 5G.
Mobile operators should partner with a vendor who will deliver the capacity and flexibility they need
to grow and evolve their 4G LTE network today, while having the multi-disciplinary capabilities, vision
and leadership to guide them on their path to 5G.

Why Alcatel-Lucent?
Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs has a pivotal role defining and developing 5G technology. This includes:
conducting research on 5G radio access with a focus on air interface design, scalable MIMO
antenna systems, novel solutions optimized for short packet transactions, mmWave propagation
and performance simulation, networking solutions for integrating 5G with LTE and WLAN radio
technologies, end-to-end studies on the impact of new 5G use cases and the introduction of NFV
and SDN technologies on mobile networks. Bell Labs is working with leading mobile operators and
universities and is a key member of European funded research projects such as METIS and 5GNOW.
Additionally, Alcatel-Lucent is actively engaged with the 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership
(5G PPP). This is a new program under the European Commission Horizon 2020 research and
innovation program with the objective to deliver solutions, architectures and technologies for 5G
communication infrastructures of the next decade. Alcatel-Lucent is one of the five founding members,
is a 5G PPP board member and is engaged in several research project proposals on topics including
5G air interface, novel architecture, machine-to-machine communications and network management.
Alcatel-Lucent is also well positioned to help operators build a strong 4G foundation to start down the
path to 5G. We are leaders in LTE and small cells and have products designed with a focus on evolution.
Our LTE Express Overlay solution fully supports LTE-A features in both distributed and centralized
architectures and offers a smooth evolution path towards vRAN and ultimately 5G. Alcatel-Lucent is
also firmly committed to the evolution of the mobile networking infrastructure with virtualization and
cloud-based architectures, and currently has vEPC and vIMS solutions commercially available with the
vRAN coming soon. Our portfolio also includes all the professional services mobile operators need to
evolve their networks and services from 4G to 5G efficiently and effectively.
8
5G is coming Are you prepared?
Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

Conclusion
Although mobile operators are still building out their 4G networks, they need to prepare for 5G now.
Since 5G will build on 4G LTE foundation technologies, mobile operators should consider deploying
advanced LTE technologies sooner rather than later. This will not only benefit them today, but also
position their networks to evolve easily and quickly to 5G tomorrow. With 5G deployments slated to
start in 2020 and 2021, mobile operators should already be working with the NGMN on definition of
5G requirements and be making plans to participate in 5G technology trials.
As leaders in LTE, small cells and virtualization, Alcatel-Lucent is well positioned to help mobile
operators build a strong 4G foundation to start their journey on the path to 5G. Alcatel-Lucent is a
leader in 5G research, and plays a vital role in its definition and development through major research
projects. These projects are conducted by Bell Labs and through our partnerships with mobile operators,
universities and key 5G organizations, like 5G PPP, NGMN, ITU and 3GPP.

Acronyms
3G

3rd Generation Network

mmWave

millimeter Wave

3GPP

3rd Generation Partnership Project

MNO

Mobile Network Operator

4G

4th Generation Network

MPTCP

Multipath Transmission Control Protocol

5G

5th Generation Network

Multi-RAT

Multiple Radio Access Technologies

5GNOW

5th Generation Non-Orthogonal Waveforms

MWC

Mobile World Congress

5G PPP

5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership

M2M

Machine to Machine

ANDSF

Access Network Discovery and Selection

NGMN

Next Generation Mobile Networks

NFV

Network Function Virtualization

OFDM

Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing

PCRF

Policy and Charging Rules Function

QoE

Quality of Experience

QoS

Quality of Service

RAN

Radio Access Network

SDN

Software Defined Networks

SC-FDMA

Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple

Function
CA

Carrier Aggregation

CoMP

Coordinated Multipoint

DC

Dual Connection

EPC

Evolved Packet Core

HetNet

Heterogeneous Network

IMT-2020

International Mobile
Telecommunications-2020

IoT

Internet of Things

IP

Internet Protocol

ITU-R

International Telecommunication
Union-Radiocommunication

LTE

Long Term Evolution

LTE-A

Long Term Evolution- Advanced

MIMO

Multiple Input Multiple Output

MME

Mobility Management Entity

9
5G is coming Are you prepared?
Alcatel-Lucent Strategic White Paper

Access
UF-OFDM

Universal Filtered - Orthogonal FrequencyDivision Multiplexing

vEPC

virtualized Evolved Packet Core

vIMS

virtualized IP Multimedia Subsystem

vRAN

virtualized Radio Access Network

WLAN

Wireless Local Area Network

WRC

World Radio Conference

References
Statista
http://www.statista.com/statistics/218984/number-of-global-mobile-users-since-2010/
Statista
http://www.statista.com/statistics/295635/total-number-m2m-connections-worldwide/
Mobile Statistics Report, 2014-2018, Editor: Sara Radicati, PhD, The Radicati Group, Inc.,
http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Mobile-Statistics-Report-2014-2018Executive-Summary.pdf
Global Smartphone User Penetration Forecast by 88 Countries: 2007 to 2020, Peter Lin,
December 23, 2014,
https://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=reportabstractviewer&a0=10435
The Mobile Economy 2014, GSMA,
http://www.gsmamobileeconomy.com/GSMA_ME_Report_2014_R2_WEB.pdf
Mobile Applications Futures 2013-2017, Portio Research,
http://www.portioresearch.com/en/mobile-industry-reports/mobile-industry-research-reports/mobileapplications-futures-2013-2017.aspx
Market in a Minute: Source: Worldwide and Regional Internet of Things (IoT) 20142020 Forecast:
A Virtuous Circle of Proven Value and Demand Internet of Things, IDC,
http://www.idc.com/downloads/idc_market_in_a_minute_iot_infographic.pdf
Telegeography GlobalComms Forecast Service,
https://www.telegeography.com/research-services/globalcomms-forecast-service/index.html
Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) 5G Initiative
http://www.ngmn.org/home.html
ITU-R IMT-2020 Project
http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/study-groups/rsg5/rwp5d/imt-2020/Pages/default.aspx

www.alcatel-lucent.com Alcatel, Lucent, Alcatel-Lucent and the Alcatel-Lucent logo are

trademarks of Alcatel-Lucent. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
The information presented is subject to change without notice. Alcatel-Lucent assumes no
responsibility for inaccuracies contained herein. Copyright 2015 Alcatel-Lucent.
All rights reserved. PR1502009140EN (March)