Omdia held a global ICT Industry Observation and Outlook Seminar in Beijing. During the period, Omdia telecom strategy senior chief analyst Yang Guang accepted C114 exclusive interview. He said that the ICT industry needs more vertical industries to join in to truly achieve the goal of 5G-A / 6G to empower thousands of industries; at the same time, we should be alert to the risk of industrial chain fragmentation. The middle zone between the east and west is crucial to the future industrial competition, which is related to the economic scale and development space, and needs to be arranged in advance.
Yang Guang points out that the survey of operators (mainly North America, Europe, Asia Pacific region, excluding China, Russia) found that most respondents expect to increase their investment in RAN in 2024, but Omdia is cautious; meanwhile, 80% expect an increase in core network in 2024, most respondents plan to upgrade the existing 4G core network to provide 5G SA core network function; the digital transformation budget remains at a healthy level, but the growth will gradually slow.
For the prospect of network evolution, Yang Guang believes that 5G-Advanced will be a key step for 5G to 6G evolution. The industry’s focus on 5G-Advanced has gradually shifted from last year’s energy conservation and environmental protection to the traditional spectrum efficiency and network performance, ” which may mean that operators gradually consider the real 5G-A landing part, and focus back on the most essential network aspects.”
6G needs to change its thinking and be alert to the risk of industrial chain fragmentation
In 6G, Yang Guang pointed out that at the RAN plenary meeting in September 2023,3 GPP started the discussion around the 6G timetable. The industry has proposed various solutions for the 3GPP RAN 6G standardization work plan. Operators represented by Deutsche Telekom believe that “this time we can take our time and do long cycle research”. On the supply side of the industry, many manufacturers still hope to start quickly and push 6G to new standardization work as soon as possible.
From the operator side, the survey results show that 65% of the respondents prefer to deploy 6G in 2028-2030. There is a consensus in the time node, and the details may need further discussion.
In addition, the survey results show that operators have less expectations for 6G network performance and new services than more flexible, agile and environmentally friendly networks.”Traditionally our industry has been pursuing ‘higher, faster, stronger’, we need to experience better, higher speed, the next generation is 10 times higher than the previous generation, but now we may need to change our mindset.”
“In the current 5G era, we are very close to the Shannon limit of channel capacity, and we can’t say that there is no space, but it will be very difficult. How to improve efficiency at this time, more flexible, cost reduction may be the future direction.”
Yang Guang believes that 6G needs to change its thinking from the previous pursuit of “faster, higher, stronger” to the pursuit of “more flexible, more agile, more environmentally friendly” network, which may also mean that 6G is really the beginning of a new era and a new paradigm. He also said that the transition process will be relatively slow.”The telecommunications industry has been around for more than 100 years
Post time: Nov-22-2023