Spirent circle logo
5G

Assuring the Promise of 5G: Lofty goals and expectations – assuring 5G can deliver

By:

Blog - Assuring the Promise of 5G:  Lofty goals and expectations – assuring 5G can deliver

5G promises to transform our world and power a new industrial and social revolution. Assuring this promise is possible, but requires navigating unprecedented challenges. Getting there will be an intense journey but the rewards will be well worth it.

Promises, promises

There’s a tendency to hype the next big developments in tech years before they can be widely deployed. Few technologies have been buzzed about with more fanfare and promises than 5G. It’s the answer to competitive challenges, flat revenues and insatiable mobile data demand from consumers and businesses alike. If you’ve spent time at an industry event, listened to comments from operators or read materials from tech suppliers, the message is clear: 5G promises to transform our world and power a new industrial and social revolution. Talk about great expectations.

Assuring this promise is possible, but requires navigating unprecedented change. For starters, that means planning for totally new and highly complex technologies and architectures.

Think customer expectations are high today? With 5G, they will become downright formidable. Getting there will be an intense journey but the rewards will be well worth it.

Blazing speeds and more

The 5G performance improvements that have been lauded are certainly worthy of excitement and anticipation:

  • Blazing fast speeds with peak data rates 100 times faster than 4G.

  • Vast coverage density that can support one million devices for every square kilometer.

  • Large area traffic capacity up to 10Mbps per square mile.

  • Latencies as low as one to five milliseconds.

These feats, delivered via mobile networks, are transformational. Industries from agriculture and automotive to shipping and manufacturing stand to benefit. And demand will skyrocket fast. For instance, Gartner is already anticipating 21 billion IoT devices will invade networks by 2020. Planning for this level of complexity and adoption requires having the right insights and information to inform key decisions.

Bringing clarity to 5G complexity

5G will introduce a new core, radio, spectrum, devices, and physical and virtual infrastructure. This means complex new antennas and chipsets, new KPIs, new vendors, cloud distributions and new spectrum frequencies. And it all must work perfectly together.

Compounding this complexity is the urgency with which many operators are moving. They are staking the future of their business on critical investments being made now, unable to wait for all standards groups and alliances to agree on a common path forward. In this scenario, test and assurance become critical to assuring the promise of delivering transformational 5G services.

Assuring the promise of 5G

We’ve only begun to imagine the use cases that 5G will make a reality. But we do know that innovation will span an untold number of industries and applications.

In our new whitepaper, “Assuring the Promise of 5G”, we talk about why this technology and business transformation calls for a dynamic service assurance approach that will ensure flawless 5G performance. From channel emulators to over-the-air testing, an end-to-end, agile approach to service assurance is necessary to assure the promise of 5G.

Learn more about 5G industry challenges and solutions that operators and enterprises can deploy today to reduce the complexity and costs of 5G testing, while accelerating 5G innovation and time to revenue.

Spirent. Promise. Assured.

Like our content?

Subscribe to our blogs here.

Blog Newsletter Subscription

Stephen Douglas
Stephen Douglas

Head of Market Strategy

Spirent is a global leader in automated test and assurance for the ICT industry and Stephen heads Spirents market strategy organization developing Spirents strategy, helping to define market positioning, future growth opportunities, and new innovative solutions. Stephen also leads Spirent’s strategic initiatives for 5G and future networks and represents Spirent on a number of Industry and Government advisory boards. With over 25 years’ experience in telecommunications Stephen has been at the cutting edge of next generation technologies and has worked across the industry with service providers, network equipment manufacturers and start-ups, helping them drive innovation and transformation.