By 2025, 5G applications are generally expected to emerge that will be consumed by an exploding range of connected things from mobile devices, laptops and newer IoT devices to large servers, routers and storage arrays in the data center.  These 5G applications will drive the need for new mobile and fixed connectivity architectures that enable quality delivery of experience and efficient deployment across the Cloud Continuum and the carrier edge.  

Virtualizing The Radio Will Change The Game

5G carrier-edge nano-data centers housed in cell tower locations and central offices of the past will need new, innovative radio designs.  Legacy approaches included a 2-pronged approach of radio resources in cell towers and small cell deployments. With Software-Defined Radio (SDR) and programmable electronics a third approach has occurred that presents new possibilities in radio equipment flexibility and adaptability.

Software-defined networking (SDN) technology is an approach in networking leveraging cloud computing concepts that facilitates network management and enables programmable networks. Software-defined radio technology leverages these same software-defined concepts and applies them to the radio interfaces, which are typically “hard-wired” to communicate in specific frequencies with pre-defined protocols. Now, radio interfaces can be “programmable”.

Software-Defined Radios Plus Cognitive Computing And Dynamic Algorithms

A software-defined radio can be flexible enough to leverage different spectrum bands on-the-fly making new designs of IoT devices, base stations, and small cells possible with the following benefits:

• Allows several transmitters to transmit in the same place on the same frequency with very little interference creating full duplex-communications as Kumo Networks is doing, thereby doubling capacity,
• Able to adaptively “lock onto” a directional signal so that receivers can better reject interference from other directions allowing it to detect fainter transmissions by leveraging adaptive beam-forming techniques for improved communications,
• Improve the efficiency of spectrum utilization by leveraging Cognitive Radio techniques,
• Improve QoE (Quality of Experience) for resource-intensive applications such as Ultra HD video by applying SDx resources end-to-end with Software-Defined Radio and software-defined data center resources (CPU/GPU/CDN) along with SD-WAN networks for backhaul.

Software-Defined Radio Needs Adaptable Hardware

Today, many SDR units are shipped with a range of chip types including general purpose processors (GPP), digital signal processors (DSP) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), with the latter being widely adopted for its user configurability that can foster hardware reusability and repurposing.  FPGAs are also great for device hackers who want to build and configure their own software-defined radio transceivers for their private networks.

According to the IoT Lab at Santa Clara University’s Dept. of Computer Engineering in their report entitled: “Software-defined Radios: Architecture, State-of-the-Art, and Challenges” the tradeoffs between various chip types are as follows:

FPGAs present a compelling value proposition for operators looking to modernize their RANs with Smart Antennas, which are considered ”intelligent” or ”smart” due to their ability to select a frequency band and adapt with mobile tracking (adaptive beam forming to self-align) as well as interference cancellation in real-time and on demand.  The advent of secure over-the-air (OTA) silicon updates will enable mobile network operators to remotely update their mobile radio devices and repurpose or re-platform them to support new software-define radio functions as needed and as connectivity requirements and technologies change. 

Implications for Business and Technology Leaders

5G will bring about a new mobile network that not only is spectrum-efficient but is resource-efficient with lower bill of materials, more resilient, cost-effective to manage and modernize going forward as the 5G technology landscape and market rationalize themselves from their scattered, fragmented current state.  Improved spectrum usage and sharing will make more capacity available and foster new revenue opportunities and models for network operators.

CIOs and CTOs of communications service providers embarking on 5G should explore SDR-based technologies as they re-vector their base stations and deploy new adaptable small cell sites to provide 5G connectivity that will enable a growing and diverse range of IoT applications, new media and content distribution platforms and low-latency applications that are yet to be imagined.  The benefits of SDR and user configurable logic such as FPGAs can ally some of the first-mover jitters and concerns that mobile network operators may have regarding investing in early-phase technologies and assets for their 5G mobile networks.