As the boundary between physical and digital worlds continues to diminish, leading carriers across the globe have been focusing on “Connectivity+” to stride faster towards an intelligent world. Evolution from 5G to 5.5G will be integral to ensure success in this journey, said Li Peng, president, Huawei’s Carrier BG at Huawei’s MWC Barcelona 2023 Day 0 Forum.
Li Peng was delivering a speech on how 5G was opening the door to an intelligent world, and how the leap to 5.5G would be a key milestone along this journey. Li emphasized that the industry had to work together to move faster towards an ultra-broadband, green, and intelligent world, and that Huawei’s GUIDE business blueprint could help lay the foundation for this important achievement.
As the effects of digital and intelligent transformation become increasingly apparent in workplaces, homes and personal lives, carriers have responded to the increasing demand in these areas for higher-quality experiences and higher productivity, pushing the ICT industry forward, Li Peng added.
5G opens massive opportunity for carriers to build innovative services and evolve quickly as digital service providers. As 5G capabilities improve, leading carriers in Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe have converged connectivity with local OTT services. These offerings bundle connectivity with digital services like social media, which allow them to build robust digital services platforms and achieve shared success.
As 5G and fiber penetration continues to grow, home broadband segment is emerging as a highly prospective area where carriers can generate more value from 5G. So, carriers are widening “Connectivity+” for better experiences, better services, and more efficient O&M. Premium home broadband services, like 5G FWA and 10G PON have expanded faster than expected, helping carriers in regions, including Europe and the Middle East increase ARPU by 30% to 60%, Li Peng added.
In industry segment, general-purpose technologies like 5G, AI, and cloud computing are driving industrial digitalization and bringing new strategic opportunities. As enterprise customers demand more offering portfolios, carriers need to reinforce “Connectivity+”, according to Li Peng. As a case study, he highlighted that a Chinese carrier could expand quickly into new markets and grow its revenue from industrial digitalization by over 20% in 2022.
Moving forward, the intelligent world will be deeply integrated with the physical world. Everything, including personal entertainment, work, and industrial production, will be intelligently connected. This means that networks will have to evolve from ubiquitous gigabit to ubiquitous 10 gigabit, connectivity and sensing will need to be integrated, and the ICT industry will have to shift its focus from energy consumption to energy efficiency.
Thus the evolution from 5G to 5.5G will be integral for carriers to enable an ultra-broadband, green, and intelligent world.
Last year, the ITU-T officially released NCIe, an indicator to measure the intensity of network carbon emissions, as a formal standard. Leading carriers in China and Europe have verified new multi-dimensional energy efficiency indicators on their live networks, and improved energy efficiency by 20% to 50%, Huawei’s official said.
Huawei is ready to work with its industry partners to deliver a ubiquitous 10 gigabit experience with innovative wireless, optical, and IP technologies; explore use cases like vehicle-road collaboration and environment monitoring to integrate connectivity and sensing; and build a unified energy efficiency indicator system to drive green industry development, Li Peng said.
Huawei’s GUIDE accelerates the deep integration of connectivity with green and intelligent technologies, while driving the interlocking between business value and technological value to allow connectivity innovation to bear fruit.
GUIDE focuses on three layers of business development. First, it outlines the future by offering a proposal for a shared business vision for the digital world; second it address the convergence of technology in business; and lastly, GUIDE creates network measurement benchmarks, as a guide of planning for markets at different stages of development to help operators find the most suitable path for their own network evolution, contributing to sustainable business blueprints.
