Networking trends including SD-WAN, edge and 5G technology dominate the plans of IT executives and management as they look to develop efficient, bulletproof enterprise communications strategies for the future. Those trends and others such as network security, server consolidation and WAN optimization were cited as primary IT drivers of future investment, according to Network World’s 2020 State of the Network report.
COVID-19 pandemic disruptions will cause 2020 5G network infrastructure revenues to fall by as much as 10% of a forecasted US $2.1 billion, according to global technology market advisory firm ABI Research. As stated by the analyst, “The outbreak of COVID-19 has created a crippling effect, not only on service industries, but also on manufacturing enterprises, including 5G infrastructure vendors.”
Network infrastructure and service providers have done a great job of adapting to this “new normal.” They have adjusted and optimized their operations so they can deliver to people working from home the broadband connectivity they need to receive and send emails, download files, videoconference, and use a variety of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications while other members of their family e-learn, stream videos or play online games.
Between January and late March, internet traffic increased by around a quarter in many major cities, according to Cloudflare, a US company that provides network infrastructure to businesses around the world. Demand has skyrocketed for certain online services in particular.
LitePoint’s Director of Product Marketing Adam Smith and VIAVI Solutions’ Director of Marketing Kashif Hussain agree that mid-band spectrum, the 2.5 to less than sub-6 GHz space, is the spectrum sweet spot and that making effective use of it is critical to successfully deploying and scaling 5G. “Spectrum is the number one thing that differentiates 5G rollout from country to country,” Smith stated. “There are some countries that have been very aggressive at opening spectrum for 5G.”
Do understand what #5G actually is? Watch this on-demand discussion between two members of Corning’s Advanced Technology Team, Art King and Shirish Nagaraj, as they dig deeper into 5G, its capabilities, and what they think it will take to get us there!
Nokia has declared more than 3,000 patent families to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) as essential for the 5G standard, reflecting its continuing leadership and strong momentum in cellular technology R&D and standardization.
Nokia said it recorded speeds four times above the market’s current standard of 400 Gbit/s over fiber, transmitting at 1.52 Terabits per second (Tbit/s) over 80 km of standard single mode fiber — the equivalent of simultaneously streaming 1.5 million YouTube videos – which is four times the market’s current state-of-the-art of approximately 400 Gigabits per second.
Wi-Fi 6 is the next-generation wireless standard. It’s faster than previous versions but more than just speed, it provides better performance in high-traffic areas, such as schools, large offices, factories, shopping malls, airports, and stadiums. The technology allows more Wi-Fi devices on a single network, where access points can communicate with more devices at once. Access points can send data to multiple devices in the same broadcast, and Wi-Fi devices can schedule check-ins with the access point. Together with 5G, Wi-Fi 6 helps build a more connected, intelligent network with uninterrupted connectivity.
5G networks bring many new technologies and challenges to wired and wireless networks. Now multiple standards organizations require 5G mobile networks to deliver traffic-based Quality of Service (QoS), which is key to operators recovering the large costs of 5G upgrades, because data traffic is the most profitable part of their business.
