A guide to 5G Networks and Cloud Computing

What Underlying Technologies Make Up 5G?

Radio-access technologies are divided into different subcategories. They include evolved universal terrestrial radio access (E-UTRA) and its evolution, new air interface features, the 5G new radio interoperability with legacy networks, new network topologies, virtualisation requirements for greater automation and orchestration capabilities standards to support machine type communications (MTC), and massive machine-type communications for industrial Internet of Things deployments.

The major technological difference between 5G and 4G is that it employs OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing) to modulate a digital signal across multiple channels to reduce interference. 5G builds on 5G NR air interface advancements. Sub-6 GHz and mmWave wide bandwidth technologies are also used in 5G.

Similar mobile networking principles apply to both 4G LTE and 5G OFDM. The new 5G NR air interface, on the other hand, may be used to improve OFDM even more, providing a greater degree of freedom and scalability. This might allow for considerably more 5G access for many different applications.

By broadening spectrum resources, from 4G's sub-3 GHz to 100 GHz and beyond, 5G will provide higher bandwidths. In addition, 5G may operate in both lower frequencies (e.g., below 6 GHz) and mmWave (e.g., 24 GHz and up), which will offer massive capacity, multi-Gbps throughput, and low latency.

5G is expected to deliver faster and superior mobile broadband services than 4G LTE and enable expansion into new services. These include vital communications and connecting the enormous Internet of Things. Many new 5G NR air interface design methods have been developed, including a modern self-contained TDD subframe design.

Where Does Cloud Computing Fit into This?

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of computing power, database storage, applications, and other IT resources through a cloud services platform via the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing.

Clouds are networks that host scalable computing resources (such as servers) that can be shared across multiple clients using software installed in data centres hosted by service providers. These clouds are often virtualised.

The traditional three components of cloud computing are IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), and SaaS (Software as a Service), which have become blurred over time since some vendors offer two of these components together or even all three of them.

Over the next few years (or even months), cloud computing will intersect with 5G network infrastructure in the following five areas.

1.   Back Office Systems

Organisations are now evaluating moving many of their back-office business support systems (BSS) to the public cloud. These are ideally suited to the cloud, making this a smart move.

There is generally little interest in "lifting and shifting" from private infrastructure to public cloud – instead, operators see the switch as a chance to update their BSS apps and processes. This does take longer, but it has a far greater impact on how operators interact with clients and run their businesses.

2.   Network Functions

Mobile operators have decided that cloud-native networks should operate on their private cloud since this is the most effective way to get the security, performance, control, and availability they require. However, large telecom organisations don't have enough demand to shift essential network functions to the public cloud. In fact, some telecom executives are firmly opposed to it for fear of service outage, lack of reliability and control, unpredictable costs, and other issues. Specialist telecom operators believe that running critical national network infrastructure is best done by them.

On the other hand, smaller ISPs, mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), Internet of Things (IoT) providers, Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), and private network operators are interested in the public cloud for network functions. Running core network activities in the public cloud, particularly the control plane, is appealing to these firms. Larger businesses are utilising or exploring public cloud usage in IoT core networks, worldwide roaming hubs, and possibly burst capacity.

3.   Private Mobile Networks

The future private mobile network is expected to be feature-rich, with all the capabilities of mobile networks today plus some new ones. In addition, the leading mobile network of the future will be virtualised and software-defined. This will allow it to offer services on par with public clouds but within an operator's private ecosystem.

The use of virtualisation is growing across operators' entire value chains, resulting in increased agility and faster time to market for customers. Virtual machine (VM) technology enables both centralisation (a single logical view of the infrastructure) and decentralisation (multiple self-contained views). In addition, it can help achieve automation by reducing manual processes, increasing provisioning speed through data centre resource sharing across internal departments and external service providers, and allowing more frequent testing. Finally, dynamic cloud orchestration is emerging as a business-critical requirement to deliver service agility through IT automation. Orchestration provides for the deployment of VMs and their integration into cloud services with consistent interfaces between differing virtual or physical resources (such as compute, network, storage).

4.   5G and the High-Performance Network Edge

The highly distributed nature of 5G networks means multiple access points will be deployed at different locations. Cloud computing's software-defined capabilities fit perfectly with this new way of deploying network infrastructure. A rich application environment can exist on both sites or off-site but close by.

This next computing paradigm will be driven by mobile service providers, who will help set up and manage this new computing approach that has a big influence on the world's ongoing digitalisation.

In the computing paradigm that we are entering, connection, computing, and execution will be a unified execution environment. This will deliver an integrated adaptive compute, connectivity, security, and storage for any place, time, device, or application.

This integrated framework will satisfy new use cases at the edge like industrial robotics, eXtended Reality (XR) featuring real-time synchronous haptic feedback, closed-loop industrial control systems, and much more by delivering improved performance with more extended bandwidth, higher throughput, more security, and millisecond latency.

5.   Mobile Operators as Distributors of Cloud Services

Mobile operators have a first-mover advantage when it comes to distributing cloud-based services. Telcos are already well-positioned to compete in the public cloud service market as distributors, based on their track record in the enterprise sector. In addition, telcos are appealing distribution channels because they have a global geographic reach and customer interaction, and, in many countries, they're among the most innovative high-tech businesses.

This could become much more complicated in 5G. The business model includes operators keeping a portion of the cloud service revenue, and like all channel partners, they will be rewarded with marketing support, revenue-sharing deals, and customer demand. Each operator will likely have numerous cloud suppliers.