Beginning sometime around 2020, the first 5G networks will be supporting traffic volumes more than 1,000 times higher than today with data rates up to multi-Gbps for specific scenarios, according to a newly published whitepaper on 5G Radio Access R&D by Ericsson.
The whitepaper envisions that existing HSPA and LTE technologies will continue to evolve and provide the backbone of the overall radio-access solution of the future beyond 2020. Key improvements are expected to include smart antennas including a very large number of steerable antenna elements, more spectrum, and better coordination between base stations. Network architectures are expected to adopt dense small-cell deployments.
In moving to ultra high-capacity and data rates, the whitepaper foresees the introduction of ultra-dense network deployments with nodes operating with very wide transmission bandwidths in higher-frequency bands. It predicts ultra-dense networks will primarily operate in the 10-100GHz range.
The 6-page whitepaper is posted online.
