During the 12th Global Mobile Broadband Forum in Dubai, David Wang delivered a keynote address called, Roads to Mobile 2030: 10 Wireless Industry Trends. Wang is Huawei Executive Director of the Board, and Chairman of ICT Infrastructure Managing Board. Huawei has identified 10 trends to prepare the wireless industry for the intelligent world of 2030. Let’s take a closer look at these mobile trends.
Wang said by the year 2030, both the digital and physical worlds will be integrated. They will create near-real-life experiences for users. By that point it is thought that the digital economy will become very important to the real economy. The wireless industry will shift its focus from device to decision making efficiency.
Huawei Roads to Mobile 2030: 10 Wireless Industry Trends
This future depends on advances in network security, energy efficiency and more. In fact, Huawei says the wireless industry must help protect the environment with green growth. This is part of what the AI revolution is all about.
Wang says wireless networks are an important piece of the Huawei Intelligent World 2030 puzzle.
These are the 10 trends Huawei says we will see in the mobile industry over the next decade.
1. 10 Gbps for physical-digital integration
Digital communications will be used to expand and deepen exchanges of information between people, delivering multi-sensory experiences. This will include hearing, sight, touch and smell.
To enable these features, wireless networks will need to support 10 Gbps at millisecond latency everywhere and transmit information in ways that are semantically organized.
2. One network for 100 billion all-scenario IoT connections
The coming digital society will be reshaped by the 100 billion Thing-to-Thing connections that the cellular networks will support by the year 2030.
Driven by all-scenario IoT connections, networks will begin offering different connections. They will be differentiated by speed and priority.
Lower latency and higher reliability will be delivered and a new form of wireless IoT, which features ultra-low power consumption with passive connections must be created.
3. Satellite-ground collaboration for 3D coverage
Satellite-ground collaboration will fill the gaps in wireless, ground coverage. The goal will be to achieve three-dimensional wireless coverage. This will enable communications and controls for future drones and aircraft.
Mobile networks with advanced communications technology and in a market worth multi-trillion dollars, will also be used to nurture new satellite communications technologies that don’t even exist yet.
4. Integrated sensing and communications for true digital replicas
Sensing and communications will continue to be integrated, which will enable in real-time, digital replication of the physical world. This will facilitate high-level, autonomous driving and drone management.
This means both radio interfaces and network architecture will need to be integrated. This will be important for sensing resolution technology and will need to advance to the centimeter level using ultra-wideband with Massive MIMO to achieve these functions.
5. Intelligence in every industry and every connection
Over the next decade, wireless networks will become integrated with AI technology. This will enable level-5 autonomous driving networks, which will further support automated O&M, deliver premium experiences and also minimize the carbon footprint.
Also, radios tomorrow will be designed with native intelligence and smart radio algorithms. This will further optimize the management of channel coding and radio resources.
6. Full-link and full-lifecycle green networks
Network traffic will grow 100 times over the next few years and there will also be a similar spike in demand for solutions that reduce network energy consumption.
Per-bit energy efficiency will also need to improve at a similar rate. This must be considered in every aspect of network design. This means radio interfaces, devices, sites and more.
This will enable the construction of full-link and full-lifecycle green and sustainable networks.
7. Flexible full-band Sub-100 GHz
By 2030, many nations will need an average of 2 gigahertz mid-band bandwidth and over 20 gigahertz of bandwidth on millimeter wave to accommodate rapidly growing wireless traffic.
Huawei says this means the industry will need to facilitate the evolution of sub-100 GHz spectrum to NR and redefine spectrum utilization using multi-band integration and other new technologies in order to achieve massive spectral efficiency improvement.
8. Generalized multi-antenna for reduced per-bit cost
Per-bit data transmission costs will be reduced as multi-antenna technologies begin to be applied to every spectrum band and every scenario.
Ultra-wideband modular antennas will support flexible combinations of multiple bands and intelligent reflecting surfaces will apply multi-antenna technologies in more scenarios to enable cloud-based, higher-performance deployment.
9. Security as the cornerstone of a digital future
Device security and intelligent and simplified security at the network layer will become increasingly important as network security and resilience come more into the global spotlight.
Operators will need to provide these kinds of simplified security services via cloud-network synergy for their industry customers to promote digital transformation.
10.Mobile computing network for device-pipe-cloud collaboration
Future mobile networks will support more diverse services, such as the Metaverse, industrial field networks, and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications.
This means that computing will need to be integrated with mobile networks to provide uninterrupted, high-quality services on demand as a single service model will be insufficient for building new digital platforms.
Wireless industry will focus on green growth during next decade
This is a well thought out presentation by David Wang. Huawei did a good job of highlighting what they see as the top 10 key industry trends for the next decade. And how the industry will increasingly focus on green growth.
It gives competitors in wireless networks, handset makers, AI, IoT and more, much to think about. Huawei is a top global wireless player, so we should take these projections over the next ten years seriously.
Wang closed the presentation by saying Huawei will continue to work with industry partners to define these networks of the future and make their vision of the Intelligent World 2030 into a reality.
The wireless industry looks very different today from what it looked like just 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. So, it makes sense that it will continue to change as industry technology continues to advance going forward.