I am delighted to share this exciting development
Abhay Karandikar on LinkedIn: 1930.1-2022 |
The wireless networks in the 5G and beyond era are evolving into a heterogeneous network with coexistence of one or more access technologies, e.g., 5G, 4G, Wi-Fi and technologies that may emerge in future. While the 5G system has defined a converged core to manage different access technologies, there is a need for unification of radio access technologies (RAT) at RAN level to better harness diverse RAT in beyond 5G networks. The recently approved IEEE 1930.1 standard is a step in this direction. It defines an SDN based architecture to facilitate unified control & management of multi-RAT wireless access networks. It also proposes a novel disaggregated architecture for RAN, leading to a modular and flexible multi-RAT RAN that may be better suited for future communications needs. A RAN level unification of multiple RATs would provide an improved support for features like multi-connectivity, data offloading, or load balancing over the existing 5G system.
In plain language summary, here’s a link to another publication online:
To those who may be wondering why the new standard matters, Dr Karandikar explains that wireless networks are evolving into a heterogeneous network with one or more access technologies, like 5G, 4G, Wi-Fi, even some technologies that may emerge in future.
There is a need for the unification of all such radio access technologies to better harness them in future networks. The recently approved IEEE 1930.1 standard does just that. It defines a useful software option, called SDN or Software Defined Radio, to achieve this. And obviously any software solution will turn out to be cheaper, more flexible than a hardware route.
So basically, it acts as a unification protocol between the different hardware components, and as software, it can be easily upgraded. 5G is exciting from the hardware perspective, because as I mentioned several times before, it is modular, and “all-in-one” solutions are redundant, giving inherent flexibility to enterprises (and legacy telecom companies) to improvise and adapt the equipment based on their requirements. If you ignore the futuristic pronouncements and robotics infested factory floors, the higher throughput (and resulting edge computing/data aggregation) will indeed be revolutionary.
Kudos to the entire team!
RadOncNotes 