The Latest Iteration of 5G Standards Nailed Down

The 3GPP (3^rd Generation Partnership Program) organization — which has been overseeing the specifications and standards for cellular technologies from the early days — last month nailed down the latest iteration for 5G, dubbed Release 16.

Why is it Important? The update includes some key enhancements that will offer consumers improved data rates and better coverage, higher reliability, and for the operators, potentially new markets for 5G communications. The Release was delayed by a few months, primarily as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is New in Release 16

Image source: Qualcomm

Arguably the most important new concept that Release 16 brings to the 5G scene is 5G NR-U — the emphasis being on the “U,” which refers to the unlicensed spectrum involved.

Back in April 2020, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was loudly praised by the wireless sector for making more spectrum available to the Wi-Fi world, by adopting updated rules for the 6GHz band and allocating 1,200 MHz for (unlicensed) Wi-Fi.

Now, with NR-U, the balance is restored and cellular network operators will also be able to utilize unlicensed spectrum to expand their coverage, for both public and private networks.

Release 16 defines two operational modes: standalone and a Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) deployment mode in the unlicensed 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands being set aside for that purpose. This is the first time that the 3GPP has defined a cellular technology for “standalone” use.

The mix will greatly expand 5G’s reach beyond traditional operators, including wireless ISPs, service providers, and operators of private 5G networks. So, in regions where it is already available, such as the U.S., NR-U will also be used to deploy services in the 6 GHz band.

Release 16 specifies 400MHz of unlicensed spectrum for downlink, and up to 100 MHz of that for the upward direction.

Image source: Qualcomm

While earlier versions already supported some aspects of cellular-vehicle-everything (C-V2X) communications for basic safety, the NR-U based Sidelink specified in Release 16 greatly extends C-V2X capabilities. It now supports advanced applications such as coordinated driving and sensor sharing, where the sensor data from one car can be readily communicated to another nearby vehicle.

These enhancements offer significant improvements in the form of higher throughput; lower latency; reliable multicast communications (which uses distance as a new dimension at the physical layer, enabling on-the-fly multicast groups based on distance and applications); distributed synchronization and unified QoS control.

Taken together, these are expected to enhance and speed the development of autonomous and semi-autonomous driving systems for both safety and efficiency. It should also spur governments around the world to certify car-to-car communications standards.

Power saving
5G devices across the board are expected to be more power hungry than those for previous generations, so power saving will be a crucial enhancement. Release 16 includes several novel power saving features including a new wake-up signal (WUS) format that can let the device know if and when a transmission is pending or allowing it to stay in low-power mode, skipping the next low-DRX (discontinuous reception and more efficient power control mechanisms.

Aligned to this, enhancements have also been specified for improved mobility. Important techniques to achieve reduced handover interruption times — and thus more efficient mobility performance — now include device-driven conditional handover; early measurement reporting; and dual-connectivity master cell group (MCG) failure recovery.

Reliability enhancements

Image source: Qualcomm

In an effort to address a wider range of vertical use cases, such as factory automation, ultra-reliable, low-latency communications (URLLC), Release 16 incorporates uprated specifications for reliability to 99.9999%, while retaining millisecond level latency.

This updated e-URLLC has been achieved by, among other innovations, improved re-transmission request capability; coordinated multi-point (CoMP) communications — which uses multiple transmission and reception points to create spatial diversity with redundant communication paths — and channel polarization when supporting multiple use cases for the same devices.

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