Last month we hosted our webinar, “Is Your 5G Data Architecture Ready for Microservices?”, hosted in conjunction with FierceWireless. It was a unique webinar in which Volt Active Data’s Chief Technologist, Dheeraj Remella had a roundtable discussion with Iain Gillott, Founder and President, iGR about a variety of topics related to 5G and how to prepare your architecture for the coming changes this new network will bring.
We received an outpouring of questions from attendees throughout the webinar and we will highlight some of the most pressing inquiries as part of a blog series. This is the first part of the series, in which Dheeraj and Iain discuss their thoughts on When 5G Will Be Available for Consumption for Consumer and Enterprise. You may view the webinar in its entirety on-demand here.
Editor’s Note: Unless otherwise noted, the question is coming from a webinar attendee via our chat functionality during the session. These answers have been edited for clarity and grammar.
Q: When do we see the timing for 5G to be available for consumption ?
Dheeraj Remella: That’s actually a really interesting question because when you look at the journey of 5G itself, we’re still looking at non-standalone core. What that means is that with the non-standalone, you’re still coexisting your 5G with your 4G LTE and then in a proper 5G, the correct estimates are the second quarter of 2020. Perhaps, it may actually get pushed down the line because there are laws of physics inhibiting a full successful 5G implementation. That’s my take on it, Q2 to Q3 (of 2020). What’s yours, Iain?
Iain Gillot: Obviously, we do have some 5G branded services today and I think it’s important here to realize the demands would be that those are Release 15 services. They’ve taken the New Radio. It’s a 5G Radio, as you said, using the non-standalone architecture so it’s linked to a 4G LTE core. Then, we start looking at the Release 16 deployments in 2020 as you were saying. It really becomes 2021 onwards before you get more services in the carriers.
There’s also of course the device question as well. Lots of devices coming in 2019 as Apple users have to wait until 2020. When it’s going to be in 2020, we don’t know because Apple never tells you. Of course, it’s going to take time for those devices to get into the subscriber base as well. For people who are on a regular two year upgrade plan, they’re not necessarily just going to run out and buy a new device, so wait for their schedule. I think really networks start being deployed 2020 for the low latency-type services as well as you’re talking about really more the commercial stuff 2021.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this blog series in which Dheeraj and Iain will discuss if 5G is more of a benefit for the consumer subscriber or an enterprise.
