With the growing interest in private networks, Samsung explores how enterprises can successfully deploy private 5G networks to meet business goals and service demands. The whitepaper outlines various architectural options for building private networks that enable 5G services — such as Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) and Massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC) — which can bring new innovation to a range of sectors rapidly transitioning to Industry 4.0.

The paper spotlights Samsung’s complete set of private 5G network solutions, which enable enterprises to simplify network deployment and operation. With a portfolio and capability to build highly reliable private 5G networks, Samsung offers solutions for small, medium to large-scale enterprises. Its comprehensive set of end-to-end private 5G network solutions include Radio Access Network (RAN), cores of all scale, intuitive management systems, AI/ML based analytics solutions and applications for a variety of services. Specifically, its RAN portfolio — covering low, mid and high frequency bands—consists of baseband, radios including Massive MIMO, mmWave and small cell, fit for various business environments.

The company’s solutions are designed to satisfy the high demands private networks face in ensuring the highest levels of performance and reliability as well as low latency — which are required to power advanced use cases such as remote factory monitoring, virtual education, AR/VR, drones and autonomous vehicles.

For more details on Private 5G Network architecture, features and Samsung’s end-to-end private 5G network solutions, please refer to the new whitepaper: Private Networks Vol.2 Architectures and Features for Industrial Scenarios. For additional information on Samsung’s configuration options for its private 5G network solutions, please refer to the first edition: Private Networks Vol.1 Transforming Private Networks with Samsung 5G.

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end infrastructure solutions including chipsets, radios and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from fully virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

(left) Dr. June Hee Lee, Senior Vice President and Head of the Technology Strategy Team and Dr. Won Joon Choi, Senior Vice President and Head of the Flagship R&D Team

For more than 35 years, Samsung has been a leader across the mobile industry, from smartphones to mobile chipsets to network solutions. Over the past decade, the company’s dedication to pushing the boundaries of what is possible has paved the way to the development of the first end-to-end 5G solution.

This trailblazing spirit has led Samsung to become the first company to introduce breakthrough consumer-centric 5G experiences, including Samsung’s first commercialized 5G smartphone, the Galaxy S10 5G, which was launched in South Korea in April and is set for a global rollout.

But, the question is, – What will 5G enable? Why is 5G important? How do consumers experience 5G today? and what were the challenges that Samsung had to overcome to commercialize 5G?

Two figures at Samsung, Dr. Won Joon Choi, Senior Vice President and Head of the Flagship R&D Team, and Dr. June Hee Lee, Senior Vice President and Head of the Technology Strategy Team, were integral in leading 5G-ready hardware and software development, and they recently shared their behind-the-scenes stories of 5G development and technology leadership in more detail.

Pushing Boundaries

5G technology will revolutionize what is possible on a data network, much like the unprecedented possibilities 4G unlocked when it launched. 4G put the internet in your pocket and opened the ability to work and play while on the go. With increased speeds and lower latency of the 5G bandwidth, 5G will offer more than just mobile advantages when compared with LTE. “When 5G service is completely actualized, its capabilities will not be limited just to smartphones; the concept of a connected, autonomous vehicle can be fully realized, as well as smart factories and smart robots in the medical field, for instance,” explains Choi. “Video conferencing will no longer be in 2D but will take place in 3D,” adds Lee, “and furthermore, no one can imagine streaming 360-degree video on your smartphone with mobile data as it exists now, but with 5G, this will become a reality,” stresses Lee. But making this a reality has been no small undertaking.

In order to institute the 5G bandwidth, every aspect of the network infrastructure ecosystem, from antenna models to device chipsets, had to be reconfigured to account for its separate frequency range from existing bandwidths. “Samsung has been directly engaged with the 5G market from the start, from research to technology to setting international standards,” notes Lee. “What prompted Samsung to spearhead 5G was our mindset that, when there is a direction that the industry should be headed, it is important to blaze that trail, no matter how challenging it seems.”

What It Takes to Champion 5G

The establishment of an end-to-end solution has been key to Samsung’s development of a global 5G network. From the beginning, the company took the unique approach of developing the capabilities to not only make a 5G device, but also to establish the necessary partnerships crucial to the full ecosystem roll-out, from chipset and infrastructure vendors to carriers and content & service providers. “5G development started with figuring out what the core technologies of 5G were and how we would secure them – early on, we took the lead in collaborating with numerous partners such as chipset vendors, for example,” explains Choi. “All of this enabled us to take a leading role in the development of 5G.”

The capabilities Samsung developed in these exploratory phases began more than a decade ago and allowed the company to stay at the forefront of each new phase of 5G development. The frequency 5G operates on, mmWave and Sub-6GHz, called for numerous innovations to device hardware and software, including a 5G modem chip, a 5G RF chip, RF front-end components, and 5G receivers. In 2013, Samsung successfully developed its first 5G proof of concept (POC) and, two years later, its first-ever pre-5G spec opened the door to other milestones – including the creation of a 5G smartphone set to 3GPP and international standards.

What has made Samsung a leader in 5G is its commitment to bringing together all elements of the development process, from research to development, not just on a mobile level, but on a global network scale. “The first 5G New Radio standard spec was approved at the end of 2017,” highlights Choi, “and Samsung took a leading role in setting this international standard.” This network leadership is not without precedent for Samsung; the company also participated in setting the international network standards for the transition from 3G to LTE, and this experience, not only on a network infrastructure level but also on a consumer-facing one, meant the company was primed and ready to lead 5G development.

Understanding that a global 5G network infrastructure must come into full operation gradually, Samsung ensured its current service minimizes network interruptions by providing an LTE-5G transition period through Non-Stand-Alone (NSA) network standardization. “The current 5G service utilizes the stable LTE network for transmitting important information such as control and signaling details, including LTE to 5G handover, while using 5G for data transmission,” clarifies Choi. “Regarding the Galaxy S10 5G, the device was designed on both hardware and software levels to be ready to use the NSA network throughout the handover. Furthermore, there are always some unprecedented issues that arise during a transition period. We are taking all consumer feedback very seriously and thanks to our close coordination with all relevant partners, as the infrastructure improves, so will the full 5G experience.”

Creating a Device Built for the 5G Era

 In order to ensure its first 5G device remained as user-friendly and intuitive as consumers have come to expect from the Galaxy series, Samsung developed a major hardware innovation. “Because a 5G phone must support all LTE legacy hardware, adding 5G-specific components such as the 5G modem chip and 5G RF chip naturally involved incorporating additional parts,” explains Choi. “If we had simply mounted these onto a device, the phone would have become bulky. Instead, we meticulously designed how and where to include these extra components to retain the Galaxy series’ streamlined unibody design.” Even after mounting the necessary extra components, the Galaxy S10 5G still possesses a slim, unibody form factor.

This was not the only hurdle Samsung had to overcome with the Galaxy S10 5G; 5G networks consume a lot of battery power due to the large amount of data they have to transmit. “We mitigated this challenge by incorporating the latest vapor chamber technology featuring new AI software that automatically optimizes battery, CPU, RAM, and even device temperature based on how people use their phones. This smart software learns from its user and continues to over time,” notes Choi.

The most challenging issue Samsung addressed with the Galaxy S10 5G was developing technology to support 5G bandwidth, operating on the higher frequencies. “High-frequency spectrum had never been supported on mobile devices before,” explains Choi. “From a hardware perspective, creating a solution for this meant years of research into mitigating weak signals as a result of physical barriers or obstacles in the path of frequencies, particularly when encountering metal objects.” On the software side, Samsung was dedicated to providing a seamless customer experience. “Our solution is based on a wide range of accumulated experience and know-hows,” remarks Lee. “Our longtime interactions with consumers, which provided us with an understanding of how, for example, consumers use and grip their phones, allowed us to develop software that keeps the device connected to the 5G signal.”

The Future of 5G Connectivity

Not only will Samsung’s achievements in 5G transform the mobile data experience for consumers, they will also have exciting implications for the future of Connected Living and will play a huge role in optimizing the operation and connectivity of devices that harness artificial intelligence (AI) and IoT (Internet of Things). “The world of 5G will bring so much potential into the future technology field, including helping the realization of smart factories and smart cities,” affirms Lee.

“With the advent of 4G, speed was the only key improvement, but it is different with 5G,” notes Choi. “We consider 5G technology to be a key underlying technology that can enable a truly new, non-mobile-exclusive broadband market.”

Not only does 5G offer eMBB (Enhanced Mobile Broadband) thanks to transmit speeds of up to 20 times what LTE provides, its URLLC (Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication) minimizes the time it takes for data to travel from one point to another and mMTC (Massive Machine-Type Communication) paves the way for smart factories and supply chains. “In being able to transmit information with minimum latency and maximum reliability, 5G technology is crucial to the safety features of smart cars, the stability of smart factories and the accuracy of smart robots in the medical field; essentially, it is the key technology to making these future technologies a possibility,” explains Choi.

“With 5G, the absolute bandwidth of the network has increased,” adds Lee. “With the example of the connected car, data needs to be transmitted to the driver extremely fast. For instance, in the case of a car driving at a speed of 100km per hour, a 0.1 second delay in latency could result in a 3-meter difference. Furthermore, regarding smart cities, 5G offers another important advantage thanks to its increased connectivity capabilities. With 5G, in theory, we can possibly connect 10 times the devices LTE can – simultaneously.”

5G is therefore crucial for industries outside of mobile. The ramifications of its implementation look to be truly global, and Samsung, who has been developing its solutions with this in mind from the start, is at the forefront of bringing about the 5G revolution.

As early as the second half of 2018, people in the U.S. will be among the first to experience commercial 5G services, thanks to the recent agreement between Samsung and Verizon. The agreement, which outlines Samsung’s supply of 5G technology-based Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network solutions to the largest mobile network operator in the U.S., has enabled the initiation of 5G services to begin two years earlier than the industry had originally forecasted.

5G FWA stands out as a key technology that allows for the supply of connectivity services (in Gigabit speeds) through radio spectrum, without requiring the deployment of copper and optical fiber networks. Samsung and Verizon will introduce the service during the second half of this year in Sacramento. The companies expect to increase the number of households that use the FWA service to 30 million in the coming years.

The Worldwide Race for 5G Commercialization

However, the U.S. is not the only country looking to charge into the 5G era. Samsung has been closely collaborating with Korean operators, and recently, the company demonstrated the potential of 5G through various trial services. In nearby Japan, a number of major mobile operators will invest a combined 5 trillion yen (USD 44.86 billion) to successfully provide nationwide 5G services by 2023. The country has further plans to commence 5G services in selected areas in 2020, when a large-scale sporting event will take place in Tokyo.

Meanwhile, telecommunications service providers, device manufacturers and government organizations across the world are conducting ongoing research to examine the scenarios for 5G networks, as the emergence of new generation telecommunications technology will provide unprecedented business opportunities in a variety of areas such as autonomous cars, robots and virtual reality (VR). Judging by the massive benefits that 5G is expected to bring, it is not surprising that many establishments aim to have 5G commercialized as early as possible.

“The 5G era is approaching much sooner than the industry initially anticipated, which was the year 2020,” said Dongsu Shin, Vice President and Head of Planning Group, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “We will drive the supply of 5G equipment so people across the globe can experience services generated by this new technology at the earliest opportunity.”

So How Exactly Does 5G Work?

In the near future, 5G will completely change how people use and communicate with technology. It will even change the manner in which different technologies communicate with each other. All this will take place faster and more reliably than ever before. As a result, downloads will take place at lightning speeds, autonomous vehicles will be safer thanks to faster reaction times, and industries will be transformed with new ways to connect machinery and stock.

The secret to 5G’s super-fast speeds, incredibly low latency and unsurpassed connectivity lies in its three key technologies: eMBB (enhanced Mobile Broadband), URLLC (Ultra Reliable & Low Latency Communications) and mMTC (massive Machine-Type Communications).

eMBB (enhanced Mobile Broadband): This is the technology that will enable users to download a 15GB full-length high-definition movie in 6 seconds. That is much faster than the 4 minutes it currently takes to download the same movie on a 4G connection.

With eMBB, large amounts of data may be transmitted at much higher speeds. 5G networks can provide peak data transmission speeds of up to 20Gbps (2.5GB of data transmitted per second).

URLLC (Ultra Reliable & Low Latency Communications): The aim with autonomous vehicles is to always make the driving experience as safe as possible. Thanks to URLLC, autonomous vehicle collisions will be less likely to occur in the 5G era, as there will only be a one-millisecond (ms) signal delay, and thus the car will only move a few centimeters before stopping when danger is detected. This is a huge leap from 4G, where the distance that a car travels before coming to a stop once danger is detected is a meter.

URLLC promises a stable network and the lowest possible latency to initiate connectivity. (The lower the latency – measured in milliseconds – the better the network performance.) It will enable one-millisecond latency between a user device and a network, compared to tens of milliseconds today. This is also especially useful for services that require real-time correspondence of networks, such as the remote control of robots, and real-time interactive games.

mMTC (massive Machine-Type Communications): This technology sets the foundation for an IoT (Internet of Things)-powered future where the majority of our devices will be connected. 5G will support mMTC, allowing machines (up to one million devices within an area of one square kilometer) to communicate with one another with only minimal human involvement.

mMTC will also support various industrial applications. For example, the modification of manufacturing processes based on real-time demands from consumers will be made possible via 5G connection modules incorporated into factory equipment. Furthermore, inventory organization will be improved while product defects will be reduced, thanks to the enhanced deep learning capabilities of robots connected via 5G.

MWC 2018: A Look into the Near Future of 5G

At the Samsung Networks booth at MWC 2018, Samsung is showcasing a wide array of 5G technologies, including the world’s first end-to-end 5G FWA (fixed wireless access) commercial solutions, and offering guests a glimpse at how user-centric 5G networks will soon transform our homes, cars, cities and more.

For example, the booth’s Transportation Solutions zone spotlights Samsung’s collaboration with Harman to develop TCU (Telematics Control Units) and RSU (Road Side Units) for autonomous cars. These provide lightning-fast data speeds that make it possible for passengers to enjoy ultra-high definition (UHD) videos, as well as instant access to a wealth of traffic, weather and other information. They also help minimize collisions by enabling cars to respond more quickly when detecting danger.

The exhibit also demonstrates how the company’s solutions powered the first demonstration of 5G connections on a high-speed train. The solutions, which achieved a peak speed of 1.7Gbps on a train traveling at over 100 kilometers per hour, supported the seamless streaming of 8K video and the uploading of 4K video, and may soon allow trains to benefit from superior passenger infotainment and increased security and analytics.

The Residential Solutions zone illustrates how Samsung’s 5G products, once FWA is commercialized, will allow members of a residence to each stream their own 4K content simultaneously, without interruptions. Likewise, gamers will be able to play on a 5G cloud network with minimal hardware and latency as low as a one millisecond. This means that games which typically require a console and lots of storage space may be played comfortably via the cloud, and controller input is instantaneous.

The Industrial Solutions zone features a model of a city connected by Samsung’s 5G Connectivity Node. This slim, compact device is designed to be easily installed on streetlamps and is capable of providing gigabit connectivity to link a wide range of smart city technologies, including digital signage, CCTV cameras, vehicles and IoT sensors, to 5G networks. The model demonstrates how cities may utilize 5G networks to instantly identify traffic accidents and violations and alert the proper authorities.

“A large portion of the 5G technologies that will enable the services being introduced at this year’s MWC are already at the commercialization stage,” said Dongsu Shin. “We look forward to presenting people around the world with the types of services that are yet to be experienced before by intensifying our cooperation with telecommunications companies and industry partners globally.”