Robin Kent, director of European operations at Adax, questions the headlong rush towards 5G, when 4G services are nowhere near as reliable as they should be.

Just this week, I was on a train from Frankfurt to Nuremburg in Germany attempting in vain to get some work done. The issue I had is that, as there was no wi-fi available on-board, I was having to rely on the mobile phone network to remain connected. My frustration grew as my phone constantly flittered between 4G, 3G and 2G, causing emails not to sync correctly and an increasing amount of important messages to become stuck in my outbox.

What this experience all too frustratingly illustrated is that the industry has yet to fully implement a working and stable 4G experience for users. Which begs the question: shouldn’t operators ensure 4G works sufficiently before turning their attention to the much-mooted 5G?

The telecoms industry is at an early stage in the development of 5G, yet there is already a lot of talk about 5G being the next big thing in the telco world. Media commentators and industry experts alike are making bold predictions about how the move to 5G is necessary to facilitate the explosive increase in demand for wireless broadband services needing faster, higher-capacity networks that can deliver video and other content-rich services. As is the fact that 5G can support the vast number of Internet of Things (IoT) networks, due to the conception that it allows a greater volume of connections than current 4G networks. This is certainly a key driving factor; after all, Gartner estimates that the amount of connected IoT devices will reach 26 billion by 2020.

Perfect scenario
The European Union has promised that by 2020, every European city, town and village will be connected with free wireless internet and will fully deploy 5G networks by 2025. The expectation is that 5G will increase bandwidth and download speeds, with trials currently being held to see what can be delivered to handsets. However, these trials show what can be achieved in the perfect scenario and never truly reflect what can happen in reality.

It is important for the industry to be cautious. Whilst 5G is theoretically 40 times faster than the hypothetical limit of 4G, for it to fulfil its claims, it will take a great deal of upgraded infrastructure. As and when 5G makes its arrival, operators will need to ensure they have an effective Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) solution in place for Diameter signalling. As implementations begin to roll out, the growth of Diameter will continue to accelerate, so the need for a good transport layer should be a priority for operators. This will ensure they can secure millions of simultaneous associations in order to meet the challenges posed to the network by malicious intent.

We have all experienced issues with the current 3G and 4G networks. The move to 5G isn’t necessarily going to be a smooth as some might think. It is vital that service providers have the right tools in place for 5G to be successfully implemented so that they can provide the high level of service that end users have come to expect in recent years.

Robin Kent is director of European operations at Adax