Leon Wang from Huawei: Net5.5G-oriented Products Will Be Launched in 2024, Inspiring New Business Growth of Carriers

Imagine for a moment that you are in 2030, an intelligent world. Immersive experience and digital home services are all the rage, and requirements for AI computing power have snowballed. At the bottom layer of the intelligent world, a network base created from next-generation intelligent network infrastructure is indispensable.

The industry is being proactive in developing new infrastructure. At UBBF 2023 recently held in Dubai, Leon Wang, President of Huawei Data Communication Product Line, delivered a keynote speech titled "Bring Net5.5G to Reality, Inspire New Growth." He announced that Huawei will officially release Net5.5G-oriented products and solutions in 2024.

"In the 5.5G era, four types of services — including home broadband, mobile broadband, enterprise campus, and enterprise private line — will need an upgrade to 10 Gbps, presenting new business opportunities for carriers," Wang stated. He went on to explain that by supporting ubiquitous 10 Gbps connections, elastic ultra-broadband transport, and autonomous network self-optimization, Net5.5G will drive new business growth for carriers.

So how will fixed broadband continue to evolve as a foundation for intelligent connectivity of everything? How is Huawei's progress in Net5.5G? What new opportunities will Net5.5G bring to carriers? Wang touches on the answers during his speech.

01

Significant Progress in Net5.5G,

Great Potential for Growth

With the deepening of enterprise digital transformation in recent years, all kinds of foundation models have been launched. They have brought unfathomable changes to our lives already, and are enabling us to gradually move from Internet of everything to intelligent connectivity of everything.

In the ToC field, as enticing new applications gradually mature, consumers are demanding the optimal home broadband experience. For example, FTTR provides wired and wireless access for each room, and immersive experience technologies such as glasses-free 3D, XR, and AR are booming. Development of such technologies will significantly increase consumers' network requirements, which will in turn balloon carriers' ARPU and overall revenue.

"No longer merely surfing the Internet or browsing social media, more and more consumers are willing to pay higher package fees for attractive and high-quality applications so as to obtain better experience," Wang emphasized.

In the ToB field, many ISPs provide networks and low-price services to compete with carriers, even slashing prices by 30% in contrast to carriers. This worries carriers. However, Wang believes that what enterprise customers need are high-quality enterprise network services, not whatever is cheapest.

Currently, enterprise customers have three main experience requirements.

Firstly, concerning Wi-Fi, because enterprise office networks mainly use Wi-Fi and each person typically has three to four terminals, the Wi-Fi connection density of enterprise office networks is very high. As such, enterprises expect optimal Wi-Fi experience.

Secondly, with respect to video conferencing, as office workers usually have many video calls and conferences per day, network quality is critical. This requires enterprises to guarantee video quality with zero packet loss.

Finally, regarding network maintenance, due to the lack of professional IT teams for network troubleshooting, many small- and medium-sized enterprises want carriers to provide network maintenance services.

An increasing number of enterprises are choosing to use AI for service efficiency improvement. In addition to providing traditional private line services, carriers are also expected to employ new technologies such as cloud and AI to help enterprises reduce costs and improve efficiency.

Carriers have been making efforts to keep up with the AI trend and do just that; in July 2023, SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, and other carriers jointly launched the Global Telco AI Alliance. This initiative aims to develop a telecom AI platform based on core AI capabilities, helping carriers explore AI-powered service models.

02

Carrying Four Types of 10 Gbps Ultra-Broadband Services

Drives New Business Growth for Carriers

Emerging new applications are proving hard for traditional static services, experience-based OAM, and 1 Gbps broadband access to deal with. This means flexible, elastic, and high-quality ultra-broadband networks have gone up in demand to support service transmission. Wang pointed out that home broadband, mobile broadband, enterprise campus, and enterprise private line will need an upgrade to 10 Gbps. This is where Net5.5G comes into play.

With the upgrade of home broadband and mobile broadband to 10 Gbps, the IP transport network will evolve to a 400GE converged metro network and backbone network. Carriers will be able to upgrade their IP transport networks to support the high concurrency of massive 10 Gbps services and use new capabilities like network slicing to ensure service experience and improve user satisfaction.

Digital transformation also drives the quality upgrade of enterprise campus networks. By implementing the upgrade to 10 Gbps based on Wi-Fi 7 and leveraging the technology for zero frame freezing during video conferencing, carriers can add enterprise campus networks on top of private lines. In this way, they can provide one-stop services by offering premium Managed LAN services, making it possible to deliver high-quality 10 Gbps wireless connection, video service, and O&M service experience to enterprise customers, thereby accelerating B2B service growth.

As AI permeates various industries, new growth opportunities such as computing services and elastic computing service private lines emerge. With their natural advantages in E2E network and computing assurance, carriers can provide efficient computing power through 800GE data center networks, agile connections to computing power through 10 Gbps elastic private lines, and computing power services for more users through high-throughput computing power access.

Net5.5G Network Digital Map is also critical in helping carriers make their network operations far more efficient. It enables network visualization from the physical layer to the application layer, helping carriers realize experience-driven network self-optimization, significantly improve network management efficiency, and reduce the operating expense (OPEX) by 50%.

03

Net5.5G-oriented Series Products to Be Released in 2024

In October 2022, Omdia released a white paper entitled Research on the Trends of Data Communication Network for 2030. The paper detailed the core intention and 6 key characteristics, such as green ultra-broadband, IPv6 Enhanced, and intelligent network, of the future data communication network, providing insights to the network evolution of a digital world.

Net5.5G has received growing recognition from industry partners since the concept was first proposed. With its years of experience accumulated in the data communication field, Huawei is proactively driving Net5.5G from just conceptual research to application practice.

In terms of standards, Huawei has joined WBBA's network technology working group and is carrying out Net5.5G research. It is also participating in Net5.5G-relevant technical standardization work being conducted by IEEE and IETF. This work covers key areas such as Wi-Fi 7, 800GE, SRv6, and Network Digital Map.

In terms of products, at MWC 23 Shanghai, Huawei proposed to launch a full set of commercial 5.5G network devices in 2024. After months of refining, at UBBF 2023, Huawei announced officially that it will indeed release Net5.5G-oriented products and solutions next year.

In addition, Huawei proposes to deliver carrying four types of ubiquitous 10 Gbps ultra-broadband services: ubiquitous 10 Gbps mobile broadband, 10 Gbps home broadband with home-wide Wi-Fi coverage, improved 10 Gbps connection experience on enterprise campus networks, and elastic and high-throughput 10 Gbps computing private line services. Huawei hopes to provide premium 10 Gbps connections for the whole society and accelerate inclusive digital services.

Summary

With everyone in the industry rowing in the same direction, Net5.5G will get from just conceptual research to application practice in no time. The acceleration of standards research, application innovation, and commercial solution release and practice would be impossible without the collective efforts of industry partners. We hope that these joint efforts will encourage new growth for carriers in the 5.5G era and we can all thrive with digital.