Our vision for 5G is a unifying connectivity fabric that can connect virtually
everything around us. Today, 5G is already connecting millions of enhanced mobile
broadband devices, such as smartphones and always- connected PCs. In 3GPP Release 17 and beyond, we
are scaling 5G down to address the needs of lower complexity IoT devices. In this video, we have two
technology demonstrations that showcase new 5G capabilities that will enhance IoT connectivity.
5G NR-Light, also known as RedCap in 3GPP, in Release 17, scales down 5G NR to support
a maximum bandwidth of 20 Megahertz and one antenna in sub-7 Gigahertz frequencies.
It bridges the gap between 5G NR eMbb and 5G massive IoT solutions, such as NB-IoT.
The continued evolution of NR-Light in Release 18 and beyond will further scale to even narrower
bandwidths and enable new capabilities including sidelink and positioning. Here is a simulation
setup. The 5G wide-area network operates in the 2.6 Gigahertz spectrum with 100 Megahertz
bandwidth. Urban layout with 21 cells and 500 meter inter-site distances assumed. The baseline
scenario has only Released 15 eMBB devices and it currently has a low resource utilization.
For many IoT use cases such as wearables and industrial sensors with limited data needs,
cost-efficient NR-Light solution is more suitable. In our simulation, we add a large
number of single antenna 20 Megahertz 5G NR-Light devices to the network. The total network resource
utilization increases marginally, and the impact to the overall network performance is minimal,
considering an order of magnitude larger number of devices being supported. In conclusion, 5G NR-Light
devices utilize narrow bandwidth and they can more efficiently support lower complexity IoT
devices. The simulation also shows that they can co-exist efficiently with other types of devices.
We are excited to drive the continued evolution of 5G NR-Light in Release 18 and beyond.
Another area of our research is focusing on how 5G can evolve to improve its support for low-power
IoT devices that require wide-area coverage. In this demonstration, we will look at how
co-channel sidelink, the direct communication between devices can enable effective coverage extension
in a 5G network. To showcase a mesh networking architecture, we have set up our test network
with a single small cell with 100 Megahertz channel bandwidth at 3.5 Gigahertz on top of the garage.
Its coverage is limited due to the limited transmit power of 400 milliwatts. The IoT device
is a low-power sensor, which needs to connect to the network that is more than 400 meters away.
To facilitate this communication, multiple mesh IoT devices are placed in between the small cell and
the end IoT device. Note that all IoT devices share a 5 Megahertz subband inside the cellular channel
with compatible TDD patterns. The first mesh device is located about 125 meters away from
the small cell, near the edge of its coverage area. Mesh device 2 is located about 100 meters away
from device 1, across the street. Mesh device 3 is more than 100 meters away further down the street.
And mesh device 4 is about another 150 meters down from device 3. In the initial scenario,
the IoT sensor is outside the direct coverage of the wide-area OTA test network. And we can
see that it is unable to communicate with a small cell. When we add mesh IoT devices into
the network, network coverage is extended via the multi-hop connections. The mesh device 1
has wide-area connectivity to the small cell. Subsequent connections between different mesh
devices utilize in-band sidelink communications. The sensor data from the end device is shown
to be efficiently relayed back to the network over three hops. In conclusion, 5G device mesh networking
can effectively extend the coverage for low power IoT devices within the same cellular channel.
This technology also enables connectivity for a large number of IoT devices through a single wide
area connection to the network and potentially makes 5G IoT deployment more cost-efficient.