- 2018-10-17
"Huawei wins the 5G era" is an exaggeration
On November 17th, US time, in the discussion of the 5G short code solution at the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) RAN1#87 meeting, the Polar Code solution led by China's Huawei was recognized and became the control in the eMBB scenario Channel coding solution.
The competitors of Huawei's Polar code this time include LDPC, which is mainly promoted by Qualcomm, and Turbo2.0 code which is dominated by France. Among them, LDPC coding is adopted as a data channel coding solution in the eMBB scenario, and it is evenly matched with Polar codes.
The "victory" of Polar code will undoubtedly give the dominant player Huawei and Chinese communications companies more say in the 5G era. After all, communication technology standards have always been a battleground among enterprises in the industry, and Qualcomm has become the hegemon of the third generation of mobile communications after developing a business model that charges licensing fees through patents.
Although Huawei's official wording is relatively cautious, it still inevitably caused misunderstandings by the outside world. For a time, articles titled "Huawei Wins the 5G Era" and "Huawei Overcomes Qualcomm" were widely circulated on the Internet.
In this regard, Huawei’s vice chairman and rotating CEO Hu Houkun believes that the meaning of Polar codes should return to the essence of technology. “Winning the 5G era is definitely an exaggeration. 5G is a very complex technology system, polar The choice of code does not mean which company will win the 5G era. This statement itself is misleading."
Outside the main lecture venue of the 2016 Global Broadband Mobile Forum held in Tokyo, Japan, Huawei deliberately set up a huge exhibition area to try to show its international level to the outside world through the 4.5G area, 5G area, and display areas of industrial partners from all over the world. And open ecology.
Huawei, which hopes to show its people with an international image in the future, naturally does not want to interpret the selection of the Polar code as a "war" where you lose and I win. In the communication, Hu Houkun prefers to regard the process of reaching the 5G standard as a consensus-building process, and the Polar code is jointly selected by everyone as the channel code in the EMBB scenario, which only reflects everyone’s affirmation of the advanced technology of the Polar code. . "The process of reaching (5G) standards is not a process of losing or losing. It is not a competition between two companies or between two countries. It is even more unnecessary to talk about national pride." Emphasized.
Polar code is not Huawei’s original technology. It was first proposed in 2008 by Professor Erdal Arikan of Bilkeng University in Turkey. According to Yang Chaobin, president of Huawei's 5G business line, Huawei began researching Polar codes in 2009. From the perspective of 3GPP, technology evaluation should ensure that the selected technology can meet future needs. First of all, it is necessary to ensure the optimal network performance from the advanced nature of the technology. Secondly, this coding technology must ensure that various chip manufacturers, base station manufacturers, and terminal manufacturers can implement it systematically. This is also one of the reasons why Polar codes can win consensus shortly after they were born.
Compared with 3G and 4G, 5G has a wider business scope and application scenarios, so the eMBB won by Huawei this time is just one of the 5G application scenarios. The three major 5G scenarios defined by 3GPP include eMBB, mMTC and URLLC. Among them, eMBB corresponds to high-traffic mobile broadband services such as 3D/Ultra HD video, mMTC corresponds to large-scale IoT services, and URLLC corresponds to services that require low-latency and high-reliability connections, such as unmanned driving and industrial automation. .
According to Yang Chaobin, president of Huawei's wireless business line, for the remaining mMTC and URLLC scenarios, the specific encoding method has not yet begun to be discussed. "Under normal circumstances, the introduction of some new technologies in 3GPP will be solidified after detailed discussion, evaluation, and consensus. This is a way for 3GPP to work. This can ensure that it is adopted in the 3GPP standard. The technology has been fully discussed and can avoid risks in the future commercial process."
Regarding the 5G commercialization process that the industry is concerned about, Yang Chaobin believes that the commercialization of 5G is inseparable from the establishment of 5G standards. According to him, in June this year, 3GPP reached an agreement on accelerating the progress of 5G standardization. At the end of 2017, 3GPP will release the first version of the 5G standard. "If 3GPP can complete the first (5G standard) version by the end of 2017, this means that in 2018, there will be some pre-commercial products." Yang Chaobin estimates that there will be a certain amount of time from standard to product launch. time. "Based on such a rhythm, the (scale) commercial time of 5G is likely to happen in 2020," Yang Chaobin added.
For ordinary users, the arrival of 5G does not only mean an increase in network speed. Hu Houkun believes that the changes 5G brings to users may penetrate all aspects of life. Here, he quoted the original words of Li Yue, President and CEO of China Mobile, in his speech: "4G changes lives, and 5G changes society." "4G changes life means that our personal experience will be improved, and 5G changes various vertical industries on the basis of improving personal experience." He further explained. In his view, the massive connections that 5G can provide will change services and consumer behavior accordingly.
In the era of 2G, 3G and 4G, there are multiple versions of technical standards around the world. For example, 3G has WCDMA proposed in Europe, CDMA2000 proposed in North America and TD-SCDMA proposed in China, and 4G has TD-LTE led by the state and led by foreign companies. FDD-LTE points.
From the perspective of industry development trends, 5G will form a unified and integrated single standard, and no longer have multiple technical versions. This means that on the one hand, Chinese companies should pay attention to the collaborative research and development of 5G standards, the construction of 5G industry chains, the research of 5G spectrum, and the international cooperation of 5G; on the other hand, if the relevant standards proposed by Chinese companies account for the entire 5G standard The greater the ratio, the greater the competitiveness of the global industry.
At present, China is steadily advancing 5G research and development work, and is relatively ahead of the work schedule of the International Telecommunication Union. It is believed that through hard work, China will play a more important role in the 5G standardization process than in the 4G era, and make its own contribution to the formation of a globally unified 5G standard.