5G ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) to digitize industries and unearth new use cases

BELLEVUE, Wash. – November 8, 2018 – 5G will enable new services and applications requiring lower latency, better reliability, massive connection density and improved energy efficiency making our connected lives and industries faster, smoother and more efficient. 5G networks are being architected to support the service category of URLLC (Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication). A variety of advanced services for latency sensitive connected devices will be supported by URLLC to enable wide-ranging applications like factory automation, autonomous driving, industrial internet and smart grid.

5G Americas, the industry trade association and voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas, today announced the publication of New Services & Applications With 5G Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication which details the principles of achieving URLLC, explains the need for a new approach and highlights key requirements of URLLC services with an emphasis on technical challenges and solutions.

“With the wide range of unique 5G services, the context of communication will expand to vehicles, high-speed trains, drones and industrial robots with the change agent being URLLC. With such advancement, mission-critical applications have stringent communication performance and reliability requirements,” said Chris Pearson, President, 5G Americas. “To support such complex communication, low latency is seen as a crucial ingredient with URLLC as a key enabler in this new age of connectivity.”

The 5G Americas report describes upcoming use cases of URLLC in smart transportation, industry automation and tele-surgery, and presents the latency and reliability requirements for these applications. The white paper also identifies possible latency bottlenecks in current cellular networks as well as future 5G networks and lays out the necessary implementation blocks for achieving end-to-end latency reduction required to support mission-critical applications. In addition, New Services & Applications With 5G Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication summarizes the recent performance evaluation results of the basic designs and implementation of the 5G physical layer, multiple access layers and air interface blocks essential to reducing latency and achieving the desired reliability. It also discusses other potential latency reduction measures including Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC).

“Although the first commercial 5G deployments are focused on enhanced mobile broadband use cases, the future of 5G will include ultra-high reliability and/or low-latency features. We are living in a time where mobile and vertical industries are undergoing a rapid transformation boosted through critical communication capabilities,” noted Rao Yallapragada, Director of Advanced Technologies, Intel, and co-leader of the 5G Americas URLLC white paper team. “URLLC will unleash an array of innovative applications and digitize a legion of verticals touching each aspect of human lives.”

New Services & Applications With 5G Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication was written by members of 5G Americas and is available for free download on the 5G Americas website. Rao Yallapragada from Intel and Jing Jiang of Qualcomm led the white paper working group with support from 5G Americas’ Board of Governors members who participated in the development of the white paper.