5G Infra Challenges

At present, global internet traffic is projected to grow by 24% every year. The Internet has become the cornerstone of all major industries in the 21st Century. From entertainment to national economies, the internet is now a dominating force behind them all. With internet users growing by the minute, comes the great challenge of ensuring faster speeds and higher bandwidths. 5G, the next wireless revolution, comes as a solution that can cater to the endlessly growing base of users. But to build up the 5G Infrastructure, the small cells are required to be deployed within the cities at every 150-200 metres for ubiquitous coverage. And to provide high capacity backhaul connectivity to small cells, Fibre-optic cables are required. While Fiber-optic cables are capable of supporting this demand, it can also lead to severe logistical and deployment complications; in simple terms, digging trenches in every street of every city is impractical when you think of the time and cost it involves. On the other hand, there’s an RF-based wireless backhaul solution which doesn’t face the same issues as Fibre-optic cables. Let’s find out the 5G Infra Challenges:

• Not Enough Capacity

The backhaul capacity must not constrain the small cell capacity. Thus, the backhaul capacity should be able to support the busy hour traffic and have enough margin to cover its future growth. In wireless backhaul, the available bandwidth, share of radio resources and modulation scheme impact the backhaul capacity.

• Cost Is Too High

Backhaul contributes to a significant portion of the overall small cell cost and thus backhaul cost reduction becomes a priority. For wireless backhaul cost, the main contributors are cell site router, power connection per site, installation cost, frequency engineering and maintenance and management costs per link.

• Deployment Becomes A Challenge

From an implementation perspective, small cell backhaul at street levels is more challenging and expensive than providing microcell backhauling at rooftops or GBTs (Ground-based towers). This is because it is difficult to reach street levels using inexpensive LOS links.

Also read: Light Communication as a part of 5G and beyond

Benefits of LiFi

Spectral Efficiency under RF-based technologies is an inherent trait that can’t be improved but only optimised via proper planning and utilization of telecom infrastructure. But LiFi (Light Communication) brings a world of possibilities along with it.

The world of wireless data communication is witnessing a paradigm shift and LiFi (Light Communication) is spearheading the change.

Other than solving the previously mentioned challenges, it offers a few unique benefits:

• Unlicensed & Unlimited Spectrum

Using 780 Thz, unlicensed spectrum of light, LiFi (Light Communication) enables multi-gig fibre like-speed wirelessly, seamlessly. Potentially 1,000 times more than traditional wireless communication channels.

• Low Costs

When combined with Fiber, LiFi (Light Communication) has the potential to offer a low-cost solution for fixed infrastructures while offerings speed which, with time, can possibly be 10 times faster than traditional channels.

• Faster Time To Market

LiFi (Light Communication), as a setup, is easier and faster to deploy as it doesn’t require ROW permissions, making it simpler to implement.

• Ubiquitous Coverage

LiFi (Light Communication) can extend fibre wirelessly throughout cities while delivering Gbps speeds in remote and difficult-to-reach areas.

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