Huawei unpacks the biggest benefits of upgrading to 5.5G

Upgrading from 5G to 5.5G will enhance network capabilities tenfold, resulting in huge advancements in the digital economy.

This is according to Huawei President of ICT Marketing and Solution Sales Liu Kang, who was speaking at MWC Barcelona 2024.

• Click here to learn more about Huawei’s work in 5.5G.

Kang told attendees that 5.5G is characterised by downlink speeds of up to 10Gbps, uplink speeds of up to 1Gbps, and the ability to support up to 100 billion IoT connections – massively expanding the global economy’s growth opportunities.

With the upgrade from 5G to 5.5G, there will be three main scenarios where Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) will be used:

• FWA Biz – For enterprise scenarios where low-latency, high-reliability connectivity is critical.
• FWA Pro – For affluent homes that want speeds of 1Gbps+ and improved reliability.
• FWA Lite – For upgrading existing 4G users in areas where 5G does not yet reach.

Furthermore, while 5G private lines currently guarantee a minimum speed of 50Mbps, 5.5G can promise 300Mbps guaranteed speeds, 20ms latency at 99.999% reliability.

Driving economic development

Kang added that technological innovation has regularly changed the trajectory of the world’s economic development – and the speed at which this is happening now is faster than it has ever been.

While it took about 100 years during the Industrial Revolution for the steam engine to deliver 30% additional economic growth, computers only took about 20 years to have a similar economic impact.

Now, with 5G, 5.5G, and AI, it is expected that similar growth will only take five years.

Examples of the transformative impact of 5.5G in an industrial setting include the following:

• With guaranteed speeds of at least 300Mbps, high-definition video content can be easily streamed to enable telemedicine and remote quality inspections.
• In complex and risky underground mining scenarios, 5.5G smart mine solutions can power over 100 cameras remotely to provide unprecedented visibility.
• IoT applications will grow from low-speed to low, medium, and high-speed full scenarios and support for tens of billions connections.
• 5G’s low latency of 20ms and high data transfer rates allow for smart vehicle traffic management on busy roads.

Collaboration between technology and businesses

Kang concluded his speech by saying that the benefits of 5.5G will require buy-in from businesses.

By fully embracing the latest technologies like 5.5G and AI, a continuous circle of input and output can be formed – resulting in businesses maximising the benefits of these technologies.

“Huawei is working with carriers and industrial organisations to advance 5.5G development,” said Kang.

“We are working with carriers to build premium intelligent connectivity, featuring ubiquitous gigabit, cybersecurity, low latency, and intelligent and lossless transmission.”

Huawei is also ramping up the commercial use of this technology in enterprise digitalization, which will further unlock the value of digital-intelligent transformation in key industries.

Click here to learn more about Huawei’s work in 5.5G.