A radical new air interface is essential to transform the economics of the 5G RAN

5G has not delivered the commercial benefits hoped for by operators, which has contributed to the slow adoption of 5G standalone and the growing aversion to ‘big capex’ projects. 5G Advanced and 6G will also disappoint if they do not enable monetisable new services in a way that is deployable and cost-efficient. The next wave of 3GPP standards for the foundational element of the RAN, the air interface, will be critical; these specifications must address the compromises made for 5G in order to improve the commercial outlook.

In Analysys Mason’s Using AI to enable a radical but deployable radio platform, we argue that significant improvements to the commercial outcomes of 5G (and future 6G) will only be possible with a radical rethink of RAN architecture, rather than via a series of tweaks and incremental changes. We summarise our findings in this article.