In an interview given at the Stanford Faculty club to DNA Ericsson CTO Håkan Eriksson, stated (what has been pretty obvious for some years) that its not likely that there will be a “5th Generation” of mobile wireless systems in the sense that a new radio technology has to be developed. “we have already reached the ‘channel (“Shannon”? ) limit’ of what you can do”.
Instead Eriksson points out several other challenges that have to be met that lie on different planes than only only on the Physical (radio technology) level. “If you simplify, for the short range or indoors, we will see the evolution of WiFi. For wide area coverage, we will see the evolution of LTE. It will be a question of finding the shortest way to some antenna and from the antenna to optic fibre to the cloud. A smart card will keep track of what’s happening and charge you per usage”.
Areas he did not mention – that have a definite “5G flavor” – are new solutions for energy efficiency and “plug and play” for massive deployment. These challenges are on the other hand not necessarily met by new radio waveforms…
