5G TESTING
Why 5G needs to test for the worst 5G is coming and mobile network operators’ responsibilities are about to irreversibly change, says Phil Thompson, a vice president and client partner executive at Spirent Communications 5G isn’t just an upgrade of performance and coverage, it’s going to fundamentally shift the role of network operators too. The smart cities, automated vehicles and smart industry that 5G is supposed to bring about all take mobile network technology beyond the marker of mere performance. Operating a 5G network will mean thinking very hard about digital defence and protecting human life. Automated vehicles, for example, will need the reliability of 5G networks to provide uninterrupted coverage wherever they go. The connectivity will be required to map its surroundings and keep its passengers, and other vehicles, safe. In 4G, a service outage might have resulted in annoyed customers and some lost revenue. When it comes to 5G, a service outage could mean a serious threat to customer safety. While previous iterations of mobile network technology were largely hardware based, 5G uses software in an unprecedented way. The network virtualisation and software defined networks that 5G also brings mean that mobile networks are now open to the cyberattacks that they have been insulated from for so long.
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New possibilities, new responsibilities
The reality is that network operators have never actually had to deal with anything like 5G before. Getting to grips with it will be a serious learning curve for most network operators. Mobile network operators are often very good at testing for what should happen and often not great at testing for what shouldn’t. For the wide variety of applications of 5G, they’ll need to start thinking about physical danger, accidents, cyberattacks and real world harm. They’ve never had to test a network for its ability to power a city’s physical infrastructure or an automated vehicle for its ability to stay on the road. Furthermore, they’ve been largely insulated from the ubiquitous cyberattack by their historical reliance on hardware that could be easily isolated from the broader internet. Testing 5G networks will be critical to the success of individual networks as well as the success of the 5G project overall and the innovations that it is supposed to bring.
VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE ISSUE 1 I 2022
