4G, 5G, or 6G - All Need Wireless Backhaul

A rose is a rose - or is there one that is sweeter?

Shyam Ponappa   |   December 2, 2021

Calling our networks 4G, 5G, or 6G makes little difference. What matters is service delivery to users. Once there is connectivity, the criteria for judging a network are speed, capacity, and latency (lag in response time). Our 4G experience is far short on these measures. Improvements are possible if our government proceeds on the basis of (a) objective assessment, and (b) concerted action on systematic, realistic, and phased plans and execution. The starting point is a factual assessment of our networks and service delivery compared with the rest of the world. The next steps are to frame policies and regulations to enable the better use of available resources for service delivery, without irrational hurdles.

An aspect of telecom not obvious to users is the reality of layered technologies that exist even in advanced environments. For instance, a country with excellent mobile services such as Norway has achieved among the fastest average speeds of over 50 Mbps with continued investment in 4G networks. 4G has evolved considerably and provides the core network, except for Standalone 5G networks. 4G has latency down to two-digit milliseconds, and speeds comparable to 5G in the lower user bands (below 6 GHz). High-frequency 5G provides faster user access on 4G platforms.

Realistically, we should plan for a mix of technologies going forward as 4G continues to evolve over the next decade. However, we need policies that result in full 4G coverage of good quality, not merely indulgent talk. Also, while 3G is being phased out because of its less efficient use of spectrum, it will take years to transition fully to 4G and beyond because of the cost and scale. In Europe, for example, even 2G is to continue until 2025 for certain applications.

What are the policies that can give us improved services? A good place to start is the Parliamentary Committee report tabled in February titled, “India’s Preparedness for 5G”.¹ Its main findings are that while 59 countries had deployed 5G, though largely on a limited scale, India had not done so. No 5G trials had been permitted as of January, and sufficient preparatory work had not been done. The challenges highlighted are:

• Inadequate spectrum, with only 50 MHz per operator, half the global average. For 4G, average spectrum per operator was even less, at a quarter of the global average.
• Exorbitant spectrum prices.
• Insufficient development of 5G use cases.
• Low fibre network availability.
• Deficient backhaul capacity.

The report emphasises the need for heavy investment to develop fibre networks, including for backhaul, and then deals with other aspects such as investments and local manufacturing.

Fibre does indeed provide the best connectivity. While highly desirable, it is the gold standard, and often prohibitively expensive. Fibre connections to towers are ordinarily justifiable only when financially viable. Second, small cells have to proliferate for 4G, 5G, and 6G, with wireless or fibre links (backhaul) to networks and Wi-Fi user access. The question is whether aiming for full or even substantial fibre connectivity to towers and small cells is realistic, compared with alternatives and technology trends.

Interestingly, the GSM Association published two reports addressing this in February 2021. The first was a study on backhaul in 40 countries titled, “Wireless Backhaul Evolution: Delivering next generation connectivity”.² The second was on the spectrum required for this titled, “Spectrum for Wireless Backhaul: GSMA Public Policy Position”.³

The first report indicates that 5G’s growing traffic and network capabilities will need massive augmentation of backhaul capacity through evolution. Wireless links are estimated to constitute 65 per cent of global backhaul links between 2021 and 2027, evolving to higher frequencies with wider channels, with regulators’ decisions helping or hindering specific 5G markets. The E-band (70-80 GHz) is expected to dominate wireless backhaul from 2021 to 2027. Many countries are also using V-band (60 GHz) delicensed for Wi-Fi. Even countries with high levels of fibre such as Japan and South Korea are using E and V bands for backhaul. Shouldn’t we do this, too? (See chart)

Chart: Full 4G + Some 5G with V-Band and E-Band

India has many urban and rural sites where fibre is infeasible, because of factors such as congestion, distance, terrain, dispersed users, and limited commercial potential. Wireless backhaul can fill in where fibre is not accessible or affordable, although evolution to higher, wider bands will be necessary. Meanwhile, wireless V and E bands are now reasonable alternatives for distances of about 1 km, and 3-4 km or more, with the disadvantage of rain attenuation. The GSMA report suggests this could be mitigated with carrier aggregation (combining) of E-band with lower bands (such as 15, 18 or 23 GHz) to provide 10 Gbps links for up to 10 km.

Active Network Sharing

Regulators worldwide are considering or pursuing the substantial benefits of active network sharing for enhanced coverage, reduced costs, and faster deployment. A McKinsey report in 2018 cited network sharing becoming a standard model for mobile operators, with a reduction in the total cost of ownership by 30 per cent, while improving network quality.⁴

Steps for Consideration

Formulate policies, laws and regulations for the following, with mandated spectrum/network sharing, paid for by reasonable revenue share (2-3 per cent) after a moratorium of 3-5 years (no auctions). Cap profits, and penalise diversion of revenues/profits.

1. Small cells: For Wi-Fi user access, V-band lower range and 6 GHz (using FCC model, as done for 5 GHz). Consider 12 GHz for Wi-Fi next.

2. Wireless backhaul, small cells/towers: V-band upper range and E-band, with light-licensed sharing among telcos for connecting to networks.

3. Private networks, small cells and backhaul: V-band light-licensed* for private networks, with public network connection through licensed telcos.

* After reconsideration December 4, 2021: "V-band allowed in private spaces for private networks and extensions, with public network connection through licensed telcos."

4. Active network sharing: Consider enabling or mandating active sharing of all elements of networks to speed up deployment, reduce clutter and radiation, and for efficient capital investment.

Orchestration and coordination across government departments and consultation with industry, as for NTP-99, to ensure better outcomes.

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Shyam (no space) Ponappa @ gmail dot com

1. https://eparlib.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/799780/1/17_Information_Technology_21.pdf

2. https://www.gsma.com/spectrum/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/wireless-backhaul-spectrum.pdf

3. https://www.gsma.com/spectrum/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/wireless-backhaul-spectrum-positions.pdf

4. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/network-sharing-and-5g-a-turning-point-for-lone-riders

The Rewards of Excess

Take the risks and build infrastructure; the benefits exceed costs

Shyam Ponappa / June 28, 2005

It is interesting but not obvious that despite the problems of collapse, the material benefits of an unbridled expansion tend to exceed what could have accrued from slower-paced, more responsible growth, because expansion provides its milestones as achievements.

Back in the 1980s, my colleagues and I used to watch slack-jawed as columns of Japanese tourists trooped through our magnificent, chocolate-coloured granite office tower in San Francisco that was named for Bank of America's headquarters. Japan loomed over the future the way this building dominated the cityscape, and seemed to be buying up all of America. Then the Japan story unravelled with the real estate bust.

From the Japanese perspective, it may have been a more difficult adjustment: after an economic slump for well over a decade, Japan does not seem to have quite such an ominous tread any more. But while Japan may seem less omnipotent, let us not ignore the most significant facts reflected in its well-heeled streets. For one thing, most people in Japan have enjoyed excellent living standards even while the economy has been in difficult straits for over a decade.

The graph below shows GDP per capita in constant 1995 US dollars for Japan, Germany, and the US. Clearly, the Japanese people have been doing very well materially, even compared with the other major economies.





If this is what a collapse is about, is it something to be wished for, even engineered?! More seriously, my purpose is not to gloss over Japan's problems nor, more to the point, our own, so much as to draw the attention of those who gloat about how badly the Japanese economy is doing, to the fact that day-to-day living there is at a level that is hard to imagine for the beleaguered residents of India's major cities. There is no room for this kind of smugness. What a long way up we have to go to get to where they have fallen to! Likewise, the sceptics harping on the empty buildings in Shanghai and Beijing are missing the point that it will take our people decades to enjoy the material comforts that many of China's people do today, much of which results from the process of building that capacity.

South-east Asia too went bust eight years ago, and is supposedly limping along. This may be true when judged by certain measures. But if you stop in Thailand for instance, whether in Bangkok, at one of its beach resorts (except where the tsunami hit), or up in the hills near Chiang Mai, the level of comfort manifest in the living standards of even the not-so-wealthy is palpably better than for many of the reasonably affluent residents of India. As in Japan, Thailand reflects the South-east Asian experience, where people have had much better material comforts than in the previous decade despite the effects of a bust.


Building more hurts less than building less

It is interesting but not obvious that despite the problems of collapse, the material benefits of an unbridled expansion tend to exceed what could have accrued from slower-paced, more responsible growth, because expansion provides its milestones as achievements. This counter-intuitive finding is in “Crises and Growth: A Re-Evaluation,” a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Romain Rancière, Aaron Tornell, and Frank Westermann ( http://www.nber.org/papers/W10073). The study, reported in a number of publications including The Economist of December 11, 2003, gives the example of India and Thailand, citing how the stable credit policies in India between 1980 and 2001 led to a doubling of GDP per head (100 percent), while in Thailand, despite the recession induced by the crisis of 1997, the increase was almost 150 per cent. So, the most important lesson for us is that, as The Economist put it, an occasional crisis may be a price worth paying for faster growth.


Policy implications

The implications for our policy are that we would benefit from a conscious decision to (a) keep money inexpensive (as we now seem to be doing), and
(b) foster capacity building and risk taking.

These two taken together—capacity building and risk taking—imply encouraging projects that have reasonable odds of success in an objective evaluation, or in other words, basically sound projects. We need not go overboard and court disaster by encouraging bad investments or weak financial institutions, or follow irresponsible monetary or fiscal policies. What we must do, however, is to focus on building capacity in infrastructure ahead of demand, not capacity that lags behind our needs from the start, as has happened thus far.

This requires a new set of ground rules and practices that we must develop and put in place that recognise the reality of capital flows: expensive if you are desperate, difficult to find if you behave unpredictably, simply out of reach if you abrogate contracts. We need to cultivate the practice of relying on contractual obligations (the rule of law), and there needs to be support from a rationalised “policy framework” that we must, as it were, fashion from whole cloth: laws, procedures, and clearances in each sector that work easily and inexpensively together to produce the results sought, unless something is wrong.

An example of leading capacity is the Dabhol project: many argued that it was too much electricity at too high a price. The project was derailed for political reasons, instead of fixing our distribution policies and laws, so that more electricity could be sold more cheaply to more buyers in more places, rather than being constrained by archaic laws and procedures and unrealistic administered prices. Now, we have a situation of acute power shortages in Maharashtra with average tariffs of Rs 5.50 per unit cited by FICCI. This is much higher than the level that led to the controversy over Dabhol in the first place. There are many who continue to stall efforts to restart this project with the misguided reasoning that taxpayers will have to bear the brunt. They need only stop to consider:

- what the costs already are,

- what the additional costs would be of not restarting it, and

- who bears the costs today.

An example of rationalisation in a sector would be an integrated approach to transportation, instead of the fragmented set of separate aims and activities for airlines, railways, roads, and shipping; another example could be integrating energy, power, and fuels. Difficult, but possible; and more important, necessary.

The reason these attributes are especially pertinent to us is that, whether by default or design, national economies follow a trajectory, and we have been decidedly risk-averse. This approach would be contrary to our conservative, cautious approach so far, and more in line with the aggressive, systematic, risk-seeking approach of Japan and China, Thailand, and Malaysia.

In the words of Rancière et al. in “Systematic Crises and Growth,” CESifo Working Paper No. 1451, April 2005 (http://www.cesifogroup.de-cesifo1_wp1451.pdf), “weak institutions lead to severe financial constraints and low growth. Financial liberalisation policies that facilitate risk-taking increase leverage and investment. This leads to higher growth, but also to a greater incidence of crises. Conditions are established under which the costs of crises are outweighed by the benefits of higher growth”.

shyamponappa@gmail.com