ETSI, CAICT, Leading Operators, and Huawei Jointly Propose the F5G Industry Evolution Initiative

[Shenzhen, China, April 27, 2022] Informa Tech successfully held the "Towards F5G Evolution, Promoting Industrial Prosperity" Summit during the 2022 Huawei Global Analyst Summit. At the Summit, European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Globe Telecom, MTN Group, and Huawei jointly proposed the F5G industry evolution initiative, calling on all industry stakeholders to work together to define F5G evolution directions and standards and boosting the prosperity of the fixed network industry.

ETSI, CAICT, leading operators, and Huawei delivering keynote speeches

In 2020, ETSI officially released the Fifth-Generation Fixed Network (F5G) to solve the issues of fragmentation and unclear generation in the fixed network industry, taking the global fixed network industry into the fast lane. In the future, XR, holographic imaging, and naked-eye 3D services will be a common sight in homes and enterprises, the industrial field will require higher network reliability, and green, low-carbon, and sustainable development will be high on the agenda. All of this will place new demands on F5G networks, making the further strengthening of F5G network capabilities a major focal point for the industry.

Luca Pesando, Chairman of ETSI's ISG F5G, shared the progress of defining F5G Advanced standards at the Summit. He said: "The ISG F5G develops smoothly with its publication of F5G Release 1 in the first mandate. Now it's the right time to discuss the evolution of F5G to the next level 'F5G Advanced' in its second mandate. '"

Ao Li, Chief Engineer of CAICT, said: "Currently, F5G not only needs to be deployed on a large scale based on application driving and technology matching, but also to be continuously evolved to contribute to the long-term development of the digital economy."

"The broadband industry has seen rapid development since the release of the F5G standard," said David Wang, Huawei Executive Director of the Board and Chairman of the ICT Infrastructure Managing Board. "Gigabit access has become universal for homes in China and many developed countries around the world. Huawei has developed new fiber to the home (FTTH) solutions to improve the network experience of home users. In addition, Huawei's innovative fiber to the office (FTTO) and fiber to the machine (FTTM) solutions have created many more use cases for optical networks. Looking ahead to 2025, all industry players should work together to drive F5G evolution and satisfy home, business, and industrial needs for higher bandwidth, lower latency, and more connections. This is why we proposed F5.5G."

David Wang delivering a keynote speech

F5.5G will create greater value than F5G in four ways:

• First, F5.5G will use next-generation technologies such as Wi-Fi 7, 50G PON, and 800G to improve home access bandwidth everywhere from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps.
• Second, network capabilities will move beyond telecoms level to industrial level. F5.5G will reduce network latency to microseconds, meeting the needs of industrial robot control. F5.5G will also improve network reliability from 99.99% to 99.9999%, facilitating high-frequency power grid dispatching.
• Third, F5.5G will move beyond optical communication to optical sensing, which will be able to detect vibration, stress, temperature, and more through fiber scattering, and improve positioning precision to within approximately one meter.
• Finally, F5.5G will boost network energy efficiency by 10-fold thanks to the low energy consumption of optical technologies.

Moving forward, Mr. Wang called on the industry to reach a consensus on F5G evolution, and work together to shape a thriving industry ecosystem and bring network technologies to maturity.

Leading operators such as China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Globe Telecom, and MTN also shared the scenario requirements and business practices of F5G evolution, and expressed their intention to jointly evolve to F5G and enrich F5G service scenarios. At the end of the Summit, all participants proposed the formulation of the F5G Evolution Industry Vision White Paper, calling on all parties in the global fixed network industry to jointly promote F5G evolution, boost industry prosperity, and create greater value for social development.