Welcoming 5G in Indonesia: Its Impact and Our Roles
The year 2020 is the marking of second decade in the 21st century. But for us, who under heavy influences of telecommunication advancement, hallmark this decade as transition from 4G technologies to 5G technologies. The world of telecommunication already phasing out the emergence of 5G device. The first standard has been released by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). [1]
The Ericsson Company itself already promising 5G RAN Software that make it possible for a device to run 5G New Radio (NR) system. Other than that, Ericsson radio system from 2015 onward already capable of running 5G NR with a simple click installation.[2]
What is this revolution of technology mean for our country? To analyze the impact of 5G, we should think of this 5G phenomenon with different perspective. Whether we are an engineer, an entrepreneur, or maybe just a common streamers and social media enthusiast, the impact of 5G generation devices will create a massive change for our daily lives.
Let’s talk about opportunity of new things. The development of 5G have created a path for future devices to emerge since 5G technologies expected to use millimeter waves[3]. The background of millimeter waves usage is because a wireless connected device had to reserve in a specific frequency in order to transmit data. And the spectrum present in nowadays device wouldn’t be able to fit all present and future devices.
Telecommunication devices that widely used in our daily lives is allocated in 3 kHz to 30 GHz radio frequencies. The problem is, millimeter waves (30GHz — 300 GHz frequencies) only applicable for satellite communications with no obstruction[4]. This is why millimeter waves will forces us to use small cells[5]. Low powered, small ranges, but really useful to retransmitting signal.
Another thing about 5G technologies, its high data rate will also be powered by a multiple input and multiple output tower (MIMO tower) and beamforming operation[6]. Where the tower could handle much more signal but at the same time transferring it to specific device, avoiding interference when transmitting a signal. And to avoid the interfering between transmitting signal and receiving signal, full-duplex technologies had also been developed[7] so that both signal could be transmitted simultaneously.
So there are a lot of infrastructure that needed to be built when 5G finally comes. But it would be compensated with the potential of transforming anything into interconnected devices. Whether it is a dishwasher or maybe as simple as showers in our bathroom, we can make an adaptive devices based on a simple data. This could be the big money changer for entrepreneur and invertor in Indonesia. Where imagination is the only limitation to the future of internet of things (IoT).
Although the execution wasn’t completely successful yet, the emergence of 5G device will directly create a pathway for Indonesia Broadband Plan especially in information and communications technology (ICT) implementation. The plan contains implementation of ICT in five priority sectors: e-governance, e-education, e-health, e-logistic, e-procurement[8] and in order to turn these plan into reality, a good human resources and high speed data rate is inevitable.
As a user of ICT itself, the demand of heavy data in nowadays technologies have us craving for the fastest data rate that provided. By February 2018, number of mobile broadband subscriptions grew from 200,000 in 2017 to 5.2 billion. We can assume that about 70% people in the world had a smartphone, not a simple call and messaging mobile phone since global mobile data traffic had also reached around 13 million ExaBytes/month[9]. It is also not quite a surprise that mobile video traffic is projected to grow by 55% from 2015 to 2021[10] since emergences of live streaming Instagram, YouTube, and other streaming platform.
But the problem is, how often did we lost a 4G signal in a rural area? Especially outside of Java.
Figure 2: 4G(orange), 3G(green), 2G(blue) coverage of Indosat Ooredoo (Top) and Telkomsel (Bottom). Showing a differences of coverage between island.[11]
Ignoring the comparison between the two providers, it is shown that Indonesia providers couldn’t completely cover 4G signal. 3G itself, with lower data rate, might still met Indonesia data traffic needs such as Instagram, LINE, WhatsApp but it wouldn’t be sufficient for things such as HD streaming or live streaming. So, does Indonesia need a higher data rate? Yes, but it won’t be effective if providers couldn’t even cover the whole islands.
The best thing to do right now is to develop the available transceiver station to be compatible with 5G devices onward. And conduct a plan of building 5G infrastructure such as small cells, MIMO towers that cover whole region until the technology is truly arrives. Not only that, Indonesia should also create a strong regulation of telecommunication such as frequency allocation to effectively use the big gap millimeter waves spectrum. Not just technical regulation, the broadband plan of the country itself should be integrated with 5G technologies. New broadband plan should be created to update the outdated implementation. Avoiding another technological gap between this archipelagic country with its neighbor.
When the infrastructure and the regulation is ready. Then it’s we who decide whether to be a pioneer in this new emerging generation or just to be the user. There are a lot of device that could be develop such as device that can track school of fish accurately in the whole ocean. A smart-market that deliver groceries by drones. Or maybe, a smart traffic light that could adapt with certain traffic. A lot of our problem could be fix with a transfer of a single data. And these problems could effectively and efficiently solve with telecommunication.
We can only hope that when the 5G comes, Indonesia have the capability of transmitting such big data traffic anywhere. And Indonesian will be ready to enter the revolution not as users, but as the creators.
[1] Mirza Golam et al. Next Generation New Radio Small Cell Enhancement: Architectural Options, Functionality and Performance Aspects. Online Access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8337811
[2] https://www.ericsson.com/en/networks/offerings/5g/5g-platform
[3] https://www.rcrwireless.com/20160815/fundamentals/mmwave-5g-tag31-tag99
[4] https://www.rfpage.com/what-are-radio-frequency-bands-and-its-uses/
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEx_d0SjvS0
[6] Roland Gabriel, Karl August Steinhauser. Active Antennas for MIMO and Beamforming Operation. Online Access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6518373
[7] Animesh Yadav et al. Full-duplex communication. Online access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8345770
[8] https://ppidkemkominfo.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/rencana_pitalebar_indonesia_2014-2019.pdf
[9] https://www.ericsson.com/assets/local/mobility-report/documents/2018/emr-interim-feb-2018.pdf
[10] https://www.statista.com/statistics/622536/mobile-traffic-category-cagr/
