TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP IN 5G

Early Trends
5G is rapidly coming into the limelight as it is considered a technology revolution that will address the
growing demands of the telecom industry. It is positioned to enable a connected world using a next
generation radio technology providing superior performance, such as, higher throughput, higher
reliability, lower latency, and better connectivity.

Figure 1 below illustrates commonly accepted use cases for 5G network are eMBB (Enhanced Mobile
Broadband), Massive IoT (Internet of Things) and URLLC (Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency
Communications). eMBB covers Internet access with high data rates to enable rich media applications,
cloud storage and applications, and augmented reality for entertainment. Massive IoT applications
include dense sensor networks for smart homes / buildings, remote health monitoring, and logistics
tracking. URLLC covers critical applications that demand ultra-high reliability and low latency such as
industrial automation, driverless cars, remote surgery, and smart grids.

Many research articles and landscape reports have been published on 5G that discuss various
technology features that are expected to become part of 5G. Some studies have also shown
comparisons in 5G patent portfolios of various companies. However, upon a deeper review, most of
these technology features and associated patents actually relate to LTE Advanced / Advanced Pro or
enhancements of existing cellular technologies. For a more accurate review of 5G technology, one needs
to closely follow the ongoing 5G standardization work and understand the specific technology features
that are becoming part of 5G.

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Several standards development organizations (SDOs), 5G related forums and alliances have been
collaborating for developing and standardizing 5G technology. For example, ITU has already started
development of IMT-2020 to address the anticipated needs of users of mobile services in the years 2020
and beyond. However, considering the success of LTE standards, 3GPP seems to have a clear edge in the
development and standardization of 5G. In September 2015, 3GPP hosted a workshop to discuss 5G
development with various organizations and companies and decided to kick-off the standardization
work from December.

Looking into 5G Standardization by 3GPP

To understand the early trends in development work of 5G, also referred to as New Radio, a study was
conducted by Concur IP Consulting team using the technical contributions data of 5G. The study
included assembling a list of all 5G related technical contributions that were made to various working
groups within 3GPP during the period December 2015 to May 2016. This effort resulted in a total of
1983 technical contributions. Other information such as meeting number, technical contribution (Tdoc)
number, Tdoc title, meeting date, company or companies who made the contribution, was populated
for all the technical contributions.

For counting, the technical contributions were combined for the companies which have been merged or
acquired. For example, Alcatel-Lucent’s contributions were added to those of Nokia to get a final count
of contributions for Nokia. Further, if multiple companies have jointly submitted a technical
contribution, each individual company is given full credit for that technical contribution.

Technology Review

Based on technology review of these contributions, certain focus areas were identified that would lay
the foundation of new radio technology. For example, channel modeling for bands above 6 GHz has
been a focus area in most of the meetings. Below are the focus areas that have been heavily discussed
in past 6 months:

• Channel modeling – For operating new radio technology in bands above 6 GHz, various new
channel models have been presented in 3GPP meetings. The new channel models are required
to support larger channel bandwidth and larger antenna arrays. Further, other features such as
dynamic blockage and spatial consistency need to be supported by the new channel models.
• Waveform and multiple access schemes – Various candidate waveforms such as millimeter
wave (mmW) waveform, flexibly configured OFDM, and variants of DFT-spread-OFDM (e.g.
Zero-Tail DFT-Spread-OFDM) are being discussed and evaluated. Further, multiple access
schemes such as non-orthogonal multiple access schemes based on code domain, interleaving,
or power domain have been considered as candidates for downlink / uplink transmissions.
• Frame structure – After discussing various proposals, a subcarrier spacing of 15 kHz along with a
scaling factor of 2N is selected as the baseline design for new radio technology. Other topics still
in discussion are cyclic prefix selection, timing relation for TDD and FDD, and phase noise
modeling.
• Channel coding and modulation – Channel coding is a critical aspect of the new radio
technology as it heavily impacts the performance of the user equipment. Turbo codes, LPDC
codes, Polar codes, Tail Biting Convolutional Codes, and several other codes are being discussed

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 and evaluated in 3GPP meetings. Modulation schemes such as QPSK, QAM, Gray-Coded QAM
and bit-interleaved coded modulation are being considered for new radio interface.
• Multi-antenna scheme – Beamforming schemes (analog, digital, and hybrid) are presented by
various companies for implementing massive MIMO.

Other focus areas of upcoming 3GPP meetings are as follows:

• Network Architecture – based on Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function

Virtualization (NFV)
• Interworking with other RATs
• Enhanced streaming using Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH)
• Traffic balancing among multiple RATs

Quantitative Review

Figure 2 illustrates top 10 companies contributing to the development of new radio technology based on
the count of their technical contributions. Huawei is the biggest contributor to 5G (new radio)
technology and has submitted more than 300 contributions in last 6 months. Out of these, 29
contributions have been approved. Samsung is marginally behind Huawei and has submitted 285
contributions. This shows continued focus by Samsung in developing mobile technology and associated
patents which can help in managing patent licensing costs in future. Following are Nokia, Ericsson, and
Qualcomm at 3rd, 4th, and 5th position with 262, 255, and 205 contributions respectively. Strong presence
by Intel at 7th position reflects its commitment to compete in 5G chips market.

FIG. 2 Top Companies based on count of Technical Contributions

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Asian companies have shown great interest in development of 5G technology. This is evident by huge
number of technical contributions submitted by these companies. The list of top 10 contributors
includes 6 Asian companies which have so far submitted around 1100 contributions.

Other entities (relatively smaller) that are making a significant impact in 5G development are following:

• Keysight Technologies – Spun off from Agilent technologies in 2014, it specializes in

manufacturing electronic test and measurement equipment and software
• Spreadtrum Communications – A Chinese manufacturer of mobile chipsets
• Cohere Technologies – A US based startup in 5G technology, providing a new modulation
scheme Orthogonal Time Frequency and Space (OTFS) for 5G.

Figure 3 shows top contributor(s) with respect to each of the focus areas. As expected, top 5 players
from Fig. 1 have dominated discussions related to all of the focus areas. Qualcomm has been focusing
on channel coding and modulation techniques for 5G with more than 25 technical contributions.
Huawei, although aggressively contributing in all technology areas, has submitted more than 40
technical contributions related to waveform and multiple access schemes.

Focus Area Top Contributor(s)

Channel Modeling Samsung, Huawei, Nokia
Waveform and Multiple Access Schemes Huawei
Frame Structure Qualcomm, Samsung, Ericsson
Channel Coding and Modulation Qualcomm
Multi-antenna Scheme Samsung, Ericsson

FIG. 3 Top Contributor(s) for each Focus Area

Conclusions

This study discusses 5G technology development and shows early trends from the perspective of
technical contributions. The identified focus areas of 5G technology would prepare a solid platform on
which 5G technology would evolve in the coming years. With continued development of 5G technology,
the number of technical contributions and associated number of patents are going to increase
drastically in the future. Technical contributions generally translate to one or more standard essential
patents (SEPs) depending on their technical merit. Hence, this study indirectly presents an initial picture
of top SEP holders in 5G technology space. As a next step, this analysis of technical contributions can be
extrapolated to identify and study 5G related patents and obtain various hidden insights across 5G
patent portfolios of many big as well as small players.

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