A look beyond 5G communication networks and services

16 July 2015

The Expert Group of NetWorld 2020, the European Technology Platform for communication networks and services together with the Vision Group of the 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G PPP) held a joint workshop in Paris last June*, collocated with the European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC 2015).

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A total of eight workshops were celebrated on the first day of this renowned international conference. In spite of this competitive offer, the Joint Expert Group and Vision Group Workshop was a great success, attracting a mixed audience of 110 participants amidst researchers and specialised professionals interested on technologies “beyond-5G”.

The workshop brought together 16 technical presentations on diverse topics on the field of 5G communications and what lies ahead. The high number of attendees, considering that several other workshops were also scheduled in parallel, clearly shows the interest of the international ICT community on the future of 5G technologies, and how the Expert and the Vision Group are succeeding on gathering the points of view of their different tenants.

The workshop was divided into four technical sessions, each one aggregating similar research position papers. Each of the sessions was chaired by a reputed scientist:

• The first of the sessions was chaired by Prof. Paul Muller, from the University of Kaiserslautern, and included papers discussing the future of SDN and NFV paradigms in beyond-5G scenarios.
• The second session was chaired by Prof. Ralf Steinmetz from the Technische Universität Darmstadt and encompassed the most disruptive approaches which aim at redefining current network architectures.
• The third session was chaired by Prof. David Larrabeiti from University Carlos III of Madrid. Topics discussed include optical and radio novel technologies, encompassing spectrum management and cognitive/cooperative techniques.
• The fourth session was chaired by Prof. Holger Karl, and was focused on new paradigms that will enable top notch features in next generation networks, such as zero delay communications or predictive/anticipatory systems.

As a result of the technical presentations, the workshop originated a very vivid discussion on which technologies and paradigms should be considered for beyond-5G scenarios, discussion that extended until the end of the workshop.

As a tangible outcome of this event, several topics have been identified as of potential interest in beyond-5G systems and a white paper will be written materialising the initial discussion described above.

* The workshop was held at the Room Molière, Palais des Congrès of Issy les Moulineau, Paris, France, on June 29^th, 2015