5G deployments are only just now making inroads in developing countries, but Huawei is already making plans for the technology's evolution. The China-based vendor explained that the foundation for this "5.5G" evolution will be laid by improved IoT capabilities and scenarios, uplink centric broadband communication (UCBC), real-time broadband communication (RTBC), and harmonized communication and sensing (HCS).

Huawei set the stage for this scenario as part of its 2020 Global Mobile Broadband Forum in Shanghai. David Wang, the vendor’s executive director, said during a keynote speech at the event that other forthcoming 5G features, including enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine type communications (mMTC), ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), and network slicing will also play significant roles in the evolution of 5G. As a result of these improvements, Huawei expects average 5G speeds to increase from 120 Mb/s to 2 Gb/s and latency to get down to an average of 5 milliseconds. 

“5.5G is our vision for the industry. It is an enhancement and extension of the three standard 5G scenarios defined by the [International Telecommunication Union]: eMBB, mMTC, and URLLC,” Wang said, claiming that 5G will eventually support up to 100 billion connections.

Wang's citing of the ITU's 5G definition of was somewhat significant as that body has never historically released a ".5" iteration of any of the "G" iterations. That has not stopped vendors from unleashing their own unofficial updates, including Huawei's own 4.5G push and a 4.9G push from Nokia.

Wang said that the addition of UCBC, RTBC, and HCS will allow 5G to evolve from three to six application scenarios, fueling more intelligence in connectivity. UCBC will deliver a tenfold increase in uplink bandwidth, RTBC will allow for a tenfold increase in bandwidth with predetermined latency requirements, and HCS will apply massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology to improve capabilities required for connected vehicles, drones, and autonomous driving, according to the Chinese vendor. 

Wang argued that vendors and operators should start working on these features within 3GPP standards bodies as soon as possible. Moreover, to deliver on this vision the industry will require more sub-100 GHz spectrum and deeper integration of 5G into specific enterprise verticals, he said. 

The company also revealed 5GtoB Suite, a body of software designed to assist 5G mobile network operators with operations and maintenance requirements for enterprises. The platform allows for more intelligent and precise planning, simplified on-demand provisioning and proactive network services for planning, construction, and maintenance, according to Huawei.

It claims that on-demand network slicing can be achieved in hours and network planning accuracy is greater than 95% on its 5GtoB Suite. The platform allows operators to monitor for adherence to service-level agreements by using artificial intelligence (AI) to predict needs across the network and the devices connected to it, Huawei said.

5GtoB Suite also uses AI to provide a visualization of performance at the slice and network levels, and can predict and prevent faults and link failures up to 15 days in advance, according to the vendor.