5G Network Capacity: Key Elements and Technologies

It has been projected that, in the next decade, a mobile traffic increase on the order of 1,000 times is expected compared to what we experience today. To meet that dramatic traffic growth, next-generation mobile networks are also expected to achieve a 1,000-fold capacity increase compared to the current generation of wireless network deployments. In this article, we discuss how such capacity growth could be achieved in a ten-year time frame. We discuss the techniques that we expect to have the highest opportunity for increasing the system capacity and estimate their gains based on analysis and simulation. We observe that the main driver of capacity growth is expected to come from network architecture advancements, with heterogeneous networks and convergence of information and communication technology being two of the key techniques. We also estimate that the air-interface evolution would focus not only on improving the link and system spectrum efficiency but also on facilitating the required network efficiency improvements. This article provides insights into the communication technology evolution and can be used as a guideline for technology development toward the fifth generation (5G).