.
Thoughts on 5G and IEEE by Tim Schoechle, PhD
The
5G wireless bandwagon
In public discussions on the topic of communications and
media technology—e.g., the mention of “smart cities” and of the future of
everything from smart phones, and autonomous vehicles to electric power
grids—we frequently see an emphasis on 5G wireless (fifth generation) and a neglect of the trends toward municipal
fiber networks and even of 4G wireless technology (also known as “LTE” for
“long term evolution”). In spite of the
heavy promotional rhetoric from certain elements of the telecommunications and
semiconductor industries, 5G is still undefined and burdened with many
problematic aspects—both technical and non-technical. Nevertheless, the 5G bandwagon seems to move forward.
Industry lobbyists, including trade associations like TIA,
CTIA, and cellular wireless manufacturers and carriers are all over congress
and state legislatures to pass legislation preempting local regulation of
wireless cell sites. They clearly are
afraid of localized opposition and want to head it off, particularly because 5G
has a serious and threatening vulnerabilities—mainly its limited range and the
signal propagation difficulties with the millimeter wavelengths that it
proposes to use—and the fact that 5G would require a vastly greater
proliferation of “small cells” compared with conventional 3G or 4G LTE
wireless.
The IEEE
On the technical side, one of the strongest 5G promoters is
the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)—a highly
respected national and international professional society that sponsors many
conferences, and publishes technical and non technical publications including
many technical standards related to communications. The IEEE’s vigorous advocacy of 5G seems to
fly in the face of the fact that the relevance, scope, and economic viability
of 5G is still very much in question, and that 4G LTE is not fully deployed and
is still actively expanding and evolving.
Why does the IEEE
promote 5G so heavily?
As a 25-year IEEE member and a member of the IEEE
Communications Society (ComSoc), myself, I have been increasingly puzzled
by this question. I found part of the
answer recently in an editorial, appearing in the June 2018 issue of IEEE
Communications Magazine on the “President’s Page” titled “The Challenge of
Industry Engagement” by VPs Khaled Letaief and Stefano Galli.
It seems that the problem that IEEE wants to solve with 5G
may indicate a fundamental structural problem with how corporate concentration,
financialization, and globalization have changed the basic nature of research
and development and of technical innovation in modern society—and with it, the
career paths for science and engineering—and not in a good way. The following excerpts tell the story.
1. Corporate R&D has changed.
There are many more incentives and pressure for delivering short term results
rather than investing in long term R&D. For example, the financial industry
demands quarterly estimates, contracts to executives have short-medium duration
with incentives on short term stock appreciation, etc. The actual research
being done in industry today has dramatically diminished since the golden years
of a couple of generations ago when research conducted in certain corporations
was not that different from research conducted in academia. Growing competitive
pressure and the resort to the use of trade secrets rather than patenting, has
greatly affected the possibility of industry researchers and practitioners
contributing to conferences and publications.
2. Incentive
for industry people are lacking. While academics are incentivized to
produce scholarly output and to participate in scholarly activities as part of
their job, industry people find it increasingly difficult to do so as companies
no longer set incentives for — and might sometimes actively discourage –
participating in IEEE activities or even seeking recognition as, for example,
Fellow elevation. Today, it is very much the case that industry people work
breathlessly from deadline to deadline, often supporting obsolete or legacy
products, and all this makes it difficult for them to submit papers or even
merely contribute their time as volunteers. And this difficulty often becomes
an impossibility when activity in IEEE (from publishing to volunteering) is neither
recognized nor encouraged by management.
“Engaging” industry
As economic (and political) influence becomes more
concentrated in fewer and larger corporations, trade associations and standards
bodies find members and participants harder to come by and their activities
become harder to pay for. Smaller
innovative ventures must struggle to survive and the standards bodies and
technical conferences are left to consultants and to a few large corporate
players. Such trends become reflected in
the nature of the technical literature of the field.
These considerations are supported by a 2006 study edited by Robert Lucky and Jon Eisenberg for the U.S. National Academy of Engineering which is very relevant for ComSoc. The study showed a sharp change in publication trends in telecom research between 1970 and 2005. In 1970, about 80 percent of papers published in IEEE Transactions on Communications were authored by industry people, but in 2004 that number declined to 15 percent (U.S. industry alone decreased from 70 percent to 7 percent). Similar trends hold also for conference papers (e.g., ICC and Globecom). The reduced contributions from industry have been partially offset by an increase in the number of academic papers, from both U.S. and foreign universities.
To some extent, the decrease in industry participation in IEEE activities is basically “physiological,” driven by externalities and, unfortunately, there is little we can do about it. Given the strong role of these externalities, it is difficult to adequately address the chronic decrease in industry membership and engagement, and what is needed is to reformulate the problem statement…
ComSoc’s approach in 2018-2019 will be to
maintain and nurture the excellence in its Technical Activities (to which
industry and academia should contribute together with sometimes different but
legitimate points of view and priorities) and augment those with other
activities and services that are more suitable for an audience that is not
interested in the scientific details of a technology but rather in its
applications, standardization, place in the ecosystem, product-oriented design,
etc. In engaging this new type of audience that is not interested in the deep
technical and scientific analysis typical of scholarly research, then the
challenge is to work toward differentiating our products and services while
coupling them with a stronger membership value proposition.
Out of all this came the current IEEE focus on 5G as
something the local chapters could get behind that would hopefully engage
industry and save their jobs and careers.
For example, in May of 2016 I attended a technical meeting of the IEEE
Communications Society held at the University of Colorado, Boulder, when a
distinguished expert and IEEE fellow, Professor Dr. H. Anthony Chan of Huawei
Technologies, Plano, Texas, presented an in-depth technical lecture on 5G
and Future Wireless Internet: Challenges and Emerging Technologies. Prof.
Chan noted that a new generation of wireless has been introduced each decade,
and that 5G is intended to supplement or supersede 4G LTE by around 2020. He
described the existing and planned architecture for wireless access and
supporting wired core networks and stated that the intention was to support
“ever higher speed” wireless access to the Internet.
In spite of the highly technical nature of Professor Chan’s
presentation, when asked about the basic motivation driving 5G, he had a
surprisingly concise and non-technical answer: “...if technology does not
change, the company will die...it is about more jobs...engineering and
manufacturing.” Chan added, “people must buy a new phone.”
The take-away
So 5G is not really about higher speed Internet access, lower latency, IoT, smart cities, smart grids, transportation, or any societal need. It is not about market demand or needs. It is about jobs and careers. It is about compensating for an industrial structure that has become derelict and not “engaged” in anything except increasing stockholder value and executive compensation.
Tim Schoechle
Boulder, Colorado
2018-08-11
.