Emerging Computing Paradigms

9 Mobile Networks 5G and Beyond

Pavel Loskot

ZJU-UIUC Institute, Zhejiang, Haining, 718 East Haizhou Road, China

9.1 Cellular Networks and Mobility

The emergence of mobile cellular networks in the late 80s revolutionized the delivery of public telecommunication services. For the first time, the phone calls could be made anywhere and anytime from portable battery-powered devices within the coverage of cellular base stations. The evolution of mobile cellular networks since then followed the path of digitalization, increasing the data rates, improving the coverage and reliability, and offering a plethora of new services and applications to the end users. The design of cellular networks has been initially optimized only for spectral efficiency. Later energy efficiency became important to prolong the battery life, and especially to sustain profits for the network operators as their operational and capital expenditures grew significantly over time. The recent 5G networks offer ultra-reliable and low latency communications for users, machines, and devices. The application requirements in wireless networks must reflect the trade-offs between data rates, link reliability and latency, and the achievable coverage.

In general, the mobility in cellular networks must be supported across all protocol layers. At the physical layer, the key task is to establish and maintain connectivity among the neighboring nodes. The traveling user must undergo periodic hand overs between neighboring base ...