5G is expected to be deployed around 2020, providing pervasive connectivity with ‘fibre‐like’
experience for mobile users. Apart from the expected 10 Gbps peak data rate, the major challenge for 5G is the massive number of connected machines and the 1000x growth in mobile
Drivers for 5G: The ‘Pervasive Connected World’ 25
traffic. The ultra‐broadband and green cellular system will be the driving engine for the future
connected society where anyone and anything will be connected at anytime and anywhere. In
this chapter, we gave an overview of the potential enablers of 5G along with research and
development activities around the globe, including Europe, North America and the Asia‐
Pacific region. Being in the prototype stage, standardisation is the next milestone to achieving
5G, which will be followed by the development phase for two to three years. The last phase is
network deployment and marketing, which may take another couple of years, foreseeing a
potential commercial deployment by around 2020. In the final section of this chapter, we
illustrated the foreseen architecture for 5G, harnessing all the common views on the current
technology trends and the emerging applications. In a nutshell, mmWave technology, hyperdense HetNet, RAN virtualisation and massive MTC are all major breakthroughs being considered for upgrading the cellular system to achieve 5G capability. However, these technology
developments need to be fuelled by the allocation of new spectrum for mobile communications, expected to happen in the upcoming WRC meeting