As the 3GPP RAN conference announced the freezing of the 5G Release 17 (abbr.: R17) standard, it means that the 5G RedCap new technology standard for the medium and high-speed Internet of Things is ready, and the future will further expand the intelligent new scene of the 5G Internet of Things.
“RedCap, the full name of Reduced Capability NR, literally translates to the meaning of reducing NR capabilities. During the standard research process, some manufacturers also called it NR-Light or NR-lite, and later 3GPP officially named it RedCap.”
In the 3GPP R17 version, RedCap is widely used, including three business scenarios of wearable devices, industrial wireless sensors and video surveillance.
Or use professional names respectively, which are:
1：Enhanced Mobile Broadband（eMBB）
2：Massive MachineType Communication（mMTC）
3：Ultra-reliable and Low Latency Communications（URLLC）
Another application area that deserves general attention is time-sensitive communication
（TSC）.
The network capabilities required for these three scenarios are between 5G high broadband (eMBB), low latency (URLLC) and wide connection (mMTC). During the deployment of 5G networks, if eMBB, mMTC, URLLC, and TSC are all supported in the same network, it will satisfy various IoT industry application deployment scenarios as much as possible.
For special rate and technical requirements, 3GPP defined the capability of RedCap NR equipment in the R17 version. RedCap can achieve a data transmission rate higher than that of LPWA such as NB-IoT and LTE-M, and its cost and power consumption are far away. It is lower than eMBB and achieves a balance in network performance and terminal cost.
Therefore, RedCap is expected to replace 4G medium-speed Internet of Things and support a larger IoT market.
Compared with NR, RedCap’s overall technical solution is more streamlined, including the following four features:
1.Low Cost
The cost of 5G RedCap module equipment is reduced by using less terminal broadband and receiving antennas.
2.Coexistence of large capacity and high efficiency
It works on the 5G network through independent initial BWP (Bandwidth Part) and non-cell-defined synchronization signals, and coexists with eMBB terminals efficiently, which fully plays the intergenerational differences such as 5G’s large bandwidth advantages and large system capacity.
3.High integration
RedCap has the ability to send and receive data at different frequencies at different times, which simplifies the connection, provides better integrations, and tends to miniaturize the equipment.
4.Multiple abilities
It features in lower latency, slicing, positioning, low power consumption, etc.
By supporting 5G terminals with lower complexity, RedCap will gradually solve a major pain point of 5G application cost in vertical industries. At the same time, RedCap’s advantages of low cost, large capacity, high-efficiency coexistence, high integration, and multi-capability will also accelerate the development of 5G. The network deployment process will boost the large-scale commercial use of 5G.
At present, it is the critical stage of 5G empowering thousands of industries, and the readiness of the RedCap standard means that the industrial ecology will accelerate its maturity.
