Ultra-low-latency services in 5G systems: A perspective from 3GPP standards

Abstract

Recently, there is an increasing demand for ultra-low-latency (ULL) services such as factory automation, autonomous driving, and telesurgery that must meet an end-to-end latency of less than 10 ms. Fifth-generation (5G) New Radio guarantees 0.5 ms one-way latency, so the feasibility of ULL services is higher than in previous mobile communications. However, this feasibility ensures performance at the radio access network level and requires an innovative 5G network architecture for end-to-end ULL across the entire 5G system. Hence, we survey in detailed two the 3rd Generation Partnership Party (3GPP) standardization activities to ensure low latency at network level. 3GPP standardizes mobile edge computing (MEC), a low-latency solution at the edge network, in Release 15/16 and is standardizing time-sensitive communication in Release 16/17 for interworking 5G systems and IEEE 802.1 time-sensitive networking (TSN), a next-generation industry technology for ensuring low/deterministic latency. We developed a 5G system based on 3GPP Release 15 to support MEC with a potential sub-10 ms end-to-end latency in the edge network. In the near future, to provide ULL services in the external network of a 5G system, we suggest a 5G-IEEE TSN interworking system based on 3GPP Release 16/17 that meets an end-to-end latency of 2 ms.