Security Requirement and Standards for 4G and 5G Wireless Systems

Abstract

In this article, we give an overview on the security requirements and standards for the fourth generation (4G) long term evolution (LTE) and the fifth generation (5G) wireless systems. Compared with the third generation (3G) universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS), the LTE system not only improves the network capacity and coverage but also provides better performance of data rate, access latency, energy efficiency (EE), and spectrum efficiency (SE) [1]. With the increasing data usage and the new multimedia applications, LTE technologies have been proposed by the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) as the broadband mobile wireless networks with packet switched, IP-based technology solely, fully inter-working with different access technologies, different types of base stations and relay nodes. To support more use cases with unique service requirements, 5G wireless systems are developed. There are eight advanced features for 5G wireless systems, 1-10 Gbps connections to end points in the field, 1 millisecond latency, 1000x bandwidth per unit area, 10-100x number of connected devices, 99.999% availability, 100% coverage, 90% reduction of network energy usage and up to ten years battery life for low power devices [2]. These advanced features make 5G wireless systems capable of supporting many new use cases, new industry applications, a multitude of devices and applications to connect society at large. Due to the introduction of new characteristics, there are many new security requirements in the design of the security architectures of the 4G LTE and 5G wireless systems.