Towards the Support of 5G Networks During COVID-19

Abstract

Compared to the Second World War and the 1918 Spanish flu in terms of impact on human lives and behaviors, COVID-19 is a pandemic experienced worldwide. Maintaining social distancing, wearing face masks, and staying home to quarantine are some common measures being followed to date to help control the spread of this disease. In complying with these measures, human life has taken on a new normal in which routinely in-person activities such as shopping, training, education, meetings, entertainment, etc. have fully shifted from offline to online mode. This paradigm shift has accelerated the use of digital technologies uniquely among every human. The excessive use of telecommunication technologies has put an enormous strain on both fixed and mobile networks. Existing networks often encounter various challenges due to high traffic congestion on core networks which merely degrades its performance. Even in its early stage, the recently launched 5G network combines various features, such as enhanced mobile broadband and reliable low delay communication, to provide support for some of the challenges faced during this crisis. In addition, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) features have been embedded into 5G networks to enable autonomous and intelligent telecommunication networks. The use of AI can help in dynamic resource allocation due to the ability to assign resources to different locations on-demand in real-time vs. the static resource allocation implemented in existing networks.