Abstract:
This paper highlights use cases, emerging machine type communication (MTC) technologies, ongoing research activities, and existing research challenges in 5G networks. 5G networks are faced with the following challenges: (i) handling large amounts of data, (ii) coping with different types of data traffic, i.e., human-type, machine-type, and combined-type (iii) connecting billions of machines, and (iv) severe resource limitations of devices. The ubiquitous nature of cellular networks make them the preferred choice for access networks, but a lack of communication resources is a problem. To address the resource scarcity issue, different wireless access networks may combine to form a heterogeneous network (HetNet) and hence become a single 5G network. For long-term success of 5G networks, we envision the following as important research outputs: (i) a scalable 5G network architecture that can handle a large number of human users and machines considering different constraints, (ii) a comprehensive quality of service (QoS) framework to satisfy heterogeneous users and machines requirements, (iii) a procedure for intelligent access network selection, and (iv) comprehensive inter-network handover mechanisms.