User Experience in 5G Networks

5G customer experience (CX) is a vast area that may include analysis from various different points of view within a planned or operational 5G network. This wider bandwidth can bring new possibilities into all of our lives. Additionally, the capacity and technologies of 5G bring technical advantages such as analytics, network slicing, and mobile edge computing.

What is 5G experience?

It is important to note that, until recently, customer experience was at the bottom of priorities of the majority of operators (CSPs), as they gave more importance to network expansions and updates, problem-solving and being reactive to customers’ demands in general. All this, in the light of a more demanding and empowered end-customer, was just not enough. Is user experience (UX) an answer?

5G user experience: the true emergence of customer experience (CX)

Today’s customers demand not only more bandwidth, but also a proactive approach from operators and the ability to self-manage their services from mobile devices. This is what we, at Comarch, call a digital experience over an omnichannel one.

As we have all probably heard, 5G networks will bring lots of new possibilities, especially in the area of UX. Apart from the opportunity to offer wider bandwidth to support traditional data services such as Internet access, basic and not widespread intelligent applications such as smart home, and video streaming, 5G is also an opportunity to add trillions of connected devices that enable real smart applications such as smart cities, intelligent assignment of bandwidth and native technologies, all of which will result in a better quality of service and enhanced customer experience.

This is why we, at Comarch, would like to analyze and expose all these different techniques and show how these, together with the wider bandwidth of 5G, will improve customer experience for all.

UX: further development of big data analytics

5G will enable the transmission of much more data over wireless networks, which in turn will open the door to enhanced data analytics and, the application of big data techniques with no degradation of the quality of service for end-customers. This will provide the opportunity to analyze customers’ behavior and take proactive measures whenever necessary, for example when operators need to inform customers in advance about works or degradation of service on the network. Operators will be able to analyze information obtained from the call centers, including audio files that are not light-weight, to carry out deeper analysis of the interactions between customers and the operator, and any problems and demands.

Network slicing in the making

Network slicing will allow all users to get specifically what they need, with the exact configuration of stability, latency, bandwidth and/or coverage. For example, requirements for smart cars are totally different from those of users who need the right latency and bandwidth in a home office. In this case, thanks to virtualization techniques, operators will be able to “slice” of the network and allocate different portions for use with smart cars and home office applications. This all will result in much better utilization of the network, improved 5G user experience (UX) and, therefore, better income for the CSPs.

Mobile edge computing is coming

Mobile edge computing will go hand in hand with analytics. The idea behind it is to analyze and take advantage of data closer to the source, avoiding sending the information to the cloud in order to reach the analytics platforms. Thanks to 5G, operators will have the possibility to enable mobile edge computing and get a closer look into the data generated in the millions of IoT devices that 5G is aimed to support, and then adapt their services. This will allow better distribution of network bandwidth resources.

5G brings lots of new possibilities and technologies that will help operators improve their services, differentiate offers and get the best return on what they can offer their customers. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light clients’ need to have everything at home, remotely and provided just as quickly in a changing situation.