Why Blockchain will be essential for 5G

Blockchain is transforming various industry sectors with its novel attributes – immutability, security, and transparency. Given these characteristics, the industry is moving towards a huge ecosystem of decentralized services with little or zero supervision of a single authority. 

From finance to supply chain, blockchain technology is paving way for seamless and secure transactions and convenient services. Now blockchain is emerging as a complementary technology to aid 5G and take it to a whole new level. In simple words, the blockchain technology will have a significant role in the growth of 5G applications across the world. 

Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm president, says, “5G will go mainstream in 2020”. He predicts 200 million 5G smartphones will be shipped next year. 5G will be available across major metro areas in 2020 and spread throughout developing countries in 2021.

5G has been on top of the list of priorities of telecom operators. It’s the next big innovation that aims to take the telecom industry to the next level and drive the growth of in-trend Internet of things. The blockchain industry will play a crucial role in driving the growth of 5G and the internet of things. The blockchain will have a broad range of ap­pli­ca­tions in the 5G era, Jiang Wei,

chair of the China Tele­com Blockchain and Dig­i­tal Econ­omy Joint Lab­o­ra­tory, says.  

According to Wei, the blockchain technology has the following applications in taking 5G to the next level – 

Infrastructure crowdsourcing: Telecom operators can overcome infrastructure challenges by means of profit shar­ing and the in­tro­duc­tion of so­cial cap­i­tal. Bid issuance and investment cooperation can be rendered using the resource tendering method. 

1. Infrastructure sharing: Sell-side mobile network operators can use network virtualization to abstract physical and offline electronic infrastructure resources to convert them into different virtual resources. Blockchain can be used to track the usage of resources and ensure security and high-efficiency of resources at the same time. Further, smart contracts will facilitate necessary disintermediation related to payment and sharing.  

2. International roaming: Blockchain can be used to integrate and verify roaming networks. Further, blockchain can be used to share user information of different networks effectively and safely. 

 3. Network slicing: Network slicing is imperative for 5G to function smoothly. Using Blockchain technology, NSB (Network slicer and broker) functions can be replaced. Smart contracts can allow different requesters to achieve independent and dynamic coordination of various services. Further, operators can slice functions on blockchain registration and distribution networks. 

4. Manage and verify internet of things: 5G will significantly reduce the delay in the connection among million IoT devices to less than 1 millisecond. This new-found possibility to pro­vide mo­bile users with new com­mer­cial mod­els and ser­vices. 

Moreover, blockchain-based decentralized management plans offer more trust, visibility, and traceability. In addition to that, automated payments can be achieved. 

While blockchain is already the talk of the technology industry, 5G is slowly becoming the next big thing in the technology industry. The integration of 5G and blockchain technology is the trend of the future. Both technologies are mutually complementary. 

Blockchain and 5G offer unfathomable possibilities for the growth of interconnected devices and take IoT to the next level. Blockchain solves data security and value exchange problems of the internet of things and becomes a driver of growth for 5G. All in all, blockchain will be a key contributor to the growth of the telecom sector and the reason for the advancement of communication technology, as the industry imagines it to be.   

Many countries like China recognize the importance of blockchain. It created the world’s largest blockchain ecosys­tem named Blockchain Ser­vices Net­work (BSN) on 15 April. The BSN accommodates a broad range of blockchain pro­to­cols.