5G USE CASES

The technologies being developed to support IMT-2020 and beyond are supposed to support following 3 use case categories:-

1. enhanced Mobile BroadBand (eMBB)
2. Ultra Reliable and Low Latency Communications (URLLC)
3. massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC)

eMBB

It deals with very high data rates, high user densities and very high traffic capacity for hotspot scenarios. It also deals with providing seemless experience in high mobility scenarios.

While designing systems for eMBB applications, high importance is given to throughput (both max and avg.), spectral efficiency and traffic capacity of area.

URLLC

It deals with safety critical applications that require low latency and high reliability.

While designing systems for URLLC applications, high importance is given to latency, reliabiltiy and mobility.

mMTC

It caters to IoT applications that require low power consumption, provide low data rates for a very large number of connected devices

While designing systems for mMTC applications, high importance is given to connection density, and some importance is given to energy efficiency also.

Different applications may fall under different use case categories, and some might fall under more than 1 category as well. I’m providing a diagram here, that shows various applications under different categories. This diagram is taken from the book ‘5G-NR-in-Bullets’