Evaluation of 5G Network and Security for Wireless Networks (MN603)

This report provides a comprehensive evaluation of 5G network technology, starting with a comparison of 5G with previous generations (1G to 4G) based on spectrum, modulation techniques, medium access, speed, and security. The report then details the 5G architecture, explaining its components and functionalities. It identifies and analyzes various security challenges and potential attacks specific to 5G, including those related to SDN, NFV, and MEC, along with privacy concerns. Furthermore, the report discusses the limitations of 5G in terms of network coverage, explaining the trade-offs between bandwidth and coverage area, and suggesting strategies for improvement. The report concludes by highlighting the importance of addressing security issues and network coverage challenges for the successful deployment of 5G technology.

Running head: EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
Name of student
Name of university
Author’s note:

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................2
Motivation:.................................................................................................................................2
Discussion:.................................................................................................................................3
Comparison of cellular networks:..........................................................................................3
5G Architecture:...................................................................................................................12
Identification and Analysis of 5G Attacks:..........................................................................13
Identification and Analysis of 5G limitation in network coverage:.....................................15
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................16

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
Introduction:
The report has analysed how technology has evolved from the first generation or the 1G to
the latest technology that is the 5G that is tending in the telecommunication industry. A
detailed analysis has been provided in this context describing the comparison between these
technologies that include comparison in terms of bandwidth considered for communication,
network speed, and technique for access to the medium, technique for modulation, and
security issues and security mechanism. Along with this, the report has also described an
architecture for 5G technology. The report has also analysed some of the important security
issues of 5G technology and techniques for ensuring data security are also described in this
context as well. The report in addition to the security issues has also described the limitation
of 5G technology especially the issue of network coverage and strategies for improving
network coverage are discussed in details in this report as well. Therefore this report provides
a comprehensive overview of 5G technology and issues of 5G technology in details.
Motivation:
When 4G technology was first launched, it completely redefined the mobile communication
technology. It was quite advanced compared to previous technologies including 3G
technology [1]. However, 5G is quite different from all of these technologies and it is not
about mobile data speed, 5G is intended to provide required infrastructure required for
implanting various smart and advanced applications which include IoT, driverless car,
wireless home automation, cloud computing and other advanced applications as well and
therefore, it is one of the most important research topics right now in the telecom industry [8].

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
Discussion:
Comparison of cellular networks:
In this context different cellular networks generations (5G, 4G, 3G, and 2G) are analysed in
terms of:
a. Spectrum allocated for Communication
b. Techniques required for modulation
c. Mechanism through which access to medium is executed
d. speed provided by the network and requirement of bandwidth
e. Security techniques and risk
Topics for comparison Technology Description
Spectrum allocated for
Communication [1]
1G Spectrum requirement for
1G technology is:
Frequency: 150MHz /
900MHz
2G Spectrum requirement for
2G technology is:
Frequency: 1.8GHz
(900MHz), digital
telecommunication
3G Spectrum requirement for
3G technology is:

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
Frequency: 1.6 – 2.0 GHz
4G Spectrum requirement for
4G technology is:
Frequency: 2 – 8 GHz
5G Spectrum requirement for
5G technology is:
Frequency: 30-300 GHz
Techniques required for modulation
[2]
1G the modulation technique
that is deployed for
modulating in the 1G
technology is
analog frequency
modulation
2G the modulation technique
that is deployed for
modulating in the 2G
technology is Gaussian
Minimum Shift Keying
or Gaussian filtered
Minimum Shift Keying
3G the modulation technique
that is deployed for
modulating in the 3G

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
technology is
8PSK modulation scheme
4G the modulation
techniques that are
deployed for modulating
in the 4G technology are
phase-shift keying
(QPSK), 16-phase
quadrature amplitude
modulation (16QAM), or
64-state quadrature
amplitude modulation
(64QAM)
5G the modulation
techniques that are
deployed for modulating
in the 5G technology are
Filter Bank Multi-Carrier
(FBMC), Universal
Filtered Multi-Carrier
(UFMC), Generalized
Frequency Division
Multiplexing (GFDM),
Filtered OFDM (f-

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
OFDM)
Mechanism through which access to
medium is executed [3]
1G medium access control is
provided through the
frequency-division
multiple access (FDMA)
where the bandwidth that
is provided for the
communication is divided
into frequency bands
without any overlapping
2G medium access control is
provided through the
techniques which include
time-division multiple
access (TDMA) and
code-division multiple
access (CDMA)
3G medium access control is
provided through the
code-division multiple
access (CDMA)
4G medium access control is
provided through the
combination of multiple-

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
input, multiple-output
(MIMO) technology with
orthogonal frequency-
division multiplexing
(OFDM)
5G medium access control is
provided through the
combination of Massive
Multiple-Input Multiple-
Output (MIMO),
Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiplexing
(OFDM) and Multiuser
(MU) MIMO
speed provided by the network and
requirement of bandwidth [4]
1G The network speed or the
rate of the data transfer in
1G is between 2.4 Kbps
to 14.4 kbps
In terms of bandwidth
requirements 1G
considers narrow band
which refers to
Bandwidth: Analog
telecommunication

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
(30KHz)
2G The network speed or the
rate of the data transfer in
2G is between 14.4 Kbps
to 64 kbps
In terms of bandwidth
requirements 2G also
considers narrow band
which refers to
Bandwidth: 900MHz
(25MHz)
3G The network speed and
rate of data exchange in
3G is between 144kbps –
2Mbps and 2Mbps refers
to the maximum data
speed for the 3G
network.
In terms of bandwidth
requirements, 3G
requires wide band which
refers to
Bandwidth: 100MHz

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
4G The network speed and
rate of data exchange in
4G is between 100Mbps
– 1Gbps
In terms of bandwidth
requirements, 4G also
requires wide band which
refers to
Bandwidth: 100MHz
5G The network speed and
rate of data exchange in
5G is minimum 1Gbps
and theoretically there is
no limit of data transfer
speed
In 5G technology ultra-
wideband is considered
Security techniques and risk [5] 1G Not any significant
security techniques
deployed
2G The features of security
in 2G network are
authentication,

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
confidentiality and
anonymity.
In order to ensure
authentication in GSM,
A3 algorithm is used. For
encryption A5 algorithm
is used and for cipher key
A8 algorithm is
considered.
3G In order to ensure that
security in 3G, restriction
of unauthorised
modification, insertion
and replay of messages is
deployed and along with
that it also deploys the
128-bit integrity key (IK)
to ensure authentication
4G In 4G, security features
which were considered
for ensuring security in
the 2G and 3G were
considered for 4G as
well, although some

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
modifications were done
as well. Some of these
modifications to enhance
security includes
extension of asymmetric
encryption range and
narrowing signal
transfers to ensure that it
is not easy for the
hackers to access data
without authorization
5G The ERAP framework
that integrates the
primary authentication
along with the secondary
authentication is
deployed for enhancing
security in 5G
technology. The security
architecture in 5G
ensures that while the
initial protocol message
is sent, the set of
information which is sent
as clear text is limited

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
and therefore it is not
easy for the hackers to
exploit the protocol
message considered for
identification of the
server. Therefore, it
ensures that the security
of the subscribers is not
affected in the 5G
technology.

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
5G Architecture:
Analysis of the 5G architecture:
This is the architecture of the 5G NR (New Radio) which refers to a new radio access
technology designed by the 3GPP for deploying 5G mobile network [6].
In this architecture as described in the figure provided in this context, gNB node offers NR
the required user plane along with the control plane protocol terminations for the use
equipment or the UE. This UE incudes terminal devices of the 5G network for example
smartphone, tablet and laptop and connection of UE to the 5GC is done through the NG
interface. The ng-eNB node provides E-UTRA user plane along with the control plane
protocol terminations for the use equipment or the UE and connection of UE to the 5GC is
done through the NG interface. In this context, AMF refers to Access and Mobility
Management Function and UPF refers to User Plane Function.
5GC (5G Core) Network architecture offers extensive flexibility, modularity and scalability.
It offers various features such as network slicing which makes it easier to provide services for
executing various consumers’ requirements. Along with this it also provides distributed

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
cloud, Network functions virtualization or NFV and Software Defined Networking or SDN
which makes this architecture effective and efficient as well.
Identification and Analysis of 5G Attacks:
Security challenges Description solutions for security
challenges
Security challenges due to
Software Defined
Networking or SDN [3]
SDN which makes it easier to
manage network, it also
affect network security as it
updates and modifies flow
rules associated with the data
forwarding elements which
provides context for denial of
services or DoS which
exploits network security
 Global analysis of
network
 Centralized control of
the network
 Integrating
programmability in
the network
Security challenges due to
Network functions
virtualization or NFV [4]
NFV is vulnerable to various
cyber-security issues such as
spoofing, sniffing and DoS
and therefore, it affects the
overall network security
 Remote verification
and integrity analysis
of the virtual systems
 Ensuing protection at
hardware level of the
network for
enhancing security of
the privacy
information
Security challenges due to
Multi-access edge computing
MEC shares resources among
various users and therefore, if
 Integrating
antimalware solutions

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
or MEC [5] it is exploited through the
execution of the malicious
code, then the security of the
overall system is affected as
well which makes it one of
the important security
challenges of the 5G
technology
and securing the
mobile terminal
 lightweight dynamic
credential generation
mechanism for
ensuing user identity
protection
 in-device spatial
cloaking mechanism
for ensuring privacy
protection
Security challenges due to
exploitation of privacy [9]
Privacy challenges of 5G is
related to data, location and
identity. Some of the
important threats in this
context are semantic
information attacks, timing
attacks, and boundary attacks
that exploits the location
privacy of the consumers
A hybrid cloud based
approach for storing and
processing sensitive data
locally and for less sensitive
data, it is processed by the
applications hosted on the
cloud platform
Identification and Analysis of 5G limitation in network coverage:
While increasing the data speed is one of the main aspects of 5G technology, it requires
significant bandwidth [8]. Bandwidth of the network is defined by the capacity of the
network in terms of transferring maximum amount of data at a specific time from one place

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
to another through the network. As 5G technology needs to increase data speed, superior
bandwidth is required for this purpose. Now whether increasing the bandwidth affects the
network coverage or not, it is required to analyse network coverage of 3G and 4G technology
as this will provide a comprehensive idea regarding network coverage of the 5G technology.
In 3G network, the speed requirement was such that it did not require such huge bandwidth
compared to the 4G and 5G network as well. Therefore, it was possible to provide coverage
through less cell towers. As the bandwidth requirement was low, it was possible to provide
coverage through fewer cell towers. Now in 4G, the cell towers were required to produce
more bandwidth than the 3G network, therefore they were not able to provide that much
coverage area compared to the 3G network [10]. Therefore, coverage radius of each cell
tower was decreased. In 5G, where network speed is even higher than the 4G network, it will
require even more bandwidth which means that coverage area of each cell tower will
decrease even further compared to 3G and 4G network. Therefore, the network coverage will
be affected which means there will be issues in network services.
In order to ensure that 5G technology enhances network services, this issue of network
coverage needs to be analysed properly and therefore, service providers planning to offer 5G
services for the consumers are conducting researches to identify appropriate strategy for
resolving this issues of network coverage [9]. However, one important thing to note here is
that, providing solution for his is not an easy one, as it needs to consider two important
aspects:
 Reducing bandwidth for increasing network coverage will affect data speed which is
one of the main aspects of 5G technology
 Increasing network bandwidth will reduce network coverage which will affect
network services and this needs to be considered as well

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
That is why recommending proper strategy for this is an important challenge that researchers
are analysing for providing appropriate solution for this issue [10]. One of the strategies that
is effective and efficient in this context is to increase the required cell towers because it will
not only increase the radius of the coverage area, but it will also ensure that the required
bandwidth is available as well. Therefore deploying enough cell towers will ensure that the
network speed and network coverage are not affected. Therefore, this is one of the
recommended solution for improving this issue of network coverage.
Conclusion:
The application of 5G technology in telecom industry will not only impact the telecom
industry, it will also provide context for other industries as well to implement various
advance and smart applications which will enhance the consumer experience and that is why
various researches are being conducted for ensuring that the application of the 5G technology
is effective and efficient.one of the most important aspect of 5G technology is that it will
provide significant data speed that will enhance consumer satisfaction. However there are
some issues like network coverage and consumer security that might affect the application of
this 5G technology. In this context it is important to ensure that issues such as network
coverage and consumer security are properly identified and appropriate solutions are
proposed which improves this issues. It is important to identify that 5G technology is not only
providing superior data speed, but to ensure proper access to the services and that too while
ensuring the security of the consumers.

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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
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EVALUATION OF 5G NETWORK AND THE SECURITY
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