Why we need a new air interface for 5G

Wireless communications has been renewed about every decade since the introduction of 2G (GSM - Global System for Mobile Communications [1]) - the first digital wireless communication system. Around 1990 GSM became widespread and offered voice services around the globe. With the rising success of the world wide web the key driver for the next generation of wireless access was the wish to provide data services. So, around 2000 3G (UMTS - Universal Mobile Telecommunications System [2]) made this a reality. A major improvement for providing internet services on the move was the introduction of 4G (LTE - Long Term Evolution [3]). The roll-out of LTE began around 2010. Following this periodicity we may expect 2020 the introduction of 5G. Naturally, the introduction of a new technology generation not only follows historical regularities, but requires market needs and forecasts asking for such an introduction. On the one side, current market forecasts indicate the clear necessity [4, 5]. More precisely, the demand for Mobile BroadBand (MBB) data is predicted to increase by ???, an evolution which cannot clearly be handled by 4G [4]. On the other side, looking at the current market status, we see that the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) landscape is going through a continuous and accelerating transformation. This transformation has a significant impact on economic and societal growth which is enabled by new trends and emerging concepts, such as fully integrated wearable/modular user devices, "zero distance" and "full immersive" services , ubiquitous access to globally connected knowledge and social media etc. Wireless connectivity/communication anywhere, anytime and between every-body and -object (smart houses, cars, cities etc.) is becoming a reality in our daily lives. We can even see the impacts of this transformation on working practice since it increases the efficiency by connecting anything at any time: people, machines, communities, physical things, processes, content etc. in flexible, reliable and secure ways.