Growing client population, ever-increasing service demand, and complexity of services are the driving factors for the mobile operators for a paradigm shift in their core technology and radio access networks. 5G mobile network is the result of this paradigm shift and currently under deployment in many developed countries such as United States, United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, and China—to name a few. However, most of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have very recently been implemented 4G mobile networks for which the overall role out phase is still not complete. In this paper, we investigate how feasible it is for LDCs to emphasize on a possible deployment of 5G networks at the moment. At first, we take a holistic approach to show the major technical challenges LDCs are likely to face while deploying the 5G mobile networks. Then we argue that various security aspects of 5G networks are an ongoing issue and LDCs are not technologically competent to handle many security glitches of 5G networks. At the same time, we show that most of the use cases of 5G networks are not applicable in the context of many LDCs (at least at the present time). Finally, this paper concludes that the start of the 5G network deployment in LDCs would take much longer time than expected.
References
[1]
What Percentage of Internet Traffic Is Mobile in 2020? https://tinyurl.com/y5tp47ak
[2]
Ldc List by United Nations. http://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/least-developed-country-category/ldcs-at-a-glance.html
[3]
NB-IoT: The IoT Game Changer. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nb-iot-iot-game-changer-reduan-hasan-khan-phd?trk=relatedarticeNB-IoT
Ordonez-Lucena, J., Ameigeiras, P., Lopez, D., Ramos-Munoz, J.J., Lorca, J. and Folgueira, J. (2017) Network Slicing for 5g with SDN/NFV: Concepts, Architectures, and Challenges. IEEE Communications Magazine, 55, 80-87. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCOM.2017.1600935
[7]
Foukas, X., Patounas, G., Elmokashfi, A. and Marina, M.K. (2017) Network Slicing in 5g: Survey and Challenges. IEEE Communications Magazine, 55, 94-100. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCOM.2017.1600951
[8]
Developing Countries Are Hard Hit by High Spectrum Prices. https://www.gsma.com/spectrum/resources/spectrum-prices-developing-countries
[9]
5G in Bangladesh: Opportunities & Challenges. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5g-bangladesh-opportunities-challenges-reduan-hasan-khan-phd
[10]
Indoria, S. (2020) Deployment of 5G Networks Challenges for Developing Countries. In: ICT Analysis and Applications, Springer, Berlin, 255-262. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0630-7_25
[11]
Holma, H., Luostari, R., Reunanen, J. and Thepchatri, P. (2019) Deployment Aspects. In: Holma, H., Toskala, A. and Nakamura, T., Eds., 5G Technology: 3GPP New Radio, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Hoboken, Chapter 8, 187-212. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119236306.ch8
[12]
Ahmad, I., Kumar, T., Liyanage, M., Okwuibe, J., Ylianttila, M. and Gurtov, A. (2017) 5g Security: Analysis of Threats and Solutions. 2017 IEEE Conference on Standards for Communications and Networking (CSCN), Helsinki, 18-21 September 2017, 193-199. https://doi.org/10.1109/CSCN.2017.8088621
[13]
Seungwon, S., Yegneswaran, V., Porras, P. and Gu, G.F. (2013) AVANT-GUARD: Scalable and Vigilant Switch Flow Management in Software Defined Networks. The ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Berlin, 4-8 November 2013, 413-424. https://doi.org/10.1145/2508859.2516684
[14]
Ahmad, I., Kumar, T., Liyanage, M., Okwuibe, J., Ylianttila, M. and Gurtov, A. (2018) Overview of 5g Security Challenges and Solutions. IEEE Communications Standards Magazine, 2, 36-43. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCOMSTD.2018.1700063
[15]
Kreutz, D., Ramos, F. and Verıssimo, P. (2013) Towards Secure and Dependable Software-Defined Networks. Proceedings of the Second ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Hot Topics in Software Defined Networking, Hong Kong, 16 August 2013, 55-60. https://doi.org/10.1145/2491185.2491199
[16]
Hussein, A., Chaddad, L., Adalian, N., Chehab, A., Elhajj, I. and Kayssi, A. (2019) Software-Defined Networking (SDN): The Security Review. Journal of Cyber Security Technology, 4, 1-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/23742917.2019.1629529
[17]
Brooks, M. and Yang, B.J. (2015) A Man-in-the-Middle Attack against Open Daylight SDN Controller. Proceedings of the 4th Annual ACM Conference on Research in Information Technology, Chicago, 30 September-3 October 2015, 45-49. https://doi.org/10.1145/2808062.2808073
[18]
Hong, S., Xu, L., Wang, H.P. and Gu, G.F. (2015) Poisoning Network Visibility in Software-Defined Networks: New Attacks and Countermeasures. Proceedings 2015 Network and Distributed System Security Symposium, San Diego, 8-11 February 2015, 1. https://doi.org/10.14722/ndss.2015.23283
[19]
Antikainen, M., Aura, T. and Sarela, M. (2014) Spook in Your Network: Attacking an SDN with a Compromised Openflow Switch. Proceedings of the Nordic Conference on Secure IT Systems, Vol. 8788, 229-244. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11599-3_14
[20]
Hawilo, H., Shami, A., Mirahmadi, M. and Asal, R. (2014) NFV: State of the Art, Challenges, and Implementation in Next Generation Mobile Networks (VEPC). IEEE Network, 28, 18-26. https://doi.org/10.1109/MNET.2014.6963800
[21]
Monshizadeh, M., Khatri, V. and Gurtov, A. (2016) NFV Security Considerations for Cloud-Based Mobile Virtual Network Operators. IEEE, the 24th International Conference on Software, Telecommunications and Computer Networks, Split, 22-24 September 2016, 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1109/SOFTCOM.2016.7772161
[22]
Yang, W. and Fung, C. (2016) A Survey on Security in Network Functions Virtualization. 2016 IEEE NetSoft Conference and Workshops, Seoul, 6-10 June 2016, 15-19. https://doi.org/10.1109/NETSOFT.2016.7502434
[23]
Lal, S., Taleb, T. and Dutta, A. (2017) NFV: Security Threats and Best Practices. IEEE Communications Magazine, 55, 211-217. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCOM.2017.1600899
[24]
Reynaud, F., Aguessy, F., Bettan, O., Bouet, M. and Conan, V. (2016) Attacks against Network Functions Virtualization and Software-Defined Networking: State-of-the-Art. 2016 IEEE NetSoft Conference and Workshops (NetSoft), Seoul, 6-10 June 2016, 471-476. https://doi.org/10.1109/NETSOFT.2016.7502487
[25]
Chasaki, D. and Mansour, C. (2015) Security Challenges in the Internet of Things. International Journal of Space-Based and Situated Computing, 5, 141-149. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJSSC.2015.070945
[26]
Javaid, N., Sher, A., Nasir, H. and Guizani, N. (2018) Intelligence in IoT-Based 5g Networks: Opportunities and Challenges. IEEE Communications Magazine, 56, 94-100. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCOM.2018.1800036
[27]
Shah, Y., Chelvachandran, N., Kendzierskyj, S., Jahankhani, H. and Janoso, R. (2020) 5G Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities with IoT and Smart Societies. In: Cyber Defence in the Age of AI, Smart Societies and Augmented Humanity, Springer, Berlin, 159-176. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35746-7_9
[28]
Fonyi, S. (2020) Overview of 5G Security and Vulnerabilities. The Cyber Defense Review, 5, 117-132.
[29]
Hacked: The Bangladesh Bank Heist. https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2018/05/hacked-bangladesh-bank-heist-180523070038069.htm
[30]
Granville, B., Leonard, C. and Manning, J. (2000) Information Technology and Developing Countries: Potential and Obstacles.
[31]
Total Public Expenditure on Education in Year 2012. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/expenditure-education-public-gdp
[32]
Total Government Expenditure on Education in Year 2016. https://ourworldindata.org/financing-education
[33]
Closing the Technology Gap in Least Developed Countries. https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/closing-technology-gap-least-developed-countries
[34]
Catota, F.E., Morgan, M.G. and Sicker, D.C. (2019) Cybersecurity Education in a Developing Nation: The Ecuadorian Environment. Journal of Cybersecurity, 5, tyz001. https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyz001
[35]
Touray, A., Salminen, A. and Mursu, A. (2013) ICT Barriers and Critical Success Factors in Developing Countries. Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 56, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1681-4835.2013.tb00401.x
[36]
What Keeps the Poor from Adopting New Technology? https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/what-keeps-the-poor-from-adopting-new-technology
[37]
Richardson, J.W. (2011) Challenges of Adopting the Use of Technology in Less Developed Countries: The Case of Cambodia. Comparative Education Review, 55, 8-29. https://doi.org/10.1086/656430
