Semantic‑Effectiveness Filtering and Control for Post‑5G Wireless Connectivity

Abstract

The traditional role of a communication engineer is to address
the technical problem of transporting bits reliably over a noisy channel.
With the emergence of 5G, and the availability of a variety of competing
and coexisting wireless systems, wireless connectivity is becoming
a commodity. This article argues that communication engineers in the
post-5G era should extend the scope of their activity in terms of design
objectives and constraints beyond connectivity to encompass the
semantics of the transferred bits within the given applications and use
cases. To provide a platform for semantic-aware connectivity solutions,
this paper introduces the concept of a semantic-effectiveness (SE) plane
as a core part of future communication architectures. The SE plane augments the protocol stack by providing standardized interfaces that enable information filtering and direct control of functionalities at all layers
of the protocol stack. The advantages of the SE plane are described in
the perspective of recent developments in 5G, and illustrated through
a number of example applications. The introduction of a SE plane may
help replacing the current “next-G paradigm” in wireless evolution with
a framework based on continuous improvements and extensions of the
systems and standards.