BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 1 of 144

Correct — D, 1, 2 and 3. Each of the three is something the 5G standard was deliberately built to deliver, and 3GPP — the partnership that actually writes the specification, and which defines 5G from Release 15 onward, functionally frozen in June 2018 and fully specified by September 2019 — names all three in its own 5G System Overview. (1) Internet of Things: 3GPP lists "Massive Internet of Things" as one of the four axes on which 5G improves over 4G, observing that several scenarios require the system to support very high traffic densities of devices. The number behind that ambition comes from the ITU: Report ITU-R M.2410-0, which fixes the minimum technical performance requirements for IMT-2020, sets a connection density of 1,000,000 devices per square kilometre. That single figure is why dense sensor deployments become possible on 5G in a way they were not on 4G. (2) Edge Computing: 3GPP lists "EDGE computing" among the key new technologies the 5G network introduces and defines it as putting computational power as physically close to the end-user as possible, because virtual reality, the factory of the future and autonomous driving are all intolerant of network response time. The document then makes the link explicit: for critical communications it specifies a reliability of 99.9999 per cent with an end-to-end latency of 50 ms, and says in terms that this "is provided in particular through the Edge Computing capability". A standards body naming edge computing as the mechanism by which its own latency requirement is met settles item 2 on its own. (3) Network Slicing: 3GPP defines slicing as the ability to deploy and use simultaneously different core networks, each specialised for a given set of services or subscribers — one slice for an operator's ordinary subscribers, another for a virtual operator's, a third for a machine-to-machine service such as tracking containers. It is not an add-on: the 5G core carries a Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF) as one of its standard network functions, and 4G's Evolved Packet Core had no standardised equivalent. No item in the list can be rejected, so the answer is the whole set.

• (a)Only 1 and 2 — Drops network slicing, usually because a candidate files it under data-centre virtualisation borrowed from IT rather than treating it as a telecom feature. The opposite is true. 3GPP names slicing among the key new technologies the 5G network introduces, defines it as running several specialised core networks simultaneously over shared infrastructure, and gives the 5G core a dedicated Network Slice Selection Function whose job is to steer each device onto the right slice. 4G's Evolved Packet Core had no standardised equivalent, and the full 5G feature set — slicing included — is available only in the Stand Alone deployment, where the New Radio connects to the 5G core rather than riding on the 4G one.
• (b)Only 2 and 3 — Drops the Internet of Things, on the reasoning that IoT already existed on 4G through NB-IoT and LTE-M, both introduced in 3GPP Release 13, and therefore cannot be "enabled by" 5G. But the stem asks what 5G enables, not what 5G invented. Massive machine-type communication is one of the three IMT-2020 usage scenarios set out in Recommendation ITU-R M.2083, and "Massive Internet of Things" is one of the four axes on which 3GPP's own overview says 5G improves on 4G. The scale is the point: 4G was never required to carry a million devices in a square kilometre, and IMT-2020 is.
• (c)Only 1 and 3 — Drops edge computing, mistaking it for ordinary cloud computing and therefore for something a mobile network does not provide. 3GPP names "EDGE computing" explicitly as one of 5G's key new technologies, describes it as introducing local replications of a main server as close to the end-user as possible, and identifies it as the capability through which the critical-communications targets — 99.9999 per cent reliability at 50 ms end-to-end — are actually met. The 5G core supports it architecturally by letting the User Plane Function be placed locally, so traffic breaks out near the user instead of crossing the backbone to a distant data centre.

5G is not simply a faster 4G. The ITU set the target in Recommendation ITU-R M.2083 under the name IMT-2020, and it defined three quite different usage scenarios rather than one: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) for very high data rates, ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC) for control-grade applications, and massive machine-type communications (mMTC) for enormous numbers of low-power devices. 3GPP then specified the system — Release 15 is 5G phase 1, functionally frozen in June 2018 and fully specified by September 2019 — and describes it across more than a thousand Technical Reports and Technical Specifications. The design consequence is that one physical network must serve mutually contradictory demands at once, and the answer to that is architectural rather than radio. The 5G core abandons fixed network entities for a Service-Based Architecture: a set of software network functions — AMF, SMF, UPF, PCF, UDM, NRF, NEF, AUSF and NSSF — that offer their services to one another through a common interface and can therefore be located anywhere. Slicing carves that single infrastructure into several logical networks; edge computing moves processing outwards towards the user; and on the radio side the spectrum itself is divided by job, with sub-1 GHz for rural reach, 1 to 6 GHz for urban and sub-urban deployment, and above 6 GHz for dense hot-spots. 3GPP frames the whole exercise around "verticals" — automotive, rail and maritime, transport and logistics, discrete automation, electricity distribution, public safety, health, smart cities and media. IoT, edge computing and slicing are therefore not accessories bolted onto 5G; they are the shape 5G takes.

The verb in the stem does the work: "will be enabled by". It does not ask which technology 5G invented, nor which is exclusive to 5G, so the only way to reject an item is to show that 5G cannot support it — and none of the three fails that test. The single discriminating move is to ask where each term is written down. All three appear in 3GPP's own description of the 5G system: two of them as named key new technologies, the third as one of the four axes on which 5G improves over 4G, and slicing even has a network function of its own inside the 5G core. Anything that is in the standard is, by definition, enabled by the standard. Candidates who mark (b) usually know a real fact — that narrowband IoT arrived on 4G in Release 13 — and then over-apply it, converting "existed before" into "not enabled by". Candidates who mark (a) or (c) are filing slicing or edge computing under computing rather than networking, when both are defined inside the telecom specification itself. One caution against reflex, though: "all three" is not automatically right on a technology list. UPSC's 2020 item on what artificial intelligence can effectively do at its present state of development offered five capabilities and the key rejected two of them, and its 2018 pairing of Belle II, blockchain and CRISPR-Cas9 accepted only one pair of three. The set still has to be checked item by item; here every item survives the check.

• Recommendation ITU-R M.2083 (IMT Vision, 2015) defines the three IMT-2020 usage scenarios — enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC) and massive machine-type communications (mMTC).
• Report ITU-R M.2410-0 fixes the minimum IMT-2020 requirements: peak data rate 20 Gbit/s downlink and 10 Gbit/s uplink, user-experienced data rate 100 Mbit/s downlink, user-plane latency 4 ms for eMBB and 1 ms for URLLC, connection density 1,000,000 devices per sq km, and mobility support up to 500 km/h.
• 3GPP Release 15 is 5G phase 1 — functionally frozen June 2018, fully specified September 2019 — and the 5G system is set out across more than a thousand 3GPP Technical Reports and Technical Specifications, TS 22.261 carrying the service requirements and TS 23.501 the system architecture.
• 3GPP's 5G System Overview names Network Function Virtualization, Slicing, EDGE computing and Non-Terrestrial Networks as the dedicated technologies 5G uses, and states that the critical-communications target — 99.9999 per cent reliability with 50 ms end-to-end latency for remote control of process automation — "is provided in particular through the Edge Computing capability".
• 5G has two deployment options: Non-Stand Alone, also called E-UTRA-NR Dual Connectivity, where 5G New Radio rides on the existing 4G core with the 4G eNB as master node and the 5G en-gNB as secondary node over the X2 interface; and Stand Alone, where gNBs link over Xn and the access network reaches the 5G core over NG. Only Stand Alone delivers the full 5G phase 1 feature set.
• The 5G core is a Service-Based Architecture of software network functions — AMF, SMF, UPF, PCF, UDM, NRF, NEF, AUSF — and includes the Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF), the function that assigns a device to a network slice.
• 5G New Radio carriers run from 400 MHz to 100 GHz with licensed bands from 600 MHz to 39 GHz, split into three working ranges: below 1 GHz for wide rural coverage, 1–6 GHz for urban and sub-urban deployment (both capped at 100 MHz per carrier), and above 6 GHz for dense-urban hot-spots at up to 400 MHz per carrier.
• In India, 5G now reaches 99.9 per cent of districts on about 5.18 lakh 5G base transceiver stations, with 100 5G Use Case Labs set up and the Bharat 6G Vision launched in 2023 (Economic Survey 2025-26, Box IX.12).

• Reading "enabled by" as "invented by" and rejecting IoT because narrowband IoT already existed on 4G
• Filing edge computing under cloud computing and concluding that a mobile network has nothing to do with it
• Marking "all of the above" by reflex on any technology list — here it is right, but UPSC regularly plants one capability that the named technology genuinely cannot deliver

BPSC keeps emerging technology at current-affairs level — a short numbered list of buzzwords with a codes-based select, where the whole set is usually correct and the marks go to whoever simply recognises each term; the 71st repeated the habit in 2025 with single-line items on named missions and summits. UPSC frames the same ground as "With reference to X, consider the following statements" and plants one statement that is subtly out of scope or overstated — a capability the technology does not yet have, or a claim of exclusivity — so partial combinations win far more often there than they do here. Read a BPSC list for recognition and a UPSC list for over-claim.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following are the three usage scenarios defined by the ITU for IMT-2020 (5G)?

  • (a)Enhanced mobile broadband, ultra-reliable and low-latency communications, massive machine-type communications
  • (b)Voice over LTE, enhanced mobile broadband, satellite backhaul
  • (c)Massive machine-type communications, circuit switching, packet switching
  • (d)Ultra-reliable and low-latency communications, dial-up access, enhanced mobile broadband

  Answer(a) Enhanced mobile broadband, ultra-reliable and low-latency communications, massive machine-type communications — the three scenarios set out in Recommendation ITU-R M.2083.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  As per the minimum technical performance requirements for IMT-2020, the connection density that a 5G network must support is:

  • (a)10,000 devices per sq km
  • (b)1,00,000 devices per sq km
  • (c)10,00,000 devices per sq km
  • (d)1,00,00,000 devices per sq km

  Answer(c) 10,00,000 devices per sq km — Report ITU-R M.2410-0 sets connection density at 1,000,000 devices per square kilometre, the requirement behind massive IoT.