The data rates of both wired and wireline links have increased relentlessly over the last several decades. Wireless access rates used to trail wireline access rates but, of late, have started catching up, so much so that they can be viewed as equal. For most applications, including mobile applications, bandwidth availability is not viewed as a serious constraint. Indeed, the cellular industry is looking for the next “killer app” to drive demand for cellular capacity. It is likely that the next driver of advances in networking is expected to be the need for reliable, low latency connectivity rather than bandwidth alone. These applications include XR (Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality), wirelessly controlled robots, and haptic communications. The latency requirements for such applications vary from tens of milliseconds to the sub-millisecond range. While the latency and reliability requirements for these applications can be met by carefully engineered wired communications, typically in controlled indoor environments, it is still a challenge to provide them over cellular networks. This work focuses on the emerging challenge of providing reliable broadband low-latency communications over cellular networks.

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