Tactile internet is defined as a network that offers a response to a physical process or an object in perceived real time. The development of new radio (NR) and long-term evolution (LTE) technologies with tailored high-reliability and low-latency design is expected to reliably transmit data in milliseconds, leading to the promising realization of tactile internet with applications in areas such as factory automation, education, gaming, and healthcare. In this paper, from a physical layer and medium-access control (PHY/MAC) perspective, we discuss the systems design of ultrareliable and low-latency communications (URLLC) in NR and LTE technologies, both belonging to the fifth-generation (5G) wireless technologies. Motivated by the safety and privacy requirements of tactile internet, we also outline the 5G security landscape, major categories of attackers, and potential countermeasures. Finally, we provide a case study of factory automation as an example of the proposed 5G-based tactile internet.

In this paper we consider a heterogeneous LTE network where femto cells are randomly deployed in a macro network. Femto cells are modeled as closed cells, namely only group member UEs can be associated with the femto cells. We demonstrate that inter-cell interference may prevent reliable operations for non-member UEs that are in proximity of a closed cell, which thus experience outage. We show how some of the novel features introduced in the Rel-10 specifications of the LTE standard can be leveraged by a suitable inter-cell interference coordination scheme (ICIC), which relies upon resource partitioning among different nodes to reduce the inter-cell interference problem. Additional significant improvements can be achieved when the proposed ICIC scheme is associated to a simple yet effective autonomous power control algorithm, described in detail in the paper, and further gains are demonstrated for UEs employing interference cancellation of broadcast interfering signals. We finally propose an enhanced ICIC method, based on a tighter coordination between macro and femto nodes, whose significant performance improvements advocate for suitable updates to the future LTE specifications.