Verizon’s “5G” FWA Progess in Sacramento vs Huawei’s Home Broadband System
Verizon’s “5G” FWA Progresses in Sacramento, CA:
Sacramento Chief Innovation Officer Louis Stewart said in an interview with Government Technology that the California state capital became one of the first four cities nationally to debut Verizon’s (proprietary) “5G” fixed wireless access (FWA) network, along with Los Angeles, Houston and Indianapolis on October 1st. The purpose of this and other FWA broadband networks is to deliver residential triple play services.
More “5G” offerings should arrive in Sacramento during 2019:
• Sacramento is on schedule to be one of the nation’s first 11 cities that will have the infrastructure needed to underpin “5G” and a connected future. That includes: in-ground fiber to link light poles and traffic signals and materials to support free Wi-Fi via kiosks in 27 parks. Much of this should arrive in early 2019, the innovation officer said, calling the digital kiosks “not on hold indefinitely,” implying “the conversation is still happening.”
• Emilie Cameron, public affairs and communications director for Downtown Sacramento Partnership (DSP), the nonprofit that manages the assessment for the property-based improvement district, said the city reached out to the group in late 2017 with “high-level” information about the Verizon partnership. But she described the conversation as “conceptual.” She described the response to the kiosks as generally positive but agreed district members are interested to learn where the devices will be located, what they’ll look like and what content and services will be offered. “You don’t want anything to be in conflict with the streetscape,” Cameron said.
• Stewart said a great deal of coordination must happen to enable deployment of infrastructure and services in 2019, which he described as “a fairly heavy lift.” Sacramento, the innovation executive said, wants to ensure the project is “done right” for the community whether in the parks or in the downtown corridor, to enable “the right user experience.” Much content development for the kiosks’ digital displays remains to be completed, he said, but officials are currently in the “ideation phase.”
“If the future that everybody’s looking at is how do you build, ultimately, a connected city, kiosks fit into that, whether it be providing additional connectivity to connect the cars and autonomous cars as they essentially geolocate, driving down the streets. They could provide other smart city solutions, be they charging stations or power down the road, in some kind of way,” Stewart said.
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Huawei’s 5G Home Broadband System:
Huawei and U.K. carrier Three showcased a 5G home broadband demonstration using Three’s 100 megahertz of C-Band spectrum last week at the Huawei’s Global Mobile Broadband Forum in London, which IEEE Techblog has been reporting on this week and last.
The demonstration leveraged Huawei’s latest 5G-based home broadband routers to allow forum attendees to experience ultra-high-speed 5G broadband services such as cloud gaming and 4K video streaming, Huawei said. The world’s #1 network equipment vendor highlighted that the 5G broadband service will deliver a maximum download speed of 2 Gbps, with an average of 1 Gbps for a single user.
Huawei and Three U.K. carried out a pre-commercial network test of this technology earlier this year. The two companies plan to carry out further 5G service tests in the U.K. in the coming months, which are expected to be released to the public in densely-populated urban areas and train stations, paving the way for the full commercial use of 5G networks in 2019.
“The 5G trials we carried out today demonstrate the opportunity this technology brings to the home broadband market. Huawei will continue to work with Three UK to bring customers more market-leading commercial applications of 5G,” said Yang Chaobin, President of Huawei 5G Product Line.
“Huawei is the only true 5G supplier right now,” said Neil McRae, chief architect at British Telecom. “Others need to catch up. I’ve been to Shenzhen recently and there’s nowhere else in the world where you can see” the kind of 5G technology developments that Huawei has achieved. Other suppliers need to learn from Huawei. Others are held back by old telco issues,” McRae added.
In the UK, Three, EE and BT have all said they’re launching a 5G network in some form in 2019 (that’s 1 year before IMT 2020 standard will be completed and with no standards for virtual RAN, Cloud RAN, network slicing, scheduling, OA&M, etc). EE has announced which cities will be first to get its 5G service.
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Analysis:
Some pundits say that 5G FWA networks have the potential to complement fiber to the home (FTTx) deployments by providing an alternative “last-mile” solution consumer and business services. In both urban and suburban regions, the ability to deploy 5G FWA will help reduce costs for operators and increase accessibility of high speed broadband for residential FWA customers. 5G FWA networking equipment also requires a much smaller footprint than traditional mobile networks, reducing requirements for government approvals of new tower locations.
Market research firm Ovum has this assessment of Huawei’s “5G” FWA strategy:
Huawei has gradually built its WTTx fixed wireless access (FWA) business into a key component of its wireless broadband portfolio. At the Huawei Global Analyst Summit earlier this month, the vendor reported significant successes for WTTx and high expectations for its future development. Although still small in scale relative to mobile broadband services, the FWA market is experiencing rapid growth, even outpacing FTTx and copper for new subscription additions in many world markets, according to Huawei’s figures. WTTx is central to Huawei’s wireless broadband strategy.
Even though other large network equipment vendors including Nokia and Ericsson provide their own fixed wireless broadband solutions, Huawei is arguably more aggressive in its public backing of FWA. Huawei’s work with WiMAX has given it more experience with fixed wireless and it has existing FWA operator relationships it can leverage. Huawei’s FWA strategy also differs from that of competitors such as Nokia in that it places WTTx as part of its mobile products line rather than part of its fixed broadband offering.
Huawei already claims a substantial installed base for its WTTx fixed wireless offering, with 200 WTTx commercial networks in service and 50 million households connected as of end-2017. The vendor says 82 operators launched WTTx for home broadband in 2017 alone, and it expects to see a surge in demand over the next two years.
The future growth of FWA will depend on a number of factors, including the ability to deliver efficient and sustainable home broadband services to underserved and unconnected communities more economically than fiber alternatives. Huawei has identified the following four major deployment models where it believes WTTx can provide a fiber-like experience to complement fixed broadband:
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As a home fixed broadband service for mobile operators to deliver triple-play services
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As a complement to wireline broadband services for converged operators
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As a DSL upgrade for wholesale broadband providers
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As a 5G-oriented fixed wireless broadband service.
Along with a maturing WTTx ecosystem, a number of factors support the expansion of fixed wireless services. On the network side, spare cell capacity arising from the uneven traffic distribution associated with smartphones can be used more efficiently by operators introducing FWA services. On the equipment side, advances in self-install CPE, along with performance and efficiency gains from the incorporation of multiple receiver and antenna technologies and the use of massive MIMO and 256QAM at the eNodeB, is helping to deliver a high-capacity equivalent to evolved LTE. This will support the evolution toward 5G FWA.
Even so, the business case for FWA is likely to be challenging, particularly in emerging markets where population densities and ARPU are low. Huawei believes governments and regulators can promote the benefits of universal network coverage by providing more practical encouragement and financial stimulus to local mobile operators. It offers a business operation and management platform as part of its WTTx pre-sales service suite, which helps operators evaluate the potential opportunity for a fixed wireless solution based on aspects such as network capacity trends and coverage gaps in existing FTTx and wireline networks.
Ultimately, the success of fixed wireless broadband will depend on the scope it provides for operators to monetize services.
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UK and Germany grow wary of Huawei as US turns up pressure-Delegation from Washington warns against using Chinese supplier for 5G networks. US, Australia and New Zealand have already blocked the use of Huawei 5G equipment on national security grounds.
The UK and Germany are growing wary of allowing Huawei, the Chinese telecoms company, to install 5G equipment in their countries after a US delegation visited Europe to urge heightened vigilance against national security threats.
UK security officials on Thursday issued a new public warning to Huawei, saying the Chinese company must fix problems in the equipment it provides to British networks or risk a further deterioration in what is an increasingly strained relationship.
The clear message delivered by the US delegation this month and in online communications is that Germany and the UK as key American allies must safeguard the security of their telecoms networks and supply chains, said people familiar with the situation.
The warnings come as Germany and the UK are preparing for auctions next year for 5G, a superfast service that will enable a new generation of digital products and services. Huawei is the world’s biggest telecoms equipment supplier and has been seen as a frontrunner to build the first networks in both countries, where it has conducted extensive 5G tests.
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of the digital intelligence agency GCHQ, said Huawei must fix problems, highlighted in July, that pose “new risks in UK telecommunications networks”.
The issues came to a head in a tense meeting between the board set up to scrutinize Huawei equipment and the Chinese company earlier this month, said government officials and telecoms executives.
“As you might imagine there are some strains in the relationship as we deal with the issues set out in the latest oversight board report,” the spokesperson said. “But we remain committed to working with the company to put it right.”
Banning Huawei outright from providing 5G equipment to UK providers or removing them from existing telecoms networks remains unlikely, officials said. But the message to the Chinese company is clear.
“They are slowing down Huawei to allow the rest of the market to catch up,” said one former intelligence official. “If I was part of oversight board or government, I would be putting the boot in right now.”
UK security officials rejected the suggestion they are hardening their stance in response to growing pressure from the US, insisting the concerns are not based on Huawei’s Chinese origins as a company but on the way the company manufactures software and equipment which makes critical telecoms networks vulnerable to cyber attack.
A spokesperson for Huawei said: “We are grateful for this feedback and committed to addressing these issues. Cyber security remains Huawei’s top priority, and we will continue to actively improve our engineering processes and risk management systems.”
New Zealand this week became the latest country to take action against Huawei, blocking one of its biggest telecoms operators from using Huawei’s 5G equipment. The US and Australia have already blocked the company on national security grounds.
In Germany, officials said the mood in government was growing increasingly wary of Huawei’s potential involvement in building the country’s 5G network. While it is too early to say if Berlin will ban the Chinese company from participating, concerns in some parts of the government, including the foreign and interior ministries, is deepening, officials said.
“The US influence on this has really intensified recently,” said one German official, who requested anonymity.
Cui Haifeng, vice-president of Huawei in west Europe, told the Financial Times in Hamburg that the company was doing everything possible to allay concerns over security. Asked if Germany was set to issue a ban, he said: “So far, I never heard about this kind of thing.”
“[For] every technology for us at Huawei we always try to put the security and safety as top priorities so all the design, products and services will be safe,” Mr Cui said.
Raffaello Pantucci, director of international securities studies at UK think-tank RUSI
“The NCSC has concerns around a range of technical issues and has set out improvements the company must make,” a government spokesperson said. “In the UK, the conversation with regard to China has definitely shifted with the hawks becoming kind of dominant,” Mr Pantucci added.
The main US concern over Huawei equipment is that the company’s ties to the Chinese government could enable snooping or interference. Huawei has strongly denied such charges.
More generally, the US is worried about the potential application of China’s National Intelligence Law, approved in 2017, which states that Chinese “organisations and citizens shall . . . support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work”. The risk, said US officials, is that this could mean that Chinese companies overseas are called upon to engage in espionage.
https://www.ft.com/content/6719b6b2-f33d-11e8-9623-d7f9881e729f (on line sub required)
Sacramento gets ready for 5G test drive
BY STEPHANIE KANOWITZJAN 03, 2019
In October, Sacramento, Calif., became one of the first cities in the world to go live with the 5G wireless network, the next generation of cellular technology. Benefits the city expects include, of course, making available a high-speed, high-capacity telecommunications network, but also smart city applications to improve public safety and mobility.
To make 5G use possible, the city entered a public/private partnership with Verizon in which the company will install intelligent traffic technology at “problem area” intersections and set up Wi-Fi in parks.
According to the 2017 contract between the company and city, Sacramento is deferring up to $2 million in lease payments on Verizon’s 101 small-cell towers on city-owned assets over 10 years, while Verizon gets streamlined permit approvals for wireless and wired network deployments.
The company is offering 5G in three other cities so far: Houston, Indianapolis and Los Angeles. Globally, other carriers are working to get 5G up and running in Qatar, Africa’s Lesotho, Finland and Estonia. The long-awaited technology, which comes with promises of faster speeds, lower latency and more security than its predecessors, is poised for real-world applications.
We sat down with Sean Harrington, Verizon’s vice president of city solutions, to find out where things stand with 5G. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
GCN: There’s a lot of promise in 5G for smart cities. What are some of the benefits cities can expect?
Harrington: The biggest areas for them to benefit from 5G are around increasing public safety and improving the way that they manage mobility in the city, which has benefits to the citizens as well.
One of the ways that public safety is improved is through the use of video — and not just raw video, but video with video analytics. Today it’s quite expensive and cumbersome to deploy video throughout a city because if you want to backup all that video, you have to put in a wired network connection to it in order to get all the full-res video back. But with 5G, we’ll be able to deploy video far more efficiently by using a 5G wireless connection to that video as opposed to always having to go dig up streets and pull new fiber.
On the transportation front, as we move toward this world of autonomous mobility, the way that we’re going to do so efficiently and safely is by leveraging data that comes from the vehicles … but also data coming from the infrastructure. That data could be video, could be Lidar or could be other sensor [data] that is collected from streetlights and traffic signals distributed throughout the city, and it can be used in real time with very low latency to better inform the movement of those vehicles around the city.
GCN: What back-office applications will 5G improve?
Harrington: There will be far more — an order of magnitude to two orders of magnitude — connected devices and assets that are city-owned, -operated or just even managed as we transition into this world of 5G. It will become far more cost-effective and feasible to put connectivity into devices that weren’t previously connected, whether those are police cars or streetlights, traffic signals and traffic cabinets, video sensors, etc.
When you say back office, that really means there’s asset management and data aggregation. And taking advantage of that data through machine learning and [artificial intelligence] comes with the transition of 5G because there’s just going to be so much more data coming from sensors and devices that are deployed out in the field.
GCN: A major component of smart cities is the internet of things. What do smart cities need to manage IoT data and how will 5G enable that?
Harrington: I think of the internet of things as in part as putting connectivity into a device that was already in use somewhere in a city or in a home … to understand its status. That is certainly happening with smart parking meters, for example.… We’re able to determine in real time which areas of the city have more parking meters being occupied than not and that can inform enforcement officers and so on. We’re also deploying new sensors. Blanketing a street with a traffic-detection sensor that is powered through video — not just putting a radio in a streetlight. This is actually about putting in place a whole set of new sensors and new devices to enable greater efficiency, safety, cost savings.… 5G effectively enables effectively the bandwidth of a wired connection but wirelessly, which means lower latency. So it provides the ability to process data in single-digit millisecond latency vs. hundreds of milliseconds of latency as well as the compute and storage and analytic capabilities near the edge of the network.
GCN: Is it also better in that it is more secure and requires less power?
Harrington: The network is designed to manage billions of devices vs. millions and to do so in an energy-efficient way. Certainly, [5G offers] a significant energy-efficiency improvement over LTE on a per-unit-of-data bandwidth throughput. As we go from one generation of technology to the next, there is an emphasis on continually improving the security protocols that are used.
GCN: What stage is the technology in now?
Harrington: We’re excited to have launched our first four markets with 5G Home in 2018, Sacramento among them. The same infrastructure that is used for the 5G Home service — which is the in-home broadband fixed wireless internet service that we’re offering to residential customers with gigabit fiber-like speeds but through that wireless 5G connection — we are using with some initial smart city use cases in Sacramento. We’re validating the 5G application features and use cases in the near term, and then we’ll be looking to roll those into full-fledged product offerings that leverage 5G starting in 2019 as the 5G footprint continues to expand across the U.S.
GCN: What should cities consider in terms of getting connected?
Harrington: The recommendation we have is to really make sure cities are being thoughtful and preparing now for 5G because it is here. This is not a future, aspirational technology. It’s being deployed as we speak. Cities should determine what they are trying to accomplish and what they have now. And then that will start to lead to a plan and better-informed conversations.
Editor’s note: This article was changed Jan. 4 to clarify the capabilities being rolled out.
Stephanie Kanowitz is a freelance writer based in northern Virginia.
https://gcn.com/articles/2019/01/03/5g-sacramento.aspx
Verizon’s work is the product of the company’s own 5G Technical Forum (5G TF) — a partnership with network architects Cisco and Nokia; device makers Ericsson, LG, and Samsung; and platform makers Intel and Qualcomm. But as CNET’s Roger Cheng was first to note, the products of 5G TF utilize access technologies that are proprietary to the Verizon network, and thus cannot be industry-wide standards.
However, as Verizon’s technical documentation points out, much of the infrastructure of 5G TF is grounded in true 5G technology, most notably including its Radio Access Network (5G-RAN). All carriers have their own access technologies, and will continue to do so even in the 5G era. So there is a case to be made that, even though Verizon’s 5G Home may not be officially 5G now, it will be once 5G actually “arrives.”
In the meantime, expect some discussion throughout CES 2019 on the integration with cellular networks with the Internet of Things. One technology platform certain to bring the IoT into the 5G discussion is NB-IoT, a system that extends cellular signals to small, distributed devices, in a home, a factory floor, or conceivably across an entire campus. A company called Digi will be among those demonstrating NB-IoT this year
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ces-2019-are-the-newly-launched-5g-services-truly-5g-wireless/
Verizon Faces ‘Steep Climb’ to Attain Attractive Return on 5G Home – Analyst
5G-powered fixed wireless broadband is being billed as a potential disruptor to cable operators and other in-home wireline service providers, but a new analysis of Verizon’s 5G Home rollout in Sacramento suggests that the company faces a “steep climb” to scale the offering and generate an acceptable return on the investment.
“Our findings in Sacramento — limited coverage, low penetration — preliminary though they may be, suggest that earning an attractive return will be challenging, at best,” Craig Moffett, analyst with MoffettNathanson, wrote in a lengthy analysis of Verizon’s 5G Home rollout there.
https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/verizon-faces-steep-climb-to-attain-attractive-return-on-5g-home—analyst-/d/d-id/750289?
Huawei’s Wireless Fiber solution creates the following benefits (according to the company):
-Full services
-Fiber-like experience
-Fast deployment
-Flexibility, flexible speed on demand
-5G-oriented evolution
https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2019/1/huawei-releases-wireless-fiber-solution
At the MWC 2019, Huawei released four latest use cases for wireless fiber: wireless to the home (WTTh), wireless to the enterprise (WTTe), wireless to the building (WTTb), and wireless to the camera (WTTc).
WTTh
4G LTE radio technologies are used to provide home broadband (HBB) services. As LTE evolves, wireless fiber can be used to provide broadband access with high capacity and guaranteed user-perceived throughput. This significantly reduces the cost per GB and creates many opportunities for operators to offer HBB triple play services (data, voice, and video services).
An increasing number of mobile operators are using wireless fiber to launch new fixed mobile convergence (FMC) services, bind individual and family packages, improve user loyalty, and, in so doing, quickly increase revenue.
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/02/27/1743442/0/en/Huawei-Release-WTTx-Wireless-Fiber-Four-Use-Cases.html
Huawei’s Wireless Fiber solution creates the following benefits (according to the company):
-Full services
-Fiber-like experience
-Fast deployment
-Flexibility, flexible speed on demand
-5G-oriented evolution
https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2019/1/huawei-releases-wireless-fiber-solution
At the MWC 2019, Huawei released four latest use cases for wireless fiber: wireless to the home (WTTh), wireless to the enterprise (WTTe), wireless to the building (WTTb), and wireless to the camera (WTTc).
WTTh
4G LTE radio technologies are used to provide home broadband (HBB) services. As LTE evolves, wireless fiber can be used to provide broadband access with high capacity and guaranteed user-perceived throughput. This significantly reduces the cost per GB and creates many opportunities for operators to offer HBB triple play services (data, voice, and video services).
An increasing number of mobile operators are using wireless fiber to launch new fixed mobile convergence (FMC) services, bind individual and family packages, improve user loyalty, and, in so doing, quickly increase revenue.
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/02/27/1743442/0/en/Huawei-Release-WTTx-Wireless-Fiber-Four-Use-Cases.html