Author: Alan Weissberger
NTT DoCoMo achieves multi-vendor 4G/5G RAN using O-RAN specifications
NTT DoCoMo has announced that it has achieved multi-vendor interoperability across a variety of 4G and pre-standard 5G base station equipment from Fujitsu, NEC and Nokia. Equipment from those vendors supports the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) Alliance specifications, which are NOT standards as claimed in DoCoMo’s press release. This is believed to be the world’s first realization of this level of multi-vendor interoperability in 4G and 5G base station equipment conforming to O-RAN specifications.
Up until now, cellular telcos (cellcos) have been locked into single cellular base station vendor contracts when deploying their radio access networks (RANs). Despite ITU-R standardization and 3GPP specifications, operators have not been able to use one vendor’s baseband gear with another’s radio equipment. Working across different 4G and 5G vendor systems has been similarly problematic if not impossible. Critics say this interoperability dilemma has led to “vendor lock-in” and strengthened a small number of giant RAN vendors, namely Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia.
The Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) Alliance wants to change that. It is an operator led industry group working to create more open and intelligent next generation radio access networks, including 5G networks. The O-RAN specifications include RAN fronthaul and X2 profiles. There are 21 network operator members shown on the O-RAN Alliance member list, which includes NTT DoCoMo, AT&T, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, China Mobile, China Telecom and other tier 1 operators.
RAN fronthaul describes the connectivity between remote base stations and centralized cell units, enabling multiple remote units to be serviced by a single central baseband unit using open hardware specs. Ultimately, radio heads and baseband units may be mixed and matched to create a fully multi-vendor RAN.
The ability to deploy and interconnect base station equipment from different vendors will make it possible to select the equipment most suitable for deployment in any given environment, such as base stations offering broad coverage in rural areas or small base stations that can be deployed in urban areas where space is limited. This will in turn allow more rapid and flexible expansion of 5G coverage.
DoCoMo will deploy the equipment in the pre-commercial 5G service it plans to launch on September 20, 2019 in Japan. Concurrent with the pre-commercial launch of its 5G services, DoCoMo will expand 5G coverage by combining 5G networks with existing 4G networks using equipment from diverse vendors. The signal transmission specifications that will enable this follows lengthy discussions within the O-RAN Alliance, which DoCoMo is chairing.
4G and 5G multi-vendor interoperability:
O-RAN fronthaul interface specifications provide a foundation for interoperability between centralized units and remote units of 5G remote-installed base stations manufactured by diverse partners. With remote-installed base stations, centralization of the baseband processing will bring the following benefits:
- Improved communication quality through coordination of multiple remote units
- Pooling of resources through the aggregation of hardware
- Minimization of equipment footprint, leading to a reduction in space and costs.
In addition, through the provision of only radio processing, the remote unit can be further downsized, making it possible to install in a variety of locations that would previously have not been viable, such as small buildings or mountainous areas.
The O-RAN X2 profile specifications provide a foundation for interoperability between 4G base stations and 5G base stations manufactured by diverse partners in 5G non-standalone (5G NSA) networks by taking 3GPP X2 interface specifications and specifying details for their usage. 3GPP Release 15 based 5G NR-NSA networks connect devices using both 4G and 5G technologies. The connection of 4G and 5G base stations makes it possible to combine the high-speed, low-latency data communications delivered by 5G technology with the comprehensive coverage of 4G networks.
Going forward, DoCoMo will continue to refine and develop its cutting-edge base station communication technology, aiming to expand the provision of stable 5G coverage.
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Open Test and Integration Center (OTIC):
O-RAN has announced the Open Test and Integration Center (OTIC) – an initiative led by China Mobile and Reliance Jio along with participation from China Telecom, China Unicom, Intel, Radisys, Airspan, Baicells, CertusNet, Mavenir, Lenovo, Ruijie Network, Inspur, Samsung Electronics, Sylincom, WindRiver, ArrayComm, and Chengdu NTS.
The above named companies are collaborating on multi-vendor interoperability and validation activities for O-RAN compliant 5G access infrastructure. The initial focus is to ensure RAN components from multiple vendors support standard and open interfaces and can interoperate in accordance with O-RAN test specifications.
“China Mobile will initiate an OTIC in Beijing, China, which should provide the common platform for solutions to be operationally ready to enable end-to-end interoperability and deployment in scale; as well as to be hardened for reliability, performance, scalability, and security that operator networks require,” said Dr. Li Zhengmao, EVP of China Mobile.
“Jio is creating an OTIC to accelerate the telecom industry transformation by driving ready-for-commercialisation products and solutions,” said Mathew Oommen, President, Reliance Jio.
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Heavy Reading Comments:
“It is pretty significant for O-RAN because DoCoMo is a genuinely leading operator, a rainmaker in these things,” says Gabriel Brown, a principal analyst with Heavy Reading. “They have said this will conform with O-RAN specifications in what looks like the production 4G and 5G network.”
“One of the criticisms of the 5G RAN was about using the same 4G vendor, but the implication here is that you could do multivendor,” said Brown, pointing to NTT DoCoMo’s statements about the O-RAN Alliance’s X2 specifications. “What they don’t appear to be saying is that they have different baseband vendors for 4G and 5G, but they are saying they can do it. There is no question at all this is a big statement about O-RAN.”
NTT DoCoMo’s update is not a complete surprise, he says, because the operator had already been in trials with Fujitsu, NEC and Nokia. Today’s move aligns that model with the O-RAN specifications at an important moment. “Whatever they are doing has to be rock solid because the Rugby World Cup is coming in a couple of weeks,” says Brown. “That is a warm-up for the 2020 Olympics in terms of international attention on Japanese networks and all operators will be launching a limited 5G service.”
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Telco Testimonials and Deployment Plans for O-RAN:
“ The O-RAN Alliance was created to accelerate the delivery of products that support a common, open architecture and standardized interfaces that we, as operators, view as the foundation of our next-generation wireless infrastructure, while ensuring a broad community of suppliers driven by innovation and open market competition. ” — Alex Jinsung Choi, SVP Research and Technology Innovation, Deutsche Telekom “ Our industry is approaching an inflection point, where increasing infrastructure virtualization will combine with embedded intelligence to deliver more agile services and advanced capabilities to our customers. The O-RAN Alliance is at the forefront of defining the next generation RAN architecture for this transformation. ” — Andre Fuetsch, CTO and President AT&T Labs.
AT&T is a key proponent of O-RAN adoption. An AT&T employee, who presented on O-RAN at ONF Connect 2019, said the company is seriously evaluating adopting the Alliance’s specifications for 5G deployments sometime in 2020. AT&T has said that it foresees that it can bring the “whitebox” environment to the RAN by adopting open hardware specifications.
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References:
https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/info/media_center/pr/2019/0918_00.html
https://www.o-ran.org/membership
https://www.o-ran.org/specifications
http://the-mobile-network.com/2019/03/taking-the-open-ran-commercial/
AT&T CEO Stephenson: AT&T has fastest wireless network, will have 5G nationwide footprint by mid-year 2020
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference in New York, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said that the company has increased the capacity of its wireless network by 50% such that it is now the fastest and highest quality (presumably in the U.S.)
“Over the course of about 3 years, we are increasing (or have increased?) the entire nationwide capacity of the AT&T wireless network by 50%……What’s the by-product of that? AT&T, end of last year and first half of this year, has just surpassed the competition in terms of wireless network performance. It is unequivocally the fastest wireless network, best quality network. We’ve exceeded the competition and the gap is widening. It’s not getting closer. That’s a beautiful place to be for a company like ours, having a high-quality network claim. And it’s really important when you’re entering a world of distributing premium video to our consumers over wireless networks.”
Stephenson credits AT&T’s FirstNet build for helping with much of the company’s work on 5G:
“You have to go out and you have to climb every cell tower where you’re deploying this (FirstNet) network nationwide. Why is that such a big deal? We have also, over my tenure as CEO, invested well over $40 billion in aggregating a big portfolio of wireless spectrum. And this is really important because we believe when the world of video came, and you’re distributing video over wireless networks, you’re going to need an amazing amount of capacity. So we’ve been accumulating this wireless spectrum, $40 billion plus worth of this. To put that spectrum to work, what do you have to do? You have to go climb every cell tower and put it to work. This is expensive stuff to do across an entire country.”
And “what do you have to do to deploy 5G? You have to go climb every cell tower in the country and put up 5G antennas and the hardware associated with it.” he said. More specifically, Stephenson stated:
“We will, as a result of all this work that I just talked about, we will have a nationwide 5G footprint by midyear next year, nationwide 5G by midyear next year in the really premium spectrum areas of our network. And so we’re feeling really good about wireless.”
AT&T presently has 21 pre-standard 5G markets up in the U.S. using high band millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum. Stephenson said that T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon are all going “aggressively” for 5G markets in the U.S. In fact he considers the US the global leader in 5G.
This author strongly disagrees and believes that almost all of the currently deployed pre-standard 5G networks will have to be replaced in 2021-2023 after IMT 2020 is standardized by the ITU (not 3GPP!).
Stephenson said, “In China, I’m not aware of any 5G systems up and running…In Europe I’m not aware of an RFP [request for proposal] out.” While it’s true that China is currently in the build-out phase of 5G, it’s a top priority of China’s government to be the world leader as per this recent IEEE Techblog post.
Stephenson also talked up the benefits of 5G (as if there wasn’t enough hype already?). For instance, he says that 5G can handle “millions” of devices on a cell and locate objects to within “centimeters” rather than meters. The networks, he added, will also be “real time” and help with the “virtualization” of functions — an initiative that AT&T has already been pursuing aggressively through various open source projects in the OCP, ONF and Linux Foundation.
“You have to have powerful compute capability for 5G. All of a sudden, when you have networks this fast, you can begin to push a lot of these requirements, storage into the edge of the network. And so you’re getting cloud distributed (computing) down to the edge of the network. This brings a whole different level of speed, but it also brings a whole different level of imagination in terms of what do form factors start to look like? Millions of devices per square mile literally being located within centimeters of each other with a whole different form factor in terms of power, storage and compute requirements. I mean, truly, the Google vision of a few years ago that everybody laughed about, that this becomes the screen, that’s feasible. That is truly feasible. Sensors that are microscopic because the power requirements are so much lower. And where this allows you to go as a society? I mean traffic management capability because of sensors that are this cheap and broadly distributed, millions per square mile, pipeline management, utility — I can go on and on, autonomous cars.” Ughhhhh!
Continuing with his 5G cheer leading, Stephenson added:
“When you go to 5G, millions of simultaneous connections are now feasible within a given square mile area on this technology (unlike 4G-LTE). That’s a different business proposition for everybody who sits in this room and all the companies you invest in. So the connectivity goes to a different level. The security, this is the part we love, goes to a different level as well,” he added.
Note — AT&T’s mmWave Spectrum holdings:
AT&T currently uses mmWave spectrum for its 5G+ service. The company’s 5G spectrum holdings in the millimeter wave band are now more than 630 MHz (as of July 2019 as per this press release). All of the licenses won in FCC Auction 102 were in the more valuable upper 500 MHz portion of the 24 GHz band, AT&T said. “We’re leading the nation in mobile 5G deployment and the large, contiguous block of spectrum we won in Auction 102 will be critical to maintaining that leadership,” said Scott Mair, president of AT&T Operations. For more information, please see this IEEE Techblog post.
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Regarding virtualization of 75% of AT&Ts network (a claim we think is highly exaggerated as per this comment), the AT&T CEO said:
“This virtualization, which we now have 75% of our network virtualized, cloud-based types of architecture, we are now 17 — roughly 17 quarters where the cost of this has been going down year-over-year 7% to 8%, year-over-year for about 17 straight quarters. That’s a stunning development. For a company like ours, to get yourself in a cost position like that to address pricing pressure, competition from the Chinese and so forth, it’s a really powerful thing.”
As for AT&T’s wireless network operator competition, Stephenson said:
“Everybody is in an aggressive build cycle for 5G, so a lot of capital being deployed as well. But do have a new player in the market in the form of DISH with a prepaid business and a lot of fallow spectrum? Does that come into the market? And the AGs have a successful lawsuit and block it? I honestly don’t know how predict it. I do think the next 2 or 3 years doesn’t get radically different. If the Sprint/T-Mobile deal gets done, everybody’s — Sprint, T-Mobile, we know what that play looks like to run integrations of large-scale networks. They have a lot of great opportunity. They’ll have a lot of spectrum to put to work, but it’s a 2- or 3-year integration exercise. DISH will have a rather significant period of time to build out networks. So next 2 or 3 years may be as predicable as they’ve been. As soon as you say that, something will change, but it’s kind of my assessment of it right now.”
“You have T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon all going aggressively, accumulating the spectrum required to deploy this, getting the spectrum cleared and the right bands to deploy this and working the standards of the technology. And so we have been aggressive. AT&T was hyper-aggressive at working the global standards for 5G so that our network equipment providers can manufacture equipment and get us in the market.”
Question to Ponder?
In conclusion, we ask readers to think if Stephenson’s remarks are truly accurate, especially his claims (echoed by many AT&T executives) that the company has virtualized 75% of its network functions. That would mean replacing that percentage of network equipment (hardware with embedded proprietary software/firmware) with open source virtualization software and orchestration running in commodity compute servers with white box switches and transport network elements. Is that true or is it “lies and more lies?”
References:
https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/atandt-ceo-us-ahead-in-5g/d/d-id/754180?
China’s telecom carriers to play a pioneering role in 5G; China Telecom and China Unicom may be barred from U.S.
by Ma Si <[email protected]> of China Daily Multimedia Co. Ltd.
Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance, a telecom industry association, and a keen observer of the telecom sector for nearly two decades, said: “Chinese telecom companies have made big strides in their innovation capabilities, through their consistent and heavy input into research and development. They have strong willingness to pioneer cutting-edge applications.”
Four of the world’s top six smartphone makers – Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo – are Chinese. In 2018, the country produced 1.8 billion smartphones, accounting for 90 percent of global production, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed.
Their decades of efforts have helped nurture the world’s largest online population in a single nation – the 854 million strong Chinese netizens (as of June). That is more than the combined population of European countries. More importantly, more than 99 per cent of netizens in China surf the internet through smartphones.
Vistors try 5G phones at an international expo on June 20, 2019. [Photo by Liu Chenghe/For China Daily]
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Wu Jichuan, 82, a former head of the former Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, said handsets are becoming almost omnipresent in the country. They can help users do almost everything from buying movie tickets, booking hospital or clinic appointments to ordering meals.
“That was in sharp contrast to 1980’s when mobile communication services were first brought to China. Back then, only successful Chinese businesspeople were able to use brick-sized, palm-filling mobile phones,” Wu recalled.
Such phones, however, were capable of just two functions: making and receiving calls. Yet, they were luxury products of the time. A handset could cost as much as about 20,000 yuan ($2,798). Consumers had to pay an extra fee of 6,000 yuan to sign up for the telecom network services. Calls cost 5 jiao a minute. In comparison, the average salary of ordinary people was no more than 100 yuan a month, Wu said.
According to Wu, one of the biggest contributions of China’s telecom industry is that it laid down a sound digital infrastructure for companies and consumers to access fast internet networks at affordable prices. They laid the foundation for China’s kaleidoscope of mobile applications and thriving digital economy.
Leveraging these achievements, the country’s telecom carriers are scrambling to establish a beachhead in the 5G era, in which almost everything can be connected to the internet.
As at the end of May, Chinese companies accounted for more than 30 percent of all patents essential to the global standards for 5G. After the country granted the commercial 5G licenses in June, local telecom carriers are working to build a sound network infrastructure to accelerate the technology’s commercialization.
Yang Jie, chairman of China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator, said the company plans to cover 50 cities across China with 5G signals by the end of this year.
“That will involve deploying 50,000 5G base stations across the country,” Yang said, adding that the company has already raised 7 billion yuan as the first phase of a 5G fund to promote the development of key technologies. The planned total size of the fund is 30 billion yuan.
Similarly, China Unicom said it will cover at least 40 cities with 5G signals by the end of this year and work together with all industry partners, including foreign companies, to accelerate 5G infrastructure construction.
Just a day after securing its 5G license, China Unicom announced it had opened experience stores across 40 cities to encourage consumers to try applications powered by the superfast technology.
Visitors can play with mechanical robotic arms, watch 4K high-definition live-streaming, wear virtual reality goggles to play 3-D games and learn that with 5G, doctors can complete surgeries on patients 2,500 kilometers away.
Lyu Tingjie, a telecom professor at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said: “After all the hype about 5G, the new era has finally started. All the state-of-the-art applications are getting closer to the public than ever. The next question is: How to better time the rollout and partner with a wide range of traditional sectors to boost efficiency?”
The country’s telecom carriers are expected to spend 900 billion yuan to 1.5 trillion yuan on 5G network construction from 2020 to 2025, according to a report from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
The first batch of 5G smartphones hit the market in August. China Unicom said its 5G data packages will cost a minimum of 190 yuan, arguably the world’s lowest price, in its first stage of application.
In comparison, the minimum cost in South Korea’s 5G data packages is about 325 yuan per month, while US telecom operator AT&T charges users $70 (equivalent to 498 yuan) for 15-gigabytes of 5G data every 30 days.
Consumers visit the booth of China Telecom as the company’s Shanghai branch launches a promotion called “Buy 5G mobile phones and enjoy 5G network.” [Photo by Ying Liqing/China News]
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Meanwhile, Chinese telecom equipment makers are securing a growing number of 5G contracts to supply foreign telecom carriers. Huawei said it had signed 50 commercial contracts for 5G with carriers worldwide, with 28 contracts from Europe, 11 from the Middle East, six from the Asia-Pacific region, four from the Americas, and one from Africa.
According to a forecast by the Global System for Mobile Communications Association, an industry group, China is set to become the world’s largest 5G market by 2025, with 460 million 5G users.
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Sidebar: Huawei
In 2003, when Huawei Technologies Co, then known more as a manufacturer of telecom equipment like switches, and base stations, decided to set up a mobile phones department, China was still using 2G, or the second-generation wireless technology. Back then, only a fraction of consumers could use cellular phones to surf the internet. And it took them about five seconds or longer to open a web page.
Sixteen years later, Huawei is the world’s second-largest smartphone maker. Its 5G-enabled handsets can download heavy data files – say, a 1 GB movie – in seconds. That’s just a glimpse of the commercial possibilities in the 5G era, which China kicked off in June.
From a virtual non-entity in the global mobile phones market to a world-renowned company, Huawei’s rise has been meteoric, and it coincided with the development of China’s telecommunications industry.
Huawei, however, is just one of the many Chinese telecom companies that have thrived on the global stage in recent years, helping the country to transform from a follower during the period of 2G and 3G to a pioneer in the 5G era.
William Xu, a director on Huawei’s board and president of the Institute of Strategic Research, said the company has had more than 200,000 5G base stations in shipment, which marked a steady step forward, compared with its earlier announcement of 150,000 base stations in late June.
Huawei has invested about $4 billion in all so far in the research and development of 5G since 2009.Founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei has said in an interview that other players will not be able to catch up with Huawei in 5G over the next two to three years.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201909/16/WS5d7ee28ca310cf3e3556b8d9.html
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Senators Urge F.C.C. to Review Licenses of 2 Chinese Telecom Companies:
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York along with Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, cited national security concerns in a letter to the FCC which asked the commission to review the licenses that giveChina Telecom and China Unicom, the right to use networks in the United States. In the letter, they said that the two Chinese government-linked telecom operators could use that access to “target” Americans’ communications. And they warned that the companies could reroute communications traveling on their networks through China. The text of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.
Brian Hart, an F.C.C. spokesman, said that Ajit Pai, the F.C.C. chairman, had made it clear that the agency was “reviewing other Chinese communications companies such as China Telecom and China Unicom” but didn’t commit to opening a formal proceeding to look at the licenses.
China Telecom denied that it represents a national security threat to the United States. China Unicom did not respond to a request for comment.
“We make the protection of our customers’ data a priority, and have built a solid reputation as one of the best telecom companies in the world,” said Ge Yu, a spokesman for China Telecom’s Americas subsidiary, adding that the company is proud of “maintaining a good standing with all regulatory agencies.”
National security officials have been worried for years that the Chinese government could use its companies to gain access to crucial telecommunications infrastructure. Those concerns have become more prominent as carriers in the United States and in China race to launch next-generation 5G wireless networks — and American regulators have targeted Chinese telecom companies in the name of security.
In May the F.C.C. denied an application from China Mobile to operate in the United States. Ajit Pai, the commission’s chairman, said at the time that there was a risk that the Chinese state would use the carrier to “conduct activities that would seriously jeopardize the national security, law enforcement, and economic interests of the United States.”
So if the FCC bans China Telecom and China Unicom it will be a trifecta ban on all three state owned Chinese telecom operators!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/15/business/federal-communications-commission-china.html
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Comcast: ONF Trellis software is in production together with L2/L3 white box switches
Jet lagged yet energetic and cheerful, Comcast Senior VP of Next Generation Access Networks Elad Nafshi returned from a motor bike trip in the European alps (via a red eye flight from Frankfurt, Germany to SFO) to deliver an important keynote speech at the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) Connect 2019 conference in Santa Clara, CA this Friday. A graduate of Tel Aviv University, Mr. Nafshi has been with Comcast for over 14 years.
Elad announced that Comcast, the leading ISP in the U.S. by subscribers, has deployed the open source ONF Trellis software and reference hardware design “in multiple markets with real customers.” He noted that “This is not a technical trial or PoC. We have not deployed a new appliance. We deployed an entire ecosystem.”
Trellis is an SDN-based, multi-purpose leaf-spine (AKA spine-leaf) switching fabric designed for access-and-edge networks, NFV, and edge cloud applications. It uses the Open Network Operating System (ONOS) open source SDN controller running in an x86 based compute server and the OpenFlow protocol as a “southbound API” (Control plane to/from Data plane) to interface with multiple interconnected white box/bare metal L2/L3 switches. That configuration is shown in the illustration below.
Comcast, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, and Infosys collectively authored a reference design for Trellis in April 2019. Reference designs are “blueprints” developed by ONF’s Operator members (AT&T, China Unicom, Comcast, Deutsche Telekom, Google, NTT Group, and Turk Telekom), to address specific use cases for the emerging edge cloud/broadband and mobile access networks.
“In collaboration with the ONF and a team of supply chain vendors, Comcast is deploying the open source Trellis platform as the networking fabric in our next generation access network,” Nafshi said in a press release. “This has been a multiple year journey from design, to extensive field trials and finally to production rollout, and we’re impressed with the results and the advantages that using open source and Trellis are delivering for us as we upgrade our access network,” he added.
While Elad said that Trellis rollouts are accelerating and may “soon come to an area near you,” he declined to answer questions about the locations, size or scale of Comcast’s Trellis deployments. I talked to Elad after his speech and found him to be very engaging and congenial.
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Comcast claims an open source- and a white box-based Ethernet backhaul is integral to its next generation network access strategy. By using Trellis, Nafshi said Comcast improved network scalability as well as space and power facility efficiencies in its cable head-ends.
Trellis plays a key role in Comcast’s next generation Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) [1] strategy, which uses an Ethernet-based converged interconnect network (CIN). Comcast is using Trellis within this CIN.
Note 1. Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) enables the evolution of cable networks by decentralizing and virtualizing headend and network functions. DAA extends the digital portion of the head-end or hub domain out to the fiber optic node and places the digital to RF interface at the optical-coax boundary in the node. Replacing the analog optics from the head-end converts the fiber link to a digital fiber Ethernet link, increasing the available bandwidth improving fiber efficiencies (wavelengths and distance), and directional alignment with NFV/SDN/FTTx systems of the future.
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“This has been a multiple year journey from design, to extensive field trails and finally to production rollout, and we’re impressed with the results and the advantages that using open source and Trellis are delivering for us as we upgrade our access network,” Elad said.
While Comcast’s conventional network currently relies on embedded routing and switching protocols running on individual vendor specific switches, Trellis software runs in a cloud-native SDN fashion on a cluster of standard compute server nodes each of which implements a centralized control plane via the ONOS SDN controller. This new SDN based architecture makes network design, deployment, debug and upgrades much simpler, while minimizing network complexity and cost.
“This is real, true production at scale,” said ONF VP of Marketing Timon Sloane. “The design has been vetted and tested and hardened over multiple years. It’s in multiple markets, with tens of thousands of subscribers.”
“The open source ecosystem created by ONF has collectively established a new ‘Distributed DevOps’ model through the process of trialing, hardening and deploying Trellis with Comcast. This has established a new formula for open source whereby an operator, ONF and a consortium of commercial entities come together to collectively build and stand behind a deployment,” said Saurav Das, Vice President of Engineering for the ONF.
Earlier at this week’s ONF Connect 2019 event, Arthur D. Little, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, and Telefónica released a study that found virtualized, cloud-based architectures can save network operators 40% in capex and 25% in opex.
References:
https://www.opennetworking.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ONF-Reference-Design-Trellis-032919.pdf
https://www.fiercetelecom.com/operators/comcast-puts-open-source-networking-software-into-production
Economist Interview with Ren: Huawei may sell its 5G technology to a western buyer
Ren Zhengfei wants to create a competitor for his company.
5G technology—central to Huawei’s future revenue growth—is what founder and CEO Ren said he was ready to share, in a two-hour interview with The Economist on September 10th.
For a one-time fee, a transaction would give the buyer perpetual access to Huawei’s existing 5G patents, licences, code, technical blueprints and production know-how. The acquirer could modify the source code, meaning that neither Huawei nor the Chinese government would have even hypothetical control of any telecoms infrastructure built using equipment produced by the new company. Huawei would likewise be free to develop its technology in whatever direction it pleases.
Mr Ren’s stated aim is to create a rival that could compete in 5G with Huawei (which would keep its existing contracts and continue to sell its own 5G kit). To his mind, this would help level the playing field at a time when many in the West have grown alarmed at the prospect of a Chinese company supplying the gear for most of the world’s new mobile-phone networks. “A balanced distribution of interests is conducive to Huawei’s survival,” Mr Ren says.
No kidding. A months-long assault by America has pummelled the firm, whose global networks it suspects of allowing China to spy on others. America has also attempted to press allies not to use Huawei’s equipment as they begin to build their own 5G networks. In May American companies were barred from selling components and software to Huawei on the grounds that it posed a national-security risk. Last month America restricted government agencies from doing business with it (the firm is challenging this ban in court).
At first glance, Mr Ren’s gesture has much going for it. If the sale eventually gave rise to a thriving competitor, countries such as Australia (which has banned Huawei’s gear) would no longer have to choose between, on the one hand, technology in their networks that is both cutting-edge and cheap, as Huawei’s is, and, on the other, fears of Chinese eavesdropping. They could have the best technology from an ally instead. Decisions on the purchase of telecoms equipment could then return from politicians to pragmatic boardrooms.
The gesture may also convince those suspicious of Huawei’s tech that the firm’s business intentions are hard-nosed. Mr Ren says money from the deal would allow Huawei to “make greater strides forward”. The value of the firm’s entire 5G technology portfolio, if it were sold, could run to tens of billions of dollars. In the past decade the company has spent at least $2bn on research and development for the new generation of mobile connectivity.
In saying he wants to create a fairer technological race, Mr Ren is also attempting to dissociate American security fears from those of Huawei’s market dominance. His offer is “essentially calling their bluff”, says Samm Sacks of New America, a think-tank in Washington, DC. As she points out, America’s government is working out how to create a rival to Huawei, whether by fostering American firms or helping bolster its two main global competitors, Ericsson, a Swedish firm, and Nokia, a Finnish one. Moves are also afoot to make certain components of mobile networks interchangeable with each other, to let carriers mix and match suppliers more easily. OpenRAN, a standards body, wants infrastructure manufacturers like Huawei to agree on standards for the technology in their networks that shuttles data around to ease interoperability. Huawei has so far declined to join.
Yet questions over the feasibility of the deal abound. Would China accept hiving off a core part of one of its few globally powerful corporations? For better or worse, 5G has become a proxy for superpowerdom. As Mr Ren told The Economist, “5G represents speed” and “countries that have speed will move forward rapidly. On the contrary, countries that give up speed and excellent connectivity technology may see economic slowdown.”
Even if the Chinese state gave its blessing, who might be the buyer? Mr Ren says he has “no idea”. Analysts suspect that giants such as Ericsson and Nokia would balk at an offer out of pride, and would question the value of Huawei’s tech. (Having posted losses last year, they are also short of cash.) The technology may not help a smaller firm compete on an equal footing with Huawei. The Chinese firm is so well entrenched with big operators, say consultants, that it would not make financial sense for most of them to take on a new supplier. Samsung, a South Korean electronics giant, has deep pockets and a smallish but growing networking-gear business—and without rival bidders, it could drive a hard bargain. A consortium of buyers is possible; who would make one up is unclear, however.
Suitors may be put off by other considerations. If Huawei really is ready to transfer the entirety of its technology to another company, then, as Mr Wang points out, “it has to accept the risk of a major competitor in the future.” But Huawei’s dominance owes as much to technology as to its low prices and the speed at which it can roll products out, says Ms Sacks. Its willingness to serve places Western firms steer clear of is also a factor: who else besides Huawei would wade through malarial swamps in Africa and haul base stations up the flanks of Colombian mountains? Mr Ren knows this. Asked whether he thought that an American firm, with Huawei’s precious know-how in hand, would be able to pull it off, he said, with swagger, “I don’t think so.” But potential buyers know it, too.
Lastly, few believe that a sale would placate America’s national-security apparatus, at least in the short run. A new competitor would almost certainly still need to make equipment in China, which makes half of America’s telecoms kit. Concerns about Chinese meddling would not go away. And Huawei’s latest offensive is not all charm. Last week it accused American officials of committing infractions while posing as Huawei workers, in order to “bring unsubstantiated accusations against the company”. It also accused America’s government of targeting it with cyber-attacks. That may sour relations.
Could Mr Ren’s proposal, then, be a sign of desperation? Not a bit of it, he says. He claims that Huawei has found alternative suppliers for its network-infrastructure business that are unaffected by its blacklisting by America. He denies that the company will make a loss in the coming year.
Nonetheless, the consumer business is under pressure. Half of the company’s $105bn in sales last year came from the 208m smartphones it sold around the world. So did an outsized share of profits. This business is in deep trouble. Phones that Huawei sells outside China are desirable communication devices largely thanks to proprietary software available exclusively from Google. Android, Google’s mobile operating system, which Huawei uses, is open-source and freely available. But the American tech giant’s own apps are not. Because Google is American and its apps are compiled in America, the Commerce Department’s ban on sales of American technology to Huawei applies to them.
Mr Ren says that Google has been lobbying the Trump administration to allow it to resume supplying Huawei with proprietary Android software, but so far to no avail. Unless American policy changes, Huawei will remain stuck with the open-source version of Android, without any of the apps that consumers have come to expect. The Chinese firm is in the process of developing its own operating system, Harmony OS, but it will be no rival to the mature Android ecosystem for years to come.
Sandboxed
This means that all new Huawei phones will ship without Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube or, crucially, Google Play Store. The Play Store is what allows Android users to download apps like Whatsapp, Instagram and Facebook easily. WhatsApp in particular has become a standard mode of communication in much of the world outside America. Unless its government lets up, Huawei’s new smartphones will be little more than decent cameras that make phone calls. The firm will launch the Mate 30, the first top-end phone since its blacklisting, on September 19th in Munich. Huawei claims its hardware features will buoy sales. But a phone which lacks basic functions is unlikely to be a hit. A weakened consumer business would dent profits.
Huawei’s share of the Chinese smartphone market, where it has never relied on Google’s apps, is growing fast. But two-fifths of its annual phone sales, or roughly $20bn, come from outside the country. Though the firm’s executives repeatedly declined to share any projections, firm-wide revenue growth in the nine months to August slowed to 19%, year on year, from 23% in the first half of 2019. If the Mate 30 and its successors flop, Huawei stands to lose billions of dollars in annual revenue.
Similar supply-chain challenges affect other parts of its business. Its coders are busily writing Huawei’s own version of software tools known as compilers and libraries, themselves used to create the software that powers all manner of electronic devices, not just smartphones. As with Android, Huawei would have to create its own version of these, and a technological ecosystem around them. Such ecosystems take years to evolve, and there is only so much one company can do to stimulate this evolution, which relies on third-party developers, with their own goals and incentives. Huawei’s expertise in high, hard technology is of little use here.
And, Mr Ren’s assurances notwithstanding, Huawei’s finances are being squeezed. Even he concedes that its relations with large Western banks such as HSBC and Standard Chartered have been disrupted. Still, the firm has plenty of cash and he says that smaller banks remain willing to lend to Huawei. The Chinese Development Bank, which has reportedly extended credit lines to Huawei and ZTE, a Chinese competitor, in the past, may stump up if needed. Mr Ren and his underlings repeatedly claim that cashflow is “healthy”, pointing to the firm’s furious building work. It has just finished a 120 hectare, $1.4bn research campus.
Huawei is being forced to transform itself from a company that makes and sells hardware into one that also makes many components that it used to buy from others. This kind of shift strains a firm. Its cash cow is under threat even as it has to invest heavily to replace the suppliers and software it can no longer get from America. Mr Ren might hope that his proposed sale of Huawei’s 5G technology will give him sufficient fuel for Huawei to fly ever higher. But peer behind the showy frescoes in Shenzhen, and his showier gesture, and Huawei’s future looks decidedly hazy.
This article is from https://www.economist.com/business/2019/09/11/huawei-may-sell-its-5g-technology-to-a-western-buyer
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ITU Telecom World 2019: 5G dominates debate at ITU-T organized CTO meeting in Budapest, Hungary
Introduction:
Since 2016, ITU-T has organized meetings of high-level, private sector executives to discuss the standardization landscape, identifying and coordinating standards priorities and ways to best meet the needs of the private sector. This year’s meeting was in conjunction with ITU Telecom World 2019.
Among the key conclusions of the 2019 Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) meeting, held earlier this week in Budapest, Hungary:
- Industry collaboration will be key to security in the 5G era.
- The sharing of network infrastructure could help operators to deliver new services faster, at lower cost.
- 5G continues to highlight the necessity of investment in all-fiber networks (for backhaul, metro and core networks).
- Machine Learning is certain to form part of our 5G future.
CTOs highlighted that standardization and open-source projects both stand to benefit from close interaction.
They also suggested that a ‘5G observatory’ to share lessons learnt from 5G testbeds and early commercial deployments could assist developing countries in gaining greater clarity around the business opportunities presented by 5G.
With a view to discussing industry needs and associated standardization priorities, the meeting brought together representatives of companies including China Mobile, du, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Futurewei Technologies, Global Voice Group, Huawei, Juniper Networks, Nokia, NTT, Orange, Rohde & Schwarz, Symantec, Telkom Indonesia, TELUS, Tunisie Télécom, UNITEL and Verizon.
The meeting issued a communiqué summarizing trends in information and communication technology (ICT) of growing relevance to ITU standardization.
< Download the CTO meeting communique >
5G security will demand significant industry collaboration and well-coordinated contributions from a wide range of standards bodies. In this author’s opinion, that is not happening at all! CTOs considered the ‘Ottawa Accord’, a set of security priorities developed in June 2019 by network operators, standards bodies and industry associations.
The CTO meeting endorsed the findings of the Ottawa Accord in relation to three security priorities:
- Global threat exchange: Common understanding of security threats and common terminology to enable the sharing of threat intelligence.
- Best practices for operational security: Best practices for 5G security and widespread commitment to infrastructure protection.
- Security Incentives: Measurement schemes based on agreed metrics could bring attention to prevailing levels of security and create incentives for investment in security.
CTOs also considered that a holistic approach to 5G era security could receive valuable support from a global centre for the development of security solutions and their testing and assurance. Such a ‘living lab’ open to multiple interested parties, said CTOs, could bring cohesion to 5G security efforts as well as reduce the costs of testing security solutions.
Infrastructure sharing can assist network operators in reducing time-to-market for new solutions and in gaining cost efficiencies. CTOs illustrated potential scenarios for the sharing of infrastructure such as core networks, central offices, backhaul infrastructure, and towers and radio access networks.
CTOs considered an example of ‘Multi-Core Operator Networks’, networks said to be capable of reducing an operator’s infrastructure investments by as much as 50 per cent and also enable improvements in network performance.
IEEE Techblog recently reported on 5G network sharing in China. We expect more of this in the near future.
5G will support enhanced mobile broadband, massive-scale Internet of Things, and ultra-reliable and low latency communications for applications such as Virtual Reality and automated driving. It presents a key opportunity for network operators to serve consumers as well as other industry sectors.
But 5G deployment calls for considerable investment, leading CTOs to highlight that network operators – particularly in developing countries – may benefit from greater clarity around the business opportunities presented by 5G.
CTOs thus suggested that ITU consider the establishment of ‘5G observatory’ to share lessons learnt from 5G testbeds and early commercial deployments.
CTOs with experience in the early commercial deployment of 5G reiterated the importance of investment in fiber optic networks, which form the ‘backbone’ of the Information Society. Investment in fiber continues to rise, with fiber recognized as the key infrastructure underlying today’s ultra-broadband Gigabit era.
Recognizing ITU’s leadership in the standardization of fiber-optic networks, technologies and infrastructures, CTOs encouraged ITU to support industry in taking full advantage of ITU-standardized Fiber to the Home (FTTH) technologies.
A more homogeneous environment for the assessment of QoS and QoE would deliver key benefits to national regulators, said CTOs. The shift to packet-based communications and the increasing importance of over-the-top (OTT) applications introduces new challenges to the assessment of QoS and QoE. The prices of data and data-enabled devices are decreasing, making these assessment challenges progressively more relevant to developing countries.
CTOs recognized the value of ITU’s technical guidance to regulators on QoS and QoE, highlighting that collaboration in standardization builds common understanding and trust between regulators and network operators.
Machine Learning holds great promise to enhance network management and orchestration. Drawing insight from network-generated data, Machine Learning can yield predictions to support the optimization of network operations and maintenance.
This optimization is becoming increasingly challenging, and increasingly important, as networks gain in complexity to support the coexistence of a diverse range of ICT services. Here CTOs expressed support for the work of the ITU-T Focus Group studying Machine Learning’s contribution to 5G and future networks.
The use of open source in the development of both software and hardware will add value to standardization activities, said CTOs, activities that must be capable of supporting technological as well as business aspects of open-source development.
CTOs discussed examples of successful ITU interaction with open-source communities, highlighting the value of this interaction to both standardization and open-source projects. Proactive interaction, said CTOs, can result in working instances of standards and practical feedback to standardization projects, as well as standard-compliant code to open-source projects.
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The theme for this year’s ITU Telecom World event, “Innovating together: connectivity that matters”, highlights the importance of global collaboration to ensure that everyone benefits from the digital revolution, especially those in developing nations, said ITU Secretary General Houlin Zhao.
“At stake is the chance to transform and improve the lives of millions across the globe in support of the [United Nations] Sustainable Development Goals and closing the digital divide,” said Mr Zhao. “I believe we can make a difference right here and now with ITU Telecom World 2019.”
From 9–12 September 2019, ITU Telecom World will explore innovations in technology, including new radio technologies, 5G, Artificial Intelligence and smart cities, as well as innovation in policy, strategy and regulatory approaches.
“There is no doubt: Innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G and the Internet of Things, can help us achieve the sustainable development goals and improve the lives of all,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said via video message during the opening ceremony.
But with the advance of new technologies such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things, there is a real danger that developing nations will be left further behind in the current digital revolution era.
Universal access to these technologies is just one aspect of creating inclusive global digital societies. Connectivity needs to have meaning. It must be affordable and relevant on a local level, which means local content in local languages, supported by digital literacy and skills programs. Another vital aspect is ensuring technologies are trusted, which requires robust data management, increased education, and cyber-security.
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References:
China Mobile reveals 5G network expansion plans; China Telecom and China Unicom agreement on 5G network sharing
Lu Lu, a senior researcher at the China Mobile Research Institute, said in an industry speech last week that China’s largest wireless network operator expects its 5G network to reach 50 cities by the end of 2019 and 300 major cities by the end of 2020. Ms. Lu said that China Mobile aimed to reach commercial scale in 5G by June next year and that 5G private networking will be a major new enterprise network service. Edge computing, which was not used for 4G-LTE, was seen as essential for delivering customizable private networks, she said. The flexible architecture of the new 5G network was the critical factor, allowing for much more granular services and applications.
In addition, China Mobile is planning to offer network slicing services by the middle of next year when its standalone 5G network achieves commercial scale. That despite no standards for network slicing interoperability between different vendors.
“At present, China Mobile has reserved hundreds of nodes in edge computing rooms. Based on these nodes and 5G networks we will carry out trials of relevant edge computing services,” Lu said. China Mobile and its partners hoped to provide “full-stack edge-computing capabilities to industry customers,” she added.
The Chinese telco is building a “one-stop cloud-network convergence platform” that can provide customized service capabilities in both centralized data centers and data centers at the edge of cities around the country, Lu said. The operator has issued network slicing templates for six industry verticals — power grid, autonomous driving, gaming, entertainment, banking and medical. In partnership with Ericsson, China Mobile exhibited a network slicing-based autonomous vehicle application at MWC2019 in Barcelona earlier this year.
Earlier this year, Ms. Lu delivered a speech to introduce the achievements of the cooperation between China Mobile, Huawei, and Baidu, and elaborated on the concept of “5G network as a service”. She also invited partners to jointly build the 5G ecosystem and continuously promote the maturity of 5G technologies and industry development.
China Mobile Executive Vice-President Li Zhengmao has said he believes private networking and network slicing offered some of the best prospects among new 5G services.
“Operators can create a network-slicing-as-a-service business model, providing high-reliability, high-performance and easy deployment for the vertical industry through a centralized network slicing service platform,” he said in an interview with state news service Xinhua.
But he acknowledged that the lack of clear business models in industry partnerships was one of the biggest problems.
China Mobile has set up a 5G Joint Innovation Center to drive application development, with more than 500 industry partners and more than 400 vertical industry partners, Li said.
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Separately, China Telecom and China Unicom, agreed to share the efforts to build and maintain 5G radio access networks across the country. The purpose is to accelerate deployment and slash associated infrastructure costs.
Each wireless carrier will be responsible for operating their own core networks, but will share spectrum resources and a single RAN network (which typically accounts for around 80 per cent of an operator’s capex). Under the agreement, the two companies will be individually responsible for construction and maintenance in specific regions.
In a statement China Telecom said: “The commencement of the co-build and co-share cooperation is beneficial to the efficient construction of [the] 5G network and will rapidly create 5G service capability to enhance network quality and business experience.”
It added the reduced costs would reinforce market competitiveness and achieve a win-win for both parties.
Both operators will continue to handle core networks and branding completely independently, with the collaboration only applying to the construction and ongoing maintenance of physical infrastructure assets. The network will use the companies’ combined spectrum.
In 2016, the operators collaborated on 4G network construction, a move which reportedly saved China Unicom millions in capex within the first year and helped the two better compete with the country’s largest operator, China Mobile.
References:
https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2019/4/huawei-china-mobile-baidu-5g-vertical-lan
SK Telecom and Samsung Electronics MOU for 8K TV connected via a 5G Network
SK Telecom (SKT) today announced that it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Samsung Electronics to jointly develop and commercialize the world’s first 5G-8K TV. SKT said the 5G-8K TV will revolutionize users’ television-watching experience by directly receiving 8K video over SK Telecom’s ultra-low latency and ultra-wideband 5G network.
SKT launched its 5G service simultaneously with its rival Korean cellular carriers in early April. Korea’s largest mobile operator by subscribers said it reached the 1 million 5G subscriber milestone on 21 August.
*8K (7680×4320 resolution) is the highest resolution currently in existence, a fourfold enhancement of UHD standard.
SK Telecom plans to apply Mobile Edge Computing and Network-Based Media Processing to its pre-standard 5G network to realize seamless transmission of 8K video. Samsung Electronics will apply its 8K AI Upscaling and next-generation codec technologies to upgrade full HD and UHD images to 8K resolution. The company will also equip 8K TVs with 5G dongles to support direct transmission of 8K resolution video content.
Park Jin-hyo, second from left, who heads SK Telecom’s ICT Technology Center, and Lee Hee-man, right, who heads Samsung Electronics’ VD Service PM Group, with other officials after signing a MOU to develop 8K TV powered by 5G networks. / Courtesy of SK Telecom.
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Viewers will be able to watch video content of POOQ* and oksusu at 8K resolution.
*POOQ is an over-the-top video subscription service offering programs on terrestrial TV. It is a joint platform of Korea’s terrestrial broadcasters.
The two companies have also agreed to jointly evolve 5G-8K TV further to deliver a new user experience by working together in the areas including eSpace, SK Telecom’s hyper-space platform for replicating the real world in cyberspace, and 5G Sero TV, a 5G-based television that can be rotated both horizontally and vertically to provide a smartphone-like UX for TV users.
Moreover, they plan to develop B2B business models in areas of smart office and digital signage by adding 5G connectivity to televisions and displays.
SK Telecom introduced technologies related to ‘5G connected screen’ at an MPEG held in July 2019 and was designated as the NBMP (Network Based Media Processing) chair company to lead international standardization of 5G connected screen related technologies. To this end, SK Telecom will newly open Hyper Media Lab under its ICT R&D Center.
“The 5G-8K TV is the culmination of ultra-low latency 5G networks combined with ultra-high definition TV technology,” said Park Jin-hyo, Chief Technology Officer and Head of ICT R&D Center at SK Telecom. “5G technology will help make the world of hyper media a reality.”
Samsung Electronics will utilize artificial intelligence features that upscale lower-quality content to appear close to 8K resolution. Samsung will equip its 8K TV with a small piece of hardware, called a dongle, to support wireless reception of 8K images.
Qualcomm, Samsung, and Huawei announce 5G SoCs at IFA in Berlin
The Berlin-based IFA consumer electronics show keynotes from Qualcomm, Huawei, and Samsung illustrated the telecom supplier industry’s strong dedication to 5G System on a Chip (SoC). Yet this comes more than one year before the IMT 2020 Radio Interface Technology (RIT) standard has been completed and six months (or more) before 3GPP Release 16 (which will specify ultra low latency and ultra high reliability) has been finalized. Hence, we wonder if major revisions of announced 5G SoC’s and chipsets will be required in IMT 2020 standard endpoint devices?
Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon’s keynote presentation described the company’s 5G strategy, which is focused in part on driving access to 5G end point devices. Amon promised to bring 5G mobile phones to the masses with a high-end modem and said Qualcomm chips would also power mid-price 5G devices reaching the market next year.
Qualcomm’s second-generation X55 modem supports 5G at both sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave frequencies and supports peak downlink speeds of 7 Gbps and peak uplink speeds of 3 Gbps.
Notable in Qualcomm’s IFA presentation is support for dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) across the 6-, 7- and 8-series Snapdragon mobile platforms. In addition to bringing down the price point on 5G phones, this fits with operators plans to rapidly scale coverage in 2020 by using DSS, which lets LTE and 5G operate in the same band at the same time. More on DSS (Ericsson and Qualcomm 5G data call) in this techblog post.
As wireless network providers introduce or expand their 5G network offerings, “We need to enable the operators to have that ecosystem ready so you can start providing new devices with dynamic spectrum sharing… We want all the users to have the benefit of this technology,” Amon told the IFA audience.
To make that 5G ecosystem possible, Amon announced Qualcomm would bring its portfolio of 5G mobile platforms out of just the 8-series and into the 7- and 6-series in 2020. Amon said a dozen OEMs were already onboard. with the 5G-enabled 7-series. “We are going to bring 5G to scale with our many partners.”
“Qualcomm have done a phenomenal job to drive the 5G ecosystem,” said industry analyst Paolo Pescatore. “It’s going faster than anyone could have ever imagined.”
–>We certainly agree with that comment – Qualcomm has done a splendid job, but much more work remains before an IMT 2020 chipset/SoC is introduced – most likely in mid 2021. Qualcomm will likely be partnering with carriers to market new devices. It’s typical for operators to market subsidized handsets in the United States, but much less so in Europe.
Image courtesy of Qualcomm.
5G chipsets from Qualcomm, the world’s biggest supplier of mobile phone chips, now run on five devices from Samsung Electronics, including the $1,299 Galaxy S10 5G model and the new $2,000 Galaxy Fold. Samsung is the world’s #1 smartphone maker. It has also put Qualcomm chips in its lower-priced A90 5G model, which had used Samsung chips in an earlier version.
Amon said that Qualcomm plans to add 5G capabilities to its lower-cost Snapdragon 6 and 7 series devices, which could make 5G phones available at lower prices than the current models, which are mostly flagship devices priced at a premium. Qualcomm’s 6 and 7 series Snapdragon chips are found in devices from Lenovo Group Ltd’s Motorola, Xiaomi Corp, Oppo and Vivo that retail in the $300 range.
Indeed, virtually all flagship 5G mobile devices launched in 2019 in Europe and beyond are built on the Qualcomm’s ®Snapdragon™ 855 Mobile Platform. Such semiconductor market dominance is unprecedented in this author’s 52 years of experience.
“The transition to 5G is going to be faster than earlier transitions,” Amon told Reuters on the sidelines of the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin. “Now we have to bring it to everyone.”
Conversely, this author believes the transition to mass market/high volume 5G (based on IMT 2020 standards), will be much longer than earlier transitions, e.g. from 3G to 4G.
More than 20 network operators and a similar number of smartphone makers – from the United States to Europe to China – are launching 5G services and handsets. Amon estimated there were 2.2 billion mobile users that could upgrade to 5G. Again, we don’t think that will happen till there’s real 5G interoperability and roaming, which will require all devices and base stations to support IMT 2020 RITs/SRITs at a minimum!
Unlike rivals, Qualcomm is designing its chipsets to handle frequencies “from A to Z,” said Amon at IFA, adding that flexibility to switch between 4G networks and new 5G networks was critical.
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Qualcomm’s 5G chipset competition is limited:
1. 5G chips from Taiwan based Mediatek can only handle sub-6 bands, reducing the cost and complexity of the chips and phone designs. There really are no other 5G merchant market silicon vendors. Mediatek’s 5G chip supports Standalone (SA) and Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G infrastructure, but it only supports sub-6GHz spectrum.
“Everything about this chip is designed for the first wave of flagship 5G devices. The leading-edge technology in this chipset makes it the most powerful 5G SoC announced to date and puts MediaTek at the forefront of 5G SoC design,” said MediaTek President Joe Chen. “MediaTek will power rollouts of 5G premium level devices,” Chen added.
2. China state owned Unisoc announced the MAKALU 5G technology platform and its first 5G Modem IVY510 at MWC2019 in Barcelona, but that company is not represented in ITU-R WP5D meetings where IMT 2020 RIT/SRITs are being standardized. UNISOC IVY510 is the first 5G Modem of UNISOC based on the MAKALU technology platform, produced with TSMC’s 12nm process. As the first 2G/3G/4G/5G multimode platform of UNISOC, IVY510 complies to the latest 3GPP R15 spec, supports Sub-6GHz 5G spectrum with a channel bandwidth of 100MHz, which is a highly integrated, high performance, low power 5G platform, and supports both standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) network configurations to meet communication and networking requirements during different stages of 5G deployment.
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Samsung announced the Exynos 980 eight-nanometer mobile processor with an integrated 5G modem capable of sub-6 GHz downlink speeds of 2.55 Gbps and 1.28 Gbps uplink.
ENDC refers to 5G/LTE dual connectivity and, based on 3GPP documents, stands for E-UTRAN New Radio-Dual Connectivity. Essentially ENDC allows user equipment to connect to an LTE eNodeB that acts as a master node and a 5G gNodeB that acts as a secondary node. Sprint, for instance, uses this to deploy LTE and 5G in its 2.5 GHz spectrum at the same time; a complement to the split-mode manner the carrier configures its massive MIMO radios. Samsung said that ENDC provides peak speeds of 3.55 Gbps downstream and $2.55 Gbps upstream.
Image courtesy of Samsung Electronics.
“With the introduction of our 5G modem last year, Samsung has been driving in the 5G revolution and paved the way towards the next step in mobility,” said Ben Hur, vice president of System LSI marketing at Samsung Electronics. “With the 5G-integrated Exynos 980, Samsung is pushing to make 5G more accessible to a wider range of users and continues to lead innovation in the mobile 5G market,” he added.
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Huawei’s Richard Yu reviewed the specs of the Kirin 990, which the company called “the world’s first 5G SoC,” a disputed claim. Yu touted the Kirin 990 chipset at IFA: “It’s the world’s most powerful 5G system on a chip. It’s the world’s most powerful 5G modem.”
The Kirin 990 5G is built on a seven-nanometer semiconductor manufacturing process. It includes silicon technologies from previous iterations of the Kirin line as well as the Balong line.
Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, presents at IFA. Image courtesy of Huawei.
The updated Kirin is set to power Huawei’s upcoming flagship smartphone the Mate 30, which will be officially announced at a Sept. 19th launch event in Munich, Germany. According to specs provided by Huawei, the Kirin 990 packs more than 10 billion transistors. It can theoretically support downlink speeds of up to 2.3 Gbps and uplink speeds of 1.25 Gbps upstream. The chip set has an adaptive receiver that enables it to switch between 4G and 5G where coverage of the faster technology is weak. And, to save energy, it has a ‘big core’ to handle powerful computing tasks with the support of artificial intelligence, and a ‘tiny core’ for less demanding operation.
Huawei probably won’t sell the Kirin SoC on the semiconductor merchant market, but rather use it internally in its 5G endpoint devices (mostly 5G smart phones- for now). The latest Kirin does not support millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies, which provide multi-gigabit-per-second speeds at the expense of much shorter range/distance. The U.S. has auctioned more millimeter wave frequencies than any other country while AT&T and Verizon are using it in their pre-IMT 2020 standard 5G deployments. Again, mmWave has a much shorter range than mid and lower band spectrum, but has higher data-carrying capacity. Currently, millimeter wave-based 5G networks are more or less limited to the U.S. market where regulatory issues make it very difficult for Huawei to sell anything, including smartphones.
Indeed, due to U.S. trade sanctions, Huawei’s 5G-ready Mate 30 smartphone, scheduled to be launched on Sept. 19, won’t be able to run the official version of Google’s Android operating system and app services if U.S. sanctions remain in place. That eliminates the entire Android app ecosystem which include pre-installing the Google Play store and a suite of popular apps such as Google Maps that buyers would expect to be available from the moment they turn on their new phone and synch it with their profile. Huawei’s fallback option would be to run the devices on its home-grown Harmony operating system, although company officials and analysts say it is not yet ready for prime time.
All that makes it highly unlikely Huawei will be able to sell any 5G smartphone outside of China.
“Qualcomm has a scale advantage,” said Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight. “Huawei’s commitment to continue innovating on silicon is really impressive, especially given the geopolitical headwinds they are facing. “But at the end of the day, it’s a single-vendor solution. And, even if they had aspirations to sell the chipset, that is getting more difficult all the time,” Wood added.
References:
https://ca.reuters.com/article/idCAKCN1VR1HT-OCATC
https://www.reuters.com/article/qualcomm-5g-idUSL2N25W1K5
https://www.rcrwireless.com/20190907/5g/huawei-samsung-5g-ifa
Deutsche Telekom deploys 5G in five German cities; more cities to be added in 2019
5G live in five cities:
Deutsche Telekom said today that its 5G network is now operational in five German cities — Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Bonn, and Darmstadt. The German telco market leader paid 2.2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) for 5G spectrum at a recent auction and the regulator has just unlocked access to the 3.6 Gigahertz band that will power its initial 5G offering.
- A total of 129 antennas across the country are now transmitting ‘genuine’ 5G (3GPP Release 15 5G NR NSA) with a bandwidth in excess of 1G bit/sec.
- 66 antennae clustered in Berlin’s Mitte district form what Deutsche Telekom is calling “the largest continuous 5G coverage area in Germany.”
- Berlin now sports Germany’s biggest continuous 5G coverage area – six square kilometers.
“We are bringing 5G to city streets in line with our customers’ needs,” explains Walter Goldenits, Chief Technology Officer at Telekom Deutschland GmbH.
“We’re starting off where data usage is high and are establishing continuous coverage areas in these places. After all, it’s not just about having 5G show up on screen – it’s about experiencing the real strengths of 5G from the very start. We want to build up as much experience as possible in terms of transmission planning during the initial expansion stage in 2019. We’re learning more with every single antenna we set up and adjust,” Goldenits added.
Coverage will currently be patchy, with 5G service typically available in isolated spots around each antenna. Deutsche Telekom promises to expand its coverage in the initial launch cities to serve larger areas.
Deutsche Telekom has different priorities in its five 5G launch cities to learn from its rollout prior to mass deployment:
- Berlin: The focus in Germany’s capital is to ensure the network can scale to meet the demands of the city, including its tourist hotspots.
- Cologne: Deutsche Telekom is aiming for a ring of infrastructure in the city centre.
- Munich: The priority in Munich is to serve businesses with 5G, by the end of the year Deutsche Telekom plans for its network to cover important areas such as BMW Park and the the Unterföhring media center.
- Bonn: Deutsche Telekom is testing 5G for dual-use in Bonn. The focus will be on business-use during typical working hours and switch to prioritise leisure-use on evenings and weekends.
- Darmstadt: More general 5G usage appears to be the plan for Darmstadt, with coverage extending towards the city centre and university areas in the coming 18 months.
Further cities are set to be added over the remainder of 2019. Hamburg and Leipzig are the next two cities in Deutsche Telekom’s 5G rollout plans, with more than 300 antennas set to be installed across Germany by the year’s end.
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5G competition from Vodafone Germany:
It should be noted that telco rival Vodafone has also announced its 5G rollout in Germany and is challenging Deutsche Telekom on price. The company’s first 5G base stations were activated at an event in Düsseldorf in mid-July, with help from cellular infrastructure equipment supplier Ericsson. Vodafone is also using equipment from Huawei in its 5G network in Germany, according to Reuters. This summer, Vodafone Germany announced it paid €1.88 billion ($2.1 billion) at Germany’s 5G spectrum auction, picking up 90 MHz in the 3.6 GHz band and 40 MHz of 2100 MHz spectrum.
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LTE expansion:
“To begin with, we are using 4G locations for 5G, as the new technology is being synchronized and brought to the network via LTE. You could say that 5G is piggybacking on LTE,” Goldenits explains. “When it comes to achieving rapid expansion, we appreciate the support of city and municipal authorities, particularly in terms of securing approvals quickly.”
Deutsche Telekom is establishing the 5G antennae in addition to its ongoing LTE rollout. There are plans to set up approximately 4,000 new LTE mobile base stations in 2019 and 2020, half of which will be located in rural areas. These new stations will be backed up by several thousand LTE extensions for existing masts, as Deutsche Telekom aims to extend LTE coverage to 98 percent of the population by the end of the year.
Deutsche Telekom is also continuing to expand LTE at coverage gaps, and is adopting a whole new approach with its “Wir jagen Funklöcher” (We’re closing coverage gaps) campaign. Under this initiative, communities that have no coverage can apply to Deutsche Telekom for one of 50 masts. As part of this approach, the company will be working hand in hand with municipal authorities to close the gaps in LTE. What’s more, the masts on offer are also already prepared for 5G.
Devices and plans:
Consumers need new devices in order to use 5G, and the first approved commercial products are now available in the form of the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G and – exclusively available from Deutsche Telekom – the Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5G. There is also the Huawei Mate 20 X 5G and the HTC 5G HUB. More devices are set to follow in the near future.
5G means higher bandwidths, faster transmission speeds, shorter response times, and a much more innovative network. From the smallest plan, MagentaMobil S at 39.95 euros per month, to the MagentaMobil XL package (84.95 euros per month), the new plans are all 5G-enabled.
References:
https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/5g-competition-ramps-up-germany-vodafone-covering-20-cities