South Korean telcos to double 5G network bandwidth with massive MIMO; Private 5G

South Korea is on course to become the first country in the world where its mobile carriers scale up its 5G network capacity to more than 100 MHz-bandwidth for a single network operator.

At the Mobile World Congress 2022 exhibitions, three network equipment suppliers — Huawei Technologies, Ericsson-LG and Nokia — unveiled the most recent updates of their 5G equipment. Representatives say these could help South Korean telcos improve the quality of 5G delivery by doubling the bandwidth of their allocated network with a single piece of equipment.

The new massive MIMO antenna, allows a telecom carrier to use up to 200 MHz of a 400 MHz spectrum.  It also enables bandwidths to be used on separate parts of the 400MHz range, so a carrier could use two 100 MHz bandwidths 200 MHz apart, or even three or more smaller bandwidths.  Without the massive MIMO, Korean telcos would have to buy additional equipment to use more than one bandwidth slot or a bandwidth exceeding 100 MHz.

“Korea will become the first country to have its telcos occupy more than 100 MHz in terms of bandwidth (for a mid-range 5G network),” James Han, head of 5G sales Korea at Finland-based Nokia, told reporters at its MWC 2022 exhibition.  “The world will be watching, and we are seeing the new market coming,”  Han added.

Some of these products are not only showcased but are also being deployed in Seoul.  Han said the investment has been underway to deploy its cutting-edge massive MIMO antenna in downtown Seoul, starting this year, as the deployment should be done prior to the forthcoming 5G spectrum auction by the government and the licensing procedures.

Caption: Massive MIMO technology can be mutually beneficial and complementary with ultra-dense networking technology and high-frequency band technology.

Source: Research Gate

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Seoul-based joint venture Ericsson-LG is also testing its newest equipment with Korean telecom carriers.  According to Lee Young-jo, vice president at Ericsson-LG, the deployment of a new antenna is expected to kick off in the second quarter.  “A telco would have been forced to buy two outdated pieces of equipment to (use) two separate slots, and this would have been a cost burden on the telco,” Lee told reporters.

Nokia and Ericsson-LG have both supplied their products to network infrastructure of Korean carriers KT and SK Telecom.  Another partner of the two, Samsung Electronics’ network division, did not unveil new equipment at MWC 2022 as it did not host a booth for its network solutions.

On the other hand, Huawei Technologies, which supplies its equipment to LG Uplus, also showcased at MWC 2022 its massive MIMO solution that supports the 400 MHz bandwidth scope and 200 MHz spectrum availability. The solution, however, has yet to be deployed for LG Uplus.

Meanwhile, the new 5G technology indicated that a successful deployment could settle a heated debate between Korean telecom firms over spectrum allocations. If the deployment is complete, all three companies — SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus — are likely to be given the same opportunity to claim rights for the new 100 MHz spectrum.

Currently, Korean carriers were allocated the 5G spectrum for mid-band range at between 3.42 GHz and 3.7 GHz bandwidth.

The government in June 2018 allocated an 80 MHz spectrum to LG Uplus, while its rivals KT and SK Telecom both won auctions for 100 MHz spectrums.

The auction effectively gave birth to the world‘s first commercial 5G smartphones in April 2019. It also launched a 5G-powered commercial smart factory in July 2020.

For the last three years, South Korean telcos have been at odds over how the auction of additional bandwidth slots should be carried out.  So far, Korea’s 280 MHz bandwidth combined were allocated to telcos, while 320 MHz is to be auctioned before 2023, but details regarding the auction have yet to be determined.

The targeted 5G spectrum includes a 20 MHz slot adjacent to LG Uplus‘ allocated spectrum that was left out at the 2018 auction due to interference with neighboring frequencies.

Addressing the problem, the government sought to put the slot back up for auction, only to face opposition from SK Telecom and KT, arguing they were effectively deprived of opportunities to use the spectrum without additional infrastructure investment, because of technological limitations.

Source:  Korea Herald

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Separately, LG CNS, the information technology wing of South Korea’s LG Group, has applied for government permission to become the second domestic operator of a private 5G network.  It will be customized for services in specific regions that affords numerous advantages for modern enterprises as it can deliver ultra-low latency and incredibly high bandwidth connections supporting artificial intelligence-driven applications.

LG CNS said on March 3 that it would accelerate the digital transformation of manufacturing customers by combining 5G with smart factories. The company has released Factova, an integrated smart factory platform based on artificial intelligence, big data, and the internet of things (IoT).

Source:  LG CNS

South Korea has commercialized a 5G mobile telecom service using the frequency band of 3.5 GHz. For private 5G networks, the government will provide the 28 GHz band that makes data transmission speed faster especially in areas where traffic is concentrated.

Without borrowing 5G networks built by mobile carriers for businesses in factories or buildings, companies that want to provide 5G-based convergence services can build private 5G networks in specific regions. The private 5G network affords numerous advantages for modern enterprises as it can deliver ultra-low latency and incredibly high bandwidth connections supporting artificial intelligence-driven applications.

Unlike mobile telecommunication companies that developed nationwide business-to-consumer (B2C) communication businesses based on frequency monopoly rights, the ministry said that private 5G network operators can use regional monopoly rights to conduct business-to-business (B2B) communication services in limited areas.

In December 2021, Naver Cloud, a cloud computing service wing of South Korea’s top web portal operator and IT company, has become the country’s first operator of a private 5G network. Naver Cloud will establish a smart office using a private 5G network at a new robot-friendly building under construction in Bundang in the southern satellite city of Seoul.

For services to other companies, Naver Cloud will provide cloud data centers and private 5G networks, while Naver Labs will offer ultra-large AI and 5G brainless robots. Naver will use the robot-friendly building as a global reference space where 5G networks, cloud, robots, autonomous driving, digital twin, and AI are connected and fused into one.

References:

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20220303000733

Rootmetrics: U.S. 5G carriers in close race; South Korea 5G is worldwide #1

https://www.ajudaily.com/view/20220303172314627

https://www.lgcns.com/En/Solution/Factova-MES

 

 

ZTE and China Telecom deploy QCell 5G SuperMIMO solution

ZTE Corporation together with the Quanzhou Branch of China Telecom, have deployed the QCell 5G SuperMIMO solution in Quanzhou, China.

The Qcell 5G SuperMIMO solution can combine Super cell and MU-MIMO technologies, to adaptively perform multi-User Endpoint (UE) space division pairing. The solution is applicable to both digital QCell and traditional distributed antenna systems (DAS), which effectively solves the “interference” vs “capacity” tradeoff, while exponentially increasing user perception.

As the field test results show, the QCell super cell throughput is 1.07Gbps before SuperMIMO is enabled.  It reaches 2.2Gbps, 3Gbps and 4.05Gbps respectively after it’s been enabled. That greatly improves user experiences with 2 UE, 3 UE and 4 UE performing services at the same time.

In 2020, ZTE and China Telecom jointly launched the innovative 2.1GHz NR eDAS indoor distribution solution, which is the first 5G network performance improvement solution based on the traditional 2.1GHz NR indoor distribution system in the industry. The solution successfully overcomes the bottleneck of the traditional system.

SuperMIMO has developed into another innovative indoor distribution technology following the eDAS solution, thereby demonstrating the strength of the Quanzhou Branch of China Telecom and ZTE in the research and innovative applications of communication networks.

Moving forward, both parties will  be further committed to building high-quality 5G networks for their users through technical innovations.

Quanzhou, China.  Photo Credit: ZTE Corporation

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Previously,  ZTE and the Jiangsu branch of China Telecom  deployed 5G 200 MHz Qcell 4T4R digital indoor distribution system in areas with high amounts of data traffic, such as shopping malls and subway stations, in Xuzhou, China.

The system provides high-quality 5G indoor coverage, and accelerates future 5G indoor system deployment. This commercial deployment has employed ZTE’s latest 5G Qcell ultra-wideband product series, which supports 200MHz continuous ultra-large bandwidth at 3.5 GHz frequency band, and 100MHz+100MHZ dual-carrier aggregation technology that doubles download rate.

References:

https://www.zte.com.cn/global/about/news/20210809e1.html

https://www.vanillaplus.com/2020/06/30/53509-zte-partners-china-telecom-deploy-5g-commercial-ultra-broadband-qcell-digital-indoor-distribution-system/

 

Non-coherent Massive MIMO for High-Mobility Communications

By Ana García Armada, PhD, Professor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Introduction:

While driving on a highway in Europe (as a passenger), I tried my smartphone’s 4G-LTE connection and the best I could get was 30 Mbps downlink, 10 Mbps uplink, with latency around 50 msec. This is not bad for many of the applications we use today, but it is clearly insufficient for many low latency/low jitter mobile applications, such as autonomous driving or high-quality video while on the move.

At higher speeds, passengers of ultra-fast trains may enjoy the travel while working. Their 4G-LTE connections are often good enough to read or send emails and browse the internet. But would a train passenger be able to have a video conference call with good quality? Would we ever be able to experience virtual reality or augmented reality in such a high mobility environment?

How to achieve intelligent transport systems enabling vehicles to communicate with each other has been the subject of several papers and reports as per Reference [1]. Many telecommunications professionals are looking to 5G for a solution, but it is not at all certain that the IMT 2020 performance requirements specified in ITU-R M.2410 for low latency with high speed mobility will be met anytime soon (by either 3GPP Release 16 or IMT 2020 compliant specifications).  

Editor’s Note: In ITU-R M.2410, the minimum requirements for IMT 2020 (“5G”) user plane latency are: 4 ms for eMBB (enhanced mobile broadband) and 1 ms for URLLC (ultra high reliability, ultra low latency communications).

IMT 2020 is expected to be approved  by ITU-R SG D after their November 23-24,2020 meeting, which is one week after the ITU-R WP 5D approval at their November  17-19, 2020 meeting.

There are three different “5G Radios” being progressed as IMT 2020 RIT/SRIT submissions: 3GPP, DECT/ETSI, and Nufront. The TSDSI’s (India) submission adds Low Mobility Large Cell (LMLC) to 3GPP’s “5G NR.”

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The fundamental reason why we do not experience high data rates using 4G-LTE lies in the signal format. That did not change much with 3GPP’s “5G NR,” which is the leading candidate IMT 2020 Radio Interface Technology (RIT).   Please refer to Editor’s Note above.

In coherent detection, a local carrier mixes with the received radio frequency (RF) signal to generate a product term. As a result, the received RF signal can be frequency translated and demodulated. When using coherent detection, we need to estimate the channel (frequency band). The amount of overhead strongly depends on the channel variations. That is, the faster we are moving, the higher the overhead. Therefore, the only way to obtain higher data rates in these circumstances is to increase the allocated bandwidth (e.g. with carrier aggregation [2]) for a particular connection, which is obviously a non-scalable solution.

Coherent Communications, CSI, and OFDM Explained:

A coherent receiver creates a replica of the transmitted carrier, as perfectly synchronized (using the same frequency and the same phase) as possible. Combining coherent detection with the received signal, the baseband data is recovered with additive noise being the only impairment.

However, the propagation channel usually introduces some additional negative effects that distorts the amplitude and phase of the received signal (when compared to the transmitted signal). Hence, the need to estimate the channel characteristics and remove the total distortion. In wireless communications, channel state information (CSI) refers to known channel properties of a communication link, i.e. the channel characteristics. CSI needs to be estimated at the receiver and is usually quantized and sent back to the transmitter.

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a method of digital signal modulation in which a single data stream is split across several separate narrowband channels at different frequencies to reduce interference and crosstalk. Modern communications systems using OFDM carefully design reference signals to be able to estimate the CSI as accurately as possible. That requires pilot signals in the composite Physical layer frame (in addition to the digital information being transmitted) in order to estimate the CSI. The frequency of those reference signals and the corresponding amount of overhead depends on the characteristics of the channel that we would like to estimate from some (hopefully) reduced number of samples.

Wireless communications were not always based on coherent detection. At the time of the initial amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM), the receivers obtained an estimate of the transmitted data by detecting the amplitude or frequency variations of the received signal without creating a local replica of the carrier. But their performance was very limited. Indeed, coherent receivers were a break-through to achieve high quality communications.

Other Methods of Signal Detection:

More recently, there are two popular ways of non-coherently detecting the transmitted data correctly at the receiver.

  1. One way is to perform energy or frequency detection in a similar way to the initial AM and FM receivers.

  2. In differential encoding, we encode the information in the phase shifts (or phase differences) of the transmitted carrier. Then, the absolute phase is not important, but just its transitions from one symbol to the other. The differential receivers are much simpler than the coherent ones, but their performance is worse since noise is increased in the detection process.

Communications systems that prioritize simple and inexpensive receivers, such as Bluetooth [3], use non-coherent receivers. Also, differential encoding is an added feature in some standards, such as Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB). The latter was one of the first, if not the first standard, to use OFDM in wireless communications. It increases the robustness to mitigate phase distortions, caused by the propagation channel for mobile, portable or fixed receivers.

However, the vast majority of contemporary wireless communications systems use coherent detection. That is true for 4G-LTE and “5G NR.”

Combining non-coherent communications with massive MIMO:

Massive MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) groups together antennas at the transmitter and receiver to provide better throughput and better spectrum efficiency. When massive MIMO is used, obtaining and sharing CSI threatened to become a bottleneck, because of the large number of channels that need to be estimated because there are a very large number of antennas.

A Universidad Carlos III de Madrid research group started looking at a combination of massive MIMO with non-coherent receivers as a possible solution for good quality (user experience) high speed mobile communications. It is an interesting combination. The improvement of performance brought by the excess of antennas may counteract the fundamental performance loss of non-coherent schemes (usually a 3 dB signal-to-noise ratio loss).

Indeed, our research showed that if we take into account the overhead caused by CSI estimation in coherent schemes, we have shown several cases in which non-coherent massive MIMO performs better than its coherent counterpart. There are even cases where coherent schemes do not work at all, at least with the overheads considered by 4G-LTE and 5G (IMT 2020) standards. Yet non-coherent detection usually works well under those conditions. These latter cases are most prevalent in high-mobility environments.

Editor’s Note:  In ITU-R M.2410, high speed vehicular communications (120 km/hr to 500 km/hr) is mainly envisioned for high speed trains.  No “dead zones” are permitted as the “minimum” mobility interruption time is 0 ms!

When to use non-coherent massive MIMO?

Clearly in those situations where coherent schemes work well with a reasonable pilot signal overhead, we do not need to search for alternatives. However, there are other scenarios of interest where non-coherent schemes may substitute or complement the coherent ones. These are cases when the propagation channel is very frequency selective and/or very time-varying. In these situations, estimating the CSI is very costly in terms of resources that need to be used as pilots for the estimation. Alternatives that do not require channel estimation are often more efficient.

An interesting combination of non-coherent and coherent data streams is presented in reference [5], where the non-coherent stream is used at the same time to transmit data and to estimate the CSI for the coherent stream. This is an example of how coherent and non-coherent approaches are complementary and the best combination can be chosen depending on the scenario. Such a hybrid scheme is depicted in the figure below.

Figure 1. Suitability of coherent (C), non-coherent (NC) and hybrid schemes (from reference [5])

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What about Millimeter Waves and Beam Steering?

The advantage of millimeter waves (very high frequencies) is the spectrum availability and high speeds. The disadvantages are short distances and line of sight communications required.

Compensating for the overhead by adding more bandwidth, may be a viable solution. However, the high propagation loss that characterizes these millimeter wave high frequency bands creates the need for highly directive antennas. Such antennas would need to create narrow beams and then steer them towards the user’s position. This is easy when the user equipment is fixed or slowly moving, but doing it in a high speed environment is a real challenge.

Note that the beam searching and tracking systems that are proposed in today’s wireless communications standards, won’t work in high speed mobile communications when the User Endpoint (UE) has moved to the coverage of another base station at the time the steering beams are aligned! There is certainly a lot of research to be done here.

In summary, the combination of non-coherent techniques with massive MIMO does not present any additional problems when they are carried out in millimeter wave frequencies. For example, reference [6] shows how a non-coherent scheme can be combined with beamforming, provided the beamforming is performed by a beam tracking procedure. However, the problem of how to achieve fast beam alignment remains to be solved.

Concluding Remarks:

Non-coherent massive MIMO makes sense in wireless communications systems that need to have very low complexity or that need to work in scenarios with high mobility. Its advantage is that it makes possible communications in places or circumstances where the classical coherent communications fail. However, this scheme will not perform as well as coherent schemes under normal conditions.

Most probably, non-coherent massive MIMO will be used in the future as a complement to well-understood and (usually) well-performing coherent systems. This will happen when there are clear market opportunities for high mobility, high speed, low latency use cases and applications.

References:

[1] ITU report: “Setting the scene for 5G: opportunities and challenges”, 2018, https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Documents/ITU_5G_REPORT-2018.pdf

[2] F. Kaltenberger et al., “Broadband wireless channel measurements for high speed trains,” 2015 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), London, 2015, pp. 2620-2625, doi: 10.1109/ICC.2015.7248720.

[3] L. Lampe, R. Schober and M. Jain, “Noncoherent sequence detection receiver for Bluetooth systems,” in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 23, no. 9, pp. 1718-1727, Sept. 2005, doi: 10.1109/JSAC.2005.853791.

[4] ETSI ETS 300 401, “Radio broadcasting systems; DAB to mobile, portable and fixed receivers,” 1997.

[5] M Lopez-Morales, K Chen Hu, A Garcia Armada, “Differential Data-aided Channel Estimation for Up-link Massive SIMO-OFDM”, IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society -> in press.

[6] K Chen Hu, L Yong, A Garcia Armada, “Non-Coherent Massive MIMO-OFDM Down-Link based on Differential Modulation”, IEEE Trans. on Vehicular Technology -> in press.

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About Ana García Armada, PhD:

         

Ana García Armada is a full professor at University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, where she has occupied a variety of management positions (Head of Signal Theory and Communications Department, Vice-dean of Electrical Engineering, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of International Relations, among others). She is currently leading the Communications Research Group at this university. 
 
Prof. Garcia Armada is the co-author of eight book chapters on wireless communications and signal processing. She has published around 150 papers in international journals and conference proceedings and she holds four patents. She has contributed to international standards organizations, such as ITU and ETSI, is a member of the expert group of the European 5G PPP and a member of the advisory committee 5JAC of the ESA as expert appointed by Spain on 5G.
 
Now Chair of the IEEE ComSoc On-Line Content board, Ana has served on the editorial board of IEEE Communications Letters since 2016 (Editor until Feb 2019, Senior Editor from Mar 2019, Exemplary Editor Award 2017 and 2018) and IEEE Transactions on Communications since 2019.  
 
Ana will be writing articles for the Techblog and will review guest blog submissions.   Her main interests are multi-carrier and multi-antenna techniques and signal processing applied to wireless communications.
 
Her webpage is at: http://agarcia.webs.tsc.uc3m.es/ 
And her detailed CV may be viewed at:

Massive MIMO Deployments in India: Bharti Airtel vs. Vodafone Idea?

by Danish Khan  (edited and augmented by Alan J Weissberger)

The deployment of massive MIMO [1] technology has led to a series of claims and counter claims between India wireless network operators Vodafone Idea Ltd. (VIL) and Bharti Airtel. Both privately held telcos claim that they lead in terms of the deployment size of this pre-5G technology.

Note 1.  Massive multiple-input, multiple-output, or massive MIMO, is an extension of MIMO, which essentially groups together antennas at the transmitter and receiver to provide better throughput and better spectrum efficiency.

Moving from MIMO to massive MIMO, according to IEEE, involves making “a clean break with current practice through the use of a large excess of service antennas over active terminals and time-division duplex operation. Extra antennas help by focusing energy into ever smaller regions of space to bring huge improvements in throughput and radiated energy efficiency.”

Many different configurations and deployment scenarios for the actual antenna arrays used by a massive MIMO system can be envisioned (see Fig. 1). Each antenna unit would be small and active, preferably fed via an optical or electric digital bus.

Figure 1

Figure 1. Some possible antenna configurations and deployment scenarios for a massive MIMO base station.

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In a statement, Huawei said that Bharti Airtel has deployed more than 100 hops of enhanced MIMO microwave link based on the latest MIMO technology developed by the Chinese gear maker. The deployment, Huawei said, will deliver 1Gbps capacity over a single 28 Mhz spectrum, improving the backhaul capacity by four times.

“Bharti implements the largest-scale MIMO deployment around the world,” Huawei said in the statement. Airtel had made its first commercial deployment of massive MIMO in September 2017.

Bharti Airtel today (Sept 26, 2017) announced the deployment of India’s first state-of-the-art Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology which is a key enabler for 5G networks. As one of the few commercial deployment of Massive MIMO globally, the deployment puts India on the world map of technology advancement and digital revolution. Airtel is starting with the first round of deployment in Bangalore & Kolkata and will expand to other parts of the country.

Deployed as part of Airtel’s ongoing network transformation program, Project Leap, the Massive MIMO technology will expand existing network capacity by five to seven times using the existing spectrum, thereby improving spectral efficiency. Customers will now be able to experience two to three times superfast speeds on the existing 4G network. Data speeds will now also be seamless, offering enhanced user experience even indoors, in crowded places and high rise buildings. It would enable multiple users and multiple devices to work simultaneously without facing any congestion or experience issues especially at hotspot locations.

But in an interview with ET last week, Vodafone Idea chief technology officer, Vishant Vora had claimed that it was the leader in MIMO deployments in India. “We have deployed over 10,000 massive MIMOs in India. This is the largest deployment of massive MIMOs in India and neither of my two competitors has that. They are 100-200 and we are at 10,000 plus. This is the largest deployment outside China and in the world,” Vora said.

Vodafone Idea told ET this past March:

Vodafone Idea has deployed more than 5000 massive MIMO, small cells and TDD sites across Church gate, Prabhadevi, Pali hill, Lokhandwala, Versova, Andheri, Jogeshwari, Bandra and Dadar among other regions.  The telco has also installed over 1900 indoor coverage solutions for high rises and commercial places.

“With meticulous pre-merger planning and rigorous post-merger execution, we have ensured that our customers remain confidently connected and enjoy uninterrupted services even as we integrate and optimize our network in a phased manner across circles,” said Vishant Vora, CTO, Vodafone Idea.

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Huawei is also providing 4G equipment and massive MIMO technology to Vodafone Idea in seven circles.  Huawei didn’t provide additional information.

The MIMO technology achieves four times capacity with same spectrum, allowing a telecom operator to build a 5G-ready transport network without investment in additional spectrum .  MIMO deployment also allows telcos to address the capacity-related network issues in urban areas in India, besides deploying new sites to provide coverage in rural parts.

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio has also started to deploy massive MIMO technology in some of the metro cities that are seeing huge traffic growth resulting in bad data speed experience.

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References:

https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/massive-mimo-airtel-and-vodafone-idea-stake-claim-with-deployment-size/71404917

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6736761

https://www.airtel.in/press-release/09-2017/airtel-deploys-massive-mimo-indias-first-5g-capable-technology

https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/vodafone-idea-enhances-network-capacity-in-mumbai/68359629

Verizon, Qualcomm, and Ericsson collaborate on successful Massive MIMO Trial

Verizon said in a press release that it completed the first successful FDD (Frequency Division Duplexing) massive MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) trial with a fully compatible customer device thanks to its collaboration with Ericsson and Qualcomm.   The trial included the use of the latest Ericsson massive MIMO software and hardware along with a mobile test device powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 Mobile Platform with an X20 LTE modem.

According to the aforementioned press release:

Massive MIMO is a key technology component in the evolution towards 5G. It has the potential of greatly improving network capacity and the customer’s experience. To realize the gains, both the network and devices need to support new TM9 [1] functionality which leverages advanced beam forming schemes between the network equipment and the mobile device. This will raise network spectral efficiency and customer speeds.

Note 1.  In 3GPP Release-10 (LTE-Advanced) Transmission Mode 9 (TM9) was introduced.  TM9 is designed to help reduce interference between base stations to maximise signal stability and boost performance. The new TM-9 enables the enhancement of network capabilities and performance with minimum addition of overhead. More information on TM9 is here.

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Qualcomm introduced the 845 Mobile Platform at the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii in early December.   The trial comes after Verizon and Ericsson deployed massive MIMO on the wireless carrier’s Irvine, Ca network in late October.

“We don’t wait for the future, we build it. And this is another great example of moving the industry forward,” Verizon Chief Network Engineer and Head of Wireless Networks Nicola Palmer said in the release. “Massive MIMO is a critical component of our 4G LTE Advancements and will play an important role in 5G technology that will result in single digit latency and scalability in the billions of connections,” he added.

Joe Glynn, vice president, business development at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. said: “This milestone further demonstrates Qualcomm Technologies’ leadership and commitment to continually bring innovative technologies to consumers to improve their mobile experiences. We look forward to continuing our work with Verizon and Ericsson to push the limits of LTE while ushering in a world of 5G.”

Massive MIMO is an LTE Advanced (4G) technology which has been described as being akin to a set of focused flashlights targeting users rather than a single floodlight. The high number of transmitters enables more possible signal paths and beam forming, which directs the beam from the cell site directly to where the customer is located, dramatically cutting down on interference.

Figure 1

Figure 1. Massive MIMO exploits large antenna arrays to spatially multiplex many terminals.

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Image result for images for massive MIMO

Figure 2. Active Phased Array Antenna (APAA) shown above right in 5G base stations. The combination of analog beam forming via APAA and digital MIMO signal processing for the multi-beam multiplexing is believed to be one of the promising approaches for reducing the complexity and power consumption of 5G base stations.  However, that has yet to be proven in a commercial 5G deployment.

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In October, Verizon and Ericsson announced they had achieved a milestone in LTE Advanced technologies by completing their first deployment of FDD massive MIMO on Verizon’s wireless network in Irvine, California. Massive MIMO improves both spectral and energy efficiency, increasing network capacity for currently compatible devices in the market. Customers experience higher and more consistent speeds when using apps and uploading and downloading files.

Ericsson’s massive MIMO portfolio is expected to be available next year, putting it in line with commercial smartphones with the TM9 compatible chipset, which are expected to hit the market in the first half of 2018.

The past year saw a lot of talk around massive MIMO, which is considered by many to be a foundation technology for 5G. At the inaugural Mobile World Congress Americas in September, Sprint and Ericsson unveiled results of 2.5 GHz massive MIMO field tests conducted in Seattle and Plano, Texas, using Sprint’s spectrum and Ericsson’s radios.

  • In early September, Ericsson said massive MIMO was part of a trial with T-Mobile US using mid-band FDD spectrum on three sites in Baltimore, Maryland.
  • In February, Blue Danube Systems announced the completion of commercial trials using its massive MIMO technology in licensed FDD LTE spectrum with AT&T and Shentel.

Niklas Heuveldop, Head of Market Area North America, Ericsson, said: “Advanced Antenna Systems and Massive MIMO are key technology enablers for 5G, and 4G LTE service providers and end users will also benefit from the superior capacity and network performance these technologies enable. The latest trial is another important step in the collaboration we have with Verizon and Qualcomm Technologies to further evolve 4G and prepare the network for 5G.”

The Ericsson Massive MIMO portfolio is expected to be available next year, putting it well in line with commercial smartphones with the TM9 compatible chipset, which are expected to hit the markets in the first half of 2018.

References:

https://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-qualcomm-and-ericsson-collaborate-trial-latest-massive-mimo-advancements-path-5g

Verizon, Ericsson Team Up for Massive MIMO Deployment

http://www.samsung.com/global/business-images/insights/2017/Massive-MIMO-Comes-of-Age-0.pdf

http://www.ni.com/white-paper/52382/en/

https://techblog.comsoc.org/2017/10/17/mimo-starting-to-realize-its-full-potential-in-lte-networks/

https://techblog.comsoc.org/2015/06/30/separating-5g-fact-from-hype-is-massive-mimo-a-solution-or-dead-end/

https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/Workshops-and-Seminars/qos/201707/Documents/Rami%20Alnatsheh-%20Orchestrating%20the%20Performance%20of%205G.pdf

https://www.everythingrf.com/News/details/2639-zte-completes-massive-mimo-tests-for-imt-2020-5g

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1612.03993.pdf

http://www.analog.com/en/analog-dialogue/articles/massive-mimo-and-beamforming-the-signal-processing-behind-the-5g-buzzwords.html

 

Qualcomm to ISPs: Mesh WiFi networking via IEEE 802.11ax is the future of smart homes

Mesh networking can centralize IoT and other devices in smart homes and make them easier to manage, according to Qualcomm’s Connectivity Business unit lead, Rahul Patel.  Carrier-class mesh networking could resolve connection issues, said Patel  who strongly suggests internet service providers (ISPs) offer a mesh networking service.

  • Market research firm Gartner predicts that 8.4 billion connected “Things” will be in use in 2017, up 31 percent from 2016.
  • GMSA report “The Impact of the Internet of Things: The Connected Home”   suggests that up to 50 connected or Internet of Things (IoT) devices will be in use in the average connected home by 2020.

According to Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi router consumer survey of 1500 respondents from the UK, France, and Germany this year, 50% said they use a device in three different rooms simultaneously.  [Those folks must have a lot of people living in their homes with separate rooms!]

Today, home broadband networks sometimes find themselves buckling under the weight of numerous mobile, IoT, and connected devices. Information streams can become confused, bottlenecks occur, and ISP throttling can cause too much strain for efficiency or reliability (expect more of this as FCC has just repealed net neutrality rules).

Qualcomm’s mesh technologies, including Wi-Fi SON, are already used by vendors including Eero, Google Wi-Fi, TP-Link, Luma, and Netgear.

Qualcomm is directing its mesh WiFi standards efforts within the IEEE 802.11ax task group which it serves as co-vice chair.  That specification is being designed to improve overall spectral efficiency, especially in dense deployment scenarios. It’s predicted to have a top speed of around 10 Gb/s and operate in the already existing 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrum bands.

Qualcomm has created a 12-stream mesh WiFi platform powered by a quad-core iCMOS micro-processor with a 64-bit architecture.

Editor’s Note:

IEEE 802.11ax draft 3.0  is scheduled to go out for IEEE 802.11 Working Group Letter ballot in May 2018 with Sponsor Ballot scheduled for May 2019.  Please see references for further details.

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Patel says that development is already in play to use the platform, and mesh will be the “next big thing” for the Wi-Fi industry, with products expected to appear in the market based on Qualcomm technologies in the second half of 2018.

Carrier-class mesh networking could be used to map entire neighborhoods, in which connectivity problems can be quickly detected and fixed without constant customer reports, complaints, and costly engineer footfall.

As consumers expect more from their home Wi-Fi, however, they also expect ISPs to make sure systems are in working order and deliver what they promise.

“The operator is shouldering the burden of fixing issues in the home,” Patel says. “If they don’t, cloud providers such as Google will take over.”

If ISPs do not rise to the challenge, consumers may choose to go to a cloud provider instead.

“That [home] traffic is getting piped into their clouds rather than BT or Sky, and so ISPs are losing out on the traffic they are piping into someones home,” Patel added. “You as an operation are perceived to be the one to support the Wi-Fi in the home.”

“If you (ISPs) don’t move fast, you lose out on the home becoming a cloud providers’ and have no control over what happens in the home,” Patel said.

References:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/mesh-networking-is-the-future-of-iot-smart-homes/

http://www.ieee802.org/11/Reports/tgax_update.htm

http://www.ieee802.org/11/Reports/tgax_update.htm#nov2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ax

Verizon, Ericsson Team Up for Massive MIMO Deployment

Verizon and Ericsson have deployed frequency division duplexing (FDD) Massive Multiple Input-Multiple Output (MIMO) technology on the Verizon’s wireless network in Irvine, Calif., a step forward in implementing “5G” wireless communications. Ericsson provided 16 transceiver radios and 96 antenna elements in an array for the deployment.

The two companies say the Massive MIMO deployment will improve spectral and energy efficiency, increasing network capacity for current devices in the market.  Other network enhancements are expected to provide higher and more consistent speeds for using apps and uploading and downloading files, clearing the pathway for “5G” deployment.

The massive MIMO deployment is running on a 20 MHz block of AWS spectrum.  Four-way transmit has been widely deployed throughout the Verizon network and has contributed to significant 4G LTE advancements, according to the announcement. The high number of transmitters from the Massive MIMO provides more possible signal paths.  It also enables beamforming, which directs the beam from the cell site directly to where the customer is, dramatically cutting down on interference.  Reduced interference results in higher and more consistent speeds for customers.

Image result for pic of massive MIMO

Note:  Massive MIMO is a candidate feature for IMT 2020 (standardized 5G).  Please see last references for authoritative status of IMT 2020.

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“While continuing to drive 5G development, the deployment of Massive MIMO offers very tangible benefits for our customers today.  As we innovate, we learn and continue to lay the groundwork and set the standards for 5G technology,” said Nicola Palmer, Verizon Wireless chief network officer, in a prepared statement. “Our collaboration with Ericsson on this new deployment continues to drive industry-wide innovation and advancements.”

“We have a tremendous excitement around 5G, and today we made a great announcement to our commitment of driving the 5G ecosystem,” Verizon SVP Atish Gude said

Niklas Heuveldop, Ericsson head of market area North America said: “Massive MIMO is a key technology enabler for 5G, but already today, 4G LTE service providers and end users can benefit from the superior capacity and network performance this technology enables.  The current trial is an important step in the collaboration we have with Verizon to prepare their network for 5G.”

Ericsson is active with massive MIMO deployments on other carrier networks, including Sprint, who announced a deployment last month.

References:

ABI Research: MIMO starting to realize its full potential in LTE Advanced networks

On the Path to 5G, Verizon, Ericsson Team Up for Massive MIMO Deployment

 

http://www.zdnet.com/article/verizon-and-ericsson-deploy-massive-mimo-on-irvine-lte-network/

IEEE ComSoc Webinar: 5G: Converging Towards IMT-2020 Submission

IMT 2020 workshop which includes hyperlinks to enable you to download the presentations:
Note: There were 4 organizations that presented their proposed IMT 2020 RAN (AKA RIT/SRIT) schemes at this workshop:
3GPP 5G, ETSI DECT, Korea IMT 2020 and China IMT 2020

ABI Research: MIMO starting to realize its full potential in LTE Advanced networks

As LTE progresses to more advanced versions such as 3GPP standard LTE-Advanced, LTE-Advanced Pro and the recently marketed Gigabit LTE, ABI Research expects that MIMO [1] will become an increasingly important part of mobile network operators’ options in their evolution to 5G (officially known as IMT 2020).

While MIMO has not delivered on its promises so far, no doubt exists that the technology will become a foundational building block for mobile networks in the evolution to 4G/5G, and advanced antenna systems will receive increasing attention and research and development (R&D) by both vendors and MNOs.

Advanced antenna systems, including complex passive antennas and large-scale active antennas, will become part of the roadmap to advanced LTE and 5G, according to ABI Research.

Note 1. Long term evolution (LTE) is based on Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO)-Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and continues to be developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

OFDM is a frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) scheme used as a digital multi-carrier modulation method. A large number of closely spaced orthogonal sub-carrier signals are used to carry data on several parallel data streams or channels.

 

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LTE Advanced (true 4G before the term was hijacked by marketing heads) adds support for picocells, femtocells, and multi-carrier channels up to 100 MHz wide. LTE has been embraced by both GSM/UMTS and CDMA operators.

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ABI Research thinks that Massive MIMO will be a key feature of 5G and deploying advanced MIMO for 4G-LTE is a long-term investment which will prepare the ground for the deployment of the next generation of networks.

“While MIMO has not delivered on its promises so far, we are left with no doubt that the technology will become a foundational building block for mobile networks in the evolution of 4G and 5G and advanced antenna systems will receive increasing attention and R&D by both vendors and MNOs,” says Nick Marshall, Research Director at ABI Research. “We expect increasing acquisition activities in the antenna market, particularly involving MIMO technology.”

Overall the installed base of MIMO-enabled LTE antennas will grow by more than double worldwide from 2017 to 2021 to reach almost 9 million, with the Asia Pacific region outpacing this with a growth rate of three times. The Asia Pacific region will grow to represent most of the market by 2021. Although the MIMO-enabled LTE platform retains the largest installed base through 2021, growing by a factor of almost two times, it is the MIMO-Enabled LTE-Advanced platform growing at a faster rate and MIMO-enabled LTE-Advanced Pro at almost six times which rise rapidly to match the scale of the earlier MIMO-enabled LTE platform. The cellular antenna market forms a very dynamic and innovative ecosystem with many vendors including Amphenol, Comba, CommScope, Huawei, Kathrein and RFS all competing to include these advanced multi-antenna features,

“Advanced antenna systems including complex passive antennas and large scale massive MIMO active antennas will become part of the roadmap to advanced LTE and 5G,” concludes Marshall. “The need for active antennas when MIMO becomes more advanced will also change the market map, which has largely depended on passive antennas for previous generations.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s “Evolution of MIMO in LTE Networks report. This report is part of the company’s Mobile Networks Service research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights.

For more info,including an Executive Summary:

https://www.abiresearch.com/market-research/product/1026964-evolution-of-mimo-in-lte-networks/#

About ABI Research:
ABI Research stands at the forefront of technology market intelligence, providing business leaders with comprehensive research and consulting services to help them implement informed, transformative technology decisions. Founded more than 25 years ago, the company’s global team of senior and long-tenured analysts delivers deep market data forecasts, analyses, and teardown services. ABI Research is an industry pioneer, proactively uncovering ground-breaking business cycles and publishing research 18 to 36 months in advance of other organizations. For more information, visit www.abiresearch.com.

Backgrounder:  

COMPLIMENTARY TUTORIAL ON MMWAVE AND MASSIVE MIMO

http://www.comsoc.org/blog/complimentary-tutorial-mmwave-and-massive-mimo