5G Emerge: ESA & European Broadcast Union agreement for satellite enabled 5G media market
Recently, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that it will seek to boost the satellite-enabled 5G media market. The ESA signed an agreement to work with the European Broadcast Union – an alliance of public service media organizations – that will enable Europe to gain a lead in media content delivery as well as maintaining its technical autonomy.
The agreement – called 5G Emerge – is a partnership between ESA and the European Broadcast Union, plus 20 companies from Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Under the agreement, the partners will define, develop and validate an integrated satellite and terrestrial system which will leverage on the structural advantages of satellite-based infrastructures combined with the flexibility of 5G and beyond 5G technologies to reach anyone, anywhere.
The media industry has been quick to embrace 5G technologies, which offer ultra-high-quality videos as well as extra fast games with very low lag times. Telecommunications satellites will play a crucial role in enabling the seamless and ubiquitous connectivity on which 5G and 6G networks rely.
Under the 5G Emerge agreement, the partners will define, develop and validate an integrated satellite and terrestrial system based on open standards [1.] to efficiently deliver high-quality content distribution services. The system will leverage on the structural advantages of satellite-base infrastructures combined with the flexibility of 5G and beyond 5G technologies to reach anyone and anywhere.
Note 1. There are no ITU-R standard or 3GPP approved specs on 5G Satellite RANs- only terrestrial.
The agreement was signed between Antonio Arcidiacono, Director of Technology and Innovation at the European Broadcast Union, Jean-Pierre Choffray of satellite operator SES, Matteo Ainardi of consultants Arthur D Little and Elodie Viau, Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications at ESA.
Antonio Arcidiacono said: “Together we will build a solution that combines all satellite and terrestrial IP-based network infrastructures, guaranteeing sustainability and quality of service. It also guarantees that the network will cover 100% of the population, no matter where they are located. This is a critical requirement for public service media organisations.”
Elodie Viau said: “It is crucial for Europe to protect and enhance its autonomy when it comes to media and communications infrastructure. The 5G-Emerge project will support the digital transformation of European society, enabling new applications and services.”
References:
Altice Portugal MEO signs landing party agreement for Medusa subsea cable in Lisbon
The Medusa cable system now has its landing station in Portugal confirmed. They have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Altice Portugal’s MEO [1.] for a CLS in Carcavelos near Lisbon. MEO will provide the ducts from the beach into the cable landing station as well as the necessary space, power, operations, maintenance, and connectivity on to international connection points. As currently envisioned, MEDUSA will consist of 24 fiber pairs through the Mediterranean, connecting both east to west and north to south.
Note 1. MEO is a mobile and fixed telecommunications service and brand from Altice Portugal (formerly Portugal Telecom), managed by MEO – Serviços de Comunicações e Multimédia. The service was piloted in Lisbon in 2006 and was later extended to Porto and Castelo Branco.
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“The Portuguese coast has always been strategic to generate connections, as it is the gateway to the Atlantic and West Africa,” said Norman Albi, managing director and CEO of AFR-IX telecom, the company sponsoring Medusa.
“It was decisive for Medusa that the start of its route was Portuguese and Carcavelos offers optimal conditions for this.”
The agreement was signed during the Subsea World 2022 in Marseille by Albi, managing director joined by Alexander Freese, COO of Altice Portugal.
Under the terms of the agreement, Altice Portugal (MEO) will provide landing services for the cable system, which includes ducts from the beach to the cable landing station (CLS), space and power at the CLS, operation and maintenance services, as well as connectivity between the CLS and other international connection points, namely data centres, other subsea cable stations and teleports.
“Altice Portugal, as the leader of the communications sector in Portugal, is proud to help create a gateway to Europe of such relevant assets in the communications sector as Medusa, also reinforcing its commitment to the global economy,” added Freese.
The Carcavelos landing station will serve as the western point of the 8,700+km Medusa cable system, connecting 9 countries in Africa and Europe through its landing points in Portugal, Morocco, Spain, France, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Greece, Egypt and Cyprus.
Speaking to Capacity during the event, Albi explained that the collaboration was a continuation of long-standing working partnership between the two companies.
“As AFR-IX we have a long story of collaboration with MEO Altice Portugal for many years and that will only continue,” he said.
“So, when we were looking for a landing location in Lisbon, we selected Carcavelos for many several but the main one was because of its close to data centres and has a lot of longstanding infrastructure managed by MEO Altice for many years, backed by solid know-how to manage a subsea cable.”
Freese echoed these sentiments, saying: “As Norman said, we’ve had this partnership for years, we know each other, we trust each other and we’re very happy to have been chosen as partners again for this ambitious project.”
With an investment value of €326 million, the Medusa cable, which will be built by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), will boast segments of up to 24 fibre pairs with a total design capacity of 20Tbs per fibre pair.
The benefits of landing in Lisbon are clear to Albi and the AFR-IX team, “to have Lisbon, is a gateway to the Mediterranean. All the cables that land there, either go North but also with the Medusa creates the possibility to interconnect Lisbon with Marseille, Africa etc or even to the other side of the Med through the various landing points of the system. With MEO Altice, who is the main landing operator in Lisbon, the opportunities are all there.”
“We also have some customers on the West African coast they want to reach Europe,” adds Freese. “And now we have a diverse route adding to the Lisbon gateway so they can reach places like London, Paris and Marseille or even to Barcelona, so its definitely a benefit to both of us.”
The collaboration will enable the first segment of the cable linking the cities of Cascais-Lisbon, through the Carcavelos landing station, Barcelona and Marseille to be delivered, with the cable due to reach Carcavelos in Q2 of 2024.
With permitting already underway and steps being taken to finalise this in Carcavelos, Albi says the next step is the project survey which he expects “before the end of this year” starting in Carcavelos towards the Med.
With much talk during the conference of Portugal as one of the next big subsea cable hubs, Capacity asked Freese if sees it going that way as well, he said: “we’re certainly seeing a lot of activity and new cables coming in there. Its growing a lot”, so watch this space.
References:
China Mobile unveils 6G architecture with a digital twin network (DTN) concept
China Mobile, the world’s largest telecom carrier by mobile subscribers, unveiled its overall architecture design for 6G in a white paper on Tuesday, as it steps up its push into research and development of the next-generation wireless technology. China Mobile’s 6G network architecture is claimed to be the first systematic 6G architecture design in the telecom industry, according to the company. However, state owned China Unicom published a similar white paper for 6G tech in April 2021.
China Mobile’s 6G architecture is based on both a systems design and networking design of architecture implementation. The “White Paper” proposes a three-body, four-layer and five-sided 6G overall architecture design, which is the industry’s first systematic 6G network architecture design. Among them, the “three bodies” are the network ontology, the management orchestration body, and the digital twin; the “four layers” are the resource and computing power layer, the routing and connection layer, the service-oriented function layer, and the open enabling layer, and the “five layers” are the control layer. face, user face, data face, intelligent face, security face. On this basis, the “White Paper” also proposes that a virtual twin should be created digitally to realize a digital twin network architecture with network closed-loop control and full life cycle management; so as to realize plug-and-play, flexible deployment and other characteristics of the network architecture. Distributed homemade network.
The 6G architecture creates a virtual twin through digital means to realize a digital twin network architecture (DTN) with network closed-loop control and full lifecycle management; The service defines the end-to-end system to realize the full service system architecture (HSBA); In the group network, the distributed autonomous network (Dan) with distributed, autonomous and self-contained features is implemented, which supports on-demand customization, plug and play and flexible deployment.
According to the latest data, the total number of China Mobile customers has reached 967 million, with a net increase of 202,000 this month and a cumulative net increase of 9.706 million this year. The cumulative number of China Mobile’s “5G package users” has reached 4.95 million. Note that the “5G package” statistic counts those on 5G plans who have NOT yet upgraded to 5G service. The three state owned operators reported a total of 899.3 million subs at end-May. They have added 241 million since the start of the year and at this rate will run down the 1 billion mark themselves by the middle of August. But the real number of 5G users is just over half that – 410 million, according to the MIIT. That’s up from 355 million in December and, taking into account the debut of the fourth operator, China Broadcast Network, as early as this month, China’s total should easily pass 460 million by the end of the year.
References:
https://equalocean.com/briefing/20220621230145638
The first in the industry!China Mobile released the overall architecture design of 6G network
Dell’Oro: Small Cells Still Growing Faster Than Macro RAN in 1Q 2022
Dell’Oro Group says the demand for small cells remains strong. Preliminary findings suggest small cell radio access network (RAN) revenues advanced 15% year-over-year in the first quarter, growing at a faster pace than the broader small cell plus macro RAN market.
“The fact that small cell investments are still advancing at a rapid pace even as the operators are intensifying their 5G macro roll out efforts show that small cells are now an essential part of the broader RAN toolkit,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “Helping to explain this output acceleration is the shift towards 5G and the shrinking gap between macro and small cell deployments, especially with upper mid-band 5G,” continued Pongratz.
Additional small cell highlights from the 1Q 2022 RAN report:
- Top 5 suppliers in the quarter include Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung.
- Nearly all the small cell growth is driven by public 5G – small cell LTE revenues declined in the quarter and private 5G small cell investments are still negligible.
- Global small cell RAN revenues remain on track to surpass $5 B in 2022.
Dell’Oro Group’s RAN Quarterly Report offers a complete overview of the RAN industry, with tables covering manufacturers’ and market revenue for multiple RAN segments including 5G NR Sub-6 GHz, 5G NR mmWave, LTE, macro base stations and radios, small cells, Massive MIMO, Open RAN, and vRAN. The report also tracks the RAN market by region and includes a four-quarter outlook. To purchase this report, please contact us by email at [email protected].
Dell’Oro Group is a market research firm that specializes in strategic competitive analysis in the telecommunications, enterprise networks, data center infrastructure, and network security markets. Our firm provides in-depth quantitative data and qualitative analysis to facilitate critical, fact-based business decisions. For more information, contact Dell’Oro Group at +1.650.622.9400 or visit https://www.delloro.com.
References:
Small Cells Still Growing Faster Than Macro RAN in 1Q 2022, According to Dell’Oro Group
AT&T introduces 5G Flying COWs (Cell on Wings) drones
AT&T has announced it is introducing a drone-based 5G network. The drones, named 5G Flying COWs (Cell on Wings), are the first of their kind to provide 5G network speeds, although similar technology has been used for years to provide LTE coverage.
According to Ethan Hunt, AT&T Unmanned Aircraft Systems principal program manager, the Flying Cows can transmit strong coverage up to approximately 10 sq miles (16 sq km).
“We had intermittent, weak LTE signal at the flight location before we launched the 5G Flying COW,” he said of the test flight in Missouri that happened in April.
In other words, those in the area attempting to stream video could have found they suddenly had access to 5G speeds where they previously did not.
That means, customers with a capable 5G phone in the area could have gone from no service to super-fast wireless connections in seconds. In the future, this could help first responders in a search and rescue mission.
“Drones may use 5G for command and control or to stream video, but the AT&T 5G Flying COW® is the only drone that provides a 5G network,” Ethan said.
Getting 5G into remote areas is notoriously difficult. Dependent on very densely deployed small cells, 5G coverage outside towns is expensive; infrastructure needs are immense and its reach is limited to devices in close proximity of towers. Flying COWs could provide a solution to this issue, and could also be a huge help to first responders in search and rescue missions.
AT&T has been using this technology for years to provide LTE coverage to customers during big events, such as this year’s Super Bowl and disasters. While other companies may use 5G signals to communicate with drones, the Flying COW will act as a cell site actually located on a drone.
Art Pregler, Unmanned Aircraft Systems program director at AT&T, said of the project: “We are currently working through many exciting technical challenges to expand the capabilities of our Flying COWs. We’re working to autonomously fly without tethers for months without landing, using solar power to provide secure, reliable, and fast 5G connectivity to large numbers of users over wide geographic areas. This solution may one day help bring broadband connectivity to rural and other underserved communities across the US and elsewhere.”
“Our focus within the drone world is connectivity. All of our drone solutions have that focus,” said Art “5G brings a lot of new capability to the table. We can connect a lot larger number of devices with 5G. When we put that up, we can share with a larger population.”
That, in turn, can lead to a more seamless experience, better network performance and an overall better experience. “It’s enabling a lot more solutions, including human-to-machine interface that are now capable that wasn’t previously possible,” Pregler said.
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This launch is just one of several ground-breaking AT&T drone projects in the works right now.
- Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flight operations, GEOCAST air operations
- The Drone team is testing BVLOS – which would allow the pilot to operate a drone from a completely different location. We currently have an AT&T-patented flight control system that allows our operators and our tethered Flying COWs® to be separated by thousands of miles. In this sense, we can already operate our tethered Flying COWs® BVLOS. We are also working on a next phase to launch untethered Flying COWs® from the operator’s location to fly many miles away to provide 5G connectivity at BVLOS locations.
- RoboDogs
- We are building a litter of “RoboDogs” that can be used for a number of situations, from search and rescue to bomb disablement. Our teams are constantly working to improve connectivity for these devices, including outfitting them with 5G technology.
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References:
https://about.att.com/story/2022/5G-drone-program.html
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/att-introduces-drone-transmitted-5g-network/
AT&T CFO sees inflation as main threat, but profits and margins to expand in 2nd half 2022
U.S. utility operators see a bright future in fiber broadband
Leaders from three rural utility providers discussed their expansions into deploying fiber and how their organizations are getting involved with delivering broadband on a webinar hosted last week by the Fiber Broadband Association, In Holland, Michigan, for example, the Holland Board of Public Works (HBPW) started building fiber 30 years ago for “enhanced connectivity for monitoring and control” to its systems, said Pete Hoffswell, superintendent of broadband services at HBPW, which operates a power plant, water treatment plant and water reclamation plant.
“Fiber is absolutely essential for very reliable, high-performance connectivity for all that equipment,” said Hoffswell. “If we lose contact with one of our substations and the power goes down, that’s a bad day in our town. And fiber helps us keep that up.”
Katie Espeseth, vice president of new products at EPB, a municipally owned electric power distributor in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that started delivering fiber in 2008 and today has roughly 11,000 miles of fiber deployed, shared Hoffswell’s sentiment and added a number to it. “We have about 11,000 miles of fiber in our footprint. We serve about 125,000 customers with our broadband services,” said EPB’s Espeseth.
“The cost of power outages in Chattanooga was nearly $100 million a year,” she said, referring to costs to the community (“the cash register or the point of sale terminals not working and that sort of thing,” she explained). Today, the fiber network has reduced power outages by 65% and outage minutes by 52%, which the utility estimates as a $50 million return to the community, she added.
“A lot of our local offices are relying on the local Internet. And so the systems that we have, from a corporate standpoint, some of our field engineers can’t even run those systems because the Internet connection in those local areas is so poor,” he said. “It’s significant to know that you do not have a limitation from a communication standpoint.”
EPB, Alabama Power and HBPW, which all began deploying fiber to support their power grids, have each expanded into delivering fiber broadband either directly or indirectly. EPB – which turned Chattanooga into “the first gigabit community in the world,” according to Gary Bolton, CEO of the Fiber Broadband Association – operates its own ISP called Fi-Speed. Today, Fi-Speed delivers residential service speeds of 300 Mbit/s, 1 Gbit/sec and 10 Gbit/sec.
In Michigan, Holland BPW delivers fiber to local businesses, municipalities and community institutions and works in partnership with six ISPs: 123.net, Everstream, Sirus, Merit Network, US Signal and The ISERV Group.
“When we started the fiber, we decided any excess capacity in our network would be made available to our community,” said HBPW’s Hoffswell. “We did that and have provided lit services and dark fiber services to our greater community for 30 years now.”
(Image Credit: Pixabay)
Similar to HBPW, Alabama Power started its fiber build 30 years ago but did not expand into fiber distribution until “three or four years ago,” said Stegall. Rather than looking to serve as an ISP (“that’s outside of our scope,” he said), Alabama Power is delivering middle mile fiber and currently has service provider partnerships in seven of the 14 markets where its fiber distribution networks are active.
“The other seven are in more rural areas and [it is] harder to find those partners,” Stegall said. “So, we’re very interested and excited to see what the infrastructure bill is going to do in terms of enabling business cases for some areas that did not have traditional telecom business cases.”
Service and infrastructure ‘decoupling’
Indeed, the multi-billion-dollar broadband grant programs in the Biden administration’s infrastructure law specifically reference electric utilities’ role in the future of fiber and broadband delivery.
The $1 billion middle mile program calls out “electric utilities that increasingly recognize their capability to transform the communications market.” And the $42.45 billion Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) grant program names electric utilities among the “non-traditional providers” as eligible subgrantees and encourages funding open access networks.
That push toward funding open access networks, and recognizing electric utilities and cooperatives as well placed to close broadband infrastructure gaps in the rural US, is enabling new business and delivery models.
In Arkansas, for example, a group of 13 electric co-ops has recently banded together to form Diamond State Networks, a wholesale fiber network, to deliver broadband across the state.
Conexon, a consultancy that works with electric co-ops on fiber delivery, is another example; its newer ISP arm Conexon Connect operates broadband services for electric co-ops that don’t want to take on the role of service provider. (“We help people design and build networks, and we are interested – when an electric co-op is not – in operating the network,” Jonathan Chambers, partner at Conexon, told Broadband World News.)
Alabama Power’s Stegall expects the federal government’s focus on open access to push more utility providers that were previously hesitant to compete with service providers into delivering fiber infrastructure. “What I see in a sense is the decoupling of an infrastructure play and a services play. It’s the future,” he said.
References:
June 2022 Ericsson Mobility Report: 5G subscriptions increased by 70 million in Q1-2022 to reach 620 million
Ericsson new Mobility Report [1.] states that mobile network data traffic grew 10% between the 4th quarter of 2021 and the 1st quarter of 2022. For the year-over-year comparison, growth reached 40%. “In absolute numbers, this means that it has doubled in just two years (since Q1 2020),” the company wrote in its Mobility Report, released June 20th. “Over the long term, traffic growth is driven by both the rising number of smartphone subscriptions and an increasing average data volume per subscription, fueled primarily by increased viewing of video content,” the company added.
The figures are important considering that mobile network operators are rushing to add new spectrum to their networks while upgrading their networks to support 5G, especially 5G SA Core Network. Purchasing both spectrum and 5G equipment is expensive. In the US, for example, mobile network operators are collectively spending an estimated $275 billion to improve their networks with more spectrum, cell sites and 5G.
Note 1. The Ericsson Mobility Report started in 2011, when Ericsson decided to share data and insights openly to all those interested in understanding our industry’s development. Since then, the report and featured articles have seen a continuous evolution and an expanding scope.
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Speaking during a webinar to discuss the report’s findings, Richard Möller, senior market analyst at Ericsson, noted that the number of 5G subscribers worldwide had been expected to reach 660 million by the end of 2021. It now seems that the figure was less than forecast: Ericsson is now saying that 5G subscriptions increased by 70 million in Q1 2022 to reach 620 million. The 40 million shortfall is due to changes in how China’s mobile operators are reporting their 5G subscriber figures. Indeed, it has become noticeable over the past year that the Chinese operators are starting to split out “5G package customers” from actual 5G network customers.
“Now we have official numbers and we’ve adjusted our estimates accordingly,” Möller said. “China is early and so large that it affects the global number.” He noted that this adjustment does not “materially affect” the five-year growth forecast. Ericsson is therefore sticking to its estimate of 4.4 billion 5G subscribers by the end of 2027, meaning that 5G will account for almost half of all mobile subscriptions by that point. 5G subscriber growth is expected to accelerate in 2022, reaching around one billion subscribers by the end of the year. The report noted that North America and North East Asia currently have the highest 5G subscription penetration, followed by the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Western Europe. In 2027, it is projected that North America will have the highest 5G penetration at 90%. In India, where 5G deployments have yet to begin, 5G is expected to account for nearly 40% of all subscriptions by 2027.
At the same time, Möller warned that the war in Ukraine, supply chain constraints and rising inflation will affect future growth. “That’s made us take 100 million subscriptions off the current forecast. However, history has shown that mobile telephony is one of the things that people hang on to … even if the economic world turns negative,” he said.
The report’s executive editor Peter Jonsson said the current uncertainties mean that Ericsson has to be especially careful with its forecasts. However, he reiterated the point that global 5G uptake “is about two years ahead of 4G” on a comparative basis. In addition, 5G rollout “reached 25% of the world’s population about 18 months faster than 4G.”
Global mobile network data traffic and year-over-year growth:
According to Ericsson, mobile subscribers are making use of the additional network capacity and faster speeds provided by those investments. The company said that, globally, the average smartphone user is expected to consume 15GB per month in 2022. Indeed, the 5G share of mobile data traffic is growing, but not as fast as FWA (3G/4G/5G). Continued strong smartphone adoption and video consumption are driving up mobile data traffic, with 5G accounting for around 10 percent of the total in 2021.
In North America, the company estimated that average monthly mobile data usage per smartphone could reach as high as 52GB in 2027. “The data traffic generated per minute of use will increase significantly in line with the expected uptake of new XR and video-based apps,” the company wrote. “This is due to higher video resolutions, increased uplink traffic, and more data from devices off-loaded to cloud compute resources.”
Also, Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) in on the rise as per this graphic:
Over 100 million FWA connections in 2022:
More than 75 percent of service providers surveyed in over 100 countries are offering fixed wireless access (FWA) services. Around 20 percent of these service providers apply differential pricing with speed-based tariff plans.
OpenVault, another vendor that tracks data traffic on wired networks in North America, recently reported similar findings. According to OpenVault, the average wired Internet customer consumed a total of 536.3GB in the fourth quarter of 2021, an increase of 165% over the firm’s findings from the fourth quarter of 2017, when consumption was 202.6GB.
Taken together, the companies’ findings paint a picture of a dramatic expansion in data demand on wired and wireless networks in North America and globally. Indeed, such increases have already sparked unprecedented demand in vendors’ networking equipment to keep pace with demands. Further, such demand has already withstood several price increases among many leading vendors.
The situation reflects the importance of telecom networks globally following a pandemic that pushed many to work and school remotely from home. And in response to the situation, governments globally have begun pushing network operators to construct networks in underserved areas, and to Internet users themselves who may struggle to afford such connections.
References:
https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and-papers/mobility-report
https://www.lightreading.com/5g/china-effect-dampens-interim-5g-subs-says-ericsson/d/d-id/778394?
https://www.ctia.org/the-wireless-industry/the-5g-economy
Will 2022 be the year for 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) or a conundrum for telcos?
https://viodi.com/2020/05/05/openvault-broadband-usage-47-in-q1-2020-power-users-are-the-new-normal/
OpenRoaming Enables Dublin’s Smart City Vision with Seamless, Secure, High-Performance Wi-Fi
The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) and City of Dublin today announced a successful proof-of-concept trial of Open Roaming™ in Dublin, Ireland. Initially deployed at Bernardo Square, Dame Street and the City Council’s Amphitheatre, WBA Open Roaming enables residents and visitors to log- in only once and then maintain seamless connectivity as their smartphones, tablets and other Wi-Fi devices automatically switch between different public Wi-Fi hotspots. The success of the trial will pave the way for a larger city-wide deployment.
Dublin is a high growth city. It currently has a population in the Greater Dublin Area of around 2.02 million and is anticipated to grow to 2.2 million by 2031. It houses 30% of the country’s working population and attracts over 6.6 million overseas visitors a year. It is anticipated that OpenRoaming will be initially rolled out on over 150 AP’s across Dublin city.
Dublin’s WiFi rollout is part of its digital transformation project
Now available at over 1 million hotspots worldwide, WBA OpenRoaming frees users from the need to constantly re-register or re-enter log-in credentials — all while maintaining enterprise-grade security and privacy. The WBA OpenRoaming standard also enables enterprises, device OEMs, service providers and others to provide performance guarantees and — with Wi-Fi 6 and 6E— a carrier-grade experience as users roam between different public Wi-Fi venues.
The trial, initiated by Dublin City Council’s Smart Dublin programme and supported by the WBA and Virgin Media, also involved participation from CommScope and represents a key a milestone toward achieving Dublin’s smart city goals, which include:
- Providing communities, residents and businesses with seamless access to services online, as well as high-quality connectivity
- Giving tourists and other visitors free, secure, high-performance Wi-Fi access. Once they arrive and log on to an OpenRoaming-enabled hotspot, their device is automatically authenticated for use every time it switches to another OpenRoaming-enabled hotspot. This convenience makes it easier for them to find what they need, such as restaurant recommendations, transit schedules, directions and more.
- This seamless, secure experience ensures that they have the broadband connectivity they need for interactive immersive learning, research, hybrid study and more.
The success of the trial, initiated by Dublin City Council’s Smart Dublin program and supported by the WBA and Virgin Media, will pave the way for a larger city-wide deployment.
Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance, said: “Wi-Fi is the foundation for smart cities. This successful proof-of-concept trial shows that that the City of Dublin and its residents, businesses and visitors all can depend on the WBA OpenRoaming standard to ensure that they always have convenient access to seamless, secure, carrier-grade Wi-Fi connectivity.”
Jamie Cudden, Smart City Lead, for the City of Dublin, said: “Dublin is at the forefront of a digital transformation that is serving as a model for other municipalities across Ireland and the world. Collaborations like this are key to the delivery of convenient, reliable and ubiquitous connectivity which is critical for achieving our smart city goals such as closing the digital divide and ensuring that government is responsive to the needs of citizens and businesses. This successful trial of WBA OpenRoaming is a milestone toward achieving all those goals.”
Bart Giordano, SVP Ruckus Networks, CommScope, said: “”As a founding partner in the OpenRoaming framework, we are pleased to announce with the WBA the successful launch of the OpenRoaming initiative and network for the City of Dublin. OpenRoaming brings the promise of seamless and secure connectivity to users and IoT devices all over the world. The core elements of OpenRoaming are in line with those of the Ruckus Network portfolio: cloud federation, cybersecurity, policy and automation. We look forward to expanding the City of Dublin’s network and capabilities and supporting OpenRoaming deployments worldwide. “
Aidan Darcy, VP Business & Wholesale at Virgin Media Ireland said: “It’s fantastic to be working with Dublin City Council on such an important initiative. Given the fact that we are the official provider of both the Wi-Fi and broadband infrastructure, we are able to offer cutting-edge broadband speeds and an exceptional Wi-Fi experience for residents and tourists availing of the new Dublin City Wi-Fi Zones. We’re passionate about connecting communities and, with this new initiative, we really feel we’ll be creating connections for good.”
Launched in May 2020, WBA OpenRoaming is now in Release 3, which will make the business and commercial aspects of roaming easier than ever before and importantly, cut back on hundreds of hours of legal and administrative time when establishing roaming settlement agreements.
World Wi-Fi Day – 20th June 2022:
This announcement comes just before World Wi-Fi Day (an annual WBA initiative), a global platform to recognize and celebrate the significant role Wi-Fi is playing in getting cities and communities around the world connected.
It is a unique opportunity to reflect on how we can reduce digital poverty through innovative projects that will connect the unconnected.
About the Wireless Broadband Alliance:
Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) is the global organization that connects people with the latest Wi-Fi initiatives. Founded in 2003, the vision of the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) is to drive seamless, interoperable service experiences via Wi-Fi within the global wireless ecosystem. WBA’s mission is to enable collaboration between service providers, technology companies, cities, regulators and organizations to achieve that vision. WBA’s membership is comprised of major operators, identity providers and leading technology companies across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision.
WBA undertakes programs and activities to address business and technical issues, as well as opportunities, for member companies. WBA work areas include standards development, industry guidelines, trials, certification and advocacy. Its key programs include NextGen Wi-Fi, Open Roaming, 5G, IoT, Testing & Interoperability and Policy & Regulatory Affairs, with member-led Work Groups dedicated to resolving standards and technical issues to promote end-to-end services and accelerate business opportunities.
The WBA Board includes Airties, AT&T, Boingo Wireless, Broadcom, BT, Cisco Systems, Comcast, Deutsche Telekom AG, Google, Intel and Viasat. For the complete list of current WBA members, click here.
References:
https://www.realwire.com/releases/WBA-OpenRoaming-Enables-Dublins-Smart-City-Vision
Bouygues Telecom picks Ericsson for cloud native 5G SA core network
France’s Bouygues Telecom is setting the stage for the next phase of its 5G rollout by announcing that Ericsson will be supplying its 5G standalone (5G SA) core network. The strategic partnership between the companies will see the deployment of the cloud-native Ericsson Dual Mode 5G Core.
The French network operator indicated that it will launch 5G SA services in 2023, including solutions supported by 5G network slicing which requires a 5G SA network. Network slicing is a process whereby the amount of network connectivity needed for a task will be secured via a guaranteed ‘slice’ of the network – to help facilitate the broad range of expected use cases as the digitalization of France.
Sectors likely to benefit from the Ericsson-Bouygues Telecom Strategic Partnership include industry, logistics, smart transport, events and healthcare.
Bouygues Telecom’s 5G Standalone connectivity will also use network slicing – a process whereby the amount of network connectivity needed for a task will be secured via a guaranteed ‘slice’ of the network – to help facilitate the broad range of expected use cases as the digitalization of France, and the move to the fourth industrial revolution (4IE), accelerates.
Standalone 5G will also be central to use cases involving artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and automation. Sectors likely to benefit from the Ericsson-Bouygues Telecom Strategic Partnership include industry, logistics, smart transport, events and healthcare. Services resulting from the end-to-end 5G network strategic partnership are expected to be available from early 2023.
Network automation: 5G Core networks must be automated. Automation is required to handle the magnitude of tailor-made services and network slices that will be introduced with 5G. To manually or semi-automate all parts of the network is not feasible if SLAs are to be sustained. To keep up with latest software releases, it’s imperative to have a CI/CD mindset. The faster the latest network capabilities can be introduced, the faster new differentiating services can be rolled out and monetized.
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Ericsson already provides radio access network (RAN) equipment to Bouygues Telecom. The operator had previously worked with Huawei, but was forced to explore alternative options after the nation’s government effectively banned Huawei from participating in 5G networks after 2028.
Rival operator Orange has already chosen its 5G standalone suppliers in Europe, plumping for Ericsson’s core network in Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg and Poland, and Nokia’s equivalent offering in France and Slovakia.
Iliad’s Free has selected Nokia for its 5G networks in France and Italy. (See Ericsson, Nokia at front of queue for Orange 5G contracts.)
France has not explicitly banned the use of equipment from China-based vendors such as Huawei in 5G networks.
ANSSI, France’s cybersecurity agency, set a very high bar for license authorizations in 5G and previously indicated it will not renew Huawei’s equipment licenses once they run their course.
This decision has posed a logistical and financial challenge to both Bouygues Telecom and rival SFR (Altice France), which have been heavily reliant on Huawei equipment in the past. Indeed, the operators were using Huawei equipment across about half their mobile footprint, according to data provided in 2020 by Strand Consult, a wireless telecom consulting group headed up by colleague John Strand.
In 2021, Bouygues Telecom and SFR began stripping out Huawei equipment from their networks, after unsuccessful legal efforts to challenge France’s stricter security policy for future 5G networks. Bouygues Telecom has said it would have to remove 3,000 Huawei antennas by 2028 in areas with very high population density and that it was prohibited from using Huawei antennas for 5G in Strasbourg, Brest, Toulouse and Rennes.
In a rather curious twist, French newspaper L’Express reported last year that Free filed a case at the Paris Administrative Court against permits given to Bouygues Telecom and SFR to use Huawei 5G antennas. Free claimed that its own request to ANSSI for clearance to use Huawei products was rejected, but Bouygues Telecom and SFR were given the greenlight, which it argued gave its two rivals an unfair advantage.
It seems that it’s not entirely clear the extent to which France’s operators might continue to use Huawei equipment in less sensitive parts of the networks in the coming years.
Meanwhile, Free is leading the charge when it comes to the deployment of 5G-enabled base stations in France. According to the latest update from Arcep, Free has over 14,400 sites compared to Bouygues Telecom’s 7,132; SFR’s 5,721; and Orange’s 3,491. Free’s sites are all in the 700Mhz/800MHz bands.
References:
https://www.ericsson.com/en/news/2022/6/end-to-end-ericsson-sa-5g-for-bouygues-telecom
https://www.lightreading.com/5g/bouygues-telecom-picks-ericsson-as-core-5g-buddy/d/d-id/778363?
Summary of ITU-R Workshop on “IMT for 2030 and beyond” (aka “6G”)
ITU-R Working Party 5D (WP 5D) held a full-day Workshop on “IMT for 2030 and beyond” on June 14th with total 348 participants in a hybrid physical and remote/virtual participants arrangement (91 physically present in Geneva, Switzerland and 257 connected remotely).
The objective of the Workshop was to provide WP 5D delegates with an overview of ongoing worldwide research activities, initiatives, and views related to future mobile communications targeting 2030 and beyond. This Workshop is also of value to WP 5D in the development of a new Recommendation addressing IMT for 2030 and beyond.
Various organizations presented their work and/or views on the future development of mobile communication systems beyond IMT-2020, targeting year 2030 and beyond. These are summarized below. In particular, the following topics were addressed:
– Trends of IMT for 2030 and beyond, such as application, technology and spectrum aspects;
– Views on the future role of IMT in serving users and the society;
– Usage scenarios for IMT for 2030 and beyond;
– Capabilities of IMT for 2030 and beyond.
All the presentations made during the Workshop can be found on the ITU-R WP 5D website (1st reference below). Strong interests and visions towards IMT for 2030 and beyond were demonstrated by the presenters. Additionally, some items were recognized as useful in further discussion in the work in WP 5D on the draft new recommendation such as scope of Vision (terrestrial, non-terrestrial and/or fixed wireless), definition of AI for IMT Vision, usage scenarios & capabilities, and restructuring of a working document.
FIGURE 1. Keywords in the presentations and mapping with [IMT.vision 2030 AND Beyond] sections
Key messages from the workshop presenters:
European 6G Flagship from Hexa-X:
Hexa-X is the European flagship research initiative to develop the foundation and contribute to industry consensus leading to 6G. The Hexa-X vision is to connect human, physical and digital worlds with a fabric of 6G key enablers. Key values include sustainability, inclusion and trustworthiness. Sub-THz is being explored as a potential complement to the low, mid, and mmWave bands to optimize wireless link characteristics for both communication and potentially sensing, and cooperatively provide for the full set of service requirements. Possible usage of spectrum in 7-24 GHz range for mobile communications.
One6G from One6G Association:
Building on the apparent consensus in the wide community about 6G features, use cases, requirements and key enabling technologies, 6G research should go a step further and also focus on certain architectural aspects that can handle complexity stemming from the expected diversity of access types (6G radio, Terahertz, Non-terrestrial Networks), use cases and requirements. In particular, the role of mesh-networking, flat network architectures, multi-path communication should be emphasized and considered from the beginning, as these are capable both of coping with highly-variable and range-limited nature of THz links and of making effective use of user plane resources when realizing the complex use cases. A holistic approach to the network architecture, integrating all diverse subsystems into a coherent system, naturally follows from this as another important aspect.
– IMT towards 2030 and beyond from NextG Alliance:
Next G Alliance described six pillars (“Audacious Goals”) that will lead to success for IMT-2030. In order guide the path to this success, the Vision for IMT-2030 should focus on multiple layers of development to include societal needs, applications and markets, and technology development:
• Trust, Security, and Resilience such that systems resilient, secure, privacy preserving, safe, reliable, and available under all circumstances.
• An enhanced Digital World Experience consists of multi-sensory experiences that will transform work, education, and entertainment, thereby improving quality of life.
• Efficient Deployment needs to span all aspects of the architecture and must be improved for delivering services in a variety of environments, including urban, rural, and suburban.
• Distributed Cloud and Communications Systems built on virtualization technologies will increase flexibility, performance, and resiliency for key use cases such as mixed reality, URLLC applications, interactive gaming, and multi-sensory applications.
• An AI-Native Network is needed to increase the robustness, performance, and efficiencies of wireless and cloud technologies against more diverse traffic types, ultra-dense deployment topologies, and more challenging spectrum situations.
• Sustainability related to energy efficiency and the environment must be at the forefront of decisions throughout the life cycle, toward a goal of achieving IMT carbon neutral. Advances will fundamentally change how electricity is used to support next-generation communications and computer networks, while strengthening the role that information technology plays in protecting the environment.
– Vision for “IMT 2030 and beyond” from WWRF:
WWRF envisions sustainable, intelligent and affordable wireless connectivity for all for 2030 and beyond. First step towards the realisation of this vision is the requirements specification for a number of critical IMT 2030 USAGE SCENARIOS, namely
• Global Connectivity, Immersive Connectivity, Intelligent Connectivity, and Internet of Senses
Key technology enablers such as THz communications, Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces, AI/ML and Joint Communications and Sensing will catalyse IMT2030 vision. Suitable qualitative and quantitative specification of IMT 2030 Key Performance Indicators for
• Sustainability/inclusion/energy efficiency
• Reconfigurability, immersive intelligence and agility
• Artificial and sensing intelligence (localization accuracy, sensing resolution, shape recognition, user tracking, gesture identification etc)
• Social KPIs, Key Value Indicators (KVIs)
will ensure solutions, tailored to the needs people in different geographic areas and a potentially large dynamic range of real world problems, with emphasis on
• under-connected regions
• increasing longer-lasting, recyclable and re-usable equipment and reducing reliance on scarce commodities
• educating and informing consumers, giving them back control (Privacy, RF safety and other issues)
– Use cases from user and system perspectives from 6G Innovation Centre at the Univ. of Surrey:
IMT2030 should be based on an open and tightly integrated 3D-Network of space and terrestrial Networks.
As 5G brought about low and guaranteed latency into telecom, IMT 2030 (6G) should bring capability for guaranteed time synchronisation.
Integration of sensing into communications and time synchronisation will enable new and smarter applications for interactive and multiparty connectivity within and between virtual and physical worlds. It will enable teleportation.
Sub-THz should be used for real time radio imaging, sub-cm and real time geolocation accuracy.
The 3D network will address important problem of ubiquitous coverage and Intelligent surfaces simultaneously solves the coverage and energy efficiency problems in build up environments.
– 6G: Building metaverse-ready mobile networks from Academic group of British Universities:
The metaverse and cyber physical continuum will allow fundamentally new use cases around digital twins and new immersive experiences. If we manage to fully map the physical world into a new digital world, autonomous machines will be able to effectively support our lives through immersive XR experiences for example, decision making will become more effective, less energy will be consumed, predictive maintenance in manufacturing for enhance productivity will be realised, and enhanced security will ensure that the evolving attack surfaces will be secured. Social inclusion, removal of inequalities and universal availability are key elements of this vision. For this, we will need new network architectures, new hardware and software solutions. Overcoming the limitations of current silicon process technologies will be crucial through for example neuromorphic computing. AI/machine learning forms the brain while connectivity forms the nervous system and sensor data establishes crucial input for enabling intelligent interactions with the environment and dynamic mapping of the environment. Ultimately, quantum technologies will enter future networks for improved processing, decision making and security, and new spectrum is required. To this end, terabit-per-second (Tbps) wireless networks can be realised using the optical spectrum. Therefore, the spectrum considerations should extend to the optical domain.
– Unlocking the potential of the stratosphere from HAPS Alliance:
The current advancements in technology have made it possible to explore the stratosphere with High-altitude platforms. Many initiatives are already underway to commercialize HAPS, making it technically feasible.
HAPS can solve crucial social challenges, such as bridging the digital divide and natural disaster recovery through flexible and timely deployment. It is also expected to be a means of providing connectivity for aerial applications that are expected to expand in the future.
While everything will be connected to the network in the 2030s, it will be difficult to solve all these challenges using only terrestrial network, and non-terrestrial network, especially HAPS, is required.
IMT for 2030 and beyond should have the capability of ultra-wide 3D coverage which will realize by using HAPS.
– Views towards IMT for 2030 and Beyond from IMT-2030 (6G) Promotion Group:
IMT-2030 (6G) promotion group analyzed driving forces, the future market trends, network O&M requirements, 6G use cases trends, and proposed 6G new usage scenarios and key capability indicators. 6G will transcend the capabilities boundary of traditional communication in the way of sustainable development, and finally realize the 6G shared beautiful world of “intelligent connection of everything, digital twin”.
– Beyond 5G White Paper (v1.0) – Message to the 2030s from Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium:
In this presentation, Vision, capabilities and KPIs of IMT for 2030 and beyond, contained in the White Paper of Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium, were explained. The White Pater was developed based on the investigation for a wide range of stakeholders and provides useful information for the development of Vision in WP5D. The Consortium will update the White Paper and contribute to WP5D toward the progress of the IMT-2030 process.
– IMT for 2030 and Beyond: Lessons from 5G and future perspectives for 6G from NTRA, Egypt:
IMT-2030 should be utilized as a tool to overcome the digital divide by providing useful applications for the developing countries with an emphasize on flexibility in deployment, affordability, and society well-being instead of only focusing on extending IMT-2020 capabilities such as latency and speed.
Spectrum identification is needed for IMT-2030 even in THz bands to ensure the protection of existing services, and operation in IMT identified bands should be included as one of the compliance requirements.
There are several benefits of having one IMT-2030 standard but also there is a need to encourage innovation and enable new stakeholders to participate in the IMT process.
Regardless of the development in 6G technologies, the IMT process is quite critical as it is a flexible open platform to exchange views on what the next generation of cellular mobile technology should be.
– IMT-2030 capabilities and challenges from Radio Research and Development Institute, Russia:
The aim of the presentation was to show the most important aspects that need to be implemented within IMT-2030 and challenges that may be faced while realizing these applications. The history of IMT shows that it was mostly evolving around data rates, multiple access techniques, frequency bands used, and killer applications. It is expected that IMT-2030 will also revolve around these principles, IMT-2030 though is expected to have additional features. It is imperative that IMT-2030 would the following capabilities:
• Use cases related to digital presence such as holographic communications, immersive communications and tactile Internet
• Coverage in remote areas using the satellite segment of IMT
• New frequencies above 100 GHz
• Affordable networks deployment for private industry and other applications
• Faster data rates higher than 1 Tbs
• Lower latencies less than 1 ms
• Reliable technology which would be publicly accepted without any fear of the hazardous exposure
It should be noted though that there might be several challenges related with realizing the above capabilities, such as propagation losses in higher bands, difficulties with satellite mega-constellations deployment, development of the multiple access techniques for higher frequency bands, hardware development, as well as public concerns regarding possible exposure of new frequency bands and in the environment with intelligent reflective surfaces.
– Vision flow – from goals to capabilities from Traficom & Univ. of Oulu:
Finland proposes a structured flow for the joint vision of IMT for 2030 and beyond to bring together the currently separate vision elements. The steps of the flow are 1) Goals & societal impact, 2) Users, 3) Usage scenarios and Future examples, 4) Enabling technologies, 5) KPIs/Capabilities. The goals and societal needs provide justification for technological development and later to new regulatory models and spectrum requirements.
– Network architecture for IMT-2030 from IIT Bombay:
We notice that the flow of (UE) signalling traffic in the mobile networks are quite similar to the user data traffic. They both carry information and require path through the mobile network to carry the information. In our presentation, we look at this similarity and discuss if it is possible to treat “UE signalling” similar to user service (data) in future mobile networks, i.e., if the signalling traffic and the data traffic can be treated in a similar manner by the mobile communications networks. We also explain how it is possible to achieve this goal and what are the advantages of the proposal. We find that the proposal simplifies the network architecture as well as the flow of control information within the network considerably.
– 6G Vision from TSDSI (India):
Apart from the well discussed issues that covered issues surrounding the broad technologies and mechanisms to achieve Ubiquitous Intelligent Mobile Connected Society, the below two points are essential for “bridging the digital divide” which is a key focus area for TSDSI and certain other geographies.
• Technologies that support Spectrum Sharing / Simultaneous Spectrum Use will have to be supported to lower the initial spectrum ownership cost. Today technologies such as “self-interference cancellation” makes it possible for multiple co-ownership of spectrum.
• Composable Network architectures are necessary to address issues of cost and affordability, incremental deployments, support collaborative network ownerships (Private / Public) and the intrinsic nature of some demographics that provide rich “local and hyper local” contexts.
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6G network design should address Data Ownership Granularities spanning from personal data, enterprise or group data, government ownership of data and data considered as national assets (data that is not allowed to leave the geographic boundaries) through the right choice of technologies that may include “network of networks” architecture approach, support for “data breakout” mechanisms at multiple levels of a network and any other such technology enablers.
References:
https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/study-groups/rsg5/rwp5d/Pages/wsp-imt-vision-2030-and-beyond.aspx
Development of “IMT Vision for 2030 and beyond” from ITU-R WP 5D