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Tag: 5G

  • Nokia studies business case for 5G

    Nokia studies business case for 5G

    With the 5G era fast approaching, Nokia has released the findings of a series of studies into the potential benefits and return on investment for the emerging mobile technology.

    The vendor said in-depth analysis of how 5G will perform in real networks found the technology can increase capacity by 40 times compared to 4G.

    This makes 5G the only commercially viable technology for the delivery of a true immersive VR video experience to large audiences, and deliver the performance required for advanced industrial applications.

    In terms of RoI, the analysis indicates that investments in 5G to the home will break even after four years if the monthly average revenue per user remains above €40 ($42.90).

    Investments in 5G events and hotspots, in locations such as stadiums meanwhile have a one year RoI period assuming at least five events per month.

    “While market news has recently focused on the announcement of 5G technologies that drive increased network performance, it’s important to discuss how these low latency broadband connections will translate into customer value,” Mobile Experts principal analyst Joe Madden said.

    “With the publication of the two new studies and its 5G Acceleration Services, Nokia is showing operators and enterprises how they will be able to benefit from early 5G deployment.”

    Nokia’s 5G Acceleration Services aim to help operators and enterprises identify how the move to 5G will enable them to deliver transformational new services and create new revenue streams.

  • 5G indoor wireless market to be worth $509m by 2025

    5G indoor wireless market to be worth $509m by 2025

    The global equipment market for in-building wireless system, including active distributed antenna systems (DAS), passive DAS, and repeaters, is expected to grow to $10 billion in 2025, according to ABI Research.

    Yet, out of this market, 5G in-building wireless equipment will account for only 5% or $509 million in 2025, due to one year or more delay of 5G deployments indoors and in venues compared to outdoor 5G deployments starting from 2020, the research firm says.

    “As 5G nears full specification, mobile network operators will face challenges for indoor mobile coverage, including signal propagation, next-generation fronthaul/backhaul, and massive MIMO,” says Nick Marshall, research director at ABI Research.

    According to Marshall, early 5G deployments indoors and in venues will be a migration building on the features of LTE-Advanced and LTE-Advanced Pro. This will happen technology by technology and frequency by frequency, avoiding costly ‘rip and replace’ style deployments, the analyst notes.

    Marshall further points out that future 5G networks – which will comprise of a combination of different cell types and access technologies to seamlessly adapt to an array of use cases and applications – will rely on network functions virtualization (NFV) and mobile edge computing (MEC) to alter the architecture and topology of the RAN by leveraging telco data centers to virtualize signal processing in the cloud.

    NFV migrates cellular signal processing to a remote telco data center, while MEC, in a countervailing trend, migrates IT compute and storage to the network edge within the building or venue for low latency use cases and applications.

    With 5G standards yet to be finalized, many equipment vendors are actively researching and developing 5G equipment with a variety of approaches. These companies include Nokia with its AirFrame/AirScale Radio Access, Ericsson with its ERS, and CommScope with its OneCell.

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  • 3 Hong Kong upgrading network to prepare for 5G

    3 Hong Kong upgrading network to prepare for 5G

    Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holding’s mobile division 3 Hong Kong has teamed up with Huawei to upgrade its mobile network in preparation for the 5G era.

    The operator is adopting five component carrier aggregation (5CC CA) using its extensive spectrum holdings across the 1800-MHz, 2100-MHz, 2300-MHz and 2600-MHz bands with both FDD and TDD technology.

    Huawei will also upgrade the network to support 4×4 MIMO and 256 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) technology, to enable 3 Hong Kong to provide customers with data download speeds of over 1.2Gbps.

    In addition to these 4.5G technologies, 3 Hong Kong has started planning for the deployment of 4G technologies based on network cloudification.

    The partners have already deployed Huawei’s CloudEdge technology on the 3 Hong Kong core network and are now applying CloudRAN technology to the wireless access network. The operator also plans to adopt Huawei’s CloudAIR air interface cloud technology.

    A Massive MIMO base station has also been built in Causeway Bay to conduct field tests of the 5G technology, and 3 Hong Kong plans to continue the deployment of Massive MIMO in key locations within the year.

    “As we move towards the 5G and IoT era, 3 Hong Kong is actively deploying 5G technologies and upgrading its existing network architecture,” HTHKH executive director and CEO Cliff Woo Chiu-man said.

    “In addition to using CA technology with 5CC, we have conducted research and carried out trials for various technologies, such as small cell installations, network cloudification, NFV and Massive MIMO towards the 5G era. These  efforts will enable the timely launch of services to meet market demand as soon as the 5G  standard and Hong Kong’s spectrum plans are confirmed.”

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  • Ericsson, IIT Delhi team to launch ‘5G for India’

    Ericsson, IIT Delhi team to launch ‘5G for India’

    Ericsson and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) have signed a MoU to jointly roll out a ‘5G for India’ program, conceptualized to fast-track realization of Digital India initiatives and aid application development for Indian start-ups and industries.

    Under the partnership, Ericsson will set up a Center of Excellence with a 5G test bed and incubation center at IIT Delhi and use this facility to drive the development of the country’s 5G ecosystem.

    In addition to hosting the Center of Excellence, IIT Delhi will conduct research and development to explore how some of the country’s challenges can be addressed with mobile technologies.

    The first series of tests under this program are due to begin in the second half of 2017 and will place India on par with other developed countries in terms of 5G network and application deployment.

    “The 5G for India program is a major step towards understanding the power of 5G technology and how it can help aid Digital India initiatives, including the development of smart cities,” said Paolo Colella, head of region India at Ericsson.

    “The program will focus on delivering research, innovation and industrial pilots that use next-generation 5G networks as an enabler. It will help initiate cross-industry research collaborations focused on the integration of ICT in industry processes, as well as products and services,” said Colella.

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  • NBTC likely to postpone 5G auction

    NBTC likely to postpone 5G auction

    Thai regulator NBTC is likely to have to postpone the planned 2600-MHz 5G auction until 2018 due to regulatory and administrative hurdles.

    The regulator had planned to hold the 2600-MHz auction in September this year, but this process will probably need to be delayed, an NBTC commissioner told.

    Factors behind the delay include the fact that 190MHz of 2600-MHz spectrum has been allocated to state broadcaster MCOT and is currently unused.

    MCOT expects compensation for the return of 80MHz of spectrum for the auction, but the NBTC is currently not authorized to pay compensation to state agencies in return for spectrum.

    The new draft bill restructuring the NBTC is expected to give the regulator the power to do so, but the process of arranging compensation and drawing up the framework for these payments will take time. The new bill has yet to identify methodologies for calculating compensation.

    The NBTC restructuring is also likely to create its own issues that will impact the auction process due to the transition to new commissioners expected after the bill takes effect.

    Meanwhile Thailand still lacks a clear spectrum roadmap for the evolution to 5G will inevitably cause a delay in Thailand’s 5G ecosystem development.

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  • SoftBank, Ericsson to trial 5G over 28-GHz

    SoftBank, Ericsson to trial 5G over 28-GHz

    Ericsson and Japan’s SoftBank have announced plans to demonstrate 5G over 28-GHz millimetre wave spectrum, as part of the next stage of their joint 5G trials.

    The companies said they are moving forward with more advanced 5G tests following the successful completion of basic 4.5-GHz and 15-GHz 5G trials in Tokyo last year.

    The upcoming trial will involve both indoor and outdoor testing environments and cover both device mobility and stationary tests. The trial will use Ericsson’s mmWave 28-GHz 5G Test Bed base station and device prototype solution.

    SoftBank and Ericsson will make use of advanced 5G technologies including Massive-MIMO, massive beamforming, Distributed MIMO, Multi-user MIMO and beam tracking.

    “SoftBank started to verify 4.5-GHz radio back in August 2016 and now 4.5GHz is becoming the leading candidate band for 5G services in Japan together with 28-GHz,” the operator’s SVP Hideyuki Tsukuda said.

    “We are leveraging Ericsson’s Test Bed with 28-GHz radio to validate a lot of advanced features at super low-latency and high throughput, which helps position us as a pioneer of 5G.”

    Ericsson Japan head Mikael Eriksson added that he is confident that the company “will be the first to deliver 5G services and that we will deliver the best performing end to end network in Japan.”

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  • Cellcos to spend $250m on pre-standards 5G networks by year-end

    Cellcos to spend $250m on pre-standards 5G networks by year-end

    Mobile operators will spend more than $250 million on pre-standards 5G network rollouts by the end of 2017, according to SNS Research’s latest report.

    Despite the lack of sufficient LTE coverage in parts of the world, mobile operators and vendors have already embarked on R&D initiatives to develop 5G, the next evolution in mobile networks.

    5G is expected to provide a single network environment to deliver not only existing mobile broadband and IoT services, but also new innovations such as self-driving cars, cloud robotics, 3D holographic telepresence and remote surgery with haptic feedback.

    In fact, many mobile operators are betting on 5G to diversify their revenue streams, as conventional voice and data service ARPUs decline globally.

    At present, the 3GPP and other SDOs (Standards Development Organizations) are engaged in defining the first phase of 5G specifications. However, pre-standards 5G network rollouts are already underway, most notably in the United States and South Korea, as mobile operators rush to be the first to offer 5G services.

    Although 2020 has conventionally been regarded as the headline date for 5G commercialization, the very first standardized deployments of the technology are expected to be commercialized as early as 2019 with the 3GPP’s initial 5G specifications set to be implementation-ready by March 2018.

    Between 2019 and 2025, SNS Research expects the 5G network infrastructure market to aggressively grow a CAGR of nearly 70%, eventually accounting for $28 billion in annual spending by the end of 2025.

    These infrastructure investments will be complemented by annual shipments of up to 520 million 5G-capable devices.

  • Cloud-based online charging system debuts through Netcracker

    Cloud-based online charging system debuts through Netcracker

    Netcracker Technology has unveiled its Cloud-Based Online Charging System (OCS), a next-generation offering that has been optimized to meet the requirements of the digital world.

    As the industry’s first always-active OCS platform, Netcracker’s Cloud-Based OCS addresses all of the key pain points associated with legacy, hardware-based charging systems.

    The platform enables always-on availability at a lower cost as well as cloud elasticity and scalability in order to keep up with the demands of digitalization.

    The platform also enables converged revenue management scenarios; support for VoLTE, virtualized, 5G and IoT services; deployment flexibility across any physical and virtual environment; and embedded analytics.

    “Netcracker’s Cloud-Based OCS underscores the right approach for service providers that are looking to monetize cloud and virtualized services in today’s digital world,” said Karl Whitelock, global director of operations, orchestration, data analytics and monetization (ODAM) at Stratecast.

    “As a software-centric solution that relies on configurable parameters and not complex customized code, Netcracker’s scalable OCS can help to address any level of transaction processing need, which is essential for delivering future-proof operations in the journey to becoming true digital services providers,” said Whitelock.

    Sanjay Mewada, chief strategy officer at Netcracker, said traditional revenue management platforms have not been able to keep pace with the needs of communications service providers as they transform into digital service providers.

    “Netcracker has evolved its OCS to address these precise needs,” said Mewada. “Our Cloud OCS, with its unparalleled elasticity, always-on availability and embedded analytics, removes the barriers to digitalization and allows our customers to rapidly monetize digital offerings, such as VoLTE, 5G, virtualized and IoT services.”

  • Indian telcos to start their 5G journeys this year

    Indian telcos to start their 5G journeys this year

    India’s plan of utilizing 5G technology to keep up with the rest of the world may soon become a reality.

    Indian operators will start the process of upgrading to 5G technology from this year. According to Huawei India CEO Jay Chen, 5G technology in present form can deliver up to 1Gbps download speed.

    “I can tell you Massive MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology (part of 5G technology) will go to India this year. We have had discussions with leading telecoms operators who are interested and right now it is only available with Huawei for commercial deployment,” Chen said in an interview. Wide-scale commercial deployment of 5G is expected to start in India in the next three years.

    Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal had earlier said that the MIMO technology available with Huawei and ZTE can increase current capability of spectrum by up to 8 times at an additional cost of only about 20%.

    Chen said that 5G standards are expected to be firmed up next year when wide scale commercial deployment of 5G will begin.

    “We have already deployed 4.5G networks in 13 circles across India which with minor upgrades can be transformed to 5G. With 4G subscriber base in India increasing, the download speed will reduce for which operators will need to begin start 4.5G services,” said Chen.

    5G will bring advanced technology which will change the way network coverage is provided to subscribers.

    “At present, subscribers runs to connect with the network. We are ready with pilots for multi MIMO technology that will follow subscribers. Dedicated spectrum frequency (beam forming) will connect with device of the subscribers and follow them wherever they go,” explained Chen.

    He added that the Indian industry is improving significantly with consolidation in the sector and end of spectrum shortage which provides good opportunity for telecoms equipment companies.

    “Earlier their was spectrum scarcity in India. There were 13 operators who were involved in tariff war. Since last year we have not seen operators complaining about spectrum scarcity. Availability of spectrum gives them opportunity to deploy latest technologies like 5G. With Huawei we see this a very positive move. Our growth has also improved in India in last two years,” Chen said.

    He said that Indian operators are now moving in the direction where they can catch up with rest of the world.

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  • 5 operators are already testing 5G

    5 operators are already testing 5G

    Despite 5G standardization not being expected until 2020, 25 mobile operators have already commenced lab testing 5G technologies, according to industry data from network testing company Viavi.

    Of the 25 operators testing 5G, 12 have progressed to field testing, the company said. An additional four operators have announced plans for 5G trials but have not yet commenced them.

    Five operators have achieved data speeds of at least 35 Gbps in 5G trials, including Optus, M1 and StarHub.

    To date, Etisalat has the speed record at 36Gbps, Viavi said, with Ooredoo close behind at 35.46Gbps. All operators conducting 5G trials have reported data transmission speeds of at least 2Gbps.

    Viavi’s data also show that operators are testing 5G across a wide range of bands, ranging from sub 3-GHz up to 86-GHz.

    The most commonly trialed bandwidth among operators that have disclosed their test spectrum is currently 28-GHz – with eight operators using it – followed by 15-GHz, which is being used by seven operators.

    Among equipment suppliers, five major vendors have announced an involvement in 5G trials – Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, Samsung and ZTE. Many operators are working with multiple vendors on their trials, with KT including all five equipment providers.

    “The pace of 5G development is already beyond the expectations of many observers,” Viavi CTO Sameh Yamany commented.

    “Now, as the technical delivery of data is starting to coalesce, it is time to think ahead to how future 5G networks can manage the disparate requirements of high data rates, very low latency applications and large-scale IoT services while maintaining QoS.”

    He said network slicing, involving the automation and programming of multiple cloud-based functions within a virtualized network, will be important to achieving these goals.

    “Service providers and their partners will require solutions that are virtualized from one end of the network to the other and have automated and correlated intelligence across each network slice for monitoring, optimization and service assurance.”

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  • 25 operators are already testing 5G

    25 operators are already testing 5G

    Despite 5G standardization not being expected until 2020, 25 mobile operators have already commenced lab testing 5G technologies, according to industry data from network testing company Viavi.

    Of the 25 operators testing 5G, 12 have progressed to field testing, the company said. An additional four operators have announced plans for 5G trials but have not yet commenced them.

    Five operators have achieved data speeds of at least 35 Gbps in 5G trials, including Optus, M1 and StarHub.

    To date, Etisalat has the speed record at 36Gbps, Viavi said, with Ooredoo close behind at 35.46Gbps. All operators conducting 5G trials have reported data transmission speeds of at least 2Gbps.

    Viavi’s data also show that operators are testing 5G across a wide range of bands, ranging from sub 3-GHz up to 86-GHz.

    The most commonly trialed bandwidth among operators that have disclosed their test spectrum is currently 28-GHz – with eight operators using it – followed by 15-GHz, which is being used by seven operators.

    Among equipment suppliers, five major vendors have announced an involvement in 5G trials – Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, Samsung and ZTE. Many operators are working with multiple vendors on their trials, with KT including all five equipment providers.

    “The pace of 5G development is already beyond the expectations of many observers,” Viavi CTO Sameh Yamany commented.

    “Now, as the technical delivery of data is starting to coalesce, it is time to think ahead to how future 5G networks can manage the disparate requirements of high data rates, very low latency applications and large-scale IoT services while maintaining QoS.”

    He said network slicing, involving the automation and programming of multiple cloud-based functions within a virtualized network, will be important to achieving these goals.

    “Service providers and their partners will require solutions that are virtualized from one end of the network to the other and have automated and correlated intelligence across each network slice for monitoring, optimization and service assurance.”

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  • Huawei passes 5G NR field performance tests

    Huawei passes 5G NR field performance tests

    Huawei first to pass China’s 5G NR field performance tests

    Huawei has announced it was first to pass the recent field performance tests of 5G new radio (NR) technology in the 3.5-GHz band as part of the second phase of China’s 5G trials. The field tests commenced late last year within a 5G trial zone established by the IMT-2020 Promotion Group. Huawei demonstrated its 5G NR solution, proving it capable of meeting the ITU’s performance specifications for 5G, including 10Gbps throughput for for over one million simultaneous with an air interface latency of under 1ms.

    Singtel trialing Massive MIMO and Cloud RAN

    Singtel and Ericsson have teamed up to pilot Massive MIMO and Cloud RAN in Singapore on Singtel’s LTE network. Singtel aims to use the technologies to provide Gigabit-level LTE speeds and prepare its network for a smooth eveolution to 5G. The operator plans to use Massive MIMO and Cloud RAN to be able to offer faster speeds over its network by the end of the year. Singtel CEO consumer Singapore Yuen Kuan Moon said the company is investing to ensure its network can meet the exponential growth in demand for data traffic triggered by the rise of services including 4K video streaming, VR, AR and augmented reality.

    Nokia to launch “anyhaul” mobile transport portfolio

    Nokia has introduced a new “anyhaul” end-to-end mobile transport portfolio, combining technology across microwave, IP, optical, mobile and fixed access. The portfolio of solutions are designed and optimized to meet the requirements of the 5G era, employing a carrier SDN configuration for improved programmability and service assurance. The company plans to launch its new portfolio at Mobile World Congress 2017 next week. The portfolio has been optimized for 10Gbps cell site connections with enhanced capabilities including timing, synchronization and OAM.

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  • Ericsson launches its 5G platform

    Ericsson launches its 5G platform

    Ericsson has announced it has become first to market with its new 5G platform, comprising combined 5G core, radio and transport portfolios, as well as digital support systems, transformation services and security.

    The 5G portfolio supports federated network slicing for 5G roaming, network slice management, 5G policy and user data, distributed cloud architecture and 5G transformation services.

    “With this launch, we introduce our 5G platform to support the beginning of a huge change in network capabilities, allowing our customers to offer more advanced use cases and new business models to their customers. It is an important milestone enabling operators to continue their evolution journey to 5G,”

    SK Telecom and Ericsson separately revealed that they completed the first end-to-end demonstration of a 5G trial system at Ericsson’s lab in Kista, Sweden late last year.

    The live demonstration was based on joint development with SK Telecom. It used Ericsson’s Cloud Core, virtual RAN and over-the-air new radio/LTE interworking technologies.

    Nokia separately announced it has successfully conducted the first connection based on the pre-standard 5GTF interface.

    The trial at Oulo in Finland used commercially available 5G-ready Nokia AirScale radio access and AirFrame data center platforms. It used an Intel 5G mobile trial platform designed to support both sub 6-GHz and mmWave 5G bands.

    “This first 5G connection is a true landmark for the telecommunications industry, and yet another mark of Nokia’s capabilities in 5G,” Nokia head of 5G Harold Graham said.

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  • SKT, DT, Ericsson demo 5G federated network slicing

    SKT, DT, Ericsson demo 5G federated network slicing

    SK Telecom, Ericsson and Deutsche Telekom have successfully built and demonstrated the world’s first intercontinental 5G trial network.

    The companies used federated network slicing for 5G roaming between trial networks in South Korea and Germany.

    The demonstration was hosted at SK Telecom’s 5G Testbed at the BMW driving center at Yeoungjong-do, as well as Deutsche Telekom’s corporate R&D center in Bonn, Germany.

    With 5G technology, network slicing will allow operators to configure end-to-end networks that provide the desired functionality and service parameters. Federated network slicing will extend this functionality to visited networks for roaming services.

    Implementing this will require enhanced cooperation between international operators, because it will require them to open their networks to host partner services.

    This will require pre-existing agreements covering aspects including network slice availability at the access layer, availability in the core network and connections to customer application services. The network slicing will be managed by edge cloud resources.

    “5G is not just a faster network. 5G will provide extreme user experience anywhere and anytime, even when the user roams across different operators globally,” SK Telecom CTO Alex Jinsung Choi  said.

    “Federated network slicing will enable seamless platform sharing among operators at a global scale for continuous and guaranteed user experience.”

    SK Telecom plans to show off federated network slicing functionality at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona later this month.

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  • Thailand’s first 5G demo achieved 5.7Gbps speeds

    Thailand’s first 5G demo achieved 5.7Gbps speeds

    The first live 5G end-to-end demonstration in Thailand using Ericsson’s 5G test bed and 5G-ready core achieved 5.7Gbps throughput and 3 milliseconds latency.

    The three-day showcase was held in late January, and Ericsson said the demonstration marks a step towards realizing the Thai government’s vision of a Digital Thailand.

    “We expect to have broadband connectivity everywhere in Thailand, both big cities and over 75,000 villages nationwide by 2018,” commented Takorn Tantasith, secretary general of regulator NBTC.

    “Along with the fixed internet deployment, we plan to release more spectrum bandwidth of 380 MHz by 2020, which will add to the existing 420 MHz already allocated to the telecommunications industry.”

    Nadine Allen, Head of Ericsson Thailand, disclosed that according to Ericsson’s Digital Thailand report, Thai consumers are ahead of, or on par with, global peers when it comes to embracing ICT and they are ready for the Internet of Things.

    She said the multi-gigabit speeds afforded by 5G will ensure that the technology is a viable and cost-effective alternative to residential fiber connections.

    Other technology innovations presented in the showcase include advancements in Radio Network Evolution, Industrialized Cloud, Connected Industries, and Digital Business Solutions.

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