3GPP focusing on NR-U Stand Alone and Assisted - Target Rel 17-18

We seen 3GPP attempts to ride on unlicensed horse with LTE-U, that later tuned into LAA ( a licensed assisted mechanism), with LTE advanced capabilities. An we are continuously observing the cellular technology providers trying to tame the this horse in their favor - the unlicensed. There had been a hostile atmosphere for WiFi and LTE coexistence between WiFi Alliance and GSMA, and we seen rude debated for standardizing respective test cases. I don't remember where the things standing now. 

But WiFi has maintained its solid sovereignty and emerged with its new versions recently named as WiFi 6, in such a capacity that many started assuming WiFi being a part of 5G itself, though we all know its ride on different horse. 

Taming this unlicensed is turning into an obsession, as WiFi with its advancement and likability may cover up a significant market in broadband space and IOT use cases. 3GPP don't want to brook it, in fact cellular technology provider knows about the ride of it so putting the new rider like NR-U SA, targeted to be in Rel 17 and 18. 

In a plenary meeting in Sorrento, Italy, 3GPP members approved making 5G NR-U a work item slated for inclusion in Release 16.

Look at the Blog from Qualcomm, what is says in general about NR-U.

Licensed spectrum is essential for cellular communication and that will continue in the 5G era especially for the traditional mobile broadband services launching next year. But when it comes to extending 5G into new markets, I think the opportunities generated by adding support for unlicensed spectrum cannot be overstated.

The NR-U work item that was just approved by 3GPP supports both the existing 5GHz unlicensed band as well as the new "greenfield" 6GHz unlicensed band. In subsequent releases, I expect the addition of other unlicensed and shared spectrum bands, including mmWave. The work item covers five scenarios with functionalities such as Carrier Aggregation (within one eNodeB), dual connectivity (across two eNodeBs), LTE anchor in licensed spectrum, 5G NR anchor in licensed spectrum, uplink only in licensed spectrum, downlink only in unlicensed spectrum as well as stand-alone operation. For the purpose of simplicity, I am collapsing these scenarios into two main modes of operation:

• Licensed assisted access NR-U
  
• Stand-alone NR-U
  

Qualcomm has been not very explicit to say it as counterfeit for WiFi but putting it as answer to LTE multifire. 

whatever way you take your target is well understood. But it will be leading to an interesting spree of events, debates and discussions. 

City Wi-Fi Roaming Project connects the networks of major cities around the world.

WBA has organized the City Wi-Fi Roaming trial under the World Wi-Fi Day initiatives across many cities since 2016. The City Wi-Fi Roaming project is part of the World Wi-Fi Day initiative to accelerate affordable wireless connectivity around the world. The initiative allows consumers and visitors of major cities to automatically and securely roam between the public Wi-Fi networks throughout the October and November 2018.

Expand with the momentum from last year, it is possible for users of Public Wi-Fi City networks , subscribers from a large list of operators to freely roam between these City Wi-Fi networks. The cities include: Barcelona (Spain), Dublin (Ireland), Dunlaoghaire (Ireland), Galway (Ireland), Limerick (Ireland), Bristol (UK), Leeds (UK), Birmingham (UK), Bradford (UK), Moscow (Russia), St Petersburg (Russia), Tokyo (Japan), Ebetsu city (Japan), Hokkaido (Japan),  Mallorca (Spain), Nagano prefecture (Japan), Kyoto (Japan), Kobe (Japan), eduroam Japan / Tohoku University + Sendai, eduroam NL / Utrecht (Netherlands), eduroam NO / Trondheim (Norway), anyroam, eduroam US, Toronto (Canada)

Operators around the world include: AT&T, AnyRoamUS, Boingo, China Mobile, ER Telecom Russia, FON, iPASS, Orange, KT, NTT DOCOMO, Shaw, KT, Sprint, Telus, T-Mobile US, eduroam JP Tohoku University, eduroam NL / SURFnet, eduroam NO / UNINETT, eduroam US

Interconnectivity Partners & Infrastructure Providers: BSG Wireless, Syniverse Technologies, Global Reach, Accuris Networks, Cisco, Ruckus Wireless

The Wireless Broadband Alliance is encouraging cities, government bodies, fixed and mobile operators, technology vendors, Internet giants and service providers, as well as retailers, to come together to deliver connectivity to everyone, everywhere. The City Wi-Fi Roaming trial aims promoting and fostering the adoption of Next Generation Hotspot across the globe, working together with multiple cities around the world, key HUBs that make the data traffic possible, and also a set of operators.

Contact WBA (www.wballiance.com) now if you want to get involved the program: https://www.worldwifiday.com/support/

Convergence is at the heart of next gen network with 5G - BT, AT&T, ZTE, WBA all there.

As Fundarc Communication (xgnlab), a telecom consultancy, we already spoken about 5G convergence since the beginning of 2018 or even late 2017. Not only as foreseen visionary but as the need of time and way to evelove to 5G from 4G and 4G adv. We already started writing on these line since then ....

https://fundarc-comm.xgnlab.com/2018/02/lsc-large-scale-convergence-5g-way.html

or 

https://www.netmanias.com/en/?m=view&id=blog&no=13199 

We written on this as whitepaper and recently came with latest one with rationals behinds 5G Convergence and need of time approaches. 

Get it at WhitePaper tab at www.xgnlab.com 

Going with Convergence or what we like to refer as "Large Scale Convergence", We recently seen much of industry interest.

Lets take a case of BT ....

BT will put 5G at the heart of its fully converged smart network, when it launches the next generation technology next year, according to the company's chief technology officer, Howard Watson.   

"We've learned that 5G might not follow the same path as 4G but that's OK - it doesn't need to," he said.

"As CTO of BT, my job is not to build 5G or 4G networks. It's not even to build WiFi or fixed line networks. These technologies are building blocks that we use to create something much bigger than the sum of its parts. 

"We are building a truly hybrid, converged network that aspires to give customers 100 per cent connectivity coverage." 

When it is launched, BT's Smart Hybrid Network will utilise the comapny's 4G, 5G, Wifi and fixed line networks to provide its customers with near ubiquitous connectivity.   

The Smart Network will automatically connect to the fastest, most stable connection available, delivering a seamless, connected experience to the customer. 

"To achieve this we need to update our Wifi estate. We will alos look at ways to remove the barriers that exist for Wifi networks - namely the need to manually log on to them." 

BT expects to launch its Smart Hybrid Network in 2022. 

We All know ZTE Convergent Core for 5G networks, and AT&T focus on Convergence taking WiFi in line with 5G. WBA is already writing about 5G Convergence, that is also being interpreted as AT&T and BT focus on converged 5G network.

Also most interesting that WiFi is also willing to enter into it through convergence, as at the beginning of the year and also in subsequent discussion Boingo has also persuaded it strongly. I remember when in a discussion Boingo CTO Mr Derek has spoken "Beware…convergence is the future! Ubiquitous 5G is not economically practical without coexistence between licensed, unlicensed and shared. Mobile connectivity is no longer a device, it's a lifestyle so we must embrace converged solutions that leverage multiple bands and technologies".

Views are from fundarc Communications (xgnlab), www.xgnlab.com

WiFi in 60 GHz Band will Provide Teragraph Network for Urban Backbone.

WiFi in 60 GHz Band will Provide Teragraph Network for Urban Backbone.

WiFi - a widely used technology for internet connectivity over wireless access. WiFi uses unlicensed spectrum for radio waves, mostly in band of 2.5 GHZ or 5GHz. WiFi has been coping with other wireless access technologies through its rapid advancements.  New standards developed by IEEE, has appeared to keep it a relevant technology with time. It has provided necessary data rates, as for coping with next gen applications. Also there have been significant improvements in reliability and security aspect through WPA2 and WPA3 standards.

WiFi - also being taken to be used on 60GHz band, a millimeter wave unlicensed band. Millimeter Wave spectrum is much in demand for providing gigabits per seconds. Millimeter waves are being used to provide high data rates using advance technologies like massive MIMO etc. Apart from required benefits from millimeter wave, there are some drawbacks too. It has fast attenuation at distance and it is likely to be absorbed by the atmosphere too. Therefore it degrades fast with distance and could be used for shorter distance propagation.

At 60 GHz, radio waves will be propagated line of sight (LOS) for better transmission and reception. due to high data rate advantage of 60GHz spectrum band, WiFi standards are being developed to achieve 10 Gbps data rate. This much data rate would be beneficial to create a backbone network using multiple LOS access points in mesh connectivity.

Teragraph is one such network, which is being backed by Facebook. This will provide a city wide backbone network for faster data connectivity in ubiquitous way. This is also being seen as replacement of fiber and a cheaper way of backhauling the data.

"With Teragraph, our goal is to enable people living in urban areas to access high-quality connectivity that can help create new opportunities and strengthen communities," said Yael Maguire, vice president of connectivity with Facebook.

Facebook working on this in collaboration with Qualcomm, as Qualcomm was supposed to bring the chipset for Wifi new standards - said to be 802.11ay.

The real boost has come with the recent declaration from Qualcomm for bringing up its new chipsets QCA64x8 and QCA64x1. Qualcomm is the first-to-market with a 60GHz Wi-Fi solution with optimizations based on the 802.11ay specification, enabling best-in-class 60GHz WiFi speeds and unmatched coverage performance. Qualcomm provides industry-first 802.11ay 60GHz WiFi chipsets includes QCA6438 and QCA6428 for infrastructure and fixed wireless access, and the QCA6421 and QCA6431 for mobile applications.

60GHz WiFi go far beyond high performance throughput, as Qualcomms' new chipsets enable unique always-on ambient. It Provides, Wi-Fi sensing capabilities, enabling devices to identify people, objects, movements and precise location without being affected by light conditions. Networking and mobile devices alike can take advantage of these new Wi-Fi sensing features to provide new and differentiated experiences to end users. 

Facebook's Terragraph network will be constructed through the development of a multi-node wireless system based on the QCA6438 and QCA6428 chipsets. Comparing with the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands commonly used in WiFi networks all over the world, mmWave-based 60GHz WiFi is of low interference, bandwidth-rich spectrum that delivers increased wireless capacity, and ultra-low latency.

With gigabit-per-second speeds, the 60 GHz WiFi solutions provides wire-equivalent latencies. It will be enabling mind boggling experiences such as 4K streaming and truly immersive wireless virtual and augmented reality, all while providing high power efficiency to significantly extend battery life. 

Why Facebook with Terragraph

Facebook has been quite optimistic for providing low cost network infrastructure since a quite long time, we all are aware of its free basic program and net neutrality push off to make the access of internet cheaper and to less developed economies.

WiFi works on unlicensed technologies, that means operators or technology providers do not need to pay money for spectrum uses, only there are some regulations, differs country to country, what they need to follow for their operation. So WiFi spectrum becomes essentially free to use and deliver internet services. Although WiFi technology has been in use for wireless access network so far, mostly in the spectrum band 2.5GHz or 5GHz, which are also unlicensed spectrum band.

With advent of 802.11ay standards and recent focus of wireless industry to use millimeter waves has cropped the 60GHz unlicensed band for use in WiFi. This is with the intent of providing high data rates of the order of multiple gigabits per second that could be used to transmit backhaul traffic as well, instead of limiting WiFi to access only it could be utilized for backbone networks.

Facebook with support from Qualcomm, for development and implementation of 60GHz WiFi Technology, made its plan to come up with ubiquitous and city wide network that will help to replace the costly fiber layouts and provide backbone for internet specific access networks. That all resulted in the emergence of a mesh based LOS network given the name Terragraph.

Teragraph fullfil the demand of city wide backbone network and can replace fiber, therefore it is suitable, low cost, city wide backbone network solution. It is about deploying a mesh of 60GHz WiFi APs connected through wireless radio in possible LoS arrangements. The major challenge for deployment comes with no of such APs as it will require civil infrastructure like lamppost, high rise buildings etc. 

EU 5GPPP- 5G IA elected its new Board for a term of two years until October 2020.

BRUSSELS – October 23, 2018 – At its recent General Assembly, 5G IA elected its new Board for a term of two years until October 2020.

 

5G IA is the voice of the European industry for the development and evolution of 5G. Its objectives are to:

• Ensure a clear European voice on 5G
  
• Support a Europe wide 5G ecosystem, embracing research, standardization and development, academia, telecoms industry and verticals
  
• Represent the Private side of the 5G Public-Private Partnership (5G PPP)
  
• Contribute to EU Digital Transformation programs and Horizon Europe strategic objectives leveraging 5G evolution
  

 

The eleven companies represented in the Board are: Orange, Telecom Italia Mobile, Telenor, SES, Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei, Thales, Nextworks, InterInnov and CTTC (Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya). For more information please visit: https://5g-ppp.eu/5g-infrastructure-association/. They are key stakeholders from the ecosystem and membership of 5G IA – https://5g-ppp.eu/our-members/.

 

At its first meeting following the General Assembly, the new Board confirmed:

• Colin Willcock – Head of Radio Network Standardization at Nokia – as Chairman of the Board
  
• Christine Leurquin – VP, Institutional Relations and Communications at SES – as the Vice-Chair of the Board
  
• Magnus Madfors – VP, Head of Technical Regulations Group Function Technology at Ericsson – as Treasurer
  
• Raffaele de Peppe – Senior Innovation Manager at Telecom Italia Mobile – as Chair of the "Verticals Engagement Task Force" (https://5g-ppp.eu/verticals/)
  

5G IA's leadership includes also Jean-Pierre Bienaimé, Secretary General, in charge of the overall visibility and management of the 5G IA, and Alessandro Bedeschi, Head of Office, ensuring the operational well-functioning of the 5G IA.

Need of Indian Broadband and where the future lies?

Just a couple of years back when reliance jio debuted into Indian telecom scenario with LTE offerings, things went into surprises for the end users, not only commercial surprises like free offerings, in fact that was more surprising for incumbents, but the power of data rates that LTE offers. As people who were not accustomed to application like skype etc, first time saw video calls with their handsets, and could see their near and dear far apart over a video on their hand sets. It was all exhilarating and exciting with boost of free data available to use. The most admiring part of the story remains that Jio's gigantic plan taken the Indian telecom into next phase.

As we know that technologies are continuously evolving, not only those which transmitting data, but those too, generating or devouring data. So there is increase in demand as well as supply and intermediaries are coping with that too. In a comprehensive end to end view it's about whole ecosystem has emerged to create new services and infrastructures to deliver more surprises, nevertheless to say that application like AR/VR and Autonomous vehicles and many such will keep the end user into an awe, in coming time.

The core of this all lies at ICT, as the new phase of ICT is being taken with the notion of Industry 4.0, and reach of the ICT lies with Access of Broadband, notwithstanding be it wireless or wireline, that's the commercial things.

Indian Perspectives…..

Broadband in India has not yet been taken seriously, in sense of social empowerment and access of remote and last connect to main stream. Reliance jio came with LTE as an telecom unicron, as India is a mass market and whole world is moving to mass market instead, gone are days where industries used to capture market of elites.

The success of reliance lies on the fact of its understanding of Indian market and plan the things big -- covering the whole gamut. Like not only providing network services and infrastructure but also enabling the common man to access it through free data and cheap mobile handsets. Moreover, not exaggerating by the understanding that nothing is actually free, Indian public can be utilized well for heavy load testing - so instead of circulating test phones to enterprise work force, why not to people itself for free, an another aspect to see reliance wisdom.

But the question is not to set up an incumbent here but the social reform, as Govt regulatory organizations are also of the mindset to set up the incumbents only, completely overlooking power of ICT and most importantly broadband. The data rates and call drop issues are crippling the real power of ICT and handicapping it without right kind of regulation and control over the services, which breaks the reliability and sustainability with the trust for new kind of services.

Leveraging Govt Infra……

The Govt initiatives like "BharatNet",  is about providing information highways through fiber network across the country, and also like Digital India, Make-in-India etc to create a whole ecosystem, are viable ingredients. 5G from Govt has been put to adapt the technology at large scale, DOT is setting a test bed for incubating it. These are no doubt encouraging and remarkable moves and yielding the outcome as well, but more is there needed to be done.

As optical network through "BharatNet" is proving a good infrastructure for backhaul connectivity to last mile access, there are other options being and would be explored too. Recently Reliance jio tied up with Hughes satellite systems to use their satellite to provide backhaul connectivity to last mile LTE access at remote part of India.

The Project like "BharatNet" is the most important one to set the base or minimum viable infrastructure for India broadband, though focus must move on satellite or other technologies too. The Forums like BIF (Broadband India Forum) has been catalyzing for the use of satellite backhaul. This is encouraging new entrepreneurs to come up. In recent time, like in a year or two, its being closely observed that some businesses are being cropping up based on such infra and also being felicitated by cheap china supplier for their fulfillments.

Leveraging WiFi ……

In this new breed of last mile access providers, WiFi has emerged as prominent technology, with ease of deployment and low cost of management. We have seen many retail like business mushrooming, not only in rural but in urban India too. So there are not incumbents like Reliance Jio but also the people in the propensity of grocery or garment businesses taking advantage of Indian perspective for their greedy gains in all their capacity.

Indian perspective is not mature enough to differentiate the data, As we are habitual to go with the loose control services so there is less viability, at least in current scenarios, for strict data classification, a fast internet is enough to deliver almost all the contemporary services with manageable user experiences.

WiFi Security, in specific, and network security in general are something of paramount importance, but that is not much in consideration with the network service providers as their prominent motto is gain the business, and also the general public is not conscious of the security on their network. This is not only from the point of view of ignorance of consumers but our social behavioral traits too, as we have not been part of World War one or two.

So, where the future lies?

Future lies with us, WiFi is a technology, has been deeply rooted and well being there, not only coping and sustaining with other wireless access technologies but beating them too. WiFi is existing standards of 802.11ac and upcoming 802.11ax are quite sufficiently empowered to fulfill Indian broadband perspective well in advance till the 5G takes its foot prints. Even if the giants has its focus on 5G its going to be FWA cases in recent times and fulfill the backhaul requirements, in addition to fiber and satellite.

WiFi has the power to fulfill not only broadband requirements but also IOT and IIOT specific requirements too. Therefore WiFi in Indian as well as many Asian perspectives is a holy grail.

Therefore Thinking of WiFi is not about providing few meagre objectives like bringing employments in form of retail business, or providing a connectivity for common services through PDO or CSC, but need a BiG Idea to invest and deliver a country wide side by side associative and affordable connectivity for Broadband Access to unconnected or to Bring the remote to main stream…..It's not a technical challenge it's a will to bring social impact….deliver WiFi in right way with right business cases in comprehensive and coordinated way.

There must be industry associations or right forums to come forward for the kind of initiatives, TRAI's PDO is not going to create the required framework, there need to be an integrated solutions with a Big Idea.

Saurabh Verma

Consultant & Founder

Fundarc Communication (xgnlab)

Noida, India - 201301

M:7838962939/9654235169

saurabhverma@xgnlab.com

www.xgnlab.com

Where is the EDGE?

Where is the edge?

The most budging term in telecom or IT industry today is “EDGE”. In fact there are two notions on the fore one is “edge computing” and other is “fog computing”, both are about bringing the cloud near the point of action. Essentially it’s a cloud computing, a freak of virtualization at front of access.

The need of “edge computing” or “fog computing” has been attributed to “real time” or “low latency” approaches, i.e. process the data at the point or near the point where it is being generated and produce the result for real time action.

Whereas Fog is much on the point of data generation, the edge computing is a centralized or aggregated stuff, at the nearest possible point of access. Therefore fog is much about a flat distributed system but edge is little different through the notion of “edge”.

I don’t want to jump into hardcore technicality with these stuffs, as there would be specifics but essentially it about virtualization at different points in end to end construct. My idea is finding the edge.

“Edge”, as per vendors, is something about hierarchical distribution of certain functionalities in E2E construct. “Edge” is something creates a moat for innovation. I don’t differ with vendors but I feel that edge disrupt the very nature of cloud services too, it’s about providing cloud services with specific needs, different KPIs and SLAs, rather more customized. I am here referring to public cloud as my thought and intention of putting my idea is around that’s only.

So “edge” disrupts the cloud in sense of not only providing a back office or central office work but distribute the work at different level, in terms of SLA and KPIs. Think about the OTT services, the players started them with much turbulence but not only settled but dominated. Edge is in that sense the gate through cloud for many of service creations for small players.

So, don't just confine to architectural adherence from the vendors for creating the edge, there are many possibilities to find your own edge and provide the service.

“A Big idea for small players”

If make sense…….

Talk to us contact@xgnlab.com

www.xgnlab.com

5G appraoch, where rubber touches the road -Cloud-native approach necessary to deal with complexity of 5G

5G will eventually require a fully virtualized, software-controlled network in order to automate the complexity of network management and service delivery. Although we’re not there yet, test and proofs-of-concept like Deutsche Telekom and Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) work to deploy virtual network functions (VNFs) in a cloud-native shared data environment (SDE) is indicative of the progress toward zero-touch networks.

5G will encompass a huge variety of types of traffic, meaning networks need to be architected for flexibility. The three primary 5G use cases are enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine-type communications and ultra reliable low latency communications. Running the gamut from high-bandwidth activities like virtual reality to low-intensity, intermittent communications from connected sensors.

Sven Langer, DT’s senior core network architect, said the proof-of-concept “allowed a rapid and smooth integration with 3rd-party VNFs” and showed a response time around 1 millisecond,” which “provide[s]an excellent basis for cloud-native network functions to externally store all data, especially dynamic context data that allows seamless failovers and improves the customer experience.

HPE’s Dave Sliter highlight the challenges service providers will face with the move to 5G and the new types of services it enables. “Adoption of 5G technology,” he said, “introduces major operational and financial challenges. HPE Shared Data Environment is an essential enabler for this transformation and reduces these risks.”


get more detail HERE