5G- In Qualcomm perspective and commercialization

This is from the -

- Interview with Mr Roberto Medeiros, Senior Director, Product Management at Qualcomm.

How are Qualcomm creating the 5G future? 

What will be the key drivers for 5G commercialization?

Note : being published here in expected interest of 5G world.

Q. Why is 5G so important to Qualcomm? 

A. Qualcomm has over 30 years of tradition leading the path to innovation. Our inventions fundamentally influence all aspects of mobile implementation and user experience synergistically making the whole wireless system work together to support advanced services, bringing value far beyond individual components. 5G is a unifying connectivity fabric that will expand the value of mobile networks to take on a much larger role than previous generations, empowering many new connected services across an array of world-changing use cases. Qualcomm has vast experience in all technologies and building blocks of 5G and is uniquely positioned to accelerate the launch of 5G networks, devices and the enablement of new services. 5G will accelerate world transformation, gains in productivity, and improve life quality. As we like to say: Why Wait. 

Q. Qualcomm are being quite progressive with 5G plans – “creating” rather than “talking” about the 5G future. What does this “creation” look like? 

A. As we did with 3G and 4G, Qualcomm is leading the world to 5G. We are designing a unified, more capable 5G platform – pioneering many new technologies to meet 5G’s expanded and radically diverse connectivity requirements. We are driving 5G NR from standardisation to commercialisation – contributing to 3GPP standard activities and collaborating with industry leaders on impactful 5G demonstrations/trials to prepare for commercial network launches. At the same time, we are leading the evolution of 4G LTE to its full potential, pioneering 5G technologies and use cases today with LTE advancements such as unlicensed spectrum, deviceto-device, narrowband IoT, and more. Finally, we are supporting early 5G deployments and field trials with our first 5G modem solution – the Snapdragon X50 5G Modem – to gain real-world experience in commercializing mmWave technology that will be utilised to accelerate the 5G NR standard. 

Q. Where do existing LTE, LTE-A networks fit in the 5G conversation? 

A. The best path to 5G is the implementation of advancements made available by LTE Advanced and LTE Advanced Pro. LTE Advanced Pro is a rich roadmap of 4G LTE technologies which represent progressing LTE capabilities towards 5G. These new technologies will not only vastly enhance mobile broadband performance and efficiency, but also expand LTE technology and ecosystem to new industries such as the Internet of Things, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, digital TV broadcasting, and more. LTE Advanced Pro is leading the path to 5G by pioneering many of the envisioned 5G technologies and use cases in advance of expected 5G commercialisation.

Q. What key 5G partnerships are Qualcomm involved with? 

A. The deployment of 5G will be a collaborative effort. From standardization - where Qualcomm is a leading contributor to the 3GPP 5G NR - to field testing of prototypes, to impactful trials and demonstrations, we partner with industry leaders who like Qualcomm are committed to invest and lead in LTE, 5G NR, and early 5G mmWave deployments, ranging from device and network equipment manufacturers to carriers and service providers. Qualcomm has made multiple announcements of milestones leading to the deployment with 5G and will continue doing so in collaboration with industry leaders. 

Q. What use cases do Qualcomm think will be key drivers for 5G commercialisation? 

A. Similar to previous generational transitions, 5G will also bring significant improvement in data rates and bandwidth, but this time around we will also see great improvements in key aspects that will enable new use cases. Ultra-low latency and higher reliability capabilities will usher in applications such as Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X), which will ultimately allow mass adoption of autonomous vehicles. Remote command and control of mission critical activities in healthcare, public safety, drones and robots will get to the necessary level of reliability for mass deployment. Also important, low-power, simplified communication modes will allow the massification of IoT applications as an expansion on the foundation being laid today with LTE technology

Q. How has the 5G landscape changed over the past year? 

A. We are transitioning from vision to reality, devices are becoming available, trials and demonstrations are happening. The level of excitement has certainly picked up and it will continue gaining momentum through the next few years. 

Q. Why has Qualcomm chosen to take part in 5G Series events, such as 5G Latin America and 5G World, again in 2017? 

A. The pace of wireless technology adoption in Latin America has historically been lower than that of developed markets. However, transitions in generations represent catch-up opportunities. With good alignment among the players in the region, technology adoption can be accelerated, generating great value to the entire ecosystem. 5G Series events are a great opportunity to increase awareness of the impending industry transformations, exchange information within the community, and discuss opportunities that are particular to the reality of the region. The positive results of the 2016 edition encouraged us to participate in the 2017 5G event. The audience included companies and professionals we were interested in addressing; the conference topics and speakers were of relevance to our business; the event attendees provided interesting networking opportunities. Another reason why we saw value in the event in 2017 was the inclusion of the Broadband segment, an important area for Qualcomm’s connectivity businesses. 

For Original Download

LTE-Basic Level understanding and technical insight.

Training on LTE basics for those still away from technical understanding on LTE, Just putting some introductory understanding of LTE technical insight,

Lte training an introduction-to-lte-basics from Saurabh Verma

LTE optimization methods and techniques-Huawei Perspective.

LTE optimization methods and techniques, a good references from huawei technologies.

Some of the high level flows and definitions are given below.

For Details know-how and case studies from huawei kpi's optimizations, please have a full presentation below.

Lte optimization from tharinduwije

5G, in current Focus - Just from a quick survey.

I asked people to select their best focus on 5G, given in four different categories. Though the number of participants were not in abundance but of significant positions and satisfactory to the time of survey taken ( So i say it a quick survey on 5G focus). The results are here below..
Question : how do you best define the 5G, you may select multiple option.
1. convergence+IOT+MANO -- 47%
2. NFV+SDN+Network Slicing -- 68%
3. VNF+DC+ORCH -- 10%
4. NR+WiFi+LAA -- 21%

note since it was multiple selection so the sum of % is not 100%. I say it dilution in focus. on quick inferences on this data followings could be take outs. 1. People looking in 5G, more software rather than hardware, more flexibility and scalabity. More aligned to application demands. 68% focus is here.
2. People looking all the available resource as a large scale convergence, better coverage and capacity, IOT, and management and operation ready. 47% focus is here.
3. accepting new radio or refarmed radio-not much in current focus. 21% focus i here.
4. Most controversial results are here, virtualization (microscopic virtualization, deliberately categorizing it) , is not in the propensity as expected. The reason could be complexity and unclear picture as of now. 10% focus appears here.

I feel this interesting and would be looking for your views in comments, before interpreting in details.
Please write.

5G Spectrum to Cost Less Than 4G, Says Expert

From light reading - just high lighting here for quick go through, nicely captured.

Telcos facing a large bill for the rollout of 5G network technology are worried that acquiring new spectrum licenses could add to the cost burden. During last week's Mobile World Congress, Timotheus Höttges, the CEO of Germany's Deutsche Telekom, implored regulators to make 5G spectrum available at "reasonable rates."

The European worry is understandable. During the 3G auctions of 2000, German operators paid a staggering $46.2 billion for spectrum licenses, with players in the UK coughing up about $35.4 billion. While spending was far more restrained in the 4G auctions that happened years later, German service providers paid €4.4 billion ($4.6 billion) for licenses in 2010 and another €5.1 billion ($5.4 billion) in 2015. Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT)'s spectrum bill of €1.79 billion ($1.9 billion) that year was equal to about one fifth of its annual earnings (before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) in Germany. (See Vodafone Big Spender in $5.8B German Auction.)

But any fears about an exorbitant 5G spectrum bill may be overblown. According to Amit Nagpal, a partner at spectrum advisory group Aetha Consulting, operators are unlikely to spend as much on 5G licenses as they did on 4G spectrum, and will certainly not rack up the same kind of fees they did to participate in the 3G market years ago.

For a start, there is a relative abundance of the higher frequency spectrum that will be used to support 5G in more densely populated areas, which should drive down the price per MHz of these frequencies. "I expect the unit cost of this to be a lot lower than we've seen for bands such as 800MHz and 2.6GHz," says Nagpal.

The lower frequency bands, conversely, contain much smaller amounts of spectrum but remain better for providing wide-area coverage (purely because signals travel further in these ranges than in higher frequencies). That means telcos will continue to attach greater value to these frequencies than to higher spectrum bands, says Nagpal. But he also doubts that spending on any of the sub-3.5GHz bands will be lavish.

"There is a fair amount of spectrum at 3.5GHz and below that can be used for 5G -- including by refarming spectrum used for 2G, 3G and eventually 4G services -- and so I don't see any one particular band raising massive amounts of money," he says. "An operator can always use some of their existing 800MHz and 900MHz spectrum as a backup, for example, in the event they don't win any 700MHz spectrum."

One possibility, however, is that certain "pioneer" 5G spectrum bands -- including the 3.5GHz band in Europe and the 28GHz band elsewhere -- attract higher valuations than would ordinarily be expected. "There may be a small premium for 5G pioneer bands since the first 5G handsets will initially be designed to work in a limited set of bands," says Nagpal. "However, I expect this won't last for long and that within two or three years handsets will support 5G in all the existing 4G bands."

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Want to know more about 5G? Check out our dedicated 5G content channel here on
Light Reading.

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Nagpal is also one of several industry commentators, including some high-profile operators, who think the attractions of very high frequency spectrum have been over-hyped. "The signals don't travel very far and don't go through objects, and so you will need an awful lot of basestations to cover a given area, for which the site rental costs and backhaul costs are very expensive," he says. "So I expect usage of these frequencies to be limited to hotspots, such as shopping and tourist areas."

Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD)'s chief technology officer, Johann Wibergh, expressed similar reservations during Mobile World Congress last week, arguing that sub-6GHz spectrum was likely to represent the "sweet spot" for 5G. (See Vodafone CTO 'Worried' About 5G mmWave Hype.)

Aetha Consulting advises a number of operators and governments on spectrum strategy and policy, and Nagpal's remarks may help to address some of the telco concern about the prospective 5G bill.

Deutsche Telekom's Höttges reckons that deploying a 5G network across Europe could cost anything between €300 billion ($317 billion) and €500 billion ($528 billion). (See DT Plots 5G Across Entire Footprint.)

Technology innovation and the use of lower frequency bands could help to reduce the expense of 5G rollout, but there is a growing expectation that deployment will take a very long time, and that 5G will co-exist with more advanced versions of 4G LTE technology for many years. (See DT CTO: Costs Must Fall or 5G 'Won't Work'.)

"Operators will buy kit that can largely be used for 4G and then gradually move to 5G when devices come into the market," says Bengt Nordström, the CEO of the Northstream consulting group. "It is realistic to expect that a lot more 4G will happen over the next five years."

— Iain Morris,  , News Editor, Light Reading