The Project Coordination Group (PCG) of 3GPP recently approved a new logo for use on specifications for 6G, during their 52nd PCG meeting, hosted by ATIS in Reston, Virginia. As with previous logos, surely people in general will use them not just for 3GPP 6G compliant products, but for all kinds of things.
Over the years many people have reached out to me to ask for 3GPP logos, even though they are available publicly. All 3GPP logos, from 3G to 6G is available in the Marcoms directory here. In addition to the logo, each directory also lists guidance for use of the logos. For example, 3GPP does not allow the use of the logo as shown on the left in the image on top of the post while the one on the right is okay.
Surely there isn't an issue for general use but for anyone wishing to use the logos for their products, equipment, documentation or books, they will have to strictly comply with the rules.
It's been a while since we covered V2X as a topic on this blog. If you are not well versed with CAVs and V2X, we recommend you to watch our tutorials on the 3G4G page here.
The networking channel hosted a seminar on 'Vehicular networking' last month. Quoting from the webinar preview:
Looking back at the last decade, one can observe enormous progress in the domain of vehicular networking. Many ongoing activities focus on the design of cooperative perception, distributed computing, and novel safety solutions. Many projects have been initiated to validate the theoretic work in field tests and protocols are being standardized. We are now entering an era that might change the game in road traffic management. Many car makers already supply their recent brands with cellular and Wi-Fi modems, also adding C-V2X and ITS-G5 technologies. We now intend to shift the focus from basic networking principles to open challenges in cooperative computing support and even on how to integrate so-called vulnerable road users into the picture. Edge computing is currently becoming one of the core building blocks of cellular networks, including 5G, and it is necessary to study how to integrate ICT components of moving systems. The panellists will discuss from an industrial perspective the main research challenges for the advancement of vehicular networking and the novelties that we can expect to see coming in the short term. Panellists with extensive experience in Internet measurements, networks related to sustainable development goals, and highly-localized earth observation networks will discuss these topics and participate in a Q&A session with the audience.
The presentations were not shared but the video of the panel discussion is as follows:
The following speakers presented the following talks:
Vehicular Networking? by Onur Altintas, Toyota North America R&D (0:04:55)
Collaborative Perception Sharing for Connected Autonomous Vehicles by Fan Bai, General Motors Global R&D (0:15:00)
The future of vehicular networking by Frank Hofmann, Robert Bosch GmbH (0:23:25)
The future of vehicular networks and path to 6G by Dr.-Ing. Volker Ziegler, Nokia (0:35:15)
5G Forum, South Korea organises Mobile Korea conference every year. Mobile Korea 2023 had two conferences within it, '6G Global', looking at 'Beyond Connectivity and New Possibilities', and '5G Vertical Summit', looking at 'Leading to Sustainable Society with 5G'.
I often complain about how organisations working in 6G often lack social networks skills, in this case, even the website is not very user friendly and doesn't contain a lot of details. Full marks for uploading the videos on YouTube though.
Anyway, here are the videos and presentations that were shared from the summit:
Opening + Keynote Session - Moderator : LEE, HyeonWoo, DanKook University
Standardization and Technical Trend for 6G, SungHyun CHOI, Samsung Research (video, presentation)
Session 1 : 6G Global Trend - Moderator : JaeHoon CHUNG, LG Electronics Inc.
Thoughts on standardization and Industry priorities to ensure timely market readiness for 6G, Sari NIELSEN, Nokia (video, presentation)
On the convergence route for 6G, Wen TONG, Huawei (video, presentation)
The Path from 5G to 6G: Vision and Technology, Edward G. TIEDMANN, Qualcomm Technologies (video, presentation)
Shaping 6G – Technology and Services, Bo HAGERMAN, Ericsson (video, presentation)
Government Session
Keynote : Korea's 6G R&D Promotion Strategy, KyeongRae CHO, Ministry of Science and ICT (video, presentation)
Session 2 : 6G Global Collaboration - Moderator : Juho LEE, Samsung Electronics
6G R&D and promotion in Japan, Kotaro KUWAZU, B5GPC (video, presentation)
Technology evolution toward beyond 5G and 6G, Charlie ZHANG, Samsung Research (video, presentation)
AI-Native RAN and Air Interface : Promises and Challenges, Balaji Raghothaman, Keysight (video, presentation)
Enabling 6G Research through Rapid Prototyping and TestLEE, SeYong, (NI) (video, presentation)
Global Collaborative R&D Activities for Advanced Radio Technologies, JaeHoon CHUNG, LG Electronics (video, presentation)
International research collaboration – key to a sustainable 6G road, Thomas HAUSTEIN, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (video, presentation)
6G as Cellular Network 2.0: A Networked Computing Perspective, KyungHan LEE, Seoul National University (video, presentation)
Towards a Sustainable 6G, Marcos KATZ, University of Oulu (video, presentation)
Pannel Discussion : Roles of Public Domain in 6G R&D - Moderator : HyeonWoo LEE, DanKook University
6G R&D Direction and Introduction of IITP, SungHo CHOI, IITP (video, presentation)
NICT's role for Beyond 5G R&D, Iwao HOSAKO, NICT (video, presentation)
6G Smart Networks and Services JU: R&D for 6G in Europe, Alexandros KALOXYLOS, 6GIA (video, presentation)
Taiwan 6G Vision and R&D ActivitiesSHIEH, Shin-Lin, ITRI (video, presentation)
Session 3 : 6G Global Mega Project - Moderator: YoungJo KO, ETRI
Sub-THz band wireless transmission and access technology for 6G Tbps data rate, JuYong LEE, KAIST (video, presentation)
The post Shannon Era: Towards Semantic, Goal-Oriented and Reconfigurable Intelligent Environments aided 6G communications, Emilio CALVANESE STRINATI, CEA Leti (video, presentation)
Demonstration of 1.4 Tbits wireless transmission using OAM multiplexing technology in the sub-THz band, DooHwan LEE, NTT Corporation (video, presentation)
Latest 6G research progress in China, Zhiqin WANG, CAICT (video, presentation)
If there are no links in video/presentation than it hasn't been shared.
At the Brooklyn 6G Summit (B6GS) 2023, top tier economist Dr. Jeff Shen from BlackRock, presented a talk from the industry perspective of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and investment. Jeff Shen, PhD, Managing Director, is Co-CIO and Co-Head of Systematic Active Equity (SAE) at BlackRock. He is a member of the BlackRock Global Operating Committee, BlackRock Systematic (BSYS) Management Committee and the BlackRock Asian Middle Eastern & Allies Network (AMP) Executive Committee.
How are firms reacting to AI? From 'ICT Industry Trends in the coming decades' by Jeff Shen, BlackRock at #B6GS - I am guessing the peak of mobile mention was the peak 5G hype in 2015/16. Hopefully the industry is now much wiser and won't repeat the 6G hype. pic.twitter.com/xjEiDtmSUZ
In his talk he covered the history of how and where AI has been traditionally used and how the thinking around AI has changed over the last few decades. He then presented his view on if AI is just a fad or it's more than that. To illustrate the fact, he provided an example of how Generative AI market is expected to grow from $40 Billion in 2022 to $1.3 Trillion in 2032.
There are many challenges that AI faces that one should be aware of; namely regulation, cyber threats and ethical concerns. In the US, AI touches the entire economy, from legal to healthcare. In their quarterly reporting, firms are now discussing AI and the larger tech companies are not afraid to grow inorganically in order to get more exposure to the trend.
You can watch the whole of his talk embedded below, courtesy of IEEE Tv.
It's been a while since I wrote about the ETSI Security Conference, which was known as ETSI Security week once upon a time. This year, ETSI’s annual flagship event on Cyber Security took place face-to-face from 16 to 19 October 2023, in ETSI, Sophia Antipolis, France and gathered more than 200 people.
The event this year focused on Security Research and Global Security Standards in action The event also considered wider aspects such as Attracting the next generation of Cyber Security standardization professionals and supporting SMEs.
Session 4: Regulation, Data Protection and Privacy, Technical Aspects
Day 2:
Session 1: Zero Trust, Supply Chain & Open Source
Session 2: IoT & Certification
Session 3: Zero Trust, Supply Chain & Open Source
Session 4: Quantum Safe Cryptography Session
Day 3:
Session 1: Experiences of Attracting Next Generation of Engineers and Investing in Future
Session 2: IoT and Certification Session
Session 3: IoT & Mobile Certification
Session 4: 5G in the Wild - Part 1
Day 4:
Session 1: 5G in the Wild - Part 2
Session 2: 6G Futures
Session 3: Augmented Reality and AI
You can see the detailed agenda here. The presentations from the conference are available here.
The CyberSecurity Magazine interviewed Helen L. And Jane Wright discussing diversity and careers in Cybersecurity. Helen, from the National Cyber Security Centre, has worked in Security for over 20 years and is a mentor at the CyberFirst programme. CyberFirst intends to inspire and encourage students from all backgrounds to consider a career in cybersecurity. Jane Wright is a Cyber Security Engineer at QinetiQ and has been participating in the CyberFirst. The interview, along with a video, is available here.
Lorenzo Casaccia, Vice President of Technical Standards, IP Qualcomm Europe, Inc. has been with Qualcomm since 2000. During that time he's had a variety of roles related to wireless communication, including research and system design, regulatory aspects, product management, and technical standardization. He currently leads a team of engineers across three continents driving Qualcomm’s activities in 3GPP, the standards body designing technologies for 4G and 5G.
Couple of his well known articles on Qualcomm OnQ Blog on 'Counting 3GPP contributions' and 'ETSI SEP database manipulations' are available here and here respectively.
Fascinating & rather heretical presentation by @Qualcomm on the 6G Core workshop - suggesting that maybe a new architecture is needed that massively reduces role/complexity of the core
Is most slicing-skeptic I’ve seen from a big vendor
At the recent NIST/IEEE Future Networks 6G Core Networks Workshop he was able to bring in his experience to deliver a fantastic talk looking at how the mobile network architecture has diverged from the Data Networks (Internet) architecture and how this has limited innovation in the mobile networks.
He concludes by providing a solution on how to fix this network architecture in 6G by limiting any new services going in the control plane as well as ensuring over the time all services move to the user plane. The control plane will then stop being 'G' specific which will benefit the network innovation in the long term.
There is no provision to embed the video so please look at the top of the page here. Lorenzo's talk starts at 03:03:50. The Q&A session for the panel starts at 03:53:20 for anyone interested.
The second IEEE SA (Standards Association) Open RAN summit, hosted by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, took place on 9-10 Aug 2023. It covered the topics related to the standardization of Open RAN including O-RAN Alliance, 3GPP, IEEE, various deployment scenarios, testing and integration, Open RAN security, RAN slicing, and RAN optimization among others.
The videos of the presentations can be viewed on the summit page here or though the video playlist here.
The talk from Dr. Chih-Lin I, O-RAN Alliance TSC Co-Chair and CMCC Chief Scientist, Wireless Technologies on 'AI/ML impact, from 5.5G to 6G' is embedded below:
Prof. Ted Rappaport has featured a few times in our blog posts (see here and here). Today we look at his recent keynote at the EuCNC & 6G Summit 2023 on the topic 'Looking Towards the 6G Era - What we may expect, and why'. The abstract of the talk says:
Recent work has shown that the fundamentals of the radio propagation channel will enable mobile communications all the way to 900 GHz, offering bandwidths of tens of GHz. An amazing fact that is all but disregarded is that the three fundamental technological breakthroughs of 5G, namely millimeter wave technology, small cell densification, and massive multiple-input multiple-output (massive-MIMO) antenna systems, are paving the way for the next several decades of the wireless industry. This talk demonstrates how the 5G era will futureproof wireless networks as we enter the 6G era and beyond — an era of wireless cognition and human-style computing. In fewer than 20 years, wireless networks will carry information at the computation speed of the human brain. Yet, how will engineers ensure that we build these networks with sustainability and power efficiency in mind? This talk offers some solutions and promising areas of exploration to ensure the future 6G era is lightning fast yet kind to planet earth.
Recently I had a discussion about mmWave, sub-THz, THz, etc. This chart in the Tweet above is handy with deciphering the 5G/6G spectrum terminology.
Prof. Rappaport covered quite a few topics on spectrum above 100 GHz and made a strong case for mmWave and Terahertz. The mmWave adoption for 5G hasn't yet taken off so we will have to see how enthusiastic the industry is for even higher frequencies. The other keynotes from the conference (see references below) argued for cmWave as the mid-band for 6G. We will have to wait and see where all this discussion goes.
Metaverse means different things for different people. If you explain Metaverse with an example, many people understand but they are generally looking at things from a different point of view. A bit like blind men and an elephant. Similarly when we talk about Metaverse-ready networks, it can mean different things to different people, depending on their background.
Back in Oct 2021, Facebook changed its name to Meta with a vision to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses. This was followed by a blog post by Dan Rabinovitsj, Vice President, Meta Connectivity, highlighting the high-level requirements for these metaverse-ready networks.
At Fyuz 2022, the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) announced the launch of Metaverse-Ready Networks Project Group primary whose objective is to accelerate the development of solutions and architectures that enhance network readiness to support metaverse experiences. Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Sparkle, T-Mobile and Telefónica are the initial co-chairs of this Project Group.
A blast from the past - I'm listening to a Nokia CTO, Alessandro Bovone, setting out Nokia's view of the future #CWIC2022pic.twitter.com/DSN96eK2qh
Cambridge Wireless' CWIC 2022 discussed 'The Hyperconnected Human'. One of the sessions focussed on 'Living in the Metaverse' which I think was just brilliant. The slides are available from the event page and the video is embedded below:
Coming back to metaverse-ready networks, the final day of Fyuz 2022 conference featured 'The Meta Connectivity Summit' produced by Meta.
The main stage featured a lot of interesting panel sessions looking at metaverse use cases and applications, technology ecosystem, operator perspectives as well as a talk by CIO of Softbank. The sessions are embedded below. The breakout sessions were not shared.
Metaverse is also being used as a catch-all for use cases and applications in 6G. While many of the requirements of Metaverse will be met by 5G and beyond applications, 6G will bring in even more extreme requirements which would justify the investments in the Metaverse-Ready Networks.
There is no shortage of Metaverse papers and articles as it is the latest trend in the long list of technologies promising to change the world. Couple of months back I wrote a post about it in the 6G blog here.
TOMORROW: Hear from leading experts in the field about key questions such as how this technology is evolving, how can it be leveraged to augment business and personal environments, and what socio-technical and ethical questions have to be addressed. https://t.co/NggnJPu4eUpic.twitter.com/kfmYiCdomP
IEEE hosted a Metaverse Congress with the Kickoff Session 'Demystifying and Defining the Metaverse' this month as can be seen in the Tweet above. The video embedded below covers the following talks:
0:01:24 - Opening Remarks by Eva Kaili (Vice President, European Parliament)
0:09:51 - Keynote - Metaverse Landscape and Outlook by Yu Yuan (President-Elect, IEEE Standards Association)
0:29:30 - Keynote - Through the Store Window by Thomas Furness (“Grandfather of Virtual Reality”)
0:52:30 - Keynote - XR: The origin of the Metaverse as Water-Human-Computer Interaction (WaterHCI) by Steve Mann (“Father of Wearable Computing”)
1:22:17 - Keynote - A Vision of the Metaverse: AI Infused, Physically Accurate Virtual Worlds by Rev Lebaredian (VP of Omniverse & Simulation Technology, NVIDIA)
Some fantastic definitions, explanations, use cases and vision on Metaverse. The final speaker nicely summarised Metaverse as shown in this slide below.
Worth highlighting point 6 that the Metaverse is device independent. I argued about something similar when we try and link everything to 6G (like we linked everything to 5G before). We are just in the beginning phase, a lot of updates and clarifications will come in the next few years before Metaverse starts taking a final shape.
Last year we announced the launch of Free 5G Training. It was successful beyond our imagination. While we have just over 1,300 Twitter followers, on LinkedIn, we have over 30,000. The 5G for Absolute Beginners Udemy course already has over 6,000 students. This was a good enough motivation for us to launch a 6G equivalent with world's first 6G training course.
Back in November, we soft-launched the Free 6G Training website/blog along with Twitter and LinkedIn. The initial engagement and following are already very encouraging.
We also created 'An Introduction to 6G Training Course' here. 6G Candidate technologies, that require most details and is the main area of focus for 6G will be added as and when I find time and have enough material.
There is also a new 6G Wireless R&D LinkedIn group that has been started to share information and discuss doubts, etc. I am hoping many people will be able to join.
If you are a 6G expert or researcher or have ideas on how I can do better or want to contribute with articles, presentations, videos, etc., please feel free to get in touch on LinkedIn.
One final thing, along with all this, the 3G4G page has a section on '6G and Beyond-5G Wireless Technology'. I add links to all publicly available whitepapers and other good material out there.
It may also be useful to know that the 3G4G page has a search box on top that searches across all our channels and can be helpful in finding information on any mobile technology related topic.
Andreas Mueller, Head of communication and network technology at Bosch Corporate Research and Chair of 5G ACIA recently spoke at 'What Next for Wireless Infrastructure Summit' by TelecomTV about Industrial 5G. The following is paraphrased from his presentation 'Industrial 5G: Remaining challenges and future perspectives' which is embedded below:
5G has the potential to become the central nervous system of the factory of the future, enabling unprecedented levels of flexibility, efficiency, productivity and also ease of use. At the same time it's also a very special application domain so in many cases there are very demanding QoS requirements.
Industrial applications have multi-faceted requirements where one case may require very low latencies and high reliabilities for instance, while for others we may need very high data rates (for example HD cameras). There is no single use case with a single set of requirements but many different use cases with very diverse requirements which also have to be supported in many cases at the very same time.
As we need only a local network with local connectivity, this performance is required only in a very controlled environment; inside a factory, inside a plant. This allows for specific optimizations and makes certain things easier but we also always have brownfields deployments in many cases that means we have to live what we have in place today so that's typically wired communication in some cases it's wi-fi and similar wireless solutions and we have to be able to smoothly integrate a 5G network into this existing infrastructure
The developments towards Industrial 5G started about three years ago i would say and in the meantime it really has become a hot topic everybody is talking about industrial 5G. It has become a focused topic in standardization in 3GPP and some key capabilities already have been standardized which have been briefly outlined in the presentation.
Good progress has also been made in the ecosystem development so we've established the 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation two and a half years ago which serves as a global forum for bringing all relevant stakeholders together and for driving industrial 5G and we have 76 members today which includes major players from the telco industry but also from the industrial domain and also of course some universities and so on. We have seen the advent of non-public networks (NPN) so for the first time it will be possible for a manufacturers to deploy and operate such non-public networks inside a factory which are to some extent decoupled from the public networks.
If we look at the standardization timeline this is what you get. The first version of 5G release 15 of 3GPP was approved mid last year and it still had a very strong focus on consumer application and enhanced mobile broadband. If you buy 5G today, this is what you get then. Release-16 has for the first time had a very strong focus on industrial applications this has been approved in June this year and it includes features like ultra reliable low latency communication, non-public networks, time-sensitive communication. It means support for time-sensitive networking 5G and also native layer 2 transport so that we don't necessarily need internet protocol but we can directly transmit ethernet frames over a 5G network which again is very important especially for the industrial domain.
Release 17 is currently underway and it will come along with several enhancements of these features. It also has a stronger focus on positioning which is again very important in manufacturing because knowing where things are is a very valuable information and it will be in this new transmission mode called NR RedCap which is somewhere somewhere in between this high-end mobile broadband mode and also this low-end a massive machine type communication and this might be especially suitable for industrial sensors for example and then of course the journey will continue with Release 18 which is still being defined but with a high probability i would say it will more focus on massive iot applications that means tiny little sensors for example which have to be connected using very low energy and low costs and not just the natural next step.
5G NR-RedCap (New Radio Reduced Capability Device) is now the official name of NR-Light (or NR-Lite before that). Assuming this was also being discussed in 3GPP as NR-RedCom (New Radio Reduced Complexity Device) earlier. Can anyone confirm 🤔 pic.twitter.com/WZUaJSgQ8s
So many things have been done already towards supporting these industrial applications but if you look at factories today there are only very few of them which already make use of 5g and that's because there are still some challenges to be overcome some of them are listed here first of all having the features in the standard is nice but they also have to be implemented in the chipsets and infrastructure components and that still say test takes some time especially if we consider that really 16 is the first release which really has many of the features that make a difference to the industrial domain
Here is a list of the features that can be prioritised for future 5G releases or even for 6G. As Release-17 has just been delayed slightly, quite possible that some of the features expected in 5G may get pushed on to Beyond 5G and even 6G.
Here is the embedded talk
An interview by Dr. Andreas Müller regarding Bosch 5G activities is available here (in German)
NTT Docomo released a whitepaper on 5G Evolution and 6G. In a press release they announced:
NTT DOCOMO has released a white paper on the topic of 6G, the sixth-generation mobile communications system that the company aims to launch on a commercial basis by 2030. It incorporates DOCOMO's views in the field of 5G evolution and 6G communications technology, areas that the company has been researching since 2018. The white paper summarizes the related technical concepts and the expected diverse use cases of evolving 5G and new 6G communication technologies, as well as the technology components and performance targets. Mobile communication systems typically evolve into the next generation over a period of roughly ten years; DOCOMO commenced its research into the commercial launch of 5G in 2010. In 2018, the company conducted successful radio wave propagation experiments at frequencies of up to 150 GHz, levels which are expected to enable the much faster and larger-capacity communications that 6G will require. DOCOMO will continue to enhance the ultra-high-speed, large-capacity, ultra-reliable, low-latency and massive device-connectivity capabilities of 5G technology. It will continue its research into and development of 5G evolution and 6G technology, aiming to realize technological advances including:
the achievement of a combination of advances in connectivity, including ultra-high speed, large capacity and low latency
the pioneering of new frequency bands, including terahertz frequencies
the expansion of communication coverage in the sky, at sea and in space
the provision of ultra-low-energy and ultra-low-cost communications
the ensuring of highly reliable communications
the capability of massive device-connectivity and sensing
Visitors to DOCOMO Open House 2020 will be able to view conceptual displays incorporating DOCOMO's vision of the evolution of 5G technologies into 6G. The event will take place in the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition complex in Tokyo on January 23 and 24. DOCOMO also plans to hold a panel session entitled "5G Evolution and 6G" on January 24.
Videos from Docomo Open House are embedded below, along with a previous talk by Takehiro Nakamura from 6G Summit.
6G has become a hot topic, especially after China announced back in November that they are working on 6G. We have some interesting tweets on 6G as well.
This one from Stefan Pongratz, Dell'Oro group shows the timeline for 5G, Pre-6G and 6G
Finally, the paper acknowledges the 5G challenges and focus areas for 5G evolution, before focusing on 6G.
The mmWave coverage and mobility needs improvement, while the downlink is able to provide very high data rates, the uplink is struggling to be better than 4G. Also, there are some very extreme requirements for industrial use cases, 5G has yet to prove that it can meet them.
Finally, here is another view from iDate Digiworld comparing 5G vs 6G in terms of performance, spectrum and network.
I was involved in helping organise yet another CW TEC conference this year. The topic was quite interesting and we had some brilliant speakers. Some of the excellent presentations were shared too, links below. Here is a very quick summary of the event, linking also to couple of excellent summaries below.
The topic was a bit unusual and it rhymed very well with the attendees which were from many different backgrounds, from 5G, communications, satellites, electronics, T&M companies, etc. Here is the opening video that will show you the motivations behind this
The day started with a breakfast briefing from Cambridge Consultants that looked at how Massive MIMO is the key to unlocking 5G User Experiences. Presentations available here.
Session 1 was titled "What has Massive MIMO ever done for us?". The narrative for the session was as follows:
Clearly the desire for more and more capacity in cellular networks has driven the industry to find more and more novel techniques. The work done over the years and boosted by Tom Marzetta’s article titled “Noncooperative Cellular Wireless with Unlimited Numbers of Base Station Antennas” has set high expectations for this emergent technology, so much so the term Magic MIMO has been coined. However, how significant is it into today’s early 5G rollout and what can we expect over the coming years? Are there still further enhancements we should expect to see?
There were 3 talks as follows:
Sync Architectures for 5G NR by Chris Farrow, Technical Manager, Chronos Technology (slides)
Three UK’s RAN transformation: Spectrum, RAN architecture strategy, Why? by Dr Erol Hepsaydir, Head of RAN and Devices Strategy and Architecture, Three UK (slides)
Active antenna systems in RAN: performance, challenges and evolution by Anvar Tukmanov, Wireless Research Manager, BT (slides)
Session 2 looked at "Non-Terrestrial & Hybrid Networks". The narrative for the session was as follows:
There are different initiatives underway to make satellite and other non-terrestrial networks as part of 5G. In addition, many different mobile operators have demonstrated compelling use-cases with drones, balloons and other aerostats. Other innovative approaches like European Aviation Network uses a hybrid-network using terrestrial network supported by a satellite connection as a backhaul for in-flight Wi-Fi. In addition to latency, what other challenges are stopping mass adoption of Non-terrestrial and Hybrid networks? What about advanced features like slicing, etc.?
There were 3 talks as follows:
Opportunities for blending terrestrial and satellite technologies by Dr Jaime Reed, Director, Consulting, Space, Defence and Intelligence, CGI (slides)
Non-terrestrial Networks: Standardization in 5G NR by Dr Yinan Qi, Senior 5G Researcher, Samsung R&D Institute UK (slides)
Satellites and 5G: A satellite operator’s perspective by Simon Watts, Principal Consultant, Avanti Communications (slides)
Session 3 looked at "5G: A Catalyst for Network Transformation". The narrative was as follows:
5G has set high expectations in the user as well as operator community. While eMBB can be supported with an upgrade of existing 4G infrastructure, URLLC and mMTC may require massive change in the network architecture. Operators have already started the transformation process with backhaul upgrades, new data centers, distributed core and cloud rollouts, etc. How are networks evolving to accommodate these deep changes? What other changes will be required in the network to support the growth until the next new generation arrives?
This session featured 3 talks as well
An Introduction to Open RAN Concept by Zahid Ghadialy, Senior Director, Strategic Marketing, Parallel Wireless UK & EMEA (slides)
Powering the successful deployment of 5G infrastructure by David George, Vice President of EMEA and APAC, Sitetracker (slides)
The 5G transformation: no sweet without sweat by Antonella Faniuolo, Head of Network Strategy, Planning, Digital & Optimisation, Vodafone (slides)
The final session topic was "Getting ready for Beyond-5G Era". The narrative was as follows:
Many technologies like Full duplex, etc. that were originally intended to be part of 5G were not able to make it into the standards. Along with these, what other revolutionary changes are needed to make Beyond-5G technologies not only fulfil the vision, ambition and use-cases that were originally envisaged for 5G but to take it a step further and make it a game changer.
This session featured 3 talks as well, as follows:
Thinking Beyond 5G: Projects and Initiatives by Alan Carlton, Vice President, InterDigital Europe (slides not available)
5G Evolution: Progressive enhancement and new features for new markets by Matthew Baker, Head of Radio Physical Layer and Coexistence Standardization, Nokia (slides)
Why 6G’s design goals need far more than just radio & core innovation by Dean Bubley, Analyst & Futurist, Disruptive Analysis (slides not available)
A new research paper "Wireless Communications and Applications Above 100 GHz: Opportunities and Challenges for 6G and Beyond" by T. S. Rappaport et al. is available on IEEE website here.
With 5G, we are still solving the challenges of millimeter waves (mmWaves) so it is surprising for most people to hear that there is a research going on beyond 100 GHz and in THz frequencies. Quoting from the abstract of the paper:
The paper describes many of the technical challenges and opportunities for wireless communication and sensing applications above 100 GHz, and presents a number of promising discoveries, novel approaches, and recent results that will aid in the development and implementation of the sixth generation (6G) of wireless networks, and beyond. It also shows recent regulatory and standard body rulings that are anticipating wireless products and services above 100 GHz and illustrates the viability of wireless cognition, hyper-accurate position location, sensing, and imaging. The paper also presents approaches and results that show how long distance mobile communications will be supported to above 800 GHz since the antenna gains are able to overcome air-induced attenuation, and present methods that reduce the computational complexity and simplify the signal processing used in adaptive antenna arrays, by exploiting the Special Theory of Relativity to create a cone of silence in over-sampled antenna arrays that improve performance for digital phased array antennas. Also, new results that give insights into power efcient beam steering algorithms, and new propagation and partition loss models above 100 GHz are given, and promising imaging, array processing, and position location results are presented. The implementation of spatial consistency at THz frequencies, an important component of channel modeling that considers minute changes and correlations over space, is also discussed. This paper offers the first in-depth look at the vast applications of THz wireless products and applications and provides approaches for how to reduce power and increase performance across several problem domains, giving early evidence that THz techniques are compelling and available for future wireless communications.
At Brooklyn 5G Summit 2019, NYU Wireless founder and director, Dr. Ted Rappaport, presented a keynote on his vision beyond 5G, looking at both electronics and photonics, considering applications over 100GHz, channel models, and said that he expects brain-comparative data rate transmission wirelessly over the air in future networks. The keynote is embedded as video above.
Another keynote by Gerhard Fettweis from TU Dresden, talks about terahertz starting off with a look back at the history of mobile network generations up to 5G and looking ahead to 6G. Anticipating the tactile internet revolution to come, he considers the technicalities such as spectrum, channels, efficiency and adaptability needed to achieve the expected level of computing. That keynote can be viewed here.
