5G Architecture Options for Deployments?

I have blogged earlier about the multiple 5G Architecture options that are available (see Deutsche Telekom's presentation & 3G4G video). So I have been wondering what options will be deployed in real networks and when.

The 3GPP webinar highlighted that Option-3 would be the initial focus, followed by Option 2.

Last year AT&T had proposed the following 4 approaches as in the picture above. Recall that Option 1 is the current LTE radio connected to EPC.

ZTE favours Deployment option 2 as can be seen in the slide above

Huawei is favoring Option 3, followed by Option 7 or 2 (& 5)

Going back to the original KDDI presentation, they prefer Option 3, followed by Option 7.

If you are an operator, vendor, analyst, researcher, or anyone with an opinion, what options do you prefer?

NB-IoT based smart bicycle lock

Huawei (see here and here) has partnered with China Telecom and Bike sharing company called Ofo.

ofo developed an IoT smart lock based on NB-IoT technology that lowers power consumption, enables wide coverage, and slashes system resource delays at low cost. NB-IoT lets ofo ensure it has bikes located at key locations when commuter demand is highest. Meanwhile, bikes can be unlocked in less than a second. Both improvements have greatly boosted user satisfaction.

ofo and its partners added key technologies to ofo’s own platform. These included the commercial network provided by China Telecom, and Huawei’s intelligent chip-based NB-IoT solution. When launching its NB-IoT solution earlier this year, ofo founder and CEO Dai Wei said that the cooperation between ofo, Huawei, and China Telecom is a “mutually beneficial joint force of three global leading enterprises.”

At the core is Huawei’s IoT solution, which includes smart chips, networking, and an IoT platform. The solution provides strong coverage in poor-signal areas and a network capacity that’s more than one hundred times stronger than standard terminals. The payment process has dropped from 25 seconds to less than 5, while battery life has been lengthened from 1 or 2 months to more than 2 years, saving costs and reducing the need for frequent maintenance.

ofo’s cooperation with Huawei on NB-IoT smart locks bodes well for improving the industry as whole. Huawei’s technology optimizes lifecycle management for locks, while the sensors on the locks collect information such as equipment status, user data, and operating data. They connect the front- and back-end industrial chains to achieve intelligent business management, enable the bikes to be located in hot spots, facilitate rapid maintenance, and boost marketing and value-added services.

This video gives an idea of how this works:



As per Mobile World Live:

Ofo co-founder Xue Ding said during a presentation the high power efficiency and huge capacity of NB-IoT make the technology ideal to deliver its smart locks, which are really the brains of its operations.

The company offers what is termed station free pushbike hire, meaning bikes can be collected and deposited from any legal parking spot. Users can locate bikes using their smartphone, and unlock it by scanning a barcode.

However, the process can be interrupted by mobile network congestion or if signals are weak – for example in remote areas: “Using NB-IoT, users will not be stuck because of inadequate capacity,” Xue said.
...
Xiang Huangmei, a VP at China Telecom’s Beijing branch, said the low power consumption of the NB-IoT chip in the lock means the battery will last eight years to ten years, so it will never need to be replaced during the standard lifecycle of an Ofo bike.

The NB-IoT network, deployed on the 800MHz band, offers good indoor and outdoor coverage, the VP said citing car parks as an example. One base station can support 100,000 devices over an area of 2.5 square-km.

Finally, to know which operator is supporting which IoT technology, see the IoT tracker here.

Variety of 3GPP IoT technologies and Market Status - May 2017

I have seen many people wondering if so many different types of IoT technologies are needed, 3GPP or otherwise. The story behind that is that for many years 3GPP did not focus too much on creating an IoT variant of the standards. Their hope was that users will make use of LTE Cat 1 for IoT and then later on they created LTE Cat 0 (see here and here).

The problem with this approach was that the market was ripe for a solution to a different types of IoT technologies that 3GPP could not satisfy. The table below is just an indication of the different types of technologies, but there are many others not listed in here.

The most popular IoT (or M2M) technology to date is the humble 2G GSM/GPRS. Couple of weeks back Vodafone announced that it has reached a milestone of 50 million IoT connections worldwide. They are also adding roughly 1 million new connections every month. The majority of these are GSM/GPRS.

Different operators have been assessing their strategy for IoT devices. Some operators have either switched off or are planning to switch off they 2G networks. Others have a long term plan for 2G networks and would rather switch off their 3G networks to refarm the spectrum to more efficient 4G. A small chunk of 2G on the other hand would be a good option for voice & existing IoT devices with small amount of data transfer.

In fact this is one of the reasons that in Release-13 GSM is being enhanced for IoT. This new version is known as Extended Coverage – GSM – Internet of Things (EC-GSM-IoT ). According to GSMA, "It is based on eGPRS and designed as a high capacity, long range, low energy and low complexity cellular system for IoT communications. The optimisations made in EC-GSM-IoT that need to be made to existing GSM networks can be made as a software upgrade, ensuring coverage and accelerated time to-market. Battery life of up to 10 years can be supported for a wide range use cases."

The most popular of the non-3GPP IoT technologies are Sigfox and LoRa. Both these technologies have gained significant ground and many backers in the market. This, along with the gap in the market and the need for low power IoT technologies that transfer just a little amount of data and has a long battery life motivated 3GPP to create new IoT technologies that were standardised as part of Rel-13 and are being further enhanced in Rel-14. A summary of these technologies can be seen below

If you look at the first picture on the top (modified from Qualcomm's original here), you will see that these different IoT technologies, 3GPP or otherwise address different needs. No wonder many operators are using the unlicensed LPWA IoT technologies as a starting point, hoping to complement them by 3GPP technologies when ready.

Finally, looks like there is a difference in understanding of standards between Ericsson and Huawei and as a result their implementation is incompatible. Hopefully this will be sorted out soon.


Market Status:

Telefonica has publicly said that Sigfox is the best way forward for the time being. No news about any 3GPP IoT technologies.

Orange has rolled out LoRa network but has said that when NB-IoT is ready, they will switch the customers on to that.

KPN deployed LoRa throughout the Netherlands thereby making it the first country across the world with complete coverage. Haven't ruled out NB-IoT when available.

SK Telecom completed nationwide LoRa IoT network deployment in South Korea last year. It sees LTE-M and LoRa as Its 'Two Main IoT Pillars'.

Deutsche Telekom has rolled out NarrowBand-IoT (NB-IoT) Network across eight countries in Europe (Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Croatia)

Vodafone is fully committed to NB-IoT. Their network is already operational in Spain and will be launching in Ireland and Netherlands later on this year.

Telecom Italia is in process of launching NB-IoT. Water meters in Turin are already sending their readings using NB-IoT.

China Telecom, in conjunction with Shenzhen Water and Huawei launched 'World's First' Commercial NB-IoT-based Smart Water Project on World Water Day.

SoftBank is deploying LTE-M (Cat-M1) and NB-IoT networks nationwide, powered by Ericsson.

Orange Belgium plans to roll-out nationwide NB-IoT & LTE-M IoT Networks in 2017

China Mobile is committed to 3GPP based IoT technologies. It has conducted outdoor trials of NB-IoT with Huawei and ZTE and is also trialing LTE-M with Ericsson and Qualcomm.

Verizon has launched Industry’s first LTE-M Nationwide IoT Network.

AT&T will be launching LTE-M network later on this year in US as well as Mexico.

Sprint said it plans to deploy LTE Cat 1 technology in support of the Internet of Things (IoT) across its network by the end of July.

Further reading:

• An Introduction to IoT: Connectivity & Case Studies
• GSMA: Extended Coverage – GSM – Internet of Things (EC-GSM-IoT )
• 3GPP Rel-14 IoT Enhancements
• 5G Americas: LTE and 5G Technologies Enabling the Internet of Things [PDF]
• Samsung: Internet of Things - Introducing innumerable opportunities [PDF]
• The Korean Institute of Communications Information Sciences: A survey on LPWA technology: LoRa and NB-IoT
• Nokia: LTE evolution for IoT connectivity
• Carriers aim to crush LoRa, Sigfox and others

Next Generation SON for 5G

There were quite a few interesting presentations in the recently concluded 5G World conference. One that caught my attention was this presentation by Huawei. SON is often something that is overlooked and is expected to be a part of deployment. The problem is that it is often vendor proprietary and does not work as expected when there is equipment from multiple vendors.

While the 4G SON in theory solves the issues that network face today, 5G SON will have to go much further and work with SDN/NFV and the sliced networks. Its going to be a big challenge and will take many years to get it right.

Here is the Huawei presentation from 5G World:

You may also be interested in:

• My old tutorial: An Introduction to Self-Organizing Networks
• Next Generation SON Free Whitepaper Download by Viavi

Feel free to let me know your thoughts as comments.

Three Presentations on 5G Security

Here are three presentations from the 5G Huddle in April, looking at 5G security aspects. As I have repeatedly mentioned, 5G is in process of being defined so these presentations are just presenting the view from what we know about 5G today.

Quick Summary of LTE Voice Summit 2015 (#LTEVoice)

Last year's summary of the LTE voice summit was very much appreciated so I have created one this year too.

The status of VoLTE can be very well summarised as can be seen in the image above.

‘VoLTE network deployment is the one of the most difficult project ever, the implementation complexity and workload is unparalleled in history’ - China Mobile group vice-president Mr.Liu Aili

Surprisingly, not many presentations were shared so I have gone back to the tweets and the pictures I took to compile this report. You may want to download the PDF from slideshare to be able to see the links. Hope you find it useful.

Related links:

• VoLTE Roaming with RAVEL (Roaming Architecture for Voice over IMS with Local Breakout)
• S8HR: Standardization of New VoLTE Roaming Architecture
• VoLTE Roaming: LBO, S8HR or HBO

Updates from the 3GPP RAN 5G Workshop - Part 1

3GPP held a 5G Workshop in Phoenix last week. 550 delegates and over 70 presentations contributed to the discussion, which covered the full range of requirements that will feed TSG RAN work items for the next five years. I will eventually look at all the presentations and highlight the ones that I find interesting as a part of this blog. Due to the vast number of presentations, I will split them into a few blog posts.

Lets start with the chairman summary. The chair highlighted three high level use cases that 5G needs to address (This has been highlighted in many presentations, see here for example):

• Enhanced Mobile Broadbandare 
• Massive Machine Type Communications
• Ultra-reliable and Low Latency Communications

As can be seen in the picture above, 3GPP is planning to split the 5G work into two phases. Phase 1 (Rel-15) will look at a subset of requirements that are important for the commercial needs of the day. Phase 2 (Rel-16) will look at more features, use cases, detailed requirements, etc.

Here is the chair summary of the workshop:

The presentation (RWS-150002) from Motorola/Lenovo highlighted the need to handle different spectrum. For sub-6GHz, the existing air interface could work with slight modifications. For spectrum between 6GHz and 30GHz, again a similar air interface like 4G may be good enough but for above 30GHz, there is a need for new one die to phase noise.

The presentation by CATT or China Academy of Telecommunication Technology (RWS-150003) is quite interesting and is embedded below. They also propose Pattern Division Multiple Access (PDMA).

Orange (RWS-150004) has definitely put a thought into what good 5G would be. Their presentation is embedded below too:

The presentation from Huawei (RWS-150006) introduced the concept of Unified Air Interface, UAI.



They presentation also explains the concept of Adaptive Frame structures and RAN slicing very well. For those who may be wondering, uMTC stands for ultra-reliable MTC and mMTC stands for massive MTC. RAN slicing enables the RAN to be partitioned such that a certain amount of carriers are always dedicated to a certain services independently of other services. This ensures that the service in the slice is always served reliably.

The final presentation is the vision and priorities by 5GPPP as follows:

LTE-M a.k.a. Rel-13 Cellular IoT

Some months back I wrote about the LTE Category-0 devices here. While Rel-12 LTE Cat 0 devices are a first step in the right direction, they are not enough for small sensor type of devices where long battery life is extremely important. As can be seen in the picture above, this will represent a huge market in 2025.

To cater for this requirement of extremely long battery life, it is proposed that Rel-13 does certain modifications for these low throughput sensor type devices. The main modification would be that the devices will work in 1.4MHz bandwidth only, regardless of the bandwidth of the cell. The UE transmit power will be max of 20dB and the throughput would be further reduced to a maximum of 200kbps.

The presentation, from Cambridge Wireless Future of Wireless International Conference is embedded below:

The IoTopportunity from Zahid Ghadialy

See also:

• LTE Category-0 low power M2M devices

Using 8T8R Antennas for TD-LTE

People often ask at various conferences if TD-LTE is a fad or is it something that will continue to exist along with the FDD networks. TDD networks were a bit tricky to implement in the past due to the necessity for the whole network to be time synchronised to make sure there is no interference. Also, if there was another TDD network in an adjacent band, it would have to be time synchronised with the first network too. In the areas bordering another country where they might have had their own TDD network in this band, it would have to be time synchronised too. This complexity meant that most networks were happy to live with FDD networks.

In 5G networks, at higher frequencies it would also make much more sense to use TDD to estimate the channel accurately. This is because the same channel would be used in downlink and uplink so the downlink channel can be estimated accurately based on the uplink channel condition. Due to small transmit time intervals (TTI's), these channel condition estimation would be quite good. Another advantage of this is that the beam could be formed and directed exactly at the user and it would appear as a null to other users.

This is where 8T8R or 8 Transmit and 8 Receive antennas in the base station can help. The more the antennas, the better and narrower the beam they can create. This can help send more energy to users at the cell edge and hence provide better and more reliable coverage there.  



How do these antennas look like? 8T8R needs 8x Antennas at the Base Station Cell, and this is typically delivered using four X-Polar columns about half wavelength apart. I found the above picture on antenna specialist Quintel's page here, where the four column example is shown right. At spectrum bands such as 2.3GHz, 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz where TD-LTE networks are currently deployed, the antenna width is still practical. Quintel’s webpage also indicates how their technology allows 8T8R to be effectively emulated using only two X-Polar columns thus promising Slimline antenna solutions at lower frequency bands. China Mobile and Huawei have claimed to be the first ones to deploy these four X-Pol column 8T8R antennas. Sprint, USA is another network that has been actively deploying these 8T8R antennas.

There are couple of interesting tweets that show their kit below:

Sprint's John Saw showing of TD-LTE 8T8R and Network Vision. Room for expansion. pic.twitter.com/Mydzasg3F6

— Walt Piecyk (@WaltBTIG) June 23, 2014

Sprint's 8T8R antenna (on left) is actually smaller than 4T2R on 1.9 GHz and 1T2R for 800MHz.(on right) #tdlte $S pic.twitter.com/q26IhZmDie

— Walt Piecyk (@WaltBTIG) June 23, 2014

In fact Sprint has very ambitious plans. The following is from a report in Fierce Wireless:

Sprint's deployment of 8T8R (eight-branch transmit and eight-branch receive) radios in its 2.5 GHz TDD LTE spectrum is resulting in increased data throughput as well as coverage according to a new report from Signals Research. "Thanks to TM8 [transmission mode 8] and 8T8R, we observed meaningful increases in coverage and spectral efficiency, not to mention overall device throughput," Signals said in its executive summary of the report.

The firm said it extensively tested Sprint's network in the Chicago market using Band 41 (2.5 GHz) and Band 25 (1.9 GHz) in April using Accuver's drive test tools and two Galaxy Note Edge smartphones. Signals tested TM8 vs. non-TM8 performance, Band 41 and Band 25 coverage and performance as well as 8T8R receive vs. 2T2R coverage/performance and stand-alone carrier aggregation.

Sprint has been deploying 8T8R radios in its 2.5 GHz footprint, which the company has said will allow its cell sites to send multiple data streams, achieve better signal strength and increase data throughput and coverage without requiring more bandwidth.

The company also has said it will use carrier aggregation technology to combine TD-LTE and FDD-LTE transmission across all of its spectrum bands. In its fourth quarter 2014 earnings call with investors in February, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said implementing carrier aggregation across all Sprint spectrum bands means Sprint eventually will be able to deploy 1900 MHz FDD-LTE for uplink and 2.5 GHz TD-LTE for downlink, and ultimately improve the coverage of 2.5 GHz LTE to levels that its 1900 MHz spectrum currently achieves. Carrier aggregation, which is the most well-known and widely used technique of the LTE Advanced standard, bonds together disparate bands of spectrum to create wider channels and produce more capacity and faster speeds.

Alcatel-Lucent has a good article in their TECHzine, an extract from that below:

Field tests on base stations equipped with beamforming and 8T8R technologies confirm the sustainability of the solution. Operators can make the most of transmission (Tx) and receiving (Rx) diversity by adding in Tx and Rx paths at the eNodeB level, and beamforming delivers a direct impact on uplink and downlink performance at the cell edge.

By using 8 receiver paths instead of 2, cell range is increased by a factor of 1.5 – and this difference is emphasized by the fact that the number of sites needed is reduced by nearly 50 per cent. Furthermore, using the beamforming approach in transmission mode generates a specific beam per user which improves the quality of the signal received by the end-user’s device, or user equipment (UE). In fact, steering the radiated energy in a specific direction can reduce interference and improves the radio link, helping enable a better throughput. The orientation of the beam is decided by shifting the phases of the Tx paths based on signal feedback from the UE. This approach can deliver double the cell edge downlink throughput and can increase global average throughput by 65 per cent.

These types of deployments are made possible by using innovative radio heads and antenna solutions.  In traditional deployments, it would require the installation of multiple remote radio heads (RRH) and multiple antennas at the site to reach the same level of performance. The use of an 8T8R RRH and a smart antenna array, comprising 4 cross-polar antennas in a radome, means an 8T8R sector deployment can be done within the same footprint as traditional systems.



Anyone interested in seeing pictures of different 8T8R antennas like the one above, see here. While this page shows Samsung's antennas, you can navigate to equipment from other vendors.

Finally, if you can provide any additional info or feel there is something incorrect, please feel free to let me know via comments below.

The path from 4.5G to 5G

In the WiFi Global Congress last week, I heard this interesting talk from an ex-colleague who now works with Huawei. While there were a few interesting things, the one I want to highlight is 4.5G. The readers of this blog will remember that I introduced 4.5G back in June last year and followed it with another post in October when everyone else started using that term and making it complicated.

According to this presentation, 3GPP is looking to create a new brand from Release-13 that will supersede LTE-Advanced (LTE-A). Some of you may remember that the vendor/operator community tried this in the past by introducing LTE-B, LTE-C, etc. for the upcoming releases but they were slapped down by 3GPP. Huawei is calling this Release-13 as 4.5G but it would be re-branded based on what 3GPP comes up with.

Another interesting point are the data rates achieved in the labs, probably more than others. 10.32Gbps in sub-6GHz in a 200MHz bandwidth and 115.20Gbps using a 9.6GHz bandwidth in above 6GHz spectrum. The complete presentation as follows:

Huawei: Paving the Way to 5G from Zahid Ghadialy

Another Huawei presentation that merits inclusion is the one from the last Cambridge Wireless Small Cells SIG event back in February by Egon Schulz. The presentation is embedded below but I want to highlight the different waveforms that being being looked at for 5G. In fact if someone has a list of the waveforms, please feel free to add it in comments

Research challenges in #5G #IEEE #Bangalore #5GTechnologyWorkshop pic.twitter.com/CQhwGfVb8T

— Amod Anandkumar (@amodjaiga) May 22, 2015

The above tweet from a recent IEEE event in Bangalore is another example of showing the research challenges in 5G, including the waveforms. The ones that I can obviously see from above is: FBMC, UFMC, GFDM, NOMA, SCMA, OFDM-opt, f-OFDM.

The presentation as follows:

Huawei: Forward 2020 -> 5G from Zahid Ghadialy

5G: A 2020 Vision

I had the pleasure of speaking at the CW (Cambridge Wireless) event ‘5G: A Practical Approach’. It was a very interesting event with great speakers. Over the next few weeks, I will hopefully add the presentations from some of the other speakers too.

In fact before the presentation (below), I had a few discussions over the twitter to validate if people agree with my assumptions. For those who use twitter, maybe you may want to have a look at some of these below:

5G is coming, maybe much earlier than you expect it to. There is a race to be first. Come... http://t.co/BQUR5p3bpk pic.twitter.com/z3cOD7Xv2O
— eXplanoTech (@eXplanoTech) January 30, 2015

@disruptivedean @ericsson Re 2% only cellular, I was discussing this the other day. Too many competing techs. pic.twitter.com/Z7s6wqxkBM
— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) January 26, 2015

Spectrum Bands Summary - Can anyone point me to a better picture? (Cc @open_spectrum @StevenJCrowley @elenaneira) pic.twitter.com/IkBhtQubSj
— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) January 19, 2015

Anyway, here is the presentation.

 

5G: A 2020 Vision from eXplanoTech

IEEE Globecom 2014 Keynote Video: 5G Wireless Goes Beyond Smartphones

Embedded below is a video from the keynote session by Dr. Wen Tong of Huawei. I do not have the latest presentation but an earlier one (6 months old) is also embedded below for reference. It will give you a good idea on the 5G research direction

5G Wireless Goes Beyond Smartphones from Zahid Ghadialy

You may also be interested in this other presentation from Huawei in IEEE Globecom 2014, 5G: From Research to Standardization (what, how, when)

What is (pre-5G) 4.5G?

Before we look at what 4.5G is, lets look at what is not 4.5G. First and foremost, Carrier Aggregation is not 4.5G. Its the foundation for real 4G. I keep on showing this picture on Twitter

I am sure some people much be really bored by this picture of mine that I keep showing. LTE, rightly referred to as 3.9G or pre-4G by the South Korean and Japanese operators was the foundation of 'Real' 4G, a.k.a. LTE-Advanced. So who has been referring to LTE-A as 4.5G (and even 5G). Here you go:

Got 4G? Wake up, grandad. We're doing 4.5G LTE-A in London - EE chief: And get a load of our gleaming voice system! … http://t.co/78HSHlyPuA
— The Register (@TheRegister) March 5, 2014

Voda UK PR says: "The new technology, called Carrier Aggregation but also referred to as LTE Advanced or 4.5G" 4.5G?
— Keith Dyer (@keithdyer) October 15, 2014

5G wireless technology LTE-Advanced is now running in the Philippines' largest and strongest network. | http://t.co/g8u3lJ8sLV #Smart5G
— Smart Communications (@SMARTCares) August 14, 2014

So lets look at what 4.5G is.

Back in June, we published a whitepaper where we referred to 4.5G as LTE and WiFi working together. When we refer to LTE, it refers to LTE-A as well. The standards in Release-12 allow simultaneous use of LTE(-A) and WiFi with selected streams on WiFi and others on cellular.

Some people dont realise how much spectrum is available as part of 5GHz, hopefully the above picture will give an idea. This is exactly what has tempted the cellular community to come up with LTE-U (a.k.a LA-LTE, LAA)

In a recent event in London called 5G Huddle, Alcatel-Lucent presented their views on what 4.5G would mean. If you look at the slide above, it is quite a detailed view of what this intermediate step before 5G would be. Some tweets related to this discussion from 5G Huddle as follows:

Good points: 4.5G as necessary step: CA, VoLTE & WebRTC, CoMP & coordination, NFV & cloud. But that can do everything we need #5GHuddle
— Real Wireless (@real_wireless) September 23, 2014

So 5G will be evolution of 4.5G using DC & CA - but much better signalling, more energy efficient as new air interface for IoT
— Real Wireless (@real_wireless) September 23, 2014

Finally, in a recent GSMA event, Huawei used the term 4.5G to set out their vision and also propose a time-frame as follows:

While in Alcatel-Lucent slide, I could visualise 4.5G as our vision of LTE(-A) + WiFi + some more stuff, I am finding it difficult to visualise all the changes being proposed by Huawei. How are we going to see the peak rate of 10Gbps for example?

I have to mention that I have had companies that have told me that their vision of 5G is M2M and D2D so Huawei is is not very far from reality here.

We should keep in mind that this 4G, 4.5G and 5G are the terms we use to make the end users aware of what new cellular technology could do for them. Most of these people understand simple terms like speeds and latency. We may want to be careful what we tell them as we do not want to make things confusing, complicated and make false promises and not deliver on them.

xoxoxo Added on 2nd January 2015 oxoxox

Chinese vendor ZTE has said it plans to launch a ‘pre-5G’ testing base station in 2015, commercial use of which will be possible in 2016, following tests and adjustment. Here is what they think pre-5G means:

NFV and SDN - Evolution Themes and Timelines

We recently held our first Virtual Networks SIG event in Cambridge Wireless. There were some great presentations. The one by the UK operator EE summarised everything quite well. For those who are not familiar with what NFV and SDN is, I would recommend watching the video on my earlier post here.

One of the term that keeps being thrown around is 'Orchestration'. While I think I understand what it means, there is no easy way to explain it. Here are some things I found on the web that may explain it:

Orchestration means Automation, Provisioning, Coordination and Management of Physical and Virtual resources.  

Intelligent service orchestration primarily involves the principles of SDN whereby switches, routers and applications at Layer 7 can be programmed from a centralized component called the controller with intelligent decisions regarding individual flow routing in real time.

If you can provide a better definition, please do so.

There are quite a few functions and services that can be virtualised and there are some ambitious timelines.

ETSI has been working on NFV and as I recently found out (see tweet below) there may be some 3GPP standardisation activity starting soon.

@zahidtg They can for virtualised networks. There is ongoing discussion in 3GPP for service chaining, vEPC etc.
— Dimitris Mavrakis (@dmavrakis) May 16, 2014

Anyway, here is the complete presentation by EE:

Revolutionizing mobile networks with SDN and NFV from Zahid Ghadialy

There was another brilliant presentation by Huawei but the substance was more in the talk, rather than the slides. The slides are here in case you want to see and download.

Related post:

• Small Cells as a Service (SCaaS) using NFV - 3G4G Small Cells Blog

Multi-stream aggregation (MSA): Key technology for future networks

In our recent 5G presentation here, we outlined multi-technology carrier aggregation as one of the technologies for the future networks. Some of the discussions that I had on this topic later on highlighted the following:

1. This is generally referred to as Multi-stream aggregation (MSA)
2. We will see this much sooner than 5G, probably from LTE-A Rel-13 onwards 

Huawei have a few documents on this topic. One such document is embedded below and aanother more technical document is available on slideshare here.

MSA: A key technology for the evolution of future wireless networks from Zahid Ghadialy

Gadgets from Mobile World Congress 2013 (#MWC13)

Finally, if you have enough patience, here is Nokia keynote:



Related blog post:

• Dumbphones, Featurephones, Smartphones, Superphones...
• Videos from the CES 2013
• Future mobile technology with Graphene
• 5 videos showing futuristic technologies that can be used with Mobiles
• Mobile Device Testing and its Path to Commercialization

"No-Edge Networks" and Multi-Stream Aggregation (MSA)

The following is from Huawei press release:


The LTE-Advanced Multi-Stream Aggregation (MSA) technology standard is capable of increasing data rates at the cell's edge. A key component of Huawei's "No-Edge Networks" concept, MSA technology coordinates macro cells to improve user data rates at the cell's edge and also between heterogeneous networking scenarios to improve peak rates and simplify mobile management to ensure a consistent user experience.

With the development of mobile broadband, operators are mostly concerned about user experience. With mobile coverage, should able to enjoy the same quality of services no matter where they are. However, with mobile communication systems, the most challenging issue is system performance at the cell's edge.

The concept behind Huawei's MSA technology is that the user is always able to receive downlink data and aggregate downlink data streams from a cell or cell group with the best signal quality. A similar method applies to uplink data, where the user always transmits uplink data to a cell or cell group with the best signal quality. The uplink data streams are aggregated on the network side.

Huawei's MSA technology reduces the number of handovers, lowering device power transmission and increasing device standby time. These advantages are in accordance with the concept of delivering a "borderless network" and "green" wireless communications. It's expected that MSA technology will improve system performance at the cell's edge by almost 30%.

MSA technology is especially suitable for macro-micro HetNets. In hotspot area, macro cells provide basic LTE coverage while the micro cells provides capacity enhancement. The use of MSA technology allows users to receive controlled signaling from macro cells and services from best quality HetNet cell. Users at any location within the network can then enjoy fast and stable data services with ultra broadband, zero waiting and ubiquitous connectivity. MSA technology brings users high speeds and high quality as well as a simple service experience.

The advanced MSA technology proposed by Huawei is set to become a key feature of the evolution to 3GPP LTE-Advanced standards. Huawei has contributed 293 core standards to the 3GPP LTE/LTE-Advanced standardization process, 20% of the global total and the most of any other company.

I wasnt able to find much information but there is this couple of slides that were submitted in Rel-12 workshop that is embedded below:

Views on Rel-12 and onwards for LTE and UMTS from Zahid Ghadialy

What do you think of this feature?

UK: Spectrum, Operators, Vendors and LTE

So LTE (or '4G') is about to be launched in the UK as announced yesterday. Its going to be branded as 4GEE.

Here is a summary of the Spectrum in the UK that will be used for LTE and would be auctioned by Ofcom.

Here is the current allocation of Spectrum in the UK

The above pics are from a presentation by Ofcom in LTE World Summit 2012 in Barcelona, available here.

The last table is from an Ofcom document here. Its very interesting read. For example I didnt know that The L-band was the first major part of Ofcom spectrum awards programme relevant to mobile services. It consists of 40MHz between 1452MHz and 1492MHz. The auction took place in May 2008, in which Qualcomm won the entirety of the available spectrum.

Here is the summary of the operators working on LTE:


Everything Everywhere (EE = Orange + T-Mobile) - They are calling their '4G' service as EE, covering up to 70% of the UK by the end of 2013. Network kit provided by Huawei.

Three - Samsung will provide the Radio Access Network, and the core infrastructure, for Three's LTE (4G) network. That includes the base stations, and radio core. 3 UK has agreed to purchase 2 x 15 MHz of 1800 MHz spectrum from Everything everywhere, and plans commercial launch of LTE service in 2013.

Telefonica (O2) trial network - Equipment supplied by Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) for both the Radio and Core network elements. Backhaul for the 4G trial network has been provided using Microwave Radio Equipment from Cambridge Broadband Networks Limited, NEC and Nokia Siemens Networks.

Updated 13/09/12 - 11:25

UK Broadband rolled out the first commercial TD-LTE network in London back in February (available to customers since May 2012). The equipment is provided by Huawei. They have 40MHz in Band 42 (3.5GHz) and 84MHz in band 43 (3.6GHz).

Vodafone - No news.


Anything else I missed?

A Twitter discussion on eMBMS

@zahidtg: Samsung has demoed eMBMS using Anritsu RTD system - http://bit.ly/PCGb99  - But is any operator interested?

Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung has successfully demonstrated the clear delivery of television broadcast signals over an LTE 4G wireless network. 

Samsung is using evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) technology and has tapped test & measurement specialist Anritsu's Rapid Test Designer (RTD) and MD8430A to simulate the LTE network environment used for the demonstration. 

eMBMS technology allows carriers to adjust coverage and capacity as needed, allowing for more efficient use of network resources in order to better handle the heavy traffic load that broadcast video would present. 

Samsung is actively looking to add more content to the value proposition for its phones. It has deployed its own Hub strategy for its Galaxy line of smartphones, which includes a Music Hub, Movies Hub and Games Hub, all of which give the handset-maker a new incremental revenue stream. A TV Hub that could support live TV content in addition to on-demand episode downloads could add a compelling new wrinkle in that pseudo-walled garden approach. 

Samsung is also instrumental in bringing mobile TV to market via the Dyle initiative for mobile DTV—a service that offers live broadcast feeds from local TV affiliates over separate, dedicated broadcast spectrum. No. 5 U.S. wireless carrier MetroPCS just went live with Dyle service and a Samsung mobile DTV-compatible smartphone.

@KimKLarsen: Depends on whether an operator believes in the broadcast over mobile model. Mobile User trends seems not in favor at least in WEU.

@zahidtg: I agree and thats why I dont think broadcast will work in the short term. Would be different is Apple were to create biz model:)

@KimKLarsen: though the question is whether they (Apple/Google) really need eMBMS for executing such a business model ... I guess not really?!

@KimKLarsen: I have a couple of beautiful white papers on satellite (w & wo terrestrial component) eMBMS using S-band together w Apple or Google

@zahidtg: True. My point is that they are the ones who can create a new biz model on it, operators cant be bothered. Too much hassle.

@KimKLarsen: too much hassle, too little new revenue, risky ROI, insufficient scale, etc.. an Apple or alike might overcome due to shear scale!

@KimKLarsen: though w a satellite (w. city based terrestrial component) based eMBMS system you cover large landmass & pop & get the Scale!

@Qualcomm_Tech: I think the best initial use case for #eMBMS is to selectivley use it as venue casting at stadiums/exhibitons etc.

@kitkilgour: "ClipCasting" has been the main eMBMS use case - stadia, or catching up on your 1min news at stations

@Qualcomm_Tech: True, Any content destined to venue users, incl. live/real-time can leverage eMBMS- huge capacity increase

@KimKLarsen: I agree! Might be interesting! But can this really justify eMBMS as a service for mass adaption?

@KimKLarsen: when will eMBMS be supported in Gobi? & when can we expect this to be standard in all LTE terminal devices?

@kitkilgour: It's networks as well as devices. MBMS has always been hampered by needing to reach the cell edge ...

@kitkilgour: ... with limited / no power control whilst minimising interference to others

@KimKLarsen: great feedback! Thanks! Do you see a need for denser networks to deliver a uniform MBMS service than for standard data services?

@KimKLarsen: one of the challenges we have had in nominal terrestrial MBMS designs have been link budget requirements! Any good sources?

@Qualcomm_Tech: challenge’s been having enough penetration of multicast devices. Venue cast solves that problem #1000x

@KimKLarsen: Sounds like Venue Cast is The Main Driver for eMBMS adoptation? (hmmm?) What's the Revenue Source? #42x

@KimKLarsen: I don't understand how Venue Cast can Drive MC Device Uptake? The other way around more reasonable! #42x

@Qualcomm_Tech: Target specific groups, eg season ticket holders & offer attractive device/content/plan bundles #1000x

Participants:

@zahidtg = Zahid Ghadialy
@KimKLarsen = Dr. Kim Larsen
@Qualcomm_Tech = Qualcomm_Tech
@kitkilgour = Kit Kilgour



In other news, Huawei Launches eMBMS Innovation Center to Develop LTE Solutions:

Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today announced the launch of an enhanced Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) innovation center in Shenzhen in order to develop end-to-end eMBMS solutions and LTE applications. 

eMBMS is a 3GPP R9 standard for mobile video that enables a higher transfer capacity over typical MBMS technologies. Huawei's eMBMS innovation center will focus on on-demand video services and broadcast information based on eMBMS. This will enrich LTE applications and accelerate the development of the eMBMS industry chain, which includes chipsets, devices, and network equipment.

In addition to developing solutions, the innovation center will also serve as an experience center for operators. Video, mobile TV, and advertisements will be showcased via mobile smart devices employing Huawei's eMBMS solution. Global operators from Europe, Asia, the South Pacific and other regions have already visited the center to experience its LTE demonstrations.

Huawei has been committed to the growing mobile video market since 2006. According to the Global mobile Supplier Association's (GSA) “Mobile Broadband Status Report”, over four billion people watch videos on YouTube every day. This large-scale usage is leading to increased revenue. According to a report from Global Industry Analysts, revenue from the mobile video market will reach USD30 billion by 2017. Huawei's eMBMS research team works closely with operators, chipset and device manufactures and other partners to further the development of the industry for the benefit of all end users.

Huawei's LTE division has been committed to providing the best commercially performing network, the best end user experience through devices and innovative services, as well as end-to-end convergent solutions for helping operators with their business success. Huawei's eMBMS innovation center will push the development of mobile video well into the future.

Fast Dormancy Timings

Nearly a year and half back, I posted a blog about Fast Dormancy here. This issue has surely been fixed in most of the devices and the networks are able to handle the issue even if the handsets have not been fixed. I found an interesting table in a Huawei journal that shows the timings used by different devices that are being reproduced for people who may be interested.