Real-life 5G Use Cases for Verticals from China

GSMA have recently published a series of reports related to China. This includes the 'The Mobile Economy China' report as well as reports on ‘Impacts of mmWave 5G in China’, ‘5G use cases for verticals China 2020’ and ‘Powered by SA case studies’. They are all available here.

China currently has 1.65bn subscribers (Excluding licensed cellular IoT) which is expected to grow to 1.73bn in 2025. The report quotes 1.20bn unique mobile subscribers that is expected to grow to 1.26bn by 2025. With a population of 1.44 billion, this would be assuming everyone over 10 years has a smartphone. 2G and 3G is being phased out so only 4G and 5G will be around in 2025. This would be different for IoT.

The 5G Use Cases for Verticals China 2020 report is comprised of 15 outstanding examples of 5G-empowered applications for verticals, ranging from industrial manufacturing, transportation, electric power, healthcare, education, to content creation, and zooms into the practical scenarios, technical features, and development opportunities for the next generation technology. Every use case represents the relentless efforts of 5G pioneers who are open, cooperative, and innovative.

1. Flexible Smart Manufacturing with 5G Edge Computing (RoboTechnik, China Mobile, Ericsson)
2. 5G Smart Campus in Haier Tianjin Washing Machine Factory (China Mobile, Haier)
3. Aircraft Surface Inspection with 5G and 8K at Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac, China Unicom, Huawei)
4. Xinfengming Group’s Smart Factory Based on MEC Technology (Xinfengming, China Mobile, ZTE)
5. SANY Heavy Industry 5G and Smart Manufacturing (Sany, China Mobile, China Telecom, ZTE)
6. Xiangtan Iron & Steel's 5G Smart Plant (Xisc, China Mobile, Huawei)
7. The Tianjin 5G Smart Port (Tianjin, China Unicom, ZTE, Trunk)
8. 5G Intelligent Connected Vehicle Pilot in Wuhan (China Mobile, Huawei, et al.)
9. 5G BRT Connected Vehicle-Infrastructure Cooperative System (China Unicom, DTmobile, et al.)
10. 5G for Smart Grid (China Mobile, Huawei, et al.)
11. Migu's "Quick Gaming" Platform (China Mobile, et al.)
12. 5G Cloud VR Demonstration Zone in Honggutan, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province (Besttone, China Telecom, Huawei)
13. 5G Cloud VR Education Application Based on AI QoE (China Telecom, Nokia, et al.)
14. China MOOC Conference: 5G + Remote Virtual Simulation Experiment (China Unicom, Vive HTC, Dell Technologies, et al.)
15. 5G-empowered Hospital Network Architecture Standard (CAICT, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Huawei, et al.)

They are all detailed in the report here.

I have written about 5G Use Cases in a blog post earlier, which also contains a video playlist of use cases from around the world. Not many from China in there at the moment but should be added as and when they are available and I discover them.


Related Posts:

• Operator Watch Blog: China Allocates Shared Spectrum for Indoor Use, CBN gets Third Spectrum for 5G Network
• The 3G4G Blog: Examples of 5G Use Cases & Applications
• The 3G4G Blog: 5G Private and Non-Public Network (NPN)
• The 3G4G Blog: 5G and Industry 4.0
• The 3G4G Blog: What is Industrial IoT (IIoT) and how is it different from IoT?
• 3G4G: M2M, MTC & IoT
• Operator Watch Blog: China's Synchronized 5G Launch

5G Private and Non-Public Network (NPN)

Private Networks have been around for a while and really took off after 4G was launched. This is due to the fact that the architecture was simplified due to the removal of CS core and also the advancements in silicon, storage, computation, etc. allowed creation of smaller and more efficient equipment that simplified private networks.

While private networks imply an isolated network for selected devices that are allowed to connect on to the network, Non-Public Networks are much broader in scope. Chief among them is the ability of certain devices to be capable of working on Private as well as Public Network or roaming between them.

I recently ran a workshop on 'Introduction to Private 4G & 5G Networks' with a well known Industry analyst Dean Bubley. One of the sections looked at the Network Architecture based on the 3GPP standards. This tutorial is a part of that particular section. Slides and video embedded below. There are also some interesting videos on YouTube that show how and why Private Networks are needed and some use cases. The playlist is embedded in the end.

Advanced: Private Networks & 5G Non-Public Networks from 3G4G

Playlist of Private Networks Use Cases.



Related Posts:

• The 3G4G Blog: 5G and Industry 4.0
• The 3G4G Blog: What is Industrial IoT (IIoT) and how is it different from IoT?
• 3G4G: M2M, MTC & IoT

5G Evolution with Matthew Baker, Nokia

I wrote a summary of CW (Cambridge Wireless) TEC conference here a couple of months back. The last session was on "Getting ready for Beyond-5G Era". Matthew Baker, Head of Radio Physical Layer & Co-existence Standardization, Nokia Bell Labs was one of the speakers. His talk provided a summary of 3GPP Rel-15 and then gave a nice and short summary of all the interesting things coming in Rel-16 and being planned for Rel-17. The slides from his presentation is embedded below:

5G Evolution: Progressive Enhancement & N ew Features for New Markets from 3G4G

Nokia also created a short video where Matthew talks about these new features. It's embedded below:



Related Posts:

• Summary of #CWTEC 2019 Conference: 5G, Satellites & Magic MIMO
• 5G and Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC)
• R&S Webinar on LTE-A Pro and evolution to 5G
• Introduction to NR-Light a.k.a. NR-Lite
• An Introduction to Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN)

Summary of #CWTEC 2019 Conference: 5G, Satellites & Magic MIMO

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.

#CWTEC is underway with a thorough breakfast briefing from @CambConsultants. What is 5G NR? What is #MassiveMIMO? How about #beamforming? Delegates get up to speed with the day’s subject area before talks kick off at 10AM. We can’t wait! pic.twitter.com/lGELOWeZk2

— Cambridge Wireless (@cambwireless) September 26, 2019

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)

Anvar Tuknanov from ⁦⁦@bt_uk⁩ showing improvement in communications capacity as technology has evolved to 5G M-MIMO. ⁦@cambwireless⁩ #CWTEC ⁦@CGI_UKNEWS⁩ #ExperienceCGI pic.twitter.com/IZXJk2n6u4

— Andrew Palmer (@AndrewPalmerCGI) September 26, 2019

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)

A fantastic technical in-depth session on Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) by Yinan Qi, Samsung. Loved it @TMGB
#CWTEC pic.twitter.com/QUpxA3wKj9

— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) September 26, 2019

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)

We loved @zahidtg’s #OpenRAN diagrams in his session at #CWTEC this afternoon. Good explanation of why OpenRAN matters and how it actually works. #5G @Parallel_tw pic.twitter.com/DTna4pC7bA

— Cambridge Wireless (@cambwireless) September 26, 2019

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)

3GPP Release - Technology
99 - UMTS (3G)
4
5 - HSDPA (3.5G)
6 - HSUPA
7 - HSPA+
8 - LTE (3.9G)
9
10 - LTA-A (4G)
11
12
13 - LTE-A Pro (4.5G)
14
15 - 5G
16
17
18 - 5.5G?
19
20
21 - 6G?#CWTEC #3G4G5Gpic.twitter.com/vQi5Dhfsno

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) October 8, 2019

And my personal highlight was that I launched World's first coloured 5G tie

Did I mention I am launching my World's First Coloured 5G Tie that caters for all different implementations of 5G 😁 #CWTEC@cambwireless @3g4gUK @Parallel_tw @3GPPLive @IBTwi @AndrewPalmerCGI @alainmouradUK pic.twitter.com/j0ebPnSxaB

— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) September 26, 2019

Hopefully you found the presentations shared as useful. Please also read the summaries of CWTEC provided below.


Related Articles:

• CW Technology & Engineering Conference Review by CW (Cambridge Wireless)
• CWTEC: 5G, Massive MIMO and Satellites by David Chambers, ThinkSmallCell
• Dean Bubley made a nice Twitter Thread on CWTEC here.
• All the information about the conference is available here.

New 3GPP Release-17 Study Item on NR-Lite (a.k.a. NR-Light)

3GPP TSG RAN#84 was held from June 3 – 6, 2019 at Newport Beach, California. Along with a lot of other interesting topics for discussion, one of the new ones for Release-17 was called NR-Lite (not 5G-lite). Here are some of the things that was being discussed for the Study item.

In RP-190831, Nokia proposed:

• NR-Lite should address new use cases with IoT-type of requirements that cannot be met by eMTC and NB-IoT:
• Higher data rate & reliability and lower latency than eMTC & NB-IoT
• Lower cost/complexity and longer battery life than NR eMBB
• Wider coverage than URLLC
• Requirements and use cases –
• Data rates up to 100 Mbps to support e.g. live video feed, visual production control, process automation
• Latency of around [10-30] ms to support e.g. remote drone operation, cooperative farm machinery, time-critical sensing and feedback, remote vehicle operation
• Module cost comparable to LTE
• Coverage enhancement of [10-15]dB compared to URLLC
• Battery life [2-4X] longer than eMBB
• Enable single network to serve all uses in industrial environment
• URLLC, MBB & positioning

The spider chart on the right shows the requirements for different categories of devices like NB-IoT, eMTC (LTE-M), NR-LITE, URLLC and eMBB.

The understanding in the industry is that over the next 5 years, a lot of 4G spectrum, in addition to 2G/3G spectrum, would have been re-farmed for 5G. By introducing NR-Lite, there would be no requirement to maintain multiple RATs. Also, NR-Lite can take advantage of 5G system architecture and features such as slicing, flow-based QoS, etc.

Qualcomm's views in RP-190844 were very similar to those of Nokia's. In their presentation, the existing 5G devices are billed as 'Premium 5G UEs' while NR-Lite devices are described as 'Low tier 5G UEs'. This category is sub-divided into Industrial sensors/video monitoring, Low-end wearables and Relaxed IoT.

The presentation provides more details on PDCCH Design, Co-existence of premium and Low Tier UEs, Peak Power and Battery Life Optimizations, Contention-Based UL for Small Data Transmission, Relaying for Wearable and Mesh for Relaxed IoT

Ericsson's presentation described NR-Lite for Industrial Sensors and Wearables in RP-191047. RP-191048 was submitted as New SID (Study Item Description) on NR-Lite for Industrial Sensors and Wearables. The SID provides the following details:

The usage scenarios that have been identified for 5G are enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communication (mMTC), and time critical machine-type communication (cMTC). In particular, mMTC and cMTC are associated with novel IoT use cases that are targeted in vertical industries. 

In the 3GPP study on “self-evaluation towards IMT-2020 submission” it was confirmed that NB IoT and LTE M fulfill the IMT-2020 requirements for mMTC and can be certified as 5G technologies. For cMTC support, URLLC was introduced in Release 15 for both LTE and NR, and NR URLLC is further enhanced in Release 16 within the enhanced URLLC (eURLLC) and Industrial IoT work items.

One important objective of 5G is to enable connected industries. 5G connectivity can serve as catalyst for next wave of industrial transformation and digitalization, which improve flexibility, enhance productivity and efficiency, and improve operational safety. The transformed, digitalized, and connected industry is often referred to as Industry 4.0. Industrial sensors and actuators are prevalently used in many industries, already today. Vast varieties of sensors and actuators are also used in automotive, transport, power grid, logistics, and manufacturing industries. They are deployed for analytics, diagnostics, monitoring, asset tracking, process control, regulatory control, supervisory control, safety control, etc. It is desirable to connect these sensors and actuators to 5G networks. 

The massive industrial wireless sensor network (IWSN) use cases and requirements described in TR 22.804, TS 22.104 and TS 22.261 do include not only cMTC services with very high requirements, but also relatively low-end services with the requirement of small device form factors, and/or being completely wireless with a battery life of several years. 

The most low-end services could already be met by NB-IoT and LTE-M but there are, excluding URLLC, more high-end services that would be challenging. In summary, many industrial sensor requirements fall in-between the well-defined performance objectives which have driven the design of eMBB, URLLC, and mMTC. Thus, many of the industrial sensors have connectivity requirements that are not yet best served by the existing 3GPP NR technology components. Some of the aforementioned requirements of IWSN use cases are also applicable to other wide-area use cases, such as wearables. For example, smart watches or heath-monitoring wearables require small device form factors and wireless operation with weeks, months, or years of battery life, while not requiring the most demanding latency or data rates. 

IWSN and wearable use cases therefore can motivate the introduction of an NR-based solution. Moreover, there are other reasons why it is motivated to introduce a native NR solution for this use case: 

• It is desired to have a unified NR based solution.
• An NR solution could provide better coexistence with NR URLLC, e.g., allowing TDD configurations with better URLLC performance than LTE.
• An NR solution could provide more efficient coexistence with NR URLLC since the same numerology (e.g., SCS) can be adopted for the mMTC part and the URLLC part.
• An NR solution addresses all IMT-2020 5G frequency bands, including higher bands and TDD bands (in FR1 and FR2).

The intention with this study item is to study a UE feature and parameter list with lower end capabilities, relative to Release 15 eMBB or URLLC NR, and identify the requirements which shall be fulfilled. E.g., requirements on UE battery life, latency, reliability, connection density, data rate, UE complexity and form factor, etc.  If not available, new potential NR features for meeting these requirements should further be studied.

There were other description of the SID from Samsung, ZTE, etc. but I am not detailing them here. The main idea is to provide an insight for people who may be curious about this feature.


Related Posts:

• 3G4G Training: Introduction to NR-Light a.k.a. NR-Lite
• The 3G4G Blog - 3GPP 5G Standardization Update post RAN#84 (July 2019)
• The 3G4G Blog - Ultra Reliability: 5x9s (99.999%) in 3GPP Release-15 vs 6x9s (99.9999%) in 3GPP Release-16
• The 3G4G Blog - 5G SpeedTests and Theoretical Max Speeds Calculations
• The 3G4G Blog - Updated 5G Terminology Presentation (Feb 2019)

Presentations from ETSI Security Week 2019 (#ETSISecurityWeek)

ETSI held their annual Security Week Seminar 17-21 June at their HQ in Sophia Antipolis, France. All the presentations are available here. Here are some I think the audience of this blog will like:

• ETSI Explainer: Overview of Quantum-Safe VPN Techniques
• ETSI Explainer: OneM2M security and Access Control (Rel.3)
• Toward a Safe Quantum Future - Michele Mosca, University of Waterloo
• Cybersecurity Challenges to Europe: Research, Policy and Standardization Effort - Fabio Di Franco, ETSI Cyber Security Landscape
• GSMA: Mobile Telecommunications Security Threat Landscape
• Hacked by Crypto - Bret Jordan, Symantec (Some good details regarding TLS, DNS, ESNI, QUIC, etc.)
• The Automotive Cyber-Threat: What the Future Will Bring Us? - Alain Baritault, iotaBEAM
• What is the Cyber Territory of a Country? - Silke Holtmanns, Nokia Bell Labs
• EU Cybersecurity Act - Martin Schaffer, SGS
• The Impact of ePrivacy Regulation to Cyber-Intelligence: Options to Consider - Ilias Chantzos, Symantec
• Applying AI to Protect 5G Control Traffic - Antonio Pastor, Telefonica I+D
• Applying AI to Detect and Hunt Advanced Attackers - Matt Walmsley, Vectra
• “Real World Adoption of AI in the Field” - Patrick Donegan, HardenStance
• 5G Providing the Secure Platform for Digitalization of Enterprises and Society - Mats Nilsson, Ericsson
• 3GPP 5G Security Vendor’s View - Marcus Wong, Futurewei Technologies (Huawei)
• 5G Security Challenges for Verticals - a Standards View - Ali Rezaki & Anja Jerichow, Nokia Bell Labs
• 5G and other stories: evolving security in an evolving world
• Challenges in Securing the IoT in a Post-Quantum World - Louis Parks, SecureRF
• SIMs, eSIMs and Secure Elements - Remy Cricco, SIMalliance
• Integrated SIMs: The next after Embedded SIM - Dr. Stephan Spitz, IAR Systems
• Deception for Continued Technical Assurance, Alex Tarter, Thales 

New abbreviation for private 5G networks - Non-Public Network (NPN) and security benefits to connected industries and automation cc @3g4gUK #EtsiSecurityWeek pic.twitter.com/Zias9e4XQ6

— Ravishankar Borgaonk (@raviborgaonkar) June 20, 2019

Looks like all presentations were not shared but the ones shared have lots of useful information.


Related Posts:

• Non-public networks (NPN) - Private Networks by another name
• 5G and IoT Security Update from ETSI Security Week 2018
• 5G Security Updates - July 2017
• Telcos: Security Is Not In Your DNA - Patrick Donegan, Principal Analyst, HardenStance

5G Network Architecture Options (Updated)

ICYMI, we created an updated video on 5G Network Architecture options. The videos and slides are embedded below.

Intermediate: 5G Network Architecture Options (Updated) from 3G4G

This updated presentation/video looks at 5G Network Architecture options that have been proposed by 3GPP for deployment of 5G. It covers the Standalone (SA) and Non-Standalone (NSA) architecture. In the NSA architecture, EN-DC (E-UTRA-NR Dual Connectivity), NGEN-DC (NG-RAN E-UTRA-NR Dual Connectivity) and NE-DC (NR-E-UTRA Dual Connectivity) has been looked at. Finally, migration strategies proposed by vendors and operators (MNOs / SPs) have been discussed.


Nokia has also released a whitepaper on this topic that I only became aware of after my slides / video were done. More details in the tweet below.

Nokia has released a whitepaper on 5G Network Deployment Options, 'Understanding the strange language of NSA vs SA and options 3, 2, 7 and 4'. Available here: https://t.co/FJEIbEuAFO - ICYMI, we also made a new tutorial on this topic: https://t.co/5QOll1Sui7 pic.twitter.com/tHjbuEfW3l

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) October 5, 2018

Related Links:

• Free 2G, 3G, 4G & 5G Training Videos
• 5G (IMT-2020) Wireless Resources
• 3GPP 5G Specifications
• Introduction to Fixed Wireless Access (FWA)
• 5G Network Architecture Options (Updated)

Tutorial on Network In a Box (NIB)

Made a short video explaining what Network In a Box is. Slides and video embedded below.

Beginners: Network In a Box (NIB) from 3G4G

MAMS (Multi Access Management Services) at MEC integrating LTE and Wi-Fi networks

Came across Multi Access Management Services (MAMS) a few times recently so here is a quick short post on the topic. At present MAMS is under review in IETF and is being supported by Nokia, Intel, Broadcom, Huawei, AT&T, KT.

I heard about MAMS for the first time at a Small Cell Forum event in Mumbai, slides are here for this particular presentation from Nokia.

As you can see from the slide above, MAMS can optimise inter-working of different access domains, particularly at the Edge. A recent presentation from Nokia (here) on this topic provides much more detailed insight.

From the presentation:

•        MAMS (Multi Access Management Services) is a framework for

-            Integrating different access network domains based on user plane (e.g. IP layer) interworking,

-            with ability to select access and core network paths independently

-            and user plane treatment based on traffic types

-            that can dynamically adapt to changing network conditions

-            based on negotiation between client and network

•        The technical content is available as the following drafts*

-            Multi Access Management Services (MAMS) Framework – https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-kanugovi-intarea-mams-framework/

-            MAMS JSON definitions of Control Plane Messages: https://www.ietf.org/id/draft-agarwal-intarea-mams-protocol-json-00.txt

-            MAMS User Plane Specification: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zhu-intarea-mams-user-protocol-02

*Currently under review, Co-authors: Nokia, Intel, Broadcom, Huawei, AT&T, KT,

The slides provide much more details, including the different use cases (pic below) for integrating LTE and Wi-Fi at the Edge.

Here are the references for anyone wishing to look at this in more detail:

• Multi Access Management Services (MAMS) Framework – https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-kanugovi-intarea-mams-framework/
• MAMS JSON definitions of Control Plane Messages: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-agarwal-intarea-mams-protocol-json-00
• MAMS User Plane Specification: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zhu-intarea-mams-user-protocol-02

Quick summary of Mobile World Congress 2018 (#MWC18)

This year at MWC, I took the time out to go and see as many companies as I can. My main focus was looking at connectivity solutions, infrastructure, devices, gadgets and anything else cool. I have to say that I wasn't too impressed. I found some of the things later on Twitter or YouTube but as it happens, one cannot see everything.

I have to be honest, haven't seen a WOW demo yet at #MWC18. While there are lots of interesting stuff, it's all the same, old and tired stuff.

— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) February 26, 2018

I will be writing a blog on Small Cells, Infrastructure, etc. later on but here are some cool videos that I have found. As its a playlist, if I find any more, it will be added to the same playlist below.



The big vendors did not open up their stands for everyone (even I couldn't get in 😉) but the good news is that most of their demos is available online. Below are the name of the companies that had official MWC 2018 websites. Will add more when I find them.

Operators

• NTT Group
• Telefonica
• Orange
• Verizon
• Deutsche Telekom

Network Equipment Vendors

• Huawei 
• Nokia
• Ericsson
• ZTE
• Samsung

Handset Manufacturers

• LG
• Huawei (see above)
• Samsung

Chipset Manufacturers

• Qualcomm
• Intel
• MediaTek

Did I miss anyone? Feel free to suggest links in comments.


MWC Summary from other Analysts:

• Mobile World Congress 2018 Event Report - ThinkSmallCell
• Mobile World Congress 2018: trends, news, announcements - Radio Electronics
• Observations from MWC 2018 - Frank Rayal
• Mobile World Congress: State of the Industry 2018 - Xona Partners
• Mobile World Congress 2018 Report: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 - CCS Insight
• MWC 2018 Roundup - Counterpoint Research

3GPP-VRIF workshop on Virtual Reality Ecosystem & Standards in 5G

Its been a year since I last posted about Augmented / Virtual Reality Requirements for 5G. The topic of Virtual Reality has since made good progress for 5G. There are 2 technical reports that is looking at VR specifically. They are:

• 3GPP TR 26.918: Virtual Reality (VR) media services over 3GPP
• 3GPP TR 26.929: QoE parameters and metrics relevant to the Virtual Reality user experience

The second one is work in progress though. 

Anyway, back in Dec. 3GPP and Virtual Reality Industry Forum (VRIF) held a workshop on VR Ecosystem & Standards. All the materials, including agenda is available here. The final report is not there yet but I assume that there will be a press release when the report is published.

While there are some interesting presentations, here is what I found interesting:

From presentation by Gordon Castle, Head of Strategy Development, Ericsson

From presentation by Martin Renschler, Senior Director Technology, Qualcomm

For anyone wanting to learn more about 6 degrees of freedom (6- DoF), see this Wikipedia entry. According to the Nokia presentation, Facebook’s marketing people call this “6DOF;” the engineers at MPEG call it “3DOF+.”

XR is 'cross reality', which is any hardware that combines aspects of AR, MR and VR; such as Google Tango.

From presentation by Devon Copley, Former Head of Product, Nokia Ozo VR Platform

Some good stuff in the pres.

From presentation by Youngkwon Lim, Samsung Research America; the presentation provided a link to a recent YouTube video on this presentation. I really liked it so I am embedding that here:



Finally, from presentation by Gilles Teniou, SA4 Vice chairman - Video SWG chairman, 3GPP

You can check and download all the presentations here.

Further Reading:

• 3GPP 5G Specifications

RRC states in 5G

Looking back at my old post about UMTS & LTE (re)selection/handovers, I wonder how many different kinds of handovers and (re)selection options may be needed now.

In another earlier post, I talked about the 5G specifications. This can also be seen in the picture above and may be easy to remember. The 25 series for UMTS mapped the same way to 36 series for LTE. Now the same mapping will be applied to 38 series for 5G. RRC specs would thus be 38.331.

A simple comparison of 5G and LTE RRC states can be seen in the picture above. As can be seen, a new state 'RRC Inactive' has been introduced. The main aim is to maintain the RRC connection while at the same time minimize signalling and power consumption.

Looking at the RRC specs you can see how 5G RRC states will work with 4G RRC states. There are still for further studies (FFS) items. Hopefully we will get more details soon.

3GPP TS 22.261, Service requirements for the 5G system; Stage 1 suggests the following with regards to inter-working with 2G & 3G

5.1.2.2 Legacy service support
The 5G system shall support all EPS capabilities (e.g., from TSs 22.011, 22.101, 22.278, 22.185, 22.071, 22.115, 22.153, 22.173) with the following exceptions:
- CS voice service continuity and/or fallback to GERAN or UTRAN,
- seamless handover between NG-RAN and GERAN,
- seamless handover between NG-RAN and UTRAN, and
- access to a 5G core network via GERAN or UTRAN.

Nokia Bell Labs - Future Impossible Series Videos

Picture Source: Cnet

Bell Labs, which has played a significant role in telecoms history and has a very glorious list of achievements created a collection of short films highlighting the brilliant minds who created the invisible nervous system of our society. Some of you may be aware that Bell Labs is now a part of Nokia but was previously part of Alcatel-Lucent, Lucent and AT&T before that.

The playlist with 5 videos is embedded below and short details of the videos follows that.


Video 1: Introduction

Introducing 'Future Impossible', a collection of short films highlighting the brilliant minds who created the invisible nervous system of our society, a fantastic intelligent network of wires and cables undergirding and infiltrating every aspect of modern life.


Video 2: The Shannon Limit

In 1948, father of communications theory Claude Shannon developed the law that dictated just how much information could ever be communicated down any path, anywhere, using any technology. The maximum rate of this transmission would come to be known as the Shannon Limit.  Researchers have spent the following decades trying to achieve this limit and to try to go beyond it.


Video 3: The Many Lives of Copper

In the rush to find the next generation of optical communications, much of our attention has moved away from that old standby, copper cabling. But we already have miles and miles of the stuff under our feet and over our heads. What if instead of laying down new optical fiber cable everywhere, we could figure out a way to breathe new life into copper and drive the digital future that way?


Video 4: The Network of You

In the future, every human will be connected to every other human on the planet by a wireless network. But that’s just the beginning. 

Soon the stuff of modern life will all be part of the network, and it will unlock infinite opportunities for new ways of talking, making and being. The network will be our sixth sense, connecting us to our digital lives. In this film, we ponder that existence and how it is enabled by inventions and technologies developed over the past 30 years, and the innovations that still lie ahead of us.


Video 5: Story of Light

When Alexander Graham Bell discovered that sound could be carried by light, he never could have imagined the millions of written text and audio and video communications that would one day be transmitted around the world every second on a single strand of fiber with the dimensions of a human hair.

Follow the journey of a single text message zipping around the globe at the speed of light, then meet the researchers that have taken up Bell’s charge.


For anyone interested, Wikipedia has a good detailed info on Bell Labs history here.

Connecting Rural Scotland using Airmasts and Droneways

This week EE has finally done a press release on what they term as Airmasts (see my blog post here). Back in Nov. last year, Mansoor Hanif, Director of Converged Networks and Innovation BT/EE gave an excellent presentation on connecting rural Scottish Islands using Airmasts and Droneways at the Facebook TIP Summit. Embedded below are the slides and video from that talk.

Driving Connectivity in the Scottish Islands: Droneways and Airmasts from 3G4G

In other related news, AT&T is showing flying COWs (Cell On Wheels) that can transmit LTE signals

Their innovation blog says:

It is designed to beam LTE coverage from the sky to customers on the ground during disasters or big events.
...
Here’s how it works. The drone we tested carries a small cell and antennas. It’s connected to the ground by a thin tether. The tether between the drone and the ground provides a highly secure data connection via fiber and supplies power to the Flying COW, which allows for unlimited flight time.  The Flying COW then uses satellite to transport texts, calls, and data. The Flying COW can operate in extremely remote areas and where wired or wireless infrastructure is not immediately available. Like any drone that we deploy, pilots will monitor and operate the device during use.

Once airborne, the Flying COW provides LTE coverage from the sky to a designated area on the ground.  

Compared to a traditional COW, in certain circumstances, a Flying COW can be easier to deploy due to its small size. We expect it to provide coverage to a larger footprint because it can potentially fly at altitudes over 300 feet— about 500% higher than a traditional COW mast.  

Once operational, the Flying COW could eventually provide coverage to an area up to 40 square miles—about the size of a 100 football fields. We may also deploy multiple Flying COWs to expand the coverage footprint.

Nokia on the other hand has also been showcasing drones and LTE connectivity for public safety at D4G Award event in Dubai

Nokia's Ultra Compact Network provides a standalone LTE network to quickly re-establish connectivity to various mission-critical applications including video-equipped drones. Drones can stream video and other sensor data in real time from the disaster site to a control center, providing inputs such as exact locations where people are stranded and nature of the difficulty of reaching the locations.

Related Posts:

• Flying Small Cells are here...
• Facebook's Attempt to Connect the Unconnected
• An Update from the TIP Summit
• Drone cells are becoming a reality
• When COWs Fly: AT&T Sending LTE Signals from Drones
• Nokia demos drones with LTE connection to conduct rescue operations