Some interesting April Fools' Day 2019 Technology Jokes

This year April Fools' Day wasn't as fun as the last one, even though it was on Monday. Many tech companies that make effort didn't make one this year. In fact Microsoft went even further and banned any public facing April Fools' pranks. Anyway, here are some of the jokes that I found interesting.

Parallel Wireless 7G Vision
This one was important for me as it features me (Yay!) and also enhanced my video editing skills. Grateful to CW (Cambridge Wireless) for being part of it too.

Parallel Wireless would today like to announces our 7G Vision (#7GVision) - https://t.co/Ffj63NX5F3 - Cambridge Wireless (@cambwireless) will form new Special Interest Group (SIG) to support the 7G Vision with @zahidtg joining the team too. pic.twitter.com/puz3cOoOGn

— Parallel Wireless (@Parallel_tw) April 1, 2019

Video is slightly long but funny hopefully



In short, the focus for the next few years will be do design a 7G logo that can explain the vision and connect with people. Did I mention 7GPPPPP?

"#7G Public Private Political Polling Partnership (7GPPPPP) with many different companies and organizations has also been formed to work on this vision."

Well played @Parallel_tw @cambwireless! ;)#AprilFools https://t.co/Lhxqk2Eifq

— Emanuel Kolta (@EmanuelKolta) April 1, 2019

Google Sssnakes on a map

Google temporarily added a version of the classic game Snakes into its Google Maps app for April Fools’ Day this year.

The company says that the game is rolling out now to iOS and Android users globally today, and that it’ll remain on the app for the rest of the week. It also launched a standalone site to play the game if you don’t have the app.

Jabra Ear bud(dy)

World’s first shared headphone - engineered for shared music moments. The website says:

The headphones come with an ultra-light headband that extends seamlessly to accommodate the perfect fit for every pair of buddies, so you’ll never have to enjoy another music moment alone. The Jabra Earbud(dy)™ comes with a unique Buddy mode that promises a shared music experience that is tailored to suit each person’s preferences. Fans of voice command will be thrilled to know that with just one touch, the Jabra Earbud(dy)™ can connect to dual voice assistant.


T-Mobile Phone BoothE

T-Mobile USA and their CEO John Legere never disappoints. They always come up with something interesting. Here is a video of the prank


From MacRumours:

T-Mobile is again fighting one of the so-called pain points of the wireless industry with the launch of the Phone BoothE, a completely sound-proof and high-tech phone booth that lets T-Mobile customers escape from noisy areas to make their phone calls. Inside the Phone BoothE you can charge your devices, connect to a smart screen called "Magenta Pages" to mirror your smartphone display, and adjust the lighting to take great selfies.

In regards to the name, T-Mobile is taking a shot at AT&T's misleading 5GE label: "The Phone BoothE is an evolution towards the new world of mobility. Like many in the tech and wireless industry today, we decided that by adding an "E" to the name, you would know it's a real technology evolution." 

Although this is an April Fools' Day joke, T-Mobile has actually built the Phone BoothE and deployed them in select locations around New York City, Seattle, and Washington, DC, where anyone will be able to use them. The company on Monday also revealed the T-Mobile Phone BoothE Mobile EditionE, which is more in line with a straightforward April Fools' Day hoax, as it's "literally a magenta cardboard box with a hole in it." 

While the actual site disappeared after April 1, the archived version can be seen here.

X-Ray vision Nokia 9 PureView

UPDATE: Getting ready for go-live! pic.twitter.com/ijsAXz8QhG

— Juho Sarvikas (@sarvikas) April 1, 2019

The Nokia 9 PureView has plenty of cameras on its back, but did you know that the black sensor isn’t a 3D ToF camera but rather an X-Ray sensor? Can be unlocked with the new Nokia X-Ray app in Play Store


"Digi-U" from Ericsson Digital

We announce a new innovation from our @EricssonDigital team - a Digi-ize yourself app called: "Digi-U". This app is available for download to your smart phone and within 10 minutes you will have transformed yourself into a mini-me hologram.

For more: #HappyAprilFoolsDay :-) pic.twitter.com/iCDiU1lHhj

— Ericsson Digital (@EricssonDigital) April 1, 2019

Parallel Wireless Adds AMPS (1G) Capabilities to Their Unified ALL G Architecture

From the press release:

Worlds First Fully Virtualized AMPS (vAMPS) to enable Modernization and Cost Savings

Parallel Wireless vAMPS is compatible with: Total Access Communications Systems (TACS) in the U.K.; Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) System in Scandinavia; C450 in Germany; and NTT System in Japan, among others, and will allow global operators to modernize their 1G infrastructure. The 1G vAMPS solution is also software upgradable to vD-AMPS, for operators who wish to follow that path.

Truphone foldable SIM (F-SIM) for Foldable Smartphones

From Truphone website:

F-SIM – the foldable SIM – designed especially for the new foldable smartphones and tablets demonstrated at this February’s MWC Barcelona, including Huawei’s Mate X and Samsung’s Galaxy Fold.

Widely tipped as the next generation in SIM technology, the foldable SIM works on minute hinges that allow it to fold smaller than any previous SIM form factor. Made specifically for foldable phones and other devices, Truphone’s latest innovation fulfils on its broader brand promise to engineer better connections between things, people and business—anywhere in the world.

The F-SIM comes in ‘steel grey’ and, for only £5 more, ‘hot pink’. Pricing structures vary depending on data, storage, roaming charges and device model.


Google Screen Cleaner in the Files app




Mother of All USB-C Hubs for Apple Macbook - HyperDrive Ultimate Ultimate Hub

The Mother of All USB-C Hubs for Apple Macbook - HyperDrive Ultimate Hub with built-in battery, speaker, 3.5" floppy disk drive, parallel, serial, PS/2, AT ports & 40 other ports from @Hyper - https://t.co/KpbZflRDcY #AprilFoolsDay #AprilFools2019 #AprilFools pic.twitter.com/xLIGXLcr8G

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) April 2, 2019

Other funny April Fools jokes:

• Captain Marvel Universal Pager
• Polite Car Horn from Honda Canada
• Duolingo Push
• Shutterstock Announces Plans to Build World’s Largest Brick-and-Mortar Library
• Parody Apple Ad: "The Sound Gardener"
• Audible for Fish
• Logitech Hamsters
• Nissin/HyperX Limited Edition Cup Noodle Headphones
• Roku Press Paws Remote for Pets
• OnePlus Warp Car - Los Angeles to Las Vegas on a single 20 minute charge
• Google Tulip: Decoding the language of flowers
• Introducing Waymo Pet - a self-driving service for pets
• Nvidia R.O.N.: The world's first AI powered virtual gaming assistant.

One of the funniest jokes is Qualcomm's HandSolo that was released back in 1998. You may enjoy watching here.

Related posts:

• Some interesting April Fools' Day 2018 Technology Jokes
• Some interesting April Fools' Day 2017 Technology Jokes
• Some interesting April Fools' Day 2016 Technology Jokes
• Some interesting April Fools' Day 2015 Technology Jokes
• Some interesting April Fools' Day 2014 Technology Jokes

Drones at Mobile World Congress 2019 and my upcoming webinar on 5G at #MWC19

Mobile World Congress featured many different drones for many different purposes and applications. While I wouldn't claim to have seen all or even most of them, I managed to go to the GSMA seminar 'The Internet of the Skies – Connecting Drones'. Key topics of the seminar included:

• The support of safe BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line Of Sight) and autonomous operation of unmanned aircraft (UA)
• The use of mobile connectivity to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of UA, by enabling BVLOS operation, supporting real-time data transmissions from on-board cameras and sensors
• Mobile connectivity requirements for registration and identification, flight planning and approval, the transmission of meteorological information, geo-fencing, geo-caging and tracking

The best thing is that the presentations are available for anyone interested. Link at the bottom of this post. I have embedded some videos from the seminar in the playlist as well.

Interesting to hear about @TelefonicaIoT Antifire drones here at #MWC19 - can help with couple of UN SDG's pic.twitter.com/8J1Ps0ttTl

— Parallel Wireless (@Parallel_tw) February 26, 2019

During the seminar, Telefônica talked about their fire fighting Antifire drones which are helping detect, survey and combat fires before, during and after a fire breaks out.

Turkcell talked about their Dronecell. The 5G connected drone can be used for many different purposes from inspection, photos and videos to providing temporary coverage in case of disasters. One of the interesting use cases was also surveillance (see video). They are also working with a local drone company, see here. For Dronecell they are testing with different vendors like Huawei, Airspan, etc. and also have their own hardware (see pic above).

More drone innovation at #MWC19 from @mansLMT - like the tagline, endless opportunities 👍 pic.twitter.com/7UWMS9fDWP

— Parallel Wireless (@Parallel_tw) February 26, 2019

The Latvian mobile operator Mans LMT talked about how Drones in combination with Sensors and AI can provide endless opportunities. In addition drones can also be used for delivering goods and rescue missions. Finally, LMT with Lufthansa Systems are working on a mobile, connected UTM platform for drone solutions and traffic management (see video below).

A perfect start to second day of #MWC19, bumping into our old colleague Rob Joyce at @ooredoo stand and then getting a virtual ride in 5G aerial taxi. Loved it! pic.twitter.com/GSKyF5Day7

— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) February 26, 2019

In addition enjoyed a virtual ride in Ooredoo’s 5G-enabled Aerial Taxi. Also happened to bump into Robert Joyce who used to work for Telefonica O2 UK and used to be very active in O2's small cells rollout during 2012 London Olympics. See here, here & here.

Huawei showed SkySite: A Drone with 5G base station & '5G Book' RRU. I blogged about it here.

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) had a drone flight simulator. I didn't see it but tweet below

Vu au #MWC2019 #MWC19 : simulateur de vol en drone #funny #Barcelona pic.twitter.com/OBz1YOmRUz

— bertrand mocquet (@BertrandMocquet) February 28, 2019

There were 10 Catalonian companies showing smart drones. Tweet below

Èxit d’assistència a l’estand Catalonia Smart Drones durant el #MWC19. Hi van participar 10 empreses i entitats del sector #UAV català i una representació dels @mossos i d'@agentsruralscat. https://t.co/drw6pnnkuE pic.twitter.com/uH4ZUl8y9D

— Catalonia Smart Drones (@CataloniaDrones) March 5, 2019

Finally, Samsung Electronics, Cisco and Orange unveiled "A Drone carrying a very low latency, high-quality video system is piloted from the Orange booth at the Fira de Barcelona. The drone, which is located outdoors at an Orange datacenter, carries a 5G router (CPE) that is used to transfer commands to the drone and transmit a high-quality video feed with low latency. At the Orange booth, the pilot can be seen controlling the drone by using a 5G tablet. Aeromedia, a leading drone operator, collaborated in this demo." Sadly, I didn't manage to find this and couldn't see any videos either.


Here is a video playlist of Drones from MWC.

I am also running a webinar next week looking at 5G @ MWC 2019 on behalf of Parallel Wireless (#PWTechTrain) . Along with drones, I plan to talk about lot more things. Register here.


Presentations from "MWC19 Barcelona Seminar: The Internet of the Skies – Connecting Drones" available here.

GSMA IoT contains good amount of information on drones. Link.


Related Posts:

• Drones, More Drones & Droneway
• Drone cells are becoming a reality
• Flying Small Cells are here...
• Turkcell Marks a 'First in the World in 5G' with Domestic Drone Technology
• Macrocells, Small Cells & Hetnets Tutorial

Ultra Reliability: 5x9s (99.999%) in 3GPP Release-15 vs 6x9s (99.9999%) in 3GPP Release-16

We made a tutorial some time back explaining how to calculate reliability and what is the difference between 5x9s in 3GPP Release-15 5G vs 6x9s in 3GPP Release-16. Slides and video below

Beginners: Reliability - 5x9s vs 6x9s from 3G4G

Related posts:

• Updated 5G Terminology Presentation (Feb 2019)
• Prof. Andy Sutton: 5G Radio Access Network Architecture Evolution - Jan 2019
• Theoretical Throughput Calculation of FDD 5G New Radio (NR)
• Can Augmented & Mixed Reality be the Killer App 5G needs?
• What is Industrial IoT (IIoT) and how is it different from IoT?

What is Industrial IoT (IIoT) and how is it different from IoT?

We made a tutorial some time back looking at how IIoT is different from IoT using some examples. Slides and video embedded below

Beginners: What is Industrial IoT (IIoT) from 3G4G

Related Links:

• 3G4G: Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-2-Machine (M2M)
• The 3G4G Blog: M2M vs IoT
• The 3G4G Blog: Bluetooth 5 for IoT
• The 3G4G Blog: 5G New Radio Standards and other Presentations
• The 3G4G Blog: ITU-NGMN Joint Conference on “Licensing practices in 5G industry segments"
• The 3G4G Blog: The business case of densifying LoRaWAN deployments

Update on UK's Emergency Services Network (ESN) from #BAPCO2019

I have discussed about the UK's Emergency Services Network (ESN) multiple times but I manged to hear about the progress first hand this week. Bryan Clark, ESN Programme Director, Home Office gave a keynote address at BAPCO on Day 2 and the title of his presentation was "2019: The year vision becomes reality"

British APCO or BAPCO Annual Conference and Exhibition 2019 was going to be a big launchpad for the ESN network. The ESN LinkedIn post said "Representatives from ESN and EE will be on hand to discuss coverage and ESN Assure. See an installation of the ESN Gateway solution within a police car, plus a live demonstration showing how ESN coverage can be extended from a vehicle into a building. We’ll also have a ‘Motorola Zone’ where you can watch demos of Kodiak and the ESN self-service portal – and a large touchscreen demo of the Samsung ESN Galaxy"

Bryan started by cracking a joke about people referring to 'ESN' as 'ES When' programme because it has been delayed multiple times. He said straight in the beginning that he going to talk about what the ESN programme is doing now and what comes next.

He started with this short video, embedded below but detailed info available on this LinkedIn post

x

So here is a short summary of the talk:

• There are roughly 350,000 customers of this service
• There are 137 separate organizations that will take advantage of this new this new technology. 
• There are couple of vehicles in the display area (pic on the top and video below) and roughly 50,000 vehicles that need to have a kit
• Over 100 aircraft need to have an air network access that currently isn't there. 
• There are nearly 30 direct suppliers to the program and that doesn't include the whole supply chain through each of those suppliers.
• Looking at the coverage, there is a commitment to providing a signal along half a million (0.5 million) kilometers of roads in England, Scotland & Wales. It extends 12 nautical miles out to sea and 10,000 feet in the air right across England, Scotland & Wales.
• In London alone there are over 400 kilometres of tunnels that were actually almost finished cabling out.
• 300 masts are being built as part of the ESN programme to extend services into remote areas.
• EE has extended their network by adding 700 additional masts. 
• Thousands of special locations will need to have effective access to ESN network
• ESN is a large programme so it's hardly surprising that it's very late. It's Bryan's job over the past 10 months to work out how to get it back on track. 
• People are going through quite a detailed review of where ESN has got to in terms of next steps. 
• The programme now has a very clear and approved plan to complete the technical element of the work, most of it should be done by late summer next year.
• One of the first products, Assure, is a way of testing the effectiveness of the network in the field. 
• A demonstration of Push-To-Talk (PTT) on a 4G network will be demoed within 3 weeks.
• This is the first generation end-to-end solution
• Emergency services is critical national infrastructure so any new solution can only replace the legacy once we are absolutely confident that we've got an effective replacement
• Even though the technical piece is quite challenging, when you compare it to the business change that follows, the technical part looks pretty simple. 
• To ensure that everything works effectively operationally, plans are in place but more detailed plans are going to follow in the coming three to four months.
• Individual components are already being tested in the field
• Programme deployment should start by the end of 2019 in terms of having basically completed laying the core components and a clear plan will be in place for how to test in an operational context. 
• The ESN programme is not only responsible for the replacement solution but also for operations to date based on the Airwave contract with Motorola currently
• The number one priority is to provide critical voice communications of sufficient quality that people can rely on in the field and enable them to move away from the TETRA technology that served them so well. So we aren't going anywhere until we've got rock solid critical voice communications. It's our number one priority, simply because people's lives depend on it.

The following are various videos from the ESN demo area. The Gateway device (which is a mobile small cell) is supplied by Parallel Wireless*.



In case you missed BAPCO, Ken Rehbehn, a very well known Industry Analyst who works as a Principal Analyst at Critical Communications Insights and is also Montgomery County Firefighter/EMT, shared his observations and reflections from conference. Very grateful for his interview which is embedded below



Further Reading:

• Building a new critical communications network that keeps you safe - Bryan Clark, Programme Director, Emergency Services Network

Related posts:

• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: Meshing for BYOC (Bring Your Own Coverage)
• The 3G4G Blog: Quick tutorial on Mobile Network Sharing Options
• The 3G4G Blog: A practical use of MOCN in ESN
• The 3G4G Blog: EE's vision of Ultra-Reliable Emergency Network
• The 3G4G Blog: Update from 3GPP on LTE & 5G Mission Critical Communications

*Full Disclosure: I work for Parallel Wireless as a Senior Director in Strategic Marketing. This blog is maintained in my personal capacity and expresses my own views, not the views of my employer or anyone else. Anyone who knows me well would know this.

A Primer on Pagers

After Avengers clip about Nick Fury paging Captain Marvel, I was asked by a few people about what, why and how of Pagers. Similar questions were asked when Tron: Legacy was released. It took me a while but finally managed to make a non-technical introduction on Pagers for people with very basic understanding of technology.

Slides

Beginners: Pagers - How and Why from 3G4G

Video


If you used pagers in past, tell me about the good, the bad and the ugly of pagers.

Updated 5G Terminology Presentation (Feb 2019)

I made this video before MWC with the intention to educate the attendees about the various architecture options and 5G terminologies being discussed. As always, happy to get feedback on what can be done better. Slides followed by video below.

Beginners: 5G Terminology (Updated - Feb 2019) from 3G4G

Complete list of our training resources are available on 3G4G page here.

Prof. Andy Sutton: 5G Radio Access Network Architecture Evolution - Jan 2019

Prof. Andy Sutton delivered his annual IET talk last month which was held the 6th Annual 5G conference. You can watch the videos for that event here (not all have been uploaded at the time of writing this post). His talks have always been very popular on this blog with the last year talk being 2nd most popular while the one in 2017 was the most popular one. Thanks also to IET for hosting this annual event and IET Tv for making this videos available for free.

The slides and video is embedded below but for new starters, before jumping to this, you may want to check out about 5G Network Architecture options in our tutorial here.

Prof. Andy Sutton: 5G RAN Architecture Evolution - Jan 2019 from 3G4G

As always, this is full of useful information with insight into how BT/EE is thinking about deploying 5G in UK.

Related Posts:

• Dr. Yue Wang: AI in 5G – the why and how - The 3G4G Blog
• CWHeritage Talk by Prof. Andy Sutton: The history of synchronisation in digital cellular networks - The 3G4G Blog
• Prof. Andy Sutton: 5G Network Architecture, Design and Optimisation - Jan 2018 - The 3G4G Blog
• 5G Network Architecture Options (Updated) - The 3G4G Blog
• 5G (IMT-2020) Wireless Resources - 3G4G Homepage

Theoretical Throughput Calculation of FDD 5G New Radio (NR)

A nice video by Peter Clarke on 5G NR throughput calculation for FDD. Right now it's only in the video form but will hopefully be available as a tool on his excellent website here. A tool for 4G throughput calculation is available here.




Related Links:

• 5G SpeedTests and Theoretical Max Speeds Calculations
• Understanding the 5G NR Physical Layer
• 5G (IMT-2020) Wireless Resources

A quick tutorial on Open RAN, vRAN & White Box RAN

I made a short tutorial based on my understanding of Open RAN, Virtualised RAN and WhiteBox RAN. Slides and video embedded below.

Beginners: Open RAN, White Box RAN & vRAN from 3G4G

Related Posts:

• The 3G4G Blog: Open RAN Explanation, Videos, White papers and Other Resources
• The 3G4G Blog: O-RAN Introduction for Beginners
• 3G4G: Open RAN, OpenRAN and O-RAN 

Robots in Telecoms World - A presentation from #CWFDT event on 'Robots: Assistance, Automation, Entertainment'

Another of the CW (Cambridge Wireless) Future Devices & Technologies (#CWFDT) event 'Robots: Assistance, Automation, Entertainment' happened a few weeks back. I had helped arrange the event and as always when a speaker dropped out at the last minute, I prepared a short talk on what role Robots play in the telecoms world. More later.

Robots have been part of human imagination for decades for example they feature heavily in popular culture and we typically have a favourite robot character. My favourite was 'Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot'. Even though it was made in 1967, I saw it only in 1986.

The anticipated future impact of Robots is widely discussed. Their potential use in military operations may well change the face of future warfare, whilst in civilian life, industrial and domestic, it is speculated how they will both be our assistants and our replacements.

The intention of the event was to reflect on the challenges of lives transformed by new human-robot relationships.

While we had interesting talks and I think we succeeded in achieving what we set out to, not all speakers shared their presentations but you can see the ones available here.

My talk along with the videos is embedded below. If you prefer to hear my talk as it was, it's on YouTube here.

Robots in Telecoms World from 3G4G

A twitter moment with some of the tweets from the day is embedded below:


Robots: Assistance, Automation, Entertainment


Related Post:

• Short summary of #CWFDT event 'Smart Devices of 2025'
• Twitter Thread on Robots

Telefonica, Mayutel, Facebook & Parallel Wireless: Connecting the Unconnected in Peru (#InternetParaTodos)

Back in summer I wrote about how Telefonica and Parallel Wireless(*) are on a mission to connect 100 Million Unconnected and then followed it by a blog post with information from Patrick Lopez, VP Networks Innovation @ Telefonica about how Telefonica is using Big Data, Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Connect the Unconnected.

In the Facebook TIP Summit last month, Roger Greene, Rural Access Lead, Connectivity Ecosystem Programs, Facebook talked to Juan Campillo, Internet Para Todos Lead, Telefónica & Omar Tupayachi, Founder & CEO, Mayutel about how they are connecting the unconnected. The discussion embedded below, starts with a very nice video about how connectivity is making a difference in Peru. In fact that video inspired me to do this post 😊.

Mayutel was described as Peru's first rural operator. It was founded in 2015 and works in over 150 areas. It has 25 employees.

During the discussion some interesting points were discussed like planning, the reason its important is that if you dont do proper planning and analytics, you can use small cells instead of macros and vice versa. Also, some solutions are worth trying in the field as its only when deployed, it can be tested in real-world scenarios.

Connectivity is very important for the rural people in Peru, like every other country. Approximately 4 million Peruvians have only got access to 2G technology. It would help if they have access to have 3G & 4G too. It not only helps connect the people on the move to their loved ones back home, it also helps small businesses who reply on messaging group communications to solve their issues and ask for help & advice.

Due to the Open RAN approach, the cost of deployment has reduced by 50-70%. Mayutel mentioned that they were able to deploy a site at 1/10th the cost it would normally take. This was all thanks to the open approach where their engineers can learn how to deploy the complete solution. It was vital to use local help not only in terms of knowledge but also in terms of manpower.

There were some good lessons and learning but in the end for this to scale more operators need to become part of the Telecom Infra Project and make this successfully happen.




Here is another video from Parallel Wireless on their deployments in Peru.




All videos from TIP Summit 2018 are available here.

Related Posts:

• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: Ultimate Guide to the Telecom Infra Project (TIP)
• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: Internet para todos: Telefonica and Parallel Wireless on a mission to connect 100 Million Unconnected
• The 3G4G Blog: Telefonica: Big Data, Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Connect the Unconnected
• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: Rural Small Cells: An end user story

*Full Disclosure: I work for Parallel Wireless as a Senior Director in Strategic Marketing. This blog is maintained in my personal capacity and expresses my own views, not the views of my employer or anyone else. Anyone who knows me well would know this.

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)

Automated 4G / 5G HetNet Design

I recently heard Iris Barcia, COO of Keima speak after nearly 6 years at Cambridge Wireless CWTEC 2018. The last time I heard her, it was part of CW Small Cells SIG, where I used to be a SIG (special interest group) champion. Over the last 6 years, the network planning needs have changed from planning for coverage to planning for capacity from the beginning. This particular point started a little debate that I will cover in another post, but you can sneak a peek here 😉.

Embedded below is the video and presentation. The slides can be downloaded from SlideShare.

Automated HetNet Design from 3G4G

Related posts:

• Twitter et al. for Small Cell Planning
• Radio Challenges and Opportunities for Large Scale Small Cell Deployments
• Summary of Cambridge Wireless Event on Small Cells, 3rd Oct. 2012
• Introduction to Fixed Wireless Access (FWA)
• 5G Network Architecture Options (Updated)

Telefonica: Big Data, Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Connect the Unconnected

Earlier, I wrote a detailed post on how Telefonica was on a mission to connect 100 Million Unconnected with their 'Internet para todos' initiative. This video below is a good advert of what Telefinica is trying to achieve in Latin America


I recently came across a LinkedIn post on how Telefónica uses AI / ML to connect the unconnected by Patrick Lopez, VP Networks Innovation @ Telefonica. It was no brainer that this needs to be shared.

Big data for social good from Patrick Lopez

In his post, Patrick mentions the following:

To deliver internet in these environments in a sustainable manner, it is necessary to increase efficiency through systematic cost reduction, investment optimization and targeted deployments.

Systematic optimization necessitates continuous measurement of the financial, operational, technological and organizational data sets.

1. Finding the unconnected

The first challenge the team had to tackle was to understand how many unconnected there are and where. The data set was scarce and incomplete, census was old and population had much mobility. In this case, the team used high definition satellite imagery at the scale of the country and used neural network models, coupled with census data as training. Implementing visual machine learning algorithms, the model literally counted each house and each settlement at the scale of the country. The model was then enriched with crossed reference coverage data from regulatory source, as well as Telefonica proprietary data set consisting of geolocalized data sessions and deployment maps. The result is a model with a visual representation, providing a map of the population dispersion, with superimposed coverage polygons, allowing to count and localize the unconnected populations with good accuracy (95% of the population with less than 3% false positive and less than 240 meters deviation in the location of antennas).


2. Optimizing transport

Transport networks are the most expensive part of deploying connectivity to remote areas. Optimizing transport route has a huge impact on the sustainability of a network. This is why the team selected this task as the next challenge to tackle.

The team started with adding road and infrastructure data to the model form public sources, and used graph generation to cluster population settlements. Graph analysis (shortest path, Steiner tree) yielded population density-optimized transport routes.


3. AI to optimize network operations

To connect very remote zones, optimizing operations and minimizing maintenance and upgrade is key to a sustainable operational model. This line of work is probably the most ambitious for the team. When it can take 3 hours by plane and 4 days by boat to reach some locations, being able to make sure you can detect, or better, predict if / when you need to perform maintenance on your infrastructure. Equally important is how your devise your routes so that you are as efficient as possible. In this case, the team built a neural network trained with historical failure analysis and fed with network metrics to provide a model capable of supervising the network health in an automated manner, with prediction of possible failure and optimized maintenance route.

I think that the type of data driven approach to complex problem solving demonstrated in this project is the key to network operators' sustainability in the future. It is not only a rural problem, it is necessary to increase efficiency and optimize deployment and operations to keep decreasing the costs.


Finally, its worth mentioning again that I am helping CW (Cambridge Wireless) organise their annual CW TEC conference on the topic 'The inevitable automation of Next Generation Networks'. There are some good speakers and we will have similar topics covered from different angles, using some other interesting approaches. The fees are very reasonable so please join if you can.

Related posts:

• Internet para todos: Telefonica and Parallel Wireless on a mission to connect 100 Million Unconnected
• Automating the 5G Core using Machine Learning and Data Analytics
• ITU 'Network 2030': Initiative to support Emerging Technologies and Innovation looking beyond 5G advances
• Artificial Intelligence - Beyond SON for Autonomous Networks
• Twitter et al. for Small Cell Planning

An Introduction to ONF and CORD (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter)

Continuing on the theme of Open Source from last week's post from Telefonica, lets look at the CORD by ONF.

The CORD (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter) platform leverages SDN, NFV and Cloud technologies to build agile datacenters for the network edge. Integrating multiple open source projects, CORD delivers a cloud-native, open, programmable, agile platform for network operators to create innovative services.

CORD provides a complete integrated platform, integrating everything needed to create a complete operational edge datacenter with built-in service capabilities, all built on commodity hardware using the latest in cloud-native design principles.



The video above from MWC 2018 is a very short summary of what ONF and CORD is. The video below from OCP Telecom Workshop at the Big Communications Event (BCE) on May 14th, 2018 in Austin, Texas looks at CORD in detail.



Related Post:

• Telefonica and open source

Short summary of #CWFDT event 'Smart Devices of 2025'

Last month, just before the Easter break, I along with some other SIG champions of the Future Devices & Technologies group at CW (Cambridge Wireless) organised an event titled 'Smart Devices of 2025'. Technologies are moving at such an amazing speed that it is not easy to foresee anything beyond 6-8 years. Hence 2025, 7 years from now.

Introduction to CW Future Devices & Technologies Group (#CWFDT) from 3G4G

As this was the inaugural event for the revamped SIG, the slides above are my quick introduction to the SIG. We not only talked about the future but we had some nice futuristic devices too. The nuFood 3D Food Printer by Dovetailed printed out some fancy toppings that could go on cheesecake and on other food, making it more appetising. Here is the video on how it works.



All the talks were very informative and very well explained. Its amazing how all of them came together to form a complete picture. The talks are all available here (limited time for non-CW members)

The starting talk by David Wood (@dw2), chair of London Futurists was not only informative and relevant to the subject being discussed but equally entertaining, especially for those who have been in the mobile industry for a long time. He has kindly agreed for me to share his slides which are embedded below.

Scenarios for Smart Devices in 2025: Brave New Smartphone and/or Black Mirror? from 3G4G

David talks about NBIC (slide 18) and how it could be combined with Social-tech and Planetary-tech in future to do a lot more than what we can do with it today. While David explains NBIC in his slides, I found this short video on this topic that I think is worth embedding.



It was also good to hear Dr Jenny Tillotson again after a long time. I blogged about smell transmission some 6 years back here. This is something that is still work in progress and probably will be ready by 2025. In the meantime 'Context-Driven Fragrances' can be used for variety of purposes from entertainment to health.

A fantastic talk from @scentsory on Context-Driven Fragrances #CWFDT pic.twitter.com/RoSTMiUqYz

— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) March 27, 2018

Finally, here is another small presentation (with embedded video) on Telepresence Robots that I did.

Telepresence Robots from 3G4G

Related posts:

• Have Wearables Found Their True Killer App? - Nitin Dahad, EE Times European correspondent
• Smart Devices of 2025 - Howard Read, Associate, Appleyard Lees

Some interesting April Fools' Day 2018 Technology Jokes

This year April Fools' Day wasn't as fun as the last one. Couple of reasons being that it was on a Sunday and it coincided with Easter Sunday. Here are some of the jokes that I found interesting.

Sprint's Magic Ball:

It was good to see that the US mobile operator joined the party this year. Their magicball (based on their highly successful Magic Box) advert was really good. Here is the video:



Good to see that they managed to squeeze in references to 5G and small cells

Official site: http://newsroom.sprint.com/sprint-magic-ball.htm


T-Mobile Sidekicks Re-booted:

T-Mobile USA has consistently come up with the best tech pranks. Last year they had the OneSie with Human HotSpot and BingeOnUp the year before. This year the re-booted sidekicks was the joke of the day. The video is embedded below. As the description says, T-Mobile’s Sidekick gets a remake! Inspired by the past but stepping boldly into the future, it has revolutionary AI, headphones that double as chargers, personalized GPS guidance by John Legere, and more!



Official site: https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/sidekicks


The Chegg Osmosis Pillow:

"A top-secret team of Chegg engineers from Zurich spent two years developing a new patent-pending revolutionary proprietary method of making memory foam using special blends of matcha and lavender. Thanks to their discoveries, Chegg’s memory foam actually improves your memory. Got a final exam tomorrow? Sleep on it. Got a lab report due? Sleep on it. Need to outline your entire thesis? Sleep on it."

Official Website: https://www.chegg.com/play/memory-foam-pillow/


Pindrop TonguePrinting:

"Tongueprinting technology analyzes thousands of tiny bumps called papillae, as well as factors such as shape, size, and temperature to accurately identify yourself by licking your phone. This technology will be the mouthpiece of Pindrop’s latest authentication and anti-fraud solutions." Video:


Official website: https://www.pindrop.com/resources/video/video/tongueprinting/


Roku Happy Streaming Socks: "Do messy snack hands keep you from using your Roku remote? Meet the new Roku Happy Streaming Socks with built-in motion sensors, plus toe-toasting and anti-loss technology."


Official Website: https://blog.roku.com/roku-happy-streaming-socks


The other jokes were, well, not very funny but here are some worth mentioning...

Virgin Voyages Wa-Fi: "Here at Virgin Voyages we are excited to be bringing underwater WiFi, or as we call it “Wa-Fi” service, to all Virgin Voyages ships." Website: https://www.virginvoyages.com/wa-fi.html

Logitech BS Detection Software: "Today, I’m proud to announce that we are taking video calls to a whole new level with the introduction of Logitech Business Speak (BS) Detection software. Logitech BS Detection revolutionizes our meeting capabilities with built-in artificial intelligence (AI) that flags the…well…BS in business communications. "

Eager to eliminate the BS from your meetings? If so, be sure to check out Logitech's new Business Speak Detection software, which is now available on all @LogitechVC products. Learn more here: https://t.co/XuumeDrgme. pic.twitter.com/KP2ieuCXRi

— Logitech (@Logitech) April 1, 2018

Website: https://blog.logitech.com/2018/03/30/logitech-revolutionizes-business-communication-with-the-introduction-of-business-speak-detection-software/

Josh Ultra by Josh.Ai: https://www.cepro.com/article/josh.ai_josh_ultra_premium_voice_control

Jabra Sneakers: https://www.jabra.com/jabra-sneakers

INTRODUCING Jabra Speaker Sneaker - The world’s first stereo speakers included in footwear with voice assist. The detachable speakers ensure great sound and best of class battery life, allowing you to enjoy music all day long, wherever your feet take you. https://t.co/fO7TJp3KPp pic.twitter.com/1vmul0unAA

— Jabra US Team (@Jabra_US) April 1, 2018

Genetic Select by Lexus: Introducing Genetic Select by Lexus in partnership with 23andMe. The world’s first service that uses human genetics to match you with the car of your genes. http://www.lexus.com/geneticselect/

Google Maps is adding a Where’s Waldo? mini-game for the next week: Link.

Google Japan's Gboard: https://japan.googleblog.com/2018/04/tegaki.html

Google Cloud Hummus API - Find your Hummus!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_5X6N6DHyk

Tech21 Flexichoc case: https://twitter.com/Tech21Official/status/979392283106824192

Audi Downsizing Assistant: https://twitter.com/AudiOfficial/status/979991696657203201

Lego VacuSort: https://twitter.com/LEGO_Group/status/980369210789507072

Did I miss any good ones?


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