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.
Telefónica published an infographic on 'Benefits of 5G in Industry 4.0' last week. You can download it on their website here. This reminded me that we have now completed the third video in our series of IoT.
The beginners guide to M2M, MTC & IoT is discussed here and video is available here.
NTT Docomo released a whitepaper on 5G Evolution and 6G. In a press release they announced:
NTT DOCOMO has released a white paper on the topic of 6G, the sixth-generation mobile communications system that the company aims to launch on a commercial basis by 2030. It incorporates DOCOMO's views in the field of 5G evolution and 6G communications technology, areas that the company has been researching since 2018. The white paper summarizes the related technical concepts and the expected diverse use cases of evolving 5G and new 6G communication technologies, as well as the technology components and performance targets. Mobile communication systems typically evolve into the next generation over a period of roughly ten years; DOCOMO commenced its research into the commercial launch of 5G in 2010. In 2018, the company conducted successful radio wave propagation experiments at frequencies of up to 150 GHz, levels which are expected to enable the much faster and larger-capacity communications that 6G will require. DOCOMO will continue to enhance the ultra-high-speed, large-capacity, ultra-reliable, low-latency and massive device-connectivity capabilities of 5G technology. It will continue its research into and development of 5G evolution and 6G technology, aiming to realize technological advances including:
the achievement of a combination of advances in connectivity, including ultra-high speed, large capacity and low latency
the pioneering of new frequency bands, including terahertz frequencies
the expansion of communication coverage in the sky, at sea and in space
the provision of ultra-low-energy and ultra-low-cost communications
the ensuring of highly reliable communications
the capability of massive device-connectivity and sensing
Visitors to DOCOMO Open House 2020 will be able to view conceptual displays incorporating DOCOMO's vision of the evolution of 5G technologies into 6G. The event will take place in the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition complex in Tokyo on January 23 and 24. DOCOMO also plans to hold a panel session entitled "5G Evolution and 6G" on January 24.
Videos from Docomo Open House are embedded below, along with a previous talk by Takehiro Nakamura from 6G Summit.
6G has become a hot topic, especially after China announced back in November that they are working on 6G. We have some interesting tweets on 6G as well.
This one from Stefan Pongratz, Dell'Oro group shows the timeline for 5G, Pre-6G and 6G
Finally, the paper acknowledges the 5G challenges and focus areas for 5G evolution, before focusing on 6G.
The mmWave coverage and mobility needs improvement, while the downlink is able to provide very high data rates, the uplink is struggling to be better than 4G. Also, there are some very extreme requirements for industrial use cases, 5G has yet to prove that it can meet them.
Finally, here is another view from iDate Digiworld comparing 5G vs 6G in terms of performance, spectrum and network.
Many readers of this blog would be aware that I run 5G 'An Advanced Introduction to 5G Technology' training course for Cambridge Wireless at regular intervals. The next one is on 10th March 2020, in Cambridge. In fact I am also running a 'Introduction to Private 4G & 5G Networks' workshop on 4th Feb 2020 in London.
Many people ask me if they I have an online course available. While I haven't, I have quite a few videos on 3G4G YouTube channel and also have a 3G4G training page. People (mainly students or newbies) still ask me what sequence of videos they should go through, etc. So to make everyone's life simple, I created 2 YouTube playlists. Both are embedded below for ease.
Part 1. This is for people who know basic telecommunications theory and don't know much about mobile technology in general
Part 2. This is for people who understand 2G/3G/4G basics and want to learn about 5G.
I will add/remove/update videos when we add new videos on our channel. Feel free to skip videos if you already know a topic. There is quite a lot of other information on the 3G4G YouTube channel if you want to explore more
Where do you go after you have watched these videos? Go to the 3GPP homepage and start looking at specifications, news, etc. You can also start looking at the specifications on 3G4G page here.
It's been a while since I last wrote about IAB on this blog here. At that time 3GPP Release-16 was being discussed. Since then things have moved on. While Release-16 is being prepared for final release soon, Release-17 study and work items have just been agreed upon.
IAB is included as part of Rel-16 but there isn't a comprehensive document or presentation easily available to details all that it will contain. Similarly the enhancements for Release-17 are available only superficially. Qualcomm is well known for making some really excellent presentations available on 5G. One of their presentations from January (here) has some details on IAB (pg. 32 - 35). There was also an excellent presentation by Navid Abedini, Qualcomm from IEEE Sarnoff Symposium, 2019 which is embedded at the end.
In a 3GPP RAN#84 discussion document RP-191181, Samsung has provided a comprehensive summary of what is being done as part of Rel-16 and what did not make in that:
Rel-16 IAB aims at basic operations
Architecture and protocol design
IAB integration procedure
Routing, BAP and BH configuration
CP and UP data transmission via IAB
Topology support:
Spanning Tree (ST) and Directed acyclic graph (DAG)
Intra-Donor adaptation is prioritized
The following cannot be supported in Rel-16
Mobile IAB
Topology support: Mesh
Some functionalities in Rel-16 may not be completed due to time constrains e.g.
Topology adaptation between IAB donors
Mechanisms for efficient control signaling transmission
Ericsson also provides a good summary in RP-190971 regarding Release 16 IAB and Rel-17 enhancements:
IAB Rel-16 provide basic support for multi-hop and multi-path relaying.
The solution supports
QoS prioritization of traffic on the backhaul link
Flexible resource usage between access and backhaul
Topology adaptivity in case link failure
In Rel-17 it would be possible to further evolve the IAB solution targeting increased efficiency and support for new use cases
Meanwhile in the recently concluded RAN#86, AT&T provided a good detailed summary on what enhancements are required for IAB as part of Rel-17 in RP-192709
Duplexing enhancements
Multiplexing beyond TDM (FDM/SDM/multi-panel Tx/Rx) including multi-parent scenarios, case 6/7 timing alignment, power control/CLI optimizations
Topology enhancements
Mobile IAB: CP/UP split + Group mobility
Inter-CU topology adaptation
Mesh-connectivity between IAB nodes for local control/user plane routing
User plane enhancements
Multi-hop scheduling enhancement – exchange of benefit metric between IAB nodes to enable radio-aware multi-hop scheduling to improve throughput performance
Network Coding
Study benefits compared to duplication over redundant backhaul routes
We will have to wait and see what makes it into the enhancements and what don't. Meanwhile here is a video from Navid Abedini, Qualcomm from IEEE Sarnoff Symposium, 2019
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:
This is a guest post by Ben Toner, Founder and Director, Numerous Networks
Are multiple networks better than one?
How many articles have you read with a title similar to "Which technology is better, 5G or Wi-Fi6?" If, like me, you regularly use Wi-Fi and cellular (I still use 4G though) then you might find it hard to take sides.
Enter Network Convergence - the concept of bringing multiple networks together to get the best of them all. Imagine, as an end user, not having to decide which network to use but instead feeling satisfied that your data was traversing the best combination of networks at that moment in time.
Imagine a business traveler being connected to Wi-Fi which is slow or busy while trying to take that all important conference call while sitting in an airport. Because you are roaming you want to use that Wi-Fi but you do not want to compromise the video call quality. If your network and device could work together to use just enough cellular data to supplement the slow Wi-Fi so that you stayed within your daily roaming quota but never lost a moment in the video call - then you would probably be very happy with that service. Better still, as you start walking off, if the call transitioned from Wi-Fi to cellular with no dropouts or hangup then you might be delighted!
Earlier I underlined best because that in itself is somewhat complicated. The example above is easy to desribe but quite hard for to achieve within a framework where all possible scenarios are handled that well, for every user. The common questions which need to be factored into any such choice are:
What do I as the end user want?
What performance can each network deliver.
How important is the transfer of content at that time and
How much am I willing to pay for it (how many MB of my data plan am I willing to use?).
This is one of the challenges that we cannot easily solve today, but technology is being developed to help in that process. The operators and device vendors are working within standardisation to develop technology which can provide such a converged service. However at this time there is still a rules mechanism behind it all which does not really describe how user input and preference is going to be captured.
In the last 10 years I have witnessed many battles within service providers when deciding what "one size fits all" service to offer everyone when deciding how to make service provider Wi-Fi available to their customers; all fuelled by my points above.
A lot of concepts are well designed and somewhat mature but deciding exactly what will be implemented in standards is currently ongoing.
In the following slides and video I introduce this whole concept of Network Convergence. The following content introduces the concept and then takes a detailed look at the ATSSS; technology being defined in 3GPP. I also have highlighted the technologoies you can get hold of today to try out network convergence.
I encourage you all to download the example technologies and try convergence for yourself. I'm eager to hear opinions of what technologies work best for each of you. And better still, what is not being provided which you think should be...
Looking forward to your feedback and answering your questions...
I wrote about "Distributed Massive MIMO using Ericsson Radio Stripes" after MWC 2019 here. I found it a very interesting concept and it will certainly take a few years before it becomes a reality.
Emil Björnson, Associate Professor at Linköping University have produced couple of videos on this topic. I am embedding both of them below for anyone who may be interested.
"A New Look at Cell-Free Massive MIMO" - based on technical paper from PIMRC 2019 on how to design Cell-free Massive MIMO systems that are both scalable and achieve high performance.
Worth noting the following about this video (based on video comments):
There are some minor issues with the sudio
Cell-free Massive MIMO is particularly for stadiums, streets, and places with many users or where it is hard to provide sufficient network quality with other methods.
This concept is still 4-5 years away from being ready to be practically deployed. It should be ready for later part of 5G, probably 5.5G
"Reinventing the Wireless Network Architecture Towards 6G: Cell-free Massive MIMO and Radio Stripes" looks at the motivation behind Cell-free Massive MIMO and how it can be implemented in 6G using radio stripes.
Worth noting the following on this video (based on video comments):
It may be possible that multiple frequency bands can be handled in the same radio stripe. If it is found to be possible then every other antenna processing unit could manage a different band.
In principle, you can make the stripe as long as you need. But you probably need to divide it into segments since the power is supplied from one end of a stripe and it will only reach a limited distance (roughly up to 1 km). There are many implementation ideas and it remains to be seen what works out well in practice.
I am looking forward to see it work as it can solve coverage issues in many tricky scenarios.
I was involved in helping organise yet another CW TEC conference this year. The topic was quite interesting and we had some brilliant speakers. Some of the excellent presentations were shared too, links below. Here is a very quick summary of the event, linking also to couple of excellent summaries below.
The topic was a bit unusual and it rhymed very well with the attendees which were from many different backgrounds, from 5G, communications, satellites, electronics, T&M companies, etc. Here is the opening video that will show you the motivations behind this
The day started with a breakfast briefing from Cambridge Consultants that looked at how Massive MIMO is the key to unlocking 5G User Experiences. Presentations available here.
Session 1 was titled "What has Massive MIMO ever done for us?". The narrative for the session was as follows:
Clearly the desire for more and more capacity in cellular networks has driven the industry to find more and more novel techniques. The work done over the years and boosted by Tom Marzetta’s article titled “Noncooperative Cellular Wireless with Unlimited Numbers of Base Station Antennas” has set high expectations for this emergent technology, so much so the term Magic MIMO has been coined. However, how significant is it into today’s early 5G rollout and what can we expect over the coming years? Are there still further enhancements we should expect to see?
There were 3 talks as follows:
Sync Architectures for 5G NR by Chris Farrow, Technical Manager, Chronos Technology (slides)
Three UK’s RAN transformation: Spectrum, RAN architecture strategy, Why? by Dr Erol Hepsaydir, Head of RAN and Devices Strategy and Architecture, Three UK (slides)
Active antenna systems in RAN: performance, challenges and evolution by Anvar Tukmanov, Wireless Research Manager, BT (slides)
Session 2 looked at "Non-Terrestrial & Hybrid Networks". The narrative for the session was as follows:
There are different initiatives underway to make satellite and other non-terrestrial networks as part of 5G. In addition, many different mobile operators have demonstrated compelling use-cases with drones, balloons and other aerostats. Other innovative approaches like European Aviation Network uses a hybrid-network using terrestrial network supported by a satellite connection as a backhaul for in-flight Wi-Fi. In addition to latency, what other challenges are stopping mass adoption of Non-terrestrial and Hybrid networks? What about advanced features like slicing, etc.?
There were 3 talks as follows:
Opportunities for blending terrestrial and satellite technologies by Dr Jaime Reed, Director, Consulting, Space, Defence and Intelligence, CGI (slides)
Non-terrestrial Networks: Standardization in 5G NR by Dr Yinan Qi, Senior 5G Researcher, Samsung R&D Institute UK (slides)
Satellites and 5G: A satellite operator’s perspective by Simon Watts, Principal Consultant, Avanti Communications (slides)
Session 3 looked at "5G: A Catalyst for Network Transformation". The narrative was as follows:
5G has set high expectations in the user as well as operator community. While eMBB can be supported with an upgrade of existing 4G infrastructure, URLLC and mMTC may require massive change in the network architecture. Operators have already started the transformation process with backhaul upgrades, new data centers, distributed core and cloud rollouts, etc. How are networks evolving to accommodate these deep changes? What other changes will be required in the network to support the growth until the next new generation arrives?
This session featured 3 talks as well
An Introduction to Open RAN Concept by Zahid Ghadialy, Senior Director, Strategic Marketing, Parallel Wireless UK & EMEA (slides)
Powering the successful deployment of 5G infrastructure by David George, Vice President of EMEA and APAC, Sitetracker (slides)
The 5G transformation: no sweet without sweat by Antonella Faniuolo, Head of Network Strategy, Planning, Digital & Optimisation, Vodafone (slides)
The final session topic was "Getting ready for Beyond-5G Era". The narrative was as follows:
Many technologies like Full duplex, etc. that were originally intended to be part of 5G were not able to make it into the standards. Along with these, what other revolutionary changes are needed to make Beyond-5G technologies not only fulfil the vision, ambition and use-cases that were originally envisaged for 5G but to take it a step further and make it a game changer.
This session featured 3 talks as well, as follows:
Thinking Beyond 5G: Projects and Initiatives by Alan Carlton, Vice President, InterDigital Europe (slides not available)
5G Evolution: Progressive enhancement and new features for new markets by Matthew Baker, Head of Radio Physical Layer and Coexistence Standardization, Nokia (slides)
Why 6G’s design goals need far more than just radio & core innovation by Dean Bubley, Analyst & Futurist, Disruptive Analysis (slides not available)
We recently made a new video looking at how 5G architecture caters for Trusted and Untrusted Wireless Access as well as Wireline Access. The presentation discusses:
Untrusted non-3GPP access networks;
Trusted non-3GPP access networks (TNAN);
Wireline access networks;
Non-5G-Capable over WLAN (N5CW);
Access Traffic Steering, Switching and Splitting (ATSSS)
A short video (and slides) discussing the operator dilemma of standalone (SA) vs non-standalone (NSA) 5G deployment, frequency refarming and why 4G speeds will start reducing once SA 5G starts to be deployed.
I made a short introductory tutorial explaining what is meant by Non-Terrestrial Networks. There is is lot of work on this that is planned for Release-17. Slides and video below.
I attended an IET Prestige lecture by Phil Sheppard, Director of Strategy & Architecture at 3UK recently. He showed an interesting video on how a site is constructed. I combined some of his slides and video to show here. The video is as follows
3GPP recently conducted a webinar with Balazs Bertenyi, Chairman of 3GPP RAN in which he goes through some of the key features for 5G Phase 2. The webinar also goes through the details of 5G Release-15 completion, status of Release-16 and a preview of some of Release-17 features.
Slides & video embedded below. Slides can be downloaded from 3GPP website here.
Came across this presentation by Michelle Wetterwald, IoT & Emergency services Working group, ETSI EMTEL from EENA (European Emergency Number Association. Thanks to Ken Rehbehn's tweet for making me aware of this. The presentation and the relevant part of video is embedded below.
We made a new tutorial on 5G spectrum. It's in 2 different formats. Short version (~13 mins) or Long version (~31 mins). Instead of embedding the slides/videos here, I am providing links to the 5G section on 3G4G page below.
I recently did another 5G training for CW (Cambridge Wireless) & UK5G. One of the sections in that was about Use Cases. A very common questions that people ask is what can 5G do that 4G can't. The answer frankly is sometimes not very straightforward.
While you can get a very high speed and very reasonable latency 4G system, it's not necessarily a commonplace. Similarly 5G is a bit over-hyped. There is a lot of potential in the technology but the theory may not translate into practice. Take for example millimeter wave. There is a large amount of bandwidth that can be available to each operator in this spectrum. The laws of physics however restrict how far mmWave can travel and also the fact that mmWave does not penetrate through glass, walls, etc. Does that mean that an indoor 5G system would be required to complement an outdoor one? Would Wi-Fi be able to complement cellular in-building? There are many unanswered questions at the moment.
There is also the debate around 5G icon displayed on your smartphones. When you see 5G, would it really be 5G or just re-branded 4G? Light Reading has explained this issue nicely here.
So while there are many potential applications & use cases that will benefit from 5G in the long run, the answers are not that easily available today. Anyhow, the collection of videos and slides embedded below will provide you with an insight on how different vendors and operators are looking at potentially using 5G.
Dean Bubley, Outspoken Telecoms & Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant & Chair/Speaker on Networks, Wireless, Internet, AI & Futurism (as stated in his LinkedIn profile), recently did a webinar on Edge computing for Apis Training. The video recording is available online and embedded below.
Couple of things worth highlighting (but do listen to the webinar, it's got lots of interesting stuff) is as shown in the picture above and below. One of the benefits of Edge is Low latency. If that is the driver then you need to know where your Edge should be because latency will be affected based on the location. Another important point worth remembering is how many Edge-compute facilities can you afford. Latency & the number of facilities are linked to each other so worth thinking about in the beginning as it may not be straightforward to change later.
Dr. Anand Prasad, who is well known in the industry, not just as CISO of Rakuten Mobile Networks but also as the Chairman of 3GPP SA3, the mobile communications security and privacy group, recently delivered a talk on '4G to 5G Evolution: In-Depth Security Perspective'.