AI and Analytics Based Network Designing & Planning

Recently I blogged about how Deutsche Telekom is using AI for variety of things. The most interesting being (from this blog point of view), fiber-optic roll-out. According to their press release (shortened for easy reading):

"The shortest route to the customer is not always the most economical. By using artificial intelligence in the planning phase we can speed up our fiber-optic roll-out. This enables us to offer our customers broadband lines faster and, above all, more efficiently," says Walter Goldenits, head of Technology at Telekom Deutschland. It is often more economical to lay a few extra feet of cable. That is what the new software-based technology evaluates using digitally-collected environmental data. Where would cobblestones have to be dug up and laid again? Where is there a risk of damaging tree roots?

The effort and thus costs involved in laying cable depend on the existing structure. First, civil engineers open the ground and lay the conduits and fiber-optic cables. Then they have to restore the surface to its previous condition. Of course, the process takes longer with large paving stones than with dirt roads.

"Such huge amounts of data are both a blessing and a curse," says Prof. Dr. Alexander Reiterer, who heads the project at the Fraunhofer IPM. "We need as many details as possible. At the same time, the whole endeavour is only efficient if you can avoid laboriously combing through the data to find the information you need. For the planning process to be efficient the evaluation of these enormous amounts of data must be automated." Fraunhofer IPM has developed software that automatically recognizes, localizes and classifies relevant objects in the measurement data.

The neural network used for this recognizes a total of approximately 30 different categories through deep learning algorithms. This includes trees, street lights, asphalt and cobblestones. Right down to the smallest detail: Do the pavements feature large pavement slabs or small cobblestones? Are the trees deciduous or coniferous? The trees' root structure also has a decisive impact on civil engineering decisions.

Once the data has been collected, a specially-trained artificial intelligence is used to make all vehicles and individuals unidentifiable. The automated preparation phase then follows in a number of stages. The existing infrastructure is assessed to determine the optimal route. A Deutsche Telekom planner then double-checks and approves it.

In the recent TIP Summit 2018, Facebook talked about ‘Building Better Networks with Analytics’ and showed off their analytics platform. Vincent Gonguet, Product Manager, Connectivity Analytics, Facebook talked about how Facebook is using a three-pronged approach of accelerating fiber deployment, expanding 4G coverage and planning 5G networks. The video from the summit as follows:

TIP Summit 2018 Day 1 Presentation - Building Better Networks with Analytics from Telecom Infra Project on Vimeo.

Some of the points highlighted in the video:

• Educating people to connect requires three main focus areas, Access, Affordability and Awareness – One of the main focus areas of TIP is access. 
• 4G coverage went from 20% to 80% of world population in the last 5 years. The coverage growth is plateauing because the last 20% is becoming more and more uneconomical to connect.
• Demand is outpacing supply is many parts of the world (indicating that networks has to be designed for capacity, not just coverage)
• 19% of 4G traffic can’t support high quality videos today at about 1.5 Mbps
• Facebook has a nice aggregated map of percentage of Facebook traffic across the world that is experiencing very low speeds, less than 0.5 Mbps
• Talk looks at three approaches in which Facebook works with TIP members to accelerate fiber deployment, expand 4G coverage and plan 5G networks.
• A joint fiber deployment project with Airtel and BCS in Uganda was announced at MWC 2018
• 700 km of fiber deployment was planned to serve over 3 million people (Uganda’s population is roughly 43 million)
• The real challenge was not just collecting data about roads, infrastructure, etc. New cities would emerge over the period of months with tens of thousands of people 
• In such situations it would be difficult for human planners to go through all the roads and select the most economical route. Also, different human planners do thing in different ways and hence there is no consistency. In addition, its very hard to iterate. 
• To make deployments simpler and easier, it was decided to first provide coverage to people who need less km of fiber. The savings from finding optimal path for these people can go in connecting more people.
• It is also important for the fiber networks to have redundancy but it’s difficult to do this at scale
• An example and simulation of how fiber networks are created is available in the video  from 07:45 – 11:00.
• Another example is that of prioritizing 4G deployments based on user experience, current network availability and presence of 4G capable devices in partnership with XL Axiata is available in the video from 11:00 – 14:13. Over 1000 sites were deployed and more than 2 million people experienced significant improvement in their speeds and the quality of videos. 
• The final example is planning of 5G mmWave networks. This was done in partnership with Deutsche Telekom, trying to bring high speeds to 25,000 apartment homes in a sq. km in the center of Berlin. The goal was to achieve over 1Gbps connection using a mixture of fiber and wireless. The video looks at the simulation of Lidar data where the wireless infrastructure can be deployed. Relevant part is from 14:13 – 20:25.

Finally, you may remember my blog post on Automated 4G / 5G Hetnet Design by Keima. Some of the work they do overlaps with both examples above. I reached out to Iris Barcia to see if they have any comments on the two different approaches above. Below is her response:

“It is very encouraging that DT and Facebook are seeing the benefits of data and automation for design. I think that is the only way we’re going to be able to plan modern communication networks. We approach it from the RAN planning perspective: 8 years ago our clients could already reduce cost by automatically selecting locations with good RF performance and close to fibre nodes, alternatively locations close to existing fibre routes or from particular providers. Now the range of variables that we are capable of computing is vast and it includes aspects such as accessibility rules, available spectrum, regulations, etc. This could be easily extended to account for capability/cost of deploying fibre per type of road. 

But also, we believe in the benefit of a holistic business strategy, and over the years our algorithms have evolved to prioritise cost and consumers more precisely. For example, based on the deployment needs we can identify areas where it would be beneficial to deploy fibre: the study presented at CWTEC showed a 5G Fixed Wireless analysis per address, allowing fibre deployments to be prioritised for those addresses characterised by poor RF connectivity.”

There is no doubt in my mind that more and more of these kinds of tools that relies on Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be required to design and plan the networks. By this I don’t just mean 5G and other future networks but also the existing 2G, 3G & 4G networks and Hetnets. We will have to wait and see what’s next.


Related Blog Posts:

• The 3G4G Blog: Telefonica, Mayutel, Facebook & Parallel Wireless: Connecting the Unconnected in Peru (#InternetParaTodos)
• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: MTN sees future in 3G
• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: Ultimate Guide to the Telecom Infra Project (TIP)
• Operator Watch Blog: Disruptive Reliance Jio on the road to 4G leadership
• The 3G4G Blog: Automated 4G / 5G HetNet Design

5G Slicing Templates

We looked at slicing not long back in this post here, shared by ITU, from Huawei. The other day I read a discussion on how do you define slicing. Here is my definition:

Network slicing allows sharing of the physical network infrastructure resources into independent virtual networks thereby giving an illusion of multiple logically seperate end-to-end networks, each bound by their own SLAs, service quality and peformance guarantees to meet the desired set of requirements. While it is being officially defined for 5G, there is no reason that a proprietary implementation for earlier generations (2G, 3G or 4G)  or Wi-Fi cannot be created.

The picture above from a China Mobile presentation, explain the slice creation process nicely:

1. Industry customers order network slices from operators and provide the network requirements, including network slice type, capacity, performance, and related coverage. Operators generate network slices according to their needs. Provide the network service requirement as General Service Template (GST).
2. Transfer GST to NST (Network Slice Template)
3. Trigger Network Instantiation Process
4. Allocate the necessary resources and create the slice.
5. Expose slice management information. Industry customers obtain management information of ordered slices through open interfaces (such as number of access users, etc.).

For each specific requirement, a slicing template is generated that is translated to an actual slice. Let's look at some examples:

Let's take an example of Power Grid. The picture below shows the scenario, requirement and the network slicing template.

As can be seen, the RAN requirement is timing and low latency while the QoS requirement in the core would be 5 ms latency with guaranteed 2 Mbps throughout. There are other requirements as well. The main transport requirement would be hard isolation.

The Network requirement for AR Gaming is high reliability, low latency and high density of devices. This translates to main RAN requirement of low jitter and latency; Transport requirement of Isolation between TICs (telecom integrated cloud) and finally Core QoS requirement of 80 ms latency and 2 Mbps guaranteed bit rate.


More resources on Network Slicing:

• The 3G4G Blog: End-to-end Network Slicing in 5G
• GSMA: Presentations and recording from the 5G Network Slicing Summit at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2018.
• Dr Wei Chen, ITU-T Q21/13 Rapporteur, China Mobile, China: “China Mobile 5G network slicing exploration” 
• 5G Network Slicing in 5GTANGO
• GSMA: Network Slicing - Use Case Requirements, April 2018
• Management of Network Slicing in 5G Radio Access Networks: Functional Framework and Information Models

The business case of densifying LoRaWAN deployments

LoRaWAN has recently emerged as one of the key radio technologies to address the challenges of Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) deployments, namely power efficiency, long range, scalable deployments, and cost-effectiveness.

The LoRa Alliance has had an exponential growth with 500+ members with the recent arrival of heavyweight members such as Google, Alibaba, and Tencent joining the alliance.

The first wave of LoRaWAN was primarily focused on large country-wide deployments led by operators such as KPN, Orange, Swisscom and many more. However, the next wave that is already coming is the arrival of private LoRaWAN deployments from large enterprises and enabling roaming for inter-connection amongst public/private networks (esp. for use cases which involve LPWAN Geolocation [8] [9]]). As the IoT deployments grow in both the densification and geographical footprint, it is inevitable that network design becomes one of the important factors ensuring long-term success and profitability of both operators and end-customers relying on LoRaWAN connectivity for their IoT use cases.


A typical example is the recent 3 million water meter contract awarded by Veolia Birdz to Orange [12]: such large-scale projects require careful network planning to achieve the required densification and quality of service while optimizing costs.

A Closer Look at Densification techniques for LoRaWAN

LoRaWAN deployments use a star topology with a frequency reuse factor of 1 which allows simplicity in network deployment and ongoing densification: there is no need for frequency pattern planning or reshuffling as more gateways are added to the infrastructure.

Compared to mesh technologies, the single hop to network infrastructure minimizes power consumption as nodes do not need to relay communication from other nodes. Another advantage is that gradual initial network deployment in sparse mode with low node density is possible, compared to mesh which requires minimum node density to operate. Even more importantly, LoRaWAN is immune from the exponential packet loss suffered by multi-hop RF mesh technologies in presence of increasing interferers and noise floor power.

Another unique feature of LoRaWAN networks is that messages in uplink can be received by any gateway (Rx macro-diversity), and it is the function of a network server to remove duplicates in uplink and select the best gateway for downlink transmission based on the uplink RSSI estimates. This allows enabling of features such as geolocation to be easily built into LoRaWAN deployment and enables uplink macro-diversity that significantly improves network capacity and QoS (Quality of Service).

LoRaWAN also supports features such as Adaptive Data Rate (ADR) that allows network server to dynamically change parameters of end-devices such as transmit power, frequency and spreading factor via downlink MAC commands. Optimization of theses settings is key to increase the capacity and reduce the power consumption of end-devices.

The optimization of LoRaWAN parameters along with densification can lead massive amounts of capacity increase in the network. In fact, the LoRaWAN capacity of the network can scale almost indefinitely with densification.

Figure 1: Actility Webinar - Designing LoRaWAN network for Dense Deployment  [1] [2] [3]

The future of LoRaWAN networks, particularly in urban environments where the noise floor is expected to get higher due to increased traffic, goes towards micro-cellular networks

How does densification lead to lower TCO for Enterprise deployment?

As the network is densified by deploying more LoRaWAN Gateways and adaptive data rate and power control algorithms are applied intelligently in the network, this leads in dramatic reduction of power consumption of end-device and thus reduction in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of end devices. The figures below show clearly that densification can lead to upto 10X savings in both power consumption and overall reduction in 10-year TCO for enterprise deployment. Changing the batteries require manual labor and is the cost that can significantly dominate 10-year TCO of large-scale enterprise deployment (for ex. Smart gas/water meters).

Figure 2: Battery Lifetime Improvement with densification [1] [2] [3]

Figure 3: Impact on 10-year TCO due to densification [1] [2] [3]

Densification leads to very dramatic reduction in power consumption of the end-devices thus reducing overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

LoRaWAN offers disruptive Deployment Models

LoRaWAN is generally deployed in unlicensed spectrum which allows anyone to roll-out IoT/LPWAN network based on LoRaWAN. This allows three deployment models:


1. Public Operator Network: In this traditional model, the operator invests in a regional or nation-wide network and sells connectivity services to its customers.


2. Private/Enterprise Network: In this model, enterprise customers typically setup LoRaWAN gateways on private premises (e.g. an airport), and either have these gateways managed by an operator, or use their own LoRaWAN network platform.


This mode of deployment is a game changer for dense device use cases, as network capacity and enhanced QoS can be provided at marginal increased cost. It becomes possible because LoRaWAN runs in unlicensed spectrum and gateways are quite inexpensive and easy to deploy.


3. Hybrid model: This is the most interesting model that LoRaWAN allows due to its open architecture.

This is not possible or rather difficult in other competing LPWA technologies or Cellular IoT (due to licensed spectrum and absence of roaming/peering model between private and public networks). There are initiatives like CBRS and MulteFire from 3GPP Players but they are still in progress and far from maturity for large scale IoT deployments (esp. for use cases that demand 10-15 years+ battery lifetime).

In hybrid model, operator provides light country-wide outdoor coverage, but different stakeholders such as private enterprises or individuals help in densifying the network further based on their needs on their premises, via managed networks. This model enables a win-win private/public partnership in sharing the costs and revenues from the network and densify the network where the applications and devices are most present.

This model is possible because multiple gateways can receive LoRaWAN messages and network server removes duplication. In the cases where different operators/enterprises run their networks, LoRa Alliance already has approved roaming architecture in “LoRaWAN Backend Interfaces 1.0 Specification” [6] [7] to enable network collaboration.

This model significantly reduces the operator investment and offers a disruptive business model to build IoT capacity where it is mostly needed.

Figure 4: LoRaWAN Hybrid Deployment Model (source : Actility)

LoRaWAN enables Public-Private deployment that allows disruptive model for cost/revenue sharing and densifying the network where it is needed most, depending on IoT application needs

LoRaWAN densification: A Key driver for reduction in Operator TCO

When designing and deploying a LoRaWAN network, the system operator must balance the cost of a dense network (and it's served sensors) against the cost of a sparse network (and it's served sensors).

Traditional vs Opportunistic network designs

In the traditional deployment model, the operator deploys LoRaWAN gateways on telecom towers. This entails leasing the space from the tower owner, purchasing a waterproof outdoor gateway, climbing the tower to hang the gateway, and perhaps paying for additional power, zoning, permitting, and backhaul. The operator does the detailed RF propagation study and hangs enough gateways to provide coverage for the sensor locations required to provide the services he wants to provide.


Another option is to opportunistically deploy “femto” gateways in devices that the operator is already fielding. The gateways are stateless, and thus do not add much complexity to the hosting device. An 8-channel LoRaWAN reference design is mated to the host device using either USB or I2C. The options here are quite diverse. The operator can embed a simple 8 channel gateway into ongoing WiFi hotspots, power supplies, amplifiers, cable modems, thermostats, virtual assistants, or any mass-produced device that already has backhaul. The Bill of Materials adder is quite modest, the power consumption and heat dissipation are less than 3 Watts, and the size delta is roughly 7 cm by 3 cm.


Calculating the number of opportunistic gateways to provide adequate coverage for a given deployment can be challenging. The height of the gateways has a large impact on the coverage of the gateway. A gateway deployed in a 20th story of an apartment building has a much better coverage pattern than the same gateway deployed in the basement of a single-family home. Gateways deployed in WiFi hotspots mounted on power poles have a different coverage area than a gateway deployed on light poles. So, the actual number of gateways deployed in each scenario varies widely. When you complete the detailed design of each network type, you typically find that an opportunistic deployment model allows the operator to cover a given area by deploying roughly 100 times as many gateways for roughly 1/10th of the cost (when compared to the traditional 3rd party leased tower model).

Example use-case with water meters

For the rest of this analysis, we will assume that the operator needs to deploy a LoRaWAN network to service 100K water meters. Water meters represent a difficult RF propagation model. They are installed at or below ground level, must last 20 years, and suburban meters tend to have accumulations of grass and dirt collect over time. Let’s assume a North American deployment model, and we have the option of using a high power (27dBm) or a low power (17dBm) meter.

One possible design is to use a tower-based approach. In a tower-based approach, the operator typically ends up deploying high power water meters in order to reduce the number of (expensive) tower leases. In order to run at high power, the North American regulations require the sensor to send across 50+ channels, which drives the operator to deploy 64 channel gateways. Let’s assume that the average distance between a water meter and a tower-based gateway is ~3km and the sensors need to send one reading per day. Many of the meters thus operate at SF10 at 27dBm. The sensor designer includes a high-power RF amplifier, calculates the energy requirements over the life of the sensor, and sizes the battery appropriately.

Another possible design is to opportunistically deploy thousands of femto gateways into the area. The question boils down to “How many femto gateways do I need to cover the desired area?”. Working backwards from the densest possible deployment, most MSOs (Multiple-System Operator) serve 1/3 of the households in their footprint. In many urban environments, the average distance between a given operator’s subscribers is 30 meters. If such an operator could opportunistically deploy in most of those sites, they would have inter-gateway distances as small as 30 meters. For the purposes of this analysis, let’s say that the average distance between the sensor and the closest gateway is reduced from 3000 meters to 100 meters. When a sensor is 100 meters from a gateway, it can typically operate at SF7 at 17dBm (or lower). Clearly, the network designer must account for a distribution of distances between a given sensor and its closest gateway, but the overall power savings is significant.

It is also instructive to compare the overall capacity of a tower-based LoRaWAN network to the overall capacity of the opportunistic LoRaWAN network. Remembering that 100 eight channel opportunistic gateways cost about 1/10th of a single 64 channel gateway, we realize that we get ~13 times as much network capacity for 1/10th of the cost. As the sensor density increases, we could deploy additional opportunistic gateways and get ~130 times as much network capacity for the same cost as a tower-based network.

When we compare the cost to build a sensor designed to last 20 years using SF10 at 27dBm to the cost to build a sensor designed to last 20 years using SF7 at 17dBm, we find that we can save more than $10 per sensor by deploying the denser network.

So, in addition to saving a significant amount of capital by opportunistically deploying the gateways, the operator can save more than $10 per water meter by opportunistically deploying a dense network. This saves more than $1M on the 100K water meter deployment. When one layers in additional use cases, the dense LoRaWAN network provides sensor savings on each additional set of sensors. Most of the sensors do not have the 20 years requirement and thus do not save the same amount of money, but batteries are one of the primary drivers for any sensor’s cost.


Conclusion

This analysis is somewhat simplified, and a very large-scale deployment may require a certain amount of traditional gateway placement to provide an “umbrella” of coverage that is then densified using opportunistic methods. By densifying the network, the overall sensor power budget is decreased significantly. One could also envision a deployment model in which an opportunistic gateway is deployed in conjunction with a set of services. The operator would add IoT based services to an existing bundle (let’s say voice/video/data, thermostat control or personal assistant) and know that the sensors would be co-resident with the gateway.

What is the future of LoRaWAN?

LoRaWAN exhibits significant capacity gains and massive reduction in power consumption and TCO when ADR algorithms are used intelligently in the network. We showed how LoRaWAN networks are deployed for coverage and how network capacity can be scaled gracefully by adding more gateways.

There are already 16 channels in EU, but there have been recent modifications of the regulatory framework to relax the spectrum requirements and increase transmit power, duty cycle and number of channels [22].

Moreover, Semtech released the latest version of LoRa chipsets [23] with the following key features:

• 50% less power in receive mode
• 20% extended cell range
• +22 dBm transmit power
• A 45% reduction in size: 4mm by 4mm
• Global continuous frequency coverage: 150-960MHz
• Simplified user interface with implementation of commands
• New spreading factor of SF5 to support dense networks
• Protocol compatible with existing deployed LoRaWAN networks

The above LoRaWAN features and upcoming changes to EU regulations will allow significantly scaling of unlicensed LoRaWAN deployments for years to come to meet the needs of IoT applications and use cases. LoRaWAN capacity depends indeed on the regional and morphology parameters. As we have showed in the above results, if the network is deployed carefully and advanced algorithms such as ADR are used, there can be dramatic increase in network capacity and massive reduction in TCO. This will be one of the main factors that will determine the success of LoRaWAN deployments as the demands and breadth of IoT applications scale in future.

We also showed earlier how LoRaWAN offers innovative public/private deployment model in which operators can build capacity incrementally and supplement with extra capacity by leveraging gateways deployed from private individuals/enterprises. Typically, for cellular networks there can be anywhere from 5-10% IoT devices on cell-edge which are in outage [10]. This applies especially to deep indoor nodes (for example, smart meters with additional 30 dB penetration loss). Such nodes can only be covered by densification of cellular network which is expensive considering it is being done only for 5-10% of IoT devices. One way to address this problem is deploying private LoRaWAN on cell-edge and using multi-technology IoT platform that combines both LoRaWAN and Cellular IoT [11].

On the other hand, LoRaWAN offers a cost-effective way to augment network capacity where it's needed most. LoRaWAN gateways are very cost-effective and can be deployed using Ethernet/3G/4G backhaul with minimal investment in comparison to 3GPP small cells. This allows building IoT network in cost-effective manner and scale it progressively based on the application needs. We believe that his deployment model has dramatic effect on ROI for IoT connectivity based on LoRaWAN.

The LoRa Alliance has standardized the roaming feature, which enables multiple LoRaWAN networks to collaboratively serve IoT devices. Macro-diversity used across deployments enables operators/enterprises to jointly densify their networks, hence providing better coverage at lower costs. The future of LoRaWAN as shown below will be private/enterprise network deployments and disruptive business models through roaming with the public networks [4] [5] [6] [7].

Figure 5: Future of LoRaWAN deployments

LoRaWAN does provide horizontal connectivity solution to address wide-ranging needs for IoT applications for LPWAN deployments. However, these benefits are only possible with intelligent network server algorithms proprietary to network solution vendors

For any questions, contact the author below,

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohit-gupta-2b51503a/

References:

[1] Actility webinar Replay: Designing a LoRaWAN Network for Dense Deployment,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQOZWUQdvf0

[2] Actility webinar slides: Designing a LoRaWAN Network for Dense Deployment, https://www.slideshare.net/Actility/designing-lorawan-for-dense-iot-deployments-webinar.

[3] Actility Whitepaper: Designing a LoRaWAN Network for Dense Deployment, https://www.slideshare.net/Actility/designing-lorawan-networks-for-dense-iot-deployments

[4] Actility webinar slides: Industrial IoT - Transforming businesses today with LoRaWAN, https://www.slideshare.net/Actility/actility-and-factory-systemes-explain-how-iot-is-transforming-industry

[5] Actility webinar Replay: Industrial IoT - Transforming businesses today with LoRaWAN, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRoEbWjffBA

[6] Actility webinar slides: LoRaWAN Roaming Webinar, https://www.slideshare.net/Actility/lorawan-roaming

[7] Actility webinar Replay: LoRaWAN Roaming webinar, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWP6VV1CKEg

[8] Actility webinar slides: Multi-technology IoT Geolocation, https://www.slideshare.net/Actility/multi-technology-geolocation-webinar

[9] Actility webinar Replay: Multi-technology IoT Geolocation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzFZqMBI2QA

[10] http://vbn.aau.dk/files/236150948/vtcFall2016.pdf

[11] Actility Whitepaper: How to build a multi-technology scalable IoT connectivity Platform, https://www.slideshare.net/Actility/whitepaper-how-to-build-a-mutiltechnology-scalable-iot-connectivity-platform

[12] https://www.orange.com/en/Press-Room/press-releases/press-releases-2018/Nova-Veolia-and-its-subsidiary-Birdz-choose-Orange-Business-Services-to-help-them-digitalize-Veolia-s-remote-water-meter-reading-services-in-France

Nice short articles on 5G in 25th Anniversary Special NTT Docomo Technical Journal

5G has dominated the 3G4G blog for last few years. Top 10 posts for 2018 featured 6 posts on 5G while top 10 posts for 2017 featured 7. In makes sense to start 2019 posting with a 5G post.

A special 25th Anniversary edition of NTT Docomo Technical Journal features some nice short articles on 5G covering RAN, Core, Devices & Use cases. Here is some more details for anyone interested.

Radio Access Network in 5G Era introduces NTT Docomo's view of world regarding 5G, scenarios for the deployment of 5G and also prospects for further development of 5G in the future. The article looks at the main features in 5G RAN that will enable eMBB (Massive MIMO), URLLC (short TTI) and mMTC (eDRX).

Interested readers should also check out:

• Overview 3GPP 5G NR Physical Layer
• 5G NR Radio Protocols Overview
• 5G New Radio Standards and other Presentations

Core network for Social Infrastructure in 5G Era describes the principal 5G technologies required in the core network to realise new services and applications that will work through collaboration between various industries and businesses. It also introduces initiatives for more advanced operations, required for efficient operation of this increasingly complex network.

This article also goes in detail of the Services Based Architecture (SBA). In case you were wondering what UL CL and SSC above stands for; UpLink CLassifiers (UL CL) is a technology that identifies packets sent by a terminal to a specific IP address and routes them differently (Local Breakout) as can be seen above. It is generally to be used to connect to a MEC server. Session and Service Continuity (SSC) is used to decide if the IP address would be retained when the UE moves to a new area from the old one.

Interested readers should also check out:

• 5G Network Architecture Options (Updated)
• Tutorial: Service Based Architecture (SBA) for 5G Core (5GC)

Evolution of devices for the 5G Era discusses prospects for the high-speed, high-capacity, low-latency, and many-terminal connectivity features introduced with 5G, as well as advances in the network expected in the future, technologies that will be required for various types of terminal devices and the services, and a vision for devices in 2020 and thereafter.

According to the article, the medium term strategy of R&D division of NTT Docomo has three main themes: 5G, AI and Devices. In simple terms, devices will collect a lot of data which will become big data, 5G will be used to transport this data and the AI will process all the collected Big Data.

NTT Docomo has also redefined the devices as connecting through various technologies including cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth & Fixed communications.

Interested readers should also check out:

• Benefits and Challenges of Applying Device-Level AI to 5G networks
• Short summary of #CWFDT event 'Smart Devices of 2025'

The final article on 5G, Views of the Future Pioneered by 5G: A World Converging the Strengths of Partners looks at field trials, partnerships, etc. In fact here the embedded video playlist below shows some of these use cases described in the article



In addition there are other articles too, but in this post I have focused on 5G only.

Nice article in 25th Anniversary special NTT Docomo technical journal - "History of Mobile Communications with a Look Back at NTT DOCOMO R&D and Outlook for the Future" - https://t.co/DolDIm15jL featuring @seizo_onoe pic.twitter.com/QVlpPXvFQS

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) January 3, 2019

The 25th Anniversary Special Edition of NTT Docomo Technical Journal is available here.

Top 10 posts for 2018

Here is a list of top 10 posts for 2018 in ascending order of popularity:

10. 5G Security Updates - March 2018

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

8. Automated 4G / 5G HetNet Design

7. 5G New Radio Standards and other Presentations

6, Some interesting April Fools' Day 2018 Technology Jokes

5, 5G Network Architecture Options (Updated)

4. #CWHeritage Talk: The history of synchronisation in digital cellular networks

3. LoRa is quietly marching on...

2. 5G Network Architecture, Design and Optimisation - Jan 2018

1. Tutorial: Service Based Architecture (SBA) for 5G Core (5GC)

There were so many other posts that were close to the 10th most popular post. It's always a challenge on which of them make it and which don't. Thanks to everyone for supporting the blog and allowing me to share presentations, slides, videos, etc.


Related Posts:

• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Top 5 posts for 2018
• Operator Watch Blog: Top 5 posts for 2018
• The 3G4G Blog: Top 10 posts for 2017 and some other 3G4G info
• The 3G4G Blog: Top 10 posts for 2016
• The 3G4G Blog: Top 10 posts for 2015

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

Can KaiOS accelerate the transition from 2G / 3G to 4G?

The GSMA Mobile Economy 2018 report forecasts that 2G will still be around in 2025 and the dominant technology will be 3G in Africa. GSMA Intelligence Global Mobile Trends highlighted similar numbers but North Africa was missing in that report. As you can see in the picture below, 3G devices will make up 62% of the total number of devices in Sub-Saharan Africa and 37% in MENA.

Similar information was provided by Navindran Naidoo, Executive, Network Planning & Design, MTN Group in TIP Summit 2017 and Babak Fouladi, Technology and Information System (Group CTIO) , MTN Group in TIP Summit 2018. In fact Babak had a slide that showed 3G devices would make up 61%  of total devices in 2025 in Africa. Rob Shuter, Group President and CEO, MTN Group said at AfricaCom 2018 that Africa lags 7 years behind the Western countries in mobile technologies. Though this may not be universally true, its nevertheless a fact in many areas of the Continent as can be seen from the stats.

In my blog post "2G / 3G Switch Off: A Tale of Two Worlds", I said operators in many developing countries that maybe forced to switch off a technology would rather switch 3G off as they have a big base of 2G users and 3G devices can always fall back on 2G.

So what are the main reasons so many users are still on 2G devices or feature phones? Here are some that I can think off the top of my head:

• Hand-me-downs
• Cheap and affordable
• Given as a gift (generally because its cheap and affordable)
• 2G has better coverage than 3G and 4G in many parts of the world
• Second/Third device, used as backup for voice calls
• Most importantly - battery can last for a long time

This last point is important for many people across different parts of the world. In many developing countries electricity is at a premium. Many villages don't have electricity and people have to take a trip to a market or another village to get their phones charged. This is an expensive process. (Interesting article on this here and here). In developed countries, many schools do not allow smartphones. In many cases, the kids have a smartphone switched off in their bag or left at home. For parents to keep in touch, these kids usually have a feature phone too. 

While all feature phones that were available until couple of years ago were 2G phones, things have been changing recently. In an earlier tweet I mentioned that Reliance Jio has become a world leader in feature phones:

In just 10 months, Reliance Jio’s become the world leader in feature phones https://t.co/bNP0X5qiO2 via @qzindia #4G #FeaturePhones pic.twitter.com/SBkmWo4m0X

— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) May 31, 2018

I also wrote about Jio phone 2 launch, which is still selling very well. So what is common between Jio phones and Nokia 8110 4G, a.k.a. Banana phone

Nokia 8810 "banana phone" from #MWC18 pic.twitter.com/775FFQANwh

— Parallel Wireless (@Parallel_tw) February 26, 2018

They both use a new mobile operating system called KaiOS. So what is KaiOS?

KaiOS originates from the Firefox OS open-source project which started in 2011 and has continued independently from Mozilla since 2016. Today, KaiOS is a web-based operating system that enables a new category of lite phones and other IoT devices that require limited memory, while still offering a rich user experience through leading apps and services. KaiOS is a US-based company with additional offices in France, Germany, Taiwan, India, Brazil, Hong Kong, and mainland China. You can find a list of KaiOS powered devices here. In fact you can see the specifications of all the initial devices using KaiOS here.

Here is a video that explains why we need KaiOS:



There are couple of really good blog posts by Sebastien Codeville, CEO of KaiOS:

• Africa, The Next Big Feature Phone Opportunity?
• AfricaCom 2018: Africa Joins the Digital Revolution with First-ever Smart Feature Phones

There is so much information in both these articles that I will have to copy and paste the entire articles to do them justice. Instead, I want to embed the presentation that Sebastien delivered at AfricaCom below:

KaiOS AfricaCom Presentation - 15 November 2018 from KaiOS Technologies

I like the term 'smart feature phone' to distinguish between the smartphones and old dumb feature phones.

The slimmest #3G feature phone has been launched in India (via @DeccanChronicle)https://t.co/524yEKXaUw

— Parallel Wireless (@Parallel_tw) November 29, 2018

Finally, it should be mentioned that some phone manufacturers are using older version of Android to create a feature phone. One such phone is "Reinvent iMi" that is being billed as 'Slimmest Smart 3G Feature Phone' in India. It uses Android 4.1. See details here. Would love to find out more about its battery life in practice.

My only small concern is about security of old Android OS. As Android is extensively used, new vulnerabilities keep getting discovered all the time. Google patches them in newer versions of the software or sometimes releases a separate patch. All updates to the Android OS stops after 3 years. This means that older versions of Android can be hacked quite easily. See here for example.

Anyway, feature phones or 'smart feature phones' are here to stay. Better on 4G than on 2G.

5G Top-10 Misconceptions

Here is a video we did a few weeks back to clear the misconceptions about 5G. The list above summarizes the topics covered.



The video is nearly 29 minutes long. If you prefer a shorter version or are bored of hearing me 😜 then a summary version (just over 3 minutes) is in 3G4G tweet below.

Based on the comments received, here is our shorter version of "5G: Top 10 Misconceptions" video #UK5G #HWMBBFhttps://t.co/7lxE3ekDPM

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) November 21, 2018

The slides can be downloaded from our Slideshare channel as always.

As always, we love your feedback, even when you strongly disagree.

Other interesting recent posts on 5G:

• 5G NR Radio Protocols Overview
• Overview 3GPP 5G NR Physical Layer
• 5G Development and Progress in Singapore
• 5G Network Architecture Options (Updated)
• Automated 4G / 5G HetNet Design
• Optus launching commercial 5G Fixed Wireless Access services in January 2019
• Benefits and Challenges of Applying Device-Level AI to 5G networks
• 5G New Radio Standards and other Presentations
• Base Station Antenna Considerations for 5G
• End-to-end Network Slicing in 5G
• ITU 'Network 2030': Initiative to support Emerging Technologies and Innovation looking beyond 5G advances

5G NR Radio Protocols Overview

3GPP held a workshop on 5G NR submission towards IMT-2020 last week. You can access all the agenda, documents, etc. on the 3GPP website here. You can also get a combined version of all presentations from the 3G4G website here. I also wrote a slightly detailed article on this workshop on 3G4G website here.

The following is nice overview of the 5G Radio Interface protocol as defined by 3GPP in NR Rel.15 by Sudeep Palat, Intel. The document was submitted to the 3GPP workshop on ITU submission in Brussels on Oct 24, 2018.

Overview 5G NR Radio Protocols by Intel from Eiko Seidel

The presentation discusses NR radio interface architecture and protocols for control and user plane; covering RRC, SDAP, PDCP, RLC and MAC, focussing on differences and performance benefits compared to LTE.  RRC states and state transitions with reduced transition delays are also discussed.

Related Posts:

• 3G4G: Workshop on 3GPP 5G NR submission towards IMT-2020
• 3GPP 5G – Briefing for Evaluation Groups
• 3G4G Blog: Overview 3GPP 5G NR Physical Layer

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.