Finland: A country with only Unlimited Data Plans

I was listening to Elisa couple of weeks back, at 5G World Summit. One of the things that surprised me was that Elisa offered unlimited data plans but the price varied based on the maximum speeds possible. The same approach was going to continue with 5G. When 5G data speeds would improve, new packages will be added with the improved speeds.

"There's no revenue upside with unlimited mobile data", say operators with bucket plans. Funny then that the all-unlimited Finnish MNOs @ElisaOyj @teliafinland @DNA_fi all had increasing ARPU in 2018 - in contrast to almost all mature market operators solely offering buckets.

— tefficient 🚥 (@tefficient) March 4, 2019

Tefficient has pointed out multiple times that even though all operators in Finland offer unlimited data plans, their ARPU has increased in 2018. This is in contrast to the other mature markets, even though they may not be offering unlimited data plans.

"Finnish operators that executed ‘unlimited everything’ strategies were the undisputed champions of the 4G era" #Rewheel https://t.co/APZXMXj7EH

— Pal Zarandy (@PZarandy) May 23, 2019

Same thing was pointed out by Rewheel research that highlighted in their May 2019 report that, "Finnish operators that executed ‘unlimited everything’ strategies were the undisputed champions of the 4G era"

A mashable article pointed out that "5G will be crazy fast, but it'll be worthless without unlimited data". This is very true.

When people talk about 8K video over 5G, most of them don't realise that it would consume roughly 7-10 GB data per hour on 8K video.

This article from @howtogeek - https://t.co/xSxvaMwKY4 shows some good calculations of up to 4K video pic.twitter.com/anJhNfUMtV

— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) June 15, 2019

Mobile operators should start thinking about how they can offer unlimited data plans, especially if they keep touting applications that are going to use loads of data. As you can see from the tweet above, a 1 hour 8K video streaming would roughly use between 7 - 10 GB of data.

Let me know your thoughts.

3GPP Release-16, Release-17 & Beyond...

6G Summit featured quite a few talks from people looking at evolution beyond Release-16. The future releases will still be 5G, maybe become 5.5G, like 3GPP Release-13 which was known as LTE-Advanced Pro officially was unofficially known as 4.5G.

Back at the 6G Summit in Finland, Dr. Peiying Zhu from Huawei looked at the topics being discussed for Release-17 and beyond.

Thanks to Mika Klemettinen for sharing the pictures on Twitter, as the presentation was not shared.

3GPP is working towards defining Release-16. TS 21.916 - Release description; Release 16 is still not yet available on the 3GPP reflector. Once that is available, we will know for sure about all the Rel-16 changes. Release-17 is long way away. Having said that, there is no shortage of discussions as some of these Rel-17 features were discussed in the recent RAN Plenary.

Jungwon Lee, VP, Samsung also shared a summary of 3GPP Release-16 and Rel-17 features at IEEE 5G Summit in San Diego recently. Quite a few interesting features in all the pictures above that we will no doubt look at in the future posts.

3GPP also shared a presentation recently (embedded below), looking at not only Release-15 & 16 but also looking at focus areas for Release-17

5G Standards: 3GPP Release 15, 16, and beyond from 3G4G

Related Posts and Articles:

• The 3G4G Blog - Ultra Reliability: 5x9s (99.999%) in 3GPP Release-15 vs 6x9s (99.9999%) in 3GPP Release-16
• The 3G4G Blog - Update from 3GPP on LTE & 5G Mission Critical Communications
• 3GPP - Release 16
• Light Reading - 5G Standards Group Struggles to Balance Tech With Politics
• Eiko Seidel - 5G Mission Critical Networks (Proximity Services in Rel.17)
• The 3G4G Blog - Slides and Videos from the 1st 6G Wireless Summit - March 2019
• The 3G4G Blog - Couple of talks by NTT Docomo on 5G and Beyond (pre-6G)
• The 3G4G Blog - China Telecom: An examination of the current industrial trends and an outlook of 6G
• Mission Critical Communications: Mission-Critical Features for Release 17 Discussed at Latest 3GPP Meetings

New Tutorial on 5G Spectrum

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.

Short Version (~13 mins) - click here

Long Version (~31 mins) - click here


Related posts:

• Examples of 5G Use Cases & Applications
• Bandwidth Part (BWP) in 5G New Radio (NR)
• When will 2G & 3G be switched off now that 5G is here?
• Couple of talks by NTT Docomo on 5G and Beyond (pre-6G)
• Slides and Videos from the 1st 6G Wireless Summit - March 2019
• Slides from Parallel Wireless Webinar: 5G at #MWC19

Couple of talks by NTT Docomo on 5G and Beyond (pre-6G)

The Japanese operator, NTT Docomo is a very bold MNO. Not only do they do interesting research but they are very open about what they have been doing and share it publicly. For example, last month they announced development of a safe, blade-free drone propelled by Ultrasonic Vibrations (tweet). This was just amazing as it has a potential to use drones in many new areas where the conventional drones are deemed too dangerous. This is why I was very pleased to see couple of talks by Docomo available online.

The first one is by Takehiro Nakamura, SVP and General Manager of the 5G Laboratories in NTT DOCOMO, Inc. at the 6G Summit in Finland. Slides available here. Video embedded below




The next one is by Seizo Onoe, Chief Technology Architect, NTT DOCOMO, INC. and President, DOCOMO Technology, Inc. from Brooklyn 5G Summit. Unfortunately the slides are not shared but the video is worth a watch below.

3G4G Small Cells Blog: NTT Docomo's Underground LTE Small Cells with possibility to deploy 5G in future - https://t.co/9Ud6FyqcFz #SmallCells pic.twitter.com/GOlpih2RmY

— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) April 14, 2018

Related Posts:

• NTT Docomo's Green Base Stations
• Nice short articles on 5G in 25th Anniversary Special NTT Docomo Technical Journal
• Terahertz and Beyond 100 GHz progress
• 100 Gbps wireless transmission using Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) multiplexing
• Examples of 5G Use Cases & Applications
• Telus says 5G is just another 'G' (#5GJAG)
• Sprint Keynote from #B5GS 2019 - Power of Massive MIMO and Band 41 5G NR
• China Telecom: An examination of the current industrial trends and an outlook of 6G

Bandwidth Part (BWP) in 5G New Radio (NR)

I made a short tutorial explaining the concept of Bandwidth Part in 5G a while back. Slides and video embedded below.

Intermediate: Bandwidth Parts (BWP) from 3G4G

Further Reading:

• Understanding 5G New Radio Bandwidth Parts - Keysight
• 5G/NR - Carrier Bandwidth Part - ShareTechNote
• 5G NR Bandwidth Part (BWP) - TechPlayOn

Presentations on Macro Cells and Millimetre-wave Technology from recent CW (Cambridge Wireless) events

CW (Cambridge Wireless) held a couple of very interesting events from 2 very popular groups.

The first one was on "5G wide area coverage: macro cells – the why and the how". This event looked at the design and optimisation of the macro cell layer and its role within future heterogeneous networks. You can access the presentations for limited time on CW website here.

The presentations available are:

• Macro Cell developments that support LTE evolution and 5G deployments by Colin Bryce, Commscope
• Review of current macro network site types and design by Andy Sutton, British Telecommunications
• Smart rollout to maximise ROI by Mike Page, Radio Design
• Strategic planning: an overview of the role of the macro cell by Iris Barcia, Keima
• How massive MIMO can deliver the promise of new 5G Radio Networks by George Grayland, 5GFutures

Related posts that may be of interest:

• Keima: Automated 4G / 5G HetNet Design
• Prof. Andy Sutton: 5G Radio Access Network Architecture Evolution - Jan 2019
• #CWHeritage Talk: The history of synchronisation in digital cellular networks

Commercialising millimetre-wave technology - Presentations from @cambwireless #CWRadioTech event last week available now: https://t.co/PJbrBiJ8UR #4G #5G #Spectrum #Frequencies pic.twitter.com/6naiUSK1qw

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) May 21, 2019

The second one was on "Commercialising millimetre-wave technology". The event reviewed the commercial opportunities at millimetre-wave frequencies, what bands are available and what licensing is needed. You can access the presentations on CW website for limited time here.

The presentations available are:

• ‘Measurements, Modelling and Testing Millimetre Wave Communication Systems’ by Mark Beach, University of Bristol (Communication Systems & Networks Research Group)
• The Design of a Plastic Packaged Front-end IC for mmWave 5G by Liam Devlin, Plextek RFI
• Design Considerations for the Realisation of Cost-Effective, High-Performance mmWave PCBs by James Henderson, Plextek
• Millimetre wave wireless for improved wireless connectivity in Transport by Mark Barrett, Blu Wireless Technology
• Unlicensed, unlimited: 60GHz mmWave’ by Paul Morris, CCS
• Millimetre-Wave Circuit Simulation Challenges’ by David Morris, Keysight Technologies
• Use Cases & Enabling 5G NR Technologies by Mark Beach, University of Bristol (Communication Systems & Networks Research Group)
• Whitepaper by Paul Holes, Anritsu

We recently made a video to educate people outside our industry about non-mmWave 5G. It's embedded below.

VoLTE Hacking

The 10th Annual HITB Security Conference took place from the 6th till the 10th of May 2019 in The Netherlands. The theme for the conference this year is 'The Hacks of Future Past'. One of the presentations was on the topic 'VoLTE Phreaking' by Ralph Moonen, Technical Director at Secura.

The talk covered variety of topics:

• A little history of telephony hacking (in NL/EU)
• The landscape now
• Intercepting communications in 2019
• Vulnerabilities discovered: some new, some old
• An app to monitor traffic on a phone

The talk provides details on how VoLTE can potentially be hacked. In a lot of instances it is some or the other misconfigurations that makes VoLTE less secure. One of the slides that caught my attention was the differences in VoLTE signaling from different operators (probably due to different vendors) as shown above.

Anyway, I am not going into more details here. The presentation is available here.

Another interesting talk from #HITB2019AMS:
"VoLTE Phreaking"https://t.co/KSMLen6Yb6 [PDF] pic.twitter.com/KakJMGCcVk

— Enno Rey (@Enno_Insinuator) May 9, 2019

The thread in the Tweet above also provided some good references on VoLTE hacking. They are as follows:

• ERNW: Security Analysis of VoLTE, Part 1
• ERNW: Denial of Service attacks on VoLTE
• ERNW: VoLTE Security Analysis, part 2
• ERNW: IMSecure – Attacking VoLTE (and other Stuff)
• ERNW White Paper: Practical Attacks on VoLTE and VoWiFi

Related Posts:

• 3G4G: Voice in 4G: CSFB, VoIP & VoLTE

When will 2G & 3G be switched off now that 5G is here?

I wrote this blog post '2G / 3G Switch Off: A Tale of Two Worlds' back in Oct 2017. Since then I have continued to see the same trend in 2G/3G shutdown announcements. Based on that post and also taking the GSMA Mobile Economy Report into account, we have created a short tutorial on 2G/3G switch off and how the trends are affected by the launch of KaiOS based Smart Feature phones. Presentation and video embedded below. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Beginners: When will 2G & 3G be switched off now that 5G is here? from 3G4G

Related posts:

• Operator Watch Blog: Swisscom launched 5G Fast and 5G Wide
• The 3G4G Blog: 2G / 3G Switch Off: A Tale of Two Worlds
• The 3G4G Blog: Can KaiOS accelerate the transition from 2G / 3G to 4G?

China Telecom: An examination of the current industrial trends and an outlook of 6G

Last month I posted about the slides and videos from 6G Wireless Summit. Some of the videos were added later on. The presentation by Dr. Qi Bi, President of China Telecom Technology Innovation Center and the CTO of China Telecom Research Institute, was not shared but the video of the talk is available and it is quite insightful.

Of the many gems from the talk, I wanted to highlight couple of things. One was the ARPU, that Dr. Bi pointed out has remained the same, regardless of the technology. The other being 5G performance targets, some can be achieved, some are achievable at a price and some are just not achievable. This should be taken into account while designing 6G.


Let me know what you think

Related posts:

• Slides and Videos from the 1st 6G Wireless Summit - March 2019

Examples of 5G Use Cases & Applications

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.

#5G teacher extraordinaire @zahidtg from @Parallel_tw is back in action today with his popular #CWTechTrain "An Advanced Introduction to 5G". Spaces are still available for CW's next training day on #IoT (29 May) - find out more here: https://t.co/FBMECW88ge pic.twitter.com/DtMqttefg1

— Cambridge Wireless (@cambwireless) May 2, 2019

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.

Miscellaneous: 5G Uses Cases - April 2019 from 3G4G

The latest version of these slides are available to download from UK5G website here.