Saturday 30 December 2023

Top 10 Blog Posts and Top 5 Videos for 2023

The 3G4G Blog is our most popular blog, running for over 16 years with over 15.5 million views. With 2023 coming to an end, here are the top 10 most viewed posts from 2023 as well as top 5 most viewed videos. These posts/videos were not necessarily posted this year, so I have added the month and year each of them was posted.

  1. Network Slicing using User Equipment Route Selection Policy (URSP), Nov. 2021
  2. NWDAF in 3GPP Release-16 and Release-17, Feb. 2021
  3. New 5G NTN Spectrum Bands in FR1 and FR2, May 2023
  4. Non-public networks (NPN) - Private Networks by another name, May 2019
  5. How many Cell Sites and Base Stations Worldwide?, Mar. 2023
  6. What is RF Front-End (RFFE) and why is it so Important?, Jan. 2022
  7. 3GPP Release 17 Description and Summary of Work Items, Dec. 2022
  8. Two Types of SMS in 5G, Sep. 2020
  9. ATIS Webinar on "3GPP Release 18 Overview: A World of 5G-Advanced", Feb. 2023
  10. Prof. Ted Rappaport Keynote at EuCNC & 6G Summit 2023 on 'Looking Towards the 6G Era - What we may expect, and why', Aug. 2023

Here are top 5 videos viewed on our YouTube channel in the last year:

  1. Beginners: What is Industrial IoT (IIoT), Feb.2019
  2. Beginners: Radio Frequency, Band and Spectrum, July 2017
  3. Beginners: Different Types of RAN Architectures - Distributed, Centralized & Cloud, July 2021
  4. Beginners: Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), Sep. 2018
  5. Beginners: MNO, MVNO, MVNA, MVNE: Different types of mobile operators, Apr. 2018

Let us know about your favourite post and/or video in the comments below.

Related Posts: 

Posted by Zahid Ghadialy at 07:35 Leave a comment...0 comments so far
Labels:

Friday 8 December 2023

6G Global - Videos & Presentations from Mobile Korea 2023

5G Forum, South Korea organises Mobile Korea conference every year. Mobile Korea 2023 had two conferences within it, '6G Global', looking at 'Beyond Connectivity and New Possibilities', and '5G Vertical Summit', looking at 'Leading to Sustainable Society with 5G'.

I often complain about how organisations working in 6G often lack social networks skills, in this case, even the website is not very user friendly and doesn't contain a lot of details. Full marks for uploading the videos on YouTube though.

Anyway, here are the videos and presentations that were shared from the summit:

  • Opening + Keynote Session - Moderator : LEE, HyeonWoo, DanKook University
    • Standardization and Technical Trend for 6G, SungHyun CHOI, Samsung Research (video, presentation)
  • Session 1 : 6G Global Trend - Moderator : JaeHoon CHUNG, LG Electronics Inc.
    • Thoughts on standardization and Industry priorities to ensure timely market readiness for 6G, Sari NIELSEN, Nokia (video, presentation)
    • On the convergence route for 6G, Wen TONG, Huawei (video, presentation)
    • The Path from 5G to 6G: Vision and Technology, Edward G. TIEDMANN, Qualcomm Technologies  (video, presentation)
    • Shaping 6G – Technology and Services, Bo HAGERMAN, Ericsson (video, presentation)
  • Government Session
    • Keynote : Korea's 6G R&D Promotion Strategy, KyeongRae CHO, Ministry of Science and ICT (video, presentation)
  • Session 2 : 6G Global Collaboration - Moderator : Juho LEE, Samsung Electronics
  • 6G R&D and promotion in Japan, Kotaro KUWAZU, B5GPC (video, presentation)
    • Technology evolution toward beyond 5G and 6G, Charlie ZHANG, Samsung Research (video, presentation)
    • AI-Native RAN and Air Interface : Promises and Challenges, Balaji Raghothaman, Keysight (video, presentation)
    • Enabling 6G Research through Rapid Prototyping and Test LEE, SeYong, (NI) (video, presentation)
    • Global Collaborative R&D Activities for Advanced Radio Technologies, JaeHoon CHUNG, LG Electronics (video, presentation)
    • International research collaboration – key to a sustainable 6G road, Thomas HAUSTEIN, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (video, presentation)
    • 6G as Cellular Network 2.0: A Networked Computing Perspective, KyungHan LEE, Seoul National University (video, presentation)
    • Towards a Sustainable 6G, Marcos KATZ, University of Oulu (video, presentation)
  • Pannel Discussion : Roles of Public Domain in 6G R&D - Moderator : HyeonWoo LEE, DanKook University
  • Session 3 : 6G Global Mega Project - Moderator: YoungJo KO, ETRI
    • Sub-THz band wireless transmission and access technology for 6G Tbps data rate, JuYong LEE, KAIST (video, presentation)
    • The post Shannon Era: Towards Semantic, Goal-Oriented and Reconfigurable Intelligent Environments aided 6G communications, Emilio CALVANESE STRINATI, CEA Leti (video, presentation)
    • Demonstration of 1.4 Tbits wireless transmission using OAM multiplexing technology in the sub-THz band, DooHwan LEE, NTT Corporation (video, presentation)
    • Latest 6G research progress in China, Zhiqin WANG, CAICT (video, presentation)

If there are no links in video/presentation than it hasn't been shared.

Related Posts: 

Posted by Zahid Ghadialy at 15:15 Leave a comment...0 comments so far
Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday 29 November 2023

AI/ML and Other ICT Industry Trends in the coming decades

At the Brooklyn 6G Summit (B6GS) 2023, top tier economist Dr. Jeff Shen from BlackRock, presented a talk from the industry perspective of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and investment. Jeff Shen, PhD, Managing Director, is Co-CIO and Co-Head of Systematic Active Equity (SAE) at BlackRock. He is a member of the BlackRock Global Operating Committee, BlackRock Systematic (BSYS) Management Committee and the BlackRock Asian Middle Eastern & Allies Network (AMP) Executive Committee.

In his talk he covered the history of how and where AI has been traditionally used and how the thinking around AI has changed over the last few decades. He then presented his view on if AI is just a fad or it's more than that. To illustrate the fact, he provided an example of how Generative AI market is expected to grow from $40 Billion in 2022 to $1.3 Trillion in 2032. 

There are many challenges that AI faces that one should be aware of; namely regulation, cyber threats and ethical concerns. In the US, AI touches the entire economy, from legal to healthcare. In their quarterly reporting, firms are now discussing AI and the larger tech companies are not afraid to grow inorganically in order to get more exposure to the trend. 

You can watch the whole of his talk embedded below, courtesy of IEEE Tv.

Related Posts: 

Posted by Zahid Ghadialy at 07:35 Leave a comment...0 comments so far
Labels: , , , , , ,

Wednesday 8 November 2023

Presentations from ETSI Security Conference 2023

It's been a while since I wrote about the ETSI Security Conference, which was known as ETSI Security week once upon a time. This year, ETSI’s annual flagship event on Cyber Security took place face-to-face from 16 to 19 October 2023, in ETSI, Sophia Antipolis, France and gathered more than 200 people. 

The event this year focused on Security Research and Global Security Standards in action The event also considered wider aspects such as Attracting the next generation of Cyber Security standardization professionals and supporting SMEs.

The following topics were covered

  • Day 1:
    • Session 1: Global Cyber Security
    • Session 2: Global Cyber Security
    • Session 3: Regulation State of the Nation
    • Session 4: Regulation, Data Protection and Privacy, Technical Aspects
  • Day 2:
    • Session 1: Zero Trust, Supply Chain & Open Source
    • Session 2: IoT & Certification
    • Session 3: Zero Trust, Supply Chain & Open Source
    • Session 4: Quantum Safe Cryptography Session
  • Day 3:
    • Session 1: Experiences of Attracting Next Generation of Engineers and Investing in Future
    • Session 2: IoT and Certification Session
    • Session 3: IoT & Mobile Certification
    • Session 4: 5G in the Wild - Part 1
  • Day 4:
    • Session 1: 5G in the Wild - Part 2
    • Session 2: 6G Futures
    • Session 3: Augmented Reality and AI

You can see the detailed agenda here. The presentations from the conference are available here.

The CyberSecurity Magazine interviewed Helen L. And Jane Wright discussing diversity and careers in Cybersecurity. Helen, from the National Cyber Security Centre, has worked in Security for over 20 years and is a mentor at the CyberFirst programme. CyberFirst intends to inspire and encourage students from all backgrounds to consider a career in cybersecurity. Jane Wright is a Cyber Security Engineer at QinetiQ and has been participating in the CyberFirst. The interview, along with a video, is available here.

Related Posts: 

Posted by Zahid Ghadialy at 11:35 Leave a comment...0 comments so far
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday 25 October 2023

Mobile Network Architecture: How did we get here & where should we go?

Lorenzo Casaccia, Vice President of Technical Standards, IP Qualcomm Europe, Inc. has been with Qualcomm since 2000. During that time he's had a variety of roles related to wireless communication, including research and system design, regulatory aspects, product management, and technical standardization. He currently leads a team of engineers across three continents driving Qualcomm’s activities in 3GPP, the standards body designing technologies for 4G and 5G.

Couple of his well known articles on Qualcomm OnQ Blog on 'Counting 3GPP contributions' and 'ETSI SEP database manipulations' are available here and here respectively.

At the recent NIST/IEEE Future Networks 6G Core Networks Workshop he was able to bring in his experience to deliver a fantastic talk looking at how the mobile network architecture has diverged from the Data Networks (Internet) architecture and how this has limited innovation in the mobile networks.

He concludes by providing a solution on how to fix this network architecture in 6G by limiting any new services going in the control plane as well as ensuring over the time all services move to the user plane. The control plane will then stop being 'G' specific which will benefit the network innovation in the long term. 

There is no provision to embed the video so please look at the top of the page here. Lorenzo's talk starts at 03:03:50. The Q&A session for the panel starts at 03:53:20 for anyone interested.

Related Posts: 

Posted by Zahid Ghadialy at 07:35 Leave a comment...1 comments so far
Labels: , , , , , ,

Friday 13 October 2023

The Digital Railway supported by FRMCS

As discussed in our earlier post, the long-standing 2G cellular standard for rail communication, known as the Global System for Mobile Communications–Railway (GSM–R), remains in use across Europe, China, India, Africa, and Australia. However, software and hardware vendors predict that this early digital cellular technology will start to be phased out in 2025, as a new 5G-based system specifically for railway applications is expected to be introduced.

According to the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA), GSM–R supports communication between train drivers and traffic control centres with features such as group communication, location-dependent addressing, priority levels, railway emergency calls, and shunting communication. This system enables data transmission between trains and control centres at speeds exceeding 300 mph.

Yet, GSM–R is beginning to show its age. While it is adequate for basic voice communication, its 4 MHz bandwidth, which supports multiple 200 KHz channels, limits its functionality. Downlink communications use the 876–880 MHz range, while the uplink operates at 921–925 MHz.

The maximum data transmission rate for GSM–R is just 9.6 kbit/s, making it unsuitable for real-time data communication. Its capabilities are essentially limited to sending SMS text messages, with little capacity for anything more advanced.

The Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS), a 5G-based successor to GSM–R, will provide both voice and data services for railway communications. The FRMCS project is being led by the International Union of Railways (UIC) in collaboration with major rail infrastructure companies and telecom solution providers. It is set to be based on the 5G 3GPP standard, meaning it will not require a railway-specific cellular network technology.

FRMCS, which will use the standalone 5G NR specification, is expected to be finalised by the end of 2022. This new standard will operate on harmonised frequencies at 900 MHz and 1900 MHz to ensure interoperability for rail command and control systems as they transition from GSM–R to FRMCS.

Mobile network operators will also be able to offer 5G connectivity for train passengers, collaborating with railway companies to provide the high-bandwidth digital services needed to streamline modern train operations.

Currently, many rail operators offer Wi-Fi onboard or install repeaters to enhance mobile network coverage within carriages. However, these solutions can be costly to maintain and upgrade, and repeated signals can cause interference when train doors open. An alternative solution is for public mobile operators to provide passenger connectivity through their existing 5G networks, with additional 5G towers placed along major rail lines.

To improve 5G signal penetration, train windows can be fitted with special “5G-friendly” glass, which allows signals to pass through more easily (standard window glass is often coated to reduce solar radiation inside the carriage). This approach reduces the need for expensive Wi-Fi and repeater systems, enabling mobile operators to deliver high-speed broadband services to passengers more efficiently.

In their webinar last year, Wray Castle stated that FRMCS is not simply a replacement for GSM-R nor is it a single specific technology. In fact, UIC have stated that FRMCS is technology agnostic. The webinar discussed:

  • What is FRMCS and how does it differ from GSM-R?
  • How soon will railways be replacing GSM-R?
  • Is there a migration strategy?
  • Do we have sufficient radio spectrum?
  • What is the most probable technology that will be used?

The video of that is embedded below:

Wray Castle also conducts regular courses on this topic. Details here.

Related Posts:

Posted by Zahid Ghadialy at 07:35 Leave a comment...0 comments so far
Labels: , , , , , ,

Wednesday 4 October 2023

Presentations from 2nd IEEE Open RAN Summit

The second IEEE SA (Standards Association) Open RAN summit, hosted by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, took place on 9-10 Aug 2023. It covered the topics related to the standardization of Open RAN including O-RAN Alliance, 3GPP, IEEE, various deployment scenarios, testing and integration, Open RAN security, RAN slicing, and RAN optimization among others. 

The videos of the presentations can be viewed on the summit page here or though the video playlist here.

The talk from Dr. Chih-Lin I, O-RAN Alliance TSC Co-Chair and CMCC Chief Scientist, Wireless Technologies on 'AI/ML impact, from 5.5G to 6G' is embedded below:

Related Posts: 

Posted by Zahid Ghadialy at 07:35 Leave a comment...0 comments so far
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday 13 September 2023

Private Networks Introductory Series

Private Networks has been a hot topic for a while now. We made a technical introductory video which has over 13K views while its slides have over 25K views. The Private Networks blog that officially started in April is now getting over 2K views a month. 

In addition, there are quite a few questions and enquiries that I receive on them on a regular basis. With this background, it makes sense to add these Introductory video series by Firecell in a post. Their 'Private Networks Tutorial Series' playlist, aiming to demystify private networks, is embedded below:

The playlist has five videos at the moment, hopefully they will add more:

  • Introduction to different kinds of mobile networks: public, private and hybrid networks
  • Different Names for Private Networks
  • Drivers and Enablers of Private Networks
  • Mobile Cellular vs Wi-Fi Private Networks
  • Architecture of Mobile Private Networks

I also like this post on different names for private networks.

Related Posts: 

Posted by Zahid Ghadialy at 18:35 Leave a comment...0 comments so far
Labels: , , , , , ,

Thursday 24 August 2023

Prof. Ted Rappaport Keynote at EuCNC & 6G Summit 2023 on 'Looking Towards the 6G Era - What we may expect, and why'

Prof. Ted Rappaport has featured a few times in our blog posts (see here and here). Today we look at his recent keynote at the EuCNC & 6G Summit 2023 on the topic 'Looking Towards the 6G Era - What we may expect, and why'. The abstract of the talk says:

Recent work has shown that the fundamentals of the radio propagation channel will enable mobile communications all the way to 900 GHz, offering bandwidths of tens of GHz. An amazing fact that is all but disregarded is that the three fundamental technological breakthroughs of 5G, namely millimeter wave technology, small cell densification, and massive multiple-input multiple-output (massive-MIMO) antenna systems, are paving the way for the next several decades of the wireless industry. This talk demonstrates how the 5G era will futureproof wireless networks as we enter the 6G era and beyond — an era of wireless cognition and human-style computing. In fewer than 20 years, wireless networks will carry information at the computation speed of the human brain. Yet, how will engineers ensure that we build these networks with sustainability and power efficiency in mind? This talk offers some solutions and promising areas of exploration to ensure the future 6G era is lightning fast yet kind to planet earth.

Recently I had a discussion about mmWave, sub-THz, THz, etc. This chart in the Tweet above is handy with deciphering the 5G/6G spectrum terminology.

Prof. Rappaport covered quite a few topics on spectrum above 100 GHz and made a strong case for mmWave and Terahertz. The mmWave adoption for 5G hasn't yet taken off so we will have to see how enthusiastic the industry is for even higher frequencies. The other keynotes from the conference (see references below) argued for cmWave as the mid-band for 6G. We will have to wait and see where all this discussion goes.

The talk is embedded below:

Related Posts: 

Posted by Zahid Ghadialy at 07:35 Leave a comment...0 comments so far
Labels: , , , , ,

Thursday 3 August 2023

Tutorial: A Quick Introduction to 3GPP

We recently made a beginners tutorial explaining the need for The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), its working, structure and provides useful pointers to explore further. The video and slides are embedded below.

You can download the slides from here.

Related Posts: 

Posted by Zahid Ghadialy at 07:35 Leave a comment...0 comments so far
Labels: , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)