Tag Archive for: 5G

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TIM’s 5G overcame the 2 Gbps speed, a new European record achieved on the mmWave live network

TIM confirms its leadership in 5G innovation and in the development of next-generation networks and services by successfully completing the first connection in Europe able to permanently overcome the 2 Gbps speed on a 5G live commercial network with 26 Gigahertz (GHz) millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies acquired through MiSE’s 5G bid.

TIM has achieved this key record together with Ericsson and Qualcomm, two NGMN partners, and this represents an additional milestone regarding millimeter-wave to those already achieved in Turin in 2017 through the first 5G connection in Italy and in Rome in 2018, with the first 5G videocall in Europe.

This result marks a significant milestone toward 5G evolution, kicking-off the use of 200 MegaHertz (MHz), acquired through MiSE’s bid on 26 GHz spectrum, in addition to further 200 MHz available thanks to the bid’s Club Use[1], for a total amount of 400 MHz. The performances achieved will improve significantly during 2020, as the network will be able to use up to 800 MHz and afterwards up to 1.000 MHz.

Being able to achieve Gbps speeds and provide with high network capacity thanks to the wide bandwidth available, 26 GHz mmWave frequencies fit the further development of 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services both in the areas not yet covered by fixed ultrabroadband and the creation of “dedicated” 5G indoor coverage. Furthermore these features enable new Industry 4.0 scenarios based on services with exceptional high speed, extremely low latency and the highest security and reliability levels.

TIM achieved the significant milestone grounded on a standard 3GPP Non-Stand Alone (NSA) solution able to let devices and network components from different providers interacting and to aggregate TIM’s 4G and 5G network, already implemented in 3.7 GHz spectrum.

Michele Gamberini, TIM’s Chief Technology and Information Officer commented: “TIM has been pioneer in the millimeter-wave spectrum innovation and with this new European 5G record the company confirms its technological leadership, thanks to its strive toward innovation and a cutting-edge network infrastructure, able to enable the entire country’s digital transformation. This milestone paves the way to the development of new 5G solutions to grant fixed ultrabroadband to families, companies and public authorities not yet covered. This also includes coverage dedicated to the development of robotics and automation digital services in the smart manufacturing area. All of our customers will therefore be able to take advantage of a wide range of integrated solutions that will allow them to fully enter the Digital Society.

Emanuele Iannetti, Country Manager at Ericsson Italy, says “5G will be the main innovation platform of the next decade and it will allow Italy to be increasingly competitive and attractive in the global scenario. We are extremely pleased that TIM has chosen Ericsson’s 5G technology to achieve this important milestone, placing our country at the forefront of the commercial implementation of the fifth generation of mobile networks. Ericsson thus confirms its technological leadership and its readiness to anticipate any market demands.

“Qualcomm Technologies congratulates TIM on this significant milestone which again demonstrates the potential of 5G mmWave technology and shows how operators are able to use a wide range of spectrum bands to deploy 5G. 2020 will see a significant expansion in 5G coverage and the use of mmWave bands will play a clear role in the build-out”, said Enrico Salvatori, president, Qualcomm EMEA.

[1] 26GHz Club Use means the possibility – exclusive for 5G millimetre-wave spectrum assignees – to use the full 1 GHz band if not used by other assignees

Small cell economics short external report v1 1 clean

Ideas for Small Cell Cost Sharing – Short Report

There is a long held vision of very high capacity networks using small cells in areas of high demand. With the expected availability of large quantities of mmWave spectrum for 5G, this opportunity in principle becomes even greater. But the economics of small cell deployment have proved very challenging in practice – and this challenge will only increase at mmWave frequencies, where coverage of an individual cell is typically even smaller. Unless the industry can find ways to reduce the per cell building, operation and maintenance costs, the opportunity to build out small cell networks using mmWave spectrum will be severely constrained.

NGMN carried out a study to identify and assess different approaches to improving the economics of small cells through some form of cost sharing between operators (with 5G small cells typically anchored to a 5G or LTE coverage layer). This short public report presents the most important and interesting ideas arising from that study. A fuller report from the NGMN study is also available

 

Small cell economics external full report v1 1 clean

Small Cell Cost Sharing – Full Report

There is a long held vision of very high capacity networks using small cells in areas of high demand. With the expected availability of large quantities of mmWave spectrum for 5G, this opportunity in principle becomes even greater. But the economics of small cell deployment have proved very challenging in practice – and this challenge will only increase at mmWave frequencies, where coverage of an individual cell is typically even smaller. Unless the industry can find ways to reduce the per cell building, operation and maintenance costs, the opportunity to build out small cell networks using mmWave spectrum will be severely constrained.

This NGMN report aims to identify and assess different approaches to improving the economics of small cells through some form of cost sharing between operators (with 5G small cells possibly anchored to an LTE coverage layer). This study considers different economic models (including such as independent “neutral host” or jointly owned infrastructure companies) as well as technology aspects.

 

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Industrial 5G Growth Strengthened with NGMN and 5G-ACIA Agreement

Joint NGMN and 5G-ACIA Press Release

Frankfurt, Germany – the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) and the 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA) have today announced to jointly shape and promote industrial 5G applications.

The agreement comes as both NGMN and 5G-ACIA look to enhance cooperation between operators and industries to realize the opportunities that 5G technology offers. The partnership between NGMN and 5G-ACIA will provide the technological foundation for new business models that will unleash new markets and growth in the industry, extending far beyond the mobile broadband applications of 5G.

Dr. Peter Meissner, CEO of the NGMN Alliance, said: “This agreement is the foundation for extended progress and development of 5G for industrial applications. NGMN has already done substantial work in several of its projects, e.g. URLLC for Vertical Industries. The work of NGMN and 5G-ACIA enhances the mutual understanding of how 5G can better support the industry and we are looking forward to the close co-operation of these two major alliances to bring about significant progress.”

Dr. Andreas Mueller (Bosch), Chairman of 5G-ACIA, said: “We are very much looking forward to strengthening our collaboration with NGMN. Only with a joint effort involving all relevant stakeholders, will it be possible to unlock the huge potential that 5G may bring to the manufacturing industry. The agreement sets the ground for a deeper exchange between 5G-ACIA and NGMN and for joint activities around the globe. Industrial 5G will soon become reality.”

NGMN has driven and guided the development of wireless innovation in 5G since its first 5G White Paper was published in 2015. With the support of its well-established global partnership and technical expertise, NGMN has become a leading voice in the 5G industry.

Since its establishment in April 2018 as a working party of the ZVEI e.V., 5G-ACIA advocates globally to make industrial 5G a success. Very different 5G stakeholders, mainly organizations from the OT and ICT industries, jointly strive to make sure that the interests of the industrial domain are adequately considered in 5G standardization and regulation.

 

1912 NGMN Deckblatt Rural Coverage

Non-Terrestrial Networks Position Paper

NGMN’s Extreme Long-Range Communications for Deep Rural Coverage project presented in paves the way for the study of cellular coverage for sparsely populated areas. In this study, a number of Mobile and Satellite Technologies that could provide coverage to remote areas have been analysed and studied.

The present paper elaborates on that recommendation, providing an overview and analysis of non-terrestrial cellular technologies that can provide coverage to remote areas.

 

191120 Global 5G Operator Forum

Industry-leading Operators Released Joint Statement on 5G Promotion in Global 5G Operator Forum

Today, the Global 5G Operator Forum, one of the series of major events in the World 5G Convention, was successfully held in Beijing.

As one of the most splendid events this year, the World 5G Convention was successfully held from November 20 to 22 in Beijing, jointly hosted by Beijing Municipal Government, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Science and Technology, and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. With the theme of “5G changes the world, 5G creates the future ” and being “international, high-end, professional”, the event has invited the top-profile figures in the ICT industry, including scientists, entrepreneurs, and government leaders across the world, to deliver speeches and high-end dialogues regarding the technological frontier, industrial trends, and innovative applications enabled by 5G.

Dubbed as CTO Forum, the Global 5G Operator Forum is one of the featured forums in World 5G Convention. Co-organized by the O-RAN Alliance, Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) and the Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI), the Forum is composed of keynote speeches of 11 CTOs or executives representing 11 world-leading operators, including China Mobile, Telefonica, Deutsche Telecom, NTT DOCOMO, China Telecom, China Unicom, Bharti Airtel, Singtel, Korea Telecom, KDDI, and China Broadcasting Network Corporation. With the theme of “Enhancing Ecosystem towards ICDT Convergence for 5G and Beyond”, the speakers shared their latest and comprehensive progress, experience, challenges, solutions, business model for vertical industry, as well as vision and roadmap for 5G and beyond. At the closing of the forum, the speakers released a Joint Statement on 5G promotion together, demonstrating their dedication of collaboration to lead the industry towards a Green, Soft, Open and Smart 5G era. The detailed joint statements are:

  • To collaborate in building an open 5G ecosystem, with open architecture and interfaces, open source software and open reference design hardware to facilitate the E2E cost effectiveness and accelerate the maturity of both SA and NSA with global roaming to fulfill the true potential of 5G.
  • To accelerate embedding network intelligence, by leveraging big data and ML/AI, to enhance the network operation, management and real-time performance.
  • To construct a comprehensive Green framework, from material and device, equipment function and HW platform, to network architecture and multi-network operation technologies to guarantee the industry sustainability.
  • To further exploit cloud, virtualization and container technologies to improve E2E network Softwarization and realize Network as a Service (NaaS).
  • To share experience and the best practice of business model and E2E solutions for of vertical industries for a commercially successful 5G era.

“I am very happy to see such heavy-weight event held in China, with the representation from so many industry-leading companies,” Said Dr. Zhengmao Li, the EVP and CTO of China Mobile, and the chair of the CTO Forum, “5G is deemed to transform the society that humanity thrive in. As the world-largest operator, it is our unshakable mandate to build a most cost effective and enabling 5G network infrastructure and services. China Mobile is fully committed to work with our partners and all members of our ecosystem for a sustainable and prosperous future together.”

“With 5G we are building society infrastructures. Building the right architecture: multi domain, multi vendor and regionalized CORE SA, with a clear proposal in Edge Computing and Open Source implementation, are keys for guarantee the availability.” Said Mr. Enrique, the GCTIO of Telefonica, and the co-chair of the CTO Forum, “Orchestration and Integration, combined with AI tools will be key for the maturity and velocity, necessary for the new industry and society services demands.”

Randeep Sekhon, Chief Technology Officer, Bharti Airtel said “Indian market is continues to see huge growth in mobile broadband adoption and volume. We are continuously expanding our 4G footprint, digitizing our operations and making future ready networks for 5G to provide superior data experience to our customers. 5G, IOT & AI/ML would help in realizing government’s vision of Digital India. We encourage an open ecosystem with collaboration between the operators and application players to build smart future ready networks and customer centric services.”

“5G has been growing very rapidly in Korea since the commercial launch last April. Global 5G Operator Forum is a great opportunity to share KT’s experiences of 5G network deployment and operation and to understand other global operators’ plans for 5G.” Said Mr. Lee, the SVP of Korea Telecom, “Moving forward, I believe that open, intelligent, software-based network solutions will be more and more important to develop business models and technologies for 5G B2B market as well as vertical industries, and KT hopes to collaborate closely with global operators for such solutions with this Joint Statement.”

Mark Chong, Group Chief Technology Officer, Singtel said, “With the arrival of 5G, enterprises are poised to take advantage of the enhanced capabilities for innovation to transform industries and societies. We are pleased to participate in the Global 5G Operator Forum to accelerate the advancement of the technology and 5G ecosystem.”

200210 NGMN Verticals URLLC Requirements v16

5G E2E Technology to Support Verticals URLLC Requirements

The aim of this work is to illustrate how 5G end-to-end deployment can meet vertical requirements and also highlight what are the main 5G URLLC technology enablers for use cases identified in the report. Some of these new use cases impose extremely low latency and high reliability requirements on 5G system from end-to-end perspective. This report also briefly describes 5G URLLC enablers along with reference architecture for specific use case and further evaluate how 5G URLLC can enable such use cases.

190923 Continuous Delivery in Telecommunication Network Environments

Continuous Delivery in Telecommunication Network Environments

Today, production networks are strictly separated from test networks and development environment networks for security and operational reasons. This gap between “Continuous Integration” automation in one network zone and deployment automations in other network zones hinders seamless “Continuous Delivery” automation.

This white paper focuses on solving the this challenge.

190916 NGMN E2EArchFramework v3.0.8

5G End-to-End Architecture Framework v3.0.8

The purpose of this document is to provide a high-level framework of architecture principles and requirements that provide guidance and direction for NGMN partners and standards development organisations in the shaping of the 5G suite of interoperable capabilities, enablers, and services. It builds on the architectural concepts and proposals implied by the NGMN White Paper and subsequent deliverables published by NGMN.

 

The elements of functional virtualisation shift of computing to the edges of the network, and leveraging of spectrum distribution and flexibility, are among the dominant themes that shape the 5G ecosystem. Optimisation of operational and performance efficiencies, while creating and delivering an exceptional and customisable user experience is of paramount significance.

190903 RAN Convergence Paper

Joint NGMN/WBA RAN Convergence Paper

In order to examine the best future solutions for convergence of Wi-Fi and 5G, this paper examines the current Wi-Fi interworking solutions available for 4G systems using either trusted or untrusted Wi-Fi access, through either Core Network based or RAN level integration. It also reviews the 3GPP 5G system approach to Wi-Fi access, which includes integration of untrusted Wi-Fi access in Release 15 and the new opportunities in Release 16 for trusted Wi-Fi access as well as wireline and cable modem access such as from a residential gateway. Release 16 specified Access Traffic Steering, Switching and Splitting (ATSSS) functionality is analyzed which enables data session over one or more concurrent accesses.