5G plans by UK Operators - Nov 2018

Vodafone: 1000 live 5G sites by 2020

• Back in June, Vodafone announced 7 cities will be part of 5G trials starting in July.
• In October, Vodafone announced that they have became the first company in the UK to carry full 5G over a commercial network. Live mobile data traffic was being streamed to and from the Internet exclusively over 5G from a site in Salford, Greater Manchester, connected to Vodafone’s nationwide converged fibre network.
• Vodafone further said as a part of the same announcement that their network engineers were already achieving high-speed Internet connectivity and low latency from the Salford site using Active Antenna (Massive MIMO) technology. This effectively provides multiple-data ‘channels’ from a single antenna, coupled with the 3.4GHz 5G spectrum. Vodafone secured the largest block of this 5G spectrum at this year’s auction.
• In September, Vodafone made UK’s first holographic call using 5G.
• Vodafone is planning commercial network and 1,000 5G sites by 2020

The video of the first live holographic call is below:

EE/BT: 1,500 sites, 16 cities with 5G in 2019

• EE, part of BT Group, has nine live 5G trial sites across East London.
• Some of the learning as part of this announcement included the fact that rooftop sites often need significant strengthening to carry the new 50 kg 5G antennas – and some sites house three of these (3 sectors)
• EE launching 5G within 16 UK cities in 2019, roughly 1,500 sites
• EE is upgrading transmission to 10Gbps links at each 5G site
• 5G Smartphones to be introduced alongside 5G Home router for 5G broadband
• EE also building next generation 5G core network, with virtualised network functions on a cloud native infrastructure
• BT Sport showcased first live trial of remote production broadcast live over EE’s 5G network

‘3’ UK Committed to Invest Over £2bn into 5G

• According to Three press release: It’s committed spend to date covers the acquisition of the UK’s leading 5G spectrum position, new 5G radio equipment and cell site upgrades, high-capacity dark fibre network, the world’s first end-to-end cloud-based core network, and new digital systems that will enhance user experience
• The first commercial quantities of 5G smartphone and home broadband devices are expected to be available by H2 2019. 
• According to CCS Insight, Three now owns about 24 percent of all spectrum suitable for 4G and 5G services. This, it says, places it ahead of BT (21 percent), Vodafone (19 percent) and O2 (15 percent). The remaining 20 percent, which consists of 700 MHz and 3.6 GHz airwaves, is earmarked for sale by Ofcom in late 2019.
• Customers of Three already use 7.6GB of data per month, more than three times the industry average. Based on projections from Ofcom, Dave Dyson, CEO, sees a scenario in which this usage surges to 90GB per month in 2025. Note that this prediction has increased from 56 GB per month in 2025 as we earlier reported.

O2: Massive MIMO Pilot to prepare for 5G

• O2 has the least amount of announcements and information on 5G. In a recent press release, it announced that it has launched a pilot to boost London network ahead of 5G.
• The pilot is effectively saying that O2 is working with Nokia on two Massive MIMO trials in Kings Cross and Marble Arch (in London), aimed at enhancing connectivity for O2 customers and paving the way for the future deployment of 5G across the capital.
• The pilot is in the newly acquired 2.3 GHz spectrum.
• The pilot will lay the foundation for the next-generation of mobile connectivity– 5G.
• On the positive side, Ofcom confirmed that O2 had delivered against its commitment to provide 98% indoor 4G coverage and 90% geographical landmass mass coverage across the UK. 

South Korea Telcos: United in 5G Launch

South Korea has ambitions to be the first country to roll-out 5G and their three major mobile operators will work together to launch 5G networks at the same time in 2019 to “avoid excessive competition” and ensure the country is the first to launch the next-generation technology. This is discounting the fact that San Marino already launched nationwide 5G but its just a city state and the 5G launch does not really qualify to be considered a nationwide launch

SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus have agreed to jointly introduce 5G services on “Korea 5G Day”, which is likely to be sometime in March 2019.

The South Korean government in April of this year mandated that operators collaborate on 5G deployments by sharing core fibre infrastructure, rather than RANs, in a bid to reduce the cost of rolling out the technology and so enable operators to pass on the savings to customers.

The triumvirate of mobile carriers plan to provide 5G services using mobile routers providing mobile connections for Wi-Fi devices, first rather than smartphones. The services on smartphones will be available a month later.

In an interview with The Korea Times, ICT Minister Yoo Young-min stressed the need for the government and companies to closely cooperate to reach the goal:

"The world's first 5G commercialization is very meaningful in that Korea will have an advantageous position in the global market and take the leadership. Amid intensifying competition among global mobile carriers, it is significant for the government and companies to join hands and reach the goal together."

There has been much speculation and discussion on who would be chosen to supply the 5G network equipment.

KT has chosen Samsung Electronics, Ericsson and Nokia. As expected, Huawei was excluded from the list. They elaborated:

“In choosing 5G equipment providers, the company considered a wide range of factors: the level of technology, investment costs and management stability based on the compatibility with the existing LTE network.”

SK Telecom named Samsung Electronics, Ericsson and Nokia as its 5G equipment providers. SK Telecom have recently opened one of their first commercial fifth-generation base stations in the central area of Seoul. Using equipment manufactured by Samsung Electronics, SKT introduced a 24-kilogram rectangular active antenna unit for the 3.5-gigahertz frequency band -- 1 meter in height and 23 centimeters in width -- installed at the rooftop of a small hotel building in Myeong-dong, one of the most crowded areas in Seoul. Compared to the fourth-generation Long Term Evolution antenna units hung at the rooftop railing, the 5G antenna unit consisting of a total of 32 individual antennas looked noticeably smaller and more compact, requiring just 10 square-meters of space for installation. 

Huawei was also excluded by them for the second time now despite having participated in internal tests along with the three selected.

SKT and KT’s choices were anticipated because both had used equipment from Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia for their 4G LTE networks.

LG U+ is the only one among Korea’s three mobile carriers that has not yet announced 5G equipment suppliers. The smallest mobile carrier is likely to include Huawei on its list. It partnered with the Chinese company for its 4G LTE network, along with Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia.

The biggest advantage of Huawei’s 5G equipment is cost efficiency. The Chinese company is known to charge prices that are 20 to 30 percent lower than other global competitors for high-quality 5G equipment. However the major issue with Huawei are the security concerns.

Due to its ties to the Chinese government, there have been worries that the company’s equipment may be used for spying. In August of this year, the U.S. and Australian governments banned Huawei from supplying equipment for their 5G wireless infrastructure citing security reasons. Britain said in July it “is less confident” about the integrity of Huawei products.

Huawei has been denying such allegations.

In a press release last month, the Chinese tech company highlighted that, despite ongoing security concerns, there has been zero cases of actual information leakage in the past.

Samsung is aiming to control 20 percent of the global market for 5G network equipment in 2020, the head of the company's network business has said. Samsung Electronics President Kim Young-ky claimed that the company is not a newcomer to the network equipment industry as it has been supplying products in this field for the past 20 years. According to the data compiled by industry tracker Dell'Oro, Samsung Electronics took up 11 percent of the global market for fourth-generation (4G) network equipment in the second quarter of this year.


Related Posts:

• SK Telecom Mobile Network History and 5G
• KT's 5G Plan
• South Korea: KT ready to roll-out 5G in 2019

Optus launching commercial 5G Fixed Wireless Access services in January 2019

Optus is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of SingTel (a company headquartered in Singapore) since 2001.

As of 31 October 2018, Optus’ 4G network population coverage was 97.2% in Australia, with 7,011 sites upgraded to 4G of which over 5,990 have been upgraded to 700 MHz spectrum. The total 4G customer base reached 6.39 million (Including Enterprise customers, Optus’ total number of 4G customers reached 6.48 million) as of 30 September 2018. They believe that all Australians deserve high quality mobile coverage are committed to relentless improvement, especially to the roll-out of 5G.

During this quarter, Optus launched the 50th Federal Government Blackspot. In addition, Optus successfully concluded “live” 5G network trial in Sydney, paving the way for the commercial launch of Fixed Wireless Access services in Canberra and Brisbane in January 2019, and other capital cities by March 2019. 

Optus' road to 5G saw it begin switching on its 4.5G network in February last year, followed by the addition of Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (Massive MIMO) and three-cell carrier aggregation to 4G at the end of last year.

According to chief executive officer Allen Lew, Optus has now finished trials at its HQ in Macquarie Park; its 5G Live centre in the Gold Coast is stage two of its 5G plan, as it will allow the telco to gather data on how consumers interact with and react to the low-latency, high-bandwidth capabilities of 5G and the technologies it enables.

Optus is also inviting "young entrepreneurs" to visit the showcase -- which utilises both indoor and outdoor 5G base stations -- and commercialise any ideas they come up with, which will also help Optus to decide who to partner with.

While according to Optus head of Networks Dennis Wong  5G is the final piece of the "industrialisation puzzle" -- due to its characteristics of low latency, high bandwidth, network slicing architecture, and massive machine type communications -- Wong said Optus is well positioned to deliver a 5G network thanks to its holdings in the 3.5GHz spectrum band.

***
To learn more about Fixed Wireless Access, see 3G4G Blog post here.

See also:

• Telstra's LTE-B Push
• 5G Development and Progress in Singapore

India: BSNL - WiFi Today, 5G in 2020

India is speeding ahead in a digital super-highway. The draft National Digital Communication Policy (NDCP) 2018 states following 2022 Goals:

a. Provide Universal broadband coverage at 50 Mbps to every citizen
b. Provide 1 Gbps connectivity to all Gram Panchayats of India by 2020 and 10 Gbps by 2022
c. Enable 100 Mbps broadband on demand to all key development institutions; including all educational institutions
d. Enable fixed line broadband access to 50% of households
e. Achieve ‘unique mobile subscriber density’ of 55 by 2020 and 65 by 2022
f. Enable deployment of public Wi-Fi Hotspots; to reach 5 million by 2020 and 10 million by 2022
g. Ensure connectivity to all uncovered areas

Digital India is already transforming the lives of 1.3 billion people. There is growth in e-governance, there is some progress towards cashless society, smart cities are growing and 'Made in India' smartphones are growing. 

With a view to narrow the digital infrastructure gap with the developed economies, the government is looking at establishing a ‘National Broadband Mission – Rashtriya Broadband Abhiyan’ to secure universal broadband access. The Draft NDCP 2018 has the following clauses:

(a) Implementation of the following broadband initiatives, to be funded through USOF and Public Private Partnerships:  i. BharatNet – Providing 1 Gbps to Gram Panchayats upgradeable to 10 Gbps  ii. GramNet – Connecting all key rural development institutions with 10 Mbps upgradeable to 100 Mbps  iii. NagarNet – Establishing 1 Million public Wi-Fi Hotspots in urban areas  iv. JanWiFi – Establishing 2 Million Wi-Fi Hotspots in rural areas 

(b) Implementing a ‘Fibre First Initiative’ to take fibre to the home, to enterprises and to key development institutions in Tier I, II and III towns and to rural clusters:  i. According Telecom Optic Fibre cables the status of Public utility  ii. Promoting collaboration models involving state, local bodies and private sector as necessary for provision of shared duct infrastructure in municipalities, rural areas and national highways  iii. Facilitating Fibre-to-the-tower programme to enable fiberisation of at least 60% base stations thereby accelerating migration to 4G/5G  iv. Leveraging existing assets of the broadcasting and power sector to improve connectivity, affordability and sustainability  v. Incentivising and promoting fibre connectivity for all new developmental construction  vi. By making requirement for telecom installations and the associated cabling and in-building solutions mandatory in in all commercial, residential and office spaces by amending National Building Code of India (NBC), through Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) 

(d) Facilitate the establishment of Mobile Tower Infrastructure by:  i. Extending incentives and exemptions for the construction of telecom towers  ii. According accelerated Rights of Way permissions for telecom towers in government premises  iii. Promoting deployment of solar and green energy for telecom towers 

(e) Improve international connectivity and reduce the cost of international bandwidth by facilitating setting up of International Cable Landing Stations by rationalising access charges and removing regulatory hurdles  i. Encourage sharing of active infrastructure by enhancing the scope of Infrastructure Providers (IP) and promoting deployment of common sharable, passive as well as active, infrastructure;

There are other clauses related to spectrum that we would not discuss here

State owned Indian telecom corporation Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) announced in March of this year that they had deployed 18,000 hotspots around the country and planned to deploy a total of 1,00,000 Wi-Fi hotspots across India by the end of 2018.

On that day BSNL, in partnership with QuadGen,  launched free wi-fi services at Udwada village, Valsad district in Gujarat. The village has been adopted by Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Smriti Irani under Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana.

Speaking on the occasion, Irani - who is also Minister for Textiles - said,

"With the launch of wi-fi service today in Udwada village, population of 6,000 in the village, as well as its surrounding areas will be benefited. People in Udwada and surrounding areas will be able to use unlimited internet data and Udwada village has become digital village". 

The hotspots cover nearly 90 per cent of the village and will service multiple concurrent users at any point of time.

Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha hoped this service as part of the Digital India programme will fuel the availability of affordable data and voice services in the country. He asserted:

"The Digital India movement has ensured that the country has the cheapest data and voice services in the world. Today, India uses more data than the US and China, combined." 

More recently  BSNL has entered into a deal with Japan’s Softbank and NTT Communications to rollout 5G and internet of things (IoT) technology in India.

“We have signed an agreement with Softbank and NTT Communications to roll out 5G and IoT products and services in India. Under the agreement, we will look at solution specially for the smart cities,”

Stated BSNL chairman and managing director Anupam Shrivastava in an interview.

He said most of the BSNL competitors are still looking at monetising their 4G services and hence leading companies have started looking at the State-run firm for 5G services roll out. According to Mr Shrivastava:

“We have benefited by lead taken by our minister (Manoj Sinha). He has held various meetings at global level on 5G. We capitalised on those opportunities and signed agreement for the next generation technology. 3G was launched in India after seven years the technology was available in other foreign markets and 4G services after four years’ lag but 5G will be launched in India in 2020 as soon the standards are freezed by ITU."

Telecom minister Mr. Sinha has said that 5G service launch in India will happen at par with other leading nations.

Mr Shrivastava insists BSNL is working to finalise test cases where 5G can be used in India:

“We are in advance stages of starting 5G field trials. Government is in agreement to provide us 5G spectrum for trials. We expect to start field trials very soon,”

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has recommended the auction of about 8,644 MHz of telecom frequencies at an estimated base price of ₹ 4.9 lakh crore. The government is yet to finalise details of allocation of spectrum for 5G services.

Under the agreement with Softbank, BSNL will look at collaborating with the Japanese firm for its satellite constellation which will have around 900 satellites to provide high speed internet services across the globe.

BSNL has signed an agreement with Nokia and Cisco as well for developing 5G ecosystem.

BSNL has also and Swedish telecommunication gear maker Ericsson have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) over 5G and Internet of Things. The two will create a joint roadmap for the development of 5G and IoT in India, a joint statement to the media said. This new partnership with see BSNL and Ericsson develop “5G use cases, knowledge sharing on 5G technology concepts, industry and innovation trends including 3GPP standardisation progress.”

Meanwhile a week ago Nokia announced that it will supply, install, commission and maintain the Smart Telecom Poles across India in all of BSNL's telecom circles.

Under the contract, Nokia will also integrate the poles with smart LED lighting systems, CCTV cameras, digital billboards and environmental sensors that provide strong revenue generation potential for the operator.

The smart pole has been designed for emerging markets and built in India based on Nokia's global services expertise. With its Smart Telecom Pole and services expertise, Nokia will help BSNL provide access to mobile connectivity and smart solutions for citizens while ensuring the poles meet the aesthetic and spatial needs in modern cities. Nokia will optimize the telecom infrastructure to provide a shared, secure and scalable platform that ensures the best use of urban resources and prepares BSNL for the needs of new technologies such as IoT and 5G. The pole can be adapted to diverse geographical environments and climate conditions. It also houses a custom-designed power backup solution to provide continuity of services during power outages.

No doubt with these ambitious deals and plans BSNL is very much competing with Reliance Jio and not taking the roll out of Jio GigaFiber lightly and is doing its bit to maintain its market share in the fiber to the home (FTTH) segment.

BSNL Broadband has apparently once more revised its FTTH broadband plans to now offer more data and faster broadband speeds. BSNL Broadband is offering up to 100Mbps speeds till 750GB, and up to 2 Mbps speed beyond that limit at Rs 1277 monthly and Rs 14,047 annual charges. This facility is available for all users in all circles. 

Jio GigaFiber is offering 100Mbps speeds as well but for free for a period of three months at a onetime security deposit fee of Rs 4500.

BSNL Broadband too is taking no charges for activation and installation, but users are required to pay onetime security deposit fee of Rs 500 and ONT along with ADSL WiFi Modem charges come at Rs 200 rental per month and security deposit charges (refundable) of Rs 1500.

BSNL Broadband also recently announced an exciting offer for the Chennai circle. BSNL Broadband plans priced at Rs. 999, Rs. 1,299, Rs. 1,699, Rs. 1,999, Rs. 2,999, and Rs. 4,999, have reportedly been revised and upgraded to offer more benefits with speeds of up to 100Mbps and high speed data limits of up to 3.5TB, refreshed on a monthly basis, according to a report on NDTV.

However, what may give Jio GigaFiber the edge is the fact that they are offering a ‘connected home’, which means that Jio GigaFiber router will be able to connect with the Jio DTH and Reliance Jio enabled smartphones, thus converting a house into a smart home. Reliance Jio is also expected to offer all this at prices as low as Rs 500 per month.

Ultra HD entertainment, multi-party video conferencing, virtual reality gaming, shopping and smart home solutions at an affordable price is what is being offered by Jio GigaFiber. So, how existing broadband players adapt to this challenge can be seen after the commercial rollout of Jio GigaFiber.

Related posts:

• BSNL bringing 'Smart Telecom Poles' to India with help of Nokia
• India: 5G Roadmap Update (April 2018)

AT&T: Winning the Connected Car market in the USA

AT&T has trumpeted their connected car achievements in a recent news article on their website. Their main achievements:

• Added more than 2 million cars in Q3 2018
• Bringing the total number of connected cars to nearly 24 million
• Connect more than 3 million fleet vehicles
• Relationships with 29 top global brands 
• Over a million customers on unlimited data plans where they can convert their connected cars into Wi-Fi hotspots
• Since the introduction of unlimited plans in 2017, subscribers have used 45 million Gigabytes (GB) or 45 Petabytes (PB) of data
• AT&T global SIM provides IoT connectivity across 500 carriers and 200+ countries and territories. 
• AT&T connects cars in 57 countries, including 12 where infotainment is enabled through Wi-Fi hotspots.

According to Fierce Wireless:

A number of those automotive companies physically install an AT&T LTE modem into their cars, thus giving customers an option to pay AT&T $20 per month (or $10 per month for existing customers) in order to create a bubble of Wi-Fi connectivity using AT&T’s LTE network for backhaul. (AT&T said it may slow network speeds for customers who use more than 22 GB per month.)

For those motorists who don’t have a car equipped with an AT&T modem, the company recently introduced the Harman “Spark” device that plugs into the on-board diagnostics port (OBD II) in most vehicles built after 1996 and provides Wi-Fi connections alongside vehicle diagnostics and security. (AT&T’s Spark arrived on the market years after Verizon launched its similar Hum device and T-Mobile began selling its SyncUp Drive device.)

In addition to the above achievements, AT&T are very active in V2X standardisation and implementation. Here is what they say:

We’re serving in leadership positions across the industry, joining with other tech leaders to resolve key standards issues. This includes 5GAA, a cross-industry association between the cellular and automotive industries, the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium  of automotive, information technology, telecommunications, and cloud computing sectors, and the Auto-ISAC for automotive cybersecurity information sharing.

We expect vehicle-to-anything (V2X) connectivity technologies will help driverless vehicles to make virtually real-time decisions based on information that goes beyond the individual sensors onboard the vehicle itself.

Vehicles will be able to “see” around corners, in front and behind other vehicles – and at greater distances. This will eventually allow vehicles to quickly make sense of their surrounding environment as well as road ahead to help guide safe and efficient operations on the road.

For self-driving cars to interoperate with their environment and surrounding areas, it will be critical to have connectivity between vehicles, roadside units, pedestrians, and other infrastructure elements while navigating the roadways. Data analysis and decision capabilities will be largely processed onboard the vehicle utilizing various data sources from the vehicles and the surrounding intelligent transportation system.

But one of the most exciting aspects of automated vehicles is their ability to learn from other vehicles’ driving experiences in ways that human drivers simply cannot. This is where our 5G network comes into play. 5G will eventually allow for the necessary distribution of processed data to meet and exceed the needs of the automated vehicle.

The algorithms that govern AV operation can be continually improved as automated vehicles encounter new driving situations. For those improvements to be made, data must be collected, analyzed, and synthesized into improved algorithms to then be distributed to other vehicles. 5G will ultimately help create faster and more efficient exchange of this data, allowing these automated vehicles to distribute and receive data and function even better.

5G multi-gigabit speeds, distributed edge networks, and low latency services can help these capabilities to become a reality in years to come.

And self-driving cars and 5G will ultimately usher new opportunities for in-vehicle entertainment and engagement when drivers have more time on their hands.