5G will catalyse the transformation of the telecom industry itself

This is a post that originally appeared on my LinkedIn page (see here). There are numerous additional insights in the comments.

Much of the current hype about #5G relates to business and verticals. Many claim that 5G will be a central force in "transforming" industries. 

But what people in the telecoms sector don't yet seem to realise is that the very first industry that will be transformed by 5G is.... telecoms itself. 

5G is bringing a new set of challenges and complexities - new spectrum, more need for coverage indoors & in remote areas, and new use-cases and stakeholders. 

If 5G is anywhere near as important as it's claimed, then many businesses and governments will want to own it, customise it and control it directly, not through an MNO.

Meanwhile, localised and shared spectrum, arriving at the same time as 5G (but also usable for 4G) is creating a new landscape of wholesale/neutral host players, private and community operators, cloud/Internet players with mobile assets, industrial/vertical MNOs and hybrid MNO/MVNO providers. 

The old world of mobile involved 3 or 4 national MNOs, plus some TowerCos and a few consumer MVNOs. 

The new, 5G world is much more fragmented and heterogeneous. Even as regulators look at allowing mergers of the legacy MNOs, there's a Cambrian explosion of newer, cooler, more-agile niche players emerging. 

If you're interested in this topic & want to engage more deeply, I'm running a London workshop on Neutral Host Networks on Nov 21st https://disruptivewireless.blogspot.com/p/2nd-neutral-host-networks-london-public.html 

Also, I undertake private advisory work for clients on various angles relating to future telecoms & cellular provider heterogeneity and opportunities - please get in touch to discuss your needs.
 
 #telecom #neutralhost #4G #spectrum #privateLTE #CBRS #private5G

Neutral Host Networks for 4G & 5G - latest learnings

On July 9th, I ran my first whole-day workshop in London on the emerging sector of Neutral Host Networks (NHNs), together with Peter Curnow-Ford of Viatec Associates. The event backgrounder is here (link).

It covered an important new addition to the mobile industry landscape. Along with pure private networks and "thick" MVNOs, NHNs are extending the 4G/5G marketplace, to many more stakeholders than today's handful of cellcos in each country.

Definition: An NHN is 3rd-party cellular network providing wholesale, commercial mobile localised coverage solutions to national mobile network operators (MNOs) or other communications service providers (CSPs). That access can be either paid or unpaid, and in dedicated NHN-owned spectrum, unlicenced/shared or the MNO's own bands. NHNs typically use small cells, but not always.

Podcast: An accompanying audio track for this post is now available at: https://soundcloud.com/user-521594836/neutralhost



NHN uses & types

NHNs have many possible use-cases, and several business and technical archictecture models. 

The main common theme is wholesale enablement of 4G/5G, in areas with poor coverage, reflecting difficult economics or tricky accessibility. A secondary motivation is a desire by venue/property owners for more control of wireless usage - and ideally monetisation.

The key uses for NHN deployment are:

• Rural / remote areas
• Metropolitan centres needing 4G/5G densification with small cells
• In-building, especially for large sites such as offices, stadiums and hotels
• Road and railtrack coverage (and potentially in-vehicle)
• Industrial sites and large transport hubs
• Temporary sites and events (eg festivals, major construction projects)
• Some classes of residential and SME commercial venue

There are several types of NHN model emerging, plus a number of other similar or overlapping approaches, as well as hybrids. The two most important versions of NHN are:

• Multi-Operator Small Cell as a Service (SCaaS), without the NHN having spectrum of its own. This can either use multiple small cells clustered together (eg one per MNO) & sharing backhaul, or a single small cell capable of virtualisation and with radios supporting multiple MNOs' frequency bands.
• Spectrum-based NHNs, where the provider is a full local MNO in its own right, with its own radio resources (shared or dedicated) and network, hosting other MNOs & SPs as tenants or roaming partners.

An additional model is the use of some form of cloud/virtualised RAN, with shared fibre / antennas linked back to different MNOs' signal sources and core networks. One more option is for "pure" private 4G/5G networks, run by an enterprise, to also offer NHN capabilities as a secondary function - for instance for a 5G-enabled factory where the  network is mostly for the robots, but can also support employees & visitors' smartphones.

We considered NHN to be different to a few other alternatives such as national roaming, network-sharing, or government-run/funded wholesale cellular networks. 

There are several SCaaS players already in the market, and many more being trialled or discussed. Some are TowerCo's expanding to new markets, some are indoor specialists, and others are starting with metro deals with local authorities, or street-furniture assets.

As yet, we were unaware of any of the spectrum-based NHN offers being fully commercialised yet, although that should change in the next 12 months, either in the US with CBRS spectrum, or in a number of other markets such as UK, Germany, Ireland, NZ and elsewhere with early trials ongoing, with new spectrum owners or lessors.

The workshop discussed which model is the best-fit for each use case, summarised in the chart below. This may evolve over time, and there are certainly nuances and exceptions, but for now, this is a unique mapping of the overall opportunity space. Rural coverage in particular has many options - and while NHNs have opportunity, there is also a chance that the existing MNOs may collaborate, if allowed (or encouraged or forced) by regulatory authorities.

Challenges and Opportunities

The workshop discussed a whole range of NHN enablers and components, such as suitable spectrum bands and cloud-based core networks, and perhaps eSIM. I'll cover those in other posts or presentations.

There are numerous technical and operational challenges to getting NHNs to work properly, especially where dedicated spectrum and core networks are involved. The workshop discussed these, and while some of the detailed discussion will remain private, it's worth highlighting a few interesting outputs of the day:

• The biggest variable is how to get operators to sign up to use NHN capacity, especially where they have to pay for it. Sometimes access will be free to the MNOs (perhaps beyond providing backhaul or core-network interconnect), and paid for by a venue. But even in those cases, there are substantial contractual and organisational challenges.
• There is a lack of appropriate tools and back-end software. Planning and design tools are not yet focused on NHN deployments, especially if they use different spectrum bands, or have other constraints. There is also a gap around NHN-friendly billing and charging software, although perhaps existing wholesale billing platforms can be customised.
• Security was raised as an issue - can NHN deployments be fully trusted by MNOs, which may be using them as local partners? How is security - at many levels from physical access to small cells to authentication and fraud-management - managed? This could well be an obstacle to uptake (or an excuse for inaction)
• For 5G, can NHNs and MNOs inter-operate their mechanisms for QoS and network-slicing? How can an MNO offer a premium service & SLA to a developer or content provider, when the final delivery is on someone else's infrastructure?
• Skills - are there enough engineers and installers who understand how to make this work? Especially where 5G small cells are involved, perhaps with mmWave and MIMO radios - there simply isn't a deep pool of trained and certified personnel to deploy them for NHNs in-building or wide rural areas.
• How can efficient marketplaces for spectrum resale/leasing or wholesale access be developed? What does a future NHN "dashboard" or aggregation play look like, and are there APIs being implemented to enable them?
• Backhaul and fibre - is it in the right place, either indoors or outdoors? This is problematic in rural areas in particular, but also for enterprise deployment, particularly where landlords may have different investment priorities to their tenants.

Some of the key opportunities in the next 24 months will be in solving these problems, as well as the early pioneers rolling out NHN services themselves. 

We will also see numerous "adjacencies" for NHN that tie in with it. There is a strong overlap with open-access wholesale fibre deployments, as well as some interesting NHN/edge computing scenarios such as combining multi-operator SCaaS with multi-operator (and enterprise) edge cloud facilities.

One possible rival technology is better Wi-Fi, especially Wi-Fi 6 for indoor and industrial use. If it gets deployed quickly, and if easier access with the new OpenRoaming concept gets adopted by enterprises, it is possible that the opportunity space for NHNs may shrink in some locations.


Conclusions and next steps

There's a huge amount of interest in the NHN space. Numerous countries are releasing new spectrum bands, and many stakeholders (such as infrastructure owners, venues, enterprises and local goverment authority bodies) are keenly interested in experimenting. Trials, testbeds and prototypes are attracting attention and investment.

While a limiting factor might be getting the big MNOs on board, there is a chance that they may get pre-empted by other NHN tenants that nudge them into action. Cable operators, MVNOs, cloud players and others might exploit NHNs - especially the spectrum-based ones - to launch their own 4G/5G services at lower cost than solo deployments. One enterprise I spoke to recently even suggested launching venue-specific MVNOs themselves, on their own core-network platform. We can expect a whirlwind of innovation around NHNs, and also the wider class of "non-public networks" (NPNs) for 4G and 5G.


If you're interested in more detail about Peter & my work on NHN models, please drop me a line at information at disruptive-analysis dot com. We're intending to run additional public workshops later in the year, in London and elsewhere. Potentially, we're interested in partners to help market the events, or assist with with logistic in other geo's. In addition, if you want a private under-NDA workshop for your organisation, we can adapt to meet your specific needs. We also work with investors, enterprises, venue-owners and solution vendors to craft strategies around the NHN sector. 

Podcast accompanying this blog post
 

Quick thoughts on 5G

I've been doing a lot of work - and events - on 5G recently. 

I've noticed a few recent shifts in perception and focus amongst vendors, regulators and operators. Some quick take-outs (a few more than appear on my similar LinkedIn post, as I'm not limited to 1300 characters!)

• 5G smartphones launch in 2019, but will be low-volume until 2020/21. Expect the first 5G iPhone towards the end of 2020
• Fixed-wireless use cases for 5G are high on the agenda in some markets (eg US, S Korea, Turkey, Germany), but seemingly almost absent in others.
• Commercial, large-scale, automated network slicing only becomes real from around 2023 onwards. A few "hand-carved" slices will be sooner, for example for internal use by MNOs' own business units, or perhaps public safety
• URLLC (ultra-reliable low latency) use-cases seem to have shifted from sci-fi fantasies around automated vehicles and surgical robots, to industrial IoT and factory automation... 
• ... but industrial use will often be controlled by industry itself, via one of several forms of private network, either using shared spectrum, private cores or private slices / enterprise MVNOs. MNOs' role may be minor
• Some claim that NB-IoT is the 5G version for "massive IoT", despite it being developed as a 4G variant. This is revisionist nonsense; if it was true then DT, VF and others would have been putting out PR 2+ years ago, claiming to be first to launch 5G
• 3.5GHz should be OK-ish outdoors but will struggle with outdoor-to-indoor coverage. mmWave will be worse. Beware of demos showing good indoor performance - ask about uplink from inside-out, or whether signals penetrate double-glazing, or at oblique angles to walls/windows. In any case, #WiFi will continue to dominate in the home.
• There will be some small-cells and neutral-host deployments for 3.5GHz (and similar bands) in enterprises and other large buildings, but this will take a long time to become widespread. 
• Existing in-building DAS systems will need some serious upgrades to support higher 5G frequency bands - most of today's top out at 2.6GHz and can't handle MIMO very well.
• Despite it not being an "official" 5G candidate band, 28GHz seems to be the most popular option, at least for test networks. This is partly because of chipset support, notably Qualcomm's X50. The European-proposed 26GHz hasn't seen much action yet
• Two of the largest 5G "verticals" associations, for Automotive (5GAA) and Industrial (5GACIA) seem to be heavily driven by German companies - and the German regulator looks like it's going to award 100MHz of spectrum to verticals directly (not 100% certain but getting clearer). In other countries apart from the US (CBRS) and China (Huawei's enterprise LTE), there doesn't seem to be as much action from large firms knocking on the regulator/governments doors.
• The 5G New Core is getting a lot of discussion and attention... but given that some of the existing NFV deployments have been slow, and the cost-savings somewhat illusory, I don't expect much near-term action on this.
• Some of the visions for 5G seem to lean heavily on automation and AI back-office for optimising radio, core, user-plane etc. Yet those are also still at an early stage - and few telcos have many skilled engineers -  so could act as a brake. There are also some emerging questions on security of network AI, and whether the algorithms might be single points of failure, especially when used for networks used for critical national infrastructure. 
• Connected-car companies are interested in 5G, but not as enthusiastic as some might imagine. One told me "it's a nice-to-have" - especially as vehicles will need to be able to work offline, and have prodigous on-board compute capabilities.
• I'm more positive about some of the discussion around Cloud RAN for 5G. In many ways, it's going to be necessary, given the complexity of NR. That said, there's some serious practical challenges about the radio, such as the size/weight/cost of the massive-MIMO antennas.
• There's lots of talk about network-slicing for 5G, but nobody has really thought about whether today's MNO wholesale departments are up to the task of selling "slice as a service". Speaking to some of today's MVNOs, it seems like they will have to do a lot of homework before they can become effective slicemongers.

That's a quick list of things off the top of my head. Plenty more observations and comments to come, or on my Twitter feed from various events I've attended.

If you'd like me to give an unvarnished presentation at an event, on "5G opportunities, realities & myths", please get in touch via:  information AT disruptive-analysis DOT com

And if you're interested in my last point, on 5G+MVNOs+Slicing+Wholesale, please look at my upcoming workshop doing a deep-dive on this (link)

Book now! MVNOs + 5G + Network-Slicing: Small-group Seminar & Workshop, London, 4th December

NEW: 5G, MVNOs, Mobile Wholesale & Network-Slicing Workshop

On December 4th 2018, Dean Bubley will run a small-group workshop in London, covering one of the most interesting topics in telecoms technology and mobile business models: 

What does 5G, NFV & Network-Slicing mean for MVNOs & other wholesale models? 

The day will have a maximum of 25 attendees to ensure a high level of discussion and interaction. 

Expect a diverse mix of telcos, MVNO/E/As, network vendors, software developers, regulators and other interested parties such as enterprises, IoT specialists, investors and consultants. It is suitable for C-level executives, strategists, product management, marketing functions, CTO office, analysts and regulatory affairs specialists.

The event is being run together with partners Mobilise Consulting (link)

The workshop will run under Chatham House rules (link), to allow candid & confidential discussion, without external attribution of comments to individuals or their employers.

It will cover:

• Technology, including 5G New Radio, New Core, network-slicing and NFV/cloud
• Business models, spanning consumer, enterprise & IoT markets
• Regulatory and economic aspects of both 5G and MVNO domains

We'll be highlighting our current thinking - and outstanding questions - on topics such as: 

• When should MVNOs expect 5G networks to launch & become important? What  changes, compared to 4G?
• What needs to be done NOW to align with future 5G/NFV wholesale models?
• Can existing "full" MVNOs with 4G cores upgrade and integrate easily?
• What's happening with 5G smartphones & IoT devices? What new / different relationships are needed with OEMs?
• Is “network slicing” really an evolution of today’s wholesale and MVNO model? 
• What 5G use-cases hold the most promise for wholesale: fixed access, mobile broadband, massive IoT or low-latency / ultra-reliable?
• Are 5G standards bodies, regulators & vendors giving enough (any?) thought to the needs of MVNOs? 
• Will we move from a 2-tier MNO/MVNO model, to a 3-tier Infrastructure / Network Service / Tenant model? How would that change the role of today’s full MVNOs and MVNE/As?
• Will 5G mean more enterprise, IoT and vertical MVNOs? 
• What are the impacts of changing 5G spectrum & wholesale regulations? What new areas that policymakers should consider?
• Will we see hybrid MNO/MVNO/WiFi operators? 
• What are the main consumer 5G use cases for MVNXs? Will it enable more video streaming, AR/VR, gaming or other applications? Or just more data?
• Will the new 5G core network architecture make a difference?
• What changes to service provision, billing and QoS will impact MVNOs with 5G?
• Where do neutral-host networks (eg for in-building or rural coverage) & private 5G networks fit in to the story?
• Along with 5G, what does NFV, SDN, cloud-native, eSIM and edge-computing mean for MVNOs?
• Will we see new charging/rating models with 5G or will it be much the same as 4G?
• Will it be possible to be a 5G-only MVNO?

It is probably too early to give definitive answers to all these questions - but the workshop will cover all these areas, and certainly outline the gaps in today's knowledge, wholesale enablers and regulation. 
The workshop will take place at the Westbury Hotel in Mayfair, central London [link]. It will run from 9am-5pm, with plenty of time for networking and interactive discussion. Come prepared to think and talk, as well as listen – this is a “lean-forward” day. Coffee and a nice lunch are included. A full agenda will be circulated nearer the time. 

The workshop facilitators will be Dean Bubley of Disruptive Analysis, plus Hamish White & Amr Houssein of Mobilise.


Booking & Payment

There are PayPal Buy Now buttons below, which can accept card payments as well as PayPal transfers. Alternatively, contact information at disruptive-analysis dot com if you want to be invoiced directly, and use purchase-order & bank-transfer. Payment can also be made in EUR or USD.

Pricing for attendance:

• Early bird £499+VAT booked before Nov 1 (now expired)
• £699+VAT after Nov 1
• 15% discount for 2 attendees booked at the same time (max 2 from any one company)
• (UK VAT @20% must be charged to attendees from any country, as the service is delivered in the UK. There are two separate payment options below, as PayPal only automatically adds VAT for UK accounts

UK Payments:

1 Attendee £699.00 GBP 2 Attendees (-15%) £1,188.30 GBP

Non-UK Payments:

1 Attendee inc VAT £838.80 GBP 2 Attendees inc VAT (-15%) £1,425.96 GBP

New: Workshops on Enterprise Cellular & AI/Blockchain in Telecoms, May 30-31

I'm delighted to announce a new collaboration:

Rethink Research & Disruptive Analysis announce joint workshops on Enterprise Cellular Networks, and AI/Blockchain in Telecoms, London May 30th-31st

At the end of May, two of the leading independent thinkers in telecoms research will jointly be running small-group interactive workshops in London, addressing two of the hottest topics in telecoms technology and business models:

• 30^th May: Private Cellular Networks for Enterprise, IoT and Vertical Markets
• 31^st May: Use-cases and Evolution Paths for AI, Machine Learning and Blockchain Technologies in the Telecoms Sector

Each day will have a maximum of 30 attendees to ensure a high level of discussion and interaction. We expect a diverse mix of service providers, vendors, regulators and other interested parties such as enterprises, investors and developers. 

The sessions will combine presentations, networking opportunities, and small-group interactive discussion. Rethink Research’s Caroline Gabriel, and Disruptive Analysis’ Dean Bubley, will be the leaders and facilitators. Both are well-known industry figures, with many years of broad communications industry analysis – and outspoken views – between them.

The two events will run as separate standalone sessions, but there will be common themes and approach across both, to benefit organisations with an interest in both topics.

Enterprise & Private Cellular Networks, May 30th 

The first day will cover the rising need for businesses of many kinds to control their own, well-managed, wireless connectivity solutions. The growing use of mobile devices and the emergence of the Industrial IoT means that high-quality – often mission-critical – networks are required for new systems and applications.  

These can span both on-premise coverage (eg in a factory, office or hospital) and the wide-area (eg for smart cities or future rail networks). It is unclear that traditional mobile operators can or will be able to satisfy all the requirements for enterprise coverage – or assume legal liability for failures. Some enterprises will want to have full control for reasons of security, or industry-specific needs.

Among the topics to be discussed are:

• Key market drivers: IoT, automation, mobile workers, industry-specific operational and regulatory issues, diffusion of wireless expertise outside of traditional telecoms providers
• Evolution of key enabling technologies such as 5G, network-slicing, SDN, small cells and enterprise-grade IMS cores
• Regulatory/policy issues: spectrum allocation, competition, roaming, repeaters, national infrastructure strategies and broader “Industry 4.0” economic goals
• The shifting roles of MVNOs, MVNEs, neutral hosts and future “slice operators”
• Spectrum-sharing approaches, including unlicensed, light-licensing and CBRS-type models. Also: can WiFi run in licensed bands?
• Numbering and identity: eSIM, multi-IMSI, liberalised MNC codes
• Commercial impacts, new business model opportunities & threats to incumbents
• Vendor dynamics: Existing network equipment vendors, enterprise solution providers, vertical wireless players, managed services companies, new industrial & Internet players (eg GE, Google), implications for BSS/OSS, impact of open-source

(I've covered various of these themes in previous posts and presentations. If you want more detail about some of my thinking, see links here and here. I'll include links to Caroline's thoughts on this in subsequent posts. We will be going into a lot more depth in the workshop itself).

AI & Blockchain in Telecoms, May 31st 

The second day will consider the specific impact on the telecoms sector of two of the hottest new “buzzword” technologies in software: Artificial Intelligence (and its siblings like machine-learning) and Blockchain / Distributed Ledgers. Both have already received more than their fair share of hype: but what are the realistic use-cases and timelines for adoption? What problems do they solve, and what new opportunities do they create? Are they just re-branding exercises for “big data” and “distributed databases” respectively, when applied to telcos?

(I've been covering these areas as part of my "TelcoFuturism" research, including presenting on Blockchain at a recent TMForum event (link) and at Nexterday North last November, plus thinking about various AI intersections with telecom trends such as 5G (link). Caroline has done a large amount of work on AI / Machine Learning).

This day will benefit attendees from the telecoms industry looking at new developments; as well as  those from the AI/blockchain mainstream interested in specific applications in the telco sector. It will include some basic “101” introductions so that delegates from both sides can be sure they’re speaking each others’ language & decode the jargon.

Among the topics to be discussed are:

• Understanding and categorising the types of AI (machine/deep learning, image recognition, natural language etc)
• Introduction to blockchain concepts and the complexities of “trust”
• Review of telecoms industry structure, key trends and important components of network/IT systems
• Where will AI have the largest impacts for telcos? Improving customer insight & experience? Improved network operations & planning? New end-user facing services such as chatbots or contextually-aware communications? B2B, B2C, or B2B2C platforms?
• Mapping the possible use-cases for blockchains in telecoms, and current trials / status of projects – from micro-transactions, to roaming settlement & fraud prevention, data-integrity protection, or smart contracts for NFV systems
• Impact of 5G & IoT for both AI and BC
• Risks and challenges: regulatory, privacy, new competitors?
• Vendor and supplier ecosystems and dynamics: new entrants vs. adoption by established providers

Reserve your place today 

Both workshops will take place at the Westbury Hotel in Mayfair, central London [link]. They will run from 9am-5pm, with plenty of time for networking and interactive discussion. Come prepared to think and talk, as well as listen – these are “lean-forward” days. Coffee and lunch are included.

Fees for attending one day: £795 / US$995 / €930 + UK VAT of 20%

Fees for attending both days: £1395 / US$1750 / €1650 + UK VAT of 20%

Reserve Now: Select Your Choice of Workshop Days

Enterprise Cellular May 30th (inc 20% VAT) £954.00 GBP AI & Blockchain May 31st (inc 20% VAT) £954.00 GBP Both Days 30/31st May (inc 20% VAT) £1,674.00 GBP

Payment can be made either credit card or Paypal, or by invoice / bank transfer: please email me at information AT disruptive-analysis DOT com, for payment-request by email or with purchase-order details. Please also contact me for any more information.