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Showing posts with label in-building. Show all posts
Showing posts with label in-building. Show all posts

Friday, October 06, 2023

Indoor wireless & the need for unlicensed 6GHz

This post originally appeared on October 2 on my LinkedIn newsletter, which is now my main platform for both short posts and longer-form articles. It can be found here, along with the comment stream. Please subscribe / connect to me on LinkedIn, to receive regular updates (about 1-3 / week)

 

Note: This article has been commissioned by the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance, based on my existing well-known analysis and positions, which I have been discussing for many years both publicly and privately. I believe that in-building wireless - irrespective of technology - receives far too little attention from policymakers and regulators. 6GHz should be indoor-primary spectrum.


Abstract & summary: The vast bulk of wireless data traffic today is for indoor applications. In future, in-building wireless will become even more important. It is ideally-suited to 6GHz spectrum, made available on an unlicensed basis. A licensed model for 5G mobile in 6GHz would be unable to deliver coverage consistently for more than a small number of sites.

Indoor wireless is already critical & often overlooked

Industry estimates suggest that 60-80% of cellular data is delivered to indoor users, predominantly on smartphones. Additional statistics shows that smartphones also typically consume another 2-5x the cellular data volume on Wi-Fi, almost all of which is indoors or in vehicles. In other words, 90%+ of total smartphone data is consumed inside buildings.

In addition, residential fixed broadband traffic volumes are roughly 10-20x that of mobile broadband, with final delivery mostly over Wi-Fi, often to non-smartphone devices such as smart TVs, laptops, game consoles and voice assistants.

Outside the consumer market, a great deal of non-residential wireless connectivity is also indoors – healthcare, education, manufacturing, conventions, hospitality and office environments are all increasingly dependent on wireless, especially with the rise of industrial automation systems, IoT, robots, connected cameras and displays. These map to the rise in cloud- and video-based business processes.

Most wireless uses & devices are indoor-centric

This does not imply that outdoor wireless use is either trivial or unimportant. Most obviously, everyone uses their phones for calling, messaging, mapping and various transport and other apps while on-the-move. Vehicle connectivity is becoming essential, as well as wireless use for safety, utilities and smart-city infrastructure. Some sectors such as agriculture, logistics and construction are predominantly outdoor-oriented, albeit often at specific locations and sites.

But to a rough approximation, if 80%+ of wireless use is indoors, then 80%+ of economic and social benefit of wireless will accrue indoors as well. This applies irrespective of the technology involved – Wi-Fi, 4G/5G cellular, or even Bluetooth.

Future growth of indoor wireless

The demands for indoor connectivity are likely to grow in both scale and scope in coming years. There will be huge demand for high-throughput, low-latency access for both consumer and enterprise use-cases.

  • Gigabit broadband, especially delivered with fibre, is becoming the default for both residential and business premises. In the medium term, we can expect 10Gig services to become more common as well. In many cases, the bottleneck is now inside the building, and local wireless systems need to keep pace with the access network.
  • There is a growing array of demanding devices and applications connected inside homes and enterprises premises. 4K and 8K screens, automation systems, healthcare products, AR/VR systems, cameras for security and industrial purposes, robots and much more.
  • Wireless devices will increasingly be located in any room or space inside a building, including bedrooms, garages, basements, meeting rooms, factory-floors and hospital operating theatres.
  • The density of devices per-building or per-room will increase exponentially. While some will be low-traffic products such as sensors, ever more appliances and systems will feature screens, cameras and cloud/AI capabilities demanding greater network performance.
  • There will be growing emphasis on the efficiency of networks, in terms of both energy and spectrum usage. “Blasting through walls” with wireless signals will be viewed negatively on both counts.

Yet only some policymakers and regulators have explicit focus on indoor wireless in their broadband and spectrum policies. There has been some positive movement recently, with regulators in markets such as the UK, Germany, Canada and Saudi  Arabia addressing the requirements. But it is now time for all governments and regulators to specifically address indoor wireless needs – and acknowledge the need for more spectrum, especially if they eventually want to achieve “gigabit to each room” as a policy goal.

Wi-Fi can satisfy indoor requirements, but needs 6GHz

Almost all indoor devices discussed here have Wi-Fi capabilities. A subset have 5G cellular radios as well. Very few are 5G-only. This situation is unlikely to change much, especially with a 5-10 year view.

Yet Wi-Fi faces a significant limit to its performance, if it just has access to traditional 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Not only are these limited in frequency range, but they also have a wide variety of legacy devices, using multiple technologies, that must coexist with any new systems.

While mesh systems have helped extend the reach to all rooms in a home, and Wi-Fi 6 brings new techniques to improve performance and device density in consumer and enterprise settings, much more will be required in future.

Now, Wi-Fi 6E and 7 generations are able to use the 6GHz band. This adds up to 1.2GHz of extra spectrum, with almost no sources of interference indoors, and almost no risk of indoor use creating extra interference to incumbent outdoor users, especially at lower power levels.

6GHz Wi-Fi would be able to address all the future requirements discussed in the previous section, as well as reducing system latency, improving indoor mobility and providing greater guarantees of QoS / reliability.

6GHz 5G is unsuitable for indoor use, and of limited use outdoors

By contrast, 6GHz is a poor fit for indoor 5G. Most buildings will be unable to use outdoor-to-indoor propagation reliably, given huge propagation challenges through walls. This would be hugely wasteful of both energy and spectrum resource anyway. This situation will worsen in future as well, with greater use of insulated construction materials and glass.

That leaves dedicated indoor systems such as small cells or distributed antenna or radio systems. Current DAS systems cannot support 6GHz radios – most struggle even with 3.5GHz. It may be possible to upgrade some of the more advanced systems with new radio heads, but few building owners would be willing to pay, and almost no MNOs would. In any case, only a fraction of buildings have indoor cellular systems, especially beyond the top tier of shopping malls, airports and other large venues.

The industry lacks the human and financial resources to implement new 6GHz-capble indoor systems in more than a tiny proportion of the millions of buildings worldwide, especially residential homes and small businesses.

Enabling public 5G services to work reliably indoors with 6GHz is therefore a decade-long project, at least. It would likely be the mid-2030s before 5G (or 6G) devices could routinely use 6GHz inside buildings. Lobbyist estimations of the notional GDP uplift from IMT use of the band ignore both the timing and the practical challenges for indoor applications. A very heavy discount % should be applied to any such calculations, even if the baseline assumptions are seen as credible.

Private 5G systems in factories or warehouses could theoretically use 6GHz licensed cellular, but most developed countries now have alternative bands being made available on a localised basis, such as CBRS, 3.8-4.2GHz or 4.9GHz. Many countries also have (unused) mmWave options for indoor private 5G networks. In theory, 5G systems could also use an unlicensed 6GHz band for private networks, although previous unlicensed 4G variants in 5GHz never gained much market traction.

It is worth noting that there are also very few obvious use-cases for outdoor, exclusive-licensed 6GHz for 5G either, beyond a generic increment in capacity, which could also be provided by network densification or other alternative bands. Most markets still have significant headroom in midband 3-5GHz spectrum for 5G, especially if small cells are deployed. The most-dense environments in urban areas could also exploit the large amount of mmWave spectrum made available for cellular use, typically in the 24-28GHz range, which is already in some handsets and is still mostly unused.

Conclusions

Regulators and policymakers need to specifically analyse the use and supply/demand for indoor wireless, and consider the best spectrum and technology options for such applications and devices. Analysis will show that in-building wireless accounts for the vast bulk of economic and social benefits from connectivity.

This is best delivered by using Wi-Fi, which is already supported by almost all relevant device types. With the addition of 6GHz, it can address the future expected growth delivered by FTTX broadband, as well as video, cloud and AR/VR applications.

The ultra-demanding uses that specifically require cellular indoors can use existing bands with enhanced small cells and distributed radios, neutral-host networks, or private 5G networks in the 3-5GHz range. There is also the ample mmWave allocations for 5G.

A final fundamental element here is timing. 6 GHz Wi-Fi chipsets and user devices are already shipping in their 100s of millions. Access points are widely available today and becoming more sophisticated with Wi-Fi 7 and future 8+ versions. By contrast, 5G/6G use of the band for indoor use is unlikely until well into the next decade, if at all.

Indoor wireless is critically important, growing, and needs Wi-Fi.

And Wi-Fi needs 6GHz.

 

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

The fake battle: 5G vs Wi-Fi

[Reposted from my LinkedIn & slightly extended. See the post here for a full comment thread]

I'm bored of the fake battle being hyped up between #WiFi and #5G, especially for enterprise connectivity in-building.

Let's be absolutely clear. Essentially *every* building, whether residential, enterprise office, public venue or industrial, will need good WiFi coverage, increasingly based on #WiFi6.

Most laptops, TVs, screens, voice assistants, tablets, consumer appliances & other non-smartphone devices will be WiFi-only. Only a handful will have cellular radios too - the economics & manufacturing/distribution complexities don't work for including 5G as a default in most electronic products.

Almost every building will *also* need decent indoor public 4G/5G broadband coverage, especially for employees' and visitors' phones. In most cases this will need to cover all major MNOs' networks, as well as public safety systems such as critical-communications LTE. (
Wi-Fi Calling doesn't work ubiquitously on all phones / mobile networks on enterprise Wi-Fi, so there will always need to be a cellular network for reliable basic telephony).

*Some* buildings will also need indoor private 5G for ultra low-latency machines or other connected devices. For industrial sites this will mostly be isolated local networks. For others it may be delivered by MNOs via local coverage or network-slicing, or by some form of neutral-host wholesale model.

The main competition for indoor 5G is actually indoor 4G, not WiFi for which there is only a narrow overlap in use cases. WiFi will almost always be needed as well as cellular, with very rare examples where it's absent - for instance outdoors on campus sites.

Also, future visitor access to WiFi may be made much easier with #OpenRoaming, which can use multiple affiliation-based credentials, not just SIM or passwords. That will change the usability barriers for Wi-Fi, for instance if you can connect via a loyalty app, rather than needing to visit a web-page and enter credentials.

Bottom line: it's not a battle. Wi-Fi6 and 5G will be needed for different purposes. They probably won't be integrated much either, as they'll have different financial models, different usage models (and locations) and deployment/upgrade timelines. Think divergence, not convergence - although some elements such as planning tools and fibre backhaul to the cells/APs will likely be combined.

If you’d like more details on this topic & my deeper analysis on the future of wireless, please contact me via information AT disruptive-analysis DOT com. I offer advisory services to governments, operators, vendors, enterprises & investors.



See also LinkedIn post with long comment thread via this link: here

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Rethinking wireless networks for post-COVID19 Smart Buildings

For the past month or so, I've been thinking about the longer-term technology, policy and business trends that might emerge in the wake of the current pandemic. I'm especially interested in those that could directly or indirectly affect the use and deployment of networks and communications.

I wrote up my initial scenarios for what might lie ahead for the telecoms industry in the recent STL Partners report on COVID-19: Now, Next & After (link), and also discussed them on the STL webinar on the same topic (link). The next update webinar is on May 6th - link. 

I've also participated in other client webinars and podcasts on campus networks (link), private 4G/5G (link) and Wi-Fi6E (link) recently - and I always include a section considering the pandemic's impact. (Any market analysis or opinion formed more than 2 months ago now needs to be reconsidered in the light of the pandemic and coming economic recession).

With that in mind, one area I've started thinking about is that of in-building wireless and smart buildings, especially relating to business locations. (Residential coverage of cellular and better home broadband / Wi-Fi is also top-of-mind, but I'll tackle that separately another time).

Obviously, offices and shopping malls are currently empty in much of the world, but eventually they will return to regular use, to some level at least. Even buildings sadly vacated by companies that cannot survive the economic impact will likely gain new tenants and uses.  


Making buildings pandemic-proof 

We already have building codes and regulations to protect us against fire risks, and even earthquakes. For fires, we have sensors, alarms, fire escapes, drills, signage and so on. In parts of the world there are specific rules governing indoor coverage for public safety radios, and they are being updated as agencies upgrade from P25 / TETRA systems to 4G / 5G critical-communications cellular alternatives.

So what else would it take to make a building "pandemic-proof"? I'm especially interested how we manage social distancing - both during the next phase of recovery and a gradual return to near-normal when a vaccine becomes available, but also during possible future waves of COVID or new entirely outbreaks. 

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis there was a big focus on banks' transparency, financial stability and regulatory "stress tests". I'd be very surprised if equivalent changes don't take place over the next few years - especially as many coronavirus infections are understood to occur indoors.

I've found various articles about smart buildings and the pandemic already, where the main focus seems to be on general hygiene and infection control. Using thermal cameras (and perhaps facial recognition) can automate detection of people with fevers. LED lights can provide disinfection in some cases, and bathroom sensors can help enforce hand-washing. Remote access to building-management systems allow facilities personnel to work from home. Better management of temperature and humidity may reduce the survival time of viruses and bacteria.

I can imagine a range of strategies being adopted in coming years:
  • Temperature-detection and hygiene management, as above.
  • Ability for remote building-management wherever possible
  • Design guidelines for wider corridors and stairways, better ventilation, virus-unfriendly surfaces, automated doors rather than handles, and so on
  • Ways to impose, measure and enforce social-distancing rules in emergencies - for example by dynamically lowering maximum numbers of permitted people in enclosed spaces, or digital signs for making corridors or aisles into one-way systems.
  • Use of sensors to measure occupancy, density and flow of people, and control entry/exit better
  • Automated disinfection systems or processes (maybe using robots)
  • Use of occupants' / visitors' phones or other devices to help them navigate / work more safely
  • Ability for authorities to use cameras, admission-control and other data for contact-tracing purposes (subject to emergency laws on privacy etc).
Clearly, not all of these can apply to all buildings - and there is obviously a huge spectrum of venue types with different requirements. A supermarket is different to an office block, a corner-shop, a factory or warehouse full of robots. Older buildings are not likely to be able to widen corridors, while a "cube farm" has more flexibility. 

But what that means is that in a future outbreak, a government could say: "Workplaces certified to standard PNDMC-A can remain open, if they reduce occupancy to X, Y & Z metrics. PNDMC-B locations must comply with emergency rules A, B & C. All others must close."

Clearly, those type of rules will incentivise building owners and developers to upgrade their sites wherever possible. While it is too early to guess exactly how the specific regulations might be formulated, there are nonetheless some initial ideas and steps to think through.


The role of networks

Given my own focus on mobile and wireless systems, a key theme immediately leaps to my mind: many of these techniques and practices will require better and wider indoor connectivity than is common today in many places. 

While some building-management systems will be based on wired connections (not least as they'll need cables for power anyway), I expect wireless networks to be extremely important for much of this.

I see wireless networks being employed both indirectly (for connection of sensors, cameras or other devices, such as smartphones used for distancing apps) and directly by using the network itself as a sensing and measurement tool. Indoor mapping and positioning will be needed in tandem with wireless for various use-cases.

There are particular challenges and opportunities for indoor wireless systems here:
  • There will be a need to support both public networks (for indoor use of nationwide MNO networks and services) and localised private wireless, for the building or company's own needs.
  • Almost inevitably, both 3GPP cellular (4G/5G) and Wi-Fi (5/6/7) will be essential for different use-cases and device types, plus public-safety wireless such as TETRA. In many some cases additional technologies such as Bluetooth low-energy, ZigBee or proprietary systems will also be required as well. 
  • All of this will occur while major transitions to 5G (at different frequencies) and private cellular networks are ongoing in coming years.
  • Any real-time mobile app, whether it is giving alerts, or uploading updates on location, will be dependent on good wireless connectivity, either via Wi-Fi or in-building cellular connections
  • Proximity-based apps (for instance using Bluetooth) will risk false-positives if they are not integrated with building location and indoor-mapping systems. You can safely stay 2 metres from someone infected, if there is a wall or floor/ceiling between you.
  • IoT systems such as disinfectant robots will also need access to indoor maps and granular positioning technology.
  • Next-generation networks such as private/campus 5G and also recent Wi-Fi meshes have improved wireless-positioning abilities. This could allow both real-time and reported proximity-monitoring - as well as enabling remote working & even "lights out" full automation in industrial settings
  • Both Wi-Fi and cellular networks can work out how many devices/users are not just connected, but detected, even if they do not attempt - or are not permitted - to connect to a given system. That could yield good data on user-density, especially if they are personal devices such as smartphones.
  • Wi-Fi enhancements already enable motion-detection - which can be considerably more accurate than traditional infra-red, and also work through walls. One technology innovator here is Cognitive Systems (link) but there are others as well. I've also seen suggestions that future 5G variants may be able to do something similar, if deployed with small cells. (I'm not sure how it would work with other in-building shared networks, though).
  • Potential to use localised cell-broadcast messaging, or Wi-Fi hotspot captive-portal pages, to distribute public health information and advice
  • There may be a growing need to align the indoor wireless network(s) with nearby outdoors connectivity, or link multiple buildings together well. Campus networks are already growing in importance for multiple reasons (link) and social-distancing and control adds another set of use-cases. (Consider private/public spaces such as courtyards, rooftop bars, parking lots and so on).
  • The use of virtualised radio networks (or specific variants such as OpenRAN) could also prove valuable here - for instance to enable operators to scale up/down capacity dedicated to indoor 5G wireless systems, or switch radio VNFs between indoor and outdoor coverage. (This goes far beyond pandemic-proofing and I will write about it another time). 
  • Neutral-host indoor wireless systems will be able to onboard new tenant networks such as public safety, or private building management networks, depending on future requirements and spectrum licensing policy.
  • There may be edge-computing requirements driven by pandemic-proofting, although that doesn't necessarily imply either on-prem or very granular nearby edge facilities, rather than metro-level.
This is still just a very rough draft of my ideas - and clearly there are various policy / regulatory hypotheses here as well as technology direction. I'm not a specialist on building regulations, so it's quite possible I've made unreasonable assumptions. But this is intended as the start of a discussion, rather than a definitive forecast. I expect this topic and more detailed discussion to surface in coming months and years.

Your comments are very welcome - and if you want to get in touch with me directly, please connect on my LinkedIn, or send me a Twitter DM. If you're hosting any webinars, or holding internal brainstorms on this, I'd be very interested in participating.


Wednesday, October 02, 2019

5G & Neutral-Host Thought Experiment #1

Reposted & extended from original LinkedIn post (link) - main comment thread on that page

Here's a thought experiment, to test your ideas about 5G, indoor wireless, neutral-host networks, URLLC and network-slicing.

It's a plausible scenario which seems simple, but actually has lots of complexities. It's the sort of thing that marketing departments might suggest as a use-case for 5G, but in reality, "it's not that simple".

Imagine it's the year 2025. 

There's a large office building on a business park... with a faulty elevator. The elevator company sends out one of its local maintenance engineers, who works as a contractor. 



He arrives with an AR headset, running an application to deliver repair instructions and record the fix, linked to the manufacturer's cloud-based diagnostics, image-analysis and compliance/recording platform. Given the safety issues such as fall-risks, it needs a low-latency connection to avoid the risk of nausea and distraction. 

But.... what's the network coverage like in the lift-shaft? Is there outside-in signal with <1GHz 5G? Or is there a DAS or multi-operator small-cell system? Is there a private cellular network with local spectrum? Does it support integration with all outdoor / public networks equally well? Can it support URLLC with a guaranteed SLA? What network is the engineer's headset SIM registered on, anyway? Is there a voice/video connection for looping in a remote expert? And how would that work?

Whose responsibility is all of this? Is it down to the building owner? A smart-building specialist? A neutral-host provider? Should the elevator manufacturer integrate local connectivity with Wi-Fi or 5G NR-U? How do they deal with sub-contractors? Is it possible for "slices" or performance guarantees to work on the indoor (possibly private) network? Is there a separate core network for the indoor system? Who designs, tests or pays for it? Who's liable if the network fails? Is there any need for edge-compute and storage as part of the application design - and if so, where is it and how is it accessed?
  
There are no easy answers here. The real world for many "5G" applications is going to have to deal with these heterogeneous situations, with workarounds and fallbacks. 

In this case, it seems pretty clear that the AR headset will have to have an offline mode, with blueprints & manuals stored on itself, or the engineer's phone or PC. Or the engineer will use the headset to record video, and then go back outside the building to upload it & call in for advice. Inefficient, but safer. When good-quality coverage is available inside the elevator shaft, the work can be concluded faster & more reliably - but it won't always be possible.


This is the first of a series of "5G Thought Experiments" that will help people think more about realistic scenarios and use-cases. I'll be focusing on ones that touch on opportunities for 5G, Wi-Fi6, neutral-host, cloud-native and private cellular. I'll be doing some as podcasts, so sign up here. I'll also be touching on these in my upcoming Neutral Host workshop on November 21st 2019. Details here.

Thursday, July 11, 2019

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
 

Monday, May 20, 2019

5G as an enterprise LAN / Wi-Fi replacement is a myth

Introduction

There are at least 10 reasons why 5G will not be a viable WLAN (wireless local area network) technology for mainstream enterprise. Despite recent claims to the contrary, it is not an alternative to Wi-Fi in offices, hospitals, apartment blocks or similar locations. 

Enterprises, investors, policymakers and vendors should be extremely skeptical of assertions 5G will displace mainstream Wi-Fi uses. Indeed, they should question the credibility and honesty of those uttering such claims.

There will certainly more deployments of indoor cellular (including private and neutral host networks) in future, but these will almost all be incremental and not substitutional to Wi-Fi. They may be used for IoT/OT uses, but typically these will be entirely new. 

4G / 5G technologies will not be integrated into most laptops or tablets, despite hype.

This post looks at why 5G cannot replace enterprise Wi-Fi - including numerous obvious reasons - and then examines why the cellular industry (which mostly understands the problems) is pretending otherwise. What's the story behind the unrealistic fantasy?

(It's quite long. Get a coffee first.)


What is wireless used for in enterprises?

Before drilling into the specifics of 5G, it is worth looking at how and why wireless gets used in enterprises at a local area. Local area here means a single office or site - whether that's an office block, a supermarket, a hospital or a factory. Some locations have multiple LANs across several buildings on a campus network, such as a university, corporate HQ site or major new property development.

(By contrast, WANs run over wide areas, such as between a retail chain's stores and warehouse sites in different cities, or linking a multinational bank's offices in several countries. Huge locations like smart cities and airports are somewhere in the middle).

A top-level list of local wireless uses, often with separate infrastructure, includes:
  • Local IT / Internet connectivity - this is the main LAN space, dominated by fixed ethernet and Wi-Fi. It connects PCs, laptops, deskphones, tablets, conferencing gear and various other computing products, either to the business's own servers or to the Internet and cloud. It is also good for private use of smartphones.
  • Coverage extension of public mobile operator (MNO) services onto private property, where outdoor-to-indoor signals don't reach. This uses various forms of distributed antenna system (DAS), repeaters, small-cells etc, typically installed today only in the largest buildings. Essentially, this enables local smartphone connectivity both to the telco's services (eg telephony) and to the public Internet. In some cases Wi-Fi is used to "offload" data that could normally have gone over the carrier network. Note: genuine offload is a tiny fraction of total smartphone data traffic - see this post for more (link)
  • Local IoT connectivity (connecting building automation systems, HVAC, entry control etc. This can be further divided into
    • Static IoT - things that don't move around, such as sensors, door controls, CCTV cameras & aircon units
    • Mobile IoT, for instance credit card terminals, robots, wearables, asset-tracking tags etc
  • Local OT connectivity - operational technology, often business/safety-critical with a need for realtime deterministic control, such as industrial machinery, process controls, medical equipment and so on.
  • Local voice connectivity - especially walkie-talkies and private two-way radio, which are now starting to be replaced with cellular alternatives.
  • Other local uses - numerous sectors have their own niche wireless requirements, maybe linking to public safety / first-responders, broadcast, audiovisual systems etc
While some of these categories overlap (for example, smartphone connections), others remain pretty well-defined in practice. Yet often, they get conflated, especially in discussions about the future roles of 4G/5G cellular networks, whether run by mobile carriers, or new/specialist indoor operators and the enterprises themselves.

This post is specifically about the IT/LAN/Internet access use-case. I think cellular has a lot to offer IoT (especially mobile IoT) for enterprise, as well as OT in industrial settings. We will also see more indoor / premises neutral-host networks (NHNs) both for coverage and private onsite voice/smartphone access. However, none of those generally gets classed as "LAN" connections.

(SAVE THE DATE: I will be running a private workshop in London on July 9th about NHNs, looking at both indoor and wide-area / metro / rural uses and deployment scenarios)




Why can't 4G/5G be used for wireless LANs instead of Wi-Fi?

At the heart of this debate is whether 3GPP cellular technologies can be used for local-area computing networks, especially for laptops, tablets and private smartphone use. Can it replace fixed ethernet and especially Wi-Fi connections? Will future PCs connect to the Internet via 5G? I'm being asked this by various of my clients, so it's worth going in to some detail here (and obviously, more detail & analysis for paying advisory customers)

This is not a new discussion - the 3GPP vs. IEEE standards war has waged for decades. I've addressed the topic multiple times, whether that's been about in-home usage (link), debunking the "5G will kill WiFi" myth (link) or discussing the important role for private cellular in industry and the need for local spectrum licensing (link). 

I can see at least 10 reasons why cellular (whether provided by MNOs as a service, or owned by the business or an NHN provider) is not a suitable IT LAN technology for enterprise:
  • 13bn installed base of actively-used Wi-Fi devices today, of which only smartphones typically have cellular radios. Some have shortish replacement cycles (eg tablets) but others will last for 10+ years. They will need to be supported in-building.
  • A tiny fraction of laptops & tablets have in-built 4G radios today. Despite the hype, this will not change significantly with 5G. Customers won't pay more for them, and manufacturers don't want the margin hit. We might see 10-20% penetration, but I'm doubtful (This is a whole other "10 reasons" post in its own right...) Wi-Fi remains primary.
  • Plenty of other devices will never have cellular connections (5G printers? Servers?!). The number of Wi-Fi devices is exploding in IoT as well - from smart-speakers to lighting to interactive screens and terminals. Add in new low-power Wi-Fi for things like headsets (and a separate battle between Wi-Fi / BLE / ZigBee which cellular doesn't even have a toe in). Again, Wi-Fi remains primary. High-end/critical IoT devices may actually adopt passive optical LAN connections, rather than any wireless technology.
  • Private 4G/5G networks are not just radios. They need core networks, control software, and maybe SIMs/eSIMs. The average IT department does not want to, or have the skills, to deal with all this, compared with installing some ethernet wiring and some Wi-Fi APs.
  • Almost no businesses want to deal with the complexities of private / public cellular interconnection, roaming, regulation (lawful intercept?!) and so forth
  • Even if some IT departments want to go towards 4G/5G connectivity, they still have BYOD policies, and guests, contractors and tenants who will keep desiring (& often expecting) Wi-Fi
  • In-building 5G is going to be hideously complex anyway, especially for mmWave frequencies. Installing small cells also needs fibre backhaul, power etc. in the right places, whch may be different locations to Wi-Fi APs.
  • Ironically, in-building 4G small cells usually need wired LAN connections to connect them. In future, it might even be possible to use Wi-Fi6 as backhaul, as it should have good-enough deterministic QoS for the time-sync requirements.
  • The world would need, I estimate, 100-300,000 more enterprise cellular specialists for designing, installing, maintaining & operating 5G LANs. And AFAIK there aren't even proper training programmes, or certification schemes. That's a decade or more on its own (and probably a big opportunity for some) 
  • Indoor wireless coverage is difficult and variable. Radio is absorbed by interior walls, partitions, furniture, insulation, pipework etc. Giving QoS guarantees is almost impossible. Few design, planning and testing tools are available.
  • Device-to-device use cases for Wi-Fi are not easily replicable with cellular. Maybe in the future.
  • User perceptions of Wi-Fi and cellular, and behaviour around it, are entrenched and will take years to change, if ever.
  • Patent & royalty costs for cellular are higher, as well as the extra chipset costs.
  • Unknowable new security / threat surfaces (and the fact that Wi-Fi security is often integrated with the enterprise's identity & threat-management systems today)
I could go on. Some of these will change, some will have rare exceptions, and some industries will have particular local requirements for whatever reasons. But the underlying story is clear: 5G is not a Wi-Fi replacement for the enterprise. 
 
This should not really be a surprise to anyone. I honestly find it hard to believe that most people involved in networks/telecoms don't realise at least 4 or 5 of these points off the top of their heads.

Historical note: I've been skeptical of cellular-enabled laptops since 2006 (link). I wrote a full report in 2008 (link), which was actually far too optimistic (I predicted 30% attach-rate by 2011) despite being criticised as too-negative by the cellular industry. Most of the arguments remain valid for 5G.


So why the hype?

What's a bit baffling is why the 5G/WiFi replacement fantasy is becoming more common. Even AT&T's CEO was quoted at the company's financial results event (link) as saying "It’s serving as a LAN replacement product". Other 5G-centric commentators have said similar things.

To be fair, in some cases it will be genuine ignorance, although frankly anyone that clueless about enterprise networks shouldn't be making pronouncements anyway. Another more important issue is the conflation of all the different use-cases for connectivity (as above), and people conflating the LAN, offload and IoT domains in particular. Through that lens, the AT&T statement could (very generously) be considered applicable to some IoT scenarios.

Yes, 5G has a long-term role in some industrial verticals, especially with time-sensitive networking and private control of core and/or radio & spectrum. Neutral-host cellular will be important indoors too. But controlling robots & process machinery, or doing asset-tracking in a hospital, is not the same as accessing SaaS applications from a laptop or tablet, or local IoT applications from billions of devices with local gateways. Neither is using a new 4G/5G CBRS or local-spectrum network for "reverse roaming" or "MVNO onload" really a LAN business either.

But I think there are a few other more cynical reasons in play too:
  • Embarassment over mmWave's poor indoor penetration (despite the rhetoric), meaning Wi-Fi is an essential in-building complement for any 5G FWA deployment. This applies in residential use, but also for businesses too. Pretending that some sort of 5G outdoor - 5G indoor hybrid could fix this might spare a few blushes.
  • Cost & complexity of future indoor 5G deployments: Reality is biting. Existing indoor systems are going to be hard to upgrade to even 3-4GHz bands, let alone adding mmWave and massive-MIMO support too. It's not just the radio elements, either - how exactly are carriers going to offer QoS / network-slicing over someone else's indoor wiring and antenna infrastructure? See this eBook I recently wrote for iBwave (link) for more details. Basically, if the telcos are going to help pay for 5G indoor connectivity, then new use-cases/revenues are desperately sought, beyond just MBB coverage. A "managed 5G LAN" line on a spreadsheet likely looks appealing, even if it's an exercise in wishful thinking.
  • Bluster & hype aimed at regulators considering the 6GHz or other bands for unlicensed use (& thus mostly more Wi-Fi). The US FCC and various European regulators seem minded to add another large band (500-1200MHz) to the unlicensed systems arsenal. Taking a public stance of saying "Oh, 5G could do all those use-cases as well - how about normal exclusive licenses for that band instead?" fits the political narrative, even if it doesn't fit reality. 
  • Some 3GPP fundamentalists' dislike of Wi-Fi and unlicensed spectrum generally, or non-telco controlled networks, explains some of the comments. I've seen posts on LinkedIn saying "I wish Wi-Fi would go away", and similar. They have long fantasised about MNO-managed cellular LANs , in the same way that some Wi-Fi (and satellite) fundamentalists think they can replace mobile networks. They're all wrong. (And so are the 5G FWA folk claiming it's a mainstream alternative that could replace fibre or cable).


Conclusion

So to sum up:
  • There's lots of different uses for wireless networks in enterprise, whether in individual buildings or across larger campuses. Ignore anyone who groups them all together.
  • IT-centric LAN connections, for normal computing devices connecting to the Internet, cloud or local servers, are dominated by ethernet - either using fixed cabling, Wi-Fi or occasionally optical LAN. Smartphones connect both by Wi-Fi and cellular, where indoor connection is good enough.
  • A handful of laptops and tablets can use 4G connections today, although few owners even bother to sign up for data plans. A slightly larger handful will have integral 5G in 5 years time, but most will just stick to Wi-Fi only. They will need to be supported in all the same locations as today, plus many new ones (eg public transport & retail).
  • Private 4G and 5G networks come in many varieties, with a huge range of shared/local spectrum options being considered by regulators (link). Most, however, are not aimed at LAN use-cases, but more oriented to IoT/OT/indoor cellular coverage requirements. In those instances, Wi-Fi has limitations, for instance in applicability to robots moving around a large factor or warehouse.
  • Some industrial/critical use-cases are not ideally suited to unlicenced spectrum, even with the better performance of new WiFi6 deployments. Given that the WiFi industry doesn't (yet) have a licensed-band version, then cellular is a likely option instead. 
  • Neutral host cellular networks are very exciting future developments, both indoors and out. But they're not going to be LAN replacements either.
  • Operator 4G and 5G networks are very important to extend in-building, especially if telcos want to offer new network-slicing or QoS products that don't just work outdoors. However, upgrading existing in-building coverage solutions to 5G is hard, expensive and has many unknowns. Many small buildings don't have indoor coverage solutions at all today. The mobile industry is casting around for new revenues, as well as costs. One takeout: end-to-end network slicing is largely mythical, and will need to work over 3rd-party Wi-Fi indoors.
  • We will also see various forms of Wi-Fi + cellular bonding, with devices connecting to both networks simultaneously. That's for another post.
  • As with all areas of 5G hype, there's an "it'll solve world hunger", "one-size fits all" pitch to politicians, regulators, investors and media. It needs to be called out for its disengenuousness.
Overall, the key takeout: 
Private/enterprise 4G and 5G networks have lots of potential future use-cases & market opportunities. Replacing Wi-Fi for IT/Internet access LANs is not one of them.

Note: if you're interested in deeper analysis, or a private workshop / advisory engagement on this topic, please drop me an email at information at disruptive-analysis DOT com, or contact me via LinkedIn or Twitter.

Also - on July 9th, I'm running a London private workshop on Neutral Host Networks, together with Peter Curnow-Ford of Viatec Associates. Drop me a message if you're interested, and look out for full details & registration coming very soon.