Industrial 5G networks will mostly be discrete and isolated

A key argument cited for telcos having a central role in industrial / vertical #5G networks is "service continuity". Devices and users can connect both on-premise and in the wide area, because both are enabled by the same operator. An MNO can thus best provide on-premise connectivity as an extension, or slice, of its normal national cellular network.

MNOs and industry groups often assert this to dissuade governments and regulators from assigning local spectrum licences directly to businesses.

This argument doesn't stack up, for several reasons.

On a recent virtual event I moderated for Nigel Yeates Juliet #5grealised the speaker from Three. Business pointed out that its customers' private 4G/5G networks were generally isolated, not part of 3's macro network. They even use different spectrum. They can do roaming, but it's not a priority.

A central point is that most connected IoT and automation systems don't move outside the facility. Industrial robots don't go for a walk to the shops. What does move are vehicles, personal devices and shipped electronic goods.

Yet here, having local & wide area coverage from the same MNO is of minimal use. Guests, contractors and employees have devices on *all* networks, not just that of the on-prem network operator.

So some sort of roaming or neutral-host arrangement would be needed. And those capabilities could be also be offered a new specialised provider, as well as by an incumbent MNO.

In fact, it might be easier (and quicker) for a genuinely neutral wholesale player to offer that capability, rather than one MNO trying to negotiate a site-specific roaming or interconnect deal with all its rivals.

Another reason is eSIM and dual-SIM. Devices can have separate profiles for on-premise and wide-area subscriptions, and just switch from one to the other when they're off-site. This is an increasingly common feature in smartphones and vehicles.

In fact, private cellular networks don't even need SIMs - 5G allows the use of other identifiers such as enterprise security credentials, or even the new Wi-Fi OpenRoaming model.

At a radio level, there are distinct advantages to running private networks in isolated fashion, in separate spectrum. They can use different configurations to the macro environment, perhaps optimised for a different mix of up- and downlink in TDD spectrum.

And lastly, it is much easier to treat a private network as private, rather than some unusual public/private hybrid. The legal situations and liabilities are clearer. SLAs can be described and enforced in contracts. There doesn't have to be alignment in deployment speeds or priorities. Different vendors can be chosen.

This doesn't mean that MNOs don't have a role in such private enterprise networks - but it's likely to be done by a separate business unit that can engineer solutions specifically for verticals, thinking about the customer first. It won't be done by the main "mothership" network group, desperate to find "5G use cases" and crowbar-ing its main network (and also its #networkslicing and #edgecomputing platform) into unsuitable applications.

That MNO enterprise business unit might decide the macro RAN is suitable for a given client. Or it may choose to build its own network locally, with the enterprise owning the spectrum license. Or it might work with 3rd parties - or use WiFi instead. I'm expecting MNOs to acquire lots of vertical-specialist integrators and network installation firms in some industries like manufacturing, ports, mining and healthcare.

Maybe over time they'll add value and revenue to the central 5G network business, or act as channels for its #URLLC and MEC businesses. But that won't be their only offering - just one of a portfolio of options.

More generally, all of this points to private 4G/5G networks - especially in industrial sectors and areas such as ports and mining - being based on discrete, isolated deployments. There may be involvement by a national MNO in its deployment or operation (or spectrum licensing), but the network usually won't be part of an MNO's main infrastructure. There might be service continuity - but there's many ways to offer that, and it usually won't be in the top 10 priorities considered.

I definitely think that the roaming approach and neutral-host model offer many opportunities connected to private cellular too. There's some interesting angles relating to Open RAN here as well. Unfortunately, many of the verticals holding most appeal - hotels, airports, stadiums, office complexes - have obvious problems for the next year or so, given the pandemic and ensuing recesssion.

I'll be exploring these issues at a couple of different upcoming events.

Firstly, on July 7th, I'm running my next private workshop on Neutral Host Networks with Peter Curnow-Ford. It's now switched to a virtual event, over morning and afternoon sessions - plus a networking event (a virtual "pub" with special entertainment) in the evening. The broad outline is the same as first announced (link here) with more detailed updated agenda and format in the next couple of days. It will remain as a private, off-the-record event under the Chatham House Rule.

Also on August 20th, I'm doing another #5GRealised session with Juliet Media, specifically on the role of telcos in private networks. Details are here

As always, this theme and broader area is one I also advise on privately. Please drop me a message if you have specific needs for consulting or insight.

#5G #NeutralHost #Verticals #PrivateLTE #Private5G

Thoughts on roaming, local SIM cards and eSIMs

I spend a large part of my life travelling, both for work and leisure. But while I find connectivity to be hugely important, I refuse to pay ludicrous per-MB data roaming prices.

So until a couple of years ago, this meant that I had a large collection of (mostly non-functioning) local mobile SIM cards I'd bought in various countries. Typically, I'd use them in a spare phone, so I could keep me normal phone on my home SIM to get inbound SMS or missed voice-call notifications. I'd also often use the second phone as a WiFi tether for my primary iPhone.

At one point I found old SIMs from the US, Singapore, Mozambique, Vanuatu, UAE and Australia in my wallet. In some places it was easy to get local SIMs, while in others it involved cumbersome registration with a passport or other documents. Places like India and Japan were a real pain, and I just didn't bother, relying on WiFi & an occasional extortionate SMS.

That has changed in recent years - and there are now multiple options for travellers:

• Local SIMs are often easier to obtain. Booths at airports are well-practised at registering documents, sorting APN setting and so on, in a couple of minutes
• In the EU, roaming prices have fallen progressively to zero - often including non-EU European countries as well. Various other groups of countries or regional operator groups have also created free-roaming zones.
• Some operators offer customers flat-rate or even free roaming to other countries, such as T-Mobile US's free (but 2G-only) international data, or $5/day for capped LTE (link). I use Vodafone UK's £6/day "roam further" plan quite a lot, especially when visiting the US (link).
• Many travellers can get dual-SIM phones, so they can easily switch between home and local SIMs without fiddling about with trays & pins. (There's no dual-SIM iPhone though. Grrrr. More on this later). 
• Various companies (eg Truphone) offer global/roaming SIMs, and have hoped that frequent travellers would use these as their primary/only SIM. The problem with this is that they typically rely on MVNO relationships in each country, including the user's home market - which often means poorer data plans than can be bought domestically from the main MNOs. You also don't get to benefit from multi-play plans, bundled content and so forth. I'm also not entirely convinced that MVNO traffic always gets as well-treated as the host MNO's own customer data - and that's likely to get worse with 5G and network-slicing.
• Some providers pitch global SIMs alongside rented/bought portable WiFI hotspots, such as TEP Wireless (link). The problem is that these often just cover the same countries as the better roaming plans from normal mobile operators. 

So... in July I went on holiday to the Cape Verde islands, off the coast of West Africa. Beautiful archipelago of 9 inhabited islands, with beaches, mountains, volcanoes, hiking trails and small villages nested in sheer-sided valleys. Neither Vodafone nor any of the travel-SIM companies seemed to cover either of its two main networks. So I went and bought an unlocked WiFi hotspot (from TP-Link), and hoped to get a local SIM on arrival, as I'd read a few suggestions it was possible.

It wasn't just possible, but remarkably easy. Walking through the arrivals door from customs at the airport, I was handed a free SIM by a representative of one of the operators (Unitel) within seconds. When I unwrapped it later in the day, I found it had 200MB of data included for free. No registration needed, no upfront payment, nothing. 3G network only, but that was fine to assure myself it worked OK. The next day I found a branded store & decided to stick with that network rather than check the other one (good marketing / customer acquisition strategy!) as the price-plans seemed fine. 

I paid €12 for 5GB of data, valid for a month. There was also a 7GB and maybe a 10 or 12GB one, but I wasn't planning on streaming video. In other words, €1 a day with about 500MB available per day, for normal mobile usage during my 11-day visit. The helpful lady in the shop sorted it all out for me, including temporarily switching my new SIM into her phone to send the setup / dataplan-purchase messages, which were tricky from a device with no keypad.

This compared to the roaming-advice SMS telling me that data would cost £0.60/MB [about €0.70]. In other words, roaming data was about 300x overpriced - quite astonishing, in 2018. And the mobile industry wonders why users have such little loyalty and respect.

(It's also worth noting that WiFi was ubiquitous in any hotel, cafe, restaurant or other places that visitors might go. There were telephone cable strung along all the valleys on poles, and decently-fast broadband was common. Given the moutainous topography, you could sometimes get WiFi more readily than cellular).
 

How would eSIM change things?

But this experience got me thinking about how the experience might be different in the coming era of eSIMs and remote-provisioning. Firstly, let's assume that one or both Cape Verdean operators actually had the requisite server-side gear for RSP. And let's assume that my future iPhone either has a multi-profile eSIM capability, or has dual removable/embedded SIM capability. (Remember, I still want to get my normal SMS's from my UK Vodafone number). Potentially, a future WiFi Hotspot could be eSIM-enabled too.

But then the question is, how does the user find out about the available networks, and the available plans on those networks? What's the user journey?

And there are lots of other questions too:

• Would I get a popup alert when I switched my phone on after the flight? 
• Would it give me menus for all the available plans or just a subset? 
• Would I need to have signed up in advance, either with a local CV telco, or perhaps facilitated by Apple, Vodafone or a third party? 
• When and how would I download the new profile? What data would that require me to send back (or what would be collected automatically?). 
• Would it be easier to get an eSIM-capable WiFi device? 
• But would that just be the same global MVNO providers who didn't have a Cape Verde relationship for roaming?
• What happens if something goes wrong, or you need to buy more data? Can local stores give you any help, or top-ups?

Bottom line: this whole experience would likely have been worse with eSIM, not better. And probably more costly too. Maybe in a less unusual country, with MVNOs and better roaming partnerships, it could be much more slick.

But for most "normal" countries, I'll probably stick to the £6/day plan from Vodafone for ease, even if that's 5x overpriced and should really be £1-2/day. It's annoying, but basically the equivalent of  beer, and there's probably other ways I can save money faster when on a trip. That said, now I've got my new WiFi puck, I might switch back to SIMs sometimes though, if they're easy and available at the airport. I'll certainly take it along with me as a Plan B.

A Core Problem for Telcos: One Network, or Many?

In my view the central question - maybe an existential dilemma - facing the telecoms industry is this:

Is it better to have one integrated, centrally-managed and feature-rich network, or several less feature-rich ones, operated independently?

Most of the telecoms "establishment" - operators, large vendors, billing/OSS suppliers, industry bodies - tends to prefer the first option. So we get notions of networks with differentiated QoS levels, embedding applications in-network with NFV and mobile edge computing (MEC) and perhaps "slicing" future 5G networks, with external customer groups or applications becoming virtual operators. There is an assumption that all the various standards are tightly coupled - radio, core network, so-called "telco cloud", IMS and so on. Everything is provided as a "network function" or "network service" in integrated fashion, and monetised by a single CSP.

It's not just the old guard either. New "non-establishment" approaches to managing quality also appear, such as my colleague Martin Geddes' views on clever and deterministic contention-management mechanisms (link). That takes a fresh look at statistical multiplexing.

Yet users, device vendors and cloud/Internet application providers often prefer a different approach. Using multiple network connections, either concurrently or being able to switch between them easily, is seen to help reduce costs, improve coverage and spread risks better. I've written before about using independent connections to create "Quasi-QoS" (link), especially in fixed networks with SD-WAN. In mobile, hundreds of millions of users have multi-SIM handsets, while (especially in IoT) we see multi-IMSI SIM cards that can be combined with roaming deals to give access to all mobile networks in a given country, or optimise for costs/performance in other ways. Google's Fi service famously combines multiple MVNO deals, as well as WiFi. Others are looking to blend LPWAN with cellular, or satellite and so on. The incremental cost of adding another connection (especially wireless) is getting ever lower. At the other end of the spectrum, data centres will often want redundant fibre connections from different providers, to offset the risk of a digger cutting a duct, as well as the ability to arbitrage on pricing or performance.

I have spoken to "connected car" specialists who want their vehicles to have access not just to (multiple) cellular networks, but also satellite, WiFi in some locations - and also work OK in offline mode as well. Many software developers create apps which are "network aware", with connectivity preferences and fallbacks. We can expect future AI-based systems to be much smarter as well - perhaps your car will know that your regular route to work has 10 miles of poor 4G coverage, so it learns to pre-cache data, or uses a temporary secondary cellular link from a different provider.

There are some middle grounds as well. Technologies such as MIMO in wireless networks give "managed multiplicity", using bouncing radio signals and multiple antennas. Plenty of operators offer 4G backups for fixed connections, or integrate WiFi into their same core infrastructure. The question then is whether the convergence occurs in the network, or perhaps just in the billing system. Is there a single point of control (or failure)?

The problem for the industry is this: multi-network users want all the other features of the network (security, identity, applications etc) to work irrespective of their connection. Smartphone users want to be able to use WiFi wherever they are, and get access to the same cloud services - not just the ones delivered by their "official" network operator. They also want to be able to switch provider and keep access - the exact opposite of the type of "lock-in" that many in the telecoms industry would prefer. Google Fi does this, as it can act as an intermediary platform. That's also true for various international MVNO/MNO operators like Truphone.

A similar problem occurs at an application level: can operators push customers to be loyal to a single network-resident service such as telephony, SMS or (cough) RCS? Or are alternative forces pushing customers to choose multiple different services, either functionally-identical or more distant substitutes? It's pretty clear that the low marginal cost of adding another VoIP or IM or social network cost outweighs the benefits of having one "service to rule them all", no matter how smart it is. In this case, it's not just redundancy and arbitrage, but the ability to choose fine-grained features and user-experience elements.

In the past, the trump card for the mono-network approach has been QoS and guarantees. But ironically, the shift to mobile usage has reduced the potential here - operators cannot really guarantee QoS on wireless networks, as they are not in control of local interference, mobility or propagation risks. You couldn't imagine an SLA that guaranteed network connection quality, or application performance - just as long as it wasn't raining, or there wasn't a crowd of people outside your house. 

In other words, the overall balance is shifting towards multiplicity of networks. This tends to pain many engineers, as it means networks will (often) be less-deterministic as they are (effectively) inverse-multiplexed. Rather than one network being shared between many users/applications, we will see one user/device sharing many networks. 

While there will still be many use-cases for well-managed networks - even if users ultimately combine several of them - this means that future developments around NFV and network-slicing need to be realistic, rather than utopian. Your "slice" or QoS-managed network may only be used a % of them time, rather than exclusively. It's also likely that your "customer" will be an AI or smart application, rather than an end-user susceptible to being offered loyalty incentives. That has significant implications for pricing and value-chain - for example, meaning that aggregators and brokers will become much more important in future.

My view is that there are various options open to operators to mitigate the risks. But they need to be realistic and assume that a good % of their customers will, inevitably, be "promiscuous". They need to think more about competing for a larger share of a user's/device's connectivity, and less about loading up each connection with lots of QoS machinery which adds cost rather than agility. Nobody will pay for QoS (or a dedicated slice) only 70% of the time. Some users will be happy with a mono-connection option. But those need to be identified and specifically-relevant solutions developed accordingly. Hoping that software-defined arbitrage and multi-connection devices simply disappear is wishful (and harmful) thinking. Machiavellian approaches to stopping multi-connection won't work either - forget about switching off WiFi remotely, or connecting to a different network than the one the user prefer.

This is one of the megatrends and disruptions I often discuss in workshops with telco and vendor clients. If you would like to arrange a private Telecoms Strategic Disruptions session or custom advisory project, please get in touch with me via information AT disruptive-analysis DOT com.