6G won't wait. Will traditional MNOs still be the main customers when it arrives?

This post originally appeared in September 2023 on my LinkedIn feed, 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 follow / connect to me on LinkedIn, to receive regular updates (about 1-3 / week)

 One line I heard yesterday at #ConnectedBritain that really struck me came from BT Group Network/Security head Howard Watson during his keynote.

He was hoping #6G arrived later rather than earlier, "For the Brisbane Olympics, not LA", ie 2032.

This is not the first time I've heard an MNO exec expressing a desire to let #5G run longer, before 6G prompts more Capex and infrastructure changes. They want to get payback on existing investments before thinking about the next round.

This is unsurprising. The industry itself now recognises that it overhyped 5G before launch, and completely forgot to mention that it would arrive in phases, with all the "cool stuff" really only arriving in later versions, with the features in 3GPP Releases 16, 17 & 18.

Instead, we started with 4G++ (ie non-standalone 5G, with sometimes higher speeds but not much else) and then the first versions of "proper 5G" with the Release 15 standalone cloud-native core.

5G SA gives somewhat lower latency, and some rudimentary QoS and other features, but it's far from the ubiquitous millisecond / gigabit / slicing nirvana that everyone promised in 2018.

I was skeptical from the beginning - and I'm still a "slice denier". (I think #networkslicing remains a critical strategic error and distraction for the industry). But my view is that the really useful stuff in 5G, such as time-synchronous networking, RedCap and vertical-specific elements such as FRMCS for railways, are still a long way from mainstream.

So I can understand that MNOs look at the proposed 6G timeline of 2030, and think "we're still making heavy work of moving to cloud-native 5G standardalone. How are we going to do successive iterations of R15 SA, R16, R17, R18, R19... and make money, all within 6 years?"

[Note: technically 6G should start with Release 21, but based on past experience we'll see R20, or maybe even R19, marketed as 6G by some MNOs]

There is a possible uncomfortable answer that's starting to get discussed quietly. What if 6G isn't primarily about MNOs, at least at first?

6G will happen in 2030, one way or another. The world's universities and R&D labs aren't going to down tools for two years, while MNOs are still trying to "monetise" 5G. There will be a bunch of technologies and standards that get called IMT2030 / 6G.

There might even be multiple standards, either because of geopolitics leading to regional versions, or because my niggling of IEEE and Wi-Fi Alliance eventually prompts them to submit a candidate 6G technology (#WiFi 9 or 10, I guess).

So the question then becomes - will traditional MNOs be the main buyers of 6G in the 2028-2030 timeframe? Or will it be enterprises, new-entrant and niche MNOs, infracos, neutral-hosts, satcos, governments and others building greenfield wireless networks?

Is the failure of 5G to live up to inflated expectations actually going to be the pivot point for the (slow) demise of the legacy MNO model? Are we watching #pathdependency effects in play?

 

Enterprise 5G - evolving bottom-up from small islands, not top-down from national networks

This post originally appeared on September 29 on my LinkedIn feed, 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 follow / connect to me on LinkedIn, to receive regular updates (about 1-3 / week)

While the broad concept of #privatewireless seems to be getting a lot more awareness in the wider tech industry, some of the implications haven't quite fully landed yet.

I've had a couple of meetings recently where there was still a prevailing view that #5G evolution would continue to be "top-down", with major MNOs setting the agenda, especially for enterprise. The belief is that national "umbrella" networks would address all the various localised applications, such as #industry40 and #smartagriculture, or #v2x networks along roads.

Such a set-up would mean that the network "mothership" would need all sorts of cloud-native elements for orchestration, security and control systems, both at the telcos and their clients, which would be a boon for vendors expecting a direct correlation with the promised $xxx billions of 5G value, coming from URLLC capabilities, slicing and other features.

But what is happening is much more bottom-up. The most cutting-edge uses of 5G are happening at specific locations - whether that is standalone networks at factories, or new #neutralhost deployments in offices and hotels (more on NH's in my next post btw). We can expect Release 16/17/18 features to appear at a micro level, long before they're switched on for the macro domain.

And while these small local networks are sometimes being deployed by MNOs, they are often based on dedicated infrastructure, perhaps using different vendors to the main umbrella national networks. It's often the B2B units running the show, with a variety of partners, rather than the central core network team.

Other small islands are getting their networks built by integrators, towercos & infracos, inhouse teams, industrial solutions suppliers and assorted others. It's very heterogeneous.

And each island can be *small*. A port's 5G network might have huge value for the site's operator, but only have 100 SIMs in cameras and vehicles. There might be redundancy, but it won't need a datacentre full of kit. There's often going to be a lot of customisation, and unique combination of applications and integrations with other systems

So if you're a vendor pitching umbrella-grade solutions, you might need to rethink how to re-orient towards small islands instead.

 

Private 5G: Two different approaches at the Coronation

This post originally appeared on June 9 on my LinkedIn feed, 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 follow / connect to me on LinkedIn, to receive regular updates (about 1-3 / week)

 A month ago, the UK and much of the world watched King Charles' #Coronation in London.

They were able to watch it partly because of the immense efforts of the various #broadcasters involved. Since then, two separate stories have emerged about the role of dedicated #5G connectivity in the TV coverage:

1) A dedicated private 5G network supplied by Neutral Wireless and BBC R&D, used by several broadcasters
2) A slice of the Vodafone public 5G network, enabled for ITN, based on Ericsson gear

In the comments I've linked to various articles and a great interview on Ericsson's Voice of 5G podcast show. They have details of the other partners involved too. In the BBC blog post they also mention a 3rd network on a separate cell, working alongside Sony, for low-latency (I think) remote-controlled cameras.

The #Private 5G network used 8 radios along The Mall (the tree-lined road between Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Sq). It used 2x 40MHz channels in the UK's shared-licence band between 3.8-4.2GHz, with 1Gbps capacity (mostly for uplink). It was used by around 60 devices - I guess mostly cameras and test equipment via gateways, plus the BBC's onsite radio studio. They also used LiveU bonding systems to add capacity from public MNO networks. I'm not sure about the vendors of the radios or standalone core.

The 5G SA #networkslicing solution was apparently used for a single sector at a 3.5GHz temporary base station aimed at the Palace balcony. It also worked with LiveU. On the podcast, Andrea Donà (VF's head of network in the UK) talks about "dedicating bandwidth to one sector for the slice" and carving out some of the uplink capacity.

One thing that is unclear to me is how many other users were sharing the VF standalone 5G network hosting the slice - SA hasn't been fully launched commercially in the UK, although in January VF said it had invited selected users to trial it. I also don't know whether the 5G NSA and SA networks were sharing the radio resource, or if they use separate channels.

The public 4G / 5G networks (and also Wi-Fi bands) in the area were pretty overloaded, despite additional mobile towers adding capacity. The Vodafone / Ericsson podcast notes that VF uses "all the bands" at major events (although there's no #mmWave 5G in the UK yet) - so including 4G at 2.1GHz and 2.6GHz, and some lower bands for 2G/3G.

My take from this is that #private5G is considerably more mature than #5Gslicing, but that both are interesting for broadcasters. Both need quite a lot of specialist engineering, but TV is a sector with lots of very clever specialists and great ability to set up temporary networks. Of course, both networks were *outdoors* which meant that the thick stonework of the palace and Westminster Abbey weren't relevant.

One last note - the huge bulk of broadcast audiovisual output at the coronation would have used dedicated #PMSE wireless for cameras and microphones. But the #UHF spectrum debate is for another post.

 

A new view on Neutral Host - the role of cities and municipalities

This post originally appeared on Apr 17 on my LinkedIn feed, 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 follow / subscribe to receive regular updates (about 1-3 / week)

I'm at the #ConnectedNorth event in Manchester today and tomorrow. There's a lot about gigabit fibre rollouts and uptake, as well as a big emphasis on connected communities and cities - but this post is about mobile densification and small cells.

A key theme here is the fast-evolving model for #neutralhost mobile for small cells and network capacity in-fill in cities. An NH is a 3rd party wholesale provider which enables multiple tenant 4G/5G mobile providers - generally MNOs, but also potentially including private networks as well.

A few years ago when I was running NH workshops with Peter Curnow-Ford we identified this area of metro infill as one with potential, but limited actual deployments.

There are numerous challenges - MNOs ideally don't want separate deals with each city authority, while cities don't want multiple MNOs independently requesting 100s of sites with associated street clutter, road closures and soon. Authorities also want to both make money from access to assets such as lampposts, and to improve connectivity for citizens and businesses as fast as possible.

One option floated was for authorities to build out their own private 4G/5G networks, then allow MNOs to roam onto them, or use some sort of MOCN network-sharing arrangement. But MNOs each have different coverage / capacity holes, different spectrum bands, different customer groups - and also worry about security, ability to manage radio units, do carrier aggregation and so on. The idea of a single cell network in its own spectrum, with multiple MNO tenants is appealing, but sometimes unworkable. (It might work OK in villages or indoors, though).

What's happening is that another model is evolving. Local authorities like city councils are contracting with several infrastrucure specialists - companies like Cellnex UK , Freshwave, Ontix, BAI Communications and Shared Access to run (essentially) small-cell as a service offers. These act as intermediaries, allowing local authorities to create standard contracts, and for MNOs to have standardised processes for getting access at each site.

It reduces the frictions and costs of the paperwork - and also allows for infrastructure-sharing to evolve over time where it makes sense. Coupled with vRAN or open RAN it can put some of the electronics into central facilities, reducing street-side box numbers. And it means MNOs can get coverage in their preferred locations, with backhaul/fronthaul and power supplies simplified.

The competitive infraco/towerco angle, rather than exclusive area concessions, allows MNOs to choose the provider that is the best fit - and without needing different processes in each city.

It's not quite what I expected NH models to look like - and they may differ in the US or across Europe - but it seems to make good sense here in the UK.