New Report & Recommendations on Telecoms Supplier Diversification

Copied from my LinkedIn. Please click here for the download page & comments

I'm publishing my full report & recommendations on telecoms supplier diversification, especially for 5G, but more broadly for "advanced connectivity" overall. This follows my "10 Principles" article from 2 months ago.

It covers both near-term RAN diversification and a long-term roadmap for a better telecoms/networking landscape towards 2030, with 6G and other connectivity enabling "biodiversity" rather than monoculture.

Although it has been triggered by UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) work via its Diversification Task Force - and will be submitted directly to it - it is applicable more broadly to global policymakers considering 5G, private networks, Open RAN, Wi-Fi, spectrum and vendor policy issues.

My view is that Open RAN is important, but overhyped (like 5G itself). Much of the value from 5G is in settings where there is already good vendor choice (eg indoors, or for private cellular).

Governments should focus more on context for deployment, ownership models and substitutive options like WiFi6. All bring extra supply options.

In short - *Demand* diversification catalyses *Supply* diversification.

(To download from LinkedIn, display in full screen & select download PDF)

Mobile standards may fragment again, driven by geopolitics

I think we might see a return to the old days of multiple competing mobile standards.

But rather than the US/Europe technical war of 2G/3G over the nuances of GSM & CDMA, this time I see a scenario driven more by US/China geopolitics and ideology, enabled by various technology catalysts.

[This is an extended and more nuanced version of a post of mine on LinkedIn - link, which I edited to fit the 1300chrs limit. It's worth looking at the discussion in the comments there]

The past: how LTE and 5G became global standards

To understand how we got here, and why we might diverge in future, we need to look at the past. Historically, there were two main competing camps for 2G and 3G networks:

• GSM/UMTS, championed by 3GPP and Europe-centric players such as Ericsson, Nokia and major European operator groups such as Vodafone & Telefonica.
• CDMA, driven by US companies, especially Qualcomm and Verizon, plus also Sprint, Lucent, Nortel and others, organised via 3GPP2

Back around 2006-7, when 4G was being designed and specified, a number of options were proposed:

• LTE was the 3GPP's option
• UMB was the CDMA/3GPP2 approach, leaning heavily on Qualcomm's acquisition of Flarion, which was developing an IEEE 802.20 wireless system.
• WiMAX, which came from vendors with a Wi-Fi background, notably Intel. That was an IEEE technology too - 802.16.

For various reasons, LTE won, and the others disappeared. (I wrote plenty about this at the time, if you want to go through my archived posts, such as here and here). 

IEEE still technologies dominate in local networks such as Wi-Fi and "personal area networks" such as Bluetooth, but for wide-area mobile, the 3GPP dynasty rules supreme.

But there's a back-story to LTE's success, and its rise as the single global standard for 4G.

In the 3G era, it wasn't just UMTS vs. CDMA2000, but also the Chinese TD-SCDMA standard. (& minor proprietary techs, such as Nextel's & Motorola's iDEN)

TD-SCDMA never gained traction outside China's domestic market, but it helped build the local industry to scale and then evolved into TD-LTE for 4G, which was folded in as part of the global LTE story.

The world's mobile-dedicated spectrum comes in two varieties - FDD (frequency-division duplexing) which uses separate 'paired' bands for uplink and downlink, and TDD (time-division duplexing) which uses a single 'unpaired' band, alternating between up/down slices of time. 2G and 3G were dominated by FDD radios. The inclusion of TD-LTE enabled 4G to access both categories. (WiMAX was TDD-only, a major failing).

The Europe+China combination made 3GPP / LTE unstoppable, especially given the extra scale in terms of both market size and spectrum it enabled. It also cemented Huawei's role as a powerhouse, and partly led to Alcatel's acquisition by Nokia and Nortel's cellular business by Ericsson. Qualcomm's conversion to the LTE cause helped too.  

In parallel to the radio, the 4G cellular core network (EPC) also rose in perceived importance compared to 2G/3G eras, as it allowed MNOs much greater control over data flows. It also allowed vendors easier lock-in.

For the last 11 years, the mobile industry has exploded, partly because of LTE's ubiquity and scale economies, and partly because of the simultaneous rise of the iPhone and Android. It's worth noting that 3GPP's original vision for 3G and 4G didn't see access to the "public Internet" as a core part of the service, although it now dominates usage and value.

In recent years, we have seen the 3GPP "global standard" continue to evolve to 5G, with Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm dominating the landscape again, plus Samsung and a few others following behind them. At the moment, most 5G is "non-standalone", using the existing 4G cores - and thus again locking-in the established vendors, and the existing powerful core and exclusive national-licence philosophy favouring traditional large MNOs.

However, the 5G vision of many of the industry "old guard" is still centres on the them vs. us approach to network control and "native" (ie telco-delivered) services. There's still the almost-bigoted rhetoric and lobbying about so-called "OTTs" (an obsolete and self-damaging term, in my view), and the attempt to dilute - or at least monitor - the user's desire & ability to access open Internet applications and even connect independently via Wi-Fi.

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But now, I see clouds gathering - or new rays of sunshine, depending on your perspective.

I think that geopolitics may undermine the "single global standard" for mobile, along with some conveniently-timed technical evolution paths. This is not a forecast, or even the most likely outcome - but I believe it is solidifying into a much more realistic scenario.

For the later stages of 5G (from Release 17 onwards), and then beyond that with the evolution of 6G, I think the US might be about to diverge from the last decade's consensus.

The Sino-US politics were already stark, even before the COVID19 pandemic added more fuel to the fire. We have already seen massive pressure with regard to Huawei, not just in North America but across Europe and other OECD countries such as Japan and Australia. The US has previously taken action against ZTE as well, and more recently has started even discouraging interconnection with Chinese telcos (link). 

Apparently, the US tech industry is now being pushed/advised to avoid working with China, even on standards development (see this Economist article, although it may be behind a paywall for some - link). That potentially weakens US influence at 3GPP, and could prompt it to seek alternative paths forward. We can expect the US Presidential campaign to focus on this theme as well, over the next 6 months - although both major US political parties have been fairly unified on the ongoing trade disputes with China.

There are also some signs of tougher views in Europe. Even though the UK and EU have allowed continued limited engagement with Huawei, the politics is still hardening, especially in the wake of the virus' trajectory (link).

But this is not just about geopolitics. It is also about technology "philosophy". I see something of a divide here, too. In a way, it's a modern-day version of the Bellheads vs. Netheads battle of the past (link):

• Control: On one side is a vision of mobile world with strong vendor / MNO / national control, evolved from today's 3GPP & GSMA vision. This has
• Strong policy control - and eventually network-slicing - delivered from a powerful core network. 
• Deep reach down into devices, from SIMs to connectivity management, and perhaps surveillance options. 
• A big focus on optimised & automated infrastructure, which probably favours single-vendor (or at least big-vendor) approaches. 
• An expectation of exclusive national spectrum licenses, with limited scope for local or enterprise networks which do not also lean on MNOs' services. 
• There's also a lot of work aimed at reinventing TCP/IP in ways that give telcos more control, as well. 
• Edge-computing is integrated into the telco domain as much as possible, and delivered as part of a "slice" or MNO service.
• Openness:The other world vision has a more open / Internet-centric approach. It's more "permissionless" with vendor or even operator lock-ins of any sort being anathema. There's:
• Less core-network control, favouring local breakout & device-led multiple connections, without the MNO (or government) having a panopticon view of traffic. 
• An emerging focus on disaggregated & open RAN models (O-RAN, TIP, OpenRAN etc), favouring multivendor- and IT/cloud -centric architectures. 
• An expectation of Wi-Fi indoors, often owned and controlled by a non-MNO. 
• Growing availability of more-open spectrum with dynamic / local licenses, as well as traditional exclusive bands as a foundation. 
• Edge computing is primarily an enabler of telecom networks, not delivered by them - and the expectation is that most will be neutral or independent, in local 3rd-party datacentres/modules or on enterprise premises.
  

In a way, this is almost a 3GPP vs. IEEE/IETF divide, but just as politics has shifted from a left/right axis to open/closed, perhaps something similar is happening here too.

It's not clear that the wireless world will cleave cleanly along this divide, especially in the near future as 5G is still being deployed. AT&T and Verizon will not be happy relinquishing control-points, either. So today, we have some fairly messy - and maybe unworkable - hybrids. There's lots of talk about opening APIs for enterprises to configure their own 5G slices. We have some grudging approaches to blending cellular and Wi-Fi, and various moves to enable "non-public networks" for enterprise in Release 16 & 17 of the 5G standards. But even that phrasing is awkward and somewhat derisive - as is the term "non-trusted" to describe other access networks.

But the technology forces are clear, even beyond the politics. In the last year or so we have seen:

• CBRS launching, with dynamic spectrum and a focus on new use-cases and business models, especially enterprise/local networks. It is catalysing a new vendor ecosystem of small cell suppliers, cloud EPCs and specialised SPs and integrators.
• Huge interest in local/private spectrum and networks in Germany, UK, Japan and elsewhere
• Rakuten, Dish and other operators validating the vRAN model and working with new US-centric vendors like Altiostar and Mavenir. (Rakuten is, like Softbank, an Internet company diversifying into cellular. Dish isn't "old school" mobile, either, but a satellite TV provider).
• Huge upswing of presence of IT/cloud players in cellular infrastructure, including acquisitions. IBM/RedHat, Dell/VMware, Microsoft/Affirmed, HPE, Oracle - plus AWS and Google taking various roles from RAN to core, as well as Facebook with TIP and its new stake in Reliance Jio
• A massive tranche of 6GHz spectrum being made available on an unlicensed basis in the US, primarily for Wi-Fi6E, but also maybe 5G variants in future as well. This has further killed off the (already implausible) idea that cellular-based LANs might edge out Wi-Fi
• Fragmentation of the EPC / 5G Core marketplace, with low-cost / cloud-based / programmable / "light" variants that look like a normal piece of the IT stack, rather than arcane telco wizardry. (I wonder if we'll see "core-optional" mobile networks - but that's for another post).
• More interest in mmWave in the US and South Korea, including for indoor use.
• FCC and the White House have taken a close interest in 5G and next-gen wireless, and seem keen to foster a local technology ecosystem for mobile (link)
• Innovation in satellite constellations such as SpaceX's Starlink
• Plenty of other big US-centric technology players watching closely, such as Cisco, Juniper and of course Apple.
• (I know there's also various moves around evolving TCP/IP, but I haven't had a chance to get my head around them yet).

We might still see 5.5G and 6G world emerge as an elegant hyper-converged version of these two philosophies. And we'll certainly see firms such as Ericsson and Huawei try to continue the 3GPP/control vision, while also exploring the opportunities and tools from the other side. Neither seems especially happy with the rise of local/private spectrum or pure-play enterprise and neutral-host providers. It's easier to sell direct to 100s of MNOs, than 10000s of enterprises via a myriad of new channels and integrators.
 
I'm also interested to see what happens with ownership of Nokia (which seems a bit more open to the new realities) given its financial woes - and also how the European governments and regulators act. Is Europe a bridge between the two worlds, or does it fall in the gap? 

In many ways, I see the EU model lean more towards MNO control, with governments happier to focus regulation on competition at commercial levels, rather than technical - it tends to push harmonisation heavily, as a consequence of its previous success with GSM which catalysed the whole sector. There is more wiggle-room around enterprise and local spectrum licensing, given the strong lobbies for manufacturing and other industrial sectors., plus more emphasis on privacy.

I can imagine Japan aligning more with the US vision, but South Korea in a similar position to Europe. A year ago, Samsung was the obvious beneficiary of Huawei's problems. Now, it's probably the OpenRAN ecosystem that's the effective #3 choice.

At the moment, I'd rate the chances of a more-serious and clearer split at 30% and rising. It won't happen overnight - I think that Release 17 is probably the trigger-point. By the time we get to 2030 and 6G though, I wouldn't be surprised to see a revival of something that looks like 3GPP2, or perhaps (whisper it, as many will cringe) WiMAX2. At the very least, it will be more Internet-flavoured.

If the "old guard" vendors and their institutional peers within 3GPP, GSMA, ETSI etc. want to avoid this bifurcation, they are going to have to make some difficult decisions, and soon. Otherwise the potential to be disrupted from adjacency will grow. They need to be genuinely open, and start loosening the vision of pure "end-to-end control", and embracing imperfect, inelegant pragmatism about network design, operation and ownership. Exactly how that fits with the worsening geopolitical landscape is a problem I'll leave for the diplomats and spin-doctors.

Note: If you are interested in understanding more about this scenario, or are looking for an analyst or advisor to help formulate strategy in the wireless technology space, please get in touch with me. I can be reached via LinkedIn, @disruptivedean on Twitter, or via information at disruptive-analysis dot com.

From pixabay.com

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.