Mobile & Wireless Roundup No. 104

Welcome to the 104th edition of this newsletter. A few weeks ago I met someone I knew for long time on LinkedIn but hadn’t met in person. Even though I realised that the person hadn’t changed his profile photo, I was in shock to discover how different he was. I remember someone suggesting that the LI photos should start greying out after couple of years and should disappear after maybe 5-6 years. Now I think that would be a fantastic idea.

Photos remind me that now AI is getting good enough to recognise things you can’t remember or don’t know. As an Android user I rely on Google Lens mainly, which has improved significantly in the last year or so.

I tested it on a beetle, a flower that I came across during my walk, and even on some Ikea furniture. I hope in the future it can differentiate between different creatures of the same species. I have for example I think, ?three squirrels in my garden. They keep asking me for food all the time. It would be nice to know I gave peanuts to all of them. Or is it the same one each time?

What would be even better if it can even assign a name to each of them. This way I can know if ‘Zoe’ is pregnant and needs more nuts, while ‘Andy’ is just getting fat due to all the free nuts I keep feeding, and ‘Rob’ is just a teenager (in squirrel terms) who is shy and only comes occasionally when he can’t find anything else to eat. Is that asking too much?

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a technologist with over 25 years’ experience in mobile wireless technology, currently working as an independent advisor, analyst, consultant and a trainer. This newsletter is a summary of my posts and other news that caught my attention since the last newsletter.

? 6G

• Free 6G Training: 6GStart White Paper on the Role of 5G & 6G in Transforming Industries (link )
• ICYMI - Summary of 3GPP Stage-1 Workshop on IMT-2030 Use Cases (link )

? 5G

• Operator Watch Blog: South Korea has Nationwide 5G Coverage (link )
• BT/EE launches brand new 5G standalone mobile network across the UK and reveals new Wi-Fi 7 Smart Hub Pro, to offer customers the best outdoor and indoor coverage. (BT PR , EE PR )

? Spectrum

• Ookla: Asia-Pacific Subscribers Will Benefit from More 5G Mid-band Spectrum (link )
• NTT Technical Review, July 2024: ITU World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 (WRC-23) report (link )
• Apurva N. Mody on LinkedIn: "RF Spectrum is such an important commodity just as the air that we breathe and water that we consume. Signs at the US Open 2024 says "RF Spectrum in NYC has dramatically changed. There is no Spectrum available for Electronic News Gathering (ENG) use. Small number of available microphone channels are only for operational use. No other wireless mic usage is allowed at the US Open."…" (link )
• Stefan Zehle on LinkedIn: Mobile Networks, Spectrum and Public Policy Outlook to 2030 (link )

? Open & Disaggregated Networks (including Open RAN, vRAN, etc.)

• In our new video we explain the concept of Traffic Steering (TS) (link )

• Alok Tripathi on LinkedIn: What is an "Open" SMO? No, I am not saying "Decoupled" SMO. I am just thinking! (link )

? Private Networks

• Private Networks Technology Blog: Private 4G/5G Networks in Universities (link )
• Vodafone deploys 5G MPN at nuclear power plant in European first (link )

? Telecoms Infrastructure, Small Cells, Antennas & others

• Andrea Donà on LinkeIn: "It doesn’t matter where you live, at Vodafone we continue to find clever ways to deliver our signal to you!" (link )
• Paul Rhodes on LinkedIn - Thursday School: Hiding In Plain Sight! (link )
• SKT·SK Broadband, the first in Korea to introduce 800Gbps high-capacity wired network (link )

? Smart Cities

• Computer Weekly: Brownsville, Texas makes quality of life leap with smart city private 5G (link )

? Virtualization, Cloud & Edge

• ETSI NFV Release 5 (Version 5.1.1) is now available! (link )
• ETSI Open Source MANO announces Release SIXTEEN, enabling cloud-native orchestration of cloud infrastructure and applications (link )

? Security & Privacy

• Light Reading: Open RAN no more a security risk than closed RAN, says Appledore analyst (link )
• Silke Holtmanns on LinkedIn: "GSM-R (aka 2G+some rail specific features) is having some serious problems in central Germany and impact on the rail traffic. And yes, GSM is not really secure....there were a lot of security improvements on the way to 5G" (link )

? Smartphones, Devices, Wearables & Gadgets

• Counterpoint: One-fourth of Budget Smartphones Now 5G (link )

? AI, ML & Automation

• MWL Feature: Top 5 AI use cases that may surprise you (link )
• Light Reading: India's Jio spells out its AI vision (link )
• MWL: Nations sign first legally-binding AI treaty (link )

? Satellites, HAPS, Drones, UAVs & Space

• TeckNexus: The Evolution of Non-Terrestrial Networks: From Experimental Beginnings to Global Connectivity (link )
• Connectivity Technology Blog: Will 5G NTN Deliver on the Promised Use Cases? (link )

? Other News and Technology Stuff

• TelecomTV: Reliance Jio crowned world’s biggest data company (link )
• MWL: Vodafone Germany to boost public transport with RCS (link )
• MWL: ACCC approves TPG, Optus network sharing (link )

? Picture of the week: Today we have a picture by Adam Wohld from his LinkedIn post explaining how an insignificant looking narrowband RF source was degrading the performance of a cell. Read his post for details.

Happy to hear your thoughts. Feel free let me know what worked, what didn’t, how I can make this better, etc. Get in touch over LinkedIn!

PDF version of this and previous newsletters are available here .