Mobile & Wireless Roundup #94

Welcome to the 94th edition of this newsletter. I took some time off to perform Hajj this year. It was an interesting experience, especially because it was incredibly hot, very much outside my comfort zone. There were quite a few deaths and some people within my group also suffered heatstroke.

The Indian capital Delhi has been suffering what was described as ‘punishing’ heatwave. This was followed by heavy rains which led to the collapse of an airport roof killing several people. Even though we know that climate change is happening, we haven’t prepared for it. Sooner or later it’s going to seriously affect our industry as well.

While many of the operators and vendors have started working towards the reduction of carbon emissions, it won’t be enough and the industry would need to be ready to handle the effects of the climate change. The most obvious impact will be on network infrastructure due increased frequency of extreme weather like wind, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, etc.

I often come across videos on LinkedIn and X on how hurricanes destroy a mobile tower or how one just buckled under extreme heat/stress/weight. I think these events will become more and more frequent.

Then there is a increased possibility of loss of power or backhaul connectivity, etc. While it may be easier to have a back-up option for backhaul, loss of power may limit how long a site can remain connected. The back-up generator can only do so much with the available fuel. If the site gets cut-off due to floods, it may be a challenge to get more fuel for it to continue functioning. ?

All these and all the other problems will need a solution in place, sooner rather than later. While I am sure these are being worked out, I hope we don’t wait until a tragedy strikes to deploy them.

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: one6G Open Lecture 8 – Next Generation MIMO (link)
• NEC develops compact millimeter-wave distributed antenna for Beyond 5G/6G through the development of a radio-over-fiber system enabling low power consumption (link)

? 5G

• TelecomTV: 5G network-in-a-box launched at DSP Leaders World Forum (link)
• TMN: O2 Telefonica develops Dual Mode core on AWS (link)
• Fierce Network - Industry Voices: 5G is too good, Stefan Pongratz, VP and mobile infrastructure analyst at Dell'Oro Group (link)
• Ookla: How Much Faster is 5G Anyway? An Analysis of Page Load Speed (link)
• RCR Wireless: Vodafone Qatar achieves speeds over 10 Gbps during 5G-A trial (link)

? 4G/LTE

• Connectivity Technology Blog: Berlin Subway gets 4G/LTE, Getting Ready for 5G (link)

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

• Jinsung (Alex) Choi on LinkedIn - The Role of OTIC in Advancing Open RAN: Certification and End-to-End Badging (link)
• Patrick Lopez on LinkedIn: "Excellent decision from Rakuten Symphony. I had long held the belief that Rakuten’s acquisition of Altiostar was a strategic mistake…" (link)
• Jinsung (Alex) Choi on LinkedIn: The Confluence of O-RAN, AI, and Chip industry (link)
• Whitepaper: Deutsche Telekom and partners focus on operator value in multi-vendor TIP validation testing and badging (link)

? Spectrum

• Dean Bubley on LinkedIn: "I was quite impressed by this week's European Spectrum Management Conference EUSpectrum in Brussels, by Forum Europe…” (link)
• MWL: SoftBank expands THz band use cases with new antenna (link) – Softbank PR (link)
• Live Mint: Indian Govt nets ?11,340 crore from spectrum auctions, third lowest since 2010 (link)
• RCR Wireless: Aramco Digital gets 450 MHz licence to serve Saudi Industry 4.0 sector (link)
• MWL: South Korea set to revoke Stage X licence (link)

? Private Networks

• Patrick Lopez on LinkedIn: “I was chatting with my friend Claude Seyrat, the CEO of Firecell yesterday about the future of private networks. I have long held the theory that the private network market is divided in two categories…” (link)
• IEEE Spectrum: Vodafone Launches Private 5G Tech to Compete With Wi-Fi (link)
• RCR Wireless: Orange’s private 5G to boost connectivity at Paris Olympic Games (link) – Orange PR here.
• The Future is Calling: Unveiling Airbus' Private 5G Network (link)
• DISCO - Private Networks: Should They Face EU Regulation? And Does the Commission Know What They Are? (link)
• The 5G future is now; the 6G-one can wait – says Verizon, at Private Networks Forum (link)
• RCR Wireless: EDF boosts private LTE at French nuclear plants with Ericsson, Thales (link)
• Mobile Europe: Private 5G networks finally begin to boom beyond China (link)
• Telecom TV: Malaysia accelerates 5G progress with private network focus and telco pact (link)
• SDxCentral: Is it time for enterprise IT and OT to talk about private 5G? (link)

? Telecoms Infrastructure, Small Cells, Antennas & others

• Paul Rhodes on LinkedIn - Thursday School: Planning (Part 3). Solutions are Possible! (link)
• Paul Rhodes on LinkedIn - Thursday School: Listed Telecoms Architecture? (link)
• Paul Rhodes on LinkedIn - Thursday School: A Site on the Ground is Worth 2 In Planning? (link)
• Paul Rhodes on LinkedIn - Monday Musings : Spend Less, Get Less? (link)

? IoT / M2M / Smart Homes

• Vodafone - Connected cranes: How IoT does the heavy lifting for construction site safety (link)
• RCR Wireless: Samsung proves out RedCap’s energy efficiency features (link)
• Mavenir, Qualcomm and EchoStar Achieve Industry-First 5G Open RAN RedCap Demonstration on the Boost Mobile Network (link)
• RCR Wireless: NB-IoT and LoRa crowned kings of IoT – to hit 3.5bn connections by 2030 (link)

? Security & Privacy

• TelecomTV: SK Telecom unveils quantum security chip (link)
• TelecomTV: Orange doubles down on quantum network tests (link)

? Connected And Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs)

• IEEE Spectrum: Startups Say India Is Ideal for Testing Self-Driving Cars - Unruly traffic forces innovative approaches to autonomy (link)

? Smartphones, Devices, Wearables & Gadgets

• Worldwide Smartphone Shipments Forecast to Recover with 4.0% Growth in 2024, Fueled by Android Growth in Emerging Markets, According to IDC (link)
• Light Reading: Huawei unveils first post-Android OS (link)

? AI, ML & Automation

• Developing an LLM: Building, Training, Finetuning (video)
• Jinsung (Alex) Choi on LinkedIn - Multi-layer Generative Network AI: Translating User Intent to Infrastructure as Code for Telecom Networks (link)
• Light Reading: Ericsson house of AI horrors provokes hope and fear (link)
• Jinsung (Alex) Choi on LinkedIn - The Smart O-Cloud: AI/ML-driven O-RAN Network Automation (link)
• Global Telco AI Alliance founding parties sign agreement to establish a Joint Venture focused on co-developing and launching a multilingual Telco LLM (link)
• Jinsung (Alex) Choi on LinkedIn - AI O-RAN: The Future of Telecommunications (link)
• Jinsung (Alex) Choi on LinkedIn - GenAI-Driven Autonomous RAN Management: Reducing OPEX by Improving Network Operations (link)

? Satellites, HAPS, Drones, UAVs & Space

• Sateliot to Launch Four Satellites with SpaceX in July to Enter Commercial Phase (link)
• Developing Telecoms: NTT Data launches LEO satellite solutions across Africa (link)
• Starlink Hardware: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini (link)
• Fierce Network: Can direct-to-cell satellite services make money? (link)

? Wi-Fi

• RCR Wireless: The top 5 moments in the history of Wi-Fi (link)
• BBF: WWC continues its work on Phase 18.1, IMS for 5G-RG, and launches a Service Provider Survey on Multi-tenant FWA (link)

? Metaverse & Extended Reality (XR)

• Global shipments of augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets declined 67.4% year over year in the first quarter of 2024 (1Q24), according to new data from IDC (link)

? Public Safety Networks

• Empowering First Responders in Australia: Samsung Completes Country’s First Demonstration of Mission Critical Push-to-Talk Solutions (link)

? Sustainability

• Real Wireless - Shifting Towards Sustainable Mobile Infrastructure: A New Direction in Value Assessment (link)

? Other News and Technology Stuff

• Light Reading: Ericsson lops exabytes off stats and shows why telcos don't spend (link)
• Howard Benn on LinkedIn: "How many pages are in the 3GPP specifications - a simple question I was asked last week at a conference…" (link)
• Ken Shirriff on X: "To use the Montreal subway, you tap a paper ticket against the turnstile and it opens. But how does it work? And how can the ticket be so cheap that it's disposable? I opened up the tiny NFC chip inside to find out more... 1/15…" (X Thread)
• William Webb on LinkedIn: The Ericsson mobile data forecast is a mess (link)
• Ookla: Your Guide to Airport Wi-Fi and Mobile Performance at 50+ Global Airports in 2024 (link)
• 3GPP Newcomers quick-start guide (link)

? Picture of the week: A ‘Pay phone at bayside park quietly waits for users in smartphone era’ from The Mainichi.

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.