Since its first commercial launch in 2019, 5G has evolved rapidly – far faster, in fact, than its technological predecessors, 3G and 4G.
Industry standards organisation 3GPP officially chose the name 5G Advanced for the next step in 5G’s technical evolution last April and announced in December that work was commencing on defining the technology in Release 18. 
Release 18 is currently expected to be published in 2024.
“We’ve never seen a generational technology advance so quickly. We’re seeing operators launching 5G networks around the world, using different access technologies like Fixed Wireless Access…

Since its first commercial launch in 2019, 5G has evolved rapidly – far faster, in fact, than its technological predecessors, 3G and 4G.

Industry standards organisation 3GPP officially chose the name 5G Advanced for the next step in 5G’s technical evolution last April and announced in December that work was commencing on defining the technology in Release 18. 

Release 18 is currently expected to be published in 2024.

“We’ve never seen a generational technology advance so quickly. We’re seeing operators launching 5G networks around the world, using different access technologies like Fixed Wireless Access, and 5G standalone is beginning to arrive too,” said Calvert. “In the future, we’ll see 5G using mmWave spectrum that the operators have recently acquired. And lastly, we’ll soon see the next generation of 5G – 5G Advanced – start to enable new use cases for the consumer and enterprise marketplaces.”

One of the most exciting new experiences that 5G Advanced will enable for consumers is Extended Reality (XR), a term encompassing all real-and-virtual combined environments, from virtual reality (VR), where a user is immersed in an interactive virtual world, to augmented reality (AR), where interactive digital images are overlaid on the physical world.

In 5G’s current form, applications using XR are still largely in their infancy, but this will change rapidly with the arrival of 5G standalone networks and 5G Advanced specifications.

Calvert compares his expectations for the rapid adoption of XR in the consumer to the boom in streaming services in the past decade.

“The situation we have been in during the pandemic, streaming has become one of the superstars of mobile technology,” he said. “Through the fourth generation and the fifth generation [of mobile technologies], we’ve seen streaming services grow exponentially. Netflix, for example, had around 7 million customers back in 2007; they now have 220 million customers. It’s phenomenal growth.”

He notes that one of the major barriers to XR adoption thus far has been the various limitations of consumer devices. Typically heavy and uncomfortable, not to mention expensive, early headset models are now gradually being replaced by sleeker, more user-friendly designs at a more accessible price point. With the arrival of more suitable devices coinciding with the development of more powerful and versatile 5G networks, XR will soon become a cornerstone of 5G’s usage in markets around the world. 

“Over the next five years, XR is really going to drive the demand for 5G Advanced,” explained Calvert.

Of course, XR’s potential extends far beyond consumer entertainment devices. In the enterprise space, various industries are exploring the technology to help enable new ways of working, from colleagues collaborating on a project in a virtual space to augmented reality assisting engineers as they repair machinery. 

XR is only a small part of what 5G Advanced will bring to enterprise customers. Release 18 will pave the way to unlocking high-precision location, presence, and timing technologies for the first time, allowing enterprises to have an even more detailed overview of their operations in real-time. This, in turn, will generate even more detailed datasets for these companies, offering them more precise analytical insights than were previously available.

With Statista forecasting the number of connected IoT devices to grow to 30.9 billion devices by 2025, these capabilities will soon be driving industry efficiencies like never before.

“Enterprises are starting to say ‘I can see my productivity, I can track my assets, I can see the logistics’. What 5G-Advanced brings, in this regard, is almost ultra-high-definition on that view. It starts to bring positioning data down to just centimetres, so you can start to find things accurately within your own factory.”

But while the huge potential of 5G Advanced is undeniable, the industry’s path to achieving its definition and widespread proliferation is still unclear. The GSMA is currently working to set up a 5G Advanced community, bringing stakeholders together from all parts of the industry to help collaborate on defining the new technology and the use cases it will enable in future. 

“We’re about scalable adoption – we want to unleash the connectivity of the new standards commercially. And that’s really about understanding the use cases and the business case for the new technology,” said Calvert.

Ultimately, the GSMA wants to build an effective 5G Advanced framework so that operators rollout the new technology as soon as possible, with the assurance that it will offer them well-understood commercial opportunities.

You can watch our full interview with Henry Calvert by clicking here. 

A report by Nikkei Asia has highlighted the ambition of the Japanese government backed group, the Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium, to establish a leadership position in 6G…

A report by Nikkei Asia has highlighted the ambition of the Japanese government backed group, the Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium, to establish a leadership position in 6G.

It is anticipated that the Consortium will soon issue proposed technological requirements for 6G wireless communications, making them the first body in the world to do so.

The Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium was established with the aim of strengthening Japan’s international competitiveness in technologies beyond 5G and is made up of representative organisations from Government, academia, and industry – including the likes of NTT DOCOMO, KDDI Corporation and Rakuten Mobile, as well as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC).

It is anticipated that other Japanese organisations who could benefit from 6G technology will join the group, including – according to the report – the likes of Toyota Motor, NEC, and Panasonic.

When the B5PC release their statement, they will call for common targets to be met by companies worldwide to guarantee that 6G communications are secure and reliable, as well as setting specific requirements for use cases such as self-driving cars and medicine.

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Tell us about your start up
FairFleet is constantly innovating and covering entire cycle processes on a single platform: from consulting and flight approvals to data capturing and subsequent data analysis. B2B clients from industries such as real estate, insurance, energy, agriculture or infrastructure advisory benefit from solutions offered by FairFleet …

Tell us about your start up
FairFleet is constantly innovating and covering entire cycle processes on a single platform: from consulting and flight approvals to data capturing and subsequent data analysis. B2B clients from industries such as real estate, insurance, energy, agriculture or infrastructure advisory benefit from solutions offered by FairFleet – always guaranteeing absolute legal certainty by obtaining official permits globally.

The platform set up by FairFleet empowers various personas in different industries to receive relevant aerial solutions and autonomous drone missions through a one-stop-shop. With more than 3000 certified, insured and professionally trained drone pilots in over 86 countries, FairFleet is the largest European drone-network, optimizing the use of local pilots with the latest equipment. This makes FairFleet the perfect link between local drone pilots and clients.

What is your USP, how do you stand out from your competition?:
Full-drone as a service platform with thousands of professional local drone pilots spread across the globe and an integrated data analytics platform.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
Our clients are stakeholders in the telco sector that want to assess their assets.

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How have you got to your current stage of development?
FairFleet is supported by various investors. In addition, FairFleet participated in different accelerator programs across the world such as: Plug & Play, Insurtech Hub or German Accelerator Southeast Asia

Why did you establish the business?
As drone pilots Alexander, Marco and Dario figured out that offering drone solutions cost effectively is always limited to a certain region but many corporations require drone services close to their widely spread assets.

In addition, the founders figured out that companies do not want to take care of the process of data capturing, therefore FairFleet was founded to fill this gap of offering full-service drone solutions integrated into the client’s processes.

What is your motivation?:
At FairFleet we are motivated by offering real solutions to our clients. Everything we do is always done customer centric.

What does the future hold for your business?
Drone solutions are becoming an industry standard in various industries. Our drone operations backbone is ready for the next step for fully autonomous asset inspections.

HEADQUARTERS: Munich, Germany
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 13
LAST FUNDING TYPE: Seed+ Funding
WEBSITE URL: https://fairfleet.com/
FOUNDERS:
Alexander Engelfried 
Marco Kreuzer 
Dario Manns 

You can meet FairFleet in the startup zone at Connected Germany. 5-6 April 2022, Mainz Congress, Germany. Find out more here

Three UK have reported strong full year results including the most significant growth in contract customer base since 2012 – adding more than half a million subscribers to bring the total to 8m…

Three UK have reported strong full year results including the most significant growth in contract customer base since 2012 – adding more than half a million subscribers to bring the total to 8m.

Strong growth in contracts along with new revenue from SMARTY, Home Broadband and Business saw overall revenue up 4% to £2.44bn. EBITDA grew by 10% YOY to £609m due to better margins from new lines of business, coupled with ongoing focus on cost control.

Three UK now claim to cover 99% of the UK outdoor population with either 3G or 4G network and to carry 28% of mobile data traffic in the country. Continued rollout of 5G takes them to more than 2500 sites live in 370 towns and cities, covering one third of the UK population. Developing the 5G spectrum portfolio has seen £280m spent on low frequency spectrum delivering what Ookla say is the UK’s fastest 5G network.  

Robert Finnegan, Chief Executive of Three UK, said:
“I am really pleased with this set of results which have delivered our strongest customer contract growth since 2012. We are also seeing strong performance in new areas of our business including SMARTY, B2B and Home Broadband. »

He also went on to repeat his view that the « UK market with 4 operators continues to remain dysfunctional and requires a structural change to improve the overall quality of infrastructure that UK customers should expect.”

The loss of Crissi is unfathomable and deeply felt by all of us here at the ITP. Crissi was our straight-talking and down to earth CEO, and not only have we lost an inspirational leader, but a mentor and friend. For many, Crissi was a role model; living and breathing the values she so passionately promoted. She openly discussed the fact she left school without any qualifications but demonstrated that with hard work and determination anything was possible. Crissi originally joined the ITP in 2008 as Office Manager having worked in various recruitment roles before that…

The loss of Crissi is unfathomable and deeply felt by all of us here at the ITP. Crissi was our straight-talking and down to earth CEO, and not only have we lost an inspirational leader, but a mentor and friend.

For many, Crissi was a role model; living and breathing the values she so passionately promoted. She openly discussed the fact she left school without any qualifications but demonstrated that with hard work and determination anything was possible.

Crissi originally joined the ITP in 2008 as Office Manager having worked in various recruitment roles before that. Only recently she told us that she certainly didn’t aspire to be a CEO. It’s not that she didn’t think she could be; it just wasn’t something she had envisaged. But thanks to two female mentors, Ann Potterton and Lucy Woods, her eyes were opened to the opportunity, and she was encouraged to step up to the mark.

And step up she did…. achieving many things. Most notably, launching an apprenticeship scheme creating hundreds of jobs that would never have existed without her. She championed diversity and advocated apprenticeships for everyone – irrespective of background or gender. Over the past few years, she had become a familiar face in the trade press and industry events raising awareness of diversity and addressing the skills gap. She was passionate about her work in STEM and making a difference to young people’s lives, particularly women and championed that through her work with ITP.

The results of her work are everywhere you look in our industry. From the jubilant winners of the ITP Awards to the apprentices now in senior roles who are members of the ITP Journal Board. Her down to earth demeanor meant she was accessible, able to communicate with everyone from school leavers to senior industry professionals. She was admired and respected by both.

Josh Fowler, one of the first apprentices recruited by the ITP back in 2013 summarises perfectly how we all felt about Crissi, and her legacy:

“I was lucky enough to have met Crissi way back in 2013 being one of the first ever apprentices via the ITP scheme. Crissi soon became one of my biggest cheerleaders and believed in me as my career started in telecommunications. She was never far away cheering me on and as the years went by our relationship grew on a professional level, formed a great friendship and in a way, a form of extended family, as is the whole of the ITP.
If I had one word to describe Crissi, it would be: authentic. I know she touched the hearts of many with her authenticity. She remained true to herself, her values and lived them every, single, day. Admirable. Her laughter was infectious, and she had a cracking sense of humour, which I will never forget. Her passion for the telecoms industry showed, along with her passion of equality and providing a platform for women in tech and apprenticeships. “

Since the announcement of her death, tributes have flooded in via the condolence board, emails, social media, messages and drop ins to ITP HQ for a (strong!) cup of tea and a chat with her ITP family. All reinforce how well respected and loved she was, with recurring comments about her kindness, determination and of course, her ever-changing hair colour.

Crissi had many plans for the ITP in 2022, including a campaign to challenge perceptions around apprenticeships. She planned to continue matching mentors with mentees, celebrate individual achievements at the annual awards and get back to meeting members face to face at ITP events. We will proudly carry on this work in her name.

The ITP wasn’t Crissi’s only passion. She was a wonderful and dedicated mother to Jack and Lizey, a devoted wife to Tony, a pub landlady, godmother, aunty, sister, best friend and rock to many. She loved a cold glass of Pino Grigio with absurd amounts of ice, being with family and friends and laughing, you could pinpoint her location from the sound of that cackle.

She was real, tenacious, loyal and unapologetic; never afraid to speak up or speak out. But she was also kind and compassionate, she put other people first and went out of her way to help people, no matter who they were.

That was Crissi Williams, and we will miss her forever.