A bit of M&A, some federal funding, and a product launch: … [visit site to read more]

VIEWPOINT

The 5.5G is all set to become a reality over the next two-to-three years and will last till 2030, when commercial 6G networks are likely to be launched. This was revealed during a panel discussion on 5.5G and Intelligent World 2030 at the recently held Huawei MBBF 2022.

The 3GPP Release 18, which will give out specifications for 5G Advanced or 5.5G deployment, is likely to be finalized in 2024Q1. This will pave the way for the first 5.5G commercial deployments in 2024, as predicted by Alex Sinclair, CTO at GSMA.

“While 5G will meet the basic coverage and bandwidth needs, 5.5G will be required to support new and innovative use cases and the specific needs of the consumers and enterprises. It will be a bridge technology between 5G and 6G and will provide a downlink speed of 10 Gbps and an uplink speed of 1 Gbps. It will also be able to support 100 billion Internet of Things (IoT) connections and become natively intelligent,” said Gao Quanzhong, 5.5G General Manager at Huawei Wireless Network, during the panel discussion.

Around 230 service providers worldwide have launched commercial 5G services. The telecom industry has already installed more than three million 5G base stations to cater to more than 700 million users. Even as the 5G ecosystem expands, it will soon not be enough to meet the growing demands of subscribers and enterprises.

5.5G is needed not just to support innovative use cases but also to enhance user experience and drive the services’ uptake. For instance, new-age use cases like metaverse, Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) and 5G to business services demand high uplink speed and high-precision positioning, which is not possible with 5G. Further, the growing popularity of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) based use cases means that current 5G networks will not be able to meet the ever-increasing needs of consumers.

Further, the digital transformation of enterprises in all geographies will require networks that support use cases like digital twins and increased usage of robotics applications, which cannot be supported by 4G or 5G. 5.5G will be able to address this gap since 6G is likely to become a reality only by 2030.

A key use case of 5.5G is metaverse which promises to open up new and exciting revenue opportunities for the carriers. “While Metaverse means different things to different people, there is no denying that 5.5G is extremely important for the growth of the metaverse ecosystem,” says the Metaverse expert Moon Jerin, Aeindri CEO. 5.5G will also drive the digital transformation of enterprises from different business verticals

Another reason why 5.5G is crucial is that it will allow service providers to offer new and hitherto unknown use cases to their users and enterprise customers. “It [5.5G] will enable service providers to offer a better quality of network which will not only drive usage but also lead to the emergence of new applications,” says Walid Mathlouthi, Head of Future Networks & Spectrum Management, ITU.

The panellists also called upon strong collaboration and partnership between the industry stakeholders to develop the 5.5G ecosystem. Further, there is a need for the standards to be open to ensure compatibility and interoperability between the systems. This will go a long way in promoting collaboration.

Strategies to drive 5.5G ecosystem

A crucial component required for the growth of the 5.5G ecosystem is regulatory support. “The regulators need to consider assigning spectrum of ultra-wide bandwidth for 5.5G networks. In 5.5G, the spectrum bands, which were difficult to use in the past, will now become helpful. Further, the industry needs to start working on developing devices for 5.5G to unlock the full potential of this technology,” says Gao Quanzhong during the panel discussion.

Technology innovations are key to help service providers transition from 5G to 5.5G. For instance, an Extremely Large Antenna Array (ELAA) enables high-band networks to provide the same coverage as C-band so that service providers can deliver 10 Gbps to all users, irrespective of their location. Furthermore, ELAA Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) is also important as ultra-large bandwidth is essential to mobile networks, requiring all sub-100GHz resources, including FDD spectrum, C-band, 6GHz and millimetre Wave (mmWave) to be fully utilized. Higher performance terminals are also necessary to achieve 10Gbps downlink and 1Gbps uplink by providing more transmitters and receivers.

As the number of 5G networks and subscribers continues to grow worldwide, service providers will need more than 5G to address the growing requirements.

The UK’s broadband industry has grown exponentially over the last five years and the influx of CPs and alternative networks serves to dilute the market, creating more options for the end user.

FullFibre is aware of the expense and support needed for CPs to grow and exist alongside their larger competitors and is the reason why the network builder helps them reach new customers and maximise crucial costs of service and acquisition.

Being able to utilise budget effectively allows for smarter customer uptake methods and understanding overall costs is crucial for a new CP to survive in today’s market.

At #ConnectedBritain 2022 we spoke to James Warner, Chief Sales Officer, FullFibre where he gave the low down on how CPs can expand their customer base and network footprint.

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For further details, talk to the FullFibre team at fullfibre.co

Some regional FTTH, a private equity investment, and a technology deployment: … [visit site to read more]

News

The Department of Justice (DoJ) revealed that the two Chinese intelligence agents had been arrested and charged for trying to steal files related to an ongoing investigation into Huawei

This week, the DoJ has unsealed documents relating to the arrest and charging of two Chinese nationals believed to be intelligence officers for the Chinese government.

The document alleges that two individuals, Dong He and Zheng Wang, employed by Huawei in the US, were planning to steal sensitive information pertaining to an ongoing investigation into Huawei from the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

According to the government documents, beginning in 2019, Dong He and Zheng Wang attempted to recruit a US government employee, tasking the individual with sharing confidential information related to an ongoing investigation into Huawei.

In September 2021, they urged the employee to report on confidential meeting being held with US prosecutors, with a particular interest on which Huawei employees had been interviewed by the US government in relation to the case, as well as the prosecution’s evidence and strategy.

One month later, the employee sent Dong He a single page of what was supposedly an internal strategy memorandum from the US Attorney’s Office, for which Dong He paid the employee $41,000 in bitcoin.

A second payment of $20,000 in bitcoin was sent to the employee by He in September 2022 as a “reward”

However, unbeknownst to both Dong He and Zheng Wang, the government employee was working as a double agent on behalf of the FBI and the document had been fabricated.

Now, arrest warrants have been issued for the two men; if prosecuted, Dong He could face up to 40 years in prison and Zheng Wang could face 20 years.

“Today’s complaint underscores the unrelenting efforts of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government to undermine the rule of law,” said US Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York. “As alleged, the case involves an effort by PRC intelligence officers to obstruct an ongoing criminal prosecution by making bribes to obtain files from this Office and sharing them with a global telecommunications company that is a charged defendant in an ongoing prosecution. We will always act decisively to counteract criminal acts that target our system of justice.”

The US government has been fighting legal battles with Huawei since 2018, ultimately deciding in 2020 to ban the use of US government funding for procuring, extending, or renewing contracts with the Chinese vendor.

Since then, the relations between the two parties have remained tense, catalysed in part by the lengthy trial of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s CFO and daughter of fonder Ren Zhengfei. Meng was detained and placed under house arrest in Canada, having been charged with fraud by the DoJ, who sought her extradition to the US. A deal was eventually struck that allowed Meng to return to China late last year.

Also in the news:
How smart city technology is transforming Sunderland
Vodafone announces flurry of Open RAN partnerships
Saudi Public Investment Firm seeks majority stake in STC towerco

Press Release

Nokia this week announced the extension of its existing relationship with the world’s largest power utility, State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), with the selection of its Optical Transport Network (OTN) solutions

SGCC will deploy Nokia’s optical technology across Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, creating a world-class OTN backbone with the capacity, operational efficiency and intelligence required to support the Chinese power grid and provide highly-reliable service to its broad customer base.

SGCC supplies electrical power to more than 1.1 billion people across 26 provinces, covering 88% of Chinese national territory. As power utilities such as SGCC adopt the Internet of Things (IoT) in the creation of smart grids, both bandwidth and complexity increase. The Nokia solution, which consists of Nokia’s family of 1830 Photonic Service Switch-x (PSS-x) P-OTN, enables SGCC to swiftly transition to this new reality, improving overall reliability of the power grid and achieving a significant reduction in daily operating costs. Through automation, the utility is able to monitor electrical power production and distribution status in real time, using IoT sensors throughout their infrastructure. SGCC is also able to harness new energy sources such as solar, water and wind by connecting and monitoring these energy generation and storage systems across its wide geography.

With a cost-effective small footprint and low power consumption, the portfolio’s design plays a critical role in realizing China’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2060. The Nokia optical transport portfolio provides scalable WDM capabilities from 100G to 600G per wavelengths, which eliminates the need for costly, disruptive replacements and minimizes product waste.

Markus Bochert, President of Nokia Greater China:“The Nokia solution is one of the most agile and efficient optical transport networks available today. With this mission-critical network, the State Grid Corporation of China now has the flexibility to transition beyond 100G when and how it chooses, leveraging unmatched operational and environmental efficiencies as it automates and modernizes across its geographies.”

Nokia has deployed mission-critical networks to more than 2,200 leading enterprise customers in the transport, energy, large enterprise, manufacturing, webscale, and public sector segments around the globe. It has also extended its expertise to more than 515 large private wireless customers worldwide across an array of sectors and has been cited by numerous industry analysts as the leading provider of private wireless networking worldwide.