UK5G. Issue 10

Innovation Briefing

ISSUE 10

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HOW OPEN RAN AND SUPPLY CHAIN DIVERSITY HELP BUILD A SAFER BRITAIN

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YOUR GUIDE TO BUYING AND USING THE LATEST VR & AR HEADSETS

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Welcome W

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been passed. As the Testbeds and Trials are coming to an end and the Supply Chain Diversity projects are ramping-up we’ve seen changes to the programme team, and as before there is a mix of those who’ve moved within government and experts from industry. It feels a bit like a new start in some ways.

And we also have a new name. What was 5G Testbeds and Trials is now the Future Networks Programmes. It’s a broader remit, we’ve grown from looking at what people might do with 5G to opening this up to a wider interest in future technologies. It now covers over 50 projects spanning a number of different interventions including the Open Networks Programme, Shared Outcomes Fund and 5G Testbeds and Trials. Within each of these there are a number of cohorts.

The first of the supply chain diversity programmes, FRANC – the future networks programme – is now well underway.

But it’s not just about looking forward.

There is a lot of benefit in looking back. We are gathering the lessons learned from the implementation projects and assembling them for wider distribution.

Some of the examples are quite obvious.

Two 5GTT projects (AutoAir and Liverpool) explored techniques to address point-topoint microwave backhaul connectivity to the radio cells. Airspan which makes cells, and the Bristol based company Blu Wireless which does high speed links worked on this together and have now formed to CoMP-ORAN consortium as one of the FRANC projects. The result will be a new cell which will help companies around the world set up small networks in campus-like environments.

There is also a strong element of learning by doing, and understanding the need to be flexible.

With the Green Planet project, we made major changes to the remit. A complete change of direction, change of location, change of type of thing we were doing, because of what they were learning and because of the opportunities that arose It’s the wider lessons and the wider audience where the work we are doing now can really make a difference for the future.

The key learnings in using Local and Shared Licences – and the equipment to support them. The transition to 5G standalone and a selection of novel applications that use 5G were demonstrated at the March

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Birmingham Showcase event, including the Boston Dynamics robot dog and a handful with Augmented and Virtual Reality applications. It’s also about the building of a skilled community with 5G expertise.

You can read more about the showcase on page 24 of this magazine and there is a guide to Augmented and Virtual Reality devices on page 37.

The body of knowledge we are building with the programme is impressive but we have to make it both useful and used. This is a call to action for people working on the projects. Please make sure that you contribute to the lessons learned. And for both those on future projects and people working on digital connectivity in general, please make the most of what those who went before you.

Keith Bullock Future Networks Programmes Programme Director DCMS

SYSTEM INTEGRATION AND DEPLOYMENT COMPONENTS

COMPONENTS

COMPONENTS

COMPONENTS

Secure Wideband PA Platform

Open RAN GaN

O-RANOS

Proteus

Development framework for Open RAN architectures

Physical Layer abstraction

PAs

UK5G INNOVATION BRIEFING

Innovation Briefing

Production of GaN chips, principally PAs

SONIC

NEUTRORAN

Compatibility Testing

Advanced equipment testing and Systems Integration into large operators

SYSTEM INTEGRATION AND DEPLOYMENT

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Systems Integration into large operators

Ran test

equipment

HOW OPEN RAN AND SUPPLY CHAIN DIVERSITY HELP BUILD A SAFER BRITAIN

HOW OPEN RAN AND SUPPLY CHAIN DIVERSITY HELP BUILD A SAFER BRITAIN

P RO T E C T I N G the F U T U R E

SYSTEM INTEGRATION AND DEPLOYMENT

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Systems Integration

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NEWS

FRANC C0-OPERATION

DCMS and Yorkshire Water look to fibre in the mains as a solution. Vodafone spins out IoT. ARM researches security and Testbeds and Trials has a new name.

A guide to who is doing what in the Future RAN Competition programme as we imagine the potential for the different teams involved to work together to create a UK supply chain ecosystem.

AI for network optimisation YOUR GUIDE TO BUYING AND USING THE LATEST VR & AR HEADSETS

U K5G Head of UK5G Robert Driver Head of Marketing Vicki DeBlasi

Best of British

Content Creation and Curation Crispin Moller Lauren Kelly

Efficient gNb development

CoMP-O RAN gNb with intergrated backhaul

SYSTEM INTEGRATION AND DEPLOYMENT

DU-Volution

ECORAN

5G Drive

Ari 5G

DU development

Edge processing

Deployment of Open Ran

Testing of Open Ran

UK5G Social Media Kate Cartwright Administration Emma Dexter Contact: www.uk5g.org/about/contact/ c/o CW, Bradfield Centre, 184 Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge CB4 0GA

T: +44 (0)1223 967101 W: uk5g.org

DC M S Maeve Hickey Kate Bealing Mija Valdez

C WJ P Chairman Keith Young MBE Editor Simon Rockman

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OPEN RAN SECURITY

5G SHOWCASE

There are increased challenges around security of open systems, but many of the safeguards necessary are built into the standards which define what makes a 5G network. Andrew Orlowski looks at how they fit together.

The UK5G had a bit of a get-together in Birmingham. A celebration of what has been achieved in the testbeds and trials. A chance to meet people you’d only seen over video chat and an opportunity to learn from one another.

simon@cwjp.co.uk Consulting Editor Andrew Orlowski andrew@cwjp.co.uk Creative Director Matthew Inman Business Development Director Roger Hinkson roger@cwjp.co.uk Finance Director Delia Robinson Photography Stuart Berman Special Projects Alex Young

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CONNECTED PLACES

METAVERSE EQUIPMENT Augmented and Virtual Reality has been the next big thing for decades but 5G and other technology advances are making Virtual Reality, a reality. The latest headests have cracked the problems of viewing angle, screen resolution, weight and cost. VR guru Rory Brown from VRcompare guides us through to the available apparatus for diving in headset first to the metaverse.

Vicki DeBlasi reports on work UK5G has done with lessons learned from local authorities, innovation projects, digital innovation zones and LEPs.

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SYSTEM INTEGRATION AND DEPLOYMENT

UK5G INNOVATION BRIEFING IS PUBLISHED BY CWJP ON BEHALF OF UK5G, THE NATIONAL INNOVATION NETWORK FOR 5G. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ARTICLES MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM CWJP. OPINIONS, COMMENTS AND VIEWS INCLUDED IN THE JOURNAL ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF UK5G.

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ISSUE 10

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“history doesn’t repeat Itself, but It often rhymes”. When we discuss what we want from our broadband, WiFi, a 5G or 6G connection, perhaps we can hear some of that assonance.

Back in 1977, when I was in my early teens, I played computer games. Only geeks played games on computers then, and by the time I was 17 I had progressed to playing a text adventure game called Essex MUD, or Multi-User Dungeon. In this game, players typed sentences to open doors, cast spells and hit a troll with an axe. The first ever multi-player online game.

I used a dial-up modem that was limited to a connection speed of around 300 bits per second. Today, I have Virgin gigabit fibre to my home, which means I have a connection speed that is over three million times faster, but when playing games from Steam, there is often a considerable wait for game files to download.

Consumer demand for data has grown in parallel with increases in bandwidth, and the industry needs to ensure this trend will continue. As we continue to develop new 5G and 6G technologies, we should think beyond the use cases imagined to day – such as holographic football matches – and remember that applications and services that have not been invented will need that bandwidth, too.

Whatever they are, we will expect and demand more bandwidth.

Fortunately, the technology that underpins so many modern applications is here: fibre. What we hang off the end of the fibre may change, of course, but fibre is the great enabler.

At BT Labs at Martlesham, in Suffolk, researchers have demonstrated a connection over a single fibre connection to the BT Tower of four terabits per second. Earlier this month, researchers at Japan’s national communications institute set a data transfer record of 1.02 petabits per second. This is the is equivalent to sending 127,500 GB every second, or more than “10 million channels of 8K broadcasting per second.” It’s compatible, the researchers say, with existing fibre optic cable infrastructure.

Fibre in the ground will ultimately connect whatever mobile technology we devise at the end. The fibre we are putting in today is pretty futureproof. What needs upgrading is the technology we connect to either end. Today this is 5G, where 100 MHz of radio spectrum will yield, in theory, a speed of two gigabits per second.

We think this is “plenty”, but it’s only good enough for today. We don’t know what we’ll connect in the future, but the article looking at AR and VR on page 36 of this issue gives some clues. In forty years, we may very well need mobile devices that are three million times faster than that. Which sounds absurd, but nobody in the age of text adventures could have envisaged tens of thousands of people all over the world simultaneously playing Call of Duty, or an online game market worth some $25 billion a year.

C OV E R ST O RY

OPEN RAN PRINCIPLES

How open is Open? DCMS has established some principles to ensure that operators and companies deploying Open RAN meet both the spirit and the technical requirements of the move to systems with components from multiple equipment vendors.

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BRITISH INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

NICE TO SEE YOU

British Intellectual property is important for national security. University spin-outs are a source of this asset.

A R K T WA I N O N C E S A I D T H AT

Pre-pandemic UK5G held events nearly once a week.

As much as 5G facilitates meeting without travel, we secretly know that there is a magic in, in-person events.

WHILE EVERY CARE IS TAKEN IN COMPILING THE CONTENT, NEITHER UK5G NOR THE PUBLISHER ASSUMES RESPONSIBILITY FOR EFFECTS ARISING FROM THIS PUBLICATION. AVAILABLE ONLINE AT CWJP.CO.UK/UK5G

Simon Rockman

Editor, UK5G Innovation Briefing

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ENTERPRISE 5G REQUIRES NEW MODELS

$14bn

Expected value of 5G private networks globally by 2028, as standalone 5G technolgy matures. according to a recent Juniper Research study – ahead of Tata and TNS – disclosed it is open to spinning its IoT business out completely.

That would clear the way for a merger, which Ofcom said it is more inclined to approve, in

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principle, in February, dropping its long held commitmtent to four consumer mobile networks in the UK market.

5G private networks are predicted to grow at an average rate of 40 per cent a year between 2021 and 2028, by which time the market will be worth $14 billion (€13 billion).

Link: https://newsroom.bt.com/bt-andericsson-sign-multi-million-poundpartnership-to-provide-commercial-5gnetworks/

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announced a partnership to work promote enterprise 5G that dips into BT’s new £100 million Division X fund. Hailed as the first agreement of its kind, the aim is for IoT and private 5G networks to be deployed more rapidly in the UK. Division X will fund deployment for such technologies, alongside edge computing, cloud computing, and AI. 5G Private Networks are expected to grow to $14 billion globally as organisations by 2028, as standalone 5G matures.

BT’s Marc Overton, MD for Division X, described 5G as “foundational”.

“5G private networks will also support smart factory processes and the advancement of Industry 4.0 which can realise significant cost savings and efficiencies for manufacturers,” BT said in a statement.

The two have already worked together, installing a 5G private network across 35 acres at Belfast Harbour. This enables a range of applications including CCTV, air quality monitors, drones and mi-fi dongles. It is a subtle repositioning by industry, however.

“The original MNO vision of delivering enterprise networks as ‘5G network slices” partitioned from their national infrastructure has taken a back seat”, analyst Dean Bubley explained in a recent newsletter. https://www. linkedin.com/pulse/telcos-should-focusconnected-data-just-edge-computing-deanbubley/ “There is more interest currently in the creation of dedicated on-premise private 5G networks, via telcos’ enterprise or integrator units.”

But operators are keeping their options open. Vodafone, the leading IoT vendor

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CYBERSECURITY GSMA TAKES ON WEB GIANTS ARM TEN

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trade association GSMA has joined the call for European regulators to order services providers such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon to make additional direct payments to telecommunications companies. The GSMA echoes concerns from ETNO, the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association ,that “over the top” digital services such as YouTube and AWS reap the benefit from their own investment in infrastructure.

This costs between €15 billion and €28 billion a year in the EU, or around ten times the amount OSPs (online service providers) have spent on infrastructure, according to ETNO. ETNO also argue that price negotiations are ‘asymetric’, since they cannot realistically refuse to carry their data to consumers. Both trade groups also cite cumbersome regulation and mandatory fees, such as spectrum costs.

“The online services and user interface segments are benefiting most from value-

chain growth and generating the largest shareholder returns, whereas the internet access connectivity segment has generated relatively low and even single-digit returns on capital.” Shareholder returns have been “almost flat” for around six years, the GSMA says in a report prepared by consultants Kearney.

“Business leaders and policymakers need to fully appreciate the critical role of the internet infrastructure and work to ensure that market distortions, regulatory requirements or other factors are not limiting the ability of participants to make sufficient returns in all segments of the ecosystem and that all segments can make a fair return. This would sustain long-term investment, and not just those businesses that have the biggest platforms and scale,” the GSMA adds.

ETNO called for Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon to make direct payments towards infrastructure projects, or to the telcos themselves. OTT providers such as Google and Netflix argue they have invested heavily in content delivery networks so largely carry the video traffic themselves, and lay lots of fibre cables. Some of the largest undersea fibre cables are being laid by Google and Facebook.

Critics also compared the calls for “fair compensation” to shipping companies demanding an additional share based on the value of the goods packed in the containers. : https://www.gsma.com/newsroom/pressrelease/gsma-warns-internet-value-chaingrowth-to-stall-unless-market-imbalancesaddressed/ https://www.gsma.com/publicpolicy/ wp-content/uploads/2022/05/InternetValue-Chain-2022.pdf https://etno.eu/news/8-news/742-8questions-fair-contribution.html

BOX OF TRICKS

After receiving funding from the UK Government via its FRANC competition, Loughborough-based CommAgility has introduced a small cell reference platform for use in industrial private networks. Designed primarily for indoor use it marries chipsets from Dutch chip company NXP Semiconductors with CommAgility’s phyiscal layer software.

The unit can be licensed or customised for the customer, and consists of four RF channels enabling a 4x4 MIMO downlink. It uses 16 ARM cores and NXP Semicondictors digital signal processing cores and wireless accelerators. CommAgility is part of the O-RAN Alliance which promotes open architectures and the new reference platform, targetted at the operator spectrum of N78 will support releases 16 and 17, the latest versions of the 5G standard.

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The UK’s most successful semiconductor company ARM has been conducting a seven year research project to create a more secure hardware architecture, receiving funding from UK Research and Innovation since 2019.

The project explores using special instructions: Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions (CHERI) devised by computer scientists at Cambridge and the nonprofit Californian research institute SRI (formerly Stanford Research Institute) to protect and box off the computer memory that each process is using: a common area for exploits.

Finally UK companies can get to test the results, in the form of access to a prototype circuit board, Morello, as part of the ICSF Digital Security by Design challenge. The first ten companies chosen include Trèsbian, an open source Linux based on the instruction set, Inventia, which is creating a billing backend using the Morello board for mobile operators, and Praeferre, which is creating a secure data broker for consumers. https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/ security/ctsrd/cheri/

MARK RAYNER

NEW CEO FOR CW CW, the lead delivery partner for UK5G, has a new CEO. Mark Rayner has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer of CW (Cambridge Wireless), the community for research into mobile wireless, internet, semiconductor and software companies.

Rayner joins from St John’s Innovation Centre, where he was Innovation and Finance Specialist and was previously COO of supercar company BAC (Briggs Automotive Company), and a director at Pall Mall Partners.

NOKIA QUERIES OPEN RAN

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said Open RAN raises security and environmental concerns Florian Damas said a move to COTS (commoditised, off-the-shelf) hardware resulted in much greater power requirements, particularly if Intel’s power-guzzling PC chips x86 are used.

“The reason why established vendors have custom-made system-on-a-chip hardware solutions is to ensure that we meet the targets when it comes to energy efficiency. We have to be very careful between everything on common

platforms and the objective of the green deal to reduce energy consumption,” said Damas, in comments reported by Light Reading. “No one disputes that you can do Layer 1 [the transmission and reception of bit stream data such as radio signals] with an accelerator using x86 for wireless. The problem is you need a room compared to one box or a rack”.

The power consumption increase involved in moving away from specialist proprietary hardware from vendors like Nokia has been disputed. The Open RAN Policy Coalition, for example, points out that while datacenter computations have increased 550 per cent in the past decade, power consumption has increased 1.6 per cent. In addition, it argues, shifting radio and distributed functions to the cloud, or even pooling them, result in energy savings – which goes under the name CloudRAN or vRAN. Damas also drew attention to security.

Research from Strand Consulting noted over 50 Chinese companies have joined the Open RAN initiative: “it is not clear how trading one known insecure Chinese vendor for 50 unknown Chinese vendors is the path to greater security,” argued analyst John Strand. https:// strandconsult.dk/fact-vs-fiction-the-10parameters-of-openran/ “Nokia is a supporter of Open RAN and was the first major telco equipment vendor to join the O-RAN ALLIANCE” the company emphasised in a statement. https://on.wsj.com/35XrWjL

EU ONE PLUG TO RULE THEM ALL The European Union has announced that it wants one type of wired charging port for consumer electronics devices. The changes are part of the Radio Equipment Directive, and will require Apple to drop its decade-old Lightning connector for iPhones, first introduced with the iPhone 5 in 2012, as it has decreed that the USB C connector is the chosen one. New labelling will be required to inform consumers of the power charging performance of both cables and power million iPhones are sold plugs, as these vary wildly within the USB C family of globally, and 56 million standards. in Europe each year.

The Commission cited “consumer frustration and e-waste” as the reasons, suggesting that disposed of and unused chargers 11,000 tonnes of e-waste a year. Apple has argued that mandating USB C will cause a rapid overnight increase in e-waste. Apple was the first to remove a bundled charger from new smartphones in 2019, and Samsung and others have since followed suit.

Apple argues that decoupling the socket from the cable allows far greater re-use of existing chargers.

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OFCOM DRONES

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new licensing framework for aerial drones, hoping to ease the path to commercial uses such as unmanned parcel delivery. Currently, Ofcom and the Civil Aviation Authority set the rules for drones, with most being license exempt so long as they confirm to certain rules on radio power transmission and usage.

The owner and operator must self-register with the CAA, but most can operate in unlicensed spectrum. In practice this limits legal use to line-of-sight craft.

The new framework proposes the introduction of a new Unmanned Aircraft System Operator Radio license that allows drones that operate beyond the line of sight, at much greater altitudes, and over long distances. Examples cited include postal drones making deliveries to remote communities, the rapid delivery of urgent medical supplies, and the use of drones to inspect industrial machinery such as electricity pylons.

“A drone spectrum licence does not necessarily indicate that the CAA has permitted the equipment to be carried,” Ofcom notes. “Although the proposed licence provides the framework for authorisation of the use of mobile terminals on a commercial drone, the licensee would need to have obtained a written agreement from the mobile network operator prior to use.”

A consultation on Ofcom’s Spectrum for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) is open until September. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultationsand-statements/category-1/spectrum-forunmanned-aircraft-systems https://www.mobileworldlive.com/lateststories/ofcom-readies-drones-liftoff

NEWS

THE AR FUTURE NEVER COMES

FIBRE IN WATER

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catching on to a potentially much cheaper way of delivering fibre connectivity, without digging up fields and roads. In-pipe communications places the fibre inside existing water mains, allowing gigabit links to be established very quickly, with the minimum of fuss.

Civil works can account for 80 per cent of the cost of building new gigabit-capable broadband networks. If successful, it will also connect villages considered uneconomical for for fibre deployment.

Water companies are already using fibre optic in water pipes for their own reasons: to deploy sensors to help detect leaks faster.

Two years ago Severn Water installed a fibre optic cable to ‘listen’ for potential leaks, and also detect water “pirates”. vowing to install fibre in every water main eventually.

The Barnsley-Penistone scheme is the first trial of a £4m fund announced last August.

The idea isn’t new, and rural regions in the United States Europe are already benefitting from British know how to put fibre in existing water pipes. In Washington State, Craley Ltd helped install a 30km fibre that both connected premises, and spied for water leaks.

It’s speedy to deploy, too: a 7km trunk in Tavèrnoles, a 320-resident municipality in ural Catalonia was deployed at 4,000 feet per day.

Craley is introducing Liner, a laminated recycled polymer layer within an existing duct, allowing for cracked or broken waste ducts to be fixed quickly, with optional fibre cable integration.

Following the evaluation of the initial trial, DCMS will look at funding larger projects if successful. This technology could be seen as a useful component in the challenge to roll-out of Project Gigabit.

Canada will ban equipment from Chinese telecoms CANADA vendors ZTE and Huawei being used in its 5G networks.

BANS CHINA, “In 5G systems, sensitive functions will become increasingly decentralized and virtualized in order to AT LAST

reduce latency, and the number of devices they will connect will also grow exponentially,” explained the government. Canadian companies can sign deals with the companies until September, but existing 5G equipment or services must be removed or terminated by June 28, 2024. The UK announced a full ban in July 2020, explaining that US Sanctions made it impossible to verify the security of the products, with a termination date of 2027 – a seven year window.

In 2018, Meng Wanzhou, Huawei ‘s chief financial officer and the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested Vancouver and extradited to the US under suspcion of breaking sacntions in Iran. This led to a Meng to a deferred prosecution agreement. As part of the deal, Meng agreed to a “statement of facts”. Two Candians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were arrestd in China in what was seen as a revenge move.

As recently as 2019, Canadian forces helped train Chinese military staff up to one star general level at the Forces College in Toronto, and the two countries participated in cold weather training exercises, documents disclosed under Freedom of Information requests subsequently revealed.

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Will Augmented Reality (AR) ever happen? It certainly seems further away after Facebook parent company Meta postponed plans to introduce AR glasses. Meta sells the most consumer virtual reality (VR) glasses today – with its best-selling Meta Quest 2 – formerly the Oculus Quest 2 - the only wireless success so far. But finding the right combination of lightweight headgear and software experiences is proving elusive, even for some of the biggest companies in the consumer electronics industry. Apple’s much delayed AR glasses have repeatedly failed to appear. Meta confirmed that the wait will continue.

“The path to groundbreaking products is not a straight line,” said Meta’s CTO Adam Bosworth in a Tweet. “As is common in our industry, we iterate on multiple prototypes in parallel & shift resources as we learn.”

Read more about the state of wireless VR and AR on Page 46.

5GTT BECOMES FNP Those who have been following the progress of the 5G Testbeds and Trials programme from the beginning will have noticed the team in DCMS has not only changed significantly but also the remit that it covers has expanded massively. It now covers over 50 projects spanning a number of different interventions including the Open Networks Programme, Shared Outcomes Fund and 5G Testbeds and Trials. The expanded scope of the team has been reflected in the new team name, the Future Network Programmes (FNP) team. This intends to provide a wrapper for all the programmes that the team helps to deliver and give stakeholders a clearer idea of the multifaceted focus of the team.

USING 5G WILL DELIVER A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE SAYS 7 IN 10 UK BUSINESSES

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carried out by UK5G has found that 70 per cent are now using 5G or planning deployments.

While barriers to adoption still exist, businesses are looking to build a commercial case for 5G that fully realises its benefits.

Almost three quarters (73 per cent) of the businesses surveyed were confident that they understood the benefits of 5G, while 70 per cent have a plan for how they will use it to achieve competitive advantage. This is evidence of the maturation of 5G innovation driven by a growing understanding of the outcomes the technology offers. For example, two thirds (66 per cent) believe 5G will make a positive contribution to their corporate sustainability efforts as well as help improve customer experience (65 per cent).

While 5G is approaching the stage of early market adoption in the UK, there are still challenges that are preventing businesses from investing or maximising its potential.

Over three in five (63 per cent) businesses cited complexity and cost of infrastructure, installation and integration as the main challenge to overcome. As well as the cost of

deployment, there is still an issue with organisations not fully understanding how to deploy 5G solutions, which over half (53 per cent) say is an inhibitor.

Despite these challenges, 45 per cent of businesses are planning to invest in 5G by 2023 and business leaders demonstrated an active curiosity in the best practices which will pave the way for a successful deployment.

Almost two thirds (66 per cent) said industryspecific benefits of 5G would incentivise them to invest. However, by their own admission technology leaders need education. Almost three in five (58 per cent) require further guidance on how to integrate 5G with existing infrastructure, while over half (51 per cent) would see value in best practice guides to assist with their deployment.

Generally, business leaders understand the value of innovation networks such as UK5G as they seek greater understanding of the potential benefits 5G can bring their organisations.

Organisations also want to see further insight being shared by the technology and telecoms industry, with 46 per cent saying they will turn to big tech and 40 per cent looking to mobile network operators to improve their grasp on how to deploy 5G in commercially viable way.

UK5G’s Bob Driver said: “The UK has an established ecosystem of support for businesses looking to deploy 5G in a way that brings them competitive advantage and return on investment. UK5G brings together a host of expertise across the technology and telecoms industries and works with a broad spectrum of organisations to help them navigate 5G and support them”

UBICQUIA AND MOVANDI MMWAVE STREETLIGHT REPEATER PROMISES LOW-COST DEPLOYMENTS A new mmWave repeater which will instantly plug into with 360 million existing streetlights worldwide could speed up 5G depolyments. Ubicquia, Inc. a company dedicated to making intelligent infrastructure platforms that are simple to deploy and monitor, has announced a strategic partnership with Movandi Corporation, a leader in 5G mmWave RF semiconductor technology. Under the terms of the agreement, Ubicquia will use Movandi’s technology to create a mmWave smart repeater that plugs into a streetlight’s photocell socket in minutes.

While mmWave technology enables up to 100 times more capacity than current 5G mid-band spectrum, its propagation distance is typically less than 250 metres, and it does not turn corners or penetrate buildings. As a result, 5G mmWave networks will require many more sites than mid-band networks.

Ian Aaron, CEO of Ubicquia said, “The only way mobile operators can deliver on the promise of mmWave 5G in any reasonable period is to leverage existing streetlight infrastructure. Our goal in collaborating with Movandi and integrating our IP and work developing streetlight solutions for Public WiFi, Public Safety and Carrier Small Cells, is to help mobile operators not just deliver 5G mmWave services to dense urban areas but make 5G mmWave services a reality for cities of all sizes.”

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NEWS IN BRIEF ONE-QUARTER OF THE W O R L D ’ S P O P U L AT I O N N O W COVERED BY 5G  Research by Ericsson for its annual Mobility Report has found that with more than 210 networks commercially launched across the world, 5G population coverage reached around 25 percent at the end of 2021. This is about 18 months faster than the time it took for 4G network build-out to reach 25 percent population coverage after its first commercial launch year. This makes 5G is the fastest-deployed mobile communication technology in history, and is forecast to cover about 75 percent of the world’s population in 2027.

NOKIA AND ELISA ACHIEVE OVER 2 GBPS 5G UPLINK SPEEDS  Nokia, Elisa, and Qualcomm have hit record-breaking 5G uplink speeds of 2.1 Gbps. This was achieved in a live demonstration at the Nokia Arena in Tampere in Finland. The new record, which follows the 8Gbps downlink speeds announced in 2020. During the trial, Nokia provided its AirScale base station in 26 GHz mmWave spectrum over Elisa’s commercial 5G network. The network was connected to a 5G device powered by a Snapdragon X65 5G Modem-RF System. Additionally, Nokia deployed its Carrier Aggregation technology to make the best use of the available spectrum assets. The Carrier Aggregation setup included four component carriers of 100 MHz each.

N O T H I N G P H O N E ( 1)  The first 100 5G handsets from boutique phone manufacturer Nothing have sold at prices over £2500 through an auction system. The phone has a spectacular system of reacting to user inputs and displaying its status through lighting inside its transparent case https:// nothing.tech/

CORRECTION – A MILLION APOLOGIES  In Issue 9 of UK 5G Innovation Briefing we looked at how T-Mobile in the US is using cloud based technology from Mavenir.

In the piece we claimed that T-Mobile has 125 subscribers. This should have read 125 million subscribers. We would like to apologise for our mistake.

Leveraging mobile broadband to coordinate public safety and security planned portfolio of smart city applications includes: • Seamless HD voice and video over LTE • Narrowband IoT for smart meters, health equipment and sensors • Video surveillance, including the ability to capture and share live HD footage of urgent incidents • Mission-critical push-to-talk (P2T) service for first responders and city employees • Command and control room communications and broadcasting • Video analytics supported by mobile edge computing

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new IDC case study looks at the role that private LTE networks are playing in smart cities. It focuses on how Nedaa, a government entity that provides telecommunication services to public and private sector organizations, uses its network to support smart city services and coordinate public safety activities.

The project is one of many smart city and digital initiatives across Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations. Interest in these initiatives is rising as GCC members look for ways to create more diverse and sustainable economies.

Beyond the initial focus on safety and security, Nedaa plans to use its private LTE network to help Dubai improve management of traffic, transportation, waste, water, electricity and environmental protection. The company also hopes to fuel business growth and improve quality of life for residents.

The needs of Dubai’s administrators will change as the city becomes smarter. They will require tight integration and seamless connectivity between organizations, a central command and control center and robust mission- or business-critical connectivity for applications such as public protection and disaster relief (PPDR) communications. They will also need cost-effective communication technologies that can support these requirements and ensure regulatory compliance.

LTE is the only technology that can meet

all these needs. It improves situational awareness by providing secure and reliable broadband connectivity for first responders, city workers and operations centers. It supports applications that demand high bandwidth and low latency, such as live HD video surveillance. It improves redundancy and coverage and makes it easier to manage quality of service (QoS). And it offers an upgrade path to 5G, which will support new smart city applications with ultra-low latency and ultra-high bandwidth.

Nedaa is taking advantage of these capabilities by building a mission-critical broadband network that ensures security, reliability and availability, provides guaranteed QoS and complies with 3GPP standards. The company has already showcased several successful private LTE use cases, including live HD video streaming embedded in cars, but also more innovative ones such as drones for road and traffic monitoring, connected boats for civil defense or connected ambulance allowing a remote doctor to be near the patient thanks to virtual and augmented reality. Nedaa’s was also in charge of providing private LTE coverage of Expo 2020 Dubai, to offer public safety agencies in charge of the security of this important international event, modern mission-critical communications tools.

5G is also on the company’s radar. Nedaa wants to use 5G compatibility to provide higher speeds and capacity for IoT-based smart city applications, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and big data. Nedaa’s

Nokia are helping Nedaa deliver on its plan with several solutions and services.

Their ViTrust portfolio provides private mission-critical LTE networking solutions and services that cover core network, backhaul and radio access equipment, as well as cybersecurity solutions. Their Integrated Operations Center service provides unified visibility applications, integration and customized design. Last but not least, Nokia are supporting Nedaa in its strategy to provide best-in-class connectivity services to its Dubai customers by ensuring a smooth evolution path from 4G/LTE to 5G.

Want to know more? > Read the IDC case study for an in- depth view of how our technologies and expertise are helping Nedaa turn Dubai into a smarter, safer and more sustainable city. > Visit our smart city page to learn how Nokia solutions can help turn your city into a platform for creating innovative digital services. > Discover how our ViTrust portfolio can provide end-to-end support for your mission-critical mobile broadband services.

Share your thoughts on this topic by joining the Twitter discussion with @north_tech1 @nokiaindustries using #smartcity #privateLTE #LTE #IoT #5G #missioncritical #publicsafety

north.tech

Move to the cloud Once mobile networks were all about the physical network, but the industry and technology has matured and, as the worlds of telco and IT merge, it now makes sense to look to specialists to manage the physical elements / hardware.

M

obile Operators can learn a lesson from the Internet Unicorns. Just Eat, Airbnb and Uber all have something in common.

One is a food business with no kitchens, another is an accommodation business that doesn’t own any property, and the third is a taxi business which owns no vehicles. The future of mobile networks is following suit.

What’s making this possible is the cloud. Moving functions which in the past have been done in hardware, into software, and then software that can run in the cloud. It’s a trend in many technology sectors, but in mobile it’s happening in the streetside cabinets. In a mobile network an antenna is connected to decoding equipment, which turns the analog radio signal into digital data, which can be sent along ethernet cables.

Traditionally that kit is in two parts: a Remote Radio Unit (RRU), and a Baseband Unit (BBU).

The Remote Radio Unit needs to be as close to the antennas as possible because there is a significant signal loss in the cables between the two. So, typically the RRU is placed on or by the pole where the antenna is. The RRU in turn is connected to the BBU by fibre optic cables. There is a limit to how long these can be, so while one BBU can serve / connect to several RRUs, if each cell is quite large it may exceed the distance the fibre can be run to reach the farthest RRUs. The processing work done in the BBU is quite intensive, so this makes each one expensive.

This is where virtualisation becomes quite important and plays a significant role in driving the overall costs down. In both Open RAN architecture and 5G, the traditional BBU is replaced with a Distributed Unit (DU) and a Centralised Unit (CU). Mavenir can save costs by replacing the costly BBU with a costeffective Distribution Unit, or DU and move some of the processing to the centre of the network, with a Centralised Unit or CU. The work of the CU can all be performed in software. That’s where the

special sauce of virtualised cloud technology comes into play. Instead of running on dedicated servers at the operator’s premises, the CU software is moved to a cloud provider, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google. So, what was a significant infrastructure cost, rolling out tens of thousands of BBUs across a country, had been replaced by cost-effective DUs and CUs that are based on COTS (commercial off the shelf) hardware. It is expected that, in future, DU will eventually move to public cloud as well and this is work in progress.

The CU equipment expense has been turned into a rental expense, essentially a Capital Expenditure has become an Operating Expenditure. But there are further savings to be made.

Capacity flexibility

Since the dawn of cellular, mobile network operators have been faced with, what in the UK was known as the “Park Lane Effect”. London’s Park Lane joins Marble Arch to Hyde Park Corner, and in the early days of analogue cellular was the business road in London. Peak time was 6pm and the busiest day of the week for making mobile phone calls was Thursday.

To ensure that there was enough capacity to handle all that traffic meant that the operators had to put in a lot of equipment, but for most of the week it was under-used. All weekend, only a fraction of the Thursday night capability was employed. Back when taking out a subscription meant a £300 joining fee, buying a £1500 Motorola handset, and when calls cost 25p a minute, operators had plump margins. But in today’s competitive environment, building enough physical infrastructure is more of a challenge.

The move to virtual equipment helps reduce the burden of equipment deployment. Software solutions can be deployed more rapidly and cost effectively than rolling out the hardware, but what really adds efficiency is the use of cloud service providers. Handling encrypted traffic between the DU and CU

can be quite processor intensive. When using an on-premises server, this means having enough compute capability to keep everything running at peak times and letting it run idle the rest of the day.

By using a cloud services provider with a clock-cycles-to-hire model, this becomes unnecessary. The telco only needs to buy capacity when required to meet the increased demand.

Mobile operators may choose to mix the kind of cloud services they use – public cloud, private cloud or hybrid cloud. While public cloud works well for demand sensitive services, there may also be applications for private cloud for functions which are needed all the time.

This means choosing a software platform

AMEER BASHEER / UNSPLASH.COM

The move to the cloud creates a new paradigm for the operators to offer innovative 5G applications

which offers the flexibility to span across public and private.

The new approach works particularly well for challenger networks which don’t have legacy data centres.

A good example of this is DISH Networks in the US, a well established satellite television and broadband provider. DISH is moving into mobile with ambitious roll-out plans. It’s working with Amazon Web Services with a containerised environment (a form of advanced operating system virtualisation).

This means instant access to resources, be it compute power, storage power or the cloud application environment, but it also adds flexibility of scale-in and scale-out.

The orchestration is all in the cloud with

added benefit of continuous improvement and continuous development. In addition, the Mavenir solution provides automation where the platform offers zero-touch provisioning.

A little bit at a time

The solution uses a microservices-based architecture (an architecture where large applications can be broken down into separate smaller self-contained independent services) which allows small upgrades on a service-by-service basis, rather than risking the whole network by making an upgrade.

DISH has put the CU and the Mobile Core all onto the public cloud in Amazon Web Services, running on AWS’ Kubernetes

platform. Amazon has 17 local zones in the US where CU elements reside. The Mobile Core is hosted in Amazon’s Regional or National Data Centre. The DU is maintained on-premises in DISH’s private cloud, running on VMware.

Mavenir is providing its cloud-native solution which comprises the DU and CU software, and analytics and management, called mCMS (Mavenir Centralized Management System). It’s a tribute to open systems as it highlights the extensive end-to-end collaboration within a multi-vendor environment.

The first phase is up and running in Las Vegas, having been launched on May 4th (ref. https://www.axios.com/2022/05/04/ dish-network-5g-las-vegas).

The ability to deploy software-based solution at a much faster pace on a public cloud not only eases the burden, both from an engineering and financial perspective but it also offers flexibility. In a traditional, on-premises solution, deploying new services may be delayed by the lead time of delivery of hardware.

By using a hyperscaler, the dimensioning is taken out of the decision loop.

This move to the cloud creates new paradigm for the operators to offer innovative 5G applications by leveraging the power of the cloud and 5G technology. For operators, besides the normal consumer services, it allows them to propose strong B2B offering for their enterprise clients, especially on-demand slicing for enterprises.

Further, Mavenir, earlier in the year during MWC 2022 in Barcelona, announced its partnership with AWS for NaaHS (Network-as-a-Hosted Service).

This will enable Mavenir 4G and 5G software solutions to be available on AWS. This would open-up a viable option for potential Businesses/MNOs/MVNOs who want to benefit from this service; this allows significant savings as they opt for a service / rental model and do not need to invest in hardware and software capital expenditure at the outset.

Moving Telco to the cloud isn’t quite the same business as Just Eat, Airbnb and Uber, but like those unicorns it demonstrates the ability to scale and disrupt the business. With the rapid rise of regional, community and private networks brought about by spectrum liberalisation the need has never been greater.

For more details email VP Market Strategy and Business Development: tushar.dhar@mavenir.com, or visit www.mavenir.com

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The best use for this map is to help you understand how, if you work in 5G, you might contribute to the ecosystem and where your product or service might fit in. And just like a tube map, while it may be overwhelming when you look at it as a whole if you start with one project and look at how it relates to each of the others it’s much easier to follow.

thousands of people to acquire 5G skills. FRANC, the Future RAN Competition seeks to build on this investment. From the start it was decided to build the ecosystem by ensuring each bidder reflects different parts of the supply chain. But could projects co-operate too? The diagram here is an idea of how projects they might pool their knowledge and experience. We’ve categorised the projects into four groups: Pentagons are component suppliers, providing parts such as the chips used in mobile base stations. Circles are the projects which are making the finished base stations. Squares are projects that take base stations, test them and deploy them, a job involving some systems integration. Triangles show projects which provide software and services that other projects may be able to use.

This diagram is a generalisation, because a project consortium already reflects a very broad skill set. But to simplify things, we’ve concentrated on the prime activity.

ROJECTS UP AND DOWN THE COUNTRY HAVE TRAINED

The winners of the Future RAN Competition are helping to build the next generation of mobile. But how might they co-operate?

Working together

DU-Volution The Distributed Unit (or DU) takes analog radio signals and converts them into binary data traffic. The project is developing a reduced power, smaller DU with improved spectrum efficiency and reduced latency.

Proteus An abstraction layer of software which sits between the chipset and the base station hardware.

This model enables base station designs that can incorporate the latest “chipsets (Intel & ARM)” without needing a full redesign.

O-RANOS Developing Open RAN based “secure software” to improve the performance of the interworking between public and private, and terrestial and satellite networks.

ECORAN

cellXica is building 5G cells designed and manufactured in the UK, that thanks to technology from AccelerComm should be significantly more efficient, and reduce deployment costs.

Best of British

EQUIPM E N T M A N U FAC T U R E RS

Small cells which have integrated radio backhaul to build a network that doesn’t rely on the universal availability of fibre to create a deployment.

A project using compound semiconductors to improve the efficiency of the fibre connection between the part of a cell site which atop a mast, and the part nearby on the ground which does the processing.

Developing an end-to-end 5G Open RAN system, led by Toshiba. The nine members include NDEC, a UK centre of excellence in cyber resilience.

BEACON-5G

A security led programme led by Virgin Mobile O2, for private networks capable of integrating with public networks to simplify the install for private enterprises.

5G Drive

Led by the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), the aim is to examine how the RAN is operated in a multivendor environment, focusing on the RAN Intelligent Controller and its network automation role.

ARI-5G

Creat a 5G Standalone network in a box the size of a large computer, that is fully Open RAN compliant, using as much software and commodity PC components as can be achieved.

Flex-5G

IN T E GR AT IO N A ND DE PL OY M E N T

CoMP-O RAN

Scalable OFH

Sometimes called a “datacentre in a box”, Cloudlets are small servers that sit between the cloud and the user’s devices, bringing computing power closer to the edge of the network. The project investigates novel ways of interconnecting and managing the equipment.

Compound semiconductors are components that amplify power and light, much faster than silicon can. The CSA Catapult-led project will help to develop a UK-based supply chain for these vital switching parts with chip manufacturing in Newcastle.

ORanGaN

The PA or Power Amplifier is a key radio component that boosts the signal. The consortium is developing a “Quantum secured” Software Defined Radio platform to produce a signal across a wider range of frequencies, up to 10 GHz, than is typically available today.

Secure 5G

C O M P O NE N T SU PPL IE RS

The SmartRAN Open Network Interoperability Centre is a collaboration between Digital Catapult and Ofcom providing an open network testbed for vendors to test interoperability and accelerate their technology development.

SONIC LABS

A virtualised AI system to mange and optimise 5G networks to ensure “ease of deployment and operation”

Towards AI

Open RAN Advanced Radio Test Systems sees AceAxis in partnership with MAC limited develop equipment to test the RF optical interface of a base station to lower the cost of deploying infrastructure.

Open RAN ARTS

T E S T A ND O RCHE S T R AT IO N

A project to test and demonstrate a multiple operator, neutral host solution using a multiple vendor Open RAN ecosystem with a view to depolyment by the major Mobile Network Operators.

NeutrORAN

UK5G_Franc_v15 MI.indd 15

UK5G_Franc_v15 MI.indd 14

Efficient gNb development

Best of British

AI for network optimisation

Towards AI

Ran test equipment

Open RAN Arts

PAs

Secure 5G

gNb with intergrated backhaul

CoMP-O RAN

Production of GaN chips, principally Pas

ORanGaN

COMPONENTS

ECORAN Edge processing

DU development

Physical Layer abstraction

Development framework for Open RAN architectures

Optical Interface for gNbs.

Saleable OFH

DU-Volution

Proteus

O-RANOS

Deployment of Open Ran

5G Drive

Integration & interoperability testing + early stage acceleration

SONIC Labs

NeutrORAN

Testing of Open Ran

Ari 5G

Systems Integration

Beacon 5G

Systems Integration into large operators

FLEX-5G

Advanced equipment testing and Systems Integration into large operators

29/06/2022 15:48

29/06/2022 15:48

Fibre connectivity: the backbone of Britain’s economy We caught up with CRO of Neos Networks, Sarah Mills, to learn more about why fibre infrastructure is the unsung hero of the connectivity world.

C

anals powered the Industrial Revolution.

Railways opened up Victorian Britain. Today it’s fibre backbones which are essential to the growth of British business. Sarah Mills, Chief Revenue Officer at Neos Networks knows only too well the importance of fibre connectivity in powering Britain. She spoke to us about why connectivity is more important now than ever before, and how Neos Networks plays its part in this, having become one of the fastest growing business connectivity providers in the UK. “Investor confidence is growing in UK fibre” starts Mills, “Being able to offer customers critical national infrastructure and connectivity is therefore imperative.

Neos Networks is an advocate of this, having provided high quality, resilient fibre infrastructure to UK businesses for over 20 years.” Spun out from the SSE Group, for years the company has handled critical national infrastructure for the wholesale community, public sector and enterprise businesses. Since investor Infracapital acquired a 50 per cent share of the company two years ago, the company have deepened and broadened its proposition further still.

Neos Networks now boasts a fibre network that extends over 34,000km, with over 550 national exchanges unbundled, 90 data centres on-net and 676 points of presence spanning the UK. “The network we’ve developed is a Dark Fibre connected exchange network,” says Sarah. “Since we unbundled 550 exchanges, we have been offering a gold-plated, very high capacity backhaul capability to the market,” Mills goes on to explain. “And we’re delivering a fibre metro access network into key cities and towns, extending our backhaul reach into dense urban areas. We’re very much an infrastructure-based organisation.”

Neos Networks is quite unique in the

market, as one of very few network providers with a pure business focus – money is regularly invested back into the network.

“We’re not a B2C focused organisation, we’re purely B2B,” says Mills. “That means our primary focus is getting network and connectivity to where our business customers want us to go. This is typically a secondary or tertiary consideration of the business-to-consumer providers, who will only offer connectivity where their network currently runs.”

Neos Networks’ customer base was historically the power industry which needs absolute reliability and very high performance. It also has a good base amongst similarly demanding financial institutions and has since built a reputation with local authorities. Today its client portfolio ranges from ISPs and Service Providers to Mobile Network Operators and the Public Sector. All can be served by Dark Fibre that was previously unavailable to reach the commercial customer. The product range also includes up to 10Gbps Ethernet services and up to 100Gbps Optical services. The company are also keen to provide their corporate customers with the very best solution for each of its locations with minimum build. This often means working with third-party providers and local AltNets to ensure the customer can gain access to high quality, robust

Our primary focus is getting network and connectivity to where our business customers want us to go. This is typically a secondary or tertiary consideration of business-toconsumer providers, who will only offer connectivity where their network currently runs.

connectivity every time.

“Uniquely we have also developed an aggregated access network solution, simplifying the supply chain, and reducing complexity in the service model” says Mills.

“This, in turn helps us to deliver network to wherever our customers are based across the UK. The AltNets are a particular area of interest for the company. They are a burgeoning part of the market, predicted to offer gigabit-capable connections to almost 30 million premises by the end of 2025 in line with the Governments ambitions to fibre up 85% of the nation by the same deadline. Here Neos Networks offers another vital link in the chain.

Businesses can talk to Neos Networks directly, or through our sales partners.

Around 70 to 80 per cent of Neos Networks’ business is made up of wholesale partners. “We very much focus on delivering point to point connectivity for businesses via our wholesale channel”

says Mills “If somebody needs an Ethernet circuit, or an endpoint, our wholesale partners will often buy this from us. They’ll then overlay their own kit on the top, providing a fully wrapped service to the end customer.”

Neos Networks also has a number of clients in the financial and professional services sectors with complex needs, as Mills explains. “They’re buying big pipes at low latency. We’ve managed to take over quite a few customers from the national incumbent competitors, transforming their network and providing them with higher capacity. They now have a high bandwidth network across multiple locations.

“The AltNets will aggregate on behalf of the MNOs,” predicts Mills. “It’s all about bringing their RAN sites into our backhaul network. It has the highest capacity backhaul for those 5G RAN sites. It can actually offer 100Gbps backhaul for 5G, or 10Gbps backhaul for 4G sites. That’s where we can help. We’ll build the network for

them, through aggregating the supply chain, or alternative methods that will deliver the same end result.”

The market outside metro areas, from suburban areas outwards to semi-rural and rural areas, is not covered by Tier One providers. Neos Networks has noticed and offers a more flexible and attractive offering.

“For those MNOs, we offer the dark fibre economics the Mobile Network Operators need for long term investment in RAN site connectivity” states Sarah.

Neos Networks has an extensive Ethernet and Optical Wavelength network alongside its significant exchange footprint. It’s not building fibre in metro areas indiscriminately, but selectively. “We focus on areas where it’s right to do so, so we’re not overbuilding,” says Mills, “we focus on regions where the business customers need us to be and where the MNOs need us to be as well.”

Fixed wireless access isn’t a technology

Neos Networks provides, but it is one it enables. The company are working with a major mobile customer to provide high speed broadband to consumers’ homes with the mobile operator sitting it’s 5G masts in places where it can access the Neos Networks backbone. Local customers can then be economically served with high speed, low latency connectivity in their homes using fixed wireless access hardware. This can deliver a fibre-like experience without the significant cost of shutting roads and digging up streets.

“With 5G we are seeing growth and interest in private networks,” continues Mills, “the additional radio capacity they provide has to be balanced with in-theground connectivity. The two go hand in hand to deliver the communications the nation needs”.

Neos Networks wanted to understand the current, on-the-ground reality for enterprises and organisations in the UK 5G ecosystem, and so interviewed over 200 IT leaders across large UK businesses and the public sector to discover more about the nation’s current attitudes to this next generation connectivity. The findings allowed Neos Networks to better understand the makeup of those organisations leading the way in 5G adoption; those demonstrating the greatest desire and suitability for this next generation connectivity and those who are looking to follow fast, having learned from those spearheading adoption.

The faith of the investor community is already bearing fruit. The rapid growth in Neos Networks telco business is set to benefit from future developments in 5G. “Speed and reliability go hand in hand for a robust business network,” says Mills.

“The move to virtual solutions that spread and replicate computational resources over a number of sites massively reduces risks by eliminating a single point of failure.

Our Dark Fibre services are available in over 90 commercial data centres, 15 of which are owned wholly by us as Tier 2 colocation facilities and all of which are located close to major towns and cities.

These provide an ideal home for data replication, data archive, data backup, network access, network aggregation, switching and routing systems”.

To discuss your business connectivity requirements or learn more about our Dark Fibre network visit our website, https://neosnetworks.com using the Contact Us form to get in touch.

Security lessons HE WORLD IS A

more uncertain place in 2022, and, with their ability to paralyse critical infrastructure, cyber-attacks can seem terrifying. But we should take comfort from the efforts going onto thwart them – which are much less publicised than the attention-grabbing attacks. “There are people in backrooms who are passionate about solving this stuff,” explains David Rogers MBE, CEO of Copper Horse.

No one knows more about securing the next generation of mobile network technology than Rogers: his roles include sitting on the UK’s Telecoms Supply Chain Diversification Advisory Council, and the security initiatives at the mobile industry standards forum, the GSMA, where he chairs the Fraud and Security Group (FASG) and its 5G Security Task Force (5GSTF). Rogers has overseen the introduction of new practices and new thinking, so there’s nobody better to guide you through the work going on to secure 5G. Two overarching themes have changed how the industry treats security. Mobile is now a more critical part of our lives than 4G, which was developed in the late 2000s.

“It’s not just about preventing someone’s phone getting cut off,” says Rogers. “you’ve got people’s lives in your hands.”

And even more importantly, 5G is much more technically ambitious than its predecessors, and so requires far greater attention than telecoms professionals have given mobile. For example, 15 years ago when the 4G protocols were being written, it was hard to imagine that that key network functions would run anywhere other than inside a sealed box at a given location, and that location would be anywhere else than at or near a radio antennae. But these functions

have escaped out of the traditional box, and since they can run in software, that software might be running side by side a Minecraft session, a personal photo collection, or a Slack channel at a fast fashion startup in Hoxton.

And the location of that server might move, too, bouncing around the world like a gap year student, with the network operator oblivious.

That’s the reality of the cloud, which can now run key core network features.

“The new challenge for this generation of mobile technology is that realistically, people aren’t going to know where stuff is running at any particular time,” Rogers explains.

In other ways too, mobile traffic will find itself with new neighbours for the first time.

Mobile data packets have traditionally been managed broadly the same way by a single operator. But in a virtualised and “sliced” network, different customers may be set different parameters based on their requirements – a sensor may have a slice that

18 uk5g.org

allows it to send data once every 24 hours with no need for lots of bandwidth. A video feed from a concert may have a high-bandwidth, low latency slice. Several parties may also be sending their data over the same airwaves, and over the same fibre cable. For example, a public 5G network may nestle alongside a factory’s private 5G network.

“5G will expand traditional relationships between consumers, business users and mobile network operators,” Ericsson writes in its security white paper for network builders.

“The expansion will include new relationships in the form of digitised and automated business processes of enterprises, control, and operations of machinery of industry companies.”

The greater attack surface means greater danger, and far more routes into a system to cause mischief. As David Rogers himself wrote for UK 5G Innovation Briefing: “The 5G vision is a collection of

FLY D / UNSPLASH.COM

T

UK policy is rapidly evolving to cope with a more threatening world.

5G is an opportunity for critical infrastructure to be beefed up.

We look at how UK plc can benefit from these initiatives and finds it’s not just technology that matters, but human attention.

B E AT I N G C Y B E R AT TA C K S

technologies, including different types of IoT radio and device types across multiple different sectors or ‘verticals’. This opens up a new set of issues around the ‘cyber-physical’ space – that is the attacks no longer just remain virtual. A cyber attack could potentially interact with a real-world object or system causing catastrophic consequences. In farming this could mean the loss of irrigation causing food security issues. In heavy industrial, this could mean the complete destruction of a blast furnace and in the automotive sector it could mean that cars could be stopped in the middle of the road, essentially halting the economy instantly.”

But Rogers isn’t daunted. A new generation of technology allows the opportunity not just for review, but for the introduction of new practices and technologies. We’ll describe some here.

REVIEW FINDINGS The UK Telecoms Review of 2019 identified three key areas for attention.

One was the security challenge posed by vendors; concerns prompted by Huawei’s deep involvement in the UK landscape.

The second, which has been covered by UK5G Innovation Briefing in great detail is “sustainable diversity in the telecoms supply chain”. That is to say Governments can only spend a drop in the ocean compared to the incumbent vendors – Ericsson devoted £8.7 million to R&D every day [Kr.32 billion] – but they can send a message to the market that a more diverse marketplace is a priority area. The FRANC competition is one example of sending a message, and more will follow.

The third covers operational practice and standards.

Six threats out of 26 identified were regarded as critical in the 5G Security Landscape Threat report for DCMS in 2021.

These are: systems security maintenance – keeping it up to date. Also identified were: physical security, vulnerability scanning, network slice security, the implications of using open components, and one emerging area: the lack of guidance as computing was moved to the edge of the network, closer to the devices and equipment users deploy.

A report for DCMS by innovation consultants Plexal explained: “there is only

limited guidance on securing MEC (Multi Access Edge Compute), which is responsible for 5G’s performance promises. “Considerable work needs to be driven (sic) to protect the security and privacy of these networks and increase trust in 5G Private Networks for mission-critical applications.”

Much work is already underway on these issues. Known in the industry as recommendation FS.40, the GSMA’s 5G Security Guide shows how comprehensive and detailed the new techniques and practices are.

“FS.40 developed over a period of time, the 5GSTF were looking at 5G operational deployment and what we needed to do, based on the 3GPP specifications,” Rogers explained.

“Encryption on the network was once a new thing. Each generation has allowed us as an industry to do a step change to raise the overall bar of security” Rogers explains. The goal was to give networks and ultimately their customers confidence.

“If you pick up the phone to make a call, you don’t have a concern that you’re going to get the wrong person. Or that a random person is listening in. That level of confidence people take for granted is a testament to the legacy.”

Security and authentication were amongst the highest priorities. Rogers says of all the shifts, the most significant can be found in the evolution of what are called signalling protocols, and the evolution of these processes into HTTP/2.

“HTTP/2 is the main difference”, says Rogers. This is one of a myriad examples of the telecoms world borrowing good ideas and practices from IT. The traditional distinction between IT on one side, and telecoms and networks on the other, has all but disappeared.

Mobile networks were originally analog with no security. But it was conspicuously absent even from the first generation of digital, 2G. These used the ETSI or ANSI implementations of SS7, or Signalling System No.7, which was developed in the 1970s, and governed how the landline or POTS network established and handled a telephone call. It specified dedicated circuits for controlling calls – a big step forward at the time.. But plenty was missing, Rogers explains.

“SS7 meant a completely open network

Ericsson devoted £8.7m to R&D every day

19 uk5g.org

STUNG BY STINGRAY IMSI grabbers - international mobile subscriber identity-catcher – are eavesdropping devices first deployed on 2G networks. These could then turn off the network encryption, identify users, and interfere with the network in other ways, such as degrading performance. The best known is sold under the Stingray brand, by the large US defence contractor Harris, which has a significant presence in the UK. This was bought by police and other state agencies. Building and operating an IMSI became harder in 3G and 4G, and is harder still in 5G. The Stingray series sold today is used for ad hoc battlefield networks with no authentication and no integrity checking. In GSM we also didn’t have mutual authentication, meaning the base station didn’t have to authenticate itself to the mobile device. It had the potential for a lot of fraud and malfeasance. To rewrite the SS7 protocol and deploy a revised secure version on 2G and 3G is, and was uneconomically unviable” Alongside SS7, 4G introduced a set of protocols called Diameter.

“Diameter is more of an authentication specification, but like the SS7 it replaces both are ways of containing your data to put them from one point to another. Diameter receives an authorisation requisition, then goes and gets a JSON object, of key / value pairs,” says Steve Bucklin, a network veteran who consults on building 5G networks.

In 5G those control instructions are now wrapped up in HTTP/2, a superset of the web client/server protocols that engineers at Google devised to speed up low latency mobile connections. “There is not a huge difference but HTTP/2 speeds things up. You can make three or four requests and get them back when they’re ready,” Bucklin explains.

ENCRYPTED LINKS Many of us understand that cyber-attacks or compromise come from “outside the network” – and here, the media loves to use stock art of a young man in a hoodie with a laptop before him. He’s an outsider. But in the

REGULATION AND LEGISLATION Why did Government get involved in telecoms security? It was long overdue, say experts.

“There has been a drive to reduce costs and this has meant that in some cases security was at the end of a long list of requirements,” David Rogers of Copper Horse notes. “This is where government has a role – to level the playing field such that everyone must provide an acceptable bar of security for entry into the market in the first place, so every citizen in a country is afforded a certain guarantee of protection.”

November 2021 saw new amendments to the 2003 Telecommunications Act. The new National Security (Telecoms) Act. The biggest change comes with a shift away from voluntary best-practice.

Government and security experts clearly didn’t think that these were sufficient, and the Act allows the Secretary of State to issue codes of practice. A draft code, along with a consultation on the code, was published by Julia Lopez, the Minister of State for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure in March, The consultation concluded in May. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) advised on both the new regulations and the code.

The Act requires all telecomunication providers to take “appropriate and proportionate measures to identify and reduce the risks of security compromises

occurring, as well as preparing for the occurrence of security compromises”.

Security compromises are broadly defined. They cover anything that compromises the availability, performance or functionality of a network or service, any unauthorised access that interferes with a network or service, anything that “causes signals or data to be lost, unintentionally altered or altered without permission of the telecoms provider”, as well as the more conventionally understood hacks. It also holds a provider responsible if a breach compromises another provider.

Telecoms providers are obliged to take action which includes limiting the damage.

Providers include everyone from traditional MNOs and newer networks. The code of practice will apply to the largest national-scale (‘Tier 1’) telecoms providers, “whose availability and security is critical to people and businesses across the UK”, and these will be subject to intensive monitoring and oversight from Ofcom.

Noting that seven companies serve 88 per cent of the UK broadband and landline market, and four operators count 85 per cent of mobile subscribers, the Government defines Tier 1 as a public provider with turnover of £1 billion or more.

“Compromise of smaller providers — including those who provide services rather than networks — poses

much less risk to the security and resilience of UK communications. Such providers may not be able to bear the financial burdens of intensive regulatory scrutiny,” the Government notes.

To a lesser extent, the code will also apply to mediumsized (‘Tier 2’) telecoms providers, who will be subject to some Ofcom oversight and monitoring.

These providers are expected to have more time to implement the security measures set out in the code of practice.

The smallest (‘Tier 3’) telecoms providers, however, including small businesses and micro enterprises, will also need to comply.

It’s wide-ranging: covering international connectivity via undersea cables, and botnet attacks. One example of a specific requirement to ameliorate known vulnerabilities with software ‘patches’, or updates, if possible within 14 days of the patch becoming available.

It’s far from the only effort to beef up critical infrastructure. In 2016 the Security by Design exercise focused on open consumer infrastructure. It brought together experts to look at IoT gear ranging from the smart speakers and TVs that consumers have in their homes, to items like smart doorbells, to fridges. This led to a Security by Design Team in March 2018. This became ETSI Standard EN 303 645. It covered a range of areas: attack surface, software updats, data flows and deletion, and maintenance.

In addition, the UK Telecoms Supply Chain Review looked at the bigger economic picture of supply,

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mobile industry, being “outside the network” is where you are when you roam.

“Most telecom networks are closed networks, built on trust and are probably not sufficient to handle advanced attacks that originate outside their networks,” Ericsson signalling expert Lalit Garg explained in 2019.

These outstanding trust issues on roaming are finally being addressed. Roaming in China, or allowing Chinese devices to roam on US networks, for example, is an entirely new and recent challenge.

“What we’re trying to do in the next generation world is implement encryption in the interconnection between operators. The practical implementation of that is quite hard,” says Rogers. A UK network may not know what is happening with a device in another country, but real-time data analysis can help here.

FS.40 is the primary document in a series detailing the security and threat landscape.

Another anticipated threats: “With FS.39, we’re trying to predict where fraudsters are going to go in the future,” Rogers explains.

One initiative in particular brought a lot of brains to the process. The global community of trusted security researchers and academics has contributed hugely to IT security, but less so traditionally to telecoms. Rogers wanted to bring them into the fold. He helped establish what he describes as the only industry-wide CVD programme in the world.

“There’s lots of spotlight on what are really stunt hacks – but not on the defenders of networks, because it’s perceived as boring work. That so much has been achieved in the mobile industry’s security groups of GSMA FASG and 3GPP SA3 (the security umbrella) is a credit to these people.”

One of the new “surfaces”, as security experts call them, are virtual machines. It means one focused attack could bring down tens of thousands of machines in many different kinds of businesses, and can be thought of as the original sin of the cloud.

“The ramifications are large,” Rogers muses. “It’s shifting things into one basket again With some of the attack surfaces, such as hypervisors on which the virtual machines run, the software is relatively new. The attacker wants to get under those virtualised environments and get to the root of the system. A lot of vulnerabilities have been reported in hypervisors over the years. You can see where future attacks come from.”

B E AT I N G C Y B E R AT TA C K S

Although more reliance on the cloud, using virtual machines and computing protocols such as HTTP/2 and TLS means vulnerabilities in them can expose telecoms to a new generation of risks, it also brings in benefits. Perhaps the best example of this is how it’s possible to implement better monitoring.

“We can patch stuff immediately which we couldn’t do before. Or we can raise alarms immediately which we couldn’t before, if there’s a DDoS situation,” says Rogers.

The 5G world represents a generational leap in the sophistication and complexity of network security, but also new opportunities for better addressing them.

“We’ve tried to put in recommendations for vendors and operators to have this stuff in place but we’re not resting on our laurels, really. We expect to see new and sophisticated attacks.”

“There’s lots of spotlight on what are really stunt hacks – but not on the defenders of networks, because it’s boring work.

Thousands of security managers are trying to deal with this stuff. That’s the boring reality – that it’s a continual process,” says Rogers.

>> UK Telecoms Supply Chain Review Report

FURTHER INFORMATION LINKS

SCAN

>> Copper Horse

>> Telecoms security proposal for new regulations and code of practice

SCAN SCAN

>> Secure by design guidelines

>> New telecoms security regulations and code of practice consultation

SCAN SCAN

Funding 5G for New Entrants

Innovation isn’t restricted to what mobile networks build, but includes how it’s built and financed. Technology, Media & Telecommunications legal experts Chris Watson and Anne Chitan, from CMS law look at the changing landscape around getting the UK connected.

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hree years ago, the UK had one of the lowest percentage of premises with fibre to the home.

Today, a massive push from private investors, benefitting from a fertile political and regulatory environment, means the UK has seen one of the biggest increases in construction in Europe, hitting 26.6 per cent. Meanwhile investments in other forms of digital infrastructure are pouring in to contribute to one of the most intense efforts to create a network fit for the digital future. This has required new entrants, new business structures and new financing structures.

New market entrants Continuing growth in demand for connectivity has put pressure on the balance sheets and funds of major mobile operators and the fixed line operators, who have seen margin squeezed as they have found it difficult to capture share of revenue from the over-the-top services. To some extent this funding gap has been filled by a range of new market entrants. While it is not easy to identify all of those now looking to install fibre and related apparatus, some guidance can be found through an analysis of the applications made to Ofcom for the grant of Code Powers over recent years: The results are striking both in terms of the wide range

of categories of applicant but also in the extraordinary growth in number since 2018.

Code Powers allow the holder considerable assistance in dealing with the regulatory and financial hurdles of negotiation of access to install equipment for communications purposes. They have been fairly recently revised to take account of changes since 2003 and are under further review to ensure provisions strike the right balance between the rights of network operators and builders on the one hand and landowners and commercial property operators on the other; this is a complex and at times hotly disputed area.

One very observable factor is that the number of applications for Code Powers has increased very substantially over the last five years. This reflects the bigger picture which is that both fibre to the premises and 5G are likely to be made up of networks of networks. The first reason for this is the investment squeeze mentioned above. The second is the technology piece: the characteristics of 5G mean different types of installations are needed for different applications and therefore the “one size fits all” approach which worked both for 2, 3 and 4G and for broadband has been supplanted by integrators who assemble a range of solutions to provide a comprehensive service. This can be analgised to reflect the volume of systems integrators who

Code Powers Categories Category

Total

H

Host

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L

Local

N

National Operator

I

Integrator

R

Real Estate

U

Unknown

D

Data Centre

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M Mast provider

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Code Powers applicants 2018 to 2022 broken down by category. While some are subsidiaries or special vehicles of existing substantial operators, under the code “N National”, many others are local fibre operators set up to meet demand in quite small localities. Yet others are applied for by real estate owners themselves looking to build infrastructure which they can market to their tenants, and others to the providers of integrated services.

did similar bringing together of various services and components in relation to information technology services.

New Business Structures The new delivery mechanisms, local provision, integrators and the network of networks, have driven much ingenuity and rapid development in the financing structures used. We have seen increased separation of networks from services, while the regulators are focusing on service-based competition rather than network competition which has been their primary interest for many decades.

It is increasingly likely that neutral host operators, Connectivity-as-a-Service and integration of various services into a connectivity offering, will constitute a significant part of the market for delivery of advanced gigabit connectivity. The challenge is how to finance them. These kind of assets are capable of supporting a lower cost of capital than a retail telco operation in circumstances where they are set up in separately owned vehicles which can be security for lower cost financings. For example, there is no UK mobile network operator which has not entered into financing structures at least for its towers and also related equipment; likewise, data centres are the subject of increasingly sophisticated financing. Independent tower operators are now the order of the day and some have very sizeable market shares and broadband coverage.

What are Code Powers The “Code” in Code Powers is the Electronics Communications Code: Rights, granted by Ofcom, to companies building infrastructure. Ofcom describes them saying “Code powers enable providers of telecommunication services to construct infrastructure on public land, take rights over private land, with the agreement of the landowner or by applying to the County Court. It also conveys certain immunities from the Town and Country Planning legislation.”

Licences cost an initial £10,000, with an annual charge of £1,000.

New financing structures So, to fund the new market entrants and the new structures new financing arrangements are finding their way to the market.

Beyond the political declarations to achieve nationwide gigabit by 2025 and the £5 billion subsidy package to assist with the harder to reach areas, building the network of the future is mainly left to the private sector. And private funders have responded with gusto with every fund raise (be it equity or debt) attracting multiple investors in a highly competitive environment.

The industry has seen the arrival en masse of interested infrastructure funds and financiers, and now pension funds and institutional investors, with longer investment horizons. These are a good

fit for the nature of digital infrastructure as an asset akin to a utility. There is an alignment of the stars between the need for large investments such as infrastructure funds can deploy and the appetite of such funds for the industry, all the more so when more traditional investments like PPIs are waning. In fact, telecoms are now featuring as part of the “core” assets for infrastructure funds.

These investors, who are relatively new to the sector, are moving in alongside more traditional corporate finance providers. The immediate advantage for companies seeking financing is access to a wider pool of funds. In addition, the mixing of the sources of investment has led to more flexibility and creativity in financing terms and arrangements, borrowing elements from corporate and leverage finance and elements from project finance. Hybrid financing products are thus emerging with features pertaining to both fields and playing to the appetites of parties now investing in parallel.

There are two additional characteristics of the market. First, as yet, there is little commoditisation.

Instead, financing products and transactions are able to be tailored to the specificities of each infraco, their business models and challenges. This flexibility has been crucial to the successful provision of financing to the multitude of players. Second, and this is particularly pronounced in the UK, although there is no commoditisation, there is a growing trend for the balance to tip more heavily towards the corporate and leverage finance side.

But this is not without challenges. One of the biggest challenges is the recent Code Powers Applications 40

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awakening of the incumbents, in particular BT Openreach, in the fibre to the home race. With a stated ambition to reach 25 million homes by December 2026, BT Openreach is currently reported to build at a speed of over 50,000 homes per week. In this light, investors are seeking increasing reassurance as to strategies towards incumbents and to understand the risk that this represents for their investment.

Meanwhile, although the regulatory environment is relatively favourable in the UK to foster infrastructure competition and, equally importantly, stable for the medium future, concerns are mounting regarding enforcement, in particular following the incumbents’ recent moves.

More fundamentally, the general feeling is that the regulator needs to catch up and refocus on whether there is service-based competition to the end user. This would avoid over-building and create renewed incentive for investors in infrastructure.

UK Telecoms has also not been immune to foreign investment control legislation, the National Security and Investment Act 2021 entered in force on 4 January 2022. Time will tell whether this will impact transaction timing and process like its continental equivalents, especially where foreign funds are involved.

In spite of the challenges, the UK remains a very attractive market for digital infrastructure and there is continuous headline-grabbing news of investments in the sector.

Conclusion These are very exciting times for those investing in the communications infrastructure space. Market conditions have resulted in significant innovation from use of providers and operators, and have also seen the availability of competitive and creative funding. These are very important developments at such a crucial time in the provision of gigabit connectivity across the UK. An exciting while challenging area for all involved; the potential upside is substantial.

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0

2018

2019

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2022 five months

Companies looking for legal support and advice on code powers, financing, network sharing or any aspect of deploying telecoms infrastructure can find more details at https://bit. ly/3OpNsyM or contact Chris Watson at chris.watson@cms-cmno.com or on 020 7367 3701

Attendees heard directly from a diverse collection of speakers from around the industry which provided an unparalleled opportunity to learn from those on the 5G frontline.

A series of panels celebrated and explored the significant value opportunities 5G brings across a range of sectors and both rural and urban areas; this included key findings and insights shared from across the UK’s 5G ecosystem.

The event explored what the projects had achieved through the 5G Testbeds and Trials programme, sought to identify investment opportunities, and reach consensus on the steps now necessary to take the UK from innovation to adoption.

The combination of talks and exhibition worked well with attendees able to dip in and out of talks, and then follow up with some of the speakers when they returned to their stands.

The organisers faced the challenge that the event was planned at short notice, with most of the projects focused on their final delivery and reports, yet all the projects took exhibition stands. For many, both those working on the projects and the strong contingent of DCMS visitors who have had their heads down focusing on their individual deliveries, it was a chance to learn about the diverse collection of use cases supported by the work being done by other consortia.

Mat Sears, Corporate Affairs Director, BT (EE), said: “EE is on an aggressive path to netzero by 2030, switching to renewables and decarbonising its buildings. We know what benefits these networks enable: in 2020, we helped our customers avoid 13 million tonnes of carbon, which is the equivalent of three million homes. This will have increased in 2021 and 20222. 5G allows for an impressive spectrum and a reduction in gigabytes sent across the network.

It’s been great to get involved with 5G use cases, such as the Green Planet experience, which is a brilliant environmental education programme.”

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UK 5G SHOWCASE

Julia Lopez MP, Minister of State for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure, DCMS was in attendance and spoke on behalf of DCMS for the day two “Looking Ahead” panel. The session took a forward look at how the development of policy and regulation of mobile telecoms will create future new opportunities for economic growth and societal benefit. Lopez said: “5G will transform the UK and world-class resilient digital infrastructure is really going to be at the heart of it all. The government is going to be spending £250 million over the next three years on diversification, focusing on security and switching off 2G and 3G to make it easier to innovate.” She added: “We are taking a real-world lead. The UK’s telecommunications network industry is placing emphasis on collaboration, with up to £10 million from the government building on the terrific work of Future RAN and SONIC Labs. Utilising 5G and digital infrastructure will future-proof our economy.”

The UK’s 5G Showcase

Eastside Rooms in Birmingham hosted The UK’s 5G Showcase 2022 which showed the best of British technology. It brought together those working on the DCMS funded projects, along with the broader world of telecommunications. Lauren Kelly reports.

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HE UK’S 5G SHOWCASE

2022 was a joyous culmination of the collective efforts of over 50 projects, 200 organisations and numerous locations across the United Kingdom and countless individuals across all sectors. Together they have explored ways in which 5G can be harnessed to unlock benefits, ranging from supporting people who would otherwise be hospitalised to stay longer in their homes, to driving productivity and reducing waste. The event was sold out with a waiting list for tickets and some of the talks were standing room only.

The showcase came at a time when the emphasis of DCMS projects is moving from applications for the technology to building a reliant British supply chain. The UK has a number of technical Open RAN projects that are set to push the boundaries of architectures, developing testing capabilities across multiple modules, and exploring the role of AI and machine learning.

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A diverse collection of speakers from around the industry provided an unparalleled opportunity for attendees to hear directly from those on the 5G frontline. A series of panels celebrated and explored the significant value opportunities 5G brings across a range of sectors and both rural and urban areas; this included key findings and insights shared from across the UK’s 5G ecosystem.

Topics covered also took in the wider context of 5G and 6G, and the next steps in the telecommunications market. Industry leaders discussed insights on the key enablers and stimuli required to achieve significant market growth of services while experts considered the main research areas for nextgeneration wireless, including network diversification and convergence, open architectures and standards, softwarisation and sustainability, and a focus on delivering social value. Speakers also offered valuable perspectives on the main investable opportunities in 5G services, in addition to the technology enablers that can be

The slick organisation by UK5G’s lead partner Cambridge Wireless saw the Testbeds and Trials participants get together in a way that had been impossible through lockdown. Many of the teams had never all been together before, leading to comments on how much taller or shorter than expected many were.

Some companies from outside the programme joined the gathering to pitch their wares to participants. The human networking ran from dawn to well after dusk. Over the awards dinner Karl Yu, from WNC took the opportunity to explain to Telet’s Mollie Ford how his company’s small cells provide capacity in underserved environments both in rural locations and in major cities.

Robert Franks, Managing Director of WM5G, suggested: “There are two different markets, large organisations with experience and smaller companies who need more packaged insights.

We have been trying to ensemble a roadmap.

There’s not a silver-bullet use case but there are clusters that complement others brilliantly. For example, we believe that there are five that fit within manufacturing for the majority: an approach where you try to align is much more achievable than a case-by-case basis. We should make sure to publicise the details and benefits, making them available to all.”

Reflecting on the 5GTT Programme, Jessica Ellis, DCMS, emphasised the importance of collaboration., in particular for the Digital Connectivity Infrastructure Accelerator (DCIA) Consortia led by eight local authorities who have each won up to £500,000 to develop digital asset management tools that will accelerate the roll-out of 5G and 4G services.

The platforms being used, will help telecom companies get easier access to public buildings and street lights, bus shelters and traffic lights.

In total, 44 English and Scottish council areas are beneficiaries of the initiative. Ellis explained that “Building relationships is critical in deployment.”

James Body of Telet, which leads the MONeH consortium explained the benefits of a Multi-Operator Neutral Host deployment to Minister of State for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure Julia Lopez MP. She took a keen interest in how it can be used to fill in rural notspots in locations where it is important to be sympathetic to the local environment but where there is a need to provide connectivity when the major mobile networks find it uneconomic to deploy traditional infrastructure.

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UK5G SHOWCASE

The Lessons Learned session brought together (from left to right) Ros Singleton, Chair; Richard Barrington, Principle Consultant and Head of Business Development, Perform Green Limited for 5G CAL; Prof. Dimitra Simeonidou, Director Smart Internet Lab, University of Bristol, Co-Director, Digital Futures Institute; Dr Maria Lema, Co-founder, Weaver Labs collaborating on Smart Junctions 5G; Simon Rockman, Chief of Staff, Telet running MONeH; Rhys Enfield, Director of Infrastructure Acceleration, West Midlands 5G (WM5G); Aparajithan Sivanathan, Head of Digital Technology at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (North-West) working with 5G Factory of the Future; Timothy Robertson, Project Manager, Dorset Council responsible for 5G Rural Dorset, and Anthony Karydis, Managing Director, Mativision which is part of the 5G Festival project.

harnessed to unlock economic growth and enhance societal benefit.

By bringing the full programme together with an influential audience, UK5G explored the commercialisation opportunities for companies and organisations involved in the programme—significantly moving the conversation from innovation and R&D to reallife business cases. Attendees included notable senior stakeholders from the investment community, government, industry and the public sector, from the UK and across the globe.

In a packed session, the showcase provided insights into the green challenge for mobile networks and the role of wireless services in combatting the climate crisis, examining the challenges arising from the UK 5G trials— while considering specific approaches to lower the RAN carbon budget and debating whether mobile networks are part of the problem, solution, or both.

Sir Tim Smit, Chairman of the Eden Project, said: “We are

living at the dawn of a revolution now. We have millions of people visiting Eden and we have projects in China, Colombia and soon, New Zealand. The ability to access real biomes around the world is bringing young people together. Communication and access to information are obviously very important but for me, we are on the brink of the most important revolution since the enlightenment (probably even older than that!)” He continued that he hoped we were all brave enough to use communications “as a power to observe and learn that will enable us to see how we can work with the natural world. We need to stop thinking of the world in human terms and remember that we are a part of ecology.”

Panellists concluded the two-day conference by offering advice about what the UK should be focusing on. Answers included: the strengths of its ecosystem (for example, the creative industries and AI; an international programme; its excellent academia - there are strong thinkers in the UK and the next generation is going to be

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very important); net-zero; private networks and neutral host spaces, with emphasis on the vertical sectors. Closing the showcase, Ros Singleton expressed her thanks to all of the chairs, speakers and exhibitors “who have put so much effort into this”.

“The importance of the international aspect and leveraging existing projects are my takeaways. The evolution of communications is not about counting the G’s,” She cited the improved power efficiency of the newer technologies as a good reason for the sunsetting of 2G and 3G. Improved bandwidth of 4G and some specific features of 5G mean that higher data rates can be achieved by base stations which consume less electrical power.

Singleton also looked to the future saying “It’s exciting to hear about the government’s investment in UKTIN, SONIC and FRANC. If we want to be able to develop independence and true diversification, we want to be able to manage the networks.” Singleton concluded: “Overall, what’s come across to me within the last two days is the feelings of collaboration, intent and purpose. We need to go boldly where no person has gone before and try to reuse what we have learned.”

The UK’s 5G Showcase Awards winners were announced at a dinner hosted by UK5G’s Head of Marketing, Vicki DeBlasi. It was an opportunity to celebrate the achievements and outcomes, as well as the great effort and determination to overcome challenges of participants .

The UK’s 5G Showcase Awards

The panel of judges consisted of: Peter Whale. Senior Advisor to UK5G Robert Driver. Head of UK5G Simon Fletcher CTO Real Wireless Paul Beastall Independent Advisor Jess Ellis Programme Development, DCMS Katherine Ainley CEO Ericsson UK & Ireland

5G Festival

Ann Williams

Dave Happy

Anthony Karydis, and Kostas Katsaros celebrated with the Most Innovative Use of Technology

Liverpool 5G project lead & Commissioner and Contract Manager of Adult Social Services at Liverpool City Council - Ann Williams was recognised for making an Outstanding Contribution to 5G Deployment.

Dave Happy was recognised for Making an Exceptional Contribution: as he used partnerships and collaboration to skillfully develop robust links between 5G projects and across the wider 5G community.

award for artists performing in an immersive live, environment from different locations.

Finalists Awards in the five categories were hotly contested. Those who made the shortlist can bask in runner’s up status.

Green Planet AR

MONeH

Sean Carroll (left), Joori Byun and Stephen Stewart picked up the Maximum Citizen

Andy Smith (left) and James Body, founders of Telet collected the award for Best Potential For

Impact and Reach award for it’s spectaular event and collaboration with the BBC.

Business Impact. Judges were impressed by novel ideas to transform business pocesses.

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Best Potential for Business Impact 5G Connected Forest: Robin Hood: Arrow Through Time. 5G New Thinking – Federated Wireless Most Innovative Use of 5G Technology 5G Enabled Manufacturing (5GEM) IntelliGI / WM5G – a 5G connected selfadministered solution for at home colon capsule endoscopy Maximum Citizen Impact and Reach 5G RuralDorset – Coastal public safety Liverpool 5G Create Best Individual Contribution to 5G Industry Deployment Dr Dritan Kalesh. Matt Stagg.

Best Collaborative Engagement Across the Programme Alex Buchan. Rhys Enfield.

build a to the possibilities of 5G Deliver business agility and efficiency

Create superior customer experiences

Unlock new revenue opportunities

your organization to: Build self-sustaining networks Introduce new business models

Deploy & govern AI operations at scale Drive cultural change

Monetize 5G with vertical market solutions

Deliver omnichannel customer experiences

course topics include: Industry-agreed TM Forum standards • Open Digital Architecture • Open APIs • Business Process Framework (eTOM) • Information Framework (SID)

Key knowledge and skills • Artificial intelligence for telecoms • Digital maturity and transformation • Digital business ecosystems • Customer experience management

Essential skills | Positive impact | Flexible options

tmforum.org/training-certification | @tmforum

Principles for Open RAN Future networks need to be built with a understanding of the sprit Open RAN as well as the technical adherence . To this end DCMS has issued a guide to implementation. Simon Rockman has taken a look.

T

HE GOVERNMENT HAS

published a set of principles to help build a stronger telecoms supply chain. These are designed to inform the thinking behind organisations which are building and implementing Open RAN networks. Components in the networks of the future should be built to open, interchangeable standards and those components from a more diverse selection of suppliers.

The four key principles are open disaggregation, standards-based compliance, demonstratable interoperability, and implementation neutrality.

Underlying the principles is the ambition that the UK’s critical national infrastructure should not beholden to a small handful of suppliers. If the mobile network operators were to implement a network which was built to the full Open RAN standards, but were only to buy all the components from existing mainstream suppliers, then little would have been achieved. The policy goal is a thriving market of alternative suppliers.

VENDOR SELECTION While the idea of having lots of potential suppliers may seem attractive on the surface, particularly to operators, many of those implementing networks regard it as a complication. Two decades ago a good mix of companies provided network equipment, including such names as Nortel, Siemens, Motorola and Marconi. The mobile networks found it easier to deal with fewer companies, and in the end, just Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei were able to weather the vicious cost cutting and erosion of markets.

One of the problems of having multiple suppliers is that when two parts of a network don’t work with each other, it’s the mobile network operator which must then arbitrate between the two. Using something as standard as a router to connect to a base station means lot of configurations to ensure

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U N D E R S TA N D I N G O P E N R A N

security: functions such as establishing a VPN or encryption. Standards for such functions are often implemented differently by different vendors. Choosing two suppliers therefore may create a lot more work. The two suppliers may claim that the other one is at fault. That is behind the push for more strict, standardsbased compliance, and vendors being able to demonstrate interoperability with other vendors products and services. Products built to a standard, using well defined protocols, ought to be easier to install successfully.

The government does not define those protocols – that’s the job of the standards bodies such as ETSI and 3GPP. Choosing which ones to use has been part of the work undertaken by the Telecom Infra Project.

Swapping parts from different vendors will require some testing and engineering to ensure optimal operation, but the adoption of standardised interfaces should ensure that vendors start from a much closer position: lowering the friction involved in swapping components by decreasing the cost of integration and interoperability testing.

One example of friction today is the continuing use of proprietary protocols.

STANDARDS VARIATION This is where demonstrating interoperability is important. While telecoms has many open, standardised interfaces they often do not specify enough detail, leaving implementations open to interpretation and to vendors including proprietary extensions. The only way to ensure that products are genuinely interoperable is to demonstrate them actually working successfully with other vendor products in realistic environments. It’s traditional to resolve this via a “plugfest” where manufacturers meet up with their equipment to test compatibility. Such events were very important in the early days of Bluetooth, making sure that particular mobile phones worked with particular car systems before the days of smartphones. This interoperability testing is undertaken by the O-RAN alliance – which runs Plug Fests to carry out OpenRAN interoperability testing. It has so far tested 77 scenarios across seven events across the world. In the UK, DCMS has funded SONIC Labs, run by Ofcom and Digital Catapult. These interoperability labs invite Open RAN suppliers to come and test their kit in a sandbox environment and build functional commercial relationships.

A mobile operator will be much more

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PRINCIPLES IN THE DCMS GUIDELINES 1 Open disaggregation.

This allows, and expects different elements of the RAN to be sourced from different equipment suppliers.

3 Demonstrated interoperability Ensuring that disaggregated elements work together as a fully functional system.

2

4

Standards-based compliance Allowing all suppliers to test solutions against standards in an open, neutral environment.

Implementation neutrality Allow suppliers to differentiate and innovate and on performance of their products.

comfortable buying a piece of equipment from a new vendor if it has been shown to work reliably with the equipment that the vendor already owns. The DCMS Open RAN principles note that equipment which is deployed needs to be able to work with other vendors in reality, and is not just theoretically compliant with open standards. That level of assurance is needed between functional elements within each base station, between adjacent base stations, and between the base stations and the core and management networks that support the RAN. The guidelines note that “previous initiatives have succeeded in creating open interfaces, but failed to deliver multi-vendor interoperability because of proprietary management approaches.”

Over-standardisation runs the risk of stifling innovation and creating a market which differentiates only on price. The Principles look to implementation neutrality to counter this. The move to Open RAN and a more diverse supplier market won’t happen overnight, but a greater choice of suppliers should benefit the industry by lowering costs, while removing the reliance on a small number of companies that has been identified as a national security issue.

OPEN STANDARDS: AN ANALOGY Discussing Open RAN in context gets very confusing and mired in technical terms, so let’s go through an analogy.

Think of a systems integrator as a wedding planner. There are lots of interrelating aspects to worry about. The number of guests affects the size of the venue, which caterer you use will depend on which venues they work with. The venue having a dance floor or not may mean you do or don’t have a band. Does the venue have its own

lighting and AV or do you need to contract that in.

competition is reflected in their margins.

Now imagine there are only two suppliers to the wedding market. Let’s call them Ericia and Nokasson. The planner has to choose between one or the other. There is still a lot of work to do in terms of what size of table to order, which items to select from their menu, but ultimately all the spend is going with them.

Nipping into the mobile phone world for a moment, Ericsson’s 2021 Gross margin was 43.4%. and Nokia’s 2021 Gross margin 39.8%, both figures from their respective annual reports.

Without going into details one 4G deployment was quoted £8m for an upgrade to 5G from a high risk vendor, and £72m by one of the Scandinavians.

They are good. Top class caterers, they buy only the best ingredients, their florists do the most amazing displays and their covers band sounds like it has Aretha Fraklin on vocals, Eric Clapton on guitar and Ringo Star on the drums. But they are expensive. Not only are they premium products, the lack of price

So back to the analogy.

What the wedding planner wants is some openness.

The ability to use a different florist perhaps.

Ericia will say, “yes you could do that, but there is no guarantee the flowers will fit in the vases, you can bring your own vases but we’ll charge to put them on the tables”.

Nokasson will say, “yes

not to work with whoever the planner chooses. It guaranteed to work with everything else. What is more, the choice means there is more variety and the costs come down.

This is the promise of Open Standards.

you could do that but if the arrangements burn on our candles or the flowers get pollen on the bride’s dress, we won’t take responsibility”.

With each of the parameters it’s just too hard to make the main vendor cooperate. So what if there were standards for all the bits that had to work together?

All the tables were from a set of standard sizes, all the candles a set height.

There were set menus which allowed from Kosher gluten intolerant to keto lactose free.

The wedding organiser can send out the same standard to all the florists, another to the caterers and another to the bands each asking for the same flowers, food and music.

All bands have parameters for their playlists, and set options for their number of musicians. All venues have standard procedures for delivery and tear down.

In this scenario Ericia and Nokasson have no excuse

What comes back are directly comparable quotes. But there are downsides. It has a cost overhead. Making sure that all the things each supplier does not only works but does so to a number of limited parameters that may or may not be required builds in cost. If the rules say a meal must have a

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proportion of roughage and fibre, a certain number of calories and limits on salt, that means not only must the caterer comply, it needs to be measured to ensure that it does. It’s very possible that no-one else involved in the wedding cares about the nutritional value but they all need to be assessed.

Even when the whole event was bought from one supplier there may be instances where the tablecloths don’t fit the tables, perhaps because a measurement in metres became confused with yards. In the single supplier scenario, the organiser only has one person to shout at. In the multiple supplier scenario, the linen supplier blames the table supplier and vice versa.

This can be addressed by being rigorous in the definition of the terms the wedding planner uses in the standard forms that are set out. Tablecloths all must be of a defined material, with set diameter, finish, elasticity, hem, and gather. This is applied to every aspect of the event.

The consequence of this is that it stifles innovation.

It becomes impossible for anyone to invent the hexagonal table. To do so would be incompatible with the table planning software, with the linen and the transport. In an industry like weddings which has been around for millennia this is a problem, but a wedding today is still pretty much like the one your grandparents had. Mobile networks evolve with each release, in general there are seven releases

to each “G”, so 5G will see seven major changes in the decade before it becomes 6G. To hamper innovation in the evolving world of telecoms is a mistake. The guidelines say “that to achieve interoperability the open interfaces between parts must be standardised. Failure to do so will inevitably lead to the proliferation of proprietary extensions.

This will in turn lead to the formation of end-to-end solutions by one vendor, or coalitions of partnered vendors, effectively re-aggregating the RAN into a single ‘black box’ once again.”

In the world of standards what often happens is that an extension that is outside the specification later becomes adopted as part of the standard.

There are also security implications. Imagine that the wedding is for a famous couple. Given that a tabloid journalist has admitted to dressing up with a photographer in a horse costume to gatecrash a celebrity wedding it’s clearly important that you keep tabs on who is involved. With a sole supplier, especially one that is on the hook for the whole contract, it’s much easier to ensure that all the staff are trustworthy.

Once you introduce more suppliers you have to do the security checking much more vigilantly.

There is a valid argument that by being more open it’s easier for security researchers to check, but it becomes more necessary because there is more opportunity for something untoward to happen.

A move to Open RAN isn’t without problems. It will take a lot of development.

That slows deployment and work on new features for 5G. It does add to the bill of materials for equipment, and have security implications, but if the alternative is a choice of two suppliers who control the future development and price that’s not a world we want to live in. It would be bad enough for weddings. As part of a critical national infrastructure, it’s not one we can afford to live in.

Open RAN and supporting a British supply chain is the best solution to a position we didn’t want to be in. Having the backing of government, operators and the new generation of vendors is essential to our getting to a position where there is choice, innovation and security.

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TOOLS, GUIDANCE AND SUPPORT FOR PLACE LEADERS AND MAKERS

Discover live projects and deployments that are testing the capabilities of 5G in a variety of places across the UK, as well as access front-line insights about how best to approach a digital connectivity or infrastructure programme.

UK5G.ORG/DISCOVER/PLACES

CONNECTED PLACES

5G in Places

UK5G has launched a new hub aimed at local and regional authorities and local enterprise partnerships. Called 5G In Places, it’s a resource that focuses four key focus areas: local community engagement; infrastructure; coordination, leadership and execution; and procurement and partnerships.

U

K5G TAPPED LOCAL

authorities, innovation projects, digital innovation zones and LEPs across the breadth and depth of the UK for input on what they’ve learned so far. The result is a collection of key insights, assets, resources and guides that can be replicated and adapted to help places on their journey to 5G. At a recent UK5G Event, Rick Robinson, Chair of the organisation’s Connected Places Working Group emphasised how communities should work together both on the physical installation of infrastructure and the adoption and usage of 5G. Better outcomes result when your communities are engaged and can understand the opportunities. Issues around data stewardship and security also need to be considered and communicated, and 5G can

bring some specific challenges around addressing health fears and dealing with planning objections to masts. Identifying and bringing all relevant parties together at the start of the process, to identify and commit to the collective ambition, will always play a pivotal role.

Advice on the hub ranges from hiring external communications channels to monitoring community forums, and from holding town hall meetings, to tips on finding engagement specialists to engage with harderto-reach sections of society.

To deploy 5G in your area also requires careful consideration of infrastructure. You need to gain an understanding of what is already in place — such as ducting, buildings and street furniture — and what else will be required, for example, fibre for backhaul or power sources. Additional infrastructure may also be needed for specific sites, so

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consideration also needs to be given to ownership and access issues, and planning regulations.

For local authorities, effective crossdepartmental collaboration is essential, and changes to organisational structures may be required. Designing, building and operating 5G networks will likely mean collaboration with other organisations and specialists. Here the hub offers first-hand insights and best practices. Successful partnerships require recognition that private sector partners must be able to make a profit, and clear identification of what the local authority can contribute.

5G can power technologies to transform the way we live and work in our towns and cities. The network can enable intelligent transport systems, helping to efficiently manage the flow of traffic, minimising congestion and reducing carbon emissions: cities can even prioritise certain transport modes such as buses or cyclists, enabling real-time route optimisation for delivery drivers and protecting vulnerable road users — keeping the roads safe, as well as people and businesses moving.

Yet, arguably, the value of 5G will be most appreciated in rural areas, where communities face challenges such as patchy public transport services and social care provision.

From tourism to farming, rural regions contribute significant value to regional prosperity and GDP. Here, 5G can help to improve operational efficiencies, drive productivity and deliver more engaging.

Vicki DeBlasi

Head of Marketing UK5G

Having worked as a marketer in the technology industry for more than 15 years, DeBlasi is fascinated by ways in which complex subjects can be made relevant and engaging for different audiences. She has worked with the 5G Testbeds and Trials programme since it started and is fully versed in the processes, people and projects.

M E TAV E R S E

E X P LO R AT I O N

EQUIPMENT

We’ve waited decades for the connectivity and apparatus for virtual and augmented reality to become a consumer friendly product.

Now there is a great selection available and the prices are tumbling.

Industry expert R O R Y B R O W N from VRcompare takes us shopping.

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L

AST YEAR MARK ZUCKERBERG

renamed Facebook as ‘Meta’ – meaning ‘beyond’ – sparking waves of virtual and augmented reality announcements from companies including Microsoft and Nvidia. Meta’s pivot into VR technologies is part of a larger goal to establish what has been dubbed the ‘metaverse’: an immersive computer-simulated environment that facilitates social interaction between individuals. Meta said it would devote $10 billion R&D spending to the project this financial year, claiming that their so-called “metaverse” will take a decade to bear complete. In 2014, the company bought Oculus, which at the time had successfully launched a prototype immersive VR headset - the Rift, crowdfunded via a Kickstarter campaign. It was joined by enterprise augmented reality (AR) devices, most notably Microsoft’s HoloLens. Microsoft was disdainful of the entertainment-oriented VR and AR market: “I’m just not hearing that people desperately need another way to be entertained right now,” Microsoft’s Lorraine Bardeen, general manager of engineering for Microsoft’s augmented reality applications told a newspaper.

But fear of missing out has spurred companies on. What does the industry have to offer in its current state, and what can we expect to see?

ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

VIRTUAL REALITY Consumer-focused VR was first marketed in the early 1990s, and has advanced considerably. The majority of consumer VR headsets have been developed specifically to create immersive gaming experiences, and this is still the case.

Affordable standalone VR headsets, requiring no connection to a powerful PC or a dedicated base station, are a more recent development. Priced at £299, the Meta Quest 2 is perhaps the best known: costing around half that of rival products when launched, it sold 8.7 million units in 2021 easily making it the bestselling VR headset ever produced. That’s a number that piques the interest of software developers.

Pico Interactive, a subsidiary of ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, offers a range of standalone headsets, with the consumertargeted Pico Neo 3 Link available in the UK and Europe. Much like Meta’s Quest 2, the Pico Neo 3 Link uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 chipset, with its design striking a balance

between display fidelity and field of view. It is important to note that any increase in a headset’s field of view necessitates a reduction in pixel density, as the image from the display must be projected across a larger portion of the wearer’s vision, with fewer pixels being allocated to a given degree of that vision.

Enthusiast consumer VR headsets include the Valve Index, HP’s Reverb G2, and HTC VIVE Pro 2, all of which require a PC connection to compute the VR scene. All three are designed for high-quality gaming, with the Valve Index & VIVE Pro 2 offering higher fields of view, and the HP Reverb G2 a high-resolution panel and lower field of view to provide extra visual fidelity for the wearer.

Enterprise VR offerings vary more significantly. Ultra-wide field of view headsets such as the VRgineers XTAL 3 which has about 180 degrees of horizontal field of view, are designed for flight simulators and other seated applications, providing the best possible peripheral vision currently available in a VR device. Each individual human eye has a horizontal field of view of about 135 degrees and a vertical field of view of just over 180 degrees, with the combined field of view for a human being up to 220 degrees horizontally.

Headsets such as the Varjo XR-3 include high-fidelity cameras which record surroundings and embed them into the virtual environment to create “mixed reality” simulations, combining elements of the physical and virtual world. While these devices require a tethered PC, standalone enterprise headsets such as the HTC VIVE Focus 3 provide a high-end untethered experience, with hot-swappable batteries, a counterbalanced headstrap, and active cooling systems, allowing for use in dynamic simulation activities such as virtualized on-site training for tasks that might otherwise be impractical to train for such as performing surgery or entering hazardous environments

more detail in areas where the user’s attention is focused, and less detail in their peripheral vision. Think of how your eye follows the ball when watching a football match: the ball can be rendered in greater detail, and the boundaries of the image in less detail.

Another upcoming headset, the Pimax Reality 12K QLED, is touted as the first VR device with a 200Hz display refresh rate, as well as being the first standalone VR headset with an ultra-wide field of view, advertised as 200 degrees horizontally. It has a number of plug-in modules including one for 5G. The enterprise market is also seeing a significant wave of new products slated for 2022 and beyond, with the Lynx R1 being one of the first dedicated mixed reality standalone VR headsets, with dual front-mounted “passthrough” cameras that enable wearers to see the real world through the headset, as well as a flip-up visor design. Meta is reportedly planning to release four new VR devices over the next two years, starting with Project Cambria, a business-focused standalone product, rumoured to include eye and face tracking, as well as next-generation lenses that require significantly less distance from the source display, resulting in a major improvement to the size and form factor of the headset.

The first time you try a VR headset you see into the future

NEW PRODUCTS A flood of devices is heading to the market.

PlayStation VR2, expected to launch in late 2022, will be the first gaming-focused VR headset to incorporate eye tracking and a trick called “dynamic foveated rendering”, which significantly reduces computational overhead required to render a VR scene by displaying

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AUGMENTED REALITY Lacking the immediate appeal of video games enabled by VR headsets, augmented reality has had a harder time convincing the public of its value, with significant limitations on headset resolutions and fields of view seriously impacting usability. Early AR devices flopped spectacularly. In 2013 venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Andreessen Horowitz teamed up to create a $500 million fund for developers to write applications for its Google Glass AR headset, a brainchild of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. In addition to being expensive ($1,500) it was plagued with technical issues, and a Google X employee later admitted that “the team within Google X knew the product wasn’t even close to ready for prime time,” according to one Google employee.

HTC VIVE Pro 2 Resolution: 2448x2448 per-eye.

Visible Field of View 116° Horizontal 96° Vertical $799

Current AR headsets suffer from very restrictive fields of view, of around 30 to 50 degrees compared to the 90 to 120 degrees for most VR headsets. Users also expect AR units to be much lighter and less cumbersome.

Today AR headsets come in a number of form factors. At the simplest end, glasses intended largely for viewing a virtual screen are available that do not track wearer’s movements. These come closest to the form factor of an ordinary pair of spectacles, while sacrificing functionality. The Nreal Air, released in 2022, can be connected to a smartphone to be used as a virtual display, and achieves an impressive weight of 76 grams. These are generally sold as a portable alternative to a TV screen.

There are also several “true” augmented reality products that can be powered by a smartphone. The Nreal Light and MAD Gaze Glow Plus feature integrated cameras and sensors to track their position and rotation.

This also allows for more advanced features such as multiple virtual screens anchored to real-world positions, or inserting 3D objects into a real-world environment. However, this tracking capability comes at the cost of form factor and weight. The Light and Glow Plus weigh 102 grams and 96 grams respectively.

If the mobile phone was about being in when you were out, then VR is about being there when you are not

F

ULLY STANDALONE AR DEVICES

are generally far heavier than smartphone-driven headsets, and usually forgo a glasses-style frame in favour of a bulkier “halo strap” design. The current market leader, Microsoft HoloLens 2, features an integrated Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 and a battery life of around 3 hours, but weighs over half a kilogram as a result, making it significantly less comfortable for long-term use. It also features integrated hand-tracking capability not seen on lighter phone-powered devices, allowing for gesture-based control.

Due to their advanced feature sets and cost, contemporary standalone AR headsets are generally targeted towards the enterprise market. One example is from Vuzix, which already markets their AR glasses for use cases such as allowing doctors and industrial workers to augment their vision.

The controversial company Magic Leap is known for raising large amounts of money, but failing to deliver. After receiving almost $3bn for its first generation AR headset, Magic Leap failed to reach many of its technical targets.

Investors wrote down losses by 94 per cent and the company moved into a smaller business market with a further $500 million

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Microsoft Hololens 1 Resolution 1268x720 per-eye Visible Field of View 30° Horizontal 17° Vertical $3000

VR AND AR HEADSETS

VRgineers XTAL 3 Resolution 3840x2160 per-eye.

Visible Field of View 180° Horizontal 90° Vertical. $8900

injection. The Magic Leap 2, a standalone AR device offers a considerable increase in its vertical field of view when compared to previous devices such as HoloLens 2 and Magic Leap 1.

This yields an overall diagonal field of view of approximately 70 degrees (around 20 degrees more than HoloLens 2 and ML1). While this is a sizable improvement over previous generation AR headsets, it should be noted that this is still significantly more restrictive than the fields of view of most VR devices, and it is almost certain that field of view will persist as a limiting factor in augmented reality for the foreseeable future.

Lynx R1 Resolution 600 x1 600 per-eye.

Visible Field of View 90° Horizontal 90° Vertical $600

A BITE OF THE APPLE? Even Apple isn’t immune from the dilemmas facing VR & AR product designers: focus on functionality, or make it more convenient and wearable. Apple’s own struggles to bring a product to market emerged in detail recently thanks to the investigative Silicon Valley news site The Information. The site reported that two factions inside Apple advanced their own competing visions of what the product should be. One group proposed a powerful but tethered unit, while another, led by Sir Jony Ive, advanced an untethered mixed reality style product, which required no base station or computer. Apple had planned to launch a product in 2019, but in the end both groups were sent back to the drawing board. Bloomberg reports that a mixed reality headset will likely launch within two years, with 14 cameras facing both inward and outward.

It may seem that VR and AR has a long way to go before reaching mainstream adoption largely due to the cumbersome and expensive nature of these technologies, however, recent years have seen significant investment from many of the industry’s top companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta and Sony bringing swathes of improvements. This is only likely to increase as the lure of a new market the ‘metaverse’ – remains.

Rory Brown

Founder & CEO - VRcompare

National Cancer Institute / unsplash.com

Rory Brown is the founder of VRcompare, the internet’s most comprehensive database of virtual reality and augmented reality hardware. His primary aim is to remove the barrier to entry into immersive technologies for consumers and businesses alike.

VRcompare achieves this by providing impartial resources to tackle disinformation and enable fair product evaluation in the XR hardware sector.

39 uk5g.org

Rights Issues Funding British universities to develop technology has led to the creation of Intellectual Property that is critcal to doing business internationally.

I

NTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IS THE

oil that greases the wheels of the mobile industry, but is contentious and highly political. As Robert Pocknell, a Director at N&M Consultancy and chairman at the Fair Standards Alliance explained in Issue 6 of this magazine, the behaviour of the market leaders has long been an issue for rivals – but now it’s causing concern at the highest levels of government, too.

This is because mobile network intellectual property is dominated by Nokia, Ericsson and Qualcomm, and the dominance of the two Nordics in particular over the standards process is a lucrative business. In 5G Huawei dominates. According to research from Iplytics, Huawei held the largest share of 5G patents worldwide as of February 2021, with 15.39 percent of all 5G patent families.

In fairness, the companies invest heavily in R&D, which creates a huge amount of mobile telecommunications intellectual property: Strategy Analytics has estimated that 5G would generate close to $20 billion in royalties a year from handsets alone, with around 35 per cent of that flowing to Nokia and Ericsson.

But having so many seats on the standards bodies means they are also able to steer more of their own intellectual property into a process which ensures everyone must pay the piper to hear their tune.

This is called SEP licensing, it’s a process by which every equipment maker must pay a licensing fee back to the intellectual property holder, if they wish to sell equipment compatible with the standard, such as 4G or 5G. These are patents deemed to be “SEP”, or standards-essential patents. It obliges a reciprocal duty on patent holders to license on reasonable terms (FRAND: fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) – they can’t withhold it, erecting a crude barrier to competition. But the obligatory SEP fees add up to an indirect disincentive to potential equipment makers.

With hopes that Open RAN leads to a more heterogenous and diverse market, intellectual property has become a hot issue.

The Government’s 5G Diversification Strategy Report last December observed that the “Concentration of Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) and Intellectual Property portfolios amongst market leading suppliers

for receiving and transmitting signals, and the difference in signal strength between these is huge.

BRISTOL BRILLIANCE All mobile phones are simultaneously receivers and transmitters – an advance on the early walkie talkie days of radio, – when it was your turn to speak, you pressed a button. So mobile phones use different frequencies

A phone needs to “hear” a signal from the mobile phone base station which is as quiet as a whisper, while transmitting a signal which is relatively as loud as a jet engine.

It’s important that the loud signal doesn’t swamp the quiet one. So all phones contain filters, and these are an important part of radio design.

Thirty years ago, mobile phones only used a few

frequencies, each with pairs for receiving and transmitting signals.

Today, there are dozens.

Both 4G and 5G phones use a technique called Carrier Aggregation which sees them join multiple frequency bands together.

This was made possible by Software Defined Radio, with the software doing more work, rather than dedicated components for each frequency.

But the same is not true of filters. So a handset designer still needs to choose which subset of frequencies to support.

This often means having different versions of the

40 uk5g.org

that limit new market entrants from accessing licenses that are crucial to the development of telecoms equipment and push up R&D costs and requirements”. It becomes not just an issue for companies but for nations as the need to licence technology and the patents associated with them may mean trading with some less than friendly nations. Having patents of your own is a crucial weapon in this.

SEPs are also the subject of much llitigation between large companies. In

same handset for different parts of the world.

A phone bought in the US will be different to one bought in Europe, and while there will be common frequencies and you will be able to travel from place to place when you are abroad your phone won’t make the best use of the available networks.

It would be better for everyone if there was a way for all phones to support all frequencies.

The technology produced

by British semiconductor company, Forefront RF, is designed to have a big impact here, allowing the

receiver to “hear” the weakest signals while transmitting at full power.

The circuits operate over a wide frequency range removing the need for a bank of dedicated switched crystal filters, allowing the circuitry needed for a phone, a watch or an IoT device to shrink.

Intellectual Property is a critical part of Forefront RF’s business, and the company is building a strong portfolio to protect its innovations. But, since it supplies an implementation specific component (and not a whole modem) it does not

BRITISH INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

FURTHER INFORMATION LINKS

>> Robert Pocknell on FRAND

SCAN

>> Electronics Weekly on Ericsson and Nokia Intellectual Property

DAN SILVA, UMERBTO, DESIGNECOLOGIST, ALEX KOTLIARSKY, OLIUR, THIS IS ENGINERRING / UNSPLASH.COM

January, Apple lodged a formal complaint with the International Trade Commission claiming that three 5G patents belonging to Ericsson were not essential at all, but were being used to “coerce” Apple into paying a fee. Ericsson had sued Apple for infringement, and sued them again following the complaint. Where does this leave the UK? The argument is that if more IP can be generated and owned by smaller UK entities, then equipment makers will find it easier to create new telecoms

equipment. This should lower the cost of building 5G networks, and strengthen the industrial sector to boot.

Which is where Britain’s world-leading universities enter the picture.

Here we look at two which could play a pivotal role. Both are commercial spin-outs.

Work at the Electrical Engineering department at Bristol university has been commercialised

by Forefront RF, while Southampton begat AccelerComm. shows how a tiny change in a small component can make a difference.

need to license standards essential patents.

Leo Laughlin, CTO, explains: “Our work culminated in a demonstration of a circuit and associated signal processing algorithms that for the first time could meet the relevant 3GPP specifications without using duplex filters. What we discovered was a new class of Adaptive Passive Cancellation circuits that combine tunable filtering with cancellation to give the selectivity needed”.

Forefront RF was founded in 2020 and has attracted £1.5m in venture capital.

SMART SOUTHAMPTON Filters are also the key to a breakthrough from AccelerComm, a spin-out from Southampton university. The algorithms and technology the company has developed here

AccelerComm’s filter design makes a mobile base station more power efficient. That means each base stations consumes less electricity, and the savings from backhaul, land, and maintenance are also very significant. How you choose to use the efficiency is up to the network and the base station designer, but the end result is akin to something for nothing.

The intellectual property the company has developed is important

41 uk5g.org

SCAN

>> IP watchdog on Apple and Ericsson

for the part of a base station where the hardware meets the software, at what is called the Physical Layer.

Improving the efficiency of this has knock-on effects for the whole of the radio network.

Open RAN operators face significant impacts in the performance of their network as a result.

AccelerComm’s improvement is to make the technology 5G specific, optimising it for mobile base stations.

Prof Rob Maunder, Chief Technical Officer and

SCAN

company founder explains “Our complete Open RAN 5G channel coder/decoder design can bring dramatic benefits. The AccelerComm IP packages can be quickly integrated and flexibly delivered for use in custom silicon (ASIC), programmable hardware (FPGA), or as software solutions.”

One of the first applications of this will be in the DCMS funded FRANC projects, where AccelerComm is part of both the Best of British and the DU-Volution consortia.

Nice to meet you

Pre-pandemic there was not a week that went by without some kind of 5G event, the virus put paid to that, Robert Driver celebrates the return of face to face meetings.

W

HAT A RELIEF

it was to hold March’s Showcase event in person. And not just because an Omicron surge reared its head in the preceding weeks; but because the last opportunity to bring all the 5G Testbeds and Trials projects together in one place, really deserved a physical gathering.

For the UK5G team, it was the first time we had all been together in one place since the pandemic and for certain team members, the marketing team in particular, the first time they had ever met in person.

What I was struck by again and again over the two day event though, was just how many of the individual project teams had been operating for two years without ever meeting.

Virtual events certainly had their day during the pandemic and I’m sure will remain an ongoing part of our events repertoire but there is nothing quite like

being able to shake someone’s hand, share a quick exchange as you pass in the corridor or have a chat over coffee to really make an event sing. I so often find it is those informal, unscripted moments that make for memorable and valuable conferences. Indeed, when reading the feedback from attendees, this particular insight really resonated: “The networking ran from breakfast to after dinner drinks and one of the deals we did at the event was triggered by a drink at the bar”.

The biggest outtake for me from the Showcase therefore was that despite the huge impediment the pandemic posed from delivery delays, to teams having to collaborate, problem solve and innovate remotely, and key team members pulled away from innovation to focus on critical service delivery - the sheer volume and value of outputs was impressive. Genuine, societal impact was demonstrated, technologies pushed to their limits, and significant potential applications and upsides for businesses identified. Even without a pandemic, these outcomes would

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be substantial, but to do all this despite a pandemic? It speaks to the commitment, drive and leadership from DCMS down to the individual projects, organisations and people across the programme. We are of course still in the foothills of 5G, but our progress today is deeply encouraging and bodes well for the next stage of this journey as we move from innovation to early market adoption.

As I reflect on this, I realise what a huge advantage the newest tranche of projects the DCIA pilots and FRANC projects - really do have. UK5G is already working with DCMS to deliver in-person networking and knowledge dissemination events for these project cohorts and I fully anticipate that both intra and inter-project collaborations will be more spontaneous, easier to identify and smoother to facilitate.

There has been much written about the positives that did come out of the pandemic and a reticence to jump straight back to the way things were. In many instances, I agree with the sentiment. When it comes to the power of face to face conversation, problem solving and networking however, I think we are all thrilled to be able to return to the old way of doing things and I can’t wait to see, armed with those tools, what the new projects will achieve.

Robert Driver Head of UK5G

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Major discounts to conferences / training

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Business introduction service by request (Founder members only)

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Talent recruitment through CW Jobsboard

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News and event promotion through CW website

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Opportunities to help lead, or start, a SIG (Founder Members only)

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Free access to CW Founders’ Dinners (Founder Members only)

CW events and special interest groups connect some of the world’s most ambitious technology organisations.

Get in touch to find out more. cambridgewireless.co.uk/about/become-member/

Solutions 4.0 you @nokiaindustries

Accelerate access to smart citizen services.

Society-critical networks built to better connect every community.

North provides expertise and knowledge to the transformative potential of 5G – helping organisations to improve performance and unlock significant benefits and opportunities. www.north.tech

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