UK5G. Issue 9

Welcome

Initially my focus as Programme Director is the 24 projects which are wrapping up. We’ve got to land those projects elegantly. It’s important for us that we create the right assets out of those and have them in the right place - and have them accessible to the right people. It’s an unusual and lovely thing actually to see a project, or a set of projects all the way through, right from the moment we set up the competition, through grilling them at interviews, negotiating the grant agreement, doing the whole project and wrapping it up as well. I keep saying to the newer project managers, “That’s actually quite a neat thing to be able to say when you go for your next job, that you experienced the whole lifecycle, the ups and downs, the drama, the tears, the eventual triumph.”

The newest cohort is the DCIA projects which map the availability of assets, things like street lights and bus shelters for housing 5G cells. At the moment it only runs until the end of next financial year, but there is another point at which we might be able to release more funding. If we can make it easier to use local authority assets, it will be good for everybody. It is a challenging time for local authorities but our team are well versed in this space and are keen to work with them and the private sector to ensure the benefits are achieved. I’ve got a lot of confidence in them.

THERE IS SOMETHING of a changing of the guard with the Testbeds and Trials programme, and it’s rather heartening that so many of the people moving in and out, like my predecessor Ian Smith, are shifting between Government and industry. That’s good for both.

We are also at a time of transition for the projects: many of the Testbeds and Trials are now coming to an end of their DCMS funding, and the new supply chain

diversification projects are just starting. We have the Digital Connectivity Infrastructure Accelerator (DCIA) winners announced and more programmes in the pipeline so at the moment there are 60 projects underway. This is a far cry from the original six Testbeds and Trials.

I’ve been involved from the start, coming to DCMS from industry. Previously, I was at Openreach for seven years, but as first the commercial lead for the 5G programme, and then the delivery lead, I’ve a good overview of all of the projects.

It’s bittersweet to see Ian go. In his new role working for one of the projects involved with the testbeds and trials I’m sure we’ll be in regular contact, but I need to thank him for two things: the work he’s done, and the team he has left me with. The guard may have changed but the programme goes from strength to strength.

from strength to strength.

Keith Bullock 5G Testbeds and Trials Interim Programme Director, DCMS

UK5G

Head of UK5G Robert Driver

Head of Marketing Vicki DeBlasi

Content Creation and Curation

Crispin Moller

Lauren Kelly

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

DCMS

Maeve Hickey

Mija Valdez

Kate Bealing

CWJP

Chairman Keith Young MBE

Editor Simon Rockman simon@cwjp.co.uk

Consulting Editor Andrew Orlowski andrew@cwjp.co.uk

Editorial Assistant Millie Bysh

Creative Director Matthew Inman

Business Development Director

Roger Hinkson roger@cwjp.co.uk

Finance Director Delia Robinson

Photography Stuart Berman

Special Projects Alex Young CWJP

14 Great College Street, London SW1P 3RX

T: +44 (0)20 8002 0000

NEWS

Three looks to Ofcom for renewed merger permission, Vodafone voices Open RAN support, International 5G leadership, Motorola labs new AR headset and Nokia’s chip mistake.

09

DCIA WINNERS

The Digital Connectivity Infrastructure Accelerator is a project to improve the process of locating buildings, bus shelters and streetlights which can provide a home to mobile network cells.

CREATIVE, MEDIA + SPORT

Seven projects have used tech to make cultural events immersive and accessible. Sir David Attenborough and The Eden Project shared an ecological message while Brighton Rocks and boxing come to the table.

RURAL PROJECTS

There is more to providing coverage in the countryside than just faster broadband, with nitrogen saving scanners from space, a virtual Robin Hood and a toolkit to help communities put in their own mobile networks.

48

INDUSTRIAL, MANUFACTURING AND CONSTRUCTION

Adding felxibility to the manufacturing process is paying dividends for Ford, Nissan and BAE Systems. Enhanced communications is proving vital to a Shetland windfarm and advanced manufacturing in the West Country.

CHEAP AS CHIPS

Traditional telco hardware is bespoke and expensive. Andrew Orlowski looks at how COTS, Commercial off-the-Shelf, equipment is changing the market.

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

uk5g.org

END OF PLAY

LE GACY IS IMPORTANT. TAKE A WANDER around the 2012 Olympic Park in Strafford, East London and you’ll find that what’s been done in the last decade has probably been more important than the 65 medals from the three weeks of the games. It’s taken a brownfield site and turned London E20 into a fantastic place to work, live and play with business units, the athletes accommodation turned into housing and beautiful landscaped parks.

It’s an important lesson for the DCMS projects. I was a bit taken aback when Keith Bullock said that there were 60 of them, but start counting and you soon get to that number and beyond. The three university research programmes begat the first six testbeds and trials, then there were the eight rural and 20 5G Create winners. Add in West Midlands 5G which alone has a couple of dozen projects with more going through its incubators, and then there is manufacturing, and Scotland 5G – with three active hub sites and lots of projects. There are the supply chain diversification programs, including Sonic, and you are up above 50. We now have 15 FRANC teams and another eight on DCIA. Some of these have finished and some are just at the starting gate, which is how Keith gets to his 60 that are running now. But over time we will have many more.

What they are doing varies tremendously. Many of the projects are aimed at answering the question “What will we do with 5G?”

Some are raw research, and some are building the 5G technologies which will be used in the networks. They fit together to answer the classic interrogation of Who, What, When, Where and Why.

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

MOBILITY, TRANSPORT AND PORTS

What we are getting out of the projects isn’t just turning the best place in Europe to test cars into the best place to test connected cars, healthier Liverpudlians or better made Fords and Nissans. What we are getting is a sizeable workforce skilled in 5G technologies: people who understand the latency issues around VR, and people who can hone the physical layer, the fundamental building block of 5G cells, to be more efficient.

Some of the projects have been extended, some will step out into a commercial world on their own two feet, and some will end - but whichever happens doesn’t matter. With 60 projects, each with between three and 13 consortium members, that’s a lot of companies. With many people on tasks which have delivered into the various programmes, it’s not unreasonable to estimate that there are over 2,000 people who have honed their 5G skills as a result of the testbeds and trials.

ENCORE

An extension for many of the projects and UK5G is allowing a doubling down on a lot of the work has been done. It may be that the best is yet to come.

For an emerging technology, that’s a pretty sizable workforce, and that legacy is enhanced by all of these people knowing others on their own and connected projects. It’s more than a workforce: it’s an ecosystem.

their own and connected projects. It’s

60 projects is impressive, but a strong 5G industry in the UK? That’s a legacy that will help us all work, live

strong 5G industry in the UK? That’s a

Simon Rockman Editor, UK5G Innovation Briefing

and play.

CALL 999

There is a lot more to an emergency

call than just pressing one button three times. Mobile networks have significant obligations to locate the callers position.

WHILE EVERY CARE IS TAKEN IN COMPILING THE CONTENT, NEITHER UK5G N OR THE PUBLISHER ASSUMES RESPONSIBILITY FOR EFFECTS ARISING FROM THIS PUBLICATION.AVAILABLE ONLINE AT CWJP.CO.UK/UK5G

Liverpool builds a 5G network and. West Mercia is uses AR to reduce costs and make care more personal.

A crane can be operated by 5G technology. Goods tracked and futuristic robot vehicles.

The testbeds and trials programme is coming to its conclusion. What started as three universities and six trials has spread the length and breath of the country and across media, mobility, manufacturing, medicine and more to build a British ecosystem for 5G.

OFCOM LOBBIED ON NETWORK MERGERS

OFCOM HAS HINTED AT big changes to a mobile operator landscape that has been largely untouched for 25 years.

While the regulator notes that the UK has been well served by four national networks over the past decade, it says that people now use a variety of network technologies, and it now anticipates more service providers playing an increasing role in people’s lives. Ofcom’s new discussion paper contribution to its own Mobile Strategy review stresses that it is no longer ideologically wedded to four players in the UK market.

“The question of whether a particular merger is likely to result in a substantial lessening of competition will turn on the effectiveness of competition that can be expected in the market after the merger, rather than just the number of competitors,” Ofcom notes.

This was an explicit factor when Ofcom formally objected to the proposed £10.25 billion merger between O2 and Three in 2016. At the time, Ofcom’s then chief executive Sharon White pointed to prices that were “10 to 20 per cent higher” in markets with three major incumbents, rather than four. BT’s acquisition of EE changed the ownership of one of the four, but still maintained four major incumbents.

The incumbent operators are keen to be allowed to consolidate. “5G is a massive investment: it costs billions,” Lutz Schuler, Chief Executive of Virgin Media O2 told the Telegraph newspaper last month.

CHINA CR ISIS?

Ofcom identifies how new competition from the giant platforms and hyperscalers may have a transformative impact.

“Apple and Google could start to take a direct role in selling mobile internet access, potentially as part of a wider bundle of services.” In this scenario, consumers activate the new plan on their eSIM, leaving little or no role for the traditional MNO (Mobile Network Operator) beyond building the expensive infrastructure for a diminishing reward. Between them, the four MNOs have invested around £2.5 billion annually into UK infrastructure since 2012.

5G is likely to accelerate the unbundling of the legacy telco stack, Ofcom suggests, writing that “technological developments such as 5G might bring changes to the role of existing players. We expect to see a wide range of players deploying and operating these networks. These include MNOs, equipment vendors (such as Nokia), managed service providers and system integrators (such as Accenture) and hyperscalers (such as Amazon).” Amazon is already offering a push button private network to new and existing AWS customers in the United States. New customers need only specify capacity and coverage requirements and fill out a formAWS contractors will deliver the small cells and SIM cards to you.

Capacity remains a concern, with data growth expected to increase as much as 20 times by 2030.

www.bit.ly/3HPN2Op

Chairman Eric Schmidt has described the United States’ roll out of 5G as “dithering” and “pathetic” in a Wall Street Journal editorial, lagging behind China. Schmidt wrote the piece with Professor Graham Allison, a Harvard scholar and foreign policy expert. “The step up to real 5G speeds will lead to analogous breakthroughs in autonomous vehicles, virtual-reality applications like the metaverse, and other areas that have yet to be invented,” Schmidt and Allison wrote. “Applications abound that could advantage a country’s intelligence agencies and enhance its military capabilities.” The pair wrote that China is “rapidly allocating the most efficient part” of the wireless range to companies in the telecommunications sector, while US companies such as Verizon and AT&T are using the same spectrum band for their 4G and 5G networks. However, China’s figures for its 5G user base should not be taken at face value, the ITIF (Information Techology and Innovation Foundation) has noted. The networks count every new subscriber as a 5G user whether they have a 5G capable device or not. In October 2019, China Telecom claimed there were nine million 5G users – a month before the network had even been turned on.

https://on.wsj.com/35XrWjL

F ORMER GOOGLE EXECUTIVE

ERIC SCHMIDT

DELL, HP BRANDISH NEW OPEN RAN GEAR

DELL HAS BECOME THE latest PC company to market an Open RAN plugin card for serversevidencing that PC commodity economics are coming to the telecom market. Imaginatively named the ‘Open RAN Accelerator Card’, Dell’s board plugs into virtual distributed units (DUs) to take low level Layer 1 processing off the server’s main microprocessor, and performs it faster. This frees up the main CPU and results in lower power consumption. It was part of several announcements by Dell which launched a Telecom Multi-Cloud Foundation framework to help network builders use cloud services from third parties, and a new Bare Metal Orchestrator software to monitor and manage

the hardware. Dell already sells an Open RAN reference platform with Mavenir, Intel and VMware components.

The new card contains silicon from Marvell, a veteran supply of chips to the telco equipment market.HP Enterprise (HPE) recently launched a similar product: an Open RAN DU, in conjunction with Snapdragon. Between them, HPE and Dell are neck and neck for first place in the $23bn global server market, according to analysts IDC. Servers based on the x86 architecture – in other words, commodity PC servers contributed most ($21bn) of this revenue. See our feature on how commodity economics is revolutionising networking on Page 50.

https://dell.to/3vW5nXA

MINI METAVERSE

MOTOROLA HAS LAUNCHED 5G connected Augmented Reality glasses in conjunction with US operator Verizon. By putting the bulk of the electronics into a necklace, Lenovo’s Motorola hopes to avoid the ignominy faced by the 2014 Google Glass, where customers wearing them were called “Glassholes,” banned from bars and even assaulted . The Motorola 5G Neckband has been developed by the 312 Labs skunkworks in Chicago which employs some of the best engineers from the time when Motorola was a mobile market leader. The system weighs just 100g, half of the weight of an iPhone 13 Pro, and measures 2.1 x 3.8 inches (54 x 97mm). That contains a Snapdragon processor and SIM card. It can therefore work with a variety of AR glasses, not just the ThinkReality A3 set announced at launch. Might another less obtrusive wearable succeed where Glass failed?

BRUSSELS WANT TO TAKE ON ELON MUSK AND JEFF BEZOS

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION WANTS A third European satellite network to run alongside its Galileo and Copernicus networks, according to a report.

Little more has been achieved so far than an agreement in principle that a European-run alternative should join the existing, and rapidly expanding Starlink, Telesat, OneWeb and Kuiper constellations.

With China reportedly developing a 13,000 unit constellation of its own, that region of space is rapidly getting crowded - not causing a physical problem but vying for reserved radio frequencies as they talk back to earth. “It is indispensable that Europe has its own constellation and doesn’t depend on the Americans and the Chinese,” says Thierry

Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market. “It will run north-south and secure our

communications in case of a cyberattack. It has a military and sovereign dimension.”

Euractiv reports that the €6 bn cost will initially be met by a €2.4 bn contribution from the EU from the current budget, member states, the European Space Agency (ESA) and private investments. Euronews sounded a cautious note, pointing out that “Brussels does not have the power to act in this area under the EU treaties, so it will currently assess the requirements by engaging with member states and relevant stakeholders to see what can be done collectively.”

The new generation of LEO satellites operate much lower than a conventional geosynchronous orbit, and last for only five years.

VODAFONE OPEN RAN PLEDGE

VODAFONE’S VOW TO migrate 30 per cent of its European sites to use Open RAN by 2030 has been met with some scepticism by some commentators. At the 2022 Mobile World Congress expo in Barcelona, Vodafone’s Chief Technology Officer Johan Wibergh made the promise, adding that Vodafone is already in the process of replacing Huawei equipment with Open RAN equipment. Mobile network operators have until 2027 ahead of the UK Government’s 2027 deadline to remove infrastructure from high-risk vendors.

LENOVO LAUNCHES ARM LAPTOPS

LENOVO ANNOUNCED THE THINKPAD X13S LAPTOP AT MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS , the first 5G ThinkPad to be based on ARM chips. The machine boasts a 28-hour battery life. The laptop supports both sub 6GHz and US mmWave frequencies. Today, not one of the four UK mobile network operators sells a Windows laptop, and 4G or 5G is only available as a build-toorder option on a handful of Intel and AMD-based Windows PCs. Faster ARM chips from mobile chip makers like Qualcomm, which is the first Lenovo Thinkpad to be based on ARM, offer a new revenue option, and can increase the number of 5G devices active on our networks.

OPEN AND SHUT CASE

OPEN RAN CONTINUES to attract unexpected names.

One of the most unusual is Taiwan’s HTC, which enjoyed a short-lived heyday as an innovative awardwinning smartphone maker, dubbed “the Alpha Romeo of smartphones”. It then focused on launching the HTC Vive virtual reality headset. But at Mobile World Congress it unveiled itself as a supplier of Open RAN equipment too. HTC’s flagship is a “network in

a box” including a 5G core, remote radio unit, baseband and a net-work switch, all of which does actually fit into a box: a large suitcase. Called Reign Core, it’s a porta-ble base station designed for the rapid deployment of private 5G networks. The COTS (commercial off the shelf) Intel x86 hardware is built for HTC by Supermicro, a Californian enterprise company. Reign Core is the result of HTC’s acquisition of G Reign. The trend for mobile equipment to get smaller is hard to miss. At MWC Ericsson showed a massive MIMO antenna weighing under 20kg that nevertheless features 64 transmitters and receivers.

It’s using Samsung equipment, which does not currently support 2G, Wibergh acknowledged. Huawei equipment is installed on close to 6,000 Vodafone sites, according to independent estimates.

“What’s curious is Vodafone’s seemingly religious commitment to open RAN, a technology that will give it no discernible advantage but one riddled with risk” notes Light Reading’s Ian Morris. “One senior technology executive at another European operator expressed befuddlement about the Vodafone strategy”.

JUMPING THE REEFSHARK

NOKIAMADE ONE OF THE most costly technical gaffes in recent years when it chose programmable chips (field programmable gate arrays, or FPGAs) made with Intel for an entire range of next generation 5G products. Once touted as the future of microprocessors, FPGAs have been on the market since the late 1980s. They allow engineers to reprogram the logic circuits, something of a specialist skill. Nokia first announced the “ReefShark” range in 2018, but the decision cost Nokia dearly and by the time it finally came to light in 2019, Nokia had lost major contracts and fallen behind arch rival Ericsson. These systems have now almost completely been replaced by more conventional and cheaper Systemon-a-Chip processors (SoCs), and these were launched at Mobile World Congress in February. FPGA pioneer Xilinx was acquired by AMD for $35 billion last year.

WINNERS ANNOUNCED FOR DIGITAL CONNECTIVITY INFRASTRUCTURE ACCELERATOR PILOT COMPETITION

CONSORTIA LED BY EIGHT

local authorities 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 telecoms 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 Digital

Asset Loc8tor

The pilot is led by West Sussex County Council and the local authorities representing Arun, Chichester, Crawley, Adur, Horsham and Mid-Sussex. The project has already compared existing mobile network coverage with council owned locations to establish the best places to add new small cells. The aim is to develop a fully automated platform for site acquisition including financial transactions, automating the use of these assets.

Berkshire Digital Infrastructure Group

The pilot is working with Asset Market and Vodafone to run test processes to help digitise site acquisition. Councils involved represent West Berkshire, Bracknell Forrest, Slough, Reading, Wokingham and the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead.

The Outcomes Accelerator

The Outcomes Accelerator hopes to create a blueprint for London, with the West London Alliance boroughs of Ealing, Hillingdon, Barnet, Brent, Harrow, Hounslow and Hammersmith and Fulham involved.

Connectivity Infrastructure Accelerator (DCIA)

All types of network infrastructure are being considered, including small cells and macro cells. Publicly owned buildings and street furniture, such as bus shelters and lamp posts, are all registered in the asset management tools. Finding out who owns what, and negotiating for access, is difficult and time consuming, slowing down the deployment of 5G networks.

The programme will help telecoms firms to find the information they need to check which structures are suitable for hosting equipment.

DCIA is helping Local Authorities share the information network companies need. The pilots are taking different approaches and working with a number of software platform vendors, to simplify the interactions between Local Authorities and the telecommunications industry, which will speed up network rollout

Infralink-Exchange

The consortium consists of the Tay Cities Region (Angus, Dundee City, Fife, Perth and Kinross) working with Scottish Futures Trust, Angus Council, Dundee City Council, Fife Council, Perth and Kinross Council. The project is collaborating with the Scottish Futures Trust and the Scotland 5G Centre.

NTCA Future Connectivity Partnership

The West of England Combined Authority’s Digital Connectivity Infrastructure Accelerator

This winning project includes the local authorities Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol City, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Council. Three, BT Wholesale, Cellnex and Sitenna are involved to support the project The Combined Authority has a target of 95 per cent gigabit capable coverage by 2026.

West Midlands Combined Authority

The WMCA consortium brings together the local authorities who are part of the West Midlands Combined Authority, which led the project. Warwickshire County, Birmingham City, Coventry City, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton are involved – supported by West Midlands 5G (WM5G). The region was the first to produce a Connected Map with over 400,000 assets mapped to date.

A lot has been happening in the North East. In addition to the 5G CAL Trial, Sunderland has recently appointed BAI Communications to install a neutral host network. Now the region is a DCIA winner too. Led by the North of Tyne Combined Authority, local authorities representing Northumberland, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Newcastle and Sunderland cities.

Wessex Digital Infrastructure Accelerator

Led by Dorset, the consortium includes Hampshire, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. The project will build on the work started by 5G Rural Dorset, having already developed a good understanding of the potential for asset re-use

EARLY5G LI FTS UK

NEWS IN BRIEF WESTMINSTER TO GET PRIVATE 5G NETWORK

Broadcasters in Westminster will soon have a cheaper option than the satellite vans they park by College Green facing the Houses of Parliament. A new mobile network, using N77 shared access spectrum will offer high upload speeds. The dedicated network from Westminster Mobile will ensure that users to not suffer from congestion when Parliament Square fills up with a rally or protest. Fo details email hello@westminstermobile.com.

5GONGS

Outstanding contributions to UK 5G will be recognised at the UK 5G Showcase Awards in Birmingham on the 22nd March. Creative and novel ideas were encouraged, with three awards for projects and two for individuals.

DE PLOYMENTS OF 5G HAVE boosted the UK up the international league table of mobile network performance. According to OpenSignal, which measures the real-world consumer experience by taking billions of samples every day, the UK climbed from joint 30th to joint 24th out of 100 markets. Erstwhile stars such as Singapore and Malaysia fell down the global rankings.

The UK can boast a bigger boost to its national mobile networks than the USA, Switzerland, France or Japan, with 183 per cent faster download speeds

OpenSignal’s VP of analysis Ian Fogg explains that the UK’s relative improvement was attributable to new spectrum being released early for use by 5G. Not all countries were able to do this.

“5G-related investments can boost the experience of users in 4G-only markets through investments in shared infrastructure foundations that boost the 4G experience (and in time the 5G experience) ahead of 5G’s arrival,” noted Fogg.

Detailed findings can be found in the report, 5G Impact on the Global Mobile Network Experience - www.bit.ly/3KxPOcz

> Short-listed for the Best Potential For Business Impact category are 5G New Thinking (Federated Wireless), 5G Connected Forest’s ‘An Arrow Through Time’ AR experience and MoNEH.

> The Most Innovative Use of 5G Category sees IntelliGi, 5G Festival and 5G Enabled Manufacturing vie for the award.

> The third project category, Maximum citizen impact and reach, shortlists Liverpool 5G Create, 5G Rural Dorset and The Green Planet AR Experience.

> Individuals short-listed for their overall contribution to 5G are Ann Williams, Dr Dritan Kaleshi and Matt Stagg.

IT’S AZURE THING

MICROSOFT HAS FOLDED MORE CORE NETWORK TECHNOLOGY into the Cloud, making it available for the burgeoning market of network providers. At Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona, Microsoft announced its Azure for Operators service. It includes core network technology that Microsoft acquired directly from AT&T, branded as Azure Operator Distributed Services, with AT&T its first live customer.

“Essentially, Microsoft’s hybrid cloud technology will support the AT&T mobile core network that spans more than 60 cloud-native network functions and virtual network functions from 15 different vendors,” commented Omdia analyst James Crawshaw.

Microsoft has made several acquisitions totalling around $2 billion to bring in core networking expertise. These include MetaSwitch, which brought Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) infrastructure software into Azure, and Affinity Networks, for cloud-native Network Functions. Along with AT&T, these contribute to customers being able to “rent” services that were once walled inside a large telecoms company. This core network software market is estimated to be grow to $10 billion in revenue by 2025 – a tenfold increase over last year, according to Ryan Koontz, an analyst at Rosenblatt Securities. Greater access to these network functions at a lower cost means more providers can run core networking, a valuable tool as the demand for private networks grows.

Microsoft has also packaged up the AT&T Edge networking, aiming it at verticals enterprise sectors, albeit only in the United States for now.

> The contenders for the Best collaborative engagement award are Rhys Enfield, Dave Happy and Alex Buchan. Entries were open to DCMS-funded Testbed and Trial projects or individuals demonstrating the “most potentially disruptive business impact” through the application of their technology.

5G IMPACT ON THE GLOBAL MOBILE NETWORK EXPERIENCE

Become a Member of CW

Join our active community of around 1000 technology businesses from as little as £165pa. With over 50 events a year, CW Membership offers plenty of opportunity for upskilling your teams, networking with peers, meeting new customers, uncovering your next hire and transforming your product roadmap!

Benefits of membership

▶ Free and unlimited access to CW SIG events for all staff

▶ Major discounts to conferences / training

▶ Business introduction service by request (Founder members only)

▶ Talent recruitment through CW Jobsboard

▶ News and event promotion through CW website

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

▶ 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/

End of play

March 2022 marks the end of the beginning. The majority of the 5G Testbeds and Trials are coming to the end of their projects. Some have extensions, some will morph into commercial ventures but they have all taught us a lot.

WHENEVER IT HAS introduced a new generation of mobile technology, the industry has never been confident of quite what it would be used for. Faster and more reliable

communications were universally considered a good thing, but no-one predicted the services or applications consumers ended up adopting.

For example, in 2003, when Three launched, it touted video calls and football highlights. In reality, the devices were barely able to do either, and the network lost a fortune on both the technology and the content rights it had acquried. It’s fine today, now that an iPhone 13 has 70 times as many pixels as the first generation of 3G phones.

The DCMS Testbeds and Trials set out to understand what 5G might be used for as early as possible - it aimed to actually try things out in a semi-commercial environment and allow those developing the technology to play with it in the field.

That’s what the 27 projects listed here have done. Starting even before equipment was available, the projects looked at how networks might be deployed and, above all, for what.

Experiments have taken place on land, sea and air. The New Thinking project provided connectivity to ferries, Connected Cowes to racing yachts and Rural Dorset to communicating bouys. Mobile Access North Yorkshire put a cell in a blimp.

Work from the early projects benefitted the later ones: the spectrum application process was reformed and more was made available. But there is a lot to learn, and these pages give an overview of the work done by each project, the challenges they have overcome, what has worked and what has not.

Time will tell how much better prepared these have made us for the latest generation, but from the early feedback, and talking to the end users, it appears that we should avoid the error of thinking that people wanted a video call that looked like a cartoon, or to watch games where you couldn’t see the ball.

SPECIAL REPORT

Illustration Tim Marrs / CIA  marrzman

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

End of play

Creative, Media and Sport

Visualising the depth and breath of the 5G testbeds and trials programme can be very difficult. There is a wide spread of both place and purpose for the projects. In the following pages we attempt to sum up the challenges and achievements of 27 teams over the past three years. It can only give a glimpse into the work that has been done, but provides a good starting point for finding out more.

Rural Projects

Health and Social Care

Mobility, Transport and Ports

Industrial,

Voice is the king of mobile services

No-one ever says “It’s good to surf”, but “It’s good to

tapped into the psyche which made people feel a

towards the telephone.

While we still call them “Mobile Phones”, these ubiquitous gadgets have become so much more than that. Voice communications has been relegated below how features such as camera and video perform. What was once the very reason for having a mobile phone is often now regarded as just another service.

4G was designed with a brave new world in mind, where every application was a data service. The o cial view was that it didn’t matter which application was used for voice telephony. Due to this oversight, there was no ready to use standard for phone calls when the first 4G networks launched, and phones fell back to 3G or even 2G to make the call. In fact, it was over two years before this was fixed, with the introduction of the VoLTE or Voice Over LTE standard. For example, Vodafone and EE turned on their 4G networks in the UK in 2012 and 2013 respectively, but only added VoLTE support in 2015. And only then did the first phones that consistently supported VoLTE begin to appear.

With 5G, the specification included voice from Day One. 5G phones use the Voice over New Radio (VoNR) standard, so fully support voice as a data application. This doesn’t mean that all 5G handsets can do voice out of the box, 5G testing is complex and expensive so VoNR is sometimes not enabled unless an operator has ordered it

and the testing cost justified. But the latent ability to support VoNR is there in the vast majority of 5G devices. The legacy methods are going away – but still need to be dealt with by networks.

When a 4G phone doesn’t support VoLTE it drops back to 3G or 2G to handle the voice call. This is known as Circuit Switched Fall Back, and uses the older trusted technology which used dedicated radio frequencies for the voice channel. While that has been an adequate solution it won’t remain so. All over the world networks are switching o their 3G and 2G services. Vodafone has said that 3G will be turned o next year – having missed its aspirational 2020 target – and the government has agreed with the British networks that both 2G and 3G will be gone by 2033. After that, there won’t be Circuit Switched technology to fall back onto.

There are certainly good reasons for switching o the old technology. It uses radio spectrum much less e ciently, and this can then be ‘refarmed’ for use by 5G. Much of the equipment which provides the service is reaching its end of life, and some of it comes from high-risk vendors which have to be removed by 2027.

So all voice is going to have to use the same internet protocols as data: in particular SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol. Every network is going to need the servers to handle this, via a system called IMS or IP Multimedia Subsystem,

The First VoLTE Phone

The first phone to support VoLTE was the LG Connect 4G MS840 initially sold by MetroPCS in the US. This was released in February 2012 and used Android 2, which was called Gingerbread. The LG Connect was a mid-range phone designed to sell in volume and help migrate users from circuit switch fall back to using IMS. It was often sold on prepay as a cheap to run smart phone. At the time performance of the screen, camera and speakers were regarded as mediocre, but contemporary reviews praised the 1.2 GHz Qualcomm MSM8660 Snapdragon S3.

which handles all images and audio. The IMS connects everything to everything else. When a call has to leave the mobile network and cross into a public landline it is often converted, by the IMS into the H.248 standard.

Clever software

As part of the core network of a modern system, IMS is a complex software stack. But it’s an important part: The sound quality of a phone call is contingent on the quality of the IMS. With so many calls going through the IMS, it’s essential that it is both robust and scalable. And as the use of circuit switched fall back fades, then the demands on an IMS will only increase.

It’s also the role of the IMS to look after voicemail. Mavenir’s next-generation IMS-based cloud-native Voicemail o ers advanced services and network integration options. It’s built on years of experience in deploying cloud-native messaging solutions and includes services such as TUI (Telephony User Interface), FAX messaging, call completion, email notification, and visual voice mail using a standards-based open architecture.

talk”

ectionate

The virtualised, cloud native architecture reduces CAPEX and OPEX and runs on a single platform for multiple service groups such as enterprise, wireless, and wireline. The scalability of a virtualised platform is future-proof implementation with strategic benefits.

Mavenir has been building IMS systems since 2011. The company’s Cloud-Native IMS enables mobile networks to evolve their existing voice and messaging services as they move into 5G era. The solution simplifies the evolution of voice and messaging services from 2G to 5G by ensuring a consistent user experience across technology generations. It is purpose-built for fully automated cloud environments, allowing networks to operate with web-scale agility. Not only does it scale to meet demand, it does so predictively and automatically.

Mavenir was the first vendor in the world to deploy a virtualized platform of VoLTE. For T-Mobile US, Mavenir built one of the largest cloud native IMS networks supporting its customer base of over 125 subscribers.

Building an IMS system which can have

enough capacity for the peak usage is essential. Being spread across time zones helps smooth demand but mass sporting and cultural events can lead to sharp spikes in traffic.

Mavenir was the first to implement IMS in the UK with Three UK, and in Germany with Vodafone. These were among the earliest VoLTE deployments, initially uptake had not been that fast because operators could get away with voice running on 2G and 3G. This is changing and today Mavenir is delivering cloud native IMS to Telefonica UK O2 with VoNR support while Telefonica Germany is making VoNR calls on Mavenir’s cloud native IMS, Deutsche Telekom’s DTnIMS project is deploying Mavenir’s automated cloud native IMS for cloudification of voice telephony.

The use of virtualised cloud technology is not just about meeting demand to ensure that customers are always served. Having capacity but only spinning up virtual instances as and when they are needed helps ensure power efficiency and manage the cost of operation,

Built to scale

Each network function is decomposed into separate stateless, individually scalable, microservices. The IMS can be split across servers and data centres, giving operators the ability to cope with peak demand,. It removes the single point of failure that comes with on-site services. Hosting can be split on-site, through a dedicated provider, or through Mavenir’s collaboration with AWS. Amazon’s cloud offering boasts state-of-the-art container deployment and management, and big data analytics services. Combining the expertise of Mavenir with AWS assures flexibility, scale, and resiliency.

Voice is the bedrock of communications. IoT, telemetry and increased connectivity may see a world in which more machines are talking to machines than people to people, but voice remains a special feature. Uniting them since 10th March 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell said “Mr Watson, come here I want to see you”.

For more details email tushar.dhar@mavenir.com, or visit www.mavenir.com

Creative Media + Sport

Much of the work around the Testbeds and Trials has been to answer the question “5G? What will we do with it?” While a lot of the answers are technical some of the easiest to understand applications are around Creative, Media and Sport which is appropriate for DCMS funded projects. The freedom technology gives the creative arts is often underestimated. These seven projects show the potential for a transformation in the way we experience content.

GREEN PLANET AR

Building a forest is quite an achievement. Doing it indoors more so. The Green Planet AR project built the Amazon Rain Forest indoors at Piccadilly Circus in London. This was a bit of a change of plan. Initially the project looked to conduct three public trials but nothing as ambitious as a full-on jungle adventure in central London. It was after the success of an

initial demonstration in Ipswich that the project went large. The demonstration ran for four weeks, finishing before this issue went to press.

Resembling Pokémon GO, the visitor experience featured hundreds of real trees and plants spread over 10,000 square feet, and a virtual David Attenborough. The rainforest wasn’t the only environment on offer. Five different biomes, each a greenhouse encompassing a self-

contained ecologically environment, were built. In addition, fresh water and saltwater worlds, the changing seasons and desert landscapes, all could be navigated using Samsung Galaxy S21 smartphones on selfie sticks.

10,000 VISITORS IN FOUR WEEKS

Digital seeds blew through the air, butterflies fluttered onto peoples hands, shoals of fish swam through the ocean and virtual birds and animals came to life. Each room had a bit of a theatrical set, not heavily detailed, because the heavy lifting was done by the augmented reality. As you were sent to spot a barracuda, you could chase it around the room. A number of tasks could be performed by tapping, rubbing and swiping the screen of the phone.

All the way through there was a Digital David Attenborough to guide you.

The experience was hosted in a Grade I-listed building at Piccadilly Circus, formerly the Virgin Megastore and until recently a disused concrete shell. Lead consortium partner Factory 42, an immersive experience company, worked with EE to restore the building. To help those familiar with the area place it, the Green Planet Experience was run in the building on the

LIVE + WILD

Live + Wild was launched in January 2021 to explore the potential of 5G to help documentary filmmakers deliver live and fast turnaround content from challenging and remote locations.

east side of Piccadilly Circus where Tower Records used to be Behind the scenes the project has been ambitious too, with EE providing cutting edge technology. John Cassy, CEO of project lead Factory 42 said “That has been brilliantly enabled by EE and Ericsson. It’s a real 5G standalone (SA) network, delivering content from the edge, so it’s pretty great stuff.”

Tickets to the attraction were free but ‘sold’ as soon as they became available.

The extremely high production standards come from teamwork, and it’s a credit to Factory 42 that it managed to co-ordinate both big and small organisations to pull it

managed to co-ordinate both big and small organisations to pull it off.

Led by Candour Productions, partnering with communications specialist aql and adventure film and event safety specialists MTN Safety, the project tests the possibilities of streaming live content for broadcast and dispatching raw footage from remote and rural terrains directly back to editing facilities using 5G connectivity

Five extreme endurance and adventure sporting events were chosen as test use cases.

The footage shot on location has also been crafted into observational documentaries and ‘Making Of’ films of each event, which will be available to view on a variety of online platforms and screen festivals towards the

end of the trial period. The first test event took place in June 2021: Live + Wild’s dedicated mobile base station travelled with the team to cliffs in Anglesey, North Wales. The biggest challenge they faced here was that there was no line of sight between the climbers on the cliff and the base station at the top of the cliff, and there was no dry land or access below.

In September 2021, the task Live + Wild undertook was to livestream from the Helvellyn Triathlon in the Lake District. The race covered a one mile swim, 39 mile bike ride and nine mile fell run up and down Helvellyn, England’s third highest peak: extremely varied and challenging terrain.

In November 2021 the challenge was to livestream underground from the Ribblesdale caving system in North Yorkshire. As well as dangerous and very difficult to access terrain, they also had to work around the risks of cave flooding.

In addition, the teams have turned the camera on themselves to create

a series of behind-thescenes films.

Visitors at the UK 5G Showcase can view their series of five ‘Making Of’ films which will provide an insight into how they realised each of the test use cases from start to finish.

The films document the bespoke technical workflow they created for each event designed in order to combat the physical and logistical challenges of livestreaming from remote locations using 5G, which, before, had a limited existing network. Being able to plan and troubleshoot as a consortium enabled Live + Wild to think more creatively and outside the box to customise the tech workflow so it could adapt to a variety of difficult, inaccessible terrains in all weathers.

Live + Wild’s final two testbeds are based in Kielder Forest as they relocate their gallery production on site to livestream at night from the Kielder Observatory. In their final tests they are livestreaming from the sea around Holy Island, also known as Lindisfarne off Northumberland.

The consortium consisted of BBC Studios, 5G mobile network operator EE, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Talesmith and Dimension Studios. There was significant technical input from Ericsson.

rown worked with the project as a venue and promotional partner.

The consortium Studios, 5G mobile network operator EE, Royal Botanic Gardens, The Crown Estate as a venue and promotional partner.

CONNECTED COWES

“Watching the feed come back off a high-speed boat through the goggles makes it all very real. It’s easy to lose one’s balance just standing still in the office!” says Laurence Mead, Regatta Director of Cowes Week Limited, viewing the race through VR goggles.Connected Cowes has been experimenting with high definition 360 degree cameras feeding back

5G EDGE XR

XR may cause motion sickness if lag isn’t reduced to an absolute minimum, and requires high data throughputs to serve fast moving live video – that’s where 5G comes in. Through prototypes based on the experience of watching sport, learning to dance and the construction industry, Edge XR has shown how XR, 5G networks, and Cloud GPU processing can deliver productivity benefits and entertainment experiences that will lead to new opportunities for UK

content from racing yachts in the Solent, which it has been putting on multiple platforms. The company is currently working on integrating that content into the existing Cowes Week app. Available for the first time in 2021 to spectators, Cowes Week believe it is integral to covering a “nonstadium sport” like boat racing. “There is nothing else like it in the sailing world, and using the Connected Cowes resources we are pushing boundaries.”

businesses at home and abroad.

5G mobile networks can deliver more immersive AR and VR experiences. Unlike 3G or 4G, 5G networks can be engineered to minimise latency and deliver the very high data throughputs these types of experience demand.

To accelerate the commercial deployment of the use cases, 5G Edge-XR has shown how high-end graphical processing units (GPUs) located at the edge of the 5G network can be used to offload the burden of computationally demanding tasks from client devices.

The edge-based GPU

The project has uploaded several hours of live television onto YouTube and Facebook over the last few years, and is working on integrating the new 5G content

A particular challenge has been finding a suitable waterproof camera, Mead notes:

“In the end we made up various in-house options and we will further test those in the spring of 2022. We are looking at whether it is viable to have those commercially produced - there doesn’t

seem to be anything on the market that is suitable, in the best of business traditions, if a gap exists, then fill it!” It hasn’t been plain sailing, if you will excuse the pun.

“Everything has been more difficult than we expected, both from a technology and hardware perspective,” Mead acknowledges.

“We knew that the 5G element would stretch capabilities, but we were surprised to find that the required camera technology was not

available. It’s easy to buy a GoPro and record, but to feed live pictures back over 5G proved much harder.”

An event like Cowes Week is heavily reliant on sponsorship, and once races have started the yachts head out all over the Solent, sometimes making it difficult to generate adequate return for sponsors while the yachts are out of sight. Marketing in the modern world has changed from being a “badging exercise”, to being one of building relationships between brands and individuals.For an event like Cowes Week, this will be much easier with the app functioning over 5G and with coverage extended over a wider area.

The organisers are very excited by the work, and remain focused on how it can help build a world-leading sports event out on the water.

compelling case for the value of 5G. Creatives, technologists and system designers have had the opportunity to work together to specify and test network configurations that cut the mustard.

XR experiences are no longer limited by the capability or availability of end user devices. 5G Edge-XR have developed the system so that these experiences can be streamed to just about any device.

capability has enabled the project to deliver a range of prototype immersive applications over 5G aligned to entertainment, education, medical and construction use cases. They have confirmed the

raw capability of edgebased GPU systems, showing how they can enable ubiquitous device agnostic access to AR and VR experiences. The constellation of technologies creates a

“Cloud GPU processing is integral to the project,” says Dr Doug Williams, Project Director. “It enables us to deliver the best experiences to the largest number of people.”

EDEN UNIVERSE

“Tech can communicate the stories that Eden is trying to tell,” says Darren Hoare, Project Lead of Eden Universe, which is bringing science and communication together to broaden and deepen our understanding of the natural world.

Eden Universe’s goal is to engage new audiences with Eden’s mission both at the destination in Cornwall and online. The project incorporates augmented and virtual reality experiences based on building people’s relationships with the natural world.

In partnership with aql, Marshmallow Laser Feast and Meta cameras, Eden Universe has created a rich and immersive experience designed to educate and inspire people not just in the UK, but around the globe.

The project has four teams covering visitor experience, education, health and wellbeing, and arts and culture.

The visitor experience consists of an AR journey around the Rainforest Biome, featuring the Living Lens which enables viewers to see plants through the senses of a mosquito, bee and bat, as well as the Weather Maker, which reveals how carbon and water travel through a tree, highlighting the role of rainforests in cooling the climate.

The high resolution 360 degree cameras provided by Meta create

a vivid, immersive experience for online visitors, letting them explore every aspect of the Rainforest Biome The education team broadcast live from the Rainforest Biome to one thousand students in five Cornwall schools: Tintagel, Delabole, Archbishop Benson, and

feedback from students and teachers alike.

As for health and wellbeing, Eden Universe offers guided VR tours for care home residents in the area.

GREEN HABITAT

Bude Primary Schools; and Bodmin Community College. Delivering bespoke lesson plans to Key Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4, bringing Eden and the AR experiences into classrooms. Using IoT sensors communicating via the 5G network, Eden sends data from within the Rainforest Biome to teachers utilising the Eden Universe online experience. Students can look at the temperature, humidity and light levels in the Eden Project and use the information to further their science education. Eden has received excellent

After being immersed in the experience, a patient suffering from dementia was remarkably calmer, and asked to spend more time in the VR headset. Virtual nature experiences are a promising area of research that Eden hope to continue to explore Eden also hopes to enrich Cornwall arts and culture.

Rainforest Reconnect was a musical wellness experience inspired by nature and live streamed from the Eden Project’s Rainforest Biome, featuring the music of Eden’s artist in residence, Alice Boyd.

The musician created a five -track album translating data from tree leaves into a melody, overlayed with choral music

LIVING LENS LETS VISITORS VIEW THE RAINFORESTS WITH THE EYES OF A MOSQUITO

5G FESTIVAL

“What’s so powerful about 5G Festival is that it’s using technology to augment and enhanceit’s not about replacing,” says Dr Dritan Kaleshi, Director of 5G Technology at Digital Catapult, the lead partner in the 5G Festival project. “It’s about harnessing what 5G and immersive technologies can do to elevate the experience for audiences, and create new opportunities for artists and the wider industry,”

The project has convened leading organisations from across the UK’s arts, entertainment and technology sectorsAudiotonix, Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival, LiveFrom, Mativision, Metropolis Studios, Sonosphere, Virgin Media O2 and Warner Music Group - to create the world’s first 5G powered hybrid immersive festival including live and

remotely collaborating artists and audiences.

The 5G Festival project explores how 5G and virtual and augmented reality can help artists and producers write, rehearse and collaborate remotely together in real time. It’s also examining how audiences at home and in-venue can experience new types of performances.

For the partners behind 5G Festival, tackling latency, the delay or lag in a signal, is the number one priority. With up to 100 times more capacity in the network, 5G will allow for seamless interaction between artists even if they’re performing from different venues.

“We felt it was really important to have ultra low latency,” said David Owens, Head of Technical Trials at Virgin Media O2,” and that proved to be the case if it was just sound or just video.

But by combining sound and video, and particularly the immersive element of audio for musicians, we

saw that artists could tolerate slightly longer latencies than we initially thought.”

Gavin Newman, Brand Director at London’s Metropolis Studios, Europe’s leading independent recording

studio, agreed: “Making the video and audio latency low enough to enable members of a band to rehearse and perform seamlessly with each other really demonstrates the significance of the project and the capability of 5G.” He explains, “It’s incredible to walk into the room and see a drummer playing as part of a band whilst the rest are in another place; it feels very much like the band are all in the same room.”

Another major challenge tackled head on by the project has been using 5G to transmit real-time livestreamed content in virtual and augmented reality allowing the band to see each other, and provide content for audiences at home and in venue. Mativision’s Common Service Platform uses multiple video and audio streams to deliver a hybrid audience experience, including an AR stream from band members wearing Nreal AR glasses. Only 5G can deliver this experience as Wifi can’t support an audience full of devices. Sonosphere has developed a spatial audio set up which transports remote viewers to the centre of the venue regardless of where they physically are using Audiotonix AoIP and immersive technologies, in addition to a custom-built Dolby Atmos studio at Metropolis Studios for remotely mixing multiple real time audio streams. 5G Festival concluded in a showcase event in March 2022 at the Brighton Dome: for further information visit www.5gfestival.co.uk

1/10TH OF A BLINK OF OF AN EYE

LATENCY LOW ENOUGH FOR BANDS PERFORM TOGETHER SEAMLESSLY DEMONSTRATES THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT AND CAPABILITY OF 5G

5G VISTA

The rock band Severe Tire Damage: www.std.org might sound like Spinal Tap-style spoof, but one small corner of the internet will be forever theirs. On June 24th, 1993 the group performed the first concert to be transmitted over the internet. Band members were all computer researchers at Xerox PARC, Apple and Digital, but what made it interesting was that they were the guinea pigs for a radical new model for broadcasting data: one to many or ‘multicast’ transmissions, the M-Bone.

“The M-Bone is connected to, well, a glorified dog and bone,” Sky News’ reporter Jon Davis explained in 1994.

M-Bone and multicast is vastly more efficient than the conventional model for internet traffic, which requires data for every device to make the same laborious journey. Multicast allows data to serve thousands, which made a lot of sense, particularly if they were in the same location.

Alas, almost thirty years later, and despite many successful trials of one-to-many multicast transmissions, everyone is still using the conventional model. When we watch video today our devices talk to a content server located on an ISP. So, if twenty thousand audience members at a stadium are all hitting that content server, that’s a lot of needless journeys, particularly when they’re all watching action taking place a few yards away. Why not put the server in the stadium?

That’s the challenge at the core of the Vista project.A DCMS-funded trial, Vista stands for Video in Stadia Technical Assistance. In February, Vista presented a showcase live football match at the MK Dons Stadium, providing a small group of fans with multi-angle views of the game, bonus interviews with players, and a full broadcast feed, all via the Vista application. Consortium members are the Digital TV Group the DTG (project management and co-ordination), tech lead Virgin Media O2, for the 5G network and the 700Mhz spectrum, Imaginary Pictures (cameras and production), Rohde & Schwarz (broadcast systems from camera output to transmission) Ori Industries (edge computing for live sports streaming), the University of Surrey (security), Global Wireless Solutions (customer research), Ateme (software encoding) and Digital Catapult (5G testbed network provision and validation of business cases)

Despite regular public trials of multicasting, such as BBC

FUT UR E TV

transmissions for the 2004 Olympics, Alex Buchan, Project Lead and Strategic Technologist at DTG, says the absence of a business model has always been a hindrance in wider public take-up. While multicasting alleviates the problem of bandwidth-clogging overload which makes popular streams so expensive to host, sticking plasters like content delivery networks evolved faster than multicast protocols and services. With 5G, all that may change, and the pieces fall into place. “The main aims for the project were to showcase 5G Broadcast Technology at a live sporting event and how it can provide enhanced content while overcoming capacity challenges faced by stadiums, researching how the customer would engage, and what they would like to see from end services and pricing,” says Buchan. The goal was to outline a route to market through business focus groups and through working with equipment vendors to encourage adoption such as in handsets.

“In a busy stadium multicast can deliver high quality video

providing venue information. Efficiency itself is a major factor in making in-venue broadcasting much more affordable and appealing. For stadiums that have sporadic events it becomes commercially feasible,” says Buchan. “Twickenham has perhaps only five or six events annually and that’s where they make their money for the whole year.”

content to mobile devices,” says Buchan. “It’s a very cheap way of deploying the technology. If you’re doing unicast, you need a lot of base stations. 5G Broadcast needs maybe two to cover the whole stadium.”

The main logistical challenge was finding a handset that would support 5G Broadcast. The consortium uses a software defined receiver (SR) built into a custom Vista app that can run on any modern smartphone. More recently, Qualcomm has stepped up to create a hardware platform that supports 5G Broadcast, in conjunction with Vista partner Rohde & Schwartz, but that won’t produce silicon until after the trial is complete.

“The most excitement came for distributed events, such as golf, Formula 1 or multi-stage music festivals for example, where you’ve got a broad range of activities going on and you can’t see everything at the same time,” Buchan explains.

But there’s clearly opportunity for increasing fan engagement with for example pre-match interviews, and

It’s certainly been a long journey, with a few dead-end detours along the way. The TV industry wanted to bring linear live TV into people’s hands, developing the DVB-H mobile TV standard. Fifteen years ago you could find this in the ungainly ‘Lobster’ handset and a smattering of niche devices like the Nokia N96, the flop successor the ubiquitous N95. DVB-H fell into the classic chicken and egg trap. Few people could receive the signals, and the TV industry had overestimated the demand for a paying market. Then came a succession of mobile multicast standards built into the 3GPP stack: MBMS, eMBMS (enhanced MBMS) and FeMBMS (further-enhanced MBMS). Finally, we’re at 5G Broadcasting.

Project Vista is keenly aware that market demand is key, and Digital Catapult’s sustainability report will provide the market with keen insights into what people might pay for or not.

Almost thirty years after Severe Tire Damage first cranked up their amplifiers it’s the culmination of a journey in the evolution of the internet for broadcasting.

ONE FOR ALL

BT builds the future to protect the past

Creating a

is

Roman God Janus looked backwards and forwards. And that’s the job of BT CTO Howard Watson. He has an old red phone box in his garden, and started his career in 1984, working on the first digital BT system, System X.

He’s now responsible for looking forward, building a system which unites fixed and mobile technologies using the latest virtual networking know-how. It’s the balancing act which meets the demands of the future without breaking the service for the millions of Brits who rely on BT which makes Howard Watson’s role so demanding. Watson explains, “System X was designed nearly 40 years ago for a 15-year life. In 2022, we’ve still got System X and its close sister, System Y, switches in 5,500 exchanges.”

The future is one that takes the latest technologies of virtualisation and cloud computing and applies it to both the mobile and fixed networks - something that has never been integrated before, each with its own legacies and demands; part of the BT modernisation programme. “It’s a big programme,” says Watson. “On the network side and on the access side, there are 25 million fibre to the premises homes Openreach need to have connected by 2026, but it’s important that we also talk about what’s happening in the core of the network.”

“Right now, an operator like BT essentially operates off two cores, one for mobile and one for fixed. We are rapidly bringing those two together. We’ve already converged it in terms of the traffic running over the core IP network, and the difference there is enormous. It’s still a factor of about 80 to one in terms of fixed IP traffic coming from everybody’s homes, from the 11 million broadband customers we’ve got, and mobile data traffic coming from 30 million or so mobiles. We see 25 terabits per second at peak time from the fixed network, and about 900 gigabits per second from the mobile network.”

Watson explains that the 5G core, supplied by Ericsson, is fundamental to the

modernisation of the entire BT network. “We took the decision to make it completely cloud-native, though. We’re building it on top of an ecosystem of Canonical, Juniper, and Cisco compute. It means we’re doing all the hard work now of building the 5G core, Ericsson’s 5G core, as a Network Function Virtualisation Infrastructure from a set of containers that we build onto that platform. That’s really a transformational step.”

The flexibility of the approach means the system is ready for 5G standalone, the generation of 5G which supports advanced features such as network slicing, allowing multiple networks within the network, advanced location, blink of an eye responses and much more. EE is already working on standalone in some projectsfor instance, The Green Planet Augmented Reality experience in London’s Piccadilly used standalone technology for its private network.

It’s not just about how and what the new BT core network does, it’s about where it does it too. “Because we’ve built on network cloud components, we can also then use that architecture for where we actually put the core functions, so that brings edge into it, as well.”

It also brings security and resilience with functions duplicated so that there is no single point of failure. “The first mobile cloud core is going in six locations for the user plane, six for the control plane, two for the tooling plane, and then that will grow geographically and numerically as customer base grows on that.”

In time, as fixed communication catches up with mobile technologies, functions of the core which are currently only used for mobile will be applied to fixed. “What you’ll see there is some of the key authentication, authorization functions will start to be combined. IMS is the same platform, so VoLTE, Voice over 5G when it comes along, and fixed digital voice are all on the same platform. Again, that, ultimately, will migrate onto the network cloud. The key initial use case is the 5G core.”

Part of the technology which will make the cloud based future possible is the

introduction of new IT vendors to the telecoms market through OpenRAN.

“We’ve been doing OpenRAN research for a long time. We started three or four years ago back in Adastral Park in the labs. We were involved in the Telecom Infra Project, which is the one that Facebook originally sponsored, but is now run by industry. Working with Nokia we’ve kicked off a trial in Hull using what’s called the RIC, RAN Intelligent Controller, part of the OpenRAN ecosystem.”

The reference to Nokia shows that Watson doesn’t see OpenRAN as just being about bringing in new suppliers. “There’s a different question there about diversification versus OpenRAN. I think we need the established suppliers to also open their architectures, and then we can

converged core

the way BT will be able to cater for growing data demands, but it requires a delicate touch and an understanding of how we got to where we are.

We see 25 terabits per second at peak time from the fixed network, and 900 gigabits per second from the mobile network

introduce these third-party components into it. We are working really hard with Nokia and Ericsson around the opening up of the architecture.”

It’s not just mobile and fixed that have to be looked after, there is a technology in between. “As part of this modernization, we’re looking at how Wi-Fi fits in. We have 6.4 million Wi-Fi hotspots in the UK, including consumers’ devices. How do we better use that for o oading weak mobile signal areas and make sure that all three networks - so fixed into buildings, Wi-Fi on the move, mobile on the move - have a single authentication across them so it’s far less clunky than it is today? That’s the goal we’re looking for, and we can do it through convergence.”

All this looking to the future has to be

measured against support for the past. The move to a full IP network means making a lot of equipment redundant. Legacy apparatus is becoming unreliable. “I can see now, three months of the year when it’s hot, the failure rate is starting to get quite challenging on that infrastructure. That’s the primary reason why Openreach has set December 2025 as the deadline for PSTN switch-o . You can’t buy new cards any more, components fail on those cards, and feeding spares from ourselves with compaction has got a limited runway left.”

Whilst important, the move requires some delicate handling of some devices that use the legacy PSTN network. “At the end of the day, what we don’t want to do is drive stu through in a way that is going to essentially damage people’s experience of

connectivity. We have many PSTN customers still to migrate across onto digital voice, and we are making sure that the more challenging migrations will be put towards the end of that process so that we can have all of the right technical solutions that we need.”

The BT story is very much one of convergence, not just of fixed and mobile but of the future and the past. Perhaps Watson isn’t like Janus after all. He’s not looking backwards and forwards at the same time but just in one, converged, overarching direction to make sure we all travel forward without getting left behind.

For more information on BT’s plans, visit https://www.bt.com/about/bt/ourcompany/group-businesses/networks

Rural Projects

Countryside connectivity brings prosperity to rural communities. Often the hardest to reach places with very poor broadband. Using 5G to give last mile coverage and being used in agricultural, tourism and safety applications is a way to unlock the places feel left behind. Given the economics of rural coverage they have been left behind.

MO CF WU RD

applications is a way to unlock the places feel left behind. Given the

Living in rural areas presents many unique social, economic and safety challenges not found in urban centres. The recent global pandemic has further underscored the need for proper highspeed connectivity in rural areas. The Dorset Council-led 5G Rural Dorset (5GRD) project explores how next generation connectivity can help overcome some of these challenges.

The project seeks to address some of the issues that modern agricultural practices present. By using 5G connectivity with drone imaging and sensor measurement technology, the aim is to show that crop irrigation and weed control can be more efficient and environmentally friendly, resulting in fewer harmful chemicals entering the water course. Using next generation connectivity on agricultural robots will allow farmers to collect and analyse the huge amounts of data needed to properly map a field and identify only the areas where weeds are growing and need spraying. The overall increase in data

available to the farmer will make farming more productive and support provenance in food production.

5GRD installed the world’s first 700 MHz 5G standalone network along part of the Dorset coastline which serves a number of coastal safety use cases. One instance of this is providing connectivity and equipment to the Lulworth First Responders so that they now have 5G data coverage to the

shoreline. This aids them in their ability to respond to incidents, call in the right resources for an emergency (such as the air ambulance) and ultimately save lives.

Cliff falls are a national problem which is worthy of research and development trials, as they are expensive and time consuming to monitor using traditional methods. The project monitors land stability

Jurassic Coast. The work trial has deployed 5G connected NBIoT sensors that collect data, including acceleration and temperature, which is then processed and analysed in the cloud for interpretation by experts from the British Geological Survey.

As a communityfocused project, 5GRD are looking at ways in which 5G can be used to improve the wellbeing of Dorset’s many elderly and vulnerable residents. NBIoT devices collect anonymised data such as movement and intake. This information can be monitored by the council team and relatives to provide an early

improve the wellbeing of

indication of any problems a VIP (vulnerable independent person) might be having. The project was also the first in the UK to demonstrate Neutral Hosting over 5G with unique cores. This would allow multiple network operators a slice of the 5G network, thereby eliminating the need to deploy their own equipment and infrastructure at cost.

5G RURAL DORSET

WORLD ’S FIRST

and cliff movement at key points along the

WALES UNLOCKED

Delivered by the Welsh government, alongside project partners, 5G Wales Unlocked has helped communities, businesses and can even count sheep. The project has covered the four sectors of transport, education, tourism and agriculture, connecting two locations.

Project partner BT has provided permanent 5G coverage upgrading masts transmitting in the 700 Mhz band in both Raglan and Ebbw Vale.

This investment has sent a strong message of support to the rural and valleys communities across Wales that BT is ready to commit in

deploying across the country.

Nick Speed, BT Group Director for Wales said “We are excited to be involved in the 5G Wales Unlocked project. We’re pleased to be providing the 5G connectivity for this trial, and showing what this technology can do in rural areas. Using a localised ultrafast 5G network to power things like artificial intelligence and connected vehicles, we can explore how the latest tech can help improve various aspects of life, from tackling rural isolation, to improving transport and bolstering tourism. Connected, smart technology has the potential to help rural economies grow and encourage young people

to stay in these areas. Developments in 5G are moving quickly so it’s vital that rural areas are not left behind.”

At the 15th century Raglan Castle, Jam Creative Studios working with Cadw, the custodians of 130 of Wales’ heritage sites, has created Augmented Reality experiences so that visitors can see what the castle looked like in its original form and, if they don’t like it, blow it up with a cannon! Play bowls on the perfectly manicured lawn with King Charles 1 or catch-up with Edward the Inventor, before going on a quest which, if successful, reveals the most incredible reconstruction of the beautiful Fountain Courtyard in the castle.

The project comes to life with the 360 degree live stream from the isolated castle to the south Wales valley town of Ebbw Vale where the project has installed Wales’s first 5G enabled 360 degree Immersive Classroom.

The Classroom, supplied by BT partner Full360, is integrated with Cisco technology through its Webex Boards. This opens up educational experiences to schools which don’t have the opportunities to go on school trips –they can now visit the likes of the Eiffel Tower, Ground Zero or any of the other UK5G projects – wherever there is 5G they can be immersed.

A more prosaic application at the castle is monitoring sewage tanks. Alerts are triggered in case of a overspills, a case where Cadw does not want an immersive experience. Utterberry sensors also monitor temperature, humidity, structural integrity of the castle itself and provides information of footfall and dwell time at the site, providing real-time data via an online dashboard, helping Cadw to better understand and preserve the site for future generations.

Technology partners Utterberry and Appyway have contributed their 5G sensors and applications to develop an integrated multimodal transport infrastructure in Ebbw Vale. Visitors can use Appyway’s App to view live car parking spaces using a system of 5G-enabled sensors and cameras. Utterberry’s sensors accompanied by the video analytics undertaken by the team at project partner’s

Cardiff University, provides passengers with live (and historic) detailed information on how many passengers are on board each vehicle giving confidence passengers can get a seat, as well as being able to ensure Covid safety measures. The sensors also provide a range of information of interest and importance to the bus operator. A connected information ‘Totem’ will be a central resource to bring together all the transport data, as well as a focal point for the partner local authority, Blaenau Gwent, to ensure community messages are displayed. Monmouthshire County Council have been fundamental in securing the support of the community in Raglan from engaging the local village school to bringing the farming community on board to recognise the benefits that 5G can bring to the area.

The project has been working with a 150 acre farm, used for a mixture of small-scale arable and sheep farming. It is now equipped with sensors from Utterberry to monitor unexpected vehicle movement and environmental factors. Cardiff University is working on video analytics from Cisco Meraki Cameras to enhance security and farm safety while Android based software counts sheep.

With aroud 85 per cent of North Yorkshire classed as super sparse, many people would not think that a digital, data and technology revolution is taking place. In the Yorkshire Dales, however, Mobile Access North Yorkshire has worked with and for residents to install a 5G network, developing innovations that can be delivered to the region and benefit the wider area.

FOREST

connectivity. MANY has overcome these problems. Ideas have been formalised, providing solutions to be delivered which are right for the different areas, whilst building a clear picture of how to deliver 5G into very rural towns. The team at Lancaster University Management School has developed an engagement toolkit to support future complex projects.

cases focused

5G Connected Forest’s use cases focused on three research areas: visitor economy attractions, robotic environmental management and a programme to develop 5G skills and innovation.

The forest area’s history was brought to to life through group interactive augmented reality experiences blending legend and fact together, telling the story of Robin Hood and the history of Rufford Country Park.

Phil Hasted, from consortium partner Gooii explains, “In Sherwood Forest we’re using augmented reality headsets to create a virtual Robin Hood, alongside Marian, Little John and a whole cast of characters from the legend.” Entertainment pods with 5G enabled content educates and entertains guests with a mix of legend and fact. Innovative app based experience ‘Tag-in-the-

Park’ provides a technology-rich, moviebased user experience that brings park visitors’ journeys to life.

To ensure that the forest habitat is protected and maintained for future generations to use this research area, this case focuses on managing the delicate forest environment. Robotic rangers in the form of the robotic dog Gizmo, alongside unmanned drone vehicles, assist and support the forestry management. The health of the sense forest system developed not only ensures that the health of the forest can be managed, but that the technology is also able to be deployed in emergency situations to support the team on the ground.

Preparing the workforce, especially young people entering the world of work, for these changes will be a key element of the project’s ambition to enable the successful adoption of mobile technologies and consequently the

economic growth of Nottinghamshire. Working through Nottinghamshire’s new Digital Innovation Centre at the Worksop Turbine, a 5G careers programme has been successfully piloted with almost two hundred West Nottinghamshire College students, with the ambition of rolling it out to colleges and sixth Forms across the county through 2022.

The role of 5G in the project is integral because it requires low latency and high bandwidth.

The much lower latency enables users of the interactive, holographic movie experience to enjoy grouped experiences, ensuring that the equipment is able to send and receive more information than ever before. It is much the same with the robotic environmental management equipment: the robots are constantly sending data back to the forest management system, which enables quicker responses to real-time

In Coverdale, 5G has provided access to the latest technology advancements by providing a low latency network that delivers real time data.

On a basic level, it has given the area fast and reliable broadband and a reliable mobile signal this is something communities have told MANY that they have previously missed out on.

Local family the Browns said, ‘Young people tend to move away from Coverdale at working age but they are keen to move back when they are ready to start a family.It’s idyllic, a chocolate box of a place to live, but it doesn’t offer what families want.’

Engagement has been integral. Due to the pandemic this has mostly been onlinewhich is ironic when working in an area without reliable

MANY focuses on four areas, all integral to North Yorkshire: Tourism, GP and hospital appointments, environmental monitoring, and mission critical communications. Tourism is a £9 billion industry in Yorkshire. Although crippled by Covid, it is bouncing back quickly. 5G is now providing a digital quest to visitors at The Forbidden Corner, Leyburn, a labyrinth of tunnels, chambers, and follies in a four acre garden in the heart of Tupgill Park. Launching when they reopen in April, it is predicted to provide a ripple effect across rural businesses.

The project also explores the use of a helikite to provide temporary 5G coverage to an area which may experience temporarily high footfall during events. The Helikite Team, led by the University of York, has explored using the same technology in Land Rovers, which enable a local hotspot. This supports the project’s mission-critical communications, which focus on Category 2 Emergency Responders. Mountain rescue teams are now trialling real

time data to enhance their search and rescue missions.

The next two projects, led by North Yorkshire County Council, are more community focused. A key recommendation from the North Yorkshire’s Rural Commission report was to implement innovative technology solutions, in which MANY will play a significant role.

The 5G network is now supporting rural residents to stay independent for longer, by introducing video GP and hospital appointments alongside other communication tools. MANY report that this is enhancing their mental health and wellbeing, as well as reducing the NHS’s carbon footprint and saving time for patients and nurses.

Finally, the council is leading the environmental monitoring use case. This uses 5G to monitor the changing climate, enabling us to react early and prevent flooding. On a wider scale, it allows the The North Yorkshire SMART places project to learn and develop best practice, which can enhance plans to deliver

better services, reduce cost and save resources. Working tirelessly behind these is Quickline

Communications: the lead technical team. Working with consortium partners, the team finds correct mast sites utilising WSDM software developed by the project, which now has a beam optimiser feature. Network

monitoring developed via Lancaster University School of Computing has enabled the team to pinpoint problems. This has provided intelligence which has been fed back to suppliers.

The work carried out has also involved collaborating with several Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs),

providing them with the chance to carry out in-field testing using the 5G standalone network.

Paul Howard, Technical Direct at D-Link explains, “Having access to the Quickline realworld network for testing has enabled D-Link to ensure our 5G CPE and ODU devices perform with greater throughput and stability which will, in turn, enable Quickline to deliver outstanding high speed internet to customers who have suffered from poor connectivity for too long.”

Following a successful bid to extend the project, MANY’s work will continue later into 2022. The team will continue to work with the community, both in Coverdale and a new location of Arkengarthdale.

THE HELIKITE IS A CROSS BETWEEN A KITE AND A BALLOON. IT PROVIDES A STABLE PLATFORM FOR PROVIDING A MOBILE SERVICE FOR EMERGENCY RESPONDERS

NEW THINKING

Empowering communities to take control of their connectivity was the New Thinking that drove the project. It brought together a consortium of organisations from across the public, private and academic spheres. They worked closely with people living and working in the Orkney Islands, the Borderlands, and Northern Ireland to understand their needs in order to provide them with the practical tools, services, support, and guidance they need to consider building and operating their own next generation communications networks.

New Thinking is designed specifically to make this next generation of connectivity not simply possible for rural communities, but a practical, financially sustainable reality – and one that they can have autonomy over.

The aim of New Thinking was to produce a toolkit for rural communities that wish to establish sustainable 5G connectivity in their area.

The toolkit serves as a practical guide for these communities, providing them with the tools and confidence they need to take control of their connectivity. With a focus on remote and rural areas, it illustrates all aspects that communities need to consider. It contains new ideas for business operations, financing models, applications and services developed within the New Thinking

90 SECONDS

project trialled in Orkney. This includes options for technology and architecture choices, but also goes far beyond this. The toolkit includes: sections that guide communities through the aspects of deploying a network, such as spectrum sharing; business case and business model support, to understand how to build a sustainable rural network; financial model options, building on the work of community financing for renewable energy assets; it covers the commercial relationships between local independent networks and the big MNOs. Perhaps most importantly, it includes that all-important ‘knowhow’: the things you didn’t know you didn’t know, from spectrum licencing to planning to community engagement.

You can’t build such an ambitious project without the goodwill and sincerest effort of a range of partners and stakeholders. New Thinking has been very fortunate to have a wonderful set of core partners based around the Orkney Islands. They came together in the very first wave of 5G Projects to build the ground breaking 5G RuralFirst demonstrator.

Building on this working partnership were Cisco, the University of Strathclyde, Shefa (Faroese Telecom), CloudNet (the incumbent Wireless Internet service Provider on Orkney), the Orkney

Islands Council, and (on the use-case side) the BBC and the Agri-EPI Centre.

This core team was augmented with the additional capabilities needed to round out the concept from demonstrator to replicable model with the toolkit. This included New Thinking’s friends from across the pond, Federated Wireless, who brought tremendous experience and capability in spectrum sharing and community use cases. This meant adding Pure Leapfrog as a community investment specialist, to advise on how communities should think about

financing models. New Thinking needed Neutral Wireless and Bogons to bring real world experience and knowhow to the challenge of community 5G. This meant adding new partners who could bring further evidence of the use cases and enthusiasm for rural connectivity. This included Zoetis, the largest global animal health company. It also included the Universities of Glasgow and Surrey, to bring in further cutting-edge thinking. Finally, New Thinking needed other local communities to validate the approach: Borderlands Council and the Rural Community Network in Northern Ireland provided this. The findings from the project are captured in the Toolkit: the main purpose of the project has been to codify learnings and approaches. Financially sustainable community networks are hard to build, but 5G gives us a stronger chance than we have ever had before.

WESTRAY IS ONE OF THE MOST REMOTE PLACES IN EUROPE. COMMUNICATIONS IS A PRIORITY FOR THE COMMUNITY AND THE PROJECT HAS DELIVERED FIBRE AND 5G

THE WORLD’S SHORTEST SCHEDULED FLIGHT FROM WESTRAY TO PAPA WESTRAY

MULTI OPERATOR NEUTRAL HOST

Salisbury is one of the bestconnected places in the UK with high levels of fibre availability, yet drive for ten minutes to the beautiful Chalke Valley and connectivity is diabolical. Broadband of less than 2Mb/s is common and mobile coverage is worse. Operator maps may show good coverage but down in the dips there is no signal. MONeH stands for Multi Operator Neutral Host, which runs a community mobile network in England’s biggest not spot.

The coverage issue was solved by using small cells, usually deployed in urban environments, on rural residents’ homes.

Instead of putting masts on hilltops, MONeH installed them where the people are. A Neutral Host approach gives the

option for residents to either use SIM cards from the consortium lead partner Telet Research, or from any other operator.

One of the first sites to be deployed was the Queens Head Pub. This used a N77 cell from Cable Free to provide mobile service to the centre of the village of Broad Chalk. One of the areas covered by this is the nearby community centre, known as The Hub which was set up with a wireless router or CPE to give high speed Wi-Fi to the site. The pub and hub project provides an invaluable place for residents to mix face to face and online mixing Queens Head landlord Ronnie Butler said, “While some people like isolation, the ability to offer high speed connectivity has been as much of an attraction as the locally brewed Gritchies IPA”.

A second use case reduced the amount of nitrogen-based fertiliser used at the Shaftsbury

estate. Soil probe technology, developed for Perseverance, the Mars lander, analysed the Wiltshire earth. A 5G link sent significant quantities of data back to the cloud to be processed by farming data specialists Map of Ag. Data was processed and a profile sent to a tractor towing a variable rate spreader. Fertiliser was only spread where it was needed.

To do this a portable mast, capable of 5G N77, 4G and 5G N38 and 4G coverage was deployed, and used in conjunction with both the farm’s own fibre and Starlink satellite backhaul.

A second analysis will be run in the spring and it’s estimated that the savings on fertiliser will have a one-year payback on the permanent cell installation and have great environmental benefit. Farmer Andy Meecham said “We recognise we are custodians of the soil, anything which we can do to promote its health is of benefit to the farm, the community, and future generations”.

The three partners in MONeH were Telet Research, Ch4lke Mobile and Blue Sky Hosting. Telet provided most of the technology, building a custom 5G core using technology from best-inclass suppliers. Ch4lke Mobile worked with Telet to provide a local face of the project. The desperate need for connectivity meant there was no 5G resistance. Blue Sky coordinated the backhaul, looked after the hosting at Telehouse and was the project liaison with DCMS,

managing budgets and milestones. Telco Electronics in Bicester provided invaluable support, development and testing, and hosted a cell on the St. John

The Baptist church in the Oxfordshire village of Preston Bisset which also suffers from poor mobile coverage. This demonstrated the ability to have isolated islands of coverage outside the contiguous coverage in the Chalke Valley.

The two major barriers to deployment were access to radio equipment and backhaul. With band 77 still being relatively new we can hope that will be eased in time. The backhaul issue has deeper roots. Many of the areas where the project wanted to deploy are classed by BT Openreach as having connectivity available. In practice the local ISPs found getting the connections working in these locations took between seven and ten months with very poor information flow from BT as to what was delaying its end.

The project pioneered the use of Local Access Licence Spectrum, with licences for Band 38 The greatest benefit of MONeH was the relationships built. Some formal, like the work with Ofcom on spectrum processes and membership of the GSMA. Some more informal like working together with the other projects. It was also commercially beneficial. Telet provided services to Liverpool 5G, MANY and 5G Smart Junctions. The result is a “cookie cutter” system for fixing 5G not spots. The first programme in rural Wales is already underway.

A SOIL ANALYSING BUGGY ENSURES THAT THE OPTIMUM AMOUNT OF FERTILISER IS USED, REDUCING WASTE AND BENEFITTING THE ENVIRONMENT

BAXTER

SCOTLAND 5GCONNECT

The Scotland 5G Centre has a principal goal to accelerate the deployment and adoption of 5G. This will allow businesses and communities to reap the benefits. As the national centre for 5G in Scotland, it provides the gateway to advanced connectivity.

Lara Moloney, Head of Scotland 5G Connect reports, “Working with our founding partners at the University of Strathclyde, University of Glasgow and Scottish Futures Trust, we’re raising awareness of 5G and its capabilities; providing insights where 5G has supported businesses; and offering access to demonstration and development environments via our network of private 5G testbeds.”

As part of this initiative, The Centre launched the S5GConnect programme with the rollout of hubs across Scotland. Each tailored to its region with a focus on supporting relevant sectors.

Currently it has three hubs in place: Dumfries, Dundee and Forth Valley.

The Dumfries hub is a collaboration between South of Scotland Enterprise and the Crichton Trust, focusing on the agri-tech and healthcare sectors in the context of their rural economy. At the physical launch of the hub, a 5G testbed was installed to demonstrate guests communicating with a clinician in London through 3D hologram. Scotland 5GConnect advises on

potential business opportunities and scopes out benefits of a 5g network. This allows communities not served by current providers to consider options for future growth.

S5GConnect’s core priority is to engage with local businesses to give them a better understanding of how 5G can transform their enterprise. Moloney continues, “The businesses often have a lightbulb moment where they see how a challenge could be approached to save time or money Others see the opportunities the capability can bring for a long-term competitive advantage. Companies can test their products within our private testbed environment, and we provide technical support free of charge. We are also enabling use cases for organisations to test private 5G networks on their site and ensure they have a proof of concept to back their business case for future investment.”

The hub network offers a range of private 5G environments, from a

Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (NDAC) in Dumfries, to an Ericsson Industry Connect environment. They aim to provide a range of capabilities and capacities so small and medium-sized businesses can test in the most suitable environment for their service or product. It will also be introducing a pop up 5G network option shortly for applications in rural environments, enabling businesses to take the connectivity out of the testbed walls.

S5GConnect also has a range of devices to connect to the network available, which is all supported by Mobile (Multi-Access) Edge

Compute (MEC) to facilitate the data loads.

Alongside the S5GConnect programme, the Centre is also working on other projects which are already showing an impressive return on investment.

The 5G urban testbed, based at the University of Glasgow, is bringing smart technology into the lives of students and staff. Most recently, the urban project team built a robotic arm which uses a haptic feedback controller, allowing users to feel senses of touch, motion and pressure. The project has paid dividendsalready delivering a significant return on the Centre’s investment of £1.6 million, netting more than a 6-fold return to date and provides a blueprint to develop new commercial opportunities.

Last year, the University of Strathclyde’s StrathSDR team engineered a world first stand-alone private network for sports broadcasting using shared spectrum in the 3.8 to 4.2 GHz, bringing

live segments to a worldwide audience from a 5G handheld camera at the Monster Energy British Grand Prix. The Scotland 5G Centre is keen to look for further opportunities to test the technology with live broadcasting.

Moloney reflects on the lessons S5GConnect has learnt form the project: “During the 6 months I have been in the role, the process to deploy new 5G testbeds has positively developed. Being too ambitious with consortiums before the hub is established can stall the work before it even begins. Now we have an approach to set up the 5G environment in a more streamlined manner, still involving stakeholders, but bringing the network in as the hub itself has the resources and capability to manage the activity. We currently have one live with five to be installed this year, and every time we go through the process we learn something new.”

The technology is always evolving, with access to devices and configuration requirements evolving too. This means that projects have to ensure the activities at each phase of work are reviewed to see what can be done better.

Moloney adds, “We wouldn’t be able to do this without our amazing technical advisors, project management team and all of the dedicated Business Engagement Managers. We are quite a small team with big ambitions, so every day I am thankful to have their support and commitment as they really are what keeps driving each project

1.6M INVESTMENT FROM ONE PROJECT HAS ALREADY DELIVERED A 6-FOLD ROI TO DATE

LARA MOLONEY SC

WHAT IF USING POWER MORE EFFICIENTLY COULD CONNECT THE ENTIRE WORLD?

The step up from 4G to 5G is more like a sheer cliff of power demand. But what if we could do more with less? ADI’s breakthroughs in power efficiency are taking a truly connected future from a pipedream, to an inevitability.

Analog Devices. Where what if becomes what is. See What If: analog.com/WhatIf

Health and Social Care

Having the latest technology, says Ann Williams, isn’t what matters, rather the difference that simply having a private network can make to improving public services. Of all the DCMS Testbeds and Trials, Liverpool’s consortium was unique in its focus on delivering real outcomes in the UK’s most deprived areas, reflected in the name - Liverpool 5G Create: Connecting Health and Social Care.

“We’ve now got our own private network for civic services and the NHS, and we can give it to the public. Children have access to it. We’ve given devices configured for our network and put them into health and social care. We’ve got alerts for monitoring people in care homes that we didn’t have before,” says Williams, Liverpool Council’s lead on the project.

The coronavirus pandemic accelerated the digitisation of NHS services by fifteen years, she explains. But that gave public bodies a new headache: the cost of delivering these services exploded. Williams identifies being

able to meet this challenge as the network’s biggest benefit.

“Data costs have shot up – and that’s taken money away from front line services. But we’ve demonstrated to public authorities that there are options to manage data costs. You can have your own private network, and take control over it,” she explains.

That said, Liverpool’s network does tout some technology firsts for the UK. It’s a network-of-

networks that encompasses some bleeding edge technologies. For example, a gigabitspeed 60Ghz millimetre wave mesh network was designed and installed by Bristol-based chip company BluWave on street lamps, connected to the city council’s fibre network. These are hybrid units supporting a low power a LoRaWAN backhaul. The result is that care homes have been fully networked, allowing a number of

innovative new applications and services to be implemented.

These include Vitalerter, which uses AI and sensors to monitor a care home resident’s vital signs. MySense is a range of equipment to monitor a patient’s nutrition and hydration. Panman, covered in Issue 8, is a networked medication dispenser that has seen an increase in adherence to medication regimes set out by doctors. That

Care for people in hospitals is expensive and impersonal. Bringing it into people’s homes is good for those treating and being treated. Modern technology enables the virtual house call as two of the projects have demonstrated. It is vital that those being cared for do not have to learn about what makes the tech tick. The systems need to fit around people, not people around the systems.

LIVERPOOL 5G

ANN WILLIAMS

could save Liverpool’s NHS local health authority up to £2.5 million a year. Care homes were no longer so isolated from the community once they were networked.

Coronavirus interventions added to the challenges facing the Liverpool 5G team. Williams cites the example of public libraries closing just as people became more reliant on digital access. Libraries were the only spaces where some could access the digital services.

“As local authorities we’re trying to do more online but it’s highlighted digital poverty – if people don’t have enough money to pay for the basics in life then broadband and mobile phone contracts with lots of data are a luxury.”

Like so many of the other Testbeds and Trials Liverpool is stalled for want of 5G equipment, but it has already proved the very real difference networking can make to real lives. And from the lessons it’s learned, Liverpool is ready to provide a blueprint for others to follow.

Williams cites greater control, greater security and the know-how to write better SLAs with the service provider.

WEST MERCIA RURAL 5G

West Mercia

Rural 5G’s goal is to streamline healthcare by implementing 5G and extended reality (XR) in care homes across Worcestershire and Shropshire, which are areas with aging populations. The project aims to provide more personalised and efficient healthcare for the community.

Nearly one million people live across the two local authorities, with approximately 340,000 living in rural settings.

“This dispersed population makes it hard for small businesses to test new ideas and adds cost to the demand for health and social care,” explains Joseph

McArdle, Director of Health & Medical Innovation and Project Director.

The pandemic has only accelerated this demand for healthcare services. In 2021 to 22, adult social care accounted for 268 million pounds of net expenditure of both councils (47 per cent) although for the more rural area this was closer to 60 per cent.

West Mercia have afforded new opportunities for a small rural business to safely develop and co-create new product with NHS partners in a safe and stable environment through the Connected Workers programme, through which a connected camera allows the elderly person and clinician to communicate more effectively. The advantage is that the

nurse or clinician can see what’s going on - as opposed to a telephone call, where they can only hear. The use of Connected Workers is also beneficial for patients as they can stay in the familiar setting of their care home, and it saves them the risk of exposure to covid in hospitals.

West Mercia Rural 5G have also developed an Augmented Reality (AR) programme, which will enable the observation of progress in improvements in gait and movement remotely. It will also allow the clinician to have direct input to the service user on how physical exercises may enhance their ease of movement.

This use case will show the use of AR in enhancing musculoskeletal care, expanding it outside the doctor’s office and integrating it into patients’ daily lives.

Meanwhile, 5G improves downloading speed, allows multiple concurrent devices, and the low latency of the network means that there is no buffering on the live video feed; this allows for more streamlined and direct conversations between GPs and their patients. Using the 5G network for healthcare makes better commercial sense, and can hopefully be put into use across more rural areas in the UK.

Key benefits

of the project centre around useability, accessibility, and improved communication between carers and patients.

Another advantage is less travel: patients don’t need to drive back to the hospital for check ups after operation, as these can be scheduled online. This should lower the NHS’ carbon dioxide emissions and save clinician’s time spent travelling.

“The project has been well received by frontline staff as well as their patients”, says McArdle. It is anticipated that this increased investment and support into adult social care will incentivise more nurses and carers to work in these care homes as well as help with staff retention, improving personalised care for the elderly. The project has demonstrated the utility of 5G, showing that it is possible to reduce costs for the NHS whilst providing these communities with the support that they need.

Key benefits support that they need.

REMOTE CARE REDUCES COSTS AND MAKES THE SERVICE MORE PERSONAL

Innovate UK KTN exists to connect innovators with new partners and new opportunities beyond their existing thinking – accelerating ambitious ideas into real-world solutions. Innovate UK KTN is part of the Innovate UK Group – the UK’s innovation agency.

Connect with us to access horizon-expanding events, potential partners, bespoke support and innovation insights.

@KTNUK ktn-uk.org

We create diverse connections to drive positive change.

Mobility, Transport + Ports

Cranes, planes and trains all benefit from fast data links. Mobile Technology is particularly applicable to the transport and logistics industries. The Testbeds and Trials have explored and stretched the technology to provide cost saving benefits even while the lessons were being learned.

Hutchison Ports Port of Felixstowe handles 36% of all UK containerised traffic. It is the largest UK container port to introduce 5G, which has the potential to boost efficiency and improve safety on the port.

5G is part of the government’s wider project to create a network of freeports that act as hotbeds for innovation and hubs for global trade.

Felixstowe has deployed 5G to deliver on two key use cases: predictive maintenance of quay cranes using Internet of Things (IoT) and providing communications for remote-control yard cranes.

The first project used IoT sensors fitted onto six remote-controlled quay cranes to gather large volumes of data (temperature, noise, vibration etc.) over 5G which is then combined with operational data from the crane. With the use of AI Cambridge University is developing a predictive maintenance algorithm that will create an optimum maintenance

schedule to maximise crane service times. Ultimately, this could save the Port of Felixstowe millions of pounds per year. The volume of data necessary for this project is too high for a 4G network to handle, so a 5G network is essential.

The second project uses the 5G network to remotely operate one of the port’s 2000 tonne yard cranes by a driver from an office. Currently, Felixstowe’s remotecontrolled cranes are operated over a fixed power network which has some bandwidth limitations and requires civils works to expand to other cranes.

Felixstowe’s aim is to prove that these cranes are able to use 5G, which would allow easier expansion of remote-controlled cranes and improve the overall efficiency of the port. The 5G network has a high bandwidth and low latency which enables the 20 HD cameras on each crane to upload images in real time, critical to ensuring remote drivers can operate the cranes safely.

2,000 SHIPS A YEAR PASS

Karen Poulter, Chief Information Officer, Hutchison Ports Europe Division shares that due to various challenges posed by the pandemic, she has not met many of the colleagues she has been working with on this project in person, all work has been done remotely. Remarkably, Felixstowe has weathered the storm and managed to create and install a complete standalone 5G network during this challenging period.

Poulter commends the strong team of consortium members supporting the project, and is proud to announce that the project has been extended until the end of September 2022.

5G PORTSPORT OF FELIXSTOWE

THROUGH FELIXSTOW

Reliable supply chains have been front of mind in the face of the pandemic and Brexit transition. With mounting pressure on the port and logistics sector to deliver in everchallenging circumstances, the 5G Logistics project is using a private 5G network to improve supply chain efficiency, visibility and traffic management.

Led by the West of England Combined Authority, the 12 partner strong consortium includes: the region’s major port, The Bristol Port Company; top academic facilities University of Bristol Smart Internet Lab and Cardiff Business School; Gravity, a new enterprise zone which has been set up to deliver state of the art connectivity to support advanced manufacturing; automated drones solution provider, Unmanned Life; Bristol City Council and the future of UK 5G private networks, Cellnex, ADVA, AttoCore and Airspan.

5G Logistics is deploying a private 5G

standalone network at two locations. They are Bristol Port, where it will also cover nearby road junctions and at Gravity in Somerset, a 616-acre commercial smart campus with a clean growth focus. Gravity provides space for large scale advanced manufacturing, clean energy, dark fibre, and is positioned to transform the locality and its workforce.”

The two trial locations are connected by a 10 GBps fibre link. The

network operates in the upper n77 frequency band.The project harnesses 5G enabled visibility and automation to put three use cases to the test.

The first is Geofenced asset tracking and condition monitoring.

Using a 5G internet of things (IoT) router and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, goods containers and palettes are being tracked within the 5G testbeds – and between

them, using a public network. This level of visibility is expected to become critical in a modern freeport scenario, where products are permitted to move customs-free between a central port zone and remote ‘freezones’ up to 45km away.

The goods containers are also being kitted out with sensors measuring temperature, light, humidity and more –and transmitting this data in real-time to a user dashboard.

Users, whether consignors, shippers, supply chain managers or logistics and port companies themselves, can set up tailored alerts informing them when a parameter has been breached. How 5G can deliver where 4G cannot comes down to scalability and security of data.

The second use case is automated drone surveillance and emergency response. This project is using the

reliability and bandwidth offered by 5G to test automated drone perimeter inspections and incident response at Bristol Port.

Security for both goods and workers is of paramount importance in a port, which can span large geographic areas and, depending on the placing of containers, has an ever-changing landscape.

A number of ports have their own police presence but rely on emergency services to investigate and address incidents.

Jeff Foreman, Bristol Port Police Chief, said: “Being responsible for policing and security across two busy international docks presents logistical challenges. Autonomous drones will allow us to quickly gain high quality CCTV at any location, together with the ability to deliver lifesaving and emergency equipment.”

The third use case is Smart junctions. This is

AUTOMATED DRONES OFFER SECURITY SURVEILLANCE AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE

explore how features such as deterministic low latency to mobile edge compute and enhanced location services might shape future intelligent traffic system architectures. Trials involve moving non-safety critical traffic optimisation features normally running on-street, into the mobile edge compute to determine the viability of using shared resources for edge devices in place of dedicated hardware for certain intelligent traffic system functions.

The trials will also explore how 5G vehicle location data could eventually be used to improve algorithms that optimise junction efficiency for HGVs. These slow-moving vehicles are common around ports and are significant CO2 emitters, particularly when stalled at junctions.

Paul Brookes, Head of Innovation and R&D at Yunex Traffic, has developed the smart junction use case with Bristol City Council. He said: “This is an important step towards defining future traffic optimisation architectures which, depending on the affordability of connecting to stable and secure 5G networks, have the potential to deliver time and cost savings to traffic management authorities nationwide.”

Facing component shortages, like a number of 5G Testbeds and Trials projects, 5G Logistics has had to adapt. The project is one of the 10 which have had an extension and is set to complete at the end of June 2022. The open radio access network developed in the project staging lab will remain in

place for refinement while an all-in-one gNodeB radio solution — a 5G cell — is deployed in the field for use case trials.

Slow supply side delivery was another challenging aspect of the project. Collaborationbetween projects through a the devices working group was invaluable in unpicking the problem and arriving at solutions.

The project’s O-RAN network assembled in the staging lab is the ambitious result of tireless collaboration and problem solving between some of the most innovative players in the UK’s evolving 5G ecosystem.

Steve Unsworth, Project Manager at Cellnex and testbed lead said:

“Not only showing a high degree of expertise in their respective fields, partners have been impressive in their coordinatation of skills to solve live issues in the physical, networking and software application layers troubleshooting problems and designing solutions in collaborative sessions.”

Freeport or not, the potential of the use cases remains high. Claire Pearce, Director for Planning and Economic Development at Gravity explained: “Connecting people and places through smart transport solutions and tracking goods and services efficiently and securely in a post-Brexit and global marketplace has never been more important. Through supporting this project, we are creating the right conditions for business and investment as well as accelerating our transformation into a net zero carbon economy.”

MILTON KEYNES 5G

At the start of 2022, the world’s media flocked to Milton Keynes to see its futuristic robot vehicles in action – the culmination of years of work. Milton Keynes 5G has been built on a network which was the result of an earlier consortium with the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership. The 5GTT project focusses on transport, specifically mobility and logistics. With its flat landscape and gridded layout, Milton Keynes is a perfect topographical testbed for this.

“We wanted ubiquitous connectivity to support mobility with real roads and real people” says Brian Matthews, Head of Transport Innovation at Milton Keynes Council. The consortium enhanced the existing network using 5G kit from Stratchlyde University spin-out Neutral Wireless.

“We’ve learned to get our order early We took a risk and placed orders before we had signed the DCMS bid,” says Matthews. “Of course, we’ve been through it

once, and understood some of the challenges.”

Consortium members wanted to explore the viability of automated vehicles around defined locations – particularly the MK Stadium with its integrated hotel – as well as how to carry people from the railway station to the town’s centre. The Stadium comprises a 30,000 capacity outdoor venue, a 4,000 seat indoor arena, and the 300 room hotel

While it was the Imperium Drive 4-seat robo-taxi which captured the imagination, and the attention of the national media, a 15-seater autonomous bus from the Aurrigo is also deployed at the stadium, integrating with the private network around the site. The pod is hands-off on the site, but hands-on on public roads. 5G permits remote driving. In addition, indoor robots

perform service tasks at the hotel, while a fourth vehicle, a security pod with a tethered drone, has been deployed to explore safety and crowd management. The Connected Places Catapult was a key partner.

The work will continue, too. “Sustainability is a work stream. We’ve struck up a deal with Imperium Drive and the Satellite Catapult for central Milton Keynes. It’s part of a big European consortium.” Milton Keynes has been able to share its knowhow with other Testbeds, “We’ve engaged with the NHS to look into putting robotics into hospitals. A major High Street chain wants to develop products in-hospital and then use the technology to move materials and medicines around the hospital. So we’re discussing moving the technology and the learning into the NHS.”

60-70%

The network covers a six to eight kilometre cube, reaching around 60 to 70 per cent of the town’s urban area. The Council could sidestep OpenReach thanks to a city-wide gigabit fibre connection from CityFibre. Other partners include BT for its data centre

AREA OF MILTON KEYNES COVERED BY CITYFIBRE

5G RAILNEXT

The 5G revolution extends beyond the UK: it’s a global shift in technology. So when the opportunity came up to work beyond the UK with their friends in South Korea, Cisco jumped at the opportunity.

RailNext saw leading lights in 5G innovation –the UK and South Korea – come together to tackle opportunities 5G presents in rail. They chose an ‘East meets West’ concept with two demonstrations: in South Korea the Seoul Metro; and in the UK, the Glasgow Metro, the third oldest underground rail network in the world. Together, they would demonstrate leading

SMART JUNCTIONS

Congestion causes economic, health and environmental damage, and it is a major problem in most cities today. Top of the agenda for transport authorities, it is vital for them to get access to better systems that allow them to urgently address this issue, yet traffic signal control in the UK has not significantly advanced for decades. Utilising intelligent signal technology that responds better and more quickly to traffic conditions is key to reducing congestion and queuing times, as well as broader network optimisation.

Vivacity Labs’ Smart Junction solution - an AI

edge applications for in-carriage rail users over 5G.

Seoul Metro provided an exceptional demonstration of highspeed connectivity in the tunnels. They were already delivering hundreds of mbps over 5G on their stations, with small cell deployments from all of their major operators. This project saw them go a step further: using a highspeed system developed by project partners Wilus, CleverLogic and ETRI, Seoul Metro brought 5G-powered Wi-Fi into the train. Radios were wheeled onto the train in a suitcase. A first for ‘mobile edge compute,’ the suitcase in a trolley then distributed highspeed Wi-Fi throughout the train.

Cisco had the great fortune, a couple of months before the world locked down, to visit Seoul and experience 240 mbps on an underground rail service. It was fascinating to see just how far they were ahead of us with the technology – but just how challenging they were finding the business case. It was here that the UK partners could bring their expertise to bear.

Cultural barriers existed. There was the small matter of negotiating the cuisine –vegetarianism is not a popular thing in Korea

The revolution underway was how you could take the short periods of rider attention and turn them into

incredible experiences. Ampletime and Sublime together created these experiences. But they also brought the knowledge about how to monetise such engagement, to turn it into value – either for the operator, the advertiser, or the underground. It was this partnership that created the foundation for mutual value exchange between the UK and Korean partners.

Cisco was also able to demonstrate new in-tunnel connectivity at the Glasgow Metro. The University of Strathclyde brought an innovative technology approach to building the UK demonstrator in Glasgow Metro’s tunnels. This worked

alongside Strathclyde Passenger Transport’s multi-million pound refurbishment programme for the Metro, to provide an enhanced passenger experience – including a digital experience.

Unfortunately Cisco’s plans for a reciprocal Korea visit to the UK were dashed by Covid

The pandemic also hit ridership during the peak time for demonstration This provided an interesting pivot for 5G: digital was now becoming part of the inducement to bring riders back to the service.

As the world re-opens and we start to discover what ridership for rail will look like, digital and 5G remain a critical element of the new passenger experience.

based traffic signal optimisation system –is currently being deployed in Manchester, which has already shown to reduce journey times through a junction by an average of 23 per cent. This system requires a reliable network connection in order to function, which is a challenge in today’s cities. The access to public 4G networks does not offer consistent, reliable connectivity. The alternative is wired connectivity, which is expensive and nonscalable.

SJ5G uses a small cell private 5G network to address these challenges. This cuts the infrastructure cost for the connection of sensors at every junction, creating a network that can scale. Critically, the system

requires low latency communications to achieve its goal.

With advancements in open architectures for virtualised networks, SJ5G implements an approach that allows new players to contribute with network densification.

Weaver Labs designed and deployed a cloud-native private network with the governance, security and service layer components to

integrate into existing 5G public networks. This solves the technical and commercial problems of 5G, including: hardware and software interoperability; heterogeneous networks addressing convergence of technologies; openness and diversity in the telecoms supply chain; integration of neutral host networks; and extension of public networks into private.

Transport for Greater

Manchester, an existing project partner for the Smart Junctions product with a non-5G deployment of the system already operating, made them the ideal partner for the trial deployment of SJ5G. TfGM are exploring further benefits of adding 5G, which include: removing the need to mount hardware onto buildings in district centre locations, making small cell networks more cost effective to deploy; enabling 5G-connected vehicleto-infrastructure communication, supporting connected bus projects and other mobility based public services; providing public Wi-Fi; and providing a new business case to promote investment into a small cell network.

AUTOAIR

The AutoAir consortium delivered a fully operational 4G and 5G high speed mobile data network at Millbrook Proving Ground to support the development, testing and validation of connected and self driving vehicles, and to accelerate driverless vehicle testing and development. This project was formed in response to DCMS’s call for the establishment of 5G vertical sector testbeds and trials in 2017. A wide ranging, cross sector partnership brought together mobile communications and transport industries into one technological tour de force deployment at Millbrook. Since 2019, the testbed has acted as the cornerstone for innovation in the country, positioning the UK automotive industry as a leader in global connected autonomous vehicle (CAV) and driverless vehicle development.

AutoAir’s innovative proposition was the deployment of a novel public and private neutral host “hyperdense” small cell network for both road and rail transport corridor - this deployment remains a world first for 5G deployment. Providing a single shared infrastructure allows multiple public and private mobile operators to simultaneously use the same infrastructure; this network slicing radically improves the economics for 5G networks, and unlocks many future use cases.

Today the network consists of 89 radios operating in 2.3 GHz, 3.5 GHz, 3.8-4.2 GHz and 57-71 GHz bands. 59 masts were fitted around the site, linked by 30 kilometres of power lines and fibre cabling.

As a “first of its kind” project, site engineers overcame early challenges posed by nature in the delivery of masts fixed in living woodland areas. In another world first the AutoAir mmWave

network for high speed communications enabled a continuous data rate of 1 Gbit per second to a vehicle travelling at 250 km/hr (160 mph).

Each partner in the consortium contributed in its own specialist area: UTAC Millbrook Proving Ground provided the venue which is used for automotive research, engineering, and testing; McLaren applied the electronic control and drive solutions, high performance analysis software and intelligent fleet management solutions; Quortus provided the core network at Millbrook, ensuring the private network traffic was processed effectively

and did not leave the site unless specifically authorised; Real Wireless completed the radio network design and planning, optimisation and business case solutions for nationwide strategic roadside deployment.

5G has been an essential component of the project, to which multiple partners have

been of great assistance. The University of Surrey, which is host to the 5G Innovation Centre, led the research and development of 5G technologies and standards; Airspan Networks developed solutions that combine 5G small cell base stations with Gbit/s backhaul; Dense Air operates a small cell network with neutral host capability, allowing multiple operators to access a single hardware, increasing the density and bringing pervasive 5G connectivity to the project; Blu Wireless developed technology and equipment that has provided Gbit/s connectivity to vehicles moving at high speeds and for 5G fronthaul and backhaul connectivity; Celestia Technologies developed the 5G electronic Antenna systems; and finally, Telefonica (O2) and Atkins joined the consortium for the second phase of work to test various 4G and 5G use cases.

ONE OF THE MOST AMBITIOUS 5G TRIAL SITES IN THE WORLD, DIRECTLY TACKLING THE KEY 5G TECHNOLOGY AND SYSTEM DESIGN CHALLENGES CAV CREATES

GBIT SPEEDS AT AUTOAIR EXCEEDED PERFORMACE GOALS

Industrial, manufacturing + construction

5 GEM UK

Dunton in Essex is one of the major research and development centres for the Ford Motor Company. Techniques mastered here are implemented in factories around the world, and it’s the job of the facility to learn things. One of these is the most fundamental change in Ford’s history: the move from petrol to electric vehicles.

Much of the work done at the Dunton Campus has been on petrol and diesel engines. Today the challenge is how to take the skills and equipment

those plants have and repurpose them for the electric age. The e:PRiME lab (for (Electrified Powertrain in Manufacturing Engineering) is where this is taking place. It’s developing techniques to manufacture, in very large volumes, the motors and battery packs that will power Fords of the future, with a particular emphasis on commercial vehicles.

Programme Lead, Paul Hadley explains that e:PRiME is already bearing fruit. Lessons learned at Dunton have been implemented at the new Halewood plant near Liverpool, which is where Ford will build

electric power units for future Ford all-electric passenger and commercial vehicles sold in Europe. Ford will invest £230 million to convert Halewood to build the power units. Production is expected to begin in mid-2024, and the plant will produce around 250,000 units a year. Equipment from Ford factories around the world will be shipped to Halewood and repurposed.

Learning how to make the components efficiently to ensure they are reliable is essential. This is where 5G comes in. It’s being used to connect high resolution cameras which are

essential to the production process for motors and batteries.

The 5G project at Ford is called 5GEM UK, or 5G Enhanced Manufacturing, and is a consortium that also includes ATS Global, HSSMI, Lancaster University, TM Forum, TWI, Vacuum Furnace Engineering and Vodafone. The specific task it is helping with is welding: both checking the welds, and deciding where to weld.

Photograph Stuart Berman

The 192 hairpins are inserted into a laminated iron core to form a stator, the stationary part of a motor. The pins are then bent into position and welded. The welding is a real skill: a pair of high resolution cameras inside the welding chamber produce a images which are analysed locally for welding optimisation but are then shared via the 5G network for further analysis with consortium partners Lancaster University & TWI via the ATS Atlas cloud. The stator then moves to a 6KW fibre laser which performs the weld with high accuracy. Each stage of the process takes around a minute.

The second welding application helps in the assembly of battery

From fighter jets to electric cars and green energy, the applications for 5G to help make things more efficiently are only just starting to be realised. It’s the role of the testbeds and trials to experiment with technologies and processes that might help. The effects on our economy could be profound.

CHRIS WHITE PAUL HADLEY

packs. Chris White, Battery Systems Manager, explained that it starts with batteries which are the size and shape of a large bar of chocolate and these are assembled into a frame the size of a shoebox. The shoe boxes then go into a larger box, and those boxes into a frame, which forms the chassis of the vehicle. The modular nature acknowledges that batteries are a wearing part and may need to be replaced during the lifetime of the vehicle. It’s important that the whole unit is not only mechanically sound, but that an electrical connection is maintained. If anything works loose it could compromise the range of the vehicle significantly.

When the chocolate bar shapes are put into the

shoe boxes, they have a flap at either end which pokes through. This provides the electrical connection and has to be welded to the frame. The battery welding depth has in-process laser monitoring. The data is sent via 5G to the cloud again and analysed using AI software written by Lancaster University. The commissioning of this piece of equipment is important and difficult. Ford has been working with experts by having an engineer on site wear a HoloLens headset and be guided by the expert who is remote. Lesson from this were applied in the early days of the pandemic when Ford’s Dagenham plant built 12,000 ventilators.

Testing and calibrating the built ventilators needed the skills of

engineers who lived some way away and were isolating to protect their health. By using the HoloLens over 5G it was possible for them to guide a local engineer to do the work. Taking the techniques from the test lab into production will take time. At first Halewood will be hardwired with cables, and not use 5G, but 5GEM UK has learned much that inform the use of 5G in Ford plants. Vodafone installed the network. For engineers familiar with lathes and CNC machines, the

move to IT and telecoms felt a bit strange - in particular the work Vodafone was doing remotely. Ford could see on screen that things were happening, but were more used to an engineer being on-site setting things up.

The configuration used Ericsson Dot hardware –designed for indoor use in particular–which can be connected with a single ethernet cable for both power and data. The project used both band 78 and band 38. With more experience the amount of equipment needed could be reduced. Ford found it awkward to position the GPS needed for network timing. While Ericsson supplied the infrastructure the terminal equipment –what was attached to the cameras was

consumer grade - and Ford would like to see equipment made for the purpose. The company appreciates that spectrum will also be an issue. If it wants to standardise around the world it needs the same bands in different territories. This is some way off.

Ford isn’t ready to ditch the hardwiring just yet. Nevertheless, 5GEM has shown that 5G provides flexibility for factory configuration and connects hard-toreach places. Partners include The Welding Institute, Vodafone and Ericsson,. It’s another milestone for Dunton, whose innovation history is richly documented in two volumes by Steve Saxty, Secret Fords. See www.stevesaxty. com for details.

A HIGH RESOLUTION CAMERA MAPS THE HAIRPINS ON BASE OF THE MOTOR FOR OPTIMUM WELDING POINTS TO BE DETERMINED

connectivity provided by Sunderland Council has been essential.

5G CAL

The 5G CAL project is a collaboration between Nissan and the North East Automotive Alliance Ltd. The project testsautonomous vehicles in the industrial and manufacturing sector, to provide factories and warehouses with safe and efficient driverless vehicles. This eliminates the cost of drivers and saves money on fuel.

‘This type of environment, combined with our logistics solution, is essential for commercial viability’ says Paul Butler, CEO of NEAA

5G CAL began in 2016 as a manufacturing innovation group for the NEAA but its roots date back to 2007 when Nissan began automated logistics using indoor automated guided vehicles (AGVs).

In 2016 this expanded to outdoor AGVs before Nissan and their last mile logistics provider, Vantec Europe, started to explore the benefits of automating specific logistics between the Vantec warehouse and Nissan plant. With 11 nearside suppliers conducting over 1,000 journeys per day the efficiency and cost benefits are huge. This is where 5GCAL

came in as a proof of concept to automate a 40-tonne truck in a live, controlled manufacturing environment. Private roads and manufacturing facilities provide the perfect setting for this technology to be used. Safety is CAL’s number one priority: in these controlled environments, they can optimise the vehicles

“CAL is well on the way to developing this automated logistics platform,” says Butler. Zenzic, an Innovate UK funding body, has helped finance the project

Testing is taking place in Oxford. In March the project will move into testing at Vantec in the North East with Nissan. Butler says that 5G is ‘absolutely critical’ for this project. In order to remove the driver in tests, the 5G network allows a remote safetydriver over the teleoperations system. The CAL system to can be retroactively fitted into existing vehicles. “Without the low latency of the 5G network, we would not have this safety critical system in place”, says Butler. 5G is five to seven times faster than 4G, which makes remote driving smooth, swift and safe This project represents ‘true innovation,’ says Butler, ensuring the UK’s position at the forefront of the global race to develop autonomous vehicles for commercial use. The industrial and manufacturing sector has recognized the commercial opportunity promised by these

vehicles. A more immediate solution that driverless vehicles provide is for the driver shortages the UK is experiencing. Automating the shorter journeys of vehicles in industrial settings will allow more drivers to make the longer journeys on public roads.

Testing for 5G

Connected Automated Logistics’ driverless forty-foot vehicle started in February; the truck is performing basic manoeuvres, with more rigorous testing in March. A driverless vehicle of this size has never been tested in the UK before, but 5G CAL’s logistics solutions team in Oxford is optimistic that they

will be able to get these vehicles onto private roads soon.

CAL is hopeful that if they can complete this proof of concept stage, they start integrating driverless vehicles into warehouses, ports, and other industrial spaces.

‘The commercial opportunity of this technology is huge.

Hundreds of thousands of logistic journeys are undertaken in controlled environments every day at logistic hubs, airports, rail terminals and ports. These first commercially viable opportunities for autonomous vehicle technologies provide the necessary testing ground and stepping stone to full deployment on public roads.

The 5G CAL project represents a major opportunity to improve competitiveness across the whole of the UK through the creation of new business models which incorporate smart factories and intelligent supply chains. 5G is a necessity and provides broader industry 4.0 opportunities.

opportunities.

project. The 5G

LOW LATENCY ENSURES SAFE OPERATION OF DRIVERLESS VEHICLES AROUND THE WORKFORCE

INDOOR AUTOMATED GUIDED VEHICLES BUILT BY 2007

PAUL BUTLER

5G-ENCODE

In Bristol, Zeetta Networks Ltd is leading a project exploring how to apply 5G in manufacturing by helping to digitise engineering. The National Composites Centre (NCC) is hosting the project. 5G-ENCODE (Enabling Connectivity for Digital Engineering) is focused on three use cases.

The first is remote training, using virtual reality (VR) to teach and augmented reality (AR) to practise as new recruits learn how to

assemble carbon-fibre machine components. During the VR sessions, hosted by the University of Bristol, trainees wear 360 degree headsets connected to a remote trainer via the 5G network. AR is used to put the training into practice. Trainees wear AR glasses, supplied by Mativision; inside the lenses they can read instructions, overlay symbols on their work, review how-to videos and update check sheets as work progresses.

The second use case is asset tracking. RFID tags on tools and

materials are tracked in a server as they are transported into the NCC factory and through the manufacturing processes. Readers positioned in the factory track the location of tags using 5G and return data to the tracking server. Results indicate significant time saved managing assets. Optimizing the manufacturing process itself was the third use case. The trial manufactured small parts using a 5G Toshiba solution to manage sensors. The process in the trial was Liquid

Resin Infusion, wherein the resin injection process is monitored before the part is baked. Sensors connected via the 5G server to the Mobile Edge Compute (MEC) server control the flow of liquid through the part and its temperature as the part is heated. Once the part reaches a certain temperature in the oven, it can be removed. Before the introduction of the sensors and the MEC server to analyse the heating process, the bake was longer than needed. The shortened bake time improves production time and lowers energy costs. 5G-ENCODE aims to scale this process to larger parts such as aeroplane wings.

Finally, 5G-ENCODE analysed network connectivity, performance, and slice management. Probes were able to see application traffic moving across the network so routing could be optimised - for example, checking that switch and router ports were not overloaded. The slice manager from

Zeetta simplified the connection of devices through the IT network using a simple configuration window for the user, configuring all the network devices as needed.

Paul Cooper, Vice President of Engineering at Zeetta, explains slicing as follows:

“For 4G, data is passed up and down one big pipe. Prioritization for data in the pipe is crude and may suffer as more people and applications use the network. With 5G, data services can be separated into multiple small pipes of different sizes. Slicing is the management of these pipes - for example, viewing security camera footage would be prioritized over users wanting to watch cat videos on YouTube. Cooper commends the strong team working on the project.

“Everyone came in with the right mindset to make 5G-ENCODE happen, delivering the project successfully and on time.”

AMC2 aims to provide connectivity to remote locations, high accuracy location tracking on sites, better quality data streaming and advanced surveying. AMC2 (Accelerate, Maximise and Create for Construction) will support the government’s plans to make construction 33 per cent cheaper, and up to 50 per cent faster.

Leading

contractor BAM Nuttall, in collaboration with the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and AttoCore, are the three members.

“This project will publicly define us as digital leaders in our industry and send a clear message to our clients of our commitment to continually improve the delivery of their projects.” says Colin Evison,

IN NUMBERS

33% 50%

REDUCED CONSTRUCTION COSTS

5G-AMC2

civil engineering

FASTER BUILDING PROCESS

5G FACTORY OF THE FUTURE

5GFoF is an industrial testbed that will find new and more efficient ways of manufacturing.

Led by the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) North West, 5GFoF is primarily based at its new £20 million facility in the Samlesbury Aerospace Enterprise Zone in Lancashire.

The project is using 5G to test industrial applications such as robotic assisted

assembly, reconfigurable product assembly, and the use of augmented reality for production, maintenance and inspection

activities. The industrial application use cases are designed to test the most challenging and groundbreaking areas of 5G for manufacturing: increasing bandwidth, decreasing latency, ensuring security.

The network extends to the AMRC’s Factory 2050 facility in Sheffield, and BAE Systems’ Factory of the Future in Warton, where the global defence, aerospace and security company are developing technologies to manufacture a future

combat air system, known as Tempest. The consortium includes hybrid cloud and AI experts IBM and aql, a telecoms and private 5G network provider. The Digital Catapult is the technical authority lead, coordinating 5G integration. Additionally, Lancashire-based SMEs Miralis and MTT are specialist developers working on specific use cases to implement 5G in both the detailed manufacturing operations and wider

supply chain.

The project is exploring ways to dramatically improve manufacturer performance with potentially significant reductions in defects and waste through real time monitoring; enhanced machine utilisation and energy saving through ecosystem monitoring and digital twins; and a reduction in travel and maintenance times enabled by shared hybrid reality spaces.

Head of Innovation at BAM Nuttall.

Increased use of 5G could accelerate a number of important areas for construction: safety, security and productivity; investment in digital skills and knowledge; understanding the technology and its potential; and how to generate and action data. It also opens up potential revenue streams and opportunities for better asset management.

AMC2 will also help to grow the UK’s overall technical capability in the field of 5G.

So far, AMC2 has established two private 5G standalone networks. One is in the BAM Nuttall regional office and plant yard in Kilsyth, Scotland Although not an active construction site, it is being used as a ‘sandbox’ to simulate construction activities combined with 5G connectivity. The other is at BAM Nuttall’s remote Shetland Islands High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Link Project, off the north coast of Scotland. Public cellular coverage is very poor in this location, preventing the use of data applications. The project will provide an electricity transmission

connection between the Scottish mainland and the Shetland Isles. At each site, three masts with 5G radios are connected by fibre optic cables to the comms room, providing complete coverage of each respective site. These private, standalone 5G networks are an extension of the BAM IT network. They are not connected to a cellular network, for instance from a Mobile Network Operator. It operates on the N77 upper band and AMC2 has a licence issued by Ofcom to operate these AMC2 is also responsible for the

security of data and traffic across the networks.

Partnering with the project, Attocore has provided the core software. The consortium is supported by Accelleran and Benetel, who provided the 5G radio hardware and software. Impleo has designed and installed the 5G is management administration support, and will

assessments. AMC2 has collaborated globally with organisations to explore and stretch the current capabilities of their products.

Examples include Trimble in the USA and Finland, Boston Dynamics in the USA, Doosan in South Korea, and Nokia and

Epiroc in Europe.

construction

network. Partner BRE providing and undertake productivity

Native 5G Sensor

THE FLEXIBILITY OF 5G ENABLES AN ADAPTABLE AND CONNECTED MANUFACTURING ECOSYSTEM

RF & EMC Testing next generation wireless systems

Radio and EMC testing of next generation wireless systems, with support to understand compliance requirements and meet local regulations. Includes mmWave backhaul connectivity to support 5G small cells and Fixed Wireless Access points.

Cheap as chips

The networking market is being revolutionised by cheap, off-the-shelf hardware, or COTS. What is it, and how much of a saving can network users and builders really expect?

Illustrations Pat Higgins  phiggins80

IN THE FIRST YEARS OF THE century, vast data centres began to take on many computing tasks traditionally handled in offices. They did so typically on generic PC hardware, on racks and blades. Other opportunities opened up too, as more high capacity data-carrying fibre was installed. The result of these two factors – cheap hardware and fibre - is only just being felt in the network marketplace today. Network services are becoming more fungible, more capable and cheaper, and it’s finally reached the world of mobile too.

Around a decade ago, mobile networks began to think about how they could take advantage of these two trends: fibre and ever cheapening hardware. The MNOs own network centres still relied on specialised but expensive core networking equipment from companies like Cisco and Brocade. The radio end meanwhile came from four or five vendors including Nokia and Ericsson, who provided a range of well-integrated specialised but proprietary equipment, too.

Yet many industrial sectors had felt the impact of COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) hardware, also known as ‘white box’ computing or ‘merchant silicon’ typically referring to a PC, a modified PC, or some other assembly of generic PC components.

The large operators embarked first on the

process of moving key parts of their core network – often described as the ‘brains’ of the network - onto cheaper data centre style hardware. That work continues, as the relentless demands to discover cost efficiencies continue unabated. Network managers can re-fashion their networks not only to save money, but also to add new features. As an example of the former, fibre allows them to consolidate boxes that might be in a different places into one or two. As an example of the latter, fast connectivity allows them to put more computing power closer to the user, at the ‘edge’ of the network. 5G was developed with such potential benefits in mind: parts of the specification explicitly require more computing at the edge, cutting the number of milliseconds a network user must wait for a round trip. In short, today, networks are finally opening up, which means that the long-promised cost savings from commodity hardware that IT departments have reaped for many years should now be accessible to many more network customers. No one is more keenly aware of how dependent it has become on specialist and expensive equipment than the world’s MNOs, which had become reliant on just three endto-end providers for a radio network: Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei.

“It’s taken place over a long period of time, and you can trace it back twenty years to the 2G networks,” explains Samsung Research CTO Dan Warren, the former head of the GSM

Association. “To optimise the performance of the network, you needed tight integration between the hardware and the software. That led to vendor lock-in – whoever you bought the network from, you had to buy the network management system from too. And that’s how certain vendors became massive. It was difficult for any vendor to break in and make it a multivendor system.”

Of course for many markets, including the UK, that choice of three RAN vendors became two. Today the topic of supply chain security is now taken seriously by policy makers.

“Even then it was acknowledged that it presented a risk,” says Warren.

Hence the enthusiasm for encouraging the market to create more competition at the edge or the RAN, the radio network. What this article discusses is how the benefits so far explored by a few dozen large companies –the mobile operators – can benefit this new market of network users – and if so, then by how much.

UNDERSTANDING the CHANGES

THE RAPIDLY-CHANGING network market requires us to think about two related but separate trends. One is that the commoditisation benefits pioneered in cloud data centre are being in networks, first by

DÉJÀ VDU OPEN SYSTEMS: REPEATING HISTORY?

Cheap commodity hardware became a hot topic in IT in the 1980s and one can find academic literature referring to COTS and ‘open systems’ well into the 1990s. (example: www. bit.ly/3sJNUP4)

By the mid-Eighties, the 32-bit microprocessor was advancing rapidly, and beginning to nibble away at the large vertically integrated suppliers of mainframes and mini computers, like IBM and the Digital Equipment Corporation.

For COTS read proprietary telco equipment. In place of IBM and DEC, read Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei. In place of OpenSystems, read OpenRAN and neutral host. The economics is the same: COTS hardware and common standards will unbundle the vertical giants. The network world is confident it won’t be a repeat, although there are some parallels, analysts warn. In the IT world, although the established giants had to appear ready to embrace the new open systems world, they also had plenty of reasons not to jump too far and too fast. Ultimately, the promise of open systems for the customer was never really fulfilled. Why?

Open systems really

meant Unix, but different Unix systems proved not to be very interoperable. Key features that IT managers relied onto for 24x7 operation that the expensive proprietary equipment provided, like failover and redundancy, needed to be added to the new, raw and immature ‘open’ Unix systems. Much of the 1990s was spent engineering that in. Ultimately this drove departmental clientserver computing into Microsoft’s hands: IT departments could at last take advantage of COTS hardware cost savings.

Experienced network operators are mindful of the open systems story, and wary of making wild promises. However some parallels are eerie. Proprietary vendors such as Nokia demonstrate

‘open’ RAN systems where the parts are all supplied by Nokia. The first Open RAN site was a ‘greenfield’ 5G network from Rakuten. The need to support legacy networks - 4G and olderwill keep the proprietary players in the game for a long time to come.

Yet the impact of COTS may only just be beginning to be felt, as the hyperscalers offer private 5G networks at the push of a button.

HP’s Edlund says its telco know-how is increasingly focussed on helping the hyperscalers (like Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS) build their ‘wholesale’ networks that are then ‘retailed’ to private customers.

“You would’t see us

traditionally in the radio network, but that is changing with Open RAN. We have purpose -built COTS hardware, with, say, more slots for graphical processing units. These are designed to have Open RAN software run on top of it. We’re not building the Open RAN software itself - we partner for thatbut we do make the management software that will allow you to manage and automate many Open RAN Intelligent Controllers. These are not well sorted now but should become vending machine items, put a quarter in and there’s a micro service.” HP sells this through the channel, or directly to a hyperscaler.

“We’re in the backgroundyou don’t even see us” he says.

the core, and now the edge. The other is that the giant cloud computing platforms - the “hyperscalers”, like Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Microsoft’s Azure - are now part of the picture. They are now performing a lot of the data crunching that was previously carried out by network operators. The cloud is where the cost savings of cheap generic hardware ‘COTS’ - really begin to pay off And with Amazon’s 5G network in a box (marketed as AWS Private 5G), which is available for a private preview in the United States, those hyperscalers have driven their tanks right onto the mobile networks’ lawns. AWS will install the small cell base stations, any local equipment they need, and allow you to operate your own private mobile network from a dashboard.

Today, for example, Vodafone, operates several of what it calls “command-and-control Network Operation Centres” (or NOCs) each the size of a warehouse, linked up by its RedStream fibre network. Other MNOs, however, are looking at offloading such facilities , handing the job to the hyperscalers Cloud computing giants such as Amazon and

Microsoft can now offer to run the core network itself, via their own vast data centres. How many cheap servers these cloud hyperscalers have available is a closely guarded secret, but we know it’s in the millions, and that’s another level of commodity computing cost saving. As the buyers and designers of COTS equipment, they they can demand the lowest prices for every component.

AT&T is shifting its 5G core to Microsoft’s Azure platform, with hundreds of former AT&T technical and operations staff moving to Microsoft. Three years ago, IBM paid $34 billion for the open-source Linux company Red Hat, which operates independently. HP Enterprise is another provider with telco roots looking to take advantage of this.

“HPE took a decision that with 3GPP and with 5G we would drive forward a very high level of disaggregation,” Jeff Edlund, Chief Technology Officer of the telco side of HP Enterprise’s Communications Media and Solutions (CMS) division.

Disaggregation simply means decoupling two functions that were tightly integrated

before. A first step on the great disaggregation journey has not necessarily involved cheaper COTS hardware – or at least, not straight away. This has been more about moving the pieces about to achieve operational expenditure savings - consolidation, in other words.

“It’s both a fibre revolution and the result of Moore’s Law – the fibre is the underappreciated part”, says Dan Warren, Director, Advanced Network Research at Samsung.

What does he mean? Moore’s Law, once referred to the doubling of transistors every 18 months, but it’s now really just a short hand way of saying “chips get more powerful all the time.” This is important to our story because it means that processing tasks once performed by specialist custom electronic circuits can be “software-ised” or virtualised, and therefore run on the cheaper more familiar commodity hardware – PCs, in other words.

The “cheap” part of COTS is a little misleading, says Warren, at least when it comes to the rigs out in the towns and our countryside.

“We’ve got to the point now where it’s not cheap PCs or servers – they have to be fairly high end. But the high-end server can come from anyone.”

Fibre, as Warren says, allows network builders large and small to decide where to put the network equipment. Pressure to reduce operational expenditure, or ‘opex’ , means consolidation can take place. But long term it means something more significant: the network doesn’t have to run on the jumble of boxes. This trend is referred to “disaggregation”, and it goes hand in hand with “software-isation”, or virtualisation. IBM’s Camille Vautier, Leader 5G Telco Cloud and Network transformation told us that in one recent demonstration, IBM ran a network job – in this case, facial recognition – with a radio

SO WOT’S GOING COTS?

The part of the network nearest the user is where the most dramatic change is taking place today. Let’s look at how the ba se station, the crux of the radio access network, is going COTS.

“We’ve been ‘softwareised’ for some time,” explains Samsung’s Dan Warren.

On a traditional mobile phone site a decade ago we would find a number of boxes: a baseband unit, a radio head, and an antenna. The radio head or radio unit (RU) is a transceiver which converts analog radio signals into digital bits. These are output as a digital stream, much like an MPEG video stream, only this is a stream of bits in the CPRI protocol.

The radio head will remain relatively unchanged, Warren and Parallel Wireless’ Zihad

network in Munich, Germany (Munich), and the core network in Nice, France.

Today, a great deal of energy and capital is being spent repeating the COTS trick, but at the other end of the network. The virtualisation that first took place at the core is now taking place at or near the cell tower, in what’s known as the radio access network or RAN. This is what plugs into the core network. “5G CORE networks are becoming cloud-ified and the radio is becoming disaggregated too. It’s early days but especially on the Open RAN side - the ecosystem is catching up,” says Vautier.

Here too, packages are being unbundled, and interfaces opened up for different vendors to interoperate; heterogeneity is beginning to replace homogeneity. What were once

Ghadialy, Senior Director of Strategic Marketing, both agree. It’s going to continue to be a specialist piece of equipment converting optical signals from the fibre into a bit stream that a microprocessor can understand. What’s different is that many more vendors will be able to interpret and process what comes out of the end of the CPRI pipe.

“The remote radio unit has become divorced from the Big Box at bottom of the base station,” is how Ghadialy, explains it. Ghadialy is well known for his YouTube channel explaining the intricacies and jargon of mobile network architectures. [https://www.youtube. com/c/3G4G5G], a channel with over 15,000 subscribers.

Samsung’s Warren describes disaggregation as, “maintaining the quality of service, but shifting the economics based on where network redundancy – the duplicate boxes – are really needed. You can then reduce the opex and energy consumption considerably”

But what’s coming with

open radio networks is going to be much more dramatic. The hitherto tightly integrated workings of the box are being split up in several places.

“Conceptual layers of different parts of the network have become partitioned off,” Warren explains. This entails a separation of the actual traffic from the bits of the network that enable it to work. “ The data plane is the actual traffic – the content, such as the actually video bits. The control plane is the part that establishes and maintains a session,” he explains. In addition, the management plane includes services such as routing is opening up too.

“Most people equate disaggregation with the

mysterious proprietary boxes besides the antennas laid out by Nokia and Ericsson are increasingly recognisable and familiar pieces of equipment. COTS is coming to the RAN, too.

The trend has been talked about for years, and not all previous efforts have succeeded. The best known came in 2016, backed by Facebook, the TIP (Telecom Infra Project) announced the creation of the Open Core Network Project Group. But out of this has come Open RAN, and the large mobile operators are pushing this hard in the hope that their enormous equipment costs will eventually come down, as an open market drives down prices set by Nokia and Ericsson, the two dominant RAN suppliers.

Virtualised RAN or vRAN describes a processing job that was previously performed

white box movement and the separation of hardware and software for data centre switches,” notes Juniper on its website. “While this is an example of disaggregation, it is a narrow definition of a much broader movement and ignores the true value of disaggregation across other elements within networking.”

This is where OpenRAN comes in. More vendors can now interpret the CPRI stream – and more can do the management functions too. And they can do these jobs either nearby, or far away.

“Opening up the RAN was once thought of as something impossible to do,” Parallel Wireless Zahid Ghadialy reflects. “Parallel was one of the first to look at virtualisation, and for the first couple of years we didn’t make a lot of progress.

Analysts told us this can’t happen. Today we have not only the core virtualised, but 2G to

5G completely virtualised as well.”

Now thanks to the Open RAN and TIP efforts, the control plane and the management plane are separated out, and opened up so third parties can plug in their version to complement or replace the default management or security features, similar to an app store allowing you to download a third party web browser. Parallel has helped implement an open RAN virtual design already, with Etisalat in the Gulf and to 5,000 sites and 21 operations for operator MTN in Africa.

“A lot of algorithms that today are proprietary today will become apps,” predicts Ghadialy.

DAN WARREN

by specialist hardware being turned into another software job, running on generic hardware. So that software processing can be run right next to the antenna, or at a NOC, or in the cloud, or somewhere in between. While it’s often mentioned alongside Open RAN, senior director analyst Bill Ray at Gartner has led to two explains the subtle difference.

“Historically, you’d have a tower, an antenna on top, a coaxial cable running down and a big box underneath. Fibre replaced the coaxial cable. Those big metal boxes were expensive. So suppose you have five base stations: instead of a metal box on each one, you can take ten and run it into one metal box, and that’s called RAN pooling. You then need only one air conditioning unit. You can virtualise them too.”

Open RAN is a related trend, an attempt to bring order to the great disaggregation of functions that were tightly coupled.

“The big thing with Open RAN is that it standardises interfaces between components,” says Ray. “

In theory, OpenRAN and vRAN are not mutually dependent. You can have a virtualised RAN that isn’t open, or you can have an Open RAN installation that isn’t virtualised. But the two go nicely together.

“The point is, once you’ve virtualised a bit the cloud then that lets you virtualise more.”

The IT world can yawn and even express some scepticism – it’s witnessed a great unbundling before. This was the open systems hype of the late 1980s, and it didn’t work out as hoped [see box out: Déjà VDU. Open systems: repeating history?].

COTS SAVINGS: ARE they REAL?

GIVEN WHAT WE’VE LEARNED , how much can we anticipate from the shift to COTS hardware? Happily, some work has been performed here.

Analysys Mason was able to look at the trend in network operation centres as they replaced expensive Cisco and Brocade equipment with COTS in their core networks, and extrapolate the calculations to the radio end of the network. Last year Gorkem Yigit, Principal Analyst at Analysys Mason and two colleagues wrote up some of their work in a paper, ‘Making the case for the true costs, benefits and risks of disaggregation in CSP IP networks’, and developed a model for

evaluating the total cost of Open RAN.

“We wanted to look at the real cost of disaggregation in the operator IP core networks - but the findings are transferrable. The challenges are pretty consistent.”

And what did they find?

“Yes, you can save money - from between 28 per cent to 40 per cent,” Yigit summarises. Disaggregation is not straightforward, he cautions, and achieving savings only really happens once the skills base is up to speed:

“For the operators it’s a major departure,” he explains. “They have to make a lot of upfront investments to make disaggregation work. We included this operational expenditure (opex) in this calculation, and found that the investments you need to make in additional resources, the skills, ends up being expensive today. I’m emphasising this today because this is a long journey. Over time, as they gain more experience, some of those costs go down.”

In addition, he explains, “RAN has very demanding requirements for real-time processing and latency. What is really important is the cloud infrastructure that’s going to run this Open RAN. There are no savings if the cloud is not optimised.”

And Yigit points out that for some network operators, the question of how you validate and integrate and test systems when “everything disaggregated has to be re-aggregated” remains a live issue. Nevertheless, the market is rapidly meeting this challenge, he notes.

“One of the assumptions we made is the Open RAN can be best of breed, that operators can mix and match. We based our model on a pre-validated ecosystem approach, where the cloud and the network are already tested and validated. So this is not a completely new mix of vendors. Strong ecosystems are appearing to meet the integration costs of disaggregation.”

Yigit adds that “there are a lot of expectations from the Open RAN ecosystem. Intel is working on next generation chipsets. Radio head antennae are becoming standardised. The potential savings can go up to 28 per cent.”

“We are seeing a strong push from operators - they really want an open interface.

Most operators will continue to work with Nokia and Ericsson but demand that their interfaces are open – either Open RAN or TIP. That’s the battle that’s going on. If Nokia and Ericsson deliver equipment with open interfaces today, an operator may replace them with Mavenir or someone else in the future,” is the logic. While this adds flexibility — somenetwork features may not be available from the market leaders — the focus on the benefit here is cost.

Gartner’s Ray also points out that the earliest costbenefit estimates don’t tell the full story. “There’s no inherent reason why Open RAN is cheaper, and it should be more expensive. It’s the indirect benefit that has networks interested: innovation drives down price,” he explains.

“Open RAN is going to be really important. It not only provides a new way of doing things but it disrupts an industry that’s been an oligopoly for twenty years. It’s been an industry with four or five vendors and now only three. OpenRAN cuts the system up into little chunks so I can make a living selling one part of that. It’s more about creating a ramp to allow startups to compete.”

You might think the potent combination of fibre and software virtualisation will rapidly bring us to a cloud utopia – with networks large and small able to tap into hyperscale computing power from Amazon and Microsoft- but there is a major obstacle: legacy networks.

Ray explains: “In a perfect world, we might have antennas connected to fibre, and the fibre connected directly to the cloud – and all the radio decoding can be done in the cloud. But only one operator, Rakuten in Japan, has done that – and there, only because it’s a greenfield site with no legacy networks or equipment . And who else in the world has got fibre to every base station?”

Andrew Orlowski

Contributing Editor

Andrew Orlowski has written about technology and markets for 25 years, including seven as US Editor of The Register. He is now a weekly columnist for Daily Telegraph Business.

Open RAN creates standard interfaces between devices

Photograph John Cameron

SEPTEMBER 9TH IS 999 DAY

It celebrates the emergency services. The three digits have been baked into the British psyche since a house fire in 1935 led to the service being established. The pan-European standard of 112 also works, but to most people it’s 999 which is special. And it is special. It’s a number which comes with legal obligations for the mobile networks.

You can call 999 from a phone with no credit In other parts of the world you can even call without a SIM card, but the UK operators declined the invitation to support this.

There are some devices which have a method for automatically triggering an emergency call. Doro mobile phones, aimed at the older generation and the Buddi fall sensors and Lone Worker protection phones make calls to a predefined number when a button on the back or a fall is detected. This can be to any number, and the recomendation is not to use the emergency number as it can lead to false calls, but people often choose to use 999 as one of the numbers in the call list.

All 999 calls are answered by BT, even those through Vodafone, Three and Virgin Media O2. When a phone user calls 999 the network identifies it as an emergency call and bypasses the usual authentication and billing systems. All 999 calls are free and the cost is borne by the mobile network. BT bills the operator for the call handling.

A map indicates where the call is coming from. This can be a general as the area covered by the cell site, or more accurate, thanks to Advanced Mobile Location technology, which uses the GPS in a smartphone to locate the call down to a few metres.

As part of the call routing the mobile operator needs to append five digits to the number passed to the emergency services. The first two digits define the mobile operator and the next three the location. So 503 is Cambridgeshire, 514 is Greater London and 579 is Orkney. These are based on administrative areas rather than the size or population covered and are different for the different operators

The administrative area is used to determine which Emergency Service centre receives the call. The receiving centre. Once the call arrives, the emergency centre systems interrogate the mobile networks’ Mobile Operators Location Enabling Server, or MOLES, using the mobile number to retrieve the location of the user. This determines where the user is by knowing the base station the handset is connected to. When the emergency call is made the network requests the location information from the handset. It’s a comprehensive database. It may contain information on where small pico cells are located in a building, or information about the device, such as whether it has GPS capability. It may have subscriber information such as

their home address. Whenever a new cell site is installed the system at the emergency services centres needs to be updated with the site location.

All this is designed to give the call handler as much information as possible when the call is connected. To provide this, the mobile network operator needs to work closely with BT. It needs to be issued with an identification number, known as an II, and have a secure server connected to the BT system. Dedicated IP addresses need to be established and exchanged.

A contract with BT Wholesale is necessary for this arrangement to be made and paid for. This means that a private network, in say a university campus which does not buy any other services from BT will nevertheless need a logistically challenging agreement if only to cover the emergency calling.

There is an obligation on the part of the operator to test the connection. When the major MNOs connect a new cell they will test each sector with a 999 call. The field engineer doing the testing has special permisison and a script for working with the call centre.

If this seems complicated, that’s just the voice services. There are different classes of data services.

Text messaging to 999 must also be supported, for use in a situation where the person in trouble is unable to speak. The 999 SMS service requires registration, so it’s vitally important that you know ahead of time that you are likely to be held kidnapped in a bank robbery before the incident occurs.

A more recent addition to emergency calling is eCall. This allows your car to call for help in the event of an accident. Standard on all new cars sold in the European Union since April 2018, the system reacts to actions such as the airbags being triggered and reports the accident. Again a private network such a university campus may need to support this too.

Support for 999 isn’t just an obligation.It’s something that makes people feel good about having their mobile with them. When many people associate their mobile network with call drop outs, unexpected bills and long waits for customer service, it’s something that makes people feel good about their mobile operator.

A 999 call is a call like no other. Its special nature means mobile operators have to handle it in a distinct way. Any mobile network offering voice services needs to comply.

At the heart of the 5G revolution, Digital Catapult is catalysing Industrial 5G in the UK

over 300 startups and small businesses access to 5G testbeds that allow for real-world testing and experience, as well as guidance from experts, to break down barriers to market and develop leading edge 5G-enabled products and services.

Stimulating Demand

Even before significant industrial 5G networks and many 5G features are available, it’s crucial to work with a range of commercial partners to create awareness and explore the potential of 5G to transform the UK’s industrial landscape. Digital Catpult’s ‘Made in 5G’ report was among the first to stimulate informed debate around the needs, expectations and considerations for 5G in the manufacturing sector, focusing on practical 5G application to benefit UK businesses.

Digital Catapult has worked with large organisations including National Grid, Seagate and HS2 to understand how 5G-powered technologies - from robotics to augmented reality - can improve a range of processes, from condition-based monitoring to asset tracking and predictive maintenance, showcasing demonstrable examples of 5G solving real-world problems and providing a template for others to follow.

With a nationwide network of seven 5G testbeds, over 25 cutting edge 5G projects, and a new phase of the £15m SONIC Labs in partnership with Ofcom, Digital Catapult plays an intrinsic role in boosting adoption of 5G across the UK. By demonstrating how 5G can scale and have real-world impactfrom enhancing critical infrastructure to richer end-user experiences - Digital Catapult is helping to unlock growth across the economy.

Playing a unique role helping UK businesses (from startups to industry leaders), academics, and the UK Government explore what 5G can do, Digital Catapult programmes demonstrate tangible examples of how the 5G ecosystem can benefit from innovation, applied R&D and capacity building. To date, hundreds of startups and small businesses have tested products and services on

our live 5G testbeds, large organisations have experimented with 5G to understand its ability to enhance operations and boost productivity, and academics have worked alongside Digital Catapult’s technologists to explore the development of applied 5G technologies.

Making the invisible visible

Most corporate innovation focuses on finding technology-related answers to established and addressable problems. Digital Catapult works hand in hand with these organisations and with innovative startups that have potential solutions.

One of Digital Catapult’s most important roles is building supply side capability by giving innovators the means and opportunity to expand and improve their inventions. Across multiple cohorts of the 5G Testbed Accelerator Programme and through the 5PRING accelerator in the West Midlands, Digital Catapult has provided

The advantages of 5G stretch to the creative industries; from installing a 5G Testbed in Brighton Dome allowing creative entrepreneurs to test, develop and demonstrate 5G-enabled immersive experiences, such as the Digital Catapultled 5G Festival, to the 5G Vista project which brings new forms of engagement for live sports fans.

5G is forecast to contribute £15.7 billion per year to the UK economy by 2025, and the advances it will deliver could lead to significantly more growth. Engaging with those that have the knowledge, experience and technology to help clearly define and develop practical ways to leverage 5G is essential to capitalise on this opportunity. Digital Catapult is the catalyst that ensures UK businesses of all types have the best possible opportunities to exploit the growth that 5G offers.

Digital Catapult is the UK authority on advanced digital technology and is on stand 30 at UK5G Birmingham 22-23 March.

UK5G - an encore

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from” [T.S.Eliot]

KEITH BULLOCK, THE NEW programme director for DCMS 5G projects opens this issue of Innovation

Briefing explaining that this is a time of transition for the DCMS supported 5G Testbed and Trials programme. All of the 5GTT projects will be ending, at least as DCMS supported projects, in 2022.

As I write we are getting ready for a great celebration of just what 5GTT has achieved at the UK’s 5G Showcase in Birmingham. Projects are looking to move beyond trials to commercial deployments. In many ways, if you look at the 5GTT programme as a concert then this is the crescendo!

The band is ending the set, but there will be an encore. And like many concerts the encore may have a substantial number of songs!

Most of the 5GTT projects are drawing to close by the end of March, but around ten have had a reprieve for a few months. Although these projects will close, as Keith says, the DCMS team will still have its work cut out, with 15 Future RAN Competition (FRANC) projects and eight Digital Connectivity Infrastructure Accelerator (DCIA) projects all gearing up.

But what about the UK5G Innovation Network itself?

UK5G began in 2018 and, just like the 5GTT projects, was always designed to have a finite lifespan. Some of you may know the official lifespan was originally scheduled to conclude on 31st March 2022 after a after a 4¼ year run. I’m pleased to say that the organisation has been granted a six month extension of operations until 30th September 2022.

We plan a packed programme of work during this period, continuing to support the 5G ecosystem. We will be deepening the work done on the vertical industry campaigns aimed at Manufacturing, Creative Industries, Transport & Logistics, and the Health & Social care sectors. We will be extending the work supporting 5G in

places, including supporting the DCIA work.

Importantly, we will be focusing on the benefits and lessons learned from the 5GTT programme itself. How do we draw out and effectively disseminate the insights from across the programme? Rather than lengthy reports that gather dust, we want to ensure that there is actionable learning, and that lessons learned, ideas, and particularly adoption knowledge are taken up by potential user communities.

In the meantime, DCMS is considering the implications of the Telecoms Diversification Taskforce Report (April 2021) and the potential requirements for an innovation network to support those recommendations. So there may well be other initiatives to help drive telecoms innovation coming down the track to pick up some of the batons we’ve been running with. We will be ensuring a structured transition from UK5G into other bodies or teams during 2022, so any value that has been created is not lost.

In the meantime, I’d like to say a heartfelt thank you to all the UK5G Advisory Board and Working Group members who give so

much of their time up for free. I’d also like to thank the small hard-working UK5G team itself. Pulling together the UK’s 5G Showcase has been a major effort on top of normal operations, again, ably supported by willing volunteers from across the ecosystem.

UK5G will be playing an encore for much of this calendar year, and then a new concert will begin.

Robert Driver Head of UK5G

DISCOVER SOME OF THE WAYS YOU CAN HARNESS THE

5G OPPORTUNITY AND BE BETTER CONNECTED

UK5G has created new online hubs to help organisations in the creative industries, manufacturing, transport & logistics, and health & social care to better understand how to use 5G and the benefits it can bring.

UK5G.ORG/DISCOVER/5G-INDUSTRY

Nokia helps create some of the UK’s most critical networks

We’re a trusted partner the UK can rely on