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Sponsored Feature 13

to deliver more value beyond the basic connectivity pipe and start generating new revenue streams.

Big shift to cloud native The emergence of 5G Standalone (SA) – which introduces a new 5G core – signifies also the first complete shift in telecoms towards cloud-native networks. This new 5G network is software-centric and designed to be run on both public and private cloud. 5G networks technology industry standards require that these networks can be open in architecture – so that CSPs can offer Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) and Private Enterprise Networks (PEN) can to their enterprise customers. These enterprises will be able to design their own experiences on the 5G networks and monetise these unique experiences that they can design and control themselves. So, how do CSPs open up their networks to enterprise and OTT services? And, crucially, how can they monetise these third-party relationships to drive growth? The key here lies in the ease at which telcos can integrate third parties into their networks. With 4G networks, CSPs had to guarantee high levels of scalability before opening up their network to others – this, in turn, was both expensive and slow to achieve critical mass, cutting off telcos from opportunities with smaller businesses and consequently cutting off the CSP from being a platform for innovation. Thanks to 5G’s cloud-native architecture, the barrier to set up is much lower. The practice of building new service from microservice means a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) can be launched and scaled up at a fraction of the cost and effort of how new third-party services were traditionally rolled out on 4G. This interoperability and scalability of cloud native 5G services will enable CSPs to unlock new revenue streams. Central to all of this is the Business Support System (BSS).

Network Exposure Function (NEF) will be key to realising 5G’s value. The NEF facilitates secure, developer-friendly access to exposed network services. Through the NEF and its open APIs, CSPs can open networks up to third parties to generate revenue opportunities.

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Network and IT teams will need to work more closely as policy and charging become more closely integrated with core network functions, as 5G can enable policy to be positioned at the heart of 5G monetisation.

New network, new functions 5G introduces a range of new functions and network attributes that can be exposed and managed through the BSS. This packaging of network functions such as policy, real-time convergent charging and service catalogues bridges 5G business and IT functions, and analytics within the 5G network, making it much easier to “open up” and subsequently monetise the network. Network and IT teams will need to work more closely as policy and charging become more closely integrated with core network functions, as 5G can enable policy to be positioned at the heart of 5G monetisation. This enables CSPs to adapt the network for individual services, allowing the different network characteristics such as ultra-low latency, high-bandwidth and network slicing use cases to have different pricing, charging rules and service level agreements.

A higher intelligence The Network Data and Analytics Function (NWDAF), a new 5G function introduces a higher level of intelligence and makes the networks smarter through real-time data management and analysis. With this new depth of insight, CSPs can unlock further opportunities for monetisation and make a proposition which relies on Quality of Service as a reality. But the question arises on how and who will roll out these new services. In the first instance I believe it will be through private networks provided to enterprises by telcos with connectivity capabilities as value added upsell. Later edge will be included to make networks pervasive for IoT devices. I believe that 2022 will be made up of PEN – sold to enterprises via telcos or via the enterprises’ systems integrators (SIs).

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14 CTO ??????? Interview

When five 9s are not enough, AI is needed to extend automation Michaël Trabbia, CTO at Orange Group, talks to Annie Turner about the telco of the future.

ichaël Trabbia joined Orange Group’s Executive Committee as Chief Technology and Innovation Officer on 1 September 2020. He oversees the group’s Technology & Global Innovation division, with the main ambition of strengthening data and AI at the heart of the operator’s innovation. He was formerly CEO of Orange Belgium.

Orange Group has made much of its determination to grow beyond connectivity and build innovation on and around its connectivity solution. To quote Trabbia’s outgoing colleague, the CEO of Orange Business Services, Helmut Reisinger, Orange is a network-native digital services company. In line with its Engage2025 strategy to drive new growth, in 2021, 41% of the group’s revenue and activities came from digital, IT and integration services, and it is on track for this to rise to 55% by 2025.

Telco of the future Trabbia begins the interview by saying, “We’re building to become telco of the future, which indeed will be a cloud-based infrastructure.” He explains that the company is doing that via PIKEO, which was announced by Orange in summer 2021 and will answer two important needs: “The first is for on-demand connectivity that adapts to various services with the right QoS depending on what you need. For instance, it might be bandwidth, or latency or reliability. “The second topic is a zero-touch network for better resilience of network services, because we see how telcos are becoming more vital for the country, for the economy, and we need to move to the next level of resilience – and we can only do that leveraging AI for self-adapting networks. “Basically, we [will] move from people supervising networks and tickets to people managing algorithms, which will manage the network in real time. Both are really big evolutions for our industry. They will change how we build and operate a network and a big change in skills – many more skills in integration, AI and security too, and they will be cloud-based.”

Cloud native In the Orange universe are cloud-based and cloud-native the same thing (as opposed to lifting and shifting legacy applications and systems into the cloud)? “Yes,” says Trabbia, “cloud-native networks. We’re starting with the core network. We’re separating the software and the hardware, and we’re moving out to the RAN, where we are supporting Open RAN with Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Telefonica and TIM to bring these cloud-native elements to the radio part of the network.” This is, he insists, “absolutely needed if we want to have this zero-touch network and this self-adapting network, and we need to be much more agile in the way we operate the network and have AI managing that, and to have real-time adaption and not just after one

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CTO Interview 15

Michaël Trabbia, CTO at Orange Group

week or one day, change the parameters; we need to move to [a] real-time, self-adapting network.” How much of these ambitions are down to 5G? He acknowledges, “When I talk about zero touch, this is clearly about massive automation and AI to manage the network, [and] 5G is very important for that, but it’s not only 5G, it’s also the move towards cloud-native networks and changing the network supervision by leveraging AI – a number of things in parallel.” He elaborates, “At Orange, we mutualise network supervision for the core function and this is something we have in my team, in Poland and Romania; they do this network supervision globally for several affiliates in Europe; most of them I would say.” Trabbia notes that the use of more AI enables greater automation. He gives the example of a large number of people in a street because of, say, a demonstration. Today this resulting saturation in traffic triggers many tickets and alarms on the network, creating huge data sets to which Orange must respond. Today we are too slow to react and the demo moves on, but, “Tomorrow, this will be automatically

analysed and dealt with because the AI would have learned how to handle this efficiently and deal with it, and you won’t need human intervention.”

Progressing AI “This is a change of mindset and paradigm,” says Trabbia, but how far away are he and his team from this vision of tomorrow? He explains, “With AI you start with some use cases and try to pick the more relevant ones. Then you implement them, then you do them at scale, running in the network.” Orange launched a three-year programme in 2021 with the aim of bringing big benefits from automating the network at scale. He says, “This year we started to bring automation at scale in the network. We will continue with 5G Standalone (SA) with network capabilities, and with Open RAN, to bring more opportunities and become even more efficient in the way we do it.” What does he mean by big benefits? “What we follow is availability of the network. It’s one of the KPIs that’s important to understand. Globally the network is really good and

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16 CTO Interview

now we are talking about the number of nines that you put in your availability. “We used to see the five nines – 99.999 – availability as a target, but we believe we will go further. Each time you add a nine it becomes more difficult, because it means that you divide by ten the length of the outages or the issue with the network. Clearly this is the KPI we want to improve for this programme and we believe it’s critical to get there.” He adds, “I don’t want to give a figure for the moment because it’s under development and we need to make sure we are able to reach our targets, but definitely the target is to add more nines to the equation!”

The PIKEO effect How is PIKEO going to affect progress? Also is it primarily labbased at Orange’s R&D facility at Lannion, in Brittany, France, or will it also run in the real world? Trabbia replies, “It’s really a greenfield operation. That means we test everything that we believe is going to be part of the telco in the future. “In real life, we will be moving from legacy to this target infrastructure, but what is important in PIKEO is that, first, we make sure that we can integrate different players and partners. [This is] because in this future world we will have more fragmented networks, which will be leveraged thanks to virtualisation, different hardware and software, but also the RAN, which will be split between the distributed and centralised units, so we need to integrate that equipment and make sure it can all work together. “ He explains, “That’s why interoperability is key and that’s what we’re working on at PIKEO, to make sure it all works

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together. The second one is skills, and for us it’s about learning and developing skills to build and operate the networks of tomorrow. This is a fantastic opportunity to develop our skills.”

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We used to see the five nines – 99.999 – availability as a target, but we believe we will go further. Each time you add a nine it becomes more difficult, because it means that you divide by ten the length of the outages or the issue with the network

How important are APIs in all of this and what is Orange’s approach to it? “This is absolutely part of the telco of the future,” says Trabbia. “When we are virtualising this network, it will be based on software cloud native, so it means we need to add APIs and integration at scale – but it also means that we need to standardise as much as we can on those APIs and the orchestration part. “We support ONAP [Open Network Automation Platform], for instance, to bring [about] this orchestration, which is fundamental. It’s absolutely critical to have it [for] this softwarised network, with standardised APIs and integration.”

CTO Interview 17

Focus on customers is how to benefit from new technology Neil McRae, MD Architecture & Strategy, BT Group Chief Architect, on Open RAN, public and telco cloud, network as code, partnerships and searching for the edge with Annie Turner.

T’s Neil McRae opened by reiterating that the operator’s Open RAN development and deployment is geared to its own needs, at its own pace. He also famously tweeted, “Still want to put your network core into the public cloud? #suckers”, after the AWS meltdown in December took down services from companies including Netflix, Slack, Amazon’s Ring and DoorDash.

He started by addressing the Open RAN question – BT was conspicuous by its absence when other operator groups in Europe – Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, TIM and Vodafone – collectively pledged their support for Open RAN early in 2021. McRae commented, “We’ve been a contributor to and a part of Open RAN since it started. We’re doing trials of what we call Ultra MIMO which we’re developing at Adastral Park. We’re committed to the best in innovation and technology. We will deploy Open RAN where we think it makes sense. There’s no religion about it. Openness is essential [but] open technologies must work and be mature enough for us to deploy in the network.” In January, BT announced an Open RAN trial in the UK city of Hull with Nokia, saying in a statement, this “underlined its ongoing commitment to the development and deployment of Open RAN technology”. The operator will install Nokia’s RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) across several sites to optimise network performance for customers on its mobile network, EE.

What about cloud strategy? The operator has built its own telco cloud – BT Network Cloud – which he describes as “an always-on, cloud-native platform that is highly available and highly resilient” and enables BT to put workloads wherever customers need them, according to McRae: “For consumers, edge is probably mostly around video and gaming…but for enterprise, it’s about reliability and super-high bandwidth applications such as using very high-resolution video and analytics to monitor a production line or to manage a crowd entering a stadium.” What is BT approach to the edge? McRae said, “Many people have sent their pet beagles out searching for the edge. For me, the edge is where we engage with customers [which] can be in the middle of our network, in one of our exchanges or on a customer site or handset. It will be all of those things, dependent on the use case. For a video distribution use case we’ve got about 20 edge locations today but as demand grows, that could be 40 or 50 exchange points. For AR, it could be deployed in many more of our exchanges to lower the latency, especially for business use.” The UK is largely a knowledge economy so he expects to see edge compute used for digital twins use cases as diverse as packaged goods or a transportation or new drainage system. He stated, “You want compute power to be portable so that as you move it moves with you, but you want it to be responsive and to feel like it’s part of the computer on your desk.”

Mobile World Congress • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

18 CTO Interview

Neil McRae, MD Architecture & Strategy, BT Group Chief Architect

work capabilities so that as you’re building your solution, you can just think of the network as another part of the code.”

Beyond connectivity McRae has said BT’s goals are to be a solutions provider to key customers by 2030 and to connect “for good”. These are commonly stated goals by European operators, but the first part seems to be progressing at a glacial pace. McRae acknowledged the pandemic caused a slowdown in some areas and acceleration in others, such as retail, where firms “are pushing to be able to offer services and capability outside of the storefront”. He again underlined the importance of partnerships in meeting customers’ need and added, “We’ve all got to make money out of it – that’s crucially important. We’re not going to be here if we [continue to] just sell connectivity, we’ve got to step forward, selling many more services and much more value than we do today if we want to invest in 6G or the next big telecommunications thing we need, because we’ve got to make money to invest. In 2021, the hefty investments BT made in 5G and fibre highlights that point. McRae said, “We’ve got a very strong plan – COVID made it a bit more difficult for us all – but we see momentum in all these spaces. Organisations that focus on customers as we do, will be the ones that that benefit from all this new technology.”

Working in partnerships BT announced it would work with Intel to expands its cloud engineering expertise. McRae stressed that it also works with other chip firms, but “Probably 99% of cloud platforms are powered by Intel technology,” he said. “All the uses cases we talk about not are not just technology, but people’s skills. We need a cloud- builders type programme… to expand our number of people and skills in that space.” He said BT has gained great insight and knowledge from Intel, from the key elements and desing in data centres “into the hypervisor and operating system, be it bare metal, or infrastructure-as-a-service or platform-as-a-service,” McRae explained. “We talked about the layers and things you need to do to stand up a platform around all that: a lot of people haven’t thought about how important it is and developing those skills in a more advanced way. “Public clouds run courses on how to use them but there’s not much about how to build cloud which we felt was one of the biggest barriers and challenges in telco. I want to say we’ve got the best cloud and the only way I can do that is by ensuring I’ve got the best engineers – that’s the driver for [the Intel programme]. “Our strategy for [providing customer-centric solutions] is to think of the network as code and create network APIs and net-

Mobile World Congress • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

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Many people have sent their pet beagles out searching for the edge. For me, the edge is where we engage with customers [which] can be in the middle of our network, in one of our exchanges or on a customer site or handset

He reckons a big stumbling block is some customers are not yet ready to move to new solutions, but others are. One such is boiler maker Worcester Bosch. BT deployed the UK’s first private enterprise 5G network as part of the Worcestershire 5G Testbed – a government initiative, partly funded by the public purse. It is working with the boiler firm to boost productivity using robotics, IoT, data analytics, edge computing and augmented reality (AR) to see how it can make engineers’ visits to homes shorter by providing in-situ help.

CTO Interview 19

BT and Associated British Ports (ABP) trial IoT and sensor technology to speed movement and processing of cargo goods at Port of Ipswich

things you need in a network, on demand. To be able to react to customers’ needs as they as they build out their requirements or 5G programmes.”

Contradictory drivers

BT also works with Associated British Ports to improve health and safety, among other things, which includes tracking the movement of containers on and off ships and around the port. McRae noted, “It’s almost like a two-way dance because we’re not experts in running a port or making boilers and they’re not experts in what telecommunications technology and 5G can do for them. We work with them and collaborate to build solutions. Often we bring in another partner: we’re working with people like Microsoft, Nokia and Ericsson to bring solutions to customers.” McRae also said BT has a 5G Standalone platform up and running in the lab, has done some trials with it and will launch a much bigger trial “around the end of Q1”. He described it as “a key requirement that is well on the way for clients, also in private networks. A lot of people think private networks are just a few radios in a building, but they include the core network: the Standalone requirements for [them] are almost independent of our mobile network. We’re developing them as a set of products, working with Nokia and Ericsson”. Will private networks primarily be a section or slice of the macro network or dedicated infrastructure? McRae replied, “I think anyone who gives you an answer that question is guessing. We will see some element of slicing off the macro network and you’ll see almost independent networks. The key is how you build, manage and operate it.” McRae said BT Network Cloud can create a standalone network separate from main network, although it uses all the same tooling, network management and analytical systems. He states, “We can do that really easily and deploy it in our data centres or customers’ data centres or our central offices as an edge solution. That’s what’s important about private networks – the flexibility to spin up the core, the control plane, all those

McRae notes that in all these scenarios, BT is trying to do two apparently contradictory things at once: “On the one hand, we need scale provided economically – enough capacity and capability. On the other hand, we need to progress on a caseby-case basis.” Is achieving this about network automation or softwarisation, and running workloads in the best location? He said that network automation is part of it, “But it’s also making the key control play of the network be cloud native. We build common standard infrastructure across our network and can bring different workloads to it, maybe running billing for BT one night and another tracking an ambulance through a town centre to give a doctor early diagnosis information. “The cloud native element is what gives you the ability to scale use cases, but it’s fair to say there’ll be there are things we will need to think more about, such as mobile or nomadic edge compute, perhaps on the back of a lorry.”

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A lot of people think private networks are just a few radios in a building, but they include the core network: the Standalone requirements for [them] are almost independent of our mobile network. We’re developing them as a set of products

Doing good He concluded, “My mission is to [make] people’s dependence on the network greater than today. I want the network to bring us more at work and rest and play, [bringing] automation that makes it easier to do our jobs so we can focus on other things in life. “If we were able to double the network’s influence in health care, manufacturing and transportation, the outcome would be huge…in manufacturing we have massive supply challenges across every industry and if we leverage the network to control supply chains, predictability improves and the experience of building, buying or selling products becomes a better one. We need to think differently about greater value the network brings.”

Mobile World Congress • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

“It’s revolution not evolution. Evolution you can buy; revolution you have to do” Philippe Ensarguet, CTO, Orange Business Services & Winner of the Mobile Europe CTO of the Year: Trailblazer Award 2021 For many operators, disaggregation and integration is the name of the game from end to end of their infrastructure. The abundance of new capabilities and technologies is turning them into techcos, looking to differentiate their services and products on top of common, standardised foundations. From network automation to AI and analytics, from IoT to network slicing, and from going cloud native to exploring the edge there are so many opportunities and challenges. Join the leading thinkers – and executors – in our industry to debate what we are doing and what we need to do to arrive at the techco destination.

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27 Where is fixed wireless access going?

William Webb, CTO of Cambridge Broadband Network Group (CBNG) shares his sense of direction with Annie Turner

30 Private networks Is Private 5G out of the AWS box the end for telco-led private networks asks Dawn Bushaus?

33 Operators are planning 6G now Dawn Bushaus investigates why telecoms is already looking at 6G and who is working on which aspects

22 Telco to techco

Mobile operators eye a bigger role in private 5G, embrace the edge and commit to Open RAN This year’s state-of-the-industry reader survey finds that while deployment of public 5G networks is accelerating, mobile operators are also pushing harder for a role in private 5G. In addition, they are more committed to deploying their own edge computing networks and remain committed to deploying Open Radio Access Network (RAN) technology. Operators also are continuing their march to the cloud with operational and business support systems (OSS/BSS). By Dawn Bushaus.

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Telco to techco 23

n January we surveyed readers about technology, digital transformation and trends for the coming year. More than half of respondents are employed by communications service providers (CSPs) or companies supporting them such as systems integrators or consultants. Most other respondents work for hardware and software companies that supply

telcos (for full details, see end of article).

High-priority technologies Backhaul

19%

Network automation

12%

Artificial intelligence (including machine learning)

16%

Cloud native/containerisation

16%

Increasing LTE speeds and density

23%

5G fixed wireless access

28%

Network virtualisation

35%

Mobile 5G

60%

Critical success factors over the next 5 years 16%

Enabling greater capacity/densification of 4G and 4G+

27% 28% 19%

Support from and engagement by operators’ C-suite execs

Online self-service and self-help for customers Deploying edge compute to reduce latency and network congestion Better customer experience of the network Leveraging analytics, AI and automation Rapid time to market with new services

A private affair Interest in private 5G is growing, with increasing numbers of respondents providing connectivity and other services either in trials or deployments. In addition, more respondents said they are planning to provide private 5G, while fewer said they do not intend to.

30% 39%

Fibre infrastructure Deploying 5G Standalone

2022 2021

As network operators are now beginning to deploy standalone 5G, we added it as an option to our question about critical success factors over the next five years. About a third of respondents rated it as critical. Standalone 5G will pave the way for network slicing, a capability that is necessary to support the most exciting and promising use cases – and is perhaps the best chance for CSPs to find revenue beyond connectivity. In December 2021, the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) predicted that by April 2022 mobile operators will have deployed more than 200 5G networks. The group is also tracking 98 operators that are investing in standalone 5G networks, 47 of them actively deploying the technology. TM Forum’s chief analyst, Mark Newman, believes 2022 will be a pivotal year for 5G. “For the first time in cellular network development we are seeing divergence in how operators are going about building their new core networks,” he writes in a recent report. “Some operators will continue to turn to their existing network vendors (principally Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei). Others are bringing in new vendors to fulfill specific core network functions. A few are partnering with hyperscalers.” Newman adds, “For the time being, most operators are focused on exploiting network slicing and low-latency services enabled by edge computing. But it is not at all clear how they will go about monetizing these capabilities. It may well be the case that their best bet is to commit to the cloud, commit to openness, and create capabilities that allow them to exploit new opportunities that come their way – whatever they may be.”

30% N/A 35% 28% 40% 48% 42% 53% 49% 41% 63% 55%

Participation in mobile private network trials We are providing hybrid public-private connectivity plus other services No, and we do not intend to We are running trials for private connectivity

5G deployment accelerates Mobile 5G is by far the highest priority for respondents, with 60% putting it in their top two. This is not surprising, and it’s a trend that has been consistent. In 2021 an even higher percentage of respondents (78%) ranked deployment of mobile 5G at the top of the list of priorities.

We are providing hybrid public-private connectivity We are running pilots for private connectivity and other services No, but we are planning to

2022 2021

2% 9.5% 23.5% 14% 16% 16.5% 13% 19% 23.5%

35% 22%

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24 Telco to techco

The latest data from Analysys Mason, which tracks mobile private networks (MPNs) worldwide, found that mobile operators are gaining MPN market share. The firm reported in November that there were 256 publicly announced private LTE or 5G networks deployed or planned at the end of September 2021, up from 156 the previous year. Mobile operators were leading about a third of deals, up from just 22% in 2020, and they appear to be doing especially well in 5G deals. Indeed, they acted as the main contractor in 44% of 104 5G MPN announced in 2021. Still, mobile operators are playing catch-up as large enterprises build their own MPNs or have turned to network equipment providers, systems integrators and cloud providers to build them. In December, AWS lit a fire in the market by launching its own private 5G service developed with technology deployed in its own fulfilment centres (see page 30). It’s unclear how the service might impact CSPs’ efforts to target enterprises, but some large operators believe AWS will target smaller enterprises and will not be a competitive threat, at least initially.

Moving to the edge Our survey shows that CSPs are also beginning to solidify their edge strategies. While only a quarter of respondents last year said they intend to deploy their own edge computing capabilities, this time almost half said they will. The percentage planning to offer edge services to enterprise customers also grew.

Roy Chua, Founder of the US-based consultancy AvidThink, believes that for now, the winning strategy for CSPs is one that includes building their own capabilities and partnering. “There’s no clear dominant strategy, so hedging allows CSPs to buy time to learn more about the edge market,” he writes. “Ironically, just a few years ago, CSPs were pushing back against partnerships with hyperscalers on the edge, concerned that hyperscalers would further erode CSP revenue streams. Today, partnering with multiple hyperscalers is acceptable and even necessary.”

Mixed results on open RAN Respondents are still planning to deploy open RAN technology with about 58% saying they are either already deploying or plan to deploy the technology. However, the percentage of respondents indicating that they or their customers will not deploy open RANs increased slightly this time.

Planned deployment of Open RANs 2022

37% Plans for edge computing We/our customers don’t intend to deploy edge infrastructure or use a partner Don’t know We/our customers will work with a partner or partners to host our edge infrastructure We/our customers will deliver edge on-premises services to enterprise customers We/our customers will deploy our own edge at the network edge

2022 2021

37%

5% 21%

29%

40%

13% 18%

8% 23%

We/our customers plan to deploy Open RANs

27%

We/our customers are already running trials

26%

We/our customers will begin live deployments this year

39% 40%

We/our customers do not plan to use Open RANs

28% 47% 23%

Many CSPs are partnering hyperscale cloud providers to build edge capabilities. Even so, edge computing has not taken off as some observers believed it would. Neither telcos nor hyperscalers have committed to significant investments, and this is perhaps because there is no “killer app” to spur interest.

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2021

Worldwide, regulators are supporting Open RAN to encourage diversity and competition in the supply chain for 5G hardware and software. The UK, for example, has set a goal of having 35% of telecom networks using open RAN by 2030, while Germany has committed to investing €300 million over several years to support open RAN development. CSPs are committed to the technology as well. For example, in a recent interview with Mobile Europe, Enrique Blanco, Telefónica’s Global CTIO, said the company is deploying 200 Open RAN base stations in Germany now and will deploy

Telco to techco 25

between 2,500 and 5,000 this year and next. Once reliability is deemed sufficient, the company will expand deployment to the UK and Spain. “This is the natural evolution,” Blanco said. “It is not a matter of Telefónica deciding to lead. We are cooperating with and we signed an MoU with our colleagues at Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Orange and Telecom Italia [in January and February 2021]. This is an industry necessity. Maybe there is a question about will it happen in 2022 or which quarter of 2022, but it will happen.” So far incumbent equipment providers like Ericsson and Huawei have understandably shown little support for Open RAN. Nokia is a member of the O-RAN Alliance and says it is working on the technology, but the company has been criticised recently for developing what amounts to a closed version of Open RAN. The ‘Big Three’ vendors may have no choice but to support it, however, if their customers demand that they must be able to integrate with other Open RAN ecosystem components. Some doubt the size of the market (see page 7).

with those provided by digital native companies like Amazon and Google. OSS transformation is much harder because of the huge number of siloed legacy systems. Most large operators are implementing or considering adoption of open digital architectures and standard APIs to transform OSS, but this can be a long and drawn-out process.

Transforming OSS/BSS

Cloudy outlook for network apps

In this survey, we asked respondents about the status of digital transformation programs and found that almost half of companies have projects underway. A quarter are planning projects but haven’t started them yet.

As part of their transformation programs, many CSPs are moving OSS/BSS applications to the cloud. They are also moving network applications, although the percentage of companies saying they will not move any network apps to the cloud is much higher this year. It’s not clear why skepticism about moving network applications has increased, but it could be the result of Amazon Web Services’ (AWS’) major service outage in December. At the

44%

of companies have digital transformation projects underway

23%

are planning transformation projects but have not yet started

Most respondents said they or their CSP customers are focusing on BSS transformation first, which is not surprising. This is typically the first step for telcos because they need to deliver digital experiences that are more on par

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Most large operators are implementing or considering adoption of open digital architectures and standard APIs to transform OSS, but this can be a long and drawn-out process

Operators’ migration to public cloud We/our customers will move all network applications to the public cloud We/our customers will move all support applications to the public cloud We/our customers have already moved a large majority of network applications to the public cloud We/our customers will not move any support applications to the public cloud We/our customers have already moved a large majority of our support applications to the public cloud We/our customers will not move any network applications to the public cloud We/our customers will move some network components to the public cloud We/our customers will move some support applications to the public cloud

2022 2021 5% 8% 5% 5% 9% 11% 9% 15% 19% 11% 35% 12% 44% 39% 44% 37%

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26 Telco to techco

time, BT’s Chief Architect, Neil McRae (see page 16), came out strongly against the practice. “Still want to put your network core into the public cloud? #suckers,” he tweeted. Neville Ray, T-Mobile’s president of technology, agreed with McRae: “The phone isn’t going to ring, the data session is not going to happen unless that core service is up and running,” Ray said, according to the investor web site Seeking Alpha. “I’m not at the point yet where I would put that in the hands of a third party.” He added that the mobile operator needs to “own that experience as much as we can ourselves because that’s pretty critical in the nature of the business.” US operators AT&T and Dish Network don’t seem to share the concerns about public cloud providers. Dish is building a completely cloud native 5G network in the AWS public cloud, while AT&T has announced that it will move its 5G core network operations to the Microsoft Azure cloud over the next three years.

How is culture changing? We/our customers are merging CTO and CIO functions and teams We/our customers are adopting AI and phasing out jobs We/our customers are boosting our in-house expertise on AI The culture of our company/our customers’ companies is not changing We/our customers are adopting APIs and hiring more software developers We/our customers are using Agile methodology and DevOps practices for network operations We/our customers are retraining many staff N/A We/our customers are actively embracing diversity N/A

2022 2021

9% 26%

How to measure diversity TM Forum recently completed a successful trial of a new Inclusion and Diversity Score (IDS) that CSPs will be able to use to measure progress in developing diversity, equality and inclusion within their organisations. “We must include it in our operational reviews; we must start measuring what matters. After all, we do this with everything else: NPS [net promoter score], churn, profitability,” says Keri Gilder, CEO of Colt & Chair of TM Forum’s Diversity & Inclusion Council. “We need an industry-adopted benchmark, much like NPS for customer experience, but this time for our people.” Gilder sees a disconnect between the lip service that the industry pays to diversity and the reality that is evident across teams within telco and supplier organisations. She points to the industry’s dismal track record promoting women as evidence. “Only five CEOs in our industry are female,” she says. “Only 60 of the top 330 executives are female, and of those one third are in traditional female roles like HR and don’t own a P&L... Real change is not happening.”

Focus on talent

14% 10% 26% 37% 28% 19% 40% 34% 49% 52% 23% 37%

Telcos need to increase diversity In many of our surveys we ask about how or whether culture is changing with CSP organisations. This year’s responses are similar to last year’s, with about half of respondents confirming that their companies are adopting Agile DevOps practices, and a third saying they are hiring more software developers. However, we asked about two additional cultural changes this time: diversity and retraining. Both are becoming an in-

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creasingly important focus in the telecoms industry as the war for talent heats up.

Telcos are also losing talent to digital native companies like Amazon and Google. In its 2021 Technology Report Bain and Company found that from 2010 to 2019 the number of software engineers and developers hired in the US increased at a compound annual growth rate of 58% in technology start-ups and 20% in hyperscale companies. But the number fell by 9% in “heritage tech” companies, including telcos. Bain recommends that telcos think beyond technical skills and look for creativity and the ability to problem-solve when hiring. In addition, it’s important to offer existing employees coaching and development. “Millennial and Gen Z workers tend to value this kind of investment, but it’s also critical to ‘growing’ talented employees who have the right capabilities, but not necessarily the experience,” Bain explains. “This effort also reinforces inclusion by providing real sponsorship of employees with diverse backgrounds.” Mobile Europe conducted this survey of 48 readers in January 2022. Respondents comprise 28% network operators, 28% systems integrators or consultants working for CSPs, 23% network equipment suppliers, 5% software vendors, and a handful of others including cloud providers, academics and regulators. Nearly 75% of respondents are from Europe, while 11% hail from North America and 11% from the Asia-Pacific region. The remainder are from the Middle East and Africa.

Fixed Wireless Access 27

Where are we going with fixed wireless access? The tech guru William Webb, who became CTO of Cambridge Broadband Network Group (CBNG) in 2021, shares his sense of direction with Annie Turner.

reviously, Webb was one of the youngest ever Presidents of the IEEE, has

William Webb, CTO of Cambridge Broadband Network Group (CBNG)

been Director of Technology Resources at the UK’s regulator Ofcom and

before that was Director of Corporate Strategy at Motorola. He is also an author. The 5G Myth: When Vision Decoupled From Reality was published in 2018 and Our Digital Future: Smart Analysis of Smart Rechnology in 2017.

AT: Where are we now with fixed wireless access (FWA)? WW: Most operators are focusing very much on 5G deployments for mobile – it’s their core business. We’ve seen a few operators trying to offer FWA on the back of their mobile service as a kind of, ‘Well, we might all do this as well, because it’s not much extra effort.’ So that’s FWA at 3.5GHz, the 5G mobile bands, but that’s just an interim measure while they haven’t got much 5G traffic from their mobile users, because it’s not very lucrative and it’s going to suck a lot of capacity out of their mobile 5G network. Most mobile operators will not use their standard 5G to deliver FWA. Some are looking at doing 5G in the millimetre waves – typically frequency bands 24-30 GHz. In the US, there’s a few other bands where’s it starting, because of the quirks of US spectrum licensing, and we’ve seen both Verizon and AT&T look at delivering FWA in cities

using their millimetre wave 5G frequencies. The details are pretty sketchy – they’re not giving us a lot of insight into how that’s gone – which normally means it’s not doing brilliantly. By and large, we’ve not seen much FWA from 5G mobile operators. As they say, they’re not fixed operators although they can try to turn their hands to fixed, but it’s not what they’re primarily good at or where they’re going to get 95-98% of their revenue from. Others will do the bulk of FWA deployments: either the fixed operators who might be deploying fibre, but they use wireless in areas where it’s not economic to put the fibre down, or new operators they call altnets [for

alternative network providers] in the UK. Those kinds of entities are focused on providing service to the home and that’s where the bulk of FWA deployments will be taking place over the coming years. AT: How much have spectrum auctions and allocations had a bearing on the FWA question in Europe? WW: They do have an effect and, in particular, the 5G element of the millimetre wave band has not been consistently allocated globally, even in those countries that have allocated it so far. The US has been towards the upper end of the frequency band, Europe towards the lower end, but individual

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28 Fixed Wireless Access

countries in Europe have been quite slow at assigning it. A number are still holding back. They can’t see the demand and that’s adding uncertainty to the process in many countries. AT: There is also some unlicensed spectrum up to 60GHz. Won’t higher frequencies mean many more antennas? WW: You want them quite big for FWA. It gives you more directivity, because you’ve got a stronger beam. It’s like if you make a spotlight much bigger, the beam goes further, because you’ve got a wider piece of glass on which to focus the light. You often want to do that for FWA: as the range is over short distances, it lends itself

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to a solution in really in dense urban areas, and there are a few companies interested in that. Facebook has long had an initiative called Terragraph, which is effectively a sort of standard for 60GHz FWA, and there have been a few trial deployments in cities. So that’s one option for FWA, but you don’t need much FWA in cities, because, for the most part, it has reasonable fixed solutions in terms of fibre or cable, or at least reasonable copper. So yes, there is an issue with frequency bands and licensing, and I think that will mean we’ll see millimetre wave FWA happening first in countries like the US, which have fairly good availability of some of these bands.

AT: What economics are at play here? WW: If you’ve got a dense community, then fibre generally makes more sense and is typically not that much more expensive than FWA for very densely clustered homes. If you’re looking at rural deployments, fibre can become prohibitively expensive very quickly, because of the distance you have to dig your trench. The US has quite a lot of those kind of rural entities, which is recognised by the pretty big chunk of money that the government has set aside – the Opportunity Fund – which is trying to incentivise deployment of high-speed broadband in rural areas. That’s helpful for everyone trying to

Fixed Wireless Access 29

deploy into that space, including for FWA, because it makes the economics of that kind of deployment even more viable for operators and pulls through equipment into that marketplace. AT: Is FWA for developed or developing markets or both? How big is the market? WW: It’s going to be the rural areas of developed markets, but while CBNG is expecting something like 75% growth over the next five years, it will only amount to 4% of the overall market. Most homes in developed countries are going to be connected by fibre, but it’s always difficult to get the right balance between market forces and government incentives. That’s the problem. For lots of broadband deployment, fibre is not immediately obviously economic. I have 60Mbps on my copper line right now, so why bother getting the fibre to the home? I think they will sometimes use FWA in the areas where they don’t think they’re going to ever get the fibre to, but anywhere they think they’ll get fibre at some point, operators are not inclined to put in an interim solution – that’s just adding to their costs. We have to look at how far fibre is likely to go, then we could use FWA to fill in the gaps. In developing countries it may be different, but at the moment there is less of a need for them, generally, to have really high-speed broadband. That could come, of course, over time, but now they tend to have less fibre and less investment in fibre. Eventually, FWA plays a strong role in those countries, but typically you tend to see them lagging behind the developed world in terms of deploying any new technology, because essentially they need to wait for it to come down the cost curve to the point where it’s much more cost-effective for them to deploy. AT: Can you see anything knocking fibre off its pedestal as the access technology?

WW: No, I don’t think so… it has immense capability. Once you’ve got that fibre in there, you can upgrade the equipment at both ends to make it faster and faster and faster. I can’t realistically see why any homeowner would ever exceed the capacity of a piece of fibre that can deliver 10Gbps or more if you have the right equipment on either end of it.

“

Anywhere they think they’ll get fibre at some point, operators are not inclined to put in an interim solution – that’s just adding to their costs

AT: Has the market for FWA not panned out as expected in the heady days of drawing up 5G standards? WW: The whole 5G standards processing and the development of 5G has been an overhyped and insufficiently scientific thing [Editor’s note: see the titles of the books Webb has authored above]. It depends who you talk to as to how much FWA was a key element, but I don’t think most people saw FWA is the driver for 5G, it was a bit of icing on the cake. AT: Is the sector too small to support specialist FWA providers – is it more likely to be in an operator’s portfolio of solutions? WW: I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Some FWA operators in Italy have something like 10% of the overall market share: there is a decent sized rural community and a lot of mountains.

That’s also true of parts of France and Spain, so it’s not completely clear to me why Italy is slightly different. If a service provider decided to link up the communities where FWA makes sense – maybe in the UK that could would be about a million homes, which is about 5% of the market – that would be plenty big enough for a specialist operator to be successful. Alternatively, the likes of AT&T could get their act together and bundle it into the other stuff they are doing to make it happen. I think we’ll see different strategies in different countries, depending on what happens with the incumbents and what happens with the spectrum. Also, what happens with funding from governments might stimulate certain directions and the availability of funding needed to get companies off the ground. If that’s easy, then it’s easier for new entrants to emerge. All kinds of different strategies might happen, but we might well see FWA-only operators in places, buying equipment from companies like CBNG. The market is big enough to support that, [but] we aren’t going to see a company the size of Ericsson rise from just FWA or of AT&T only doing FWA. AT: Do you think FWA equipment makers will be tempted to be service providers too? WW: The two disciplines are quite different and if you start to mix them together, then you can get all sorts of conflicts of interest that aren’t very helpful. It becomes hard to sell your equipment to someone if you’re competing against them as an operator too. Likewise, operators always buy the best kit for their purposes: as an equipment provider and operator, you’re going to buy from the company you’re inherently tied to. It’s not unheard of, but my general view is it’s not a great idea. To my mind, it smacks of desperation rather than success.

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30 Private Networks

Is Private 5G out of the AWS box the end for telco-led private networks? Amazon’s ‘productisation’ of its own technology late last year is the latest example of its innovative genius, writes Dawn Bushaus.

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Private Networks 31

sing its own internal 5G tech to develop a private 5G service for enterprises is also yet another example of communications service providers

(CSPs) being forced to take the back seat in 5G projects that many observers think they should be leading.

But there could be some advantages to being the passenger – like access to customers those operators might not otherwise reach. “Telcos can look at this [Amazon’s announcement] as competitive, because it competes for the same dollars, but they can also look at this as additional investment from a partner in simplifying the deployment of private 5G,” writes Roy Chua, Founder and Principal at AvidThink, a US-based independent research and advisory service.

Simplifying is the key The crucial word in Chua’s comment is “simplifying” and it’s what Amazon does best. Indeed, Amazon created Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is now a half-trillion-dollar business, by simplifying and productising its own IT environment using APIs (which, incidentally, were cited by AWS for the outage it suffered at the end of last year). This time, AWS has turned the 5G network used in Amazon fulfilment centres into a managed service for enterprises that automates set-up and deployment of a 5G RAN and core network, scaling capacity on demand. AWS’ CEO Adam Selipsky unveiled the private 5G service at the AWS re:Invent show in late November, calling it “shockingly easy” to use. The service, which is available to preview in the US using Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) shared spectrum, is already being used by DISH Network, Koch Global Services and Amazon Fulfillment.

Muddying competitive waters The announcement could, indeed,

spell trouble for CSPs, because it puts them in the all-too-familiar position of competing with their own supplier to deliver mobile private networks (MPNs) to enterprises. Operators already must compete with their network equipment vendors, including Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and Samsung. “In my view this is a big threat for operators, because it shows the ambition, scale and capacity that AWS brings into this emerging market,” Pablo Tomasi, Principal Analyst – Private Networks, Omdia, writes in an email to Mobile Europe. “There could be some partnership opportunities, though this announcement is significant as it puts AWS plus partners (for instance, Athonet and others) directly in competition with operators plus large network vendors.”

“

Despite growing competition, there is some evidence that CSPs are gaining ground in delivering private LTE and 5G networks worldwide

Dean Ramsay, Principal Analyst, TM Forum, agrees that AWS is likely to compete with CSPs. “I don’t think that operators are moving fast enough on MPNs and if we keep seeing more announcements like this with direct competitors…” he says during this recent podcast. “Ericsson, for many years, refused to sell MPNs, because it puts them in direct competition with their biggest customers, but that’s over…and they’re going full steam ahead.” Speaking during the same podcast, TM Forum’s Chief Analyst, Mark Newman, echoes Ramsay’s worries

that CSPs are being edged out of MPNs. He thinks that some operators see MPNs as “a bit of a sideshow”, believing that it’s more important to offer enterprise 5G services on their macro-cellular networks. “I think that’s the wrong way of looking at it,” Newman says. “I think in terms of the innovation around new services and new capabilities, that’s all going to start with MPNs. And if you’re not playing in the MPN space now, I think you’ll find it very hard to develop a 5G enterprise business from scratch just on the macro network.”

Making progress However, despite growing competition there is some evidence that CSPs are gaining ground in delivering private LTE and 5G networks. The latest research from consultancy Analysys Mason, which tracks MPN deployments worldwide, finds that mobile operators have increased their share of MPN deals significantly during the past year, from just 22% at the end of 2020 to 32% in Q3 2021. Analysys Mason reported that there were 256 publicly announced private LTE or 5G networks worldwide in Q3 of last year. In 5G networks (versus LTE), operators are particularly strong. “There were 104 announcements in total for 5G networks [in 2021] and… operators acted as the main contractor in 44% of these 5G networks,” says Analyst Ibraheem Kasujee, speaking during a podcast. The reason operators’ share is increasing is because there are more 5G networks being deployed, he adds, “and operators are more likely to be the main contractor in a 5G network.”

Silver lining? Some observers believe AWS Private 5G could benefit CSPs by helping them reach new enterprise customers. AvidThink’s Chua believes that AWS will need to partner with CSPs in many

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32 Private Networks

Worldwide private LTE/5G networks in the public domain by main contractor type Q3 2021

Systems integrator

4 2

Enterprise

5 5

Specialist network provider

Operator

Network equipment provider

Number of networks LTE

Source: Analysys Mason

deployments. In an interview with FierceWireless, he describes the system that AWS announced in November as a “starter kit” for experimentation and says it is unclear how well it can scale. Chua believes AWS will tap mobile operator partners to scale beyond small deployments. He also points out that while CBRS can be used for private 5G deployments in the US, regulations in other countries will likely necessitate that AWS partners with a mobile operator to deliver the service. “AWS’s Private 5G approach gives AWS a way to rope in telco partners when more sophistication and scale are needed – detailed RF planning, large deployments, spectrum licensing,” he

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“

AWS’s Private 5G approach gives AWS a way to rope in telco partners when more sophistication and scale are needed – detailed RF planning, large deployments, spectrum licensing

writes in his blog. While Omdia’s Tomasi sees the Amazon announcement as primarily competitive with telcos, he says it is not too late for mobile operators to carve out a role for themselves in private 5G. “This is still an early-stage market, so there is an opportunity for operators to accelerate in private 5G.” However, they have few challenges ahead. He writes, “For instance, they are not trusted priority partners, nor [do] they have in-depth vertical knowledge in many verticals (for example, manufacturing). They have been and still are hesitant to embrace private networks, and to accelerate they need to invest in a high-potential yet still modest market.”

The Next G 33

With 5G deployment barely underway, operators plan for 6G Dawn Bushaus investigates why telecoms is already looking at 6G and who is working on which aspects.

ven though 5G rollouts are just getting started in most

and extended reality (XR) experiences the norm.

countries, researchers, communications service pro-

Massively faster

viders (CSPs) and network

6G will be able to use terahertz radio spectrum (from 300 GHz to 3 THz) and sub-terahertz spectrum (from 100 GHz to 300 GHz), enabling transmission speeds of hundreds of gigabits to several terabits per second. Latency will be measured in microseconds, a thousand times faster than 5G’s

suppliers are already consid-

ering how the next generation of cellular technology will impact society.

Due to appear around 2030, 6G technology promises dramatic improvements in throughput, reliability and reduction of latency, all of which will make immersive

millisecond latency. And importantly, artificial intelligence (AI) will be pervasive in 6G and implemented from the outset. Edge computing will also be built in, so we won’t really think in terms of access, edge and core, or even simple connectivity. Rather, as Paul Crane, Converged Network Research Director at BT, explains, “We’ll be thinking about a network as a set of distributed compute resource which is running both network functionality and application

Promises of Edge computing is built in

Uses THz spectrum

Supports data rates of 1 terabit per second

Microsecond latency

Relies on analytics, AI and high-perfomance computing to process and manage vast amounts of data

Zero-energy devices

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces promise to extend coverage into hard-to-reach areas

Mobile World Congress • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

34 The Next G

Country or region

6G initiatives

China

Began research in 2019, intends to introduce 6G in 2029 Launched satellite to test teraherz signal transmission in November 2021 Huawei has 6G research centre in Canada; ZTE has teamed up with China Unicom to develop 6G Huawei has urged the Australian government to engage in 6G talks

Europe

European Union’s Hexa-X 6G research project began in 2020, and is led by Nokia with Ericsson, Intel and Telefonica participating In 2018 the University of Oulu in Finland committed to investing €250 million over eight years in a 6G flagship programme UK’s University of Surrey launched a 6G Innovation Centre in 2020 Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance launched a research project in 2020 based in Germany, whose government is to fund the development of new tech In 2020 Russia’s Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology said it would create a device to help the development of 6G system components

Japan

Research began in 2020 and it intends to launch 6G by 2030 The government is to set aside $9.6 billion to support the development of new technologies, including 6G Sony, NTT and Intel have set up a global platform to work on next-gen communications

South Korea

Began research in 2019 and plans to launch 6G in 2026 Planned to invest $11.7 billion in 2021 to develop a more digital economy, including 6G LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom have each formed 6G development partnerships

Started research in 2018 Federal Communications Commission has opened higher frequency spectrum to support experimentation Next G Alliance was formed in October 2020 with founder members including Apple, AT&T and Google Source: Bloomberg

functionality. The control… and the automation of the control are going to be crucially important.” Crane was speaking during a recent TelecomTV digital event focusing on 6G innovation. These improvements will support XR applications such as holographic telepresence, 3D gaming, remote surgery, remote experience assistance in industrial use cases and multi-sensory experiences using wearables. Other likely 6G use cases include pervasive connectivity, unstaffed mobility and lighter-than-air (LTA) drones.

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“Video will evolve,” says Rahim Tafazolli, Regius Professor and Head of the Institute for Communication Systems at the University of Surrey in the UK, who also participated in the TelecomTV event. Whereas all forms of mobile video so far have involved only two senses, seeing and hearing, future applications will include more. “We want to add other human senses like touch, smell and taste to the video – we call it four-dimensional video,” Tafazolli explains. “We believe that 6G can be broadly characterised as the

integration between communication and sensing, whereas 5G was communication and automation.”

Who’s working on 6G? 6G research is happening all over the world. The table above from US media company Bloomberg shows a regional breakdown of efforts across Europe, China, the US, South Korea and Japan. CSPs are active in many of the research initiatives. Indeed, BT’s Crane notes that it is important for mobile operators to start participating in 6G research now, so that

The Next G 35

they can plan for how they will roll out the next generation of network technology once standards become available. “What I don’t want to see is… that non-backwardly compatible step-change that the industry has traditionally gone through,” he says. “We need to look at not only the technologies that we’ll be deploying in ten or 20 years’ time, but equally importantly at how we go about doing that so that we can avoid that stepchange and have a much more evolutionary approach, where operators like ourselves can implement technology when there’s the market demand, rather than build before there’s actually demand.”

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces in 6G

Controller Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface

Revolutionary RIS Beyond the promise of terahertz spectrum, one of the most exciting technological advances coming with 6G is reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, or RIS (see graphic), which ETSI defines as “a new type of system node leveraging smart radio surfaces with thousands of small antennas or metamaterial elements to dynamically shape and control radio signals.” In October, the standards body established a new Industry Specification Group to work on the technology. RIS effectively turns the wireless environment into a service and could enable new applications such as sensing. For example, ETSI points out, an RIS “can reconfigure the radio environment to sense human posture and detect someone falling, a very useful application for elderly care.” Other advantages of RIS are that it can be deployed using primarily passive components, which lowers costs, and it is sustainable and environmentally friendly technology because of its low energy consumption. RIS can be deployed indoors and outdoors, and could be integrated into objects.

Shorter development cycles While it may seem early to discuss 6G, many of the TelecomTV panelists noted

Access Point

Device

Source: ETSI that the time between new generations of telecoms technology is decreasing and will continue to do so, partly because of network virtualisation and software-defined networking. “A lot of the development is being more and more software defined,” says Professor Emil Björnson of Linköping University in Sweden. “So, we can revise the protocols and we can make a lot of 5G products already future proof… Maybe the only things that won’t be forward compatible or backward compatible will be if you need really new hardware, like going to the terahertz bands.” David Boswarthick, Director of New Technologies at ETSI, agrees and thinks we will eventually stop talking about next generations of technology. “Do we need to keep playing the generation game? I think for the time being the answer is yes,” he says. “We will move

towards 6G; we will probably have a 7G – and then question mark, question mark. The duration [between generations of technology] seems to be getting shorter, so we’re talking about 6G far earlier than we started talking about 5G back in the day.”

Interim and evolutionary Boswarthick believes that we may see more interim and evolutionary steps in the standards process, like 5G Advanced, and that additional functionality will be added with each new release of standards. “You don’t have to do a big upgrade,” he explains. “You’ve got software-defined and virtualised networks now, so you can bring in new features – you can test them and roll them out easier. So, I think we’re going to have generations for a while, but I’ll stop placing bets at about 7G.”

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36 eSIM

Why are operators being so slow to embrace eSIM? Kate O’Flaherty asks whether operators are more focused on possible downsides for them, rather than experience upsides for their customers.

oday, there are 1.2 billion

Easy switch

eSIMs installed in con-

On the surface, mobile operators’ concerns are obvious. eSIM allows customers and users to easily switch provider, making it difficult to prevent churn. The costs for operators can be high and introducing eSIM can be technically complex, especially in the IoT space, where a need for wireless technology combined with hardware and management tools requires specialist vendors. In the consumer market, eSIM makes it easier for customers to change provider, which can bring downward pricing pressure. This makes it a threat to operators, says Kester Mann, Director of Consumer

nected devices and that number is set to surge to 3.4 billion over the next three years, according to

analyst Juniper Research.

Powering smartphones through to IoT devices, eSIM has multiple benefits, including flexibility, reliability and security. Many flagship smartphones support the technology and common frameworks from mobile giants Apple and Google are helping to fuel its growth. So why are operators being so slow to embrace eSIM?

Mobile World Congress • www.mobileeurope.co.uk

and Connectivity at CCS Insight. In addition, says Mann, “The technical side can be complicated and difficult, and device support is an issue: Only a limited number of devices include support for eSIM.” While eSIM has a positive impact on manufacturing costs, it is being introduced in newer flagship smartphones first and these are more expensive, says Peter Jarich, Head of GSMA Intelligence. However, he points out, the dynamic will change as companies such as Apple and Google introduce cheaper eSIM devices. The Covid-19 pandemic has been another obstacle to adoption, slowing eSIM

eSIM 37

launches in the second half of 2020, GSMA data shows. According to Jarich, some operators have delayed their eSIM implementation projects to focus on key priorities, such as mobile network resilience.

Drivers for eSIM Adoption has slowed, but eSIM isn’t going to fade away: vendors operating in the space say the drivers are in place for the technology to take off. This doesn’t have to be complex, because most operators already have access to subscription platforms via their existing SIM vendors which allow them to deliver consumer eSIM, says Hamish White, Founder and CEO of eSIM as a service provider, Mobilise. He points out that, “All major SIM vendors – including Thales, Giesecke & Devrient and IDEMIA – have eSIM platform offerings”. In addition, global standards for eSIM set by the GSMA are already available. “The common eSIM integration specification means there are no barriers for operators in specific countries,” White points out. Taking this into account, White thinks one reason operators’ uptake is slow is because, as the technology can facilitate easier switching to competitors, there is “a general lack of focus on customer experience improvements, such as inapp eSIM provisioning among operators; prioritising other product implementations deemed to have a higher business priority; project backlogs; and lengthy delivery cycles.”

Challenging certification There is also a challenging certification process for operators to navigate and setting up the customer onboarding process can be difficult. Onboarding eSIM customers typically happens in two ways – using a QR code or a mobile app, says White. “For a superior customer experience, using an application is by far the better choice, since customers

can activate their subscription in just one quick tap.” However, while launching an app is simple for customers, it’s complex for operators. The GSMA has cooperated with application marketplaces such as Apple’s App Store and Google Play to create a regulated process for launching in-app eSIM offerings. But in-app eSIM provisioning depends on an API called a local profile assistant, which operators can only access once they prove their compliance with the subscriber management system provider.

“

This regulatory minefield, paired with a complicated, lengthy process, adds to hesitation to adopt eSIM technology

The situation is even more complex due to the differences between Android and Apple applications. “This regulatory minefield, paired with a complicated, lengthy process, adds to hesitation to adopt eSIM technology,” says White. He adds that this complexity means it can typically take up to a year in normal circumstances to create a GSMA-compliant eSIM solution; even longer since the pandemic. If operators are to embrace eSIM soon, especially in large scale IoT, changes will need to be made. Today many 3G and 4G mobile operators own their SIM management platform. If a user has to switch to a different service provider, the ecosystem can deny moving the IoT device from one wireless network to another, says Vijay Anand, Assistant Vice President, Technology, and Chief IoT Architect, Capgemini

Engineering. He says it can make the management of large IoT deployments “chaotic, complex and potentially costly”. Taking this into account, Anand thinks there is a need for every eSIM supplier to have a common management platform. “The platform can support multiple operators to keep the connectivity process as simple as possible.” Slow adoption is frustrating for manufacturers, who want operators to embrace eSIM, but it’s not going to happen overnight. While 80% of manufacturers and 90% of operators say they will offer eSIM by 2025, operators want to embrace eSIM as a hybrid model, according to a recent study by Truphone and Mobile World Live. This is partly due to supply chain issues: operators cite availability as a key barrier to implementing the technology, with 48% claiming it is a challenge second only to cost.

The churn concern There are obstacles to adopting eSIM, but churn should not be operators’ main concern. In fact, eSIM makes it more important to differentiate through the customer experience, which many operators are already doing. “Offering a superior customer experience through eSIM outweighs the risk of increased churn by providing customers with a more tailored solution that meets their digital needs,” says White. And disruptive operators could even adopt the technology as a churn-reducing factor, says Mann. “Or maybe those that feel they have a premium network may use eSIM to encourage people onto their own network,” he suggests. It won’t happen straightaway and that’s partly because 80% of consumers aren’t aware of eSIM, GSMA data found. “Raising consumer awareness of eSIM and explaining and promoting its benefits is key to driving market adoption,” says Jarich, but it’s not just down to mobile operators – the industry as a whole has an important role to play.

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38 iSIM

Could iSIM be the end of eSIM before it reaches its full potential? iSIM has none of the baggage of eSIM, which could be heading headed for the eMuseum, claims Nick Booth.

n January, Vodafone, Qualcomm Technologies and Thales announced they have created a new integrated SIM (iSIM) which runs the functions at the speed of a processor. It could help mobile operators

run better services for end users, simplify roll-outs and massively extend the scope

formance of each device by releasing resources, such as processing power and memory. Consolidation of functions into the device’s main chipset, alongside other critical resources such as the two processing units (GPU and CPU) and the modem, makes the operating system more efficient and robust.

and range of devices the services run on, according to Thales.

iSIM, which complies with GSMA specifications, embeds SIM functions into the device’s main processor, allowing for greater system integration, higher performance and increased memory capacity, the inventors claim. This technology is the latest evolution of SIM technology and follows close in the wake of eSIMs, which are also embedded into devices. However, while eSIM does empower the customer, the downside is that it requires a separate chip. iSIM, on the other hand, doesn’t have that baggage. A separate chip is no longer necessary and there is no need to dedicate space in devices to SIM services.

Without baggage iSIM flies further iSIM technology creates the possibility for new mobile services to be integrated into devices beyond the mobile phone. The inventors claim they are extending the mobile experience to laptops, tablets, virtual reality systems, IoT devices and wearables, and whatever the metaverse turns out to be. The benefits include simplifying and improving both the design and per-

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“

Our aim is to create a world where every device connects seamlessly and simply to each other, and the customer has complete control

iSIM finishes before eSIM wakes An iSIM can be provisioned remotely by the operator using the old eSIM infrastructure, but with the power to add a whole new range of devices that eSIM technology couldn’t work with. Qualcomm describes a proof of concept conducted in Samsung’s R&D labs using Vodafone’s advanced remote management platform. A Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 5G powered by a Snapdragon 888 was connected to a Vodafone 5G network. The device had a built-in Qualcomm secure

processing unit running the Thales iSIM operating system. “Our aim is to create a world where every device connects seamlessly and simply to each other, and the customer has complete control,” says Alex Froment-Curtil, Vodafone’s Chief Commercial Officer. “The iSIM, combined with our remote management platform, is a major step in this direction.” Vodafone customers can enjoy the ease of multiple accounts on one device, while operators won’t need separate SIM cards or the additional plastic pollution. “We will continue working closely with Qualcomm Technologies and Thales to evolve further applications for this technology and accelerate its commercialisation,” says Froment-Curtil.

iSIM saves operators time and money iSIM systems offer great opportunities to mobile operators. They free-up valuable space in devices for OEMs, and provide flexibility for device users to benefit from the full potential of 5G networks and experiences across a wide range of device categories, according to Enrico Salvatori, Qualcomm Europe’s President for Europe/MEA. “By engineering the iSIM technology into the system on a chip, we create additional support for OEMs in our Snapdragon platform,” he says. “With new types of networks and devices rolling out, innovation in SIM technology is essential to best serve the connected world,” concludes Emmanuel Unguran, SVPP for mobile connectivity solutions at Thales.

40 Rising telecoms fraud

The pandemic boosted telecoms fraud – and it’s still rising Telecom and cyber fraud are bigger and more profitable than the narcotics trade. So what are operators doing about it, asks Kate O’Flaherty?

uropol reckons cyber-tel-

Covid-19 spam

ecoms fraud is bigger and

Fraud constantly evolves, so it’s challenging to keep up with and ahead of criminals. Fraudsters were quick to exploit Covid-19, with the topic appearing frequently in spam messages, says Simeon Coney, Chief Strategy Officer, Adaptive Mobile Security. His company’s Covid-19 spam tracker identified a spike, starting around February 2020. SMS fraud in particular surged

more profitable than the illegal narcotics trade, and the telecom industry agrees. Fraud is an

increasingly complex issue, which can result in hefty financial losses for mobile operators. So what are operators doing about it and what else needs to be done to tackle the growing problem?

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throughout the pandemic, says Katia Gonzalez, Head of Fraud Prevention and Security at BICS, which offers fraud prevention services to mobile operators. In addition, she says, “We are seeing more omnichannel attacks, with scams no longer only focusing on one single telco service, such as SMS. Instead, they’re spread across services in an attempt to hit a wider number of users and increase the fraudsters’

Rising telecoms fraud 41

chances of success. “Today, fraud attacks often focus on scamming end users, instead of trying to directly monetise telco transactions. We are seeing a new focus on end users with the goal of obtaining direct payments or personal data, which can then be used to perpetrate many other scams and monetised on the dark web.” Caller line identification (CLI) spoofing – where an attacker hides their identity to make it appear as if the call is coming from elsewhere – is proving very difficult to address, she adds.

A costly issue Telecoms fraud is a costly issue for mobile operators, partly because they are usually forced to bear the cost themselves. Europol estimates that this amounts to €10.6 billion (£9 billion) a year – and that’s without taking into account the damage to their brand and reputation. Usage-based fraud – where fraudulent traffic is artificially generated or ordinary, legitimate traffic is manipulated – continues to be the biggest issue across mobile data, SMS and voice globally, according to Finn Kornbo, Executive Product Director, Digital Wholesale at CSG. Usage-based voice fraud is causing some of the greatest losses in the form of revenue-share fraud through enterprise private branch exchange (PBX) hacking, which continues to have a high financial impact across regions, he says. In tandem, roaming-related fraud, including zero-rated fraud, is causing “significant damage” to many mobile operators, impacting their ability to drive new revenue, Kornbo says. Although there are multiple options to help operators mitigate fraud, the amount being done by operators covers a wide spectrum, according to Coney, “From those doing very little, to those working to implement the necessary technology to block fraud.”

Tackling telecoms fraud Across the industry as a whole, a lot of work is being done to tackle telecoms fraud. In October this year, UK operators committed to a nine-point fraud charter. Key actions stemming from the charter include identifying and implementing techniques to block scam calls, and sharing data across the industry, plus plans to block smishing texts. The charter also outlines plans to work with organisations in the financial services sector to perform strength checks around SIM-swapping, where a mobile number is moved to a new provider to commit fraud.

“

We are seeing more omnichannel attacks, with scams no longer only focusing on one single telco service, such as SMS. Instead, they’re spread across services…

The impetus is there, but execution may not be as straightforward due to the complexity of networks and the protocols that govern them. “While these are strong aims, implementation is slow and difficult,” says Matt Ettelaie, a Senior Manager in KPMG UK’s Cyber Defence Services practice. “Telecommunications networks are complex and interconnected, based on well-established protocols, such as SS7. These legacy protocols were developed with uptime and interopera-

bility in mind, not necessarily security.” As the attack landscape continues to diversify, criminals can exploit critical weaknesses in signalling protocols such as SS7 and Diameter to carry out fraud. Positive Technologies’ researchers found vulnerabilities in all the networks they tested.

UK lags US In addition, in contrast to the US, which has already developed improved protocols, UK operators’ aims will take much longer to become reality. “The implementation of techniques such as caller ID authentication, using new technical standards such as the STIR-SHAKEN approach, will take the UK industry time to test and deploy before they can be effectively used,” Ettelaie says. He points out that some updates are not scheduled to be completed until 2025, when the UK telephone network swaps from analogue to all IP. For now, UK operators are currently focusing efforts on quick, technical solutions and intelligence sharing that can begin to mitigate some, but not all, fraud, adds Ettelaie.

Making fraud difficult It’s never going to go away, so fraud must be addressed with a combination of technology, such as systems that can detect and mitigate fraud, and global collaboration between operators. For now, as the fraud landscape continues to diversify beyond Covid-19, it’s important that the industry works together to tackle the issue. Collaboration within the industry has increased during Covid-19 and this has been instrumental in fighting some of the devastating SMS attacks during the pandemic, says Gonzalez. “Hopefully this will encourage all parties to collaborate further, particularly across borders, and increase efforts to fight back against fraud,” she says.

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42 Final Say

Consumer group says 5G will widen the digital divide in France Equality initiative has a mountain to climb as one in three rural users are deprived of good broadband, says the new UFC-Que Choisir study. Nick Booth reports. needed to access basic mobile internet services, such as web browsing, in “barely decent conditions”. One in four use cases in the study were unable to access “good broadband”, which the French government defines as being at least 8 Mbps. High quality broadband is a mythical beast for many consumers, the UFC-Que Choisir said, and it called on the regulator, Arcep, to demand a minimum quality of service from operators wherever mobile coverage is provided.

5G will give more to the 4G rich

rench consumer association UFC-Que Choisir has

connection with a speed of more than 8 Mbps, the study found.

denounced the “extremely marked territorial ine-

Broadband class system

quality” in the use of 4G

At the end of 2021, UFC Que Choisir launched a mobile application, Queldébit, which compiled information from mobile phone users in order to identify better indicators on performance, and more transparency on the quality of mobile networks nationally and in the regions. According to its figures, data speeds in urban areas were 55.3 Mbps on average – 66% faster than the 33.3 Mbps average speed in rural areas. In 14.3% of cases the speeds recorded were less than 3 Mbps, the speed defined by UFC-Que Choisir as the minimum level

in France, where 32% of consumers in rural areas are deprived of “good

broadband”. Inequalities between rural and urban areas are likely to worsen with the arrival of 5G, it warns.

As Les Echos reports, 4G is used by the majority of French people, despite the recent launch of 5G, but the 4G network does not allow all consumers to access broadband. “The analysis of the real quality of 4G is worrying,” says UFC-Que Choisir. Some 32% consumers in rural areas cannot get an internet

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There are no figures from the association on 5G, as there are not enough instances to provide a meaningful study. However, the consumer rights champion did say that 5G technology will only really benefit users in areas where 4G is already well established, which will widen the inequalities between French residents even further. In France there have been several initiatives that set out to bridge the digital divide. In 2013, the France Très Haut Débit Plan (Very High-Speed French Broadband Plan) set out to cover the entire French territory with speeds of over 30 Mbit/s by 2022, through a €20 billion public and private investment scheme. In January 2018, the New Mobile Deal agreement was signed by the French government, the telecom regulator and operators, to eliminate ‘white zones-village centres’ – the areas not covered by last-generation mobile networks such as 4G – by 2022. It looks like yet another initiative might be necessary.

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