Mobile & Wireless Roundup #60

Welcome to the 60th edition of this newsletter. People are often reluctant to challenge prevalent narratives, be it to do with culture, religion, history, politics, wars or technology. It is often too difficult to ignore the detractors whose beliefs get challenged. People on either side of the fence often end up being emotionally distressed, socially isolated, or even depressed.

When I read news about VoLTE rollout in a 4G network, it reminded me that ten years ago we were discussing VoLTE rollouts with the expectation that the majority of them would be done and dusted by 2015. Unfortunately, the issues, especially with roaming and emergencies, are still going on. The current mobile operator approach is; if something goes wrong, we are not responsible.

6G is another favourite topic for these discussions. While the researchers and vendors are keen to progress this at a rapid pace, most operators are not too keen on getting something completely new in 2030, unless it will be a small evolution requiring minimal amount of investment.

Some of you may have heard of Amara’s Law: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” When 5G was being standardised, the standards bodies and most big vendors did not take time to explain that things would evolve slowly, they won’t work from day 1. This meant that many operators were taken for a ride by millimetre wave promises or high speeds and low latency promises. They in-turn passed those visions and promises to their customers who are unimpressed by all that 5G has to offer today.

5G enhancements and improvements are on their way. While some of the simpler features like higher data rates are already available today, the more sophisticated ones will only make an impact from 2025 onwards.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a technologist with over 24 years’ experience in mobile wireless technology, currently working as an independent advisor, analyst, consultant and a trainer. This newsletter is a summary of my posts and others news that caught my attention since the last newsletter.

⦿ 6G

• Free 6G Training: A Discussion on SK Telecom's First 6G Whitepaper from Wireless Future Podcast (link)
• Dean Bubley on LinkedIn: "One line I heard yesterday at #ConnectedBritain that really struck me came from BT Group Network/Security head Howard Watson during his keynote..." (link)

⦿ 5G

• Isp.page: STC Bahrain Completes Successful 5G-Advanced Trials, Achieving 10 Gbps (link)

⦿ 4G/LTE

• Operator Watch Blog: Lack of 4G Coverage, Low Data Rates and High-Costs is Impacting Equatorial Guinea Web Experience (link)

⦿ Open & Disaggregated Networks (including Open RAN, vRAN, etc.)

• Jinsung (Alex) Choi on LinkedIn: 'O-RAN as Code (ORaC)' for Private O-RAN (link)
• Telecom Infra Project: ARI (Accelerating RAN Intelligence in 5G) will be presenting at Fyuz23 (link)
• Jinsung (Alex) Choi on LinkedIn: 'Shifting Left' in O-RAN NetMLOps (link)
• Andy Jones on LinkedIn: "Despite the typical clickbait headline, this does sum up the woeful state of telecom supply chain diversification rather well. But is it fair to blame policymakers for an industrial mess that was surely of industry’s own making?..." (link)
• Jinsung (Alex) Choi on LinkedIn: Bridging O-RAN's Programmability with Enterprise Private 5G Application Platforms (link)

⦿ Spectrum

• Dean Bubley on LinkedIn: "Some important updates on #spectrum from this week's #ConnectedBritain conference in London, from both regulator Ofcom and government Department for Science, Innovation and Technology..." (link)
• Assaf Aviv on LinkedIn: "Is mmWave 5G Dead?..." (link)
• BroadbandTV News: EU opts to keep UHF band for broadcast at WRC-23, but adds mobile (link)
• Dean Bubley on Twitter: "Spectrum management framework for the 6G target range of 7-15GHz is going to be interesting to deal with. Lots of incumbents to work around - and likely to vary widely by country" (Tweet with photo)

⦿ Private Networks

• Private Networks Technology Blog: Private 5G and AI to make Chinese Coal Mines Smarter (link)
• 3GPP NPN Standards Enhancements from Release 16 to 18 (link)

⦿ IoT / M2M / Smart Homes

• ETSI IoT Conference 2023 (formerly ETSI IoT Week 2023) (link)

⦿ Security & Privacy

• Ars Technica: A phone call to helpdesk was likely all it took to hack MGM (link)
• Eugina Jordan on LinkedIn: Things you did not know about telecom - Security Edition, Part 1 (link)

⦿ AI, ML & Automation

• RCR Wireless: What does the future of AIOps in telecom look like? (link)

⦿ Satellites, HAPS, Drones, UAVs & Space

• Ars Technica: SpaceX projected 20 million Starlink users by 2022—it ended up with 1 million (link)
• Latest issue of ITU News Magazine talks about Satellite connectivity (link)
• Sanjay Kumar on LinkedIn: 5G NTN - Non-Terrestrial Networks by Rohde & Schwarz (link)
• AccelerComm, Radisys, RFDSP & TTP unveil LEO Regenerative 5G RAN solution (link)

⦿ Telecoms Infrastructure, Small Cells, Antennas & others

• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Vodafone's 5G+ Street Lights in Cologne, Germany (link)

• Rudolf van der Berg on Twitter: "Submarine cables and submarine cable ships are cool. Orange just got a new ship, the Sophie Germain, and made a video about it. Enjoy!" (Tweet with video)
• Paul Rhodes on LinkedIn - Thursday School : Legacy and Evolution (link)

⦿ Other News and Technology Stuff

• Nick vs Networking: Mobile IPv6 Tax? (link)
• Netflix ends three year litigation in Korea over network usage costs. Fair share update by Strand Consult (link) – Analyst James Crawshaw’s comments on LinkedIn here.
• Introducing Bluetooth Networked Lighting Control (NLC) – A Milestone in the Interoperability Journey (link)
• Improvements in Mobile Connectivity Correlate to Greater Impact Towards Sustainable Development Goals, according to GSMA Report (link)
• Luke Kehoe on Twitter: "European governments have invested significant exchequer capital in supporting the deployment of full-fibre networks, but comparatively little state intervention has been observed in mobile markets to date..." (link)

⦿ Picture of the week: Cable ship from Orange Marine, as shown here. Orange Marine operates 6 cable ships and a survey vessel from its marine bases or foreign harbours. Orange Marine’s cable ships are fitted with specific software for laying and repair: Espadon and Myosotis. They are also equipped with Inmarsat-B satellite communication system, and VSAT which provides permanent Internet access onboard.

Happy to hear your thoughts. Feel free let me know what worked, what didn’t, how I can make this better, etc. Get in touch over LinkedIn!

PDF version of this and previous newsletters are available here.