MWC 2019: Key mobile network technologies for this year

Now that the technological storm of MWC has passed, it is a good time to carefully analyze the most important solutions presented in Barcelona and keep an eye on those that will play a key role this year in the telecommunications infrastructure industry.

Behind all the “hype” generated around this annual event in terms of 5G, IoT, AI, one needs to identify the solutions that can actually help operators in their journey to evolve their networks at the same time that they can reduce their OPEX and optimize their investments in CAPEX before 5G is a complete reality.

Open RAN
During  MWC we have noticed how some mobile network technologies have left the research phase to start with the production stage of commercial trials. An example of this is the Open RAN initiative which was born under the umbrella of Telecom Infrastructure Project, where, thanks to the support of key operators such as Telefónica or Vodafone and the collaboration of new disruptive  companies such as Altiostar, Mavenir and Parallel Wireless, has now become a reality in countries like Peru.

Small Cells and Fix Wireless Access
It has been quite a pleasant surprise to confirm that Small Cells and FWA solutions are having their moment in network deployments.

In the last few years, much has been said about the use of Small Cells in hotspot areas to offload capacity from the macro cells. However, it has not been until now, with the enabling of the CBRS band in the United States, that Small cells are starting to catch operator’s attention. Apart from the solutions presented by the big vendors, which I will analyze later, here we can find the “Apex Small Cells” portfolio of Casa Systems or  Airspan’s Air-X indoor solutions.

Boosted by 5G, mmWaves seem to be the chosen bands for FWA deployments. Due to the available bandwidth at these frequencies, together with some innovative radio access techniques designed for 5G, the achievable throughput can compete against the ones provided by current fix access deployments. Companies like JMA Wireless or Intracom Telecom have introduced in this MWC their complete portfolio to cover both fronthaul and backhaul in this emerging use case. Nevertheless, Samsung Networks and Ericsson seem to be one step ahead in FWA thanks to the support of the American vendors.

The big guys and the 5G
As if they were two great fighters, Ericsson and Huawei have shown in this MWC all their 5G potential. Not only have we had the opportunity to see their radio prototypes as in previous years, but this time, they’ve brought a complete end-to-end portfolio of solutions covering the RAN, transport and Core of the 5G network, as well as the bunch of collaboration demos hosted in partners stands.

Ericsson 5G-ready

Focusing on Ericsson, it is interesting to check how actively they are promoting a strategy based on a smoothly switch from 4G to 5G based on software updates with their “Ericsson Radio System hardware has been 5G-ready since 2015” slogan. Well, being honest, this strategy may work for them on a first stage of 5G based on Non-Stand-Alone scenarios considering that nowadays they own a big 4G footprint worldwide in a moment when operators are lacking CAPEX due to the investments made during the last few years. However, once new use cases demand the true benefits of 5G, operators will be forced to migrate their EPC to 5G-Core, their eNBs to CU-DU nodes and their radios to active antenna systems with Massive MIMO and mmWave hardware ready… and here is where Chinese vendors seem to be far ahead.

As I mentioned above, Huawei has struck a blow on the table during this MWC with their technological solutions, covering almost all areas and bringing three big booths for Carrier, Enterprise, and Consumer business groups. Huawei boasts of having signed over 30 commercial 5G contracts with operators around the world and shipped over 40,000 5G base stations. In this edition, Huawei presented their Simplified 5G solutions to quickly deploy 5G networks and the SoftCOM AI solutions to help build autonomous driving networks. But the question is, will Huawei be able to keep leading the 5G race if the USA finally bans them and Europe quits its support?

Huawei’s main booth at Hall1 in Mobile World Congress 2019

Regarding ZTE, Nokia and Samsung, it’s good to see ZTE back as if nothing had happened, with a powerful 5G portfolio and with a clear strategy of supporting Stand-Alone deployments. Great also to witness Samsung Networks closing deals in the United States and performing trials in Europe with its FWA solutions at last. And finally Nokia, a sleepy giant who definitely needs to wake up before missing the 5G call.

My vision about Virtualization and Open RAN initiatives

As this is my first post on this blog, I wanted to use it to discuss the main topic that has been spinning around in my head lately. Recently you’ll probably have heard about virtualized RAN and Open RAN initiatives, just in time when 5G is coming. This is not a coincidence but rather a set of facts motivated by industry trends also due to important economic and political reasons. In this article I will go through the ‘Whys’ and the ‘Hows’ these new RAN initiatives will have a key role in the coming network deployments.

The 5G “momentum”

The telecommunications industry is facing a key moment with the arrival of the 5G era. This new G has no precedents before when comparing it with previous mobile technologies such us 4G or 3G. 5G is more than a mobile network technology since it will have the challenge of trying to connect millions of devices with different connectivity requirements as the same time as providing intelligence, adaptability, and flexibility to digital communications. This fact has caused  not only traditional infrastructure vendors to develop 5G technology but also other not-as-known actors such as IT, companies, software virtualization companies or even GPPP hardware manufacturers want a piece of the cake. There are even other industries, like automotive or manufacturing looking advantage of the benefits of the 5G technology to make autonomous driving or Industrial IoT a reality.

China vs USA, a battle for leadership

In the last few years, the commercial battle between the United States and China has been “in crescendo” reaching such a point that other areas like technology have been totally affected. In the telecom infrastructure landscape there are currently four big players; Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and ZTE, being the two firsts European companies and the last two ones Chinese vendors, what it will take you to thing, where is the American vendor here?  Well, this is not easy to explain but we can assume that Ericsson and Nokia are American trusted partners. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post 5G goes beyond wireless connectivity, 5G will be the technology to interconnect everything and all digital services will lay on it, all the information will be sent via 5G networks, from irrelevant WhatsApp messages to critical communications as those to guide autonomous cars or manage complex surgeries remotely.

Based on this context, one could think, who has 5G, has the power to control communications, data and access to critical information… but for the time being, I refuse this idea. Nowadays we can read more and more in the news about how the most powerful countries are taking a position on whether to ban or not Chinese vendors with the main fear that Chinese government has somehow access to critical information and could eventually use it as a powerful weapon. And well, being honest, this could be one of the intentions, but does anyone really think that the United States would not do the same in a similar prevailing position?

And here is where when the problem comes, this is one of the first times in the history where Americans are not leading the race in a new technology. 5G has arrived in a moment where big American tech companies are focused on other areas without owning a leadership position in 5G development. In legacy technologies such as 2G, 3G or even 4G, Motorola or Lucent had a dominant position in the way how the standard should be developed and the royalties that the operators should pay; however, now is on different hands.

With this situation in mind and considering the ambitious Made in China 2025 plan proposed by the Chinese government with the aim of promoting and restructuring its industry through developing its own technology and strengthening its economic action plan, 5G is one of the key pillars of the China strategy to take the lead and control on this technology.

Virtualization and Openness to reduce CAPEX and optimize OPEX

Having said all this, and keeping in mind that network operator’s main premise is to decrease the deployment’s cost of every new technology iteration and optimize as much as possible their investments, it seems pretty clear that new players are needed in this game.

OpenRAN and O-RAN Alliance are two new initiatives created by both emerging SW/HW vendors and operators with the goal of developing fully programmable RAN solutions based on General Purpose Processing Platforms (GPPP) and disaggregated software so they can benefit from the flexibility and faster pace of innovation capable with software-driven development.

According to O-RAN Alliance organisation “Future RANs will be built on a foundation of virtualised network elements, white-box hardware and standardised interfaces guided by two principles: openness and intelligence…”

On the one hand, hardware and software openness is a need nowadays, since, so far the big infrastructure vendors have used their own private solutions so far with almost no interoperability with other vendors. In fact, this business model has allowed them to dispute operators in terms of costs and create some technological barriers in the development of more flexible and optimized solutions.

On the other hand, with 5G, networks will become increasingly complex due to densification and to richer and more demanding applications. Thus, next-generation networks need to have some kind of network intelligence to reduce their current complexity and therefore reduce OPEX. Artificial Intelligent to quickly self-adapt to new network context and the automation of certain human support routines are achievable and will enable a new era for network operations.

Some of these ideas are not new in the telecommunication sector but probably due to the immaturity of certain technologies like software virtualization and the limitation in hardware processing of GPPP systems, they have not become a reality until now.

Thanks to SDN and NFV techniques, operators are now allowed to buy general purpose computing systems from different manufacturers to scale and deploy their solutions according to their needs. This fact will increase the offer in the market and will allow operators to optimize their CAPEX. Additionally, the openness of HW and SW will also allow to create a community of knowledge and support which will positively affect in OPEX reduction.

All in all, we find ourselves in a key moment, not only from a technological perspective but also from a geopolitical one, which will lead us to a brand-new scenario of emerging companies and business models to deploy next generation networks.