1. Issue 19
03/2014
EE: Seeking
new horizons
Scan for mobile reading
Summer is
no holiday for
Telecom Italia
Zain Kuwait:
Leading from
the middle
E-health: The
21st-century
house call
What do we
do about OTT?
Voices from Industry
Fotis Karonis, EE CTO
4. WHAT’S
INSIDE EE: Seeking new horizons01
EE was the first to the U.K. market with
LTE, and has now launched the world’s
fastest LTE-A network for an encore,
making for over one million customers
whose lives and work have changed.
Others are joining in the LTE game, but
CTO Fotis Karonis is confident that EE
can maintain its leadership.
Voices from Industry
03/2014
Issue 19
What do we do about OTT?09
The digital divide: Clear but ill-defined05
Nicholas James, UK Broadband CEO:
You have to get the gov’t properly online
and if you do that the savings are roughly
USD24 per person. If you multiply that
with the number of people we are trying
to get online, it is a huge amount of
money to invest back into getting people
online.
Broadband for everyone: It all starts with policy13
Zhao Houlin, ITU Deputy Secretary-
General: The importance of broadband
has been realized by our member states
everywhere, so they have put broadband
development as a national priority. I
see national broadband plans in many
countries, particularly in developing
countries.
5. AIS: Nine million users migrated in
five months
39
China Mobile Tianjin: Monetized
traffic through PCC
45
LTE for gov’t: Increasing
administrative efficiency in Tianjin
48
Telco fraud: Impact & response33
Digital Domain: Special effects, digital causes25
Digital Domain is a world-renowned
California-based visual effects (VFX)
house. Since its founding in 1993, Digital
Domain has delivered innovative visuals for
more than 100 movies. Its CEO, Daniel
Seah, recently shared his insights on the
growth of VFX and VFX-related
technologies behind the screen.
Zain Kuwait: Leading from the middle30
Zain Kuwait is the undisputed
leader in the Middle East in
mobile uptake. CEO Omar
Al-Omar discusses how the
operator plans to stay at the
forefront of LTE technology and
consolidate the enterprise and
M2M markets.
E-health: The 21st-century house call22
The global e-health market is projected to
grow to USD160 billion in 2015, making
for an annual growth rate of 16%. Dr.
Patrice Cristofini, Member of the Board of
Directors at the European Health Telematics
Association, provides a glimpse of the general
state of e-health, particularly in Europe, and
the challenges to different stakeholders.
Summer is no holiday for Telecom Italia42
Winners
Mobily spearheads MBB in Saudi Arabia35
Tao of Business
LTE: The fourth chapter, but what’s
the story?
27
5G will support thousandfold gains in
capacity, connections for at least 100
billion devices, and a 10 Gb/s individual
user experience capable of extremely low
latency and response time. Deployment of
these networks will emerge between 2020
and 2030. It will also drive economic and
societal growth in entirely new ways.
5G: A technology vision17
Perspectives
6. MAR 2014
1
— Fotis Karonis, EE CTO
Now we are the
fastest, the most
reliable and advanced
4G network in the
world. That’s a great
position to be in for
a few years down the
road.
1
7. MAR 2014
2
EE was the first to market with LTE in the United Kingdom, and has now launched
the world’s fastest LTE-Advanced network for an encore, making for over one million
customers whose lives and work have changed. Others are now joining in the LTE
game, but CTO Fotis Karonis is confident that the operator can maintain its leadership,
thanks to its scalable, future-proof networks, and solid partnership with Huawei.
EE: Seeking new horizons
VOICESFROM INDUSTRY
Transforming user experience
WinWin: Let’s look back a little bit. It’s 2010 and
you are starting this innovative new company with a lot
of challenges. Remind us about the state of the market.
What were your ambitions at that moment?
Fotis Karonis: Thank you for this occasion. So in 2010,
the U.K. market needed, I would say, loads of investment
in infrastructure to catch up with the most progressed
companies in the mobility world. It was a great opportunity
for us and a great time to make an ambitious statement
and an ambitious strategy by not only connecting the two
competing companies together, Orange and T-Mobile, but
creating a new vision of putting the network in the core of our
telecommunication world and of our company. So we made
this happen by putting strong, focused, excellent engineering;
excellent customer services; and a fantastic 4G rollout, which
turned the whole game around. Now we are the fastest, the
most reliable and advanced 4G network in the world. That’s a
great position to be in for a few years down the road.
WinWin: You had more than one million LTC
customers three months ahead of schedule. What’s your
secret?
Karonis: I think it’s good collaboration. It’s fantastic
engineering. It’s a very sound commercial strategy.
Building partnerships together with our strategic partners,
like Huawei. Making sure that we work very closely
together and that we understand business challenges,
and we recognize some of the difficulties and we address
them and solve them in time, so that we build a future-
proof, scalable solution going forward. That is a very, very
important element of the success; it is this collaboration
that is to be really embedded into a partnership.
WinWin: So EE has led the LTE market for almost
one year. How is the technology transforming user
experience in the U.K.?
Karonis: Yes, I am very excited. I am really happy by all
that we do with 4G. It is very transformational. First of all,
it provides a capability for people to do more things online,
to trust the network more, and have much faster response,
more capacity, because the latency is very, very small,
By Julia Yao & Linda Xu
2
Scan for mobile reading
8. MAR 2014
3
compared with the 3G or the 2G experience. There is no
comparison actually.
These one and a half million-plus users have access to
knowledge, video, and online services; it changes the way
that we do things. We like to see things done more on the
move. U.K. society has one of the highest usages of data in
the world, the same as Korea, Singapore, and other places.
It’s leading for sure in the EU and the European space.
It also links with the growth of the economy. The more
we are online, the more we use 4G communications to
do our business online, the more effective the economy
is, the more efficient companies are, the quicker the retail
experience is. All those people doing logistics and sales on
the move, you do it right there where things happen, which
really facilitates working.
WinWin: You have made a pledge to try and help a
million people in Britain with their digital skills. What is
that about? How does that work?
Karonis: The educational process is very important.
People say, “Why do I need 4G?” It’s always that step that
has to be explained to people. The difference is massive.
There is a massive difference between 3G and 4G. 3G is a
voice technology that was sufficiently enhanced in order to
provide data services, but it’s not a real data communication
protocol. With LTE, you have a real data communication
protocol, so the things that you can do out of a 4G LTE
network… it is no comparison with a 3G network. We have
to provide that education to people, to get them to come
into the stores and understand how it is used, work with
our people on the front lines and get this experience where
they can actually feel the value that 4G is bringing to their
daily life. I can give you hundreds of experiences from the
use of the Internet, email, but also moving into the health
area, into the automobile, where you can provide services
beyond the thinking up to today. There is a huge amount of
opportunity there, especially with the growth of video usage.
Ahead of the curve
WinWin: Tell us about this new LTE-Advanced
feature that you have from Huawei, at the moment, in
the network?
Karonis: What I can say is that we are advancing step
by step and integrating all the previous steps. So when
we put forward LTE-Advanced architecture, it is actually
backwards-compliant with all the other stuff, with LTE,
with 3G, with 2G, so it’s an evolving process which builds
on a very sound foundation, if you like. What we get now
from this LTE-Advanced is actually we blend spectrums –
20MHz of the 1800MHz and another 20MHz of the super-
high capacity 2.6GHz, and we are getting that we would
never, you know, get speeds of up to 1Gbps on the map.
As of today, the service is available in London’s foremost
business cluster, Tech City, and is set to expand across
We have to provide education to people, to get them
to come into the stores and understand how 4G is used, work with our
people on the front lines and get this experience where they can actually
feel the value that 4G is bringing to their daily life.
VOICESFROM INDUSTRY
9. MAR 2014
4
London throughout 2014/2015. For the time being, there
are smart devices that can take you up to 300Mbps. This is
the first type of device coming out in 2014. But we certainly
put a foundation for further and beyond into the one-gig
world. That’s something we could never imagine a few years
ago, you know, and this is what LTE-Advanced is – building
on a sound foundation. It doesn’t break with the past, and it
does build onto a sound foundation into the future.
It gives the opportunity for businesses and then
consumers to have all the video and other capabilities on
their fingertips. It opens new horizons that we haven’t even
discovered at the moment. It’s really an exciting point in
our space. It is very important that we are ahead of the
curve, because we know, we actually know that data is in
the core and that data consumption will grow very, very
fast; it’s growing really, really fast, as we are talking about it
today (at the Huawei MBB Forum). We have to build those
capabilities for our future, for our businesses (customers)
and our consumers.
WinWin: You have led the market, and everyone is
really impressed with the work that you have done. Now
that competition is coming soon, do you see a price war
looming? Where do you see the future going on that?
Karonis: I think credibility is around a reliable service.
First of all, our goal is to provide LTE 4G at 95% the
coverage of the U.K. by the end of 2014. Already, as we
are talking now, we have covered two-thirds of the national
population in the U.K. All the metropolitan areas and
beyond are having a great 4G experience, in 170 cities and
towns today. Not only is it a great 4G experience, we have
doubled the speeds in over 20 cities at the moment. The fact
that we have used 20MHz of our 1800MHz spectrum in
the 4G has given us an enormous push, so we have speeds
up to 60Mbps and beyond. Actually, the maximum can
go up to 100Mbps. This gives us a very strong credibility
that 4G is everywhere and, not only that, we have strong
capabilities in the metropolitan areas.
The next step will be to cover the lower-capacity areas,
the rural areas and catch up with the so-called digital
divide, providing services to where we were depending on
fixed broadband. Now mobility is a much stronger answer.
Sometimes people are in their homes and they use 4G rather
than Wi-Fi because you get much better service, and we are
talking about indoor coverage. Our indoor coverage is really
strong. It is now about 50% of national coverage. These are
the very important steps that we are taking.
As for pricing, we’ve done a very good portfolio of price
policies and tariffs. So, it’s like making 4G very democratic.
If you want to use a bigger bundle or a bigger consumption,
you pay a bit more. But basically, our prices are very, very
competitive; they are the most competitive in the market.
Of course, in terms of the market, we are the only player in
4G at the moment, but at the same we don’t use pricing as a
dominant power. When you have a 4G device, why should
you go to a competitor (operator) who doesn’t have 4G or
just has a very small footprint? You can have immediately a
contract of 4G with EE and have all the value that comes
from the device itself and the great EE network.
WinWin: What are the measures you have taken to
ensure that you stay there?
Karonis: It’s very important to do stuff in a very sound
and accurate architecture. The important thing is not to
only launch a service; it’s to be reliable when you launch
the service – reliability, with the customer service around it.
Landing right the first time. All these end-to-end soft and
hard capabilities. Having the applications and the security
solutions that are really scalable and capable of taking this
new function, this is what takes us into the future. Once
you get these things right, you are capable of building things
upstream.
WinWin: It’s been an incredible three years. Let’s look
ahead. What do you think you want to be providing in
the next five years?
Karonis: It really is an amazing era. I think the mobility
is really going so fast. I think we beat physics basically
where we thought that physics had certain constraints
and limitations. I doubt if these constraints really exist.
Using 4G, I can see the reach of 4G versus 2G; 4G gives a
much further signal and it keeps data connectivity in the
same speed all along. Things are really surprising in a good
sense and there is plenty of room for innovation and for
delighting the consumer.
We will see the device manufacturers pushing a bit more,
their research, in order to get better chipsets; the battery
lifetime is also a small constraint. It has to improve so
that it can maintain all these different processes going on
in devices, such as the video, the operation of the device,
the signaling. There are some challenges there. But I think
that the devices and smartphones are amazing tools for
accompanying the human being in many, many things
coming up into the future. They will be improving health,
productivity and controlling the security of the family,
making sure that there is a better quality of life, if you like.
That’s how I see mobile and our company moving forward.
Then of course you can say content, gaming, television,
film, and all that stuff will start gelling because they can be
seen as a very solid solution where you can actually have
a one-stop shop where all these services can be bundled
together with great quality. That is what we can expect for
the mid-term or long-term future.
Editor: Jason jason.patterson@huawei.com
10. MAR 2014
5
More and more people are going online, but the divide separating them from those
left behind persists, and resolving it will require a lot more than just a broadband
connection in every home. The unconnected often do not appreciate what the
Internet has to offer, but the good news is that telcos are well positioned to be the
ones to rectify this situation.Scan for mobile reading
By Jayne Garfitt, Total Telecom
THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
CLEAR BUT ILL-DEFINED
One out of six
W
ith the rollout of LTE and an ever-
increasing number of wireless hotspots,
the digital divide seems smaller than ever
in terms of access; but has the gap closed
or just changed shape? Redefining The Digital Divide, a
report produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit and
commissioned by Huawei, suggests that “while some gaps
have narrowed over the past decade, others have widened
or emerged as new challenges.” The question of how it has
changed and what should be done to narrow the gap was
put to industry leaders attending Huawei’s Global Mobile
Broadband Forum in London.
According to the same whitepaper, around 11 million
people in the U.K. have no basic online skills. This means
that one out of every six Britons cannot use a web browser,
carry out an online search, access social media, or send
email. This is a figure that seems unbelievable in today’s
world, where four million YouTube videos are streamed
everyday and 1.11 billion people use Facebook each month,
with more than half that number logging on each day.
VOICESFROM INDUSTRY
What’s a hashtag?
Until now, the digital divide has been viewed as an
access divide, and while that gap has certainly narrowed,
questions are now being raised about the impact of this
improvement on businesses, consumers and even entire
countries. Those who can’t or don’t take advantage of the
advances in ICT fall behind, revealing the digital divide to
be less about having access and more about being willing
and able to use the connections available.
Kim Andreasson, contributing editor at the Economist
Intelligence Unit and author of Redefining the Digital
Divide, says this is exactly what the report highlighted.
“What is interesting is in the last couple of years we have
been talking about it less because access has improved.
More people have access, so we are not necessarily talking
about access anymore.
“Now the question is ‘what is the next step?’ What are
the benefits this access provides, and how are people using
it? One third of respondents think the digital divide is
widening in their country, so we see a line between what
is being done in terms of access and whether people can
11. MAR 2014
6
use the access for something useful. Hence, I think it is
the time to redefine the digital divide. As it turns out, the
digital divide of today is close to the social divide. The
economy and affordability were cited as the most serious
(limiting) factors and this was closely followed by lack
of skills or ability. But because the digital divide is also a
social divide, a lot of people at the bottom of the pyramid
are in the most need of digital services to improve their
lives. Half of respondents also said education in their
country is lacking.”
Redefining the Digital Divide used the France, U.K.,
U.S., India, Russia and Australia markets as case studies
of how industry and government are attempting to bridge
this divide. Sixteen experts from each country gave their
takes on what their country was doing. The approaches
differ enormously.
“The reason for that said difference is because the effects
won’t be seen for five or six years, so there’s no proven
solution,” explained Andreasson. “We have to try and learn
and it’s interesting to see how these countries are taking
different approaches, but there are also common themes.
It’s really an evolution and definitions vary and countries
are finding their way.”
Content is king
One of the big problems to overcome in bridging the
digital divide is giving people something to go online
for. A survey by Ofcom found that half of Britons not
online made that choice because they did not believe there
was anything on the Internet that would interest them.
Nicholas James, Chief Executive Officer of UK Broadband
and one of the aforementioned panelists who discussed
how the digital divide could be bridged, said this statistic
points to a lack of awareness, which must be addressed if
the divide is to be lessened.
“There’s a lack of perceived value, so what we need to
do, at the end of the day, is redefine the digital divide,
look at what’s being offered to who and ask how we can
improve the relevance so these people come online,” said
James. “We’ve looked a lot at people in social (public)
housing and those sorts of communities who, generally
speaking, the government are concerned about getting
connected, and how we get them to connect.
The first factor to remember is that content is king.
When was the last time you sat and watched TV? Actually
we never watch TV; the TV is blank and we turn it on and
watch. Similarly, when did you last go on the Internet?
You didn’t; you use it to access content. So the issue is
what content do we put on the Internet to make people
go online. As there are people not going online at the
“You have to get the gov’t
properly online and if you
do that the savings are
roughly USD24 per person.
If you multiply that with
the number of people we
are trying to get online,
it is a huge amount of
money to invest back into
getting people online.
— Nicholas James,
UK Broadband CEO
12. MAR 2014
7
“The less people are
literate, the more
the Internet is useful
to them, if you can
provide the right
applications that give
them the right services
in a simple way.
— Olaf Swantee, EE CEO
moment, the problem must be that the content is not
what they want, so changing that is a key issue in getting
people connected.”
Fellow panelist Olaf Swantee, Chief Executive Officer of
EE, agreed with James that content has to be right. When
challenged by a member of the audience that the problem
was not a digital divide but a literacy divide, Swantee
responded with an anecdote about an EE customer.
“There’s a lady we did a deal with and she still doesn’t
think she’s on the Internet but she now has a phone that
tells her when the bus goes past her house,” said Swantee.
“We’ve changed her life by going on the Internet. If we
ask her if she’s on the Internet, she’ll say no, so we have to
provide things that people actually use. Yes, she does need
to read the Times but no, I don’t agree with that comment.
Perhaps it applies to a small percentage but actually the less
people are literate, the more the Internet is useful to them,
if you can provide the right applications that give them the
right services in a simple way.”
Response and responsibility
No matter how important the content is in getting
people online, it is irrelevant if people don’t have access
to it. While governments are investing heavily into digital
resources, regulation means that some communities cannot
access the Internet as easily as others. This was highlighted
by a forum participant who asked why the government was
not able to give funding to individuals and communities
who wanted to set up their own online access points.
“In my experience trying to get into rural areas, the
return on investment is very low and if the community
doesn’t want to go online, you have challenges of ownership
and access, so it can be difficult to just get on the site to
put in a solution,” said Swantee. “I think the government is
working really hard on challenging that with new regulation
in this area which will hopefully help, but that’s one reason
why somewhere might not get funding. Of course, there
are also positive examples and we have some in Cumbria
(a remote region of northern England) where people are
ready to get connected and willing to pay and who have
committed to buying a service once it’s there. As to why
these people don’t get funding, I don’t know. I can’t answer
that directly because there are funds available but for some
reason these people can’t access them.”
Nicholas James believed he had the answer as to why
investment was hard to come by in some areas. According
to James, the problem lies in the rural areas, rather than in
the city, where people can apply for a GBP3,000 grant to
get connected.
VOICESFROM INDUSTRY
13. MAR 2014
8
Editor: Jason jason.patterson@huawei.com
“There’s a problem for us in that U.K. rules are different
from EU rules,” James continued. “In the EU, you can
get subsidy to finance solutions but in the U.K. we class
wireless as an interim technology, which means if you
deploy it, you have to guarantee that you will replace it
with fiber in the future, so there’s a disincentive to use
wireless to solve the rural problem. While you could do
quite a lot with 4G in rural areas, unless you are deploying
fiber, you can’t get subsidized. And worse than that, if you
do decide to finance it yourself, there is nothing to stop it
from getting overbuilt.”
James also believes there are more simple steps the
government can take to get people online but that they
are likely to pose something of a moral dilemma.“If the
government wants to reduce costs and wants to coerce
people to get online, then it’s easy – make all government
services online only,” he said. “Not enough is being done
in this country. The government is not making their
websites usable on devices like smartphones and tablets.
They are not designing and producing simple applications.
You have to get the government properly online and if
you do that the savings are roughly GBP15 (USD24) per
person. If you multiply that with the number of people
we are trying to get online, it is a huge amount of money
to invest back into getting people online, so whether the
money is available is not the issue. The issue is whether the
government wants to be coercing people online.”
Online champions
Even with the right infrastructure and the right content,
Swantee remains unconvinced that this is the main factor
in the challenge of getting people online. He doesn’t deny
that infrastructure remains a challenge but what he sees as a
bigger challenge is the lack of awareness of what the Internet
can do. EE’s Digital Champions program was set up to
teach people how to use the Internet to their benefit, but
the focus of the lesson quickly changed from how to why.
“What is really interesting is when you look at the
problem that 11 million people in the U.K. have no basic
online skills, which is people who cannot send an email,
cannot social network and pretty much don’t go online;
that’s a very big number. When you look at why, there’s
definitely still a challenge around infrastructure in certain
parts of the country, but what is more interesting is that
a large number of people don’t get it. When you take our
Digital Champions program, it is all about trying to use
our employees to get people online and the starting point
of that program is education, and in a very short time, the
focus changed completely from teaching skills to raising
awareness about what you can do, why it’s important, and
why it’s exciting.”
Eric Xu, Huawei rotating CEO, added to this thought,
saying, “If we redefine the digital divide to reflect this
reality (lack of awareness) we can begin to work to address
it. We believe that providing broadband to everyone while
easing access to content and applications through the
continuous development of broadband technologies will
be the key to bridging this new digital divide.”
“Because the digital
divide is also a social
divide, a lot of people
at the bottom of the
pyramid are in the most
need of digital services
to improve their lives.
— Kim Andreasson,
Economist Intelligence Unit
14. MAR 2014
9
What do we do about
As OTT content continues to grow in popularity, it is the Internet carriers paying the price.
However, huge opportunities are there to be had. With consumers moving towards mobile
broadband services, a panel of industry experts came together at Huawei’s Global Mobile
World Forum in London to discuss how carriers can prosper in the changing market and
whether collaboration in the industry will help or hinder progress.
Disruption of the carrier continuum
W
hile the emergence of OTT content
providers can be heralded as revolutionary
in changing the way consumers use mobile
broadband (MBB), it has also created a
huge disruption for Internet carriers who have had to lower
voice and SMS prices to stay in the game. According to a
study carried out by research firm Ovum, that disruption
to the market will cost carriers USD54 billion by 2016.
Lower pricing, then, is not enough to eliminate the
OTT threat, which manifests in two areas, revenue and
customer relevance, with the latter often being viewed as
more fundamental. The ambition of the OTT players is to
take the carrier’s place in the customer’s mind, relegating
operators to a wholesale role. OTT players with wide service
portfolios can erode customer loyalty to operators’ brands,
and displace SMS. But, with OTT content providers
depending on carriers to upgrade networks to ensure that
their services continue to run quickly & reliably, there is also
opportunity for carriers, as OTT providers drive traffic and
generate the potential for mutually beneficial partnerships.
OTT: A nut yet to be cracked
The question for carriers, therefore, is whether they should
compete with OTTs or collaborate. It is a question that OTT
content providers have no clear-cut answer for. According to
Matthew Postgate, BBC Research and Development Controller,
part of the current problem for carriers is they are not completely
Scan for mobile reading
Will Koch
Category Head, Tech & Telco,
LinkedIn EMEA
Matthew Postgate
Controller, BBC Research and
Development
Francisco Varela
Global Director of Platform
Partnerships, YouTube
Eric Johnsen
Business Development Principal,
Google[x]
VOICESFROM INDUSTRY
By Jayne Garfitt, Total Telecom
OTT?
15. MAR 2014
10
clear about which market they want to be a part of.
“I think there have always been two businesses within
carriers, struggling to get out,” said Postgate, who was one
of five panelists debating the potential for collaboration at
Huawei’s Global Mobile Broadband Forum. “There’s the
connectivity business, where the competitors vie for unlicensed
spectrum and Wi-Fi, and there’s the application business, the
consumer-based business, and I think carriers struggle to try to
balance those two entities.
“I actually think connectivity isn’t a bad business to be in.
I think there’s a future for smart networks, so a lot more
diagnostics are coming off networks that other people can
have access to. Fundamentally, that element of the carrier’s
business is putting in the foundations of the information
society. They are building the road and there’s got to be
a question about how much they want that space and I
think they need to divorce themselves from that concept
and start getting into consumer-based business.”
For Postgate, that does not necessarily mean that
operators launch their own consumer-based services.
Rather, he wants to see partnerships between operators
and existing OTTs to enable both to reap the benefits of
the OTT content being made available to consumers. This
approach has already been trialed by the BBC ahead of the
launch of its video service, BBC iPlayer.
“We work quite closely with the carriers in the
traditional sense, so as carriers they are delivering our
services to audiences and we’ve always done that,”
continued Postgate. “For example, when we launched our
on demand video service in the U.K., the iPlayer, it was
the result of extensive discussions with the networks and
we modified the service depending on the carrier. Some
carriers said that unless it launches with 3G enabled, they
wouldn’t promote it. Others said if it was 3G enabled, they
wouldn’t promote it, so we modified our service.
“What we were doing there was carrying a flag of
what was initiated on their network and it went as far as
explaining whether a specific voice member had a data-
friendly tariff and we were able to modify the way BBC
iPlayer presented material to take account of that. This is
something we’ve built on gradually and getting network
intelligence can improve the application.”
The flip side
Clearly, being able to adjust tariffs as a result of whether
consumers want to be able to use a specific application
has its advantages for the carriers, but can it be good for
I think there have been two businesses within carriers, struggling to
get out. There’s the connectivity business and then there’s the application
business and I think carriers struggle to balance these two entities.
Martin Lange, Executive Marketing
Director & Global Lead Mobile@
Ogilvy and OgilvyOne Worldwide
Mark Kaplan
Founder,
White Label Partners
— Matthew Postgate, BBC R&D Controller
16. MAR 2014
11
the OTTs who want to drive as many people as possible
to their service? For Francisco Varela, Global Director of
Platform Partnerships at YouTube, the answer is absolutely
yes, because it gives the carriers profit that they can then
invest back into the networks to improve the OTT content
provider experience for consumers.
“The number one factor for YouTube users is how quickly
the video comes to them and the quality of that video. That’s
it, the number one motivating factor. So for us, on a 2G
network we did okay, 3G absolutely was okay, but on 4G
we’ve seen some amazing results in the United States. We’re
currently working with operators in Latin America to ensure
their networks are upgraded to 4G so YouTube can be part of
the consumer success story for them too and they can share
the benefits of upgrading their networks,” said Valera.
Baby steps
The improvement of services is a clear benefit to come
from collaboration but as profit has to be the number
one motivating factor, how do operators get their return
on investment for the cost of upgrading the network? Is
collaboration actually a one-way street for the OTT content
providers, harming the carriers’ revenue return by taking
more of their customers, or is there a way for the carrier to
profit too? While Henry K. H. Wong, Senior Vice President
for Strategic Wireless Technology and System Planning &
Design at PCCW, said his company was trialing different
partnerships; he admitted it was a difficult process.
“We have some (partnerships), but it’s in the trial
period,” said Wong. “We have to work out how to do it. It
could take the form of a user paying for the OTT services
as part of their package or you could say the OTTs will
subsidize an operator for delivering a high-quality service
that enables their application to run. We are finding our
way, but I think to find a solution which suits everyone
would be very challenging and very difficult.”
It certainly pays
Instead of making money from the services, can carriers
find the answer by following the OTT approach? The
OTTs make their money by advertising, and while carriers
have a lot of data to potentially use to do the same, this is
currently not yet happening. Mobile advertising currently
has a smaller share of the advertising market than any
other channel in the world. Matthew Postgate and Martin
Lange, Executive Marketing Director and Global Lead at
Ogilvy, believe this will change, but the issue for carriers is
working out how to harness this market.
“The space has moved so fast that traditional market
leaders had no time to adapt,” said Lange. “It’s a fairly
unproven space and while we know the scale, we don’t
know what the return on investment is like. We were in a
similar space about 10 to 15 years ago with the Internet.”
“So far, we haven’t quite worked out how to sell mobile
advertising,” agreed Postgate. “The process by which we
sell, for example, radio advertising is very mature and very
clear and there’s a long way to go with mobile advertising
until you get to the same point.”
Will Koch, Category Head of Tech & Telco at LinkedIn,
argued that opportunities already exist for carriers to
advertise, without the need for a big investment. He also
believes collaboration is key when it comes to advertising.
“There’s probably quite interesting opportunities to
grow and experiment in this space,” continued Koch.
“Thinking of it in such an adversarial, competitive way
doesn’t really fit with a lot of the marketing opportunities
that LinkedIn, for example, could provide. A lot of
these can be organic and free and there are others which
are paid for. So if you think again about a brand like
LinkedIn, we are very concerned and interested in helping
brands connect to a ton of opportunities. We have our
top solutions for businesses and we’re also working on
marketing solutions. That really helps people add scale
The mobile advertising space has moved so fast that traditional
market leaders had no time to adapt. It’s a fairly unproven space and
while we know the scale, we don’t know what the ROI is like.
— Martin Lange, Ogilvy
VOICESFROM INDUSTRY
17. MAR 2014
12
and reach professionals with marketing messages so if you
think about leveraging LinkedIn, that’s a free opportunity
awaiting carriers. They can also leverage how they use their
CEO to engage with a business audience and the quality
of engagement is so high because you are engaging with
people that are interested in the area of your business.
Then there’s the possibility of leveraging our sponsored
content so there we see a good opportunity for carriers to
engage with advertising, because thinking about it in terms
of competition is wrong as we can help each other.”
However, Varela had a word of caution for any carriers
considering spamming their users, citing a news story which
reported on a Vodafone user billing the carrier for the time
he had spent dealing with adverts they had sent to him.
“There’s a fundamental issue of trust and I would say more
so from operators, who really have to build a relationship
with users,” added Varela. “They have to make sure that the
advertising is both relevant and valuable to the user. The
carriers either have the foresight to do it with consideration or
they haven’t and they will pay the price.”
Certain future, uncertain path
It would appear that collaboration is not only
recommended but essential for both OTT content
providers and carriers if they are both to thrive in an ever-
competitive industry. Operators generally seem to be more
wary but Eric Johnsen, Business Development Principal
at Google, and Saran Phaloprakarn, Senior Vice President
at Advanced Info Service PCL (Thailand), believe there is
reason to be optimistic.
“Mobile broadband is the lifeblood of Google Glass and
there are a lot of different technologies that came together to
enable Glass, some of which we had a lot of control over, a lot
of which we didn’t,” explained Johnsen. “Mobile broadband
was something we didn’t have a lot of control over but which
we depend heavily on. Even though we didn’t have significant
partnerships between Glass and broadband providers, I
think you can look back at the evolution between device
manufacturers and broadband providers with smartphones
and I think we can celebrate that evolution and I think it
will grow in the future. Retail partners getting a customized
app experience on a device similar to the smartphone, for
example, is the sort of thing we will see over time.”
AIS has already seen success in the collaboration between
device manufacturers and the smartphone providers Johnsen
talked about. “We tried to sell a low-cost smartphone which
was double the price of our competitor’s low-cost mobile
phone and the reason people chose ours is because they
wanted to use WhatsApp; they wanted to use Skype,” said
Phaloprakarn. “So, at this point, OTT is a benefit for us
because it helps drive the adoption of the smartphone.”
Postgate agrees that there will be an evolution of
how collaboration works but warned that carriers need
to remember that having the right to farm spectrum
and deliver Internet services is an obligation as well as a
commercial opportunity and that commercializing traffic
at the provider level rather than the application level could
damage the product.
“The BBC is in a very fortunate position,” he
concluded. “We are an application company but we are
also an engineering company and, if you look at the
way we are developing content services, we’ve done that
with engineering in mind and it’s always been extremely
collaborative. We’ve never done anything where we
didn’t have a discussion with a carrier and ever since we
launched the iPlayer, we’ve always worked quite closely
with them. The 2012 Olympics, for example, involved a
lot of collaboration with U.K. providers about how we
ran our services and I think it’s up to content creators to
step up and get involved with engineering. Equally, from
the carriers’ perspective, they have to be open to having a
conversation with content providers about how services are
adjusted to enable everyone to benefit.”
Editor: Jason jason.patterson@huawei.com
They have to make sure that the advertising is both relevant and
valuable to the user. The carriers either have the foresight to do it with
consideration or they haven’t and they will pay the price.
— Francisco Varela, YouTube
18. MAR 2014
13
Broadband for everyone
IT ALL STARTS WITH POLICY
By Joyce Fan
National competitiveness
W
e’ve all heard that a 10% increase in
broadband promises GDP gains of 0.7
to 1.6%, depending on your starting
point, but the Deputy Secretary-General
of the ITU, Zhao Houlin, relayed a more human story
to WinWin magazine at ITU Telecom World 2013 in
Bangkok. He spoke of a Malaysian fishing woman who
once earned a paltry USD150 a month, who now earned
up to USD6000 a month thanks to her newfound
broadband-enabled sales power.
“Broadband for everyone (part of ITU’s slogan for the
aforementioned forum)” is a rosy vision for humanity, but
reality is a little more thorny, as over four billion people on
this planet remain unconnected. Zhao also noted that the
telephony divide has contracted a great deal over the last
ten years, but the broadband divide has grown in terms of
what the haves enjoy as opposed to the have nots, on both
the fixed and mobile sides.
Zhao sees many challenges to broadband development
that will require the combined efforts of government,
industry, academia, and other stakeholders, but the former
must lead. According to the UN Broadband Commission,
there are 134 countries/regions with a national broadband
plan, strategy, or policy already in place, covering the
infrastructure deployment, funding models, digital skill
National broadband is on the agendas of over 130 countries and territories, and it isn’t
just the usual suspects taking the lead in terms of implementation. This is a good thing
as developing markets have more to gain from broadband than the developed. But as the
deployment process ramps up, the advanced economies provide some helpful hints to that
pivotal question, “Okay, we’re committed to national broadband. Now what?”Scan for mobile reading
transfer, citizen participation, and application & service
proliferation.
NBPs in the developing world
According to Zhao, “The importance has been
realized by our member states everywhere, so they have
put broadband development as a national priority. I see
national broadband plans in many countries, particularly
in developing countries.”
Broadband China
On August 17, 2013, the Chinese government
announced its Broadband China Strategy, representing
the first inclusion of broadband in the country’s national
development strategy. According to Dang Meimei, Deputy
Chief Engineer of the Institute of Communication
Standards Research (ICSR) of China Academy of
Telecommunication Research, MIIT (Ministry of Industry
and Information Technology), “The Broadband China
Strategy is not a mission that can be fulfilled by any single
sector or department; government coordination and
support are needed.
“First, the government included broadband into
universal service and put bridging the digital divide as the
top priority.” Under the government’s strategic guidelines,
VOICESFROM INDUSTRY
19. MAR 2014
14
98% of administrative villages (small administrated
communities that might be urban or rural) in China will
have broadband access at a minimum of 12Mbps by 2020,
with urban families enjoying 50Mbps bandwidth at the
minimum, and some advanced cities even reaching 1Gbps.
However, Dang also said, “The unbalanced economic
strength in different regions and the complex situation
in rural areas make it tricky for operators alone to deliver
broadband everywhere. Government support is a must.
For example, the government facilitated a project of
connecting 100 rural primary & secondary schools and
100 schools for disabled with broadband in 2012. By the
end of 2013, the project covered 5000 schools.”
Regulations for FTTH Engineering and Project Design
and Regulations for FTTH Telecommunications Facility
Project Implementation and Acceptance, which were jointly
published by China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural
Development (MOHURD) and MIIT, took effect in April
2013. According to Dang, “This will lower the barriers
and cost for operators deploying FTTH in communities
since cables will be one of the acceptance check items.
The government also is dedicated to encouraging owners
of public areas like airports, subway stations and roads
to provide easy and fair access for telcos. Other efforts
involve continuously opening up the access infrastructure
construction & operation to private capital, optimizing
the spectrum allocation, and freeing up more spectra. The
government is trying to create a favorable environment for
the industry and coordinate related sectors to ensure the
implementation of the Broadband China Strategy.”
Africa: Plan & action
Botswana is a landlocked country in Southern Africa
whose major economic drivers are agriculture, diamonds,
and tourism. According to Thari G. Pheko, Chief
Executive of BOCRA (the Botswana Communications
Regulatory Authority), the country’s leadership sees ICT
as the catalyst for the next wave of economic development
that will benefit every single citizen in the country, with
the primary achievement being quality education. “It
is very important that we have a national broadband
strategy that can guide the rest of the country moving
forward,” Pheko said. When formulating the plan, the
government consulted different stakeholders, and it is now
coordinating with different sectors to make certain that
broadband will eventually benefit the country’s people
and economy. Furthermore, Botswana’s government has
invested heavily in submarine cables, both in the east and
west, which Pheko sees as the vehicles that will help drive
broadband to everyone in the country.
African policymakers beyond Botswana are well aware
of how crucial broadband is to national development; 60%
of the continent’s countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, and
Namibia, have embraced broadband development policies
by defining broadband as a universal access service (UAS),
David Nkoto Emane
Camtel CEO
Zhao Houlin
Deputy Secretary-General,
ITU
Dr. C.W. Cheung
Research Fellow & Consulting
Director, Ovum Asia Pacific
Dang Meimei
Deputy Chief Engineer,
ICSR of China Academy
of Telecommunication
Research, MIIT
Thari G. Pheko
Chief Executive
of BOCRA
20. MAR 2014
15
issuing a national broadband plan, or both.
Cameroon is a pioneer, having commenced NBN
deployment in 2011, with state-owned incumbent Camtel
taking the lead. Camtel CEO David Nkoto Emane
outlined the socioeconomic effects of NBN at the ITU
forum. “First, socially we have projects with universities
to foster distance learning, with another point being
telemedicine, which brings great benefits to a country
without many qualified medical staff in certain areas.
E-government will help to cut down on the use of paper
and allows users to pay their taxes and carry out other
transactions from anywhere just using their computers.”
According to Emane, the Cameroon government
extended credit for the first phase of the project, relieving
a great burden to be sure, but he sees the next phase as
warranting a focus on developing purely African content.
“Today, all the information we get on the Internet is
developed by foreign countries. In Cameroon, you can’t
use the Internet to find a local Chinese restaurant if that
information doesn’t exist. So, the next thing to do in
Cameroon is to develop local content to optimize the use
of this heavy investment.”
South Korea: The gold standard for
broadband
There is no magic recipe for ubiquitous broadband, but
no country is as flush with all the necessary ingredients
as South Korea. According to a Broadband Commission
report, South Korea ranks number one in mobile and
number five in fixed broadband penetration worldwide
(the only country to be in the top five for both). Dr. C.W.
Cheung, Research Fellow and Consulting Director of
Ovum Asia Pacific, has outlined the governmental factors
he sees as being integral to this leadership.
The first is vision, as the South Korea government
always considers what will happen in the next 10 to 15
years and how the digital economy will take shape. The
second is incrementalism and pragmatism when it comes
to the development and implementation of what the
government calls its “information infrastructure.” Third,
the South Korean government is a pro-technology role
model, and in the case of the NBN, it transfers ITC
know-how to individuals and the private sector. And
fourth, the government takes the lead in orchestrating and
coordinating different departments as they leverage the
relevant infrastructure for maximizing national economic
and social benefits.
Steps in an uphill climb
The South Korean government went through three
major steps – computerization, information infrastructure
development, and informatization. According to Dr.
Cheung, “The computerization stage can date back to the
late 80s. They put basic information systems and databases
in different government sectors. In other words, they
wanted the government to lead the way in the application
of ICT.”
Cheung explained that the second stage (1995 to
2007) involved the nationwide rollout of information
infrastructure, encompassing projects for NBN, Cyber
Korea 21, IT839 Strategy, e-Korea Vision 2006, the u-Korea
Master Plan and the National Informatization Plan. “Be
reminded that they use the term ‘information infrastructure’
instead of simply telecommunication infrastructure.
Information infrastructure refers to a ‘collective’
infrastructure encompassing high-speed broadband
networks (wired and wireless), enabling ICT technologies,
African policymakers are well aware of how crucial broadband is to
national development; 60% of the continent’s countries, including Nigeria, Kenya,
and Namibia, have embraced national broadband policies.
VOICESFROM INDUSTRY
21. MAR 2014
16
regulations and ICT governance, etc. It is followed by step
three – informatization. Starting from 2008 till now, they
make use of all these infrastructures to enable applications,
services and innovations in the government, enterprises, and
the community. Informatization is the most important stage
for sustained utilization of next generation broadband and
information infrastructure and delivery of socioeconomic
benefits”
Let no dust gather
Many national broadband plans stall during
construction, but Dr. Cheung points out that we
should understand the ultimate goal of developing
national infrastructure is enabling or facilitating services,
applications and contents for innovations “This is the
end result of the digital economy. The South Korean
government is very good at collaborating with different
departments to make use of the information infrastructure
and enable the digital economy. For instance, they take
a brand new approach to transform their innovative
cultural industries and related activities and contents for
maximizing social and economic development.”
When it comes to the digital entertainment industry,
one of those departments that enables service proliferation
is the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism (MCST),
which tries to develop different digital services, applications
and content for its three eponymous industries and
export them outside South Korea. Another department
is the Korean Creative Culture Agency (KOCCA), which
coordinates a number of different departments in the
production and exportation of Korean music, drama,
video, and various kinds of digitized content, thus better
utilizing Korea’s “information infrastructure.”
Editor: Jason jason.patterson@huawei.com
Today, all the information we get on the Internet is developed by foreign countries.
You can hardly find information in Cameroon concerning Chinese restaurants, because
it does not exist. The next thing to do is develop local content.
— David Nkoto Emane, Camtel CEO
22. MAR 2014
17
5G: A technology vision
5G wireless networks will support thousandfold gains in capacity, connections for at least 100 billion
devices, and a 10Gbps individual user experience capable of extremely low latency and response
time. Deployment of these networks will emerge between 2020 and 2030. Breakthroughs in wireless
network innovation will also drive economic and societal growth in entirely new ways, through
networks capable of zero-distance connectivity between people and connected machines.
By Dr. Wen Tong & Dr. Peiying Zhu
Scan for mobile reading
The next wave
T
he advent of 5G technologies and ICT
networks pave the way for digital society. Right
now, all over the world, mobile access to the
Internet is becoming entirely fundamental
to doing business in all industries. Flexible working
practices facilitated by mobile networks and devices are
already essential, and are allowing enterprises to conduct
operations across boundaries that previously inhibited
growth.
Growing mobile access to the Internet, cloud-based
services, and big data analytics are allowing anyone,
anywhere to leverage “big wisdom” – a whole new kind
of globally connected & shared knowledge base. The
continuing rise in the relevance of social media as an
important part of how we interact with the Internet is also
opening up new kinds of intelligent analytics, ready to be
harnessed for tangible business & everyday-life benefits.
Transformation and convergence of ICT network
Perspectives
infrastructure is also driving business innovation and
growth. Not only is ICT an increasingly effective tool for
enhancing efficiency, but it is now a vital driver of social
and economic growth.
The development of 5G technologies is a cornerstone
for realizing breakthroughs in the transformation of ICT
network infrastructure. Ultra-broadband and intelligent-
pipe network features that achieve near-instantaneous,
zero-distance connectivity between people and connected
machines, no matter where they are, are just the first step.
A changing telco landscape
The current generation of mobile networks continues
to transform the way people communicate and access
information. Further development and implementation of
technologies that enable true human-centric and machine-
centric networks will come to redefine end-user mobility,
along with the entire landscape of the global telco industry.
5G will herald an even greater rise in the prominence
Dr. Wen Tong is a Huawei
Fellow; CTO of Huawei
Wireless Networks, and head
of Huawei’s Communications
Technologies Laboratories.
Dr. Tong also serves on the
Board of Directors at the Wi-
Fi Alliance and on the Board
of Directors of the Green
Touch Consortium.
Dr. Peiying Zhu is a
Huawei Fellow and the
Senior Director in Huawei
Research. The focus of her
research team is advanced
wireless access technologies
for LTE/LTE-A and beyond.
She is currently leading 5G
wireless system research in
Huawei.
About the Authors
23. MAR 2014
18
— Fotis Karonis, EE CTO
Ultra-broadband and intelligent-pipe network features that achieve
near-instantaneous, zero-distance connectivity between people and machines, no
matter where they are, are just the first step to 5G.
— Dr. Zhu Peiying
of mobile access, enabling total ICT network growth and
expansion. Over time, any mobile app and any mobile
service will be given the potential to connect to anything
at anytime – from people and communities to physical
things, processes, content, working knowledge, pertinent
information, and goods of all sorts in entirely flexible,
reliable and secure ways. This is the promise of 5G – to
expand the possibilities of what mobile networks can do,
and to extend upon what services they can deliver.
Internet evolution
5G will drive the future evolution of the Internet itself.
In fact, what we mean when we refer to the Internet is
likely to change. Implementing the next generation of
ubiquitous ultra-broadband network infrastructure will
require a rethinking, restructuring and redesigning of
approaches to mobile network construction and expansion,
while integration of mass-scale cloud architectures will
infuse mobile networks with capabilities for flexibly
delivering services at unprecedented speeds while meeting
forecasts for tremendous growth in mobile data traffic,
diversification of mobile app innovation, IoT connectivity,
and security. To achieve these goals, developments in
5G will primarily focus on two fundamental aspects for
eliminating infrastructure bottlenecks – massive capacity
and massive connectivity.
Immediacy & adaptability
Massive capacity for delivery of services will allow
connections between end users and the network to be made
at “faster than thought” speeds – so fast that the apparent
distance between connected people and connected machines
will shrink to virtually zero. Immediacy in mobile services
will lay the foundation for a whole new set of mobile apps
to proliferate and push the capabilities of communications
beyond what is currently possible.
A more massive capacity for managing connections
will better enable a greater widespread adoption of M2M
services and interactions, and will facilitate innovation in
localized mobile service delivery. The next wave of the digital
society will be characterized by an ICT network’s capability
for service immediacy and on-demand adaptability.
Challenges and requirements
The three fundamental requirements for building
5G wireless networks are capabilities that support
massive capacity and massive connectivity; support for
an increasingly diverse set of services, application, and
users, all with extremely diverging requirements for work
and life; and flexible and efficient use of all available
non-contiguous spectrum for vastly different network
deployment scenarios.
Mobile networks will increasingly become the primary
means of network access for person-to-person and person-
to-machine connectivity. These networks will need to
match advances in fixed networking in terms of delivered
quality of service, reliability, and security. To do so, 5G
technologies will need to be capable of delivering fiber-like
10Gbps speed to make possible ultra-high definition visual
communications and immersive multimedia interactions.
These technologies will depend on ultra-wide bandwidth
with sub-millisecond latencies.
Smart cities
5G will provide the foundational infrastructure for
building smart cities, which will push mobile network
performance and capability requirements to their extremes.
24. MAR 2014
1919
Low latency and extremely high reliability, however, will
also be essential requirements for the likes of mobile
industrial automation, vehicular connectivity, and other
IoT applications. Smart sensors and text-based messaging
are examples of extremely high-volume applications that
will require very low data rates and will not be sensitive to
latency.
Complex performance requirements
An increasingly diverse and wide range of mobile
services will have differing performance requirements,
from one millisecond to a few seconds, with always-on
users per cell from a few hundred to several million, duty
cycles from mere milliseconds to entire days, and signaling
loads from less than 1% to almost 100%
The “5G HyperService Cube” (Figure 1) gives a multi-
dimensional overview in terms of throughput, latency and
number of connections required for the many types of
services 5G networks will need to run.
5G networks face significant design challenges if
they are to simultaneously meet all of the above service
requirements. They must be built to meet a number of
individual user and enterprise needs.
Immersive experience – At least 1Gbps or more data
rates to support ultra-high definition video and virtual
reality applications.
Fiber-like user experience – 10Gbps data rates to
support mobile cloud service.
Zero latency and response times – Less than one-
millisecond latency to support real-time mobile control
and vehicle-to-vehicle applications & communications.
Zero-second switching – Max 10-millisecond
switching time between different radio access technologies
to ensure a consistently seamless delivery of services.
Massive capacity & always-on operation – Current
mobile network systems already support five billion
users, but this will need to expand to also support several
billionsof applications and hundreds of billions of
machines.
Energy consumption – Energy-per-bit usage should be
reduced by a factor of 1,000 to improve upon connected
device battery life.
Spectrum impact
Other than flexible and efficient use of all available
non-contiguous spectrum in different network deployment
Figure 1 5G service and scenario requirements
5G HyperService Cube
5G will provide the foundation for smart cities. Low latency and extremely
high reliability will also be essential requirements for the likes of mobile industrial
automation, vehicular connectivity, and other IoT applications.
Perspectives
Delay
(ms)
Throughput (Kbps/Km2)
Links (Per Km2
)
109
106
106
104
102
103
103
101
102
0
Mobility: 0km/h~500km/h Frequency: 300MHz~300GHz
HD City
Stadium
Augmented
Reality Shipping
Logistic
Vehicular
Telematics
Wireless
Cloud Office
Virtual Reality
Interactive
HD TV
Social
Gaming
High-Speed Train
Real 3D
MirroyrSys
Multi-User UHD
Telepresence
2G, 3G, 4G
Emergency
Smart
Sensors
25. MAR 2014
2020
with self-backhauling, device-to-device communications,
dynamic spectrum refarming, and radio access
infrastructure sharing.
Necessary breakthroughs
The development of 5G will require new breakthroughs
in multiple access and advanced waveform technologies
combined with advances in coding and modulation
algorithms are essential to realizing continuing improvements
in spectral efficiency. This will accommodate the necessary
scalability for massive IoT connectivity and drastic
reductions in access latency.
New breakthroughs in the baseband and RF architecture are
required to enable computationally intensive and adaptive
new air interfaces. A significantly more advanced baseband
computation is required to meet the complex requirements
of new solutions like mass-scale MIMO. A singular,
integrated design for combining an unprecedented
number of RF radio and antenna elements into one unit
(a “radiotenna”) will be needed to support these new air
interfaces.
New breakthroughs in advanced RF domain processing
will bring benefits to the efficient and flexible usage of
spectrum; single-frequency full-duplex radio technologies
will be a major contributor to increasing spectrum efficiency.
Improvements in these areas will help drive overall network
costs down while improving energy efficiency.
New breakthroughs in the integrated access node and
backhaul design are required to enable the very dense
networking of radio nodes. Plug-and-play functionality
will become essential to deployment where such nodes will
need to access and self-organize available spectrum blocks
for both access and backhauling. This capability will be
key for enabling high-frequency spectrum radio access.
New breakthroughs in radio technologies for mobile
scenarios, freeing up additional spectrum will also be
required to support thousandfold capacity increases by
2020 and even higher increases looking forward to 2040
and beyond.
But while a global consensus is forming that 500MHz
to 1GHz bandwidth of additional mobile spectrum is
needed, spectrum band availability by region and the local
laws that govern its usage will need to be harmonized so
that global circulation and economies of scale for mobile
devices are not negatively impacted. However, exactly how
all available and new IMT bands will be used to achieve
10GB for an individual end user is a major challenge to
the design of working 5G systems.
To sufficiently maximize spectrum efficiency, all-spectrum
access and programmable air interface technologies will
need to be capable of mapping service requirements to
the best suitable combinations of frequency and radio
resources. The continuing deep integration of SDN and
cloud architecture technologies will help realize this, and
will facilitate the on-demand customization of mobile
network technologies that better ensure QoS, increase
network TVO, decrease network TCO, and reduce energy
consumption.
Key technology drivers and innovations
While previous generations of wireless networks were
characterized by fixed radio parameters and spectrum
blocks, 5G will allow utilization of any spectrum and
any access technology for the best delivery of services.
What’s more, air interface and RAN systems will need to
be completely redesigned to accommodate a new mobile
access paradigm of massive capacity, huge numbers of
connections, and ultra-fast network speeds.
5G will feature native support for new kinds of network
deployments, including ultra-dense radio networking
New designs for all-spectrum radio access nodes will require
breakthroughs in the air interface, RAN, radio frequency transceiver, and devices
themselves. New radio backhaul and fiber access for the fixed network will be
integral to next-gen commercial network solutions.
26. MAR 2014
21
devices are required to support a vast range of capabilities,
from ultra-low energy sensors to ultra-fast devices with
long-lasting battery life. Miniaturized multi-antenna
technologies will be critical to enabling Gbps-level access
speeds with less spectrum and lower power consumption.
Further extending the capability of mobile devices is also
of great importance in order to support certain base station
functionalities. This will allow device-based, on-demand
mobile networking for services such as instant device-to-
device communications.
Virtualized architectures
Radio access infrastructures based on cloud architecture
technologies will provide on-demand resource processing,
storage and network capacity wherever needed. Software-
defined air interface technologies will be seamlessly
integrated into 5G wireless access network architectures.
The evolution of RAN sites will develop toward a “hyper
transceiver” approach to mobile access, and will help
realize the joint-layer optimization of how radio resources
are efficiently utilized.
Core network evolution will revolve around how to
enable more flexibility for the creation of new services
and new applications. Cloud computing will become the
foundation of core networks, and will open the network to
allow the leveraging of innovations as they are developed.
5G core networks will also be equipped to seamlessly
integrate with current 3G and 4G core networks.
All-spectrum access
New designs for all-spectrum radio access nodes will
require breakthroughs in fundamental radio technologies
like the air interface, RAN, radio frequency transceiver,
and devices themselves. New radio backhaul and new fiber
access for the fixed network will be an integral part of next-
generation commercial network solutions. Figure 2 gives a
basic overview of such a 5G radio-access architecture .
The next frontier
5G is the next frontier of innovation for the entire
mobile industry. Its three major design objectives
are implementation of massive capacity & massive
connectivity; support for an increasingly diverse set of
services, applications and users (all with extremely diverse
requirements); and flexible & efficient use of all available
non-contiguous spectrum for widely different network
deployment scenarios.
An adaptive network solution framework will be a
necessity to accommodating both LTE and air interface
evolution. Cloud, SDN, and NFV technologies will
reshape the entire mobile ecosystem, and 5G will speed up
creation of mass-scale services & applications.
The next decade promises breakthrough developments
in several fundamental RAN technologies that will be
required for implementing commercial-ready 5G network
solutions, including multiple access and advanced
waveform technologies combined with coding and
modulation algorithms; interference management; access
protocols; service delivery architecture; mass-scale MIMO;
single-frequency full-duplex radio technologies;5G devices;
and virtualized and cloud-based radio access infrastructure.
5G success depends on the entire ICT ecosystem.
Its growth will be built upon global LTE success. ICT
ecosystem innovation will also be a key driver in creating a
larger 5G market.
Editor: Jason jason.patterson@huawei.com
Perspectives
Figure 2 5G all-spectrum access RAN
5G Research, Prototype, Trial 5G Standardization Production Deployment
Rel 10
LTE-Advanced
IMT New Spectrum, Vision
LTE-B
Requirements
LTE-C
Tech Evaluation
Rel 11 Rel 12 Rel 13 Rel 14 Rel 15 Rel 16
3GPP
WRC-12 WRC-15 WRC-18/19
5G
ITU
2010 2011 2012 2013 2016 20202014 2015 2017 20192018 2021
27. MAR 2014
22
E-health for all
WinWin: What are the differences between e-health,
telehealth, and telecare?
Patrice Cristofini: Telehealth means the provision of
health services at a distance using a range of technologies,
such as telephone or video consultation to support
diagnosis. Telecare relates to the remote or enhanced delivery
of care services to people in their own home or community.
The concept of e-health is the broadest, covering nearly all
aspects of healthcare issues. It mainly involves two areas –
infrastructure and services. Telehealth and telecare belong to
the service part.
E-health is generally a matter of transferring, exchanging
and managing data between public health institutions and
citizens using ICT solutions. The main target of bringing ICT
E-health
The 21st-century house call
The e-health market has witnessed robust growth during the past 20 years. According to a
GSMA report, the global e-health market is projected to grow to USD160 billion in 2015, making
for an annual growth rate of 16%. Dr. Patrice Cristofini, Member of the Board of Directors at
the European Health Telematics Association (EHTEL), provides a glimpse of the general state of
e-health, particularly in Europe, and the challenges to different stakeholders.
By Linda Xu
Scan for mobile reading
solutions in healthcare is to seamlessly connect all stakeholders
such as hospitals, insurance companies, general practitioners
(GPs), the pharmaceutical industry, and regional public health
agencies, with patients at the core. For patient care, these
advanced technologies enable remote patient monitoring,
better transport information for patients, improved access
to health advice, and quicker access to emergency services.
For healthcare practitioners, the technologies also help to
deliver better training and improve disease surveillance,
data collection, and management of patient records, thus
enhancing service transparency and accountability.
WinWin: The ITU views “e-health for all in 2015”
as a credible and realistic objective. What are the key
drivers that can propel that growth?
Cristofini: The general environment is the first
driver. Take Europe, as an example. By 2025, one in five
Dr. Patrice Cristofini
28. MAR 2014
23
many of the communication needs of stakeholders, but
what specifically are they?
Cristofini: As more and more patients tend to access
information and manage their personal records via mobile
phones and tablets, their big concern is where their personal
data is hosted and who accesses their records besides
themselves. Therefore, for individuals, the connection needs
to ensure the security and confidentiality of the patients’ data.
Cloud storage technology can help in this circumstance.
Currently, economic constraints are a huge challenge
for hospitals, especially as we are suffering an economic
downturn. On average, public funding accounts for 70%
and private funding 30% in terms of healthcare investment
in Europe. Hospitals need to break the barriers to an open
platform so as to share with other hospitals the hefty IT
investments in upgrading obsolete infrastructure. Cloud
computing technology can greatly satisfy such requirements
and swiftly adapt to hospitals’ changing demands.
The pharmaceutical industry has also changed their
paradigm by transferring their focus from doctors to patients.
In the past, they heavily relied on doctors to promote their
drugs and cared less about patients. Currently, they pay more
attention to patients. When they do clinical trials before
launching new drugs, they need to know as soon as possible
if patients have side effects, with the aid of ICT technologies.
This will help them adjust their strategies and make decisions
if they need to advance or stop further investment.
The continental health
WinWin: According to Europe’s digital agenda, the costs
of health and social care will rise substantially to about 9%
of the European Union’s (EU) GDP in 2050. What is the
current state of e-health development in Europe?
Cristofini: In general, the EU’s commitment to e-health
dates back to 1989, when the EU began to invest its
By 2025, one in five Europeans will be over 65, putting pressure on public
healthcare resources. Many regions haven’t produced enough doctors to serve
the aging population. Enormous social demands will compel policymakers to
invest more to facilitate technology growth to address this shortage.
Perspectives
Europeans will be over 65 years old. The rising aging
population puts increasing pressure on public healthcare
resources. Meanwhile, in many regions, we haven’t
produced enough doctors to serve the aging population.
The enormous social demands will compel policymakers
to invest more to facilitate technologies growth so as to
address the shortage of doctors.
As for individuals, there has been growing awareness
of using health-related information available online and
managing personal health records by themselves. They
demand customized care, differentiated services, and
ubiquitous & timely access to professional advice and
expertise. Besides, the advancement of ICT technologies
contributes to speedy connectivity and better access.
The availability of mobile devices also facilitates health
monitoring and remote diagnosis.
WinWin: E-health holds the promise of fulfilling
29. MAR 2014
24
The e-health market in Europe is quite fragmented. The
limited coordination of e-health policies and projects has led to limited data
interoperability. Twenty-eight member states have their own ethical,
financial, and legislative issues.
Community Research and Technological Development
(RTD) budget in healthcare computing technologies. Then,
the 2002 eEurope Initiative was launched, which stated the
need to implement user-friendly and interoperable e-health
infrastructure systems through national and regional networks
for medical care, disease prevention and health education.
Later, the EU adopted the e-Health Action Plan in 2004 to
facilitate development of interoperability approaches for patient
identifiers, medical data messaging, and electronic health
records (EHRs). The holy grail of the plan is to make sure that
citizens, irrespective of their country of origin or residence, can
have access to their EHRs and emergency data from any part of
Europe. The principal objectives of the plan lie in five aspects:
1) promoting safe and efficient healthcare; 2) empowering
and supporting citizens; 3) enabling patients’ mobility; 4)
improving access to care in isolated areas for deprived or
vulnerable citizens; 5) developing a European e-health market.
ICT solutions such as videoconferencing, electronic
prescription, and real-time decision support systems play an
important role in fulfilling these goals. Right now, the most
common e-health applications among European member states
have been EHRs, citizens’ public health portals, health cards,
and e-prescriptions. However, the e-health market in Europe is
quite fragmented. The limited coordination of e-health policies
and projects has led to limited data interoperability.Twenty-eight
member states have their own ethical, financial, and legislative
issues. The European Commission lacks the absolute power of
making decisions to promote e-health growth, so it takes time to
make a complete European e-health market a reality.
WinWin: What are the e-health business operational
models in Europe?
Cristofini: As I mentioned, public funding for
healthcare investment, particularly ICT technologies,
takes up 70% of funding. Given the ongoing economic
crisis, we try to involve more private funding in this sector.
Generally, one party builds the network infrastructure
and the other pays for its generated data traffic. With
the penetration of cloud computing technology, related
operational models such as SaaS and IaaS are applied and
end customers pay for what they access and utilize.
WinWin: ICT solutions can be the most powerful
ally in maintaining cost-efficient and high-quality
healthcare service. Can you give us an example on how
ICT solutions are effectively utilized in Europe?
Cristofini: Recently, we launched e-health applications
in Korian, a leading European nursing home. We applied
Huawei’s video conferencing and telepresence solutions in
Korian’s different branches. The idea was to facilitate different
caretakers and patients in different branches to communicate
seamlessly and collaborate more effectively, thereby upgrading
their working efficiency and cutting operational cost. The
further plan is to enable family members’ remote connection
with their senior relatives, so as to strengthen their social links.
We have ambitions to spread these solutions widely in Europe.
In with a BANG
WinWin: Please predict the e-health growth from an
ICT perspective.
Cristofini: A sustainable infrastructure serves as a
basis to facilitate smooth connection among stakeholders
as data will witness exponential growth. My prediction
can be summarized as one word, BANG, with B for
biotechnology, A for atomic nanotechnology, N for
new ICT solutions, and G for genomics. The healthcare
industry, particularly the areas relating to biotechnology,
atomic nanotechnology, and genomics, will undoubtedly
generate huge amounts of data. We need to host, transport
and analyze this data. ICT solutions like cloud computing
and big data will make a difference.
Editor: Jason jason.patterson@huawei.com
30. MAR 2014
25
Special effects, digital causes
Digital Domain is a world-renowned California-based visual effects (VFX) house. Since its founding
in 1993, Digital Domain has delivered innovative visuals for more than 100 movies, including Iron
Man 3, the Transformers series, and Titanic. Its CEO, Daniel Seah, recently shared his insights
on the growth of visual effects and visual effects-related technologies behind the screen.
More common, still special
WinWin: How has the VFX game changed since
Digital Domain was founded, and what trends do you
see moving forward?
Daniel Seah: In the 1990’s, visual effects might be present
in 20 to 25% of a movie’s shots, at the maximum. Nowadays,
visual effects at present are in 70%. In Ender’s Game, the rate
is at around 90%. In the future, we can see most blockbusters
being done almost entirely by visual effects. This is both the
present and future of Hollywood movies. I personally believe
that in the future, all we will need to do is use an actor or
actress’s face, with the entire movie made through visual effects.
WinWin: How many projects will Digital Domain be
working on at any one time, and how far ahead is your
time booked for?
Seah:Right now, our capacity allows us to do five movies at the
same time, which requires one year to make reservations. Most of
the movies we’ve got from the major studios are giant movies, as
DigitalDomainisonlyfocusingontop-tenbestmovies.
WinWin: Movie budgets are growing fast outside of
the Western world. What progress are you making in
expanding your international presence?
Seah: This is exactly where we’re heading right now. We’re
thinking of focusing not just on Hollywood, because Hollywood
movies for us are a fixed income. It’s time for us to look for a new
market. For example, the revenue of the recent movie Titanic
3D in China was actually larger than for the American market.
We’re considering taking China as our future development
market from a business perspective. Digital Domain has a great
partnership with Galloping Horse (a Chinese studio), right now.
One of the movies we’re working on now, called The Crossing, is
By Linda Xu
Scan for mobile reading
Daniel Seah, Digital Domain CEO
directed by John Woo. It is a milestone for us. It will be the first
Chinese production that Digital Domain provides visual effects
for. Additionally, the entertainment business in Hollywood is
very expensive. A lot of companies, including Digital Domain,
are trying to grow their expertise and capacity in Vancouver to
take advantage of film subsidies offered in British Columbia.
A curious case
WinWin: Innovation is critical to “ooh-ah” VFX.
Can you share with us some areas where Digital
Domain tries to distinguish itself?
Seah: Visual effects are a highly competitive business. One
thing that Digital Domain is best at is a technology called “Digital
Human.” The technology was used in the movie The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button. If you can remember, Benjamin Button,
played by Brad Pitt, was born as an old guy with a very tiny body
shape and grew younger and younger. His neck and above were all
computer generated, made by us. There was no prosthetic makeup
or Brad Pitt’s face superimposed over another actor’s body. We
created a completely digital person who doesn’t exist in real life.
This required huge 3D databases and considerable computing
resources. It took 155 people over two years to create such a vivid
image. From that very moment, we figure that by using this
technology,wecandosomethingdifferent.
You probably heard in 2012 that, during the Coachella
Valley Music Festival, we made the computer-generated
“hologram” of the late American rap starTupac Shakur by using
our 4D projection technology. This is exactly the technology
we’re using to explore the Chinese market. We’ve just got a
license from the family of one of the most famous singers in
the Chinese language (Teresa Teng), who passed away in 1995,
to create a virtual Teresa Teng. It was a computer-generated
likeness of the iconic Taiwanese singer who performed as part
Perspectives
Digital Domain
31. MAR 2014
26
of pop star Jay Chou’s “Opus 12” concerts in Taipei. It was a
giant success, stunning the fans. That is the technology Digital
Domain enjoys today and we intend to spread it broadly.
WinWin: Could you elaborate more on how Digital
Human works?
Seah: Digital Human is basically a Digital Domain-
proprietary facial capture system. The system can scan
someone’s face, simulate it, and recreate it for any desired
word or expression.
WinWin: Is data security a big concern for Digital
Domain? If it is, how do you ensure data is stored securely
and accessed easily?
Seah: Data security is always major concern for
Hollywood studios and visual effect houses. Therefore, the
Motion Picture Association of America has detailed rules of
how to safely store the data and prevent it from being stolen.
The digital element
WinWin: How do you see your work changing in the
next few years? Will these changes be seen on the screen?
Seah: That’s interesting. If you look at Digital Domain’s past 20
years of history, we have seen huge changes. When we did our first
movie, The Fifth Element, two decades ago, we made a lot of giant
buildings to shoot and did a lot of visual effects and animations
after that. We also had a huge prototype boat for Titanic. That was
a time when you did visual effects by building something similar
and using technology to operate it. Nowadays, you don’t have to
build anything. Everything is digital and can be done by computer
graphics. As for the foreseeable future, we won’t need any actor or
actress to act. We can simply license their faces to use computer
graphics to make them perform in certain ways. I know it’s too
early to say such things definitively, but in my opinion, visual
effectswillbetheverysoulofthefilm.
WinWin: A large number of effects-heavy blockbusters
lately have underperformed at the box office. What’s your
take on that?
Seah: Yeah, a lot of big-budget movies actually don’t work
well in the end. Doing visual effects means that we can make the
film better but we can’t change the script or the soul of the movie.
So there’s nothing much we can do. Today, we’re doing our
own movies. When we invest in our own movies (with Ender’s
Game being the first), and all of the visual effects are going to be
delivered by Digital Domain, we’re going to choose the director
and script wisely. Sometimes, the box office performance of a big-
budget movie is bad because the studio, director, producer, and
investor have different views. Their divergence can create a long
nightmare for the movie. Currently, since we are the investor and
we’re producing the movie and doing visual effects on our own,
the problem can be solved.
About Digital Domain
Founded in 1993, Digital Domain (the original Digital
Domain company) has delivered innovative visuals for more than
100 movies. Its artists have earned multiple Academy Awards.
A creative force in advertising, Digital Domain has brought
its artistry to hundreds of commercial, video game, and music
video productions. From facilities in California and Vancouver,
including its own state-of-the-art performance capture studio,
the new Digital Domain 3.0 continues the tradition of creating
extraordinary imagery and productions for entertainment and
advertising. Digital Domain 3.0 is majority-owned by Hong Kong
companySunInnovation(HKSE:547).Pleasefindthelink:http://
digitaldomain.com/.
For the foreseeable future, we won’t need any actor or
actress to act. We can simply license their faces to use computer
graphics to make them perform in certain ways. In my opinion,
visual effects will be the very soul of the film.
Editor: Jason jason.patterson@huawei.com
— Daniel Seah, Digital Domain CEO
32. MAR 2014
27
LTE: The fourth chapter,
but what’s the story?
With more and more people connecting, MBB operators need faster and better networks
to sustain fast, reliable, and profitable services. The challenges brought by this increase are
constantly being evaluated, with new solutions emerging all the time. At Huawei’s Global
Broadband World Forum, a group of CTOs discussed the future of MBB so that they can cope
with the unprecedented growth in network usage and the need to be connected at all times.
How long is this term?
I
n many parts of the world, LTE technology is
still quite new. While widely used for a number
of years in the advanced markets, EE is only part
of the way through its U.K. rollout and other
parts of Europe, not to mention most of the world,
are also waiting for the technology to be introduced.
However, operators are already looking ahead to the
next step in mobile broadband, LTE-Advanced (LTE-A),
which promises speeds of up to 300Mbps. It is already
available across South Korea and EE launched its own
LTE-A network in East London’s Tech City area in
November, 2013. The operator has pledged to start
connecting the whole of London to the network by next
summer.
So what are the benefits of this new technology and
is it the answer to the increasingly complex challenges of
capacity and coverage that come with the unprecedented
growth in mobile broadband users? With Huawei also
promising to invest USD600 million in research and
innovation for 5G technologies by 2018, it would appear
mobile broadband operators have yet more work to do
in the ever-evolving mobile broadband world where
connections will never be fast enough.
Scan for mobile reading
Better cost, capacity and coverage
More than 400 operators in 120 countries have invested
in LTE upgrades for their networks, while other operators
new to the market have launched with LTE networks. As a
result, consumers are experiencing faster and more efficient
connections and have been seen moving away from
traditional voice & text services to online communication.
The technology also carries benefits for operators, as Dr.
Ibrahim Gedeon, Chief Technology Officer at TELUS,
described at the Global Mobile Broadband Forum. TELUS
has already rolled out LTE across 70% of Canada and
intends to introduce it to the rest of the country, despite
already having a very successful 3G network.
“We had a great 3G network. We covered the country
in under a year, but we decided to go ahead with LTE
anyway,” said Gedeon. “We did that for two simple
reasons. If you think of the future of wireless, 3G is
probably not going to offer the same efficiency, and it’s
limited, so if you are going to invest in any technology you
may as well go for LTE. It’s more efficient and it’s cheaper
and we saw the benefits nearly straight away. We were
thinking of putting in a plan to move people to LTE, but
we actually didn’t have to put a plan together because they
were moving so fast.”
Tao of Business
By Jayne Garfitt, Total Telecom
33. MAR 2014
28
As well as having the advantage of download speed,
LTE also focuses on upload speed. With 90% of all data
stored online generated in the last two years, the ability
to send as well as receive on a network has become
increasingly important, as more and more customers want
to be able to share video and audio instantly. Thus, LTE is
probably no longer just desirable but essential.
“I think the key to operators surviving the market is
fulfilling the requirements of their customers and what
they need is more connectivity and more data,” continued
Elmar Grasser, Chief Operating Officer of Swiss operator
Sunrise. “In that context, LTE is not a question of whether
we make more money; but if you don’t do it, you are just
not in the market anymore.”
A big impact
Despite the greater efficiency and speed that LTE offers,
many operators are not mobilizing it in conjunction with
another increasingly popular technology, machine-to-
machine (M2M). Most applications that can connect
machines do not need the bandwidth that LTE offers;
the hardware carries a hefty price tag and the band
fragmentation adds further cost and complexity. For
applications that are mission-critical, the coverage is
also viewed by many as spotty. However, LTE’s spectral
efficiency and other attributes reduce the operator’s cost of
delivering service below that of incumbent technologies.
As a result, many operators are beginning to view LTE as
having an important role in the development of machine-
to-machine technology. Steve Unger, Chief Technology
Officer at Ofcom, believes this will transform a number of
industries, including health, transport and education.
“LTE means that it is no longer about video-to-tablet.
In the future, it won’t be just mobiles and tablets that
are connected to the Internet,” he said. “Billions of other
things, including cars, crops, coffee machines, and cardiac
monitors will also be connected, using tiny slivers of
spectrum to get online.”
Another benefit of using LTE for M2M is its longevity.
Operators, who need their gear to last five, ten or fifteen
years, could find that the investment in LTE is worth it.
This is because there’s a chance that 2G and 3G technology
will become obsolete as LTE’s demands on spectrum
increase.
Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer at the GSMA,
said that there was no general rule as to whether to use
LTE in applications. “When you talk about machine-
to-machine, people think it’s one category, but it’s not.”
Sinclair added, “If you look at connected cars, for example,
that is very specific, and so I think that for some sectors,
34. MAR 2014
29
LTE is more valuable and operators need to look at each
sector and see where the value in LTE lies.”
Certain uncertainty
While regarded as revolutionary by Internet carriers,
LTE technology is unlikely to be the final chapter in the
story of mobile broadband. The huge surge in the number
of MBB users has been in many ways unprecedented
and, according to Mohamed Madkour, Senior Director
and Head of MBB Solution Marketing And Business
Development at Huawei, there is a lot of uncertainty
about what the future holds for the industry.
“No one knows what’s going to happen next week or next
year. Maybe someone will invent another screen, another
application, and that will change everything; we don’t know,”
said Madkour, who chaired the discussion at the Global
Mobile Broadband Forum. “So, how can we scale out the
market and how can the network be elastic enough or flexible
enough to support an anything-anywhere service?”
However, as unpredictable as the future is, everyone
knows the demand for MBB will continue to increase.
With this in mind, work has already started on the next
step – 5G. Huawei has pledged to invest USD 600million
in research and innovation for 5G technologies by
2018. The investment will cover a range of key enabling
technologies, including the research of air-interface
technology. Huawei predicts that the first 5G networks
will be ready for commercial deployment starting in 2020,
and will deliver peak data rates of over 10Gbps, 100 times
faster than today’s 4G networks.
Eric Xu, rotating CEO of Huawei, said, “Innovation
is a continuous journey. While we continue to evolve
our existing 4G network capabilities, we plan to invest
a minimum of USD600 million over the next few years
on research and innovation for 5G mobile network
technologies to ensure that we are meeting the consumers’
demands for increasingly faster and better connections.
This number does not include investment to productize
5G technologies. 5G mobile networks, with peak data
rates of over 10Gbps, will allow people to download high-
definition movies in one second and provide a true-to-life
video communications experience.”
Meanwhile, in the U.K., the University of Surrey was
given GBP35 million (USD57 million) last year to fund
the development of 5G systems and potentially influence
the standard. Ofcom has also already called for increased
spectrum to be made available for 5G technologies in a
bid to avoid the delays that the U.K. encountered when
switching to 4G.
“The most straightforward point is to make sure that
spectrum is available in a way that is balanced,” said
Unger. “In an ideal world, operators will be able to explore
different ways of delivering their services and the spectrum
wouldn’t determine how they do that. In practice, we
have to understand where the trends are and ensure that
the spectrum available allows for those different types of
technology.”
While operators have made great progress, a network
that satisfies all user demands may never exist. A lot has
been and is being achieved with the rollout of LTE, but
the constant hunger for capacity and speed means a fifth
generation is inevitable. The question now is how we get
there.
When you talk about M2M, people think it’s one category, but it’s not.
I think that for some sectors, LTE is more valuable and operators need to look
at each sector and see where the value in LTE lies.
Editor: Jason jason.patterson@huawei.com
– Alex Sinclair, GSMA CTO
Tao of Business
