Newsflash December 2019

MoU signed between ERTICO – ITS Europe and 5G IA

On 28th November 2019 in Riga, Jacob Bangsgaard, CEO of ERTICO – ITS Europe, and Dr. Colin Willcock, Chairman of the Board of the 5G Infrastructure Association (5G IA), co-signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to foster cooperation and synergies on 5G and Intelligent Transport Systems and Services (ITS).

During 5G Techritory – the Baltic Sea region’s annual event of telecommunication experts, which brings together innovators, businesses, legislators and investors – ERTICO and 5G IA signed a MoU to facilitate the roll-out of Intelligent Transport Systems and Services (ITS) supported by a secure and trustworthy 5G communication network in Europe.  

The mission of 5G IA is to create the next generation of communication networks and services. Ubiquitous connectivity will enable the European industry to successfully compete on global markets, open up new innovation opportunities and facilitate the creation of new services to the benefit of the society, including for mobility.  

The mission of ERTICO is to deploy by 2030 greater and safer automation and connectivity, ensuring the rollout of systems that monitor and manage the traffic of vehicles carrying people and goods, providing direct control on them. ERTICO’s vision sees future transport networks moving towards a fully automated system of vehicles and infrastructure that will ultimately increase safety on roads.  

Colin Willcock, Chairman of the Board of the 5G IA, stated: “As our world becomes more digitised, it is vital that we collaborate across the various domains. For this reason, this MoU is important for bringing together the areas of 5G and Connected and Automated mobility”.  

Jacob Bangsgaard, ERTICO CEO, said: “We need to collaborate across all sectors if we want to achieve Europe’s transport goals. Access to technology and knowledge sharing are essential to build a future society that will be digitally-savvy and connected. ERTICO’s role is to foster this multi-stakeholder collaboration.”  

As the contractual partners of the European Commission for Public-Private Partnerships on ITS and 5G, ERTICO and 5G IA aim to promote collaboration between European stakeholders from public and private sectors and sustain the implementation and development of the Digital Single Market. 

More information here.

Three additional and last 5G PPP @EuCNC2019 videos released

Three new videos have been released by the Full5G project as part of the “5GPPP@EuCNC2019” video series, showing demonstrations from 5G PPP projects. They are available on the 5G PPP YouTube Channel and on the 5G PPP web site. Two videos show a demonstration of the results of the 5G PPP SliceNet and 5G-Transformer projects, shown at EuCNC 2019. They are accessible directly at SliceNetand 5G-Transformer. The third video shows a demonstration of the results of the 5G PPP NRG5 project, shown at EuCNC 2019. It is accessible directly at NRG5.
 
Further information on the 5G PPP website. More details on the SliceNet project, here. More details on the 5G-Transformer project, here.  More details on NRG5.
 
Stay tuned for more videos and demos from the 5G PPP!

SatCom WG’s White Paper on “SatCom Ressources for Smart and Sustainable Networks and Services”

The paper shows how satellite communications are fundamental components to help deliver reliably ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) services, not only across the whole of Europe, but also in all regions of the world, and at an affordable cost. According to the SatCom WG, SatCom should be part of the future smart networks, where innovations are required to develop techniques/technologies to ensure also sustainable ICT: economically viable, eco-friendly and yielding social benefits. This document has been prepared by the NetWorld2020 SatCom Working Group in order to present how the satellite community faces this challenge by identifying advanced research topics that need to be carried out.

The whole paper can downloaded here.

5G Media Slice Definition White Paper

Nine media&content use cases have been identified by the group that cover most of the common media&content situations from production to consumption.

From these 9 use cases, the group has identified 12 parameters that should be used to adapt the network to the application requirements, such as Latency, Reliability, Data rate, Mobility, User density, Positioning, User Equipment speed.

Looking at the 5G network capabilities and parameters that could be activated, the last section provides a description of 5G Media Slices. There is an “s” because one of the main conclusions of the paper is that the media chain encompasses a number of functionalities and operations such as content creation, service composition, service aggregation, content distribution, devices, user interaction and interfaces, which requires different slices. Additionally, 5G requirements will be different for production which needs mostly uplink capacities and distribution which needs mostly downlink capacities.

For each of the 9 use cases, there is a proposal to allocate 1 or 2 slices, detailed in the conclusion of the paper.

The paper can be downloaded here.

Brokerage Platform 2020

The ICT-41, ICT-42 and ICT-52 call texts, as prepared by the EC, and the 5G PPP Phase 3.II Prestructuring Model as prepared by the 5G-Infrastructure-Association will provide a context for identifying where your interests lie and give some suggestions for possible proposal delineation.

5G-Media consortium PoC of a Remote Production with ultra low latency

The breakthrough of this use case was to break apart the capture of audio-video on a venue from the TV production. The design and development were steered with the idea of minimum latency in the transport of signal between them in order the loop TV Producer-Camera Operator would not perceive a loss of real-time sense to avoid lack of agility on real-time order/decisions.

The goals were met successfully and the first impressions of the TV producers and Camera Operators were that the experience was identical as if a Studio production or O.B. Production.

The latency reached was 10 frames what from a perceptual point of view can be considered in the range of real-time reaction.

This design can reach a theoretical 3 frames latency easily in the near future with some minor enhancements.

CEF2 Digital-Draft orientations towards an implementation roadmap

The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF2) Digital programme aims to support and catalyse investments in digital connectivity infrastructures of common interest, during the period 2021-2027. CEF2 Digital will deliver important contributions to the Union’s strategic connectivity objectives as well as to the President Von der Leyen’s policy goals, specifically: “A Europe fit for the digital age”, “A European Green Deal” and “An economy that works for people”.

Actions foreseen under the programme include:

• the deployment of and access to very high-capacity networks, including 5G systems, capable of providing Gigabit connectivity in areas where socioeconomic drivers are located;
• the provision of very high-quality local wireless connectivity in local communities that is free of charge and without discriminatory conditions;
• uninterrupted coverage with 5G systems of all major transport paths, including the trans-European transport networks;
• deployment of new or significant upgrade of existing backbone networks including submarine cables, within and between Member States and between the Union and third countries;
• implementing digital connectivity infrastructures related to cross-border projects in the areas of transport or energy and/or supporting operational digital platforms directly associated to transport or energy infrastructures.

The Commission invites stakeholders to send comments and/or suggestions regarding the indicative funding actions under the new CEF 2 Digital programme as described in the non-paper and its technical annex to: EC-CEF2DIGITAL@ec.europa.eu

Stakeholders who want to propose potential infrastructure projects that could receive CEF2 Digital funding are invited also to inform the broadband competence office in their Member State.

NGMN 5G-ACIA Agreement

On 12 December, 2019 the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) and the 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA) signed an agreement to jointly shape and promote industrial 5G applications.

The agreement comes as both NGMN and 5G-ACIA look to enhance cooperation between operators and industries to realize the opportunities that 5G technology offers. The partnership between NGMN and 5G-ACIA will provide the technological foundation for new business models that will unleash new markets and growth in the industry, extending far beyond the mobile broadband applications of 5G.

ITU-5 WP5G Evaluation WS

On December 10-11, 2019 ITU-R WP5G held its Evaluation Workshop in Geneva, Switzerland.

Evaluation Reports are available on the ITU website.

Global5G.org webinar

On December 17th, 2019, Global5G.org held a webinar on “Small Cells in the 5G era”.

This webinar looked at how Europe could accelerate network densification through the deployment of next-generation small cells that help deliver the necessary micro capacity and coverage. With 5G being a catalyst for densification, Europe needs to take steps to enable the deployment of very high-capacity networks that enhance mobile broadband experience and support high device densities. This is key to improving coverage especially indoors, improving energy efficiency, reducing radiation, and bringing greater capacity to rural areas.

Webinar panellists talked listeners through trends driving deployment, the benefits of a lightweight regulatory regime and best practices for sharing infrastructure.

According to the Small Cells Forum, most non-residential indoor small cells will be in the business space, with industrial services across diverse vertical markets acting as key drivers for increased coverage in-building and in remote areas. 5G will also be a strong driver in the outdoor market, especially from 2021 onwards to meet the needs of industry with vertical-specific cells deployed outdoors. Neutral hosts will also become an important enabler of densification, with most demand coming from enterprise and IoT.

Successful completion of the To-Euro-5G project

The H2020 5G PPP’s To-Euro-5G project ran for the period June, 2017 until August, 2019, with the main aim to support the activities of the European 5G Initiative as outlined in the 5G contractual Public Private Partnership (cPPP).

The project held its final review on 8^th November, 2019, where it was distinguished as a “5 Star” project in achieving its main objectives towards maintaining and enhancing the competitiveness of the European ICT industry, and seeking European leadership in the 5G domain. It was established that the To-Euro-5G project contributed, through their support activities, to fast-track the implementation of the European 5G Action Plan and to orchestrating an open, transparent and flexible 5G-PPP programme governance structure that facilitates good cooperation between the projects, the Commission and the 5G Infrastructure Association.

The reviewers singled out the project’s many accomplishments in stimulating, organising and hosting strategic events and workshops, where the European 5G achievements were promoted on a global level, including the organisation of the Global 5G events and active contribution to the annual EuCNC events, and many other events. The project’s work in stimulating the entry of SMEs into the 5G community and the support of a wide range of 5G working groups were also exalted by the reviewers.

The project partners of TO-EURO-5G were the following: Eurescom (Coordinator), the 5G Infrastructure Association, IDATE DigiWorld, Interinnov, Nokia Solutions and Networks Management International, University of Surrey,  Universita di Bologna, Orange, Martel, Telenor, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs France and Waterford Institute of Technology.

The work of the TO-EURO-5G project will be continued under the remit of the H2020 FULL5G project.

First release of 5G EVE facility

The 5G EVE project held its plenary meeting on December  10-12, 2019 in Paris- Saclay Nokia premises.

The 5G EVE plenary meeting in Nokia Paris Saclay premises has given the right opportunity to finalize the first release of the 5G EVE facility, available from early 2020, and to demonstrate use cases and experiments on smart grid and UHD multimedia services running at the 5G EVE French site in Paris.

The first release of the 5G EVE facility will offer a user-friendly web portal for the definition, execution and validation of experiments in a multi-site 5G infrastructure distributed in Spain, Italy, France and Greece. Experimenters can access a catalogue of blueprints to compose and customize their services. Advanced tools for intent based service definition and automated 5G KPIs validation are provided to easily verify the performance of vertical services in different 5G networks, emulating a variety of operational conditions.

The 5G EVE portal will be presented at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, 24-27 February, 2020. Visit us at the 5G IA booth (7K39) for live demos of our platform and videos about our 5G infrastructures and vertical use cases.

More information on 5G EVE project here: https://www.5g-eve.eu/