Newsflash November 2019

Start of the 5G PPP Phase 3, Part 4: 5G Long Term Evolution

These eight projects started in November 2019 and will run for about three years to get the European 5G Vision of “5G empowering vertical industries” closer to deployment.

Whilst 5G early introduction targets “local” network improvements (e.g. at radio access level), the longer term vision targets the realisation of pervasive mobile virtual services, through a network managing compute, storage and transport connectivity functions in an integrated way. The challenge is to transform the network into a low energy distributed computer, where processes and applications are dynamically created, moved and suppressed, depending on the information flows, customer needs, and where new terminal types in cars, objects, appliances, and new interfaces based on gestures, facial expressions, sound and haptics may be the basis of the interaction between humans and the infosystems.

There is a public Brokerage resource for the 5G-PPP calls requesting proposal submissions in 2020 specifically addressing the H2020 Strategic Objectives ICT-41, ICT-42 and ICT-52.

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.

Please click on the logos for more information:

5G ESSENCE’s recent White Papers

White Paper for UC1 (Stadium scenario): 5G Edge Network Acceleration in a Crowded Event in the 5G-ESSENCE Project

The purpose of this White Paper is to provide an insight of the current Edge Network Acceleration in a Crowded Eventand how the activities developed by the 5G ESSENCE Use Case 1 (UC1) can bring into life the Next Generation of content delivery. UC1 provides the logic for distributing the live video feeds received from the local production room to local spectators in a highly efficient manner. This White Paper presents a detailed description of the functionalities developed by the partners contributing to the testbed developed for UC1 and which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be used to evaluate performance. The testbed architecture is provided and mapped to the overall 5G ESSENCE system architecture as well. The UC1 activities culminate with the final demonstration delivered at the Municipality of Egaleo by early of October 2019.

White Paper for UC3 (IFEC scenario) : Next-Generation In-Flight Entertainment and Connectivity Solution in the 5G ESSENCE Project

The purpose of this White Paper is to provide an insight of the current In-Flight Entertainment and Communications (IFEC) system and how the activities developed by the 5G ESSENCE Use Case 3 (UC3) can bring into life the Next Generation (NG) of IFEC systems. This White Paper focuses on presenting the services that are being developed for this use case, creating context for them within the next generation of IFEC. Moreover, the White Paper positions 5G as the “technology enabler” for the next generation of equipment on-board aircrafts for civilian transportation, showing that the 5G ESSENCE general architecture provides the proper playground to develop advanced network services leveraging on Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV). Therefore, this White Paper presents a detailed description of the functionalities developed by the partners contributing to the testbed developed for UC3 and which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be used to evaluate performance. The testbed architecture is provided and mapped to the overall 5G ESSENCE system architecture as well. The UC3 activities culminate with the final demonstration delivered at the premises of Zodiac In-flight Innovations in Munich by November 2019.

5G ESSENCE Embedded Network Services for 5G Experiences

5G ESSENCE  Embedded Network Services for 5G Experiences

5G ESSENCE addresses the paradigms of Edge Cloud computing and Small Cell as a Service by fuelling the drivers and removing the barriers in the Small Cell market, forecasted to grow at an impressive pace up to 2020 and beyond and to play a key role in the 5G ecosystem. 5G ESSENCE provides a highly flexible and scalable platform, able to support new business models and revenue streams by creating a neutral host market and reducing operational costs by providing new opportunities for ownership, deployment, operation and amortisation.

The technical approach exploits the benefits of the centralisation of Small Cell functions as scale grows through an edge cloud environment based on a two-tier architecture: a first distributed tier for providing low latency services and a second centralised tier for providing high processing power for computing-intensive network applications. This allows decoupling the control and user planes of the Radio Access Network (RAN) and achieving the benefits of Cloud-RAN without the enormous fronthaul latency restrictions. The use of end-to-end network slicing mechanisms will allow sharing the 5G ESSENCE infrastructure among multiple operators/vertical industries and customising its capabilities on a per-tenant basis. The versatility of the architecture is enhanced by high-performance virtualisation techniques for data isolation, latency reduction and resource efficiency, and by orchestrating lightweight virtual resources enabling efficient Virtualised Network Function placement and live migration.

5G ESSENCE leverages knowledge, SW modules and prototypes from various 5G PPP Phase-1 projects, SESAME being particularly relevant. Building on these foundations, very ambitious objectives are targeted, culminating with the prototyping and demonstration of 5G ESSENCE system in three real-life use cases associated to vertical industries, i.e., edge network acceleration in a crowded event, mission critical applications, and in-flight communications.

SliceNet and Matilda joint Workshop on the smart lighting use case

The projects have come together to collaborate on the Smart City street lighting application which automates network slicing through new 5G architecture.

Marius Iordache, from SliceNet, and Horia Stefanescu from Matilda, both from Orange Romania, presented the smart lighting use case for smart cities, being piloted on a 5G testbed at the campus of the Polythecnic University of Bucharest. A demonstration of the smart lighting was given in the grounds of the University.

Exceptionally Successful Metro-Haul Project!

The project has just had its second-year project review where the work so far was assessed as outstanding, with exceptional success being recorded through its massive impact in dissemination and standardisation. In just over two years, the project has generated over 170 papers in journals and conference proceedings. Papers and project blog can be found on the project web site.

On 31 October 2019, 40 representatives of the 21 partners organisations met in Pisa, Italy to plan the final stages of the project. Demonstrations were showcased to illustrate the value of SDN control in flexible metro networks supporting 5G services. The meeting was hosted by Ericsson Telecomunicazioni and Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario Per Le Telecomunicazioni (CNIT).

1st 5G PPP @EuCNC2019 Video Released

This video shows a demonstration of the results of the 5G PPP “Internet of Radio Light’ (IoRL) project, shown at EuCNC 2019. Further information on 5G PPP here. More details on the IoRL project here.

Stay tuned for more videos and demos from the 5G PPP!

5G Vertical User: Updated Action Plan

The latest Action Plan date November 2019 is now available here. It shows progress of these joint efforts in terms of newcomer sessions at 3GPP plenaries and a new 3GPP mentoring service aimed at supporting verticals through the various stages of specification development. This and on-going work is feeding into a new online collaboration tool, which will also showcase standardisation work in 5G PPP.

A 3rd Vertical User Workshop will be organised in February 2020 and a Vertical Industry Workshop at 5G World Summit in June 2020.

Highlights related to the Automotive WG

Successful Webinar: Business Feasibility Study for 5G V2X Deployment

Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) services require a network with high reliability, speed, capacity, and ultra-low latency, as well as advanced service features such as network slicing.

The webinar dived into two key aspects of 5G Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X): from the deployment of connected and automated mobility (CAM) services, including the full ecosystem of actors and how they interrelate, investments and revenue models to costs and profits. Mikael Fallgren, Ericsson, gave a brief Introduction on CAM before panellists such as Andres Laya, Senior Researcher at Ericsson ConsumerLab, Business Feasibility Study for 5G V2X Deployment. And Jesus Alonso-Zarate, Division Manager at CTTC started to exchange views moderated by Stephanie Parker and John Favaro, Trust-IT.

The B-Day “Boosting Connectivity Investments” conference to be held in Brussels on December 2-3, 2019 aims to bring together all relevant stakeholders and inform them of the latest developments of EU broadband initiatives and their implementation.

See the “Save the date” section for additional details on the conference.

It will also update participants on the preparation of the next Connecting Europe Facility programme. The conference will discuss leading edge technologies, business models and finance, aiming to identify ideas and synergies between sectors.

The conference will debate how 5G corridors bring leading edge connectivity across the Union for a more resilient, sustainable and cost-efficient infrastructure, enabling new concerted actions amongst the transport, energy and digital sectors.  The state-of-play of 5G deployment in Europe would be presented and the importance of corridors for the whole digital ecosystem in Europe would be highlighted addressing at the same time technological and implementation challenges.

The event will take place in Brussels from December 2-3.

More information about the conference here.

Successful completion of NGPaaS

The pilot was the occasion to show in practice the set of design rules that the project is advocating to solve the industry verticals conundrum for: 1) Components modularity and ‘Build-to-order’ principle, 2) Recursivity and polymorphism, 3) Unstructured cloud-computing stack where the “what” (the service delivered), the “how” (the platform delivering the service) and the “where” (the execution environment, be it software or hardware) are separated and 4) Telco-grade enhancements (FPGA plugin for Kubernetes, CPU Pinning, NUMA, DPDK, etc).

The project results are available on the project website and exploited under different formats: SpinOff (Sunlight), New product (SmartBox^TM), New services (like Dev-for-Operations).

Key findings from ECSO WG6 workshop on prioritisation of cybersecurity topics

In the morning session, the ECSO WG6 members worked together on collecting, aggregation and collating the priorities across both the HE and DEP, in advance to the arrival of the European Commission delegation.

In the afternoon session, the European Commission worked with the participants to help to further map these priorities and shape the vision. In the next phase, the Commission stressed that the most important element will be to engage with the stakeholders in order to help identify the mechanisms that need to be put in place to achieve the vision.

During the interventions, Mr. Clarke, from Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland and member of ESCO was able to brief the audience about the relevant work of SWG3.8 and the ongoing work of the 5G PPP Working group on Security and provide useful sources of information towards the prioritising of 5G topics for HE and DEP. “This collaboration further solidifies the engagement fostered by the signed MoU during ICT 2018 in Vienna between the 5G PPP and ECSO with the aim of enhancing future cooperation in the fields of cybersecurity and 5G communication networks”, according to Clarke.

The FOKUS FUSECO Forum 2019 was successfully held

The themes of the event were:

• the state of technology development in terms of standards,
• products and first solutions derived from international technology and application trials
• the potential business models in different vertical domains, particularly in private networking options
• operator network slicing approaches
• the operator 5G rollout plans, including migration and interworking with 4G, Wi-Fi and satellite networks. And finally, the relevant 5G testbeds and trials around the globe.

The next FOKUS FUSECO Forum will take place in Berlin, Germany on November 5-6, 2020 and deal with “Understanding The Innovation Potential Of 5G Campus Networks And Emerging New 5G Ecosystems In Different Industry Verticals“

For further information, please visit the event website.

Key highlights from the 2019 5G IA annual General Assembly

The first part of the meeting was dedicated to administrative and legal issues.

In the second part, participants had the opportunity to listen to the following very interesting presentations:

• Prof. Daniele Quercia, Department Head of Social Dynamics at Nokia Bell Labs Cambridge (UK) and Professor of Urban Informatics at the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at King’s College London, was the keynote speaker. He presented “The Data and Life of Great Future Cities”.
• Marcus Eibach, Project Director 5G, presented Deutsche Messe’s 5G plans and vision for the exhibition Centre in Hannover
• Peter Stuckmann, Head of Unit – Future Connectivity Systems, DG CONNECT, European Commission, presented the latest developments for the new EU Programmes that are under preparation and provided important information for the preparation of the Smart Networks and Services proposal that the Association is preparing together with the NetWorld2020 ETP.
• Alexandros Kaloxylos, the newly appointed 5G IA Executive Director, presented the current status of the Horizon Europe proposal for Smart Networks and Services.
• Colin Willcock, Chairman of the Board of the 5G IA, provided a status update on the main activities carried out by the 5G IA as well as information on the Association’s vision for its continuation and evolution.