The 5G PPP and the 5G IA increase their visibility on the European and worldwide scenes while 5G is accelerating
Among multiple actions, let’s mention the upcoming 5G PPP ICT-19 Info Day in Brussels and a few major events where the 5G IA highlighted 5G PPP actions and projects
The 5G Infrastructure Association is working hard getting non-European countries into the 5G bandwagon. Brazil and India signed MoUs with the 5G IA.
Examples of significant and continuous interaction with 5G Brasil are numerous:
5G IA contributed to the Futurecom in October 2017, with 5G IA/Telebrasil calls on standardisation.
A flyer on 5G-RANGE, a European project involving Brazilian universities and research entities (Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Telecomunicações, Universidad de São Paulo, Universidade Federal do Ceará and Universidade de Brasília on the Brazilian side) was disseminated at the MWC’18.
5G Brasil is strongly involved in inter-regional coopeation sessions (especially Global 5G Events in Seoul in November 2017 and Austin in May 2018).
Cooperation will further materialise in November 2018 at the 6th Global 5G Event organised by 5G Brasil in Rio on November 28-30. Specific meetings will be held there.
In addition to the cooperation with Telebrasil/5G Brasil, Jacques Magen, Chair of the NetWorld2020/5G PPP SME Working Group, presented a position paper at the Clouscape Brazil conference in July 2018. The event was organised by the ATMOSPHERE project (Adaptive, Trustworthy, Manageable, Orchestrated, Secure, Privacy-assuring Hybrid, Ecosystem for Resilient Cloud Computing). In the paper, Jacques highlighted the major efforts made to promote SME participation in the 5G PPP and make them more visible in the European 5G community and beyond, and proposed to work on initiating a cooperation allowing European and Brazilian SMEs to work together and with larger organisations, both on innovative 5G technologies to be implemented in 5G infrastructure platforms, and on trials related to 5G solutions for various vertical sectors. The mechanism to implement this cooperation could be inspired on the one hand by the work performed by the SME Working Group in Europe, and on the other hand by the Memorandum of Understanding already in place between the 5G Infrastructure Association and 5G Brazil.
5G IA and TSDSI (Teelcommunications Standards Developement Society, India) started discussing in 2017. A MoU between 5G-IA and TSDSI was signed on April 12, 2018. This MoU completes the map of key 5G industry regional partnerships around the world.
This MoU confirms the intention of TSDSI and 5G IA to explore collaboration opportunities in areas of mutual interests in the field of 5G communication systems and networks, including:
Vision and Requirements of 5G communication systems and networks;
Technology exploitation and dissemination to ensure awareness, understanding and involvement and finally adoption;
Discussions on basic system concepts and architecture;
Support for global regulatory process in identification of Frequency bands and spectrum arrangement for 5G technologies.
Identification of common interests, building of consensus and collaboration to support development of globally harmonised standards
Promoting cooperation among European and Indian R&D organizations and industries
Use cases of 5G, including mMTC (massive Machine Type Communications), eMBB (enhanced Mobile Broadband) and URLLC (Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications), aligned to applications such as Smart Cities, Mission Critical IoT, Broadband, Consumer-centric 5G, Industry 4.0 and other topics
Further cooperation between Europe and India is being studied.
Global 5G Events
A number of Global 5G Events have been organised and went well since 2016.
After the successful events of 2016-2017, held in China (Beijing), Europe (Rome) and in Japan (Tokyo), the series of high-level events on the 5G ecosystem continued in South Korea (Seoul).
The 4th Global 5G Event, organised by the 5G Forum on “5G accelerating the 4th Industrial Revolution”, took place in Seoul, South Korea, on November 22-24, 2017, including an impressive set of demos at SKT and LGU+, and at the KT 5G field trial site in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics 2018 venue.
A LGU+ 5G tour bus delivered 5G-based IPTV 4K, and a VR drone was demonstrated in the ‘5G for All’ experience room at the LG U+ headquarters, which required data rates ranging from 20 Mbps to 100 Mbps. Huawei showcased the combination of a VR drone designed by Huawei Wireless X Labs and the world’s first 5G customer premise equipment (CPE) over 3.5 GHz.
LG U+ and Huawei completed a 5G network test in a pre-commercial environment in Gangnam District, Seoul. The network consisted of both 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz base stations. The test helped to successfully verify the technologies of IPTV 4K Video and many other future proofcommercial 5G services. High-speed mobility, dual connectivity, and inter-cell handovers (under continuous networking conditions) were validated. The test results returned average data rates of 1 Gbps over the low band and more than 5 Gbps for dual connectivity over high and low bands. In a typical dense urban area, successful verification of the 5G end-to-end (E2E) solution indicated Huawei’s gradual maturity in advanced preparation for the imminent commercial deployment of 5G.
On 24th November, KT organised a 5G demos tour at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics premises.
The fifth Global 5G Event, “ 5G New Horizons Wireless Symposium”, organised by 5G Americas, was held in Austin, USA, on May 16 and 17, 2018. The 5G IA/5G PPP was strongly represented by 9 speakers and moderators presenting at an extensive set of panels on topics such as spectrum and regulation, regional visions of the 5G network, trials, network architecture, 5G trends and collaborations, 5G ecosystem, services and use-cases, and the future of 5G…
The 7th Global 5G Event will be held on June 17-18, 2019 in Valencia, Spain. It will be coupled with EuCNC’19 to be organised on June 18-21, 2019, Spain. As from 2019, Global 5G Events will become annual.
Verticals
In the field of verticals, the 5G IA signed a cooperation agreement in May 2018 with PSCE – Public Safety Communication Europe.
In the field of verticals, the 5G IA signed a cooperation agreement in May 2018 with PSCE – Public Safety Communication Europe in view of ensuring that 5G will bring the necessary developments to the security and safety communications for improving the activities of the PPDR community. Moreover at the end of 2017, the Board of the 5G IA established a task force, with the aim to define and implement a strategy for supporting verticals engagement in the various industrial sectors.
PSC Europe and 5G Infrastructure Association share a common interest in ensuring that 5G will bring the necessary developments to the security and safety communications for improving the activities of the PPDR community.
It is therefore with this common interest in mind that both organizations agreed this week to establish a partnership. The main activities of this partnership will include exchanging information between the two organizations on 5G developments, participating in industry events, congresses and joint promotional activities and contributing with their respective expertise to enhance the inputs of PPDR stakeholders and Verticals on the development and deployment of 5G.
In the field of verticals, the 5G IA co-moderated a session at the Automotive Machines World in June 2018.
The “Communication & Connectivity of Autonomous Systems” session was co-moderated by Jean-Pierre Bienaimé, Secretary General of the 5G-IA, and by Georg Mayer, 3GPP CT Chair. The session went quite well, with an open dialogue to representatives of various industrial sectors, such as Kongsberg, Universal Robots, John Deere, Siemens, Reliance, Hydro Aluminium Deutschland, Teck Resources, Connectavo,….
The acceleration of 5G
The 5G Infrastructure PPP (in short 5G PPP) is a unique opportunity for the European ICT industry to compete on the global market for 5G infrastructure deployment, operation and services. The 5G PPP is organised in three phases, encompassing research (2015), optimisation (2016-2017) and trials (2017-2020). It aims to deploy 5G as from 2020.
On the 1st of July 2015, the 19 Phase 1 projects started and ended in 2017 with 15 key achievements (or “Golden Nuggets”) detailed here:
The approach of Phase 1 projects and programme “Golden Nuggets” is furthered with the ongoing 21 Phase 2 projects, towards the forthcoming “Golden Nuggets version 2.0” allowing all PPP projects to fully understand and match their individual contributions inside the overall programme achievements.
Phase 3 has just been launched!
5G PPP Phase 3 is divided in three parts. Part 1 is focused on Infrastructure Projects. Part 2 is centered on automotive projects. Part 3 deals with Advanced 5G trials validation across multiple vertical industries.
Three Part 1. Infrastructure Projects (5G-EVE, 5G-VINNI, 5G GENESIS) have been selected from the 16 proposals received by the EC in response to the 5G PPP ICT-17-2018 call.
These three projects started on the 1st July 2018 and will run for 3 years implementing and testing advanced 5G infrastructures in Europe. News projects will be introduced at the ICT-19 Info Day on 14th September 2018. There will be a chance to present and discuss their ideas.
The aspiration of 5G-EVE is to create the foundations for a pervasive roll-out of end-to-end 5G networks in Europe. 5G-EVE supports this fundamental transition by offering to vertical industries and to all 5GPPP Phase3 projects facilities to validate their network KPIs and their services.
Important representatives of these vertical industries are directly involved as partners of 5G-EVE exactly to influence the design of the end-to-end 5G services, and to provide an early assessment. The 5G-EVE end-to-end facility consists of the interconnection of four 5G-site-facilities (France, Spain, Italy, Greece), which have been selected because of their considerable previous work with vertical industries and standardisation bodies, on top of their 5G technology competences. 5G-EVE aims at creating synergies between a significant number of facilities that will ensure sustainability and impact in terms of exploitation.
5G-VINNI will accelerate the uptake of 5G in Europe by providing an end-to-end (E2E) facility that validates the performance of new 5G technologies by operating trials of advanced vertical sector services.
The 5G-VINNI strategy to achieve this involves:
Design an advanced and accessible 5G end-to-end facility.
Build several interworking sites of the 5G-VINNI end-to-end facility.
Provide user-friendly zero-touch orchestration, operations and management systems for the 5G-VINNI facility.
Validate the 5G KPIs and support the execution of E2E trial of vertical use cases to prove the 5G-VINNI capabilities.
Develop a viable business and ecosystem model to support the life of the 5G-VINNI facility during and beyond the span of the project.
Demonstrate the value of 5G solutions to the 5G community particularly to relevant standards and open source communities with a view to securing widespread adoption of these solutions.
The 5G-VINNI E2E facility will demonstrate the achievement of 5G KPIs across a range of combinations and permutations of new 5G access technologies and end-user equipment types interconnected by the most advanced 5G core network technologies available. For this 5G-VINNI will leverage the latest 5G technologies, including results from previous 5G PPP projects.
The main goal of 5GENESIS will be to validate 5G KPIs for various 5G use cases, in both controlled set-ups and large-scale events. This will be achieved by bringing together results from a considerable number of EU projects as well as the partners’ internal R&D activities in order to realise an integrated End-to-end 5G Facility.
The 5GENESIS Facility will, with five platforms (Athens, Malaga, Limassol, Surrey, Berlin):
Implement and verify all evolutions of the 5G standard, via an iterative integration and testing procedure;
Engage a wide diversity of technologies and chain innovations that span over all domains, achieving full-stack coverage of the 5G landscape;
Unify heterogeneous physical and virtual network elements under a common coordination and openness framework exposed to experimenters from the vertical industries and enabling end-to-end slicing and experiment automation; and
Support further experimentation projects, in particular those focused on vertical markets.
The acceleration of 5G in Europe is happening thanks to a specific joint strategy between Industry (hand in hand with Research Centres and Academics), EC and MSs and Domains specific initiatives.
Expanding bilateral and trilateral private trials, the strategy relies on the development of specific projects addressing 5G vertical pilots and 5G platforms, 5G UEFA EURO 2020 such as major 5G Pan-EU Flagship events and the 5G Trials Cities programme. The 5G Pan-EU roadmap leverages a multiplier effect of the cooperation between ecosystem partners over different European countries (allowing interoperability and defragmentation). The projects and actions are and will partly be supported by specific EC and MSs programmes and funded projects and also by Domains specific programmes and projects (e.g. ESA satellite for 5G Initiative). An example to illustrate this are the 5G Corridors projects for which different network operators and manufacturers/vendors will engage in dedicated projects at Pan-EU level (e.g. 2 or 3 MSs involved). Some of these projects will be supported by EC and MSs projects (e.g. the EC H2020 5G Infrastructure PPP Phase 3 ICT-18- 2018 Call on Corridors).
The number of 5G trials in Europe has doubled in a year. Europe is home of an increasing number of 5G private trials and pilots (pre-commercial and commercial) involving a multitude of stakeholders, notably network operators, manufacturers/vendors and some vertical industries. Several major network operators in Europe have already announced first results of experimentations and
plans for further demonstrations of specific 5G features, either bilaterally with a single manufacturer/vendor or multilaterally with a number of manufacturers/vendors. Trials have been achieved or have been announced in most of the EU countries (100+ experimentation and trials publicly announced in the different EU countries compared to 50+ in 2017). The main target of the current trials is to demonstrate the high data rates and low latency communications, which are key features for 5G technology.
The 5G standardisation process is not an easy one.
Much of the 5G standardisation work is done in 3GPP. The 5G standard completed in December 2017, ahead of schedule, supports a specific configuration called Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G NR. It represents an impressive achievement in a short time but is still in the middle between LTE and 5G. The NSA 5G NR uses the existing LTE radio and core network. With Stand-Alone (SA) 5G NR completed in June 2018 including a next-generation core network, 5G reached a new milestone.
5G commercial “firsts”
Outside Europe, Ooredoo in Qatar claims to be the first world player to launch 5G nationally. Considering 5G mobile devices are not ready yet, it states it is waiting for manufacturers to produce 5G capable devices.
Elisa reports its 5G network carried a 5G phone call on June 27, 2018 between the Estonian minister of Economy and her Finnish colleague in Finland. Tests performed showed data speeds of 2.2 Gbps. That said, the first 5G licences will be made available in the 3.4-3.6 GHz frequencies in Autumn 2018.
5G-PHOS is co-organizing a Workshop on 5G Wireless and Optical Technologies for Mobile Communication Systems, in collaboration with the 5G PPP projects 5G-ESSENCE, 5G-PICTURE and 5G Bluespace. This Workshop, co-located in IEEE CAMAD 2018, aims to offer an opportunity for academic and industrial researchers to discuss on feasible solutions including evolutional technologies and ecosystems for the realization of 5G and beyond.
5G PPP @PSC 2018
Limassol, Cyprus – September 17-19
BlueSPACE is organising a workshop together with 5G-PHOS, Metro-Haul and 5G-PICTURE @ the 2018 edition of Photonics in Switching and Computing (PSC’18) in Limassol, Cyprus in September this year. The International Conference on “Photonics in Switching and Computing – PSC” is the successor of the “Photonics in Switching – PS” conference running annually since 2001 and hosted by Europe, North America and Japan in turn.
The full program will be announced closer to the conference.
ONE5G & 5G-XCast WS @IEEE Globecom
Abu Dhabi, UAE – December 13
One5G and 5G-XCast organise a Full Day workshop titled “5G Advanced : The Next Evolution Step of 5G New Radio” (WS-14)
ONE5G has focused on key technology components for 5G New Radio (NR) Advanced, specifically extensions that support the cost-efficient provision of services both in Megacities and in Underserved Areas. This encompasses PHY/MAC link and multi-link advancements as well as network and user experienced E2E performance optimization and context awareness specifically for the vertical sector.
Broadcast and Multicast Communication centric 5G-Xcast project aims at developing media delivery solutions while taking into account the more extensive use cases of 5G including services to vehicles, public safety and health, IoT etc. to ensure they dovetail together.
They also have a special session, “The Local Impact of 5G” to attract regional SMEs and Startups.
Berlin 5G Week / FOKUS Fuseco Forum
Berlin, Germany – November 12-16 (12-16 for Berlin 5G Week, 15-16 for FFF)
During the two days of the FFF’18 and together with leading operators, manufacturers, integrators, and solution providers the objectives will be to understand and assess 5G-related technologies, infrastructures, and their use in various business sectors enabling innovative business models, value chains, productivity gains, and new revenue opportunities. In addition, the emphasis will be on the challenges of 5G rollout, legacy interworking, and migration.
On November 15th, Jean-Pierre Bienaimé, 5G IA Secretary, will co-chair a track (track 4) on “Getting 5G ready: Testbeds & Rollouts” with Stefan Covaci, Fraunhofer FOKUS and Dr. Ashutosh Dutta, AT&T, USA.
Additional information and program is available here.
6th Global 5G Event
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – November 28-30
At the 5th Global 5G Event in Austin mid-May 2018, 5G Brazil Project’s Dr. Jose Marcos C. Brito, general secretary of 5G Brazil, announced that the 6th Global 5G event will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from November 28 to November 30, 2018.
He said, “The 5th Global Event addressed many important aspects of 5G networks such as spectrum and regulatory policy, use cases, trials and pre-commercial launches– in other words, the entire 5G ecosystem. Attendees at the 5G New Horizons left with a complete vision of the 5G network. Project 5G Brazil will host the 6th Global 5G Event in Rio de Janeiro on November 28 to 30 and we look forward to welcoming attendees and our many global partners for collaboration.”
The following Global 5G Event will be coupled with EuCNC’19 in Valencia, Spain in June 2019. The Global 5G Events will become annual as from 2019. The 8th Global 5G Event will be organised in 2020 in China.
5G PPP ICT-19 Info Day
Brussels, Belgium – September 14
The next big challenge for the 5G PPP community is to respond to the H2020 ICT-19 call for Advanced 5G validation trials across multiple vertical industries by 14th November 2018. To facilitate learning about the ICT-19 call, and the expected working relationships with the new ICT-17 projects, an information event is organised on 14th September 2018.
This 5G PPP ICT-19 Info day is hosted by the European Commission in Brussels (Albert Borschette Conference Center, how to reach Borschette center see here). The detailed agenda is available here.
Registration is now open. You can register for the event here.
European 5G Infrastructure Roundtable
Brussels, Belgium – September 25
The International Center for Parliamentary Studies (IPCS) organises a Roundtable on European 5G Infrastructure in Brussels on September 25, 2018.
The 5G IA will be there: Mr. Colin Willcock Chair 5G Infrastructure Association will be the Roundtable Chair person. He will share the European Parliament, the European Commission and the industry viewpoints. Mr. Jacques Magen, Celtic-Plus, 5G IA Verticals Engagement Task Force will give his viewpoint on Vertical business models.
ICT 2018
Vienna, Austria – December 4-6
ICT 2018: Imagine Digital – Connect Europe will take place in Vienna on 4-6 December 2018. This research and innovation event will focus on the European Union’s priorities in the digital transformation of society and industry. It will present an opportunity for the people involved in this transformation to share their experience and vision of Europe in the digital age.
The event is organised by the European Commission and the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
ICT 2018 will have four main components converging around the theme Imagine Digital – Connect Europe: Conference, Exhibition, Networking opportunities and Innovation and Startups forum. The Conference programme will feature influential speakers and debates around the EU’s digital policy. The programme will involve relevant parties from industry, research and public bodies. The ‘Imagine18’ campaign will reach out to generations ranging from teenagers to the elderly to learn how citizens feel about the digital revolution and its effects on daily life. As part of the ICT 2018 Exhibition programme, EU-funded research and innovation successes will be presented to the public. Visitors will also have the chance to meet the innovators behind these projects. The Innovation and Startups forum will bring together market-oriented innovators and investors, and will present marketable research and innovation results from EU-funded projects.
Explore the conference and the exhibition here. Registration is open.
5G Techritory
Riga, Latvia – September 27-28
The leading 5G players from all over the world will meet in Latvia in September. Baltic Sea Region 5G Ecosystem Forum “5G Techritory” will be held on 27-28 September 2018 in Riga, Latvia.
It is organized by the Electronic Communication Office of Latvia in a close cooperation with the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia, the Nordic Council of Ministers, 5G Automotive Association (5GAA) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
5G Techritory will have a rather unique objective to create a platform for the development of a healthy 5G ecosystem which would serve as a role model for building the European Gigabit Society.
The Forum will highlight:
high level business and political discussions on 5G global deployment, including on how to turn visions into real business models as well as on the latest 5G progress in Europe;
such verticals as smart city, smart mobility, smart healthcare and Industry 4.0;
exclusive Inspirational Talks “Future of the Car” with Steve Mollenkop, CEO, Qualcomm;
the latest 5G technology presentations.
It is expected that in total 5G Techritory will bring together up to 1000 senior attendees and around 60 senior speakers from Europe, Asia and the USA, including global and regional business leaders, European leading policymakers and government officials, heads of international organizations, investors, business developers, industry experts, content providers, innovation promoters, start-ups, academic and media representatives.
As there will also be a close synergy between the latest digital agenda of the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Forum, the next high-level meeting of senior officials of the digital ministries of the Baltic-Nordic countries will be organized back to back with the Forum on 26 September in Riga.
Registration is now open. It is still possible to register for 5G Techritory with an Early Bird fee by 26 August through the Forum website. There are also more details about the Forum, including special prices on flights and accommodation.
In addition to the cooperation with Telebrasil/5G Brasil, Jacques Magen, Chair of the NetWorld2020/5G PPP SME Working Group, presented 
5G IA and TSDSI (Teelcommunications Standards Developement Society, India) started discussing in 2017. A MoU between 5G-IA and TSDSI was signed on April 12, 2018. This MoU completes the map of key 5G industry regional partnerships around the world.
The main goal of 5GENESIS will be to validate 5G KPIs for various 5G use cases, in both controlled set-ups and large-scale events. This will be achieved by bringing together results from a considerable number of EU projects as well as the partners’ internal R&D activities in order to realise an integrated End-to-end 5G Facility.
One5G and 5G-XCast organise a Full Day workshop titled “5G Advanced : The Next Evolution Step of 5G New Radio” (
He said, “The 5th Global Event addressed many important aspects of 5G networks such as spectrum and regulatory policy, use cases, trials and pre-commercial launches– in other words, the entire 5G ecosystem. Attendees at the 5G New Horizons left with a complete vision of the 5G network. Project 5G Brazil will host the 6th Global 5G Event in Rio de Janeiro on November 28 to 30 and we look forward to welcoming attendees and our many global partners for collaboration.”
The International Center for Parliamentary Studies (IPCS) organises a Roundtable on European 5G Infrastructure in Brussels on September 25, 2018.
ICT 2018: Imagine Digital – Connect Europe will take place in Vienna on 4-6 December 2018. This research and innovation event will focus on the European Union’s priorities in the digital transformation of society and industry. It will present an opportunity for the people involved in this transformation to share their experience and vision of Europe in the digital age.
