EuCNC accounts for one of the biggest dissemination opportunities alongside with MWC.
Phase 1 projects are activey preparing the 2017 edition in Oulu, @EuCNC 2017
Phase 2 projects will be presented on June 14th and 15th in Oulu @EuCNC
This eighth edition of the 5G PPP newsletter covers the following topics:
The 5G-IA highlighted its key role and new team to ensure European leadership in 5G global development and harmonization. Read more here.
EuCNC preparations
5G US focus
Announcements of upcoming events and workshops
EuCNC preparations on full swing!
EuCNC 2017 is the 26th edition of a successful series of a technical and scientific conference open to the world research community, sponsored by the European Commission, in the area of Telecommunications, focusing on communication networks and systems, and reaching services and applications.
5G PPP Projects will be involved in the event with many synergic initiatives, including 13 booths where demos will be showcased.
➧The Euro-5G project will coordinate and support the demos presented by the 8 SMEs projects showcasing their demos in a specific booth.
➧FANTASTIC-5G, SPEED-5G and Flex5GWare are co-organising the 2nd edition of the 5G PPP Workshop on “5G PHY/MAC Layers Design and Hardware Aspects Below and Above 6 GHz” on June 12th, 2017 at 1:30 pm.
➧5G-CROSSHAUL and 5G-XHAUL are co-organising (with iCIRRUS) a Workshop on “New XHaul solutions for the 5G transport challenge” on June 12th.
➧The Software Network Working Group (SONATA, 5GEx, 5G-CROSSHAUL,SUPERFLUIDITY, Charisma, SESAME, SELFNET, VIRTUWIND, COHERENT) is organising a Workshop on “Software Networks and 5G: from network programmability to SDN/NFV combination for effective network slicing” on June 12th.
➧SESAME, COHERENT, 5G-XHAUL and CHARISMA are preparing a Special Session on ”Development of a Cloud-enabled “Small Cell as a Service” concept, for Multi-Tenancy and Edge Services in the 5G Framework.”
➧FLEX5GWare and mmMAGIC, with 5G-Champion, 5G-MiEdge are working on a Workshop on “Prototyping the 5th Generation Cellular Wireless Technology”.
➧mmMAGIC is organising a Workshop on “Millimetre-wave technology for 5G access, fronthaul and backhaul”.
➧5G-ENSURE organises a workshop on 5G Security on June 12th with the Security WG.
➧Euro-5G will give information on phase 2 projects on June 14th and 15th. Two separate sessions are organised.
Session 1 is scheduled on June 14th at 4:00 pm (4:00-5:30 pm, room Ainola in the Radisson Blu Hotel). The following Phase 2 projects will be then presented:
5G ESSENCE
Embedded Network Services for 5G Experiences Ioannis Chochliouros, OTE Research
5GCAR
Fifth Generation Communication Automotive Research and innovation Mikael Fallgren, Ericsson
5GCITY Sergi Figuerola, i2cat
5G-CORALA
5G Convergent Virtualised Radio Access Network Living at the Edge Antonio de la Olivia Delgardo, uc3m
5G-MEDIA
Programmable edge-to-cloud virtualization fabric for the 5G Media industry by Pasquale Andriani, Engineering Ingegneria Informatica spa
5G-MoNArch
5G Mobile Network Architecture for diverse services, use cases, and applications in 5G and beyond Diomidis Michalopoulos, Bell Labs Research, NOKIA
5G-PHOS
5G integrated Fiber-Wireless networks exploiting existing photonic technologies for high-density SDN-programmable network architectures George Kalfas, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
5GTANGO
5G Development and validation platform for global industry-specific network services and Apps Josep Martrat, ATOS
5G-TRANSFORMER
5G Mobile Transport Platform for Verticals Arturo Azcorra, UC3M
5G-XCAST
5G-Xcast Broadcast and Multicast Communication Enablers for the Fifth-Generation of Wireless Systems David Gomez-Barquero, Uni. Poli. de Valencia, iTEAM Research Institute
Session 2 is scheduled on June 15th, at 9:00 am (9:00-10:30 am, same room, same hotel,room Ainola in the Radisson Blu Hotel). The remaining Phase 2 projects will be presented:
To-Euro-5G
To-Euro-5G: Supporting the European 5G Initiative David Kennedy, Eurescom
BlueSpace
Building on the Use of Spatial Multiplexing 5G Networks Infrastructures and Showcasing Advanced technologies and Networking Capabilities Idelfonso Tafur Monroy, fotonik.dtu.dk
Clear5G
Converged wireless access for reliable 5G MTC for factories of the future Klaus Moessner, University of Surrey
global5g.org
Global vision, standardisation stakeholder engagement in 5G Silvana Muscella, Trust-itservices.com
IoRL
Internet of Radio Light John Cosmas, Brunel University
MATILDA
A holistic innovative framework for the design, development and operation of 5G-ready Applications and Network Services over sliced programmable Infrastructure. Franco Davoli, CNIT
METRO-HAUL
METRO High bandwidth, 5G Application-aware optical network, with edge storage, compUte and low Latency
Andrew Lord, BT
NGPaaS
Next Generation Platform as a Service Bessem Sayadi, Nokia Bell Labs
NRG-5
Enabling Smart Energy as a Service via 5G Mobile Network advances Massimo Bertoncini, Engineering Ingegneria Informatica spa
ONE5G
E2E-aware Optimizations and advancements for the Network Edge of 5G New Radio Frank Schaich, Nokia Bell Labs
SaT5G
Satellite and Terrestrial Network for 5G Georgia Poziopoulou, Avanti plc
SLICENET
End-to-End Cognitive Network Slicing and Slice Management Framework in Virtualised Multi-Domain, Multi-Tenant 5G Networks Anastasius Gavras, Eurescom
5G US focus
AT&T “5G Evolution”, all about semantics?
The announcement had the effect of a bomb for 5G supporters. Late April, AT&T disclosed its plans to launch “5G Evolution” services for customers with high-end devices in some US cities by the end of 2017 starting with Austin, TX, followed by Indianapolis, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Nashville, and San Francisco. According to AT&T, “5G Evolution” services are going to be faster, twice as fast as LTE. Faster speeds will be performed thanks to LTE-U, carrrier aggregation, 4×4 MIMO and 256 QAM. Throughputs delivered should be approx. 400 Mbps in Austin. Many analysts argue that “5G Evolution” by AT&T is not 5G but an improved LTE network. the network will indeed use already known and LTE-deployed technologies and will deliver speeds far from the 1 Gpbs anticipated with true 5G.
The burdensome 600 MHz auctions came to an end, at last!
It took one year to complete the so called Broadcast Television spectrum Incentive 600 MHz auctions in the USA. It was initially set for end 2014 and was postponed to mid-2015 and then they began at the end of May 2016. The FCC imposed a market-based approach with a spectrum reserve of up to 30 MHz in order to promote competition. In August 2015, the FCC chairman mentioned that participants in the auction could use the frequencies to “support the country’s action to push 5G”. In his mind, it means that 600 MHz frequencies could do for 5G what 700 MHz did for 4G deployment in the US.
Mobile players failed to reach the reserve price set by broadcasters for their 126 MHz of spectrum, despite of relaunch by the FCC. Since then, the amount of spectrum and the clearing price have dropped significantly from 126 MHz to 84 MHz.
All in all, auctions totalled 19.6 billion USD, not far from the 18.6 billion USD raised by 700 MHz spectrum auctions in 2008 but very far from the objective and from the 44.9 billion USD collected during AWS-3 auctions in January 2015. Out of the 19.6 billion USD, 6 billion USD will directly go to the US Treasury, 10 billlion will be given to boradcasters and the remaining part will contribute to financing spectrum release by broadcasters.
T-Mobile USA ensures low-cost funding for its 600 MHz network.
Not surprinsingly, the MNO acquired 1,525 licences (45% of licences on sale) for 8 billion USD, what is a good deal compared to 700 MHz spectrum where T-Mobile has an incomplete coverage. This is good news at a time when T-Mobile tries to obviate harm and power of the two leaders.
Why did Dish buy licences?
More surprinsing is the Dish’s second place. The player invested 6.2 billion USD for 486 licences, of which 2 billion USD covering New York City. The 40 MHz of spectrum comes on top of an already exceptional and usused frequency portfolio. The idea behind this move could be to re-sale its frequencies or to ensure the greates value for them. The second idea appears as a ruse to meet FCC coverage requirements. Dish couls be tempted to build a NB-IoT network by 2020 with its frequencies.
Comcast is betting on a cautious entrance into the mobile market alongside with a disciplined capital investment
At the third place is Comcast, the Nbr 1 cableco which launched its own MVNO service early 2017. It acquired 73 licences for 1.7 billion USD. It launched a few mobile services including the opportunity to connect automatically to its public Wi-Fi hotspots and to use 600 MHz spectrum and the Verizon coverage.
AT&T ranks fourth, Verizon in the background
AT&T ranks fourth behind challengers with 910 million USD spent to acquire 23 licences. Verizon remained in the background and Sprint decided not to be part of the auction. Indeed both leaders have already acquired a significant frequency portfolio in low- and medium bands (700 MHZ, 800 MHz, 1900 MHz, AWS-1, AWS-3). Even more so, they both recently bought mmWave frequencies. Looking to 5G ahead, mmWaves appear more strategic. AT&T acquired FiberTower (30 billion MHz POPs in 24 and 39 GHz bands). Back in 2016 Verizon bought XO Communications for 1.8 billion USD. More recently, Verizon won the bidding war against AT&T to take control over Straight Path (195 billion MHz POPs in the 28 GHz band and 175 billion MHz POPs in the 39 GHz band in major domestic cities).
M&A deals should now intensify
600 MHZ auctions froze for months talks between domestic players. Anti-collusion measures created a blackout till April 27th. We will see on the near term which rumours being circulated will come true.
Net neutrality endangered!
FCC laws have been protecting net neutrality in the USA since June 2015. They ensure that broadband customers have a fair and open access to the internet.meaning that all ISPs must equally treat content accessed online. Net neutrality rules adopted explicitly rejected practice of paid prioritization, blocking or throttling. Following recent change at its head, the FCC’s point of view seems to have significantly evolved. On May 1st, a court decided not to reopen the 2015 debate. Final decisions will be voted on May 18th.
Upcoming events
“Third Global 5G Event Tokyo, Japan – May 24-25
After the successful events of 2016, held in China (Beijing) and in Europe (Rome), the series of high level events on the 5G ecosystem continues this year in Japan (Tokyo), on May 24-25. The 3rd Global 5G Event is hosted by the 5G Mobile Forum (5GMF).
It will offer participants lively debates around 5G spectrum, standards and deployment as well as exciting showcases of the latest 5G developments from industrial players.
5GMF is also organising an exhibition, which will be held in the Tokyo Big Site, co-located with the Wireless Technology Park (WTP) 2017, a major event which in 2016 attracted more than 47,000 visitors.
3rd International 5G RAN design workshop @ICC 2017
Paris, France – May 25
METIS-II, FANTASTIC-5G, mmMAGIC, 5G-CROSSHAUL and Flex5GWare are organising a joint Workshop. It will build upon its successful predecessors, focus on the 5G RAN design and provide the opportunity to share and discuss final results from the mentioned projects or other 5G research activities. The workshop is col-located with IEEE ICC 2017 (21-25 May 2017). The workshop organizers solicit original, unpublished technical papers in particular in the following fields:
5G physical layer and hardware implementation concepts, e.g.
effect of hardware impairments on the PHY design, means for ultra low-latency and ultra high-reliability, native support of D2D V2X and multi-cast
low-complexity massive MIMO solutions and enablers, solutions for contention-based acces (TDD/FDD, pilot contamination, antenna correlations etc)
MAC, RLC, PDCP and RRC concepts, in particular related to a an efficient integration of multiple novel 5G air interfaces among each other, and with evolved legacy technology. Examples:
Novel resource management concepts for a wider range of service and QoS requirements and novel communication forms such as D2D, or spectrum sharing (LSA, ASA
Novel initial access and mobility concepts, in particular in the context of the integration and co-location of multiple novel and legacy air interface in 5G
Novel multi-connectivity approaches and related enablers
Backhaul/fronthaul design and capabilities for multi-tier ultradense heterogeneous small cell networks
Joint design and optimization of radio access and backhaul/fronthaul networks
Optimized backhaul/ fronthaul integration (wireline or wireless) and control
Backhauling and fronthauling options for a split control and data plane
RAN Architecture concepts associated to the overall control plane and user plane design such as:
E2E Network slicing, in particular its impact to the RAN
Novel 5G RAN Interfaces, CN/RAN interface, functional placement
Concepts associated to the impact of SDN/NFV to the 5G RAN design
5G-NORMA @4th International Workshop on 5G Architecture
Paris, France- May 25
5G NORMA is organising the 4th International Workshop on 5G Architecture to be held in Paris on 25 May 2017 alongside with the IEEE ICC 2017.
It is essential to introduce a 5G End-to-End Architecture that allows for a cost- and time-efficient introduction of 5G, that integrates a variety of novel technologies rolled out in various stages, and that is sufficiently flexible to accommodate applications and services that are yet to be envisioned. For example, to allow 5G to support low latency, it is not sufficient to design a low latency RAN, since latency is an end-to-end factor and hence requires the joint design of RAN, Core and Transport Networks. Hence, the new E2E Architecture will have to be programmable, software driven and managed holistically to enable a diverse services in a profitable way. This requires novel ways of designing the mobile network architecture (radio access, core and transport network), operating the network, and offering interfaces. A number of topics will be considered and should be the center focus of a paper:
Workshop on spectrum for 5G Brussels, Belgium – June 7
This workshop will present recent research results covering the need for 5G spectrum and the suitability of the frequency bands under consideration (sub-GHz to millimetre) for 5G to provide ambitious services and adequate coverage, especially leveraging the 5G PPP projects advancements. Special attention will be given to the vertical industry requirements.
As no wireless 5G service can be provided without satisfactory access to radio spectrum – regulatory spectrum availability for enabling timely trials and commercial roll-outs of 5G technology and service provision will be discussed. The availability and selection of the right 5G frequencies is of crucial importance to the current on-going international standardisation, to the European industry stakeholders 5G Manifesto and to the EC’s 5G Action Plan, as also pointed out in the RSPG opinion on 5G spectrum.
The sessions will cover the spectrum options of the 5G requirements as determined by the use cases envisaged for extended mobile broadband, massive machine-type communication, and ultra-reliable low-latency communication. In particular vertical sectors’ uses cases are highly relevant. In 5G there will be demand for very high bitrate services and for widespread, but low bitrate services. The requirement for low latency and high reliability will vary per service but collectively the demands may be very high.
The workshop will provide introductions and research project results on expected 5G scenarios providing discussion of needed bandwidths, coverage, and availability of suitable radio frequencies. The bands in question are in particular those listed by the RSPG opinion, particularly 700 MHz, 3.4-3.8 GHz, and 24.25 – 27.5 GHz.
Regulation to provide pioneer band for trials and early commercial and pre-commercial deployment is of crucial importance. Which frequency bands are suitable for many countries, regions, and the world, and which actions are needed to make the bands available in time. What about high frequency possible for trials and early commercial deployment e.g., in 2018?
The workshop will also cover more radical advancements in spectrum management, such as spectrum sharing.
After the successful events of 2016, held in China (Beijing) and in Europe (Rome), the series of high level events on the 5G ecosystem continues this year in Japan (Tokyo), on May 24-25. The 3rd Global 5G Event is hosted by the 5G Mobile Forum (5GMF).
