What would happen if global smartphone usage shot up by 70%, almost overnight? Many mobile network operators met this question head on earlier this year and had little choice but to respond, as COVID-19 gripped the world. Suddenly, meetings over coffee were replaced with...
Apple's 5G iPhone is a sure sign that “wireless is the new fiber.” The pace of innovation is simply stunning. But it’s not your phone that will bring you this wireless revolution first. It will be in your network fabric, on your towers, phone...
The coronavirus pandemic has placed schools across the United States in unprecedented circumstances. Thousands of schools are offering instruction exclusively online. Thousands more are operating with hybrid models that couple distance learning with time inside school buildings, an approach that likely will continue into...
The success of 5G for both mobile and fixed wireless access will be built on deployment in wide contiguous blocks of spectrum. 5G extends the catalogue of applicable frequency bands compared to previous cellular network generations, bringing together new spectrum and the re-use of...
As telco operators around the world ramp up 5G networks, they’re increasingly faced with competitors that are making it difficult to successfully monetize those networks. Despite that operators have made huge investments in networks – both legacy and 5G – their returns haven’t been...
Each generation of cellular networks fundamentally changed the world we live in. 1G brought us the brick phone utilizing analog technology in the ‘80s. For the first time, phones became truly mobile albeit they were bulky and expensive, and limited to voice features. In...
Legacy generations of networks have predominately provided services with best-effort delivery. While this has worked for voice, text and best effort broadband services, end users are hampered with buffering, delays, and drops as the demand for feature-rich services continues to grow.
The 5G-era promises new...
It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention. But it should not mean intervention. Such is potentially the case with the proposed effort called Open RAN or O-RAN, which offers software solutions to telecommunication networks but shouldn’t be considered a panacea to relieve...
Business demands are changing rapidly and communications service providers (CSPs) are struggling keep pace. In order to manage keep on top of and manage the demands of their customers, CSPs require automation of service and network operations.
As we’re catapulted faster than expected into a...
Integrating 5G network technology and today’s digital healthcare technology will improve patients’ access to doctors, increase the availability of the latest healthcare technologies, improve patient outcomes, and increase the efficiency of healthcare delivery.
To improve patient access and patient outcomes, and accelerate the acquisition of...
The building of 5G networks across the globe was moving full-steam ahead until COVID-19 began wreaking havoc, triggering a worldwide economic slowdown. The immediate effects have been felt in virtually every industry, causing widespread layoffs and record unemployment, and severely curtailing consumer spending. As...
COVID-19 has caused a seismic shift in demand for internet capacity with millions of students suddenly shifting to various levels of remote learning – from primary schools to universities – at the same time that many of their parents are continuing to work from...
Before the world was interrupted by COVID-19 and swathes of the global population went into lockdown, 5G was at the top of mobile operators’ agendas. Some businesses reported 5G delays while others maintained that their deployments were on schedule. That’s hardly surprising. The coronavirus...
Enterprise IoT will play a key role in the 5G era, bringing with it multiple revenue and monetisation opportunities for operators. Research conducted by GSMA Intelligence has shown that 5G is set to contribute $2.2 trillion to the global economy over the next 14...
History
The DevOps movement inspired large, enterprise organizations with agile practices to allow developers to make quick changes, but it was very difficult to get full benefit, as their legacy development process was not designed for supporting short software development delivery cycles and frequent production...
The evolution to 5G is off to a strong start among communication service providers (CSPs) and momentum is building. As of March 2020, 84 CSPs have announced plans to launch 5G, and 57 have already done so, according to Omdia’s 1Q20 report. These announcements...
With the advent of 5G, mobile service providers (MSPs) have an estimated 50% bandwidth growth requirements, yet mobile/wireless is only about 10% of all global bandwidth. There conservatively needs to be a 2x growth in data capacity to support 5G, yet that currently linearly...
In recent months, the telecommunications industry has been abuzz with news about various initiatives related to Open RAN. Essentially, Open RAN refers to open and interoperable interfaces within and between the various subcomponents of the RAN: the radio, hardware, or baseband unit and software....
History
Most of the CAPEX required to build a wireless network is related to the RAN segment, reaching as high as 80% of the total network cost. Any reduction in the RAN equipment cost will significantly help the bottom line of wireless operators as they...
In my previous blog, I covered the promise and potential of network slicing. Another deployment use case which has seen tremendous interest and demand is the use of private networks. With the increasing digital connectivity of devices and equipment across different industry verticals and...
The recent health crisis has highlighted why it is important for communications service providers (CSPs) to be “digital first” in terms of how they operate. However, like the Warren Buffet expression of only when the tide goes out do we find out who has...
History
In 2G and 3G, the mobile architectures had controllers that were responsible for RAN orchestration and management. With 4G, overall network architecture became flatter and the expectation was that, to enable optimal subscriber experience, base stations would use the X2 interface to communicate with...
The first phase of 5G build-out is now well underway in major markets around the world. Increasingly, the big mobile service providers and some new entrants, as well, are in the midst of their first 5G deployments or will begin them this year. Mobile...
The majority of 5G networks that are available today are non-standalone (NSA), which means they leverage existing 4G infrastructure. This is partly why they are often framed in the media as a luxury rather than a necessity. These networks produce faster speeds and lower...
