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The use of MIMO and Massive MIMO is considered one the most disruptive and effective technologies introduced in recent years. For beyond 5G networks, the use of cell-free MIMO is being considered, which essentially means distributing the access points (AP) and doing the processing either locally or centrally. While many studies have considered spectral efficiency gains of various central or local processing methods, few publications consider the impact of the 5G architecture, and the NG-RAN, on the cell-free networking opportunities and challenges. The O-RAN alliance, initiated by some large operators and players in the telecom domain, aims to transform the radio access networks towards truly virtualized, distributed, and most importantly open systems. In an ideal world, multiple distributed O-RAN entities cooperate seamlessly to bring the best possible connectivity to each UE, cooperating through the O-RAN APIs. The key challenge that remains is how to merge cell-free networking, and distributed processing, with those existing network architectures. To exploit those distributed O-RAN entities optimally, and meet diverse requirements of future communication systems, beyond 5G intelligent networks will provide enhanced flexibility through the dynamic scheduling of the available resources. Given the densification of networks, and the introduction of cell-free architectures, the availability of radio access resources is unseen, and is only limited by the potential of the resource allocation methods. A major challenge is how to achieve this within standard and open architectures, such as for instance the O-RAN ALLIANCE. We will give a brief overview of the main academic trends in cell-free communication and radio resource management. We then describe how they will be mapped to NG-RAN and O-RAN terminology and architectures, giving a clear insight in the remaining challenges and innovation needs.
How to efficiently utilize the physically limited resource of spectrum has become a critical problem to solve in the 21st Century as wireless communications continues to grow exponentially, with wireless technology moving from 4G to 5G and the advent of the Internet of Things. In the US, the Federal Government is the largest single user of midband spectrum, so no serious solutions could be developed without full engagement with the FCC, DoD and NTIA. In-depth academic and industry discussions began with the Obama administration’s President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, culminating in a report issued on July 20, 2012: Realizing the Full Potential of Government-Held Spectrum to Spur Economic Growth. The report concluded that the traditional practice of clearing and reallocating portions of the spectrum used by Federal agencies was not a sustainable model for spectrum policy, recommending that the best way to increase capacity was to leverage new technologies that enable large blocks of spectrum to be shared. In 2015 this led to the FCC adopting new rules for sharing spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band, naming the band Citizens Broadband Radio Service. Professor Reed was on the ground floor of turning the academic concept into an industry reality with the founding of Federated Wireless, laying the groundwork for developing one of the first Spectrum Access Systems that dynamically shares spectrum in real-time. Kurt Schaubach picked up the reigns at Federated Wireless, shepherding the product through the FCC/NTIA certification process and commercially launching the service in September 2019. Professor Reed and Mr. Schaubach will talk about this history and the lessons learned from government, academia and industry working together to solve an issue that goes beyond technology alone. Mr. Schaubach will also discuss the commercial success of CBRS and review how it has led to the global exploration of spectrum sharing as a viable and necessary option for efficient spectrum utilization. Both will discuss how the commercial opportunities for spectrum sharing may evolve over time.
As they implement new technologies, regulators around the world work within the limits and procedures referenced in the ITU Radio Regulations (RR), a set of international regulations by all ITU-R member states that govern the use of spectrum by existing and emerging wireless technologies. However, the RR do not encompass every new technological concepts. And, as a result, adapting new technologies and concepts to work within the limits and procedures of outlined in the RR is not always straightforward. The use of active antennas, in which transmitters are integrated with the radiating structure, is one such topic. Over the past couple of years, the ITU-R has been discussing how to apply conducted power limits to 5G transmitters using active antennas. The variance in the interpretations being debated is such that there could be quite a significant adverse impact on the deployment, operation, and performance of 5G stations. This challenge would only grow due to the trend in 5G/6G towards larger active arrays with potentially hundreds of transmitters. It is crucial to consider what these regulatory limits are, both in letter and spirit, how they have been used in the past, what impact the new interpretations could have, and in what ways they can accommodate multi-antenna and other new technologies.
As hordes of data-hungry devices challenge its current capabilities, Wi-Fi strikes again with 802.11be, alias Wi-Fi 7. This brand-new amendment promises a (r)evolution of unlicensed wireless connectivity as we know it, unlocking access to gigabit, reliable and low-latency communications, and reinventing manufacturing and social interaction through digital augmentation. More than that, time-sensitive networking protocols are being put forth with the overarching goal of making wireless the new wired. With its standardization process being consolidated, we will provide an updated digest of 802.11be essential features, place the spotlight on some of the must-haves for critical and delay-sensitive applications, and illustrate their benefits through standard-compliant simulations.
At present the O-RAN architecture provides a promising solution of an open-RAN ecosystem, where based on the defined functional splits (CU, DU, RU) a multi-vendor solution can theoretically be achieved. This so called “wave 1.0” 5G that is capable of utilizing only basic (rough) virtualization as well as introducing essential interfaces to enable open-ecosystem, like: E2 for the control of CU/DU/RU as well as A1, O1, O2 for policy based management, network configuration and monitoring. The existing state-of-the art based on IS-Wireless analysis and experiences (also as O-RAN member) should be upgraded to what we call open-RAN Wave 2.0 in order to allow greater flexibility of functional split as well as improve the capability of addressing the challenges of ultra-dense networks. Flexibility of functional splits is essential to adjust open-RAN based networks to the existing infrastructure capabilities including not only fronthaul but also midhaul interfaces. Fronthaul is understood mainly as splits beyond 6 and especially the 7.2 O-RAN split that requires a certain level of capacity, which may be even quadrupled with the split 7.1. In the midhaul e.g. where the CU-CP with RIC (RAN intelligent controller), CORE, MEC and application servers are located, the infrastructure can also vary in capacity. With highly granularized network functions packaged as VNF/CNF (virtual machines of containers) and also providing multitude of split options it is easier to tailor deployment of open-RAN network to fit into available fronthaul and to optimize cost of hardware and network. Moreover, it is then more convenient to orchestrate such “workloads” (i.e. 5G radio stack functions) across edge-cloud continuum, also including edge micro data centers. In this way, multiple split association types can also be achieved naturally e.g. split per slice, per UE, per bearer. The underlying compute resources can also be utilized more efficiently as particular workloads can be fitted to a variety of acceleration cards (GPU, FPGA, SmartNIC) or computer architectures (x86, ARM). Eventually such fine grained, highly composable (orchestrated) disaggregated open-RAN can be called open-RAN Wave 2.0, as it enables achieving higher capacities for network operators who are aiming to address the challenges of ultra-dense networks. Efficient data-driven resource management (both radio and compute) with the novel paradigms like cell-free (or distributed cell-free massive MIMO) are becoming more straightforward to be implemented with such improved open-RAN architectures.
5G and Mobile Private Networks are enabling the digital transformation of manufacturing and the factories of the future. It is essential that network operators build the 5G right so we deliver all key enablers for Private networks in Industry 4.0. This talk reviews the key characteristics of Mobile Private Networks and present real use cases of how companies are now adopting 5G technology to reduce manual processes and enable highly efficient, connected, and flexible factories of the future.
Spain’s 5G players - government, operators, industry — are investing heavily in pilot projects covering virtually every use case. This session will give an overview and highlights of Spain’s first years of 5G consumer deployment and business use cases. We will provide an inside look at pilot case experimentation, exposing lessons learned and comparing deployment in Spain and in other countries in an effort to identify the key ingredients for 5G’s economical and societal success.
3GPP is finalizing Release 17 and starting to work on the second phase of 5G, which is officially named as 5G Advanced. The goal of 5G Advanced is to extend the 5G framework to support more scenarios and use cases, in particular for IoTs and vertical applications. Communications for automation and intelligence in vertical domains come with demanding and diverse requirements with respect to latency, data rates, availability, reliability, and in some cases, high-accuracy positioning. The vertical industries that will reap the benefits of this new level of automation will range from railways, buildings, manufacturing, healthcare, smart cities, electrical power supply and special events. Integrated with AI, Big Data, IoT, and other key technologies, 5G Advanced will empower traditional industries one step further than 5G. The talk will demonstrate the latest status of 5G empowered vertical applications and provide insight on how 5G Advanced will digitalize and modernize traditional industries to raise the efficiency. AI, industrial IoT, ubiquitous networks, blockchains, edge computing and network slicing are the key technologies which will be elaborated in this talk. In the conclusion of this talk, evolving trends of 5G Advanced to better boost a smart society and better support verticals will also be outlined.
Until now, optical access networks have used basic intensity modulation direct detection transmission methods, using elementary signal recovery techniques (clock and data recovery). Now that baud rates are increasing, this simple approach is no longer viable if the system is to maintain the sizable loss budget (30 dB) that is required. At the same time, the cost of high-speed digital signal processing (DSP) has declined enough that it can be applied to an optical access system. The ITU-T has been developing the “High Speed Passive Optical Network” (HS-PON) since 2018, and that work has now culminated with the consent of the first complete set of recommendations that describe a 50 Gb/s (over a single wavelength) PON. In addition, several prototype systems have been developed and demonstrated in laboratory trials with several operators. It is expected that significant deployment of 50 Gb/s PON will begin in 2024.1 At present, there are many groups dedicated to DSP research, but most of these are targeted to wireless technologies or to coherent optical transmission. This means that the optical access field is presently underserved by the DSP community, and is fertile ground for research. Our presentation will provide the necessary technical background to understand the fiber access network, and then present the various ways in which DSP can be applied to solve the major issues that come from increasing the speed of those networks. One issue we will address is the use of bandwidth limited components to enable lower cost systems, where DSP can enable a doubling of baud rate with only 2dB worse optical sensitivity. We will also describe the problem of resolution in burst mode transmission, the classical challenge of passive optical networks. We show that DSP can do far better than the traditional analog techniques, both in terms of sophistication of signal recovery algorithms and in adaptability of reception parameters. Most engineers with optical access experience lack an in-depth knowledge of DSP technologies. Conversely, most DSP engineers lack the knowledge of the idiosyncrasies that arise from burst mode transmission at very high baud rate. The goal of this presentation is to bridge the gap between the PON and DSP engineers, planting a seen from which some new applications of existing techniques can be found.
In the last few years a variety of players have entered the quantum race, ranging from tech giants - such as IBM and Google – to several small start-up companies, as well as states and governments, with massive public funds to be distributed over the next years. Standardization efforts are already ongoing, such as the one within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The IEEE has become involved in this effort. Within the context of a real quantum revolution, the vision is to build a quantum network infrastructure, also known as the Quantum Internet, to interconnect remote quantum devices so that quantum communications among them are enabled. We will give an overview about the main challenges and open problems arising in the design of a distributed quantum computing architecture. Quantum computing is on the verge of sparking a paradigm shift. Software reliant on this nascent technology, one rooted in the physical laws of nature, could soon revolutionize computing forever. We will focus on the current quantum computer technology from the hardware and software point of view, providing a detailed roadmap for next years. In this context, specific integration of classical and quantum computing that represents a huge step in accelerating the execution of quantum circuits, or sequences of quantum operations, on real Quantum systems will be described.
Satellite communication (SatCom) offers the prospect of service continuity over uncovered and under-covered areas, service ubiquity, and service scalability. In addition, the integration of SatCom, aerial networks, and terrestrial communications into a single wireless network, called space-air-ground integrated network (SAGIN), is deemed from now on crucial. However, several challenges must first be addressed to realize these benefits, as the resource management, network control, network security, spectrum management, and energy usage of satellite networks are more challenging than that of terrestrial networks. This panel will offer a general overview of emerging and future trends in SatCom. More specifically, the potential of SatCom and then the challenges facing diverse aspects of these systems will be discussed. The panel will also be a forum to debate the various proposed solutions.
Lifted by the network automation mega-trend, a third wave of autonomous computing and networking technologies development rises across the ICT industry. Multiple initiatives from Standards Development Organizations (SDOs), large open source projects, preeminent industry actors and renowned academic research teams have been launched in recent years and continue to emerge. This phenomenon deserves careful consideration if one wants to avoid facing the same disillusion as previous attempts at making autonomous networks a reality. While the theoretical and applied research corpus has been extensively contributed, the real world and large-scale adoption of autonomous networks has been, in contrast, relatively limited and disappointing. Since autonomous networks continue to fascinate research and engineers as a technological area full of potential and promise, the goal of this panel is to make a reality check on where we stand on the level of maturity of autonomous networks technologies and what challenges should the industry collectively address to ensure that the promises are met.
PRIME’s Broadband Powerline (BPL) solution caters to the higher bandwidth and shortened latency requirements for a more active network. It allows for a reliable communications network, enabling ownership and management of communications over the low voltage/medium voltage grid. As with other PRIME technologies and solutions, PRIME BPL offers an open, interoperable solution to address the needs of utilities and their customers by providing high-speed connectivity extending the capabilities that can be obtained with NBPLC.
6G becomes the hotspot for the wireless research community, whilst the journey to 6G is still many years ahead. The road to 6G entails a process for the fundamental research for 6G technologies, the development of the 6G enabling technologies and standardization of 6G technologies. In this Executive Forum, we will focus on the discussion and debate of the 6G times-line, and route to global standardization on 6G.
As 5G takes to the airwaves, we now turn our imagination to the next generation of wireless technology. The promise of this technology has created an international race to innovate, with significant investment by government as well as industry. And much innovation is needed as 6G aspires to not only support significantly higher data rates than 5G, up to 100 Gbps, but also improved reliability along with excellent coverage indoors and out, including for underserved areas. New architectures including edge computing must be designed to drastically enhance efficient resource allocation while also reducing latency for real-time control. Breakthrough energy-efficiency architectures, algorithms and hardware will be needed so that wireless devices can be powered by tiny batteries, energy-harvesting, or over-the-air power transfer. There are many technical challenges that must be overcome in order to make this vision a reality. This talk will describe what the wireless future might look like along with some of the innovations and breakthroughs required to realize this vision.
Suppose we are familiar with the economic structure of the European Union. In that case, we know that industry is one of the essential pillars. According to the latest data, the manufacturing sector accounts for around 2 million companies, 33 million jobs, and about 60% of productivity growth. But digitisation in Europe has three significant problems: Competition with other regions is very high; SMEs do not have many resources to digitise and are falling behind; finally, there are significant disparities within the regions of the European Union itself. This is where the commitment and value of the European Digital Innovation Hubs come in, as they can solve two of the significant problems of digitisation in Europe, unifying procedures not only with companies and entities but also between regions and countries, giving them all the same opportunities; in addition to supporting companies, especially SMEs, in their digital transformation, not only advising but also comprehensively accompanying users, facilitating the entire process. According to recent studies, it has been estimated that the digitisation of products and services can add more than 110 billion euros of annual revenue to the European economy in the next five years. Therefore, this panel will provide all the relevant information regarding the European Union's commitment to developing European Digital Innovation Hubs to digitise industry and territorial development.
Edge computing as an evolution of cloud computing brings application hosting from centralized data centers down to the network edge, closer to consumers and the data generated by applications. It is acknowledged as one of the key pillars for meeting the demanding 5G Key Performance Indicators, especially as far as low latency and bandwidth efficiency are concerned. Moreover edge computing also plays an essential role in the transformation of the telecommunications business, where telecommunications networks are turning into versatile service platforms for industry and other specific customer segments. ETSI ISG MEC is the home of technical standards for edge computing. The group has already published a set of specifications and reports to offer fully standardized solutions to support IoT applications in distributed cloud. The emphasis of this talk is the MEC features in support of IoT use cases and requirements, as well as the MEC integration with 5G system and the MEC expansion to edge federation.