Subscribe
Home Blog Page 228

How far away are commercial network slicing services?

Kate O'Flaherty
-
0
How far away are commercial network slicing services?

Trials are ramping up, so when will the promises of network slicing become reality?

Network slicing – which sees a portion of the network allocated to a specific use case – offers the potential to substantially boost mobile operator revenue.

As each slice can be customised to fit specific needs, the technology stands to benefit multiple use cases and applications. According to ABI Research, 5G network slicing will generate $66 billion in value for enterprises in verticals including manufacturing, logistics and transportation by 2026. Consequently, it’s no surprise that trials are ramping up across the globe.

In July, Telefónica, Ericsson and Google claimed to have automated the process of end to end network slicing needed for the mass provision of a 5G standalone (SA) network, including lifecycle support and radio resource portioning. The successful lab test demonstrated the ability to provision a network slice from the core to the radio access network (RAN) in 35 minutes.

In September, Vodafone Netherlands said it had become the first telecoms company in the country to introduce network slicing. Earlier this year, A1 Telekom Austria Group’s trial with software provider Amdocs showed how 5G network slices could be deployed and generate revenue.

Yet despite the obvious benefits, the technology still faces multiple regulatory, business and technical challenges. When will the promises of network slicing become reality?

The reality of network slicing

The reality of network slicing depends on a number of factors; one is the standalone version of 5G. Very few mobile operators have so far invested in 5G standalone networks, says Aaron Partouche, Global Vertical Principal Director, Colt Technology Services.

As a result, the ecosystem and use cases are still emerging. “If operators are going to deliver all of the promises 5G brings – particularly ultra-reliable low-latency communications – network slicing and a developed ecosystem will be critical,” says Partouche.

Adding to this, there hasn’t been much promotion of network slicing from mobile operators – nor have they been defining how they are going to deliver solutions from a commercial point of view, says Adrian Belcher, Solutions Architect at Gigamon.

“While the technology is certainly ready and embedded into 5G network equipment, 5G itself faces delays and therefore so do all the components that go with it. There are of course a few fully formed 5G standalone networks being deployed now, but a lot more are still in late lab trial phase,”he notes.

Complexity is the enemy

The complexity of network slicing is another big challenge. “Slicing runs across domains, from RAN to transport and core, and it needs complex vertical and horizontal integrations,” says Manish Mangal, Global Business, Head of 5G and Network Services at Tech Mahindra.

“There is also a need for virtualisation, software defined networking (SDN) and orchestration capabilities. Resource allocation, sharing and Isolation among slices adds to the complexity.”

Security also needs to be resolved and is a tricky matter due to resource sharing among slices, says Deepak Sharma, Senior Manager, Product Portfolio at Tecnotree. “Network slices serving different types of services may need to adhere to different levels of security policy requirements. Therefore, while designing network slicing security protocols, it is necessary to consider the impact on other slices – and on the entire network.”

Implementation of end-to-end network slicing requires a redesign of the RAN and currently, there is no consensus for the best way of doing this, says Richard Webb, Director, Network Infrastructure, CCS Insight.

In addition, he says, deploying more network slices over the same physical infrastructure can create added difficulties for operators in maintaining service level agreements, quality of service and security assurance for each individual slice.

Taking this into account, Webb says network slicing is “in its relative infancy” with successful examples “yet to be established for all live deployment use cases”. For example, he says, one of the more challenging scenarios could require network slices to be maintained while roaming between private and public networks. “Establishing best practice for this type of requirement will be an important drive of market maturity.”

Progress and trials

Progress might not be rapid, but network slicing trials and projects are gaining pace this year and into next. Mika Uusitalo, Head of New Technologies and Innovations at Nokia, thinks “real momentum” has started to build on the network slicing journey.

He cites the example of several deployments and trials with Nokia’s customer base including Telia, A1, Orange, Mobily, Proximus, Safaricom, Cellcom and VI. “While there is always buzz and anticipation around new technologies, in practice it takes time to put the key building blocks in place,” Uusitalo concedes.

At the same time, network slicing is certainly a focus for the industry as 5G standalone enters the fray. Standards body the 3GPP has recognised network slicing to be an essential overall component of 5G. This has made it an ongoing focus for working groups developing 5G core architecture with network slicing as an integral feature, says Webb.

Slow standardisation

Standardisation of network slicing by 3GPP only happened “quite recently” at the beginning of 2020, points out Williams Tovar, 5G Media Streaming Solutions Director, Ateme. “It takes some time for infrastructure and application vendors to adapt.”

And progress could happen as quickly as next year, Tovar predicts. In 2023, he expects “a few” standalone 5G networks to be deployed, slicing to be tested, and commercial proposals for the first adopters. “In 2024 and beyond, I expect the growth of slicing adoption and the development of new applications,” Tovar adds.

There’s no doubt network slicing is a complex concept and for it to work from a business point of view, operators need to get it right. While network slicing is already a reality, it will take time to evolve, says Webb. “Standards should help this evolution, as well as the continuing development of some of the network environments in which slicing will be deployed, such as 5G private networks.”

Atos opens Global Delivery Center in Cairo to boost “offshore delivery capability”

Annie Turner
-
0
Atos opens Global Delivery Center in Cairo to boost “offshore delivery capability”

The hub adds to the Egyptian government’s drive to become a global hub and enabler

Atos has opened a Global Delivery Center (GDC) in Cairo designed to reinforces its presence in the Middle East and Africa and its commitment to regional and global clients. It is expected to “boost its offshore delivery capability” and enable the company “to explore business prospects from the wider region”.

Egypt produces 100,000 IT graduates annually while more than 80% of its young workers are fluent in languages such as Arabic, English, French and German.

Atos will also benefit from “strong support from the Ministry of Communications and IT” for the GDC from which it will offer services ranging from digital workplace to application development, automated testing, project management, analytics and database, mainframe, server and infrastructure support.

Atos in Egypt currently employs 350 IT professionals, but plans to hire another 1,000 employees over the next year, primarily local talent. Atos will extend its premises, training and skill set development and recruit “local resources”.

Egyptian ambitions

Dr Amr Talaat, Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology endorsed the agreement with Atos which is one of several with 29 multinationals. The intention of these agreements is to create more than 34,000 jobs through 35 global delivery centres with an export value of $1 billion annually.

“These agreements reflect Egypt’s conducive business environment and multinationals’ confidence in our qualified local talent,” the Minister claimed.

Heunderlined Egypt’s potential to become the next big hub for digital and high-end services, thanks to the constant efforts made to boost Egypt’s competitiveness in the offshoring industry: “With its unique central location at the crossroads between three continents, Egypt delivers a resilient high-quality digital infrastructure, and provides a supportive legislative framework catching up with the global rapid growth.

“Our plentiful supply of tech talent is all set and ready at a competitive cost, with proven experience in business services delivery for global firms to more than 100 countries with 20 different languages.”

European data transport network appoints Paula Cogan CEO

Annie Turner
-
0
European data transport network appoints Paula Cogan CEO

Current CEO of euNetworks, Brady Rafuse, becomes chair of the board

euNetworks announced that Paula Cogan, its current President, will assume the role of CEO from 1 January next year. euNetworks operates a pan-European data transport network. Cogan joined the operator, from Colt Technology Services a year ago and has worked in telecoms for 30 years.

Cogan is replacing Brady Rafuse, who will become chair of euNetworks, and the current chair, Neil Hobbs, will become a non-executive director.

““euNetworks continues to distinguish itself in the digital infrastructure ecosystem, delivering critical internet infrastructure to customers. It’s an asset rich business, focused on developing and deepening its fibre networks, innovating and investing in new technologies to deliver highly scalable, owned and operated fibre-based and sustainable infrastructure in Europe,” said Cogan.

Critical bandwidth

euNetworks is “a critical bandwidth infrastructure company,” which owns and operates 17 fibre-based metropolitan networks connected by an intercity backbone covering 53 cities in 17 countries across Europe.

It claims to be the market’s leader connector of  data centres, directly connecting more than 490 of them. euNetworks provides cloud connectivity and offers metropolitan and long-haul services including dark fibre, wavelengths, and Ethernet.

Its customers include wholesale, finance, content, media, mobile, data centre operators and enterprises, which subscribe to fibre and duct-based assets “tailored to fulfil their high bandwidth needs”.

euNetworks operates an optical backbone network connecting 53 cities in 17 countries and runs 17 dense metro fibre city networks. In December 2021, it announced it had secured “debt facilities” of €760 million after consolidation and refinancing, and reported revenues of almost €194 million, up 9% year on year, but a net loss of almost €88 million due to depreciation and finance costs. 

CityFibre files new complaint about ‘anti-competitive behaviour’ from Openreach

Annie Turner
-
0
<strong>CityFibre files new complaint about ‘anti-competitive behaviour’ from Openreach</strong>

The altnet accuses BT’s wholesale access arm of “an aggressive strategy to foreclose infrastructure competition”

The UK’s largest alternative fibre network (altnet) builder, CityFibre, has submitted a Competition Act complaint to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Ofcom against BT Openreach.

According to a statement from CityFibre, the complaint details how BT Openreach is undertaking an aggressive strategy to foreclose infrastructure competition in the UK fibre broadband market.

It claims this strategy exploits the dependency of its wholesale internet service provider customers (ISPs), deterring them from placing orders with alternative fibre providers, “even though these providers offer faster, more reliable, and cheaper wholesale services”. 

Doing lasting damage

The Competition Act 1998 was designed to prevent companies taking unfair advantage of their dominant position in the market. CityFibre alleges, “BT Openreach’s strategy, set out in the complaint, risks causing irreversible harm to network competition in the UK”.

CityFibre CEO Greg Mesch said: “If left unchecked, BT Openreach will strangle competition and threaten the pace of the UK’s full fibre roll out – all at the same time as BT Consumer is imposing broadband price rises on millions of households far above the rate of inflation.

“Were this to happen, it would also send a clear signal to investors that this country is not a place where they can safely invest the billions of pounds needed to improve UK infrastructure.”

CityFibre is investing about £2.4 billion plus £8 billion in debt to pass up to 8 million more premises across 285 cities, towns and villages with gigabit-ready FTTP by the end of 2025. It has already passed about 2 million.

Last year, CityFibre complained to the Competition Appeal Tribunal about Ofcom’s review of Openreach’s discounted pricing scheme for ISPs, known as Equinox. Ofcom, the UK’s telecoms regulator, Ofcom, had decided that Openreach’s Equinox was not anti-competitive practice. Its complaint was not upheld, but some commentators felt it had failed on a technicality.

Mitigating factors?

The new complaint to the CMA is a more substantial one, but is by no means guaranteed to succeed. For example, not all altnets offer practicable wholesale access to ISPs and ISPs using Openreach’s infrastructure – for example, where they have no alternative – have complained about having to pay more. Ofcom is also keen to encourage customers off the old copper local loop, onto fibre infrastructure.

BT’s goal is to provide FTTP coverage to 25 million premises by the end of 2026 at a cost of £15 billion, although it recently announced it would slow its build-out pace in a bid to save money as the former monopoly continues to struggle. It also strongly hinted that so-called Equinox 2 is imminent.

Vodafone claims European first with OpenRAN urban deployments

Annie Turner
-
0
<strong>Vodafone claims European first with OpenRAN urban deployments</strong>

Operator begins new phase of deployment in Exmouth and Torquay

Vodafone is deploying OpenRAN technology on 16 mobile masts in Exmouth (pictured) and Torquay in the south-west of England over next few months. The operator says it is the first time OpenRAN has been deployed in an urban environment in Europe as opposed to rural areas.

Vodafone has been working alongside the industry to advance OpenRAN technology, including through two of its own OpenRAN Research and Development centres in Newbury, in southern England and Malaga, Spain.

This work has enabled deployments in more complex environments. such as urban locations and transport hubs, according to Vodafone.  It also says that as interoperability embedded in OpenRAN, the operator will be able to work with businesses outside the established telecoms ecosystem.

Wider network strategy

OpenRAN is a critical component of Vodafone’s wider network strategy. The disaggregated technology promises to make it easier for new suppliers to enter the market and hence more innovation at less cost while adding more resilience and diversity to the supply chain.

Vodafone, which is struggling on a number of fronts, says,  “This flexibility will mean the introduction of new technology and software to increase the energy efficiency of operations, the ability to introduce new specialist services and allowing Vodafone to prioritise investments in new ways as upgrade paths of hardware and software components are no longer intrinsically linked”.

In this latest deployment, Vodafone worked with Dell, Intel, Samsung, Wind River and Capgemini.

Planned deployment

Digital Infrastructure Minister Julia Lopez said, “We encourage other providers to roll out OpenRAN in urban areas and continue to support a more diverse, innovative and resilient telecoms supply chain through our £250 million investment programme.”

At Mobile World Congress 2022, Vodafone committed to deploying OpenRAN on 30% of mobile sites across its European network by 2030.  More recently, it began OpenRAN trials in Germany, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NTT Docomo.

It has also agreed a partnership with Nokia to jointly develop an OpenRAN compliant solution that incorporates Nokia’s ReefShark system on a chip (SoC).

Andrea Dona, Chief Network Officer, Vodafone UK, said: “Vodafone was one of the first companies worldwide to commit to OpenRAN at scale,” adding, it is now “taking lab innovations into the real world [in] an essential step forward for the health and resilience of our industry.”

Wind River e-book – Smart Linux Solutions for the Intelligent Edge

Marcin Piechowski
-
0
Wind River e-book – Smart Linux Solutions for the Intelligent Edge

Virtual signalling Latvians are the metapolitan elite

Nick Booth
-
0
Virtual signalling Latvians are the metapolitan elite

Riga turns Metaverse into augmented reality

Latvia’s beautiful capital Riga (pictured above) is building a Metacity in a bid to become Europe’s capital of the virtual world. A state sponsored initiative to put Latvia on the map has united nearly two dozen national stakeholders, including telcos, academia and government bodies, to commit to their own presence on the Metaverse. The Project is one of Europe’s first and largest, driving ahead with virtual (VR) and extended reality (XR) research, technology and applications. Twenty-two industry partners have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) committing to the initiative.

Riga has the potential to become Europe’s next successful Metacity, according to the Electronic Communications Office of Latvia who quoted a study by Cambridge Executive MBA students. The research praised the Latvian capital’s advanced infrastructure, knowledge base, industrial strength and political will. The formal MoU details plans to develop a central authority on extended reality to coordinate the development of the virtual space. This will be the foundation for all subsequent action, such as developing regulation for the platform, attracting funding and coordinating the development of the space itself.

Latvia’s key advantage over rest of the EU’s AR/VR ecosystems is its impressive network. Its fibrous backbone and backhaul and powerful radio signalling created the fifth fastest internet speeds in the EU. Its people are a tight knit group, which smooths the development of projects in which mutual understanding is vital. It is physically well connected too, forming a Baltic hub for airport, trains and cross-border 5G corridors. It also blessed with brains as well as bandwidth. Riga has great technical universities with a vibrant student base. This has created fiercely loyal local technology companies that are geared towards wireless and AR/VR invention. This makes its small but well-connected population the perfect size for a hive of industry.

Development of the Riga Metacity is expected to win it a share of the estimated €600 – €1500 billion that will be spent on Metaverse economies by 2030, according to Neils Kalniņš, 5G Techritory Program Director for the Electronic Communications Office of Latvia. The Memorandum was signed at the 5G Techritory Forum, Europe’s leading 5G platform for decision-maker congregation, networking and joint action.

“We have now expressed our willingness and readiness to be not just talkers, but also doers,” said Kalniņš. “In January, we will come together to discuss how we can create practical applications for the Metaverse. A safe and green future of the Metaverse will be Latvia’s contribution to the world.”

Europe’s only other Metacity underway, CatVerse, is the Catalonian Metaverse in Barcelona, but this is only available to those who share Catalonian interests or values. Singapore is currently one of the most advanced Metaverses in the world. Asia and the USA have the most advanced Metaverses and Latvia could help Europe maintain relevance and a chance of high economic growth, according to its sponsors.

5G Techritory is organised by the Electronic Communications Office of Latvia, funded by the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) and the European Regional Development Fund. It is run in partnership with the International Telecommunication Union and strategic partners Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia, LMT, The Nordic Council of Ministers and The Nordic Council, and the Digital Accelerator of Latvia.

Meta, STC, 2Africa Pearls and Airtel take to open seas and Open RAN

Nick Booth
-
0
Meta, STC, 2Africa Pearls and Airtel take to open seas and Open RAN

Casting 2Africa Pearls in ocean

Airtel and Meta are to extend a subsea communications cable to Airtel’s landing station in Mumbai. On Monday social media giant Meta Platforms and telco Bharti Airtel announced the full details of an extended collaboration and investment in telecoms infrastructure to cater to the rising demand of high speed data and digital services between the Middle East, Africa and India.

The announcement comes on the back of telecom operators’ demand to share revenue with service providers to build networks, said India’s Telegraph Online news site.  “Airtel and Meta will jointly invest in global connectivity infrastructure and CPaaS (communications platform as a service) based new-age digital solutions to support the emerging requirements of customers and enterprises in India,” a statement from the companies said.

As part of the collaboration, Airtel will partner with Meta and STC (Saudi Telecom Company), to extend the world’s longest subsea cable system, 2Africa Pearls, to India. The plan to extend 2Africa Pearls to India was first announced by Meta in September 2021. Under the collaboration, Airtel and Meta will extend the cable to Airtel’s landing station in Mumbai and also pick up dedicated capacity to further strengthen its submarine network portfolio. “The 2Africa cable will significantly boost India’s cable capacity and empower global hyper-scalers and businesses to build new integrated solutions and provide a high-quality seamless experience to customers,” the statement said.

Airtel will also integrate Meta’s WhatsApp within its CPaaS platform. With this integration, businesses will now be able to use WhatsApp and reach to provide omnichannel customer engagement to enterprises.

“We are delighted to deepen our partnership with Meta to serve India’s digitally connected economy,” said Bharti Airtel CEO for Global Business, Vani Venkatesh.

Etisalat UAE offering cash for your inventions

Nick Booth
-
0
Etisalat UAE offering cash for your inventions

Looking for small businesses with big ideas

Etisalat UAE, branded etisalat by e&, has invited ideators (inventors) and start-ups to pitch their next big business idea at the third edition of the ‘Hello Business Pitch’ competition, reports the Khaleej Times. The winner could take home Dh350,000 (Emirati Dirhams), which roughly equates to €91,000.

After two successful series of the Hello Business Pitch competition, this year’s edition is open to aspiring start-ups who have been in operation for up to 3 years and to inventors who have novel disruptive ideas – or indeed ideas that provide continuity that work in harmony with existing business systems. All that they must have in common is the need for the capital to kickstart the business.

This year, a total of six winners will be announced, whereby three ‘disruptive’ ideators and three ambitious start-ups will walk away with cash prizes worth Dh350,000.

Registration for entries has already begun and it is open for a limited period only. Interested participants can register for Pitch 3 and they will be notified if they got shortlisted by a jury panel consisting of subject matter experts who are joining the competition from a huge range of industries and verticals. Tourism is in need of new ideas. As indeed is the energy industry. The great thing about any health service inventions is that they will find ready export markets, according to the organisers.

“We’ve always believed in supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses as they make a difference in our society through their pioneering and innovative business ideas,” said Esam Mahmoud, senior vice president for SMB sales and marketing at etisalat by e&.  “This competition has become the bridge that enables their growth to the next level while we stay committed to the aspirations of the UAE leadership to be a leading sustainable knowledge-based and innovative hub globally.”

This year, the competition comes with an exciting twist as etisalat by e& opens the doors for a wider community of entrepreneurs to pitch their new ideas, said Mahmoud.

DT accelerates fibre roll-out in Germany with 10m target in 2024

Annie Turner
-
0
<strong>DT accelerates fibre roll-out in Germany with 10m target in 2024</strong>

Germany is still in catch-up mode; the news will add to Vodafone’s woes in Germany

Deutsche Telekom (DT) is accelerating its fibre broadband access network rollout plans for 2023 in its domestic market, adding to the 5.2 million premises it is scheduled to pass by the end of 2022.

The former monopoly is to build out its FTTP network to pass between 2.5 million and 3 million premises next year and aims to exceed 10 million premises passed in 2024.

To put this into perspective, as research house Outvise wrote earlier this year: “Despite the weight that’s being thrown behind fibre rollout in Germany, the nation lags behind comparable economies. Currently, only 5.4% of German households have access to fibre broadband.

“Meanwhile, just over a third of these lines are active, with 36% of German consumers taking advantage of a fibre subscription [where available]. In comparison to other developed economies like South Korea and Sweden, whose fibre availability stands at 70%+, these numbers are fairly dismal.”

Srini Gopalan, CEO of Telekom Deutschland, said, “Our fibre optic engine is running. We have built more fibre this year than all other competitors combined. In the second phase, we will bring even more fibre even faster to our customers. It’s all about growth and scaling”.

“Our 5G coverage already reaches 94% of people in Germany a good three years after launch. Whether mobile or fibre, our ambition is to be ahead for our customers.”

DT is to employ 1,000 staff to hit these targets, taking the total to 3,000.

This will not lift the gloom at Vodafone, which is struggling with its fixed business in Germany – its largest market. The departure of its Vodafone Group’s CEO, Nick Read, was announced today.

Read more about DT’s announcement here.

1...227228229...1,638Page 228 of 1,638
- Advertisement -

Subscribe to Our Daily Newsletter

It takes just one minute to register for the leading daily B2B newsletter for the telecoms industry, and it's free.

SIGN UP

Subscribe to Our Daily Newsletter

It takes just one minute to register for the leading daily B2B newsletter for the telecoms industry, and it's free.

SIGN UP
DOWNLOAD OUR NEW REPORT

5G Advanced

Will 5G’s second wave deliver value?

DOWNLOAD REPORT