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Middle East mobile operators build region’s first Open RAN test lab in Abu Dhabi

Nick Booth
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Middle East mobile operators build region’s first Open RAN test lab in Abu Dhabi

Middle East operators have opened their first regional community lab for Open RAN development, reports Trade Arabia.

 The Abu Dhabi facility was created in collaboration with Telecom Infra Project (TIP) and Intel, following the signing of the Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) memorandum of understanding (MoU) last year. 

Two new operators Batelco and Omantel signed the memo, joining the e&, the telco formerly known as Etisalat Group, stc, Zain Group, Mobily and du from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC). All are now committed to installing Open RAN.

The Middle East lab will provide a platform for the parties to jointly install open and disaggregated technologies into their networks to optimise the online experiences of businesses and consumers, said Bernhard Merwe, CTO at OmanTel, “It’s a clear opportunity to improve the way we work with vendors.” 

The lab will provide shared facilities and access to Intel technologies for members and vendors and it’s intended to act as a catalyst for Open RAN deployments. “Open network technologies like Open RAN provide a trusted avenue for new entrants in hardware and software to work with service providers,” said Hisham Alabdaly, stc’s gnereal manager for infrastructure design.

TIP helps mobile operators share industry knowledge to align and prioritise their technical requirements said Mohamed Al Marzooqi, VP of technology synergies at e&. “I’m delighted to see more operators from our region partnering with us in our efforts to position the Middle East as a global leader,” said Al Marzooqi.

Vish Mathur, the Telecom Infra Project’s head of engagement, said TIP and Intel play a key role in bringing together stakeholders from across the world.

Intel’s TIP board member Caroline Chan, who is also the VP of the network and edge group for her employer, said that collaboration at the new Abu Dhabi lab could speed the shift toward a software-defined infrastructure at the network edge. “A virtualised, Open RAN is an area of tremendous innovation, which can be further propelled by using Intel’s FlexRAN reference architecture with optimised software and hardware components,” said Chan, “The lab opens new possibilities to innovate 5G services that can accelerate the digital transformation in the Middle East.”

BICS CEO Matteo Gatta and Access Now call on telcos to back Ukraine against Russian aggression

Nick Booth
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BICS CEO Matteo Gatta and Access Now call on telcos to back Ukraine against Russian aggression

Europe’s government and its mobile operators are not doing enough to alleviate the suffering caused by their near neighbours and customers in Ukraine, according to a number of industry stakeholders.

Digital rights organisation Access Now and Brussels-based global comms bridging specialist BICS have both issued open letters calling on the EU and Europe’s mobile operators to use their leverage to help. 

Matteo Gatta, CEO of  BICS, says telcos can do more than just offer free phone calls. Gatta has appealed to telcos to be more pro-active in easing the suffering arising out of the war in Ukraine, through an open letter to European mobile operators.

“We must do everything we can to connect Ukrainian citizens with their loved ones, out of the country,” says Gatta’s letter. 

“I am urging EU mobile operators to remove all charges on voice calls coming out of Ukraine and terminating into their networks. BICS will play its role by carrying this traffic at no cost.

At the very least, European Mobile operators should bring their termination costs in line with MTR costs (mobile termination rates) for calls within the European Union, which will still allow Ukrainian operators to reduce the cost of these calls for their subscribers. Also in this case, BICS will play its role by carrying this traffic at no cost.”

The letter ends with a call for action from mobile operators: “Telecoms is critical infrastructure and being able to connect people with their loved ones has never been more important than it is now. I call for united action in this urgent time of need.” 

Meanwhile, digital citizen protector Access Now has appealed to the EU to do more, through an open letter to the EU.

In a statement, Access Now said the EU must do everything in its power to ensure the safety and wellbeing of people affected by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. It called on the EU to work with tech platforms and telecoms operators to uphold connectivity, access to accurate information, data protection and non-discrimination at the border.

“Russia has launched a full-scale war on Ukraine. The European Union must immediately use its full capacity to help keep people as safe, secure, and connected as possible,” said Natalia Krapiva, the Tech-Legal Counsel at Access Now. “We must empower people to access accurate information, protect the privacy of millions as they escape, keep those on the move connected to their loved ones and do everything possible to treat everyone fairly.”

Access Now has laid out four courses of actions it would like to see taken in support of people affected by the war on Ukraine. These involve connections, online platforms, data protection and non-discrimination.

The Connectivity act would involve asking telecom operators and internet providers to protect infrastructure, waive charges for all communications from and to Ukraine, lift SIM registration for anyone arriving in the EU territory from Ukraine and boosting network capacity.

The Online platform initiative involves keeping platforms and communications services available in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, continuing the demonetisation of ‘certain actors spreading disinformation’ and upholding the suspension of Russia Today, Sputnik and Russian state-sponsored propaganda actors from online platforms, including in Russia.

The data protection plan would ensure that the EU border agency welcomes people fleeing into the EU and abides by data protection rules. To this end it is calling on tech and telecoms companies to limit data collections of people leaving Ukraine. It also urges mobile operators not to comply with Russian data localisation requirements to avoid persecution of dissidents and journalists.

The four policy is non-discrimination at the border. This involves reversing actions that prevent people from accessing services, such as the freezing of assets, due to their nationality. It also calls for the borders to be open for all people leaving Ukraine, including third-country nationals and people of colour living and studying in Ukraine.

“In times of crises, people need to stay connected — to each other, and to life-saving information,” said Fanny Hidvegi, Europe Policy Director at Access Now. “Russia’s war on Ukraine is affecting millions of people, and the European Union has both the power and the responsibility to ensure the internet and all telecommunications are accessible for all. Decisions and interventions must come now.”

Samsung and Orange plan to save the planet by extending the life of the Galaxy 

Nick Booth
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Samsung and Orange plan to save the planet by extending the life of the Galaxy 

Samsung Electronics and Orange are working together to tackle the mounting e-waste crisis, tweak the user experiences of Galaxy phones and clear the way for industrial strength standalone 5G networks. 

Together, the companies are working to reduce the waste caused by the obsoletion of Samsung mobile devices distributed by Orange. The plan is based on extending the lifecycle of a typical product through an extension of Orange’s trade-in and collection programmes for Samsung devices. Orange will also add a Samsung Certified Refurbished device programme through its channels. 

They will then use the Eco-Rating method used by European mobile operators to evaluate the environmental impact of the Samsung Galaxy in its entire lifecycle from design to dumping. The Rating could shed light on how Samsung and Orange can make further improvements.

“This partnership will help us fulfil our circular economy ambitions,” said Philippe Lucas, Orange’s EVP of innovation devices and partnerships.

The Samsung-Orange agreement also covers the rollout of advanced 5G standalone (SA) services. There will be end-to-end testing of Samsung devices and key technologies like network slicing and voice over Orange’s 5G SA test networks. They will explore new use-cases made possible through 5G SA networks to provide services to industries and the entertainment sector.

Samsung and Orange are also working closer to bring a ‘connected experience powered by Samsung Galaxy devices to Orange customers. This multi-device approach will be deployed in Orange stores and online channels to support Orange’s multi-service strategy, delivering an immersive and seamless mobile experience to end users.

The Orange-Samsung pact say they will combine their product and technology assets to provide an upgraded digital activation. This means Samsung will run a SIM-based personalisation of its mobile devices for Orange customers on a single mobile software configuration. The ‘over-the-air personalisation service’ discovers key Orange applications on eligible Samsung Galaxy smartphones and painlessly installs them, regardless of where the customers bought their Galaxy phones.

Finally, Samsung and Orange will activate eSIMs on a wider range of Samsung devices connected to Orange networks. This will simplify their users’ experience and eliminate the use of plastic SIM cards across Oranges European customer base.

By simplifying the user experience, Samsung is improving the ‘customer journey, according to Bryan Choi, Samsung Electronic’s head of strategic marketing of mobile experience business. “We are pleased to strengthen our relationship with Orange,” said Choi.

Nokia becomes Rakuten Symphony’s first Symworld partner for cloud-native core software

Annie Turner
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Nokia becomes Rakuten Symphony’s first Symworld partner for cloud-native core software

AT&T and Rakuten Symphony announce Symworld joint venture

Rakuten Mobile named Nokia as the sole vendor for specific mobile core products such as IP multimedia subsystem (IMS), shared data layer (SDL) and IoT platform.

This builds on the multi-year relationship between the Finnish vendor, Japan’s Rakuten Mobile network operator and the Rakuten group’s newer subsidiary, Rakuten Symphony.

As ever, the plan is grand: to, “accelerate industry change with the inclusion of all Nokia cloud-native core software on Rakuten Symphony’s Symworld marketplace. The development will support Rakuten Symphony to be the first to enable browsing, selecting, and installing of software into live network operations via a ‘one-click’ operation for communication service providers (CSPs).”

Rakuten Symphony announced the Symworld marketplace in mid-February to simplify the process of onboarding telecom applications for operators and making approved applications generally available for all Symworld customers.

The Symworld platform intends to digitalise all telecom processes for planning, deploying, securing and monitoring the software in live telecom networks, as telecoms software begins its migration to cloud native.

Tareq Amin, CEO of Rakuten Symphony (and formerly CTO of Rakuten Mobile) said, “Wehave a long and successful relationship with Nokia in Rakuten Mobile and together in Japan we have radically accelerated change in the telecom industry. 

“We want to do more and we are extremely happy to partner with Nokia now to drive the marketplace way of working in the live network with Nokia’s world class cloud-native core products. The Symworld marketplace approach to deployment changes system integration from being months away, to being days or hours away.”

Yesterday AT&T and Rakuten Symphony announced a collaboration agreement to enhance solutions within the recently launched Symworld platform. Their aim is to speed network planning and deployment in greenfield and brownfield environments, drawing on their combined technologies, experience and expertise from AT&T in the US and Rakuten Mobile in Japan.

AT&T is deploying Rakuten Symphony’s Site Manager, a solutions suite on the Symworld platform intended to simplify the design and build workflows for fixed and mobile network roll-outs to speed up deployment cycles.

In the initial phase of the agreement, the companies are integrating AT&T’s core RANFT technology platform, developed in-house, for capacity planning which can be applied to various network topographies and densities. It rounds out the tool suite within Rakuten Symphony’s Site Manager and more specifically for RAN Commander. 

Andre Fuetsch, Executive Vice President & Network Chief Technology Officer, AT&T, commented,“AT&T has heavily invested in developing state-of-the-art tools and capabilities, such as AI/ML and data analytics, to support and manage our intelligent, virtualized networks in the most efficient way possible.

“Our collaboration with Rakuten Symphony helps expand and enhance the transformation of our network as well as across our global industry to build and operate more resilient networks in a new architecture stack with less manual touches.” 

Nokia says Liquid Cooling Airscale will slash RAN power bills by 90%

Nick Booth
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Nokia says Liquid Cooling Airscale will slash RAN power bills by 90%

Airscale and you shall receive

Airscales use a tenth of the energy and can cut base station emissions by 80 per cent against traditional active air-cooling systems, according to Nokia’s pilot projects. US mobile operator AT&T is piloting the solution in a live network trial in Philadelphia. “Sustainability is one of the biggest factors impacting the world right now and a key differentiator in business,” said Joe Taylor, A&T’s VP implementation, provisioning and optimisation.

Save your energy and cut the noise

The Airscale can use any liquid cooled common or capacity plug-in unit and supports all radio access technologies from 2G to 5G. It is almost completely silent and maintenance-free, so it’s ideal for apartment buildings, whereas more traditional air-cooling systems are typically noisy and require regular maintenance. 

Liquid launch

Since liquid is much more efficient in the transmission and transfer of heat than air Nokia’s system carries the captured waste heat produced by the base station during operation. This can then be circulated and reused by, say, a building’s heating system or even traded.

“5G networks and technologies will play a critical role in making other industries more sustainable and we must all play our part to minimize our footprint and accelerate the use of green electricity,” said Tommi Uitto, Nokia’s president of mobile networks. 

There is no green without digital

Nokia says it’s committed to decarbonising telecoms and helping other industries to follow its lead by digitising, which should make them less wasteful. It aims to cut its emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 across its value chain, including its operations, products in use, logistics, and final assembly supplier factories. Nokia has increased its share of renewable electricity and is committed to being totally green powered by 2025. “There is no green without digital,” said Nokia’s Uitto.

Energy costs are a volatile variable

“Controlling total cost of network ownership remains an important priority for mobile operators,” said Daryl Schoolar, research director at IDC, “a significant portion of that total cost of ownership comes from operating expenses.” Anything that lowers operating expenses, and helps an operator achieve its green energy goals, will be worth looking at.

Experience liquid cooling in Barcelona

At MWC22, Nokia will demonstrate its AirScale Radios with energy-efficient software features as well as its Liquid cooled AirScale Baseband and Wavence microwave radio energy innovations.

CEA and Spectronite create 10 Gbps wireless backhaul option for 5G building mobile operators

Nick Booth
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CEA and Spectronite create 10 Gbps wireless backhaul option for 5G building mobile operators

Mobile operators could expedite their 5G roll out expedited if they put their backhaul into a new improved form of microwave wireless technology that shifts 10Gbps. French researcher CEA and backhaul specialist Spectronite have fused a spectrally efficient waveform into Spectronite’s X-Series microwave modem to create a superfast wireless comms box to support 5G backhaul.

“Our software-defined microwave products allow mobile operators to roll-out 5G networks faster and at lower cost compared to fibre connectivity,” said Jean-Philippe Fournier, Spectronite CEO.

The intellectual property belongs to CEA-Leti a technology research institute within CEA that pioneers micro- and nanotechnologies, including radio frequency technology.  Spectronite’s rationale is to software define wireless backhaul technology and it has hit on the idea to create the longest and highest-capacity microwave links ever designed. X-Series, its latest product, achieves capacity up to 10Gbps and can reach multi-gigabit transfers over distances up to 50 kilometres.  “Our application can keep up with the continuous spiking of global mobile data usage,” said Sébastien Dauvé, CEA-Leti’s CEO. 

Spectronite is calling on mobile operators to change the way they interconnect 5G base stations. In a typical 5G rollout, operators need to find an increasing number of base stations, each supporting a data rate ten times that of the existing 4G base stations, says Spectronite. Demand for capacity is doubling every 18 months and the backhaul options are labour intensive fibre or a relatively simple wireless installation. 

E-band radios in the 80GHz frequency band can provide the required capacity for 5G backhaul over short distances in wireless applications, typically up to 5 km, says Spectronite. Traditionally there were snags with longer distances, since the legacy radio architectures in the frequency range from 6GHz to 42GHz were not designed for scaling. Spectronite claims its software radio architecture overcomes this limitation by creating intra-band, non-contiguous carrier aggregation up to 10Gb/s in these bands.

CEA-Leti’s invention has created a significantly higher spectral efficiency than traditional radios can offer, while respecting the ETSI standards for spectrum emission masks. The collaboration’s initial results show a data-rate increase of 20 percent compared to the conventional backhaul radio wave-form. 

“With this unprecedented level of spectral efficiency, we provide huge savings to our [mobile operator] customers on the cost of their spectrum rental licenses,” said Spectronite’s Fournier. 

Telecom Italia CEO Labriola to present plan to nix KKR takeover on Wednesday

Nick Booth
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Telecom Italia CEO Labriola to present plan to nix KKR takeover on Wednesday

Telecom Italia (TIM) is to present a €10.8 billion plan to avoid a takeover by US fund KKR this week. However, the presentation will be against a bleak backdrop of its annual results, says Reuters.

On three occasions this TIM has presented warnings about its 2021 earnings, most recently in December. Now analysts are forecasting an 11 per cent annual fall in core profit after leases. The rate of decline in profit actually rose to 23 per cent in the last quarter of 2021, according to a company-compiled consensus. Domestic revenues are forecast to fall 2.9 per cent in 2021. One-off impairments and write downs will darken the picture, Reuters’ sources have predicted.

Changes to a tax scheme created a €5.9 billion boost to TIM earnings in 2020, which may have distorted have significantly reduced the perception of the underlying malaise at the telco. Milan-based broker Akros has calculated that the reality adjustment made by analysts could see TIM suffer a €4 billion write-down as a consequence.

The main event will be the dramatic conflict between new CEO Pietro Labriola and the Wall Street fund holders KKR. Labriola’s rallying speech will comprise his strategy for 2022-2024, which is expected to centre around a split of TIM’s assets and operations.

The TIM board is due both to review the plan and sign off on the results on Wednesday March 2nd.

Open RAN could be lowest common denominator without fresh competitors warns BT strategy supremo

Nick Booth
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Open RAN could be lowest common denominator without fresh competitors warns BT strategy supremo

Mobile operators should hold their nerve in the face of high-pressure sales tactics from technology suppliers and cloud operators offering instant gratification, according to Neil McCrae, BT’s MD of Architecture and Strategy. 

McCrae has previously issued warnings about the loss of control associated with rushing headlong into the cloud. Speaking as an expert witness, he is presenting the other side of the argument at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

BT itself will be testing Open RAN small cells for private networks and for macro augmentation, after conducting its own Open RAN trials in January. “We see huge opportunity to deploy small cells in a way that gives the customer experience a huge boost,” said McCrae, ahead of the event.

However, Open RAN will make negligible difference to the price of networks, McCrae warned, and the strategy will only deliver its benefits if there are more competitors. “We need more underlying component providers for the prices to really change,” McCrae told Mobile World magazine, citing BT’s own research. 

While Open RAN is crucial for creating a scalable, multi-vendor networks, operators still have technology options to exercise. Before any chief technology officer makes a career-affecting long-term decision on behalf of their telco, they need to be convinced that Open RAN is mature enough. It still has to make the grade in terms of cost, capability and sustainability.

McRae said the controller element has strong potential to give operators new opportunities for radio optimisation. This would be a green light for new applications and better customer experiences.

Multi-vendor environments still have questionable cohesion, with machines often greeting each other at the lowest common denominator while conversations between proprietary kit are much faster and more articulate. The taboo issue in the Open RAN industry is that it needs much tighter integration than is currently available. “Open RAN is really defining the interface, but the components are still for the most part proprietary,” said McCrae.

Rakuten agrees to acquire cloud techco Robin.io

Annie Turner
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Rakuten agrees to acquire cloud techco Robin.io

The idea is that Syphony can offer integrated telco cloud for mobile

Rakuten Symphony has reached agreement to acquire the award-winning Silicon Valley-based cloud technology start-up, Robin.io.

It says that adding Robin.io’s multi-cloud mobility, hyper-automation and orchestration to its portfolio would allow Rakuten Symphony to create of “highly efficient, consistent high performance cloud infrastructure and operations, from edge to central data center”.

The two company have been collaborating for more than two years, since Rakuten Mobile used Robin.io in Japan, in its deployment of the world’s first end-to-end fully virtualized cloud-native mobile network*1.

Now Rakuten Symphony and Robin.io combined plan to accelerate and strengthen their end-to-end automated cloud offering for customers anywhere in the world.

Tareq Amin, CEO, Rakuten Symphony, commented, “Edge cloud requirements are unique and critical as mobile operators transition to 5G: The next era of digital experience requires another level of performance, responsiveness and consistency that enables telecom operator and enterprise transformation to be safely accelerated while creating a platform to support the next 10 years of experiences.

He added, “We plan to continue to invest into Robin.io’s cloud-native portfolio of products.”

Robin.io has more than 70 patents in the cloud-native technology. Its portfolio includes:

Robin Cloud Native Storage (Robin CNS) – A software-defined and “industry-first” application-aware storage solution built from the ground-up for Kubernetes.

Robin Cloud Native Platform (CNP) – A leading open-source platform for running data and network intensive applications used in production for use cases involving databases, big data, data analytics, 5G, O-RAN, packet core and edge.

Robin Multi Data Center Automation Platform (MDCAP) – The web-scale platform for metal-to-service orchestration and automation.

Robin.io has petabyte size deployments with its software running on tens of thousands of servers in production today that span across its product portfolio and services Fortune 1000 customers across the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Tech Mahindra launches TechMVerse – a metaverse for industry

Nick Booth
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Tech Mahindra launches TechMVerse – a metaverse for industry

Digital transformation specialist Tech Mahindra has launched a business oriented Metaverse practice, TechMVerse, which could send demand for standalone 5G soaring. It has also promised to train 1,000 engineers to support the concept. 

The bandwidth-hungry industrial strength metaverse system works by immersing distant teams of engineers and designers into a centralised 3D synthesis of their problem and helps them investigate their challenge more thoroughly.

TechMVerse uses artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, 5G, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and quantum computing to synthesis real and hypothetical business to business use cases in any industry. By visualising problems, examining them from every angle and hypothesising responses, it aims to provide clarity, revelations and better decision making from its business customers.  

Initially Tech Mahindra will present its prototype use cases such as DealerVerse, a metaverse-based car dealership. Other exemplary use cases that are ready to use are Middlemist, an NFT market, and Meta Bank, a virtual bank, and gaming centre.

The TechMVerse experience is a way of delivering more intense scrutiny of business and mainly comprises services around design, content, as well as low code plug and play Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) and Blockchain platforms. Tech Mahindra says the metaverse aligns with its digital and environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals. It is also offering exclusive Digital Collectibles, starting with an ‘iconic brand’.

Never mind the NFTs where are the service opportunities for CSPs?

At the immersive online press conference, Mobile Europe asked: how is this going to save telcos time or money?

“The TechMVerse will save industrial designers a huge amount of time by visualising every aspect of what they are doing,” said Manish Vyas, Tech Mahindra’s CEO of network services and president of communications, media and entertainment. All engineers and designers, including those who work for mobile operators, face incredibly complex business challenges and anything that helps them see new possibilities or to fix snags will pay instant time and money dividends, according to Vyas. 

Telco revenues from the metaverse are difficult to pin down, he said. The promised productivity gains from interacting in a 3D virtual space will create a ‘revenue opportunity’ of $800 billion in 2024, according to Tech Mahindra’s estimation.

“The fundamental layers of metaverse are very well integrated within Tech Mahindra and its competencies,” said CP Gurnani, MD & CEO, Tech Mahindra. From infrastructure to experience, from spatial computing to now commerce, TechMahindra’s platform, the TechMverse would enable a seamless integration between our known expertise in 5G with our skills in AI, AR/VR and blockchain. We would be training workforce of 1000 engineers to ensure they are ready to solve complex business challenges and imagine new worlds for our customers and society.” 

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