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Ericsson CEO not giving up on China – pledges ‘we can still add value’

Nick Booth
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Ericsson CEO not giving up on China – pledges ‘we can still add value’

Government bans aside Ericsson’s 120 year trading relationship with China means it can still add value

Ericsson’s CEO has pledged to quietly intensify the 5G equipment vendor’s market making efforts in China. The renewed efforts follow a year in which its involvement in building infrastructure for the emerging superpower was slashed by 80 per cent.

Last year Ericsson was awarded ‘about two per cent’ of China Mobile’s 5G contracts reports Reuters. The previous year it was involved in 11 per cent of the same line of infrastructure building business with the emerging superpower. It also won three per cent share of deals in a joint 5G radio contract from China Telecom and China Unicom.

The freezing out of the Swedish telecoms giant coincided with its government’s decision to block Chinese suppliers, principally state-owned Huawei, from Sweden’s 5G roll-out. Though the reasons for the exclusions have never been formalised, the inescapable reality is that China accounted for around 10 per cent of Ericsson’s revenue last year.

“We have been in China for 120 years and I don’t intend to give up easily,” Ericsson chief executive Börje Ekholm told Reuters. “We are going to show that we can add value to China.”

How can Ericsson add value to China?

Previously Ericsson has lobbied the Swedish government, arguing in favour of Huawei and warning of possible retaliation by China. Since the Swedish government ban on Huawei was made official and upheld in court, Ericsson is suffering from an invisible trade barrier.

It has not been compensated for the losses. “I don’t believe we have had any help from the Swedish government,” Ekholm said.

Some analysts have warned Ericsson could lose most of its China business with contracts going to Finland’s 6G pioneer Nokia, which recently distanced itself from the O-RAN Alliance. 

The threat of losing its Chinese business to another European comm equipment manufacturer seems minimal. Ericsson’s nordic rival Nokia didn’t get any radio contracts in China last year. However, it did land its first radio contract in the second round of awards. Sweden’s flagship technology company, which energised and stimulated much of the creative start up activity in the surrounding Swedish tech hub Kista, north of Stockholm, Ericsson has a ‘slight edge so far’, reports Reuters. Whether political climate change threatens this technology eco-system is yet to be seen.

Free Mobile in court battle with Bouygues and SFR over Huawei installations

Nick Booth
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Free Mobile in court battle with Bouygues and SFR over Huawei installations

Why aren’t we all playing by the same rules over Huawei, it asks

Free Mobile, the disruptive French mobile operator launched by Iliad, has mounted a legal challenge to its rivals over what is sees as unequal security commitments. It is questioning issuing of permits, granted to rivals Bouygues Telecom and SFR, to use Huawei antennas in their 5G networks. The contention is not over Chinese state espionage or Open radio access network (RAN) commitments, but the unfair advantage the Huawei antennas grant to its rivals.

The case, reported in French newspaper L’Express, is being considered at the Paris administrative court. It follows the refusal, by security agency Anssi, to give clearance to Free Mobile to use Huawei products. However, Bouygues Telecom and SFR have been given the greenlight to use the controversial kit. 

Orange France has also been prohibited from using Huawei equipment.

What changed Bouygues’ mind?

France has not issued an outright ban on the use of Huawei’s products but the government has previously discouraged France’s communications service providers from installing any more from the state-owned Chinese equipment maker. In 2020, in response to a French government dictat, Bouygues Telecom pledged to swap out 3,000 Huawei antennas from its network over the next eight years. 

However, in the intense competition of the French mobile market, Bouygues Telecom might have been persuaded to suspend that judgement, Free Mobile is allegedly arguing.

In August Free Mobile claimed it has achieved the top spot among 5G network builders in the race to digitalisation. At the same time, market figures suggested that Bouygues Telecom’s stated Ambition 2026 agenda to become the second-largest mobile player in France and a ‘major player in fibre’ still has some way to go. 

All four of France’s operators had originally protested against the state over the imposition of security restrictions, but all failed to get the laws lifted.

 

 

Vodafone sues the UK Foreign Office after mysterious award of contract to rival

Nick Booth
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Vodafone sues the UK Foreign Office after mysterious award of contract to rival

Alleges contract award to Jujitsu Services was in breach of both procurement specification and EU rules

Vodafone is suing the UK’S Foreign Office and the government’s cultural outreach programme, according to Law360.

The litigation follows the awarding of a contract, to run a secure communications channel, to a rival. The writ claims the decision breached European Union rules.

The mobil operator said in a High Court claim, only recently made public, that it was wrongly passed over during the tender process. Vodafone Ltd. claims the UK government made a series of errors in assessing bids before handing the contract to Fujitsu Services.

No bidder met the brief entirely

All three bidders for the contract to provide communication services to the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and the British Council, had failed to meet the technical requirements, the August 16th dated filing states. Though none met the brief entirely, Japan’s Fujitsu was still successful, Vodafone says.

The Foreign Office said Fujitsu’s bid “had significant deficiencies resulting in a technical solution that was unacceptably poor, likely to be unfit for purpose and requiring workarounds,” the filing said. This is a breach of procurement rules, Vodafone alleges.

Vodafone says the decision to award the contract to Fujitsu should be set aside and that the process should be re-run or the court should declare that the telecoms giant would have won if it had been carried out fairly.

Tender process dubious 

The company also questioned the requirements of the government tender process. “The defendants should have considered what led to the curious and anomalous outcome whereby major international providers of the services sought, with established track records … failed to satisfy a minimal standard,” the lawsuit says. This might suggest an error in the design of the application or the scoring and evaluation process, Vodafone said.

Vodafone could have provided secure communications to other government bodies, including the British Council, it said. The Foreign Office began running a procurement process in 2019 to search for what were essentially the same services that Vodafone was already offering, the lawsuit says. Vodafone challenged the specifics of the contract tender, as it “appeared as if the [Foreign Office] had prejudged the competition in that there were references … to the replacement of Vodafone,” the claim reads, “On an assumption that Vodafone would not be successful.”

The government’s guidance for the contract was re-published after Vodafone’s complaints, the lawsuit says.

Vodafone was told in July that it had been unsuccessful and that the contract had been awarded to Fujitsu. Vodafone was allegedly evaluated as not having met the minimum quality threshold in five categories. The operator said that the decisions did not follow the UK’s Public Contract Regulations 2015. Neither did the government follow the general principles of EU law, including “obligations of equal treatment, transparency, non-discrimination, non-arbitrariness, proportionality, good administration, procedural fairness, the protection of legitimate expectations,” Vodafone says.

 

 

Ericsson, Nokia and Bharti Airtel conduct 5G cloud gaming test in India

Nick Booth
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Ericsson, Nokia and Bharti Airtel conduct 5G cloud gaming test in India

Mobile gaming will be worth billions and could be a latent opportunity for 5G comms service providers says Airtel CTO

An Open RAN consortium including Ericsson, Nokia and Indian mobile operator Bharti Airtel claims to have successfully demonstrated cloud gaming in the country over a 5G network, reports Developing Telecoms.

Cloud gaming will be one of the biggest use cases of 5G and could provide major revenue streams for mobile operators across the world, according to Randeep Sekhon, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Bharti Airtel. However, mobile gaming’s success hinges on high speeds, low latency and complete reliability.

The gaming demonstration was conducted as part of the ongoing 5G trials on the 3500 MHz high capacity spectrum band, in Manesar, Gurgaon.

Can’t afford latency in mobile games 

For the 5G cloud game demo, Airtel partnered with India’s leading gamers Mortal (AKA Naman Mathur) and Mamba (Salman Ahmad) and used Blacknut’s gaming tech system. It involved a sprint racing challenge on Asphalt in which ultra-low latency is vital.

In tests, Airtel’s 5G network had a latency of 10ms and a downloads ran at 1 Gbps.

Mobile gaming will evolve into a USD 2.4 billion market opportunity said Airtel’s Sekhon. In India alone a base of 436 million online gamers is expected to reach 510 million by 2022, Airtel said.

Airtel is conducting 5G trials in multiple cities across India and validating technologies and is creating its use cases using the trial spectrum allotted by the Indian Department of Telecom. Airtel is ‘spearheading’ development withing the O-RAN Alliance.

White paper: How network testing ensures high-quality in-building LTE and 5G deployments

Annie Turner
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White paper: How network testing ensures high-quality in-building LTE and 5G deployments

Most mobile traffic is generated in buildings so correct deployment and testing is important.

This white paper examines different network architectures such as active DAS and how to test them in all phases from planning and installation to verification.

Register now to download the white paper.

Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom unveil new 5G services for BMW and Porsche

Nick Booth
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Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom unveil new 5G services for BMW and Porsche

Electronic SIMs connect 5G to the cars, while Vodafone uses network slicing and edge computing to drive the car makers

It’s been a busy week for German connected car makers and telcos. Deutsche Telekom (DT) claims it has empowered Germany’s BMW car drivers with the automotive sectors first mobile option for 5G networking, according to Light Reading. Meanwhile Vodafone has announced its own eSIM service for BMW. In addition Vodafone Germany and Porsche claimed to have launched the standalone 5G era for car makers at Germany’s Weissach development centre. 

The mobile operator that provides a ‘personal eSIM’ can turn any vehicle, such as the BMW iX, into just another connected device, just as it would a smartwatch or Fitbit. The big difference is that the car becomes connected even when the smartphone to which it is registered is not in the vehicle. The personal eSIM is integrated in the car in addition to the vehicle eSIM which is installed as standard.

Both eSIMS can be fully active on 5G at the same time. In addition, the personal eSIM is directly linked to the customer’s BMW ID. This means it can be used, along with all the connected functions that come with it, in any enabled vehicle, such as a rental BMW.

Meanwhile, Vodafone Germany unveiled what it can do for the car makers, rather than their clients. 

Car designers at edge 

Vodafone CEO Hannes Ametsreiter and Porsche development board member Michael Steiner activated a private 5G standalone network at the Weissach Porsche research centre in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. 

The birthplace of the Porsche 918 Spyder supercar was the show case for a new standalone 5G service using 3.5 GHz frequency band for ‘secure and delay-free transmission of data between vehicles and digital devices’. 

With 5G’s smaller sub-networks, created by network slicing, Vodafone will give Porsche license to instantly apportion bandwidths at minimal latency times for all the projects involved as engineers strive to create the next Porsche wondercar at the Weissach site, Vodafone said.

As Porsche’s disparate teams of scientists and engineers work on predictive warning and assistance systems and automated driving functions, they will be spread across the campus, working on different aspects of the project, such as braking, transmission and steering. Their need for computing power for all the various projects will be unpredictable, since they are dictated by the pace of each project’s developments. The 5G network will be able to apportion edge computing resources and the appropriate levels of bandwidth for transmitting vast silos of data. It can no do this instantly, re-sizing and re-assigning resource within milliseconds.  

“With 5G standalone, we are bringing Europe’s fastest network to Weissach and new digital services into the automobiles of tomorrow, said Vodafone’s Ametsreiter. “5G revolutionises the development of vehicles-from the first prototypes to the finished series model. In the future, Porsche engineers will be able to work on digital vehicle models and prepare them for use on the road.”

From Weissach, said Ametsreiter, 5G will make its way directly into the cars. DT would claim that 5G has already clambered aboard the BMWs.

Open RAN’s biggest threat will come from 3G rather than China analysts warn

Nick Booth
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Open RAN’s biggest threat will come from 3G rather than China analysts warn

Building an Open RAN network is impossible until the legacy of 3G kit and its loyal subscribers can be addressed

Mobile operators are struggling to build Open RAN networks because new ‘open network’ suppliers won’t support 3G, reveals Light Reading.

In the UK Vodafone has 2,500 sites that that were supplied with 3G networking kit by Huawei, now deemed untenable since the government authorities ordered mobile operators to evict the controversial Chinese vendor by 2028. All mobile operators across Europe are looking to build open radio access networks (Open RAN) but while many of the new suppliers are forward thinking they are not historically literate. Their inability to support 3G creates a massive compatibility problem that hinders any transformation.  

“Open RAN is not geared up to 3G,” said Ker Anderson, Vodafone UK’s head of radio told a conference. As a result, replacing the 3G Huawei kit with open RAN serving 2G, 4G and 5G creates a dog’s dinner of a network with mismanaged traffic and a performance problem.

Some Open RAN advocates can’t interface 3G

Traditionally all Vodafone’s network kit came from Ericsson. Open RAN obliges them to redesign interfaces so that operators can mix and match suppliers.

Vodafone, is buying software and radios from Samsung, radios from Japan’s NEC, Intel-based hardware servers from Dell and cloud infrastructure from Wind River. The conformance and interoperability are all tested using services from Keysight and Capgemini.

In order to free up spectrum and support the Open RAN shift, Vodafone has now moved all its 2100MHz spectrum – bought in a 3G auction – over to its 4G network. A similar process is underway for 900MHz spectrum. Vodafone has already carved out a contiguous 10MHz block in this band for its 4G services, allowing it to provide better in-building coverage for any 4G devices.

The plan is to phase out 3G entirely but Anderson says he expects his 3G network to go down. Indeed it will fail on a weekly basis as more people buy and upgrade handsets. “We will gradually evolve 900MHz to move to 5G and ultimately there will not be a need for it on 3G,” said Anderson.

Mobile operators across Europe will have customers who rely on 3G technology. While 90 per cent of data traffic might run on the 4G network, any installed base will include many tech dissenters who have not upgraded their handsets for years, said Anderson. Others have 4G-capable phones with 3G subscription plans. Another problem is presented by old firmware on 4G-capable devices, which ties users to a 3G service.

3G just won’t die

This means 3G may be around many years more than ‘experts’ predicted. The costs of operating two parallel networks are so high that the legacy of 2G and 3G will be Open RAN’s biggest challenge, said John Strand, the CEO of advisory group Strand Consult.

Millions of people in Africa, Latin America and Asia still use phones that only support 2G and 3G. Open RAN technologies, he says, “are not solutions that can replace existing networks in Europe, Africa and Latin America.” Unexpected capital expenditure will run into hundreds of millions of pounds and euros, Anderson warned.

Samsung was unveiled in August as Vodafone’s main Open RAN partner and it is building a system to include 2G as well as 4G and 5G technologies. Other Open RAN vendors must include legacy support. To this end Mavenir has announced the commercial readiness of a 2G architecture, while its rival Parallel Wireless has pledged to support both 2G and 3G products to its customers.

However Anderson said he expects 2G to outlast 3G and still be around when he retires – and he is not planning to give up work any time soon.

Norway’s regulator Nkom reveals spectrum plans for local 5G after national consultation

Nick Booth
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Norway’s regulator Nkom reveals spectrum plans for local 5G after national consultation

It’s time for the 3.8GHz-4.2GHz band to get warmed up they will be joining the 5G game soon

Norway’s national communications authority (Nkom) has published feedback from its consultation on using the 3.8GHz-4.2GHz spectrum band for local 5G networks, reports Telegeography’s Commsupdate.

Nkom released details of first impression feedback from 5G players and concluded that its initial plans had been ‘well received’. It acknowledged many ‘good and constructive suggestions that it promised to ‘take a closer look at’.

In June 2021 Nkom proposed opening up the 3.8GHz-4.2GHz spectrum band for local 5G networks. It planned to grant two different types of licences for local networks: a low-power licence for local private mobile networks and a high-power concession to cater for fixed-wireless broadband in larger outdoor areas, such as industrial parks and harbours.

Now Nkom plans to open applications for license to use the 3.8GHz-4.2GHz spectrum band in the first half of 2022. Further work, which will determine the final regulation of frequency allocations, will be carried out ‘during the autumn’, said an Ncom spokesman.

EMN blended 4G and 5G

In March mobile operator Telia launched a private network service in Norway.

Telia’s offering, Enterprise Mobile Network (EMN), uses licensed spectrum over 4G and 5G to create services for industries like manufacturing, mining and logistics. In effect, each customer has their own mobile network with high bandwidth, low latency and safe passage for data traffic.

This type of solution was new to Norway at the time but demand for dedicated networks and specialised services was beginning to take off said Jon Christian Hillestad, head of the Enterprise Business Unit in Telia Norway. The private networks need to be delivered to customers through public mobile networks like Telia, said Hillestad.

Vodafone installs new ad-tech digital store front in bid to boost mobile commerce

Nick Booth
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Vodafone installs new ad-tech digital store front in bid to boost mobile commerce

Partners Just Premium and Playrcart install checkout tills that can process a sale direct from an advert on your phone

Vodafone has installed new shopping technology that whisks mobile window shoppers from an advert to the check out tills. The investors of the technology say it turns each advert into a digital store.

The UK mobile operator has chosen ad-tech startup Playrcart to work with its partner JustPremium to make ordering SIM cards online a one step process. The plan is to cut the number of stages from seeing an advert to placing an order. By simplifying and streamlining the process of buying goods on your mobile, the operator aims to grab a bigger piece of mobile commerce. 

Ad-tech start up Playrcart claims it can instantly convert a digital advert into a transactional storefront.

Its partner JustPremium is to build the relevant web sites out of ‘rich media creatives’, according to Vodafone. It will integrate Playrcart’s technology early in the creative process so that Vodafone can install the technology for ordering of SIM cards directly into its advertising assets.

Exit through the SIM shop 

The plan is to maximise the return on investment on digital advertising placement for Vodafone’s assets. This would be achieved by removing the traditional click-through purchase journey entirely and converting first impressions into more attention, more interactions and more successful checkouts, without ever leaving the advert, according to Vodafone. 

With the pandemic closing retail stores across the globe Vodafone is seeking to sell more via its phones by creating quick purchases, with an interactive and seamless transactional advertising experience. This technology allows mobile operators to sell products and services directly via an advert, said Rob Garber, UK MD at JustPremium, “The shift from physical retail outlets to e-commerce has expedited over the past 18 months.”

London-based adtech company Playrcart has recently activated similar partnerships with Warner Bros, Walgreen Boots Alliance for Liz Earle skincare products and AB InBev for Corona Beer. 

“Playrcart’s adtech would contribute considerably to the disruption of the traditional advertisement landscape,” said its CEO Glen Dormieux. 

 

UK government project 5G-ENCODE claims new breakthrough in industrial 5G

Nick Booth
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UK government project 5G-ENCODE claims new breakthrough in industrial 5G

Exhibition unveils network splicing by GUI and calls on developers to show more 5G invention

UK manufacturers can see industrial strength Private 5G networks in action at the 5G-Encode exhibition at Bristol’s National Composites Centre.

The new phase is a proof-of-concept based on three use cases: augmented and virtual reality for design, manufacturing and training, tracking time sensitive assets and wireless real-time in-process monitoring and analytics. By necessity these applications will run on 5G.

The tech incubation scheme, backed by the UK government, has entered the second phase of its mission to encourage manufacturers to benefit from new productivity options. This builds on Phase One of the scheme, launched at the National Composites Centre (NCC) in December 2020, which showed how 4G was the baseline against which results from the private 5G network can be benchmarked.

The organisers stressed that the success of industrial 5G hinges on new uses of network slicing and splicing technology developed by consortium partners. Manufacturers need to understand how operators can create multiple virtual networks, customised according to each industrial process’s specific service level needs, using slicing and splicing technology enables.

Network splicing

As part of the phase two network deployment, Zeetta Networks and partners have created a new network slice by stitching together slices from one transport network and two separate private networks: one located at NCC HQ and the other at another facility at NCCI located several miles away from the first location. 

Vassilis Seferidis, CEO, Zeetta Networks, claimed this is the ‘first time in the world’ that an industrial 5G network has been customised and divided into multiple logical networks while each of those virtual networks is extended across a transport network to reach another virtual network in a completely different administrative domain.

Zeetta’s technology has a graphical user interface that simplifies the complicated process of slicing and stitching individual network portions back together.

Based on open standards, the homegrown British software is compatible with O-RAN (Open Radio Access Networks) and other open networking technologies, in line with the UK government’s 5G Supply Chain Diversification Strategy,

The government aims to maximise domestic productivity by showing how applications can run seamlessly across private 5G, 4G or Wi-Fi domains that communicate via a public 5G or other transport networks.

“End-to-end Open RAN is a must when testing and uncovering inventive 5G use cases in manufacturing,” said Giuseppe Bernini, VP of Sales in Europe for exhibitor Airspan.

 

 

 

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