MEMORANDUM QED Conference 5G: Building the European Digital Society
He postulated that the Gigabit Vision should be adapted to reflect the universal pivot to mobile (the mobile Digital Single Market ). Finally, he pointed out potential fresh risks ahead for Georg Serentschy Senior Advisor, Squire Patton Boggs network operators integration at stake) (Software Defined and (vertical vendors Network/Network Functionality Virtualisation creating new types of vendors coming from the IT Mr Serentschy opened the conference and Cloud world). He wondered how by these risks could be identified and presenting some topics for consideration. These include what is mitigated. 5G? He asked Is 5G more of the same (2G, 3G, 4G iterations) or a paradigm shift for all stakeholders? If the latter, in which way, especially as high promises have ubiquity, higher been made: speed and true lower latency for example. Will it enable the Internet of Things, and provide flexible Quality of Service for innovative business models, or are these already provided by 4G? He introduced Fibre- Michał Boni Member of the European Parliament to-5g (FT5G), a model which might turn the European Commission s Mr Boni described six critical points Gigabit Vision faster into reality, taking around the implementation of 5G that into account the general pivot to need to be addressed. First is the mobile: Data journey on packets fibre and begin their harmonisation of spectrum allocation, end being to avoid fragmentation of decisions and delivered by cellular or WiFi. solutions. He believes this is a key Memorandum 5G: Building the European Digital Society 2
issue that needs close cooperation between Member States, regulators, the European Commission, the European Parliament, industry and consumers. Second, the creation of conditions for infrastructure as an enabler, which requires work on standardisation throughout Europe and across all sectors to be touched by 5G. The third critical point is to establish collaborative coordination between Member States, the Commission, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), the market, and representatives of users. He pointed out that to achieve the goals of 5G, changes in national broadband plans will be essential. Fourth is to empower the investments and to give the power to operators to invest. Mr Boni said that the investment environment for 5G must be one of certainty, predictability, a long-term perspective, a level playing field for telecom operators and OTTs, and friendly, which implies a new model of infrastructure based competition. 5G infrastructure that impact will go far beyond existing wireless access networks, with the aim for communication services, reachable everywhere, all the time and faster. His fifth critical point is to create the demand for the new 5G based products and services and clearly communicate their tangible benefits. 5G will enable new high quality services, connect new industries and ultimately improve the customer experience for increasinglysophisticated and demanding digital users. Changes in healthcare and autonomous cars for example will require digital literacy and reeducation, as well as changes to standards and interoperability. Mr Boni s sixth and final point is that close cooperation at a European and global level is essential. Memorandum 5G: Building the European Digital Society 3
Dr Eric Hardouin Vice-President, Ambient Connectivity Research, Orange Dr Hardouin said that 5G is being designed to deliver a range of connectivity services such as enhanced mobile broadband with higher data rates delivered more consistently. It will facilitate the Internet of Things, and provide ultra-reliability and low latency (99.999% with 1 ms delay). He said that 5G has the potential to be extremely energy efficient with 50% less energy consumption for 1000 times more traffic. At the same time it should also be affordable, especially to provide Internet access to currently deprived populations. Dr Hardouin explained that 5G will enable a large number of industries to take advantage of its higher reliability to the benefit of the whole of society. This however requires close partnerships between telecom players and verticals. He described the concept of network slices to serve specific services using dedicated or shared resources. Here, regulation needs to enable specialized services, with different priority levels, to guarantee the delivery of critical applications. Spectrum and its harmonisation across Europe is critical for network efficiency, especially in the 3.4 to 3.8 GHz band. He said that cross-industry dialogue and joint trials are necessary to prepare the 5G ecosystem and business models (for the car industry, healthcare, utilities, farming, manufacturing ). A regulatory environment is required to foster investment (in 5G, fibre, access and backbones) and facilitate deployment. Memorandum 5G: Building the European Digital Society 4
Kumar Singarajah Director, Regulatory Affairs and Business Development, Avanti Communications Group Mr Singarajah presented a perspective on the economic rationale for moving ahead with early stage 5G deployment. He said that the likely priority of mobile network operators is to monetise their huge investments in 3G, 4G and 4.5G in Europe; and therefore a business case has to exist in order to invest in future 5G infrastructure. In his opinion it is highly probable that 5G networks will be deployed on a large scale in cm wave bands below 3.8 GHz in Europe, supported by data off-load via WiFi and WIGIG. He noted that several European MNOs were already offering 5G type services with up to circa 500 Mbit/sec data rates using LTE with carrier aggregation using EU harmonised terrestrial mobile bands up to 2.6 GHz. He indicated that using LTA with carrier aggregation using EU harmonised terrestrial mobile bands available up to 3.8 GHz should allow for 5G type data rates up to above 1 Gbit/sec within 1-2 years. He indicated that there are some very significant challenges in mm wave bands (including propagation through building materials and network deployment cost), which make it mm wave more suitable only for indoor use or near indoor use. So he questions the rationale for investments in in the low mm wave frequency bands for 5G. Political reasons are a poor substitute for economic rationales for 5G network deployment, he commented. Mr Singarajah informed on developed in WIGIG a very high data rate WiFi operating at around 59 GHz and supposedly able to hit 10 Gigabits in indoor environments and that equipment vendors were forecast to deploy circa 1 billion 60 GHz WIGIG devices by 2020 and that this created the equipment supply ecosystem for enabling high mmwave 5G deployments above 66 GHz. He said it would make sense for the Commission to look at a quick win which would be to Memorandum 5G: Building the European Digital Society 5
identify high mm wave bands above 66 GHz, where 15 GHz of spectrum is available for 5G, as something immediately available for European regulators to legislate and encourage European industry to move forward. This would be a different direction to what Japan, Korea, China and the US are doing, where the vendor push has focused on the lower mm wave bands. He indicated that it was extremely likely that future 5G devices will employ multiple radios supporting various 3G/4G/5G frequency bands below 3.8 GHz and above 31 GHz with additional radios to support WIFI and WIGIG access to support data offload in indoor or near indoor environments; this scenario he believed would be the most economically effective way to achieve 5G service roll-out in Europe in the earliest market relevant timeframe. Sofie Pollin Professor, ESAT - Department of Electrical Engineering, KU Leuven The focus of Ms Pollin s presentation was whether 5G is going to be as disruptive as expected, or less. She remarked that network traffic is growing at a rate of 38% every year. This has been made possible by increased spectrum utilisation, through increasing the link capacity and adding more bands. The greatest gain (1600x) is by densifying the network. However, it has been postulated that densification will be the death of 5G due to too much interference and mobility constraints. Fortunately, in Europe a technology was announced to save 5G: massive MIMO, which is a prime candidate to improve spectral efficiency at 700 MHz or even 3.4 GHz. Memorandum 5G: Building the European Digital Society 6
She explained how it works and how it improves spectral efficiency by 20 times. The big advantage is that more cells are not needed; just more antennae at the base station. Ms Pollin proposed three flavours of 5G: for coverage and capacity (operators), for indoor capacity (building owners) and for massive and critical applications (thin operators). She believes that mm wave could be the prime use for indoor capacity, where trials are necessary. Finally she asked should 5G be designed for the killer app or for ultimate flexibility? This depends on what is considered a good trade-off between performance and flexibility for 5G. She believes that the rainbow of requirements for 5G cannot be served with a single technology. Kamila Kloc Deputy Head of Cabinet of Vice-President Andrus Ansip, European Commission Ms Kloc presented the European approach to 5G. The European Commission s 5G Action Plan is part of a bigger approach to connectivity within the comprehensive 14 September telecom review package. The 5G Action Plan is based around new market potential, new usages and actors, technology maturity, acceleration of the 5G agenda, and learning lessons from the fragmentation of the rollout of 4G. The European approach looks at three different but combined aspects of the technology: enhanced mobile broadband, massive-machine type communication, and ultra-reliable and low latency communication. Memorandum 5G: Building the European Digital Society 7
The single market approach is in three phases: an early 5G launch in selected areas in 2018; the commercial launch of 5G services in at least one major city in all Member States by 2020; and 5G in all urban areas and along the main transport paths by 2025. Ms Kloc said that the European strategy is based on coordination with a quasi-simultaneous launch throughout the single market, followed by aggressive rollout with a geographical and sectorial focus. Ms Kloc rounded up her presentation by emphasising the importance of very dense cellular coverage, superfast fibre backhauling, vertical industry driven connectivity services, and new digital innovation ecosystems. Open discussion Mr Serentschy asked whether 5G is an evolution or revolution. Mr Boni said that the gigabit society is a revolution as it will change many sectors in the global economy, the education modulus, healthcare, driving habits and consumer activities. However, the implementation should be an evolution. Ms Kloc added that for this step-by-step implementation to work in practice, Member States have to act together and allocate the frequencies at the same time, so that everyone has the possibility to benefit from 5G simultaneously and not selectively. On this topic, a delegate expressed concern that the 5G Action Plan might widen the digital gap, and lead to a huge discrepancy between urban and rural areas. Ms Kloc said that the 5G Action Plan is a specific instrument for operators and industry to work together, but other rules have been laid down to ensure the vision of connectivity for all. Moreover, in regard to the code, she said that a goal is to provide affordability of the basic internet for all, Memorandum 5G: Building the European Digital Society 8
and that there are also certain provisions in the code to make sure that the investment into future networks, either mobile or fixed, are facilitated by the regulations. Mr Boni added that an additional dimension concerns people s skill levels, and here there is also a generational gap. To achieve the 5G objectives, he said that educational activities need to be promoted in all Member States. Mr Singarajah said that when providing connectivity to rural or suburban areas, the opportunity should be provided to mix technologies. He gave examples: fibre or cable plus WiFi/WIGIG; mobile or fixed wireless broadband plus WIFI/WIGIG; satellite plus wireless Local Access Networks (3G/4G/WIGI/WIGIG). He said that a number of different options are open. He pointed out that in the US, Ka-band satellite broadband is greatly used in suburban areas and not only in rural areas; he thinks that a similar opportunity exists for consumers in Europe. A delegate asked whether there are any specific barriers to the development of Massive MIMO. Ms Pollin said that it is proven technology, and the only fundamental barrier is that more antennae are needed, and there is a reluctance to add antennae to base stations or make the base stations larger. She remarked that work therefore needs to be done to make the antennae smaller and less visible. Memorandum 5G: Building the European Digital Society 9
Of concern from the floor was the development of 5G special services in regard to net neutrality and open internet rules. Dr Hardouin pointed out that a European regulation currently addresses this and aims to preserve the open internet rules while allowing operators to deploy the services that meet their customers requirements. However, he said that there is a need for national regulation authorities to implement those rules in a clear way to allow operators to benefit from this regulation. Furthermore, he remarked that all service providers should play by the same rules: currently in the regulation there are distinctions between operators and the pure internet players, which should be addressed. Mr Boni pointed out that under 5G there will be more space for many services at the same time, which will mean looking at net neutrality from a different point of view than is currently the case. A delegate corrected the misconception that connectivity is needed for autonomous cars; it isn t at all. Connectivity in vehicles is needed for real-time data transfer, for example for traffic applications, or for Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS). Sponsored by: Memorandum 5G: Building the European Digital Society 10