Legacy generations of networks have predominately provided services with best-effort delivery. While this has worked for voice, text and best effort broadband services, end users are hampered with buffering, delays, and drops as the demand for feature-rich services continues to grow.
The 5G-era promises new...
It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention. But it should not mean intervention. Such is potentially the case with the proposed effort called Open RAN or O-RAN, which offers software solutions to telecommunication networks but shouldn’t be considered a panacea to relieve...
Business demands are changing rapidly and communications service providers (CSPs) are struggling keep pace. In order to manage keep on top of and manage the demands of their customers, CSPs require automation of service and network operations.
As we’re catapulted faster than expected into a...
Integrating 5G network technology and today’s digital healthcare technology will improve patients’ access to doctors, increase the availability of the latest healthcare technologies, improve patient outcomes, and increase the efficiency of healthcare delivery.
To improve patient access and patient outcomes, and accelerate the acquisition of...
The building of 5G networks across the globe was moving full-steam ahead until COVID-19 began wreaking havoc, triggering a worldwide economic slowdown. The immediate effects have been felt in virtually every industry, causing widespread layoffs and record unemployment, and severely curtailing consumer spending. As...
COVID-19 has caused a seismic shift in demand for internet capacity with millions of students suddenly shifting to various levels of remote learning – from primary schools to universities – at the same time that many of their parents are continuing to work from...
Before the world was interrupted by COVID-19 and swathes of the global population went into lockdown, 5G was at the top of mobile operators’ agendas. Some businesses reported 5G delays while others maintained that their deployments were on schedule. That’s hardly surprising. The coronavirus...
Enterprise IoT will play a key role in the 5G era, bringing with it multiple revenue and monetisation opportunities for operators. Research conducted by GSMA Intelligence has shown that 5G is set to contribute $2.2 trillion to the global economy over the next 14...
History
The DevOps movement inspired large, enterprise organizations with agile practices to allow developers to make quick changes, but it was very difficult to get full benefit, as their legacy development process was not designed for supporting short software development delivery cycles and frequent production...
The evolution to 5G is off to a strong start among communication service providers (CSPs) and momentum is building. As of March 2020, 84 CSPs have announced plans to launch 5G, and 57 have already done so, according to Omdia’s 1Q20 report. These announcements...
With the advent of 5G, mobile service providers (MSPs) have an estimated 50% bandwidth growth requirements, yet mobile/wireless is only about 10% of all global bandwidth. There conservatively needs to be a 2x growth in data capacity to support 5G, yet that currently linearly...
In recent months, the telecommunications industry has been abuzz with news about various initiatives related to Open RAN. Essentially, Open RAN refers to open and interoperable interfaces within and between the various subcomponents of the RAN: the radio, hardware, or baseband unit and software....
History
Most of the CAPEX required to build a wireless network is related to the RAN segment, reaching as high as 80% of the total network cost. Any reduction in the RAN equipment cost will significantly help the bottom line of wireless operators as they...
In my previous blog, I covered the promise and potential of network slicing. Another deployment use case which has seen tremendous interest and demand is the use of private networks. With the increasing digital connectivity of devices and equipment across different industry verticals and...
The recent health crisis has highlighted why it is important for communications service providers (CSPs) to be “digital first” in terms of how they operate. However, like the Warren Buffet expression of only when the tide goes out do we find out who has...
History
In 2G and 3G, the mobile architectures had controllers that were responsible for RAN orchestration and management. With 4G, overall network architecture became flatter and the expectation was that, to enable optimal subscriber experience, base stations would use the X2 interface to communicate with...
The first phase of 5G build-out is now well underway in major markets around the world. Increasingly, the big mobile service providers and some new entrants, as well, are in the midst of their first 5G deployments or will begin them this year. Mobile...
The majority of 5G networks that are available today are non-standalone (NSA), which means they leverage existing 4G infrastructure. This is partly why they are often framed in the media as a luxury rather than a necessity. These networks produce faster speeds and lower...
In my last blog, we briefly touched upon the advanced use cases that are possible in 5G. One such use case is Network Slicing. 5G cellular services should broadly support use cases including enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) and Massive Internet...
History
Software has been “eating the world” for a while now: from consumer, then enterprise and now the telecom value chains. Open RAN is a great example of how software is “eating” telco. What we have learned from the data center approach is that after...
5G Cloud Native Technology opens the door to a number of innovative and disruptive service offerings and operating models which create expanded business opportunities for Communication Service Providers (CSPs).
CSPs are exploring how to differentiate themselves in 5G while effectively monetizing new offerings for their...
Between the global shift to remote workforces and the requirements for 100 percent uptime for healthcare and emergency services, the COVID-19 pandemic is putting unprecedent strain on our networks. While no one could have possibly predicted this pandemic or its impact on every facet...
We left off in our series having looked at the virtualized and cloud-based open RAN. Now we move on to consider the orchestration part, deploying and managing these cloud-based implementations.
Orchestration, or service management and orchestration (SMO), has been used in the enterprise world for...
As if the health risks of COVID-19 weren’t enough, robocall scammers are seizing on the chaos and confusion to fleece Americans out of their personal information and money. Nearly 5,000 coronavirus-related scams have been reported to the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel Network through...
