Tag: smart building

5G Infrastructure Pillers for Network Densification

5G race has already started. There is talk of USA vs Pacific (China / Japan / S. Korea) competition for this race. What is needed to deploy 5G quickly to win the race?

Until now, Mobile Operators have grown their network independently. All USA Mobile Operators have their own assets for end-to-end solution with very little network sharing or roaming using other MNO’s network within USA. Given the Network densification requirements, this deployment model is not scale-able.

Cost of network densification is huge and not supported by business case of new revenue generation potential as of now. Given this situation, what are the best 5G Infrastructure Pillers for Densification? I have presented my ideas in this article to start a public debate / discussion for public-private partnership that will help in 5G network densification at a reasonable cost.

Pubic Private Partnership

Several key Public Private Partnership (PPP) 5G infrastructure initiatives can be created to help in 5G network densification. Examples are:

Fiber in the ground

In my view, this is a national strategic asset in which US federal / state governments invest to create digital highways much like physical highways system. This digital asset should be available at very reasonable cost to all stakeholders as part of OPEN Digital Highway Access mechanisms.

Fiber infrastructure is a “shared” strategic asset which can be offered to private partners and operators at very low cost with equal, fair, easy access rules without much bureaucracy involved in getting access. This can be called as “building strategic national asset initiative”. Some of this nation-wide IP-network capacity can also be used for defense, public-safety, rural, Smart City and Government IP-network requirements.

Street Furniture access

It is not feasible to develop separate street furniture locations for each operators with independent fiber infrastructure for each of them. One operator with leadership in Street Furniture access or bigger fiber infrastructure will create “unfair long-term advantage” for that specific Operator and erode revenue opportunities for other operators or smaller ISPs.

There is a need to create fair and equal access rule to Government and street assets that encourage network sharing. Creating separate street furniture access for each operator is not a scale-able and economically feasible option. So, fair and equitable rules for shared site access of street furniture managed by Govt / state / city administration at break-even cost is needed.

Three Pillers of 5G

Create regulatory policy and private-public partnership for deployment of following three pillers of 5G infrastructure building blocks:

  • Smart Building

Every building can have multi-MNO neutral-host and private 5G network deployment build on 5G network architecture principles of virtualization, Hardware-software separation, Network-slicing to ensure low cost in-building solution development and operational models.

  • Smart City

5G plays a key role in building Smart City Infrastructure. Develop new regulatory policies with new investments in Retail, Roads, Utiliities, Public-safety and city-level applications that can be replicated across many cities in a consistent manner.

  • Smart Transport

    Smart Transport 5G deployment and operational models must be developed with an objective of 5-year execution plan using Public-Private Partnership investment models. Every car, truck and public vehicle can deploy a 5G hotspot or relay devices for public / private network access, connected car applications and eventually autonomous applications as a long term plan.

Conclusion

These three 5G deployment pillers with Public Private Partnership will create GDP growth that is projected from 5G investments. Without concrete action plan for 5G investments to create GDP growth, this potential will not be achieved.

Private ownership should be encourages where-ever possible. However, fair and equitable Physical Resources access policy is needed to make sure that unfair advantage is not created for a specific operator via long-term agreements of exclusive use for any public physical resource.

5G business opportunity for Cable Industry

After Verizon launch of 5G Home Connect product, Cable Industry has come under direct competition in their monopolistic ISP market of providing internet services to Home and small businesses. Cable industry needs to create their own 5G product roadmap to counter MNO threat of taking over in-building internet services business.

Mobile Operator’s interest in Home Connect solution is not new. Back in 2G days, Mobile Operators has deployed wireless local loop solution to offer in-building telephony services. Now, with access to mid-band and high-band frequencies and new technology of MIMO and beam-forming, Mobile Operators have the opportunity to offer in-building ISP services and integrate in-building wireless solution as part of their broader out-door network and grow their network coverage in-building. Value-added edge services can be created after substantial foot-print of in-door home-connect customer base is created. Without Cable industry investments, Mobile Operators are all set to eat Cable industry’s lunch and make them disappear or redundant. It is kind of do or die situation for Cable Industry.

5G is a wake-up call and golden opportunity for Cable Industry to “finally” create a business growth opportunity which is much more than acting as a simple ISP with flat ARPU. 5G is a transformation technology for in-building services and applications.

Smart Building

Every building can have multi-MNO neutral-host and private 5G network deployment build on 5G network architecture principles of virtualization, Hardware-software separation, Network-slicing to ensure low cost in-building solution development and operational models.

Smart In-building structures is one of three main pillers of 5G infrastructure (refer my article on 5G). Cable Industry needs to take proactive and bold steps to invest in this opportunity.

In-Building Network Standardization

In-door Wireless coverage is becoming critical services much like electricity and water. Without good wireless network coverage, it is hard for building owner to find tenants. Wireless Network availability inside building requires considerable planning, design and deployment in the same way as plumbing or electrical design planning is done for in-building services. There is a need for “network design” engineers to create in-building wireless and network implementation plan and this needs to become part of building code and green building initiatives.

Conclusion

Mobilestack Inc has the expertise to help Cable Industry in development of 5G product roadmap and development of in-building network standardization efforts. We invite industry stakeholders to connect with Mobilestack Inc and make in-bulding 5G deployment work for Cable Industry advantage and offer new revenue-generating services that are much needed for in-bulding 5G network deployment. Failure to execute on this opportunity is not an option.

5G Products from Mobilestack Inc

Mobilestack 5G Products using future-proof Hardware

Introduction

Future Proof 5G products are needed to reduce network cost with faster upgradability.  Hardware-Software separation provides cost efficient 4G/5G Network Equipment cost model that is desperately needed to reduce “total cost of ownership” for deploying 4G / 5G service. Mobilestack Inc provide 5G RAN software running on future-proof radio-network hardware.

RAN Hardware – Software separation

Given that MNOs margins are getting squeezed, Mobilestack wants to give complete ownership and independence to MNOs for RAN Hardware that is based on open hardware standards similar to “Open Compute Project” from facebook which help reduce cost of datacenter hardware by 50%. As of now, XRAN is considered to be the main focus for OPEN-RAN strategy.  However, I doubt that XRAN option is a good one because same vendor solution at BBU (RAN Base-Band Unit)  and RRU (RAN Remote UNIT) will always perform better.  No incumbent RAN vendors (such as Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and other) want to give-up control on RAN-HW. If MNOs want to change the direction of this industry then they need to spend in new RAN startups like Mobilestack who are committed to support this architecture as part of their core mission and product strategy.

In my view, it is time to place bets on RAN Hardware Neutrality.  If we fail to adopt this strategy in 5G then it may be too late to do it in the future.  Mobilestack is not a hardware company, but we are willing to work with MNOs as a consultant to help them define this future and build open RAN HW ecosystem.

Small Cell 

Small cell is a major part of Network densification.  50% to 70% of small cell CAPEX is in “installation”. As number of small cells grows to millions in a network deployment, small cell hardware replacement is simply not an option.  This is the problem that we need to solve. The solution is to use future proof small cell “commodity” hardware that allows in-field upgrade from 4G to 5G. Commodity HW is the key differentiator here to create a very low cost small cell solution.

Use of future-proof hardware for small cell is business critical. Given that small cell is going to be deployed in millions of locations, hardware replacement cost will be huge and roll-out of new features requiring hardware upgrade will be extremely slow.

Relay Cell

5G relay cells are going to be deployed much like Verizon 5G service today which provide WiFi / 4G LTE inside the building or as local network and use 5G link to the macro / micro / small cell as backhaul.

Use of commodity RAN HW is business critical for this use-case as well. Today, Verizon has used “proprietary HW” with a critical need to upgrade when 3GPP compliant 5G Relay cell is available. Now, consider huge cost of this hardware replacement for Verizon which can be avoided if future-proof Relay-Cell hardware is used with customer replaceable parts for custom hardware if required.

Private LTE Network

Private LTE network create local private LTE network which can be used in many different vertical market use-cases in which “network delay and network coverage” is a huge consideration such as Hospitals, Hotels, Convention centers, Airports, Ports, Industrial complex or Oil & Gas markets.

Again, in these markets, use of commodity hardware and being able to use same hardware for future wireless upgrades will reduce “total cost of ownership” and encourage adoption. Mobilestack Inc is targeting these markets and invite customers to engage with us for trial / PoC demos.

Critical LTE Network

In recent CA fires and other natural disasters such as Puerto Rico,  restoration of Wireless Network is “mission critical” for public safety services and rescue operations.  Every second counts in these restoration efforts to provide help where it is needed and identify / locate people that need help.

This best option in these situations is to provide a portable LTE-solution that can be mounted on public safety vehicles / backpacks (such as fire trucks, Ambulances, FEMA resources) that can be connected to serve any operator's mobile phone / SIM-card.

Mobilestack Inc has developed a portable 3G/LTE-network solution (future upgradable to support 5G as well) to serve these critical needs. We invite customers to contact us for a trial / PoC demo.

Mobilestack Products

MobileStack Product Chart

Mobilestack Inc is creating 5G Products with focus on Hardware-Software separation and use commodity hardware to build 5G products and services. With main focus on Hardware-Software separation is the core differentiation for Mobilestack 5G products.

Customers from many vertical markets can leverage Mobilestack Inc products. We invite customer to contact us for details of our products and services with a trial, PoC as a start.

Demo Architecture

Our demo setup architecture is described in a diagram below:

 

Figure – Demo-Setup

Current Mobilestack Inc effort and prototype demo is available on YouTube at:

This demo proves feasibility of creating a future-proof radio-network solution. Instead of PC, for higher capacity requirements, Open Compute Platform (OCP) hardware can be used to run multiple instances of BBU. Intel is also creating Network Edge Virtualization (NEV) platform which is also a candidate hardware platform of higher capacity vBBU solution.