Small cells improve indoor and outdoor network coverage

·       Small cells have emerged as a promising option to ensure ubiquitous indoor and outdoor connectivity.

·       They are low powered radio access nodes with a network range of 10 meters to 2km and can work on both licensed and unlicensed spectrum.

·           These cells have all the basic characteristics of a conventional base station and are capable of handling high volumes of data traffic.

·     Small cells offer several advantages over macrocells such as improved network coverage, increased capacity in densely populated urban areas and extended the battery life of handsets.

·       Key factors driving small cell demand

·       As per industry estimates, the global small cells market is expected to grow from $12.5 billion in 2017 to $58.7 billion in 2024.

·       The key demand drivers for small cells are:

o   Increasing need for seamless indoor connectivity

o   Increasing adoption of outdoor small cells

o   Surging demand for smartphones and wireless devices

o   Proliferation of IoT and M2M communication

o    

o   Enabling role in 5G roll-out

§  The small cell 5G network market size  is expected to increase from $528 million in 2019 to $3,509 million by 2025 at a compound annual growth rate of 37.1%

§  However at a later stage of 5G deployment post-2021 the adoption of small cell network for mmWave is expected to increase with the adoption of IoT and M2M communication.

·       Operator initiatives in India

o   Vodafone Idea  Ltd has partnered with Nokia to roll out its next-generation LTE network across multiple service areas.

o   Under this agreement Nokia will deploy small cells and roll out single radio access network (RAN) and massive multiple inputs multiple output technology for the operator

o   Bharti Airtel too is investing in small cells to improve network coverage in cities.

o   In order to create a hyper-dense network for 5G, small cells will need to be deployed at every 200-250 meters on-street infrastructure such as electricity poles, streets lights, metro pillars, rooftops of public buildings and traditional macro towers.

o   The increasing uptake of in-building solution, particularly small cells has given an opportunity to tower companies to diversify their business operations from pure-play tower services to managed services.

Issues and Challenges

·           Backhaul development

·       The most promising solutions for meeting backhaul requirements for small cell deployments are mmWave technologies including E-band(70-80 GHz) and V band (60GHz)

·    E-band is suitable for high density and high capacity wireless backhaul applications and is ideal for small cell links of 300-500 meters.

Smart Factory- Industry 4.0
Three important elements
1. Communication with each other modules
2. Information on each workpiece
3. Self Organization of modules


Industry 4.0------ MAN MATERIAl and MACHINE is interconnected over internet

5G offers three key things

1. eMBB(enhanced mobile broadband)
2. mMTC(massive machine type communication) connectivity for billions of devices
3. URLLC(ultra-reliable low latency communication) eg autonomous driving, remote surgery, cloud robotics for industry 4.0

Utility tunnels – Examples from around the world

Japan – Shin Sugita duct in Yokohama, Japan is 220Km long common utility duct that has been designed to carry many different kinds of utility lines, including gas, electricity, water, sewage and other types of infrastructure that are indispensable to citizens’ daily lives. Once a common utility duct has been constructed, it is no longer necessary to excavate the street every time something has to be replaced. Furthermore, if an earthquake or other major disaster occurs, the damage can be quickly pinpointed and repaired.

Singapore - Singapore has developed a common services tunnel in the Marina Bay area. This is Southeast Asia’s first multi-utility tunnel.

Germany – Breman has utility networks housed in a cluster of pipes that are located under footways and cycleways.

Taiwan – Taipei has developed 50km of utility tunnels and over 300 km of smaller utility ducts. This allows maintenance to be done without digging up roads, which, in turn, reduces traffic congestion.

Market Update for Connected Cars

·       Revenues from connected cars are projected to grow fivefold, reaching over $35 billion by 2025

·       The US and Europe together accounted for the majority of connected car shipments in 2018

·       China is expected to develop into a key connected car market, accounting for almost one –fourth of global shipments by 2025

Budget Blues

·       The USO Fund is an independent body within the Department of Telecommunications DoT that subsides telecom infrastructure development.

·       As per the estimates in the budget, the government expects a 28% increase in non –auction revenue from the telecom sector at Rs. 505.19 billion during 2019-20, compared to a revenue of Rs 392.45 billion during the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019

Smart Transportation

·       Mobile the app is provided for commuters to get the latest information on trains, fares and all facilities provided by BMRCL

·       Planning to introduce a national common mobility card (NCMC)- based AFC system. This will be a Rupay – based smart card system based on the one nation, one card concept

·       

   Effect of Tenancy on Telecom Mergers

    Indus Towers- Bharti Infratel merger, expected to be completed by late 2019, is set to create the world second-largest mobile tower operator, with over 163,000 towers and 36% tower market share in India.

·       The consolidation wave has reduced the number of players to about 5 as of 2019, from around 15 players in 2012.

·       For instance, the recent merger of Vodafone and Idea has resulted in over 557,000 tenancy losses.

·       A further reduction of about 21,000 tenancies is expected in the first half of fiscal 2020.

·       For instance, last year, Vodafone and Idea sold around 20,000 stands alone towers to American Tower Corporation (ATC) for Rs 78 billion.

·       Recently, ATC has acquired Tata Teleservices Limited’s residual stake of around 13% in ATC Telecom Infrastructure for Rs 25 billion.

·       Post merger, Vodafone Idea has the option to sell its 11.15% stake in Indus, which has an implied value of Rs 62 billion in cash at completion.

Sim on Wheels

Telcos tap the connected cars opportunity

·      Telcos play a critical role in the connected car ecosystem as modern cars use e-Sims and Wi-Fi hotspots to communicate with other connected vehicles and IoT devices.

·       IoT technology lies at the heart of the connected cars.

·     Industry is witnessing the emergence of Connected Car 2.0, wherein vehicle-to-everything (V2X) tech. will make it possible for vehicles to communicate with smart traffic signals and even to conduct a transaction at a petrol pump.

·       The connected car segment, one of the fastest-growing application areas of IoT is estimated to generate $40 billion (Euro 36.2 billion) worth of revenues per the year 2020 onwards.

·       US-based AT&T has partnered with car companies such as Audi, Chevrolet, Honda, Ford, Acura, Jaguar, Prsche, and Cadillac to offer in car Wi-Fi services.

·       The in-car, Wi-Fi feature turns the user's car into a powerful hotspot and allows connectivity of up to 10 devices.

·       Using this hotspot several users can stream, browse and share on the go, experiencing 4G long term evolution of wireless connectivity.

·       Vodafone is currently working with more than 70% of European original equipment manufacturers, notably BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, and Daimler.

·       Stolen vehicle recovery is an additional end to end service offered by Vodafone.

·       In Aug 2014, Vodafone acquired Cobra, later consolidated as Vodafone Automotive, which provides a range of end to end services including usage based insurance and a secure operating center for stolen vehicle tracking, vehicle recovery and crash reconstruction

·       Meanwhile, Bosch, Vodafone, and Huawei have been performing trials of the new, high-performance Cellular-V2X tech. in Europe since 2017.

·       The companies are demonstrating that a driver assistance system such as adaptive cruise control not only warns the driver but also automatically adjusts the speed and controls braking.

·       Volvo Car Group has partnered with Ericsson to use the later industrialized Connected Vehicle Cloud (CVC) platform to further expand its digital vehicle services to more than 120 markets worldwide.

·        In India, Hyundai has recently showcased the connected SUV Venue, which is equipped with an inbuilt tamper-proof device powered by Vodafone Idea’s e-SIM.

·       The SUV sports Blue Link, Hyundai’s global technology to be launched in the Indian market with 33 features including 10 India- specific features.

·       In April 2019, a customized solution developed by Unlimit in partnership with Cisco and Airtel powered the connected experience in MG Hector.

·       The connected mobility solution is also Intel Protocol Version 6 ready, making it the first e-SIM enabled internet car in India which will redefine connected mobility.

·       In 2017, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited signed a contract with Airwaire Tech. to offer the latter connected car IoT devices to Indian customers.

·       Under this partnership, AirWire Connected Car devices will be manufactured in India.

Spectrum Auction

5G

·        In a meeting of the Digital communications Commission held on June 13,2019 it was decided that the DoT will ask Trai to reconsider its recommendations on spectrum auctions, including pricing and quantum of airwaves

·        On 5G trials, the DCC has agreed on single window clearance for auctions for conducting 5G trials for a period of 1 year with a provision for extension.

·        DoT is in the process of drafting the notice inviting applications or the bidding the document, which could be issued in October 2019 for spectrum auction likely to be held in Dec 2019.

·        Phone companies want the govt. to auction spectrum in the 26 GHz and 28 GHz bands for 5G services in the upcoming sale, and suggested that the DoT urgently seek the sector regulator’s views on pricing these premium airwaves.

·         India must emulate US, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong, who have already auctioned 28GHz spectrum and started deployments without waiting for the International Telecom Union to identify the band, given the increasing ecosystem around this millimeter wave spectrum.

·        However, presently both the 26 GHz and 28 GHz bands are being used for delivery of fixed satellite services by Indian Space Research Organization

·        The auction is expected to be India’s largest so far, with 8,293.95 MHz of airwaves at an estimated total base price of Rs. 5.77 lakh crore expected to go under the hammer

·        India as at least a year behind compared to many other nations where the 5G rollout has already started.

·        Ericsson and SoftBank initiated joint proof of concept activities in 2015 and have successfully expanded their collaboration to include 5G testing of multi-bands, including 28GHz and 4.5 GHz

·        On June 4, 2019 Nokia confirmed that it had inked 42 commercial 5G deals with operators around the world, including T-Mobile and Telia Company.

Hotspots for AII

Public Wi-Fi could provide ubiquitous broadband access

·        An ICRIER-BIF study pegs the internet’s contribution to India GDP at about 16% or $534 billion by 2020.

·        As per an Analysys Mason Report on public Wi-Fi released in July 2018, India’s GDP could increase by over $20 billion between 2017 and 2019, largely due to public Wi-Fi.

·        The National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP), 2018 has set ambitious targets for public Wi-Fi hotspots both in cities/metros as well as in rural areas under the Connect India mission.

·        It has  set a target of 5 million public Wi-Fi hotspots by 2020 and 10 million by 2022.

·        For this 2 initiatives have been proposed

o   NagarNet – for establishing 1 million hotspots in urban areas;

o   JanWiFi – for establishing 2 million hotspots in rural areas.

·        The Department of Telecommunications gazette notification to delicense 605MHz of the 5GHz band in line with developed economies such as the US, the UK and korea is a welcome step. Earlier only 50 Mhz was allotted.

·        It will increase the availability of unlicensed spectrum for public Wi-Fi by almost 6 times.

·        The new government recent plans to launch a network of interoperable 500,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots are laudable.

Role of AI in NFV ?

The aim of AI driven autonomous networks is to create a self driving network model with 3 features: agile devices, intelligent control and intelligent analysis

Developing a self-driving network is a long term process that we have divided into 5 phases.

1- AI knows “what happened”

2- AI can determine “why it happened”

3-AI can predict “what will happen”

4- AI judges” what measures need to be taken”

5- Full automation enables self-healing.

Surge in SDN and NFV deployments globally

According to a report by Global Market Insights, the SDN market is expected to grow from around $8 billion in 2018 to $100 billion by 2025.

Hack alert

·       According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), India is one of the most vulnerable countries with regard to cyber attacks.

·       The primary factors responsible for the increased risk to critical digital infrastructure is wider adoption of the internet, smartphones and other connected devices, growing digital interconnectivity across sectors and lack of awareness.

·       Among 60 countries, India is ranked 15^th in terms of cybersecurity.

·       Nearly 39% of these alerts remain unattended due to the lack of required skill sets according to a report by Cisco Systems.

·       In July 2018, an ATM scam was reported in Kolkata, which resulted in losses of over Rs 2 million, affecting more than 75 people.

·       In August 2018, criminals were accused of making fraudulent bank transfers by stealing SIM card information.

·       In the same month, Pune-headquartered Cosmos Bank lost nearly$13.5 million when anonymous hackers stole customer information by installing malware on the firm’s ATM server, and then conducted globally coordinated withdrawals in 28 countries.

·       The bank lost another $2 million when hackers made three unauthorized transfers to a Hong Kong-based company’s account.

·       Aadhar has also fallen prey to multiple breaches.

·       Further, since the digitalization of govt. operations, around 700 hacks into the state and central govt. websites have been reported in the LokSabha.

·       Government measures:

·       3 ways to secure national cyberspace

·       In 2008, Govt. enacted Information Technology(Amendment) Act, 2008—to cater to the cybersecurity needs of the country.

·       In 2013, the Govt. announced the National Cyber Security Policy with the aim of integrating all cybersecurity initiatives and tackling cybercrime.

oT will add $10 to $15 trillion to global GDP in the next 20 years.

           Software defined networking (SDN) and its  complementary technology network functions virtualization (NFV) are helping enterprises globally in improving the agility, automation capability, flexibility and interoperability of their network designs.

·       SDN helps create a virtualized network overlay, which allows the underlying network to quickly respond to network changes and forward traffic efficiently.

·             NFV allows the transition of traditional network functions such as load balancers, firewalls, subscriber policy management, and mobile radio access network from a physical hardware set up to a virtual network.

·           SDN and NFV deployments have started altering operational and service dynamics for telecom operators across the world.

·            Operators are increasingly using SDN an NFV to manage and provision network services from a centralized location, thereby enabling faster and cost-efficient delivery of on-demand applications with minimal disruption.

·       Besides, the bandwidth flexibility, programmability and automation capabilities of SDN and NFV are helping service providers monetize their range of services linked to the internet of things (IoT) and cloud infrastructure.

·                   The global SDN market is expected to grow from $8.8 billion in 2018 to $28.9 billion by 2023, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.8%.

·          As per industry estimates, the size of the NFV market will reach $70 billion by 2024 driven by the growing adoption of mobility.

·              At present Bharti Airtel is using SDN/NFV to offer music and on-demand video services.

·              Vodafone Idea Limited is also running trials of SDN and NFV and plans to soon deploy these technologies commercially.

·       Enabling role of SDN and NFV in 5G roll-outs

·            SDN and NFV are expected to accelerate 5G deployment by addressing the major functional needs of 5G networks.

·        SDN and NFV will also help operators scale easily to support 5G expansion and configure their networks to allow seamless interaction among different services inside the core network.

·             NFV will play a critical role in the deployment of 5G services on the third party hosting infrastructures.

·         Meanwhile, SDN can be used to provide an overall framework to enable 5G to function across a normalized control plane.

·           Over the past 2 to 3 years wide-area network (SD-WAN) has emerged as the most popular application of SDN technology.

·       Key Challenges

·     For one until the migration to all virtual networks is completed, enterprises and services providers will have to deal with a combination of legacy networks and new virtualized networks to manage a multivendor environment

·  Further an enterprise cannot fully leverage SDN and NFV unless its operations support systems and business support systems are aligned with the new technologies.

·   On the technology front the lack of mature technology, consensus on multiple open source standardization initiatives and proven business cases also pose significant challenges.

5G Testing

It will bring a paradigm shift towards a user and application centric technology framework to support 3 key use cases:

1.) Enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) supporting the ever-increasing end-user data rate and system capacity

2.) Massive machine type communications (mMTC) ensuring cost efficient and robust connectivity among billions of devices without overloading the network.

3.) Ultra – reliable low latency communication (URLLC) that supports the new needs of vertical industries like autonomous driving, remote surgery for eHealth and cloud robotics for Industry 4.0

                   

·       Therefore to get 5G equipment to market quickly, efficiently and economically, T&M vendors will have to work closely with top-tier equipments makers and the standards authorities to resolve technical challenges and provide T&M solutions that are fil for purpose and have a low cost of ownership.

·       5G Testing Scenario

·       Since both 4G and 5G technologies are based on OFDM, the existing equipment for 4G can often be upgraded , in some cases just with software to make them suitable for 5G.

·       This is the case with signal generators, and spectrum and signal analysers manufactured by leading T&M equipment vendors.

·       In other cases hardware evolution is required.

·       This is the case for eg. Vector network analysers, which are required to have multiport test capabilities to support massive multiple input, multiple output MIMO

Apple

Looking for a larger slice of the Indian Smartphone market

·       Apple forayed into the Indian mobile handset market in 2008 with its iPhone 3G smartphone.

·       According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s India sales increased from $100 million in 2011 to $1 billion by 2015

·       On the basis of this growth the company had set a goal of taking sales in the country to $5 billion by 2020.

·       As of 2018, Apple has achieved only $1.8 billion in India revenues.

·       According to Canalys, Apple market share in India has reduced from 2 % in 2017 to around 1% in 2018.

Underwater Wireless Communication 

It is possible for radio frequency waves to propagate longer distances through sea water at very low frequencies(30 to 300 Hz). But this requires larger antenna and higher transmit power. This is not feasible. Moreover very high attenuation occurs using RF wave propagation technique in the ocean.

Optical waves are also affected by scattering losses. Moreover they can be used for shorter distances in the ocean.

As underwater wireless communication is not feasible using radio frequency(RF) and optical light based communication systems, it is carried out using acoustic waves.

As mentioned in the table-1 below, underwater acoustic communication links are classified based on range. Table mentions bandwidths used for different ranges in this type of communication. Acoustic links used in underwater wireless communications are of two types viz. vertical and horizontal. This is based on direction of the sound ray. Acoustic frequencies from 10Hz to 1MHz are used in underwater wireless communication.

Link Type	Range in Km	Bandwidth in KHz
Very Long	1000	<1 td="">
Long	10 to 100	2 to 5
Medium	1 to 10	~ 10
Short	0.1 to 1	20 to 50
Very Short	<0 .1="" td="">	>100

Table-1: Acoustic communication range and bandwidth

There are two network topologies which can be used for underwater communication system viz. centralized and decentralized. In centralized architecture all the nodes(i.e. underwater(uw) sink) communicate using a central station(onshore sink or surface sink/station). Centralized architecture is very similar to cellular network architecture. In decentralized architecture, nodes communicate using their neighbors. Decentralized architecture is also known as adhoc network.

Underwater wireless communication network using acoustic waves

Figure-1 depicts centralized architecture of underwater communication system. As shown a group of sensor nodes are installed at the bottom of ocean. These nodes communicate with one or more underwater installed sinks(uw-sinks). These uw-sinks operate as relays between underwater nodes and surface station. As shown surface station communicates with surface sink and onshore sink using satellite links. Like land mobile communication, bottom area of ocean is divided into clusters. One uw-sink is installed or anchored in each of the clusters.

In order to achieve communication with both underwater nodes and also with surface station, uw-sink is equipped with two transceivers namely horizontal and vertical.

Horizontal transceiver provides communication between uw-sink and sensor nodes. Over these links commands/configuration data is sent from uw-sink to sensors. Moreover sensors collect the monitored data from uw-sink using these links. These horizontal transceivers are short range transceivers.

Vertical transceivers are used for long range communication between uw-sink and surface station as shown. These transceivers can cover distance of upto 10 km