5G connected car concept launches in Turin
The City of Turin yesterday hosted a live trial of a 5G connected car which allows for near-real-time notifications of roadway hazards through 5G-Edge networks.
The trial is one of a series conducted internationally and is organised by the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA) and eight member companies.
Telecom Italia is one of the companies contributing to facilitate the trial. Its VP for innovation, standard and portfolio Daniele Franceschini said: “As TIM, we are honoured to be hosting in Turin such a challenging trial by leveraging our Innovation Lab competencies and our pre-commercial instances of Edge Cloud.
“The federation model implemented with our partners enables a ‘continuum’ between Edge Cloud instances allowing players from the automotive industry and beyond to benefit from a seamless cloud experience across country boundaries.”
Nokia teams with KDDI to drive 5G SA transition
Nokia has announced that Japanese operator KDDI has selected its 5G Core and converged charging software to support its 5G Core architecture transition.
The 5G Core architecture will give KDDI greater scale and reliability according to Nokia and it will also enable capabilities such as network slicing.
The partnership will also allow KDDI to monetise new opportunities within the 5G economy including offering network slicing and its network as a service offering, IoT and new business models for B2B2X services and other new 5G network functions.
John Lancaster-Lennox, head of the market unit Japan at Nokia, said: “We look forward to expanding our 25-year relationship with KDDI with the deployment of our standalone 5G Core solutions.
“With crucial monetisation and operations functions, such as network slicing, KDDI will unlock key revenue opportunities and benefit from increased operational efficiencies as well.”
DoCoMo and NEC test 5G SA
NTT DoCoMo and NEC have successfully tested 5G standalone (SA) using a 5G base station baseband unit that conforms to the OpenRAN interface and radio units of different vendors.
The multi-vendor interoperability test used a software upgrade to introduce SA capability to NEC’s NSA CU/DU which operates on DoCoMo’s commercial network.
Going forward, the two companies will aim to introduce the 5G CU/DU for DoCoMo’s SA services to further expand its 5G services.
The SA system allows network operators to provide services that take advantage of 5G features such as eMBB (enhanced Mobile Broadband), mMTC (massive Machine Type Communication), and URLLC (Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications).
EU tech groups warned to provide enough spectrum for next-gen
EU tech groups must provide enough spectrum for next-generation WiFi technologies according to a letter sent today to European Commissioners.
Organisations representing a wide range of sectors from satellite operators to virtual reality companies agreed that failure to make the upper band spectrum available could see Europe falling behind North American and Asian rivals.
The group calls on EU policymakers to consider enabling the role of WiFi and satellite tech as they reflect on priority actions for the EU Digital Decade Policy Programme.
“The digital transformation of the whole European society will rely on Wi-Fi connectivity,” said Martha Suarez, president of Dynamic Spectrum Alliance, who signed the letter.
“It provides the most effective connectivity for our homes and offices and will support the wireless extension of fibre networks.”
“Innovations such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) will rely on enhanced Wi-Fi connectivity. Solving the rural connectivity gap will also rely on a combination of fibre, satellite, affordable fixed wireless access and Wi-Fi technologies.”
Infovista announces first machine learning-based standard for 5G voice quality testing
Infovista has today announced that its sQLEAR machine learning-based algorithm has been approved by the ITY for QoE testing of mobile all-IP voice services.
The sQLEAR algorithm is the world’s first ML-based standard for voice quality modelling and uses machine learning to provide mobile operators with a real-time view of the voice quality being delivered through 4G and 5G networks.
The service will save operators time and money by optimising their networks for all, rather than for specific devices and will quickly identify any network-based issues without interference from device characteristics.
Dr Irina Cotanis, technology director of network testing at Infovista said: “Launching new voice services over 5G New Radio (VoNR) while maintaining the voice service quality and growing voice revenue through VoLTE expansion with minimized CAPEX/OPEX, is one of today’s key concerns for mobile network operators.
“With the GSA now reporting over 1,100 5G announced devices globally, it is no longer practical or financially viable to test every individual device for its voice quality.
Furthermore, mobile all-IP-based voice, as well as the 5G New Radio, bring new complexities and interdependencies that require a fundamentally new approach to make voice testing effective and efficient.”
