  | Issue: | Europe II 2015 |
| Article no.: | 10 | |
| Topic: | The WWRF Vision 2020 | |
| Author: | Prof. Nigel Jefferies/ C. (Vino) Vinodrai | |
| Title: | Chairman, WWRF/ Telecommunication Consultant & Adjunct Faculty Member | |
| Organisation: | Huawei Technologies & Wireless World Research Forum / McMaster University | |
| PDF size: | 233KB |
About author
Prof. Nigel Jefferies, Huawei Technologies, Chairman Wireless World Research Forum
Nigel Jefferies is a senior standards manager with Huawei Technologies and Chairman of the Wireless World Research Forum, a global partnership between industry and academia to develop a research agenda for mobile communications. Previously he was Head of Academic Relationships within Vodafone Group Research & Development and a Principal Mathematician at Racal Research Ltd. In the past he led the European-funded IST project SHAMAN, which studied the security of future mobile systems, and ran the Secure Applications Steering Group for Mobile VCE. Other collaborative research projects on various aspects of security for mobile communications include 3GS3 in the UK-funded LINK programme, and ASPeCT and USECA in the European ACTS programme. His research interests include cryptography, security of systems and applications of mathematics to telecommunications. He received a PhD in functional analysis from Goldsmith’s College, London, and an MA in mathematics from the Queen’s College, Oxford. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and a Chartered Mathematician.
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C. (Vino) Vinodrai, Telecommunication Consultant and Adjunct Faculty Member, McMaster University.
Vino is one of Canada’s leading experts in the mobile radio industry with more than 35 years of experience ranging from spectrum engineering, standards development, new wireless services and satellite communication. He has for worked for Ontario Government and Bell Mobility and was Director of Bell University Laboratories responsible for research at various Canadian universities in wireline, wireless, internet and portals across Canada.
He is Adjunct Faculty Member, Dofasco Centre for Engineering and Public Policy, McMaster University.
He is Treasurer of Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF).
Vino represented BLACBERRY at International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU), Intellect and Ofcom, and Global Standards Forum from 2006 – 2011.
He is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO), European Engineer, and the Institute Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Vino obtained his degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of London, United Kingdom.
Article abstract
The key issues around the development of 5G technologies include the Internet of Things, spectrum management, data security, privacy, regulation and competition and new business operating models. This future will come from the coming together of technologies and applications on a range of infrastructures, from fibre-optics to wireless and satellites.
Full Article
Introduction
Recently there has been a lot of discussion about the requirements and technologies for what is now called ‘5G’. Part of this has built on the work of WWRF in developing its concept of the Wireless World 2020.
The Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF) is the unique forum where the wireless community – researchers, industry, and regulators – can tackle the key research challenges. By searching out the issues, flagging them up to opinion leaders, and then working with our liaison partners to deal with them, we drive the development of the Wireless World. WWRF organizes two major events each year combining inputs from industry and academic experts, the exchange of ideas and the evolution of the research agenda and technology roadmaps. The Wireless World Research Forum is the place where the global wireless research community meets to set the future research agenda.
The highlight for 2014 was the WWRF 5G Huddle in London in September, where nearly 200 key figures in the development of 5G came together to give a great overview of the current status of 5G in the UK and globally. WWRF has also run a number of successful workshops at international conferences on the 5G theme.
WWRF Vision
The WWRF Vision as first developed back in 2007 is:
7 trillion wireless devices serving 7 billion people by 2020
This implies an environment where
• All people will be served with wireless devices
• Affordable to purchase and operate
• Calm computing: Technology invisible to users
• Machine to machine communications
• All devices are part of the (mobile) Internet
As a guide and a challenge, this vision still holds true today when considering the global discussions that are taking place in various arenas. The conclusion is that 5G will provide essential support for the Internet of Things, enabling a huge number of connected devices to communicate.
During the 5G Huddle, a future scenario was elaborated where the Internet of Things (IoT) and people themselves would merge with new services from medical applications to smart energy, smart buildings, robots, autonomous driving vehicles and drones. This all emerged from two days of discussions among leading experts from government, industry and academia from Europe, North America and Asia.
The 5G Concept
5G will bring increased competition across sectors: mobile operators certainly have challenges from new entrants, but they also will have the opportunity to move into new business areas such as Internet of Things. Industries, such as the automobile sector, are already busy carving out a business from specialized IoT services and this can be expected to continue and grow.
The key issues around the development of 5G technologies include the Internet of Things, spectrum management, data security, privacy, regulation and competition and new business operating models. This future will come from the coming together of technologies and applications on a range of infrastructures, from fibre-optics to wireless and satellites.
An important element is that the Mobile Internet and the Internet of Things should be seen in a usage and user-driven landscape, where everything can be done via the Internet and people will enjoy its benefit, being always connected to the Internet without being conscious of it. There will be massive connectivity in a cost effective way and a service-oriented ecosystem will evolve to support better customer experience including an integrated system to dynamically meet customer requirements.
WWRF has been for past few years been presenting papers in various workshops on these themes. At ITU’s WP5D workshop held in Geneva January 2014, WWRF made a presentation titled “5G: on the count of three… … paradigm shifts”. The main message was that Radio Communications in 2020s will become pervasive. Pervasive Communication Systems will consist of a very large number of things or devices – often of small size and embedded in the environment and with computing and communication capabilities, which are able to
• interact with each other and with mobile users,
• dynamically form telecommunication networks,
• probe the environment in order to adapt and optimize the user’s quality of service
• process and transmit/receive large volumes of data, often under ultra-reliable/low-latency requirements.
It is clear that a new paradigm will be needed to support this. Some of this maybe
• Ultra-High Capacity: 1000 x existing 4G capacity
• Ultra-Low Latency: just a few milliseconds to get a response
• Ultra-Reliability: for traffic safety and health applications for instance
• Energy efficiency
• Flexible and fast deployment and service creation, using D2D (device to device communication), local caching and so on
• New spectrum and spectrum management approaches
• Virtualization across the network: ‘Everything as a Service’ (EaaS)
New business models that offer sustainability and profitability will be needed. The diagram below shows the challenge that we will face in 5G. How do we contain network cost in an environment where revenue that will not rise rapidly?
The Vision from the User’s Point of View
As we all develop our ideas and thoughts, it is important to remember to see what we are creating from the user’s point of view. What is already clear and emerging is that in future the (mobile) Internet will not be just a network of sites, and will start as a web of information.
The network technology is there to pave the way to information usage. After all the user needs this, not being interested in the technology but rather the knowledge that can be accessed.
In achieving this user vision, researchers, industry and regulators will have to bear in mind the need to
• Emphasize services and not just devices – Devices are going to be very cheap and various ecosystems will evolve; BUT customers will use services
• Ease the use of services and devices – Personalization and Adaptation needs to be taken into account. The key point is the user experience not the visibility of the technology
• Provide the necessary services at the right time and place, emphasizing roaming and service availability instead of connectivity, and realizing that user experience may sometimes work without connections. The end result should be that all users are able to take part in the mobile Internet by services
Network Architecture
There is a clear mover towards a common vision of a network architecture evolution that involves the integration of multiple radio technologies and the introduction of intelligence towards. This will lead to the creation of smart infrastructures in the 5G wireless world. In this respect, the Single Radio Controller (SRC) has been introduced as one of the concepts for enabling Multi-RAT (Radio Access Technology) networks and this will be further detailed in future conceptual architectures for Multi-RAT base stations (including second to fourth generation technologies such as GSM, UMTS and LTE), and WLAN access points (WiFi) as well. The User Equipment (UE) will be an integrated part of the network and any change in the network would affect the operation at the UE. As a UE can have detailed local information on channel conditions, user experience and user device status, it is in a unique position in enabling Multi-RAT system. The main trends are towards the creation of smart infrastructures by proposing specific enablers for the introduction of such intelligence to network elements (including SRC). The introduction of intelligent network functionality and management (such as autonomic network management and machine learning) is imperative for performance, energy and cost efficiency of evolved heterogeneous infrastructures, ultra-dense networks, cloud-RANs and M2M/IoT environments.
Way Forward
In this short paper, we have seen how WWRF is considering not only technology but the user perspective – an end-to-end approach. Participation in WWRF gives the opportunity to see things differently, gaining insights into global and regional variations. This is an important part of ensuring that research and vision are informed by different viewpoints from outside your own organisation’s culture and mindset. WWRF meetings also give the possibility to gain feedback, carry out brainstorming, and run “what if” scenarios with different actors. To summarize WWRF’s role in 5G world is as follows:
• WWRF is the place to come to be part of the wireless research community
• Benefit from the interaction with key industry and academic partners
• Access the knowledge and networking opportunities
• Develop exciting research collaboration
