• 4G/5G Spectrum – WRC-23 identified spectrum for 4G and 5G which will be crucial for expanding broadband connectivity and developing mobile services. The new spectrum includes the 3,300-3,400MHz, 3,600-3,800MHz, 4,800-4,990MHz and 6,425-7,125MHz frequency bands in various countries and regions.In particular, the decision  to set aside the 6.425-7.125GHz band for licensed, mobile operations and to harmonise this band is very important for the mobile community. The 6GHz band is the only remaining midband spectrum currently available to respond to the data traffic growth in the 5G-Advanced era and is critical for manufacturers of the 6GHz equipment ecosystem.However, a  compromise was adopted in ITU Region 1 and Region 3, which means that the 6,425-7,125MHz band can also be used by Wi-Fi. Individual administrations will have the freedom to decide what happens in this frequency range.
• HIBS spectrum – WRC-23 also identified the 2GHz and 2.6GHz bands for using high-altitude platform stations as IMT base stations (HIBS) and established regulations for their operations. This technology offers a new platform to provide mobile broadband with minimal infrastructure using the same frequencies and devices as IMT mobile networks. HIBS can contribute to bridging the digital divide in remote and rural areas and maintain connectivity during disasters.
• Low-bands – WRC-23 also defined mobile use of more low-band spectrum in the 470-694MHz band in the EMEA region (Europe, the Middle East and Africa).In the UK, Ofcom has already released spectrum down to the 700MHz (694-790MHz) band for use by mobile networks, by shifting Digital Terrestrial TV (DTV) services into the 600MHz band and lower (starting around 470MHz). DTV is going to be around for a number of years yet, but once it does end (i.e. once people have shifted to broadband-based TV) then it looks increasingly likely that the bands will be used for mobile.

• 6G Spectrum – prior to the start of WRC-23, the ITU adopted a resolution intended to guide the development of a 6G standard. During the conference, regulators agreed to study the 7-8.5GHz band for 6G in time for the next ITU conference in 2027. That spectrum band aligns with proposals from major incumbents for early 6G operations at spectrum bands between 7GHz and 20GHz.

The full version of this insight report, including a complete set of analyst takeaways, is published in the following report, available to clients of Counterpoint Research’s 5G Network Infrastructure Service (5GNI).

Report: Highlights from ITU’s WRC-23 Meeting In Dubai

Table of Contents

• Key Highlights
• Mobile Agreements
• 5G Spectrum
• 6G Spectrum
• Terrestrial Broadcast Agreements
• Satellite Agreements
• Other Agreements
• Analyst Viewpoint

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The post Selected Highlights from ITU’s WRC-23 Meeting In Dubai appeared first on Counterpoint.

In addition to the incumbent operators, there are a number of new players such as AST SpaceMobile and Lynk Global. AST SpaceMobile has partnered with Rakuten Mobile and currently has one operational satellite in-orbit. It has been granted preliminary experimental licenses in Japan and in the US. Meanwhile Lynk launched a limited commercial “store-and-forward” service using three satellites in April. Both companies plan to launch full constellations over the next few years.

The Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) market has historically been a niche market due primarily to the fact that MSS is based on proprietary technologies. However, 3GPP is working with the satellite industry on a global standardized solution, called 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN). 5G NTN will enable seamless roaming between terrestrial and satellite networks, using largely standard cellular devices, i.e., eliminating the need for proprietary terminals and fragmented satellite constellations. This could dramatically increase the addressable market for mobile satellite services.

5G Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN)

With the emergence of new Satellite-to-Phone services, there is now a widespread industry push to deploy NTN-based satellite networks as this would benefit the satellite industry and the wider mobile industry. However, 3GPP has been working on NTN for some time. For example, there has been an ongoing study on 5G NTN since 3GPP Release 15, while in 2022, 3GPP introduced two parallel workstreams in its Release 17 specifications addressing 5G satellite-based mobile broadband and low-complexity IoT use cases:

• NR-NTN (New Radio NTN) – adapts the 5G NR framework for satellite communications, providing direct mobile broadband services as well as voice using standard apps. This will enable 5G phones operating on dedicated 5G NTN frequencies and existing sub-7GHz terrestrial frequencies to link directly with Release-17 compatible satellites. Release 17 also includes enhancements for satellite backhaul and the inclusion of 80MHz MSS uplink spectrum in L-band (1-2GHz) plus a similar amount of downlink spectrum in S-band (2-4GHz).
• IoT-NTN – provides satellite support for low-complexity eMTC and NB-IoT devices, which expands the coverage for key use cases such as worldwide asset tracking (for example, air freight, shipping containers and other assets outside cellular coverage). IoT-NTN is designed for low data rate applications such as the transmission of sensor data and text messages.

Release 17 established the NR-NTN and IoT-NTN standards while the upcoming 5G Advanced Release 18 will introduce new capabilities, coverage/mobility enhancements and support for expanded spectrum bands. For example, there are plans to extend the NR-NTN frequency range beyond 10GHz by adding Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) spectrum in the 17.7-20.2GHz band for downlink and 27.5-30.0GHz for uplink.

Satellite IoT

Traditional mobile satellite operators such as Inmarsat, Iridium and Globalstar have been offering M2M/IoT type services for many years targeting various industry verticals, ranging from agriculture, construction and oil and gas to maritime, transportation and utilities. Some of the traditional FSS players, such as AsiaSat, Eutelsat and Intelsat, also offer M2M/IoT services over Ku or Ka bands.

Another player with a long history in satellite communications is San Diego-based chip vendor Qualcomm. The company was a founding partner and key technology provider in Globalstar and also developed satellite-based asset tracking service OmniTRACS. Qualcomm is still heavily involved in the satcom business and earlier this year announced Snapdragon Satellite, its Satellite-to-Phone service. More recently, it announced the availability of two Release 17 compatible GEO/GSO IoT-NTN satellite modems launched in collaboration with US-based Skylo, a NTN connectivity service provider, that enables cellular devices to connect to existing, proprietary satellite networks:

• Qualcomm 212S Modem – a satellite-only IoT modem designed to enable stationary sensing and monitoring IoT devices to communicate with NTN-based satellites. The chipset is an ultra-low power device and can be powered from solar panels or supercapacitors.
• Qualcomm 9205S Modem – enables IoT devices to connect to both terrestrial cellular and satellite networks and has integrated GNSS to provide location data. Typical applications include industrial applications requiring always-on, hybrid terrestrial and satellite connectivity for tracking assets such as agricultural machinery, shipping containers, livestock, etc.

Both devices are designed for low-power, cost optimized applications and support the Qualcomm Aware cloud platform, which provides real-time asset tracking and device management in off-grid, remote areas for IoT.

Most of the major chip vendors, such as MediaTek, Qualcomm and Sony Semiconductors, have already developed Release 17 compatible chipsets. This means that satellite-compliant 5G IoT devices could be available commercially by the end of 2023 and should become commonplace in 2024.

NTN Satellite Operators

Only a few NTN-based satellites have been launched to date. A noteworthy example is Spanish LEO operator Sateliot, the first company to deploy satellites complying with 3GPP’s Release 17 IoT-NTN standard. Sateliot currently has two satellites in orbit and recently carried out a successful roaming test between its satellite network and Telefonica’s 5G terrestrial network using an IoT device with a standard SIM card. Sateliot plans to start commercial activities in 2024. Ultimately, the company hopes to launch a total of 250 nanosatellites, which will enable it to offer global 5G IoT-NTN services.

No satellite operator presently supports 3GPP’s Release 17 NR-NTN standard for voice and data. Although AST SpaceMobile and Lynk Global have demonstrated two-way satellite-to-5G terrestrial communications, neither uses the NR-NTN standard, although they have plans to test the NR-NTN standard.

Satellite Déjà Vu?

Over two decades ago, the mobile satellite industry invested billions to launch a number of ground-breaking LEO-based voice and narrowband data constellations. Only a handful survived and even fewer have prospered. Will history repeat itself?

Although there are some parallels, Counterpoint Research believes that there are also some important differences this time. During the past 20 years, satellites have become much smaller, more capable and less expensive. Some of these satellites are based on CubeSat technology, which uses commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) components, thus drastically reducing costs while accelerating time to market. This is particularly relevant to nanosatellites, many of whom are being developed to target the IoT-NTN market. Another important difference is that launch costs have decreased significantly due to the entry of new private launch companies, notably SpaceX.

Perhaps the most important differentiator between current and next-generation satellites, however, is that the latter will be based on 3GPP’s NTN standards. Historically, proprietary satellite systems have resulted in a limited range of low volume and hence expensive end user devices – a significant barrier to growth. As with 5G (and 4G before it), a common set of cellular-based standards will enable the mobile satellite industry – plus the vertical markets it serves – to benefit from the vast economies of scale of the cellular device ecosystem. This should result in higher volume chipset production, more affordable devices and services and hence a much larger market of end users. For instance, Sateliot estimates that the cost of satellite IoT connectivity will drop from hundreds of dollars per device per month to less than $10 per device per month.

Furthermore, the adoption of 5G NTN and its integration with terrestrial 5G will result in a truly seamless global telecoms network, with increased space segment capacity, resulting in more users benefiting from higher data rate services. This will lead to more applications and use cases thus creating more value-add for vertical market users. Clearly, this could lead to a significant expansion of the mobile satellite services market globally.

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5. Open RAN Networks - Layer 1 Acceleration Strategy Will Be Key To Operator Success

The post 3GPP 5G NTN Standards Set To Dramatically Boost Mobile Satellite Addressable Market appeared first on Counterpoint.

The post NG-LLS Fronthaul Interface – A Pivotal Moment For The 5G RAN Ecosystem? appeared first on Counterpoint.

5G Advanced will expand the role of wireless AI across 5G networks introducing new, innovative AI applications that will enhance the design and operation of networks and devices over the next three to five years. Indeed, wireless AI is set to become a key pillar of 5G Advanced and will play a critical role in the end-to-end (E2E) design and optimization of wireless systems. In the case of 6G, wireless AI will become native and all-pervasive, operating autonomously between devices and networks and across all protocols and network layers.

E2E Systems Optimization

AI has already been used in smartphones and other devices for several years and is now increasingly being used in the network. However, AI is currently implemented independently, i.e. either on the device or in the network. As a result, E2E systems performance optimization across devices and network has not been fully realized yet. One of the reasons for this is that on-device AI training has not been possible until recently.

On-device AI will play a key role in improving the E2E optimization of 5G networks, bringing important benefits for operators and users, as well as overcoming key challenges. Firstly, on-device AI enables processing to be distributed over millions of devices thus harnessing the aggregated computational power of all these devices. Secondly, it enables AI model learning to be customized to a particular user’s personalized data. Finally, this personalized data stays local on the device and is not shared with the cloud. This improves reliability and alleviates data sovereignty concerns. On-device AI will not be limited to just smartphones but will be implemented across all kinds of devices from consumer devices to sensors and a plethora of industrial equipment.

New AI-native processors are being developed to implement on-device AI and other AI-based applications. A good example is Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X75 5G modem-RF chip, which has a dedicated hardware tensor accelerator. Using Qualcomm’s own AI implementation, this Gen 2 AI processor boosts the X75’s AI performance more than 2.5 times compared to the previous Gen 1 design.

While on-device AI will play a key role in improving the E2E performance of 5G networks, overall systems optimization is limited when AI is implemented independently. To enable true E2E performance optimization, AI training and inference needs to be done on a systems-wide basis, i.e.  collaboratively across both the network and the devices. Making this a reality in wireless system design requires not only AI know-how but also deep wireless domain knowledge. This so-called cross-node AI is a key focus of 5G Advanced with a number of use cases being defined in 3GPP’s Release 18 specification and further use cases expected to be added in later releases.

Wireless AI: 5G Advanced Release 18 Use Cases

3GPP’s Release 18 is the starting point for more extensive use of wireless AI expected in 6G. Three use cases have been prioritized for study in this release:

• Use of cross-node Machine Learning (ML) to dynamically adapt the Channel State Information (CSI) feedback mechanism between a base station and a device, thus enabling coordinated performance optimization between networks and devices.
• Use of ML to enable intelligent beam management at both the base station and device, thus improving usable network capacity and device battery life.
• Use of ML to enhance positioning accuracy of devices in both indoor and outdoor environments, including both direct and ML-assisted positioning.

Channel State Feedback:

CSI is used to determine the propagation characteristics of the communication link between a base station and a user device and describes how this propagation is affected by the local radio environment. Accurate CSI data is essential to provide reliable communications. With traditional model-based CSI, the user device compresses the downlink CSI data and feeds the compressed data back to the base station. Despite this compression, the signalling overhead can still be significant, particularly in the case of massive MIMO radios, reducing the device’s uplink capacity and adversely affecting its battery life.

An alternative approach is to use AI to track the various parameters of the communications link. In contrast to model-based CSI, a data driven air interface can dynamically learn from its environment to improve performance and efficiency. AI-based channel estimation thus overcomes many of the limitations of model-based CSI feedback techniques resulting in higher accuracy and hence an improved link performance. The is particularly effective at the edges of a cell.

Implementing ML-based CSI feedback, however, can be challenging in a system with multiple vendors. To overcome this, Qualcomm has developed a sequential training technique which avoids the need to share data across vendors. With this approach, the user device is firstly trained using its own data. Then, the same data is used to train the network. This eliminates the need to share proprietary, neural network models across vendors. Qualcomm has successfully demonstrated sequential training on massive MIMO radios at its 3.5GHz test network in San Diego (Exhibit 1).

Exhibit 1: Realizing system capacity gain even in challenging non-LOS communication

AI-based Millimetre Wave Beam Management:

The second use case involves the use of ML to improve beam prediction on millimetre wave radios. Rather than continuously measuring all beams, ML is used to intelligently select the most appropriate beams to be measured – as and when needed. A ML algorithm is then used to predict future beams by interpolating between the beams selected – i.e. without the need to measure the beams all the time. This is done at both the device and the base station. As with CSI feedback, this improves network throughput and reduces power consumption.

Qualcomm recently demonstrated the use of ML-based algorithms on its 28GHz massive MIMO test network and showed that the performance of the AI-based system was equivalent to a base case network set-up where all beams are measured.

Precise Positioning:

The third use case involves the use of ML to enable precise positioning. Qualcomm has demonstrated the use of multi-cell roundtrip (RTT) and angle-of-arrival (AoA)-based positioning in an outdoor network in San Diego. The vendor also demonstrated how ML-based positioning with RF finger printing can be used to overcome challenging non-line of sight channel conditions in indoor industrial private networks.

An AI-Native 6G Air Interface

6G will need to deliver a significant leap in performance and spectrum efficiency compared to 5G if it is to deliver even faster data rates and more capacity while enabling new 6G use cases. To do this, the 6G air interface will need to accommodate higher-order Giga MIMO radios capable of operating in the upper mid-band spectrum (7-16GHz), support wider bandwidths in new sub-THz 6G bands (100GHz+) as well as on existing 5G bands. In addition, 6G will need to accommodate a far broader range of devices and services plus support continuous innovation in air interface design.

To meet these requirements, the 6G air interface must be designed to be AI native from the outset, i.e. 6G will largely move away from the traditional, model-driven approach of designing communications networks and transition toward a data-driven design, in which ML is integrated across all protocols and layers with distributed learning and inference implemented across devices and networks.

This will be a truly disruptive change to the way communication systems have been designed in the past but will offer many benefits. For example, through self-learning, an AI-native air interface design will be able to support continuous performance improvements, where both sides of the air interface — the network and device — can dynamically adapt to their surroundings and optimize operations based on local conditions.

5G Advanced wireless AI/ML will be the foundation for much more AI innovation in 6G and will result in many new network capabilities. For instance, the ability of the 6G AI native air interface to refine existing communication protocols and learn new protocols coupled with the ability to offer E2E network optimization will result in wireless networks that can be dynamically customized to suit specific deployment scenarios, radio environments and use cases. This will a boon for operators, enabling them to automatically adapt their networks to target a range of applications, including various niche and vertical-specific markets.

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The post 5G Advanced and Wireless AI Set To Transform Cellular Networks, Unlocking True Potential appeared first on Counterpoint.

Key Takeaway No. 1: Platform Limitations

Softbank is offering a dual-purpose platform where the main application is AI compute via a high-performance edge analytics platform to capitalise on the expected surge in demand for AI processing capacity. Although the company is also developing a range of 5G applications, the AI and 5G workloads will be offered simultaneously. Counterpoint Research believes that the platform is unlikely to be feasible for vRAN workloads alone and understands that the two partners are not targeting this market.

Key Takeaway No. 2: Leveraging GPU Usage in the RAN

NVIDIA is planning to leverage its GPU processing capacity in the RAN in a number of ways, for example, to  improve spectral efficiency. One way of doing this is to apply AI to optimise channel estimation feedback data between a user device and a base station. A compute intensive problem with mMIMO radios, using AI to compress receiver feedback data would reduce signalling overhead, thereby resulting in an useful increase in uplink channel capacity. This could be particularly effective at the edges of a cell. Using its GPUs in this way, NVIDIA claims that it can boost gain for cell edge users by 14-17 dB. Other applications include using AI to optimise beamforming management in millimetre wave mMIMO radios as well as to accelerate Layer 2 scheduling.

The full version of this insight report, including a complete set of Key Takeaways is published in the following report, available to clients of Counterpoint Research’s 5G Network Infrastructure Service (5GNI).

New Report: NVIDIA and Softbank Join Forces To Deploy AI-Based 5G MEC Telco Network Across Japan

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The post NVIDIA and Softbank Developing AI-Based 5G MEC Telco Network appeared first on Counterpoint.

Virtually all open RAN deployments to date are based on Intel’s FlexRAN reference software architecture running on x86-based COTS servers. While this configuration is adequate for low to medium traffic scenarios, it is not sufficient for high-traffic use cases in dense urban areas involving the use of massive MIMO radios.

Solving the massive MIMO performance deficit is a major challenge delaying the transition to open RAN. This challenge must be resolved before mainstream adoption of open RAN-based massive MIMO radios can occur. However, this will require a new breed of merchant silicon solutions designed to efficiently process latency-sensitive Layer-1 baseband workloads. Last year, a number of vendors announced alternatives to Intel’s FlexRAN platform based on ASICs, GPUs as well as RISC-V architectures and several of these vendors showcased their latest products recently at MWC-23 in Barcelona (Exhibit 1).

Look Aside Versus In-line Acceleration

Open RAN COTS platforms typically use PCIe-based accelerator cards to process the compute-intensive Layer 1 workloads. There are essentially two types of architecture designs: look-aside and in-line:

• Look-aside accelerators offload a small subset of the 5G Layer 1 functions, for example, forward error correction, from the host CPU to an external FPGA or eASIC-based accelerator. However, this offloading adds latency and degrades system performance as the compute is done offline.

An alternative to using PCIe cards is to integrate the look-aside accelerator and CPU in a SoC. This eliminates the need for a separate PCIe card. Look-aside acceleration is used by AMD and Intel, including in the latter’s vRAN Boost integrated SoC design.

• With the in-line accelerator architecture, all the Layer 1 data passes directly through the accelerator and is processed in real-time – a critical requirement for Layer 1 workloads. This processing is done by other types of processors, for example, ARM or RISC-V based DSPs, which results in a more energy-efficient implementation and reduces the need for additional CPUs with a high number of cores. For operators, this results in significant CAPEX and OPEX savings, particularly in the case of massive MIMO base stations, the most demanding of all 5G network deployments.

In-line accelerators also offer important scalability benefits as operators can add extra accelerator cards (up to six cards in a standard telco grade server) as more L1 capacity is required. In contrast, the look-aside architecture involves adding expensive, power-hungry COTS CPUs (+FPGA/eASIC cards) to meet capacity increases. In-line acceleration is used by ARM-based chip vendors such as Qualcomm Technologies, Inc and Marvell, as well as some RISC-V start-ups.

Layer-1 Software Stack

Chip vendors typically offer Layer-1 reference software stacks, which OEMs or third-party software vendors then customize and harden. This is an intensive two- or three-year process that demands considerable technical expertise and resources, particularly for telco-grade massive MIMO networks. With 5G, there is added complexity as the Layer 1 stack needs to be very adaptive and programmable to cater for the multitude of workloads and use cases. As a result, very few chip vendors offer carrier-grade Layer 1 software. In fact, the choice of vendors with the capability to develop macro cell massive MIMO Layer 1 stacks is essentially limited to the Tier-1 incumbents plus a handful of open RAN challenger vendors.

Tier-1 incumbents are unlikely to offer the same level of openness and flexibility as the challenger vendors, and hence accelerator cards from the latter may be a more attractive option for operators looking for a higher level of network customization. For example, Qualcomm Technologies will offer a set of APIs that allow vendors to port alternative software into its Layer 1 stack – such as beamforming or channel estimation algorithms. This lowers the barriers to entry for small software vendors and enables new players to enter the market – i.e. without requiring them to develop a full commercial-grade Layer 1 stack themselves. This could result in a rapid expansion of the Layer 1 software ecosystem.

Exhibit 1: Open RAN Layer 1 Accelerator Card Options by Vendor (Macro Cells)

Energy Efficiency – A Critical Metric

Reducing OPEX costs has become a major priority for operators due to soaring energy costs plus the need to minimize their carbon footprints. As a result, energy efficiency, i.e. Gbps/Watt, will be a critical metric for operators when evaluating Layer 1 accelerator cards. However, only a few vendors have revealed power consumption data. In a recent demo, Qualcomm Technologies showed the total power consumption of its Qualcomm® X100 5G RAN Accelerator Card [1] to be just 16-18W when driving a 16-layer 64TRx massive MIMO radio configuration serving four user devices (using four layers/device). According to the vendor, the card is designed to support a throughput of 24Gbps at less than 40W peak power consumption.

Viewpoint

The open RAN story is gaining momentum and Counterpoint Research expects this growth to accelerate during 2023 and beyond driven by the availability of new merchant silicon solutions. To succeed in the marketplace, however, these new silicon platforms will need to demonstrate the potential to compete against the latest incumbent RAN solutions – across all key technical metrics – as well as offering the same level of advanced 5G features. Clearly, energy efficiency will be a major product differentiator, which puts current x86-based look-aside designs at a disadvantage compared to the latest in-line accelerators and suggests that most operators will favour the in-line architecture approach. Ultimately, the winning vendors will be those that are best able to satisfy the key technical requirements of individual operators while at the same time offering them the flexibility to customize their networks to suit their own requirements.

[1] Qualcomm X100 5G RAN Accelerator Card is a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Qualcomm is a trademark or registered trademark of Qualcomm Incorporated

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The post Open RAN Networks – Layer 1 Acceleration Strategy Will Be Key To Operator Success appeared first on Counterpoint.

Improving Customer Experience

In the short term, improving network quality is Rakuten’s main priority.  Following a recent customer survey, Rakuten has launched several initiatives to improve customer experience, most of which will be resolved by a new roaming agreement with KDDI – which includes access to the latter’s sub-1GHz spectrum for the first time. This should improve coverage, particular in-doors such as in the home and in high-traffic shopping malls, as well as underground in subways, tunnels, etc. However, Rakuten urgently needs to build its own low-band networks – i.e. in the so-called “platinum” band – starting probably in early 2024.

Selling the Family Silver

Rakuten is still in a precarious situation financially and is in the process of selling more of the family silver to fund its mobile network roll-out. This includes IPOs and the sale of stakes in some non-core assets, for example, the Seiyu supermarket chain. The company has also pushed back its target date to become profitable from the end of 2023 to an unspecified time in 2024.

Challenges of Rolling Out Greenfield Networks

Rakuten’s experience over the past three years illustrates the challenges of rolling out a greenfield network in a mature market and the time, effort and investment required to achieve coverage and reliability on a par with better-heeled rivals. Indeed, many of these challenges have nothing to do with the choice of network architecture, i.e. open RAN. As a result, there are many lessons here for Dish and 1&1 Drillisch.

The silver lining for Rakuten, perhaps, is that it is primarily a tech company and its Rakuten Symphony division is starting to deliver meaningful revenues, which are projected to accelerate during 2023. Dish and 1&1 Drillisch do not have that luxury!

Exhibit 1:  Summary of Rakuten’s Customer Churn Survey

The full version of this insight report, including all highlights and viewpoints is published in the following report “Rakuten Unveils Plan To Boost Subscriber Growth” available to clients of Counterpoint Research’s 5G Network Infrastructure Service (5GNI).

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In contrast to traditional RAN networks, the baseband unit of a cloud RAN base station is split into two units: a Distributed Unit (DU) and a Centralized unit (CU). Today, the vast majority of commercially deployed DU basebands run on x86 processors. However, alternatives to Intel’s x86 platform, based on ASICs, GPU and RISC-V architectures are expected to become widely available during the next three years.

Cloud RAN platforms typically use PCIe-based accelerator cards to process the compute-intensive Layer 1 workloads. There are essentially two types of accelerator architecture: look-aside and in-line:

• Look-aside accelerators offload a small subset of the 5G Layer 1 functions, for example, forward error correction, from the host CPU to an external FPGA-based accelerator.
• With an in-line accelerator card, all the Layer 1 data passes directly through the accelerator and is processed in real-time – a critical requirement for Layer 1 workloads. This processing is done by other processor types, for example, ARM or RISC-V based DSPs.

However, there is a marked difference in the approach of vendors towards Layer 1 acceleration, with some vendors supporting the look-aside option, some supporting the in-line option, while others plan to offer both options.

Counterpoint Research’s latest report “Cloud RAN Platforms – Why Are Vendors Adopting Different Layer 1 Acceleration Strategies?” provides details of the cloud RAN platform configurations offered by various incumbent and challenger vendors and discusses the reasoning and underlying strategy behind their technology choices and partnerships.

Table of Contents

Snapshot
Introduction
Key Cloud RAN Platforms
-Ericsson
-Nokia
-Samsung
-NEC
-Fujitsu
-Rakuten
-Mavenir
-JMA Wireless
Viewpoint

This report is available to clients of Counterpoint Research’s 5G Network Infrastructure (5GNI) Service.

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Open RAN Radio Market: Product Availability Study

The post Cloud RAN Platforms – Why Are Vendors Adopting Different Layer-1 Acceleration Strategies? appeared first on Counterpoint.

This report provides an overview of the emerging open RAN PCIe-based Layer-1 accelerator card market based on new merchant silicon and highlights the opportunities and technical challenges facing the open RAN chip community as they strive to develop alternative chip solutions capable of efficiently processing real-time, latency-sensitive Layer-1 workloads.

Key Takeaway No. 1: Too much diversity?

The launch of new L1 accelerator cards from various vendors, large and small, should be welcomed by CSPs calling for diversity and will go some way to quell criticism that the open RAN market is too Intel-based. However, CSPs may now be faced with another dilemma – too much choice! They must now face the difficult challenge of testing and comparing multiple accelerator cards, inevitably involving complicated technical and commercial trade-offs.

Key Takeaway No. 2: Look-Aside or In-Line Accelerators?

At present, the choice of accelerator architecture is binary: either look-aside or inline. Both types have their advantages and drawbacks. Depending on use cases and applications, Counterpoint Research believes that operators may need to use both types of accelerators. However, only one vendor currently offers a software/silicon platform with the capability to do this.

Key Takeaway No. 3: Interoperability and Vendor Lock-In

Developing commercial-grade Layer 1 software suitable for massive MIMO networks is an expensive process requiring very specific skills and a lot of experience – but with no guarantee of commercial success. Although open RAN is designed to promote interoperability and vendor diversity, all L1 stacks are currently tied to the underlying silicon architectures and hence are not portable between hardware platforms. This introduces a new form of vendor lock-in for CSPs. Clearly, there is an urgent need for an universal software abstraction layer between the L1 stack and the various hardware platforms to enable stack portability.

The complete versions of these Key Takeaways, including the full set of  Takeaways is published in the following report, available to clients of Counterpoint Research’s 5G Network Infrastructure (5GNI) Service.

Report: New L1 Accelerator Cards Set To Boost Open RAN Market – Or Create More Lock-In?

Table of Contents

Related Reports and Blogs

MWC22 Las Vegas: Samsung Makes Breakthrough In US Cable Market

Qualcomm On Track To Launch Open RAN 5G Macro Base Station Portfolio

Cloud RAN – Waiting For A Viable Business Case?

The Emerging Cloud RAN Ecosystem – Players and Solutions

Open RAN Radio Market: Product Availability Study

The post New Layer-1 Accelerator Cards Set To Boost Open RAN Market – Or Create More Lock-In? appeared first on Counterpoint.

The “10 Gbps Everywhere” Experience

Compared to conventional 5G, 5.5G represents a 10-fold improvement in performance across the board. This means that 5.5G networks will be able to provide ubiquitous 10 Gbps downlink and 1 Gbps uplink speeds while supporting 100 billion IoT connections – compared to just 10 billion with 5G. In addition, 5.5G is expected to deliver latency and positioning accuracy that are a fraction of the current 5G standard as well as significant reductions in overall network power consumption.

5.5G will provide enhanced connectivity and better user experiences. By leveraging the 10 Gbps downlink throughput and low milli-second latency, 5.5G will bridge the gap between the physical and virtual worlds. Although 5G already provides some immersive services, 5.5G will enable interactive immersive services, such as 24k resolution VR gaming, glasses-free 3D video and 3D online malls.

Benefits for Enterprises

In addition to enhanced connectivity, 5.5G will offer a broad range of new capabilities for enterprises. Counterpoint Research expects a surge in new private network applications as networks are able to leverage the technical innovations enabled by 5.5G. For instance, enterprises will benefit greatly from the 1 Gbps uplink capability, enabling, for example, high-precision AI-based industrial vision inspection, while enhanced positioning with sub-10cm accuracy – both indoors and outdoors – will enable a plethora of new Industry 4.0 applications.

In addition, 5.5G will support three rapidly developing IoT technologies: NB IoT, RedCap and passive IoT tags, an innovative, low cost location sensing technology. A promising application of passive IoT tags is HCS-based Millimetre Wave[1] technology, an integrated sensing and communications technology, which enables centimetre precise positioning of objects, including pedestrians and personal items, livestock, autonomous vehicles, drones, etc. On the network side, enhanced AI/ML capabilities across the RAN, core and network management domains plus new power saving features will result in significant energy savings for operators.

Standards and Spectrum

Technical standards are the bedrock of the telecommunications industry and it is imperative that common standards are adopted worldwide. The standardization of 5.5G via 3GPP Release 18 is on-going. However, the industry must work together to ensure that Release 18 is frozen by the first quarter of 2024 as planned to enable 5.5G to be introduced from 2025 onwards.

Release 18 will be followed by Releases 19 and 20 after which the 3GPP will focus on 6G. Clearly, industry players need to collaborate closely over the next few years in order to define and maximise the technical innovations and capabilities of 5.5G and to ensure new services and use case scenarios are properly supported. This will help to maximise the potential of 5.5G for operators and extend its lifecycle.

Additional spectrum will be required to enable 5.5G to deliver its full potential. Re-farming of legacy 2G and 3G bands will free some lower band spectrum. However, this is not sufficient. More spectrum in the 6GHz and millimetre bands is necessary. With the WRC-23 radio conference taking place in November, it is essential that all stakeholders, including governments and regulators as well as operators and vendors, agree on the best spectrum strategy. Clearly, the 6GHz band should be a key 5.5G target band for the industry. In fact, the 3GPP has already licensed the 6,425-7,125MHz bands and Counterpoint Research expects that the upper part of this band will be identified as an IMT band at WRC-23. Millimetre wave is another key spectrum band for 5.5G and more than 800MHz additional millimetre wave spectrum will likely be needed to enable operators to deliver the 10 Gbps experience.

Networks and Devices

Networks and devices will need to be upgraded to enable 5G Advanced and this will involve further innovation with respect to 5.5G chipset technologies and devices.

5.5G will introduce a plethora of new devices with new capabilities beyond smartphones. Some of these will be full-capability devices while others will have reduced capabilities. For example, Red Cap devices only need to support a shortened set of specific capabilities, for example, video surveillance devices used for industrial quality control, process monitoring, sensing or tracking. However, all players, including chipset and device OEMs, must start working immediately to define the digital requirements for individual vertical use cases and applications in order to ensure that an ecosystem of suppliers is developed.

A significant recent development is the release of millimetre chipsets. For example, Qualcomm recently demonstrated its 5.5G Snapdragon chip, which offers 10 Gbps speed with 10CC carrier aggregation on millimetre wave and 5CC carrier aggregation on sub-6GHz frequencies. Similarly, MediaTek’s chipset offers downlink and uplink speeds of 7.67 Gbps and 3.76 Gbps respectively.

Upgrading Fibre to 5G Advanced

Achieving the “10 Gbps Everywhere” experience” will involve upgrading standards for fixed fibre broadband as well as for 5G RAN and Core. In fact, the evolution of Fibre Broadband 5G (F5G) to all-optical F5.5G has already progressed from proposals to specification design.

Performance improvements in fibre networks will be achieved by agreements on the use of key technologies such as 50G Passive Optical Network (PON) technology, Fibre to the Room (FTTR), etc. 50G PON is being standardized as the next-generation PON by the ITU-T. Together with technologies such as “uplink/downlink symmetry” and “multi-band in one,” this will pave the way for a smooth evolution to F5.5G. Last September, ETSI released its F5G Advanced White Paper and the standards body has been leading the formulation of F5.5G’s first release, Release 3, which will be frozen in first half of 2024.

The development of 5.5G and F5.5G will require a converged fixed/wireless IP network. Work on the definition of a new converged network – tentatively called Net5.5G – has already begun. Both the IETF and the IEEE are working on the first phase of Net5.5G standardization, but consensus is still needed on fixed/wireless bearer technologies such as 800GE backbone, 400GE MAN, etc. as well as on key aspects of other technologies such as WiFi-7, Segment Routing over IPv6 (SRv6), etc. before the new standard is released in 2024. With new capabilities, Net5.5G will enable operators maximise the potential of 5.5G and provide new opportunities for growth.

Viewpoint

The increasing popularity of immersive experiences and the emergence of the metaverse coupled with the demands of enterprise digital transformation mean that 5G networks will soon be unable to support the expected exponential growth in traffic. With 6G around 8-12 years away, 5.5G is the next obvious evolution of 5G and next-generation consumer and B2B opportunities will only be possible if operators and enterprises upgrade to 5.5G.

However, a successful and timely upgrade to 5.5G will require all industry stakeholders – from technical standards bodies, operators, network and device manufacturers to policy developers and regulators – to work closely together and collaborate on key 5.5G enablers, including standards, spectrum, networks and device specifications, etc. Major MNOs will be required to pilot new 5.5G technologies and build business cases.  In addition, Counterpoint Research believes that an industry consensus on the digital requirements of new use cases needs to be developed, particularly with respect to enterprise vertical uses cases, as well as a focus on developing a diverse ecosystem of players encompassing all verticals. Finally, closer collaboration between the mobile and fixed telecoms communities will be essential in order to ensure synchronization of standards between wireless and fixed networks.

[1] Harmonized Communications Sensing

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The post 5G Advanced – Stakeholder Collaboration Essential To Maximise ROI For Operators appeared first on Counterpoint.

Key Features of NetCloud

Key features of NetCloud include:

A “Private Networks-in-a-Box” solution – which includes access points, core/gateway, network planning software, routers, private SIMs plus a single pane of glass cloud management and orchestration system via NetCloud.

Cradlepoint Distribution Channels – NetCloud will leverage Cradlepoint’s existing sales channels via network enterprise resellers, managed service providers, etc. Later in the year, the company plans to target distribution via mobile operators.

Flexible Customer Offering – based on a CAPEX or OPEX business model to suit customers. Enterprises can buy cellular access points, core capacity, etc on a capacity and service duration basis. For example, Cradlepoint offers 500Mbps 2 Gbps and 5 Gbps options for its core on a 3 or 5 year basis with SIM cards being sold in packs of 10.

At present, NetCloud is only available for use in the US’s 4G LTE CBRS market, but later this year, Cradlepoint will offer 5G radios for use in markets beyond the US, for example, Europe. The company also expects to introduce eSIM capabilities at the same time.

The key elements of Cradlepoint NetCloud solution are shown in Exhibit 1 below:

Exhibit 1:  Overview of Cradlepoint’s NetCloud Private Network Solution

Viewpoint

In the past year or so, there have been many “Private-Networks-in-a-Box” announcements from numerous vendors such as AWS, Cisco, HPE, etc. as well as operators such as Dish, etc. who believe that private network solutions can be marketed as an “out-of-a box” product like Wi-Fi. With so many offerings, this could turn out to be a very competitive market with thin margins, where success is largely determined by the vendors’ “go-to-market” strategy and distribution channels.

The launch of NetCloud is a clear indication that Ericsson (with Cradlepoint) plans to play across the whole breadth of the private networks market. Although surprisingly a bit late launching its own “box” solution, Counterpoint Research believes that Cradlepoint is well-positioned to benefit from the opportunities in this market due to its strong position in the enterprise market (32,000 customer base), its global distribution network of 6,000 resellers and partners – and backed by Ericsson’s connectivity expertise.

Related Reports

Private Networks – Market Sizing and Forecasts: 2021-2030

Private Networks – High Expectations Amid An Expanding Ecosystem

Network Slicing vs Private Networks: Benefits and Drawbacks

Private Cellular Networks – Devices Key To Growth In Unlicensed Spectrum

5G Mobile Edge Computing – An Emerging Technology Slowly Transitioning To Commercial Reality

The post Ericsson's Cradlepoint Launches NetCloud Private Networks Solution appeared first on Counterpoint.

Private Networks Market by Verticals

Counterpoint Research segments the private networks market into seven vertical markets: public sector, manufacturing, energy and utilities, natural resources extraction, transportation and logistics, SME and Others. The public sector consists of several sub-verticals such as public safety networks, smart cities, healthcare and government as well as education and defence. The SME market encompasses mostly non-industrial applications of private networks, for example, office buildings, hotels, shopping malls, leisure centres, etc. Counterpoint Research forecasts that manufacturing will be the biggest vertical by revenue at the end of the forecast period in 2030.

Variations by Region

The release of CBRS spectrum has been a key driver in the US, which is predominantly based on 4G LTE and typically used for simple applications that do not require 5G, for example, mobile broadband connectivity in schools. In contrast, Europe has a higher proportion of 5G networks with the focus being on Industry 4.0 automation and the development of smart factories. Key use cases driving the market in Europe include AGVs/AMR connectivity, advanced worker productivity technologies such as AR/VR, predictive maintenance, video analytics (particularly security), asset tracking, etc.

Most deployments of private networks are in the developed, high GDP regions of the world with developing regions of the world lagging. An exception is Latin America, where there are numerous networks targeting the mining industry (predominantly copper mines).

Exhibit 1: Global Private Networks Market: 2021-2030

Key Points and Issues

 Some key points discussed in the report include:

• Spectrum – spectrum availability has been the key driver behind the growth of the private networks market, with countries such as Germany, France, the UK and US leading deployments due to early availability of spectrum in those countries. However, none of these countries use the same spectrum bands for private networks. They also have different usage rules. Spectrum fragmentation is therefore an issue and there is an urgent need for harmonisation of private networks spectrum, particularly between countries in the same regions, such as Europe.
• 5G Advanced – the introduction of devices supporting 5.5G from 2025 onwards will provide a boost to 5G private networks and will result in a number of new device capabilities leveraging the advanced features offered by NR-Light (Redcap), expanded sidelink, etc. as well as new indoor/outdoor positioning techniques, passive IoT tag technology, etc. These developments will enable new applications and drive growth in key verticals such as advanced manufacturing, energy and utilities, etc.
• Private Networks vs Network Slicing – although network slicing is starting to be introduced over public networks, the technology is not yet mature. However, as slicing become mainstream (and coupled with improvements in the uplink capacity of public networks), it will in time become a lower cost alternative to dedicated private networks for some use cases.

Report Overview

Counterpoint Research’s “Private Networks Market – Market Sizing and Forecasts: 2021-2030” PPT report provides market sizing and multi-year forecasts for the global private networks market divided by vertical, region, technology and spectrum. An overview of the business and technological challenges facing the industry is also presented as well as Counterpoint’s key takeaways about the future of the private networks market.

Table of Contents:

• Study Overview and Assumptions
• Private Networks: Introduction & Definitions
• Market Sizing and Forecasts
  • Global Market Revenues
  • Market by Verticals
    • Definition of Verticals
    • Forecast Revenues by Vertical
    • Key Drivers per Vertical
  • Forecast Revenue by Regions
    • Definition of Regions
    • Forecast Revenue per Region
    • Key Drivers per Region
  • Forecast Revenue by Technology
    • 4G versus 5G
  • Forecast Revenue by Spectrum
    • Sub 6GHz vs millimetre Wave
  • Key Challenges
  • Key Takeaways

Related Reports and Blogs

Private Networks Tracker, May 2022

Private Networks – High Expectations Amid and Expanding Ecosystem

5G Network Slicing versus Private Networks: Benefits and Drawbacks

Private Cellular Networks – Devices Key To Growth in Unlicensed Spectrum

5G Mobile Edge Computing – An Emerging Technology Slowly Transitioning To Commercial Reality

The post Counterpoint Research Forecasts Private Networks Market To Reach $21.8 billion by 2030 appeared first on Counterpoint.

Huawei’s “ONE 5G” Concept

Amalgamating multi-band, multi-RAT base stations into single hardware units that can efficiently maximise the use of  available spectrum was a major theme at the Forum. For CSPs, this brings many benefits: replacing multiple “boxes” with a one or two “box” solution leads to lower tower costs and simplified, more spectrum-efficient multi-band network deployment, while the use of dynamic power sharing across all carriers, spectrum bands and RATs reduces power consumption. Centre-stage at the event, therefore, was Huawei’s “ONE 5G” concept – a set of base station solutions designed to integrate legacy base station hardware into single RAN units and facilitate the transition and optimised usage of all mobile spectrum bands, including legacy narrowband FDD bands, to 5G.

Huawei demonstrated several new ultra-wideband products including its second-generation, 800 MHz MetaAAU with ELAA technology; multi-band 4T4R radio; FDD 8T8R radio incorporating its Hertz antenna and new indoor Giga Lampsite 5.0 products. Several of Huawei’s new antenna products now incorporate its proprietary Signal Direct Injection Feeding (SDIF) technology, which dispenses with the need for cables inside the antenna enclosure. This provides many benefits, including a higher gain/better coverage (due to reduced signal loss), improved power dissipation, higher reliability – plus a claimed 1Kg/band saving in weight.

Other Key Themes

Other major themes included Intelligent RAN, where the vendor demonstrated its latest AI-based solutions and 5G Advanced, where numerous innovations in IoT and private networks based on the upcoming 5.5G standard were showcased.  Of particular interest was the vendor’s  HCS-based Millimetre Wave positioning technology using passive IoT tags, a promising technology for numerous applications requiring precise positioning, such as autonomous vehicles, drones, etc.

*Harmonized Communications Sensing

A full review of Huawei’s Global MBB Forum, including a full set of takeaways, is published in the following report, available to clients of Counterpoint Research’s 5G Network Infrastructure Service.

Selected Highlights from Huawei’s Global MBB Forum

Table of Contents

Overview:

• CSPs – Facing Network Challenges
• Huawei’s “ONE” Concept
• Frequency Bands Transitioning to 5G
• Challenges of Fragmented FDD Spectrum

New Base Station Products:

• 2nd-gen MetaAAU with ELAA
• Meta BladeAAU
• Ultra-Wideband, Multi-Band 4T4R Radio
• FDD 8T8R + Hertz Antenna
• Dual-Band FDD mMIMO Radio
• New mmWave Products

Intelligent RAN:

• Intelligent RAN Benefits
• Huawei Solutions & Deployments
• Operator Examples

5G Advanced and IoT:

• IoT Connections By Technology
• Passive IoT Technologies
• HCS : Millimetre Wave Positioning using Passive IoT
• Hybrid Private Networks
• Connected 5G Factory
• Healthcare – Smart Hospital
• Healthcare – 5G Mobile Stroke Care
• Oil & Gas Extraction

Key Takeaways

The post Huawei's "ONE 5G" Concept Centre Stage at Global MBB Forum appeared first on Counterpoint.

Samsung Networks – Open RAN/vRAN Leader?

Samsung Networks first entered the mobile infrastructure market, primarily as a 4G network infrastructure vendor, around ten years ago. Since then, it has developed a portfolio of 4G and 5G products, with a major focus on the open RAN/vRAN based market. Counterpoint Research believes that Samsung is the undisputed leader in this emerging market at the present time, having won multi-billion dollar contracts with several major MNOs, including Verizon, Vodafone and most recently Dish.

However, Samsung is not just focused on the emerging open RAN/vRAN market. At the recent MWC event in Las Vegas, the vendor outlined its mobile infrastructure strategy to industry analysts, which encompasses targeting the cable and regional MNO markets in the US (and elsewhere), as well as the private networks market.

Exhibit 1:  Samsung’s Strand 2TRx Small Cell Radio

The CBRS Market

The CBRS service provider ecosystem encompasses a diverse set of mobile and fixed operators as well as a host of enterprises and other organizations building their own private networks.  Samsung sees opportunities in multiple CBRS markets, including the following:

• Cable Market – cable operators made significant investment in CBRS spectrum back in 2020. However, they are only now starting to build their networks, typically offloading MVNO traffic in selected high-traffic regions, rather than building out nationwide mobile coverage.
• Regional Operators – driven by digital divide stimulus funds from the US government, the rural broadband market will be a major opportunity during the next few years with many regional operators seeking to launch rural FWA services.
• Private Networks – as well as private networks deployed by traditional mobile service providers, Samsung sees opportunities in serving a diverse range of customers in the CBRS band ranging from enterprises, schools and universities to industrial companies involved in energy and utilities, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, etc.

Key Takeaway No. 1:  The Disruptive Incumbent

Samsung is a challenger vendor and sees an opportunity to disrupt the status quo. As the smallest of the Big 5 in terms of market share, it has less to lose by introducing open RAN based networks compared to rivals. And in contrast to many smaller, open-RAN only players, its  can offer legacy as well as open RAN technology. With its own chip and foundry businesses – plus access to considerable technical and financial resources as part of a $260 billion cap industrial conglomerate – it is regarded as a reliable alternative to Ericsson and Nokia by many MNOs. However, with major rivals expected to launched “similar” products in 2023, the open RAN/vRAN market is set to become much more competitive.

Key Takeaway No. 2:  CBRS Early Mover Advantage Paying Dividends

Samsung launched its first FCC-certified CBRS mMIMO radio in July 2019. Since then the vendor has developed an extensive range of CBRS radios, including products developed specifically for the cable and  FWA markets. As a result, Counterpoint Research expects Samsung to benefit further from similar opportunities from other cable operators to complement its recent Comcast Xfinity Mobile win.

Buoyed by multi-billion dollar FCC funding, the rural FWA market is likely to be another major opportunity. Although there will be stiff competition from its Nordic rivals (plus some smaller vendors), Counterpoint Research believes that the Korean vendor is also well placed in this market, due primarily to its early mover CBRS advantage and backed by its growing reputation and track record as a reliable alternative to other incumbents in this market.

The complete version of this article, including the full set of key takeaways, is published in the following 5G Vendor Report, available to clients of Counterpoint Research’s 5G Network Infrastructure Service:

Samsung Outlines Mobile Networks Strategy at MWC, Las Vegas

Table of Contents

Snapshot

Introduction

Key Target Markets

Strand Small Cell Radio

Key Cable & Regional MNO Customers

-Comcast

-Mediacom

-Mercury Broadband

-Avista Edge

Key Takeaways

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The post MWC-22 Las Vegas: Samsung Networks Makes Breakthrough In US Cable Market appeared first on Counterpoint.

Qualcomm’s Open RAN Macro Portfolio

Qualcomm’s open RAN macro portfolio essentially consists of two products: the QRU 100 radio platform and the X100 RAN accelerator card:

• QRU 100 Radio Platform – designed for use in 32TRx and 64TRx massive MIMO radios as well as much simpler 4TRx and 8TRx MIMO radios. The QRU 100 radio chip  includes transceivers, Layer-1 Low PHY baseband and beamforming processors and supports advanced cellular features such as RAN sharing, DSS, etc. In the case of mmWave applications, the chip also includes the RF front-end and antenna modules.
• X100 RAN Accelerator Card – an in-line PCIe-based accelerator card based on the QDU 100 chip, which processes latency sensitive and compute intensive Layer-1 High PHY baseband workloads such as channel coding, demodulation as well as mMIMO processing. This reduces the number of CPU cores required and hence the overall cost of the DU. The X100 card supports all O-RAN Alliance defined baseband function split options (including future options such as 7.3) and operates at sub-6GHz and mmWave frequencies – Exhibit 1(a).

Qualcomm is partnering  with HPE and the X100 card is being tested in the server vendor’s telco-grade ProLiant DL 110 Gen 10 Plus server, which has been optimised for open RAN workloads. The DL100 server is capable of supporting four cards within its 1U server footprint. Qualcomm claims that the card consumes approximately 35W of power when 70% loaded.

The key target markets for the above products will be the public macro MNO market as well as the enterprise private network market.

©Qualcomm, Inc, NTT DoCoMo

Exhibit 1(a) Qualcomm’s X100 Accelerator Card and (b) Qualcomm’s OREC partners and roles

Testing and Validation Schedule

Qualcomm has been providing engineering samples of its hardware to partner vendors, which include Fujitsu, NEC and Mavenir, since around mid-2022. Extensive lab testing will start around the end of 2022 or early 2023 with commercial deployments expected to start towards the end of 2023.

In addition, Qualcomm intends to undergo extensive integration tests with its partners at NTT DoCoMo’s OREC facility in 2023. This will involve testing the X100 card on an Intel-based HPE Proliant server as part of a complete 5G base station solution configured as shown in Exhibit 1(b).

Carrier-Grade Layer-1 Stack

Very few chip vendors offer a production-grade RAN software stack. Instead, they typically offer a reference stack of Layer-1 algorithms. Hardening the Layer-1 stack is both an intensive and extensive process that requires considerable technical expertise and resources.

Traditionally, Qualcomm has provided its small cells SoCs with software, including Layer-1, for the sub-6GHz and mmWave small cells market via its FSM platform. Unlike many of its open RAN rivals, Qualcomm will continue this tradition and offer its own carrier-grade Layer-1 software stack for the QRU100 and X100 card, which can then be customized by the customer. However, this will be an evolutionary process, with features being added according to a calendar of releases and followed by extensive testing and tuning until the required performance and stability is achieved.

Qualcomm’s Role and Partner Ecosystem

Qualcomm’s role in the 5G infrastructure market will be as an open RAN chip solutions provider enabling many new radio OEMs to enter the market as well as supplying some traditional vendors. Qualcomm already dominates the small cells market with its FSM100 (and FSM200) solutions and has developed an impressive list of customers. Clearly, the goal here is to do the same in the macro base station market by offering a range of proven, pre-integrated open RAN-based chip solutions to a wide variety of vendors, thereby gaining market share at the expense of the incumbents. Partners to date include Fujitsu, NEC, Mavenir, Rakuten Symphony and Viettel.

Viewpoint

The open RAN/vRAN story is gaining momentum as major operators such as NTT DoCoMo, Verizon and others slowly transition to fully virtualized networks. Counterpoint Research expects this to accelerate during 2023, driven primarily by operators’ interest in leveraging the benefits of cloud-native architectures – rather than any clear-cut TCO benefits. These benefits include improved network agility, scalability and automation and will enable the introduction of new types of services.

Although the cost/performance differential compared to state-of-the-art, proprietary 5G base stations will persist, operators have an urgent need to introduce innovative new services in order to monetise their 5G networks. Counterpoint Research believes that this need will drive the adoption of disaggregated, virtualized RAN networks and that the benefits and flexibility offered by this type of architecture – for specific use cases such as as low-latency 5G MEC – will likely offset the cost/performance deficit for most operators.

Related Reports

The Emerging Cloud RAN Ecosystem – Players and Solutions

Cloud RAN – Technology Review and Challenges

Open RAN Radios – Chinese Vendors Set To Dominate An Emerging Market?

The post Qualcomm On Track To Launch Open RAN 5G Macro Base Station Portfolio appeared first on Counterpoint.

Key highlights during the quarter included the appointment of Samsung as a major radio supplier. Post period, Apple announced that it will include Dish’s Band 70 frequencies in its latest iPhone 14 model, a major boost for Dish. The operator is now preparing for the launch of its first post-paid service Boost Infinite, expected before the end of the year.

Key Quarterly Data

News on the subscriber front, however, was not so good for either the wireless or the pay-TV business as the company continued to shed subscribers.

• Wireless subscribers – Dish lost another 210,000 retail subscribers during the quarter bring its total wireless subscriber base down to 7.87 million. The company has lost around 1.1 million wireless subscribers since it entered the wireless business in August 2020 when it purchased Boost Mobile for $1.4 billion from T-Mobile. ARPU increased slightly from the previous quarter to $37.90 while churn rate improved marginally to 4.39%.
• Pay-TV – Dish’s pay-TV business also lost around 257,000 customers in the second quarter and the company ended the quarter with 7.79 million satellite TV subscribers and 2.2 million Sling TV streaming customers.

Total revenue was $4.21 billion for the quarter, down 6% from $4.49 billion YoY while net income dropped 30.3% to $523 million YoY. Exhibit 1 shows how revenues for the pay-TV and wireless businesses have fallen during the past two years.

© Counterpoint Research, Data: Dish Networks

Exhibit 1:  Dish Pay-TV and Wireless Revenues During The Past Two Years

Samsung – More than a radio vendor?

Counterpoint Research believes that the most significant news during the quarter was the announcement that Dish had signed a new radio contract with Samsung Networks. According the company, Samsung will support virtually all of Dish’s FDD and TDD spectrum bands, including CBRS and the mid-band 3.45-3.55 GHz bands. Dish already has radio contracts with Fujitsu and MTI, with most of the radios to date being delivered by Fujitsu. Samsung thus becomes Dish’s third radio vendor. Without doubt, this is another major win for Samsung in the Tier-1 RAN market following similar multi-billion contract awards with Verizon and Vodafone. However, Counterpoint Research believes that the Korean vendor will play a bigger role at Dish as it can help Dish in a number of ways.

One of Dish’s key challenges right now is resolving its VoNR integration issues. Unlike Rakuten, Dish is not a technology company and so the addition of a mega tech company such as Samsung should be a major boost to the company. Samsung is also a major device manufacturer and Dish may well be relying on the Korean vendor expertise to resolve many of its systems integration issues.

Key Takeaway No. 1: Falling subscribers

Dish continued to lose a sizeable number of its pre-paid wireless customers during the quarter, even though the transition from T-Mobile’s CDMA network has ended. In fact, Dish estimates that the CDMA debacle has cost the company around $500 million directly and another $1 billion indirectly. Pay-TV subscribers are also falling.

With T-Mobile’s CDMA network shutdown, Dish should now be able to use its marketing resources to attract new customers rather than dealing with CDMA-related customer issues.  Counterpoint Research believes that it is imperative that Dish demonstrates that is has stabilised its pre-paid customer base during the next few weeks and months and that it has a strategy in place to attract new users. For example, the company recently announced that it is expanding its distribution efforts in Walmart and Best-Buy retail stores. Dish also needs to slow the decline in its pay-TV subscriber base.

The complete version of this article, including the full set of key takeaways, is published in the following 5G Insights Report, available to clients of Counterpoint Research’s 5G Network Infrastructure Service:

Dish Gets Ready To Launch Boost Infinite Post-Paid Service

Table of Contents

Snapshot

Quarter Overview

Key Earnings Data

Samsung – More than a radio vendor?

Spectrum News – 800 MHz and Band 70

Handset Availability – iPhone 14, etc.

Business Strategy Update

-Enterprise Market

-Post Paid Retail

-Fixed Wireless Access

-Pre-Paid Retail

Key Takeaways

Related Reports

5G Infrastructure Vendors – Are They Immune to Recession?

Rakuten Mobile – Time To Show Disruptive networks Can Deliver Disruptive Profits?

Cloud RAN – Waiting For A Viable Business Case?

The post Dish Gets Ready To Launch Boost Infinite Post-Paid Service appeared first on Counterpoint.

Regional Trends

Ericsson reported growth across all its regions with the top markets in terms of revenue being North America, up 27.3%, Europe and Latin America, up 9.4% and South East Asia, Oceania and India, up 12.2%. The Middle East and Africa region also reported a strong 17.1% growth. Nokia reported growth across several regions (excluding Europe and India), with its strongest markets being North America, up 34.6%, Middle East and Africa, up 22.8% and Greater China, up 13.9%.

North America continues to be the preeminent market in revenue terms for both vendors. And as has been the case for several quarters, Nokia’s strong growth in the US was driven by a double-digit growth in Network Infrastructure and helped this quarter by a return to growth at its Mobile Networks business.

Network Infrastructure continues to be a  star performer for Nokia with a 21% growth overall, led by Fixed Networks up 34% and Submarine Networks, up 27%. Nokia reports that increasing 5G and fibre access penetration is leading to increasing demand for backhaul solutions, which is driving sales of its IP routing and metro/backbone optical network solutions. Although Nokia expects its double-digit growth to continue in the short-term, maintaining this growth rate will inevitably become more difficult over time.

Nevertheless, Counterpoint Research expects that Nokia’s Network Infrastructure revenues will surpass Mobile Networks before the end of 2023, driven predominantly by continued growth in Fixed Networks. In fact, Fixed Networks revenue equalled IP Routing revenues for the first time at the end of Q2, and together the two businesses now account for 67% of total Network Infrastructure revenues. Exhibit 1 compares the growth of Nokia’s Mobile Networks compared to Network Infrastructure during the past two years.

Exhibit 1:  Nokia: Mobile Networks versus Network Infrastructure Growth

Supply Chain Issues

Both vendors are carefully managing their supply chains but with perhaps a slightly different focus, with Ericsson seemingly more concerned on maintaining top-line growth. Overall, Ericsson claimed that supply chain issues have not had any impact on revenues up to now, with products delivered in quantity and on-time due to good supply chain management. However, increased inventory costs are clearly having an impact on its bottom line, denting its gross margin and reducing cash flow metrics.

In contrast, Nokia seems more focused on managing the bottom line and keeping costs under control. Throughout 2021, it faced challenging supply chain constrains with many of its suppliers. However, the vendor recently reported that these constraints are now more supplier specific, with a shortage of optical components being a particular concern. Faced with volatile lead times, Nokia increased inventory by $240 million in Q2 and will maintain this level of inventory until lead times become less volatile. Both vendors expect that supply chain challenges will start to ease in late 2022 and early 2023.

5G Outlook and Headwinds

Like most 5G vendors, the two Nordic vendors believe that the 5G capex peak will be higher and last longer than previous generations although there might be some normalization in 2024. Nokia continues to see strong investment in 5G connectivity and fibre deployments, two priorities for CSPs and their enterprise customers, as they deal with increasing data consumption and the need to improve productivity. To date, Nokia claims that it has not seen any major changes in customer demand and order intake remains strong with the company being more supply limited than demand limited. Ericsson also expects continued solid demand throughout 2022 and has increased its forecast revenues for North America.

However, a deteriorating macro environment could dampen customer demand over the next few months, particularly in emerging market countries, where currency fluctuations could impact the affordability of 5G products typically priced in dollars or euros. In addition, vendors are experiencing other headwinds such as inflation, higher R&D costs, etc.  However, Counterpoint Research believes that both companies have a limited degree of pricing power, and by increasing prices and the cadence of new products, they should be able to offset some of the inflationary pressures, For example, offering new products that reduce opex costs – such as smaller, lighter, lower-power radios – would enable CSPs to justify additional investments.

Low 5G and Fibre Penetration

Counterpoint Research expects that the 5G market’s secular growth pattern will continue, as even in a worsening macro environment, CSPs need to invest in networks to increase bandwidth and improve productivity. The demand for enterprise digitization is also unlikely to wane in the short term.  Outside China, the penetration of 5G and fibre remains low. For example, in North America, the penetration of mid-band 5G is less than 25% while in Europe it is under 15%. With such low penetrations, CSPs are extending 4G network coverage, densifying networks while at the same time transitioning to 5G. Unlike for many other industries, therefore, the impact of the impending recession could well be minimal for 5G infrastructure vendors.

* All revenue data is YoY, i.e. compared to Q2 2021 and is reported rather then adjusted constant currency revenue.

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The post 5G Infrastructure Vendors – Are They Immune To Recession? appeared first on Counterpoint.

Overview of UK SRN

The UK’s SRN project is a joint operator and government initiative designed to improve mobile coverage in the rural areas of the four nations of the UK: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The overall objective of the project is to increase total 4G coverage of the UK landmass to 95% by 2026. The SRN project is essentially divided into two parts as follows:

• Phase 1: 4G Partial Not Spots (PNS) – defined as areas where at least one operator provides 4G coverage, but not all four of them.
• Phase 2: 4G Total Not Spots (TNS) – defined as areas that currently do not receive 4G services from any operator.

The UK’s four operators – EE, O2, Three and Vodafone – are sharing the costs of rolling out the new infrastructure on an approximately 50:50 basis with the government, with the operators contributing to Phase 1 and the government financing Phase 2. Total cost of the project amounts to approximately $1.4 billion (£1.032 billion).

SRN Coverage Obligations

Although individual coverage targets vary from nation to nation, as shown in Exhibit 1, the goal is to raise 4G coverage from all four operators to 84% by the end of 2024 and ensure that 95% of the UK’s landmass is covered by at least one operator by the end of 2026. This should ensure 4G coverage to an additional 280,000 premises, 16,000 km of roads as well as improve indoor coverage in around 1.2 businesses and homes.

Three of the operators – O2, Three and Vodafone – have agreed to build a total of 222 new towers for Phase 1, of which 124 will be in Scotland, 54 in England, 33 in Wales and 11 in Northern Ireland, with each operator leading on 74 of the new sites. Although sharing towers and sites, each operator will procure and operate their own active equipment, i.e. antennas, radios, basebands, etc. However, the exact number and location of masts will depend on the ability to find suitable sites, obtaining power supply, backhaul services and securing the necessary planning permissions.

                         ©Counterpoint Research; Source: Digital Mobile Spectrum Ltd.

Exhibit 1:  SRN Coverage Obligations

EE is contributing to Phase 1 by expanding its existing 4G coverage – primarily through upgrades –  to more than 2,000 sites by 2024. Since March 2020, a total 853 sites have been upgraded, including 449 in England, 254 in Scotland, 97 in Wales and 42 in Northern Ireland. A further 1,500 upgrades are expected by 2024.

Emergency Services Network

Separately, the UK government is financing the construction of a new emergency services network (ESN) across the UK. Built and operated by EE, with equipment provided by  Motorola Solutions, the ESN will also consist of 292 Extended Area Service (EAS) sites financed by the UK government to ensure coverage in some of the most remote parts of the UK. These EAS towers will be available for other mobile operators to offer commercial services as part of their SRN network committment. Achieving the coverage data shown in Exhibit 1 will depend upon the availability of these EAS sites.

Project Status and Schedule

Operators in Phase 1 are in the process of securing sites, reaching rental and access agreements with site owners and obtaining the necessary permissions from planning authorities. Although a small number of PNS sites have already been deployed, the main build out is expected to start sometime in 2H 2022.  Clearly, progress will depend on cooperation with the various rural communities.  Counterpoint Research understands that two of the operators are expected to announce their preferred hardware vendors within the next month or so.

In the case of Phase 2, contracts to design and build the towers, install base station hardware and manage the TNS sites have been awarded with the winning bidders being: Clarke Telecom, Killarney Telecommunications, Mitie Technical Facilities Management and WHP Telecoms.  In addition, a tender notice to supply the backhaul transmission network for the TNS sites was issued in May 2022.

Viewpoint

The UK’s operators have chosen not to adopt a neutral hosting approach, which involves the sharing of base station equipment. There is also no pooling of spectrum, resulting in less efficient spectrum utilization. In fact, sharing is largely limited to towers and sites. Counterpoint Research suspects that this was the only way to ensure operator agreement and committment to the project. In addition, the network is a mobile-only network and does not provide any provision for fixed broadband access. Other countries such as Finland and New Zealand have adopted combined mobile and broadband network designs, also with active equipment sharing and spectrum pooling.

Although the UK’s SRN project will undoubtedly improve 4G coverage across large swathes of the UK, it will not deliver coverage to all communities. In particular, aggregate 4G coverage in Scotland will only increase to 74% with limited, i.e. one operator, or no coverage at all across almost a quarter of its remaining landmass. In addition, the operators are up against some tight deployment deadlines, with Phase 1 scheduled to be completed by the end of 2024 – less than two and a half years away.

Finally, rural networks – whether shared or otherwise – should be a golden opportunity for open RAN to deliver on its many promises. Although the UK government is championing its use in the UK, there is, however, no obligation on operators to adopt the technology in this project. As a result, Counterpoint Research expects that all four operators will choose tried and tested, proprietary 4G infrastructure from established vendors Ericsson and Nokia – with perhaps an outside chance that Vodafone will plump for open RAN compliant tech from existing supplier Samsung Networks at some of its sites.

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Dish’s Hits First FCC’s Milestone

Dish was required to provide 20% population coverage in 27 markets by June 14^th as part of its regulatory commitments. Last week, the company provided confirmation that this first hurdle had indeed been achieved, adding that the Project Genesis service is now available in 120 cities in the US. However, the service offered on Dish’s network is essentially a data-only service in most markets – which nevertheless satisfies the FCC’s requirements – with voice services provided by Dish’s MVNO partners. Counterpoint Research understands that this is due to difficulties encountered in implementing seamless call transfers between the VoNR technology used on Dish’s 5G SA network and VoLTE used on partner networks. However, Dish claims that these issues have now been resolved in Las Vegas. In addition, Project Genesis offers a hotspot data service costing $20 per month. Both services are only available directly via Dish and is currently limited to just three devices: Samsung’s Galaxy S2, Motorola’s Edge+ and a 5G hotspot router from NetGear.

Falling Subscribers and Revenues

At its recent Analyst Day, Dish announced ambitious plans to increase its mobile subscriber base from just over 8 million today to 30-40 million by 2030. However, unlike its brethren Rakuten in Japan, Dish is losing subscribers and revenues are falling steadily, including in its core pay-TV business (Exhibit 1). Dish has been adversely impacted by T-Mobile’s accelerated CDMA shut down, both in terms of lost subscriber revenues, as well as incurring unexpected extra costs. To make matters worse, the company is still waiting approval from the Department of Justice (DOJ) on its joint agreement with T-Mobile relating to the CDMA shutdown.

However, this week Dish announced a new 5-year roaming deal with T-Mobile worth a minimum of $3.3 billion. Under this agreement, Dish expects to gain around 100,000+ additional Boost-branded customers as well as receive some “financial assistance” from T-Mobile. Again, this new deal requires approval from the DOJ, which is scheduled for mid-August. In recent months, uncertainty surrounding the DOJ’s approval has hindered the company’s ability to retain customers, as the worsening churn rate in Exhibit 1 shows. Clearly, Dish will be hoping that this latest deal will be approved as quickly as possible so that it can draw a line under this saga and move on.

             ©Counterpoint Research; Data Source: Dish Wireless

Exhibit 1:  Dish Wireless Customers and Churn Rate (3Q 2020 to 1Q 2022)

Capex, Cash Flow and Debt

With Dish’s 5G network likely to be in extended beta mode at least until the end of the year, revenues from the network will be limited. At the same time, the company’s aggressive 5G network during the next 12 months will result in high capex expenditure and coupled with declining revenues from its existing MVNO and pay-TV businesses may put pressure on cash flow. This may affect Dish’s ability to refinance the $1.5 billion of debt maturing in March 2023. Dish also needs to participate in the upcoming 2.5 GHz Auction 108 as it has less mid-band spectrum than its main rivals.  However, tightening cash flows may limit its participation.

Extending Network Coverage

Deploying a 5G network using new open RAN technologies is no mean feat and the news that Dish has successfully hit its first FCC coverage target is therefore impressive. However, the company is still at the beginning of its 5G wireless journey and faces numerous challenges. Clearly, extending coverage will be its first priority. Its three biggest rivals today cover around 230-310 million people in the US, which will have risen by the time Dish reaches its statutory 70% coverage target in mid-2023.

However, Dish needs to quickly expand its 5G footprint for commercial as well as regulatory reasons, as its current limited 5G footprint will hinder its ability to compete in the retail market. This will involve deploying at least 15,000 radio sites nationally, and probably significantly more, in order to properly densify its network. Networks take time to deploy and there are always unforeseen problems, particularly with new technologies, as the issues with VoNR have shown. This is not likely to be the last such issue. In the meantime, Dish will have to rely on its MVNO partners and pay roaming costs.

Retail vs Enterprise Market

New entrants such as Dish cannot seriously compete in the retail wireless market until the user experience on its network is on a par with rivals. There are other issues too. Dish lacks a notable brand presence in the retail mobile market and currently only offers a limited number of devices.  It also needs to build up its smartphone distribution channels.  Clearly, these are early days and all these issues can and no doubt will be rectified – but it will take time.

As a result, Counterpoint Research believes that Dish’s commercial focus in the short-term will be on the enterprise market, where its limited network coverage may not be a problem for some companies. For example, Dish could start to offer campus wireless type private networks which could be connected to its MVNO partners’ public networks, if required. Spectrum leasing is another major opportunity, and to a lesser extent, the rural fixed wireless market, where there are synergies with its existing pay-TV business. Here, Dish could conceivably use its 12 GHz band frequencies. However, that is a contentious topic perhaps best saved for another day!

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The post Dish Clears 1st FCC Hurdle, Launches in 120 US Cities appeared first on Counterpoint.

Leveraging the Rakuten Digital Ecosystem

Several initiatives to boost subscriber growth are planned during the next few months, including a new pricing plan with a focus on increasing the number of paying users. In addition, Rakuten plans to launch a series of points-based marketing campaigns designed to leverage synergies between its mobile business and other Rakuten digital services businesses.

In contrast to its rivals, Rakuten owns its own digital services ecosystem, which includes e-commerce services, banking, payment platforms, streaming video services and insurance, with around 36 million active users per month. In fact, the company claims that the main motivation behind building its own mobile network is to capitalize on the ecosystem synergies between its digital services. Rakuten thus regards mobile connectivity as an enabler to engage users in its wider digital ecosystem and the company hopes that leveraging these synergies will be more fruitful than monetization via connectivity alone. At a previous earnings call, Rakuten shared data showing the proportion of new mobile subscribers who started using Rakuten’s other digital services (e.g. Rakuten Ichiba, Card, etc.) within 12 months of subscribing to Rakuten Mobile (Exhibit 1, upper diagram).

©Rakuten Group: FY2021 Fourth Quarter & Full Year Consolidated Financial Results, Slides 67, 68

Exhibit 1:  Leveraging the Rakuten Digital Ecosystem

Rakuten also claims that this cross-marketing of services is starting to have an impact on revenues. For example, the company reported that the average annual Gross Merchandise Sales (GMS) per user for mobile users using its Ichiba e-commerce platform was 67% higher after 12 months compared to just 20% higher for non-mobile users (Exhibit 1, lower diagram). From July, the company also plans to launch a points-based, cross-business marketing campaign, in which various digital services will be offered for free on a trial basis with the award of loyalty points.

Improving Financials

With most of its 4G network deployed, Counterpoint Research believes that Rakuten Mobile’s financials should start to improve during the second half of 2022 helped by cost reductions due to lower roaming costs, lower capex expenditures and to some extent boosted by increasing revenues at its Symphony telecom platform.

Rakuten also needs to continue deploying its 5G network, which will require a much denser network than 4G. Although 2Q capex may well be less than the $1.1 billion expenditure in 1Q, Counterpoint Research believes that infrastructure spending will remain high throughout 2022 and into 2023 as Rakuten continues deploying 5G radios throughout its network. In contrast to its open-RAN brethren Dish, however, Rakuten has been reporting steadily increasing mobile revenues for several months, which the company claims will be boosted significantly by revenues from its Symphony telco business from the end of 2022 onwards.

Targeting New Markets

Although the retail market remains Rakuten main focus, the company plans to enter the broadband and enterprise markets with a range of services starting in October. Rakuten claims that it will become an MVNO network provider and will offer a range of private networks services.

In addition, Rakuten plans to launch a FWA broadband service on both its sub-6GHz and millimetre wave frequencies starting in December as well as a FTTH service, thus making Rakuten a fixed broadband service provider. With its extensive fibre transport network across Japan, Rakuten certainly has the capacity to offer FTTH services and continues to invest in expanding the network’s capacity. For example, in a recent test with Nokia, it achieved speeds of 1 TB/s per channel over its DWDM fiber network, an increase of 5X compared to existing 200 Mb/s transmissions.

Drive To Profitability Starts Now

In commercial terms, Rakuten’s market debut to date has been disappointing, particularly when compared to new entrants using conventional infrastructure. But with its 4G network now covering 97% of the Japanese population – and presumably offering a comparable user experience to rivals – it looks as if the company is about to embark on its first serious attempt to boost subscriber growth. Rakuten is first and foremost an Internet services company with its own digital ecosystem – an advantage that rival CSPs lack. The key question therefore is: how much of a differentiator could this really turn out to be? Although initial results shown in Exhibit 1 look promising, most of the marketing initiatives will not be launched until July and hence the full impact on subscriber and revenue growth will probably not become apparent until the end of 2022 or later.

Responding to Competitive Threats

During the next few months, Rakuten needs to demonstrate serious traction in boosting subscribers and provide investors with a credible path to profitability in its mobile business. However, Japan is an extremely competitive market and Rakuten’s deep-pocketed rivals will not be slow to respond to any new competitive threat. Already competitors are taking advantage of Rakuten’s decision to terminate its popular zero-yen plan, with KDDI’s Povo – where subscribers pay for data used rather than a flat fee – benefiting the most. Competition in the 5G market is likely to intensify as Rakuten expands its marketing initiatives across Japan. Although its mobile business will benefit from revenues from its Symphony business, the road to profitably is likely be a long haul and may take many years. Meanwhile, in the short- and possibly medium-term, Rakuten will need to raise further funds, particularly if it intends to undertake a sustained marketing campaign.

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