It has been a week of walks and talks during the 2024 Mobile World Congress, during which the ETSI and 3GPP leaders have discussed all things standards with over 20 of the member companies at the heart of mobile. The meetings have included some exciting 5G demos as well as some ‘behind closed doors’ briefings about how 3GPP fits into companies’ planning and the early availability of 5G Advanced ready products and services.
On Thursday, February 29, the GSMA invited ETSI and the 3GPP Market Partners TCCA (Critical Communications), the Alliance for Private Networks (ex MFA), 5G-ACIA (Connected Industry), 5GAA (Automotive) to join in a Global 5G Alliance summit aimed at Asia Pacific industry representatives at MWC24.
Speakers noted that as 5G approaches maturity the enthusiasm for it and the innovation it brings is still on the up in the APAC region. The session heard about 5G systems in Asia, where their use in vertical markets is growing. Manufacturing, transport, utilities and mining sectors are leading the way there as the Enterprise market drives spectacular growth in private networks.
Christina Patsioura of the GSMA confirmed this, she observed that Operators are key in helping the move from 4G to the nextgen, as customers look beyond connectivity towards additional services. She said that 64% of companies (globally) are using or testing private networks.
For many of the 30 thousand use cases for Private networks (Source: GTI) the move to NPNs is hugely security related, as many of the business critical processes will be carried across them. The speaker from Mahindra of India identified monitoring & analytics, virtual assistance & simulation and Operational automation as the three 'sets of use cases' for the majority of those 30k identified. A theme of the discussion was on the need for common sets of functionality to be re-used across different (but similar) applications.
Takehiro Nakamura, NTT Docomo, representing 5G-ACIA, noted that there is still a lack of knowledge about 5G amongst some industry executives, he said “We need to explain what real 5G can do. Some people still have the hope that 5G will deliver everything to them. We need to explain the solutions and potential issues to be faced. This will improve the relationships between 5G technologists and users.” Nakamura-san continued: “There are many challenges in the language used and in the difference in processes. In 3GPP we start the discussion with a ‘requirements’ phase. However, in many industry discussions when we ask for requirements the end user asks instead what are your ‘assets’ that we can use? We need to be clear on the benefits of 5G, with real data and test results.”
Luis Jose Romero, the ETSI DG, highlighted the International aspect of cooperation as a major factor for the success of 5G Advanced and the need to build systems across all geographies, without fragmentation. He highlighted the role of Market Partners in 3GPP in making sure this happens. “What is most important is the exchange of requirements and then to bring them into 3GPP. The same is true for spectrum, the better the harmonization in these areas, the better for everyone.”
This session was a GSMA Global 5G Alliance summit during MWC24.
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