IoT Insider Podcast | Episode 6: The 5G carrier playing field

Dan Cunliffe
Hi, everybody, and welcome to our podcast. Delighted to have Dr. Arslan back in the room with us. This time, we’re talking about the UK network carriers, and particularly their race for 5G. So welcome, Dr. Arslan.

Dr Arslan Usman
Thanks for having me Dan.

Dan Cunliffe
Perfect. We’re gonna we’re going to kind of keep this fairly, I suppose conversational, because there’s several aspects of what people have launched just recently, and particularly the kind of race for 5G. Maybe take us through a recap of what has been put in the press for the different operators.

Dr Arslan Usman
So the first one in the 5G race was EE they launched their services in May. The second one in the 5G race was Vodafone. And initially, they launched in 15 sites. And in next few months, eight more cities are coming this year. And then finally, the third one is Three, they will be launching their services in August. And we will be discussing the auction results later on. They are very interesting. Yeah. Finally, O2, which is the fourth network operator in the UK, they are going to launch their services in October this year.

Dan Cunliffe
So we’ve basically got EE, Vodafone, Three, and then O2 in that order. One of the things that, and I believe you obviously written a blog on this as well, you know, basically the 5G myths that we’re going to talk about later. But is it really 5G? Is it sort of pretend 5G? What do you think?

Dr Arslan Usman
Well, I think initially, if we talk about ultra high speeds, data rates, then definitely we can call it 5G. But as 5G has different unique use cases, including Ultra Low Latency and high reliability. When we talk about these, then I don’t think we can call it 5G yet. But I assure you that the vendors and network operators are working on that. And in a couple of years, it should be out there.

Dan Cunliffe
So basically from a speed perspective, we’re not completely there yet or do you think we are there now?

Dr Arslan Usman
Well, 5G promises lower end of 100 Mbps as data rates. Yeah. And it can go up to 10 Gbps megabits per second. So that is massive. But initially yes, you have seen some best results. People are sharing their snapshot. Yeah, on Twitter and LinkedIn. So initially, we have not reached the promised data rates. But in a couple of years, you will see that it goes up to its maximum potential.

Dan Cunliffe
Perfect. So So just to recap, basically, EE is in six major UK cities. Vodafone 15, major UK cities with eight more to come. The other two going forward as well. Okay, let’s talk about who’s going to be the best. I mean, it’s a bit difficult to give the exact answers but we can only look at what has been, I suppose done in either the auctions or who’s going to be the most capable in terms of coverage, potency, who’s likely to take the lead, what do you what do you reckon? What’s your What’s your thoughts?

Dr Arslan Usman
So for this, I think if we discuss the auction results first, then we can have an idea that who is going to be the best? Yeah. So we have 50 Megahertz with Vodafone in terms of spectrum, then Three has got 20 Megahertz. So initially if we just think about the auction results, just the auction results, basically what they were given or what they bought, I suppose Yes. So then we see that okay, Three is not looking good, because they just have 20 Megahertz. Yeah. Then O2 has 40 Megahertz. And finally, EE has 40 Megahertz. But at the moment, if you see the auction results one more time, then Three has recently bought 80 Megahertz from UK broadband. So now they have 100 Megahertz of spectrum.

Dan Cunliffe
So basically, if you rank them according to the amount of Megahertz they have, we’d have Three with a combined 100 from their acquisition, Vodaphone with 50 MHz, O2 and EE both on 40. Interesting, what does that what does that realistically mean at a sort of small cell level or even just kind of any level what does that realistically mean?

Dr Arslan Usman
So the the spectrum that you have as a network operator that actually decides how much data rates you can offer. Got it. So at the moment, if you see some commercial blogs, you will see that Three is saying that they will be able to provide really high data rates. But for fixed connectivity, not mobile connectivity yet. Yeah. So what they’re want to say, or trying to say is that with 100 Megahertz of spectrum, they will be able to provide five different, or maybe four different pipelines that are in technically they’re termed as carrier aggregation. So these pipelines are like, for example, we have one pipeline, and we have some certain data rate just multiplied with five, because then all you have five pipelines, simultaneously transmitting data towards user ends.

Dan Cunliffe
And that is probably their game plan to get there. But one of the things that I think if we go maybe to our to our kind of next question about what sort of challenges do the operators face? I think this is just from Well, what we’ve looked at, and where we where we get an answer is that people like Three, more than likely have to rebuild a lot of their network, in order to make that 100 Megahertz count is what we’re seeing. Whereas someone like O2 and Vodafone, have actually announced that they’re going to do a kind of rehash of their Cornerstone agreement, which was a sharing of the masts in order to get coverage quicker. And therefore pool their, their kind of resources together. So So even though you have the most spectrum doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be the best, right? That’s what I kind of concede because there is real focus on the financial aspect here as well. But there’s some other challenges, right, there are some other things that we got to consider.

Dr Arslan Usman
Definitely. So 5G is mainly going to focus on millimetre waves. So the difference is that for the infrastructure is about microwaves, okay, but we are moving towards millimetre waves, which means higher frequencies. So higher frequencies means higher penetration losses, signal losses. Yeah. So to overcome that, we need massive and dense deployment of something called small cells. So it’s small cells, you can define them as base stations with really small coverage, let’s say, a radius of even 10 metres will be possible.

Dan Cunliffe
Wow, that’s really small.

Dr Arslan Usman
Yes, because higher frequencies and higher data rates, this will lead to signalling losses, definitely, you cannot avoid that.

Dan Cunliffe
Interesting. So if I can try and make an analogy, and I think you helped me with this before, but essentially, the higher the frequencies are going, and I think it’s for those who are interested up to between 3.2 and 3.6 Gigahertz in terms of where they’re going to go. Imagine for the listeners imagine we’re shooting out shards of glass effectively, at very high speeds, if we put anything in front of them, they will shatter. So while we’re pumping out, theoretical, 10 gigabits per second in terms of bandwidth, we’re probably only going to see high hundreds, maybe close to one gigabit per second of actual is what I kind of try and think about it. Because as the shards of glass are being pumped out, they hit buildings, they hit birds, they hit everything right? And just kind of shatter, and therefore we’re left with what’s available afterwards would that kind of be fair?

Dr Arslan Usman
Yes, that is actually the best way to put it.

Dan Cunliffe
Yeah. And then you take it to the next level is small cells need to go everywhere in order to make this reality. So you can think of like New York, for example, as a grid system, you’d probably need one on every corner to make this work.

Dr Arslan Usman
Yes, you will need one in every corner. And even you can say one in every office, every apartment. Because you don’t want any kind of. Because 5G, with its massive potential has to bear fruit for every single customer, whether residential, commercial, industrial, so you have to ensure that everyone is getting the services they need or what they have opted out for. So massive deployment of small cells will be essential.

Dan Cunliffe
And we’re still talking about 5G when the Ultra Reliable Low Latency comes to fruition and the IoT slice comes to fruition. Yes, that’s that’s where we’re talking about.

Dr Arslan Usman
So initially, what we see right now in UK, it’s you can call it Enhanced Mobile Broadband, though not with the massive potential it has to offer later on. And with the massive deployment of small cells, we will have Massive Machine Type Communication that is related to Internet of Things. Yep. And we will have Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication.

Dan Cunliffe
Interesting. So you’ve mentioned even into people’s homes, even into businesses having their own small cell to really take advantage of this kind of technology. This starts to really create possibly a bit of uneasiness. But and you wrote a blog about this, as well as that, you know, will it end up replacing people’s fixed connectivity or even replacing the fixed connectivity offerings from the operators themselves? Tell us a bit about what you think there.

Dr Arslan Usman
So one thing that is very big misunderstanding among end users, and even commercial and industrial users, is that 5G is going to replace the fixed connectivity, fixed broadband and Wi-Fi. Well, both these technologies or all three of these technologies go hand in hand, there is no replacing of any services that are out in the market right now. Simple example can be something called Wi-Fi offloading. So when networks they face congestion, in terms of lots of users enter the same vicinity of a base station, then providing data services becomes harder for the base station. Yeah, so what they do is for the data services, they switch or they hand over those users which are resulting in congestion to Wi-Fi routers. So data connectivity happens through Wi-Fi. And voice communication happens with the regular base station. So this is Wi-Fi offloading. So this is a very good example, where Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity go hand in hand.

Dan Cunliffe
Makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think Wi-Fi offloading has been around since days of 3G, I think as well, when essentially, there was a requirement to to effectively help the in the investments in 3G, to take a lot of that traffic away while they were investing to try and grow forward and remember it from my days at the cloud. So you feel that actually the operators will benefit from from this because of things like Wi-Fi offloading, and possibly other products? What does this actually mean for the businesses? And particularly in Pangea, we have our partners, right, who sell broadband, Ethernet, they sell cloud products that run off the back of that fixed service. From my perspective, what does this all mean for them right now, if I can maybe start with that answer, if I may, because I feel like very close to partners. Right now, I think 5G is in a very kind of specific coverage, right? We’re not talking about wider reaching as what 4G is today. And I feel like we’re back in 3G versus 4G world because of the differences. But I think that the coverage has still got a very, very long way to go. But interestingly, I did a talk at one of our partners events recently, who are probably one of the more dominant Ethernet providers in the market. And again, I think it goes hand in hand, I think it’s about that the fixed connectivity cannot always be delivered quickly. Due to many reasons, whether it’s digging up roads, way leaves, whatever it might be to deliver that fibre experience, if something like 5G is able to accelerate the customer satisfaction, then they should go hand in hand, they should be done together. And from my perspective, it’s not about treating 5G or even 4G as something that is going to cannibalise business. I think it’s about an opportunity to contract customers earlier, but also provide a higher level of satisfaction by connecting quicker because it’s easier to deploy. Really. I don’t know if you’ve got any comments on kind of what I’m saying that but if you kind of agree with it?

Dr Arslan Usman
I cannot agree more. Definitely I agree with you, they have to go hand in hand, and there is no replacing, yes, there will be you can say that there will be some market shares, ups and downs. But as you mentioned that all that that has always happened.

Dan Cunliffe
Exactly. Well, I think just to kind of wrap it up, I would say we’re not trying to give everybody a specific choice on which operator is what we’re trying to lay out the facts. I think one thing we can say, which is one of our own products, is about the probably the best answer is the Multi-network offering right? At some point one SIM that uses all of them is probably the best way to go. But we’ll leave that for another for another podcast or one of the ones we’ve done before. Dr. Arslan, thank you so much for joining me. No problem and to the listeners. We will be back with another podcast in the future. Thank you so much. Thank you