End-to-End network slicing with Ericsson, KDDI

Ericsson, Japanese operator KDDI, and Sony carried out a proof-of-concept (POC) showing end-to-end network across two simultaneous slices for the same user equipment and the same end-user service. 

In this PoC, Ericsson's 5G Core equipment and Sony's 5G SA mobile devices applied User Equipment Route Selection Policies (URSP) standards and Priority Scheduling to enable a gaming app to use two different network slices – one for video and one for mobile operation signals. This showed that dedicated network slices can be used for different processes on a mobile device by changing the terminal’s route selection policies in response to a request from 5G core equipment.

Chris Houghton, Senior Vice President and Head of Market Area Northeast Asia, Ericsson, says: “This significant achievement with KDDI, an important customer of ours, and Sony, a key partner, paves the way for all sorts of applications in network slicing. We will continue to support our customers and partners in Japan to monetize their networks by delivering new value and services for end users.”

The PoC showed that in a highly loaded mobile network, Radio Access Network (RAN) Slicing functions such as Quality of Service and Radio Resource Partitioning (RRP) can provide the required service isolation and differentiated priorities to protect the mobile broadband user performance. In addition, end-to-end network slices were deployed by the Service Orchestration, with the profiles for the RAN and 5G core and cell-level radio resources partitioned using RRP

Mr. Toshikazu Yokai, Managing Executive Officer, General Manager of Mobile Network Technical Development Division, KDDI, stated. “KDDI is constantly working on technology validation with the aim to create new use cases and services utilizing 5G standalone. KDDI will continue to develop and verify technologies to create new value.”

https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2/2022/12/ericsson-kddi-sony-successfully-achieve-simultaneous-communication-of-multiple-network-slices

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KDDI connects mobile tower to Starlink for backhaul

KDDI has deployed the first mobile tower in Japan to use Starlink for backhaul. 

The tower is located in Hatsushima, a remote island in Sagami Bay. The service is now in commercial operation, following a series of tests beginning in 2021.

KDDI said that in order to ensure sufficient quality for cellular service with voice and data, Starlink  met its technical guidelines in latency, jitter and uplink/downlink bandwidth. KDDI has completed its evaluation of Starlink and confirmed the conformance in customer experience that could be comparable to that of optical fiber, which it uses for urban towers.

Starting with this location, KDDI will expand its coverage to 1,200 remote towers in order to pursue its vision to bring an urban mobile experience to its rural customers.

https://news.kddi.com/kddi/corporate/english/newsrelease/2022/12/01/6415.html

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KDDI hit by two day outage across Japan

KDDI, which serves over 31 million users across Japan, was hit by a widespread outage beginning on Saturday, July 2 at 01:35am local time.

KDDI attributed the initial fault to regular maintenance procedures involving the replacement of a router. Cascading errors led to disruption of other core elements, including its VoLTE platform. 

Rakuten Mobile users were also hit by the outage due to carriage agreements between the firms

As of Monday, July 4, the network had not yet fully recovered.

httpxs://news.kddi.com/important/news/important_202207051020.html

KDDI picks Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung for 5G

Tuesday, October 01, 2019  5G, Ericsson, KDDI, Nokia, Samsung  

KDDI named Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung as its primary 5G vendors for next-generation network deployment in Japan. KDDI expects the first commercial live 5G services to be available from March 2020, with more than 93 percent coverage of 5G base station areas specified by Japan’s telecom regulation body by the end of March 2025. Ericsson confirmed that it will supply KDDI with Radio Access Network equipment, including products and solutions from...

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KDDI implements Wind River Studio for O-RAN virtualized base station

KDDI implemented Wind River Studio for its O-RAN–compliant 5G stand-alone virtualized base station technology, which has recently launched on its commercial network.

Wind River Studio provides a cloud-native platform for the development, deployment, operations, and servicing of mission-critical intelligent systems. Its cloud infrastructure capabilities include a fully cloud-native, Kubernetes- and container-based architecture, based on the StarlingX open source project, for distributed edge networks at scale. Addressing the complexities of deploying and managing cloud-native vRAN infrastructure, Studio delivers a foundation for a geographically distributed, managed solution able to simplify Day 1 and Day 2 operations by providing single-pane-of-glass, zero touch automated management of thousands of nodes, no matter their physical location.

“5G opens up new opportunities, with greater intelligence and compute moving toward the edges of the network. Much of our future will be run on a virtualized, distributed cloud with low-latency, far edge cloud architecture to support new use cases in the new intelligent machine economy,” said Paul Miller, Chief Technology Officer, Wind River. “We are able to provide solutions to help prepare for a cloud-native future and deliver on high-reliability, ultra-low-latency, and highly efficient solutions for next-generation networks.”

http://www.windriver.com/studio

KDDI activates 5G Standalone Open RAN site powered by vRAN

Monday, February 21, 2022  KDDI, O-RAN  

KDDI activated the world's first commercial 5G Standalone Open Radio Access Network site powered by virtualized Radio Access Network in Kawasaki, Kanagawa and is now carrying live 5G traffic.KDDI is using Samsung's 5G virtualized CU (vCU) and virtualized DU (vDU) as well as Fujitsu's Massive MIMO radio units,Beginning with this site, in 2022, KDDI, along with Samsung and Fujitsu, will deploy this Open RAN in some parts of Japan and continue its deployment...

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Aptiv to acquire Windriver for $4.3 billion

Tuesday, January 11, 2022    

Aptiv, a leading supplier of automotive parts, agreed to acquire Wind River from TPG Capital, the private equity platform of global alternative asset management firm TPG, for $4.3 billion in cash.Wind River is a global leader in delivering software for the intelligent edge. Used on over two billion edge devices across more than 1,700 customers globally, Wind River’s software enables the secure development, deployment, operations and servicing of...

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O-RAN Global PlugFest 2021attracts 144 corporate participants

Wednesday, December 15, 2021  O-RAN  

The O-RAN ALLIANCE conducted its worldwide O-RAN Global PlugFest 2021 to demonstrate the functionality and multi-vendor interoperability of O-RAN based network equipment. The event was conducted in 7 global venues, with 94 participating companies. Many of the companies contributed to multiple venues, bringing PlugFest to a total of 144 active corporate participants compared to 70 at the 2020 PlugFest.“The expanded and diverse participation of...

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Vodafone and Mavenir complete first call over containerised Open RAN

Tuesday, December 14, 2021  Mavenir, Vodafone, VoLTE  

Voda

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KDDI activates 5G Standalone Open RAN site powered by vRAN

KDDI activated the world's first commercial 5G Standalone Open Radio Access Network site powered by virtualized Radio Access Network in Kawasaki, Kanagawa and is now carrying live 5G traffic.

KDDI is using Samsung's 5G virtualized CU (vCU) and virtualized DU (vDU) as well as Fujitsu's Massive MIMO radio units,

Beginning with this site, in 2022, KDDI, along with Samsung and Fujitsu, will deploy this Open RAN in some parts of Japan and continue its deployment and development, embracing openness and virtualization in KDDI's commercial network.

While traditional RAN uses hardware-based equipment, this Open RAN site leverages fully-virtualized RAN software, provided by Samsung, that runs on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers. Furthermore, by pursuing an open network approach between radio units and baseband unit, KDDI used Samsung's baseband and Fujitsu's Massive MIMO Units, which are connected with an open interface.

The virtualized network allows the use of general-purpose hardware (COTS servers) across the country, which will greatly increase deployment efficiencies. Additionally, by leveraging system automation, fully-virtualized RAN software can reduce deployment time, enabling swift nationwide expansion, including rural areas.

"Together with Samsung and Fujitsu, we are excited to successfully develop and turn on the world's first commercial 5G SA Open RAN site powered by vRAN. Taking a big step, we look forward to continue leading network innovation and advancing our network capabilities, towards our vision of delivering cutting-edge 5G services to our customers," stated Kazuyuki Yoshimura, Chief Technology Officer, KDDI Corporation.

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SoftBank and KDDI build a shared RAN in Japan

SoftBank and KDDI have selected Nokiaa as one of the vendors to deploy Japan’s shared RAN. 

Nokia will install a Multi-Operator Radio Access Network (MORAN), which will allow both companies to share the RAN while keeping core networks separate.

Under the deal, Nokia will supply its latest AirScale products including baseband and radio platforms. Nokia’s MORAN is triple mode and covers LTE, 5G as well as Dynamic Spectrum Sharing. In particular, Nokia will provide its new generation of ReefShark System-on-Chip based plug-in cards to increase the capacity of the AirScale baseband. The new ReefShark-powered plug-in cards are easily installed and simplify the upgrade and extended operation of all AirScale deployments. They also deliver up to eight times more throughput compared to previous generations. Nokia’s modular AirScale baseband will enable SoftBank and KDDI to scale capacity flexibly and efficiently and as their 5G business evolves.

Tomohiro Sekiwa, Senior Vice President and CNO, SoftBank, said: “In order to deliver the best 5G experience to customers nationwide as quickly as possible, SoftBank is working with KDDI to develop a shared 5G network. In this effort, a Multi-Operator Radio Access Network is a key technology that will bring various efficiencies and we look forward to the high performance of Nokia’s products in this regard.”

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Ericsson to deliver Multi-Operator RAN radios to KDDI and SoftBank

Ericsson has been selected by KDDI and SoftBank Corp. (as one of the vendors to help deploy Japan’s first Multi-Operator Radio Access Network (MORAN).  Ericsson’s network sharing solution powers both communications service providers while keeping both companies’operations and management capabilities separate.   

Ericsson equipment supports network sharing on both TDD (Time Division Duplex) and FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) as well as 4G/LTE and 5G New Radio (NR).  The solution consists of Ericsson Radio System  products such as RAN Compute (base band), radio and transport - with the powerful system on a chip, Ericsson Silicon, bringing innovative various solutions such as Ericsson Spectrum Sharing and Ericsson Uplink Booster.

Ericsson’s network sharing solution can also be applied to industrial or campus sites, where the radio access network may be shared between the onsite network and the public network, opening up more possibilities to support industry digitalization.

Tatsuo Sato, Vice President & Managing Officer, Technology Planning, KDDI says: “We are pleased to work closely with SoftBank and Ericsson to accelerate 5G network deployment. With the MORAN solution, we will be among the first to offer excellent 5G experiences to our customers.”

Tomohiro Sekiwa, Senior Vice President and CNO, SoftBank, says: “To provide 5G coverage to our customers across Japan with extraordinary speed, we are proactively working with KDDI and Ericsson.  The MORAN solution is key to this success and we have high expectations for this effort.”

Chris Houghton, Senior Vice President, Head of Market Area North East Asia, Ericsson, says: “We are thrilled to contribute to the efforts of our two important customers, KDDI and SoftBank, to build Multi-Operator RAN for the first time in Japan. We look forward to further supporting this imperative mission to build the country’s significant network infrastructure.”

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KDDI tests Nokia’s Liquid Cooling baseband solution

KDDI is conducting a trial using Nokia's unique Liquid Cooling AirScale Baseband solution.

Nokia says its solution can reduce its baseband cooling system energy consumption by more than 70 percent compared to traditional gas coolant-based air-cooling solutions.

KDDI is also trialing Nokia’s Nokia AVA for Energy Efficiency solution which applies AI to support the challenge of rising energy consumption in networks.  The solution helps to reduce overall energy bills by up to 20 percent, according to the company.

John Lancaster-Lennox, Head of Market Unit Japan at Nokia, said: “This trial is another milestone in Nokia’s commitment to sustainability and combatting climate change. Nokia was the first vendor to introduce this game-changing liquid cooling solution which supports operators in their quest to be more environmentally responsible while allowing them to achieve significant cost savings.”

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Samsung and KDDI demo 5G network slicing

KDDI, in collaboration with Samsung, demonstrated a 5G end-to-end (E2E) network slicing demonstration with a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) in Tokyo, Japan. 

The demonstration showcased new use cases using 5G E2E network slicing on a virtual network that ties together Samsung’s virtualized core, virtualized RAN, and orchestration.

Key capabilities shown included low latency, guaranteed throughput and the creation of multiple slices. Furthermore, a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) that managed radio resources to guarantee required service levels, was demonstrated. Samsung and KDDI aim to standardize E2E network slicing in an international standard organization. 

“The demonstration provides a foundation that will allow KDDI to offer new 5G commercial services leveraging its 5G commercial networks,” said Toshikazu Yokai, Executive Officer, General Manager of Mobile Network Technical Development Division at KDDI. “Working with Samsung, we will continue to accelerate growth in advanced 5G technologies to benefit our customers.”

“This collaboration with KDDI on 5G E2E network slicing is a significant step towards new business models using 5G technology,” said Taiyeon Kim, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Technology Service Team, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “This demonstration spotlights how Samsung’s advanced 5G solutions can support KDDI and open up new business opportunities by unlocking the full power of their 5G commercial network.”

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KDDI teams with Nokia on virtualized Cloud RAN PoC

Nokia and KDDI are collaborating on fully cloudified RAN Proof-of-Concept.

The lab-based Proof of Concept (PoC) will use Nokia’s AirScale All-in-Cloud BTS solution and enable KDDI to research how flexible, virtualized radio network technology can support the diversifying network performance requirements in the 5G era.

Nokia’s AirScale All-in-Cloud BTS is a fully cloudified 5G BTS, placing both the real-time and non-real-time baseband in the cloud.The virtualized real-time baseband processing takes place at the far edge of the network to meet extreme latency requirements and provide the ability to scale to meet demand. It is part of Nokia’s broader Nokia AirScale Cloud RAN solution, which offers a flexible mix of local and cloud-based processing.

Nokia said its AirScale All-in-Cloud BTS will be used in the planned PoC to provide a flexible network configuration of a base station virtualization and enable the provision of an optimal 5G network.

KDDI launched commercial 5G services in March 2020. KDDI has been working closely with Nokia on this PoC as well as 5G core standalone network trials.

Ari Kynaslahti, Head of Mobile Networks Product Management at Nokia, commented: “The 5G era will bring with incredible opportunities for businesses and consumers alike but it will place increasing demand on the networks as complexity increases and data traffic explodes. KDDI will be able to use virtualized networks to rapidly respond to its customers’ varied requirements. We look forward to continuing our strong relationship with them in the pursuit of virtualized network best practices and in preparing for a new decade of communication technology.”

KDDI picks Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung for 5G

Tuesday, October 01, 2019  5G, Ericsson, KDDI, Nokia, Samsung  

KDDI named Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung as its primary 5G vendors for next-generation network deployment in Japan.

KDDI expects the first commercial live 5G services to be available from March 2020, with more than 93 percent coverage of 5G base station areas specified by Japan’s telecom regulation body by the end of March 2025.

Ericsson confirmed that it will supply KDDI with Radio Access Network equipment, including products and solutions from the Ericsson Radio System portfolio. The equipment will allow KDDI to roll out commercial 5G services in several parts of Japan on their sub-6GHz and 28GHz bands for 5G New Radio (NR). KDDI’s selection of Ericsson as a 5G vendor follows nearly four years of close collaboration on 5G between the companies.

Nokia also confirmed its selection as a primary partner to upgrade KDDI's 4G network to 5G using its AirScale platform, which supports both 4G and 5G operations. This will allow KDDI to modernize its 4G network and meet the growing consumer and industrial demands for 5G. The contract for 5G radio re-enforces the strong relationship between the two companies, which dates back over two decades.

Nokia is an existing supplier to KDDI across multiple technologies, including radio, fixed networks, mobile core network and multiple software solutions. The 5G network will support KDDI across both cmWave and mmWave 5G frequency bands and can be deployed in both distributed and centralized architectures.

Samsung Networks said it will provide KDDI with its latest 5G network solutions, including various radio base stations supporting mid-band (3.7~3.8GHz and 4.0~4.1GHz) and mmWave (28GHz) spectrum, as well as virtualized RAN. In preparation for the arrival of 5G, the two companies have carried out several successful trials on real-world use cases and achieved world-first 5G milestones. This includes Japan’s first mmWave outdoor 5G handover test success in 2017, 5G handovers for high-speed racing cars and trains in 2017, a real-time free-viewpoint video stream at baseball stadium in 2018, a 5G-powered education showcase in an elementary school in 2019, and a demonstration of the power of real-time 4K video communication at Haneda Airport, Tokyo in 2019.

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Radisys and KDDI demo RAN slicing

Radisys and KDDI Research demonstrated RAN slicing involving different traffic streams with different latency requirements on a single Radio Unit (RU) connected to multiple Centralized Units/Distributed Units in a disaggregated network topology.

The demonstration included the creation of a network slice for eMBB (Enhanced Media Broadband) service that spanned a pair of Distributed Units (DU) in an edge cloud site and a Centralized Unit User Plane (CU-UP) in a regional cloud site. This allows an architectural construct of a Network Slice consisting of Intelligent Edge and regional cloud with functionalities to host a 5G service. While eMBB is a high-speed data service, another network slice was created for Ultra Reliable and Low Latency Communication (URLLC) service employing another pair of DUs in the edge cloud.
Key features of the demonstration include:

• Network slicing to implement workloads for 5G services both edge and regional clouds
• Showcasing two important 5G services: eMBB and URLLC
• Creating multiple slices in a single cell

For this demo, Radisys provided an end-to-end configuration consisting of:

• 5G NR (New Radio) gNodeB in Standalone mode operating in sub-6 GHz frequency range along with RAN controller
• 5G Core Network including Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF), Session Management Function (SMF) and User Plane Function (UPF)
• eMBB and URLLC service functionality portioned in edge and regional clouds

“Our deep partnership with KDDI Research is evident with this critical demonstration of advanced network slicing where we connected multiple CUs and DUs to a single RU,” said Arun Bhikshesvaran, CEO, Radisys. “This demo goes beyond the typical single DU and RU binding and really brings to the forefront how mobile operators will manage their networks with intelligent edge deployments and scale into regional clouds to optimize efficiency and operational costs in order to realize the benefits of 5G disaggregation.”

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KDDI implements Cisco's Virtualized Packet Core for 5G

KDDI Corporation of Japan is using a broad mix of Cisco’s 5G Now portfolio beginning with the Cisco Virtualized Packet Core at the heart of the network, and Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS) architecture.

Cisco also confirmed that it is currently working with over 100 of the nearly 300 operators globally that have either launched, demonstrated, or are field trialing 5G.

“As a visionary company that contributes to the sustainable growth of society, KDDI is making the right decision to evolve to a virtualized, cloud-powered architecture in prep for 5G,” said Jonathan Davidson, senior vice president and general manager, Service Provider Business, Cisco. “With this new innovation, KDDI will have the right foundation in place to offer its business, industrial and consumer customers faster, reliable connections and all the new, elevated experiences to come with the 5G era.”

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KDDI picks Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung for 5G

KDDI named Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung as its primary 5G vendors for next-generation network deployment in Japan.

KDDI expects the first commercial live 5G services to be available from March 2020, with more than 93 percent coverage of 5G base station areas specified by Japan’s telecom regulation body by the end of March 2025.

Ericsson confirmed that it will supply KDDI with Radio Access Network equipment, including products and solutions from the Ericsson Radio System portfolio. The equipment will allow KDDI to roll out commercial 5G services in several parts of Japan on their sub-6GHz and 28GHz bands for 5G New Radio (NR). KDDI’s selection of Ericsson as a 5G vendor follows nearly four years of close collaboration on 5G between the companies.

Nokia also confirmed its selection as a primary partner to upgrade KDDI's 4G network to 5G using its AirScale platform, which supports both 4G and 5G operations. This will allow KDDI to modernize its 4G network and meet the growing consumer and industrial demands for 5G. The contract for 5G radio re-enforces the strong relationship between the two companies, which dates back over two decades.

Nokia is an existing supplier to KDDI across multiple technologies, including radio, fixed networks, mobile core network and multiple software solutions. The 5G network will support KDDI across both cmWave and mmWave 5G frequency bands and can be deployed in both distributed and centralized architectures.

Samsung Networks said it will provide KDDI with its latest 5G network solutions, including various radio base stations supporting mid-band (3.7~3.8GHz and 4.0~4.1GHz) and mmWave (28GHz) spectrum, as well as virtualized RAN. In preparation for the arrival of 5G, the two companies have carried out several successful trials on real-world use cases and achieved world-first 5G milestones. This includes Japan’s first mmWave outdoor 5G handover test success in 2017, 5G handovers for high-speed racing cars and trains in 2017, a real-time free-viewpoint video stream at baseball stadium in 2018, a 5G-powered education showcase in an elementary school in 2019, and a demonstration of the power of real-time 4K video communication at Haneda Airport, Tokyo in 2019.

John Harrington, Head of Nokia Japan, said: “This deal will allow KDDI to get ready for the 5G era and we are honoured and excited to continue our long-term relationship. As an end-to-end supplier of multiple technologies to KDDI, we look forward to transforming the network and launching 5G for consumers and industries.”

Chris Houghton, Senior Vice President, Head of Market Area North East Asia, Ericsson, says: “Having established our important partnership with KDDI in 2013, we have now expanded our collaboration efforts. We are excited about our involvement in KDDI’s 5G network buildout, which will provide a sound basis for our future collaboration as well as allowing our partner to offer users a whole new generation of mobile services.”

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KDDI and Softbank agree on 5G network sharing in rural Japan

KDDI and SoftBank agreed to share their base station assets to jointly promote the rapid build-out of 5G networks in Japan's rural areas.

Specifically, the companies plan to set up a joint construction management company that would facilitate construction designs and manage construction work to efficiently utilize the base station assets of both companies. As a first step, both companies will establish a preparatory office, and starting this fall, conduct joint trials in Asahikawa City in Hokkaido, Narita City in Chiba Prefecture and Fukuyama City in Hiroshima Prefecture.

In addition to streamlining processes from design to construction management stages, the trials will be used to verify the effects of 5G network quality improvements and shortened construction periods in rural areas.

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KDDI and Ericsson test AI to optimize its LTE radio access

Japan's KDDI has partnered with Ericsson to implement an AI-based solution to optimize its LTE radio access network and improve end-user experience.

Ericsson said its solution automatically finds optimal radio network parameters in the network resulting in increased spectrum efficiency between bands and improved throughput. In a series of trials conducted in dense urban areas, the Ericsson AI-based solution improved network throughput by nearly 10 percent. Normally, KDDI would have needed thousands of hours to complete a network-wide analysis to come up with optimized parameters but with Ericsson’s solution, the process now takes less than 30 minutes to complete.

The collaboration is part of KDDI’s AI & automation program that seeks to find innovative ways to modernize optimization and provide better performance to the operator’s customers.

Chris Houghton, Head of Market Area North East Asia, Ericsson, says: “KDDI has very clear vision that puts the customer satisfaction as the top priority, and they see network performance as a crucial factor. Ericsson’s AI-based network optimization is a technology designed to improve network performance with completely new levels of speed, scalability and effective results. We look forward to continuing our strong cooperation with KDDI as we support them to achieve their goals."

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NEC and Samsung near 5G base station accord

NEC and Samsung Electronics are close to announcing a strategic alliance in 5G base stations, according to numerous sources over the weekend.

Samsung is already a key supplier of network infrastructure to KDDI.  An alliance with NEC could help open doors to NTT Docomo.

KDDI and Samsung prove 5G mmWave works at 190 kmh

Tuesday, September 12, 2017  5G, KDDI, Korea, MmWave, Samsung  

KDDI and Samsung Electronics completed a series of 5G tests which demonstrate the viability and performance of 5G millimeter wave mobility solutions while traveling at speeds over 190km per hour.

The demonstration, which took place at 'Everland SPEEDWAY' in Korea, involved a battery of individual tests to examine the performance of Samsung's end-to-end 5G mmWave technology. Specifically, as a vehicle accelerated from 0 to 205km per hour on the race track between multiple 5G base stations, the test measured and evaluated a variety of metrics, including handover interruption time, uplink and downlink throughput stability, and latency stability (or "jitter").

In addition, KDDI and Samsung also demonstrated a successful handover scenario, with Samsung's 5G device attaching to the 5G base station as it approached the service area, and successfully being handed over to the target cell at a speed of 192km per hour (GPS speed).

NEC announces agreement to supply 5G base stations to NTT DOCOMO

Thursday, May 10, 2018  Japan, NEC, NTT DOCOMO  

NEC announced an agreement to supply 5G base station equipment to NTT DOCOMO. Financial terms were not disclosed. Docomo aims to launch 5G in 2020.

Under this new agreement, NEC will achieve 5G compatibility through software upgrades and a minimal replacement of hardware to maximize the use of existing high-density base station equipment.  NEC said it will provide updates that enable existing high-density base stations to be fully compatible with 5G while continuing to deliver LTE/LTE-Advanced services.

This includes base station equipment that NEC has been supplying to DOCOMO since February 2015. This equipment is already compatible with the advanced Centralized Radio Access Network (C-RAN) architecture advocated by
DOCOMO, and is now being utilized as a base station control unit.

"DOCOMO aims to deploy and expand our commercial 5G services efficiently by maximizing the use of existing communications equipment," said, Hiroshi Nakamura, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer and Member of the Board of Directors, NTT DOCOMO. " This agreement with NEC is in line with that policy and we expect it to make a significant contribution to our 5G services. Going forward, DOCOMO accelerates co-creation of new services and businesses with vertical industry partners."

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Nokia and KDDI test 4G LTE connected vehicles in Japan

Nokia and KDDI have conducted a series of tests in Japan to assess the use of 4G LTE for low-latency connectivity for vehicles.

For the proof-of-concept trials in Japan, Nokia and KDDI focused on vehicle to network use case and used non-integrated systems in cars interacting with sensors via the Nokia Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) platform, which enables significantly reduced network latency.

The testing included LTE broadcast, implementing the evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service standard in two connected car applications, and demonstrating the potential of cellular technology to enable fully automated driving in the future.

Nokia said its evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast service (eMBMS) hotspot solution allowed real-time information to be shared with multiple vehicles to enable awareness and road safety. The companies compared the efficiency of using LTE broadcast to the one-to-one communication enabled by LTE unicast, in two connected car applications:

• Vehicle-to-network-to-vehicle (V2N2V) - in which cars maintained constant contact with the MEC system, sending real-time location, direction and speed data to roadside sensors. In an emergency situation, the driver can alert the application, with information distributed to other vehicles using eMBMS.
• Network Real-Time Kinematic (network RTK) -trial of LTE to enhance fully automated in-vehicle navigation. It showed how eMBMS could more cost-efficiently use existing geo-location systems to communicate to many vehicles in real-time and ensure accurate navigation.

The trials were conducted by Nokia and KDDI at a rural location on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

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Southeast Asia-Japan 2 subsea cable to bring 144 Tbps of capacity

A consortium consisting of  China Mobile, Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom, Chuan Wei, Facebook, KDDI, SK Broadband, Singtel and Vietnam's VNPT, signed an agreement for the construction of the Southeast Asia-Japan 2 subsea cable network. NEC has been selected as the lead contractor.

The SJC2 submarine cable will span 10.500 kilometers, connecting Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, Korea and Japan. It will have eleven cable landing stations in the region and is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2020. The cable will feature up to eight pairs of high capacity optical fibre with an initial design capacity of 144 Terabits per second (Tbps).

In Japan, SJC2 will land at KDDI's two stations at Chikura and Shima, providing geographical diversity.

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NEC provides 10G-EPON for KDDI's "au Hikari Home 10 giga"

NEC supplied the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Network (10G-EPON) system for KDDI's  "au Hikari Home 10 giga" an FTTH service for individual subscribers.

"au Hikari Home 10 giga" enables bi-directional service at up to 10 Gbps.

NEC's 10G-EPON system consists of an Optical Line Terminal (OLT) installed within KDDI facilities and an Optical Network Unit (ONU) installed inside the homes of individual subscribers.

The small and high-density packaging of an OLT is only the size of a 4U 19-inch rack, yet it houses up to 8,192 ONUs, which helps to minimize the space required for telecommunications carriers to install them.

NEC also noted that it reduced the size of the ONU by about 65% compared to NEC's conventional products.

"The need for high-speed and large-capacity Internet is expected to continue rising with the sophistication and high-definition of content and the increase in mobile data traffic such as Wi-Fi offload. In addition to this 10G-EPON system for KDDI, NEC will continue to work on the development of optical access technologies that support the strengthening of telecommunications carrier services," said Kazuhiro Tagawa, Deputy General Manager, Network Solutions Division, NEC Corporation.

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KDDI and Samsung prove 5G mmWave works at 190 kmh

KDDI and Samsung Electronics completed a series of 5G tests which demonstrate the viability and performance of 5G millimeter wave mobility solutions while traveling at speeds over 190km per hour.

The demonstration, which took place at 'Everland SPEEDWAY' in Korea, involved a battery of individual tests to examine the performance of Samsung's end-to-end 5G mmWave technology. Specifically, as a vehicle accelerated from 0 to 205km per hour on the race track between multiple 5G base stations, the test measured and evaluated a variety of metrics, including handover interruption time, uplink and downlink throughput stability, and latency stability (or "jitter").

In addition, KDDI and Samsung also demonstrated a successful handover scenario, with Samsung's 5G device attaching to the 5G base station as it approached the service area, and successfully being handed over to the target cell at a speed of 192km per hour (GPS speed).

Woojune Kim, Senior Vice President and Head of Next Generation Strategy in Network Business at Samsung Electronics, said, "It is becoming increasingly important that we accelerate our focus on 5G's ability to meet a growing number of performance metrics. Until now, peak bandwidth has been the common refrain, and certainly a big component of the future of 5G. However, the test we conducted with KDDI will help us build a more diverse portfolio of future 5G use cases."

"The trial successfully showcased stable performance under high-speed mobility conditions which will dramatically increase the service experience of users in vehicles," said Akira Matsunaga, Senior Director, Mobile Network Technical Development at KDDI. "We will continue our joint efforts with Samsung to test next generation technology to unprecedented levels and discover new service cases."

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/networks/insights/news/kddi-and-samsung-break-track-record-in-high-speed-5g-mobility-test

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