India mulls over new midband 5G spectrum auction
India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is plotting a new 5G spectrum auction in the 3.7– 4.2 GHz and 4.7-4.8 GHz ranges to be held sometime in 2023 or early 2024, according to local reports.
This is in line with expectations and comes when momentum behind the country’s 5G roll out over the spectrum already allocated has been growing faster than had been expected. The government is believed to be consulting the leading telcos over timing and conduct of the proposed auction.
Nokia to deploy private 5G for Grand Paris Express metro
The Société du Grand Paris (SGP), the state-owned company responsible for the Grand Paris Express metro project, has picked Nokia to deploy a private 5G macro network spanning four new lines, 68 new stations and 200 kilometers of track. This is an extension of a private LTE network that started in early 2020 to deploy wireless communications across three of the new lines.
The latest work includes IP-based multiprotocol label switching (IP/MPLS) to route traffic on the shortest path over private wide-area networks on the basis of information in packet labels. Nokia is providing the RAN and core, as well as the IP/MPLS.
The project is designed to increase capacity, reliability, and performance of what was an ageing metro network. The Grand Paris Express is now the largest metro rail project in Europe, including development of new urban centers around the new stations.
Ericsson gives up on IoT
Ericsson has agreed to sell its IoT business, including the IoT Accelerator connectivity management platform and Connected Vehicle Cloud platform, to California-based IoT provider Aeris.
The Swedish company admitted that the IoT division had been the primary source of losses in its new enterprise business and had failed to tap a significant part of the IoT value chain.
IoT has been a graveyard for a number of ventures and for Ericsson is the latest in a line of attempts to diversity that have ultimately failed. There was the decade-long Sony Ericsson venture to make handsets that fizzled out in 2011. Then in 2018 Ericsson sold a majority stake in its media systems business, having engaged in that through several acquisitions.
After each withdrawal Ericsson has consolidated further around its core mobile infrastructure business with considerable success, having fared much better with acquisitions in that sphere.
Verizon has deployed 10,000 vRAN sites with Samsung, halfway to target
Samsung and Verizon have deployed over 10,000 vRAN cell sites across the USA, halfway towards the carrier’s target of 20,000 by 2025.
Samsung is Verizon’s lead network systems provider for the project to deploy a fully virtualized 5G network and has helped the operator expand from 8,000 vRAN sites in September 2022, at which rate it would reach the target early in 2024.
Samsung, with other such large deployments in Europe and Asia, is pushing hard on vRAN to establish itself as a full top tier cellular infrastructure provider outside China at a time the cellular field becoming more fragmented globally.