Welcome to the February 2023 edition of neXt Curve Insights, our first edition. This monthly newsletter is a compilation of articles, media, and news that have been curated by the research team at neXt Curve with contributions from partner analysts as well as business and technology leaders.
The goal of neXt Curve Insights is to provide our readers with a regular cadence of coverage of the industry and tech trends and events that matter with the intent of fostering constructive discussion and debate on the future of technology, innovation, and the continuous reinvention of enterprise, industry, society, and our lives.
I hope that you find this edition informative and inspiring.
Leonard Lee, Executive Analyst of neXt Curve
Top Posts
Check out the top social media posts on LinkedIn by neXt Curve analysts, associates, and partners. Follow neXt Curve and Leonard Lee on LinkedIn and be part of the conversation. Click on the image to view the post.
Speaking of Microsoft New Bing and Google Bard, anyone remember this guy?
What is 27 years old is new again. 🙂
I applaud Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA for calling for #AI standards for engineering to promote ethical, equitable, (and may I add), trustworthy AI.
Interesting story on Huawei. BTW, it’s not NXP Semiconductors, it’s ASML, Bloomberg. You are welcome! Anytime!
It’s amazing how the #metaverse narrative continues to implode. I have been saying this industrial Metaverse talk is not constructive or problem oriented. It’s distracting nonsense.
Bluster doesn’t seem to reflect the barter. Obviously, tariffs didn’t change anything other than, obviously, inflation (no, China doesn’t pay for tariffs). Proof that tariffs don’t work or something else?
Top Headlines
These are the hot headlines in the tech and industry media that neXt Curve has curated for your consideration and attention. Executive analyst, Leonard Lee, provides a brief analysis of each story. Contact, Leonard at leonard.lee@next-curve.com for a briefing on the details of his take (clients only).
Headliner
Summary
Analysis
“With enterprises facing complex connectivity challenges across large and remote sites, private 5G offers high levels of coverage, reliability and mobility across campus and industrial environments. It also augments the cost-effective, high-capacity connectivity provided by Wi-Fi. The incorporation of Athonet’s technology will allow HPE to deliver private networking capabilities directly to enterprises as part of HPE’s Aruba networking portfolio, while also enabling communications service providers (CSPs) to quickly deploy private 5G networks for their customers.”
This pre-MWC 2023 announcement by HPE was received with excitement in the industry media. neXt Curve’s view is that private 5G networks for enterprise will be a challenged market this year. The access technology will have to prove itself valuable.
HPE+Athonet is better positioned to make early inroads into the market with its Aruba SASE overlay making 5G just another access technology. HPE should be able to provide an easier button, but will early deployments prove 5G ‘s worth or disappoint? We will find out very soon.
“In a surprising reversal, Microsoft has killed a team it formed four months ago to help customers use the metaverse in industrial settings, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The group’s roughly 100 employees have all been laid off, the person said.
Microsoft created its Industrial Metaverse Core team in October to help build software interfaces for operating the control systems behind electrical power plants, industrial robotics and transportation networks, The Information was first to report. The team, primarily composed of a group known internally as Project Bonsai, fell victim to Microsoft’s plan announced last month to lay off 10,000 employees, or about 4.5% of its workforce.”
I have popularly considered “Metaverse” as a deflection and pivot by the crypto community at a time of the second crypto crash. The idea was then adopted by Meta (formerly Facebook) as a wrapper for its investor-distressing VR efforts and investments.
It is not surprising given the prevailing macroeconomic environment and tech sector shake-down that that an Industrial Metaverse narrative would not go far.
We continue to witness the Metaverse narrative implode. Metaverse is not a constructive concept that only serves to confuse industrial customers and deflects from the challenges of associated technologies yet to be overcome.
World’s first 5G Advanced-ready Modem-RF Snapdragon X75 unleashes next-generation connected tech
by source Qualcomm
Feb. 15, 2023
“The future is closing in as 5G Advanced draws near. And today, we’re excited to make more possible in the next evolution for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and operators across mobile, compute, fixed wireless access, industrial internet of things, robotics, automotive, 5G private networks, and beyond.
Announced today, our new Snapdragon X75 5G Modem-RF System can be the strategic lever you’ll want. Reflecting just one of the many ways we’re making good on our ongoing commitment to optimizing the full potential of 5G, the Snapdragon X75 drives future solutions to future end-user problems.”
Qualcomm continues to push the edge of 5G on the device with the X75 Modem-RF System by packing a few anticipated 3GPP Rel 18 features. Devices armed with the X75 will enable operators new QoE and service possibilities as they evolve their 5G networks while delivering new levels of uplink performance.
The X75 supports three features that will enable enhanced uplink performance: FDD uplink MIMO, FDD+FDD carrier aggregation, and switched uplink. It has been my view for the last three years that uplink is the new frontier for 5G. Chinese operators have teed up first.
“Nokia anyRAN is designed to help mobile operators and enterprises extend their options for building and evolving their radio access networks. The software can run on any partner’s Cloud and Server infrastructure in addition to Nokia AirScale base stations and Nokia AirFrame servers. This approach removes the complexity from deployments by allowing a mix of purpose-built, hybrid, and fully Cloud-based RAN solutions, enabling deep multi-level disaggregation at the Cloud Infrastructure layer and data center (server) hardware layer. Close collaboration with partners also ensures performance consistency of Cloud RAN with Nokia’s field-proven purpose-built RAN.”
Nokia’s anyRAN adds another twist to the “incumbent” strategy and approach in supporting operators in the cloud-native modernization of their RAN infrastructures.
anyRAN provides COTS OEMs with system design options for implementing a wide range of cloud RAN flavors anchored on Nokia’s Cloud RAN SmartNIC that will meet the evolving needs of operators who are still in early stages of adopting Open RAN.
Much like Ericsson’s Intelligent Automation Platform, anyRAN should keep Nokia relevant however the Open RAN tide ebbs and flows.
“Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. today announced Snapdragon® X35 5G Modem-RF System, the world’s first 5G NR-Light modem-RF system. NR-Light, a new class of 5G, fills the gap in between high-speed mobile broadband devices and extremely low-bandwidth NB-IoT devices. NR-Light devices, powered by Snapdragon X35, can be smaller, more cost-efficient, and provide longer battery life than traditional mobile broadband devices.
With its optimized design and breakthrough performance, Snapdragon X35 offers a device platform that bridges the complexity and capability gap between the extremes in 5G today and addresses the need for mid-tier use cases. This lower cost option provides device makers with a long-term migration path to replace LTE CAT4+ devices, ultimately increasing 5G adoption and allowing for faster transition to a unified 5G network.“
Rather than RedCap (Reduced Capability) or 5G NR-Light, I feel this feature of 5G NR Rel-17 should be called something like “Enhanced IoT for 5G NR”. Afterall, who is going to be building RedCap applications? Not the operators. IoT folks.
All this being said, Qualcomm took a pioneering step of commercializing 5G NR-Light by introducing the Snapdragon X35 modem-RF system in what the industry hope will be a Goldilocks solution that will renew interest in cellular IoT for a new class of enhanced IoT mobile applications.
I expect that there will be a steep learning curve as device OEMs, operators, and the IoT developer community explore the potential of a 5G NR-Light beyond an LTE CAT4+ replacement in the 5G era.
Reinventing search with a new AI-powered Microsoft Bing and Edge, your copilot for the web
by Microsoft
Feb. 7, 2023
“Today, we’re launching an all new, AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser, available in preview now at Bing.com, to deliver better search, more complete answers, a new chat experience and the ability to generate content. We think of these tools as an AI copilot for the web.
There are 10 billion search queries a day, but we estimate half of them go unanswered. That’s because people are using search to do things it wasn’t originally designed to do. It’s great for finding a website, but for more complex questions or tasks too often it falls short.”
It seems that the launch of a ChatGPT-infused search bot on top of the Bing search engine even as a public alpha seems premature and risky given Microsoft’s past experience with the now infamous Tay back in 2016 which feed on Twitter feeds to quickly became what the Verge dubbed a “racist asshole”. This prompted Microsoft to make the following statement, “We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay, which do not represent who we are or what we stand for, nor how we designed Tay. Tay is now offline…” Need I say more?
Chart of the Month
This month, I have to give props to IDC, in particular Mario Morales, who is the GVP of Semiconductors, Storage, and Emerging Technologies, for this wonderful and vital chart.
To be absolutely clear, the analysis presented below is neXt Curve’s and not that of IDC.
This chart is vital because it highlights the significant risks to U.S. semiconductor market leadership and the posture of leading (and highly strategic) U.S. chipmakers such as Intel, Qualcomm, Micron, and Nvidia who have significant exposure to the China market and concentrated OEM customer base, especially in the smartphone market which, thanks to Apple, drives the bulk of demand and volume for leading edge semiconductors which will continue to be available only in Taiwan. This will be case despite TSMC’s construction of fabs in Arizona which will lag by two generations at the least. Call it the preservation of Taiwan’s “Silicon Shield”.
Of concern are the many vectors that China has to fortify Taiwan’s Silicon Shield in its favor while undermining U.S. semiconductor industry leadership by imposing soft or hard import restrictions on U.S. firms such as Intel (which took a big hit in their China business in their last quarter) and favoring Taiwanese (Mediatek) and select U.S. firms (Nvidia and AMD) dependent on TSMCs leading edge manufacturing.
This chart by IDC is one that all U.S. policymakers and regulators should contemplate very carefully in order to avoid unintended consequences of their China tech and trade policies and actions.
In short, there are clear and present dangers to U.S. semiconductor market leadership that need to be addressed with clarity by U.S. policymakers especially as the Biden Administration has struggled to muster commitment from Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan for its Chip 4 proposal in March of last year to form an alliance to stem Beijing’s semiconductor ambitions.
NOTE: The analysis presented here is neXt Curve’s and not that of IDC. Please refer to their full report for IDC’s analysis and recommendations.
reThink Insights
Check out the articles and the research notes that neXt Curve published this month as well as press quotes by the media on topics related to our research agenda.
- The Difference Between the Edge and Edge Computing (February 2, 2023) by Leonard Lee featured in neXt Curve
- Why CXOs Must Know the Differences Between Digital Twins and Edge Computing (February 3, 2023) by Leonard Lee featured in Acceleration Economy
- How the Hybrid Cloud Has Inspired Edge Computing (February 9, 2023) by Leonard Lee featured in neXt Curve
- SASE and Edge Computing (February 24, 2023) by Leonard Lee featured in neXt Curve
Go to our neXt Curve reThink research portal for more content and insights associated with our research agenda.
Edge & Cloud
It has long been neXt Curve’s position that there will be a pendulum shift away from the convention that all data and workloads beyond IT will be shifted and lifted to the “cloud”. This is clearly not the case. Why? Most data originates from outside the cloud. The vast corpus beyond enterprise data will never reside or be processed in the hyperscale, central cloud data centers. It will probably never make sense.
On March 23 of 2021, the newly appointed CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, stated in an email to AWS employees that, “Less than 5% of the global IT spend is in the cloud at this point.” More recently at AWS Re:Invent 2022, Adam Selipsky stated that over the last 15 years of cloud computing around 10 percent of enterprise workloads have been placed in the “cloud”.
No surprise for me as I have been researching cloud computing tech and the market for years and advising CIOs on their cloud strategies. It has been a surprise for most if not all of the companies that I engage with and advise who simply are not aware of cloud economics, how it is evolving, how it is impacting hyperscalers and their businesses, and its fast-morphing implications on enterprise buyers going forward.
Lately, there has been a great deal of talk of enterprises migrating out of the cloud as the multicloud and more importantly, hybrid cloud discourse and technologies have evolved providing enterprises with more options and capabilities for bringing cloud benefits to their data centers without having to lift and shift data and workloads to a central cloud.
There are economic factors that are bringing about this emerging mindset. Multicloud and hybrid cloud enabling technologies are enabling enterprises to take advantage of a broadening expanse of arbitrage opportunities across the digital ether.
While the cloud service providers have done a great job of making cloud migration easier and relatively more cost-effective, they are going up against a tide of “edge-native” technologies and tools that are making it more attractive for enterprises and consumers to keep data and processing closer to the edge.
Make sure to check out my column featured on Acceleration Economy, the Cutting Edge, a library of articles and webcasts that outline neXt Curve’s perspectives on the emerging age of edge computing.
Telecoms Tech & Industry
We are entering the era of 5G Advanced which begins with 3GPP Release 18 work that is underway. The timing couldn’t be better as 5G, over the last four years, is widely regarded as having fallen short of its promises. Not surprising given that 5G as a technology standard was always going to be an evolution over a decade, yet it seems the marketing hype didn’t fail to disappoint.
The GSMA has a great opportunity with Mobile World Congress 2023 taking place this month in Barcelona to reset the narrative as the industry looks forward to the next phase of 5G that will lead us to the doorstep of 6G.
The theme this year is “Velocity: unleashing tomorrow’s technology today”. While this sounds inspiring, my temperature check on operators indicates that priorities reside in the practical rather than the aspirational. How does the industry modernize infrastructures and operations of yesterday with today’s technology?
One area of discussion that has been deficient in the past few years has been the topic of monetization. It has largely been a target state discussion with few answers for operators beyond some farfetched opportunities such as cloud gaming and network slicing. In fact, the slide decks have not changed much since 2019. Despite endless rhetoric about agility, innovation, and adjacent market opportunities, GSMA Intelligence estimates an annual industry revenue growth rate hovering at around 1 percent. Is it time for a refresh with some fresh thinking?
Running up to MWC 2023, 5G FWA seems to be a hopeful monetization story that might stick and has practical implications in terms of net new revenues and contribution to what I call a “sustaining ROI” that operators will need to figure out for their particular situation as they look forward to their 5G transformation journeys and investments.
I’m looking forward to MWC 2023 to find evidence that the industry is putting support back into a deflated 5G narrative and value proposition. Make sure to follow me on LinkedIn. I will be posting daily takes from the event.
Open & Converged Technologies
Open RAN is at the crossroads in 2023. Outside a few deployments, most notably Rakuten Mobile in Japan and Dish Networks in the U.S., the open version of Open RAN is a rare beast to spot.
On February 20, 2023, Deutsche Telekom published a white paper that summarizes their findings from their O-RAN Town project in Neubrandenberg, Germany. The report states that, “Whilst the technology gap between traditional S-RAN and open RAN has narrowed; our findings show that development work is still required to ensure open RAN solutions reach full performance and maturity parity.”
The report also suggests complexities (and likely costs) associated with integrating, deploying, and managing multi-vendor Open RAN systems. As a result of these challenges and findings, DT is pushing out the wide-area deployment of Open RAN. Chalk it up as you live, and you learn.
Those of you who have been following neXt Curve and my research, you know about Open RAN Squid Game which I coined almost two years ago. Since my statement two years ago in my chat with Chris Pearson, President of 5G Americas, “O-RAN is an architectural decision by the operator.” I have never characterized it as a technology, which is one of the prevailing misconceptions afflicting the Open RAN discourse today.
I have had issues with the multi-vendor approach and the Open RAN community’s focus on interoperability versus the other virtues of a disaggregated, cloud-native RAN architecture that could lend to a potentially differentiated alternative to purpose-built RAN systems. To me, it was pretty obvious from the beginning that this interoperability and vendor diversity agenda would be an overhead that could slow the emergence of a viable and competitive Open RAN player that could present a 2+X option for operators.
This is unfortunate as many Western governments and regulators over the last three years have banked on Open RAN to dispel perceived vendor lock-in by Ericsson and Nokia and offer a low-cost alternative to Chinese vendors who have been banned or restricted in some Western markets and targeted in “rip and replace” programs in the US and UK.
I’m very interested to see how the Open RAN Squid Game is progressing. It is part of my research agenda for Mobile World Congress 2023 in collaboration with Earl Lum of EJL Wireless Research.
Make sure to subscribe to http://www.next-curve.com to be notified by email when I publish my report summarizing takes and insights from the event.
Emerging Technologies
ChatGPT is a big deal at the moment drawing a significant interest from the investment community as hype continues to build about it. I still can’t erase from my memory Sam Altman’s Tweet on December 10, 2023, that states:
This was just two months ago. It is difficult to see how these expansive gaps could have been bridged in such short time to the level that Microsoft and Google are now in a race to incorporate generative AI functions into their search platforms.
On February 6, 2023, Google cobbled together a demo of Bard, their answer to Microsoft’s ChatGPT-infused Bing searchbot. Things didn’t go well as Bard returned a confidently incorrect (fabricated) answer. The proper response should have been, “Hi, I’m Bard, I don’t know how to answer your question.”
For this mistake, Google’s stock plummeted 7% the next day shaving over 100 billion USD off its valuation. Expensive mistake.
In my own use of Microsoft’s Bing Chat, I encountered a more dramatic issue with one of the canned queries. The Bing Chat returned entirely fabricated specs on vehicles with cited sources that didn’t reconcile with Bing Chat’s response.
I consider these epic fails by both parties which put into question and doubt the trustworthiness of the two generative AI applications as search engine frontends.
I suspect that there will be growing concerns about public generative AI applications among CIOs who will inevitably face the challenge of securing confidential company data and IP that could be exposed by unwitting employees who might be tempted by the perceived (but misleading) convenience of these generative AI tools.
Media Highlights
This month, neXt Curve participated in the following internally produced and third-party media events. More media content featured by or featuring neXt Curve is available on our reThink YouTube channel and our media center.
The Regulatory Landscape for Privacy
The Open RAN Squid Game
Is Open RAN Ready for Prime Time?
Leonard Lee is joined by Debbie Reynolds, the “Data Diva”, to talk about how far we have come with privacy from a regulatory perspective since the advent of GDPR and the key policy shifts happening globally towards privacy rights and protection.
Leonard and Earl discuss what the Open RAN Squid Game is and the ecosystem imperatives that will shape how vendors position themselves and go to market in 2023 and beyond to compete with the incumbents, and for many, survive.
In this installment of the Radio to the RIC series, Leonard and Earl discuss the state of the Open RAN “stack”. What is it and is it ready for prime time? It is a question that dogs an ecosystem of vendors that is entering what you might called an adolescent phase.
Responsible AI in a Degenerative AI Era
Industry 4.0 Club CES 2023 Recap
The Future of Human Novelist vs. AI
In this special episode, Debbie and Leonard talk about the implications of Microsoft’s newly announced Bing search that is front ended by ChatGPT, the now famous generative AI model unleashed the public as a free service.
Leonard Lee of neXt Curve joins an open and engaging chat hosted by Jan Pingel and Ira Sharp of Industry 4.0 Club with Rob Tiffany of Digital Insights to share insights and key takes from CES 2023 by popular demand on our first LinkedIn Live event.
Leonard Lee of neXt Curve joins a panel hosted by Bonnie D. Graham on her podcast, “Technology Revolution”. In this session, the panel discusses the impact that generative AI applications such as ChatGPT will have on creative writing.
How SASE enables new Edge Computing
CES 2023 Recap LinkedIn Live Take 2
CES 2023 Recap LinkedIn Live Take 1
In episode 16 of The Cutting Edge Podcast, Leonard Lee discusses the secure access service edge (SASE) framework and describes the concept within the context of edge computing and they key elements that make up a SASE solution.
Leonard Lee of neXt Curve and Rob Tiffany of Digital Insights jumped for a 2nd take on LinkedIn Live to share their belated puts and takes on CES 2023 and some great tech insights that you should not miss if you want to know what mattered at CES this year.
Leonard Lee of neXt Curve and Rob Tiffany of Digital Insights jumped on LinkedIn Live to share their belated puts and takes on CES 2023 and some great tech insights that you should not miss if you want to know what mattered at CES this year.
Will Software Eat the RAN?
What is the State of Privacy Today?
Galaxy Unpacked 2023 Event Recap
Leonard Lee and Earl Lum, who is a widely regarded expert on RAN infrastructure technologies and equipment, contemplate the question of whether software will eat the RAN and whether hardware still matter if software gets its way.
Leonard Lee is joined by Debbie Reynolds, the “Data Diva”, to talk about how far we have come with Privacy First and what she sees driving our progress toward more private digital lives for all. Publicity is not privacy. Let’s not get it twisted.
Leonard Lee and Prakash Sangam of Tantra Analyst share their key takes from Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked 2023 event and the special pre-event session on Samsung’s sustainability strategy and program to translate goals into impact.
Galaxy Unpacked 2023 Alex Katouzian
Galaxy Unpacked 2023 Continuity
Galaxy Unpacked 2023 Event vlog
Leonard Lee had the opportunity to meet up with Mr. Incredology (incredible technology), Alex Katouzian, SVP of Mobile, Compute & XR at Qualcomm at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked 2023 event.
Leonard Lee attended Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked 2023 and got a demo of the company’s suite of continuity features such as Quick Share, Multi-Control, and Second Screen that create seamless experiences.
Leonard Lee attended Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked 2023 event. He attended the main event on the morning of Feb 1 as well as the exclusive press/analyst invitation-only event on Samsung’s sustainability strategy.
Event Highlights
This month, neXt Curve participated in the following virtual and in-person industry and technical events. For our full schedule of industry events refer to our event calendar. We also encourage you to follow neXt Curve’s LinkedIn company page.
Galaxy Unpacked 2023
Date: Jan 31 to Feb 1, 2023
Location: San Francisco, CA
Event Summary & Takes
Leonard Lee, executive analyst of neXt Curve attended the pre-event media day and the Galaxy Unpacked 2023 event hosted by Samsung which showcased the new line of Samsung Galaxy S23 smartphones as well as the new Galaxy Book3 series of laptops.
The main event that took place on the 1st of Feb was preceded the evening before by an exclusive media and analyst only event featuring Won-joon Choi, EVP, Mobile R&D, Samsung Mobile eXperience (MX); Mark Newton, Head of Sustainability, Samsung Electronics America; Sergey Lossev, Senior Director for Project Management, Samsung Research.
Here are our key takes from Galaxy Unpacked 2023.
- Sustainability is a key priority for Samsung that happens to be much more difficult for them as well as other companies than one may assume. Sustainability solutions tend to be much more challenging economically and in terms of efficacy. Pursuing sustainability targets will require significant commitment according to Mark Newton, Head of Corporate Sustainability at Samsung Electronics America. The biggest announcement was the extension of software support to 4 years and security support to 5 years which should extend the useful life of Samsung smartphones and reduce eWaste.
- Samsung firmly believes that the camera is a primary feature of the smartphone and is continuing to assert that the Galaxy premium line is a creator’s device. Samsung made a point of this by sponsoring two films by Hollywood director legend, Ridley Scott, and renowned South Korean director, Na Hong-jin.
- Continuity functions that foster seamless user experiences and UX integration between Samsung devices as well as some non-Samsung/Android devices are key in addressing the many across platform/ecosystem issues suffered between Microsoft Windows and Google Android devices. This is not talked about enough due to siloed and myopic treatment of ecosystems, platforms, technologies, and devices. There is a bigger picture that matters much more than a multitude of minutiae that are incremental and amount to very little differentiation for players in the Windows and Android ecosystems.
Related Media & Press Releases
- reThink Webcast: Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2023 Recap with Prakash Sangam (link)
- reThink Event Highlights: Galaxy Unpacked 2023 (link)
- neXt Curve Event Interview: Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2023 – MultiControl (link)
- neXt Curve Event Interview: Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2023 – Alex Katouzian, Qualcomm (link)
Companies Engaged: Samsung, Qualcomm, Google
Qualcomm MWC R&D
Date: February 7, 2023
Location: San Diego, CA
Event Summary & Takes
Leonard Lee, executive analyst of neXt Curve attended a special Qualcomm event hosted in San Diego on the 7th of February showcasing the company’s slate of 5G advanced R&D initiatives and technologies that were to be announced at MWC 2023 in Barcelona.
During the half-day event, John Smee, SVP of Engineering at Qualcomm, and his team demoed seventeen 5G Advanced technology showcases which included:
- Advanced ML-based mmWave beam management
- Multi-vendor cross-node ML-based channel state feedback
- Giga-MIMO enabling wide-area coverage in 7 to 16 GHz
- Sub-terahertz communication in 100+ GHz
- Path to full duplex
- Green networks
- Precise positioning everywhere
- High-resolution sensing
- Boundless augmented reality (AR) with dynamic distributed compute
- 5G application program interfaces (API) for immersive applications
- Perception-assisted 5G for enhanced extended reality (XR)
- 5G IoT coverage extension with device mesh
- Narrowband positioning for 5G IoT
- Adaptive radio access network (RAN) operation for 5G private networks
- Intelligent scheduling for virtualized 5G private networks
- Multi-AP joint transmission for Wi-Fi
- Cloud-based vulnerable road user safety
Here are our key takes from Qualcomm’s MWC R&D briefing.
- Qualcomm continues to drive wireless innovation in cellular and Wi-Fi through its industry leading R&D efforts and investments and building upon its leadership portfolio of intellectual property and patents.
- Qualcomm is bringing many cellular features to Wi-Fi such as Multi-AP Joint Transmission which seems to provide a capability very similar to CoMP (Coordinated Multi-Point) for high reliability deployments. Innovations such as this demonstrate Qualcomm’s ability and position to drive the evolution of wireless technologies beyond cellular.
- 6G is still up in the air but Qualcomm sees six vectors that will shape the generation of mobile wireless technology that follows 5G: AI-native E2E communications, new spectrum bands (sub-terahertz?), merging of worlds (digital and physical), scalable network architecture, air interface innovations (new waveform?), and communications resiliency.
- Traction with 5G Advanced will dictate what 6G will be about. It might not be as simple as multiplying everything by 10 the next time around. Sustainability will likely not be 6G priority, it’s already a 5G imperative. Given the current trends in the global energy markets, operators will need energy efficiencies to help nudge them along their 5G transformation journeys.
Related Media & Press Releases
- How is Qualcomm driving 5G Advanced into new verticals and toward 6G? (link)
Companies Engaged: Qualcomm
Upcoming Industry & Media Events
Next month, neXt Curve will participate in the following virtual and in-person industry and technical events. For our full schedule of industry events refer to our event calendar. We also encourage you to follow neXt Curve’s LinkedIn company page.
Subscribe the neXt Curve Insights monthly newsletter to be notified when the next newsletter is published. Go to www.next-curve.com to be added to our mailing list. You will also be notified when we publish new research notes and media content.