Showing posts with label Operator Vodafone UK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Operator Vodafone UK. Show all posts

Wednesday, 1 June 2022

Vodafone UK Bares Its Vision and European Strategy

At Telco to Techco 2022, Andrea Dona, Vodafone UK’s Chief Network Officer gave a keynote presentation on 'Transforming Vodafone's network and operations to support the journey to Techco'.

He started his talk by referencing the Vodafone Technology’s Tech 2025 strategy that was launched last year. A video of this strategy is as follows:

Vodafone has formed a pan-European R&D unit called Vodafone Technology that, as part of the operator’s plans to “transform from a traditional telecommunications company to a new generation connectivity and digital services provider of scale across Europe and Africa,” will add 7,000 software engineers to its roster by 2025. 

But not all of those 7,000 will be new recruits – more than half will be existing Vodafone staff who will be retrained, while the rest will be either insourced (bringing in-house some tasks that have been done by external partners) or join as new recruits. 

Those 7,000 roles will be added to the existing 9,000 software engineers Vodafone already employs and, by 2025, at least half of the Vodafone Technology R&D team will be software engineers, up from about 30% currently.

The operator believes the move makes business sense as it will be able to develop more of its own unique, differentiating applications (for which it will own the IPR) and at a lower cost than outsourcing the development (Vodafone estimates that ‘insourcing’ is about 20% cheaper on average).

During the talk, Andrea referred to having access to the skills anywhere on their footprint in Europe and other parts of the world, which is central to their vision. 

Here is the video of his talk:

In case you were wondering how big is Vodafone's footprint, here is the latest stats from FY22 presentation.

Recently, the UAE state-controlled Emirates Telecommunications Group, which recently rebranded from Etisalat to e&, is now Vodafone’s biggest shareholder after confirming a £3.3bn investment on the UK group:

E& said it had made the investment “to gain significant exposure to a world leader in connectivity and digital services” and did not intend to launch a takeover bid, a statement which blocks the company from making such a move for at least six months.

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Sunday, 20 March 2022

Vodafone to keep pushing for Open RAN

At Mobile World Congress 2022, Johan Wibergh, Chief Technology Officer of Vodafone presented their vision and plan going forward in the 'Evolving the Network for the Future' session. On his LinkedIn post, he said:

I have just presented at Mobile World Congress #MWC22 and was delighted to announce that around 30% of our European network will run on #OpenRAN by 2030, following the first site going live in the UK last month. This will give us more flexibility and speed in how we operate.

It is also an example of how innovation is coming back to the network.

Disruptive technologies such as Open RAN, Network as a Platform and Multi-Access Edge Computing are perfect illustrations of how we are meeting demand for fast connectivity, as well as driving supply chain diversity, creating digital eco-systems, and inventing new industrial-strength applications.

Also, through our scaled platforms – M-PESA, IoT and now Digital Asset Broker (DAB) – combined with our geographical scale, we aim to help support the digital needs and ambitions of our customers and societies across Europe and Africa.

Around 30,000 sites across Europe will eventually use OpenRAN, with rural areas the first to benefit from the new 4G and 5G masts. When the roll-out reaches cities, the equipment from any existing 5G masts being replaced will then be reused elsewhere to reduce unnecessary wastage.

A press release release from Vodafone has details here. 

Their MWC22 page has more related news on this and other topics they discussed in Barcelona.

In another news Vodafone announced that seven UK communities is set to receive 4G based on Open RAN. Last year we wrote about their first Open RAN site with Samsung here. At that time it was assumed that Samsung is bring 2G (GSM) but Light Reading recently mentioned that Samsung hasn't got 2G. 

Parallel Wireless has been in Vodafone Turkey network for the last few years doing 2G and 4G as we detailed before. In a press release, Juniper Networks announced that it is working with Vodafone and Parallel Wireless conducting a multivendor RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) trial for tenant-aware admission control use cases. It says:

The trial, initially running in Vodafone’s test labs in Turkey and with plans to move into its test infrastructure, supports O-RAN interfaces and addresses the key business challenges faced by mobile operators around personalized user experience, viable revenue generation and reduction in both CAPEX and OPEX for 4G and 5G services.

The trial is based on an open, software-driven architecture that leverages virtualization to deliver more programmable, automated granular-by-user traffic management. The initial focus is on delivering tenant-aware admission control capability, enabling operators to personalize services and provide superior user experiences. Real-time tracking and enforcement of radio resources across the RAN enables mission-critical users – for example, hospitals and schools – to receive prioritized mobile data services delivery. This capability is enabled by Juniper’s rApp/xApp cloud-based software tools that manage network functions in near real-time, along with Parallel Wireless cloud-native Open RAN functions.

The trial’s design philosophy is focused on demonstrating the potential of enabling open, agile resource management and mobile data delivery in any software-driven RAN environment. This approach enables services and applications to be managed, optimized and mitigated automatically by the RAN, built on real-time data insights from its own performance.

All three organizations are active operators/contributors of the O-RAN ALLIANCE and the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), underlining their shared commitment to industry innovation and standards.

Juniper’s RIC solution is architected as an open platform supporting open interfaces on the north bound and south bound side, enabling easier integration with Open RAN partners in the ecosystem. Juniper’s RIC platform will also enable easy integration of third-party rApps/xApps, using UI-based onboarding and deployment tools coupled with flexibility to select between either network-based or SDK-based APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).

Parallel Wireless brings cloud-native Open RAN solutions - which are now integrated with the leading-edge RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) based on O-RAN ALLIANCE specifications from Juniper Networks, giving operators more choices to build the best-of-breed RAN.

Juniper has a short RIC explainer video which is embedded below: 

Telecom TV reminds:

It’s no coincidence that Juniper is involved in Open RAN tests and trials in Turkey: It engineered its way into the RIC R&D scene by striking a deal in January 2021 to take the early RIC work undertaken by Netsia, the tech R&D unit at Türk Telekom, and develop it further, all the while ensuring that the resulting platform would not only conform to Open RAN specifications but also be suitable for deployment by Türk Telekom. As part of that deal, Juniper gained all the IPR and rights, and so has bene able to take it into tests with other operators at will.

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Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Vodafone UK Selects Commercial Open RAN Network Partners

Vodafone has been a huge supporter of the Open RAN movement. Not only have they supported it with projects, expertise, etc., they have also contributed their IPR to TIP to drive it further. Last year, I wrote about how they have been evangelizing the benefits to other operators. Now, Vodafone has unveiled its strategic vendors – Dell, NEC, Samsung Electronics, Wind River, Capgemini Engineering and Keysight Technologies – to jointly deliver the first commercial deployment of Open Radio Access Network (RAN) in Europe. A press release said:

The company believes the move will spark other large-scale Open RAN launches and spearhead the next wave of digital transformation across Europe.

Pioneered by Vodafone and its partners, Open RAN will drive greater innovation through a diverse and open vendor ecosystem. It will lead to a more cost-effective, secure, energy efficient and customer-focused network of the future.

Vodafone’s initial focus will be on the 2,500 sites in the UK that it committed to Open RAN in October 2020. It is one of the largest deployments in the world and will be built jointly with Dell, NEC, Samsung and Wind River. Vodafone also expects to use new radio equipment defined under the Evenstar programme, a joint initiative it contributes to. Capgemini Engineering and Keysight Technologies are providing support to ensure interoperability between all the components.

Starting this year, the vendors will work with Vodafone to extend 4G and 5G coverage to more rural places across the South West of England and most of Wales, moving into urban areas in a later phase. Vodafone is also working to launch Open RAN in other countries within both Europe and Africa, enabling the digital society to be accessible to all, with no one left behind. 

Under this initiative to deliver an open and disaggregated network in the UK, Samsung will be a reference RAN software provider. Samsung and NEC will supply Massive MIMO – a method to boost capacity of a mobile antenna – along with Samsung and Evenstar radio units, which establish a signal between users’ smartphones or devices and the mobile mast.

Evenstar radios are part of a joint effort between Facebook and Vodafone to create ‘white-box’ radio units within the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) and are a key component for Open RAN success. These will provide vendors with detailed specifications needed to develop compatible radio units much more cheaply, and are designed to encourage new players to the market to boost the ecosystem and stimulate innovation.

The initial deployments will be implemented using COTS (common off the shelf) Dell EMC PowerEdge servers to support the combined DU/CU function running Containers as a Service (CaaS) software from Wind River Studio, which will provide a distributed cloud-native platform hosting the Open RAN applications and virtualised RAN from Samsung. This gives Vodafone the benefit of being able to mix and match and install new software releases and upgrades more easily. 

Keysight Technologies will deliver its comprehensive Open RAN test solution portfolio designed to support conformance, interoperability and E2E system testing. Capgemini Engineering will be the key partner within our lab testing to ensure interworking of the Open RAN multi-vendor ecosystem.

The O-RAN Alliance 7-2x split, that defines the interface between the radio antenna and the baseband unit, will be used in the deployments, following successful test and simulations that make it the option of choice. The resulting Open RAN network is expected to improve energy efficiency compared to the existing solution from traditional widely deployed RAN products.

In addition, Vodafone is working with several chipset suppliers, including an important research & development (R&D) collaboration with Intel, whose role in developing Open RAN is widely recognized in the industry. Vodafone’s Open RAN Test and Integration lab in Newbury, UK, has been devised to be an innovation centre to foster collaboration and implement new ideas. In this space, Vodafone’s newly announced partnership with Qualcomm will provide solutions that will be added to the project in the future.

The new Open RAN lab will be complemented by two newly created European digital skills hubs in Málaga and Dresden, employing 600 and 200 people respectively. Opening later this year, the skill hubs will be used to develop a number of new solutions for businesses, including cyber security, mobile private networks and Open RAN.

Vodafone is working with other operators to lower the entry barriers for smaller vendors and startups. Recently published Open RAN technical requirements by Vodafone and other telecommunications companies will provide a blueprint to help expedite the development of new products and services based on industry specifications from the O-RAN Alliance (of which Vodafone is a member) and eventually ETSI standards (from the European Telecommunications Standards Institute), always compatible with 3GPP.

There was a considerable amount of confusion regarding different G's and Core, etc. It was all clarified in a Tweet from VF UK Communications Manager as can be seen above. It seems that Samsung went off and dusted their 2G stack to support a legacy technology along with 4G and 5G.

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Sunday, 6 June 2021

UK 5G Spectrum Results Summary


It's been couple of months since Ofcom announced 700 MHz and 3.6-3.8 GHz 5G spectrum auctions results here. Part of C-band spectrum was auctioned back in 2018 and the results from Ofcom for the award of 2.3 and 3.4 GHz spectrum auctions is available here.

TMN detailed the spectrum trade between O2 and Vodafone that resulted in Vodafone exchanging their new C-band spectrum with the old one from O2. This allowed O2 to gain 80 MHz of contiguous spectrum but it has its own challenges as highlighted in the Tweet.

It took EE 2 minutes after the results were announced to switch on their 700 MHz site.

More spectrum trades can be expected as TMN reports as it would make sense for the remaining three operators (except Telefonica O2) to obtain contiguous spectrum.

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Sunday, 22 November 2020

Vodafone Accelerates Open RAN Innovation, Evangelizes Benefits to Other Operators

Vodafone has taken a lead in Open RAN trials and deployments. It has been very active in the Telecom Infra Project for the last 3 years but it has become more vocal and active recently. In addition to all the announcements, it has also released an eBook available here. 


Back in August, Vodafone become the first UK mobile operator to switch on a live Open Radio Access Network (OpenRAN) 4G site enabling the introduction of more suppliers for mobile networks. The first site is connecting Vodafone customers around the Royal Welsh Showground in Powys, Wales. This was using the kit from Mavenir. Mavenir Open RAN Demo from TIP Summit 2019 is available here. 

Earlier this month, Vodafone reiterated again that it will deploy the open interface, disaggregated radio access network technology at a minimum of 2,600 sites in the UK by 2027, the year by which UK operators must have rid themselves of Huawei gear. A Vodafone spokesperson fleshed out the strategy in a call with TelecomTV. 

The 2,600 sites is a minimum commitment: That number of sites, which have already been identified and which are in rural areas of the UK (in the south-west), will be built out with Open RAN technology. Vodafone has started its vendor evaluation process, expects to select its suppliers in 2021, and will begin deployments in 2022. 

It is not sharing any details about the capex it has set aside for Open RAN or which companies are at the front of the queue to be selected, though the likes of US vendor Mavenir and UK startup Lime Micro, which have been working with Vodafone UK on Open RAN trials in Wales, will clearly be hoping to be involved. But there will be plenty of competition from other specialists, such as Altiostar, Parallel Wireless and Comba Telecom, as well as bigger names such as Fujitsu and NEC (which, with Altiostar, is working on Open RAN trials with Vodafone Netherlands).

This week, Vodafone Ireland announced partnership with Parallel Wireless on Ireland’s first Open Radio Access Network (OpenRAN), bringing 4G coverage to 30 new locations. The sites are being built on an O-RAN architecture with a Remote Radio Unit (RRU) provided by Comba Telecom, Parallel Wireless Distributed Unit (DU) and Central Unit (CU) software running on a vBBU (virtual Baseband Unit) provided by Supermicro and deployed on site. The DU/CU software connects to Parallel Wireless' Near Real-time Intelligent Controller (RIC), located in a Dublin data center on HP hardware using VMWare ESXi v6.7 virtualized environment. Parallel Wireless Open RAN Demo from TIP Summit 2019 is available here.

Johan Wibergh, Group Chief Technology Officer at Vodafone said in a LinkedIn post, "OpenRAN continues to gain traction. Vodafone will be the first company in Ireland to use this exciting new technology to deliver 4G coverage more quickly to 30 locations in remote parts of the country. This is a major boost to rural communities in need of a digital lifeline. Well done to the team. The news follows hot on the heels of the OpenRAN UK plans unveiled recently and underlines our commitment to helping new, smaller suppliers enter the market. With the OpenRAN ecosystem still in its infancy, it needs continued industry and government support across Europe."

At the Open RAN summit 2020, Yago Tenorio, the current Chairman of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) and Head of Group Network Architecture at Vodafone, outlined the international operator’s Open RAN developments and plans, highlighted the importance of open networking for the future of communications service providers, and identified the key areas of development that need to be addressed if Open RAN technology is to play a major role in carrier networks of the future and help deliver 5G’s potential. Thanks to Telecom TV for making all the talks available here. His talk is embedded below.



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Saturday, 25 January 2020

2019 UK Mobile Network Developments Roundup


In a presentation/report last year, iDate Digiworld labelled UK as a leader of 5G. So it was good to see a nice roundup from UK, courtesy of Peter Clarke & Jake Mcneill


The video is embedded below and you can find a lot of information on Peter's website here.




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Thursday, 4 July 2019

Vodafone UK Launches 5G, Plans Disruption With Unlimited Data Plans


When we looked at the UK Operators 5G plans on this blog last year, we didn't expect the operators to innovate in pricing and business models the same way they are innovating in technology. There were some nice surprises in Vodafone's 5G launch event yesterday.

Let's start by looking at the roadmap shown above. Initial 5G network is launched in 7 cities including London. The service will be available from July 10 on Vodafone’s unlimited mobile data plans at no additional cost for 5G. Over the summer, 5G roaming will be available in the U.K., Germany, Italy and Spain, more countries will be added to later on.

Next year, 2020, it's launching MEC and low band (coverage layer) 5G. The initial 5G is on Capacity layer, C-Band as we detailed in this post earlier. In 2021, Standalone (SA) core network and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) will be launched. DSS allows refarming of existing LTE bands in a way that LTE & 5G can both operate simultaneously.

According to TMN, The most notable thing is that Vodafone is deploying sites where ever it can with 64T/R Massive MIMO. Even though it is only using 40MHz bandwidth of its 3.5GHz spectrum (as per EE), this gives it the ability to extend coverage if it needs to, but also generate an effectively increased capacity via increased spectral efficiency. EE does have some 64T/R Massive MIMO sites, but it is generally speaking using an 8T/R setup for the majority of its sites. Vodafone will have some 8T/R sites where it cannot get enough site space for the larger and heavier, and more power hungry, antennas. But its default seems to be to go for the more extensive optoin. Three has also deployed 64T/R, and it has much more midband spectrum than the other two operators – but the Vodafone launch shows that Three is by no means the only UK operator to deploy massive MIMO across most of its sites, as it appeared to claim at its launch earlier this week.

According to Fierce Wireless, In London, Vodafone is using 5G equipment from Ericsson’s Radio System portfolio, including Ericsson’s Baseband 6630 and Massive MIMO 6488 products to enable 5G on the 3.5 GHz frequency. Vodafone is tapping Ericsson’s dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) technology, which allows Vodafone to combine 5G with LTE in the same spectrum band. Dispensing with the need to separate out sections of spectrum for 5G, Vodafone has been able to quickly extend 5G coverage over a wide area. When in use, the 5G technology delivers speeds 10 times faster than LTE.


As the picture above shows, 5 Great reasons why Vodafone UK is the destination for 5G. I guess the main reason is 5G = 4G pricing.


Also, this is the first time a UK operator has all plans with unlimited voice & SMS (nationally only) and unlimited data. The pricing is set on what maximum speeds a user can get. Most people would go for the Unlimited Max package.

This is a good demo to show low latency that 5G will provide.

Anyway, here is the Twitter Moment, embedded below:



Further Reading:

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Saturday, 19 January 2019

UK MNO Mobile Spectrum Holdings

Picture Source: Keith Dyer

In a recent consultation document on 'Award of the 700 MHz and 3.6-3.8 GHz spectrum bands' that the UK regulator Ofcom has published (link), there is a nice summary picture (pg. 62 or pg. no. 60) of all the current spectrum holding by the big 4 MNOs.

Looking at this, one can conclude that all the UK operators have spectrum to launch basic 5G services whenever they are ready.
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Friday, 30 November 2018

5G plans by UK Operators - Nov 2018



Vodafone: 1000 live 5G sites by 2020
  • Back in June, Vodafone announced 7 cities will be part of 5G trials starting in July.
  • In October, Vodafone announced that they have became the first company in the UK to carry full 5G over a commercial network. Live mobile data traffic was being streamed to and from the Internet exclusively over 5G from a site in Salford, Greater Manchester, connected to Vodafone’s nationwide converged fibre network.
  • Vodafone further said as a part of the same announcement that their network engineers were already achieving high-speed Internet connectivity and low latency from the Salford site using Active Antenna (Massive MIMO) technology. This effectively provides multiple-data ‘channels’ from a single antenna, coupled with the 3.4GHz 5G spectrum. Vodafone secured the largest block of this 5G spectrum at this year’s auction.
  • In September, Vodafone made UK’s first holographic call using 5G.
  • Vodafone is planning commercial network and 1,000 5G sites by 2020

The video of the first live holographic call is below:



EE/BT: 1,500 sites, 16 cities with 5G in 2019

  • EE, part of BT Group, has nine live 5G trial sites across East London.
  • Some of the learning as part of this announcement included the fact that rooftop sites often need significant strengthening to carry the new 50 kg 5G antennas – and some sites house three of these (3 sectors)
  • EE launching 5G within 16 UK cities in 2019, roughly 1,500 sites
  • EE is upgrading transmission to 10Gbps links at each 5G site
  • 5G Smartphones to be introduced alongside 5G Home router for 5G broadband
  • EE also building next generation 5G core network, with virtualised network functions on a cloud native infrastructure
  • BT Sport showcased first live trial of remote production broadcast live over EE’s 5G network


‘3’ UK Committed to Invest Over £2bn into 5G

  • According to Three press release: It’s committed spend to date covers the acquisition of the UK’s leading 5G spectrum position, new 5G radio equipment and cell site upgrades, high-capacity dark fibre network, the world’s first end-to-end cloud-based core network, and new digital systems that will enhance user experience
  • The first commercial quantities of 5G smartphone and home broadband devices are expected to be available by H2 2019. 
  • According to CCS Insight, Three now owns about 24 percent of all spectrum suitable for 4G and 5G services. This, it says, places it ahead of BT (21 percent), Vodafone (19 percent) and O2 (15 percent). The remaining 20 percent, which consists of 700 MHz and 3.6 GHz airwaves, is earmarked for sale by Ofcom in late 2019.
  • Customers of Three already use 7.6GB of data per month, more than three times the industry average. Based on projections from Ofcom, Dave Dyson, CEO, sees a scenario in which this usage surges to 90GB per month in 2025. Note that this prediction has increased from 56 GB per month in 2025 as we earlier reported.


O2: Massive MIMO Pilot to prepare for 5G

  • O2 has the least amount of announcements and information on 5G. In a recent press release, it announced that it has launched a pilot to boost London network ahead of 5G.
  • The pilot is effectively saying that O2 is working with Nokia on two Massive MIMO trials in Kings Cross and Marble Arch (in London), aimed at enhancing connectivity for O2 customers and paving the way for the future deployment of 5G across the capital.
  • The pilot is in the newly acquired 2.3 GHz spectrum.
  • The pilot will lay the foundation for the next-generation of mobile connectivity– 5G.
  • On the positive side, Ofcom confirmed that O2 had delivered against its commitment to provide 98% indoor 4G coverage and 90% geographical landmass mass coverage across the UK. 


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Friday, 1 February 2013

Market share: Mobile operators UK 2013

http://www.statista.com/statistics/279993/market-share-of-mobile-phone-operators-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
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