Monday 2 April 2012, 11:00 – 12:30
Organizer:
Dr. Joao Da Silva, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Panelists:
Mr. Jean-Pierre Bienaimé, UMTS Forum Chairman and Orange, FranceAbstract:
Since the old days of GPRS to today’s 4G, the mobile Internet has evolved faster than any other technology. Form factor, operating system, browser, speed, storage, processing power and ease of use have contributed to today’s world wide take-up of the Mobile Internet. Further advances in augmented reality, geo-location technologies, embedded sensors, or cognitive radio hold the promise of taking us to a fully pervasive mobile Internet service environment. Ultimately the Internet will be largely based on the existence of multiple grids of low power wireless devices and local area networks.
Today’s 5 billion mobile subscribers will continue their migration to the mobile Internet as competitive subscription packages are offered and technological solutions are found that gradually solve the energy problem, the inadequacy of IP communications protocols in wireless environments, the walled garden architectures of the network. Understanding how to create the right conditions for an open innovation model, that does not lock customers, ensuring that mobile operators do not stifle the creativity of application developers but rather leverage the collective intelligence of their users, are all fundamental issues for now and the future, if indeed the mobile Internet is to deliver on all of its promises. As today’s relatively dumb infrastructures providing services in areas such as transport, electricity delivery, environment, health and education, become embedded with the right mix of intelligent wireless components, the Internet will reach new frontiers. New usages will be possible, productivity levels will be enhanced, and creativity will be nurtured. The best brains in Europe have recently come together to see that the future Mobile Internet will respond to the challenges of growth and competitiveness. This Panel will bring together five prestigious speakers that will present their views as to what these issues are and how they are to be solved.
Monday 2 April 2012, 14:00 – 15:30
Organizer:
Dr. Werner Mohr, Head of Research Alliances, NSN, Germany
Panelists:
Dr. Rüdiger Martin, European Commission, BelgiumAbstract:
Mobile communication systems were developed and successfully deployed globally in the last decades mainly for public voice and data communication applications. The number of global subscribers exceeded 5 billion in 2011 and is increasing further. Data communication is heavily growing in the coming years, which results in technical and economic challenges to deploy and operate future systems. Therefore, research is needed to make mobile communication systems more efficient in terms of spectrum usage, energy consumption and deployment cost. On the other hand with the increasing data traffic and more wide-spread concerns, e.g. on climate change and CO2 emissions new requirements on significant improvements in the efficient use of resources – such as energy – of the overall society and economy are becoming increasingly important. In addition, societal challenges like smart energy systems, smart grids, smart traffic systems, eHealth systems, and support of the elderly society are on the global agenda. Mobile communications will play an essential role to develop solutions for such societal challenges. This results in two major research directions:
These development offer new opportunities for research and economic growth for the mobile communication sector as well as other sectors to provide new systems and solutions beyond classical voice and data communication in public networks. The existing and emerging nation-wide communication infrastructure will be extended to such new application domains. However, the future cooperation of different sectors will change value chains and business models for such new applications. From the European perspective these developments are summarized as part of “Future Internet”. Such solutions require that ICT research needs to be broadened and extended to interdisciplinary research in order to develop widely accepted systems and solutions, which support interoperability and economy of scale. This panel will address in particular, how mobile communication systems can support vertical sectors with a special emphasis on smart energy systems and smart grids and which new research challenges can be expected in the coming years and how they can be addressed.
Monday 2 April 2012, 16:00 – 17:30
Organizer:
Dr. Erol Hepsaydir, Hutchison 3G, UK
Panelists:
Abstract:
With the introduction of mobile broadband, data traffic has been increasing at a very fast rate. As a result, wireless industry has strong requirements for cost efficient, high quality, and green networks. Although there is a significant amount of development taking place in standards, there is still a need for innovation. Unlike most wireless industries, academic institutions have significant resources and brain power available for research. Those institutions need research funds, but the wireless industry today has limited finance to invest in research with limited success of deployment. Can there be a closer and more focused collaboration between the two communities? Do we need a new framework for more effective research opportunities?
This panel will discuss the financial ties and relationships between wireless industry, especially mobile operators, and academia. The barriers and opportunities for both communities and the possibilities to improve the collaboration will be highlighted. The panel will cover various schemes to improve research in the UK, and examples of effective collaborations in different countries will be presented. Panelists representing an operator, a vendor, an academic institution and a research center will present their views on how to strengthen the relationships.
Tuesday 3 April 2012, 11:00 – 12:30
Organizer:
Prof. Shahram G. Niri, Director of Global LTE/SAE Strategy & Solutions, NEC, UK
Panelists:
Mr. Jaime Lluch, Radio Access Tech. Manager, CTO Office, Telefonica, Spain
Mr. Bernard Scholl, RN System Design, Deutsche Telecom, Germany
Dr. Hui Song, Senior Research Fellow, Ranplan Wireless Network Design Ltd, UK
Prof. Rahim Tafazolli, CCSR Director, University of Surrey, UK
Mr. Laurent Fournier, Sr. Director Technology, Global Business Operations Europe, Qualcomm, France
Abstract:
Mobile broadband seems to confound standard market economics. Demand is soaring and we anticipate that over 100 - 1,000 times more traffic will be carried by mobile networks by 2020. The networks therefore need to cater for significant traffic growth using all the possible methods such as additional spectrum, technical advances, and other. However, spectrum as the blood line of any wireless communication system is finite, scarce and expensive. The frequency reuse seems to be a key to keep up with exponential increase of traffic in the future with limited spectrum availability. Also, new network topologies and deployment strategies offer more gains than new technologies and hardware. The current macro-based LTE deployments are complex, costly to manage and operate, and still do not deliver the desired performance. As a result, the mobile industry is buying into the small cell LTE concept and mobile operators are keen to explore it as a cost-effective deployment for mobile broadband. The small cell solutions are set to revolutionize the economics of mobile broadband business for operators.
In this panel, experts and executive speakers from the global operator community, technology providers, and also consulting bodies will discuss the path towards true mobile broadband in the future. They will debate the need for small cells as a dominant deployment option in future networks and address the technical performance, operational challenges such as management and backhaul, cost and also the regulatory considerations.
Tuesday 3 April 2012, 14:00 – 15:30
Organizer:
Dr. Klaus-D. Kohrt, Independent Advisor, Germany
Panelists:
Dr. Michael Fitch, BT Innovation and Design, UK
Prof. Petri Mähönen, RWTH Aachen, Germany
Dr. Steve Methley, Quotient Associates Ltd., Cambridge, UK
Mr. Ruprecht Niepold, European Commission, Brussels, Belgium
Mr. Lasse Vieweg, Ericsson, Sweden
Abstract:
Traffic for broadband data applications is expected to increase by a factor of ~1,000 over the next decade, thereby creating considerable demand for additional capacity and spectrum. Conventional approaches will hardly suffice to cope with this challenge in an affordable way. Cognitive radio is one proposal to take advantage of locally under-utilized spectrum bands in an opportunistic manner. Currently the focus in this discussion is on the use of TV white space bands, but the underlying principles are not limited to UHF. The panel will look at different approaches for shared use, their pros and cons, and address the challenges and opportunities from technical, business and regulatory perspectives.
Tuesday 3 April 2012, 16:00 – 17:30
Organizer:
Bosco Fernandes, Huawei, Germany
Panelists:
Prof. Luis Manuel Correira, IST University Lisbon, Portugal
Dr. Cengiz Evci, Alcatel Lucent, France
Prof. Hans Schotten, Kaiserlauten University, Germany
Dr. Werner Wiedermann, Telekom Austria, Austria
Dr. Yongxing Zhou, Huawei, China
Abstract:
Broadband is regarded as a transformational technology capable of driving economic growth and competition. However, in the years to come, the world will have to deal with new challenges on a global scale with respect to sustainability, socio-economic development and economic growth. Consumer appetite for mobile broadband has already challenged telecom operators and one can expect a future communicating world where people will want to share more information but also person to machine communication will be very important. Furthermore, different types of machine-to-machine (M2M) communication will become an integral part of future overall communication networks. In order to drive innovation in the right direction and be able to implement it on a global scale, the development of future technologies need to be investigate in terms of complexity and efficiency.
This panel will address the different challenges and the areas where research and further investigation from a technology perspective beyond 2020 can be foreseen to meet the mix of new applications and services.
Wednesday 4 April 2012, 09:00 – 10:30
Organizer:
Mr. Didier Chauveau, Head of International Affairs, ANFR, France
Panelists:
Mr. Wladimir Bocquet, Orange FT Group, France
Mr. Alessandro Casagni, Huawei, Italy
Mr. John Giusti, GSM Association, UK
Mr. Christoph Wöste, Bundesnetzagentur, Germany
Abstract:
Mobile Broadband traffic is exploding far beyond the initial assumptions made in 2007 (ITU-R, M.2072). The current mobile data traffic published by National Regulatory Authorities at national level and the collection of data made by CEPT recently confirms this trend. All key parameters are in place: mobile broadband networks providing acceptable data-rates with large coverage (close to 97 % of population in majority of EU countries) at reasonable retail price, terminal equipment with relevant operating software easy to use, variety of applications ensuring more demands from the final users. Without waiting such evolution, regulation identified a number of year in advance new spectrum resources and developed relevant channelling plan and technical conditions. At national level, authorization processes are taking place to grant the new resources; nevertheless, it is time to analyze the consequences of such evolution, to consider potential of future mobile technologies, to assess relevant spectrum needs and to take necessary actions to maintain opportunities for mobile broadband evolution in the benefit of consumers, industry and society. Policy makers are addressing the issue through National Broadband plans and the drafting of the radio spectrum policy program (currently under negotiation between Council, European Parliament and the European Commission). The next WRC (WRC-12) will assess and discuss the opportunity to develop an IMT agenda item for the WRC-15. This panel will consider the follow up of RSPP, WRC 12 in terms of mobile broadband and IMT issues and relevant challenges for industry (vendors and operators) of these relevant strategic decisions.
Key words:
Wednesday 4 April 2012, 11:00 – 12:30
Organizer:
Mr. Ambroise Popper, Sequans Communications, France
Panelists:
Mr. Guillaume de Riberolles, VP Mobile Multimedia Marketing, Orange
Mr. Michael Lai, CEO, Packet One, Malaysia
Mr. Mike Seymour, VP Wholesale, Clearwire, USA
Mr. Frédéric Pujol, Head of Radio Technologies Practice, IDATE, France
Abstract:
With the advent of high-end smartphones (such as the iPhone or Android devices), there has been a huge increase in the amount of wireless data consumption around the world. Operators have been devising various strategies to adjust to this new demand, but increasingly it appears that unlimited data plans may not be sustainable. A common strategy adopted by operators is to put a cap on data usage, but this is not very popular with users. Some are even considering introducing simple billing per megabyte used. New schemes where a total capacity can be shared between several devices on a single subscription plan are starting to be introduced, which may provide a way to optimize mobile data usage for users who have multiple devices.
Finding a way to monetize wireless data is a key question to operators all around the world. Traditional voice revenues are declining, and adapting networks for this huge data surge is costly. New technologies such as HSPA+ or LTE are being introduced to add capacity and increase maximum data rates, and the density of the networks needs to be greatly enhanced, especially in urban areas where deployment is costly. Therefore, operators must rapidly find the winning business model to sustain their operation in the long term.
The panel will let leading operators around the world provide their inputs on how they are currently charging for data, what issues they see, and what changes they are thinking for the future.