Solutions vs. Systems

Many years ago, while working on the GSMA’s “Beyond M2M” strategy, an M2M service provider described their service offering to manage office photocopier machines remotely. This included continuous status monitoring, diagnostics, and just-in-time replenishment of consumables. At a time when cellular hardware and network connectivity were costly, the provider chose cellular over Wi-Fi connectivity. This was for economic and user-experience reasons. The cellular approach avoided the costs of liaising with the customer’s IT staff to customize local area networking policies. It also reduced technical support costs that arose from dispatching support technicians when remote management was ineffective due to local IT and firewall configuration issues.

This situation exemplifies the type of OT/IT, shared responsibility, and user experience challenges that organizations will face as IoT systems are deployed more widely across the economy. They involve interconnecting systems. Some issues arise for technical reasons, as happens when combining sub-systems. Others involve procedural systems, when IT and OT departments need to collaborate or when two or more organizations need to agree on common rules. 

I was reminded of the remote photocopier story by a couple of recent news items. One is a SenzaFilli podcast with Google’s Preston Marshall. The second comes from an interview with Airbus in which they discuss their plans to migrate from Wi-Fi to 5G in industrial areas.

Small Factors Can Influence a Poor User Experience? 

“What should 6G do for us?” was the topic of the SenzaFilli podcast that included a segment discussing Wi-Fi’s poor user experience. That observation, made by Google’s Preston Marshall, came as a surprise because most users focus on the value of Wi-Fi as a solution for high-speed connectivity. It is superior in buildings and office spaces where cellular connectivity is either patchy or throughput constrained. What the criticism focused on was the few seconds or minutes that it takes a user to register with the nearest or official Wi-Fi hotspot. While short in duration, it affects how a user experiences a Wi-Fi system.

The experience can also extend to re-connecting to a hot spot a few hours or the next day after a first connection. Having to find the correct web portal or url that allows a user to navigate to the Wi-Fi sign-on page has frustrated me in public libraries, hotels and on Wi-Fi equipped aircraft over the past year. In the IoT context (no human in the loop and constrained devices), that is problematic. Dispatching a technician is not always feasible or economic.

In the absence of standardized procedural protocols, the design of connectivity and registration procedures needs to include additional sign-on steps and procedural safeguards. In the case of Wi-Fi, one idea from the SenzaFilli discussion was to leverage cellular/3GPP’s core networking capabilities for authorization and security. This is an example of system of systems design and one that will be increasingly necessary as the need to weave different technologies together with the rise of IoT and automation. 

Higher Threshold for Business-Critical Uses 

In the Airbus case, there is a move to replace Wi-Fi in all industrial areas over a three-to-five-year period. One trigger for this is the growing availability and evolution of 5G infrastructure whose flexible API-based approach makes it easier to combine solutions. Conceptually, there is a framework and toolkit to address IT/OT integration, cybersecurity compliance, and automation. This is another system of systems example that offers users greater configurability and control on top of connectivity. 

From Connectivity to Inter-Connectedness 

More widespread IoT deployments will need to accommodate multiple connectivity technologies including cellular, satellite, and Wi-Fi among others. Cellular would seem to be the integrative technology given the potential of its service enablement and orchestration capabilities. In the private networking arena, according to Siemens, cellular (5G) is viewed as infrastructure and Wi-Fi as an OEM technology.

Beyond connectivity and multi-connectivity (e.g., combination of terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks), IoT deployments will involve other interworking with other systems. Component systems include higher levels of data management (e.g. semantic interoperability), AI/ML, and digital twins. Discovery (or learnability), registration, and authentication procedures will need to operate without a human in the loop. Beyond thinking of people as the primary user, the expanding market to connect machines, applications, and digital entities requires an expansion in scope from connectivity to inter-connectedness. To meet new requirements, system architects will need to integrate solutions into systems, both technical and operational.

Unlocking 5G’s Innovation-to-Market Bottleneck

Ultra reliable, low-latency communications (URLLC) accounts for the largest number of standard essential patent (SEP) declarations for 5G. This is based on data from GreyB Services, a specialist in intellectual property (IP) for the communications sector.  

However, URLLC’s strong showing of URLLC does not show up in market offerings. Instead, 5G market propositions feature mobile broadband for consumers which map to the enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) category. The difference suggests a disconnect between supply-side technologies, where innovators have invested, and commercial outcomes that should address demand from gaming and enterprise types of application.

 Explaining the difference is complex. It involves the life-cycle steps of taking innovation through standardization into market ready networking equipment. Then, communications service providers (CSPs) face decisions in balancing the rewards from new propositions against the costs of incremental technology licensing fees and business model changes. Value-chain bottlenecks also arise when insufficient evidence about end-user demand results in corporate hesitancy. 

Central Agency in Telecommunications

Mobile network operators (MNO) have long been the engine at the heart of the modern communications industry. With operating licenses and obligations set by government, MNOs’ reach stretched from the shaping of technology standards in 3GPP to deciding what communications services consumers would get.

From the 2000s, however, internet era dynamics lessened the revenues dominance of voice communication; messaging, data, and media services filled the gap, beginning with the hype around 3G. That is when the MNO cog started to lose some of its motive force as the communications industry began to resemble an increasingly intricate machine.

A $300bn Market for Telco-APIs

How much of the opportunity will mobile network operators capture? 

The business opportunity to access mobile network capabilities via application programming interfaces (APIs was one of the top stories at MWC 2024. Valued at $300 billion by McKinsey, the management consultancy, the scale of opportunity positions APIs as a vehicle to move the industry’s revenue dial materially.

However, the opportunity will be complex to realize. From this GSMA webinar, it was evident that business model and monetization frameworks are a work in progress. In addition, market realization depends on a multi-party service delivery chain; critical elements to the telco API ecosystem reside outside of mobile network operators’ (MNOs) control. Finally, the mobile industry’s focus on API monetization and revenues puts the sector at risk of overlooking wider considerations and key market-development levers. 

Cluster Competitiveness in 6G Ecosystems

Finland’s academic, commercial and government connections can inspire other 6G clusters

3GPP’s December 2023 announcement, committing to develop the specifications for 6G, resolved one market uncertainty about 6G. 3GPP offers a proven governance framework for open, consensual and international technical standardization. It is also a globally recognized institution due to its track record and regional standardization partners.

There are, however, other technical and socio-technical aspects of 6G that are likely to alter 3GPP standardization. For example, there will be new frontiers to address as the scope of mobile networks extends to distributed communications and computing systems. In the socio-economic arena too, new expectations are taking shape. These touch on resource sustainability, capabilities to ensure resilience and trust, and socio-technical issues arising from digital world applications that go beyond purely human and machine communications.