A week in telecoms: China Mobile expands 5G Advanced, Chungwha Telecom comes to Europe

Ericsson hails 6G accord between Sweden and the US

While operators continue to deploy 5G networks, with standalone rollouts still relatively thin on the ground and 5G Advanced also just around the corner, work is already underway on the next generation of mobile technology as part of the rolling workload at standards bodies and technology firms.

6G is expected to start arriving in around 2030, following the ten-year pattern of mobile technology developments since 2G first emerged. This month also saw Sweden and the United States issue a statement on their plans to cooperate on advanced wireless technologies including 6G.

This week, Ericsson said it welcomed the collaboration, noting that the declaration is the latest bilateral agreement between Sweden and the U.S. regarding their desire to pool resources, expertise and technology leadership on new, developing and future connectivity technologies.

The areas of cooperation include: 6G research including potential funding, 6G spectrum allocation and introducing new technologies in existing frequency bands, the global harmonization of 6G frequency bands, the development of international standards-aligned technologies, encouraging a broad and inclusive 6G ecosystem and developing 6G technologies to help bridge digital divides.

Of course, leadership by countries is important, with a number of them now hoping to get ahead on 6G. But the real work on standards, as reported by Fierce Network, will be carried out by the 3GPP and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as well as at companies including Ericsson and rivals such as Qualcomm, Nokia, Samsung and Huawei.

Dell’Oro paints mixed picture for telecoms kit markets

It is well documented that mobile operators have cut mobile network capex in recent months, with a corresponding impact on the financial results of the likes of Ericsson and Nokia.

A recent flurry of reports from Dell’Oro group provide a downbeat picture of the network equipment market in general, from radio access and mobile core networks through to optical transport equipment.

Indeed, Dell’Oro said the mobile core network (MCN) market “cratered” by 15% in the second quarter of 2024 (Q2 2024), marking a historic low point in growth. In particular, 5G MCN market growth stalled for the first time, declining 8% year-on-year, the research group said.

Dave Bolan, research director at Dell’Oro Group, did not mince his words: “We have entered unchartered territory, indicating that economic headwinds have a firm grip on the market. It also strongly suggests that mobile network operators (MNOs) have excess capacity to meet subscriber growth numbers,” he said. 

Bolan said the 5G MCN market has benefited from standalone 5G deployments, but said the market has “slowed to the point that Q2 2024 was the first quarter of the 5G era, with a negative growth rate year-on-year.”

He added: “To date, there are about 58 MNOs that have launched commercial 5G SA eMMB networks. In 2022 there were 21 new 5G SA networks; in 2023, 13; and in the first half of 2024, three. As a result, we estimate that the MCN market will decline 11% year-on-year in 2024.”

In terms of radio access networks (RAN), Dell’Oro found that the market remained challenging in the first half of 2024 but sees a glimmer of hope that “double-digit declines might now be in the past for the time being,” according to Stefan Pongratz, vice president and analyst.

“This does not change the fact that the RAN market is expected to decline at a 2% CAGR over the next five years. But the pace of the decline should moderate somewhat going forward,” Pongratz said.

As for optical transport equipment, Dell’Oro found that the market declined 19% year-on-year in Q2 2024, “due to an ongoing market correction caused by excess customer inventory, delays in new project starts in Asia Pacific, and weak macroeconomic conditions.”

Jimmy Yu, VP at Dell’Oro, observed that it was “not so much the decline in the optical transport market that surprised me, it was the magnitude and breadth.”

The group also said that spending on service provider routers declined sharply in Q2 2024, resulting in a 33% year-on-year decline in router equipment revenue.

China Mobile moves ahead with 5G Advanced

China Mobile has become a global pioneer in the launch of 5G Advanced, with the specifications only set two months ago in 3GPP Release 18, as Light Reading reported. 

After announcing in March that it would deploy 5G Advanced in 300 cities across the country by the end of 2024, the operator has launched the service in Shanghai and Beijing, although prices do not yet seem to be available.

In the Chinese capital, China Mobile reportedly said it has upgraded more than 7,000 5G base stations, achieving coverage across the capital and delivering peak downlink speeds of 5 Gbps. The operator is working with Huawei on the network evolution. 

According to Light Reading, the operator is aiming to sign up 20 million 5G Advanced users by the end of the year. However, it acknowledged it needs to work with hardware firms and developers to build the industry chain and expand the supply of handsets and new applications.

Currently, around ten 5G Advanced terminals from brands such as Vivo, Oppo, Honor and Xiaomi are available. China Mobile hopes to increase that to more than 20 by year-end, reports say. 

Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom sets up shop in Germany

Taiwanese operator Chunghwa Telecom hailed its expansion into the European market with the opening of a new subsidiary in Frankfurt, Germany, and said it is the only telecoms operator in Taiwan with overseas branches and a global network deployment.

Chunghwa Telecom added that it has long been committed to expanding into overseas markets, and has established subsidiaries in the United States, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. 

“Today, with the formal establishment of its European presence, Chunghwa Telecom has completed its international service network across Europe, America, and Asia,” it said.

The operator is primarily planning to support Taiwanese businesses as they expand into Europe, and sees Germany as a gateway for the 27-country bloc. It also plans to “actively collaborate” with European operators, Taiwanese businesses, and ICT players in Germany.

In addition, it will continue to work with fixed-line operator Exatel in Poland. Chunghwa Telecom and Exatel signed a cooperation agreement in July 2023. 

Asian telcos endorse Bridge Alliance’s API Exchange

Bridge Alliance, a mobile alliance of 35 member operators worldwide, said 13 Asian telcos, namely Airtel, AIS, China Unicom, CSL, CTM, Globe, Maxis, Mobifone, Optus, Singtel, SK Telecom, Taiwan Mobile and Telkomsel, have endorsed the Bridge Alliance API Exchange (BAEx) since the initiative was announced in July.

BAEx was created as a strategic initiative between Bridge and Singtel, which is also an alliance member. The telco API exchange is underpinned by Singtel’s Paragon, an orchestration platform for telco networks.

According to Bridge, the support of these operators means that BAEx is able to aggregate more telco APIs and with greater coverage. 

BAEx builds on the GSMA’s Open Gateway initiative and Project CAMARA, which are working on a framework of common network APIs to provide universal access to operator networks for developers. (TM Forum's “Operate APIs” complement CAMARA network APIs in the goal of providing a standardized way for mobile operators to make the interfaces commercially available to aggregators and developers.)

BAEx is now providing silent network authentication APIs — a basket of APIs that silently power authentication and fraud prevention needs using telco real-time data — such as Number Verify and SIM Swap. It plans to introduce more APIs such as eKYC (electronic know your customer) and QoD (Quality-of-service on Demand).

Henry Calvert, Head of Networks at the GSMA, said BAEx is expected to “play a major role in helping enterprise developers across the world develop new mobile services and features for businesses and consumers. Initiatives like BAEx are needed to bring together and highlight the rich set of innovative capabilities that are available for developers, in mobile networks.”

Early BAEx adopters are V-Key, whose security solutions are used by government, banking and mega app clients that deploy large-scale applications across the region, and Unmanned Life, a Spain-based solution partner that offers a software platform for seamless orchestration of autonomous robotics.

Also noted…

1&1 and Vodafone have activated their national roaming partnership in Germany. 

Xavier Niel’s investment vehicle Atlas Luxco said it now owns 40.42% of Millicom International Cellular following a public offer.

Phoenix Tower International (PTI) has agreed to build 1,900 towers for Iliad in Italy.