MWC this year showed us signs of the industry looking ahead - beyond the radio towers and onto the physical network running between them and the core. The task is to rearrange  the physical network architecture and rethink it to evolve a transport network that eventually converges all services (fixed as well as mobile). This is when the ambitions the industry holds for 5G as more than just another ‘G’ must come into play. The intelligence and agility gifted by the next generation network will enable a 5G beyond faster mobile broadband.

This will be underpinned by an intelligent  transport network and enabled by SDN and NFV  in the layers above.

The GSMA predicts that by 2025, there will be 1.3 billion 5G users and 1.36 billion 5G mobile devices around the world, with 40% 5G network coverage. And to build 5G networks, transport networks should get prepared in advance. It says 5G networks have three major use cases - bringing 10x higher network bandwidth, 10x more complexity in network operations & maintenance (O&M), and 100x more connections. These are the core challenges that operators will face when building 5G transport networks of the future. So expect to hear more about the transport network from this point on.

Huawei launched its 5G-ready converged transport network solution designed to help build a transport network that supports all services and jump start 5G development. So far, Huawei has won over 40 commercial 5G transport contracts. Read more...

ZTE launches its Light Cloud solution aimed at access-network NFVI deployment. Light Cloud, launched in conjunction with Intel is an NFVI solution that employs lightweight blade servers equipped with Intel Xeon D processors. By turning the device into a lightweight cloud infrastructure, the solution can significantly reduce equipment footprint and construction cost. Read more...

Huawei 5G DIS and 5G CPE Pro jointly demonstrated 5G indoor coverage with Huawei’s  5G LampSite Pro and the latest commercial 5G CPE Pro to provide 5G coverage in Huawei’s exhibition hall. The live results showed a peak downlink rate of above 1Gbps on the C band with a bandwidth of 100 MHz. Read more...

Dialogic and Epsilon teamed up to launch a fully managed and hosted carrier-class UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) platform based on Dialogic‘s BUZZ Unified Communication platform. Read more...

Huawei released an innovative rural network solution, RuralStar Lite at MWC. The idea is to bring cost-efficiency to voice and mobile broadband (MBB) services in rural villages with populations of 500 to 1000 people while keeping the return on investment (ROI) period within three years for operators. Read more...

NoviFlow and Lumina Networks announced a joint solution at MWC that they claim unifies multi-domain IP/MPLS routers and programmable white-box switches to create a seamless intent-based Terabit-scale network. Read more...

Huawei launched its 5G-ready converged transport network solution designed to help build a transport network that supports all services and jump start 5G development. So far, Huawei has won over 40 commercial 5G transport contracts. Read more...

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and the technology company Continental announced at MWC a new platform for sharing vehicle data to enable new digital services that improve driver safety and convenience. Based on Blockchain technology, the platform is expected to be available in 2019. Read more...

Huawei’s keynote address at MWC heard calls for international collaboration on industry standards and appeals to governments across the world to listen to cyber security experts. Read more...

Infinera has announced at MWC that it is reinforcing its commitment to open networking with the introduction of a Disaggregated Cell Site Gateways (DCSG) solution that conforms to the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) DCSG specification. Read more...

ZTE is demonstrating its 5G Virtualized Edge User Plane Function (UPF) at MWC. The demo breaks down the performance and latency bottlenecks of current virtualization forwarding, and shows the throughput and ultra-low latency gained with its solution. Read more...