Insights and Calls to Action from URLLC2018

Taking place 5-6 September in London, 5G Ultra Reliable and Low Latency Communications, URLLC2018, focused on the design, standardisation, cost implication and engineering challenges to deliver a network that is both reliable and low latency for vertical industries. 

Global5G.org presents the main discussion points and calls to action from the event, drawing on the posts by Peter Clemons, Quixoticity. This short report serves a concise guide for all 5G stakeholders operating in telecommunications, vertical industries, governments and standards, who must now act to address the major challenges emerging from URLLC2018.

URLLC2018 on radically new business models

Three true 5G experts took to the stage: Bell Canada’s Javan Erfanian; BT’s Andy Sutton and 5G Infrastructure Association’s Colin Willcock for an interesting discussion on the radically new business models required to deliver the most demanding, and potentially most valuable for long-term business models bringing significant benefits to societies and economies.

The session underscored the need to urgently start discussing and resolving key issues in these early days of 5G so we can receive its full benefits.

Calls for Action

• Need for operator networks to become more flexible.
• Need for operators to understand and respond to truly mission-critical requirements from multiple vertical sectors.
• Need for spectrum allocation methods/pricing to be more flexible and sensible to generate the massive social and economic value expected.
• Need for new funding models and business models to be conceived and deployed in order to eliminate deaths completely on European/global roads, also in view of each sector having its own ultimate, aspirational KPIs.

Members of the Global5G.org LinkedIn community were quick to point out the need to address issues such as “who operates the slice for traffic management”. Paul Bradley and Aitor Sanchoyerto Martinez both agreed that this is the first point governments should be focusing on. 

URLLC2018 on Mission-Critical Communications Panel

Expert panellists joining Peter Clemons to debate mission-critical communications in 5G include Adrian Scrase, ETSI/3GPP, Toktam Mahmoodi King's College London, Steve Whatson UK Home Office/ESMCP, Chris Lucas NHS/ British APCO - Working in Partnership to Improve Public Safety Technology, representing standards, academia, government and users. Discussions zoomed in on the most important topics surrounding the migration from ultra-reliable 2G (TETRA) to ultra-reliable 5G via MCPTT/MCX/LTE.

During his own presentation, Peter Clemons explained the past, present and likely future evolution of public safety and mission-critical communications from 2G all the way to 5G. Participants also heard about the latest information and status of the Quixoticity Index 2018, which will be published next November.

URLLC2018 on Health and Safety

Bosch’s Andreas Mueller and NTT DOCOMO, Inc’s Takehiro Nakamura were part of the #URLLC2018 Fireside chat on Health and Safety discussing the technology availability for industrial automation. As Simon Fletcher pointed out, liability still needs to be determined as new use cases emerge for 5G.

Some URLLC aspects are already in 3GPP Release 15 but full deployment could take some time and require optimised chipsets. For more on 3GPP's work on 5G for vertical sectors, download 5G Requirements and Key Performance Indicators by Toon Norp, Chairman of 3GPP SA1. 

URLLC was organised by Carole Mayhew, Director and Co-founder of Executive Industry Events.