iTWire - Optus 5G now available to prepaid customers with Optus Flex

2021-12-27 16:09:50 By : Mr. Louis He

Optus announced that Optus Flex customers will be able to level up their streaming, scrolling and downloads as its 5G network is now available on its new ‘click and connect’ Flex 5G mobile plan.

Optus says Optus Flex continues to give Australians a simple in-app experience that is fundamentally changing the prepaid mobile category. With Flex, Optus customers with an eSIM capable device can join Optus with a new mobile number in just a few taps all through the My Optus app, which removes the need to go in store, purchase a physical SIM or remember to recharge as customers can set and forget with auto recharge.

And now with access to Australia’s fastest 5G mobile network, as awarded by OoklaTM*, VOLTE and Wifi calling enabled, it opens a world of new possibilities for customers. It’s the perfect combination of great value and our super-fast network – all on our most flexible mobile plan.

Optus Flex plans bring customers more of what they want, when they want and allows them to customise their plan to suit their needs, which includes purchasing add-ons, whether it be an Unlimited Data Day or international talk plan to stay close with family and friends overseas, Optus says.

Optus advises that customers have the choice to take up a daily, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly plan with access to 5G plans starting at just $2 a day. If a customer does not max out their data, they won’t lose it, as up to 200GB of data will automatically roll over on an active plan.

Optus MD of marketing & revenue Matt Williams said, “At Optus, we are committed to taking our customers’ experience to new levels and creating unique customer connections, which is why we are excited to open up the world of 5G to our Optus Flex customers.

“Optus is focused on becoming Australia's most loved everyday brand, and our Optus Flex plans truly put our customers in charge of their connectivity with flexibility, choice, and amazing value," Williams concluded.

More information can be found here.

This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 1 November 2021.

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GUEST OPINION: 2021 saw the service provider ecosystem flourish in tough environments. Open RAN has evolved more than ever; the global 5G market has risen dramatically, creating low latency and enhanced security that give enterprises the power to implement breakthrough applications and increased AI/ML capabilities; and demand for infrastructure that powers 5G, IoT and UHD has continued to rise.

The pandemic has highlighted the importance of home-based internet services in Australia, with data traffic reaching an all-time high of 9.58 million terabytes downloaded in the three months to June 2021. While demand for broadband connectivity is increasing, Australia's service providers are still faced with the challenge of preparing for 5G and introducing alternative services to generate future revenue growth.

So, with 2021 now in the rear-view mirror, we take a look at some of the trends we expect to see among service providers in Australia over the next 12 months.

1) ORAN will continue its march forward

The industry has seen major strides with Open RAN this past year, and more than anything, it’s becoming an ecosystem play and the vendors who master that will lead the narrative. Next year, many new ecosystems will emerge, and the existing ones will be expanded to include more vendors. To hedge their bets, many of the same vendors will show up in multiple ecosystems. We will see operators start defining their ORAN strategies and invest in more ORAN initiatives with the help of key vendor ecosystems.

Additionally, ORAN will move from lab trials to the field and early use cases will gather momentum with tier-1 operators, with many vendors announcing their approaches to ORAN and RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC). We can also expect service management and orchestration to become a key area of focus both by the vendors and the network operators, but not until the end of the next year.

2) Private 5G will unlock new innovations

The global private 5G market has been rapidly rising, and is set to reach $20 billion by 2028. With its low latency and enhanced security, private 5G will give enterprises the platform they need to implement breakthrough applications that require near-real time responses and actions, as well as faster data processing for AI/ML. The adoption of private 5G is set to transform sectors like health care, gaming, manufacturing and emergency services, with production deployments becoming more common over the next 18-24 months.

Next year, we will see enterprise organisations begin the process to take advantage of these opportunities and in doing so, look to service providers to help them make significant progress toward rolling out next-generation applications and achieving breakout business value.

3) Demand for adoption of 400G will skyrocket

The market for 400G is exponentially increasing as the world transforms digitally. Although there is no Moore’s law equivalent for the pace at which network traffic grows, a similar dynamic is in effect. Every new application and advancement depends on moving more and more data for it to succeed. Think 4K/8K and remote work or IoT and artificial intelligence and machine learning. Next up: the metaverse and virtual worlds.

As traffic levels continue to grow, we will see network operators accelerate the adoption of 400G to future-proof networks for what lies ahead. What’s more, future looking network operators will get ready for the next big increase in demand by choosing platforms capable of supporting a seamless transition to 800G when needed.

4) Metro networks will begin their much-needed transformation

Metro networks will play a more critical role in new profitable and innovative services delivery, as the place in the network where connectivity, hosting and service experience converge. The metro is the future of services and will need to be reimagined in the coming year. As a result, we will see network operators move away from traditional siloed metro architectures built from the transport up to a refreshed design focused on service delivery, coupling IP connectivity with hosted elements and content, along with security and automation.

Emerging 5G and edge services present a once-in-a-generation opportunity for service providers. Using concepts like network slicing, dynamic edge compute and automation, they will start to roll out exciting new enterprise and consumer applications on converged metro fabrics that simply weren’t possible before.

5) Broadband market transformation will pick up steam

There is a new service provider buying cycle in broadband network infrastructure buildouts driven by a variety of factors: evolving architectures, growth in work from home, increasing bandwidth and low latency demands, and new government infrastructure incentives. The performance ramifications of emerging service offerings to support 5G, IoT and UHD Video, among others, are pressuring network operators to seek new economies of scale to financially right size while they seek to boost capacity without increased costs. Consequently, the market will start to transition from centralised/traditional architectures to exploit distributed, horizontally and vertically disaggregated, and converged wireline and wireless broadband solutions.

A Nokia official in the Oceania region says he is satisfied with the uptake of 5G in Australia, pointing out that about 80% of the smartphones sold in the country are now 5G-capable.

Robert Joyce, chief technology officer for Nokia Oceania, told iTWire in response to queries that the affordability factor was not affecting take-up.

He added that in some cases operators allowed all 5G handsets on the 5G network since many operators' 4G/5G tariffs were the same.

"For example, even a pre-pay SIM in a 5G handset can connect to Vodafone Australia's 5G network," he said.

{loadposition sam08}Joyce has been in the mobile telecommunications field for more than 25 years and headed Radio Access Technologies for Qatar's Ooredoo Group before joining Nokia.

He was responsible for setting up the globe's first 5G commercial network at Ooredoo Qatar in May 2018 and holds a doctorate from the University of Leeds, with the topic of his research being self-organising heterogeneous networks.

Joyce said the incentive to take up 5G depended on the user. "I can't comment on the individual tariffs of the operators, but 5G is certainly faster than 4G, so I guess it depends on what you use your mobile phone for, as to whether you'd get more value from a 5G phone and associated subscription," he said.

"If you're a heavy gamer or someone who uses their mobile phone for watching HD movies or tethering, then 5G is going to give you a much better experience. A recent study undertaken by one of the big crowd sourced companies suggests 5G users have an average throughput experience that's five to ten times faster than 4G.

"Currently, the 5G networks in Australia are demonstrating peak downlink rates of over 5Gbps per second and represent some of the fastest networks in the world. Nokia provides network equipment/solutions to all three of the mobile operators here in Australia and we've set a number of 5G world records with them."

A recent survey by Ookla, the company behind the popular Speedtest app, suggests however that 5G speeds have slowed down at the global level.

"Over the past year from Q3 2020 to Q3 2021, the median global 5G download speed fell to 166.13 Mbps, down from 206.22 Mbps in Q3 2020," the survey noted. "Median upload speed over 5G also slowed to 21.08 Mbps (from 29.52 Mbps) during the same period."

About industry use cases for 5G, Joyce noted that Australian mobile operators provided 5G coverage to more than 80% of population. "They do this by deploying 5G across multiple frequency bands including the 700, 850 and 900MHz bands that propagate much further than the higher bands such as the 3.5GHz band also used for 5G," he said.

"Nokia recently demonstrated the effectiveness of the 700MHz band for 5G with TPG Telecom when we set a 5G range record of 148km between 5G handsets in a cell in Rural Queensland. It is this wide area coverage that will enable many of the 5G use cases we see being of value to Australian industries such as mining, oil and gas and transport. These physical industries need wide area, ultra low latency, robust coverage, exactly what 5G in the 700MHz band provides."

Thus far, Australia had been 5G use in enhanced mobile broadband and fixed wireless access, he said. "eMBB is effectively an enhanced 5G service to a smartphone, enabling a higher data rate, lower latency and all the benefits I mentioned.

"And FWA is providing a fixed internet connection over 5G rather than the fixed line. In Australia, Optus and Nokia together launched Australia's first FWA service using Nokia's 5G fast mile FWA Gateway. This product has proven to be so good it is now the number one selling 5G FWA Gateway globally.

"In future, Nokia thinks virtual reality and augmented reality will be some of the new killer apps as we see manufacturers start to produce smart glasses and other wearables that support VR and or AR."

Joyce said it was a common misconception that one needed 5G mmWave for ultra-low latency. "While 5G mmWave and the massive bandwidths available within these bands will enable both low latency and super-fast data rates of 20Gbps and beyond, low latencies can actually be better provided by the legacy Frequency Division Duplex bands (FDD) like 700, 1800 and 2100MHz," he said.

"This is because at 3.5GHz and mmWave, 5G is Time Division Duplex (TDD) based and this means that there can be a delay between the uplink and downlink transmissions. In FDD, this delay does not occur as we have simultaneous uplink and downlink transmission and therefore in theory FDD can support a lower latency than TDD.

"Of course, there's a bit more to it than that, like Frame Structure and time slot duration, but future versions of the 3GPP standard will deliver low latencies across all 5G bands, not just the mmWave band."

He said recently Nokia and its partners had been awarded over $3 million of government funding to investigate new and exciting 5G use cases.

"The first of these projects is the 5G Connected Cobots project we're doing with UTS at the recently opened Nokia 5G Future Lab at UTS Tech Park, Sydney. This project will demonstrate how we can control Collaborative Robots (Cobots) connected over the 5G network ...with the brain of the Cobot actually running on a Nokia Edge Cloud rather than on the Cobot itself.

"The second project we're involved with is the creation of the National 5G Industrial Incubation Lab with the South Australian Government in Lot 14, Adelaide. This lab will be aimed at demonstrating the use of 5G within industry and we'll initially be looking at connected airports, connected trains and power grid inspection/control using 5G. We're now three months into both projects so it's still in the early stage as we set up the labs, but we look forward to sharing the results of these projects as they become available."

Joyce said with regard to the Open RAN Policy Coalition, it would be fair to say that Nokia was taking the lead in development of the technology for the project.

A communications expert, Henry Kressel, recently listed the following as issues for ORAN:

Asked about these hurdles, Joyce said: "Yes, that is an interesting point of view and security remains a key concern in O-RAN networks. That said, we see many of our customers progressing rapidly with O-RAN trials, including some in Germany that we are fully supporting, and we look forward to supporting our customers in the months and years to come should they decide to move to more open RAN architectures."

As to whether these issues meant Open RAN was another pie in the sky project, Joyce did not agree. "We're already seeing different methods of network deployments taking place. Take Rakuten in Japan and DISH in the US: while neither of these networks can be classed as being official O-RAN compliant, both companies are pushing the boundaries of how operators may deploy their RAN, transport and core networks in the future," he replied.

"At Nokia we know we can't predict the future, but certainly being open and involved with all possibilities sets us in the best position to support our customers whatever network architecture becomes the norm in the not too distant future."

2021 marked an exciting year for 5G. For semiconductor company Qualcomm, it not only saw 5G commercial launches around the world, but it noted that 3GPP continued towards completing 5G NR Release.

This week at the quarterly 3GPP RAN Plenary meeting, Qualcomm says that 3GPP reached a key milestone to realise 5G vision.

After conducting a 5G Advanced workshop in June and multiple rounds of lively e-mail discussions with a large set of participating 3GPP companies, Qualcomm has approved a Release 18 (Rel-18) package, a set of projects that aims to deliver a balanced 5G Advanced evolution, which will address the short and longer terms needs of enhanced mobile broadband and expanded vertical use cases across the end-to-end 5G system.

Qualcomm says 5G Advanced starts the second phase of the 5G decade, bringing a new wave of wireless technology innovations. It is envisioned to push technology boundaries in two broad directions: to strengthen the 5G system foundation that further improves speed, coverage, mobility, power efficiency, as well as to proliferate 5G to virtually all devices, deployments, and use cases.

Rel-18 is the inaugural standard release of 5G Advanced, and below are the key projects and the scope they entail.

Strengthen the end-to-end 5G system foundation Advanced downlink/uplink Mimo: enhancing 5G massive Mimo performance and efficiency by delivering improved throughput, coverage, power consumption, reliability, and support for more device antennas for a wide range of use cases.

Enhanced mobility: improving mobility for devices operating in sub-7 GHz and mmWave by supporting lower handover latency and improved robustness through lower layer mechanisms (i.e., layer 1 and 2 based inter-cell mobility), and more carrier aggregation and dual connectivity operations.

Mobile integrated access/backhaul (IAB) and smart repeaters: expanding capability for IAB on cars/trains to extend 5G coverage in sub-7 GHz and mmWave deployments for users inside and outside the vehicle, as well as supporting repeaters with traffic awareness and beamforming capability via side control information in TDD spectrum for deployments at high bands.

Evolved duplexing: identifying applicable and relevant deployment scenarios and use cases on the path to full duplex operations, focusing on non-overlapping subband full duplex that can improve network efficiency, latency, and coverage in TDD deployments.

AI/ML data-driven designs: expanding wireless ML framework to optimise network energy saving, load balancing and mobility with enhanced data collection and signalling support, as well as to examine how AI/ML techniques can enable improved support of air interface functions, such as CSI feedback, beam management, and positioning.

Green networks: defining base station energy consumption model, evaluation methodology, KPIs, and power consumption reduction techniques with and without user device assistance targeting system-level studies with various scenarios, which include sub-7 GHz urban/rural macro, urban micro, mmWave beam-based, and dual connectivity deployments.

Proliferate 5G to virtually all devices and use cases Boundless extended reality (XR): following the Rel-17 study characterising XR traffic models and evaluating how 5G NR supports XR applications aiming now at defining the KPIs and QoS requirements, as well as supporting application awareness and power and capacity enhancements tailored for improved support of XR experiences over 5G.

NR-Light (RedCap) evolution: expanding the NR-Light platform for reduced capability devices to further scale bandwidth possibly down to 5MHz and enhance low-power modes, while maintaining coexistence with Rel-17 NR-Light and other 5G NR devices.

Expanded sidelink: building upon the C-V2X and Rel-17 foundation to expand into new spectrum types and bands (i.e., unlicensed and mmWave), as well as sidelink relays that can further extend 5G coverage in challenging scenarios.

Expanded positioning: providing enhanced performance (i.e., accuracy) for positioning/ranging, including assessing techniques such as bandwidth aggregation and carrier phase measurement, as well as defining performance requirements for NR-Light positioning.

Drones and enhanced satellites: defining drone communications with 5G NR, leveraging the LTE Rel-14 drone study, defining measurement reporting and signalling design; extending 5G NR satellite support into new bands (e.g., 10+GHz), improving coverage and mobility targeting voice support over satellite for regular smartphone form factor.

Multicast enhancements: driving enhancements for 5G mixed-mode multicast, such as supporting multicast reception in inactive/idle mode and better system efficiency for multicast reception in RAN sharing scenarios.

Qualcomm says there are Rel-18 projects beyond the ones that deliver additional improvements to the 5G system. This includes enhancements to dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS), multi-SIM, in-device coexistence, small data transmission, quality of experience, carrier aggregation, and self-organising network/minimisation of drive test (SON/MDT).

Nominal work for Rel-18 will start after completing Rel-17, expected in the first half of the next year. Qualcomm says it is working on some projects that will define the future of 5G.

This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 14 December 2021.

Telecommunications company Optus launches Optus Smart Spaces, a range of devices such as Wi-Fi connected stereos, home lighting systems and digital doorbells, as well as unique service solutions from self-install to full professional installation.

Optus’ O-Team will help customers install their smart devices.

Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin claims that launching Optus Smart Spaces made sense, as customers already trusted Optus with their connectivity and service needs.

“With more device options available than ever before, knowing how to install and integrate all the technology in your home or office can be daunting, and many customers are unsure of who to turn to for support,” Rosmarin says.

“We’ve designed Smart Spaces to take the guesswork out of creating a smart home. With Optus, you no longer need to be a genius to create your own connected space.”

Rosmarin adds nearly 60% of homes with smart devices are not using them to their full potential. She says one in three struggle to set them up.

“Rather than just selling a smart home lighting system, voice assistant or connected doorbell, we will help customers select the best options for their home – and options for installation too, whether they want to install themselves, install via online support, or just have the O-Team do it for them.”

Partnering with Amazon, Google, Ring, and Eero, Optus has introduced a range of specially curated smart device collections in select retail stores which can be built into collections of integrated product suites around home entertainment, security, lighting, and work-from-home.

Customers who purchase select smart home devices from Optus will receive 30 days of assistance from the O-Team online support and the option to purchase ‘in home, in person’ support via the O-Team or enlist ongoing support through a subscription office.

Rosmarin cited research that indicated the smart home and consumer IOT market is set to grow to nearly $5 billion by 2024.

“With the expansion and evolution of our Optus 5G, we have bold ambitions for Smart Spaces,” Rosmarin concludes.

The launch of Smart Spaces comes after SubHub—a platform that streamlines a customer’s entertainment, health and well-being content subscriptions—and the Optus Living Network—a collection of features that adapts to customers’ changing needs by offering them flexibility and control of their connectivity.

This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 9 December 2021.

Fibocom a provider of IoT wireless solutions and wireless communication modules, announced that its 5G module FG360-NA has been certified by T-Mobile. The module is now able to provide wireless connection services under T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G network, helping to further enable 5G applications like FWA (Fixed Wireless Access) in the US market.

“We are proud to see our 5G module FG360-NA being certified by T-Mobile. The module is now fully capable to be deployed in the US IoT market. Fibocom will continue to enable industry digital transformation with our advanced 5G technology,” said Fibocom VP of overseas carriers certification Gene Santana.

Based on what Fibocom claim to be the World's 1st FWA CPE customised 5G SOC chipset, MediaTek T750, Fibocom’s FG360-NA module supports 5G NR Sub-6 band with up to 4.67 Gbps on the downlink and 1.25 Gbps on the uplink theoretically, enabling exciting 5G speed experience.

Integrated with MediaTek T750, the FG360-NA module has excellent performance covering the main global frequency bands & ENDC. Supporting 5G standalone network (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) network architectures, the module is also backward compatible with LTE and WCDMA, helping to reduce investment complexity in the initial stage of 5G construction, Fibocom say.

Fibocom comment that the module has a built-in quad-core, 2GHz ARM Cortex-A55 CPU, it supports 5G Sub-6GHz 2CC CA (Carrier Aggregation) up to 200MHz frequency to improve the spectrum utilisation. The FG360-NA module allows end devices to enjoy the full benefits of high-speed 5G and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, supporting Wi-Fi 6 AX1800, AX3600 (Mainstream), AX4200 and AX6000 configurations. The module also supports GNSS, including GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo and QZSS, Fibocom states.

The Fibocom 5G module FG360-NA supports a rich extension of interfaces including 2.5Gbps SGMII, USB 3.1/3.0/2.0, PCIe 3.0, GPIO, I2S, UIM and so on. At present, Fibocom’s FG360 module series has been globally certified by FCC/ CE/ PTCRB, and the commercial samples of FG360 are ready for mass production, Fibocom conclude.

This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 14 December 2021.