Picking industrial winners and shaping company strategy used to be a favorite political pastime in the UK. It had its zenith in the early 1970s, when a Labour government s catastrophic intervention sent British Leyland, an automotive company, permanently off the road. Yet the policy seems to be making a return under a Conservative Party that would previously have been horrified by such antics. The erstwhile stewards of the free market are taking an unhealthy interest in company affairs. And much of their attention is on telecom.
It started last year, when the UK became one of a small number of Western countries to curtail the activities of Huawei and ZTE, two Chinese vendors of network equipment. That would have seemed justifiable to many observers as part of a much broader security and trade strategy. Allowing companies answerable to Xi Jinping to build the UK s critical infrastructure looked bonkers to their opponents. Nor has China ever played by World Trade Organization rules,
Social distancing just became even harder in the bustling market for open RAN technology after HPE today set up its own server stall replete with orchestration bells and whistles. The US IT giant has been desperate to uncover a new growth opportunity. Sales fell 3.6% last year, to $56.6 billion, and earnings slumped 10%, to about $2.8 billion. It evidently believes the communications sector is a good bet.
Hence the unveiling of HPE Communications Technology Group (CTG), which lumps together various telco activities and gives them a shiny new outfit and some eye-catching new products. Today s push is mainly about the open RAN side of things, where HPE executives have spotted an opportunity to disrupt the status quo. It s a matter of how much vested interest there is in the old model, said Claus Pedersen, HPE s vice president of telecom infrastructure solutions, on a call with reporters. We have no vested interest in the old model.
Switch off today s 5G networks and most of us would barely notice. Despite telco enthusiasm, and some government panic about letting Chinese vendors anywhere near such a critically important technology, 5G remains a pointlessly fast luxury for the cashed-up. In a pandemic that has confined millions to their homes, it is even less useful telecom s equivalent of a supercar in a gridlocked neighborhood.
Turning off the broadband connections into people s homes would be another matter entirely. Without that connectivity, entire populations would not be able to work, educate their children, see family and friends, watch the latest movies even shop for household goods. It is no exaggeration to describe broadband as the life-support system for a chronically ill society.
Blueprint call for 5G and WiFi6 convergence eenewseurope.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eenewseurope.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Wireless Broadband Alliance Releases Blueprint for 5G and Wi-Fi 6 Convergence
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Outlines convergence opportunities for optimizing business innovation and customer experience
London, 26 January 2021 – Convergence between Wi-Fi and 5G access technologies is critical for enabling new breed of services, applications and experiences such as Industry 4.0, AR/VR, Connected Cities and Edge Computing. That is according to the latest report from the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), developed with input from mobile carriers, Wi-Fi providers, telecom manufacturers, and its own 5G Working Group.
The report, expanding on the WBA and NGMN RAN convergence whitepaper from 2019 which articulated the benefits and use-cases of Wi-Fi 6 and 5G convergence, provides a breakdown of the current standards and key business opportunities for operators.