NGMN’s official app for Android and iOS has been released

Today we are thrilled to formally announce NGMN’s official app for Android and iOS, which provides you with a wealth of information on NGMN Events and News.

Find the NGMN app for Android in the Google Play store and on iTunes.

NGMN Alliance Releases Agenda for San Francisco Industry Conference

Frankfurt, Germany and London, UK April 23rd 2012 - The NGMN Alliance today released the agenda for its Industry Conference & Exhibition 2012 which will take place on 13-15 June, in San Francisco, USA. As in the previous years the conference will feature an unrivalled line-up of top executives from NGMN partner companies and representatives from the entire mobile ecosystem.

The Industry Conference & Exhibition 2012 will be the key platform to explore the latest status of LTE network deployment and operation, to review the upcoming network and device trends and to embrace technology and service innovations.

The top management of NGMN Partners and key players of the industry will share insights while start-up companies and research organisations present innovations and visions.

Find additional information on the conference website.
www.ngmn.org/ice2012

Standardized framework for interoperable M2M Services

Rich Communication Suite VoLTE Test Event

ETSI Headquarters, Sophia Antipolis, France - 23 April 2012

In a news release on 23rd April 2012 ETSI announced the joint launch of the first ever RCS (Rich Communication Suite) VoLTE (Voice over LTE) interoperability test event. The event is supported by the MSF (MultiService Forum), ETSI and the GSMA.

For more information on this event and to read the whole news release visit
www.etsi.org/WebSite/NewsandEvents/2012_04_ETSI_MSF_GSMA_RCS_VoLTE_Plugtests.aspx

Why NGMN Alliance is set to rock the BSSOSS world to the NGCOR

Teresa Cottam from Telesperience wrote an excellent article about the NGMN Alliance and explains what Next Generation Converged Operations (NGCOR) is doing.

Click here to read the complete article from Telesperience:
www.microsperience.com/index.php/why-ngmn-alliance-is-set-to-rock-the-bssoss-world-to-the-ngcor/

In North America, the LTE market continues to race ahead

According to the NGMN Co-operation Partner 4G Americas, LTE and HSPA accesses have put North America at the forefront of the mobile revolution, and are set to keep it there. Click here to read the complete Press Release from 4G Americas.

NGMN ACTIVITIES ON INNOVATION

NGMN Advisors represent leading universities and research institutes in the area of mobile communications. They participate in projects and activities of NGMN and add their research perspective on innovation. NGMN Advisors are also encouraged to build their own network on training and research, e.g. building a talent pool in research.

To read more on the newly added activities on Innovation click here.

4G Global Deployments

The NGMN Alliance is pushing the standardisation of LTE since several years. Following the continuous efforts we see the deployment of 4G LTE networks increasing ever so fast.

Visit 4G-Map.info in order to get a comprehensive source of 4G network deployments, both planned and in service.

The NGMN Alliance addresses top requirements for global success of mobile broadband

London, UK & Frankfurt, Germany, February 2012

In an Executive Press Briefing today at Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, the NGMN Alliance outlined the top technological requirements for successful deployment and operation of mobile broadband on a global scale.

These include:

• Global roaming: In a world of scarce spectrum and a variety of mobile access technologies, multi-band and multi-mode devices are a prerequisite. In its current work programme the NGMN addresses the key requirements.
   
• Convergence of network management: The large variety of technologies - even within a single operator's network - demand for an efficient management of fixed/mobile networks. This is a challenge for all major mobile network operators.

NGMN Board Directors gave their insight and opinion on these challenges and shared solutions developed by the NGMN partners.

Further updates and conclusions will be made public during the NGMN Industry Conference and Exhibition on June 13-15 in San Francisco, US, see

www.ngmn.org/ice2012

Global Roaming

Yuhong Huang, Deputy General Manager China Mobile Research Institute, on behalf of NGMN MBMM project, focused her presentation on the industry requirements with regards to global roaming and expressed the need for a single, cost effective global UE platform. In addition she explained the requirement for multi-band multi-mode devices and discussed the feasibility, as well as the technology roadmap for the next two to three years.

One major challenge Mrs Huang named is the scarcity of spectrum that leads to various LTE bands in different regions. Development of devices that are able to support these frequency bands and in addition multiple technologies is a prerequisite for global roaming, but it is a challenge to implement more than 10 LTE bands in current products.

The NGMN Alliance has launched the project "Multi-band multi-mode" together with all major international chipset and device manufactures to enable knowledge transfer across players and to work on a roadmap towards multi-band multi-mode devices. It is the goal of this project to reduce complexity through an effective UE platform. This will be a prerequisite for improved end-user experience and mandatory to allow for global LTE roaming.

Mrs Huang stated that: "The NGMN Alliance invites all device ecosystem vendors to join the MBMM activity to enable cost effective multi-band multi-mode global UE platform and ecosystem, significantly enhancing the economy of scale and seamless LTE global roaming".

Management of Converged Fixed and Mobile Networks

Klaus-Jürgen Krath, SVP Radio Networks, Deutsche Telekom AG, highlighted in his contribution, today's operator challenges of having to manage a variety of network and service production infrastructures, from mobile and fixed network environments up to converged networks and services across regions. This has an enormous impact on network operations, which NGMN targets with its project on "Next Generation Converged Operations Requirements" (NGCOR).

The objective of this NGMN project is to reduce complexity and integration costs in the area of network management by achieving standardised interfaces between the Telco infrastructure and the OSS (Operations Support Systems). NGCOR aims to obtain more flexibility and reduced time-to-market in the introduction of services through standardised network management functionalities for converged fixed and mobile networks.

"The detailed operations requirements, developed by the NGMN Alliance, have already been shared and reviewed with all leading Telco and IT vendors and involved industry organisations", said Klaus-Jürgen Krath. "The NGMN operators encourage all these industry stakeholders to support in a joint effort the further enhancement of the requirements and, in particular, the implementation of NGCOR results in order to achieve the targeted benefits and savings. The deployment will be driven by operators putting the requirements in upcoming tenders."

The NGMN Alliance publishes spectrum statement regards ITU-R World Radiocommunication Conference 2012

The NGMN Alliance today published an official statement regards ITU-R WRC-12 - please find the statement below:

STATEMENT OF THE NGMN ALLIANCE REGARDS WRC-12 (Version 5 111216)

NGMN notes future mobile broadband spectrum shortage and supports Agenda Item 8.2 at ITU-R WRC-12 towards spectrum studies and possible additional allocations to the mobile service and identification of bands for IMT at ITU-R WRC-15. NGMN urges that ITU-R Working Party 5D have the lead role in conducting the relevant studies.

NGMN supports the ITU-R World Radiocommunication Conference 2012 in its deliberation on Agenda Item 8.2, and seeks a positive outcome on future spectrum and band discussions to support the on-going deployment of terrestrial mobile broadband applications utilizing IMT wireless technologies and systems.

NGMN recognizes that mobile broadband delivered by the IMT technology families has had immense success around the world. Mobile communications and the on-going mobile broadband deployments have been playing very positive roles in the economic and social developments of both developed and developing countries.

Mobile broadband traffic and the number of subscriptions have dramatically increased in the last few years. In 2010 alone growth in global mobile traffic has seen an increase of over two-and-a-half times, nearly tripling for the third year in a row. The number of global mobile subscriptions has increased from 3.9 billion in 2008 to 5.3 billion in 2010. New types of mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, and new user behaviours have emerged and are now a well-established demand dynamic. Smart phones are expected to increase from 23% of total phone shipments in 2010 to more than 45% in 2015. Machine type communications (M2M) and embedded devices are a fast growing-market segment which is seen to have the possibility for 20 billion connections by year 2020. These and other factors are triggering an ever greater need to deliver not only high data rate services but also high quality of service to mobile broadband consumers.

It is recognized that spectrum is the fuel for the mobile broadband engine and that the spectrum situation now and in the near future in many Regions of the world is not sufficient even with the pace of technology evolution producing significant advances in spectral efficiencies to keep up with the rampant demand.

NGMN supports the ITU-R World Radiocommunication Conference 2012 in its deliberation on Agenda Item 8.2. NGMN supports putting into play towards decisions in WRC-15, the discussions and studies in ITU-R on spectrum demands and requirements for the development of terrestrial mobile broadband applications focused on IMT and possible regulatory actions, including additional allocations to the mobile service and identification of bands for IMT. NGMN recognizes the successful contribution that ITU-R Working Party 5D has made to the advance of IMT and is of the opinion that the relevant ITU studies related to a future agenda item on mobile broadband focused on IMT at WRC-15 should be conducted by WP 5D. It is recognized that the discussions and studies on additional spectrum for IMT systems will be a difficult process. WP 5D has shown in the past how reliable and efficient it is with dealing with such complex issues, and should be involved to minimize the risk that the necessary studies will not be completed in time for WRC-15.

Sandro Dionisi

Chairman of the Board of the NGMN Alliance

Download: Statement of NGMN Regards WRC-12

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