Category: Press Release

Press and Industry Briefing on February 27, 2024

NGMN Board Members showcase Global Telecom Industry at Press & Industry Briefing at MWC

Barcelona, Spain, 27 February 2024. The annual NGMN Press & Industry Briefing at Mobile World Congress 2024 took centre stage at the Deutsche Telekom booth showcasing a stellar lineup of senior industry experts representing different geo-regions of the globe. The Alliance underscored the significant advantages derived from its unwavering commitment to provide impactful guidance in the areas Route to Disaggregation/Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks, and 6G. By fostering collaboration among Mobile Network Operators, Vendors, System Integrators, Research Institutes, and other players of the value chain, NGMN’s Work Programme is positioned to have a lasting impact on the trajectory of the mobile telecommunication industry, ensuring ongoing innovation and progress with value for end-users and ecosystem players.

The Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom, Arash Ashouriha, alongside Anita Döhler, CEO of the NGMN Alliance, conducted a comprehensive review of last year’s accomplishments and provided an overview of the strategy and agenda for 2024, including NGMN’s global biennial Industry Conference & Exhibition which will take place in September 2024 in Munich. Firsthand perspectives and expert insights on the two recent NGMN Publications ‘Cloud Native Manifesto: An Operator View’ and ‘6G Position Statement: An Operator View’ were shared by Board Members of the NGMN Alliance, including Carlos Fernandes (DT), Jerome Birot (TELUS), Laurent Leboucher (Orange), Luke Ibbetson (Vodafone), Narothum Saxena (UScellular), Takki Yu (SK Telecom), and Yuhong Huang (China Mobile). Together, they delved deeper into key trends, innovations, challenges, and guidance, shaping the mobile industry. NGMN Board Members were available for a Q&A session afterward.

Arash Ashouriha, Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board, underscored the Alliance’s remarkable achievements, noting, “Our Alliance has garnered international recognition for its contributions and the impact to the industry benefiting not only mobile network operators but also the entire ecosystem.” Additionally, he emphasized the significance of a collaborative approach within alliances like NGMN in today’s challenging landscape. Ashouriha highlighted that only by operators confronting industry challenges collectively, can the industry effectively overcome technical, economical and geopolitical obstacles.

Anita Döhler, CEO of the NGMN Alliance added: “We take pride in our diverse team of Board Members representing different geo-regions of the globe, a manifestation of our commitment to tackling the most pressing issues and opportunities and fostering genuine collaboration for the advancement of the global telecommunications industry. We extend an invitation to all stakeholders across the value chain to join our Alliance in our crucial endeavours.”

The briefing underscored the significance of two recent key publications by NGMN that are exerting a considerable influence on the industry landscape. The first, the Cloud Native Manifesto: An Operator View, delineates seven fundamental principles deemed essential for the realisation of open, interoperable, and highly scalable cloud-native networks. This manifesto steers the industry towards the effective adoption of cloud native technologies, emphasizing the transformative potential they hold.

Meanwhile, the 6G Position Statement: An Operator View represents a significant call to action within the mobile industry. It advocates for a paradigm shift in the approach to introducing new technology generations, particularly focusing on the impending transition to 6G. The statement offers comprehensive guidance encompassing various key requirements and principles vital for navigating this evolution. By providing a roadmap for future technological advancements and standards, the 6G Position Statement serves as a cornerstone in shaping the trajectory of the mobile industry’s development.

 

About NGMN Alliance

The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors). NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavours.

Publication ITU-R Framework for IMT-2030 Cover

NGMN publishes ITU-R Framework for IMT-2030: Review and Future Direction

Dusseldorf, Germany, 15 February 2024. Today, the NGMN Alliance (NGMN) issued the “ITU-R Framework for IMT-2030: Review and Future Direction”. In this essential publication NGMN welcomes the recent report by ITU-R on the ‘Framework and overall objectives of the future development of IMT for 2030 and beyond.’ This ITU-R report sets an important framework for future technology discussions towards 6G.

“Our publication underlines the importance of investment confidence for operators in order to deliver tangible value to customers while ensuring the commercial sustainability of current and future networks,” said Luke Ibbetson, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board and Head of Group R&D at Vodafone. “The capabilities identified for IMT-2030 should be able to be deployed as and when required, without compromising existing core connectivity services, and reflect a customer need that generates new value.”

There is close alignment between NGMN’s vision for 6G and the IMT-2030 framework. This close alignment covers vision, usage scenarios and essential capabilities, particularly related to practical and sustainable deployment and emphasizing harmonised global standards for mobile networks. NGMN goes on to provide recommendations and guidance on ITU-R aspects as it moves forward in the next stage of the IMT-2030 process, including:

  • New features should be able to be deployed as and when required, without compromising existing core connectivity services, which reflect customer needs and generate new values.
  • Evaluation should include interworking of IMT-2030 candidates with non-IMT systems.
  • Reinforcement of the importance of global standards for mobile networks within industry consensus-based standards organisations (e.g., 3GPP).
  • Consideration that advanced features introduced with the IMT-2020 network and/or a new radio interface might be candidates for IMT-2030.
  • Any new radio interface must demonstrate significant benefits over and above IMT-2020 in key metrics such as spectral and/or energy efficiency, overall energy consumption reduction and/or cost advantages.
  • Further work would be beneficial, as input to the process and next steps, to understand the commercial imperative for any extreme requirements of IMT-2030.
  • IMT-2030 should continue to evolve based on IP communications, considering cloud native solutions, disaggregation, and service-based architecture, ensuring both forward and backward compatibility. Support for self-organisation to manage complexity and emerging capabilities.

“This publication provides a realistic evaluation of IMT-2030 technologies”, said Michael Irizarry, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board and Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Engineering and Information Technology, UScellular. “For a new IMT-2030 radio technology to become widely adopted for 6G, it must demonstrate significant benefits across key metrics such as energy efficiency, traffic capacity and cost reduction”.

“We at NGMN look forward to collaborative efforts with the ITU-R and subsequent phases of activity to shape the future of IMT-2030,” said Madam Yuhong Huang, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board and General Manager China Mobile Research Institute. She added, “We hope the industry will prioritize the development needs outlined by NGMN on behalf of its operator members and actively participate in 6G research, contributing novel technologies, unlocking innovative business opportunities, and enabling the sustainable development of the society for the benefit of our customers.” 

Following the NGMN publications “6G Position Statement, an Operator View”, “6G Use Cases and Analysis”, “6G Drivers and Vision” and “6G Requirements and Design Considerations”, this latest publication “Analysis of ITU-R Framework for IMT-2030” marks the next step towards guidance for E2E requirements for 6G.

The publication can be downloaded from here.

Collaboration is key to driving the industry’s most important subjects such as NGMN’s Strategic Focus Topics: Mastering the Route to Disaggregation, Green Future Networks and 6G. NGMN therefore invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour.

 

About NGMN Alliance

The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors). NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavours.

Green Future Network - Reducing Environmental Impact Cover

NGMN enables MNOs to reduce their environmental impact and publishes new report

Dusseldorf, Germany, 23 January 2024. Today the NGMN Alliance (NGMN) issued a new publication “Reducing Environmental Impact: Best Practices and Recommendations” providing guidance to the mobile telecommunication industry on how to manage and reduce its environmental footprint in relation to greenhouse gas emissions, materials usage, energy and water.

“Over the last three decades the mobile industry has provided enormous economic and societal benefits to billions of users worldwide. We must however continue this success story in a way that is sustainable and that minimises the industry’s environmental footprint”, said Arash Ashouriha, Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “I am proud that the mobile industry has come together – in NGMN – to share best practice and enable the whole industry to address this vitally important issue“, he added.

Laurent Leboucher, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board, Group CTO and SVP Orange Innovation Networks at Orange added: “Environmental impact is not just limited to carbon emissions – use of rare materials, plastics and water footprint all need to be considered, managed and reduced. Orange is proud to have collaborated with our industry peers to develop this NGMN publication – a publication which will provide significant value to the wider industry”.

This latest NGMN publication highlights how operators can assess the lifecycle environmental impact of their network infrastructure in terms of emissions, energy, and water footprint. The report identifies the use of Lifecycle Assessment in relation to energy and emissions and demonstrates how to calculate water footprint. Based on these tools, strategies are outlined for how to manage and reduce the environmental impact by, for example, selecting and using materials in the design of network infrastructure that have lower emissions and energy requirements and by for example switching to data centre cooling methods that use less water.

“The vision of the NGMN Alliance is to provide impactful guidance to achieve innovative and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation, Green Future Networks, as well as 6G”, said Anita Doehler, CEO at NGMN Alliance. “The mobile industry is working very hard to reduce its environmental footprint. However, no single stakeholder – operator or vendor – can do this alone. We must work together, collaborate for the sake of developing new solutions, share best practices, and learn from each other to make this happen. This new publication is an excellent example of the value NGMN provides to its membership and to the wider industry”, she added.

The publication was developed with input from across the industry – with NGMN Partners representing operators, vendors, and research institutes.

The publication can be downloaded from here.

Collaboration is key to driving the industry’s most important topics such as NGMN’s strategic pillars: Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks, and 6G. NGMN therefore invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour.

Further information and all publications of the NGMN Alliance can be found on their website at ngmn.org

 

About NGMN Alliance

The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors). NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavours.

 

NGMN_GFN_NEE_Phase3A_Cover

NGMN issues Energy Saving Strategies and Best Practices for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs)

Frankfurt, Germany, 05 December 2023. Today the NGMN Alliance (NGMN) issued the next publication concerning energy efficiency: “Effective Energy Saving Strategies and Best Practices for MNOs” providing the industry with further guidance on technical strategies to mitigate high energy costs.

“For the last 18 months high energy costs have put a renewed focus on technical strategies to reduce and better manage energy consumption as well as to ensure network resilience and stability”, said Arash Ashouriha, Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “This publication – which builds on our recent network energy efficiency roadmap (Green Future Networks: Network Energy Efficiency Phase 2) – provides MNOs with best practice energy saving and energy management techniques”, he stated.

Laurent Leboucher, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board, Group CTO and SVP Orange Innovation Networks at Orange, said “Saving energy is a must for all MNOs. Orange is proud to work in NGMN on this important topic which has immediate and ongoing relevance for the industry. We look forward to a forthcoming further publication on this topic due in Q1-2024 which will provide longer term guidance including on how Radio Access Network (RAN) sharing is a significant and cost-effective way of saving energy”.

“Sharing energy saving strategies and industry recommendations best illustrates NGMN’s efforts in adding immediate value to the industry whilst at the same time shaping the industry’s future direction through our core programmes”, emphasised Anita Döhler, CEO at NGMN Alliance.

This latest NGMN publication was developed with input from across the industry – with NGMN Partners representing operators, vendors, and research institutes. It provides a short guide to the best practices for operators to reduce and better manage their energy consumption whilst simultaneously maintaining desirable network Quality of Service (QoS) and handling a continuous increase of data traffic volume.  The report makes the following best practice recommendations:

  • Accelerate the transition from legacy networks (e.g., 2G and 3G) to more energy efficient technologies (e.g., 4G and 5G) whenever possible.
  • Deploy additional 5G/4G spectrum refarmed from 3G to increase network data throughput and capacity, and to keep up with the high data growth experienced during the past years.
  • Leverage the capabilities of the latest RAN technologies to achieve higher energy efficiency.
  • Implement Intelligent RAN energy saving features to save more energy in both 4G and 5G layers.
  • Update RAN sites with state-of-the-art energy efficient RAN equipment and antennas which facilitate all mobile generations, 2G to 5G.
  • Replace onsite air-conditioning units with energy efficient cooling.
  • Deploy renewable energy sources and battery storage units, which reduce the network dependency by electrical grids.
  • Use intelligent energy saving features together with battery storage equipment to further increase the network stability.

In addition, the report notes that the industry needs to work further to address several key areas including reducing base station ‘wake up times’ for extreme deep dormancy features and encouraging planning authorities to streamline and accelerate the approvals processes in relation to deploying renewable energy solutions at or near cell sites.

The publication can be downloaded here.

Collaboration is key to driving the industry’s most important challenges such as NGMN’s strategic pillars: Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks, and 6G. NGMN therefore invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour.

 

About NGMN Alliance

The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors). NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavours.

Green Future Networks - Energy Efficiency Phase 2 Cover

NGMN provides key recommendations and a roadmap for Mobile Network Energy Savings

Frankfurt, Germany, 10 October 2023. Today the NGMN Alliance (NGMN) delivered the next publication: ”Green Future Networks: Network Energy Efficiency Phase 2” providing the industry with key
recommendations and a roadmap for reducing the energy consumption of mobile networks.

“Reducing the energy consumption of mobile networks is an important contributor to our journey to become net-zero and recently it has become a focus of the industry due to increased energy costs,” said Arash Ashouriha, Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “Since 2020 NGMN has contributed guidance on Green Future Networks. Our continuous efforts at NGMN are an important step in enabling operators and suppliers to identify practical and immediate ways to reduce network energy consumption,” he added.

“Our journey to become net-zero is of utmost importance and reducing the energy footprint of our networks is a crucial step in achieving this goal. By maximizing energy efficiency, utilizing renewable energy sources, and implementing energy management solutions, we can continue to deliver high-quality mobile services while meeting our sustainability targets,” stated Laurent Leboucher, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board, Group CTO and SVP Orange Innovation Networks at Orange.

This latest NGMN publication outlines and prioritises various options available to the industry to increase network energy efficiency. Energy saving approaches are organised into three broad categories and time-horizons: process optimisations – short-term; engineering optimisations – medium-term; and new technologies – long-term. Results highlight that it is possible – in the short-term – to reduce energy consumption by up to 10% by optimally configuring networks using existing power saving features. A table of recommended prioritised energy saving approaches is included in this publication. NGMN continues its work in this important area with further collaborative efforts focusing on energy management, metering and providing recommendations on the long-term energy roadmap for the industry.

“NGMN’s vision is to provide impactful and timely guidance to the industry”, said Anita Doehler, CEO at NGMN Alliance. “With the publication of Network Energy Efficiency Phase 2, we implement that vision. We provide prioritised energy saving recommendations addressing both; the immediate-term and the long-term roles that new processes, energy saving features and technologies will play in minimising the energy consumption of mobile networks,” she added

The publication can be downloaded here.


About NGMN

NGMN is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors). NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavours.

 

Publication 6G Position Statement - An Operator View Cover

NGMN publishes 6G Position Statement setting the course for 6G networks

Frankfurt, Germany, 26 September 2023. Today, the NGMN Alliance (NGMN) published the “6G Position Statement: An Operator View”. With this essential publication NGMN guides a course for the future of communication networks by taking a proactive stance and emphasising the needs for a new paradigm for graceful evolution and successful value creation and delivery.

“Our publication provides a clear statement of intent from the Network Operator community, that the traditional way of introducing a new technology generation must evolve,” said Arash Ashouriha, Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “NGMN is committed to ensuring that 6G delivers tangible benefits to end-users, simplifying network operations and ensuring sustainability, while offering compelling new experiences”, he added.

“Whatever 6G might become, it will be built on the foundations of 5G. This publication shines a light on the challenges our industry faces in delivering compelling new 6G services and capabilities for end-users”, said Luke Ibbetson, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board and Head of Group R&D at Vodafone. “Simultaneously, as we embark on this journey towards the 6G era, we are actively steering network disaggregation and an open, interoperable cloud native architecture“, he stated.

The publication serves as a comprehensive guide, outlining how Network Operators envision the realisation of a successful evolution to 6G and issuing a call to the industry to embrace this transformative direction. The publication covers an operator position on such key requirements and design considerations as network simplification, absolute energy reduction, network AI transformation & predictive network management, safe and resilient infrastructure, global 6G standards, software upgrade to 6G, no intrinsic need for hardware refresh, no compromise to existing services (Voice) and access across mobile, fixed and non-terrestrial networks.

Following the NGMN publications “6G Use Cases and Analysis”, “6G Drivers and Vision” and “6G Requirements and Design Considerations”, this latest publication “6G Position Statement: An Operator View” marks the next step towards guidance for E2E requirements for 6G.

“With this “6G Position Statement” we continue focusing on providing guidance and requirements to the industry in the areas of our three strategic focus topics, which build on each other. It is another valuable example of joint global MNO efforts within NGMN which will continue working on 6G E2E requirements, by collaborating with our entire Partnership for the benefits of the ecosystem and end-users”, said Anita Doehler, CEO at NGMN Alliance.

The full 6G Position Statement can be downloaded here.

 

About the NGMN Alliance

The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors). NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavours.

 

 

Publication Cloud Native Manifesto Cover

NGMN publishes Cloud Native Manifesto

Setting industry’s call to action to drive cloud native adoption


Frankfurt, Germany, 13
September 2023. Today, the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) published the “Cloud Native Manifesto: An Operator View”. This important publication provides key principles and requirements for Cloud Native Telecom from an operator’s point of view, and a clear view on the focus required by the industry in order to accelerate the adoption of cloud native solutions in mobile networks. “Cloud Native” refers to a way of designing and operating applications, network functions and services in an open and flexible environment with the intention to enable greater efficiency in operations and faster time to market for new services, thereby enabling operators to meet their customers’ needs. 

“Given the strategic impact of the move towards cloud native, the already experienced and foreseen implications in its adoption for operators, and the multiple options and paths provided by industry players, it is the belief of the NGMN Board that a clear position on cloud native is required,” said Arash Ashouriha, Chairman of the NGMN Board and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “With this publication – written by the NGMN Board and invited operator experts – we provide that steering to the industry by outlining a clear set of prioritised calls to action, which, once addressed, will drive the migration at scale towards cloud native network workloads, for the benefit of the ecosystem and end-users”, he added. 

“Whilst the industry is embracing cloud native as a paradigm to boost efficiency and enhance flexibility for current and future networks, it is clear that several issues remain, which will hamper the objective to achieve scale deployment – unless these are urgently, consistently and cohesively addressed through an industry wide effort” said Mauro Costa, NGMN Board Member and Director of Network Cloud and Continuous Delivery at Telia Company. “In particular, together with the entire industry, we need to ensure that solutions can be truly cloud native and multi-vendor and that we have the tools and processes in place to enable these” he added. 

On the journey to highly flexible, sustainable, and resilient networks for the future, the NGMN Board believes in applying the following cloud native principles to all layers of network infrastructure, applications and services*: 

  1. Decoupled infrastructure and application lifecycles over vertical monoliths  
  2. ‘API first’ over manual provisioning of network resources  
  3. Declarative and intent-based automation over imperative workflows  
  4. GitOps** principles over traditional network operations practices 
  5. Unified Kubernetes (or the like) resource consumption patterns over domain-specific resource controllers 
  6. Unified Kubernetes (or the like) closed-loop reconciliation patterns over vendor-specific element management practices  
  7. Interoperability by well-defined certification processes over vendor-specific optimisation. 

Through its Operating Disaggregated Networks (ODiN) project, NGMN continues to shape and develop processes to enable the industry – operators and vendors – to efficiently manage the full lifecycle of disaggregated networks. The Cloud Native Manifesto will play an important role in advancing this work of NGMN to deliver a set of operating model blueprints for disaggregated networks. The ODiN project, led by Deutsche Telekom and co-led by Bell Canada and Smart/PLDT, working with the entire value chain at NGMN, will publish its next recommendations at MWC2024.   

“As an industry alliance, we focus on collaboration, to unlock the smartest opportunities and to solve the biggest challenges the industry faces”, said Anita Doehler, CEO NGMN Alliance. “With this manifesto, coupled with the work of our ODiN project, we are providing a solid foundation for the industry to move forward at pace with adopting this key technology”, she added. 

Special acknowledgements go to the following Operator Members, who made significant contributions to the development of this publication: Bell Canada, BT, Chunghwa Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Smart/PLDT, Telia, TELUS, Turkcell, Vodafone. 

The full Cloud Native Manifesto can be downloaded here

 

* Does not imply order of priority
** Everything as code, single point of truth, immutable source of trust

 

About the NGMN Alliance

The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors). NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavours.

 

Publication Green Future Networks: KPIs and Target Values for Green Network Assessment Cover

NGMN Identifies Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Target Values for Assessing Green Networks

Frankfurt, Germany, February 22nd, 2023. The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) today published ‘Green Future Networks: KPIs and Target Values for Green Network Assessment’ addressing the key issue of how operators measure, report, track, and act on their environmental and energy footprints, while maintaining high service quality for end users.

Measuring progress towards environmental goals is a critical success factor for operators as they move forward on their journeys towards greater environmental sustainability and energy efficiency in their networks and operations.

“NGMN’s vision is to provide impactful guidance to the industry with Green Future Networks being a core strategic priority”, said Anita Doehler, CEO, NGMN. “With the publication of KPIs and Target Values for assessing Green Networks, we are realising that vision by supporting and enabling operators and their wider ecosystem partners to measure and manage their progress towards their sustainability goals”, she added.

This latest NGMN publication outlines a set of KPIs and target values alongside a framework for consolidating the KPIs into an overall measure. The framework encompasses two major pillars: Environmental KPIs as well as Energy and Quality of Experience KPIs. The outlined KPIs build upon and utilise the best practices of existing telco sustainability initiatives and frameworks and, in an industry first, define target values and a scoring methodology for consolidating multiple KPIs into a single measure. Further NGMN suggests to combine energy efficiency and service quality KPIs to produce a useful measure of how an operator is improving its energy efficiency while maintaining the high service quality end users expect from their mobile network.

As the industry gains experience with these metrics, it is anticipated that the KPIs and the framework will be further developed to ensure continued alignment with industry needs. This will include ensuring that the NGMN KPIs and framework continue to be aligned with work of other industry bodies – with the ultimate aim of ensuring a single set of industry wide agreed KPIs.

This publication was developed with input from across the industry – with NGMN Partners representing operators and vendors, and with umlaut (part of Accenture) as a major contributor to this work. 

Collaboration is key to driving the industry’s most important topics such as NGMN’s strategic pillars: Green Future Networks, Operating Disaggregated Networks, and 6G. NGMN therefore invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour.

The publication can be downloaded from here.

Publication 6G Requirements and Design Considerations Cover

NGMN guides the industry with 6G Requirements and Design Considerations

Frankfurt, Germany, February 14th, 2023. In its latest 6G publication, “6G Requirements and Design Considerations”, the NGMN Alliance (NGMN) has defined several important requirements for 6G. By providing this guidance to the industry, NGMN takes on a leading role in avoiding fragmentation of future 6G standards and achieving affordable deployments and services valued by end users.

The publication offers guidance and input to Standards Development Organisations (SDOs) working towards realisation of the vision of communication systems for 2030 and beyond, currently being developed by ITU-R. It has been developed on the understanding that there will be an evolution towards 6G without distinction between any new 6G technology, an evolution of 5G or a combination of both.

New approaches have been identified within this publication covering digital inclusion, energy efficiency, environmental sustainability, and flexible deployment. Potential new capabilities related to prospective use cases are discussed qualitatively as well as new paradigms to address traffic growth, capacity needs, minimise complexity and provide alternatives to densification.

Luke Ibbetson, Head of Group R&D, Vodafone and NGMN Board Member, says: “This important contribution reflects how evolution towards 6G needs to deliver customer led outcomes whilst maximising efficient use of resources and ensuring the practical deployment of software-driven networks.”

Anita Döhler, NGMN CEO, states: “As a global mobile operator driven organisation, reflecting the entire ecosystem in its membership, we are well positioned in submitting 6G Requirements and Design Considerations to SDOs and the industry. Our objective is to guide and support the mobile industry in achieving a global 6G standard and with already over 50 companies participating in this specific project today, we look forward to driving industry alignment around 6G architecture in the future.”

Following NGMN’s publications “6G Drivers and Vision” in 2021, “6G Use Cases and Analysis” in 2022, the latest publication “6G Requirements and Design Considerations” marks the next step towards a deeper understanding of 6G architecture.

Collaboration is key to driving the industry’s most important topics such as NGMN’s strategic pillars: Green Future Networks, Operating Disaggregated Networks, and 6G. NGMN therefore invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour.

The publication can be downloaded from here.

Publication Green Future Networks: Telco Supply Chain Sustainability Cover

NGMN Identifies Best Practices for Telco Supply Chain Sustainability

Frankfurt, Germany, January 17, 2023. The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) today published ‘Green Future Networks: Telco Supply Chain Sustainability’ addressing the key issue of how operators can work with their supply chains to reduce carbon emissions. Reducing carbon emissions from the supply chain is of critical importance to operators’ roadmaps to net zero carbon.

“Cutting carbon emissions to tackle climate change is an issue that challenges all industries. The mobile industry is meeting this challenge head-on”, said Arash Ashouriha, SVP Group Technology, Deutsche Telekom and NGMN Board Chairman. “Our work at NGMN is an important step in enabling operators and their suppliers to identify practical ways in which they can work together to reduce carbon emissions. Deutsche Telekom targets net-zero emissions at the latest by 2040. With more than 95%  emissions generated from our value chain, partnering with our suppliers is critical to meeting our net zero goals. To support the industry, we shared our best practice examples in this publication”, he added.

Laurent Leboucher, Group CTO and SVP Orange Innovation Networks, Orange and NGMN Board Member, added: “Climate change is the single biggest challenge facing global society today. At Orange, we are proud to have collaborated with the industry to create these impactful NGMN guidelines to help operators and their supply chain partners meet their sustainability objectives and reduce carbon emissions.”

“Green Future Networks is a core strategic priority of NGMN”, explained Anita Doehler, CEO, NGMN. “Telco Supply Chain Sustainability is the first publication of several scheduled for 2023 and it is apt that it is covering the supply chain where collaboration between operators and their partners is so critical to both parties’ success in tackling climate change. NGMN provides the platform to enable the industry to work together on key topics such as sustainability, network disaggregation and 6G – all of which require extensive industry-wide collaboration to be truly successful.”

In this first publication of NGMN’s Green Future Networks Phase 2 in 2023, the key challenges mobile operators face in developing sustainable supply chains are outlined. A review of the emerging regulatory and standards environment is conducted. Approaches and best practices in developing sustainable supply chains are identified by relating the emerging business and regulatory environment to examples of the changes that operators and their supply chain partners may need to make, both at strategic and operational levels. Integrating sustainability goals into the operator’s core objectives is of key importance as well as selecting suppliers whose own sustainability strategies are aligned with these goals. Finally, a checklist based on the best practices in the industry is provided to support operators in developing a sustainable procurement strategy. Examples from across the industry are included that highlight that companies are already embracing many of the concepts identified in this publication.

The publication can be downloaded from here: https://www.ngmn.org/publications/green-future-networks-telco-supply-chain-sustainability.html

Collaboration is key to driving the industry’s most important topics such as NGMN’s strategic pillars: Green Future Networks, Operating Disaggregated Networks, and 6G. NGMN therefore invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour.