Swisscom Plans to Deploy 5G Standalone (SA) in 2020

We wrote about Swisscom's 5G Fast and 5G Wide when they launched their 5G network earlier this year. In a recent presentation at Total Telecom Congress, Christoph Aeschlimann, CTO & CIO of Swisscom AG provided a bit more detail of what it is. This can be seen from the picture below

While 5G Fast aggregates the C-band spectrum Swisscom owns, 5G Wide relies on Dynamic spectrum sharing using 4G spectrum only.

In addition, he presented Swisscom's the next phase of 5G deployment, Standalone 5G with 5G Core. This can be seen below:

As can be seen the 5G SA trial is planned for H1-2020 and first deployments are expected in H2-2020. If you are unsure of what the difference between SA and NSA 5G is, please refer to our 3G4G tutorial here. While it does not say what 5G Network Architecture Option Swisscom will be deploying, it is assumed to be Option 2. Nearly all operators are thinking of that option when moving to 5G core, except a few like NTT Docomo that believe that Option 7 will be needed in the interim, followed by Option 4 and then Option 2.

Finally, a slide that lists Swisscom's latest facts and figures. Just in case you were wondering, Mio, is an abbreviation for "millions" as a unit indicator in some financial markets, such as the German, Swiss and Dutch markets.

Christoph Aeschlimann, CTO & CIO of Swisscom wrote a LinkedIn post titled "90% 5G coverage in 2019. How to turn the impossible into reality" back in August. It's worth a read.

Related Posts:

• Updated 5G Terminology Presentation (Feb 2019)
• The Politics of Standalone vs Non-Standalone 5G & 4G Speeds
• Fastweb and the Shared 5G Network in Italy
• Swisscom brings Industry 4.0 to Ypsomed
• Swisscom launched 5G Fast and 5G Wide
• Switzerland 5G Spectrum Auctions Results

Fastweb and the Shared 5G Network in Italy

                                                                                                                                                Source

Fastweb, an Italian subsidiary of Swisscom since 2007, was already a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), but now the company will run its own infrastructure-based network and following approval from the Ministry of Economic Development become the fifth mobile operator in Italy, building and marketing their own 5G services. The operator has 2.6 million broadband customers but only 1.6 million subscribers to its mobile services.

Having acquired Tiscali SpA 's fixed-wireless business and full ownership of its 5G-friendly 3.5GHz spectrum and 835 of their towers in a deal worth around €150 million (US$176 million).  Since December 2016 Fastweb has had the right to use 3.5GHz spectrum in the main Italian cities and allows them to provide fixed-wireless connectivity to all market segments in Italy.

In July 2019 Fastweb announced a network-sharing deal with CK Hutchison’s Wind Tre “to accelerate the roll-out of a nationwide, state-of-the art 5G network”. Fastweb said then that “the shared 5G network will include Wind Tre and Fastweb macro and small cells, connected through dark fibre from Fastweb, to be deployed nationwide, with a targeted coverage of 90% of the population by 2026”.

As a result Fastweb will be able to compete with TIM and Vodafone as well as with Wind Tre, and with French-owned Iliad, which started up in the market when Wind – then owned by Veon – merged with Hutch’s Tre.

Due to the astronomical prices of spectrum licenses and fighting competition on all sides, Italy's telecom operators are increasingly engaging in network-sharing partnerships as they roll out their new 5G services. Network sharing is hardly a new thing in Europe, of course, and has already taken off in Italy. Under competitive and regulatory pressure, Telecom Italia and Vodafone are sharing mobile towers and will even use the same 5G basestations outside the big cities. Across the entire European region, market dynamics are spurring interest in similar arrangements.But Fastweb and Wind Tre are going much further.

The two operators are pooling spectrum resources and site equipment to build a single 5G network that each will use to provide retail services to its customers. If the scheme works, it may validate network slicing, an advanced technique that allows operators to run different "virtualized" network services over the same physical infrastructure. It could even become the preferred model for other European operators struggling to fund the deployment of 5G networks. It will also allow Fastweb to deploy 40MHz of 3.5GHz spectrum acquired in a private transaction last year. Adding this to Wind Tre's 20MHz they hope this will give the operators the means to challenge Telecom Italia and Vodafone.

The details of their approach, confirmed by a Fastweb spokesperson, mean each company will effectively become a virtual operator of a shared 5G platform. While some of the commercial arrangements are still unclear, the companies will use the same mobile sites and network equipment across the entire country. The first 5G services are scheduled to arrive next year. By 2024, Fastweb and Wind Tre expect to have nationwide coverage.

                                                                                                                             Source

Fastweb believe network slicing can overcome much of the concern about control and efficiency. This untried technology, which is due to be standardized in future 5G releases, usually attracts attention as a means of guaranteeing service levels for different enterprise customers. To Fastweb, it is above all a way to guarantee service independence from Wind Tre on a shared 5G network. "Thanks to the slicing capabilities of 5G, both Fastweb and Wind Tre will have complete end-to-end control on our virtual networks," said Fastweb's spokesperson. "This agreement allows us to achieve the utmost level of synergies and efficiency in the deployment, without compromising on independence and control."

Realizing this vision would mean proving that network slicing can facilitate the most extreme form of network sharing. To give itself the best chance of success, Fastweb is also developing software tools for the full automation of 5G network management. "5G is more than just a new mobile technology. It is a new way to think and develop services, processes, IT systems and networks," they say. If it can persuade the industry that a single 5G network used by multiple operators holds no major drawbacks, it could usher in a new 5G paradigm.

Related Posts:

• Swisscom launched 5G Fast and 5G Wide
• Italy's 5G Spectrum Auction Controversy

Swisscom brings Industry 4.0 to Ypsomed

Swisscom, Ericsson and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) initiated the “5G for Switzerland” programme in the summer of 2016 in order to carry out joint research in this new mobile telephony standard. Swisscom seeks to offer its customers the best infrastructure. Swisscom is working intensively on the development of 5G in order to make this latest technology available to its customers as early as possible. 5G will enable greater speed, greater capacities and shorter reaction times. The economy, science, industry as well as residential customers will benefit from it in equal measure.  Digitisation is also being worked on in the direction of Industry 4.0. In addition, Swisscom is promoting the further development of 4G and now provides 4G+ with speeds of up to 300 Mbit/s to 40% of the population; at the end of the year, it will be 67%. Swisscom already covers 15% of the population with speeds of up to 450 Mbit/s.

Ypsomed is the leading developer and manufacturer of injection and infusion systems for selfmedication and a renowned diabetes specialist with 30 years experience. As an innovation and technology leader, the company is the preferred partner of pharmaceutical and biotech companies for pens, auto-injectors and pump systems for administrating liquid medication. Ypsomed presents and distributes its product portfolios under the umbrella brand mylife Diabetescare directly to patients or via pharmacies and clinics, as well as under YDS Ypsomed Delivery Systems in business-to-business operations to pharmaceutical companies. The company is based in Burgdorf, Switzerland, and has a global network of production sites, subsidiaries and sales partners employing around 1300 staff worldwide

“It is of great value to us that we can attract Ypsomed as our first industrial partner for our "5G for Switzerland" programme. This will enable us to gain key insights into the digitisation of industry processes.” says Heinz Herren, CTO and CIO of Swisscom. 5G-specific features, such as extremely high bandwidths and long latency periods, are being tested. But they are also investigating aspects of wirelessly-networked production and its integrated data processing. Here, technology such as edge computing is being used for the first time. The cloud will become an integral component of a base station and control IT production processes both locally and directly. Ypsomed aims to gain experience of 5G technology early on in order to prepare for the new age of mobile-networked production. Ypsomed also aims to be able to benefit quickly from the economies of scale in production IT. “At Ypsomed, we are investing a lot in the digitisation of the injection systems and we see some great opportunities for growth. We want to fully exploit the potential for digitisation and apply it to all processes,” explains Ypsomed CEO Simon Michel about their collaboration with Swisscom.

Press Release
Swisscom 5G


Related Posts:

• Swisscom launched 5G Fast and 5G Wide
• Switzerland 5G Spectrum Auctions Results

Swisscom launched 5G Fast and 5G Wide

We wrote a detailed post about 5G Spectrum auctions in Switzerland earlier this year. Now Swisscom has recently announced the launch of its 5G network this month (May 2019):

Long-awaited and available from May: Swisscom presents the first commercially available 5G smartphone in Switzerland. The Oppo Reno 5G is set to make the 5G mobile telephony standard a reality for residential customers. The range of 5G-capable devices will continue to be expanded.

Following the first prototypes at the end of 2018, Swisscom can now announce four end devices for sale. The very first 5G device in the Swisscom shop comes from the manufacturer Oppo, followed by other brands such as LG (from May), Samsung (from July) and Huawei (third quarter).

As can be seen in the picture on the top and the one above, Swisscom has a variety of spectrum available but is also refarming 2G & 3G to use 4G. This way Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G could be used with 4G. So what is happening with Swisscom 2G & 3G:

• 2G will be switched off at the end of 2020 and the 2G frequencies will be used for 5G. 
• As of October 2019, the 2100 MHZ frequency will be used for 5G instead of 3G. 3G technology itself, however, will continue to be available on the Swisscom network for some time to come: Standard 3G coverage will be offered at least until the end of 2024.
• Swisscom has 2x15 MHz of 900 MHz spectrum available. Right now it uses the frequency for 2G & 3G. 3G will continue to run in 900 MHz but 2G will be switched off. Not sure if this means that the 900 MHz 2G will be refarmed for 3G or 5G mMTC kind of usage.

Swisscom PR defined 5G-Fast and 5G-Wide as follows:

As soon as the Federal Office of Communications grants the licence, Swisscom will activate the 5G network which it has established with technology partner Ericsson. The first 5G devices run on a proven frequency in the 3.5 gigahertz band, which was previously used for outdoor TV reports and has now been approved by the federal government for mobile communications. This frequency is designed to achieve speeds of up to 2 Gbit/s (5G-fast). During the media event, Swisscom demonstrated a peak speed of 1.86 Gbit/s. "As number one, we are responsible for our country and must think ahead," says Urs Schaeppi. "We invented prepaid in 1996, introduced Mobile Unlimited as a world first in 2004 and were the first to build a 4G network in 2012. We intend to ensure Switzerland remains an innovation location. We have therefore been shaping the development of 5G in international committees since 2016 and are working on a modernisation of NIRO." By the end of the year, Switzerland will be supplied with 5G; this includes cities, the countryside and the mountain regions. Known as 5G-wide, this stage of the expansion uses frequencies that permit extensive coverage. Customers everywhere will benefit from faster response times, greater bandwidths and, thanks to technology sharing with 4G, higher speeds.

It should be noted that Swisscom also won 700 MHz spectrum in the auctions earlier, so it's a matter of time before we see 5G Ultra-wide or something similar later on.

Further Reading:

• Operator Watch Blog: Switzerland 5G Spectrum Auctions Results
• The Mobile Network: Swisscom promises 90% 5G population coverage before end of 2019
• 5G for Switzerland: Swisscom set to finish expansion by end of the year and launch the first 5G smartphones
• Swisscom: 5G for Switzerland

Switzerland 5G Spectrum Auctions Results

According to Mobile World Live:

Switzerland’s Federal Communications Commission (ComCom) awarded 5G radio frequencies to all three mobile operators – Swisscom, Sunrise and Salt – raising CHF380 million ($379 million).

The frequencies will be assigned for 15 years, which the regulator said provides the “operators long-term planning security to develop their networks.”

...

Dense Air, a small cell player which launched in 2018, pulled out of the Swiss auction. Reuters noted this “removes a potential rival for the three companies in the already crowded Swiss mobile market”.

Swisscom, which paid CHF196 million, said by the end of 2019 it expects to roll-out 5G to 60 towns and communities.

Sunrise and Salt did not have such concrete plans. The former said the frequencies gained will help it to “deliver a world-class 5G network in the future” and the latter that it will “improve its high-quality mobile network” with “next-generation speed, latency and capacity”.

According to a media release by Sunrise:

At the 5G frequency auction, Sunrise has acquired the strategically most important frequencies in the 3.5 GHz band, which perfectly fit its "5G for People" strategy.

With its existing and new frequencies, Sunrise will be able to secure its existing 96% 4G area coverage and deliver a world-class 5G network in the future. This will provide outstanding area coverage and, notably, give suburban and rural areas "optical fiber speed over the air".

Thanks to a clever bidding strategy, Sunrise was able to acquire the most important bands at a favorable price of 0.077 CHF per MHz/Pop. With the frequencies acquired in the middle frequency range and combined with the existing frequencies, Sunrise will be able to provide the area coverage and capacities needed in the long term. 

This is what we estimate the real world 5G NR speeds will look like:
Coverage Layer: 10 – 50 Mbps (10 MHz bandwidth)
Capacity Layer: 100 – 300 Mbps (40 MHz bandwidth)
High Throughput Layer: 400 – 1500 Mbps (100 MHz bandwidth)
Any thoughts? pic.twitter.com/DKOLOvP10g

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) November 7, 2018

According to the chart on top (from Sunrise media release), you can see that all the three operators are well placed with a reasonable amount of coverage and capacity layer 5G spectrum. The 5G future looks good for Swiss.