Dell’Oro Group indicated private RAN revenue increased by about 40 per cent in 2023, despite a decline in the final quarter.

The research company noted private infrastructure accounted for around 2 per cent of the overall RAN market.

It predicted private 5G RAN revenue would fall between $1 billion and $5 billion by 2028.

VP Stefan Pongratz stated while public RAN is still fuelling the lion’s share of overall capex, “private wireless is now growing at a formidable pace”.

“This stands in contrast to public RAN and enterprise WLAN: both segments are projected to contract in 2024,” Pongratz stated.

Total private wireless RAN revenue is projected to rise at a CAGR of 21 per cent over the next five years, while public RAN revenue are set to decline at a 2 per cent.

Dell’Oro Group noted while private wireless represents a massive opportunity, “it will take some time for enterprises” to embrace private mobile technologies.

It stated Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson emerged as the top three private wireless RAN suppliers in 2023.

A lot of extra 5G towers deployed more thickly could cut a cellular network’s overall energy use by two-thirds and greatly extend the battery life of all phones, according to a New Scientist report.

Specifically, researchers at the University of California said that when mobile phone signals are broadcast from towers in all directions, much of the energy is wasted due to absorption, reflection and scattering. 

“We show in this paper, titled DensQuer, how base station densification, which is to replace a single larger base station with multiple smaller ones, reduces the effect of the last-mile wireless, and in effect conquers both these adverse sources of increased carbon footprint,” Agrim Gupta and his colleagues at the University of California said in a study called Densify and Conquer.

In other words, more small 5G towers more densely deployed could cut both the energy requirements of the mobile network, which have increasingly become a concern in these environmentally conscious times, while also helping to increase the battery life of phones on the network.

We here at Fierce Network very much doubt the general public will love a study proposing that we deploy a lot more small 5G towers.

Look at how New Yorkers have reacted to the deployment of LinkNYC’s small urban 5G towers over the last couple of years. And don’t forget the concerns over the safety of 5G that erupted a few years back. 

We can just imagine the cries of “not in my backyard” that would result if operators proposed rolling out more 5G towers.

Small cell story

Stop us, if you’ve heard this one before! Of course the industry has been banging the drum about network densification for a long time, starting around 2012 if memory serves. Long before 5G was even a thing.

So why haven’t small cells — small self-contained base stations that come in a variety of formats — taken off like they have been expected to? We asked Roy Chua, principal at AvidThink.

“You’re right that many carriers talked about densification with small cells for 5G deployment as a later stage,” he said. “It hasn’t yet because of the time and cost for the deployment of small cells, and the fact that the general public doesn’t like tiny base stations just turning up on the street. These factors would be intensified because the small cell that would best serve this role is a public access small cell, which would need a solid backhaul connection to the macro 5G network.”

Chua has not yet given up on the idea of more 5G small cells arriving over time. The estimates from Crown Castle and other tower companies indicate increased numbers in 2023 deployments and expectations of more in 2024 and 2025, the analyst noted.

“With capex being tight, I could see more small cells being used, especially in urban areas (as the carriers had planned) to see small cells being used to improve coverage and density over the next few years as large tower and macro site investments reduce,” he said.

The Chinese equipment vendor seems to have had a much better year than either of its Nordic rivals and now dwarfs them on R&D spend.

Huawei’s default settings look like melodrama for the bad times and humility for the good. When it was first struck by US sanctions, the Chinese equipment maker compared itself to a fighter plane hit by flak whose sole mission was to remain airborne. After gaining significant altitude last year for the first time since 2019, it showed restraint rather than jubilation. “We’ve been through a lot over the past few years. But through one challenge after another, we’ve managed to grow,” said Hu Houkun, the rotating chairman who currently sits in the pilot’s seat, in its latest annual report.

If US sanctions were intended to put Huawei in a fatal tailspin, they have clearly missed their target. Yes, the company’s sales last year were 21% down on the high point of 2020. But that is due entirely to a collapse at Huawei’s smartphone business and not to any engine problems in networks, the unit that supposedly had US authorities in such a panic. Their justification for cutting Huawei off from vital US technologies (not, seemingly, as vital as everyone thought) was that dastardly Chinese forces might slip something nasty into Huawei’s network products, then popular among US allies.

Strikingly, this networks unit – today called the “ICT infrastructure” business – last year outperformed both Ericsson and Nokia, Nordic rivals allowed to cruise freely through airspace in Europe and other countries that Huawei had previously occupied. Its headline revenues were up 2.3%, to about 362 billion Chinese yuan (US$50 billion). On a constant-currency basis, Nokia’s (generated almost entirely from network sales) fell 8% while revenues at Ericson’s mobile networks unit dropped 15%.

The China syndrome

Both European companies were badly hurt by spending cuts in the US, from which Huawei has been largely excluded for years. And while Huawei has lost a few deals in Europe and other pro-US countries, American lawmakers can do little about its position in China, home to about 1.4 billion people and gazillions of mobile sites. Indeed, that position looks even stronger. An unwelcome consequence of the European backlash against Chinese vendors seemed to be the loss by Ericsson and Nokia of market share in a retaliatory China. At Ericsson, which breaks out the figure, China sales dropped from 15.9 billion Swedish kronor ($1.5 billion) in 2019 to SEK10.7 billion ($1 billion) last year.

Operators still buying network products from Huawei do not appear to have seen the drop-off in performance that someone buying a Huawei smartphone amid sanctions would have experienced. This is partly because Huawei has always designed its own network software, while its smartphones previously used the Android operating system that originated with Google. On the networks side, it also looks more self-sufficient in hardware.

What it currently lacks is access to Samsung and TSMC, the world’s most advanced chip foundries, both furnished with US tools. Networks, however, are typically a couple of generations behind smartphones on the size of transistors. Forthcoming iPhones will reportedly feature chips based on the 2-nanometer (billionths of a meter) process. The Nokia base stations that include 5-nanometer chips are considered cutting edge.

If Huawei now looks worse off here, it continues to boast other advantages. Those include the design of power amplifiers based on gallium nitride, seen as a more energy-efficient option than silicon. “For this component, we are leading the industry one generation ahead of our competitors, and that is why, according to third parties who report, we keep leading market share,” said Philip Song, the chief marketing officer for carrier networks, during a press conference at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The seeds of growth

However its products measure up against those of Ericsson and Nokia, Chinese operators clearly source a bigger share of their equipment from Huawei and local rival ZTE than they ever have. As 5G matures, and questions surround the telco investment case for a future splurge on even more advanced equipment, Huawei faces many of the same business-model challenges as its western rivals. But unlike those companies, it has several growth stories to tell.

These include a consumer unit in apparent recovery. Huawei seems to have obtained 7-nanometer chips from SMIC, a Chinese foundry, and used these along with in-house 5G designs and operating-system software to produce a smartphone branded the Mate 60 Pro, confounding critics who assumed US sanctions had put such technologies beyond reach. Demand for that gadget helped to boost consumer revenues by 17%, to about RMB251 billion ($34.7 billion).

This is still far below the RMB483 billion ($66.8 billion) it reported in 2020, before Huawei sold off some of its smartphone assets. And critics doubt SMIC can profitably crank out large volumes of 7-nanometer chips without access to extreme ultraviolet lithography machines. The supply of those is currently monopolized by ASML, a Dutch company. And Dutch authorities have denied ASML export licenses to serve China.

Much smaller, but potentially important, are Huawei’s cloud computing, digital power and intelligent automotive solutions units. The first, in particular, could ultimately play a big role in China, where the main rival is Alibaba, another local firm, and not AWS, Google or Microsoft, the “hyperscalers” that have put down roots elsewhere. International concern about the power of those three US companies could be an opportunity for Huawei in some countries, according to Huawei employees. Sales rose 22% last year, to more than RMB55 billion ($7.6 billion).

An R&D chasm

But the big difference between Huawei and its European rivals is at the resources level. A US spending slowdown has resulted in further shrinkage at Ericsson and Nokia, which together cut nearly 5,800 jobs last year and today employ about 27,500 fewer people than they did in 2016. Huawei, by contrast, made no changes last year and has gained 27,000 employees since 2016. What’s more, at current exchange rates, Huawei makes dramatically more in sales per employee than either Ericsson or Nokia. Its figure of about $472,000 last year compares with roughly $276,000 at Nokia and $245,000 at Ericsson.

(Source: companies)

A chasm has opened in research and development (R&D). In 2016, a Huawei already generating more than a third of its revenues from consumer gadget sales outspent a combined Ericsson and Nokia by less than $2.3 billion, at today’s exchange rates. Last year’s difference was $13.4 billion. Ericsson has upped annual spending by around $1.8 billion over this period, while Nokia has cut it by $720 million. Huawei’s annual investments have grown by $12.2 billion.

(Source: companies)

Critics insist a direct comparison is invalid because Huawei is active in sectors the Nordic vendors have either quit or never entered. As reasonable as that sounds, the gap would be significant even if R&D spending reflected the split of sales. Last year, for instance, some 51.4% of Huawei’s revenues were generated at its ICT infrastructure unit. The same percentage of R&D expenditure equates to about $11.7 billion.

The US may be running out of ammunition. Its main weapon was always the west’s dominance of the semiconductor industry. That came via companies like Intel, Qualcomm and Nvidia – the designers of chips – as well as the software and tools used in mainly Asian foundries. But the Biden administration has done about as much as it can to close loopholes and seal off Chinese access. As China works hard to develop homegrown alternatives, it is the west’s own equipment vendors that are struggling.

ZTE consumer brand Nubia has announced the launch of the foldable Nubia Flip 5G smartphone in international markets. Unveiled in February at MWC, the foldable phone has a 6.9-inch UHD flexible display with pixel density of 443 PPI and a 120 Hz refresh rate. The handset measures 7 mm thick when unfolded thanks to engineering such as Waterdrop Hinges, a dual-rail suspension design, and aerospace-grade steel.

The phone is aimed at younger people and the incorporation of 3D virtual pets adds a whimsical touch to everyday interactions, the company said. Colour options include Cosmic Black, Sunshine Gold, and Flowing Lilac. The phone has an HDdual rear camera with a 50-megapixel sensor, paired with a 16 MP front camera. Functions include multi-angle hovering shots, palm dual-camera selfies, dual-screen simultaneous previews, handheld DV retro-style shooting, and AI-enhanced image processing.

The recommended retail price for the 8 GB+256GB variant is USD 499, and the 12GB +512 GB version costs USD 699 (excluding EU and UK). Reservations can now be placed with the Nubia website, except in the EU and UK, and worldwide sales start on 23 April, again apart from the EU and UK. 

Those ordering the Flip in advance can take advantage of special offers. Potential buyers are advised to go to the online store to check availability for Australia, Chile, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand the UAE, US and Vietnam.

The US and European Commission (EC) outlined joint progress towards 6G development and potential AI use cases, following a meeting to discuss an existing trade and technology pact.

In a statement, the authorities noted the signing of an arrangement around 6G research and published a paper detailing a common vision for the technology, including the anticipated benefit of more secure communications infrastructure.

The US and European Union (EU) will work together to support “disaggregated 6G cloud architectures with standardised interfaces between different stakeholders” and ensure future networks can contribute to sustainability goals.

This is in line with a joint statement on 6G endorsed by ten EU member states earlier this year, the authorities noted.

Further, the governments emphasised the potential of the next generation of mobile networks in propelling “a new landscape for how enterprises operate”, adding it was expected to increase convergence in the fields of connectivity, robotics, cloud and commerce.

AI
The US and EU also provided an update on collaboration in the field of AI, publishing a paper providing information on potential use cases including mitigating extreme weather, energy and emergency response.

In the document, the partners said AI can provide assistance in mitigating urban challenges, citing the technology’s potential application in power grids to optimise energy or city-scale digital twinning to improve emergency response.

The joint research is based on principles announced in April 2022, aimed at shaping emerging technologies to tackle global challenges.

Other policies updated include a three-year extension of a collaboration for semiconductor resilience.