MWC Barcelona 2022

5G-PPP participation at the world’s largest telecoms event

From 28 February to 3 March, MWC Barcelona, still commonly referred to as Mobile World Congress, attracted a large crowd of 10,700 industry experts to attend in person. After two years of Covid-19 restrictions this figure was still below pre-Covid levels. Yet, the event clearly indicated a return of the industry to something closer to normality, despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which started four days before MWC opened its doors. Among the booths in the exhibition and the presentations in the conference programme were also a number of 5G PPP projects, which presented their latest results.

5G-TOURS results at the ATOS stand

One of the partners of the 5G-TOURS project is ATOS, who are leading the work package on use cases and requirements. As an active contributor to the network automation work within 5G-TOURS, ATOS has contributed both to the project use cases as well as external standards and open-source activities. At its own stand ATOS presented and demonstrated various research activities, including the 5G-TOURS activities around network automation based on AI.

Joint stand of 5G-TOURS, 5G-Heart and 5G-Solutions

5G-TOURS joined forces with two other 5G-PPP projects 5G-Heart and 5G-Solutions in order to have a stand in Hall 7. The experts at the stand answered the questions of numerous visitors and showed videos about the projects’ use cases, including 5G-TOURS from the three nodes in Turin (Italy), Rennes (France), and Athens (Greece).


Presentation by Diego Perino, Director of Telefónica I+D

MWC presence of the DAEMON project

The DAEMON project on Network Intelligence for Adaptive and Self-learning Mobile Networks was present at MWC through fliers and brochures available at the stands of several project partners like i2CAT and Software Radio Systems. This material provided a thorough description of the context, vision and objectives of the project and was freely available to all attendees visiting the partners’ booths. The project was also featured in a looped video displayed on a monitor at the i2CAT stand.

In addition, research results from the DAEMON project were presented on stage by Diego Perino, Director of Telefónica I+D. In his talk about the impact and benefits of integrating AI in future-generation mobile networks, he explicitly acknowledged the contribution by DAEMON.

Special session of Catalonia Tourism Cluster

5G-TOURS was invited to a special session of the Catalonia ICT Tourism Cluster. In addition to other projects and local contributors from Catalonia, 5G-TOURS technical manager Belkacem Mouhouche presented the tourism node of the project and explained how the 5G-TOURS use cases developed in Turin will help tourists and citizens enjoy museums and touristic places better, especially in the COVID era.

Conclusion

Mobile World Congress provided the opportunity for a few 5G-PPP projects to disseminate their results in person instead of online, as it had become usual in over two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. In this respect, the stands at MWC where very useful to make people aware of the 5G-PPP project activities. Presentations on stage and in special sessions added to the achieved impact.

Further information

Invented by DABUS

Roundtables about uses cases and network slicing

Milon Gupta
Eurescom

Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable metal-type printing process, Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, and DABUS invented a beverage container. While the first two claims are widely accepted, the third claim has been the cause of a fundamental controversy on who can be an inventor. That is because DABUS is not a human being, but an artificial intelligence machine. And in conventional thinking, a machine cannot be an inventor, only a tool used by a human inventor.

According to the Wikipedia entry for “Inventor”, the matter is clear: “An inventor is a person who creates or discovers new methods, means, or devices for performing a task.” Ryan Abbott, a law professor at University of Surrey, has been challenging this common notion since 2013. He rejects that only a person can be an inventor and claims that an AI machine could be an inventor as well. “We’re moving into a new paradigm where not only do people invent, people build artificial intelligence that can invent,” said Abbott, who authored in 2020 a book with the title “The Reasonable Robot: Artificial Intelligence and the Law.”

The Artificial Intelligence Project

According to Abbott, corporations are unwilling to push the issue of AI inventions, if it means not being able to obtain legal protection for their products. Thus, he set up the Artificial Intelligence Project [1] and teamed up with Stephen Thaler, founder of Imagination Engines Inc., to build a machine whose main purpose is to invent. The result was DABUS, an AI machine that “invented” not only the aforementioned beverage container, but also a device for attracting enhanced attention. Abbott and a group of volunteering lawyers filed patent applications for these inventions in 17 jurisdictions listing DABUS as the inventor.


© Adobe Stock

Unsuccessful patent applications

The quest of Abbott and his team to put man and machine on an equal footing under international patent law has been overwhelmingly met by a negative response from patent offices all over the world. As of November 2021, the patent application is pending in 11 countries. In the US, Europe, Germany, the UK, and Australia, the patent application has been rejected, and appeals are pending.

The European Patent Office (EPO) and the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), for example, came to similar conclusions: they denied the patent applications on the grounds that an AI system cannot be listed as an inventor. The European Patent Convention and the UK Patents Act, which were the basis for the respective decisions, both require an inventor to be a named person. The same requirement is valid under the U.S. Patent Act.

The first patent for an AI machine

Despite the rejection by almost all patent offices, Abbott and his team finally had reason to celebrate a victory in July 2021: The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), an agency of the South African Department of Trade and Industry, granted a patent to the applicant Stephen L. Thaler and the inventor DABUS for a “Food Container and Devices and Methods for Attracting Enhanced Attention“, with the note: “The invention was autonomously generated by an artificial intelligence” [2]. That has made South Africa the first, and, so far, the only country to grant a patent to an AI inventor. One of the reasons for this result could be that the term “inventor” is not defined in South African patent law.

The distinction between owner
and inventor

In patent law, there is the distinction between the owner of an invention and the inventor. Depending on the jurisdiction in different countries, this distinction is important. The owner of the patent is usually the one who has the right to exploit it. Nonetheless, at least one name of an inventor has to be provided, otherwise the patent application gets rejected.

And this is exactly where current patent laws fall short, because Thaler did not invent the beverage container, it was DABUS, the AI machine he had built. If he had given his own name as inventor, more patent offices might have accepted his application.

Conclusion

The case of DABUS shows that current intellectual property and patent laws, which usually have been written decades ago, are getting increasingly out of sync with a fast-evolving technology landscape. The expected progress of artificial intelligence in all areas of life should sooner or later lead to a reconsideration of legal concepts regarding inventorship. Who knows, the next breakthrough invention may not be generated by an ingenious scientist of flesh and blood, but rather by an advanced AI machine.

References:
[1] Artificial Intelligence Project website – https://artificialinventor.com
[2] The patent for DABUS is registered in South Africa under the patent application number 2021/03242, application date: 13/05/2021, CIPC Patent Journal, July 2021, Vol 54, No. 07, Part II of II, 28 July 2021, page 255, URL: https://iponline.cipc.co.za/Publications/PublishedJournals/E_Journal_July%202021%20Part%202.pdf

4th release of 5G PPP white paper on 5G architecture published

In October 2021, the 5G PPP Architecture Working Group published version 4.0 of the white paper “View on 5G Architecture”. It provides a consolidated view of the architectural efforts developed in the projects of the 5G PPP and other research efforts, including standardization. This serves not only to review the current state of the 5G architecture, but also to identify promising trends towards the next generation of mobile and wireless communication networks, 6G.

The 4th release of the white paper is focused on the output of the 5G PPP Phase 3 projects in terms of the architecture for the integration of large infrastructures and vertical industries, the long-term evolution of the 5G technologies and the service-specific features. The white paper presents a consolidated current overview on the 5G architecture as developed by these European research efforts.

Further information
White Paper: 5G PPP Architecture Working Group – View on 5G Architecture, Version 4.0 – https://zenodo.org/record/5155657

5G-VINNI project on TelecomTV

Roundtables about uses cases and network slicing

Milon Gupta
Eurescom

In September and October, the 5G Verticals Innovation Infrastructure project of the 5G PPP, 5G-VINNI, which is funded under the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, presented selected results in a series of online roundtables. Topics included 5G-VINNI’s use cases as well as orchestration and automation of network slicing. The roundtables were organised and produced in collaboration with TelecomTV.

Roundtable about 5G-enabled use cases

On 21st September, TelecomTV published the first of two roundtable videos about 5G innovation for industry verticals. The session sponsored by 5G-VINNI partner Nokia featured two speakers from the project: 5G-VINNI Coordinator Pål Grønsund from Telenor Research and David Kennedy, Director of Eurescom. They discussed, how 5G-VINNI has contributed to unlocking the value of 5G-enabled use cases. Pål Grønsund shared the achievements and lessons learned through the 5G-VINNI project, while David Kennedy presented Eurescom’s perspective on the drivers behind the 5G PPP programme as a European, multi-vendor 5G environment for vertical industry-driven 5G use case trials.

Roundtable about orchestration and automation of network slicing

On 28th September, TelecomTV published the second roundtable video. This roundtable focused on orchestration and automation of network slicing, in particular on how 5G-VINNI has proved how zero-touch digital orchestration can simplify network slicing and lay the foundation for reliable, profitable, industry-specific 5G services.

The session featured two speakers from the project: Deepa Ramachandran, Director Product Management – Digital Operations at Nokia, shared insights into Nokia’s experiences with orchestration and automated network slicing. Dr. Ilangko Balasingham, Professor of Medical Signal Processing and Communications at the Intervention Center of Oslo University Hospital, talked about some of the health-related use cases explored and what they have shown.

On 5th October, an online Q&A session took place, in which anyone interested had the chance to ask questions to the 5G-VINNI speakers from both sessions.

TelecomTV - 5G-VINNI Roundtable 1
Discussing 5G-VINNI results (from left): moderator Guy Daniels, 5G-VINNI Coordinator Pål Grønsund from Telenor Research and David Kennedy, Director of Eurescom

Further information:
5G-VINNI roundtables on the TelecomTV website – https://www.telecomtv.com/content/5g-vinni/

Over 580 million 5G mobile subscriptions by the end of 2021


© AdobeStock

5G mobile subscriptions will exceed 580 million by the end of 2021, according to a projection by Ericsson. This trend is driven by an estimated one million new 5G mobile subscriptions every day.

The forecast from the latest edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report supports the expectation that 5G will become the fastest adopted mobile generation. About 3.5 billion 5G subscriptions and 60 percent 5G population coverage are forecast by the end of 2026.

However, the pace of adoption varies widely by region. Europe is off to a slower start and has continued to fall far behind China, the U.S., Korea, Japan and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) markets in the pace of 5G deployments.

5G is expected to surpass a billion subscriptions two years ahead of the 4G LTE timeline for the same milestone. Key factors behind that include China’s earlier commitment to 5G and the earlier availability and increasing affordability of commercial 5G devices. More than 300 5G smartphone models have already been announced or launched commercially.

This commercial 5G momentum is expected to continue in coming years, spurred by the enhanced role of connectivity as a key component of post-COVID-19 economic recovery.

North East Asia is expected to account for the largest share of 5G subscriptions by 2026, with an estimated 1.4 billion 5G subscriptions. While North American and GCC markets are expected to account for the highest 5G subscription penetration, with 5G mobile subscriptions comprising 84 percent and 73 percent of all regional mobile subscriptions respectively.

Data traffic continues to grow year on year. Global mobile data traffic – excluding traffic generated by fixed wireless access (FWA) – exceeded 49 exabyte (EB) per month at the end of 2020 and is projected to grow by a factor of close to 5 to reach 237 EB per month in 2026. One exabyte (EB) comprises one billion gigabytes (GB). Smartphones, which currently carry 95 percent of this traffic, are also consuming more data than ever. Globally, the average usage-per-smartphone now exceeds 10 GB/month and is forecast to reach 35 GB/month by the end of 2026.

The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating digitalization and increasing the importance of – and the need for – reliable, high-speed mobile broadband connectivity. According to the latest report, almost nine out of ten communications service providers (CSPs) that have launched 5G also have a fixed wireless access (FWA) offering (4G and/or 5G), even in markets with high fiber penetration. This is needed to accommodate increasing FWA traffic, which the report forecasts to grow by a factor of seven to reach 64 EB in 2026.

Massive IoT technology (NB-IoT and Cat-M) connections are forecast to increase by almost 80 percent during 2021, reaching almost 330 million connections. In 2026, these technologies are forecast to comprise 46 percent of all cellular IoT connections.

Further information
Reference website: https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2021/6/ericsson-mobility-­report-more-than-half-a-billion-5g-subscriptions-by-the-end-of-2021

Accountability and Liability for 5G and Beyond

INSPIRE-5Gplus workshop

Milon Gupta
Eurescom

On 16th June 2021, the INSPIRE-5Gplus project held a full-day online workshop on accountability and liability for 5G and beyond. It brought together more than 30 researchers and practitioners from several domains, including actuaries, lawyers, and researchers in networking and multi-agent systems. They presented challenges and approaches for liability management in multi-party 5G ecosystems and digital services, with a forward-looking perspective on Beyond 5G systems.

The main purpose of the workshop was to share, compare and disseminate best practices, approaches, tools and methodologies for identifying, formulating, and managing liability in 5G systems. The workshop addressed crucial topics such as formalization of commitments and obligations, contractualization, monitoring & supervision, evidence collection & analysis at runtime, as well as post-mortem evidence collection & forensics for identifying liabilities in case of disasters, security incidents, or regulation violations.

The workshop moderated by Gürkan Gür from Zurich University of Applied Sciences started in the morning with presentations by INSPIRE-5G­plus partners, covering topics from the Manufacturer Usage Description (MUD) standard and Liability-Aware Security Management (LASM) to Root Cause Analysis (RCA).

This was followed by presentations covering a variety of multi-disciplinary aspects. Sylvie Jonas from AGIL’IT Law explained how liability management based on contracts works in a 5G environment. Carmen Fernandez Gago from University of Málaga talked about accountability in the cloud. And Samia Bouzefrane from the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (Cnam), France presented a trust-based recommendation system.

In the afternoon session, Jacques Kruse-Brandao from SGS presented challenges, approaches and concepts for 5G device security certification. Arthur Van Der Wees from Arthur’s Legal talked about trustworthy and accountable digital ecosystems. And Claire Loiseaux from Internet of Trust presented responsibilities and certification in cybersecurity space.

A round-table discussion with the speakers, moderated by Gürkan Gür, concluded the workshop. The panel discussed questions like: What is the major challenge for multi-party liability management? Who has to manage liability between parties? And what would be nice to have for multi-party liability management? While the speakers provided knowledgeable answers to these questions, many aspects of liability management require still plenty of research and multi-disciplinary discussion. In view of the growing economic and societal importance of 5G applications and services, finding technical, regulatory, and legal solutions for the topics highlighted at the workshop will be of high importance for the success of 5G and 6G.

Further information
Workshop page – https://www.5g-eve.eu/event/final-5g-eve-webinar-validation-platform-achievements-and-multi-site-use-case-deployment/

Demonstration of 5G end-to-end validation platform

Final 5G EVE webinar

Milon Gupta
Eurescom

In the final 5G EVE webinar on 26th May 2021, the project consortium presented the major achievements in the development and use of the 5G EVE validation platform to an audience of 60 participants. As a highlight, the 5G EVE team demonstrated live the multi-site capabilities of the platform.

In addition, experts from the consortium presented new platform features like, for example, performance diagnostics, and demonstrated the 5G EVE gaming use case as an illustration of the multi-site capabilities of the 5G EVE platform.

In a short training session in the last part of the webinar, experts from the four 5G EVE sites shared practical knowledge on platform usage, which will be useful for the utilization of the platform beyond the duration of the project.

The webinar was particularly aimed at current and future 5G EVE platform users from 5G PPP use case projects and innovative SMEs, who would like to test and validate their 5G solutions in the most effective way.

Further information
Slides and videos of the presentations are available on the webinar page – https://www.5g-eve.eu/event/final-5g-eve-webinar-validation-platform-achievements-and-multi-site-use-case-deployment/

Presentation of the 5G EVE multi-site gaming use case by Luis Contreras from Telefonica


5G EVE experiment work flow for vertical multi-site use cases, presented by Jaime Garcia-Reinoso, University Carlos III de Madrid


Demonstration of the 5G EVE multi-site gaming use by Javier Serrano from UPM


Demo of the 5G EVE performance diagnosis for vertical use cases by Yannis Chondroulis from Wings ICT

Military use of 5G

Military experts foresee that 5G will play an important role in future military operations, and 5G is today a hot topic in NATO. Ubiquitous connectivity, high bandwidth and low latency opens for many new use cases and military organizations all around the world are today experimenting with 5G and plan to use public 5G networks providing good coverage in combination with military-operated private 5G networks.

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