At Real Wireless, we’ve been fortunate enough to work with world-class clients on an array of projects.
Our experts share some of the most challenging and successful projects they’ve worked on to date and how they have helped clients navigate their way through their telecoms requirements.
Scott Kelton MEng PRINCE2 Head of Wireless Built Environments
Using the experience, I gained working on Wembley Stadium; Tottenham’s new Premier League stadium project had to be the most successful and challenging project so far. They provided us with the opportunity to define, scope, and implement an array of wireless technologies from the very inception of the development and retained us to manage them through to the handover and operational phases.
Working with a client who put technology at the heart of their new stadium venue and was willing to invest the time and effort to truly plan it from the beginning was a fantastic opportunity.
The scale and technical challenges of the project were immense, but the results were more than worth it in the end.
Dr Abhaya Sumanasena PhD CEng SMIEEE MIET Head of Policy and Regulation
I was fortunate enough to work with a global satellite operator who wanted to study various frequency-sharing issues that arise from the planned use of the band with other services and systems. The objective of the study was to:
- Develop an understanding of the regulatory backdrop and current or planned use of the band.
- Develop potential interference scenarios and conduct technical co-existence analysis between the satellite system and other satellite and terrestrial systems to develop views on appropriate spectrum-sharing options and to assist the planned discussions with national spectrum regulators as a basis for the authorisation in their territory.
- Identify any potential specification changes to the proposed system and terminal specifications that could mitigate or reduce any identified interference issues.
We began this project by carrying out some theoretical models which we use as the basis for many studies. Our approach combined analysis of the regulatory positions and technical co-existence.
Firstly, we explored information about the regulatory position and likely incumbents’ use of the band. Based on ITU papers and our expertise, we produced a concise summary of the situation. We then agreed the details of potential interference scenarios and a rationale for down-selecting some interference scenarios for further analysis. Our project mandate was to conduct interference analysis for some scenarios that impact the systems most.
By studying the system specification and conducting simulations based on the industry’s accepted methodologies to analyse the interference scenarios. We were able to identify the options to minimise or mitigate any potential harmful interference between different systems.
The operator used our results to speak to regulators about imposing necessary regulatory conditions, adjusting the system and terminal characteristics, and developing essential mitigation measures. This success story will be common in the coming years, particularly since many satellite-related studies have been agreed for the next World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) cycle. With deep technology and regulatory understanding, Real Wireless can help operators and regulators develop optimum and robust outcomes.
Simon Fletcher MEng MBA MIoD MIET Chief Executive Officer
Personally, what was an interesting project for me, was one that indicated a trend that was coming at the tier two and tier three operator level. It was a full-on consulting engagement where we were advising a small operator on how to diversify.
They had already encountered the challenge of having a single vendor in their RAN and how that challenged their roadmap and their offering.
They had to roll out 5G and they were using it as an opportunity to look at whether they could adjust their supply base. The approach that we took, was to look into the cloud native ecosystem, the cloud supply, and how to build out the network in a different way.
Through the core network, we could see that the Open RAN approach wasn’t mature enough at that stage. And so that was something where we could see trade-offs.
Two big trends that are very much core expertise areas of Real Wireless are Open RAN and 5G. Our strategy is to look at real-world implications for an operator and how they focus their investment on their future growth.
John Okas BSc ACGI DMS Chief Commercial Officer
The most challenging and interesting projects that I’ve worked on are for the Open Networks competitions. These projects work with a broad range of partners, and they have complex project requirements. Real Wireless developed the submissions for a number of these projects and I led the Real Wireless teams developing the submissions. Working with a wide range of partners is always eye opening and I’m always keen to learn something new – and gain new perspectives on something I already knew – or thought I did! Crystallizing innovation and why the Government should invest in a particular piece of research or technology in a very limited number of words is challenging – you have to put yourself in the assessor’s shoes and assume nothing!
I’ve also worked on some national and large infrastructure related projects – 2G/3G sunset, smart metering in the UK and the US, HS2 and 5G use cases for the National Infrastructure Commission. Here the need to understand the detail and translate into the big picture implications I found fascinating – but the key is to be able to get the conclusions across to the client, either in the written word, in a presentation or usually both. I enjoy the interaction in presentations and dealing with questions ’on the hoof’ – hopefully providing the right answers!
Julie Bradford MEng CEng MIET Head of Techno-Economic Analysis
Real Wireless has nearly a decade of experience working with tier 1 telecoms vendors and MNOs alongside other industry thought leaders via our involvement in European Commission-sponsored research and development projects. These projects have been very important to Real Wirelesst to develop genuine thought leadership in techno-economic analysis – initially in 5G networks, virtualisation and transitioning to service-based architectures and more recently looking beyond this to 6G concepts, technologies and sustainability targets.
Our past projects include 5G Norma, 5G Monarch and 5G-TOURS with our involvement in TrialsNet ongoing. Each of these projects has given us a fantastic opportunity to have the time, the space, and the resources to develop toolsets for quantifying the benefits of advanced wireless use cases and understanding how these balance up against required network enhancements and costs. These are then brought together to look at return on investment, investment profiles, and payback periods.
As an example, on the 5G Monarch Project, we worked with the Hamburg Port Authority to understand how 5G could impact their operations. One area explored was the automation of container terminals and how this could impact the capacity of the container yards andon the level of revenue and market share that the port can have. We were then able to distil this into a benefits model. For something unique, we were able to quantify the benefits investment, connectivity and 5G for the port authority.
While these European projects have an R&D focus, we are now seeing concepts from these projects deployed by some of our clients who are industrial wireless users. For example, some of the thinking on operational benefits analysis, solution dimensioning and costs has already supported clients in the airport industry considering investment in private mobile networks.
We are also using knowledge of dimensioning processing hardware and RAN equipment for virtualised networks, developed under European projects, to capture the trade-offs, benefits and potential market acceleration impact of different Open RAN product roadmaps and strategies.
Finally, our most recent European projects have helped us develop approaches and toolsets for understanding and analysing new metrics for advanced wireless technologies considering three dimensions of sustainability; economic, environmental and societal. This is helping us to develop thought leadership beyond commercial business models for wireless services and towards public-private partnership funding approaches and appropriate supporting regulatory and policy environments.
Dr. Anastasios Karousos MSc PhD MIET Head of Network Modelling and Simulation
I had the pleasure to collaborate with RTR, the Austrian regulator, on two occasions – a testament to our valuable work. The work included assisting RTR in their task of evaluating the cost of spectrum for their upcoming auction. We had the challenging task of importing and assessing the existing network from all operators for the whole country, and that meant thousands of locations, base stations, technologies and frequency bands. This provided us with baseline coverage and set the expectations.
From then on, we calculated the necessary number of additional sites required to achieve certain levels of coverage and throughput obligations. This process was further refined during our second project, which involved challenging simultaneous obligations, covering different areas such as urban, communities, roads, and geographical areas. The level of additional infrastructure required for achieving a very high percentage of coverage was something that wasn’t expected and helped RTR to set realistic targets and a very successful auction format. This had a beneficial outcome for all stakeholders, mobile operators, the regulator and importantly mobile users.
Our road to success
At Real Wireless we work with clients to find solutions to their challenges. We have numerous successful projects that illustrate our experience across the Telecoms ecosystem.
