SSM Generates Secure and Indigenous 5G Technologies
Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) organized a comprehensive workshop regarding one of the most important technologies of the near future with the help of the important projects accomplished and the experience gained within the scope of 4.5G technology. Important messages were relayed at the workshop bringing together approximately 200 participants, representing SSM being in the first place around 30 institutions / associations / institutes / universities and companies which are to take part in the indigenous development of 5G technology.
The workshop titled “Passage from 4.5G to 5G and the Importance of the Domestic Industry” organized by the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) and sponsored by Argela, Aselsan and Netaş was held at the Nuri Demirağ Hall of SSM.
Turkey Heading towards 5G Techonologies with Concrete Steps Thanks to 4.5G Investements
Within the scope of the workshop, information on the ULAK 4.5G Macro Base Station project developed under the leadership of Aselsan was given as well. In the presentation, it was declared that minimization of Turkey’s foreign dependency in base stations was aimed through this project conducted by Aselsan, Argela and Netaş partnership. It was stated that a fully indigenously developed base station can be used in the existing circumstances and at the current GSM infrastructure mainly composed of foreign companies such as Huawei and Ericsson. It was expressed that orders were already being taken for the ULAK base station, the field test studies of which are being conducted with the operators. During Argela Company’s presentation on the MİLAT project, it was noted that studies on SDN and NFV technologies, considered as the key technologies of 5G, will be executed. Throughout the workshop, the emphasis was on the fact that actually most of the 5G features were derivatives of 4.5G specifications and therefore Turkey’s know-how and experience acquired in respect of 4.5G base station, with the MİLAT project and other studies for 5G would be helpful on the path towards 5G.
Turkey will be manufacturing 5G technology
As the worldwide transformation of 5G technology approaches, Turkey being amongst the countries producing 5G technology, instead of being merely a technology consuming country, is of vital importance. Development of critical infrastructure such as communication technologies completely through domestic industry facilities, without any foreign dependency, is one of the first steps to be taken to this end. With the MİLAT project the breakthroughs made in various sectors such as energy, transportation and the defense industry are aimed to be implemented with the communication infrastructure which is an integral part of these systems. When the MİLAT project’s implementation begins, governmental institutions’ network security will be maximized and the prioritization of network resources of Public Safety and Emergency Network planned to be used during extraordinary cases such as natural disasters and mobilization will be enabled. This project will also contribute to the reinforcement of all critical networks in the country against cyber-attacks. The software defined networks and network function virtualization (NFV) technologies defined as the technologies which will be forming the base of 5G and which are currently under development around the world will be used intensely throughout the MİLAT project. As a result of the MİLAT project, Turkey will soon be included in the countries producing 5G technology in the world.
Indigenousness is the priority of 5G Technology
In his opening remark, Mr. Hikmet Kangal, Undersecretariat for Defense Industries Information Technologies Group Head in charge of the ULAK and the MİLAT Projects, mentioned that there was no domestic participation within the scope of 1G, 2G and 3G technologies and that Turkey painted a fully foreign dependency picture, and added that this foreign dependency might impede other sectors and technologies as well. Mr.Kangal said, “As a result of the efforts we exerted as the SSM, there is a quite concrete level we reached considering the ULAK Project in particular. The success of this project will encourage our industry and our relevant public institutions / associations to take braver steps considering 5G. We aim to have full competency in 5G to this end. Considering the indigenously designed and developed products, initially their utilization within the country and then their exports are among our objectives. We ourselves need to create the communication technologies as well. This is our aim and our common ground”.
Internet of Things and Big Data Concepts coming into our lives
NETAŞ Executive Board Member Mr. Öner Tekin underlined 5G Technology’s differences from its precedents and said, “5G will enter into our lives as a concept containing access technology as well as applications and interoperability. Our vehicles and houses will be smarter. Mobile broadband access will be reaching quite high levels”. Mr. Tekin also mentioned that the Internet of Things and Big Data concepts will play a bigger role in our lives with 5G technologies, their coverage zones will be extending and their power consumption will be less.
Argela Vice President Mr. Selim Sarper: “Government Support Required”
Mr. Selim Sarper, Vice President of Argela, stressed the importance of this project being executed under the leadership of the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries and continued, “Producing a technology for a company is possible to a certain extent. It has to be supported and owned by the government and last but not least our operators support is a sin qua non for this project. We are heading to a point with an ever increasing maturity level. I can say that we are promising a more capable and self-confident Turkey in 2020s to our children”.
$ 5 billion of R&D Budget to be Allocated to 5G Technology until 2020
Aselsan Communication and Information Technologies Engineering Division Director Mr. Ertuğrul Kolağasıoğlu stated that a total of annual $5 billion R&D budget until 2020 was envisioned for the 5G worldwide. Underlining that this figure was an indicator of the importance attached to the 5G studies and of the size of the disbursed resources Kolağasıoğlu continued, “For competition, we need to make our presence felt with all our capacities. 5G is such an area that needs to be entered, as Turkey, strongly. To some extent we may appear a bit behind but that is certainly out of question. For instance, as Aselsan, we were quite behind our rivals when we entered the military radio market, yet we rapidly caught up with them and even reached a point surpassing our competitors. Uninterrupted execution of these studies within a certain plan is of vital importance. For success, we need to direct all our focus and most of our resources to this topic”.
Turkey to Go through a Transformation with 5G Technology
Taking the floor after the “5G Technologies” panel Dr. Celal Sami Tüfekçi, Deputy Undersecretary in charge of Industrial Services touched upon the importance of the military aspect of the project and said, “I believe that we will be keeping up with this challenging breakout in respect of 5G. This is an important project with regards to the military as well. We are speaking of an environment in which one can manage the entire network by placing the security on the front. This will be a transformation for Turkey. We need to think big now. For instance, Aselsan’s turnover as of today exceeded $1 billion. If we can manage to place ourselves in the forefront of this technology, we will be coming across figures exceeding Aselsan’s current turnover. We can progress further with a formation where also Aselsan will take place”.
Undersecretary for Defense Industries Prof. İsmail Demir: Coordination and a Common Policy are Compulsory
In his speech during the workshop, Undersecretary for Defense Industries Prof. İsmail Demir emphasized that one of the projects conducted within the scope of the Undersecretariat had the main theme of increasing the indigenousness rate. Telling that SSM stepped in for increasing the indigenousness rate and became successful in this project, Prof. İsmail Demir added, “I am examining the advertisements and announcement of various operators and also the marketing methods of worldwide giant companies when this subject comes to the agenda in Turkey with regard to users. What bothers me is, when it comes to the users’ demands and efforts of the ministry for providing services, foreign companies’ tendency towards using a backdoor or by-passing may be in question or we may not be able to reach the required technology and come to a deadlock. At this point we trust in the efforts of companies such as Aselsan, Netaş and Argela. We know that during this transition period hefty sums are being spent. I would like to state that our Undersecretariat’s position as a patron will be continuing in addition to our role in the development, naturalization and own age of technology. We will be accomplishing the MİLAT Project initiated by our Undersecretariat for realizing the software network technologies that are expected to become one of the main technologies of the 5G. With this Project, application of indigenous cyber security policies in critical communication infrastructures by gaining the capacity for the central controlling of the transmission lines at these infrastructures will be provided. Within the scope of 5G, all parties’ coordinated efforts in the country and our progress in accordance with a common policy are of vital importance”.
5G Technology Panel
During the panel titled “5G Technologies” organized within the scope of the workshop, Asst. Prof. Mustafa Ergen made a presentation titled 5G Road Map, Prof. Hüseyin Arslan presented Physical Layer Researches, Prof. Erdal Arıkan made a presentation on Bipolar Codes, Prof. Murat Tekalp on SDN and NFV Technologies, and Prof. Fuat Akyıldız presented 5G Wireless Communication Technologies. These presentations regarding the actions to be taken for 5G in Turkey and in the world also touched upon Turkey’s position considering 5G and drew interest of the participants.
Asst. Prof. Mustafa Ergen: “There is no need to own all capabilities for the development process”
Asst. Prof. Mustafa Ergen gave the opening remark of the panel and within the scope of his presentation, he assessed whether it was the right time or not for Turkey to make such an attempt. Ergen then informed the participants on how Turkey would be turning this attempt to an advantage with the domestic market and on the 5G road map of the world and Turkey: “Nowadays we are going through a modulation. In other words, there is no need to conduct all the processes from A to Z for putting forth a product. There are large and small companies offering global services to anyone by manufacturing a single module. If necessary, you employ an engineer or when necessary you may have people execute the design process for you. If you have a sales-focused strategy for the end user, then manufacturing the product in a rapidly and inexpensively manner and having a maintained markup are important. Otherwise one of those modules are owned and expanded all around the world”. Ergen explained how the countries are on an economic rapid increase in communication technologies and added that companies should be investing in short term technologies instead of investing in greater technologies in the long run. Underlining the fact that the timing of 4G and 5G investments were quite right, Ergen said, “Could we benefit from the domestic market advantage? Turkey made the decision for this and pressed the button. What will be the benefits of using the local market advantage? When we take a look at the macro base station sales in 2001 and 2015, we see that Huawei dominated the most of the market. We wish to capture the rest and that is achievable. It is not impossible”.
Ergen: “European Union 5G business plan: Investing in applications”
Touching also upon the 5G road map of the European Union (EU), Ergen stated that regarding 5G the EU aimed to put forth a business plan different than 2G, 3G and 4G. Ergen noted that the investments made by EU in various applications rather than the telecommunications sector were the reason for that. Ergen stressed that the existing architecture should be altered both in terms of the capacity and of the business plan and added that an evolution was essential for wireless access and also a software based network was required.
“Prof. Hüseyin Arslan: Studies for 6G and 7G should be launched”
Addressing the audience on the Researches on Physical Layers, Prof. Hüseyin Arslan underlined that Turkey should launch the activities for 6G and 7G. “Patent and R&D are certainly important but we have to take the commercialization of the products into consideration as well. Research and Development as well as productization have to go hand in hand; we simply cannot separate these two processes. We cannot say that we fell behind in respect of the 5G technologies. We missed the 4G standard; however we caught the product development stage. In other words, we are doing what needed to be done for 4G. But we still have a one or two-year period ahead considering 5G. We have time for creating inputs for the standard and for product development, yet time is running out. Together, we need to make the most of these two years. While executing these studies we need to pave the way for the 6G simultaneously. Moreover, we need to see what’s beyond. We need to initiate 6G, even the 7G studies”, said Arslan. He expressed that Turkey needed to become a country developing technologies and continued, “As Turkey, we have to develop the products while developing the patents. We need to contribute to the standards. Patent support is lacking, we have to increase it. You may not be able to observe the results of the investments made in patents but they will bring substantial returns in the long run”.
The Candidate Technology for 5G: Bipolar Coding
Later on, the panel, Prof. Erdal Arıkan made a presentation on Bipolar Codes which are considered to be one of the technologies suggested for 5G. Prof. Erdal Arıkan mentioned that the research was completely executed at Bilkent University and informed the participants on the usability of Bipolar Coding, a type of error fixer algorithm, within the scope of 5G Technology. “This algorithm has a quite orderly structure. It is a quite simple algorithm that could be verified through a regular circuit. Here the signals are zeros and ones instead of complex signals. Algorithm is suitable for hardware verification and it supports the high data rates. Furthermore it offers the advantage of low energy consumption”.
Prof. Arıkan told that Bipolar Coding offered more profit compared to the currently implemented methods and added that this technology was declared by Huawei as a candidate technology for 5G. Prof. Arıkan said, “Bipolar Coding was proposed as a key technology candidate for 5G during the speech given by Huawei’s Chairwoman of the Board last year in Barcelona. Then it became the center of attention. While mentioning the key technologies such as the Full Duplex and Massive MIMO, she included bipolar coding in the group. Huawei aims to become a company which generates high incomes through patent licenses. For achieving this, you should develop a technology and include it into a new standard. Can we benefit from that? Taking a look at the time schedule, the 5G schedule is almost initiated. The technologies to be offered are already determined. If you do not have anything standing, it is too late for you. The preliminary preparation process was spent with getting the patent. Bipolar Coding was published in 2009. Following one of our attempts related with the incentives, 3 USA patents were obtained regarding the coding. In a sense, we have an interest sharing with Huawei. If we manage to persuade them, it would be a great advantage for us”.
SDN: Google and Amazon’s Network
In his speech during the panel, Prof. Murat Tekalp referred to the SDN and NFV topics. Prof. Tekalp said, “According to a report of CISCO in 2015, 80% of the open internet traffic will be composed of video traffic in 2017. And in 2020, this percentage will be increasing to 90%. As SDN’s usage area has been mostly data centers until today and since it is also an operator administering the data center (Google and Amazon’s network is SDN), we regard SDN as a Single Domain Network Management. SDN enters the telecom networks. What advantages will it bring to the telecom domain? It will enable the best resource management facilities for the operators. We owe this to its dynamic network configuration capability. When there is an increase in the traffic, we will be able to direct more sources to that point. We will be able to direct the traffic to another area during natural disasters such as earthquakes. It will allow us to dynamically utilize the network sources in the best possible way”.
Indicating that, here they aimed to achieve the best quality of a video service end-to-end, he continued, “There are three players at this point; the player who offers the network service, the player with the video service and the viewer who is also the end user. Taking a look at the advantages of SDN from the point of network, we can define this as ideal management of the network. If we examine it from the perspective of the video service, then we can define it as improving the service quality from an end to another”.
5G will be Composed of LTE and LTE-A derivatives
Prof. İlhan Akyıldız gave the panel’s final speech on 5G Wireless Communication Technologies. Prof. Akyıldız said, “When the objectives of 5G are considered, we come across topics such as more capacity, mobile service security, ultrahigh data rates, 10 Gbps peak data rates and IoT. Presently we are still using 2G. Therefore, there is no such thing like wasting all the achievements within the scope of 4G. We are not terminating one technology here and launching another. If the best service quality at the instant is 2G, then we will connect to that, if it’s 3G then this will be selected”.
Prof. Akyıldız also mentioned the energy gain issue and stated that the “Green Radio” concept was quite significant and underlined that the energy used within this concept at the base stations was both too high and harmful for the environment. Akyıldız stated that lower latency and flexible network architecture issues were among the targets of 5G technology. “Here, the key technologies are concepts such as the SDN, NFV - the concept which is also the subject of MİLAT, device-to-device communication, multiple access techniques, big data, mobile cloud computing, green communication, massive MIMO, millimeter wave, terahertz waves and IoT”, said Prof. Akyıldız.
The only Difference between 4.5G and 5G is SDN and NFV
“When the differences between the 4.5G and 5G are examined, already seven or eight of them are also available in 4.5G. Do you know what is unavailable? SDN and NFV are unavailable. The passage from the 4.5G to 5G is the SDN and NFV. Therefore, I would like to congratulate the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries for their support to Argela. There is a difference between the NFV concept and SDN as well. NFV concept is able to function without SDN. In other words, you take out all the physical functions from the hardware and you install it into a cloud or to a server. This allows a huge flexibility. In conclusion, the costs decrease”.
Prof. Akyıldız expressed that the studies on core SDN or wireless SDN issues were increasing recently and added, “Everyone is struggling to find the best solution in issues such as Wireless SDN, traffic classification, traffic engineering solutions, switching hypervisor. There are many problems. The concepts such as programmable data plane, management tool, and traffic engineering solutions are not yet completed. The ones intending to conduct researches can concentrate on these areas. High energy consumption rate and spectrum aggregations emerge as problems within the scope of Massive MIMO concept. 3D channel models are required. Uplink and downlink concepts need to be redefined”.
Prof. Akyıldız mentioned that Turkey still had time for 5G and concluded, “No time has been wasted for Turkey to own this technology. We need to accomplish new achievements without copying anyone”.
5G Technology at the Focus of the Universities and Institutes
During the workshop, the participants were allowed to give information on their studies regarding 5G. BTK Authorization Department Head Asst. Prof. Lütfiye Durak Ata and Prof. İbraim Altuntaş drew the attention to the development of hardware, software and new components for mobile communication networks. Prof. Ali Özgür Yılmaz, Asst. Prof. Fatih Koçer and Prof. Mirzahan Hızal from METU offered information on the studies conducted by the METU Electrical and Electronic Engineering Faculty on 4.5G and 5G and the activities accomplished within the scope of the university for 5G infrastructures. Asst. Prof. Hakan Paşa Partal from Yıldız Technical University informed the audience on the studies carried out for the development of RF and microwave hardware at the university. From, TÜBİTAK-Bilgem Information Technologies Institute Mr. Feyzullah Yayıl informed the participants on the RF and microwave studies as part of the radio link.
Public and Private Sector Collaboration
Throughout the panel, a consensus was reached on the fact that many studies and activities were being conducted by various companies, universities, institutions/ associations countrywide on mobile communication networks and that these efforts were executed disconnectedly. All parties agreed that the relevant studies and activities had to be conducted under the management and coordination of a single center. The parties also stressed that participation in 5G patent activities through a company to be established to this end was required and the patents obtained as a result would have to be administered by a single source. Moreover, during the passage to 5G, it was assessed that a mobile electronic communication industry eco-system could be formed with the cooperation of the relevant public institutions/associations, universities and private sector surrounding the coordination center which will indigenously develop and produce the critical hardware and software at the mobile electronic communication infrastructures. It was agreed that this company could be established through a partnership between the public and private sectors and that it would be advantageous if the public sector would be dominant in the company’s capital at the first stage. It was advised that monitoring of this company could be conducted through a Supervisory Board in which all the relevant parties were represented.
A Joint Declaration will be Issued
After the workshop, in order to create Turkey’s 5G road map and a common vision by collecting the views of all companies/ institutions/ associations, a question set was shared with the participating institutions/ associations/ companies. In addition to the answers collected from the UDHB, Bilkent University and University of Niğde, the replies of companies such as Havelsan and Ericsson were evaluated. Within this framework, it was assessed that points such as the Massive MIMO technology used in base station antennas and providing all users higher frequency efficiency simultaneously, utilizing frequency bands over 6 GHz in radio access networks, shared utilization of frequencies, development of new wave types that increase efficiency and with active frequencies for 5G technology, “Bipolar Coding” technique offering high data rates and low energy consumption advantage, integration of radio access technologies and their joint management, further development of the Device-to-Device Communication feature with the help of 5G, which was developed with Release 12 towards public security and overall commercial applications, on the radio part the development of safer communication besides the encryption techniques, SDN and NFV technologies, backhaul and access integration in Smallcell and its applications would be standing out. It was accepted that as part of this understanding, studies for developing the technologies coming into the forefront within the scope of 5G in the partnership between the public, universities and private sector. Furthermore, it was agreed that the products as a result of these developed technologies should be manufactured indigenously and activities and studies should be conducted to this end.
It was stated that the relevant feedback process continued through the question sets shared for identifying Turkey’s road map for 5G and that a joint declaration would be shaped as a result of the examination of all feedback collected at the end of the process. Additionally, it was mentioned that this joint declaration would soon be shared with all participating institutions/ associations/ universities.
ULAK was Introduced at the “Mobile World Congress” in Barcelona
Over 100 thousand people from 204 different countries participated in the Mobile World Congress (MWC) held on 22-25 February. 2200 companies including Aselsan, Argela and Netaş opened stands at the conference and this year Aselsan displayed the 4.5G macro base station developed as part of the ULAK project for the first time at MWC. Moreover, a demonstration was made on the BBU and RRU units which drew huge attention.
