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TIP has launched 'Non-Terrestrial Connectivity Solutions' Group


In the recent Telecom Infra Project Summit 2019, there was an announcement about the launch of Non-Terrestrial Connectivity Solutions Group that will explore how Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) will co-exist with Terrestrial Networks and what is required for it to work just out of the box. This group is being led by Vodafone and Telefónica.


The group will be working on 2 initial use cases:
  1. Connecting the Unconnected
  2. Emergency Relief
There are some very aggressive timelines for the project as lab trials are proposed for Q4 2020 and live pilots by Q2 2021.

There are many challenges that need to be overcome as a part of this project to have a solution that is portable and available in a box that could be easily transported and be set-up in a very short time. One of the solutions I was involved in, with UK MNO EE is described here.

Another thing worth remembering, especially as one of the goals of this group is to connect the unconnected, a legacy technology like 2G or 3G would be required too. Not just for CS Fallback as majority of the devices still dont work on 4G voice out of the box, but also due to proliferation of hand me down 2G/3G devices. I explained some of these things here.

We have also made a quick tutorial on NTN that is available here but I have also embedded the video below.


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