Connectivity Technology Blog

The concept of the low-altitude economy has gained significant momentum in China over the past few years. It refers to economic activities that take place in airspace typically below 1,000 metres, including drones, urban air mobility, aerial logistics, surveillance, and emergency services. What was once largely experimental is now being scaled up through coordinated policy support, industrial participation, and increasingly sophisticated communications infrastructure. A key enabler of this transformation is the rapid evolution of China’s digital connectivity networks. Operators such as China Mobile are building integrated communication systems that combine terrestrial networks, satellite links, and specialised low-altitude connectivity capabilities. This integrated approach allows communication services to extend beyond traditional ground-based coverage and support applications across air, sea, and land. China Mobile has been expanding what it describes as an integrated air, space, gro...

As mobile networks expand into new vertical domains, the low altitude economy (LAE) is emerging as one of the most promising frontiers for connectivity. In China and Hong Kong, this area is rapidly evolving with strong government support, early infrastructure deployments and growing commercial interest. It includes services and applications that operate in airspace typically below one thousand metres, covering everything from drone deliveries and infrastructure inspections to emergency response and environmental monitoring. The LAE is not just a collection of novel use cases. It represents a structural shift in how connectivity infrastructure is being designed and deployed. A layered approach is taking shape, combining reuse of existing terrestrial networks, new network deployments tailored for low altitude operation, and integration with non terrestrial networks such as satellites. Together, these networks are already delivering coverage up to 600 metres with end to end latency under...

At MWC 2025, NTT Docomo highlighted its latest initiatives under the NTT Group's "NTT C89" space-business strategy, such as mobile-connectivity services using unmanned vehicles, or high-altitude platform stations (HAPS), that fly in the stratosphere for days or months, using relays to provide mobile connectivity in mountainous and remote areas, including at sea and in the sky. A presentation on NTT C89 Aerospace Business Strategy is available here while a presentation on NTT DOCOMO's Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) for Extreme Coverage Extension is available here . Stratospheric connectivity, enabled by High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS), is emerging as a key solution for extending mobile coverage to remote and underserved areas. However, ensuring that these airborne platforms can provide stable, high-quality connectivity requires extensive testing and refinement. At MWC 2025, NTT Docomo showcased its progress in this domain, highlighting multiple real-world trials...

We have quite a few NTN presentations and webinars embedded in our blogs (see related posts 👇). Here is another one from Telit Cinterion. Quoting from the webinar preview : We will show how existing use cases benefit from NTN because of an additional communication path that increases reliability and application robustness. This next-generation satellite technology can enhance cellular network performance in challenging environments. These include scenarios with high mobility or limited terrestrial coverage.  NTN’s phased rollout will be key to our discussion. We will navigate the standardization stages that paved the way for its implementation.   The journey began with an initial study and progressed into 3GPP Release (Rel) 17 standardization activities. During this phase, existing standards were enhanced to enable the first stage of NTN operation in which the satellite acts as a relay. It allows the utilization of adapted cellular device hardware optimized for this tech...

Offshore wind farms are typically located in remote areas, making it challenging to establish reliable connectivity using public mobile networks. Private mobile networks allow wind farm operators to deploy dedicated coverage in the vicinity of the wind farm, ensuring consistent and high-quality network connectivity. UK-based wireless telecommunications provider, Vilicom, is providing a cloud-enabled private mobile network for the Moray East wind farm for Vestas. A press release , couple of years back, explained what they were doing:  Currently in its construction phase 20 miles off the Scottish coast, the Moray East wind farm will comprise of 100 V164-9.5 MW units, giving a combined total power output of 950 MW across its impressive 295km2 plot. The turbines, supplied by Vestas, will generate sufficient power to supply clean energy to approximately one million households across the United Kingdom. Moray East will bring more low-carbon power to the UK, and will continue to support t...

Back in 2019 when Vodafone UK launched 5G , they demonstrated it with a remote rugby tackle where Wasps Rugby player Juan de Jongh felt the impact of a tackle made 100 miles away by team mate Will Rowlands while wearing a haptic Teslasuit connected over 5G (and Wi-Fi).   Since then Vodafone UK have use the haptics for some other use cases too. One recent use case was to allow deaf and hard-of-hearing music fans to experience live music like never before. Vodafone unveiled some innovative 5G-enabled haptic suits that allowed people to feel the music through vibrations.  Vodafone used #5G -enabled haptic suits to allow deaf and hard-of-hearing fans to experience live music like never before. 🎵💃 Here's how it works: https://t.co/fUqYoykFE0 pic.twitter.com/faObMUHxi0 — Vodafone Business (@VodafoneBiz) July 1, 2022 These vibrations were delivered across 24 touchpoints on the wrists, ankles and torso to provide a full multi-sensory experience. You can read all about that he...

ETSI's Fixed 5th Generation Network group (F5G ISG) has just released its first specification, ETSI GS F5G 003 , entitled F5G Technology Landscape. In this specification, the ISG studies the technical requirements, existing standards and gaps for 10 different new use cases, for home, enterprises or industrial needs. The press release says:  ETSI GS F5G 003 use cases include PON (passive optical network) on-premises and passive optical LAN. In this case, a PON system could connect end devices (like HDTV, HD surveillance cameras and VR/AR helmets) and provide higher data rate, better coordination and controlled latency than current Ethernet and Wi-Fi mesh. The high quality private line use case focuses on optical transport networks (OTN) for governments, large companies, financial and medical institutions who need guaranteed bandwidth, low latency, five-nines availability, totally secured network, access to Cloud services and intelligent operation and maintenance of their connectivi...

One of the biggest challenges with UAVs and Drones is that there are no harmonized regulations allowing aerial UEs worldwide. While different countries may have different regulations, work like the LTE Aerial Profile is intended to standardize on an approach to remove concerns of interference with ground based users. When it is implemented by the MNOs, the policy will adapt to using LTE for drones.  In Europe there are efforts from European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to enable Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) in a safe and secure manner. The operators can help supporting in this area by, first of all, having a conversation with the national authorities and demonstrate the performances of the network. Also it is highly recommended to participate to the Aerial Connectivity Joint Activity (ACJA) work tasks to help define the right KPIs, the more mobile operators participate the better is the result. In this GSMA IoT WebTalk (embedded below) the theme of partnership is exp...

Vodafone’s 5G is completely transforming production at Ford’s E:PrimE (Electrified Powertrain in Manufacturing Engineering) facility in Dunton, Essex, UK. GSMA produced a case study to explain the details. The following is from GSMA's case study The Ford Motor Company is using a mobile private network to enable an electric vehicle plant in the UK to enhance production quality in real-time. A combination of 4G and 5G connectivity provided by Vodafone UK enables Ford to analyse and control the new laser welding machines used to manufacture batteries and electric motors for vehicles. Although automotive plants are highly standardised with repetitive processes for assembling parts to tight tolerances, Ford still sees variations that can impact the efficiency of the plant and the quality of finished products. These can be as subtle as changes in temperature, or even sunlight affecting the cameras used to detect issues on the production line. Low latency connectivity is required to enab...

While we have been discussing advanced 5G use cases for years, it is only now, with the Standalone 5G (5G SA) that it is going to become possible to have many of these in practice. Of course they will take time to mature and be popular with the end users. As a part of our Free 5G Training initiative , we made a short video that will provide you with ideas and motivation for why 5G could do a lot more than just faster speeds. The video is embedded below. In addition, Parallel Wireless, one of the companies I consult for, did a webinar on 5G Use Cases which is available here . A good webinar on BrightTALK on 5G Use Cases by @Parallel_tw - https://t.co/AdpLOIOW6u #Free5Gtraining #5G #5GNetworks #5GUseCases #5GSpectrum #eMBB #mMTC #URLLC #5GRoadmaps #OpenRAN #5GXR #FWA #Vodafone #TMobile #Healthcare pic.twitter.com/LV677HrJ2G — 5G Training (@5Gtraining) May 28, 2020 Let us know which one is your favorite and which ones do you think will make operators money....

McKinsey Global Institute released a discussion paper titled, "Connected world: An evolution in connectivity beyond the 5G revolution". The report looks at  how connectivity could be deployed in mobility, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail. The use cases identified in these four commercial domains alone could boost global GDP by $1.2 trillion to $2 trillion by 2030. In fact, most of this value can be captured with advanced connectivity, using technologies that is already available today. The executive summary states: This raises a puzzling question: Why is so much potential still sitting on the table, and will new technologies alone be enough to realize it? This research looks at the issues holding back the market, with the aim of starting a broader conversation about what it will take to create momentum. It is part of an ongoing body of work that will continue exploring connectivity, including its possibilities in other sectors and its impact across broader econom...