The mobile telecom tech future will be on display this month in Barcelona and Japan’s leading mobile carrier, NTT DOCOMO, has some new high-tech gear to tout. Take note, for starters, of the term non-terrestrial networks and the related acronym HAPS.
A HAPS is a high-altitude platform station, launched to extend telecom services beyond the reach of terrestrial networks – to remote mountains and seas and into low-orbit space. The stations are unmanned vehicles that can fly in the stratosphere for days or even months at a time.
They are a key component of Space Compass, a joint venture between DOCOMO’s parent company NTT and SKY Perfect JSAT tasked with building an integrated satellite communications and computing network in the stratosphere and in orbit around the earth.
DOCOMO also plans to display its 6G, Open RAN and XR (extended reality) technology at the Mobile World Congress 2024, an event scheduled to be held in Barcelona from February 26 to 29. In addition to generating new business, this should give it more influence in the development of 6G industry standards.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government has decided to subsidize NTT’s work with Intel and South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix to mass produce opto-electronic semiconductors for high-speed, low-power data transmission. NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation) is Japan’s national telecom technology company.
DOCOMO’s 6G exhibit in Barcelona will include its latest wireless technologies, non-terrestrial networks and its Human Augmentation Platform for sharing sensory information between people connected to the network.
In the area of human augmentation, there will be interactive demonstrations of FEEL TECH, a technology that aims to facilitate the transmission of haptic information generated by the sense of touch and awareness of position and movement that is difficult to communicate verbally.
Created by NTT DOCOMO, the Embodied Media Project at Keio University and the Haptics Lab at Nagoya Institute of Technology, FEEL TECH consists of a device that detects a person’s sensory state, a so-called driving device that physically reproduces the same state in another person and the Human Augmentation Platform, which shares the information between devices connected to a network.
Haptic information is quantified in terms of human-touch vibrations measured with a device such as a piezoelectric sensor. The vibrations are then reproduced using a transducer (the driving device) that vibrates when electricity is applied. The platform will synchronize the haptic and video data being shared using the low latency of 6G mobile networks.
The Open RAN (open radio access networks) exhibit will feature a 360-degree 3D virtual tour of DOCOMO’s OREX verification environment, demonstrations of automated network design and maintenance, and a presentation on progress toward commercialization. OREX is DOCOMO’s Open RAN service brand.
Deployment of OREX was initiated in Japan last September with base station software from Fujitsu, a cloud platform from Wind River, IC accelerators from NVIDIA and off-the-shelf servers with Intel processors. It is expected to reduce clients’ total cost of ownership by as much as 30%, the power consumption of base stations by up to 50% and the time required for network design by up to 50%.
Other companies working with OREX include NTT Data, AMD, HP, Qualcomm and US software developers Red Hat, Mavenir and VMware. This collaboration demonstrates the principle of Open RAN: the efficient use of software and hardware from multiple vendors, and increasing flexibility and lowering costs in comparison with the proprietary telecom systems offered by Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei.
The XR exhibit will feature the first conceptual model of “smart” glasses created by a joint venture between NTT QONOQ Devices and consumer electronics and smartphone maker Sharp. As presented on the QONOQ website, the glasses consist of a small wearable computer with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a transparent display, an eight-megapixel camera, touchpad and battery pack.
On January 30, the Japanese government announced that it would grant about 45 billion yen (US$305 million) to support the development of mass production technology for the photonics-electronics convergence devices at the heart of NTT’s IOWN initiative for high-speed, high-capacity networks and information processing infrastructure. IOWN stands for Innovative Optical and Wireless Network.
Intel, which has been working on the IOWN project with NTT since 2019, will contribute its manufacturing expertise. SK Hynix, currently the leader in high-bandwidth DRAM memory for AI applications, brings expertise in high-capacity high-speed memory chips. The goal is terabit data transfer speed using 30%-40% less power by 2027. So far, SK Hynix’s high-bandwidth memory has reached 288 gigabits per second.
Leaders of the IOWN Global Forum will explain the technology and its potential in Barcelona. Executives and technical experts from NTT, KDDI, Nokia, Ericsson, SK Telecom, Red Hat, Intel and Fujitsu will also speak. The IOWN Global Forum was established by NTT, Intel and Sony.
NTT aims to introduce IOWN networks to global markets by 2030. If the technology works as planned, it should greatly facilitate the advance of artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, digital twin computing, telemedicine and other applications involving huge quantities of data. It is also likely to act as a driver of Open RAN.
Officials at Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry hope the IOWN project will be a game changer that helps restore Japan to a leading position in the global semiconductor industry. It is already setting an example for high-tech collaboration between Japan, South Korea and the US.
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