The potential of 5G experimentation-as-a-service

paradigm for operators and vertical industries: the case

of 5G-VINNI facility
Costas Kalogiros, George Zois, George Darzanos, Hanne Kristine Hallingby, Håkon Lønsethagen,
Maria Barros Weiss, Anastasius Gavras

01.Oct 2019 2nd workshop on 5G-Trials – From 5G Experiments to Business Validation 1

 The chicken and egg problem of 5G ecosystems
• Operators will not invest in costly new
infrastructures unless there is solid demand
• But, most vertical customers will wait until 5G
infrastructure is widely deployed and tested.
• Experimental facilities can solve this “chicken
and egg” problem:
– Operators should gradually roll-out 5G
infrastructures where demand is high (e.g. smart
cities, industrial parks, corridors) and broaden
their product portfolio with a “5G
experimentation-as-a-service” offering.
– Vertical industries can check the technical
feasibility and business potential of innovative
use-cases
– Precommercial facilities based on a PPP scheme
reduce average cost per experiment  provide
valuable insights to both parties
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5G-VINNI (5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure)
• Build an open large scale 5G End-to-End facility to
– demonstrate that key 5G network KPIs can be met
– be validated, accessed and used by vertical industries
(e.g. ICT-19 projects) to test use cases and validate 5G KPIs.
• 5G-VINNI will expose network slice life-cycle management
functions through open APIs
• July 2018 – June 2021
• 23 partners (operators, vendors, academics) + External
Stakeholder Board

01.Oct 2019 2nd workshop on 5G-Trials – From 5G Experiments to Business Validation 3

 5G-VINNI Facility Sites
Main Facility sites: E2E 5G-VINNI facility that offers services
to ICT-18-19-22 projects with well-defined Service Level
Agreements.
• Norway (Oslo, Kongsberg)
• UK (Martlesham)
• Spain (Madrid)
• Greece (Patras)

Experimentation Facility sites: provide environments for

advanced focused experimentation and testing possibilities
on elements of the E2E model.
• Portugal (Aveiro)
• Germany (Berlin)
• Germany (Munich)

Moving Experimentation Facility site: satellite connected

vehicle.

01.Oct 2019 2nd workshop on 5G-Trials – From 5G Experiments to Business Validation 4

 5G-VINNI Maturity Levels
scope
ML4: Any
All experiment
(market-priced)
More ML3: Cost-based
Use-Cases trials
Selected ML2: Co-funded
Use-Cases trials
ML1: Validation
Internal tests
R0 R1 R2 R3 Final Release Further updates
t/Release

01.Oct 2019 2nd workshop on 5G-Trials – From 5G Experiments to Business Validation 5

 SWOT and TOWS analysis
• We performed a SWOT analysis of the 5G VINNI facility (*) in order to identify
strategic advantages and mitigate bottlenecks for its members.
– A set of 19 key internal and external aspects were identified
• Then, we identified potential strategies and actions in order to move to the
next ML
– Attack Strategies (Strengths & Opportunities)
– Reinforce Strategies (Weaknesses & Opportunities)
– Develop Strategies (Strengths & Threats)
– Avoid Strategies (Weaknesses & Threats)

(*) Similar results should be obtained for other 5G facility sites, i.e., 5G-EVE and 5GENESIS, as
these have similar objectives, structure and deal with the same external aspects.

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 Internal & External aspects

01.Oct 2019 2nd workshop on 5G-Trials – From 5G Experiments to Business Validation 7

 Internal & External aspects

binary pairs

01.Oct 2019 2nd workshop on 5G-Trials – From 5G Experiments to Business Validation 8

SWOT analysis for ML2 of 5G-VINNI facility
For each aspect, a value
in [-5,5] was computed
by involving the relevant
stakeholders
• Brainstorming with 3
Network operators
• 31 vertical
representatives
responded to a 5G-
VINNI online survey

01.Oct 2019 2nd workshop on 5G-Trials – From 5G Experiments to Business Validation 9

TOWS analysis for ML2 of 5G-VINNI facility
Strategic directions were proposed
to mitigate threats and improve
weaknesses (TOWS analysis)
• “Attack” strategy S1: support
verticals in moving from
technical validation to business
experiments by exposing open
APIs
• “Reinforce” Strategy S3:
Expand scope to meet verticals’
eagerness to digitalise by
supporting facility interworking
• “Develop” strategy S6: drive
the 5G standardisation process
 trigger vertical standards
• “Avoid” strategy S7: third-party
solutions should not be
screened, but encouraged via
monitoring and SLAs

01.Oct 2019 2nd workshop on 5G-Trials – From 5G Experiments to Business Validation 10

 Conclusions
• Precommercial 5G facilities can solve the “chicken and egg”
problem and provide valuable insights to all market actors
• Most internal & external aspects were found to be strengths
& opportunities for ML2
– Slow vertical-domain standardization and limited culture for
collaboration are the major threats
– Restricted customer set and inability to expand coverage are the
major weaknesses
– A set of strategies have been identified to mitigate the impact of
threats and weaknesses when moving to ML3

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 BACKUP

01.Oct 2019 2nd workshop on 5G-Trials – From 5G Experiments to Business Validation 12

 The Impact Of 5G on Vertical Industries’ Innovation
Potential

At least three interesting families of use-

cases can be identified for each vertical
domain; the average was more than six.
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