Many people are impressed with the work we do in the research sphere, which we regularly highlight on our website and social media. However, they’ve also asked us what function this work serves.
They ask whether we are, as well as advisory and consulting services, a research organisation that is inventing and backing specific technologies?
The short answer to this question is ‘No’. The long answer explains what our research is for – and that is the purpose of this blog.
Over the years we have engaged with Horizon Europe and UK collaborative research projects, where emerging wireless systems (such as 5G and 6G) and technologies are being investigated. But if, as I have said, we’re not a research organisation, why do we engage in research activities?
There is more than one answer to this. One involves our strategic thinking and innovation. We need to know the implications of emerging technologies. We need to answer the questions: “Is this research justifiable? If so, what’s next?”. Engaging in early-stage research stimulates our discovery processes in our innovation pipeline, working with university and industry-based researchers using our toolkit of knowledge transfer techniques. We test emerging ideas against today’s commercial frameworks and models that we maintain, and that we use for advising clients on their strategic choices. We can see how and whether such discovered ideas might be applied and scaled. We can even describe, and potentially address, the market for those ideas.
A second answer is that it’s also important for us to engage with research because it enhances our role as experts and helps us to advise you – our clients. We are research translation experts – translating research into the commercial domain. Our science, engineering and business domain experts want and need to stay well informed on strategic innovation potential, by engaging in future market and systems architecture topics.
More than ever, operators, vendors, users and regulators want to discuss what is being researched now, and whether they should be looking at it. Is a product proposition viable? Should they pursue 5G NTN-NR or wait for 6G? How can they guarantee that an investment in an emerging technology will work in the long term? These are the questions they ask, and our research monitoring and collaboration enable us to answer them.
Public network and alternative operator clients buying equipment and deploying networks today need to know how choices may evolve in a possible future. With margins tight, they need to avoid hardware rip-and-replace and be prepared for upgrades and software features to come. We can advise them – and tracking or participating in research helps our expert’s evidence and offer this advice.
A third answer involves our client base. Our research collaboration will not just benefit operators, vendors and users. Regulator clients are looking at emerging technologies and making decisions on regulatory timeframes that are 15-20 years ahead. We may not be able to offer a definitive scenario for 2044 – no one can – but we can apply practical horizon scanning experience. Some team members were present at the start of 2G and are now working on 6G and can articulate feasible scenarios. Understanding the research happening right now will help us to do this.
Again, this isn’t about owning IP, inventing things, “getting behind 6G” – or any other technology – or, if you prefer, betting on the right horse. We don’t have a runner in any race. We are independent advisers and consultants who ask practical questions. Questions like: how can a technology be made to work? Where’s the addressable market? What sort of supply chain could be involved?
Our principal concern is a techno-economic future: how products and systems concepts being researched now will fit into that future and what that means for our client’s investment, returns and total cost of ownership.
Also, today’s telecommunications research, like our own work, is not just about 6G. It’s about fixed, FWA, satellite, Wi-Fi, broadcast and all generations of mobile. It’s also about the convergence of some or all these technologies and their interaction with energy systems of the future. We need to keep abreast of where research could take all the technologies we work with – and we do.
But it’s also about understanding that not every research idea will be applicable or viable. Some of our clients are still buying 4G systems and passive DAS. If when evaluating our client’s requirements, our techno-economic models indicate that an LTE investment for a private wireless network will deliver, then we will say so. Clients can be assured about our depth of understanding regarding emerging technologies; they can proceed with confidence even if the supply chain is promising them tomorrow via the hype that tends to emanate from the latest fashionable research and standardisation activities.
Our view is Strategic Innovation must be informed by research. Real Wireless engages with the research ecosystem to inform our thinking on behalf of our clients. We want to understand the practical potential, if any, for vendors, operators, regulators, and end users of what is being discussed by academics, institutions and industrial R&D players.
We aim, in other words, to understand how research translates to the real world: into real fixed, real satellite and, of course, real wireless.
Find out how we can help your business or organisation here – https://real-wireless.com/expertise/
