This month, the University of Sheffield launched its National 6G Radio Systems Facility providing an R&D facility for empirical research and testing of both current and future radio systems.
Real Wireless attended the launch event and was thanked by the facility leader, Professor Tim O’Farrell, for supporting the establishment of the centre. Now seems like an appropriate point to reflect on progress in the UK University Research sector which has been substantial. Following the announcement earlier in the year of the EPSRC Future Telecoms Research Hubs, this event marked the end of the beginning, putting in place the pieces of a sustainable collaborative research and knowledge infrastructure in the UK that is built on the science and technology base of the UK University sector.
We consult and advise clients in global markets, but we are a UK company. With employees that are typically STEM higher degree educated and from engineering and business of wireless backgrounds. This means we are highly networked into the UK university and industry R&D ecosystem and are regularly invited to participate as members of startup company boards, advisory committees in universities or regulators, and company strategic advisory groups, and provide innovation management services. The organisations we engage with will typically be seeking advice on strategic innovation models, to create value and establish their competitive advantage. To successfully fulfil these trusted roles, we are naturally somewhat circumspect in our views on some of the received wisdom within and from industry analysts and observers.
The future of telecoms is a global business and markets game – thinking parochially to the UK is not going to create a sustainable industrial sector. Several governments and global standards bodies have asserted their intentions to be competitive for 6G. Whether, in the opinion of Real Wireless, 6G and the Gs in general are a good thing for the mobile sector is a moot point. Wi-Fi as a sector has coped quite well without such a 10-year cyclical construct. Since the formation of Real Wireless, we have advised government, universities and industry on strategic themes in the nascent technology periods of 4G, 5G and now 6G. We have worked on Open Innovation, “front door”, research capability discovery, virtual centres of excellence, committees acting as sounding boards for policy makers on industrial and R&D strategy and policy.
We recognise the reality of the global battle for dominance in product, deployment, operation and utilisation of critical national infrastructure and fixed and wireless communications systems. The Gs have become much more of an incumbent industry and supportive government joint marketing platform concept over the years. Adjacent industries and companies will decide whether to align with the G, or not, based on their business interests. The vertically integrated telecoms industry coherence in both the technology and product platform domains is far less discernible these days. This is to no small degree because of industry players that have successfully harnessed cloud, and now nascent AI, and converged with the telecoms supply chain. Their power to continually disrupt B2C, B2B, and B2B2C models remains unchecked in a society where connectivity is pervasive. This is why it’s a welcome inclusion to the UK telecoms research hubs to integrate cloud research capability.
The National 6G Systems Facility launch event reflected optimism about the future of technology options but it was also certainly pragmatic about the uncertainties. It was acknowledged by speakers at the event that there is no consensus on “what” 6G will be, “when” is perhaps clearer from the incumbent standards bodies’ pronouncements. Whatever 6G is it will not be resolved in the UK University sector, but the sector must play its part in laying the foundations for industry based in the UK. In high technology sectors one should not underestimate the importance of a supply of the skills, and facilities in the R&D domain as a critical success factor. The way in which activities are clustered and nurtured will determine how effective the research excellence driven production of novelty from the University sector will ultimately prove to be for a country.
Through various public funding sources, the UK is investing in its science and innovation enabling base. However, innovation is about commercial markets, and universities are not significant commercial participants in wealth-creating industry markets. Some of the investments (as the money comes from public funds) are visible, whilst others are less so when industry investment is present. The cultural characteristic in the UK is the willingness of industry and university leaders to collaborate. However, the size of the domestic market leads to the inevitable need for international engagement, and strategic selection and investment in technological and innovation strengths.
Creating the university to industry interdependence is critical now. The UK has a track record of configuring the collaboration architecture that entangles research excellence from the Universities and with Industrial R&D. These have been formalised in the past through organisations such as Mobile VCE and 5G/6GIC. Collaboration between universities and industry and joined-up strategic thinking in the science and technology base is essential for a globally competitive economy. This is a principle that Real Wireless would stand squarely behind.
Clustering for research excellence outcomes is as much an art as a science – defined by the people and the facilities. There is an impressive industrial engagement in Sheffield through the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (part of the Catapult network in the UK). This shows a promising industry 4.0 engagement and the application of wireless systems in that business context. Their presentation at the event evidenced detailed evaluation of wireless systems performance in the context of their value-creating use cases, with a clear grip on the KPIs that will make the case for investment.
An uncertain business future – but research must go on. 6G is already asking questions of Industrial R&D budgets, but the commercials of 5G are still shaky; the declining capital intensity projections from financial analysts don’t bode well for mobile telecoms. In this context, recent statements from operators that 6G can’t be a hardware or capital budget line item, just opex, and that vendors should focus on software-oriented functionality will be playing on the minds of the system architects in the new product development groups.
Ultimately, the proof of the pudding will be in the outcomes down the track and those will take some time to be evident. Investing in the R&D domain requires an abundance of patience and clear vision on the desired impact in what we regard to be a post IT and Telecoms convergence era.
Learn how Real Wireless leverages research projects to provide advice their clients: https://real-wireless.com/bringing-telecom-research-to-life/