JRC Publications

JRC welcomes the emphasis on Communications Systems Capability as a ‘Key Enabler’ for the ‘Future Worlds.’ It is worth noting that a key input on which operational telecommunications systems depend is radio spectrum. To this end and as part of the ‘Future Worlds’ analysis we encourage ENA and Government to explore the Operational Telecommunications (OT) needs of the Industry and in so doing seek to understand how to best serve these needs through access to both fixed and wireless networks.
There is likely to be a tension between the Economic, Commercial and Financial case. Perhaps the Financial Case could be considered sub-ordinate to the Economic and Commercial cases, since it is likely that Funding issues will be addressed for those Future Worlds that satisfy both the Economic and Commercial criteria.

It is important that ComReg does not overlook the importance of spectrum access for uses other than mobile data access. To this end we are encouraged by the initiative to enable access to the spectrum in the range 410-415.5 & 420-425.5 MHz which has the potential to support ‘Smart Grid’ developments in Ireland and be critical to helping the Irish Government deliver upon key environmental targets agreed with the International Community.

The four principles proposed in the consultation appear wise and well founded. However, there appear to be a number of significant assumptions in the consultation without the evidential basis to support the position being adopted. These include:
• The assumption that mobile phone networks will provide service during power cuts.
• The one hour minimum power backup duration seems sensible given the Ofgem data that 67% of power outages are restored within 1 hour.
• The assertion that most calls to the emergency services would occur shortly after the initial power outages has no evidential basis.
• Paragraph 3.10 describes a situation where some 'households have a history of long-duration power outages'. It is incumbent on the electricity network provider to remedy known situations.
• The increasing use of fempto cells to provide domestic mobile coverage, back-hauled on broadband, will not work if a power cut is not addressed.

The Joint Radio Company (JRC) welcomes the opportunity to respond to this call for views and in particular we support the approach from Government to provide funding support to 5G developments to enable future UK competitiveness.
In terms of the three use cases to be explored we endorse the observation that Massive Machine-Type Communications will be directly relevant to the ‘Energy’ sector in the future and see merit in linking this initiative to the Energy Network’s Association Open Networks Project which is seeking to establish sophisticated approaches to electricity Demand Management. In addition, when considering Ultra-Reliable, Low Latency Communications URLLC this also has a direct relevance to the Energy Supply Sector. The energy supply sector currently utilises this capability on a limited scale to control power supplies but in future there will be enhanced need for this capability at all levels of the energy network and as such the amount of active network components needing this type of critical communications capability will likely increase by two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, a key component of enabling URLLC type systems is access to resilient and robust energy supplies and / or having back-up energy present locally. Hence there is a direct relationship between the energy supply industry and future URLLC type solutions from both the Demand and Supply perspectives and we are keen to work with DCMS to establish this aspect as part of future initiatives.
Finally, it is worth noting the emphasis placed by Government on Mobile when describing the 5G initiative and we encourage Government not to overlook the potential for the 5G technology to be deployed in a Fixed Wireless Access context and that this approach should also be considered within the 5G Pilots.