Published:  18.9.2017

WIVE industry collaboration project increases competitiveness of automated transport, smart grids, massive machine connectivity and media delivery via 5G

An industry group including Nokia Bell
Labs and several academics in Finland has established a collaboration project called
WIVE (WIreless for VErticals) to make it possible for new types of industries
to gain competitive advantage from the latest wireless technologies, especially
5G. The project, co-funded by Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation (Tekes),
involves several industry, research institute and academic partners such as
Nokia, Teleste, Telia, ABB, Cargotec Kalmar, Finnish
Broadcasting Company (Yle), Digita, regulator FICORA, key Finnish universities as well as VTT Technical Research
Centre of Finland.

Tens of billions of connected devices will
converge into intelligent and programmable systems that will improve lives in a
vast number of areas over the next 10 years, according to some predictions. Transportation
and resource consumption, learning and work, treatment of health and wellness
will all be affected by this change which will bring massive opportunities for
these industries, but also new capacity requirements for the networks. The WIVE
project, which is planned to run for 2 years, will focus on the needs of
specific vertical sectors.

The WIVE project addresses the following vertical
sectors:

• Media and entertainment (M&E)

• Machine type connectivity for application
areas, including:

•Ultra Reliable Low
Latency Communications (URLLC), serving sectors like smart grids and remotely
controlled machines

• Massive Machine Type
Connectivity (mMTC), allowing high amount of devices to be connected with
limited cost and energy consumption.

The WIVE project targets to develop
concepts and enable technologies, as well as to test and experiment new
vertical services offered by 4G/5G especially for URLLC, mMTC, and media
content delivery. These new communication services have versatile requirements
e.g. for reliability, latency, data rates, security, and availability. The WIVE
project aims at demonstrating that these requirements can be fulfilled with
future 4G/5G networks with improved flexibility and cost-efficiency.

The WIVE project implements vertical
service pilots based on industry driven use cases on the top of 5GTNF testbeds
(e.g. TAKE-5 and 5GTN+) and tests new vertical services and applications in a
realistic testing environment (out of laboratory) to discover possible
technical and business opportunities and constraints associated with new technologies in
order to speed up the roll out of new vertical services in 5G. 

Spectrum is one of the key enablers
for the exploitation of the full innovation potential of 5G. Therefore, WIVE
takes an active role in investigating and promoting flexible spectrum policies
and spectrum management schemes to unlock new spectrum assets for 5G.

A vital part of WIVE is the focus on
the user dimension and identifying business opportunities for different
verticals. 5G enables innovative service concepts and business cases across
industries, as devices and machines are increasingly connected, paving the way
for new business models and markets to emerge in the connected world. The WIVE
project takes content consumption patterns and routines among end-users into
account when exploring new business opportunities and scenarios for 5G.

The fast paced technology development in the fields of Massive Machine Type
Connectivity (mMTC), Internet of Things (IoT) and Low Power Wide Area Networks
(LPWANs) such as Digita’s LoRa network are promoting the growth of ecosystems
of companies utilizing these technologies, and is enabling the emergence of
whole new business concepts. Collaboration projects like WIVE are crucial in
driving this development, comments Ari
Kuukka from Digita.

“The number of connected devices in
the Internet of Everything era will pose new challenges to future networks from
both interoperability, scalability and reliability perspectives. WIVE has a lot
to contribute here as part of and in collaboration with the 5G Test Network
Finland – on top of the media business transformation activities bridging the
work from the preceding research activities in the FUHF (Future of UHF)
project”, says Program Manager Mika
Klemettinen from Tekes. 

”Industry collaboration is
essential in fostering innovation around 5G, and for enabling different
industries to take full advantage of the faster connections that 5G promises.
Nokia Bell Labs has a strong focus on ultra reliable low latency communications
targeting new wireless communication systems for verticals, and the WIVE
project provides us with greater insight into the requirements and
opportunities for experimentation to test our solutions”, underlines industrial
coordinator of the project, Mikko Uusitalo, Head of Research Department
on Wireless Advanced Technologies, from Nokia.

More information about project: https://wive.turkuamk.fi/

Digita transmits radio and television programmes to everyone living in every corner of Finland every day of the year. We also apply the latest digital technology in order to develop and versatile online television and radio services. In addition,
our service portfolio includes comprehensive IoT services based on our
nationwide network, as well as world-class Data Centre Services. Our clients
are media houses and mobile and broadband operators that provide the very best
contents.