A new way to build and deploy telecom infrastructure

Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Community provides collaborative working environment for operators and start-ups.

What is TIP?

Founded in February 2016, the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is an engineering-focused initiative driven by operators, suppliers, integrators, and startups to disaggregate the traditional network deployment approach. The community’s collective aim is to collaborate on new technologies, examine new business approaches and spur new investments into the telecom space. The founding members – Facebook, Deutsche Telekom, Intel, Nokia and SK Telecom – have since been joined by over 500 carriers, equipment vendors and systems integrators.

What is mmWave within TIP?

Deutsche Telekom co-chairs the Millimeter Wave Networks Project Group (mmWave) within TIP. This group strives to take advantage of the many available mmWave spectrum bands to develop new approaches for very high performance and cost-efficient access and metro networks. The group will develop an “end to end” solution using wireless links operating in mmWave bands and that are integrated in a mesh architecture and managed by an SDN-like cloud compute controller. While the initial emphasis of the project group is related to the 60 GHz range of mmWave band, the majority of the engineering efforts can be applied to systems operating on other mmWave spectrum bands. One of the goals the group has set for itself is to come up with a number of telecom operator use-cases and the respective system architectures. These use cases include delivering fiber-like gigabit data rates to residential and consumer customers, backhaul for cellular and Wi-Fi access, and dense connectivity for Smart Cities. The overall goal is to deliver cost efficient and innovative solutions, while at the same time creating a community-driven ecosystem to meet the needs of telecom and city operators.

What is DT’s focus within mmWave?

DT will focus on the use cases mentioned before, including deploying mmWave technology to deliver fiber-like gigabit data rates to homes, businesses and apartment buildings (Wireless to the building, Wireless to the home); providing  backhaul for cellular and Wi-Fi access; and establishing dense connectivity for Smart City applications. Among the currently existing 4 working groups (validation, economics, best practice, planning), DT leads the economics and validation working groups.

Current status

In addition to the good progress being made by all of the mmWave Networks project’s individual working groups, we have recently completed the implementation of a mmWave test network at our premises in Berlin. This allows us to evaluate and robustly test the technology’s capabilities and performance characteristics in an almost real-world environment. This mmWave network outdoor test bed will allow us to evaluate the radio link aspects and overall system capability in different weather conditions. Following the community model approach, this test network will be accessible to TIP project members and represents an important tool for the development of innovative technologies.