Over two days during FYUZ 2024, our team engaged in dynamic discussions and panel sessions covering a range of topics, from Open RAN to TelcoAI. During the event, we sat down with Daniel Herb and Lee Dawson to explore how the industry is evolving toward a venue-pays model to enhance in-building connectivity. We also connected with Andy Hobbs and Neil Jackson to discuss the rapid acceleration of neutral host solutions, from initial ambition to refined execution.

Read more below from the TIP website: Posted Nov. 14th 2024: Telecom Infra Project wraps a successful FYUZ 2024

From November 11th to 13th, 2024, the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) held its flagship industry event, Fyuz™, at the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD) in Ireland. This year’s theme, “Accelerate: Accelerate your deployments, business, and innovation,” set the stage for three days of in-depth discussions and insights into the future of open and disaggregated network technologies.

Fyuz™ 2024 stood out as the only event that comprehensively covers every aspect of open and disaggregated network solutions and Telco AI, attracting a diverse audience of C-Level executives, visionary thought leaders, innovators, and disruptors. The event focused on how the latest developments in network technology can be deployed, scaled, and leveraged to drive business growth and foster industry innovation.

Day 1 zeroed in on accelerating deployments, featuring case studies and updates from the Telecom Infra Project, highlighting practical strategies for implementing open and disaggregated solutions. Day 2 focused on accelerating business growth, with discussions on how organizations can leverage network advancements to unlock new revenue streams and transform their business models. The final day was all about accelerating innovation, diving into how emerging technologies like AI, Open RAN, and other disruptive tools are reshaping the telecom landscape.

Fyuz™ 2024 welcomed 1200 registrants from 51 countries, representing mobile operators and other service providers, vendors, systems integrators, regulators, investors, consultants, analysts, business and trade media, with over 60% of attendees holding senior positions (Director and above). Approximately 30% of all attendees were service providers.

Kristian Toivo, Executive Director of TIP, said, “Building on the positive feedback and recognition we received for Fyuz™ last year, our aim for 2024 was to elevate the event even further for our community, sponsors, and event attendees. We’re thrilled by the level of engagement from our delegates and the meaningful discussions that have taken place here in Dublin. A key focus this year has been on advancing testing and certification across all domains and Telco AI, driving the progress of open and disaggregated networks. Fyuz™ has become the platform where our community can engage in open conversations about these developments, and we’re grateful for their commitment to making this event the industry’s leading forum for innovation and collaboration.”

Urban areas continue to be challenged with congestion of people, structures, and assets. Parking garages need to either be ‘constructed up’ by adding additional floors or built deep underground and under urban structures. The deeper underground facilities are, the harder it is for cellular signals to reach people and places. Critical infrastructure is connected to the cellular network to improve driver and parking experiences. The rise of 5G with towers that broadcast over shorter distances also contributes to increasing cellular coverage gaps and accentuates the interference caused by walls and other barriers. 

City residents, visitors, and workers deserve and expect seamless connectivity experiences from the drive to the walk and upon entering buildings or venues. This requirement is critical for urban structures including high-rise multifamily structures, office buildings, hotels, hospitals, and campuses. 

Millennium Garages and Dense Air Networks joined forces to test modern technology solutions to improve connectivity in one of the four underground parking garages in the heart of Chicago. These parking garages sit underneath the world’s largest green roof that offers 9,176 parking spaces across 4 million square feet. This collaboration includes a focus on targeting hard to reach locations, identifying connectivity gaps, and implementing solutions to enhance smart parking. The target location is a challenging area within the garage: a 200K sq ft area, 2 levels underground in Millennium Garages’ Lakeside facility, under Maggie Daley Park. This test bed uses one set of wireless infrastructure accommodating multiple carriers to provide a secure, flexible, and scalable network to ensure public safety and continuous connectivity underground. 

The overall underground parking environment can present cellular access challenges for many reasons. First, the deeper underground the garage, the more barriers, walls, and structures there are, which degrade cellular signal and can cause a complete signal loss. In addition, garages are constructed of heavy concrete and ready-mix materials that often block signals and present further disruption in connectivity. Highly trafficked urban areas can also present increased data usage that overwhelms the network and causes connectivity issues.  

In the case of Millenium Garages, the location is one of the busiest areas of Chicago. Large seasonal events bring volumes of visitors. The garages are strategically situated along vehicle, pedestrian, and public transportation thoroughfares. They serve as a gateway to Chicago’s world-class cultural institutions, tourist attractions, and central business district.  

Highly populated cities like Chicago focus heavily on innovation and are earlier adopters of digital and connected solutions. Urban structures including standalone parking garages are becoming digital, connected, and intelligent, and Millenium Garages is capturing this trend as it works with Dense Air. Cities like Chicago are also focused on green initiatives and sustainability practices that can bring added complexity as structures require modernization to meet sustainable development goals (SDGs). To progress SDGs, cities need to secure resources including utilities, as energy efficiency and the environment takes priority. Cellular connectivity becomes the fourth utility — alongside water, gas, and electricity — as cities innovate and digitize to create better experiences for locals and tourists alike, enhance city services, and modernize transportation in and out of the city.  

Highly populated and densely structured urban areas often suffer from dead zones, connectivity gaps, and interrupted cell signals. In addition to connectivity, safety and security of people and places is a high priority for owners, leaders, and managers. Connectivity is pivotal for critical communications and for response times as these entities lean on wireless for citizen and worker safety.  

Operations across city services and departments, from parking to transportation to trash pickup, are coordinated, planned, and dispatched using the cellular network. Providing optimal city and workplace services is foundational to the urban city experience. Other examples of buildings and structures that rely on wireless communications include everyday structures frequented for work, play, and living, including condominium and apartment buildings, hospitals, and sporting venues. For example, often just after we park, we are immediately grabbing our smartphone to review emails, to fill out paperwork, locate instructions, find the office number, or exploring where to walk. Having an obstacle for wireless access can frustrate the entire experience. Aging infrastructure and lack of connectivity make these challenges even more difficult to address. 

Dense Air addresses these challenges as a specialist in modernizing urban connectivity. The team works closely with customers to connect underground parking garages, multi-floor buildings, and dense areas throughout cities. Dense Air provides a unique solution for cities, building or structure owners, and facilities managers. We provide turnkey services to identify connectivity gaps, install hardware, implement software, and offer full-service management. This small cell Connectivity-as-a-Service (CaaS) solution removes the burden to city agencies, departments, and businesses.  

Dense Air’s CaaS solution strengthens cities by: 

• Enabling multiple carriers at the same time, in the same location 
• Facilitating easy, rapid, and cost-efficient integration into existing buildings 
• Ensuring security and reliability of the cellular connection 
• Providing a turnkey service 

Dense Air’s collaboration with Millenium Garages is a notable example of the commitment to supporting urban modernization. The project team will explore a variety of use cases as part of this project to connect customers, workers, and equipment. In addition to bringing two of the big three cellular carriers onto the network, Dense Air will support Millenium Garages in three areas:  

1. Deploy multi-carrier small cell solutions to provide continuous cellular coverage in challenging underground environments.  
2. Build the business and civic case for seamless, integrated connectivity. 
3. Create replicable, scalable models to bring reliable cellular coverage to difficult-to-reach facilities, including CaaS offerings that unlock public and private value.  

Businesses and cities want their infrastructure to do more. Cities require seamless connectivity for emergency response, dispatching prompt maintenance and repairs, routing for a delivery driver, and real-time situational awareness. Dense Air makes this easy by bringing connectivity experts while providing “white glove” turnkey services to lessen the burden. Services include operating, managing, and maintaining connectivity to meet business service level expectations and provide performance reporting with insights into the customer and environment experience. Dense Air is proud to support the modernization of urban areas, changing the paradigm through trusted and secure cellular services. 

Link to Press Release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dense-air–millennium-garages-collaborate-to-transform-cellular-connectivity-underground-302141201.html?tc=eml_cleartime

Related Links and Recommendations for More Reading: 

Small Cell Forum Use Case: Dense Air’s pioneering use of Split 6 enabling scaled small cell deployment. 

Pioneering the use of Split 6 fronthaul for scaled deployment of small cell clusters in network blackspots

Small Cells World Summit in London is just a day away, and Dense Air is excited to dive into informative discussions and insightful sessions. Our CTO, Andy Hobbs, will speak about the growing ecosystem of services needed for customers and how flexible, small cell solutions meet this expanding expectation. After this speaking session, Andy will be joined on stage with Radisys and Druid Networks to discuss open and inclusive, multi-carrier small cell solutions for in-building enterprise and targeted outdoor use cases such as “connected corridors.” 

As enterprises embrace digital transformation, mobile business solutions become increasingly robust, powered by cloud-native technologies, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Businesses today embrace both in-building wireless and workplace wireless connectivity as the foundation for productivity, connecting assets, and workplace efficiency. Dense Air partners with customers across industries and helps them advance their digital transformation journeys by strengthening their wireless connectivity. In pioneering the development of small cell centric technologies to deploy targeted clusters of small cells, Dense Air is enabling operators to provide pervasive connectivity in areas that were previously economically unviable.  

Why Dense Air? 

Dense Air, a Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP)company, is bridging the connectivity gaps across industries including manufacturing, hospitality, parking garages, healthcare, college campuses, commercial real estate, and multi-dwelling complexes. Our Connectivity as a Service (CaaS) solution augments mobile network operators’ existing networks to deliver optimal experiences to their customers, providing seamless connectivity for productive workplace activities and client engagement. 

Small Cell and O-RAN Basics 

Small cells support the densification of 4G and the adoption of 5G by delivering the flexible, scalable network infrastructure that is needed to bring higher capacity and lower latency services to end users and end devices.  

As mobile network operators adopt higher frequency bands for enhanced user experiences, they are faced with new challenges of shorter range and poor penetration. However, it is not cost-effective for carriers to build out additional coverage within a structure or building. This is where Dense Air steps in. Our solution ensures comprehensive coverage by mitigating the shorter range and poor indoor penetration associated with higher frequencies.   

Leveraging small cells that simultaneously use both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, we deploy clusters of low-power radio access points that are roughly the size of a small pizza box. Targeted deployments of small cells augment the existing macro network to strengthen coverage and capacity, while improving indoor and outdoor connectivity experiences. As the industry transitions to 5G and returns to the office/campus, small cell deployment will expand to improve connectivity where today’s solutions cannot.          

5G innovation and small cell advancements have led to the growth of Open Radio Access Networks (O-RAN), an open architecture that Dense Air has adopted in partnership with Radisys. O-RAN drives interoperability across equipment OEMs and vendors. In other words, radio equipment from varying vendors works together in an environment to enable plug-and-play flexibility and virtualization.  

Enterprise Relevance (The Neutral Host Approach) 

As enterprises shift from a ‘voice and data’ approach to a broader ecosystem encompassing automation, robotics, inventory management, real-time monitoring, critical communications, and immersive experiences, the need for optimized and flexible connectivity becomes critical. These businesses must leverage multi-carriers and dynamic solutions for both wired and wireless networking.     

Many in the industry are familiar with the Dense Air carrier agnostic approach and the ability to augment existing networks by identifying coverage gaps. Dense Air is also providing small cell CaaS solutions to enable enterprises to provide ubiquitous coverage and meet digital transformation goals.   

Dense Air’s advantages include:          

• Ease in complementing existing networks 
• Carrier-agnostic and CBRS-ready “shared wireless” 
• In-building and near in-building connectivity optimization 
• Reducing overall costs  
• Simplified integration and automation 
• Greater flexibility through dynamic and distributed architecture 
• Data-driven and cloud-native 
• Versatile spectrum utilization 
• Equitable and sustainable solutions 
• Expertise in targeting outdoor connectivity gaps 
• Scalability for both carrier and the enterprise 

The future of work depends on equitable, inclusive, and seamless connectivity experiences to work anywhere, optimize operations, deliver engaging customer experiences, and innovate. Dense Air is proud to support the carrier community, while providing the carriers and their enterprise customers with CaaS solutions to advance next-generation connectivity use cases. To learn more about our solutions, please visit our site at denseair.net or connect with us on social channels. 

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Additional Resources and Related Links: 

Dense Air: Bridging infrastructure and the cloud; shaping the ecosystem of shared wireless services 

5G Networks: Revolutionizing the Future

40 Tech Companies/Organizations honored in the 12th Annual CompassIntel Awards.

SAN ANTONIO, April 10, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Compass Intelligence is excited to announce the 12th annual award winners of the annual CompassIntel Awards to honor the top companies, products, and technology solutions in mobile, IoT, business tech and emerging technology industries. This year we received 112 nominations coming in from companies, public relations, and corporate communications firms, editors, journalists, analysts, and other colleagues. These awards were voted on by a group of leading industry-leading press, editors, journalists, thought leaders, and analysts in early April. A total of 40 awardees are being recognized this spring.

“This year, we are seeing an emergence of new business deals, continued consolidation, and the dust settling among industry participants as the market focuses on AI,” states Stephanie Atkinson, CEO & founder of Compass Intelligence. “The marketing cycle has moved from IoT to Edge to AI. The industry will continue to be pressured to demonstrate client wins, revenue growth, and real profitability. I would like to personally congratulate the 12th annual award winners for their leadership, innovation, and success!”

The marketing cycle has moved from IoT to Edge to AI. The industry will continue to be pressured to demonstrate client wins, revenue growth, and real profitability. I would like to personally congratulate the 12th annual award winners for their leadership, innovation, and success!

The award recipients of the 12th Annual Compass Intelligence Awards are as follows:

IOT | CATEGORIES

• Connected Building: Smart Lighting – Signify
• Connected Building: Smart Development and Design – ABB
• Connected Building: Commercial Product Innovation – GridPoint
• Connected Solution Leadership: Fleet Management Tracking – Samsara
• Connected Solution Leadership: Asset Tracking – CalAmp
• Top IoT Standards Body of the Year – IEEE
• IoT Data: Edge Computing Company of the Year – Akamai’s Gecko Platform
• IoT Data: Data Analytics and Software Company of the Year – Very
• IoT Vehicle Telematics Company of the Year – KORE Wireless
• IoT App Dev / Platform of the Year for the Enterprise Market – Snowflake
• IoT Emerging Company of the Year for the Consumer & B2B Market – iApartments
• IoT Emerging Company of the Year for the Enterprise Market – Armis
• IoT Enablement Company of the Year for the Enterprise Market – Netmore Group
• IoT Security Platform of the Year – Device Authority
• IoT Semiconductor Company of the Year – Cavli Wireless
• IoT Sensor Company of the Year – Arm
• Industrial IoT Company of the Year – ObjectSpectrum

MOBILE & BUSINESS TECH | CATEGORIES

• Workplace Device Innovation – Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
• Operations Automation – Prologis
• Mobile Customer Experience – Dense Air
• Enterprise Communications – Oracle Enterprise Communications Platform
• Team Collaboration – Salesforce’s Chatter Application
• Augmented Reality – Lenovo’s ThinkReality
• Mobile Equipment/Hardware Innovation – GXC Onyx Starter Kit
• OpenRAN Innovation – Mavenir
• Mobile Technology for Good – Samsung Galaxy for the Planet
• Work from Home Product of the Year – reMarkable 2
• 5G Innovation Product – T-Mobile Connected Workplace
• 5G Innovation Service – Ericsson Private 5G
• AV Innovation – HP | Poly Voyager Free 20 Wireless Earbuds
• Enterprise Solution of the Year – TEAL

EMERGING TECH | CATEGORIES

• Machine Vision Technology – Cognex Corporation
• AI Chatbot – ClearBlade’s GenAI Assistant for Intelligent Assets
• Artificial Intelligence: Enterprise Solution – CoPilot AI
• Natural Language Processing – emtelliPro+® AI assistant by emtelligent®
• Autonomous Systems – OTTO Motors by Rockwell Automation
• Sustainability Innovation – ION Clean Energy
• Digital Twin Innovation – NVIDIA Earth-2 climate Digital Twin Cloud Platform
• Intelligent Data & Analytics – Databricks
• Physical Digital Experience – CSG Xponent

NOTE: All company and product names are the property of the companies or organizations listed above.

https://www.prweb.com/releases/12th-annual-compassintel-award-winners-announced-in-iot-mobilebusiness-tech-and-emerging-tech-302111979.html

About The Annual Spring Awards

The 12th Annual 2024 CompassIntel Mobile/Business Tech, IoT, and Emerging Tech Awards honors companies, vendors, and organizations demonstrating innovation, leadership, disruption, and excellence in the technology industry. There are three primary areas of awards including Mobile/Business Tech, IoT, and Emerging Technologies, along with the CompassIntel personally selected awards. This year, there are 40 general award categories.

Learn more about the Awards: https://www.compassintelligence.com/compassintel-awards.html