FWA: Scaling the Success

MWC Stage B, Hall 6 Tuesday 27 Feb: 4:15pm - 5:00pm

Aayush Bhatnagar

SVP, Technology,

Jio Platforms

Question:

What are the key selling points for FWA from an operator perspective and what benefits does it provide to consumers?

Answer:

FWA services delivered over 5G NR deliver the right balance between data rates and agility of service delivery. From a customer's perspective, while they benefit from a superior radio technology which provides better service quality, there is also less susceptibility to service outages.  

Question:

Is providing FWA services dependent on 5G technology or is a 4G connection sufficient?

Answer:

FWA delivered over 5G C-Band and mmWave provides the best customer experience and capacities to consumers.

Standalone network features such as network slicing (eMBB FWA slice), uRLLC (Gaming) and Reduced Capability (Home IoT) unlock the full potential of FWA, which otherwise are not possible to achieve on 4G or even non-standalone 5G networks.

Question:

Where do you expect the greatest demand for FWA services to come from – the consumer or enterprise sector?

Answer:

For India, which is a supply constrained market, both consumer and enterprises will generate tremendous demand. However, as the consumer base in India is massive from a consumption standpoint, demand from home use will dominate.

Question:

What do operators need to do to be successful in the FWA space?

Answer:

There are five key factors for success:

  1. The ability to automate and digitise 100 per cent of the plan-to-build processes for FWA deployment. 
  2. The use of SA 5G networks to slice the network resources for FWA use and smartly segregate it from mobility traffic, hence maintaining QoS.
  3. FWA terminal specifications are important from a RF perspective: the FWA CPEs provide a directional antenna and are mounted outdoors, presenting an opportunity for operators to improve the spectral efficiency of CPE.
  4. Network slicing in the core network is a key to success. 
  5. The ability to bundle and offer value-added services for enterprises and homes would be an important consideration for customer success.