Test and Measurement: Canadian 5G midband spectrum use expands

By Kelly Hill December 4, 2024

Collected at: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20241204/test-and-measurement/canadian-5g

Opensignal’s assessment of Canadian 5G service reflects slightly more use of midband spectrum

Canada’s 5G user experience is slowly improving, and its use of midband spectrum for Canadian 5G is expanding after a spectrum auction last year, according to new analysis from Opensignal.

The crowd-sourced network data and analysis firm said that, a little more than a year after Canada’s 3.8 GHz spectrum auction and resulting deployments, about 33% of Canadian 5G tests were happening on spectrum in the 3-5 GHz bands, up just 5% from the previous year but a “small step in the right direction.”

Opensignal’s analysis focused largely on the availability of 5G midband spectrum—which directly impacts 5G deployments and spectrum utilization—rather than simply looking at Canadian 5G speeds. Opensignal noted that, while Canada’s 3.8 GHz band was auctioned last year, the transition deadline for urban use of the band isn’t until March 2025, and not until 2027 for some rural areas.

However, Canada has already seen a modest expansion in the average spectrum bandwidth used per 5G connection in the downlink, which Opensignal said has gone from 47.1 megahertz last year to 51.5 megahertz. Opensignal also said that a slight improvement is being seen in the proportion of 5G tests which use more than 100 megahertz of spectrum—that’s up to 2.5%. Comparatively, nearly 45% of 5G tests rely on between 50-100 megahertz of spectrum.

Read more of the details from Opensignal in this blog post.

In other test news:

–Anritsu is in the process of buying a 32.72% stake in automated network and device testing company SmartViser SAS. Anritsu previously collaborated with SmartViser on test solutions for energy labelling in the European Union.

The acquisition of the stake in SmartViser, Anritsu said in a release, “will further strengthen Anritsu’s business partnership with SmartViser. By leveraging the synergy between SmartViser’s test automation and efficiency technology and Anritsu’s pioneering telecommunications technology, we aim to achieve a carbon-neutral and intelligent society in both the telecoms and smartphone markets as well as in other business areas, including private and mission-critical networks, automotives, and industries using communications.”

Anritsu’s board approved the purchase of the stake and the company made a stock purchase agreement with SmartViser last week. The purchase of the stake has to get regulatory approval before it is official.

–Tech Mahindra and Amazon Web Services have put together a multi-year agreement to jointly develop an Autonomous Networks Operations Platform (ANOP) for Communication Service Providers (CSPs) and enterprises.

The two partners said that the platform from Tech Mahindra is built on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and generative AI (GenAI) services supported by AWS, and combines Tech Mahindra’s telecom network expertise with Amazon’s SageMaker service for building, training and deploying ML models with managed infrastructure, tools and workflows. The ANOP platform, according to a joint release, boosts productivity for Network Operations Center (NOC) teams which manage physical and cloud infrastructure by more than 50%, cuts field visits by 15% and “shortens Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) for network and service incidents by more than 30%,” the partners said.

“The communications industry is at a pivotal junction of deploying disaggregated, virtualized and cloud-native RAN networks. Our collaboration with AWS empowers telcos to simplify operations, modernize networks, and unlock revenue through advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning,” said Manish Mangal, CTO, Telecom & Global Business Head, Network Services at Tech Mahindra. “By integrating AWS’s GenAI, our Autonomous Networks Operations Platform delivers real-time insights, intelligent workflows, and supports O-RAN adoption for efficient, proactive network management.”

–Keysight Technologies is working on divesting some of Spirent Communications’ business segments, in order to satisfy regulatory requirements so that it can close on its purchase of the U.K.-based network testing company. In an update from Keysight on the progress of the Spirent acquisition, Keysight said that it would divest itself of Spirent’s high-speed Ethernet and network security business. Read more details in this piece from RCR.

-A report on the wireless testing market from The Insight Partners estimates that the market was worth nearly $16.3 billion in 2023 and that it would see a compound annual growth rate of 9.4% through 2031.

The market growth is being driven by “rising adoption of Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, government initiatives in wireless testing and growing adoption of wireless technologies in various industries,” including 5G deployments, according to the firm.