Dr Werner Mohr, Chairperson of Net!works

in ICT by alovering — August 27, 2011 at 11:11 am | 0 comments

Dr Werner Mohr, Chairperson of Net!works (formerly eMobility) explains how the European Technology Platform is addressing the problems presented by mobile communication systems, which are estimated to number 50 billion devices by 2020, and discusses how research is responding to these hot topics

 

Firstly, could you outline the role of Net!works and the main aims and objectives of the Platform?

The Net!works European Technology Platform was prepared in 2004 and officially launched in March 2005. Its main objectives are to identify future research topics – with particular emphasis on mobile and wireless communications – and to offer networking opportunities to different stakeholders in the community, putting the opinions of this community to the EU Commission, while providing instruments for the development of research programmes. For this purpose Net!works is involving stakeholders from industry, network operators, SMEs, R&D centres and universities to coordinate views and research topics in order to achieve a wide consensus. Currently, Net!works has more than 750 member organisations. The main deliverable of Net!works is an annual version of the Strategic Research Agenda and White Papers, which are used by European Commission for the development of future work programmes and framework programmes. The Platform is also contributing to national research programmes based on its achieved consensus positions.

How is Net!works bringing together European organisations to address, as a community, the challenges of future networks, building on Europe’s success in mobile communications?

Net!works is a virtual organisation of more than 750 member organisations. It is not a legal body and there is no membership fee. Based on the governance structure there is a fully elected Steering Board with members from industry (manufacturers, network operators), SMEs, R&D centres and universities. This allows us to build on Europe’s success in the development of complex communication systems such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and Long-term Evolution (LTE).

In what manner do you communicate new research topics to decision makers in industry, research and government organisations?

Net!works offers the opportunity for all its members to identify new research topics and to provide the justification for such research towards decision makers in industry, research and government organisations. Net!works is committed to interacting more with actors outside the research community. Decision makers from the various public authorities in charge of economic development or local and regional policies, for example, will be asked to provide their views and to cooperate. We are organising Mirror Group meetings with national authorities together with other ICT European Technology Platforms to discuss views with representatives from Member States. For instance, during the last ICT event, in September 2010, the MEP Catherine Trautmann participated in a session organised by Net!works on Smart Cities. Net!works is increasingly organising meetings with political representatives to enhance the information exchange between the political and technical domain.

How have you strengthened Europe’s leadership in networking technology and services? What has this meant for Europe’s citizens and the European economy?

System developments such as GSM, UMTS and LTE were significantly influenced by collaborative research projects at a European level in EU Framework Programmes and Eureka clusters, influencing international standardisation.

Seven of the 10 largest telecoms operators in the world are from Europe. 50 per cent of the sector’s revenue is driven by fixed and voice telephony and broadband communications. European telecom operators in 2009 had a workforce of about 1 million employees and R&D spending of over 4,500 million euros.

A strong European leadership in communication networks is important for both Europe’s economy and citizens. Indeed, networking technologies and services have a crucial role in the European economy. By contributing greatly to the GDP, the productivity and the European growth, it serves all citizens, with ICT contributing to economic growth by 50 per cent.

What relevance does this technology have for the political sphere?

Beside the economic importance of communication networks, this sector is also key to overcoming the grand societal challenges Europe is about to face: climate change; energy and resource efficiency; health and demographic change, and transport. These are the political priorities of today and ICT can provide the political sphere with concrete contributions for overall solutions. Several examples are summarised as follows:

• Concerning environmental questions, ICT can have many applications such as monitoring environmental parameters, and providing the means to have alarms eg. in case of floods, fi res, volcanoes eruptions, etc., efficient resource management, and technology waste

• With the ageing population in Europe, health is becoming a growing priority. ICT can assist these changes thanks to future wireless diagnostic and disease management systems, hospital consultation and emergency scenarios, assistive technologies, and personalised treatments

• Finally, communications networking technologies can contribute to the sustainable development of cities and facilitate more efficient and effective transportation: urban and road traffic control, efficient trip management, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications, the mobile office, and increased security

For all these elements, Net!works can help by assuring exchanges with stakeholders and professionals, addressing government policy and regulation related issues in order to overcome possible obstacles to implementing innovative solutions.

To what extent is energy consumption in communication networks becoming a major concern and how is research responding to this hot topic?

The challenges that the world faces concerning energy, such as scarcity of resources and climate change are global issues that need to be handled holistically, rather than separately addressing all sectors. Based on this principle, the industry’s environmental approach is to achieve a net positive impact on the environment through:

• Minimising the suppliers and operators’ environmental footprint

• Utilising telecommunications, for instance as a medium to encourage the reduction of CO2 in other industry sectors

Research has responded to this and as a result telecoms suppliers have developed energy efficient network equipment, combining products, solutions and services. This is critical to operators since around 86 per cent of the telecoms energy footprint emanates from the network.

Another important factor about ICT is its ability to reduce green house gas emissions across a range of industry sectors. Examples of such initiatives are: dematerialisation, smart logistics, smart transportation, smart manufacturing, smart metering and smart grids (GSMA: Mobile’s Green Manifesto). By 2020 the sector’s energy demand will have expanded tenfold, but CO2 will only double (4 per cent of global emissions by 2020 according to Smart2020 report). Therefore the impact that we can have on other industries in terms of improving their energy efficiency is enormous. ICT is in a unique position to reduce the environmental impacts of other industries by:

• Making their operations more efficient (through monitoring and optimisation) and replacing physical products with electronic versions (dematerialisation)

• Enabling environmentally friendly services

• Reducing the need for travel and transportation

With ICT being increasingly applied to solve societal challenges, what new problems do you anticipate this presenting?

Societal challenges will result in new and additional requirements beyond communication networks. Depending on the societal challenge, additional and new requirements on security, privacy, latency, reliability and availability for ICT systems can be expected. Industrial applications for critical processes may result in an increased need for reliability and availability. Certain mission-critical applications need low latency for fast control needs. For example, privacy is an essential requirement when handling personal data in eHealth applications. Most applications need high security for data transmission and handling, therefore new research topics beyond today’s requirements will be identified and, where available, knowledge and system solutions can be applied with necessary adaptations.

The Future Internet Public-Private-Partnership, part of the EU’s seventh Framework Programme (FP7), is addressing such challenges and the identification of requirements from different usage areas on the ICT technology platform. This approach is contributing to a closer cooperation between industry sectors and Net!works is supporting these activities.

What does the future hold for Net!works? According to recent predictions, there will be 50 billion mobile devices in the world by 2020. What does this development offer Europe?

Net!works is focusing on mobile and wireless communications and is extending its scope to broadband optical communications. In the meantime the number of global mobile subscribers exceeded 5 billion. In addition, machine-to-machine communications and sensor networks are increasingly becoming important for many solutions to Grand Societal Challenges, such as environmental monitoring. In this context, we can expect 50 billion mobile devices by 2020. These systems require new radio access solutions and network architectures, which are efficient, scalable and where complexity can be managed. This offers many new research challenges and opportunities for cutting-edge solutions. Based on the experience and success of the European industry and research community, there are great opportunities for future-orientated developments which can provide competitive advantages. These developments require cooperation across different sectors to develop new solutions and new competitive business models.

Net!works is dealing with these relevant technologies and in the context of Future Internet is increasing its cooperation with other sectors. Different ICT European Technology Platforms are also collaborating towards Grand Societal Challenges. Therefore, Net!works is further developing its structure and objectives in response to a changing environment.

www.networks-etp.eu

Tags: Dr Werner Mohr Net!works