Schedule

New 5G rollouts, more diverse network technologies, and the emergence of new business models mean that tower companies need to be more agile, more data driven, and more focused on pursuing new revenue streams. As companies across industries have discovered, the best catalyst for all of these things is digital transformation. For tower companies, digital transformation isn’t just necessary—it’s necessary now. A perfect storm of factors is reshaping the operating environment and driving urgency to digitize core operations, respond faster to change (in particular, changing customer requirements), and leverage data to boost visibility, insights, and value generation. So how does a tower company, rooted in the physical world, become a digital player?​

Open Radio Access Networks, or Open RAN, refers to a disaggregated approach to deploying mobile networks by using open and interoperable protocols and interfaces, which allows for increased flexibility over traditional RAN systems. Open RAN can be implemented with vendor-neutral hardware and software-defined technology based on open interfaces and industry-developed standards. Open RAN is not a technology, but rather an ongoing shift in mobile network architecture that allows networks to be built using subcomponents from a variety of vendors. The key concept of Open RAN is “opening” the protocols and interfaces between the various subcomponents (radios, hardware and software) in the RAN. The benefits of this approach include increased network agility and flexibility, increased innovation and cost savings. Open RAN has been under development for some time and alongside technical progress there is now evidence of commercial advances. This session will investigate the state of the market at the end of 2020 and look ahead to the critical next steps that will enable deployment at scale.​

Thanks to increased pressure on miniaturization and densification, the services ecosystem serving mobile carriers' needs must turn to a new suite of tools, process management and integrated information sharing to manage data across five points of presence: macro sites, small cells, distributed network systems, fiber, and edge network architecture. This session offers a practical guide to what carriers and their deployment partners require in software, analytics and add-on functionality to direct and lead high-volume and fast-paced network deployment programs.​​

Enterprises and organizations deploying private LTE networks have many options when it comes to funding the deployment.  The network equipment can be purchased outright, installed and maintained by internal staff or by a trusted partner.  The network equipment can also be leased and paid for as-a-Service.  And many parts of the Private LTE solution can be hosted, allowing the resources to scale as needed.  This session will explore all these options, discuss the best fit for various applications and deployments, and examine the costs associated with Private LTE deployment, using both licensed and unlicensed spectrum options.​

The increasing demand for bandwidth offers new investment, acquisition and merger opportunities for mid-tier tower owners seeking to expand their footprint into fiber networks, edge computing sites, in-building neutral hosts and small cells. This panel discusses the market opportunities, capital sources and investment scenarios at play in the wireless infrastructure community, and offers examples on how tower owners can finance, acquire or exit their existing asset business. ​

The shortage of properly trained workers is the most significant challenge the wireless industry faces. In addition to towers, labor and a trained workforce is required for fiber network installation, small cell deployment, macro-site optimization and more. A systematic approach to attracting, recruiting and retaining a skilled, productive and safe telecom workforce is the subject of this roundtable session. Issues that are focused on include collaboration between employers, schools, workforce development organizations and all levels of government. Also learn more about private-sector initiatives to provide on-the-job training to create a pipeline for skilled labor and other successful measures to meet 5G labor demand. ​

"The elephant in the room with regards to Open RAN is integration,” says Patrick Filkins at IDC. To integrate Open RAN, a new approach is needed, not from vertically integrated and hardware-centric companies, but from a software-driven, open and open-minded ecosystem of hardware vendors, software vendors, system integrators, tower companies, real estate owners and more. Integration of Open RAN needs to be built for a software-centric world where software talks to all physical components to deliver scalability and innovation. What is not going to change is how physical components (towers, antennas, batteries, servers) are installed. What will change is that software will make those components smarter and interoperable and will help those components to be integrated and maintained, in most cases remotely with just a software upgrade, no tower climbing required. This session will discuss the difference between integration activities as applied to traditional RAN can or cannot be applied to a software-driven RAN.​

Siting, permitting, and backhaul are well-known issues in the deployment of outdoor small cells. But a fourth infrastructure issue – power – is often forgotten, just assumed to be available when and where it's needed. Connections to the small cell site from the grid are not always readily available. Utilities can certainly build out a drop connection, but often at a sizable cost. There is no silver bullet when it comes to powering small cells. The unique requirements of the application and the site will usually prescribe the best power solution. What are your options when power is cost prohibitive? Remote power and distributed power solutions are explored in this session. ​

5G brings notable improvements to speed, latency and bandwidth. On the surface, that means that your tenants could have faster, more reliable cell service. These upgrades also unlock additional features and functionality for connected buildings. While it may be possible to leverage 5G to achieve an interconnected immersive digital environment, it is helpful to understand the features that commercial real estate developers and in-building technology experts have found that drives adoption.​

Discussion and testing for 5G deployments are largely concentrated in concentrated area in the outdoor metro areas, leaving much larger percent of the U.S. population at a major disadvantage. New regulation and auctions opening up CBRS via shared spectrum create effective solutions to connect the rest of our user base indoors and outdoors. This session will share insights and best practices from rural Telco’s showcasing use cases for CBRS both indoors and outdoors. ​

Investors looking at the digital infrastructure market know that most existing assets enjoy high valuations. With the wave of private and public money targeting the digital sector in infrastructure investment, the question now is which is a better value: to build a new asset or buy an existing asset. This session weighs the two options and looks at the ROI from an investor perspective. ​

Demands on local infrastructure by network operators, site development partners, and even new entrants (such as IoT and connected vehicle platforms), is one of the largest challenges faced by decision makers in the public as well as the private sector today. The policy decisions at the local government level to accelerate economic development through innovation go hand in hand with the opportunities to generate value from 5G, fiber and other digital infrastructure. This roundtable provides insight and updates to the key legislative efforts by state and local government to manage the expectations of industry and local constituencies.​

Today, the big question is: Why do carriers even need to own their networks? MNOs are showing a willingness to “lease versus own” more parts of their networks. The main driver is the substantial capital expenditure needed to build and operate large-scale networks especially as wireless service revenues remain flat. What does this amean for the infrastructure sector? Shared RAN, Shared Spectrum, Shared Wholesale Network – the business of infrastructure sharing is moving beyond towers and sites. 

Virtualization of the radio access network (RAN) — arguably the most complex and costly part of the infrastructure — is gradually becoming a given. This trend is sending a wake-up call to the entire supplier community to embrace open interfaces, architectures, software. Their motivation is clear: to bring more effective competition in the market and thus, hopefully, reduce costs. This session examines the expected ramifications on infrastructure owners and partners on a move to an Open RAN environment.​

Virtualization of the radio access network (RAN) — arguably the most complex and costly part of the infrastructure — is gradually becoming a given. Unlike the traditional RAN, Open RAN decouples hardware and software, offering operators additional flexibility as they deploy and upgrade their network architecture. As such, it is causing significant technological and cost challenges to the three incumbent groups fighting it out for dominance in the market — Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei. Network operators are debating on how best to capitalize on the changes and the timescales involved. What are the implications for infrastructure owners and developers in an Open RAN environment? Will the potential for increased competition in the RAN supplier market result in new opportunities for towers, small cells and site development?​

For industrial enterprises, logistics and transportation companies and even higher education, Private LTE networks have moved to the forefront in the mobilization of enterprise IT systems. This session examines the applications driving new deployments of CBRS in the enterprise, including large-scale IoT and sensor networks used by manufacturers, distributors and producers in as they implement automation and self-monitoring technologies and analytics.​

Fixed wireless access is taking its turn in the spotlight, now that the government and the private sector are moving to invest, deploy and operate next generation gigabit networks to serve rural and under-served markets. This session discusses FWA against fiber, and details multiple use cases and business models that can be leveraged off of a FWA network, including last mile access; private LTE backhaul and enterprise mobility.​

Wireless operators shelled out billions of dollars in the C-Band wireless spectrum auction completed earlier this year. Verizon aquired 3,500 licenses for $45.5 billion, while AT&T picked up more than 1,600 licenses for $23.4 billion. T-Mobile, which already has a strong spectrum portfolio, spent more than $9 billion for 142 licenses. This session explores the impact on network buildout and investments in 2022 and beyond due to the massive investment in C-band spectrum.​

The robust deployment of hybrid infrastructure requires a smart and streamlined regulatory environment. Outdated and costly regulatory policies designed for the infrastructure of the 20th century may impair the development and deployment of infrastructure of the 21st century. Moreover, an excessively complex infrastructure permitting process can delay delivery of new investments. For virtually every digital infrastructure, there is a need to modernize existing regulations to reflect significant changes in technology advances and leading industry practices. This webinar examines the risk to investors with the pace and direction of Federal and State policies to support investment.​

Indoor areas with high data capacity demands, including offices, shopping malls and theaters, are a natural environment for initial indoor millimeter wave (mmWave) deployments. While mmWave technology has been utilized in outdoor networks, its application to the indoor environment is gaining adoption. This session provides a comprehensive look at indoor mmWave, including best practices in deploying the solution indoors; an overview of the technologies at work today; and finally, a discussion about the myths versus reality of mmWave in today’s 5G network evolution. Issues to be covered include: Debunking myths about mmWave technology; Best practices in deploying mmWave indoors; and Integrating indoor 5G with mmWave.​

This panel surveys modern business tools that have emerged to improve the efficiency of site development, ensure data accuracy, reduce manual operations, simplify project tasks, increase information sharing between dispersed field and office teams, and execute back-office functions efficiently. Those are the benefits of digitization and it is more important now than ever due to COVID-19. Operational excellence that will ensure improved margins as these challenging times improve.  ​

Despite the lingering uncertainty about the licensing framework for the shared CBRS bands, there exists strong interest about how and when Private LTE solutions can interconnect with the major mobile network operators today, tomorrow and over the next five years. This session focuses on the evolution toward cellular interconnect; what that means for neutral host networks (especially inside buildings), and how enterprises utilizing CBRS/OnGo can use cellular interconnect to maximize their private LTE investment. ​

5G networks will unleash a new series of high-speed services across billions of devices and the internet of things, or IoT, including high-definition video devices, self-driving cars and smart cities. Although these services are expected to evolve in multiple stages over the next decade, mobile networks will not be 5G-ready unless the necessary security capabilities are built in by design. Although these improvements will yield revenue opportunities for operators, the explosion of low-cost, low-power, unsecured IoT/sensors will also pose increased security risks for both operators and end users. Establishing the right security approach for the emerging 5G networks is critical.​

There are over 100 cell tower companies with headquarters in the United States. They range from the largest publicly traded tower companies to small operators with under 10 assets. With rollout of 5G networks and promise of next-generation advanced networks and services, the value of towers is expected to rise. But is that true with the low and mid-tier asset owners? This session examines the business of the private independent tower owner and their opportunities for maximizing lease revenues, merging and exit strategies.​

Today, operators have a range of hybrid configurations available to meet specific deployment requirements. At the same time, specific site requirements—such as installation speed, tower loads and minimal visual impact— suggest network owners and operators will likely need to expand their FTTA/FTTN toolbox if they are to continue to meet installation schedules and budgets. This session focuses on the available discrete and hybrid solutions and understanding the unique value proposition of each.​

This session discusses alternate small cell-siting opportunities, highlighting uniform systems that leading developers leverage to meet the speed and the carrier’s cost requirements to deploy small cells. While a site acquisition specialist may identify a suitable building or pole, without proper processes in place, your interest in that site can be delayed beyond desired timelines. Additionally, our panel will uncover how to keep your interest alive with large utilities and portfolio property owners. ​

5G isn’t just a faster cellular technology. It has several characteristics that are driving WAN transformation in 2021 and beyond. For the first time in over a decade, enterprise architects have a new arrow in the WAN technology quiver–which means it is time to rethink WAN design. Finally, SD-WAN enables enterprise users to mix and match 5G and wireline technologies for optimal performance. Find out how enterprise organizations are taking advantage of 5G’s capabilities, together with SD-WAN, to deliver WAN transformation.​

Multiple technologies exist to solve the rural coverage gap. This session focuses on the differences in three networking solutions, including fixed broadband wireless, fixed wireless utilizing CBRS, and fixed wireless utilizing TV White Space technology. Attend to understand the differences in propagation characteristics, deployment costs, bandwidth and throughput, and partner ecosystems.​

The Biden Administration as well as other agencies within the federal government (including the FCC) have pledged billions of dollars in digital components of the nation’s infrastructure. This session presents a comprehensive view of the current and expected funding initiatives and explores the impact this money has on M&A, new builds, and new investments. What strings are attached to these funds, and how are private organizations maneuvering to use, or not use, the investment? ​

Neutral hosts act as an intermediary between building owners and mobile operators, particularly for in-building scenarios. With demand for more capacity and connectivity necessitating wireless network densification, indoor and outdoor buildouts can be capital intensive, especially at venues like mass transit stations, stadiums, campuses, dense metropolitan areas, shopping malls and convention centers where provisioning service for more than one mobile network operator is essential. In addition, new licensed, unlicensed and shared spectrum being made available to bring a range of new services for end-user applications, exacerbates the site infrastructure ROI challenge for enterprises, venue owners and third-party owners of multi-operator networks. This session looks at the considerations for deploying cost-efficient wireless networks with scalable configurations to minimize operational complexity of multi-operator upgrades and provide economic viability to leverage future spectrum allocations for either improving capacity per user or monetizing new use cases. ​

For successful deployment of 5G, mobile network operators (MNOs) need transport technologies that can meet stringent throughput, latency, and reliability requirements over increasingly densified networks. 5G network operators are today faced with an increasing array of choices in designing, architecting, and managing their networks. Operators can now select from a variety of wireless and wireline transport options to address the specific topologies and use cases envisioned for their mobile wireless network. This session examines the age-old backhaul challenge but with new information in terms of transport alternatives: HFC, FWA, mmWave, and fiber.​

Next-gen communication networks made up of fiber and 5G technologies have geographic dependencies that are forcing the industry to re-think how they use GIS and mapping software. Location intelligence is becoming fundamental to delivering all types of communication services – mobile and fixed, residential and enterprise. Geospatial platforms are enabling digital transformation by providing location intelligence to the entire organization to support network planning, buildout, fulfillment and assurance. This session features a new look at next-generation GIS tools that are instrumental in efficient network deployment planning and operations.​

There is an intense debate around Wi-Fi 6 and 5G as these technologies unlock unprecedented performance in terms of throughput, capacity and low latency. As organizations make their investment decisions, they are increasingly asking the question “which technology will prevail?” This session addresses the 5G vs Wi-Fi rivalry; discusses the strengths of each technology, and the use cases both technologies enable. ​

As 5G moves toward adoption, virtualization of the RAN emerges and CBRS powered private LTE networks proliferate, the opportunities for the fiber transport carrier move beyond the traditional applications of backhaul, transport and fronthaul. Suddenly, enterprises of all sizes see 5G, network slicing and Private LTE offering new opportunities in application development and service enablement. This session discusses the combination of CBRS and fiber transport to add new value from services, computing and communications.​

The Biden Administration as well as other agencies within the federal government (including the FCC) have pledged billions of dollars in digital components of the nation’s infrastructure. This session presents a comprehensive view of the current and expected funding initiatives and explores the impact this money has on M&A, new builds, and new investments. What strings are attached to these funds, and how are private organizations maneuvering to use, or not use, the investment? ​

Discussions about 5G tend to prop up references to MEC. 5G services will eventually require multiaccess edge computing capabilities, however, 5G architecture is not an absolute prerequisite for MEC. Owing to its scalability, Edge Computing can be deployed in a 4G environment which in turn can be used as a starting-off point for 5G for migration later. Service providers can therefore deploy MEC capabilities in the present to open-up new and versatile revenue-generating opportunities such as VR gaming and self-driving vehicle platforms without investing in a complete 5G overhaul. Our panel details the elements that go into successfully implementing a MEC network for CSPs for them to be better prepared for 5G and IoT. The session will also identify some of the key challenges that CSPs will face when deploying MEC; from architecture, connectivity and security to deployment feasibility and customer experience.​

The telecommunications industry is uniquely positioned to seize the opportunity of UAS, both for inspections as well as for the deployment of antennas for beyond visual line of site flights. Understand the impact UAVs have on cost, deployment time and management in the operation and monitoring of tower sites. From a policy perspective, discuss the future of UAS operations, current operational and legal challenges, and next steps.​

Enterprises that want control, dedicated services and data resiliency see the value in the deployment of a private LTE network as encouraging. Setup, network deployment and integration are details that some enterprise IT executives may not be ready for. This session examines the network-in-a-box trend, where RAN, virtualized Core and a self-commissioning and self-configuring network setup is an option.​

This session will discuss how the finance and investment community views various neutral-host business models and funding of new systems. This session will also discuss the outlook for in-building wireless network build and investments in the current post-Covid environment in which office space has increasing vacancies. What company and system-specific characteristics attract and deter investment and funding? This panel will explore how the financial community values DAS and what market trends could affect valuations in the future.​

Beamforming antennas are an essential tool for mobile operators as they build out their networks for capacity and 5G. Unlike traditional antennas that could transmit and receive only on fixed radiation patterns, beamforming antennas dynamically shape their main and null beam directions according to the location of their connected users. Beamforming antennas are unique in their ability to effectively reduce interference, improve the signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) and deliver a significantly better end user experience. This session is a guide to beamforming technologies and is designed for RF planners tasked with developing 5G and capacity build-out strategies, who risk over- or under-engineering parts of their networks, resulting in unnecessary costs, insufficient performance, or both.​