5G Technology ecosystem

Digitalization, platformization, and ecosystemsDigitalization has enabled companies to create novel value and offer service configurations by incorporating and combining emerging tech-nologies either as a main value driver or as a complementary agent. Reflecting on mobile communications and ICT in general, the business value creation has changed from a connectivity approach (ICT as a communication channel) through an immersion approach (ICT as an operating environment) to a fusion approach (ICT as fabric), where modular platforms can be adapted and intercon-nected in different ways. Digital technolo-gies have enabled opportunities for value co-creation through services by connecting actors who would otherwise not have been connected. Consequently, companies have increasingly adopted digital platforms to mitigate service innovation challenges. Through digital platforms, the flow of information is mediated, which enables the interconnection of products and services, as well as data flows between different actors (e.g., service providers, customers, and end users) on multiple sides of the platform. As an example, Apple and Google have established digital platforms to develop new mobile data services by acquiring commercial ideas from firm customers and consumers. However, in these technology-mediated ecosystems, value creation by itself is insufficient, as one needs to consider the extent to which agents can capture value in a fair way with respect to their contribution.In the digital service context, defining and identifying individual contributions are not always straightforward, as some service processes might be hidden, and benefits and costs might be intangible. Furthermore, the value creation of digital services depends crucially on the network effects created by the platform. For example, the value of a mobile phone operating system platform for end users depends on the number of application developers as well as the applications developed by them. In sum, new technologies and the concomitant emergence of various digital services have enabled new means of value co-creation.From platformization…The integration of various forms of value co-creation present requires ecosystem actors to interact through the exchange of resources in the context of their own reality. Plat-formization and the modularization facilitated by the convergence of ICT technologies enable novel configurations of needs and resources. It has been argued that platform-based digital markets can alter the way companies generate and deliver value to end customers. The purpose of platforms thus is to “facilitate the multi-party exchange of products, which can be goods, services, or even social currency” , in the creation of novel value while ensuring value capture. Platforms can be conceptualized as interfaces—often embodied in products, services, or technologies—that can serve to mediate transactions between two or more sides. From a more technology-centric perspective, digital plat-forms can therefore be explained as software-based external platforms. These platforms consist of an extensible codebase of a software-based system, which provides core functionalities shared by the modules that are interoperating with it and the interfaces through which they are interoperating.Thus, in ecosystems characterized by technological interdependence between companies, the value created by a particular firm’s techno-logical choices is highly dependent on the choices made by other ecosystem actors that possess complementary technologies. Therefore, to unlock network effects and create ‘lock-in,’ technology ecosystem actors need to coordinate these choices not only with upstream and downstream value chain participants, but also with competitors and complementors. Consequently, to fully leverage technological ecosystems aimed at value co-creation, adaptations are required by the complementors as well as the focal firm, resulting in a co-specialization of the underlying economic, tech-nological, and cognitive architecture. Furthermore, tech-nology ecosystems constantly co-evolve and self-organize, leading to changes over time in the interdependencies and relationships between actors, co-creating value and therefore require agile governance models.… to ecosystemsFrom a firm-centric perspective, value creation may be defined as an actor’s attempt to increase value, whereas value capture is explained as the process of securing financial or nonfinancial return from value creation. However, as we move value creation toward platform ecosystems, we need to address the system-centric perspective as well. Platforms present the highest potential for co-creation, where an array of peripheral firms are connected to a central platform via shared or open-source technologies or technical standards with the objective to co-create value. From the ecosystemic perspective, the logic is to enable value creation for all stakeholders, not only how it is captured by the focal firm. Thus, value co-creation may be identified as a “joint, collaborative, concurrent, peer-like process of producing new value, both materially and symbolically”.The co-created value is co-captured through sharing and distributing the revenue between ecosystem members. Thus, value co-capture through platforms is realized through resource exploitation and coopetition, and through the provision of a unique platform by a focal actor for complementarities. However, commitment from the ecosystem actors and stakeholders invokes an extra dimension, value sharing, as potential stakeholders will not hand over their resources unless in return for what they can obtain from the relationship of the exchange. Particularly, it stressed that for platforms to win at sharing value, it requires that both orchestrators and complementors work to further each other’s interests.Value networks and technology ecosystems of complementary actors have become central to successful value creation. With the emer-gence of these technology ecosystems, companies can combine capa-bilities across boundaries into innovative new service offerings and solutions to co-create and capture value. Thus, ecosystem partners face tensions from simultaneously sharing knowledge, while protecting internal knowledge to preserve their competitiveness. Therefore, to avoid the potential threat to the efficiency of value co-creation, the actors should consider simpli-fying the contracting and negotiation processes, formalizing knowledge transaction processes, and they need to implement transparent gover-nance mechanisms. These are typically handled by centralized rules and standards organized around a digital platform. Thus, platform governance of value co-creation broadly concerns the design and deployment of gover-nance choices, including decision rights, incentive structures, and control mechanisms. We, therefore, view ecosystem governance for value co-creation from a co-alignment structure perspective, which allows actors to productively combine their co-specialized inputs toward a joint value proposition.
3GPP cellular wireless communication standards has introduced new usable frequency bands to increase connectivity around the world, as well as new Carrier Aggregation (CA) combinations, driven by operators, to improve scheduling flexibility, maximize network efficiency, throughput and coverage. These features require the UE device to support a higher number of frequency ranges, a larger total frequency span, and an increased number of simultaneously active bands, which increases the complexity of the antenna design and its implementation into the form factor of the device.The primary frequency range for 3GPP goes from 410 MHz to 7125 MHz and is referred to as Frequency Range 1. FR1 is broken down into the following bands:• Low-Band (LB): below 960 MHz• Mid-Low-Band (MLB): from 1427 MHz to 1518 MHz• Mid-Band (MB): from 1710 MHz to 2170 MHz• High-Band (HB): from 2200 MHz to 2690 MHz• Ultra-High-Band (UHB): from 3300 MHz to 7125 MHzHigh-end cellular devices typically support Multiple Input Multiple Output (MiMo), a wireless technology that uses multiple transmitters and receivers to transfer more data at the same time. These devices support 2x2 MiMo for LB and 4x4 MiMo for MLB, MB, HB and UHB. Cellular devices must have a minimum of 4 antennas integrated into the form factor to support MiMo technology. However, many devices are implemented with more than one antenna to cover the relatively large frequency span from LB to UHB, and the actual number of antennas implemented to support MiMo for FR1 can easily be more than 10.One of the new additions in the 5G of cellular wireless communications is the introduction of mmWave frequency ranges, also referred to as Frequency Range 2 . The purpose of FR2 is to increase available capacity in specific areas, as FR2 system bands can support bandwidths up to 400 MHz that can be aggregated to 800 MHz. As a comparison, the maximum system bandwidth for FR1 is 100 MHz. FR2 currently includes two sub-frequency ranges: 
  • bands n257, n258 and n261 range from 24.25 GHz to 29.50 GHz
  • bands n259, n260 and n262 range from 37.00 GHz to 48.20 GHz