Innovation is making advancements in connected vehicles and travel a reality—but new problems are arising. In recognition, Vodafone, Nokia and Chordant are developing a new mobility cloud platform to improve the safety of road users, and it is being tested for the first time on the open road in the UK. This “vehicle to everything” road system will provide digitally connected road users with live, highly localized traffic updates. Continental and Deutsche Telekom are also focusing on safety by developing a system that warns of accidents between connected vehicles and cyclists or other vulnerable road users such as scooter riders and pedestrians.

As work in innovation prepares humanity for a return to the Moon with NASA’s Artemis I mission, Northrup Grumman is getting ready to provide the propulsion. The firm announced the shipment of 10 rocket motor segments to the Kennedy Space Center, assembled with 3D printing and computer modeling to modify heritage component designs from NASA’s defunct shuttle program. But it’s not just the sky Northrup Grumman is focusing on; it’s been awarded a newly expanded role as systems integrator for C5ISR and control systems on the US Coast Guard Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) to make navigating the sea safer and more secure.

Technical innovation news also included announcements of partnerships designed to push the boundaries of new ideas and developments. AT&T and Texas A&M University will open private 5G testbeds this fall to public and private sector organizations to develop and innovate with 5G powered applications and solutions. Morgan Stanley and Microsoft announced a strategic cloud partnership designed to help shape the future of innovation in the financial services industry. And Alteryx and KPMG announced a strategic alliance to help organizations accelerate data-driven business transformations, combining Alteryx’s data science, analytics and process automation platform with KPMG strategy, technology and professional services experience.

5G News

In global 5G news, a new Ericsson Mobility Report projects that 5G mobile subscriptions will exceed 580 million by the end of 2021, driven by an estimated one million new 5G mobile subscriptions every day. According to the research, 5G remains on track to become the fastest adopted mobile generation in history.

The pace of 5G rollouts, adoption, and innovation is hot, and challenges of 5G complexity are real. To help mobile operators overcome them, Guavus introduced a new 5G network data analytics product, called Guavus 5G-IQ NWDAF, to tackle 5G complexity and deliver new 5G services.

In other 5G news, Nokia, Qualcomm Technologies, and UScellular announced that they have achieved a world record extended range over mmWave of more than 10km utilizing Nokia’s 5G extended-range millimeter Wave (mmWave) solution on a commercial network. Nokia also announced together with AT&T the acceleration of the US C-Band rollout with the completion of the first call on AT&T’s network utilizing C-Band spectrum. In other Nokia 5G news, it has launched a new platform and services to strengthen 5G security for service providers.

Vodafone has had a busy month in 5G news, too. Vodafone has selected key strategic vendors to build Europe’s first commercial Open RAN network. Among them are Dell, NEC, Samsung Electronics, Wind River, Capgemini Engineering and Keysight Technologies. In the next step toward advancing Open RAN, Vodafone and its partners Cohere Technologies, VMware, Capgemini Engineering, Intel and Telecom Infra Project have successfully demonstrated how the network platform can further boost the capacity of 5G where multiple customers are using the same site. This is Europe’s first multivendor RAN Intelligent Controller implementation. And in the UK, Vodafone has named NEC as its key supplier for 5G massive MIMO radio units for building commercial Open RAN.

Speaking of Open RAN, Nokia has announced the opening of its Open RAN Collaboration and Testing Center at its offices in Dallas. The center is designed to support the development of partnerships among O-RAN vendors that will help with the verification, introduction, and launch of O-RAN compliant solutions to market.

Network Evolution News

In network evolution news, the Federal Communications Commission has proposed rules that would prohibit all future authorizations for communications equipment deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to national security. This is the latest action to protect the supply chain of equipment and services within the US and a step to ensure that public funds are not used to undermine or pose a threat to national security. In another public safety move, the FCC announced breakthrough agreements with the US’s three largest mobile phone providers to start delivering vertical location information in connection with 911 calls nationwide.