Project FU5ION

Broadband access, in-home communication and WiFi are three separate technologies that must become one system managed by the operator so that the users’ services can work flawlessly. This new system should be capable of carrying 5G-services. Standardization is required and parts of that has started. The FU5ION project is to drive this process.

Operators are plagued with un-managed and unreliable WiFi connections in the homes. Masses of customers are calling to complain about their broadband, although the problem is often not in the broadband itself, but in the WiFi-link. Having the home-router as the demarcation point between operator and user become increasingly inconvenient for both customers and operators. All the telecommunications technologies used to connect customer devices must become a single management entity, a change that requires standardization.

In parallel, the mobile communications industry is gearing up for the launch of 5G. The ambition to beam into the homes using massive MIMO 5G is largely thwarted by modern energy-efficient windows and concrete walls blocking the radio signals. The 5G services coming up, not the least within health-care and well-being for the elderly, must work indoors. Our project FU5ION intends to make the fixed access network and indoor network 5G-service capable.

With all industries facing challenges concerning the future of communications inside and into the homes, the stage is set for a new regime, a new paradigm. From necessity, and partly based on the experiences from the G.fast standardization success story where the standardization process was shortened by about five years through collaboration in CELTIC-projects, we propose this project: FU5ION. The project is to be an industrial innovation platform facilitating the process of creating the new home connectivity.