Keysight Technologies speeds up Vietnam’s digital transformation

Soon Chai Gooi, senior vice president of Keysight Technologies

Could you highlight the advantages that Vietnam has as well as the possible challenges the country is facing in implementing 5G?

No previous generation of mobile technology has had the potential to drive economic growth to the extent that 5G promises. The technology will become significant in all sectors of society, and the World Bank directly correlates investment in broadband with a country’s economic growth, forecasting a 10 per cent increase in fixed broadband penetration should contribute 1.38 per cent to a country’s GDP. In Vietnam’s rapidly-growing consumer and industrial environment, gains will almost certainly be greater and faster, and this will give Vietnam an edge in competing for industrial and commercial investment internationally, if implementation is smooth and rapid.

Mobile network operators are eager to deploy 5G and deliver new services to consumers and industries. More than 350 operators worldwide have invested in 5G network tests, trials, pilots, and actual deployments, according to the Global Mobile Supplier’s Association.

But 5G and the new services it enables, will put pressure on networks and related resources as they race to support unprecedented latency and bandwidth demands.

Moreover, 5G also represents an exponential increase in technical complexity. Key challenges come from 5G New Radio, massive multiple input multiple output, millimeter-wave frequencies, and over-the-air test methods. Validation and testing throughout the technology’s development stages is critical for 5G to deliver on its potential, while delivering 5G takes end-to-end Layer 1-7 tests, precision measurement, and deep network visibility solutions to de-risk the development and operation across the ecosystem.

How will 5G impact sectors such as consumer electronics, manufacturing, energy, transportation, and education?

Internet of Things (IoT) applications in manufacturing and transportation automation will increase access requests and mobile automotive IoT applications will stretch latency demands as both formerly-disconnected environments connect online with specific expectations. Mobile edge computing will become more important to process the increased access requests and meet stringent latency requirements.

Apart from this, key challenges relate to IoT device technologies and the validation that they can interact reliably with one another.

The most important one of these issues can be described as the 5Cs of IoT: connectivity, continuity, coexistence, compliance, and cybersecurity.

Data centre infrastructure will get a speed upgrade. More users at higher data speeds will create demand for faster memory, data buses, and transceivers in the data centres.

Meeting the speed and flexibility demands will be one reason, but customer traceability through the network for application monetisation will be the main driver to upgrade to the latest standards.

Test design will be more complicated. Software-defined networks, advanced malware detection, and evolving new formats of large and small format data transfers will make embedded testing during operation vital to ensure operation.

Advanced design, test, and monitoring capabilities that ensure networks and products deliver the performance and failsafe reliability expected, will be on the rise.

The new networks will require dynamic data intelligence and dynamic network intelligence to monitor operations.

What is Keysight’s role and how can your company’s technologies help accelerate 5G in the country?

Keysight Technologies is at the heart of innovation processes in key technology areas, including 5G, connected and autonomous vehicles, e-mobility, IoT, and next-generation networking for data centres and clouds. Keysight’s expertise is critical to the overall process, from design simulation, prototype validation, manufacturing tests, to the optimisation of fielded products and production networks.

We partner with leaders across the 5G ecosystem – with chipset companies, device designers, network equipment manufacturers, and mobile network operators - to make sure that we are pushing the boundaries of measurement solutions to validate and accelerate their designs as they push the boundaries of technology innovation.

International and local examples of companies we are partnering with include all the key chipset makers.

Most recently, we have worked with Qualcomm Technologies to accelerate small cell deployment supported by 5G virtualised radio access network architecture, and Samsung Electronics’ LSI Business – a global leader in semiconductor components and 5G technology which manufactures in Vietnam - to validate dynamic spectrum sharing technology used in the smartphone maker’s new 5G modem.

We have also collaborated extensively with other leading global operators like Verizon, China Telecom, and Docomo, among others.

Keysight Technologies is engaged in many facets of accelerating 5G innovation. We participate in the development of the wireless standards in organizations like 3GPP – the standards organisation which develops protocols for mobile telephony, and we have contributed more to the development of the 5G New Radio standard than any other test vendor. By providing early access to key design and test capabilities, we enabled more than a several device makers to launch commercial 5G phones.

Keysight stands ready to assist Vietnamese mobile network operators and others in Vietnam’s 5G ecosystem, from our design and test expertise, and from our experience in helping industry leaders worldwide to solving their most difficult 5G problems.

One key initiative we are undertaking, is that we are holding Keysight World Hanoi for the first time, on August 18. In previous years, Keysight held the event in the US, China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, but this year we will hold it in Hanoi because of the acceleration of 5G and other technologies in Vietnam, which has become a key growth market.

Our biggest private seminar event brings together Keysight Technologies thought leaders, technological advances, breakthrough design, test and optimisation strategies, and cutting-edge solutions on a global scale to inspire, enable, and accelerate innovation realisation.

We expect the event will give Vietnam’s 5G engineers a great opportunity to understand comprehensive 5G electronic design and test tools that will help them gain greater insight into their research and development and manufacturing processes.

In addition, Keysight is working with the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, the University of Transport and Communications, and the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology.

The establishment of engineering teaching labs at these institutions will help to accelerate the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Vietnam, and of course 5G is at the heart of it.

Therefore, a key priority will be to ensure that a new generation of engineers is trained to support the growing demand for IoT and radio frequency technologies (RF), with support from the Keysight’s measurement expertise and products, through the company’s IoT Teaching Solutions and RF & Microwave Industry-Ready Student Certification Programme.