Fumio Watanabe

Chairman of KDDI Research Inc.

CTO of UQ Communications Inc. 

President of KDDI Foundation

Dr. Watanabe has 40 years of experience in research and development of satellite and mobile communication systems including IMT-2000, IMT-Advanced, WiMAX and 5G.  He has been active for a long time in international standardization of mobile communication systems in ITU-R. 

He joined KDD in 1980.  He was an Executive Director, General Manager of KDDI from 2006 responsible for mobile radio access networks and R&D activities. He is now the Chairman of KDDI Research Inc. He is also CTO of UQ Communications Inc. and the President of KDDI Foundation.

He received Piero Fanti International Prize in 1989, the R & D Awards of Radio Systems in 1991, the meritorious Awards on ITU activities in 2001, the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education in 2010, and Maejima memorial Awards in 2013, respectively. He is the chairman of Broadband Wireless Access Committee in ARIB. He is a Fellow of IEIEC.

Topic: The Future Outlook Opened up by 5G

Mr. Takehiro Nakamura, General Manager of 5G Laboratory, NTT DOCOMO, INC.

In this presentation, DOCOMO's views on NW deployment scenarios, spectrum deployment for 5G commercial launch in 2020 and update of 5G trials will be provided.  Furthermore, DOCOMO’s considerations on enhancements of 5G technologies will be provided. Finally, updates on collaboration activities with vertical players to create 5G services will be presented.

Topic: 5G NR Development and Validation Challenges

Mr. Roger Nichols, Director of 5G Programs, Keysight Technologies Inc.

By the time of the 2018 Taipei 5G Summit, the core of 3GPP Release 15 will be complete and most of this industry will be working furiously to design, implement, and validate the first commercial 5G products and systems. Some of the most important enabling technologies for 5G will be well into end-to-end trial-phases. With the most aggressive operators intending to start commercial services in late 2018 to mid-2019, this work is beset with challenges. The constraints of technology, policy, and business models are only part of the work. These must be combined with the requirements to meet the new 3GPP standard and for these new systems to co-exist with legacy technologies. This includes challenges for validating UE’s, <3GHz issues, <6GHz issues, and mmWave issues. And while plenty of attention is paid to the new frequency bands in the mmWave spectrum, some of the largest and earliest deployments will be focused at new, but much more familiar frequencies between 3GHz and 4GHz. This presentation will provide some examples of key design and validation challenges with devices, the 5G RAN, and the next-generation core. It will also cover some of what the 3GPP has done to address these, and some of the work that is yet to be done for consistent and reliable validation and conformance. And it will be addressed in the context of the policy and standards constraints typical of this industry. Finally, it will conclude with some of the most important areas upon which the industry needs to focus to ensure a timely and profitable rollout.

Roger Nichols

Director of 5G Programs, Keysight Technologies Inc.

Roger Nichols is has been directing Keysight’s 5G Programs for three years. His 32 years of engineering and management experience in wireless test and measurement at Hewlett-Packard, Agilent Technologies, and Keysight spans roles in manufacturing, R&D, and marketing. He has worked in programs spanning the evolution from analog cellular radio to 4G and every standard in between.  He spent seven years as the Senior Marketing Director for Keysight’s (Agilent’s) Mobile Broadband Operation responsible for the wireless test-sets and systems that are used in all major design and certification labs as well as manufacturing facilities worldwide.

Rogers holds a BSEE from the University of Colorado, Boulder.