It’s the start of a year of transition for many. Difficult economic times, but many realize that investment in research and innovation now is crucial to our future prosperity. The next generation of mobile communications is moving from exploration of visions to serious development of the key technologies. The new initiatives we have taken on membership mean that more researchers are able to be part of the WWRF family, particularly from developing regions, enabling their voices to be better heard as we work towards harnessing new intelligence in the network to meet their needs in a sustainable way. I would remind you that any university or research institute in a developing country can now join as a provisional member, not needing to pay membership fees for the first two years. Also on the membership front, we are pleased to welcome many of our Fellows as lifetime honorary members of WWRF, and we trust that this will enable them to take part in WWRF’s activities more easily.
We have three major events planned for this year, with our 49th meeting hosted by Poznan University of Technology in Poland in March, our Huddle in Singapore in partnership with the local regulator IMDA, and our 50th meeting to be held in Quito, Ecuador, hosted by ESPE, one of the region’s top universities. There’s an ongoing project with some of our members to work with ITU on developing the IMT-2030 concept, which has already included reviewing future technology trends, developing scenarios, use cases and capabilities. WWRF continues to work with partner organizations such as One6G, 6GIA and ETSI in Europe and TSDSI and APAN in Asia, and there will be many workshops, joint sessions and projects with these organizations in the coming year.
If you are already a member, please pass on news about WWRF and its activities within your organization, and let people know about what we do, and how they can join in. This can be by making contributions to our meetings, taking direct part in working group activities, proposing new areas of activity and new collaborations, or just passing on news that you think would be important to us. Thank you for all your support in 2022, and I very much hope to see you at a WWRF event or online in the coming year.
Dear WWRF Members,
Once again, it’s time to look back and review what’s happened over the 12 months. This year, we’ve held a number of online events, including our 45th meeting, hosted by Wirahswasta from Malaysia, and we were able to run the 46th meeting, hosted by Huawei in Paris, as a hybrid meeting, which thanks to the efforts of the technical teams who worked very smoothly to create a good working atmosphere for those present and on line. A major activity for us this year has been the opportunity to take part in the second phase of the independent evaluation of IMT-2020 technologies for the ITU. The WWRF Independent Evaluation Group simulated the performance of DECT and EUHT technologies against the ITU’s requirements, and made a major contribution to the decisions made. Detailed results were published as two editions of WWRF Outlook, available on our website.
I’m also happy to report that we are continuing to work with ITU on the next phase of evaluation of IMT-2020 technologies, and our application for full membership of ITU will allow us to work more extensively with them in future. Recent new members include individual members Akshay Jain of Neutroon Technologies S.L. and Manoj Mittal from India, and TII from Abu Dhabi who have joined as our latest sponsor member. We welcome them all and its good to see them already strongly involved in our activities. Don’t forget that by recommending someone to become a member, you can get a discount on your next membership fee.
We also appointed Dr Chih-Lin I, head of research at China Mobile, as our latest Fellow. We have a busy 2022 planned. The major events will include the 8th iteration of our well supported WWRF Huddle. This time it will take place in Ottawa on the 10-11 May and will feature the usual high-level high-quality programme. Associated WWRF workshop will take place before and after the Huddle, covering ehealth for remote regions and connected vehicles.
Our regular WWRF meetings will be held in Bristol, UK, in June and at TII in Abu Dhabi in November. Given the ongoing Covid situation, these will both be run as hybrid events. We look forward to hearing your suggestions for themes and sessions, and receiving your contributions to these meetings.
I look forward to exciting challenges for us in 2022.