Martel at the EuCNC and 6G Summit 2022 in Grenoble

Martel's team attended EuCNC and the 6G Summit

On June 7-10, 2022, Martel’s team attended the long-awaited physical edition of the European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC) and the 6G Summit that took place in Grenoble, France.

The event, hosted by CEA-LETI, a French technology research institute, and co-organised by CEA-LETI and the 6G Flagship initiative, was the first opportunity for the community to gather after two years of COVID-19related restrictions. As expected, there was a high level of participation and involvement. Many researchers and innovators from across Europe and beyond convened to exhibit, present, and discuss the drivers and barriers to the development of nextgeneration smart networks and services.

The COVID-19 pandemic, economic crisis, delicate global geopolitical situation, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the climate emergency have further exacerbated the need to ensure sustainable, trustworthy, inclusive, ultra-reliable and high-performance connectivity.  Many presentations and discussions at the EuCNC and 6G Summit 2022 revolved around these challenges by building on the progress and results of several ongoing Horizon 2020 projects, including those that Martel is involved in (e.g., DYNASAT, Fed4FIRE+, Affordable5G, 5G-Blueprint).

In collaboration with our customers and partners, we helped to present and showcasthe important achievements of several European organisations, providing support to the European Commission and the 6G Smart Networks and Services Industry Association (6G-IA)which Martel is a member of, to promote Europe’s leadership on 5G, beyond 5G and SNS/6G research. Moreover, together with our partners from the one6G Associationwe explored several of the challenges lying ahead for alignment on global 6G research and standardisation efforts,” said Dr Monique Calisti, CEO of Martel.

Key takeaways from the EuCNC and 6G Summit 2022

After Martel’s team attended the EuCNC and the 6G Summit, we can say it was a fantastic and intensive week: several new contacts made, many conversations with old partners and friends, and numerous discussions about the meaning of digital sustainability and the place of Europe in the 6G race, and several learnings and key takeaways, among others:

  • Digital sustainability: Many are talking about it but only a few seem to have a concrete understanding of what greening the ICT and using green ICT to ensure sustainable development of our society and economy implies. What is promising is the level of commitment on both private and public sides to invest in digital for the planet. For us at Martel, this reconfirms the importance and relevance of our non-profit initiative Digital for Planet.
  • Satellite communication systems: Satcoms are essential to support Europe’s ambition to deploy smart and sustainable networks and services for the success of its digital economy in an inclusive and effective way. Martel’s involvement in the H2020 project, DYNASAT is of high relevance and strategically aligned with more recent efforts in the broader NonTerrestrial Networks research and innovation domain with top leaders in Europe and beyond.
  • Let’s meet at the Edge! Edge computing is gaining momentum with the convergence of several technologies such as IoT, Cloud, AI, and 5G. Martel’s Lab contributes by focusing its efforts on service orchestration: the European Commission’s Innovation Radar has named Martel a ‘Key Innovator’ thanks to the company’s contribution to the Open Source MANO (OSM) enhancement for flexible cloud-native service deployments, developed within the context of the ongoing Affordable5G project.
  • Connected and Automated Mobility: The cooperation and exchange among the almost completed 5G for CAM cross-border projects, contributed to identifying the two major work streams: innovation and development that will take place under the 6G-IA framework. Lessons learnt from technical (unclear CAM requirements, cross-border handover, availability of base stations, etc.), regulatory (roll-out obligations, regulatory and legal uncertainty, alignment among national regulatory authorities), and financial (revenues models for CAM services, potential investment in alternative technologies, price evolution and inflation) points of view will be handed over and further explored by the second wave of 5G for CAM projects, such as 5GBlueprint, of which Martel is part of.
  • Semantic and goal-oriented communications in the context of 6G networks will very much rely on a mix of AI-driven concepts and mechanisms properly combined with emerging wireless network components and infrastructures. For some Martelians that have been involved in multi-agent systems research and programming, discussions around this topic reconfirmed the convergence of communication and computing where the network/its components and the applications/services can be jointly optimised as a single integrated system.
  • Women in telco research and innovation: We can and must do better! Gender inclusion must be incentivised at several levels to ensure broad and diverse participation starting from research and innovation initiatives. At Martel, diversity and gender balance are core pillars of which we are all very proud!