Connect with us

News

Huawei Chief Strategy Officer Tide Xu Delivered a Keynote Speech at Asia-Pacific Spectrum Management Conference

Published

on

Huawei Chief Strategy Officer Tide Xu Delivered a Keynote Speech at Asia-Pacific Spectrum Management Conference

Expanding on his keynote speech at the 7th Asia-Pacific Spectrum Management Conference, held from 24 May to 27 May 2021, Tide Xu, Chief Strategy Officer, Wireless Product Line at Huawei addressed a prevalent digital divide in the Asia-Pacific region and offered details on policy recommendations as countries chart a sustainable digital development in the 5G era.

Bridging the urban-rural broadband gap

APAC, made up of densely-populated countries and some of the fastest-growing economies in the world, has been experiencing a surge in mobile broadband demand in recent years. Against a backdrop of uneven network distribution between urban and rural areas, the pandemic has fuelled a greater divide, but has also helped governments recognize the role of mobile broadband as a catalyst for digital transformation moving forward.

As nations embark on digitalization strategies to build economic resilience, Xu cited three policy recommendations to enhance mobile broadband development and close the digital divide.

Firstly, with spectrum being critical to mobile network development, the ready provision of key spectrum bands such as C-band and 700 MHz is instrumental to unleashing a good mix of coverage and capacity benefits. As countries work towards a 5G-oriented evolution, Xu stressed the importance of adopting an all-encompassing spectrum strategy combining low-, mid- and high-bands to support all use cases.

Secondly, countries yet to roll out 5G should continue investing in 4G infrastructure to ensure a seamless transition into the 5G era. Until 2030, 4G and 5G will coexist to power connectivity and offer nationwide network coverage. Apart from expanding 4G coverage to increase the penetration rate of network users, 4G VoLTE deployment should be accelerated to expedite the sunset of 2G/3G. With mobile broadband coverage being key to digital inclusion, policies can incentivize mobile broadband coverage in underserved areas.

Thirdly, affordability and availability of entry-level mobile devices are essential for underprivileged families in rural areas to access mobile internet. Supportive demand-side policies as such respond to user needs to effectively bridge the usage gap.

Bridging the experience gap

While 4G changes lives, 5G changes societies. According to findings from consulting firm A.T. Kearney, the Industry 4.0 evolution is estimated to bring about a revenue potential of about $150 billion in ASEAN by 2025. In this evolution, 5G will be a key driver to unlock a broad range of opportunities to achieve significant socio-economic growth.

These promises have motivated transitions from 4G to 5G, with 5G deployment gaining momentum in many countries. In fact, the 5G revolution is taking place at a faster pace compared to previous 3G or 4G revolution. Frontrunners in global 5G adoption like China and South Korea are experiencing stellar progress. A leader in 5G adoption, China has accumulated more than 285 million 5G subscribers, with more than 819,000 base stations deployed. Meanwhile, South Korea has amassed 5G subscribers totaling about one-fourth of its total population. As regional countries chart their trajectories to harness the benefits of 5G, Xu noted three takeaways from China and South Korea’s 5G journey thus far.

Firstly, both governments embrace national digitalization founded on 5G infrastructure, using stimulus policies to spur accelerated 5G adoption across various industries.

Secondly, spectrum strategies have been mapped with future 5G evolution in mind; each MNO should be allocated a large bandwith of 80 MHz to 100 MHz continuous TDD, deemed ideal for 5G deployment to kickstart a country’s 5G journey. This strategy can attract early buy-in as advanced massive MIMO offers user experiences 25 times more superior than 4G.

Thirdly, MNOs in both countries have been actively developing new applications, services and business models for both the consumer market and vertical industries. For the consumer market, MNOs have been delivering innovative content such as augmented reality and virtual reality experiences. Across vertical industries, high-connectivity, low-latency 5G has been deployed to power smart ports, smart manufacturing, smart agriculture and etc.. In 2020, China recorded more than 2,000 commercial and pilot projects across industry verticals.

Besides China and South Korea, Thailand is also picking up speed in 5G deployment. A pioneer in 5G development in the region and the first country in ASEAN to launch a 5G commercial network utilizing a TDD band plan in 2.6 GHz, Thailand has garnered 1.5 million subscribers within the first year of launching 5G services, yielding user experiences 13 times more superior than that offered by 4G. Thailand has also begun exploring wide 5G applications in industrial use cases.

Additional mid-band spectrum to reap full 5G value

5G marks a new era of connectivity that will lead this decade, similar to how 3G and 4G stayed dominant for about a decade before gradually phasing out. After 2025, the industry will enter 5G-Advanced (5.5G) – the second phase in the 5G evolution introduced by the 3GPP in conjunction with Release 18.

Amid the transitions, industries will continually innovate to align with changing requirements of both the consumer and vertical markets. To keep abreast with the evolution, Huawei is committed to continually invest in research and innovation to embrace 5G-Advanced and seek synergistic collaborations with global industry partners to develop new applications and expand existing capabilities.

Moving forward, 5G success is dependent on access to a cost-effective mid-band spectrum, already deployed by about 90% of global MNOs to deliver an optimal balance of coverage and capacity for 5G services.

Given that countries like China and South Korea are reporting an average handset data traffic per 5G user per month (DOU) of 30 GB to 40 GB – a threefold jump from 4G users – ITU predicts that DOU will reach 250 GB in the next 5 to 10 years. To support sustainable development in the coming years, APAC countries require at least 1 GHz of additional mid-band spectrum, according to research from Coleago Consulting. This will provide MNOs the capability to scale 5G or 5G-Advanced services accordingly, to reap the full potential of the prevailing service.

Within the mid-band, countries are now exploring 6GHz as the ideal future mobile band after the WRC-19 earmarked it as a new agenda item for IMT identification for WRC-23. 6GHz is also perhaps the only optional intermediate frequency.

Based on internal evaluations demonstrating 6GHz’s comparable performance to C-band in satisfying requirements for both capacity and coverage, Xu echoes GSMA’s recent call for governments to license the 6 GHz frequency band to facilitate sustainable digital development.

Capturing the full value of 5G is an international effort that requires governments and regulators to work on supporting harmonised bands. For now, the success of 5G services and beyond weighs heavily on governments and regulators to evaluate and formulate spectrum strategies and policies. Xu concluded by urging policy-makers to take a comprehensive and balanced approach towards harnessing the potential of mid-band spectrum when pursuing national digitalization ambitions.

News

All-in-One Web3 Gaming Ecosystem Blockus Raises $4M Pre-Seed After Completing a16z Incubator Program

Published

on

The announcement comes during the Game Developers Conference week, where the company will host a special side event

Blockus, an emerging, innovative force at the intersection of blockchain technology and gaming, today announced a significant milestone, securing $4M in pre-seed funding. This successful raise follows Blockus’s participation in the prestigious a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator, which not only provided access to mentors and advisors but also allowed the startup to connect with potential investors.

The pre-seed round was led by Maple VC and included Altos Ventures as well as known angel investors such as Zhuoxun Yin from Magic Eden, Michael Ma from CreatorDAO, and Bryan Pelligrino from LayerZero.

Blockus is dedicated to transforming the gaming experience by enabling studios to onboard their players and build on-chain gaming features with ease. The company has already gained traction in the market, with over 30 partners already signed, including Ambrus Studio, the team behind E4C: Final Salvation. The funding will allow Blockus to accelerate its growth, expand its team, strengthen sales operations, and invest heavily in product development.

“This pre-seed raise marks a pivotal moment in our journey,” said Jess Zhang, Co-founder & CEO at Blockus. “The trust our investors, like Maple VC, have placed in us is both humbling and inspiring. We’re ready to unlock the next level of innovation in the gaming industry, and we’re excited to bring our blockchain solutions to even more studios and developers.”

With a rapidly expanding market – approximately 62% of all dApp activity comes from gaming projects, and Web3 gaming is expected to reach $600B by 2030 – Blockus is in a prime position to capitalize on this growth.

“We’re thrilled to witness Blockus’s latest achievement,” said Johnson Yeh, Founder & CEO at Ambrus Studio. “As innovators in the gaming space, we’re proud to partner with a company that’s pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. The potential for Web3 in gaming is immense, and we’re confident that Blockus will play a major role in shaping its future.”

The announcement is made in the lead-up week to Game Developers Conference (GDC) taking place in San Francisco. There, the company will host a dedicated event on March 21 at 7 p.m. at the iconic SPIN bar to engage with the Web3 gaming community, and current and potential partners.

“Blockus has the potential to be the catalyst for a new era of gaming, built on the principles of decentralization and player ownership,” said Andre Charoo, General Partner at Maple VC. “The founders’ deep understanding of both gaming and Web3 technologies, combined with their track record, makes them an exceptionally compelling team to back. We believe Blockus is poised to lead the way in the Web3 gaming revolution.”

To celebrate its funding milestone, Blockus is extending a special offer of $20,000 in credits to potential clients for the two weeks following the announcement period. This offer presents a unique opportunity for game developers interested in exploring how Blockus can elevate their game experiences.

About Blockus

Blockus is a complete Web3 gaming economy ecosystem. Beautifully built, fully compliant, and seamlessly integrated into games, the company’s mission is to create a future where players have true ownership of their in-game assets and where gaming experiences are more immersive, engaging, and rewarding.

Continue Reading

News

Cosmology Raises $5M to Simplify Web3 Application Development

Published

on

Cosmology

The “Adobe for Web3” makes building dApps accessible to a wide range of developers, not just those who have expertise with the entire blockchain stack

Cosmology, the tech suite that enables developers to build Web3 apps in the Cosmos ecosystem, has closed its $5M seed round, co-led by Galileo and Lemniscap with participation from Dispersion, Hashkey, Tuesday Capital, the Osmosis Foundation, Chorus One, Informal Systems, and angels including Kevin Lin, Zaki Manian, Leland Lee, and Ethan Beard. As an official part of the Interchain Stack, Cosmology empowers over 2,000 developers to build applications like dYdX, Osmosis, and Celestia. This funding allows Cosmology to support the growth of the interchain, and provide tools that make app development accessible without requiring deep technical blockchain knowledge.

“Having spent nearly three decades at the intersection of design and technology, I see the potential of Web3 and the need to lower the barriers to development,” said Dan Lynch, Founder of Cosmology. “Our mission is to empower a broad range of developers, driving innovation and the shift from Web2 to Web3. We achieve this by enabling builders to swiftly turn their ideas into launched applications, focusing on big-picture concepts rather than the low-level technical details of blockchain.”

Cosmology’s tools make the development of Web3 applications dramatically simpler for developers throughout the interchain and have been downloaded over 5 million times. They’ve created tools like Telescope, which generates easy-to-use TypeScript libraries for developers to access the functionality of Cosmos blockchains, and Cosmos Kit, a universal wallet adapter for quickly making apps that easily interact with Cosmos blockchains and wallets.

“Dan’s work building developer tooling has led to huge growth in the number of applications being built in Cosmos,” said Sunny Aggarwal, Founder of Osmosis. “Cosmology is making app development on the 100+ blockchains in the ecosystem a streamlined, elegant process.”

Initially focused on front-end tools, Cosmology is now broadening its scope of services to offer a comprehensive full-stack environment for developers. The team now includes experts in key blockchain technologies like Tendermint, Cosmos SDK, and IBC Protocol, enhancing its suite’s capabilities across the board. This expansion gives Cosmology extra bandwidth to support developers from design to deployment, covering everything from user interface design all the way to backend blockchain and smart contract tooling.

“Cosmology is the bedrock underlying everything being built right now in the Cosmos and Celestia ecosystems,” said David Feiock, Managing Partner at Galileo. “As an integral part of building application-specific blockchains, Cosmology tools like Telescope materially reduce the complexities for developers allowing for much quicker innovation and iteration cycles, which will be an essential component of this next phase of growth in crypto.”

Commenting on the announcement, Roderik van der Graaf, Founder of Lemniscap, said: “To date, the perceived complexity of Web3 has kept many Web2 developers from exploring novel use cases that would enhance their product offerings. Cosmology is playing a pivotal role in enabling developers to incorporate Web3 elements in their applications, while circumventing the steep Web3 learning curve. We’re delighted to have co-led this funding round and look forward to supporting Dan and the team in executing a strong growth strategy in 2024 and beyond.”

“Dan’s experience building and exiting low-code platforms like Brandcast is invaluable in the Web3 space, where building applications can prove daunting,” said Pat Gallagher, Managing Partner at Tuesday Capital. “Cosmology is democratizing the digital landscape for businesses and developers alike with an Adobe-style suite of products that lower the barrier to entry, so decentralized application development doesn’t require the full-stack expertise that very few software engineers possess.”

“In the early days of the internet, the concept of every business having its own website once seemed like a pipe dream. Today, we’re at a similar point in time before the brink of a revolution with the Internet of Blockchains. Much like low and no-code platforms transformed Web2, making digital participation accessible to all businesses, I see a future where Web3 is equally open and user-friendly,” said Dan Lynch.

As Cosmos becomes an increasingly interwoven mesh of blockchains, Cosmology is at the forefront of enabling developers to build interchain-native applications. This raise helps the team further build out the essential tooling that’s making Cosmos one of the most attractive places to build in Web3 today.

About Cosmology

Cosmology is creating the Adobe of Web3 – a suite of products that work interdependently to catalyze creativity for builders.

Cosmology is building a unified developer experience for cross chain dApps, streamlining everything from low-level encoding and signing to user interfaces and wallet adapters. Our tools are becoming the standard in the interchain, where our community has now grown to 100+ chains and countless smart contract projects across the Cosmos ecosystem.

Hundreds of developers leverage Cosmology’s software to build DEXes, wallets, governance tooling, NFT platforms, lending, leverage, and liquid staking protocols. These include Osmosis, dYdX, Celestia, Cosmostation, Stride, Juno, DaoDao, Stargaze, Mars Protocol, Leap Wallet, AstroTech, Persistence, Quicksilver and more.

Continue Reading

News

Seattle based Enzzo Announces $3M in Seed Funding to Accelerate Hardware Product Development

Published

on

Enzzo supercharges the product definition and requirements process for companies creating hardware. The $3 million seed investment was led by Unlock Venture Partners with participation from PSL Ventures and the Mayfield/Pioneer Square Labs AIStudio Fund.

Enzzo, a company reimagining how hardware products are created by leveraging generative AI, announced today that it raised a $3 million seed investment led by Unlock Venture Partners with participation from PSL Ventures and the newly created Mayfield/Pioneer Square Labs AIStudio Fund. With this round of funding, the company will be expanding the team refining and building its platform.

“I know what it takes to define and ship great products,” said Andy Liu, Managing Director of Unlock Venture Partners, and former VP at VIZIO. “Enzzo is reimagining the process to amplify the abilities of product companies and manufacturers to take an idea, understand the requirements and cost, and get it to market faster with higher quality than ever before. It is a real game-changer for all hardware-related companies.”

Defining new products is challenging enough for software, but hardware’s unique variables and regulatory requirements add complexity. Companies and teams creating hardware are interested in moving faster from a vision to an in-market product but must start by defining the product and developing requirements, which typically take weeks to months. The definition phase is critical, as any hardware changes become increasingly expensive as development progresses, underscoring the critical need for comprehensive requirements and risk assessment from the outset.

To address these problems, Enzzo empowers teams to define innovative products and their requirements faster and more efficiently than is possible today – from weeks or months to days – saving time and expense. Enzzo runs in modern web browsers and leverages the power of foundation models along with company-provided data to prompt, synthesize user inputs, and then generate key outputs. The service features product management expertise accessible via a chat interface, a collaborative workspace for team members and partners to work on requirements, and document generation capability to accelerate the definition of new products.

“Enzzo represents what we believe is the new way that product teams will work by leveraging gains from AI in combination with human creativity to define and create hardware products faster,” said Ford Davidson, co-founder and CEO. “We are thrilled to have awesome investors helping us to grow the company and catalyze the next wave of hardware product innovations.”

Enzzo is a spinout of Seattle-based startup studio Pioneer Square Labs. “I have known Enzzo CEO Ford Davidson for over 20 years and we worked closely together building Dashwire into a successful acquisition by HTC in 2011,” said Geoff Entress, Managing Director. “Ford’s incredible background helping create new category devices and services at Microsoft, HTC, Amazon and, most recently, Meta make him the perfect leader to build Enzzo into a massive player in the hardware space.”

About Enzzo
Enzzo, Inc. is a Seattle, Washington-based company founded in 2023 by product innovators who have worked on award-winning products at startups and tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Samsung, HTC, and Roku.

About Unlock

Unlock Venture Partners is an early stage venture capital firm run by founders and operators that invest in world-changing technology companies based in Seattle and Los Angeles.

About PSL Ventures
PSL Ventures is a venture capital fund located in Seattle, WA. The fund is affiliated with Seattle-based startup studio Pioneer Square Labs. The organization partners with exceptional founders at the earliest stages to help build and invest in market-defining technology companies, primarily based in the Pacific Northwest.

About Pioneer Square Labs (PSL)
Pioneer Square Labs is a Seattle-based startup studio that creates and launches technology startups.

About AIStudio Fund
AIStudio Fund is an investment vehicle backed by Mayfield to invest in AI spinouts of Pioneer Square Labs.

Continue Reading

Trending

Subscribe to our Free Newsletter

Get Business and Marketing Insights from Experts, only onTimes of Startups!

Your Information will never be shared with any third party