Activities

DOCOMO Euro-Labs has a long history in Mobile Networks Research with a successful track of high-quality contributions to standardization that have shaped various mobile network generations from UMTS to LTE and now 5G.

We at Euro-Labs today focus on the transition to 5G Core Network that will bring Intelligence, Flexibility and Power to new Vertical Markets like Automotive, Health Care, Industry 4.0 and others.

Our activities can be split in three major areas: Core Network Standardization, Technical Work for Standardization and Influencing Standardization Strategy.

• Core Network Standardization

DOCOMO Euro-Labs is active in two major Innovation domains: Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and 5G Core Network (5GC).

We are not only at the “Heart of Digital” but also always at the forefront of innovation when it is to make 5GC technologies an enabler for the Digital Society.

We build/have Expertise/Competence on key new technology domains like Cloud Native Architecture, Dynamic Orchestration, Dynamic Traffic Routing, Edge/Cloud Distribution, Network Slicing, …

We believe that the success of 5G will be determined by Vertical use cases that cannot be supported by current 4G EPC.

• Technical Work for Standardization

DOCOMO Euro-Labs is conducting evaluation and validation on technologies as mentioned above in collaboration with European market leaders.

We also create IPR and study targeted technologies that are candidates for standardization.

• Influence Standardization Strategy

DOCOMO Euro-Labs is monitoring and detecting within various industrial fora, open source activities and other associations how to input Japanese requirements if any and how to influence the standardization for the success of the industry.

DOCOMO Euro-Labs, together with NTT DOCOMO, actively contributes to standardization in 5G Core Network area. We play an important role in global (pre-) standardization bodies such as 3GPP*, ETSI*, 5GAA* and NGMN*. Our standardization team takes the global strategy of NTT DOCOMO as well as the results of our researchers and brings these into the mentioned standardization bodies. Whereas we have focused and are focusing on contributions to short-term topics such as NFV, we are also now preparing our work in the standardization for the mobile Core Network in the “5G” era.

* 3GPP: Third Generation Partnership Program
* ETSI: European Telecommunications Standards Institute
* 5GAA: 5G Automotive Association
* NGMN: Next Generation Mobile Networks