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5G networks will comprise multiple, versatile infrastructures at finest granularity consisting of multiple disaggregated pools of network, compute and storage resources. To support the 5G network architectures and satisfy the access network demanding performance requirements, transport networks consisting of various converging technologies shall provide mechanisms to support deployment flexibility and scalability. The various deployment alternatives of transport network technologies and topologies in real network deployments shall take into account various factors such as area specifics, technologies’ deployment feasibility, traffic/usage forecasts considering long-term services roadmaps and certainly, the implicated costs. Thus, transport network planning and dimensioning shall be tightly accompanied by the techno-economic analysis of the various deployment alternatives. This paper provides insights of 5G transport network technologies and deployments as retrieved through macroscopic and microscopic technoeconomic analyses and demonstrates their applicability on the architectural concepts of 5G-PICTURE 5G-PPP project.

Int5Gent targets the integration of innovative data plane technology building blocks under a flexible 5G network resource, slice and application orchestration framework, providing a complete 5G system platform for the validation of advance 5G services and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. The platform can act as the enabler for the transition beyond the current 5G networking capabilities allowing novel and state-ofthe-art data transport and edge processing solutions to be evaluated under a cutting-edge network orchestration framework, with intelligent service allocation and management capabilities. A sample of the envisioned technologies include: flexible multi-Radio Access Technology (multi-RAT) baseband signal processing, millimeter Wave (mmWave)technology solutions at 60GHz and 150GHz bands, hardware-based edge processor with Time Sensitive Networking (TSN), Graphical Processing Unit (GPU)processing capabilities, and elastic Software Defined Networking (SDN)-based photonic data transport. The integration of the technology blocks is performed as part of an overall architecture that promotes edge processing and is orchestrated by a Network Function Virtualization Orchestrator (NFVO) compatible framework with edge node extensions at the network layer and an overlay vertical services application orchestrator at the user plane layer.

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and games set a new domain in understanding people’s motivations in gaming, behavioral implications of game play, game adaptation to player preferences and needs for increased engaging experiences in the context of HCI serious games (HCI-SGs). When the latter relate with people’s health status, they can become a part of their daily life as assistive health status monitoring/enhancement systems. Co-designing HCI-SGs can be seen as a combination of art and science that involves a meticulous collaborative process. The design elements in assistive HCI-SGs for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) patients, in particular, are explored in the present work. Within this context, the Game-Based Learning (GBL) design framework is adopted here and its main game-design parameters are explored for the Exergames, Dietarygames, Emotional games, Handwriting games, and Voice games design, drawn from the PD-related i-PROGNOSIS Personalized Game Suite (PGS) (www.i-prognosis.eu) holistic approach. Two main data sources were involved in the study. In particular, the first one includes qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, involving 10 PD patients and four clinicians in the co-creation process of the game design, whereas the second one relates with data from an online questionnaire addressed by 104 participants spanning the whole related spectrum, i.e., PD patients, physicians, software/game developers. Linear regression analysis was employed to identify an adapted GBL framework with the most significant game-design parameters, which efficiently predict the transferability of the PGS beneficial effect to real-life, addressing functional PD symptoms. The findings of this work can assist HCI-SG designers for designing PD-related HCI-SGs, as the most significant game-design factors were identified, in terms of adding value to the role of HCI-SGs in increasing PD patients’ quality of life, optimizing the interaction with personalized HCI-SGs and, hence, fostering a collaborative human-computer symbiosis.

The complete transformation of the ICT domain driven by 5G network principles and capabilities, will impact significantly the path towards digitalization of many vertical industries, with modern railway transportations being one of them. In this context, Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS) service requirements and system principles are very well mapped to 5G service and network concepts associated with network performance, technology neutrality at various levels as well as network planning and deployment options. However, the flexibility of 5G networks implies that concepts are pinned down to deployment paradigms so that afore assertions are proved. The 5G-PPP project 5G-VICTORI aims at delivering a complete 5G solution suitable for railway environments and FRMCS services, along with experimentation deployments for testing and evaluation in operational railway environments. This paper discusses the service Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and technical requirements and provides an overview of the proposed experimental deployment in an operational railway environment in the area of Patras, Greece.

The current report attempts to explore the top challenges that the MNOs need to overcome during 5G deployment in highly dense populated areas. Indicatively, the MNOs are warned about site acquisition challenges and electrification/energy related needs for a huge number of sites that shall be installed discretely at street level, the demand for rigorous testing and measurements to ensure full network coverage and always-on operation so that even mission critical applications (such as automotive and e-health apps) are enabled, accompanied by associated cost factors. Provided that at the time of writing (beg/2021) little is the worldwide experience from operating 5G networks, potential actions are suggested towards a smooth and efficient short time-to-market 5G deployment. In addition, indicative 5G densification related figures (e.g. amount of h/w nodes and distances among them), are calculated based on a specific FiWi PtMP network solution aiming at supporting the ultra-broadband 5G NR fronthaul bandwidth, while alleviating the need to install fiber terminations at every Base Station site.

Being the second most common neurodegenerative disease, Parkinson's disease (PD) can be symptomatically treated, although, unfortunately, it cannot be cured yet. Moreover, diagnosing and assessing PD patients is a complex process, requiring continuous monitoring. In this vein, the design, development, and validation of innovative assessment tools may be helpful in the management of patients with PD, in particular. Based on intelligent ICT interventions, the i-PROGNOSIS project intends to mitigate PD's specific symptoms, such as neurological movement disorders of gait, balance, coordination, and posture, already characterized in the early phase of the disease. From this perspective, an innovative iPrognosis motor assessment tool is presented here, taking into consideration the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) Part III motor skills testing items, for evaluating the motor skills status. The efficiency of the proposed Assessment Tests to reflect the motor skills status, similarly to the UPDRS Part III items, was validated via 27 participants (18 males; mean age = 62 years, SD = 10.36 years; range, 43–79 years) with early (n = 10) and moderate (n = 17) PD who performed the Assessment Tests. Features from the latter were then correlated with the corresponding clinically assessed UPDRS Part III items, and statistically significant negative correlations (range, −0.364 to −0.802) were identified between the median values of the Assessment Tests and the UPDRS Part III items. In this vein, the iPrognosis Assessment Tests were integrated within the personalized interventions of the i-PROGNOSIS project, providing alternative means of assessing their effect on the PD patient's motor skills enhancement. The promising results presented here elaborate on the concept of using ICT-based assessment means to achieve comparable outcomes with the clinical standards in motor skills assessment.

5G networks are shaping a new ecosystem necessitating various transformations of the existing network infrastructures combined with the use of network softwarization and programmability, so as to satisfy the needs of all the involved stakeholders (telecom/service providers, infrastructure owners, tenants, vertical industries, end-users, etc.), while a wide range of issues have to be addressed spanning from technology to business domains. The 5G-PPP project 5G-PHOS [1] proposes a novel framework to allow telecom operators and service providers to overcome 5G densification issues while supporting the stringent 5G requirements in a flexible and cost efficient manner to allow for commercialization. This paper aims at providing indicative architectural instantiations of the 5G-PHOS solution, depicting the way the technology supports the 5G requirements and the stakeholders’ needs along with the functionalities and the deployment feasibility of an ambitious 5G fronthaul/backhaul network solution.

In this paper, a coexistence scheme between a Discrete-Variable Quantum Key Distribution (DV-QKD) and four bidirectional classical channels in a Passive Optical Network (PON) topology is theoretically investigated. The study aims to explore the imposed limitations considering the coexistence of weak quantum channels with realistic traffic flows of classical streams through shared fiber infrastructures. Based on a ‘plug and play’ phase coding DV-QKD implementation, we conducted numerical simulations of the QBER and the secure key rate for fiber distances up to 10 km. The reported results suggest that in a fixed C-band grid, the spectral isolation between classical and quantum channels is essential at dense grids. By removing the leakage noise through stronger spectral isolation, the photons linked with the Raman scattering become the dominant noise source, since this mechanism covers an ultra-broadband window and gets stronger as the propagation distance increases.

5G networks will constitute a complete transformation in the ICT domain by enabling the deployment of vertical services within the network infrastructures, based on extensive use of network softwarization and programmability. This shift will trigger and facilitate the transformation of existing stakeholders’ roles, as well as the interactions between multiple stakeholders from the traditionally separated markets. The 5G-PPP project MATILDA aims at delivering a holistic 5G end-to-end services operational framework, including 5G-ready applications lifecycle management from development to deployment over 5G network infrastructures. This paper aims at providing a refined and extended vision of the 5G business roles and their interactions and based on these at defining business applicability of the MATILDA project, with special focus on the project’s value proposition addressing the Telecommunication Service Providers.

CHARISMA aims to tackle low-latency and end-to-end security for converged fixed/wireless 5G networks in order to meet the complex demands of emerging business paradigms, such as Smart Cities, eHealth and Industry 4.0. In this paper, we present the key drivers and requirements towards a hierarchical, distributed-intelligence 5G architecture, supporting low latency, security and open access as features intrinsic to its design. We also investigate the business perspective of the proposed 5G solution and the changes that can be foreseen for the telecom ecosystem. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The common European Information and Communications Technology sector vision for 5G is that it should leverage on the strengths of both optical and wireless technologies. In the 5G context, a wide spectra of radio access technologies-such as millimetre wave transmission, massive multiple-input multiple-output and new waveforms-demand for high capacity, highly flexible and convergent transport networks. As the requirements imposed on future 5G networks rise, so do the challenges in the transport network. Hence, 5G-XHaul proposes a converged optical and wireless transport network solution with a unified control plane based on software defined networking. This solution is able to support the flexible backhaul and fronthaul-X-Haul-options required to tackle the future challenges imposed by 5G radio access technologies. 5G-XHaul studies the trade-offs involving fully or partially converged backhaul and fronthaul functions, with the aim of maximising the associated sharing benefits, improving efficiency in resource utilisation and providing measurable benefits in terms of overall cost, scalability and sustainability. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We describe low end-to-end latencies of 6.69 ms in the 5G CHARISMA network, that has been optimised for both device and system technologies speed, as well as with its virtualised, hierarchical and distributed, edge- centric architecture, that processes data as near as possible to their source and destination. Such an ultra-high speed 5G network can be utilised in intelligent transport system (ITS) applications, and we describe a public transport bus-based use case that takes advantage of the CHARISMA capabilities.

To meet the requirements of 5G mobile networks, several radio access technologies, such as millimeter wave communications and massive MIMO, are being proposed. In addition, cloud radio access network (C-RAN) architectures are considered instrumental to fully exploit the capabilities of future 5G RANs. However, RAN centralization imposes stringent requirements on the transport network, which today are addressed with purpose-specific and expensive fronthaul links. As the demands on future access networks rise, so will the challenges in the fronthaul and backhaul segments. It is hence of fundamental importance to consider the design of transport networks alongside the definition of future access technologies to avoid the transport becoming a bottleneck. Therefore, we analyze in this work the impact that future RAN technologies will have on the transport network and on the design of the next generation fronthaul interface. To understand the especially important impact of varying user traffic, we utilize measurements from a real-world 4G network and, taking target 5G performance figures into account, extrapolate its statistics to a 5G scenario. With this, we derive both per-cell and aggregated data rate requirements for 5G transport networks. In addition, we show that the effect of statistical multiplexing is an important factor to reduce transport network capacity requirements and costs. Based on our investigations, we provide guidelines for the development of the 5G transport network architecture.

Cloud environments are criticized for their volatility in performance aspects, making it extremely difficult for time- critical applications owners to perform the decisive step for migration and owners of SaaS to present performance vs cost tradeoffs to their customers when acting as IaaS customers. The aim of this work is to present an architectural approach based on which a)IaaS providers may enhance the stability and performance effectiveness of their infrastructures, through overhead modelling, runtime analysis and optimal groupings of concurrently running services, b) IaaS adopters to understand the application computational nature, investigate abstracted QoS metrics for providers ranking, minimize procurement time and selection processes, automate deployment/orchestration and monitor the maintenance of their SLA c) 3rd parties to act as independent validators of IaaS QoS features, through a constant monitoring and benchmarking process for performance and SLA evaluation.

© 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. This article presents a converged 5G network infrastructure and an overarching architecture to jointly support operational network and end-user services, proposed by the EU 5G PPP project 5G-XHaul. The 5G-XHaul infrastructure adopts a common fronthaul/backhaul network solution, deploying a wealth of wireless technologies and a hybrid active/passive optical transport, supporting flexible fronthaul split options. This infrastructure is evaluated through a novel modeling. Numerical results indicate significant energy savings at the expense of increased end-user service delay.

This article presents a converged 5G network infrastructure and an overarching architecture to jointly support operational network and end-user services, proposed by the EU 5G PPP project 5G-XHaul. The 5G-XHaul infrastructure adopts a common fronthaul/backhaul network solution, deploying a wealth of wireless technologies and a hybrid active/passive optical transport, supporting flexible fronthaul split options. This infrastructure is evaluated through a novel modeling. Numerical results indicate significant energy savings at the expense of increased end-user service delay. © 2017 IEEE.

In this paper, the user requirements, along with the methodology adopted towards their identification within the i-PROGNOSIS framework (www.i-prognosis.eu), are presented. The latter are placed within the concept of active and healthy ageing (AHA), focusing on the case of Parkinson's Disease (PD) patients' support. The bases for the user requirements identification were face-to-face sessions, focus groups and a large scale Web-survey. Towards the efficient user requirements identification and i-PROGNOSIS components development, exemplified usage scenarios and related business processes the stakeholders of i-PROGNOSIS can perform, are discussed. Overall, 122 functional and non-functional requirements were identified, serving as a basis for the spiral development model of i-PROGNOSIS, revealing the beneficial role of the users in designing solutions within the AHA concept.

5G networks aim to tackle the complex demands of emerging business paradigms, such as Smart Cities, eHealth and Industry 4.0. In this paper, a hierarchical, distributed - intelligence 5G architecture is described, offering low latency, security, and open access as features intrinsic to its design. SDN and NFV principles are employed to create a networking solution applicable to a large number of high - specification 5G use case scenarios .

CHARISMA aims to tackle low-latency and end- to-end security for converged fixed/wireless 5G networks in order to meet the complex demands of emerging business paradigms, such as Smart Cities, eHealth, and Industry 4.0. In this paper, we present the key drivers and requirements towards a hierarchical, distributed-intelligence 5G architecture, supporting low latency, security, and open access as features intrinsic to its design. We also investigate the business perspective of the proposed 5G solution and the changes that can be foreseen for the telecom ecosystem.

There is a continuous pursuit by mobile operators (MOs) to improve indoor coverage in order not only to improve voice quality but also to enable higher data rates in home/office environments. Indoor coverage improvement, in conjunction with inexpensive (voice) offerings, will enable MOs to compete with and take away voice-call-related revenues from fixed network PTTs and/or VoIP operators. Femtocells constitute a promising solution to address all of the above. In this article we present our experience from our extensive study and trials of early (pre-standard) femtocell solutions that were available in the 2007-2008 timeframe.

The current centralized framework of energy production and distribution prevents small electricity producers from participating actively in the electricity market. Their participation to larger energy associations so as to strengthen their position necessitates new Information & Communication Technologies (ICT), architectures and business models. The VIMSEN ("Virtual Microgrids for Smart Energy Networks") project proposes a highly dynamic and distributed framework for future energy markets, modifying the existing energy market ecosystem and introducing new market players. The framework is primarily based on the concept of Virtual Micro-Grids (VMGs) and on the active participation of renewable energy prosumers to the energy market while a number of ICT systems provide advanced functionalities at VMG aggregators' and prosumers' sides. This paper aims to present the high-level VIMSEN system architecture focusing on the identification of system entities, their functionalities and the required communication interfaces.

The intense environmental concern regarding the CO 2 footprint of the energy sector entails the higher Renewable Energy Sources (RES) share in the energy mix of the global production profile. Currently, energy is produced and distributed under a centralized framework preventing small electricity producers from participating in the electricity market, unless they are part of larger energy associations, the administration of which necessitates the exploitation of new energy and ICT technologies. The VIMSEN project introduces a highly dynamic and distributed market framework, in which new market players will emerge and the current energy market ecosystem will be modified. The framework is primarily based on the concept of Virtual Micro-Grids (VMGs) and on the active participation of renewable energy prosumers. This position paper aims to analyze the VIMSEN ecosystem in a conceptual way and introduce novel market actors as well as their responsibilities that enable the implementation of beyond state-of-the-art ICT frameworks and business models in future liberalized energy markets.

This paper presents the results obtained during a three-month trial (February -April 2006) performed by COSMOTE towards the assessment of "fixed WiMAX" technology (IEEE 802.16-2004). The trial was conducted in the three largest cities of Greece, namely, Athens, Thessaloniki and Patra, in parallel, using "fixed WiMAX" equipment offered by three different vendors. The results presented here have been obtained at street-level during stationary measurements performed in the Athens centre, an urban NLOS environment, using a portable WiMAX CPE and a Laptop. The main characteristic of this environment is that it changes very rapidly and quite unpredictably, due to the existence of moving vehicles ranging from motorbikes, to buses and large trucks. These measurements simulate the system performance that an end-user perceives in such an environment, when he/she uses "fixed WiMAX", while enjoying a meal or drink in a restaurant, bar or cafeteria. Preliminary results indicate that in an urban street-level environment, with NLOS channel conditions, large throughput variations are observed, due to the existence of moving vehicles in the radio path. These variations may severely affect the quality of delay-sensitive real-time applications such as, video streaming and video-telephony.

We propose an optical-wireless 5G infrastructure offering converged fronthauling/backhauling functions to support both operational and end-user cloud services. A layered architectural structure required to efficiently support these services is shown. The data plane performance of the proposed infrastructure is evaluated in terms of energy consumption and service delay through a novel modelling framework. Our modelling results show that the proposed architecture can offer significant energy savings but there is a clear trade-off between overall energy consumption and service delay.

5G networks will comprise multiple network and compute infrastructure setups at finest fragmentation consisting of multiple disaggregated pools of network, compute and storage resources. Thus, 5G shall provide the means to move from the currently strictly defined, simple, single service models of provisioning connectivity or cloud or software services separately, to more complex "service provisioning" models including a mix of infrastructure resources, network services and even applications, specifically tailored to the specific stakeholder/vertical/end-user requirements. In this context, new SLAs shall be defined along with the SLA monitoring and maintenance mechanisms to be deployed over the distributed/disaggregated 5G deployments resources. This paper provides insights on the 5G network services SLAs definition along with an SLA maintenance paradigm.

Analog optical fronthaul for 5G network architectures is currently being promoted as a bandwidth- and energy-efficient technology that can sustain the data-rate, latency and energy requirements of the emerging 5G era. This paper presents 5G-PHOS project approach, which relies on a new optical fronthaul architecture that can effectively synergize optical transceiver, optical add/drop multiplexer and optical beamforming integrated photonics towards a DSP-assisted analog fronthaul, administered by means of a Medium Transparent Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation (MT-DBA) protocol for seamless and medium-transparent 5G small-cell networks.