Recently, as any other engineer on the planet, I asked ChatGPT what is needed to build a private 5G network. Here’s what it said.

Many enterprises, telcos, and vendors mention that private and public 4G/5G can be confusing, hard-to-procure, and manage. In many cases, getting started requires a large capital outlay, which organizations may not want to commit to given their unfamiliarity with private cellular technology.

Picture a secluded spot deep in a Norwegian fjord. As you wander past the main farmhouse, you come across a barn. Inside, there are no animals in sight. Instead of hay and manure, you're greeted by the aroma of freshly made hot chocolate. And there, sitting behind a computer, surrounded by screens and a lightning-fast internet connection, is Karl Johan Heimark.

• Working Group Two and AWS collaborate to help telecom customers deploy mobile core in the cloud
• Working Group Two’s core-as-a-service empowers mobile operators globally to grow their revenues, drive cost savings and achieve platform effects

• Kyocera Mirai Envision Co., Ltd. (KCME) and Working Group Two (WG2) have signed an agreement to jointly develop and offer an end-to-end solution for private networks in Japan.
• The two companies aim to serve customers across the business and public sectors with a highly differentiated offering that tackles current industry challenges, such as high initial cost, difficulty of deploying cloud-based solutions, and slow adoption.
• Announcing first on-the-ground project with Sakaue Co. Ltd.

• Hawaiian carrier Mobi is set to leverage the largest 5G network in the US
• Mobi makes strategic shift from legacy networks to deploy a cloud-native mobile core, fully managed as-a-Service
• Mobi selects WG2 for 4G/5G/IMS mobile core network deployed on infrastructure from AWS to realize rapid commercial launch
• Mobi disrupts the MVNO and 5G markets with differentiated service offering by tapping network APIs and global app development ecosystem

(OSLO, NORWAY, JAN 9, 2023) – Working Group Two today announced it has joined Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) as it continues to build its presence in the United States.

WG2 delivers a cloud-native 4G/5G core network as-a-service and as-a-platform for operators and developers. This drives the dual benefits of cost savings and revenue growth for the mobile industry. To help operators grow and differentiate, WG2 also offers a product marketplace that takes advantage of the programmable core network to create app stores of products for operators and users alike.

The AWS Snowcone is a small form factor server that was originally meant for data transport to AWS data centers. However it can also be used as a small device running compute workloads. We wanted to evaluate the performance of the Snowcone as it is a quite intriguing piece of technology which we might want to use as a an on-premise UPF (User Plane Function) in low-throughput 5G networks (think IoT or Proof of Concept deployments).

If that headline was slightly incomprehensible to you, it means that we’ve now made it possible to call pretty much anyone from a 5G-enabled handset that is connected to the Working Group Two 5G core via a 5G antenna. To be clear, we’re not talking about making a “first” Voice over New Radio (VoNR) call (those took place way back in 2021), but about making VoNR calls from a set of major commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) 5G devices to other mobile and fixed handsets.

Just as October was about to close, we ran a hackathon, aptly named "Hackoween" 🎃

Hackdays are a great way for everyone in the company to work together in creating new innovative solutions for everyday problems.

Our big belief is that the telecom industry should start building global platforms with the aim of achieving network effects - like many of the adjacent industries in devices and apps. To enable this, we’re building a mobile core from the ground up, running it in the public cloud and offering it as-a-service globally. To make it even harder (and fun) for ourselves, we’re also developing a full, API-based global product ecosystem to give telecom operators new revenue and differentiation opportunities.

One of the questions we get from operators is how to distribute products to their subscribers. There are multiple ways to go about it, but in this post, we'll show how an operator can enable products for their subscribers in what we call bundling.

Atos and Working Group Two (wgtwo) are teaming up to provide operators with a simplified, end-to-end mobile network solution. It is based on wgtwo’s 4/5G cloud-native mobile core and on Atos’s full Next Generation Telecom Network portfolio, including cloud computing, edge and Open RAN technologies. Atos and wgtwo will jointly deliver “core-network-as-a-service” solutions.

Meet Sigve Brekke (CEO, Telenor Group), Adam Selipsky (CEO, Amazon Web Services) and Erlend Prestgard (CEO, Working Group Two). They recently sat down to discuss questions like: How do you build a strong technology culture in tandem with a customer-centric culture? How do you think long-term but execute in the short term? How can companies in legacy industries transform themselves?

We live, eat and sleep mobile core technology here at Working Group Two. What did a mobile core look like in the past and how is it developing? We threw three quick questions at Stephane Savonitto, a Core Network Engineer at Working Group Two. He has significant mobile core experience, from large network operators and equipment manufacturers.

We love making telecom easier and scalable. This week we’ve released SIP Breakout, a new public API from Working Group Two. It simplifies the process of deploying SIP-enabled services, such as a PBX.

Our global mobile core platform is rapidly evolving. Here's what the team is building right now.

You’ve heard these terms a million times: Managed services and software-as-a-service. At first glance, they appear deceptively similar. You wonder, how are they different again? Understanding the difference between them unlocks a perspective on where the telecom industry is heading.