Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
For those telcos that are bold enough to move their most critical network functions to the public cloud, Mavenir aims to be there to help. The company has expanded its partnership with Amazon AWS in order to offer its 4G and 5G cloud-native network functions on AWS’s infrastructure, together with the larger firm’s container technology and analytics. All Mavenir’s key software products – its cloud-native Open RAN vDU and vCU, 4G/5G packet core, IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and messaging – will be combined with Amazon’s Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) to support container-based deployment in any data center (collocated or on-premise), as long as it is based on AWS Outposts. Outposts is a managed service that supports common AWS cloud infrastructure,…
An often discussed issue in Europe is whether the major European telcos might collaborate on building a cloud platform that would be optimized for their 5G and enterprise needs, and would be fully under their control rather than that of hyperscalers. This seems in the spirit of Europe’s Open RAN initiatives, which are taking on an increasingly Europe-first attitude to building a local ecosystem, and governments would presumably welcome a counterweight to the US giants’ power in the cloud once 5G becomes cloud-native. A project by Orange and integrator Capgemini, to build their own cloud, could even represent a first step towards such as project, though it has arisen in response to specific rules set out for France and its…
Only weeks after Dish endorsed the still-experimental idea of deploying a whole 5G network in the public cloud, Telefónica gave AWS another significant boost, saying it had validated AWS Outposts as a viable option to deploy its core network. Outposts is a managed service that supports common AWS cloud infrastructure, services and tools in any location, delivering a consistent environment across on-premise and public, collocated clouds. This would allow Telefónica to deploy instances of its cloud-native core in different locations according to the use case, potentially spanning its own Unica telco cloud and those of customers and of AWS. This flexibility it important, since there will be different considerations and economics for the macro 5G network, compared to private or…
We often return to the issue of the role of the hyperscalers in 5G, because it is such a significant one for the future shape of the telecoms networks and the business model of operators. The spotlight is currently firmly on Amazon AWS, after a string of announcements and alliances that highlight the rapid evolution of its telecoms strategy. Following US-based Dish Network’s decision to deploy the RAN functions, in its forthcoming greenfield 5G network, on the AWS public cloud, several Open RAN vendors have tightened their ties with AWS, including Mavenir, Nokia and Viavi. And Telefónica said last week that it had validated AWS to run its 5G core in Brazil. It is keeping its virtualized RAN plans tied…
An enzyme being researched at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) could displace platinum and become the go-to catalyst for hydrogen production and fuel cells, according to a study published last week. The enzymes are referred to as hydrogenases and are produced by desulfovibrio desulfuricans – a microscopic bacteria. While protected by being embedded in a polymer, the structure has an active center, where a cluster of iron and sulfur can either catalyze the oxidation of hydrogen to protons and electricity for fuel cells, or the reduction of protons to hydrogen in Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) based electrolysis. The ability to do both continues to be a game changer for the energy industry, with the enzymes offering the ability to…
At least 16 offshore wind farms will be approved off the Pacific coast of California by 2025, according to an announcement made by the US Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) – the organization responsible for completing the reviews – marking a jump-start to what could be one of the hottest markets for floating wind in the world. The projects could add a combined total of 19 GW of clean power capacity, said Amanda Lefton, the Bureau’s director, some of which could come online in time to support President Joe Biden’s objective to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind across the country by 2030, powering 10 million homes. This comes as part of a wider objective to fully…
Population: 128,932,753 (+1.03% vs 2019) GDP per Capita: $8,421 (-16.0% vs 2019) Debt to GDP: 60.59% (+7.29% vs 2019) Mexico can be considered “the big traitor” to renewable energy and the energy transition. While there are other countries such as Russia which have yet to embrace renewables in the first place, Mexico has almost uniquely first adopted a typical new energy strategy, only to slam the door on it after just two brief years of mass green energy deployment. In the West approval for renewables lines up neatly with the left-right political spectrum, but in Mexico they have run afoul of a populist left-wing party. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) says he is not opposed to renewable energy in…
Five years ago this week… Viacom appeared in a state of stasis, with its recently deposed ex-Chariman, Sumner Redstone, seemingly still dragging his heels as a growing cast of voices called for the media giant to embrace the internet and streaming. Redstone’s daughter, Shari – a 20% shareholder in Viacom’s parent company National Amusements – was the latest to add to the critique of a tired giant stuck in its ways. Viacom had been anti-internet since its $1 billion legal action against YouTube when much of its prized content found its way onto the website in its early years, and its only involvement in OTT had been selling content to other services, as well as launching the Voot AVoD service…
A studious survey from media access platform provider ATX Networks has uncovered how more than 40 operators of various sizes perceive DOCSIS 4.0 today and how they plan to deploy it, while exploring whether flirting with fiber is mission critical. We love it when a vendor catches us off guard with a ballsy opening gambit. “The HFC network is destined for extinction,” was how ATX Networks kicked off the show during a webinar this week revealing results of its survey. “Fiber is destined to someday completely overtake HFC’s portion of the network,” continued the condemnation of HFC networks, in self-defamatory fashion from ATX Networks given its cableco customer base. But unlike other suppliers of access equipment in the fixed network…
‘AVoD is hot, but digital advertising is not’ has been Faultline’s mantra as of late. A new partnership between Fox’s AVoD service Tubi and data provider LiveRamp is just another case of digital publishers and ad tech vendors catching up with market expectations of advertising capabilities. Tubi has tapped LiveRamp to connect its inventory and audiences with advertiser demand on an addressable basis across all OTT devices. LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS) will organize Tubi’s inventory in a user-centric fashion and authenticate the data simultaneously. Any toddler can tell you that more people are spending more time watching digital video, but time and time again we are astounded by the slow pace at which ad tech vendors and publishers are…
While not quite the One Ring, the arrival of Matter opens the door for a significant attempt at solving the interoperability problems faced in the smart home. This should catch the eye of our operator crowd, who have viewed that particular endeavor as a major headache that would best be avoided. Matter is the name of the smart home interoperability specification that Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP) has been working on for the past three years. CHIP was housed inside the Zigbee Alliance, even though CHIP sat at a higher level in the stack than Zigbee’s low power wireless mesh protocol. To this end, the Zigbee Alliance has rebranded as the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), and CHIP is now…
In the wake of the merger and spinout of Discovery and WarnerMedia, more details have trickled out affirming some of the history and potential future of the new venture. Comcast was, and is still, looking to join in on the party, but sensibly fears attracting regulator ire. A closer look at the man at the helm of the project was provided too, after a number of sources emerged on the record. Last week, we rightly trashed the 400 million subscriber count aspirations, but were at least pleased that AT&T had realized that trying to integrate WarnerMedia was akin to mixing oil and water. This week we also learned that some lactose intolerant people will emulsify water and mayonnaise in a…
AT&T sells Warner Media to sharpen focus on 5G AT&T has u-turned by selling its Warner Media entertainment business to Discovery just three years after acquiring it in the controversial $85bn purchase of Time Warner. This dramatic shift in direction is an attempt to refocus on the core telco business after becoming mired in debt that has deprived the company of capital to invest in its 5G network and keep pace with T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. This $43bn sale by AT&T is the largest of three recent retreats by US telcos from media and entertainment. Verizon sold its AOL and Yahoo assets for $5bn earlier this month, while T-Mobile closed its T-Vision streaming service in March, in that case after only five months of operation.…
The days of inferring that WiFi mesh standards such as EasyMesh are bad for businesses such as Airties, with their own mesh architectures, are a distant memory. By defining low-level protocols, EasyMesh removes much of the cumbersome communications legwork between access points and gateways, meaning the likes of Airties can concentrate on developing high level intelligent functions on top of standardized technologies. Despite Airties being early to embrace EasyMesh back in 2018, the idea that EasyMesh is still in some way a competitor to Airties’ own mesh is something that certain camps just cannot shake off. Perhaps the latest move from Airties will change a few minds, as the Turkish vendor has announced a new level of EasyMesh support by…
Rakuten Mobile continues to tighten its alliances with vendors to try to accelerate “global expansion” of its Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP), which aims to provide pre-integrated, mix-and-match hardware and software to enable operators to deploy Open Ran networks relatively cheaply and easily. At least, more cheaply and easily than Rakuten itself, which is widely thought to have underestimated the cost and complexity of integrating and optimizing a cloud-native 4G/5G network from scratch. It had hundreds of engineers working on the project, but hopes to offset the costs (and the low levels of mobile revenues it has generated so far) by turning RCP into a professional services business. It has signed memorandums of understanding with two Japanese vendors to support this…
The rise of asynchronous communications such as email and messaging accelerated a long-running decline in the traditional voice phone call. Now, when they occur, synchronous one-to-one voice calls themselves tend to be scheduled rather than spontaneous and perhaps as a result have been largely neglected by mobile operators over recent years. Yet at the same time, use of voice itself has enjoyed something of a revival in asynchronous mode in various guises, as in personal assistants, remote control for TV services and within user interfaces more generally, and this has been intensified by the pandemic and its stay-at-home scenarios. This is the background as 5G Voice over New Radio (VoNR) emerges as a sequel to VoLTE (Voice over LTE). It…
One benefit to emerge from all the furore around Huawei’s role in many countries’ 5G infrastructures may be a more coordinated approach to fostering competition within the cellular supply chain. The field was already quite narrow and Huawei’s exclusion confines it even further, to a duopoly, or at best triopoly, comprising Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung, with ZTE, NEC and a few others knocking on the door. It is indeed emerging vendors that have been particularly active promoting Open RAN as a route into major 5G infrastructures for them. But as we discussed last week, efforts to accelerate Open RAN are themselves in danger of defeating their very purpose by attempting to leap forward before the testing capabilities are established and…
It is not just cellular infrastructure that is suffering from constriction in the supply chain but also the semiconductor industry underpinning it, especially among the foundries where the integrated circuits are manufactured. This has reared its head recently in the light of global shortages among both leading edge and standard chips that are now afflicting a wide range of industrial sectors, including telecoms. The crisis has been acknowledged by leading ICT manufacturers including IBM and Dell, as well as by Intel, which is still by some distance the world’s biggest dedicated semiconductor company by revenue at around $77bn a year. Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest foundry, echoed these sentiments, with the consensus being that supplies would not catch up with…
Announcing its first quarter results, Telefónica echoed many of the narratives that often build around European telcos. It is focusing on new options to monetize its infrastructure, particularly fiber, in Europe, but it struggling to make a success of its digital operations. Of two new units set up as part of its strategic plan last year, Telefónica Tech is growing, but Telefónica Digital’s revenues seem to have evaporated. This is a common pattern. Many of the Spanish group’s peers are struggling to boost ARPU or generate revenue from digital services, despite 5G, but they are finding ways to unlock more value from their physical assets, including through carve-outs, while delivering a wider range of revenue streams on increasingly capable networks,…
A year after it was proposed, the £31.4bn ($44bn) merger between Telefónica’s O2 UK subsidiary, and Liberty Global’s Virgin Media – the UK’s largest cableco – has been approved by regulators. It is one of the UK’s largest ever telecoms deals, far higher than the £12.5bn price BT paid to acquire MNO EE in 2015. That is partly down to the strong job O2 UK has done in the past year to strengthen a business that often struggled in the 2010s, but has now leapt from third to first place in terms of subscribers. The two parent firms have promised to invest £10bn in the UK over the next five years and create “a stronger fixed and mobile competitor in the…