Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
Where have all the CDN-disrupting technologies been this year, while traditional server-based networks have been resolutely handling the relentless demand for OTT video the world over? Last year was a story of peer to peer (P2P) networks creeping out of the shadows – spearheaded by two market-altering deals with Liberty Global embracing Teltoo and CenturyLink acquiring Streamroot. We have even witnessed the emergence of blockchain-based overlay networks to further make the established CDN vendors sweat. This year was therefore tipped to be the year that decentralized P2P software finally entered the mainstream, but along came lockdowns, and suddenly the resilience of the classic CDN was solidified – as demonstrated during the emphatic Akamai Edge Live event earlier this year (coping…
Covid-19 has had a noticeable effect on the video viewing habits of consumers globally. We recently explored the phenomenon in a Rethink TV forecast, but the increase has also been seen on the illegitimate side of things. Irdeto has seen a spike in piracy, and wanted to update Faultline on the scope and capabilities of these pirate services. Mark Mulready, VP of Cybersecurity Services, came to Irdeto after spending nine years at Foxtel, the Australian telco, and 16 years in the New South Wales Police Department. Making the jump from detective work into fraud and operational security was driven by a desire to put law qualifications to more use, and Mulready has now been at Irdeto for 10 years. Foxtel…
We have come to understand in more detail the events that led to the shock shuttering of the MPEG Group a fortnight ago as legendary founder Leonardo Chiariglione left in a blaze of fiery blog posts. His anger is understandable, as someone who pioneered the very fabric of this video industry we call home only to have it swept from underneath him, yet the vitriolic manner in which he announced his departure has left a sour taste for many. Describing the “feudal” ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) as having a hierarchical structure akin to the Roman Empire, Chiariglione has painted a picture of an archaic organization deeply detached from the world he helped create. However, speaking to people familiar with…
Open Network Automation Protocol (ONAP) was once seen as a shining pioneer of open source platforms in telecoms networks as they started to become virtualized and software-defined. Now, industry opinion is divided. Some operators remain convinced ONAP is a strong open framework for managing all the functions and components of a virtualized network. Others think it has become far too cumbersome, and that many of its approaches will be superseded by the lighter frameworks that come with containerization. Undeterred, ONAP is onto its sixth release, codenamed Frankfurt, which is focused on some of the key trends of the day, including 5G network slicing and cloud-native network functions (CNFs). Arpit Joshipura, general manager for networking, edge and IoT at the Linux…
While the virtualization of the RAN is still a sufficiently new and undeveloped market to provide hopeful hunting grounds for alternative vendors, the virtualization of the OSS/BSS is more mature and increasingly dominated by familiar faces. Some of these, like Oracle, have come across from the IT and cloud worlds and so are relatively new to telecoms, but they hardly count as plucky start-ups. The same may soon become true of the virtualized core, where Microsoft has acquired two of the most prominent challengers, Affirmed and Metaswitch, leaving Mavenir as the main specialist provider. While large suppliers seek to stay relevant through cloudification, so do industry associations – notably, in this context, TMForum. Its Open Digital Architecture (ODA) initiative is…
Verizon may have been quieter about its white box and SDN (software-defined networking) strategies than AT&T, but it share its rival’s ambition to transform its costs and efficiencies by deploying disaggregated, virtualized platforms everywhere. Indeed, it is further advanced than AT&T in one critical area at least, convergence, having merged its wireline and wireless operations as well as its next generation architecture. However, while AT&T has used the SDN program to shake up its supply chain, Verizon has been more cautious. AT&T has developed key software elements, and hardware reference designs, inhouse – sometimes with unfamiliar vendor partners – and donated some of that work to open initiatives like the Linux Foundation’s ONAP and O-RAN, or Facebook’s Open Compute Project.…
The leading specialist vendors which have gained new prominence from the interest in O-RAN have been announcing a string of deals to support open specifications, and to combine their respective offerings. Some of these, like an agreement by base station vendor Airspan to support Altiostar RAN VNFs (virtual network functions), or a similar agreement between Altiostar and NEC, represent commercialization of work done for the Rakuten super-project. Others are arising from other trials and deployments, or just from the logic of joining forces to prove that multivendor vRANs are realistic, and to gain a bit of scale against the big vendors. The latest pact is between Mavenir and Altiostar, which plan to cooperate to specify open RAN radio units which…
Ericsson will not be content to let Nokia and Samsung make all the running in big-vendor O-RAN. Earlier this month, the head of the company’s networking business, Fredrik Jejdling, said Ericsson would take a major role in the emerging open RAN market – not by being first with a compliant product, but by being the first to deliver an offering that can match, or improve on, the performance of existing dedicated systems. He told an online investor event that Ericsson believed in open ecosystems and already had a “prominent and impactful role” in the O-RAN Alliance, but added: “We need to put a realistic view on how and when it will be introduced into the networks to deliver performance and…
We have recently analyzed how Nokia is seeking to lead development of a key new element of the O-RAN architecture, the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC). With the RIC – which sits between the baseband and the orchestration layer in O-RAN’s vision of a disaggregated, virtualized network – the Alliance is proposing more than just common, open fronthaul interfaces to replace the semi-proprietary CPRI, and is eyeing full architecture changes. Nokia has set aside some of the clear conflicts of interest involved in supporting open, multivendor platforms and has opened up its interfaces in some cases (notably for Rakuten), and is also contributing significantly to the code and the real world testing for O-RAN specifications, including the fronthaul and the RIC.…
The high level of interest in open network architectures, triggered by operators’ need to transform their cost base in 5G, and intensified by the political stand-offs between the USA and China, is assumed to provide significant opportunities for new vendors. This is clearly true on several levels: A network in which the key interfaces are fully open allows an operator to mix and match equipment from different vendors. A network in which the functions are virtualized or containerized, and are neutral to the hardware underneath them, allows for the use of COTS white boxes in place of complex vertically integrated base stations, switches, routers and core appliances. If the virtual network functions (VNFs) are managed by open orchestrators, or by…
GE is planning to test 3D printing in the on-site production of wind turbine towers, as part of a group which involves LafargeHolcim and COBOD, following the successful demonstration of a 10-meter prototype. Tower size is traditionally limited by logistical issues imposed by road size, meaning that maximum dimensions are typically 100 meters for height and 4.5 meter for diameter. With the potential for heights of up to 200 meters, the group has claimed that a 5 MW turbine would generate 33% additional power with a larger tower, due to access to higher wind speeds at higher altitude. The IEA has released its monthly oil statistics for March 2020, reiterating the reasons behind the record low prices seen across the…
The Norwegian government has made its first big move into the offshore wind sector, announcing two areas in North Sea which it will open up for 4.5 GW of projects. While this will initially excite those working in oil exploration in the region, waning investment and an increased demand for renewable-certified electricity are more likely to offer opportunities for the Nordic country to export to those with fewer natural resources and to become a world leader in the floating wind sector. With the Ocean Energy Act in the country mandating that sea areas must be opened up by the government before license applications can be submitted, this marks Norway’s first real commitment to offshore wind. The two areas which have…
Panda Green Energy announced on Friday that it will develop a gigawatt-scale demonstration project covering PV solar, thermal solar, energy storage, and hydrogen production in the northwest desert province of Xinjiang. The minimum scale will be 1 GW, with at least 500 MW in the first phase, at a cost of around $1.4 billion. The company has signed a memorandum of co-operation with the local government, the People’s Government of Manas County. Manas County lies 100 kilometers west Urumqi, the state capital of Xinjiang. The agreement grants Panda Green exclusive rights to the project, and the county will assist with securing project management rights, land leases, and tax incentives. The final scale of the project will depend on local land…
Underground salt caverns in Europe could provide up to 84,800 TWh of hydrogen storage, according to researchers in Germany, who claim that swathes of the gas could be injected into bedded salt deposits and salt domes. The study at the Julich Institute for Energy and Climate Research assessed both onshore and offshore salt caverns, with volumes of between 500,000 and 750,000 cubic-meters, according to site-specific thermodynamic factors. In layman’s terms, they aimed to prove that hydrogen wouldn’t leak from the caverns, and to describe the conditions needed for this to be the case. With the ‘hydrogen economy’ receiving a huge boost in the EU’s green stimulus package through Covid-19, it’s tipped that green hydrogen will reach both scale and cost-parity…
Short-form video struggler Quibi is on track to sign up 2 million subscribers by the end of the year, missing its 2020 subscriber target of 7.4 million users by a country mile, according to a WSJ report. Quibi has called the findings “inaccurate”. However, Quibi is apparently and belatedly considering a strategic U-turn away from being mobile-only, by entering talks with Roku and Amazon to develop apps for streaming devices, according to a separate Variety report. ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish has rather naively coined the future version of its CBS All Access streaming platform a “super service” – for which it plans to trial run this summer before rebranding next year. Super, in Bakish’s view, will be justified by a…
Taking the plunge into distributed access architecture (DAA) technology is a strategy the majority of cable operators – 52% to be precise – have now embarked on, according to the SCTE Cable Fiber Outlook Survey. However, given the crippling demands on networks brought about by the pandemic, vendors central to the DAA movement are increasingly questioning whether virtualization alone is enough. This is particularly true for upstream, with symmetrical video applications going from luxury to precious commodity in a matter of months. Issues around upstream were floated by Jim Walsh, Solutions Marketing Manager at Viavi, during the recent Cable Next-Gen Europe event, hosted by Light Reading. “One of the big questions right now is can we keep solving the upstream…
The floodgates have officially reopened for hardware product launches following months of delays, which we have heard through the grapevine has caused certain companies to take drastic steps like completing finishing touches to top secret technology in engineers’ garages just to meet deadlines. Haivision is the latest to join the party, unveiling its Makito X4 decoder as the perfect complement to its sister product the Makito X4 encoder. Haivision may or may not be among the companies taking a Jobs and Wozniak approach to engineering, but the vendor is certainly back into the swing of things with the Maxito X4 decoder, which includes Haivision’s hardware-based Stream Sync technology featuring single frame accuracy. Stream Sync is pitched as an extra tool…
Teasing the question last week of whether Triveni Digital was first to market with an ATSC 3.0 product supporting SRT served its purpose perfectly – drawing people out of the woodwork to contest this ludicrous suggestion. Sinclair Broadcast subsidiary One Media 3.0 got straight in touch with Faultline, saying it beat Triveni Digital to the punch back in February, and today the company is in full swing supporting SRT with its strategic partners, vendors, and CE manufactures in the recently launched ATSC 3.0 Las Vegas market. One Media directed us to documentation dated February 2020 which had its own question to solve – “Are you looking to enable testing and interoperability of “distant” ATSC 3.0 broadcast gateways over Public IP…
Vodafone and Flipkart, companies at either ends of the content aggregation spectrum, came together this week to discuss different ways of achieving the same thing. Personally, Faultline cannot wait for the day “super aggregator” is resigned to the buzz-term trashcan, but in the meantime, quite a few important companies have adopted the label – so we must press on until the likes of Vodafone and Flipkart think of something new. Both are customers of US video software specialist Kaltura, which hosted this week’s aggregation-themed webinar, and both are proudly lauding themselves as successful super aggregators in the TV landscape. That is where the similarities end. Walmart-owned Flipkart, based in India, started life as an e-commerce platform, before diversifying into markets…
Comcast’s business wing is gearing up to launch its new virtual CPE (vCPE) offering in Q3 or perhaps Q4, as part of its software-defined networking (SDN) portfolio. The business technologies, looking to take advantage of the spike in home working, essentially transform legacy hardware functions into ones that can be run in software, hence the name, but it is only a matter of time until vCPE kicks the door in on the consumer side of things. In short, vCPE could be applied to the home broadband and pay TV markets, dramatically cutting the capex and support costs of in-home devices, bringing the efficiency of cloud computing to bear – replacing costly set tops with low-cost dongles or native applications, and…