Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
Rakuten Mobile has joined forces with two of its many suppliers – RAN software vendor Altiostar and 5G radio provider NEC – to demonstrate interoperability in a multivendor O-RAN 5G network with Massive MIMO antenna arrays. Altiostar integrated the O-RAN distributed unit (O-DU) functionality of its vRAN with NEC’s O-RAN Radio Unit (O-RU) using control, user, synchronization and management plane protocols based on O-RAN Alliance guidelines. The 5G layer was built using container network functions (CNFs) running on the same cloud infrastructure that Rakuten has deployed to support its live 4G network. As part of the management-plane integration, Altiostar adopted a hierarchical model that allows the O-DU software to manage the NEC radio unit, including software updates, radio unit configuration,…
Cisco is seeking several pivotal roles in 5G. It is stopping short of going head-to-head with the base station giants in the RAN (though an acquisition of one of the O-RAN start-ups is surely quite likely). But it is locking horns with Nokia and Ericsson in several other significant 5G areas, and of course, is the obvious keystone for the USA’s attempt to build a homegrown 5G supply chain to counter Huawei. Areas where Cisco will worry the traditional mobile vendors more than it has in the past include the core, transport and orchestration domains. In the core, it made limited headway with a RAN-neutral EPC based on its acquisition of Starent. But in 5G, the evolution of that platform,…
The political, security and trade tensions between the USA and China have all become intertwined with one another, embroiling many other countries which are being pressurized to take sides. Nothing highlights the increasing importance of mobile communications to our world better than the way 5G has become a symbol of all these wider struggles. In the original Cold War, there were debates over keeping GSM secure from Soviet snooping, but these didn’t make it to mainstream headlines or US presidents’ speeches. The technologies which dominated those battles related to warfare and the space race. Now, 5G is seen as one of the foundational technologies which ‘great nations’ must dominate to assure their place in the world. While the technology rivalries…
The paradox of 5G is that it has been presented as the biggest sea change yet in mobile communications and yet as a series of evolutionary steps rather than a revolution. That may sound like an oxymoron, but the intention has been to set out a blueprint for mobile communications that will pull innovations through with it and ideally mark the end of clear demarcations between successive generations. It will then only be commercial considerations, a reason for operators and consumers to buy more products, that would drive a stake in the ground for 6G. Some of these earlier aspirations will be met through the two rounds of 5G standards that are currently being ground out – Release 16, due…
A group of companies worth $2.4 trillion in total have joined forces in the continued movement for a climate-focused recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic. Adobe, Unilever and 150+ others have signed a joint statement through the UN’s Science Based Targets Initiative, imploring global officials to promote a green economy. Shell is among several Dutch companies that donated nearly €500,000 to climate science denier Frits Bottcher during the 1990s, according to the Shell Papers Project. In letters discovered through the investigation, Bottcher wrote “In the past three years I managed to coordinate the scientific opposition against the CO2 hate campaign,” which was spearheaded by funding from Shell. Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners has launched its new solar development company Primergy. The new solar-plus-storage…
Renovagen’s Fast Fold system, a man-portable thin-film solar design with battery storage, which can be deployed and packed up in just a few minutes, is being used to power Covid-19 test analysis equipment in Zambia. First Aid Africa, which is a Scottish NGO, has 2 Fast Fold units in Zambia and will be loaning one to the testing organisation specifically to support the fight against the Coronavirus. Besides Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR), other customers for the system, potential or actual, are mining exploration, events, telecom base stations, filmmakers, agriculture, and the military. Other 2020 developments for Renovagen include a partnership in Saudi Arabia with Upgrade for Electronics and Home Appliances, which will be deploying several demonstration models this…
The Morrison government in Australia has completely sabotaged all clean energy efforts there, by endorsing the “King Review” which will open up its key green energy funding mechanisms, its Emissions Reduction Fund (EMF), to fossil fuel CCUS projects. It will also “force” spending by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to become technology neutral – code for allowing it to be spent on research for fossil fuel majors. Multiple Australian governments have backed Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS), spending A$1.3 billion in the process, with zero practical results. By now offering EMF monies to CCUS, it will deplete the fund overnight and kill off any official support for renewables, which are already…
It would be easy to wonder what has happened to Northvolt during the coronavirus pandemic – it was supposed to have its European Gigafactory for Lithium Ion batteries ready by early 2021, just ahead of Tesla’s first factory in Europe, scheduled for July 2021. Then things went quiet. But it clearly still plans to be in the race against Tesla and all-comers, and this week it announced its design for the Voltpack Mobile System, a form of energy storage designed to compete with diesel generators. As a development partner, Vattenfall has supported the system’s design and will be providing test and validation capabilities to bring Voltpack Mobile System to market ahead of other customers. Vattenfall is an early investor in…
Altice’s French radio and TV broadcast operation NextRadioTV has been severely impacted by the pandemic, resulting in a 50% workforce reduction and removal of its sports news channel. It comes as Altice reported first quarter 2020 revenue of €63 million, up €3 million year on year despite being negatively impacted by the interruption of the European Champions League soccer tournament in March. In a tough week for the French broadcast market, the MyTF1 VoD platform will close at the end of July. Commercial broadcaster TF1 is instead engaged with pay TV operator Canal+ to take on content rights. AT&T has shuttered its DirecTV operations in Venezuela, after the US government prohibited the broadcast of Globovision and PDVSA TV channels.…
It seems more than two years since Broadcom’s ongoing hostile campaign to acquire Qualcomm finally fizzled out after being blocked by President Trump on national security grounds. That would have been the biggest tech merger ever at around $120 billion – but, since then, Qualcomm has prospered while Broadcom has reoriented its business away from wireless and towards software for its broadband and storage markets, with the acquisitions of CA Technologies for $18.9 billion and Symantec Enterprise Security for $10.7 billion. Qualcomm by contrast has remained focused on wireless and refocused its strategy around convergence, especially between WiFi and 5G. This is bringing it up ever more against Intel, which also has feet firmly placed in both camps, while Broadcom…
How apt that one of the most interesting takeaways from NAB Show Express – the free-to-all virtual event taking place within the last week – came not from the CEO of a major US broadcaster or even from an OTT video powerhouse, but from an open source software developer – digging up some rather dirty tactics taking place in the cloud platform arena. During a seminar entitled ‘Taking Streaming to the Next Level’ hosted by Light Reading, panelists including executives from Roku and Sling TV repeatedly passed around the Disney+ praise baton to what was in danger of becoming a total Disney snore-fest. But Rob Wilmouth, Chief Architect at Red Hat, took a different stance to how the video streaming…
As news of IBC 2020’s inevitable cancellation swirled, expectations elevated for the virtual NAB Show Express. It was only appropriate that the event, powered by video software suppliers Brightcove and Frequency, should capitulate in a blaze of player error timeouts – rendering the library of some 163 on-demand sessions completely redundant for at least 24 hours. Eventually, the festivities returned – welcoming some 40,000 attendees to a delectable spread of online seminars, virtual fireside chats and technology presentations. NAB Show Express welcomed less than half the usual 90,000+ people who attend the real thing in Las Vegas, but at a fraction of the cost. While we can forgive the player error timeouts as temporary inconveniences, we cannot excuse the deplorable…
Swedish vendor Net Insight has popped up with a mysterious deal to help build a new nationwide media network somewhere in the Middle East, providing HD and UHD uncompressed contribution capabilities. We get the impression this could be a pretty hefty deployment deal for the company in the long-term, opening doors to more lucrative contracts in the region at a critical time. This is a much-needed boost for Net Insight after first quarter net sales fell 13.5%, although that was mostly due to Amazon buying its video synchronization product line Sye late last year, with minimal pandemic-related impact on business as far as we can tell, except for early supply chain slowdowns. Net Insight nailed the no-name deployment through a…
LiveU, TVU Networks and Harmonic were three standout video technology vendors to be immersed in flattery from broadcast and media industry executives at NAB Show Express. Discussing how relationships with vendor suppliers have changed in the wake of the pandemic was an important yet touchy topic during the IABM State of the Industry session. WarnerMedia’s VP of Content Transmission, Renard Jenkins said, “Our relationships with vendor suppliers are changing to look more at services. We are no longer just looking for hardware or software solutions, we are now looking for all of that and then looking for who can supply a service that allows me to work more efficiently.” Jenkins, who is responsible for shifting content around the supply chain…
Some big announcements around ATSC 3.0 were expected at last month’s fallen NAB trade event, so the stage was set at the virtual replacement – NAB Show Express – for industry representatives to set the world alight. In the end, it was the FCC rather than the broadcasters providing the ATSC 3.0 headlines – planning to shake up media ownership rules to allow broadcasters to provide internet services via NextGen TV. This is further evidence for how the hybrid broadcast broadband video standard continues to be completely mollycoddled by the FCC – spoon-feeding the market new opportunities as initial dreams slide out of view. To us, the proposal by FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr – to vote on broadcast internet being…
There was a time when the latest smartphone system-on-chip (SoC) launch was a major event, but in the past few years, generational changes have become incremental rather than dramatic. But with 5G-era applications such as next generation mobile gaming emerging, the SoC giants, such as Qualcomm and MediaTek, will be targeting a bigger step-up in performance again. Qualcomm has unveiled its Snapdragon 768G, positioned a few steps down from its flagship 5G offering, the Snapdragon 865, but a couple of notches up from the midrange Snapdragon 765 (both of those made their debut in December as the first members of a family to support 5G-ready smartphone designs). Meanwhile, MediaTek has taken the wraps off its new Dimensity 1000+, an extension…
The mobile industry has been targeting private networks with an eye especially on the emerging Industrial IoT (IIoT) since the arrival of LTE, but has been held back by several key factors. These are chiefly lack of available unlicensed spectrum, unproven robustness or performance, and poor integration with existing enterprise IT systems for effective control. Spectrum is now being made available for private LTE/5G networks by various governments, while techniques such as cooperative multipoint transmission (CoMP) have addressed robustness, reliability, and performance. Most recently have come along initiatives to facilitate the integration, such as the partnership just announced in the US between Pod Group, which provides platforms and services for the IoT and Expeto, a cloud and edge IoT connectivity…
It seems more than two years since Broadcom’s ongoing hostile campaign to acquire Qualcomm finally fizzled out after being blocked by President Trump on national security grounds. That would have been the biggest tech merger ever at around $120bn but since then, Qualcomm has prospered while Broadcom has reoriented its business away from wireless and towards software for its broadband and storage markets, with the acquisitions of CA Technologies for $18.9bn and Symantec Enterprise Security for $10.7bn. Qualcomm by contrast has remained focused on wireless and refocused its strategy around convergence, especially between WiFi and 5G. This is bringing it up ever more against Intel, which also has feet firmly placed in both camps, while Broadcom is only a serious…
Japan’s disruptive cloud-native operator, Rakuten Mobile, continues to grab the headlines with a mixture of progress and setbacks in its roadmap to a fully open 5G network, with a radical new business model. Part of that model will be the monetization of the pioneering work it has done in deploying an end-to-end cloud-native cellular network. It aims to package up the blueprint, technology framework and experiences underpinning the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP), to sell to other operators and to enterprises worldwide. This will result in a blueprint containing all the RCP elements, including telco applications and software, new-look OSS/BSS, and edge computing and virtual network functions. This blueprint will be made available with a tool that enables customers to change…
The advance of the open source RISC-V reduced instruction set platform to become a serious contender in the mobile OS space is now threatening the dominance of Intel and especially Softbank’s ARM in their respective spheres. The latest significant development is a memorandum of understanding (MoU) just signed between RISC-V International, the non-profit consortium promoting the platform, and Global Platform, an industry group working on secure digital services and devices. The objective is to accelerate development of open standards for design of embedded components at the hardware level in connected devices for the IoT, especially the underlying Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). This is critical because current IoT devices are inherently insecure and protection is confined to higher level proactive monitoring…