Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
The first wave of 5G-oriented spectrum auctions may have been worryingly conventional, but it is clear that must change if the objectives of the platform are to be met. To enable a huge variety of use cases, service providers, enterprises and network behaviors, compared to 4G, a wide variety of spectrum bands and licensing regimes will be required to meet the needs of all. More shared and unlicensed spectrum, accessed increasingly dynamically, will be important to support a wider ecosystem of operators and services. Advanced sharing mechanisms will also be essential to allow coexistence with incumbents such as satellite operators. And 5G networks will be able to move higher and higher up the spectrum, initially up to 100 GHz, and…
As artificial intelligence (AI) moves towards the mainstream for telecoms network optimization, one of ETSI’s activities in this area has defined some detailed use cases across the network lifecycle from planning to optimization to predictive analytics. The Industry Specification Group (ISG) was set up in October 2017 under the label ‘Experiential Networked Intelligence’ (ENI). It defines ‘experiential’ as a method to “observe and learn from the experience an operator has in managing the network, to improve its understanding of the operator experience, over time.” In other words, AI and machine learning will help the network to learn what impacts on user experience, positively or negatively, and feed that understanding into decisions, to make them more automated and better aligned to…
Mobile operators are intensely interested in the potential of edge compute. If they could integrate their network elements and sites (base stations, central offices) with edge compute nodes, they argue, they could take a premium role in the value chain for distributed cloud services. Their new mini-data centers would be well connected and numerous, so not only would they support enhanced services for the MNO’s own customers – better quality video delivered close to the user, low latency IoT applications – but they could be offered, for a fee, to partners with less easy access to distributed infrastructure and wireless connections. Cable operators, cities, even webscale providers might be customers. This vision was inherent in ETSI’s MEC (Multi-access Edge Compute,…
Mobile operators are becoming more collaborative as they seek to define their own open platforms, rather than have architectures imposed on them by vendors. But this does not mean that the process of creating common frameworks is a harmonious one. Large operators have all kinds of conflicts of interest with one another, as well as different viewpoints on the best approach to a virtualized, software-defined 5G network. So, rival operator-driven alliances are emerging in several key areas of the new network, including the MANO (management and orchestration) layer – where the options are led by ETSI Open Source MANO and the AT&T-driven ONAP – and the RAN itself. In the latter, another AT&T-originated project, now called Open RAN (ORAN) Alliance,…
Reliance Jio’s impact on the mobile industry has, so far, mainly been felt in the shockwaves it has unleashed on its competitors in India. Like Free Mobile in France, it has harnessed WiFi, asset sharing and convergence to reduce the costs of delivering wireless services and undercut rivals. Even more than Free, it has enabled its ultra-low cost tariffs with the efficiencies of a heavily software-driven, greenfield network. Now it wants to influence its sector in a different way, by helping to drive future platforms and participate actively in open operator-driven initiatives. It has joined several of these, including the Facebook-inspired Telecom Infra Project and the Linux Foundation-hosted ONAP (Open Network Automation Protocol). It has also spoken in the past…
// M&A, Strategies, Alliances // The IEEE has picked the OpenFog Consortium’s Reference Architecture as the basis of IEEE 1934, a new standard for edge-computing for the IoT, 5G, and AI workloads. Breed Reply has invested in two more early-stage IoT companies – CageEye, an automated feed optimization system for salmon farming, and ubirch, blockchain-based security. Elgato is selling its video capture card business to Corsair, and will now be rebranding as Eve Systems, to focus solely on its Eve line of Apple smart home products. Hexagon has acquired AutonomouStuff, a US supplier of testing and development systems for autonomous cars, which Hexagon plans to integrate into its autonomous software. Siemens has acquired Building Robotics, a company that began with…
The IEEE standards organization has picked the OpenFog Consortium’s Reference Architecture (ORA) to be the basis of its new IEEE 1934 standard, which defines a universal technical framework for fog computing, designed for the data-intensive requirements of the IoT, 5G, and AI applications. But OpenFog isn’t the only initiative in this sector. The Linux Foundation’s EdgeX Foundry is an open source project that wants to build a similar framework. There is very little overlap between the two groups’ memberships, and we have speculated that this could be yet another example of an IoT standards war. The EdgeX Foundry was launched in April 2017, after the ORA was published, but it has gone pretty quiet since then. Fog computing, so-called…
The first open digital key specification for vehicles will provide a testing ground for IoT security in applications involving not just smartphones but any device with embedded trusted elements. It comes at a time when vehicle theft is on the rise again after over two decades of decline, as thieves finally get to grips with electronic locking and immobilization technology. Automobile makers therefore need to convince consumers that, far from increasing exposure to theft, virtual car keys will actually raise the technical protective bar once again. Aware of this, the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) stressed security when announcing publication of its Digital Key Release 1.0 specification, which allows drivers to download the key onto their smart devices and use…
While the US seeks to stifle start-ups in the internet era by unraveling net neutrality, European regulators have a plan in place to similar effect, but with every intention of benefiting content owners. A new censorship reform could potentially harm OTT industry players – in what opposers have coined a “vote for mass internet censorship”. The controversial approval, made by the European Parliament late last week, did not sit well with industry groups including the EBU (European Broadcasting Union), which has declared the move an outrage, while publishers have applauded the decision. It means publishers can now wave legal tools for online copyright claims in the same manner as used in offline content in the broadcast, movie and music businesses,…
There aren’t many Western technology vendors more active in Asia Pacific’s thriving mobile-first viewing scene right now than Sweden’s Accedo, boasting a rise from a 20-person start-up a decade ago to a 500-strong trailblazer today. ConnecTechAsia in Singapore this week was therefore a fitting stage for the company to unveil some tricks of the trade. On the back of winning another MNO deal on the continent at Indonesia’s Telkomsel amid World Cup fever, Accedo’s CEO Michael Lantz described the viewing figures being tallied up by the Indonesian operator as “ridiculous” – claiming the Russian soccer ride so far has been as smooth as you like. All this despite traffic significantly exceeding expectations, resulting in Telkomsel (also known as P.T. Telekomunikasi…
News came out this week of the US District Court of Northern California, that the 7 year long dispute between Apple and Samsung is now completely over, with the last few items having been settled out of court. This leaves Apple to focus on suing its suppliers such as Qualcomm instead. It sure as hell won’t focus on re-inventing itself. This is the court in the same state as Apple’s HQ, where a local jury initially agreed with Apple that Samsung should pay over $1 billion in damages, and this has since been reduced back to $539 million, back in May after a visit of the case to the US Supreme Court. Further complaints were due to be heard by…
The 2018 FIFA World Cup has stood out from other recent major sporting events when it comes to online piracy by dragging in countries rather than just rogue satellite operators and multiple small-time players. India and Saudi Arabia are at the center of the storm for different reasons, with the former still shaking off accusations it does not do enough to curtail the rampant piracy afflicting movie as well as live sports content there in the face of explosive growth in broadband access. The case of Saudi Arabia is more specific, resulting from its diplomatic spat with gas-rich Qatar, which also involves Egypt, Bahrain and UAE (United Arab Emirates). These four states cut diplomatic relations with Qatar in 2017 over…
President Trump may have agreed to a compromise with ZTE, pulling back from an initial decision to ban it from buying US components, but some members of Congress are still seeking tougher action. Some Republican senators are using multiple tactics to try to limit US ties to ZTE and its compatriot Huawei, including inserting clauses into legislation – even must-pass finance bills. And some US politicians also want to attack Huawei. A probe was launched earlier in the year into whether the Chinese giant could be contravening US bans on trade with Iran (the issue which led to the action against ZTE, which almost collapsed the company in May). And a group of five politicians from both Houses of Congress…
Governments may know that vertical industry adoption of 5G is essential for it to achieve its goals (see separate item), but MNOs have too often been a stumbling block. They have found it difficult to make strong business cases for most industrial and enterprise use cases that go beyond mobile broadband and voice (and even then, not in-building). Many have been open that, at least in the first years, 5G is not making the task any easier for them, especially when industries want to draw on some of the new standards’ less proven aspects, like their very low latency. But operators are starting to see that, if they do not support large enterprises directly, they will lose their business to…
Intel is facing one of the periodic turning points in its history, and now has to do that with a new CEO. Having failed to make much impact on the mobile industry, it has genuine opportunities in two key growth markets – the cloud, which could take it more deeply into telcos’ platforms and preserve its data center business; and the Internet of Things (IoT), which is the best chance to offset the decline of the PC segment. It has major challenges in both areas, exacerbated by its poor handling of the Meltdown and Spectre chip flaws, so the choice of replacement for Brian Krzanich – CEO since 2013, but now forced to step down over a consensual relationship with…
One of the biggest challenges in the vRAN business case is the fronthaul. In topologies like Orange’s in Chelm, links of many miles must be supported, which involves access to very low latency, modern fiber. Orange has deployed its own fiber in many parts of Poland and so has the benefit of a modern fixed line transport network, but many MNOs have to rely on leased lines or dark fiber, whose costs vary greatly between regions. These long links enable a high level of consolidation of radio heads, and the maximum efficiencies gained from centralizing their processes. But there are trade-offs in terms of latency at the edge of the network, which become even deeper if ‘non-ideal’ fronthaul (sub-optimal fiber,…
Orange has changed its view on the virtualized RAN (vRAN) several times. Initially a great enthusiast, in recent years its senior executives have queried the near term business case and pushed back their timescales to deploy. However, a major test in Orange’s commercial LTE network in the city of Chelm, in Poland, signals that the French group does believe that vRAN will be an essential element of its 5G deployment when that starts around 2020. The French group has some of the longest-running vRAN tests and trials outside the technology’s birthplace in east Asia. However, the Polish activity is significant because it took place in a live network over a period of two months, and because Orange – which has…
// Forecasts, Surveys. Reports, & Blue-Sky Thinking // The global smart home market will be worth $97.61bn in 2025, according to Transparency Market Research, growing at a CAGR of 14.6% from $30.02bn in 2016. Industrial robotics sales reached 380,550 units in 2017, up 29% compared to 2016, according to the International Federation of Robotics. The demand-response market will hit $3.5bn by 2025, according to Frost & Sullivan, propelled by enabling IoT technologies, growing from $900m in 2017. // Hardware // Artosyn has licensed CEVA’s XM4 machine-vision processor IP, for use in an embedded AI SoC – the AR9X01. Artosyn specializes in drones and robotics SoCs. Silicon Labs is showing off a new version of its Wireless Gecko SoC, which features…