Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
This article first appeared in Riot’s sister publication Wireless Watch. Private networks and shared cellular spectrum will be key themes of 5G as well as 4G. Qualcomm took time out from legal and takeover battles last week to talk about some of the 5G technologies it is pushing for Release 16, the next wave of radio standards, which should be defined in 2019-2020. These included a private 5G network which would support industrial Ethernet over wireless; and its latest ideas on 5G in shared airwaves. The chip provider said that it could treble users’ speeds by supporting tighter coordination between devices sharing unlicensed spectrum. It had been testing this using technologies such as Coordinated Multi-Point (COMP) and Spatial Domain Multiplexing…
Amidst the backdrop of its ongoing buyout dispute with Broadcom, Qualcomm has unveiled the Snapdragon 820E, the latest addition to its embedded computing range of systems-on-chip. The new platform is aimed at premium devices and applications, which need more powerful hardware than its 400 and 600 Series. Qualcomm is pitching the new platform at computer vision, AI, and immersive multimedia developers, for VR, digital signage, connected retail, and robotics. The new Snapdragon 820E houses a 64-bit ARMv8 quad-core CPU, the Qualcomm Kryo in this case, as well as an Adreno 530 GPU and a Hexagon 680 DSP. 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2 are also included, as well as satellite location support, for GNS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Gallileao, QZSS, and SBAS. Broadly,…
Nordic MNO Tele2 has signed up as the first MNO customer for Nokia’s WING PaaS, a managed IoT service that Nokia might eventually push aggressively to non-MNO clients, such as cloud computing giants looking for IoT connectivity. Such a move might eventually relegate MNOs to acting as dumb pipes, with Nokia stealing the network orchestration and backend services from under their noses. However, that potential future strategy is not apparently on the cards just yet, with Nokia insisting at WING’s launch that it was not an attempt to undercut the MNOs. What WING offers is a way to secure global connectivity for IoT devices, using WING as the means of accessing roaming deals with MNOs around the world. WING can…
Finnish operator Elisa has been particularly advance in its use of SON (self-optimizing networks), and particularly willing to share its experiences. It has worked closely with Nokia’s Eden Rock business, and is now also trialling technology from new SON vendor Spectrum Effect, which was founded by one of the former Eden Rock leaders. But Elisa is going a step further, and commercializing its own inhouse SON developments. Spectrum Effect has been analyzing Elisa’s network, using its Spectrum-Net tools, which apply machine learning algorithms to mobile network data in order to detect, characterize, and localize RF interference. This process found “numerous instances of external and unintended internal RF interference, including previously undetectable passive intermodulation (PIM) interference,” according to Elisa’s head of…
Just days after technological sensations at SpaceX, Northern Sky Research (NSR) claimed it will actually be Chinese firms which will dominate emerging satellite markets – meaning fewer growth opportunities for the already troubled fleet operators. Chinese companies will take a larger share of the global satellite communications market and disrupt Europe and Asia, according to the report. Specifically, for GEO-HTS (geostationary high throughput satellites), Chinese state-owned companies will manufacture and launch over 800 Gbps of capacity by 2026, primarily covering Southeast Asia, according to the forecast. “Attractive one-stop offerings, aggressive growth plans and enhanced exports” is the consensus from NSR as to why Chinese satellite companies will cause disruption in the market, adding that Chinese firms are targeting turnkey projects…
The AT&T-inspired XRAN open framework has gained support from antenna maker CommScope, which is tapping into the trend for open source hardware in the evolving 5G landscape. The firm has announced a 5G radio/antenna solution based on the XRAN interface specifications, which allow RAN hardware from multiple vendors to be mixed and matched, which will be particularly important in Cloud-RAN, enabling basebands to be connected to radio/antennas from other suppliers. The CommScope radio/antenna takes instructions from a virtualized baseband via the open interface and integrates a beamforming active antenna array operating in the 28 GHz millimeter wave band. Initially, it is targeted at fixed wireless access (FWA) – the US operators are trialling fixed 5G networks in this band –…
ARM has unveiled Project Trillium, an initiative that aims to add new processor designs that cater for AI and machine learning (ML) applications. Supported by new software tools, the two designs, ML and OD (Object Detection), are being pushed as a way of adding advanced AI capabilities to mobile devices. Of course, ARM has rivals in this wave of ML-focused silicon. Google has its TPU, Intel is developing chips based on its Nervana acquisition, and CEVA and Ambarella launched new products before this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. A host of smaller start-ups will hope to pile on the pressure – including Cerebras, DeePhi, Graphcore, Horizon robotics, and Mythic. ARM ML is the first new processor design, and boasts two main features –…
Five years after China started to open the way for MVNOs, the Ministry of Industry and IT (MIIT) plans to expand this market. The Ministry has launched a public consultation on its proposal to issue commercial MVNO licences to all qualified market players, including those backed by foreign investors or owners. The consultation will close on Thursday. There have been four years of MVNO trials and some limited services, but the latest move could see the market explode. It also fits with another relatively new direction for the regulator – to encourage more foreign investment into Chinese telecoms, as well as more competition for the three established operators. In 2013, the MIIT instructed those three operators to support multiple MVNOs…
Cisco, which has suffered in recent years from slowdowns in operator spending, is hurling major new platforms at the segment, in a bid to take advantage of 5G-driven capex uptick, and to convince service providers that it really is a born-again software house. As well as the slowdown in network spending in many major markets in the past few years, and the consolidation of operator customers, Cisco has also been threatened by the industry shift from expensive, proprietary hardware solutions to virtualized, software-defined networks running on commodity servers and white box routers and switches. But on the earnings call to announce its fiscal second quarter 2018 results, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins was upbeat about the recovery of the telco sector,…
Private networks and shared cellular spectrum will be key themes of 5G as well as 4G. Qualcomm took time out from legal and takeover battles last week to talk about some of the 5G technologies it is pushing for Release 16, the next wave of radio standards, which should be defined in 2019-2020. These included a private 5G network which would support industrial Ethernet over wireless; and its latest ideas on 5G in shared airwaves. The chip provider said that it could treble users’ speeds by supporting tighter coordination between devices sharing unlicensed spectrum. It had been testing this using technologies such as Coordinated Multi-Point (COMP) and Spatial Domain Multiplexing (SDM) in 5G-Unlicensed. Qualcomm is one of the most enthusiastic…
SoftBank-owned ARM has unveiled Project Trillium, a new initiative that aims to add new processor designs that cater for AI and Machine-Learning (ML) applications. Supported by new software tools, the two designs, ML and OD, are being pushed as a way of adding advanced AI capabilities to mobile devices. Strangely, Project Trillium is not going to be the brand name for the commercial chips. Apparently, this codename will be replaced in due course. Of course, ARM has rivals in this wave of ML-focused silicon. Google has its TPU, Intel is developing chips based on its Nervana acquisition, and CEVA and Ambarella launched new products before CES. A host of smaller startups will hope to pile on the pressure – including…
This article first appeared in Riot’s sister publication Wireless Watch. Nokia has been loosening the ties with cellular technologies and cellular operators in a bid to expand its business model and appeal to enterprises and alternative service providers. In doing so, it may start to compete with some of its traditional customers, potentially offering services – especially in the Internet of Things – which bypass the MNO and go straight to the enterprise or vertical industry. In the longer term, much of that business-to-business activity revolves around Nokia’s platforms for cloud-based core networks and network slicing. In the near term, a clear step towards the slicing nirvana is seen in its rising support for unlicensed spectrum technologies alongside cellular. Last…
The technology has a lot of doubters, but Augmented Reality (AR) has found a niche in hands-free industrial applications, as a means of augmenting the capabilities of technicians and assembly line workers. This week, AR-vendor Daqri announced a product win with Siemens, and Honeywell has unveiled a Microsoft-powered staff training system that it hopes to address a growing skills gap in the industrial sector. Siemens has been working with Daqri since 2016, where a proof-of-concept test saw engineers using a Daqri AR helmet to more efficiently assemble a gas turbine. In that test, Siemens said that a first-timer was able to build a gas burner in around 45-minuites. Typically, that competency would be reached followed a day of classroom learning.…
The National Cable Television Cooperation (NCTC) in the US is looking towards a future of OTT distribution for its tier 2 and tier 3 cable TV and broadband members. The body has struck a series of deals with OTT services that open up distribution to its 850 smaller cablecos, who are “eager” for new video products to offer to customers, according to Rich Fickle, NCTC’s president and CEO. NCTC has made three such OTT deals in the past eight months to benefit its operators, which collectively reach about 9 million subscribers in the US. The latest such deal is with CuriosityStream, a science-oriented subscription OTT service launched in 2015 by Discovery Channel founder John Hendricks. The deal was announced at…
TV, broadband, telecommunications and content markets across the Nordics are in farcical states. The collapse of Modern Times Group’s merger with Danish operator TDC this week, before the ink was even dry on the initial announcement, was the latest in a spate of frantic M&A activity – which we feel is essentially all about overseas private equity firms jostling to conquer the entire Nordic region. A consortium of local pension funds and Australian investment bank Macquarie have scrambled together $6.6 billion to acquire TDC, triggering TDC to abandon its $2.5 billion bid for MTG’s Nordic broadcasting and entertainment business. Potentially providing another plot twist, Swedish telco Telia has also been investigating a takeover offer for TDC, which has actually been…
Just days after technological sensations at SpaceX inspired us to voice a rare show of optimism for the satellite market, Northern Sky Research (NSR) goes and shoots itself in the foot by claiming Chinese firms will dominate emerging satellite markets – meaning fewer growth opportunities for the already troubled fleet operators. Chinese companies will take a larger share of the global satellite communications market and disrupt Europe and Asia, according to the report from the satellite research group. These are some of the damning conclusions for satellite fleet operators which have been talking up failsafe options in emerging countries to offset losses in Western regions. Specifically, for GEO-HTS (geostationary high throughput satellites), Chinese state-owned companies will manufacture and launch over…
A 3 Screen Solution (3SS) press release this week highlighted a change in strategy at Canal Digital, moving from its pure DTH roots to a hybrid model of DTH plus OTT – delivering both to phones and tablets, but also to a new Android TV set top, supplied by Technicolor. 3SS implemented the set top user interface and phone and tablet apps and this includes the system’s navigation using a voice remote and Google voice and universal search. The back end was built by Canal Digital and much of it was used for its TV Everywhere OTT service Canal Digital Go. Canal Digital told Faultline that the voice search uses the Google voice to text engine and either replies to…
The global sports rights bubble might have ceased inflating, but it has not yet burst as some over excited pundits have claimed. The latest round of bidding for English Premier League (EPL) soccer rights has not quite finished but the signals are operators are now joining forces to end the price inflation enjoyed for over a decade by premium sports. The two EPL packages still unsold, we presume because they did not reach their reserve price, were tailor made for the online providers because they bundled lots of matches together over a short period to attract surge viewing. Clearly then the big online players such as Facebook and Amazon, which we know did enter discussions with the EPL, are playing…
US CDN major Limelight Networks is now offering a service which bundles the popular “browser based” DRMs, making it unnecessary to engage with a CAS or DRM specialist in order to launch an encrypted OTT video service. This is a piece of news that makes us worry about investments within the OTT video marketplace, because what is happening here is that what was once a $3 billion industry – independent Conditional Access and DRM – which also has the potential to add another $300 million or so of business over the coming 5 years in OTT – is being cannibalized by a neighboring service. This is an indicator of the poor health of the OTT video sector when a CDN…
Eighteen months ago, it looked as though Google was preparing to offload Nest, its rather expensive acquisition that still likely hasn’t seen a return on its investment. This week, it was confirmed that Google is holding onto Nest, but bringing it back inhouse. The news came as Control4 and Crestron announced new offerings in the professional installation space – one that will remain lucrative, but does not promise the scale that retail or operator channels do. Control4’s new CA-1 Automation Controller is aimed at installers looking to provide customers with comprehensive smart home installations and supports WiFi, ZigBee and Power over Ethernet. Crestron, another veteran (since 1971) has announced a partnership with Google to integrate its home automation line with…