Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
The second quarter of 2023 saw 80.3 GW of solar capacity installed across the twenty leading national markets which we track. We extrapolate that 92 GW was installed globally and of that figure, 51.3 GW was in China – a little over 55% of the global industry. While China’s share in the past four quarters – H2 2022 plus H1 2023 – grew to 51.5%, the eight leading European markets fell from 19.8% in the 12-month period from Q3 2021 to Q2 2022 inclusive, to 17.6% a year later, India fell from 7.2% to 4%, Japan-SK-Taiwan from 5.6% to 3.4%, and the US from 11.2% to 8%. Only the Latin American region grew, from 6% to 6.8% thanks to Brazil.…
AI, by which we mean predominantly machine learning (ML) of some form, is integral to the ambition of 5G to complete the transformation of mass mobile communications from a voice only medium to deliverer of high performance computing at the point of use or need. The two dovetail best at the edge of the wireless network in many cases, because that enables a number of analytics processes to be executed in timely fashion without overwhelming the wider infrastructure or incurring unacceptable bandwidth costs. There are also various other issues such as security and data privacy that impinge on decisions over where to locate compute resources for specific tasks or use cases. Casual readers of white papers and analyst reports might…
Vodafone’s turnaround attempt has ratcheted up a few more teeth, over the past couple of weeks. The latest news is a contract with Nokia, which will provide new 5G-ready billing software, to enable all the new use cases that the operators like to bleat about. It says quite a lot that the current billing system is so inflexible that Nokia can celebrate it with a press release, but for all the technological leaps forward, behind the scenes, these MNOs are quite aged. Back in May, Vodafone’s new CEO committed to 11,000 job cuts, around 10% of its workforce, on the back of disappointing full-year results – with revenues up only 3.7%, and declines in all markets bar the UK. There…
Lumen, the artist formerly known as CenturyLink, has unveiled a new Network-as-a-Service offering, which it claims will shake up the telecom industry. “By offering radical flexibility in how they buy, use, and manage networking services, Lumen is cloudifying traditional telecom,” Lumen claims. So, NaaS is the new platform, but the first service being added is Lumen Internet On-Demand. The plan is to add a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) prevention service, a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), and additional Edge functions to the platform. As CEO Kate Johnson puts it, “the Network-as-a-Service offering takes the next step to deliver on our customers’ networking dreams: the ability to fire up any port, with any service, at any time.” So, why does…
This year’s Tour de France cycling marathon was not the first to be associated with complaints over poor connectivity – both fixed and especially mobile. But it was the first to witness a comprehensive survey of internet access over the event’s whole route network, leading to the conclusion that the level was “abysmal”. The analysis was conducted by Stellar, a Bordeaux based firm blending measurement of cellular, WiFi and satellite services. The firm concluded that “despite being a world-renowned sporting event, these roads lack minimal internet connectivity, which poses significant challenges for residents, tourists, and businesses throughout the year.” The results are certainly illuminating, but not necessarily as revealing or decisive as Stellar makes out. A point to remember is…
Two weeks ago, a group of over 600 local broadcast stations operating under ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox Affiliate Associations formed the “Coalition for Local News”, arguing that it was long time coming for a regulatory updating that would allow local broadcasters, instead of national networks, to negotiate retransmission rights directly with virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) like YouTube TV or FuboTV. National broadcasters did not take this declaration of war lying down, and a little over a week later, founded a coalition of their own to oppose this suggested regulatory overhaul – the “Preserve Viewer Choice Coalition”. Hilariously, the Big Four national networks ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox are also members of the counter coalition, which is backed…
Deloitte’s 2023 media and entertainment industry outlook brings gaming to the fore. Such is the significance of gaming to the broader video sector, that the accounting giant’s latest M&E research paper has done away with a dedicated video games chapter – instead folding gaming into the global outlook, for the first time. Unfortunately, the measly nine-page report does a poor job of framing the gaming marketplace, and provides flaccid supporting evidence as to why investors should pivot to gaming. Deloitte’s take is void of use cases, references to specific technologies, and reads like the authors did not speak to a single expert in the gaming sector during the process of cobbling this paper together. Having read the outlook, Faultline now…
Automation and AI – although not strictly the same thing – are each synonymous with tools designed to save businesses costs by reducing inefficiencies in workflows, among other use cases. The reality is that, in many cases, the deployment of such technologies can lead to reductions in human headcounts – fueling a fierce topic of debate in the current climate, with the ongoing strike of Hollywood actors and writers delaying content production timelines for top streamers, including HBO and Netflix. Faultline spoke with a specialist in automation and orchestration for visual effects operational workflows this week. Julien Gachot, CEO and co-founder of start-up Embrace, cuts an exuberant character throughout our video call, and who wouldn’t be after completing a significant…
German connected TV operating system vendor Foxxum has been acquired by Zeasn Technology, a mysterious firm that brands itself as a smart home specialist. Zeasn, in the same move, also snapped up rlaxx TV, a German AVoD and FAST service with international ambitions, which is a sister company of Foxxum. No price has been given, but the executives are staying onboard. Zeasn was founded in 2011, and claims that its Whale OS powers over 65 million devices globally. Headquartered in Singapore, but with strong ties to China, Zeasn says 60 million homes are currently using devices powered by Whale OS – in smart TVs, set tops, smart speakers, and other entertainment devices, like projectors. There is also a WhaleLive streaming…
How dumb is UK prime minister Rishi Sunak? As it turns out, rather dumb. He said this week he will authorize 100 new licenses to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea and will also approve exploitation of the Rosebank field, and condemnation has come thick and fast from all sources. He is now completely out of alignment with all European Union policies too. In his defense he claims that gas from the North Sea is as much as 4 times cleaner than most other forms of gas, with the exception of Norwegian gas delivered through a pipeline. Other sources go through the processes of LNG preparation and re-gasification and transport, and defenders of the decision cite the…
The UK government has recently restated its commitment to advancing carbon capture and storage (CCS) and plans to establish two new clusters through the Track-2 process. On March 30, 2023, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero initiated a 4-week expression of interest (EoI) process for transport and storage systems that meet the CCS Track-2 eligibility criteria. After evaluating the EoI applications against the criteria, the government has decided to prioritize the Acorn and Viking projects due to their maturity and ability to align with Track-2 objectives. The UK government has granted “Track-2” status to two carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, Acorn and Viking, making them eligible for funding from a £1 billion pot if they become operational…
China’s National Energy Administration has announced that China’s solar capacity has reached 470 GW as of June, with no less than 27.4% of the total installed in the first six months of 2023 alone. Of the total, 272 GW is utility-scale and 198 GW distributed – including 95 GW residential. Of the 78.42 GW newly installed in H1 2023, utility-scale was less than half with 37.46 GW, while distributed came to 40.96 GW, of which 21.52 GW residential. And these figures are all in GWac, not GWdc, with an estimated inverter capacity ratio of 1.2 (so 94 GWdc). That’s more in six months than the US installed in the five years from 2018 to 2022 inclusive. Also, more than India…
With a few new orders rolling in (5 GW from Energix, 2.4 GW from Intersect Power, 1 GW from Capital Power in just the past month), First Solar’s total module order backlog has reached 78 GW. This time last year, the order backlog was ‘only’ 44 GW, with the accumulation in full swing once the Department of Commerce menaced South-East Asian imports in April 2022 – before that the company had sat a 10 GW backlog since mid-2018. This requires yet further manufacturing expansion, with a $1.1 billion, 3.5 GW facility announced this week. The location is undecided, but this will be First Solar’s fifth factory in the US, and the second 3.5 GW expansion announced for the US in…
This week we spoke to Antora Energy, a thermal battery company which is currently building a world-first thermal energy storage system featuring thermophotovoltaic cells. Antora will buy excess renewable electricity from the grid to store it as heat in graphite blocks. This energy can be converted back to electricity via thermophotovoltaic solar cells, or delivered as process heat – up to 1,500°C or even higher, enough for the steel and cement industries and synthetic fuel production. It is specifically the industrial sector, anything from relatively low temperatures through to the most intensive, which Antora is targeting. “Industry causes 30% of global emissions, with most of that coming from heat provision. Eliminating those emissions is our focus,” an Antora Energy representative…
Seven automakers including General Motors (GM), Stellantis, Mercedes, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, and Kia have committed to developing a charging network throughout the United States with at least 30,000 charging ports through a multibillion-dollar investment and as-of-yet unnamed company by 2030. The first stations – assuming everything goes ahead as planned – will be available from mid-2024. The charging network will sprawl across the US focusing on urban areas and travel corridors and will primarily consist of high-powered chargers, at least doubling the currently announced pipeline. All stations will be dual-port, and will service vehicles with either the CCS port or Tesla’s now open-source NACS port. Providing both ports, explains the current partners for this scheme, or at least who has…
Ooredoo and Zain have entered merger discussions with Dubai-based tower company TASC, and are considering combining some 30,000 towers in the MENA region into a new jointly-owned company. This would create the largest towerco in the region, however, Ooredoo’s Oman footprint is not on the cards. Nokia has announced the deployment of a private LTE network for Xcel Energy in the USA, to help the utility add more renewable energy production sources to its grid. With 3.7 million customers, Xcel is a sizeable win for Nokia, which will use the network for both control and sensor data collection. Xcel is using 900 MHz spectrum via Anterix, and Nokia’s Modular Private Wireless (MPW) suite. Work on the ITU-R’s IMT-2030 draft has…
Amid a recent frenzy of alliances and clubs dedicated to AI, four tier 1 telcos that already have a history of collaboration have come together to focus initially on customer service. This is significant in so far that telcos can easily drown in a sea of potential AI applications, primarily involving some species of Machine Learning (ML), or its subset Deep Learning (DL), ranging across their infrastructure, services, and potential revenue generating applications. Deutsche Telekom, South Korea’s SK Telecom (SKT), Singapore’s Singtel and Emirates Telecommunications, trading as etisalat by e&, have reached a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to construct a platform upon which new AI tools can be developed. The initial focus is on improving existing services and deploying digital…
We have often analyzed how the industry push for a fully open RAN platform is at odds with the rising performance demands of 5G. That dilemma is thrown under the spotlight by a new partnership between Ericsson and Intel, to co-design custom processors to support virtualized RAN (vRAN) – not just the radio unit or acceleration chips, which are often vendor-specific, but the processors powering the baseband’s cloud servers. This is exactly the silicon that Open RAN supporters want to be fully off-the-shelf. Ericsson and Intel have worked together on RAN processors for a decade, but as vRAN starts to become commercially real, this looks like a strategic alliance, which will see the Swedish company using Intel’s forthcoming 18A process…
The Open RAN equipment market will grow to reach $19.2 billion by 2030, according to new projections from Wireless Watch’s sister service – RAN Research. The market forecast says that there will be just under 1.3 million Open RAN cells deployed by 2030, but that most early deployments will remain single-vendor scenarios. The report, available here, dives into the breakdowns between single and multivendor deployments, regional differences, and the operator architecture preferences. It notes that public 5G Open RAN deployments will begin to accelerate after 2025, after which, multi-vendor deployments will become more common. As for the types of adopters, currently, the early adopters are mostly greenfield deployments – with Japan in the vanguard. “Such headline numbers mask varying rates…
Five years ago this week… Before CBS and Viacom re-merged in 2019, rumors were circulating about the latter looking to fully acquire AwesomenessTV in an effort to target younger audiences captured by YouTube and Twitch. The teen media firm, which started as a YouTube channel, had made decent business selling content to the likes of Viacom and Netflix, but the glory days of multi-channel networks (MCNs) were long gone. Viacom had poached three executives from AwesomenessTV, and closed in on the kill at the end of July 2018. Netflix is reworking its ad tech contract with Microsoft, to reduce the revenue guarantee due to slowing growth in the ad-supported tier. Netflix is unsatisfied about the volume of ad inventory sold…