Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
With TCL announcing that it will release two TV sets running Amazon’s Fire TV OS in Europe, OEMs could find themselves with a new lease of freedom within Google’s walled garden. This follows a damning report from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) which recently found that most TV manufacturers were scared to enter a partnership with Amazon due to feared retaliation from Google. Concluding with a $162 million fine for Google, the CCI report found that at least seven OEMs – including TCL, Xiaomi, Skyworth, Foxconn, Panasonic and Hisense – were outright banned from partnering with Amazon in India under Google’s licensing terms. However, according to Protocol, it seems that Google and Amazon have struck a deal in recent…
There is no coincidence that Faultline jumped on a call with Encoding.com this week for only the second time on record. Now less than six months since Encoding.com’s acquisition by Telestream, the US video processing firm’s founder and CEO, Greggory Heil (now SVP Cloud at Telestream), is relishing what even a modest marketing budget might achieve – after 14 years of relentless product prioritization. “Bitmovin and Mux were the thorns in my side for years,” admits Heil – letting slip a pang of jealousy as we reminisce Bitmovin’s lavish party at NAB earlier this year. But would the founding Encoding.com team take back all that product investment and trade it for a life of canapés? You bet they wouldn’t. Without…
The Shanghai Metals Market observes that China’s solar wafer orders in September were up 36% year-on-year according to customs data. That fits with the situation in which China’s solar manufacturing output has grown by around 50% year on year, while its domestic installations – which must of course subtract from export figures – will be up around 80% from 2021. Yongjia County in China’s Zhejiang Province has instituted a $13.7 per kWh subsidy for distributed photovoltaic projects. The same level of subsidy, but per kW rather than per kWh and specific to industrial enterprises has been instituted in Fanchang District, in the somewhat less prosperous neighbouring Anhui Province. Haining City in Zhejiang has brought into force a $165 per kW…
The energy market falls into two categories – those people who eagerly await reports from the IEA (International Energy Agency) and those who shrug when they see those reports advertised because they think little of them. Rethink Energy falls into both camps. This is because the IEA has lots of highly qualified people, who are in contact with many energy agencies around the world which provide it with data, and it presents this neatly and in an entertaining and organized fashion. This data is almost always accurate. We would not say that the IEA has no experience in forecasting, it has had plenty of attempts to forecast future data, but it has almost never done this successfully, so when this…
Qualcomm and Cognizant plan to open 5G exploration center Qualcomm plans to open a 5G center in Atlanta, USA, for enterprise customers to experience and evaluate the ability of 5G to transform various technologies around edge computing, artificial intelligence and private networks. This will be in collaboration with consultancy firm Cognizant, which already has a 5G experience center in Bangalore, India. The objective is to “simplify the complexities” of 5G and multi-access edge computing (MEC) so that the companies can “stay focused on their business objectives”, according to Vibha Rustagi, global head of IoT at Cognizant. By combining 5G and MEC, enterprises can create multiple virtual networks with the same physical hardware and support thousands of connected devices generating data insights in…
One of the issues that concerns many Open RAN supporters is how far openness can be maintained right down to chip level. Intel has established a powerful headstart in the virtualized macro RAN through its FlexRAN reference architecture, and has inherent advantages in applications that really can run on common off-the-shelf (COTS) servers. But operators and vendors do not wish to enable the kind of lock-in that Intel has traditionally enjoyed in the data center server world. These issues were front and center of many conversations at last week’s FYUZ conference, which combined the Telecom Infra Project’s (TIP’s) previously standalone event with the O-RAN Alliance’s Open RAN Summit and a new Metaverse Connectivity Summit, backed by Meta itself (which also…
If we define Open RAN in its widest sense, as a multivendor network based on open interfaces, the fastest progress has been made not in Europe, but in the USA and south-east Asia. Rakuten Mobile in Japan, and Dish Network in the USA, are of course the first operators to deploy a virtualized Open RAN at scale. AT&T and China Mobile contributed much of the original sourcecode for O-RAN, and these operators, as well as Verizon, NTT Docomo and SK Telecom – among others – have defined open RAN specifications and pledged roll-outs from this year onwards. However, in most cases these open networks are highly customized and do not necessarily use standard O-RAN specs (even in AT&T’s case). They…
Rakuten Mobile had already dealt a blow to Red Hat’s hopes of leading the Open RAN cloud layer in May, when it said it would replace its initial partner with the Robin.io orchestration and cloud automation technology (Rakuten has also acquired Robin.io). Now it has announced further distancing from Red Hat, replacing its Linux operating system with Rocky Linux OS, from open source distributor CIQ. Tareq Amin, CEO of Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony, claimed the change would reduce the cost of the OS by 80%, and support a real time kernel for processing the most demanding RAN functions in distributed units (DUs) at the network edge. Rakuten Symphony will deploy the technology as part of its stack, which it…
The latest working group to be set up under the auspices of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is called Open FAN (fixed area networks) and is led by Telefónica, TIM and Vodafone, three of the operators that are already prominent in Open RAN. Open FAN aims to define common interfaces between optical line terminals (OLTs) and optical network terminals (ONTs), at either end of the fiber connection, as well as standardized integration with SDN controllers. That would mirror the work of Open RAN on common fronthaul interfaces between radio units and basebands. “The disaggregation of OLTs represents a valuable opportunity to broaden the telecom supply chain, which we’ve seen has become more important than ever during recent times,” said Paolo…
Mobile hand-off and seamless log-in have been qualities where cellular networks significantly outperform WiFi, despite several efforts by WiFi organizations to develop similar functionality. The latest to make the attempt is CableLabs, the R&D arm of the US cable operators, which has developed a new way for smartphones to connect to the best WiFi connection automatically, called Mobile WiFi. The importance for cablecos is that this would make it easier for more mobile data to be transmitted over WiFi, reducing the fees they pay to support cellular connectivity via MVNO deals with large operators. Most large US cablecos now offer mobile services, but in a WiFi-first mode that defaults to the unlicensed technology where a decent signal is available. CableLabs…
The leading operators that shared their experiences of Open RAN at the FYUZ event were generally positive about progress on the platform, but highlighted systems integration as the most significant challenge in terms of cost and time to market. The issues of integrating and optimizing a multivendor solution have largely been addressed inhouse by early movers so far – Rakuten Mobile famously hired about 300 engineers for the purpose. And some of those early deployer now plan to commercialize their experience for others – not just Rakuten, via its Symphony arm, but fellow Japanese MNO NTT Docomo, and no doubt others to follow. Docomo’s global head of Open RAN solutions, Sadayuki Abeta, said the operator had been able to “mix…
Video now accounts for 71% of all mobile data and is heading for 80% by 2027, according to Ericsson among other sources, with an increasing proportion of that at ultra-high definition (UHD) and therefore demanding very consistent quality of service (QoS). This trend has spawned innovations at several levels to improve mobile quality of experience (QoE) within 5G itself, with streaming protocols, caching within the network, and overlays on the 5G infrastructure. Understanding each of these layers and how they interact is essential for enabling QoE that is good enough for UHD streaming. At the 5G level there are two aspects relevant for QoE, one being QoS flows within a single bearer, and the other network slicing, to hive off…
Special Report: FYUZ Summit Perhaps reflecting that the conference business has not fully recovered from the Covid shutdowns, there is a trend for previously separate events to merge. We recently had Network X, which brought together Broadband World Forum, 5G World and Telco Cloud; last week Madrid hosted FYUZ, an amalgamation of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Summit, the O-RAN Alliance’s Open RAN Summit, and a new strand called Metaverse Connectivity Summit. This provided a timely update on the state of Open RAN, though as with most events related to this emerging platform, as many questions were raised as answered. The hand of Meta was more clearly seen than in the last physical TIP Summit in 2019, at a…
Faultline’s sister service Rethink TV has been chewing through industry interviews, to get to the bottom of the contentious Open Caching question. Rethink TV’s report has heaps of juicy disclosures from its anonymous vendor interviews, which Faultline would love to tease out into the public domain, should anyone want to go on-the-record with another session, but the big takeaway is that Open Caching is far from a binary proposition. This, of course, requires considerable unpacking, as we can already hear the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. The market for delivering video to viewers shows no sign of slowing, but there is a fight brewing among its component parts. CDNs currently reign supreme, and while we have previously examined the…
September 2018 signaled a sea-change for the video industry, when Nokia joined Cisco and Ericsson in exiting the IP video marketplace following the sale of assets to Volaris Group that would form a new CDN business on the scene, Velocix. Four years passed as the world sat back and watched Nokia continue its pioneering work in wireless networks, with only fleeting mentions in Faultline in the areas of WiFi, 5G, fixed broadband, smart home, consumer electronics, silicon, and even liquid cooling. But here Faultline is, at the back end of 2022, on a call with two of Nokia’s Senior Product Managers, Keith Chow and Kenneth Wan, talking about Nokia making world-first video streaming breakthroughs with a live CDN product claiming…
Researchers from Swiss research institute Empa have produced a 22.2%-efficient flexible CIGS solar cell on plastic film, a record for that category usable in BIPV, vehicles, satellites and small-scale devices. Manufacturer Flisom is working with the institute on roll-to-roll printing of CIGS cells. The photovoltaic semiconductor material Kesterite (Cu2ZnSnS4, CZTS) has seen some research progress with a paper laying out a technique to produce a 13%-efficient Kesterite cell. The previous record of 12.6% was set in 2013. This research comes from the Nanjing University of Posts & Telecommunications, Fudan University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Washington, with the team reaching 12.96% over a 0.11cm2 test cell and 11.7% over a 1.1cm2 test cell. Vast Solar, the…
It is about time that we heard a voice raised in anger at the failure of Europe to properly embrace Battery Energy Storage Systems in any calibrated plan and this week battery supplier Fluence spoke up offering a plan for Europe. It said that there is an urgent need to rethink the structure of the European energy system – essentially arguing that the best way to stop the effects of the Russian Ukraine war even happening again, is to harness renewables, and to do that more battery is required. It had a key set of ideas for policy makers – essentially that they change how the Capacity Mechanism works so that it favors renewables. In Europe and the US the…
The world is scrambling to re-build supply lines for US-centric battery materials this week, with mining and minerals giant Trafigura and EVelution Energy, joining hands to make a US-based battery metals company, signing a deal for Cobalt this week. At the same time the US Department of Energy has committed $2.8 billion to help some 20 companies augment their existing supply chains for lithium, graphite, and other battery materials processing build outs. Singapore’s Trafigura and the US’s Evelution Energy kicked it off by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to build a cobalt sulphate processing facility in Arizona, USA. At full capacity the plant will output 7,000 tons of battery grade cobalt annually, helping to satisfy the growing demand for…
ST Micro launches wireless module for Industrial IoT Swiss-based STMicroelectronics, Europe’s largest semiconductor maker, has launched a wireless module for Industrial IoT applications such as intelligent equipment monitoring and proactive maintenance. The module comprises a complete subsystem for wireless communication supporting the key standards such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Zigbee and Thread, along with scope for incorporating proprietary protocols. ST says it has customers already building the new STM32WB5MMGH6 module into upcoming emerging new products, citing I-care Group, a provider of continuous monitoring systems for industrial equipment designed to optimize performance and avoid unexpected downtime. “Choosing a wireless module instead of engineering a chip-down solution is the fastest way for developers to complete their projects,” said Hakim Jaafar, general…
Cellnex, the largest independent European towerco, continues to diversify its business with the acquisition of Herbert In-Building Wireless to boost its indoor and neutral host activities. The firm is looking for ways to grow that are less dependent on acquisitions than its strategy of recent years – as it becomes more and more powerful as a tower and site owner, so its purchases are likely to be scrutinized more carefully by competition regulators. However, it is expected to complete its controversial purchase of CK Hutchison’s UK sites within weeks, after approval was finally given by the UK competition authority in March, subject to divesting 1,000 of the 6,000-strong portfolio where there wre overkaps with Cellnex locations. The UK deal will…