Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
The USA and China are engaged in a battle to gain self-sufficiency from one another in strategic technologies, and also to establish global leadership. Much of this activity has focused on semiconductors. China has a huge decade-long programme to build up key chip capabilities and IPR, and recently, the USA’s CHIPS Act set aside funds worth $280bn to increase national capabilities in chip foundries and innovation. One way to increase a base of innovation and technology is to adopt open approaches, and despite the risks this entails in terms of IPR ownership (as highlighted by O-RAN), a degree of open source is increasingly popular with governments looking to accelerate hi-tech progress. The open source processor architecture, RISC-V, is gaining some…
Last week we surveyed the rising number of submarine cables that are being built out around the world, and the increasing influence of hyperscalers within that market, as they seek to bring affordable broadband to the ‘next billion’ potential users of their services. The overview of this market also highlighted the growing importance of regional digital hubs, both to the users in the area, and also to the political and economic ambitions of governments. This was highlighted by one of the most recent submarine cable projects, this one led by a telco – Saudi Arabia’s STC Group. The ‘Saudi Vision Cable’ has four landing stations along the Red Sea coast of the country, and is part of a broader national…
Verizon has been working on various virtualized RAN (vRAN) architectures since its early deployments of 5G Cloud-RAN in some urban sites, and some enterprise roll-outs. In 5G, it has turned its attention towards more complex disaggregated designs with full cloud infrastructure and the potential to be multivendor (though so far, its publicly announced RAN partners have been the same as for its conventional RAN, notably Samsung). But while the US operator’s commitment to, and definition of, Open RAN remain somewhat hazy, it has made significant progress with vRAN deployment. It said last week that it had built out more than 8,000 vRAN cell sites and aims to increase that number to 20,000 by the end of 2025. Verizon currently has…
Asian operators have often taken the lead in promoting and implementing new architectures for open networks and enterprise 5G. Singtel of Singapore provides the latest example of MNO-driven incubation of start-ups to help build a private 5G ecosystem, but it was also joined, last week, by the USA’s Verizon. These two made the latest in a spate of MNO announcements relating to 5G incubator projects or laboratories designed to stimulate private enterprise 5G adoption, especially in the industrial sector. Verizon has just revealed the start-ups involved in the latest of its four rounds of activities in its 5G Studio, which was launched in collaboration with independent technology center NewLab in 2020. Meanwhile, Singtel has announced a collaboration with Intel to…
Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom (CT) has made the latest in a flurry of announcements from operators in the region, focused on deployment of Open RAN in private enterprise networks. MNOs are touting Open RAN for private networks within small and medium enterprises (SMEs) especially, having been shut out of some of the early major deployments by large manufacturers and engineering companies, which have often preferred to work directly with infrastructure vendors, systems integrators and perhaps hyperscalers. CT is deploying an outdoor 5G-based Open RAN private network in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, for operation in the 4.4-5 GHz band, with twin objectives. One is to validate Open RAN systems and software for potential use in its own 5G enterprise portfolio. The second related aim…
India is determined to be fast out of the blocks with 5G service roll-out after waiting so long for starters’ orders. Certainly, rhetoric from operators, as well as the country’s the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and Department of Telecommunications (DoT), has been heating up since conclusion of the country’s first 5G auction just six weeks ago. The rhetoric has been backed by actions, at least from the country’s two biggest operators ,Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, and also from those government departments. Even as the auction was just concluding, Airtel announced 5G network agreements with Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung to commence 5G deployment by the end of August. Then a month later, Airtel announced multiple products…
Special Report: Asia’s operators take 5G initiative The past few years have seen the USA set ambitious targets to establish global leadership, and built a broad homegrown industry, around key strategic technologies. The bid was intensified by geopolitics, particularly trade and security tensions with China, which has been pouring resources into its own attempts to build self-sufficiency, and eventually leadership, in strategic technologies. In some areas, the USA is already pre-eminent, including cloud and data center infrastructure, processors and services. In others, such as 5G and future 6G, it has significant holes in its armory – hence the national focus on Open RAN and the opportunity to recreate the American mobile network business of old. But so far, where…
There were numerous debates in full flow at IBC 2022 about what people actually mean when they talk about sustainability in streaming? These same discussions often ignore an important question – how can the emerging crop of environmentally-conscious media organizations get rich as well as green? If you can look past the awkward name, a UK-based start-up called Humans Not Robots has the makings of an actually useful video data platform to help guide people through the many hoops surrounding sustainable decision making. Speaking to Faultline at IBC 2022, Kristan Bullett, CEO at Humans Not Robots, makes no bones about the company wanting to make money from the climate crisis – the type of honesty that will be appreciated by…
One underlying theme of IBC 2022 is that some video technology suppliers at the core of the Faultline ecosystem are evolving into chameleons. They are different things to different clients, proving they are valuable in the long-term to video customers in ways separate of the core technology, with a view to growing revenue streams. This isn’t about broadening and diversifying product portfolios via pure R&D investment, this is more about video software companies – in many ways – looking a lot more like consultancy businesses. This transition is most evident in the app developer department. We compare Swedish TV UX specialist Accedo to Accenture and the former barely bats an eyelid. We ask Germany-based rival 3 Screen Solutions (3SS) the…
On the fourth anniversary of being carved out of Nokia, UK-based content delivery technology vendor Velocix is busy highlighting its new CDN Broker system at IBC 2022. This is essentially a rules engine for operators to establish certain criteria and determine the best content delivery path to take – with a few tricks up its sleeve. At first, it sounds like Velocix’s Jim Brickmeier, CPO/CMO, is trying to explain to Faultline exactly what Velocix has always done. Swap the word broker for switcher and take away the word dynamic from the marketing material and it appears you are left with a multi-CDN routing tool with an analytics plug-in. Not exactly a breakthrough. That is until we learn that CDN Broker…
In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it announcement from a whirlwind IBC show, the low latency contribution protocol RIST has taken a leap into the distribution game – claiming that its latest updates enable users to create a completely open-source alternative to proprietary DRM systems, for use in a multicast distribution deployment. It is quite the claim, and somewhat buried in the news that the Video Services Forum (VSF) has released the 2022 versions of the RIST specification. These are the Main Profile (TR-06-2) and the Advanced Profile (TR-06-3), and the two new features are the aforementioned EAP-SRP Authentication, and VSF EtherType, which is a RIST-specific enhancement for the Ethernet standard. The scope of the RIST distribution announcement is uncertain. There is immense corporate…
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has signed with over 60 clean hydrogen ecosystem partners to develop a clean hydrogen hub in North East US. This includes Advent Technologies, which manufactures hydrogen fuel cells, General Electric, Air Liquide, Pratt & Whitney and the Connecticut Green Bank. The hub involves a coalition of six States (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island), along with 20 hydrogen original equipment manufacturers, 14 private sector industry leaders, 12 utilities, seven non-profit organizations, two transportation companies and three State agencies will put together a proposal that will enable the Northeastern United States to become one of at least four regional clean hydrogen hubs through the federal Regional…
The European Commission will carve out the profits of Europe’s clean energy firms, as part of long-awaited plans that aims to offset the skyrocketing energy prices for its citizens. The windfall tax, as presented on Wednesday, will apply to the ‘surplus’ profits of low-carbon energy companies. With fears of supply shortfalls this winter, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many of these companies have benefited excessively as wholesale gas prices have soared and driven profit margins for retail electricity to record levels. Under EU energy regulations, the price of electricity to consumers is dictated by the cost of the most expensive fuel, allowing greater profits for those generating electricity at a lower cost. Even prior to the current energy crisis, gas-fired…
The future of hydrogen trade will be dominated by pipelines and liquid organic hydrogen carriers, according to new research from Rethink Energy. As the sector emerges out of its infancy, obsessed with raw production costs, it is the innovative approaches to moving hydrogen from supply to demand that will play a larger role in dictating the final price for the customer. Importing hydrogen to resource-rich countries will add between $0.50 and $1.86 per kilogram, depending on the distance and the means through which it can be transported. With distribution accounting for nearly two-thirds of the final cost of hydrogen to the customer, these delivery mechanisms will dictate competition throughout the hydrogen market. The logic behind this is laid out in…
Vodafone tests centimeter accurate satellite positioning Vodafone has begun testing a satellite positioning service capable of improving accuracy from the meter level of current systems down to a few centimeters, in collaboration with US-based GNSS system developer Topcon Positioning Group. The tests are being conducted with select customers in Germany, Spain and the UK, and will be followed by commercial launch upon their successful completion. The operator promises to offer a “singular module configuration” for operation across borders. This is being achieved through technology that corrects errors in existing GNSS measurements, rather than any innovation in combining multiple platforms, and the operator says this will also be applied to 5G-based cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) technology. It also cited new use…
UK-based video compression specialist V-Nova has presented results of a study, carried out in collaboration with Intel and Meta, that presents MPEG-5 LCEVC as a valuable tool for enhancing SVT-AV1 (the Scalable Video Technology extension of the AV1 codec). The bottom line is improved compression efficiency – supporting efforts of the Alliance for Open Media to shake AV1’s power-guzzling reputation, especially in the mobile world. LCEVC (Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding) specifies an enhancement layer which, when combined with a base video encoded with a separate codec, produces an enhanced video stream. The technical research paper is not exclusive to SVT-AV1, but also assesses LCEVC as an enhancement tool across the full range of applications using the AVC, HEVC and AV1 codecs. But it does emerge…
Low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites generally circle the Earth at an altitude of under 1,000 kilometers – sometimes as low as 160km – which is significantly closer to users than other satellite options, reducing their latency challenges. One of the many companies aiming to take advantage is content delivery network (CDN) and caching provider Varnish Software, which has a project in the works with the European Broadcasting Union’s (EBU) 5G-Emerge consortium, together with the European Space Agency (ESA), to blanket satellite broadband and media services across rural parts of Europe. Sweden-born and LA-based Varnish Software has first to combine its efficient CDN and edge caching capabilities with 5G satellite communications. It says it will “soon” develop a constellation of distributed edges…
The USA is ready to match the toughness of rules in Europe and elsewhere, governing retention and use of location-based data, which is collected primarily from smartphones. The FCC launched an investigation into the matter in late August this year. This coincided with action by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Idaho-based data broker Kochava for “selling geolocation data from hundreds ofms of mobile devices that can be used to trace the movements of individuals to and from sensitive locations”. Such locations include abortion clinics, rehabilitation centers and domestic violence shelters. Data brokers have come under greater scrutiny in many countries, partly as a result of increased retention and resale of location-based data, as well as other information relating for example…
In setting out the next phase of its network evolution plan, UK incumbent BT was cautious about emerging trends such as disaggregation, and in fact, focused as much on legacy networks as on 5G and advanced fiber. The company believes it can reduce its operating costs by £500m by sunsetting legacy platforms and going through a large-scale network modernization program, a move that would also reduce energy consumption. The first networks due to be decommissioned are the 20-year old 3G system and the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Such moves will be important to allow the inherent efficiencies of new architectures, including those surrounding 5G and FTTx, to be fully exploited, without drag from legacy infrastructure. And BT’s shareholders will…
Google and Meta, starved of high-capacity connectivity in some areas, are driving explosive growth in submarine fiber optic cable capacity the world over, seeing involvement in more than half of all new projects. With mobile network operators the world over raising cash for 5G spectrum or network deployments, this past year has also seen significant investments in underlying telecoms infrastructure. Undersea fiber optic cable (FOC) networks represent a critical telco infrastructure piece which have seen rising deployments in recent years, with many more outstanding. From the first commercial availability of a submarine FOC in 1989, the global market has expanded rapidly, connecting data centers all over the world. As the backbone of the Internet and of cellular communications services, submarine…