Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
Mobile operators have been slower to embrace cloud nativeness across their whole ICT infrastructure than enterprises in many other sectors, partly because of greater fragmentation and separation between the core and the RAN. Efforts to cloudify have often become stuck in the mire of OSS/BSS (operations and business support), making it hard to achieve the promised benefits of scalability and fast deployment of new services through more efficient software development. Some tier 1 operators began enthusiastically introducing cloud native techniques into their 5G core networks. Telefonica started doing that in September 2021 when it announced a multi-year agreement with IBM for deployment of automation software and services for its first cloud-native 5G core network platform. But operators have found it…
Talk of the metaverse in telecoms has thankfully abated. From the great optimistic highs of 2021, talk of Mark Zuckerberg’s utopia has dwindled to a whisper. This is not just because metaverse talk is being drowned out by AI-related chatter, but because the concept of the great metaverse has stalled, especially for mobile users. The metaverse promised to be a fully immersive internet experience, where users interact with augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) using avatars and pioneering digital technology. The concept, though it can be traced back to science fiction from 1935, gained mainstream commercial traction when Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021 and signaled its commitment to the new world. A bit like getting a tattoo of…
With the US Supreme Court upending decades of precedent, an assassination attempt on the campaign trail, and now an election cycle that is sending polling firms into fits, there is a need for some self-reflection. The web in which all this narrative and culture has played out was created by ‘web-scalers’ – software and platform firms that initially existed solely ‘over the top’ of other operators’ networks. These days, the likes of Facebook and Netflix have invested billions into their own network infrastructure, such was the scale of their success. But mobile devices are the primary way that consumers interact with online culture, and while metaverse investors want you to believe that a virtual reality is going to be the…
Verizon is making a habit of embarrassing security lapses that undermine its credentials as a provider of services in the area. This is reminiscent of the recent CrowdStrike debacle affecting Windows updates, which although not directly security related, raised the question of whether the vendor could be trusted as custodian of a customer’s network. The recent Verizon case is small beer by comparison, where the operator was fined $16 million as part of a settlement with regulator Federal Communications Commission (FCC) relating to three breaches involving customer information leaked form its subsidiary TracFone. But it highlighted risks associated with network APIs, implicated in all three breaches. It is worth noting straightaway that these three breaches all involved traditional network APIs, not the…
Five years ago this week… TDS Telecom—a relative minnow in the US pay TV arena— joined the race to become the country’s first operator to launch a TV service built around Android TV Operator Tier. However, the telco told Faultline at the time that fellow US operators Windstream and RCN were poised to beat TDS to launch. Listed as the 20th-largest multichannel video service provider with 156,000 video subscribers at the time, TDS Telecom was preparing to roll out a new TV offering built around its cloud TV platform TDS TV+, running on an Arris-made Android TV set top with TiVo software, delivered over Velocix CDN infrastructure and secured by Verimatrix. TDS TV+ is still operational today, and in 2021 was deployed on eStream 4K set tops from Evolution Digital.…
At a journalist and analyst presentation last week, 7FiveFive Managing Director Tim Burton recognized an area for improvement in the company’s marketing – customers typically only realize they need the broadcast services vendor’s skills after a project has failed. Headquartered in the UK, 7FiveFive uses the AWS platform to provide a ‘PC-over-IP’ (PCoIP) service called Lens, to companies that require high-performance workstations for unpredictable workloads, as part of its video workflow construction services – whether cloud, hybrid, or on-prem. Lens uses adaptive pooling to automatically maintain a minimum level of available workstations, and dynamically shuts down unused workstations, helping reduce cloud costs by making systems available only when they are truly needed—driven by an analysis of a customer’s workflow. Burton…
If there is one thing we could not accuse Apple’s video endeavors of, it is frugality. Despite a stagnating growth of audience share, the streaming service has signed off blank checks for content productions in its pursuit of Oscar nominations and content quality recognition over profitability and library depth. Those days of care-free spending for Apple may be behind the tech giant, however, Bloomberg has reported, as Apple is apparently seeking to rein in the overzealous unlimited spend, which has not brought profit or a growing user base. The advent of OTT saw streamers like Netflix championing the creation of original content instead of just repurposing titles already made by Hollywood. One could argue that Apple TV+ has consistently being…
One of the more interesting snippets gleaned during a presentation from German encoding specialist MainConcept, delivered to a handful of journalists and analysts in London, centred on the ad tech advantages of VVC (Versatile Video Coding – H.266). The up-and-coming codec allows for capabilities that AVC or HEVC cannot provide, particularly in terms of ad insertion. VVC enables for multilayer insertion in addition to tile and slice layers (supported by HEVC). This means that VVC can take content going out and only encode the ad layer on top, making this a more efficient process. MainConcept’s ad tech vision is based on the age-old notion that ads are inconveniences and viewers will take measures to skip, avoid, and ignore ads, at…
Faced with gruesome scenes of consolidation, Faultline’s senses were tingling back at NAB 2024 that next in the firing line would be the many technical video associations formed to smooth adoption of streaming technologies – which have found their lives made more difficult by the very belt-tightening buccaneers that founded them. In what is potentially the first of many similar mergers, the Streaming Video Technology Alliance (SVTA) has announced that it is swallowing up the DASH Industry Forum (DASH-IF). The mission is to create a group with tighter integration between DASH-IF, which has for 12 years been advocating for MPEG-DASH as the de facto standard for OTT video playback, contrasting with the SVTA’s more shotgun-spray approach to attacking challenges across…
Like every year for the last three years, the French internet regulator Arcep provides data that is found nowhere else in the world. In this article, we will share information related to OTT traffic, including video services, social networks, and gaming. However, not much information is available on piracy, which is categorized in the “Others” (Autres) category. For the record, GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) companies all have their own caching infrastructure. Most of the time, they do not use public CDNs as the primary option but more as a backup. Video streaming companies like Netflix, Twitch, Canal+, TF1, and M6 have also deployed their own CDN infrastructure. Other popular streaming companies in terms of audience, such as France.tv,…
The US distributed solar segment continues to suffer, with Sunpower collapsing this week, following Titan Solar the month before. To be more specific, Sunpower’s stock price is now below $1, down from the $20 it held through 2021 and 2022. Sunpower’s stock decline was constant for the past twelve months and took a further nosedive when the company announced last week it would no longer support new leases or power purchase agreements. That means no new customers for the company, unable even to support installation of already-delivered panels. The broader picture is that the US is transitioning from a favorable rooftop solar environment, which ‘unfairly’ rewards rooftop solar power export onto the grid, to one which is more natural –…
ZeroAvia CEO Val Miftakhov has been quoted at the Farnborough Air Show as saying that the company aims to provide a full power train solution for Airbus’ ZEROe project. Since Airbus is an investor in ZeroAvia, we find this easy enough to credit, and if it does come to fruition, then Airbus will have its full-hydrogen aircraft ready for commercial operation before 2035. This is not the only reason we believe Airbus will come out with this type of aircraft before 2035. The market is there for the taking pending a reliable supply of the fuel – which we’re not going to get into in this article, as we cover the topic often enough. Airbus is currently exploring two hydrogen-powered…
Recently, Toledo Solar closed shop, citing an inability to license certain technologies needed for its Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) manufacturing process – which we assume was due to a First Solar refusal, since First Solar is the world’s only prominent CdTe manufacturer. Now First Solar has announced a patent infringement probe into Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (TOPCon) cell production, a silicon-based technology which First Solar doesn’t use, because its panels are all CdTe-based. First Solar holds TOPCon patents thanks to its 2013 acquisition of TetraSun. First Solar General Counsel Jason Dymbort has stated that “These patents are First Solar’s intellectual property, which we continue to leverage as part of ongoing efforts to develop the next generation of (photovoltaic) technologies.” It’s possible…
M&A, IP, Patents Private equity firms Asterion Industrial Partners and Nextalia Sgr are considering bids for BT Group’s Italian arm, BT Italia. The deadline for bids is late July. The Italian unit has been the subject of an accounting scandal and several convictions of fraud. Zegona Communications, the new owner of Vodafone Spain, has signed an agreement with staff and trade unions to cut 898 staff at the Spanish firm. In a matter of fancy corporate restructuring, the parent company of Thai MNO, AIS, is to merger with its largest shareholder, Gulf Energy Development. The new merger between Intouch Holdings and Gulf Energy Development is valued at more than $20 billion. Both companies are owned by Thai billionaire Sarath Ratanavadi. Huawei has filed…
The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) has published the results of the second phase of trials for the low-power IoT-focused WiFi variant – IEEE 802.11ah, i.e. HaLow. As HaLow gears up for commercial adoption, poised to take advantage of the already installed WiFi footprint, these test results should do much to persuade skeptics of the technology. HaLow is most different from the main WiFi flavors because of its support for sub-GHz spectrum. This is the main reason behind its performance, but a number of additional improvements have been made to the standard, to eke more out of the specification. These include narrower channel widths, for better density, and altering the stack to better suit battery-constrained devices. The commercial model should see…
More than half of mobile users in China are using 5G services, and the Chinese government is keen to advance the commercial adoption of 5G-Advanced (5G-A), or 5G Standalone, especially with the incorporation of AI. ZTE, the partially state-owned equipment vendor, is on message and keen to tout its 5G-A credentials. A spokesperson from ZTE spoke with Wireless Watch about the firm’s work in setting 3GPP standards for AI in 5G-A and the commercial opportunities in this area. The vendor laid out two roles that AI plays in 5G-A, starting with AI for RAN (AI-enhanced networking). This is where AI improves user experience and network efficiency, such as in enhancing traffic management. Next, RAN for AI (or network-enabled AI applications)…
A coalition of automotive associations have banded together to demand that patent pool Avanci provide more transparency regarding the patents and commercial terms of its 5G Connected Vehicle patent pool. The letter, addressed to Avanci’s CEO, is brief, but reads like a frustrated prelude to litigation. Recently, Germany rocked the boat, by allowing its major automakers to band together, to jointly pursue more favorable patent licensing terms than they might secure individually – as an Automotive Licensing Negotiation Group (ALNG). As BMW and Volkswagen were signed up as Avanci licensees, the news was concerning for Avanci. Now, there appears to be a new front. We noted that the automotive industry was generally unreceptive to the licensing approach pursued by Avanci,…
Until US President Biden’s sudden resignation and the ensuing rally behind Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, the prospect of a second Trump presidency was steadily mounting. This was after his assassination attempt led to speculation over how another Trump presidency would impact the mobile industry in the US and worldwide. There has even been a suggestion Trump might revisit the idea of encouraging US vendors to bid for one of the two Nordic companies to gain a presence in the RAN. This idea emerged only late in the last Trump presidency, inspired more by his compulsion to hobble Huawei, than out of concern for the US tech sector. Cisco as the primary vehicle for Trump’s ambitions, being virtually the…
Five years ago this week… Synamedia secured a corker of a deal with WarnerMedia Asia Pacific, supplying its PowerVu content delivery technology, in a deployment that at the time appeared a precursor to powering a new WarnerMedia streaming service to launch the following year in the US and then internationally—HBO Max. That promotion never came for Synamedia, as far as we are aware. Rather, Warner Media Asia Pacific had recruited Synamedia to support existing satellite distribution from production to service providers, and crucially the transition of Warner’s APAC division to future IP delivery. Hence the installation of Synamedia’s Virtual Digital Content Manager (vDCM) with Smart Rate Control and Automation, as well as the D9800 Network Transport Receiver which is key for IP-based delivery,…
Is artificial intelligence smothering sustainability goals in their sleep? The revolution brought upon by the public emergence of generative AI has changed more than one business roadmap. While everyone and their dog have pushed the integration of some sort of AI service, the dark side of this AI ubiquity is the explosion of energy consumption associated with these power-guzzling tasks. That reality has become clear for Google, which has reported greenhouse gas emissions rising a whopping 48% over the past five years. The major change between 2019 and the present day is the appearance of gen AI, which has increased datacenter energy consumption—one of the factors cited by Google for this rise in its latest Environmental Report for 2024. This…