Author: Alan Weissberger
GSA Update and Analysis: 5G Devices Ecosystem – August 2019
- The GSA Research team has identified 100 announced 5G devices in total, excluding regional variants and prototypes not expected to be commercialised.In the first half of 2019, the number of announced 5G devices grew rapidly, starting with a few announcements and then gathering pace as operators in various parts of the world launched their first commercial 5G services. We can expect the device ecosystem to continue to grow quickly and GSA will be tracking and reporting regularly on 5G device launch announcements. Its GAMBoD database will contain key details about device form factors, features and support for spectrum bands. Summary statistics are released in this regular publication. By the first week of August, GSA had identified:
- Thirteen announced form factors (phones, hotspots, indoor CPE, outdoor CPE, laptops, modules, snap-on dongles/adapters, enterprise routers, IoT routers, drones, a switch, a USB terminal and robot).
- Forty-one vendors that had announced available or forthcoming 5G devices, including sub-brands separately (plus four in partnership with Sunsea).
- One hundred announced devices, up from 90 at the end of June (excluding regional variants, re-badged devices, phones that can be upgraded using a separate adapter, and prototypes not expected to be commercialised):
- 26 phones (plus regional variants); at least nine of which are now commercially available
- eight hotspots (plus regional variants); at least three of which are now commercially available
- 26 CPE devices (indoor and outdoor, including two Verizon-spec compliant devices) at least eight of which are now believed to be commercially available
- 28 modules
- two snap-on dongles/adapters
- two routers,
- two IoT routers
- two drones
- one laptop
- one switch
- one USB terminal
- one robot
Here are the commercially available 5G devices as listed in the GSA’s latest report August 2019:
- HTC 5G Hub (hotspot)
- Huawei 5G CPE 2.0 (indoor and outdoor customer premises equipment, or CPE)
- Huawei 5G CPE Win (outdoor and window CPE)
- Huawei 5G CPE Pro (indoor CPE)
- Huawei Mate X (phone)
- Huawei Mate 20x 5G (phone)
- Inseego R1000 Home Router/MiFi IQ 5G (fixed wireless indoor CPE)
- Inseego MiFi M1000 5G Mobile Hotspot (hotspot)
- LG V50 ThinQ (phone)
- Motorola 5G Moto Mod Snap-on (dongle)
- Netgear Nighthawk M5 Fusion MR5000 (aka Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot) (hotspot)
- Nokia Fastmile 5G Gateway CPE (indoor/ outdoor CPE)
- OnePlus OnePlus 7Pro 5G (phone)
- Oppo Reno 5G (phone)
- Percepto Drone-in-abox (drone)
- Samsung SFG-D0100 (indoor CPE)
- Samsung Galaxy S10 5G (phone)
- SIMCom Wireless SIM8200- EA-M2 (module)
- SIMCom Wireless SIM8200G (module)
- Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G (phone)
- ZTE Axon 10 Pro 5G (phone)
- ZTE 5G Indoor CPE MC801 (indoor CPE)
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What versions of 5G have been deployed/announced?
After downloading and reading the GSA report, I noticed a huge omission: the version of 5G is not disclosed for any of the “pre-IMT 2020 standard 5G” deployments. Most are likely to be based on 3GPP release 15 “5G NR” for the data plane NSA (LTE signaling and EPC). However, many of the 5G fixed wireless deployments (like Verizon’s and C-Spire) are proprietary.
5G silicon?
Also of note is that within the 5G devices, there are only four 5G silicon vendors chipsets – Qualcomm is by far the largest selling 5G SoC’s/IP, then Mediatek selling on the merchant market, whereas Huawei and Samsung design their own silicon for their 5G terminals/handsets and base stations.
Note while there is not yet any “Intel inside” 5G, Intel has sold its 5G smartphone modem silicon business to Apple recently for $1B.
If 5G were truly such a hot market, why aren’t there other semiconductor vendors pursuing it?
IHS Markit: CenturyLink #1 in the 2019 North American SIP Trunking Scorecard
By Diane Myers, senior research director, IHS Markit
Highlights:
- CenturyLink leads the market for session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking with the largest installed base of all North American providers.
- Twilio has been a disruptor in the SIP trunking market and placed second in the scorecard due to solid market momentum.
- Verizon and AT&T were #3 and #4, respectively.
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Editor’s Note:
SIP (Session Initiated Protocol) trunking is a method of sending voice and other unified communications services over the internet. It works with an IP-enabled PBX (private branch exchange). SIP trunking replaces traditional telephone lines or PRIs (Primary Rate Interface).connects both IP and analog devices via the Internet, eliminating the need to maintain separate voice circuits or replace legacy equipment.
Before SIP became a popular and reliable method of transmitting voice signals, telephone calls were carried over the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). The PSTN is a circuit switched network, which requires a physical connection between two points to complete a call.
SIP trunks are virtual phone lines that enable users to make and receive phone calls over the internet to anyone in the world with a phone number. SIP trunks utilize a packet switch network, in which voice calls are broken down into digital packets and sent across a network to the final destination.
Each SIP trunk supports SIP channels. A SIP channel is equivalent to one incoming or outgoing call. A SIP trunk can hold an unlimited number of channels, so users only need one SIP trunk no matter how many concurrent calls they expect. The number of channels required depends on how many calls the business will make at any one time.
References:
https://www.sip.us/blog/latest-news/sip-trunking-101-the-fundamentals/
https://www.nextiva.com/blog/sip-trunking.html
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IHS Markit analysis:
In its 2019 SIP Trunking North America Scorecard, IHS Markit analyzed and ranked the top SIP trunking providers in North America. For the fourth year in a row, CenturyLink leads the SIP trunking market with solid growth and the largest installed base of trunks. CenturyLink has done extensive work over the past two years bringing together its assets with those of Level 3, a company it acquired in 2017, to build a market-leading service portfolio and customer base.
In this year’s scorecard, Twilio made another jump to the second-ranked position because of its strong financial score and the continued growth of its installed base. Twilio has been a market disruptor with its Elastic SIP Trunking service, which has grown to attain a sizable installed base. The strong growth of Twilio’s Elastic SIP Trunking service reflects the widespread appeal of flexible consumption-based pricing.
Just a few years ago, there was little differentiation in the SIP trunking market. Fast forward to today, and there is a stark difference between traditional trunking services and the new on-demand trunks. Traditional trunking remains grounded in the old world of contracting for voice networking. In contrast, with on-demand trunks, customers simply pay for what they use and never need to worry about capacity planning.
SIP Trunking North America Scorecard:
In the 11th annual SIP Trunking North America Scorecard, IHS Markit analyzes the top-10 North American SIP trunking service providers: CenturyLink, Twilio, Verizon, AT&T, IntelePeer, Fusion, Rogers, Voyant, Windstream and Sprint. The criteria used in this analysis include market share, financial strength, market share momentum, service development and support options.
Huawei to help create China’s first open source software foundation; unveils Honor Vision smart screen with Harmony OS
Huawei Technologies Co. said today that it plans to partner with other companies to set up China’s first open-source software foundation, which is expected to begin to operate in a month or two to expand the nation’s software community.
Wang Chenglu, president of the software department at Huawei’s consumer business group, said software development relies on open-source codes and communities. “If China does not have its own open-source community to maintain, manage and host these open-source codes, the domestic software industry will be vulnerable in the face of uncontrollable factors,” Wang said. The first open-source foundation in China will be nonprofit and open to all companies and software developers. “The plan is going forward very fast. It may officially operate in one or two months,” Wang said. Wang added it is widely agreed that open-source communities are created to be fair and equitable for all, but now have become a means of making a power play between countries.
The first open-source foundation in China will be nonprofit and open to all companies and software developers. [Photo/IC]
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Last month, Nat Friedman, CEO of GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, said on Twitter that GitHub is subject to US trade law just like any company that does business in the US. GitHub has enforced restrictions to prevent users in sanctioned countries from accessing private repositories and the GitHub Marketplace and from maintaining private, paid organization accounts, technology news website TechCrunch reported.
Maral Khosroshahi, who identified herself as a deep-learning scientist at Microsoft and founder and chairwoman of Iranian Women in Computing, said in a post on Twitter on July 27th that GitHub suspended all accounts of Iranian developers without any prior notice. “This is a shame, … especially for those who keep saying that sanctions are not supposed to affect ordinary people,” Khosroshahi said in the post, adding that those views are her own.
Xiang Ligang, director-general of the telecom industry association Information Consumption Alliance, said the GitHub incident sent a warning to Chinese professionals that heavy reliance on U.S.-led open source communities may carry risks.
The open source plan also came after Huawei unveiled its in-house operating system Harmony OS on Friday, with the idea of using it in smart TVs, automobiles, wearables and other hardware over the next three years. Lyu Tingjie, a telecom professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said Huawei decided to build Harmony into an open-source system because it knows that support from a wide range of partners is needed to build a robust ecosystem. “The foundation plan, if well-executed, will help accelerate the development of Huawei and China’s overall software industry,” Lyu said.
For more information contact:
China Daily Multimedia Co. Ltd.
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George Zhao, president of Huawei’s sub-brand Honor, unveils Honor Vision series during the Huawei Developer Conference held in Dongguan, South China’s Guangdong province on Aug 10, 2019. Honor Vision is the world’s first smart screen equipped with HarmonyOS, or Hongmeng in Chinese, Huawei’s open-source operating system. [Photo/Xinhua]
“Huawei will continue to lead a broader effort to build China’s software developer ecosystem and complete industry chain for the electronic information industry, rather than just launch its OS,” Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, told the Global Times.
The HarmonyOS is an open-source system, but without the support of most application developers, it can’t grow at a rapid pace and neither can the industry, Xiang said. The HarmonyOS was initially seen as an alternative plan to deal with the risks of losing access to Google’s Android software and overseas market share after the US attack. Huawei is confident in keeping its overseas market share and displayed an ambition to make the HarmonyOS successful.
Richard Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business, said that the HarmonyOS can make Huawei’s devices functional again overnight, if the Android OS on the devices fails. Huawei has obviously entered a whole new stage of fully developing its OS, developer ecosystem and more terminals equipped with the OS. It will eventually build its Internet of Things based on its leading communication systems, rather than just focusing on mobile phone products, a veteran industry analyst told the Global Times on condition of anonymity.
References:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201908/13/WS5d51ed9ea310cf3e35565513.html
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201908/12/WS5d512715a310cf3e35565454.html
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1161064.shtml
China Mobile Explores 5G Tie-Up With National Cable TV Operator
by Liu Yanfei and Yang Ge of Caixin Global
China Mobile Ltd., the world’s biggest wireless carrier by subscribers, said it is talking with a recently formed national cable TV operator about cooperation in upcoming 5G networks and services, as it looks for new income sources to jumpstart its stagnating revenue.
China Mobile controls about 60% of its massive home market, making it flush with cash for aggressive spending on a state-of-the-art 5G network that has become a recent top priority for Beijing. By comparison, China Broadcasting Network Corp. was formed only five years ago by cobbling together many of the nation’s regional cable TV operators, and is relatively cash poor.
China Mobile and its two peers, China Telecom Corp. Ltd. and China Unicom Telecommunication Corp. Ltd., all received 5G licenses when the regulator awarded them in June, a move that was widely expected. But many industry watchers were surprised when China Broadcasting also received a 5G license because the company is relatively cash-poor and also has little or no experience in wireless services.
China Mobile had previously made known its desire to work with China Broadcasting, even though Unicom and China Telecom opposed such a move. China Mobile Chairman Yang Jie told Caixin on Thursday that talks between the two sides have taken place on building and sharing 5G networks, but he added there is nothing to reveal just yet.
“Building and sharing 5G networks is something the nation also supports, and businesses are also quite willing,” he told Caixin on the sidelines of an event to discuss the company’s latest financial results, which were also released on Thursday.
China Mobile Chairman Yang Jie says Thursday in Hong Kong that his company and China Broadcasting have discussed building and sharing 5G networks. Photo: VCG
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A collaboration with China Broadcasting would give China Mobile access to one of the country’s biggest providers of programming via the former’s vast cable network. Such a tie-up could help to reinvigorate China Mobile’s revenues, which have stagnated in recent years as demand for its core wireless voice and data services starts to mature.
On Thursday, China Mobile reported interim results that showed the company’s revenue dipped by 0.9% to 204.4 billion yuan ($29 billion) in this year’s second quarter, while its profit plunged 18.8% to 32.4 billion yuan, according to calculations by Caixin.
China Broadcasting was formed in 2014 by combining many of the country’s regional cable-TV operators. It was originally set up to run cable TV networks, but was granted a license to operate internet and telecom services in 2016.
Before issuing 5G licenses in June, China’s telecom regulator called a meeting with each of the three big carriers’ top officials in charge of network construction, a source close to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) previously told Caixin. China Mobile raised its hopes of working together with China Broadcasting on that occasion, even though Unicom and China Telecom opposed.
As the nation’s dominant carrier, China Mobile is spending the most aggressively on 5G. Figures from the company indicate it now plans to spend about 24 billion yuan on the network this year. By comparison, Unicom has said it plans to spend 6 billion yuan to 8 billion yuan on 5G this year, while China Telecom has said it plans to spend about 9 billion yuan.
Contact reporter Yang Ge ([email protected]; twitter: @youngchinabiz)
Original article at: https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-08-09/china-mobile-talks-5g-tie-up-with-national-cable-tv-operator-101449253.html
Brazil launches first phase of 100G fiber project, expands 4G and edge cloud networks
Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications, in partnership with the National Education and Research Network (RNP), has launched the first phase of the Ciencia Conectada program, which will expand the broadband infrastructure using optical fiber in the North and Northeast regions. The academic internet network is expanding its speed from 10 Gbps to 100 Gbps, benefiting federal universities, federal institutes and research units, in addition to fostering economy and local development.
The first phase of the program will reach 77 locations, six states, 16 cities, and 64 federal, state and private institutions this year. By 2021, the 16 metropolitan networks that will allow the connection of 1,317 schools to the internet will be completed.
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4G networks reached 144 new cities in Brazil in the first half of 2019, taking the total to 4,573, where 96 percent of the population live, according to data published by Telebrasil. In the period January-May, 12.3 million new 4G Sim cards were activated, for a total of 142 million 4G users.
Over the 12 months to June, 24 million new 4G Sim cards were activated (20%). In the same period, 146 new cities were connected to 3G networks, taking the total to 5,433 cities, where 99.7 percent of the Brazilian population lives.
The number of mobile internet users reached 207.6 million, according to the industry group. If fixed connections are included, there were a total of 239.3 million internet users at the end of May. Of these, 31.7 million were fixed broadband subscribers, a segment that grew 4.6 percent in 12 months, with 1.8 million new accesses.
https://www.telecompaper.com/news/brazil-extends-4g-networks-to-144-more-cities-in-h1–1304151
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TIM Brazil is expanding its edge cloud network using Nokia AirFrame servers that feature 2nd-gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors to virtualise its data centres by 2021.
The news will make TIM the first operator in Latin America to adopt the AirFrame technology for its data centre servers, improving server capacity and delivering better quality, internet access and video consumption for its users in Brazil.
“Virtualisation is important to improve user experience in our network, which will count with more speed and data usage stability,” said Leonardo Capdeville, CTIO, TIM. “With this core virtualisation, TIM is leading with a 5G pilot project over the network. This process also allows us to strengthen our customers’ data protection.”
The rollout will comprise of 1000 state-of-the-art AirFrame servers that will virtualise network functions to guarantee better customer experience. As well as creating edge data centres the agreement with Nokia also moves TIM Brazil a step closer to 5G, which requires a cloud core for network activities.
“Nokia’s unique solution, designed to support precisely this evolution to 5G, will give TIM Brazil a crucial ongoing competitive advantage as they evolve their core networks into cloud,” added Leandro Monteiro, Nokia sales director in Brazil. “Nokia is proud to partner with TIM as it invests in cloud native technologies to maintain its position as one of Latin America’s most efficient networks.”
https://www.capacitymedia.com/articles/3824033/tim-brazil-expands-edge-cloud-capabilities
CenturyLink CEO Jeff Storey: “Expanding our fiber footprint is major focus; Fiber beats wireless, whether it’s 5G or not”
CenturyLink wants to become the premier U.S. fiber-based provider for business customers, according to Jeff Storey, CenturyLink’s president, CEO, and former Level 3 CEO. Storey pledged to continue to aggressively expand its fiber footprint because fiber, he said, will ultimately beat out all other connectivity options in terms of performance, especially for next-generation use cases that are happening at the edge of the network. Two such edge computing customer examples were given (see below).
“Expanding our fiber is a major area of focus for us … Fiber beats twisted pair copper, hybrid fiber coax, and it beats wireless, whether it’s 5G or not, fiber wins,” Storey told investors during the telecom’s Q2 2019 earnings call on Wednesday evening, August 7th. Fiber is one way that CenturyLink plans to boost its Enterprise and Small and Medium Business revenues, executives said. From the Century Link earnings call transcript, Storey said:
As I mentioned last quarter, we added 4,500 new fiber-fed buildings to our on-net footprint in the first quarter of 2019. We continued that focus in the second quarter with the addition of approximately 5,000 new fiber-fed buildings. For contrast, Level 3 used to add something closer to 500 buildings per quarter, so I want to emphasize expanding our fiber footprint is a major area of focus for us.
We know that when we have a building on-net, our fiber based services provide a better, more reliable, and higher margin solution than competing infrastructure. [indiscernible] wireless whether that’s 5G or not, fiber wins. It’s highly flexible and increasing speeds, it is secure and really is the basis for all the other competing technologies. We just do one thing differently. We take fiber all the way to the customer, and customers always want fiber when they can get it. You can expect us to continue investing to expand the reach of our access fiber network.
Beyond just being a superior technology, though, fiber is well suited to meet the demands of emerging opportunities driven by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data applications. Fiber-based solutions are better able to satisfy what we see as four key market trends. The need for highly scalable capacity, now ranging into multi gigabits per second; the need for connecting and increasing number of widely distributed locations; the need for the network itself to protect the privacy and security of our customers; and finally, the need to move bandwidth intensive computing resources closer and closer to the edge to reduce latency and unnecessary backhaul of traffic.
Expanding our on-net building footprint certainly helps us meet these needs. But we’ve implemented a number of other initiatives to ensure CenturyLink maintains our position as the premier fiber based provider for enterprise customers.
Our North American subsea fiber routes are a unique asset, and as I said earlier, we believe it represents the world’s most scalable and efficient fiber network. However, we are further augmenting our capabilities. We also own an extensive and unparalleled conduit system that we leverage to bring the latest generation fiber capabilities to market with extraordinary speed and economic efficiency. Each of the long haul networks we’ve acquired Level 3, Qwest, WilTel, Broadwing all had multi conduit builds.
Within the Level 3 network alone, we built 12 conduits to ensure we had sufficient space to grow and evolve this capacity in fiber technology evolved. Most of those conduits are still available for further network augmentation. But we’ve also interconnected all of those conduit systems to cherry-pick the shortest and lowest latency pass across the country. As illustrated on slide five, we recently announced the deployment of Corning’s latest generation of ultra-low loss fiber to build the world’s best, most scalable optical infrastructure. This new technology enables higher capacity and more efficient optical design than earlier fiber technologies.
Coupled with the selecting the shortest physical path between any two endpoints, we also improved latency significantly, which is a key factor for hyper scalars, bandwidth intensive enterprises, and dark fiber customers. We’ve completed 3.5 million miles of our current plan to build a total of 4.7 million fiber miles with ultra-low loss fiber roughly 75%. We continue to see demand for additional routes, and we’ll consider those to meet future customer needs.
We recognized that access and long haul transport only part of the solution. There’s increasing demand for computing capabilities at the edge of the network, and we believe we’re uniquely positioned to capitalize on this market opportunity. In addition to our far-reaching fiber network, we operate a large number of edge locations that are well suited to enable edge computing. In the coming weeks. We expect to announce the details of our investments in our widely distributed and extremely well connected edge computing infrastructure.
Storey gave two examples of Edge Computing using Century Link’s scaleable fiber network:
Let me give you a specific example from a customer of what fiber-based edge computing capabilities can mean for them. Slide 6 shows an actual customer with close to 2,000 nationwide locations. We are working with this customer to evaluate the effectiveness of our edge computing solutions to more efficiently run applications and process huge amounts of data very close to the origin of that data. On this slide, you can see that our existing infrastructure is positioned within five milliseconds transport time for 95% of their sites. This means that the customers applications and data can be processed more efficiently from a 100 or so of our edge locations, rather than processed on premise at 2,000 separate sites, even worse with the customer or backhaul to a central location.
In addition, our dynamic networking capabilities can provide real-time network provisioning from the customer premise to our edge, and then onto major cloud service providers. This example is for a specific customer, but the results are indicative of what we see from other customers we are currently working with.
This application can be an important solution for retail, banking, and really anyone that has a number of dispersed service locations that need to process large amounts of data in real time. The combination of our fiber network with edge computing infrastructure and managed services support is a very powerful and differentiated service offering. We are not suggesting that edge computing will eliminate the need for today’s hybrid computing or hybrid networking. To the contrary, our customers will continue to build and operate their own data centers, continue to move compute resources to public data centers and specific applications to cloud service providers.
Our customers want to dynamically manage their network and put different types of workloads in different environments. Through our wide array of hybrid networking solutions. CenturyLink provides the flexibility to do so easily. CenturyLink enables this flexibility with services like dynamic connections, which allows our customers to make instantaneous changes to their network, capacity, and configuration, and our cloud application manager, which allows customers to manage their applications across hybrid cloud environments through a single seamless interface.
Our network was purpose built to enable us to expand at the lowest cost in the industry. That’s a big advantage. It allows us to go to market quickly and invest in these types of growth initiatives within the bounds of our ongoing capital plans. The sufficiency is demonstrated in our ability to invest in all of these initiatives as well as other growth opportunities within the scope of the capex outlook we provided for the full-year 2019.
I’ll give you another specific customer example of how investments in flexible scalable fiber-based connectivity are helping us win in the market. We recently won a contract provide secured cloud connectivity to the US Census Bureau for the upcoming 2020 census. We will formally announce this contract later this week. To support the Census Bureau’s objectives, to provide the best mix of timeliness, relevancy, quality, and cost for the data they collect and the services they provide, CenturyLink will help to collect the census digitally by providing the bureau with managed trusted internet protocol services or MTIPS at speeds of 40 gigabits and higher.
MTIPS, a managed security service that provides secure cloud-based connectivity, will support the online system that will be available to all households completing the 2020 survey. The solution also allows the Census Bureau to access the responses via secured-cloud applications for the first time. CenturyLink was selected by the Bureau due to our ability to meet their requirements for scalable connectivity and will play an integral role in helping the US Census go digital in the most secure, reliable, and cost effective way as it takes an important mission of completing the 2020 census.
The census is obviously a unique example, but that’s the point of hybrid networking solutions from CenturyLink. Our customers can enable the capabilities to address their particular need. This solution highlights our ability to provide scalable, flexible network solutions that we believe are defining the next generation of enterprise networking.
Enterprise networking, a segment that includes CenturyLink’s high-bandwidth data services, managed services and SD-WAN services, declined 1.2% and was at $1.50 billion during the carrier’s fiscal second quarter compared to $1.52 billion in 2018’s Q2. However, Storey said that the company expects enterprise revenues to rise during the second-half of the year.
Small and medium business sales fell 11 percent during the quarter to $736 million compared to $819 million in Q2 2018 despite CenturyLink trying to focus strategic IT services geared toward the small and medium business market. Neel Dev, CenturyLink’s executive vice president and CTO, said that SMB revenue declines are largely driven by legacy products, but that the carrier “feels confident” it can return to profitability by selling to more businesses on its on-net fiber footprint.
Lisa Miller, CenturyLink’s president of wholesale and indirect channels and alliances, is “committed” to selling to small and midsized businesses who were outside of the legacy CenturyLink footprint.
“Level 3 didn’t focus there because they weren’t the type of customer we focused on, CenturyLink never focused there because they didn’t have the network to sell to those types of customers,” Storey explained. “It’s now a great opportunity for us and we need to focus and drive toward new opportunities with these customers.”
Consumer revenues continued its downward trajectory, falling by 8.4 percent to $1.42 billion during the quarter compared to Q2 2018’s result of $1.54 billion. CenturyLink today generates three-quarters of its revenue from business customers. During the provider’s Q1 2019 earnings call, Storey revealed that it was considering shopping around its consumer business. The executive said that CenturyLink’s internal teams are making “good progress” with the review, but that it will be a lengthy and complex process. In the meantime, Storey said the company won’t modify consumer investments and will continue to transform the Consumer business unit.
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Financial Results:
For the quarter which ended on June 30, Monroe, La.-based CenturyLink reported net income of $371 million in Q2 2019, which increased 21 percent compared to last year’s result of $292 million. The company reported total revenue of $5.58 billion and diluted earnings per share of 35 cents, a decline of 5.4 percent compared to $5.90 billion and 27 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. CenturyLink’s revenue came in just slightly lower than Wall Street analysts’ estimate of $5.59 billion.
In the first half of 2019, CenturyLink grew adjusted EBITDA by 80 million compared to the first half of 2018, while revenue declined more than 600 million over the same period. This was driven in part by our focus on adding profitable revenue in de-emphasizing unprofitable lines of businesses, managing legacy product declines, along with synergies and our cost transformation initiatives.
Total revenue in the first quarter declined 5.5% to 5.58 billion. Quarter-over-quarter, total revenue declined 1.2% compared to the 2.3% sequential decline we saw last quarter. In the enterprise segment, revenue declined 1.2% both year over year and sequentially. This compares to a decline of 1.6% year over year and 2.2% sequentially in the first quarter 2019. SMB revenue decreased 10% year over year compared to a decline of 3.7% in the first quarter 2019.
Neel Dev: “The revenue declines on the SMB business are largely driven by legacy voice. We feel good about our ability to sell into our on-net building footprint with a large addressable market opportunity. Wholesale revenue decreased 8.8% year over year. As we referenced last year, in the second quarter 2018, wholesale revenue included a favorable dispute settlement with a large carrier. Sequentially, we saw a decline of 1.8% compared to a 3.4% decline last quarter.”
Broadband revenue for the second quarter 2019 grew 1.8% year over year which compares to growth of 1.4% last quarter, driven by our efforts to increase penetration in our competitive assets and investing in fiber.
Voice revenue on a year over year basis declined 13% this quarter compared to 12% last quarter. The decline in other revenue continues to be driven by our decision to de-emphasize our Prism video product. Regulatory revenue is down year over year due to the adoption of new lease accounting standard.
In summary, we remain focused on execution specifically on improving revenue trajectory for the second half of 2019, maximizing profitability and remain discipline on our cost transformation and deleveraging initiatives.
References:
https://www.crn.com/news/networking/centurylink-ceo-5g-or-not-fiber-wins-
AT&T CFO on network virtualization, FirstNet, 5G in the core network through a software upgrade, and the enterprise 5G opportunity
AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens described to analysts at an Oppenheimer Tech Conference how the company is on track to virtualize its network and will continue to be the “connectors to the cloud.” The strategic relationship between FirstNet and 5G was highlighted along with a forecast that 5G will bring “pragmatic” and innovative applications to IoT connections. The AT&T CFO noted twoenterprise 5G projects already underway. Stephens cited programs in Austin, Texas, and Chicago, Illinois as well as AT&T’s FirstNet network contract.
Here are a few selected excerpts of Mr. Stephens’ Oppenheimer conference Q & A talk:
First thing, we’re been working on what I call software-ification, although I’m not sure that’s found in Webster’s dictionary. But the taking our network functions and virtualizing them or creating a software-defined network, we’ve been doing that for 5 years. We’re on track to get 75% of our network functions virtualized by the end of next year. We’ve been on this path for a while.
We’ll continue to be the connectors to the cloud, that transport companies to the cloud, not only business from IBM and Microsoft in our partnerships there, but quite frankly in being the go-to-market partners for those companies as they sell their services to other cloud users, to their other customers. So we feel good about that aspect of it, and that’s really important. And that’s a logical evolution of this path that John Donovan and his team have been on for 5 years. And have really — they’ve really done dramatic
things with reducing our cost. So we feel real good about that.The winning of the FirstNet contract was important to us because it enabled us to do a number of things. We had some AWS-3 and some WCS spectrum that we had, so to speak, in the warehouse that we hadn’t deployed. We had 700 spectrum, Band 14 from FirstNet, which the government was requiring us to deploy. And then we got a whole new set of technologies that were coming out, 256 QAM and 4-way MIMO and carrier aggregation. They were particularly important to us because of our diverse spectrum portfolio. So we got the FirstNet contract and we had to touch a tower, have to go out on the network. And we decided, with this contract, now is the time to, so to speak, do everything. Put all the spectrum in service, that’s the 60 megahertz. In some towers, it’s 50, some towers, it’s 60, but it’s 60 megahertz of new spectrum that was generally unused that we’re putting in.
For LTE, we have about 150 megahertz by the end of this year on average nationwide. And our nearest competitor on sub-6 has about — in-service, has about 2/3 that amount. So we have 50% increase over our competitors. But we — but at the same time, carrier aggregation, 256 QAM, all of these — 4-way MIMO, all these technologies, we’re able to put the capabilities into the network. And phones were coming out, had been out in some cases, and were coming out that had these capabilities. So not only we’re getting more spectrum, but the phones would work better on that spectral highway. That was all being done.
In addition, we made the decision that we’re spending the capital today, and that’s included, it has been in our numbers for a while now, that we’re putting up equipment that’s 5G-enabled. So when the 5G software for the core network (“5G” mobile packet core today is LTE’s EPC) is available, which we had hoped later this year, certainly next year, we will upgrade a significant part, not all, but a significant part of our network, core network, to 5G through a software upgrade. So we may have to go to the tower but we don’t have to climb the tower. We have to touch the computers at the base, but there’s no — we don’t necessarily need a crane and all of that. So it’s a very efficient upgrade.
So when you think about that, it will be a national — a nationwide coverage, 200 million POPS by the middle of the next year. And certainly, we’d hoped to do it faster. But our commitment on the record is by the middle of next year and the first half of next year. We’re at 60% of our FirstNet buildout as of June. We’re shooting to be 70% at the end of the year. That’s our expectations. I will tell you, the network team has surprised me many times before. And over the last few years, it’s always been to the good. They’ve always gotten more done than we expected.
To give you a sense of it, the 60% completion in June is 9 months ahead of schedule for the FirstNet authority. So we’re working very hard to make them proud of us, happy with us, work with us to get this done, so it’s important. And that 60% coverage is a geographic base, so it includes both urban and rural. So if you think about the end of next year or end of this year being close to 70%, and then the mid part of next year having 200 million POPS covered with 5G. Our network, as it raced today, I did a test sitting in this chair last night, got 134 meg speeds on my phone.
Question: When is FirstNet complete in the construction process?
Stephens answer: Yes, we have a 5-year contract. And so that we would have 3 years after this year to run. But I would be very hopeful we’d keep this 9-month lead and complete it much quicker. We’ll see how that goes. We’ll continue to work with the FirstNet authority on any kind of other additions, activities they want us to have. But the great part about it is it improves network quality for customers today, for people walking around with regular phones. And that’s what we want to do. We want to take care of that customer base. We hope that reduces churn, increases satisfaction. Quite frankly, it’s going to lower cost because it’s going to make the use of our spectrum more efficient.
Secondly, we’ll go into a new customer base. We don’t serve the FirstNet community in a great way in the sense of we serve them with the highest quality, but we don’t serve them in a lot of numbers today, and we want to grow that. We have over 8,000 governmental departments, municipalities, cities have approved us. And that’s a process that continues on to get official approval. We have 700,000 FirstNet customers. About half of those were our customers before. Now we’re growing much faster, the new customer base. We’re excited about that. The market is 3 million guys who are firefighters, police officers, EMTs. But then there’s another 11 million group that are people who work, power company emergency employees, gas company emergency employees, hospital workers in emergency situations that will qualify. So it’s a huge 14 million human beings. And then you think about it, some are going to have tablets, some of them are going to have body cams, some of them will have drones, they all have husbands or children or families that can join in. So it’s a really great opportunity for us. So there’s that great opportunity, but it’s really great for our core 90 million customers, voice customers that we have today.
Question: When do you upgrade to 5G on the software upgrade?
Stephens answer: I expect 5G in the core would be in service in the middle of next year, in that kind of 200 million POP range. I don’t want to give anybody the impression it’s going to be every home and everyone. But by the same token, it will be dramatic coverage.
Stephens went on to say how the company’s pre-standard 5G network is being used by a hospital system in Chicago (see next paragraph) and by a manufacturer in Austin. He said initial applications will be very “pragmatic” and focused on process automation and the internet of things. The next step, he said, is matching technical service capabilities with applications as businesses explore, “How can we do this differently, how can we apply this more efficiently?”
In Chicago, AT&T is working with Rush University Medical Center and the Rush System for Health to explore how 5G and multi-access edge computing can benefit healthcare with a focus on streamlining internal data handling while improving patient experience. In Austin, AT&T is working with Samsung to test 5G for manufacturing in the company’s semiconductor fabrication facility. Applications are focused on improved “efficiency, safety, security and operational performance within the manufacturing industry,” according to AT&T.
Stephens said winning the FirstNet contract provided the opportunity “to do everything.” That includes deploying FirstNet’s 700 MHz spectrum while simultaneously putting AWS 3 and WCS spectrum into service, rolling out gigabit LTE features like 4X4 MIMO, 256 QAM and carrier aggregation and installing 5G-ready equipment.
Asked by Oppenheimer & Co.’s Tim Horan what the potential merger of Sprint and T-Mobile US means for AT&T, Stephens said, despite a consent decree from the U.S. Department of Justice, the deal still isn’t done. At a high-level, “Mergers are really hard. You’ve got to bring together two different cultures, two different customer bases. All of that is just hard to do and it’s expensive. So we’ll see what happens.”
Summing up, Stephens said: “For all the things I said about our wireless business, we’re ready to compete. It’s a competitive market today; it’ll be a competitive market tomorrow. We feel good about the ability to compete going forward.”
And what about growing AT&T’s total business in the next 4 years or 5 years?
Let me say it this way. We’re not making predictions about future years, but we do — we’re spending. We’re investing a lot of money in content, we’re investing a lot of money in capital. And that capital is — we’re getting a lot of this network rebuild. And as — and we’re investing in, like for example 5G, we’re investing in the equipment, the hard assets today. So we turn that up next year, and a lot of that will be software, so our capital intensity can go down. With that capital intensity going down, then you can see reasons for good support for great cash flows. And so we feel good about our cash flow position this year and we’re optimistic about where the business is going with regard to the ability to generate cash.
Dell’ Oro Group: WLAN market bifurcation drag on IEEE 802.11ax; 400 Gbps Shipments to Surpass 15M Switch Ports by 2023
WLAN market bifurcation drag on IEEE 802.11ax
According to a newly released market forecast report by Dell’ Oro Group, the Enterprise WLAN market bifurcation is expected to drag down the IEEE 802.11ax adoption rate. The report also anticipates subscription license sales to more than double by 2023.
“We see a clear segmentation unfolding in the Enterprise WLAN market,” said Ritesh Patel, Industry Analyst at Dell’ Oro Group. “One segment is a group of performance-seeking users who are willing to pay a premium for higher performance. The other, is the price-sensitive segment—a group of users who prefer to purchase older technology at a lower price. Our analysis shows that the performance-seeking segment adopts new technology at a faster rate than the price-sensitive segment. We forecast this phenomenon to impact the overall adoption rate for 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6),” added Patel.
“Another trend unfolding is the growing popularity of subscription licenses, which is adding significantly to market revenue. Performance-seeking users are purchasing licenses for applications such as predictive analytics, visibility into the network for troubleshooting, and enhanced security,” said Patel.
The WLAN 5-Year Forecast Report highlights other key trends, including:
- Enterprise WLAN market revenues to surpass $9 B by 2023.
- Access Point average prices rising in the near-term.
- 11ax access points to sustain a price premium for an extended period.
The Dell’Oro Group Wireless LAN 5-Year Forecast Report offers a complete overview of the industry, covering Enterprise Outdoor and Indoor markets, with tables containing manufacturers’ revenue, average selling prices, and unit shipments by the following wireless standards: 802.11ax, 802.11ac Wave 1 vs. Wave 2, 802.11n, and historic IEEE 802.11 standards. It includes forecasts for regions of the world and for Cloud-managed vs. Premises-managed. To purchase these reports, please contact us by email at [email protected]
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400 Gbps shipments to surpass 15M Switch Ports by 2023
Dell’Oro revealed in a separate report, that 400 Gbps switch ports are forecast to surpass 15M by 2023. The 100 Gbps ports are expected to peak in 2020 but still comprise more than 30 percent of data center switch ports in the next five years.
“The first wave of 400 Gbps switch systems based on 12.8 Tbps chips were introduced in the market in 2H 2018,”said Sameh Boujelbene, Senior Director at Dell’Oro Group. “However, we do not expect material adoption of 400 Gbps until 2020 due to the lack of high volume, low cost 400 Gbps optics. The only Cloud Service Provider (SP) that started deploying 400 Gbps was Google, which opted for special 400 Gbps optics with an earlier time-to-market. Meanwhile, we expect other Cloud SPs, for instance Amazon, Facebook or Microsoft, to keep deploying 100 Gbps, and to probably consume the 12.8 Tbps chips in the form of high–density 100 Gbps switch systems to reduce cost,” added Boujelbene.
The Ethernet Switch – Data Center 5-Year Forecast Report provides more details about the timing of 100/200/400/800 Gbps and how the use cases may vary depending on the SerDes lane and market segment driving the speed.
The Dell’Oro Group Ethernet Switch – Data Center Five Year Forecast Report provides a comprehensive overview of market trends and include tables covering manufacturers’ revenue, port shipments, and average selling price forecasts for various technologies: Modular and Fixed by Port Speed; Fixed Managed and Unmanaged by Port Speed. We forecast the following port speeds: 1000 Mbps; 10 Gbps; 25 Gbps; 40 Gbps; 50 Gbps; 100 Gbps; 200 Gbps; 400 Gbps. To purchase these reports, please contact us by email at [email protected].
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Who else has announced or deployed 400G?
We’ve spent a lot of time searching for answers to that question but have found little. In particular, Amazon has been very secretive in their AWS inter data center deployments which one would expect to have used 400G optics (probably 4 x 100G lanes).
Last October, Cisco announced its first set of 400G data center network switches. Two of the switches were aimed at hyperscale cloud platforms, while the other two are for tech-savvy enterprises, and service providers. The two new Cisco Nexus 3400-S switches are for hyperscalers with high-bandwidth needs for things like video streaming, while the two new Nexus 9000 switches are for high-end enterprises taking advantage of artificial intelligence and machine learning and service providers building 5G networks, Thomas Scheibe, VP of product management for Cisco Data Center Switching, told Data Center Knowledge. Arista Networks announced plans for its first 400G switches last week, while Juniper Networks released details of its forthcoming 400GbE switches in July 2018.
“Everybody who sells to hyperscalers – whether that be Cisco, Juniper, Arista, or the white-box ODMs – will need to have 400GbE data center switches in their portfolio in 2019,” Brad Casemore, IDC’s VP for data center networks, told Data Center Knowledge. “There’s really no alternative, and that’s why you’ve seen a succession of 400GbE announcements from Juniper, Arista, and Cisco respectively. From a sales standpoint, they will all reach market at about the same time, but nobody wants to get outmaneuvered by a competitor.”
In an IEEE techblog post summarizing Facebook’s F16 Switch announcement at OCP 2019 Summit, we said that “Facebook built the F16 fabric out of 16 128-port 100G switches, achieving the same bandwidth as four 128-port 400G switches would.” So they achieved effective 400G switch ports using 16 times as many 100G switch ports.
In its second quarter earnings call last month, Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim said that Juniper has started shipping its first merchant and custom silicon-based 400-gig capable products and that it plans additional 400G products throughout the course of this year and next. Rahim said that 400G won’t really take off until 400G optics are available, which Juniper will ramp up in the first half of next year. Rahim also said the while the cloud providers will be the first big 400G customers, he expects service providers to be next in line.
Hyperscalers have been the primary drivers for 400G demand, he said. But other segments of the market, including telecommunications service providers rolling out 5G networks and high-end enterprises in verticals such as financial services, will also adopt the technology. “Hyperscalers will be first, and they will buy in the greatest volumes, creating the sort of economies of scale that will make 400G more affordable for subsequent buyers,” Casemore said.
Here’s a good reference on Trends in 400G Optics for the Data Center.
India’s Airtel: Security concerns should be addressed before adopting 5G; Nokia and Huawei disagree!
India Telecom operator Bharti Airtel has cautioned that security concerns [1.] should be addressed before adopting 5G in India, even if it means pushing the rollout back by 12-18 months. Telecom equipment vendors Nokia and Huawei disagreed, saying security aspects shouldn’t be overplayed, and that India should not waste time before adopting 5G.
Gopal Vittal, CEO-India South Asia for Bharti Airtel said India must have right security architecture and policy.
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Note 1. 5G (IMT 2020) networks will also come with risks. Vastly increased numbers of devices and an elevated use of virtualization and the cloud will mean many more 5G security threats and a broader, multifaceted attack surface. To realize a strong and healthy communications future, the industry needs to maintain a laser focus on 5G security.
ITU-T SG17/Q6: Security aspects of telecommunication services, networks and Internet of Things is the lead ITU-T activity on 5G security. Doesn’t appear anything concrete has come out yet!
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The above referenced companies differed on the broader issue of security, with Nokia saying security around 5G was also a geopolitical matter, and not just a matter of technology, with “trust” in the gear supplier of crucial importance. China’s Huawei – under pressure across the world owing to alleged security concerns due to its perceived proximity to the Chinese government and fighting to gain trust of countries like India – downplayed the issue, saying it was a “a technical issue, not a political one.”
The government assured it is going through all issues, adding that concerns will be addressed through the Personal Data Protection Bill.“We should not plunge into this (5G), we should take next 12-18 months …to make sure we really understand this beast thoroughly,” Gopal Vittal, CEO-India South Asia for Bharti Airtel, said at ET Telecom 5G Congress held last week. He said India must have right security architecture and policy.
“Telcos have been mandated as per the licensing conditions how they have to deal with the data…Yes, there are concerns in OTT (over-the-top, or app) players and third-party solution (providers), and data protection will be in place,” said R Shakya, deputy director general (security) at the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Shakya was part of a panel on Policy and Regulatory Challenges in India’s 5G Journey that was moderated by Prashant Singhal, TMT emerging markets leader at EY.
Sanjay Malik, Nokia’s head of India market, said, “There will be a bit more threat in 5G but, from launching perceptive, let’s not overburden with policy and security aspects. Maybe it needs to be seen in terms of more than just network security, (and also the) geopolitical situation.”
Huawei India CEO Jay Chen countered, saying network security in the 5G context is “a technical issue, not a political one,” which he believes the Indian government is increasingly aware of. He added that challenges can be handled by framing universal security standards, equipment testing and even thrashing out legal arrangements. Chen also said 5G technology was also a lot more secure than 2G, 3G, or 4G due to its unique architecture, and its encryption codes can only be broken by quantum computers of the future. Huawei India’s CEO said there is no time to lose as there are already 26 commercial 5G networks worldwide as we speak, which is likely to rise to 60 by the year-end, adding that there would also be 1 million 5G base stations in China alone by next year.
https://www.ctia.org/news/whats-new-in-5g-security-a-brief-explainer
http://www.5gamericas.org/files/8815/4092/3086/5G_Americas_5G_Security_White_Paper_Final.pdf
https://www.3gpp.org/news-events/1975-sec_5g
https://www.huawei.com/minisite/5g/img/5G_Security_Whitepaper_en.pdf
https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/Workshops-and-Seminars/20180319/Pages/default.aspx
China Races Ahead of the U.S. in the Battle for 5G Supremacy + 5G to stimulate US$500B in China tech growth over next 5 years (CAICT)
Bloomberg: China Races Ahead of the U.S. in the Battle for 5G Supremacy
by Sheryl Tian Tong Lee –with assistance from Ed Ludlow (emphasis added by Alan J Weissberger)
In the race for tech supremacy, China is betting it can seize the lead by building the world’s biggest 5G wireless networks.
To get there, the country is banking on the might of the one-party state, making sure its state-run carriers have access to cheap airwaves and fast, inexpensive approvals for putting up the hundreds of thousands of base stations the fastest wireless technology requires.
As top phone companies elsewhere flinch at the cost of building 5G wireless networks, China’s operators are barreling ahead on the government’s mandate, virtually free airwaves and equipment at less than half the price U.S. carriers are paying. Being the first to reach massive scale with the speediest networks could also help the nation in its ambition to dominate industries like factory automation, robotics and autonomous driving.
“5G is a foundation and catalyst for reinventing industries,” said Paul Lee, U.K.-based head of research for technology, media and telecommunications at Deloitte Consulting. “The fundamental benefit of being the first mover is that you can build business models on the back of that and export them to other countries.”
As top mobile carriers elsewhere flinch at the cost of building 5G wireless networks, China’s telecoms operators are barrelling ahead on the government’s mandate, virtually free airwaves and equipment at less than half the price U.S. carriers are paying. Photo: Reuters
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South Korea’s wireless carriers were the first to offer commercial 5G services, with SK Telecom Co. launching its network in April and Samsung Electronics Co. already offering a 5G-enabled smartphone. But while U.S. carriers in cities like Minneapolis and Chicago have the beginnings of 5G offerings, it’s in sheer scale where China is on course to edge ahead over the next five years.
That size advantage is also reflected in China’s push to invent 5G technology.
The country’s biggest companies have already established a lead in patents related to the fastest network technology. Huawei Technologies Co., the contentious Chinese firm that’s at the heart of current U.S.-China tensions, leads the pack as the world’s biggest telecom equipment supplier. Meanwhile, ZTE Corp., which has also drawn America’s ire in the past, comes in at No. 3, according to Berlin-based patent information platform IPlytics.
But that won’t necessarily translate into network domination. China’s three carriers — China Mobile Ltd., China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd. and China Telecom Corp. — are all state owned.
Harvard Business School economist Shane Greenstein says having a bigger government role in 5G may not provide an advantage. “The private firms in China in the digital sector have an admirable record with experimentation,” he said. “The state-owned enterprises? That is a more open question.”
Where the government is helping is by holding carriers’ costs down. Beijing is providing the bandwidth for 5G networks almost for free, said Edison Lee, head of telecommunications research at Jefferies Hong Kong Ltd.
U.S. carriers, by contrast, bid $2.7 billion at two auctions of 5G airwaves, according to the Federal Communications Commission. In India, the industry group representing carriers says its members can’t afford spectrum the government expects to auction for about $84 billion this year.
China’s operators will also pay less for base stations. The units will probably cost about $30,000 each in China, less than half the $65,000 average in other developed-economy markets, Jefferies’ Lee estimates. Two of China’s carriers have said they will lease the equipment, cutting the upfront cash outlay to roughly $6,500 each per year, Lee said.
In the U.S., where the government is leaving 5G to companies, carriers will also pay at least five times more than Chinese operators for civil engineering and permits to build 5G, Deloitte Consulting estimates.
The world’s most populous country has about 350,000 5G-operable base stations deployed, nearly 10 times as many as in the U.S., according to a U.S. Department of Defense study. The report says China claiming the position of standard-setter for 5G, with Huawei leading rival telecom equipment makers, is a risk for the U.S. This “will create serious security risks for DoD going forward if the rest of the world accepts Chinese products as the cheaper and superior option for 5G,” said the report.
Concern about China’s edge prompted President Donald Trump to float a proposal last year for the government to build a secure 5G network, people familiar with the matter said at the time. The idea was dropped immediately after regulators, industry leaders and elected officials immediately pushed back, saying companies were in a better position to move the technology forward.
The idea of China securing that advantage is also stoking concern among competitors beyond the telecommunications equipment and wireless services industries.
Chip maker Qualcomm Inc., for example, is urging the U.S. and other Western governments to embrace 5G more rapidly or risk falling behind China in the potentially life-saving technology, which is also used in self-driving cars.
China will be “saving hundreds if not thousands of lives much sooner than we will as we fumble to determine which is the standard that is best for the long-term road map in the Western world,” Qualcomm Senior Vice President Patrick Little said in an interview.
While China’s autonomous driving infrastructure lags behind the U.S., where firms like Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo LLC are streaking ahead in real-world testing, Chinese companies are developing related 5G applications with some established car makers.
ZTE is conducting 5G tests on self-driving cars, and has cooperated with Audi AG’s China unit to develop “internet-of-vehicles” technology. In robotics, ZTE is working with internet giant Baidu Inc. and Siasun Robot & Automation Co. to develop 5G applications.
Byton Ltd., an electric-vehicle startup based in Nanjing, will release an SUV in China at the end of this year that includes a range of artificial intelligence functions and a roof antenna that offers data transfer rates up to 10 Gbit a second, which it says is hundreds of times the normal average bandwidth.
The benefits of setting 5G standards may also help China outside its borders. President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative includes a push for Chinese-built network infrastructure across the length of a route that runs across Eurasia, the Middle East and parts of Africa.
“Developing countries that are more sensitive to cost will find the Chinese 5G price-point difficult to turn down, especially when the offer is sweetened with infrastructure and project-financing incentives like the Belt and Road Initiative,” the U.S. Department of Defense report said.
For its part, the U.S. is letting the private sector guide 5G development, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said in a June speech to wireless executives in New York.
“For all this talk about our government’s focus on 5G, make no mistake that we are pursuing a market-based strategy to promote 5G development and deployment,” Pai said.
And the U.S.’ crackdown on Huawei, cutting it off from components made by American companies, will be a big test of China’s 5G lead, says Anthea Lai, Asia Pacific media, technology and telecommunications analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence.
“Before Huawei’s ban, China had strong potential to lead in standalone 5G,” Lai said. “But now we have to see how much Huawei can keep its carrier business intact,” she said. “Huawei could slow China down.”
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To contact the reporter on this story: Sheryl Tian Tong Lee in Hong Kong at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dave McCombs at [email protected], Jason Clenfield
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Original article at: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/china-races-ahead-of-the-u-s-in-the-battle-for-5g-supremacy-1.1296079
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From South China Morning Post: 5G to stimulate US$500 billion in China tech growth over next five years
At the Global Mobile Internet Conference held in the southern coastal city of Guangzhou on Saturday, a representative from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) forecast that 5G will stimulate growth in the country’s information technology industry by 3.3 trillion yuan (US$479 billion) over the next five years. That development is expected to rev up digitization across traditional industries, which would yield more than 10 trillion yuan in growth over the same period.
China Telecom technicians set up a 5G base station near the Yellow River in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province in northwestern China, on May 16, 2019. Photo: Reuters
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“4G has changed people’s lives,” said Chen Jinqiao, deputy chief engineer at the academy, which is under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), during his presentation on China’s 5G development in the conference. But he indicated that 5G has the potential “to change society,” as different industries adopt the technology to their various requirements.
Chen’s growth estimates come amid the increased pace of 5G infrastructure spending in China, which is attempting to move ahead in the global race to deploy ultra-fast, next-generation mobile networks.
With peak data rates up to 100 times faster than what current 4G networks provide, 5G has been held out as “the connective tissue” for the Internet of Things, autonomous cars, smart cities and other new mobile applications, establishing the backbone for the industrial internet.
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References:
https://techblog.comsoc.org/tag/chinas-imt-2020-promotion-group/
http://www.imt-2020.cn/en/category/65569
https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/16/technology/china-united-states-5g-technology-study/index.html