AT&T’s Mike Zeto discussed the teleco and media company’s smart cities strategy as part of its 5G and IoT roll-out, saying in an interview AT&T will go beyond providing connectivity and focus on building “end-to-end solutions” for localities and enterprises. “The only way these cities are going to be move forward is with public-private partnerships,” Zeto said.

AT&T talks cities: “We wouldn’t do it if it didn’t make sense, but it’s not about money”

With over one billion mobile phone customers and an explosion of mobile data consumption over the past two years, the Indian telecom industry needs to migrate from traditional copper-based backhaul networks to dense optic fiber cable networks, according to Indian investment information and credit rating agency ICRA.

The proliferation of affordable smartphones, low data tariffs, increase in speeds of delivery and enhanced content have led to 539 million wireless internet subscribers in the country. This translates into daily consumption of 418,330 terabytes (TBs) of data. Each TB measures over 1,000 gigabytes.  The data consumption is expected to grow over the long term with increasing applications, improving technology and more content. To meet the requirements, telecom networks need to be robust and have the capacity to carry large amounts of data and deliver it quickly, according to a new ICRA research report.

With each step on technology ladder from 2G to 3G to 4G and soon to be 5G, the fiber requirement has been increasing. 5G and its applications, which will likely grow exponentially in years to come, translate into speeds in excess of 10 Gbps as against the average speeds of 6 Mpbs achieved with 4G technologies in India (against a global average of 17 Mbps).

“Achieving such speeds make fiber connectivity essential. India’s high population density also translates into deeper and denser fiber network,” the report stated.  At present, the country has about 500,000 towers of which only 22 per cent are fiberized as against 80 per cent in China. India has 110 million km of fiber deployed compared to 420 million km in the United States and 1,090 million km in China.  Hence, India’s fiber coverage in km per capita works out to 0.09, which is far behind 0.87 for China and more than 1.3 for the United States and Japan. “The fiber density in India will have to increase at least four-fold. It means that fiber will evolve as a separate industry in some time, similar to the trajectory seen for telecom tower industry over the past two decades.”

ICRA estimates the present market value of fiber assets owned by major private telecom operators is about Rs 1.2 lakh crore. The extent of fiber rollout over the next few years will require investments of Rs 2.5 lakh crore to 3 lakh crore. Hence sharing of fiber among multiple telcos will be the key driver of a reasonable return on capital.

Trends of Indian Telecom Industry for January 2019  [SOURCE:  ICRA Research]:

1) Total subscriber base at 1,203 million; YoY growth of 2.4%; MoM growth of 0.5%
2) 20 out of 22 circles reported increase in subscriber base on MoM basis; North East reported the highest MoM growth
3) Overall tele-density steady at 91.8%; Urban tele-density at 161.3%, rural tele-density at 59.4%
4) Wireless subscriber base at – 1,182 million; YoY growth of 2.6%; MoM growth of 0.5%
5) Active wireless subscriber base at 1,022 million; YoY growth of 1.0%; MoM de-growth of 0.4%
6) Vodafone Idea leads the market with active wireless subscriber market share of 37.6%, followed by Bharti at 32.4% and RJio
at 23.5%
7) Urban wireless subscriber base at 654.2 million; YoY growth of 0.2%; MoM growth of 1.0%
8) Rural wireless subscriber base at 527.8 million; YoY growth at 5.7%; MoM decline of 0.1%
9) Wireline Subscriber base at 21.8 million; YoY decline of 5.5%; BSNL/MTNL continue to be the market leader
10) Broadband subscriber base at 540.0 million; strong YoY growth of 43%
11) For September 2018 quarter, total minutes on network grew 41.2% YoY, while MoU per subscriber grew by 43.9%.
12) For September 2018 quarter, data subscriber base and per subscriber usage continued to report healthy YoY growth

by Yang Ge (edited by Alan J Weissberger)

China will issue 5G wireless communications licenses by year-end, the nation’s telecoms minister said, as the country pushes aggressively into 5G before the IMT 2020 standard or 3GPP Release 16 spec are completed.

“I expect 5G licenses will be issued at some point this year,” Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei, said on Thursday in a session at the Boao Forum for Asia in South China’s Hainan province, the Shanghai Securities News reported.  Wei added that actual timing for the launch of 5G network deployments will depend on maturation of the necessary technology, most notably 5G handsets. “Large-scale commercial service will need to wait until networks are perfected,” he said. “We need to give China’s (wireless) carriers some time.”

Editor’s Note:  The three state owned and controlled China carriers are: China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom.

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China is the world’s largest mobile market with some 1.5 billion subscribers, with many in the world’s most populous country holding multiple accounts. But in the past the nation was slow to roll out the latest generations of new mobile communications, often preferring to wait for the technology to mature first in more advanced Western markets.

Beijing has taken a sharply different tack in 5G, aiming to become a leader in the space for a technology expected to power many of the wireless high-tech applications of the future such as telemedicine and self-driving cars. Accordingly, it wants to roll out its networks sooner rather than later, and for the first time could be among the world’s first major markets to launch service.

The technology could facilitate data-transfer speeds up to 10 times faster than current 4G technology, said Yang Chaobin, president of 5G product lines at China’s own Huawei Technologies, the world’s leading manufacturer of telecom equipment. Miao estimated that 20% of 5G will be used for person-to-person communications, while 80% will be used for communication between things such as applications behind self-driving cars.

Among China’s three major carriers, the largest, China Mobile, is aiming to roll out “pre-commercial” 5G service this year, with full commercial service available sometime next year, said Vice President Li Huidi, according to the Shanghai Securities News report. China Mobile’s smaller rivals, China Unicom and China Telecom, have previously said they will each invest around $1.2 billion this year on 5G networks.

Miao also said that countries and companies should work together on 5G, even as a U.S. coalition is expressing concerns about the security of equipment produced by Huawei, worried it could be used for spying by Beijing. “In my view, in the development of 5G, the most important thing is open collaboration, and a single standard for the world,” Miao said.

Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez also spoke to the recent politicization of 5G earlier in the week at Boao, saying competition in new technologies including 5G is not between different nations, and instead is a competition among enterprises.

Contact reporter Yang Ge ([email protected])

https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-03-29/5g-licenses-coming-to-china-this-year-telecom-minister-101398936.html

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Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=0_Yobh9MPQw

 The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) today launched the industry’s first database tracking worldwide 5G devices. Part of the GSA Analyser for Mobile Broadband Devices (GAMBoD) database, the new 5G device tracking and reporting represents an important milestone for the 5G ecosystem as it moves from service trials and prototype user equipment to commercially available services and devices. 5G Ecosystem Report containing summary statistics can be downloaded here.

The report details that as of mid-March 2019 GSA had identified 23 vendors who have confirmed the availability of forthcoming 5G devices with 33 different devices including regional variants. There were seven announced 5G device form factors: (phones, hotspots, indoor CPE, outdoor CPE, modules, Snap-On dongles, adapters and USB terminals).    Breakdown by 5G form factor:

• 12 phones (plus regional variants)
• 5 hotspots (plus regional variants)
• 8 CPE devices (indoor and outdoor)
• 5 modules
• 2 snap-on dongles / adapters
• 1 USB terminal

GSA also confirms that 5G chipsets have been announced or are available from five vendors (Huawei, Intel, Mediatek, Qualcomm and Samsung).

Editor’s Note:

Huawei and Samsung use their 5G chip sets for their products and so far have not announced they would sell them on the merchant market.

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Other potential, but – as far as GSA has been able to determine – not officially announced, 5G devices, include:

• • Netgear Nighthawk M2 5G Hotspot – reported by secondary sources as planned for Telstra’s network
  • Samsung Galaxy Note 10 5G – secondary source confirmation only, based on analysis of Galaxy Note 10 Kernel code.
  • In addition, earlier versions of the Huawei indoor CPE containing the Balong 5G01 chipset are, according to the vendor, still being used in selected pre-commercial trials.

This is the latest component of the GSA Analyser for Mobile Broadband Devices (GAMBoD) database, a tool designed to help industry stakeholders keep track of all this stuff. Its launch comes on the same day at the publication of the latest 5G Market Reality Check from Hadden Telecoms.

“Operators globally are preparing for the large-scale introduction of 5G, the first services have launched, and the devices ecosystem is rapidly building and poised for the imminent scale availability of a range of smartphone models,” said Hadden. “Dozens more operators are expected to launch their respective 5G services in the coming 12 months.”

211 operators are investing in 5G in 87 countries – List

References:

5G Device Ecosystem Report March 2019

http://telecoms.com/496540/5g-has-already-yielded-12-phones-and-five-chipset-vendors-gsa/

SK Telecom (SKT) and Ericsson  have signed a MOU agreement to collaborate on research and development of 5G standalone (SA) core network technology and architecture.   The three year agreement focuses on potential enhancements and optimization enabled by cloud native micro-services based design principles.  The collaboration is directed at creating a more agile and programmable 5G standalone core network architecture capable of efficiently managing growth through automation and more simplified operations.

“After the successful launch of 5G [non-standalone] network, SK Telecom is preparing to migrate towards 5G [standalone – no LTE dependence] networks to provide the latest and greatest technology and services to its customers,” SK Telecom SVP and head of 5GX Labs Jong-kwan Park said.

“This joint collaboration with Ericsson on the next generation 5G Standalone Core and cloud native principles will not only enable us to introduce new services faster while at the same time improve our operational efficiency but also support higher availability through simplified operation.”

Ericsson head of packet core Peo Lehto added that cloud native micro-services architecture promises to deliver higher degrees of automation and availability, more predictable performance and more robust operations for next-generation mobile networks.

“This will relieve requirements on the infrastructure by allowing better handling of multiple failures, better infrastructure utilization with more flexible and granular scaling, as well as increased rate of innovation with independent life cycles and in-service software upgrade for each service,” he said.

“Ericsson and SKT have been cooperating closely for many years around 5G innovation. With the new MoU we can accelerate the necessary evolution of 5G core networks the profitable introduction of 5G-based services and use cases.”

A three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the companies focuses on possible enhancements and optimization enabled by cloud native micro-services-based principles. The MoU comes as increasing focus is being placed on the need for more agile and programmable 5G standalone core network that efficiently manage growth with automation and simplified operations.

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Separately, Ericsson  has secured a deal from South Korea’s largest telecom firm KT to implement its forthcoming 5G network as South Korea wireless network operators target 5G launch in April 2019.  In addition to 3GPP Release 15 “5G New Radio” hardware and software for KT’s 3.5 GHz Non-Standalone network, Ericsson is facilitating KT to stimulate the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0 opportunities to local enterprises on a global scale. In addition to immersive media, KT’s 5G commercialization use case plans covers: smart factories; safety; drones; and connected vehicles.

Many believe that the extensive deployment of 5G networks will boost the adoption of IoT devices that require real time control and low latency.  As 5G accelerates the digital transformation in many industries, enabling new use cases in areas such as IoT, automation, transport and Big Data, Ericsson is poised to benefit from favorable growth dynamics. The company is investing heavily in its competitive 5G-ready portfolio to enable customers to seamlessly migrate to 5G.

Jinho Choi, Vice President, Access Network Design, KT, says: “Having worked successfully with Ericsson on 4G LTE, we are pleased to continue that partnership to make our 5G ambitions a reality with Ericsson’s leading 5G technology.

“Korea is one of the most competitive and technology-advanced markets in the world. By taking a global lead to enable nationwide commercial 5G services through commercially available 5G smartphones, KT is demonstrating our commitment to our customers and showing how we can drive a global 5G ecosystem where Korea plays a key role.”

Patrick Johansson, Head of Ericsson Korea, says: “We’ve worked with KT for many years to bring the very best mobile user experiences to its customers. Notably on 5G, we worked closely together to show the world what 5G could do during a major global winter sports event in 2018.

“With 5G we aim to help KT to take their customers’ experiences to new levels, whether through enhanced mobile broadband for mobile subscribers, or helping to make national and global IoT and Industry 4.0 opportunities a reality for enterprises and industries.”

References:

https://www.ericsson.com/ci/en/news/2019/2/ericsson-and-sk-telecom-team-up-on-cloud-native-5g-core

https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2019/3/ericsson-wins-5g-commercial-deal-with-kt

https://www.nasdaq.com/article/ericsson-gears-up-for-south-korea-5g-launch-with-local-firms-cm1119486

https://www.telecomasia.net/content/skt-ericsson-team-cloud-native-5g-core

2018 Financial Overview:

On March 20, 2019, China Mobile (the world’s largest wireless carrier by subscribers and revenue) reported a 3.1% increase in net profit for 2018 to 117.78 billion yuan ($17.58 billion).  The company focused on reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency.  Telecommunications service revenue fell a reported 0.4% but grew 3.7% in comparable terms to 670.9 billion yuan.  China Mobile’s  net profit was aided by the listing of the company’s tower division China Tower in August last year.

2018 Highlights:

• China Mobile reported a 4.3% increase in its total customer base for the year to 925 million, of which 713 million are 4G customers – a 9.7% increase from 2017.
• However,  mobile ARPU fell 8% to 53.1 yuan as a result of strong competition.
• Total wireline broadband subscribers increased by 39% to 157 million, of which 147 million were household broadband customers. Household broadband blended ARPU grew 3.2% to 34.4 yuan.
• The company’s four growth engines are: personal mobile market, home broadband market, corporate market,  emerging business
• IoT revenue +40.2% to RMB7.53 bil
• ICT, Cloud Computing, Big Data Revenue Revenue =RMB4.19 bil which was +75.3%
• Boasted 2.41 mil 4G base stations with an industry-leading 4G network coverage capability
• Realized NB-IoT continuous coverage in areas at township level and above across China
• Achieved household broadband access capability of ≥100Mbps.
• More efficient deployment of CDN edge nodes resulted in ongoing enhancements to customer perception
• Maintained a backbone network with a further enhanced transmission and loading capability.
• Performance of international submarine cables, cross-border terrestrial cables and PoPs was substantially lifted

“2018 was a challenging year for telecommunications operators. Competition amongst peers changed in characteristics as products and services have become homogenized while cross-sector challenges have intensified. The value of traditional telecommunications business rapidly diminished, coupled with multiple challenges from a complex and rapidly-changing policy environment,” China Mobile chairman Yang Jie said.

“In order to counter market competition, overcome the major obstacles in the ongoing reforms and enhance management, we continued to encourage everyone across the Company to take the ‘Big Connectivity’ strategy even further and implement the integrated development of the four growth engines.”

2018 5G Accomplishments:

• Permitted to adopt 2.6GHz and 4.9GHz frequency bands for trials
• Network tests and application trials in 17 cities
• Developed 5G Ecology:
  • 5G Joint Innovation Centre
  • 5G Device Forerunner Initiative
  • 5G Joint Innovation Industry Fund

2019 Goals dor 5G: Construct end-to-end network infrastructure; Promote 5G commercialization:
• Develop NSA and SA networks concurrently with SA (stand alone- no LTE) as the primary goal
• Promote 4G/5G synergistic development and expedite 4G VoLTE
• Join hands with the industry supply chain to develop devices supporting multiple modes, bands and form factors
• Share end-to-end smart technology capabilities and serve vertical industries

Work together to build an open and win-win innovative ecosystem. Promote 5G cross-industry integration:

• Culture and entertainment
• Smart transportation
• Smart city
• Smart manufacturing
• Remote healthcare

https://www.chinamobileltd.com/en/ir/webcasts/pre190321.pdf

China Mobile on 5G (from Press Release):

We will continue to conduct tests on the 5G network and perform trials on business applications to ensure the precommercial launch of 5G services this year. We aim to provide direction and leadership for 5G development, exploring suitable 5G products and business models with industry partners. To build a strong foundation for the ongoing transformation towards an intelligent network, we will speed up the pace of network upgrades and strengthen our core capabilities. The Company will expand into new retail business and strive for the large-scale development of our own branded intelligent hardware. We will build up our capabilities in key business areas and develop an open and shared innovative ecosystem. In order to realize a win-win situation, we will continue to enhance the collaborative opening-up efforts, reinforcing industrial cooperation,investment planning and international expansion.

http://mms.prnasia.com/00941/20190321/2018ARPressRelease_ENG.pdf

By Josh Bancroft, senior analyst, DC and enterprise SDN, Networked Services, IHS Markit.

Highlights

Software-defined networking (SD-WAN) software revenue, including appliance and control and management software, rose 26 percent quarter over quarter to reach $359 million in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2018. VMware led SD-WAN market revenue share with 20 percent, followed by Cisco at 14 percent and Aryaka at 12 percent, according to the “Data Center Network Equipment Market Tracker” from IHS Markit.

Editor’s Notes:

1. VMware and Cisco acquired SD-WAN start-ups Velocloud and Viptela, respectively in 2018 which enabled them to lead this market.
2. There are many types of SD-WANs, none of which are based on standards.  Here’s an article describing the different SD-WAN “flavors”

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In the fourth quarter, vendors began to reap the rewards of partnering with multiple managed-service providers, systems integrators and telcos. Revenue deal sizes have been rising, and the number of enterprise sites deploying SD-WAN continues to grow.

For the foreseeable future, both direct and channel sales will continue to drive SD-WAN market growth. In the IHS Markit “Edge Connectivity Strategies North American Enterprise” survey in February 2019, respondents showed a clear bias for consuming SD-WAN with self-managed on-site hardware and software, or as a standalone managed service bundled with connectivity. However, by 2019 they expect to shift to managed services bundled with other network functions virtualization (NFV) services and connectivity.

“Telcos want to utilize the high speeds and network-slicing capability of 5G, along with the application-traffic steering capability of SD-WAN, to support the industrial internet of things and other new edge applications,” said Josh Bancroft, senior research analyst at IHS Markit. “The telcos view SD-WAN as a key way to ensure various traffic types are automatically steered to the appropriate links. It can also guarantee IoT traffic is prioritized over 5G, and other applications are automatically routed over broadband.”

“If they haven’t done so already, SD-WAN vendors should consider adding IoT-specific features to their offering, such as application identification, prioritization and protocol translation functionality on SD-WAN appliances,” Bancroft said.

Following are some additional data center network market highlights:

• Application delivery controller revenue declined 4 percent quarter over quarter and 7 percent year over year in Q4 2018, reaching $438 million.
• Virtual ADC appliances comprised 35 percent of ADC revenue in Q4 2018.
• F5 revenue declined by 8 percent, quarter over quarter, in Q4 2018, but the company still garnered 47 percent of ADC market share. Citrix followed F5 with 27 percent, and A10 came in third with 8 percent.

Data Center Network Equipment Market Tracker

With forecasts through 2023, this IHS Markit report provides quarterly worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, analysis and trends for data center Ethernet switches by category and market, application delivery controllers by category, and software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) appliances and control and management software. Vendors tracked include A10, ALE, Arista, Array Networks, Aryaka, Barracuda, Cisco, Citrix, CloudGenix, CradlePoint, Cato, Dell, F5, FatPipe, Fortinet, HPE, Huawei, Hughes, InfoVista, Juniper, KEMP, Nokia (Nuage), Radware, Riverbed, Silver Peak, Talari, TELoIP, VMware, Versa, ZTE and others.

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Top Telecom Equipment Vendors:

According to a new Dell’Oro Group report, the top seven telecom equipment makers as of 3Q 2018 are: Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, Cisco, ZTE, Ciena, and Samsung.  Huawei has captured a 29 percent share of the global telecom equipment market, increasing its market share by 8 percentage points since 2013.   Huawei’s revenue share improved by two percentage points of market share annually in each of the past five years.  That’s despite huge challenges in the U.S., UK, Australia and some European telecom markets due to security and backdoor issues.

During the same time period, Ericsson’s and Nokia’s market share declined about one percentage point annually on average until 2018 when both vendor held their market share flat.  ZTE’s share, which had typically been at 10 percent, dropped two percentage points in 2018 due to the U.S. ban that caused the company to shut down portions of its business during the second quarter.

Additional key takeaways from the reporting period include:

• Following three years of decline, the overall telecom equipment market grew 1 percent year-over-year in 2018. The positive turn in the year was due to higher demand for Broadband Access, Optical Transport, Microwave, and Mobile RAN.  The remaining equipment—Carrier IP Telephony, Wireless Packet Core, SP Router and Carrier Ethernet Switch—declined in the year.  The two largest equipment markets in the year were Mobile RAN and Optical Transport.
• The worldwide Mobile RAN market surprised on the upside and performed better than expected in 2018. In addition to the strong focus on LTE and LTE-Advanced, the shift toward 5G NR (3GPP Release 15 New Radio – Non Stand Alone) continued to accelerate throughout the year.
• The worldwide Optical Transport market continued to expand for a fourth consecutive year driven by strong sales of DWDM equipment in China and to large Internet content providers for data center interconnect (DCI).

According to TelecomLead.com estimates, Huawei generated revenue of around $38 billion from carrier business, $10 billion from enterprises and $52 billion from phones and other devices — in 2018.

• Huawei said in December 2018 that it expects total revenue to increase 21 percent to $109 billion in 2018.
• Nokia Networks business revenue was 20.121 billion euro (–2 percent) or $22.82 billion last year.
• Ericsson’s revenue was SEK 210.8 billion (+3 percent) or $22.58 billion in 2018.

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Mobile Operator CAPEX:

The latest GSMA report indicates that mobile operator CAPEX reached $161 billion in 2018 and is forecast to be $161 in 2019 and $160 billion in 2020.  5G related CAPEX will grow to $123 billion in 52 markets in 2020 from $81 billion in 19 markets in 2019 and $41 billion in two markets in 2018.

Mobile operators will invest around $480 billion worldwide between 2018 and 2020 in mobile CAPEX.  Their investment focus will be 3G, 4G, 5G roll outs; and network optimization; capabilities beyond core telco.

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5G Market:

5G is on track to account for 15 per cent of global mobile connections by 2025, as the number of 5G network launches and compatible devices ramps up this year, according to a new GSMA report. The 2019 global edition of the GSMA’s flagship Mobile Economy report series reveals that a further 16 major markets worldwide will switch on commercial 5G networks this year, following on from the first 5G launches in South Korea and the US in 2018. It is calculated that mobile operators worldwide are currently investing around $160 billion per year (CAPEX) on expanding and upgrading their networks, despite regulatory and competitive pressures.

“The arrival of 5G forms a major part of the world’s move towards an era of Intelligent Connectivity, which alongside developments in the Internet of Things, big data and artificial intelligence, is poised to be a key driver of economic growth over the coming years,” said Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA. “While 5G will transform businesses and provide an array of exciting new services, mobile technology is also helping to close the connectivity gap. We will connect more than a billion new people to the mobile internet over the next few years, spurring adoption of mobile-based tools and solutions in areas such as agriculture, education and healthcare, which will improve livelihoods of people around the world.”

The new GSMA report reveals that:

• The number of 5G connections will reach 1.4 billion by 2025 – 15 per cent of the global total. By this point, 5G is forecast to account for around 30 per cent of connections in markets such as China and Europe, and around half of the total in the US;
• 4G will continue to see strong growth over this period, accounting for almost 60 per cent of global connections by 2025 – up from 43 per cent last year;
• The number of global IoT connections will triple to 25 billion by 2025, while global IoT revenue will quadruple to $1.1 trillion;
• One billion new unique mobile subscribers² have been added in the four years since 2013, bringing the total to 5.1 billion by the end of 2018, representing about two thirds of the global population;
• More than 700 million new subscribers are forecast to be added over the next seven years, about a quarter of these coming from India alone;
• An additional 1.4 billion people will start using the mobile internet over the next seven years, bringing the total number of mobile internet subscribers globally to 5 billion by 2025 (more than 60 per cent of the population).

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According to Telecomlead.com, Huawei has signed 30 plus 5G commercial contracts. Huawei has delivered over 40,000 5G base stations for commercial use. Huawei has 50 plus 5G engagements with customers.   Nokia has 20 plus 5G contracts, and almost 100 5G engagements with customers.   Samsung shipped 36,000 5G base stations – mainly to operators in the US and Korea — in 2018.

According to Dave Bolen of Dell’Oro Group, Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, and ZTE are the top-five wireless/ mobile packet core infrastructure vendors.   At MWC 2019 in Barcelona, each put on a spectacular show with massive stands demonstrating its end-to-end technology prowess empowering 5G use cases, all enabled with their respective cloud-native cores. Their stands were packed with customers and potential customers leading to thousands of meetings. Each vendor had its share of press releases with 5G deals around the globe that are too numerous to name here. Links to the happenings at MWC19 from each of the top-five vendors may be found at Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, and ZTE.

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References:

http://www.delloro.com/delloro-group/telecom-equipment-market-2018

https://www.telecomlead.com/telecom-equipment/top-telecom-network-cos-huawei-nokia-ericsson-cisco-zte-ciena-samsung-89409

http://www.delloro.com/dave-bolan/5g-mwc19-barcelona-observations-its-all-about-the-core

https://www.gsma.com/newsroom/press-release/new-gsma-study-5g-to-account-for-15-of-global-mobile-industry-by-2025/

https://www.gsma.com/r/mobileeconomy/

https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=5a33fb6782bc75def8b6dc66af5da976&download

Abstract (by Rohit Mehra, IDC Analyst):

Network transformation is well on its way with the evolution of SDN and SD-WAN, leading to flexible network architectures taking hold from the cloud to the enterprise edge, powered by intelligent automation. Increasing use of streaming analytics and pervasive visibility, enhanced by ML and AI, is creating a next-generation, agile network that self-remediates performance issues and proactively responds to security threats. The result will be greater operational efficiencies, improved user experience, and verified SLAs that ensure delivery of meaningful business outcomes.  The network is a foundation layer for enabling secure, scalable and efficient use of Cloud, Edge and IoT Applications.

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Please see comments below this post for Alan’s thoughts on Rohit’s presentation at IDC Directions 2019.

Network Requirements Continue to Expand: 

▪Fast and adaptive

▪ Capacity on-demand

▪ Edge-to-Cloud Latency

▪ Network-level security

▪ Analytics capable of yielding new insights and driving digital transformation (DX)

▪ Bridge cloud and telco domains

▪ Global reach

“Self-driving” Networks are now needed to be Automated, Orchestrated and Optimized Network System.  Traditional networks break down as they scale (get larger) and increase workloads, making automation essential in future networks, e.g. 5G.

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Definitions:

Network automation is a methodology in which software automatically configures, provisions, manages and tests network devices. It is used by enterprises and service providers to improve efficiency and reduce human error and operating expenses. Network automation tools support functions ranging from basic network mapping and device discovery, to more complex workflows like network configuration management and the provisioning of virtual network resources. Network automation also plays a key role in software-defined networking, network virtualization and network orchestration, enabling automated provisioning of virtual network tenants and functions, such as virtual load balancing.

Digital Transformation (DX):

IDC defines DX as the continuous process by which enterprises adapt to or drive disruptive changes in their operations, customers, and markets. Today, many businesses are implementing DX without success, and some fail entirely. In part, this is due to pervasive technology shifts that are changing how organizations transact business, address customer expectations, operate and secure products and services, and compete in the marketplace.

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IDC maintains that virtualization has matured from simple partitioning and encapsulation to leveraging the mobility of virtual machines to improve management and operations of IT environments. Virtualization 2.0 includes a host of new use cases that range from high availability and disaster recovery to hosted clients and true utility computing.  Note that this information was not discussed by Rohit, but rather assumed to be known by the session attendees.

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Emergence of AI-based Network Automation:

✓ Simpler declarative management, enhanced verification and closed-loop processes

✓Network will accurately apply/enforce intent

✓Respond in near real-time to application, network and security events

Limitations of Classical Network Monitoring:

• Lack of pervasive, end-to-end visibility across physical/virtual/cloud
• Minimal application context
• Limited, spotty Analytics
• Frequently complex/costly
• Ping/SNMP/S flow/Trace route
• Unable to capture real-time network events

The Case for Streaming Telemetry In Support for Visibility and Analytics (see Alan’s Comment in box below article):

Infrastructure at Scale Demands Streaming Network Telemetry! Hyperscalers have deployed streaming telemetry extensively because it can provide millions of updates per second:  Time stamped at source (for real time and network forensics)
▪ Event-driven, subscription-based
▪ Vendor support for standards based streaming telemetry • e.g., Cisco, Arista, Juniper, Ciena, Nokia

Optimization of apps/user experience (48% 0f respondents), plus security (41%)  are top priorities for AI-enabled network automation:

IDC asked: What do you see as the most important aspects of an AI-enabled Network Automation solution? (Pick 3).  Here’s the ordered ranking:

• Optimize and enhance application availability/performance and user experience  48%
• Implement security policies, including visibility into encrypted traffic  41%
• Work across multiple networks (on-premises and cloud-based)  38%
• Reduce cost and complexity of network operations  36%
• Simplicity in network deployment, management and operations  36%
• Incorporate streaming telemetry data for real-time visibility and insights  36%
• Leverage existing network infrastructure and/or software defined networking (SDN) deployment  35%
• Anticipate network outages and plan for network changes  30%

Automation at the Network Edge:

▪ Network platforms can leverage aggregate data from 1000s of deployments
▪ Crowd-sourced data is then dynamically applied to similar environments (anonymized)
▪ Benefits include dynamic scaling and mitigation of performance and/or security issues as they arise

Carrier Networks: The Automation Imperative – complexity across carrier networks continues to grow

▪ Multiple-generations of technology
• Ethernet, MPLS, Broadband IP VPNs
• 3G, 4G, 5G cellular
▪ Physical / Virtual
• VMs and Container based VNFs
• Evolution of Telco Cloud
▪ Cloud Aspirations
▪ Monetization Roadmap

The 5G Promise Is Not Achievable Without Significantly Enhanced Automation

▪ Network Slicing is key to delivering on the 5G promise (yet there are no implementable standards for network slicing; they are all proprietary implementations)
▪ Predicated upon automated provisioning, service chaining of cloud-native network components
▪ Automated traffic optimization across fronthaul, mid-haul and back-haul key to efficiency and customer experience

Security Analytics:  

▪Traffic Analytics and Behavior Modeling
▪AI-enabled Anomaly Identification
▪Automated, Policy-based Remedial Actions (e.g. Quarantine)

AI-enabled Capacity Planning and Optimization:

▪ AI-powered network automation platforms monitor and assist with network capacity requirements and dynamically optimize flows
▪ Cloud-enabled Day 1 network provisioning and management automation that meets IT and business needs

Automating Enterprise Network Operations:

▪ AI-powered network operations create self-healing networks
• System monitors operations
• Detects performance degradations
• Determines root cause
• Automatically remediates the problem before it impacts users
▪ AI-powered Helpdesk Automation
• User Interfaces leverage Natural Language Processing for queries, e.g. Q: Why is my Wi-Fi coverage weak on the fourth floor? A: Switch to the 2.5Ghz Band
▪ Automated QoS and App Performance Guarantees
• Operator specifies minimum quality of service levels, system automatically maintains those in real time
• Resources are spun up to ensure and maintain service levels

Self-Driving Networks Require Closed-Loop Visibility and Automation:

▪ Self-driving networks will rely on streaming telemetry and closed-loop automation to detect and proactively respond to traffic-management issues and security threats
▪ Feedback loop from AI/ML to policy/intent will provide the ability to Visualize, Correlate and Predict- key ingredients for automation
▪ Requires a robust eco-system of network, visibility/analytics and AI solutions, SI/SPs

Take a Pragmatic Approach to Network Automation:

❖ Pick the right network automation use case(s)
❖ Getting automation right is mission critical
❖ Ensuring Clean, Relevant and Secure Data will be foundational to building AI-enabled network automation
❖ Developing Skills for Network Automation will be key to success
❖ Vendors can do their part by making products simpler to consume, deploy, manage

Final Thoughts on Network Autonomy:

1. Journey has begun: We are now at the cusp of major advances thanks to areas such AI, visibility and analytics, streaming telemetry, etc.2
2. Broad Applicability: Autonomous Networks will extend from Cloud to the Enterprise/IoT Edge, and will also be foundational to 5G Rollouts
3. Augment, not Replace IT: AI-enabled network automation augments human capabilities
4. Be Judicious: Move forward judiciously, with caution, leveraging automation lessons from other IT domains

Rohit Mehra: [email protected]  +1 (508) 935-4343