In December 2017, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released a five-year plan outlining a road map for commercial and technological progress in a broad set of optical technologies.

China has optical component makers, but they have generally produce lower-speed devices that lag U.S. companies by a product generation.  China’s efforts to develop a domestic optical industry aims to support optical network equipment makers,  such as Huawei and ZTE, according to Jefferies analyst Rex Wu.

The 63-page MIIT document is written in Chinese (Mandarin), but Cignal AI commissioned a professional English translation which summarizes the section of the plan about the Chinese optical components industry.

Cignal AI reports:

The goals and objectives outlined in the plan are exceptionally ambitious and should gravely concern incumbent component vendors. This document outlines strategic rather than rational economic objectives to catalyze market progress in Chinese component companies. Our interpretation is that this will increase the number of non-rational economic actors participating in the component market.

If executed, this plan will greatly increase the level of competition in an already fractured industry.  It will also reduce or in some cases eliminate access for western component vendors to the largest market for optical communications components in the world – China.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

NeoPhotonics, Oclaro, Acacia, Lumentum, and Finisar sell the most optical components to China, says a UBS report. Those optical parts makers took a hit in 2017 as demand weakened from China’s telecom service providers. Analysts have been expecting a rebound in 2018 spurred by spending on fiber-optic networks, 5G wireless backhaul and data centers designed for cloud computing services.

China’s domestic optical component makers include O-Net, Accelink and Innolight.

“The government aims to have two to three Chinese optics companies in global top 10 in 2020, and one company in global top 3 in 2022,” Mr. Wu wrote in a Jefferies report to clients. “The market share of Chinese optics companies will reach over 30% worldwide in 2022,” according to the government’s plan, he added.

References:

https://cignal.ai/2018/01/chinas-5-year-optical-component-plan/

https://www.investors.com/news/technology/does-china-optical-plan-mean-trouble-for-oclaro-lumentum-finisar/

https://techblog.comsoc.org/2017/12/15/lightcountings-3q-2017-optical-market-update-chinas-optical-network-comeback/

One unpublicized 2017 telecom story was that the U.S. telecom industry didn’t grow.  Revenues were flat (despite continued exponential traffic growth), profits, CAPEX and stock prices were all down.  Indeed, telecom was the worst performing S&P 500 sector in 2017 with a -6% loss (vs +37% gain for Information Technology sector).   The most obvious top story of the year was the FCC’s vote to end neutrality, which we chronicled in this blog post.

Instead of a review of other telecom stories for 2017, we offer a tribute to radio and wireless transmission pioneer Nikola Tesla.  Readers are invited to review the IEEE ComSoc Techblog archives and/or contact this author if you’d like to discuss the past year’s top telecom news and mega trends.

Tesla, whose name Elon Musk chose for his electric car company, was on the cover of Time magazine in 1931 for his achievements.  Unfortunately, he died a poor man in 1943 after years devoted to projects that did not receive adequate financing.  Although the main Tesla lab building on Long Island, New York is being restored by a nonprofit foundation — the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe — the World System broadcast tower he built there was torn down for scrap to pay his hotel bill at the Waldorf Astoria in 1917. Yet Tesla’s most significant inventions resonate today.

Tesla’s ambitions outstripped his financing. He didn’t focus on radio as a stand-alone technology. Instead, he conceived of entire wireless transmission systems, even if they were decades ahead of the time and not financially feasible.  Tesla envisioned a system that could transmit not only radio but also electricity across the globe. After successful experiments in Colorado Springs in 1899, Tesla began building what he called a global “World System” near Shoreham on Long Island, hoping to power vehicles, boats and aircraft wirelessly. Ultimately, he expected that anything that needed electricity would get it from the air much as we receive transmitted data, sound and images on smartphones. But he ran out of money, and J. P. Morgan Jr., who had provided financing, turned off the spigot.

“He proved that you could send power a short distance (without wires),” said Jane Alcorn, president of the Tesla Center. “But sending power a long distance is still proving to be a hurdle. It would be monumental if it could be done.”

Tesla’s wireless house lighting scheme was the first step towards a practical wireless transmission of energy system. The most striking result obtained was two vacuum tubes lighted in an alternating electrostatic field while held in the hand of the experimenter. The wireless energy transmission effect involved the creation of an electric field between two metal plates, each being connected to one terminal of the induction coil’s secondary winding.  A light-producing device was used as a means of detecting the presence of the transmitted energy.

Tesla recognized that electrical energy could be projected outward into space and detected by a receiving instrument in the general vicinity of the source without a requirement for any interconnecting wires. He went on to develop two theories related to these observations

1.  By using two type-one sources positioned at distant points on the earth’s surface, it is possible to induce a flow of electrical current between them.

2. By incorporating a portion of the earth as part of a powerful type-two oscillator the disturbance can be impressed upon the earth and detected “at great distance, or even all over the surface of the globe.”

Tesla also made an assumption that Earth is a charged body floating in space.

“A point of great importance would be first to know what is the capacity of the earth? and what charge does it contain if electrified? Though we have no positive evidence of a charged body existing in space without other oppositely electrified bodies being near, there is a fair probability that the earth is such a body, for by whatever process it was separated from other bodies—and this is the accepted view of its origin—it must have retained a charge, as occurs in all processes of mechanical separation.”

Tesla was familiar with demonstrations that involved the charging of Leiden jar capacitors and isolated metal spheres with electrostatic influence machines. By bringing these elements into close proximity with each other, and also by making direct contact followed by their separation the charge can be manipulated. He surely had this in mind in the creation of his mental image, not being able to know that the model of Earth’s origin was inaccurate. The presently accepted model of planetary origin is one of accretion and collision.

“If it be a charged body insulated in space its capacity should be extremely small, less than one-thousandth of a farad.”

We now know that the earth is, in fact, a charged body, made so by processes—at least in part—related to an interaction of the continuous stream of charged particles called the solar wind that flows outward from the center of our solar system and Earth’s magnetosphere.

“But the upper strata of the air are conducting, and so, perhaps, is the medium in free space beyond the atmosphere, and these may contain an opposite charge. Then the capacity might be incomparably greater”.

We also know one of the upper strata of Earth’s atmosphere, the ionosphere, is conducting.

“In any case it is of the greatest importance to get an idea of what quantity of electricity the earth contains”.

An additional condition of which we are now aware is that the earth possesses a naturally existing negative charge with respect to the conducting region of the atmosphere beginning at an elevation of about 50 Km. The potential difference between the earth and this region is on the order of 400,000 volts. Near the earth’s surface there is a ubiquitous downward directed E-field of about 100 V/m. Tesla referred to this charge as the “electric niveau” or electric level (As noted by James Corum, et al in the paper “Concerning Cavity Q,” PROCEEDINGS OF THE 1988 INTERNATIONAL TESLA SYMPOSIUM, and others).

“It is difficult to say whether we shall ever acquire this necessary knowledge, but there is hope that we may, and that is, by means of electrical resonance. If ever we can ascertain at what period the earth’s charge, when disturbed, oscillates with respect to an oppositely electrified system or known circuit, we shall know a fact possibly of the greatest importance to the welfare of the human race. I propose to seek for the period by means of an electrical oscillator, or a source of alternating electric currents”.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Another Tesla invention combined radio with a remote-control device. We’d now call it a robotic drone. Shortly after filing a patent application in 1897 for radio circuitry, Tesla built and demonstrated a wireless, robotic boat at the old Madison Square Garden in 1898 and, again, in Chicago at the Auditorium Theater the next year. These were the first public demonstrations of a remote-controlled drone.

An innovation in the boat’s circuitry — his “logic gate” — became an essential steppingstone to semiconductors.  Tesla’s tub-shaped, radio-controlled craft heralded the birth of what he called a “teleautomaton”; later, the world would settle on the word robot. We can see his influence in devices ranging from “smart” speakers like Amazon’s Echo to missile-firing drone aircraft.

Tesla’s achievements were awesome but incomplete. He created the A.C. energy system and the basics of radio communication and robotics but wasn’t able to bring them all to fruition. His life shows that even for a brilliant inventor, innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires a broad spectrum of talents, skills and lots of investment capital.

References:

https://teslaresearch.jimdo.com/wireless-transmission-of-energy-1/

 Overview:

By a 3 to 2 vote along party lines, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted on Thursday to dismantle landmark rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, granting broadband ISPs the power to potentially reshape Americans’ online experiences.  The agency scrapped the so-called net neutrality regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for higher-quality service or certain content. The federal government will also no longer regulate high-speed internet delivery as if it were a utility, like phone service.  The upshot is that the “Restoring Internet Freedom” order passed today, removes the FCC as a regulator of the broadband industry and relegates rules that prevented blocking and throttling content to the honor system.

That means a consumer or business is helpless if they have a complaint against an ISP or broadband service provider although there’s lip service saying that “the FCC and FTC will securely share consumer complaints pertaining to the subject matter of the Internet Freedom Order’s requirements to the extent feasible…….”  FTC enforcement action is mentioned, but from our experience the FTC does nothing when it receives a complaint!  They don’t even contact the business you’re complaining about (like the BBB does).

From the FCC’s Memorandum of Understanding (bold font added– see other FCC.gov references below):

(1) Pursuant to the FCC’s authority under the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, on December 14, 2017, the FCC adopted a Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, and Order in the proceeding Restoring Internet Freedom, WC Docket No. 17-108, Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, Order, FCC 17-166 (Dec. 14, 2017) (“Internet Freedom Order”), which, in principal part, restores broadband Internet access service to its Title I information service classification,reinstates the private mobile service classification of mobile broadband Internet access service, and returns to the Transparency Rule the FCC adopted in 2010 with certain limited modifications to promote additional transparency. As authority for the Transparency Rule, the FCC relies on Section 257 of the Communications Act, among other provisions, which requires the FCC to identify and eliminate market entry barriers for entrepreneurs and other small businesses in the provision and ownership of telecommunications services and information services and to report to Congress on how such marketplace barriers have been addressed by regulation or could be addressed by recommended statutory changes; and

(2) Congress has directed the FTC to, among other things, prevent unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45, and has charged the FTC with enforcing a number of other specific rules and statutes.

Therefore, it is agreed that:

1. Consistent with its jurisdiction and to fulfill its duties under Section 257 of the Communications Act, among other provisions, the FCC will monitor the broadband market and identify market entry barriers by, among other activities, reviewing informal complaints filed by consumers, and will investigate and take enforcement action as appropriate with respect to failures by an Internet service provider to comply, in whole or in part, with the Internet Freedom Order’s requirements to file with the FCC or display on a publicly available, easily accessible website the specified subjects of disclosure.
2. Consistent with its jurisdiction, the FTC will investigate and take enforcement action as appropriate against Internet service providers for unfair, deceptive, or otherwise unlawful acts or practices, including but not limited to, actions pertaining to the accuracy of the disclosures such providers make pursuant to the Internet Freedom Order’s requirements, as well as their marketing, advertising, and promotional activities.
3. Consistent with each agency’s jurisdiction and to maximize the resources of each agency, at the regular coordination meeting established by the Agencies’ 2015 Memorandum of Understanding, the Agencies will discuss potential investigations against Internet Service Providers that could arise under each agency’s jurisdiction, and coordinate such activities to promote consistency in law enforcement and to prevent duplicate or conflicting actions, to the extent appropriate and consistent with law.
4. To further support coordination and cooperation on these matters, the Agencies will continue to work together to protect consumers, including through:
• Consultation on investigations or enforcement actions that implicate the jurisdiction of the other agency;
• Sharing of relevant investigative techniques and tools, intelligence, technical and legal expertise, and best practices in response to reasonable requests for such  assistance from either Agency; and
• Collaboration on consumer and industry outreach and education efforts, as appropriate.
5. The FCC and FTC will securely share consumer complaints pertaining to the subject matter of the Internet Freedom Order’s requirements to the extent feasible and subject to the Agencies’ requirements and policies governing, among other things, the protection of confidential, personally identifiable, or nonpublic information.
6. The Agencies may coordinate and cooperate to develop guidance to assist consumers’ understanding of Internet service provider practices.
7. In seeking to encourage and facilitate the enforcement of applicable law, the Agencies recognize that decisions by one agency to take or withhold action are not, except by operation of law, binding on or intended to restrict action by the other agency.
8. To ensure the effective exchange of information between the Agencies, the persons signing below and their successors shall be deemed Designated Liaison Officers to serve as the primary sources of contact for each agency. Formal meetings between appropriate senior officials of both Agencies to exchange views on matters of common interest and responsibility shall be held from time to time, as determined to be necessary by such liaison officers…..blah, blah, blah!

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Analysis:

The action reversed the agency’s 2015 decision, during the Obama administration, to better protect Americans as they have migrated to the internet for most communications. It will take a couple of weeks for the changes go into effect, but groups opposed to the action have already announced plans to sue the agency to restore the net neutrality regulations. Those suits could take many months to be resolved.

FCC chairman Ajit Pai said the rollback of the rules would eventually help consumers because broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast could offer people a wider variety of service options. We are helping consumers and promoting competition,” Mr. Pai said in a speech before the vote. “Broadband providers will have more incentive to build networks, especially to under-served areas.”   We think that’s disingenuous nonsense!

The discarding of net neutrality regulations is the most significant and controversial action by the F.C.C. under Mr. Pai. In his first 11 months as chairman, he has lifted media ownership limits, eased caps on how much broadband providers can charge business customers and cut back on a low-income broadband program that was slated to be expanded to nationwide carriers.

His plan for the net neutrality rules, first outlined early this year, set off a flurry of opposition. Critics of the changes say that consumers may have more difficulty finding content online and that start-ups will have to pay to reach consumers. In the past week, there have been hundreds of protests across the country, and many websites have encouraged users to speak up against the repeal. After the vote, numerous groups said they planned to file a lawsuit challenging the change.

As expected, the five FCC commissioners were fiercely divided along party lines. In front of a room packed with reporters and television cameras from the major TV networks, the two Democratic commissioners warned of consumer harms to come from the changes.

Mignon Clyburn, one of the Democratic commissioners, presented two accordion folders full of letters in protest to the changes, and accused the three Republican commissioners of defying the wishes of millions of Americans.  “I dissent, because I am among the millions outraged,” said Ms. Clyburn. “Outraged, because the F.C.C. pulls its own teeth, abdicating responsibility to protect the nation’s broadband consumers.”

“I dissent from this rash decision to roll back net neutrality rules,” said FCC Commissioner Rosenworcel. “I dissent from the corrupt process that has brought us to this point. And I dissent from the contempt this agency has shown our citizens in pursuing this path today. This decision puts the Federal Communications Commission on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, and the wrong side of the American public.”

On the other hand, Brendan Carr, a Republican FCC commissioner, said it was a “great day” and dismissed “apocalyptic” warnings. “I’m proud to end this two-year experiment with heavy-handed regulation,” Mr. Carr added.

During Mr. Pai’s speech before the vote, security guards entered the meeting room at the F.C.C. headquarters and told everyone to evacuate. Commissioners were ushered out a back door. The hearing restarted a short time later.  That shows you how unpopular the repeal of Internet Neutrality really is!

Despite all the uproar, it is unclear how much will change for internet users. The rules were essentially a protective measure, largely meant to prevent telecom companies from favoring some sites over others. And major telecom companies have promised consumers that their experiences online would not change.

Mr. Pai and his Republican colleagues have echoed the comments of telecom companies, who have told regulators that they weren’t expanding and upgrading their networks as quickly as they wanted to since the creation of the rules in 2015.

“There is a lot of misinformation that this is the ‘end of the world as we know it’ for the internet,” Comcast’s senior executive vice president, David Cohen, wrote in a blog post this week. “Our internet service is not going to change.”  We certainly hope so!

But with the F.C.C. making clear that it will no longer oversee the behavior of broadband providers, telecom experts say, the companies could feel freer to come up with new offerings, such as faster tiers of service for business partners such as HBO’s streaming service or Fox News. Such prioritization could stifle certain political voices or give the telecom conglomerates with media assets an edge over rivals.

Is this net neutrality repeal set in stone? Not necessarily. The repeal could be overturned in court or by Congress. A Democratic senator is already working on legislation. Net neutrality advocates are also saying they’ll push ahead with both options to fight the repeal. In order for the repeal to go into effect, it must be approved by the Office of Management and Budget — a process that could take several months.

Other Voices:

Consumer groups, start-ups and many small businesses say there are examples of net neutrality violations by companies, such as when AT&T blocked FaceTime on iPhones using its network.

These critics of Mr. Pai, who was nominated by President Trump, say there isn’t enough competition in the broadband market to trust that the companies will try to offer the best services for customers. The providers have the incentive to begin charging websites to reach consumers, a strong business model when there are few places for consumers to turn when they don’t like those practices.

“Let’s remember why we have these rules in the first place,” said Michael Beckerman, president of the Internet Association, a trade group that represents big tech firms such as Google and Facebook. “There is little competition in the broadband service market.”

Mr. Beckerman said his group was weighing legal action against the commission. Public interest groups including Public Knowledge and the National Hispanic Media Coalition said they planned to challenge Mr. Pai’s order in court. Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, also said he would file a lawsuit.

Dozens of Democratic lawmakers, and some Republicans, have pushed for Congress to pass a law on the issue, if only to prevent it from flaring up every couple of years at the F.C.C. — and then leading to a court challenge.

One Republican commissioner, Mike O’Reilly, said he supported a federal law created by Congress for net neutrality. But he said any law should protect the ability of companies to charge for faster lanes, a practice known as “paid prioritization.”  Any legislation action appears to be far off, however, and numerous online companies warned that the changes approved on Thursday should be taken seriously.

“If we don’t have net neutrality protections that enforce tenets of fairness online, you give internet service providers the ability to choose winners and losers,” Steve Huffman, chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “This is not hyperbole.”

Netflix, which has been relatively quiet in recent weeks about its opposition to the change, said that the decision “is the beginning of a longer legal battle.”  Netflix via Twitter (tweet) at 10:26 AM – Dec 14, 2017:

References:

Highlights:

SD-WAN (appliance + control and management software) revenue reached $116M in 3Q17, up 18% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) and up 2.8x year-over-year (YoY). VeloCloud led the SD-WAN market with 22% share of 3Q17 revenue, Aryaka was in second place with 18%.  Silver Peak rounded out the top 3 with 12%, according to the DC Network Equipment market tracker early edition from IHS Markit.

“The majority of SD-WAN solutions at first focused on virtualizing the WAN connection problem bringing automation, reliability, and agility to the enterprise WAN using overlays. Current use cases include direct connect for branch offices to the Internet and increased reliability through automated fail-over for a better user experience,” said Cliff Grossner, Ph.D., Senior Research Director and Advisor for the Cloud and Data Center Research Practice at IHS Markit.

Worldwide SD-WAN revenue (US$M)-3Q-2017:

“With the WAN connectivity problem well understood and solutions ramping in deployments, SD-WAN vendors are beginning to offer additional services such as WAN optimization and virtual firewall. The next important challenge for SD-WAN vendors to solve is providing connectivity with SLAs and security for the multi-cloud,” said Cliff Grossner.

More Market Highlights:

·         3Q17 ADC revenue increased 5% from 2Q17 and decreased 5% from 3Q16

·         Virtual ADC appliances stood at 28% of 3Q17 ADC revenue

·         F5 garnered 45% ADC market share in 3Q17 with revenue down 4% YoY. Citrix had the #2 spot with 29% of revenue, and A10 (8%) rounded out the top 3 market share spots.

Data Center Network Equipment Report Synopsis:

The IHS Markit Data Center Network Equipment market tracker is part of the Data Center Networks Intelligence Service and provides quarterly worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, forecasts through 2021, analysis and trends for (1) data center Ethernet switches by category [purpose built, bare metal, blade and general purpose], port speed [1/10/25/40/50/100/200/400GE] and market segment [enterprise, telco and cloud service provider], (2) application delivery controllers by category [hardware-based appliance, virtual appliance],  and (3) software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) [appliances and control and management software]. Vendors tracked include A10, ALE, Arista, Array Networks, Aryaka, Barracuda, Cisco, Citrix, CloudGenix, Dell, F5, FatPipe, HPE, Huawei, InfoVista, Juniper, KEMP, Radware, Riverbed, Silver Peak, Talari, TELoIP, VeloCloud, Viptela, ZTE and others.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

From a Nov 15, 2017 press release:

According to the IHS Markit Data Center and Enterprise SDN Hardware and Software Biannual Market Tracker, SD-WAN is currently a small market, totaling just $137 million worldwide in the first half of 2017 (H1 2017). However, global SD-WAN hardware and software revenue is forecast to reach $3.3 billion by 2021 as service providers partner with SD-WAN vendors to deploy overlay solutions — and as virtual network function (VNF)–based solutions become more closely integrated with carrier operations support systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS).

“Currently, the majority of SD-WAN revenue is from appliances, with early deployments focused on rolling out devices at branch offices,” Grossner said. “Moving forward, we expect a larger portion of SD-WAN revenue to come from control and management software as users increasingly adopt application visibility and analytics services.”

More highlights from the IHS Markit data center and enterprise SDN report:

• Globally, data center and enterprise software-defined networking (SDN) revenue for in-use SDN-capable Ethernet switches, SDN controllers and SD-WAN increased 5.4 percent in H1 2017 from H2 2016, to $1.93 billion
• Based on in-use SDN revenue, Cisco was the number-one market share leader in the SDN market in H1 2017, followed by Arista, White Box, VMware and Hewlett Packard Enterprise
• Looking at the individual SDN categories in H1 2017, White Box was the frontrunner in bare metal switch revenue, VMware led the SDN controller market segment, Dell held 45 percent of branded bare metal switch revenue and Hewlett Packard Enterprise had the largest share of total SDN-capable (in-use and not-in-use) branded Ethernet switch ports

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Editor’s Notes:

We’ve repeatedly pounded the table that there are no standards for SD-WANs, despite efforts by MEF [1].   That implies single vendor SD WAN with vendor lock-in and no interoperability between SD-WANs from different vendors.

Note 1.  MEF says it will standardize the managed services that SD-WAN network operators deliver, by developing open APIs, along with common terminology and components. This effort builds on MEF’s Lifecycle Service Orchestration effort.  Please refer to this MEF document.

Note 2.  Gartner’s definition of SD-WAN

More from Gartner on SD-WANs:

Enterprise network leaders face enormous challenges adapting and changing their managed WAN services to meet constantly changing business needs for new applications, new offices, more users, cloud services and digital business. Based on hundreds of client inquiries and recent Research Circle surveys, a key obstacle is that traditional network services are too slow in meeting these needs, and network leaders need alternative solutions that can meet their evolving needs faster. Compared to traditional WAN services, managed SD-WAN services (including various WAN connectivity services) are emerging with promises of greater agility, flexibility, control and cost-efficiency.

Gartner recommends that network leaders seeking managed WAN services use end-to-end managed SD-WAN and connectivity services to create agile and cost-effective managed WAN services. However, they must avoid buying into overinflated expectations created by the market hype that ignores the limitations of current services. To avoid the inevitable disappointment that follows unfulfilled expectations, network leaders should outline their service requirements, and use these to define evaluation criteria for a balanced analysis of service benefits and limitations.’

Source: Gartner (December 2017)

Enterprise network leaders face enormous challenges adapting and changing their managed WAN services to meet constantly changing business needs for new applications, new offices, more users, cloud services and digital business. Based on hundreds of client inquiries and recent Research Circle surveys, a key obstacle is that traditional network services are too slow in meeting these needs, and network leaders need alternative solutions that can meet their evolving needs faster. Compared to traditional WAN services, managed SD-WAN services (including various WAN connectivity services) are emerging with promises of greater agility, flexibility, control and cost-efficiency.

Gartner recommends that network leaders seeking managed WAN services use end-to-end managed SD-WAN and connectivity services to create agile and cost-effective managed WAN services. However, they must avoid buying into overinflated expectations created by the market hype that ignores the limitations of current services. To avoid the inevitable disappointment that follows unfulfilled expectations, network leaders should outline their service requirements, and use these to define evaluation criteria for a balanced analysis of service benefits and limitations.’

Source: Gartner (December 2017)

Current WAN services take too long to roll out and are too difficult to relocate or terminate, and network leaders are looking for ways to improve this. Network leaders see SD-WAN as a new opportunity to create more agile branch office connectivity due to appliances’ support of “zero-touch-configuration.” Vendors are fueling these expectations with reports of very fast site rollout with reports of 20 to 30 sites deployed overnight, compared to six to 10 sites per week for a traditional managed router service. However, SD-WAN does not change fundamental limitations of connectivity services, for example:

• Fast site deployments are only available for 4G/LTE access services or in cases where the provider already has a wired access service to the building (although in many cases these still require one to two weeks to provision).
• Network leaders who need new wired access services still need to plan for 14 to 90 days (or longer) from order to provisioning.
• All wired branch office connections, private or public, still require network leaders to sign a contract of fixed duration, making it a problem for network leaders to move or terminate a site without financial penalties.

Network leaders who need new WAN sites deployed with short notice should request managed SD-WAN with embedded LTE services. While many providers do not yet offer this service, there are providers in select countries that courier SD-WAN appliances with LTE embedded to customer sites instead of sending a technician. The best-case scenario is only six hours from order placement to on-site delivery of the appliance. Combined with self-service, where the enterprise plugs in the SD-WAN appliance to the LAN and powers up the device, the site can be operational within a day in the best case. However, network leaders who do not want their office staff to plug in the appliance need to plan for up to a week for a technician to be on-site, depending on location.

However, besides expense, the performance limitations of 4G/LTE include lower bandwidth than fiber, lack of geographic coverage and lack of QoS. Also, most of these services are based on using the internet as backhaul to the provider’s internet gateway. This means that, for larger sites and critical applications, network leaders should only employ 4G/LTE connectivity as an interim primary connection until a fiber connection has been deployed.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Because of the performance issues that still plague the internet in most parts of the world, the majority of enterprises are not replacing MPLS with internet services. Instead, based on client inquiries, Gartner estimates that around 60% of global WANs use both internet and MPLS in concert in a hybrid WAN that sends critical application traffic over the MPLS and everything else over the internet.

Enterprise experience has shown that for a global managed hybrid WAN, network planners can obtain at least 30% expense savings compared to traditional managed WAN (see “Cloud Adoption Is Driving Hybrid WAN Architectures” ). Network planners that want to replace their global MPLS with internet should progress selectively, and choose a few sites in areas where the internet is most likely to be of good quality. For these sites, demand a two- to four-month pilot as a condition of signing a new WAN contract. Remember that all internet providers and services are not the same. Use only a select few and do not disaggregate internet providers, as WAN and application performance will suffer.

ITU-R Working Party 5D: draft new Report ITU-R M.[IMT-2020.EVAL]

“Guidelines for evaluation of radio interface technologies for IMT-2020”

Backgrounder:

Among other work items, the October 2017 ITU-R WP5D meeting discussed proposals to correct minor errors and insert editorial improvements in draft new Report ITU-R M.[IMT-2020.EVAL]. Proposals to introduce some corrections including range of working distance in Indoor Hotspot channel models were agreed and reflected in the new version of the document.

Selected sections of this EVAL draft report follow (see NOTE at the end of the post and Comment in the box below it)…….

Introduction:

Resolution ITU-R 56 defines a new term “IMT-2020” applicable to those systems, system components, and related aspects that provide far more enhanced capabilities than those described in Recommendation ITU-R M.1645.

In this regard, International Mobile Telecommunications-2020 (IMT-2020) systems are mobile systems that include the new capabilities of IMT that go beyond those of IMT-Advanced.

Recommendation ITU-R M.2083 “IMT Vision – Framework and overall objectives of the future development of IMT for 2020 and beyond” identifies capabilities for IMT‑2020 which would make IMT-2020 more efficient, fast, flexible, and reliable when providing diverse services in the intended usage scenarios.

The usage scenario of IMT-2020 will extend to enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine type communications (mMTC) and ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC).

IMT-2020 systems support low to high mobility applications and much enhanced data rates in accordance with user and service demands in multiple user environments. IMT‑2020 also has capabilities for enabling massive connections for a wide range of services, and guarantee ultra‑reliable and low latency communications for future deployed services even in critical environments.

The capabilities of IMT-2020 include:

–                 very high peak data rate;

–                 very high and guaranteed user experienced data rate;

–                 quite low air interface latency;

–                 quite high mobility while providing satisfactory quality of service;

–                 enabling massive connection in very high density scenario;

–                 very high energy efficiency for network and device side;

–                 greatly enhanced spectral efficiency;

–                 significantly larger area traffic capacity;

–                 high spectrum and bandwidth flexibility;

–                 ultra high reliability and good resilience capability;

–                 enhanced security and privacy.

2.  Scope:

These features enable IMT-2020 to address evolving user and industry needs.

The capabilities of IMT-2020 systems are being continuously enhanced in line with user and industry trends, and consistent with technology developments.

This Report provides guidelines for the procedure, the methodology and the criteria (technical, spectrum and service) to be used in evaluating the candidate IMT-2020 radio interface technologies (RITs) or Set of RITs (SRITs) for a number of test environments. These test environments are chosen to simulate closely the more stringent radio operating environments. The evaluation procedure is designed in such a way that the overall performance of the candidate RITs/SRITs may be fairly and equally assessed on a technical basis. It ensures that the overall IMT‑2020 objectives are met.

This Report provides, for proponents, developers of candidate RITs/SRITs and independent evaluation groups, the common evaluation methodology and evaluation configurations to evaluate the candidate RITs/SRITs and system aspects impacting the radio performance.

This Report allows a degree of freedom to encompass new technologies. The actual selection of the candidate RITs/SRITs for IMT-2020 is outside the scope of this Report.

The candidate RITs/SRITs will be assessed based on those evaluation guidelines. If necessary, additional evaluation methodologies may be developed by each independent evaluation group to complement the evaluation guidelines. Any such additional methodology should be shared between independent evaluation groups and sent to the Radiocommunication Bureau as information in the consideration of the evaluation results by ITU-R and for posting under additional information relevant to the independent evaluation group section of the ITU-R IMT-2020 web page (http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/study-groups/rsg5/rwp5d/imt-2020/Pages/submission-eval.aspx)

Evaluation guidelines:

IMT-2020 can be considered from multiple perspectives: users, manufacturers, application developers, network operators, service and content providers, and, finally, the usage scenarios – which are extensive. Therefore, candidate RITs/SRITs for IMT-2020 must be capable of being applied in a much broader variety of usage scenarios and supporting a much broader range of environments, significantly more diverse service capabilities as well as technology options. Consideration of every variation to encompass all situations is, however, not possible; nonetheless the work of the ITU-R has been to determine a representative view of IMT‑2020 consistent with the process defined in Resolution ITU-R 65, Principles for the process of future development of IMT‑2020 and beyond, and the key technical performance requirements defined in Report ITU-R M.[IMT-2020.TECH PERF REQ] – Minimum requirements related to technical performance for IMT-2020 radio interface(s).

The parameters presented in this Report are for the purpose of consistent definition, specification, and evaluation of the candidate RITs/SRITs for IMT-2020 in ITU-R in conjunction with the development of Recommendations and Reports such as the framework, key characteristics and the detailed specifications of IMT-2020. These parameters have been chosen to be representative of a global view of IMT-2020 but are not intended to be specific to any particular implementation of an IMT-2020 technology. They should not be considered as the values that must be used in any deployment of any IMT-2020 system nor should they be taken as the default values for any other or subsequent study in ITU or elsewhere.

Further consideration has been given in the choice of parameters to balancing the assessment of the technology with the complexity of the simulations while respecting the workload of an evaluator or a technology proponent.

This procedure deals only with evaluating radio interface aspects. It is not intended for evaluating system aspects (including those for satellite system aspects).

The following principles are to be followed when evaluating radio interface technologies for IMT‑2020:

−                 Evaluations of proposals can be through simulation, analytical and inspection procedures.

−                 The evaluation shall be performed based on the submitted technology proposals, and should follow the evaluation guidelines, using the evaluation methodology and the evaluation configurations defined in this Report.

−                 Evaluations through simulations contain both system-level and link-level simulations. Independent evaluation groups may use their own simulation tools for the evaluation.

−                 In case of evaluation through analysis, the evaluation is to be based on calculations which use the technical information provided by the proponent.

−                 In case of evaluation through inspection the evaluation is to be based on statements in the proposal.

The following options are foreseen for proponents and independent external evaluation groups doing the evaluations.

−                 Self-evaluation must be a complete evaluation (to provide a fully complete compliance template) of the technology proposal.

−                 An external evaluation group may perform complete or partial evaluation of one or several technology proposals to assess the compliance of the technologies with the minimum requirements of IMT-2020.

−                 Evaluations covering several technology proposals are encouraged.

Overview of characteristics for evaluation:

The characteristics chosen for evaluation are explained in detail in § 3 of Report ITU-R M.[IMT‑2020.SUBMISSION −Requirements, evaluation criteria and submission templates for the development of IMT‑2020] including service aspect requirements, spectrum aspect requirements, and technical performance requirements, the last of which are based on Report ITU‑R M.[IMT-2020.TECH PERF REQ]. These are summarized in Table 6-1, together with their high level assessment method:

−                 Simulation (including system-level and link-level simulations, according to the principles of the simulation procedure given in § 7.1 below).

−                 Analytical (via calculation or mathematical analysis).

−                 Inspection (by reviewing the functionality and parameterization of the proposal).

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

TABLE 6-1 Summary of evaluation methodologies:

Section 7 defines the evaluation methodology for assessing each of these criteria.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

IMPORTANT NOTE:  The excerpts shown above are not final and subject to change at future ITU-R WP 5D meetings.  The remainder of this draft report is much too detailed for any tech blog.  Note that development of the detailed specs for the RIT/SRIT chosen won’t start till early 2020!

………………………………………………………………………………………

References:

http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/study-groups/rsg5/rwp5d/imt-2020/Pages/submission-eval.aspx

http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/study-groups/rsg5/rwp5d/imt-2020/Documents/S01-2_Draft%20Report%20Evaluation%20for%20IMT-2020.pdf

https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/study-groups/rsg5/rwp5d/imt-2020/Pages/submission-eval.aspx

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

For a glimpse at what ITU-T and 3GPP are doing to standardize the network aspects/core network for IMT 2020 please refer to this post:

New ITU-T Standards for IMT 2020 (5G) + 3GPP Core Network Systems Architecture

Also note that 3GPP’s New Radio spec (3GPP release 15) is ONLY 1 candidate for the IMT 2020 Radio access Interface Technology (RIT).  There are expected to be several others.

http://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/3gpp-completes-initial-5g-nr-specification/d/d-id/739240?_mc=RSS_LR_EDT

1.  Ericsson Files End-to-End “5G” Patent Application:

Ericsson has filed what it is calling a “landmark” end-to-end “5G” patent application incorporating numerous inventions from the vendor.

The patent application combines the work of 130 Ericsson inventors and contains the vendor’s complementary suite of 5G innovations.

“[The application] contains everything you need to build a complete 5G network – from devices, the overall network architecture, the nodes in the network, methods and algorithms, but also shows how to connect all this together into one fully functioning network,” Ericsson principal researcher Dr Stefan Parkvall said.

“The inventions in this application will have a huge impact on industry and society: they will provide low latency with high performance and capacity. This will enable new use cases like the Internet of Things, connected factories and self-driving cars,” he added.

Ericsson has filed a worldwide patent with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and a U.S. patent with the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office (USPTO).

Reference:

https://www.telecomasia.net/content/ericsson-files-end-end-5g-patent-application

……………………………………………………………………………………..

2.  Ericsson & Bharti Airtel “5G” Partnership:

“Ericsson will work with Bharti Airtel on creating a strategic roadmap for evolution of the (wireless) network to the next-gen 5G technology,” Ericsson Senior Vice President and Head of Market Area South East Asia, Oceania and India, Nunzio Mirtillo told reporters in New Delhi, India, according to the Economic Times (see references below).

On Friday November 17th, Ericsson showcased the first live “5G” end-to-end demonstration here using its 5G test bed and 5G New Radio (“NR” specified by 3GPP).

The company already has 36 such MoUs with global telecom operators. Under these agreements, Ericsson is trialing 5G technology and other solutions across verticals with these telcos.

Ericsson had earlier said that timely deployment plan for 3.3-3.6GHz band is crucial for the 5G network rollout in India. The band has already been identified as the primary band for the introduction of 5G services in the country before 2020.

Ericsson India Country Manager Nitin Bansal said, ” Besides telcos, startups, enterprises and academia have to come together to develop 5G use cases in India.”

Mr. Bansal said that Ericsson through its partnership with IIT-Delhi is evaluating 5G use cases around Healthcare, automotive and education verticals.

Earlier this year, Bharti Airtel had inked a similar pact with telecom gear maker Nokia to expand their partnership to areas like 5G technology standard and management of connected devices.  Hence, it remains to be seen if both wireless network equipment vendors will be supplying base stations to Bharti Airtel.

India plans to roll out 5G services for consumers by 2020 and to achieve that objective, the government has this week set up a high-level forum that will evaluate and approve road maps and action plans to bring in the latest technology in the country.

References:

https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/ericsson-bharti-airtel-ink-pact-for-5g-technology/61690369

https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/ericsson-says-in-talks-with-indian-telcos-on-5g-partnerships/61687067

 Operators around the globe gearing up for 5G: Ericsson survey