Australia regulator ACMA to auction 125 megahertz of spectrum in the 3.6 GHz band for 5G services; NZ Spark Outlines 5G Plan
Australia 5G Auction in November
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) announced it will award spectrum in the 3.6 GHz band for the provision of 5G services in November. Australia’s telecom regulator confirmed that it will be auctioning off 125 megahertz of spectrum in the 3.6 GHz band. The spectrum will be divided into 350 lots across 14 regions of Australia.
“As a key enabler of the digital economy, the 3.6 GHz spectrum will ensure Australia is well-placed to realize the benefits of 5G. Timely release of 5G-compatible spectrum will facilitate the early delivery of next generation 5G services to the Australian public and industry,” said ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin. “The ACMA has designed an auction process—including starting prices—that aims to maximize efficiency, competitive outcomes and the full utility of this spectrum for 5G,” O’Loughlin added
Interested carriers will have to pay a AU$10,000 ($7,400) application fee to participate in the auction. Prices for spectrum in metropolitan areas begins at AU$0.08 per megahertz per population. ACMA said the parties wishing to participate in the auction must put in their applications by August 31. The regulator also said that the auction will include a spectrum cap, whereby each bidder is limited to 60 megahertz of spectrum in urban areas and 80 megahertz in rural areas.
In October 2017, the government of Australia developed a paper outlining a 5G policy for the country, including the establishment of a working group to drive the deployment of 5G mobile technology in Australia.
The government said this working group will support the timely rollout of 5G technology in the country with the primary goal of fostering the growth of the digital economy.
The government highlighted that it will support 5G deployments by making spectrum available in a timely manner, actively engaging in international standardization processes and streamlining planning arrangements to allow mobile operators to deploy infrastructure more quickly and at lower cost.
In February, Australian telecommunications company Telstra opened a 5G innovation center in the Gold Coast region. Telstra said the main aim of the new 5G center will be to test next-generation technologies to support the early commercial deployment of 5G mobile services in Australia. Telstra said it aims to launch commercial 5G services in Australia in 2019.
The carrier said its 5G center is designed to enable collaboration among technology vendors, developers, start-ups and the operator’s enterprise customers. At the time of the opening, the carrier announced plans to conduct 5G field trials in the coming months in and around the Gold Coast.
Telstra previously said that said that it would work with Ericsson on key 5G technologies including massive multiple-input, multiple-output (Massive MIMO), adaptive beam forming and beam tracking, and OFDM-based wave forms in its Gold Coast center.
References:
https://www.telecomasia.net/content/australia-auction-5g-spectrum-november
https://www.rcrwireless.com/20180809/5g/australia-auction-5g-spectrum-later-november
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New Zealand’s Spark on its 5G Plan:
Meanwhile, New Zealand telco Spark today published a briefing paper that outlines how it is on track to start providing 5G services to New Zealand consumers and businesses from 2020. The briefing paper aims to inform investors of Spark’s 5G intentions, help customers and stakeholders understand more about 5G, and address key considerations for policymakers. Spark Managing Director Simon Moutter said Spark’s technical and network planning for 5G is advancing after successfully conducting outdoor and indoor trials earlier this year. He has called on the government for clarity on the delivery of 5G spectrum, while outlining the telco’s technical and network planning.
Moutter said Spark is already making decisions that are contingent on securing additional 5G spectrum and is having to make those decisions “in the absence of any clear government policy” on when that spectrum will be available or in what bands. Furthermore, Moutter said the allocation processes for the two most likely spectrum bands – mid frequency C-band and high frequency mmWave band – should be completed as soon as possible, to ensure 5G services can be delivered in time for the 2020-21 America’s Cup in Auckland.
In addition to these bands, low frequency spectrum (below 1000MHz) will be required to deliver 5G services on a pervasive basis into rural areas. The government’s current work to define 600MHz spectrum as a band for potential 5G use should continue at pace, he said.
“We are undertaking detailed planning to ‘map’ expected 5G cell site densities in New Zealand and, as a result of this planning, and the learnings we have taken from our 5G testing, we are forming a good understanding of how many new sites we will need for 5G, and where,” said Moutter today, while releasing a briefing paper on Spark’s 5G intentions.
“We have already begun a build programme to increase the number of cell sites in our existing mobile network – which will enable us to meet near-term capacity demand as well as lay the groundwork for network densification required for 5G.”
Moutter said 5G will enable Spark to provide additional capacity at a lower incremental unit cost than under 4G and 4.5G.
“This means that once 5G is available to deploy, we will have a strong commercial incentive to rapidly build 5G network capability as the primary means of keeping ahead of growing customer demand for more data at faster speeds,” he added.
Spark expects to fund 5G network development (excluding spectrum and any move towards widespread rollout of new cell sites using high frequency mmWave band spectrum) within its existing capital expenditure envelope of 11 per cent to 12 per cent of revenues by diverted investment from 4G as soon as the necessary spectrum is available.
By 2020, Spark expects its wireless-network specific capex to be between 25 per cent and 35 per cent of Spark’s overall capital expenditure envelope, up from 25 per cent in the year ended 30 June 2017.
In late 2018, Spark will launch a 5G Innovation Lab in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter Innovation Precinct that will allow partner companies to test and develop applications over a pre-commercial 5G network.
Moutter said it was important for policy makers to recognise 5G is not a standalone technology or solution – it will operate with previous generations of wireless technology and will be deployed as an overlay of existing network infrastructure.
Therefore, policy settings need to support network operators having control over the evolution of their wireless networks, he said.
Moutter also took another swipe at recent suggestions an organisation such as Chorus should roll out a single 5G network for New Zealand along the lines of the Ultrafast Broadband project.
“The current competitive market model, in which multiple wireless network operators compete against one another to grow their customer bases through product and service innovation and pricing, represents a good blueprint for the way 5G can be rolled out in New Zealand and would provide for more investment predictability and certainty over the coming decade,” Moutter commented.
Reference:
https://www.sparknz.co.nz/news/Spark-outlines-5G-network-intentions/
IHS Markit: Service Provider Data Center Growth Accelerates + Gartner on DC Networking Market Drivers
Service Provider Data Center Growth Accelerates, by Cliff Grossner, Ph.D., IHS Markit
Service providers are investing in their data centers (DCs) to improve scalability, deploy applications rapidly, enable automation, and harden security, according to the Data Center Strategies and Leadership Global Service Provider Survey from IHS Markit. Respondents are considering taking advantage of new options from server vendors such as ARM-based servers and parallel compute co-processors, allowing them to better match servers to their workloads. The workloads most deployed by service provider respondents were IT applications (including financial and on-line transaction processing), followed by ERP and generic VMs on VMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V. Speed and support for network protocol virtualization and SDN are top service provider DC network requirements.
“Traditional methods for network provisioning to provide users with a quality experience, such as statically assigned priorities (QoS) in the DC network, are no longer effective. The DC network must be able to recognize individual application traffic flows and rapidly adjust priority to match the dynamic nature of application traffic in a resource-constrained world. New requirements for applications delivered on demand, coupled with the introduction of virtualization and DC orchestration technology, has kicked off an unprecedented transformation that began on servers and is now reaching into the DC network and storage,” said Cliff Grossner Ph.D., senior research director and advisor for cloud and data center at IHS Markit , a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.
“Physical networks will always be needed in the DC to provide the foundation for the high-performance connectivity demanded of today’s applications. Cisco, Juniper, Huawei, Arista, and H3C were identified as the top five DC Ethernet switch vendors by service provider respondents ranking the top three vendors in each of eight selection criteria. These Ethernet switch providers have a long history as hardware vendors. When selecting a vendor, respondents are heavily weighing factors such as product reliability, service and support, pricing model, and security,” said Grossner.
More Service Provider Data Center Strategies Highlights:
· Respondents indicate they expect a 1.5x increase in the average number of physical servers in their DCs by 2019.
· Top DC investment drivers are scalability (a driver for 93% of respondents), rapid application deployment (87%), automation (73%), and security (73%).
· On average 90% of servers are expected to be running hypervisors or containers by 2019, up from 74% today.
· Top DC fabric features are high speed and support for network virtualization protocols (80% of respondents each), and SDN (73%).
· 100% of respondents intend to increase investment in SSD, 80% in software defined storage, and 67% in NAS.
· The workloads most deployed by respondents were generic IT applications (53% of respondents), followed by ERP and generic VMs (20%).
· Cisco and Juniper are tied for leadership with on average 58% of respondents placing them in the top three across eight categories. Huawei is #3 (38%), Arista is #4 (28%), and H3C is #5 (18%).
Data Center Network Research Synopsis:
The IHS Markit Data Center Networks Intelligence Service provides quarterly worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, forecasts through 2022, 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], (4) FC SAN switches by type [chassis, fixed], and (5) FC SAN HBAs. Vendors tracked include A10, ALE, Arista, Array Networks, Aryaka, Barracuda, Cisco, Citrix, CloudGenix, CradlePoint, Dell, F5, FatPipe, HPE, Huawei, Hughes, InfoVista, Juniper, KEMP, Nokia (Nuage), Radware, Riverbed, Silver Peak, Talari, TELoIP, VMware, ZTE and others.
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The following information was collected by Alan J Weissberger from various subscription only websites:
Gartner Group says the data center networking market is primarily driven by three factors:
- Refresh of existing data center networking equipment that is at its technological or support limits
- The expansion of capacity (i.e., physical buildouts) within existing locations
- The desire to increase agility and automation to an existing data center
Data center networking solutions are characterized by the following elements:
- Physical interfaces: Physical interfaces to plug-in devices are a very common component of products in this market. 10G is now the most common interface speed we see in enterprise data center proposals. However, we are also rapidly seeing the introduction of new Ethernet connectivity options at higher speeds (25 GbE, 50 GbE and 100 GbE). Interface performance is rarely an issue for new implementations, and speeds and feeds are less relevant as buying criteria for the majority of enterprise clients, when compared to automation and ease of operations (see “40G Is Dead — Embrace 100G in Your Data Center!” ).
- Physical topology and switches: The spine-and-leaf (folded Clos) topology is the most common physical network design, proposed by most vendors. It has replaced the historical three-tier design (access, aggregation, core). The reduction in physical switching tiers is better-suited to support the massive east-west traffic flows created by new application architectures (see “Building Data Center Networks in the Digital Business Era” and “Simplify Your Data Center Network to Improve Performance and Decrease Costs” ). Vendors deliver a variety of physical form factors for their switches, including fixed-form factor and modular or chassis-based switches. In addition, this includes software-based switches such as virtual switches that reside inside of physical virtualized servers.
- Switching/infrastructure management: Ethernet fabric provides management for a collection of switches as a single construct, and programmable fabrics include an API. Fabrics are commonly adopted as logical control planes for spine-and-leaf designs, replacing legacy protocols like Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and enabling better utilization of all the available paths. Fabrics automate several tasks affiliated with managing a data center switching infrastructure, including autodiscovery of switches, autoconfiguration of switches, etc. (see “Innovation Insight for Ethernet Switching Fabric” ).
- Automation and orchestration: Automation and orchestration are increasingly important to buyers in this market, because enterprises want to improve speed to deliver data center network infrastructure to business, including on-demand capability. This includes support and integration with popular automation tools (such as Ansible, Chef and Puppet), integration with broader platforms like VMware vRA, inclusion of published/open APIs, as well as support for scripting tools like Python (see “Building Data Center Networks in the Digital Business Era” ).
- Network overlays: Network overlays create a logical topology abstracted from the underlying physical topology. We see overlay tunneling protocols like VXLAN used with virtual switches to provide Layer 2 connectivity on top of scalable Layer 3 spine-and-leaf designs, enabling support of multiple tenants and more granular network partitioning (microsegmentation), to increase security within the data center. Overlay products also typically provide an API to enable programmability and integration with orchestration platforms.
- Public cloud extension/hybrid cloud: An emerging capability of data center products is the ability to provide visibility, troubleshooting, configuration and management for workloads that exist in a public cloud provider’s infrastructure. In this case, vendors are not providing the underlying physical infrastructure within the cloud provider network, but provide capability to manage that infrastructure in a consistent manner with on-premises/collocated workloads.
You can see user reviews for Data Center Networking vendors here.
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In a new report, HTF Market Intelligence says that the Global Data Center Colocation Market will Have Huge Growth by 2025.
The key players are highly focusing innovation in production technologies to improve efficiency and shelf life. The best long-term growth opportunities for this sector can be captured by ensuring ongoing process improvements and financial flexibility to invest in the optimal strategies. Company profile section of players such as NTT Communications Corporation, Dupont Fabros Technology, Inc., Digital Realty Trust, Inc., Cyxtera Technologies, Inc., Cyrusone Inc., Level 3 Communications Inc., Equinix, Inc., Global Switch, AT&T, Inc., Coresite Realty Corporation, China Telecom Corporation Limited, Verizon Enterprise Solutions, Inc., Interxion Holding NV, Internap Corporation & KDDI Corporation includes its basic information like legal name, website, headquarters, its market position, historical background and top 5 closest competitors by Market capitalization / revenue along with contact information. Each player/ manufacturer revenue figures, growth rate and gross profit margin is provided in easy to understand tabular format for past 5 years and a separate section on recent development like mergers, acquisition or any new product/service launch etc.
Browse the Full Report at: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1125877-global-data-center-colocation-market-6
Deloitte: China Winning Race to 5G; Has Outspent U.S. by $24 Billion in 5G Infrastructure
China is pulling ahead of the US in the race to build infrastructure for 5G wireless, according to a new report from Deloitte Consulting. The report titled “5G – The chance to lead for a decade” illustrates how China and other countries are outpacing the U.S. in terms of wireless communication infrastructure spend, tower density and efficiency of execution. Together, these practices are distinguishing China’s lead in the early stages of 5G deployment. This report explores the sense of urgency for wireless carriers and policy makers to work together in an effort to increase investment in the country’s communications infrastructure and offers potential solutions to help improve economic efficiency.
China has outspent the U.S. by $24 billion since 2015 and built out ten times more sites than the U.S. to support 5G communications, according to the report. In just three months of 2017, Chinese cell phone tower companies and carriers added more sites than the U.S had done in the previous three years, the Deloitte Consulting report found. The country has built 350,000 new cell phone tower sites, while the U.S. built less than 30,000. Even with this estimate normalized to account for the population to wireless subscriber ratio, the study concludes that the U.S. has under spent China in wireless infrastructure by $8 to $10 billion per year since 2015.
In 2017, U.S. tower companies and carriers added fewer sites in the last three years than China added in three months. China now has 1.9 million sites, 10 times more than the U.S., which yields almost 40 times the tower density per square mile, and three times the density on a per-capita basis.
“We predict that 5G will expand the network effect dramatically by extending the reach of the internet to almost any kind of connection, by almost any kind of device, anywhere a wireless signal can reach,” said Dan Littmann, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP. “The potential economic benefits of 5G will soon become a key differentiator for cities looking to attract both businesses and residents. For the U.S. to remain competitive and eventually emerge as a leader, the race to 5G should be carefully evaluated and swift actions should be taken.”
- Establishing lighter touch policy frameworks that are able to deliver higher scale and efficiency and help reduce deployment cycle times.
- Encourage collaboration among carriers and other ecosystem organizations so that the demonstrated benefits from network effects are equitably shared.
- Implementing a national communications infrastructure database to provide deployment statistics, leading practices, and visibility into small cell approval and denial rates.
The report concludes that as another era of untapped economic potential emerges with the adoption of 5G technology, investment in upgrading the underlying communications infrastructure has become increasingly critical. Unless tangible steps are taken to help rebalance the private investment case for the upgrade, the U.S. may risk losing the macro-economic leadership it gained in the previous wireless investment era.
“Maintaining U.S. leadership in mobile communications requires that carriers, technology vendors, OTT innovators, municipalities and policy makers collaborate to build a strong business case for 5G. Deployment costs and cycle times for a densified network infrastructure is are critical for the U.S. to gain equal footing with other countries striving to be first to 5G,” Littmann added.
While China is streaking ahead of the US in terms of network rollout, it looks like there are also several other nations who are in a more comfortable position also. In terms of the number of sites per 10,000 citizens, Deloitte estimates this number at 4.7 in the US, though this is eclipsed by China (14.1), Germany (8.7) and Japan (17.4). Looking at the average number of sites per ten square miles, US stands at 0.4, while China has 5.3, Germany has 5.1 and Japan has 15.2.
Jamie Davis of telecoms.com writes:
The US telcos might be bragging about getting to launch commercial 5G services first, but this means very little. Having several pockets of 5G coverage scattered over the US, focused around the cities which house telco HQs is not the same as taking a leadership position in the 5G economy. When it comes to network densification investments, a key factor for the success of the technology, China does seem to be taking the lead.
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Addendum:
ITU Report on 5G:
https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Documents/ITU_5G_REPORT-2018.pdf
Italy’s forthcoming 5G auction projected to raise €2.5 billion with 7 bidders
Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development (MISE) announced seven companies will participate in the country’s upcoming 5G spectrum auction, which is projected to raise €2.5 billion. Mobile operators Iliad, Telecom Italia, Vodafone Italy and Wind Tre will be joined by fixed broadband operators Linkem, Fastweb SpA (Milan: FWB) and Open Fiber.
The auction is unusual in attracting so much interest from outside the existing mobile telecom sector. In sharp contrast, recent 5G auctions in South Korea, Spain and the UK have not produced new mobile challengers. Italy will be auctioning spectrum across a variety of bands, and not just the mid-range airwaves that were made available in Spain and the UK.
Companies will bid for licences in the 649MHz to 790MHz; 3.6GHz to 3.8GHz; and 26.5GHz to 27.5GHz frequencies, with the auction designed to create new entrants focused on boosting infrastructure in the market as well as making 5G-suitable spectrum available. MISE said that new low-cost operator Iliad was the only participant to indicate it would bid for spectrum in the 700 MHz band frequencies currently used by broadcasters, and where special conditions apply to new entrants.
The auction is scheduled to be held at the end of September, with half of the €2.5 billion raised this year. Allocation will, however, not be finalized before the end of 2022. Bidders are expected to submit initial offers by September 10th.
Under the tender’s rules, a new entrant (or remedy taker) can acquire up to three blocks of 2×5 MHz in the 700 MHz band of the six available, while an operator that has 10 MHz in both the 800 MHz band and in the 900 MHz band, can acquire just two of these blocks.
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About Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development (MISE):
MISE is responsible for Internet Governance through participation in various international bodies and supervision of the assignment of domain names. It operates for IT security, certifying the security of systems and products and providing prevention and support services to citizens and businesses. It authorizes network providers to offer public access to the network and telecommunications services (ISP). It also promotes the dissemination of accessibility and usability of websites and, more generally, digital literacy. Finally, the Ministry supports the development of the ultra-broadband and defines the National Strategy together with Agid (Agenzia per l’Italia Digitale) .
The development of ultra-broadband through the simplification of the regulatory framework, the creation of new development drivers, the use of tax incentives, the reduction of installation costs is a priority for achieving the objectives of the EU 2020 agenda.
ABI Research: 5G rollouts to propel cellular RAN market to $26B in 2023
The global RAN base station equipment market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5% to exceed $26 billion in 2023, ABI research forecast in a new report.
“Today the RAN equipment market is undergoing multiple technology transitions as network operators move to densify macro networks with small cells, tackle in-building wireless and evolve to new technologies such as 5G, LAA (Licensed Assisted Access), unlicensed and shared spectrum technologies such as OnGo in the United States, and MulteFire,” said Nick Marshall, Research Director at ABI Research.
“These transitions are occurring against a backdrop of continuous technology evolution as networks upgrade to include MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output), Massive MIMO, 256 QAM, and carrier aggregation,” continued Marshall.
Global spending on indoor equipment which represents 27% of this market today will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15.5% to represent a value of 42% of the total by 2023, the ABI Research report, Indoor, Outdoor, and IoT Network Infrastructure states.
The Asia Pacific region, which includes some of the largest and growing RAN markets in the world, is expected to continue to dominate the market with a share of 58% of global sales. North America and Europe will rank a distant second and third respectively.
Sale of infrastructure equipment in the North American and Asia Pacific regions will continue to be dominated by replacement and upgrades to LTE with the addition of 5G equipment gaining share starting in 2019, the report states.
“While the overall market is healthy, the underlying technology transitions are complex and only those vendors that can leverage them stand to benefit – these vendors include Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, Samsung, and ZTE,” Marshall concluded.
Not only the traditional vendors will benefit as various “5G” technologies mature. Many specialist vendors are ready to compete for “5G” market share. These vendors include small cell specialists Acceleran, Airspan, Airvana/CommScope, Comba, Contela, ip. access, Parallel Wireless, Ruckus/Arris, and SpiderCloud Wireless/Corning.
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This report is part of the company’s 5G & Mobile Network Infrastructure research service, which includes research, data, and Executive Foresights.
About ABI Research
ABI Research provides strategic guidance for visionaries needing market foresight on the most compelling transformative technologies, which reshape workforces, identify holes in a market, create new business models and drive new revenue streams. ABI’s own research visionaries take stances early on those technologies, publishing groundbreaking studies often years ahead of other technology advisory firms. ABI analysts deliver their conclusions and recommendations in easily and quickly absorbed formats to ensure proper context. Our analysts strategically guide visionaries to take action now and inspire their business to realize a bigger picture. For more information about ABI Research’s forecasting, consulting and teardown services, visionaries can contact us at +1.516.624.2500 in the Americas, +44.203.326.0140 in Europe, +65.6592.0290 in Asia-Pacific or visitwww.abiresearch.com.
Dish Network on track for 5G build-out; Phase1 is NB-IoT
Despite skepticism from industry analysts and some recent prodding by the FCC, Dish Network Corp. is steadfastly confident that it can meet its service and buildout commitments for the wireless spectrum it owns. On it’s second quarter earings call (see excerpts below), Dish stressed that it’s “on track” to complete the first phase of a 5G-capable network, initially supporting Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) services, by March 2020.
Author’s Note: Of course, NB-IoT is a 3GPP spec and is not part of true standardized 5G (ITU-R IMT 2020).
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CEO Charlie Ergen on Dish’s 2Q-2018 earnings call earlier this week:
When we first started talking about it, I think there was a high degree of skepticism that an IoT network — that narrowband IoT network was the business. And of course since that time, you’ve seen Verizon, and AT&T, and T-Mobile now has a national plan all around the world Vodafone, companies in China very far ahead in IoT. So think it’s now recognized that narrowband IoT is in fact a major contributor in the world moving forward.
So we have a track record of being innovative, disruptive and it may be on the — maybe being on the very, very leading edge of where technologies go and we have another opportunity to do that in 5G…. I think that the FCC is maybe just like many people in this call and many investors and that there is some skepticism on DISH’s ability to execute that plan it’s a big project. And I think as the months go by, as people see the progress that we made, you turn that into people coming to the realization that we can in fact — we face same skepticism when we were going to launch satellites and compete against with — compete against incumbents and major corporations. And we never done that before, it was a big project for us. But with a dedicated team of people focused on the right direction we’re confident that we’ll be able to do that.
But the big paradigm shift in 5G, not the market in 5G that you’re going to hear about , but the real paradigm shift in 5G is Release 16 from 3GPP, which for standalone network is December of 2019, that’s when the specification comes out. It allows you to do three things that you can’t do in 5G today; it allows massive broadband; it allows massive IoT connectivity; and it allows the network to have low latency, so very, very low latencies.
Editor’s Note: That is absolutely correct- it’s 3GPP release 16, along with parts of release 15, that will be submitted to ITU-R WP 5D for consideration as an IMt 2020 RIT.
We also are in a position with clean sheet of paper to do one — two more things really; one is to virtualize the network in a day and virtualize every aspect of our network, not just portions of it; and to slice our network so that it looks like separate networks to potential partners and customers. So it’s a huge, huge paradigm shift in terms of being 100% 5G with Release 19. So that release comes out at December 19, which means that people have to go build product for that. So product becomes available sometime later in 2020.
The second thing that happens is that our uplink spectrum. Let’s take 600 megahertz as an example that is not cleared by the broadcasters fully cleared until July of 2020. So we can’t build a modern network. The state-of-the-art we can’t start building that until 2020. And we’re hampered today just as a sideline, we’re very hampered today in building network because our uplink spectrum — we only have 5 megahertz of uplink spectrum. You can’t build a massive broadband network with 5 megahertz of uplink spectrum. So we have a lot of downlink spectrum, but we don’t have corresponding uplink. So we’ve got to get that cleared. And it’s not — it’s the 600 megahertz, it’s still the DE issues that are outstanding, all those things need to get cleared up for us to be able to do it. But everything comes together in 2020 for us to build a modern network.
The competitors will start building hybrid networks, but they’re not going to get to a full 5G platform without ripping out what they already have. And they have hundreds of millions of customers with phones. So the phone customer is not going to see that much difference in latency. So that some of the things that we’re going to do aren’t going to be that attractive from a cost to benefit ratio to the incumbents. But if we want to lead in 5G, we want to lead in artificial intelligence, virtual reality, autonomous vehicles,, smart cities, you’re going to need a more modern network for that and we’ll play big part in that.
Dish expects NB-IoT deployments to start “in earnest” this fall, Tom Cullen, Dish’s EVP of corporate development said. He pointed out that this part of the buildout is already funded by cash on the company’s balance sheet.
As I mentioned on the last call, we’ve made a lot of good progress and it’s the number one priority here at DISH and we’ve got a dedicated team working on it day-in and day-out. And we’ll start seeing radios in the next in the coming weeks and the deployment will start in earnest later this fall and that as we’ve mentioned before, it can be funded off of cash on the balance sheet.
On the number of NB-IoT cell sites/towers, Ergen said:
We’re not, at this point, disclosing the number of towers. As you know — as you’re doing RF planning and deployment that’s a pretty fluid environment and the number of towers is changing as we make progress going down the road. So I can’t address that specifically other than, as I said earlier, we feel like we’re making good progress and we’ll have pretty meaningful insight I think in the next four to six months.
I think you can assume that we would have materially less towers in phase one than phase two as you get into some of 5G applications that once the Release 19 is that you’ll need a denser network for sure. We have disclosed that we expect to spend between $500 and $1 billion on wireless through 2020. So they give you’re a range where we think it is no matter how many towers it is, we’re probably going to be in that range. And we’re working with a third party for RF design in terms of how many towers. And then obviously once we get it to test, we could verify that the specifications that the RF design and the vendors have said to us, is accurate. And so we’re — the answer is we don’t surely know, but we do know it’s materially less towers than perhaps the incumbents have today on a nationwide basis just because the range is clearly farther to the spec.
Cullen on 3GPP NB-IoT coverage:
I would only say that the 3GPP standard spec) today is about 35 kilometer coverage. But the 3GPP is currently entertaining, changing the NB-IoT standard (spec) to 120 kilometers of coverage and some of the vendors we’re working with are able to provide 100 km. Now you can’t do that in every area, obviously, because of clutter and urban density and so forth. But that — because of that level of propagation, it reduces the number of towers necessary to provide the required terrestrial signal coverage as dictated by the license.
Ergen refuted persistent suggestions that Dish should just sell its spectrum, holding that Dish is committed to the network buildout because 5G is critical to the company’s future.
I don’t think you’ve heard me talking much about selling spectrum even, question number one. And then analysts have talked about that but I think that we see such an opportunity for 5G in terms of what that does realizes is our network is going to be different as a standalone network, it’s a little bit different. And we think the customer we might go after might be quite a bit different than the incumbents. And we see that as the long-term future of how this company is relevant 30 years from now. And so that’s a tough transition and tough on investors to be patient while it goes through that. But that has been our focus and has always been our focus.
We originally want to be built an LTE 4G network. We just — the rules on H-block got changed where we suddenly lost some of our — from interference perspective and we had to change course and then we had to go downlink this is all things that took place we had to wait for the next paradigm shift. And that’s — the good news is the 5G paradigm shift is much bigger than the LTE paradigm shift.
How much capital will be needed for the 5G build-out? Here’s what Ergen said:
There is no question that we need to raise capital for the build-out. But realize we’re two-thirds of the way there — more than two-thirds of the way there in terms of capital for total 5G network. So run the math on that and it’s something like dollar megahertz per pop with a totally standalone 5G network, right. The number of people that might be attractive to is very long. What way you might structure partnerships and the ability for capital are many, many, many, many options to how you might do that.
There isn’t an industry in the next decade that doesn’t need what we’re going to build; and tens of billions of dollars is going to autonomous vehicles, but they’re going to need a piece of what we have; tens of billions of dollars goes to healthcare, they need a piece of what we have; tens of billions of dollars goes in utilities, they need a piece of what we have; tens of billions dollars is going into artificial intelligence, they need a piece of what we have; tens of billions of dollars are going in virtual reality, autoimmune reality and need a piece of what we have; tens of billions dollars is going into smart cities, they need a piece of what we have.
How long will NB-IoT build out take and what comes next?
It takes three years to build this first phase (NB-IoT). But the first phase leads to the second phase, which I think everybody is going to be pretty thrilled about, including the FCCs and investors and consumers. The first phase is going to be important but it’s not going to be as massive as we all would like. But for our license that’s not required and there is practical reasons why we can’t make it more massive today.
Dell’Oro Group: PON market to reach $7B by 2022
The global passive optical network (PON) market is on track to grow to over $7 billion by 2022, driven by adoption of next-generation PON technologies such as 10Gbps EPON, Dell’Oro predicts in a new report. The market is on track to grow at a five-year CAGR of nearly 40% from 2017 to 2022, the research firm said in a press release.
“Where PON technologies are used for residential broadband services, 2.5 Gbps GPON will remain as the dominant technology due to its lower price and sufficient speeds. However, for a number of growing use cases such as business services and mobile backhaul, next-generation PON technologies have capacities and capabilities that current generation technologies lack,” Dell’Oro senior analyst Alam Tamboli explained.
He said 10 Gbps EPON is already seeing strong traction across China, noting that current generation PON has previously been widely deployed across the market.
“10 Gbps EPON has already begun shipping strongly in China where current generation PON is widely deployed. Shipments of XGS-PON and NG-PON2 remain small for now, but we anticipate that XGS-PON will grow more rapidly. XGS-PON and its 10 Gbps symmetric bandwidth should meet operators’ needs for business services and mobile backhaul,” Tamboli added.
Other next-generation PON technologies set to drive the strong growth for the segment include XGS-PON and NG-PON2.
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About the Report
The Dell’Oro Group Broadband Access 5-Year Forecast Report provides a complete overview of the Broadband Access market with tables covering manufacturers’ revenue, average selling prices, and port/unit shipments for Cable, DSL, and PON equipment. Network infrastructure equipment includes Cable Modem Termination Systems (CMTS), Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers ([DSLAMs] by technology ADSL, ADSL2+, G.SHDSL, VDSL, GFAST), and PON Optical Line Terminals (OLTs). Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) technology reflects Voice-over-IP (VoIP) or data-only. To purchase this report, please call Daisy Kwok at +1.650.622.9400 x227 or email [email protected].
Sprint’s Next-Gen Network and Massive MIMO as “linchpin for 5G”
Sprint said today in a press release that it’s Next-Gen Network build is well underway as we invest billions to give Sprint customers an even stronger 4G – LTE Advanced network (true 4G) and launch mobile 5G (fake-non standard) in the first half of next year. CTO John Saw wrote:
The Sprint Next-Gen Network build stems from our largest investment in years, and we’re unleashing our spectrum assets to improve coverage, reliability and speed nationwide as we work to launch mobile 5G in the first half of 2019.
Massive MIMO is our award-winning strategy for 5G. This game-changing technology is capable of delivering up to 10 times the capacity of current LTE systems, significantly increasing data speeds for more customers in high-traffic locations. And because Sprint has so much 2.5 GHz spectrum, we can use Massive MIMO to deliver 4G LTE and 5G on the same radio simultaneously.
In our first quarter of FY18 we continued field testing and optimizing Massive MIMO radios in locations such as Dallas, Los Angeles and New York City. Some sites are now running commercial traffic and the initial performance results are very promising. Today we’re seeing a more than 4X increase in speed on these sites, as well as increased coverage and cell edge performance.
When it comes to 5G, the network is only part of the equation. This is why we’re excited to keep making progress on our first 5G smartphone and Always Connected PC. In the first half of 2019 we plan to launch mobile 5G in nine markets initially – Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. And we expect Sprint customers will be among the first in the world to have access to a beautifully designed 5G phone.
It’s an exciting time to be in wireless with LTE networks rapidly advancing and 5G on the near horizon. You’ll see us accelerate our build activity in the months ahead. More triband upgrades, more innovative small cells, and more game-changing Massive MIMO powering a Network Built for Unlimited.
These technologies and more all play a pivotal role in improving the network experience for our customers under any scenario. If Sprint proceeds as a standalone company, our investment helps us continue improving our 4G LTE Advanced network, and launch mobile 5G in the first half of next year. If the merger with T-Mobile is approved, our investment helps the combined company rapidly create the best nationwide mobile 5G network, fueling a wave of innovation and disruption throughout the marketplace.
In March 2018, Saw told RCR Wireless: “Massive MIMO is our secret weapon to getting 5G built simultaneously with 4G. You need two enabling things. One is massive MIMO. I was just in a meeting with [Ericsson] to see if they can do more faster. The second thing is spectrum.” Sprint is tapping its 2.5 GHz spectrum to support the massive MIMO build. That theme was echoed last week during Sprint’s fiscal first quarter 2018 earnings call.
“We now have a few massive MIMO sites on air,” Sprint’s new CEO, Michel Combes, said Wednesday, adding that the 2.4GHz massive input, massive output (massive MIMO) arrays are “5G-ready” with a software upgrade for the mobile 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) New Radio specification. “We expect to provide mobile services and devices in the first half of 2019,” Combes said. (See Sprint Reveals 3 More 5G Cities, Promises ‘Cool’ 5G Phone & Small Cell and Intel Promises 5G Laptops With Sprint in 2019). Specifically, Combes said on the earnings call:
We are deploying innovative 5G technologies such as Massive MIMO as we prepare to launch the first 5G mobile network in the first half of 2019. Massive MIMO radios are software upgradable to 5G NR allowing us to fully utilize our spectrum for both LTE and 5G simultaneously while we enhance capacity even further with 5G and begin to support new 5G use cases. We now have a few Massive MIMO sites commercially on air in a few markets and are seeing very promising results, including speed improvements of over 300% while also increasing coverage and cell edge performance.
Sprint’s priority is mobile 5G and we expect to provide commercial services and devices by the first half 2019. Most importantly, as we look ahead, it’s clear that our proposed merger with T-Mobile will deliver an acceleration of an even greater 5G network with the breadth and depth that we could not do on our own.
Sprint has previously said that massive MIMO will be deployed in its initial 5G cities first. Sprint has so far named Atlanta; Chicago; Dallas; Houston; Kansas City; Los Angeles; New York City; Phoenix; and Washington, D.C., as its first 5G markets.
Massive MIMO will enable Sprint to run both LTE and 5G on its 2.5GHz band, CTO John Saw noted on the call. It is taking advantage of its higher-band spectrum to deploy 64 transmitters and 64 receivers (64T64R) in an array. It has already shown over 600-Mbit/s downloads on LTE over MIMO in New Orleans. (See Gigabit LTE: Sprint’s MIMO Gras in New Orleans).
Separately, Sprint now seems more open to using millimeter wave if it can buy licenses at auction in November. “It’s an excellent opportunity to supplement our 2.5GHz portfolio for our 5G deployment,” Combes said.
CTO Saw has said that LTE speeds in its initial 5G markets are seeing a four-times increase in download speeds, although CEO Combes noted on the earnings call that Sprint can build a better 5G network if its merger with T-Mobile is approved. (See Getting Real About Mobile 5G Speeds). New Sprint CFO Andrew Davies noted that capital expenditure for the quarter was “relatively flat” year-on-year, at $1.1 billion. Network spending will ramp up with the 5G build this year, to $5 billion or $6 billion.
References:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4193250-sprint-s-q1-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript
https://techblog.comsoc.org/2018/02/03/sprint-to-increase-capex-to-focus-on-mobile-5g-in-2019/
Hong Kong’s 5G roll-out with no charge to telcos for spectrum?
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government has proposed to allocate 5G spectrum to the market’s operators for no charge, to give them a competitive advantage in the race to 5G adoption.
The government has proposed to assign 4,100MHz of 26-GHz and 28-GHz spectrum to operators if demand is below 75% of supply, the South China Morning Post reported.
Allocating free spectrum would greatly reduce the cost and shorten the time required for operators to roll out 5G networks, according to Hong Kong’s secretary for commerce and economic development Edward Yau Tang-wah.
Announcing the proposal, Yau noted that he has concluded that there is no need for an auction given the abundant supply of high-band spectrum. “That means it will greatly reduce the cost and also shorten the time involved,” Yau said, referring to the roll-out of 5G networks by service providers.
Ensuring a timely 5G rollout would also facilitate the introduction of more IoT, smart city and other technology applications, supporting the government’s smart city ambitions. “We all know that 5G is not just for communication. It is also for the Internet of Things, smart city and lots of technology applications,” he said. The Internet of Things refers to a network of devices – anything from phones and computers to home appliances and microchips – that wirelessly connect to the internet and to each other.
Under the proposal, operators assigned high-frequency spectrum would need to install at least 5,000 base stations across the city. The HKSAR government also plans to hold a consultation on allocating an additional 200 MHz of 3.3-GHz and 4.9-GHz spectrum to support 5G rollouts in the market, the report adds.
Yau cautioned that while the proposal could lead to lower prices for consumers, operators’ spectrum utilization charges typically only make up 3% to 4% of operational costs, and prices are more affected by market competition and data usage than spectrum fees.
Philippines’ Globe Telecom to deploy “5G” by 2Q19
Philippines’ Globe Telecom has announced it is on course to deploy 5G in the second quarter of 2019. The network operator is currently focused on upgrading its core, radio and transmission network to support 5G by the end of the year, and plans to start offering a 5G fixed wireless mobile broadband service in 2Q19, Globe said in a statement.
Globe executives recently visited China to meet with Huawei deputy chairman Eric Xu to discuss their 5G partnership. In November 2015, Globe signed a five year contract renewal with Huawei involving the planning and design of an upgraded mobile broadband network and the creation of a joint mobile innovation center. Huawei was also the technology partner of Globe when it implemented a $700-million network modernization program that began in 2011.
The operator started deploying massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology on its network in July last year, and has spent over 139 billion Philippine pesos since 2014 mainly on expanding and upgrading its network.
“5G will bring innovation and spur economic growth in the Philippines,” Globe chief technology and innovation officer Gil Genio said. With 5G, Genio said the Philippines can expect more companies entering the country, more employment opportunities, and higher equipment sales, among other economic benefits.
“From the same physical network, we will be able to support different uses with varying performance requirements, in effect looking like different networks to different types of applications, from IoT to faster broadband to mission critical information. This will spur innovation and help various industries digitally transform.”
“5G will not operate as a standalone technology, at least not for the earliest use cases. How 4G/LTE integrates with 5G will determine the overall fixed wireless experience in the next few years,” Genio added.