Rural Americans would greatly benefit from Open Internet rules and more investment
NOTE: This article complements others we’ve recently posted on U.S. carriers move to broadband fixed wireless access for rural and under-served geographical areas.
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In many rural communities, where available broadband speed and capacity barely surpass old-fashioned dial-up connections, residents sacrifice not only their online pastimes but also chances at a better living. Counties without modern internet connections can’t attract new firms, and their isolation discourages the enterprises they have: ranchers who want to buy and sell cattle in online auctions or farmers who could use the internet to monitor crops. Reliance on broadband includes any business that uses high-speed data transmission, spanning banks to insurance firms to factories.
Rural counties with more households connected to broadband had higher incomes and lower unemployment than those with fewer, according to a 2015 study by university researchers in Oklahoma, Mississippi and Texas who compared rural counties before and after getting high-speed internet service.
“Having access to broadband is simply keeping up,” said Sharon Strover, a University of Texas professor who studies rural communication. “Not having it means sinking.”
Ensuring access to an open, thriving online ecosystem through modern and even-handed internet rules is critical for every American, but much more so for the 60 million rural Americans who rely on the internet to connect them to a rapidly evolving global economy. Studies show that as rural communities adopt and use broadband services, incomes go up and unemployment falls. Broadband providers support protections that ensure consumers and innovators alike don’t have to worry about blocked websites or throttled service. Rural areas need more investment, not less. And modern Open Internet rules will encourage this needed progress.
Full Story: ustelecom.org
Sidebar – Fast Internet Service:
About 39% of the U.S. rural population, or 23 million people, lack access to broadband internet service—defined as “fast” by the Federal Communications Commission—compared with 4% of the urban residents.
Fast Internet service, according to the FCC, means a minimum download speed of 25 megabits per second, a measure of bandwidth known as Mbps. That speed can support email, web surfing, video streaming and graphics for more than one device at once. It is faster than old dial-up connections—typically, less than 1 Mbps—but slower than the 100 Mbps service common in cities.
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A recent Forbes article titled “Don’t Forget Rural America…..” by Richard Boucher stated:
In announcing the “Restoring Internet Freedom” rulemaking, the FCC stated that “[o]ur actions today continue our critical work to promote broadband deployment to rural consumers and infrastructure investment throughout our nation, to brighten the future of innovation both within networks and at their edge, and to close the digital divide.” This past July, the Commission declared August to be “Rural Broadband Month” at the FCC.
Two years following the 2015 reclassification of broadband as a common carrier telecommunications service, it’s clear that broadband investment has declined in rural America. Representatives of internet service providers (ISPs) from states like Arkansas, Washington, Kentucky, and Nebraska have all offered evidence detailing how regulatory uncertainty arising from the “Title II” decision has retarded and, in many situations, stopped investment in their regions.
The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA), which has a large rural membership, said that the switch to Title II has led to “vast uncertainty and significant negative economic impacts for WISPA members who have built their networks from scratch using their own at-risk capital without federal subsidies[.]”
The formula for bringing high-speed internet connectivity to everyone in rural America is multi-faceted. It requires a combination of wired and wireless deployments, and government – through the FCC’s Universal Service programs and loans and grants from the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Agriculture – all have a role to play. But indispensable to success is the creation of a regulatory framework that incentivizes private capital to deploy broadband everywhere, including rural America. As long as the regulatory uncertainty of Title II remains, rural America to a large extent will be cut off from essential private broadband deployment funding and, as a result, fall even further behind.
The discussion, as well as a fair amount of heated rhetoric, are sure to continue over the next few weeks regarding the proper classification for broadband. Meanwhile, don’t forget rural America. The best way to ensure that all corners of the country get the connectivity they need is for the FCC to restore the classification of broadband as an information service. Thereafter, Congress should enact legislation that codifies open internet rules and at long last puts to rest a debate that has raged for more than a decade.
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Another approach to delivering rural broadband are co-ops like this one:
Tennessee Electrical Co-Ops Eager to Bridge Rural Broadband Gap
Other References:
AT&T’s Rural Broadband Expansion Continues: 9 More States Added
https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/9/26/16367798/rural-broadband-fast-internet-fcc-proposal
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rural-america-is-stranded-in-the-dial-up-age-1497535841
5G Roundup: No standards but it will come faster than expected?
The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN), an industry association of mobile carriers, has defined requirements for 5G including data rates, transmission speeds, spectral efficiency and latency.
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So has ITU-R WP 5D- the only real standards body for 5G (AKA IMT 2020). However, the wireless networking industry has yet to agree on the Radio Access Network (RAN) and related 5G standards, despite 3GPP release 15 on “New Radio.” 5G standards won’t be completed until very late in 2020.
As we’ve reported in several IEEE techblog posts, AT&T and Verizon are conducting 5G trials in the US while other trials are proceeding in Europe and Asia.
Bullish Opinions on 5G:
Broad deployment of 5G networks is not expected until the 2020 timeframe, according to Sam Lucero, a senior principal analyst for M2M at IoT at IHS Markit. Yet despite the lack of standards, a number of speakers at last month’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) Americas in San Francisco were more bullish on 5G and expectations for its rollout.
“We expect 5G to come faster and be broader than originally thought,” said Rajeev Suri, president and CEO of Nokia. Suri said Nokia expects 5G networks to be deployed in 2019, with widespread trials next year.
“4G is like a really good rock band,” said Andre Feutsch, CTO at AT&T. “5G is like a finely tuned orchestra.” He added that he sees n 5G a tremendous opportunity for advancing and “frankly making the network more relevant.”
“From a network perspective, [5G] is an evolution,” said Gordon Mansfield, vice president of RAN and device design at AT&T. “However, from a capability perspective it will be a revolution as it unfolds.”
“The 4G network is foundational to 5G,” said Nicki Palmer, chief network officer at Verizon. She added, “It’s hard to really peel 4G and 5G apart in some ways. The good news is that the investments we make today [in 4G] lead us down the 5G path.”
Photo courtesy of GSMA
“We’ve been trying to define what 5G is for the past five years,” said Ron Marquardt, vice president of technology at Sprint. “We are getting close to being able to define that. We need to educate industries on how 5G can and will disrupt them.”
Feutsch said 5G technology will enable carriers to provide solutions to a greater number of use cases. He said a lot of the work that has been done to date with pre-standards trials of 5G “were really to gain a lot of insights that helped us feed right back into the standards work.”
He added that standardization and openness would be critical to creating the healthy ecosystem that is required to enable 5G to flourish.
“We’ve got to standardize on this and avoid proprietariness as much as possible” to build a healthy 5G ecosystem Feutsch said. He said a lot of innovation for 5G would come from smaller companies — “disruptors” that need to rely on standards to make the technology they are developing fit into the 5G landscape.
Derek Peterson, chief technology officer at Boingo Wireless, a provider of mobile Internet access, also emphasized the importance of standards and urged audience members to participate in standards efforts. “Participating in standards is very important because it is going to take a collaborative effort to make all of these things work together,” he said.
The densification required for 5G transmission speeds will rely on a far greater number of smaller cell sites than previous generations of wireless technology. The process of getting the cell sites approved can vary widely from place to place, and often be one of the biggest roadblocks to 5G.
“It can take a year to get a permit for something that it takes an hour to hang on a pole,” Mansfield said.
“The biggest barrier is going to be the density that you need for 5G is something that we have never seen before,” said John Saw, Sprint’s CTO. “It’s going to be more than putting 5G on the towers that we know and love today. We need to change how we get permits for this.” Saw added.
With the wireless industry prepared to spend an estimated $275 billion to deploy 5G, governments need to streamline permitting processes.
“I think public policy makers get to have a say in how fast we spend it and where we spend it. They need to get used to the fact that there may be hundreds and perhaps thousands of permits being requested to get this density that is required,” Saw concluded.
Panelists in an IoT session said that the primary barriers to enterprise IoT adoption include limited battery capacities and insufficient interoperability between connected devices, including VPN support, cloud service compatibility and other technologies. No mention was made of 5G for low latency IoT applications.
References:
CenturyLink asks FCC to approve 3.4 GHz Fixed Wireless Test
AT&T is not the only U.S. carrier attempting to provide broadband fixed wireless access to rural areas. CenturyLink has requested an experimental license from the Federal Communications Commission for a test to reach isolated rural areas via a fixed wireless service over the 3.4 GHz to 3.7 GHz spectrum band.
The trial is aimed to evaluate the use of wireless spectrum to provide broadband services to those rural areas where it’s difficult to make wire-line infrastructure/facilities available.
“The testing seeks to understand the viability of new technologies in this band,” CenturyLink wrote in an FCC filing.
“CenturyLink seeks confidential treatment for the Exhibit on the basis that it contains confidential commercial information, technical data and trade secrets concerning CenturyLink services under development and related testing processes, all of which CenturyLink customarily guards from public disclosure,” CenturyLink said.
Besides the 3.4-3.7 GHz bands, CenturyLink is looking at how it might work with other network service providers rolling out future 5G wireless networks.
Glen Post, CEO of CenturyLink, told investors during the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in September that it would be open to such partnerships to accelerate the speed at which it is rolling out service to rural areas under the CAF-II program.
“On the wireless side, we want to partner with 5G providers and other wireless providers where we can bring higher speeds to customers at less costs,” Post said. “If some of the proposed wireless build-outs occur in the CAF-II areas we cover, we think it will be a lower-cost opportunity to reach those customers and cover higher speeds for a lot more customers with that type of technology.”
CenturyLink joins several other rural-centric providers like Frontier, Consolidated and Windstream are seeing similar potential. As we’ve previously noted, AT&T’s rural wireless broadband recently added 9 more states.
Frontier confirms tests of fixed wireless to enhance rural broadband coverage
Frontier confirmed it was conducting tests of how it can use fixed wireless to address the broadband availability problem in very rural areas via the FCC’s CAF-II funds.
Frontier joined Consolidated and Windstream in a joint FCC filing (PDF) related to a request to create flexible use of spectrum bands between 3.7 and 24 GHz.
Consolidated and Windstream also expressed interest in being able to use 3.7-4.2 GHz band spectrum for rural fixed point-to-multipoint deployments, such as through the rules proposed by the Broadband Access Coalition.
The service providers said that these spectrum bands would “provide another key tool in the toolbox to reach the hardest to serve rural Americans.”
AT&T’s Rural Broadband Expansion Continues: 9 More States Added
https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service-high-cost-areas-connect-america-fund
Frost & Sullivan: 5G is Expected to Increase Need for Network Testing
A tremendous increase in global mobile data traffic due to the use of video and other applications on smartphones is causing network capacity overloads. Smartphone users spend nearly 80 percent of their daily device use time on non-voice activities, rendering traditional capacity expansion inadequate.
Wireless network testing is witnessing a resurgence due to high demand for positive customer experiences. Traditional drive test solutions are no longer sufficient to provide a true picture of the quality a customer is experiencing. Consequently, there’s a need for additional operation support systems (OSS) tools with geo-location, as well as highly effective active and passive monitoring probes.
Frost & Sullivan’s research, Global Wireless Network Test Equipment Market, 2017–2023, finds that 5G is expected to bring several changes in infrastructure and networks. With this change, the need for testing is expected to rise and will lead to more parameters monitored through key performance indicators. The study examines current and expected market developments, drivers, restraints, opportunities, regional trends, and end-user perspectives. Segments analyzed include OSS (CM/FM/PM), OSS with geo-location equipment, site test equipment, SON test equipment, active monitoring, passive monitoring, and crowdsourcing.
“Carriers need to know where the network coverage is supposed to go, as poor coverage and service are the top drivers for high customer churn,” said Frost & Sullivan Test & Measurement Program Manager Olga Yashkova. “Service providers’ (SPs’) desire to obtain better, richer, and more detailed information about the quality of the coverage is pushing demand for drive test solutions that communicate virtually with other tools, along with investment in new drive test equipment.”
With each new wireless technology rollout, there is a critical need to refresh and update drive test equipment so that the new technologies can be successfully and accurately measured. Currently, OSS testing and drive testing is applicable for 3G, 4G/LTE, and even VoLTE. However, with the evolution of newer technologies such as 5G, drive testing becomes expensive and exorbitant. The testing process has to be redone from the beginning with a new workflow process. In the near future, minimization of drive test integrated with geo-location is expected to provide more accurate results that will enable vendors to provide more services.
Strategic imperatives for SP success include:
- Focus on burgeoning vertical to remain relevant;
- Offer customers combination products and customization options;
- Seek partnerships with third-party providers for value-added services;
- Demonstrate product features and capabilities on websites to differentiate offerings; and
- Improve connections with customers through robust online presence, eCommerce facilities, and mobile applications for purchase and services.
“A major restraint of the drive test market is that drive testing is a labor-intensive activity. Operators and infrastructure vendors are under pressure to reduce the manpower that they deploy in this area, which reduces the amount of test equipment purchased,” noted Yashkova. “Demand has increased for next-generation drive test solutions that offer a bridge between customer experience and network coverage.”
Global Wireless Network Test Equipment Market, 2017–2023 is part of Frost & Sullivan’s Test & Measurement Growth Partnership Service program.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today’s market participants.
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More Information:
Global Wireless Network Test Equipment Market, 2017–2023
Contact: Jaylon Brinkley
Corporate Communications – North America
P: (210) 247.2481
F: (210) 348.1003
E: [email protected]
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IEEE ComSoc Webinar: 5G: Converging Towards IMT-2020 Submission
IHS Markit: Huawei, Vodafone Top New IoT CMP Platforms Scorecard
Huawei and Vodafone have topped the 2017 IoT (Internet of Things) Platforms Scorecard, excerpts of which were released today by business information provider IHS Markit, a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.
The scorecard focuses primarily on IoT connectivity management platform (CMP) vendors, identifies vendors leading in that market and those best positioned to succeed long-term. Criteria include factors such as cumulative cellular IoT connections under management, support for multiple connectivity technologies, diversity of deployment models, and perceptions of vendors by a multi-country panel of enterprise end users.
The CMP segment of the IoT platforms market long has been a near duopoly formed by Cisco Jasper and Ericsson, the IHS Markit analysis notes. However, the vendor landscape has shifted over the past 18 months, spurred by massive cellular IoT growth in China, a perception that additional costs remain to be driven out of CMP deployment, and increasing integration of CMPs with application-enablement platforms (AEPs) – a related IoT platform segment.
The 2017 scorecard ranks the top five vendors as Huawei, Vodafone, Cisco Jasper, Ericsson and HPE. Rounding out the top 10 were Aeris, Comarch, KORE, Stream Technologies and ZTE.
“Huawei and Vodafone ranked as this year’s scorecard leaders based on a number of factors,” said Sam Lucero, senior principal analyst for M2M and IoT at IHS Markit. “Huawei’s cumulative cellular IoT connection count exploded in 2016 on the back of its work with Chinese operators. Vodafone has quietly established a global footprint of operator partners that not only use its platform, but often its global network and global IoT SIM, as well.”
Both HPE and ZTE also performed particularly well in the scorecard.
“HPE introduced an innovative AEP in its Universal IoT Platform and, late in 2016, extended this with a CMP component,” Lucero said. “Likewise, ZTE benefitted from exceptional underlying Chinese market growth in addition to opening up new emerging markets in sub-Saharan Africa.”
For information about purchasing this report, contact the sales department at IHS Markit in the Americas at (844) 301-7334 or [email protected]; in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at +44 1344 328 300 or [email protected]; or Asia-Pacific (APAC) at +604 291 3600 or [email protected]
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Image below courtesy of Information Matters:
Sigfox boosts its IoT global footprint, achieving national coverage in 17 countries
At Sigfox World IoT Expo last week in Prague-Czech Republic, Sigfox announced that its network now spans 36 countries, as part of its mission to offer a consistent level of connectivity quality and service anywhere in the world.
Here are the highlights of the Sigfox conference:
- Sigfox’s network is now available in 36 countries, including 17 countries with national coverage and the addition of four new operators in Costa Rica, Croatia, Thailand, and Tunisia.
- A new suite of connectivity services which includes the ability to turn any short-range wireless device into a long range IoT device, connect to the Sigfox network in markets where coverage hasn’t been deployed yet, and new interoperability capabilities which allows IoT devices to recognize and automatically adapt to local communications standards without any additional hardware.
- Partnering with GCT Semiconductor, Sigfox has now launched the first hybrid cellular/Sigfox IoT solution– a chip which can support LTE-M/NB-IoT/EC-GSM and Sigfox IoT connectivity.
- New partnerships with electronics manufacturer Alps Electric Europe, Bosch Connected Devices and Solutions, and strategy consultancy Roland Berger
“We’re excited to work with all of our new partners, this move marks yet another key milestone towards Sigfox’s vision of a global IoT network. We are looking forward to collaborating with our new Sigfox operators to help their local ecosystems to seamlessly scale IoT solutions wherever the Sigfox network is present in the world. Together, we’re building a future that will be better to live in,” said Rodolphe Baronnet-Frugès, Executive Vice President of Operators at Sigfox.
Sigfox operators are not only contributing to accelerate IoT development in their local markets, they are also committing to deploy and operate the network infrastructure and offer national coverage in their country. Up to now, almost 100 million euros have been invested by Sigfox operators to offer a unique access to the Sigfox IoT services, with the exact same quality of service.
This unique global offer is enriched with Sigfox new service Monarch, now allowing IoT devices to recognize and automatically adapt to every local communications standard in the world without roaming. By enabling ‘globe trotter’ assets that can seamlessly adapt as they move across borders, Monarch could be a game-changer for logistics, freight, and consumer goods industries.
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In Ireland, Sigfox Operator VT signed a €1-mill IoT subscription with Dunraven Systems, a market leader in the design and development of ultrasonic fuel tank monitors.
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In addition to its core IoT connectivity service, Sigfox offers a range of services to make even more simple to use Sigfox’s technology, to deploy and to adopt mass IoT solutions. These services allow to connect billions of wireless devices that are not yet connected to the internet.
Above illustration courtesy of Sigfox
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This potential game-changing development has been made possible by the cognitive capabilities of the Sigfox network and its Software Defined Radio technology, where all the network and computing complexity is managed in the Cloud rather than on the device. This enables Sigfox to constantly improve its network features and make them available by simple software upgrade.
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A key question for Sigfox is whether they’ll also support the new LPWAN standards and specs (LTE category M1, NB-IoT, LoRA WAN, etc). We’ve asked the company and are eagerly awaiting their reply. Stay tuned.
NSR: Satellite IoT market forecast at $2.9B by 2026
The global satellite M2M and IoT market is expected to grow to $2.9 billion in revenue by 2026, according to satellite based market research company NSR.
This growth will be driven by over 6.8 million in-service terminals, NSR said in their new report. Potential applications include (see chart below): land transport and especially cargo tracking, which is expected to be the most profitable and sought after segment of the emerging industry.
“Revenues are growing year-over-year across each of the 22 applications NSR identified, and will accelerate as new M2M capacity supply, in the form of new constellations, come online in the medium term,” NSR senior analyst and lead report author Alan Crisp said.
“Most increases in new demand for M2M service today stem from basic product offerings, as for many use cases bandwidth requirements remain in the kilobyte range,” Crisp added.
While most M2M and IoT services require only low bandwidth, NSR also predicts that over the next decade some verticals will demand additional bandwidth to support applications such as big data analytics, engine telematics and live data streaming.
The report states that a number of small satellite constellations will target low bandwidth and latency insensitive applications in agriculture and tracking market segments.
Despite the huge revenues predicted, the report notes that despite growing demand for IoT satellite services, the business case for IoT exclusive satellite constellations has yet to be proven – especially considering the exponential growth of LPWANs, LTE-M and NB-IoT terrestrial networks for IoT.
For example, last week China Mobile-Hong Kong demonstrated a smart parking service carried over its commercial NB-IoT network. Meanwhile, rival wireless network operators 3 Hong Kong (part of Hutchinson-HK) and SmarTone have also made recent announcements of NB-IoT deployments. 3 HK and Huawei have built the NB-IoT infrastructure with NB-IoT modules designed in accordance with the 3GPP standard to facilitate tests and development of NB-IoT applications.
This report answers key questions on the satellite M2M/IoT market:
- Which applications, frequencies and regions exhibit the greatest growth potential?
- How important are latency, security and high bandwidth requirements for upcoming M2M/IoT applications?
- What role will small satellites have with IoT connected devices, and how will this impact the existing satellite M2M/IoT operators?
- How can satellite benefit from the growth of Low Power Wide Area networks?
References:
https://www.telecomasia.net/content/satellite-iot-market-tipped-hit-29b-2026?src=related
AT&T’s Rural Broadband Expansion Continues: 9 More States Added
AT&T has brought its fixed wireless broadband service to nine more states, bringing the total coverage to more than 160,000 rural locations in 18 states. The service, partly funded by the U.S. federal Connect America Fund (CAF) program, provides homes and businesses with download speeds of at least 10 Mbps with a minimum of 1 Mbps upstream. The service uses licensed WCS (Band 30) 2.3 GHz spectrum.
This fixed wireless service has broadband usage caps of 160 GB per month, with additional 50 GB increments of data charged at $10 per month. It’s priced at $60 per month when bundled with other AT&T services.
The additional 9 states include:
- Arkansas
- California
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kansas
- Michigan
- Ohio
- Texas
- Wisconsin
They join Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, where this AT&T rural broadband service is already available in certain markets. AT&T has plans to reach 400,000 locations by the end of this year, and over 1.1 million locations by 2020. This AT&T rural broadband expansion is partially funded by the Connect America Fund (CAF), the FCC’s program to expand rural broadband access.
“Closing the connectivity gap is a top priority for us,” said Cheryl Choy, vice president, wired voice and internet products at AT&T in a press release announcing the expansion. “Access to fast and reliable internet is a game changer in today’s world.”
AT&T may gain some competition for this fixed wireless service, at least in Mississippi. C Spire just announced their intention to aggressively expand fixed wireless service in Mississippi this week. They cited the advantage their 25 Mbps fixed wireless service has over certain CAF funded 10 Mbps fixed wireless options, a specific reference to AT&T.
“For many rural families and communities, the introduction of this service from AT&T will mark a new era of increased broadband speeds and access to cheaper and more diverse content.” said Bret Swanson, president, Entropy Economics. “AT&T’s move into these new communities will also yield additional economic benefits and can help create new jobs.”
To learn more about Fixed Wireless Internet from AT&T, go to att.com/internet/fixed-wireless.html.
References:
http://about.att.com/story/fixed_wireless_internet_in_9_new_states.html
AT&T Rural Broadband Expansion Continues Through CAF Funded Fixed Wireless Service
ABI Research: Start-ups to be rising stars of 5G challenging incumbents
The rise of 5G is promising to shake up the status quo in the mobile equipment industry by presenting opportunities for startups to grab market share away from the incumbent vendors, according to ABI Research.
In a new report, the market research firm identified 15 startups exhibiting strong potential to play a role in wireless network operators’ transformation to 5G through innovative products and services.
“Traditionally operators have deployed a handful of infrastructure vendors in their networks, especially in the core network. Stagnating average revenue per user and increasing network traffic are driving operators to be more cost-effective and innovative in network performance and operations management and network upgrades. The end-to-end digital transformation toward virtualized and software defined networks is creating the opportunity for operators to open their highly proprietary networks and vendor ecosystem to include innovative start-ups. The 15 companies we have profiled illustrate a strong business sense and innovative solutions,” says Prayerna Raina, Senior Analyst at ABI Research.
Operators are facing the need to address key network performance and traffic management issues ahead of the standardization and launch of 5G in 2020, the report states.
Startups such as Athonet, CellWize, CellMining, AirHop Communications, Core Network Dynamics, Blue Danube and Vasona Networks are developing innovative solutions in these areas and may challenge the long-established telecom industry status quo.
“The telco start-ups we have profiled are challenging the incumbents in every way. From the flexibility of the solution to value-added services and a strong R&D focus, these companies are not just innovative, but also reflect an understanding of telco operators’ operational models as well as revenue and network performance challenges. With strong financial backing and active engagement with major partners in their ecosystem, these startups have proven their ability to meet operator requirements in tests and field deployments,” Ms. Raina said.
These findings are from ABI Research’s Mobile Network Hot Tech Innovators report. This report is part of the company’s Mobile Network Infrastructure research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights.
Technology trends including SDN and NFV for mobile networks, the evolution of the mobile edge computing and self-organizing network solutions will also lay the groundwork for 5G (even though none of those will be included in the ITU-R IMT 2020 standards). Other enabling technologies include the use of big data analytics (also not to be included in any 5G standard) to enhance and optimize network performance.
Question: Do you really think start-ups can take market share away from Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei, Qualcomm, and other incumbent wireless technology companies? Don’t forget Intel which is making a major effort to be a 5G technology provider with their mobile terminal platform.
References:
https://www.abiresearch.com/press/startups-are-rising-stars-5g/
https://www.telecomasia.net/content/startups-challenge-telecoms-status-quo-5g-rises
https://www.abiresearch.com/staff/bio/prayerna-raina/
https://www.quora.com/5G-Communications-What-companies-are-leading-in-5G-technologies
IEEE ComSoc Webinar: 5G: Converging Towards IMT-2020 Submission
2 New Reports: 1] European Broadband Availability & 4G-LTE Coverage + 2] Global Broadband Status
Research conducted by IHS Markit and Point Topic was published today by the European Commission (EC). The Broadband Coverage in Europe 2016 study found that at the end of June 2016, more than three-quarters of EU homes have access to high-speed broadband services and 4G LTE coverage was nearly ubiquitous with 96 percent of EU households covered by 4G LTE networks.
This is the fourth edition of the study delivered by IHS Markit and Point Topic to the EC which provides data and analysis on availability of broadband services by various technologies in 31 countries across Europe (EU-28, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland).
The final report and accompanying data tables are available at the EC website.
Key findings:
- In the 12 months to the end of June 2016, 12.8 million new EU households gained access to high-speed broadband delivered via Next-Generation Access (NGA) networks
s:By mid-2016, high-speed broadband services (at least 30 Mbps download speeds) were available to 75.9 percent of EU households
- Very-high-speed-DSL (VDSL) continues to be the key driver of NGA coverage growth across the EU, increasing by 7.1 percentage points and reaching nearly a half (48.2 percent) of EU homes
- 4G-LTE networks expanded at a fast pace and covered 96 percent of EU households by the end of June 2016
- The gap between rural and national NGA coverage is closing, but remains significant with only 39.2 percent rural households across the EU having access to high-speed broadband services
“Availability of 4G-LTE services has become near-universal in many study countries,” said Alzbeta Fellenbaum, principal analyst at IHS Markit and manager of the project. “In 11 countries, LTE coverage reached 99 percent of households and overall, LTE coverage now reaches similar levels to those of 3G HSPA networks. This is a major improvement compared to just four years ago, when 4G LTE services were available to only 59.1 percent of EU homes.”
Copper upgrades continue to be key for high-speed broadband growth in Europe
Broadband network operators across Europe continue to focus their deployment strategies on upgrading existing copper DSL networks instead of investing in the typically more expensive deployments of fibre optic networks all the way to customers’ property.
“Since 2013, VDSL has been the fastest growing fixed broadband technology tracked by the study, and some countries have seen dramatic year-on-year growth in VDSL,” Fellenbaum said. “For instance, VDSL coverage in Italy more than doubled during the twelve-month period to mid-2016, as coverage increased by 33.6 percentage points. Iceland, Germany, Hungary and Slovakia also witnessed double-digit growth in VDSL coverage during the twelve-month period to mid-2016.”
Portugal breaks Baltic leadership in super-fast FTTP broadband availability for the first time
Availability of fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) services in Portugal improved by 10.7 percentage points during the twelve-month period to mid-2016 and as a consequence of this growth, Portugal with 86.1 percent of home passed by FTTP networks has now surpassed Latvia (85.2 percent) and Lithuania (81.4 percent) to rank first in terms of FTTP coverage among all study countries.
However, big differences remain among European countries in terms of FTTP availability and while FTTP access is on offer in all study countries, in some of the countries FTTP services are available only on a very limited basis.
As in previous years, Greece and Belgium reported the lowest levels of FTTP coverage, at 0.6 percent and 0.4 percent. In the UK, FTTP coverage was only slightly higher at 1.8 percent. “This reflects the preference of operators in these countries to prioritise their deployment strategies on upgrading existing VDSL networks, rather than investing in the typically more expensive FTTP technology,” Fellenbaum reiterated.
Gap in rural broadband coverage shrinking
Access to broadband services in rural areas remains a key priority for the EU. At the end of June 2016, 92.6 percent of rural households across the EU28 had access to at least one fixed broadband technology. However, only 39.2 percent (12.0 million rural households) could benefit from NGA broadband.
Nevertheless, rural NGA coverage increased by 9.5 percentage points by mid-2016 and in total, 2.9 million additional rural households gained access to next generation broadband services between the end of June 2015 and 2016.
“Moreover, we have seen that the gap between rural and national coverage, for both overall fixed and NGA technologies, is declining compared to previous editions of the study suggesting increasing investment in rural broadband,” Fellenbaum said.
More information is available from the IHS Markit Operator Multiplay Intelligence Service and Broadband Media Intelligence Service.
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The State of Broadband 2017: Broadband Catalyzing Sustainable Development report has been released by the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development.
According to the report, while 48% of the global population is now online, some 3.9 billion people still do not have Internet access, with the digital gap growing between developed and developing countries.
In addition, only 76% of the world’s population lives within access of a 3G signal, and only 43% of people within access of a 4G connection. The disparities in gender access are also becoming wider in developing countries.
“Broadband is crucial to connecting people to the resources needed to improve their livelihoods, and to the world achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao, who serves as co-Vice Chair of the Commission with UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.
“The goals for education, gender equality and infrastructure include bold targets for information and communication technology. The State of Broadband 2017 report outlines how broadband is already contributing to this and makes valuable recommendations for how it can increase this contribution into the future.”
Sheikh Saud Bin Nasser Al Thani, Group CEO, Ooredoo, said:
“The report shines a crucial light on the ongoing global challenge to help people across the world access the life-changing benefits of internet access. At Ooredoo, we continue to invest in mobile technology, people and resources that enable our communities – in particular underserved women and youth – to enjoy the internet and use it as a means to improve their lives and achieve their full potential. As we deploy the power of digital technology to give people access to the services and support they need, we urge governments, operators and regulators to continue working closely together to address the deepening digital inequality in global connectivity.”
Issued annually, The State of Broadband report is a unique global snapshot of broadband network access and affordability, with country-by-country data measuring broadband access against key advocacy targets set by the Commission in 2011.
The report also examines global trends in broadband connectivity and technologies, reflects on policy and regulatory developments, as well as the applications of broadband for sustainable development. It also presents several policy recommendations.
Promoting investment in broadband connectivity from a broad range of sectors, the report notes, can help achieve the full potential of these technologies and bring the world closer to the goal of an inclusive digital society accessible by all.