IEEE ComSoc Technology Blog

AT&T will upgrade its U-verse fiber to the premises service with speeds up to 1 Gbps through its GigaPower program in parts of Dallas and Fort Worth, TX this summer. The company said it would begin at speeds up to 100 Mbps, with upgrades to 1 Gbps by the end of the year.  U-verse is AT&T’s high-speed broadband double and triple play service to residential subscribers.   However, both U-verse TV and U-verse Internet are available as single service offerings.

In Austin,TX – the first market to get access to AT&T’s GigaPower platform -the giant telco is initially offering 300 Mbps, and plans to accelerate to 1-Gig sometime later this year. Google Fiber has begun to build out its 1-Gig infrastructure in Austin so that must be providing AT&T with motivation and incentive to build out GigaPower in Austin.

AT&T has not announced pricing for GigaPower services in Dallas/Ft. Worth. In Austin, the broadband service runs $70 per month; $100 per month when paired with the U-verse Voice Unlimited service; $120 per month with the U200 TV package with HBO;  and $150 per month with U200 TV with HBO and U-verse Voice Unlimited. All offers come with one-year commitments that could result in an early termination fee of up to $348, The Austin version of U-verse with GigaPower is also capped at 1 terabyte per month. AT&T charges $10 for each additional bucket of 50 Gigabytes above that threshold, with a maximum monthly overage charge of $30.

Note: From my own personal U-Verse customer experience (2+ years), prices rise sharply afer the one year promo ends.

AT&T is considering a plan to expand GigaPower to as many as 100 candidate cities, and has proposed to expand GigaPower to an additional 2 million customers as a condition of its pending acquisition of DirecTV.

AT&T’s U-verse service attracted 488,000 new customers in the quarter, bringing the total to 11.5 million subscribers. Total U-verse revenues, including business,were up 27.9% year over year.  U-verse is now a $13 billion annualized revenue stream for AT&T.

Overall U-verse revenues increased by almost 28% y-o-y on the back of solid growth in U-verse TV and Broadband Internet revenues. U-verse TV added 190,000 subscribers in Q2 to take its total user base to 5.9 million and U-verse high speed Internet added 488,000 new subscribers in the quarter to take its total to 11.5 million.

This rise in subscriptions helped the company improve its proportion of U-verse subscribers to total broadband users to 70% in Q2 2014 from 55% in the year-ago quarter.  And why not?  The cost-performance of U-verse Internet is much better than the older ATM over ADSL Internet.

References:

http://www.multichannel.com/news/technology/att-preps-summer-gigapower-d…

http://www.att.com/att/gigapowercities/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/07/24/atts-q2-earning…

http://www.att.com/Investor/Earnings/4q13/ib_final_4q13.pdf

http://www.att.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=262

Infonetics Research released excerpts from its 2014 Enterprise Networking and Communication Equipment Vendor Scorecard, which profiles, analyzes, and ranks the 7 leading vendors of enterprise networking, network security, and communication equipment and software worldwide: Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Brocade, Cisco, HP, Juniper, and NEC.

The only report of its kind, Infonetics’ scorecard evaluates vendors on criteria using actual data and metrics, such as direct feedback from buyers, vendor market share, share momentum, financials, and solution portfolio. This approach eliminates subjective scoring and ensures vendors are assessed accurately and fairly.

Infonetics sub-divides the Enterprise Network & Communications Infrastructure market into three categories:

Here’s the $ sales breakdown for each market segment for calendar years 2012 and 2013:

ENTERPRISE SCORECARD HIGHLIGHTS:
.    The enterprise networking and communication infrastructure market is highly fragmented, with well over 100 vendors vying for a piece of this US$50 billion market
.    Repeating its performance in last year’s scorecard, Cisco once again earned the highest overall score by far, attaining perfect scores in 6 of 7 criteria and even improving on market share momentum
.    The battle for 2nd place heated up this year, with Brocade holding on to the #2 spot again thanks to its strong financials, and is followed very closely by HP and Juniper
.    HP captured the #1 position for market share momentum
.    Juniper ranks among the top 3 vendors for 5 of Infonetics’ scorecard criteria: market share momentum, financials, product reliability, technology innovation, and service and support
.    NEC’s #1 position in Japan’s enterprise telephony market helped place it 5th in Infonetics’ 2014 scorecard

SCORECARD SYNOPSIS:
Infonetics’ 29-page enterprise vendor scorecard evaluates the leading enterprise networking and communication equipment vendors using criteria that are commonly used by buyers to select vendors, demonstrate success in the marketplace, and position a vendor for success. The matrix rankings are based on 7 criteria including market share; market share momentum; financials; solution breadth; technology innovation; product reliability; and service and support. Companies ranked: Alcatel Lucent, Avaya, Brocade, Cisco, HP, Juniper, and NEC.

ANALYST NOTE:
“Cisco dominates the enterprise networking and communication market by a wide margin, due to offering the broadest solution portfolio, receiving positive feedback from enterprises, and capturing significant market share. The battle for second place is raging between Brocade, HP, and Juniper, and each has unique strengths: Brocade has the strongest financials, HP is growing the fastest, and Juniper has experienced the highest improvement in enterprise feedback,” notes Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research and lead author of the report. 

To buy the report, contact Infonetics:

http://www.infonetics.com/contact.asp.

RELATED RESEARCH (See http://www.infonetics.com/market-research-report-highlights.asp): 
.    US$1 trillion to be spent on telecom and datacom equipment and software over next 5 years
.    Infonetics releases Global Telecom and Datacom Market Trends and Drivers report
.    Cloud is our #1 networking initiative, say businesses in Infonetics’ latest survey
.    PBX-based video buoys videoconferencing market
.    Security and data center vendors renew focus on DDoS as attacks multiply; Arbor leads
.    Integrated security solutions gain share in network security market in 1Q14
.    Cisco entrenched atop enterprise session border controller (eSBC) market
.    Wireless LAN access point ASPs on the rise, sparked by 802.11ac
.    Enterprise router market off to a rough start, plunges 14% sequentially
.    Ethernet switch market down 15% in the first quarter as growth stalls

RECENT AND UPCOMING ENTERPRISE RESEARCH:
Download Infonetics’ 2014 market research brochure, publication calendar, events brochure, report highlights, tables of contents, and more at www.infonetics.com/login.
.    DDoS Mitigation Strategies & Vendor Leadership: N.A. Enterprise Survey (June)
.    WLAN Infrastructure Vendor Scorecard (July)
.    Analyst Note: Genband Unveils Kloud & Kandy (July)
.    Business Cloud VoIP & UC Services Forecast (Aug.)
.    Next Generation Threat Prevention Strategies & Vendor Leadership Survey (Aug.)
.    Enterprise Routers Forecast (Aug.)
.    Enterprise Unified Communications & Voice Equipment Forecast (Aug.)
.    Enterprise Switches Forecast (Sept.)
.    Wireless LAN Equipment & WiFi Phones Forecast (Sept.)
.    Enterprise Session Border Controllers Forecast (Sept.)

Infonetics Research released data from its 2014 Telecom and Datacom Network Equipment and Software report, which provides a big picture of the health of the overall market. Network equipment bought by service providers as well as by SMBs and enterprises is tracked in the report, separately and together to gauge how the entire market is doing and to see who leads overall (see Report Synopsis in the release for a list of equipment and software categories). 

“Despite the fact that enterprises and service providers are in the middle of massive network upheavals due to the evolution of software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) technology, the telecom and datacom networking equipment and software market is on track to grow annually through 2018 with the fastest growth coming in 2015,” notes Jeff Wilson, principal analyst at Infonetics Research. 

Michael Howard, co-founder of Infonetics and co-author of the report, adds, “Looking at just the service provider equipment space, we’re seeing a shakeup in vendor market share, with Huawei leapfrogging longtime number-one Ericsson to take the top spot in 2013. While Huawei’s been doing well in a number of regions, China’s economy is a key factor keeping Huawei’s growth so strong.” 

TOTAL TELECOM AND DATACOM MARKET HIGHLIGHTS:

Based on global revenue, the overall telecom and datacom network equipment and software market share leaders are, in rank order: Cisco, Huawei, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, and ZTE – the same top 5 vendors with virtually the same shares as the year prior .    

Vendor share positions held steady in the enterprise segment, with Cisco in the driver’s seat and followed distantly by tightly bunched Avaya, Brocade, HP, and Juniper (listed in alphabetical order) .    

Worldwide, sales of telecom and datacom equipment and software came to $183 billion in 2013, an uptick of 3% versus the previous year.    

Asia Pacific put some breathing room between itself and North America in the regional race for telecom/datacom equipment and software revenue, growing 6% year-over-year as compared to North America’s 4.5%; this trend is expected to continue through at least 2018.    

Infonetics is projecting a cumulative $1.01 Trillion will be spent by service providers and enterprises on telecom/ datacom gear and software over the 5 years from 2014 to 2018.

REPORT SYNOPSIS:

Infonetics’ annual datacom and telecom equipment and software pivot report compiles worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, and forecasts through 2018 from all of its reports that track enterprise and service provider gear. It is the majority of all data networking and telecom equipment for service providers, cable companies, and small, medium, and large organizations, excluding consumer electronics. 

The 11 major categories of equipment and software tracked in Infonetics’ report include broadband aggregation; broadband CPE; pay TV; optical network hardware; carrier routing, switching, and Ethernet; service provider VoIP and IMS; service provider mobile/wireless infrastructure; service enablement and subscriber intelligence; security; enterprise and data center networks; and enterprise communications.

Companies tracked include Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Brocade, Ciena, Cisco, Ericsson, Fujitsu, HP, Huawei, Juniper, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens, ZTE, and many others.

To buy the report, contact Infonetics:

www.infonetics.com/contact.asp

AT&T’s online-video joint venture with Chernin Group has made its first acquisition.  It’s paying $10 million for Creativebug according to a SEC filing.  San Francisco-based Creativebug was founded in 2012 and features more than 300 online classes on arts and crafts.  

According to the Creativebug site, the service offers some free content alongside paid offerings, including unlimited access to workshops for $9.95 per month, and an a la carte option that hawks single workshops starting at $9.95 each. Workshop categories include bookbinding, crochet, embroidery, felting, kids crafts, patchwork, stamping and home decor.

AT&T and its partner, the Chernin Group, also renamed their over-the-top video joint venture company Otter Media which will be focused on acquiring, investing in and launching OTT video services,  AT&T and The Chernin Group committed to invest $500 million in the venture when they announced it in April.

Reference:

http://www.multichannel.com/news/technology/chernin-att-jv-buys-creativebug-10-million/375916#sthash.rfF13jl7.dpuf

Intel, Samsung and Dell have established the Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC). The new consortium has pledged to develop and distribute specifications for the emerging Internet of Things.  It is competing with the AllSeen Alliance, which was founded by Qualcomm.

The group, which also includes Atmel, Broadcom, and Wind River (owned by Intel), will focus on creating an open-source standard for wirelessly connecting devices to one another and to the Internet. Like other open-source projects, the member companies pledge to donate intellectual property, or IP, that all members and others can work on and use.

“We’d like to quickly get the key industry players to structure the standards properly” for devices to interoperate, said Imad N. Sousou, general manager of Intel’s open-source technology center. Products using the Open Interconnect standard will most likely come out in 2015, he said.  

Intel’s Gary Martz said the OIC wil first establish standards around connectivity, discovery and authentication of devices, and data-gathering instruments in “smart homes,” consumer electronics and enterprises.  OIC will certify devices compliant with its standards. The group will work on standards encompassing a range of wireless technologies including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee and NFC (near-field communication).

Analysis:

The reason for all this activity is sheer numbers, and potentially a lot of market power. The IoT is expected to eventually touch some 200 billion cars, appliances, machinery and devices globally, handling things like remote operation, monitoring and interaction among Internet-connected products.

So far, such connections are at best uneven, but workable uniform standards could help that get better.

It’s likely that the communications standards governing these things will also affect the means for collecting data about the behavior of both devices and the people that use them. That makes it a very important future subset of the Internet, since data like that will inform things like future product development and what ads individual consumers are shown.

Why didn’t the Interconnect group just go with AllSeen, which started earlier and is signing up product companies — even if the project was initiated by the Intel rival Qualcomm? “Intel and its partners evaluated all of the existing work,” Mr. Sousou said. “It’s not being done in a way that will drive widespread adoption.”

According to people in the consortium, who asked not to be named in order to sustain relations with AllSeen members, many of the other chip companies did not trust Qualcomm to fully part with its intellectual property.

There is also an ITU-T standardization effort for the IoTs which has been ongoing for several years.  The Global Standards Initiative on Internet of Things (IoT-GSI) promotes a unified approach in ITU-T for development of technical standards (Recommendations) enabling the Internet of Things on a global scale. ITU-T Recommendations developed under the IoT-GSI by the various ITU-T Questions – in collaboration with other standards developing organizations (SDOs) – will enable worldwide service providers to offer the wide range of services expected by this technology. IoT-GSI also aims to act as an umbrella for IoT standards development worldwide.  The IoT-GSI group will have its tenth meeting 12-18 November 2014 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Caroline Gabriel of Rethink Wireless wrote:

The OIC is short on details of its approach so far, though it will publish its code later this quarter, but its announcements suggest it will be a rival to AllJoyn in using the weight of its big-name backers to establish a de facto standard. It says it will devise, and contribute to open source, a peer-to-peer protocol which handles device discovery and authentication. However, Intel says the key difference from AllJoyn is that the OIC code will be created collaboratively, rather than forming a supporters’ club around an existing technology from a single firm.

This will certainly not be the last body formed to help the big chip vendors – all of them in urgent need of a leadership role in at least some aspects of IoT standards – to position themselves as standards setters. As seen in other technology markets, the array of would-be standards will gradually consolidate as the real market makers – such as the large-scale consumer and industrial devices vendors – make their choices.

In this way, the OIC has scored one big point, by netting Samsung, although the Korean firm’s semiconductor division does not necessarily influence the alliances made by its consumer products activities. It will be positive to see some of those market makers taking some decisions, or risk the chip giants tearing IoT platforms into fragments with their politicking, before the segment has even gained scale.

References:

http://www.openinterconnect.org/ 

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/standard-behavior-in-an-interne…

http://news.techworld.com/data-centre/3529314/samsung-intel-dell-team-on…

http://www.rethink-wireless.com/2014/07/08/intel-leads-anti-qualcomm-iot…

https://allseenalliance.org/

https://techblog.comsoc.org/2014/05/26/tiecon-2014-summary-part-3…

http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/techwatch/Pages/internetofthings.aspx

http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/gsi/iot/Pages/default.aspx

Infonetics Research released excerpts from its 2014 Network Equipment Spending and Vendor Leadership: North American Enterprise Survey, which explores businesses’ top networking initiatives, budget priorities and growth, investment drivers and barriers, and vendor preferences.

NETWORK EQUIPMENT SPENDING SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS:
.    Respondent companies spent, on average, over $1.1 million on networking equipment in 2013, and they expect to increase spending by 19% this year
.    Wireless LAN (WLAN) budget allocations are on the rise among those surveyed, becoming the #2 investment area for 2014
.    The economic outlook for North America is positive and companies are looking to capitalize on new opportunities, leading to an expenditure shift from headquarters to branch offices
.    Around 3/4 of respondents consider Cisco the top network equipment vendor, an even better showing than in Infonetics survey last year
.    Juniper has made major gains from last year, moving up 3 positions in respondent ratings

ANALYST NOTE:  
“Our just-finished survey on network equipment spending indicates the outlook for network equipment is healthy. Enterprises are expecting double-digit growth in their expenditures this year and next. How they are spending their budgets is changing, and allocations towards wireless LAN, network monitoring, and switches are growing. Greater spending on branch office infrastructure is also anticipated, a sign of confidence in continued economic expansion,” notes Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research. 

Machowinski adds: “One of the most interesting findings is that cloud has emerged as the number-1 networking initiative over the next 12 months. Companies are embracing the cloud in a services model as well as building their own cloud-architected data centers, and this means upgrades to network infrastructure.”

Author NOTE:

 For several years, the issue of a standardized cloud network interface and architecture has been neglected.  The alternatives includes:  public Internet, private line [to cloud service providers (CSP) Point of Presence (PoP)], IP MPLS VPN, Ethernet for Private Cloud (a MEF initiative) and hybrid/combinations of the above.  Each CSP offers a different set of alternative interfaces and architectures- often via third parties.   It’s amazing that this issue hasn’t drawn more attention from the official standards bodies (IEEE started an initiative in this area in 2011, had 1 meeting and then it went dark- with no notice given to the meeting attendees, including this author.).                                       

 
ABOUT THE SURVEY:
For its 27-page network equipment spending survey, Infonetics interviewed 207 North American organizations that have at least 100 employees about their networking equipment, plans, and purchase considerations over the next two years. The survey provides insights into networking initiatives, budget priorities and growth, investment drivers and barriers, and vendor preferences.

Vendors named in the survey include Alcatel-Lucent, Apple, Aruba, Avaya, Brocade, Cisco, D-Link, Dell, Extreme/Enterasys, HP, Huawei, IBM, Juniper, Linksys, Microsoft, Motorola, Oracle, Netgear, others.

To buy the report, contact Infonetics: www.infonetics.com/contact.asp

More info at:  http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2014/Enterprise-Network-Equipment-Spending-Survey-Highlights.asp

Public Cloud Services growing at 23%:

Separately, gllobal spending on public cloud services reached US$45.7 billion last year and will experience a 23 percent compound annual growth rate through 2018, according to analyst firm IDC.

Some 86 percent of the 2013 total came from cloud software, which encompasses both SaaS (software as a service) applications and PaaS (platform as a service) offerings, with the remaining 14 percent generated by cloud infrastructure, IDC said on July 7th.

IDC ranked Amazon.com first in the PaaS market, with Salesforce.com and Microsoft tied for second place, followed by GXS and Google.  Amazon was also No. 1 in the infrastructure category, followed by Rackspace, IBM, CenturyLink and Microsoft.

Geographically, the U.S. accounts for 68 percent of the overall public cloud market, but this figure will fall to 59 percent by 2018 as Western Europe’s take rises from 19 percent to 23 percent and growth picks up in emerging markets, IDC said.

“We are at a pivotal time in the battle for leadership and innovation in the cloud. IDC’s Public Cloud Services Tracker shows very rapid growth in customer cloud service spending across 19 product categories and within eight geographic regions. Not coincidentally, we see vendors introducing many new cloud offerings and slashing cloud pricing in order to capture market share. Market share leadership will certainly be up for grabs over the next 2-3 years,” said Frank Gens, Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst at IDC.

The SaaS market – accounting for 72% of the total public cloud services market and forecast to grow at a 20% CAGR over the forecast period – is dominated by Enterprise Applications cloud solutions such as enterprise resource management (ERM) and customer relationship management (CRM), followed by Collaborative applications. System Infrastructure Software cloud solutions – the other major part of the SaaS market, including Security, Systems Management, and Storage Management cloud services – drove 21% of the 2013 SaaS market. From a competitive perspective, the SaaS service provider ecosystem is largely led by Salesforce.com followed by ADP and Intuit. Traditional software vendors Oracle and Microsoft hold the 4th and 5th positions, respectively.

The PaaS market – accounting for 14% of the market in 2013 with a forecast CAGR of 27% – is composed of a wide variety of highly strategic cloud app development, deployment, and management services. In 2013 and 2014, PaaS spending has been largely driven by Integration and Process Automation solutions, Data Management solutions, and Application Server Middleware services. From a market share standpoint, the 2013 PaaS market was led by Amazon.com, followed by Salesforce.com and Microsoft (both share the number 2 position). GXS and Google hold the 4th and 5th positions, respectively.

More info at: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24977214

Qualcomm announced on July 2nd that it had acquired Wilocity, a developer of 802.11ad WiGig chips. The companies previously collaborated on WiGig technology, a faster version of Wi-Fi. Qualcomm is integrating the Wilocity technology into its Snapdragon 810 chipsets for mobile devices, hoping to gain a competitive advantage against Broadcom. Qualcomm had previously purchased Atheros Communications in 2011 to get into the WiFi chip business.

Wilocity’s fast gigabit wireless-data capabilities will be included in sample products being shipped to customers, Qualcomm said yesterday in a statement. The company didn’t disclose terms of its purchase of the startup, which is based in Caesarea, Israel. 

SoC devices capable of the new higher-speed 802.11ad (Wi Gig) will go on sale next year, said Amir Faintuch, president of Qualcomm’s Atheros division, which has been an investor in Wilocity since 2008.  

Sarah Reedy of Light Reading wrote: “Qualcomm is integrating super-fast 60GHz WiFi into its Snapdragon 810 chipsets, a move that it says will advance the entire WiFi ecosystem now that its acquisition of multi-gigabit wireless leader Wilocity is complete.”  

“The tri-band reference design based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 will enable 4K video streaming from the phone to the TV in the home, peer-to-peer content sharing, networking, wireless docking, and instantaneous cloud access.”

Companies like Cisco, Dell, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), and others plan to use the new integrated chipsets first in the connected home and enterprise. Cormac Conroy, Qualcomm’s VP of product management and engineering, says to expect the Snapdragon 810 platform to start shipping in smartphones and tablets in the second half of the year. He also calls small cells from companies like Cisco a “natural fit,” but those are further down the pipeline.

Sixty Gigahertz is an in-area technology, which means that, while it doesn’t necessarily require line-of-sight, it cannot penetrate walls. It’s ideal for open spaces of any size but can’t cover a whole home on its own. Qualcomm says its tri-band WiFi chips will integrate the multi-gigabit performance of 802.11ad operating in the 60GHz spectrum band with 802.11ac in the 5GHz band and 802.11b/g/n in the 2.4GHz band with handoff in between them to ensure it works everywhere.

“We think this is an important step in our overall vision and mission to deliver high-speed wireless connectivity, mobile computing, and networking,” Conroy says. “This announcement is not just ‘Qualcomm acquires a company.’ The message is Qualcomm and a number of leading partners think 60GHz will be a very important technology across multiple use cases.”

Read more at: 

http://www.lightreading.com/components/comms-chips/qualcomm-advances-wig…

Infonetics Research recently released excerpts from its latest Global Telecom and Datacom Market Trends and Drivers report,which analyzes global and regional market trends and conditions.

TELECOM AND DATACOM MARKET TRENDS:
.    The International Monetary Fund (IMF) anticipates the world economy will expand 3.6% in 2014 (+0.06 from 2013) amid recoveries in the UK and Germany and slowing growth in Japan, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa
.    Mobile service revenue remains the main telecom/datacom growth engine worldwide, led by the unabated rise of mobile broadband
.    To avoid falling into the role of pipe provider, many service providers are deploying or weighing new architectural options such as caching/content delivery networks, distributed BRAS/BNG, next-gen central offices, distributed mini data centers, and video optimization
.    Software-defined networks (SDNs) and network functions virtualization (NFV) have the attention of nearly all service providers, who are on the long road to widespread deployments
.    Big data is becoming more manageable: Operators are leveraging subscriber and network intelligence to support marketing and loyalty strategies, churn management, and automation/optimization of networks using SDN and NFV
.    The cloud, mobility, BYOD, and virtualization are the top trends driving enterprise networking and communication technology spending, with North America leading the way

REPORT SYNOPSIS:

 Infonetics’ market drivers report is published twice annually to provide analysis of global and regional market trends and conditions affecting service providers, enterprises, subscribers, and the global economy. The report assess the state of the telecom industry, telling the story of what’s going on now and what’s expected in the near and long term, including spending trends; subscriber forecasts; macroeconomic drivers; and key economic statistics (e.g., unemployment, OECD indicators, GDP growth). The 44-page report is illustrated with charts, graphs, tables, and written analysis.

“Expect a slowdown in the Americas, but for a change, Europe will be in the telecom capex driver’s seat this year!” says Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research. “We’re forecasting global carrier capex to rise 4%, with EMEA as the growth engine despite unabated low-single-digit revenue declines all across Europe. After waiting for so many years to upgrade their networks, Europe’s ‘Big 5’-Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, and Vodafone-have decided it’s time to take the plunge.” 

Co-author of the report Matthias Machowinski, Infonetics’ directing analyst for enterprise networks, adds: “Economic expansion in mature economies and falling unemployment in Europe is driving stronger growth in enterprise telecom and datacom expenditures this year. We expect the network infrastructure segment to be the main beneficiary of growing investments, followed by security. The communication segment will likely have another challenging year, as companies evaluate their deployment strategy going forward.”

To buy report, contact Infonetics:    www.infonetics.com/contact.asp

A new FCC report shows that while many U.S. Internet service providers (ISPs) increased performance between 2012 and 2013, not all of them delivered the speeds that they advertised.  The FCC report found the average speed for subscribers is now 21.2 megabits per second- up roughly 36% from the average in 2012. Aside from Centurylink, the other DSL providers showed little or no improvement in broadband speeds. 

Note: The author has had AT&T U-Verse for 2 years during which time the speeds have not improved.  June 20, 2014 (today) test results:  12.69M b/sec downstream and 1.93M b/sec upstream. No change within last 2 years, but above the advertised speed range for the access tier I subscribe to: 

AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet Max:   6.1 Mb/sec – 12.0 Mb/sec

http://www.att.net/speedtiers

For 10 years prior to U-Verse, I had Pac Bell/SBC/AT&T DSL which topped out at 3Mb/sec downstream and was NOT nearly as reliable as U-Verse Internet access.  All over the same old twisted pair copper going into my home.

Upload speeds varied greatly among broadband providers, since according to the report most consumers tend to download far more data than they upload. Frontier and Verizon, which market fiber-based services, offered upload speeds as fast as 25 Mbps and 35 Mbps, respectively; no other provider offers upload speeds of more than 10 Mbps. (AT&T doesn’t advertise download speed ranges for U-Verse on their website).

The FCC plans to write to the CEOs of the DSL providers and other companies that failed to consistently meet their advertised speeds, to find out why. An agency official singled out Windstream for having among the worst performance.

Consistency of speeds is also a problem, as some ISPs delivered approximately 60 percent of the speeds they promised 80 percent of the time to 80 percent of customers, according to the report. This is the first time the commission measured speed consistency in its annual report on the topic, and the results concerned FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.   “Consumers deserve to get what they pay for,” Wheeler said in a statement announcing the report Wednesday. “I’ve directed FCC staff to write to the underperforming companies to ask why this happened and what they will do to solve this.”  

Please refer to this chart showing consistent download speed vs advertised speed 80% of time/80% of subscribers.  All major U.S. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are included:

The FCC report states that “Cablevision delivered 100% or better of advertised speed to 80% of our panelists 80% of the time during peak periods, and about half the ISPs delivered less than about 90% or better of the advertised speed for 80/80. However about one-third of the ISPs delivered only 60 percent or better of advertised speeds 80 percent of the time to 80 percent of the consumers.”  This is a metric that the FCC expects ISPs to improve upon over the course of the next year. Do you think that will occur?

Those ISPs using DSL technology show little or no improvement in maximum speeds, with the sole exception of Qwest/Centurylink, which this past year doubled its highest download speed within specific market areas. The reason for this may be that DSL, unlike cable and fiber technologies, is strongly dependent upon the length of the copper wire (or “loop”) from the residence to the service provider’s terminating electronic equipment, such that obtaining higher data speeds would require companies to make significant capital investments across a market area to shorten the copper loops. On the other hand, both fiber and cable technologies intrinsically support higher bandwidths, and can support even higher speeds with more incremental investments.

The FCC’s primary conclusions from this study:

1. Many ISPs now closely meet or exceed the speeds they advertise, but there continues to be room for improvement.
2. New metric this year – Consistency of speeds – also shows significant room for improvement.
3. Consumers are continuing to migrate to faster speed tiers.
4. Improvements in Speed are not Uniform Across Speed Tiers Tested
5. There were sharp differences in Upload Speeds

The FCC report says that increasing consumer demand for broadband access is causing congestion on networks due to video streaming services like Netflix. As that demand increases, companies using digital subscriber line (DSL) service (based on copper wires) cannot compete with the growing speeds of cable and fiber Internet.  An official said the FCC plans to act on that issue later this year after obtaining more information. 

Providers using fiber-based broadband connected directly to consumers’ households delivered 113 percent of advertised download speeds and 114 percent of advertised upload speeds, making it the best traffic option available. But telecom companies have not invested in expanding fiber-optic networks, which is the only way to compete with Internet speeds offered by cable companies, says Harold Feld, senior vice president of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge.  “We are ultimately heading to a cable monopoly because on the technology side the other technologies cannot keep up,” Feld says, citing arguments made by Susan Crawford, a former tech policy adviser for the Obama administration who is now a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. “We see people want faster speeds, and that DSL as a technology cannot keep up unless companies make very significant investments.” 

This study may help the case for AT&T to purchase DirecTV, as the telecom giant has argued it needs money to upgrade its DSL network. Comcast networks performed well in the study, which may potentially weaken its argument that its customers need more Internet services through the purchase of Time Warner Cable. 

References:

FCC Report

http://data.fcc.gov/download/measuring-broadband-america/2014/2014-Fixed…

FCC Charts – Measuring Broadband America

http://www.fcc.gov/measuring-broadband-america/charts

Articles

http://imarketreports.com/fcc-finds-dsl-speeds-arent-keeping-up-with-cab…

http://online.wsj.com/articles/fcc-report-on-broadband-speeds-dsl-lags-b…

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/06/19/fcc-reveals-incons…

Comment from Ken Pyle (viodi.com):

I find it interesting that at least two cable companies announced major increases in their speeds this week. 

Comment from IEEE DIscussion Group Member George Ginis (3 points):

Infonetics Research released excerpts from its 2014 Ethernet and IP MPLS VPN Services report, which analyzes the market for wholesale and retail Ethernet services and managed and unmanaged layer 2 and layer 3 IP MPLS VPN services.

Worldwide revenue from Ethernet and IP MPLS VPN services last year totaled $62.6 billion, a 12% improvement from 2012, according to Infonetics. The market research firm credited cloud-based services for the increase. “Both segments are growing at a healthy clip and will continue to do so, with Ethernet services growing about twice as fast as IP MPLS VPNs through 2017,” said Michael Howard of Infonetics.  See below for more quotes from Mr. Howard.

ETHERNET AND IP MPLS VPN MARKET HIGHLIGHTS
.    The combined global Ethernet services and IP MPLS VPN services markets totaled $62.6 billion in 2013, up 12% from the year prior
.    Keeping the momentum going are cloud services accessed via IP VPNs, Ethernet services, and mobile backhaul transport over Ethernet services
.    Revenue from Ethernet services delivered on 10GE and 100GE is forecast by Infonetics to grow 300% between 2013 and 2018
.    In 2013, Asia Pacific made up the biggest share of Ethernet services revenue and will continue to do so through 2018

“Ethernet services continued to gain momentum in 2013, easily outpacing IP MPLS VPN services. Both segments are growing at a healthy clip and will continue to do so, with Ethernet services growing about twice as fast as IP MPLS VPNs through 2017,” reports Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics Research.

Howard adds: “Software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) technologies will change the way service providers operate their networks and, more important, how they deliver services. The biggest change will come in the types of security services offered over IP MPLS VPNs and Ethernet services-for example, firewalls, SSL VPNs, intrusion detection, parental controls-and the pace at which they’re made available.”

From a related Infonetics report excerpt:  “Historically, data centers have been protected by big-iron security solutions and complex webs of security appliances and load-balancing infrastructure,” says Jeff Wilson, principal analyst for security at Infonetics Research. “But as more providers virtualize their data centers and roll out SDNs and NFV, we anticipate a fairly significant revenue transition from hardware appliances to virtual appliances and purpose-built security solutions that interface directly with hypervisors, with SDN controllers via APIs, or orchestration platforms.”

Read more at: http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2014/2H13-Data-Center-Security-Products-Market-Highlights.asp  and

http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2014/Ethernet-and-IP-MPLS-VPN-Services-Mark…

REPORT SYNOPSIS

Infonetics’ annual IP MPLS VPN and Ethernet services report provides market size, forecasts through 2018, analysis, and trends for wholesale and retail Ethernet services (Internet and WAN access, E-LINE, E-LAN services) by speed, and managed and unmanaged layer 2 and layer 3 IP MPLS VPN services. Data is presented by country (U.S., Canada) and region: North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), Asia Pacific, CALA (Caribbean, Latin America) and worldwide.

More info at:  http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2014/Ethernet-and-IP-MPLS-VPN-Services-Market-Highlights.asp

To buy report, contact Infonetics: www.infonetics.com/contact.asp

NFV WEBINAR
Join Michael Howard June 19 at 11:00 AM EDT for NFV: An Easier Initial Target Than SDN?, a free, live event for operators exploring use cases, lessons learned, and recommendations for developing NFV projects. Attend live or access the replay at:
http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=793989&s=1&k=BA88F4D4A551DA1913530B000C135707