IEEE ComSoc Technology Blog

This report was written by Roger Marks ([email protected])
Chair, IEEE 802.16 Working Group (WG) on Broadband Wireless Access Standards

Format and copy editing by Alan J Weissberger, Manager of ComSoc Community website

IEEE 802.16 WG Session #78 was held on 12-15 March 2012 in Waikoloa, Hawaii, USA. This was an IEEE 802 LMSC Plenary Session and co-located with sessions of the other IEEE 802 Working Groups and Technical Advisory Groups. The attendance was 35 (way down from earlier days when there was more commercial interest in WiMAX.

The IEEE 802.16 WG Study Group on the WirelessMAN Radio Interface in Heterogeneous Networks (“HetNet” or “Het” Study Group) was initiated on 16 March and initially chartered through 20 July. Contribution on this topic are solicited for IEEE 802.16 Session #79 of 14-17 May 2012 in in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

New “Metrology” Study Group

The IEEE 802.16 WG’s Study Group on Broadband Wireless Access Metrology (“Metrology” or “Met” Study Group) was initiated on 16 March and initially chartered through 20 July. Contribution on this topic are solicited for IEEE 802.16 Session #79 of 14-17 May 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Maintenance Task Group

The Maintenance Task Group (TG) resolved comments received during recirculation of the IEEE-SA Sponsor Ballots of drafts P802.16Rev3 and P802.16.1. Subsequently, with the two ballot approval ratios of 100% and 99%, respectively, the Working Group requested conditional approval to forward the drafts to RevCom; the IEEE 802 Executive Committee (EC) granted this approval on 16 March. A teleconference has been scheduled for 18 April to resolve comments that arise. The plan is to seek to have both standards approved by the IEEE-SA Standards Board on 8 June 2012. According to this schedule, the documents will be complete prior to Session #79, in which case the Maintenance TG may not meet there. The TG issued a closing report and minutes.

The Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Task Group resolved comments arising during the Sponsor Ballot of P802.16.1b and the first Sponsor Ballot Recirculation of P802.16p. Subsequently, with both ballot approval ratios at 99%, the Working Group requested conditional approval to forward the drafts to RevCom; the IEEE 802 agreed on 16 March. After recirculation of both ballots, comments will be addressed at Session #79. The plan is to hold a confirmation ballot on both drafts following Session #79 and then submit both to the RevCom meeting of 29 August. According to this schedule, Session #79 would be the final meeting of the M2M TG. The TG issued a closing report and minutes.

The GRIDMAN Task Group met to resolve comments in WG Letter Ballot #37 and WG Letter Ballot #38, in which the P802.16n and P802.16.1a drafts were reviewed. The two ballot approval ratios were 100% and 98%, respectively. The WG agreed to hold 30-day recirculations on the entirety of both drafts, with comment resolution scheduled for Session #79. The TG issued a closing report and minutes.

The ITU-R Liaison Group drafted two contributions to ITU-R Working Party 5D (on IMT-2000 and IMT-Advanced updates) and another to ITU-R Working Party 5D (on cognitive radio and heterogeneous networks). The three drafts were approved by the 802.16 Working Group, the 802.16 Radio Regulatory TAG, and the IEEE 802 EC. The ITU-R Liaison Group also completed liaison statements to its partner organizations regarding the IMT-2000 and IMT-Advanced update activities. The Liaison Group will not meet at Session #79 and will resume meeting at Session #80. For more details, see the closing report.

The WG’s Project Planning Committee met for two periods during Session #77. A new project ballot schedule was developed and agreed. Two new Working Group Study Groups were proposed, then later initiated by the Working Group and approved by the IEEE 802 (see details above). The PPC issued closing report and minutes.

Roger Marks was re-elected as Working Group Chair until March 2014; the result was confirmed by the IEEE 802 EC. Rakesh Taori did not seek re-election as Working Group Vice Chair and has completed his term. No candidate sought election as Vice Chair, so the position is temporarily unfilled. Harry Bims was appointed as Working Group Secretary, having served as Acting Secretary at two sessions.

Future Meetings

-Session #79 will take place on 14-17 May 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA in conjunction with the IEEE 802 Wireless Interim. The M2M TG, GRIDMAN TG, and Project Planning Committee will meet. The ITU-R Liaison Group will not meet. The Maintenance Task Group is not currently expected to meet but might need to. The “Het” Study Group and “Met” Study Group will meet.

-Session #80 will take place on 16-19 July 2012 in San Diego, California, USA in conjunction with the IEEE 802 Plenary Session.

-Session #81 will take place on 17-20 September 2012 in Indian Wells, CA, USA in conjunction with the IEEE 802 Wireless Interim.

-Session #82 will take place on 12-15 Nov 2012 in San Antonio, TX, USA in conjunction with the IEEE 802 Plenary Session.

-The Future Sessions list and the WirelessMAN Interactive Calendar include all session information through 2012.

The prestigious IT Market Research firm IDC believes that we are on the cusp of a “Third Platform” that will dominate the IT landscape till 2020 and beyond.  That platform consists of some mash up of: Cloud computing, mobile broadband, mobile services/devices/software platforms-OSs/apps, social networks, and big data- analytics.  Many or all of those technologies will be integrated or combined to offer new types of services to both business and personal IT end users.

IDC predicts a CAGR of 15% for Third Platform IT spending, with cumulative growth (2013-’20)  of 70.4%!  Scale, Community, and Competency will determine the Third Platfrom winners, according to IDC Chief Analyst Frank Gens.

This article focuses on the mobile network- new architectures to deal with congestion and how mobility intersects with cloud computing.

Take aways from John Byrne’s outstanding presentation (best of conference) on NextGen Mobile Architectures: Solving the Congestion Dilemma.  The IDC chart below shows global cellular revenue by RAN technology:

Key point:  Exponentially Increasing Mobile Data Traffic Is Driving Major Network Changes. 

In particular, smartphones, tablets and dongles (oh my) driving major changes in wireless network infrastructure:
• Heterogeneous network” architectures required, with the focus rapidly turning to microcells, picocells, femtocells, distributed antenna systems, “cloud RAN”
• Backhaul chokepoints must be resolved through a variety of solutions, including fiber, Wi-Fi offload and other fiber-to-the-cell deployments wherever feasible
• Operators must be able to utilize every spectrum band available, as efficiently as possible, to keep pace with demand

Continued exponential data traffic growth requires a variety of solutions.  A capacity crunch is coming or is already apparent in today’s cellular networks, e.g. AT&Ts 3G network: 

• Operator assumptions regarding network traffic growth have been significantly exceeded
• form factor for video, download and upload
• New M2M applications/form factors will develop to take advantage of high data throughput

IDC believes that network operators must take advantage of every solution available:
• Wi-Fi more closely integrated into wireless network architectures
• Multi-technology, multi-spectrum radios are the main focus in the macro-environment
• Heterogeneous Network solutions to solve urban hotzoneand in-building coverage challenges
• FDD, TDDand FDD/TDDcombinations to take advantage of all available spectrum bands

The chart below shows mobile data growing at a 10.9% CAGR- higher than any other type of information transported on carrier networks.  This is what will cause the capacity crunch and mobile network congestion. 

In the Macrocell Environment, Focus of Deployments Turning to support of Base Stations that support multiple frequencies and multiple RAN technologies (e.g. 3G, WiMAX, LTE-TDD/FDD).
 
Flexibility is the focus, allowing customized approach for each operator’s unique situation
• Ultimately multi-mode, multi-band base stations will be part of the solution for operators in most regions
• Sprint “Network Vision” project represents a good example of network modernization to adapt to the new environment –multiple technologies & frequencies using a single multimode antenna

Heterogeneous Networks represent the “Next Phase” of Wireless Network Development

Wireless telcos and network equipment vendors are focusing on “HetNets”
• AIR, Liquid, Light –regardless of vendor acronym focus is on 10x increase in # of radios to keep pace with network traffic growth
• A host of vendors (and being driven by China Mobile) spending significant R&D on “cloud RAN” and other HetNetconcepts
HetNetSolutions will vary by operator and scenario:
• Pico cell base stations
• Femto cells moving into the enterprise and outdoors
• Microcells
• Managed, carrier-grade WiFi for mobile data offload of the cellular network

As shown by the IDC chart below, wireless access network backhaul represents a major challenge to robust mobile boadband. service.  Operators and vendors will need to solve the backhaul challenge at two main chokepoints:
1. The connection between the base transceiver station (BTS) and the base station controller/mobile switching center (BSC/MSC)
2. The “metro” handoff from the BSC/MSCto the core network

M2M Represents a Great Example of the Third Platform:

• Digital Signage:
–Remote billboards/digital ads (in areas where fixed broadband is not available and/or cost prohibitive)
–Major areas of opportunity: taxis, buses, limousines, ferries and trains; targeted possibilities are enhanced further when combined with location awareness
• Personal Fitness/Healthcare Monitoring:
–Business(B) to Consumer(C): Operator could provide aggregated data to a consumer focused on fitness
–B to B to C: Operator could provide active monitoring directly to clinic or hospital and react in the event of an emergency (call ambulance, forward relevant patient data, contact doctor, etc.
–B to B to C: “Glowcaps” is such a model

“Third Platform” networks must support Trillions of Transactions, which poses challenging new requirements:

• OSS/Policy Management/Device Management:
–Automated response is key to profitable M2M
–Automated customer/service provisioning, authentication
–Device/chip/module certification
• Billing/BSS:
–Revenue sharing among thousands of partners
–Myriad of business models: per MB, per transaction, per month, etc.
• Analytics:
–Value of data gathered rests in the ability to make sense out of it
–Intelligence will rest with network operators –ability to monetize depends on developing and packaging meaningful insights
• Ecosystem:
–In order to get to trillions of transactions, service providers must do much more work to bring application developers into the ecosystem

Essential guidance from Courtney Munroe’s presentation on Mobility and the Cloud:
 
• Cloud Applications and Traffic will grow exponentially by 2015
• All Applications Providers must have a cloud Solution
• Consolidation/Partnership inevitable
• Apps will expand from basic categories to include HD Video/Business Analytics
and LBS (Location Based Services) Apps
 

Mobile OS/ browser issues:

Conclusions

It will be a very interesting few years as network infrastructures evolve to accomodate both fixed enterprise premises and mobile workforce access to a variety of cloud resident services.

We think that the network will be a gating item to cloud adoption and that privacy concerns (as well as security threats) have been underestimated.  Also think that social networks will NOT be used as much as forecast for enterprise apps due to security and privacy issues.

Here are a few other opinions, expressed by IEEE ComSocSCV Discussion Group members:

“Maybe the time is ripe for Self Organizing Networks (SON) to finally go mainstream. That could help with the management problems, if done well.

References:

Please refer to the Agenda for IDC Directions 2012 

“We operate the nation’s largest 4G network, which today covers nearly 250 million people. That means more AT&T customers can access 4G speeds on the latest tablets and smartphones than customers on any other network,” said Alexa Kaufman, an AT&T spokeswoman after the announcement of Apple’s new LTE ready iPAD.

It’s interesting that AT&T calling its HSPA/HSPA+ network “4G” contradicts their grousing/ complaining when T-Mobile started doing that a couple of years ago! Yes, it’s all about marketing hype and gimmicks, but isn’t there a credibility loss when AT&T switches its definition of 4G when it’s behind VZW in LTE roll-outs/ coverage?  And LTE isn’t even true 4G, according to the original IMT Advanced definition of ITU-R (Only LTE Advanced and WiMAX 2.0 meet that true “4G” criteria).

A recent WSJ article stated that VZW would have a huge advantage over AT&T with the new LTE ready iPAD, AT&T countered by changing its definition of 4G!!!  This after, AT&T received more complaints than any wireless operator for terrible 3G service and dropped data connections!

References:

Apple’s New iPAD a boon for VZ (video:)

http://online.wsj.com/video/apples-new-ipad-a-boon-for-verizon/CC902599-…

WSJ article with same title:  

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020337060457726590164795689…

Here is a selected cut & paste from that WSJ article:

“Verizon Wireless, a venture jointly owned byVerizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, is the country’s biggest wireless carrier by subscribers. It has invested heavily in its LTE network, which now covers more than 200 million people.AT&T, Verizon Wireless’s biggest competitor, is playing catch-up. Its LTE network covers 74 million people now.

Credit Suisse expects Verizon’s LTE network to cover 285 million people this year, with AT&T’s reaching about 170 million people. By end of 2013, Credit Suisse expects the gap to disappear with AT&T’s network covering 310 million people.  Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA plan to roll out LTE networks, but they are even further behind.”

Here, courtesy of the folks at Dell’Oro Group, is a rundown of the world’s largest LTE networks by number of people covered at the end of 2011:
Operator                Country    Millions of people covered
Verizon Wireless         USA               200
AT&T                          USA                 74
MetroPCS                   USA                 53
NTT DoCoMo             Japan               30
LG Uplus                     Korea              27
SK Telecom                 Korea              23
Deutsche Telekom        Germany        11
Rogers Wireless           Canada           10
Vodafone Germany      Germany          9
Telefonica O2               Germany          8
TeliaSonera                  Sweden            4
Net4Mobility                  Sweden            4
Korea Telecom             Korea               3

Introduction:

Darryl Brown, formerly of Telx and now with Appcore, was a speaker at the recent Cloud Connect 2012 conference in Santa Clara, CA.  His talk delineated the many challenges end users face when connecting their private WAN to a network which will deliver Private Cloud services.  He also indicated that many network operators/telcos would like to offer Cloud services to leverage their WANs, but they currently do not have the software tools to do so.  Mr. Brown provided all the information for this article.

According to Mr. Brown, “The data center is like a mall in many ways in that enterprises, carriers, service providers and hosters all benefit from having a broad spectrum of customers in the facilitates.  This creates an environment where business relationships can be formed.  Telx focuses heavily on marketing to its community members and providing portal tools for them to publish their services and search for others.”

Telx Backgrounder:   

Telx is a privately held company headquarteredin New York City with five facilities in the New York Metro Area, two facilities in Chicago, two facilities in Dallas, three facilities in California (Los Angeles, San Francisco, and two in Santa Clara) as well as facilities in Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix, and Charlotte. Their highly secure, reliable enterprise-class facilities are located in very strategic data markets in the U.S. Therefore, customers can choose from premier data centers with the fewest network hops between end to end connections.

Founded in 2000, Telx built the largest carrier-neutral, physical layer interconnection facility at 60 Hudson Street, NY. In 2004, Telx acquired  56 Marietta Street, the premier carrier hotel building in Atlanta, GA. In December 2006, Digital Realty Trust, owner and manager of technology-related real estate, and Telx entered into an agreement whereby Telx now owns and manages interconnection facilities in 10 Digital Realty Trust buildings in the United States. With this momentum, Telx acquired NYC Connect’s interconnection facilities at 111 Eighth Avenue, NYC in March of 2007. Since 2007, Telx has expanded into four additional facilities (Santa Clara, Dallas, and two in New Jersey) and expanded its footprint within its existing facilities to meet the growing demand for its services. Telx now operates a national portfolio of 17 strategically located interconnection and co-location facilities.

How do customer’s use Telx’s interconnection facilities today?  Many carriers, network service providers and hosting companies use Telx as the hub for interconnecting between different provider networks.  Many of them also collocate their equipment (switches, routers, servers, firewallsm internet gateways etc) in Telx facilities. Telx leverages a range of technologies for interconnecting customers to each other in the facilities (and the metwros they reside) from traditional physical cross connects to optical services and Carrier Ethernet.

Telx also provides enterprise customers with services, these customers typically place their gateway equipment such as routers and firewalls in telx cloud connection centers to bridge between networks and centralize internet access typiucally reducing local loop/local access costs associated with backhaul to office locations – essentially creating a WAN HUB. They also tend to leverage telx facilities to operate their own data centers by moving data intensive and mission critical services to the facilities which not only improves on operational availability, backhaul costs and performance but also security as Telx data centers provides physical security in the form of biometrics as well as guards, locking cages and cabinets.Telx also provides enterprise customers with services, these customers typically place their gateway equipment such as routers and firewalls in telx cloud connection centers to bridge between networks and centralize internet access typiucally reducing local loop/local access costs associated with backhaul to office locations – essentially creating a WAN HUB. They also tend to leverage telx facilities to operate their own data centers by moving data intensive and mission critical services to the facilities which not only improves on operational availability, backhaul costs and performance but also security as Telx data centers provides physical security in the form of biometrics as well as guards, locking cages and cabinets.

Appcore Backgrounder:

Appcore delivers Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)  technology to telcos, data centers, fiber rings, and enterprises to enable Public (service provider) and Private (enterprise) Cloud environments. Their flagship product, Appcore Onsite™, is a certified, integrated stack of hardware and software systems designed to be data center roll in ready, accelerating the deployment of Cloud environments. 

Telx Partnership with Appcore:

This partnership permits Telx to offer a packaged hardware and software solution which enables network providers to sell private cloud services.  Appcore enables Telx customers to accelerate time to market for their cloud solutions by delivering an integrated end-end cloud business to service providers, msps and Telcos. The system includes everything needed to start their own cloud business or augment their current hosting services.

“The partnership between Appcore and Telx is an important strategic alliance for enterprise and service providers wanting to deliver the benefits of private cloud to their customers. Telx is a world-class data center operator ideal for the Appcore Onsite Private Cloud solution. Through this alliance, we are able to bring a customer’s branded, private, dedicated cloud service online in 30 days or less with gold global support, enabling them to reap the rewards of cloud computing without the headaches of building it themselves,” said Brian Donaghy, Appcore CEO.

“Telx is proud to add Appcore as a strategic partner to our rapidly expanding Cloud Xchange community of value-added cloud service providers. With Appcore’s Onsite Private Cloud solution, customers can accelerate turnkey cloud deployments, achieve rapid time to value and leverage our purpose-built community that delivers the on-demand services, highly available networking and security solutions they require,” said Eric Shepcaro, CEO of Telx. “Our C3 Cloud Connection Centers offer the proximity, low latency and flexibility required to optimize Appcore’s innovative mix of private hosted cloud services, securely and cost-effectively.”

For details please see:

http://www.telx.com/Press-Releases/telx-and-appcore-team-up-for-private-hosted-cloud-services.html

Analysis:  By partnering with Appcore, Telx can now address the needs of customers who are looking to deploy Infrastructure as a service offerings themselves but do not know where to start. Appcore provides not just hardware and software but the complete business solution complete with packaging, processes, training, branding and education to help Telx customers get their ‘cloud product offerings’ up and running in 30 days – generating revenue in 45. Appcore also has a continually growing applciations store that enables customers to pull-down application images, price them and publish them within their own branded cloud offering running on their Appcore Onsite cloud machines.

Appcore provides installation, remote management, break-fix and support 24×7 for Telx customers leveraging the Appcore® OnSite product backed by SLAs. Telx provides the space, connectivity, power and associated SLAs around availability, connectivity and provision to back theTelx offerings.

How Network Service Providers can Quickly offer Cloud Services to their Business Customers:

An example of a Telx customer who can benefit from the Telx-Appcore combined cloud solution is a Network Services Provider (NSP) that focuses on small to medium enterprises (SMBs) and wishes to add cloud services to its portfolio of services. Appcore would deploy Appcore Onsite into the chosen Telx facilities.  That system would be connected to the Internet and the NSPs backbone. Appcore would then brand, integrate and train the customer subject matter experts on the system, educate their sales teams and help them price their offerings as well as create supporting collateral for their website etc..

“Typically this complete process takes 45 days or less  end-end (before the customer launches their new product) from the point of signing a purchase order,” said Darryl Brown.

How Enterprise Customers Can Benefit from the Appcore Cloud Offering:

Appcore’s cloud software is not just used by Service providers it is also used by enterprise customers who want to leverage cloud technologies to automate their own internal business process, develop cloud applications or just improve efficiencies. Any enterprise customer currently operating their own servers, or renting dedicated hosted servers connected to private networks could migrate to a cloud platform.

This may provide the following benefits to Cloud customers:

-Centralize services in 2 or 3 Telx data centers

-Reduce backhaul costs (move network bridges and gateways ‘to the cloud’)

-Reduce IT overhead through automation inherent in cloud technologies

-Improve performance (reduce latency), leverage QoS by directly placing the cloud platform in the WAN and tagging traffic

-Optimize physical resource consumption (an appcore cloud machine can operate at 70% utilization and maintain high availability, typical servers rarely operate at more than 8-20% efficiency and most people need 2 or 3 servers  (per application to maintain redundancy).

-Leverage a single platform to run multiple servers/services

-Reduce costs by migrating from traditional hosting services to dedicated hosted private clouds 

Reducing Complexity and Reducing Time to get Private Cloud Services Up and Running:

Telx is working hard to educate the enterprise IT environments on the benefits of purchasing an integrated dedicated hosted Private Cloud solution over traditional hosting or using their own data center servers.   What many people do not understand is that a cloud environment (such as the one provided by Appcore) includes firewalls, routers, servers, storage and all the software that an IT department would typically need.  That’s a lot of hardware, software and real estate!

However, it is very complicated to find the optimal configuration and resources capable of building a complete solution and integrating all those components then testing them for resillience.  Typically it takes around 9 months to build a stable cloud environment from current opensourcetechnologies, it takes additional time to create the product offerings and complete business solution. Telx and Appcore have packaged together a complete solution that can deliver cloud business solutions to Enterprise customers and Network Service  Providers in 30 days or less!

According to Joe Weinman, Senior Vice President, Cloud Services and Strategy at Telx, “Telx is at the center of a significant ecosystem of network providers, cloud providers, enterprises, and their customers, offering a premier footprint for growing new revenues while optimizing performance and user experience.”

References: 

Cloud Connect 2012: WAN issues still unresolved, but Telcos get serious about Cloud!

http://viodi.com/2012/02/20/cloud-connect-2012-wan-issues-still-unresolved-but-telcos-get-serious-about-cloud/

Does Anyone Really Care about lack of Cloud Computing Standards? Who’s doing what?

https://techblog.comsoc.org/2012/02/24/does-anyone-really-care-about-lack-of-cloud-computing-standards-whos-doing-what

Telx Partners with Appcore to Provide Hosted Cloud Services

http://next-gen-network-solutions.tmcnet.com/topics/next-gen-network-solutions/articles/263862-gcs-partner-news-telx-partners-with-appcore-provide.htm

Disclaimer:

The author has no business relationship with either Telx or Appcore. All the information in the article was provided by Darryl Brown-formerly with Telx, but now with Appcore.

Carrier Ethernet Market Status and Forecast:

On February 23rd, Infonetics Research co-founder Michael Howard led off the Ethernet Technology Summit – Market Research session with his Carrier Ethernet market assessment and forecast. Here are the highlights:

-Carrier Ethernet Equipment market is booming with $37.5B worlwide revenues forecasted for 2015.  The cumulative 2005 to 2010 CE market was $101B.

-Ethernet dominates worldwide mobile backhaul carrier spending with $6.4B or 91% of the 2011 mobile backhaul equipment market (that’s Ethernet over copper, microwave or fiber between the cell tower and the long haul carrier/ISP point of presence, and on to the controller site and/or mobile switching center.  In 2012, Ethernet based mobile backhaul accounts for 40% of physical connections of all types of mobile/cellular backhaul (e.g., TDM, IP, etc) in the world. It’s projected to be 95% of the mobile backhaul connections market by 2015.

-Network Operator Carrier Ethernet services (Ethernet Private Line, Virtual Private Line, Virtual Private LAN, Ethernet as access for IP VPNs) will be a $49B worldwide market in 2015. [this includes both retail and wholesale].  The cumulative 2010-2015 Carrier Ethernet market (total sales) is expected to be $93B.

-Big growth is foreseen for CE: Routers, Switches and optical networking/transport (Ethernet over DWDM) equipment.  Ethernet over microwave growth is accelerating.