New Urgency to Move to IPv6 as Last Block of IPv4 Addresses are Allocated
With the allocation of the last block of IPv4 addresses by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) , the move to IPv6 has become much more urgent. On January 31st, IANA assigned two large blocks of IPv4 addresses to the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre, activating a rule under which the agency will give out the last of its IPv4 addresses. The rule states that when only five large blocks of IP addresses remain, one will be handed out to each of the world’s five regional Internet registries.
With the latest allocation to APNIC, the number of remaining IP address blocks is down to five. IANA is expected to assign the remaining blocks within a matter of days. After that, the regional bodies will have no higher source of addresses to turn to when they have assigned the addresses they hold. An IANA official said last week that he believes ISPs are accelerating their requests for addresses as the supply nears its end.
IPv4’s 32 bit address space allows for only about 4.3 billion unique Internet addresses, which client and web servers use to connect over the Internet by routing data to the correct destination. The remaining IPv4 addresses have been dwindling over the past few years. While the last block of IPv4 addresses have been allocated to regional registries, they do still have some to distribute. And there are millions of unused IPv4 addresses. But those unused IPv4 addresses will likely be allocated very soon.
IPv4 address exhaustion will likely impact Asia first. With 24 million IP addresses used by APNIC in January 2011, and only around 50 million addresses left in its pool, exhaustion is expected to occur in the next few months. Europe will be next (probably towards the end of 2011), and North America will follow (in 2012).
Hence, it’s now more important than ever for ISPs to transition from IPv4 to IPv6 addresses. IPv6 has a 128-bit address space, which could be used to assign an almost unlimited number of addresses. To help make the IPv6 migration easier, many major technology companies – including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo – will be participating in World IPv6 Day later this year, a test to make sure their systems are ready to make the switch.
Many pundits say that making the switch won’t be easy for ISPs. Even though IPv6 was standardized more than a decade ago, there has been no real incentive to upgrade networks’ addressing compatibility. But with the proliferation of mobile devices, M2M communication endpoints, and other “connected” gadgets, there is a real need now for more IP addresses. Dave Thaler, software architect at Microsoft and Internet Engineer Task Force (IETF) co-chair, said, “The IETF has actually been preparing for this day for a long time. … [W]e’ve developed transition technologies to ease the transition to IPv6, while also looking at the impact of carrier-grade NATs [network address translations]. In short, the depletion of the IANA IPv4 address pool is not a crisis, and will not have any notable short-term effects.”
For an in depth presentation and panel session on this important topic, please attend the February 15, 2011 ComSocSCV meeting in Santa Clara, CA: The meeting is free, but we do request a small donation for food and drinks served from 6pm- 6:30pm.
IPv6 Migration, Business Continuity, Implementation Gaps
Cisco Visual Networking Index Update: Continued exponential growth forecast for mobile data and video!
Global mobile data traffic will grow 26 times between 2010 and 2015, to 6.3 exabytes–a billion gigabytes–per month, according to the latest update report from Cisco’s Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast. Additionally, fully two-thirds of all mobile data traffic will be video by 2015, the report predicted. The figures again underscore the challenges operators face as they try to manage the tidal wave of mobile data that may saturated their wireless networks. According to the report, mobile data traffic grew 159 percent in 2010, roughly 3.3 times faster than fixed Internet traffic. That was higher than the 149 percent growth rate Cisco had predicted.
This annual forecast is seen as a key benchmark for measuring and predicting data traffic., Doug Webster, Cisco’s senior director of worldwide service provider marketing, said four main factors will drive mobile data traffic in 2015. First, there will simply be more mobile devices; Cisco predicts that by 2015 there will be 5.6 billion mobile devices and 1.5 billion separate machine-to-machine nodes–roughly one mobile connection for every person in the world. Additionally, he said, devices will have better computing capabilities and the ability to access high-bandwidth content; average bandwidth speeds are expected to increase 10-fold by 2015; and more people will consume rich content like video. “The lines between fixed and mobile will converge, and the trends we’re seeing on the fixed will be seen on mobile,” Webster told FierceWireless.
Thomas Barnett, the senior manager for service provider marketing at Cisco, said carriers are investing billions of dollars in research and development to try to get ahead of the traffic. Barnett said carriers likely will rely on tiered pricing models and femtocells as methods to slow data use and offload it from the wireless network.
AT&T Mobility became the first U.S. carrier to move to usage-based pricing last year, and Verizon Wireless has indicated it may follow in the not-too-distant future. “This is business for the providers,” Webster said. “They want to have more subscribers. They’re not trying to minimize the amount of traffic, but they want to make sure they are compensated appropriately for the cost of delivering it.”
But tiered pricing and metered data transfers won’t be enough to prevent wireless network saturation. The WSJ reported this week that AT&T and other carriers are looking to offload mobile data traffic to “city wide” WiFi hotspots in the not too distant future. This past May, AT&T launched a so-called “Wi-Fi hotzone” —an industry term for a large, outdoor Wi-Fi hotspot—in New York City’s Times Square, in order to test the technology as a supplement to its cellular coverage.
In subsequent months, AT&T, which uses gear from BelAir and others, added hotzones in downtown Charlotte, N.C., and the neighborhood surrounding Chicago’s Wrigley Field. In December, the carrier said it would add more Wi-Fi networks in New York City—including a hotzone launched last week in Rockefeller Center—as well as in San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704124504576118353354099780.html#ixzz1D1sdd1Gk
Meanwhile, Ruckus Wireless, a pioneer in the development of smart WiFi for enterprise and service provider markets, has announced that Chongqing Telecom will be launching a new innovative service, Tianyi Broadband, with the support of Ruckus’ smart WiFi. Chongqing Telecom, a division of China Telecom, aims at a large-scale, citywide deployment of WiFi hotspots with Tianyi Broadband.
Comment: What we find surprising, is that Cisco is only benefiting indirectly from the surge in mobile data/ video traffic. You won’t find Cisco gear in any cell tower. Having shut down their WiMAX RAN operations last year, the company has no presence in mobile broadband = either in wireless access or backhaul. Today, Cisco’s participation in mobile data networks seems to be limited to selling Ethernet switches, IP routers and IP NGN back end network management systems/OSS’s (mostly to developing country network operators).
The company does sell some wireless gear- enterprise WiFi solutions for campuses as well as home WiFi routers. But those markets have nothing to do with the cellular networks that carry mobile data or video traffic. For several years, we’ve wondered if the Cisco has any intentions to participate in the Radio side of mobile data networks.
Other References: articles by this author on network operators ability to cope with the mobile data traffic explosion
http://viodi.com/2010/08/01/conundrum-continues-mobile-video-drives-mobile-traffic-but-for-how-long/
http://www.wimax360.com/profiles/blogs/how-will-wireless-network
IEEE 1901 Broadband over Powerline (BoPL) final standard published by IEEE
The IEEE 1901,standardi was finalized in December 2010 and published this week. It is of keen interest to manufacturers and service providers rolling out home networking services such as smart energy, transportation and Local Area Networks (LANs). The BoPL standard can be purchased at the IEEE’s website (www.ieee.org) or accessed from the IEEE Xplore Digital Library by IEEE Xplore subscribers.
IEEE 1901 compliant networking products will deliver 500 Mbps data rates in LAN applications, according to the IEEE. In a last mile network it will be able to run over distances of up to 1500 meters. That latter distance would support last mile transmission to and from Fiber to the Node or to the Neighborhood (with GPON likely used as the fiber point to multipoint transmission system)
The new IEEE 1901,standard leverages two different PHY layers: one based on OFDM modulation and another based on Wavelet modulation (as developed by HomePlug Powerline Alliance to transmit data over standard AC power lines of any voltage at transmission frequencies of less than 100 MHz). One or both of these PHY layers can be included in standard compliant BoPL implementations.
Home Network Applications: A service provider rolling out home networking services to consumers could use the BPL technology to complement wireless LAN coverage to overcome wireless LAN distance limitations and obstructions in a home or even to complement a hotel chain’s network WiFi coverage. However, in that application BoPL will compete with MOCA- the cable based home networking distribution system In the future, it will be one of the modes of ITU G.hn the all encompasing home networking standard that has yet to be deployed.
Vehicular Applications: Using the data rates and range prescribed within the IEEE 1901 standard, leading edge developers can deliver audio visual entertainment to the seats of airplanes, trains and other mass transit vehicles, and enable electric vehicles to download a new entertainment playlist to the A/V system while the car is charging overnight.
Other Applications: Multimedia data will be carried over longer distances in hotels and other multistory buildings to complement wireless networks. For many years it was thought that would be the “killer app” for VDSL, but it still hasn’t happened yet. Instead, it seems like hotels, multi-tenant buildings, and high rise office buildings may be able to use BoPL for high speed communication
This new IEEE 1901 standard has the potential to also help utilities, service providers, consumer electronics companies, smart-meter providers and home appliance manufacturers.
Light Reading’s Opinion:
Light Reading’s Cable Site Editor, Jeff Baumgartner, believes that this standard will be in competition with ITU G.hn. He states, “IEEE P1905.1, is being dressed up as a potential G.hn competitor because it would create an abstraction layer to manage those home networks that use a blend of physical layers. Because that IEEE work doesn’t necessarily involve new chips that might, for example, integrate Wi-Fi, HomePlug and MoCA on the same piece of silicon (though we’d never put it past Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM) to tackle such an effort), G.hn backers view 1905 as complementary to what they’re doing. (See IEEE to Blend MoCA, Powerline & Wi-Fi .)
Ensuring that this coming abstraction layer works on top of G.hn was the “number-one topic” discussed at the 1905 kickoff meeting in December, claims Chano Gomez, the co-chair of the HomeGrid Forum committee (the marketing group behind G.hn) and the business development director for Lantiq Deutschland GmbH . Lantiq makes Wi-Fi and G.hn chips, so it’s got an incentive to draft off any initiative that looks to ease the management of heterogeneous home networks.
He adds that “literally half the group was pushing for this idea,” including people representing the interests of Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), Sigma Designs Inc. (Nasdaq: SIGM) and Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (Nasdaq: MRVL) (which all happen to be in the G.hn camp). He also acknowledges that, unsurprisingly, the concept met with resistance from folks that aren’t developing G.hn products
Gomez says G.hn, a standard under the auspices of the International Telecommunication Union, Standardization Sector (ITU-T) , is solving a different problem from IEEE’s 1905 project, so they should be viewed as harmonic helpers.
While G.hn uses a unified MAC and PHY to support coax, phoneline and powerline on the same chipset, 1905 looks to help manage myriad physical layers. In those instances, it may be managing a mix of home network devices that use Wi-Fi, Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) and Ethernet.
The IEEE standard will also look to create a meshing fabric that aggregates wireless and wired streams on the home network, and can switch automatically to another type of connection when one type starts to degrade in performance.
IEEE was not immediately available to discuss whether it’s already considering adding G.hn in 1905 at this stage of the project. But it’s early. Having a “stable draft” emerge within a year would be “an ambitious target,” 1905 Project Chair Paul Houze told Light Reading Cable last month. The 1905 working group has four meetings scheduled for this year, the next set for April 5 through 7 in Vienna.
Information posted by the working group expressly references technologies such as IEEE 1901 (Broadband over Power Line), 802.11, Ethernet and MoCA 1.1, with the caveat that the standard will be “extendable to work with other home networking technologies.”
That would suggest the window is open not just to G.hn but to technologies such as Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA) .”
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=203961&site=lr_cable&f_src=lightreading_gnews
Other References:
Here’s the press release announcing the new IEEE 1901 standard:
Final IEEE 1901TM Broadband over Power Line Standard Now Published
For more information see:
IEEE P1901 Standards Group web page
http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1901/
IEEE sets foundation for global powerline network standard, by FierceTelecom
ITU-T FG Cloud concludes fourth meeting: Nanjing, China, 10-13 January 2011
Introduction:
The fourth ITU-T Focus Group on Cloud Computing (FG Cloud) meeting took place in Nanjing, China, from 10 to 13 January, 2011 with 50 contributions presented by representatives of ITU-T member companies. Access to FG Cloud documentation is restricted to TIES users, or GUEST users (http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/edh/faqs-guest.html) having registered to FG cloud mailing list. Excellent progress was made resulting in 6 technical output documents and an ITU-T TSAG report covering the activities of the two Working Groups of the FG Cloud:
WG1: Cloud computing benefits & requirements
WA 1-1 Cloud Definition, Ecosystem & Taxonomy
WA 1-2 Uses cases Requirements & Architecture
WA 1-3 Cloud security
WA 1-4 Infrastructure & Network enabled Cloud
WA 1-5 Cloud Services & Resource Management, Platforms and Middleware
WA 1-6 Cloud computing benefits & first Requirements from ICT perspectives
WG2: Gap Analysis and Roadmap on Cloud Computing Standards development in ITU-T
WA 2-1 Overview of cloud computing SDOs activities
WA 2-2 Gap analysis & Action plan for development of relevant ITU-T Cloud Standard
Backgrounder:
The Focus Group on Cloud Computing (FG Cloud) was established further to ITU-T TSAG agreement at its meeting in Geneva, 8-11 February 2010 followed by ITU-T study groups and membership consultation. The Focus Group will, from the standardization view points and within the competences of ITU-T, contribute with the telecommunication aspects, i.e., the transport via telecommunications networks, security aspects of telecommunications, service requirements, etc., in order to support services/applications of “cloud computing” making use of telecommunication networks; specifically:
-Identify potential impacts on standards development and priorities for standards needed to promote and facilitate telecommunication/ICT support for cloud computing
-Investigate the need for future study items for fixed and mobile networks in the scope of ITU-T-analyze which components would benefit most from interoperability and standardization
-Familiarize ITU-T and standardization communities with emerging attributes and challenges of telecommunication/ICT support for cloud computing
-Analyze the rate of change for cloud computing attributes, functions and features for the purpose of assessing the appropriate timing of standardization of telecommunication/ICT in support of cloud computing
The Focus Group Cloud will collaborate with worldwide cloud computing communities (e.g., research institutes, forums, and academia) including other SDOs and consortia. The chairman, Mr. Victor Kutukov (Russia) and the five Vice-chairmen, Jamil Chawki (France Telecom Orange, France), Kangchan Lee (ETRI, Korea), Mingdong Li (ZTE, China), Monique Morrow (Cisco Systems, USA), Koji Nakao (KDDI, Japan) were appointed as the FG Cloud leadership.
Nanjing Meeting Results:
The outputs of this meeting are described in the following documents (again, only accessible to TIES users with user id/password):
1. Introduction to the cloud ecosystem: definitions, taxonomies, use cases, high level requirements and capabilities.
2. Functional requirements and reference architecture
3. nfrastructure and network enabled cloud
4. Cloud security, threat & requirements
5. Benefits of cloud computing from telecom/ICT perspectives
6. Overview of SDOs involved in cloud computing
As a result of contributions and discussions, the following topics were extracted as a first proposal for cloud candidate study items for ITU-T:
1) Cloud Ecosystem: telecommunication-centric use cases, high level requirements, business deployment scenarios
2) Security, audit & cloud privacy
3) Cloud functional Architecture
4) Cloud Networking : Elastic Transport network resources and connectivity
5) Inter-Cloud including cloud federation and brokering
6) Accessibility and Eco-friendly Cloud Computing (environmental benefits)
7) Management and SLAs
In addition to these study items the ITU-T FG Cloud will deliver a general output document for Cloud Definition, Terminology, Ecosystem, use cases and general requirements.
For further information, please visit: http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/focusgroups/cloud/Pages/default.aspx
Telcordia Is Up for Sale- who will bid for the company?
A History Lesson
As part of the divestiture of the Bell System in 1983, many AT&T Bells Labs engineers were transfered to a new company that was to be the research labs for the seven spun-off RBOCs. Named Bell Communications Research- or Bellcore for short- the organization was formed January 1,1984. Over the next several years, Bellcore was very effective in helping their parent companies evaluate, standardize and arcitect new telecommunications technologies, e.g. ISDN, SMDS, Frame Relay, Software Defined Network, Intelligent Network, etc. Bellcore’s standards for TL1 – the language of telco network management, and SONET (Synchronous Optical Network Transport) were implemented by every equipment company in those market segments.
But as the RBOCs put less of an emphasis on research and developement there was less need for Bellcore. So the company was sold to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in 1995. What SAIC was getting, according to Bellcore’s CEO at the time, was a $650 million-a-year software business and a $350 million-a-year professional services business. The approval process for the deal was arduous, passing muster with seven owners and nine state regulatory agencies, so that the sale was not completed until November 1997.
When SAIC acquired Telcordia, it was a government contractor, primarily involved in defense, that was generating more than $2.1 billion in annual revenues. Telcordia’s expertise in telecommunications presented SAIC with new areas for growth in the private sector. The company was renamed Telcordia in 1999 to break any claims to its former owners.
According to Wikipedia, “Telcordia has pioneered many of the telecommunications services used today, including Caller ID, Call Waiting, Mobile number portability and Toll-free telephone number (800) service. Telcordia’s expertise lies in managing large, complex projects across the operations and communications spectrum.”
In 2000, Telcordia was still involved with generic requirements and U.S. standards for SONET (as well as the emerging Optical Transport Network or OTN), but they started to focus more on progressing the back end network management software -often referred to as Operations Support Systems (OSSs) and Billing Support Systems (BSSs) – that they had developed for the RBOCs. The objective was to sell OSS and BSSs to telcos all over the world.
For reasons never publicly disclosed, SAI sold Tecordia to Providence Equity Partners and Warburg Pincus in November 2004 for for $1.35 billion. Those two privaty equity firms hold equal stakes in the company.
According to the January 14. 2011 Wall Street Journal, those firms have now put Telcordia up for sale again.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703959104576082252304953250.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Fast Forward to the Present: Is Telcordia worth $1.5B asking price?
Susana Schwartz of Connected Planet on-line wrote:
“On the one hand, Telcordia remains a very powerful player in service assurance and fulfillment, thanks to its relationships with AT&T, Qwest, Verizon and Level 3–all of which provide it with steady, predictable revenues (to the tune of about US$300 million/year).
And it has been expanding into new territory –literal and figurative. For one, Telcordia has definitely tried to shift focus to emerging markets like Latin America and India (about 20%of it business is now international). And, it has reached into some new sectors like government and automotive. Surely someone might find value in the fact Telecordia has amassed an enormous amount of intellectual property and expertise in the area of legacy circuit-switched networks.”
The previously referemced WSJ article says that Telcordia “has a line of next-generation products centered on Internet-protocol-based communications that is expected to bring the lion’s share of revenue in coming years.” Yet it remains to be seen if that offering will be competitive with IP based management systems being developed by Cisco Systems.
It will be quite interesting to see which companies bid for Telcordia. It could be to its back end network management competitors (like Oracle, Amdocs, HP, IBM), a company trying to get into that marketplace, or another private-equity firm. The referenced WSJ article notes “Carlyle Group bought Syniverse Holdings Inc. another provider of mobile network technology, for $2.6 billion—a multiple of about 11 times Ebitda, a standard measure used to calculate deal value. Carlyle also bought Commscope, a maker of fiber-optic cables, for $3.9 billion.” Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703959104576082252304953250.html#ixzz1Bod7G4Mz
So it seems to us that Telcordia should fetch at least the $1.5B asking price, but we are not aware of any bids at this time. The key question is whether they can compete in IP (Internet Protocol- not Intellectual Property) back end network management systems with the many new players, e.g. Cisco, in that marketplace.
WiMAX in India Remains a Puzzle- will it be usurped by TD-LTE?
We’ve written about the huge potential for WiMAX in India for many years, but we still don’t see any broad committment by Indian mobile operators to the technology. Last year, the Indian government raised over Rs 38,300 crore through the auction of Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum which was expected to be used to deploy mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e-2005). However, none of the network operators in India has yet made a formal announcement on their plans for offering BWA services or the chosen technology.
Reliance Infotel (the only company with a pan-India license) is doing trials using TD-LTE technology. So it was anticipated that other operators might also opt for the same technology, but none have announced their intentions to date.
The WiMAX Forum has said they are “not threatened” by TD-LTE, as the market is big enough for both technologies to co-exist. WiMAX Forum Director of Marketing Declan Byrne recently stated, “We are not threatened by the (TD-LTE) technology. We are actually delivering mobile broadband, while TD-LTE is still under trial. My request to the TD-LTE camp is — this is a big market, let us cooperate to serve it well. We are hearing a very positive response. Operators are testing equipments (in India) and we remain positive on the market here.”
Yet it remains to be seen whether the companies would deploy TD-LTE, WiMAX or a hybrid-type network (supporting WiMAX in the initial stage with a migration path to TD-LTE).
Closing Comment: Despite the steady growth in India’s mobile subscriber base to over 700 mn, broadband segment remains an area of concern. Although broadband uptake has increased in couple of years yet the penetration level is just 0.74%, lowest in the world. With an increasing focus on wireless broadband it is more likely to present a huge opportunity for all stakeholders in the value chain-operators, Internet service providers, equipment, manufacturers and value added service providers. This is why India has so much untapped potential for mobile and fixed wireless access!
Addendum
January 2011 WiMAX Forum Industry report:
http://www.wimaxforum.org/resources/monthly-industry-report
Here is a map of Global WiMAX deployments (somewhat difficult to decipher, IMHO). WiMAX Forum cautions the reader:
“Please note that the numbers below do not necessarily represent total WiMAX networks in existence, but rather the total deployments that we currently track.”
IEEE 802.16m (WiMAX 2.0) Standard to be completed in March; will anyone attend the coming out party?
Report from the Taipei WiMAX Summit
ITU-R had blessed IEEE 802.16m earlier this year, as the first true 4G RAN technology (along with LTE Advanced). That standard is to be finalized and approved in March of this year. The 2011 Taipei WiMAX Summit, held by Taiwan`s Ministry of Economic Affair officials on Jan. 10 at Grand Hotel in conjunction with week-long IEEE 802.16 meeting and WiMAX Forum Global Operator Summit, have drawn over 100 global WiMAX operators to the island. That’s quite positive for the local Taiwanese WiMAX equipment makers. Let’s hope they’re not disappointed!
IEEE 802.16’s Session #71 was held on 10-13 January 2011 in Taipei. This Interim Session of the Working Group was sponsored by ITRI and MediaTek, with Global Mobile providing WiMAX-based network services. The 802.16m editors will prepare a final draft standard – P802.16m/D11- which the 802.16 WG will vote on as a confirmation recirculation ballot for final standard approval.The IEEE 802.16 Session #71 Report summarizes the outcomes: <http://ieee802.org/16/meetings/mtg71/report.html>.
The next IEEE 802.16 meeting (Session #72) will take place on 14-17 March 2011 in Singapore: Here’s the meeting announcement:
http://ieee802.org/16/meetings/mtg72
Other References:
http://viodi.com/2010/10/20/itu-r-progresses-lte-advanced-and-wimax-2-0-as-4g-ran-standards/
http://news.cens.com/cens/html/en/news/news_inner_35072.html
Here’s an upbeat article on WiMAX 2.0 from Taipei:
“The next generation of the WiMAX standard will be commercialized this year, industry officials promised as they gathered in Taiwan for technology meetings last week. WiMAX2, based on the 802.16m standard, will be backwards compatible with the current Mobile WiMAX platform, but with faster data rates, and enhanced security and power efficiency. It will also support wide 20MHz channels.
The Taipei meetings were a prelude to the finalization of the IEEE’s 16m standard in March, which would set the scene for products to appear at the end of this year. The certification and interoperability testing processes, which were lengthy for the current 16e platform, should be far quicker this time, because it is an extension of an existing standard, and because many lessons have been learned about how OFDMA-based devices behave.
[]Once 16m is approved this quarter, manufacturers will be able to pre-install the technology and begin the testing programs. Rakesh Taori, vice chair of the 802.16 working group, told IDG that key enhancements will be better battery life for devices; privacy protection for users and their locations; and the doubling of bandwidth, which will enable data rates that will leapfrog those of LTE and get closer to the goal of ‘true 4G’, at 100Mbps while mobile.
Taiwan’s state-run Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is working closely with 10 local manufacturers to kickstart the uptake of WiMAX2. Taiwan has been a critical player in the WiMAX market, placing the weight of its vast manufacturing community behind the technology and aiming to create a national mobile broadband network based on 16e. This is a technology that Taiwan feels it can influence in IPR terms too, unlike 3GPP standards. An ITRI engineer, Song Ting-chen, said in an interview: “That way we’ll be able to exercise our competitiveness in terms of patents or our manufacturing. Some of our contributions have already been accepted by the international community.”
http://wimaxtaipei.tw/news_headline_detail.php?id=2273
http://www.rethink-wireless.com/2011/01/11/wimax2-commercialized-year.htm
Our Opinion:
We continue to believe that IEEE 802.16m will be a “paper tiger” standard and while the technology specs are impressive, any implementations will be DOA. In particular, we wonder if any large network operator will deploy WiMAX 2.0? Doesn’t look like it will be Sprint or Clearwire, who are testing LTE instead. If it’s just UQ Communications in Japan and a few small Taiwanese carriers, that’s hardly enough to establish volumes of scale (critical mass) that are needed to drive the manufacturing costs down.
Moreover, there don’t seem to be any prototype chips or emulators available for testing WiMAX 2.0 this Spring. And we just heard that WiMAX super cheerleader Intel has closed it’s WiMAX Program Office. So where does that leave WiMAX 2.0 implementations?
Most people don’t want to admit it, but IEEE 802 has consistently failed in producing standards for commercially viable MAN/WAN technologies. The list of failures includes IEEE 802.6 DQDB, 802.3ah Ethernet First Mile (EFM), 802.17 Resilient Packet Rings, 802.20 Mobile Broadband Wireless Access, and 802.22 Cognitive Radio based Regional Area Networks. We think 802.16e-2005 WiMAX 1.0 can succeed as a wireless DSL replacement in developing countries and in rural areas of developed countries. But it can’t compete with 3G+/LTE which makes it exremely difficult to justify infrastructure for WiMAX 2.0.
Would welcome any challenges to these opinions in the comment box below.
A Two- Tiered Internet is Upon Us!
And why not? We already pay for premium Internet content, e..g Netflix and other video streaming, WSJ and other on line newspapers/magazines, telco TV, mlb.com, nba.com, nhl.com, etc. It appears that BT Wholesale and Metro PCs in the U.S. will be introducing two tiered networks where customers will pay more for a higher quality of service.
1. BT Wholesale”s new service, called Content Connect, will be sold to their UK broadband network provider customers. It aims to give those network providers tthe opportunity to charge content owners for high quality distribution of their video products to consumers. Sally Davis, head of BT Wholesale, said that by using BT’s new network,broadband providers should be able to reduce their costs partly by cutting spending on “backhaul” connections between telephone exchanges and their core infrastructure.
Ms Davis said broadband providers using BT’s network may be able to give their customers the option to make an on-demand payment for watching a live event such as football. The payment would be in addition to charges associated with watching premium content like live football games.
Content Connect Key Benefits (according to BT)
-End Users benefit from the new Content Connect product:
•TV video entertainment will be delivered to the home through a broadband line with the option of an enhanced experience including HD internet video on TV.
-ISPs benefit from the new Content Connect product:
•Brings ISPs into the content value chain and allows them to earn revenue from delivering internet video from CSPs .
CSPs benefit from the new Content Connect product:
•CSPs can have their content delivered at a higher quality of service.
http://www.btwholesale.com/pages/static/Products/Broadband/Wholesale_Content_Connect.html
As one might expect, BT has been sharply criticized for offering Content Connect by advocates of Internet freedom. They perceive the new BT offering as one of the first steps on the road to a two-tier internet, meaning content providers unwilling or unable to pay extra will be hampered by a slower service.
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said the issue comes down to ISPs competing with the internet for content delivery. “The result could be a fundamental shift away from buying services from the internet to bundled services from ISPs: which would reduce competition and take investment away from internet companies.”
BT defended its decision by saying it should be allowed the freedom to make commercial deals with content providers, such as 4OD and YouTube, to ensure faster delivery. “We are an enabler – we are not dictating anything,” said the company. “It will be up to broadcasters, ISPs and content owners to work together to decide on the charging model for a service.”
Proponents of net neutrality argue that fair access to content for all providers is one of the founding principles of the internet, and founding father of the web Tim Berners-Lee is well-known as an outspoken supporter of it.
2. Meanwhile, MetroPCS’s “4G LTE” mobile broadband plans, are charging subscribers for content delivery at different rates. Before selecting a wireless plan with MetroPCS, subscribers have to decide how much content you want access to. Here’s the breakdown of the three plans MetroPCs is offering:
•The $40 service plan offers unlimited talk, text, 4G Web browsing with unlimited YouTube access. For $40 per month you can watch as many YouTube videos as you like and browse the web freely. But if you try and watch a video through a service other than YouTube it will not play because your plan does not cover it.
•The $50 service plan includes the same unlimited talk, text, 4G Web services and unlimited YouTube access as the $40 plan. Additional features include international and premium text messaging, turn-by-turn navigation with MetroNAVIGATOR™, ScreenIT, mobile instant messaging, corporate e-mail and 1 GB of additional data access, with premium features available through MetroSTUDIO™ when connected via Wi-Fi, including audio capabilities to listen and download music and access to preview and trial video content.
•The $60 service plan provides the same premium features as the $50 plan, plus unlimited data access and MetroSTUDIO premium content such as 18 video-on-demand channels and audio downloads. Ultimately MetroPCS is only offering a complete Internet experience for $60.
The new plans will initially be offered in Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Sacramento and San Francisco. Atlanta, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando and Tampa will come online at some point this year.
For more details: MetroPCS’ New 4G LTE Plans Offer Unprecedented Value and Choice with Prices Starting at Just $40
http://www.metropcs.com/presscenter/newsreleasedetails.aspx?id=1
Also, this article: MetroPCS LTE Plans to Charge More for VoIP & Streaming
3. What side are you on in this network neutrality vs two tiered Internet paradigm shift? Please comment in the box below!
Informa: Smartphones generate 65 per cent of all mobile traffic – congestion remedies urgently needed!
Smart Phones Produce Bulk of Mobile Traffic:
According to Informa’s Telecom and Media research unit, smartphone use accounts for 65 per cent of all mobile cellular traffic worldwide. This, despite smartphone penetration running at just 13 per cent, The firm predicts smarphone network usage is set to increase exponentially over the next five years’ Informa found the average traffic per smartphone user increasing by 700 per cent by 2015.
Smartphone users across the globe currently average 85MB of traffic per month, with Apple’s iPhone proving the handset on which most
traffic is generated. Devices running the Android OS sit behind the iPhone in terms of traffic generation, and the Google-backed OS will not overtake Apple in this metric, Informa said, because Android will be deployed across low-, mid- and highuser segments.
“The traffic disparity between smartphone and non-smartphone is most pronounced in North America, where 86 per cent of mobile data traffic is currently generated by smartphone users,” said Malik Kamal-Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media. Average traffic per user (ATPU) for smartphones in the US is set to hit 776MB/month by 2015, Informa said.
Growth in Western Europe will also be impressive, hitting 736MB/month in 2015, up from less than 44MB/month in 2009. The highest use will remain in the advanced markets of Japan and South Korea, which currently average 199MB/month and 271MB/month.
http://www.informatm.com/content/marlincontent/ITMG/ibctelecoms/matt/MCI/MCI168.pdf
Comment: We think that the increasing use of tablet PCs (e.g. iPAD), netbooks and eReaders will generate more mobile traffic than smart phones in coming years.
Coping with the Explosion in Mobile Data Traffic:
How will mobile operators deal with the surge in traffic growth? Informa’s James Middleton+ believes there are three different approaches to alleviate network congestion:
– Move to LTE
-Employ some kind of offload strategy (femtocells) or network sharing
-Deploy optimization technologies, like compression
“The main consideration is that the traffic problem for many operators has already arrived—or will do very soon—and LTE is somewhat expensive and also has a long rollout cycle. An offload strategy may be more affordable and quicker to roll out but it will still take some time to complete. Which leaves us with optimisation, a system which is cheaper still and could potentially be deployed within weeks or months.”
*See Informa article: Traffic Police, which may be accesed from the above url,
Our Opinion:
Here’s our list of congestion avoidance methods: offloading mobile traffic to WiFi hot spots and femtocells, acquiring more spectrum, shrinking cell size which permits more frequency re-use, moving to OFDMA technologies (like LTE and mobile WiMAX), creating Self Organizing Networks (SONs) that reassign subscribers to base stations based on existing network load and avoiding congestion, using compression on video and large data files, and invoking some form of QoS/ traffic class management.
If there’s sufficient reader interest, I’ll wirte an article expaning on this important issue. Please let me know!
Metro Fiber Networks Being Bulit Out in U.S.- Competitive Carriers take the lead
A recent WSJ article – The Fiber-Optic Networks Regain Some Glow,- notes that there have been 14 acquisitions in the metro fiber industry this year alone and 45 since the fiber market began its turnaround in 2006. It states, “The deals have turned a market that once had many small participants and a few giants into one made up of a handful of regional and national players. Analysts say the consolidation has helped stabilize the prices fiber owners can charge customers like banks, phone carriers and universities that lease their networks.”
What we found most remarkable about this and similar articles, is that we’ve never heard of the new breed of fiber facilities based telcos Zayo Group, founded in 2007, was reported to be one of the largest with networks in 27 states and Washington DC. They have acquired 15 smaller fiber optic companies in the short time it has been in existence.
In Metro Route Mileage Leaders for Competitive Fiber Operators, Rob Powell of Telecom Ramblings lists the top 20 metro fiber CLECs, ranked by total mileage for metro loops and laterals, but NOT counting long haul links. To no one’s surprise, Level 3 leads the pack with 27,000 metro fiber miles, followed by TW Telecom with 21,000 miles. Mr. Powell states that the list does not include the incumbents (e.g. AT&T, Verizon) and most cable operators (e.g. Comcast, TW Cable, others) – many of whom would obviously be at the top. Hence, this lisitng should be thought of as competitive metro fiber.