Worldwide IT spending increases were pretty anemic as IT and telecom services spending were seriously curtailed last year. It seems that things are going better. Telecom services spending, which has been curtailed in the past few years, only grew by a tenth of a point in 2012, to $1.661tr, but Gartner projects spending on mobile data services to grow enough to more than compensate for declines in fixed and mobile voice revenues. Infonetics Research Report sees telecom sector growth outpacing GDP growth. Global capital expenditure (capex) by telecommunications service providers is expected to increase at a compounded rate of 1.5% over the next five years, from $207 billion in 2012 to $223.3 billion in 2017, says a new market report from Insight Research Corp.
Europe’s Telco Giants In Talks To Create Pan-European Network. Europe’s largest mobile network operators are considering pooling their resources to create pan-European network infrastructure, the FT is reporting. Mobile network operators are frustrated by a “disjointed European market” that’s making it harder for them to compete.
“Internet of Things” gets new push. Ten Companies (Including Logitech) Team Up To Create The Internet Of Things Consortium article tell that your Internet-connected devices may be getting more cooperative, thanks to group of startups and established players who have come together to create a new nonprofit group called the Internet of Things Consortium.
Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications are more and more used. Machine-to-machine technology made great strides in 2012, and I expect an explosion of applications in 2013. Mobile M2M communication offers developers a basis for countless new applications for all manner of industries. Extreme conditions M2M communication article tells that M2M devices often need to function in extreme conditions. According to market analysts at Berg Insight, the number of communicating machines is set to rise to around 270 million by 2015. The booming M2M market is due to unlimited uses for M2M communications. The more and more areas of life and work will rely on M2M.
Car of the future is M2M-ready and has Ethernet. Ethernet has already been widely accepted by the automotive industry as the preferred interface for on-board-diagnostics (OBD). Many cars already feature also Internet connectivity. Many manufacturers taking an additional step to develop vehicle connectivity. One such example is the European Commission’s emergency eCall system, which is on target for installation in every new car by 2015. There is also aim of Vehicle-to-Vehicle communications and Internet connectivity within vehicles is to detect traffic jams promptly and prevent them from getting any worse.
M2M branches beyond one-to-one links article tells that M2M is no longer a one-to-one connection but has evolved to become a system of networks transmitting data to a growing number of personal devices. Today, sophisticated and wireless M2M data modules boast many features.
The Industrial Internet of Things article tells that one of the biggest stories in automation and control for 2013 could be the continuing emergence of what some have called the Internet of Things, or what GE is now marketing as the Industrial Internet. The big question is whether companies will see the payback on the needed investment. And there are many security issues that needs to be carefully weighted out.
Very high speed 60GHz wireless will be talked a lot in 2013. Standards sultan sanctifies 60GHz wireless LAN tech: IEEE blesses WiGig’s HDMI-over-the-air, publishes 802.11ad. WiFi and WiGig Alliances become one, work to promote 60GHz wireless. Wi-Fi, WiGig Alliances to wed, breed 60GHz progeny. WiGig Alliance’s 60GHz “USB/PCI/HDMI/DisplayPort” technology sits on top of the IEEE radio-based communications spec. WiGig’s everything-over-the-air system is expected to deliver up to 7Gbit of data per second, albeit only over a relatively short distance from the wireless access point. Fastest Wi-Fi ever is almost ready for real-world use as WiGig routers, docking stations, laptop, and tablet were shown at CES. It’s possible the next wireless router you buy will use the 60GHz frequency as well as the lower ones typically used in Wi-Fi, allowing for incredibly fast performance when you’re within the same room as the router and normal performance when you’re in a different room.
Communications on power line still gets some interest at least inside house. HomePlug and G.hn are tussling it out to emerge as the de-facto powerline standard, but HomePlug has enjoyed a lot of success as the incumbent.
Silicon photonics ushers in 100G networks article tells that a handful of companies are edging closer to silicon photonics, hoping to enable a future generation of 100 Gbit/s networks.
Now that 100G optical units are entering volume deployment, faster speeds are very clearly on the horizon. The push is on for a 400G Ethernet standard. Looking beyond 100G toward 400G standardization article tells that 400G is very clearly on the horizon. The push is now officially “on” for 400-Gigabit Ethernet standard. The industry is trying to avoid the mistakes made with 40G optics, which lacked any industry standards.
Market for free-space optical wireless systems expanding. Such systems are often positioned as an alternative to fiber-optic cables, particularly when laying such cables would be cost-prohibitive or where permitting presents an insurmountable obstacle. DARPA Begins Work On 100Gbps Wireless Tech With 120-mile Range.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
10GBASE-T APPLICATION
SHIELDED SYSTEMS VERSUS UNSHIELDED SYSTEMS
http://www.molexpn.com/Media/docs/10GBASE-T-Application-Shielded-System-versus-Unshielded-2013-1fbea72b-0912-4586-afdd-4570f402644a-1.PDF
Now that copper 10-Gigabit active devices are becoming readily
available system designers and IT managers are being tasked with
implementation of 10G-Gigabit Ethernet networks. This article discusses
the prod and cons of using shielded or unshielded systems for these
types of applications
CAT 6A shielded systems are becoming the ideal choice for the
transmission of 10GBASE-T over copper cabling. This article focuses on
the known advantages of shielded CAT 6A cabling systems over
unshielded CAT 6A cabling systems.
The main advantage of a CAT 6A shielded system is the suppression of
alien crosstalk (AXT). AXT is defined as unwanted signal coupling from
one balanced twisted-pair component, channel, or permanent link to
another.
CAT 6A UTP cabling systems require AXT field testing to
insure 10G performance. Most experts agree that it’s practically
impossible to100% field verify a CAT 6A UTP system. AXT testing is a
costly and time consuming process.
it’s safe to conclude that a CAT 6A shielded system can be installed with
confidence that AXT will not be an issue.
Another advantage of a CAT 6A shielded cable is its smaller diameter
as compared to CAT 6A UTP cable. The typical diameter of a CAT 6A
shielded cable is .29” (7.2mm), whereas the typical diameter of a CAT 6A
UTP cable is .35” (9mm). Cable diameters can have a major impact when
planning for 10G Ethernet networks.
A drawback that designers must plan for with CAT 6A UTP cable
containment is that it’s not recommended to mix CAT 6 UTP, CAT 5e UTP,
or even multiple manufacturer’s CAT 6A UTP cables due to potential AXT
issues. There are basically two options here: either clear existing
containment or build a new containment system. Mixing CAT 6A shielded
cable with CAT 6 UTP or CAT 5e UTP cables isn’t an issue.
Misconceptions such as shielding systems being costly and difficult to
install have prevailed for decades. The truth is that installing CAT 6A UTP
systems can be more tedious and troublesome due to more rigid and
larger cable diameters. CAT 6A shielded cable typically does cost more
than CAT 6A UTP and shielded jacks typically do require a few more steps to terminate than unshielded jacks. However, when the cost of AXT testing, reduced cable tray fill, and reduced cabinet densities due to
larger cable diameters are considered, the benefits of a CAT 6A UTP
cabling system quickly fade away.
Proper bonding and grounding is another important aspect for all
shielded cabling systems. This article does not cover the critical aspects
or benefits of a properly bonded and grounded structured cabling
system. System designers should refer to the ANSI /EIA/TIA 607:
Commercial Building Grounding and Bonding Requirements for
Telecommunications or the IEC 61000-5-2: Electromagnetic capability
(EMC) – Part 5: Installation and mitigation guidelines – Section 2:
Earthing and bonding, industry standards for proper guidance and
recommendations.
Many structured cabling manufactures who once only offered unshielded systems now also offer shielded systems to address market demand required for 10G Ethernet networks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Carrier Ethernet market seen reaching $39B by 2017
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/infonetics-carrier-ethernet.html
Infonetics Research has released excerpts from its latest Carrier Ethernet Equipment report, which tracks investment, penetration, and use of Carrier Ethernet products in service provider networks. “Carrier Ethernet is now a permanent, inseparable part of service provider networks, and the market has reached a steady state of investment as a result,” says Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics Research.
He adds, “Though spending on legacy technologies like SONET/SDH and WDM will decline, investment in IP routers, Carrier Ethernet switches, and Ethernet access devices will continue to rise, driven by the move to IP NGN and, of course, growing traffic — particularly video traffic.”
According to the new report, the global Carrier Ethernet equipment market in fact declined 3% to $34 billion in 2012, following a 13% spike in 2011. However, Infonetics’ Howard notes, “We see the Carrier Ethernet market growing slow but steady over the next 5 years, reaching about $39 billion in 2017.”
The report says that spending on IP edge routers totaled $9.4 billion in 2012, the most of any Carrier Ethernet equipment segment.
The study forecasts Carrier Ethernet equipment ports to top 95 million worldwide by 2017, with 10 Gigabit Ethernet also growing fast to pass 1 Gigabit Ethernet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fujitsu white paper lays out path to 400G
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/fujitsu-400g-path.html
A new white paper from Fujitsu notes that, with 100G units now widely available, the industry is turning its R&D focus to 400G optics. At the same time, however, ongoing investment and evolution of 100G technology will result in smaller size, reduced power consumption, and lower costs of 100G interfaces.
Industry standardization efforts at 100G are widely recognized as a tremendous success
At 400G, the industry standards are largely still in the discussion stage, and will be maturing over the next 2–3 years into a formal standard.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report: Commercial building automation market to top $43 billion
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/abi-bas-market.html
After years of steady, but low, growth the commercial building automation systems (BAS) market is experiencing a rapid period of change and investment, confirms a new report from ABI Research.
The report posits that traditionally, growth and adoption in the market has been closely tied to new building completion — but that new entrants and new connectivity are driving greater investment. Over the next five years, ABI expects the building automation services market will grow to $43 billion by 2018, up from $35 billion this year.
Greater environmental and financial demands have raised the appeal of reducing energy consumption in commercial buildings and the benefits for optimizing building automation systems. In addition, a new level of connectivity that stretches the reach of BAS’s from new sensors and actuators through to cloud application management and data analysis.
“This is a market long dominated by a handful of major players who deploy and manage commercial building management systems,” points out Jonathan Collins, principal analyst at ABI Research. “Now these players are developing new ways to integrate and compete with a host of new service offerings.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Telecom’s Big Players Hold Back the Future
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/business/media/telecoms-big-players-hold-back-the-future.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
If you were going to look for ground zero in the fight against a rapidly consolidating telecom and cable industry, you might end up on the fifth floor of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York.
Susan Crawford, a professor at the school, has written a book, “Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age,” that offers a calm but chilling state-of-play on the information age in the United States.
Ms. Crawford argues that the airwaves, the cable systems and even access to the Internet have been overtaken by monopolists who resist innovation and chronically overcharge consumers.
The 1996 Telecommunications Act, which was meant to lay down track to foster competition in a new age, allowed cable companies and telecoms to simply divide markets and merge their way to monopoly. If you are looking for the answer to why much of the developed world has cheap, reliable connections to the Internet while America seems just one step ahead of the dial-up era, her office — or her book — would be a good place to find out.
In a recent conversation, she explained that wired and wireless connections, building blocks of modern life, are now essentially controlled by four companies. Comcast and Time Warner have a complete lock on broadband in the markets they control, covering some 50 million American homes, while Verizon and AT&T own 64 percent of cellphone service.
“They have acted in parallel to exclude competitors and used every lever they had to gain control over their markets. My whole book is essentially an argument to buy stock in cable companies,” she said with a laugh.
High-capacity fiber connections to homes and businesses are not just a social good, but a business imperative, she says, and the lack of them will cripple American efforts to compete in a global economy.
Ms. Crawford said she believed that cities and states should take back control of their information infrastructure before it is too late
In 2012, Verizon entered into a joint marketing agreement with the cable companies, blessed by the Federal Communications Commission, so the former competitors are now firm allies.
“There has been a division of, ‘You take the wires, we’ll take wireless,’ which means that there is very little competition and investment, and very little access to high-speed connections,”
While consumers love to complain about their cable companies and Internet service, it’s sort of like the weather — no one does anything about it because no one can.
“People there told me that incoming businesses care more about access to fiber than any other attribute in a building,” she said in a phone call. “It’s very much like electricity. They want reliable service at a reliable cost.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Google Will Crush Nielsen
http://www.mondaynote.com/2013/05/19/why-google-will-crush-nielsen/
Internet measurement techniques need a complete overhaul. New ways have emerged, potentially displacing older panel-based technologies. This will make it hard for incumbent players to stay in the game.
The web user is the most watched consumer ever. For tracking purposes, every large site drops literally dozens of cookies in the visitor’s browser. In the most comprehensive investigation on the matter, The Wall Street Journal found that each of the 50 largest web sites in the United Sates, weighing 40% of the US page views, installed an average of 64 files on a user device.
But when it comes to measuring a digital viewer’s commercial value, sites rely on old-fashioned panels, that is limited user population samples. Why?
Panels are inherited. They go back to the old days of broadcast radio
Nielsen Company made a clever decision: they installed a monitoring box in 1000 American homes. Twenty years later, Nielsen did the same, on a much larger scale, with broadcast television.
Publishers monitor the pulse of their digital properties on a permanent basis. In most newsrooms, Chartbeat (also imperfect, sometimes) displays the performance of every piece of content, and home pages get adjusted accordingly.
The developing field of statistical pairing technology shows great promise. It is now possible to pinpoint a single user browsing the web with different devices in a very reliable manner.
Over time, your digital fingerprint will become more and more precise. Until then, the set of four cookies is independent from each other. But the analytics firm compiles all the patterns in single place. By data-mining them, analysts will determine the probability that a cookie dropped in a mobile application, a desktop browser or a mobile web site belongs to the same individual.
Obviously, Google is best positioned to perform this task on a large scale. First, its Google Analytics tool is deployed over 100 millions web sites. And the Google Ad Planner, even in its public version, already offers a precise view of the performance of many sites in the world.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethernet Alliance adds subcommittees for 400G, access networking, technology roadmap
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/new-ea-subcommittees.html
“We’ve reached an inflection point in Ethernet’s timeline; there’s a cascade of exciting developments — the race to 400GbE, for example — that are advancing this seminal technology farther and faster than at any other time in its 40-year history,” contends Dell’s John D’Ambrosia, chairman of the Ethernet Alliance.
launch of an IEEE study group exploring development of a new 400Gb/s Ethernet standard.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10GBase-T: The 10-GbE tipping point?
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/10g-tipping-point.html
A technical brief from Broadcom and HP contends that, by now, the 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) standards are mature, reliable and well understood. The white paper concludes that, while high costs associated with optical cabling and top of rack switches have delayed widespread adoption of 10Gb Ethernet in many data centers, 10GBase-T overcomes these cost barriers, opening the doors for cost-effective migration to 10GbE throughout the data center.
The unequivocal market need for 40-GbE in the data center
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/cisco-40g.html
A recent white paper from Cisco addresses data centers’ impending move to 40 Gigabit Ethernet, how it will change the network’s architecture, and what IT managers can do now to prepare to migrate to the new standard. “The business case for 40 Gigabit Ethernet is becoming inescapably compelling,” writes Cisco’s Gautam Chanda.
“”While 10 Gigabit Ethernet is still making its way into the data centers, CIOs and IT managers must now consider how they are going to handle what’s coming next”
“The need for faster data transfer rates is relentless and carries significant implications with regard to network productivity as well as opex costs.”
White paper: Using native 40-GbE
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/cisco-native-40g.html
A new technical white paper from Cisco discusses the advantages the IEEE 802.3ba standard offers over simple link aggregation, and explains how native 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40-GbE) based on IEEE 802.3ba works.
“One approach has been to use link aggregation and Port Channels consisting of multiple 10-Gbps links,” writes Cisco. However, the company points out that that approach “may not achieve the desired throughput because of hashing mechanism imbalances and the need to support higher bandwidth flows.”
The solution is faster links using native 40 Gigabit Ethernet
“Technology that meets this standard uses four lanes of 10 Gigabit Ethernet, as with link aggregation, but it can support true 40-Gbps flows, unlike link aggregation.”
Free application guide links fiber-optic infrastructure, 10-to-40 GbE data center switches
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/cisco-corning-guide.html
Produced by Cisco and Corning Cable Systems, a new 23-page application guide covers best practices for deployment of fiber-optic infrastructure to support Cisco’s Nexus 6000 Series of data center switches.
“With speeds in the data center now increasing from 10 Gbps to 40 Gbps and eventually to 100 Gbps, different optical technologies and cabling infrastructures are required,”
Although alternative cabling options are mentioned (i.e. twinax and active optical assemblies), the main focus of the guide is cabling for pluggable optical Enhanced Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable (QSFP+) modules.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SAP touts service that sells customer data from phone firms
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57585627-83/sap-touts-service-that-sells-customer-data-from-phone-firms/
The European maker of enterprise software would serve as a kind of middleman, analyzing data gathered by various wireless operators, selling results to marketers, and sharing the profits with the wireless companies.
Verizon Wireless already sells its customers’ mobile data to marketers. Now European enterprise-software giant SAP is taking things a step further by testing a service that will sell data collected by a number of wireless providers.
SAP announced its Consumer Insight 365 mobile service this week at the CTIA 2013 wireless show in Las Vegas. The service will, the company said in a release, pull data from SAP’s “extensive partner network” including “over 990 mobile operators;” aggregate and analyze it “without drilling down into user-specific information;” and make results available to subscribers through a Web portal.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Analyst: Google Fiber probably won’t go national
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1039_3-57585604/analyst-google-fiber-probably-wont-go-national/
Google Fiber has been on a small surge lately with a number of new small town stops, but IHS iSuppli is skeptical about a nationwide tour.
Market intelligence firm IHS iSuppli has published a new report suggesting it is unlikely that Google will deploy Fiber on a nationwide level.
The natural first reaction might be annoyance with this, but when you think about the cost, scope and scalability of such an endeavor, these analysts are likely right — at least for the near-term future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
40 Gbps wireless designed to complement fibre rollouts
Wildly fast on the 240 GHz band
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/22/40gps_wireless_data_transmission/
It won’t make fibre optic networking obsolete anytime soon, but it’s still an impressive achievement: German researchers have demonstrated a one-kilometre point-to-point wireless transmission at 40 Gbps.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology researchers used 240 GHz as the carrier for the high-speed data transfer – well out of the frequency range that you’d encounter in consumer-grade WiFi kit.
Operating in the 200-280 GHz frequency range creates very small electronics, the group says, with a transmitter/receiver chip that measures just 4 mm x1.5 mm. The frequency is also higher than that at which links typically suffer atmospheric effects like rain fade.
“This makes our radio link easier to install compared to free-space optical systems for data transmission. It also shows better robustness in poor weather conditions such as fog or rain”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethernet daddy: online education poised to transform the world
MOOCs to be as transformative as ‘BOOCs’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/22/metcalfe_on_moocs/
During an interview at the Ethernet Innovation Summit in Mountain View, California, Ethernet inventor Robert Metcalfe was asked what surprises were on the horizon due to the ever more pervasive advance of the internet.
“The most exciting surprise, I think, is going to be MOOCs,” said Metcalfe on Wednesday, referring to online education – Massively Open Online Courses. “Education is about to be disrupted, like iTunes did to music.”
“There’s age discrimination in education,” he said.
In addition to vaulting over the barrier of age discrimination, he said, MOOCs also eliminate the barrier of wealth.
Now that MOOCs are here, however, education is open to everyone.
MOOCs – or whatever they’ll be called, are the future. “We’ve solved bandwidth with the internet,” he said. “We’re now going to solve ignorance with the internet.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Operators in Finland have had a great desire to get rid of the old wire network, the use of which is reduced. Still, many customers are even dependent on these connections. Sonera would like to be released from the obligation that it must not leave their customers high and dry. No way, announced the Ministry of Transport and Communications on Wednesday.
“Wired connection is still an important role for specific user groups. Their landing without an equivalent level of new connections would not be particularly in rural areas inhabitants of the fair, “Communications Krista Lark says.
Sonera is praised in the autumn of 2011 it had terminated by that time half a million phone poles. The demolition work is likely to continue even next year.
Source: http://www.tietokone.fi/uutiset/sonera_ei_saa_purkaa_verkkoaan_kuten_haluaa
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nice to be Finnish: the mobile data more cheaply
The Finns use the smart phone services to a substantial cheap compared to the Germans. Germany paid mobile data up to 15 times more than in Finland.
According to the report gigabyte of data in Germany to pay an average of more than 24 Euros. Britain GB cost of seven Euros, but in Finland, only 1.6 Euros.
Germany’s major mobile market is also weak, because they are dominated by four international carrier group. Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Telefonica O2 and E-Plus, KPN are all the major fixed broadband providers in many European countries.
“It is clear that, like Finland data rates in mobile contracts would erode the business of these operators in the market and would decrease the value of fixed broadband networks,” the report says.
Source: http://www.tietokone.fi/uutiset/kiva_olla_suomalainen_mobiilidata_muita_halvemmalla
Tomi Engdahl says:
Germany: The blueprint of the single EU telecoms market?
Rewheel hopes not
http://www.rewheel.fi/downloads/Rewheel_press_release_22052013.pdf
Mobile operators chargeover 3 times more for a gigabyte in Germany than in the UK and up to 15 times more than in some small EU member states like Finland, research reveals. It is their interest in sizeable European fixed broadband businesses that keeps owners of Germany’s networks from driving competition in the mobile sector, says Rewheel.
German smart phone tariffs and data only mobile packages are among the most expensive in EU. While a gigabyte of da ta volume on smartphones costs, on average, over €24 in Germany, in the UK it costs €7 and in Finland only € 1.6, including comparable amount of traditional voice minutes and SMSs. As for data only tariffs for laptops and tablets, on average, a gigabyte costs €6 in Germany, €4.5 in the UK and as low as €0.7 in Finland.
Economy of scale has been the main argument behind envisioning a new EU telecoms landscape dominated by a few large pan-European mobile network infrastructures. But the sharp contrast between the poorly performing large German and the top performer small Finnish mobile market proves that economies of scale in customer bases and infrastructure has little to do with cost and radio spectrum efficiency, says Rewheel.
EU27 mobile data cost competitiveness report – May 2013
http://www.rewheel.fi/downloads/Rewheel_EU27_mobile_data_cost_competitiveness_report_May_2013_FINAL.pdf
EU’s single telecom market is threatened by the lack of mobile network infrastructure based competition within the national borders of half of EU’s member states and from the noticeable absence of pan-European retail operators offering borderless European tariff
Tomi Engdahl says:
The (next) final frontier
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/fpga-gurus/4414926/The–next–final-frontier
FPGAs have been taking small steps into base station infrastructure by displacing multicore DSPs, but the newest collaboration between Xilinx and Sumitomo suggests that RF and IF blocks may be linked directly to FPGAs for wireless systems of the future.
Ever since viable multicore processors began to be implemented on FPGAs in the mid-2000s, the barriers to displacing multicore DSPs and integer processors have been falling one by one. FPGAs have displaced standard processors in a wide range of data center and wireline network infrastructure systems, and in recent years, it appeared that the full gamut of wireless infrastructure systems could take advantage of FPGAs soon. Still, the final links between IF devices and the RF discrete products closest to the antenna seemed to be one favoring ASSPs.
This is why Xilinx may be able to take full advantage of the deal with Sumitomo, not only to have a good GaN III-V power amp in its portfolio, but also to promote its IF cores to a broader audience.
In the real world, design-ins for IF and RF discrete standard products can have a long lifetime, and it is unlikely that products from Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, and high-power specialists will vanish quickly. But the transition from 3G to 4G/LTE networks is a time when new base stations and dedicated antenna subsystems will be deployed by major carriers. Since many small-cell base stations will be placed on traffic lights or on the sides of buildings, real-estate efficiency is an absolute must, as is power reduction.
Tomi Engdahl says:
First online development environment for the Internet of Things
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4414112/First-online-development-environment-for-the-Internet-of-Things
Thingsquare has announced Thingsquare Code, to help connect products such as light bulbs, thermostats, and smart city systems to smartphone apps.
Thingsquare Code is claims to be the world’s first online interactive development environment (IDE) for the Internet of Things and works with a number of recent chips that target the emerging Internet of Things market, from leading chip vendors Texas Instruments and ST Microelectronics.
Thingsquare Code lets developers of Internet of Things products program their wireless chips from a web browser.
“The latest IP/6LoWPAN solutions for IoT applications from Texas Instruments (TI) will be ready for Thingsquare Code,” said Oyvind Birkenes , general manager, Wireless Connectivity Solutions, TI. “Thingsquare opens the door to developers from various disciplines to connect their products faster to the Internet.”
http://thingsquare.com/
http://thingsquare.com/code/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Broadcom: Time to prepare for the end of Moore’s Law
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4415006/Broadcom–Time-to-prepare-for-the-end-of-Moore-s-Law
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – The party’s not over yet, but it’s getting time we start thinking about calling a cab. That’s Henry Samueli’s view of the semiconductor industry in a nutshell.
The chief technology officer of Broadcom Corp. was shockingly frank in an on-stage interview at an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of Ethernet.
“Moore’s Law is coming to an end—in the next decade it will pretty much come to an end so we have 15 years or so,”
“Standard CMOS silicon transistors will stop scaling around 5 nm and everything will plateau,” he said.
“I am comfortable we will get to terabit networking speeds, but I’m not sure I see a path to petabit speeds,”
“We still have another 15 years or so to enjoy, but we need to prepare at some point for a network that doesn’t double in bandwidth every two years,” he added.
Stacking chips into so-called 3-D ICs promises a one-time boost in their capabilities, “but it’s expensive,” said Samueli. Broadcom expects to use 3-D stacks to add a layer of silicon photonics interconnects to its high end switch chips, probably starting in 2015 or later, he said.
Another industry veteran and EE on a panel with Samueli took issue with the Broadcom exec’s predictions. “The real situation is we have 10-15 years visibility and beyond that we just don’t know how we will solve [the problems of CMOS scaling] yet,” said Dave House, chairman of switch maker Brocade and a veteran of 23 years at Intel.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Study ranks US least riskiest place to open data center
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/052213-study-ranks-us-least-riskiest-270045.html?page=1
UK, Germany and Sweden follow as the least riskiest places to establish data centers, according to a survey released this week
Eight of the top 15 countries ranked were in Europe, and Sweden and Norway became hot spots for data centers, according to the study. Easy availability of hydropower and naturally available cool weather prompted many companies to establish data centers in Sweden. Scandinavian countries recorded the highest jumps, with Sweden rising five spots to third and Norway up four spots to eight.
The rest of Europe was on shaky ground.
Tomi Engdahl says:
4G LTE: Good for tweets and watching Dr Who. Crap at saving lives
Why cops, medics must stick to walkie talkies
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/24/lte_wont_go_critical_until_2018_at_best/
Critical Communications World High-speed mobile broadband standard LTE, the preferred 4G technology around the world, isn’t good enough for critical networks and won’t be up to scratch until at least 2018.
That’s according to the TETRA + Critical Communications Association (TCCA) which promotes the development of communications tech and has been lobbying 3GPP, the custodian of LTE.
Most emergency services use TETRA, or one of its predecessors, which offers robust voice communications and a feature list of things that LTE is lacking. But those networks can’t cope with significant quantities of data so there’s great interest in getting LTE up to speed as a replacement.
LTE is great for over-the-air broadband but lacks four features considered crucial if anyone is going to take it seriously as a mission-critical technology, which are due to be added to the standard over the next half decade.
The most obvious shortfall in LTE is the lack of voice. There is a standard for it but today’s users are shunted into 3G as soon as a voice call is made (or not, on EE’s UK network where users routinely complain that using 4G results in them missing voice calls). For police, ambulance and suchlike voice is still the killer feature, and they’d like to speak to everyone at once too.
That comes under the heading of Group Communications, and enables one person to speak to a load of other people at the same time. In the cellular world this is known as Push To Talk and has been a commercial failure outside the US. It’s a key feature of TETRA and the TCCA reckons to be on track to have the same functionality built in to Release 12 of the LTE standard – expected late 2014.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BT Lights Up World’s First 800Gbps Fibre Super-ChannelBT proves its existing fibres are future proof, with an 800Gbps link from Ipswich to London
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/bt-lights-up-worlds-first-800gbps-fibre-super-channel-117030
BT has successfully tested a long-distance 800Gbps “super-channel” on its core fibre network, capable of sending seven high definition DVDs in a single second.
Laboratory tests have reached 800Gbps before, but this is the first time it’s gone long distance, covering the 410km between BT’s Adastral Park research centre, near Ipswich in Suffolk, and the BT Tower in London, using equipment from network kit vendor Ciena. The surprising thing is that the test was successful on fibre which was previously not considered good enough to carry 10Gbps.
The trials, which took place in March 2013, included the transmission of 100, 200, and 400Gbps, as well as the 800G super-channel. They used Ciena’s WaveLogic 3 transceivers, and achieved their results on an existing fibre in BT’s core.
To make matters harder for themselves, the experimenters chose a fibre which exhibited poor properties in allowing different polarisations of light to disperse. Its high Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) figure had made it unsuitable to even carry 10Gbps using current techniques.
The test used dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM)
A super-channel is a recent advance in DWDM, which combines multiple coherent optical carriers into one unified channel of a higher data rate.
The test is important to BT, because it shows its fibre-optic network, which has been installed over more than a decade, is future-proof. For Ciena, it’s an endorsement of the 6500 Packet-Optical and 4200 Advanced Services platforms used in the test.
The tests also showed 400Gbps of traffic carried alongside adjacent wavelengths on the same fibre, carrying 40Gbps and 100Gbps – the new traffic used the 16QAM (quadrature amplitude modulatopn) which changes the amplitude of the carrier, while the older channels used QPSK (quadrature phase shift keying) which changes the phase of a signal to carry data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix is the largest bandwidth hog
Network TV company Netflix has become the number one Internet’s capacity user. Netflix in the United States during peak hours (around ten in evening) a third of internet traffic is Netflix bitstream.
The growing popularity of Netflix is the nut to crack for telecom operators. The service takes an ever-growing amount of data bandwidth, which is much more in demand. Operators to Netflix type of aesthetic service providers need to invest to increase capacity networks, but they do not get money from the service.
Netflix buy the server and other computing capacity of Amazon’s cloud service. This is interesting in the sense that Amazon also has its own in competition with Netflix video on demand service.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/netflix+on+suurin+kaistarohmu/a903936?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-25052013&
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Tomi Engdahl says:
The Industrial Internet of Things
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/the-industrial-internet-of-things/c98837a0efec387df9fc14c2de0a3b2f.html
Should industrial users embrace IP networking? It promises convergence of many technologies, but is it necessary or even beneficial? An examination of why and why not, what, and how.
Concepts referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine to machine (M2M) communications have attracted a lot of publicity, many interest groups, and many face-to-face meetings. IoT refers to the increasing connectivity of objects of all kinds, from home appliances to devices used in industrial applications, either to the Internet or some kind of Internet-like structure.
Industrial M2M networks are mature and widely deployed, even though some M2M publicity implies that the concept is new. These industrial networks can benefit from IoT technology if done correctly, but could also suffer if done with a lack of planning and caution.
This discussion will propose some general principles for applying IoT to industrial automation systems. To differentiate this from the web-based efforts and call attention to industrial needs, this will be called the Industrial Internet of Things (I2oT).
I2oT must give priority to security, robustness, and timeliness requirements of automation networks while providing for remote access as a secondary requirement.
For the world of automation, I2oT represents the opportunity for partial convergence of industrial automation communication on a grand scale. It will allow improvements in functionality, security, flexibility, ease of use, and cost savings. In the long run, it will be good for vendors and users. It will be good for the whole automation industry, and all who embrace the technology will benefit.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google to Fund, Develop Wireless Networks in Emerging Markets
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323975004578503350402434918-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwNDEyNDQyWj.html
Google Inc. is working to build and help run wireless networks in emerging markets such as sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, connecting a billion or more new people to the Internet. WSJ’s Amir Efrati reports.
In some cases, Google aims to use airwaves reserved for television broadcasts, but only if government regulators allowed it, these people said.
The company has begun talking to regulators in countries such as South Africa and Kenya about changing current rules to allow such networks to be built en masse. Some wireless executives say they expect such changes to happen in the coming years.
As part of the plan, Google has been working on building an ecosystem of new microprocessors and low-cost smartphones powered by its Android mobile operating system to connect to the wireless networks, these people said.
“There’s not going to be one technology that will be the silver bullet,” meaning that each market will require a unique solution, said one person familiar with Google’s plans.
The activities underscore how the Web search giant is increasingly aiming to have control over every aspect of a person’s connection to the Web across the globe.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CloudEthernet Forum formed to scale networks into virtual age
All the kids in the Metro Ethernet Forum want to be members of the new club
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/27/cloud_ethernet_forum_launched/
Nine of the majors in the Ethernet market have joined up to create the CloudEthernet Forum which they say will help the venerable networking protocol adapt to the challenges of large-scale cloud services.
The forum is being spun out of the Metro Ethernet Forum – MEF – with the initial cabal comprising Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Equinix, HP, Juniper Networks, PCCW, Spirent Communications, Tata Communications and Verizon.
There’s no doubt that Ethernet’s showing its age: in a world where tens of thousands of virtual server machines can live in a data centre, some of Ethernet’s constraints look quaint (for example, 802.1Q’s 4,096 limit on the VLAN number).
As well as VLAN scaling, the forum will be addressing performance at Layer 2, large network resilience, and trying to displace the last pockets of non-Ethernet networking (particularly in big storage).
Tomi Engdahl says:
When M2M meets IT
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/when-m2m-meets-it/306250010d9e53138e0730c6e00dabb0.html
Engineering and IT Insight: Subsecond latency and delivery jitter lead to lost production time and potentially millions of dollars of unrealized production. Do not let your production suffer when M2M network requirements collide with IT policies. See 5 quality of service measures.
A “stalled” signal from a 0-5 V output from a downstream device was fed into a “delay” command 0-5 V input in an upstream device, forcing the upstream device to wait if the downstream device was not ready. In complicated situations, or where the signals do not exactly correspond, a small PLC might have been placed between the devices. The PLC would handle complex timing issues, perform simple logic, and also provide visibility into information that may not normally be available from the devices’ lights or indicator panels.
As M2M communication has moved out of the hardwired model to a data communication model over Ethernet networks, the IT department is now involved in these integration jobs.
Some IT departments recognize the special nature of these networks, but many do not. IT departments that recognize the special nature will segment their networks to localize M2M traffic and protect it from general business network interruptions. The segmentation may be physical, with separate routers and switches, or virtual through VLAN configurations. M2M communication is special because of its specific quality of service (QoS), redundancy, and consistency requirements.
In an internal IT network there is little business impact if it takes two extra seconds to view an e-mail, one extra ring on a voice over IP (VoIP) phone call, one extra second to launch a webcast, or an extra second or two to pull up a report. In production environments using networked M2M, these seconds of delay per communication can add up to hours of daily lost production time in an entire facility.
Special M2M requirements mean that IT network services need to be handled as other facility utilities, such as power, water, and compressed air.
5 quality of service measures
QoS has several measures:
Availability or uptime usually measured as a percentage with 100% meaning always available
Bandwidth or throughput that is usually measured in total network bandwidth but in M2M environments should be measured in bandwidth available to each device
Latency or delays in communication from a source to a destination usually measured in milliseconds
Error rate usually measured in errors/million communications
Delivery jitter or variation in message latency.
If your IT department does not segment its production communications from the normal business communications network, then it is vital to develop a QoS agreement and a guarantee from the IT department for your industrial networks. However, having a QoS agreement is worthless unless you also have some method of measuring compliance.
Industrial networks should be segmented and separated from normal business networks for safety and security reasons, as specified by the ISA 99 and IEC 62443 standards. However, if your IT organization will not separate them because it is hard to justify security or safety costs, then Quality of Service arguments should be used.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Clearwire to pull Huawei from network
Chinese vendor caught in takeover crossfire
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/27/clearwire_to_pull_huawei_from_network/
US mobile carrier Clearwire is getting ready to draw-down the Huawei kit in its network, in an apparent response to the never-ending story that the vendor is a threat to US national security.
While not a body blow to the Chinese vendor, since it’s won less than five per cent of Clearwire’s LTE build, it will drop yet more fuel onto the FUD-fire that continues to surround the vendor.
In essence, FierceWireless reports, Clearwire has attracted the government’s paranoia because Sprint Nextel (majority owner of Clearwire, and with a bid in for the shares it doesn’t already hold) is itself subject to an offer by SoftBank from Japan.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Light-beam ‘twins’ take data farther
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22656238
An idea similar to that of noise-cancelling headphones has proved useful in increasing the data-carrying properties of light.
Researchers reporting in Nature Photonics suggest putting not one beam of light down a fibre, but a pair, each a kind of mirror image of the other.
When recombined on the receiving end, the noise that the signals gather in the fibre cancels out.
These paired beams can travel four times farther than a single one.
The team used the technique to send a signal of 400Gb/s – four times faster than the best commercially available speeds – down 12,800km of optical fibre, farther than even the longest trans-oceanic fibre link.
What limits the distance a given light signal can go is how much power is in the beam. But the higher the power, the more the light actually interacts with the material of the fibre, rather than merely passing through it.
That adds “noise” to the beam that limits the fidelity with which data can be transmitted.
What is needed is a way to undo this noise, and one idea is known as phase conjugation.
Ideas exist to make use of phase conjugation to “undo” the noise that fibre links add, but they involve adding devices midway along the links’ length – sometimes, in the middle of an ocean floor.
What Dr Liu and colleagues instead suggest is creating a pair of phase-conjugate beams, each carrying the same data.
“At the receiver, if you superimpose the two waves, then all the distortions will magically cancel each other out, so you obtain the original signal back,” he said.
“This concept, looking back, is quite easy to understand, but surprisingly, nobody did this before.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Broadcom’s CTO on Ethernet’s six key directions
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4414881/Broadcom-s-CTO-on-Ethernet-s-six-key-directions
Broadcom is a relative newcomer to automotive electronics, but it has set up an alliance to drive Ethernet into tomorrow’s cars using Broadcom silicon. It competes with the Media Oriented Systems Transport (MOST) group formed in 1998.
“We will see a transition to Ethernet in automotive [because] as we’ve seen in every other market, Ethernet always wins,” said Samueli. “We are doing extraordinarily well with 100-plus members in our alliance– every major auto maker behind a single copper pair for 100 Mbits/s Ethernet in automobiles.
“This year BMW will deploy it in some models,” Samueli said. “It’s taking off better than expected, and in five plus years it will the de facto standard in cars,” he predicted.
“MOST is the incumbent and has a lot of backers, but Ethernet always wins”
Silicon photonics has gotten a lot of attention especially for use in the data center. Recently, Intel announced a 100G technology and Mellanox acquired startup Kotura.
“Silicon photonics is a very important technology for the concentration of data rates in network switches,”
Separately, Broadcom is helping pave the way to software-defined networks (SDN), creating a new API for its chips with an unnamed group of comms OEMs and software developers. “Were fairly agnostic to the industry trends in these directions working with OEMs and their proprietary software stacks as well as the standard OpenFlow stacks, too,” he said.
“I don’t believe you will see a forklift upgrade to SDN, it’s a much more a gradual evolution that may occur,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Less is more in structured cabling?
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/less-more-cabling-blog.html
“In today’s IT business environment, whether it’s virtualization or cloud servers, less is more. Less space, less power, less management, less expense and more horse power, giving the business user more to work with — the same principles should apply to network infrastructure in the office,” opines Smith. “There is absolutely no need to over-cable or over-wire workstations with more cable than one or two drops.”
He continues, “Similarly, it is NOT better to install the most expensive Category 6A cable you can get.”
The blog post goes on to touch upon the time-honored copper vs. fiber debate in structured cabling.
“Note that mid- range grades of Category 6 cable installed to the work station provide more than enough bandwidth to take you to the moon or even Mars,” contends Smith. He adds, “And when it comes to big data users like TV broadcasters or developers, just add in a good piece of OM3 or OM4 fiber-optic wire to the workstation at a fraction of the price of copper cable and fire away! Don’t let anybody fool you about the cost of fiber switches either; they have come way down in the last few years.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ericsson shuts down telecom cable manufacturing operations
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/ericsson-shuts-down-cable-mfg.html
As part of a review of its operations, Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) has decided to cease all manufacturing of communications cables, reports Cablinginstall.com’s sister site, Lightwave. On May 3, Ericsson announced that it has agreed to sell its power cables operations to NKT Cables. Shutting down its telecom cabling operations means the company is completely exiting cable manufacturing.
The company says the market for copper cables has shrunk worldwide. Meanwhile, it adds, while demand for fiber cable has increased, most of that demand is in Asia. That leaves little need for the current amount of cable-making capacity in Europe, Ericsson has decided.
“The decision is based on the fact that Ericsson’s production of telecom cables is small from a global perspective, and that we also have a small market share. There is overproduction on the cable market in Europe. Unfortunately, our production has not been operating at full capacity for a long time and has struggled with profitability.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pre-standard Category 8 cable
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/datwyler-cu82034p.html
The CU 8203 4P cable from Datwyler is a “compact, S/FTP AWG23 cable which complies fully with the anticipated requirements of the new Category 8.2 as specified in the ISO/IEC draft,” the company says. The cable comprises four twisted pairs, each of which is protected by a metal shield. An overall foil also covers all four twisted pairs. Datwyler adds that it intends to follow the release of this cable with “other new developments with S/FTP and F/FTP as well as the appropriate patch cables.”
The company provides perspective on this announcement by summarizing the Category 8 standard-development landscape within ISO/IEC. “The new international standards for Category 8 copper cable and balanced cabling systems for 40-Gbit/sec are currently being developed as draft standard IEC 46C/976/NP and ISO/IEC TR 11801-99-1. Unlike the proposed standards for symmetrical Category 8 data cables discussed just a few years ago—at that time for structured cabling premises cabling and with a maximum limiting frequency of 1.2 Gigahertz—the sole use foreseen by today’s international standardization bodies is in data centers with a maximum limiting frequency of 2 GHz.”
The exact channel specifications “will be drawn up over the next few months,” the company continues.
Tomi Engdahl says:
400G: Why now?
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/400g-why-now.html
A new technical brief from the Ethernet Alliance seeks to help interested parties “understand the urgency” for 400 Gb/s Ethernet speeds. “Bandwidth growth is unrelenting everywhere across Ethernet networking,” states the paper. “Every day, more users are more quickly accessing the Internet in more ways, to utilize more applications and consume more content that demands more bandwidth every day. More, more, more.”
“with no less than a bandwidth tsunami intensifying, the global Ethernet ecosystem is moving now to create a plan to evolve beyond today’s 100 Gigabit per second (Gb/s) capabilities”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Accelerating, Analyzing, and Securing Network Traffic
http://www.techonline.com/electrical-engineers/education-training/tech-papers/4413540/Accelerating-Analyzing-and-Securing-Network-Traffic
Impact on network infrastructures of billions of new intelligent connected devices and machines coming online in a relatively short time will be profound. For example, the amount of data traversing IP networks today is an incredible 640K GB per minute. That number will skyrocket as more and more people watch streaming videos, share photos, download apps, play online games, tap into cloud services, and engage in other activities that have a healthy appetite for bandwidth all from their smartphones, tablets, cars, and more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google blimps will carry wireless signal across Africa
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/26/google-blimps
Search giant Google is intending to build huge wireless networks across Africa and Asia, using high-altitude balloons and blimps.
The company is intending to finance, build and help operate networks from sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia, with the aim of connecting around a billion people to the web.
To help enable the campaign, Google has been putting together an ecosystem of low-cost smartphones running Android on low-power microprocessors. Rather than traditional infrastructure, Google’s signal will be carried by high-altitude platforms – balloons and blimps – that can transmit to areas of hundreds of square kilometres.
Google has also considered using satellites to achieve the same goal. “There’s not going to be one technology that will be the silver bullet,” an unnamed source told the Wall St Journal.
Small-scale trials are underway in Cape Town, South Africa, where a base station is broadcasting signals to wireless access boxes in high schools over several kilometres. Software detects which areas of the spectrum aren’t being used for TV broadcast and can be used for the network at any given time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
2013 Internet Trends
http://www.kpcb.com/insights/2013-internet-trends
The latest edition of the annual Internet Trends report finds continued robust online growth. There are now 2.4 billion Internet users around the world, and the total continues to grow apace. Mobile usage is expanding rapidly, while the mobile advertising opportunity remains largely untapped. The report reviews the shifting online landscape, which has become more social and content rich, with expanded use of photos, video and audio.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Your City Should Compete With Google’s Super-Speed Internet
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/05/community-fiber/
When it comes to broadband internet access, the U.S. still lags behind other developed nations. We don’t have the broadband connections that other countries have, and fewer people are using them.
Rural communities, in particular, are underserved by broadband providers. This year, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration released a report comparing broadband access in rural areas, and the gap between rural and urban broadband access has narrowed for the slowest category of service (lines with 3 Mpbs uploads and 768 Kbps downloads), but rural areas still lag behind for faster services.
One solution may be municipal broadband services — services owned and operated by local governments, as opposed to independent ISPs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kaspersky plans source code reveal to avoid Huawei’s fate
Chinese giant has ‘grey areas’ but politics the reason for ban says AV’s party boy
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/30/kaspersky_plans_source_code_reveal_to_avoid_huawei_taint/
Eugene Kaspersky thinks Huawei’s products contain “some doors, they are not back doors, but somewhere in-between”, but that overall “there is nothing really wrong with Huawei”. The Russian security supremo is nonetheless taking steps to ensure his company doesn’t experience the same less-than-welcoming reception Huawei has found in the US market.
Throw in the big hair and he puts on quite a show, making him a source of quotable quotes (he’s adopted the term “SCADAgeddon” coined by local provocateur Stilgherrian to describe a likely outcome of online warfare) but also not quite ever appearing entirely serious.
How much weight to place then, on Kaspersky’s claims of grey areas in Huawei products?
“We are not going to detect Huawei software as malicious,” he said. “And it is not just Huawei that has this grey area in their products. There was a very famous story about Sony rootkits,” he pointed out, before adding that he feels Huawei’s troubles in the USA and beyond can be attributed to the detection of some suspicious behaviour in its products and the knowledge of those issues being politicised
“In the USA, Australia and Western Europe we are facing similar issues of trust,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
On-line and antenna transmissions are mixed: The future ruler of living room is a hybrid TV
Television technology has in recent years been living a hard transition period. Digital television, receivers became flat, and the HD technology is on its way to the mainstream.
The pace of change does not subside in the future. Now the big question is what the web seems to TV and play it back.
“Future TV is a hybrid. When you want the best possible picture of the level of quality and trouble-free delivery, the choice is broadcast. Personalised services and the net supply will be via broadband,” says Digita CEO Sirpa Ojala .
Hybrid TV, the material is a function to obtain the user as easy as possible, so that he does not need cumbersome to switch from one application to another
The transition to television and the Internet takes place between a few touch of a button on the remote control. You do not need to know, to view his antenna or broadband future content.
In a number of new TV sets such as Sony and Philips models, the hybrid option is already in place.
“In the fall, all new models already support this,” says Development Director Kalle Luukkainen from Digita.
Development has already significantly higher resolution 4K technology, uhdtv 4K (ultra high definition TV). In the picture is 3840 x 2160 pixels
4K starting to come living room sometime towards the end of the decade. HD broadcasts will remain at least until 2026.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/netti+ja+antennilahetykset+sekoittuvat+olohuoneen+valtias+on+jatkossa+hybriditelevisio/a905411?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-30052013&
Tomi Engdahl says:
M2M Solutions: The Move to Value Creation and the
Internet of Things
http://www.oracle.com/webapps/dialogue/ns/dlgwelcome.jsp?p_ext=Y&p_dlg_id=12818903&src=7621349&Act=7
A survey of the M2M solutions market was conducted for Oracle in September 2012 by Beecham Research
The findings indicates that there are two key trends underway in the rapidly-developing M2M market.
The first is in the B2B segment. Here, M2M data from remotely-located assets and devices is increasingly being used for strategic purposes and value creation throughout the enterprise. This is a far cry from the early days when M2M data was strictly the domain of the service department and used for mainly operational purposes.
The second is in the B2B2C segment, where the opportunities associated with the Internet of Things (IoT) are now becoming apparent. IoT in the B2B2C segment will be characterised by data from large numbers of remote devices and sensors in one sector being cross-pollinated with data from other sectors and with data from social media. This will impact consumer lifestyles and provide enormous potential for new services.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“intelligent systems,” the “Internet of Things” and “machine-to-machine systems.
are very broadly applicable
Take machine-to-machine systems for example. If we just say “machine-to-machine,” we might as well just refer to the Internet of Things, because it tends to refer to the entire universe of autonomous communicating gizmos. When we add the word “systems” to the M2M, we can get more specific. Here we are talking about a subset of the IoT under which the communicating gizmos share a specific purpose such as a transportation management and control system. Here they are sharing GPS data, data about freight content and destination, vehicle maintenance data and more.
Very often, data is passed among elements of such a system as needed and without human intervention, such as when freight is loaded and unloaded causing automatic routing changes. Maintenance data may be uploaded and stored for later use, or specific bits of data may trigger alarms or cause some preset activity to be initiated. In any event, that data, and the control of the given systems, is available to a human operator at some remote locations.
M2M system can be thought of as a microcosm of the larger world of Intelligent Systems, which encompasses the IoT, the Internet, the Cloud and pretty much everything else.
the use of the on board diagnostic (OBD) port that is part of every automobile designed since 1996.
At least one insurance company now offers discounts based on data gathered from the OBD port that can be used for purposes other than maintenance. The promo material says it “automatically keeps track of your good driving.”
We are now in the world of Intelligent Systems, which is also a continuum from small to large, micro to macro.
Source: http://intelligentsystemssource.com/press-releases/index.php?id=7
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cord-Cutters Lop Off Internet Service More Than TV
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324682204578513262440196772-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwOTEyNDkyWj.html
For all the fuss over Americans dropping their cable subscriptions in favor of Internet video, another type of cord cutting appears to be more common.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans canceled their home Internet service last year, surveys suggest, taking advantage of the proliferation of Wi-Fi hot spots and fast new wireless networks that have made Web connections on smartphones and tablets ubiquitous.
Last year around 1% of U.S. households stopped paying for home Internet subscriptions and relied on wireless access instead, according to consumer surveys by Leichtman Research Group Inc. Just 0.4% of households in the last year canceled their pay-television subscriptions in favor of getting video entertainment over the Internet via services such as Hulu or Netflix.
Dropping home Internet service isn’t a great deal for heavy Internet users, however. While smartphones are fine for email and social networking, wireless data plans can be expensive and easily drained by even a single streamed high-definition movie. Free Wi-Fi is more widely available than ever, but cutting the Internet cord means users have to rely on cellular access at home.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google exec sees Google Fiber as a ‘moneymaker’
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57586894-93/google-exec-sees-google-fiber-as-a-moneymaker/
Google Fiber head Milo Medin says the company is not just conducting an expensive research project in Kansas City and other places getting the technology. He expects the gigabit fiber networks to make money.
Despite speculation to the contrary, Google sees its Google Fiber broadband business as a moneymaker, and not just an overpriced test network.
And it’s very likely that the company will continue expanding the service into other cities willing to partner to keep costs down.
“We expect to make money from Google Fiber,” he said. “This is a great business to be in.”
Others have wondered if Google’s network was just a way to push existing cable and telephone companies to offer higher speed Internet services themselves.
“But then someone on the management team said, ‘If we really think this is important, why whine to the government, when we can do it ourselves,’” he said.
How can Google make Google Fiber profitable?
But the big question remains: How will Google be able to sell this faster service at lower prices and still make money?
Google hasn’t disclosed any financial details about its deployment in Kansas City. Medin admits that money the company spends on Google Fiber today is immaterial compared to Google’s overall financials.
The key, he said, is keeping costs of deploying the network as low as possible. Contrary to what other infrastructure providers have done in the past, Medin said that Google has not asked for any funds from the government to subsidize the cost of its network nor has it sought out attractive tax breaks.
Instead, the company has partnered with cities to make the process of building such a network less expensive and less time consuming.
Specifically, Google asked the city of Kansas City to dedicate construction inspectors to the Google Fiber project so that the inspections the city requires on a regular basis could be done quickly, which saves Google time and money during the construction phase. It also asked to co-locate the fiber with any city owned conduit, so that it didn’t have to tear up streets unnecessarily. And the company worked with utilities to make sure that new poles that go up offer space for new fiber connections to be strung.
“A city committed to being gigabit-friendly can make a difference,” he said. “All of this can add up to real savings.”
TV is a key component
Building the network has not been without its challenges, Medin said. The biggest headache for Google thus far in deploying Google Fiber has been offering its TV service. While Google decided not to offer telephone service as part of a triple play because it was too costly and added little value to the package, Medin said a TV service was a must in attracting residential customers. But offering this service has also created the most challenges for the company and has also cost it the most money.
“TV was a stumbling block for us,” he said. “But you simply can’t sell a residential broadband service without a competitive TV product.”
The problem that Google faced was that the company couldn’t simply resell someone else’s TV service, because, as Medin put it, “the other TV services available were pretty horrible.”
Instead, Google had to build its own system for delivering TV over its IP fiber network. This meant building its own national video head-end and encoding the video itself. It also had to build all of the in-home set-top boxes and other hardware to offer service, including a router/set-top box and a 2 Terabyte storage device/digital video recorder that allows up to eight different shows to be recorded at once.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wanted for the Internet of Things: Ant-Sized Computers
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514101/wanted-for-the-internet-of-things-ant-sized-computers/
A computer two millimeters square is the start of an effort to make chips that can put computer power just about anywhere for the vaunted “Internet of Things.”
If the Internet is to reach everywhere—from the pills you swallow to the shoes on your feet—then computers will need to get a whole lot smaller. A new microchip that is two millimeters square and contains almost all the components of a tiny functioning computer is a promising start.
The KL02 chip, made by Freescale, is shorter on each side than most ants are long and crams in memory, RAM, a processor, and more.
“The Internet of things is ultimately about services, like your thermostat connecting to the Internet and knowing when you’re coming home,”
Freescale will start offering the KL02, and some slightly larger microcontrollers, with Zigbee or low-power Bluetooth wireless integrated later this year. Wireless connectivity is added by adding the guts of a radio chip to the current designs. The company is also working to refine technology for packaging chips and other components together to enable many more millimeter-scale computers.
“All these heterogeneous things need to come together and be integrated,” says Karimi, “but we have to figure out how these components can coexist without degrading their performance.”
“Such wafer-scale packaging is getting close to ‘smart dust’ design points,”
Karimi agrees that batteries are a problem, saying that Freescale is working with partners developing energy harvesting components—of heat, radio waves, or light—that could power very small devices.
KL02: Kinetis KL02 Chip-Scale Package (CSP)
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=KL02
Tomi Engdahl says:
Steelie Neelie wants roaming charges gone by Easter 2014
Europe’s ‘economic disaster’ will be eased by cheaper calls says web head
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/03/steelie_neelie_wants_roaming_charges_gone_by_easter_2014/
Neelie Kroes, the vice-president of the European Commission with responsibility for its “Digital Agenda for Europe” has called for international roaming charges across the Eurozone to end from Easter 2014.
Speaking last week before the European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) Committee, Kroes called for the introduction of “A strong single market package” because she feels the telecoms market is unlike any other as “There is no other sector of our incomplete European single market where the barriers are so unneeded, and yet so high.”
She therefore called on the Parliament to get on its bike and sign off on telecoms reform, saying “It is my belief that we can deliver such a package – this full, final, package – around Easter 2014.
But she did say that whether Europeans want cheaper calls “for travel or trade or for transactions or for fun” Parliamentarians should sign off on a single telecoms market, stat.
Doing so, she said, will help to strengthen the digital economy, which is just what the many unemployed youth of Europe need.
“We can’t afford todays countless, needless, artificial obstacles,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
TIA’s great Category 8 debate and ISO/IEC’s cabling update
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-21/issue-5/features/tias-great-category-8-debate-and-iso-iecs-cabling-update.html
Unlike previous standards, Category 8 as proposed is not an electrical-performance superset of Category 7A.
After debating the issue for three meeting cycles, the TIA TR-42.7 Copper Cabling Subcommittee adopted “Category 8″ as the name of its next-generation balanced twisted-pair cabling system that is currently under development to support 40-Gbit/sec transmission in a two-connector channel over some distance up to at least 30 meters.
Traditionally, a new-generation category of cabling is a performance superset of the previous-generation category; therefore the previous generation is a subset of the next generation.
However, the performance specifications proposed by TIA for Category 8 are not a superset of ISO/IEC’s Category 7A for several electrical-performance parameters.
So herein lays the conundrum: Category 8 is expected to have a different deployed channel topology and will not be a performance superset of Category 7A. In fact, for every transmission parameter except return loss, ISO/IEC Category 7A channel and permanent link limits are more severe than those proposed by TR-42.7 for Category 8 up to 1 GHZ. In the case of internal crosstalk parameters, the differences are significant, with Category 7A beating out Category 8 performance by more than 20 dB.
Until the processing capabilities of a 40-Gbit/sec Ethernet (40GBase-T) application are finalized, it is too early to guarantee 40GBase-T application support distance for any media. However, Category 7A solutions remain the highest-performing commercially available twisted-pair cabling system.
It’s not magic; 8 has a future
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-21/issue-5/departments/editorial/its-not-magic-8-has-a-future.html
A magic 8 ball adorns this issue’s cover because one of the hottest topics of conversation in the cabling industry today is the development of Category 8 cabling performance specifications. However, unlike the misspent nights of my youth, the time and work that will be required to develop these cabling specifications carry great import because of the significant impact these specifications will have on future cabling-system designs and installations.
The paths that the TIA and ISO/IEC take to Category 8 and Category 8.1/8.2, respectively, probably will be more like bank shots than trick shots. The eventual result is known, even if the way to it is indirect. Achieving that result will require effort and precision, both of which are quite familiar to the professionals in these standards-making groups.
Pre-standard Category 8 cable
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/datwyler-cu82034p.html
The CU 8203 4P cable from Datwyler is a “compact, S/FTP AWG23 cable which complies fully with the anticipated requirements of the new Category 8.2 as specified in the ISO/IEC draft,” the company says. The cable comprises four twisted pairs, each of which is protected by a metal shield. An overall foil also covers all four twisted pairs. Datwyler adds that it intends to follow the release of this cable with “other new developments with S/FTP and F/FTP as well as the appropriate patch cables.”
The ISO/IEC TR 11801-99-1 draft “defines a point-to-point connection between active devices at a maximum distance of 30 meters,” Datwyler explains, “comprising 26 meters of installation cable and 2 meters of patch cable on either side. Such a connection can replace expensive fiber-optic and twinax cabling in data centers.”
The exact channel specifications “will be drawn up over the next few months,” the company continues. “Many issues are still unresolved, particularly in relation to future connection technology and the transmission method.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Expanding the realm of cabling-system administration
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-21/issue-5/features/expanding-the-realm-of-cabling-system-administration.html
For those who believe the administration of a structured cabling system begins and ends with labels, there is much more to the picture.
The Telecommunications Industry Association’s (TIA; http://www.tiaonline.org) 606 series of standards, currently in its “B” version, ANSI/TIA-606-B, significantly emphasizes the proper labeling of cables, ports, and in more recent versions, rack and enclosure spaces. When the term “administration” gets brought up in a discussion about a cabling plant, the concept of proper labeling most often comes to mind. As any network manager or technician who has ever unsuccessfully sorted through a rat’s nest of cables can tell you, proper labeling is a time- and money-saver while improper or non-existent labeling is a network headache—either waiting to happen or already happening.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Distribution shelf reduces footprint of DAS power cables
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/das-power-shelf.html
At the DAS Congress in Las Vegas (Apr. 30- May 1), GE unveiled its Power Express Class 2 distribution shelf, designed to equip wireless network providers with a solution to reduce the footprint of distributed antenna systems’ (DAS) power cables. The distribution shelf eliminates the need for installing expensive conduit to run the cables, says the company.
According to GE, the Power Express Class 2 distribution shelves enable power-feed cables to be harnessed in existing infrastructure throughout a commercial building’s data cable raceway. To do this, the distribution modules located on the shelf limit individual circuit outputs to an inherently safe level by taking an input of -48 volt DC power from a battery plant and outputting it in 32 discrete 100-watt circuit cables (levels comparable to a LAN or USB data cable).
The shelf incorporates internal circuit fusing to the distribution modules, which prevents technicians from installing a higher rated fuse and violating National Electric Code (NEC) Class 2 circuit requirements.
Class 2 compliance requires that a maximum power output be equal to or less than 100 watts per component. Class 2 circuits are considered to be safer than many others.
“By delivering an inherently safe power cable complying with the National Electrical Code, the Power Express enables the wireless service provider to run through power cables in existing data cable raceways,” concludes GE’s Schnitzer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethernet preps for real-time role in cars, factories
http://www.eetimes.com/design/communications-design/4415470/Ethernet-preps-for-real-time-role-in-cars–factories
Engineers are driving real-time capabilities into Ethernet for use in cars and the factory floor. The work is spread across nearly a dozen standards efforts many of which will be implemented in products that could ship before the end of next year.
Industrial and automotive giants including Bosch, GE, Rockwell and Siemens are working with Ethernet chip vendors on the new specs.
Historically, the industrial companies made Profinet and other components that met their needs, but “they don’t want to be in the network business anymore,” said Michael Johas Teener, a Broadcom senior technical director, chairing several of the efforts. “They are making 100 Mbit/s devices now, but going to Gbit is a big deal, so they would rather just buy the part,” he said.
Teener chaired the Audio Video Bridging (AVB) efforts that paved the way for streaming media.
“Two milliseconds is good enough for real-time A/V, but industrial guys wanted orders of magnitude better than that,” Teener said. “We knew we could do it but it would take more time,” he said.
So the group changed its name to Time-Sensitive Ethernet to reflect its new charter. It aims to enable versions of Ethernet with latencies of a few hundred microseconds for some apps and less than 10 microseconds for others.
One important consideration was not changing anything in the physical layer of Ethernet.
Today’s 100M chips are generally sufficient for linking end points in a car. But over the next few years car makers will need Gbit/s links for their backbone nets and future high-res, long-distance cameras.
“In the short term they could use existing Gbit Ethernet components with some difficulty because they are not intended for that nasty automotive EMI environment, so we have to shield the hell out of the cables,”
Cabling represents the third heaviest and second most expensive class of components in cars today, he noted.
By contrast, “industrial guys wanted lower latency and Gbit yesterday”
“Most people recognize the advantage of getting these capabilities as part of a broader Ethernet technology that’s more cost effective” than the alternatives, said Thaler.