In few years there’ll be close to 4bn smartphones on earth. Ericsson’s annual mobility report forecasts increasing mobile subscriptions and connections through 2020.(9.5B Smartphone Subs by 2020 and eight-fold traffic increase). Ericsson’s annual mobility report expects that by 2020 90% of the world’s population over six years old will have a phone. It really talks about the connected world where everyone will have a connection one way or another.
What about the phone systems in use. Now majority of the world operates on GSM and HPSA (3G). Some countries are starting to have good 4G (LTE) coverage, but on average only 20% is covered by LTE. 4G/LTE small cells will grow at 2X the rate for 3G and surpass both 2G and 3G in 2016.
Ericsson expects that 85% of mobile subscriptions in the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa will be 3G or 4G by 2020. 75%-80% of North America and Western Europe are expected to be using LTE by 2020. China is by far the biggest smartphone market by current users in the world, and it is rapidly moving into high-speed 4G technology.
The sales of mobile broadband routers and mobile broadband “usb sticks” is expected to continue to drop. In year 2013 those devices were sold 87 million units, and in 2014 sales dropped again 24 per cent. Chinese Huawei is the market leader (45%), so it has most to loose on this.
Small cell backhaul market is expected to grow. ABI Research believes 2015 will now witness meaningful small cell deployments. Millimeter wave technology—thanks to its large bandwidth and NLOS capability—is the fastest growing technology. 4G/LTE small cell solutions will again drive most of the microwave, millimeter wave, and sub 6GHz backhaul growth in metropolitan, urban, and suburban areas. Sub 6GHz technology will capture the largest share of small cell backhaul “last mile” links.
Technology for full duplex operation at one radio frequency has been designed. The new practical circuit, known as a circulator, that lets a radio send and receive data simultaneously over the same frequency could supercharge wireless data transfer, has been designed. The new circuit design avoids magnets, and uses only conventional circuit components. The radio wave circulator utilized in wireless communications to double the bandwidth by enabling full-duplex operation, ie, devices can send and receive signals in the same frequency band simultaneously. Let’s wait to see if this technology turns to be practical.
Broadband connections are finally more popular than traditional wired telephone: In EU by the end of 2014, fixed broadband subscriptions will outnumber traditional circuit-switched fixed lines for the first time.
After six years in the dark, Europe’s telecoms providers see a light at the end of the tunnel. According to a new report commissioned by industry body ETNO, the sector should return to growth in 2016. The projected growth for 2016, however, is small – just 1 per cent.
With headwinds and tailwinds, how high will the cabling market fly? Cabling for enterprise local area networks (LANs) experienced growth of between 1 and 2 percent in 2013, while cabling for data centers grew 3.5 percent, according to BSRIA, for a total global growth of 2 percent. The structured cabling market is facing a turbulent time. Structured cabling in data centers continues to move toward the use of fiber. The number of smaller data centers that will use copper will decline.
Businesses will increasingly shift from buying IT products to purchasing infrastructure-as-a-service and software-as-a-service. Both trends will increase the need for processing and storage capacity in data centers. And we need also fast connections to those data centers. This will cause significant growth in WiFi traffic, which will will mean more structured cabling used to wire access points. Convergence also will result in more cabling needed for Internet Protocol (IP) cameras, building management systems, access controls and other applications. This could mean decrease in the installing of special separate cabling for those applications.
The future of your data center network is a moving target, but one thing is certain: It will be faster. The four developments are in this field are: 40GBase-T, Category 8, 32G and 128G Fibre Channel, and 400GbE.
Ethernet will more and more move away from 10, 100, 1000 speed series as proposals for new speeds are increasingly pushing in. The move beyond gigabit Ethernet is gathering pace, with a cluster of vendors gathering around the IEEE standards effort to help bring 2.5 Gbps and 5 Gbps speeds to the ubiquitous Cat 5e cable. With the IEEE standardisation process under way, the MGBase-T alliance represents industry’s effort to accelerate 2.5 Gbps and 5 Gbps speeds to be taken into use for connections to fast WLAN access points. Intense attention is being paid to the development of 25 Gigabit Ethernet (25GbE) and next-generation Ethernet access networks. There is also development of 40GBase-T going on.
Cat 5e vs. Cat 6 vs. Cat 6A – which should you choose? Stop installing Cat 5e cable. “I recommend that you install Cat 6 at a minimum today”. The cable will last much longer and support higher speeds that Cat 5e just cannot support. Category 8 cabling is coming to data centers to support 40GBase-T.
Power over Ethernet plugfest planned to happen in 2015 for testing power over Ethernet products. The plugfest will be focused on IEEE 802.3af and 802.3at standards relevant to IP cameras, wireless access points, automation, and other applications. The Power over Ethernet plugfest will test participants’ devices to the respective IEEE 802.3 PoE specifications, which distinguishes IEEE 802.3-based devices from other non-standards-based PoE solutions.
Gartner expects that wired Ethernet will start to lose it’s position in office in 2015 or in few years after that because of transition to the use of the Internet mainly on smartphones and tablets. The change is significant, because it will break Ethernet long reign in the office. Consumer devices have already moved into wireless and now is the turn to the office. Many factors speak on behalf of the mobile office. Research predicts that by 2018, 40 per cent of enterprises and organizations of various solid defines the WLAN devices by default. Current workstations, desktop phone, the projectors and the like, therefore, be transferred to wireless. Expect the wireless LAN equipment market to accelerate in 2015 as spending by service providers and education comes back, 802.11ac reaches critical mass, and Wave 2 products enter the market.
Scalable and Secure Device Management for Telecom, Network, SDN/NFV and IoT Devices will become standard feature. Whether you are building a high end router or deploying an IoT sensor network, a Device Management Framework including support for new standards such as NETCONF/YANG and Web Technologies such as Representational State Transfer (ReST) are fast becoming standard requirements. Next generation Device Management Frameworks can provide substantial advantages over legacy SNMP and proprietary frameworks.
U.S. regulators resumed consideration of mergers proposed by Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc., suggesting a decision as early as March: Comcast’s $45.2 billion proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc and AT&T’s proposed $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV.
There will be changes in the management of global DNS. U.S. is in the midst of handing over its oversight of ICANN to an international consortium in 2015. The National Telecommunications and Information Association, which oversees ICANN, assured people that the handover would not disrupt the Internet as the public has come to know it. Discussion is going on about what can replace the US government’s current role as IANA contract holder. IANA is the technical body that runs things like the global domain-name system and allocates blocks of IP addresses. Whoever controls it, controls the behind-the-scenes of the internet; today, that’s ICANN, under contract with the US government, but that agreement runs out in September 2015.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM joins the NFV race with virtual set-top box spec
All your STBs are belong to the cloud
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/06/arm_joins_the_nfv_race/
ARM has become the latest silicon vendor to pitch a major network function virtualisation (NFV) strategy, and has announced a partnerships with Applied Micro and Netzyn, and with Enea.
Under the ARM-Applied Micro-Netzyn agreement (announced here), the three partners will create and demonstrate a virtual set-top box for pay TV delivery.
Under the vSTB reference platform the pals intend to put together, Applied Micro X-Gene server-on-a-chip solutions would live in the carrier cloud to run STB functions (like UI, electronic program guide, and even STB-based gaming), turning the STB into a simpler, dumber device.
This is in line with what ETSI has set out in its Proof of Concept documents, and will be demonstrated at the upcoming NVF World Congress.
Ultimately, ARM reckons, the virtualisation of the STB would reduce the customer-side device footprint down to a dongle-level form factor or an app in the TV (the latter, The Reg’s networking desk reckons, being an ideal way for pay TV operators to try and capture customers forever).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Great, we all want 5G mobile broadband. Now just how are we gonna wire it all up?
Asking for a friend (the UN’s standards bods at the ITU)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/06/5g_itu/
The UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has set up a new focus group to look at how today’s landline networks can be adapted to provide the backhaul for 5G. In other words, how to use today’s cabling to link high-speed 5G phone masts to carrier networks and the wider internet.
The ITU also wants to call the next standard IMT-2020. “IMT FOR 2020 AND BEYOND”, the name Telephones In The Street having been rejected because of the acronym. Since everyone who doesn’t work in the mobile industry calls 3G-LTE “4G”, and what the ITU calls IMT-2000 is what everyone calls 3G, the ITU recognises that IMT-2020 isn’t a name with much of a future – and has given in to calling it “5G” with “quotes”.
The ITU says that because 5G systems will enable wireless communication to match the speed and reliability achieved by fibre-optic infrastructure, and because it will be used for a much broader range of application such as “healthcare, industrial automation, virtual reality, automated driving, and robotic systems”, there is a need for the networks to have an imperceptible time lag across their systems. The ITU must be awarded some kudos for not saying “Internet of Things”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Master Designer Who Gave the Area Code Its Parentheses
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/master-designer-gave-area-code-parentheses/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Parametric Search : 100 Gigabit Ethernet
http://www.avagotech.com/pages/en/fiber_optics/ethernet/100_gigabit_ethernet/?utm_source=UBM&utm_medium=eNewsletter&utm_campaign=data+center
Avago Technologies offers a range of high-speed optical transceiver and transmitter/receiver module solutions supporting 100G Ethernet, Optical Transport Networking (OTN), InfiniBand and high-speed interconnects. These parallel optics modules come in various form factors including CFP2, CXP, MiniPOD™ and MicroPOD™. Maximum aggregate bandwidth per module ranges from 100 to 168 Gbps.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G Wireless
http://www.ni.com/rf/5g/
NI is collaborating with top researchers focused on wireless research, specifically 5G wireless communications. The graphical system design approach combines LabVIEW system design software with the software defined radio (SDR) platform to help researchers innovate faster. Using this approach, engineers can reduce the time from theory to results by testing their designs in a real-world environment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ITU begins the definition 5G requirements
5G technology should become available in the early 2020s. Companies and research institutes are already hard at work to identify potential technical solutions. Now, the International Telecommunications Union, ITU has begun work on defining the requirements for future 5G networks standards.
ITU terminology 5G has been named IMT-2020. In the first phase has established a working group (focus group) under ITU-T organization, where the actual standardization work will be done.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2778:itu-aloittaa-5g-vaatimusten-maarittelyn&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Ambitions and Challenges of Mesh Networks and the Local Internet Movement
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/05/05/2324232/the-ambitions-and-challenges-of-mesh-networks-and-the-local-internet-movement
Two artists in New York are hatching a plan to teach kids about the internet by building their own. They’ll be creating a small, decentralized network, similar to a mesh network, to access other computers, and they’ll be developing their own simple social network to communicate with other people.
This Mesh We’re In: Why Communities Are Building An Internet That’s More Local
Hackers and artists are signal-boosting mesh networks and other ad hoc alternatives to ISPs like Verizon and Comcast. Can they catch on?
http://www.fastcompany.com/3044686/mesh-networks-and-the-local-internet-movement
Recently, a pair of artists in New York put forward an unusual plan for teaching middle school students about the Internet: specifically, by teaching them how to get off it and build their own.
The plan will combine two series of lessons: one on building a social network, and the other dedicated to constructing a private Wi-Fi network, or “darknet,” in the classroom, disconnected from the Internet at large. In the process, write Joanne McNeil and Dan Phiffer in their proposal, students will learn important concepts about how the Internet works. Last week the project, called “OurNet,” was awarded a $35,000 grant from a MacArthur Foundation digital learning initiative.
Unlike the physical networks of Time Warner and Verizon or the virtual networks of Facebook and Instagram, however, the networks they and their students build will be noncommercial, and limited to people in their Wi-Fi range. That’s not just a way to simplify the lesson: It’s a deliberate choice to help students think about alternatives to corporate Internet providers and platforms built around advertising and tracking.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Carriers Race to Flexible Nets
OPNFV describes mashup of mashups
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326537&
Telecom carriers are racing to develop open source virtualization code to create cheaper, more flexible networks with cultural and reliability hurdles ahead.
In the not-too-distant future all your calls, emails, texts and even the videos you watch will ride over networks run on what will be essentially mashups of mashups of open source software. On the opening day of the NFV World Congress here, developers gave a first look at the rawness of the current work and the promise it holds.
The Open Network Functions Virtualization (OPNFV) project at the Linux Foundation hopes to become a first and foundational source of the software. The collaboration among more than 50 carriers and their system, software and chip vendors is only seven months old and already a month late delivering its first release, Arno.
Web giants such as Netflix — a name that comes up often in OPNFV discussions — are driving the heady pace.
In their haste, the OPNFV developers aren’t writing any major new modules themselves. Instead, they are grabbing pieces of code-in-development from a handful of other open source projects, themselves running at Internet speed, including OpenStack, Open Daylight and others (see chart below).
The group considers itself free to reach out to any open source project that has working code it needs. “We don’t intend to build shim layers between everything. We want to find common APIs that work for everyone…We don’t have the right to dictate APIs,” said Price.
OPNFV stands between a handful of open source projects from which it will borrow code and the ETSI standards group defining high level NFV standards.
“The Arno release will catalyze the community and help us see gaps…[but] it will probably mostly be a lab thing for coordination, at least for the first couple releases — as it becomes mature it will be mostly a collaborative development tool for us,” said Bryan Sullivan, an AT&T standards representative who is a member of the OPNFV technical committee.
That said, Sullivan expects some NFV elements could be in production carrier networks in a year or two. The software promises to help carriers re-configure their networks quickly to provide new services or meet spikes in demand such as a full stadium on a Saturday afternoon.
“We have a long history of node-based services and they’re not fast enough…turning up a circuit across the country should take minutes not months,” Sullivan said. NFV also promises lower costs through better optimization of hardware resources and a broader set of new, mainly software vendors, he added.
“NFV is one of the most significant transformations in our network,” said Licciardi in a panel session here. But “we have to renew our culture in developing and using software in a new way…[while] maintaining the quality of the network,” he said.
“Up to now IT and network technologists have been very separate, but these distinctions should not exist anymore,” he added.
Both the AT&T and Telecom Italia reps predicted NFV would first emerge in green fields, probably as the plumbing for new machine-to-machine services.
For its part, CableLabs has prototyped simplified gateways based on Raspberry Pi boards. They could act as future windows on NFV services for business and home users
OPNFV
https://www.opnfv.org/
OPNFV is a new open source project focused on accelerating NFV’s evolution through an integrated, open platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Net admins: the white box world HASN’T forgotten you
Big Switch upgrades monitoring, turns on bigger Big Tap
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/07/net_admins_the_white_box_world_hasnt_forgotten_you/
Pervasive security and deeper monitoring: that’s what Big Switch Networks is pitching as the centrepiece of the next iteration of its Big Tap Monitoring Fabric, version 4.5.
This system is designed to fit in the network packet broker (NPB) space – the out-of-band sniffer network that raises alerts admins if something’s going wrong.
Big Switch is hoping that network admins who have already put white box switches (such as those from partner Dell) in their data centre will like the idea of using Big Tap as a white-box replacement for proprietary NBPs.
CMO Gregg Holzrichter told The Register’s networking desk that to compete with incumbents like Gigamon (a leader in the network packet broker – NPB – space), the company had to develop Big Tap towards feature parity.
With the exception of “a couple of specialised features like time stamping and packet slicing”, the company reckons it’s achieved that, while keeping the white-box pricing advantage in place.
Putting a Big Tap controller in line, Gandhi said, means “we can intelligently route traffic to these different tools, because not every tool needs to see all of the traffic.”
Features of Big Tap 4.5 include:
Either out-of-band (data centre monitoring) or in-line (DMZ) deployment modes;
Service chaining in in-line mode – this allows multiple tools to be processed in a service chain, under user policy control;
sFlow generation;
DNS and DHCP tracking, for better security visibility;
MPLS header stripping provides service provider WAN monitoring; and
Granular control of load balancing between tools in the DMZ.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC wants to know if carriers can grab some of YOUR WiFi signal
Consultation over the future of LTE-Unlicensed
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/06/fcc_wants_to_know_if_carriers_can_grab_some_of_your_wifi_signal/
The United States’ Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is looking over a key item on the telco industry’s wish-list: spectrum sharing to try and cope with a capacity crunch.
While its consultation paper, here, focuses on “LTE-U” (LTE-Unlicensed), current developments will probably also be relevant to the looming 5G business, which also wants to split spectrum between licensed and unlicensed users.
The FCC says it’s been fielding inquiries about the future use of 3.5 GHz and 5 GHz spectrum, and is looking how licensed applications might coexist with unlicensed users such as WiFi.
LTE-U was proposed by Qualcomm in 2014, at which time that company, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Samsung and Verizon linked arms to create the LTE-U Forum to promote the technology.
One key concern about spectrum sharing is that LTE-U might behave badly in the presence of other signals, but at least one US operator, T-Mobile, has promised to be polite and “listen before it speaks”.
Light Reading reports T-Mobile will commit to implementing Europe’s “Listen Before Talk” (LBT) protocol – a promise that would pressure other operators to do the same.
Since the US is already suffering a shortage of spectrum (its recent auction netted more than US$40 billion), its mobile carriers are keen to scavenge some capacity from the unlicensed sector.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
AT&T customers with unlimited data using LTE now throttled only when network is congested, instead of when they go over 5GB/mo — AT&T finally ramps down throttling of unlimited LTE customers — Facing lawsuit, AT&T now throttles 4G customers only when network is congested.
AT&T finally ramps down throttling of unlimited LTE customers
Facing lawsuit, AT&T now throttles 4G customers only when network is congested.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/att-finally-ramps-down-throttling-of-unlimited-lte-customers/
AT&T’s long-standing policy of throttling LTE service for unlimited data customers has finally been changed so that customers are throttled only when they connect to congested cell towers.
Until now, AT&T customers who used 5GB of data in a single monthly billing period were throttled for the rest of the month at all times, receiving barely usable service, despite paying for “unlimited” data. AT&T is facing a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission over the practice and has denied wrongdoing, but it promised that it would change the policy to make it more lenient before the end of 2015.
AT&T did not make any official announcement of the change, but it is now apparent in the policy detailed on its website
Before the change, which apparently happened overnight, the text showed different policies for LTE and non-LTE customers.
LTE users with unlimited data plans have seen speeds drop below half a megabit per second when being throttled by AT&T. By imposing this draconian throttling policy, AT&T encouraged customers to switch to more expensive plans introduced in the years after AT&T stopped selling unlimited data to new subscribers.
Despite the change, AT&T still faces potential punishment if it loses the case filed by the FTC.
Info for Smartphone Customers with Legacy Unlimited Data Plans
Do you have an unlimited data plan? If so, we have information to help you manage your account.
http://www.att.com/esupport/datausage.jsp?source=IZDUel1160000000U
Tomi Engdahl says:
UXM Wireless Test Set | Keysight Technologies
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq3i71cRzhbZBToP2xnR85t8Th6HVfBkV
Tomi Engdahl says:
UXM Wireless Test Set with LTE-Advanced Category 11
http://www.eeweb.com/news/uxm-wireless-test-set-with-lte-advanced-category-11
Keysight Technologies, Inc. announced verification of end-to-end IP data throughput for downlink rates of 587.5 Mbps with the E7515A UXM wireless test set. Using three component carriers (3CC) and 256 QAM in the downlink, Keysight achieved sustained bi-directional 3GPP UE category 11 data rates.
“The addition of 256 QAM modulation in the downlink allows users to experience even higher data rates when coupled with three component carrier aggregation,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm, Broadcom at Odds Over LTE-Unlicensed
FCC is seeking information on LTE-U and LAA
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326551&
It’s official. The Federal Communications Commission has declared its intention to monitor promoters of the new LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U), pressuring them to play nice — and fairly — in the unlicensed spectrum with those who rely on Wi-Fi for broadband business.
The FCC issued a public notice Wednesday (May 5) seeking information on “technologies and techniques LTE-U/ Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) will implement to share spectrum with existing unlicensed operations and technologies such as Wi-Fi that are widely used by the public.”
Translation: The agency wants to know if truce between the two wireless schemes holds true, and whether LTE-U proponents have made available sufficient evidence [data/analysis] to back up their promise to coexist.
Aside from the technical coexistence discussions on LTE-U/LAA and Wi-Fi, the FCC’s public notice is likely to trigger a whole new industry debate on how best the nation’s unlicensed spectrum should be appropriated and used, now that powerful cellular operators with licensed spectrum want to poach it. And who should arbitrate that.
The LTE-U technology, developed by Qualcomm, is designed to be deployed initially in the same 5GHz spectrum that accommodates Wi-Fi. LTE-U proponents have said it will provide a “seamless user experience, better capacity and coverage” through a common unified network for both licensed and unlicensed spectrums.
Meanwhile, Licensed-Assisted Access (LAA) is currently in development with a goal similar to that of LTE-U. The new LAA spec, which might not be identical to LTE-U spec, is expected to be finalized by 3GPP in 2016. 3GPP, consisting of telecommunications associations, is developer of the 2G, 2.5G, 3G and 4G standards.
The Wi-Fi Alliance has been vocal about its concerns over LTE-U.
Stakes are high for everyone in the wireless business.
‘Pre-standard’ issues
Some carriers, Verizon in particular, are already eager for LTE-U. Verizon has said it will deploy it in the 5 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands in 2016. Other carriers who have acknowledged their plans for LTE-U include Vodafone and T-Mobile.
The fact that operators don’t want to wait for 3GPP to standardize the technology is causing some concerns.
Tomi Engdahl says:
14 Views of the Virtual Network
Docomo to put NFV in live nets by March
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326553&
Japan’s NTT Docomo will virtualize its Evolved Packet Core by March 2016. The statement at the NFV World Congress here marked one of the first specific public commitments from a carrier about taking the emerging Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) standard out of the lab and into a production network.
NFV is widely seen as a major industry transformation in telecom, moving networking jobs off dedicated systems and putting them on virtual pools of x86 servers often running open source code. The transition portends a shift away from traditional communications systems designs based on ASICs and proprietary software.
Carriers feel compelled to make the shift to save costs, simplify network operations and match the pace of delivering new services at competing Web giants such as Amazon, Google and Netflix. So far the slow moving carriers have made many speeches in support of the NFV vision but said little about actual plans.
Despite their cautious pace, work is moving ahead. An AT&T representative said he expects to see carriers have NFV capabilities in production networks in a year or two. A former Sprint R&D manager said he helped create an end-to-end proof of concept for NFV while working at the carrier.
“A number of carriers, including us, have announced live trials/pilots/proof-of-concept projects, so it’s happening already,” said Christos Kolias, a senior research scientist in the Silicon Valley lab of Orange, a European carrier.
Docomo stood out at the event for providing a specific commitment.
“We will introduce as our first use case a virtual EPC (evolved packet core) in our commercial network by at least March 2016,” Hiroshi Nakamura, managing director of the R&D strategy division at Docomo said in a keynote. “The virtual EPC is a first step for us, then we will move on to other virtual services such as [the IP Multimedia Subsystem],” he said.
Docomo’s move is just the beginning. Market watcher Dell’Oro Group forecasts as many as 30% of carriers will license some form of virtual EPC software by 2019 up from almost zero today.
Longer term, Docomo plans for keeping state and process data separate to avoid disconnecting users when one system automatically takes over from another that fails. In addition, it plans to enhance its underlying transport network to spread software control capabilities across its multiple data centers, in part for disaster recovery.
NFV is expected to help quickly reconfigure networks to handle more routine demand spikes such as game days at stadiums. It also is expected to open the telecom market to a broader set of software and systems vendors. In that regard, Nakamura called for a handful of specific standard interfaces to enable multiple vendors to supply interoperable NFV products.
Economic standards are lacking, too.
“There is nothing we can use today to define the savings we hope to see,” said Kolias of Orange. “If my CFO asks how much money will we save with NFV I don’t have an answer…if its 10% it’s not worth it but if its 50 or 70% it’s very valuable,” he added.
So far, the ETSI standards group writing much of the core NFV standards has defined about 35 proof-of-concept prototypes, geared to kick start implementation efforts that most carriers now have in their labs.
Network Functions Virtualisation
http://www.etsi.org/technologies-clusters/technologies/nfv
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boffins set to reveal state of play on fully duplex comms – on the same FREQ
One of the things we might get in 5G, so worth a think
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/11/cambridge_wireless_to_shout_and_listen_at_the_same_time/
A conference at Bristol university is set to reveal the current state of the art on Full Duplex technology, which allows for transmitting and receiving signals on the same frequency at the same time.
The idea that a radio can simultaneously shout and listen has been regarded as both old, established technology and a bonkers debasement of physics. It’s one of the more controversial proposals for 5G.
Kumu Networks told The Reg last year that it could double throughputs.
Simples.
Well, not quite. And that is the meat of the conference.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jason Verge / Data Center Knowledge:
Microsoft Invests In Several Submarine Cables In Support Of Cloud Services
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/05/11/microsoft-invests-several-submarine-cables-support-cloud-services/
Microsoft is investing in several submarine cables to connect data centers globally and in support of growing data network needs. The latest investments strengthen connections across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, connecting several countries.
Microsoft continues to significantly invest in subsea and terrestrial dark fiber capacity by engaging in fiber relationships worldwide. Better connectivity helps Microsoft compete on cloud costs, as well as improves reliability, performance and resiliency worldwide. The investments also spur jobs and local economies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
OpenFlow busts out of the data centre with 15,000-route Pacific test
El Reg talks to network architect David Wilde, who explains how to do SDN at oceanic scale
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/12/international_sdn_demo_just_the_start_for_aarnet/
Last week, an international group of researchers and vendors demonstrated international carrier-scale software-defined networking (SDN), exchanging 15,000 routes across a trans-Pacific link.
The partners – ESNet, switch vendor Corsa, the http://onosproject.org/ ONOS project, the Open Networking Foundation, AARnet and the CSIRO – fired up the demonstration that Internet-style international route peering can be brought into the new world of SDN.
El Reg spoke to AARNet network architect David Wilde about the demonstration, and what AARNet hopes to get out of SDN.
Wilde said the key focus of this demonstration was demonstrating that multiple parties – in this case AARnet, CSIRO and ESnet – could use SDN and OpenFlow across the WAN.
The interest here is straightforward: a lot of the focus of OpenFlow is on the data centre, where the number of switches and routes is relatively constrained – and everything’s under the control of a single party.
“For someone like AARNet who runs a service provider network, I’m interested to see what capabilities and advantages that might bring,” Wilde said.
The current demonstration involved Corsa switches in Sydney and in the US (at ESNet), and a Layer 2 circuit (on AARNet’s chunk of Southern Cross) between them. The SDN software, including ESNet’s Vandervecken label switch routing software, ran on virtual machines at ESNet and CSIRO (under the hand of Craig Russell).
While a live network might not involve so many organisations, Wilde said, the project “demonstrates that you can run the SDN controller separately to the switches that are actually passing the traffic” – even with so many organisations involved.
“The traffic doesn’t go anywhere near the SDN controller. The Corsa switches leave it to the controller to sort out the control plane”, he said.
He explained that the attraction of SDN to an organisation like AARNet is management simplicity. Imagine a network that involves a port in a switch in Perth, connected to a router, passing traffic into a fibre link to a destination in Sydney.
Wilde says AARNet’s interest it learning “what happens when you make your whole network look like a single device.”
Getting that unified view of the network should offer better scalability and control, he said – if that can be achieved at the wide-area or international scale that AARNet needs.
That, he said, is a key focus of AARNet’s SDN testbed: “it works very well in a data centre or campus,” he explained.
He added that there are operational advantages (finding out why a link’s up or down), and easier provisioning.
“To bring up a new service, you don’t have to configure a bunch of devices – you tell the controller what to do, and the controller fans that out to the whole network”.
The evangelist’s view of the world is always to focus on what’s working, but the architect is also interested in what can break. Wilde said knowing what can go wrong is a vital part of the work going on in the AARNet SDN testbed.
How the OpenFlow controller talks to individual devices is a key dependency. “The controller needs an out-of-band connection to each device,” he explained. “That’s how it implements the rules into each switch or router.
“That’s fine in a data centre – it’s easy to have the controller connected to own network.
“But if the controller is in Sydney and the switch or router is in Seattle, what happens to your traffic if you lose connectivity?”
The future: automation
In the future, Wilde said, AARNet would like to see its university customers deploying services under their own control. For example, “taking cloud services like AWS or Microsoft Azure, being able to self-provision multiple network connections into their virtual storage instances”.
That would involve AARNet giving its customers an API into its network, as is offered by the cloud services.
Likewise, it would improve institutional ability to create network links to serve a particular purpose – such as a researcher with access to one HPC facility drawing data from another facility, without having to either soak existing connections or try to get the carrier involved in provisioning.
SDN could let all of this be rolled into a single workflow.
“More and more,” Wilde said, “the compute and the storage and the tools on top are becoming a single bundle, to provide useful resources to researchers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft invests in subsea cables to connect datacenters in UK, Asia
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-invests-in-subsea-cables-to-connect-datacenters-in-uk-asia/
Summary:The investments are the latest in Microsoft’s nine-month push to expand its network of underwater fiber optics, which it intends to use to support its growing portfolio of cloud services.
Microsoft on Monday announced a series of partnerships that expand on the company’s investment in subsea fiber cables, which Microsoft plans to use to connect its global datacenters.
Microsoft says it has struck deals with fiber providers Hibernia and Aqua Comms for two cables that will connect North America to the United Kingdom and Ireland via the Atlantic Ocean. The cables will travel through Halifax, Canada, Ballinspittle, Ireland and Brean, UK.
An Asian route via the Pacific Ocean is also in the works. Microsoft says it has entered a consortium with China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, KT Corporation to build The New Cross Pacific Cable Network (pictured above), which will link together Hillsboro, Oregon with China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. As part of the consortium deal, Microsoft will build its first physical landing station in the US.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon to Acquire AOL
Deal Creates Unique and Scaled Digital Media Platforms for Consumers, Advertisers and Partners
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/verizon-to-acquire-aol-300081541.html
Taking another significant step in building digital and video platforms to drive future growth, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ) today announced the signing of an agreement to purchase AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) for $50 per share — an estimated total value of approximately $4.4 billion.
Verizon’s acquisition further drives its LTE wireless video and OTT (over-the-top video) strategy. The agreement will also support and connect to Verizon’s IoT (Internet of Things) platforms, creating a growth platform from wireless to IoT for consumers and businesses.
AOL is a leader in the digital content and advertising platforms space, and the combination of Verizon and AOL creates a scaled, mobile-first platform offering directly targeted at what eMarketer estimates is a nearly $600 billion global advertising industry. AOL’s key assets include its subscription business; its premium portfolio of global content brands, including The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, MAKERS and AOL.com, as well as its millennial-focused OTT, Emmy-nominated original video content; and its programmatic advertising platforms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comcast joins the OpenDaylight software-defined networking party
900-pound silverback seeks share accommodation with like-minded heavyweights
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/13/comcast_joins_the_opendaylight_party/
Heavyweight US carrier Comcast has seen the light and wants its input into how software-defined networking (SDN) works.
The company has become the OpenDaylight Foundation’s first end-user member, although it has been a code contributor.
As SDX Central notes, Comcast was involved in the CableLabs contribution, the PacketCable PCMM project. This “incubation-stage” software will bring cable modem provisioning into the orbit of an OpenDaylight controller.
It, along with Lenovo, is joining as a silver-level sponsor.
Luke’s angle is that SDN can simplify handoffs from telcos’ fearsomely-complex OSS/BSS, given a “common framework and useful abstractions”, letting engineers accelerate service development and deployment.
Technologies on Luke’s list include segment routing, LISP (the Locator ID Separation Protocol), and network-edge NFV (for example, the virtual CPE model).
LISP, defined in RFC 6830, is a Cisco-authored proposal to separate a user’s “routing locator” from the endpoint identifier (which might be your user ID or device ID). At the moment, IP address identifies both the destination of a route and the endpoint / user, which gets in the way of multihoming and mobility.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Big Switch adds NSX-v support to fabric controller
Getting NSX talking to the PHY layer
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/13/bsn_adds_nsxv_support_to_fabric_controller/
Big Switch Networks (BSN) is getting cosier with VMware by adding virtzilla’s NSX virtualisation to its Big Cloud Fabric.
NSX virtualises the network into a vSwitch-based SDN overlay, but sysadmins still have to deal with the underlying physical network, and that’s where Big Switch reckons it can help.
The new release of Big Cloud Fabric – 2.6 – makes NSX-linked virtual machines and Virtual Tunnel End Point (VTEP) hosts visible to the controller. That, the company says, makes it easy to troubleshoot connections between VTEPs across the end-to-end physical connection.
There’s also new analytics for NSX-v virtual machines.
It’s an effort to close what the company sees as “visibility gap” that irritates admins trying to keep the network underlay humming.
Big Switch SDN veep Prashant Gandhi said in a virtualised environment, devices have to talk directly to (for example) VMware via API calls. Managing the network that way becomes a bottleneck: “any interaction with external orchestration remains box-by-box,” he told The Register.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why FEC plays nice with DFE
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-standards/4439390/Why-FEC-plays-nice-with-DFE?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150512&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150512&elq=0d82b53701b944f6aede6d9171b3c6bc&elqCampaignId=22964&elqaid=25849&elqat=1&elqTrackId=802aeba8e9d94cbcbc96ea61aec8fa23
At data rates above about 10 Gbits/s, the frequency response and impedance mismatches from the transmitting end of one SERDES (serializer-deserializer) to the receiving end of another SERDES causes eye-closing ISI (inter-symbol interference). The combination of pre/de-emphasis at the transmitter and equalization at the receiver fixes enough of that ISI to reopen the eye so it can operate at a reasonable BER (bit error ratio). The receiver usually employs two types of equalization: CTLE (continuous time linear equalization) at its input and DFE (decision feedback equalization) that feeds back ISI corrections following identification of 1s and 0s by the decision circuit.
Enter FEC
FEC (forward error correction) is mathematical magic. At the transmitter, you take a bunch of data bits, add a few extra parity bits—really a generalization of parity or CRC (cyclic redundancy check) bits—and run the whole “frame” through a well-chosen binary polynomial. At the other end, you run the received frame through the inverse of the polynomial, wave a logical wand, and, voila! You both identify and correct some bit errors. There are restrictions, of course, it’s only magic until it fails.
100 Gigabit Ethernet and OIF-CEI use Reed-Solomon FEC (forward-error correction) coding, RS(528, 514). First, let’s think in terms of generic symbols, we’ll convert back to bits in a second. The idea of RS(528, 514) is that you encode 514 data symbols and 14 parity symbols into a 528 symbol frame (Figure 2). The coding-decoding process can correct up to 7 errored symbols.
At its most effective, RS-FEC can correct as many as 70 errors in 5280 bits provided that those errors come in very well placed strings of 10 in a row.
The “decision feedback” property of DFE means that it corrects ISI by assuming that each incoming bit has been interpreted correctly; it’s called the “ideal decision” assumption and leads to DFE’s Achilles’ Heel: burst errors.
When the decision circuit gets a bit wrong, the ideal decision assumption fails, and the DFE feeds back the wrong signal. That is, instead of canceling out ISI, the DFE gives the decision circuit more noise and it’s likely to generate another bit error. The DFE is then even farther out of control and burst or avalanche errors are likely to occur.
But RS-FEC loves burst errors! By encoding data into symbols and then correcting the symbols, RS(528-514) can correct a burst of up to 70 consecutive errors.
When the decision circuit gets a bit wrong, the ideal decision assumption fails, and the DFE feeds back the wrong signal. That is, instead of canceling out ISI, the DFE gives the decision circuit more noise and it’s likely to generate another bit error. The DFE is then even farther out of control and burst or avalanche errors are likely to occur.
But RS-FEC loves burst errors! By encoding data into symbols and then correcting the symbols, RS(528-514) can correct a burst of up to 70 consecutive errors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
LTE-WiFi Debate Exposes Spectrum Land Grab
Cellular operators don’t want WiFi to behave more like LTE
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326570&
When the Federal Communications Commission issued a public notice last week seeking information on LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U) and Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), many media outlets tended to frame the news as a technical debate on the possibility of peaceful co-existence between two competing wireless technologies: LTE-U/LAA vs. WiFi.
Cellular operators are proposing LTE-U/LAA so that they can use LTE in the unlicensed frequency bands currently used by WiFi. Their mission is to offload the exploding data traffic on cellular networks to WiFi.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Community > Blogs > Living Analog Blog
Manchester Coded Bit Streams
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/living-analog/4439268/Manchester-Coded-Bit-Streams-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20150430&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20150430&elq=aa3ac8b830e44339b4ddf363f0192401&elqCampaignId=22804&elqaid=25657&elqat=1&elqTrackId=061d8360a1454725b187781d2c18d22e
Tomi Engdahl says:
Weightless-N Standard Evolves
http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/107931
The Weightless SIG has announced that it has completed its first quarter Weightless-N Working Group conference convened to progress development of the new IoT specification for sub-GHz spectrum. Focused on timely execution and reporting rapid progress, the group reaffirmed its commitment to a Q2 2015 publication timescale for version 1.0 of the Weightless-N Standard. Work formally commenced on the development of the Weightless-N standard in the third quarter of 2014 after a comprehensive review of functional and parametric requirements for IoT connectivity technology in sub-GHz spectrum.
Version 1.0 of the Weightless-N Standard will provide uplink connectivity based on Ultra Narrow Band technology enabling vendors to quickly offer product to the developer market; future iterations of the Standard will incorporate bidirectional communications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco Names Veteran Robbins To Succeed Chambers as CEO
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/05/04/222246/cisco-names-veteran-robbins-to-succeed-chambers-as-ceo
After 20 years as Cisco’s CEO, John Chambers will step down this summer. The search for a replacement took a committee 16 months, and they selected Chuck Robbins, who was previously responsible for the company’s global sales and partner team.
Cisco veteran Robbins to take over as CEO from Chambers
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/04/us-cisco-moves-ceo-idUSKBN0NP14120150504
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobile networks employ and bring money
Without a cell phone networks in modern society could not survive, but the economic importance of the networks is not very well mapped. Now it is, although the North American markets. According to the research networks employ a lot of people and produce large economic benefits.
Brattle Group to study the Yankee market effects of mobile networks at CTIA exhibition organizer known for the Wireless Association. According to the study the direct and indirect economic returns are annualized as much as $ 400 billion.
US licensable for operators frequencies 645.5 MHz. For example, in 2013, American consumers paid mobile services to $ 172 billion.
Networks are also a major source of employment. Each network in the field of working arises from an average of 6.5 other jobs. For example, mobile applications employed in 2013 more than 750 thousand people. All in all mobile sector employed directly and indirectly 1.3 million employees in 2013.
After 2013, the figures are of course still grown.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2824:mobiiliverkot-tyollistavat-ja-tuovat-rahaa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Mobile Broadband Spectrum:
A Vital Resource for the U.S. Economy
http://www.ctia.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/brattle_spectrum_051115.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Clash Over 900 MHz Options
Cellular sees low power, wide area alternatives
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326599&
A handful of 800-900 MHz low power wide area networks are emerging as low cost alternatives to cellular for connecting what may someday be billions of nodes on the Internet of Things. Representatives from many of the competing options faced off in a panel discussion at the Internet of Things World here.
Participants agreed the new networks are starting to gain significant traction, and standards are still a ways off. The networks are expected to help monitor everything from smart cities to farm fields in applications where sensors need to send only a little data sporadically over a long life time.
“This is a fundamental game changer…the networks and the devices are a fraction of the cost of the typical [cellular] carrier networks,” said Will Franks, chairman of the Wireless IoT Forum. “We have a potential technology here to connect billions and billions of devices at a very low cost.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Analyst: Emerging LTE-U standards can’t deflate Carrier Wi-Fi market
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/05/abi-lteu-carrier-wifi.html
ABI Research contends that the rapid development of unlicensed LTE (LTE-U) standards and the increasing number of the technology’s proponents brings into question the relationship between cellular networks and Wi-Fi.
“While a number of mobile operators, especially Wi-Fi laggards, would strongly back LTE-U and look forward to it to compensate for late or poor Wi-Fi adoption, the Carrier Wi-Fi space continues to grow, attracting other players like fixed and cable operators – we expect a total shipment of nearly 2 million units in 2015,” says Ahmed Ali, research analyst at ABI Research.
“Wi-Fi calling, for example, provides opportunities for non-mobile carriers to enter and compete in the wireless market,” adds Ali. “Also, dual-SSID gateways allow operators with massive home and enterprise footprints to move into public Wi-Fi segment through community Wi-Fi.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Terminate shielded twisted pair MI cables for fire alarm, voice communications
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/05/pentair-mi-cables-video.html
From Pentair’s Thermal Building & Industrial Heat Tracing Solutions unit, this video reviews proper shielded twisted pair termination procedures for the company’s System 1850 fire alarm and voice communication MI [mineral insulated] cable.
Shielded twisted pair copper sheath MI communication cables are classified by UL and ULC as 2-hour fire resistive, and improper termination of the cable can jeopardize its integrity and reliabilty, notes Pentair.
Pyrotenax Shielded Twisted Pair – Pyropak Termination
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=14&v=vF-t9irJ_bE
Tomi Engdahl says:
Beer o’ clock meets airblown fiber cabling
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/05/beer-cabling-blog.html
Learn more about General Cable’s blown fiber systems and Blown Optical Fiber (BOF) product line.
BICSI Winter ’15 – General Cable PanGen Air Blown Fiber
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBbpWuDTH8s
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Path to 5G: A Look at New Network Technologies That Will Power the IoT
http://www.eeweb.com/blog/eeweb/the-path-to-5g-a-look-at-new-network-technologies-that-will-power-the-iot
In today’s mobile market, almost every device has wireless capabilities on top of a Wi-Fi connection. These devices use a certain generation of mobile telecommunications technology; in the past several years, those technologies have been referred to as 3rd Generation (3G), and 4th Generation (4G). 4G is the most advanced mobile communications technology to date, but as technology continues pressing forward, new features are being discovered. With the rise of the Internet of Things and various types of smart device technologies, it will take something far more complex than 4G to bolster new wireless demands. The demand for a 5G network is growing, but it may take years to implement to power the rapidly expanding network of connected devices.
The 5G capability is more than just an internet connection. It denotes a set of standards that mobile devices and mobile telecommunications use in relation to services and networks that are set by the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000) specifications through the International Telecommunication Union. The set of standards specifies technologies involving voice, Internet access, download and upload speeds, and network protocols, among other necessary mobile communication technologies. Increased data speed is an obvious improvement that will be implemented with 5G, but 5G will be an amalgamation of smarter technologies in order to aid our daily lives. Three of the main technologies being standardized for the 5G upgrade are millimeter wave wireless communications, cognitive radio, and support for the Internet of Things (IoT).
Previously, the two forerunners in technology when deploying 4G platforms were Long Term Evolution (LTE) Advanced and Mobile WiMax (IEEE 802.16e). Currently, the 4G standard for bandwidths is between 5 and 20MHz with a peak range of 40MHz.
Mobile WiMax can offer peak download speeds of 128Mbit/s and upload speeds of 56Mbit/s on these frequencies.
4G LTE advanced can deploy data rate speeds at a maximum of 1Gbit/s downstream and 100Mbit/s upstream on the previously mentioned frequencies, which is accomplished by using higher frequencies as well as utilizing MIMO. MIMO uses multiple transmit and receive antennas to exploit multipath propagation.
5G will also utilize these technologies, but with modified versions. It is currently labeled as a “converged fiber-wireless network.” This will allow wireless Internet access to use millimeter wave bands across the 20 to 60GHz spectrum. This frequency range allows very wide bandwidth radio channels and will support up to 10Gbit/s of data access speed.
However, millimeter wave wireless communications can be somewhat limited. This is because frequencies higher than 30GHz tend to be absorbed by chemicals in the atmosphere such as oxygen and water.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TE Connectivity’s extender, powered fiber cable extend PoE to 3 km
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/04/te-poe-extender-powered-fiber-cable.html
TE Connectivity today announced a Power over Ethernet extension system—including an environmentally rugged PoE Extender and a modular hybrid fiber/copper cable—that supports Power over Ethernet up to 3,000 meters. “This represents an order-of-magnitude improvement in PoE’s reach from its nominal 100 meters, and opens up a new range of applications for PoE equipment such as CATV cameras, WiFi access points, small cells and digital signage,” the company said when announcing the system, which will be available in June. “PoE deployments are no longer dependent on the availability of power nearby,” TE Connectivity continued. “This allows significant network optimizations and, in the case of WiFi access points, minimizes the number of cells that must be deployed to cover an entire area.”
TE Connectivity added that the extender meets NEC Class II and SELV standards, and includes DC/DC conversion electronics, which automatically condition electrical voltage to the correct level needed for PoE input to the device under load.
Ryan Chappell, business development manager for optical cable with TE Connectivity, explained in an interview with cablinginstall.com that the 12- or 16-AWG conductors in the hybrid cable are used exclusively for the delivery of power; they are not twisted pairs intended to carry signal. Cables including the smaller, 16-AWG conductors are available at a lower price and can be used in applications requiring a shorter PoE reach, while cables with the larger, 12-AWG conductors are geared for longer-distance deployments up to 3,000 meters. Additionally, the system’s reach can vary depending upon whether users deploy 802.3af (PoE) or 802.3at (PoE Plus).
Tomi Engdahl says:
EtherCAT Linking Factory to Office
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326600&
In the industrial market, one of the key applications for the Internet of Things (IoT) is to provide information on factory operation to the back office. Doing so requires a bridge between the networks running the factory machinery and the IT networks in the office. The EtherCAT Technology Group and the OPC Foundation are working together to develop standards for building such a bridge in next-generation factories utilizing industrial IoT.
The OPC Foundation has created the OPC Unified Architecture (OPC-UA), a platform-independent, service-oriented infrastructure model that facilitates communications of information and control among operations such as field devices, manufacturing execution systems, and enterprise resource planning systems. The EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) supports the EtherCAT real-time industrial Ethernet, providing conformance and interoperability testing and certification. Together, the two aim to provide industrial users with consistent communications across all levels of a manufacturing enterprise, from factory to cloud, using Internet technologies. The groups have agreed to develop a common definition of open interfaces bridging the two approaches.
OPC’s choice of EtherCAT as the field network for its industrial IoT framework mirrors a growing interest in the bus for next-generation industrial network systems. For instance, both Microchip and Infineon have recently introduced new products supporting EtherCAT. Microchip released the LAN9252 3-port EtherCAT slave controller with integrated PHY. Infineon released the XMC4800, a Cortex M-based microcontroller with integrated EtherCAT node.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Owen Williams / The Next Web:
European mobile networks reportedly plan to block all advertising, targeting Google
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/15/european-mobile-networks-reportedly-plan-to-block-all-advertising-targeting-google/
A report from the Financial Times today claims that European mobile networks are preparing to block advertising across the Web.
According to the story, which cites anonymous sources, the carriers have installed software from Israeli ad-blocking firm Shine in their data centers to block advertising in Web pages and apps, but not social networks.
The plan – which would be devastating to companies reliant on advertising – is not limited to a single European network. Its apparent aim is to break Google’s hold on advertising.
The FT report says that “an executive at a European carrier confirmed that it and several of its peers are planning to start blocking adverts this year” and will be available as an “opt-in service” however they are also considering applying the technology across their entire mobile networks.
This isn’t the first time a provider has tried to blanket block ads.
In 2013, French ISP “Free” blocked advertising in a firmware update to its router but was forced to back down by the government. In the US, some providers tried to inject additional advertising, which was also met with backlash.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Industrial Ethernet: From the Front Office to the Factory Floor
http://www.sealevel.com/community/blog/industrial-ethernet-from-the-front-office-to-the-factory-floor/
Ethernet networks traditionally connect our workplace environments where laptops and mobile devices are the primary communication tools. Now, Ethernet networks are expanding beyond the office to connect to major monitoring and control systems used in the manufacturing space. Ethernet is an obvious solution for industrial automation applications in part because it is a mature, highly affordable technology. This modern communications capability makes on the fly adjustments to production more than just a futuristic fantasy.
One of the “big picture” business benefits of industrial Ethernet often touted by analysts and vendors is rapid response—both to market demand and to problems happening during production runs. How might rapid response affect the future of manufacturing?
The rapid transmission of information over TCP/IP from the front office to the factory has the potential to revolutionize the ways in which products get made. Interoperability between product design, workflow systems, and the machines that make and assemble goods will decrease time-to-market. That same capability will increase the number of product variations possible in a manufacturing plant.
When seconds equal big savings or losses
The office network and the industrial Ethernet network may transmit data similarly, but a key difference is in the priority of response times. The stakes are much higher when an automated alert that something is amiss on the factory floor is delayed, compared to the consequences of an email’s showing up after a lag of a few seconds. Out on the line, a missed message may throw off a precisely synchronized, rapid-fire process, resulting in raw material waste or even a complete line stoppage. For this reason, data transfer performance is a critical concern for anyone relying on industrial Ethernet for remote monitoring of manufacturing equipment.
A number of tactics and techniques can make a big difference for industrial automation. For example, network segmentation designed to keep communications efficient helps. Use of subnets within the corporate network makes it possible to ensure communications are as fast as possible. This also reduces the possibility of network traffic collisions, an otherwise common issue for lags in data packet delivery on Ethernet networks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
OpenSignal now helps you find the world’s free Wi-Fi hotspots
http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/14/opensignal-now-helps-you-find-the-worlds-free-wi-fi-hotspots/
Crowdsourced wireless coverage startup OpenSignal has launched a new app that shows you all the free Wi-Fi hotspots in your locale.
With Wifimapper, the London-based startup is taking its swath of existing data and pushing it into a new standalone app for iPhone. This could save millions of people mobile data charges by helping them tap into all the cafes, pubs, and other public places that offer Internet access gratis.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3GPP continues the 4G technology further definition by specifying its standards. Now, the LTE-Advanced in 3GPP Release of device 12 is in a class added 14 which determines the actual turbo speed.
The terminal Class 14 enables data transmission from the base station up to more than 3.9 gigabits per second. Class 8 way it supports MIMO connection 8 channel. Get rid of class 8 is the support of data 256QAM modulation.
Class 14 would pass data to the base station 150-megabit speed, so the class is clearly defined for specific downlink needs.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2817:uusi-4g-laiteluokka-lahes-4-gigabittia-sekunnissa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobile Broadband Spectrum:
A Vital Resource for the U.S. Economy
http://www.ctia.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/brattle_spectrum_051115.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robert Cookson / Financial Times:
Sources: Several European mobile operators plan option to block ads on their networks this year, consider blocking Google ads by default to force concessions
Mobile operators plan to block online advertising
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0%2F7010ae7a-f4c6-11e4-8a42-00144feab7de.html#axzz3aGycyaHA
Several mobile operators plan to block advertising on their networks, setting the stage for a battle with digital media companies such as Google, AOL and Yahoo.
One European wireless carrier told the Financial Times that it has installed blocking software in its data centres and planned to turn it on before the end of 2015.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Backlash Against Facebook’s Free Internet Service Grows
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/backlash-facebooks-free-internet-service-grows/
The backlash against Facebook’s Internet.org project is growing.
On Monday, 65 advocacy organizations in 31 countries released an open letter to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg protesting Internet.org—an effort to bring free internet service to the developing world—saying the project “violates the principles of net neutrality, threatening freedom of expression, equality of opportunity, security, privacy, and innovation.”
Zuckerberg has defended the project, saying that it can “coexist” with net neutrality. “
Exacerbating Inequality
“We think that Internet.org exacerbates existing inequalities,” says Josh Levy, of the global public advocate Access Now, one of the organizations behind the letter. “The goal here is for poor folks to get limited access to internet services and then, eventually, be prompted to pay for a data plan so they can get the full internet. But very likely, a lot of those people will never be able to afford those data plans. So they’ll be stuck on the second tier, where they don’t have access to the full Internet.”
What’s more, he says, this second tier will undermine security (because it doesn’t used the internet’s standard SSL security protocol) and privacy (because all traffic is going through a proxy controlled by Facebook).
Public Good, Private Gain
Internet.org is just one way in which the giants of the Internet, including Google, Facebook, and others, are working to expand Internet’s reach. While these efforts are often wrapped in altruistic rhetoric, they can also help these companies boost their own prospects. But sometimes, a company’s financial interests can complicate the realization of its ideals.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SDN to bring new round of internecine office wars to IT shops
Security to agile chaps: You want me to lock that down HOW EXACTLY?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/19/sdn_to_bring_new_round_of_internecine_office_wars_to_it_shops/
Software-defined networking (SDN) will give IT teams a new reason for internecine conflict, as those looking to build automated, software-defined data centres come up against the hard-headed trust nobody pragmatism of security teams.
So says Gartner’s Eric Ahlm, a research director at the analyst firm, who today delivered a session titled “The Impact of Data Center Automation on Security” at the IT Infrastructure, Operations & Data Center Summit in Sydney today.
“When I look at security technologies, they are not designed to have external things tell them what to do,” Ahlm said. “They are designed to be isolated systems” for lots of good reasons. Of course SDN is all about having a control plane tell hardware what to do, as often as it wants to in the name of agility and more effective resource utilisation. For security teams accustomed to taking great care over even the smallest configuration change, SDN therefore represents a challenge.
Data centre operations teams that drink the SDN – or Sdx – Kool Aid aren’t going to stand for security teams that move at their current pace. They’ll therefore demand security tools that are easier to automate and require less oversight.
Security teams will need to catch up once they do so. Today, security teams know where assets are, what they’re doing how to monitor them and how to make sure they can collect data for compliance and forensics purposes.
Ahlm sees two ways around the potential conflict.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Your metadata and the cost of collecting it belong on your phone and internet bill
Carbon tax protest shows protests putting prices in punters’ faces pay off
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/17/your_metadata_and_the_cost_of_collecting_it_belongs_on_your_phone_and_internet_bill/
When Australia’s federal government legislated a carbon tax, some electricity companies tweaked their bills so that customers could see it as a line item.
The motivation was purely political: companies that did so were owned by States of Australia whose governments were of a different political hue to the Federal government of the day. Adding the carbon tax to the bill was a political act calculated to make sure punters could see just how far into their pockets the feds were reaching.
It’s now time to bring the tactic back, to make the cost and impact of of metadata retention plain for all to see. Last week’s budget revealed that Australia’s carriers of voice and/or data will be offered $131m to implement their mandatory metadata retention infrastructure. Most feel that’s not going to cover their implementation costs.
Faced with that intransigence, telcos would not be unreasonable if they decided to add a line item for metadata retention to their bills so that their punters can understand the costs they’re being made to meet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia packed a mobile network to a portable box
Nokia Networks has introduced a compact and quickly deployable coincide compressed shells LTE network. The base station is based on the Nokia Flexi Multi Radio Base Station 10. It is able to serve thousands of users.
It weights only 40-pound. Power it needs less than 1 kilowatt. Sufficient power is available even if a small movable generator or a car battery. Installation can be made in few minutes.
Easily movable as required mobile network can be used in applications where more robust devices one reason or another can or should be used. Destinations mentioned, for example, mines and industrial plants. Also, the affected areas can be set up mobile network quickly. Naturally, the lightweight access point
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/2015-05-19/Nokia-pakkasi-mobiiliverkon-kannettavaan-laatikkoon-3221930.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Less than half of mobile data transferred to mobile network
Juniper Research says that in 2018 the number of mobile data will grow 197 thousand petabytes. Mobile networks in terms of a good thing is that only 41 per cent of this amount goes through the mobile networks. Wi-Fi networks bear most of the burden.
Smartphones downloadable data, especially in increasing the video, the amount of which will grow 8-fold between 2014-2019. At the moment, global IP data traffic with video accounting for about 60 per cent. In many countries, especially in Western countries, it accounts for more than 70 percent within the next 2-3 years, Juniper predicts.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2846:alle-puolet-mobiilidatasta-siirtyy-kannykkaverkossa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco CEO’s departure signals shift in technology era
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/05/cisco-ceo-shift.html
As reported at Reuters, “Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) Chief Executive John Chambers will step down in July after 20 years at the helm of the network equipment maker, a symbol of the dot.com stock boom 15 years ago now struggling to boost its bottom line in the era of cloud computing…Company veteran Chuck Robbins, 49, will take over as CEO. The 65-year-old Chambers, one of the longest-serving leaders of a Silicon Valley company and also company chairman, will become executive chairman, the company said on Monday.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Past the horizon: Beyond 100G networking
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-23/issue-5/features/data-center/past-the-horizon-beyond-100g-networking.html
Prominent developers of Ethernet technologies gaze into the future and see 100-Gbit/sec transmission not as the endpoint, but as a building block.
“The Ethernet community is no longer locked into the notion of introducing new speeds in factors of 10; rather, the cast of Ethernet users has become so varied that no longer can such a diverse Ethernet ecosystem be expected to leap to any single, next given speed,” they wrote, after recalling that the “10x” path was broken in (perhaps ironically) 2010 when the IEEE completed specifications for 40- and 100-Gbit/sec Ethernet simultaneously.
400-Gbit Ethernet is one of four projects (along with 25, 5, and 2.5 Gbit) making their way through the IEEE 802.3 Working Group.
“The 400-GbE Task Force is using 16 lanes of 25-Gbit/sec technology in the CDFP form factor, but the industry also wants to use eight lanes of 50 Gbits/sec to create higher-density 400-GbE in the CFP2 form factor. 50-Gbit/sec lanes will enable 50-GbE in the SFP+ form factor and 200-GbE in the QSFP28 form factor. The speeds based on 50-Gbit/sec lanes should be available by 2020.”
The post-2020 Tbit Ethernet will be enabled, in no small part, by the engineering feats that allow ever-higher data rates per lane. “Individual lanes are being increased from 10 Gbits/sec to 25 Gbits/sec to 50 Gbits/sec,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Driven by data center, MEF stretches Carrier Ethernet 2.0 certification to 100G
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/05/mef-ce2-100g.html
The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) says it can now certify systems operating at 100 Gbps within its Carrier Ethernet 2.0 Certification Program.
“CE 2.0 certification is foundational for supporting the shift to dynamic ‘Third Network’ connectivity services delivered over more automated, interconnected networks,” comments Kevin Vachon, COO of the MEF.
The Carrier Ethernet 2.0 100G certification focuses on point-to-point E-Line and E-Access services. The MEF says the certification process includes test cases that address the full set of 100G service attributes, including performance and bandwidth profiles.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Analyst: 100G fueling resurgence in optical network spending
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/11/ovum-100g-resurgence.html
The optical networks (ON) market will exceed $17.5 billion by 2018, at a 3.1 percent CAGR from 2012, predicts the global technology analyst firm Ovum. An exceptionally strong 2Q13 in the market signals the beginning of a spending bounce-back, says the analyst; 2Q13 was reportedly the strongest quarter in the last six and was the 7th highest quarter in the last 10 years.
The major technology trend for the new forecast is the ascendancy of 100G, whose revenues exceeded 40G sales for the first time in 2Q13, according to Ovum. “Nearly all new large-scale, long-haul optical networks designed and deployed today will be 100G,” adds Ovum’s Redpath.