Telecom trends for 2015

1,044 Comments

1. February 27, 2015 at 9:01 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   There’s a blockchain for that!
   The code that secures Bitcoin could also power an alternate Internet. First, though, it has to work.
   https://medium.com/backchannel/how-bitcoins-blockchain-could-power-an-alternate-internet-bb501855af67

   There’s this hopelessly geeky new technology. It’s too hard to understand and use. How could it ever break the mass market? Yet developers are excited, venture capital is pouring in, and industry players are taking note. Something big might be happening.

   Reply
2. February 27, 2015 at 10:03 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   4G speed rate jumped to 600 megabits per second

   LTE technology has a variety of categories of terminal equipment, according to which the equipment will be a variety of data rates. It has recently been introduced 450-megabit speeds heavy with devices and chipsets, now gaining momentum as early as 600 megabits per second.

   The demonstration used in Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon processor. Telstra LTE-Advanced network is implemented Ericsson base station technology.

   256 QAM modulation allows very high peak data rates

   Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2489:4g-nopeus-kiihtyi-jo-600-megabittiin-sekunnissa&catid=13&Itemid=101

   Reply
3. February 27, 2015 at 12:01 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Why China is kicking foreign tech firms off its government procurement list
   https://www.techinasia.com/china-kicking-foreign-tech-firms-government-procurement-list/

   Yesterday, Reuters published an exclusive report on the banishment of some major US tech firms from China’s approved government procurement list. In short, government-run departments and agencies in China will are no longer allowed to buy equipment from Apple, Cisco, and Intel’s McAfee, among others.

   The question many are asking: “Is it a security measure, or is it protectionism?” Reuters gives equal voice to both Chinese authorities, who claim to have eliminated these companies over security concerns stemming from Edward Snowden’s high-profile PRISM leaks, and the western firms, who allege China is using Snowden as an excuse to implement protectionist economic policies.

   I’m inclined to side with the latter. China has used similar tactics before, and they’ve proven effective. China has been weening its internet and tech infrastructure off of foreign firms for the past few years, replacing them with homegrown alternatives as they arise. Reuters reports Cisco had 60 items on the procurement list in 2012, which dwindled to zero in 2014.

   Reply
4. February 27, 2015 at 12:02 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Google just paid $25 million to buy the entire ‘.app’ web domain
   http://www.businessinsider.com/google-just-paid-25-million-to-buy-the-entire-app-web-domain-2015-2?op=1

   Google just paid $25 million for exclusive rights to the “.app” top-level web domain.

   Google decided to apply for new top-level domains (TLDs) way back in 2012, four years after ICANN, the organization that controls the world’s domain names, decided to expand the overall number of generic TLDs.

   Comparatively, Google’s $25 million investment in “.app” looks pretty steep; it’s the most any company has paid in one of ICANN’s auctions so far.

   Google currently lets people register for “.how,” “.soy,” and “.minna” domains one its own ICANN-accredited domain registry. It also plans to be the registry for the top-level domains “.dad,” “.here,” “.eat,” and “.new,” among others, and, presumably, “.app” soon.

   Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-just-paid-25-million-to-buy-the-entire-app-web-domain-2015-2#ixzz3SwiyMEl5

   Reply
5. February 27, 2015 at 12:08 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   LTE-U for Small Cells Improves Wi-Fi Environment
   http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1325848&

   In LTE-U, LTE technology over an unlicensed band is paired with a “licensed” LTE signal as an anchor preserving the necessary signaling and handshaking required for a reliable connection.

   The cellular industry has moved from 2G to 3G and now 4G to offer higher capacity, faster downloads, and better user experience. 4G is enabled through LTE technology that has progressed maximum download speeds from 100 Mbps (3GPP Category 3) and to 300 Mbps (Cat 6) last year.

   This year, LTE-A (Cat 9) speeds of up to 450 Mbps are enabled by aggregating three LTE bands for the higher speed.

   Operators have to utilize all of their spectrum resources to meet growing market needs. Now, there is a new technology that aggregates a conventional “licensed” LTE signal and a second, LTE-U, signal employing “unlicensed” spectrum to effectively augment capacity.

   The LTE-U technology was originally developed by Qualcomm with initial deployment in the same 5GHz spectrum that accommodates Wi-Fi. This implementation provides seamless user experience, better capacity and coverage through a common unified network for both licensed and unlicensed spectrums.

   In LTE-U, essentially LTE technology over an unlicensed band is paired with a “licensed” LTE signal as an anchor which preserves the necessary signaling and handshaking required for a reliable connection.

   The blended signal provides reliability of licensed spectrum with the capacity boost of unlicensed spectrum. Initially, unlicensed spectrum will be used for only down link.

   The 5GHz spectrum employed for Wi-Fi is the U-NII (Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure) U.S. band that many things other than Wi-Fi also occupy (medical/industrial, etc.) and has up to 500 MHz available spectrum. LTE-U is ideal for small-cell implementation, with both licensed and unlicensed spectrum coming from the same box. The approach is especially helpful in densely-populated areas.

   Qualcomm claims that LTE-U is less disruptive to Wi-Fi than even other Wi-Fi signals in the same band.

   Qualcomm has demonstrated that LTE-U can fairly coexist with Wi-Fi and that the two can work even better together. In counties such as the U.S., China, Korea and India, LTE-U can be deployed based on existing REl-10/11/12 standard

   For deployments in regions such as Europe and Japan, who have specific channel occupancy requirements called Listen Before Talk (LBT), new standard is needed
   3GPP, is preparing release 13 that addresses LBT requirements. This version of LTE-U is also known as License-Assisted Access (LAA) LTE.

   The LTE-U technology makes the most sense in a high-density metropolitan situation, the very market that small cell base stations are best suited.

   Another way to improve the existing Wi-Fi environment is through LTE – Wi-Fi link aggregation.
   By bonding a licensed LTE signal with unlicensed Wi-Fi signal leads to greater bandwidth and covered distance. Wi-Fi and LTE access points don’t have to be at the same location
   To implement this LTE-Wi-Fi aggregation, the same operator (or its partners) offering both Wi-Fi and LTE is necessary, and operators like T-Mobile have shown interest in the approach.

   Reply
6. February 28, 2015 at 6:57 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Digital Wildfires in a Hyperconnected World
   http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2013/risk-case-1/digital-wildfires-in-a-hyperconnected-world/

   The global risk of massive digital misinformation sits at the centre of a constellation of technological and geopolitical risks ranging from terrorism to cyber attacks and the failure of global governance. This risk case examines how hyperconnectivity could enable “digital wildfires” to wreak havoc in the real world. It considers the challenge presented by the misuse of an open and easily accessible system and the greater danger of misguided attempts to prevent such outcomes.

   In 1938, when radio had become widespread, thousands of Americans confused an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds with a news broadcast and jammed police station telephone lines in the panicked belief that the United States had been invaded by Martians.

   It is difficult to imagine a radio broadcast causing comparably widespread misunderstanding today

   The Internet remains an uncharted, fast-evolving territory. Current generations are able to communicate and share information instantaneously and at a scale larger than ever before. Social media increasingly allows information to spread around the world at breakneck speed. While the benefits of this are obvious and well documented, our hyperconnected world could also enable the rapid viral spread of information that is either intentionally or unintentionally misleading or provocative, with serious consequences. The chances of this happening are exponentially greater today than when the radio was introduced as a disruptive technology, despite our media sophistication. Radio was a communication channel of “one to many” while the Internet is that of “many to many”.

   The Internet does have self-correcting mechanisms, as Wikipedia demonstrates. While anyone can upload false information, a community of Wikipedia volunteers usually finds and corrects errors speedily. The short-lived existence of false information on its site is generally unlikely to result in severe real-world consequences; however, it is conceivable that a false rumour spreading virally through social networks could have a devastating impact before being effectively corrected.

   How might digital wildfires be prevented? Legal restrictions on online anonymity and freedom of speech are a possible route, but one which may also have undesirable consequences.

   Reply
7. March 2, 2015 at 9:24 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   LTE-U for Small Cells Improves Wi-Fi Environment
   http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1325848&

   In LTE-U, LTE technology over an unlicensed band is paired with a “licensed” LTE signal as an anchor preserving the necessary signaling and handshaking required for a reliable connection.

   Reply
8. March 2, 2015 at 9:43 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   HDS makes its move beyond storage with telco data analyser
   Code from Tokyo Stock Exchange used for real time network monitoring
   http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/02/hds_makes_its_move_beyond_storage_with_telco_data_analyser/

   MWC Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has taken big step away from storage by releasing a realtime telco traffic monitor.

   a new offering called “Live Insight for Telecom”. The package includes code written to help the Tokyo Stock Exchange operate and schedule streaming data, plus a realtime visualisation layer called “Mars”.

   The idea is that telco network operations centres can’t wait the few minutes the likes of Hadoop would take to run a query and instead need more-or-less-instant insight into network conditions so they can keep traffic humming. HDS reckons this new bundle can give carriers the insights they need so that, for example, crowds inside stadia aren’t left cursing their carriers during traffic spikes.

   Reply
9. March 2, 2015 at 9:44 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Telstra takes lead in 5G, just like everybody else
   4G to get more stuff and more speed
   http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/02/telstra_takes_lead_in_5g_just_like_everybody_else/

   Australia’s dominant carrier, Telstra, has joined World+Dog in promising to take the lead in the 5G race, with a roadmap that reaches all the way to next year.

   The main thrust of the carrier’s talk to Mobile World Congress and accompanying canned release is actually the immediate future of its 4G network.

   The carrier promises to get busy deploying its LTE-Advanced Cat 9 infrastructure, which it crowed about in November 2014 in a test with Ericsson and Qualcomm.

   In that test, three 20 MHz channels in different spectrum bands were bonded together to get 450 Mbps.

   The carrier reckons LTE Broadcast will be increasingly deployed in “key venues and major events, initially for testing and then for customer access on compatible devices later in 2015. Once launched, customers with compatible devices will have access to dedicated high quality content”.

   VoLTE will first be tested on “more than ten” smartphones.

   Reply
10. March 2, 2015 at 9:48 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Nokia is already testing 5G Us – whipped out a record speed (2 Gigabits per second)

    Nokia Networks has tested 5g connection with NTT DoCoMo. Nokia mmWave technology has been obtained under laboratory conditions from more than two gigabit download speed.

    The tests were used in 70 GHz frequency.

    Japanese Docomo plans to introduce technology available officially in 2020.

    Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/2015-03-02/Nokia-testaa-jo-5G-yhteytt%C3%A4-%E2%80%93-piiskasi-tekniikasta-ulos-enn%C3%A4tysnopeuden-3216532.html1

    Reply
11. March 2, 2015 at 9:49 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Nokia knocks Net neutrality: Self-driving cars ‘won’t get the service you need’
    http://www.cnet.com/news/nokia-knocks-net-neutrality-self-driving-cars-wont-get-the-service-you-need/

    Nokia’s CEO has argued that certain futuristic technologies will need to be prioritised, flying in the face of recent victories for net neutrality.

    Nokia’s chief executive has raised concerns about Net neutrality because he thinks futuristic technologies like self-driving cars will be held back by a totally open system.

    “There are some services that simply require a different level of connectivity,” says Suri. He believes there are some networks that “you can’t do in a best-effort network,” naming driverless cars and health care communications with doctors and hospitals connecting to patients. “You need this differentiated quality of service,” he said.

    Suri emphasises that self-driving cars need to talk over wireless networks fast enough to make decisions with the split-second timing required on the roads. “You cannot prevent collisions if the data that can prevent them is still making its way through the network”, said Suri, discussing Nokia’s drive toward instantaneous low-latency communication across the network.

    Reply
12. March 2, 2015 at 9:52 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    5G connections to 15 GHz

    There is still quite open, what would 5G technology is going to be, as the standardization of groundwork will not begin until next year. It does not prevent companies from developing different 5G demos. Ericsson’s vision 5G could work, say, 15 gigahertz frequencies.

    Ericsson, the multi-point connection is going to be the key to future 5G networks, which consist of both macro and a variety of small base stations based on the cells.

    Ericsson has already demonnut 5G pilot plant five gigabit data rate.

    Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2495:5g-yhteyksia-15-gigahertsissa&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
13. March 2, 2015 at 11:48 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Network vendors need something far more real than ‘5G’
    The all-IP, gigabit dream is within reach… just buy our kit
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/02/mwc_preview_network_vendors_need_something_far_more_real_than_5g_2/

    MWC 2015 The big infrastructure vendors all made significant announcements in advance of Mobile World Congress, holding their beauty parades before the distractions of the event itself. While there was a lot of the inevitable “5G” vision-making on show, the main focus was on something more real: new platforms which could be deployed in a one-to-two-year rather than a five-year timeframe.

    The idea is to persuade even those carriers which are completing their LTE upgrades to invest in yet more kit, to get them closer to the all-IP, gigabit dream.

    Hence Huawei enlarged on its “4.5G” theme, while Ericsson’s slogan was “Digital Telco”. But the biggest change of all is one that may progressively make the “G” leaps irrelevant – the shift to virtualisation and software-defined networks (SDN). Once the elephant in the room, SDN is now fully embraced by the hardware vendors whose business models it threatens, even as they twist and turn in search of a way to turn it into profits and the protection of their customer and ecosystem control.

    Last week we looked at Nokia’s pre-MWC announcements, particularly its updated Radio Cloud portfolio, with the emphasis heavily on the twin ‘pre-5G’ themes for the whole industry – radical new RAN architectures and virtualization throughout the network.

    These ideas were echoed by the other four majors, though each had its particular twist, depending on the key strengths it has to surround the central RAN platform.

    So Huawei and ZTE had end-to-end messages, since they still offer everything from devices to base stations to the IP core.

    Like Ericsson, Nokia and Alcatel in their 2G infrastructure heydays, the Chinese giant was not just talking about base stations and virtualised cores, but the devices these would enable, including a “4.5G” smartband. The western suppliers have all divested their handset activities and can no longer tout their old message of end-to-end systems and the ability to optimize the end user experience by controlling the network.

    Huawei pulls back from 5G, focuses on two-year timeframe

    It is now left to Huawei and ZTE to pick up that holistic message
    Last year, Huawei was the first to lay claim to the inevitable “4.G” term, positioning itself to launch networks which would deliver a leap forward from current LTE and first-wave LTE-Advanced implementations, but would be available long before 5G

    However, at least Huawei is pulling back somewhat from the industry’s hype about as-yet undefined 5G, despite its many “pre- 5G” trials and R&D activities. Its new technologies will be rolled out over the next year or so and are genuinely trying to move the debate on from mere capacity and speed, to the bigger challenge of building an LTE network so flexible that it can support many different behaviours, from massive video downloads and 4K streaming, to the constant, tiny updates of a smart meter.

    The latter was prominent in its announcements, and explains its acquisition of IoT connectivity chip start-up Neul last year. The LTE smartband features a chip designed by the smaller firm, which supports the emerging LTE-M technology – a variant of LTE optimised for ultra-low power internet of things (IoT) services.

    In terms of enabling business opportunities for operators, Huawei was heavily focused on support for new devices and user experiences, while Ericsson placed more weight on back end services.
    First, Ericsson Expert Analytics 15.0 tracks customer satisfaction and, because it is pre-integrated with the OSS/BSS portfolio, it can automatically trigger actions to improve user experience, based on criteria set by the operator.
    Second, App Experience Optimization extends such activities beyond network performance to the applications themselves.

    Ericsson calculates that video represents 45% of mobile traffic and will grow eightfold by 2020. The new Media Delivery Network promises to “turn this costly demand on their networks into sustainable business growth”, said Ove Anebygd, head of the media solution area.

    Ericsson has also announced a virtual router offering for smaller data centres, while emphasizing (as all router makers do of course) that once a certain level of traffic processing is achieved, there is no substitute for dedicated hardware.

    The real value that Ericsson claims to offer is not in individual products, but the integration and consulting services, and the software frameworks, to tie them all together.

    This year, Ericsson has upgraded this with Network Software 15B, which aims to simplify and accelerate operator moves towards new architectures. It facilitates Network functions-based virtualisation (NFV)

    Reply
14. March 2, 2015 at 12:50 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Ericsson, Telstra and Qualcomm up the ante with 600Mbps demo
    Meanwhile EE scores with 400Mbps at Wembley
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/02/ericsson_issues_600mbps_riposte_ee_400mbps_in_wembley/

    MWC 2015 Qualcomm, Ericsson and Telstra are set to demonstrate a new tri-carrier LTE-A solution capable of delivering 600Mbps over mobile at this week’s Mobile World Congress.

    Nokia has already managed the same speeds using two carriers with a four-antenna MIMO. However, the Ericsson technology meets the specs of LTE CAT 11, and (so it says) is more a shippable product and less of a scientific experiment.

    Like the Nokia MIMO solution, it uses 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM).

    The companies have cooperated on a number of key industry milestones and focused on delivering better app coverage to smartphone users, most recently achieving 450Mbps on a commercial end-to-end LTE solution.

    “This new demonstration by Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies’ provides assurances that the next step in network development is on track and enables us to effectively plan for the future,” said a Telstra representative in a canned statement.

    Reply
15. March 2, 2015 at 12:59 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    VMware makes NFV telco play by snuggling up to OpenStack
    If it can be virtualised, Virtzilla wants it
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/02/vmware_makes_nfv_play_with_openstack_cuddle/

    VMware has clambered aboard the network function virtualisation (NFV) bandwagon with “vCloud for NFV” – and has announced that Vodafone has been in production with the software for a while.

    NFV is presented as a key technology for telcos as they become less tolerant of services tied to particular pieces of tin and the attendant slow update and deployment cycles that come with physical infrastructure.

    Slow deployment of tools like firewalls, for example, is hard to endure at a time when customers are likely to ask for a virtual circuit that lasts anywhere between an hour, or a week.

    The ability to whip up a virtual firewall for a customers who order temporary connectivity is therefore desirable to today’s telcos, who are also wondering how they’ll deliver voice-over-LTE without the ability to spawn lots of applets to handle voice that passes over data instead of dedicated circuits.

    Whatever uses carriers find for NFV, it’s a market VMware can hardly ignore. Hence the launch of vCloud for NFV, a bundle that includes vSphere, VSAN, NSX and vRealize Operations.

    Reply
16. March 2, 2015 at 1:03 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Base Stations Go Virtual, Flexible
    Unlicensed spectrum plays increasing role
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325713&

    Alcatel-Lucent, Aquantia, and Qualcomm announced at Mobile World Congress chip sets and software to bolster performance and lower cost of cellular base stations.

    The moves come at a time when installation of macro cells has peaked in the U.S., Korea, Japan, and China, Linley Group Analyst Jag Bolaria told EE Times.

    Most of the investment is going to be in some combination of small cell-type base technologies to increase coverage and focus on specific areas where there are large, dense populations and plug holes in their coverage. Chip companies are developing integrated solutions with small cells…we will see DSPs and CPUs rolled into macro base station SoCs.

    Qualcomm is one of the chip companies leading the charge in unlicensed LTE (LTE-U) for small cells, with availability in its FSM99xx family by the second half of this year. The company hopes to link LTE-U and Wi-Fi through carrier and link aggregation in the 5 GHz band.

    An LTE-U small cell is a better neighbor to Wi-Fi in terms of interference

    Qualcomm chose the 5 GHz band for its wide availability and carrier aggregation up to 40 MHz in unlicensed spectrum. Chmaytelli said the chips can reach a peak aggregate of 350 mbits/second downlink and 150 mbits/s uplink.

    The chips are designed for outdoor pico and metro cells, as well as indoor small cells for residential markets. The 5 GHz LTE-U small cell chips consume less than 1 Watt and support between eight and 64 users, while licensed band pico cells would require less than 5 Watts and support between 128-264 users.

    Meanwhile several operators hope to bring the cost of communications down through virtualization. On approach is through Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) which aims to reduce cost, centralize baseband units, and have remote radios.

    Aquantia announced a 28 nm low-power, adaptive rate physical layer transceivers (PHY) for indoor C-RAN architectures. Cloud RAN will help improve indoor cellular connection, where 39%-61% of offices worldwide have poor in-building cellular coverage and 80% of mobile traffic comes from indoor users, an Aquantia release stated.

    Aquantia’s AQcell can transport multi-gigabit/s digitized cellular signals over up to 200 meters of copper cables.

    “The problem with that is then the bandwidth you need from the radio head to the baseband unit is typically few gigabits per second, At that bandwidth you need to have fiber but not everyone has bandwidth in place,” Bolaria said.

    Alcatel-Lucent has decided to tackle combining LTE, LTE-U, and Wi-Fi with a software solution, dubbed wireless unified networks(WUN). The approach requires few changes to existing LTE networks and a software upgrade on the handset and core

    The software specifies that uplink is done over LTE and downlink over Wi-Fi, increasing potential data rates for one user to 105 mbits/s

    “There is some worry in industry that using LTE in unlicensed bands will disturb deployments, so we’re looking at that,”

    AlcaLu provides additional leeway with LTE-U deployments through its virtualized RAN (V-RAN), which Peeters distinguishes from C-RAN as centralizing commercial off-the-shelf IP equipment. Operators are already centralizing their radio access networks through BBU hoteling, or running fiber from dedicated hardware to remote radio heads.

    Virtualized RAN allows operators to scale up, adapt to peak data loads, and allow for different modes among a heterogeneous userbase.

    Qualcomm, AlacLu, and T-Mobile also announced a joint LTE-U deployment in 2016. Alcatel-Lucent will begin LTE-U trials this year using Qualcomm’s FSM99xx small cell SoCs, with commercial products expected in 2016.

    As 5G nears, Bolaria expects OEMs to increase data rates by adding more antennas, more complex modulation to have more bits per symbol, and introduce more spectrum. Additionally, a focused beamforming technologies in a small cell could target a signal, then increase data rates from 1 Gigabit to 10 and beyond.

    “You’re not going to see any one particular winner in this space. You’ll see combination of everything,” he said. Standardization activity around 5G may begin this year, with chip rollout in 2017 and 2018, followed by the first systems in Korea and Japan in time for the 2020 Olympics.

    Reply
17. March 3, 2015 at 7:33 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Google Prepares To Enter Wireless Market As an MVNO
    http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/03/02/2115254/google-prepares-to-enter-wireless-market-as-an-mvno

    Google is getting into the wireless connectivity business, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to use them as your wireless connectivity provider any time soon. The company isn’t building its own cell network, but will rather be a “mobile virtual network operator” offering services over existing networks.

    Google confirms carrier plans, details coming soon
    http://www.itworld.com/article/2891235/google-confirms-carrier-plans-details-coming-soon.html

    Google has confirmed for the first time that it plans to offer connectivity directly to mobile users in the U.S., but a senior executive downplayed the competition it would be to major U.S. cellular carriers.

    Several reports have said the company is preparing a service that would be offered across an existing cellular network under a Google brand—a so-called “mobile virtual network operator” or MVNO. But the reports hadn’t been confirmed until Sundar Pichai, the company’s senior vice president, spoke at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday.

    “You’ll see us announce it in the coming months,” said Pichai.

    Pichai said it won’t be a full-service mobile network in competition with existing carriers.

    Instead, he said, it will give Google a platform through which it can experiment with new services for Android smartphones.

    Reply
18. March 3, 2015 at 8:12 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    90% of mobile data eaten by TINY, GREEDY super-user HOTSPOTS
    Want data equality? Try femto cells…
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/03/jdsu_surveys_mobile_data_use_uk/

    Usage of mobile data is extremely unevenly distributed. This is the conclusion of a report by the Location Intelligence business unit of a major communications equipment company.

    JDSU, which makes test equipment for mobile operators, looked at who is using the most mobile data and where they are using it.

    Its research found that half of mobile data is being consumed by just 0.35 per cent of the geographical area covered by the network. 90 per cent is consumed in less than five per cent of the area. Looked at another way, more than 90 per cent of the geographic area generates less than one per cent of total traffic.

    It looks as though people are using mobile phone data in preference to broadband and Wi-Fi in their homes. The top 100 extreme data locations the study reveals that data from “Residential” areas makes up 48 per cent of the total and “Industrial” a further 25 per cent. The “Dense Urban” areas that would be expected to contribute the most data only represent 13 per cent.

    It’s not just the locations that exhibit an extreme distribution of the loading on the network – it’s the customers too. Indeed, 90 per cent of all mobile data is consumed by just 8.58 per cent of all users.

    Carter adds: “Network traffic is not, nor has it ever been, evenly distributed. The whole concept of ‘Cellular’ came about with the overall assumption that networks could be designed in a hexagonal (ie, cell) pattern, but given population density variations and terrain fluctuations, a typical network doesn’t have this uniform pattern – then there are other variations such as venues or shopping mall or highrise buildings where people congregate and create an increase or spikes in network capacity needs – that may come and go from day to day or even month to month.“

    One of the interesting findings of the JDSU survey is how balanced the usage is between upload and download. Since the early days of online communications, when modems ran at 1200bps down and 75bps up, asynchronous communications has been the norm. The study also looked at the downlink to uplink ratio for the 100 most extreme hotspots and grouped them into the zones.

    Classification Download:Upload Ratio
    Business 9.93:1
    Dense Urban 7.09:1
    Industrial 11.56:1
    Residential 5.69:1
    Rural 1.93:1

    The residential ratio of 5.69:1 is much lower than you would expect from an environment where people are streaming. Watching Netflix on their iPads in bed or whatever.

    Reply
19. March 3, 2015 at 8:15 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Google’s broadband-in-the-sky goes TITAN-ic
    Real Soon Now: Loon-like radios with wings
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/03/googles_broadbandinthesky_goes_titanic/

    After a couple of years of selective reveals to favoured media, Google has made an uncharacteristic to-all-comers announcement about its broadband plans at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

    The Chocolate Factory bought drone-maker Titan Aerospace in 2014, and has told the conference its solar-powered drones will be carrying radio kit over Internet-less communities within a matter of months

    Given the design of the drone, it’s not easy to see how it could “hover” as The Verge somewhat quaintly puts it, however prior to its acquisition by Google the company’s Website described its aircraft as “atmospheric satellites”, designed to fly at nearly 20 km altitude (65,000 feet) for weeks at a time.

    Google senior veep Sundar Piachi told the conference that drones are easier to control than balloons

    Reply
20. March 3, 2015 at 8:59 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Oracle finds a port in the SDN/NFV storm with two new ethernet switches
    Hang on, Larry, aren’t you all about hyper-engineered stacks-in-a-box?
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/03/oracle_ships_two_count_them_two_ethernet_switches/

    Who said Ethernet was dull? Oracle certainly doesn’t: it’s floated a couple of switches down the slipway and off into the oceans of the data centre.

    It’s nearly refreshing to have something as vanilla as an Ethernet switch, sorry two Ethernet switches, announced among all the foam emitted by aspirant supplanters of the handful-of-billion-dollar wrist-watch smart-watch market.

    The ES2-72 can pack in 72 10 Gbps Ethernet ports, or 18 ports at 40 Gbps. The companion ES2-64 has 40 10GbaseT ports and either six 40 Gbps Ethernet or 24 Gbps Ethernet ports.

    You’re probably breathless for just a little more detail, so here it is: the switches are also compatible with Big Red’s Netra Modular system, a late February launch that forms part of the company’s network function virtualisation (NFV) play.

    The NFV angle for Netra Modular comes via Oracle’s SDN and OpenStack support, with Oracle Linux, Oracle Solaris and Oracle VM support.

    Telco-land has its own peculiar demands, so selling standalone switches into tat market may not align with Oracle’s oft-repeated insistence that hyper-engineered stacks-in-a-box, at low prices are what makes IT hum. But if the company can shift some kit, nobody will mind that it’s going a bit off-message.

    Reply
21. March 3, 2015 at 9:09 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    TIA developing TSB to test installed copper cabling for 2.5G, 5G capability
    http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/02/tia-tsb-installed-copper-cabling-2-5-5-g.html

    At its February meeting, the Telecommunications Industry Association’s (TIA) TR-42.7 Subcommittee issued a Project Authorization Request (PAR) to develop a telecommunications systems bulletin (TSB) for the purpose of evaluating installed twisted-pair cabling systems for their ability to support 2.5- and 5-Gbit/sec.

    As we have reported, the IEEE is in the early stages of developing 2.5GBase-T and 5GBase-T specifications and the IEEE is targeting the installed base of Category 5e and Category 6 cabling to support 2.5 and 5GBase-T. The application driving these standards-group activities is Wave 2 of 802.11ac wireless LAN, which has theoretical throughput of multiple gigabits.

    Reply
22. March 3, 2015 at 9:13 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    The essentials and evolution of fiber cleaning
    http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-23/issue-2/features/q-a/the-essentials-and-evolution-of-fiber-cleaning.html

    Answers to some of today’s most relevant and pressing questions about fiber connectivity and cleaning.

    Q: While use of fiber optics is increasing worldwide, the reluctance to clean fiber connections remains. All these people can’t be wrong. What’s the importance of fiber cleaning?

    A: You are exactly right. Across the globe customers say, “I don’t have the time, or the budget, or the tools, to properly clean my fiber.” There always is some excuse that stops them from doing what needs to be done.

    What technicians and managers don’t realize is that they are going to pay for cleaning, sooner or later. Modern high-speed networks actually are more sensitive to dirt than older, slower networks are. So companies can either spend 20 cents to clean a connector when they are installing it, or they can spend hundreds of dollars on a return visit, troubleshooting and reworking until they find the pesky little particle of dust that is bringing their network to its knees.

    One telco reported that the average, fully loaded cost of a fiber field repair is US$200. Another company reported that 16 percent of their fiber links fail exclusively due to contaminated connections and splicing. There’s just no faster way to kill a network than failing to clean.

    Here’s the more important truth that all customers, installers and network operators need to understand: It’s far, far cheaper to clean than to repair.

    Q: Questions often are asked about the appropriateness of using wet, dry, and combo wet/dry cleaning practices. Does MicroCare have a recommendation that goes across the board, or does it vary by fiber application or environment?

    A: In general, wet-dry cleaning is the optimal answer. The reason is due to an unexpected characteristic of fiber: The fiber itself and the connectors are not made with electrically conductive materials. This means that a dry wipe across a fiber endface will impart an electrostatic charge onto that endface.
    Because that static charge has no place to go, it turns the fiber connector into a tiny magnet, attracting dust right to the endface. Get rid of the static and you’ll get rid of the dust.
    To properly clean fiber endfaces, you need to dissipate the static. The best way to do this is by using a static-dissipative fluid in conjunction with the wipe.
    But there are exceptions to this rule. Normal fiber wipes are neither static-dissipative not lint-free, and the packaging in which they come doesn’t help either.

    Q: Technicians are often tempted to use consumer-quality products for their cleaning tools–mainly off-the-shelf isopropyl alcohol and canned-air sprayers–for fiber cleaning. A good, money-saving idea, or not?

    A: Consumer products generally do not meet the demanding requirements of fiber-optic applications. So let me be blunt: Bad tools produce bad results. Get your technicians the right tools and your network will run far more reliably.

    Today, no field technician in the world has access to reagent-grade IPA when they are down in a manhole. The cheap alcohol they will be using will be diluted with about 30 percent water.

    So spend the few extra cents and get cleaning chemicals, wipes, and swabs that are engineered for fiber-optic applications. The extra money spent on proper supplies will be more than offset by the repair visits you do not have to make on your fast, reliable and clean fiber network.

    Q: MPO-style connectors have surged in popularity, and they present unique cleaning challenges. Can you describe what these challenges are and how they can be met?

    A: MPO/MTP connectors are both a blessing and a curse. They are an enabling technology that allows vast quantities of data to be moved through a very small physical footprint. However, they are extremely vulnerable to contamination. Because they’re so hard to clean, technicians often simply skip the cleaning step and assume the endface will be good enough.

    Q: What question do fiber technicians ask you most frequently?

    A: That’s an easy one. The question I hear all the time is, “This patch cord is brand new, right out of the box. Do I need to clean it?”

    The answer is yes, you definitely need to clean every patch cord, both sides, every time, even brand new ones just out of the bag.

    Reply
23. March 3, 2015 at 9:17 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Enhancing passive optical networks with structured cabling
    http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-23/issue-2/features/fiber-optics/enhancing-passive-optical-networks-with-structured-cabling.html

    Customers can obtain the benefits of PON and maintain the benefits of structured cabling in a non-proprietary approach.

    Passive optical networks (PONs) have emerged as an alternative to structured cabling-based switched networks with application-independent telecommunications outlets in the work area. Capable of distributing voice, video and data to the desktop over one singlemode fiber, PONs offer the benefit of transmission distances that are well in excess of 100 meters (328 feet), as well as easy deployment and reduced pathway and conduit-space requirements due to the smaller size of a singlemode cable.

    In a passive optical network, the singlemode optical fiber that connects to each optical network terminal (ONT) originates from the optical line terminal (OLT). The fiber from the OLT is split into multiple fibers at optical fiber distribution hubs containing passive optical splitters. From there, the fibers connect to the ONTs.

    PONs make good sense in some environments, especially where maintaining the required 100-meter distance of a switched network architecture supported by balanced twisted-pair copper cabling is not feasible. However, these systems most commonly use direct equipment connections or “point-to-point” cabling that is not standards-compliant and does not support the benefits of structured cabling specified for commercial buildings in ANSI/TIA-568-C.1 and ISO/IEC 11801 Edition 2.2 When PONs are deployed using standards-compliant structured cabling systems, flexibility to support future moves, adds, and changes (MACs) is significantly improved and administration is enhanced.

    Based upon GPON (ITU G.984.2) or EPON (IEEE 802.3ah) protocols used in outside-plant technology that support fiber-to-the-building (FTTB) or fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network architectures, a PON is an in-building optical fiber network that enables the distribution of voice, video and data over one singlemode fiber. The main components of a PON are:

    A) Optical line terminal (OLT) located in the equipment room or data center;
    B) Passive optical splitters located in the telecommunications closet on each floor;
    C) Optical networking terminals (ONTs) located in end-user work areas.

    Reply
24. March 3, 2015 at 9:36 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Inside Project Loon: Google’s internet in the sky is almost open for business
    http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/2/8129543/google-project-loon-internet-balloon-access-business

    “Good news,” says Katelin Jabbari, Google X’s communications chief. “It’s about to explode.”

    Loon is being built with the audacious goal of beaming internet access down to the most remote parts of the planet, using specially equipped balloons that kiss the upper edges of Earth’s atmosphere. Today, the team is running an inflation test that will measure the pressure that the giant white spheres can handle before popping. The pressure hits 1000 pascal. “It usually doesn’t last much longer,” says Jabbari.

    That’s a good metaphor for Project Loon as a whole. As it moves past the technical hurdles of floating the internet miles above the planet, Loon is poised to enter uncharted territory: building an actual business.
    “Balloons are now staying aloft for six months”

    The newest record was a ballon that lasted 187 days in the air, circumnavigating the globe nine times, passing over more than a dozen countries on four continents along the way. As Google Glass undergoes a reset, and driverless cars remain years away from commercial viability, Loon looks increasingly like the poster child for bringing a disruptive new technology out of Google’s labs and into the real world. After successful tests with several telcos, Loon is now in the process of working toward commercial deals with several network operators around the globe. “We think the model is really beginning to work, and we have started large-scale testing,” said Pichai. “We’ll be working with carrier partners around the world so they can build their services on top of our backbone.”

    When you imagine a sensitive computer system that will be subjected to the harsh conditions of the stratosphere, you probably don’t picture it inside a $2 box meant for a picnic. But in the fast and dirty ethos of X Labs, the simplest solution is often the best one — and so it was that the flight controller on early balloons was jammed into a styrofoam beer cooler and set to the edge of outer space. The team keeps that original unit around as a memento.

    Can the world’s giant internet services be trusted to provide unfettered internet access?

    Reply
25. March 3, 2015 at 9:43 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Tosibox shrank the VPN box

    Oulu Tosibox has already sold more than 15 thousand high-easy and secure VPN connection between devices, creative device in 70 different countries. Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress, the company introduced a second-generation Real-Box. For a company wants to conquer the industrial VPN market, says CEO Tero Lepistö.

    Basically, the equipment will be established between TLS, AES or Blowfish-encrypted connection directly, without a cloud in touch. A similar solution on the market do not have.

    This gives rise to a second generation Real-Box’s value even further. A wider breakthrough sought to 2.5 times the performance and clearly more smaller size.

    It can be installed to DIN rail and powered with Ethernet cable.

    Real-Box created by the VPN connection is necessary to break the physical access to the device itself. Afterwards, the connection is protected by a PIN code. The company’s own staff has designed the product so that when the web in general are a bit like buses or taxis, Tosibox is the first car on the highway online.

    Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2498:tosibox-kutisti-vpn-boksinsa&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
26. March 3, 2015 at 9:50 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Nokia: the entire base station can not be exported to the cloud

    Network equipment manufacturers hype the Barcelona Mobile Fair in their own 5G tests. Nokia has been the major manufacturers in the least sound, even though the company examines 5G in tightly. This is the reason for this. Nokia Networks, Research Director Lauri Kivinen, the important is now to find out what the different bands can be used.

    Nokia announced fairs throughout the demonneensa 5G connections 70 GHz frequency. NTT DoCoMo to test the bank achieved data transfer between two gigabit per second speed. Fair in the present experimental apparatus for the transmission of data was used in 64 of the antenna system
    - 70 GHz is a lot of free frequencies

    Nokia will examine all the different frequency bands up to 100 gigahertz up.
    Union ITU Radio meeting to determine the number of millimeter-range frequencies until the year 2018.

    At high frequencies, a lot of changes. The signal decays rapidly, and does not pass the barriers very well. Therefore, the millimeter frequencies are mainly small interior cell radio connection.

    - Our tests show that the 70 GHz cell size can be 200 meters, that is, yes it can be implemented in the cells for outdoor use, Kivinen says.

    New frequencies from going in addition to network virtualization will become an important part of the development. – Cloud of network optimization will become more flexible. That is why we have already taken the core network components to the cloud. The new radio concept with cloud commercialized as early as next year, so it will be true for 4G networks.

    Just not everything can be virtualized. – The lowest layer, ie the calculation of the most demanding signal processing continue to be made locally on the base. We do not completely get rid of the iron base station, Kivinen says with a laugh.

    Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2499:nokia-koko-tukiasemaa-ei-voi-vieda-pilveen&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
27. March 3, 2015 at 10:19 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    UPDATE 3-HP to buy Wi-Fi gear maker Aruba Networks for $2.7 bln
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/02/aruba-networks-ma-hp-idUSL4N0W44QO20150302

    March 2 (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co said it would buy Wi-Fi network gear maker Aruba Networks Inc for about $2.7 billion, the biggest deal for the world’s No. 2 PC maker since its botched acquisition of Britain’s Autonomy Plc in 2011.

    HP is way behind market leader Cisco Systems Inc in the networking business, and the Aruba acquisition would help it to gain a little more market share, he said.

    HP has a 4-5 percent share of the enterprise WLAN market, compared with Aruba’s 10-13 percent

    Reply
28. March 4, 2015 at 7:26 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    VPX at Light Speed—Optical Brings 100 Gigabits to Backplane Architectures
    http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103150

    A new generation of connectors and interfaces is taking its place in the world of VPX to handle the growing demands of data transfer between cards and systems.

    With the emergence of backplane data communication at PCI Express (PCIe) Gen3 and 10/40 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) speeds, it’s becoming more and more likely that backplane I/O will require support at similar bandwidths. Certainly chassis-to-chassis connections will need to be accomplished at the same bandwidth, and because copper cables of useful lengths are not practical above 3 Gbit/s, applications will be turning increasingly to optical cables for high-speed external data connections.

    VPX is the first embedded backplane architecture specifically designed to allow optical I/O through the backplane. The optical backplane connector is defined within ANSI-VITA 66.0 66.1 and 66.3. The VITA 66 base standard defines a suitable family of optical interconnects for use on VITA 46.0 plug-in modules and backplanes, with VITA 66.1 identifying the mechanical transfer (MT) style contact variant and VITA 66.3, the Mini Expanded Beam contact variant.

    The VPX backplane’s optical I/O is capable of serving several different purposes such as card-to-card data connections, chassis-to-chassis data connections and I/O connectivity to sensors and sensor arrays. Until now, most signaling within and between backplanes was at speeds that could always be supported by copper cabling.

    Reply
29. March 4, 2015 at 7:48 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Telcos Demand ‘Digital Neutrality’
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325882&

    Telco operators at MWC called for a “level playing field” with Google, Facebook and Amazon.

    In an opening salvo Monday at the GSMA World Mobile Congress, César Alierto, chief executive officer of Telefonica, Spain’s largest telecommunications provider, said, “We keep talking about net neutrality but the focus should be on digital neutrality.”

    The term, “digital neutrality” is an unfamiliar coinage, but four big names in European telecom proceeded to offer interpretations. Among these, Timotheus Hoettger, CEO of Deutsche Telecom, was most emphatic in pitting the interests of mobile telecom operators — including such U.S. providers as AT&T and Verizon — against free services like Amazon, Facebook and Google that piggyback on telco infrastructure and remain unfettered by the sort of regulation applied to telecommunications networks.

    “Is Facebook a communications service,” Hoettger asked very rhetorically, “It’s not rated as a communication service in the regulatory world.”

    He said mobile operators are “in the asset-heavy infrastructure business,” while software applications guys are asset-lite.

    “We have to be cheaper, more efficient,” he added. “But if we’re competing with services that are free, things are going to be tough… We need a regulatory world where everybody is treated the same way… I love to compete, I love to play, but not handcuffed.”

    Digital identity
    The problem with being constantly connected through mobile devices that include phones, tablets, smartwatches, etc., is a matter of both identity and security. Each person connected to the Internet now, said Baksaas, had an average of five log-in identities and 26 different passwords, each vulnerable to hackers.

    “How do we maintain a digital identity in the digital world?” he asked. The telco answer in development for Europe is Mobile Connect. Sixteen providers have so far joined the initiative, which would provide each user with a single sign-on across all applications, protected by “several layers of security… tightened to its fullest potential.”

    Net neutrality with ‘quality classes’?
    Inevitably, the discussion turned on Tuesday’s much-anticipated appearance at Mobile World of Tom Wheeler, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in the United States, which just voted to apply the Communications Act of 1934 to Internet services, hence treating the Web as a “common carrier.”

    He noted that the FCC’s decision accommodates “quality of classes,” or certain types of communications that merit some sort of “fast-track” priority, whether through older media or digital transmission. These include emergency information, health alerts and other matters of urgent public interest.

    Hoettger said that within the next five years, “We need to ratify a single market — roaming [charge abolition], spectrum [distribution], net neutrality and quality of class. The Americans have clearly articulated quality classes. They don’t have a problem.”

    “Telco operators are trusted,” he said. “You can’t live without privacy and security.”

    Reply
30. March 4, 2015 at 7:52 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    IBM, Semtech 30-Mile IoT Uses 10-Year AAs
    LoRa Alliance hawks M2M at Mobile World Congress
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325890&

    BM Corp. and Semtech Corp. have partnered with the open standards LoRa Alliance at the Mobile World Congress (MWC, Barcelona, Spain), along with many other companies wishing to cash-in on the booming machine-to-machine (M2M) market segment of the Internet of Things (IoT). Other companies in LoRa include Actility, Cisco, Eolane, Kerlink, IMST, MultiTech, Sagemcom, and Microchip Technology.

    So far, the LoRa Alliance parnership is offering the only end-to-end solution by marrying every possible application of M2M and other IoT applications with its Long Range Signaling and Control (LRSC) that allows users existing telecom resources to feed the information streaming in from billions of sensors up to the cloud where it becomes actionable intelligence.

    “LRSC can be installed on any number of servers, including bare-bones xSeries servers or virtualized SoftLayer instances,” IBM Master Inventor Thorsten Kramp told EE Times. “Data from sensors pass through LRSC-enabled gateways via the LRSC network server and application router to IBM’s IoT cloud.”

    The 30-mile maximum distance between sensor nodes is attributable to the encoding methods used on the unlicensed industrial, scientific and medical (ISM, 433/868 MHz) band on which the sensor signals ride. Local telecoms concentrating the signals will also be announced at MWC, including Fastnet — a subsidiary of Telkom (South Africa), Bouygues Telecom, KPN, SingTel, Proximus and Swisscom..

    The LoRa Alliance claims that its solution solves all the problems holding back the Internet of Things from catching on in the mobile world of M2M — namely short distances between nodes (up to 30 miles with LoRa), short battery times (up to 10-years with LoRa on two AA batteries) and high costs to deploy (plug-and-play with Semtech and other modules managed by local telecoms and IBM software). Users merely need to sign-up at their local telecom — like they do for cell phones — pick up their sensor modules and start accessing the software over the web.

    One big difference with low-power wide area networks (LPWANs) like the LoRa standard is that their speed depends on distance — for instance a 30 mile LoRa signal will run at just 300 bits per second (BPS) where as a 1-mile LoRa signal can run in excess of 100kbits per second. Nevertheless, most of the M2M applications will only occasionally be sending data, such as a farmer tracking rainfall, or a city tracking empty parking spaces to a pet’s collar that enables the owner to find his lost dog and wearables of every shape and size. Security is handled by AES128 encryption.

    Reply
31. March 4, 2015 at 7:53 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Spectrum, 5G in MWC Spotlight
    Carriers call for sharing airwaves
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325892&

    Decisions on how to use 500 MHz to 1,000 MHz of additional spectrum for current and future 5G services must evolve with consensus among multiple industries according to a panel of carriers and regulators speaking at the Mobile World Congress.

    Panelists called for collaboration to avoid what ITU Radiocommunication Bureau Director François Rancy called a “seismic spectrum shakeup.”

    Reply
32. March 4, 2015 at 7:59 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Rohde & Schwarz Highlights 5G Tester at MWC
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325895&

    Rohde & Schwarz is introducing 5 5G test setup at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. The equipment consists of a SMW200A vector signal generator, an FSW signal and spectrum analyzer, and an RTO oscilloscope. Bundled with the FSW-B2000 software, the FSW offers an analysis bandwidth of 2 GHz. In addition, the FSW67 offers the possibility to analyze signals at frequencies up to 67 GHz. The FSW family is suited particularly for demanding measurement tasks during the development phase of the 5G mobile networks. The SMW200A generates signals up to 40 GHz and can be extended through external mixing components. In the test setup at hand, broadband signals in the 60-GHz range can be generated and analyzed. The same setup can also cover the frequency range below 6 GHz.

    This test setup supports R&D activities aiming at utilizing the millimeter-wave spectrum for 5G mobile networks. 5G wireless networks should be available by 2020.

    Rohde & Schwarz is active in numerous 5G research initiatives and participates actively in the development of the 5G networks.

    Reply
33. March 4, 2015 at 9:05 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Linux and Multiple Internet Uplinks: a New Tool
    http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/03/03/1910206/linux-and-multiple-internet-uplinks-a-new-tool

    Linux has been able do multipath routing for a long time: it means being able to have routes with multiple gateways and to use them in a (weighted) round-robin fashion. But Linux is missing a tool to actively monitor the state of internet uplinks and change the routing accordingly.

    To address these issues, a new standalone tool was just released: Fault Tolerant Router. It also includes a complete (iptables + ip policy routing) configuration generator.

    drsound/fault_tolerant_router
    https://github.com/drsound/fault_tolerant_router

    A daemon, running in background on a Linux router or firewall, monitoring the state of multiple internet uplinks/providers and changing the routing accordingly. LAN/DMZ internet traffic is load balanced between the uplinks.

    Reply
34. March 4, 2015 at 9:26 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Carriers want 5G to do everything, for anything, anywhere
    The phoney phone standards chat is over and the real work has begun
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/04/carriers_want_5g_to_do_everything_everywhere/

    MWC2015 The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) carriers’ club has sorted out its ideas of what 5G’s future, and set forth a blueprint of its preferred vision of a post-4G world.

    The 5G world is going to have to get cracking, though: the roadmap, with contributions from luminaries like AT&T, BT, China Mobile, DoCoMo, SingTel, Vodafone, Telstra and others, wants the first steps to be complete by the end of the year.

    With “detailed requirements” for 5G called for by the end of this year, the paper lays out the remaining steps as being:

    Initial system design by 2017;
    Trials in 2018, and standards ready by the end of that year; and
    Commercial offerings by 2020.

    That’s a tough and tight timeline, considering that what the carriers see as being 5G looks like it’s being sewn together by an Igor in a Terry Pratchett novel.

    For example, the NGMN has noticed that 5G is going to have to support handsets, transceivers in cars, and a who-knows-how-many Internet of Things devices, so the network will have to be able to be “sliced up” so that each use-case gets the resources it needs.

    After all, as the paper notes, IoT sensor deployments could demand “several hundred thousand simultaneous active connections per square kilometre”.

    Hence carriers’ and vendors’ enthusiasm for software-defined networks (SDN) and network function virtualisation (NFV), much in evidence at Mobile World Congress this year.

    The carriers also reveal that they’d like to replace the office LAN, calling for standards that can deliver “1 Gb/s to be offered simultaneously to tens of workers in the same office floor”.

    Unsurprisingly, 4G spectrum efficiency is inadequate for the future: “In particular the average spectrum efficiency (measured in bit/s/Hz/cell) and the cell-edge spectrum efficiency (measured in bit/s/Hz/user) should be improved”, the paper states.

    The NGMN wants 5G to be the path by which the world will get 50 Mbps everywhere, with capacity and latency able to support “extreme real time communications” like the “tactile Internet”, sufficient reliability for e-health solutions, and (to save carriers’ bacon from over-the-top services) broadcast to mobile devices.

    Reply
35. March 4, 2015 at 9:47 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Doing Digital Signage Right… the First Time
    http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/105735

    Getting the basic networking set up right for a digital signage project is of course important. But additional thought must also be given to content and how the anticipated user base will interact with the planned set-up for a particular customer.

    Reply
36. March 4, 2015 at 10:00 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    How does a global corporation switch to IP Voice?
    Step by step guid
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/04/can_a_global_corporation_switch_to_ip_voice/

    Reply
37. March 4, 2015 at 10:49 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Audi will outfit all 2016 cars with AT&T’s LTE service
    http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/audi-will-outfit-all-2016-cars-atts-lte-service/2015-03-03?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_campaign=rss

    BARCELONA, Spain–Audi of America will equip all its 2016 vehicles with AT&T’s (NYSE:T) LTE service. The deal is an expansion of AT&T’s previous arrangement with Audi in which the operator provided LTE connectivity to all Audi A3 cars released in 2014. AT&T will offer Audi drivers the option of adding their car to their Mobile Share data plan for the $10 per month access fee.

    AT&T is also adding a new capability to its AT&T Drive connected car platform that will allow the car to connect to the company’s Digital Life home security and automation platform. This means that car makers will be able to embed the Digital Life feature into cars so drivers can control their home from their car dashboard.

    The global SIM is also being used in AT&T’s deal with heavy equipment maker Sany America to help it manage and protect its heavy equipment assets remotely.

    AT&T and Audi to Wirelessly Connect all 2016 Model Year Vehicles
    http://about.att.com/story/att_and_audi_to_wirelessly_connect_all_2016_model_year_vehicles.html

    BARCELONA, March 3, 2015 – AT&T* and Audi of America today announced an agreement in which all 2016 model-year Audi vehicles equipped with Audi connect® will come with AT&T 4G LTE or 3G coverage**. AT&T and Audi enabled the first-ever in-vehicle 4G LTE data connection in North America with the all-new Audi A3 models released in 2014.

    Under the agreement, all 2016 models with Audi connect will be delivered to customers with an AT&T SIM card providing connectivity to AT&T’s wireless network.

    The new A6, A7, and TT models coming this year will feature the most advanced version of Audi connect including up-to-the-minute traffic information, semi-dynamic route guidance, over the air map updates, and internet radio, in addition to picture navigation, social media, personalized RSS news feeds with read-aloud functionality, and more.

    Reply
38. March 4, 2015 at 1:14 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Uros is now seeking growth with operators

    Finnish Uros company is offering global mobile communications with Goodspeed-service.

    TeliaSonera’s partnership has already been published. The operator already offers a cost-effective broadband connections in the Nordic and the Baltic countries. Goodspeedin the service area expands global.

    - Many customers find what it is the purchase price of data abroad. For example, in North America the price can move at EUR 250 per gigabyte. Our broadband pay five dollars a day, Uhari recall.

    The EU has agreed that data roaming prices will be 50 euros per gigabyte. – The smartphone user such regulated roaming is quite appropriate, Uhari says. If you have to work hard to download the data, the situation changes.

    - We need our customers to the center is 300 MB per day, Uhari says. Cisco investigations office worker using a network connection to a 250 megabyte per day, so in practice Goodspeed bring on the road users, the Office of broadband in your pocket.

    Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2506:uros-hakee-nyt-kasvua-operaattoreiden-kanssa&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
39. March 4, 2015 at 1:18 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    The cloud can not change the relative strength on the base stations

    One of the Barcelona Mobile Fair talked about topics is a network of Virtualisation. More and more network components are exported to the cloud. This may change the status of the network equipment suppliers.

    Wind River presents itself at the fair virtualized network backbone C-RAN elements together with Altiostarin. The solution to the bottom of Intel processors and Wind River Titanium server. – We are one of the few companies that has NFV-ready platform, Ashton praises.

    In practice, it is a core network element, which is connected to the network using Ethernet radio head. Similar solutions have been seen in a broad base stations manufacturers in the past year. – What is clear is that the networks go all the time out of its dedicated hardware and software solutions, Ashton says.

    Network virtualization functions that NFV is one of the clear trends. This opens up opportunities for new players.
    – HP is not a traditional telecommunications equipment manufacturer, but it can challenge the old players

    HP and other vendors NFV required much. – Networks are now very reliable. Cellular services remain on the current five 9 completely reliability,

    The operator does not get money from the data connecting, but from the services.

    Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2505:pilvi-voi-muuttaa-voimasuhteita-tukiasemissa&catid=13&Itemid=101

    Reply
40. March 4, 2015 at 1:40 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Let roaming fees hang around for a while longer, EU countries say
    https://gigaom.com/2015/03/04/let-roaming-fees-hang-around-for-a-while-longer-eu-countries-say/

    The Council of the European Union – the part of the EU legislature that represents member states – has formally laid out its stance on changing incoming legislation around roaming and net neutrality. This means negotiations with the European Parliament can formally commence, and as some parliamentarians warned on Tuesday, this will be a feisty fight.

    The Council’s position opposes the Commission and Parliament’s original intention of eliminating roaming surcharges for those travelling within the EU by the end of this year. Instead, from mid-2016 people would get to use a daily 5MB “basic roaming allowance” when crossing borders that would be the same as domestic mobile data costs. Above that, operators will be able to charge extra for roaming, but not more than the wholesale costs levied by the carrier whose network is being roamed onto.

    It would only be in mid-2018 that member states would ask the Commission to “assess … what further measures may be needed with a view to phasing out roaming charges” and then maybe propose new laws.

    As for net neutrality, “agreements on services requiring a specific level of quality will be allowed, but operators will have to ensure the quality of internet access services.”

    Just 5 MB free roaming data in EU mobile plan
    http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/02/20/just-5-mb-free-roaming-data-eu-mobile-plan/

    The European member states have come up with a proposal to make using mobile internet in other European Union countries cheaper, NOS reports. The member states proposed that those visiting other EU countries can use 5 MB of mobile data every day without incurring extra costs (roaming costs).

    According to the newspaper, 5 MB is about enough to listen to Boehmian Rhapsody on Spotify one time, to watch 30 seconds of one YouTube video on high quality, or to send 4 photos taken with a smartphone in high quality via email.

    Reply
41. March 5, 2015 at 7:27 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Europe considers new proposals to create tiered internet service
    Leaked plans let telecoms offer commercial deals for faster internet
    http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/4/8147015/eu-net-neutrality-proposals

    Just one week after the American government voted to enforce net neutrality, the European Union is considering plans allowing the opposite: permitting internet providers to create a tiered internet service with paid fast lanes. A proposal put forward by Latvia would reportedly allow telecoms companies to “enter into agreements” with companies and individuals to provide faster internet speeds — so long as these deals do not impair other users’ connections.

    The plans are currently being voted on by representatives from the 28 EU member states

    Speaking at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, EU digital chief Günther Oettinger said that the rules might be agreed as early as summer this year. “Access to the Internet and neutrality for our consumers is an important goal,” The Wall Street Journal reports Mr. Oettinger as saying. “The question is how to define special services on top.”

    Telecom operators welcomed the proposals, claiming that only a “light-touch” approach to net neutrality would allow the growth of the EU’s “digital single market” — the plan to unify Europe’s digital industry with shared laws for digital matters such as online payments and mobile data.

    Reply
42. March 5, 2015 at 7:47 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    The IMOD Program
    http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/fujitsu_semiconductor/the-imod-program

    The Infrastructure Modernization (IMOD) program of the US Army has been the most massive restructuring program of information technology in the history of military. This document therefore presents the modernization of Garrison network using Fujitsu’s FLASHWAVE® ROADM platform technology, and the smooth transition of the network allowing years of trouble-free operations and service delivery.

    Modernizing a Congested Garrison Network
    One of the largest military posts in the United States was fiber constrained as a result of an inefficient configuration, with point-to-point circuits being used throughout the garrison. Unimpeded communications are especially mission-critical for this garrison, since it houses a strategic crisis response force, which depends upon a rapid, reliable communications infrastructure to fulfill its mission successfully.

    The IMOD prime contractor chose the Fujitsu FLASHWAVE® 7500 ROADM (Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer) platform to upgrade the integral portion of the post’s communications network architecture. This Fujitsu ROADM platform was selected because of its advanced, field-tested optical technologies. The FLASHWAVE 7500 ROADM provides up to 40 Gbps of bandwidth on each of its 40 wavelengths to handle IP-based and other emerging applications required for warfighter success. The platform provides multidegree optical hubbing for the switching and transport of wavelengths encompassing various bit rates, and in-service upgrades as the garrison grows and traffic demands change.

    Reply
43. March 5, 2015 at 8:21 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    5G Researchers Seek Spectrum
    Ericsson tests 15 GHz, Nokia tries70 GHz
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325898&

    Researchers from Nokia and Ericsson detailed at the Mobile World Congress their work so far to find spectrum needed to carry a variety of 5G services. The next-generation cellular networks are expected to span everything from low bands for the Internet of Things to 100 GHz ultra dense links in urban areas.

    Nokia Principal Research Specialist Mark Cudak said 5G requires meshing new and current spectrum.

    5G is going to be a tight integration of today’s existing technologies – 2G, 3G, 4G, and WiFi — as well as the evolution of LTE and new cellular technologies at higher frequencies. 5G will require 10 Gbit/s peak rates, 1 millisecond latency, and 10,000 times more capacity by 2025…We think 5G needs to be scalable to keep evolving all the way through 2030.

    Both Nokia and Ericsson demonstrated 5G cellular connections using beam-forming technology and small cell base stations. Ericsson chose 15 GHz for the first phase of a three-phase test system.

    The 15 GHz band was the first frequency available in Sweden to provide a good middle ground for initial testing. Spectrum used in future tests is likely to go up in frequency.

    Ericsson’s 15 GHz test base station uses a 400 MHz carrier aggregation modem, delivering approximately 5,250 Mbits/s total throughput. An additional video streaming demo managed 3,469 Mbits/s on 5G and switched to LTE when a user was out of range of a 5G base station. The LTE speeds dropped significantly to 96 Mbits/s but signal was not lost.

    Frodigh said Ericsson is primarily researching up to 30 GHz, though coverage in the 1 to 2 GHz range is still needed. Using the 60 GHz frequency is possible though, perhaps, not ideal as it confines communications to a small, dense area.

    Other frequencies are more suited for a home automation or Internet of Things (IoT) system in a building without fiber, Frodigh added. He envisions 5G functioning at up to 200 meters and up to 20 Gbits/s

    Nokia Networks is looking at 6 GHz to 100 GHz for 5G. It has a 70 GHz demonstration at Mobile World Congress that uses a lens antenna system with a three-degree beam width. That thin beam can track and acquire the signal for a user who has gone out of coverage, providing 2 Gbits/s throughput.

    “We picked 70 GHz as an interesting band because there’s potential of maybe 10 GHz of spectrum being allocated to mobile,”

    Reply
44. March 5, 2015 at 9:00 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    EU annoys industry and activists with net neutrality proposal
    GSMA, MEP and others queue up to give it a kicking
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/net_neutrality_eu_ministers_proposals_treated_with_suspicion/

    Europe’s telco ministers have finally come to an agreement on net neutrality – but it’s one that makes both digital activists and industry unhappy.

    On Wednesday, a council made up of EU member states’ telecoms ministers published its position on the so-called Telecoms Package and managed to alienate almost everyone with a stake.

    It sets out new rules on traffic management that ban blocking or slowing down specific content or applications. There are a number of exceptions – for example in situations where customers have requested spam blocking or to prevent cyber attacks. The draft also allows for “specialised services”.

    If approved by the European Parliament, the law would apply from 30 June 2016. Getting parliamentary approval, however, may prove tricky.

    “The council wording is vague and this is a problem. Ambiguity and uncertainty create loopholes. We need clear principles and definitions. These are not in the council text, and I don’t think that’s an accident. The council will face a huge fight to get this wording approved,” warned Schaake.

    Meanwhile, Anne Bouverot, director general of the GSMA, said that the reduction in scope of the proposals on net neutrality represents a missed opportunity.

    ETNO, the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ association, was also unhappy with the new wording.

    “Any future regulation must recognise how networks function: We need balanced rules on traffic management as well as measures that allow the development of specialised services and innovative offers.”

    Reply
45. March 5, 2015 at 9:01 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Euro ministers ditch plan to ban roaming charges
    National ministers do U-turn
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/eu_plan_to_ban_roaming_charges_dropped_youll_just_have_to_pay_that_whopping_great_bill_after_your_hols/

    Europe’s telco ministers appear to have done a U-turn over a proposed total removal of mobile phone roaming charges by the end of the year.

    In 2013, the European Commission proposed a plan – backed by MEPs – to end costly roaming surcharges by the end of 2015. No longer would holidaymakers or business travellers be surprised and horrified by shock bills for calls or data sent and received outside of their home country.

    This would have been part of the the so-called Telecoms Package, which includes proposals related to net neutrality.

    But this utopian dream was shattered on Wednesday by the council of national telecoms ministers. According to the draft text on new EU rules for telecom providers seen by your correspondent, national representatives now argue that “a transitional period is needed to allow roaming providers to adapt to wholesale market conditions”.

    Reply
46. March 5, 2015 at 9:03 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Huawei to build 5G patent book
    100 billion royalty payments can’t be wrong
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/huawei_to_build_5g_patent_book/

    MWC1015 Huawei has talked up its plans for 5G at Mobile World Congress, with an emphasis on building its patent book for the next mobile standard.

    The company is already in fifth place in European patent applicants for 2014 according to the European Patent Office, and had nearly 500 patents granted in that year. New filings across its whole portfolio came to 1,600 in 2014, the EPO report says.

    CEO Ken Hu told MWC attendees the company’s spending on 5G would rise; as Reuters notes, it had previously committed to tip $US600 million into its 5G bucket between 2013 and 2018.

    The Register noted that technologies like Huawei’s 5G air interface represent a shot at capturing the flag in the emerging technology.

    Hu said the company’s work in 5G was giving it a strong position in intellectual property.

    Since he expects the 5G network to have to serve 100 billion “smart nodes”, those that get their patents into standards will ensure a fabulous annuity in the form of license payments.

    To get there, he said, will need cooperation between carriers, vendors and verticals.

    Reply
47. March 5, 2015 at 9:07 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Broadband routers: SOHOpeless and vendors don’t care
    The basic internet access device in hundreds of millions of homes is an insult to IT
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/broadband_routers_sohopeless_and_vendors_dont_care/

    Feature

    “It is far more common to find routers with critical flaws than without” – Craig Young

    “It’s sad that end-user education about strong passwords, password safes, and phishing can be undone by something as innocuous as the blinking box in the corner of your room. – Peter Adkins

    Introduction

    Home and small business router security is terrible. Exploits emerge with depressing regularity, exposing millions of users to criminal activities.

    Many of the holes are so simple as to be embarrassing. Hard-coded credentials are so common in small home and office routers, comparatively to other tech kit, that only those with tin-foil hats bother to suggest the flaws are deliberate.

    Hacker gang Lizard Squad crystallised the dangers – and opportunities – presented by router vulnerabilities when over the Christmas break they crafted a slick paid denial of service stresser service that operated on hacked boxes.

    A year earlier, security boffins at Team Cymru warned that an unknown ganghad popped 300,000 routers in a week, altering the DNS settings to point to malicious web entities.

    Arguably the most infamous hack in recent months was Check Point’s so-called Misfortune Cookie discovered in December 2014. This vulnerability was thought to impact a staggering 12 million routers across 200 models from big names such as Linksys, D-Link, TP-Link, ZTE, and Huawei.

    In October Rapid7 had chipped in with its own research, warning that Network Address Translation Port Mapping Protocol configurations in 1.2 million routers was sufficiently borked that remote attackers could spy on internal traffic.

    Security is ‘abysmal’

    “Router security remains abysmal, especially among the cheapest brands,” says John Matherly, founder of the popular Shodan search engine which crawls for internet-connected devices. “Backdoors, no automated patching and default usernames and passwords are just a few of the problems that many SOHO routers continue to face.”

    Reply
48. March 5, 2015 at 1:08 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Docker grabs SocketPlane and its experts to create open networking APIs
    http://www.zdnet.com/article/docker-grabs-socketplane-and-its-experts-to-create-open-networking-apis/

    Summary:Behind the acquisition of tiny Palo Alto startup SocketPlane by Docker lies the goal of giving multi-container apps network portability through standard interfaces.

    Container company Docker has acquired startup SocketPlane and its six-strong team to help add standard networking interfaces to Docker for increased portability of multi-container distributed apps.

    Since its emergence last year, software-defined networking specialist SocketPlane, acquired on undisclosed terms, has been working on Docker’s open API for networking.

    Docker said the SocketPlane team will be collaborating with the partner community on a set of networking APIs for app developers, and network and system administrators. The goal is to bring networking direct to the application while remaining infrastructure independent.

    “It’s about us grabbing a team that has great networking skills at scale and have them contribute an API back to the community from which partners can then develop their own implementations,”

    “Because we’ve got Cisco, VMware, Juniper, and Arista and all these other networking companies approaching the community with ideas and they have deep networking expertise, we needed a similar deep bench of networking within the project to guide those conversations.”

    The arrival of the new networking APIs is “really close”, according to Johnston.

    “This is about enabling networking partners in the ecosystem not competing with them, by bringing on board a team that can really help us and help the community shape a great API.”

    Reply
49. March 5, 2015 at 1:23 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Why Wi-Fi won’t solve mobile telcos’ data dilemma
    You know what … you should buy our kit, suggests Bluwan
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/wifi_wont_solve_mobe_telecos_data_dilemma/

    If mobile operators rely upon Wi-Fi to relieve themselves of data traffic they are going to need to find some way to get the data home. Right now they’re heading for a data bottleneck.

    So says Bluwan, which – guess what – has a solution to the problem: its 42GHz point to multi-point backhaul. It sees this as the way Wi-Fi can roll out to its predicted level of one public Wi-Fi hotspot for every 20 people on the planet.

    The company has 1GHz of spectrum and can support 2.5Gb/sec of data per sector.

    Bluwan’s point to multi-point can course be used for backhaul with solutions like streetlights, but the technology is limited in that it is line-of-sight only.

    This makes it most suitable for back-hauling to the roof of a building that overlooks and will then communicate with other roofs, running the “carrier grade” Wi-Fi within the target buildings.

    Each site would typically get 150Mbps, but of course this varies on the number of sites in a sector. Bluwan has different antennas to increase and reduce the sector sizes. It is not a replacement for point to point, so you can’t get the full 2.5Gb/sec from a single location.

    In its study, “Carrying Carrier Wi-Fi: The Technology Challenges”, Real Wireless identified that data demands through Wi-Fi hotspots will increase dramatically, driven by applications like streamed content, which has high Quality of Service requirements.

    Carrier-grade Wi-Fi: a backhaul bottleneck by 2019?
    http://www.bluwan.com/carrier-grade-wi-fi-a-backhaul-bottleneck-by-2019/

    Real Wireless was recently commissioned by Bluwan to analyse the emerging trends and technological challenges that carrier-grade Wi-Fi is creating.

    The study, Carrying Carrier Wi-Fi: The Technology Challenges, emphasized the increasing reliance operators will be placing on carrier Wi-Fi over the next five years. In fact, our analysis reveals that carrier-grade Wi-Fi hotspots will make up more than 80% of all available access points in 2019.

    The study also identified that data demands being placed upon Wi-Fi hotspots will increase dramatically in the coming years, driven by data-intensive applications like streaming content. In fact, according to figures from Cisco, the world’s hotspots will need to support a staggering 63 exabytes of Wi-Fi IP traffic each month by 2018.

    While there is little doubt carrier-grade Wi-Fi will form a crucial part of next generation mobile networks, operators need to be aware of how important effective backhaul provision will become.

    Reply
50. March 5, 2015 at 1:40 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    The fully Digital radio transmitter: Is it real or more hype?
    http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4438807/The-fully-Digital-radio-transmitter–Is-it-real-or-more-hype-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150305&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150305&elq=8433534c519b47ccb201e86f2d5241f9&elqCampaignId=21940&elqaid=24634&elqat=1&elqTrackId=b29e6967f02244b18fdb0512dd0f08be

    Cambridge Consultants are claiming the world’s first fully digital radio transmitter built only from computing power. There are no analog components like a high-speed D to A converter with amplifier, although I would think they would need a Power Amplifier (PA) to broadcast a great distance. This is a Digital Radio transmitter and not part of a Software Defined Radio (SDR) architecture which requires analog components.

    They are demonstrating the transmitter at the Mobile World Congress (MWC)

    Many so-called All-Digital Radios have been tried in the past. Here are some that stand out, but in my skeptical analog brain I find it hard to conceive a truly All-Digital Radio

    Cambridge Consultants All-Digital Radio transmitter

    Cambridge Consultants just demonstrated their all-digital radio transmitter at the Mobile World Congress.

    Their creation, called “Pizzicato”, greatly intrigued me because unlike the previous attempts at the All-Digital radio outlined above and in the five references, Cambridge has taken the design to a new level with their proprietary patented software algorithms and mathematical software prowess.

    An interesting note is that they started this design with an old, 3Gbps bitstream from a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA serdes port. They use a bandpass sigma-delta converter in the bitstream like the early one bit audio sigma-delta devices.

    Watch this company because they have some really bright innovator geeks (our brethren) and I expect to see many new enhancements in this technology over the next few years. These types of Digital radios can fully take advantage of Moore’s Law leading to smaller sizes, lower cost and lower power consumption using next-gen digital IC technology node advancements. An example of the architectures that can benefit from this is the 14 simultaneous cellular base station signals they were able to create with this first prototype.

    Reply