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:
Data Centers Drive SDN, Bandwidth
Flexible Ethernet could create 1.6Tbit/s pipes
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326370&
After driving work on new 25 and 50 Gigabit/second Ethernet speeds last year cloud-scale data centers are at it again. The Web giants are driving two more initiatives that will reshape communications systems and silicon.
New chips will roll soon to support an initiative in software-defined networking (SDN) now in the works at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). A separate and more technically difficult effort to bond Ethernet channels has just gotten started at the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and may take a few years to appear in products.
The new projects are the latest examples of how companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are driving the road maps of everything related to servers and switches these days. Last year, in the quest to give their data centers more bandwidth, they formed a consortium to define 25 and 50G Ethenret speeds, getting ahead of the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet group that had just finished defining 40 and 100G.
“40G dropped off the chart in one year from being a hockey stick — that’s the impact hyperscale data centers have,”
Microsoft alone has spent more than $15 billion on its network of more than 100 global data centers. They include about 1.3 million servers and “enough optical fiber in North America alone to go to the moon and back three times,” Booth said.
The IETF is creating an approach called hierarchical SDN. It defines labels similar to MPLS labels to speed routing of packets through a data center. The approach allows data center operators to significantly shrink the forwarding tables that are now mushrooming inside their switch chips.
Hierarchical SDN (described above and below) is just a small step toward the Holy Grail of a full software defined network.
“SDN needs time — there has to be more use cases,” he told EE Times. “Its still in its infancy or toddler stage [but] in another 2-3 years we will see it nicely mature because new players are coming in to take this on and that’s a nice sign — the industry is embracing it,” he said.
The new Flexible Ethernet initiative at the OIF is all about “how we get the best use of the bandwidth and the best cost for it,” said Booth. “Optics were traditionally measured by a dollar per gigabit, but I wonder when is it less than that…when will we start talking about 75 or 50 cents a gig in optical,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC Frees Up Spectrum for Low-Cost Wireless Hubs
Regulators to let users share airwaves free or pay for priority access
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/fcc-frees-up-spectrum-for-low-cost-wireless-hubs-1429292240-lMyQjAxMTE1MTEzNzYxMTczWj
U.S. regulators approved a plan Friday to unlock a large swath of airwaves that could be used to set up cheap, new wireless networks.
The move by the Federal Communications Commission frees up airwaves in the 3.5 gigahertz band, which are higher frequency than some Wi-Fi bands and don’t travel very far. Currently, the frequency is used for Navy radar systems along the coasts, at a smattering of Army bases, and by rural Internet providers. Otherwise it is entirely unused.
Rather than a traditional model of auctioning the block to individual owners, the FCC plans to let users share the airwaves free or pay for priority access via an auction system.
Backers of the approach include Google Inc., which has complained that the prevailing auction system makes the airwaves scarce and drives up the price of service.
Next year, the FCC could raise even more money in a complex auction where TV broadcasters will sell their airwaves to the agency, which will resell it to wireless carriers. The high price tag makes it is difficult for new entrants to gain access to airwaves needed to build or expand new wireless networks.
Demand for wireless airwaves has skyrocketed over the past decade as more Americans use smartphones to surf the web and stream videos.
The 3.5 gigahertz airwaves will be useful for networks that cover dense urban areas.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Margaret Sullivan / New York Times:
How the New York Times is adjusting to writing headlines optimized for search engines
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2911793/comcast-to-bring-two-gigabit-internet-service-to-bay-area-boost-existing-tiers.html
Comcast said Friday that it will bring its 2-gigabit symmetrical Gigabit Pro service to San Francisco Bay Area consumers in May, sidestepping Google and its own fiber plans.
Leapfrogging Google in the fiber race
Comcast’s announcement will undoubtedly roil the tech-centric Silicon Valley. Google had talked about bringing its own gigabit fiber to homes in the South Bay, including Cupertino, but the company hasn’t yet committed to a full rollout.
The new Comcast Gigabit Pro service is symmetrical, meaning that you’ll be able to download 2 Gbps, and upload at that speed as well. Comcast’s existing 50-Mbps service uploads data at 5 Mbps.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Budge up, Navy boys, I’ve got some broadband spectrum to flog – FCC
150MHz may be opened up in 3.5GHz space, telcos can pay to play or just be friends
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/17/fcc_throws_spectrum_to_telcos/
US watchdog the FCC hopes to offer more airwaves to telcos in hope they’ll be used to grow mobile broadband coverage in America.
The commission announced on Friday that it wants to add 100MHz to the 50MHz of spectrum in the 3550MHz to 3700MHz band already available for commercial use. The US Department of Defense operates a few Army and coastal Navy radar systems in that space, and will have to share more of the band with mobile networks if the proposed changes are approved.
The frequencies are handy for transmitting and receiving lots of data quickly over short distances, which is not a problem when cramming small network cells into cities and towns.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google To Propose QUIC As IETF Standard
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/04/19/0333222/google-to-propose-quic-as-ietf-standard
As reported by TechCrunch, “Google says it plans to propose HTTP2-over-QUIC to the IETF as a new Internet standard in the future,” having disclosed a few days ago that about half of the traffic from Chrome browsers is using QUIC already.
The name “QUIC” stands for Quick UDP Internet Connection.
Google Wants To Speed Up The Web With Its QUIC Protocol
http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/18/google-wants-to-speed-up-the-web-with-its-quic-protocol/#.b5imzi:gCxq
You may have never heard of it, but if you are a Chrome users, chances are you’ve used Google’s QUIC protocol already. As Google disclosed this week, about half of all requests from Chrome to Google’s servers are now served over QUIC.
So what’s the big deal here? QUIC is Google’s experimental, low-latency Internet transportation protocol over UDP, a protocol that is often used by gaming, streaming media and VoIP services. The name ‘QUIC’ stands for Quick UDP Internet Connection.
UDP’s (and QUIC’s) counterpart in the protocol world is basically TCP (which in combination with the Internet Protocol (IP) makes up the core communication language of the Internet). UDP is significantly more lightweight than TCP, but in return, it features far fewer error correction services than TCP. This means that the sending server isn’t constantly talking to the receiving server to check if packages arrived and if they arrived in the right order, for example. That’s why UDP is great for gaming services.
With QUIC, Google aims to combine some of the best features of UPD and TCP with modern security tools.
On a typical secure TCP connection, it typically takes two or three round-trips before the browser can actually start receiving data. Using QUIC, a browser can immediately start talking to a server it has talked to before. QUIC also introduces a couple of new features like congestion control and automatic re-transmission, making it more reliable that pure UDP.
With SPDY, which later became the basis for the HTTP/2 standard, Google already developed another alternative protocol that had many of the same goals as QUIC, but HTTP/2 still runs over TCP and still runs into some of the same latency cost.
Google says that it has seen about a three percent improvement in mean page load times with QUIC on Google Search. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but you have to remember that Google Search is already about as optimized as possible.
Google says it plans to propose HTTP2-over-QUIC to the IETF as a new Internet standard in the future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
David McLaughlin / Bloomberg Business:
Sources: US Justice Department lawyers leaning against Comcast merger with Time Warner Cable, could submit recommendation next week
U.S. Antitrust Lawyers Said Leaning Against Comcast Deal
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-17/u-s-antitrust-lawyers-said-to-be-leaning-against-comcast-merger
Staff attorneys at the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division are nearing a recommendation to block Comcast Corp.’s bid to buy Time Warner Cable Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.
Attorneys who are investigating Comcast’s $45.2 billion proposal to create a nationwide cable giant are leaning against the merger out of concern that consumers would be harmed and could submit their review as soon as next week, said the people.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Data Centers Drive SDN, Bandwidth
Flexible Ethernet could create 1.6Tbit/s pipes
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326370&
After driving work on new 25 and 50 Gigabit/second Ethernet speeds last year cloud-scale data centers are at it again. The Web giants are driving two more initiatives that will reshape communications systems and silicon.
New chips will roll soon to support an initiative in software-defined networking (SDN) now in the works at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). A separate and more technically difficult effort to bond Ethernet channels has just gotten started at the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and may take a few years to appear in products.
The new projects are the latest examples of how companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are driving the road maps of everything related to servers and switches these days.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zuckerberg: Universal connectivity and net neutrality can and must coexist
Facebook founder says he’ll ‘never use fast lanes’ as spat rumbles on
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2404438/partners-withdraw-from-zuckerbergs-internetorg-over-net-neutrality-fears
MARK ZUCKERBERG has defended his Internet.org initiative following an exodus by partners in India concerned by the threat it poses to net neutrality.
In a statement on, where else, Facebook, he said: “Net neutrality is not in conflict with working to get more people connected. These two principles – universal connectivity and net neutrality – can and must coexist.”
He continued, “Eliminating programs that bring more people online won’t increase social inclusion or close the digital divide. It will only deprive all of us of the ideas and contributions of the two thirds of the world who are not connected.
“Every person in the world deserves access to the opportunities the internet provides. And we can all benefit from the perspectives, creativity and talent of the people not yet connected.
The news comes after Zuckerberg hinted at plans to spread the initiative to Europe during a Facebook Q&A. When asked about a European roll out, he responded: “Yes, we want to bring Internet.org where there are people who need to be connected.”
The Internet.org premise is that partner organisations will offer stripped back versions of websites with the charge being borne by the publisher rather than the end user.
Tomi Engdahl says:
China overtakes US to become world’s largest LTE SIM market
By Nick Wood, Total Telecom
Friday 17 April 2015
http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=489689
SIMalliance says 540 million LTE SIM cards were shipped worldwide in 2014; NFC SIM shipments surge 69%.
China overtook North America in 2014 to become the world’s largest market for LTE SIM card shipments.
Worldwide LTE SIM volumes rocketed 330% to 540 million last year, according to statistics published by the SIMalliance this week. Greater China accounted for 270 million of the total, compared to 138 million in North America.
The growth was attributed to the efforts by Chinese operators to acquire millions of LTE subscribers and the aggressive expansion of 4G networks in the country.
Indeed, in 2015, China is expected to overtake the U.S. to become the world’s largest 4G market in terms of subscribers too. At the end of 2014, the U.S. was the largest with 148 million. However, GSMA Intelligence expects China to comfortably overtake the U.S. and finish 2015 with 300 million LTE subscribers.
“Despite regulatory, economic and market maturity challenges continually faced by individual countries, the SIM industry is thriving,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google says experimental UDP-based transport protocol QUIC improves Google search load times by 3%, ramps up usage in Chrome
Google Wants To Speed Up The Web With Its QUIC Protocol
http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/18/google-wants-to-speed-up-the-web-with-its-quic-protocol/#.utwu3c:Taj2
Tomi Engdahl says:
Network functions virtualization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_functions_virtualization
Network functions virtualization (NFV) is a network architecture concept that proposes using IT virtualization related technologies to virtualize entire classes of network node functions into building blocks that may be connected, or chained, to create communication services.
NFV relies upon, but differs from, traditional server virtualization techniques such as those used in enterprise IT. A virtualized network function, or VNF, may consist of one or more virtual machines running different software and processes, on top of industry standard high volume servers, switches and storage, or even cloud computing infrastructure, instead of having custom hardware appliances for each network function.
For example, a virtualized session border controller function could be deployed to protect a network without the typical cost and complexity of obtaining and installing physical units. Other examples of NFV include virtualized load balancers, firewalls, intrusion detection devices and WAN accelerators.[1]
How network functions virtualization will revolutionize architecture
http://searchsdn.techtarget.com/tip/How-network-functions-virtualization-will-revolutionize-architecture
Using NFV, engineers can virtualize devices and services in large networks to make their architectures cost efficient and flexible.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Anixter debuts network infrastructure program focused on harsh industrial applications
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/04/anixter-levels-industrial.html
Anixter has announced the launch of its new “Levels for Industrial Environments” program, focused on providing network infrastructure for harsh industrial applications. The distributor says the program builds on the history surrounding the original Anixter Levels program for twisted-pair cabling, by simplifying the selection of the correct products in a market where there is a void in adopted standards.
To alleviate such challenges, Anixter’s new Levels for Industrial Environments incorporates a highly engineered selection guide that has identified three distinct levels based on key criteria including humidity, temperature, oil and UV resistance, abrasion, and shock and vibration, that directly impact the long term performance of the industrial infrastructure. In sum, for the program, Anixter has created three distinct Levels categories:
– Level 1 specifies for a controlled environment inside a factory but not to the extent as an office environment, such as a shipping office or control room in a factory.
– Level 2 specifies for an area that has higher temperatures ranges, with exposure to light and dust that causes problems to electronic equipment.
– Level 3 specifies for infrastructure on or close to a machine, which is the harshest. Potential technical issues include lubricants, abrasions, vibrations and extreme heat and cold.
“We quickly learned that most customers are installing commercial-grade cabling and connectivity in environments where the products would be exposed to extreme harsh environments, allowing the cable to break down and fail over time,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
LTE operators in nearly 400
TeliaSonera received the honor of being the world’s first LTE operator when it launched its network in Stockholm in December 2009. Now, more than five years later, the LTE network offers subscribers a 393 operator.
GSM Association, the advanced LTE-Advanced connections currently offers 64 operators. GSMA, the LTE-A connections is currently building a 116 operator, ie roughly one in three.
LTE networks have been built most 1800 MHz frequency range.
The frequency-division LTE (ie FDD) is the most popular LTE network technology.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2706:lte-operaattoreita-lahes-400&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook selects Infinera fiber-optic network for world’s longest multi-terabit route
http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/2015/04/facebook-selects-infinera-fiber-optic-network-for-world-s-longest-multi-terabit-route.html?cmpid=EnlLFWApril212015
Facebook has deployed an Infinera (Sunnyvale, CA) Intelligent Transport Network to light the world’s longest terrestrial optical network route capable of delivering up to 8 terabits per second (Tbps) of data transmission capacity. The new route spans 3,998 km and is deployed without any regeneration. Infinera says that 8 Tb of data transmission per second is enough capacity to stream over one million high-definition videos at the same time.
Facebook’s European terrestrial network stretches from its Lulea, Sweden, datacenter across major hubs throughout Europe. Facebook deployed the Infinera portfolio of products to connect these hubs, harnessing Infinera’s FlexCoherent solution to deliver terabits of capacity on a single fiber across the continent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fiber-Optic Components: Harsh-environment optical fiber coatings: Beauty is only skin deep
04/08/2015
http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-51/issue-04/features/fiber-optic-components-harsh-environment-optical-fiber-coatings-beauty-is-only-skin-deep.html?cmpid=EnlLFWApril212015
Successful deployment of optical fibers in harsh environments for oil and gas, nuclear, medical, and aerospace applications depends far more on the fibers’ immediate external packaging and not its internal optical design.
For most people, optical fibers are made “special” by what is inside them—the complex optical structures that enable them to preserve polarization in sensors, harness high levels of pump energy in fiber lasers, or even the advanced core chemistries that make them resistant to hydrogen downhole, photo-darkening, or ionizing radiation. But the increasing deployment of optical fiber in harsh environments where glass was never intended to go means that this thinking has to change.
After multiple forays into thermally cured silicone-rubbers and even polyimides encountered varying degrees of success during the late 1970s, the modified, ultraviolet (UV)-cured acrylates that still proliferate today were identified as demanding the fewest compromises when used in the majority of applications.
By the mid-1980s, efficient, high-speed, and low-cost acrylate coating technology had the vast majority of applications (such as telecommunications) covered, but what of the minority, niche projects?
For example, FOGs must withstand an environment that is far harsher than any encountered in telecom applications.
Harsh environments frequently translate to high temperatures. While most acrylates are rated only to 85°C, they harden slightly upon cooling due to the loss of the plasticizing effect of certain volatiles, and even standard resins may be chemically stable up to 115°C or higher. Fibercore performs accelerated aging tests routinely on standard, acrylate-coated PM fibers at 105°C for 1000 h or more and has found that both the optical performance and mechanical strength remain comfortably within required limits.
Until relatively recently, going much beyond 85°C meant sacrificing the convenience and ease-of-handling provided by acrylates; however, recent years have seen the introduction of a few high-temperature acrylates (HTAs) in both single- and dual-coat formulations. These materials have higher glass-transition ranges (Tgs) around 115°C (50-80°C for conventional secondary acrylates) and resist chemical decomposition until at least 150°C.
When applied optimally, polyimides can deliver mechanical protection that extends to 300°C. However, in practice the vast majority of commercially available polyimide-coated fibers start to degrade to some extent from 250°C
For applications beyond 300°C, the only current options are metallized fibers coated in a 15–60 μm layer of gold, aluminum, or copper alloy and capable of raising the operating temperature to 700°C, 400°C, and 500°C, respectively. Unfortunately, the combination of complex, difficult processes, relatively limited applications, and even the rapid rise in the value of gold since 2000 has meant that metal-coated optical fibers are typically regarded as R&D-level products.
The resulting hard metallic coatings make the fiber extremely durable, capable of withstanding extremes of both high and low temperature (minima of -250°C or below are frequently quoted), as well as aggressive liquid chemical and even gaseous environments due to the high levels of hermeticity imparted. The ability to solder the fiber directly onto metallic component packages can also be advantageous.
But once again, these advantages demand compromises.
Oil and gas fiber sensing is driving interest in carbon coatings. After experimentation with metals and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of silicon carbide, carbon coatings started to be specified around 1990.
The carbon layer prevents ingress of both water and hydrogen, protecting the fiber from premature mechanical failure through static fatigue and also from increased attenuation due to the presence of both reacted/pendant and interstitial/molecular hydrogen in the core.
In conclusion, carbon may not provide the level of universal protection against hydrogen that many think and in reality should be used in conjunction with hydrogen-passivated core compositions. However, it does provide good protection below 150°C and forms an exceptional barrier to water and/or O-H even at higher temperatures.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
Google to unveil new US wireless service this week that allows customers to pay only for data used monthly, will run on Sprint and T-Mobile networks — Google Set to Unveil Wireless Service — New service to allow customer to pay only for data they use each month
Google Set to Unveil Wireless Service
New service to allow customer to pay only for data they use each month
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/google-set-to-unveil-wireless-service-1429660082-lMyQjAxMTA1NjI0MTQyODExWj
Tomi Engdahl says:
Evelyn M. Rusli / Wall Street Journal:
Facebook and Google find the greatest challenges to Internet expansion are a lack of relevant content and awareness — Tech Companies Struggle to Get World on Internet — Google and Facebook are scrambling to reach billions of people still without Web access, but the Internet’s expansion is actually slowing
Tech Companies Struggle to Get World on Internet
Google and Facebook are scrambling to reach billions of people still without Web access, but the Internet’s expansion is actually slowing
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/tech-companies-struggle-to-get-world-on-internet-1429631689-lMyQjAxMTA1MTI0MTIyNDE0Wj
Device makers in China and India are pumping out low-price handsets, while Google Inc. and Facebook have captured attention with their work on Internet-beaming, mechanized drones and high-altitude balloons.
“It’s glamorous to say: ‘I’m going to the far reaches of the earth to connect people.’ But there are so many people who could technically access the Web but are not,”
Just 16% of Indonesia’s 250 million people access the Internet regularly, according to the World Bank. The hurdles include low wages, lack of digital literacy and a dearth of compelling content that feels relevant. Many reluctant users can afford the Internet but wonder why they should bother.
According to consulting firm McKinsey & Co., growth of world-wide Internet users slowed to a compound annual growth rate of 10.4% from 2009 to 2013, down from 15.1% between 2005 and 2008.
As many as 900 million people are expected to join the world’s online population by 2017, which would increase the total to 3.6 billion. That would leave roughly four billion offline.
Indonesia embodies the vast opportunity and complex challenges of getting people online.
Yet about 100 million people live on less than $2 a day, and Indonesia has the third-largest offline population in the world, behind India and China, according to McKinsey.
Facebook and Google have stepped up efforts to tackle the social barriers of Internet access, particularly by creating more local content. At first, Internet.org focused on improving the technological efficiency of Facebook’s applications and deals with telecom operators to drive down access costs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Australia’s favourite(ish) telco taking SDN to the world
New POPs expand network for retiring brand
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/23/telstra_takes_pacnet_sdn_to_uk_us/
Australia’s dominant telco Telstra is about to try and make itself a global brand for those considering intercontinental software-defined networks (SDN).
Telstra acquired Pacnet in 2014, partly to get its hands on the company’s submarine cables and 16-point-of-presence Pacnet Enabled Network (PEN). The PEN is billed as Asia’s first software-defined networking (SDN) service. Telstra’s also announced it will soon sublimate the Pacnet brand. Instead you’ll deal with Telstra Global and Enterprise Services, which says it will add another nine PEN POPs, including some in the USA and the UK.
Launched at the OpenStack summit in Hong Kong at the end of 2013, PEN uses SDN on the inside and network function virtualisation (NFV) at the edge to let customers self-provision their bandwidth, scaling up or down to respond to application requirements.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Switches complete Avaya SDN suite
Stackables add access piece to Fx jigsaw
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/21/switches_complete_avaya_sdn_suite/
Avaya* has pushed a bunch of switches out the door, and is taking aim at Cisco’s ECI in its Fx – Fabric Anywhere – strategy.
The switches themselves are fairly straightforward: the ESR 5900 line is a stackable series in 24 port (up to Gbps Ethernet) and 48 port (ditto) configurations.
Avaya Australia’s director, network solutions, Martin Claridge said the switches’ support for the Avaya SDN Fx (software defined network) architecture fills out the vendor’s capabilities that started with “point SDN products” to now being an “end-to-end solution”.
Claridge said Fx SDN now reaches from access networks across the WAN, while also covering off access control and authentication.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google launches Project Fi as Carphone Warehouse brings iD to the crowded mobile market
You wait for one two-lettered MVNO to arrive, then two come at once
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2405372/google-launches-project-fi-as-carphone-warehouse-brings-id-to-the-crowded-mobile-market
GOOGLE AND CARPHONE WAREHOUSE have made separate announcements about the launch of virtual mobile networks.
Google has taken the covers off its virtual operator Fi, which will piggyback on the existing Sprint and T-Mobile networks for US mobile users.
Project Fi is at the experimental stage, and will be available only to Google Nexus 6 devices while the company explores the possibilities of running its own network.
Meanwhile, Dixons Carphone has launched iD, a similar network running on Three and focused on free European roaming.
Project Fi will be dedicated to improving network connectivity by roaming between the two partner networks and using WiFi hotspots seamlessly to ensure maximum coverage. The service will also be cloud based, meaning that the subscriber’s phone number can be accessed from anywhere, not just from their handset.
None of these ideas is new in isolation. Most networks now offer some sort of WiFi calling service, and Google Voice offers a universal number service.
Google Fi will cost $20 per month, plus $10 per gigabyte for data, anywhere in the world. Subscribers pay upfront, but are credited for any unused data.
Parent company Dixons Carphone is no stranger to MVNOs. Carphone Warehouse operated Fresh, later Talk Mobile, on the Vodafone network, while Dixons Group (aka We Buy Any Carphone Warehouse) promoted several through its former subsidiary The Link, and in-store concessions with what was Phones 4U.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ericsson betrayed, stock plunges
Ericsson’s first quarter figures were far from analysts’ expectations. It was also reflected in the company’s share price. Swedish pride eight minutes of the value lost 26 billion crowns.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2727:ericsson-petti-osake-syoksyy&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC Creates Innovation Radio, The Future Of Wireless Broadband
http://hackaday.com/2015/04/23/fcc-creates-innovation-radio-the-future-of-wireless-broadband/
Thirty years ago there was a lot of unused spectrum in the 900MHz, 2.4GHz, and 5.2GHz bands. They were licensed for industrial, scientific, and medical uses since their establishment in 1947. But by the 1980s, these bands were identified as being underused. Spectrum is a valuable resource, and in 1985, the FCC first allowed unlicensed, spread spectrum use of these bands.
Last week, the FCC unanimously voted to allow the use of spectrum in the 3.5GHz band with the Citizens Broadband Radio Service. This opens up 150 MHz of spectrum from 3550 – 3700MHz for new wireless broadband services. If history repeats itself, you will be connecting to the Internet with the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) in a few years.
Access to the 3.5GHz spectrum will be divided into three levels. The highest tier, incumbent access, will be reserved for the institutions already using it – military radars and aeronautical radio. The second tier, priority access, will be auctioned and licensed by the FCC for broadband providers via Priority Access Licenses (PALs). The final tier, general authorized access, will be available for you and me, provided the spectrum isn’t already allocated to higher tiers
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Sherman / Bloomberg Business:
Sources: Comcast to drop proposed Time Warner Cable takeover deal after FCC staff recommends hearing; announcement as soon as Friday — Comcast Plans to Drop Time Warner Cable Deal — Comcast Corp. is planning to walk away from its proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc
Bloomberg Business:
Comcast’s hurdles were too high, despite political donations, deep Washington ties, and $17M spent on lobbying
Comcast Finds Golf and 128 Lobbyists Can’t Sell U.S. on Merger
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-04-23/comcast-finds-golf-and-128-lobbyists-can-t-sell-u-s-on-merger
Jonathan Mahler / New York Times:
Comcast’s Time Warner Cable bid and FCC’s stance on net neutrality were separate yet intertwined issues
Once Comcast’s Deal Shifted to a Focus on Broadband, Its Ambitions Were Sunk
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/business/media/once-comcasts-deal-shifted-to-a-focus-on-broadband-its-ambitions-were-sunk.html?_r=0
When it was announced a little more than a year ago, it felt to many like a sure thing.
But now the $45 billion Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger is dead. Comcast is folding, in anticipation of regulators rejecting the deal.
The news, which broke on Thursday afternoon, was certainly dramatic. But the air of inevitability that once hung over the deal had been dissipating for months, as the debate over net neutrality
The government’s verdict on the merger and its stance on net neutrality were separate issues, but they were very much intertwined. At the end of the day, the government’s commitment to maintaining a free and open Internet did not square with the prospect of a single company controlling as much as 40 percent of the public’s access to it. All the more so given the accelerating shift in viewing habits, with increasing numbers of consumers choosing streaming services like Netflix over traditional TV. In this sense, it didn’t really matter if Comcast and Time Warner’s cable markets overlapped. The real issue was broadband.
“The simple way to think about the problem with the Comcast merger is that once they get that big, they’re pretty much too big to regulate,” said Marvin Ammori, a lawyer who helped lead the campaign for net neutrality.
For opponents of the merger, it helped that net neutrality was no longer such an esoteric concept to the American public.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dell expands open networking program with new switches
IP Infusion joins Round Rock’s not-quite-white-box switching plan
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/24/dell_expands_open_networking_program_with_new_switches/
Dell has celebrated the first birthday of its open networking program by launching more products.
The program is part of Dell’s take on software-defined networking with its core idea being that punters might want to buy kit running an operating system other than that devised by its maker. This arrangement differs from white box switches largely because Dell will happily support the switch even if it didn’t write the software running on it.
At launch time Cumulus and BigSwitch signed up. As of Thursday, IP Infusion has also clambered aboard.
There’s also new open switches. The flagship Z9100-ON is a 1U beast packing 32 ports of 100GbE, 64 ports of 40GbE, 64 ports of 50GbE, 128 ports of 10GbE, or 128 ports of 25GbE. We’re also introducing two additional open networking switches, the S3048-ON and the S4048-ON, providing 1/10/40GbE.
World+dog assumes that network operators are going software-defined and open switches are Dell’s lash at the market. If nothing else, expanding its range of open kit signals that Dell is willing to keep plugging away while the mainstream market catches up to its vision.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comcast Corporation:
Comcast terminates $45B Time Warner Cable merger agreement — COMCAST / TIME WARNER CABLE / CHARTER TRANSACTIONS TERMINATED — Comcast Corporation announced this morning that its merger agreement with Time Warner Cable and its transactions agreement with Charter Communications, Inc. have been terminated.
PRESS STATEMENT
Comcast /
Time Warner Cable /
Charter Transactions Terminated
http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/news-feed/comcast-twc-charter-transactions-terminated
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emily Steel / New York Times:
Comcast and TWC combined would have controlled 57% of national broadband market, too high a threshold for FCC and DoJ — Comcast Confirms End of Deal With Time Warner Cable — Comcast confirmed Friday that it had called off its $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable
Under Regulators’ Scrutiny, Comcast and Time Warner End Deal
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/business/media/comcast-time-warner-cable-deal.html?_r=0
Tomi Engdahl says:
UXM Wireless Test Set for Testing 3CC LTE-A
http://www.eeweb.com/news/uxm-wireless-test-set-for-testing-3cc-lte-a
Keysight Technologies announced the release of a new video on use of UXM wireless test set for testing 3CC LTE-A. The new 3CC LTE-A capabilities video shows how recent enhancements to the Keysight UXM wireless test set make it easy to add multiple cells and test 3CC end-to-end data throughput at up to 450 Mbps DL and 100 Mbps UL.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Network Appliance to Target SME Demographic
http://www.eeweb.com/news/network-appliance-to-target-sme-demographic
AAEON launched the FWS-7250 network appliance, specifically targeted towards the SME demographic. Powered by the Intel®AtomTME3845or Celeron® J1900 a processor
The processors’ low energy consumption also helps to bring down the thermal design power (TDP) to 10W, one of the lowest in the entry level rackmount network appliance sector.
the FWS-7250 is able to accommodate a SIM card MiniCard module that grants WiFi/3G/4G capabilities along with the traditional wire-based connection. In addition, the appliance also supports LAN bypass of up to 4GbE ports, allowing it to maintain a full-speed, uninterrupted connection even during device breakdowns.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Making the switch from fiber optics in favor of millimeter wave wireless
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/04/switching-from-fo-to-mmw.html
In answer to every communications officer, CTO and network administrator’s wish for “more”—more bandwidth for additional capacity, faster speeds, greater security, smaller footprint, and cost-efficacy—wireless data link technology is now eclipsing fiber as the go-to solution to meet these demands.
With high capacity and high speeds, wireless data communication links can leap across chasms in space to connect line-of-sight buildings at distances of several kilometers using highly directional, pencil-thin beams that prevent interference and strengthen security.
For years, wireless communications technology has enjoyed modest success over that of fiber-optics and coaxial cable, thanks to its untethered ability to span distances without the need for digging trenches and laying fiber or copper wire. But wireless has been traditionally limited in its capacity to transport gigabit quantities of data due to bandwidth limitations set by the FCC. That all changed, however, with the opening of the 71-76 and 81-86 GHz band—referred to as the “E-Band” range of millimeter wave (MMW) frequencies.
Relatively unknown in the commercial world, the MMW spectrum has been utilized for military communications for decades. Unlike frequencies found lower in the electromagnetic spectrum, the E-Band offers tremendous, uninterrupted bandwidth to enable wireless data transmission at speeds and capacities on par with the best fiber optic communication systems. Practical data rates in the E-Band band can meet and exceed 40 Gbps.
Previous systems required the use of two antennas to attain full duplex capability. To compensate, some systems multiplex the outgoing and incoming signal on top of each other, but that process exacts a big penalty in terms of latency, losing many nanoseconds which add up quickly. The use of a single antenna, with a single polarization, eliminates the need for multiplexing. Latency is negligible at less than 2 nanoseconds. At the same time, using a single antenna adds to the already-increased security that MMW wireless affords.
“Channelizing two signals together on one frequency poses a greater security risk,” explains Pleasant. “But by using two independent frequencies that single polarization technology allows, each line is kept totally separate from the other. It’s the highest security you can have for independent GigE transport.”
Wireless technology is also finding wide acceptance among motion picture, television, sports, and electronic news gathering (ENG) organizations for the placement of digital video cameras in remote locations up to 500 meters or more from the receiver without wires or fiber cluttering the shot or needing a grip to manage the cables.
The highly directional characteristic of millimeter waves is even suited to cellular backhaul communications, particularly in crowded urban environments where the cost and challenge of implementing fiber to every site is prohibitive, particularly in urban areas where streets and sidewalks cannot easily be trenched.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chasing 5G: Pizzacato, sigma delta and other architectures
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4439205/Pizzacato–sigma-delta-and-other-architectures-chasing-5G?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150427&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150427&elq=d8e7743b69a04b93b856d7cf815aade5&elqCampaignId=22726&elqaid=25562&elqat=1&elqTrackId=862246d94eed4b4884085b3187f4db31
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G Makes Waves for Asia Giants
Korea plans late 2017 trial
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326448&
Representatives from several Asian communications giants discussed how new radio technologies and virtual networks will help ease the transition to 5G cellular at the recent 5G Forum USA here.
Professor Hyeon-Woo Lee, chair of 5G Forum Korea’s global strategy subcommittee, highlighted the ways 5G organizations across the world are working together to promote a gigabit/second data rate per user in the 2020s. 5G networks will require bridging industry and government, identifying technologies, studying spectrum, and “hyper” everything, Lee said.
5G services must be hyper energy efficient, have hyper accurate positioning, as well as extreme cost effectiveness and reliability. To achieve this, industry must develop multi-radio access technology.
“Unlike 2G, 3G, and 4G, 5G will not be just a single radio access technology. It will be a combination of existing radio access technologies and new radio access networks [RANs] with no constraint on backward compatibility,” Park Jong-Han, chief architect for SK Telecom said.
Lee expects the first 5G test deployments in December 2017 in the form of LTE-A macrocells and new RANs for centimeter or millimeter wave (mmW) small cells.
In preparation for the launch of 5G cellular communications expected in 2020, several Asian companies are collaborating on research and standards
the Giga project is a mmW-based broadband mobile communications system with prototypes for transmitting and receiving 1 Gbit/s data rates.
While light on specs, the first project uses a base station cell capable of 100 Gbits/s with an array antenna to transmit to mobile prototypes at a peak rate of 1.5 Gbits/s.
These cellular base stations will need to run on top of a virtualized IT infrastructure that is intelligently managed by a central orchestrator, like a software defined network.
“Massive MIMO and phantom cells as a combination technology will be very important to 5G,” Watanabe said. “Massive MIMO, phantom cells, and a higher frequency will satisfy 100 times [current] capacity,”
The concept splits the control and user planes in a network to transmit between different cells on different frequency bands. The result would be a seamless experience for users hopping from base station to base station, while achieving “a high data rate, flexibility, cost and energy efficiency.”
Vertical industries require an air radio interface capable of processing 12 bytes of sensor data on 3.75 kHz, a figure Tong expanded to mean 55 trillion sensor-readings per hour. This radio interface must be ultra-reliable and communicate within a millisecond latency with a new class of industrial 5G small cells for mission critical uses like self-driving vehicles.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HP Debuts New Campus Switch Modules, SDN App
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326461&
HP rolled out new campus networking products that support 802.11ac Wave 2 access points and software-defined networking. The company also introduced a new SDN application, the Network Visualizer. The products are among a raft of new technologies unveiled at Interop, which kicked off Monday in Las Vegas.
The HP 5400R zl2 Switch Series v3 modules are designed to support the mobility requirements of today’s campus networks by using HP’s sixth-generation networking silicon. HP claims the ASIC provides four times better throughput and three times lower latency compared to the Cisco Catalyst 4507R-E.
HP also touted the new Open Flow-supporting switch modules as providing better SDN scalability than the competition by processing up to 24 more flows, which supports multiple concurrent network services such as security and optimization.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia demoed a combination of the network in Shanghai
Nokia says Networks has made the world’s first time-shared operating LTE-Advanced network HetNet solution. Sports competition held in Shanghai 49 000 spectators were served Flexi Zone tiny base stations, which increased macroreticular capacity.
Carried out in conjunction with the China Mobile’s online Zone Flexi base stations, each able to serve 600 active TD-LTE users at a time. About half the size of the event data traffic transferred via the small Flexi Zone cells.
The three-day event attracted a total of 145 000 guests. They used a wide range of applications for sharing photos and videos. At best – or worst – the network capacity was burdened by 49 000 users at the same time.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2726:nokia-demosi-yhdistelmaverkkoa-shanghaissa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Things is full of promises: intelligent homes, better health and a unified connected world. General Media, the less visible, but more likely to affect the society is an industrial Internet of Things, ie IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things).
IIoT includes smart farming, smart cities, smart factories and smart electrical grids. IIoT: s can be described as a huge number of interconnected industrial systems that communicate with each other and coordinate data analytics and operations in order to improve industrial performance, ultimately to benefit society as a whole.
Intelligence increase in industrial systems brings with it a number of difficult challenges. One of them is the concept of time in the standard ethernet protocol. We tolerate some delay and re-downloads when we look at the latest movie on Netflix, but such stops can not be a medical device between two converging high-speed robotic arm, or – worse – between the pedal and the car tires. The standard Ethernet use of our cities, and our machines combine power grid means that we have to solve the timing deficiencies.
The long-av-cable replacement standard Ethernet was the festival organizers, stadium designers and kotiteatterifanaatikkojen dream. However, the same above-mentioned network problems – latency, low reliability, and synkronointiongemat – have always affected insurmountable.
To solve this problem the IEEE 802.1 Working Group created AVB Group (Audio Video Bridging), which updated the Ethernet AVB standard to include in the 2000s, the first end of the decade. AVB allows audio and video data, deterministic transmission and terminal equipment such as speakers and Jumbotron screens synchronization over Ethernet standard. In addition, the AVB data runs parallel to the same Ethernet cable, in which the normal data transfer between computers.
How does this relate to the industry the Internet of Things? Leap Glastonbury intelligent plant may sound long, but AVB will help us to implement three important step towards the industrial IoT’s.
1. Future factories, the machines must communicate, work together and syknronoitua each other a lot more reliable and deterministic.
2. machines and servers, data, analytics and visualization of the separating walls must be torn down, and these systems need to be connected.
3. 50 billion, the device must be able to communicate and work together.
Industrial IoT possible was one of the reasons why the IEEE 802.1 AVB Working Group was expanded in 2012 to the end of the TSN Working Party (Time-Sensitive Networking task group). The working group task is to expand AVB’s basic features to support industrial automation, automotive control networks, and to further enhance the audio and video application performance. When the TSN group completes its work, the Ethernet communication, deterministic data transfer and synchronization of nodes merged into a single new protocol.
Skeptics show – quite rightly – that the Ethernet factory is nothing new, and that the motion control, safety systems, sensor networks, and between machines M2M traffic is a whole set of network protocols. Even these various industrial networks, the number reveals how much time, money, and the complexity of a modicum of intelligent machine construction requires smart, IIoT the promise of fully redeeming smart factory not to mention
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2721:dolly-parton-ja-teollinen-esineiden-internet&catid=9&Itemid=139
Tomi Engdahl says:
HTTP / 2 comes, are you ready?
The HTTP protocol is the cornerstone of the web, but the truth is that certified already in 1999 the previous protocol, ie HTTP 1.1 is obsolete.
The new protocol promises more speed and better protected connections to Web users.
Currently, HTTP / 2 is nearing completion. IETF or Internet Engineering Task Force promises to soon release a new version of the protocol RFC standard
IDG Research, only 2.4 per cent of Internet sites to use the new protocol at this time. The popularity of a Web developer involved is then a completely different class.
For service providers, and organizations with an HTTP / 2 denotes a large upheaval. Because Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome future versions will only support HTTP / 2, the TLS-encrypted version, they need to take to encrypt the traffic, if at all want their content to billions of users to share.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2748:http-2-tulee-oletko-valmis&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Half of network addresses as soon as IPv6-format
FIND organized the IPv6 ISG start-up meeting last week. Group is intended to accelerate the introduction of IPv6 addresses. It is according to ETSI been slower than expected.
In addition to increasing the number of addresses, IPv6 brings many other improvements. For example, it simplifies and improves the operation of routers and security between the two devices.
According to ETSI, by the end of next year, half of the network addresses will be in IPv6 format.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2755:puolet-verkko-osoitteista-pian-ipv6-muotoa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ham Radio Fills Communication Gaps In Nepal Rescue Effort
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/04/29/1437242/ham-radio-fills-communication-gaps-in-nepal-rescue-effort
Amateur radio has stepped in to fill communication gaps in Nepal, which is struggling with power outages and a flaky Internet after a devastating earthquake on Saturday
Though 99 persons have ham licenses in Kathmandu, about eight use high-frequency (HF) radios that can transmit long distances, while another 30 have very high frequency and ultra high frequency sets for local traffic, said Satish Kharel
Ham radio attempts to fill communication gaps in Nepal rescue effort
http://www.itworld.com/article/2916375/ham-radio-attempts-to-fill-communication-gaps-in-nepal-rescue-effort.html
The hobbyist radio operators, also known as ham radio operators or hams, are working round-the-clock to help people get in touch with relatives, pass on information and alert about developing crises ever since the 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit about 80 kilometers from Nepal’s capital city of Kathmandu.
Ham radio sends voice or morse code messages across radio frequencies and has often helped in emergencies. It can work off solar power or low-voltage batteries, which means that the radios can continue to work even after smartphones and laptops are discharged, said Jayu Bhide, National Coordinator for Disaster Communication at the Amateur Radio Society of India, on Wednesday.
Ham operators in Nepal and India are working in shifts to keep communications going between them and hams in other parts of the world like Turkey, Australia and New Zealand, Bhide said.
The hams have been getting frequent requests from abroad to trace relatives and friends in the earthquake zone. The operators in Nepal then try to get information on the missing persons and transmit it back.
“With downed mobile towers, severed overhead fiber cables and spotty electricity, connecting to the outside world will be challenging for weeks to come”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rethinking energy performance
http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4439300/Rethinking-energy-performance-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_systemsdesign_20150429&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_systemsdesign_20150429&elq=578c645627064bb6ac4df2f49ea8352f&elqCampaignId=22760&elqaid=25604&elqat=1&elqTrackId=98f548c6029c44b6b6ce83b5cdbd9c61
white paper by Ericsson because it takes a refreshingly different look at power efficiency in wireless infrastructure, especially with the coming of 5G in five years. Yes, we do need to have more efficient semiconductors and circuit architectures. Maybe some new processes as well will help meet the needs of power efficiency that 5G will need; however, we need to look at every aspect of the total system in order to squeeze maximum efficiency out of the 5G architecture as this paper suggests.
New technology and traffic growth will continue to push network evolution and expansion. looking forward to 2020, it’s predicted that all current radio technologies will continue to coexist, as well as the addition of 5G. therefore, operators will need to use their entire network to provide the best user experience with app coverage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon tags majors to craft SDN future
We’ve written a document, that’s gotta be a good start
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/30/verizon_tags_majors_to_craft_sdn_future/
Verizon has taken the leap into the world of software-defined networking, announcing a strategy and its initial partner list for a multi-year rollout.
For now, the partner list for the giant’s umpteenth network transformation strategy are Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Networks, Cisco, Ericsson and Juniper Networks.
The company told FierceWireless there’s going to be room for the upstarts and challengers of the SDN world, with a total partner list of 20 vendors. Others, network planning veep Brian Higgins said, will be announced in the future.
Citing the usual operational efficiency and customer agility that’s the backbone of the SDN pitch, Verizon’s canned statement says it expects to get:
Elastic, scalable, network-wide service creation and near real-time service delivery; and
Operational agility via dynamic resource allocation and management as well as automation of network operations.
The outfit already has SDN experience in its data centre operations, and in labs in California (San Jose), Florida (Tampa) and Massachusetts (Waltham).
The SDN deployment will start with the company’s IP multimedia subsystem, and the evolved packet core behind its LTE network.
SDN will also be important to Verizon’s Internet of Things plans: the small chunks of data generated by sensors’n’stuff is almost unnoticeable as network traffic, but can put extra stress on signalling.
Verizon teams with Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Juniper and Nokia on SDN push
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-teams-alcatel-lucent-cisco-ericsson-juniper-and-nokia-sdn-push/2015-04-28
Verizon to use software-defined networking on IMS and EPC elements in core wireless network
Higgins said that Verizon chose to partner with its long-term network vendor partners for the migration to SDN. However, he added that Verizon is working with more than 20 partners on SDN. Higgins said those other companies are “non-traditional” partners and will be announced later.
Verizon created live lab environments in San Jose, Calif.; Tampa, Fla.; and Waltham, Mass.; and has commercial data center environments on both the East and West Coasts. Higgins said that Verizon is doing open-source SDN work and in the not-too-distant future will make additional announcements about its OpenStack work.
Higgins said the Internet of Things will be one area where Verizon will use SDN. Connected devices like smart meters, appliances and street lamps behave differently than smartphones, and send much less data, Higgins said. Using SDN, Verizon will be able to independently scale its network to handle those smaller data loads without having to also scale up its network control and signaling elements.
For services like Voice over LTE and rich communication services, Higgins noted that to enable them right now requires a physical piece of hardware to be programmed and deployed, which can take several months. With more generic hardware, Higgins said Verizon will be able to deploy new services in weeks and update existing services in days.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rand Paul is trying to murder net neutrality. Is there a US presidential election, or something?
Motion to axe rules will run right into Obama’s veto stamp
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/30/senator_rand_paul_net_neutrality/
US presidential wannabe Rand Paul (R-KY) has filed a motion under the Congressional Review Act that could block the introduction of the Democrat-driven net neutrality rules.
“This regulation by the FCC is a textbook example of Washington’s desire to regulate anything and everything and will do nothing more than wrap the internet in red-tape,” said Senator Paul in a statement.
“The internet has successfully flourished without the heavy hand of government interference. Stated simply, I do not want to see the government regulating the Internet.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethernet Geared for Cars, Factories
Single-digit microsecond latencies in 2016
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326466&
A new generation of chips and software in the works promises to slash Ethernet latencies down to single-digit microseconds, opening up a wide range of uses in cars, factory-floor robots, power plants and even in the home.
The standards are far enough along that chip makers are beginning to design the small modifications needed into their media access controllers. Open source versions of the protocol suite should be available ahead of the silicon, and test suites are expected to be ready before the end of next year.
“We’ve got a whole new software stack now, and we need to use it — hence this conference,”
“Now we can use [Ethernet] everywhere…from industrial control all the way to desktop,” said Teener, who has been driving standards in the area since 2005.
A former lead developer of the Firewire interconnect, Teener suggested, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the new techniques could replace everything from MOST in cars to USB in PCs and HDMI on TVs. “All this should be the same,” he said.
The new techniques are a follow on to Audio Video Bridging (AVB), a variation of Ethernet driven in part by professional audio companies that cuts latencies to about 250 microseconds per switch. The new chips and software promise to slash the latencies to as little as a single microsecond per hop on a gigabit Ethernet network.
The chips need an “insignificant number of new gates,” Teener said. However, vendors will have to conform to a new standard protocol suite, something they have been slow to embrace to date.
For example, in the pro audio field, vendors are just now starting to be able to connect AVB systems from different vendors.
The new software will be a follow on to Open AVB, an open source version of the existing code. Open AVB is “fairly complete for end points but not ready for prime-time intermediate systems such as routers and switches–that’s still proprietary,” Teener said.
Pro audio specialists are currently using AVB switches from vendors such as Arista, Extreme and Netgear. Cisco Systems has not announced AVB switches yet
At the event, a representative from General Electric gave talks on using the new Ethernet capabilities in industrial controls and power plants. A senior developer from Kuka GmbH talked about its uses in factory robots.
About a dozen semiconductor companies belong to the AVnu Alliance and are likely candidates to supply the next-gen chips. They include Analog Devices, Broadcom, Imagination, Intel, Marvell, Micrel, NXP, Renesas and Xilinx.
With the time-sensitive network approach, “we are building what amounts to a circuit-switched layer on top of today’s adaptive best-efforts networks — we don’t want to mess with what’s working,” Teener said.
Open AVB – an AVnu sponsored repository for Audio/Video Bridging technology
https://github.com/AVnu/Open-AVB
Tomi Engdahl says:
WiFi Wave 2 Rises at Broadcom
802.11ac chips target business access points
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326458&
To continue the drive toward next generation wireless with 802.11ac, Broadcom is sampling Wave 2 Wi-Fi chips for enterprise access points. The market is ripe for improved connections, analysts say, but competition is heating up.
“No one vendor is the runaway leader in this space,” IHS Senior Analyst Stephanie Gibbons said. “Broadcom was later to the market than competitors like, Qualcomm and Quantenna, so it will have some ground to cover, but again, 802.11ac has just begun to really ramp up so it’s not too late.”
Although Broadcom boasts high data rates, the company’s MU-MIMO offerings were expected and aren’t dominating the market, Linley Group Senior Analyst Loring Wirbel said. Qualcomm Atheros and Sckipio will remain important players, though Broadcom may have the most diverse offerings, he said.
802.11ac enabled devices will account for more than 50% of all enterprise shipments this year, said Broadcom’s Mike Powell, director of marketing for enterprise wireless. “We’re seeing the high end moving to 4×4, [in the] mid-range a lot of enterprises are replacing [existing devices] with 3×3 [MU-MIMO] ac. In a another year or two all devices will be at least 2×2 configured,” he said.
“Broadcom is making a big deal about having double the QAM modulation everyone else has. That’s very cool to advertise but it doesn’t mean much if people put compatibility as their No.1 care about,”
Powell said Broadcom’s NitroQAM (essentially a modulation boost) will also be compatible with traditional modulation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shivam Vij / Scroll.in:
Facebook opens up Internet.org to developers, following backlash in India from proponents of net neutrality — Facebook opens up Internet.org to developers, hoping to pacify net neutrality critics — Chris Daniels, Facebook’s VP for Internet.org, says Facebook isn’t picking the web winners through the initiative.
Facebook opens up Internet.org to developers, responding to net neutrality advocates
http://scroll.in/article/724975/facebook-opens-up-internet-org-to-developers-hoping-to-pacify-net-neutrality-critics
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nikhil Pahwa / MediaNama:
Internet.org allows partnering telcos to track users, doesn’t support secure connections
http://www.medianama.com/2015/05/223-facebooks-internet-org-privacy/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dell Targets Network Function Virtualization
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326515&
Researchers at Dell Labs in Santa Clara, Calif. want to make networked devices easier to use, seamless in mobility, and simpler for developers. Dell’s year-old research division is hard at work on machine learning software and tools for network function virtualization (NFV) for its servers used by telcom carriers that may even have some applications in the Internet of Things.
Dell Research is working on several independent and partner efforts to realize an NFV future, which will likely come into fruition around 2020. While Dell Research Head Jai Menon previously told EE Times that telcos are even slower to adopt than the server space, he sees NFV on the horizon.
“This is a journey and I do believe it will be an eight to 10 year journey before 80% of apps get virtualized and run in NFV mode,” Menon told EE Times. “This appears to be the nice launch year when things are moving forward and many, many telcos are reaching out and doing trials. There’s a momentum in 2015 that feels really good.”
“The compute and network worlds are often separate, and it’s hard to write apps that do networking things like firewall and encryption,” Menon said. “We’re doing our own research here on a middleware layer for NFV applications that makes it easy for people to do app development. I think what you need in the NFV ecosystem is ease of use.”
Menon envisions NFV software that doesn’t need to be changed for an x86 server that has hardware acceleration or one that doesm’t have such chips. Dell Research is dissecting what devices will require something like an FPGA to enable some NFV features. Menon believes approximately 80% of servers can be adopted for NVF without additional hardware.
The sever of 2020 will likely be slightly slower than what Moore’s Law would traditionally predict
Menon said he expects to see 15-fold increases in memory density on servers, mostly due to a new form of memory that is close to the speed of DRAM but is much cheaper.
Menon also sees a link between NFV and IoT, which has its own software architecture issues. A NFV system could be combined with a portable software architecture that allows data to be gathered in both the cloud and in end point processing.
“I think there’s an intersection of NFV and IoT by doing networking that the Internet of Things demands, the new apps to be created,” he said, adding that NFV can enable easier app development “by running lower networks with lower CAPEX and OPEX. This is a key component of the overall IoT story.”
Dell Research is also developing a “seamless connectivity” mobile system similar to Google Fi, but for enterprise. The software allows for migration between Wi-Fi and cellular, and sometimes coexistent communications, without latency and with the option to set preferences for different applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lucy Vernasco / Motherboard:
Behind the plan to replace Internet’s aging TCP/IP architecture with Named Data Networking
The Mission To Save The Internet By Rewiring It From The Name Up
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-internet-of-names
While most of us have been binge-streaming or strapping computers to our bodies or wrapping our heads around the ins and outs of net neutrality, an international team of academics and some of the world’s biggest technology companies have been quietly pondering how to rewrite the basic structure of the internet—for our sakes.
Their idea sounds simple: instead of numbers, use names. Focus not on the locations of things, but on the things themselves.
The proposal, called Named Data Networking, shifts the focus from the numbered locations of data—IP addresses like 174.16.254.1—to the very names of data—something like motherboard/stories/NDN/photo1. Under this system, for example, when your computer makes a packet request for a new Netflix release, you could retrieve the video from the nearest computer that has it, rather than wait to get it from Netflix’s heavily-trafficked centralized servers.
“As far as the network is concerned,” the project’s website says, “the name in an NDN packet can be anything: an endpoint, a chunk of movie or book, a command to turn on some lights, etc.” An internet not of numbers, but, if you will, of things.
What that means, in practice, could be big. An internet focused on the what, not the where, could be a more flexible internet, less likely to get clogged up as a steady stream of new devices join the party. An internet that no longer relies on the aging architecture known as TCP/IP could also be an internet with fewer of the middlemen that currently throttle speeds, gather our data, or control what can and can’t be seen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cloud Service Shrinks Set-Tops
Startup demos virtual set-top on ARM servers
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326526&
The cable TV set-top box could disappear someday if software developer Netzyn gets its way. The startup will demonstrate its software creating a virtual set-top box running in the cloud at the NFV World Congress here.
Netzyn’s NzOS software aims to deliver streaming services from the cloud across a variety of applications environments including Android, Linux and Windows. Cable TV providers could use the code to shrink a set-top to a dongle or puck form factor “which can eventually be integrated into TVs, eliminating the need for operators to manage” set tops, it said in a statement released Tuesday.
The offering is the latest in a long history of efforts around thin clients. The approach has established a beachhead in business computing and more recently gotten traction with so-called over-the-top Internet video services that compete with cable TV giants.
While an interesting use of cloud services, the demo is not the primary focus of most developers at the NFV World Congress here. Network Function Virtualization (NFV) got its start at gatherings of mainly European carriers about two years ago, seeking ways to simplify their networks overloaded with mobile data.
“I’m hoping in 2-3 years we will have completed the work and vendors can call themselves NFV-complaint, although there’s no compliance program in the works yet,” said Kolias. “There are a lot of moving pieces, but we are making significant progress and the industry has been very supportive,” he said.
Carriers and their suppliers ranging from AT&T and Alcatel-Lucent to Orange at ZTE are among the main speakers at this week’s event. However, a director of virtualization and network evolution from the CableLabs, the R&D arm of U.S. based cable-TV providers, is taking part in three sessions. And indeed these days the lines between providers of TV, Internet and cellular service are blurring.
Processor core giant ARM released the Netzyn news as one example of its participation in the trend toward NFV. The Netzyn demo runs on ARM cores in servers using an Applied Micro X-Gene SoC as well as a microserver using a Samsung Exynos 5422.
Intel was an early supporter of NFV, even before the ETSI effort officially started, seeing the upside for sales of its x86 processors. ARM has been somewhat less vocal on NFV prior to the Netzyn news, however it and several of its SoC partners will be making announcements and showing demos at the event.
Like Intel, Broadcom has been active early on in NFV and software-defined networking and is making multiple presentations at the event. ARM-based SoCs are becoming increasingly common in communications with chips from AMD, Avago, Cavium, Freescale, and Texas Instruments among others.
Indeed the drive toward NFV and software-defined networking could heighten competition between Intel and ARM camps as carriers choose whether to run services on x86 servers or ASICs and ARM-based merchant SoCs.
“It’s not like hardware will disappear, its more of a shift,” said Kolias of Orange. “For example, we see hardware-based appliances dedicated to NFV, maybe for security apps — we may need something like that,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stacey Higginbotham / Fortune:
Comcast expands home automation platform with nine new partners including Nest, August, and Automatic, plans SDK later this year
Comcast’s Xfinity home platform adds Nest, August, and more
http://fortune.com/2015/05/05/comcast-xfinity-home/
Comcast has expanded its home automation lineup by adding support for devices from some of the hottest connected home companies in the industry. The nation’s largest cable provider CMCSA -1.36% will add support for August smart locks, the Nest thermostat, Lutron lights, and the Rachio sprinkler, among others, to its Xfinity Home product starting today, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said this morning at the Cable Show in Chicago.
Products from nine companies, which are listed below, will now work with Comcast’s home automation platform, which currently has 500,000 subscribers. Comcast technicians will install the “smart” devices and deliver a tablet to control them. The offering is tiered: On the low end is a more do-it-yourself approach to home automation; on the high end is a full-service offering that includes home security.
Products from nine companies, which are listed below, will now work with Comcast’s home automation platform, which currently has 500,000 subscribers. Comcast technicians will install the “smart” devices and deliver a tablet to control them. The offering is tiered: On the low end is a more do-it-yourself approach to home automation; on the high end is a full-service offering that includes home security.
The additions are important for Comcast because it gives its home automation efforts credibility (and a touch of modernity). Until now, Comcast’s offering seemed stuck in the 1990s while homeowners who were excited at the prospect of Internet-connecting their homes were trawling Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites in search of novel, new devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
25G Ethernet in the Connected World
http://www.synopsys.com/Company/Publications/DWTB/Pages/dwtb-25GEthernet-connected-world-2015Q2.aspx?elq_mid=6557&elq_cid=303473&elq=da0e8d1bd97948eba939aab2945b9e92&elqCampaignId=308&elqaid=6557&elqat=1&elqTrackId=8bf3e5384eab45b09f23257ca1e850fa
When you look at the evolution of networking and the data that drives it, there is no surprise that the pressure on the data center to manage data quality and transmission speed continues to grow. Consumers and creators of the data want to control the flow and have fast access to it 24/7 without compromising quality. Networking systems have evolved to support the massive growth of data. Ethernet has been and will continue to be the most widely used network interface.
Growth in data centers leads to growth in global data traffic, but more importantly leads to the need for faster data transmission over the network. One response to this need is the new 25G Ethernet specification, which provides a cost-optimized solution for servers. 25G Ethernet, an incremental update from 10G Ethernet, leverages the single-lane 25G physical layer technology developed to support 100G Ethernet. The leading space for 25G Ethernet will be to optimize the interconnect from the servers to first level networking equipment or access layer, often referred to as the Top-of-Rack (ToR), Leaf, etc,
- See more at: http://www.synopsys.com/Company/Publications/DWTB/Pages/dwtb-25GEthernet-connected-world-2015Q2.aspx?elq_mid=6557&elq_cid=303473&elq=da0e8d1bd97948eba939aab2945b9e92&elqCampaignId=308&elqaid=6557&elqat=1&elqTrackId=8bf3e5384eab45b09f23257ca1e850fa#sthash.NyTgVFKV.dpuf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why LTE-A Carrier Aggregation Now?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326528&
Stop-gap measures like combining LTE and Wi-Fi carriers can help increase download speeds. But what about uploads?
It is apparent that the growing thirst for more wireless data is driven mostly by the increasing transfer of pictures and video on smartphones. Think Instagram, YouTube and Skype for starters.
Subscribers don’t usually associate their new, bigger smartphones with their larger screens and their higher resolution as consuming more data, but it is also a big factor in monthly data budgets.
And smartphone cameras have ever-growing pixel counts, with rear ones of 20 MP and front ones of 5 MP becoming more common. You can imagine that even higher pixel counts are coming, with their attendant greater data consumption.
Network giant Cisco Corp. estimates that mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual rate of 65% from 2013 through 2018. Consequently, both network capacity and device throughput must outpace this growth to improve user experience of both consuming and (increasingly) generating all of this traffic.
To accommodate the growing data appetite of its subscribers, mobile operators like AT&T, Verizon, and China Mobile must provide greater spectral bandwidth.
How do we increase upload speeds?
There are stop-gap measures for increasing download (but not upload) speeds, like combining LTE and Wi-Fi carriers, but with higher upload speeds for Instagram and videoconferencing, a better way for increasing effective bandwidth (and its higher-speed capability) is through LTE carrier aggregation (LTE-CA).
The basic concept of carrier aggregation (CA) is not new
Up to five 20 MHz LTE carriers are allowed in the 3GPP specifications
However, 2x and 3x implementations are more feasable in the near term.
In the mobile world, we have gone from 2G to 3G for greater bandwidth and now 4G, through its flagship, LTE-Advanced. But, until there is an approved 5G technology in the next decade, LTE-CA has become the technology of choice. Carrier aggregation allows combining lower and higher frequency bands— leveraging better coverage of the former with higher availability of the latter.
Two-carrier CA can double capacity for bursty applications while 3-carrier can triple capacity.
For operators, CA provides higher network efficiency than separate radio channels while providing more capacity at any given user throughput. Moreover, CA provides better user throughput even under network load and supports richer content and services.
There are currently many networks that have 2x20MHz aggregation, approaching 300Mbps throughputs.