In the end of 2015 there were 3.2 billion people online. 67% of Americans now have broadband at home, compared to 70% in 2013, and 13% connect via smartphone only vs 8% in 2013; smartphone penetration in US at 68%. The share of Americans with broadband at home has plateaued, and more rely only on their smartphones for online access. We can see downtick in home high-speed adoption has taken place at the same time there has been an increase in “smartphone-only” adults – those who own a smartphone that they can use to access the internet, but do not have traditional broadband service at home. The American broadband market is notoriously oligopolistic with the majority of citizens offered limited choice, especially at the high-speed end, complete with high monthly fees.
Fixed Internet speeds increase – even without fiber to every house. We will start to see more 1Gbps Internet connections – and not all of them need fiber (2014 was the year of “fiber everywhere”). For example Comcast ‘rolls out’ ‘world’s first’ DOCSIS 3.1 modem, pumping 1Gbps over existing cable. It should, in theory, be quick and easy to get 1Gbps broadband to your home using DOCSIS 3.1, but I expect we will see only very few experimental roll-outs of the service in 2016. The beauty of DOCSIS 3.1 is that it is backwards compatible.
Mobile networks continue to lead the way when it comes to connecting people for the next generation of communications: Mobile subscriptions are now at 7.1 billion globally, and more than 95% of the world’s population are now within reach of a mobile network signal. Mobile cellular subscriptions have overtaken fixed phone subs, mobile broadband subscriptions and households with Internet access. This development most probably causes expectations that Network jobs are hot so salaries are expected to rise in 2016 as especially wireless network engineers, network admins, and network security pros are needed.
There are still some 350 million people globally who have no way of Internet access, mobile or otherwise, and there will be some race to get connections to at least some of those people. High stakes in broadband satellites race as building a satellite network and associated ground-based facilities and user terminals to provide Internet access to even the remotest and poorest parts of the world will be a huge technical, regulatory, and business challenge. Data versions of low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellite networks started appearing in the late 1990’s, followed with mobile telephony via LEO satellites, but never managed to deliver on the hype—partly because of technology constraints or poor business models. Over years there have been huge technology advances in satellites: they can now be made much smaller and lighter, so launch costs are significantly lower. Also component costs associated with the different terminals and handsets have plummeted. These factors have clearly helped the business proposition, but there are still challenges.
There will be new radio frequencies available for wireless communications thanks to WRC-15 Spectrum Decisions: In addition to confirming the use of the 700 MHz band (technically 694 to 790 MHz) for mobile broadband services in ITU Region 1, which includes Europe, Africa, the Middle east and Central Asia, delegates also agreed to harmonize 200 MHz of the C-band (3.4 to 3.6 GHz) to improve capacity in urban areas and used in small cells, and the L-band (1427-1518 MHz) to improve overall coverage and better capacity. So the mobile broadband sector now has, at least in the short to medium term, three globally harmonized bands. There was also decision for spectrum to be used for wireless avionics intra-communications (WAIC).
5G gets started. Just five years after the first 4G smartphone hit the market, the wireless industry is already preparing for 5G: cell phone carriers, smartphone chip makers and the major network equipment companies are working on developing 5G network technology for their customers. There are still many challenges as 5G infrastructure must be able to serve the billions of internet-connected objects of small appliances in addition to large consumers of information.700MHz harmonization is a key feature in operators’ plans to begin rolling out 5G services and C-band is also likely to be used for 5G. After 2016 to get the fastest promised 5G speeds very high frequency bands that will need to be deployed for 5G services, mainly above 24 GHz.
5G will not only be about a new air interface with faster speeds, but it will also address network congestion, energy efficiency, cost, reliability, and connection to billions of people and devices. Many believe that a critical success factor for 5G will be a fully revamped TCP/IP stack and a group of major vendors has put forward an open source TCP/IP stack OpenFastPath they say is designed to reinvigorate the ancient and rather crusty protocol. Cyber security research will be important important in 2016 as 5G networks will be critical infrastructure, on top of which for example. transport, industry, health and the new operators set up their business around 2020. Growing network virtualization functionality and programmability are both an opportunity and a threat to security. Keep in mind that everything connected to the Internet can, and will be hacked.
Heightened interest in the Internet of Things (IoT) and of Everything (IoE) will continue in 2016. IoT networks heat up in 2016 as low-power wide area networks for the Internet of Things have been attracting new entrants and investors at a heady pace with unannounced offerings still in the pipeline for 2016 trying to enable new IoT apps by undercutting costs and battery life for cellular and WiFi. There are many competing technologies in this field, and some will turn out to be winners and some losers. Remember that IoT is forecasted to be 50 billion connections by 2020, so there is lots of business opportunities for many IoT technologies.
2016 will be another booming year for Ethernet. Wi-Fi is obviously more convenient than wired Ethernet cables for average mobile user. But Ethernet still offers advantages — faster speeds, lower latency, and no wireless interference problems. Ethernet matters a lot with desktop PCs, laptops at desks, game consoles, TV-streaming boxes, and other devices – like when building backbone networks and data centers. Assuming it’s easy enough to plug the devices in with an Ethernet cable, you’ll get a more consistently solid connection. Yes, Ethernet is better.
The augmented global demand for data centers is the key driver for the growth in Global Ethernet Switch and Router Market 2016-2020.25G, 50G and 100G Ethernet is finding it’s place in in the Data Center. Experts predict that the largest cloud operators will shift to 100G Ethernet fabrics while cost-efficient 25G and 50G will remain the workhorses for most of the other well-known data-center companies.The increasing usage of advanced technologies, such as 10GbE ports, by enterprises and universities for educational and official purposes, is a significant factor in the enterprise and campus segment. The key players in this segment will be Arista Network, Brocade Communications, Cisco, Dell, HP, Huawei and Juniper Network. The 2015 Ethernet Roadmap shows a roadmap for physical links through 2020 and looks into the future terabit speeds as well.
I expect 2016 will be a year of widespread product adoption around 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) bandwidth over twisted-pair copper cabling (2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T) as transition to next generation 802.11ac Wave 2 access points will drive significant demand for 2.5G ports. Enterprise operators are looking to fill the gap between 1G and 10G over this legacy unshielded twisted-pair copper cabling (Category 5e/Category 6) that is installed all over. IEEE 802.11ac is 3x faster and 6x more power efficient than its predecessor, 802.11n, while remaining interoperable with 802.11n. Rapid adoption of 802.11ac is run by fact that tablets and smartphones are becoming ubiquitous in the workplace.
Driven by IEEE standards, Ethernet hits the road in 2016: A new trend emerging in the automotive market in 2016 is the migration of Ethernet, a tried-and-true computer network technology, into connected cars. The proliferation of advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) features in many vehicles is also expected to expand Ethernet use. The completion of IEEE 100BASE-T1 and 1000BASE-T1 standards are both expected. The emergence of the 1000BASE-T1 standard in mid-2016 provides a roadmap for automotive Ethernet evolution. Ethernet, starting in 2016, will be seen as the dominant in-vehicle network backbone.
Prepare for the PAM4 phase shift. PAM4 (four-level pulse-amplitude modulation) will be coming to wider use in 2016 because we all the time need faster communications links between ICs inside devices. NRZ won’t work at 56 Gbps and it seems that PAM-4 is the way to go as PAM4 doubles the bit rate for a given baud rate over NRZ. At 56 Gbps, 400 Gbps Ethernet can be realized with four lanes of PAM4 but might require eight 28 Gbps lanes with NRZ. PAM-4 is also gaining traction in 28 Gbps links. The bad news is that PAM4 trades off bandwidth for SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) meaning it is more sensitive to noise and timing skew than NRZ. PAM4 does bring SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) to the forefront of design issues. With four voltage level and three eyes, PAM4 requires new design techniques for recovering embedded clocks and for identifying bits in symbols. PAM4 will be used mainly on copper links, but it can be also used with fiber optic links, which has it’s own set of challenges. These and other issues are forging new techniques for how to measure and simulate PAM4 signals.
Cloud Scale Networking term will be seen. The virtualization of networks, storage, and servers is reshaping the way organizations use IT. Cloud computing plays an essential role in this process as cloud delivers the additional capacity required to satisfy growing demand to an enterprise or small business from a third party. The amount of data volume carried by networks has exploded. Cisco estimated last year that by 2017, data centers will handle some 7.7 zetabytes of IP traffic, two thirds of which would be on account of cloud computing. Total global data centre traffic is projected to triple by the end of 2019 (from 3.4 to 10.4 Zettabytes). Legacy, tiered, network designs can be replaced with scalable flat network topologies. They can be future-proofed using open, scalable SDN and NFV platforms. The network is cloud computing’s final frontier, at technology, people and process levels. Service providers seek to reduce costs, create new business opportunities, and introduce new services more quickly.
The “software-ization” of Telco and increasing use of pen-Source Networking will continue in 2016. In 2015, the adoption of OpenStack, OpenDaylight, OpNFV for software and services, and Open Compute for hardware will supported more virtualized, more open source network computing platforms and architecture. The trend will continue. SDN provides control to the enterprises and carriers on the complete network through a single logical point, thereby simplifying the network design and operation. The traditional, one-vendor, proprietary solution is transitioning to solutions involving many suppliers – and this offers customers with significant cost savings and performance optimization. Growing network virtualization functionality and programmability are both an opportunity and a threat to security. Keep in mind that everything connected to the Internet can, and will be hacked.
After COP21 climate change summit reaches deal in Paris there will be also interest in thinking how clean our networking is. It is being reported that communications technologies are responsible for about 2-4% of all of carbon footprint generated by human activity. The needs for communications and faster speeds is increasing in this every day more and more connected world – penetration of smart devices there was a tremendous increase in the amount of mobile data traffic from 2010 to 2014. When IoT is forecasted to be 50 billion connections by 2020, with the current technologies this would increase power consumption considerably. The trend to look for greener technologies is tackling first mobile networks because of their high energy use. Base stations and switching centers could count for between 60% and 85% of the energy used by an entire communication system. More and more facilities, especially big names like Google, Amazon and Microsoft, have looked to renewable energy.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
TIA revising 568-C.2 twisted-pair copper cabling and component standard
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/02/tia-5682d-copper-cabling-standard.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_February222016
With most or all of the work on the Category 8 standard finally in the rearview mirror, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) recently issued a call for interest for the upcoming revision of the Balanced Twisted-Pair Telecommunications Cabling and Components Standard. The current standard, published in August 2009, is ANSI/TIA-568-C.2. With the new naming convention recently implemented by TIA TR-42, the revised standard will be ANSI/TIA-568.2-D.
“Since 2009 there have been significant advances in telecommunications cabling technology, test procedures, and expansion of the capability of balanced twisted-pair cabling to support additional applications,” the TIA stated. “ANS/TIA-568.2-D is part of the 568 family of standards, including ANSI/TIA-568.0-D Generic Telecommunications Cabling for Customer Premises, ANSI/TIA-568.1-D Commercial Building Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard, and ANSI/TIA-568.3-D Optical Fiber Cabling and Components Standard.
The TIA-568.2-D standard will, in all likelihood, incorporate the following.
The content of ANSI/TIA-568-C.2-1, Category 8 specifications
The content of ANSI/TIA-568-C.2-2, which describes alternative test procedures for Category 6A patch cords
Refinements to test procedures for cabling and components, as well as extrapolation to 2,000 MHz from the previous maximum frequency of 500 MHz
Resistance parameters that are needed for support of remote powering applications
“This document will also incorporate updated references and links to other TIA TR-42 standards that have been revised in the past five years,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Top 3 Reasons to Use Passive Optical Port Replication in Your Data Center
http://www.cablexpress.com/blog/-top-3-reasons-port-replication-in-your-data-center/
Fiber port replication is when a patch panel “mirrors” an active switch. This creates a direct relationship between the active switch and the passive fiber patch panel. This is a good thing for several reasons.
Make Moves Adds and Changes (MAC’s) less risky
When port replication is utilized in conjunction with a recommended TIA-942 structured cabling design, patching for MAC’s are physically closer together and there is an exact one to one relationship between the hardware and panel ports. This significantly reduces the risk of human error (which happens to be the most common cause of network downtime).
Reduction of cabling “mess” in front of the switch
Relieves stress on fiber cabling
Tomi Engdahl says:
Waveguide mixer eases mm-wave analysis
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4441415/Waveguide-mixer-eases-mm-wave-analysis?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160229&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160229&elqTrackId=5d9e4b390d9c4b308d2ac678c0dc72e4&elq=69807f184eeb44d0b7f85da4169dd3d7&elqaid=31086&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27177
Anritsu has launched the MA2806A waveguide mixer for analyzing 50-GHz to 75-GHz millimeter-wave signals. For use with the company’s MS2830A spectrum/signal analyzer, the MA2806A reduces the complexity and uncertainty associated with conventional millimeter-wave signal-analysis tools. The two-instrument platform allows the verification of modules and systems used in HD video streaming, WiGig (802.11ad), and other emerging applications.
The MA2806A supports spectrum mask measurements of the V band to accurately determine characteristics of ultra-wideband signals
Combining the MA2806A mixer with MS2830A series analyzers designed for a high IF of 1.875 GHz enables spectrum mask measurements of signals with 1-GHz bandwidth.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What good is state-of-the-art high-speed electronics without good connectivity?
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/designcon/4441515/What-good-is-state-of-the-art-high-speed-electronics-without-good-connectivity-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160229&%3bcid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160229&%3b&elqTrackId=33d4470ff4904816b72a91944f06a939&elq=69807f184eeb44d0b7f85da4169dd3d7&elqaid=31086&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27177
We often tend to forget about connectors and cables when we discuss the amazing speeds and bandwidths in today’s systems. Design engineers need speed, scalability, space-savings, reduced thermals, power and reach and the weakest link in the system can be the transmission media cables and PC board/Mother board. All the goodness of the super-speed FPGAs, processors and other ICs can be negated by an inferior architecture to carry those signals from place to place.
TE will be the first to develop microQSFP connectors and cages in accordance with the new specification released by the microQSFP Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) group on January 15, 2016. TE took the lead in forming the microQSFP MSA, and say they expect to have standards-compliant products in the market during the first half of 2016. See Figure 3 for the microQSFP, 200 Gbps, PAM-4 copper cable demo at DesignCon
ust when I thought it couldn’t get any better, we walked over to the microQSFP 72 port system thermal demo. This demo used a 1RU 19” form factor with 72 I/o ports—Quad channel x4 with three-high port stacking, and a power load of up to 75W per port with less than a 72oC module case temperature. There was 7.2 Tbps of external I/O throughput with the microQSFP form factor
Finally, we saw the advanced family of STRADA Whisper high speed backplane connectors, with an expanded range of configurations including direct plug orthogonal, mezzanine, and cables all delivering at least 50 Gigabit per second (Gbps).
So don’t underestimate the value of connectivity in your design; your system is only as good as the weakest link in the design and it does not have to be the high speed transmission system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Singtel, Ericsson to Test 5G Mid-2016
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329056&
Singapore telco Singtel revealed last Monday that a trial run for Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is being carried out in the second half of 2016, as a part of its deal with Swedish communication technology company Ericsson. Their partnership, which was sealed early 2015 was made in line with the Singtel’s vision to support the rapid growth of connected devices using Singtel’s current 4G LTE network. Singtel is targeting 5G availability by 2020.
Wider coverage and user-friendly devices especially built for IoT is the standard for the NB-IoT technology. Singtel’s Group Chief Technology Officer Tay Soo Meng said “IoT connectivity is an important part of Singapore’s enterprises and supports the Singapore Government’s Smart Nation initiative.”
Singtel expects a growing demand for cost-efficient connectivity for sensors and devices and will focus on power-saving capabilities, looking at 10 years of battery life for its devices.
Ericsson highlights that long-term battery life with minimal power requirements and maintenance are prerequisites for devices in the emerging IoT market.
“We are pleased to work with Singtel to enhance their network to support the adoption of IoT,”
“Together we will continue to explore future IoT technologies such as Cat-M and NB-IoT which promises to reduce device costs and improve coverage and battery life even further. Examples of applications that can leverage on these technologies are temperature, air quality and flood water sensors.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco Rolls 16nm ASICs
Switch chips chop Broadcom Tomahawk
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329058&
Cisco Systems is shipping its first 16nm ASICs in switches that are part of new data center products announced today (Mar. 1). The ASICs leapfrog features offered by Broadcom whose 28nm chips are used in a wide swath of switches made by Cisco and its competitors.
The new ASICs enable a more flexible set of interfaces for ports carrying 100Mbit to 100 Gbit/second Ethernet and 32 Gbit/s Fibre Channel traffic. The company claims the chips are the first to pack 36 100G ports in a system that fits in a single rack unit. The ASICs also implement flow control tables to monitor all traffic running across leaf and spine switches.
Cisco designed a family of three closely related ASICs for its systems with aggregate bandwidth ranging from 3.6 to 1.6 Terabits/second. Two of the chips, made in TSMC’s 16FF+ process, started shipping in systems in February, a third will ship within two months.
“We wanted the performance and cost advantages” of going to 16nm, Thomas Scheibe, senior director of product management for Cisco’s data center switch group told EE Times.
The process helps Cisco pack 20 to 40 MBytes of memory into the ASICs, eliminating the need for external memory. The cost of external memory “is significantly higher with lower reliability and higher power consumption” than embedded memory, said Scheibe.
Cisco, long one of the world’s largest ASIC designers, has its own approach for dynamically parsing the memory into shared or private buffers as needed. The memory serves the flow tables which are the largest new blocks in the ASICs. The tables help calculate average flow completion times, a key metric to avoid data collisions and get full use from its computer networks.
“Today no top-of-rack switch has a flow table for cost reasons and most chips can’t export the flow data fast enough,” said Scheibe.
The ASICs also let users select the data rates at which they want to run Ethernet and Fibre Channel traffic. They support SFP interfaces for 10G or 25G traffic and QSFP links for 40G or 100G links.
The ASICs are relatively large, about the same size as Cisco’s prior 28nm switch chips
Cisco is making two versions of its new switch systems. One uses Broadcom’s Tomahawk chips as a system fabric and line card switch; the other uses the new ASICs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Gbps fibre-to-the-home signed off, ITU eyes 100 Gbps future
Standards bods race to catch up with deployments
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has kicked off standardisation for symmetrical 10 Gbps optical broadband services over 20 km.
The standard for XGS-PON, ITU G.9807.1, sets down an upgrade path for existing PON (passive optical network) deployments such as fibre-to-the-home. As the ITU’s statement notes, it’s designed to reuse existing PON standards wherever it can.
“The physical layer of XGS-PON follows XG-PON (ITU-T G.987.2) and 10GE-PON (IEEE Standard 802.3). The standard fully supports operators’ use of existing 10 Gbps symmetric transceiver components”, the statement notes, probably reflecting the input of carriers that have already announced or started deploying 10 Gbps residential fibre services.
For example in Singapore, Singtel announced a 10 Gbps service in May 2015, an announcement followed by local competitor M1 in August.
Other standards absorbed into the symmetric 10 Gbps spec include the NG-PON2 protocol layer (ITU-T G.989.3) and XG-PON (ITU-T G.987.3); and the existing ITU-T G.988 is used for optical network unit (ONU) management and control.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco’s gone soft: Networking giant tries to wean IT bods off boxes
Selling crates of gear is so 1999
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/02/cisco_tools/
Cisco Partner Summit Cisco is continuing in its efforts to escape the world of the network appliance with a trio of tools aimed at managing virtualized systems and cloud services.
The networking giant said that it would be bolstering its application policy infrastructure controller (APIC) platform with a new set of automation tools dubbed APIC-EM, along with the launch of a cloud network analytics service and an orchestration tool to manage virtualized instances of both servers and network appliances.
The products are part of Cisco’s new Digital Network Architecture (DNA) platform, an effort to separate network management tools from specific hardware appliances.
APIC-EM will bring a series of automation tools for the APIC policy. The new offerings include tools and APIs for plug-and-play policy installation, allowing companies to instantly apply permissions and policies on new network appliances such as controllers. This, Cisco believes, will help the company cut costs on staging and configuring new appliances.
The enterprise network function virtualization (NFV) tools will, as their name suggests, help streamline the process of deploying virtualized network appliances. Cisco said that NFV will allow appliances – including WAN controllers, firewalls and virtual routers – to run on either Cisco’s own UCS hardware or on third-party x86 boxes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco CTO: Containers will ride to private cloud’s rescue. Oh yes!
Translation: We’re touting services but please don’t forget to buy our on-prem kit
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/03/cisco_cto_says_cloud_no_mo/
Cisco Partner Summit The emergence of containers will spark a renaissance for on-premises data centers, thus luring many businesses away from public cloud services, Cisco CTO Zorawar Biri Singh reckons.
Speaking at the Cisco Partner Summit in San Diego, Singh said he believes as much as 30 per cent of public cloud workloads will be going offline in the next five years as customers opt instead for local data centers based on container stacks.
Singh predicted that, as companies become more comfortable developing and deploying data centers with containers, larger deployments with public clouds will make less sense financially for many.
“It is very expensive at that scale, as IT practitioners see simpler container-based infrastructure come out, they will build more smaller container-based data centers,” he said.
Singh notes that Cisco would, well, obviously stand to profit from such a trend, though he argues that, with its focus on networking and UCS, Switchzilla has less to lose from public cloud growth than other server vendors.
“There is a misperception that we are super exposed,” he said.
“Overall port count decreases over time, but it is not as hard hit as compute and storage.”
“We know exactly where our revenue base is, we are investing more in software because it is a natural balance,” he said. “There is nothing here that is a crazy leap.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linode: Major cuts to several submarine cables to Singapore
Ugly ping times after quake, Telstra confirms comms are knackered
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/03/linode_says_several_cables_serving_singapore_cut/
On February 29, several undersea cables in the Asia Pacific region experienced major fiber cuts. These undersea cables are responsible for carrying a significant portion of Singapore’s international internet traffic, and this loss of capacity has caused recent incidents of increased latency and packet loss in our Singapore datacenter during peak times when congestion is most likely.
Tomi Engdahl says:
25/50/100GE Analysis Platform
http://www.eeweb.com/news/2550100ge-analysis-platform
Teledyne LeCroy launched the latest in High Speed Ethernet Fabric tools, the SierraNet™ T328 Protocol Analysis systems. SierraNet T328 offers users the state of the art analysis platform for the fast emerging 25G, 50G and 100G Ethernet standard and for the new 32G/128G Fibre Channel interconnections.
Storage and network access speeds are approaching carrier rate telecommunications standards within the data center. The new, higher speeds require new approaches to test and validation. The supporting specifications for both Ethernet and Fibre Channel have radically changed from legacy implementations and the result is completely new challenges for ensuring operation at the new speeds as well as legacy deployments.
“The SierraNet’s approach to bus traffic analysis is by far the most appealing and flexible application for the high-speed fabric test environment. When combined with other protocol tools, especially with the advent of NVMe over fabrics, the offerings are expansive and complete” states Teledyne LeCroy’s Gerard Geary, Vice President of Network Solutions.
Press Releases
Teledyne LeCroy Announces New 25/50/100GE Analysis Platform!
http://teledynelecroy.com/pressreleases/document.aspx?news_id=1950&capid=107&mid=554
Tomi Engdahl says:
Everything bad in the world can be traced to crap Wi-Fi
You know it’s going to go wrong, don’t you?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/04/worlds_woes_wifi/
The real culprit is Wi-Fi.
For reasons known only to software developers and their evil overlords, all my apps seem to be constantly poking about online, polling distant servers who knows where and reporting back on who knows what. You only have to launch a program for it to immediately turn its back on you for 10 or more seconds while it pisses off somewhere into the ether, for no good reason.
This is just fine in a public space when you have a 3G or 4G connection; assuming by “just fine” you mean you are happy to have your half-gig monthly free allocation sucked up by apps that have no business doing so. The problem is when your device, unknown to you, automatically connects to a glitchy Wi-Fi router that happens to have the same name as one you used in a coffee shop.
The real culprit, then, is shit Wi-Fi.
Suddenly, that 10 seconds during which your software normally toddles off to blow its secretive mates across the internet has turned into a non-stop orgy of heavy petting that never quite gets anywhere and has to restart again, and again, and again. While this is going on, your device – be it a laptop, tablet or smartphone – is so engrossed that it shirks your attempts to win its attention back to what you want it to do.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco’s dominance continues
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3038301/lan-wan/ciscos-dominance-continues.html
Still owns 56% of aggregate switching and routing market; nearest rivals have single digit shares
To the surprise of perhaps no one, Cisco maintained its dominant leadership share of enterprise and service provider switching and routing in the fourth quarter of 2015, according to Synergy Research. Cisco’s share was 56% of both the aggregate $11 billion market in Q4, and the $41 billion market for all of 2015.
Its share remained flat from 2014, when the aggregate market was $39.8 billion, Synergy found.
“So despite challenges due to competitors, industry consolidation, increasing impact of SDN/NFV and a raft of economic and geo-political issues, Cisco maintains its stranglehold on a huge market which continues to grow,”
Cisco is followed by Juniper, HPE, Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent. Each had an overall switching and router market share of 6-8%
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco to Acquire Israeli Network IC Vendor for $320M
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329091&
Cisco Systems Inc. said Wednesday (March 2) it would acquire Leaba Semiconductor, a venture-backed fabless networking chip vendor based in Israel, for $320 million.
Leaba is an early stage startup that had been operating in stealth mode. The acquisition was announced Wednesday in a blog posting by Rob Salvagno, head of Cisco’s M&A and venture investment team.
Salvagno said the acquisition would advance Cisco’s innovation strategy. “By combining Leaba’s semiconductor expertise with the Cisco engineering team, we will accelerate our plans for Cisco’s next generation product portfolio and bring new capabilities to the market faster,” Salvagno wrote.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Taking Your Network to 40/100G Ethernet
http://www.cablinginstall.com/whitepapers/2016/01/taking-your-network-to-40-100g-ethernet.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_March72016
With the ratification of new industry standards and increased demands on data center throughput, 40/100G Ethernet will be an integral component of the next generation data center. In fact, it is already an emerging influence on how organizations plan, build and operate their existing data center architectures. The market proves this: manufacturers are already responding to the increased demand for Ethernet hardware, including cabling products, switches and transceivers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MWC was everything I thought it would be (and more)
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4441585/MWC-was-everything-I-thought-it-would-be–and-more-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160308&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160308&elqTrackId=84d14d83068b4263b45e955ec5144c05&elq=aba3f8bcd3764b75912aee5acaf428cf&elqaid=31210&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27281
I began my mid-February pre-MWC (Mobile World Congress) coverage with the following statement, “The early January Las Vegas-based Consumer Electronics Show is becoming an increasingly common place for cellular industry-targeting chip, software, and systems companies to ply their newest wares.” Apparently, the converse is also the case, because plenty of historically cellular industry-targeting companies also plied their beyond-cellular wares at MWC, a historically cellular-focused show.
Still, phones (but not so much tablets), and the hardware and software technologies powering and network-connecting them, remained the primary focus at this year’s event
Next-gen wireless advancements
“5G” and IoT (i.e. LTE MTC) were indeed both widely discussed at the show, although tangible announcements (particularly of the former, understandable given that it’s in its early stages) were scant
Then there’s LTE-U, the proposed expansion of LTE cellular service into unlicensed bands such as those today commonly used by 802.11a/n/ac. Détente isn’t officially on hand, at least yet, but the Cold War between the dueling Wi-Fi and cellular camps seems to be thawing at least a bit
LG’s new flagship G5 was, in my opinion, clearly the winner of MWC, representing a refreshing departure from the increasingly commoditized Android handset market. As previously mentioned, it’s based on Qualcomm’s latest leading-edge SoC, the Snapdragon 820. But that’s not why it gets my nod.
Nor is the G5 my preference due to its dual-sensor, dual-lens rear camera architecture (which is forecasted to become increasingly common over time), although the application possibilities are intriguing.
One other standout feature offered by the LG G5, albeit common to the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge from its primary competitor, Samsung, is user-accessible microSD expansion support (although in neither case, unfortunately, can the expansion be used to fully augment integrated storage).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Discovery by physicists could lead to new fiber-optic devices
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/03/discovery-by-physicists-could-lead-to-new-fiber-optic-devices.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_March72016
“Electrical vortices are circulating patterns of electrical polarization, and can be found in some nanostructures,” Walter said. “They cause the light passing through these nanostructures to rotate, in the case that these systems also possess a spontaneous polarization. Our system is controlled using electrical fields and is at the nanoscale. This is valuable, then, for extremely small-scale fiber optics.
“By applying both direct current and alternating current electric fields to the ferroelectric material, we found that the amount of optical rotation could be enhanced. Remarkably, this rotation is maximized near room temperature,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
WLAN sales closing in on wired Ethernet sales
Networks market outlook: boring with occasional squalls of routing excitement
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/10/ethernet_market_outlook_boring_with_occasional_catastrophe/
The global Ethernet switch market has stirred and started tapping messages on the underside of its coffin-lid, according to prognosticator IDC, managing measurable growth in Q4 2015 rather than the of-late-usual shrinkage.
At US$6.4 billion, Q4 2015 exhibited an almost-beating heart, with more than 3.2 per cent growth compared to Q4 2014, and 5.1 per cent better than the third quarter of 2015.
Alas, full year 2015 remained anaemic: revenue growth was a disappointing 1.9 per cent compared to 2014.
Tomi Engdahl says:
F5 adds 100 Gbps blade to VIPRION range
IoT: not always lots of traffic but plenty of signalling
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/10/f5_adds_100_gbps_blade_to_viprion_range/
F5 Networks has added a 100 Gbps Ethernet blade to its eight-blade chassis range, targeting 4G and future 5G network deployments, along with high performance DDoS mitigation.
The specs for the blade are straightforward: two 100 Gbps Ethernet ports and six 40 Gbps Ethernet ports, and claimed support for more than a billion concurrent connections.
To try and put the performance into a useful context, The Register asked F5′s Robert Pizzari why Internet of Things and M2M applications are seen as demanding high performance.
“In 2G and 3G, the main signalling protocol was SS7,” Pizzari said, “whereas in the move to LTE and 4G, the signalling control plane moves to a protocol called DIAMETER.”
He says one of the first things the industry discovered in that shift is that there are a lot more interactions that generate signalling events.
A 2G or 3G voice call, for example, produces just one signalling event in each direction; in the all-IP LTE/4G world, interactions between applications, handsets, and sessions produce signalling traffic
Even though their data needs will often be modest, Internet of Things and M2M devices and applications will have the same effect on the network’s signalling requirements.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco says CLI becoming interface of last resort
Cisco’s not tearing up scripts, but can hero NetAdmins deliver automation and orchestration?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/10/cisco_says_cli_becoming_interface_of_last_resort/
Cisco thinks the command line interface (CLI) should be the interface “of last resort”, according to Dave West, the company’s chief technology officer for systems engineering and architectures across Asia.
CLIs won’t disappear from Cisco products any time soon and West doesn’t expect networking pros to stop using them. But he does think that as organisations start to expect their networks to re-configure themselves into virtual networks according to pre-determined policy, CLIs and hands-on scripting become less useful.
“The ‘greybeards’ are still going to be there to build the automation and build the interfaces and the programmatic ways that they want to interact, because they know their networks better than anybody,” West told El Reg at Cisco Live in Melbourne this week. “They have grown and lived in those things.”
Now Cisco thinks those greybeards, even the experts holding high level certifications like CCIE and CCNE, will spend less time rummaging around under the hood and more time talking to business people.
“In the past, networks have been set and forget thing,” West said. As organisations move to deliver services online at scale, automate to adopt technologies like containerisation and expand networks to handle input from Things it becomes less viable for a hero NetAdmin to hack their networks into health, or to script without documentation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet the central government away from the grip of the United States
the corresponding domain names and other identifiers in the management of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on Thursday reached a step away from the set 18 years ago the objective to become independent of US government
ICANN’s Board of Directors approves the Thursday night in Marrakech, a proposal for a radical change ICANN’s essence. The change is a necessary condition for ICANN’s independence, which the United States gives up his rights to the last control of the Internet Domain Name System (DNS).
Edward Snowden started in June 2013 revelations weakened the United States’ reputation as guardian and trustee of global Internet resources.
Supervisory Authority renewed the working group completed its work for some time ago. It suggested that ICANN itself will assume NTIA’s previous monitoring missions, on the other hand that it would be for the creation of a new organization dedicated to the control again have become a new problem.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/18-vuotta-siihen-meni-internetin-keskushallinto-irti-yhdysvaltojen-otteesta-6446770
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
TP-Link blocks open source router firmware in clumsy effort to comply with new FCC rule regarding RF interference — TP-Link blocks open source router firmware to comply with new FCC rule — Rules for limiting interference could prevent use of DD-WRT and OpenWRT.
TP-Link blocks open source router firmware to comply with new FCC rule
Rules for limiting interference could prevent use of DD-WRT and OpenWRT.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/tp-link-blocks-open-source-router-firmware-to-comply-with-new-fcc-rule/
Networking hardware vendor TP-Link says it will prevent the loading of open source firmware on routers it sells in the United States in order to comply with new Federal Communications Commission requirements.
The FCC wants to limit interference with other devices by preventing user modifications that cause radios to operate outside their licensed RF (radio frequency) parameters. The FCC says it doesn’t intend to ban the use of third-party firmware such as DD-WRT and OpenWRT; in theory, router makers can still allow loading of open source firmware as long as they also deploy controls that prevent devices from operating outside their allowed frequencies, types of modulation, power levels, and so on.
But open source users feared that hardware makers would lock third-party firmware out entirely, since that would be the easiest way to comply with the FCC requirements.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G-channel models for free use
Nokia particular, 5G technology research millimeter waves do in New York City ylopiston wireless technology research center has published open to all 5G-channel models available to researchers. Free use of will as well as the channel simulator that collected during long-term measurement data.
Wireless NUY leader Theodore Rappaport, the millimetriaalueen mittaudata is collected vuosins 2011-2014 area, covering from 28 to 73 gigahertz. By providing a channel models and measurement data for open use research is likely to shorten the period of many 5G-radoita companies developing research.
Already, many companies use the NYU Wireless channel models for their research. T
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4119:5g-kanavamallit-ilmaiseksi-kayttoon&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
IEEE organization has set a target by the assay of 200 and 400 gigabit Ethernet technologies. At the same time, work will continue on 50-Gigabit backplanes.
Ethernet might not be the technology that gets the most publicity at the moment, but it will still be developed much more quickly than many other communication standard. In 2000, had just presented a gigabit Ethernet link, it is now already demottu hundred gigabits. The speed increase is a hundred times. For example, a Wi-Fi links to your site speed is at the same time received 40 times more.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4111:ethernetin-vauhti-kiihtyy&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Comcast debuts gigabit cable with uploads of 35Mbps in Atlanta at $70/month with 3-year contract, $140 without; Google’s symmetrical gigabit Fiber is $70/month
Comcast offers gigabit cable for $70 a month with contract, $140 without
Uploads are only 35Mbps, and there’s a data cap unless you sign the contract.
http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/03/comcasts-gigabit-cable-has-a-data-cap-unless-you-sign-3-year-contract/
Comcast has begun selling its new gigabit cable service in parts of Atlanta, and the company is heavily pushing customers toward three-year contracts as it tries to fend off a challenge from Google Fiber.
Customers will be able to buy the Internet service for $70 a month and not face any data caps if they sign a three-year deal that has an early termination fee. Without a contract, customers would have to pay $139.95 a month and face a 300GB-per-month data cap.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Performance tester verifies mobile network speed
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4441617/Performance-tester-verifies-mobile-network-speed?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160314&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160314&elqTrackId=cffc8b4fa3674d26908bde699e4cf176&elq=8d2e2f788c9b4c2a802adedc8d2500aa&elqaid=31294&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27364
Rohde & Schwarz’ new test procedure enables mobile operators to simultaneously measure the maximum data capacity and minimum continuous connectivity in mobile networks, providing immediate insight into the network capacity available to end users. It also eases the process of carrying out benchmark comparisons with competitor networks.
According to Rohde & Schwarz, the test procedure dramatically minimizes the load in live cells during testing and does not impact real subscribers during live measurements.
The test procedure focuses completely on the aspects of mobile network performance that benefit end users, including the geographical dimension, which SON-based algorithms cannot provide. Unlike many speed tests on the market, the R&S network performance test is independent of any third-party service hosted on the public internet.
https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/us/solutions/wireless-communications/mobile-network-testing/overview/overview_229288.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Julie Bort / Business Insider:
Cisco CEO email to company on reorganization of engineering unit into four new teams: networking, cloud services and platforms, security, applications and IoT — Here’s the email Cisco’s CEO just sent to the troops to announce a big reorg — On Monday, Cisco’s new CEO Chuck Robbins announced …
Here’s the email Cisco’s CEO just sent to the troops to announce a big reorg
http://uk.businessinsider.com/ciscos-ceo-reorganizes-engineering-2016-3?op=1?r=US&IR=T
On Monday, Cisco’s new CEO Chuck Robbins announced that he is reorganizing the company’s massive engineering unit into four new teams to match with the areas he sees as most critical.
The new units are:
Networking
Cloud Services & Platforms
Security
Applications & IoT
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York has just opened a massive public spying network
http://thenextweb.com/us/2016/03/22/new-york-just-opened-massive-public-spying-network/
‘Free’ public Wi-Fi always sounds a little too good to be true and now American civil liberties campaigners have written to the Mayor of New York to tell him they are pretty creeped out about how much data the new LinkNYC booths will collect.
The anticipated 10,000-strong network across New York will be paid for by advertising, which the team explains will represent a “rich, context-aware platform to reach New Yorkers and visitors.”
Mayor de Blasio has so far only talked about this as a boon for the city as he expects it to generate $500 million in advertising sales but, of course, personalized ads require serious amounts of data.
Security and surveillance concerns
The NYCLU explains that the network: “retains a vast amount of information about users – often indefinitely – building a massive database that carries a risk of security breaches and unwarranted NYPD surveillance.”
De Blasio has boasted about just how secure the network will be, as well as putting plans in place for it to cope if there were a hack or terror attack, but none of this touched on the data retained for advertising purposes.
https://www.link.nyc/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Data Centers Drive Broadband Fiber
Inphi packs 100G per wavelength
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329255&
Inphi Corp. will combine silicon photonics and PAM-4 modulation in a QSFP28 device that packs 100 Gbits/second on a single optical fiber wavelength. ColorZ is one of many products debuting at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC), pushing the limits of broadband optics to link a growing set of data centers.
Web giants and service providers are both starting to build relatively small data centers in urban areas worldwide to serve burgeoning demand. Inphi’s ColorZ devices are one of many fast optical links competing to connect them,
In addition to building massive data centers with half a million or more servers in low cost areas, companies such as Microsoft are planning small and medium-sized installations in metro areas
“The Web giants need to move data centers closer to where people live because users don’t want to access Office365 from 900km away, but they can’t build big data center in big cities due to high costs and lack of power,”
“My guess is they will build hundreds of them a year”
To connect such facilities, Inphi’s ColorZ uses dense wavelength division multiplexing to pack 40 100G wavelengths in an optical fiber capable of covering 80 km. The company has samples of its components with select customers now with beta trails starting before June and general availability planned in 2017.
Attendees at OFC this week are expected to see rising use of PAM-4 modulation and silicon photonics. Both technlogies will help drive the big trend at OFC — products supporting optical communications at 100 to 400 Gbits/second.
“People have talked about 100G awhile, but this is the year it will be deployed in high numbers”
The Facebook switch and many other products will use small form factor QSFP28 links.
Nguyen of Inphi claims ColorZ costs less and uses less power and delivers more bandwidth than alternatives such coherent optics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Technology Breakthroughs Prepare to Change the World
http://mwrf.com/materials/technology-breakthroughs-prepare-change-world?code=UM_UM6DE
Expect 2016 to be a busy year, as plans are in motion to create technologies with capabilities that push past the boundaries of today’s state-of-the-art solutions.
When surveying the microwaves and RF landscape, it becomes apparent that 2016 could be a watershed year for high-impact technology developments. We’ve seen numerous advances in recent years, but many other possibilities still exist that could have a significant impact on every aspect of our everyday lives. As engineers, researchers, and scientists work hard to create tomorrow’s innovations, future technology seems poised to breakthrough on multiple fronts.
Most already know about the fuss concerning the Internet of Things (IoT), as it aims to provide connectivity to the very objects that we use daily. Some predict that we could see tens of billions of connected devices within the next several years. Another talking point is 5G, as future wireless networks could achieve performance levels that far exceed today’s capabilities. Expect a flurry of announcements to spin out through the year as development efforts continue regarding the IoT and 5G.
5G Technology
Expectations are high for 5G, with the potential for groundbreaking wireless data rates in the purview. However, it also comes with plenty of challenges that must be addressed by researchers. Although it is not expected to be widely deployed until 2020, we will hear plenty of news throughout the year regarding 5G technology developments. Standards have yet to be defined, but a number of solutions are being proposed for 5G.
“The standardization bodies have begun the process of setting requirements for 5G. This includes defining three use cases,”
These use cases are enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC), and Ultra Reliable, Low Latency (UL/LL). The 5G goals will be matched to each use case. Many companies and research groups are aligning their investigations toward solving the unique challenges that each use case presents.”
“The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has divided the 5G standardization into two phases. Phase 1, which will focus on the eMBB use case, will evaluate technologies both below and above 6 GHz. The goal is to define Phase 1 of a 5G standard by mid-2018. Phase 2 will follow 15 months later.”
Although the available spectrum below 6 GHz is nearly depleted, a large amount of spectrum exists in the millimeter-wave bands. As a result, these higher frequencies are being examined as a means to enable future 5G networks
“The test-and-measurement market continues to expand with the growing interest in new standards, such as E-band, 5G experimental deployments, and other high-frequency links—for instance, those supporting IoT,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Demos Helsinki hallway is a red button. When it is pressed, a message that says someone in the hallway think tank appears on the intranet. The app is not just a greater purpose.
“This reflects well the current Internet of Things massaging” of the future researcher Roope Mokka says with a laugh.
Things on the Internet is all about transformation that will bring internet connection in the refrigerator. The world is full of buttons and sensors. They measure everything and transmit messages. Network switches into the physical world. Mocha believes that the Internet will gradually merge into an integral part of our lives so that it disappears completely.
“Ten years after the Internet does not exist anymore,” Mocha claims.
He emphasizes that it is not a predictor of future research. In practice, it is a fact that the Internet will become as commonplace part of all the steel beams inside the building.
“We do not think any more buildings in all technology. Engineers and companies will provide them ”
The whole world is changing to be programmed, when things are connected to the network. At the same time companies business models become more complicated.
ow the prevailing digitalization hype is only the first step. We are heading towards a phenomenon that Mocha calls the Internet of things well. It can be moved freely to any non-Internet.
“Uber shows how much for a single sensor can be made. Do not expect that the world is full of sensors, before going to the market”
In the future, sensors are much more. The sensors are so small and inexpensive that they can be installed anywhere. A large part of the devices connected to the network also takes care of their own energy needs. Then the electricity grid at all will no longer prevent their spread.
One third of the people’s money flows to housing, over a tenth of movement and about one-sixth of the food. This accounts for more than half of total consumption. In addition to the production of energy pulsing world’s largest market, which can still be shaken.
“It will be interesting to see innovative startups that come from areas such big money.”
At the same time the traditional technology companies expand their business in the physical world. For example, Apple and Google are developing self-targeted to the car. Apart from the above the Samsung and Microsoft are competing at the same time as to who can get forward on mobile devices also checkouts tasks fees.
“In Finland, always ask for permission before you operate in. Here needed creative lawyers. ”
He also needs to Finland in the community, which would leave to take forward any non-technology related to the Internet. We need a driving force corresponding to the demoscene was once the Finnish game industry. Upon which the Community could rise, Mocha does not know how to say.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/taman-takia-internet-katoaa-6535252
Tomi Engdahl says:
Big Data is Watching: Growing Digital Data Surveillance of Consumers by ISPs and Other Leading Video Providers
https://www.democraticmedia.org/article/big-data-watching-growing-digital-data-surveillance-consumers-isps-and-other-leading-video
Americans face growing new threats to their personal privacy as phone and cable Internet service providers (ISPs), along with leading Internet companies, expand their ability to capture details about what we do online in order to target us with data-driven personalized advertising. This report examines AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision, Charter, Cox, Verizon, Dish, Time Warner Cable, Viacom, Google, News Corp. (Fox), Turner Broadcasting (Time Warner), and Disney, focusing on some of their recent data- and video-related advertising practices.
ISPs have formed partnerships with powerful data brokers (including Acxiom, Krux, and Oracle Marketing Cloud), gaining new insights into our online and offline behaviors. They are incorporating state-of-the-art “Big Data” practices, such as “programmatic advertising” that instantaneously buys and sells individual consumers—to financial marketers, fast-food companies, and health advertisers, for example—all without the consumer’s knowledge. In the process, ISPs have transformed TV and digital video into a vast new source of personal information, analyzing set-top box and streaming-video data for our viewing habits, and combining that information with sensitive online and offline data (including financial, health, racial, ethnic, and location) to compile detailed “digital dossiers” on millions of Americans.
The Federal Communications Commission’s pending proceeding on privacy should examine all the ways that broadband networks operated by Internet service providers gather and use consumer information today.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Brooklyn 5G Summit: A must see on April 20-22, 2016
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/anablog/4441679/The-Brooklyn-5G-Summit–A-must-see-on-April-20-22–2016?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160324&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160324&elqTrackId=ab1aace0b8b646a0abcb9d5851bc1d93&elq=dd527950ae904cfc85b115663ddae6a6&elqaid=31470&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27499
Thanks to IEEE Communications Society, and the 17 NYU WIRELESS industrial affiliate sponsors, the IEEE will again be televising the Brooklyn 5G Summit Sessions over the Web for free on April 21-22!
register for the free streaming video access to the 5G Summit.
Register for Complimentary Access to the Upcoming 2016 Brooklyn 5G Summit Live Streaming Video
http://www.comsoc.org/blog/register-complimentary-access-upcoming-2016-brooklyn-5g-summit-live-streaming-video
The 2016 Brooklyn 5G Summit live video streaming will be held on 21-22 April. This year’s event builds upon the achievements of the past two years, pushing 5G technology to new heights. The Brooklyn 5G Summit is the annual forum to discuss the latest trends and best approaches for understanding and framing the implementation of 5G wireless technology.
Themed “Making 5G a Commercial Reality,” the third annual Brooklyn 5G Summit will host discussions centered around 5G System Design across sub 6GHz to 100 GHz bands, progress in propagation and channel modeling to appropriately model 5G systems, and novel concepts and accomplishments in providing new massive machine and mission critical communications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Altera has announced a programmable FPGA and SoC circuits that enable telecom equipment speeds to 56 Gbps
Altera has developed an FPGA-technology, two-mode, and 56 Gbps transceivers operate. FPGA and Soc circuits provide a four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) and 30 Gbps NRZ coding.
10 Stratix FPGA and SoC circuits to support large amounts of data that is transferred to copper motherboards and optical
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/03/24/uutuuspiireilla-vauhtia-datansiirtoon/
More:
56 G PAM 4 Next Generation Transceiver Technology:
https://www.altera.com/solutions/technology/transceiver/overview.html
High-speed serial transceivers form the backbone of today’s Large Scale Data Centers, Cloud Computing, and Wireless that require increased bandwidth at lower power and minimum cost per bit. Altera is incorporating next generation transceiver technology into the Stratix 10 family. The dual mode transceivers are capable of 56Gbps PAM4 and 30Gbps NRZ modulation enabling the next generation high speed interconnects while minimizing insertion loss and cross-talk at terabit data rates. The new standard supports both optical and copper interfaces for applications including chip-to-chip, backplane and direct attach cable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
OFC 2016: PAM4 is the new binary
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/rowe-s-and-columns/4441707/OFC-2016–PAM4-is-the-new-binary?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160324&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160324&elqTrackId=ad861d1afd014f578a18e74fee314734&elq=19271bf4924a4b928e421a80bec9146a&elqaid=31472&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27501
The best way to see what’s coming next at DesignCon is to attend OFC, the gathering of the optical communications community. At OFC 2014, I attended a panel session where engineers discussed PAM4, NRZ, and ENRZ modulation formats. PAM4 then took the spotlight at DesignCon 2015′s opening night panel. For 2016, PAM4 practically took over DesignCon with two panels and nine papers.
PAM4 made deeper cuts at OFC 2016. During a panel discussion on the state of pluggable optical modules on March 22, Vipul Bhatt, director of engineering at Inphi said “PAM4 is the new binary.”
Tektronix demonstrated a single-lane, 100 Gpbs optical signal to show that it’s possible to do. Although 400 Gbps Ethernet will likely be based on 8×50 Gbps lanes, this setup shows that 4×100 Gpbs just might be possible. Furthermore, just as 100 Gbps is currently build with 4×25 Gbps lanes, a 25 Gbps standard is in the works. We could someday see a standard for a single-lane 100 Gbps standard, for it could be done with a single transmitter-receiver pair.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix Throttles Its Videos on AT&T, Verizon Networks
Streaming service says it limits video quality to protect users from exceeding data caps
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/netflix-throttles-its-videos-on-at-t-verizon-phones-1458857424-lMyQjAxMTE2OTIyNDMyNDQxWj
AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. were on the defensive last week after accusations swirled they were throttling the quality of Netflix Inc. video on their wireless networks.
It turns out it was Netflix that was doing the throttling.
Netflix, a leading proponent of open-Internet rules, has been lowering the quality of its video for customers watching its service on AT&T or Verizon Communications wireless networks.
Netflix said it caps its streams at 600 kilobits-per-second—much slower than what should be possible on modern wireless networks. It hasn’t previously disclosed the practice.
The fact that Netflix, not the carriers, is responsible for the lower quality illustrates the dilemma mobile-app makers face with data caps. The majority of all traffic on wireless networks is video, so providers must balance video quality against data consumption. Watching two hours of HD video on Netflix would consume up to 6 gigabytes of data, Netflix says. That is an entire month’s allowance under an $80 a month Verizon plan.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon plots 28 GHz 5G tests
Ericsson, Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm and Nokia are in the tent, radiating out
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/29/verizon_plots_28_ghz_5g_tests/
Verizon is moving ahead with its mm-wave wireless plans, filling applications for 28 Ghz-band experimental licenses in the US.
The company has requested a six-month license to test equipment from Ericsson, Intel, Samsung and Qualcomm.
Most of its interest seems to be in the propagation characteristics of 5G kit in the band, since the filing says “The devices to be tested will employ directional, beamforming antennas, and their orientation in the horizontal and vertical planes will vary”.
It’s asked that the license apply to office locations in Eueless, Texas, and South Plainfield, New Jersey. The testing will be within one kilometre of each location, and Verizon will coordinate with satellite earth stations “within a 25-mile radius”, as well as with existing fixed microwave users in the 27.5 – 28.5 GHz.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DARPA’s latest grand challenge takes on the radio spectrum
http://www.gizmag.com/darpa-radio-bandwidth-grand-challenge/42500/
One of the most hotly contested bits of real estate today is one you can’t see. As we move into an increasingly wireless-connected world, staking out a piece of the crowded electromagnetic spectrum becomes more important. DARPA is hoping to help solve this issue with its latest Grand Challenge, which calls for the use of machine-learning technologies to enable devices to share bandwidth.
The Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2) is aimed at alleviating an ongoing technological headache. Ever since the invention of radio, it’s been recognized that there is only so much of the electromagnetic spectrum to go around, so government regulations were imposed to allocate bandwidth.
The SC2 is based on the idea that wireless devices would work better if they cooperated with one another rather than fought for bandwidth. Since not all devices are active at all times, the agency says, it should be possible through the use of artificial intelligence machine-learning algorithms to allow them to figure out how to share the spectrum with a minimum of conflict.
SC2 will run from 2017 through 2020 with teams competing to create radios that can collaborate most effectively with other radios.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Automated 100G Electrical Test Solution
https://www.eeweb.com/news/automated-100g-electrical-test-solution
Tektronix rolled out a new automated compliance test solutions for 4-lane 100G electrical interfaces defined in the IEEE 802.3bm and 802.3bj specifications. The new capabilities along with the full set of Tektronix solutions for 100G and 400G characterization and validation will be displayed March 22-25 at OFC 2016, Booth 2647.
Available for Tektronix performance oscilloscopes from 33 GHz up to 70 GHz, the new TekExpress application supports 100G Ethernet (IEEE 802.3bj and IEEE 802.3bm Annex 83) electrical validation and characterization needs. Specific supported technologies are 100GBASE-CR4/KR4 and CAUI4 which are the principal electrical specifications for 100G Ethernet. With these additions, Tektronix now offers the industry’s most complete set of IEEE 802.3bm and 802.3bj solutions covering both optical (100GBASE-SR4) and electrical validation.
The IEEE 802.3 specification is lengthy and continually evolving, making it challenging for test engineers to come up to speed on such a massive specification.
“Conformance testing for IEEE data communication standards is basically ad hoc since there isn’t a formal certification process,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
OFC: Pluggable Module Makers Claim They Can’t Make Money
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329280&
Anyone who uses fiber optics for communications uses pluggable optical modules to connect data-carrying optical cables. Large datacenters may have more than one million such modules. As a result, users of these optical transceiver modules that plug into switches and routers always want higher speed, lower power, and of course, lower cost. Nobody wants to pay more, even as data rates multiply.
“The optical community is made up of the smartest people doing the stupidest things to not make money,” said Vipul Bhatt, director of systems engineering at Inphi.
The panelists cited several reasons why today’s array of pluggable modules aren’t all that profitable.
“There are too many MSA (multi-source agreements) and thus, too many variations of pluggable modules,”
User demand for smaller sizes has led to a wider range of pluggable modules that, according to Jackson, has raised costs. The industry has yet to standardize of a form factor for pluggable optical transceiver modules, though the QSFP seems to be in the lead. Even so, others such as micro QSFP and QSFP28 have been designed to handle 100 Gbps.
Another reason cited for low costs is there are too many companies making pluggable optical modules. That sounds like a good deal for those who use them.
“The technology has moved faster than we predicted a few years ago, he said.”
The datacenters are clearly driving the pluggable optical module market. Volumes are huge, which means economies of scale should result in lower costs for manufacturers. Because it’s a buyer’s market, the buyers are demanding whatever it takes to lower their costs. Because of that market pressure, the suppliers claim they can’t make money and one of the reasons they cite is too many suppliers? How can there be too many suppliers if there is enough of a market to support the existing number of suppliers? It seems to me that the market is working as it should. If profit margins were too low, suppliers would exit.
“For the next five years, pluggable optics will remain alive.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC Spectrum Auction Finally Nears Despite Infighting
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329287&
The US Federal Communications Commission, an organization apparently as fractured by political warring as other government bodies, has made public a databaseof the 104 applicants primed to bid in its upcoming auction of 600 MHz wireless spectrum.
AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and, U.S. Cellular are among the expected participants, though many others are enrolled under less-obvious names.
There are some notable companies that are sitting out.
FCC Spectrum Auction Finally Nears Despite Infighting
http://www.informationweek.com/government/mobile-and-wireless/fcc-spectrum-auction-finally-nears-despite-infighting/d/d-id/1324836
As the FCC’s auction of 600 MHz wireless spectrum — four years in the making — finally draws near, new testimony shows an agency struggling with infighting and partisanship.
Tomi Engdahl says:
John Shriver-Blake / Google Fiber Blog:
Google announces Fiber Phone, a Google Voice-like home telephone service with unlimited local and nationwide calling, for $10/month
Introducing Fiber Phone
http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.fi/2016/03/fiberphone.html
Fiber Phone is meant to give you everything you want from a home phone service, plus a lot more. For $10/month, you get unlimited local and nationwide calling, and the same affordable rates as Google Voice for international calls. You can keep your old phone number, or pick a new one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finnish Cinian designed and implemented direct data connection from Finland to Germany under the Baltic Sea has passed the commissioning tests with excellent results. In tests carried out Cinian and Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks was reached as much as 18 terabytes per second data transfer capacity per one optical fiber pairs.
data cable, a pair of eight-fiber strengthened overall capacity of 144 terabytes per second.
The record capacity, the Finnish IT networks can be connected directly to the Central European telecommunications nodes. The new link will open a new international operators an efficient link to the northern data center environments as well as in Asia and the easternmost areas of the European market.
through the C-Lion1-sea cable to transmit, for example, more than 5.7 million 25-megabit data connection simultaneously. This is equivalent to a high-quality home broadband access capacity at maximum speed more than every Finn at the same time.
linking the Finnish and German data cable is one of the Finnish Government tip projects
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4191:suomen-ja-saksan-datayhteys-nopeutui&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
60 GHz WiFi conquer the market
In recent years, 60-gigahertz wireless technology has opened up a road range of new applications. Although the technology itself has been around for years, accumulator, new standards and new equipment will enable the realization of the cable and wire replacement equipment and high-speed wireless return channels.
The newest IEEE 802.11ad take advantage of gigabit 60 GHz spectrum for wireless communications. Link speed is high, but the range is short, since the signal is attenuated readily water and the influence of other materials. This means that the technology is better suited to short, from the point-type connections. The first big goal is to replace those HDMI cables that deliver high-definition and 3D video from a digital terminal to a large TV screen.
All this on the basis of ABI Research predicts that next year already sold the equipment with more than a billion of 60-gigahertz radio.
802.11ad technology agreed in January 2013. At the same time, two industry associations – Gigabit WiFi Alliance and the WiFi Alliance – joined together to develop and promote the introduction of technology.
The truth is that the 60 gigahertz frequency range is available all over the world, which is the most important to speed up the popularization of technological power. There are differences between countries, between small differences in frequencies, which in turn forces plan their architectures more flexible devices.
The standard divides unlicensed frequency band 60 GHz 2.16 GHz on four channels. OFDM and various of modulation can reach up to seven gigabit per second rates. There is also a single-channel version, even with low power consumption will reach 4.6 gigabits per second data rate.
The next step is a smartphone. 802.11ad technology widely seen as the next step after the WiFi 11.ac
After many years of development, false starts and failed a 60 GHz radio technology is finally getting ready to fly. At the same time the old UWB’s ghost to rest it deserves. Global 802.11ad standard, supported by the WiFi Alliance consortium to provide a technique to miss in a wide
Once the chipset is already receiving five dollars, it remains desirable to add high-speed short-range radio connection to a wide array of consumer electronics and industrial equipment already within the next five years.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4175:60-gigahertsin-wifi-valloittaa-markkinat&catid=26&Itemid=140
Tomi Engdahl says:
OFC 2016: OIF shows off 56G PAM4, NRZ
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/rowe-s-and-columns/4441748/OFC-2016–OIF-shows-off-PAM4–NRZ?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160331&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160331&elqTrackId=a8a11b0c58bc4dcca4df28a0902834f0&elq=52a83f9c6d8141269d1a81ef262a6cf2&elqaid=31615&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27591
Every year at OFC 2016, the Optical Internetworking Forum demonstrates the latest technology for high-speed serial communications. While some of the serial links use fiber optics, others are entire copper based. Even those with optical links must have some copper content in the signal path. These demonstrations show how products from connector, cable, IC, and optical transceiver manufacturers work together in a complete system.
The OIF assembled demonstrations showing how both PAM4 and NRZ modulations can be used in the same application. One such application is a 56 Gbps PAM4 (4-level Pulse Amplitude Modulation) VSR (very short reach) serial link.
Tomi Engdahl says:
the amount of the Finnish mobile data exploded
the amount of the Finnish mobile networks, mobile data is increasing dramatically year after year.
Last year the amount was 627 000 terabytes. The figure is almost double the previous year. The growth has been very fast, because since 2011 the amount of mobile data is as much as ten-fold.
Strong growth promoting Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority, according to the fact that the constraints associated with data transmission are reduced. More than every other mobile interface could be used for broadband without any restrictions, within the framework of the acquired data transfer rate
Problem for operators’ point of view is that the telephone calls and the use of text messages are at the same time a continuous downhill
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/suomen-mobiilidatan-maara-rajahti-yksi-syy-ylitse-muiden-6536937
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bad news for Nokia: a base station market will not grow in years
At the same time as the network equipment vendors are forced to invest huge amounts of money, for example, 5G base station development, in the mobile network equipment market is at a standstill.
RnRMarketResearch Research Institute predicts that mobile network base stations in the market will not grow for at least the next four years. Of course, do not shrink, but manufacturers will have to contend with more and more closely in the allocation of approximately US $ 61 billion investment annually cake.
This is about stronger competition for Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei.
Unfortunate is the fact that the traditional monolithic macro base constantly losing market share. More and more operators to invest in smaller cells, baseband transfer to the cloud computing and increase its network into a Wi-Fi router. RnRMarketResearch estimates that these markets already account for half of operators’ investments by 2020.
The boom in building LTE networks is fading as operators in USA and Europe have largely moved to 4G era.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4203:huonoja-uutisia-nokialle-tukiasemamarkkina-ei-kasva-vuosiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
VIRVE TETRA network is shut down
The Interior Ministry today surprised many by announcing that the current safety TETRA network is shut down. based on Tetra technology network no longer meet today’s standards, so the calls and data traffic is transferred to public authorities LTE networks
Finland becomes at the same time the world’s first country where the authorities start to use the LTE network PS-technology (Public Safety). In addition to Finland only in Korea built the LTE network for public authorities, but in Korea the project will not be as long.
LTE network PS variant is a technology that supports both radio and group calls the current VIRVE manner. To use these features, of course, requires the terminal, which is integrated in a separate radio call functions.
Currently, LTE-official phone manufacturing project in the tightest race for the former Elektrobit ie Bittium a Tough Mobile would be suitable for use by public authorities at a reasonable minor modifications. Another potential manufacturer is producing Cassidian TETRA terminals belonging to the EADS group. Nokia had, in principle, authorities’ willingness to design their own smart phone
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4204:virve-verkko-ajetaan-alas&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reuters:
Sources: Egypt blocked Facebook’s Free Basics service after the company refused to let the government spy on users — Exclusive: Egypt blocked Facebook Internet service over surveillance – sources — Egypt blocked Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) Free Basics Internet service at the end of last year …
Exclusive: Egypt blocked Facebook Internet service over surveillance – sources
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-egypt-idUSKCN0WY3JZ
Egypt blocked Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) Free Basics Internet service at the end of last year after the U.S. company refused to give the Egyptian government the ability to spy on users, two people familiar with the matter said.
Mohamed Hanafi, a spokesman for Egypt’s Ministry of Communication, declined to comment specifically on the allegation about surveillance demands but cited other reasons for Free Basics to be blocked.
“The service was offered free of charge to the consumer, and the national telecommunication regulator saw the service as harmful to companies and their competitors,” he said.
Free Basics, which is available in 37 countries that have large populations without reliable Internet service, is central to Facebook’s global strategy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adam Conner-Simons / MIT News:
MIT paper presents tech that lets a single Wi-Fi access point locate users to within decimeters, allowing room occupancy detection, Wi-Fi geofencing
Wireless tech means safer drones, smarter homes and password-free WiFi
http://news.mit.edu/2016/wireless-tech-means-safer-drones-smarter-homes-password-free-wifi-0331
System from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab enables single WiFi access point that can locate users within tens of centimeters.