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:
Wall Street Journal:
Monthly data limits by home broadband providers increasingly forcing consumers to cut back or cancel streaming video services in the US — Broadband Data Caps Pressure ‘Cord Cutters’ — Monthly limits by home Internet providers like Comcast and AT&T force people who stream Netflix or Sling TV to ration Web use
Broadband Data Caps Pressure ‘Cord Cutters’
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/broadband-data-caps-pressure-cord-cutters-1461257846-lMyQjAxMTI2MDI5MTAyMjE4Wj
Monthly limits by home Internet providers like Comcast and AT&T force people who stream Netflix or Sling TV to ration Web use
“I wouldn’t have regular TV if not for the data cap,” he says. “Comcast has got me by the throat.”
Data limits once seemed like a problem confined to smartphones. But millions of Americans are facing them in their living rooms as their home Internet providers require them to ration Web usage or pay surcharges.
That is a threat to Netflix Inc. and video upstarts that depend on broadband to deliver their service. Many have complained about it to federal regulators.
Fearful of crossing data limits, some customers say they are canceling the streaming services, including Netflix, Sling TV and Sony PlayStation Vue.
Comcast technically has a 250 gigabyte monthly limit on its 23 million Internet customers but stopped enforcing it in 2012.
A family with several members could be using many services at once—video and music streaming on tablets and phones, online gaming, surfing social media and downloading software updates—which could burn through many more gigabytes per hour.
Until recently, all of AT&T Inc. ’s broadband offerings had limits ranging from 150 gigabytes to 1,000 gigabytes depending on a home’s connection speed. After being contacted by the Journal about this article, AT&T introduced options with unlimited data for U.S. customers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Colin Lecher / The Verge:
How FCC’s reallocation of TV spectrum to the wireless industry over the next few years will work
How the FCC’s massive airwaves auction will change America — and your phone service
The broadcast incentive auction will take years
http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/21/11481454/fcc-broadcast-incentive-auction-explained
The system that underpins wireless communication in the United States is about to dramatically change. In a massive, complex undertaking that will be unfolding for years, the federal government will shuffle the airwaves that carry TV and wireless signals to consumers, making room for the next generation of service. Billions of dollars will change hands, giant companies will fight, and the machinery of transmission will be overhauled across the country — all to make sure you’ll keep getting a good broadband signal on your phone, with (ideally) little change in how you watch TV.
Last month, the Federal Communications Commission kicked off the broadcast incentive auction, starting the chain of events that will lead to the restructuring.
What is the auction?
The broadcast incentive auction is a never-before-attempted (at least, not in this way) plan to free up wireless airwaves. The basic outline looks like this: TV broadcasters will sell their licensed airwaves — known as spectrum — to make room for wireless service providers, with the FCC acting as the middleman to determine prices and organize the handover.
Okay — so, why?
One big reason is something called “spectrum crunch.” In short, people are using wireless data at a rate that could eventually lead to slower speeds, as there isn’t enough spectrum to meet demand.
Where did the broadcasters get their spectrum?
Decades ago, the FCC freely gave away spectrum to local stations, and now they have the opportunity to sell off some space.
So how does it work?
It’s complicated. Step one is a “reverse” auction. In your standard auction, bidders offer the maximum they’re willing to pay, driving up the price of the product. In a reverse auction, or “Dutch” auction, a single buyer makes an offer of payment to multiple sellers. The buyer slowly lowers its offer, and the sellers unwilling to sell for the lower price drop out of bidding, until a final selling price is reached.
Tomi Engdahl says:
National Instruments announces world’s first mmWave software-defined 5G transceiver – all in PXI
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/test-cafe/4441875/National-Instruments-announces-world-s-first-mmWave-software-defined-5G-transceiver—all-in-PXI?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160425&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160425&elqTrackId=d0a51694e1514d0ea650f1ebee170255&elq=99fea2237ea64b8e9b3b926f9ffabf46&elqaid=31995&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27907
The only thing faster than the proposed 5G communication data rates appears to be the speed that new 5G test products are being released. Today, National Instruments upped the ante in the race to 5G by introducing a complete PXI-based software defined radio (SDR) platform, essentially a fully customizable mmWave 5G transceiver. Addressing channel sounding and prototyping applications in the 71-76 GHz (E-band) range, the system is capable of transmitting and receiving customizable mmWave signals up to 2 GHz real-time bandwidth. According to NI, the system is focused on delivering a full-featured prototyping platform for researchers racing to design 5G systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sabotage of Verizon’s cable lines leaves thousands without service
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/04/verizon-cable-sabotage.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_April252016&eid=289644432&bid=1384637
On April 20 Verizon issued a release stating that thousands of its customers “have been cut off from critical services over the past few days as criminals have damaged or destroyed critical network facilities. There have been at least 24 suspected incidents of sabotage over the past week in five states in which services were cut off for thousands of residential and business customers, including a local police and fire department in New Jersey.”
Michael Mason, the company’s chief security officer, said, “We will find out who’s behind these highly dangerous criminal acts and we will pursue criminal charges. These reckless perpetrators are risking the lives of countless Americans by cutting access to key lines of communications, especially to local police, fire and rescue personnel … These perpetrators are putting lives at risk and these dangerous acts need to stop. It’s a violation of federal law to damage critical communications facilities.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Sparks Clash of Carriers
TMobile, Orange share divergent views
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329532&
SAN JOSE, Calif.&mdash The Internet of Things is redrawing the map of who will compete against whom when it comes to low-power wide area (LPWA) networks. It’s a looming battle for which carriers, OEMs and chip makers are all gearing up.
For example, a handful of service providers such as Orange, the former France Telecom, are rolling out IoT networks now based on the LoRa specification for unlicensed 800-900 MHz bands. Many other carriers are expected to start deploying IoT networks next year using an emerging narrowband cellular standard based on LTE being developed by the 3GPP.
Meanwhile, Sigfox, the first mover in this sector, is rolling out its own 800-900 MHz service worldwide. Several other players with their own technologies such as Ingenu are trying to deploy competing networks or license others to build them.
Cisco Systems has jumped into the LoRa camp, offering gateways for the network. Both LoRa and Sigfox are attracting interest from chip makers including Microchip, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.
“Different operators have different business models and needs, but if they deploy something like Sigfox how that evolves to a 3GPP service remains to be seen,”
The narrowband LTE standard won’t hit the sub-$5 chip costs of unlicensed alternatives nor will it be the best use of valuable licensed spectrum, said Jameson Buffmire, a business analyst in Orange’s San Francisco office.
“The big fight for [cellular] operators is who can serve video fastest to iPhones,” said D’Arcy. By contrast Sigfox uses what is “probably the slowest net in the world…we’re focused on low-end IoT nodes that for cost and bandwidth reasons send SMS-style messages at most ten times a day,” he said.
“We are focused on the low end,” he said, noting a firmware upgrade feature planned for narrowband LTE will itself require 60-100 Kbits/second. “I’m sure whatever gets spec-ed will be quite a bit higher in data rate than Sigfox,” he said.
Currently, On Semiconductor and the Atmel group at Microchip provide Sigfox reference designs based on integrated transceivers paired with microcontrollers. Texas Instruments, Silicon Labs and others will sample integrated chips supporting Bluetooth, Zigbee, Sigfox and Thread later this year, D’Arcy said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can we avoid COMmitting the same mistakes we made with jitter?
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-standards/4441664/Can-we-avoid-COMmitting-the-same-mistakes-we-made-with-jitter-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160428&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160428&elqTrackId=642d88680f9e457f94a927829cb17e93&elq=5cccf11fb1e047fdaa769bdef6160685&elqaid=32043&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27959
COM (channel operating margin) combines multiple measurements into one signal-to-noise-like figure of merit, analogous to ENOB (effective number of bits), used to characterize analog-to-digital converters. With COM, the greater the margin, the better the channel. Because COM is built from different measurements and includes the results of models, there are many ways for it to fail.
Compared to COM, jitter seems simple: the variation of the timing of signal transitions with respect to their ideals. It’s easy to think of the distribution as a histogram of these timing variations.
Peak-to-peak jitter, which has appeared on clock data sheets for generations, turned out to be inadequate. Jitter from random processes—predominantly from phase noise within the SerDes’ reference clock—varies over time; the longer you measure peak-to-peak jitter, the larger it gets.
o get away from poorly defined, impossible-to-reproduce peak-to-peak jitter, we made the well-reasoned choice to incorporate BER( bit error ratio) in the definition of a new quantity, TJ(BER) (total jitter defined at a BER).
Well, because the BERs we cared about were very low, 1E-12 to 1E-18, TJ(BER) turned out to take a very long time to measure and the only equipment that could measure it, BERTs (bit error ratio testers) were really expensive and not all that useful for diagnosing other problems in the lab.
The problem came from how we chose to stir RJ, DJ, ISI, PJ etc. into the goulash from which we estimate TJ(BER).
As we advance from a few Gbits/s to 10+ Gbits/s, ISI (intersymbol interference) is the biggest problem. ISI is caused by the frequency response of a channel; it shifts a signal’s amplitude and timing by amounts that depend on the sequence of transmitted symbols. Which brings us to COM and the possibility that history is repeating itself.
To make sense of the measurements, I had to do basic science: start with the cleanest, lowest jitter system we could build and then inject one type of jitter at a time, compare results, and then add a second type of jitter, and so on. It took six full time weeks to analyze the data and discover which techniques were accurate and why. It took over two years before the T&M industry started to converge to results within 10-15% of each other—the entire industry was confused for more than five years and at least one company went out of business for its failure to produce accurate results.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Comcast announces it will raise data caps from 300GB to 1TB on June 1; unlimited data will cost an additional $50 per month
A Comcastic miracle: Data caps will go from 300GB to a terabyte
Going over the cap will be harder, but also more expensive.
http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/04/comcast-boosts-data-cap-from-300gb-to-1tb-unlimited-data-will-cost-50/
Comcast today announced that it will boost its data cap from 300GB per month to 1TB beginning June 1, but the company will also charge more to customers who want unlimited data.
Comcast has been trialling different caps in various cities in preparation for a potential nationwide rollout. Typically, customers would get 300GB per month and have to pay another $10 for each additional 50GB when they go over. Comcast also allowed customers to pay an extra $30 to $35 a month for unlimited data, depending on the city.
The change comes as more and more customers go over the 300GB cap. In late 2013, Comcast was saying that only 2 percent of its customers used more than 300GB of data a month. By late 2015, that was up to 8 percent.
At 300GB a month, the caps were low enough that customers making heavy use of streaming services such as Netflix or Sling TV had trouble avoiding overage charges. A terabyte should provide relief for most people, as Comcast said today that “more than 99 percent of our customers do not come close to using a terabyte” and that “typical” customers use about 60GB a month.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bell Labs Forecasts Mobile Capacity Crunch
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329552&
A Bell Labs study says overall cellular traffic generated by IoT devices will only account for 2% of total mobile traffic by 2020, the real pick-up coming when video-enabled sensors and cameras begin to predominate.
Throughout its long and illustrious existence, Bell Labs has focused on the big questions—and in its early days under the ownership of AT&T, on the fundamentals. How else could its researchers have come up with the transistor, charged coupled device image sensors, lasers, and the solar battery.
Now, as part of Nokia, it is still asking the big questions, but geared more towards commercial means and ends.
The three key questions addressed by the group were:
What is the potential demand for new services today and by how much will it grow by 2020—globally and regionally?
How much of that demand can be met by unlicensed spectrum solutions and how can mobile operators profitably deliver the remaining (high mobility, long range, high performance) services?
How does the network have to change? How can new technologies and architectures help address the critical challenges?
One major conclusion was that, at the current rate of development and based on today’s economics, just 81% of worldwide demand will be met by Wi-Fi and cellular (with Wi-Fi taking up two thirds of the demand.)
The big message is that mobile network operators urgently need to accelerate their investments to overcome this huge projected shortfall.
This may of course be self-serving, but nevertheless is a timely warning from where Nokia and it infrastructure supplier competitors sit in the mobile economy.
The report can be downloaded here https://pages.nokia.com/1503.bell-labs-mobility-report.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:
CloudFlare activates HTTP/2 Server Push protocol, expects it will decrease page and app load time by up to 15% across its network within a year
CloudFlare figured out how to make the Web one second faster
http://www.zdnet.com/article/cloudflare-offers-http2-server-push-to-boost-internet-speeds/
CloudFlare customers can tap into the protocol to shave loading times off their domains.
CloudFlare is turning on HTTP/2 Server Push support for free to customers in the hopes of shaving loading time from web page visits.
The US web performance and analytics firm announced the move on Thursday. In a blog post, CloudFlare says the new service will “make it possible for anyone to experience the fastest web performance available, accelerating future Internet speed by seconds.”
HTTP/2 Server Push is an Internet protocol which allows web servers to load content without waiting for a request. Based on HTTP/2, the protocol is an update which allows web servers to send resources — whether they are images, CSS or Javascript — back to the user before browsers ask for them. By doing so, this eradicates an additional trip that the server and client need to make when loading content.
It is estimated that HTTP/2 Server Push can improve the loading speed performance of a typical website by up to 15 percent.
Announcing Support for HTTP/2 Server Push
https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-support-for-http-2-server-push-2/
Tomi Engdahl says:
CloudFlare HTTP/2
https://www.cloudflare.com/http2/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Grant Gross / PCWorld:
TV stations agree to sell 126MHz of spectrum in FCC auction, paving the way for fast, reliable 5G — FCC wireless auction hits spectrum target, paving way for fast, reliable 5G — Television stations have volunteered to sell off 126MHz of “beach front” wireless spectrum to mobile carriers …
FCC wireless auction hits spectrum target, paving the way for fast, reliable 5G
The incentive auction is key for carriers to roll out 5G service.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3063548/mobile/fcc-wireless-auction-hits-spectrum-target-paving-way-for-fast-reliable-5g.html
Television stations have volunteered to sell off 126MHz of “beach front” wireless spectrum to mobile carriers in an ongoing U.S. Federal Communications Commission auction, potentially bringing higher speeds and more reliable networks to customers.
The 126MHz of spectrum was the highest amount anticipated by the FCC in the so-called incentive auction, agency officials said Friday. In most areas of the country, the agency will be able to auction 10 blocks of 10MHz to mobile carriers and other interested bidders.
This low-band spectrum, in the 600MHz band, is highly coveted by mobile carriers because it can cover long distances and penetrate walls and other obstacles.
The auction could raise US$60 billion, according to some estimates.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Living on the edge: The role of proactive caching in 5G wireless networks
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6871674&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fstamp%2Fstamp.jsp%3Ftp%3D%26arnumber%3D6871674
This article explores one of the key enablers of beyond 4G wireless networks leveraging small cell network deployments, proactive caching. Endowed with predictive capabilities and harnessing recent developments in storage, context awareness, and social networks, peak traffic demands can be substantially reduced by proactively serving predictable user demands via caching at base stations and users’ devices. In order to show the effectiveness of proactive caching, we examine two case studies that exploit the spatial and social structure of the network, where proactive caching plays a crucial role. First, in order to alleviate backhaul congestion, we propose a mechanism whereby files are proactively cached during off-peak periods based on file popularity and correlations among user and file patterns. Second, leveraging social networks and D2D communications, we propose a procedure that exploits the social structure of the network by predicting the set of influential users to (proactively) cache strategic contents and disseminate them to their social ties via D2D communications. Exploiting this proactive caching paradigm, numerical results show that important gains can be obtained for each case study, with backhaul savings and a higher ratio of satisfied users of up to 22 and 26 percent, respectively. Higher gains can be further obtained by increasing the storage capability at the network edge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ICANN in a strop that Intel, Netflix, Lego, Nike and others aren’t using their dot-brand domains
Like getting 47 ‘maybes’ and a couple of ‘yeses’ on a Facebook party invite
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/29/icann_dot_word_brands/
Some of the world’s biggest brands, including Intel, Nike, Target, Netflix, Lego, UPS and the NFL have been told to put their namesake dot-word domains live in the next three months or risk losing them altogether.
Domain name overseer ICANN has warned 200-plus companies in a blog post that there is a 12-month deadline from signing a contract to making sure their dot-brand is live on the internet. If they don’t meet the deadline, ICANN has threatened to end the agreement.
When it was announced several years ago that ICANN was opening up the internet to any dot-word, hundreds of global brands paid the $185,000 application fee to protect their name online.
Despite some determined and creative efforts by the domain name industry to encourage companies to embrace their dot-brands, there have still been no breakout uses of a corporate-branded top-level domain several years after they were introduced.
Although most companies are expected to heed the warning and eat the cost of making their dot-brand live, several have already decided to simply dump their name.
New gTLD Program Delegation Deadlines
https://www.icann.org/news/blog/new-gtld-program-delegation-deadlines
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cavium snubs MIPS, picks 64-bit ARM for next-gen network SoCs
Designers of brains inside your networking gear wheel out the 24-core Octeon-TX
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/02/cavium_octeon_tx/
Cavium – the brains behind the chips in big-brand networking products – has plumped for the ARM architecture over MIPS in its next-generation network processors.
It’s a sign that more and more serious networking gear is likely to be ARM powered rather than MIPS in future.
The Octeon-TX family of system-on-chips, announced today, will use up to 24 64-bit ARMv8 cores taken from Cavium’s ThunderX range of server-grade CPUs. Previous Octeon SoCs have used 64-bit MIPS cores.
Founded in 2001, San Jose-based Cavium is a fabless semiconductor designer that produces chips for the likes of Cisco, F5, Aruba, Netgear, Nokia Siemens, Juniper, Samsung, LG and others. Its Octeon SoCs turn up in cellphone base stations, and edge and core switches and routers, where MIPS is a traditional architecture.
With the Octeon-TX, Cavium has yanked MIPS out of Octeon, kept the underlying networking-focused silicon, and locked in its server-class ARM ThunderX cores.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ericsson: 5G brings the Technological Revolution
5G network technology means a lot more than the ability to download online videos faster than before. – The future network society represents a huge change at all levels. This is a technological revolution, said Ericsson Chief Technology Officer Ulf Ewaldsson yesterday EDA Cadence CDNLive-house developer at the meeting.
- This is the next generation of the Internet. All equipment which can be implanted in the microprocessor and access to a network, get one. All those who will benefit from the network which is connected to the network.
This connection must also be real-time. – We test already connections with latency, or delay from the terminal via the cloud back to 2-3 milliseconds. It allows, for example, real-time remote controlling robots, Ewaldsson stressed.
- This is all a big change
- Thinking now about, say, the world’s most useless device, which is a chain saw. It is used for half an hour once every two years, using the scared all the time and just hoping that someone else would use it on our behalf, Ewaldsson laughed.
- In the future, people are buying only the tree felling. This is a big change that will make a breakthrough in all areas and which all of us must be prepared. Also, network equipment manufacturers
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4362:ericsson-5g-tuo-teknologisen-vallankumouksen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
DNA brings gigabit fiber-optic network for Finnish metropolitan area
DNA launches the metropolitan area gigabit speed a new generation of fiber-optic network. The new network offers a gigabit broadband speeds without modifications inside the condominium online. DNA future sent tens of gigabits per second speed. It was now possible for more than three gigs.
Gigabit speed, with about 300 000 households in the metropolitan area, and within a year of gigs speed will be available to more than 600 000 households. In a few years the network will be available connections of up to ten gigabits.
“Gigabit speed Internet connections are the most demanded before the house in the grounds cabling companies or renewal of the internal network. Now, the speed can be hundreds of thousands of ordinary households, without any modification ”
Typically, the main challenges for Web access speeds are within the network of buildings and home wireless LAN. “If the building’s internal network is implemented in a conventional telephone cable, not for high-speed backbone network is usually not very much helpful, ”
Another bottleneck is the home wireless LAN, or WLAN network, which often eat the majority of internet connection speed.
DNA was carried out according to the Bulletin 3.055 Gbit / s -nopeusennätyksen the launch of a new fiber network on Monday 05/09/2016. The speed record was carried out Docsis 3.1 technology. The current network is 3.0 version.
According to DNA no other other operator in Europe has not reached the 3.055 Gbit / speed delivery of live-in conditions, or in the normal customer use the broadband network.
“Seen speed records several gigs of access up to ten gigabits will be DNA available to all cable households already within a few years,”
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/05/09/dna-tuo-gigaluokan-valokuituverkon/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fiber-Span’s public safety DAS added to Corning’s ONE platform
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/05/fiber-span-s-public-safety-das-added-to-corning-s-one-platform.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_May92016&eid=289644432&bid=1398313
Fiber-Span’s public safety DAS is described as a comprehensive fiber-optic wireless solution for police, fire, emergency, first responder and Homeland Security radio system applications. The technology delivers clear, clean, and distortion-free transmission and distribution of critical communication information, including wireless voice, data, and video. It supports all public safety bands, including VHF/UHF/700/800/900/TETRA, and meets International Fire Code (IFC) and National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) requirements.
Corning’s ONE platform is billed as the first all-optical solution to converge multiple wired and wireless technologies, including passive optical local area network (PON), Wi-Fi and cellular DAS, into a single, unified infrastructure. The companies state that, when deployed together, Fiber-Span’s public safety DAS can leverage ONE’s fiber backbone to set up a separate, parallel antenna system that differentiates authority of network operation, maintenance and alarm monitoring/service; and enables network design flexibility, while reducing the cost of overall deployment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 largest U.S. mobile carriers pledge cooperation in emergencies under Wireless Network Resiliency agreement
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/05/5-largest-u-s-mobile-carriers-pledge-cooperation-in-emergencies-under-wireless-network-resiliency-ag.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_May92016&eid=289644432&bid=1398313
The nation’s five largest mobile carriers are backing an initiative that would help them to share information and fix network outages during disasters and other emergencies.
Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and U.S. Cellular signed on to the Wireless Network Resiliency Cooperative Framework, which is aimed at providing reasonable arrangements for roaming, fostering mutual aid, enhancing government agencies’ preparedness and restoration, and improving public awareness of service and restoration status during emergencies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Panduit unveils Cat 6a/6/5e break-away adapter
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/05/panduit-6a-breakaway.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_May92016&eid=289644432&bid=1398313
Panduit has introduced a new adapter designed to release under force to eliminate tripping hazards, protect expensive equipment, and prevent damage to network infrastructure in medical, education and commercial applications.
The Panduit Break-Away Adapter attaches to a standard copper patch cord, and then plugs into either a piece of equipment or an RJ45 outlet. When pulling force is applied — such as when a medical cart is rolled away from the wall in a hospital room — the adapter releases. This prevents equipment being pulled off carts or tables, or jacks being pulled out of the wall, and prevents costly damage.
While especially designed for the medical community where equipment is frequently wheeled between patient rooms, the adapter can be used in any environment where portable equipment is connected to an Ethernet port and subject to tripping hazards, including conference rooms and classrooms, notes the company.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fiber Optic Center releases technical glossary as latest free industry resource
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/05/foc-tech-glossary.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_May92016&eid=289644432&bid=1398313
Fiber Optic Center, Inc., (FOC) announces a new industry glossary as the latest in a series of technical resources rolled out in the past year to better serve FOC customers and industry.
Building on the recent resource rollouts of technical articles, blogs, AskFOC, video demos, helpful tips series, monthly e-news subscriptions, live consulting, and partnership with Wayne Kachmar’s Technical Horsepower Consulting, the FOC Glossary has been added to the company’s website.
Launched containing more than 3,600 entries on fiber, cable, wire, optics, assembly, connectors, electrical, data communications and testing terms as well as the FOC ancillary expert areas of polymers, chemicals, lapping film, adhesives and epoxies, the FOC Glossary also includes an additional 2,000+ FOC acronym entries and a core 18 MIL-SPEC for connectors.
The online glossary can be found at: http://focenter.com/foc-glossary/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dress made of optical fiber turns heads at Met Gala
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/05/optical-fiber-dress-claire-danes-met-gala.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_May92016&eid=289644432&bid=1398313
When the terms “optical fiber” and “New York City” are used in the same sentence, images that typically come to mind are workers with hardhats, underground maintenance holes, and perhaps even riser pathways in the city’s skyscrapers. Fashion images may not immediately come to mind. But on Monday, May 2, optical fiber was on full display at the Met Gala—the annual fundraiser that benefits the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City.
That evening, actress Claire Danes donned a dress made of optical fiber that impressed the assembled crowd—and people around the world who saw it on social media. The fiber-optic dress did what optical fiber does; it carried light and, in doing so, glowed in the dark.
Met Gala 2016: Claire Danes’s Glow-in-the-Dark Gown Upstaged a Red-Carpet Robot Army
http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/05/met-gala-2016-red-carpet
Tomi Engdahl says:
4Mbps Still The Standard For One Govt Broadband Grant Program
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/05/09/1848231/4mbps-still-the-standard-for-one-govt-broadband-grant-program
Four U.S. senators say that the Internet speed standard for a government grant program shouldn’t be stuck at 4Mbps. The Community Connect program run by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds broadband deployment in rural communities, but it uses a speed standard of just 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream.
Not really “broadband”—US grant program has 4Mbps speed standard
Senators ask USDA to boost speeds, because for the love of God why only 4Mbps???
http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/05/4mbps-still-the-standard-for-one-government-broadband-grant-program/
The Community Connect program run by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds broadband deployment in rural communities, but it uses a speed standard of just 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. Even that speed is an increase over the 3Mbps (download and upload combined) standard the program used until just a few weeks ago.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Broadband European record in Finland
The new gigabit broadband connection operator launched a DNA did the same demossaan broadband subscriptions European speed record. The new DOCSIS 3.1 technology was not achieved in the current consumer online more than three gigabit data rate.
DOCSIS 3.1 was released in October 2013 cable modem standard that 4096 QAM modulation supports 10 gigabit-speed network to the terminal, and a gigabit link in the other direction. OFDM-based technology enables the connection of a width from 20 to 50 kHz channels, together with up to 200 MHz communion, thus entering into said data speeds.
DNA demo Sagem Com DOCSIS 3.1 also achieved -modem DNA in the fiber network of more than three gigabit data rates. In practice, the demo was combined with four 750-800 Mbps LAN link into one.
DOCSIS 3.1 technology has the advantage that it requires very little investment. Household Cable connections are working at present. The modem must be, of course, to support the new standard
Yet more than six years ago, the Finnish broadband top speed of 200 megabits per second. DNA today announced the raising of the fastest fixed subscriptions a maximum rate of one gigabit per second. The current top speed of the company’s customers is 350 megabits per second.
- We estimated that every household is 9-15 device connected to the Internet. Video accounts for 80 percent of our data and the continuing need for more capacity.
New Optical Fiber Plus subscription costs Fifty bucks a month, and it will go on sale tomorrow. At the initial stage gigabit gain access to 300 000 households in the metropolitan area. Faster Web requires replacement of cable modem.
DNA aims to get fast symmetrical Internet speeds of up to 10 gigabits of data, or would run the same speed in both directions. The company has not told the public the target schedule, but on the basis of today’s 10 Gbps Web could be used in some already in 2020.
Another bottleneck associated with sharing a network connection over a WLAN network. The current Standard modems over WLAN provides approximately 90 megabits per second. The new modem 3×3 channel data is transferred to demo 390 megabits per second.
Sources:
http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4383:laajakaistan-euroopan-ennatys-suomeen&catid=13&Itemid=101
http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4382:dna-kiihdyttaa-gigabittiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
More speed for dual-3G data
4G networks achieve very hard to data rates, the same link is connected to two or more frequency channels. Now, this same principle is coming to 3G networks and HSDPA connections.
HSDPA + network can currently get theoretically 42 Mbps data speeds when using is one 5 MHz channel. Increasing the bandwidth doubling to 10 megahertz in theory doubles the data rate of the link.
Some mobile operators have already this year introduced the first DC-HSDPA networks. DC-HSDPA is part of the 3GPP Release 9
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4380:kaksoislinkilla-lisaa-vauhtia-3g-dataan&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
merged with Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia reached in January-March operating profit of EUR 345 million (non-IFRS).
Nokia’s operating profit margin was 6.2 per cent, while a year ago it was 4.5 per cent combined company. Margin corresponding to the projections.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/nokia-julkisti-tuloksensa-ennusteet-pitivat-kutinsa-6548933
Tomi Engdahl says:
Operators have until now been competing with each other for customers, and Finland Arrangements are fairly well established. According to a recent survey, they would have their hands sharp retreat client if the Web giants are interested in the area.
Nearly half of the survey respondents would be willing to switch to Google, Apple or Facebook, if any of these would bring the market operator of the service.
Customers need operators better investment in digital service channels. Only one-third of consumers believe that their operator has been using digital channels – websites, mobile applications and social media – to improve the customer experience.
The report is based on the 48 telecom operator in 5700 customer survey in the United States and eight European countries.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/vapise-operaattori-nain-huonosti-kay-jos-google-apple-tai-facebook-astuu-kehaan-6548986
Tomi Engdahl says:
Matthias Verbergt / Wall Street Journal:
Nokia reports Q1 net loss of $583M, well below expectations, cites sluggish mobile-network sales, charges related to Alcatel-Lucent acquisition; stock down 6%+
Nokia Falls to Surprise Loss
Sluggish mobile-network sales and charges related to acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent hit Finnish firm
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/nokia-falls-to-surprise-loss-1462859081-lMyQjAxMTI2MzE2MDMxOTA1Wj
Nokia Corp. reported first-quarter results below expectations on Tuesday due to sluggish mobile-network sales and charges related to the recent acquisition of French rival Alcatel-Lucent SA .
For the three months ended in March, Nokia reported a net loss of €513 million ($583.46 million) compared with a €177 million profit a year earlier as a stand-alone company. Nokia said that net profit was at €139 million when costs related to the Alcatel-Lucent transaction, among others, were excluded.
But Nokia’s first-quarter earnings point to a challenging environment for traditional network-equipment makers, faced with slowing demand from telecommunications operators and stiff competition from new players such as China’s Huawei Technologies Co.
“The shortfall was largely driven by Mobile Networks, where the challenging environment is not a surprise,”
Nokia expects to save more than €900 million of net operating cost annually as a result of synergies by 2018.
Nokia said that it has begun the process of reducing overlapping personnel
Meanwhile, Nokia is shifting resources to future-oriented technologies such as fifth-generation networks, the cloud and the “Internet of Things”, highlighted by Nokia’s acquisition of Withings, a French producer of Internet-connected devices that track users’ health.
Tomi Engdahl says:
That went well – NOT – Nokia’s first post-Alcatel numbers dip
Sales of €5.6bn about €500m shy of last year’s effort, so the sackings start
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/11/nokia_q1_2016/
When Nokia Networks and Alcatel-Lucent officially became one company, on January 14th this year, board chair Risto Siilasmaa declared “Our earnings, market cap and growth opportunities have multiplied.”
Today, the combined companies reported results for the first time, with €5.6 billion to show off but the confession that a year ago “net sales would have been €6.1 billion on a comparable combined company basis.”
Nokia’s networks kit sales fell eight per cent, broadband dipped 12 per cent and IP networks grew by a solitary point. Little wonder the company has also “announced that it has started actions to reduce company personnel globally as part of its synergy and transformation program.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook promises release of own ‘modular routing platform’
Zuck Squad thinks it can do SDN for the entire internet with decentralised smarts
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/11/facebook_promises_release_of_own_modular_routing_platform/
Facebook has promised to open source a “modular routing platform” it says powers many of its own networks.
“Open/R” was developed to power Facebook’s Terragraph WiFi networks. Now The Social NetworkTM says the more it played with the code, the more it became apparent it was fit for general purpose networking.
The platform looks to offer a different take on software-defined networking and to the development of interoperable networks.
“To create an interoperable standard, the industry’s process is often lengthy due to code being built independently by multiple vendors and then slowly deployed to their customer networks,” writes Facebook’s Petr Lapukhov. “Furthermore, every vendor has to accommodate for the demands of numerous customers — complicating the development process and requiring features that are not always useful universally.”
Lapukhov and Facebook’s alternative is to use bits of open source projects that work – the OSPF and ISIS routing protocols, plus Thrift for the message bus – and to put intelligence all over the network.
“Contrary to other approaches that focus on removing intelligence from the network and placing it in a central controller, we believe that autonomous network functions play an important role,”
Facebook’s approach to things is very DevOps-y: Lapukhov’s post states that for Facebook, reliability is “a system property that comes from combining network design, operational practices, and the ability to quickly write and continuously deploy new code.” Open/R is designed to allow swift re-configuration of networks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kelly Fiveash / Ars Technica UK:
Europe’s antitrust chief rejects Three-O2 merger in UK — Commissioner Vestager kills takeover plan, citing significant UK competition concerns. — UK mobile operator Three’s multi-billion pound bid to merge with O2 has been rejected by competition officials in Brussels.
Europe’s antitrust chief rejects Three-O2 merger in UK
Commissioner Vestager kills takeover plan, citing significant UK competition concerns.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2016/05/europes-antitrust-chief-rejects-three-o2-merger-in-uk/
UK mobile operator Three’s multi-billion pound bid to merge with O2 has been rejected by competition officials in Brussels.
There were “significant competition concerns with this deal” which “would very likely have led to higher prices and less choice for mobile consumers,” the EU’s antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager said during a press conference.
She claimed that the deal, which was valued at £10.25 billion, would have harmed the UK’s mobile sector, as it is presently an “advanced” EU nation in terms of 4G rollout and technology.
A spokesperson for the UK’s communication watchdog Ofcom—which had lobbied hard for Vestager to reject Three’s planned takeover of Telefonica-owned O2—said: “We believe this is the right outcome for mobile customers, who have always been our priority.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
European average was 6.1 connected devices
According to a recent European study Adobe’s 85 per cent of consumers varies between different devices using the network. The study also shows that the European consumer has an average of 6.1 network-connected device.
People are not loyal to your phone using the Internet and web content. Only 40 per cent feel that brands are able to provide a consistent and personalized user experience across all devices. The research results were forcing firms to rethink their role as producers of the experience and contribution of the consumer experience, which is to maintain the customer’s attention.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4404:eurooppalaisilla-keskimaarin-6-1-nettiin-kytkettya-laitetta&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Web giants were able to open the switches for data centers
disaggregation:
development starting shot for shot at Facebook five years ago to launch the project OCP (open compute project, opencompute.org). Its aim was to create a data center open standards, according to which all components of the rack spaces servers, motherboards, fans, storage units, and power supplies was redesigned. The servers are not subscribed to the character device manufacturers, but the components were commissioned specs Asian ODMs (original design manufacturer).
The aim was to combine the components of the application needs of the population, so that the construction, operation and maintenance of the data center were stepped up to the extreme. That is, server disaggregation parts of the demolition took place on the drawing board, but was optimized configurations instead of a single server or Blade or blade server rack complete equipment rack or data center level.
Switches open
The network switch must be made simpler device than the server, because its job is only to convey the packages, do not store data or to carry out the demanding calculation. Disaggregation the coupling means in practice the separation of its software and hardware independent components that can be freely interchanged.
is familiar to everyone, that the server machine to an industry standard operating system can be installed on any Windows or Linux server software and applications on top of it. Disaggregation does the same network switches that have long survived the network equipment manufacturers the integration of turnkey solutions.
OCP’s switch to a working group the headaches remained at the hardware level to determine the overall structure of the switch as necessary ports and working memory, as well as the procedure whereby the responsibility for the operation of software is loaded and running. The software level, open the switch operating system that handle basic tasks, and which to build management and other applications needed.
OCP-approved specifications of the switches have so far been published, inter alia, Accton, Alpha Networks, Inventec, Mellanox and of course Facebook itself for its own use. Port speeds on these are 10, 40 and 100 gigabits per second
The switch startup procedure for the determination of Onie (open network install environment) was completed and approved in 2014
The third key determination is received (switch abstraction interface), which was adopted last July. Its author list can be found in the consumer sides of more familiar names: Microsoft, Dell, Facebook, Broadcom, Intel and Mellanox. Additional analyzes are still working on acpi-platform apd and opennsl (open the Network Switch to library).
Like all transitions disaggregointi also raises new gamblers. OCP’s switches are available in accordance with many equipment manufacturers, and are often referred to as white box with emphasis on the difference between the power of the brand for branded products.
An open platform. Already a pioneer in disaggregoinnin Cumulus Networks adapter switch linux operating system, and the same ideas are repeated solutions from different suppliers. Linux’s native web applications and services are used as much as possible, and hardware dependent portions are hidden OCP, standardized interfaces in the rear. As manufacturer of the device, the application developer and the customer can enrich the solution for network management, automation and security-related additional applications. Natural and hottest development area is sdn, or programmatically defined networks.
Operating system foor switch, sometimes referred to as a festive NOS (network operating system), is available from several companies
Most of these companies are the focus of the strategy has some type of software-controlled network platform, or SDN
Those who adapt
Form a chapter of its own, above all, well-known PC manufacturer Dell and HP, which are also strong network suppliers. Both have been manufacturing end products for OEM agreements with, for example, Cumulus Networks, so disagregation models is familiar to businesses. However, the companies are too large, the mere sale of the model would be sufficient for them.
HP announced in October, together with Intel, Broadcom, Accton and VMware with it based Open Switch consortium (openswitch.net) to develop their own open-source operating system switch.
OCP’s development actively participated Dell has a longer experience in the world of open switches.
For network integrators the new architecture creates a lot of opportunities. High security demands could be responsible for running, say, VMware NSX’s like micro segmenting solution switches servers instead. Firewalls, load balancers and an extensive network optimisers can be lost in the coming years in standalone mode and find a place in the switches.
New technologies have found network operators. For them, the switches disagregation is one step towards the NFV-model (network virtualisation function) implementation.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/nettijatit-toivat-avoimet-kytkimet-konesaleihin-6549609
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia demoed: 4G and Wi-Fi operate on the same frequency
The limited frequencies has received network equipment manufacturers and operators to consider the possibility to take advantage of the free frequencies for mobile data transfer. Nokia has now shown that this functional MulteFire-name technology really works.
Nokia has already demonnut technology, for example, of Arlington Heights in a laboratory in the United States. The arrangement was on top of a small-cell LTE and Wi-Fi router in the same 5 GHz.
MulteFire idea is the so-called. coexistence feature
Now, Nokia says its testing the MulteFire with Saudi Telecom company. The tests MulteFire-terminals reached 120 megabit kokonaiskaistanleveyteen. MulteFiren range is about 50 percent better than wifi, etc. and network coverage about two times better, Nokia says.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4410:nokia-demosi-4g-ja-wifi-toimivat-samalla-taajuudella&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will the entire vehicle be broadcast radio antenna?
The military use of large-size antennas relocate the radio waves over long distances than current less energy, if their size would be more proportionate to the frequency. Short antennas are more practical, but they are the main part of the input power is lost as heat.
Military use, low energy consumption and long levied would be an advantage. However, due to the frequencies used in the field of idealized antennas should be impractically large.
The military use of radio waves range from tens of meters up to a few meters. That is still available, the antennas, which are only a small fraction of the wavelength. Short antennas at military frequencies are also ineffective because they dissipate 90 percent of the input power into heat.
The military operation, the antennas are almost always stick to other structures, such as lorries or transport wagon – and Wisconsin-Madison researcher Nadner Behdad realized that the structures could act as transmitting antennas.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/05/13/muuttuuko-koko-ajoneuvo-radioantenniksi/
More: Antenna design turns entire vehicles into broadcasting equipment – See more at: http://news.wisc.edu/antenna-design-turns-entire-vehicles-into-broadcasting-equipment/#sthash.y45Nz8tm.dpuf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cities are investigating, workers are on strike, but it’s not all good news for Verizon
How could things get worse for telco? Glad you asked that
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/12/philadelphia_investigates_verizon_fios/
US telecoms giant Verizon is once again facing government scrutiny for a rollout of its network services in a major US city.
The city of Philadelphia mayor’s office has put out an open call to citizens asking if they have the ability to get Verizon FiOS, its fastest home fiber service.
That term expired on February 26th, and now the city wants to check whether Verizon has indeed been able to deliver on its promises.
“We take the conditions of this franchise agreement very seriously,”
“So we are asking for residents to step forward and tell us if they tried to get FIOS but were unable to.”
New York City has also accused Verizon of failing to deliver on a contract to wire the Big Apple up to broadband internet service,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Free yourself from IBIS-AMI models with PyBERT
http://www.edn.com/design/test-and-measurement/4441991/Free-yourself-from-IBIS-AMI-models-with-PyBERT?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160512&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160512&elqTrackId=32d0c32ab25e44e2a358acdbbe9eda06&elq=c135da191c624eecba70db1c92d28afa&elqaid=32224&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28146
The IBIS-AMI modeling standard was supposed to free high-speed serial communication link designers from the SPICE model chains, which perpetually lengthened design cycles. Unfortunately, IBIS-AMI has fallen short of the mark. IBIS-AMI models run from two to three orders of magnitude faster than the SPICE equivalents—which is great for systems designers.
IBIS-AMI models are, however, also plagued by a lack of commitment to the standard by some silicon vendors and a decided lack of consistency in interpretation by the commercial tools supporting it.
Fortunately, you needn’t use IBIS-AMI models (or, their SPICE antecedents) throughout the entirety of the link design process. In fact, you only need them at the very end of that process, as a tool for final “signoff” validation of the PCB CAD data, before sending it off to the PCB fabricator. I now introduce PyBERT, a public domain, open source tool that you can use as an alternative to IBIS-AMI models during the initial phases of high speed serial communication link design.
How black is “black?”
Just as Dorothy and her friends discovered that what personal accouterments the wizard was peddling weren’t anything they didn’t already possess, so can we serial link designers free ourselves from our presumed dependency upon IBIS-AMI models, if we are willing to pull the curtain aside and look at the inner workings of the machinery.
A SerDes Rx is quite a bit more complicated than the transmitter. In fact, several aspects of its behavior
Do I still need IBIS-AMI models, in order to do my work?” Fortunately, you don’t.
Consider that, if you took your favorite SerDes designer to lunch and asked “So, how is IBIS-AMI modeling working for you?”, the designer might struggle to contain his or her bemused contempt for you, wondering how anyone can’t be using MATLAB or Python/NumPy/SciPy for the majority of high-speed serial communication link design work.
SerDes designers yearn for the day when we lowly systems designers can converse with them in their native language. It’s probably time for us to become bilingual.
Among SerDes architects, IBIS-AMI is the unwanted stepchild of a modeling standard they’re forced to support only because, if they didn’t, we “systems” (PCB) designers wouldn’t know how to design around their parts.
Understanding the fundamental concepts of serial communication link design really isn’t all that hard. What we need is a community resource that we can use to begin our exploration of serial link design fundamentals, which is completely open and accessible to all.
Introducing PyBERT
PyBERT is a free, open source, public domain, serial communication link modeling and design tool, written in the Python language. It makes use of the Traits/UI library from Enthought to provide a GUI (graphical user interface). It can be used to explore serial link design concepts, as well as to begin the high level architectural tradeoff phase of link design.
Conclusion
I want to make it clear that PyBERT is not intended to replace IBIS-AMI simulation as the vehicle for final sign-off of PCB CAD data, before release to board fabrication. PyBERT is not suitable in this role because it lacks one very important feature: implied liability/accountability on the part of the silicon vendor. This is an important part of the accountability chain for any commercial product, and should not be omitted.
What PyBERT can offer us all is a way to get started on our next serial link design, before IBIS-AMI models of our SERDES become available.
PyBERT
https://github.com/capn-freako/PyBERT/wiki
PyBERT is a serial communication link bit error rate tester (BERT) simulator with a graphical user interface (GUI), written in Python and making use of the Enthought Traits/UI packages. It is intended to give students, hobbyists, and curious engineers the ability to play with serial communication link design concepts. It is not intended as a mission critical tool for use by professional serial communication link designers. There are much better tools available for that purpose.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Linksys WRT routers won’t block open source firmware, despite FCC rules
Technology Lab / Information Technology
Linksys WRT routers won’t block open source firmware despite FCC rules
But come June 2, a lot of other routers will block third-party firmware.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/linksys-wrt-routers-wont-block-open-source-firmware-despite-fcc-rules/
New rules that affect open source firmware on Wi-Fi routers will be implemented on June 2, but not all network hardware will prevent the loading of third-party software.
Linksys has been collaborating with chipmaker Marvell and the makers of OpenWrt to make sure its latest WRT routers can comply with the new rules without blocking open source firmware, company officials told Ars.
Linksys’s effort stands in contrast with TP-Link, which said it would entirely prevent loading of open source firmware on its routers to satisfy the new Federal Communications Commission requirements.
Blocking third-party firmware is the easiest way to comply with the FCC rules, which aim to limit interference with other devices by preventing user modifications that cause radios to operate outside their licensed RF (radio frequency) parameters.
The FCC wrote its rules in response to interference with FAA Doppler weather radar systems. Routers using certain portions of the 5GHz band were already required to use dynamic frequency selection (DFS) in order to detect nearby radar systems and avoid operating on the same channel. But it’s possible for users to disable dynamic frequency selection—the FCC has called this a “major cause of harmful interference.”
Most cases of interference have been caused either by disabling DFS or “devices that have been modified to operate in frequency bands in which they are not certified to operate,” the FCC says.
“Our responsibility to the open source community”
Any 5GHz routers sold on or after June 2 must include security measures that prevent these types of changes. But 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.
This takes more work than simply locking out third-party firmware entirely, but Linksys, a division of Belkin, made the extra effort. On and after June 2, newly sold Linksys WRT routers will store RF parameter data in a separate memory location in order to secure it from the firmware, the company says. That will allow users to keep loading open source firmware the same way they do now.
Other Linksys routers, such as Max-Stream devices, will block open source firmware. But continuing support on the WRT line is a natural move for Linksys, given that the OpenWrt and DD-WRT third-party firmware was originally built for the company’s WRT54G routers more than a decade ago.
“They’re named WRT… it’s almost our responsibility to the open source community,” Linksys router product manager Vince La Duca told Ars.
Using open source isn’t about breaking the rules
While Linksys’s support of open source is partly a marketing strategy, La Duca understands why customers want to use OpenWrt and similar software.
“The real benefit of open source is not breaking the rules and doing something with malicious intent, the value of open source is being able to customize your router, to be able to do privacy browsing through Tor, being able to build an OpenVPN client, being able to strip down the firmware to do super lean, low-latency gaming,” La Duca said. “It’s not about ‘I’m going to go get OpenWrt to go and piss off the FCC.’ It’s about what you can do in expanding the capabilities of what we ship with.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
TechCrunch:
High-speed optical-networking gear maker Acacia Communications raises $103.5M in the second tech IPO this year, closes up 34%+, now valued at $1B+
Acacia soars 35% in second tech IPO of the year
http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/13/acacia-soars-36-in-second-tech-ipo-of-the-year/
It has been a terrible year for tech IPOs. Until now, only SecureWorks braved the market and it didn’t go well.
But Acacia Communications listed on the public markets today and outperformed expectations. After pricing its offering at the top of the range at $23 per share and raising $103.5 million, the company soared to above $30 in its first day of trading, yielding a market cap of above $1 billion.
Although the consumer benefits of high-speed fiber-based connections are easier to understand — no one wants to wait for Netflix to buffer — industry and government stand to gain from the more widespread introduction of fiber, too. Cloud services and smart cities will rely on the speed and strength of fiber connections as they expand — and that’s where Acacia comes in.
Acacia sits at the more large-scale end of the fiber market, advancing fiber optic connectivity in large-scale systems like long-haul connections (it has some submarine installations that stretch over 6,000 miles) and in interconnected data centers. The company offers speeds between 100 and 400 gigabits per second, making it possible for cloud services to rapidly stream vast amounts of data.
Acacia has also made several hardware innovations to improve fiber optic connections. The company has developed silicon optical interconnects to replace legacy products that are bulkier and consume more energy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Bergen / Recode:
How Google Fiber is aggressively competing with cable companies: better service, faster speeds, neighborhood outreach, maybe wireless, and cheaper prices
Google Fiber is the most audacious part of the whole Alphabet
http://www.recode.net/2016/5/11/11613308/google-fiber-alphabet
Forget self-driving cars and drones. Five years later, where is Google’s broadband business going?
Googlers won’t say this out loud, but they despise the cable industry. They find it inert, predatory and, worst, anti-innovation. So Google wants to replace it.
Google has to figure out how to become a nationwide broadband company. Kansas City may offer a road map.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rahul Bhatia / Guardian:
How Facebook, oblivious to India’s concerns, used heavy-handed tactics and failed with Free Basics — ntil Mark Zuckerberg arrived in a bright orange helicopter in October 2014, Chandauli had never seen a celebrity visitor. One of 44,795 villages in the state of Rajasthan …
The long read
The inside story of Facebook’s biggest setback
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/12/facebook-free-basics-india-zuckerberg
The social network had a grand plan to connect millions of Indians to the internet. Here’s how it all went wrong
Tomi Engdahl says:
A mile-supporting wireless local area network
Currently used wireless network standard 802.11ac operates five gigahertz frequency range. Next steps The WLAN standard are 802.11ad and 802.11ah.
Ad-standard focuses on further improving the transmission capacity of wireless networks by using a very high level of 60 gigahertz frequency range. Its maximum speed is rated promises up to seven gigabits per second. Tens of gigahertz-frequency, however, the microwaves pass through materials weakly. In practice, 802.11ad’s use requires a direct line of sight to the base station.
a completely new, designed specifically for long distances 802.11ah standard, which is nicknamed Wi-Fi HaLow.
It operates in the frequency range of 900 MHz that is the same frequencies as several kilometers distance work a longer-range mobile phone networks. Europe activity is limited in practice rather narrow 863-868 MHz region, as most of the 800-900 MHz area is reserved for GSM, UMTS, and LTE networks.
The standard range is not yet published in the official estimates, but probably adequate for the future up to almost a mile distances between the base station and the terminal. the use of directional antennas are likely to increase the possible distances of several kilometers category.
The lower-frequency side of the coin is also lower communication ability. 802.11ah’s maximum speed is likely to be a few tens of megabits per second, and larger distances still considerably lower than that.
In addition to the long-range Wi-Fi halow’n assets such devices include a lot of other WLAN standards for power consumption reduction promised to be with the same order of the Bluetooth protocol. Power saving is achieved by a variety of techniques.
the design of the new standard has been from the very beginning of the Internet of Things, and various control and automation applications. One 802.11ah base station can serve up to thousands of terminal devices within range.
Sluggish schedule of trouble ah-standard sized, with new support for low-power devices is about to enter, as well as Bluetooth for short-range and long-range LTE technologies.
While bluetooth devices allows direct communication with each other and LTE while a direct connection to the Internet without an access point, can the acquisition of new base stations requiring WLAN remain marginalized in many applications.
The most promising applications 802.11ah for there are differences in the control, automation and data collection technologies with the need to direct Internet connection is not necessarily the case, and the range of technologies such as Bluetooth, for example, a large enough property in the area.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/kilometrin-kantava-langaton-lahiverkko-6550041
Tomi Engdahl says:
Silicon Labs timing technology for coherent optical market
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4442006/Silicon-Labs-Timing-Technology-for-Coherent-Optical-Market?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160516&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160516&elqTrackId=1af11e99a7fb4fe8b911ca6f5588097a&elq=142e18f90fcc490f89513b234b81fa24&elqaid=32274&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28181
Coherent optical communications is a method of achieving the highest receiver sensitivity, excellent spectral efficiency and longest transmission distance for Next-Gen optical communication systems. Coherent receivers are much more complex than a simpler direct detection receiver, but the benefits outweigh the complexity of this design.
One of the largest growth drivers in the communications market is the industry’s transition from 10G to 100G in metro area networks and data center interconnect (DCI). Coherent optics is an enabling technology for 100G and 400G applications because it allows service providers to send more data over existing optical fiber, minimizing the cost and complexity of network upgrades for bandwidth expansion. In this world of growing numbers of Data Centers and Data Center complexity, a key application for coherent 100G and 400G optical is to connect Data Centers to each other.
Analog coherent optics (ACO) pluggable concepts use small form factor CFP2 and CFP4 pluggable modules to increase face-plate density on line cards which employ many DSP processors. Small solution size, low cost and high performance are essential in this market.
Analog coherent optics (ACO) pluggable concepts use small form factor CFP2 and CFP4 pluggable modules to increase face-plate density on line cards which employ many DSP processors. Small solution size, low cost and high performance are essential in this market.
Their latest offering are the Si534xH coherent optical clocks which replace discrete timing solutions that rely on expensive, large-footprint voltage-controlled SAW oscillators (VCSOs) to provide low-jitter reference timing for data converters.
The Si5344H and Si5342H clocks combine frequency flexibility with very low jitter of 50 fs RMS.
This series of clocks are purpose-built to address the timing requirements of 100G/400G coherent optics.
This is an ultra-high-performance jitter-attenuating PLL designed for transmitter and receiver clocking high-speed drivers for data converter clocking of up to 2.7 GHz with ultra-low phase noise.
Typical jitter performance of 50 fs RMS (1 MHz to 40 MHz) MultiSynth fractional frequency synthesis for generating any frequency up to 712.5 MHz.
Pricing begins at $27 (USD) in 10,000-unit quantities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia offers up 10 Gbps HFC demo
‘CAMELOT!’ … ‘It’s only a model’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/17/nokia_offers_up_10_gbps_hfc_demo/
Nokia Networks has applied the paddles to the chest of cable broadband, pumped in the volts, and sent it sprinting at 10 Gbps.
While the company says the proof-of-concept work demonstrates the viability of CableLabs’ DOCSIS 3.1 roadmap, it’s not yet working directly with the group.
The company showed off a demo of its XG-Cable technology at Boston’s Internet & Television Expo. It managed to squeeze 1.2 GHz of analogue bandwidth out of the user-side coaxial copper, enough to run 10 Gbps symmetrical transmissions.
The demo showed off two scenarios: a single point-to-point run over a coaxial drop cable (the 10 Gbps transmission), and 7.5 Gbps in the more familiar point-to-multipoint HFC drop cable deployment.
In the its canned statement, the company says Nokia Bell Labs (then, of course, part of Alcatel-Lucent) started work on XG-Cable in 2014. Its aim is to get the technology to work on cable runs of 200 metres.
The technology is outlined in this Nokia white paper (PDF).
http://resources.alcatel-lucent.com/asset/195765
XG-CABLE for HFC networks
New technology enables full duplex transmission for
10 Gb/s symmetrical services on existing HFC infrastructure
XG-CABLE, a breakthrough innovation from Nokia Bell Labs, gives cable and
multiple system operators (MSO) the potential to provide 10 Gb/s symmetrical
services over their existing hybrid fiber-coaxial networks. XG-CABLE effectively
doubles the capacity of HFC networks by enabling full duplex transmission
with extremely wideband echo cancellation (1.2 GHz) while eliminating the
interference that once made full duplex impossible. This proof of concept
technology could be made compatible with legacy DOCSIS networks and
validates CableLabs® Full Duplex DOCSIS® 3.1 proposal. This is significant since
it addresses upstream constraints that have long been the Achilles’ heel of
DOCSIS technologies, just as cable operators face the challenge of growing
demand for cloud services, HD video uploads, real-time gaming, live streaming
video and virtual or augmented reality.
Fiber-to-the-last-amplifier
A FTTLA deployment would consist of an optical overlay network to the last
amplifier. The connection from the XG-CABLE node to users would then be
a point-to-multi-point connection, as is the case in today’s networks. Fiberto-
the-building deployments, with a shared point-to-multi-point coaxial
infrastructure inside the building are considered to be a subset of FTTLA
deployments, with similar characteristics.
The XG-CABLE node would typically be forward powered (from the network
over the legacy feeder coaxial cable, as is the case for powering amplifiers
today) or locally powered. Since the FTTLA section is point-to-multi-point,
a legacy migration and coexistence scenario needs to be in place when
deploying XG-CABLE.
XG-CABLE was tested in the above FTTLT and FTTLA deployment scenarios
using 1.2 GHz of signal bandwidth (the bandwidth typically supported by
DOCSIS 3.1).
Considerations for deployment
Any significant change in technology requires new investment in the network.
However, XG-CABLE, like Full Duplex DOCSIS, has been designed with existing
outside plant in mind and implementing XG-CABLE is potentially comparable
with a move from DOCSIS 3.0 to DOCSIS 3.1.
As such, XG-CABLE is only suitable for deployments in passive
HFC networks (last amplifier or beyond). This requires fiber to be pushed
deeper into the network. However, many operators are already pursuing
a deep-fiber strategy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cell phone networks macrocells base stations sold this year to 48 billion dollars. unfortunately Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei for ABI Research has forecast that the market will no longer turn to growth.
$ 48 billion is, of course, a lot of money, but the two percent less than last year. The same amount of market shrank in 2015, which has led manufacturers to seek cost savings.
Unfortunately, it is not a momentary market drop. According to ABI Research, the market will shrink next year sent more than 10 percent a year every year.
According to the Institute taam due to the fact that operators are constantly looking for cost-effective options to increase capacity. This means, for example, the construction of smaller cells, as well as the use of Wi-Fi networks as part of the transfer of data traffic.
Most of the macro sold in Asia. But even there, the market is shrinking
ABI predicts better development only after 2020, when the operators take slowly to invest in the future 5G networks.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4430:huonoja-uutisia-tukiasemamyynti-kutistuu&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elisa tests TV frequencies for mobile connections
Elisa testing in Oulu for the first time in the Nordic new 700 MHz frequency, which is being introduced in mobile broadband. The new frequency would improve mobile network coverage and capacity. In the past, the frequency has been used in television.
Elisa tested the 700 MHz frequency Oulu, Nokia’s systems. The new spectrum will need, especially outside the cities.
“The new 700 MHz frequency band provides additional capacity over a wide coverage area, which means more and faster and better connections, especially in rural areas in terms of users,” Elisa’s mobile networks responsible leader Sami Komulainen says.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/05/18/elisa-testaa-televisiotaajuuksia-kannykkayhteyksiin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The operator live or die with IoT
Tele2 operator IoT business drive marketing director Rami Avidan IoT stressed the importance of the operator’s point of view. – The operator either to live or die IoT’s time.
Avidan justified his view by the fact that the company – the operator – will have to change the technology involved. – Traditional operator does not grow. We IoT business grows 14 percent every month, Avidan praised.
As a result, the operator must create a large ecosystem. – Contact with partners to innovate together. These include hardware and module suppliers, cloud vendors, system integrators and application developers IoT.
IoT is not a technology but a strategy.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4455:operaattori-elaa-tai-kuolee-iot-n-kanssa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Tools & Learning> Products> Product Review
BERT takes on 400 Gbps links
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4442038/BERT-takes-on-400-Gbps-links?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160519&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160519&elqTrackId=828d320864f54a939f68540129ebed51&elq=5923aebb34184fbeb2e9900dfb074a58&elqaid=32329&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28237
If you walked the exhibit floor or attended the conference at DesignCon or OFC, then you surely heard talk of 400 Gbps links. Both IEEE 802.3bs and OIF CEI-56G (Optical Internetworking Forum) have declared that 400 Gbps links will use eight 56 Gbps channels and both standards allow for the use of either 56 Gbps NRZ (non-return-to zero) or 28 Gbps PAM4 four-level pulse-amplitude modulation). Regardless of which transmission for you use, you’ll need to generate test patterns and measure bit errors.
Seeing that need, Keysight Technologies has introduced the M8040 BERT (bit-error rate tester). Consisting of AXIe pattern generator and error detector modules, the M8040A can,at the present time, produce and detect 32 Gbps NRZ and 32 Gbaud (64 Gbps) PAM4 signals. Future versions will double the data rates. The current 32 Gbaud (64 Gbps) PAM4 capability give the M8040A the ability to test 28 Gbaud (56 Gbps) PAM4 links now.
NRZ and PAM4 modulation are software selectable
M8040A 64 GBaud High-performance BERT
http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-2694474-pn-M8040A/64-gbaud-high-performance-bert?&cc=FI&lc=fin
Tomi Engdahl says:
IEEE 802.11 WiFi technology that is starting to be a technique of legal age. The first 802.11b routers appeared on the market 18 years ago. Now under construction is a new standard that increases speed WLAN networks in more than 10 Gbps. The standard is being worked at 802.11ax.
802.11ax is operating frequency of 5 GHz.
Ax has reached the standard draft version 0.1, and it can be used to link the four OFDA-based (Orthogonal Frequency Division Access).
In practice, each of the four MIMO channel is divided into hundreds of sub-channels. This raises a link spectral efficiency theoretically up to 10-fold. In practice, it is estimated that as compared to the ac connections data rate will increase 3-4 fold.
802.11ax technology is expected to bring devices in practice about two gigabit data connection.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4464:wifi-kiihtyy-10-gigabittiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Troubleshooting a wireless network link
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/benchtalk/4441983/Troubleshooting-a-wireless-network-link?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160519&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160519&elqTrackId=9c9100100d3841afa5744b7a6c477d91&elq=7fcc0452ef4a451da9b63317e3767e82&elqaid=32323&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28231
Since moving to our new home, I’ve been trying to get a 200m wireless network link to work well (it brings Internet connectivity to a second building). It has been working, but because there isn’t a clear line-of-sight, and because it uses the easily absorbed 2.4GHz band, performance inversely correlates to dampness. Wet snow or heavy rain will wipe out the link. For more background, see my previous blogs, linked at the end.
Before trying anything too fancy – like external antennas or Fresnel RF lenses – I took the low-tech approach and experimented again with the link locations. Moving the “base station” link 10m northwest made a significant improvement: 12dB or more in bad weather, somewhat less is good. This brought bad-weather performance to better than what good-weather performance used to be. Yay.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Study: Bandwidth alone forcing companies to adopt next-gen infrastructure
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/05/study-bandwidth-alone-forcing-companies-to-adopt-next-gen-infrastructure.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_May232016&eid=289644432&bid=1411414
Those are the results published in Viavi Solutions’ ninth annual “State of the Network” global study. The study asked 740 CIOs, IT directors, and network engineers around the world about the adoption of next-gen technologies.
According to the study, more than half (54 per cent) expect bandwidth requirements to grow by 50 per cent this year, and almost half (48 per cent) expect it to double, by the end of next year. For that reason, companies are deploying 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100 GbE), public and private cloud, as well as software-defined networking (SDN).
“ Data networks of all types, around the globe, are being strained by an explosion of traffic, from bandwidth-hungry video today to the Internet of Things tomorrow,”