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:
World cabling market declined 3 percent in 2015
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/05/world-cabling-market-3-percent-decline-2015.html
In BSRIA’s most recent World Cabling Overview, which it completed in March, the market-intelligence firm declares the global cabling market declined 3 percent in 2015, to $6 billion after 2014’s $6.2 billion in manufacturer selling price (MSP). The market estimation covers 39 countries. When announcing the results, BSRIA commented, “The strong dollar has reduced market values in 2015 in many countries, measured in U.S. dollars, and has therefore expanded the decline to 3 percent.”
The China market grew, but at a rate of 2.3 percent in U.S. dollars (3.8 percent in local currency) “after years of significant growth, as the local area networks market suffered from lack of new construction,” according to BSRIA. “The data center segment performed very well, but it was not enough to boost the overall increase.”
The LAN market’s decline was slightly more than the data center market’s
“Sales of Category 6A continue to increase, and account for 18 percent of the cabling solutions sold by volume in 2015,”
“Category 5e is still very much sold in Asia-Pacific and America, with close to a third of all cables shipped in those regions, while sales only account for 15 percent in Europe and 7 percent in the Middle East and South Africa.”
The many facets of the data center cabling market are like a mosaic. Fiber-optic products represent more than two thirds of all cabling installed in data centers, according to BSRIA, and the uptake of fiber continues to increase—driven particularly by large and cloud data centers. “Most of the hyperscale data centers are 90 to 100 percent fiber, and both medium and large data centers are seeing an increase in use of fiber,” BSRIA said. “Copper cabling continues to be installed in computer rooms and small data centers, and are more common in colocation data centers compared to enterprise data centers, as colocation data centers in general are more cost-focused.
Tomi Engdahl says:
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_productsandtools_20160523&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160523&elqTrackId=52844d37f39849d2a6ddc1d966dfe058&elq=963c21bc789c481caa90e302be4b29a4&elqaid=32353&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28265
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.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NXP Aims to Target IoT
Cable may become wireless gateway
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329731&
By taking Freescale Semiconductor’s communications chip expertise and combining it with free internet of things (IoT) integration software, NXP aims to stop users from cutting the cable by offering smart, easy-to-use home-wide IoT integration services that turn cable operators into super-internet-service-providers (super ISPs).
“There’s no reason all types of Internet of Things devices around the home cannot be integrated by a smart gateway centered on WiFi, but also supporting the other communications standards like Bluetooth and regular TV,” Jim Bridgwater, senior product manager for digital networking at NXP Semiconductors told EE Times.
In an era where more and more people are cutting the cable—especially in neighborhoods that have alternative internet service providers (ISPs) such as fiber—cable operators are looking for ways to keep from becoming irrelevant.
The key for cable companies to keep the younger audiences coming to them is offering them a free smart gateway that integrates all their IoT devices, plus offers them Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and the legions of look-a-likes on whichever screen they wish to view it at the moment. These home gateways have also got to be smart, so that handling voice, data and video is all done seamlessly without interruption or compromise.
To simplify the cable engineers job of integrating all the IoT devices into their traditional TV-only modem, the company has added a software stack to Freescale’s chips that comes free with the QorIQ chips called the OpenWrt operating system and its associated application development kit.
The up to 20-gigabit per second bi-directional broadband chip sets consumes the usual amount of power for a traditional TV modem, but can also are cranked down to as slow as 1-Gbps for a significant savings in power.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Test wireless devices and emulate their networks
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4442055/Test-wireless-devices-and-emulate-their-networks?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160523&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160523&elqTrackId=8233a9fac5014fe2acf16a0f6ad1c780&elq=963c21bc789c481caa90e302be4b29a4&elqaid=32353&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28265
Testing wireless devices requires that you either just put them into live situations and hope for the best or emulate their conditions and analyze their actions. octoPal from octoScope lets you emulate cellular base stations, routers, and access points. It’s a supplemental product for the octoBox, letting you not only emulate wireless devices, but control antennas inside the box to emulate signal conditions, including MIMO. Wi-Fi emulation supports 802.11 a, b, g, n, and ac.
In addition to emulating network condition for performing functional tests, octoPal can monitor communications and test for throughput, packet loss, packet latency, packet jitter (RFC2544), data and channel-rate adaptation, coexistence, and other parameters.
http://www.octoscope.com/English/Products/Ordering/octoBox/ob-octoPal.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
The first 94 GHz integrated radio circuits
San Francisco IMS2016 conference, the Arralis company introduced the world’s first integrated 94 GHz radio circuit, in which the transmitter and receiver are planted in the same 5.2 x 2.2 millimeter chip.
The integrated circuit solution means in practice is that very interesting 90-100 GHz frequency band opens for commercial and communication use. At these frequencies, circuits can be made very small, they are accurate in resolution and range of the radio link can be made very long.
These features can be used in many application. Arralis itself lists as potential areas for 5G networks, robotic cars, the Internet of Things and control of various quad copters.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4477:ensimmaiset-94-gigahertsin-integroidut-radiopiirit&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
OPNFV
https://www.opnfv.org/
OPNFV is a new open source project focused on accelerating NFV’s evolution through an integrated, open platform.
Enea NFV Lab
http://services.enea.com/services/packaged-services/enea-nfv-lab
Enea offers services around OPNFV deployments, plus prototyping, developing, testing, and porting virtual network functions in a state-of-the-art hardware laboratory.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia could cut 10,000-15,000 jobs worldwide: union
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nokia-corp-redundancies-idUSKCN0YF0WD?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FbusinessNews+%28Business+News%29
Telecom network equipment maker Nokia (NOKIA.HE) is likely to cut 10,000 to 15,000 jobs globally – far more than it has announced so far – after its acquisition of Franco-American rival Alcatel-Lucent (ALUA.PA), a Finnish union representative said.
The company has announced plans for around 2,400 job cuts in Finland and Germany as part of a cost-cutting program but has not so far given a global figure.
Cuts on the scale estimated by the union would represent as much as 14 percent of Nokia’s worldwide work force of 104,000.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Karl Bode / Techdirt:
Reddit, Automattic, Medium, Vimeo, Kickstarter, Foursquare, Mozilla, Yelp, Pinterest, and others urge FCC to formally evaluate broadband caps and zero rating
Reddit, Mozilla, Others Urge FCC To Formally Investigate Broadband Usage Caps And Zero Rating
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20160524/09450534536/reddit-mozilla-others-urge-fcc-to-formally-investigate-broadband-usage-caps-zero-rating.shtml
We’ve noted how the FCC’s latest net neutrality rules do a lot of things right, but they failed to seriously address zero rating or broadband usage caps, opening the door to ISPs violently abusing net neutrality — just as long as they’re relatively clever about it. And plenty of companies have been walking right through that open door. Both Verizon and Comcast for example now exempt their own streaming services from these caps, giving them an unfair leg up in the marketplace. AT&T meanwhile is now using usage caps to force customers to subscribe to TV services if they want to enjoy unlimited data.
In each instance you’ve got companies using usage caps for clear anti-competitive advantage, while industry-associated think tanks push misleading studies and news outlet editorials claiming that zero rating’s a great boon to consumers and innovation alike.
The FCC’s net neutrality rules don’t ban usage caps or zero rating, unlike rules in Chile, Slovenia, Japan, India, Norway and The Netherlands. The FCC did however state that the agency would examine such practices on a “case by case” basis under the “general conduct” portion of the rules.
Given the FCC’s decision to ban usage caps at Charter as a merger condition, the agency is clearly aware of the threat zero rating and caps pose to a healthy Internet.
Either way it’s increasingly clear that the FCC needs to take some public position on the subject as ISPs continue to test the agency’s murky boundaries
Tomi Engdahl says:
Millimeter Wave Conference Highlights the Quest for Bandwidth
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329755&
The 5G cellular network — one application expected to benefit from higher bandwidth — will get a lot of attention at IMS.
Developments in millimeter wave technology serve as pointers (hidden treasure, perhaps) on the quest for radio frequency bandwidth. Whether it’s 5G deployments, automotive radar, or WiFi access points, RF system developers are interested in increasing the runway for their data exchanges, says Dr. Amarpal Khanna, distinguished engineer at National Instruments and general conference chair of the International Microwave Symposium (IMS), which opens in San Francisco this week.
The 5G cellular network — one application expected to benefit from higher bandwidth — will get a lot of attention at IMS. Definition of a 5G mobile standard is expected to be complete in 2018, and deployments will likely roll out in 2021 or 2022. Higher carrier frequencies are expected to enable this. Some 5G system developers are experimenting with the 71-76 GHz frequency band, and the results of Nokia experiments are encouraging, Dr. Khanna says. By using 2 GHz bandwidth, in one experiment, developers demonstrated data rates up to 10 Gbits/s riding on a 73 GHz carrier.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft and Facebook, swimming in the sea,
N-E-T-W-O-R-K-I-N-G
Strange bedfellows decide to build 160 terabit-per-second trans-Atlantic submarine cable
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/27/microsoft_and_facebook_swimming_in_the_sea_br_networking/
Microsoft and Facebook have decided to fund a submarine cable together.
The MAREA cable will run from from Virginia Beach, Virginia to Bilbao, Spain. Virginia’s new territory for trans-Atlantic cables, so Microsoft and Facebook are talking this up as adding resiliency to traffic between the USA and Europe. Bilbao’s already a landing point for at least one cable, Tata Communications’ TGN-Western Europe and has good connections into Spain and beyond.
Most trans-Atlantic cables land in the UK
Microsoft and Facebook claim the cable will have more capacity than any previous cable spanning the Atlantic, a claim that just about every new cable can make because each new connection uses newer technology. Let’s not rain on the parade too hard: eight fiber pairs at an initial 160Tbps is a lot of bandwidth!
Construction will start in August 2017 and, weather permitting, conclude in October 2017.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Third Of New Cellular Customers Last Quarter Were Cars
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/05/26/1824240/a-third-of-new-cellular-customers-last-quarter-were-cars
With the U.S. smartphone market saturated, most of the growth in the cellular industry is actually coming from other kinds of devices including tablets, machine-to-machine connections and lots and lots of cars. In the first quarter, for example, the major carriers actually added more connected cars (Editor’s note: amounting to a 32 percent capture) as new accounts than they did phones.
A third of new cellular customers last quarter were cars
Most smartphones go to existing customers, with the real growth coming from tablets and other devices.
http://www.recode.net/2016/5/26/11785930/connected-cars-cellular-growth
With the U.S. smartphone market saturated, most of the growth in the cellular industry is actually coming from other kinds of devices including tablets, machine-to-machine connections and lots and lots of cars.
In the first quarter, for example, the major carriers actually added more connected cars as new accounts than they did phones.
That doesn’t mean there weren’t a lot of phones sold, though, but most smartphones went to existing customers. When it comes to new accounts added, so-called “net adds,” things were fairly split among cars, tablets, phones and industrial connections, according to a new report from industry consultant Chetan Sharma.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia transferred a 8K-video 5G connection
Japanese NTT DoCoMo says succeeded together with Nokia to transfer real-time 8K video 5G wireless technology. The experiment took place in Japan a week ago.
The test used was very experimental system. The wireless link used a 70-gigahertz frequency, which Nokia has been testing a lot for the future 5G connections. NTT, in turn, encoded bit stream to the company’s own Media Intelligence Laboratories developing H.265 / High Efficiency Video Coding technology.
8K-video refers to the picture format, where the horizontal is 8000 pixels. The entire image resolution is typically 7680 × 4320 points.
Raw 8K-video calls to send data at a rate of 48 gigabits per second.
It was encoded to packed 85-145 megabit video signal.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4499:nokia-siirsi-8k-videota-5g-yhteydella&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Competition is intensifying in 5G
Fight agreements 5G networks has begun although the actual standard is still expected. Ericsson says it has signed a letter of intent for the development for over twenty-5G technologies. At the same lookout to the Nokia and the Chinese company Huawei.
5G network is expected to enter the consumer market by 2020, and Ericsson predicts the world 150 million 5G subscriptions by 2021.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/05/27/kisa-kovenee-ericssonille-uusia-5g-sopimuksia/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Millimeter Wave Conference Highlights the Quest for Bandwidth
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329755&
The 5G cellular network — one application expected to benefit from higher bandwidth — will get a lot of attention at IMS.
Developments in millimeter wave technology serve as pointers (hidden treasure, perhaps) on the quest for radio frequency bandwidth. Whether it’s 5G deployments, automotive radar, or WiFi access points, RF system developers are interested in increasing the runway for their data exchanges, says Dr. Amarpal Khanna, distinguished engineer at National Instruments and general conference chair of the International Microwave Symposium (IMS), which opens in San Francisco this week.
The 5G cellular network — one application expected to benefit from higher bandwidth — will get a lot of attention at IMS. Definition of a 5G mobile standard is expected to be complete in 2018, and deployments will likely roll out in 2021 or 2022. Higher carrier frequencies are expected to enable this. Some 5G system developers are experimenting with the 71-76 GHz frequency band, and the results of Nokia experiments are encouraging, Dr. Khanna says. By using 2 GHz bandwidth, in one experiment, developers demonstrated data rates up to 10 Gbits/s riding on a 73 GHz carrier.
Dr. Khanna reminds. One 5G system may provide 10Gbits/s close to base station while handling few subscribers
But the data rate may go down to 100 Mbits/s at the edge of the coverage area — even while handling a larger number of subscribers.
Other millimeter wave applications featured at IMS include automotive radar, Pico basestation Cells, and WiFi network expansions — all trying to find additional bandwidth for their communications
The next-generation WiFi, Dr. Khanna feels, will utilize carriers in the range of 59 to 67 GHz. Current-generation WiFi uses 5.8 GHz carriers, but access remains limited. IMS papers will examine some of the challenges to implementing a 10GHz bandwidth on new WiFi deployments.
Millimeter wave transceivers have become key components in emerging consumer and commercial applications
Tomi Engdahl says:
Millennials Value Speed Over Security, Says Survey
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/05/26/2019205/millennials-value-speed-over-security-says-survey
Millennials stand apart from other Americans in preferring faster Internet access to safer Internet access, according to a new survey. When digital-authentication firm SecureAuth asked people from all age groups whether they would rather be safer online or browse faster online, 57 percent of Americans chose security and 43 percent chose speed. But among millennials, the results were almost reversed: 54 percent chose speed over security. Young people are also more willing than the overall population to share sensitive information over public Wi-Fi connections, which are notoriously insecure as they allow anyone on the network to analyze and intercept passing traffic.
Unlike other Americans, millennials value speed over security online
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/americans-internet-security-speed-preferences-survey/
Millennials stand apart from other Americans in preferring faster Internet access to safer Internet access, according to a new survey.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cade Metz / Wired:
Facebook and Microsoft partner to lay highest capacity transatlantic internet cable yet, connecting Virginia and Spain with a bandwidth of 160Tbps — Facebook and Microsoft are laying a massive Internet cable across the middle of the Atlantic. — Dubbed MAREA—Spanish for “tide” …
Facebook and Microsoft Are Laying a Giant Cable Across the Atlantic
http://www.wired.com/2016/05/facebook-microsoft-laying-giant-cable-across-atlantic/
Facebook and Microsoft are laying a massive cable across the middle of the Atlantic.
Dubbed MAREA—Spanish for “tide”—this giant underwater cable will stretch from Virginia to Bilbao, Spain, shuttling digital data across 6,600 kilometers of ocean. Providing up to 160 terabits per second of bandwidth—about 16 million times the bandwidth of your home Internet connection—it will allow the two tech titans to more efficiently move enormous amounts of information between the many computer data centers and network hubs that underpin their popular online services.
The fact that these Internet giants are laying their own cables—at their own expense—shows just how much data these giants must move. Consider the services they run: Google offers its eponymous search engine, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps, and so many more. Microsoft offers Bing, Office365, and its Azure cloud services. Facebook has its social network along with Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The data moved by just a few online giants now dwarfs that of most others, so much so that, according to telecommunications research firm Telegeography, more than two thirds of the digital data moving across the Atlantic is traveling on private networks—namely networks operated by the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. That’s up from 10 percent just a few years ago. “It’s a tremendous change,”
With so much data flowing across their systems, these companies are scrambling to build new infrastructure.
In the past, Facebook has joined consortia that operate other undersea cables—groups typically made up of telecom companies—but this project is different.
“The consortium model is much slower than what we would like,” Ahmad says.
Much the same applies to Microsoft. That said, the two Internet giants aren’t abandoning the telecom industry altogether.
The location of the cable also suits the specific needs of Facebook and Microsoft.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The new wireless link to try on your smartphone
Developed by the Japanese Toshiba TransferJet technology for fast wireless transfer of files have already been about five years old, but the extent to which it is still not a breakthrough. Now, the situation may change
Antenova is known as a developer of mobile antennas, but developed TransferJet connections Zoma is not an antenna in its traditional sense. The antenna will attempt to send a signal far as possible, but TransferJet switch focuses the near-field signals, and data transmission starts only when the two devices touch each other or come very close to each other.
Zoma switch has a size of 4 x 4 x 0.4 mm
Link physical speed of 560 megabits per second, which in practice means the transmission of data about 375 megabits per second.
Until now, the market has been seen mainly in their own Toshiba TransferJet USB sticks, but now believes Antenova technology spread to smart phones, PC micro families, tablets, digital cameras, and even M2M devices.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4506:uusi-langaton-linkki-yrittaa-alypuhelimeen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ina Fried / Recode:
Report: in Q1 2016, 69% of new cellular accounts in the US came from cars, tablets, and IoT; cars accounted for 32% of new accounts versus 31% for phones
A third of new cellular customers last quarter were cars
Most smartphones go to existing customers, with the real growth coming from tablets and other devices.
http://www.recode.net/2016/5/26/11785930/connected-cars-cellular-growth
With the U.S. smartphone market saturated, most of the growth in the cellular industry is actually coming from other kinds of devices including tablets, machine-to-machine connections and lots and lots of cars.
In the first quarter, for example, the major carriers actually added more connected cars as new accounts than they did phones.
Mobile Market Update – Q1 2016
http://www.chetansharma.com/usmarketupdateq12016.htm
Tomi Engdahl says:
Net Neutrality is complicated: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales
Wales also defended Wikipedia Zero, a project to provide internet free of cost on mobile phones in developing markets.
http://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internet/net-neutrality-is-complicated-says-wikipedia-founder-jimmy-wales/52507449
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has backed the principle of net neutrality, even as he admitted it was a complicated topic and that getting access to knowledge for poor people is equally important.
Net neutrality is back in the news after Indian telecom regulator TRAI floated a pre-consultation paper on Monday, seeking responses from stakeholders on what should comprise the key principles around net neutrality in India.
In an exclusive interview to ET NOW from London, Wales also defended Wikipedia Zero, a project to provide internet free of cost on mobile phones in developing markets.
“Wikipedia zero follows a very strict set of principles such as no money is ever exchanged and so on. Net neutrality is such a complicated topic, it is something that I am extremely passionate about and I think is incredibly important.”
When asked about the legislation in India, particularly the recent ban on Facebook’s Free Basics and the best alternatives to zero-rated products, Wales said, “I am not an expert of specific legislation in India.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel’s new plan: A circle that starts in your hand and ends in the cloud
Atom-powered home kit so ISPs can pipe VMs into your house
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/31/intels_new_plan_a_circle_that_starts_in_your_hand_and_ends_in_the_cloud/
As predicted by The Register, Intel has created an x86-powered reference platform for home gateways that makes the box you use for broadband services an Atom-powered target for virtual machines delivered by carriers.
Announced today at Computex in Taipei, the new AnyWAN GRX750 is a system-on-a-chip that can serve as the basis for modern/routers that is ready to build into devices capable of connecting over DSL, fiber optics, G.fast or 4g/5G wireless. Chipzilla has also created a new Wi-Fi chipset, the XWAY WAV500, that it expects will often reside in the AnyWAN. The company’s said the combination can serve 100 Wi-Fi-connected devices at up to 1Gbps.
The multi-connection cocktail alone will put the cat among the pigeons in the home gateway market, a field in which many players specialise in one carriage standard or another.
“Being able to deploy on-premises applications is a far more efficient way than upgrading devices,” she told The Register. She also used the opportunity to call on carriers to embark on a “cloudification” of their infrastructure to reduce dependency on proprietary kit and instead just use servers for everything
Making home gateways a target for NFV also plays into Intel’s new strategy, outlined today by Bryant and Client Computing Group corporate veep and general manager Navin Shenoy. The pair explained that Intel’s post-PC plan starts with helping device-makers to cook up cool kit – be it PCs, telematics modules for cars or drones packing an Edison board and Intel’s RealSense depth-viewing camera.
That hardware should, whenever possible, feed data to, rely on or integrate with cloud services running Xeons inside servers… lots of servers. In Intel’s ideal world, that Xeon-powered back-endery is so much fun to consume that we all buy more devices, which means more servers, and before you can worry about the decline of the PC market, Chipzilla will have sold more stuff into cars and Internet of Things things than it ever dreamed of selling into PCs or smartphones.
High-resolution or virtual video can run on any device, but Intel is betting that more grunt makes a difference and will mean people use PCs for 4K and virtual viewing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm Expects Chip Family to Enable Wireless Virtual Reality
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329806&
Qualcomm, the world’s largest supplier of chips for mobile devices, announced a suite of chips today at the Taipei Computex electronics show that it expects will extend Wi-Fi to enable new functionality such as 4k media streaming and wireless virtual reality.
The company said the family of tri-radio chips will bring high-end performance and greater ease of use into mainstream 802.11ac routers for home networks. IEEE 802.11ac is an extension of Wi-Fi for high-throughput wireless local area networks on the 5 GHz band.
The new chips provide the capability to do things like wireless docking on a desktop PC because performance exceeds that of a typical USB cable, according to the company.
Tomi Engdahl says:
In a few years the network has more connected objects than mobile phones
According to Ericsson’s mobile traffic will continue to grow and the number of 12-fold by 2021. Ericsson’s forecast reflected the growth in the industrial Internet (IoT), according to which the number of connected devices exceeds the number of mobile phones in 2018.
Ericsson’s recent book, according to the report the number of IoT devices is increasing annually by 23 per cent. Globally network connected devices should be as a result of growth in 2021 a total of 28 billion, of which 16 billion would be industrial-Fi devices.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/06/01/parissa-vuodessa-verkkoon-enemman-esineita-kannykoita/
More:
Ericsson Mobility Report
http://www.ericsson.com/mobility-report
In this Ericsson Mobility Report, we continue to describe the evolution towards the Networked Society.
Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to surpass mobile phones as the largest category of connected devices in 2018
Between 2015 and 2021, IoT is expected to increase at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23 percent, making up close to 16 billion of the total forecast 28 billion connected devices by 2021.
LTE subscriptions grew at a high rate during Q1 2016. There were 150 million new subscriptions during the quarter, reaching a total of 1.2 billion worldwide. Subscriptions associated with smartphones also continue to increase, and are expected to exceed those for basic phones in Q3 this year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finnish company to import the video 4G-government network
Emergency telephones and their management solutions developer Bittium is presented in conjunction with the French Air-Lynx’s the world’s first multimedia transmission solution for LTE to public authority networks. eMBMS technology presented yesterday in Amsterdam started Critical Communications World Fair.
Emergency telephones and their management solutions developer Bittium is presented in conjunction with the French Air-Lynx’s the world’s first multimedia transmission solution for LTE to public authority networks. eMBMS technology presented yesterday in Amsterdam alkaneilla Critical Communications World Fair.
eMBMS solution allows the entire LTE radio spectrum efficient use and can be used to transfer huge amounts of data in a congested network environments.
LTE technology enables the use of broadband data connections, giving rise to a wealth of data traffic purposes, such as real-time video transmissions.
eMBMS technology, the access to LTE networks used by authorities include video streaming and snapshot to clarify the mission critical push-to-talk applications
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4524:suomalaisyritys-tuo-videon-4g-viranomaisverkkoon&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia has introduced Ultra Compact Network solution, which can be imported into the 4G access for virtually any environment. For example, authorities obtained a high-quality field communication device, which is suitable for backpack.
Ultra Compact Network bottom of 4G networks Flexi-iron, and it is the company’s smallest designed to official use of the product. According to Nokia, the device is ideal for backpackers, for example, in addition to four helicopters flown or even a police car ride carriage.
If the situation requires a little more coverage and a larger number of users, Nokia has presented this last year Network in a Box concept. However, this is the smallest base station produces 75 kilometer perimeter 4G cell 400 to the user.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4512&via=n&datum=2016-06-01_11:19:43&mottagare=30929
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Meeker / KPCB:
Meeker report: global internet users surpass 3B but adoption rate flat except in India; voice assistants’ word accuracy, latency, usage rates continue improving — The 2016 edition of Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report covers today’s Internet growth and an in-depth look at the following:
http://www.kpcb.com/blog/2016-internet-trends-report
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kathleen Chaykowski / Forbes:
Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report: in 5 years 50%+ of searches will be through images or speech; both global internet adoption and economic growth slowing
Five Highlights From Mary Meeker’s 2016 Internet Trends Report
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2016/06/01/five-highlights-from-mary-meekers-2016-internet-trends-report/#11f19d7f7dac
1.Slowing global Internet growth: Global Internet user growth was flat from 2014 to 2015 at 9% year-over-year, and down from more than 15% in 2009. Why? Meeker said it’s harder to acquire new Internet users globally now that such a high portion of people in developed countries are already online.
2.“Easy” economic growth is over: Global economic growth in six of the last eight years is below the 20-year average of 3.8% (from 1996 through 2015).
3.The era of the image: Images are growing in importance and use, while text, and specifically textual search, are fading. Meeker said in five years, at least 50% of searches will be made through images or speech.
4.Messaging as the new mobile home screen: Over time, messaging apps could overtake the home screen on mobile devices. This is believable given that 80% of users’ mobile time is spent in three apps, and the average global mobile user accesses just 12 apps daily.
5.Rise of voice interfaces: Meeker said voice should become the most efficient form of computing input, largely because it is hands and vision-free. Voice lends itself to an “always on” way of life. Humans can speak 150 words per minute, for instance, but can type only 40 words per minute.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco has moved three members of its legendary ‘MPLS team’ to advisory roles
The people behind the company’s “spin-in” R&D strategy.
http://www.recode.net/2016/6/1/11824170/cisco-mpls-team-advisory-roles
Three members of a legendary four-person team of engineers at Cisco Systems who spearheaded the networking giant’s unusual R&D strategy of building startups it later acquires have been moved to advisory roles within Cisco, sources familiar with the move tell Recode.
Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain and Luca Cafiero — along with Soni Jiandani — formed the backbone of an institution unique to Cisco that came to be known informally as the MPLS Team. (The abbreviation comes from their first names, but in a bit of industry-insider humor also coincidentally stands for a networking technology invented at Cisco.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
The virtual reality of 5G – Part 1
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/test-cafe/4442127/The-virtual-reality-of-5G—Part-1?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160602&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160602&elqTrackId=a8437c37ca7749a0a5182289d89f0c11&elq=b9236a41038d408f8d65607c07815a01&elqaid=32488&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28388
If you’ve looked recently at any publications about communication networks, you have seen the buzzword, 5G, for fifth generation wireless networks. While the current 4G LTE networks continue to be expanded and updated, the industry is hard at work defining the next leap in wireless communication. It promises 10Gb/s data rates and under 1ms latency for future users. The breakthrough is achieved by jumping to the millimeter wave frequencies, approximately 30GHz and beyond, where spectrum is plentiful but ill-behaved.
5G offers both opportunities and challenges for test equipment vendors. The opportunity is that new technology waves will enable large swings in market share in an otherwise static marketplace. The challenge is that the measurements are really, really difficult.
5G measurements are difficult because the networks themselves face very difficult challenges. When I say mmWaves are ill-behaved, here’s what I mean. mmWave face high attenuation, so active beamforming is a necessity to get the needed gain. On top of that, almost everything becomes a reflector- trees, lampposts, windows, people.
And yet, with all these difficulties, operators are racing to define, design, and deploy 5G.
Or are they?
It is with this question in mind that I attended the annual International Microwave Symposium (IMS), this year held in San Francisco.
So, wherever I went, I asked this intentionally provocative question: Given that peak data rates of 4G are already sufficient for almost all known applications, and coverage is the major dissatisfier for cellular users, why would a service provider commit billions of dollars for something so ill-behaved and only goes 200 meters?
Mark gave a very engaging and thought provoking presentation about new developments in communication networks. Examples ranged from low power ubiquitous communications for IoT (Internet of Things), to satellite-enabled services, to a mmWave bandwidth explosion. While all have sometimes been referred to as “5G”, it is the latter that I truly equate with 5G. At the end of the presentation I asked what are the specific applications that require this phenomenal bandwidth that would justify this massive investment.
While Mark had hinted at many applications in the long-run (e.g. automated semi trucks arranged in a train line on a freeway), he selected two that would need the bandwidth right away- stadiums and virtual reality.
The stadium application is real. There is a very high density of users, and many sporting events cause the cellular network to collapse to a snail’s pace.
But virtual reality? True, real time VR systems require a lot of bandwidth, but what are the applications?
Is VR the killer app for 5G? I don’t know, but the applications go beyond entertainment. Instructional videos can be more effective in a VR environment. Then there is the whole issue of augmented reality.
Mike Millhaem, also of Keysight, gave a presentation titled “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t!” discussing mmWave signal propagation and implications for networks and tests. Mike showed measured results of 5G channel sounding, and accentuated some of the challenges mmWaves present.
I caught up with Mike later in the conference to get his take on 5G applications. He also pointed to the high density stadium case, but added another one, ”we don’t know.”
Sure, I could download at 70Mb/s now into my iPhone 5S, but we couldn’t all do that at the same time. Here it comes down to pure spectral capacity, not peak rates.
The panel was titled, “The 5G and IoT Conundrum”, where the panelists described the opportunities and challenges represented by 5G.
All participants were adamant that 5G service providers were racing for deployment. Again, the stadium use case and virtual reality were brought up. Also mentioned was the total capacity issue – I might have gotten 70Gb/s download rate, but it would have been slower if everyone in the conference had tried.
I think there is enough of a compelling use case in total capacity needed, and ultra-dense applications such as the stadium example, that 5G mmWave will be deployed commercially. But I’m still hedging my bets about the timing of 5G ubiquity. 4G, when aided by massive MIMO (Multiple In, Multiple Out), can achieve new heights of spectral density by using spatial multiplexing. Also, 4G wavelengths below 6 GHz behave well compared to their unruly 5G counterparts.
But there’s one application I will be watching that no one mentioned- replacing the “last 200 meters” of fiber. Consider this.
One method would be to bring fiber to the intersection, and then use mmWave technology to connect to each household.
The technical issues are massively reduced since this is a fixed communication application, not mobile.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The virtual reality of 5G – Part 2 (measurements)
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/test-cafe/4442138/The-virtual-reality-of-5G—Part-2–measurements-
For the record, there are a lot of standard products that could be used in some aspects to test 5G- mmWave network analyzers, signal generators, and signal analyzers, for example. I’ll note that I saw plenty of equipment from Anritsu, Keysight, and Rohde & Schwarz that fit into this category. That’s all well and good, but I was looking for more- specific products or systems tackling the unique challenges presented by 5G mmWave. This decreased the number of vendors to three: LitePoint, Keysight, and NI. Each were showing 802.11ax test systems (more on that in a future column), but I wanted to highlight products focused on 5G. Each takes a different architectural approach, which I will highlight as well.
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The virtual reality of 5G – Part 2 (measurements)
Larry Desjardin -June 01, 2016
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In Part 1, I explored the drivers and application behind 5G mmWave communications. I roamed the halls of IMS (International Microwave Symposium), searching for the business justification for 5G, testing each of the hypotheses. You can read my column here.
In Part 2 of this series, I look at the test and measurement equipment now available for 5G. Frequent Test Cafe readers know that I’ve written about Keysight’s 5G channel sounding system, and National instrument’s 5G prototyping system in the past. No need to repeat those summaries here; my goal was to sniff out what was new at IMS.
For the record, there are a lot of standard products that could be used in some aspects to test 5G- mmWave network analyzers, signal generators, and signal analyzers, for example. I’ll note that I saw plenty of equipment from Anritsu, Keysight, and Rohde & Schwarz that fit into this category. That’s all well and good, but I was looking for more- specific products or systems tackling the unique challenges presented by 5G mmWave. This decreased the number of vendors to three: LitePoint, Keysight, and NI. Each were showing 802.11ax test systems (more on that in a future column), but I wanted to highlight products focused on 5G. Each takes a different architectural approach, which I will highlight as well.
LitePoint
I had no appointment at the LitePoint both, so I just crashed it. I was immediately drawn to a horn antenna I saw in the booth- a telltale sign of mmWave.
LitePoint’s 802.11ad test system, including remote RF head and antenna.
LitePoint was showing an 802.11ad test system, also known as the WiGig standard. 802.11ad can be thought of as an advanced generation of Wi-Fi that uses the spectrum near 60 GHz to deliver speeds up to 7 Gb/s.
What was interesting to me was something that NI wouldn’t reveal. More precisely, NI displayed a mystery system on the show floor that hinted at things to come.
Tomi Engdahl says:
OpenSwitch Finds a New Home
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/openswitch-finds-new-home
OpenSwitch has joined the Linux Foundation’s stable of networking projects. This is a significant step. It means the network operating system’s development will be driven by community needs, instead of the needs of few private companies.
OpenSwitch was released as an open-source project by Hewlett-Packard. It’s a complete network operating system (NOS) based on Linux. As the name suggests, it’s designed for use in data-center switches. HP builds enterprise switches, so it was well positioned to develop an NOS.
Since its earliest days, OpenSwitch has attracted plenty of interest. Firms of all sizes have used it in their data centers, and they’ve benefited from a solid, secure product that is free of proprietary code or restrictive licenses.
Network hardware vendors also have benefited. Instead of investing heavily in their own NOS software, they can ship their hardware with OpenSwitch. It allows them to concentrate on what they’re good at—hardware.
As an open project based on Linux, OpenSwitch can be installed on switches from many different vendors. As such, it provides a single reliable interface for network administrators, regardless of the actual hardware used on-site.
LinkedIn has restructured its data center from scratch. The goal is to simplify scalability, reducing complexity and overhead. Among many other changes, LinkedIn’s engineers are using OpenSwitch throughout the three layers of their new network.
OpenSwitch project is under the Linux Foundation umbrella
Tomi Engdahl says:
Increased support for RF MIMO Systems design and development from MathWorks
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4442104/Increased-support-for-RF-MIMO-Systems-design-and-development-from-MathWorks?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160606&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160606&elqTrackId=284c019d078a4ffaaafc6de435a4189c&elq=7c747410bac44235a18bbed17fbd4e6b&elqaid=32536&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28426
Designers and R&D teams developing the next round of Wireless Infrastructure will need to provide a system with ultra-high throughput, massive connectivity for the IoT and high integration for devices. If you fall in this category, you will want to take a really detailed look at what MathWorks has just brought to the table for you. 5G is coming fast.
To ease a designer/R&D team’s burden, MathWorks has made some crucial new updates to the RF Toolbox, SimRF, and Antenna Toolbox that will strengthen design support for digitally-assisted RF MIMO Systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don Clark / Wall Street Journal:
Legendary MLPS team behind Cisco’s “spin-in” R&D strategy resigns in apparent disagreement with roles following recent reorganization
Cisco’s Famed Product-Development Team Resigns
Move comes after last week’s announcement of management changes involving three of the four executives
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/ciscos-famed-product-development-team-resigns-1465244627-lMyQjAxMTE2MzAwNjIwOTYyWj
Four Cisco Systems Inc. executives that created some of the company’s biggest hit products are resigning, in an apparent disagreement with their roles under a recent reorganization.
Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, Luca Cafiero and Soni Jiandani—a team dubbed MPLS after the initials of their first names—became wealthy by forming product-development startups that Cisco first funded and then later acquired. They have decided to leave the company on June 17, according to an internal memo posted on Monday by Cisco Chief Executive Chuck Robbins.
The MPLS team was responsible for the Nexus 9000—a new line of switching systems that has been selling briskly—Cisco’s 2009 entry into the market for server systems under an approach it calls “unified computing” as well as Cisco’s first devices that manage data-storage networks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung demos 4G-government network
Samsung says demonneensa the first time that occurs in public LTE network authority network. Korean Pyeongchang on 20 different government units handled the data and voice traffic carried out by the same Samsung PS-LTE network (public safety LTE). Korea first PS-LTE networks will start already in June.
Samsung’s test was part of the Korean government’s project to build the world’s first functional LTE network, Public Authority solution.
LTE’s authority use a customized version of the PS-called LTE (Public Safety LTE). It will respond to the many needs – especially video and other heavy data – which the current regulatory networks technology such as Tetra and P25 are unable to meet.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4540&via=n&datum=2016-06-08_10:46:55&mottagare=30929
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia demoed 5G-live connections in Silicon Valley
Nokia has demoed 5G connections, together with the Sprint operator of Silicon Valley in Santa Clara. The demonstration succeeded in transferring 4K-quality video to users millimeter frequencies, or 73 GHz.
According to Nokia, one gigahertz band also achieved a width of 2.3 gigabit per second speeds. Air interface signal delay was only one millisecond.
4K video moved effortlessly.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4543&via=n&datum=2016-06-08_10:46:55&mottagare=30929
Tomi Engdahl says:
The intricacies of signal integrity in high-speed communications
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4442171/The-intricacies-of-signal-integrity-in-high-speed-communications-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160609&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160609&elqTrackId=3ab7ea9975424dfe9909707b2db1c85a&elq=67fb6fd9fb344b108c38beed0e9d229a&elqaid=32603&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28476
As communication rates continue to increase, data is being moved within systems at ever higher speeds, which leads to issues with how engineers design equipment and printed circuit boards (PCBs). In the past 15 years, the industry has seen interconnection speeds increase from 1 Gbps to over 28 Gbps. Modern processors may have over 100 lanes of PCI Express® (PCIe), each running at 8 Gbps. The amount of raw throughput of systems today dwarfs the throughput of just 10 years ago. Back then, signaling rates were slow enough so that signal integrity was somewhat unaffected by passive interconnections. Today, that is no longer true. In most cases, transmission lines are now absolutely part of the circuit.
Many engineers have never had to consider what happens to the signals routed between integrated circuits. It was more of a challenge of cabling between systems, which may have required physical layer devices or special wiring. With field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) having increased capability and processors routinely using very high-speed interface standards such as PCIe, the system design must take into account the effects of PCB materials, transmission line design and connectors.
With the ever increasing speed of communications, the need to understand the effects caused by board layout, connectors and other parasitics is more important than ever. This article addresses the issues with high-speed signals and how to mitigate problems through proper component selection and board layout. Included in the discussion are standards such as SAS, SATA and Ethernet, as well as data converter interfaces such as JESD204B and other high-speed standards.
At the highest level, loss of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) directly affects the channel’s capacity to carry information. Equation 1 shows this capacity relationship as presented by the Shannon-Hartley theorem. As SNR declines, channel capacity also declines.
Transmission loss is caused by a combination of things (Figure 1). These effects include linear loss (blue line), impedance discontinuities such as connectors or vias that cause peaks and valleys on the linear-loss line (red line), as well as coupling between signals known as crosstalk. All of these effects contribute to the channel insertion loss, also known as S21 or S12 scattering parameters. The most dominant loss is the bandwidth limitation of the PCB traces or cables.
Further, this bandwidth limitation is a function of the dielectric loss, which is directly proportional to frequency, and the skin effect, which is proportional to the square-root of the frequency.
To solve the insertion-loss issue, designers have several choices. The first and most straight forward is to select a low-loss, high-performance dielectric material for their PCB. Examples of high-performance materials are NY9000 or MEGTRON 7, which have excellent loss characteristics. These materials are polytetrafluoroethylene-based (for example, Teflon®) with extremely low loss, but are fairly expensive and may have limited availability from fabricators. Lower-cost alternatives will require some understanding of the channel characteristics to make the best selection.
Alternatives to expensive dielectric materials are to use active equalization on the receiver side or the addition of pre-distortion (also known as emphasis) to the transmitted signal to compensate for the linear loss.
Another effect that can degrade a channel is jitter
Jitter effects can be divided into two major categories: deterministic and random.
Deterministic jitter is further divided into periodic jitter, data-dependent jitter, and bounded uncorrelated jitter.
Random jitter caused by various effects such as thermal noise will continue to increase within a given sample time, also referred to as “unbounded” jitter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
WiGig is the new brand established by the Wi-Fi alliance for the 802.11ad standard. It operates in the unlicensed 60GHz frequency range.
ABI Research believes that WiGig beats commercially through next year.
Breakthrough means that the market will be a large number of smart phones, laptops and Wi-Fi routers that also support WiGig frequencies.
For example, the virtual glasses require WiGig link to get rid of the inconvenience of cables.
Sources:
http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4562:wigig-lyo-lapi-ensi-vuonna&catid=13&Itemid=101
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048404/wigig-is-great-but-wont-replace-your-wi-fi-network.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bluetooth range is extended
Bluetooth SIG organization will to publish the standard of the new 5.0 version next week. 5.0 standard brings significant improvements in low power link BLE (Bluetooth low energy) connection: range and data rate Ble connections will be about double (up to 200 meter range and up to 4 megabits per second).
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4568:bluetoothin-kantama-pitenee&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don Clark / Wall Street Journal:
Barefoot Networks, founded by Stanford professor Nick McKeown, plans to sell networking chips, discloses a $57M funding round led by Google and Goldman Sachs — Prof. Nick McKeown’s Barefoot Networks to unveil programmable ultrafast chips for switching systems
Stanford Professor’s Startup Plans Novel Networking Chips
Professor Nick McKeown’s Barefoot Networks to unveil programmable ultrafast chips for switching systems
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/stanford-professors-startup-plans-novel-networking-chips-1465912804-lMyQjAxMTA2NjE2NDUxOTQ4Wj
An influential academic who helped define a new wave of networking is laying plans to unleash the next, hoping to displace chips that have long held a dominant position in the field.
Barefoot Networks Inc., a startup co-founded by Stanford University professor Nick McKeown, on Tuesday disclosed plans to sell ultrafast chips for switching systems that can be programmed in new ways. The idea is to let companies add special features to their networks, improve security and eliminate costly special-purpose hardware.
Barefoot is mounting a direct challenge to Broadcom Ltd. , the leader in a switching-chip market that analysts value at more than $2 billion annually. Potential customers include cloud-service providers and makers of networking hardware such as Cisco Systems Inc., which sometimes uses Broadcom chips and sometimes designs its own.
Most such chips include circuitry that follows protocols that govern how computers communicate. Barefoot says its chips, by contrast, feature circuitry that is good at moving data but lets users choose specific protocols and make other choices about how they behave.
“We are essentially trying to build Nvidia for networking,”
Customers could use the programmability for many purposes, Mr. McKeown said. Obvious choices, he said, would be to let switching systems take over jobs that now need separate boxes known as load balancers and firewalls. They could also handle chores for moving data to storage systems that now require separate hardware, he said
The notion of programmable networking chips isn’t new, but most prior efforts sacrificed speed for programmability
Mr. McKeown was a co-founder of Nicira Inc., an SDN pioneer that VMware Inc. bought for $1.26 billion in 2012.
He is “one of the deepest thinkers about the future of networking,”
One former Broadcom executive said its chips are flexible enough for most chores, arguing that only particularly sophisticated customers would want to do more programming.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ericsson running into the redundancy cutting
When we discomfited layoffs caused by Nokia and Alctel-Lucent merger, did not go well at Ericsson, either. Svenska Dagbladet, the network operator may be forced to lay off up to 25 thousand employees.
According to the newspaper Ericsson’s leadership is planning a massive cost-cutting program.
In Sweden, the news has already caused a big fuss.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4593:ericsson-ajautumassa-jatti-irtisanomisiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Net neutrality and Title II win in court, as ISPs lose case against FCC
Tom Wheeler defeats the broadband industry: Net neutrality wins in court
Total victory for FCC as appeals court decision upholds net neutrality order.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/net-neutrality-and-title-ii-win-in-court-as-isps-lose-case-against-fcc/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Larry Dignan / ZDNet:
Cavium, chip maker for data centers, buys networking infrastructure provider QLogic, in cash-and-stock deal valued at about $1.36B
Cavium buys QLogic in $1.36 billion data center processor deal
http://www.zdnet.com/article/cavium-buys-qlogic-in-1-36-billion-data-center-processor-deal/
The two companies aim to scale better and target large customers such as HPE, Dell, Cisco, IBM and others.
Cavium, which makes processors for enterprise data centers, said it will buy QLogic, a provider of networking infrastructure, in a deal valued at about $1.36 billion.
The purchaseallows the combined companies to better target data center OEMs and offer a more complete stack.
In a statement, Cavium noted that QLogic’s connectivity and storage hardware will complement its networking, compute and security gear. The portfolio is designed to better target enterprise, cloud, storage and telco markets. The combined company also said its customer base will be more diversified.
The combined company will count HPE, Dell, Lenovo, Pure Storage, IBM, Oracle, EMC and NetApp as customers. The two companies have less than 10 percent revenue overlap in the customer base.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Virtualizing Around The FCC’s Firmware Modification Rules
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/14/virtualizing-around-the-fccs-firmware-modification-rules/
Last year, the FCC introduced new regulations requiring router manufacturers to implement software security to limit the power output in specific 5GHz bands. Government regulations follow the laws of unintended consequences, and the immediate fear surrounding this new directive from the FCC was that WiFi router manufacturers would make the easiest engineering decision. These fears came true early this year when it was revealed a large router manufacturer was not following the FCC regulations to the letter by limiting the output of the radio module itself, but instead locking down the entire router.
The FCC’s rules regarding the power output of 5GHz routers was never a serious concern; the FCC is, after all, directed to keep the spectrum clean, and can force manufacturers to limit the power output of the wireless devices. The problem comes from how manufacturers implement this regulation – the easiest solution to prevent users from modifying the output of the radio module will always be preventing users from modifying the entire router. Developers don’t like it, the smart users are horrified, and even the FCC is a little flustered with the unintended consequences of its regulation.
While the easiest solution to preventing the modification of a radio module is to prevent modification to the entire router, there is another way. The folks at Imagination Technologies have come up with a virtualization scheme that allows router manufacturers to lock down the radio module per the FCC directive while still allowing the use of Open Source router firmware like OpenWrt.
Open source and virtualization provide a powerful combination for wireless routers
http://blog.imgtec.com/mips-processors/open-source-virtualization-better-security-wireless-routers
In order to offer a compromise, one solution would be to virtually separate the radio from the base software. This approach allows only authorized entities (e.g. the operators) to make the necessary changes and updates to the critical radio settings specified by the FCC.
Over the last year, the prpl Foundation has been working hard to provide this viable solution that allows networking devices to run open firmware while still complying with the FCC guidelines on Wi-Fi usage.
The demonstration below comes courtesy of the prpl Security Working Group
The result of their work is prplSecurity, an open framework that takes advantage of the hardware virtualization technologies embedded in MIPS Warrior CPUs to create multiple trusted environments where software can run in secure containers.
Today we’re focusing on the MIPS Warrior P-class and application processors designed for networking chipsets. The platform above runs three virtual machines (VMs) on a high-end MIPS P-class CPU
Tomi Engdahl says:
Unleashing 5G mm-Waves -
a Test & Measurement Perspective
http://host.comsoc.org/webcast/rohde2/rohde2.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ericsson brings 5G to operators next year
5G-standardization is only the first steps, but Ericsson already pushing existing technology to it’s radio networks. According to the company this is successful the new software component, which it calls the plug-in add-ons.
According to Ericsson 5G essentially means that the use of the network changes. That’s why you want to bring new features to existing Ericsson’s networks base station updates. They will be tested later this year and commercially available in the next year.
First, the operator must network to support the so-called. massive MIMO antenna systems.
RAN Virtualization is an additional feature that allows the radio network functions can be centralized cloud commercial servers.
Able to transfer the data connection intelligently to 4G or 5G networks in which the capacity and data rate will be utilized as efficiently as possible.
Shorten Ericsson’s radio network latency
Other manufacturers are developing similar technologies.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4607&via=n&datum=2016-06-17_10:49:18&mottagare=30929
Tomi Engdahl says:
Daniel Frankel / FierceCable:
As pay TV provider group releases “Ditch the Box” proposal to FCC, Google-backed group calls it a delay tactic
Google-backed group says ‘Ditch the Box’ proposal a ploy to delay negotiations with FCC
June 17, 2016 | By Daniel Frankel
http://www.fiercecable.com/story/google-backed-group-says-ditch-box-proposal-ploy-delay-negotiations-fcc/2016-06-17
A trade group backed by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has derided the pay-TV industry’s counter-proposal to an FCC plan to open cable, satellite and telco TV set-tops to third-party manufacturers, labeling it a ploy to delay negotiations with the agency.
INCOMPAS also accused the pay-TV industry of making apps-based promises it has reneged on before.
“It is encouraging to see the cable industry willing to agree to three critical points,” said INCOMPAS chief executive Chip Pickering. “First, consumers should be free from rental boxes and have the power to choose their own devices. Second, consumers should have integrated search capabilities so they can find the Internet streaming content they crave. Third, cable induced fears over privacy, copyright, and licensing in an open, competitive device market are false.
On Thursday, the Future of TV Coalition — a grouping of mostly top TV service providers hellbent on stopping the FCC’s “Unlock the Box” NPRM — released details on a plan it calls “Ditch the Box.”
That scheme would be centered around open, HTML 5-based apps, released by pay-TV operators, which would work with a range of third-party devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Ammon, Idaho piloting open access fiber network project the lets residents sign up for an ISP – or switch ISPs – almost instantly, via city-operated website
Municipal fiber network will let customers switch ISPs in seconds
Ammon’s open access network makes all ISP offers available at one website.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-if-switching-fiber-isps-was-as-easy-as-clicking-a-mouse/
Most cities and towns that build their own broadband networks do so to solve a single problem: that residents and businesses aren’t being adequately served by private cable companies and telcos.
But there’s more than one way to create a network and offer service, and the city of Ammon, Idaho, is deploying a model that’s worth examining. Ammon has built an open access network that lets multiple private ISPs offer service to customers over city-owned fiber. The wholesale model in itself isn’t unprecedented, but Ammon has also built a system in which residents will be able to sign up for an ISP—or switch ISPs if they are dissatisfied—almost instantly, just by visiting a city-operated website and without changing any equipment.
Ammon has completed a pilot project involving 12 homes and is getting ready for construction to another 200 homes. Eventually, the city wants to wire up all of its 4,500 homes and apartment buildings
Residents will get a gateway provided by the city. When they hook it up and try to surf the Web, they will be taken to the portal where they can select an ISP—very much like using the Internet in a hotel.
From that point, residents will scan the available Internet offers, purchase one, and get hooked up immediately. They could even buy two different Internet services, which might be useful for a family where a parent works at home and wants a single broadband line for a home office and a second broadband service for the rest of the home.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google accused of stealing Project Loon technology
http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-accused-of-stealing-project-loon-technology/
The company Space Data has filed a suit alleging Google violated a non-disclosure agreement and infringed upon two of its patents.
The company Space Data filed a lawsuit against Alphabet this week, alleging that Google X stole from it the technology behind Project Loon, Google’s air-balloon beamed internet service.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Powerline networking continues to improve
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4442208/Powerline-networking-continues-to-improve?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160615&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160615&elqTrackId=845d35cc055241f29a8dab841061b1b0&elq=3de2f41eeb354d4897926f7f757f0c1a&elqaid=32681&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28550
My critique of the ZyXEL kit, leading to the review’s title, centered on the fact that its supposed “500 Mbps” performance was unachievable in reality given that the powerline adapter included only a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet transceiver.
Still, although the reliability and perceived speed boost over my prior TRENDnet TPL-310AP HomePlug AV200 wireless access point was welcomed
So when the opportunity to test next-generation HomePlug AV2 hardware presented itself, I was happy to oblige.
The first version of the standard, HomePlug 1.0, claimed up-to-14 Mbps powerline bandwidth; successor (and backwards-compatible) HomePlug 1.0 Turbo boosted the spec’d speed to 85 Mbps in a vendor-proprietary fashion.
Next came “200 Mbps” HomePlug AV, which was designed to coexist (but not necessarily to interoperate) with HomePlug 1.0 equipment.
As with HomePlug 1.0 versus 1.0 Turbo, HomePlug AV 200 was further extended in a vendor-proprietary fashion to claimed “500 Mbps” speeds (i.e. HomePlug AV 500) via expanded powerline spectrum utilization in conjunction with more exotic modulation and EDAC techniques, all of which are rarely utilizable in real-life implementations.
Now there’s HomePlug AV2, for which the HomePlug Alliance didn’t pursue IEEE certification (although, since AV2 is backwards-compatible with AV, it still touts IEEE 1901 compliance).
claims of between 600 Mbps (AV2 600) and 1 Gbps (AV2 1000)
DHP-701AV PowerLine AV2 2000 Gigabit Starter Kit
NETGEAR PLW1000 wireless access point, part of that company’s PowerLINE 1000 + WiFi Kit
Good news first: both manufacturers’ powerline networking gear contains GbE transceivers, thereby resolving my previous ZyXEL criticism.
Tomi Engdahl says:
LTE – turning the tables on cable
https://www.u-blox.com/en/lte-%E2%80%93-turning-tables-cable
In less than a decade LTE has transformed mobile communications from a voice‑centric dial‑up service into the high‑speed mobile broadband experience which we now take for granted. To migrate the Internet from our homes to the streets and ultimately into our hands, vast infrastructure overhauls were necessary with unprecedented levels of investment to achieve the low‑latency, real‑time and high bandwidth service we now so heavily rely upon.
Ongoing cable enhancements saw ISDN, DSL, ADSL and fiber optics offer exponential bandwidth and latency improvements, while cellular communication lagged a generation behind, suffering from bandwidth and latencies at least an order of magnitude below. In places where cellular service was necessary, e.g. to connect distant rural communities, then the relatively high price of deployment and operation came to the fore.
During the late 1990s it became clear that a fundamental move away from circuit switched communication was necessary to deliver mobile Internet to the new breed of smartphones emerging in the market. This insight coupled with operators’ needs to replace falling voice revenues gave rise to the development of the fourth generation of cellular networks – LTE.
Although developed to serve mobile devices, for the first time, cellular communication was capable of offering a commercially viable alternative to fixed Internet access.
The commercially prohibitive “cost‑per‑megabyte” pricing structure which has stunted the growth of cellular communication is also rapidly disappearing.
Round‑trip latency (the fixed time it takes for a remote data request to be sent and responded to) is as important as the underlying bandwidth. The current 4G infrastructure averages around 50 ms, which is about the same as current ADSL Internet cabling. Although a fiber optic line will get this down to around 5 ms, most fixed Internet connectivity today uses ADSL and real time applications, such as on‑line gaming, video streaming and Voice over IP, demand less than 100 ms.
next generation cellular (5G) is targeting 1 ms latency with 10 Gbps bandwidth!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia and China Mobile sign EUR 1.36 billion frame agreement – See more at: http://networks.nokia.com/news-events/press-room/press-releases/nokia-and-china-mobile-sign-eur-136-billion-frame-agreement#sthash.kTDRqvUx.dpuf