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.
820 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Distributed fiber-optic sensors market forecast to 2025
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/06/distributed-fiber-optic-sensors-market-forecast-to-2025.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_June202016&eid=289644432&bid=1437580
As optical networks are used for transmitting of voice and data signals around the world, these networks require perpetual monitoring so as to ensure proper transmission of signal along the fibers. Fiber-optic sensors are quite immune to electromagnetic interference, and being a poor conductor of electricity they can be used in places where there is flammable material such as jet fuel or high voltage electricity.
Fiber-optic sensors can be designed to withstand high temperatures as well. Most physical properties can be sensed optically with fiber-optic sensors. Temperature, light intensity, displacement, pressure, rotation, strain, sound, magnetic field, electric field, chemical analysis, radiation, flow, liquid level and vibration are just some of the phenomena that can be detected via these sensors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TIA Category 8 cabling standard approved
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/06/tia-category-8-cabling-standard-approved.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_June202016&eid=289644432&bid=1437580
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) TR-42 Telecommunications Cabling Systems Engineering Committee has approved the ANSI/TIA-568-C.2-1 specifications for Category 8 cabling systems. The document is now awaiting publication and is likely to be available soon. The Category 8 standard document was developed by the TR-42.7 Telecommunications Copper Cabling Systems Subcommittee.
Category 8 cabling infrastructure has been designed to support short-distance (between 5 and 30 meters) runs of 25- or 40-Gbit/sec transmission.
“The relationship between the IEEE 802.3bq and its companion cabling standards organizations has been very positive and constructive, with several common members attending the meetings.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC Will Vote on 5G Spectrum on July 14
Wheeler vows US to be ‘first out of gate’ with 5G
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329954&
In a speech at the National Press Club Monday (June 20), FCC chairman Tom Wheeler called 5G “a national priority” and set July 14 as the date the FCC will vote on new rules to open up high-band spectrum for high-speed, low-latency 5G wireless applications.
The chairman will be circulating his proposed new rules to colleagues on Thursday (June 24).
Wheeler said if the FCC “approves my proposal next month, the United States will be the first country in the world to open up high-band spectrum for 5G networks and applications.” He added, “And that’s damn important because it means U.S. companies will be first out of the gate.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Telia engineer error to blame for massive net outage
Lesson 1: Don’t confuse Europe with Hong Kong
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/20/telia_engineer_blamed_massive_net_outage/
Swedish infrastructure company Telia is to blame for a massive internet outage today after an engineer apparently misconfigured a key router and sent all of Europe’s traffic to Hong Kong.
The Tier 1 network provider is one of fewer than 20 companies that provides a basic foundation for much of the internet. It sent a note to other network operators several hours after huge disruptions were reported across Europe apologizing for the mishap.
When millions of internet users reported problems with their internet connections, covering everything from WhatsApp to Slack, it was so significant that the first assumption was that a transatlantic cable had been damaged or cut.
It turns out that the problem was human error caused by a Telia engineer, and the company was able to fix the problem relatively quickly. The knock-on impact was huge, however: countless services and websites relying on the Swedish company’s network reported problems, causing a wave of complaints from users.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix picks fight with internet exchange industry
Top exec criticizes high prices, marketing and partying
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/20/netflix_picks_fight_with_internet_exchange_industry/
The internet exchange industry is ripping customers off, charging too much for features people don’t need, and spending millions on staff salaries, unnecessary marketing and social events.
That’s according to the vice president of network strategy and architecture for Netflix, David Temkin, who created a stir at a meeting of network operators in Chicago last week when he gave a presentation [PDF] titled “The real cost of Public IXPs.”
In it, Temkin attacked a number of high-profile internet exchange points (IXPs) – including LINX, based in the UK, and Netnod, based in Sweden – for charging high prices while keeping their finances under wraps.
The Real Cost of Public IXPs
Where is the innovation?
https://www.nanog.org/sites/default/files/Temkin_The_Real_Cost.pdf
A tremendous amount of innovation..
● ATM, FDDI, Ethernet – 56 Kbit/s -> 100 Gbit/s
● Decentralized the Internet
● PCH Lists 771 total IXPs, 454 active
● You’re not here for an IXP history lesson
“We need to figure out how to regulate ourselves before a much
more unsavory group of people comes in and does it for us”
While there may be various holding companies shielding ownership, at the end of
the day, the IXPs represented in this presentation run the gamut of:
● Non-profit (the minority)
● For-profit
● Non-profit owned by a for-profit (prevalent)
But IXP costs are only a small part of traffic delivery
● We know those transit costs are likely inflated – customers of scale don’t share
their pricing openly
● Transit removes the complexity of being present on 4+ exchanges
● Transit covers your non-localized traffic
So why are our costs, all members, not steadily decreasing with scale*?
A very different focus..
Some of those events are just like NANOG-
Money comes in, money goes out in the form of education
But many are there for less altruistic reasons-
Money comes in, money goes out in the form of
● Payments to commercial meeting operators
● Extensive marketing (paid awards ceremonies)
● Galas and social events
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC to Investigate Raised RF Noise Floor
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/21/fcc-to-investigate-raised-rf-noise-floor/
If you stand outside on a clear night, can you see the Milky Way? If you live too close to a conurbation the chances are all you’ll see are a few of the brighter stars, the full picture is only seen by those who live in isolated places. The problem is light pollution, scattered light from street lighting and other sources hiding the stars.
The view of the Milky Way is a good analogy for the state of the radio spectrum. If you turn on a radio receiver and tune to a spot between stations, you’ll find a huge amount more noise in areas of human habitation than you will if you do the same thing in the middle of the countryside. The RF noise emitted by a significant amount of cheaper modern electronics is blanketing the airwaves and is in danger of rendering some frequencies unusable.
If you have ever designed a piece of electronics to comply with regulations for sale you might now point out that the requirements for RF interference imposed by codes from the FCC, CE mark etc. are very stringent, and therefore this should not be a significant problem. The unfortunate truth is though that a huge amount of equipment is finding its way into the hands of consumers which may bear an FCC logo or a CE mark but which has plainly had its bill-of-materials cost cut to the point at which its compliance with those rules is only notional. Next to the computer on which this is being written for example is a digital TV box from a well-known online retailer which has all the appropriate marks, but blankets tens of megahertz of spectrum with RF when it is in operation. It’s not faulty but badly designed, and if you pause to imagine hundreds or thousands of such devices across your city you may begin to see the scale of the problem.
This situation has prompted the FCC Technological Advisory Council to investigate any changes to the radio noise floor to determine the scale of the problem.
FCC Technological Advisory Council Initiates Noise Floor Inquiry
http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-technological-advisory-council-initiates-noise-floor-inquiry
Tomi Engdahl says:
John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal:
FCC to vote mid-July on new regulations to lay the groundwork for an ultrafast 5G network
FCC to Vote on Rules for 5G Network in July
Proposed wireless network could help with autonomous vehicles, extending broadband access
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/fcc-to-vote-on-rules-for-5g-network-in-july-1466442101-lMyQjAxMTI2NzIwMDcyMjA1Wj
Federal regulators said Monday they will vote in mid-July on new regulations to lay the groundwork for an ultrafast fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless network that is seen as important for new applications such as autonomous vehicles and the Internet of Things.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said in prepared remarks Monday that the new rules will “identify and open up vast amounts of [airwaves] for 5G applications.”
Among the ideas that could be advanced by 5G: autonomous vehicles, interconnected appliances, remote surgery, smart-city transportation grids, and immersive education and entertainment, Mr. Wheeler said.
The 5G technology also could help extend broadband access to remote rural areas that are currently expensive to serve.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jo Best / ZDNet:
Head of Nokia Technologies Ramzi Haidamus on phone IP and brand licensing to HMD, entering digital health via Withings acquisition, plans for the VR space, more
‘Mobile phones are our history, not our future’: Nokia on where next for hardware
http://www.zdnet.com/article/mobile-phones-are-our-history-not-our-future-nokia-on-where-next-for-hardware/
Nokia’s hardware chief reveals what to expect in health, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ensuring The Connected 5G Experience
http://www.anritsu.com/en-GB/test-measurement/technologies/5g-everything-connected/5g-everything-connected-detail?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0dJNU56UTJOekV3WTJFNSIsInQiOiI4N0p6dDdxME9iK1lLcnFSZWRzZmJUY1dKK20xMmliYkNaeTM0TUJhY3hZUEtQblF6NTk0UTlySzlDSG1HdlwvR3dFblhFREd5WnNoa2hZMnRrcEVadE9NN0U4VlQ0RXBhMWxvaDBqb2NReHM9In0%3D#
The world’s demand for data is increasing at an astonishing rate. We need to be connected wherever we are and expect a seamless content rich service. With current devices consuming more and more data and more and more internet enabled devices, the current network infrastructure needs major changes to keep up with demand.
The 5G Solution – More Than Just An Air Interface
With the demand for data set to explode, next-generation 5G networks are being investigated as the solution. Three approaches are being taken towards supporting these huge traffic increases.
Making more efficient use of available frequencies using new access technologies
Increasing network speeds and optimizing the architecture
Opening-up new frequency bands
Making more efficient use of available frequencies is closely related to speeding-up the physical layer access protocols and wireless access technologies. Increases of efficiency from 2.5 to 10 times have been proposed as targets for 5G waveforms and access methods.
5G will be both an evolution and a revolution. An evolution as mobile evolves to support a wide range of new use cases, and a revolution as the architecture concept is being predicted to completely transform to enable these new use cases.
Provide fast, highly efficient network infrastructure
Support more and more device connections
Low latency, low power consumption
Data rates that exceed 10 Gbps
5G includes the evolution of existing 4G networks that use technologies such as C-RAN and HetNet to increase capacity of existing networks with an affordable cost. But revolution for core architecture to fully use SDN/NFV and network ‘slicing’, the use of a new millimeter wave band air interface for higher capacity, and new architecture/signaling for extreme low latency.
In order to cope with the heavily increasing wireless data traffic in both human- and machine centric communications, radically more spectrum is needed for 5G system operation.
Similar to 3G and 4G cases, ITU-R (International Telecommunication Union – Radio communication Study Groups) will request standard organizations to standardize a new interface based on their recommendations for performance and capabilities. After evaluation of each submission, the standards that succeed will be authorized and known as IMT-2020.
The 5G radio access technology (RAT) must fulfill the data traffic demand in the coming years with rates above 10 Gbps and sub-millisecond latency. These rates can be achieved, principally, with bandwidths of at least 200 MHz, and using multiple-input multiple- output (MIMO) antenna techniques and interference rejection combining (IRC) receivers.
Three of the different waveforms that are being considered to be part of 5G
FBMC – Filter Bank Multi-Carrier
UF-OFDM – Universal Filtered OFDM
GFDM – Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing
A fully data-centric 5G network with a very wide and diverse set of applications to test would require a massive effort in standalone testing. Test automation, monitoring and built in test systems will be essential for analyzing properly the performance of such a network. In addition, the emergent solution to use Ultra Dense Networks (UDN) for interconnecting the radio access elements with the backhaul architecture using cloud networks will enable the development of cloud based test services for testing everything from everywhere. So, although 5G will introduce many new test requirements and challenges by the use of SDN/NFV and cloud services, this same technology can also be used for creating new test solutions that address these needs. With this in mind, cloud solutions are seen as both the new demand and the new solution for 5G network testing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is 5G mmWave right around the corner? Not so fast.
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/test-cafe/4442239/Is-5G-mmWave-right-around-the-corner–Not-so-fast-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160623&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160623&elqTrackId=b1d3ac3c02404c6d8794384d0056d776&elq=631c228ccb254eca8cd79952b15c7565&elqaid=32798&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28647
If you read the electronic press each morning as I do, you can’t miss the growing amount of 5G news. 5G, short for 5th generation wireless communications, promises more capacity, higher speeds, lower latency, and whiter shirts. Well, at least the first three. It often includes expanded capabilities that are not, strictly speaking, 5G. The latter may include low power, longer-range communications needed for IoT (Internet of Things).
Much of 5G is focused on achieving higher data rates by exploiting the mmWave spectrum (technically, 30GHz and above, though 5G experiments go down to 15GHz), where spectrum is plentiful but propagation is chaotic
I’m still on the disruption bandwagon. 5G is fundamentally multi-channel, which matches well with modular instrumentation. Furthermore, the signal processing bandwidths needed are aligned with the peak bandwidths offered by PXI and AXIe, while only modular instruments have jumped the divide to user-generated FPGA DSP algorithms executing on the instrument itself (or on an associated DSP or FPGA module). This is the trifecta for disruption.
From 1999 to the mid-2000s, I was deeply involved in optical communications, particularly the testing of high capacity optical links and the components that went into them. The disruptive technology of the optical amplifier, coupled with WDM (wavelength division multiplexing), caused an explosion in optical fiber deployments with unprecedented capacity. Multiply the speed of each wavelength’s link by the number of wavelengths (often up to 80), and vendors were soon approaching a Terabit/sec through a single strand of fiber.
Competitively, backbone service providers wanted more wavelengths and faster links. NEMs (network equipment manufacturers) such as Lucent or Nortel were happy to oblige. In fact, huge shifts in market share occurred during these speed upgrades. In the early 1990s, a typical link speed was 625Mb/sec. Lucent quadrupled that to 2.5Gb/sec in the late 1990s, taking immense market share when they did. In the early 2000s, Nortel introduced a system with 10Gb/sec links, and market shares shifted radically again.
The entire industry saw this pattern, and the race to the next technology, 40Gb/sec, was on. Every large NEM had a “40G” program. Service providers had 40G trials, either in their labs for characterization, or in the field. Sound familiar? This is what is happening today with 5G.
But 40G wasn’t deployed as expected.
Instead, service providers chose to keep deploying 10G systems for most of the 2000s.
As it turns out, the key business driver in optical link speed was cost/bit, not top speed regardless of cost. A 2.5G link was 2.5 times as expensive as a 625Mb link, but four times the bit rate, so cost/bit shrank. That’s why 2.5G was successful. Similarly, 10G links were also 2.5 times the cost of 2.5G links, so the cost/bit shrank again. But 40G links depended on very special transceiver designs that cost 5x that of a 10G link.
That’s why I’m not 100% convinced of the timing of 5G mmWave.
To be fair, there is a race for 5G. The number and diversity of 5G trials is stunning.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Analyze Antenna Approaches for LTE Wireless Systems
http://mwrf.com/test-and-measurement/analyze-antenna-approaches-lte-wireless-systems?code=UM_Classics062a&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=6791&utm_medium=email&elq2=1127dc18975c4e0b9e92867c03686722
Multiple-antenna techniques are a large part of improved performance in LTE wireless systems, but they must be properly understood in order to be properly tested.
Multiple-input, multiple- output (MIMO) spatial-diversity antenna configurations are specified for emerging 3GPP Long- Term Evolution (LTE) mobile communications systems. In reality, LTE systems specify three types of antenna techniques: MIMO, beamforming, and diversity approaches. The three techniques are considered essential for improving signal robustness and achieving LTE system capacity. Understanding how the different antenna techniques work can also aid in testing systems using these approaches.
The single-input, single-output (SISO) approach is the most basic radio-channel access mode with one transmitter and one receiver.
The multiple-input, single-output (MISO) mode is slightly more complex, using two or more transmit antennas and a single receive antenna.
The single-input, multiple-output (SIMO) approach, often referred to as a receive diversity technique, employs one transmit antenna and two or more receive antennas.
The MIMO approach requires two or more transmit antennas and two or more receive antennas.
Adding receive diversity (SIMO) to MISO does not create a MIMO system, even though there are now two transmit and two receive antennas involved.
For MIMO operation, the transmissions from each antenna must be uniquely identifiable so that each receiver can determine what combination of transmissions it has received.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is 5G mmWave right around the corner? Not so fast.
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/test-cafe/4442239/Is-5G-mmWave-right-around-the-corner–Not-so-fast-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20160624&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20160624&elqTrackId=5ca60efd121d4b09960004bcad8bb232&elq=edc18deb17c64d1ba13304d7e8d0f41b&elqaid=32823&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28663
If you read the electronic press each morning as I do, you can’t miss the growing amount of 5G news. 5G, short for 5th generation wireless communications, promises more capacity, higher speeds, lower latency, and whiter shirts. Well, at least the first three. It often includes expanded capabilities that are not, strictly speaking, 5G. The latter may include low power, longer-range communications needed for IoT (Internet of Things).
Much of 5G is focused on achieving higher data rates by exploiting the mmWave spectrum (technically, 30GHz and above, though 5G experiments go down to 15GHz), where spectrum is plentiful but propagation is chaotic.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G, Cellular IoT Step Ahead
Qualcomm demos prototype 5G system
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329991&
Qualcomm is showing a prototype 5G base station and terminal in China Mobile’s booth at the Mobile World Congress in Shanghai this week. The FPGA- and DSP-based system is one of many early efforts to test ideas expected to emerge in 3GPP standards that won’t start to gel until 2018.
The news comes on the heels of the 3GPP finalizing standards for an ultra-low power version of LTE for the Internet of Things. With new IoT specs out, support is growing in 3GPP to accelerate the pace of getting out a first phase of 5G standards focusing on mobile broadband applications, likely saving 5G IoT specs and other issues for a follow up second phase, expected about 2020.
Qualcomm revealed two key features its 5G New Radio (NR) prototype will support. They include channel bandwidth wider than 100 MHz to fuel 3+ Gbit/second data rates and integrated subframes that could deliver transmissions with latency as low as a millisecond.
The Qualcomm system is geared to run over bands from 3-5 GHz. Qualcomm announced earlier a separate prototype system for 28 GHz as a toe in the water for 5G systems that could someday span 28-60 GHz or more.
The 3GPP has been hearing proposals for 5G air interfaces since April with plans to start winnowing out favored approaches by early next year. Channels wider than the 20 MHz links in today’s LTE are widely expected in the final 5G spec. The channels are expected to be combined with antenna arrays and higher order modulation schemes to deliver faster data rates.
To cut latency, 5G also is expected to integrate uplink and downlink communications into unified data frames so that acknowledgements, for example, are automatically sent after transmissions are received.
The latency-reduction software could cut by half typical latencies of 20-80 milliseconds on existing cellular networks. The code runs on existing Ericsson systems except for the virtualization software which also will run on standard servers.
“Many of the technology concepts enabled are based on those anticipated in the 3GPP standard and is designed to enable operators to begin the network and business evolution to 5G,” Keintola said. “As the standards evolve, we will continue to be on the lookout for 5G technology concepts that operators can deploy within today’s networks to prepare for 5G,” he added.
Like chip and system providers, carriers are keen to get an edge in 5G. Service providers in Korea and Japan have announced plans for trials at major events in 2018-2020, even though standards may still be incomplete or just barely finished by that time.
While the 5G standards won’t start to gel for about two years, the 3GPP finished on June 22 work on its 4G IoT standards, notably Category NB1, formerly known as Cat M2. The spec targets max data rates of 200 Kbits/s over 200 MHz channels, but likely will be used at about 40 Kbit/s average.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Will 5G Work?
http://semiengineering.com/how-will-5g-work/
RF chip giant Qorvo explains how 5G will get deployed.
SE: 5G, the follow-on to the current wireless standard known as 4G or long-term evolution (LTE), will enable data transmission rates of more than 10Gbps, or 100 times the throughput of LTE. Is 5G really happening or not?
Tomar: Absolutely, it’s happening. With major operators, we’re actually doing trials.
SE: Why do we need 5G?
Tomar: If you look at 4G, it’s connecting people. 5G is about connecting people and things. We anticipate that there will be 50 billion connected devices. And with the way we download videos and YouTube, and upload videos from Facebook and other sites, mobile broadband is exponentially growing. If we don’t get to higher bandwidths, the data that we get on the phone will be more like 2G. Nobody wants slow data on their phones.
SE: What’s the issue with 4G?
Tomar: Regarding the frequencies used for 4G, which are below 2.7 GHz, there is a very limited spectrum. And whatever spectrum was available is already taken. So we see major operators looking at frequencies higher than 3 GHz. The way the market is now split is that below 5 GHz, people will start deploying what they call LTE Pro with massive MIMO. It’s sort of 5G, but it uses a LTE modulation scheme below 5 GHz.
SE: 5G involves several frequencies, right?
Tomar: We also see frequencies being talked about from 10 GHz to 90 GHz for 5G applications worldwide. The first base station field trials will move forward with frequencies from 28 GHz to 32 GHz and from 39 GHz to 44 GHz. That’s where we see the traction. But people are also talking about frequencies from 24 GHz to 28 GHz, 10 GHz to 15 GHz, and 60 GHz to 98 GHz. There are all kinds of millimeter wave frequencies, anywhere from 6 GHz to 100 GHz.
Tomar: We need coverage when we are driving on the road and everywhere else. So for that, we still need 4G. So our view is that both 4G and 5G will co-exist. 4G will be predominately used for wider area coverage. And 5G will be predominately used for localized high-capacity data.
SE: Isn’t 4G good enough?
Tomar: It is for providing basic phone functions. Maybe you can download some e-mails. The problem comes when you start using this as a TV.
SE: The transition from 4G to 5G will be complicated, right?
Tomar: It will be complicated. But 5G is needed. Today, there are 7 billion people on the planet. About 4 billion people are still not connected to the Internet. Within the next three or four years, many of those will be connected to the Internet.
SE: There are other problems with 4G, right?
Tomar: Today, the network latency is slow. Take a look at autonomous driving. The network latency is over 10 milliseconds today. If you try and apply the brake automatically, and you are running your car over a cellular network, the chances of survival are small. You’ve got to cut the latency down to less than 1 millisecond.
SE: How do you see the transition towards 5G happening?
Tomar: There are two phases of 5G. One is from now until say 2020. And then there is 2020 and beyond. Before 2020, I believe that we will see massive MIMO, where as many as 64 to 256 transmitters will be used. They might be deployed at frequencies below 5 GHz. Then, beyond 2020, we will see the deployment of 28 GHz to 32 GHz and 39 GHz and 44 GHz.
SE: To accomplish this, the industry is talking about moving from LDMOS processes to gallium-nitride (GaN) in the base station, right?
Tomar: The base station in 4G has been historically dominated by LDMOS. LDMOS has device physics limitations. That’s where GaN enters the picture. The need for higher peak power, wider bandwidth and higher frequencies are driving the adoption of GaN inside the base station.
SE: So when will 5G happen?
Tomar: I don’t see a major 5G deployment before 2020. That’s for 5G in higher frequencies like 28 GHz and 32 GHz. But below 5 GHz, the massive MIMO systems will start deploying next year.
SE: Will the 5G base station be based exclusively on GaN?
Tomar: There is never one technology. There are always multiple technologies.
SE: What about handsets?
Tomar: If you look at the 4G handset today, it has gallium-arsenide and SOI. In 5G, it will be GaN and SOI. Maybe GaAs. GaAs and SOI will still exist.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Waiting For 5G Technology
http://semiengineering.com/waiting-for-5g-technology/
New wireless standard will significantly speed up communication, but dealing with mmWave technology isn’t going to be simple.
For some time, carriers, equipment OEMs and chipmakers have been gearing up for the next-generation wireless standard called 5th generation mobile networks, or 5G.
5G is the follow-on to the current wireless standard known as 4G, or long-term evolution (LTE). It will enable data transmission rates of more than 10Gbps, or 100 times the throughput of LTE. But the big question is whether 5G will disrupt the landscape or fall short of its promises.
Regardless, the 5G market is heating up. Anokiwave, Broadcom, Intel, Qorvo, Qualcomm, Samsung and a growing list of others are developing 5G chips.
But there are a multitude of challenges to deploy a 5G wireless network. For example, although OEMs and chipmakers are developing 5G products, the standards are still not set.
Today’s LTE networks operate from 700 MHz to 3.5 GHz. In comparison, 5G will not only co-exist with LTE, but will also operate in the unlicensed or millimeter wave bands. This involves the band of spectrum between 30 GHz and 300 GHz, which in turn enables more wireless data capabilities.
For this, mobile systems and base stations will require new and faster application processors, basebands and RF devices. In fact, 5G will require a new class of RF chips, including a mmWave technology called phased-array antennas. Already used in aerospace/defense applications, mmWave devices are moving into the automotive radar, 60-GHz WiFi, and eventually 5G.
Designing these chips is difficult, but testing them is even more challenging.
Despite the challenges for 5G, Verizon hopes to roll out some 5G services in the United States by 2017 or so. In addition, Korea Telecom, along with Samsung, plans to offer 5G services during the 2018 Winter Olympics in Korea.
What is 5G?
So what exactly is 5G and why do we need it? Today, many carriers have deployed a 4G wireless standard called LTE Advanced (Release 10). Within that framework, carriers have deployed Category 4 and Category 6 LTE-A mobile networks, which enable data downlink speeds of up to 150Mbps and 300Mbps, respectively.
Over time, carriers will launch LTE Advanced Pro (Release 13), which is considered 4.5G technology. LTE Advanced Pro is a stepping stone towards 5G. It will consist of up to 32 component carriers (from 5 in Release 10), massive MIMO, and LTE in the unlicensed spectrum, according to NI. Many of those same elements are part of 5G, but 5G will take it a step further by operating in the mmWave spectrum.
LTE-A might be good enough for now. The problem is that mobile data traffic is expected to rise at an annual rate of 45% from 2015 to 2021, according to Ericsson. The data traffic per smartphone is projected to reach 8.9-GB per month in 2021, compared to 1.4-GB per month in 2015, according to Ericsson.
Each carrier will likely have a different set of 5G services, but basically, the technology consists of three separate elements—enhanced mobile broadband; the Internet of Things (IoT); and machine-type communications.
Enhanced mobile broadband involves mmWave technologies that will enable data transmission rates of more than 10Gbps. Compared to 4G, 5G is expected to provide 1,000 times more capacity and one-tenth the latency.
The IoT, the second element of 5G, involves WiFi-based technology. For this, the industry has recognized a narrowband, wireless standard called NarrowBand IOT (NB-IOT).
Meanwhile, the machine-type communication part of 5G involves a separate machine-to-machine protocol. For this, the industry has recognized a M2M wireless standard called LTE-M.
“Some of the requirements for 5G are for lower power and a longer battery life,” said David Hall, principal marketing manager at NI. “Both (NB-IOT and LTE-M) are modifications of mobile communication networks. They are designed for machine-to-machine. As a result, the radios are simpler.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will POL market soar with Nokia, Huawei on board?
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-24/issue-5/departments/infrastructure-insights/will-pol-market-soar-with-nokia-huawei-on-board.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_ContractorReport_June232016&eid=289644432&bid=1441640
As we reported in our March issue, BSRIA recently analyzed the passive optical LAN (POL) marketplace (“Researcher says passive optical LAN market poised to take off”). Among the conclusions it reached was that the market “will only really take off when a big player or several medium sized players enter the market with a clear go-to-market strategy …” In early April, Nokia announced its entry in the POL market. Nokia may very well be the big player that BSRIA said will be needed to enjoy a hockey-stick growth curve.
the POL market is pegged at approximately $75 million this year regardless of which path it ultimately takes. But if everything lines up right for the POL market and it experiences fast adoption, the total market could pass $100 million next year and eclipse $150 million in 2018.
Under any scenario, the growth path charted by BSRIA has the POL market exceeding $100 million by 2020. However, depending on which path the market takes, by that year-2020-it could be anywhere from approximately $110 million to approximately $425 million.
The fact that a Nokia brand-name passive optical LAN system has reached the market results from the long-in-the-works merger of Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent. The network equipment in the system is Alcatel-Lucent hardware. The two organizations began operating as a joint company in January.
If Nokia’s entry alone doesn’t put POL on the fast-adoption track indicated in the graph above, perhaps Huawei’s entry into the market will do the trick. It launched the AgilePOL solution at CeBIT in March and had joined the Association for Passive Optical LAN in February. At the time it joined the APOLAN, Huawei demonstrated several POL solutions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The 5 most damaging structured cabling scenarios
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/06/5-damaging-problems.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_June272016&eid=289644432&bid=1443665
Cause-and-Effect checklist of the 5 most damaging structured cabling scenarios
1. Cause: Intermittent faults – Unidentified intermittent faults are amongst the most common and damaging issues that affect structured cabling networks. Faulty patch leads and broken or malfunctioning outlets are typical causes of this frustrating and puzzling problem, but identifying the lead or outlet that’s misfiring can be a headache in itself.
2. Cause: Wi-Fi problems – Wi-Fi can present a host of challenges when installed incorrectly – from poor coverage to intermittent connectivity.
3. Cause: Disorganization and disorder – Structured cabling networks often become disorderly over time as multiple firms are called in to install, maintain and repair them, resulting in a confused and jumbled system. A disorganized structured cabling network can also be the result of sloppy workmanship
4. Cause: Mismatched cabling – Even if your infrastructure is built on one category of cable, if two different manufacturers have supplied different elements of your network, you may encounter problems. A structured cabling network that isn’t consistent end-to-end can cause electrical mismatching between components
5. Cause: A lack of network redundancy – Organizations need a backup cabling network and an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) to ensure connectivity and power remain consistent when the lights go out unexpectedly. This is especially true of critical links and services that underpin crucial business operation
IS YOUR STRUCTURED CABLING FIT FOR THE FUTURE?
http://www.roycecomms.com/wp-content/uploads/160303_Health-Checklist_Royce.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G, Cellular IoT Step Ahead
Qualcomm demos prototype 5G system
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329991&
Qualcomm is showing a prototype 5G base station and terminal in China Mobile’s booth at the Mobile World Congress in Shanghai this week. The FPGA- and DSP-based system is one of many early efforts to test ideas expected to emerge in 3GPP standards that won’t start to gel until 2018.
The news comes on the heels of the 3GPP finalizing standards for an ultra-low power version of LTE for the Internet of Things. With new IoT specs out, support is growing in 3GPP to accelerate the pace of getting out a first phase of 5G standards focusing on mobile broadband applications, likely saving 5G IoT specs and other issues for a follow up second phase, expected about 2020.
Qualcomm revealed two key features its 5G New Radio (NR) prototype will support. They include channel bandwidth wider than 100 MHz to fuel 3+ Gbit/second data rates and integrated subframes that could deliver transmissions with latency as low as a millisecond.
The Qualcomm system is geared to run over bands from 3-5 GHz. Qualcomm announced earlier a separate prototype system for 28 GHz as a toe in the water for 5G systems that could someday span 28-60 GHz or more.
Details related to mission-critical and IoT services are likely to be pushed to the second phase of 5G standards, he said. Qualcomm believes 5G will support a variety of transmission timeframe intervals for different kinds of wireless services.
“We are trying to expand the ecosystem,” said Smee. 3G and 4G were pretty straight forward more efficient services for the same market, but the goal for 5G is to enable new business models, product types and form factors like VR headsets–we are trying to create a flexible standard that adapts to different scenarios,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bankruptcy filing by Brazil’s Oi rattles global supply chain
http://www.reuters.com/article/oi-sa-bankruptcy-suppliers-idUSL1N19F2LJ?type=companyNews
Brazil’s biggest bankruptcy filing ever is sending shockwaves far beyond the recession-hit country’s borders as operator Oi SA seeks creditor protection from global telecoms suppliers and export banks around the world.
Oi is seeking protection on over 500 million reais ($150 million) of accounts payable to international providers from Nokia Corp and Ericsson to IBM Corp and Alcatel-Lucent SA, according to court documents reviewed by Reuters.
The biggest Brazilian fixed-line carrier also owes about $1 billion to foreign development banks in China, Finland, Canada and Germany
Tomi Engdahl says:
RapidIO bus gets an extra boost
RapidIO is efficient packet-switched connection technology, which are widely used in various industrial fields. bus based on open standards can be used both between districts, between the circuit boards that interface between equipment racks. Now RapidIO it promises to be a significant additional boost when the new standard for version 4.0 was announced.
RapidIO’s use is popular especially for telecommunication networks, data centers and industrial automation, and military and aerospace sectors. The new bus version 4.0 or 25xN 100Gbps connection capacity RapidIO takes again a whole new level.
The world has already installed more than 200 million bus system, which applies RapidIO’s previous franchises of from 10 to 50 gigabit per second speeds 6XN- and 10XN versions.
A whole new area of application for the new 4.0 version of the bus is planned for the future 5G networks
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4631:rapidio-vayla-saa-lisaa-vauhtia&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia says to introduce 5G World event in the world’s first 5G network-ready. London demo network is based on commercial hardware solutions, such as Nokia’s new Airscale base station.
5G demos is seen in the world a lot, but they are based on different test systems. Nokia’s demo used Airscalen base station in addition to Cloud Packet Core networks, which is being driven by a new airframe data center.
5G World on Nokia does things with 5G connections to 4.5 GHz. Relationship abut tens of antennas in the MIMO technology.
Airscale produced in Barcelona connections to 15 GHz
Nokia has promised to Airscalea the market during this year.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4632:nokia-demoaa-jo-valmista-5g-verkkoa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
A snapshot of today’s data center interconnect
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/06/lightwave-dci-article.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_DataCenters_June282016&eid=289644432&bid=1445640
Now that “DCI” has become a “thing,” a well-known acronym with a wide range of connotations, “data center interconnect” has gone from being unknown and somewhat misunderstood to overused and overhyped. But what exactly the term DCI constitutes is changing all the time. What it meant last month might not be what it means in a few weeks’ time. With that in mind, let’s try to take a snapshot of this rapidly evolving beast. Let’s attempt to pin down what DCI currently is and where it’s headed…
…At the risk of oversimplifying DCI, it involves merely the interconnection of the routers/switches within data centers over distances longer than client optics can achieve and at spectral densities greater than a single grey client per fiber pair (see figure below). This is traditionally achieved by connecting said client with a WDM system that transponds, multiplexes, and amplifies that signal. However, at data rates of 100 Gbps and above, there is a performance/price gap that continues to grow as data rates climb.
The 100 Gbps and above club is currently served by coherent optics that can achieve distances over 4,000 km with over 256 signals per fiber pair. The best a 100G client can achieve is 40 km, with a signal count of one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Introducing “6-pack”: the first open hardware modular switch
https://code.facebook.com/posts/717010588413497/introducing-6-pack-the-first-open-hardware-modular-switch/
We started by designing a new top-of-rack network switch (code-named “Wedge”) and a Linux-based operating system for that switch (code-named “FBOSS”). Next, we built a data center fabric, a modular network architecture that allows us to scale faster and easier. For both of these projects, we broke apart the hardware and software layers of the stack and opened up greater visibility, automation, and control in the operation of our network.
But even with all that progress, we still had one more step to take. We had a TOR, a fabric, and the software to make it run, but we still lacked a scalable solution for all the modular switches in our fabric. So we built the first open modular switch platform. We call it “6-pack.”
The “6-pack” platform is the core of our new fabric, and it uses “Wedge” as its basic building block. It is a full mesh non-blocking two-stage switch that includes 12 independent switching elements. Each independent element can switch 1.28Tbps. We have two configurations: One configuration exposes 16x40GE ports to the front and 640G (16x40GE) to the back, and the other is used for aggregation and exposes all 1.28T to the back. Each element runs its own operating system on the local server and is completely independent, from the switching aspects to the low-level board control and cooling system. This means we can modify any part of the system with no system-level impact, software or hardware. We created a unique dual backplane solution that enabled us to create a non-blocking topology.
The line card
If you’re familiar with “Wedge,” you probably recognize the central switching element used on that platform as a standalone system utilizing only 640G of the switching capacity. On the “6-pack” line card we leveraged all the “Wedge” development efforts (hardware and software) and simply added the backside 640Gbps Ethernet-based interconnect. The line card has an integrated switching ASIC, a microserver, and a server support logic to make it completely independent and to make it possible for us to manage it like a server.
The fabric card
The fabric card is a combination of two line cards facing the back of the system. It creates the full mesh locally on the fabric card, which in turn enables a very simple backplane design
Tomi Engdahl says:
4 Years of IPv6: More, Bigger, Faster, Better
http://www.btreport.net/articles/2016/06/4-years-of-ipv6-more-bigger-faster-better.html?cmpid=enlmobile06282016&eid=289644432&bid=1444749
The beginning of June marked the four-year anniversary of World IPv6 launch, which was intended to create awareness and promote the transition to the new version of the Internet Protocol. At the beginning of this effort, an estimated 1% of Internet traffic was IPv6 worldwide, whereas today it is 20%.
The change is becoming more and more urgent as in some areas of the globe, including North America, there are no more IPv4 addresses to be had. With a projected 50 billion devices expected to be online by 2020, the switch to IPv6 becomes even more imperative as it provides an addressing space to support 340 trillion, trillion, trillion connected things.
“From our perspective, we wonder how it becomes possible to have a conversation (about IoT) without talking about how to address all these things and how they will communicate on the network,” said John Brzozowski, fellow and chief IPv6 architect, Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA).
“If you look at the anatomy of the Internet, there are a handful of key components,” Brzozowski said. “There are the things that operators do, and then there are things in the house like the television and laptop … then there is the content. These are areas where we see an opportunity for the next steps for (IPv6), on the content side and the consumer electronics side. More of those folks are following suit with what broadband operators have done and are deploying IPv6 today.”
While the motivation for IPv6 started off as simply being a space necessity, Comcast and other front runners have discovered that IPv6 is actually faster. And Comcast, for one, is using IPv6 as a platform of innovation. “It is almost like a great API of sorts that allows you to use the network as an extension of software,” Brzozowski said, noting that IPv6 is an enabler for software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV).
As for IoT, broadband providers tended to allocate one IPv4 address per home because of the limitations. It was shared throughout.
“v4 is not that different. As the number of connected devices continues to grow and they attempt to share the IPv4 address, this becomes taxing. With the vastness of IPv6, you have enough for everything,” Brzozowski said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
US wants 5G forefront
US telecommunications Administration Office (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler believes that the US is the world’s leading country in the development of 5G-and will remain so in the future. The country has announced an accelerating pace web technologies and standards aimed at fifth-generation networks, and the rest of the world do not want to stay behind.
Wheeler’s recent speech in Washington in a speech by the rapid development of 5G networks will brake the most technical sense, three limiting factors, the resolution of which the American telecommunication companies and researchers have a particular focus, if the US wants to be a driving force for the development of 5G.
The first and most important of them form a wireless communication connection speeds. Until now, fiber optical transmission has been superior to all wireless technologies, but in the future needed to Wheeler, the ‘non-mobile’, ie 10-100 times faster wireless connectivity compared to today’s solutions.
Second, and equally clear is limited by the latency Wheeler. – Ten milliseconds is an eternity connections between computers.
The third problem is Wheeler, the spectral scarcity. High-speed wireless broadband requires the transfer of digital information in a manner that can afford a huge amount of radio frequency band. in order to achieve a sufficiently high speed and low latency needed for the spectrum in the future many times over in relation to what is currently available.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4635:usa-haluaa-5g-kehityksen-karkeen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finnish telecom history – the five first places
In early July, marks the 25th anniversary of the rung of the world’s first GSM call in Finland.
Helsinki was the first city in the world, a call center was automated: call traffic in the Helsinki region was automated in 1929, the first city in the world
Introduced first in Finland UMTS900 enabled 3G network expansion: Elisa was the first in the world for commercial use UMTS900 technology in 2007.
Finns use the most mobile data in the world
Finnish Nokia was the first company 5G is further supported by the base stations
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/06/29/suomen-telehistoria-viisi-ykkossijaa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Wi-Fi Alliance starts certifying routers for “Wave 2” features of 802.11ac specification including MU-MIMO support, 160MHz channels, more — Wi-Fi Alliance starts certifying routers for faster speeds and denser networks. — The Wi-Fi Alliance industry group is now certifying products …
Wi-Fi gets multi-gigabit, multi-user boost with upgrades to 802.11ac
Wi-Fi Alliance starts certifying routers for faster speeds and denser networks.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/wi-fi-gets-multi-gigabit-multi-user-boost-with-upgrades-to-802-11ac/
The Wi-Fi Alliance industry group is now certifying products that can deliver multi-gigabit speeds and improve coverage in dense networks by delivering data to multiple devices simultaneously.
The new certification program, announced today, focuses on the so-called “Wave 2″ features of the 802.11ac specification. 802.11ac is a few years old, but it includes several important features that were not available at launch. One such feature is MU-MIMO (multi-user, multiple-input, and multiple-output), which we wrote a feature on in May 2014. MU-MIMO is powered by multi-user beamforming technology that lets wireless access points send data streams to at least three users simultaneously. Without MU-MIMO, routers stream to just one device at a time but switch between them very fast so that users don’t notice a slowdown except when lots of devices are on the network.
With the 80MHz channels supported in 802.11ac Wave 1, each data stream could provide up to 433Mbps and, when coupled with MU-MIMO routers, can send up to 433Mbps to at least three users simultaneously for a total of 1.3Gbps. But in addition to supporting MU-MIMO, Wave 2 also doubles the maximum channel bandwidth from 80MHz to 160MHz, boosting the potential throughput of each stream to 866Mbps. Wave 2 also supports four spatial streams instead of three, further boosting the theoretical maximum capacity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ericsson demo in London at the World 5G shows how mobile communications, increasing the speed and, above all, the shortening delay enable many new applications. London in the company of King’s College London have jointly taken remote surgery field demonstration, the robot’s touch is transmitted in real time, the surgeon operates a 5G connection.
Remote Control and Intervention demo robot “fingers” operating in the sensor acts as a surgeon working remotely tactile minor surgical procedures requiring or mini-invasive operations. 5G connection speed and a short response time enables the sensor is able to send an accurate real-time information of soft tissue’s distinctive hard nodules. functioning robot the finger sensor to detect cancerous tissue and sends the information to the surgeon immediately haptic or tactile feedback.
The demonstration utilizes a software-controlled networks.
network traffic is prioritized at sufficiently high levels (Quality of Service) using 5G network access enabled by the network Slicing
- 5G network-enabled mini-invasive surgical technology opens up opportunities for completely new types of applications that are not tied to a place. for example, which operates in the future, the surgeon can obtain real-time support and consultation for diagnosis and self-operation from colleagues around the world
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4637:robotti-leikkaa-5g-yhteydella&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:
Amazon expands AWS Simple Notification Service feature to 200 countries outside the US, updates admin controls for more flexibility
AWS expands SNS messaging service beyond U.S., now works in 200 countries
http://venturebeat.com/2016/06/29/aws-expands-sns-messaging-service-beyond-u-s-now-works-in-200-countries/
Public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) today announced a bunch of updates for the Simple Notification Service (SNS) service that automatically sends SMS messages to phones. Most importantly, SNS will now work outside the U.S. — support is available in 200 countries.
And AWS will operate the service out of six regional data centers, not just one: US East (Northern Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo), and EU (Ireland), AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post.
There are new management features, too. You can choose to receive daily reports about successful and failed deliveries of text messages; receive delivery status logs; and manage phone numbers that have been opted out. Admins can set spending limits per month, per account, or per message.
And users no longer need to opt in to the SNS service before they can receive messages from it, Barr wrote.
This is a substantial update to SNS, which first came out in 2010 and received push notification support in 2013. SNS isn’t the most popular service on AWS, but it’s one that used more often than you might think. Apps like Tinder, Wunderlist, Yelp, Yik Yak, and Yo rely on it.
For push needs, the Google public cloud offers Firebase Cloud Messaging and Microsoft has Notification Hubs, although neither supports SMS. Twilio, among other third parties, can provide SMS messaging for applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aquantia Rolls Second-Gen AQrate Chips
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330005&
Aquantia Corp., the Ethernet chip vendor widely expected to file for a public offering later this year, rolled out Tuesday (June 28) its second-generation AQrate 5/2.5 Gigabit NBASE-T PHY said to feature improvements in footprint, performance and architecture over the first generation.
Aquantia (San Jose, Calif.), which owns the market for multi-Gigabit NBASE-T chips, also announced that the first generation of its AQrate NBASE-T PHY devices have shipped more than 1 million units in less than one year since they hit in the market.
Aalaei added that the NBASE-T Alliance, the group founded by Aquantia to standardize the technology it developed for 5/2.5 Gigabit networking, has now grown to nearly 50 members
Market research firm Dell’Oro Group estimates that shipments of 5/2.5GBASE-T will reach 86 million ports in 2020 as enterprises, branch offices and SMB class equipment demands speeds in excess of 1 gigabit per second.
“Instead of resting on our laurels, we went back to the drawing board here and made significant architectural enhancements to the solution that we had,” Aalaei said. “And the result of that is that in the second generation we’ve got devices that are much lower power and much smaller—as much as 50% smaller than the first generation.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
60 Tbps trans-Pacific cable FASTER backed by Google and telecoms companies starts service, connecting US West Coast with Japan
Google’s giant new trans-Pacific internet cable goes online Thursday
‘faster, Faster and FASTER’
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/29/12061910/google-faster-pacific-ocean-internet-cable-japan-nec-corp
A new undersea internet cable funded in part by Google and connecting Japan with the US is slated to go online starting June 30th. The joint announcement, made today in a press release from NEC Corporation, says construction and testing on the trans-pacific cable, dubbed “Faster,” was successfully completed and the system is now ready for service. The whole line runs 9,000 kilometers and stretches from Oregon to Chiba and Mie prefectures in Japan. Though it lands in three distinct locations, Faster has extended connections to cover the entire West Coast in the US and every major city in Japan. It also has the capacity to connect with other major hubs in Asia.
FASTER Cable System is Ready for Service, Boosts Trans-Pacific Capacity and Connectivity
The 9,000 km submarine cable system linking Japan and the West Coast of the U.S. completes construction and is ready for service
http://www.nec.com/en/press/201606/global_20160629_02.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
FCC Says TV Airwaves Being Sold For Wireless Use Are Worth $86.4 Billion
https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/16/06/29/2232228/fcc-says-tv-airwaves-being-sold-for-wireless-use-are-worth-864-billion
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday the price of 126 MHz of television airwaves taken from broadcasters to be sold for wireless use in an ongoing auction is $86.4 billion. The FCC disclosed the price in a statement after completing the first part of an auction to repurpose low-frequency wireless spectrum relinquished by television broadcasters. The so-called “broadcast incentive” spectrum auction is one of the commission’s most complex and ambitious to date. In this round, called a reverse auction, broadcasters competed to give up spectrum to the FCC for the lowest price. In the next stage, the forward auction, wireless and other companies will bid to buy the airwaves for the highest price.
FCC says TV airwaves being sold for wireless use worth $86.4 billion
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-airwaves-auction-idUSKCN0ZF22U
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday the price of 126 MHz of television airwaves taken from broadcasters to be sold for wireless use in an ongoing auction is $86.4 billion.
But analysts said wireless providers may not be willing to pay the staggering amount for the airwaves to expand their networks, which could prompt the FCC to hold another round of auctions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Analyze passing mobile network IoT data
The rapid emergence of IoT systems, data is transmitted at a relatively low speed in narrow band.
In the past, high-quality signal analyzers has been available mainly researching broadband wireless networks. Anritsu has brought improvement in the situation by expanding its own analysaattoritarjontaansa narrowband measurements.
over a hundred different types of radio technology and the protocol has been developed for the Internet of Things. In general, IoT infrastructures operate in a free, unlicensed frequencies on their own, but there is also a new NB-IoT technology (Narrow Band IoT), which allows narrowband data transmission in a thin siivuna licensed LTE-in traffic
Analysis of the narrowband signal requires the measurement device specially designed internal oscillators for this purpose. Most of the signal and spectrum analyzers are intended for broadband LTE and WLAN measurements and are not suitable for measuring the narrowband signals for IoT networks.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4645:analysoimaan-kannykkaverkossa-kulkevaa-iot-dataa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G, Cellular IoT Step Ahead
Qualcomm demos prototype 5G system
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329991&
Qualcomm is showing a prototype 5G base station and terminal in China Mobile’s booth at the Mobile World Congress in Shanghai this week. The FPGA- and DSP-based system is one of many early efforts to test ideas expected to emerge in 3GPP standards that won’t start to gel until 2018.
The news comes on the heels of the 3GPP finalizing standards for an ultra-low power version of LTE for the Internet of Things. With new IoT specs out, support is growing in 3GPP to accelerate the pace of getting out a first phase of 5G standards focusing on mobile broadband applications, likely saving 5G IoT specs and other issues for a follow up second phase, expected about 2020.
Qualcomm revealed two key features its 5G New Radio (NR) prototype will support. They include channel bandwidth wider than 100 MHz to fuel 3+ Gbit/second data rates and integrated subframes that could deliver transmissions with latency as low as a millisecond.
The Qualcomm system is geared to run over bands from 3-5 GHz. Qualcomm announced earlier a separate prototype system for 28 GHz as a toe in the water for 5G systems that could someday span 28-60 GHz or more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco takes deep breath, plunges into Puppet’s DevOps pool
Service provider IOS version gets Yang module
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/01/cisco_takes_deep_breath_plunges_into_puppets_devops_pool/
Cisco’s embrace of open networking tools continues, with the company opening up code to connect its IOS-XR operating system to Puppet via Yang.
The snappily-named Ciscoyang module bundles a Puppet type, provider, Beaker tests, and sample manifests for configuring and managing IOS-XR.
IOS-XR is the service provider-scale version of Routerzilla’s ubiquitous network operating system, so it’s probably a hint that Puppet is starting to appear in the kinds of networks Cisco regards as a must-keep.
The Ciscoyang modules need Puppet’s open version 4.3.2 or higher, or Puppet Enterprise 2015.3.2 or higher. It’s designed for IOS XR 9000 (it’s a new initiative: exactly which version of the operating system is yet to be determined), and Cisco’s Network Convergence System 55xx.
Puppet code suggests enough service providers are asking for cross-platform automation tools to force a response.
Earlier support from other manufacturer:
Arista, Puppet Labs share the DevOps love
Make your switches part of DevOps
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/26/arista_puppet_labs_share_the_devops_love/
Puppet Labs has added support for Arista kit to its automation suite.
The native Arista Extensible Operating System – EOS – module and Forge Module means Puppet Enterprise can now reach into data centres built on Arista’s switches, the company says.
It also means that changes to networking kit can happen automatically and without proprietary vendor tools, Puppet notes.
The combo of the native Puppet agent with EOS means the two environments are integrated without needing a proxy host to provide the interface. Instead, each network device can be managed as a Puppet node.
The module uses Puppet’s netdev_stdlib, designed to let Puppet resources manage different hardware with a minimum of modification.
Tomi Engdahl says:
More than seven gigabits to a moving car
5G technologies promise a more mobile users significantly faster data connections
Ericsson has equipped their cars in demo MIMO antenna system, and shaved off the headquarters in Kista district of Stockholm. At best, the car was moving the data to the terminal at a rate of 7.5 Gbps.
Car transmitter equipment was Ericsson’s latest 5G prototype hardware. It consists of 64 radio channel 128 and antenna element. Antennas utilize the same frequency range, so the technology is called “massive MIMO”.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4651:yli-seitseman-gigabittia-liikkuvaan-autoon&catid=13&Itemid=101
Video:
Vehicular Mobility with Ericsson 5G Radio Prototypes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja5bK2gw6pA
Tomi Engdahl says:
ICANN: We Won’t Pass Judgment On Pirate Sites
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/07/03/1735213/icann-we-wont-pass-judgment-on-pirate-sites
Following more pressure from rightsholders, domain name oversight body ICANN has again made it clear that it will not act as judge and jury in copyright disputes. In a letter to the president of the Intellectual Property Constituency, ICANN chief Stephen Crocker says that ICANN is neither “required or qualified” to pass judgment in such cases.
ICANN: We Won’t Pass Judgment on Pirate Sites
By Andy on July 2, 2016
Breaking
https://torrentfreak.com/icann-we-wont-pass-judgment-on-pirate-sites-160702/
Following more pressure from rightsholders, domain name oversight body ICANN has again made it clear that it will not act as judge and jury in copyright disputes. In a letter to the president of the Intellectual Property Constituency, ICANN chief Stephen Crocker says that ICANN is neither “required or qualified” to pass judgment in such cases.
There are plenty of options for copyright holders seeking to hinder the progress of pirate sites but one of the most effective is attacking domains.
The strategy has been employed most famously against The Pirate Bay and over the past couple of years the site has lost most of the domains it deployed to stay online.
At the very top of the domain name ‘tree’ is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). This non-profit body is responsible for the smooth-running of the Internet’s Doman Name System. However, if copyright holders had their way, ICANN would also act as the Internet’s piracy police by forcing registrars to prevent illegal use of domain names.
Last year, ICANN told TorrentFreak that it had no role to play in “policing content” but of course, copyright holders continue to pile on the pressure.
However, ICANN also made it crystal clear that it won’t be getting directly involved in disputes involving allegedly infringing domains.
Finally, ICANN notes that there is nothing stopping “harmed parties” from taking action against registries, registrars or domain owners “through administrative, regulatory or judicial bodies to seek fines, damages, injunctive relief or other remedies available at law.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
UN Council: Seriously, Nations, Stop Switching Off the Internet!
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/07/03/0340234/un-council-seriously-nations-stop-switching-off-the-internet?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
“The United Nations officially condemned the practice of countries shutting down access to the internet at a meeting of the Human Rights Council on Friday,” reports the Register newspaper, saying Friday’s resolution “effectively extends human rights held offline to the internet,” including freedom of expression. “The resolution is a much-needed response to increased pressure on freedom of expression online in all parts of the world,”
UN council: Seriously, nations, stop switching off the damn internet
Online freedom resolution passes despite best efforts by Russia, China et al
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/01/un_officially_condemns_internet_shutdowns/
The United Nations officially condemned the practice of countries shutting down access to the internet at a meeting of the Human Rights Council on Friday.
A resolution [PDF] entitled The promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet effectively extends human rights held offline to the internet. It was passed by consensus, but only after a determined effort by a number of countries, including China and Russia, to pull out key parts of the text.
https://www.article19.org/data/files/Internet_Statement_Adopted.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
U.S. Lacking on Networked Cities List
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1330026&
Ericsson recently released rankings of connected cities based on their use of information and communication technology. Where do American cities stack?
Ericsson recently released its Networked Society City Index, which ranks cities based on their use of information and communication technology (ICT). Of the 41 ranking cities, only three American cities made the list: New York (No. 7), Los Angeles (No. 12), and Miami (No. 17).
Stockholm ranks highest in the Networked Society City Index—the fifth from Ericsson—followed by London, Singapore, Paris, and Copenhagen. The top five cities are the same as in 2014, but Singapore has reclaimed the third position from Paris.
Ericsson doesn’t specifically define ICT, but paints a general picture of communication technologies that offer “practical benefits to billions of people every day.” Those are broad brush strokes that make me wonder—why have only three U.S. cities made rank?
Certainly, each U.S. locale is a nationally important city with a great amount of technical innovation. The City of New York, for example, partnered with Qualcomm to turn 10,000 phone booth into Wi-Fi hotspots. Miami has a burgeoning startup scene and the city’s police are using a server-dense command center to track crime. LA’s tech scene is booming, while startups in Silicon Beach try to find the link between tech and Hollywood.
As Asian and European smart cities come online, I am curious what other American cities should be doing to follow in the footsteps of NYC, Miami and LA. Bylehn called ICT infrastructure “a fantastic platform for city development” and suggested that cities could launch a variety of initiatives to increase ICT maturity. But ICT maturity isn’t enough.
Other up-and-coming high tech cities should create initiatives such as smart transport systems, apps that make life easier in cities, or use the Internet of Things to measure air pollution. All projects should be easily available to residents.
The Networked Society City Index had this to say about the wide range of cities listed:
Less affluent cities may have low climate impact and low resource use, but conversely they have problems with high pollution levels and consequently lower health levels. All cities face great challenges to become more sustainable. However, ICT is proven as an enabler of change and has significant potential to further promote sustainable urban growth.
Further, “increased digitalization brings opportunities to radically improve efficiency as well as to transform consumption and production.” Beylehn nodded to car sharing plans that are the result of “digitization and connectivity.”
“There is a strong correlation between cities’ socioeconomic development and their ICT maturity. A city facilitated by ICT improves its performance in the long run,”
So the real question may be: is it better or worse to be a highly networked society today, or to embrace a lack of rank and wait for smart cities to build a bit more?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Between the two continents 5G test network
Ericsson to build the Korean SK Telecom and the German Deutsche Telekom for the first intercontinental 5G test network.
The network utilized in the construction of 5G technologies, such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) technology, software-defined infrastructure (SDI) technology, distributed cloud-cloud slicing and network (network Slicing). The main objective is to enable global 5G network for situations that require the use of and optimize the roaming experience.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/07/05/mannerten-valille-5g-verkko/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Startup Aims to Simplify Networks
Barefoot preps programmable switch chip
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330038&
Martin Izzard and 80 colleagues want to upend the multi-billion dollar industry of network hardware. They hope the chips they will tape out soon provide a strategic wedge that does the job.
Izzard is chief executive of Barefoot Networks, a rare microprocessor startup that has attracted a whopping $130 million in funding to date including strategic backers that include Google, Goldman Sachs and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. Its Tofino chips aim to make the job of programming complex networks as easy as writing C++ code in an emerging open-source language it helped create called P4.
Barefoot is at the bleeding edge of a trend generally called software-defined networking. SDN represents an effort to cut through what’s become a rat’s nest of competing, often proprietary APIs, protocols and ASICs.
The chips and software are embedded in systems from giants such as Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Juniper and Nokia. SDN proponents aim to run much of the work of these systems on standard computer servers controlled by programs written in high-level languages.
Managing networks through servers is hard enough. But this so-called control plane is not nearly as complex and fast moving as the data plane where bits need to get switched and routed on the fly at speeds from 10-100 Gbits/second. This is the area where Barefoot hopes its chips and P4 will play.
“We think this is a unique idea and the financial markets in Silicon Valley have validated it,” said Izzard. With partners such as Google, Goldman, HPE and other unnamed OEMs, “we have big potential customers who can ramp fast” for large Web-scale data centers and enterprise users, said Izzard who used to help big networking OEMs develop their ASICs while working at Texas Instruments.
“I view P4 as delivering on what OpenFlow should have been — OpenFlow was supposed to deliver highly-configurable pipelines, but instead it was constrained by legacy protocols and silicon,” Wheeler said.
“P4 takes a clean-sheet approach, creating an SDN data plane with room to grow,” said Wheeler. “How quickly the market takes off will depend on hyper-scale operators like Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft,” he added.
The status of the P4 effort provides a glimpse of how Barefoot’s chip and the overall SDN effort is doing.
Nick McKeown, a Stanford professor and co-founder and chief scientist at Barefoot, helped launch P4. A spec for the language was published a little more than three years ago and about 100 people attended a recent P4 workshop including representatives of AT&T, Facebook, Intel, Microsoft, Netronome and Xilinx.
Earlier this year, AT&T said it created a proof of concept with P4 on systems from Juniper in 30 days using just 78 lines of code. Service providers Comcast and Korea’s two main telecom providers are among the more than 40 members of the P4 group.
Among other P4 members, Xilinx has showed the software running on its FPGAs, and Intel demoed it on networking cards. Huawei is believed to be planning to run P4 on its own silicon.
In general, SDN processors quickly read packet headers and take actions on them. The chips are “dominated by I/O and memory with a single shared memory buffer and a set of pipelines, so they are very uniform,” said Izzard.
The Torfino chips use both SRAM and TCAM memories. They are made in a 16nm process and can be cooled with standard heat sinks and fans.
The team also mixes veterans from traditional network switch makers such as Broadcom, Cisco and Juniper with young engineers recruited by co-founder McKeown from Stanford and elsewhere.
“We managed to mix people with experience and a lot of fresh talent from academia with a clean-slate view of the world,”
Silicon Shift Ahead in Comms
Service providers say sayonara to ASICs
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329184
The new networks will be more flexible, letting carriers and even their customers create new features using software tools similar to the ones IT departments use today. The so-called software — defined networks (SDNs) will essentially sweep away many of the relatively expensive and complex systems today’s networks use built on ASICs and proprietary APIs from companies that range from the former Alcatel-Lucent to ZTE.
“ASICs will have a role in niche contexts but big switch and router people are going to need to build solutions using merchant silicon — that trend is clear and unstoppable,” said Parulkar who runs two labs helping develop the new code. “Engineers should focus on software and writing value-added applications and services rather than focus on ASICs and software related to them,” he told me.
“I think we are at a point where things will start happening rapidly. We have been working on SDN ideas for eight years. So we are still talking about 10-15 years total for them to become mainstream,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wi-Fi Alliance announces mobility enhancements to 11ac standard
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/06/wi-fi-alliance-announces-mobility-enhancements-to-11ac-standard.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_July52016&eid=289644432&bid=1449993
Wi-Fi Alliance announced that it is expanding its Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac standard to include new features that provide a higher-performance mobility experience.
The newly introduced features to the standard are:
– MU-MIMO: Networks with MU-MIMO are capable of multitasking by sending data to multiple devices at once rather than one-at-a-time, improving overall network efficiency and throughput
– 160 MHz channels: Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac increases the maximum channel bandwidth from 80 MHz channels to 160 MHz channels, potentially doubling transmission speeds
– Four spatial streams: Device speeds are proportional to the number of spatial streams. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac now includes support for four spatial streams, up from three spatial streams.
– Extended 5 GHz channel support: Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac encourages device support for a greater number of available channels in 5 GHz.
Multi-user Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) is among the most anticipated new features of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac, allowing more devices to operate simultaneously on the same network without sacrificing speed or performance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TP-Link abandons ‘forgotten’ router config domains
192.168.1.1 is a pain, but it’s better than ‘admin:admin’ on the Web anyhow
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/06/tplink_abandons_forgotten_router_config_domains/
TP-Link, rather than recovering domains it forgot to renew, is going to abandon them.
The domains in question are tplinklogin.net and tplinkextender.net. They offered configuration services for buyers of the company’s home routers and Wi-Fi link extenders, and are identified on stickers on some devices (not all: two TP-Link routers in the author’s house, one less than three months old, direct users to the more conventional 192.168.1.1 for configuration).
The domains got scooped up by a squatter using an anonymous registration service, and according to Amity Dan who first noticed the snafu, they’re being offered for sale at US$2.5 million each.
The biggest risk is if the domains are swept up by malware scum to snare users who go to the sites to reconfigure devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brexit Threatens London’s Data Center Market
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330044&
The historic decision by voters in the UK to leave the European Union has generated an atmosphere of uncertainty about the role of London in the multi-tenant data center and hosting markets, a new report by 451 Research claims.
The report notes the Brexit vote could challenge the strategy of international hosting firms using London as their European base — and could possibly prompt providers to consider other locations. It’s also a huge people issue, with more than 1.5 million of them employed in “digital companies” throughout the UK.
“London is currently the European capital of the data center, hosting, and cloud markets,”
Brexit Threatens London’s Data Center Market
http://www.informationweek.com/data-centers/brexit-threatens-londons-data-center-market-/d/d-id/1326142
“It’s considered somewhere that is easy to do business. It’s the most cosmopolitan and diverse location in terms of IT service providers, has the broadest supply, the largest choice of facilities, a common working language, and a skilled labor force — particularly in the tech-rich Thames Valley.”
The uncertainty following the vote could mean other main metro markets for data center and hosting services in Europe — like Frankfurt, Paris, and Amsterdam — stand to gain from customers or providers looking to move their data or data center facilities out of the UK, Duncan said.
However, Duncan cautioned that while European providers may be opportunistically hungry for a slice of London’s business, they face their own supply issues.
“Perhaps Dublin potentially stands to gain the most from any immediate move: Some of the largest new data center builds are happening at the moment — including facilities for Facebook and Apple — and its location just across the Irish Sea and well-connected to transatlantic sub-sea cables might make it a convenient halfway house for some looking to have low-latency connectivity to the UK, but still be in the EU,” Duncan said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet Access Is Now A Basic Human Right
http://gizmodo.com/internet-access-is-now-a-basic-human-right-1783081865?
People may joke that others spend too much time on the internet, but this intricate series of tubes has become an important part of everyday life—so much so that it’s become a human rights violation to take it away.
That’s according to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which passed a non-binding resolution in June that condemns countries that intentionally take away or disrupt its citizens’ internet access.
The resolution was passed last Friday, but was opposed by countries including Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and India.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Transmitter FFE makes the channel do the work
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/measure-of-things/4442311/Transmitter-FFE-makes-the-channel-do-the-work?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160706&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160706&elqTrackId=3936deee61a042ffa5ff3755929e69f9&elq=3594814851a6412cb5909f7011d9885d&elqaid=32973&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28794
At high data rates, around and above 10 Gbits/s, we have to face the reality that conducting traces glued to dielectric (a.k.a., printed circuit boards) are truly horrible waveguides. They attenuate the signal, whether it’s NRZ/PAM-2 or PAM-4, mess up the relationships between the Fourier components’ amplitudes, frequencies, and phases—everything that makes the waveform a signal
We must do a lot of work to help the receiver recognize the resulting waveform as a signal. In addition to careful layout and use of quality components—all in a cost-optimized way, of course—equalization does a lot of work.
Equalization effectively removes the channel response by applying the inverse transfer function of the channel to the signal.
Here’s another way to think of it that I find more intuitive: the channel distorts the signal, so why not pre-distort the signal in such a way that the channel itself removes that distortion? In other words, pre-distort the transmitted signal in a way that includes the inverse channel frequency response so that the channel cancels the pre-distortion.
TxFFE and receiver DFE (decision feedback equalizer) work together;
Inter-symbol interference and ziplines
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/all-aboard-/4423043/Inter-symbol-interference-and-ziplines
When we think of digital signals, we naturally think of logic highs and lows, signals rooted in the Fourier components of a square wave. Of course, we also know it’s not like that.
At gigabit per second rates, conducting traces on PCBs act more like ugly waveguides than tidy paths from transmitter to signal. Rather than a current propagating along a conductor, these signals are electromagnetic waves that travel through the dielectric, barely clinging to the trace.
But it’s worse than that. As you zip through the forest, your body smears out and interferes with bits ahead and behind you. You absorb elements of bits from others, you and the other bits on this trace interfere with each other.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CablingInstall’s Youtube Top 5
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2016/06/cablinginstall-youtube-top5.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_July52016&eid=289644432&bid=1449993
Tomi Engdahl says:
OpenCellular: Facebook tests its open templates on base stations
A 2G-to-LTE base station in the palm of your hand, open hardware, open software
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/06/opencellular_facebook_tests_its_open_templates_on_base_stations/
Facebook’s unleashed a slab of mobile networking technologies which that hint at how it would like remote communities to connect to the outside world.
OpenCellular draws on what Facebook’s learned in its Open Compute Project and open networking efforts like 6-Pack and Wedge: a design that will be open-sourced over time, to hopefully seed a white-box hardware market for cellular base stations.
Introducing OpenCellular: An open source wireless access platform
https://code.facebook.com/posts/1754757044806180/
As of the end of 2015, more than 4 billion people were still not connected to the internet, and 10 percent of the world’s population were living outside the range of cellular connectivity. Despite the widespread global adoption of mobile phones over the last 20 years, the cellular infrastructure required to support basic connectivity and more advanced capabilities like broadband is still unavailable or unaffordable in many parts of the world. At Facebook, we want to help solve this problem, and we are pursuing multiple approaches aimed at improving connectivity infrastructure and lowering the cost of deploying and operating that infrastructure.
Today we are announcing the OpenCellular access platform, and over time, we will be open-sourcing the design. We will also work on other elements like the software management system, hardware design, baseband, amplifier, filter, mounting device, and antennas.
First design
We have implemented an access platform that can support a wide variety of wireless network standards, from 2G and LTE to Wi-Fi access points. Anyone can customize the platform to meet their connectivity needs and set up the network of their choosing, in both rural and urban areas.
Hardware elements
We wanted the hardware elements (electronic and RF) to be widely available, inexpensive, power-efficient, and produced from local resources if possible. The platform consists of two subsystems:
General-baseband computing (GBC): The GBC further consists of power, housekeeping microcontroller, microprocessor, timing/sync module, sensors, and control mechanism. The system is designed to take in various input power sources: PoE (power-over-ethernet), solar, DC, and external batteries (seal lead acid) and internal battery (lithium-ion). The system also has numerous sensors that monitor things like temperature, voltage, and current.
Radio with integrated front-end: On the radio subsystem, we have multiple options based on a software-defined radio (SDR) or system on chip (SoC). The SDR and SoC versions support various open source and commercial cellular stacks. The system supports two configurations: as a full network-in-a-box, when the daughter card is combined with the GBC board; and alternatively as an access point, when the daughter card is operating alone (only the SoC version supports this configuration).
Software elements
It’s important for the system to function without much maintenance or service overhead, especially if it’s located in a remote area where technical experts aren’t readily available. To this end, we are extending an existing open source, real-time operating system that is easy to monitor and run remotely. The system can also reconfigure itself and issue alarms when additional support is needed.
The first implementation of our platform will be available this summer. But it will be an ongoing effort developed with community support.
We are currently testing the system in our labs at Facebook HQ and working with OEM and ODM partners to make the OpenCellular platform widely available.
So far in our lab at Facebook, we are able to send and receive SMS messages, make voice calls, and use basic data connectivity using 2G implementation on our platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘We shall overcome’ net neutrality, sing Euro telcos in the key of 5Gs
5G Manifeston ‘welcomed’ by digi commish Günther Oettinger
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/08/we_shall_overcome_net_neutrality_sing_euro_telcos_in_the_key_of_5gs/
Europe’s telcos have found a reason to shed any ambivalence they had about 5G, waking up with a shared vision that the technology can help them fend off Internet neutrality rules.
Even better – for the telcos at least – they’ve found a willing ear in the person of European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society Günther Oettinger.
After the carriers’ collective presented its 5G Manifesto for timely deployment of 5G in Europe to the commish, he published a statement welcoming the document.
The manifesto is co-signed by BT Group, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Hutchison Whampoa Europe, Inmarsat, Nokia, Orange, Proximus, Royal KPN, SES, Tele2 AB, TIM – Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telekom Austria Group, Telenor Group, Telia Company and Vodafone, and claims support from Ahlers, Airbus Defence & Space, Royal Philips, Siemens and Thales Alenia Space.
Saying that “policies and rules must be future-oriented, pro-investment and pro-innovation”, the manifesto thunders: “The telecom Industry warns that the current Net Neutrality guidelines, as put forward by BEREC, create significant uncertainties around 5G return on investment. Investments are therefore likely to be delayed unless regulators take a positive stance on innovation and stick to it.”
Commissioner OETTINGER welcomes 5G Manifesto
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/commissioner-oettinger-welcomes-5g-manifesto
Tomi Engdahl says:
Videos consume telecommunications equipment manufacturer Ericsson forecasts that 70 percent of the world’s mobile data traffic in 2021. The Company believes that mobile video traffic will grow by about 55 per cent each year.
Also, other categories (audio, software downloads, file sharing, as well as nettiselaus) use is increasing, but their relative share decreases as the video is increasing.
85 per cent of the videos at the moment is considered via a Wi-Fi network and will continue to grow there, too: processing a Wi-Fi network video viewing grew between July 2014 and October 2015, 164 per cent, at the same time, mobile network growth was around 80 percent.
However, the winds of change are blowing in the younger, under 35-year-old age groups: young people typically watch videos and clips on programs throughout the day, and they move around a lot. coverage Wi-Fi networks is not enough
The device used for viewing is increasingly the smart phone, regardless of age group
Ericsson’s research also shows that 16-19 years are more willing to pay for faster mobile data subscription and blankets than other age groups. In addition, they are using the most data to the mobile video streaming. Development increases the need to develop faster and better mobile data connections.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/07/11/mobiilikaistasta-paaosa-pian-videoihin/