Xelerated Xpress

The Healthy Signs of Telecoms Going Mainstream

Another day here at Mobile World Congress, and I have noticed a strong shift in telecommunications  - the hype really is gone in the industry! We are going the same route as power generation and power supply did at the end of the ’90s, and now nobody in the general public knows what is going on in that industry.  That very same thing is now happening to telecoms.  While there is still a lot of good business to be made, there is less hype…  meaning less high-risk business endeavors, but more thought-through and sound business projects will prosper.  It is a healthy sign.

This year, the energy and activity level at Mobile World Congress has been far better compared to the two previous years’ events. A lot of ideas about sharing networks were shown both by service providers and vendors.  Huawei showcased the largest and widest portfolio and made a big impact with their lifetime cost approach. And NEC’s focus on cloud computing was impressive, expanding its concept to all types of customers/users and putting the operators in the central role.

Another thing that struck me about this year’s show is that there are not many Asian people in attendance. In particular, I did not find many of my Chinese industry colleagues.  This week was the Chinese New Year with the spring festival, which is comparable to having an event during the United States’ Thanks giving holiday.  Even still, there were several Asian companies participating and showing their goods, however few visitors from the region.

While previous Mobile World Congress events have been clogged with small startups trying to attract larger companies for M&A activities, this time it was far more companies aiming at building and growing on their own. Another very healthy sign.

by Anders Ericsson on Feb. 18th, 2010

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Trends at MWC – Cloud and OPEX

Another day here in Barcelona, and it’s interesting to see which trends are at the forefront at Mobile World Congress. App stores, mobile OS, cloud computing and power consumption are the significant trends this year, and while video on mobile was big last year, it seems to be on a significantly lower “gear” this time around.

Of course, a more dominant subject here at the show is LTE, however it is being talked about in a very broad context. And few are discussing how to become the most efficient bit-pipe provider (which must be the basis for all MNOs).

Another trend is that OPEX seems to be coming back after years of short-term focus on CAPEX.  And lastly, it is interesting to note that the representatives from the Asian markets air a much more positive vision of the future compared with the “old” world.

Stay tuned for more thoughts from the show floor…

by Anders Ericsson on Feb. 17th, 2010

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Closed or Open? Hot From the Floor at MWC

Mobile World Congress is a big, yet strange place. You have to pay to get access to different providers. But the really important players, you can’t access at all. A sign tells you ‘entry by invitation only’. I wonder how long that business approach will prevail?

Apple and Google are still perceived as the villains in the mobile market and both system vendors and operators seem more interested to fight them than to change with the new conditions. The real infrastructure challenge for the long and medium term – mobile backhaul – doesn’t trigger much interest here. There is a lot of buzz around cloud computing and SLAs, but the necessary connection to mobile backhaul is lacking.

After a quick walk around all booths, I found that the Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) countries bring a fresh new perspective on telecommunications. They will soon have better infrastructure in populated areas compared to any country in the western world. Here is where the foundation for new ideas is being built, and here is where I expect a next wave of companies will emerge to take the lead in telecommunications.

And do I need to tell you that the doors to these companies are wide open for access?

by Anders Ericsson on Feb. 16th, 2010

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Google Moves Into FTTx

The US needed an additional push to increase the pace of fiber deployments to the residential users. Google’s decision to enter the broadband market shakes the competitive landscape and increases the interest to go fiber all the way down to the end user.

Today’s hotbed for fiber-to-the-home/basement (FTTx) deployments is clearly Japan and China. Already half of the broadband users in Japan are connected on FTTx, with China catching up fast. Europe and North America are lagging behind. But for how long?

Learning from copper-based broadband evolution, the amount of competition is fundamental to the pace of deployment. US end users are probably the ones that should welcome today’s news, regardless if they are based in an area that will be covered by the future Google FTTx service.

by Per Lembre on Feb. 11th, 2010

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Gloomy Old OAM and Synchronization Turns Hot

When I started in this industry more than a decade ago, I couldn’t care less about OAM and synchronization. Sure, probably important, but I just let the SDH/Sonet guys worry about those things. The future was all about packets, higher bandwidth and great user experience.

Now, we packet guys have started to realize why OAM and synchronization are important areas. Lionel Florit, MEF technical committee member and technical lead at Cisco, captured this in today’s  sessions at the MPLS and Ethernet World Congress in Paris, when comparing a 15 year old Sonet chart on OAM with the IEEE 802.1ag standard chart for Carrier Ethernet. Indeed, very similar.

First conference day was really good. This Upperside event attracts all top system vendors and most speakers are experienced enough to bring some good meat to the discussion.  Stands are congested and the conference sessions well attended. Served with French food and wine, we get most of what is needed for a great industry event.

Interested in more snippets from the show? Please follow  http://twitter.com/perlembre

by Per Lembre on Feb. 11th, 2010

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Higher Synchronization Demands, Not Less

My colleague Tord Haulin gave me this brief summary of the synchronization demands as mobile backhaul networks goes packet. You can think of the demands as a three-step evolution:

1. Distribution of precise frequency

Requirement for e.g. WCDMA/UMTS transport equipment: 15 parts per billion (ppb)

This means: OK to deliver up to a dozen too many/too few clock cycles every day (for a 8kHz reference frequency).

2. Distribution of locked frequency with tight phase control

Requirement for e.g. Fixed WIMAX transport equipment 4.3 micro seconds

This means: The precise number of clock cycles has to be delivered every year. It is OK to lead or lag up to a dozen of degrees at any time (also for a 8kHz reference)

3. Distribution of time of day

Requirement for e.g. radio interface of CDMA/CDMA2000: 1 micro second.

This means: Time carrying signal cannot be sent more than 150 m without compensating for transport delay. That would be one city block(!) 

To measure time in distance of speed of light, and frequency wander in lost clock cycles, put the hard mobile infrastructure requirements on frequency, phase and time of day distribution into perspective. For those interested in more details, I recommend taking a look at Xelerated’s precision time solution white paper.

More on this topic will also be presented at the upcoming MPLS & Ethernet World Congress 2010 and Ethernet Wholesale Summit 2010 in Paris, February 9-12, 2010. Xelerated will be there as well as many of our industry peers.

Look forward to seeing you there!

by Per Lembre on Jan. 27th, 2010

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Dare to Share?

Investing in a new Radio Access Network (RAN) infrastructure is a multi-billion dollar undertaking. When Telia lost the beauty competition for the 3G licences in Sweden for the period of 2001-2015, they decided to cooperate with Tele2 and formed a joint venture, Svenska UMTS-nät, for the 3G RAN network. The model has been copied in a few markets, like Norway, Austria and Australia. For the next generation 4G/LTE network, Tele2 is now cooperating with Telenor in a similar way to the joint venture Net4Mobility.

While there are technical constraints associated with not having full control of network resources, there is an obvious gain in cutting the investment costs in half. Most of the technical limitations are addressed as the technology matures. But the commercial aspect is harder to tackle. Sharing the complete radio network makes differentiation very hard.

This is a multi-billion dollar question, and the jury doesn’t seem to have reached their verdict. Yet.

by Per Lembre on Jan. 19th, 2010

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4G Or Not 4G, That Is The Question

Ericsson’s and TeliaSonera’s announcement of the first commercial LTE deployment provoked an intensive debate on LinkedIn’s LTE group. Is LTE really 4G, or is it 3.9 or even 3.8?

Few things triggers more discussion than terms and definition. On one hand, you have a group of professionals that believe that the usage of a term has to be defined strictly in technical terms, and if a technology doesn’t meet the definition to 100%, it is non-compliant. Don’t say it is 4G, if it is not compliant to ITU’s definition, they claim.

The other camp, and I belong to this group, simply say that the new generation of technology is defined by both technical and commercial means. The 4th generation of mobile infrastructure is underway. LTE has a completely new air interface and a completely new core. In practice, the backhaul segment is also re-engineered. This is a huge new investment by mobile operators and the consumers have to buy new handheld devices. A new page in the history book of mobile infrastructure is being turned. I call that 4G.

The debate continues though. You can make your opinion heard here.  Or you can consider contributing to the wikipedia definition of 4G.

by Per Lembre on Jan. 8th, 2010

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Happy Holidays Everyone

Christmas and seasonal holidays are closing in. The conversation at Xelerated Xpress will therefore be a bit more silent over the next two weeks.

Next year will indeed be interesting for silicon vendors serving the service provider industry. We will see a continued pull for technologies that enable unified fiber access solutions and increased service density for the metro space at new cost and integration levels.

But for now, happy holidays everyone!

by Per Lembre on Dec. 23rd, 2009

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How Much Bandwidth Do We Need?

How much bandwidth we really need is one of the critical questions service providers and policy makers around the world ask themselves as they stimulate and start to invest in Next Generation Access infrastructure. About a decade ago, migrating from dial-up to DSL and cable opened up for the Web and P2P applications. Moving next to fiber will lead to a far more reliable and dynamic digital society, with a range of consumer video applications driving the need for speed.

It’s always hard to imagine the uptake and requirements for future services. By its very nature, the future is unpredictable. Will HDTV take off? Will consumers ever want to narrate their own interactive movies in high definition? Or will they rather just lay back in the sofa and watch IPTV on the big-screen TV? The answers to these questions will have strong traffic planning implications.

Let’s look at what others are predicting. The FTTH council has compiled a list of broadband forecasts  in a response to an inquiry about the U.S. National Broadband Plan:

• Heavy Reading concludes that households will need 100 Mbps downstream (actual delivered throughput) by 2015.
• Bain & Co’s estimates the average U.S. household will require 30+ Mbps of download bandwidth, but points out that this requirement will move up to 100 Mbps over time.
• Motorola mirrors Bain & Co estimates. Within seven years, service providers need to plan for this figure to top 100 Mbps of actual throughput.

It looks like the industry will broadly accept the 100 Mbps target. How to measure the success, however, is likely to differ. Additionally, when looking at historic growth in broadband bandwidth, 100 Mbps is a reasonable goal for the next 5-10 years. The Swedish Government is aiming for this in its national broadband plan. The objective is to have 40% of Swedish housholds and companies connected at 100 Mbps by 2015, and 90% in 2020. Aggressive? Yes. Probable? Why not?

by Per Lembre on Dec. 23rd, 2009

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