Sales of optical transceivers rose sequentially and held their own year-on-year, according to LightCounting. The market research firm’s “September 2018 Quarterly Market Update Report” states that strong demand for Ethernet optics for data center and enterprise applications, as well as improvements in worldwide wireless front haul and FTTx optics interest, provided a boost for fiber optic transceiver sales in 2Q-2018.  That’s despite demand for DWDM transceivers hit a multiyear low due to the temporary shutdown of Chinese vendor ZTE.

LightCounting reported that shipments of 100GbE SR4 and CWDM4 modules in the first half of the year exceeded their expectations. The opposite was true of all other 100GbE transceivers, with several suppliers citing excess inventory at Amazon as a drag on 100GbE PSM4 sales. However, demand for 10GbE transceivers was very strong in the first six months of this year; unit shipments grew by more than 20%, according to the new report. The majority of these modules went to applications in enterprise networks. Cisco reported a 42% increase in the number of 10GbE ports shipped into this market in 1H18. And even 1GbE transceiver sales grew slightly in Q2 2018, LightCounting added.

                                                                                Sales of optical transceivers picked up sequentially during the second quarter of 2018. (Source: LightCounting)

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Looking at the market from a fiber optic transceiver customer perspective, Internet Content Providers (ICPs) spent 80% more on their  optical infrastructures in the first half of 2018 than during the same time in 2017. Communications Service Providers (CSPs) also increased their spending during this year’s first half versus 2017, although by only 2.6%.

The LightCounting 2Q-2018 report was more positive than either IHS-Markit or Cignal AI which both found the optical hardware market struggling in this year’s second quarter.  

Looking ahead, LightCounting expects DWDM module sales to pick up now that ZTE is back in business. The company cited the fact that Acacia Communications executives anticipate a nearly 40% sequential increase in third quarter 2018 sales, with ZTE responsible for 60% of that.

The new “Quarterly Market Update” includes data and commentary on the Q2 2018 financial results of CSPs, ICPs, networking hardware, optical components, modules, and semiconductor chip makers. It also includes shipment data through Q2 2018 for more than 100 optical transceiver and wavelength selective switch (WSS) products.

LightCounting Contact Info:  Tel: 408.962.4851        Email: info@lightcounting.com

Press Release for this report:  https://www.lightcounting.com/News_091818.cfm

In a prepared statement to the FCC intended to buttress the case for the T-Mobile merger with Sprint, current T-Mobile COO Mike Sievert laid out the company’s objectives for “5G” as a home broadband option.

The claim is that this new fixed BWA offers performance better than Verizon and AT&T while being able to realistically compete with cablecos/MSOs like Comcast and Charter (as well as other triple play service providers that offer download speeds in excess of 100Mbps).

Editor’s Note:

Sievert didn’t say what technology and spectrum would be used, or mention that there are no standards for “5G” BWA and that fixed wireless is not even a use case for ITU-R IMT 2020 (real 5G) standard.  IEEE decided not to submit 802.11ax or 802.11ay to ITU-R as proposed 5G BWA standards to complement IMT 2020.

In the absence of a standard, T-Mobile didn’t say what specification they are using for their “5G” BWA and really haven’t said much till now about their roll out plans for that offering.  In August, T-Mobile said it would start deploying mobile 5G in 2019 with 30 cities named.

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Sievert explained that most people in the U.S. have few options when it comes to in-home internet and that their choices often include high prices and slow internet speeds. With T-Mobile’s 5G fixed BWA, millions of U.S. households would be offered high speed internet and create a competitive environment that lowers prices.

T-Mobile’s in-home 5G BWA plans include 100Mbps download speeds out of the gate, but would increase those speeds to between 300Mbps and 500Mbps for 200+ million people by 2024.  Sievert wrote in his FCC post:

New T-Mobile’s (merged with Sprint) 5G network will change this competitive dynamic by closing the speed differential between mobile and wired broadband. By combining the resources of TMobile and Sprint, the combined company will create the capacity and coverage to provide in home broadband services. Our business planning has confirmed that there is a large market for New T-Mobile’s in-home broadband offering at the anticipated pricing and service levels. New T-Mobile’s entry into the in-home broadband marketplace will cause incumbent providers to lower their prices and invest in their networks—benefitting all in-home broadband customers.

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T-Mobile says that its 5G BWA will only be available in areas where network “capacity exceeds mobile requirements and is sufficient to support the in-home services.” That should mean coverage in at least 52% of US zip codes. T-Mobile says they could have 1.9 million 5G home internet customers by 2021 and 9.5 million by 2024.

T-Mobile also wants to make 5G home internet available without the need for installation of devices by a professional, which would mean eliminating expensive setup costs. Their goal is to allow customers the option to “self-provision the necessary in-home equipment.” That’s the opposite of how Verizon’s new 5G home service works.

T-Mobile 5G home internet will also be available without contracts or strict monthly data caps, according to Sievert.

T-Mobile will cover 64 percent of Charter’s territory and 68 percent of Comcast’s territory with its in-home broadband services by 2024. In addition, New T-Mobile expects to utilize caching and other network optimization techniques to increase the number of households that can be served. In sum, New T-Mobile will have the depth and breadth of network to deliver broadband speeds and capacity to consumers across the country.

New T-Mobile’s in-home wireless broadband offering will provide consumers across the country with average download speeds of 100 Mbps. By 2024, New T-Mobile will be able to cover more than 250 million people with data rates greater than 300 Mbps and more than 200 million people at greater than 500 Mbps.

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5G hotspot as an in-home option: Sievert also talked about allowing customers to simply use their mobile 5G plan as their only home internet solution. He explained that “New T-Mobile will also enable consumers to use their mobile services as a substitute for in-home broadband.” My guess is that T-Mobile could have an option within their wireless plans that opens up data caps for higher usage.

Currently,, T-Mobile offers 4G wireless plans that can throttle users after 50GB of data use in a month and also limits hotspot usage in many cases. For a customer to be able to use their mobile 5G plans for home internet, they’d have to remove those caps or offer some sort of tier that expands them.

Summing up, Sievert stated:

The planned service area of New T-Mobile’s broadband services will also dwarf the limited service areas of wired broadband providers. These speeds and coverage areas will be offered at a significant discount to the prices of traditional broadband providers, with monthly prices planned to be generally lower than traditional services

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Chris Milla wrote in a related blog post:

T-Mobile knows that rural broadband and broadband competition are two hot-button issues within the FCC right now, so it’s positioning the merger as a magical solution to those problems, without showing how its new claims match up with statements it was making less than a year ago. It’s the same thing that the company has been doing with 5G, and with prepaid wireless during this merger process — saying whatever the FCC wants to hear, with the reality a distant second.

What do you think of this gambit?  Please comment in the box below this article.

References:

https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/109171182702890/Appendices%20A-K%20(Public).pdf

Mr Dagfinn Høybråten, Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers, recently shared his views with ITU News on the importance of the development of 5G systems in the region.   

                            Dagfinn Høybråten is the Secretary-General of the Nordic Council of Ministers.

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Mr. Høybråten’s comments come ahead of the 5G Techritory conference, 27-28 September, Riga, Latvia.

Here’s the Q & A with ITU News:

The Baltic countries are leaders in various areas when it comes to digitalization: For instance, Estonia is famous for its e-governance while Latvia is a gigabyte society, being one of the largest consumers of 4G globally and the frontrunner within the European Union. By engaging the Baltic countries in the setup of the most innovative regional 5G platform, the Nordic cooperation will contribute to realize the potentials of the gigabit society and thereby strengthen the European competitiveness.

What are the future actions of Nordic cooperation in terms of 5G and in information and communication technologies (ICTs)?

The Nordic and Baltic countries share the goal of taking a leading role in the “next leap” for wireless communication, by building on the 2017 Nordic-Baltic Digital North Declaration with a common vision of being the first and most-integrated 5G region in the world.

However, legal barriers, deployment issues and the uncertain investment in very costly infrastructure represent some serious obstacles for the widespread, seamless and cross-border roll-out of 5G.

The Nordic Council of Ministers is in close cooperation with Nordic and Baltic countries preparing a comprehensive action plan for the 5G collaboration.  We need to reduce the uncertainty for the governments and IT and telecom industries by articulating the value of 5G and utilizing the possibilities of 5G across the region

Among the key actions supporting the roll-out and use of 5G technology in the Nordic region are (1) to ensure availability of spectrum for 5G testing (licenses), (2) the coordination of 5G frequency bands and (3) identifying and utilizing synergies between Nordic and Baltic 5G test beds/test environments.

Sidebar: Finland’s vision for 5G development

Equally, it is important to address the ethical and legal implications of the rapid digital transformation of our societies and to find the right balance between data innovation and data security.

Based on core values such as transparency, trust and openness, the Nordic and Baltic cooperation will contribute to the development of ethical and transparent guidelines and standards to guide how AI applications should be used. They will be our common contribution to the European discussion on this important issue.

Could cooperation with International Telecommunication Union (ITU) be of interest?

To support the widespread use of technologies based on 5G across different sectors and industries, close involvement of the IT and Telecom industries is of utmost importance.  As a global platform and network with more than 500 leading ICT companies worldwide, ITU is an important organization and partner in the roll-out and testing of 5G in our region, strengthening the link between vertical industries, standardization and research as diverse requirements emerge from different vertical industry use cases.

We are glad to start the dialogue with ITU at the Nordic-Baltic high-level meeting in Riga on September 26th and look forward to a fruitful discussion on 5G with ITU and other important ICT stakeholders in the future.

How 5G can boost Nordic and Baltic economies

Asia-Pacific’s mobile operators are expected to have a combined 477 million 5G subscriptions by 2023, according to a new report “Mobile Broadband Trends in Asia-Pacific” by GlobalData.  The market research firm said that it expects the first 5G service launches by operators in the region next year.

Total mobile users in Asia-Pacific are meanwhile on track to reach 2.87 billion by the end of the year, growing to 3.3 billion by the end of 2023, for a CAGR of 2.8%.  Subscription growth will be driven by the expansion of wireless networks in underserved markets, GlobalData predicted.

4G-LTE will become the dominant mobile technology by share of subscriptions this year, outnumbering 2G for the first time.  The total LTE market share is on track to nearly double by the end of the forecast period in 2023 driven by continuous expansion of LTE networks by operators in the region.

Data services revenue is meanwhile predicted to account for 60.3% of total mobile service revenue generated by operators in the region between 2018 and 2023.

GlobalData has also estimated that MVNOs in Asia-Pacific have around 194 million subscribers, accounting for 4% of the total market.

The “Mobile Broadband Trends in Asia-Pacific” report provides in-depth analysis of the following:

– Section 1: Asia-Pacific in global context; the section provides comparison of Asia-Pacific mobile telecom market size and trends with other regions.

– Section 2: Competitive dynamics; this section provides competitive analysis of various MNOs and MVNOs in Asia-Pacific’s mobile market.

– Section 3: Mobile broadband subscription trends in Asia-Pacific; a demand profile and analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the mobile voice and mobile data markets.

– Section 4: Mobile broadband revenue trends in Asia-Pacific; examines changes in the breakdown of overall revenue and ARPU over 2018-2023. –

– Section 5: Key findings and recommendations; it consists of a summary of the key findings for Asia-Pacific mobile broadband market.

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An earlier related whitepaper by Frost and Sullivan stated the following:

The 5G landscape in Asia

Within Asia, South Korea and Japan are likely to be the first nations in the region to commercialize 5G. Both are attempting to capitalize on the upcoming Olympic Games in 2018 and 2020, respectively, where 5G will be showcased as an enabler of new forms of content delivery. However, one notable aspect of 5G in Asia is that, unlike in other regions, initial network uptake will not be limited to developed countries. Rapidly developing countries, such as India and China, will be important market leaders as well because of the massive size of their populations and growing middle classes. Even if a small portion of consumers and businesses in these countries adopt 5G at first, the likelihood of reaching profitability earlier is high. Further, ambitious digital initiatives in both countries have spurred strong government support of 5G rollout.

Indicators that Asia will set the global benchmark in 5G are evident. Piloting of 5G technology has already taken place, and small  commercial launches are expected in South Korea by 2019, with larger rollouts unfolding in China and Japan by 2020. Rollout in India is not expected until after 2020 due to financial and infrastructure-related challenges, but mobile network operators are already strategizing ways to leapfrog to 5G. Despite delays compared with countries like South Korea and China, once commercialized, uptake should be relatively swift in India given strong backing from the Indian government, spectrum availability, and a large, addressable, market driving scale.

Device compliance is another indicator of Asia’s market readiness for 5G. Device manufacturers in Asia, such as ZTE, have already unveiled 5G-ready smartphones, further underscoring Asia’s commitment to 5G development.

As a whole, Asia is likely to account for just under half of all 5G subscriptions globally through 2022. By 2022, we expect regional revenue from 5G subscriptions to reach $4.5 billion and subscriptions to grow to over 280 million (or 49% of global totals). While this will represent only a fraction of all mobile subscriptions, growth for such a short period will be healthy.

Editor’s Note: Caveat Emptor!

A demo or test is NOT equivalent to performance in a production network!

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Telstra and Swedish telecom equipment and managed services vendor Ericsson have set a new record for NB-IoT range.  Ericsson’s breakthrough distance extends the 3GPP NB-IoT spec based limit from around 40km out to 100km.  Ericsson says the increased distance was obtained without any changes to physical NB-IoT hardware (only a software upgrade was required).

Emilio Romeo, Ericsson’s MD of Australia and New Zealand, says:

“This game-changing capability builds on Ericsson’s long history of delivering extended range cellular solutions.  We’re partnering with Telstra to deliver its customers a world-leading capability in NB-IoT extended range cells and demonstrating the huge opportunity that IoT represents in rural and regional areas for both Australia and globally, particularly for logistics and agriculture.”

The upgrade builds upon Telstra’s existing leadership in Australia in NB-IoT as the only provider in the country, and one of the first globally, to offer both NB-IoT and LTE Cat M1 technologies.  LTE Cat M1 was launched by Telstra last year and covered approximately three million square kilometres. This was followed by the launch of NB-IoT in January 2018.

With this latest innovation, Telstra’s NB-IoT network covers around three and a half million square kilometres; providing enhanced accessibility and reliability.

Channa Seneviratne, Telstra’s Executive Director of Network Engineering, comments:

“Telstra already had Australia’s largest IoT coverage with LTE Cat M1 across our 4G metro, regional and rural coverage footprint. With this NB-IoT extended range feature, we have now extended our coverage to more than three and a half million square kilometres, delivering our customers the best IoT coverage and capability in the country.

Once again Telstra, working closely in partnership with Ericsson, has delivered innovation that ensures the benefits of IoT technology can be enjoyed by the largest number of Australians, not just those in the cities and towns.”

Telstra and Ericsson first demonstrated the extended range NB-IoT network capabilities during the Telstra Vantage Conference held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre on September 19-20, 2018.

“Whether it’s leakage prevention with smart water meters or environmental monitoring to keep our oceans clean and estuaries safe from contaminants, water utilities across the country are using IoT technology to better track, monitor, and conserve water,” the company said during the conference.

A Captis NB-IoT temperature sensor was used for the demo, located 94km from the Telstra base station on Mount Cenn Cruaich in New South Wales, Australia.

The performance of the network in reaching difficult areas was demonstrated with a sensor placed three floors below ground level in an underground parking lot in central Sydney that was beyond the reach of regular LTE signals.

Telstra and Ericsson have set a new record for NB-IoT range with nothing more than software upgrades according to the companies.

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In July, Ericsson, Telstra and Intel made the first end to end 5G non-standalone 3GPP data call over a commercial mobile network.  That data call, completed at Telstra’s 5G Innovation Centre on the Gold Coast of Australia, was the first of its kind made over the 3.5GHz spectrum.

References:

https://www.telecomstechnews.com/news/2018/sep/27/telstra-ericsson-nb-iot-range/

Huawei and Intel announced they have completed a standalone 5G call test based on 3GPP Release 15 spec for the third phase of China’s 5G technology R&D trials.

The trial, organized by China’s IMT-2020 promotion group, was conducted at the group’s laboratory using a Huawei 5G base station and core network and Intel’s 3rd generation “5G Mobile Trial Platform.”  (It’s astonishing that it’s the 3rd generation of 5G when the IMT 2020 5G standard won’t be completed for over two years!)

Utilizing the 3.5-GHz frequency band, Huawei and Intel tested full stack initial access, registration and radio bearer establishment with the 5G new radio resource control (NR RCC) and non-access stratum (NR NAS) protocol stack.

Intel and Huawei completed non-standalone 5G interoperability and development testing in June in collaboration with China Mobile, and the two vendors commenced field trials for China’s third-phase 5G R&D test in August.

“Huawei will continue focus on system commercialization in the Third-Phase 5G R&D test, and together with industry partners will promote 5G business success,”  Yang added.

“The completion of the SA (stand alone) test, based on the R15 protocol, is another important milestone for Huawei in China’s third-phase 5G R&D test. Huawei will continue focus on system commercialization in the 5G R&D test, and together with industry partners will promote 5G business success,” said Yang Chaobin, president of Huawei’s 5G product line.

“Intel’s 5G Mobile Trial Platform has been a key technology in enabling global 5G testing and will help to define the future use cases for 5G. Now that the interoperability test for the Standalone architecture in the third-phase 5G R&D test has been completed, we are a step closer to the commercialization of 5G and to delivering the powerful user experiences that it will bring,” said Asha Keddy, VP and GM of next generation and standards at Intel.

China’s national 5G tests:

China’s 5G R&D tests, which are being carried out by the IMT-2020 (5G) promotion group, started in 2016 and are expected to be concluded by the end of this year. These tests involve three phases: key technologies testing, the verification of technology and solution and 5G system verification.

The IMT-2020 (5G) promotion group was jointly established in 2013 by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Science and Technology, based on the original IMT-Advanced Promotion Group. In China, it is the primary platform through which 5G research and international exchange and cooperation is conducted.

Operators participating in the IMT-2020 Promotion Group include: China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom and Japanese telecoms operator NTT DoCoMo. Vendors which are part of the initiative are Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia, Datang and Samsung. A number of chipset and test measurement vendors, including Qualcomm, Intel, Mediatek, Ctec, Keysight Technologies and Rohde & Schwartz are also part of the initiative.

The IMT-2020 Promotion Group completed the initial phase of its trial program in 2016. That phase included testing wireless technologies including massive multiple-input-multiple-output, novel multiple access, new waveforms, advance coding, ultra-dense network implementations and high-frequency communications. The trial phase also included network slicing, edge computing and network function reconstruction. The second phase of the national 5G tests were fully completed during last year.

Earlier this year, the Chinese government had authorized carriers to test 5G technology in major cities across the country. Under this initiative, state-run telcos are the process of deploying 5G networks in 16 cities to trial the technology.

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Intel and Ericsson meanwhile completed the first end-to-end nonstandalone 5G data call in July during a trial at Ericsson’s lab in Sweden.

References:

Huawei, Intel complete SA first call in China’s third-phase 5G R&D test

Israel Ministry of Communications director general Netanel (Nati) Cohen will try to interest overseas telecommunications companies in taking part in fifth generation cellular trials in Israel. Cohen will also try to introduce American investors into the Israeli telecommunications market. Cohen is accompanying Minister of Communications Ayoob Kara, who is part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s entourage for his visit to New York to attend the UN General Assembly.

The ministry’s idea is to try to restore interest in the Israeli telecommunications market on the part of international companies, which have refrained from investment in Israel in recent years.  The plan is to provide incentives in the form of rebates in exchange for acquiring frequencies and rolling out the network.

During his visit to New York, Mr. Cohen will reportedly meet with representatives of US telecoms giant Verizon and propose that the company should participate in 5G trials to be held at Bar Ilan University in conjunction with Israeli mobile carriers. Meetings will also be held with representatives of Lockheed Martin, with the aim of persuading the company to expand its investment in Israel.

The idea is also to conduct trials in IoT (Internet of Things), and to take advantage of the fact that there are many technology companies in Israel in areas of interest to the US companies, and to bring them into the initiative as well.

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Mobile carriers throughout the world have been cutting back on investment in new wireless infrastructure, because of the fierce competition in the industry and the erosion of revenue. At the same time, no solution has been found for the high fees that the carriers pay the state for frequencies, which result in them foregoing frequency allocations simply because they cannot meet the fee payments.

Israel government ministries have hired the services of InfoSight Consulting, which is working together with Beta Finance to formulate for the state a new frequency fee structure, as the high payments that the companies make for frequencies, around New Israeli Shekel (currency in Israel) 300 million annually, diminish their incentive to invest and represent a heavy tax on them.

The state will probably try to find a formula whereby carriers will pay more for “quality” frequencies, and much less for lower-quality high frequencies. In any event, the model will be determined before the fifth generation auction slated to take place this December. The new generation of networks will allow considerably faster data transfer.

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Intel Israel and 5G:

Elkana Ben Sinai, VP, Intel Israel said: “Intel wants to serve this market. Its vision is to be a data-centric company, dealing best with data through all its stages: collection, transmission, processing storage. It wants to make use of huge computing, storage, and its artificial intelligence and communication capabilities – very few companies have these combinations. And 5G is the leading technology to implement the ‘transmission’ part of this vision.”

For Intel, this means that its innovative products, already ubiquitous, will be even more so.

“New hardware will basically be in all aspects: data collection by new sensors (e.g. Mobileye), communication (e.g 5G), computing (e.g artificial intelligence),” Ben Sinai says. An ambitious move into the mobile phone market is also in the offing, as it is “certainly an ingredient” in Intel’s wider vision.

And Intel Israel, he says, is a “very important design center of Intel Corporation, leading some of its strategic developments in the area of computing, communication, security and more.”

Automotive and cybersecurity 

Intel also has another edge. Last year, the company acquired the Jerusalem-based Mobileye, a developer of cutting-edge autonomous driving technologies, for a whopping $15.3 billion. Mobileye is considered a leader in advanced driver assistance systems – including pedestrian detection, collision warning – aimed to prevent road collisions.

The acquisition marked Intel’s entry into the vibrant automotive market, and the industry plays a central role in Intel’s vision for the future.

References:

https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-israel-courts-5g-investment-from-us-telcos-1001254633

https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-israeli-govt-to-offer-incentives-for-5g-mobile-networks-1001249031

http://nocamels.com/2018/07/intel-israel-5g-tech/

Video clip: 5G Technology Being Born In Israel – Jul. 12, 2018

After a meeting with key telecom executives, the Trump administration said it wants to help the wireless industry deploy “5G” quickly.  National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said that 5G support aligns with lower-tax and deregulation policies that encourage private sector growth, adding the U.S. supports an “America-first, 5G-first” approach.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai called the development of 5G technology “a national imperative for economic growth and competitiveness.”

Well respected technologist, entrepreneur, writer and AI researcher Kai-Fu Lee, PhD presented a powerful and very incisive keynote speech on September 29th at the SVIEF conference in Santa Clara, CA.  The title of his talk was all encompassing and compelling:  “Era of AI, the Rise of China, and the Future of Work.”

Author’s Note: I was so impressed with Kai-Fu’s talk, I’ve ordered Kai-Fu’s  latest book, AI Superpowers, which is already on Amazon’s best selling book list.

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Here are several important highlights of Dr. Lee’s SVIEF keynote:

1.    Deep Learning (DL) is the biggest in technological improvement in the 60+ year history of artificial intelligence.  DL is a network of highly connected neurons in thousands of layers that can, in a single domain, take a huge amount of data and train to recognize, predict and decide and synthesize at a much higher accuracy than humans.

2.    DL is not human intelligence, it cannot think or cross domains. It has no strategic or creative thinking capabilities. But in a single domain, with a huge amount of data, it is beating humans in almost every task imaginable. For example, AlphaGo (a computer program that plays the board game Go). We’ve seen DL used effectively for speech recognition (e.g. Alexa, Google) and face recognition. There are beginnings now of DL diagnosis of how to read  MRIs and doing a better job of that than radiologists. 

3.   This amount of improvement is leading to what are four waves of artificial intelligence:

• Wave 1: Internet AI started in 1998. The Internet has more data than any other domain. With so much data, it enables Amazon to predict what you might want to buy. It powers Facebook to predict what you might want to read on-line.   Similarly, all the American and Chinese companies (Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, etc) , all the great AI companies of today are all Internet companies, because they have the most labeled data.
• Wave 2: Business AI started in 2004. Take banks, insurance companies, hospitals –they have amassed a lot of data in the past, they viewed data as a call center, as a legal requirement to archive. But now data has become a goldmine for them in various ways.
• Wave 3: Perception AI started in 2011- the ability to see and hear.  Examples include: computer vision, speech recognition, speech synthesis, understanding all combined together. It also can be viewed as digitizing the physical world.
• Wave 4: Autonomous AI (self driving cars, autonomous robots, etc) started in 2015.  In this wave 4, AI becomes autonomous in its ability to move around and manipulate sort of like having hands and feet. That will usher in an era of autonomous vehicles and robotics. Autonomous vehicles will bring about a huge transformation, especially the dis-incentive to own a car.  With safer autonomous vehicles, the natural next step is humans won’t be allowed to drive anymore.

4.    To make AI work, we need the following things:  a lot of data that is tagged within a single domain, a lot of compute power, and some AI experts to work on it. So AI is not perfect — you can’t make it do perfectly unsupervised learning. You can’t make it learn on very little data. You can’t do AI with very little compute power. But once you have these in place, AI can be effectively applied.

5.   U.S. Leads China in Top Researchers, Patents, and AI Talent (and will likely continue to lead in AI research in the near future).

6.    Chinese Miracle of Last 10 Years with fast product/service iteration, intense competition, user acquisition, accelerated growth, high return on investment in a huge market.

7.   In 2018: U.S. and China Have Become Parallel Universes:

US Model: Breakthrough Technologies, Vision-driven, Light, Globalized.

China Model: Fusion + speed, Applications, Result-driven, Heavy, Localized.

8.  Investment in China:   A lot of money and capital investment went into China with smart VCs helping smart entrepreneurs build products and companies. And those products actually are so attractive they brought more Chinese users on the internet. And this loop kept going and going for the last 10 years taking China from 150 million users to about 800 million users by far the largest user base in the world. And this loop has created something that we never thought possible — a system that parallels the Silicon Valley.

9. The only way to succeed in China is to find a business model that is impregnable. In other words, build a business that’s uncomfortable.  Chinese companies kept improving going from copying from the U.S. to inspired by us and then leapfrogging the U.S.  For example, WeChat (messaging app) is better than WhatsApp and way better than Twitter.  But even more exciting is the third ladder where Chinese companies are brand new innovation, this Chinese model of building impregnable businesses have reached new heights, so that these brand new companies are being built.

10.   China Advantages over U.S. in AI:

Advantage 1: Chinese Product Innovation has Caught up with U.S.  Pure Chinese Innovations Have Arrived

Advantage 2: Tough Market Begets Tough Entrepreneurs

Advantage 3: China’s AI Capital Leads the World.  48% of global AI investments were made in China; 38% in U.S., 13% other countries. SOURCE: CB Insights 2017 Global Artificial Intelligence Investment

Advantage 4: AI Moves into Era of Implementation

Advantage 5: China is the world leader in amount of Data  (like Saudi Arabia is the country with the most oil for export).  Massive Data is Critical for AI Product Success– even more important than algorithms.  AI algorithms are generally shared, and it is up to the speed, execution, and size of the data that determines how companies will benefit from AI implementations.

11.  U.S.  Advantage over China in AI:  Early Adopters, Expert is King  (vs China which is Application Driven and Data is King)

12.  Who’s ahead in AI (and tech):  Dr. Lee thinks that generally U.S. is a little bit ahead today. But China will probably be ahead in four or five years. This is not about research. This is about implementation.  U.S. will continue to be ahead in research for the next 10 or 15 years, because that lead is very difficult to overcome. But this is not a zero sum game. U.S. VCs fund U.S. companies that develop products for us customers, whereas Chinese VCs fund Chinese companies who develop products for Chinese customers (domestic market).  So the two countries are not going after the same market.

“When a Chinese company wins, a  U.S. company does not lose.  When a U.S. company wins, a Chinese company does not lose. So I think the sentiment behind the current some of the current rhetoric is not correct. This is truly not a zero sum game. This is merely a keeping score of how far ahead each technology might get. So with China and us both pushing forward AI, I think AI will make a lot more progress than internet and mobile because those only had one engine the U.S. pushing forward. And there are a bunch of other reasons such as the seven cloud giants (Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Alibaba, Baidu, Tenent) hiring people, and training people with large amounts of data VCs being devoted to AI.”

Concluding takeaways:

1.  Embrace AI – it saves us from repetitive work and pushes us to do what human is called for.
2.  AI cannot create ideas or thoughts. We are the masters and should be responsible of how to use AI.
3.  (via Twitter) How U.S. can stay ahead in AI: 1) double AI funding, 2) increase AI professors pay, 3)offer green cards to all AI PhD’s.

Closing Quotes:

“So going forward, I think AI is electricity in the next 20 years, there will be huge opportunities and challenges. But I want to take us a moment into (the next) 50 years. When we look back ignore for the moment all these job displacement opportunities, I like to leave you with two thoughts. The first thought is that AI is serendipity. It is here to take away the routine jobs so we can really spend time on what we love and what human beings are on this earth for. And secondly, for those worry about AI causing problems. Just keep in mind AI is just a tool.  It possesses no creativity. We (humans) are the Masters.  We are the ones that have free will. And it’s going to be up to us humans to write the ending to the story of artificial intelligence. Thank you.”

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In a post SVIEF conference email exchange related to AI’s use in telecommunications applications, Kai-Fu wrote this author:

“Thanks — this is not my major area of expertise.  But clearly communications in autonomous vehicles, IoT, and 5G, when combined with AI, will be a great combination.”

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SVIEF All Star Panel:

SVIEF All-star panel with VC Tim Draper, AI Rock Star Kai-Fu Lee, and Stanford Physics Prof. Shoucheng Zhang

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Author’s Note:

Due to time and space constraints the above panel session may be summarized in a follow on article, provided there is sufficient reader interest.

Please email me at: alan.weissberger@ieee.org if you’d like me to write such an article.

References:

Transcript of Kai Fu Lee’s keynote (via speech recognition):

https://otter.ai/shared/conversation/5342b3f76e67477c958742982795ffec

1.    Vodafone Italy, which competes with Telecom Italia (TIM), has acquired spectrum to enable the deployment of 5G technology for €2.4 billion during the 5G spectrum auction that fetched $7.6 billion for the Government.

The Italian Government will collect 1,250 million euros from all mobile operators during the current year, 50 million in 2019, 300 million in 2020, 150 million in 2021, and the remaining in 2022 from the 5G auction.

Though telecom operators will be releasing the spectrum auction money in the next five years, it will pose challenges to the telecom industry in Italy. Bloomberg reports that 5G spectrum auction in Italy was a record as compared with the auction in South Korea.

“Spectrum auctions should be designed to balance fiscal requirements with the need for investment to enable economic development. It is critical that European governments avoid  artificial auction constructs which fail to strike a healthy balance for the industry,” Nick Read said in a statement.

Vodafone Italy, the second largest telecom operator, posted €1.231 billion revenue registering 6.5 percent drop in the first quarter ended 30 June 2018 against 0.7 percent increase in Q4 of previous fiscal.

Vodafone Italy and other operators are facing competition following the launch of a new entrant in late May. Vodafone Italy launched a new secondary brand to specifically address the needs of customers in the value segment of the market.

Vodafone Italy said the 5G spectrum will deliver network operating cost efficiency to meet the expected future growth in data traffic.

Vodafone Italy is buying 3700 MHz – 80 MHz for €1,685 million, 700 MHz – 2 x 10 MHz FDD for €683 million and 26 GHz – 200 MHz for €33 million.

Vodafone Italy will be using the 3700 MHz spectrum to enhance coverage, improve capacity, and for rapid development of 5G services. Vodafone Italy did not reveal the timing of its planned 5G launch in Italy.

Vodafone Italy will also utilize the 700 MHz spectrum, when it is available from 2022, to deploy 5G services, providing nationwide coverage at very high speed and very low latency for including IoT, virtual and augmented reality, connected vehicles and robotics. This indicates that Vodafone Italy will be playing in both the business and consumer markets of 5G to improve ARPU.

Vodafone Italy said it can also use the 26 GHz spectrum to deliver high capacity services in densely populated locations such as city centres, sports stadiums or industrial plants.

Vodafone said it is leading 5G trials promoted by the Ministry for Economic Development in Milan and its metropolitan area. Vodafone 5G network has already achieved coverage of 80 percent of Milan and targeting 80 percent 5G coverage in its metropolitan area by December 2018.

https://www.telecomlead.com/5g/vodafone-ceo-nick-read-on-5g-network-plans-in-italy-86682

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2.  Telecom Italia (TIM) has obtained 5G frequencies for an 80MHz block of 3700 MHz for 1,694 million euros and a 200MHz block of 26 GHz for 33 million euros.

In addition to the two blocks of 700 MHz, TIM’s total investment in the 5G spectrum auction will be 2,407 million euros.

“The switch on of the antenna in Bari certifies TIM’s technological primacy in 5G space in Italy,” Amos Genish said.

Investment in 5G network is an important part of the TIM strategy for sprucing up revenue in Italy. TIM’s telecom business in Italy has posted 7.454 billion euros in revenue in the first half of 2018 against 7.494 billion euros in the same period 2017.

TIM 5G will be focusing on both consumer and business customers. Consumer business of TIM’s telecom business in Italy has reported 3.753 billion euros in revenue, while 2.333 billion euros came from business customers and 860 million euros from wholesale business in Italy.

TIM will use 3700 MHz and 26 GHz to leverage the testing already underway in Turin, Bari and Matera and in the Republic of San Marino.

TIM has started to implement services for the Smart City targeting public security, transport, environmental monitoring, healthcare, tourism and culture, in San Marino.

The 3700 MHz band, already used for the tests launched at the start of the year, is available immediately.

TIM will use 26 GHz millimetre wave band, which will be available from 2019, to conduct road test for the first 5G services.  TIM will use the 700 MHz frequencies, available from 2022, to strengthen UBB coverage, including in indoor areas, with the implementation of 5G technology.

TIM said its 4G mobile broadband coverage reached over 98 percent of the population in Italy and fixed broadband reached 80 percent of homes via FTTC and FTTH technology.

https://www.telecomlead.com/5g/tim-ceo-amos-genish-reveals-5g-network-plans-in-italy-86680

Decisions by Cisco, Ericsson and Nokia to spin off video technology units represent an attempt to better compete with nimble startups, analysts say.

It’s indicative of transition in a competitive, confusing sector that provides myriad services to the consumer video market – from encryption to caching to streaming to storage.

“There are so many companies out there chasing too few dollars,” said London-based media and technology analyst Paolo Pescatore, noting “hundreds” of them at the latest NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) meeting occupying the entire upper South Hall. Many are small. To stand out, they advertise, but don’t always deliver on the hottest trends, from Artificial Intelligence to Blockchain.

“Now, everyone does Blockchain. But are they genuinely doing it? Are they genuinely doing Big Data? For many [customers], trying to work with them is tough,” he said. “There needs to be a reality check across the board.”

There is, and it started at the top for three big players whose corporate parents have not seen adequate returns. Executives at the new standalone companies—Synamedia (spun up from Cisco’s Service Provider Video Solutions business), Mediakind (the new Ericsson media solutions) and Velocix (the result of Nokia selling off its IP Video business)—insist that operating independently is key to performing better.

“As a private, independent company, Synamedia will live and breathe video and that single focus will benefit us and our customers,” said Yves Padrines, incoming CEO of Synamedia.

Cisco agreed to sell its Service Provider Video Software Solutions unit to U.K. private equity firm Permira in May for a reported $1 billion in a deal expected to close by early next year. Rebranded as Synamedia, it includes Cisco’s Infinite Video Platform, cloud digital video recording, video processing, video security, video middleware and other services. Many of the businesses were originally part of NDS, a video and security specialist Cisco acquired in 2012 for $5 billion.

Cisco will retain some video technology for networking like WebEx, which facilitates video and web conferencing, webinars, and screen sharing.

Padrines has three priorities: integrating broadband and broadcast so pay-TV operators can embrace IP and OTT; helping customers secure revenue through piracy prevention, rapid detection and response; and using data on viewer behavior and content to help clients generate fresh revenue through targeted advertising.

He said Synamedia’s “thousands” of employees worldwide will prioritize R&D and developing local solutions for local markets. London is the headquarters with staff in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Belgium, Israel, India and China.

Cisco’s move followed Ericsson’s decision last January to sell a majority stake in its Media Solutions division to private equity firm One Equity Partners. The unit also got a snappier name, MediaKind, in July and a coming-out party at IBC last month. The deal hasn’t closed yet either as MediaKind carefully decouples from its parent company, market by market, said Arun Bhikshesvaran, chief marketing officer.

He said MediaKind staffers were in 120 of the 140 countries where Ericsson has “legal entities,” which the spinoff couldn’t replicate. In a complex process, the group narrowed the number of its legal entities to about 30 worldwide, with staffers reporting in from other areas.

“We had to figure out how to work in an agile manner, like a startup, but not [being] a startup,” Bhikshesvaran said. “What we consciously decided to do is to do this right from the beginning instead of creating an entity and fixing it later.” MediaKind will launch with 1,700 employees.

Bhikshesvaran said the relationship with Ericsson—which is retaining a hefty 49% interest in the business—will preserve the companies’ “combined heritage of video and mobility.”

Nokia is keeping an unspecified but smaller minority stake in Velocix. Cisco is selling Synamedia outright.

MediaKind, based in Plano, Texas, will be melding its businesses and focusing on R&D to address shifts in the media sector. Over the years, it has invested heavily in a collection of media properties, including Apex, Azuki Systems, Envivio, Fabrix, HyCGroup, Microsoft Mediaroom and Tandberg Television, but has acknowledged it did a poor job integrating them.

Bhikshesvaran described the current transition in the industry in part as moving to standalone software that can run on different kinds of commercial hardware, and helping clients migrate to the Cloud. MediaKind recently unveiled MediaKind Universe and announced a handful of global contracts with CogecoConnexion, Digicel, TotalPlay and TangerineGlobal.

Nokia’s IP video business, Velocix, the smallest of the three with about 300 employees, was sold in September to Volaris in a deal that will close by year end. It was the first media acquisition by the Toronto-based software company.

Nokia remains a Global Channel Partner for Velocix, which is focused on video and IP delivery and on storage technology. Velocix chief, Paul Larbey, said a core mission is to continue its work to make streaming video as smooth as broadcast.

He’s upbeat about shifts in the media industry, which he said have boosted business over the past six months. The group has added 12 new customers and increased traffic.

“Operators are starting to invest in new services—moving from analysis into the implementation phase,” he said. “There’s a nice head of steam in the development of product devices and services.”

As a standalone entity, Velocix can better hone its operations and sales. “Video is very specialized. It has a very technically oriented sales cycle. So being part of a big company” is not ideal, he said.

Larbey called Volaris “a nice, stable home,” noting that private equity firms like the ones that acquired Velocix’ larger rivals generally seek an exit in 3 to 5 years through an IPO or sale. Volaris is looking to expand and will be a buyer of assets, he predicted.  The industry is still in flux, said Pescatore, but it could be worse.

“You would be worried if they [parent companies] had written them off and closed these businesses. But private investors have come in and believe they can make a success where the giants have failed,” he said.

https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/big-spinoffs-by-cisco-ericsson-and-nokia-redraw-media-tech-sector

BT-owned mobile operator EE has launched a 5G test network in Canary Wharf, London ahead of a full commercial rollout next year.  As the cUK’s largest mobile operator by subscribers, the launch by EE is a landmark moment in the UK’s path to 5G.

Fotis Karonis, 5G Technology Lead at BT Group, said:

“This is the latest milestone in our 5G rollout – a live test of our 5G network, in a hugely busy ‘hotspot’, where we know there’s going to be demand from customers for increased mobile capacity.

With constant upgrades to 4G, and laying the foundations for 5G, we’re working to always be able to deliver what our customers need – both consumers and the vertical industries that will make the greatest use of 5G.

We were UK pioneers with 4G and today we saw the UK’s first live connections on 5G – this is a huge step forward for our digital infrastructure.”

EE announced it would be launching the 5G network back in June, promising it to be the UK’s first proper test. Some expected mobile operator O2 to beat it after plans to launch its own test bed at the O2 Arena, but EE was first to market.

The current network covers Montgomery Square in Canary Wharf and was selected by EE for its high footfall and data usage. Some 150,000 people visit the square each day, providing a better test of how the network will perform in high traffic areas.

Mark Nallen, Head of Technology and Innovation at Canary Wharf Group, commented:

“Staying at the forefront of connectivity and new technologies is critical to our community, and that’s why we’re partnering with BT Group to support delivery of 5G.

The consumers who live and work here will benefit from being better connected, and the enterprises based here will have the chance to partner with BT Group to understand the full capabilities of 5G.”

The equipment at the site will also be hooked up to a lab core network, which functions as  a replica of EE’s commercial core network, and will link up to other test sites as and when they come online. Walling it off also means that it’s possible to test 5G in whatever ways are necessary without having any impact on existing services.

Another testbed is set to launch in Shoreditch later this year, which will present different challenges to the Montgomery Square tests. Mainly because it isn’t as ‘clean’ an area. Exactly when it will happen isn’t clear yet.

EE is using network equipment by Huawei for its test; along with 3.4 GHz spectrum it won in regulator Ofcom’s auction earlier this year.  The use of Huawei’s equipment continues to be a controversial subject.

In Europe, Huawei is relatively welcome and its highly-regarded equipment used by many operators. Australia, however, recently took the decision to follow the U.S. in banning the Chinese vendor’s equipment over national security concerns.

The U.S. and Australia are part of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence sharing partnership which also includes the UK, Canada, and New Zealand. The US is said to be pressuring its partners to follow suit.

Last month, Canadian security officials went on record to say the country has the necessary safeguards in place not to follow the bans of the US and Australia.  Canada is attempting to make the case to its partners that excluding telecoms equipment manufacturers leads to an increased security risk. If a specific vendor’s equipment is compromised, it would represent a larger proportion of the network.

Rather than ban Huawei, the UK and Canada have both established labs where security officials test equipment for potential vulnerabilities.

Testing equipment rather than banning seems to be a more sensible approach. This week, India announced it would be testing Huawei 5G gear. Competition is good for prices and innovation, while bans would prevent companies such as EE from accessing potentially class-leading equipment.

References:

https://www.telecomstechnews.com/news/2018/oct/05/ee-uk-5g-network-test-launch/

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/10/ees-turned-on-its-5g-trial-in-the-canary-warf-area/

— by Stu Woo and Daphne Zhang with Eric Sylvers contributing to this article.

Governments start selling access to spectrum for new mobile networks that would be much faster than those of today.

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A new battle for cellular airwaves (frequency spectrum) is under way as governments around the world start to auction off spectrum for mobile coverage that could power near-instant video downloads and help run factories, control gadgets and navigate driver-less cars.

Countries have long sold airwave rights for cellular service within their borders but places like Britain and Spain this year held their first major auctions for radio frequencies needed to make so-called 5G cellular networks, which could be much faster than today’s mobile networks, a reality. Italy made a splash earlier this month with a blockbuster sale—spinning off $7.6 billion of frequencies to several big European carriers, including Telecom Italia SpA and Vodafone Group PLC.

In June, South Korean mobile operators snapped up $3.3 billion of spectrum there. Next month, the Federal Communications Commission plans to hold the first major U.S. auction for 5G-friendly airwaves.

Editor’s Note:

Other countries 5G auctions and amount received for same:

UK $1.8B, Spain 0.51B, Ireland 0.09B, and Finland 0.09B.  Note that some governments sell spectrum in phases, rather than all at once.

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The frequencies sold at these auctions are the ones that governments and carriers think will be crucial for a broad rollout of 5G, which promises to eventually replace today’s fastest 4G networks.
The broad contours of how 5G will work, once it is fully operational, is only now starting to emerge, and some industry executives and analyst are skeptical of its potential, saying the technology might not be much different than today’s 4G. U.S. carriers plan to roll out their first iterations of 5G networks in a few cities in the next three months.

Cellular airwaves are a public resource akin to a lake that provides water to businesses and homes. Governments reserve chunks of spectrum for everything that requires wireless connectivity: radio and TV broadcasts, satellites, military communications, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and even remote controls and garage-door openers.

Only a limited amount of airwaves are suitable for cellular service, so wireless providers such as Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. compete fiercely for them. In general, a wireless carrier with more spectrum can provide faster service and serve more people compared with a competitor with less spectrum. It also can base advertising campaigns around that fact.

Demand for 5G airwaves, or spectrum, even in this early stage, is heating up. Auctions—including for 3G and 4G and potentially in a decade for 6G—typically sell 10- or 20-year leases to airwaves, so if a carrier misses out now, it may have to wait a decade or two for its next chance.

“If you don’t have spectrum, you can’t provide wireless service,” said Steve Blythe, who heads spectrum strategy for Orange, a French carrier that operates throughout Europe and Africa.

Carriers say 5G networks will be made up of loads of small antennas much more densely packed into populated areas. Those antennas will need to operate over different frequencies than those used in today’s networks. Generally, sought-after bandwidth will be capable of transmitting more data, but over shorter distances.

Governments in each country typically hold auctions to lease channels of airwaves to wireless carriers, and proceeds go into government coffers.

Cellular providers are closely watching auctions even in countries where they don’t have a presence. In addition to trying to lock in rights to the spectrum, carriers also can learn bidding strategies and lobby regulators on what they consider to be the best auction rules.

Wireless auctions already vary widely in terms of how they work around the world, and the heightened interest in 5G has drawn extra scrutiny to some. In the Italian auction that ended Tuesday, the government reaped more than double the revenue it had forecast, drawing criticism from one prominent carrier.

Four wireless carriers essentially bought 200 chunks of airwaves that they coveted for 5G networks. But instead of auctioning off individual packages, the Italian government said wireless carriers had to buy one of four big bundles. Two bundles featured 80 chunks of airwaves each, and two packages had 20 chunks each.

Bidding for the two larger packages was fierce. In the end, the carriers spent €6.55 billion ($7.55 billion) in the auction—more than double the €2.8 billion the Italian government had written into its budget.

Vodafone, which operates in more than 20 countries and is the world’s No. 2 wireless carrier by subscribers, won one of the 80-chunk packages, spending €2.4 billion in the overall auction. But the high price it forked over caused grumbling at the London headquarters.

“Auctions should be designed to balance fiscal requirements with the need for investment,” said Vodafone Chief Executive Nick Read, in a statement. He warned against future “artificial auction constructs.”

A spokesman for Italy’s ministry of economic development, which conducted the auction, declined to comment. European wireless executives said they believed the auction’s cost was an outlier compared with other countries because both Italy’s government and wireless industry face unique circumstances.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-the-5g-race-airwave-auctions-are-the-next-rivalry-1538910016

Huawei has launched what it says is the industry’s first full-range 5G power solutions for wireless network operators which will address an expected 100% increase in 5G energy consumption when compared to 4G power dissipation.

The 5G Power series of products are designed to deliver an end-to-end, scalable energy solution for both newly built and upgradeable cell sites.

It has been designed utilizing technology including peak shaving, linked voltage boosting and energy slicing to provide a ‘one site one cabinet’ design.

Huawei said its research suggests that more than 70% of cell sites will face challenges such as insufficient power, battery and distribution capacity, and more than 30% of sites need grid modernization to match the power demands of 5G.  Its solution has been designed to help network operators reduce capex and opex while improving energy reliability to meet the high reliability and low latency requirements of future mobile applications.

Huawei launched 5G Power series solutions to ensure that energy evolution is simpler, more reliable and more efficient in the 5G network process.  Huawei believes that site synergy, network synergy, business synergy will be the direction for telecom energy in the future.

From its press release (reference below):

With the design concept of ‘one site, one cabinet’ and ‘one band, one blade power,’ Huawei’s new Power Solution adopts innovative technology of peak shaving, linked voltage boosting and energy slicing, and fully considers the capacity expansion of cooling and battery backup. Facing the capacity expansion requirement in the future, Huawei Power Solution enables carriers to avoid energy modernization and get 5G network overlaid quickly.

“Based on our deep understanding of pain points carriers are facing in the progress of network evolving, Huawei 5G Power Solution achieve end-to-end synergy from wireless network to telecom energy, which will further enable carriers to build networks quickly, reduce site energy consumption, and maximize their investment value,” Huawei president of telecom energy Tao Hongming said.

“As a telecom energy supplier who is able to provide end-to-end ICT solutions, Huawei is willing to work with carriers and industry partners on continuous innovation and exploration, and jointly solve the energy challenges in 5G era,” Tao added.

https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2018/10/huawei-first-5g-power-solution

CenturyLink has unveiled its Dynamic Connections, a Layer 2 (L2) based offering that provides access to many different cloud computing services. The third biggest U.S. wire-line carrier has partnered with Amazon Web Services and AWS GovCloud, saying it will add connections to Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure in coming weeks, then will add IBM, Oracle and other cloud computing services.

With growing day-to-day operations, organizations need a fast and easier way to connect their locations and data centers to cloud service providers. CenturyLink says they offer a complete portfolio of solutions for cloud connectivity. The company’s global access and extensive wavelength, Ethernet and IP VPN connectivity options are designed to meet today’s hybrid cloud requirements.

CenturyLink says they will provide high-performance connections to AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and other leading public and private clouds along with more than 2,200 third-party data centers.

Dynamic Connections is available to enterprise and government customers in fiber-fed buildings globally.  CenturyLink has about 130,000 of those today, via an optical Ethernet port.

The customer needs the right hardware and the right size port, but assuming that, they can turn up bandwidth from “as small as 10 Megabits/sec to up to 3 Gigabits/sec,” says Paul Savill, senior vice president of core network and technology solutions at CenturyLink.

“They would use log-in credentials to pull an inventory of all Ethernet ports they have at that enterprise in their locations across the world and they can then see that either in a map view or a list view,” Savill explains. “Then they can drill down to whatever location they want to connect- pick that Ethernet port and then pick the cloud service provider they want, at wherever location that is in the world, whatever data center it is running in, and then indicate the size of the bandwidth.”

Savill said that competing multi-cloud connect offerings –from AT&T’s NetBond, Verizon’s Secure Cloud Interconnect and Orange Business Services’ private and public cloud connections, etc. “can’t match our scale and flexibility.”

As a L2 service, it doesn’t touch the Internet, which thereby provides greater security. In addition, CenturyLink is offering an open API for the service so that enterprise customers can build it into their own back-office systems and use those for provisioning instead of the portal.

Editor’s Note:

After CenturyLink acquired Savvis in 2011, the combined company attempted to promote its own cloud computing service using MPLS IP VPN for customer access to it.  This new multi-cloud connect service is a huge improvement over that earlier solution.  It will be interesting to see how it competes with AT&T Netbond and Verizon’s Secure Cloud Interconnect service.

References:

http://www.lightreading.com/services/cloud-services/centurylink-adds-dynamic-cloud-connections/d/d-id/746673

https://www.nasdaq.com/article/centurylink-introduces-cloud-connect-dynamic-connections-cm1035159

AT&T will use 700MHz low-band and 2.3GHz WCS spectrum along with millimeter wave spectrum for its 5G rollout, said Gordon Mansfield of AT&T.  Separately, the company plans to use its millimeter wave Project AirGig to reach rural areas.

Mansfield  told a Light Reading event audience that AT&T won’t be solely reliant on 28GHz mmWave as it moves toward 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) 5G New Radio-based service,

He also appeared to indirectly criticize the 5G-based fixed wireless access service from wireless telco rival Verizon Communications Inc. “They have to go ahead and rip out the equipment at the customer homes when they want to update,” Mansfield said, not naming Verizon’s 5G Home Service, a fixed wireless offering based on the operator’s proprietary 5GTF specification, which launched on October 1, 2018.

                                AT&T’s Gordon Mansfield at the Light Reading event in New York City.

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Speeding up the deployment of mmWave for the mobile rather than fixed 5G will require more infrastructure integration, as Verizon seemed to acknowledge at the event.

AT&T is hopeful that its millimeter wave “Project AirGig” will be able to provide gigabit-speed backhaul in the future, especially in rural areas. The AirGig technology wirelessly rides alongside medium-voltage power lines and uses newly designed “low-cost” plastic antennas for connectivity. (See Project AirGig Goes Down to Georgia ).  At the moment, “it’s a research project,” Mansfield added.

Mansfield pointed out that AT&T has already been “serving users at Magnolia Silos with [fixed] broadband 5G” since December 2017. AT&T announced that it would hold a wireless trial at the Magnolia Market at The Silos shopping complex in Waco, Texas, on December 17, 2017. The operator is using millimeter wave spectrum to deliver connectivity to shoppers, distributed via WiFi.

AT&T is expected to launch 3GPP mobile 5G in parts of 12 US markets in “late” in 2018.

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From Twitter: Gordon Mansfield discusses ATT‘s 5G Evolution technology on October 9th on CheddarLIVE, chatting about the company’s vision, the technology’s impact, and its possibilities across different industries.

References (videos):

https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/atandts-gordon-mansfield-focusing-on-mobile-5g/v/d-id/746774?_mc=RSS_LR_EDT

https://twitter.com/search?q=%40Cheddar%20%20Gordon%20Mansfield&src=typd&lang=en

Facebook along with Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel Ltd.’s Ugandan unit and Mauritius-based Bandwidth & Cloud Services Group, has deployed nearly 500 miles of fiber-optic cable across the isolated northwest of this East African nation. The project, begun in early 2017 and completed at the end of last year, has expanded the region’s network capacity, providing faster internet access to an area with some three million people, many of whom live in towns still haunted by memories of the three-decade insurgency led by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army.

The Ugandan cable is the largest terrestrial network Facebook has helped construct in Africa and part of what the company describes as a broader push to connect the approximately 3.8 billion people who are still without internet around the world.

The move comes as Facebook’s user growth slows in developed markets like the U.S. and Europe. The social media giant’s presence on the continent remains small compared with other regions, but the Menlo Park, Calif.–based company said its strategy to get more people onto a faster and more robust internet will plug more of sub-Saharan Africa into the global economy.

Indeed, the summer of 2018 brought different fortunes to attempts by Facebook and Google to offer broadband services using high-flying drones and balloons (atmospheric satellites) to the unserved in remote rural areas.

GlobalData, a data and analytics company, feels that webscale giants need to partner with telcos globally to address the affordability challenge of reaching out to the unconnected in rural markets with atmospheric satellites.

Atmospheric satellites fit in the space between true satellites commonly used for communications and ground-based networks. Their theoretical advantage over satellites is much lower cost. Launching a balloon or a drone and equipping it with a radio base station represents a much cheaper way of covering large swaths of land. Considering one-third of the world population remains unconnected, the lower costs associated with balloon- or drone-based coverage is compelling.

However in June 2018, following several setbacks over a period of four years, Facebook abandoned developing its own high-flying solar-powered drones (Aquila project) for delivering Internet. However, the California-based social media giant said that it will focus on working with partners like Airbus on high altitude platform station (HAPS) system, which is capable of beaming down high-speed Internet.

On the other hand Alphabet, the parent company of Google, turned its Loon balloon project into an independent company and announced its first commercial project with partly-state owned Telkom Kenya in July 2018. The partners plan to launch balloon-based 4G/LTE services commercially to parts of central Kenya, starting from 2019.

Loon’s pilot with Telkom Kenya may provide the clearest test of whether atmospheric satellites can really work. This puts pressure on Loon to demonstrate it has a viable technology.

Emir Halilovic, Telecom Technology and Software Analyst at GlobalData, said:

“Things get more complicated when the practical challenges of covering the unconnected masses with drone- or balloon-based mobile signals are considered. For starters, the potential customers for services provided from atmospheric satellites are not concentrated in one part of the world; rather, they are spread across remote, rural, or tribal areas, in many different countries and continents.”

Truly addressing this group would require the participation of multiple operators in dozens of countries. Moreover, most of the unconnected usually do not live outside areas where they can get mobile service; they just cannot afford a mobile plan. Drones and balloons do little to address the ’affordability’ challenge.

Halilovic concludes:

“Still, there are reasons to continue to pursue atmospheric satellites to provide coverage to the underserved rural communities, which could use internet connection to improve access to medical services in isolated locations, for example. Another use case for atmospheric satellites is quick restoration of communication services in natural disasters. Telcos should therefore continue to test atmospheric satellites to support development of such services.”

Critics say Facebook’s ventures into less-developed markets could undermine net neutrality by channeling traffic to its own platform and away from competitors. An earlier effort by Facebook to expand internet access in the developing world faltered in 2016, when India’s telecommunications regulator effectively banned the company from offering free access to a low-data version of Facebook and selected websites and apps. Governments across Africa—including in Uganda—are rolling back internet freedoms and cracking down on social media.

Facebook, which declined to comment on the cost of the Ugandan cable, says its Africa strategy is a long-term effort. Analysts say the lack of connectivity on the continent is a central impediment to increasing economic growth: Removing barriers to commerce and trade should create more opportunities for consumers to spend.

“It’s not a philanthropic venture. It’s a strategic investment with a long-term goal,” said Ebele Okobi, Facebook’s director of Africa public policy. “We see this as an enabler of our business, not as a way to gain advantages.”

Dexter Thillien, a London-based analyst with Fitch Solutions, said Facebook, conscious of the risks, is still testing the waters in Africa.   “It’s where they can make the least money, at least right now,” he said.

The word “Africa” appears just once in Facebook’s 2017 annual report, to inform readers that the continent is included, along with the Middle East and Latin America, under its “Rest of World” designation.

Since the fiber rollout, Airtel Uganda has installed 33 new telecom towers in northern Uganda, while 71 towers have been upgraded to 3G and another 43 towers now beam 4G, which improves users’ ability to download and stream quickly, the company said. Previously, most places in the region had 2G or no service at all—a far cry from developed economies, which are racing to roll out 5G networks. More than half of Africa’s mobile broadband connections remain 2G (which AT&T has discontinued in the U.S.).

“That cable is fast for internet. That means communications will be much easier,” said Patricia Akello, project manager for Youth Alive, a Gulu-based provider of youth HIV counseling and testing. “Internet has become a necessity: Allowing young people access will educate them. They’ll be better able to prevent HIV…and they can be educators to others in the community.”

References:

https://www.enterpriseinnovation.net/article/webscales-need-partner-telcos-bring-atmospheric-satellite-services-unconnected-201758349

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-pushes-into-africa-1539000000

A new report from Intel and Ovum contains some eye opening  expectations for the growth of 5G cellular networks over the next decade.  Video will account for 90 percent of 5G data use, but 5G-powered VR and AR will reach a tipping point. By 2028, gaming — not industrial use — will account for 90 percent of 5G AR data.

The report claims 5G is about to drive $1.3 trillion in new revenues to media and entertainment companies over the next decade. Ovum forecasts that user demand for video data alone will grow from a monthly average of 11.7GB per 5G subscriber in 2019 to 84.4GB in 2028, at that point accounting for 90 percent of all 5G traffic. That’s not just because videos will improve in resolution; they’ll also include additional embedded media and immersive experiences that improve the experience, and video viewing time will increase.

Within a decade, the global media industry stands to gain $1.3 trillion from 5G, according to the “5G Economics of Entertainment Report” commissioned by Intel and conducted by Ovum ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The report states that as early as 2025, 57 percent of global wireless media revenues will be generated by using the super-high-bandwidth capabilities of 5G networks and the devices that run on 5G. The low latency of these networks means that no video will stall or stop – live streaming and large downloads will happen in the blink of an eye.

The report points to the following breakouts in revenue as 5G networks overtake 3G and 4G by offering new capabilities:

• 2022: nearly 20 percent of total revenues – $47 billion of $253 billion
• 2025: more than 55 percent of total revenues – $183 billion of $321 billion
• 2028: nearly 80 percent of total revenues – $335 billion of $420 billion

How Media Demand Drives Network Evolution:

The “5G Economics of Entertainment Report” forecasts that 5G will accelerate content consumption, including mobile media, mobile advertising, home broadband and TV, and improve experiences across a broad range of new immersive and interactive technologies – unleashing the full potential of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and new media.

The average monthly traffic per 5G subscriber will grow from 11.7GB in 2019 to 84.4GB per month in 2028, at which point video will account for 90 percent of all 5G traffic.

Intel also expects major gains for both VR and AR, suggesting that “a new dawn of VR-driven experiences will emerge as early as 2025,” thanks to 5G. Beyond freeing players from cabled headsets, the report predicts that sensory experiences will be added to VR games, whereby “sensations such as heat and pressure could be bundled into a weapons upgrade in an action game.”

Augmented reality could evolve considerably as a result of 5G. The initial applications sound modest, as the report expects AR will be used to connect people to existing media through “virtual items, virtual characters, and augmented contextual information” — steps we’re already seeing with Star Wars and similar “AR stickers.” But by 2028, AR games are predicted to make up “more than 90 percent of 5G AR revenues,” or around $36 billion globally. That’s a fascinating suggestion, given that AR today is all but exclusively seeing interest from industrial and enterprise customers.

Despite the prediction of heavy video demand, Intel sees games as the key driver for 5G: “Gaming will be at the forefront of 5G-led innovations.” Initially, users will see mobile cloud gaming become a reality, as cloud-based servers do the heavy graphics and AI lifting for less powerful mobile devices. By 2028, the companies expect that 5G mobile games revenue will be $100 billion per year.

Much of the past year’s discussion of 5G has been on its potential to transform transportation, cities, and industries, with carriers, chipmakers, and even government officials suggesting it will bring about a “fourth industrial revolution.” But if today’s report is correct, the vast majority of 5G data won’t be self-driving car controls or coordinated IoT sensors, but rather video, VR, and AR. In part, that’s because entertainment content is data-intense: The report notes that one minute of AR will consume 33 times more traffic than one minute of 480p video.

According to Venture Beat’s Jeremy Horowitz, the challenge for Intel is to actually get 5G products into the marketplace. The now #2 global semiconductor company has been working on 5G modems and has shown early prototype devices, but it appears at this point to be focused on equipping computers and larger network hardware devices with 5G as rivals such as Qualcomm concentrate on 5G smartphones.