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42 Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2016
Telecomnews
Microwave is seen as
gaining ground on fibre
‘on the road to 5G’ – and
quickly
The Swedish telecom technology and
services provider Ericsson predicts
that, by 2020, microwave technology
will support multi-gigabit capacities
in traditional frequency bands and
support over 10GB in the millimetre
wave (E and V) bands. The company
in a recent report said it believes E
band spectrum to be key in meeting
the need for in backhaul as well as
fronthaul capacity increases.
“Microwave networks are a vital
ingredient for operators to provide the
best possible performance and quality
According to London-based Beecham Research, low-power wide area
networks (LPWANs) are poised to give traditional cellular networks some
stiff competition when it comes to machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet
of Things (IoT) connections. In the recent report Low-Power Wide Area
Networks for IoT Applications, Beecham said that – from zero in 2015 – it
expected low-power WANs for IoT to account for 26 per cent of the overall
market for IoT connectivity – 345 million connections – by 2020.
Reviewing the report for Telecompetitor, Andrew Burger noted Beecham’s
point that LPWANs, cheaper and less power-hungry than cellular networks,
are nevertheless able to transmit and receive data over long distances.
The suggestion is that this could give them an advantage over cellular
connections, at least at the present stage of market development and
especially when it comes to connecting IP-enabled and other networked
devices installed at sites far from power sources. (“Report: Low-Power
WANS for IoT Threaten Cellular Dominance,” 15th October). Beecham said
that budget constraints on cellular network operators – limiting their rollouts
of connected M2M and IoT devices – enhance the potential of LPWANs to
enable a wider range of M2M and IoT applications.
The author of the Beecham report, senior analyst David Parker,
acknowledged that lower transfer speeds are the trade-off for the longer
distances over which LPWANs can carry data. But in his view this is
compensated by what LPWANs offer networks optimised for machine
connectivity: much lower deployment costs than traditional cellular networks.
Mr Parker cited the expectation of industry observers that low-power WANs
for IoT providers will compete and collaborate with cellular network operators
in meeting demand for IoT connectivity. Having a wider variety of options will
in turn stimulate market growth, he told Telecompetitor.
Ø Another Beecham officer, CEO Robin Duke-Woolley, said that the
company’s look at LPWANs disclosed many applications that are not “big
data” and not necessarily real-time, interactive, or immersive. Urging a
sceptical attitude toward the alleged requirement for LPWANs to supply
the 3Vs – velocity, volume, variety – in full, he envisioned a near future
of shared responsibility and opportunity in telecom. “From a connectivity
point of view, the market will move towards 4G-5G for satisfying big
data IoT,” said Mr Duke-Woolley. “While, on the other side, LPWANs and
equivalent networks will address the low data IoT requirement.”
LPWANs may represent a dynamic and potentially
game-changing development in the M2M/IoT market
of experience in the most cost-efficient
way,” Karolina Wikander, who heads
Ericsson’s microwave division,
told Guy Daniels of London-based
TelecomTV (1st October). “Capacity
needs will continue to increase on the
road to 5G, and keeping up requires
continued technology evolution and
re-imagining network efficiency.”
Ericsson foresees that microwave will
continue to be the dominant backhaul
technology and that, within five years,
65 per cent of all cell sites will be
connected by microwave solutions. It
notes that markets with existing deep
fibre investments, including China,
Japan, South Korea and Taiwan,
will be the holdouts. In Ericsson’s
view, the choice between fibre and
microwave in backhaul networks will
no longer be dictated by capacity but
by fibre presence and calculations of
total ownership costs.
Ericsson believes a sevenfold capa-
city increase can be achieved with
the use of a wide, low-availability link
in the E band (70-80GHz) to boost
a high-availability link in traditional
bands. Accordingly, reported Mr
Daniels, the company looks for major
growth in E band usage, which would
account for up to 20 per cent of new
deployments by 2020.
The USA looks into claims
by smaller players that big
telecoms have a grip on
the ‘special access’ market
For at least a decade, American
telecoms including Sprint Corp, XO
Communications LLC and Level 3
Communications Inc have complained
that large phone companies abuse
their market power in what Ryan
Knutson of Dow Jones Business News
terms “an obscure but important part
of the telecommunications market.” In
October, the Federal Communications
Commission said it was opening an
investigation into the practices of
AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications
Inc, Frontier Communications Corp
and CenturyLink Inc. As Mr Knutson
reported on (16 th
October), the investigation centres
around “special access” – the bulk
data connections that businesses buy
to connect cell towers, ATMs, retail
outlets and the like.
The FCC estimates the size of that
market at roughly $20 billion. AT&T,
Verizon, CenturyLink and Frontier
dominate the special access market
because, Mr Knutson explained,
they effectively control the wires
that were built by the legacy AT&T
monopoly, which was broken up by
the government in 1984.
He wrote: “The smaller companies
accuse the carriers of locking
up the market by forcing them to
sign volume commitments and by
charging monopoly prices and early
termination fees.” For example:
Ø Citing a scarcity of alternative
providers, Level 3 says it has no
choice but to buy 90 per cent of
its special access from Verizon in
some markets to avoid substantial
fees. BigStockPhoto.com • Photographer: Krishnacreations