WCA September 2014

Telecom news

“This hype of new Gs that came with digital and 2G, then broadband with 3G, and real, true broadband access with 4G – I think there has been a risk of exaggerating what the technologies can do.” But Mr Ewaldsson said that his company, which perceived a need “to push the envelope strongly,” will be able to deliver on expectations with speeds exceeding those on fixed networks. Hence the invitation to the operators to witness the lab demonstration. Ø For its part, Ericsson’s Chinese rival Huawei announced its election to the board of the 5G Infrastructure Association in Europe during the General Assembly held in Bologna on 26 th June. Huawei, which has said it intends to position itself as a European vendor, will be represented on the board by David Soldani of the company’s European research centre. The 5G Infrastructure Association represents the private portion of the 5G Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership, (5G PPP) between the European ICT industry and the European Commission. The $1.9 billion project, jointly funded by the public and private partners, is aimed at accelerating and structuring 5G research and development as Europe seeks to gain an advantage in next-generation wireless technologies. The inclusion of Microsoft bolsters a Qualcomm-based initiative to set standards for the Internet of Things Microsoft, of the USA, has joined the AllSeen Alliance, an open-source project founded on Qualcomm technology and aimed at standardising interconnections in the Internet of Things: essentially smart devices working together. As noted by Phil Goldstein of  FierceWireless (2 nd July), the software giant’s participation in the group adds heft to a membership which had been largely dominated by consumer electronics and home appliance makers.

Published twice annually by Infonetics Research (Campbell, California, USA), the ‘Global Telecom and Datacom Market Trends and Drivers’ report provides analysis of global and regional telecom market trends and conditions. Excerpts from the June 2014 instalment include the following: Ø The International Monetary Fund (IMF) anticipates that the world economy will expand 3.6 per cent in 2014 (+0.06 per cent from 2013) amid recoveries in Britain and Germany and slowing growth in Japan, Russia, Brazil and South Africa Ø Mobile service revenue remains the main telecom/datacom growth engine worldwide, led by the unabated rise of mobile broadband Ø To avoid falling into the role of pipe provider, many service providers are deploying or weighing new architectural options such as caching/content delivery networks, distributed BRAS/BNG, next-gen central offices, distributed mini data centres, and video optimisation Ø Software-defined networks (SDNs) and network functions virtualisation (NFV) have the attention of nearly all service providers, who are on the long road to widespread deployments Ø Big data is becoming more manageable. Operators are leveraging subscriber and network intelligence to support marketing and loyalty strategies, churn management, and automation/optimisation of networks using SDN and NFV Ø The cloud, mobility, BYOD and virtualisation are the top trends driving enterprise networking and communication technology spending, with North America leading the way Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics, said that the market research firm expects a slowdown in this year’s capital expenditures in the Americas; but that, for a change, Europe “will be in the telecom capex driver’s seat.” “We’re forecasting global carrier capex to rise four per cent, with EMEA as the growth engine despite unabated low-single-digit revenue declines all across Europe,” wrote Mr Téral. “After waiting for so many years to upgrade their networks, Europe’s ‘Big 5’ – Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Vodafone – have decided it’s time to take the plunge.” Matthias Machowinski, a co-author of the report released at midyear, said that economic expansion in mature economies and falling unemployment in Europe are “driving stronger growth in enterprise telecom and datacom expenditures.” The Infonetics directing analyst for enterprise networks also said that the researchers expect the network infrastructure segment to be the main beneficiary of this year’s growing investments, followed by security. Market research report: Europe will be ‘in the driver’s seat’ for telecom capital expenditures this year

‘Pushing the envelope’ on 5G, Sweden’s Ericsson strives to position itself as a leader in next-generation technology In late June, at its lab in Kista, Sweden, the telecom infrastructure vendor Ericsson demonstrated what it calls its pre-standard 5G network technology. Watched by senior management from Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and South Korea’s SK Telecom, Ericsson showed live,

over-the-air 5G running at speeds of 5Gb/s in a performance that anticipated commercialisation by some six years. Availability of 5G – still in the early stages of being defined, let alone standardised – is not expected until 2020. Asked by Richard Handford of Mobile World Live (2 nd July) whether there was not a risk of exaggerating what 5G can achieve, Ericsson’s CTO Ulf Ewaldsson acknowledged the possibility. “There always is, I think, if we go back through all the Gs apart from the first one,” was his response.

BigStockPhoto.com • Photographer: Krishnacreations

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Wire & Cable ASIA –September/October 2014

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