Sunday, April 19, 2020

IDC: Flat projection for 2020 worldwide spending on telecom services due to COVID-19

International Data Corporation (IDC) expects telecommunication services spending to reach $1.6 billion in 2020 with nearly flat growth compared to 2019.

"COVID-19 is leading to a lot of uncertainty around the spending impact on various technology markets. We expect the telecom services market to weather the current conditions better than other elements of the ICT market," said Carrie MacGillivray, group vice president and general manager, Worldwide Telecom, Mobility, and IoT research at IDC. "The COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting the importance of connectedness. Telecom services are the common thread keeping us united as we weather this crisis."

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the market in several ways. On the positive side, IDC has observed increased use of telecom services due either to nationwide lockdown or work-from-home policies that many companies have implemented for their employees to follow. However, this doesn't directly translate into a surge in telecom spending due to many households having unlimited voice calls and unlimited Internet services.

Commercially, the spend is inhibited due largely to the harsh economic impact that a number of industries are enduring. Businesses are either faced with temporary shutdowns or are closed altogether. The continued transition to IP and cloud services with lower ARPU as well as the reduction in GDP growth in the second half of 2020 are key factors that challenge the market. From a mobile perspective, there will be an additional negative impact including slower net adds, especially in the consumer segment, as retail outlets are closed during lockdowns making it difficult to activate net new devices and plans.

IDC will be releasing a comprehensive breakdown of the telecommunication services market next month in its newly launched product, Worldwide Semiannual Telecom Services Tracker.

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS46222120

DT, Swisscom, Telia and Vodafone enable NB-IoT roaming

Deutsche Telekom, Swisscom, Telia, and Vodafone signed NarrowBand IoT (NB-IoT) roaming agreements.

NB-IoT roaming will shortly be available across 18 European countries. These include Deutsche Telekom’s networks in Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, Poland and Croatia; Swisscom’s network in Switzerland and Liechtenstein; Telia Company’s networks in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden; as well as Vodafone’s networks in Spain, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

“Our customers need a sustainable roaming environment for their Mobile IoT deployments to deliver a consistent service across international borders. This allows them to benefit from economies of scale as they continue to expand their business,” says Rami Avidan, responsible for IoT at Deutsche Telekom. “We are working hard to help accelerate the adoption of NB-IoT roaming in Europe and beyond. It is great to see the interoperability of our and our first partners’ networks now in place.”

https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/mobile-iot-roaming-goes-live-across-europe-598700

NTT charts a roadmap to the future IOWN All-Photonics Network

NTT outlined a technology roadmap for its Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) vision, which was first announced in May 2019.

IOWN has three technical elements: All Photonics Network, Digital Twin Computing, and Cognitive Foundation. The roadmap calls for four technical directions:

(1) Full-Stack Communication Acceleration (Layer 4/Layer 3 Acceleration: CY2021, Technology for massive optical/wireless capacity: CY2023)

In order to take full advantage of the large capacity of IOWN All-Photonics Network, NTT will develop a new accelerated Layer 4/Layer 3 communication method that is less subject to the distance-related throughput degradation than TCP/IP. As the new communication method will lead to the explosive growth of data traffic, we will also develop a new network architecture and technology for massive optical and wireless capacity.

(2) Data-Centric Communication and Computing (CY2021)

NTT will develop Cognitive Foundation Data Hub (CF Data Hub), which enables nodes (sensor nodes or AI analysis nodes) to instantly exchange or share large data objects. By leveraging CF Data Hub as a central exchange point that faces multiple types of networks and computing infrastructures, IT infrastructures will shift from the conventional IP-centric paradigm to a new data-centric paradigm.

(3) Computing Scaling Across Device, Edge, and Center Cloud (CY2021)

NTT will develop a high-speed distributed computing technology that leverages ultra-broadband and low-latency communication on IOWN All-Photonics Network to realize a new cloud computing infrastructure that seamlessly spans multiple data centers.

(4) Sustainable Growth with Energy Efficiency (CY2023)

NTT will develop an architecture and technologies for photonic disaggregated computing, which significantly improves energy efficiency by replacing electronic data bus for inter-module data transfer with photonic data plane. After that, shift from electronic to photonic will also be applied to inter-package and inter-device interconnections on a step by step basis, which will eventually lead to a quantum leap improvement in energy efficiency.

https://www.ntt.co.jp/news2020/2004e/200416a.html

Ericsson, OPPO and Mediatek test 5G VoNR call

OPPO, in partnership with Ericsson and MediaTek, successfully conducted 5G VoNR (Voice/Video on New Radio) calls. The tests used a modified commercial smartphone from OPPO powered by MediaTek's Dimensity 1000 series SoC. Ericsson supplied the end-to-end 5G Standalone (SA) network at its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. After dialling, the two phones connected almost instantly and then seamlessly switched to a high-definition video call with a single keypress.

VoNR is a basic call service that entirely relies on SA architecture.

Ethan Xue, President of OPPO Middle East and Africa said, "As a leading global technology company, OPPO proactively works to accelerate large-scale commercialization of 5G. Our cooperation with Ericsson and MediaTek on VoNR is part of our in-depth collaborations in the 5G era. We aim to become the industry's ideal partner to deploy 5G around the world and at the same time, enhance 5G experience for the users."

Hannes Ekström, Head of Product Line 5G RAN, Ericsson says: "After spearheading 5G rollouts across the world, we are gearing up for the next step: 5G Standalone services. Using an Ericsson end-to-end 5G Standalone network based on commercial hardware and software, along with devices from our partners OPPO and MediaTek; we've shown that beyond the high-speed capabilities delivered by 5G. We are ready to deliver on the voice and video calls that will remain important to consumers. This achievement confirms our commitment to enabling service providers to offer a superior end-to-end 5G experience."

Marvell enables NVMe over Fabrics storage disaggregation for VMware

Marvell's QLogic Fibre Channel and FastLinQ Ethernet adapters are now supporting NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) technology in VMware vSphere 7.0.

This enables high-performance NVMe flash storage to be effectively shared, pooled and managed across a fabric.

Specifically, Marvell FastLinQ 41000 and 45000 Series Ethernet Adapters support NVMe/RDMA over both RoCEv2 and iWARP protocols. Starting with VMware vSphere 7.0, customers can leverage NVMe/RoCEv2 capabilities of FastLinQ NICs while future-proofing their data centers for potential use cases of NVMe/iWARP and NVMe/TCP. FastLinQ Universal RDMA capability, combined with future support for NVMe over TCP, provides IT managers with the broadest choice of options to scale out NVMe.

"NVMe over Fabric technologies are unlocking the value of NVMe flash by delivering a variety of low latency, scalable and trusted fabrics," said Vikram Karvat, vice president and general manager, Server Connectivity Business Unit at Marvell. "The introduction of Marvell's QLogic FC-NVMe and FastLinQ NVMe/RoCEv2 technologies into industry-leading virtualization platforms from VMware enables end users to leverage economies of scale when deploying NVMe without compromising the performance, reliability or manageability of their infrastructure."

"VMware and Marvell solutions have been an integral part of every wave of virtualization and storage innovation in the data center for several years," said Sudhanshu Jain, director of product management, Cloud Platform, VMware. "Marvell's QLogic FC and FastLinQ Ethernet technology with vSphere 7.0 enables customers to leverage existing SAN infrastructure and migrate to FC-NVMe to take advantage of performance and cost matrix."

Ofcom posts 5G EMF measurements to counter Covid 5G myth

Ofcom published test results showing that UK 5G continues to operate well within internationally-accepted safety levels.

The published results include electromagnetic field (EMF) measurements taken at 22 5G sites in 10 UK cities. The maximum measured at any mobile site was approximately 1.5% of the guidelines set by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).

The highest level from 5G signals specifically was 0.039% of the maximum set out in the international guidelines.

The UK telecoms regulatory authority reminds the public that there is no scientific evidence to support the conspiracy theories linking the coronavirus to 5G and putting lives at risk.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/clearing-up-myths-5g-and-coronavirus

MWC Shanghai 2020 is cancelled

The GSMA decided to cancel MWC Shanghai 2020, which was originally scheduled for June 30 to July 2, due to the global pandemic.

The GSMA hopes to find a suitable date and venue to hold regional conferences in China in the latter half of 2020.