AT&T to Launch LTE-M IoT Trial

source: Qualcomm

AT&T plans to pilot an LTE-M network in the San Francisco market starting in November 2016, followed by a full commercial launch in 2017.

LTE-M is a subset of the Long Term Evolution 4G network standard optimized for Internet of Things sensors requiring transmission speeds no greater than about 1 Mbps, as well as up-to-10-year battery life and ability to work underground.

source: Qualcomm

LTE-M technology is expected to connect a wide variety of IoT systems supporting smart utility meters, asset monitoring, vending machines, alarm systems, fleet, heavy equipment, mobile health and wearables.

Participants in the pilot include:

• Badger Meter – analyze how the LTE-M network, which is dedicated to supporting the IoT, may be used to enhance communications for smart water devices.
• CalAmp – explore how the LTE-M network can help companies more efficiently manage their connected vehicles and assets.
• Capstone Metering – demonstrate how LTE-M can improve Smart Cities sensor technologies. It will look to increase battery life and improve connectivity and sensor monitoring for underground smart water meters.
• PepsiCo – examine and test ways that sensors can improve the in-store experience with smart vending solutions for the thousands of PepsiCo products consumers love and enjoy.
• Samsung – evaluate an LTE-M-based solution to enhance performance for consumer solutions. This may include wearables or other consumer devices.

When is a Terabyte Household Data Consumption Limit a Problem?

When is a terrabyte of usage on a single consumer Internet access account a problem? When a consumer user is part of the “one percent.” That is one percent in terms of data consumption on a Comcast network in a month’s time.

Roughly, that corresponds (Comcast’s estimates) to a household consuming about 21.7 hours of high-definition format video entertainment every day of the month, based on a terabyte supporting between 600 and 700 hours of HD video, and using 650 as the median case.

Netflix estimates an hour of its HD video consumes about 3 GB per hour, though. In 2014, according to Sandvine, a cord cutter household consumed about 212 GB a month (video and all other uses).

As a rule of thumb, a typical household using Netflix and streaming video should not experience any data consumption limit issues if a 500-gbyte cap is in place, according to WhistleOut.

India Spectrum Auction Nets about 11% of Government-Forecast Revenue

India’s big spectrum auction of 2,300 MHz worth of spectrum has ended, with spectrum sold at about 11 percent of what the government projected would be the case, or roughly US$9.8 billion (if I have converted the crore properly). The government had projected sales in the $83 billion range.

As mobile executives had warned, prices for 700 MHz spectrum were simply wildly overpriced. They behaved as they spoke: nobody made a bid for any of the 700-MHz assets. Mobile executives had suggested the government lower the prices and wait before auctioning the 700-MHz assets.

Of the total of 2,300 MHz of assets, the government sold 964.8 MHz of spectrum. Mobile operators purchased about 34 percent of spectrum in the 800-MHz band, about 75 percent in the 1800-MHz band, all of the spectrum available in the 2300 MHz band and about 60 percent of spectrum in the 2500 MHz band. About 20 percent of spectrum in the 2100 MHz band was bought.

Vodafone India and Bharti Airtel were the biggest buyers of 4G spectrum, followed by newcomer Reliance Jio Infocomm and Idea Cellular.

Vodafone spent over Rs 20,000 crore, Airtel Rs 14,244 crore, Jio Rs 13,672 crore and Idea Rs 12,798 crore.

The auction results, and the squabbling leading up the auction, illustrate several important facts about the Internet ecosystem. From a mobile operator’s perspective, though spectrum access is a necessary precondition for being in business, operators cannot pay “any amount” for that access.

And mobile operators demonstrated with their wallets that spectrum prices set by the government were too high. There is experience behind that thinking. In the past, mobile operators have overpaid for 3G spectrum, for example, in India and elsewhere.

Operators have learned, from experience, that the cost of spectrum has to be weighed in view of expected revenues that can be generated by those assets.

There also are a few larger points.

Since, in the end, consumers or advertisers are the ultimate sources of all ecosystem revenue, all costs--anywhere in the ecosystem--must be matched by revenues from those sources.

The Indian auction shows that government officials and mobile operators have vastly-different expectations about the revenues that can be generated by using mobile spectrum.

There are reasons mobile operators and others might rationally expect spectrum to prices to begin dropping. For starters, much more spectrum will be made available as 5G standards are set and regulators start to release brand new spectrum in the millimeter regions.

The role of unlicensed spectrum also is growing, reducing, to a real extent, the need to buy licensed spectrum.

In some markets, spectrum sharing also will add even more resources. Finally, small cell architectures are allowing service providers to make better use of any amount of finite spectrum.

Can Internet Access be "Future-Proof?"

Remember when fiber-to-home was touted as “future-proof?” That statement is only partially true, as it was even when originally argued. The “future-proofing” is correct to the extent that physical media does not have to be replaced when a bandwidth upgrade happens (at least for perhaps 15 to 20 year lifetime of the cables).

But continual speed upgrades are part of the market dynamic. Yesterday's ceilings become today's floors. In that sense, no network is fully future proof.

To a large extent, the United Kingdom has succeeded in upgrading most locations to superfast speeds of 24 Mbps. In fact, by some estimates, about 91 percent of U.K. locations can buy Internet access at 30 Mbps. The extent of superfast coverage was about 83 percent in 2015.

Now the near-term goal is to connect 97 percent of U.K. locations at at least 24 Mbps by 2019. Back in 2009, when the idea of upgrades to “superfast” speeds became part of the national agenda, the typical U.K. consumer got speeds of perhaps 4 Mbps.

So a boost of about an order of magnitude in less than a decade is significant, if not unusual. An increase of another order of magnitude is coming, at least in part because other suppliers, using their own facilities, have leapt ahead.

Perhaps instructively, in the U.K. market, cable TV operators supply 56 percent of all “superfast” Internet access connections, though having only about 19 percent of connections.  

In late 2014, for example, the top speed supplied by BT was 65 Mbps. The top speed supplied by Virgin Media was 159 Mbps.

Since virtually all fixed network Internet access connections now are broadband, the ongoing issue is how to define “broadband.”

Source: Ofcom

AT&T to Compete with Verizon, CenturyLink Local Access Networks

AT&T now says it is deploying fixed wireless using millimeter wave frequencies to apartment complexes in Minneapolis, outside its traditional 21-state wireline service area.

In case you miss the implications, this is the first time AT&T is going to compete head-to-head with CenturyLink in the consumer local access business, in CenturyLink’s footprint, aiming to supply 100 Mbps access service to each unit in a building. AT&T says it already plans to boost speeds to 500 Mbps to each living unit.

Up to this point, AT&T's consumer operations in the fixed network area have been confined to the 21-state region where AT&T has had operations growing out of the old Regional Bell Operating Company territories.

The move is akin to Comcast announcing it is going to serve customers in a Charter Communications franchise area.

While AT&T competes directly with Verizon in the mobile business, and with both Verizon and CenturyLink in the enterprise accounts business, AT&T has not overbuilt another telco in the consumer business.

There are many reasons for that situation. For one thing, AT&T wants to avoid running afoul of informal antitrust guidelines that tend to be triggered whenever a fixed network provider serves 30 percent of available U.S. homes.

By competing out of region as a CLEC, AT&T avoids increasing the number of U.S. homes passed by its incumbent provider fixed networks.

“If successful, this will give us the ability to offer a combination of Internet, DirecTV and wireless services to apartment complexes and multifamily communities in additional metro areas.” said Ed Balcerzak, AT&T SVP.

Additional areas under consideration where AT&T might do the same include Boston, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia and and Washington D.C., all in the Verizon Communications footprint.

AT&T says it also is looking at Denver  Phoenix and Seattle, in the CenturyLink region.

All those efforts would have AT&T operating as  a competitive local exchange carrier competing with Verizon and CenturyLink for the first time.

"Smart Cities" Benefits Likely Will be Smaller than Projected

Asset-light business models such as Uber and Lyft are about monetizing dark vehicle assets. Airbnb perhaps is about monetizing dark room and lodging assets, also using an asset-light approach.

Wi-Fi often is an asset-light approach to mobile device access. Netlfix might be considered an asset light approach to video entertainment, at least in terms of access assets.

In other cases, big data and Internet of Things networks aim to enable more efficient use of in-use assets.

Arguably, the most-powerful trends happen when multiple values can be realized, such as combining dark assets with asset-light business models with peer-to-peer transactions and “leasing rather than owning” consumption patterns.

All those potential changes in business models should eventually affect prospects for many proposed Internet of Things services, such as “smart parking.” If vehicle ownership declines as much as some expect, there will be less demand for urban area parking, and therefore less value and demand for smart parking services.

In other words, all currently-projected markets essentially extrapolate from existing conditions. But those conditions will change as IoT and IoT-assisted ecosystems change.

Similarly, smarter transportation systems that allow users to evaluate transportation options in real time will reduce the amount of vehicle congestion the smart systems aim to solve.

Where it comes to the impact of IoT systems, feedback loops will operate, changing the context even as the systems come online. In other words, non-linearity will be a key aspect of future IoT systems. In the process of solving specific problems, the magnitude of the actual problems will diminish.

That likely will mean the expected benefits will be smaller than forecast.

AT&T Launches New Internet of Things Data Plans

AT&T’s new data plans for Internet of Things developers and businesses shows you how AT&T believes IoT apps will use the mobile network. In contrast to “use by humans,” the emphasis is on transferred data, not the speed of transactions.

Available in October 2016, the IoT data plans are differentiate by the amount of data devices and sensors are expected to transfer, over a year’s time.

AT&T IoT data plans include:

• Option 1: 1 GB for $25.00 (valid up to 12 months)1; includes 500 text messages
• Option 2: 3 GB for $60.00 (valid up to 12 months)2; includes 1000 text messages
• Option 3: 5 GB for $100.00 (valid up to 24 months)3 includes 1500 text messages

India is Key Mobile Growth Market, Says GSMA

India now has become the mobile industry’s key growth market, says the GSMA Global Mobile Trends report.

More than one billion additional people worldwide will be connected to mobile networks by 2020 and 33 percent of these new users will come from India (337 million)

China is forecast to add more than 200 million subscribers and there will also be major net subscriber contributions from Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

In total, these six Asian markets will account for approximately 60 percent of the 1.1 billion new subscribers added globally by the end of the decade.

source: GSMA

The GSMA report also argues that the “mobile Internet is the Internet.” Today, some 46 percent of the global population gets access the internet by a mobile device and network. By 2020, mobile Internet access will grow to 60 percent.

New mobile subscribers are more likely to be younger and are also more likely to be ‘mobile-first’ or ‘mobile-only’ internet users.

As there will only be a minimal increase in the number of fixed internet households over this period, the increase in mobile phone ownership will therefore be the key factor driving global internet penetration, GSMA says.

AT&T, Amazon Web Services Partner

AT&T and Amazon Web Services will work together to optimize delivery of integrated solutions built on the companies' respective cloud and networking capabilities.

The collaboration will focus in three main business areas, essentially melding AWS cloud computing capabilities with AT&T connectivity. In addition to cloud networking, Internet of Things and threat management will be areas where the two firms collaborate.

Though AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink and other telcos have gotten into the data center business, all might be looking to exit the business. Some might say this is another example of telco inability to innovate. Others might argue that telcos are no different than other firms trying to innovate: failure is more common than success.

None of the U.S. telcos have been able to outperform the hyperscale cloud computing specialists--such as AWS--or achieve the scale of the data center specialists (Equinix, Digital Realty).

Some bets will work better than others, whether undertaken by Google or AT&T. In this case, AT&T likely has concluded that operating its own data centers provides less value than once hoped.

Some might argue that is not a problem. AT&T and other service providers must keep looking for new services and revenue drivers. As would be the case for Google, Apple, Facebook or any other innovator, not every bet works out as expected.

Failure is simply part of the process of discovering where value really does lie.

When is "Fiber to Home" Not "Fiber to Home?"

When is “fiber to the home” not “fiber to the home?”

When the Internet service provider selling the service is Google Fiber or AT&T Fiber. Google Fiber already is exploring ways to extend Google Fiber to more areas and locations using fixed wireless.

Now AT&T says it will do the same.

“Under the AT&T Fiber umbrella brand we will use a variety of network technologies to connect more homes, apartments and business customer locations to ultra-fast and low-latency internet speeds,” said David Christopher, AT&T Entertainment Group CMO.

“This new brand includes, but is not limited to, the former AT&T GigaPower network,” he said. “We will announce additional network technologies and products in our AT&T Fiber umbrella brand in the near future.”

AT&T apparently is testing a number of fixed wireless alternatives, including some new methods, plus millimeter wave spectrum. That is beyond AT&T’s believe that its default platform will be wireless.

Gigabit Internet access now is the issue, not the access media.  

AT&T Eventually Will Want to Own More of the Content it Delivers

It has been a staple of strategy for the leading U.S. cable TV operators, for more than a couple of decades, that a distributor has to own at least some of the content it delivers. That is why the leading cable TV companies own programming assets.

Keep in mind that some questioned whether distributors (cable TV companies) would be “good” at operating programming entities. That has not proven to be a general problem, though execution always is an issue.

AT&T, already the largest U.S. supplier of linear video, and moving to become a major provider of “over the top” content, is likely to be subject to many of those same objections, much as telcos once were questioned as providers of linear video entertainment services.

That should logically lead to AT&T becoming an owner of content assets, for the same reasons cable TV operators made the move into content asset ownership: access might be a commodity; content is not.

If you want to know how it is that gross revenue for content services can grow, while gross revenue for other services declines, it is the difference between what is scarce, and what is not.

Simply, network access, plain vanilla voice and messaging are largely commodities. It is difficult to differentiate, there is lots of competition, many product substitutes and suppliers. But video entertainment is not an “access to the network” service.

Customers buy the content, not bandwidth; experiences they want, not minutes of use. Network access is simply part of the product, not the reason any consumer buys the product.

Given its commitment to content revenues, it is not a stretch to suggest that AT&T likely will follow the clear strategy followed by cable TV companies: own at least some of the content delivered by the content service.

That is among the antidotes for ever-declining average revenue per unit, per account or per user. Access, computing and transport follow Moore’s Law, in terms of price-per-unit of capacity. Content does not.

At least historically, content assets--where consumers perceive value--appreciate where it comes to price. Profit margins are easier to defend, as well.

So look for AT&T to make big moves into content ownership. It is a proven strategy for many tier-one video services providers.

U.S. 4G Network Performance Drops 40% to 50% Over Last Year

Source: TwinPrime

T-Mobile US had the fastest 4G mobile network speeds, according to an analysis by TwinPrime, meaning T-Mobile US got access to the network faster, and could download content faster.

T-Mobile US also had the lowest 4G network latency performance, at an average of 52 milliseconds, followed by Sprint at 55 milliseconds, and Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility both at 56 milliseconds.

Verizon Wireless ranked highest in terms of LTE network reach, covering 95.3 percent of the U.S. population, compared with 91.7 percent for T-Mobile US, 91.2 percent for Sprint and 91 percent for AT&T Mobility.

As eventually happens as networks become more-heavily loaded, performance is showing signs of  strain. LTE 4G networks now carry 91 percent of total U.S. mobile traffic.

The study found median LTE performance in most U.S. cities has dropped by 40 percent to 50 percent compared to our previous report. This staggering drop in performance could partly be explained by the increased LTE traffic share in these cities, or an increase in overall mobile data consumed by LTE devices.

Source: TwinPrime

Furthermore, the study also found that Wi-Fi tends to outperform LTE in every major city in the United States by a factor of two. In real user conditions, that translates to it being twice as fast to use an app over Wifi than over LTE.

That is a return to the situation that used to hold for 3G mobile networks, when Wi-Fi often was used because Wi-Fi was faster than 3G. Other tests had been showing that LTE 4G network access speeds outperformed Wi-Fi.

If you want to know why mobile operators argue they need more spectrum, the TwinPrime tests provide the answer.

Traffic is growing fast enough that performance now is visibly degraded. That same pressure is why small cell architectures are deemed strategic: small cells allow networks to reuse more of any amount of available spectrum.

Those same concerns drive interest in shared spectrum, bonding mobile and Wi-Fi spectrum, and LTE 4G networks accessing Wi-Fi directly.

The study includes over 6 billion data points collected from 600 apps with traffic across the United States, India and Europe, more than 1,500 different network operators and 2G, 3G, HSPA, HSPA-PLus, LTE and Wi-Fi networks.

T-Mobile US to Prioritize Smartphone Data Over Tethered Device Data When Network is Congested

Ignoring the issue of whether one can clearly distinguish between--or accomplish--network management and network neutrality, one frustration some of us might have about network neutrality is the insistence that packet prioritization is simply wrong, always and everywhere.

That arguably is not the case. Under conditions of congestion (when network management is required), user experience benefits from packet prioritization (non-neutral treatment) to preserve experience of apps that are highly sensitive to latency, such as voice or videoconferencing, for example.

Now T-Mobile US says it will--under conditions of congestion--prioritize traffic used directly by devices connected to the mobile network, compared to traffic used by tethered devices.

In other words, the management choice is to preserve smartphone experience over that of tethered devices, when the network is congested.

That is a preference for supporting user smartphone access (implying more preference for bandwidth supplied to customers when out and about), compared to customer use of their devices for tethering, presumably implying stationary usage settings.

To the extent that all networks are built with contention in mind, there always is a need for network management when congestion occurs. No network is built on the assumption that all conceivable customer demand, at the peak hour of the peak day, always will be supported without congestion.

That necessarily means some amount of network management is necessary. But it is hard to clearly distinguish between management to preserve user experience, under conditions of congestion, and "treating every packet equally."

DirecTV is Not a Competitor to U-verse; OTT is the Replacement for Linear TV

AT&T executives now have said that its new DirecTV Now over the top service will become the company’s primary video service within three to five years. That might be called the third shift in AT&T video services strategy.

First, there was U-verse video, delivered over the fiber-to-neighborhood network. Now AT&T primarily relies on satellite delivered DirecTV.

So a shift to primary reliance on OTT delivery would be the third shift in platform. There are some important potential implications. Some now argue that AT&T will shut down the satellite service entirely, at some point, in favor of OTT delivery as the sole distribution method.

There is a bit of irony there. When the DirecTV purchase first was announced, and before the approvals process was completed, some might have argued that AT&T was going to abandon U-verse.

That basically is happening. AT&T pushes new subscribers toward DirecTV, and not U-verse video. The U-verse brand apparently will be discontinued. At the same time, AT&T plans to zero rate DirecTV Now usage by customers of its mobile services.

What now seems to be shaping up is not just a DirecTV replacement of U-verse, but replacement of both U-verse and satellite delivery by a switch to streaming, on all AT&T network platforms, mobile and fixed.

So as it might well turn out, DirecTV was not a threat to U-verse. Instead, all linear delivery will be phased out in favor of streaming over all AT&T networks, fixed or mobile.

By zero rating entertainment video consumption, AT&T and others also are demonstrating that the entertainment video service is a managed service, like cable TV, satellite or telco TV, and not an “Internet” service.

By incorporating access into the cost of the purchased video content, AT&T and others are using the media, broadcast and linear video models, where delivery bandwidth is simply incorporated into the price of the product.

DirecTV is Not a Competitor to U-verse; OTT is the Replacement for Linear TV

AT&T executives now have said that its new DirecTV Now over the top service will become the company’s primary video service within three to five years. That might be called the third shift in AT&T video services strategy.

First, there was U-verse video, delivered over the fiber-to-neighborhood network. Now AT&T primarily relies on satellite delivered DirecTV.

So a shift to primary reliance on OTT delivery would be the third shift in platform. There are some important potential implications. Some now argue that AT&T will shut down the satellite service entirely, at some point, in favor of OTT delivery as the sole distribution method.

There is a bit of irony there. When the DirecTV purchase first was announced, and before the approvals process was completed, some might have argued that AT&T was going to abandon U-verse.

That basically is happening. AT&T pushes new subscribers toward DirecTV, and not U-verse video. The U-verse brand apparently will be discontinued. At the same time, AT&T plans to zero rate DirecTV Now usage by customers of its mobile services.

What now seems to be shaping up is not just a DirecTV replacement of U-verse, but replacement of both U-verse and satellite delivery by a switch to streaming, on all AT&T network platforms, mobile and fixed.

So as it might well turn out, DirecTV was not a threat to U-verse. Instead, all linear delivery will be phased out in favor of streaming over all AT&T networks, fixed or mobile.

By zero rating entertainment video consumption, AT&T and others also are demonstrating that the entertainment video service is a managed service, like cable TV, satellite or telco TV, and not an “Internet” service.

By incorporating access into the cost of the purchased video content, AT&T and others are using the media, broadcast and linear video models, where delivery bandwidth is simply incorporated into the price of the product.