LTE Drives Global Network Equipment Spending

Equipment purchased to support mobile networks will reach $398 billion in 2012, up 17 percent from $340.8 billion in 2011, according to an IHS iSuppli.

A substantial portion of the spending is for fourth generation networks, especially based on use of Long Term Evolution. 

Although growth this year is down somewhat from the 32 percent growth rate of 2011, the market is expected to grow at  double-digit rates until about 2015. 

MEF Launches Mobile Backhaul Initiative

The Metro Ethernet Forum has launched a “Mobile Backhaul Initiative for 4G/LTE,” aiming to create standards for backhaul that could provide a potential 25 percent backhaul savings for mobile operators.

The initiative seems to build on support for multiple classes of service (Multi-CoS) contained in the MEF 23.1 Multi-CoS Implementation Agreement.

“Mobile Operators all agree that the industry’s single biggest challenge and operating cost is in delivering the bandwidth needed for 4G/LTE backhaul” says MEF President, Nan Chen.

The “Mobile Backhaul Initiative” will feature an integrated suite consisting of the MEF 22.1 Mobile Backhaul implementation agreement, MEF 23.1 Multi-CoS implementation agreement, and a technical business paper clarifying the urgency and justification of migrating to Multi-CoS.

The program focuses on providing technical guidance on best practices and a new paper on packet-based frequency synchronization as well.

Why Data Consumption Forecasts So Often are Wrong

Bandwidth planning has become a tricky business since data traffic completely displaced voice as the driver of consumption. Not only is demand more variable and uncertain, growth is more dynamic, by an order of magnitude or two.

That raises an obvious question for mobile service providers: how much bandwidth do they need to be ready to supply to customers? The question might be easier to answer if demand were not if end user demand was predictable, but demand is not predictable. Sometimes growth is "only" 40 percent a year; sometimes it is higher.

Some might say, for example, that over the past year, AT&T has revised its own forecasts of bandwidth consumption in significant ways.

In a March 2011 presentation AT&T projected that data volumes would grow by eight to 10 times between the end of 2010 and the end of 2015.

That forecast appears to be based on an expectation that volumes would roughly double in 2011 and then increase by a further 65 percent in 2012.

Consider this 2008 forecast, which presents a not-unusual rate of growth in potential speeds, which has a direct bearing on consumption, since faster speeds tend to be associated with higher consumption.

Keep in mind that access speeds are different from consumed gigabytes. But the former drives the latter. And nobody currently predicts anything but a continual shift to higher potential access speeds on fixed and mobile networks.

Instead, AT&T now seems to be seeing 40 percent annual growth. Now, 40 percent annual growth is significant. It means bandwidth consumption doubles about every two to three years.  But annual bandwidth growth of 50 percent a year would be well within historical ranges, on an aggregate basis, in terms of long-haul bandwidth consumption. But policies and end user behavior can change the demand curve.

The most-recent AT&T forecast would mean that data volumes would increase by five to six times by 2015. Whether that means existing spectrum, and newer methods for handling traffic using that spectrum, are sufficient to handle future growth is debatable. Some might argue additional spectrum is not required.

Others might say the possible growth of between 500 percent and 1,000 percent, in just four years, is challenging enough that additional spectrum is likely to be needed, especially if the higher range of growth turns out to be the case.

Network planners might point out that supplying additional bandwidth takes prodigious amounts of capital and significant time.

Some might speculate that AT&T’s forecasts about data growth have changed because supplier policies and end user behavior have changed.

Perhaps users have become quite sophisticated about offloading their data usage to Wi-Fi, as service providers have been urging them to do.

Or, perhaps the heaviest users, with "prodding" from the carriers, are modifying their own behavior. Why it is so hard to make accurate bandwidth forecasts

Some observers would not be sanguine about moderating rates of bandwidth consumption. It is true that carriers can provide incentives and dis-incentives for consumption. But it also is the case that video consumption keeps growing, and it is video that drives bandwidth demand.

Use a Smart Phone as a Desktop PC?

A sufficiently motivated researcher can, in fact, use a smart phone as a desktop PC. The results might be "sort of" reasonable.

But such experiments simply point out that behavior is, and ought to be, different on devices with different form factors, user interfaces, screen sizes and software loads.

To use an analogy, in the history of media, we always tend to begin using a new medium on the pattern of the older medium. So, when "stage" was the dominant mass performance medium, and the movie business began, what did movies look like?

The experience was pretty much the same as a live performance, only captured on film. In fact, the new medium arguably was less rich, as an experience, since the "audio track" was missing.

In the realm of devices, we likely have a tendency to envision "how to use" a new category of devices  through the prism of older devices we already are familiar with, as well.

The point is not so much that some common experiences (using email or messaging) will be common to most or all of the platforms. Beyond that, we will eventually discover that each device category creates a distinctive "highest and best use," despite the common features.

 

You Have to See This

What Drives Enterprise Tablet Adoption?

An informal survey of 70 enterprise executives suggests a number of reasons why enterprises are adopting tablets. One driver is increasing amounts of work conducted by workers outside normal working hours and outside the office.

That trend isn't new, but workers are telling information technology staffs that they would prefer replacements for bulky laptops, and smart phones aren’t quite meeting their needs.

Business partners, especially independent sales representatives, also are asking for content support for iPads from partner sales organizations, as well.

To bring down costs, retailers are looking for ways to reduce space, and are replacing training kiosks with tablets.
By providing employees with tablets, companies can significantly reduce the use of paper and improve their efforts to "go green," as well. Enterprise tablet adoption drivers

Google May Open Retail Store

Google may open its first stand-alone retail store at its European headquarters in Dublin, Bloomberg reports. The move follows reports that Amazon will open its first retail outlet as well, in its home city of Seattle.

The Google Store would be open to the public and sell unspecified “Google merchandise,” Google’s Irish unit said in a local planning application. Google May Open Retail Store

There is a decades-long history of PC manufacturers, especially those selling heavily online, to open branded retail locations, Dell being among the firms that have done so, and retreated. Apple itself was heavily criticized for opening its Apple Stores, the thinking being that Apple earnings would be harmed.

But with Apple's wild success, even Microsoft and Sony have committed to retail outlets.

So retail may be a new front in Google’s competition with Apple Inc., whose 361 stores have fueled sales of iPods, iPhones and iPad tablet computers.

Google earlier opened a store inside of a London branch of Currys and PC World, units of Dixons Retail Plc, as a trial for selling laptop computers, some would also note.

Retail stores, though not a feature of the network-based video entertainment business or fixed line services (cable TV and satellite TV, or landline telephone services, for example), have become essential for sales of mobile services. Apple has shown how retail can help sales of devices. What remains to be seen is if similar results are possible for intangible "services and apps," or whether the winning formula will wind up being devices such as Kindles for Amazon, and smart phones for Google.