VoLTE Call Drop Problem is Worse Than 2G or 3G Voice

In its annual State of the RAN report, Amdocs says VoLTE can lead to call drop rates 400 percent to 500 percent higher than that of 2G and 3G voice.

With aggressive tuning of the network, operators can bring VoLTE call drops to within 20 percent of 2G and 3G calling within six months, Amdocs argues.

In other words, as so often is the case, there is good news and bad news with the deployment of the new capability.

VoLTE can lower offers operating expense, as it uses a more efficient coding scheme. And when operators can reallocate 2G or 3G bandwidth for other purposes, VoLTE can help operators keep capital investment under better control, principally by delaying the point where additional spectrum acquisitions or network redesign must be undertaken.

Perhaps in part, the problem with VoLTE call drops is indoor coverage. Some 75 percent of network traffic in cities is indoor.

That is a potential problem for networks using any frequencies, but much more troublesome for higher frequencies (2 GHz, for example, compared to 600 MHz, 700 MHz or 800 MHz).

Compared to outdoor users, indoor users face a 25 percent increase in network problems in periods of high demand, Amdocs argues.

Global Mobile Revenue Will Be Flat in 2016

Growth remains the chief challenge for mobile and fixed network telecommunications services in 2016.

Strategy Analytics, for example, predicts there will be no growth in core mobile connectivity revenue in 2016.

So we now can add mobile service revenues to the list of legacy products that now have become exhausted as drivers of revenue growth. That is one key reason why so many believe Internet of Things is so important: it represents a possible huge new growth driver.

source: Pyramid Research

http://www.telecomcircle.com/2009/06/india-telecom/

100 Million Gigabit Internet Access Connections in Service by 2020

At least 100 million people are expected to buy gigabit  services by 2020, predicts Point Topic CEO Oliver Johnson. Between 2016 and 2020, adoption will grow at a sizzling 65 percent compound annual growth rate.

Close to 70 percent of that overall growth is expected to come from the Asia Pacific region, Johnson argues. If so, most will come from countries in Asia, rather than the Pacific Islands, one might well argue.

In many cases, that headline speed will mean even-higher adoption of access at speeds in the 100s of megabits range. A reasonable forecast would have about half of U.S. high speed access  users buying 100 Mbps connections by about 2020.

source: Point Topic

source: Technology Futures

100 Million Gigabit Internet Access Connections in Service by 2020

At least 100 million people are expected to buy gigabit  services by 2020, predicts Point Topic CEO Oliver Johnson. Between 2016 and 2020, adoption will grow at a sizzling 65 percent compound annual growth rate.

Close to 70 percent of that overall growth is expected to come from the Asia Pacific region, Johnson argues. If so, most will come from countries in Asia, rather than the Pacific Islands, one might well argue.

In many cases, that headline speed will mean even-higher adoption of access at speeds in the 100s of megabits range. A reasonable forecast would have about half of U.S. high speed access  users buying 100 Mbps connections by about 2020.

source: Point Topic

source: Technology Futures

"More" is the Story in Latest Cisco Mobile Visual Networking Index

“More” always is the story every time Cisco issues another edition of its Visual Networking Index, including the mobile VNI. As a financial analyst might summarize each report, the “trend is up and to the right.”

Global mobile data traffic grew 74 percent in 2015, reaching 3.7 exabytes per month at the end of 2015, up from 2.1 exabytes per month at the end of 2014.

Mobile data traffic has grown 4,000-fold over the past 10 years and almost 400-million-fold over the past 15 years.

More "what" tends to be the new part of the story.

Fourth-generation (4G) traffic exceeded third-generation (3G) traffic for the first time in 2015.

Although 4G connections represented only 14 percent of mobile connections in 2015, they already account for 47 percent of mobile data traffic, while 3G connections represented 34 percent of mobile connections and 43 percent of the traffic.

In 2015, a 4G connection generated six times more traffic on average than a non‑4G connection. That has been the clear trend since people started using smartphones on 3G and 4G networks.

In 2015, on an average, a smart device generated 14 times more traffic than on basic devices.

Mobile offload also exceeded mobile network traffic for the first time in 2015. In other words, the fixed network now directly supports the majority of mobile device data usage.

Some 51 percent of total mobile data traffic was offloaded onto the fixed network through Wi-Fi or femtocell in 2015.

As now is the clear case, video traffic now drives data bandwidth consumption, accounting for 55 percent of total mobile data traffic in 2015. Mobile video traffic now accounts for more than half of all mobile data traffic.

The fundamental projections also are a story of “more.” Global mobile data traffic will increase nearly 800 percent between 2015 and 2020, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 53 percent from 2015 to 2020.

Mobile network connection speeds will increase more than threefold by 2020. Where the average mobile network connection speed was 2 Mbps in 2015 average speeds will reach nearly 6.5 Mbps by 2020.

By 2020, 4G will represent nearly 41 percent of connections, but 72 percent of total traffic.

By 2020, a 4G connection will generate 3.3 times more traffic on average than a non-4G connection.

Globally, 67 percent of mobile devices will be smart devices by 2020, up from 36 percent in 2015.

The vast majority of mobile data traffic (98 percent) will originate from these smart devices by 2020, up from 89 percent in 2015. Also, 75 percent of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2020.

Mobile video will increase 11-fold between 2015 and 2020.

The average smartphone will generate 4.4 GB of traffic per month by 2020, nearly a fivefold increase over the 2015 average of 929 MB per month.

By 2020, aggregate smartphone traffic will be 8.8 times greater than it is today, with a CAGR of 54 percent.

The Middle East and Africa will have the strongest mobile data traffic growth of any region with a 71‑percent CAGR. This region will be followed by Asia Pacific at 54 percent and Central and Eastern Europe at 52 percent.

Global Mobile Devices (Excluding M2M) by 2G, 3G, and 4G

AT&T Launches Gigabit Service in Parts of Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta and Miami

AT&T has launched gigabit per second Internet access in parts of Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta and Miami.

In Chicago, service is available in Pingree Grove, Plano, Sugar Grove and surrounding communities In Dallas gigabit service is available in Cedar Hill, Colleyville, DeSoto, Joshua, Keene, Keller, Lakeside, Little Elm, Roanoke and surrounding communities.

In Atlanta service is available in Buford, Jonesboro, Lawrenceville, Norcross, Roswell, Sugar Hill, Suwanee and surrounding communities.

In Miami, the new service is sold in  Cooper City, Miami Lakes, Miramar, Pembroke Pines, Plantation and surrounding communities.

"Value" is Issue for Viable Service Provider Martketplaces

App stores have become a major and increasingly-important channel for consumer and some enterprise apps. A related approach is the inclusion of third-party apps as part of cloud -based services such as CenturyLink’s Marketplace Provider Program or the IBM Cloud Marketplace

For example, Clusterpoint, a database vendor providing Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) for enterprises and application developers, today announced its certification under the CenturyLink Cloud Marketplace Provider Program. This integration allows customers of the CenturyLink Cloud platform to launch the Clusterpoint 4.0 Computing Engine directly from the CenturyLink Cloud Knowledge Base.

Still, collaboration between app providers and service providers remains non-intuitive or easy.

Value is among the difficulties. Successful marketplaces arguably offer clear value for enterprises or consumer buyers, the app providers and service providers that benefit from greater customer retention and upsell opportunities.

But it often is difficult to identify the clear upside for each partner, and how much value buyers will perceive.

The upshot is that t is not often totally obvious how that alignment can be created. For starters, the way apps now are developed often means that no “permission” is required for any buyer to get access to any Internet app.

To the extent there is a viable and proven revenue model, it is the 70-30 revenue split between developers and app store owners, for popular app stores.

A half decade ago it might have seemed possible to create mobile service provider app stores, but that has proven unworkable, as the popular app stores are directly controlled either by device suppliers or in some cases operating system suppliers such as Google.  

And that remains one of the key questions about collaboration between app providers, device providers and service providers. In principle, getting approved for any major app store solves the “distribution” problem, if not the “popularity” problem.

What always is tougher are ways for app and service providers, specifically, to collaborate in ways that are mutually beneficial. In a somewhat more limited way, a cloud provider’s partner programs are modeled on the app store model, and provide the same sorts of benefits.

For service providers, the issue is rather important. Over time, unless some obvious and integral role in the apps ecosystem is created, access providers will be “dumb pipes” in a commodity business.