Monthly News Digest - March 2016
Emerging mobile Wi-Fi strategies
Once at odds with Wi-Fi, mobile service providers are increasingly embracing it as an efficient and cost-effective means to expand their markets and coverage.
According to a new report from ABI Research, Wi-Fi access points based on 802.11ac steadily gained momentum over the past year rising to represent 39 percent of total Wi-Fi access points shipped in 2015. Adoption will continue to accelerate in 2016 as more 802.11ac Wave 2 products enter the market, along with the introduction of tri-band access points.
In fact, Wi-Fi connectivity is gaining popularity so quickly, Qualcomm and Intel are laying the groundwork for an 802.11 ad ecosystem with interoperable WiGig solutions to help open a new spectrum for Wi-Fi in the 60 GHz band. WiGig is expected to increase enterprise Wi-Fi capacity as an answer to exploding data demand.
WiGig could become increasingly important to Wi-Fi access point makers as they will not have to share the 60 GHz band with cellular. The 5 GHz band used by 802.11ac is becoming contentious as mobile operators experiment with LTE in this unlicensed spectrum. Recently, the Federal Communications Commission cleared Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm to conduct field tests of LTE in unlicensed spectrum (LTE-U).
With growing numbers of mobile operators turning to Wi-Fi and the Internet to broaden coverage, concern is growing over network security and creating an optimal subscriber experience. As a result, Oracle has announced a new mobile security gateway solution that enables communications service providers (CSPs) to quickly and safely expand network coverage and create a more scalable network with Wi-Fi calling, Wi-Fi offload and small cells capabilities.
On a smaller scale, Sprint’s looking to improve coverage with mobile Wi-Fi hotspots using an Alcatel device that plugs into a car’s 12-volt socket, joining AT&T and Verizon in utilizing automotive Wi-Fi connectivity to increase customer connectivity.
Copper gets a make-over
Several advances were announced this month about bringing fiber-like broadband speeds to copper infrastructure. Industry analysts are pointing to G.fast technology and accelerating broadband service over existing copper lines as a good strategy to meet growing user demand for higher speeds. The G.fast solution, developed by Nokia's Bell Labs, uses built-in vectoring technology to effectively reduce cross-talk interference that typically impacts data speeds over copper networks.
According to industry analyst Point Topic, the number of subscribers to broadband services of 1 Gbps and higher is only about 10 million globally. However, as the cost of services drops and the number of gigabit tariffs rises, subscribership is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 65 percent between now and 2020. Total subscribers may reach 100 million by then, with 70 percent of that growth in the Asia-Pacific region.
BT has announced it has successfully used G.fast technology to deliver cellular data over copper lines at speeds of 150-200Mbps, eliminating the need for C-RAN service over a dedicated fiber link. According to the company, this removes the need for mobile operators to invest in costly, high- capacity backhaul links over dedicated fiber connections. By providing a far more economic "fronthaul" connection between the base station and the mobile operators' core network, a C-RAN service delivered over G.fast would significantly lower the cost of deployment for mobile operators building out 4G networks today and 5G architectures in the future.
Taking G.fast a step further, Nokia and Energia Communications (EneCom) announced that June 2016 will be the launch date for the first commercial deployment of G.fast technology over an existing copper network in Japan, delivering up to 1 Gbps ultra-broadband service to residential subscribers. According to the announcement, EneCom will be able to effectively use the last few hundred meters of existing copper to deliver ultra-broadband access to customers, eliminating the need to rewire premises, which can be a costly and time-consuming part of any fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployment.
