Dalvik Turbo brings faster apps, better graphics, longer battery life to Android

Mobile middleware developer Myriad has unveiled a turbo boosted version of the Dalvik virtual machine, which runs applications on the Android platform, boosting performance and battery life.

Dalvik Turbo, announced Tuesday, claims to bring a threefold performance increase to applications, richer game graphics and better battery life. The tool is a replacement for the Dalvik virtual machine, which ships as part of the Android platform, and retains full compatibility with existing software. Dalvik Turbo also supports a range of processors including those based on ARM, Intel Atom and MIPS Architectures.

Myriad was created from the merger of Esmertec and Purple Labs and develops a, er, myriad of mobile software including browsers and Java engines.

At the end of last year Benoit Schillings, who joined Nokia as CTO after its 2008 acquisition of Scandinavian mobile Linux firm Trolltech, joined Myriad in a similar capacity. At Nokia Schillings was responsible for Nokia’s cross-device technology as advisor to CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. The industry heavyweight is considered something of a technology guru, known for his design and development of the technically sound but commercially unviable Be operating system (BeOS). He also held the CTO position at OpenWave.

Schillings was the driving force behind Trolltech’s Qt cross platform application framework, which was at the heart of the acquisition by Nokia and would better allow the Finnish firm and third party developers to build web applications that work across Nokia’s device portfolio – a key part of the Ovi concept.

NEC is virtualising the MVNO

Japanese vendor NEC this week made available what it claims is the world’s first virtualised Mobile Virtual Network Operator platform (vMVNO), running in a Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) environment.

The system is installed with an MVNO in order to establish connectivity between an MVNO’s own communication network and the piggybacking carrier’s mobile network. This enables enhancement of security and certification, as well as control management of communication bands and usage amounts.

The software solution runs on a virtualised all-purpose Intel Architecture server, which helps to reduce the cost of equipment as well as operation cost and reduce lead time for equipment acquisition compared to conventional dedicated systems.

“MVNO operators are often required to introduce gateway systems in order to establish connections with carriers through the layer 2 data link,” said Tsutomu Ookurano, senior manager, NEC. “This requires a large amount of time and money, which is further aggravated by facility investment and rapid increases in operational costs. Furthermore, MVNOs face demands from customers for more flexible and scalable services, such as session management, IP address management, charging data collection and security control. This new solution meets these needs and enables MVNOs to provide their original services more easily.”

For all the industry’s current focus on virtualization there are some things, it would seem, that you still have to do in the realms of the physical world. One of these, according to more than 85,000 industry folk, at least, is Mobile World Congress. This was the attendance figure published by GSMA at the end of the show and it’s an awful lot of bodies.

It’s roughly the same number of people as attended the 1993 Glastonbury festival, which was the Informer’s first experience of crowds on this scale. Thumping sound systems, trippy visuals, party-goers dressed up in weird costumes and tens of thousands of dazed people wearing the same, glassy-eyed thousand-yard stare; MWC 2014 shared more than a few characteristics with Glasto ’93.

Alas, it didn’t have The Orb, Stereo MCs or the Velvet Underground. But it did have Fork. Those of you who are old enough to remember the killer shows put on by the Leningrad Cowboys at Nokia parties of old will hopefully have made it to the Nokia stand this year and checked out Fork, a band that could very much be descendants of the Cowboys. It was the best entertainment at the event this year and if you missed it, you  missed out.

Appreciative hollering was entirely justified when Fork were on the Nokia stand. It was altogether less acceptable when the firm was unveiling its new phones on the Monday morning. The born again fervour that Nokia has sought to inject into its press announcements in the last few years really sets the Informer’s teeth on edge. Strategically positioning squadrons of the pathologically (and professionally) upbeat to give witness at the unveiling of a mobile phone is a bit like having a man in a wheel chair in the front row of a revivalist meeting, ready to leap from his seat and proclaim himself cured.

It’s a shame because it just detracts from the real story. Nokia is redoubling its efforts to win hearts and minds in emerging markets, with a family of smartphones that run Android apps as well as Microsoft services and BBM. The Nokia X, will go on sale immediately, is priced from €89 and will be available in Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.

The Nokia X+ and Nokia XL, priced at €99 and €109 respectively, will be launched in the same markets next quarter. The handsets will also support Microsoft services such as Skype, OneDrive and outlook.com. Nokia also unveiled two handsets in the “first smartphone” category. The Nokia Asha 230 will be priced at €45 while the Nokia 220 will be priced from €29. They will be available in the same regions as the Nokia X family.

Tony Cripps, principal analyst at research firm Ovum, said it was too early to label the Nokia X a game changer but that it: “definitely shakes up an industry that has become fixated on incremental advances and smart accessories as growth drivers of hardware sales, largely at the expense of further ecosystem development”.

The devices are likely to be welcomed by consumers and developers alike, he said adding that they are also likely to evoke a response from Google, particularly in developing markets.

Nokia wasn’t the only outfit with its eyes on the emerging market prize, with the GSMA and Facebook pledging to connect the next wave of internet users. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was top of the bill at the keynotes this year, fresh from the WhatsApp acquisition with which he thumbed his nose at the operator community that flocked to see him speak.

Zuckerberg announced a GSMA-backed initiative to improve connectivity in developing regions that will focus on reducing the total cost of ownership of mobile service. The partnership will focus on creating a sustainable environment to incentivise mobile infrastructure investment and usage, as well as eliminating or reducing existing mobile-specific taxation or refraining from imposing new such tax regimes, the organisations said.

The plan is part of Facebook’s Internet.org scheme, which it launched last year in partnership with Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung with a goal of “making internet access available to the next five billion people.”

“A lot of the goal that we have with Internet.org is to create a sort of on-ramp for the internet,” said Zuckerberg during his keynote. “So the idea is that there’s a set of basic services that we think should exist, whether it’s messaging or being able to know what the weather is or food prices, or things like Wikipedia, basic search or basic social networking.”

Zuckerberg said he was looking for more operator partners having worked successfully with Globe in the Philippines and Tigo in Paraguay. “We don’t have capacity to work with a large number of partners at this point, but we want to work with a few more. Maybe three or five more partners,” said Zuckerberg.

On the subject of multiple partners, some of the biggest news of the week came from Telefónica. As the Informer mentioned earlier there was much talk of virtualization during the show but Telefónica’s announcements around Network Functions Virtualization were the most aggressive yet from the operator community. And in among the cost and efficiency drivers, the firm said, is a desire to escape vendor lock in and ensure a multi-vendor environment.

Telefónica unveiled a wide-reaching NFV programme that it says will see it have more than 30 per cent of new infrastructure virtualized by 2016. The initiative, which will launch in June this year and has been named Unica (Spanish for ‘unique’), provides a framework for Telefónica’s “global, end-to-end virtualisation deployment.”

But the firm has not offered any detailed insights at this stage into how and when it plans to decommission legacy systems. “Of course we need to maintain our legacy,” said Global CTO Enrique Blanco. “We have a big legacy but it is going to change and it will be exciting because it will happen in the next two or three years.”

The IMS, EPC and DNS are among the systems being virtualised in the first phase of the project, which closes at the end of this year. Meanwhile, following a trial currently running at the firm’s Brazilian operation, Telefónica is also planning to virtualise equipment that it has deployed at customer premises. All software and control functions for Telefónica modems will be moved into the Telefónica cloud, using technology developed by the operator in conjunction with “one of the big Japanese vendors,” Blanco said.

“This will be deployed in a massive way in the last quarter of this year,” he said.

Blanco said that the firm’s technical management no longer “see a clear differentiation between network and IT” and that the network unit had been inspired by the virtualisation work of the IT team led by CIO Phil Jordan which will have virtualised 40 per cent of its servers by the end of 2014.

“In the next three years when you walk round our data centres you won’t be able to distinguish if the server that you are looking at is providing a service to a big corporate customer, a cloud service for our own people or if it’s running the HLR, the IMS or the EPC. This is really changing the paradigm,” Blanco said.

Telefónica has been running proof of concept trials with Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent and NEC, with Broadsoft, Nokia Solutions and Networks, HP and Ericsson also involved in the Unica programme.

But not all vendors are happy about their customers move to a virtualized environment, said Cayetano Carbajo Martin, planning and technology director for Transport, Core, Platforms and Mobile Devices at Telefónica. “We are doing this to break vendor lock-in,” Martin said. “The traditional [telecom] vendors don’t like this. But if you force them to compete, if you define your reference architecture and say that, in Telefónica we will not have an network functions that do not conform to this reference architecture, sooner or later they will come to you.”

The Informer put this prospect to Alcatel-Lucent CEO Michel Combes. ALU has worked closely with Telefónica on virtualization and is arguably the most advanced of the old guard network vendors in this particular space. Combes said he’d never heard Telefónica say that and the Informer didn’t have time to find the right audio file to play him, unfortunately.

Combes said the most important aspects of virtualization were scalability and improved velocity in service development and deployment and cost improvements, which are all well understood benefits. While he sidestepped Carbajo Martin’s comments on vendor lock-in, he did note that virtualization would create greater competition among vendors, not least because of the convergence of telecoms and IT vendors in the space.

But, he said, NFV is more about the NF than the V. Expertise in Network Functions will give vendors the competitive edge, he said, because virtualization in and of itself has been in the data centre for ages. “This is not something that is so critical,” he said.

Increased competition from NFV represents a “fantastic opportunity to grab new revenue streams” for Alcatel-Lucent, he said. “For the first time ever we have the right portfolio. We are number one in IMS worldwide and number two in Packet Core which are the first candidates to be virtualized.”

From NFC to NFC, now and four Asian mobile operators have teamed up to form an alliance to accelerate the adoption of NFC technology worldwide. Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom, Hong Kong’s HKT, Japan’s KDDI and SK Planet, a wholly owned subsidiary of South Korea’s SK Telecom announced the formation of the Asia NFC Alliance with the support of GSMA during the show.

NFC technology has been comparatively successful in the Far East in terms of user adoption. The alliance explained that services offered in its operators’ home markets include travel information, ticket and hotel bookings, coupon downloads as well as mobile payments. However, these services have not been interoperable across national borders,

KDDI and Chunghwa recently cooperated on a smart poster service in tourist shopping areas, and the Japanese operator has also developed an NFC coupon project with SK Planet, but until now these programmes have been limited to single markets. The Asia NFC Alliance aims to expand the service coverage of these operators from within a single country to the whole Asian region.

“We hope that this alliance will be an open organization for the expansion of overseas cooperation services,” said Takashi Tanaka, president at KDDI. “We aim to actively promote collaboration with telecommunications carriers not only in Asia but in Europe and America, and create a world in which users in every country can avail themselves of NFC services.”

Meanwhile SK Telecom launched a platform that it says will provide real time information on exactly what its customers are doing. The Context Platform uses data collected by a customer’s smartphone, if it is embedded with the software, via its camera, GPS, sensors and wifi to discover contextual information about that subscriber.

The firm explained that the platform allows it to make informed guesses about whether  the user is walking, for example, as the handset detects the user’s repeated movement and speed via its sensors and GPS. It then analyses the data it has collected through an algorithm to conclude that the user is “in a walking situation”. SK Telecom added that the more the platform repeats this process of analysis, the more accurate the platform becomes.

The operator said the platform can also make conclusions based on customers’ usage patterns involving social networking, voice calls, SMS and applications.

The operator showcased a service running on the platform. ‘Life Log’ monitors a user’s daily life, such as their leisure activities, habits and health-related activities. The subscriber can later look up their past records and statistics.

Other examples of services that can run on the platform include money management applications and recommended song playlists, SK Telecom added.

The operator said it “will take all steps necessary” to safeguard the sensitive personal information on its subscribers. It said that information generated from each smartphone can only be stored in and accessed via that particular device. It added that it is currently developing an application lock feature and a feature that records certain pre-selected types of information to prevent that information being accessed by third parties.

“Along with Big Data, Context Platform is an important pillar of the newly emerging field of ICT intelligence,” said Park Jin-hyo, SVP and head of network technology R&D Center at SK Telecom. “With Context Platform, smartphones will truly become an indispensable life partner for customers.”

In other vendor news, Nokia Solutions and Networks and Ericsson were among the beneficiaries of Vodafone’s Project Spring. Vodafone signed five-year deals with both vendors as part of its £7bn network upgrade programme. Ericsson will supply its full RBS 6000 portfolio and its Antenna Integrated Radio product while NSN offers up its Single RAN platform and its Subscriber Data Management solution.

NSN also won a deal with UK LTE pioneer EE that will see the two firms partner on the next phase of the operator’s LTE network deployment. The Single RAN solution was once again the centre of the deal.

Ericsson and Vodafone Germany were also busy with LTE Broadcast. On the Saturday before the show, the two firms carried out what they described as Europe’s first live trial of the technology. The trial, which also involved Qualcomm and Samsung, took place at the stadium of German football team Borussia Mönchengladbach during a match played on Saturday.

Ericsson said that the technology could soon be available in other German sports stadia as part of Vodafone Germany’s network modernisation programme.

Meanwhile Qualcomm is also working with Vodafone’s German competitor Deutsche Telekom on peer to peer location technology LTE-Direct. The two firms will deploy Germany’s first LTE Direct trial later this year. “We are participating in this trial because LTE Direct promises new opportunities in the mobile ecosystem,” said Thomas Kiessling, Chief Product and Innovation Officer at Deutsche Telekom. “Teaming up with leading technology companies to explore the full potential of LTE is decisive for operators like us.”

Qualcomm and Ericsson are often to be found co-operating in tech development now, which would have been impossible to predict all those years ago when they were forever at one another’s throats. This year the two were running a demo of Category 6 LTE Advanced delivering download speeds up to 300Mbps.

Anything you can do, said Australian carrier Optus, which this week claimed to have attained a blistering 1.7Gbps downlink speed on a live site using carrier aggregation technologies across HSPA+, FDD LTE and TD-LTE.

The operator contracted NSN to build the site in Sydney, using commercially available equipment. The site in question made use of six frequency bands: FDD LTE: 700MHz; HSPA+: 900MHz; FDD LTE: 1800MHz; HSPA+: 2100MHz; TD-LTE: 2300MHz; and FDD LTE: 2600MHz.

“With this world first ‘Gigasite’, we are showing the capacity of all our spectrum assets, including our recently purchased 700, 2300 and 2600 MHz bands, by combining multiple layers and technologies onto a single site. Trials such as this are vital in enabling Optus to prepare for our network of the future, and support more users and more data per user while at the same time enhancing the customer experience,” said Andrew Smith, VP of mobile engineering, Optus.

Back to Qualcomm, though, and the most entertaining thing on the firm’s stand. This was the firm’s connected home demo which, for the Informer at least, brought forth the possibilities of this much discussed future for the first time. When he tells his parents about wifi-connected light bulbs they will no doubt dismiss them as completely pointless. But when he explains that they can flash on and off when you’ve left the house while the freezer door is open, they’ll see the benefit straight away.

Another interesting feature was the notification pinged to the TV when little Bobby who was supposed to be asleep in his bedroom had naughtily fired up his tablet. This level of parental visibility about digital behaviour, it occurred to the Informer, will safeguard the existence of the naughty magazine as the most effective and easily concealable off-net delivery platform for anatomical research among teenage boys.

There was a fancy car or two on the Qualcomm stand as well, as was the case for many of the larger exhibitors as connected cars are now a Big Thing.

M2M specialist Jasper Wireless unveiled a cloud-based platform targeting the automotive OEM sector, helping car companies implement and enhance the connected car experience. The Jasper Connected Car Cloud offers diagnostics, safety and security, to on-board infotainment systems, apps and wifi hotspot services and has been selected by 11 automotive OEMs worldwide the company said.

The offering features a global SIM, enabling manufacturers to manage a single SIM worldwide, while maintaining local service from local operators; split billing, which enables highly differentiated service business models by deploying a variety of different service, rating and billing policies all through a single SIM and modem inside the vehicle; and third party rating, bringing to life new business models that allow third parties to be charged for data consumption inside the vehicle, relevant to the location and preferences of the car’s occupants—a business model gaining a lot of interest at the moment.

“In-car connectivity has gone beyond cars being paired with mobile phones to the point where they are now performing as standalone platforms for broadband content and services,” said Jamie Moss, senior analyst, Informa. “Mobile operators and auto OEMs will not only provide access to familiar content in a format and manner appropriate for use within a vehicle, but also the delivery of specialized, vehicle-specific services.

“Critically for mass market adoption, LTE connectivity is being built into models of vehicle designed for all price brackets as part of the automobile manufacturers’ 2015 ranges. LTE has gone beyond simply being an extra option for luxury cars – it’s now a crucial part of the consumer experience.”

Jasper was among the firms whose achievements were celebrated at the inaugural Telecoms.com Awards in Barcelona this week. Looking out over the city on Monday evening from the Miramar restaurant, almost 200 industry executives turned out to see the following awards given out:

Best Enterprise Cloud Offering: YTL Communications for the 1BestariNet program.

Best Mobile Financial Service: Indosat for Dompetku Mobile Wallet and Mobile Money Service.

Best MVNO: Truphone.

Best use of Cloud Services by a Telco: Telefonica and TOA Technologies for ETAdirect.

Best use of Wifi: Devicescape for its Curated Virtual Network.

Customer Experience Management: Telefonica UK & SpatialBuzz for the Trusted Network Programme.

Connecting the Unconnected: Ericsson for its Millennium Villages Project.

Innovation in the Device space: Qualcomm for its RF360 Front End Solution.

Best Consumer Cloud Offering: AT&T for the AT&T Speech API.

Green Technology: GreenTouch Consortium for its Green Meter study.

Innovation in Mobile Pricing: AsiaInfo-Linkage for its Real-time Self Service (RTSS) solution.

Best Operator OTT Service Launch: Smart Communications for SmartNet.

Progress in Machine to Machine Communications: Jasper Wireless for its IoT platform.

Urban Improvements: Tarana Wireless for its Concentrating Multipoint (CMP) topology.

Pushing the Limits in fixed communications: Alcatel-Lucent and Telekom Austria for G.fast fixed ultra-broadband.

Pushing the Limits in mobile communications: Ericsson and Telstra for their work on LTE broadcast technology and Radisys and Airspan for their LTE-A solution for small cells.

The Informer offers his hearty congratulations to you all.

Hope everyone gets a good rest over the weekend.
Take care

The Informer

‘Agility’, a word used to gauge a company’s ability to respond to the market with flexibility, has become the operator watchword of 2014. It highlights the dawn of an era when operators require not only real-time visibility of their customer’s activity but also the ability to react in real-time to succeed.

In March, Telecoms.com Intelligence set out to discover how operators feel about their current BSS choices and their BSS plans for the future. Over 100 network operators responded to the survey which, comissioned by BSS specialist Openet, revealed an overwhelming sentiment that the agility of an operator is largely tied to the agility of the BSS it relies on. But with the pace of innovation certain to accelerate for the foreseeable future, operators bear the burden of legacy systems in their BSS environments that apply limitations to their agility.

In total 86 per cent of respondents either Agree or Strongly Agree that current market conditions require increasingly agile BSS that give operators the ability to provide service diversity and a faster time to mark et. Moreover, 91 per cent of respondents believe Strongly or Very Strongly that real time network usage reporting and analytics is becoming more important and billing systems need to evolve to cater to this need. Meanwhile 86 per cent believe Strongly or Very Strongly that a BSS portfolio needs to be able to handle real time reporting, to avoid bill shock, and real time reactivity for data tier management.

Such functionality will be a key measure of agility and LTE is a significant contributing factor in this trend, with operators expected to invest in solutions for smart upsell offers triggered by real-time, contextual information such as network usage, application access or location— usage situations which are all expected to be driven by LTE adoption.

It is common for network equipment providers to bundle BSS software in with the infrastructure purchase in order to enhance their proposition. This has the effect of somewhat obscuring the true cost of a BSS platform. One of the respondents, in a free Turning BSS agility into business ability ‘Agility’, a word used to gauge a company’s ability to respond to the market with flexibility, has become the operator watchword of 2014. It highlights the dawn of an era when operators require not only real-time visibility of their customer’s activity but also the ability to react in real-time to succeed. text response, confirmed that network equipment providers “offer [BSS] at very low price, sometimes almost free with the network gear,” to add value.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of respondents (35 per cent) use BSS from a mixture of network equipment providers and specialist companies, while a similar amount (29 per cent), get their BSS directly from their network equipment provider alone. Less than ten per cent buy from specialist providers exclusively. Going forward, more than 40 per cent of respondents do not expect their supplier mix to change within the next five years, although 28 per cent say they will actively move towards a more specialist approach. Only seven per cent expect to move the other way, suggesting a growing appreciation of specialist expertise.

Download the full report here

What’s more, there is little appetite among operators to perform their own integration of BSS software. As a result there is significant scope for collaboration between specialise BSS providers and system integrators to provide best of breed solutions, pairing functionally rich software with the specialist skill set of the system integrators. Although virtualization goes some way to addressing this scenario, by allowing operators to ‘try out’ alternative suppliers without fear of technology backlash, there is still enthusiasm among carriers for sticking with the one-stop-shop, despite them for openly acknowledging that specialist BSS offerings are more attractive and capable.

Virtualization is just as important for BSS as for the wider network. Although the concept has been a stalwart of the IT sector for some time now, it’s still spoken about in the telco industry with a certain amount of caution. No small amount of this comes from the larger network equipment suppliers that have built a business on products that feature integrated software and hardware.

So the key observation is that while everybody is talking about virtualization, few have stuck their flag in the ground with regards to a mapped out virtualization strategy. There are some notable examples: Telefónica, which recently set out detailed and aggressive Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) plans; and Deutsche Telekom, which last year said it was reengineering its network because: “The biggest pain for us is that there is so much legacy technology in networks that it is dif ficult to bring new services to the market. We need to be able to program new services without rearchitecting the network.”

Although these two carriers are in the minority at present, there are suggestions that more announcements are in the pipeline. According to the survey, nine per cent of respondents have already begun commercial operation of virtualised BSS and 23 per cent of respondents have begun trials of virtualized BSS environments. A further seven per cent are expecting to dip their toe into the water this year and 28 per cent within the next two years. So in total, only 34 per cent of operators currently have no plans to embrace virtualised BSS. However it is likely this sentiment will change as the industry becomes more comfortable with the prospects.

Indeed the survey showed a clear under standing of the benefits of virtualization. A total of 7 3 per cent of respondents believe virtualization gives operators the ability to trial new services/business models with minimal disruption. And 61 per cent expect Virtualization will allow operators to eradicate fragmentation in their BSS environment, which bodes well for those seeking to reduce the number of supplier s they currently buy from.

There is also a strong sense that virtualization will create a more competitive environment in the BSS market, not just allowing operators to try out new specialist suppliers with little fear of vendor lock-in but also pushing some of the larger, more general network vendors to step up to the plate and commit to a virtualization strategy of their own or face market share erosion. Indeed, 70 per cent of respondents either Agree or Strongly Agree that virtualization has made it easier for new entrants, including BSS vendors to be considered as new vendors because hardware and integration issues are reduced. More to the point, as a previous question revealed, when it comes to BSS virtualization, 72 per cent of operator respondents believe specialist BSS vendors are better equipped to supply the necessary tools.

Ericsson CEO, Hans Vestberg

Swedish vendor Ericsson has reorganized its networks division, splitting it into two new business units; Radio and Cloud & IP. The Cloud & IP unit will drive Ericsson’s work on virtualization, an area in which the firm has ground to make up on its competitors. Executive VP Johan Wibergh will continue to lead the Networks segment, although Ericsson has yet to name the heads of the two new business units.

Of these, Cloud & IP will be the more interesting appointment. Ericsson has long led the market in radio infrastructure and this unit will need a leader able to maintain and protect that leadership as technology continues to evolve towards 5G. In virtualization, however, Ericsson has been slower than the likes of Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei to stake its claim ahead of the intensification of competition that will accompany the industry’s shift to NFV.

Network Functions Virtualization is set to become strategically fundamental for Ericsson’s core telco customer base and the reorganization reflects the work that needs to be done, CEO Hans Vestberg said in a statement.

“The business logic and Ericsson’s relative position is different in the two areas. Radio is the foundation of Ericsson’s technology leadership and we are the undisputed market leader, same size as number two and three together. We are committed to maintain our leadership as the market evolves with 5G. In the cloud and IP space, which are vital for the evolution to 5G, we have made significant progress but are still a challenger. In a transforming market we will now intensify our work to capture opportunities in virtualization and cloud, building on our leading position in core networks.”

The formal restructuring will be complete by July, Ericsson said, with a spokesperson adding that appointments for the leadership of the two new units should be made in May.

The 5G Summit will be co-located with the 10^th annual LTE World Summit, the premier 4G event for the telecoms industry, taking place on the 23rd-26^th June 2014, at the Amsterdam RAI, Netherlands. 

The Informer once spent a month in Costa Rica. What a beautiful place it is; spectacular jungles, intricate river networks, active volcanoes, perfect, deserted beaches. Admittedly the presence of MASSIVE spiders everywhere made for a holiday that wasn’t unequivocally relaxing. More than once the sights and sounds of the Informer high-stepping at full tilt like an NFL wide receiver, while shrieking like a B-movie scream-queen, disturbed the tranquillity of the forest.

This trip down memory lane was inspired by Apple’s financial results. For the first quarter of 2014, Apple netted revenues of $45.6bn, roughly equivalent to the GDP of Costa Rica for the whole of 2012, according to World Bank figures. It’s quite the comparison.

The iPhone vendor bagged $10.2 in net profit, up 7.4 per cent year on year, and grew gross margin from 37.5 per cent to 39.3 per cent. Good results—or are they?

Apple data shows that iPhone shipments grew by 17 per cent year on year. But number-crunchers polled by the Informer think that the smartphone market grew by closer to 30 per cent year on year in the first quarter, in shipment terms. So Apple is actually underperforming the market.

The problem is that Apple, despite the barely perceptible nod to affordability that was the iPhone 5c, is resolute in its occupation of the high end. But smartphone growth is fastest in emerging markets, where end users are more price sensitive.

Nonetheless it looks as if Apple’s average selling price did decrease year on year; iPhone revenue was up by less (14 per cent) than shipments (17 per cent). If this looks like the Informer forcing a cloud onto Apple’s silver lining, well that’s just the kind of guy he is: Miserable, and terrified of spiders.

It was a numbery sort of week this week, with a host of financial reports hitting the wires. And there were ups and downs as one might expect. Heading south this week were:

TeliaSonera, where net sales for the quarter dropped 2.5 per cent year on year to SEK23.97bn and net profit fell by four per cent to SEK3.95bn. Those pesky mobile termination rate cuts were to blame, said TeliaSonera.

Canada’s Rogers, where net income was down by 18 per cent to C$3240m for the quarter—despite year on year stability in operating revenues. Lower roaming charges and simplified roaming plans were to blame for the drop in wireless performance, the firm said.

China Mobile, where struggles with cost control in an “increasingly fierce” environment led to a 9.4 per cent drop in profit year on year, to RMB25.24bn. In a mark of its having joined the rest of the world’s leading operators, the firm cited once again the impact of saturation, increased competition and the activities of OTT players. ARPU was down year on year from RMB68 to RMB62.

On the up were US market leaders Verizon and AT&T. The latter of the two said it had seen its strongest revenue growth for two years, up 3.6 per cent year on year to $32.5bn. Income was stable at $3.7bn, not least because of the firm’s acquisition of Leap Wireless in March. AT&T said integration costs from the deal would run to $1.2bn over two years.

AT&T saw net postpaid wireless additions of 625,000, it said; it’s best Q1 for five years.

Arch rival Verizon posted a 4.8 per cent increase in consolidated revenue for the first quarter, bagging $30.8bn. Operating income grew by 15.1 per cent to $7.2bn. The operator’s wireless unit saw a 7.5 per cent year on year increase in service revenues and a 6.7 per cent year on year increase in retail service revenues. The operator added 549,000 net retail connections and reported a postpaid churn of 1.07 per cent.

On the vendor side, and despite seeing a decline in net sales, Ericsson announced a 41 per cent year on year increase in net income for Q1. Net income for the period stood at SEK1.7bn ($260m) in 1Q14, compared with SEK1.2bn in 1Q13, largely due to a focus on more lucrative deals such as capacity upgrades that have higher profit margins, the firm said.

Net sales dropped from SEK52bn in 1Q13 to SEK47.5bn in 1Q14, which the firm attributed its decline in sales potential in North America and Japan. Ericsson said it saw lower revenues year on year from mobile broadband coverage projects in North America and Japan, which peaked in the first half of 2013. The firm saw a 23 per cent year on year drop in sales from North America and a 19 per cent year on year drop in sales in North East Asia as a result.

More interesting was the firm’s decision to reorganize its networks division, splitting it into two new business units; Radio and Cloud & IP. The Cloud & IP unit will drive Ericsson’s work on virtualization, an area in which the firm has ground to make up on its competitors. Executive VP Johan Wibergh will continue to lead the Networks segment, although Ericsson has yet to name the heads of the two new business units.

Of these, Cloud & IP will be the more intriguing appointment. Ericsson has long led the market in radio infrastructure and this unit will need a leader able to maintain and protect that leadership as technology continues to evolve towards 5G. In virtualization, however, Ericsson has been slower than the likes of Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei to stake its claim ahead of the intensification of competition that will accompany the industry’s shift to NFV.

Network Functions Virtualization is set to become strategically fundamental for Ericsson’s core telco customer base and the reorganization reflects the work that needs to be done, CEO Hans Vestberg said in a statement.

“The business logic and Ericsson’s relative position is different in the two areas. Radio is the foundation of Ericsson’s technology leadership and we are the undisputed market leader, same size as number two and three together. We are committed to maintain our leadership as the market evolves with 5G. In the cloud and IP space, which are vital for the evolution to 5G, we have made significant progress but are still a challenger. In a transforming market we will now intensify our work to capture opportunities in virtualization and cloud, building on our leading position in core networks.”

The formal restructuring will be complete by July, Ericsson said, with a spokesperson adding that appointments for the leadership of the two new units should be made in May.

Now, earlier this year, the CEO of Telekom Austria, , Hannes Ametsreiter, told Telecoms.com that he expected to see increased foreign investment in the European telecom sector and that some European telcos might see their headquarters shift outside of the region as a result.

Telekom Austria is itself part owned by Mexican billionaire and America Movil chairman Carlos Slim, who has made no secret of his desire to consolidate his European position. At the time Ametsreiter insisted that he was speaking in general terms and not about his own organisation, although the Informer’s ears pricked right up at his observation that: “I believe international players from outside Europe will make acquisitions and I believe this means that the headquarters of some European operators might move outside of the region.”

So it wasn’t a huge surprise when America Movil this week announced its intention to acquire all outstanding shares in Telekom Austria.

If its offer is approved, the Mexico-based group has  agreed to vote in favour of a €1bn capital increase in Telekom Austria. And if America Movil’s offer gains regulatory approval, the LatAm group said it will also take on operational responsibilities for the firm.

In January, America Movil increased its stake in the Austrian telco by 3.14 per cent through its wholly-owned subsidiary Carso Telecom. America Movil already directly held 7.94 million shares in Telekom Austria, and indirectly, through Carso Telecom, it held a further 96.96 million shares, equating to a 21.9 per cent stake in the firm. Currently, America Movil currently holds a 26.81 per cent in the Austrian group.

America Movil has now offered €7.15 per share in Telekom Austria but is only eyeing shares not already held by America Movil, Carso Telecom, Telekom Austria or the Austrian government’s holding company the Österreichische Industrieholding AG (ÖIAG).

Telekom Austria confirmed that the ÖIAG supervisory board has approved and signed a syndicate agreement with Carso Telecom. The agreement guarantees that the ÖIAG will still hold at least a 25 per cent stake in the firm. The operator explained that for a shareholder to reach above the 30 per cent share threshold, Austrian competition law dictates that the shareholder it must make a mandatory offer to acquire the stakes of all other shareholders. The Austrian Takeover Commission must then determine whether the offer is valid and America Movil’s official public offer will be made in the weeks to come.

The syndicate agreement also ensures that Telekom Austria will continue to be headquartered in Vienna and that the firm intends to extend its footprint in Eastern Europe. However, no details have yet been divulged around how the €1bn capital increase will be funded.

Steven Hartley, leader of Ovum’s Industry, Communications & Broadband Practice, believes that America Movil’s expertise will benefit Telekom Austria following the disruption caused by Three’s entry into the market. The challenger operator has a very strong network in Austria and has able to undercut competitors on pricing.

“I think the biggest benefit America Movil can bring to Telekom Austria is the operational outlook,” he said. “It is used to working in markets with lower ARPU. However can it bring in scale benefits around its equipment purchases or creativity around system purchases and outsourcing in an Austrian market that has frankly been hammered for the past few years.”

The Latin American group’s gradual increase in ownership of Telekom Austria led to the European group parting ways with group CFO Hans Tschuden. A source at the operator told Telecoms.com that Tschuden’s departure was fuelled by a conflict with the board members representing Telekom Austria’s Works Council and mentioned that a key topic of discontent was America Movil.

While we’re on acquisitions, Facebook has picked up Finland-based activity tracker app Moves for an undisclosed sum. Moves set out to take on the likes of Fitbit and Nike in the tracker band market, launching in early 2013 after scoring $1.6m of seed funding, led by Lifeline Ventures and PROfounders Capital.

The app runs in the background on Apple and Android devices and tracks users’ physical activity by automatically recognising movement such as walking, cycling, running and transportation.

“It’s a very smart move to buy Moves given how hot the activity tracking space is right now. This is a slick application that has been a trailblazer in this app category on smartphones,” said Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight.

“For a lot of users there really is no need for a smartband to track your activity. Moves not only captures your activity levels but also where you have been. That so-called ‘contextual data’ will be immensely valuable to Facebook,” said Wood.

The Moves purchase comes hot on the heels of Facebook’s $2bn purchase of immersive virtual reality developer Oculus VR, as an investment for the future, when such technology is expected to become commonplace.

This week Facebook also began rolling out a mobile app feature called Nearby Friends that “helps you discover which friends are nearby or on the go.”

If you turn on Nearby Friends, you’ll “occasionally” be notified when friends are nearby, so you can get in touch with them and meet up, the company said. Clearly Facebook has failed to realise that not everyone on its users’ friends list are actually their friends. Cue many awkward meetings.

While we’re on social networks, Google has been left without a leader for its Google+ social networking site after Vic Gundotra stepped down as senior vice president for social at Google this week, after almost eight years at the firm.

Gundotra has been credited by Google co-founder Larry Page for “building Google+ from nothing” three years ago, although conspicuous by its absence in this observation is any sense of what it has been built into.

He fittingly announced his departure in a Google+ post, which is why it took a long time to filter into the wider consciousness. In the post, Gundotra thanked Page and the Google+ team, who he noted developed Google+ “against the scepticism of so many”.

Gundotra’s departure has fuelled rumours that Google will scale back its efforts to integrate Google+ functionality into all of its services and restructure its Google+ team. However, Google has denied that it will make any strategic changes as a result of the departure. In a blog post in response to Gundotra’s, Larry Page noted that Google intends to continue to build new experiences for Google+ users. Like friends.

And that’s about the size of it this week. Plus size.

Take care

The Informer

Russian operator MTS and network equipment provider Nokia have announced the completion of what Nokia said was the first Voice over LTE (VoLTE) call to be carried on virtualized telco cloud infrastructure. The test was carried out in MTS’ live network, using Nokia-supplied suite of virtualized core network elements, including IMS, Telephony Application Server (TAS) and Home Subscriber Server (HSS), running in MTS’ private cloud. These were controlled by Nokia’s Cloud Application Manager.

“VoLTE and telco cloud are principal technologies that will help us address new business opportunities and deliver a superior voice experience to our customers,” said Andrey Ushatskiy, chief technical and IT officer at MTS Group. “This live implementation of virtualized VoLTE…is an important proof-of-concept and shows our commitment to offering our customers the most advanced voice services possible.

“We expect that the compound annual growth of mobile data traffic will reach 79 per cent by 2020 and have to prepare our networks to deliver a quality mobile broadband experience to our customers,” he added.

“We are delighted to join forces in this pioneer project supporting MTS’s demonstration of voice services using LTE in a telco cloud,” said Kristina Tikhonova, Head of East region, Networks, who claimed that Nokia has the “most comprehensive” VoLTE solution on the market. “Our goal is to support operators’ migrations of voice and messaging traffic to LTE. With this demonstration, we further underscore that we are commercially ready and able to do this.”

The 2^nd annual LTE Voice Summit is taking place on October 7^th-8^th 2014 at the Royal Garden Hotel, London. Click here NOW to download a brochure.

Cisco is fleshing out its NFV offering

Networking giant Cisco is to acquire privately held Tail-f Systems, a specialist in multi-vendor network service orchestration for both traditional and virtualized networks, for $175m in cash.

The technology fit is two-fold. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Tail-f’s technology helps reduce the time-to-market for network equipment vendors building equipment for software-programmable networks, but it also helps service providers and enterprises implement applications, network services and solutions across networking devices, Cisco said.

“With a rapidly increasing number of people, devices, and sensors connecting across the Internet of Everything (IoE), service providers require new capabilities to deliver value-added, cloud-based services and applications,” said Hilton Romanski, senior vice president, Cisco Corporate Development. “Our goal is to help to eliminate the bottleneck caused by operational complexity within the network. The acquisition of Tail-f’s network services configuration and orchestration technology will extend Cisco’s innovation in network function virtualization, helping service providers reduce operating costs and the time it takes to deploy new services, making agile service provisioning a reality.”

5G is already a pervasive theme, despite not yet being a defined standard

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third-party contributors to submit analysis of a key topic affecting the telco industry. In this piece Dimitris Mavrakis, Principal Analyst, Intelligent Networks, at analyst firm Ovum, looks at the technologies likely to contribute to the still-undefined 5G standard.

The LTE ecosystem gathered recently in Amsterdam to discuss the commercialization and future of mobile networks. As expected, 5G was a hot topic of discussion but there is still considerable confusion in the market regarding all of its aspects: technology, commercial opportunity, application in verticals, and many others.

This confusion is accentuated by the fact that the majority of mobile operators have still not come across a successful way to monetize their LTE Networks. But if we look to the past, can we identify what the next step towards 5G should be?

Setting the scene

The purpose of this article is not to discuss the requirements of a 5G standard, but to identify technology candidates, relevant organizations, and how the 5G standard is likely to be developed. The requirements of a 5G network have been identified and are outlined by the 5G-PPP.

Making up new definitions in the telecoms market is generally frowned upon and in many cases futile: ITU defined 4G to be IMT-Advanced (100Mbps when user is moving, 1Gbps when stationary) but the market has decided otherwise. LTE – and even LTE-Advanced – cannot provide anything remotely close to these requirements, but on the other hand, T-Mobile US called HSPA 4G and Free France did the same, both for marketing and competitive reasons.

A new mobile network generation usually refers to a completely new architecture, which has traditionally been identified by the radio access: Analog to TDMA (GSM) to CDMA (UMTS) and finally to OFDM (LTE). It is clear that 5G will require a new technology – and a new standard to address current subscriber demands that previous technologies cannot answer. However, 5G – driven by current traffic trends – necessitates a complete network overhaul that cannot be achieved organically. Software-driven architectures, fluid networks that are extremely dense, higher frequency and wider spectrum, billions of devices and Gbps of capacity are a few of the requirements that cannot be achieved by LTE and LTE-Advanced.

Technology candidates for 5G

Current technology developments and user demands are merely providing a glimpse of the nature of 5G networks. At the moment, cost is not a major driver of 5G technology discussions, allowing a much wider list of candidate technologies to be considered. In order to discuss these technologies meaningfully, cost is also ignored in this article. It is the radical and disruptive changes to the existing network that are outlined.

It is clear that a new air interface will be needed. ZTE went as far as to suggest that a 5G network will consist of several air interfaces coexisting in the same network. From a theoretical perspective, this is ideal (e.g. OFDM does not lend itself to small cells and hetnets and there are other, better candidates), but from an operational and economic perspective, this would mean significant development costs and deployment effort.

A selection of technology candidates is outlined below:

Extreme densification

Network densification is not new. As soon as 3G networks were congested, mobile operators realized the need to introduce either new cells into the system or more sectors. This has evolved to include many flavors of small cells, which essentially move the access point much closer to the end user. There is simply no other way to increase the overall system capacity of a mobile network significantly. 5G networks are likely to consist of the several layers of connectivity that hetnets are currently suggesting: a macro layer for lower data speed connectivity; a very granular layer for very high data speeds; and many layers in between. Network deployment and coordination are major challenges to be addressed here, as they increase exponentially with respect to the number of network layers.

Multi-network association

Several networks are currently providing connectivity for end-user devices: cellular, Wi-Fi, mm-wave, and device-to-device are a few examples. 5G systems are likely to tightly coordinate the integration of these domains to provide an uninterrupted user experience. However, bringing these different domains together has proven to be a considerable challenge and Hotspot 2.0/Next Generation Hotspot are perhaps the first examples of cellular/Wi-Fi integration. Whether a 5G device will be able to connect to several connectivity domains remains to be seen, and a major challenge is the ability to successfully switch from one to another.

Full duplex

All mobile communication networks have relied on a duplex mode to manage the uplink and downlink. There are frequency duplex – FDD (such as LTE, where uplink and downlink are separated in frequency) – and time duplex schemes – TDD (where the transmitter and receiver transmit at different points in time, as in TD-LTE). A duplex mode is necessary to coordinate uplink and downlink, but full duplex technologies are now being discussed. In these schemes, a device both transmits and receives at the same time, thus achieving almost double the capacity of a FDD or TDD system.

There are major technology challenges to achieving what is essentially self-interference cancellation and major changes in both networks and devices are essential for full duplex. However, the potential increase in overall capacity is substantial, making full duplex a very important technology for the future of mobile networks.

Mm-wave

Lower frequency spectrum (450MHz-2.6GHz) – which is currently relevant for mobile communications – is almost fully congested. There are, however, massive amounts of spectrum in the higher spectral bands, which may reach as high as 300GHz. Naturally, network design for such high frequencies is much more complicated than the operators are accustomed to: as frequency increases, building penetration becomes more difficult, to the point where a simple wall becomes an opaque barrier for mm-wave signals. However, there are tens of GHz available in these bands, which may be used for short-range, point-to-point, line-of-sight connections, providing limitless speeds of wireless connectivity.

Mm-wave could be used by indoor small cells (in line with the extreme densification principle outlined above), which will provide very high-speed connectivity in confined areas. The high-frequency nature of mm-wave means antennas can be very small, thus only creating a small impact on device real estate. Nevertheless, Ovum believes mm-wave is an extremely radical technology and may require many years of R&D to be cost-effective for the mass market.

It is interesting to note that developments in mm-wave are not new: the WiGig alliance is focusing on 60GHz spectrum. Google also announced the acquisition of Altiostar (a start-up founded by ex-Clearwire engineers), which has been developing technology for the 60GHz band.

Massive MIMO

MIMO has been deployed in LTE-Advanced networks, where the base station and end-user device uses more than a single antenna to increase link efficiency. Massive MIMO refers to the network, where the base station employs a much higher number of antennas that create localized beams around each connected device. The gains in capacity are enormous but so are the technical challenges associated with this concept. However, there is new interest in the market for these concepts, exemplified by a startup called Artemis, which has developed a product called pCell, based on this technology.

Virtualization, software control and cloud architectures

A parallel evolutionary trend to 5G is software and cloud, where the network is driven by a distributed set of data centers that provide service agility, centralized control, and software upgrades. SDN, NFV, cloud, and open ecosystems are likely to be the foundations of 5G and there is an ongoing discussion about how to take advantage of these architectures. Although they are not new – and likely deployed for 5G – all of these concepts are necessary to provide the increased capacity and connectivity of billions of devices that 5G specifications promise.

What happens next?

It’s clear that the technologies outlined above hold great potential and are a revolutionary step when compared with existing network technologies. The process for selecting which technology will be finally implemented is likely to be a long one and depend on performance, implementation, cost, politics, and many other issues. But it is reasonable to assume that it will be the technologies that cost the least that are likely to be implemented, as has been the case with LTE-Advanced.

Ovum’s Intelligent Networks practice is a multinational team of experts assessing the present and future of mobile and fixed telecoms networks. Through constant communication with vendor and service provider communities, Ovum’s telecoms network analysts have a firm understanding of current network trends as well as the future evolution of network infrastructure. Several disruptive topics, including 5G, NFV, and APIs, are shaping their research agenda, ultimately leading to their vision of the telecoms world in 2020. Visit their webpage at www.ovum.com 

Virtualization = agility, says Openet

BSS specialist Openet said Thursday that it has virtualized its real-time charging system, realising an agile and flexible system capable of testing, developing, launching and amending new services and business models much more quickly. The aim is to help operators accelerate the availability of innovative new use cases and applications to generate faster ROI for their network technology investments as they battle decreasing revenues from traditional services and pressure from OTT players.

In March, Telecoms.com Intelligence was commissioned by Openet to discover how operators feel about their current BSS choices and their BSS plans for the future. Of the over 100 network operators that responded to the survey, there was an overwhelming sentiment that the agility of an operator is largely tied to the agility of the BSS it relies on. But with the pace of innovation certain to accelerate for the foreseeable future, operators bear the burden of legacy systems in their BSS environments that apply limitations to their agility. And specialist BSS vendors are seen as the most appropriate company type to address these issues.

According to the survey, nine per cent of respondents have already begun commercial operation of virtualised BSS and 23 per cent of respondents have begun trials of virtualized BSS environments. A further seven per cent are expecting to dip their toe into the water this year and 28 per cent within the next two years. So in total, only 34 per cent of operators currently have no plans to embrace virtualised BSS. However it is likely this sentiment will change as the industry becomes more comfortable with the prospects.

By fully virtualizing its BSS infrastructure, Openet said it will enable mobile operators to more rapidly monetise new capabilities including VoLTE QoS management, shared data plans and sponsored data in a matter of weeks, rather than months or in some cases years with traditional legacy systems.

By removing the need to create a full hardware-based environment, Openet has simplified the deployment process, enabling operators to focus on creating new revenue streams without having to deal with issues around integration, deployment and infrastructure management. The modular architecture of Openet’s systems along with BSS virtualization will enable operators to reduce costs and effectively transition from legacy proprietary technology and embrace open standards.

Joe Hogan, CTO at Openet, said: “BSS virtualization is a key enabler for innovation and will provide operators with the agility and flexibility to quickly capitalise on new revenue generating opportunities.

“While adopting NFV is crucial, deploying the technology in isolation is not enough. Operators must work with BSS specialists that have experience of deploying innovative solutions that fully realize the many advantages of this revolutionary network architecture.”

OpenDaylight launches Helium, its second release.

The OpenDaylight Project has announced the release of its second open source platform to advance Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) architecture control. The release, called Helium, will benefit from 11 new features and protocols, which have all been provided by the network infrastructure vendor community.

Open source is being increasingly viewed as the most viable path forward in the adoption of SDN and NFV architectures, especially when it comes to achieving interoperability and innovation acceleration. The OpenDaylight Project claims that Helium’s integration of multi-vendor protocols, applications and technologies will make it the most flexible and interoperable platform available on the market today.

With the OpenDaylight Project managed by the Linux Foundation, the latest release builds upon the group’s debut code release in February this year, called Hydrogen. New features include an optimised user interface called dlux, meaning OpenDaylight User Experience, as well as deeper integration with OpenStack features such as Load Balancing-as-a-Service. Helium will also utilise OpenFlow Table Type Patterns to provide greater forwarding abstraction.

The Technical Steering Committee has, however, opted against utilising Cisco’s OpFlex this time around, which communicates policy information to network equipment.

The OpenDaylight Project is a consortium of network vendors, including Cisco, Ericsson, HP, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Juniper, NEC and ZTE. Each member has the option of committing code and functionality to each release, and is able to design proprietary controllers and solutions to interoperate with OpenDaylight.

Neela Jacques, executive director of the OpenDaylight Project, believes that the project is fundamental to the future of creating an open and manageable SDN and NFV infrastructure.

“The OpenDaylight Community is iterating, shaping and defining a de facto standard for SDN and NFV through code creation,” he said. “They’ve taken on the monumental task of bringing together all the disparate technologies, thoughts and ideas around SDN and forming it into a cohesive platform. The community has made amazing progress in a short amount of time as you can see in this second release which integrates more functionality, apps and use cases. Helium brings us one step closer to having one common platform the entire industry can standardise on.”

With the number of vendors providing solutions into the virtualization space seemingly on an exponential rise, having the industry’s largest players unite on a common interface and platform for SDN has the potential to rapidly accelerate and standardise options for telecoms service providers. With Hydrogen launching in February to a warm reception, OpenDaylight conceded that there was still work to do before the Helium release. Presumably Lithium and Beryllium will be on the way in 2015.

You can view the Helium architecture diagram, via the OpenDaylight Project website, here

Alcatel-Lucent and KT will collaborate on NFV development

Korean telco KT and Alcatel-Lucent have announced a technical collaboration agreement to accelerate the adoption of network functions virtualization (NFV) in Korea.

The agreement will see Alcatel-Lucent provide three core services to the KT, including its Virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) systems to accelerate and advance service delivery capabilities, and its CloudBand platform to manage the NFV environment.

Alcatel-Lucent’s spin-in subsidiary specialising in software defined networking (SDN), Nuage Networks, will also provide its Virtualized Services Platform (VSP) to help consolidate and automate the network.

The collaborative effort with Alcatel-Lucent is seen by KT as an enhancement to its Giga Network, a project in which NFV will form the basis of new architecture development. KT hopes that Giga will increase efficiency, lower costs and increase cloud product offerings.

KT’s Head of Technology Infra Laboratory Centre, HongBeom Jeon, believes that its partnership with Alcatel-Lucent will drive further uptake of converged services, and deliver revenue generation capabilities.

“KT is happy to collaborate on our NFV proof of concept with Alcatel-Lucent who has been delivering open and integrated NFV and SDN products,” he said. “We expect this collaboration will help us create converge services for the Gigatopia era and develop new revenue generation models.”

Meanwhile, Head of Alcatel-Lucent Korea, Chi Il Yoo, echoes the market consensus on how carrier network virtualization initiatives, such as SDN and NFV, will enable future service delivery, reduce cost and increase efficiency.

“Alcatel-Lucent and KT share a vision of the strategic importance of virtualization and cloud infrastructure and service formation. We look forward to helping KT transition its EPC network functions to operate in an NFV/SDN environment,” he said.  “Combining vEPC, CloudBand and Nuage Networks VSP for SDN provides an innovative architectural model to answer the demand for next generation application workloads and to optimize CAPEX and OPEX for delivering KT’s mobile broadband services.”

The news marks another major partnership announcement from Alcatel-Lucent for its virtualized services. As reported by Telecoms.com last week, hosting provider OVH chose Nuage Networks as its SDN vendor of choice.

Dell is offering the NFV infrastucture and orchestration layers

IT giant Dell is seeking to apply its infrastructure and virtualization knowledge to the telco vertical with the launch of its NFV platform and accompanying operator starter kit. Dell intends to differentiate its offering by using open standards and ecosystem partners to maximise the platform’s scalability and flexibility.

“We’ve seen the carriers looking and testing NFV a lot this year, since SDN was standardised,” Dominique Vanhamme, head of networking at Dell EMEA told Telecoms.com. “Within their infrastructure there are a lot of ‘single-function’ appliances, which are devices that are serving a specific need. The standardisation isolated 12 network functions and the question is can they be virtualized.”

Vanhamme insists Dell offers a favourable alternative to many of the NFV implementations currently on offer. “The current reality is a ‘block-by-block’ type of infrastructure, as provided by the typical infrastructure vendors,” he said. “Our announcement is to say there’s another way. We believe we can provide the infrastructure platform, in partnership with a few other players, and then provide starter kits to the carriers to speed up the deployment.”

The key, says Vanhamme, is scalability. One of the key benefits of NFV to operators is the greater agility and flexibility it offers them, and Dell thinks this should extend to every part of the network. “We believe we have a very scalable solution,” said Vanhamme. “We provide from small to very large, from remote point-of-presence sites up to the core carrier datacentre and any layer of the network in between. If you don’t provide that platform scale you basically defeat the virtualization perspective.”

As you can see in the above diagram, Dell is not claiming to provide the functions themselves, rather the infrastructure underneath them and the orchestration layer. It is closely allying itself with the newly-launched Open Platform for NFV Project (OPNFV) as well as key partners such as Intel and Red Hat. Dell NFV platform and associated starter kits will be globally available at some unspecified time in this quarter.

A new world of networking.

In 2012, the telecommunications industry became awash with talk of a new and potentially disruptive technology that could herald in a new era of networking.

In the months and years since, Software Defined Networking, or SDN, has grown to more than just a buzzword. Coupled with its complimentary, but not mutually-exclusive, counterpart Network Functions Virtualization; the burgeoning carrier network virtualization industry has learned to crawl, walk and run at a pace.

The traction gained by both SDN & NFV since rising to prominence in the early part of the decade is, so far, proving to have a solid value proposition behind it. Promises of optimising network infrastructure capex and opex give a glimpse of an early return on investment. Efficiency gains in terms of traffic flow management, programmatic control of routing and switching protocol, and automated management of complex multi-vendor network architectures are seen as the core value proposition behind the adoption of the two initiatives. These promises afford service providers the opportunity to rapidly deploy new and existing services, and enhance quality of service through automated network management.

SDN stems from a collaborative research project between Berkley and Stanford Universities, and the concept quickly gained industry backing by the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). With founding support coming from 6 of the world’s largest network operators (Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon and Yahoo!), the ONF has since pioneered the development and the wider industry adoption of the OpenFlow protocol.

In 2012, a core group of Tier 1 operators identified the need to reduce network complexity and reduce the amount of redundant hardware located in and around the network edge.

As a consequence, the Network Functions Virtualization initiative was founded, and soon found a home as a working group within ETSI, the European telecommunications standards body. With companies such as AT&T, BT, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, NTT, Orange, Telefónica and Verizon behind the group; unprecedented interest and demand from the wider industry led to the formation and rapid development of the vastly comprehensive working group.

SDN is founded on the “softwarized” control of routing and switching protocol within network layers 0-3. NFV, however, focuses on taking hardware functions and consolidating them on to high density servers in the data center.

Similarly to SDN, NFV promises reduced capex and opex within the network, as well as increased agility and reduced time to market. It is worth noting, however, that the methodology and applicability to the network differs.

In the past, the industry has become well acquainted with buzzwords and hyperboles which promise the world and under-deliver, but Alcatel-Lucent thinks it’s different this time.

“We have seen cloud computing and server virtualization have a major impact in reducing the costs and increasing the flexibility within the IT industry and NFV is about bringing these same principles to the telecommunications sector,” says Phil Tilley, who is Alcatel-Lucent’s marketing director for cloud solutions and strategy.

“The combination of NFV with SDN will bring a new level of flexibility and openness to the telecommunications services we all use on a daily basis. If these techniques are not embraced and adopted then we will see this sector not meet the price, flexibility and experience expectations of the increasingly demanding users. Enterprise customers can expect to see faster delivery times, more scalable capacity, resource on demand, integration of new services and greater control over the services the buy and the way they get delivered and billed,”

Brett Brock, an engineer with Cox Communications believes that the flexibility afforded by both SDN & NFV is the key reason why they’re not being seen as vital to the industry.

“More and more, the industry’s winners and losers will be determined by two factors; speed and scale. The less you have of one the more you will have to have of the other. Virtualization is the key enabler of both. OTT business models will continue to place down-ward pressure on CSP revenue,” says Brock.

He goes on to cite business motivations as one of the imperatives: “SDN & NFV will create much needed separation between the cost of capital and total operating cost. Also, the required rate of innovation will continue to increase for the foreseeable future.”

Coupled with cloud computing, which is enabling innovative start-up companies to join the service delivery space, SDN and NFV deliver the potential for carriers and service providers to re-establish themselves as the primary outlet for enterprise network services. In the face of established cloud service providers such as Amazon or Rackspace dealing directly to enterprise consumers, pressure is mounting on telcos to renew service delivery capabilities with increased speed and agility, as existing revenue streams become increasingly competitive.

“Here again, speed and scale will be the primary determinate of winners and losers. Cloud service delivery will lower the entry barrier for upstarts and disruptors entering the enterprise market. The service providers’ mastery of SDN and NFV will turn the cloud delivery model to an advantage for established enterprises through the delivery of an end-to-end integrated technology stack,” says Brock.

Still in its relative infancy, early use-cases for NFV have been identified, and Proof of Concept (PoC) studies are under way. Targeting the “low hanging fruit”, functions which are ripe for the picking, Deep Packet Inspection, Dynamic Service Chaining, and Customer Premises Equipment are in the process of being virtualized, and scaled back to the Data Center.

It’s a movement which is moving very quickly. At the time of writing, 23 PoC trials have been approved or are in the process of being conducted. The most recent of which began in May, and focuses on the end to end management and orchestration of the virtualized LTE core.

Managed by SK Telecom and integrating solutions from HP, Samsung and Telcoware; the PoC intends to bring together an NFV infrastructure (including SDN switches, network, compute and storage architectures) underneath Virtual Network Functions, including vIMS, virtualized evolved packet core (EPC) and virtualized value added services (VAS).

The unification of SDN underneath an NFV architecture highlights the requirement for an advanced management and orchestration model. In a virtualized paradigm featuring interoperable/multi-vendor architecture, a unified orchestration platform provides an abstraction layer between the physical infrastructure and carrier network applications. Such abstraction allows carriers to configure and programme the network more simply, without the need to manually type in hundreds, if not thousands, of lines of code across multiple network devices. This simplification can be extended by solutions that can facilitate rapid service scale-out and on-demand provisioning of infrastructure to meet the demands and requirements of the business and its customers.

Despite SDN technology promising openness and vendor agnosticism, by its very definition and philosophy; network infrastructure supplied by the industry’s most prominent hardware & network vendors is traditionally proprietary in its nature. Hypothetically this means that hardware from Vendor-A can only be coded and controlled by a proprietary Vendor-A orchestrator. In a multi-vendor environment where different network elements may be supplied by different providers; an orchestration platform that has the ability to unify multiple vendor offerings is of great importance in taking strides towards enabling the SDN & NFV vision.

Ovum Research principal analyst Dimitris Mavrakis agrees that management and orchestration is a key hurdle in the race to realize the potential of virtualization.

“If you have a multi-vendor network, which is very common today, each vendor is likely to have their own OSS system,” he says. “In order for SDN and NFV to be able to realize the considerable cost savings, the OSS system also needs to be renovated; and that’s a major challenge.”

But how can carriers overcome such a challenge?

So far, over the top (OTT) companies, such as eBay, Facebook and Google, have taken an open-source approach to network control and management.

eBay for example have brought in a dedicated team of trained open-source software engineers to develop their management platforms in-house. By using OpenStack as a controller, they are able to operate their network with complete customisation and flexibility on Linux-based servers; which reportedly sees them benefit from greater accessibility, reliability and availability. They work with a large vendor partner to deliver OpenStack-specific plugins for SDN orchestration; and are closely monitoring the OpenDaylight Project, which has huge potential in shaping the future of the virtual carrier network.

The challenge that many operators may face, however, is one of human resource allocation. Carriers may argue that the fundamental business model of OTT service providers affords them greater flexibility than their subscription-based carrier counterparts. An end-user may tolerate a temporary degradation in quality of a free service they receive from an eBay or a Google; but compromising on Quality of Service for paid-for carrier services is quite simply not an option. Naturally, the carrier community is cautious of this, and subsequently takes a steady & incremental approach to network innovation.

At this early stage in carrier adoption of both SDN and NFV, there are a number of logistical, business and networking challenges which the telecoms industry faces. Industry specification groups and standardization bodies are working well, and working quickly, to innovate their way towards the Elysium of a perfectly virtualized network infrastructure. If the industry’s most influential parties continue to throw their hat into the ring, then the reality will be delivered sooner, rather than later.

Cisco providing vEPC to NAKA Mobile

NAKA Mobile, a telecoms and technology specialist based in Switzerland, has claimed the industry’s first virtualized evolved packet core (vEPC). Utilising Cisco’s NFV services, NAKA claims it will transform its network architecture, expand beyond Switzerland, and provide its mobile Internet services to customers across the world.

According to NAKA, the service is already live and delivering services. It claims the vEPC will enable advanced time-to-market capabilities, while reducing total cost of ownership; a lot of the usual NFV perks on display.

Both companies seem chuffed with the partnership, with Cisco being especially gratified that NAKA chose it to provide early use-case NFV services. “NAKA Mobile is launching the world’s first virtualized packet core mobile Internet services, and Cisco is delighted to support its efforts,” said Mike Iandolo, Cisco’s VP and GM of Mobile Internet Technology. “The Cisco Virtualized Packet Core solution enables NAKA Mobile to deploy the Cisco StarOS software architecture on different hardware platforms.”

Meanwhile, NAKA is no less ecstatic that Cisco’s platform will deliver flexible management of its network.  Daniel Sendin, NAKA’s Chief Operating Officer, was full of praise for the work Cisco has done with the his team. “Cisco is a market leader with solid technology that permits NAKA Mobile the capability to dynamically scale our mobile Internet network capacity,” he said.

“NAKA Mobile chose Cisco because they offered us the platform scalability of a virtualized packet core and the ability to scale. As a result, we can offer different deployment options depending on the size and maturity of the market. The Cisco Virtualized Packet Core also gives us the flexibility to implement solutions spanning 10,000 to millions of users while using the same software over different platforms.”

It would be interesting to see whether the vEPC launch between NAKA and Cisco fits within the ETSI NFV architectural framework, as a proof of concept (PoC) is currently being conducted by Vodafone, AMD, ARM and Aricent, and was recently demonstrated in Germany.

Ciena aiming to make service selection and delivery a smooth process for enterprise.

Network infrastructure vendor Ciena has announced a new NFV software solution aimed at simplifying the network management interface. The solution, called Agility Matrix, is a virtual services software platform which Ciena claims will modernise the acquisition, distribution, consumption and payment of virtualized network functions (VNF).

One of the primary areas of the Agility Matrix Ciena seemed keen to emphasise during a conference call is the focus on linking managed services with virtualization, allowing service providers to boost user service delivery and profitability.

In the spirit of openness which has become synonymous with the NFV movement, Agility Matrix comes with the “VNF Market”, an online marketplace hosting a variety of third-party VNFs. Using an e-commerce style interface, enterprise customers can drag and drop functions or services into their cart for use. Virtual functions like VPN, encryption or firewall can be spun up and delivered as a managed service. “Director” is a feature of the Agility Matrix, designed for the management and orchestration of said VNFs.

Ray Mota, Managing Partner and Founder of analyst group 451 Research, believes the need for revenue assurance and generation remains the core motivation for service providers looking to transform network architectures and service delivery mechanisms.

“Carriers are being challenged with lower profit margins and operational complexity in their managed services business, which is forcing them to either sell off the business, shut it down or re-architect the network in order to be more agile and simplified,” he said.

“Fortunately, their needs for simplification and agility are being met with technologies such as virtual CPE. The value of virtualized managed residential and/or business services is not only good for carriers but of tremendous value to the end user because of the enhanced customer experience. Every carrier that is offering managed service today will have to implement some type of virtualized managed technology to increase profit margin and remain competitive.”

Ciena also announced the launch of a new business division which will dedicate itself to the wider management and improvement of the wide area network. Ciena Agility will be based around driving enhanced service velocity, innovation and business benefit across the wan, using product innovation and development as its foundation.

Kevin Sheehan, who will be heading up Ciena Agility as VP and General Manager, reckons the need for a more flexible and e-commerce-like service delivery platform is now a fundamental requirement for operators.

“We are transforming raw capacity into capability that delivers on-demand network-based services in a manner that mimics the ease and instantaneous nature of an online shopping experience,” he said. “The new Ciena Agility division is organised to quickly respond to the market demand for these customer-driven software solutions.”

Ciena’s network control and application software technology portfolio will develop at Ciena Agility, with Agility Matrix services expected to be launched in the second calendar quarter of 2015.

The network functions virtualization (NFV) and internet of things (IoT) movements have taken a step towards mass real-world roll-out, with the news that Korean powerhouses SK Telecom and Samsung Electronics will work together on deploying network virtualization technologies as part of a nationwide mobile network designed to support the development of IoT.

Both NFV and IoT have been increasingly discussed over the last year, with the latter in particular dominating proceedings at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Various industry forecasts have estimated the value of the emerging IoT industry could reach $20trillion by 2020, and Samsung itself dropped about $200 million on the acquisition of IoT startup SmartThings in August last year.

Among several emerging networking technologies, NFV has risen to prominence in the past 24 months as a feasible means for operators to optimise control of their networks. Plenty has been made about the potential of NFV, alongside its complementary but not mutually exclusive sibling, SDN; however the announcement of SK’s intentions to deploy NFV into a live network marks one of the first real-world roll-outs of the heavily marketed (or hyped) technology principle.

Jong-bong Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of Network Division at SK Telecom, was thrilled to see NFV and IoT take a step closer to realisation. “We are delighted to collaborate with Samsung on our NFV solution for SK Telecom’s IoT services,” he said. “SK Telecom is preparing for the IoT era through active business collaboration. Through the application of virtualised network technologies, we are confident that we can deliver a truly consistent and innovative network as well as superior service quality.”

The product in question is Samsung’s AdaptiV Core, which includes a virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) and runs on a KVM-based hypervisor. By utilising the scalable distribution capabilities of NFV, IoT-originated data of varying sizes is able to be managed with greater network efficiency, a philosophy echoed by Samsung Electronics’ President and Head of Networks Business, Youngky Kim.

“NFV is one of the core technologies of next-generation mobile networks and will play a critical role in helping telecom operators in terms of network deployment, management and operation as well as service efficiency and rapid scalability,” Kim said.

Samsung conducted various proof of concept trials with SK in 2013 relating to its vEPC, and has been a regular partner with the telco on developing NFV tech, with today’s announcement the first to mark the roll-out of NFV in the carrier’s live network.

Deutsche Telekom is experimenting with running virtualized network functions in Linux containers, a senior research engineer at the German incumbent telco told Telecoms.com’s sister publication, Business Cloud News.

Sriram Natarajan, vice-chair of the Security Group at Open Networking Foundation and research engineer at T-Labs in California, the research and development arm of DT, is currently experimenting with deploying virtualized network services inside Docker and leveraging the capabilities of OpenV, an open source software-based multilayer network switch, in the container world.

“In theory there is so much potential to leverage the power and scalability of containers here. For instance, you can set quality of service for different tenants, or scale bandwidth for different tenants,” he said. “Most people are thinking about using Docker for web applications or databases, but from a networking perspective it takes NFV to the next level.”

Typically, VNFs are deployed in virtual machines that sit on top of a hypervisor, but Linux containers – which can coexist with virtual machines on some virtualization platforms – use a different structure that puts isolated Linux systems (containers) on a single Linux control host, and allows more granular resource isolation and greater elasticity.

Telcos and cloud service providers are keen to exploit NFV because it has the potential to reduce reliance on expensive proprietary networking gear and increase network elasticity.

“Performance metrics will circle around instantiation time, update time, whether VNFs can meet the SP’s SLA promises, QoS support and ease of operation.”

With the relatively nascent state of NFV generally and Docker specifically, however, Natarajan said it will be some time yet before Dockerised NFV becomes production-ready.

He said the tools currently in place to Dockerise VNFs are, despite their rapid rate of evolution, relatively immature, forcing Natarajan to do a lot of low level configuration work and write various large scripts that make the whole system too complex.

“If you look at what Docker offers in terms of networking, they use Linux bridges internally to share the host network with these containers, and we try to work with that – it works okay in a single host, but working across hosts in a clustered environment is very challenging,” he explained, adding that the firm is experimenting with replacing Docker’s native networking tools with an OpenV switch.

Natarajan said the other big challenge is managing the security gap in NFV and SDN more broadly.

“Most of the focus so far has been on defining security from a policy standpoint, which is important, but in practical terms what you really need is a broadly accepted implementation guidelines – i.e. What are the security considerations for deploying OpenFlow or any other SDN solution so that you don’t introduce loopholes in your architecture?”

“There’s also a critical lack of security software in virtualized network environments,” he added. “But the good news is that this space is evolving so quickly, with developers adding so many great features; the pace of change in this area is tremendous.”

NFV was unveiled at last year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and was rapidly heralded as the next-big-thing for carrier networking. This year, multiple pledges have been made by exhibitors to demonstrate the power of an NFV-enabled architecture, with showcases expected to run all week by some of the industry’s largest players, which aim to show the tech’s move towards commercial readiness.

Starting with Telefónica, which announced it is demonstrating a fully virtualized network live at the show, in collaboration with Alcatel-Lucent and HP. The demonstration focused on live LTE video streaming and calling services on a fully virtualized network stack, including a vRAN, vCDN, vEPC and vIMS.

The Spanish telco has been public in declaring its intentions to move to a fully virtualized architecture, in full, as soon as possible. Its latest announcement illustrates the network transformation it is undertaking by utilising unified communications architectures, cloud computing and virtualization initiatives.

According to a statement released by the telco, it “has a vision of a common infrastructure to serve both Telco and Service Platforms requirements (VNFs – Virtual Network Functions) and that this common infrastructure will be cloud-based”.

In his keynote talk at MWC, Chairman César Alierta alluded to the massive transformation being undertaken at Telefónica. “Ultra-broadband networks, fostered by huge investments, are being deployed across geographies by operators, networks that let everyone and everything be connected, generating immense opportunities for all,” he said.

Speaking of vRAN, China Mobile has been heavily involved with Alcatel-Lucent in developing the technology, which aims to virtualize baseband units onto general purpose Intel servers. At last year’s show, the telco giant showcased the latest developments of the Cloud-RAN program, a predecessor to vRAN.

Dr. Chih-Lin I, Chief Scientist at China Mobile Research Institute, believes the efficiency gains of NFV in the radio network are essential to the future development of the mobile industry.

“vRAN is a successful commercial instance of C-RAN,” she said. “Since CMRI introduced the C-RAN to the industry 5 years ago, we have been working closely with Alcatel-Lucent to develop innovative solutions towards greener and softer future radio access networks. Our joint work in NFV, and especially in this case on the vRAN, will help operators to smoothly evolve and meet growing customer demands with a more efficient and effective network structure.”

Meanwhile, in an exhibition hall far, far away, Juniper Networks and Amdocs have united to deliver live NFV showcase demonstrations of virtualized customer premises equipment (vCPE) in an enterprise environment.

The virtual function, vCPE, is being showcased this week as the two companies announce the availability of the solution which intends to integrate various virtualized routing and firewall services from Juniper, in-turn facilitating rapid carrier scale-out of enterprise-grade services. Juniper’s SDN offering, Contrail, is also involved to deliver management of cloud and NFV infrastructures. Amdocs, meanwhile, is contributing its Network Cloud Service Orchestrator to help the provisioning of virtual and physical network functions, which the company claims will allow for one of the most commonly discussed benefits of NFV: user self-service.

“Service providers recognise the business value of software-powered service chaining as they seek to make their networks more dynamic and better able to adapt to rapid change,” said Gabriel Brown at Heavy Reading. “Virtual CPE is one of the primary use-cases for NFV and there is clear evidence that service providers will invest in the technology if they have the software solutions they need to achieve true service agility.”

Elsewhere in NFV-land, NEC today announced it will be working closely with NTT DoCoMo to deliver NFV solutions across the mobile operator’s commercial network. The virtualized evolved packet core is at the centre of the agreement, which aims to virtualize the primary functions of an LTE network. NEC will also be providing a VNF manager, which it claims will help orchestrate the provisioning of various functions in the vEPC.

Speaking of the partnership, NTT DoCoMo’s CTO, Seizo Onoe, acknowledged the tremendous speed with which NFV has moved through development and into a viable commercial phase of existence.

“NFV, which has finally moved into its commercial phase, is no longer just a pie-in-the-sky idea,” he said. “Through multi-vendor initiatives with NEC and other leading vendors in the NFV domain, we look forward to putting NFV to practical use and thereby helping to accelerate the transition to a new era for mobile networks.”

Of course, these are just a few of the many demonstrations happening in the NFV space across the week at Mobile World Congress. Telecoms.com will be bringing you coverage of the biggest and best announcements at this year’s show across the week.

Consumer electronics and wearable tech aside, Chinese giant Huawei whipped up a relative storm in the networking world at Mobile World Congress this week by unveiling an array of new mobile broadband and networking services in Barcelona. At the centre of Huawei’s new offerings were 5G and cloud services designed to help operators better manage the explosion of big data.

By utilising network virtualization, Huawei reckons maximising network energy efficiency and building greener mobile broadband technology will become increasingly integral to the future of the ICT industry. Its “green” strategy focuses on energy consumption optimisation and energy utilisation of legacy networking equipment, and designing management software that assists in the management of network equipment energy usage.

Meanwhile, the rotating CEO of Huawei, Ken Hu, delivered a keynote speech at MWC which focussed on the arrival of a 5G world. During his talk, Hu discussed the barriers and challenges which need to be overcome in order to enable 5G, including cross-industry collaboration, technological innovation and an evolution in commercial strategies. He claimed the primary reasons driving the demand for 5G include IoT, consumer experience demand and the evolving needs of enterprise verticals.

“Fully deployed 5G networks will have the capability to reach over 100 billion smart nodes,” he said. “This capability is extremely valuable for many applications. More than just an upgrade, 5G will become a powerful platform that enables new applications, new business models, and even new industries – as well as many disruptions.”

In his keynote session, Hu claimed that 5G will have a peak download speed of 10 Gbps, saying that the download of an 8GB high definition movie will be almost instantaneous. He said that, historically speaking, a 3G connection would download the movie in more than an hour and in seven minutes on 4G, but it would take as little as six seconds on 5G.

Back at the Huawei stand, the firm announced its strategic collaboration partnership with Intel this week, to deliver public cloud solutions for telecoms carriers; a concerted network virtualization effort. The two technology incumbents, according to a Huawei statement, plan to concentrate efforts on developing scalable, optimised and cost-efficient hardware and software platforms for cloud deployment models across server, storage, network and infrastructure management technologies.

Speaking on industry collaboration, Jason Waxman, VP for Cloud Platforms Group at Intel, said: “Industry collaboration will foster innovation to deliver the latest cloud technology to Telecommunications Service Providers. Huawei’s efforts with Intel to develop the next generation FusionSphere products using Intel technology will enable service providers to deliver high performing, secure, and agile cloud services.”

Alongside stating its 5G ambitions, and announcing collaborative methods and new product suites, Huawei also discussed the work it’s doing in accelerating digital services platform transformation with its “Digital inCloud” service, which is designed to assist the delivery of digital content, including music, gaming, video, APIs, traffic monetisation and IoT/M2M.