An Ignoble Experiment

2. SDN will be 2014's biggest network trend, says Strategy Analytics

How close is Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) to offering voice over LTE? Pretty darn close, based on the fact that Spirent Communications announced its 8100 mobile device test system has been selected to ensure that VoLTE/IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) devices destined for Verizon's network will comply with industry standards and the operator's certification requirements.

Wireless device testing company Intertek will actually be the one using the Spirent equipment on behalf of Verizon. Intertek became Verizon's first approved independent, third-party device testing lab back in October 2008.

"We are responding to the time-sensitive needs of Verizon Wireless by choosing Spirent's 8100 solution and being one of the first commercial labs ready to test VoLTE/IMS," said Ron Bernot, wireless engineering manager at Intertek.

Spirent noted it currently offers comprehensive coverage of Verizon Wireless' VoLTE/IMS test requirements, including some areas of exclusive coverage. "The VoLTE/IMS service related tests are a critical test area for Verizon Wireless as it prepares to launch commercial service of these value-added services over LTE," Spirent said.

During Verizon's third-quarter 2013 earnings call last month, Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo said Verizon will "probably" introduce its first VoLTE smartphone by year-end and will light up the VoLTE rollout starting in the first half of 2014. He reiterated that Verizon will not rush the VoLTE launch because the carrier wants to ensure that VoLTE calls have the same quality as 3G CDMA voice calls.

"We have to make sure that our VoLTE experience is the same [as the CDMA calling experience], and that's why we have taken such a long time and we believe that when we get to the first half of next year, the network will be ready, the experience will be very, very similar and that we will be ready to roll this out," Shammo said, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript of the call.

He also emphasized that the eventual VoLTE service footprint must be similar to Verizon's existing CDMA geographic coverage for it to be accepted in the marketplace. Similarly, Ulf Ewaldsson, senior vice president and CTO at Ericsson recently told FierceWirelessTech that one of the main hurdles restricting VoLTE rollouts is the fact that extensive LTE coverage is needed. He said VoLTE announcements in key markets will arrive "very, very soon."

Deployment of VoLTE will be a crucial step in Verizon's long-term game plan of shuttering its 3G CDMA network. Not only could that reduce network opex, but deleting CDMA support from customer devices could also lower pricing for them in addition to reducing some of their complexity. However, Shammo has cautioned that other functionality, such as multicast, will be added to Verizon's devices over time, and that will keep device pricing from plummeting.

Verizon's 2014 target for launching VoLTE represents a delay of two years over initial plans. The operator said back in February 2010 that it had installed IMS technology and would use that as a basis for a planned VoLTE service.

For more:
- see this Spirent release

Read more about: Spirent, Verizon
back to top

This week's sponsor is Kony.
	Webinar: CIO/CMO Extreme Collaboration: Mobile App Edition Thursday, November 21st, 2pm ET / 11am PT \| New Speaker Added! Customers and employees alike are more mobile than ever, which means CIOs and CMOs have to partner more effectively than ever to deliver the goods. Join us as we discuss making mobile apps a critical point of teamwork between IT and marketing. Register Today!

By Tammy Parker

Comment |

3. Range Networks releases 3G upgrade, transceiver specs

The shift toward software-defined networking (SDN) will entail a 10-year process, but the migration is already beginning and will ramp up even more during 2014, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

Sue Rudd, the firm's director of service provider analysis, said industry players formerly thought virtualization and SDN were tightly coupled, meaning an operator had to virtualize its network resources before it could look at the control plane rather than the data plane and only then start to use SDN.

However, she said, operators as well as vendors are now focused on using the control plane with current virtualized resources and also with legacy resources.

Rudd, who made her comments during a Strategy Analytics webinar examining emerging industry trends, cited a handful of early wireless industry SDN initiatives.

Strategy Analytics SDN 2015 virtualization

Click here for larger view. (Source: Strategy Analytics Wireless Networks and Platforms)

Deutsche Telekom has been testing TeraStream in Croatia, isolating the service layers and network models from the lower multi-technology transport access layers to create a strong network architecture, which was initially used for OSS/BSS virtualization. In another example, Australia's Telstra has engaged in service chaining, which relies upon the SDN data plane to control provisioning of services with only the resources necessary.

Taking a different tack, AT&T (NYSE:T) recently announced a major push into SDN and network functions virtualization (NFV) via its Supplier Domain Program 2.0, which is aimed at making into reality the carrier's goal of an all-IP broadband, all-wireless, and all-cloud infrastructure.

Strategy Analytics has identified four different areas where virtualization and SDN will increasingly be implemented: data center OSS/BSS SDNs; virtualization; next-generation services SDNs; and high performance Open Networking Foundation (ONF) server SDNs.

Rudd noted that IT-related service functions can be much easier to virtualize than network and radio-related functions. "Some of them may as optimized as they already can be with codecs and DSPs (digital signal processors) and virtualization on standard, off-the-shelf computers may be less efficient, in fact, than some of the optimized hardware that's out there," she said.

The two major areas where SDN will grow over the next few years are the classic OpenFlow SDN control plane, which includes service chaining and load management as well as the provision of SDN to the service layer to optimize control, management and configuration of new services, Rudd added.

Despite the promise held by SDN and related network approaches, there is still a lot to be sorted out before they become mainstream. "It is still very early days" in the evolution of SDN, network virtualization and NFV, according to a report from Ovum.

"These technologies are in trials with major service providers and have had limited deployment in live networks. In 2014, we expect new and revised standards and specifications related to these technologies to bring the industry closer to consensus, giving service providers confidence to expand trials and early deployments," the firm added.

Nonetheless, this past summer, Informa Telecoms & Media published results from an industry survey which revealed that 93 percent of operator respondents expect SDN to be implemented in mobile within five years, and half expect it to be implemented in the next one to two years.

In addition, SNS Research recently forecast that SDN and NFV investments can save wireless and wireline service providers up to $32 billion in annual capex by 2020.

Read more about: Sue Rudd
back to top

By Tammy Parker

Comment |

4. Huawei, Samsung and others expect UK 5G research center in early 2015

Network infrastructure startup Range Networks announced developments designed to enhance the capabilities and further build the ecosystem of its architecture, which is based on commercial open source software.

Samra (Source: Range Networks)

Range Networks' cellular systems are targeted at low-cost rural wireless deployments, both private and public. They are based on OpenBTS, its open-source, software-defined radio implementation of the GSM radio access network that presents normal GSM handsets as virtual SIP endpoints to an IP-based core. This week's first announcement highlighted the company's network evolution toward 3G WCDMA, which will be followed by LTE.

The vendor initiated a controlled release--for early adopters and telecom test labs--of a commercial WCDMA software upgrade for its OpenBTS software, which previously supported only 2G and 2.5G connectivity. The new OpenBTS-UMTS enables data throughput of 384 kbps per user on 3G-enabled handsets. The upgraded network is 3GPP-compliant and operates on any 3GPP-defined WCDMA frequencies. It also supports network and handset authentication.

In March, Range Networks said it had WCDMA systems in alpha testing with customers and predicted those products would be ready for market by midyear. However, Harvind Samra, CTO and company cofounder, acknowledged that the timeline had slipped a bit, resulting in this week's announcement. "We have a lot of customers asking for 3G, specifically for video-bandwidth data," he told FierceWirelessTech.

Samra noted there is also a lot of overlap in the specifications for WCDMA and LTE. "That makes it natural for us to do a UMTS implementation before we go to LTE," he said.

The company also intends to add LTE support to its software, delaying HSPA support. "At some point, I think we'll backtrack a bit and do HSPA. But what we've found is that there is so much demand for LTE now, so as a company it would behoove us to really go after LTE and postpone HSPA for now, " Samra said.

The company has said previously that it will have an LTE product ready for market in 2014.

Range Networks also unveiled a full release of specifications for the Range SDR1 transceiver, which is the only open source transceiver designed specifically for cellular base stations running OpenBTS. "This is the hardware component of OpenBTS," Samra said.

The SDR1 is already being commercially used in Range Networks' base stations on all seven continents and in extreme environments.

Samra said the specs release is unique because most open source hardware projects only provide schematics and possibly a bill of materials. However, Range Networks is providing SDR1 transceiver schematics, layout files and bill of materials required to build an advanced software-defined radio. The designs will be available on the OpenBTS website under an open source license.

"You can download this and literally take it to a manufacturer to make a radio," Samra said. That fits with OpenRange's long-term vision, which includes hardware commoditization along with open source software.

The GSM-based SDR1 is designed for 2G and 2.5G rather than WCDMA. Samra indicated that the company is working on a design for a commercial radio supporting 3G and LTE.

Range Networks noted that the transceiver specs release makes a previously announced OpenBTS Development Kit 100 percent open source. "Now university and telecommunications labs can combine off-the-shelf commodity components with free OpenBTS software and build their own test cellular network, or they can purchase a fully tested, ready-to-use kit from Range Networks," the company added.

Range Networks also offers equipment certification for manufacturers to verify compatibility with OpenBTS and OpenBTS-UMTS software.

For more:
- see this Range Networks release and this release
- see this Register article

Special Report: Range Networks- network infrastructure- wireless startups- Fierce 15 2013

Read more about: Harvind Samra
back to top

By Tammy Parker

Comment |

5. Cloudberry using full Cisco kit for managed small cell service

Huawei, Samsung, Telefonica, Vodafone and UK regulator Ofcom are some of the wireless industry heavyweights helping bring to fruition the University of Surrey's 5G Innovation Center (5GIC) on its main campus in Guildford, England. The center, in the planning stages for the past year, recently began preparatory work to initiate construction, which will not be completed until January 2015.

The consortium--which also includes Aeroflex, Aircom International, BBC, BT, EE, Fujitsu and Rohde & Schwarz--has pledged "time, expertise and other contributions" which together are valued at more than £30 million ($40.3 million), according to the university.

A year ago, the effort received some $15.6 million from the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) under the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF).

The 5G research center will eventually have room for 150 researchers and about 100 doctoral students and will feature a 5G test bed on the university campus.

"We will use state-of-the-art 4G as the starting point for our work and complement this with even more advanced technologies which place the user at the heart of the design process," said Professor Rahim Tafazolli, head of the university's Center for Communication Systems Research.

Tafazolli added that the 5GIC project ultimately aims to "create the perception of 'infinite capacity'" for wireless networks.

Wen Tong, a Huawei fellow, said the Chinese vendor "has not only made a significant financial commitment to the center but is also a key partner in developing the future strategy for research and development in this crucial and expanding sector of the world economy."

With few exceptions, Europe has been playing catch-up when it comes to LTE deployments, which have been led by the United States, Japan and South Korea. But that has not stopped the European region from focusing on the next generation of mobile communications, commonly called 5G, in which it aims to secure a leadership position that it can leverage for future dominance. One example is the METIS 2020 research project, which is considered the European Union's flagship 5G initiative and is spearheaded by Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC).

For more:
- see this University of Surrey release
- see this Mobile World Live article

Special Report: Ericsson, Huawei and others delve into 5G via METIS 2020

Read more about: Rahim Tafazolli, Wen Tong
back to top

By Tammy Parker

Comment |