MEMBER NEWS: EE/BT run Parallel Wireless 3G/4G solution

Industry News

Telecom Council member, Parallel Wireless and EE brought a Case Study to TC3 in 2015.  Check out this year’s Summit to see where the next great partnership might come from! http://bit.ly/tc3_2017

PW logoEE AND BT SHOWCASE ‘PRE-STANDARD 5G’ TO CONNECT AIR MAST

  • EE first UK mobile operator to showcase ‘pre-standard 5G’ backhaul capability, using its patent pending 4G air mast
  • 26GHz test spectrum used to carry traffic from 4G air mast as part of Adastral Park Innovation Week event
  • ‘Pre-standard 5G’ backhaul solution increases 4G speeds and lowers latency

 

 Monday 12 June 2017: EE, the UK’s largest mobile network operator and part of the BT Group, has become the first UK provider to successfully demonstrate pre-standard 5G backhaul technology, using it to connect its unique Helikite ‘air mast’ mobile coverage solution.

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Finding the “Diamond in the Rough” on the conference circuit

Industry News

Author: Linda Hull, Director, Telecom Council

diamond in the roughI’ve heard some pretty whacky reasons why startups should attend conferences … “travel the world” was probably the one that had me raise my eyebrows the highest.  As a cash-strapped entrepreneur, I can’t imagine seeing the pyramids or the Taj Mahal would be high on the list of priorities.  Seems more likely one would be rummaging between the metaphorical sofa cushions hoping to find a few errant coins to supplement the business development budget.  Travel and conferences are expensive in cash and time, so finding that diamond hidden among the cubic zirconia is paramount.

Startups can’t expect to grow in a vacuum.  The statistics are humbling – around 50% of startups will fail in the first 5 years. Professional in-person connections can make the difference between being on the right or the wrong side of that 50%.  Conferences and trade shows are a necessary channel to make those connections and promote who you are and what you do.

So here are my top 5 tips for maximizing your ROI:

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MEMBER NEWS: On the Road to Service Provider Virtualization, Expect More Marathon than Sprint

HP, Industry News, Telecom Council Member Posts

Author: David Sliter, Vice President & General Manager of Communications Solutions Business, HPE

HPE_NEWThe media has been buzzing about the state of network functions virtualization (NFV) in the communications service provider industry—including some criticisms that NFV has not lived up to expectations. It’s true that the industry is still figuring out the best way to capitalize on virtualization. And there are opportunities for all stakeholders—NFV solution vendors, communications service providers (CSPs), developer communities—to learn what works and what doesn’t. This process will unfold over the next few years. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise; it’s just what any major technology transformation looks like.
As we navigate potential roadblocks and learn as we go, let’s be clear: cloud and virtualization represent the future of service provider architectures. The benefits are simply too great, and the push from CSPs themselves too strong. But, because operator environments are so different from enterprise IT environments, this will be a journey, and we should understand what to expect.

 

Virtualizing CSP Versus Enterprise Environments

Why has the CSPs’ embrace of virtualization been so complicated? Why can’t we just take enterprise cloud architectures, throw them over the wall and into telco environments, and get started? Because service provider environments are a very different animal than enterprise IT.

First, CSP architectures must meet demands for “carrier-grade” resiliency, performance, and scalability that simply don’t exist in the enterprise IT world. After all, most enterprise applications don’t fall into the category of life impacting applications with the same criticality of an E911 service call. Telco services and network functions also tend to be far more distributed than enterprise resources.

Additionally, in enterprise clouds, most applications are effectively self-contained, so inherently well suited to virtualization. They have few if any dependencies on other enterprise functions and run basically the same way regardless of where they’re hosted. In CSP environments, any new software (especially software used to create new virtualized network functions) must address dependencies with a wide range of running services and systems, including legacy OSS/BSS, and interoperate with equipment from many different vendors.

Finally, telco applications are much more mobile. Where enterprise applications can be ported to the nearest cloud and remain there, telco applications constantly migrate in time and geography. This means the network must process huge amounts of state information in real time. This results in CSP cloud and virtualized service configurations that are orders of magnitude more complex than in enterprise environments.

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RECAP: SD-WAN & the Disruption of Virtualization

Industry News

Author: Linda Hull, Director, Telecom Council

sdwanThank you to Orange SV for hosting us in San Francisco, one of the few meetings each year that we bring to the city.

Michael Howard, IHS Markit, kicked off the meeting tracking the beginnings of SD-WAN as enterprises adopting OTT solutions to a future where expected revenue, just for equipment and software is predicted to hit $2.9B by 2021.  In their 2017 global survey of operators IHS Markit found that SD-WAN is considered the top service for new revenue (vCPE managed services coming a close second) with agility and security featuring as the most desired benefits within a framework of cost savings.  It’s interesting to note that SD-WAN didn’t even feature in their 2016 survey demonstrating the rapid growth in this market! Michael’s presentation prompted a lot of conversation in the room from established operators through to startups discussing pros and cons from SaaS services to public cloud deployments.

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Member News: EU Roaming Cap: Can “Roam Like At Home” Be Profitable?

Industry News, Mobolize, Telecom Council Member Posts

Author: Andrew Lochart, VP Marketing, Mobolize

mobolizeMany mobile operators are very concerned about the potential business impact of the European Commission’s proposal to eliminate roaming surcharges, starting June 2017.[1] Soon European Union (EU) member mobile subscribers will be free to “roam like at home” – paying domestic prices regardless of where they travel on the continent.

The regulation could put the nail in the coffin for Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) if they can’t find a way to control costs. It could also force smaller operators to limit or even eliminate roaming altogether.
Streaming video consumption is driving the tremendous growth in mobile data usage, including roaming. Ericsson has predicted that mobile video traffic will grow 50 percent annually over the next five years – consuming 75 percent of all mobile data traffic by 2021.[2]

However, for savvy mobile operators, the European Commission’s proposal to eliminate roaming surcharges, along with expanding consumer video use in the mobile market, provide a perfect opportunity to differentiate in a crowded market. MVNOs that want to be “consumer champions”, enhancing and simplifying their customers’ lives, could well lead the market.

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SD-WAN Progress Accelerating

Industry News

Author: Derek Kerton, Managing Partner, The Kerton Group

ComtechForum_logo_cmyk

SD-WAN has been increasingly in the telecom news lately, as a number of US carriers advance their efforts at virtualizing their networks, and have a greater ability to offer virtualized-network services to their enterprise customers. The market is not yet settled, but partnerships are getting cemented, and rollouts imminent. Sprint, for example, recently launched an SD-WAN offering through a partnership with VeloCloud. Separately, Velocloud is also working with AT&T, Windstream, and MegaPath.

But conventional telcos and ISPs are also facing competition through SD-WAN efforts from former MSO cable companies. Comcast is offering a carrier-grade SD-WAN service through a partnership with Versa Networks running on its gigabit network service. It’s interesting for me that in each case, the SD-WAN solutions are being offered as a single-provider SD-WAN, but to truly unlock the benefits of SD-WAN, enterprise users should probably bundle together diverse ISPs into one virtual pipe, thus providing themselves service redundancy. And while SD-WAN is a disruptor for carriers, it is a valuable service for enterprise, so smart telcos are tuning their offerings pro-actively, not reactively.

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Advances and lessons learnt from BIM, Peru’s first mobile money wallet

Industry News

Author: Ana Maria Yumiseva on behalf of M2Banking & Fintech Latam

bim-peru-mobile-banking-digital-wallet-finance25 April 2017 M2Commerce LATAM News: Peruvian mobile wallet BIM, the world’s first fully-interoperable national mobile money platform, announced its plans to launch new services in the second half of 2017. It will enable customers to pay electricity, water and telephone bills, as well as have access to micro savings, loans, and microinsurance.

According to Miguel Arce, Commercial Head of Peruvian Digital Payments (PDP, the company that operates BIM) about 400,000 Peruvians already use its service, with the adoption rate growing by 20,000 new users per month. March 2017 was closed with 140,000 transactions, and April with 200,000 recorded to the date, that demonstrates stable and sustained growth and uptake.

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The Next Step in Telecom Digital Transformation

Industry News

Author: Derek Kerton, Managing Partner at Kerton Group and Chairman of Telecom Council

sd-wan-zeusNow that NFV/SDN has moved from Next Big Thing (NBT) to implementation, innovators have refocused on the next NBT. And the trend seems to be continuing with more transformation of former hardware functions into software. The next “Software-Defined” target of the Digital Transformation is the WAN, the Wide Area Network. But this time, SD-WAN is less about the operating the core of the network, and more about how enterprises buy network services. SD-WAN proposes a better solution for medium and large enterprises purchasing connectivity, allowing them to mix-and-match different flavors of connections:

  • MPLS
  • Wireless redundancy
  • Leased Lines
  • Fiber, cable, etc.

Using SD-WAN, the above physical connections can be purchased separately and freely aggregated in software for

  • redundancy,
  • higher capacity,
  • lower-cost,
  • better performance,
  • and better reliability.

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Congratulations to our Innovation Showcase Class of 2017

Telecom Council Posts

 

Author: Telecom Council Staff

IS_logo_vertical_150Telecom Council’s ongoing mission of discovering and promoting innovative communications companies is exemplified in our annual Innovation Showcase which matches high-potential, early-stage communications startups with strategic fitting telcos, vendors, investors and potential partners.

This year, Telecom Council members reviewed applications across dozens of technologies and 15 countries to select 20 companies who exceeded the judging member’s expectations of innovation, momentum, viability, and management were selected.

Learn more about each member of the Innovation Showcase Class of 2017 on our website.

The Innovation Showcase Class of 2017 will be featured at Telecom Council Carrier Connections Summit (TC3), an exclusive 2-day summit for innovation executives from global telcos, communication vendors, investors and startups. The 10th Annual TC3 Summit, held November 1st and 2nd, brings 60 global carriers to Silicon Valley to find innovation, meet startups, and share their technology roadmaps with the wider innovation ecosystem. To register or learn more about TC3 Summit, visit https://www.telecomcouncil.com/tc3.

 

RECAP: 5G – Sooner Than You Think

Industry News, Meeting Debriefs

Author: Derek Kerton, Managing Partner at Kerton Group and Chairman of Telecom Council

DSC_0097Our 5G meeting, hosted by Qualcomm, was an optimistic view of 5G, and it’s many parts. The unpanel format discussion took the best information from all 60 attendees, as well as our esteemed panel. Almost the entire group agreed that 5G is on track, and is a promising technology, while the naysayers are mostly critical because of a lack of clarity as to what 5G actually is. The confusion is caused by the fact that 5G is, essentially, a roll-up “G” for all the use cases and needs expressed by industry, consumers, and telecom over the past few “Gs”.

  • more spectrum flexibility
  • more spectral efficiency
    • faster communications to each user
    • more capacity in each cell
  • better low-power, long range performance for IoT
  • better cost structure for IoT, lower per unit pricing
  • lower latency for future applications
  • support digital transformation of telecoms, end to end
  • support virtualization, software defined networks

It is because of this wide ranging wish list that many people don’t know exactly what 5G is. But it is, quite impressively, all of these things.

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