IHS Survey: Microwave Market Shifts to All-Packet; Ericsson Leads

Richard Webb [pictured], research director for mobile backhaul and small cells, IHS ".. conducted in-depth interviews with 23 service providers from around the world who use microwave equipment in their networks and found that 51 percent of the microwave links they deploy will be Ethernet-only by 2017, up from 38 percent currently ..  In additional to capacity requirements for backhaul connectivity continuing to rise, operator confidence in deploying Ethernet for voice and data backhaul has been boosted by packet synchronization, reducing the need for TDM:

• Microwave equipment market is shifting significantly towards all-packet microwave through the next few years 

Source: WHAT IS PACKET MICROWAVE?. by Aviat Networks - here.

• By 2017, 52 percent will have more than 5,000 microwave links
   
• Ericsson leads respondents’ rankings of microwave manufacturers; Aviat Networks fared best of the microwave-only vendors

See "Mobile Operators Turning to Ethernet Microwave for Voice and Data Backhaul, Rate Vendors in IHS Survey" - here.

NGMN Launches Mobile Content Delivery Optimization Activity

NGMN Alliance announced the "launch of four new project activities highlighting the NGMN Alliance’s commitment to further enhance next generation networks and to guide the industry with its recommendations. The following four new NGMN projects will determine the focus of the NGMN Alliance for the next 12 months:

• Next Generation Converged Operations Requirements .. 
• Evolution of the Radio Access Network (RAN) 
• Mobile Content Delivery Optimisation - The project Mobile Content Delivery Optimisation will evaluate mobile network enhancements for the optimised delivery of content. The project aims to define use cases for Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and to develop related requirements. Furthermore, recommendations will be provided with regards to content delivery architecture options and CDN functionalities (like e.g. caching, media adaptation).
• Deployment and Operation of Small Cells

Dr. Peter Meissner (pictured), NGMN Operating Officer, emphasised that the new work programme reflects the current and future high-priority industry challenges as highlighted by the NGMN Partners. “The NGMN Alliance is happy to continue the development of Mobile Broadband for the benefit of the end-customer.”

See "NGMN Alliance Pushes for New Work Programme" - here.

Rumors: NSN's Liquid Applications Uses Saguna's Technology

 
Nokia Siemens Networks announced the "Biggest transformation in the role of the base station since launch of GSM 22 years ago .. Rather than being just part of a commoditized data bit-pipe, Nokia Siemens Networks is turning the base station into a place where any type of content and data can not only be stored but also take advantage of knowing where and why people are using their smartphones and tablets. By placing useful information right at the edge of their networks, at the point where people connect, operators can deliver a far better service and increase the efficiency of their network .. The new innovation from Nokia Siemens Networks is called Liquid Applications.

Rumors are that NSN embedded Saguna's caching and optimization technology in the new product. This seems to be the 4th OEM Saguna's CEO mentioned earlier this month (see "Saguna CEO: "We have 4 New OEM licensees for our Mobile Caching Technology"; Going Live on Q2" - here) after the 3 partners I've covered so far: ADVA, FibroLAN, and Ubiquisys.

Rumors are also that the integrated solution is already in trials by Vodafone and T-Mobile USA (NSN also announced that "SK Telecom, Nokia Siemens Networks collaborate on Liquid Applications" - here).

".. Liquid Broadband provides capabilities to intelligently deliver personalized services to subscribers. End-to-end QoS Differentiation enables operators to prioritize mobile broadband traffic and fine-tune services according to user profiles and applications. With the operator CDN, operators can allocate network resources whenever and wherever required to control the delivery of content right down to the user device. This ensures that the content is delivered with the right priority, in the right format and at the right time.

See "Nokia Siemens Networks revolutionizes the mobile base station" - here.

ADVA Takes Saguna to the Mobile Backhaul

   

ADVA's FSP150CC 

As I mentioned last week (see "ADVA Optical Acquires Biran High Tech Advisors" - here), ADVA Optical Networking announced  its new Cachejack technology - integration of Saguna's CODS caching and optimization technology in its mobile backhaul/carrier Ethernet products for LTE.
 
This is the 3rd OEM announced by Saguna's partners, following Ubiquisys and FibroLAN. See also "Saguna CEO: "We have 4 New OEM licensees for our Mobile Caching Technology"; Going Live on Q2" - here.

   

"Cachejack™ is designed to improve mobile user experience and enable location-based services (LBS) through an application-aware radio access network (RAN) and optimize resource utilization by uniquely transporting content directly from the backhaul network straight to the mobile subscriber .. The ADVA Optical Networking solution loads popular content on integrated cache servers in cell site gateways or network interface devices (NID). That content is then delivered from a cache server, which is in closer proximity to the requesting user than the mobile core network".  

 
Christoph Glingener (pictured), CTO, ADVA Optical Networking said: “We made a strategic investment last year in Saguna Networks [see "Saguna's Investor: ADVA Optical Networking ($1M, 10%)" - here] and its technology for optimizing content delivery in mobile backhaul infrastructures, and now we have rapidly integrated this capability into our successful FSP 150 product line .. Improving user experience, enabling new revenue-generating LBS and reducing transport costs are of prime value to today’s mobile operators”

See "ADVA Optical Networking to Demonstrate Unique Cachejack™ Technology at Mobile World Congress 2013" - here.

Vendor Preview: FibroLAN's Small Cell Backhaul w/Cache

 
Earlier this week I mentioned the Saguna-FibroLAN partnership (see "Saguna CEO: 'We have 4 New OEM licensees for our Mobile Caching Technology'" - here) in which FibroLAN licensed Saguna's caching and radio optimization software (CODS) for its second generation Falcon series for LTE mobile backhaul (here).

I asked FibroLAN's CEO, Shamir Stein (pictured) to further explain the new solution, that places popular data as close as possible to the users.

Shamir provided the following details about the new product:

• FibroLAN's carrier Ethernet backhaul products support indoor and outdoor small cell deployments. Among other features it provides Power over Ethernet (PoE) to the small cells, and centralized synchronization using an integrated GPS.
   
• Content caching, based Saguna's code, uses SSD storage and handles any kind of content (including video). It promises savings of up to 50% on backhaul bandwidth, while speeding up content delivery. It also supports DNS caching, eliminating the need for round trip delays associated with DNS queries (which could be significant, mainly for web pages with multiple objects).

• The product aggregates several cells, in a flexible model that combines daisy chaining and star topologies. It also supports a campus configuration - in this case the the caching become even more efficient resulting from the larger number of people using it. 

• FibroLAN will demonstrate the new product line at MWC 2013, and availability is planned for Q2 

 
   

Optimization Deployments [209]: Maxis [Malaysia] Saves Backhaul Bandwidth w/Altobridge

Altobridge announced ".. the first commercial deployment of its Data-at-the-Edge solution, an intelligent, content delivery architecture that brings content closest to the end user, i.e., at the radio base station level .. The solution is live on a Tier One wireless network in Asia and results show savings of over 40% in mobile broadband backhaul costs, plus a dramatic improvement in Quality of Experience (QoE) and seamless integration into the live network".

According to Mobile Europe, the customer is the Malaysian operator Maxis (see "Optimise at the edge for '40% backhaul savings'" - here). At the end of Q3, 2012, Maxis had 12.8M revenue generating subscribers. Mobile and broadband data contributed 25.9% of total mobile revenues.

"Data-at-the-Edge™ enables data passing between an operator’s core network and the radio base station to be identified, managed and optimized at the most granular level. This is achieved through content ‘On-loading’ at the base station, data stream de-duplication, data compression and Network Interface Protocol Optimization, along with other data optimization techniques".

With the DatE™ feature-set positioned on both sides of the transmission link, user data is minimized in terms of bandwidth requirements, while caching and pre-positioning features further enhance the solution. Importantly, however, proprietary signaling and voice signaling are left unaltered. This approach (see below) enables E911 Lawful Intercept and billing requirements to be maintained.

Further optimization of this solution allows expansion of the data “on-load” capability (see below), resulting in significant savings and heralding the arrival of new financial business models for network operators.

See "Altobridge Proves 40% Data Backhaul Savings with Intelligent Content Delivery in Commercial Wireless Networks" - here.

[Analysys Mason]: DPI and PCC Needed in the RAN

A new report by Patrick Kelly (pictured), Research Director, Analysys Mason, concludes that "IP and Ethernet technology provides networks with flexibility to scale up in order to support traffic growth as mobile operators deploy lower-cost IP-based radio access technology. Furthermore, growth in mobile data services has also put pressure on mobile operators to reduce their backhaul cost, and many mobile operators are dealing with the difficulty of assuring quality of service and keeping operational costs under control".

".. deep packet inspection probes in the radio access network working together with the policy charging and rules function helps regulate traffic coming through the backhaul network, enabling mobile operators to avoid network congestion problems"

See "MANAGING BACKHAUL TECHNOLOGIES WITH FEWER TOOLS AND TECHNICIANS WILL REDUCE TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP FOR OPERATORS, ANALYSYS MASON REPORTS" - here.

QoS Announcements: Huawei Improves TCP Performance by up-to 50%

 
Huawei unveiled its ".. Backhaul Adaptive Solution, a mobile broadband (MBB) solution that provides operators with an IP Backhaul Performance Monitor (IPPM) and IP Backhaul Quality Management (IP SQM) services for improved IP backhaul efficiency ..

• The Backhaul Adaptive Solution's IPPM service constantly monitors QoS between the eNodeB and the EPC Serving Gateway according to speed, delay, jitter and packet loss. The solution adjusts for bandwidth bottlenecking according to changes in network quality and realizes adaptive adjustments for bandwidth transmission.
   
• The IP SQM service focuses on the downlink from the EPC Serving Gateway to the eNodeB to realize smooth levels of data traffic and buffering. The IP SQM also supports both static and dynamic bandwidth adjustments based on data provided by the IPPM and increases backhaul usage and improves user experience by decreasing packet loss and retransmission". 

"..The Backhaul Adaptive Solution has been successfully tested by top global operators. Test results show that when S1 link congestion occurs, TCP transmission efficiency is improved by up to 50% when the solution is employed".

See also "Google [Still] Claims there is a Faster TCP" - here and "QoS Announcements: Cisco's Traffic Packet Optimization" - here.

See "Huawei Unveils Mobile Broadband Backhaul Adaptive Solution for Enhanced Transmission Efficiency" - here.

Resource: Guidelines for LTE Backhaul Traffic Estimation [NGMN]

 
A white paper by the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance, describes a "A model is developed to predict traffic levels in transport networks used to backhaul LTE eNodeBs. Backhaul traffic is made up of a number of different components of which user plane data is the largest, comprising around 80-90% of overall traffic, slightly less when IPsec encryption is added. The remainder consists of the transport protocol overhead and traffic forwarding to another base-station during handover. Network signalling, management and synchronisation were assumed to be negligible".

"Figure 13 shows transport provisioning curves for the ‘vanilla’ LTE with 2x2 downlink and 1x2 uplink configurations for both 10MHz and 20MHz system bandwidths. X-axis scales are given for both tricell and single cell eNodeBs. Provisioning curves for other eNodeB configurations are given in the report. IPsec encryption would increase these provisioning figures by 14%. Curves in Figure 13 represent a general case for fully loaded eNodeBs. Actual traffic levels for individual eNodeBs may vary about these levels depending on the deployment scenario and loading level"

"Overall, this study shows that although LTE is capable of generating some very high peak rates, when the traffic of multiple cells and/or eNodeBs are aggregated together, the transport provisioning requirements are quite reasonable".

See "Guidelines for LTE Backhaul Traffic Estimation" - here.

Optimization Deployments [138]:PCCW [HK] Reduces Signaling by 25% with Huawei

Nokia-Siemens Networks and Huawei continue to educate the market, push and sell solutions which address a significant pain for mobile operators - application level signaling traffic that floods the radio and backhaul links, creating congestion and reducing quality of experience for actual data.

Huawei announced that "PCCW mobile has adopted Huawei's pioneering smartphone signaling optimization solution to further enhance its network performance and improve the mobile broadband experience for its customers. The 3GPP-Release-8 (3GPP-R8)-based smartphone signaling optimization solution can significantly reduce 3GPP-R8 smartphone signaling traffic by over 25%".

Mr. Ying Weimin (pictured), President of GSM,UMTS and LTE wireless networks, Huawei, said: "It took several months for Huawei and PCCW mobile to finish the testing of our signaling solution on existing networks. The high performance of this solution shows that Huawei is capable of innovation to help customers succeed".

See "PCCW mobile Pioneers Huawei's 3GPP R8 Smartphone Optimization Solution to Reduce Signaling Traffic by over 25%" - here.

Optimization Deployments [137]: Frontier [US] Saves 24% with BTI Systems

 
BTI Systems announced that "Frontier Communications is using its comprehensive application-aware service delivery product suite to accommodate rapid growth in high-demand services such as over-the-top (OTT) video, while substantially reducing network operation and management costs".

  

"Frontier Communications, the nation's largest provider of communications services focused on rural America, is deploying the complete suite of BTI products, including WideCast, for application-aware networking. Video represents half of Frontier's traffic and the BTI product suite enables Frontier to overcome network congestion, deliver up to 24% in bandwidth savings and generate a solid return on investment of less than a year".

".. For example, by intelligently and transparently caching popular video content closer to subscribers, Frontier is improving content delivery speeds by more than 10% and providing customers with a better viewing experience, while reducing Frontier's network bandwidth requirements".

BTI uses transparent caching technology from PeerApp (see "BTI and PeerApp Partner to Optimize Streaming at the Network Edge" - here).

  

See "BTI Redefines Metro Networks with the Industry's First Integrated Services Delivery Platform" - here.

[iGR]: U.S. Mobile Backhaul Demand will Grow @58% CAGR

 

iGR forecasts in a new study ("U.S. Mobile Backhaul Forecast: 2011-­2016" - here)  that "the demand for U.S. mobile backhaul will grow at a CAGR of nearly 58 percent between 2011 and 2016, with the overall demand growing by 9.7 times. And the growth of fiber backhaul, the preferred method for providing mobile backhaul, is expected to reach a CAGR of nearly 85 percent over the same period" 

  

Iain Gillott (pictured), president and founder of iGR said: “Just as the radio networks are transitioning from 3G to 4G and adding more small cells, so the mobile operators must also upgrade their mobile backhaul from legacy TDM to Ethernet .. The upgrade of the mobile backhaul networks presents a significant opportunity for cable MSOs, IP equipment and infrastructure vendors, tower companies, and the telecommunications services providers”.

Related posts:

• [Juniper Research]: MNOs Need to Spend $840B By 2016 on Backhaul - here 
• [Dell'Oro Group]: Mobile Backhaul Market to Reach $9B by 2015 - here
• Yankee Group: Average Cell Backhaul Bandwidth will Grow to 100 Mbps by 2015 - here
• Infonetics: Mobile Backhaul - Ethernet vs. Microwave - Market Size - here

See "U.S. Mobile Backhaul demand forecast to grow more than nine times in the next four years" - here.

MEF Adds Class of Service to Mobile Ethernet Backhaul

       
MEF, the defining body for Carrier Ethernet (members), announced ".. the launch of the MEF’s Mobile Backhaul Initiative for 4G/LTE. It brings a technical solution to the challenged backhaul, resulting in potential 25% backhaul savings for mobile operators, up to 3x revenue growth for access providers over existing network infrastructure, while delivering equal or better end user experience. Given mind-bending predictions on mobile backhaul build-out costs, the scale of the savings could amount to the hundreds of millions of dollars! These significant benefits are powered by Carrier Ethernet innate ability to support Multiple Classes of Services (Multi-CoS)".

See "MEF Introduces The Mobile Backhaul Initiative with First Integrated Suite to Resolve 4G/LTE Backhaul’s Most Costly Challenge" - here and "The Benefits of  Multiple Classes of Service 

for Ethernet Mobile Backhaul" - here. 

[Survey]: Which Solutions will Gain the Most Traction for Managing Mobile Data?

Chetan Sharma Consulting published the findings of its "2012 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey" (here and ) - ".. Executives, developers, and insiders (n=150) from leading mobile companies and startups from across the value chain and around the world participated to help see what 2012 might bring to keep us on our toes. What makes this survey unique is that it draws upon the collective wisdom of folks who are at the center of the mobile evolution". 



Source: Chetan Sharma Consulting



Question 11 was "Which solutions will gain the most traction for managing mobile data broadband consumption?" (see chart above) and the analysis says - "Managing data growth and margins drives all strategies at mobile operators these days which in turns drives the value chain. 4G, tiered pricing, and mobile offload continue to be the top solutions if one has the spectrum that is".

 

Optimization Announcements: Celtro User-Aware Mobile Backhaul Traffic Management

Celtro published a short document (with no other details on its web-site) about a new product - UniqServ.

The product is said to deliver "subscriber-aware traffic management designed specifically for the mobile backhaul ..UniqServ is based on a patented user-aware traffic management model for the mobile backhaul, in which each user is managed in a dedicated queue. UniqServ enables the backhaul to identify individual user flows and manage their backhaul priority according to flexible subscriber-centric policies. During congestion events, UniqServ prevents racing conditions among TCP flows and maximizes user bit-rate and QoE".

There is no information on integration with policy managers.

Celtro compares this to current DPI solutions - "An alternative solution is throttling subscriber bandwidth with Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) at the mobile core network. However, DPI in the core is unaware of real-time traffic load in the backhaul, and throttling is based solely on general peak hour traffic patterns. Thus, with no real-time awareness of actual backhaul load and shared resources usage, DPI throttling may prevent congestion in some cases - but only at the price of reduced network utilization"

See document here.

[Juniper Research]: MNOs Need to Spend $840B By 2016 on Backhaul

   

A new reprot by Nitin Bhas (pictured), Research Analyst, Juniper Research, concludes that "mobile network operators must increase capacity and intelligently optimise their backhaul networks over the next five years if they are to meet the increasing demands of mobile broadband users. According to the new mobile research report, operators need to spend almost $840 billion globally over the next five years in order to address serious bottlenecks in their backhaul networks .. The report found that microwave and fibre will dominate the backhaul market with microwave accounting for over 60% of the global mobile backhaul capacity by 2016".

Obviously, smarter solutions - Network intelligence, optimization, caching and subscriber and application aware QoS policies enforcement should be considered before adding more bandwidth, as they usually present a better ROI.

See " Mobile Network Upgrades of up to $840bn Required Over Next Five Years to Meet Burgeoning Data Demand, Finds Juniper Research" - here.

[Dell'Oro Group]: Mobile Backhaul Market to Reach $9B by 2015

A Dell'Oro Group report forecasts that "Mobile Backhaul market revenues are expected to approach $9B by 2015. This updated report tracks two key market segments: Transport, which includes microwave and optical equipment, and Routers and Switches, which includes cell site devices, carrier Ethernet switches, and service provider edge routers .. routers and switches expected to constitute 30% of mobile backhaul market "

See also:

• Survey: Mobile Networks are Near Full Capacity - here
• Yankee Group: Average Cell Backhaul Bandwidth will Grow to 100 Mbps by 2015 - here

Certainly some intelligence, optimization, caching and offloading technologies could be useful here, rather than just "throw more bandwidth on the problem" (see solutions from Stoke, Volubill, DiViNetworks, Saguna and Sycamore and of course the traditional DPI/traffic management solutions).

Shin Umeda, Vice President of Routers research at Dell’Oro Group said: “Our research has found that operators around the world are concerned with the rate of mobile traffic growth and are transitioning to Internet Protocol (IP) technologies to build a more efficient and scalable backhaul network. Our latest report forecasts the demand for IP-based routers and switches will continue to grow through 2015, almost doubling the market size of the Router and Switches segment in the five-year forecast period” 

See "Mobile Broadband to Drive Backhaul Market to $9 Billion by 2015- here.

Survey: Mobile Networks are Near Full Capacity

   

Traditional network management practice says that network element usage level should not exceed 70% of its capacity. If it does - it is time to do something - buy more or manage it better. So, according to a recent Credit Suisse report - it is time to do something for wireless networks, globally. For North America, where current utilization at peak time reaches 80% it is even urgent.

Phil Goldstein (pictured) reports to FierceWireless that - "Wireless networks in the United States are operating at 80 percent of total capacity, the highest of any region in the world, according to a report prepared by investment bank Credit Suisse. The firm argued that wireless carriers likely will need to increase their spending on infrastructure to meet users' growing demands for mobile data .. globally, average peak network utilization rates are at 65 percent, and that peak network utilization levels will reach 70 percent within the next year. .. 23 percent of base stations globally have capacity constraints, or utilization rates of more than 80 to 85 percent in busy hours, up from 20 percent last year .. In the United States, the percentage of base stations with capacity constraints is 38 percent, up from 26 percent in 2010"

   

Credit Suisse analyst Jonathan Chaplin (pictured) wrote "Wireless capex expectations may need to increase longer-term.. investors seem to expect capital intensity to start to decline in 2012 once LTE spending is largely complete. Investors may be underestimating the level of equipment spending that is required on an ongoing basis to support rapid growth in wireless data".

 

Yankee Group: Average Cell Backhaul Bandwidth will Grow to 100 Mbps by 2015

     

The Yankee Group provides the following forecast for mobile backhaul:

• Average macrocell backhaul requirements were 10 Mbps in 2008 (seven T1s, five E1s). In less than three years, they have more than tripled to 35 Mbps in 2011, and by 2015, Yankee Group predicts they will demand 100 Mbps.
   
• There were 2.4 million macro cell site backhaul connections worldwide in 2010, growing to 3.3 million by [2015?]

Yankee's new research conclude:

"The market for wholesale backhaul services in North America will grow from $2.45 billion in 2010 to $3.9 billion in 2015, with the majority of this growth coming from Ethernet backhaul. Successful backhaul service providers will be those that can demonstrate price/performance and reliability, have software tools in place and can meet the specific needs of the mobile market.

See "Wholesale Mobile Backhaul: There's Gold in Them There Hauls" - here.

TM Announcements: Stoke and Zhilabs' Integrated Offload And Optimization

  
Follow-up on Stoke's "Mobile Data Offload Ecosystem" (here): The vendor and Zhilabs, jointly announced that they ".. have teamed to create an integrated mobile data offload and traffic optimization solution that provides operators with the ability to manage explosive demand for mobile data. The combined capability delivers fine-grained visibility and control of traffic, enabling operators to apply management policies to reduce costs, improve use of network resources and a greatly improved customer experience".

See "Stoke And Zhilabs Team To Create Integrated Offload And Optimization Capability For Mobile Broadband Networks" - here.

 

"Operators can resolve specific traffic conditions and make optimization, offload and traffic re-direction decisions using the control point created by the Iu-PS breakout and management capabilities of Stoke's 3GPP-standard Mobile Data Offload gateway together with Zhilabs' insight into RAN and Core network conditions

  

Features of the Stoke and Zhilabs solution:

• Combines granular visibility with precise control, dramatically enhancing the operator's traffic management tool kit
• Offload and traffic redirection decisions can be made based on real-time network conditions
• The resulting levels of control and resource optimization have been shown in large-scale trials to reduce capacity demand and associated capital and operations expense by 15% or more"