4GIsrael Highlights

Yesterday I attended IMA's 7th 4G Israel Event (here). This year the event focus was on the extra value LTE is expected to bring to MNOs.

I collected the following highlights:

• Rani Wellingstein, Cisco (Co-Founder, CEO Intucell - see "[Cisco Acquired] Intucell CEO Speaks about SON Opportunity" at 4GIsrael 2013 - here): "Cisco SON activity is based in Israel, with 150 people".
   
• Shira Levine, Directing Analyst, Infonetics Research provided information on innovative LTE (and 3G) business models around the world - many based on policy management solutions. 

• Lauri Oksanent, VP Research and Technology, NSN LTE-Advanced vision:

• Paulo Lamberti, Head of Regional Offering LTE & Heterogeneous Networks, Ericsson on small cells

• Glenn Booth, VP & GM LTE Business Unit, Alcatel-Lucent on the fast success of LTE

• Leonid Burakovsky, Sr. Director, Strategic Solutions, F5 Networks explained why "LTE is less secured than 3G":

• Dean Bubley, Disruptive Analysis, described the voice opportunity in LTE - "Voice is not Telephony":
   
• VoLTE: "Right idea, five years late", 
• WebRTC: "The most exciting thing in web communication in 10 years"

• Dr. Ron Marquardt, Vice President Technology, Sprint introduced Sprint's LTE netwrok - Spark 

Cisco Integrates Acquired SON and Small Cell Technologies

Cisco announced it has "..opened an innovation center in Israel to develop and deploy a radio network topology for handling the surge in demand for mobile Internet services. Cisco is collaborating with Pelephone Communications Ltd., an Israeli telecom service provider, to test on its live production network the world's first self-optimizing heterogeneous configuration that combines small-cell, Wi-Fi and macro technologies.

Intucell CEO, Rani Wellingstein

The Cisco® self-optimizing network (SON) software [see "Cisco to Acquire SON Vendor Intucell; $475M" - here] , which automatically manages the solution, is a component of the recently announced Cisco Quantum™ software suite, an integrated suite of network management tools that give service providers such as Pelephone greater capability to efficiently monetize and optimize their networks as well as to deliver a superior experience ..  Cisco has built the market's most comprehensive small-cell solution, encompassing its existing mobile core and Wi-Fi offering and bolstered by the recent acquisitions of Ubiquisys [see "Ubiquisys Partners with Saguna - Adding Cache to Small-Smart-Cells" - here], the market leader in small-cell software, and Intucell, the market leader in SON technology",

See also "[Cisco Acquired] Intucell CEO Speaks about SON Opportunity" - here.

See "Cisco Opens Innovation Center in Collaboration with Pelephone to Boost Mobile Internet Capacity" - here.

[Cisco Acquired] Intucell CEO Speaks about SON Opportunity

 
Rani Wellingstein, CEO, Intucell, spoke today at the 4GIsrael conference. A week ago Cisco announced its intention to acquire Intucell for $475M (here) and this was an opportunity for me to hear why.

Rani said that Intucell has 12 deployments, in which the $55M AT&T (here) was the 2nd. Pelephone, Israel, was the first.

At AT&T they are now deployed across the continental US, and were able, with their Self Optimized Networks (SON) technology, to reduce by 40% the number of congested cells during business hours, and to increased the network throughput by 10%.

SON is becoming the "Operating System of the for the RAN" (Radio Access Network) - consolidating all control, over macro, small and Wi-Fi cells in one system - the same way the billing system has to consolidate all subscriber information in one place.

As such, it provides an opportunity to smaller vendors to deliver cell solutions to large MNOs, and for the MNOs to spread their budget, as all multi-technology, multi-vendor cells are merged under one control system.

Cisco to Acquire SON Vendor Intucell; $475M

The local press here reports that Cisco is going to acquire Israeli-based Intucell for $475M.

I covered Intucell's $55M deal with AT&T a year ago (here).

Intucell claims that it ".. delivers the world’s most advanced Self Optimizing Network (SON) solution. In fact, it’s the only real SON solution. With real time network visibility provided by the groundbreaking Virtual Drive Test, Intucell’s systems automatically tune the network to actual conditions as they develop and change. They perform thousands of micro adjustments, dynamically adapting to demand – instead of jumping from one static working point to another. The result: users’ quality of experience improves, bandwidth-hungry services such as video streaming run more smoothly, effective network capacity is expanded".

Story by Asaf Gilad, Calcalist - here (Hebrew).

---UPDATE -- formal announcement by Cisco - "Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Intucell" - here

[Analysys Mason]: SON can Reduce Total Cost of Network Deployment and Operations by 25%

 
SON - Self-organizing Networks or Self-optimizing Networks gained some traction recently - see: "AT&T Deploys Intucell SON Solution (Est. $55M Over 4 Years)" - here and "Ericsson automates optimization of mobile networks" - here.
 
Last November Infonetics said ".. SON is about to skyrocket: we forecast global SON software revenue to grow at an 84% CAGR from 2010 to 2015" (see "Infonetics Sees $3B Mobile Optimization and SON Market by 2015" - here). 

A new white paper by Mark Mortensen (pictured), Principal Analyst, Analysys Mason and Gerry Foster, Director of Technology Engineering, AIRCOM International, discusses "Self-organising networks (SON) features, which allow for the automation of several tasks in mobile networks, are being standardised by 3GPP with a goal of reducing LTE opex costs by 60% while optimising network operation, equipment use and user experience ... This white paper discusses a model of the likely benefits that can be realised in a realistic network. In the base model, the operator introduces SON features (in a hybrid architecture) in both UMTS and LTE over a period of three years, while LTE is minimally deployed and UMTS capacity augmentation primarily meets the increasing data needs. The paper also outlines the additional benefits that can be gained through an aggressive LTE roll-out"

"The model finds that the total cost of network deployment and operations can be reduced by 25% or more through the deployment of a hybrid SON architecture, leading to an EBITDA 5% larger than if the SON features were not implemented".
  

See "Hybrid SON ROI in realistic deployments of mixed 3G/4G networks" - here.  

AT&T Deploys Intucell SON Solution (Est. $55M Over 4 Years)

AT&T plans to "to invest about $20 billion again in 2012 with a focus on wireless" (here) includes also an estimated investment of $55M, in 4 years, in SON - Self-optimizing Network technology, according to Inbal Orpaz report to The Marker (here and here - Hebrew). See also "Infonetics Sees $3B Mobile Optimization and SON Market by 2015" - here.
  

Intucell announced that "AT&T has begun deploying Intucell’s SON (Self-Optimizing Network) technology across its U.S. wireless network, as part of AT&T’s ongoing efforts to further enhance network reliability.Intucell was introduced to AT&T in April of 2011 through the AT&T Foundry innovation centers, which are designed to bring innovations to market 3x faster .. Initial field trial results from California and Georgia have shown as much as a 10 percent improvement in call retainability, 10 percent improvement in throughput speeds and 15 percent reduction in overloading. Based on that success, AT&T plans to deploy SON throughout its network this year"

"One way Intucell’s SON improves network quality is by detecting when too many users are connected to a single tower, where neighboring towers could serve the same calls. Intucell’s SON then instructs the nearby towers to either join in helping to maintain the call, or in some cases to expand their footprint to cover some of the users on the overloaded cell, while the overloaded cell shrinks. It does this automatically in real time, rather than requiring manual adjustments from human operators"

See "AT&T Is Deploying Intucell’s SON Technology as Part of Latest Wireless Network Upgrades" - here.