tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332675882024-03-07T22:57:19.812+00:00Next Generation NetworksNetworking to the next-gen networkAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14321943316177515449noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-39877746393568929712009-02-23T15:51:00.000+00:002009-02-23T15:51:42.318+00:00NGN Magazine - Next Generation Networks<a href="http://www.tmcnet.com/ngnmag/">NGN Magazine - Next Generation Networks</a>: "NGN Magazine" - perhaps more of a compilation than a magazine, but one to watch non-the-less - claims to produce a mag, but can't find it online!<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14321943316177515449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-64403249801104036722009-02-23T13:50:00.002+00:002009-02-23T14:01:10.762+00:00NGN UpdatesThe joy of technology. The latest <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.totaltele.com">Total Telecom website</a> enables you to make RSS feeds of your choice on the fly.<br /><br />For example <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.totaltele.com/rss.aspx?search=%5Bsm%5Dnext%20generation%20network%5Bsm%5D%20or%20ngn&year=23022009">this one</a> flagging the latest NGN content on Total Telecom. Click <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.totaltele.com/rss.aspx?search=%5Bsm%5Dnext%20generation%20network%5Bsm%5D%20or%20ngn&year=23022009">here</a> to view it.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14321943316177515449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-6978409059897019102008-05-13T09:43:00.001+01:002008-05-13T09:43:38.140+01:00webitpr | IEC and Convergence World Magazine Announce Top NGN Innovators at SOFNET 08 in London<a href="http://www.webitpr.com/release_detail.asp?ReleaseID=8519">webitpr | IEC and Convergence World Magazine Announce Top NGN Innovators at SOFNET 08 in London</a> <br /><br />Last month the IEC announced the top NGN Innovators at <a href="http://www.iec.org/events/2008/sofnet/">SOFNET 2008</a>.<br /><br />They included:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.io-me.com">io global</a> who provides the software and services to enable Network Operators, Media<br />Brands and Advertisers to collaborate in a trading model to personalize<br />and monetize their interactions with individuals on the run.</li><li><a href="http://www.broadsoft.com">Broadsoft</a>, who have the BroadWorks fixed-line applications provide enhanced web-based feature<br />functionality, real-time service management, and the advantages of a<br />converged voice and data environment.</li><li><a href="http://www.telcordia.com"><br />Telcordia Technologies</a> for real time charging</li><li><a href="http://www.nortel.com"><br />Nortel</a> for Provider Backbone Transport</li><li><a href="http://www.zte.com.cn"><br />ZTE Corporation</a> who won the best green innovation category</li></ul>SOFNET failed to wow people in terms of attendance, but it's good to see some recognition for the vendors driving the NGN. The full list of winners and shortlisted companies is available on the <a href="http://www.iec.org/events/2008/sofnet/conference/cwa.asp">SOFNET website</a>.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14321943316177515449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-9315774598860031482008-05-08T14:27:00.002+01:002008-05-08T14:31:23.231+01:00Next Generation Networks Global Standards InitiativeJust come across this ITU initiative which apparently sets out to harmonise different approaches to NGN architecture worldwide. It sounds a worth initiative and ties into lots of ITU driven meetings and resources.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14321943316177515449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-27557369118823297142007-12-24T10:18:00.000+00:002007-12-22T10:31:51.271+00:00What's hot in wireless in 2008<div align="left">"Sorry to be boring, but I reckon femtocells will be the big issue in 2008. There is massive industry momentum behind the idea, but still loads of issues to short out in a short time, including the business case, service proposition and how to actually integrate millions of the things into cellular networks.<br /><br />If I can cheat and have two top issues, then network sharing will also be big in 2008, as operators realise it's the only way to afford all the investments they have ahead.<br /><br />As for the hot acronym,funnily enough it might be HSPA+, as people realise that they don't need 3G LTE for the forseeable future if they implement femtocells and broadcast networks."<br /><br /></div><div align="right"><em>Alastair Brydon, CEO and co-founder of Sound Partners Ltd </em></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-46008507787391769782007-12-21T14:13:00.000+00:002007-12-22T10:33:55.763+00:00Total Telecom peers into 2008A bit of futurology by Total Telecom's team<br /><a href="http://www.totaltele.com/View.aspx?ID=97370&t=2">Click here</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-26171538153011425462007-11-20T07:34:00.000+00:002007-11-20T07:48:11.054+00:00Q&A with Estonia's Elion's head of security<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5qo38O9y8KxwLkrgzMytWZYiQ2_ef0NULYx7FVGpm4vWw1CadL-y1sgdGkB45BjHlj2XBRsHI9tXSIDCKsAYXwVVK4QaeMxKWzw39ap3kIEFnXvbyPVIORAt7jTenz9LpYYozrQ/s1600-h/Aivo+J%C3%BCrgenson.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5134825731440762594" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5qo38O9y8KxwLkrgzMytWZYiQ2_ef0NULYx7FVGpm4vWw1CadL-y1sgdGkB45BjHlj2XBRsHI9tXSIDCKsAYXwVVK4QaeMxKWzw39ap3kIEFnXvbyPVIORAt7jTenz9LpYYozrQ/s200/Aivo+J%C3%BCrgenson.jpg" border="0" /></a> <em>In April and May 2007, Estonia came under sustained distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. The Estonian government was forced to close its sites to the outside world, while the country’s largest banks and major newspapers were also targeted. The attacks began after a diplomatic spat with Russia, whose government was seen by some Estonians as being behind the attacks given their scale and prolonged nature (see Total Telecom, July 2007).</em><br /><br /><em>NGN interviewed Aivo Jürgenson (pictured), head of security at Elion, Estonia’s biggest telecoms services provider.</em><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Q. Estonia is mentioned as an advanced state when it comes to the use of wired and wireless technologies as well as e-sites. What can you cite that backs the claim?</strong><br /><br />Last year 81% of tax declarations were submitted electronically. Estonia was the first to use e-voting on the Local Government elections on 2005. Already 30,000 e-votes were given on the and Parliamentary elections on 2007, 63% of Estonian citizens between ages 15-74 use the Internet, people all over the country can access the Internet from over 700 Public Internet Access Points and there are more than 1,100 areas that currently provide high-speed wireless Internet access.<br /><br />Elion itself has 150,000 broadband customers, which is about 40% of total market in Estonia (approximately 373 000 households own a computer). The portal hot.ee, which provides free e-mail, chat and other features to everybody, maintained by Elion, has about 400 000 active user accounts. The number of Elion's digital television customers has increased most rapidly in the world – in 2006 28 000 new clients were added, nearly 27 000 will be added this year.<br /><br />The reliance on electronic commerce and communication is rather high in Estonia.<br /><br /><strong>Q. The events of last April and May when Estonia came under cyber attack: Government sites, banking and telecommunication companies came under attack. Is that the full list of targets?<br /><br /></strong>No, we have to add media companies as well. Almost every newspaper in Estonia has website as well, which includes the same content as in paper version and often even additional media, such as photos and videos of the news. Those portals also allow people to leave public comments to news, which is regularly used. During the attacks, these websites were simply overloaded with traffic and also the commenting part was exploited to publish spam so that it needed to be disabled for a while.<br /><br />Estonian government believes that this was specifically chosen to create the "information blockade" for general public and to prevent other countries to get up-do-date information about what´s happening in Estonia.<br /><br /><strong>Q. Is NGN correct in that Elion itself did not come under attack?</strong><br /><br />Elion itself wasn't targeted in the same scale as some other sites were. We did notice small-scale overloading attempts of our DNS servers and also identified a single attack to a few routers itself. However, our websites and other services did not come under attack.<br /><br />As Elion provides the international peering to government networks and also many of the commercial targets were our clients, we had to cope with increased amount of incoming traffic in our network. Because the ISP network is usually built with redundancy and extra capacity in mind, luckily, we didn't suffer any service degradation because of that. If this would had been the case, we would had to work with our upstream providers and peering partners to limit the attack traffic already in their network.<br /><br /><strong>Q. What was the conclusion following the attacks? NGN understands the attacks were relatively straightforward distributed denial of service (DDoS) albeit on a very large scale. Is that correct or is that downplaying the sophistication of the attacks?<br /></strong><br />Most of the attacks were in fact rather simple, when considering the traffic itself. However, when considering the campaign in total, the coordination of everything, selection of targets and launching many different attacks during those weeks, in total, it wasn't anything close to simple.<br /><strong><br />Q. Has Elion invested in its network to counter such potential vulnerabilities? If so, can you say in general terms what has been done?</strong><br /><br />In Elion, we cannot really identify single budget line, which could be considered as a defense against cyber attacks. As always, we have to consider that network links and devices could fail and therefore to plan extra capacity into the network and to build them in fault tolerant way. The network management, intelligence and analyzing capability was already in place before the May and we certainly continue investing in those areas as well. The government of Estonia has taken this lesson very seriously and they are currently looking over the cyber security strategy for the country. I believe that many issues will be discussed, which could help government and private sector work more closely together, when protecting national critical infrastructure. Estonian IT and security community has been working together for some time already and this was one of the things that enabled us to counter those attacks so successfully.<br /><br /><strong>Q. Elion's view regarding security since the May incident - has it changed your view, and do you have a view as to how cyber attacks will evolve in the next year or two?</strong><br /><br />Technically, those attacks didn't use any new technology and all this was familiar to us even before. What was surprising, was the scale of the attack and the coordination of it.<br /><br />As more and more commerce and general life is depending on the electronic transactions and Internet, criminal world is also exploring this to see if there could be some ways to exploit this. As we have seen in the last years, they are rather successful with this. In the same way, countries as a whole depend on the economy and the critical infrastructure to function, and in turn, they depend on computer networks and computer security to function. So, it has become possible to attack countries by attacking the computer networks as well. I'm afraid that the state of the cyber security will become worse in the years to come, before the attacks and defenses against them matures and stabilises.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-84061016210544991552007-11-16T08:28:00.000+00:002007-11-16T08:33:07.235+00:00Book: Cyber Security<span style="font-family:arial;"> I am reading <em>Cyber Security</em> by Ed Amoroso, chief security officer at AT&T as part of an upcoming technology briefing article for Total Telecom. This is a highly readable and informative book with lots of pointed anecdotes.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><div align="left"><blockquote><div align="left">"Cyber Security" by Edward Amoroso</div><div align="left">Silicon Press, 2007, pp 177</div></blockquote></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-49669445865630802712007-08-23T13:45:00.000+01:002007-08-22T14:01:00.051+01:00IMS video shareAT&T has an advert on its web site to promote its IMS-enabled video-share service. It's a valiant effort to highlight to users the value of real-time video sharing as a complement to calls. Useful as it is, video share is unlikely to be the long-awaited IMS killer app.<br /><br />Click here for AT&T's <a href="http://www.attvideoshare.com/video-share-demo.html">video share </a><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-28793096485955173272007-08-22T13:28:00.000+01:002007-08-22T13:43:35.750+01:00iPhone comes to Europe<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtKHZN_r34tsygnB0_M3mPiU9MXgmEMKjmNThYazwKWqAhsJqgsWa8uInXcaRN4KQ4l-jSY3PaL3I4M8Qq-9WUFqb2SJxWGb-m2UZMAtZQbaRjtyEJlyrEkDfgwUNlMfQaDk_QEw/s1600-h/iPHONE.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101504049666565522" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtKHZN_r34tsygnB0_M3mPiU9MXgmEMKjmNThYazwKWqAhsJqgsWa8uInXcaRN4KQ4l-jSY3PaL3I4M8Qq-9WUFqb2SJxWGb-m2UZMAtZQbaRjtyEJlyrEkDfgwUNlMfQaDk_QEw/s320/iPHONE.jpg" border="0" /></a>According to media reports, it appears three operators will be the first to sell Apple's iphone in Europe: O2 in the UK, Orange in France and T-Mobile in Germany. <div><div><br />There is no doubting the progress phones are making - in the man-machine interfaces and their service features. But does the iphone advance the whole handset story? I have a Nokia Communicator and while it is very useful to send emails and browse I rarely use its Windows office features. </div><div></div><br /><div>Have handsets advanced to a degree that they are an adequate substitute to laptops for users on the move? And if not, just what is still missing? </div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-33965473577180803972007-08-21T10:36:00.000+01:002007-08-21T10:38:16.744+01:00Storage tutorialsThe Storage Networking Industry Association has some very useful tutorial presentations.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.snia.org/education/tutorials/">Click here </a>for more details<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-35710384040845395862007-08-21T10:21:00.000+01:002007-08-21T10:33:45.662+01:00Ethernet gets in on the SAN actVirtualisation is rightly being promoted as an important technology for storage (See upcoming technology brief, Total Telecom, Sept 1). But networking is also playing an important role. <a href="http://www.francetelecom.com/en/financials/journalists/press_releases/CP_old/cp070625.html">Orange Business Services launched in June i-SAN</a>, a Fibre Channel-over-Ethernet SAN service connecting data centres, which Orange Business claims is a first.<br /><br />The service which uses Orange’s metro Ethernet network is available currently only in France and is aimed at small to medium enterprises. The uptake in France during 2007 will determine whether Orange Business proceeds with a service rollout in other countries.<br /><br />“Using Ethernet is a lot more flexible than using dedicated fibre between sites,” says Rob Hodgkinson, global practice director, IT services at Orange Business Services. Ethernet also allows point-to-point and point-to-multipoint data backup, and it is scalable: increasing the bandwidth between sites is straightforward.<br /><br />I-SAN supports synchronous and asynchronous backup at data rates of 1, 2 and 4 Gigabits per second at distances up to 1000km. “i-SAN suits requirements that typically need 1 Terabyte of backup a day, not firms that may use 100 Terabytes a day,” says Hodgkinson.<br /><br />However, analysts question how innovative the i-SAN service is. “This [SAN over Ethernet] is not a new service and has been available for awhile, especially within the financial community,” says Carl Greiner of Ovum. “Also because of the cost of data centres, they are being put in remote locations – and such sites are not always on MANs.”<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-40321356404313916372007-08-07T14:11:00.000+01:002007-08-07T14:28:00.613+01:00Open SpectrumNice resource site all about the use and management of spectrum. "This web site has oodles of information", as a friend pointed out.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.volweb.cz/horvitz/os-info/index.html">Click here</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-29789497413376859262007-07-30T04:30:00.000+01:002007-07-29T17:00:52.462+01:00Is BT too innovative?<a href="http://www.totaltele.com/View.aspx?ID=94117&t=2">Total Telecom has reported </a>that BT is discontinuing its BT Movio mobile TV service, a move that forces Virgin Mobile to stop selling the product. It appears the uptake was modest at best with analysts estimating that the service had 10,000 users only since its launch in September 2006.<br /><br />BT Movio is based on DAB-IP technology. This enabled BT to get to market early but it had limited spectrum which meant few channels and limited resolution per channel, a point made by proponents of other mobile broadcast technologies such as DVB-H.<br /><br />BT was also an early proponent of fixed mobile convergence with its UMA-based BT Fusion service. At the time of its launch BT's handsets used Bluetooth for the wireless connection when within the home zone, now of course Wi-Fi is standard. The BT Fusion service continues but has not had the rapid uptake of Orange's Unik service for example.<br /><br />Meanwhile BT continues to innovate. It is moving to an all-IP network with its 21CN initiative and it is embracing Web 2.0 through initiatives such as its Web21C which makes available a service development kit for third party application developers to tap into BT's network and use such service functions as messaging and presence. BT is also a proponent of IMS.<br /><br />But based on BT's experience with Movio, is BT too innovative for its own good? Total Telecom's view is no. BT's pursuit of IMS built on an all-IP network coupled with a service delivery platform that embraces Web 2.0 means that it will only be a matter of time before it alights on services that do take off.<br /><br />But it will be interesting to see what the service successes are and, more importantly for BT's innovators, how long it takes the operator to demonstrate the benefits of being an early mover.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-54371580100086508762007-04-21T09:54:00.000+01:002007-04-21T09:57:44.746+01:00Executive Forum at OFCHere are some presentations given at the Executive Forum event held alongside OFC this year.<br /><a href="http://www.osa.org/membership/corporate/executiveforum/default.aspx">Click here</a> and then click on speaker presentations<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-22599089455689009022007-04-21T09:41:00.000+01:002007-04-21T09:45:48.305+01:00Video consumption in the UKThe UK regulator Ofcom has published a report listing consumer broadband and content usage habits. There are some interesting findings regarding video consumption. <br /><a href="http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/cm/broadband_rpt">Ofcom report, click here</a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-53292737659637260542007-03-24T09:43:00.000+00:002007-03-24T09:49:56.211+00:00IMS years away in North America<span>The extensive deployment of the IMS convergence architecture remains years away in North America (NA). So argues a report from market research firm, The Diffusion Group. It also believes NA is far behind Europe regarding IMS.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.tdgresearch.com/traversing-excerpt.htm">Click here for more details </a>as well as a white paper on IMS.<br /><br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-45330074022165754502007-03-24T09:25:00.000+00:002007-03-24T09:27:32.325+00:00OFC 2007I hope to attend next week's OFC conference. I will report on the state of the industry and the main optical component and comms semiconductor developments.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-1278366726014090382007-02-09T09:59:00.000+00:002007-02-10T09:59:01.605+00:00FIT PICPhotonic integrated circuits (PICs) have long been spoken of but the technology has yet to gain widespead industry support. One company that has adopted PICs, building an optical transport platform around its design, is Infinera. Its <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18000/">design </a>use two devices, a 10x10 Gbps transmitter and 10x10 Gbps receiver, implemented using Indium Phosphide technology.<br /><br />Infinera has just announced a milestone in that <a href="http://www.infinera.com/news/2007-01-24.html">its PICs have passed ten million hours of operation</a> in live customer networks without a single failure. PIC technology will only grow in importance over the next several years, given the steady re-emergence of the optical component industry.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-49254637293677241672007-02-01T07:59:00.000+00:002007-02-01T08:01:42.166+00:00Cognitive Radio: Wireless gets smart<blockquote>“We are suspicious of cognitive radio because of the hidden-terminal problem,” says William Webb, R&D chief at Ofcom. The terminal—a cellphone, for example—can be hidden because a building stands between it and the cognitive radio that is vying to use the same frequency. No amount of sensitivity by the cognitive radio’s receiver will uncover it. “You can use databases and network information between radios, but you can’t be 100 percent sure,” Webb says. Ofcom says it’s therefore inappropriate to introduce cognitive radios in spectrum owned by others—that is, unless the incumbents themselves decide they want to allow them.<br /><div style="text-align: right;">IEEE Spectrum, <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/feb07/4892">Click here for article</a><br /></div><br /></blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-41876869541073401762007-01-31T08:22:00.000+00:002007-02-01T08:32:39.958+00:00Powerline access to outpace DSL and cableBroadband over power line (BPL) subscriber growth in the U.S. will outpace DSL and cable over the next five years. Research from <a href="http://newsroom.parksassociates.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2474">Parks Associates forecasts</a> subscriber numbers to increase from 400,000 in 2007 to 2.5 m by 2011. <br /><br />One reason for the growth is the delivery of broadband to households in rural areas, which cannot be served with conventional broadband services.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-1169797975906566392007-01-26T07:30:00.000+00:002007-01-26T07:52:55.920+00:00Soundbite: IMS timelines<blockquote> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">"No one vendor has all the IMS pieces. Carriers are choosing to use components [from several vendors] and a system integrator, and now they are separating the myth from reality. That's why you are seeing lots of lab trials and [IMS] plug fests. [For IMS,] 2007 will be a critical year: carriers will learn and draw conclusions. If it turns out well and it is a reasonable solution and all the pieces work, there will be some deployments in 2008. If it proves hard to work and is a complex integration there will be no definite timeline."</span></p><p style="text-align: right;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Dr. Vikram Saksena, chief technology officer, Sonus Networks.</span></p> <div style="text-align: right;"></div></blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-1169480669775863872007-01-23T15:42:00.000+00:002007-01-22T15:44:29.776+00:00BT's 21 CNInteresting write-up of BT's NGN in this month's <span style="font-style: italic;">IEEE Spectrum</span>. <a href="http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan07/4831">Click here </a><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-1169367492010566262007-01-22T08:13:00.000+00:002007-01-21T14:20:16.336+00:00Q&A with DiBcom's CEO<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/6022/3650/1600/58021/L%3F%3Fvy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/6022/3650/200/182324/L%3F%3Fvy.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">NGN</span> caught up with Yannick Lévy, the CEO of Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) chip specialist DiBcom, to ask his views about the emerging mobile TV market.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />NGN: DIBcom backs DVB-H (DVB-Handheld). When we last spoke in early 2006, you said that: “DVB-H [technology] has the lowest power consumption, is supported exclusively by handset makers Nokia and Motorola, and the cost of rolling out a network is a third that of DMB.” Can you point to events since we last spoke that further strengthens the case for DVB-H?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">YL: All the narrowband initiatives based on DAB derived standards such as T-DMB, DAB-IP have not been successful. The main reason is that they only offer four TV channels at reasonable quality, or up to six channels (in South Korea) with degraded quality. This is not enough to have people subscribe to mobile TV. Therefore, Germany and UK failed on these commercial trials.<br /><br />This is pushing forward the broadband solutions such as DVB-H in priority. DVB-H was launched in Italy and South Africa in 2006. It offers 15 channels, and several handsets from Samsung and LG have been launched in 2006, as well as Sagem. The availability of handsets is key for this market, since end users want to have the choice. The reduced number of suppliers in the handset industry (down to 5 players now) makes it challenging for carriers to provide enough handsets for the services they are launching. This is the reason why DVB-H is still very much the major standard DiBcom believes in.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><br />NGN: What are you seeing regarding DVB-H delivery via satellite? What are the merits of DVB-SH and where will it be used?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">YL: DVB-SH (Satellite services for Handhelds) will be used as a complementary solution to DVB-H in rural areas. Potentially, the satellite can offer mobile TV outdoor and on the road - usage in cars on long distance, for example. So, DiBcom believes that DVB-SH development will occur in 2009-2010 after an initial launch of DVB-H in 2007-2008.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">Alcatel-Lucent has frequencies available in Europe today. They may develop partnerships in the future to extend their solutions to outside Europe, like U.S.A. and China. Currently, China is looking at a similar standard called STIMI, which is similar to DVB-SH.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><br />NGN: <a href="http://nextgennetworks.blogspot.com/2007/01/tdtv-for-mobile-tv.html">TDtv has emerged quite recently</a>. In a UK there is a trial involving four key 3G operators and it appears to offer several advantages such as using available spectrum already owned by the operators. What is your take?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">YL: TDtv is a narrowband solution, just like DAB/DMB is. So although there are frequencies available for TDtv, these frequencies are higher and narrowband compared to UHF. Also, they require the installation of new base station equipment which represents a cost similar to DVB-H, but only offering a few channels. In our opinion, it is therefore not a good solution, unless it is used as a complement to DVB-H for local TV channels.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />NGN: MediaFlo scored a coup with its trial with BskyB on European soil. Do you see MediaFlo as a threat to DVB-H in Europe?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">YL: MediaFlo has not been selected by BskyB. It has only been trialed in comparison with DVB-H, in order to give a better idea to BskyB about which solution they could potentially bid for in the case of a frequency auction in the UK. As opposed to other countries in Europe, UK regulator Ofcom lets the bidders choose their technology. Therefore, it is quite logical that BskyB wanted to test MediaFlo. However, independently of the technological comparison between DVB-H and MediaFlo which showed very little difference after long debates (less than 0.5 dB in favor of DVB-H), the availability of terminals will once again make a difference. The operators will have to understand that GSM will be mostly associated with DVB-H, whereas MediaFlo will be associated to CDMA (because of the Verizon launch in the U.S.) and there will be no GSM/Flo terminal, making it impossible for a European operator to chose MediaFlo and be successful with it.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><br />NGN: What about the spectrum status in Europe - the availability of UHF spectrum that is most suited to DVB-H? Early markets where spectrum is, or will be, released include Finland, Italy and Germany. Do you agree?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">YL: France and Spain have also found UHF spectrum for DVB-H. So in 2007, we could have as much as 260 million inhabitants covered by DVB-H in Europe (Spain, Germany, France, Italy)</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />NGN: In markets where the spectrum is not so forthcoming operators can’t afford to wait meaning they will need to adopt interim or alternative strategies that will only harm DVB-H’s uptake.<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />YL: Some tried with DMB for instance, but realize that there is no point in doing early launches with a bad technology. They do not find enough handsets, and subscribers do not adopt the service. It is a waste of money and creates legacy that they will have to handle.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><br />NGN: Do you have a view on how the operators’ preferred mobile TV business models are shaping?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">YL: Operators want to have a subscription-based model with a flat fee between 6 and 10 euros/month. This is the only way that a deep indoor coverage network can be setup properly. Ads based models are not sufficient to cover network costs. DiBcom has calculated that a deep indoor coverage requires a network 10 times more expensive than an outdoor coverage. So, this amounts to about 10M$/100 sq.km CAPEX. This cannot be financed otherwise but by subscribers.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br />NGN: What you expect to see for Mobile TV in 2007 in Europe and globally?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">YL: In Europe, we expect to see France and Germany launch for sure. Spain is less secured at this point, but may follow if they see the success in France and Germany.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">Globally, we expect to see more trials in Asia and emerging countries (India, Brazil, Vietnam). The U.S.A. will do a major DVB-H trial in Las Vegas with SES Americom on the Aloha/Hiwire UHF frequencies, but we would see a commercial launch only at the beginning of 2008. Modeo will also do a reduced launch in New-York early 2007.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br />NGN: One analyst has pointed out there are approaching 2.5 billion 2G mobile users, a huge potential audience for mobile TV, which currently is almost exclusively available only to 3G users. With the emergence of new technologies, such as Evolved EDGE, mobile TV could be made available to these users at minimal incremental cost - a new handset and a base station software upgrade only. This would bring immediate economies of scale and leave the rest of the market standing.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">YL: Orange has just launched its “HD-mobile” service using 3G/HSDPA channel at more than 300 kb/s. This allows them to offer much better [image] quality than what is offered with simple 2.5G. However, Orange also realises that this will allow at most two users/base station, which is incompatible with an uptake of Mobile TV. So, these solutions are short term and provide good short term revenue and customer base build-up for the carriers, but only broadcasting can survive in the longer term, or a combination of broadcasting for major TV channels and 3G for lower audience channels.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Comment: Will DVB-H become the dominant technology for mobile TV?<br /></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33267588.post-1168962918130365982007-01-17T06:48:00.000+00:002007-01-16T15:56:06.493+00:00The IMS messageWe were having a conversation in the office, or more a remote e-mail conversation. It concerned a recent analyst report suggesting that softswitches will be around for longer than people might think as carriers are not moving to IMS as fast as had been thought, if at all. This led to the following response from a Total Telecom colleague:<br /><blockquote>"The problem for IMS is it doesn’t spell ‘product’ i.e the vendors aren’t defining the products/applications the operator will get out of it, whereas softswitches spell VoIP and managed VoIP – a no brainer!"</blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Comment?</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Blog from www.totaltele.com</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0