ST. GEORGE, USA: Travelers, airline employees and anyone visiting St. George’s new municipal airport can now use their cellular devices for voice and data due to the installation of signal boosters made by Wilson Electronics.
The $160 million airport opened to commercial flights Jan. 13, about five miles southwest of the city near the Utah-Arizona line. Before the project broke ground more than three years ago, the 1,250-acre site was sage-covered range land, with no residences, businesses or paved roads nearby.
The formerly empty site had weak cellular signal coverage at best, a fact that was apparent to workers while the new 35,000-square-foot terminal building was under construction. Additionally, the already weak signal was reduced to an unusable level when you entered the terminal.
To remedy the lack of coverage, Wilson Electronics and a team from St. George-based Wilkinson Electric installed a signal booster system, specifically using Wilson’s newest and most powerful booster, the AG Pro 75. The system provides a signal strong enough to support all passengers traveling through the airport.
“We're grateful to all of the local companies who helped to make the grand opening of the new St. George Municipal Airport a success,” said Marc Mortensen, assistant city manager for St. George. “Thanks to Wilson Electronics, airport patrons will be able to stay connected on their cell phones whether they're arriving or departing."
“The system installation at the new airport passenger terminal is a perfect demonstration of how Wilson’s boosters are designed to provide strong cellular coverage, even inside large structures in areas of very weak signal,” said Joe Banos, COO of Wilson Electronics. “As a former Air Force and current private pilot, it’s great that Wilson was able to play a role in this major project right in our own backyard.”
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
One billion mobile broadband subscriptions in 2011: Rosy picture ahead for mobile network operators
SINGAPORE: Worldwide mobile broadband-enabled subscriptions are mounting up, and will hit the one billion mark in 2011.
According to the latest market data released by ABI Research, at the end of 2010 there were more than five billion mobile subscriptions globally, with one in five of those having access to mobile broadband. Another 28 percent growth or 6.6 billion wireless subscriptions is expected by 2016, with 40 percent, or twice the current percentage of users, being mobile broadband-enabled.
Despite many markets reaching saturation with penetration levels in excess of 100%, mobile network operators still have a lot more to look forward to. “With the proliferation of mobile broadband, it has become increasingly common to have multiple mobile connections per user,” comments research associate Fei Feng Seet. “The main motivation is the desire to stay connected everywhere, with more high speed 4G wireless networks lighting up, and a huge increase in the popularity of social connectivity.”
Chinese and Indian operators are now the top five mobile network operators measured by subscriptions, putting Verizon Wireless in the US into sixth place. As of the third quarter of 2010, China Mobile alone accounted for 11 percent of all global mobile subscriptions.
“China’s and India’s penetration levels are nowhere near the 100 percent mark, leaving much more room for growth than any other countries,” notes ABI Research practice director Neil Strother. “However, the strictly regulated telecom markets in these two countries impose high barriers for foreign players, which may slow the rollout of new technology.”
In terms of subscriptions, worldwide mobile penetration now stands above 75 percent, of which the Asia-Pacific region accounts for close to half.
According to the latest market data released by ABI Research, at the end of 2010 there were more than five billion mobile subscriptions globally, with one in five of those having access to mobile broadband. Another 28 percent growth or 6.6 billion wireless subscriptions is expected by 2016, with 40 percent, or twice the current percentage of users, being mobile broadband-enabled.
Despite many markets reaching saturation with penetration levels in excess of 100%, mobile network operators still have a lot more to look forward to. “With the proliferation of mobile broadband, it has become increasingly common to have multiple mobile connections per user,” comments research associate Fei Feng Seet. “The main motivation is the desire to stay connected everywhere, with more high speed 4G wireless networks lighting up, and a huge increase in the popularity of social connectivity.”
Chinese and Indian operators are now the top five mobile network operators measured by subscriptions, putting Verizon Wireless in the US into sixth place. As of the third quarter of 2010, China Mobile alone accounted for 11 percent of all global mobile subscriptions.
“China’s and India’s penetration levels are nowhere near the 100 percent mark, leaving much more room for growth than any other countries,” notes ABI Research practice director Neil Strother. “However, the strictly regulated telecom markets in these two countries impose high barriers for foreign players, which may slow the rollout of new technology.”
In terms of subscriptions, worldwide mobile penetration now stands above 75 percent, of which the Asia-Pacific region accounts for close to half.
Nistica secures $8.5 million financing
BRIDGEWATER, USA: Nistica, a leading supplier of agile optical networking modules, announced a funding round of $8.5-million, a combination of equity and debt financing.
Battelle Ventures and Technology Venture Partners co-led the $5.5 million Series D equity round, while MMV Financial provided $3M of debt financing. Novitas Capital, Fujikura Limited, NTT Electronics Corporation (NEL), MMV Investment Partners and other individual investors participated in the equity financing.
“The rapid expansion of high-bandwidth mobile devices and the emergence of cloud computing has significantly increased the need for agile optical networking devices that simplify bandwidth provisioning,” said Bryson Hollimon of Technology Venture Partners. “TVP has been a supporter of Nistica since its inception, and the company’s spectacular progress in 2010 has led to this successful investment round.”
“We have delivered Telcordia-certified FULL FLEDGE modules with full grid-flexibility since day one, and our customers are leveraging the future-proof nature of our wavelength selective switches in winning new business,” remarked Ashish Vengsarkar, CEO of Nistica. “The infusion of Series D funding allows us to launch new products that enable the creation of colorless, directionless networks unconstrained by grids.”
“We are delighted that our corporate strategic partners Fujikura and NEL have joined us in this investment round,” added Ralph Taylor Smith of Battelle Ventures, “This round of funding further bolsters Nistica’s balance sheet and positions the company to scale without financial constraints.”
Battelle Ventures and Technology Venture Partners co-led the $5.5 million Series D equity round, while MMV Financial provided $3M of debt financing. Novitas Capital, Fujikura Limited, NTT Electronics Corporation (NEL), MMV Investment Partners and other individual investors participated in the equity financing.
“The rapid expansion of high-bandwidth mobile devices and the emergence of cloud computing has significantly increased the need for agile optical networking devices that simplify bandwidth provisioning,” said Bryson Hollimon of Technology Venture Partners. “TVP has been a supporter of Nistica since its inception, and the company’s spectacular progress in 2010 has led to this successful investment round.”
“We have delivered Telcordia-certified FULL FLEDGE modules with full grid-flexibility since day one, and our customers are leveraging the future-proof nature of our wavelength selective switches in winning new business,” remarked Ashish Vengsarkar, CEO of Nistica. “The infusion of Series D funding allows us to launch new products that enable the creation of colorless, directionless networks unconstrained by grids.”
“We are delighted that our corporate strategic partners Fujikura and NEL have joined us in this investment round,” added Ralph Taylor Smith of Battelle Ventures, “This round of funding further bolsters Nistica’s balance sheet and positions the company to scale without financial constraints.”
IPv4 address shortage approaching
Craig Skinner, senior consultant, Ovum
AUSTRALIA: The last two/eight blocks (of approximately 16m IPv4 addresses each) to be allocated according to demand and normal processes has just been made by IANA to APNIC. IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, will now allocate one each of the last remaining five /eight blocks to each of the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). The RIRs make further delegations of smaller address blocks to ISPs and other organisations within their respective regions.
APNIC (the RIR for Asia Pacific) will switch to a rationing policy once they reach their final /8 worth of unallocated addresses to maximise the period that small allocations of IPv4 addresses are available for new networks. Under this policy, each APNIC account holder can receive only one minimum size block (a /22 which consists of only 1024 IPv4 addresses). It is expected that this policy will come into effect mid to late 2011.
Despite the plentiful predictions and warnings for some time that this point was approaching, some organisations will undoubtedly be caught by surprise. IPv6 addresses were designed as the solution to the predicted shortage of IPv4 addresses, but as an industry, it has been easier to extend usage of IPv4 rather than undergo the challenge of transitioning to IPv6.
IPv6 versus IPv4
The obvious advantage of IPv6 to IPv4 is the substantially expanded address range. Every one of the current world population of 6.9b people could be assigned an address range 19 orders of magnitude greater than the entire IPv4 address range. Even with an explosion of machine-to-machine communications and assigning globally unique addresses to real world objects, this should suffice until we are well into deploying an interstellar internet.
The inevitable exhaustion of the IPv4 address range has been heroically delayed with DHCP and Network Address Translators (NATs) that allow sharing of public IP addresses amongst a pool of users. Unfortunately NATs break the end-to-end communications principle of the internet, causing many complications for developers, particularly of services such as VoIP, video conferencing and P2P. Aside from removing the NAT complexity, IPv6 also allows for simplified network configuration with provision for automatic address assignment and network renumbering.
For mobile devices, IPv6 allows the possibility to provide globally unique addresses. With mobile IP, these devices can move between networks while maintaining the same IPv6 address. IPSec is built into IPv6, so all IPv6 devices will support network layer authentication and encryption. Likewise for multicasting, being built into IPv6 rather than optional as for IPv4 means that multicasting of video in IPv6 networks will be universally supported, allowing more efficient support of increasingly popular video services.
Despite first being deployed in 1999, the reason IPv6 is not ubiquitous today is that it is not backwards compatible with IPv4. This makes the transition difficult and it will therefore be necessary to simultaneously maintain IPv4 and IPv6 for many years and to provide solutions for interworking during the transition period.
AUSTRALIA: The last two/eight blocks (of approximately 16m IPv4 addresses each) to be allocated according to demand and normal processes has just been made by IANA to APNIC. IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, will now allocate one each of the last remaining five /eight blocks to each of the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). The RIRs make further delegations of smaller address blocks to ISPs and other organisations within their respective regions.
APNIC (the RIR for Asia Pacific) will switch to a rationing policy once they reach their final /8 worth of unallocated addresses to maximise the period that small allocations of IPv4 addresses are available for new networks. Under this policy, each APNIC account holder can receive only one minimum size block (a /22 which consists of only 1024 IPv4 addresses). It is expected that this policy will come into effect mid to late 2011.
Despite the plentiful predictions and warnings for some time that this point was approaching, some organisations will undoubtedly be caught by surprise. IPv6 addresses were designed as the solution to the predicted shortage of IPv4 addresses, but as an industry, it has been easier to extend usage of IPv4 rather than undergo the challenge of transitioning to IPv6.
IPv6 versus IPv4
The obvious advantage of IPv6 to IPv4 is the substantially expanded address range. Every one of the current world population of 6.9b people could be assigned an address range 19 orders of magnitude greater than the entire IPv4 address range. Even with an explosion of machine-to-machine communications and assigning globally unique addresses to real world objects, this should suffice until we are well into deploying an interstellar internet.
The inevitable exhaustion of the IPv4 address range has been heroically delayed with DHCP and Network Address Translators (NATs) that allow sharing of public IP addresses amongst a pool of users. Unfortunately NATs break the end-to-end communications principle of the internet, causing many complications for developers, particularly of services such as VoIP, video conferencing and P2P. Aside from removing the NAT complexity, IPv6 also allows for simplified network configuration with provision for automatic address assignment and network renumbering.
For mobile devices, IPv6 allows the possibility to provide globally unique addresses. With mobile IP, these devices can move between networks while maintaining the same IPv6 address. IPSec is built into IPv6, so all IPv6 devices will support network layer authentication and encryption. Likewise for multicasting, being built into IPv6 rather than optional as for IPv4 means that multicasting of video in IPv6 networks will be universally supported, allowing more efficient support of increasingly popular video services.
Despite first being deployed in 1999, the reason IPv6 is not ubiquitous today is that it is not backwards compatible with IPv4. This makes the transition difficult and it will therefore be necessary to simultaneously maintain IPv4 and IPv6 for many years and to provide solutions for interworking during the transition period.
Internet shutdown in Egypt has wider implications for telecoms industry
Angel Dobardziev, analyst.
AUSTRALIA: Press reports that Internet connectivity has been shut down in Egypt, and that mobile operators have been ordered to shut down services have several broad implications for the wider telecoms industry, and the Middle East in particular.
At a most basic level, it underlines the political risk of operating in the emerging markets for players as diverse such as Vodafone, Blackberry, and Google, which they have to weight against the undoubted growth opportunity.
More importantly, it is clear that the massive growth of mobile and internet services, while bringing massive productivity and social benefits to the region, has also brought a whole new level of social connectness, openness, information access, and aspiration. Particularly, in the younger generation, that goes against the more conservative and authoritarian tradition that has been the norm hitherto.
In this context, the telecoms boom in the region accelerated the clash between tradition and modernity, the open versus closed society, which we are now witnessing in the Middle East, and other places (e.g. China), which regimes are trying to contain.
All said, the genie is out of the bottle, and while some regimes may try, there is no way of reversing the impact communications have made on the emerging markets and their people. But as events in Egypt show, the road ahead may be rocky for all, including telcos and the people they serve.
AUSTRALIA: Press reports that Internet connectivity has been shut down in Egypt, and that mobile operators have been ordered to shut down services have several broad implications for the wider telecoms industry, and the Middle East in particular.
At a most basic level, it underlines the political risk of operating in the emerging markets for players as diverse such as Vodafone, Blackberry, and Google, which they have to weight against the undoubted growth opportunity.
More importantly, it is clear that the massive growth of mobile and internet services, while bringing massive productivity and social benefits to the region, has also brought a whole new level of social connectness, openness, information access, and aspiration. Particularly, in the younger generation, that goes against the more conservative and authoritarian tradition that has been the norm hitherto.
In this context, the telecoms boom in the region accelerated the clash between tradition and modernity, the open versus closed society, which we are now witnessing in the Middle East, and other places (e.g. China), which regimes are trying to contain.
All said, the genie is out of the bottle, and while some regimes may try, there is no way of reversing the impact communications have made on the emerging markets and their people. But as events in Egypt show, the road ahead may be rocky for all, including telcos and the people they serve.
CommScope’s OM4 fiber enables 100 Gigabit Ethernet to reach 340 meters in world’s first public demo
LONDON, UK: CommScope, Inc., a global leader in infrastructure solutions for communications networks, has exceeded industry standards by successfully enabling a 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) data transmission over off-the-shelf 340-meter multi-mode fiber optic cabling with 7 MPO connections. The demonstration took place at Cisco Live! in London using SYSTIMAX LazrSPEED multi-mode fiber cabling, in collaboration with Ixia and Reflex Photonics Inc.
The 100 GE standard was ratified in June 2010 by the IEEE 802.3ba committee for transmissions up to 150 meters of OM4 fiber cable. CommScope’s 340-meter link proves that the range could be effectively doubled through the combined use of high-performance connectivity solutions and advanced optoelectronics. This demonstration was also the first to take place publicly, rather than in closed-door laboratory environments.
“Achieving an error-free transmission over a 340-meter link with 7 MPO connections in current data center environments is a great accomplishment,” said George Brooks, vice president of the Data Center Business Unit at CommScope. “We have always engineered our solutions to exceed industry standards, but this demonstration proves the value high-performance cabling infrastructure can bring. With enterprises becoming ever more dependent on high-speed and reliable access for virtualization and cloud services, customers can look to CommScope’s OM4 solutions to provide the operating margin needed to push the reach of 100 GE beyond the limits of the standard.”
Dave Schneider, senior manager of Market Development at Ixia, added: “Ixia’s K2 100 Gigabit Ethernet test interfaces were used to validate 100 GE operation over CommScope’s OM4 fiber cabling. Standard bit error rate (BERT) tests validated error-free operation. This real-world demonstration further validates our opinion that 100 GE technology is ready for deployment in the data centre.”
“Reflex 100G CFP fiber optic transceivers and CommScope OM4 fiber cable connectivity form the physical layer of 100 Gb/s Ethernet,” said Robert Coenen, vice president, Sales and Marketing at Reflex Photonics. “The success of this demonstration really shows that the physical network infrastructure of higher speed Ethernet is ready, and the 100GE ecosystem can be built on top of it. It’s fantastic to be working on the cutting-edge, opening up new possibilities in the data centre.”
CommScope offers a complete portfolio of network infrastructure solutions that enable enterprise customers, regardless of size, industry or IT budget, to take advantage of business and technology opportunities.
CommScope’s SYSTIMAX and Uniprise brands offer voice, data, video and converged connectivity solutions that support mission-critical, high-bandwidth and emerging applications to those that demand unrelenting reliability and quality for everyday needs. CommScope’s Wired for Wireless solution provides new buildings and campuses with the wireless infrastructure necessary to eliminate weak or blocked signal areas from the outset and prepare them for better wireless coverage.
The 100 GE standard was ratified in June 2010 by the IEEE 802.3ba committee for transmissions up to 150 meters of OM4 fiber cable. CommScope’s 340-meter link proves that the range could be effectively doubled through the combined use of high-performance connectivity solutions and advanced optoelectronics. This demonstration was also the first to take place publicly, rather than in closed-door laboratory environments.
“Achieving an error-free transmission over a 340-meter link with 7 MPO connections in current data center environments is a great accomplishment,” said George Brooks, vice president of the Data Center Business Unit at CommScope. “We have always engineered our solutions to exceed industry standards, but this demonstration proves the value high-performance cabling infrastructure can bring. With enterprises becoming ever more dependent on high-speed and reliable access for virtualization and cloud services, customers can look to CommScope’s OM4 solutions to provide the operating margin needed to push the reach of 100 GE beyond the limits of the standard.”
Dave Schneider, senior manager of Market Development at Ixia, added: “Ixia’s K2 100 Gigabit Ethernet test interfaces were used to validate 100 GE operation over CommScope’s OM4 fiber cabling. Standard bit error rate (BERT) tests validated error-free operation. This real-world demonstration further validates our opinion that 100 GE technology is ready for deployment in the data centre.”
“Reflex 100G CFP fiber optic transceivers and CommScope OM4 fiber cable connectivity form the physical layer of 100 Gb/s Ethernet,” said Robert Coenen, vice president, Sales and Marketing at Reflex Photonics. “The success of this demonstration really shows that the physical network infrastructure of higher speed Ethernet is ready, and the 100GE ecosystem can be built on top of it. It’s fantastic to be working on the cutting-edge, opening up new possibilities in the data centre.”
CommScope offers a complete portfolio of network infrastructure solutions that enable enterprise customers, regardless of size, industry or IT budget, to take advantage of business and technology opportunities.
CommScope’s SYSTIMAX and Uniprise brands offer voice, data, video and converged connectivity solutions that support mission-critical, high-bandwidth and emerging applications to those that demand unrelenting reliability and quality for everyday needs. CommScope’s Wired for Wireless solution provides new buildings and campuses with the wireless infrastructure necessary to eliminate weak or blocked signal areas from the outset and prepare them for better wireless coverage.
Worldwide mobile app store revenue forecast to surpass $15 billion in 2011
EGHAM, UK: Worldwide mobile application store downloads are forecast to reach 17.7 billion downloads in 2011, a 117 percent increase from an estimated 8.2 billion downloads in 2010, according to Gartner Inc. By the end of 2014, Gartner forecast over 185 billion applications will have been downloaded from mobile app stores, since the launch of the first one in July 2008.
Worldwide mobile application store revenue is projected to surpass $15.1 billion in 2011, both from end users buying applications and applications themselves generating advertising revenue for their developers. This is a 190 percent increase from 2010 revenue of $5.2 billion.
"Many are wondering if the app frenzy we have been witnessing is just a fashion, and, like many others, it shall pass. We do not think so," said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner. "We strongly believe there is a sizable opportunity for application stores in the future. However, applications will have to grow up and deliver a superior experience to the one that a Web-based app will be able to deliver. Native apps will survive the Web enhancements only when they will provide a more-personal and richer experience to the ‘vanilla’ experience that a Web-based app will deliver."
Gartner analysts said the hype around application stores in 2009 continued through 2010 with alternative offerings to the Apple App Store gaining some traction. Android Market, Nokia's Ovi Store, Research In Motion's (RIM's) App World, Microsoft Marketplace and Samsung Apps are the key competitors that saw the number of application downloads grow in 2010.
Free downloads are forecast to account for 81 percent of total mobile application store downloads in 2011. This percentage has been decreasing since the first launches in 2008, and Gartner estimates free downloads will continue to decrease in 2011, but it will increase again from 2012 through 2014. Users will begin paying for more applications as they perceive values in the concept of mobile applications, and they become more trustful of billing mechanisms.
In 2010, application stores' revenue is estimated to have reached $5.2 billion, both from end users buying applications and applications generating advertising revenue for their developers. The growth between 2010 and 2014 is forecast be over 1,000 percent.
Application stores' revenue is split between the store owners (such as Apple, in the case of the App Store, or RIM, in the case of App World) and the application's developer. The average revenue share is based on a 70/30 split, with 70 percent going to the developer. By the end of 2014, advertising will be generating a little under a third of the revenue generated by application stores, up from 16 percent in 2010.
"While the average number of downloads per device onto a smartphone will remain stable as the market grows, it must be assumed that media tablets will drive more downloads from consumers, boosting the overall average downloads per device," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. "We estimate that Apple's App Store drove close to nine application downloads out of 10 in 2010 and will remain the single best-selling store across our forecast period (through 2014), although to a lesser extent, as other stores manage to gain momentum."
"Application stores have become a highly visible and potentially lucrative part of the smartphone 'ecosystem, largely due to Apple's App Store. As well as promising revenue, application stores allow store owners to leverage innovation from a community outside their own R&D department," said Ms.Baghdassarian. "However, setting up a successful application store is far from simple. Application store owners need to rise to the challenges of attracting developers, organizing content and engaging users throughout the life of the store in order to remain profitable."
Worldwide mobile application store revenue is projected to surpass $15.1 billion in 2011, both from end users buying applications and applications themselves generating advertising revenue for their developers. This is a 190 percent increase from 2010 revenue of $5.2 billion.
"Many are wondering if the app frenzy we have been witnessing is just a fashion, and, like many others, it shall pass. We do not think so," said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner. "We strongly believe there is a sizable opportunity for application stores in the future. However, applications will have to grow up and deliver a superior experience to the one that a Web-based app will be able to deliver. Native apps will survive the Web enhancements only when they will provide a more-personal and richer experience to the ‘vanilla’ experience that a Web-based app will deliver."
Gartner analysts said the hype around application stores in 2009 continued through 2010 with alternative offerings to the Apple App Store gaining some traction. Android Market, Nokia's Ovi Store, Research In Motion's (RIM's) App World, Microsoft Marketplace and Samsung Apps are the key competitors that saw the number of application downloads grow in 2010.
Free downloads are forecast to account for 81 percent of total mobile application store downloads in 2011. This percentage has been decreasing since the first launches in 2008, and Gartner estimates free downloads will continue to decrease in 2011, but it will increase again from 2012 through 2014. Users will begin paying for more applications as they perceive values in the concept of mobile applications, and they become more trustful of billing mechanisms.
In 2010, application stores' revenue is estimated to have reached $5.2 billion, both from end users buying applications and applications generating advertising revenue for their developers. The growth between 2010 and 2014 is forecast be over 1,000 percent.
Application stores' revenue is split between the store owners (such as Apple, in the case of the App Store, or RIM, in the case of App World) and the application's developer. The average revenue share is based on a 70/30 split, with 70 percent going to the developer. By the end of 2014, advertising will be generating a little under a third of the revenue generated by application stores, up from 16 percent in 2010.
"While the average number of downloads per device onto a smartphone will remain stable as the market grows, it must be assumed that media tablets will drive more downloads from consumers, boosting the overall average downloads per device," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. "We estimate that Apple's App Store drove close to nine application downloads out of 10 in 2010 and will remain the single best-selling store across our forecast period (through 2014), although to a lesser extent, as other stores manage to gain momentum."
"Application stores have become a highly visible and potentially lucrative part of the smartphone 'ecosystem, largely due to Apple's App Store. As well as promising revenue, application stores allow store owners to leverage innovation from a community outside their own R&D department," said Ms.Baghdassarian. "However, setting up a successful application store is far from simple. Application store owners need to rise to the challenges of attracting developers, organizing content and engaging users throughout the life of the store in order to remain profitable."
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