Mobile fronthaul: A Q&A with LightCounting's John Lively

LightCounting Market Research' s report finds that mobile fronthaul networks will use over 14 million optical transceivers in 2014, resulting in a market valued at US $530 million. This is roughly the size to the FTTX market. However, unlike FTTX, sales of fronthaul transceivers will nearly double in the next five years, to exceed $900 million. A Q&A with LightCounting's principal analyst, John Lively.

Q. What is mobile fronthaul?

There is a simple explanation for mobile front-haul but that belies how complicated it is.

The equipment manufacturers got together about 10 years ago and came up with the idea to separate the functionality within a base station. The idea is that if you separate the functionality into two parts, you can move some of it to the tower and thereby reduce the equipment, power and space needed in the hut below. That is the distributed base station.

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WDM and 100G: A Q&A with Infonetics' Andrew Schmitt

The WDM optical networking market grew 8 percent year-on-year, with spending on 100 Gigabit now accounting for a fifth of the WDM market. So claims the first quarter 2014 optical networking report from market research firm, Infonetics Research. Overall, the optical networking market declined 2 percent, due to the continuing decline of legacy SONET/SDH.

In a Q&A with Gazettabyte, Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst for optical at Infonetics Research, talks about the report's findings.

Q: Overall WDM optical spending was up 8% year-on-year: Is that in line with expectations?

AS: It is roughly in line with the figures I use for trend growth but what is surprising is how there is no longer a fourth quarter capital expenditure flush in North America followed by a down year in the first quarter. This still happens in EMEA but spending in North America, particularly by the Tier-1 operators, is now less tied to calendar spending and more towards specific project timelines.

This has always been the case at the more competitive carriers. A good example of this was the big order Infinera got in Q1, 2014.

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NFV moves from the lab to the network

Service providers have long covetted the efficiencies achieved by hyperscale data centre operators running applications on servers. The telecom operators want their networking functions to run on servers in the cloud, instead of having to buy - and maintain - custom boxes running proprietary software for each new service.  

Dor Skuler

In October 2012, several of the world's leading telecom operators published a document to spur industry action. Entitled Network Functions Virtualisation - Introductory White Paper, the document stressed the many benefits such a telecom transformation would bring: reduced equipment costs, power consumption savings, portable applications, and nimbleness instead of ordeal when a service is launched. 

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The connected vehicle - driving in the cloud

Cars are already more silicon than steel. As makers add LTE high speed broadband, they are destined to become more app than automobile. The possibilities that come with connecting your car to the cloud are scintillating. No wonder Gil Golan, director at General Motors' Advanced Technical Center in Israel, says the automotive industry is at an 'inflection point'.

"If you put LTE to the vehicle ... you are going to open a very wide pipe and you can send to the cloud and get results with almost no latency"

Gil Golan, General Motors

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Mobile backhaul chips rise to the LTE challenge

The Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular standard has a demanding set of mobile backhaul requirements. Gazettabyte looks at two different chip designs for LTE mobile backhaul, from PMC-Sierra and from Broadcom.

"Each [LTE Advanced cell] sector will be over 1 Gig and there will be a need to migrate the backhaul to 10 Gig"

Liviu Pinchas, PMC-Sierra

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Melding networks to boost mobile broadband

In a Q&A, Bryan Kim, manager at SK Telecom's Core Network Lab, discusses the mobile operator's heterogeneous network implementation and the service benefits.

SK Telecom has developed an enhanced mobile broadband service that combines two networks: 3G and Wi-Fi or Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Wi-Fi. The mobile operator will launch the 3G/ Wi-Fi heterogeneous network service in the second quarter of 2012 to achieve a maximum data rate of 60 Megabits-per-second (Mbps), while the LTE and Wi-Fi integrated service will be offered in 2013, enabling up to a 100Mbps wireless Internet service.  

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Is wireless becoming a valid alternative to fixed broadband?

Are wireless technologies such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) and WiMAX2 closing the gap on fixed broadband? 

A recent blog by The Economist discussed how Long Term Evolution (LTE) is coming to the rescue of one of its US correspondents, located 5km from the DSL cabinet and struggling to get a decent broadband service. 

Peak rates are rarely achieved: the mobile user needs to be very close to a base station and a large spectrum allocation is needed.

Mark Heath, Unwired Insights

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