Hel-LEO to the Future: This is space Internet!
In a virtual ‘fireside chat’ at Capacity Europe 2020, Riad Hartani of Xona Partners and Manik Vinnakota of Telesat discuss the impact of emerging LEO constellations.
Category Archives: General
mmWave FWA vs. FTTH: Friend or Foe?
5G fanatics would lead you to believe that 5G will make fibre obsolete. So how real are their claims and how does 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) compare to FTTH on performance and RoI? To answer, we teamed-up with our partners at DTS to objectively assess the performance of fibre and millimeter wave (mmWave) FWA.… Read More »
Hindsight is 20/20: Internet Technologies Trends Retrospect
Many significant trends we saw coming in the mid 2010s became reality. Notable examples include the evolution of network function virtualization, the emergence of the telecom cloud platform, the slow but progressive leverage of Artificial Intelligence by telecom operators as a productivity engine, the use of continuous integration and delivery DevOps framework in telecom service… Read More »
Network Sharing: Trends and Opportunities
Network sharing is one of those topics that makes economic sense, but often falters when it comes to adoption and implementation. Recently, I was asked about the prospects for network sharing given 5G capital investment requirements at a time of economic crisis. This is, of course, related to active sharing models where operators share the… Read More »
COVID-19: ICT Infrastructure Investment Opportunities and Risk to Competition
Over the past weeks we closely followed the impact of economic lockdowns on the ICT infrastructure to identify weaknesses and areas for future investments. Our analysis is multi-dimensional given the complexity of the ICT infrastructure which combines different types of access and backbone networks. This heterogenous infrastructure varies widely by geography. Our assessment led us… Read More »
The Cost Model for Enterprise Private Wireless Networks with Satellite Backhaul
The satellite and cellular wireless industries have long progressed along parallel tracks that rarely intersected [see here]. However, this could change in the next few years [see here]. Both satellite and cellular technologies are evolving to improve performance and reduce cost through technological innovations and new business models. In our recent paper, we analyzed the… Read More »
A Perspective on the Edge Computing Value Proposition
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend Edge Computing World where I participated in providing a workshop on the economics of the edge. Over the course of two and a half days of discussions common themes become evident. Here, I share a few observations on the edge computing value proposition and recent market developments… Read More »
Can Telecom Service Providers Monetize the Edge: Why the Telco Edge Cloud will be Far!
“Where is the edge?” is one of the most popular questions I heard at telco industry events. The answer often comes as “the edge is where it needs to be.” Some understand this to mean wide distribution of computing hardware that will make the telco edge cloud. Here, I will argue why wide distribution of… Read More »
The Media and Broadcast Sectors Intersect with the Mobile Industry
I had the opportunity to spend a few days last week at the media and broadcast sector event IBC to check out the latest developments in the these sectors. Video dominates Internet traffic, so this was a good platform to check out what the ecosystem players from “lens to screen” are working on. Of interest… Read More »
Technical Challenges in Edge Cloud Development
Accounting for technical challenges in edge cloud development is critical to understanding the evolution of the edge cloud over time. This area remains ill defined today as confusion reigns in the market. Part of the reason comes from the large number of applications that benefit from edge computing. These applications come from different industry and… Read More »
Cellular IoT Growing Revenue!
Mobile network operators don’t breakout cellular IoT service revenue. They keep the numbers confidential and report only the number of connections. China Mobile broke away from this practice becoming one of the very few that publicly reports this number. It announced cellular IoT service revenue of RMB 5.2 billion (USD 736 m) in the first… Read More »
Value Creation in the Mobile-Satellite Intersect
The satellite and mobile industries have long played in their own field, rarely intersecting despite being complementary. The disconnect between the two camps is surprisingly large. Neither side paying much attention to developments on the other side. Their relationship even turned adversarial where spectrum rights were at stake. Both industries are now trying to work… Read More »
Five Hot Technologies To Watch!
by Dr. Riad Hartani, Xona Partners Internet Intersects Space Technologies The space race is on again! This time the focus is on building a new generation of low earth orbit satellite constellations to deliver broadband internet. A simple equation lies at its heart: Internet to more people around the world; to keep the business model… Read More »
State of the Telco Industry: MWC2019 Perspectives
This year I’ll opt to write a few quick thoughts on the state of the telco industry instead of the annual report that follows MWC. Time is tight, so let’s get straight to the main points. Foldable Phones Foldable phones were the main highlight of MWC2019. Both Samsung and Huawei launched models featuring foldable screens.… Read More »
Edge Computing Economics: Is Latency Worth the Price?
The benefits of edge computing, low latency and backhaul efficiency are well understood. However, there is a cost to realize these benefits through small data centers. Hyperscale data centers are the backbone of the cloud. The cost structure and operation of these data centers is well understood. On the other hand, different requirements govern the… Read More »