Category Archives: General

The Synergies Between LEO Satellite Constellations and Submarine Cables

By | January 2, 2021
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I’ve been exploring the impact of LEO satellite constellations on the wider telecom industry. Depending on the sector, the rise of LEO satellites is either complementary or competitive. Sometimes, the synergies are not evident. At other times, the competitive nature is masked by nascent requirements and emerging applications that could be game changers in the… Read More: The Synergies Between LEO Satellite Constellations and Submarine Cables »

Comparing LEO Constellations: How They Stack Up!

By | December 6, 2020
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LEO constellations are set to introduce new dynamics in connectivity services. I’ve been looking to answer questions on the competitive or complementary nature of LEO with different types of terrestrial services such as fixed wireless access or long-haul transport. In process of the analysis, one needs to differentiate among LEO constellations since they are designed… Read More: Comparing LEO Constellations: How They Stack Up! »

A New Race is Looming [and it’s not 5G!]: Why China Can Win the Space Internet Future

By | November 8, 2020
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China made headlines by launching an experimental satellite in low earth orbit to test 6G terahertz technology. This has the merit of elevating the 5G race debate to a higher level: 6G and space Internet. It comes at a time when several trends are taking shape, such as the evolution of 6G and the emergence… Read More: A New Race is Looming [and it’s not 5G!]: Why… »

Hel-LEO to the Future: This is space Internet!

By | October 21, 2020
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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.

mmWave FWA vs. FTTH: Friend or Foe?

By | October 15, 2020
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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: mmWave FWA vs. FTTH: Friend or Foe? »

Hindsight is 20/20: Internet Technologies Trends Retrospect

By | September 22, 2020
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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: Hindsight is 20/20: Internet Technologies Trends Retrospect »

Network Sharing: Trends and Opportunities

By | June 18, 2020
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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: Network Sharing: Trends and Opportunities »

COVID-19: ICT Infrastructure Investment Opportunities and Risk to Competition

By | April 26, 2020
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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: COVID-19: ICT Infrastructure Investment Opportunities and Risk to Competition »

The Cost Model for Enterprise Private Wireless Networks with Satellite Backhaul

By | January 16, 2020
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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: The Cost Model for Enterprise Private Wireless Networks with Satellite… »

A Perspective on the Edge Computing Value Proposition

By | December 18, 2019
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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: A Perspective on the Edge Computing Value Proposition »

Can Telecom Service Providers Monetize the Edge: Why the Telco Edge Cloud will be Far!

By | November 6, 2019
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“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: Can Telecom Service Providers Monetize the Edge: Why the Telco… »

The Media and Broadcast Sectors Intersect with the Mobile Industry

By | September 21, 2019
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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: The Media and Broadcast Sectors Intersect with the Mobile Industry »

Technical Challenges in Edge Cloud Development

By | August 30, 2019
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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: Technical Challenges in Edge Cloud Development »

Cellular IoT Growing Revenue!

By | August 12, 2019
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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: Cellular IoT Growing Revenue! »

Value Creation in the Mobile-Satellite Intersect

By | July 26, 2019
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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: Value Creation in the Mobile-Satellite Intersect »