Ford: Self-driving cars "will be fully capable of operating without C-V2X"

"Autonomous cars do not need 5G," respected Professor Gerhard Fettweis told us in the spring. Karl-Heinz Laudan of Deutsche Telecom agrees. "Automotive does not need mmWaves. I can now add an informed source, Don Butler, executive director, Ford Connected Vehicle Platform and Product. "These vehicles will be fully capable of operating without C-V2X." That's of course true. Otherwise, the cars would shut down when out of range of a cell site.

Connected cars - as opposed to autonomous cars - will be a major business. Ford is putting 4G in every car in 2018. AT&T estimates it has 27 million cars on the network today, although few have a second connection. That's mostly for entertainment today, but literally dozens of Waze-like information applications are coming to market. Butler predicts, "Road signs could provide advance warning of recent accidents or provide more context regarding road construction."

Dan Warren, now at Samsung, was the first to explain to me why cars couldn't be completely dependent on phone networks. "Will they freeze when they hit a deadspot? Of course not." 

Read more ...

Edge Clouds: Who will buy?

In 2020, Edge Clouds can reduce latency to about 15-25 ms in 5G, ~10 ms more in LTE.  Today's 4G LTE networks take 30 ms to 70 ms and more. Everything we do today works on  4G, of course. Some apps will benefit substantially from lower latencies, especially gaming. Some new apps will develop when lower latency is available. Multi-player Pokemon looks great.

To write Strategies for 5G, I needed to understand the impact of Edge Clouds. The first half dozen experts provided me with about seven opinions, often conflicting, They couldn't even agree on a definition. After a month of research and two dozen more conversations, I am less clueless. I divided the different Edge proposals into five levels. 

Level 1 will require 1 ms 5G air latency, which is still in the labs. The 5G deploying is about 10 ms.

Level 2 is close to the cell, which adds 5-10 ms to the air latency. The first unit of the type is now installed in Chicago by Vapor IO. They promise nationwide coverage by 2020.  

Level 3 is further back in the carrier network and a little slower. Deutsche Telekom's system, mostly constructed, expects 20-25 ms.  That's the supply side.

Read more ...

Upgrading the backbone can do more for latency than 5G

Enrique Blanco of Telefonica is collapsing his transport network from 8 to 4 layers. Lee Hicks of Verizon is "Ripping out 200,000 pieces of equipment as part of Verizon One Fiber." He is replacing them with one-tenth as many boxes. Cost and simplicity are the main goals, but latency is being dramatically improved as well.

I've recently discovered that the latency of the radios for the last 200 metres (the 5G NR) often is less important than the performance on the backbone. From the radio to the Internet typically takes 15 ms to 50 ms and more. 5G to the radio is now typically 10 ms, compared to 20 ms on LTE. That saves about 10 ms. 

A better backbone (or an Edge Cloud) can reduce latency by 10-30 ms. Today's routers are much more powerful and much faster. Like most incumbent telcos, Verizon's network was loaded with out of date equipment, some 20 years old. Most carriers are slowly replacing older gear. Verizon One Fiber is replacing almost everything.   Lee Hicks of Verizon is rebuilding that network with a goal of 5-15 ms.

Read more ...

Could telcos lose the Edge Cloud race before it even begins?

Cole Crawford at Vapor IO is building a network designed to bypass the telco entirely. He's installed an "aggregation box" a hop or three from the towers. Iyad Terazi's Federated Wireless is ready to connect it with a dedicated radio in 3.5 GHz shared spectrum. That's natural for certain kinds of IoT. The speed will be much better than the carriers. Interesting stuff. Packet, MobiledgeX and others are ready with the hardware and software that will make it work. 

Cole gave me reasons he thought the telcos should buy in. Maybe. It's also possible services like IoT create enough of a niche to become profitable. Vapor says a single hub could serve hundreds of towers, which would bring the cost down. (I've asked how that would affect latency and am waiting to hear from the company. I would guess 3-8 ms with high performance gear but do not have data.)

What if Google, Amazon and a few others jump in to bypass the telcos? There's no evidence that's in their plans, but interesting talk. The software and programming talent at the web giants outclasses the ability of anywhere else. Google's network is the largest civilian system in history. It works well all around the world at an amazingly low cost. The scale dwarfs Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, or AT&T. 

Read more ...

"Levels of Edge" What are the real choices?

Where will the boxes go? Who will buy? Dozens of companies are jumping in, many with wild and contradictory ideas. "Levels of Edge" brings some order to the analysis.

Edge clouds reduce latency with servers close to the customer. The true believers talk 1-4 ms; the actual results for now are likely 15-25 ms. That's great for multi-player Pokemon, worthless for controlling autonomous vehicles. 

Level 1 Edge Clouds don't exist yet and may cost too much to deploy. 1 ms 5G is still in the lab and years away from deployment. the 5G deploying is ~10 ms. 

A Level 2 site is building in Chicago with equipment moving in. Vapor is supplying the main boxes. The server adds ~ 4 ms. Level 2 sites aim for 10-20 ms. Cole Crawford of Vapor tells Mike Dano their boxes are "tower-aggregated and connected, not tower-located." Vapor is not, as originally thought, going directly to the cell.  Federated Wireless is testing a new radio network, which may be the only way to performance desired.

Level 3 sites are testing in live networks at Deutsche Telekom and in China.

Read more ...

Denmark: Terabyte fixed wireless, $35, 40-70 megabits

5G level service before 5G is deployed. Danish Mobile carrier 3, like most wireless companies today, has capacity going to waste. 4G Massive MIMO, Carrier aggregation, and other technologies advances are growing networks faster than the traffic demand grows. It covers 98% of Denmark and should be able to deliver the 40-70 megabits to most of the country. The 1 terabyte cap is enough for almost everyone.

Third and fourth carriers in many countries are suffering from a lack of customers. They have to think like new entrants and move aggressively. That does not necessarily mean cutting prices, although price cuts are an obvious choice. In wireless in particular, most carriers have excess capacity in most places. That allows you to drastically increase caps or video quality, both of which customers want. That's much easier when the marginal cost is low, like here. You can give more to customers without it costing too much. (Unlike, say, investing in fibre to the home. Although Telefonica and Orange seem to be making it work.)

Read more ...

China Mobile, Sprint 2.6 GHz could be much faster

5G is not 5G is not 5G. 85+% of 5G will be mid and low bands, below 6 GHz. Typical speeds will be 100-400 megabits.  In the U.S. Sprint holds a huge chunk, well over 100 MHz. China Mobile has 160 MHz. They can, and probably will, have better 5G than all but a handful of carriers who are doing mmWave. Huawei is ready to deliver equipment for maximum performance at 2.6 GHz.

Europe and Japan will do almost all of their early 5G in 100 MHz or less of 3.5 GHz spectrum.  Higher signals, such as 3.5 GHz, fade so rapidly that until recently this band was unusable for broadband. With Massive MIMO, 100 MHz of 3.5 has the performance of 20-40 MHz in lower spectrum - with a spectrum cost of a quarter or less most places.

2.5 GHz has much greater reach, especially with Massive MIMO antennas.

Read more ...

5G EUV chips from TSMC in 60 days

At least a dozen 5G phones will be announced in the next two weeks for MWC Barcelona. Some of them may start shipping as soon as April, earlier than expected. That's not guaranteed. The primary chips should be available but the front end of the phones - RF or Radio Frequency - also has been struggling.

End of March, Taiwan Semi promises volume production of 7 nm chips produced using an Extreme Ultraviolet system (EUV.) TSMC is taking delivery on 18 of the US$100 million-plus machines this year. Some will be tested on 5nm, with production expected in 2020.  Samsung and TSMC have begun construction on 3 nm facilities that will cost US$20 billion. 

Read more ...