LoRaWAN gains traction for in-building & campus

LoRa (Long Range) networks are optimized for low power, low-cost connections for the Internet of Things. The initial deployments were regional for applications like meter reading and pipe management. It works, but the takeup has been far less than hoped.

Adtran sees a better market serving individual buildings or campuses. It has just introduced the very small 7310-08 LoRaWAN IoT Gateway that can be mounted on a wall and powered over Ethernet. It can be managed by an iPhone using Bluetooth.

It should be able to transmit throughout most of a building, where 5G might need several units. The price hasn't been released, but it should be a heckuva lot less than 5G.

(Irrelevancy. The name comes from Harald Bluetooth, a king of Denmark in the 10th century. Some engineers have a sense of humor.)  

LoRaWan uses 900 MHz spectrum, free to use in many countries. The speed is only 0.3 kbps to 50 kbps, enough for even battery-operated devices to occasionally phone home. The protocol is optimized for, yes, long range. At low baud rates, it can be highly reliable.

There's a 60-minute video Everything you need to know about LoRaWAN if you want an introduction to the technology.

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India giant Jio, slower but profitable growth Q1

 Selling a 30-gigabyte plan for US$4, Jio grew at ~10 million subscribers per month for three years. Q1 2021 added "only" 5 million per month to 428 million. Incumbent Bharti is invigorated and the pandemic is strong in India. (The pandemic in April and May is horrifying, with a toll that may match the Bengali famine of 1943.)

Perhaps even more amazing, Jio claims a generous profit of ₹ 3,508 crore, about US$500 million, up 47%. Some think a low depreciation rate has inflated the profitability, but that's still a remarkable achievement.

No figures were released for Jio Fiber. That's been actively promoted but the take rate apparently remains very low.

The next task is growing Jio Platforms: Movies, music, JioMart, and more coming.

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Verizon CTO: We have massive overcapacity

Verizon's wireless network is reliable and CTO Kyle Malady intends to keep it that way by enlarging capacity for unexpected changes. The chart at left shows he has more than doubled "capacity margin" despite capex being flat to down since 2013. 

(Among other things, this means Verizon has the capacity to bring 25 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up to at least two to three million currently unserved school kids. Probably more.)

Chess Grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch introduced the idea of "overprotection" in his classic My System. Nimzowitch recommended protecting an important pawn or square more than is apparently necessary. Your opponent may surprise you and need the "over" to respond.

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China Mobile 5G era: Profits Q1 up 2.3%, prices flat, traffic +37%

Productivity at China Mobile increased 35-40% overall, confirming the trend at Verizon and AT&T. 37% more traffic was carried at flat ARPU (+0.9%.) Profit was up slightly, 2.3%, implying that overall productivity rose at roughly the rate of traffic growth. That's a very rough measure, of course, but it corresponds to numerous results from carriers around the world.

"5G Network Customers" were 92.76 million, compared to "5G Package Customers" of 189 million. Analysts around the world are cheering that we now have more than the very misleading "package customer" figure. 4G & 5G packages cost the same, so subscribers took "5G packages" even though they didn't have a 5G phone. Fortunately, MIIT releases monthly figures of phone sales, which I used for my figure of 5G subscribers in China.

Phone manufacturers shipped 27 million 5G phones in China in the month of March. The total 5G in 2021 should be over 300 million in China, about as much as the rest of the world combined. 

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$1 average worldwide cost/gig; 35% traffic growth 2020; US 4X world

This remarkable chart from Phil Kendall is worth intense study. (Larger below) It shows the wireless cost per gig has gone down 88% in 5 years.

Prices continue to fall rapidly except in the US, almost flat the last three years. In competitive markets, price drops should continue as Massive MIMO, carrier aggregation, and other tech improvements will continue driving costs down. 

Worldwide traffic growth is down to 35%; I've noted many developed countries are now below 30% and falling. The explosive growth is over in much of the world, although the pandemic may create some anomalies.

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4G NB-IoT reading meters in India

It's good to see some demand for telco IoT, which despite the hype is growing very slowly. Tata Power in Delhi has just signed on with Reliance Jio for reading smart meters. Jio has 96+% 4G coverage of India. It has a massive Edge cloud & services build planned. 

Telco IoT demand is developing so slowly outside of China that companies like NTT are cutting back. The 5G hype for IoT is so extreme I've been part of a chorus of skeptics. 90%+ of IoT will use Wi-Fi. Telco revenue will mostly come from applications like meter reading, connecting outside the home or office.5G does little or nothing for IoT, which works fine in 4G.

China Mobile is the only carrier that has done well in IoT. It is approaching a billion connections. To do that, CM provides massive support, whether a company wants a turnkey system or just API access. It's driven prices all the way down, including for the modules manufacturers need. Massive orders achieved prices of just a few dollars, which it passed on.

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$152 Realme 5G Q2i

 There are 5 name brand 5G phones for sale on e-commerce giant jd.com for $152-$208. $152 (998 yuan) buys the 6'5" Realme Q2i, with a 5000mAh large battery, 18W flash charge, and three cameras.

The low price gets you "only" a 60 Hz refresh rate, "only" 13 megapixels, and no wireless charging. But it does have a headphone jack.

For $274, the realme GT Neo Super AMOLED display. This panel has a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels (FHD+), 120Hz refresh rate, 360Hz touch sampling rate, a 64 megapixel camera, and the more advanced Mediatek 1200 chip. 

Here are some reviews from Jingdong

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Robin Mersh passes Broadband Forum on

Robin Mersh has been central to the industry as head of the Forum since it was still the DSL Forum. He's now moved on to be SVP Sales for Virtuosi at QxP. 

Ken Ko is the new Managing Director. He was for many years a senior engineer at Adtran and Paradyme.

Dozens throughout the industry have commented on the change.

Tom Starr, for many years Chair of the Forum and ITU-T WP1/15 Chair

"Four Billion thanks to you Robin, for leading the BBF's effort to build the broadband network. The four billion people connected to the internet are benefiting from the BBF's help in making the internet better and connected to more people. Thank you and best wishes."

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