Big Questions for 2018-2020

What's most important to me to explore as I go to five events, Berlin to Hangzhou? 

What technologies to connect the next four million?

Massive MIMO may be a key tool, but of course, anything that brings down the price is crucial. Interesting choices with Wi-Fi. 

How many will switch from landlines to wireless as wireless speeds pass 100 megabits?

Capacity is critical, today only 5 gigabytes to 25 gigabytes most places. Free in France, selling 100 gigabytes for $24 points to the future, but that's less than half today's average consumption. Telstra is seeing a modest trend and 5-15% is common. Will that accelerate with better wireless?

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Who needs fiber? Backhaul By a Dozen Bonded DSLs

12 bonded lines of 35b VDSL should be able to deliver 2 gig downstream ~400 meters. That's comparable to the most common G.fast backhaul, 2.4 gig GPON. Telcos are confident few will use the high speeds simultaneously so the high over-subscription is realistic. Upstream on the older DSLs is lower, so the upstream will probably be limited.

Kurt Raaflaub says Adtran has trial units at customers. As far as I know, this is the first public description of bonded 35b and I hadn't anticipated this possible use. Deutsche Telekom says 35b will be ready for deployment the second half of 2018.

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Is Google Go-Long the Future of Fiber Home?

Cedric Lam on Oct 26 will unveil Go-Long. Google thinks "this new standard can reduce the network operating costs and investment costs." The only information is the press release, 

Go-Long is the company's new generation of optical access networks. Described by Google as a new Time and Wavelength Division Multiplexed Super PON (TWDM Super PON), the company believes that this new standard can reduce the network operating costs and investment costs. The company claims that the technology can do this by extending the transmission distance, which can reduce the number of central offices that need to deploy the optical line termination (OLT), significantly reducing equipment, space and power costs.

In other words, they ain't saying anything until the announcement at BBWF. 

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Answers Needed

Important issues, often not discussed, that I only have partial answers for. Ideas welcome.

Africa

Why are most African cables running at 10% capacity when users are so short of bandwidth?

Why did growth go from phenomenal to almost negligible across most of the continent early in 2016?

How many billions do the giant multinationals extract from African countries every year?

Is Massive MIMO Ready for Africa? Click read more for partial answers.

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Say Hello at Hangzhou Oct 18/19, Berlin Oct 23-26, Las Vegas 29-31, London Nov 15-16

Say hello to the round fellow with a beard. We start at Huawei's Ultra Broadband Forum, Hangzhou, October18-19, which will feature top executives from telcos around the world. Then to Berlin for Adtran's Press and Analyst event October 23, the Broadband Forum's Access Summit October 24, and the Informa Broadband World Forum on the 25th and 26th.

The Broadband Forum's Las Vegas Access Summit will be on the 29th followed by Calix Connections. Home to New York for a while, then I hope to attend Huawei's London Mobile Broadband Forum on Nov 15 & 16. The 2016 Huawei Mobile in Tokyo was one of the two best mobile events of the year. 

These are all strong events, worth the cost and travel. I'd love to share a coffee or a drink with readers and capture your news with Jennie's camera.

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Historic Promise: AT&T Soon Will Offer "1 Gig Speeds Ubiquitously." Mostly True

Randall Stephenson makes an extraordinary claim. "You need this gig speed," adding, "Over the next few years you get 1 gig speeds ubiquitously." Randall, unfortunately, has the same attitude to the truth as the average politician, even when speaking at Goldman Sachs.

AT&T's actual plan doesn't go that far but is remarkable. Some percentage of the country - ?5-15% - will not be covered. The "gig" will be 75 to 300 megabits down, most times and most places. That's not too shabby by any standard and a huge jump over the 5 meg to 25 meg speeds most common on LTE networks.

In wireless, I assume he mostly is planning "Gig LTE." In certain test conditions, that does deliver close to a gig. In the real world, the best analysis available indicates speeds will usually be a quarter gig or less. (Article coming.) But "gigabit" is a magic word so I'm not surprised he's using it. Even 75 megabits to 85-95% of the U.S. is A GOOD THING.

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All Rome To Be Fibered By Government Electric Company

Publicly owned electric/water utility Acea and government-controlled Enel Open Fiber have apparently reached a deal to bring fiber to every home in Rome in the next few years. By using publicly owned facilities in place, they expect to keep the cost under $400/home.

That figure is about 80% less than Australia's NBN is spending, and probably 30-50% less than AT&T is spending as they fiber 3M homes/year. On the other hand, Telefonica tells me their cost to fiber a home in Spain is similar to $400.

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Ericsson Cutting 25K Jobs

Svenska Dagbladet report not denied. Every large telco vendor outside of China has been suffering for several years, although Ericsson maintained an illusion until recently. Ericsson and Nokia remain remarkable companies with world-class engineers, but it's a tough business. An Ericsson exec in India estimates the world market is going down currently at ~5%/year. 

Official details are limited. Ericsson claims the cuts "do not include R&D." Neither Ericsson nor Nokia can cut research. They face Huawei, with an R&D budget larger than the combined spending of Ericsson, Nokia, and whomever you place third. All three have great products, but Huawei's greater research budget is allowing them to outflank others with a wider product line. 

The service division is the largest target. It's probably been losing money for several years but that's been buried in the financials. The video division, built up by spending billions, is on the block. That includes what once was Microsoft's IPTV.

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