WCA May 2018

Telecom news

race between the US and China to see who will be first to deploy” 5G in a large way. Whichever is first, the deployment should reassure Americans con- cerned about unemployment. Mr Dano of FierceWireless cited the USA wireless industry trade association CTIA to the effect that a build-out of 5G will mean an addition of $500 billion to USA gross domestic product (GDP), alongside the creation of 850,000 new jobs. Elsewhere in telecom . . . Ø Early last year, responding to complaints that iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE battery performance significantly declined over time, Apple issued a software update that tamped down the processor performance of the handsets to offset the battery drain. It was not disclosed that the update would affect handset performance. This was a miscalculation, wrote Tara Seals of FierceWireless (7 th February), with the handset slowdowns prompting further user indignation. In December, Apple acknowledged that its update intentionally slowed performance; apologised; and lowered the price of battery replacements for affected models from $79 to $29. Ms Seals reported that Apple was considering an extension of the discounted battery replacement programme beyond the end of 2018. In answer to questions from a US senator, Apple said that, “after gathering and analysing data,” it could declare the hardware update initiative a success. The company added that subsequent versions would not suffer the same performance degradation that the earlier, faulty, iPhone models had seen. Ø According to Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute, if the country’s telecom industry is to be competitive it needs at least 80,000 communications towers to support its networks.

Currently it has only 27,000, and the Institute for Tele- communication Rights (IDET) believes there must be more investment by tower companies to address the shortage. “There are few countries in Latin America, and perhaps in the world, as complicated as Mexico in terms of telecommunications infrastructure, and while this industry is often described as a gold mine, in reality it is very far from that,” the telecom tower firm TowerXchange told the Monterrey-based newspaper Milenio (5 th February). According to TowerXchange an- alysts, opportunities reside in the deployment of shared networks that offer coverage to both urban and rural markets. Milenio noted that carriers operating in Mexico once provided their own towers. But, since 2015 when telecom reforms curbed the tower operating business of near-monopoly Telmex-América Móvil, foreign firms poured in and now own nearly half of all the telecom towers in the country. Ø CenturyLink recently surpassed AT&T as the largest domestic Ethernet carrier in the USA, and the Louisiana-based service provider plans to strengthen its position by using its SDN-based architecture to support a new set of services and cloud options for business customers. As reported by Sean Buckley of FierceTelecom (26 th February), CenturyLink put an end to a nearly 13-year reign by AT&T as No 1 in Ethernet by means of its acquisition of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications – and with it a broader range of global service areas in Europe and Latin America. “A key element of CenturyLink’s advancement on the domestic and international Ethernet stage is a broader on-net fibre footprint,” wrote Mr Buckley. In acquiring Level 3, CenturyLink gained an additional 200,000 route miles of fibre, including 64,000 route miles in 350 metropolitan areas and 33,000 subsea route miles connecting continents.

As reported by Mike Dano of FierceWireless , Mr Colao suggested that the concurrent rise of populism, with its “power to the people” ethos, might be understood as an expression of anger. He said that technologies like 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) will likely “deliver a better deal” to those worried about their prospects in a changing, challenging world. (“Vodafone CEO Hints at How 5G Can Counter the Rise of Populism,” 26 th February) Mr Colao pointed to Milan, the Italian city that serves London-based Vodafone and other providers as a testbed for 5G and related technologies. He said that 80 per cent of the city will be 5G-enabled by the end of this year, with 100 per cent coverage to be expected by the end of 2019. Among what Vodafone terms its “5G use cases” in Milan: Ø Connected ambulances that act like extensions of the hospital, with emergency responders in contact with hospital-based staff able to promptly commence diagnosis and treatment Ø “Dynamically allocated” busy public spaces through and around which sensors can regulate vehicle and pedestrian traffic Ø 5G-connected cameras, including drone-mounted, that monitor public and private spaces for security and safety “Can this become the model?” Mr Colao asked, making a pitch for inexpensive access to spectrum, “fair” regulations, and openness to public-private partnerships. Ø DoCoMo CEO Kazuhiro Yoshizawa mentioned a similar set of purposes for 5G technology, with special reference to the operator’s stated aim of improving the health and well-being of Japanese citizens. DoCoMo, which has said it will launch 5G technology in 2020 in time for the summer Olympics in Japan, is working with more than 600 partners, including 15 entities that work at the company’s 5G trial site. Ø While the operators referenced by FierceWireless are European and Japanese, Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri has said, “It’s a neck-and-neck

43

www.read-wca.com

Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2018