Worldwide Small Cell Market to Grow Five-fold by 2019

Medium and large enterprises will boost the small cell market indoor residential coverage, with the total small cell market expected to surpass $1 billion by 2019

The Worldwide Small Cell market grew to $134.1 million, up 2.1 percent Q-Q and up 17.5 percent Y-Y. The market was primarily driven by the high demand for better indoor coverage. Small cells are not only used to offload traffic but also for backhauling and to substitute macro networks plugging the gap between capacity and demand for data. Residential and femtocells continue to be the key drivers of the current market growth; however, new multi-operator solutions with advanced SON features and interference avoidance are expected to have a tremendous positive impact to the market.

The growth in small cell market is expected to accelerate as operators realize that small cells are an increasingly cost-effective technology to add capacity while at the same time improve cell edge performance and increase the value of the spectrum they currently hold. Plug-n-play products equipped with advanced features and the latest 802.11ac WiFi and LTE technology will also add demand pressure.

“This quarter has yet again seen many indoor deployments, which will continue to grow but are expected to shift to enterprise and public access venues in the coming years. This shift will generate new business opportunities and sources of revenue for MNOs,” states Elias Aravantinos, principal analyst, ACG. “The ongoing hype around small cells is expected to end by 2016. High data demanding LTE networks and lack of spectrum in the macro layer will force the investment and deployment of a large volume of small cells to boost backhaul, access applications and new services. In the near future the demand of Gbyte levels at the small cell layer toward 5G adoption is expected to boost deployments and significantly affect operators’ spending. Finally, the market is expected to grow at least fivefold by 2019.”

TREND and DRIVER HIGHLIGHTS

• LTE connections worldwide increase 150%, growing the demand for high-speed connectivity indoor and outdoor

• 3G and LTE multimode small cells will continue to be on demand

• Integrating WiFi network with small and macro cells will enable operators to monetize WiFi

• The market is expected to grow because of increasing mobile data access pressure and increasing LTE subs

• Enterprise environment should enable MNOs to generate new sources of revenues

• Traditional microwave and potentially satellite are the top technologies for small cell backhaul applications

Click for more information about Elias Aravantinos.

    

    Elias Aranvantino

    earanvantino@acgcc.com

    www.acgcc.com

Small Cells: Ideal for Smart City Applications

“Digital urbanism” is rapidly becoming a central pillar for urban planners, technology architects, developers, and transportation providers, as well as in public service provision. For the last two years the UK has been pushing its smart cities concept and testing applications in collaboration with vendors and is, consequently, becoming an innovative test bed for smart applications. City councils throughout the countries are considering new high-capacity wireless and optical networks to efficiently support a wider range of end-user’ needs. The smart cities of the future could offer ultra-low latency connectivity for driverless cars, kilobits per second connectivity for machine to machine sensors to monitor the health of citizens with long-term chronic conditions, hundred megabits per second for ultra high-definition TV broadcasts, video surveillance and terabits per second data transfers for collaborative research and development programs between global universities.

Universities, which are a good place to look for future trends, are pushing hard to become “mini cities” and are frequently early adopters of smart city technology. One such example of “mini cities” is the University of Bristol, Cambridge, where staff is adding the new public platforms with the assistance of several vendors, such as NEC and Cisco. With small cells these “mini cities” could be easily rescaled to larger ones as they can effectively satisfy the requirement of a carrier-grade, high- capacity transport network in the urban environment.

The smart city technology architecture when boosted by the small cells should be able to deliver the following benefits:

• Simplicity and availability. End-to-end IP, high bandwidth guarantees high service quality and relatively low maintenance.
• Security. IP security mechanisms ensure a highly robust and resilient system.
• Multiservice. Solutions should place equal importance on data, voice, video, and sensors.
• Technological scalability. The new architecture should be designed to handle the large number of connected “things.”
• Business scalability. Solution should offer “pay-per-use” opportunities to enhance granularity so that it can be scaled as budgets allow.
• Manageability. The end-to-end nature of the solution makes maintenance easier by enabling greater visibility into the infrastructure.
• Flexibility. The architecture allows city managers and citizens to utilize the same services and information for their specific needs.

For more information about Elias Aravantinos click here.

 

    

    Elias Aranvantino

    earanvantino@acgcc.com

    www.acgcc.com

How Big a Threat Is VoWi-Fi to the LTE Operator?

For years Wi-Fi was looked upon as the off-load network. MNOs were glad to off load massive amounts of data traffic onto these low-end, best effort, “free” networks, providing, of course, that their LTE networks were at or near capacity. Priority one, keep the billing meter running and only off load once the meter is maxed out. How could these $100 access points running off consumer-grade best-effort broadband become a threat? After all, MNOs have spent 10s of billions on a carrier-class LTE infrastructure.

The cable operators realized that they have a near ubiquitous high-capacity network and adding Wi-Fi access points was an opportunity. As we have seen numerous times in the past, when cable companies see they have an opportunity they quickly take advantage of it. Today, Comcast claims to have more than four million access points, which will grow to eight million by the end of the year. Yes, about half of these are in subscribers’ homes where (unbeknownst to them) they are a public access point for their neighbors.

Now, along comes voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi). This solves one of the age-old industry dilemmas: Great mobile voice outside OR great mobile data inside. Small cells and DAS are solving the indoor voice problem today; however, they are starting from an installed base near zero, and deployments are nontrivial and customized per venue. Outdoor small cells also face the added challenges of power and backhaul.

Wi-Fi is as close to a ubiquitous technology you will find. Enterprises, small business and residential consumers all have become accustomed to having access to Wi-Fi everywhere. There are clearly technical challenges to deploying quality carrier-class VoWi-Fi, but these are all solvable. After all they have been solved in the LTE market. Examples include MIMO antennas, seamless roaming and improved Doppler tolerances.

Thus, one can assume that VoWi-Fi will work and will “off-load” a significant percentage of indoor voice calls from the LTE network. Should MNOs be concerned? Let’s do some simple math to try to answer this question. It’s widely reported that approximately 80% of mobile traffic originates indoors. In five years what percentage of indoor voice traffic will be on the Vo-Wi-Fi network and not on the LTE network? Let’s assume 50%. This is reasonable because iPhone and Samsung smart phones support VoWi-Fi calling, and mobile subscribers are very aware of the cost of exceeding their mobile data caps. Therefore, the MNO will see a 40% reduction in voice traffic over the RAN and EPC. The BIG question is what the impact on revenue will be. If we assume that the revenue impact is only 5%, a $20 billion/year MNO would see a $1 billion reduction in cash flow. If the cable companies only see 25% of that amount, that’s $250 million in cash to them. The difference is assumed to be lost to price reductions. 

MNOs, MSOs and service providers looking at offering VoWi-Fi services will need help to address this threat and opportunity and develop winning deployment and go-to-market strategies. Likewise, vendors in this ecosystem need to be cognizant of the multidimensional dynamics of the VoWi-Fi opportunity. ACG Research can help develop your business and marketing strategies.  We can provide a range of services from complete strategy development to creating high-impact differentiated messaging to product launch support. 

How big a threat is VoWi-Fi to the LTE operator? Today, the answer is not much. Tomorrow, the answer is simply when is tomorrow. 

Contact ACG for more information as to what we can do to help you at successfully offering VoWi-Fi services.

Greg Whelan

gwhelan@acgcc.com

acgcc.com

Gains in Evolved Packet Core Segment in 1Q 2014 WW Mobile IP Infrastructure Market

Although the 1Q 2014 Worldwide Mobile IP Infrastructure market decreased to $1.1 billion, the Evolved Packet Core (MME, PGW, SGW, and PCRF) grew 45% q-q and 4.9% y-y. Mobile service providers continue their investments in Mobile IP Backhaul and Packet Core networks, including significant capex spend shift to LTE networks. 

Cisco posted significant gains in Packet Core (MPC + EPC), increasing 306.3 percent q-q and 32.4 percent y-y. Cisco, which holds 43.2 percent of the total mobility market, has been focusing on its Packet Core offerings with a high price/performance portfolio strategy and winning in key LTE markets. Cisco’s core strengths in Packet Core and its extensive LTE core network experience are a result of its large/incumbent position in AT&T and Verizon Wireless where it has acquired complex deployment experience in 3G migration, LTE capacity planning, subscriber policy management, and multimedia/video revenue creation models.

Ericsson, which holds second place in the total mobility market, continues to lose market share in all segments, decreasing 28.3 percent q-q and down 30.2 percent y-y. The company reported 147 EPC contracts in 70 countries and 104 commercial live EPC networks in 1Q.

Alcatel-Lucent posted decreases of 10.7 percent q-q but increases of 4.5 percent y-y.  ALU announced 42 LTE EPC wins and 70+ total wireless packet core wins and (2G/3G, & 4G/LTE) to date, which helped put the company in a solid third place market share position. The North America regions accounts for 95 percent of ALU’s revenue in packet core.

2014 will see increases in mobile spending, globally, despite ARPU declining across many regions. EPC will continue to be a highly dynamic market for the next several years as vendors and carriers work through network virtualization. Mobile service providers are focused on optimization of RAN and Mobile Backhaul, as well as on their network capex and opex. Companies are delivering new innovations in Mobile Backhaul that are enabling mobile service providers to scale investments by reducing hardware costs by considerable amounts. Flexibility in Mobile Backhaul is a key requirement to winning the race for optimization. Many Tier 1 vendors have released or announced partnerships to provide a range of deployment options to mobile service providers, enabling planning and operations efficiencies. ACG expects innovations, investments and consolidations within the Mobile Backhaul segment in 2014.

For more information about ACG's Mobile IP Infrastructure services, contact sales@acgresesearch.net.

Ray Mota

rmota@acgresearch.net

www.acgresearch.net

F5: Business Cases

F5 Networks' solution delivers data center consolidation, DDos and S-Gi mobile network simplification.

Business Case for S/Gi Network Simplification: F5 provides a unified solution for delivery of S/Gi services. An S/Gi network simplification use case compared an alternative point products solution to the F5 unified solution. It shows that the F5 solution has 36% lower TCO.

Business Case for F5 DDoS Consolidated Solution: F5 provides a comprehensive DDoS mitigation solution using a two-tier (L3-4 and L7) architecture. As compared to a solution using multiple point products over five years it has 81% lower TCO, 80% lower CapEx and 82% lower OpEx.

Business Case for Data Center Network Consolidation: F5 provides a unified data center networking solution that delivers multiple services over a common hardware and software framework.  It uses a common hardware and software framework to deliver multiple services. This simplifies the configuration and management of network resources without any hardware restrictions. 

For more information about ACG's business case analysis services, contact sales@acgresearch.net.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Q3 2013 Mobile Market Update

The mobile infrastructure market continues to be a bright spot for the telecom industry. According to the industry statistics (GSA), 109 LTE networks have launched commercially in the past 12 months for a total of 222 commercial networks in 83 countries. The GSA expects 260 commercial networks by the end of 2013. Additionally, 474 operators in 138 countries are investing in LTE, of which 421 have made commitments to deploy.

Additionally, mobile broadband is living up to growth expectations: subscriptions are now over two billion, and the number is expected to grow to 9.3 billion by 2019. Of these, there are currently 100M LTE subscribers, and this expected to grow to two billion in five years. This approximate 4X growth in subscribers will drive a 10X growth in network traffic.

Mobile infrastructure spending remained strong in Q3 2013, up 3% annually to $1.2B. This growth is because of the continued strength in LTE globally, although North America is starting to peak, but other geographies are starting their ramp. The Chinese wireless carriers are just beginning their deployments, and we should see extensive growth in the coming quarters. EMEA is awakening from its slumber is starting to show signs of life.

Mobile IP Backbone grew 4.3% Y-Y. Mobile IP Backhaul continued its robust growth at 21.7% Y-Y as additional backhaul capacity is needed to deal with the increase in data handled at existing base stations as well as for new small cell sites. The Mobile Packet Core segment was down double digits Y-Y, primarily because of delays in North America.

Small cells have been one of the major hubs of innovation in the past few years and did not disappoint this quarter: it grew 42% Y-Y, with growth across all segments. Femtocells increased 57% Y-Y; picocells increase 34% Y-Y; and micro/metrocells increased 31% Y-Y. SP WiFi remained strong at 40% Y-Y increase and IP backhaul grew 22% Y-Y.

Small cell adoption has not been a smooth curve as some carriers misjudged consumers’ price sensitivity early in the adoption cycle and the demand did not meet initial expectations for femtocells. ACG sees the most interest in unlicensed spectrum/WiFi offload because of the lower costs and increased flexibility. Other issues that will impact adoption rate are LTE transitions/hetnet operations, hotpsot 2.0, new backhaul technologies such as millimeter wave and free space optics (FSO), and power.

The capacity enabled by LTE is rapidly changing the face of information technology and enabling the always-on/connected society. The next wave will enable high-quality video entertainment, video communications, gaming, location services and commerce, not just voice calls and texting. The race to  provide these services and be more than dumb pipes is paramount to MNOs. This pressure is propelling technology vendors to develop the solutions to enable and control this complex environment.

For more information about ACG's mobility services, contact sales@acgresearch.net.

David Dines
ddines@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch.net

Carriers’ CapEx Focuses on Edge Segment

The Total Worldwide Service Provider Carrier Router-Switch market is projected to increase from $11.9 B to $15.4 B by 2018 (CAGR 5.3%). From a regional perspective, the Americas and APAC will lead the growth as carriers respond to increases in data traffic, Big Data, virtualization, software-defined networking and the unrelenting demand for innovative and intelligent applications and services. The projected five-year growth will be strongest (in order of growth) in North America (CAGR +5.2%), APAC (CAGR +5.1%), LAM (GAGR 5.0%) and EMEA (CAGR +3.1%).

Carriers are focusing their CapEx on the edge segment. Why? The edge has significant impact on customers’ experiences and subscriber revenue. The edge segment, which is projected to reach $12.1 B in 2018, dominates the router market and is 3X the size of the core router market, which will increase $3.2 B in 2018. Driving edge growth is 1) the increase of bandwidth capacity of edge routers, 2) integration of network service functions, such as video services, NAT, security and threat management, 3) movement toward SDN, which approaches the network as an amalgamate and configurable resource and 4) traffic being pushed to the edge. Additionally, the cost of increasing bandwidth capacity in the core and carriers running their core networks hotter, and thus utilizing more resources, has pushed traffic to the edge.

Mobile backhaul is also driving this edge growth; more people are connecting with multiple devices, which is propelling operators to upgrade their backhaul networks with routers to support mobile services based on LTE and HSPA+ technologies. Mobile operator CTOs have been and will continue to focus on network cost economics, 3G-WiFi integration, and carrier aggregation.

The core router market, which is anticipated to grow to $3.2 B/5.4% by 2018, is also undergoing a transition. Carriers are utilizing a combination of MPLS and optical switching to handle traffic loads that are crossing the core and which do not require detailed analysis. The advantage of adding optical switching to a packet switch for carriers is twofold: this combination is more scalable, and time and costs associated with converting traffic between electronic and optical platforms are both reduced.

CapEx for the second half of this year is looking positive and expected to increase 7% year over year. Key drivers are LTE investment in mobility and Carrier Ethernet and 100G in the wireline side.

In the next five years service providers will continue to focus on monetizing emerging opportunities, which will require networks that enable them to accelerate service innovation, scale services, and expand the customers’ experiences, all within a viable economic framework.

For more information about ACGResearch’s Router and Switching services, contact sales@acgresearch.net.

Ray Mota

rmota@acgresearch.net

www.acgresearch.net       

Snapshot: Mobile Data Usage

The following are points about mobile data traffic for North America Tier 2 mobile operators:

• Four major consumption usage buckets: Media,Web/Search/Maps, Social, Utility Traffic. 

• Consumption of multimedia applications (YouTube, Netflix, and ESPN) is approximately 70% of total usage; capping of unlimited data plans has led consumers to consciously move toward using multimedia apps, mostly smartphones, while on Wi-Fi coverage.

• Utilities traffic is approximately 25% of the total data: Signaling (GTP attach, detach messages & PDP context activations) and IP control plane & session establishment traffic, initiated by smartphones; mobile carriers have been inaccurately complaining about smartphone control and signaling traffic, claiming that it is huge.

• Apple, Google & Microsoft are emerging as the smartphone OS & app store leaders: Google dominates in the mobile application eco system, both from data traffic consumption and percentage of users; Facebook is second in data traffic consumption and percentage of users.

• Most would assume that the largest percentage of video use is in the service provider space; however in actuality it is consumers that use the greatest percentage. The largest percentage of video use (70%) is on smartphone on WiFi networks.

To download the data, click here.

For more information about ACG Research's mobility services or video services, contact sales@acgresearch.net.

Ray Mota

rmota@acgresearch.net

www.acgresearch.net

Cisco Captures Pole Position in 1Q 2013 WW Mobile IP Infrastructure Market

1Q 2013 Worldwide Mobile IP Infrastructure market grew to $1.2B as Mobile SPs continue investments in Mobile IP Backhaul and Packet Core networks, including significant CapEx spend shift to LTE networks. This phenomenon has been prevalent in NAM for 12 months and is now taking shape in APAC. EMEA Mobile SPs are beginning to confidently plan LTE investments as the regulatory environment becomes more favorable.

Mobile IP Infrastructure Worldwide Market Shares Q1/13
Company	Rank	Market Share
Cisco	1	42.0%
Ericsson	2	15.5%
ALU	3	13.0%
NSN	4	7.1%
Huawei	5	5.8%

Cisco has executed well with significant market share gains in 1Q 2013, achieving pole position to lead all three segments: Mobile IP Backbone, Mobile IP Backhaul, and Packet Core at total 42 percent WW Mobile IP Infrastructure market share. Cisco has also out-executed Ericsson’s stated “seasonal weakness,” taking the #1 position in the coveted EPC segment. Although Cisco has focused its Packet Core offerings with a high price/performance portfolio strategy, its sales execution within the US, Canada, and EMEA markets is yielding strongholds in key LTE markets with wins in Vimpelcom (Russia), SFR (France), select T-Mobile properties in Europe, as well as with mobile network expansions in Bell Canada, du, Bharti Airtel, Tata, and KDDI. Cisco’s core strengths in Packet Core and its deep LTE core network experience are a result of its large/incumbent position in AT&T and Verizon Wireless where it has acquired complex deployment experience in 3G migration, LTE capacity planning, subscriber policy management, and multimedia/video revenue creation models.

Ericsson, despite its 1Q 2013 weakness, maintains its “Game of Thrones” empire on LTE networks. Massive global LTE deployments and a high rate of trial contract conversions/expansions, will fuel growth throughout 2013 for Ericsson. LATAM Mobile SPs have already selected key LTE suppliers, with Ericsson winning a majority market share. Ericsson has also demonstrated the world’s first end-to-end LTE broadcast video solution and has commercial deployment endorsements from Verizon Wireless and Telstra. Ericsson's unique combination eMBMS, HEVC and MPEG DASH, three new standards, enables Mobile SPs to provide premium video services with guaranteed quality and cost-efficient delivery over LTE.

Market Trends/Predictions

ACG sees several trends emerging in Mobile SP CapEx outlays. 3G network CapEx in RAN and core segments has eroded, and ACG expects a decline of 20–30% Y/Y through 2013 across many regions. Mobile IP Backhaul CapEx will continue to grow in double digits through 2013 globally as operators continue to optimize cell site capacity and network operations costs. ACG expects CapEx spend to increase 15–20% Y/Y on mmW and NLOS technologies as these are optimal for small cells and provide deployment flexibility in metro zones where macro cell sites do not make economic sense. ACG expects EPC to grow at record pace, averaging 45–50% Y/Y in 2013 with the US and Canada undergoing national builds, and with APAC and LATAM driving additional LTE ‘deployment’ revenues.

Next Wave of Mega LTE Networks: India & China

For the LTE industry overall, ACG predicts the next wave of growth opportunities will come from TD-LTE builds in India and China. Although the timing of mass LTE deployments in India is questionable, as policy/licensing issues, as well as regulator/tax collector actions against the country’s top Mobile SPs continue to escalate and cause unfavorable investment climate. In contrast, 3G subscriptions in China continue to skyrocket, and demand for TD-LTE networks with its inherent cost/spectrum efficiencies is at its peak. For example, China Mobile will spend more than $7 billion in CapEx this year on its TD-LTE network build. China Unicom and China Telecom will make decisions regarding TD-LTE in mid 2013, with rollouts beginning as early as end of 2013. Tier 1 vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens are tripling investments and resources in China to support accelerated TD-LTE build-outs.

For more information about ACG's Mobile IP Infrastructure services, contact sales@acgresesearch.net

Building Broadband Past the Saturation Point

U.S. broadband has reached the end of its growth phase, and the industry is now shifting from building infrastructure and acquiring customers to creating sustainable business models. 

The U.S. fixed-line broadband market appears to have reached the saturation point. The most recent FCC broadband report with data through 2011 indicates that about 80% of U.S. households are served by fixed-line broadband. It also shows the classic S shaped market development curve with the last inflection point in the S occurring in 2007. This data, when combined with year-end 2012 data from the largest fixed-line broadband operators, confirms market saturation. Fixed-line broadband connections for 4Q12 compared to the previous year showed little change: AT&T (NYSE: T) 0.3%, CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) 3.5%, Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) 6%, and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) 1.4%.

Click here to read Michael Kennedy's FierceTelecom article.

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Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

MWC 2013: New Venue, New Industry Spirit from Barcelona

Mobile World Congress 2013 has given the industry a boost of revitalization, focused on creating change and driving technology innovation to improve how we connect.

Mobile World Congress 2013 wrapped up last week in Barcelona at a new venue, the magnificent Fira Grand Via, with record attendance. Although this attendance created too much traffic and congestion, it did not dissuade industry delegates from collaborating and demonstrating a new industry spirit focused on innovation and human advancement in the area of mobile technologies.

Even without notable industry leaders such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, which declined to participate so that they could maximize their own events for major announcements, LG, Huawei, and ZTE took main stage with audiences and industry press. Samsung clearly established position with sizable show investment in the areas of mobile devices and consumer focused messaging, though it also decided to strategically shift its flagship “Galaxy S4” launch to New York in two weeks.

MWC 2013 showcased new themes; most notably it spotlighted Software Defined Networking (SDN) by vendors. In the mobile IP infrastructure segment, Juniper focused on the release of a virtualized platform for SGSN/MME functions. ACG expects other vendors to update road maps and further make announcements in 2013 in this area.

Machine to Machine (M2M) was another major theme with presentations and discussions on standards-based industry adoption. M2M industry has been fragmented, but mobile SPs see significant opportunity in developing services and ecosystems. ACG expects M2M data traffic to consume 20 percent of global mobile data demand in five years.

Small Cells segment saw a plethora of announcements: silicon leaders such as Broadcom and Texas Instrument released new product families to support multigeneration technologies such as 3G and LTE within a single System on a Chip (SoC). 

Mobile SPs also announced initiatives, such as cloud-based services to support third-party (HTML5 compliant) platforms from Jolla, Mozilla (Firefox OS), and Ubuntu (Linux).

Although much of the discussion was focused on the OTT industry segment and how to work together, ACG believes mobile SP business models will need to further evolve to adopt the range of innovation offered by companies such as Viber.

MWC 2013 did not disappoint. Attendees walked with innovative ideas and information, which will, no doubt, will be the foundation for creating more change and driving technology innovation in 2013.

For more information about ACG Research's mobility syndicated and consulting services, contact sales@acgresearch.net.

Ray Mota

rmota@acgresearch.net

www.acgresearch.net

LTE Acceleration and Mobile IP Backhaul Fuel 4Q 2012 Market Growth

4Q 2012 Mobile IP Infrastructure market grew 13.5% Y/Y, reflecting strong growth in Mobile IP Backhaul and LTE acceleration.

LTE spending in 2012 has surpassed industry expectations and will continue to grow at unprecedented levels in 2013. In 4Q 2012, GSMA confirms 32 new LTE networks were commercially launched, now totaling 134 LTE networks with subscribed customers running worldwide. Mobile data traffic doubled on global networks in 2012, and is expected to double again in 2013. The proliferation of Android and iOS is also pushing up monthly average mobile data usage; ACG estimates smartphone usage on mobile networks in 2013 will increase to an average 862MB/month, globally.

As mobile SPs undergo service development and differentiation for LTE networks, they are migrating 3G networks to serve as economy class networks for low- to mid-market segment service offerings, such as value plans, MVNO wholesale, and M2M communications. Compared to LTE investments, 3G vendors' revenues still represent the majority of total market spend but will continue to decline globally over next three years. 

4Q 2012  Worldwide  Mobile IP Infrastructure  Market Share
Vendor	Rank	Market Share
Cisco	1	36.3%
Ericsson	2	19.3%
Alcatel-Lucent	3	14.0%
NSN	4	9.7%
Huawei	5	6.5%

SON, SDN, and Virtualization: Impact on Mobile IP Network Infrastructure

ACG expects Self-Optimizing Networks (SON), Software Defined Networking (SDN), and Virtualization to have a high degree of impact to vendors providing SP Mobile IP Network Infrastructure. Many vendors have plans to announce revised product road maps and innovations at Mobile World Congress 2013.  Currently, Nokia Siemens is the only major packet core vendor shipping products using commercial off-the-shelf components using ACTA standard.

ACG expects the market to radically change and innovate with technology shifts and influences occurring in SON, SDN, and virtualization. These shifts will threaten vendors’ positions and value propositions, as network economics evolve and mobile SPs adopt distributed core architectures.

For more information about ACG Research's EPC syndicated and consulting services, contact sales@acgresearch.net.

Ray Mota

rmota@acgresearch.net

www.acgresearch.net

Business Case for Juniper Networks Virtualized Mobile Control Gateway

Juniper Networks announced its new software and services virtual Mobile Control Gateway, which enables mobile service providers to build software-defined networks (SDN). “With mobile traffic growth exploding, operators need a virtualized Mobile Packet Core for scaling capacity up and down to both increase service velocity and control costs.  Our research has validated that Juniper’s virtual Mobile Control Gateway (vMCG) has a 54 percent lower total cost of ownership over five years and the time to deploy the initial implementation is 46 percent faster than a standalone appliance-based solution.  In addition, the vMCG provides incremental capacity additions in 87 percent less time, enabling operators to address the volatility of mobile control plane traffic driven by smartphones and smartphones apps.” Dr. Ray Mota, managing partner, ACG Research.

Click here to download the TCO. 

For more information about ACG Research's business case analysis service click here. 

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Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

CES 2013: One Big Step for Mobility

CES 2013, which has truly established itself as a major mobile venue for North America, wrapped up with record attendance last week, with major innovations and announcements by vendors of all sizes and industry segments. The show has transformed itself from a pure television and consumer electronics forum, to a cross-industry event representing market segments ranging from Ultra HD TVs to a Rolls Royce electric car. Interestingly, it was only eight years ago at this show during Bill Gates’ Windows Media Center demo, which resulted in the historic blue screen of death. 

Bits and bytes

Also present at CES was FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Despite some heckling, he announced additional 195MHz of spectrum will be allocated in the 5GHz bad for WiFi 802.11ac, also known as Gigabit WiFi. This is the first time in more than 20 years the FCC has allocated such an amount of public use spectrum without a multibillion dollar auction process. How times have changed ….

Although Mobile World Congress continues to be the leading global mobile industry venue, CES has received noticeable attention from mobile infrastructure, devices, platform, and ecosystem vendors this year. All major device and platform vendors made key announcements, ranging from Huawei’s 6.1 inch Android smartphone to Panasonic’s 20 inch tablet. 

Mobile got star attention at CES 2013. Gone are the days of titans promoting Blu-ray disc format to mainstream vendors.  Instead there were displays of the latest processors and handheld devices running Android. Chinese vendors spent significant resources to showcase new innovations, with Huawei receiving very positive media attention (rare in the North America trade press). 

With the absence of US tech giants (Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.), Samsung stole the show with its bold announcements and innovations. Traditionally known for its conservative methods, Samsung surprised the industry and openly discussed developing projects such as its San Jose, CA, Display Lab innovations (featuring flexible screens) and spoke about its partnership with ARM, showcasing first- generation Octa-core processors. 

CES 2013 captured the mobile industry’s attention and this is significant, especially where tweets, specialist bloggers, and trade media rarely have spent keystrokes to recognize the venue. Oddly, this year trade media financed their editorial staff to cover the news and events. Even mainstream pundits who had publicly denounced and written off the CES event this year, later embarrassingly admitted they were wrong. CES is now a mainstream mobile venue for North America.

For more information about ACG’s mobility services, contact sales@cgresearch.net.