Digital Services in the 21st Century E-Book

Antonio Sánchez

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: IEEE ComSoc Pocket Guides to Communications Technologies
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 389

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Telecommunication Services provides a holistic approach to understand telecommunications systems by addressing the emergence and domination of new digital services, consumer and economic dynamics, and the creation of content by service providers. * Includes services, underlying technologies, and internal capabilities for social network advertising * Covers market dynamics that determine the successes and failures of service offerings * Discusses the impact of smartphones (iPhone launch) on the telecommunications and mobile device industry

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Series Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

List of Contributors

Chapter 1: The Evolving Voice Services: From Circuit Switching to Voice-Over LTE/FTTH)

1.1 Customer Need: Remote Communication

1.2 FTTH Voice

1.3 Voice-Over LTE (VoLTE)

1.4 Voice-Over WiFi

1.5 High-Definition (HD) Voice

1.6 Over-the-Top Substitutes

Acronyms

Notes

Chapter 2: Internet Services: From Broadband to Ultrabroadband

2.1 Customer Need: Connectivity and Social Inclusion

2.2 Fixed Lines: Deploying Fiber Closer to Customer Premises: xDSL, Cable, FTTH

2.3 Mobile: 4G LTE/LTE-Advanced

2.4 WiFi AC (Gigabit)

2.5 Universal Access

Acronyms

Notes

Chapter 3: Convergence: Bundling Fixed Line and Mobile Services

3.1 Customer Need: One-Stop Shop

3.2 Fixed Line and Mobile Service Bundles

3.3 Integrated Operators

Acronyms

Notes

Chapter 4: Devices: Smartphones

4.1 Customer Need: Mobility

4.2 Vendors

4.3 Operating System Duopoly

4.4 Hardware Specifications

Acronyms

Notes

Chapter 5: The Evolving Pay TV

5.1 Customer Need: Entertainment

5.2 Content Wars

5.3 Aggregation Versus Diversity

5.4 The Role Of Advertising

5.5 Technology: Satellite, Cable, and IPTV

5.6 Pay TV Technicall Key Components

5.7 Evolution of Interactive Pay TV Technologies

5.8 Video Definition

Acronyms

Notes

Chapter 6: Enterprise: From Machine-to-Machine Connectivity Toward Internet of Things

6.1 Customer Need: Remote Automation

6.2 Basic Connectivity and Managed Connectivity

6.3 Low-Power Wide Area: LTE-MTC and Alternatives

6.4 Applications: Toward Internet of Things

6.5 Acronyms

Notes

Chapter 7: IT: Cloud

7.1 Global Trends Driving the Cloud Evolution

7.2 Virtualization as Enabling Technology

7.3 The Layered Cloud Model

7.4 Advanced Cloud Models

7.5 Future Cloud Models

7.6 Conclusion and Summary

Notes

Chapter 8: Emerging Markets: Mobile Money for the Unbanked

8.1 Customer Need: Remote Payments

8.2 Large Unbanked Population in Emerging Markets

8.3 Very High Penetration of Mobile based on Feature Phones

8.4 Services: Remittances and Payments

Acronyms

Notes

Chapter 9: Value-Added Consumer Services

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Disruption is the New “Karma”

9.3 Adjacent Industries Joining Multilayered Value Chain

9.4 Telco's Role and Challenges in the New Paradigm

9.5 But What do we Understand by VAS Today?

9.6 So What's the Future for VAS and, Thus, for Telcos?

Acronyms

Notes

Chapter 10: Mobile Virtual Network Operators/Second Brands

10.1 From Oligopoly to Marketplace

10.2 MVNO Ecosystem: End Customer Facing or MVNOs

10.3 MVNO Ecosystem: Technology Enablers, MVNE, and MVNA

Acronyms

Note

Chapter 11: Digital Home

11.1 Introduction to Home Automation

11.2 Evolution to Digital Home

11.3 Home Automation: Control Network

11.4 Digital Home Networks

Acronyms

Notes

Chapter 12: Videoconference and Telework

12.1 Customer Need: Teletransport

12.2 Videoconference

12.3 Telework

Acronyms

Notes

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Table 6.1

Table 6.2

Table 6.3

Table 6.4

Table 6.5

Table 6.6

Table 6.7

Table 6.8

Table 6.9

Table 7.1

Table 8.1

Table 8.2

Table 8.3

Table 8.4

Table 8.5

Table 12.1

List of Illustrations

Figure 5.1

Figure 5.2

Figure 5.3

Figure 5.4

Figure 7.1

Figure 7.2

Figure 7.3

Figure 7.4

Figure 10.1

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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IEEE Press445 Hoes LanePiscataway, NJ 08854

IEEE Press Editorial BoardTariq Samad, Editor in Chief

Giancarlo Fortino

Xiaoou Li

Ray Perez

Dmitry Goldgof

Andreas Molisch

Linda Shafer

Don Heirman

Saeid Nahavandi

Mohammad Shahidehpour

Ekram Hossain

Jeffrey Nanzer

Zidong Wang

Digital Services in the 21st Century

A Strategic and Business Perspective

Antonio Sánchez

Belén Carro

Universidad de Valladolid, Spain

Copyright © 2017 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-119-31485-1

To Diego

Foreword

If there had been any doubt that our global society has moved into a digital century, it has surely been dispelled by the dramatic adoption of mobile phones now estimated to reach 4.6 billion subscribers, some of whom having more than one mobile. As to the so-called “smartphones,” there are estimated to be about 3 billion subscribers to these devices. These numbers will almost certainly increase as the “Internet of Things” evolves and the associated devices begin to populate residential and enterprise operations at paces comparable to the mobile phone influx of the past decade. Already very dependent on devices linked to the Internet and the services they offer or rely upon, it seems predictable that our dependency will grow and that our vulnerability to buggy software or malware will increase.

There are many implications of this observation. The first is that we will need to prepare for a fragile future and that we need the makers of these devices and their software to be extremely thoughtful and careful to avoid major vulnerabilities. Second, we will need to update software in these myriad devices in a way that is secure and ensures with high probability that a valid update has been recorded. Third, we will be faced with configuring increasing numbers of devices and we need to make this process as simple, painless, and reliable as possible, especially as they change hands with people moving from place to place and inheriting or taking their many devices with them. Fourth, we will need to stay highly cognizant of the potential hazards to privacy that these programmable devices pose. Even simple information such as room temperature taken every few minutes might be useful for ascertaining whether people are present and where they are. At the least, a record of temperatures could reveal how many family members there are, what rooms they prefer, and when they might be away. Many other scenarios can be fashioned that highlight these risks and remind us that not all technology results in positive outcomes.

At the same time, we would be remiss not to speculate about the rich potential of artificial intelligence to smooth our interactions with a world populated with software-filled cyber-physical systems. Incredible advances have been made in the past decade with natural language processing, text to speech production, speech recognition, logical reasoning about the real world, image and sensor understanding, robotics, and navigation. Artificially intelligent assistants are becoming more common and more useful as they gain ability to communicate with each other, with computer-based systems and with the humans they serve.

It seems reasonable to anticipate that the human thirst for knowledge itself will be augmented increasingly by the use of pattern-recognizing software systems to the point that some aspects of discovery may be attributed to artificially intelligent programs that will sift vast amounts of data looking for correlations and anomalies adding to the sum of human knowledge. Whatever else the twenty-first century may bring, it will be a time of rapid innovation and discovery, rivaling centuries of the past and casting light into the future.

Finally, one cannot help but be concerned about the preservation of the vast quantities of digital information that will be produced in the decades ahead. Digital media have uncertain lifetimes and the interpretation of binary information often requires specific, executable software to render the meaning of any preserved bits. Software that runs now may not run on future machines and future operating systems, leaving us with vast quantities of “rotten bits.” Forestalling a potential digital dark age will be another of the challenges that lie ahead as we fashion a future filled with new digital services upon which our society will depend.

Vinton G. Cerf

Preface

This textbook is targeted to postgraduate or advanced undergraduate students. Gone are the days when voice was the only telecommunications service. In the current digital world, broadband and wireless networks enable multiple services, which are continuously evolving. Therefore, an updated textbook is needed that presents the rapidly evolving communications infrastructure to date and the exciting services that it supports. This is drastically different from the old style books on the telco infrastructure focusing on telco-centric network and services such as PSTN or B-ISDN.

This book presents the main products and services that are provided by current digital providers (Information and Communication Technologies players, including Internet behemoths, telecommunications operators, etc.). It covers services such as enriched communications, fixed and mobile broadband, financial services for unbanked in emerging markets, Pay TV, data communications for machines (also known as Internet of Things), digital home, and so on. This book is a complete and structured compendium of successful digital services with illustrative examples.

It should be stressed that this book's focus is on services paid for by customers (i.e., not those subsidized with advertising like social networks), but not the underlying technologies or internal capabilities to offer them that are not directly perceived by customers (therefore, out of scope are important topics of network management or a deep dive into future network technologies like Software Defined Networks and Network Function Virtualization, the future 5G networks, Fog computing architectures, etc.).

As opposed to technical-only textbooks, all topics in this book are addressed by taking into account the reason why customers demand the service, as well as the strategic and business perspective of how players can leverage competitive advantages to provide those services, that is, the underlying consumer and economic dynamics that determine the success or failure of service offerings.

By doing so, readers can get a better understanding of the key services in the highly dynamic Internet and telecom industries. They can get a holistic view of the main services from a strategic perspective. These up-to-date new areas have become extremely dynamic, and is still subject to continuous change.

The book is structured around six sections, each composed of one or more chapters, as follows:

Core telecommunications services

Voice

Broadband

Convergence

Devices

Telecom, cable and Pay TV becoming a single industry

Pay TV

Services for enterprises

IoT

Cloud

Emerging markets

Unbanked

Other

Value-added services

MVNOs

Innovation: This section shows other digital services that so far have not been adopted massively by paying customers; therefore, they are still labeled as innovation in this book.

Digital home

Videoconference and telework

Antonio Sánchez

Belén Carro

Acknowledgments

Our gratitude to all the people who have made this book possible. First of all, to the contributors who have helped with some of the chapters. Also, to the publisher (particularly Mary Hatcher and Divya Narayanan for their support) and the IEEE for giving us this opportunity. In addition, the reviewers who provided feedback to improve, at both the proposal stage and during the writing of this book.

List of Contributors

Jesus Llamazares Alberola

Jaime Bustillo

Joaquín M. Lopez Muñoz

Francisco Saez

Stefan Wesner

Chapter 1The Evolving Voice Services: From Circuit Switching to Voice-Over LTE/FTTH)

Voice is the most pervasive telecommunication service, particularly mobile voice, with 4.7 billion unique mobile subscribers as of April 2016,1 out of a total 7.8 billion mobile connections. Legacy circuit switched voice still accounts for majority of world telecom customers; however, voice-over IP is finally starting to replace it. Voice-over IP technologies such as H.323, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), and voice codecs including wideband, carrier grade infrastructure known as IMS-IP Multimedia Subsystem2 have been available for more than a decade, but deployment of All-IP access networks (FTTH (Fiber-to-the-Home) and LTE (Long-Term Evolution)) has been the trigger for their adoption. Only in the enterprise segment, the legacy PBX systems have initiated the migration earlier. In fixed networks, initial FTTH deployments maintained simultaneous use of legacy copper for voice. In 4G mobile networks, fallback to 2G/3G for voice has been a temporary patch until VoLTE deployment in the network and progressive availability of enabled devices. HD Voice is included in VoLTE, but is also available in 3G networks without VoIP. Voice-over WiFi is emerging as a complement mainly for zones with poor cellular coverage.

1.1 Customer Need: Remote Communication

Voice has been the dominant, or even only, telecommunications service for decades. The possibility of talking to people in remote places has been, and still is, a killer application. It has substituted more primitive means to communicate, both non-real-time and real-time. Furthermore, the convenience of talking wherever you are, thanks to the more recent mobile telephony that has certainly surpassed the success of fixed telephony, allows one to communicate in more remote areas without terrestrial infrastructure.

1.2 FTTH Voice

The penetration of FTTH subscribers is still nascent; for example, in Europe there were almost 36 million (including Fiber to the Building) in Europe at the end of September 2015.3 This has triggered the adoption of voice-over IP in fixed lines, although initial FTTH deployments supported simultaneous use of legacy copper for voice. Typically, the FTTH customer premises equipment, Optical Network Terminal (ONT), includes a voice port (RJ-11 connector) that interfaces with the legacy internal copper network or directly with the legacy telephony terminal. The usage is transparent for customers, since they make and receive calls normally with their legacy endpoints. The FTTH device includes a gateway that converts analog telephony into voice-over IP, which in turn is connected to the VoIP infrastructure of the operator.

1.3 Voice-Over LTE (VoLTE)

Voice-over LTE is the name given to the technology that provides telephony to 4G customers. It is based on voice-over IP, since LTE gets rid of circuit switched voice. In order to guarantee voice quality, VoLTE traffic is prioritized versus other kinds of traffic, which is also IP. Initial LTE deployments did not include VoLTE support, resorting to Circuit Switched FallBack (CSFB), which is based on disconnecting voice from the 4G network and connecting it to a legacy network (3G or even 2G) to establish the voice call. Once the call is finished, 4G connection can be set up again.

As of the end of the first quarter of 2016, there were 58 operator launches, in 32 countries,4 with 228 end user devices. This was still a relatively small percentage of the total number of LTE networks: 467 operators in 153 countries, reaching 48% of the population. As could be expected, these countries are mainly in Europe, North America, South East Asia, and Oceania:

Asia Pacific:

– Japan by NTT Docomo, KDDI, and Softbank (the “big three”)

– South Korea by Korea Telekom (KT/KT Powertel), SK Telekom, and LG Uplus

– Hong Kong by China Mobile, 3 (Hutchinson), CSL (HKT), and SmarTone

– Singapore by SingTel, StarHub, and M1

– Taiwan by Hon Hai, Asia Pacific Telecom, and Taiwan Mobile

– Australia by Telstra and Vodafone

– China by China Unicom and China Mobile (not China Telecom)

– Others: Indonesia by XL (Axiata) and SmartFren; Thailand by AIS, TrueMove, and Telenor (DTAC); Kuwait by KTC; Cambodia by Southeast Asia Telecom, and others

Europe:

– France by Bouygues and Orange

– Germany by Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica,

5

and Vodafone (all three mobile network operators)

– Italy by Telecom Italia and Vodafone

– The United Kingdom by 3 (Hutchinson) and Everything Everywhere (BT)

– Spain by Vodafone

6

– Others: Austria by Telekom Austria; Czech Republic by Deutsche Telekom; Denmark and Norway by Telenor; Switzerland and Liechtenstein by Swisscom; The Netherlands by Tele2; Portugal by Vodafone; Romania by Orange

7

; Russian Federation by Vimpelcom, and others

North America

– The United States by AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Verizon Wireless, and Evolve Broadband (big four except Sprint-Softbank)

– Canada by Rogers and Bell

Africa: Tanzania, Uganda, and Nigeria by Smile; South Africa by Vodacom (Vodafone)…

It can be seen that all major mobile telecommunication groups in the world have launched VoLTE in at least one market. Among the exceptions are

America Movil in Latin America

Etisalat and Saudi Telecom in Middle East

China Telecom in China

Bharti Airtel in India

Telekomunikasi Indonesia and Chungwa Telecom in Asia

Telia in Europe

MTN in Africa

Telus in Canada

…

However, it has to be noted that as of April 2016, there were already 126 operators investing in VoLTE deployments, trials, or studies in 60 countries.8

In terms of adoption, the operator that is most further along is probably AT&T, which launched in mid-2014, and as of the end of 2015, has more than 27 million VoLTE subscribers (the highest in the United States), and has a coverage for 295 million Americans.9

In November 2015, South Korea became the very first country to provide commercially interoperable VoLTE service among operators.10 Before this milestone, customers could only enjoy the superior quality of VoLTE when calling other customers of the same operator. There are three operators (KT, SKT, and LG Uplus) with around 35 million VoLTE-enabled subscribers that are fully commercially interoperable. By that time, South Korea has marketed 90 different models of VoLTE-enabled handsets in the country. It has to be noted that the three operators were also the first in the world to launch their respective standalone services in December 2012, with the next country launching in May 2014 only.

Also a Korean operator achieved another major world milestone in terms of interoperability—in this case, an international roaming service. At the end of 2015, South Korea's KT and Japan's NTT DOCOMO offered a bilateral VoLTE roaming service. Previous milestones were unilateral (e.g., Korean LG Uplus with Japanese KDDI). Other mobile network operators involved in VoLTE roaming trials include China Mobile, KPN, SK Telecom, and Verizon Wireless.11

In terms of end user devices, the number includes carrier and frequency variants. As of June 2015 (219 VoLTE capable out of 3253 LTE devices), 198 smartphones had been announced by all the leading vendors, including Apple, Asus, Fujitsu, HTC, Huawei, LG, Motorola, Pantech, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony Mobile.12

1.4 Voice-Over WiFi

Voice-over WiFi (VoWiFi) is the term used by operators in order to refer to the provision of telephony services over a WiFi access. From the user perspective, the experience is similar to VoLTE, or traditional voice, that is, just call and answer. However, from the network perspective, it is quite different, since the WiFi network is not an integrated part of the mobile network. And therefore, the quality of the call can be poorer, and in general similar to that of over-the-top (OTT) applications.

Compared to VoLTE, the number of VoWiFi launches is much more limited, just 18 operators in 11 countries, by the end of March 2016. Also, deployments have been much more recent, starting only in September 2014 (in the United States by T-Mobile/Deutsche Telekom). In the United States, all four major operators have launched VoWiFi by now. Other countries with more than one operator include the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Canada. The remaining markets are China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Liechtenstein, South Africa, and Thailand. It has to be noted that most operators that have launched VoWiFi in a given market have also launched VoLTE in the same market. An exception is Sprint (Softbank) in the United States.

There have been operators that have launched VoWiFi service, without integrating it tightly with the VoLTE/IMS infrastructure and devices. One example is Telefonica in the United Kingdom and Latin America, with its service TU (formerly TU Go) that can be considered a pioneer in the world (perhaps together with Rogers in Canada), since it was launched in the United Kingdom in March 2013 (and afterward in Argentina, Peru, Brazil, and Colombia).13 In the first quarter of 2016, it announced the integration with iPhone's native WiFi calling feature in Brazil.

Another announcement worth mentioning is the collaboration between Google and mobile network operators (19 major ones) in the field of Rich Communications Suite (RCS). Google will provide the user experience for Android devices (including an open-source version of the client), initially for messaging, but with support for advanced calling features, which among other things also include calling over WiFi, in the future.14

1.5 High-Definition (HD) Voice

High-Definition voice provides superior voice quality based on wideband codecs, which (as opposed to legacy telephony) include more frequencies (bandwidth) of the analog sound (legacy narrowband reaches 3 kHz, whereas human voice reaches 14 kHz). HD voice has been available for quite long time, for both voice-over IP applications and circuit switched telephony (particularly mobile, even before 4G, with 3G and even 2G15). Therefore, the number of commercial services is more widespread, with 162 operator launches in 89 countries as of the end of the first quarter of 2016, including VoLTE deployments.

1.6 Over-the-Top Substitutes

The term “over-the-top” refers to services that are offered independent of the underlying network. One of the most prominent consumer over-the-top applications for PC has been Skype, which is now part of Microsoft. In January 2016, the company reported that Skype has over 900 million downloads on iOS and Android.16 It also has an enterprise counterpart, called Skype for Business, with a major update released in December 2015, including voice telephony without PBX, and online meetings for up to 10,000 participants.

Perhaps the most prevalent over-the-top application for mobile is WhatsApp,17 which was started in 2009. In early 2014, WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook for $16 billion ($4 billion in cash, and around $12 billion in shares).18 In February 2016, it reached the astonishing milestone of 1 billion monthly active users, although it has to be noted that its predominant usage is for messaging. It is worth mentioning that WhatsApp was an inexpensive app, but in early 2016 the company announced that it was becoming free, that is, no longer charging any subscription fees; its usage is also free in free WiFi networks, but of course it consumes data allowance if used with mobile broadband. The company also confirmed that it will not include advertising to subsidize its costs, but rather test business models around commercial messages (communications with businesses). In April 2016, it included end-to-end encryption for all the information exchanges, including voice. The app is available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. By the end of 2016, it will end its support to minority or legacy operating systems like BlackBerry, Nokia S40/Symbian S60, as well as older versions of Android 2.1 and 2.2 and Windows Phone7.1. In the first quarter of 2015, WhatsApp started rolling out voice-over IP calls, progressively in different operating systems; this feature was already available in Facebook Messenger application, which by then accounted for more than 10% of mobile VoIP calls globally according to the company.19 By mid-2016, 100 million voice calls per day were made through WhatsApp.20

Acronyms

2G

2nd Generation

3G

3rd Generation

4G

4th Generation

CSFB

Circuit Switched FallBack

FTTH

Fiber-to-the-Home

HD

High Definition

IMS

IP Multimedia Subsystem

IP

Internet Protocol

LTE

Long-Term Evolution

ONT

Optical Network Terminal

OS

Operating System

OTT

over-the-top

PBX

Private Branch Exchange

RCS

Rich Communications Suite

RJ

Registered Jack

SIP

Session Initiation Protocol

VoIP

voice-over IP

VoLTE

voice-over LTE

VoWiFi

voice-over WiFi

WiFi

Wireless Fidelity

Notes

1.

GLOBAL DATA: Mobile connections, including M2M/Unique mobile subscribers, Apr 2016. GSMA Intelligence.

https://gsmaintelligence.com/

(accessed April 10, 2016).

2.

A. Sánchez-Esguevillas, B. Carro, G. Camarillo, Y. B. Lin, M. A. García-Martín, L. Hanzo (2013) IMS: the new generation of Internet-protocol-based multimedia services.

Proceedings of the IEEE

, IEEE.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6479674

(March 14, 2013).

3.

Croatia, Germany, and Poland joined the FTTH ranking. Fibre to the Home Council Europe (iDate).

www.ftthconference.eu/images/Banners/Conference2016/News/PR20160217_FTTHranking_panorama _award.pdf

(February 17, 2016).

4.

Delivering an all-IP world. GSMA, July 26, 2016.

www.gsma.com/network2020/resources/all-ip-statistics/

http://www.gsma.com/network2020/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Network-2020-VoLTE-launches-31-March-2016.pdf

(updated June 30, 2016).

5.

Faster and better telephony with voice-over LTE (VoLTE) within the entire 02 network.O2-Telefonica.

www.telefonica.de/fixed/news/5844/faster-and-better-telephony-with-voice-over-lte-vo-lte-within-the-entire-02-network.html

(April 16, 2015).

6.

Vodafone España ofrece voz 4G -VoLTE- en toda su red 4G+. Vodafone.

www.vodafone.es/conocenos/es/vodafone-espana/sala-de-prensa/notas-de-prensa/vodafone-espana-ofrece-voz-4g--volte--en-toda-su/

(July 7, 2015).

7.

Orange Romania launches VoLTE; Wi-Fi calling to follow.

www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2015/09/14/orange-romania-launches-volte-wi-fi-calling-to-follow/

(September 14, 2015).

8.

VoLTE global status. GSA.

http://gsacom.com/paper/volte-global-status/

(April 8, 2016).

9.

AT&T's voice over LTE network reaches more than 27 million subscribers. AT&T.

http://about.att.com/innovationblog/122915voiceoverlte

(December 29, 2015).

10.

GSMA welcomes launch of world's first commercial interconnected VoLTE service in South Korea. GSMA/South Korea's interconnected VOLTE service lifts off.

www.gsma.com/newsroom/press-release/gsma-welcomes-launch-of-worlds-first-commercial-interconnected-volte-service-in-south-korea/

http://www.gsma.com/newsroom/all-documents/south-koreas-interconnected-volte-service-lifts-off/

(June 18–December 1, 2015).

11.

KT Corporation and NTT Docomo land world's first with launch of bilateral VoLTE service. GSMA.

www.gsma.com/newsroom/blog/kt-corporation-and-ntt-docomo-land-worlds-first-with-launch-of-bilateral-volte-service/

(October 20, 2015).

12.

GSA confirms 3253 LTE devices, LTE-Advanced takes hold. GSA.

http://gsacom.com/press-release/gsa-confirms-3253-lte-devices-lte-advanced-takes-hold/

(June 21, 2015).

13.

Now your mobile number works on Wi-Fi across your devices. so you're always connected / Happy 3rd Birthday TU Go UK!/Wi-Fi Calling with TU Go in Brazil. Telefonica.

https://tu.com/en/https://tu.com/en/weblog/2016/03/07/happy-3rd-birthday-tu-go-uk/

/

https://tu.com/en/weblog/2016/03/30/wi-fi-calling-tu-go-brazil/

(accessed April 30, 2016, March 30, 2016, March 7, 2016).

14.

Global operators, Google and the GSMA align behind adoption of rich communication services. GSMA.

www.gsma.com/network2020/digest/global-operators-google-and-the-gsma-align-behind-adoption-of-rich-communication-services/http://www.gsma.com/newsroom/press-release/global-operators-google-and-the-gsma-align-behind-adoption-of-rcs/

(February 21, 2016).

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150 mobile operators launched HD voice service in 87 countries. GSA.

http://gsacom.com/paper/150-mobile-operators-launched-hd-voice-service-in-87-countries/

(December 15, 2015).

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Earnings Release FY16 Q2. Microsoft.

www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2016-Q2/press-release-webcast

(January 28, 2016).

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WhatsApp blog. WhatsApp.

https://blog.whatsapp.com/?l=en&set=yes

(April 5, 2016).

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Facebook to acquire WhatsApp. Facebook.

http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/02/facebook-to-acquire-whatsapp/

(February 19, 2014).

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http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-NJ5DZ/1862880422x0x823326/A88E8ECF-8532-4F35-B251-4F95C2A4C6B3/FB_Q12015_Transcript.pdf (April 22

, 2015).

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https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000625/WhatsApp-Calling-100-million-conversations-every-day (June 23

, 2016).

Chapter 2Internet Services: From Broadband to Ultrabroadband

From the old times of very low-speed narrowband fixed dial-up and mobile 2G GPRS, telecom operators have been offering broadband access massively. The mobile network, being a shared medium, still lags the fixedline network in speed today, but in both cases the available speeds are already quite high and continue to increase.

The mobile network surpasses the fixed line network in terms of adoption. In 2015 there were already more than 3 billion mobile Internet subscribers (unique).1 This figure represents more than half of mobile subscribers (which includes those without Internet: almost 5 billion unique mobile subscribers—and 8 billion total mobile connections—by the end of 20162). Related to access device, smartphones already represented 45% of total mobile connections by the end of 2015.3 In what respects to technology, LTE (4G) achieved 1 billion connections milestone in 20154 (www.gsmaintelligence.com/, last accessed January 12, 2017).

In fixed broadband xDSL, copper-based technologies offer speeds that depend on the distance to the central office. Typical speeds are asymmetrical with downlinks having a few Mbps (megabits per second), increasing to several tens of Mbps with VDSL for closest buildings (or with fiber to an intermediate point—cabinet—in order to reduce the distance). Uplink is typically up to 1 Mbps. On the other hand, cable operators have been upgrading their networks by deploying fiber very close to customer premises, the so-called Fiber-to-the-Node, with coaxial cable left only to the last few meters to tens of meters. Based on DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) 3.0 specification, the cable network provides commercial speeds of several hundred Mbps and could reach up to 10 Gbps (gigabits per second) in the downstream and 1–2 Gbps in the upstream with improved modulation of DOCSIS version 3.1. or even 10 Gpbs symmetrical with full-duplex techniques, which is still in the R&D stage.5 Finally, FTTH is an All-IP network, which as its name implies deploying fiber end to end (central office to customer premises, home, or building plus LAN (Local Area Network)). Commercial speeds have already reached 10 Gbps symmetrical since 2014,6 although with limited coverage, and 1–2 Gbps symmetrical with broader coverage. In any case, technology could in principle provide higher speeds. In terms of coverage, there were (as of September 2015) 53 countries (with at least 200,000 households) that have at least 1% of homes subscribing to fiber (FTTH or Fiber-to-the-Building plus LAN), with top 6 in Asia (all above 50% household penetration).7

As opposed to fixed lines, mobile speed is more limited. Mobile networks are migrating from 3G to 4G, with main improvements in speed/capacity but also reduction in latency. 4G deployments are quite widespread, although the population coverage is not universal yet. The latest generation is LTE-Advanced (available in around 50 countries4) with the so-called carrier aggregation, which combines larger spectrum to increase speed. The maximum commercial advertised speed is 600 Mbps in downlink in Australia with the so-called Category 11 devices (under 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standard).8 The modem supports 150 Mbps uplink, with new modems supporting even 1 Gbps downlink8 announced in early 2016 and commercial in second half 2016. However, it should be noted that the real speeds are much lower, given the fact that capacity is shared among all users connecting to the same base station.

Finally, operators are also offering Internet connectivity through WiFi, both in the fixed access (routers with WiFi) and in mobile access (offering multiple hotspots, sometimes through partnerships). With the new large available spectrum in 5 GHz and the recent 802.11ac standard, both capacity and speed have increased significantly.

Since broadband has a very positive impact on society, many governments are fostering universal coverage (e.g., Europe's ambition of providing 30 Mbps universally by 20209).

2.1 Customer Need: Connectivity and Social Inclusion

Since the inception of the Internet, connectivity has been embraced by billions of people, and even more to come, with availability and affordability the only limiting factors. Initially, people started to connect through dedicated systems (e.g., in government organizations) and then through modem dial-up, available to those with a fixed phone line. Given the fact that mobile lines are now much more widespread, the availability of mobile Internet made the figures skyrocketed.

Connectivity is the basic building block for any kind of digital services, some of which may not have been invented yet. Social networks and messaging are just two examples of applications based on connectivity that have surpassed the figure of 1 billion active users monthly.

Beyond this, connectivity can now be considered a social right, and that is why overcoming the digital divide is a top priority for governments. Connectivity is a proven mean of social inclusion, similar to enabling access to other basic rights like health and education. Along this line, there are rigorous studies that show the positive impact of connectivity in general and more specifically broadband in the Gross Domestic Product of an economy.10

2.2 Fixed Lines: Deploying Fiber Closer to Customer Premises: xDSL, Cable, FTTH

Access networks, as well as mobile networks, have rapidly evolved toward broadband. It has come a long way since the xDSL11–13 family started as a provisional upgrade of PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) and ISDN14 (Integrated Services Digital Network) narrowband access, and xDSL technology still survives but is being quickly replaced by other wired and wireless technologies.

Generally, at home, broadband access networks are wired: The xDSL copper wire family, the Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial (HFC) network, with fiber cores and coaxial distribution with a trend to evolving toward a complete fiber network,15 and the FTTH16 (Fiber-to-the-Home) networks. Also, mobile networks might be considered among broadband access networks because of their increasingly higher transmission rate, their wide coverage and a minimal amount of network installation, and the wide use of mobile terminals like smartphones.

A wired network is composed of a series of cables and other equipment between the local exchange of the operator and the network termination point that separates the client premises from the access network. The access network is the most important and expensive property of the operator, constantly evolving due to new service offers that imply new requirements such as more bandwidth, less latency, and so on, as well as regulatory changes.

2.2.1 xDSL

xDSL (x Digital Subscriber Line) includes a family of Internet broadband access technologies based on the telephone subscriber loop (copper wire) digitalization. The main advantage of the xDSL family has traditionally been the reutilization of already deployed infrastructure with almost 100% coverage, partially or totally amortized. xDSL access is based on the conversion of the PSTN copper line to a high-speed digital line capable of supporting broadband services simultaneously with voice (with a channel located between 300 Hz and 3–4 kHz) with a minimum amount of interference. It should be noted that ISDN is not compatible with xDSL since it employs the xDSL lower frequency band and their spectra would be overlapped.

2.2.1.1 ADSL

ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is the most common xDSL access technology, in which the uplink (from user to local exchange) and downlink (from local exchange to user) transmission rates are different due to the classic need for higher speed in the downlink demanded for traditional services like web browsing, video streaming, or email.

The main components of an ADSL link are the following:

The ADSL Terminal Unit-Remote (ATU-R) or modem in the user premises

The ADSL Terminal Unit-Central (ATU-C) or modem located in the telco premises, grouped in a DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer) in the local exchange

A splitter must be placed before each modem. The splitter is a set of two filters: a high-pass filter and a low-pass filter that separate the low-frequency (telephony) and high-frequency (ADSL) signals.

ADSL employs Discrete MultiTone (DMT) modulation that is similar to OFDM (Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing). It uses multiple subcarriers, each QAM modulated, with a separation of 4.3125 kHz and a bandwidth of 4 kHz for each subcarrier. When establishing the connection between the ATU-R and the ATU-C, the SNR is measured for each subcarrier band, and then the data flow is distributed depending on the SNR value: When the subcarrier SNR is high, it will transmit a higher data rate. DMT is a complex modulation scheme that enables the success of copper wire to transmit high data rates from the initial filter-limited 4 kHz used in traditional voice, but the modulation algorithm is translated into an IFFT (inverse fast Fourier transform) in the modulator and an FFT (fast Fourier transform) in the demodulator located on the other extreme of the loop making the DMT simpler to execute. Besides, these operations may be easily carried out developing the modem core on a DSP (Digital Signal Processor). DMT has two versions: DMT with FDM (frequency-division multiplexing) and DMT with echo cancellation. In DMT with FDM, the spectra of uplink and downlink signals do not overlap, and the modems are simpler, but the downlink transmission rate is reduced since the lower frequency subcarriers are not available. Lower frequency subcarriers are more desirable because the copper wire attenuation is lower there. In DMT with echo cancellation, an echo canceller separates the signals from both transmission directions, so more downlink transmission speeds are achieved in exchange for a more complex modem design.

The length of the local loop limits the maximum achieved ADSL binary rate since the longer the loop length, the higher the overall attenuation for the transmitted signals. Also, a higher frequency implies more attenuation per unit length. This is why the distance from the user to the local exchange should not exceed 2.5 km to guarantee the quality of service. It should preferably be under 1.5 km, which is the value from which the link data rate begins to drop.

ADSL has been upgraded several times (e.g., ADSL2 and ADSL2+) to increase its uplink and downlink speeds, making it very competitive compared to other wired access solutions like HFC and FTTx. This has also enabled the operators to offer integrated packs, including voice, data, and television, known as Triple Play. The new ADSL versions incorporate advanced modulation schemes and physical resources management that increase the basic ADSL capacity up to 24 Mbps in the downstream and include improvements to avoid noise or interference and reduce the effects of attenuation reaching distances of up to 9 km.

2.2.1.2 VDSL

VDSL stands for Very-High-Bit-Rate Digital Subscriber Line and may be seen as a natural evolution of ADSL, offering symmetric (26 Mbps) or asymmetric speeds (52 Mbps for downlink and 16 Mbps for uplink). It increases the frequency bands used to transmit the data: four channels versus the two channels employed in ADSL—two for the uplink and two for the downlink, accompanied by an increment of the transmitted power.

VDSL can be used for transmitting HD television by compressing the video and incorporating FEC (Forward Error Correction) mechanisms to achieve low error rates. It usually employs DMT modulation but QAM/CAP (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation/Carrierless Amplitude/Phase) modulation is also used, plus TDM/TDMA scheme.

2.2.1.3 VDSL2

VDSL2 stands for Very-High-Bit-Rate Digital Subscriber Line 2, as an evolution of VDSL, designed to support the Triple Play services, including voice, video, data, HDTV (High Definition TV), and interactive gaming. It may transmit data symmetrically or asymmetrically, and the transmission speed is highly dependent on the distance to the local exchange: 250 Mbps at the local exchange output decreases to 100 Mbps at 1 km distance and 50 Mbps at 2 km. The decrease becomes slower at longer distances. For short local loops, symmetry is easily achieved reaching over 100 Mbps under suitable conditions. In fact, high speeds are only achieved for distances of up to 400 m from the local exchange, so these connections are normally served by a fiber optic node located on the street. Therefore, combining copper wire and fiber optic the VDSL/VDSL2 coverage can be widened, otherwise only subscribers close to the local exchange could enjoy high speeds.

The main difference between ADSL and VDSL is the available bandwidth: ADSL and ADSL2 use a 1.104 kHz band divided into 256 carriers, ADSL2+ employs a 2.208 kHz band divided into 512 carriers, and VDSL may use bands of 8, 12, and 17 MHz or, in case of VDSL2, 30 MHz, thus enabling higher transmission speeds.

2.2.2 FTTH

FTTx (Fiber-to-the-x) denotes the group of technologies that employ fiber optic (more or less) close to the subscriber's premises:

FTTH (Fiber-to-the-Home):

The fiber reaches the inside or the façade of the client's house or office. It may be point-to-point, with one or two fibers from the central office to the user facilities, or point-to-multipoint, with one fiber from the central office shared by multiple users.

FTTB (Fiber-to-the-Building):

The fiber optic typically ends in an intermediate distribution point inside or around the subscribers' building. From this intermediate distribution point, the users receive the service through VDSL2 over copper wire or Gigabit Ethernet over CAT5 twisted pair, enabling the fiber deployment to be progressive, saving time and money and reutilizing the subscriber's infrastructure.

FTTC (Fiber-to-the-Curb):

Reaching the house with xDSL.

FTTN (Fiber-to-the-Node or Neighborhood):

The fiber ends farther away from the user than FTTH and FTTB, typically near the neighborhood.

Several technological solutions exist for offering FTTx:

PON (Passive Optical Networks) do not require active electronic components between the user and the central office.

ASON (Automatically Switched Optical Network) require active electronic components between the user and the central office.

PON and specially GPON (Gigabit PON) technologies are the most widely deployed technologies: Since no active electronic or optoelectronic devices are needed to connect the central office to the user, its investment and maintenance costs are considerably lower than ASON technologies.

2.2.2.1 PON

PONs compete and complement xDSL, HFC, and fixed wireless networks such as WiMAX. It consists only of passive components: fiber links, splitters, and couplers. It is a point-to-multipoint topology.

Several types of PONs exist; they share the general technology but differ in the specifications and in the higher layer protocols.

APON (ATM based PON):

It uses ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) encapsulation for data transport.

BPON (Broadband PON):

APON successor, it also employs ATM encapsulation and presents enhanced features like higher speed. It is an ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication Standardization Sector) standard.

EPON or GE-PON (Ethernet PON or Gigabit Ethernet PON):

It uses Ethernet for data encapsulation. IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) standard.

Mid-GPON or Giga PON:

It uses a new encapsulation system (Generic Encapsulation Method (GEM)) that supports ATM, Ethernet, and TDM for data transport.

2.2.2.2 GPON

GPON is a set of ITU-T recommendations collected in G.984.x where techniques to share a common medium (the fiber optic) among users, encapsulate information, and manage the network elements are described.

A GPON network consists of the following:

OLT (Optical Line Terminal):

Located in the telco's facilities, it consists of several GPON line ports, each one supporting up to 128 ONT (typically 64). Some systems may allocate over 7.000 ONTs in the same space occupied by a DSLAM in xDSL.

ONTs (Optical Networking Terminals):

Located in the FTTH subscriber facilities. In FTTN, ONTs are substituted by MDUs (Multi-Dwelling Units) that offer VDSL2 to reach the users' house, accomplishing the short distance needed to get the symmetrical 100 Mbps data rates for each user.

GPON shows a point–multipoint or tree topology where splitters play an important role.

In the downlink:

A splitter divides the light signal in its input among several outputs, enabling the downlink traffic from the OLT to be distributed among the different users. It may be several passive splitters in the form 1xn, where n = 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128 in different places until the clients are reached. In case of using GPON extenders with a PON regenerator or an active optic amplifier between the OLT and the splitter, distances of up to 60 km may be reached with a division factor of 128, which is adequate for rural areas. In the downlink, an optic broadcast is performed but each ONT will only process the traffic that corresponds to it, thanks to the AES security techniques.

In the uplink:

The traffic from the ONT to the OLT is aggregated by the same splitter that acts as a combiner in the opposite traffic direction. Upstream and downstream traffic share the same fiber optic but is distributed on a different wavelength to avoid collisions between the two traffic directions. The wavelengths are typically 1490 nm in the downlink and 1310 nm in the uplink. In case of broadcasting video, the 1550 nm wavelength may be used through WDM (

wavelength-division multiplexing