22 applications for Myanmar mobile license

Dylan Bushell-Embling | April 08, 2013 telecomasia.net The Myanmar government has received 22 applications from bidders interested in acquiring one of two new mobile licenses in the untapped telecom market. Myanmar deputy minister of national planning and economic development, Set Aung, told AFP that 22 companies or consortia had submitted pre-qualification applications in time for the August 4 deadline. The government hasn't named all the applicants, but plans to announce the list of companies which have been pre-qualified on Thursday. But ahead of this announcement, a source close to the process has provided TMT Finance with what is purportedly a list of all the initial applicants. The list includes 18 telecom operators – some of whom have already publicly announced their intention to apply – and several investment company consortia. Operators on the list include Malaysia's Axiata, Vietnam's Viettel, India's Bharti Airtel, China Telecom, SingTel, France Telecom/Orange and South Africa's MTN. First tier telecomm accessories supply This white paper originally published here

Vectored DSL - How It Works

Cancelling noise can double short loop speeds. Telco networks are generally built with 25 lines joined together in a binder like the picture. Each active wire generates crosstalk "noise" which interferes with the lines around it, reducing their speed. Cancel the noise and the lines can run faster. In practice, speed doubles to 70-100 meg down, 10-40 meg up, over short loops up to about 300 meters. Up to about 100 meters, a related standard G.fast, promises 200+ megabits. Bond two pair and you inexpensively (less than $125/home) double the speed again. As loops get longer, the crosstalk noise becomes less of a factor and the speed is limited more by the resistance of the copper wire itself and other kinds of noise, like AM radio. Over about 1,000 meters, vectoring has almost no impact. So vectoring matters if and only if you have a box fairly close to the customer. These "neighborhood nodes" can be small; you can connect 48 homes with a "pizza box" DSLAM. The boxes themselves are usually connected by fiber to the exchange. "Fiber" is a magic word and a brilliant AT&T lobbyist came up with the name "fiber to the node," FTTN. It worked; AT&T's node DSL build, U-Verse, got major government concessions. Stanford Prefessor John Cioffi and his former student George Ginis developed the idea back in 2002. The name comes from the vector mathematics used to calculate the noise cancellation. They couldn't demonstrate at the time because the calculations for 25 pairs running at 100 megabits were impractical. As Moore's Law improved chip performance, demonstration systems from ECI and Lantiq began showing in 2009. By 2011, Alcatel demonstrated production-oriented systems that were tested in 2011-2012 at carriers including Swisscom and Belgacom. The results were outstanding, confirming the 70-100 meg speeds. European carriers including Deutsche Telekom and Telecom Italia abandoned fiber plans and switched to the much cheaper vectored DSL. By late 2012, numerous problems emerged from early field trials. Carriers including Belgacom and Deutsche Telekom decided to delay substantial deployments until late 2013 or even 2014. Everyone is confident the problems will be quickly resolved with minor changes in the gear and the software managing the networks. Deutsche Telecom remain confident of deploying 12M to 24M lines in four years. The Germans in particular are anxious to deploy quickly because the cable guys are kiling them. DOCSIS 3 in Europe can offer "up to 200 megabits" down because EuroDOCSIS uses 8 MHz channels. Kabel Deutschland's standard offer is "twice the speed of Deutsche Telekom DSL for the same price." Kabel committed to early deployment of gigabit DOCSIS, perhaps by yearend 2013. Deutsche Telekom's estimate of cost is EUR 6 billion for 24 million homes, less than $450/home passed. Telecom Italia and AT&T have lower estimates. I use a figure of "about $400" for short discussions. VDSL DSLAMs sold for an average price of $38/port in 2012, although if you aren't buying in the millions you'll likely pay a much higher price. Adding vectoring raises the bill of materials by only a few dollars per port, but first to market Alcatel is looking to charge a 100% premium for vector. As Huawei, Adtran, ECI, Calix and others ship systems, the price will come down. Those DSLAMs need to be installed in field cabinets and connected by fiber to the exchange. Most customers need new modems. But at $50/month, three year revenue for VDSL is $1800. The investment is so quickly paid off it fits within the typical telco capex budget. The saving compared to fiber is at least $500/home and possibly $1500-$2000/home. Thursday, 04 April 2013 16:03 First tier telecomm accessories supply Original Article here

BROADBAND FORUM HOLDS INDUSTRY’S FIRST G.VECTOR INTEROPERABILITY PLUGFESTFOR VDSL2

(March 26, 2013, Fremont, CA) Fifteen companies met in Durham, NH, USA during the week of February 25 – March 1, 2013, to participate in the first wide scale interoperability testing of equipment implementing ITU-T G.vector for VDSL2. This plugfest, the first of a planned series of interoperability events organized by the Broadband Forum, and hosted by the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), was focused on detailed testing of G.vector functionality. The participating companies were Actiontec Electronics, Inc., ADTRAN, Alcatel-Lucent, AVM GmbH, Broadcom, Calix, Cisco, EXFO, Ikanos, JDSU, Lantiq, Metanoia Communications, NETGEAR, Real Communications, Inc. and Technicolor, with the support of Telebyte and TraceSpan Communications. Each plugfest offers an opportunity for industry leading companies to come together in a neutral environment to test their G.vector implementations. Testing was conducted according to the Broadband Forum’s G.vector plugfest test plan, and initial results will be provided to the Broadband Forum membership in the coming weeks. Robin Mersh, CEO of the Broadband Forum, said: “There is no doubt that VDSL2 has a pivotal role to play in the future of high speed broadband services. It is rapidly becoming a widely deployed technology and the addition of G.vector functionality is helping to achieve the increased bandwidth needed for today’s applications and consumer expectations. Our role is to ensure that implementations of G.vector are interoperable and perform well, and the plugfest is a key step towards that goal.” G.vector provides a boost to VDSL2 data rates by cancelling crosstalk in real-time between wire pairs in the copper access network. This allows the equipment to operate at higher bit rates, and gives subscribers quality access to even higher bandwidth services. The Broadband Forum series of plugfest events helpsimplementationsto mature, fosters cross-vendor interoperability, and ensuresthat participants keep up with G.vector advancements, thereby expediting quality rollouts of super-fast broadband services over VDSL2 around the world. “Our company appreciates this Broadband Forum initiative, helping to foster interoperability and market readiness for G.vector”, said Manuel Paul, Deutsche Telekom, and member of the Broadband Forum Board of Directors. “Broadband Forum provides a great value to the industry by continuing its successful interoperability programs.” First tier telecomm accessories supply This white paper originally published here