Day 3 - CommunicAsia

#3, Thursday 2 June 2016
CommunicAsia visitors Days 1 & 2: 14,053, Overseas visitors: 6,934 (49%)
live update at www.telecomasia.net
Digital transformation
must be balanced by
humans and ethics
John C. Tanner
SPLICE DANCE: Inno Instrument showcases its View 7 core-alignment splicer, which
automatically splices fiber optic cables without the need for a connector and with less
than 0.1% signal loss. Hence the gratuitous dancers. (Booth: BN3-07)
Post-WRC-15, mobile and satellite
still at odds over spectrum
John C. Tanner
Almost seven months after the conclusion of WRC-15, the mobile and satellite
sectors haven’t fully reconciled their differences over spectrum allocations, despite having a shared interest in terrestrial
evolution to 5G.
At a spectrum panel during the
broadband track at CommunicAsia2016
Wednesday, Guillaume Mascot, Director
of Government Relations for APJ (AsiaPacific, Japan) and India at Nokia, said
that the outcome of WRC-15 was generally good news for mobile broadband.
“When you look at things like connected cars, connected homes, 5G – this
is the future where we’re headed. We need
to connect everyone and everything with
the best possible connection,” he said.
“We need to move forward to ensure the
best outcome for users.”
He added that it was important for
mobile to work with the satellite sector
to develop a complementary approach,
particularly on the contentious topic of
extended C-band.
GapSat CEO Gregg Daffner agreed
that the mobile and satellite sectors need
to work together to make 5G a reality,
and said that satellite wants to be a part of
that ecosystem. However, he pointed out
that of the two sectors, only one has had
to sacrifice spectrum it already possessed
towards that end.
“We’re the ox being gored in the process of reallocation,” he said.
On the long-contentious topic of extended C-band, Daffner reiterated that
coexistence between terrestrial and satellite is simply not possible. However, he
added that the satellite industry will stick
to its agreement at WRC-15 not to revisit
the matter.
Daffner did revive the satellite industry’s criticism of the mobile sector for not
using all of the terrestrial spectrum it’s
already been allocated. “Their claims for
needing additional spectrum has been
overstated for years, and we’re skeptical of
Continued page 16 ...
Digital transformation isn’t just about
technology – it’s also about humans, and
telcos need to find the right balance between the two in order to successfully
transform.
That was the message from Gerd Leonhard, futurist and CEO of The Futures
Agency, during a keynote at the morning
plenary of the CommunicAsia2016 Summit on Wednesday.
Leonhard said that digital transformation is being driven by technology trends
such as exponential connectivity (i.e. the
Internet of Things), big data, intelligence
(intelligent assistants and AI), and manmachine convergence.
An example of the latter is the rise of
the smart device as an external brain, and
the cloud as a global brain. “This is changing how we interact with computers – we
touch them and speak to them,” he said.
“We’re seeing increasingly powerful combinations of man-machine convergence.
The machine sits in the cloud and does all
the work for you.”
While this creates all kinds of new
service and app possibilities, and creates
efficiencies, it also impacts humanity in
ways that raise ethical issues that can’t be
ignored, from loss of jobs via automation
to AI making non-emotional decisions
about those jobs, for example.
“Technology is exponential, humans
are linear. Technology will grow exponentially faster but you will not live exponentially faster,” he said. “Technology has no
ethics, but human societies demand it. So
we have to figure out how to use technology without becoming the technology.”
This is something everyone in the telecoms/IT value chain has to look at seriously, he said. “The purpose of business
isn’t efficiency – it’s making customers
happy. “All these algorithms and AI have
to be balanced by ethics – it’s not a yes-orno choice, but you need to find the balance between them.”
Leonhard stressed that he’s not a pessimist about the future of telecoms. “I
think the future is a brighter place than
Hollywood makes it look.”
However, he said that while we
shouldn’t be afraid of the coming digital
era, we should approach with caution and
think seriously about who is in control,
who enforces the rules, and who consumers ultimately trust. “It’s time to take
responsibility. Security, moral standards,
rules and ethics become crucial as everything becomes connected.”
Leonhard also advised telcos to abandon their old business models.
Continued page 3 ...
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LATEST NEWS
3
2 JUNE 2016
overnight wire
TIME dotCom Q1 profit falls 33% on
forex losses
Malaysia’s TIME dotCom has reported a 33.5% slump in
net profit for its fiscal first quarter to 37.6 million ringgit
($9.1 million), due largely to forex losses of 8.1 million
ringgit. But revenue grew 2% to 175.2 million ringgit, with
recurring data revenue growing a strong 23% year-on-year
and voice revenues up 15%. “We have managed to deliver
a decent set of numbers, which we aim to improve on in
the remaining quarters,” TIME CEO Afzal Abdul Rahim
said, commenting on the results. The company expects
new revenue sources from its investments in the AsiaPacific Gateway and FASTER subsea cable systems once
they become operational in the second half of the year.
Thai telcos expected to invest $4.2b on
4G by 2018
Thai regulator NBTC expects the nation’s mobile operaors to
invest at least 150 billion baht ($4.2 billion) on 4G network
expansion by 2018. The regulator’s vice-chairman told the
Bangkok Post that that each operator will need to invest
at least 25 billion baht annually to expand their wireless
broadband infrastructure to meet burgeoning demand.
There are currently around 103 million active mobile
subscriptions in Thailand, and this is expected to increase
to 170 million by 2017. The regulator intends to set a single
tariff ceiling for 3G and 4G wireless broadband services,
setting the cap at 69 satang per minute for voice and 26
satang per megbyte.
Taiwan’s cellcos want 2G migration
subsidies to be maintained
Taiwan’s major operators have urged the government to
continue providing subsidies aimed at helping 2G users
migrate to 3G or 4G ahead of the expiration of 2G licenses
a year from now.
Industry body the Taiwan Telecommunication Industry
Development Association has cautioned against regulator
NCC’s proposal to have a single operator continue to
provide 2G services after the licenses expire, the Taipei
Times said. While the operator would be able to allocate
a proportion of its 4G bandwidth for 2G use, the service
would need different base stations, making it a tricky
proposition, the industry body has argued. Taiwan still
had around 710,000 2G users as of the end of April,
NCC statistics show, with around 460,000 subscribed
to Chunghwa Telecom’s 2G service and about 180,000
subscribed to Taiwan Mobile.
AsiaSat, Hughes bring VSAT connectivity
to Myanmar’s KBZ
new capacity and the Hughes gateJohn C. Tanner
Myanmar-based KBZ Gateway Co
announced it has signed a partnership deal with AsiaSat to provide
satellite-based networks serving
Myanmar with high speed data
connectivity services.
KBZ Gateway also unveiled a
new earth station in Bago powered
by a Jupiter VSAT system from
Hughes Network Systems, which
will support high-performance
data services for businesses and
consumers throughout the country.
On the connectivity side, KBZ
will use C-band and Ku-band capacity on AsiaSat 4 and AsiaSat 7 to
establish high speed data networks
across Myanmar.
Philip Balaam, VP of sales and
business development at AsiaSat,
said that with the scheduled late
2016/early 2017 launch of AsiaSat
9 – whose payload includes a dedicated Ku-band beam for Myanmar
– KBZ and its clients will further
benefit from increased power, enhanced coverage and smaller, less
costly antennas for VSAT broadband and DTH services.
Stephane Lamoureux, CEO
of KBZ Gateway and CIO of KBZ
Group, said that it’s used VSAT services in Myanmar before, but that
bandwidth availability has been
minimal. “It’s good for browsers
and not much else. Between the
way, we’ll be able to run more applications such as VoIP.”
Vaibhav Magow, regional director of Asia-Pacific at Hughes, adds
that Jupiter includes a multi-app
gateway. “So they’ll be able to build
on what they have now and fulfill
future ambitions.”
The earth station – which went
live last week but was formally announced June 1 – includes two satellite networks that will connect all
KBZ Group company sites countrywide. KBZ Gateway estimates
a potential to connect more than
6,000 sites over the next five years.
KBZ Group signed a deal with
Hughes in August 2015 to supply
the Jupiter system. 3
Myanmar ministry taps Intelsat for VSAT, cellular
satellite solutions to extend 2G
cellular backhaul services, respecbackhaul
and 3G communications services
tively.
John C. Tanner
Intelsat announced that the
Ministry of Transport and Communications (MOTC) of Myanmar signed a multi-year, multitransponder agreement to utilize
services on two Intelsat satellites
to advance the deployment of the
country’s wireless communications infrastructure, and expand
broadband access for businesses.
The MOTC will use C-band
satellite services on Intelsat 902
located at 62° East, and Ku-band
services on Intelsat 906 located at
64° East for VSAT network and
Terry Bleakley, Intelsat’s Regional VP for Asia-Pacific, said
the MOTC will use the transponders to provide cellular backhaul
for KGSN, the mobile network being built by the MPT, KDDI and
Sumitomo.
“It will also be used for the
government’s VSAT network,
which is currently a 600-site network currently on Thaicom that
will move over to this network,” he
said. “And the ministry told us on
Friday that they see a lot of other
opportunities for growth going
forward.”
“We will leverage [Intelsat’s]
beyond urban centers and ensure
that all of our citizens have access
to higher bandwidth, superior
quality and more affordable mobile broadband connectivity,” said
Khin Maung Thet, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transport and
Communications, in a statement.
“Today’s announcement further
underscores our commitment to
building a more digitally inclusive
society.”
By 2018, MOTC plans to move
to the new, high power services on
the recently announced Intelsat 39
satellite, the replacement spacecraft at the 62E orbital location.3
“Digital transformation must be balanced by humans and ethics” from page 1...
“Think about the auto industry – in the future we
will share more cars, rather than buy more. So they
won’t sell cars – they’ll sell mobility,” Leonhard said.
“In the same vein, telcos can’t sell traditional telecoms
services. Networks and infrastructure was a good business model when it made sense, but the future is adding value with services, experience and platforms.”
An Event Organised by
Singapore Exhibition Services Pte Ltd
Provider of the Official
Daily Newspaper and
Online News Service
Ultimately, Leonhard concluded, the key to digital
transformation is this: “Be on Team Human, not just
Team Future. Team Human is about humanity, emotions, intelligence, and purpose. Be aware of social contracts. Embrace technology but don’t become technology. And spend 5-10% of your time thinking of what
will be next, not what is.” 3
MANAGING DIRECTOR Jonathan Bigelow,
ASSOCIATE Publisher Jessie Cheung, EditOr-In-chief John C. Tanner,
Managing editor Stefan Hammond, Art Director Pauline Wong
© 2016 Questex Media Group LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
The editorial content is not necessarily the opinion of the event’s organizer.
4
OPINION
2 June 2016
The cloud paradigm shift
affects everyone
Stefan Hammond
We talk a lot these days about paradigm
shifts, and how the telecoms sector in
particular is undergoing its own paradigm shift towards software-based networks and services, and how they must
transform themselves – not just networks but their very culture – to survive
the current paradigm shift and thrive in
the digital economy.
The same can be said for their customers. Or at least older ones like me.
Recently I was telling a 20-something
friend about a Latin music group popular in New York in the 1960s. I’d discovered them a decade ago and to this day
zealously guard my CDs and the music
files contained therein. From vinyl to
CDs to Blu-ray, the physical file is my
provenance and my pathway to whatever
I wanted to watch or listen to. No matter
how obscure, as long as I have the file, I
can enjoy it.
“Is this the right album?” said my
friend, holding her smartphone. As I was
describing the music, she’d fired up Spotify, found the music, then started porting it to her Bluetooth speaker.
That moment was a masterclass in
how much the content paradigm has
shifted. My thought process defaults
to “where’s my file?”, while hers goes
straight to “where’s my access?” She simply reached into the cloud and plucked
the music from it.
I haven’t been Spotified yet, but I’m
not totally cut off from the cloud, either.
My big cloud experience is via Kindle
Unlimited: a rotating ten-book library.
I can travel to a city, download a few
guides, and when I return from my trip
I return the files and replace them with
something else. Read it, toss it, get fresh
material. Magic.
A subscription-based rotating library may sound like a bad deal for authors who want to make money from
sales royalties. And certainly you don’t
see a lot of bestsellers on Kindle Unlimited (or indeed much of anything from
major book publishers like MacMillan
and Penguin). On the other hand, some
authors without the grand portfolio of
(say) Stephen King or Janet Evanovich
slap their novels up on Kindle Unlimited
just to gain readers.
Guess what: it works. I spend my
morning commute reading obscure
pulp-fiction novels (and some aren’t
half-bad). Authors frequently include
emails and I enjoy dropping the occasional line.
Between that and my friend’s Spotify demo, I’ve come to realize the same
experience can be had with music – because if the cloud is good for anything, it
makes content more available.
Sadly “available” isn’t the same this
as “discoverable” – at least not yet. Discoverability is one of the holy grails of
digital content and services, and while
recommendations and big-data analytics have come a long way, we still have
a way to go before analytics engines can
figure out your content tastes with any
reasonable level of accuracy and point
you to cool stuff you didn’t even know
you liked. But we’re getting there.
In the meantime, we’ll have to settle for the fact that the content is there
in the cloud, waiting to be discovered –
Join Telecom Asia to
discuss the future of telcos
This October Telecom Asia will bring its CEM and SDN conferences to Singapore and Jakarta,
giving delegates the chance to interact and share experience with other telco leaders from the region.
For more information, please contact: Jessie Cheung [email protected] +852 2589 1338
STAT SNAP
Public and private cloud revenue from
the global carrier cloud market
Source: Company data ad Technology Business Research estimates
which, again, is a major paradigm shift
for music mavens like me who spent a
lot of time digging around used record
stores looking for buried treasure or
half-remembered obscure tunes heard
on the radio years ago. In that paradigm,
you’re focused on the file, and you go
to great lengths to protect it, especially
when it’s not commonly available.
The cloud has changed that. Between
iTunes, Spotify, Bandcamp and dozens
of other music services and sites, you
can find anything from 60s Cambodian
psychedelic pop to Laotian groove, Mauritius funk, Mali desert blues, and Japanese mathcore.
And I’m glad, because rare music being commonly available is a good thing.
It took me awhile to catch up with the
paradigm shift, but now I realize I was
tying myself to the hitching post instead
of contacting Uber. 3
CEM Asia
Conference
Telco SDN/NFV
Asia Conference
11 October 2016 – Singapore
13 October 2016 – Jakarta
Taking full ownership of the
customer experience
Cracking the mystery of network
virtualization
6
BRIEFS
2 June 2016
APAC premium OTT market cued
for exponential growth
Asia Pacific’s premium OTT market will
undergo rapid growth by 2019 despite
challenges. A study conducted by MTM
– covering 80 participants in Australia,
Indonesia and Thailand – reveal significant challenges to expansion due to
broadband infrastructure and content
localization, revenues are expected to
grow strongly between now and 2019.
Figures go from around $85 million
in 2015 to $230 million in Australia;
from $7 million to $40 million in Indonesia; and from $8 million to $45 million
in Thailand.
Local service providers will own a
significant portion of the market and
will dominate in Indonesia and Thailand, while Netflix will be the dominant
player in Australia.
The study highlights three main
challenges to premium OTT market
expansion. First, industry executives
believe broadband infrastructure challenges and limited access to affordable
fixed-line services are significant barriers to growth.
Second, despite the appeal of international content, respondents believe
local-language programming is essential
to the proliferation of premium OTT
services in Indonesia and Thailand.
And third, while the presence of Netflix will drive OTT market expansion in
general, consumers will struggle with
Netflix’s one-size-fits-all offering.3
4K STB market worth $3.65b by 2024
The global 4K set-top-box market is expected to reach $3.65 billion by 2024, according to a new report by Grand View
Research.
In Asia Pacific, the 4K STB market
accounted for over 25% of the global
revenue share in 2014. China and India present considerable opportunities
for regional industry growth due to the
strong presence of UHD STB manufacturers. OTT-based streaming devices are
becoming the STB of choice for satellite
TV providers in these emerging markets.
IPTV UHD set top boxes contributed to over 20% of market revenue in
2014. IPTV focuses on network scalability, end-user applications, and infrastructure. With IPTV, content is provid-
ed through an internet service provider’s
own infrastructure, ensuring UHD content streaming across subscribed devices. Increasing number of UHD content
providers is expected to propel industry
growth but high upgrade costs and subscription fees for 4K content will challenge the industry growth over the forecast period.
The report also says that vendors are
increasingly offering energy-efficient
STB devices, especially in idle mode.
Manufacturers and service providers
across the globe are increasingly providing advanced UHD STBs equipped with
features such as interactive 4K content to
be competitive.3
MyRepublic tops first Netflix APAC ISP speed index
Singapore’s MyRepublic has been found
to provide the fastest average streaming
speeds among ISPs in 12 APAC countries in Netflix’s first ISP speed index for
the region.
MyRepublic
provided
average
streaming speeds of 3.78 Mbps under
Netflix’s calculations, narrowly beating
out StarHub Fiber at 3.71 Mbps.
Singapore also had the fastest overall
average streaming speeds in the region,
followed by New Zealand (3.5 Mbps),
Japan (3.39 Mbps), Hong Kong (3.35
Mbps), Taiwan (3.1 Mbps) and Indonesia (3 Mbps).
Australia (2.91 Mbps), Thailand
(2.87 Mbps), Malaysia (2.72 Mbps),
South Korea (2.68 Mbps), India (1.84
Mbps) and the Philippines (1.82 Mbps)
round out the list.
New Zealand had the lowest spread
between the fastest and slowest ISP.
Vodafone NZ provides average streaming speeds of 3.58 Mbps, while the slowest is Trustpower with 3.28 Mbs.
Likewise in Singapore, there was
only a 0.48 Mbps difference between
MyRepublic and Singtel’s DSL service,
the lowest-ranked Singapore service
evaluated.
In South Korea by contrast, topranked SK Broadband provides average speeds of 3.03 Mbps, while lowest-
ranked D LIVE offers only 1.68 Mbps. In
Indonesia, MyRepublic’s local operation
provides speeds of 3.31 Mbps, compared
to just 1.77 Mbps for Neuviz.
The other top operators in their respective markets for Netflix streaming
speeds are Optus (Australia), HKBN
(Hong Kong), Airtel (India), eo Hikari
(Japan), Time (Malaysia), HiNet (Taiwan) and AIS (Thailand).3
UltraHD channels to cable and IPTV
platforms, or dedicated DTH platforms.)
Of those 300 channels, only some will
have a direct revenue impact to their respective DTH platforms, at least in the
short term.
“Costs for acquiring UltraHD content will be greater than SD or HD content, resulting in net losses for the first
few years of UltraHD operation,” wrote
NSR analyst Alan Crisp in a research
note. “After 2020, NSR expects a direct
positive revenue impact from the introduction of UltraHD linear TV channels
on pay TV platforms globally.”
NSR expects that the large installed
base of subcribers with 4K TVs from
2020 onwards will more than offset content acquisition costs after a couple of
years, with ARPUs expected to be approximately 10% higher than those of
the current high end package ARPUs in
most regions.
But while ROI from UltraHD may
be relatively modest in the long-term,
says NSR, the bigger risk is to lag behind
the competition. Indeed, a key reason
pay-TV platforms carry UltraHD video
now is to showcase it to prospective
subscribers in hopes of upselling them,
or to retain viewers who want 4K content, which is why NSR expects most
DTH platforms with UltraHD content
will include 4K channels in their top
tier packages for the next four years, and
start charging additional fees to access
UltraHD by the end of the decade once
4K TV uptake starts spiking.
“So rather than thinking in purely
ROI terms, UltraHD may be just a necessary pill multi-channel operators need
to swallow, especially in the near term, to
stay competitive,” Crisp writes. 3
UltraHD will boost pay-TV ROI … eventually
For pay-TV players banking on UltraHD
to boost revenues and the bottom line,
research firm NSR has good news and
bad news: UltraHD can boost ROI, but
it’s a long-term play, and in any case the
bigger risk is not carrying it at all.
Recent NSR research forecasts
around 300 UltraHD channels on DTH
platforms using leased capacity by 2025.
(That doesn’t count satellites distributing
8
Q&A
2 June 2016
Big initiatives to accelerate digital transformation
Joe Deng, Carrier Business President, Huawei Southern Pacific Region, explains the details of Huawei’s
“Big Initiatives” strategy that is designed to help telcos embrace digital transformation
Show Daily: When Huawei talks about
its “Big Initiatives,” you also talk about
“ROADS.” What is this, and why is it
important to telcos?
Joe Deng: “ROADS” encompasses
five fundamental characteristics of the
ultimate user experiences in a fully connected world: Real-time, On-demand,
All-online, DIY, and Social. Huawei’s
ROADS will foster an open industry
ecosystem that enables agile innovations, advancing the ICT industry as well
as all social sectors in the digital age.
Global digitalization is accelerating, and this is improving efficiency and
user experience in many areas, including
vertical industries, public services, and
every aspect of our lives. As this shift
becomes more imminent, the telecom
industry is facing two major challenges.
The first is slowing revenue growth and
difficulty of rolling out new services,
and the second is exploding bandwidth
demand and increasingly complex networks driving up opex. Operators can no
longer grow by merely expanding their
user base. They need to find new expansion points. The key is new services focused on the ROADS user experience;
SoftCOM is Huawei’s strategy for future
networks. It helps operators restructure
their services, operations, networks, and
architecture, so that they are ready for
the opportunities and the challenges of
the digital transformation.
ROADS is key to digital transformation. Huawei is ready to support telecom
operators win the opportunities through
the digital services that can lay the foundation of business success. ICT will
become a national endeavor for stimulating economic growth and bringing
benefits to the society who will able to
succeed in a digital world.
So what are the ‘Big Initiatives’ for
digital transformation that Huawei is
currently promoting?
Huawei believes that operators must
transform themselves. We recommends
these digital transformation strategies
which we call ‘Big Initiatives.’
The first is “Big Video – Everywhere.”
Video is vital! Video will or has become
a basic telecom service, and it will help
operators regain control of the value
chain. The second is “Big IT – Enabling”:
IT systems which deliver the ROADS
experience (hardware, software, services) and drive digital service capacity.
The third Big Initiative is “Big Operation – Agile”: ICT service that guarantees the end-to-end ROADS experience,
building the network around the experience. The fourth is “Big Architecture –
Elastic”: Service-defined networks and
Network Function Virtualization (NFV)
technologies in data centers to create
future networks that can carry any ICT
service and allow agile delivery of the
ROADS experience. And finally, we have
“Big Pipe – Ubiquitous.” With their massive capacity and vast numbers of connections, big pipes are the key asset that
allows operators to deliver the ubiquitous ROADS experience.
What will be the impact for operators who follow this multi-pronged
strategy?
A proven future-oriented telecom
network architecture designed to reshape the telecom industry in terms of
service, network, operation and architecture will help operators achieve successful business transformation. Telco
digital transformation will create a path
for carriers to come back to the top of
the industry value chain. We will help
operators restructure themselves in the
following areas.
First, restructuring services. Operators will go beyond connections to increase revenue with new services such
as video everywhere, IoT, cloud business, and “Safe City.”
Next: restructuring networks. Ubiquitous ultra-broadband will provide
key technology propositions and build
experience-based networks to improve
service quality, capacity, brand and network value.
Third: restructuring operations –
online operations for greater efficiency
and delivery of the ROADS user experience.
And fourth, re-architecture of networks to a software defined architecture
–an open cloud-based data center with
core infrastructure to become a future
digital economy enabler.
Joe Deng, Carrier Business President,
Huawei Southern Pacific Region
Do operators have to implement all
five “Big Initiatives” at once, or can
they pick and choose?
Operators have the flexibility to
spend their investment on ‘Big Initiatives’ based on their company business
goals, immediate and long-term strategy plan. Operators can plan initially to
choose any of the initiatives or a combination based on market needs, business
operating model and competition to
create differentiation of service offering
and value to their customers. Operators
will have to deliver new services (video,
cloud, IoT, etc.) that create a ROADS
user experience. One focus area will be
addressing changing customer behavior
and user experience using smart devices,
which requires a big pipe to carry rich
information. Huawei can help telecom
carriers and enterprise achieve agile innovation, accelerated transformation
and business success in digital era.3
Booth BE3-01
research note
5G and IoT stimulate test equipment market
The rapid evolution towards higher frequencies and wider modulation bandwidth, coupled with the advent of technologies such as 5G, is creating growth
opportunities for advanced electronic
test equipment. However, says Frost &
Sullivan, test and measurement (T&M)
vendors will find it tough to provide engineers with superior equipment at competitive prices from both a technical and
a business standpoint.
A recent report from Frost & Sullivan finds that the electronic test equip-
ment market serving design engineers
earned $1.99 billion in revenues last
year. That figure is expected reach $2.36
billion in 2021.
“Currently, the majority of the revenues for these segments come from frequencies below 6 GHz. In future, a much
higher percentage of revenues will come
from frequencies over 26.5 GHz,” said
Frost & Sullivan Test and Measurement
Industry director Jessy Cavazos. “Technologies such as 5G and higher frequencies required in aerospace and defense
and automotive radars will translate into
a drastic shift in the signal generators,
signal analyzers, network analyzers and
power meters segments of the electronic
test equipment market.”
Principal opportunities will emerge
from the RF, microwave, and high-speed
digital test segments. More signal generators will be needed and function generators and signal analyzers will see higher
demand than spectrum analyzers due to
their vector capability. Further, the >60MHz bandwidth segment will account
for significant revenues as new technologies require over 1 GHz of modulation
bandwidth.
Despite budget constraints, says
Cavazos, end users have no choice but to
upgrade their test equipment in the face
of such rapid technological evolution.
Test vendor success will be determined
by the ability to provide high performance at competitive prices while addressing the demand for greater ease-ofuse with such complex instruments.3
ANALYST VIEW
9
2 June 2016
Value of high-frequency spectrum is about QoS,
not coverage or capacity
Mark Colville / Analysys Mason
Spectrum has traditionally been thought
of as being of value to mobile operators
due to improving either service coverage
or capacity, or both. While high-frequency spectrum provides roughly equivalent capacity per MHz to low-frequency
spectrum, the low-frequency spectrum
has always carried a significant premium
due to also offering substantial coverage
benefits, including more cost-effective
“capacity in the coverage layer” for mobile data services. However, while the
factors making low-frequency spectrum
particularly valuable continue to hold
true, its scarcity is reducing in many
markets as the 700-MHz band starts to
be released.
Other factors, such as the growing
importance of data speeds, begin to increase the relative importance of highfrequency spectrum (where availability
of larger contiguous blocks makes delivery of very-high-speed mobile data services possible).
For several years, mobile operators
have marketed their services based on
peak download speeds theoretically
achievable on their networks. Although
this approach continues to be useful for
operators, mobile subscribers now consider average data speeds to be among
the most important factors in assessing the quality of the service offered to
them by different operators. Perceptions
of adequate data speeds are influencing
consumer choice. For example, Analysys
Mason’s Connected Consumer Survey
2016 found that 18% of respondents
considering churning to another provider were doing so because of experiencing poor data speeds with their current
provider.
This measure of user experience is
therefore becoming increasingly valuable to operators and driving their network strategies, most notably in terms of
spectrum usage. Similarly, we have observed that average data speeds are starting to form a key part of some mobile
operators’ marketing messages.
For example, at the time of writing,
the homepage of UK mobile operator EE
focused very heavily on promotion of
data speeds, claiming as its main headline: “IT’S OFFICIAL: Our 4G network
is 50% faster than any other”, with reference to results from Speedtest.net and
EE being named winner of the “Fastest
Mobile Network Award 2015”. In general, these types of marketing messages are
becoming increasingly ‘front of mind’
for mobile operators.
QoS requires the right
spectrum
Providing this better user experience
can lead to additional revenues for operators, for example through an increased
share of gross additions or through
higher ARPU, as well as other potential benefits such as cost savings related
to subscriber acquisition and retention
activities. Having more spectrum helps
operators to deliver this better user experience. In particular, aggregating
spectrum into larger downlink carriers
raises peak data speeds but also more
generally helps to provide the higher average speeds valued by many users.
The top- and bottom-line benefits
described above are commonly referred
to as the commercial value of spectrum
and sit alongside the network cost savings that spectrum can generate for
providing a given level of coverage or
capacity, commonly referred to as the
technical value of the spectrum. In other
words, while additional spectrum increases capacity per site to result in fewer
sites being required (technical value), it
also increases the operator’s service offering from each site resulting in a network performance improvement, which
leads to a commercial value.
It can be hard for operators to achieve
these commercial benefits without having sufficient spectrum. In particular, the
cost of improving network performance
(i.e. increasing average user speeds)
without new spectrum may be so high
that it is unprofitable to attempt to do so.
Hence the speeds that an operator offers
in practice are likely to be determined by
how much spectrum it acquires.
The above considerations should
feed into mobile operators’ assessments
of spectrum requirements and hence
spectrum acquisition plans. To gain a
competitive advantage, operators will
require large amounts of spectrum in
harmonized bands, which means using
high-frequency spectrum. This means
that there is now significant commercial
value attached to high-frequency spectrum and we expect this to continue to
be the case for the foreseeable future.
Although low-frequency spectrum will
always be more valuable on a per-MHz
basis, it is arguable that this value premium is starting to narrow as the market
shifts towards achieving further increases in speeds.
Operators need to be able to accurately assess the commercial value associated with providing better service
quality, including higher average data
speed services to their customers. The
risk is that otherwise they may miss
out on spectrum to competitors placing
greater emphasis on commercial value
or, alternatively, could overpay for spectrum if commercial value is overstated,
without reflecting increased costs associated with increasing subscriber volumes. Similarly, this higher willingness
to pay for high-frequency spectrum is an
area that is also important for regulators
to understand when designing effective
spectrum auctions.3
Mark Colville is a principal at Analysys Mason
ANALYST VIEW
11
2 June 2016
Data to drive modest growth for
Asia mobile roaming revenue to 2020
Nicole McCormick and Dimitris
Xydias / Ovum
Currently, operators launch bundles
with or without government mandates.
China, India, and Indonesia do not have
specific regulations on roaming, but
operators in China in particular have
become aggressive in the promotion of
roaming bundles.
In 2015, the Chinese government
launched its “speed increase and tariff
reduction” initiative, which urged operators to decrease international roaming tariffs. Operators in China still offer
per-unit roaming pricing but have been
marketing data-only roaming bundles,
starting from $4 a day for unlimited
data, in the wake of the Chinese government’s decision to lower roaming rates.
Ovum expects Chinese data roaming traffic will increase 42.6% in 2017
and 38.8% in 2018 as new bundles attract first-time roamers and encourage
existing roamers to use more data. In
turn, we forecast data roaming revenues
to increase 6.6% in 2017 and 25.7% in
2018, with total roaming revenues due
to increase 4.6% in 2018 as data revenue
growth offsets declines in SMS and voice
revenues.
Meanwhile, roaming revenues in Indonesia and India remained under pressure in 2015. Indonesia’s third-ranked
operator XL saw its roaming revenues
decline 17.2% in the first nine months of
2015 compared with the same period in
2014.
Roaming revenue pressure has forced
operators in both Indonesia and India
to actively promote roaming bundles to
stimulate roaming data usage. Operators
in Indonesia have rolled out data-only
bundles and voice/text/data bundles for
roamers for a flat fee, with challenger
outfit Three offering WhatsApp roaming
passes that target outbound travelers.
Indian operators are offering discounted
per-unit-priced bundles. By 2017 and
2018, respectively, Ovum estimates that
Indonesia and India’s decreasing roaming data tariffs will spur sufficient data
usage from consumer and business users to ultimately lead to growth in total
roaming revenues.
Compared to emerging markets in
Asia, roaming bundles are more established in Japan and Korea. As such, data
roaming tariffs (consumer local) in Korea are expected to fall at a slower rate
than in China, India, and Indonesia between 2015 and 2020. Similar to Japan,
all operators in Korea offer extensive
roaming bundles, including unlimited
data.
Ovum forecasts the total roaming
revenue for the Asia & Oceania region to
increase from 2018 by 6.7% due to the
expected growth in roaming data usage,
particularly in Korea. Korean roaming
revenues are projected to increase by
12.3% in 2018 driven by low per-megabyte tariffs.
In terms of the roaming revenue mix,
roaming voice revenue made up an estimated 69.1% of total roaming revenues
in Asia & Oceania in 2015, compared
with just 4.1% for SMS. Roaming data
revenues’ share of the pie is expected
to grow from 26.8% in 2015 to 55.5%
by 2020. That growth comes largely at
the expense of roaming voice revenues,
whose share of the total pie is due to
shrink to 43.1% by 2020 as roamers continue to substitute voice and SMS services with OTT services.3
Nicole McCormick is principal analyst, service provider and markets, and
Dimitris Xydias is senior forecaster,
forecasting team, Ovum
Mobile app revenue outlook remains healthy
despite slowing download volumes
Mobile device users installed nearly 156
billion mobile applications worldwide in
2015, generating $34.2 billion in direct
(non-advertising) revenue. The latest
forecast from IDC estimates that these
figures will grow to more than 210 billion installs and nearly $57 billion in direct revenue in 2020.
While the market will continue to
grow throughout the forecast period,
IDC expects to see slower growth in
both application install volumes and
direct revenue over time. This trend,
which is largely driven by market maturation, will see annual install growth fall
into the single digits over the second half
of the forecast.
Mobile application install volume
will experience a five year compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3%.
Meanwhile, direct revenue from mobile
applications will also experience slower
growth by the end of the forecast period,
although the five year CAGR will remain
in the double digits at 10.6%.
Apple’s App Store “ecosystem” captured nearly 58% of global direct app
revenue in 2015, an increase of 36% year
over year. Meanwhile, Apple’s share of
global app install volume was only 15%,
down nearly 8% year over year.
The sheer volume of Android-based
devices in use ensures a greater overall
number of installs through Google Play,
which captured about 60% of install volume and nearly 36% of direct revenue in
2015. Although Google Play enjoyed solid year-over-year growth in both downloads and direct revenues, the gains were
somewhat lower than in previous years.
Apple is expected to continue outperforming Google Play in terms of
revenue generation. However both ecosystems are more than sufficiently established to sustainably attract developers.
“While they provide a convenient
measure of the mobile app economy and
its beneficiaries, we caution that preoccupation with download/install volumes
and associated direct revenue may miss
the thrust of changes in the mobile mar-
ketplace,” said John Jackson, research
VP, mobile and connected platforms.
“Facebook and Google continue to dominate mobile ad spending thanks to the
scale and sophistication of their network
effects, with Facebook’s moves to incorporate news and other interests into its
experience will likely pull traffic and install volumes away from discreet apps.
Similarly, the emergence of bots – which
seek to automate interactions in a contextually infused way – are another in a
series of examples of value being created
above the OS layer and even above the
app.” 3
12 Special Report
2 June 2016
Telecom strategies for navigating
Myanmar’s enterprise ICT market
In the final installment of this three-part report, we look at five ways
Myanmar telcos can target enterprise customers
Samit K Deb
Myanmar’s enterprise ICT market
outlook is strikingly positive, presenting a
serious growth opportunity for Myanmar
operators as they face growing saturation
of their consumer businesses. And they
have a number of competitive advantages
over pure-play systems integrators,
from established customer relationships
and large-scale project management
experience to strong brands and
government connections.
However, operators will also need to
change the traditional passive business
model they are accustomed to using in
the commoditized mass-market voice
and data business. Operators must
develop a relationship-based business
model to win enterprise business, as well
as a consultative approach to gain new
SME business clients.
Here are five recommended strategies
for Myanmar operators:
1. Target SMEs to provide one-stop
ICT solution: Many executives say that
Myanmar today reminds them of India
in the mid 1990s and Indonesia in early
2000 (immediately after liberalization).
A few trends in these countries that
emerged in the immediate aftermath for
liberalization may be indicative as to how
Myanmar’s economy and enterprise ICT
market may behave in the short term.
Myanmar SMEs are similar to their
Indian and Indonesian counterparts in
that they expect simplicity (transparent
and predictable pricing), convenience
(one-stop shop) and value for money
(mainly a reduction in TCO). SMEs also
do not wish to deal with multiple providers
to fulfill their ICT needs, which range
across telephony, broadband connections,
mobile corporate connections, network
and security, storage, domain and web
hosting. They will prefer operators who
can act as an umbrella solution provider.
For example, with its “office-in-abox” bundle, Ooredoo in Qatar offers
basic data connectivity coupled with a
managed IP-telephony solution for the
SME segment. The “office-in-a-box”
may be an effective off-the-shelf package
in Myanmar as well. Some customized
SME sector-specific offerings are also
evolving, such as Tata Tele’s Bustracker
service and Bharti Airtel’s security-based
mobile applications targeting schools
and business process outsourcing units,
which are becoming increasingly popular
in India.
2. Provide customized solutions to
local conglomerate/MNC clients: Large
enterprises in Myanmar are likely to
spend significantly on ICT over the next
few years. They will require customized
support for rolling out major system
upgrades and workflow designs to cope
up with the new business environment. As
many Myanmar enterprises are complex
conglomerates with business interests
ranging from construction to financial
services, off-the-shelf toolkits may not
work too well with these customers’
complex requirements.
For these businesses, access to roundthe-clock customer service and a help
desk with efficient technical support,
proactive monitoring and incident
management and quick turnaround times
can be a big differentiator. This requires
operators to expand their service offerings
to include systems integration, managed
services, and cloud-based services
coupled with project management and
alliance management expertise to deliver
customized ICT solutions.
Operators
in
other
markets
are already using partnerships and
acquisitions to build these capabilities.
For example, T-Systems’ acquisition
of AirIT International (a provider of
airport IT services) and Metrolico were
targeted to serve the IT infrastructure
requirements of the transportation and
financial sectors.
3. Build local partnerships and
capacity: Building credible local
partnerships with specialist integrators
and investing in local capability
development is a key differentiator in
Myanmar – flying consultants in and
out doesn’t demonstrate commitment
and isn’t considered favorably in the
local market. Many newer Myanmar
companies such as Lantrovision, Axiom,
Fortune, and Elite Techtc are active in the
enterprise ICT space and are potential
partners or acquisition targets for telcos.
To offer more complex offerings,
telecom operators typically partner with
application providers. RCOM in India
has partnered with multiple companies
– such as Hitachi for cloud storage,
Panasonic for cloud-based security
surveillance and Polycom for cloudbased video conferencing – to become
a one-stop solution hub for its SME
clients. Singtel’s recent partnerships
with FireEye and Akamai Technologies,
and its acquisition of Trustwave, show
its commitment to provide advanced
security services to corporate customers,
combined with a secure ICT solution.
In doing so, Singtel is trying to integrate
security in its overall portfolio to provide
a more complete enterprise offering.
4. Leverage government relationships to capture transformation opportunities: Myanmar government enterprises are lagging behind their regional
peers in terms of digitization initiatives,
which provides a compelling business
case for Myanmar telecom operators to
position themselves as enablers for digital
economies. They may be able to leverage
their privileged government relationships
and countrywide presence to be the provider of choice for government ICT requirements.
To promote increased transparency,
the government in Myanmar must ensure that government information in the
near future is readily available online and
at low or no cost. Digital transformation
of this scale requires changes to both processes and IT systems that are more challenging to implement in the public sector,
especially given the fact that the bulk of
the data and government operational information were manually maintained and
not publicly available in the past. This also
requires maintaining confidentiality and
appropriate access controls over large volumes of data and critical infrastructure,
as well as complex project management
and coordination ability – which probably makes telcos the best candidates for
helping the government.
5. Acquire influential enterprise
customers and use them as brand
ambassadors: Success stories with
flagship customers deliver credibility and
demonstrate capability. Due to the more
personal nature of the Myanmar business
environment, word of mouth can make
or break a business’s prospect at lightning
speed. No amount of PR or advertising
can match that in the short term.
Furious growth
The number of enterprises in
Myanmar is increasing at a furious pace,
and ICT spending trend looks positive
starting from a very low base similar to
what has been observed earlier in Indian
and Indonesian economies immediately
following liberalization. Many industry
experts draw parallel of today’s Myanmar
with India of 1995-2005 and Indonesia
of early 2000. Telecom operators are
ahead of the curve and positioned to
capture a larger share of this evolving
ICT market similar to the way some
Indian and Indonesian operators have
done (Tata Tele, RCOM and Telkom all
positioned themselves well to capture
enterprise ICT revenue). However,
technological advancement during
this period has shortened the window
of opportunity significantly for ICT
providers in Myanmar compared to their
peers in India and Indonesia. Myanmar
companies will be most likely leapfrog
to cloud-based solutions, leaving behind
many generations of incremental ICT
changes.
Forming alliances with application
vendors and acquiring a few niche local
players can be a way for operators to
expand their services and capabilities in
a shorter timeframe. Whichever route
they choose, operators in Myanmar have
to move quickly to position themselves
as key players before the window of
opportunity disappears. 3
Samit K Deb is a senior consultant
with over 12 years of experience and
based out of Singapore. He can be
contacted at [email protected]
14
LATEST ENTERPRISE NEWS
2 June 2016
CENX, Brocade, Red Hat and RIFT.io
collaborate on SDN/NFV interoperability
Fiona Chau
CENX has teamed up with Brocade, Red Hat, and RIFT.io for
an initiative aimed at building
end-to-end service orchestration and management solutions
to accelerate the deployments
of software-defined networking
(SDN) and Network Functions
Virtualization (NFV) for services providers.
The companies are working together to interoperate
their respective technologies to
demonstrate end-to-end service management capabilities
over hybrid physical and virtu-
alized network infrastructure
in CENX’s SDNFV Innovation
Lab.
The demo involves CENX
Exanova Service Intelligence,
Red Hat’s OpenStack platform,
and RIFT.io’s RIFT.ware NFV
Orchestrator and VNF Manager.
CENX says the initiative
highlights how interoperability between vendors can help
accelerate time to market for
service providers seeking to
efficiently operationalize their
SDN and NFV deployments using Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) capabilities.
“Many service providers
are on an aggressive path to execute business transformation
strategies, which are centered
on next-generation SDN and
NFV technologies,” said Andrew McDonald, CENX’s senior VP of core products.
“By bringing together leading vendors to pre-integrate
comprehensive solutions across
complex, hybrid physical and
virtualized infrastructure, we
can help service providers more
quickly realize the opex-saving
benefits of these innovations.”
The initiative is CENX’s latest push to provide interoper-
Big data visualization of network incidents
Don Sambandaraksa
Nick Chae, strategic planning
and overseas business manager
at Wins, explains that one of
the biggest threats to company
networks today is the advanced
persistent threat (APT) attack
where an attacker gains access
to resources within a network
and stays there until it receives
an order.
Sniper APTx, a Wins product, analyzes network traffic to
discover APTs by their traffic
signature. It can shut down network segments or services that
may have been compromised
to lock down the threat. Sniper
One is another product focused
on hardening network security.
Sniper BD1 is a next-generation intrusion prevention
system that uses big data from
all network components to analyze network traffic. Chae says
his solution stresses the visualization of network functions
with a very intuitive UI. People
in the security operations center can see on big data walls
how the network is performing
and drill down in real time to
any incidents.
Chae says that Wins is now
number one in its home market of South Korea and has a
41% market share in Japan.
The company has only recently
decided to branch out into the
Southeast Asian market.3
Wins booth: BP2-03
Hitachi unveils enterprise-grade IoT core
platform
address
the
challenges
and batch data
Fiona Chau
Hitachi Insight Group, the
newly
created
subsidiary
responsible
for
driving
Hitachi’s global unified IoT
business and strategy, has
introduced Lumada, a new IoT
core platform.
Lumada integrates proven
commercial technologies from
across Hitachi’s portfolio and
is designed to help enterprises
associated with IoT solution
creation.
Lumada uses open, adaptive
software architecture to help
accelerate the development of
IoT products and services.
The platform provides a
comprehensive
framework
of key IoT solution building
blocks, including edge device
and connectivity integration,
application integration, data
integration and orchestration,
data
repositories,
stream
processing,
advanced analytics, artificial
intelligence, simulation tools,
repeatable solution blueprints,
and enterprise services.
Lumada also accelerates
synthesizing of actionable
insights, delivering faster timeto-value and supporting better
decisions. It will serve as the
core foundation on which all of
Hitachi’s IoT solutions are built
and will enable the creation of
IoT business ecosystems.3
Booth: 1K2-01/BES-01
able, multi-vendor LSO and
SDN/NFV solutions. In February, CENX successfully interoperated its Exanova Service
Intelligence software with Ixia,
Mitel, and VMware in a demo
for real-time assurance of mobile data services for virtual
Evolved Packet Core (vEPC).
CENX says its innovation
lab provides an ecosystem,
aligned with the “Central Office
Re-architected as a Datacenter
(CORD)” principle of providing
data center economies and cloud
agility to service providers.
The lab showcases streamlined operations and real-
world
implementation
of
leading-edge use cases, such as
enterprise services using vCPE,
VoLTE using vEPC, and Software-defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN).
CENX is taking part in the
CommunicAsia
Xperience
Zone, showcasing its Exanova
hyper-scale orchestrated service assurance solution for
service providers. The software
provides the unified LSO interface to the multiple components within a NFV architecture. 3
Booth: BJ2-07 (Ontario
Pavilion)
Sennheiser showcases
conference-room-in-asuitcase device
Don Sambandaraksa
Sennheiser is displaying its latest Team Connect Wireless remote audio conferencing setup
at CommunicAsia. The device
consists of up to four wireless
modules that can be laid out
across a desk to accommodate
up to 24 people. The master
unit can be connected to up
to three devices concurrently
via 3.5mm jacks, Bluetooth,
or USB and allow everyone to
engage in a multi-party conversation.
Shawn Tan, business communication product manager
at Sennheiser, explained that
the Team Connect was designed for executives to set up
impromptu meetings whenever and wherever the need
arises.
Another product on show:
SpeechLine Digital Wireless,
an encrypted digital 1.9-GHz
wireless microphone with the
ability to be remotely managed
and diagnosed. IT support can
remotely change settings and
even mute or unmute the device.
A third new product: Sennheiser’s Mobile Connect
BYOD audio streaming. The
device works over WiFi. After
users install an app on their
iOS or their Android device
and connect to the Sennheiser
AP, they can use their smartphone and existing headset to
listen to a soundtrack – with
low latency. One initial use
case is in theaters where alternative language soundtracks
can be offered for the performance on stage. 3
Sennheiser booth: 5L701
LATEST ENTERPRISE NEWS
15
2 June 2016
overnight wire
Softbank to sell $7.9b worth of Alibaba shares
Japan’s SoftBank Group plans to sell at least $7.9 billion worth of its stake in Alibaba to
help improve its cash position and reduce debt. The company plans to divest $5 billion
in Alibaba shares in a private placement, ell $2 billion worth of shares back to Alibaba,
$400 million to members of the Alibaba Partnership and $500 million to a sovereign
wealth fund. The shares represent around 4% of Alibaba and will reduce SoftBank’s
holdings in the e-commerce giant to around 28%. But SoftBank CEO Masayoshi son
said the company plans to continue its partnership with Alibaba and pursue additional
opportunities.
Nokia establishes digital health business
Nokia has established a new digital health business unit after completing the acquisition
of French consumer electronics and wearables manufacturer Withings. The new unit will
be led by former Withings CEO Cedric Hutchings, and will focus on digital health products
including activity trackers, smart body analyzer scales, thermometers, blood pressure
monitors, home and baby monitors. Nokia paid around €170 million ($189.1 million) for
the acquisition of Withings, which was announced in April.
SPTel launches dark fiber, Ethernet services
Singapore Power Group subsidiary SPTel has launched two new connectivity services
optimized for operators, retail service providers, data centers and enterprises.
The company has introduced a new OpticNet dark fiber network, as well as the
SmartConnect service, which combines Ethernet with DWDM to optimize connections
with key interconnection hubs. In the near future, SPTel plans to introduce bundled
networking services in partnerships with companies in other industries. With the new
services, the company aims to meet surging demand for connectivity, speed, diversity
and reliability as more international companies use Singapore as a regional hub.
DTAC Accelerate attracts $2b in VC funds in 1H16
Thai operator DTAC’s technology incubator DTAC Accelerate has attracted 70 million
baht ($1.96b) in venture capital funding for its seven tech startups in the first half of
this year. DTAC head of business innovation Sompoat Chansomboon told the Bangkok
Post that this is indicative of a surge in interest in investing in fintech, transport and
travel tech startups in the nation. Thailand is considered a hotspot in the tech startup
world due to its young population and entrepreneurial spirit, he said.
53 percent of Singapore companies reported increased
profits after implementing flexible working
A Vodafone study has shown that 75 percent of companies worldwide have introduced
flexible working policies. The survey of 8,000 business professionals also revealed that
53 percent of companies in Singapore that have introduced flexible working have seen
increased profits since its implementation.
The rapid adoption of high-speed mobile data services, fixed-line broadband and
cloud services is playing an integral role in this workplace revolution: 61 percent of
respondents now use their home broadband service to access work applications and 24
percent use a mobile data connection.
Rakuten launches drone
delivery service on golf courses
Eden Estopace
Japan’s e-commerce giant Rakuten has
launched Sora Raku, a drone delivery service for consumers on golf courses.
The service started in early May. The
drones will be used to deliver golf equipment, snacks, beverages and other items
to players at pickup points on the golf
course.
With the service, players can use the
dedicated Android app to place orders,
confirm the total possible order quantity, and receive push notifications when
preparations begin for dispatch and when
the drone commences its journey.
To use the service players will need to
log in using their Rakuten Member IDs,
and can choose to pay by either credit
card or with Rakuten Super Points.
On the operator’s side, once an order
has been received, staff waiting at a dedicated depot pack the goods into a delivery
box and load it onto the drone. The staff
then initiate the delivery process from the
control screen on a dedicated tablet, and
the drone flies to the pickup point autonomously.
The drone to be used in the service is
the Tenku, a dedicated drone developed
specifically for Sora Raku by Rakuten and
Autonomous Control Systems Laboratory Ltd (ACSL). Rakuten invested in ACSL
in March this year.
Tenku is equipped with an autopilot
system developed domestically by ACSL
and boasts highly stable flight performance, even in strong winds. The drone
also utilizes image recognition technology from the Rakuten Institute of Technology for landing.
Rakuten said the service will be offered initially for one month at the Camel
Golf Resort, a golf course in the Chiba
Prefecture.
By offering the Sora Raku drone delivery service at golf courses, Rakuten
said it hopes to provide a new shopping
experience and make drones more widely
accepted among consumers.
It is also looking into the utilization
of drones for deliveries in sparsely populated areas and mountainous regions, in
transporting supplies during disasters
and in its e-commerce businesses, including Rakuten Ichiba.3
16
LATEST NEWS
2 June 2016
Repurposing satellites for affordable
Internet access for Pacific Islands
Don Sambandaraksa
Providing affordable, reasonably priced broadband is a special challenge when the market
is the Pacific Islands – 18 countries spread over thousands of
small islands some with a population of just thousands.
John Hawker, VP for Australia-Pacific at ABS, explained
that the cost of maintaining
fiber becomes prohibitive and
satellite prices were very high,
typically at over $2,000 per
Mbps.
In the Federated States of
Micronesia, ABS last year won
a tender for 60 Mbps. Hawker
said that he managed to get the
price at half the previous market rate this year because FSM
tripled capacity as they were
able to easily resell the band-
width. This has led to knockon development with software
incubators and mobile money
solutions being rolled out with
huge benefits to society.
Mobile money is especially
relevant when people are on a
tiny island with no banking infrastructure at all.
The Pacific islands has
learned that C-Band is the best
frequency to use. People might
not want to watch YouTube in a
storm, but they still might want
to call for help.
In order to achieve this, ABS
moved one of its satellites, ABS6 from 75 degrees to 159 degrees,
right above the Pacific. The satellite was originally designed to
cover Russia and Central Europe for video and thus the transponder footprints do not quite
match up - for instance, New
Zealand is not covered at all, but
other than that it covers the Pacific market quite well.
Hawker said that this was
possible partly due to luck.
ABS-6 (back then called ABS1) was scheduled to be launched
as part of a dual payload. However, the other satellite was
cancelled meaning that ABS-6
was sent much higher into orbit by the rocket. The fuel saved
means that the satellite will be
operational until 2024, a full
ten years longer than what it
was designed for when it was
launched back in 1999.
“This isn’t charity, but I
believe in companies having
a corporate social responsibility. Everyone deserves access to
broadband at reasonable prices,” he said. 3
Booth: 1R3-01
Exhibitors update
COMPANY NAME
ALLTERCO PTE LTD
BOOTH NO.
BC4-06
CUBEACONBT3-01
DATA61BN2-07
DATAONBT3-01
INNERTRON INC
JUNIPER NETWORKS
BM2-03
BJ2-01
NATIONAL ADVANCED IPV6 CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE 3B4-19
PEER CORE NEX GEN
BN2-01
RADWARE1E2-01
ROLEPLAY STUDIO
SINGAPORE BUSINESS FEDERATION
BT3-01
BM2-10
SKYNET COMMS PTE LTD
BB4-14
UDC SYSTEMS PTY LTD
BN2-01
ZAMRUD TECHNOLOGY
BT3-01
ST Electronics intros ultra-lite Kaband block-up converters
The growth in high throughput satellite (HTS) applications has
created increased requirements for smaller and lighter equipment,
especially in the mobility markets of maritime, aero, and land communications.
To tap the rapidly expanding mobility demand driven by the
growth in HTS, ST Electronics (Satcom & Sensor Systems), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore-based ST Electronics, has unveiled an ultra-lite series of Ka-band block-up converters (BUCs).
The series, touted as the industry’s smallest and lightest of its
kind, consists of 3 Ka-band BUCs: 25W (2.9kg), 40W (4.9kg) and
110W (9.9kg).
“Mobility applications, both commercial and government, will
become the core of the HTS applications within the next 10 years.
This ultra-lite series of BUCS was designed to meet the continued
demand for higher speed and always on availability,” said Rajanik
Mark Jayasuriya, vice president of satellite networks business group
at ST Electronics (Satcom & Sensor Systems). 3
Booth: 1N3-01
“Post-WRC-15, mobile and satellite still at odds over spectrum” from page 1...
NOW YOU’RE PLAYING WITH POWER(BANK): Michael Oh Hong Choon (right), chairman and CEO for
CEO-Roundtable Sdn Bhd, wins a powerbank via one of 12 scheduled lucky draws at the Questex Asia
stand (BN4-07).
the numbers.”
He also criticized the US FCC for proposing to allocate parts of
the 28-GHz band for IMT purposes, which conflicts with Ka-band
applications, despite an agreement at WRC-15 that the band would
be excluded from consideration for IMT.
Consequently, the satellite sector is now making moves to lobby regulators and standards bodies and make clear that satellite is
very much a part of the 5G ecosystem.
Outside the panel, Ethan Lavan, director of the In-Orbit Resources division at Eutelsat, urged the satellite industry to engage
with various industry forums working on 5G standards, particularly in the areas of equipment specifications and band plans.
“We are at the point of no return,” Lavan said. “Equipment
specifications for IMT 5G are being defined now. Unless we have
some attractive and workable equipment specifications and means
for the equipment manufacturers to use bands other than 28 GHz,
there will be no going back.” 3
SUMMIT
17
2 June 2016
Communicasia2016 summit
Highlights for Day Three: Thursday, June 2
using near real-time security monitoring
MORNING PLENARY I 8.00am – 10.20am
Hibiscus 3612/3613
8.00Registration
13.30 Moving Beyond the Hype: Taking SDN and NFV from Early Trials to Hyper-
9.00 Chairman’s Welcome Address – Ville Kulmala, Chairman, Mobile Monday
Thailand
9.10 Opening Keynote: Architecting Internet of Things - Uncovering Case Studies
and Challenges towards Delivery
scale Deployments
• Learn how to control millions of packet flows under SDN orchestration
• Explore hosting and managing thousands of VNFs in an NFV architecture
• Understand the considerations for virtualized media processing and
This session will give a brief overview of what IoT is from the perspective
transcoding
of an Architect within Consulting Services. We will look at what kinds of pro-
• Make it real – an overview of the Mobile CORD initiative
jects we are getting involved in, what those projects look like in reality, the
Ray Adensamer, Director of Marketing, Radisys
kinds of challenges you will face, the network you need to succeed, and the
2.00 Panel Discussion: Hyper-Scale Cloud and Dynamic Service Chaining for NFV
risks involved. This session will move beyond hypotheticals and introduce
for Improving the Quality of Applications
real world examples that will help you prepare for life as a delivery architect
• How to maximise the service chaining opportunities
working with IoT.
• Impact of service chaining on cloud and data center applications
Darren Hubert, Chief Architect, Microsoft Services APAC
• Standardisation challenges an operator needs to account for
• Successful case studies on early deployment for CAPEX reduction in opti-
9.40 Innovators Dialogue: Digital Disruption
Steve Christian, VP of Marketing, Verimatrix
Digital Disruption is transforming the way companies and agencies oper-
mising VAS
ate and how they engage with their customers. Digital Disruption in 2015
Panelists:
marked a shift in the collective consciousness of businesses. In this trans-
Thomas Sennhauser, CTO - Enterprise Group APJ, HP
formation not everyone will survive. Bricks and mortar retailers in particular
Yann Sendra, Head of Mobile Network Planning, Globe Telecom
need a digital model alongside their established business if they are not to
Divesh Gupta, VP - Technology & Sales Ops, Presales, PCCW Global
miss out the wave of customers wanting to order products with tablets and
Ray Adensamer, Director of Marketing, Radisys
smartphones. So how will the enterprises capitalise on this disruption, not
Morteza Seraj, CTO, Tose Etemed Mobin Company (TEM)
just as channel but as an active participant in the new processes that are
Moderated by: Nan Chen, President, MEF
evolving?
2.40 Best Practices in On-Demand Provisioning of NFV
Panelists:
• NFV orchestration and possibilities of on-demand provisioning
Wing K Lee, CEO, YTL Communications Sdn Bhd
• Measuring the impact of scalable provisioning
Robert Le Busque, Managing Director, Strategy & Planning, APAC, EMEA,
• Achieving cost efficiency at a faster turnaround
LATAM, Verizon Enterprise Solutions
• Case study from successful integration
Dr. Amirudin Bin Abdul Wahab, CEO, Cybersecurity Malaysia
Divesh Gupta, VP - Technology & Sales Ops, Presales, PCCW Global
Fermin Fautsch, Vice President, Global Enterprise, Telekom Malaysia
3.10 Network IQ: Enabling Digital Transformation through Network Intelligence
Moderated by: Maurie Dobbin, Managing Director, Teleresources Engineering
• Companies continue to transform their businesses to a digital model to
grow their businesses and increase efficiency
SDN and NFV – Optimising the Network Architecture
• Providers can enable this transformation in an efficient, effective and se-
Heliconia 3505/3506
cure manner that adapts to differing customer deployments in order to de-
10.55 Chairman’s Welcome Address – Dr. Ricky Chau, VP, Asia Pacific, Level 3 Com-
liver on the needs of today’s digital enterprises, providers need to increase
munications
11.00 SDN and NFV: A Practical Approach to Implementation
the intelligence in the network, leveraging SDN and network-based security
Adam Saenger, Vice President of Product Development & Management,
• Introducing vendor and network-agnostic SDN and NFV platforms
• Identifying cross services opportunities in legacy infrastructure for faster
NFV User Cases – Trends & Learning Points
migration
4.00 Case Study: The Monetising Models of NFV
• Redesigning the operational procedures and upgrading skills: turning the
Level 3 Communications
inhibitors into opportunities
• How the revision in architecture from hardware to virtualised functioning
impacts the operational models
• Adopting Open Source architecture
• Collating and monetising network and subscriber data
Sean Bergin, President, AP Telecom
• Reducing operational costs through network optimisation
• The rate of evolving business models and the faster NFV integration: agil-
11.30 Building Scale-Out Network Solutions Using SDN and High-Performance
OpenFlow Forwarding Planes
ity is the watchword
• Applying the presented principles to build NoviFlow’s Scale-Out Router
• Allowing different network elements to scale independently based on a
4.30 Efficient Extension of SDN & NFV Capabilities into the Optical Layer
wide variety of characteristics
• Enabling many applications to scale-out to extremely large configuration in
simple, modular increments
• What are the impacts on software defined optical port speeds, protocols
and wavelengths
• Implementing a more robust security infrastructure to support active man-
• Increased capabilities such as on-demand provisioning of up to 100 Gbps
and at higher speeds
agement of devices and transactions
• Benefits in dynamic service chaining through optical layers
• Connecting previously isolated security deployments through globally
Mohd Azlan Bin Zainudin, Network Architect - South Pacific Solutions Mar-
interconnected systems
• How opening up optical platform for virtualisation could be beneficial for
operators
Marc LeClerc, VP of Strategy and Marketing, NoviFlow Inc.
12.10 A New Way of Thinking About Connected Revenue Security
Yann Sendra, Head of Mobile Network Planning, Globe Telecom
• Enhancing quality of service, leverage viewer behavior and identify threats
keting, Huawei
5.00 100G PON, Releasing More Energy Of Fiber Access Network
18
SUMMIT
2 June 2016
Communicasia2016 summit
Highlights for Day Three: Thursday, June 2
• Demonstrating optical properties including PON access services simulation
the 3DR concept is poorly understood. This session will look at:
and taking common integrated platform technology to co-exist with GPON,
• What would a correctly implemented 3DR approach look like in IT?
EPON, MSAN and XGPON technologies.
• How do we communicate what get the message across that delay alone is
• Reusing the existing ODN network to protect existing networking invest-
not defence in depth?
ments
• Flexible selection of channels for downlink to enhance bandwidth
4.00 Next Generation Security for Telcos and ISPs
Zhang Xiao, Marketing Director - Broadband Access Product, Fiberhome
• Overview of the DNS Threat Landscape
Technologies Group
• Are you the target or the vector of the attacks?
• How to efficiently protect your DNS Infrastructure from new Cyberattack
technics
ENTERPRISE CYBERSECURITY – Securing for Sustainable Growth
Heliconia 3502/3503
10.55 Co-Chairman’s Welcome Address – Lim Soon Chia, Director – Technology
Division, Cyber Security Agency Singapore
Frank Ip, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, Huawei
• How to optimize your infrastructure spending while increasing your level
of security
David Williamson, CEO, EfficientIP
11.15 Tackling Insider Threat
4.30 RoundTable Discussions:
Most technical controls and cyber security methods are aimed out towards
Format:
the perceived threat, whereas the data shows that the financial, legal and
• Each moderator will have 10min to speak/share their understanding (or
trols and processes sufficient to manage the risk associated with this threat?
• Participants Discussion Time – 15min
Professor Yuval Elovici, Research Director of iTrust, SUTD / Head of BGU
• Presentation of Discussion/Findings/Solutions – 15min
Cyber Security Research Center
• Wrap-up Summary by Moderators – 5min
Moderator of each roundtable will share 4 takeaways of what is being dis-
reputational costs are much greater from the insider threat. Are current con
11.45 Advanced Persistent Threats (APT)
give a short topic opening) – 10min
Advanced persistent threats (APT) / Malware – We already have a difficult
time detecting malware: why is it so hard? How can we be better at this, and
cussed earlier in the group
what will the malware of tomorrow look like?
RoundTable1: Countering the Threats to Cyber and Cyberphysical Assets
Arising Out of Higher Connectivity
Ko Sasaki, General Manager, LAC (Member of Japan Network Security As-
Frank Ip, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, Huawei
sociation)
Roundtable 2: Cyber Security Education Awareness and Training
Mark Ames, Associate Director, KPMG Management Consulting
Roundtable 3: Achieving a Secure Enterprise Architecture – Challenges and
12.15 Enhancing Security and Privacy While Managing IoT Data Generation in
Enterprises
• The new paradigm of managing data generation through IoT devices
• How are enterprises integrating data gateways and securing them from
David Williamson, CEO, EfficientIP
threats
Roundtable 4: Using Coordinated Security Intelligence and Analytical Tools
Practical Solutions
• Handling the combined challenge of miniaturatisation of IoT devices and
in Detecting and Mitigating Advanced Persistent Threats (APT)
the boom in data generation
Colin Cooper, General Manager Government and Defence, ViaSat
• Authentication issues in large enterprises
Ko Sasaki, General Manager, LAC (Member of Japan Network Security As-
Eric Lam, Director for Asia- Enterprise Cybersecurity, Microsoft
sociation)
2.00 Innovating and Securing New Systems, all done in one Breath
Roundtable 5: Challenges for Regulators in National Cybersecurity
Dr. Amirudin Bin Abdul Wahab, CEO, Cybersecurity Malaysia
This presentation highlights how IT innovations should be protected and
secured via key principles of Security, Privacy and Resiliency by Design so
that operational and innovation risks of new systems could be balanced and
CLOUD NETWORKING AND BIG DATA ANALYTICS – Driving Efficiency through
at the same time, users could enjoy both agile and fast implementations. It
Smart Data
is achieved via architectural simplifications using both foresight and insight
Heliconia 3406
skills. It also aims to guard the organization via a good dose of caution that
10.55 Chairman’s Welcome Address – Maurie Dobbin, Managing Director, Telere-
will avoid disastrous failures or very expensive mistakes
Professor Yu Chien Siang, Chief Innovation Officer, Certis Cisco
2.30 How Do You Manage the Risk of BYOD?
sources Engineering
Trends in Cloud Architecture and Infrastructure
11.00 Delivering and Managing Green and Efficient Cloud Data Centers: What New
The approach to managing the risk associated with BYOD by banning such
devices from the workplace is no longer practical. The reality is that smart-
Technologies are Impacting the Industry?
• How cloud centers can be more efficient beyond achieving a higher PUE
and used for undertaking work activities. This presentation will address key
• Going beyond conventional HVAC considerations
issues including:
• Planning and integrating a decommissioning programme into your data
phones and tablets are pervasive and are being brought into workplaces,
(Power Usage Effectiveness)?
• What recognition is there of this issue?
• What technical controls are being utilised to protect the corporate border?
• Identifying the ideal time to decommission comatose servers
• Have privacy and other issues been considered?
John Duffin, Managing Director – South Asia and APAC, Uptime Institute
• What policies are in place to manage the risk?
11.30 Driving Up Business Value with Optimal Cloud Orchestration: Case Study
Mark Ames, Associate Director, KPMG Management Consulting
center expansion
3.00 Defence in Depth
• Automated tasks and coordinated workflow planning for ideal cloud orchestration: the prime requirement
When implemented correctly, this approach to defending an IT system
• DevOps and cloud orchestration: creating a team for realising faster delivery
should incorporate elements of deter, detect, delay and respond (3DR). De-
• Combining the in-house capability build and outsourcing of orchestration
fence in depth strategies in IT rely on delay mechanisms, and it appears that
processes
SUMMIT
19
2 June 2016
Communicasia2016 summit
• Planning higher security while being flexible
Ryan Eames, Chief Architect, Verizon Enterprise Solutions
Highlights for Day Three: Thursday, June 2
system for sustainable business operations
12.00 Panel Discussion: Practical Opportunities and Challenges in Interoperable
and Portable Cloud Infrastructure
• Understanding new standards, technologies and their availability for e.g.
wireless access technologies and M2M platforms
• Discussing the roadmap towards planning and implementing IoT services
• Costs: regulatory, migratory and redevelopment
• Data and IaaS / PaaS considerations during migrations
• The level of standardisation and interface mechanisms between different
Practical Applications of IoT in Industry Segments
cloud offerings
11.30 How Real-time Big Data From Factories Enables Smarter Manufacturing
• Trends in minimising redevelopment of codes while attempting portability
• Addressing migration to cloud in the long term: how future interoperabil-
to realize this new opportunities.
Decisions: Case Study
ity and portability needs could impact OPEX
Panelists:
Sue Bryant, Director - South Pacific Solutions Marketing, Huawei
• Implementing simultaneous process automation in multiple locations: how
key technologies are finalised through field data analysis
• Understanding the Production/Process Life Cycles (PLC) to achieve mini-
Bernie Trudel, CTO – Cloud / Chairman, CISCO / ACCA
Mahesh Jaishankar, Vice President International Connectivity & Infrastruc-
• Planning through varying levels of automation
ture Commercial, Du
• Ensuring uninterrupted production while automating parts of production
mally invasive automation through smart data analysis
Karthikeyan Rajasekharan, Head of Cloud Platform Channels APAC, Google
Eric Hanselman, Chief Analyst, 451 Research
Alex Cheng Yu Wee, CTO / IT / Data Centre and Cloud Solution Sales, Global
12.00 Aviation Case Study: Harnessing the Power of the Connected Aircraft
line
Kirsten Billhardt, Marketing Director, Internet of Things, DELL Inc
Solutions Elite Team, Huawei
• Extensive growth in passenger demand for Inflight WiFi Connectivity
Jerry Chung, Singapore Country Manager, CDNetworks
• Recent developments in inflight global satellite connectivity networks
Moderated by: David Siah, Country Manager, Trend Micro / Vice Chairman,
CSA Asia Pacific Executive Council
2.00 Key Considerations in Scaling Hybrid Cloud Deployments and Operations
• The modern ‘Connected Aircraft’ and growing need for connectivity for
operational
• effectiveness
Successfully
• Aircraft tracking and monitoring over global satellite networks
• How does the world of Digital Transformation correlates to Cloud?
Chuck Albright, Director, Airline Market Development, Inmarsat
• Understanding the key challenges operating in a multi-cloud environment.
2.00 Smart Manufacturing – Collaborative Industry 4.0 Workspaces
• Maturity Checklist for operating hybrid clouds
• What makes a connected plant – key characteristics of Industry 4.0 projects
Sandip Gupta, Vice President (Cloud Business), Singtel
• Planning a collaborative Industry 4.0 workplace
2.30 Delivering an Enhanced Web Environment to Customers
• How to achieve data and knowledge based optimization in connected
Discover how enterprises can:
• Tap on a global infrastructure to accelerate delivery of their web content
• Safeguard their websites against attacks
Technology Challenges in IoT’s Consumerisation
• Analyse their web traffic to understand their customers 2.30 CIoT and Increasing Demands on Network Capacity: Getting Ready for Bil-
Youngdo Jeon, Security Service Manager, CDNetworks
3.00 Big Data and ‘Deep-Learning’: Exploring New Opportunities
• How big data is aiding deep learning by providing structural classifications
• Reducing error rate for data recognition
• Potential benefits in designing massive product launches, improving qual-
plants
Thomas Jakob, Regional President, Asia Pacific, Bosch Software Innovations
lions of New Smart Devices
• Projected growth in population of new millennials and smart, connected
living
• Why CIoT will constrain connectivity networks from the current surplus
capacity and how operators are planning to address the demand
ity of data analysis and minimising human errors in customer service
• Latency challenges: the implications and evolutions
• The road ahead for deep learning in big data
• Opportunities from the future networks
Karthikeyan Rajasekharan, Head of Cloud Platform Channels APAC, Google
Linda Chandler, Smart Cities Lead, Microsoft
Future Trends in Big Data and Cloud Computing
3.00 Stakeholders Panel Discussion: Understanding the Scope and the Infrastruc-
4.00 Hybrid Cloud: The New Paradigm for Telcos - Implications and Opportunities
• Heterogeneous data from IoT and its impact on current data storage struc-
ture Needs for a Faster CIoT Adoption
tures: PaaS and beyond
• Are we doing enough to move from CIoT concepts to testbeds to partnership programmes?
• Anticipating and preparing the infrastructure for the unprecedented
• How will the wireless carriers charge increased connectivity needs?
growth in sensor, video and image data
• Technologies needed for the communication synergies between existing
cations in next two years: how is the industry approaching?
• New growth segments and their intrinsic challenges
Ajay Sunder, Vice-President for ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan
Panelists:
• The growth of data inputs from cognitive computing and M2M communi-
smart devices and wearable devices
Mazlan Abbas, CEO, Redtone IoT
INDUSTRIAL AND CONSUMER IOT – Creating the Innovative Ecosystem
Linda Chandler, Smart Cities Lead, Microsoft
Heliconia 3402/3403/3404
Sanjaya, Deputy Director General, APNIC
10.55 Chairman’s Welcome Address
Ben Wark, Regional Director ñ Digital & IoT, Brightstar Corporation
Moderated by: Toby Ruckert, CEO, Unified Inbox
Sherrie Huang, Research Programme Head, Asia–Pacific, Analysys Mason
11.00 The Road to Monetising IoT
• Addressing the complex challenge of ensuring profitability in the connected world
• Gaining market insight across various segments towards building an eco-
For complete programme, visit www.communicasia.com