2021.09.10 – Open Broadband News

Crunch point! Tech industry reports global chip shortage

Today, millions of products – cars, washing machines, smartphones, and more – rely on computer chips, also known as semiconductors. And right now, there just aren’t enough of them to meet industry demand. As a result, many popular products are in short supply.

It has become almost impossible to buy a PS5 games console. Toyota, Ford and Volvo have had to either slow or temporarily halt production at their factories. Smartphone makers are feeling the pinch too, with Apple warning that the shortage could affect iPhone sales.

Seda Memik, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and computer science, at Northwestern University, said: “It will take multiple years to accomplish…a better balance.” She also says that the pace of demand for chips has been rising so strongly that a shortage was, at some point, “inevitable”.

Establishing new chip factories is difficult to do quickly, she adds: “It’s extremely expensive and requires a well-trained workforce.” It’s a potential spanner in the works for those who advocate “re-shoring” – relocating chip fabrication to a wider variety of countries, including those in the West, in order to ease the pressure on global supply chains.

Expected slump in broadband spend fails to materialize in 2021, says Dell’Oro

 The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on broadband network usage has been pretty well documented over the past 17 months or so. Indeed, enforced home working and copious consumption of TV streaming services has only served to reinforce the central role that high-speed home broadband networks play in our lives today.

After last year’s increase in subscriber numbers and data traffic, a slowdown might have been expected in 2021, in turn affecting what telecoms operators spend on broadband access and customer premises equipment (CPE). Not so, concedes Dell’Oro, which indicated that it had originally predicted such a scenario. The research company said operators globally have continued to maintain spending on equipment because of the sustained demand for services.

Dell’Oro added: “The spending slump we had expected to see in 2021 after the increased investment levels of 2020 is not going to materialise. In fact, spending will continue to grow this year as operators deal with continued subscriber additions, as well as competitors increasing their investments in fibre, HFC [hybrid fibre coaxial] and fixed wireless networks.”

Fixed broadband market soars in Portugal – thanks to FTTH!

Portugal had 4.2 million fixed broadband accesses at the end of Q1, or 4.3% (173,000) more than in the same period last year.

According to data published by the regulator ANACOM, FTTH was the main technology employed, reaching 57.7% of total accesses, or 5.1 per person more than in Q1 2020. FTTH was also the main driver for fixed broadband growth, with the number of accesses increasing by 14.5% (309,000) in the year up to June 30^th.

Cable accesses decreased by 0.6% in Q1 and accounted for 28.3% of the total (-1.4 per person less than 12 months earlier), while ADSL accesses fell by 28.7% and represented 7.3% of the total (-3.4 per person). Fixed accesses supported on mobile networks fell by 1.8% and accounted for 6.6% of the total (-0.4 per person).

5G will accelerate adoption of smart home devices – according to Indian survey

5G will accelerate the adoption of Smart Home IoT devices, such as Smart TV (29%), Smart Health Systems (21%), and Smart Speakers (17%), said a survey. The survey was conducted across the top six cities of India, namely, New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad.

According to CyberMedia Research (CMR), 5G is expected to enable consumers to watch more streaming video (81%) on smartphones. Similarly, consumers believe mobile gaming is anticipated to get a boost with 5G (74%).

The top three expectations from 5G-enabled phones are faster response time (70%), faster connection speed (67%), and a cost-effective data plan (66%). Smartphone users believe that 5G would enable better quality video calls (70%), enable quality content (63%), and more immersive experience with the help of AR & VR (54%), it said.

What are the reasons for Africa’s ongoing connectivity problem?

Lack of access to reliable and affordable electricity and other services make accelerating Africa’s broadband penetration difficult. But what are the other reasons?

As the second largest continent by land mass and population with circa 1, 340, 598, 147 inhabitants in 54 countries, broadband access is only enjoyed by a third of the population. What’s more, achieving universal, affordable and good quality internet access by 2030 will require an investment of at least US $100 Billion.

Craig Thomas, Vice President Strategic Marketing and Business Development at Broadband Forum, says the marketplace for broadband experience in the African region is diverse and is characterized by limited fixed broadband penetration. “In more developed areas, customers have the choice of mobile networks such as 4G, 5G, fixed wireless access, fixed access and satellite technology,” he says. “Where internet connectivity is limited to 3G or 4G, that inaccurately becomes the expectation of what broadband is. There is a clear argument to invest once and look at the broadband access network holistically to deliver next-generation access. One unified access network can integrate all technologies, with the final access technology the only variable as the network can be built to accommodate all broadband access technologies.”

Check out our published work from the last quarter!

This quarter has seen numerous Work Area releases from the Broadband Forum, and this includes:

·         ATA Work Area – Access Architecture Project Stream – TR-459.3 IPTV Multicast for DBNG

·         ATA Work Area – Performance, Experience, Application Testing Project Stream – MR-452.2: Use of DeltaQ to Manage Customer SLA

·         The Open Broadband – Broadband Access Abstraction (OB-BAA) project team recently published release 4.1 of its reference implementation of the CloudCO’s BAA layer.

·         The OB-UDP Speed Test (OB-UDPST) project team released its 7.2.0 Release on July 16, 2021, and 7.2.1 Supplemental Release on August 20, 2021.

·         PHYtx Work Area – G.fast Performance Test Plan (TR-380i2) has been published.

·         SDN/NFV Work Area – YANG Modules for Network Map & Equipment Inventory (TR-454) has been published.