2023.02.17- Open Broadband News

Consumers want a single source for smart home device control – Parks Associates  

Getting connected device disaggregation data can be difficult, and many current utility programs offer data only in 15-minute intervals, while consumers today are accustomed to real-time data. These challenges are exacerbated by the nature of today’s smart home ecosystem, which consists of many disparate devices from different manufacturers.

The standard smart home buyer journey today is via retail, often one device at a time, creating an experience where consumers are using multiple apps to control their devices. Therefore, control is not unified, and data is often not shared among devices, creating a disjointed consumer experience. But consumers want a more unified experience, with integrated automation and intelligence.

For many consumers, the ideal solution would be an IoT platform that can simplify and combine all disparate devices and services into a single unified source. As consumers accumulate more devices, they gravitate toward a single source of control.

US internet households are almost evenly divided, with 52% preferring an involved customized and control experience, versus 48% who prefer a “set it and forget it” experience. IoT solutions can have the flexibility to meet either need. 73% of smart home device owners or purchase intenders consider interoperability important.

Bjorn from Domos discussing QoE and latency

In the latest Preseem Podcast, Dan and Jeremy had a conversation with Bjørn Ivar Teigen, Head of Research at Domos. The podcast explored what latency is and how it is perceived.

For a long time, hardware and networks in general were over-optimized for throughput as it can do lots of demanded things like aggregation, although a lot of customer experience is driven by latency. The over-focus of throughput has led to the general buffer problems where links are busy and the user experience in turn, is poor.

There is a common misconception that latency is prorogation, focusing on how long it takes to get from A to B. For most access networks, this is not a concern at all. Too much buffering can cause packets to queue, and add latency and not throughput.

“One of the reasons why maximizing throughput ends up creating this blow for blow problem is that these transport protocols are really sensitive to packet loss,” said Bjorn. “There’s an incentive when you’re building a box, or a router, or something in the network and you’re testing it for throughput, you really want to avoid packet loss at all costs because that is going to impact your test scores when evaluating whether you’re hitting the targets.”

RAN revenue on the decline until 6G comes along

A new report from Mobile Experts forecasts that 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) investments will decline over the next few years before 6G forces another ramp up.

The general direction tracks with reports from Dell’Oro Group, which also recently published a report noting the RAN market is transitioning from the expansion phase to one of slower growth.

Interestingly, the new forecast shows how China and the rest of the world have become entirely separate markets.

While Chinese operators will work to meet their Government’s expectations of 5G development over the next two years, the United States and other countries will experience a decline in 5G investment, the firm stated.

“We’ve seen this pattern many times, in 2000, 2008, 2016 and now 2023,” said Mobile Experts Chief Analyst Joe Madden in a statement. “The second half of every ‘G’ involves significant reductions in base station pricing, as well as shifts in volume. Every ‘G’ migrates from a growth opportunity to a cash-cow opportunity. This time, we have some interesting shifts toward software and private 5G at the same time, which offset the natural decline of the market.”

Africa to gain 9m new SVOD subs

Africa is forecasted to have 15.57 million paying subscription video on demand (SVOD) subscriptions by 2028, up from 6.15 million at the end of last year.

According to the latest report from Digital TV Research, SVOD penetration rates will remain low despite this fast growth, with only 7% of TV households paying for at least one subscription by 2028. This is up from 4% at the end of 2022.

Commenting on the findings of the report, Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “Take-up is inhibited by low disposable incomes. Limited fixed broadband penetration also stifles growth, with few mobile operators offering OTT options. Not all global SVOD platforms will start in every African country – restricting choice.”

Energy efficiency in the cloud native 5G core

Environmentally sustainable, energy-efficient networks are of great importance, according to Heavy Reading Principal Analyst Gabriel Brown. In a 5G network, the RAN consumes most of the power, but operators must nevertheless ensure that the core network and the underlying cloud infrastructure are also optimized.

A power efficient 5G core is important for obvious reasons – efficiency is good engineering, electrical power generation has, to varying degrees, a negative environmental impact, and electricity can be expensive, with future pricing currently hard to predict.

Heavy Reading “5G Core Networks Operator Survey” presented several energy-saving options for the 5G core and asked operators what actions can most help them meet their environmental goals and reduce power consumption. The top answer, with a 52% response, was “moving as many functions as possible to a common infrastructure platform.” This could include major initiatives such as “tech clean-ups” to remove legacy power-hungry equipment – for example, removing 3G core functions altogether to focus on 4G/5G.