Voice over WiFi: its time has come

June 2015
Voice over WiFi:
its time has come
Encoding evolution
DTT in Germany
4k DTH satellite
Connected cars
www.csimagazine.com
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Contents
20 COVER STORY - VoWiFi
Voice over WiFi has been a long time coming
but it’s finally here. Should cable operators push
ahead with the technology?
23 DTT in Germany
05 News & analysis
All the latest industry and research news
12 Analyst corner
Strategy Analytics looks at the opportunities for
TV providers in the smart home
An expert gives his opinion on the future of the
terrestrial platform as it embraces T2 and OTT
24 Connected cars
Cars are getting more connected and will play a
key role in upcoming smart city developments
32 Encoding evolution
We analyse the key market trends
14 4k via satellite
An overview of 4k/ultra HD deployments by
DTH providers globally
17 Industry column
A recent DTG event explored the role virtual
reality can play in broadcast, opening the way for
new forms of storytelling
18 Q&A: Cable Labs
Phil McKinney, CEO of the industry group,
provides an update on DOCSIS 3.1 and how
cable is looking to make a play in the IoT space
35 Data corner
UK connected TV stats, including Now TV,
Chromecast, Facebook and games consoles
36 Q&A: AirTies
Executive chairman and co-founder Bulent Celebi
talks to CSI about overcoming the challenges of
indoor WiFi
38 Connected healthcare
Early healthcare applications for the smart home
are beginning to appear in European markets
Editor’s report:
Just when you thought the M&A craze was going to quieten down - and the mega merger
between Comcast and Time Warner Cable is called off due to regulatory concerns - Arris
crops up to ruffle a few feathers, not once but twice. First it announces it is acquiring cloudbased software specialist ActiveVideo for $135m. Then, almost two years to the day it
bought Motorola Home, the company surprises everyone by announcing its intention to
purchase Arris in a deal worth some $1.2bn, something that apparently even most of the employees were
not aware of until a few weeks prior to the public announcement. The move creates by far the world’s
dominant manufacturer of STB and CPE devices, as well as a leading provider of cable networks gear.
Speaking of cable infrastructure, we look at the opportunities presented by VoWiFi for cable operators
as their mobile counterparts start deploying the technology (p20) and speak to the CEO of Cable Labs
about DOCSIS 3.1 plugfests and other industry developments (p18). Goran Nastic, editor
2015
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June 2015
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News
YouView looks to cloud, OTT future
news in brief
The platform’s newish CTO says
cloud and broadband delivery will
transform the service in terms of user
this approach. Digital ad insertion
(DAI) is another opportunity that
YouView will look to embrace.
and Cisco. The opportunity is to
look and follow people like Netflix
who changed our way of thinking
Comcast 4k, HDR boxes
Comcast plans to introduce a
new Xi4 set-top box later this
experience, multi-screen, PVR and
analytics. The network is also being
technically prepared to handle
encrypted unicast delivery.
The internet is empowering new
ways of consuming content. Even
YouView is also being equipped
for encrypted unicast delivery so that
OTT services have a standardised
way of delivering content on a
transactional basis, which Thexton
hopes will attract smaller OTT
of how cloud can be deployed.
Now it’s commoditised we can all
start experiencing and exploiting
this, but the way we think and
implement it is important,” said
Thexton, arguing that companies
year, which will deliver 4k ultra
HD content, adding hundreds of
titles to its 4k VoD library. The
cablenet is also developing the
Xi5, a device that will support
high dynamic range (HDR) in
though online consumption still
hugely trails traditional broadcast,
it nevertheless provides a powerful
generic infrastructure that companies
like YouView can harness, according
players to join the service (Netflix is
integrated).
Thexton told CSI on the back of
the conference that while encrypted
unicast still hasn’t been approved by
not thinking about things like CPU
advances, storage and providers
like Amazon Web Services are
‘missing out’.
Accenture is building YouView’s
2016. HDR will apply to both
HD and 4K content and both
boxes will be provided as free
upgrades for existing subscribers,
suggest US reports.
to YouView CTO, Nick Thexton.
YouView’s shareholders - who
back end infrastructure, which will
Thexton, who joined YouView in
November last year, hinted at a big
re-engineering programme taking
place, driven in part by his
experience at NDS and then Cisco
include broadcasters like BBC and
ITV and telcos BT and Talk Talk this is the technical direction the
network is moving in. DASH will be
the platform’s preferred model and
help it transition to a serviceorientated architecture (SOA) that
is more efficient, agile and flexible,
according to Thexton, who is at the
same time growing an in-house
Swisscom to rollout G.fast
Swisscom plans to implement a
G.fast upgrade on its network,
boosting downlink fibre-to-thestreet (FTTS) and building
after the merger.
YouView will also support Common
team to handle cloud operations.
(FTTB) connections to 500Mbps.
“One piece is the way we use the
powerful connected infrastructure
with features like search to make the
whole system feel faster and
Encryption (CE).
Thexton also explained YouView
has a policy about handling OTT vs
IP multicast. He said it’s a little
To the previous point of analytics,
he said much of that and other
functionality can be taken out
of the set-top box and into
The Swiss telco completed field
tests of the technology last month
and is now testing the new G.fast
data transmission standard under
smoother going forward. We have a
platform empowered for analytics
and therefore are turning it into
known fact that YouView is one of
the most mature multicast platforms
in the world, enabling it to deliver a
the cloud.
Multi-device experience
real conditions for the first time
and connecting the first test
customers. Swisscom plans to
something that is completely data
driven,” said Thexton. “The true
huge amount of content over BT and
Talk Talk’s broadband networks,
To this end, YouView will create a
multi-device viewing experience
begin a full scale rollout of the
technology in 2016, together
potential of the platform hasn’t really
started yet.”
While it is too early to provide
which leaves plenty of room for OTT
players to come on board the
YouView’ experience.
that will in the future be less STBcentric, even though 80% of
YouView boxes are connected given
conjunction with its technology
partner Huawei.
detail, he mentioned the user
interface and audience measurement
as two areas that will benefit from
Cloud is the key ingredient making
this happen. “We are implementing
many things we talked about at NDS
the nature of the service. Similarly,
Thexton reckons the balance of
power which currently favours
New CEO for Cisco
Chuck Robbins is taking over
head duties at Cisco as he
content owners in terms of
network PVR (nPVR) will also
begin to change and he sees a
cross-over point on the horizon
in terms of network storage.
“There exists an awful lot of
opportunity to start to
combine that multi device
replaces long serving CEO John
Chambers. Robins, formerly SVP
of the company’s worldwide
operations, assumes command on
July 26, replacing Chambers who
will assume the role of executive
chairman. Chambers has led
Cisco since 1995 while Robbins
universe. YouView being just a
STB will not be the only model
in existence going forward,”
he said.
YouView is already moving
joined in 1997. Robbins was also
elected to the Board of Directors
of Cisco. He has helped lead and
execute many of the company’s
investments and strategy shifts,
the aggregation experience to
other devices, starting with
Sony Smart TVs this Summer.
including building partner
program, now worth more than
$40bn in revenue.
www.csimagazine.com
June 2015
5
News
Open Web will deliver connected viewing
news in brief
Altice to deploy CCAP,
DOCSIS 3.1
French cable operator is
preparing for multi-Gigabit
speeds using Cisco’s cBR8
platform. Altice will deploy
CCAP across multiple territories,
starting with France and use it as
the foundation for a long-term
evolution of its cable access
architecture, by taking advantage
of DOCSIS 3.1, one of the first
MSOs in Europe to do so, though
the standard won’t be ready for
full implementation until 2016.
Orange Stick starts shipping
The telco has launched its IPTV/
OTT streaming stick in Europe
using Espial’s HTML5 client
software. Orange Stick is an
HDMI dongle giving users access
to 70 live TV channels, catch-up
TV, managed VoD portals, OTT
video services, premium music
and an ecosystem of apps. They
can also watch personal content
they have stored on their mobile
device on the TV. The dongle is
being deployed in Romania first,
followed by Orange’s Shosh OTT
stand alone service in France by
the end of the year, with plans to
extend to other European
markets. More payTV operators
are expected to follow suit.
Big fight hit by piracy
US viewers turned to Twitter’s
Periscope streaming app for the
boxing match between
Mayweather and Pacquiao,
highlighting new forms of
streaming piracy. Periscope,
which enables direct capture and
streaming to phones, via Twitter,
has hundreds of thousands of
users each month. HBO recently
sent takedown notices to
Periscope when it found users
were streaming episodes of Game
of Thrones on the platform.
06
June 2015
Broadcasters and pay TV operators
are agreed that migration away from
proprietary closed platforms to open
web IP based delivery is ushering in
the era of connected viewing across
multiple devices and content
sources, even if challenges remain.
There is also growing consensus
that the cloud will provide the scale
needed to deliver a broad range of
content including niche channels
cost effectively, particularly for
spectrum-constrained MSOs.
Liberty is spending some
EUR2.5 billion a year on content,
much of that increasingly on
non-linear digital rights. In the
face of this shift, Liberty and other
cable providers need access to
a new set of rights, including
out-of-home viewing rights
and VoD.
Speaking at a panel during the
recent TV Connect show in
London, Tom Cape, Director of
Connected Solutions at UK DTT
infrastructure provider Arqiva,
emphasised that the open web
would complement and enhance
linear viewing. “We believe there’s
a long future for linear TV but we
can make it much more exciting
with IP through services like start
over TV.”
This was reiterated by Roux
Joubert, Head of Platforms at BBC
Digital, who pointed out that 90%
of the BBC’s viewing was still
linear and that had not eroded
nearly as quickly as the corporation
itself had predicted. But for this
very reason it was essential that the
platform embrace all devices and
places with a common experience
that exploits the connected nature
of viewing possible with IP. The
BBC was seeking to achieve this in
part through a new generation of
Red Button. “It should not matter
to the user where the content is
coming from,” said Joubert. “That
is our vision for Red Button+.
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Whether it is a broadcast stream or
IP stream in HD, the viewer
shouldn’t have to worry about tuning
the channel. That has been hard to
achieve technically because the
worlds are not related, at least until
HbbTV 2.0.”
Joubert was referring here to the
latest version of the HbbTV 2.0
standards introduced in February
2015 with help from a variety of
bodies including the DVB and Open
IPTV Forum, to bring together IP
and traditional broadcast in a unified
hybrid platform. HbbTV2.0
incorporated HTML5 and enables
more advanced services than the
earlier iterations of the standard,
including push VoD, support for
companion apps, and better
interoperability between services and
client devices.
Such interoperability was an
essential ingredient of the connected
TV world, according to Jaime Miles,
Group VP at US MSO Time Warner
Cable, speaking on that same TV
Connect panel. “In the blended IP
delivery world we can interact with
content and signal back, while
moving between devices. That is all
about connected viewing.”
Miles pointed out that the
broadcasting and IP worlds had a
growing amount in common that was
allowing synergies and savings at the
human resource as well as
technology level. “We realised that
the workflows have a lot of overlap
so we have combined our classic
video and next generation teams,”
said Miles.
Miles also observed that IP was a
huge benefit for MSOs in particular
because by enabling cloud
distribution it allowed them to
escape the historical spectrum
limitations of legacy HFC platforms.
“It allows us to carry niche channels
on our MSO platform because it
avoids the spectrum challenge.”
More generally the move to open
standards delivered huge advantages
in scale, flexibility and time to
market, Miles added. This was
significant in that it refutes the
popular notion that while
broadcasters favour the open web for
the greater freedom it brings,
operators prefer to hang on to their
closed proprietary platforms in order
to retain more QoS control across
multiple content sources. That,
declared Miles, is no longer the case.
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News
RDK grows globally
The reference design kit has been
licensed by 25 payTV operators
worldwide and is now deployed in
more than five million devices
Since last year’s Cable Show, the
number of payTV operators that
have directly licensed the RDK
has grown by 60 % across North
America, Europe, Latin America,
and Asia, and includes cable and
telco providers. The RDK’s
impact on the operator
community exceeds the number
of operator licensees, according
to RDK Management.
Cubic wins funding
Irish M2M startup Cubic
Telecom has secured EUR18
million in investment from
Qualcomm and Audi. This is the
fourth time that Qualcomm has
put money into Cubic, which has
developed a cloud-based M2M
platform. Ericsson, meanwhile,
has landed a smart metering deal
in Norway, supplying its meters
and accompanying software to
more than 180,000 homes for
energy company Skagerak Nett.
Oculus Lift shipments
The Oculus Rift virtual reality
headset will begin shipping to
consumers in the first quarter of
2016. A version of the device has
been available to software
developers for several years. The
company promises to transform
gaming, film, communication,
and other sectors, with broadcast
shows already showing early
demos of the potential augmented
and virtual reality can offer.
KPN unveils OTT plans
KPN plans to introduce a
broadband TV service to users of
any connected device before the
end of the year, via the new KPN
Play app.
08
June 2015
Telecoms operator Orange is moving
ahead with testing virtual CDNs as
part of a wider migration toward
network functions virtualisation.
A CDN is a set of functions that
interwork together, including
delivery, caching, redirection of
requests, analytics and
management. While in theory any
of these functions can be
virtualised, caching and delivery
are the first functions Orange is
interested in virtualising because
that it where it identifies the most
value and will then go for
incremental deployments as
technologies and business practices
mature, according to Sara Oueslat,
Orange’s CDN deployment
Program Manager.
Oueslat gave the first set of
insights from performance tests
that the operator undertook in its
labs last year comparing virtual
functions of VMWare. Results were
service sensitive but typically there
is an overhead in terms of CPU
consumption (twice as much for
progressive type of services, 3x for
live streaming) and delivery
capacity degradation can be up to
20% for progressive download and
marginal for live.
These early trials will now be
carried out over KVM (Kernelbased Virtual Machine) and
OpenStack to see how much can be
gained from virtualisation in those
environments, related in particular
to vCache. “Our primary focus in
terms of incremental introduction
will be focused very much on the
virtualisation of the delivery and
caching function where we think
we see the most of the value
coming from,” said Oueslat at the
TV Connect show, which took
place in London in late April.
Orange hasn’t yet made a
strategic decision with respect to
VMWare or KVM, it is still
assessing both, although Orange
www.csimagazine.com
Image courtesy of Radu Bercan / Shutterstock.com
Orange outlines path to vCDNs/NFV
news in brief
affiliates are said to be in favour
towards the former as it’s deemed to
be more mature.
“What we have to be careful about
is that we are moving in a direction
for the vCDN that is more NFV
orientated with KVM and OpenStack
and we have to make sure there is an
alignment with our virtualised
infrastructure within the Group,”
said Oueslat.
Field trials are planned for 2016
and Oueslat reckons that a full
rollout won’t happen before 2017
because both vCDNs and NFV are at
a very early stage of development.
“If you go for OpenStack, that’s
not the end of the story, which
distribution are you supporting?
There are many questions there,” she
said. “There is a long way to go.”
Security in a multi-tenant virtual
infrastructure also needs to be
assessed further, she noted. Another
question for operators to think about
is how to map a vCDN to an NFV/
SDN infrastructure.
Oueslat added that it is difficult at
this point in time to assess the
benefits of vCDNs in terms of
operations. “We need to develop a
cost model for the CapEx and Opex,”
she argued. “Also, the CDN pricing
will have to change if you want to
leverage elasticity. I’m thinking of the
licensing of the CDN, you cannot be
charged for the peak, you need
elasticity also for the pricing model
in this regard.”
There is strong promise, however,
for new business opportunities, in
particular interconnection and
terminating traffic on Orange’s own
footprint, as well as extending its
CDN footprint, a very complicated
and lengthy process today for telcos.
“We really believe that with a
virtualisation ability to leverage the
IS offers from other telcos or
providers this will be much easier.”
Cloud DVR and enterprises
services can also benefit from
virtualisation, she mentioned.
Generally speaking, drivers for
virtualisation for network functions
are business agility, operational
efficiency and cost reduction,
particularly useful for business cases
such as unexpected demand for live
streaming for example, according to
Oueslat.
There is a huge body of work
taking place on this front, including
standardisation in ETSI, which is
also coupled with the software
defined networking (SDN) trend.
DVB-NGH
T-VoD
DTT in Germany
Cloud DRMs
4k DTH satellite
Connected cars
OTT vs payTV
regulation
Middle East
market focus
Ka-band in
Europe
DTH in Latin
America
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Big Data &
analytics
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Virtual payTV
operators
Smart sticks’
payTV impact
4k ultra HD testing
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The rise of the
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June 2015
Voice over WiFi:
its time has come
september/october 2013
cover.indd 1
cover.indd 1
cover.indd 1
one devices
art-ph
all tablet and sm
ss
ro
ac
n
io
it
ed
talNet neutrality
April 2015
15/02/2013 15:32:02
Carriage disputes
and FTA future
In flight connectivity
Social TV Q&As
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Encoding evolution
Get ready for the
streaming stick
march/april 2014
cover.indd 2
Tablet TV
DTH in Russia
Comcast RDK:
Cable goes
open source
20/08/2013 11:36:32
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News
HDR news in brief
HDMI specification supports
HDR
HDMI Forum has completed
and released Version 2.0a of the
HDMI Specification, updated
to enable transmission of high
dynamic range (HDR) formats,
which are expected to provide
enhanced picture quality by
simultaneously enabling greater
detail for both the dark and
bright parts of an image. The
HDR-related updates include
references to CEA-861.3, CEA’s
recently published update of
HDR Static Metadata Extensions.
It is available to current HDMI
2.0 Adopters via the HDMI
Adopter Extranet.
Technicolor working on HDR
box
French manufacturer Technicolor
is working on what is believed to
be the first set-top box with high
dynamic range support, as well as
high frame rate and ultra HD.
Operators will be able to deploy a
single set-top box to consumers
that will accommodate both
current standard dynamic range
signals and the transition to next
generation video technologies, as
the 4Kp60 box will decode both
HDR and SDR versions of the
same content.
Sony 4k TVs with HDR
The new high-end Bravia X93C
and X94C 4k ultra HD TV series
from Sony will be compatible
with High Dynamic Range
content via a network update
this summer. Sony’s X-tended
Dynamic Range technology
allows customers to enjoy the
peak brightness of LED as well
as deeper blacks, the company
claims. The BRAVIA X93C is
available in a choice of 55”
£2599, 65” £3,999 and X94C in
75” £7,499.
10
June 2015
Should HDR be in early 4k services?
Ericsson clarified its position over
the evolving ultra HD standards
at the recent TV Connect show
in London, promoting HDR
(High Dynamic Range) as a more
critical component even than
higher resolutions.
The company also acknowledged
the importance of higher frame
rate for sports content in particular
but emphasised that even within
fast moving scenes it was only
required for some of the frames.
At the same time for some content
such as talking heads there is
no benefit having a rate higher
than say 24 fps, suggesting there
is scope for saving bandwidth
and storage through variable
frame rates.
This comes in the context of
some disagreement among
broadcasters and operators over the
timeline for UHD deployment,
which inevitably is being governed
as much by competitive factors as
desire to improve the user
experience. The EBU (European
Broadcasting Union) wants to delay
4k transmission until services can
handle UHD Phase 2 and not just
the first phase, which means higher
frame rates and HDR as well as
improved colour gamut among
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other improvements.
The reality though is
that many top tier
broadcasters and
operators are desperate
to get some form of UHD
service out in time for
the 2016 Olympics at
the latest to forestall mounting
competition from OTT operators.
Ericsson is proposing that HDR,
boosting the range of luminosity
displayed on a TV screen, should be
incorporated in such early 4k
services even though it was not
originally deemed part of UHD
phase 1, pointing out it has little
impact on compression or bit rate
in any case. The debate of HDR
vs 4k in terms of the impact either
has on viewer experience is now in
full swing.
At TV Connect Ericsson
demonstrated that some relatively
dark scenes show up much more
clearly at standard full HD at 1080x
1920 resolution with HDR than on
UHD at 2160 x 3920 pixels without
HDR. Extra pixels do little to boost
dynamic range, the issue being that
the human eye has much greater
scope for adjusting to extreme
brightness or darkness than the range
normally captured by a camera, so
exaggeration is required. But
Ericsson has also acknowledged that
HDR is not a universal panacea and
should be deployed judiciously to
avoid dazzling viewers with too much
brightness in the wrong places. This
was highlighted unwittingly by the
Ericsson demo of a floodlit stadium
in an aerial town shot, which stood
out more starkly than it would to the
human eye.
Yet the demonstration, presented
for Ericsson by Mark Horton,
its Strategic Project Manager
for Encoding, Compression
and Matthew Goldman, Senior
Vice President Technology, TV
Compression, did a good job
of making the fundamental case
for HDR as a key part of the
immersive experience.
Meanwhile the debate over the
exact make up of UHD phase 2
goes on, as does the question of
when and whether phase 3 around
8k comes along.
News
8k displays expected by 2018
DisplaySearch thinks 2018 is a good
year to expect the first 8k displays, by
which time 4k penetration is expected
to reach over 30% penetration.
UHD TV panel shipments reached
only 63,000 in 2012, but jumped to
19 million in 2014. DisplaySearch
forecasts 4k TV panel penetration
will double in 2015, reaching 15%,
and then increase to over 30% in
2018 when it will become relatively
mature.
Once a resolution is introduced to
the market, it continues to grow for
around six years and the analysts
note that the industry continues to
push forward with the resolution
trend even when the eco-system is
not prepared. Therefore, the analyst
firm thinks that 8k display
penetration could start around 2018,
if not even sooner.
“From an industry perspective,
2018 is a reasonable year to
introduce 8k displays. Leading
makers may ramp up their 8K display
business in 2015-2016 to take the
initiative,” the analyst firm said in a
blog post.
Japan is considering 8k
broadcasting in the 2018-2020
timeframe. In the meantime, Korean
makers might be more aggressive in
8k since Taiwanese and Chinese
makers took the initiative with UHD
in its early stages. Therefore, they
may begin 8k display mass
production as early as 2016, the
analysts reckon: “Competition is not
visible now, but it will be soon.”
Data processing and pixels in the
display, transmittance, power
consumption are all issues that have
to be overcome however, and will be
news in brief
a big challenge for panel makers. It
is likely that they will develop more
advanced sub-pixel rendering
technology for 8k displays,
according to DisplaySearch.
A report from ABI Research,
meanwhile, argues that new
technologies and enhancements
like high dynamic range (HDR),
wider color gamut, high frame
rates, and immersive audio will
advance the viewing experience far
more than higher solution alone.
ABI expects nearly 70% of UHD
TVs to support some, if not all of
these enhancements by 2020.
Telenet buys Base
Belgian cablenet Telenet is buying
MNO Base for EUR1.33 billion
to pursue a convergent quad-play
strategy. This is the first
acquisition of a mobile operator
by Telenet’s parent company
Liberty Global. Base has 3.3m
customers and now means
Telenet will own its own mobile
network infrastructure, providing
“ubiquitous connectivity”.
UPC becomes Ziggo
UPC now operates under the
Ziggo brand name in the
Netherlands, as part of a wider
integration that will also see
Ziggo rollout Horizon TV. The
rebranding came into effect from
13 April after the merger came
into effect lat last year.
Analyst corner
Ready for lift off
The smart home opportunity for TV services
T
he Smart Home market is
heating up in many countries
around the world with the US
market currently the most
advanced - which isn’t saying
that much. At the end of
2014, less than 20% of US
households sported at least one smart device. This
is the case even though millions of Nest
thermostats and remotely monitored video cameras
have been installed over the past few years there.
Western Europe trails the US by about two
years in terms of adoption rate. This is primarily
due to the popularity of security monitoring
services in the US being higher than in most
European countries. Service providers, including
AT&T, Comcast and security firms led by ADT
have been successful in migrating existing security
service subscribers to the new interactive security
services with home automation capabilities, as
well as signing up many consumers who never
had security systems before. This use case is not
as popular in Europe yet. In the UK, British Gas
launched its energy management oriented Hive
offering in late 2013; we estimate it is now
approaching 200,000 subscribers. In addition,
Google’s Nest struck a deal to offer its stylish
thermostat through nPower while E.ON is actively
preparing its launch after a trial in Milton Keynes.
On the continent, Orange, SFR, Deutsche
Telekom, Gigaset and Belgacom among others are
selling various versions of Smart Home systems
and services with others preparing to enter the
fray. In a few years the focus will shift towards
Asia as the Chinese market begins to develop in
earnest. The use cases there will be different.
All of this adds up to a market set to reach the
$100 billion mark by 2018 (see figure 1). By 2020
we expect nearly 250 million homes around the
globe to have at least one smart device installed.
This market represents a major new opportunity
for many types of firms from manufacturers to
retailers and service providers of all stripes,
including pay TV providers.
At a recent conference, my colleague, David
Mercer, chaired a panel session discussing
Households with "Smart" Systems: Global Total
(Number and Spending)
$175
250
200
Number of Homes with
Smart Devices/Systems
Households with
Smart Systems
(#M)
$150
Consumer Spending
$125
Consumer
Spending
($B)
150
$100
$75
100
$50
50
monetising Smart Home services from the TV.
There was a clear consensus that the TV screen
itself is not likely to play any role in controlling or
interfacing with smart home services. Yet
companies are introducing offerings built around
the TV. EchoStar’s Sage platform will send videos
of visitors at your door to the TV screen and
allow it to be one of the displays utilised by its
monitoring and control system.
Another example of TV service providers
taking positions in the Smart Home is Prodea
Systems which announced a partnership with
Eutelsat to provide broadcasters the ability to
offer a suite of connected TV services including
home monitoring and control in addition to
enhanced video services.
The jury is still out regarding the best role for
TV service providers, but the technology is
available for them to participate.
Will consumers look to TV providers for
Smart Home services?
In our 4Q 2014 Smart Home Survey we asked:
“Thinking about companies that currently, and
could in the future, offer any of the [smart home]
capabilities you were shopping for what is the
likelihood you would consider the following?”. TV
service providers were not the most frequently
selected as those to be considered, but nearly one
in five respondents (just under 20%) indicated
that they would look to their TV providers for
Smart Home capabilities. Apple ranked only a
few points higher, with MNOs and ISPs being
most popular at nearly 30% of votes each.
The Smart Home market is beginning to take
off and it represents a major new opportunity for
a variety of firms including TV service providers.
Although specific capabilities best suited for TV
providers to offer will depend on different
consumer “tastes” in different regions of the
world, opportunities will not be limited by
technology… they will only be limited by the
imaginations of the providers.
$25
0
$0
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
© 2015 Strategy Analytics
Figure 1 Number of Households with Smart Systems Globally and Annual Consumer Spending for
All Smart Systems and Services
Figure 1 Number of Households with Smart Systems Globally and
Annual Consumer Spending for All Smart Systems and Services
12 June 2015
www.csimagazine.com
Bill Ablondi is director,
Smart Home Strategies,
at Strategy Analytics
Risks
Understanding and building strategies
that mitigate risk
Social Media Risks Forum 2015
15 October 2015, St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel
Social media is a maturing aspect of the internet, yet with its
widespread adoption come concerns over its use and misuse.
The ability to instantly broadcast to a worldwide audience
creates a rising number of reputational and related risks that
need to be managed:
•
Reputation risk
•
Social sabotage by an employee
•
Trolling and brand terrorism
•
Security (leaks and invasive)
•
Compliance
•
Legal issues
The Social Media Risks Forum 2015 will bring together
academics, reputational risk experts, public relations
professionals, and social media pioneers to lift the lid on
how to create and manage social media.
TO FIND OUT MORE AND TO REGISTER YOUR INTEREST VISIT
socialmediarisks.co.uk
Media partner
thinking resilience
4k satellite
State-of-4k-play
additional resources.
Thomas Van Den
Driessche, chief commercial
officer at Newtec, believes
that DVB-S2 in particular
could actually save money in
the long term for satellite
operators who move over to 4k UHD. “For
satellite operators to keep up in an increasingly
competitive market launching 4k UHD channels
will be crucial,” he says. “Fortunately, thanks to
technological innovations, satellite operators can
not only deliver 4k transmissions, but save on
costs and deliver more content with the same
capacity.”
Intelsat sees 4k as a big growth area too and
has been demonstrating the technology since
2013, reveals, Peter Ostapiuk, Intelsat’s head of
media services. As it gets closer to becoming
mainstream, Intelsat and its ecosystem partners
recently conducted a true 4k UHDTV live
demonstration and transmission at NAB 2015.
“One of the challenges media customers face
when delivering 4k UHDTV is the need to further
develop elements of their broadcast infrastructure.
To effectively transport uncompressed 4k
UHDTV in the production stage, many
broadcasters will need to upgrade their internal
networks to all IP,” says Ostapiuk.
At NAB 2015, Intelsat introduced IntelsatOne
Prism, a new next-generation, IP content
distribution managed service that is fully
integrated with the company’s global satellite
fleet and IntelsatOne terrestrial network.
He claims that with IntelsatOne Prism for
4k contribution, media customers are able
to transform their legacy network to a nextgeneration, automated, hybrid satellite and
terrestrial converged IP network.
Anna Tobin looks at the current market picture for 4k/
ultra HD satellite deployments globally
D
irect-to-home (DTH) can reach
parts of the world that others
can’t, but that universal selling
point isn’t enough to guarantee
its survival. To ensure that it
doesn’t follow the path of the
world’s fastest passenger jet,
Concorde, satellite DTH is desperately trying
to evolve.
Most of the money is being thrown at 4k ultraHD. As Jacob Keret, Spacecom’s senior VP sales
for North America, Europe and the Middle East
points out: “Communications satellites are the
best method to quickly launch and deploy quality
UHD TV broadcasts on a global scale.”
The hype surrounding UHD is similar to that
which followed its predecessor, plain-old HD,
about a decade ago. It is another food chain that
the satellite industry and the tech companies that
feed it can live off, if they can pass on the costs,
that is. (American broadcasters have a saying:
we have the technology for 4k, but do we have
the cash?)
“For a media solution provider like Globecast,
the deployment of a new standard provides the
opportunity to review and upgrade solutions and
facilities and to introduce more innovation,”
explains Bernard Riera, Globecast’s director of
new technologies and innovation.
“At the network level, the arrival of UHD
channels means the updating of our encoding
and modulation capabilities, assuming UHD will
take advantage of the new generation HEVC
codecs and new modulation schemes like DVB S2
and DVB S2X.
“At the media management level, our playout
and associated post-production facilities are being
upgraded to handle UHD, which is challenging,
but achievable,” says Riera.
Freeing up bandwidth for UHD is not thought
to be a major concern for satellite and is seen as
one of its key competitive strengths going forward.
Compression and signal modulation technology
such as HEVC and DVB-S2x enable UHD
channels to be distributed using almost the same
resources given to HD channels. Plus, some SD
channels will become extinct and others are likely
to migrate to broadband distribution, providing
Standards playing catch up
In 2015 there will be three different video
standards operating concurrently: SD, HD and
UHD. This won’t be viable economically longterm and to make things worse, agreement on a
global standard for UHD is still to be reached.
Deployment will be slow. As well as general
software and hardware upgrades, operators will
need to roll out compliant set top boxes and
content needs to be produced for these UHD
channels. Many companies are two steps behind
as it is, still offering only SD content.
A whole new way of working needs to be
14
June 2015
www.csimagazine.com
4k satellite
Satellite to Drive Ultra HD Channel Growth
*Northern Sky Research, 2014
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
70%
200
100
The difference will be more noticeable on a
large screen and with specific content. As with
HD, sport and movies will literally see the real
benefit, which is why these areas are likely to be
where the bulk of the investment goes. News and
kids programming, on the other hand, will not
see it as so necessary. The role 4k UHD plays
in the next Olympics and football World Cup will
be telling.
But, 4K isn’t just about better picture quality,
points out Adam Davies, Cisco’s, senior product
marketing manager, video software and services.
“The additional depth allows content to be shot
and viewed in a different way, with increased
magnification capability and super slow-mo, as
well as increased viewing area.
“For the service provider developments in
encoding and transcoding platforms mean they
can use a virtualised environment to create
content for multiple screens and platforms. Using
the cloud to provide video formatting capability
“Europe is showing interest too, with Sky
Deutschland having trialled UHD and
earmarking the millionth UHD-ready TV
sale in the market as the starting point for
a full-scale launch in 2016.”
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
0
2016
Will viewers pay?
Intelsat’s September 2014 survey 4K UHDTV:
Adoption and Business Models predicted that
the majority of concerns surrounding the rollout
of 4k were not technical, but commercial and
focused on the business model. The additional
costs of transmission and content production
need to be covered somehow and ultimately this
comes down to whether the consumer will pay
for it all.
“I think as we see more and more UHD TVs
and services coming to the market, prices will
begin to fall, leading to the mass market adoption
everyone is expecting to see in the next few years,”
foresees Nile Suwansiri, chief marketing officer
at Thaicom.
Early adopters will always pay a premium
to have the very best. But the question is will
the mass market audience be happy to upgrade
their TVs yet again and pay an extra subscription
for more and better enhanced pixels and improved
sound?
Seeing will be believing, says Crawford at
Arqiva. “There is a noticeable difference between
HD and UHD. It is a much more immersive
experience for the viewer. From the colour range
to the frame rate and the greater pixels, it’s all
enhanced,” he explains.
Number of UltraHD Channels by platform*
2015
adopted, highlights David Crawford, MD for
Satellite & Media at Arqiva. “When filming sport,
for example, the action needs to be tracked
slightly differently, which does pose more of a
challenge,” he notes.
Whilst all the links in the chain get up to
speed, however, there is a way to work in the
interim, points out Globecast’s Riera: “OTT
delivery, especially through SVoD, offers a
short-term opportunity for UHD deployment,
wherever consumers have the benefit of high
enough bandwidth.”
means the service provider can launch these
products quickly, and without the usual up-front
capital expenditure and time lag.”
The very high spatial definition of UHD will
facilitate more end-user interaction too. Once the
tools are developed, it should be possible for
viewers to select a part of the UHD picture. They
could, for example, zoom in on a particular
football player on the screen.
History shows that there will always be
geographic discrepancies in terms of take up of
new broadcast technology, led by demographics in
socio-economics, and technology infrastructures.
“As with other technological innovation, the
initial spike comes from markets with higher
disposable incomes and with a culture of paying
for premium TV services,” says Davies.
“Virtualisation of encoding and strong
compression, however, means that the delivery of
4k capability can be accelerated faster than, for
example, the uptake of HD, although there is
always the inevitable lag as consumers cycle their
CPE and TVs.”
The global picture
As is common for most recent technological
innovation, East Asia leads the way on UHDTV
adoption. South Korea’s UMAX launched the
world’s first 4k broadcasting services on Cable
TV in April 2014, while Japan launched the
world’s first regular 4k television service (Channel
4K) via satellite in June 2014. In term of TV set
shipments, China is the biggest market with 80
www.csimagazine.com
June 2015
15
4k satellite
offering. Customers will need to upgrade to a
Genie HD DVR and a UHD TV.
Europe is showing interest too, with Sky
Deutschland having trialled UHD and earmarking
the millionth UHD-ready TV sale in the market as
the starting point for a full-scale launch in 2016.
In the UK, Sky is known to be experimenting with
4k outside broadcasts and production to get a
feeling for the technical requirements.
“We cannot, however, make a blanket
statement regarding UHD in the developing
versus developed landscapes,” points out
Spacecom’s Keret. “India [Tata Sky], for
instance, is scheduled to be the first place
with a regular UHD channel on a local satellite
per cent share of 4k TV set shipments in 2013,
according to Thaicom’s Suwansiri.
NHK recently conducted 8k tests at Malaysia’s
Asia Broadcasting Union’s Digital Broadcasting
Symposium and plans to carry out 8k ‘Full’
UHDTV tests of the upcoming 2016 Rio Games.
Intelsat’s September 2014 survey predicts that
the next big growth area after Asia will be North
America. DirectTV is slowly rolling out 4k UHD
across North and Latin America and expects to
be offering up to 70 channels by 2020 via its
newly launched satellite - DIRECTV 14 dedicated to 4k/UHD broadcasting. It is for the
moment concentrating this on a limited VoD
services provider, while another local package
already distributes digital receivers to enable
viewing UHD channels.” Tata Sky used the
recent Cricket World Cup to test its own 4k
services this year.
This just shows that all manner of forwardthinking companies are ready to embrace 4k
UHD. The big challenge now will be getting
potential audiences to believe their hype and
sign up.
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Industry column
VR: A new medium for
film and TV
Virtual reality is emerging as an exciting new
way to tell stories that are more immersive than
anything we’ve seen before
I
f virtual reality conjures up bad memories
of terrible 90s experiences like The
Lawnmower Man and nausea-inducing
computer games, then you’d have been
surprised by the latest event from the DTG
Emerging Technology Forum.
Looking beyond OTT and 4k, the DTG
gathered together more than 80 people from our
traditional industry members and the nascent
VR industry to find out how this industry is
shaping up.
The arrival of technology which takes VR
from blocky graphics to lifelike experiences has
inspired serious interest, with Facebook buying
up headset manufacturer Oculus for $2bn and
Sky investing in Jaunt, a VR content producer.
Major brands such as Samsung and Huawei
have leveraged their technology with headset
adaptors for today’s high-powered, big-screen
smartphones, while Google has snappily put VR
innovation into the public domain with its DIY
adaptor, Cardboard, and a set of developer APIs.
While Oculus can boast a solution that
includes peripheral vision, the smartphone route
shows how the absurdly high resolution of today’s
handsets can be used in an unexpected context.
Although only a prototype, Sony’s Project
Morpheus offers a wide field of vision, high
definition, low persistence and a high refresh rate
which reportedly push the experience to new
levels of realism,
Jaunt is tackling the production challenge of
capturing 360-degree environments where there’s
simply no room for a traditional crew or sets, not
to mention stitching together the output from
multi-camera rigs into stereoscopic experiences,
with customised tools to manage the postproduction of hundreds of Terabytes of data.
Creating realistic personal experiences reveals
shared challenges with big screen Ultra HD
technology, such as high dynamic range and high
frame rates, while it’s apparent that lifelike
experiences will require similar resolutions to 8k
screens in a portable device.
The challenge of VR as a dramatic medium
goes beyond technology, set-building and
production logistics to the viewer themselves: the
BBC is among those who have been finding out
how to hold the viewer’s attention when they can
look and even travel anywhere in the VR
environment. Should the viewer become the
director, or can they be directed through cues
from audio, lighting and activity around them?
Traditional narrative effects such as cuts, wipes
and focal changes can also be disorienting or
disruptive to the experience, requiring a new
language of production for the virtual world.
Today’s VR technology is also uncomfortable
to wear for more than few minutes, particularly if
the viewer has to stand up, so content has to be
short and longer stories become episodic tales.
More fundamentally, the sense of presence can
also make VR experiences too overwhelming
for some viewers, and the industry is already
recommending to parents that they limit the
exposure for children and young adults until the
medium is understood better.
Live or ‘as-live’ real experiences can escape
some of these challenges, and the forum saw
some of the content captured by the BBC at the
Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last year,
while it has also been experimenting with VR as a
news medium.
Jaunt is excited about the opportunity
for creating VIP experiences such as concert
footage, and recently recorded footage of Paul
McCartney at Candlestick Park, offering an
on-stage perspective which no real guest
could enjoy.
And live music – as with drama - comes with
new opportunities to extend the audio experience
in to three dimensions. The leader in this field is
Dolby, whose Atmos technology renders the
audio field as a set of dynamic objects which can
change depending on the viewer’s location.
The user interface is also a challenge for VR,
with new entrants bringing eye-tracking and voice
control, while Project Morpheus integrates the
PlayStation 4’s Play ‘wands’ so that viewers can
interact with the environment. On-screen graphics
are likely to be increasingly replaced by audio
cues and slower pacing which allow viewers to
become accustomed to the environment in their
own time.
The shared challenges with Ultra HD and
mobile technology demonstrate that there is an
opportunity to encourage innovation in this
exciting field through informal collaboration at
the DTG, and we look forward to hosting more
VR industry events in the future.
Simon Gauntlett is the
chief technology officer
at the DTG. There is more
on this at www.dtg.org.uk and
if you’re interested in getting
involved, please contact Simon Gauntlett at
sgauntlett@dtg.org.uk
www.csimagazine.com
June 2015
17
Q&A
Q &A
Full steam ahead for cable
Phil McKinney, CEO, Cable Labs
CSI editor Goran Nastic talks to Phil McKinney, CEO of Cable Labs, about
DOCSIS 3.1, WiFi, Internet of Things (IoT) and the industry body’s other
priorities for the future
GN: Where are
we with the
Docsis 3.1
we have all that core infrastructure already in
place so in this case it’s a new cable modem. The
advantage is it will operate in 3.0 mode and all
standard at the
moment?
PM: Part of the
story was to
consolidate
the way back to Docsis 2.0. The plan right now is
once 3.1 modems become available it encourages
the entire industry to procure the modems
because then you see that your customers with
modems are able to get Gigabit speeds when you
everything
together with
are ready to offer it, particularly when it’s
backwards compatible. So we see 3.1 modems
DOCSIS 3.1, so
there is
one standard
consistent globally and all regions are aligned on
going into the marketplace operating in 3.0 mode
until such time as that MSO is ready to make
available Gig speeds.
We think Europe will be the first or right up
D3.1 as the platform. That consolidates
there with 3.1 Gig speed networks, as there seems
purchasing power, vendors can build one product
and ship it everywhere and so on, that was the
driver for Cable Labs’ global strategy. There are
differences in spectrum and things like smaller
CMTSs in MDUs but with 3.1 that goes away;
to be a lot of demand for that from the
membership. In other regions it depends on the
local market conditions. Those where there is
strong fibre competition you will see more
aggressive 3.1 deployment.
you don’t have any variant feature sets.
“We think Europe
will be the first or
right up there with
3.1 Gig speed
networks, there
seems to be a lot
of demand for that
from members.”
live networks and there’s no huge issue; it’s just
got to be tidy.
We’re developing all kinds of tools. We’re
enhancing proactive network maintenance
When we kicked off the 3.1 project we
announced we would do it in two and a half years
- whereas every previous was four years from start
to finish – and people looked at me like I was
US cable operators and the SCTE have in the
past warned about some of the challenges,
especially inside the cable plant, that come
with 3.1…
(PNM), which basically takes advantage of the
unique feature of the Docsis modem to do the
spectral analysis to determine where there’s a
problem. For example, PNM will tell you there’s
crazy! In fact, we’re slightly ahead of schedule.
We’ve just finished our second and third
interoperability plugfests and we’ll be in
certification by the end of the year and field trials
will start in early 2016.
How come you have made such quick
progress with D3.1?
We’ve gone out and tested 3.1 on live networks.
We’ve done small networks, larger networks and
that’s part of the information we share with all
members telling them: “Here’s what we’re seeing
and here’s what you do as part of your normal
maintenance to make sure everything is clean”.
Today, you can take a 3.1 modem drop it onto
existing network and run it in 3.0 mode with no
water ingress coming into the cable six feet from
the node. That tells technicians exactly where to
dig to find the problem. We’re putting those kinds
of tools to help technicians be proactive not just
with 3.1 but overall. Those are the kinds of tool
we’re building to make it much easier for the
operators to maintain the network, and create
more reliable networks. It also reduces customer
Cable Labs had a very aggressive schedule for the
programme. When you look at where we see the
trend lines and lead times that’s needed to
change. It’s when you make that decision to go
and run in 3.1 mode to get to Gig speed, and part
of that is do you have the spectrum available?
calls. We make those tools available for free to
the vendor community. We licence that IP royalty
free - in fact, the Docsis pool is also royalty free.
prepare the networks to be ready to do Gigabit
speeds we felt we had to have the base 3.1
technologies ready in the market by 2016 to give
cable operators globally time to build out their
Gig networks as their market demand grows to
meet it. The advantage the cable industry has is
Operators need to think about going to all-digital,
getting rid of analogue channels, going to better
compression for the video to free more spectrum
etc. There’s a spectrum management strategy and
within the cable plant it’s got be good network
maintenance. In our testing, we’ve run them on
Operators consistently complain about WiFi
issues in the home. What can Cable Labs do
to help?
Wireless and WiFi in particular is one of our
largest research areas. We have our own chamber
18 June 2015
www.csimagazine.com
Q&A
“Having a fractured
set of consortiums,
each driving a
portion of the IoT
playing field, is what
will hold IoT back.
Otherwise it stays a
niche play.”
where we do device testing on behalf of members
and testing under contract for vendors. We also
have a full test house for real-world tests that
compliments the RF testing in the chamber. We
measure potential interference and wall
construction and penetration over multiple days.
It’s a close partnership with the vendor
community to help them build the best possible
products. In the average home, WiFi is the means
of connecting, and customer satisfaction gets
dictated by that experience.
We’ve also been building a database of different
devices with different house configurations to
help technicians do a better job of where to place
the access points (APs) in order to ensure better
coverage. Part of this is helping them be more
educated. In addition, we have completed work
with the FCC and are now working with EU and
Canadian regulators on freeing up additional
spectrum in the 5.1 Gig band for WiFi. We led
that effort with FCC where they ruled to free
up the 100Mhz. We’re now taking that same
work and bringing it to Canada and EU. Right
now WiFi constraints are that so many devices go
into a limited amount of spectrum, making it a
key area.
We’re also very active in the LTE unlicensed
band. We’re working with 3GPP and the LTE
industry trying to figure out ways to share
spectrum. If you’re going to run LTE in same way
as WiFi you better figure out a way to play nice or
we’re both going to have problems.
You talked about sending technical
proposals to different IoT consortiums. Can
you tell us a little bit more about these?
We’ve put together some early prototypes to show
interoperability between the different
consortiums. We’ve just been showing that to
them from the standpoint of how it could work.
We’d like for them just to rationalise but don’t
think that will happen. The challenge being for
the consumer they don’t want their house to just
be an AllSeen house, that doesn’t work,
consumers want some form of interoperability
between devices.
How do you do auto-detection of the device in
the house? How do you fit into the house to make
sure it’s a secure device? There’s all these
questions around IoT. Devices are not individual
islands and our proposal is that there’s a way to
rationalise it and you can rationalise those
interfaces. Rationalising that will speed
up IoT adoption.
Some people say it’s a fool’s errand to reach
agreement on this front but if you don’t try you
don’t get. We’re not saying it’s the perfect final
solution, we’re saying let’s have a discussion.
Having a fractured set of consortiums, each
driving a portion of the IoT playing field is what
will hold IoT back. Otherwise it stays a niche play.
Cable Europe has said they expect M2M to
account for up to 70% of network traffic by
the end of the decade, which sounds like it it
something cable should be prepared for.
The real issue is by 2020 you will end up with
hundreds of devices in the house. They may not
say a lot but sensors tend to be pretty chatty.
Therefore you run risk of network being saturated
on the upload side because it’s the data coming
from the house and back up into the network.
Then all the processing is happening in the cloud,
rather than local (or edge) analytics.
www.csimagazine.com
June 2015
19
VoWiFi
Call hopping
Voice over WiFi (VoWiFi) has been around for several years, but with the
likes of Apple and Google and numerous mobile operators pushing ahead
with the technology, is it time for cable operators to do the same?
Stephen Cousins reports.
I
n case you haven’t noticed, WiFi is pretty
much everywhere now. There will be 5.8
million hotspots globally by the end of
2015, a 350 per cent increase on 2001,
according to research by Informa. It is also
fast becoming the preferred method of
connection, accounting for 80% or more of
the data consumed by smartphone users worldwide,
most of it offloaded indoor traffic.
WiFi’s continued rise is fuelling renewed
interest in Voice over WiFi (VoWiFi), also known
as WiFi Calling, as a means of communicating
voice and messaging services over any hotspot
network and maintaining call quality in areas and
buildings with poor wireless signals.
The technology has been available for some
time but operators have been hesitant. They have
wanted to protect their voice-related revenue.
However, new business models allowing for flatfee voice services, combined with the realisation
that users will use OTT applications for calls as
much as they can, has removed the last obstacle
for taking Wi-Fi Calling to the next level,
according to Aptilo.
The technology received a major boost at the
end of last year when Apple launched support for
VoWiFi in iOS 8 and its new iPhone 6 handsets,
T-Mobile has made a big deal about it in the US,
launching the technology across its network as
default on several devices, along with Sprint. And
across the pond in the UK, EE has become the
first MNO to launch Wi-Fi Calling on its network,
with Vodafone announcing it plans to offer its
own proposition starting this Summer.
Popular handsets that support WiFi Calling
include the Samsung Galaxy S 6 edge, Galaxy S 6,
as well as iPhones 5S, 5C, 6 and 6 Plus. So do the
HTC One M9 and Microsoft Lumia 640.
Eager to grab a slice of the action, now cable
operators are moving into the VoWiFi space, in
February Cablevision launched the service
FreeWheel in the US, based entirely on WiFi only
connectivity using Motorola’s Moto G handset,
20
June 2015
www.csimagazine.com
VoWiFi
and Comcast has announced plans for a service
adding in some form of cellular coverage, the
details of which has not yet been confirmed. As
CSI reported in March, Portuguese multi-service
operator NOS is also now migrating its cable
voice customers onto an IP multimedia subsystem
(IMS) solution, claiming the time is now right for
voice over WiFi.
A move into VoWiFi offers cable operators an
opportunity to change the competitive landscape,
increasing convergence and providing more
services to users on the move, either via WiFi
“Both mobile
operators and cable
operators will look
to VoWiFi as a
game-changer for
voice services.”
hotspots or in combination with cellular,
piggybacking on mobile operators’ networks
through mobile virtual network operator (MVNO)
agreements.
But this new revenue stream is not without its
challenges, in terms of technology, seamless
handoff between cellular and WiFi is still
problematic, causing calls to terminate when
users transition between the two. In addition,
outdated or crowded public WiFi hotspots
threaten to impact on voice call quality and raise
concerns over user authentication and security. In
market terms, a full-blown leap by cable operators
into wireless network provision seems unlikely they have had their fingers burnt with wireless in
the past - in which case WiFi Calling could
remain a limited value added service only
available in homes.
WiFi Calling – but where?
VoWiFi works by transmitting cellular packets
from a phone to a mobile carrier over the
internet, then pushes them back into the mobile
network as if they had been transmitted through
the air.
Unlike proprietary services such as Google
Hangouts and Skype, which enable users to talk
to other people via an internet-based interface,
VoWiFi allows people to use their own mobile
number over the internet.
VoWiFi has similarities with VoIP technology
(using an internet-connected phone), which
transfers voice over the internet to a switched
telephone network. Instead, it connects voice data
to a mobile network using the internet instead of
mobile towers.
Technically, VoWiFi is not an issue from a
technology perspective. “Voice is easy over WIFi,
you need only 200kbs. Even in congested
networks latency is not an issue, 300miliseconds
before you have echo issues,” says Charles
Cheevers of Arris. “If you have a back office for
VoIP, to move that from being the cable modem
into a WiFi handset is not a big deal at all.”
For consumers, the ability to retain their
mobile number whilst taking advantage of free
WiFi, outside their normal paid calling plan,
is key. The technology will also help improve
patchy mobile network coverage in rural areas
and inside many modern building, a key pull
for MNOs, particularly those running on high
frequency bands.
The mobile coverage problem is a serious one,
a report published in the UK by Ofcom last
August revealed that nearly a third (30%) of
consumers experienced no mobile signal or
network coverage at least once a week. And
22% said they experienced dropped calls at
least once a week, the percentage increasing
in rural areas.
Diane Myers, principal analyst at IHS told CSI:
“The whole concept of offloading from the
cellular network onto WiFi is very appealing, both
to free up wireless spectrum and to improve
coverage of the voice network ... In addition, cable
operators wanting to effectively compete for
consumer business need this mobility side, many
have built up their WiFi networks to provide data
mobility, now they can extend it to voice.”
Cablevision started building out its own
Optimum WiFi network in 2007, and now has
more than 1.1 million hotspots in the New York
tri-state area. Its new Freewheel WiFi Calling
service costs subscribers $10 a month, $30 for
non-subscribers, and currently only functions on
Motorola’s Moto G, which Cablevision is selling
for $99.95. The device comes installed with apps
that automatically authenticate with any of the
company’s hotspots. The service does not feature
any cellular backup, although it has been
suggested that the cable company struck an
MVNO deal with T-Mobile recently.
The WiFi-only approach to voice calling could
be an effective one, claims Myers at IHS: “There
have been studies done that show most people
using their mobile for calls are sitting in an area
with a WiFi hotspot, either at home, in the office
or in a public space like a cafe or restaurant.
VoWiFi can therefore address a large chunk of
call time, the only challenge is when they are
moving around, maybe in the car driving to work,
or between buildings.”
Cablevision’s own statistics show that each
Cablevision internet household already has 2.88
devices accessing WiFi on average, and customers
have used Optimum WiFi nearly one billion times
during Q4 2014, consuming 19 petabytes of data.
Call handoff and QoE
And there’s the rub - the ability to achieve
seamless transition between WiFi and mobile
networks, without call’s being cut off in the
process remains something of an enigma.
At present, the only effective method of
achieving this appears to be the solution offered
by Apple in iOS 8 on iPhone 6 handsets enabled
www.csimagazine.com
June 2015
21
VoWiFi
WiFi Calling using IMS and untrusted WiFi access in EPC
Image courtesy of Aptilo
with VoWiFi and Voice over LTE cellular, and
operating over an IMS network.
Under this system, continuity between WiFi
and LTE and vice-versa is taken care of by 3GPP
standards utilising the IMS-based call continuity
service. When a call is made over the WiFi
network it is anchored at IMS servers, using non
3GPP networks, including ePDG, as a Packet
Switched (PS) call. When the mobile leaves WiFi
coverage and latches onto LTE it uses the same
IMS network servers to provide call continuity.
This type of call continuity is referred to as a
PS-PS handover, because on both the types of
network PS services are used to access IMS
services.
Ashish Singh at network software provider
Mavenir told CSI: “Because it is all software
based, VoWiFi is a quick go-to-market solution.
For the VoWiFi only solution, operators need just
a few key software components like an IMS core
and an application server … Both mobile
operators and cable operators will look to VoWiFi
as a game-changer for voice services.”
Paul Gowans, marketing manager at
communications test and measurement company
JDSU added: “Although WiFi calls do not
typically take up a lot of bandwidth, compared to,
for example, video streaming, what is important is
latency and call quality. QoE also depends on
22
June 2015
www.csimagazine.com
how the service is priced and marketed – if the
user expects a certain quality and they do not
receive it then the overall QoE will be poor.”
In addition to challenges around call handoff,
guaranteeing the quality of experience (QoE) of
VoWiFi could prove an issue, particularly if cable
operators do not retain ownership of the network
from end to end, or where there are congested or
outdated public WiFi hotspots, explains Lynnette
Luna, an analyst at Current Analysis: “Carriers
are working on lots of standards, such as Hotspot
2.0, to make WiFi voice more carrier-grade, so we
could see businesses upgrading soon with new
access points. The problem with public WiFi
access points is they don’t get upgraded very
frequently, which could become an issue.”
If cable providers choose to operate a fullblown wireless service able to switch beween
VoWiFi and VoLTE, then they may end up
striking MVNO agreements with carriers. This
route is being pioneered by Google with its
Project Fi MVNO wireless service, launched in
April and available exclusively via an app on the
Nexus 6 handset.
Apple’s Wifi Calling is supported by the
carriers T-Mobile and Sprint in the US and EE in
the UK. T-Mobile’s converged IMS solution for
the service was provided by Mavenir, which as
now also launched a dedicated VoWiFi solution
for cable operators.
The Texas-based firm boasts that its converged
cable IMS solution enables seamless handoff
between mobile and WiFi networks, and
incorporates features for session control and
subscriber management and activation, as well as
application and messaging servers, and access and
border gateways. It can either be integrated into
an operator’s existing IMS core network, or
deployed as a ‘greenfield’ network for voice, video
and messaging over WiFi.
Project Fi operates on the principle of
strongest signal first, tapping into WiFi networks
and piggybacking on networks run by Sprint and
T-Mobile to provide users with the best possible
call quality depending on what is available at their
location. The service will automatically connect
with over one million open Wi-Fi hotspots that
Google has checked for strong signal, and like
Apple’s WiFi Calling, it should enable seamless
handoff between WiFi and LTE.
Switching between LTE or other cellular
standard to WiFi mid call is dependent on a
provider’s own infrastructure and business
relationships. Republic Wireless, for instance,
sells a low cost mobile phone service which
defaults to WiFi and falls back to Sprint’s cellular
network. FreedomPop’s WiFi Calling service is
seeing reasonable traction in the US and is now
launching in the UK.
With cable companies now moving to get a
slice of the WiFi Calling action the technology
appears to finally have a bright future.
“Cablevision’s Freewheel WiFi Calling
service costs subscribers $10 a month,
$30 for non-subscribers, and currently
only functions on Motorola’s Moto G.”
Opinion
DTT in Germany to enter a new era
Dirk Jaeger of the State Media Authority of Lower
Saxony (NLM) details the evolution of terrestrial
services in Germany, which will embrace OTT as
well as DVB-T2 distribution
D
TT in Germany was introduced
in 2002 in order to maintain a
third TV distribution path in
parallel with cable and satellite
after terrestrial digitisation.
The new system successfully
gained penetration of around
11% of German TV households relatively quickly
and reached its top figure of 12.5 % in 2012 before
dropping to 10 % by end-2014. One reason for the
loss of popularity was the announcement of
commercial broadcasters to discontinue their
service delivery via DTT.
After an intensive roundtable discussion among
stakeholders involving public and commercial
broadcasters, as well as the State Media
Authorities (Landesmedienanstalten) in charge of
media regulation in the country, the decision was
reached to enter a new DTT era by moving from
the existing transport model to an approach based
on service platform operation - a novelty for DTT
in Germany. With DVB-T2 and HEVC, state-ofthe-art technologies were selected to facilitate an
increase of efficiency while paving the way for the
implementation of new business models.
This decision coincided with the broadband-forall initiative of the German Federal Government
promoting a nation-wide availability of 50 Mbps
broadband networks by 2018. In the course of the
Digital Dividend 2, the frequency band between
694 and 790 MHz currently used by DTT will be
made available for wireless broadband such as
LTE (an auction started at the time of going to
press at the end of May).
The operator of the DTT platform providing
the commercial broadcasters’ programmes was
selected by means of an RFP released by the State
Media Authority of Lower Saxony
(Niedersächsische Landesmedienanstalt – NLM)
acting on behalf of the state media authorities of
all regions in Germany. The RFP comprised
mainly requirements on media legislation and
technology matters while referring to
requirements on reception condition stipulated by
the regional state chancelleries. Commercial
requirements were not defined in order to
facilitate the platform operator’s business model.
Media Broadcast was eventually selected by the
Commission for Admission and Controlling
(Kommission for Zulassung und Aufsicht –
ZAK). The company will closely cooperate with
public broadcasters to ensure the implementation
of a single integrated DTT system.
Technical approach
Media Broadcast operates a nationwide
backbone network. It will be used to
contribute TV signals of the individual
commercial broadcasters to the three
playout centres distributed throughout
Germany and to route the transport streams
prepared for final TV distribution to
customers to the more than 100 individual
transmitter sites currently planned. DVB-T2
parameters selected facilitate a net
bit rate of some 27 Mbps per 8 MHz channel.
For each channel a capacity of 7 HD programme
equivalents is defined. Each equivalent can be
used to deliver either one HD programme or
three SD programmes. A dedicated portion
of the transport capacity will be exclusively
assigned to local content. Dedicated content can
be protected by means of a Conditional Access
system. Furthermore Media Broadcast has plans
to provide IP-based services over the top such
as the company’s media library Multithek or
other VoD services as well as mobile apps.
The over the top services will be integrated via
an HbbTV layer.
The transition to the new DTT system
requires an introduction of new CPEs. A
respective task force involving all stakeholders
and a number of major manufacturers developed
a set of minimal requirements for such equipment.
Media Broadcast will launch a certification
regime to ensure platform compliances. A logo is
being designed to label compliant devices.
Roadmap
A commercial trial starting in May 2016
will be used to gather operational experience
as well as for marketing purposes. A number
of prominent HD programmes of both public
and commercial broadcasters will be jointly
transmitted via a single terrestrial channel in
a couple of regions. The commercial start of
the platform is scheduled to take place in first
quarter 2017 initiating a nation-wide roll-out.
The commercial programmes will be broadcasted
through three T2 channels in addition to further
channels assigned to the public programmes. The
roll-out will take place in parallel to a switch-off of
the current DTT system, which is to be completed
in 2019.
The new DTT service platform should allow for
the introduction of new business models based on
a sophisticated service portfolio, enabled by DVBT2 and HEVC technology.
www.csimagazine.com
June 2015
23
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Connected cars
Connected Car
Battle for the connected car
Car makers and tech companies view your car as a giant mobile
with navigational aids, apps, living room-style entertainment
and connectivity to the wider IoT. By Adrian Pennington
was simply easier
to get access using
the smartphone.
majority of drivers would pay up to $1,500 to
have new entertainment and safety features in
their vehicles. Moreover, research done by AT&T
and General Motors suggests that people want
“As long as
consumers find it
easier to use their
smartphones they will not adopt any services in
the car,” states Holger G Weiss, CEO of internet
radio service Aupeo. “It needs to be a very
intuitive setup, and the use cases have to be
automotive industry as recently
described by the CEO of
Renault-Nissan, Carlos Ghosn,
at Mobile World Congress. According to analyst
cars that are connected to the extent they are
willing to wait a year to make sure the car they
buy has this functionality.
Back-up cameras, USB ports and smartphone
perfectly optimised for in-car usage. It’s not an
experience to switch between three different
music apps, the FM
radio (traffic and news) and – let’s say – an
firm ABI, 60% of cars shipped will be connected
through mobile technology by 2017, and one in
charging are among top desires. Accenture says
in-vehicle tech is the top selling point for 39
audiobook being stored on an iPod. Everything
has to come through a single, personalised and
five cars on the road will be ‘aware’ by 2018,
according to Gartner.
As a sign of the times, MWC was this year
awash with IoT and connected car products and
percent of buyers, while just 14 percent are most
concerned with horsepower and handling.
“Every major auto maker has a connected car
programme as part of their strategy. In-car
integrated experience.”
The chief consideration for any in-car
connected service is safety. For the driver, this
means applications must be non-distractive yet
demos. Qualcomm had a Maserati on its stand
connectivity has become a market differentiator,”
contextually meaningful.
and AT&T showed off an Audi. The Fiat 500 was
also a popular model on display.
The reasons aren’t hard to fathom. Innovative
in-car technologies are being developed to make
journeys safer, easier and more entertaining, and
says Nakul Duggal, VP product management for
automotive and M2M at Qualcomm.
This is a point underlined by Ford CEO Mark
Fields at CES this year: “We’re thinking of
ourselves as a mobility company and not only
Most automotive manufacturers offer a means
of connecting a driver’s smartphone to the car
head unit, via HDMI or hot spot, where the
applications are mirrored. For example, JVC
Kenwood, which supplies head unit displays to
this includes semi-autonomous and eventually
a car and truck company.” Ford has a wide
Mitsubishi, VW and Kia, ensures that navigation
driverless technology, which are two key trends
going forward.
For a generation brought up tethered to
Facebook, any connectivity blackhole is a big
ranging ‘smart mobility’ strategy that takes into
account everything from connected bicycles
to smart cities.
is hands-free by speech to text. Another example:
Fords slimmed down version of Spotify offers a
limited number of tracks to ensure that driver
distraction is kept to a minimum
negative. “People don’t want to buy something
that’s not customisable any more,” says Mike
Edwards, product manager - car audio, JVC
Back to the drawing board
The first attempts at in-car connectivity tended to
copy the smartphone experience direct to the
Augmented reality head up displays (HUDs)
project information in the driver’s line of sight on
the windscreen. Continental, for example,
Kenwood. “We are having to produce units
that are customisable for their lifestyle.”
dashboard and failed to take-off, either because
the user experience was complicated or because it
manufactures them for BMW and uses camera
and radar data from vehicle sensors, combined
“For millennials, the smartphone is the
centre of their lives,” agrees Timur Pulathaneli,
Connected Services at Ford. “A major factor
affecting their judgement of whether a car is
good or bad is how they can connect up
their smartphone.”
BMW-owning parents, for example, can
download the myKIDIO app onto their children’s
tablet and show them a ‘Kids Cockpit’ illustrating
the car’s speed, the amount of remaining petrol
and – crucially - how long the trip will take.
US consumers are lining up to buy. According
to a Harris poll in January for AutoTrader.com, a
26
June 2015
www.csimagazine.com
Roadfriction info via cloud
Image courtesy of Volvo
T
he connected car has become
the next platform for the
evolution of mobile technology
– a ‘mega trend’ for the
Connected Car
Dan Peters, SVP product & design, Saffron
Digital. “There is a tension similar to that being
played out in the home.”
Volvo is outfitting all its models, starting with
the XC90, which now boasts a redesigned touchscreen interface using touch and swipe navigation
of the car’s infotainment system Volvo Sensus,
and integrates content from Apple and Google.
“Customers will be able to use smartphone
apps in a convenient way, while we focus on
Image courtesy of Qualcomm
developing integrated services that are relevant to
the driving experience as well as to the ownership
of a car,” explains Martin Kristensson, director
connectivity strategy, Volvo Car Group. “We will
offer other, unique and integrated services that
are relevant to the driving and car ownership
experience. These maybe existing services like our
Park & Pay solution for connected service
bookings, or over the air software updates or
future services to the car like ‘Roam Delivery - the
possibility of having goods delivered directly to
the trunk of your car by handing out a temporary
with digital map data and GPS. This is designed
to keep the driver’s eyes on the road but don’t
Both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
primarily run on the customer’s phone and will
include control over in-car entertainment systems.
As for passengers, rear-seat scenarios can be a
completely different, lean back experience. What’s
project an image on the car’s screen. A new
version of Google OS - Android M - is reportedly
being engineered to be built directly into cars,
digital key.”
more connectivity is ideally personalised to the
tastes of different drivers and passengers. “For
independently of a paired smartphone.
Then there’s Microsoft which powers three
As with the Internet of Things, a pre-requisite for
in-car connectivity is ubiquitous fast mobile
content owners, the car will turn into a multibillion dollar opportunity, simply because the
consumer will be able to choose and consume,”
reckons Weiss.
different car manufacturers’ in-car systems,
including Ford’s Sync. This includes AppLink
which enables drivers to access smartphone apps
via voice control.
broadband. The jury is out on whether in-car
WiFi hot spots (as opposed to reliance on LTE
networks) are necessary, although research firm
iSuppli expects a surge to 7.2 million worldwide
Fragmentation
Auto-makers can also take part in the GENIVI
Alliance, a non-profit group that includes Nissan,
units by 2017. GM’s 2015 models come fitted
with hotspots capable of connecting to 4G LTE
The car has become a battleground for the likes of
Google and Apple, each promoting platforms
which tailor Android or iOS specifically to the
in-car experience. At the same time, car makers
Volvo, and BMW.
MirrorLink is an in-vehicle connectivity
standard created by the Car Connectivity
Consortium whose members include Toyota, VW
networks.
Mobile networks are not designed to optimise
connection when moving at high speed, so that
challenge needs to be overcome and the take-up of
are developing their own platforms to try to
control the consumer experience. Some of them
offer SDKs to third party developers to create
services while a group of German car makers are
in talks to buy Nokia’s Here mapping unit in
order to avoid losing control to the likes of
Google, Facebook and Apple.
With dozens of car manufacturers with their
plus LG, Sony, HTC and Samsung. It also enables
consumers to connect compatible smartphones
and apps for display on car head unit.
Several auto-makers have wheels in different
camps. Ford uses Microsoft systems but is also
signed up to CarPlay. Kia uses Android for its
in-car systems, but is also a CarPlay member. GM
is signed to CarPlay, MirrorLink, OAA and
in-car connected experience is based on that.
“For a group of people with devices in a vehicle
a hotspot is currently a better idea than reliance
on LTE,” says Qualcomm’s Duggal. “That said,
everyone is working on an in-car connectivity 4G
platform, leapfrogging 2G and 3G.”
Probably the answer lies in 5G which is
scheduled for rollout around 2020.
own programming requirements, today’s developer
environment mimics that of the fragmented smart
TV landscape. Apple CarPlay which integrates
GENIVI. Honda and Hyundai are both
MirrorLink and GENIVI members. This means
drivers might get the choice of Android or iPhone
Also important is the update cycle, which for
cars is typically ten years, compared to just weeks
when it comes to servicing mobiles. While phone
iPhone, Apple maps and Siri into the car
dashboard vies with the Google-led Open
Automotive Alliance (OAA) whose members
include Audi, Honda, Hyundai and Nvidia and
support Android Auto.
compatibility at the point of buying a new car.
“One of the big issues is to what extent
manufacturers are happy to cede control over how
services are provided and to what extent are tech
companies trying to own the ecosystem,” says
apps can update automatically over the air, a car
only gets maintained manually.
“Hardware and software have to become
updatable in cars,” says Weiss, who suggests that
companies like Aupeo will play a role in
Mobile connectivity
www.csimagazine.com
June 2015
27
Connected Car
to reduce the 90% of car accidents caused by
them of the danger ahead, and to road
human error.
Renault-Nissan CEO Ghosn explained that this
will happen in three waves. Sensor-based semiautonomous technology to navigate traffic jams
will be introduced in 2016. In 2018, autonomous
drive will expand to include change of lanes on
the highways. Automated city driving will happen
around 2020 and in a decade, driverless cars will
start to emerge. Renault-Nissan is working on
maintenance authorities via the Volvo Cloud.
“Such connected car services will, in the near
future, deliver both personal and societal benefits
by reducing the potential for accidents, allowing a
more relaxed journey and lowering the costs of
road maintenance,” says Kristensson.
Greater safety is only one part of the picture
though. It doesn’t take a great leap of imagination
to predict that current restrictions on driver
autonomous driving with NASA and is among
auto-makers with offices in Silicon Valley.
“We have a building block approach with more
enjoyment of entertainment in vehicles will fade
to the background.
“One day you will see automated cars although
and more tasks being taken over by the car,” says
Pulathaneli of Ford, which runs a test fleet of
automated cars. “With systems based on radar,
Lidar or cameras you need to be in direct contact
with the object (a neighbouring vehicle or parking
the timing depends on the development of the
wider M2M environment but when you do then,
of course, you could think about using the time
spent in car in much the same way as you spend it
sitting at home,” says Pulathaneli.
bay, perhaps) but with M2M connections you can
look ‘around the corner’, or look ‘through’ the
truck hiding danger ahead of you. It will be a
Peters agrees: “The car is an extension of the
family space and it’s where we spend most of our
time together outside of the living room. In 15-20
technical enabler for a lot of diverse applications
in future.”
Semi-autonomous features already available in
Ford cars include lane-keeping assist, adaptive
years the consumer will expect to have the exact
same experience in the car as if they are at home
on the couch.”
Mercedes-Benz modelled this scenario with
cruise control and pre-collision ‘pedestrian
auto-pilot concept car F015. “Anyone who focuses
detection’. Experimental technology transmits
dashboard alerts to drivers about vehicles braking
ahead – even around corners and through traffic.
Its Smart Device Link, an open-source version of
solely on the technology has not yet grasped how
autonomous driving will change our society,” said
Mercedes-Benz chairman Dieter Zetsche in a
CES2015 keynote. “The car is growing beyond its
Applink operated by the GENIVI Alliance, offers
software developers and fellow OEMs to directly
role as a mere means of transport and will
ultimately become a mobile living space.”
interface with Ford vehicles.
“We need a standard that is powered by the car
maker for car-to-car or car-to-infrastructure
connections, and at present, it’s only enabled in
Even Volvo, the brand that purrs middle of the
road safety and comfort, says it is on a journey
where the ‘living room experience’ in its cars will
develop. “Think of self-driving cars and all the
connecting the complex structure of a car with
Ford cars,” says Pulathaneli. “We need a standard
that connects Ford to Opal, Ford to Mercedes
and so on.” Among signatories are Baidu and
AutoNavi, app developers working in the world’s
largest market for both smartphones and
automobiles – China.
In a Qualcomm-powered concept car (Cadillac
possibilities you will have from the moment you
are not actively driving,” says Kristensson. “You
will be able to enjoy the infotainment offers you
prefer, connect with friends or your loved ones,
work or simply relax a bit.”
Traffic and navigation apps like Inrix (Porsche
is an investor) and Waze, use crowd-sourced
the dynamic speed of ICT services.
Ford’s Sync Services is one solution. It
operates over Microsoft Azure and wirelessly
delivers traffic reports, vehicle to dealership
diagnostics, plus navigation, sports scores (via
XTS) head-tracking software alerts drivers should
their gaze wander for more than a few seconds,
while a gesture-sensing camera allows them to
control music at the wave of a hand. Incoming
data from a camera plus GPS and graphic
networks to cull data from road users. Inrix can
link drivers to social networking sites and alert
them when friends are near to determine the best
way to meet up. It is only a short step before
location-based advertising starts to drive serious
Perform) and other services like movie listings.
overlays let drivers know where they’re heading
and when to make a safe lane change.
Volvo is building a test-fleet of 1,000 cars able
to detect slippery road conditions, transmitting
this information to other Volvo cars, to forewarn
in-car revenue.
Going forward, cars will also be integrated with
wearables. BMW prototyped a smartwatch that
will allow wearers to exit their vehicle and then
tell it to go park itself.
Jaguar XE
Jaguar thinks that in-car technologies in this
increasingly connected world are an integral
part of the driving experience. With the new
XE, the company is introducing a new suite of
driver aids and cutting-edge entertainment
systems. They have been designed to make
journeys safer, simpler, more relaxing
and enjoyable.
The XE is the first of a line of Jaguar
vehicles to run on the company’s InControl
Touch Infotainment system for a new 8-inch
touchscreen. It supports smartphone
technology and InControl apps, which synchs
Apple and Android phones to the car and
allows the driver to access entertainment
and information apps installed on their phone
for up-to-the-minute parking information,
conference calls, hotel bookings and traffic
warnings. These apps can all be accessed at
the touch of a screen, according Dr Mike Bell,
Jaguar’s connected car director.
Passengers can also make use of the in-car
WiFi hotspot which allows multiple devices to
connect to the internet by the best possible
mobile connection using a roof antenna.
The XE features plain speech voice control
and Jaguar has ensured the driver can access
any level of the system by speaking to avoid
navigating multiple menus.
The car will also come with an optional
head-up display that displays driver
information directly onto the windscreen
without causing distraction. The display can
be set to configure a range of information,
from speed, navigation guidance, traffic sign
recognition and cruise control settings.
The system can be controlled remotely so
that for example, climate control is operated
before entering the car.
Taking the living room for a drive
The mega-trend set to transform the entire
industry is autonomous driving. The target is
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June 2015
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Connected Car
Personalising tomorrow’s car
Dr Neale Foster, COO and VP Global Sales, ACCESS,
looks at standardised solutions for a connected
generation of vehicles and consumers
technical checkup. In addition,
manufacturers can use car data to
offer customised services, such as
of cars shipped globally will be able to connect to
the Internet by 2020, demonstrating the scope
and the market opening on offer.
About two-thirds of today’s new cars are
adaptive maps informing the driver
of the next petrol station or health
and security measures such as
notifications when the driver needs to take
a break.
These new services complement the plethora
of automated features that are already available
technicians to diagnose problems by
tapping into the basic data stored by the
car. However, for the first time in two
decades, an opportunity has emerged for
already equipped with sensors and
communications systems that send and receive
data in real-time from each component, enabling
manufacturers to better understand how drivers
to drivers, including emergency warning systems,
GPS navigation, integrated hands-free cell phones,
wireless safety communications and automatic
driving assistance systems. To make these features
manufacturers to finally capitalise on the full
capability of this technology.
use their cars. These systems also enable the car
to automatically store information about its
more easily accessible, manufacturers and Tier 1
automotive technology vendors are increasingly
Sophisticated computing has enabled
technology to pervade every facet of our lives,
extending the in-car experience to unprecedented
levels with data and media sharing. There are now
various parts, allowing mechanics to better
respond to driver concerns and offer personalised
solutions tailored to the individual. The latest
generation of cars can even track miles driven,
integrating them directly with the car’s head unit,
enabling smarter, safer and more eco-friendly
driving.
While drivers and manufacturers are the main
more mobile enabled devices in the world than
speed and destinations, ensuring that satnav
beneficiaries of automated data collection, it is
actual human beings, which means that solutions
for the connected car need to take into account
the overwhelming choice of devices that
consumers may utilise in the in-car environment.
systems provide up-to-date personalised
information based on the driver’s habits.
Taken in tandem with advanced analytics, this
data-gathering feature enables the car to
automatically self-diagnose, allowing drivers to
also valuable to other companies in the industry
The perks and challenges of in-car data
quickly identify troubling information with
According to a recent BI Intelligence report, 75%
mechanics, without waiting for the annual
I
Image courtesy of Qualcomm
ntegrated computer systems and cars are
no strangers to one another. Since 1996,
on-board diagnostics systems have been
standard in all vehicles, allowing
Cadillac Instrument Cluster and Infotainment Concept car
“According to a
recent BI Intelligence
report, 75% of cars
shipped globally will
be able to connect to
the Internet by 2020.”
Image courtesy of Volvo
Connected Car
Slippery Road Alert
such as insurance providers, who can better
understand their customers’ driving habits. This
eco-efficiency, security and comfort factors. These
will all combine to positively impact the
able to remember data such as menus frequently
used, radio stations listened to, genre specific
enables them to offer more bespoke policies
rather than pigeon hole customers through
standard identifiers such as age and location.
electronics market’s growth, while demand for
in-car data storage is expected to be a key growth
driver for infotainment systems.
music and artist types, use of CDs, USB sticks
and rear seat video. Complementing the
embedded system and these main data points
Real-time self-diagnosis can even help automotive
brands become more responsive to the immediate
A prerequisite for sophisticated in-car features,
in-car data storage enables manufacturers to offer
with custom-built apps enables the manufacturer
to better understand how the system is used and
needs of their customers and offer tailored
advertising via the head unit.
However, compiling that amount of data
needn’t leave the driver in a vulnerable position.
bespoke infotainment combining locally stored
information on the driver’s preferences and cloudbased services such as Google Maps, Spotify and
more. Consumers are already bringing these
enhance the service with more advanced versions
of commonly used features, while also introducing
new use cases. The mobile app development
ecosystem enables OEMs to save on hardware
To provide the utmost level of security for the
sensitive data transiting through their servers,
manufacturers often use Transport Layer Security.
Typically involving HTTPS, TLS and SSL, the
solution ensures that all data is encrypted,
guaranteeing the identity of all parties involved to
prevent data manipulation and third party access
services in the car via their personal connected
devices, including smartphones, tablets, wearables
and eReaders.
Manufacturers are increasingly developing
hybrid infotainment systems, relying on embedded
functionality and integration with the user’s
device to project a driver-optimised version of
costs. Mobile apps leveraging the user’s
smartphone or tablet, allowing for Bring-YourOwn-Device (BYOD) behaviours, also have the
advantage of allowing frequent updates, so that
in-vehicle entertainment can adapt to rapidly
shifting consumer preferences.
However, BYOD in the car does have
to driver data, also limiting the risks of hackers
accessing connected and driverless cars.
Extending In-car Infotainment with BYOD
popular apps from the driver’s smartphone onto
the dashboard screen. This feature relies on the
car’s capacity to store the data from these apps,
which can then be uploaded to the manufacturer’s
challenges that need to be overcome. They must
ensure that different screen sizes and types,
security specifications, browsers and interaction
methods are all catered for. The user interface
The global automotive electronics market is
expected to reach $279.96 billion by 2020,
according to a new study by Grand View
Research, with advancements in infotainment
systems expected to help drive revenues even
further through this period. According to the
report, the proliferation of in-car infotainment
systems is due to a number of factors, including
servers. The data is then automatically analysed
to enable tailored services, such as music
catalogues and additional maps, or suggest offers
at a local supermarket.
Manufacturers need to ensure that the
infotainment experience they offer adapts to their
customers’ evolving requirements. Currently, the
embedded system provided by the manufacturer is
(UI) and user experience (UX) also play a crucial
role in enabling OEMs to provide a branded
experience across all screens in the connected car,
helping retain customers and attract new ones.
However, the multiplicity of devices means that
the UI needs to scale to each device, requiring
multiple developments to adapt to each screen
brought in the car.
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June 2015
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Connected Car
“W3C is also increasingly involved in the
evolution of the automotive market, and is
working towards defining a standard for
automakers around HTML5 interfaces.”
alongside providing granular information on
driver-focused data such as performance and
distance travelled.
Added connectivity and improved infotainment
in the car will radically transform the relationship
between the manufacturer and consumers,
allowing recurring exchanges through app
How standards can help streamline in-car
infotainment
Advanced connectivity and data analytics have
standards such as HTML5 - mixed with
responsive design functionality - can solve the UX
and UI issues within the car. This combination
updates, additional features and regular data
sharing. The ability to offer personalised services
on every device is equally as attractive for
passengers as it is for car owners and is a
potential differentiator for manufacturers.
played a crucial role in enabling these new
services. However, the infotainment market has
also faced increased competition and seen
numerous players launch proprietary solutions. To
respond to the increasing complexity of car
provides manufacturers with an efficient platform
on which to design a UX that can dynamically
adjust to any screen without manual interaction.
HTML5 already standardises video playback
and its host of new features, such as encrypted
However, challenges must be overcome in order to
make this a reality, and a standards-based
approach is the best way to achieve these results
in short time frames. Those who are able to
address these problems and offer personalised
infotainment systems, a number of consortiums
have also emerged in the automotive space to
media extensions (EME) and media source
extensions (MSE), offers a unique path to access
services will be best placed to win this burgeoning
connected car race.
facilitate the development and propagation of
open standards and common platforms.
The GENIVI Alliance, a non-profit automotive
industry alliance, aims at driving the broad
content. This allows operators to leverage open
standards to ensure reliable and consistent
memory handling capabilities for non-PC devices,
even with limited processing resources, enabling
Since 1984, ACCESS CO., LTD. has provided
advanced IT solutions centered around mobile and
adoption of an In-Vehicle Infotainment open-
the advent of BYOD infotainment services.
source development platform. The Car
Connectivity Consortium, a standards-based
organisation designed to interoperate
technologies, is also building a standard interface
to allow mobiles to connect and display info on
Standards-based manufacturer infotainment
solutions ensure a more dynamic and flexible car
market. It will provide more and more people
with the capacity to share data via the connected
car such as web browsing and social media
the infotainment unit. W3C, the web’s major
history. Manufacturers will also be able to better
standardisation body, is also increasingly involved
in the evolution of the automotive market, and is
working towards defining a standard for
automakers around HTML5 interfaces. This move
understand consumption habits such as preferred
device and type of programmes watched,
network software technologies to the automotive
industry, telecom carriers, consumer electronics
manufacturers, broadcasting and publishing
companies, and energy infrastructure companies
around the world. The company has developed
Image courtesy of Ford
mobile software that has been installed on over one
billion devices, and network software that has been
used by over 250 telecommunication equipment
manufacturers.
towards common platforms and shared standards
will allow an interchange of software between
automakers, fostering the growth of the future
connected car market.
Standards-based browser solutions can support
multiple device specifications and allow
manufacturers to deploy a single user interface
(UI) on all platforms, making them particularly
suited to the multiscreen world. In addition,
standards reduce the testing phase and facilitate
in-vehicle interoperability. The DLNA provides
a crucial standard with its VidiPath guidelines,
which allow device discovery and remote user
interfaces (RUIs). This eases consumer adoption
and helps promote the OEM brand on
unmanaged devices within the car, while
bypassing the need to write a new app for
every screen.
Utilising a single browser supporting industry
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June 2015
31
Encoding
Encoding evolution
operator has been discussing
using the technology with the
company. Larger US
operators can see value in
software-based solutions, in
part because of the sheer
volume of their encoding/
transcoding requirements for
hundreds of channels and
multiscreen services. Felts
believes a growing number of
European operators will also adopt the technology
in a bid to increase operational flexibility, while a
number of operators in Latin America will be
tempted to do so to improve cost-efficiency.
Elke Hungenaert, manager of product
management, for service provider video software
and solutions at Cisco, suggests there is also now
a growing understanding within the industry that
a software-based approach can enable swifter
launches of new services, while helping to reduce
complexity within the underlying infrastructure.
Another service provider, COGO sells its
cloud-based solution, COGO Cloud, in part on
the basis of the flexibility it provides; and also
offers a Linux-based encoding platform, COGO
Broadcast, for both broadcast and OTT
operations. Both are designed to offer the best
possible quality video that can be delivered with
a low bit rate.
“You can pop up as many encoders as you like
and it will take just about anything you throw at
it,” says Mark Tullos, CIO at COGO. “We’ve been
talking to Comcast about working their TV
Anywhere service. We can go from UDP to file,
and file to UDP for VOD. We can take a UDP
signal, compress it and turn it into TCP for
streaming live TV.”
At the same time, says Zohar Babin, managing
director, platform, ecosystem and community at
Kaltura, a growing number of operators are
concluding that they do not need to perform
these functions themselves. “We’re seeing media
companies thinking this is not core to their
business and they would rather have a partner do
it for them,” he says. “And we’re seeing more
transcoding services going to the cloud.”
“Cloud-based media processing services will
continue to expand as content providers seek
easy, scalable methods for dealing with the
complexity of video,” predicts John Riske,
director of product marketing at Brightcove.
“This includes not only transcoding, but also
David Adams looks at the way encoding is evolving from a
technology and business perspective with virtualisation and
Transcoding-as-a-Service (Taas) trending as needs become
more complex and live TV blends with on-demand
O
ver time, as consumer needs
change and markets become
more complex, the processes
that enable services to function
have to change too. If someone
who had been involved with the
launch of the first digital TV
services had fallen asleep for a couple of decades
and woken up today they would be amazed at the
way encoding and transcoding requirements for TV
operators have increased in scope and complexity.
“Today’s video content and service providers
need encoding and transcoding solutions that are
flexible and future-proof, supporting a wide range
of compression standards, including MPEG-4 and
HEVC; and video formats up to ultra HD,” says
Tom Lattie, vice-president, market development,
at Harmonic. “Video content and service
providers also now have the ability to support
future video codecs and standards via software or
licence upgrade.”
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June 2015
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On the hardware side, Harmonic’s Electra X
media processor is among the encoding/
transcoding technologies that offer both broadcast
and OTT content delivery.
Software and cloud
Such technologies must now support a broader
mix of broadcast and multiscreen delivery tasks
more efficiently; and must be able to scale up to
meet fluctuating demands, particularly for live
broadcasts or to manage interactivity and usergenerated content. But operators also need to try
and keep costs under control. These factors are
combining to drive an increasing number of
operators and content providers to use software
rather than hardware solutions and to take
advantage of cloud-based services.
Boris Felts, vice-president, products and
solutions, at Envivio, says a trend towards
software and cloud is now visible even among
long-established operators – one major satellite
Encoding
the packaging, the formats, audio, subtitles and
so on, necessary to reach all devices; and the
necessary security requirements.”
The appeal of such virtual transcoding services
is clear for any operator with an online operation,
says Babin. “Larger operators can afford to own
their own transcoding operations, but tier three or
lower scale OTT providers and up and coming TV
operators will all opt for cloud first,” he says.
“They don’t want to own the infrastructure.
Almost as a default most people now think about
cloud first, unless there are restrictions around
how you use the content.”
Strategies for differentiation
For their part, technology providers have taken
a number of different strategic routes towards
being able to help operators and other content
providers meet these requirements. Ericsson has
increased the breadth of its capabilities through
the acquisition of other technology providers such
as Tandberg, Azuki, Fabrix and MediaRoom. It
has also developed a comprehensive managed
service transcoding offering.
Carl Furgusson, head of strategy for business
line compression at Ericsson, suggests linear
service providers are still more likely to use
on-premise transcoding solutions, although some
use cloud services to support live event
broadcasting such as sports, and the number of
operators opting for managed services is growing.
“For on-demand content, which is not live, is
not time-critical and can be transcoded at any
point before being put on a server, we see more of
a mix,” he says. “Operators are maintaining
on-premise equipment, then using virtualised
services through the cloud to get additional payas-you-go capacity when needed.”
One factor being considered by operators, he
continues, is that the cost of working with CDNs
is rising as more traffic goes beyond an operator’s
own network, to mobile devices in particular.
“CDN costs are now becoming quite significant,
so big operators are starting to think more about
picture quality and bit rate performance. With a
higher performance encoder you can reduce data
rates, so reduce CDN cost. I think we will see
more of an emphasis on performance in order to
reduce CDN costs. Any operator with lots of OTT
traffic will be interested, as will any operator with
no network at all.”
Another trend Furgusson identifies is more use
of adaptive bit rate technologies to serve second
or third TVs in the home, including via streaming
technologies such as Roku boxes. “Picture quality
and performance are really starting to matter –
viewers are expecting the same level of reliability
that they get from broadcast TV,” he says. “On a
tablet or phone you’ll tolerate buffering, but you
have a completely different expectation when
you’re sitting in front of a big screen TV.”
The theme of integrating the infrastructure to
cope with multiple demands is visible across the
industry. Another driver behind the move towards
“I think we will see
more of an emphasis
on performance in
order to reduce CDN
costs. Any operator
with lots of OTT
traffic will be
interested, as will
any operator with no
network at all.”
greater integration is the need for operators to
provide experiences that combine elements of live
and on-demand services, says Keith Wymbs, chief
marketing officer at Elemental. “The world has
been divided, between live broadcast – sports,
news and the live TV environment; and different
kinds of on demand assets,” he says. “We’re now
seeing a blend of the two and it’s affecting the
infrastructure.”
The Elemental Live video processing platform
offers real time encoding for linear pay TV
broadcast and live streaming to new media
platforms. The company’s Delta multiscreen
delivery platform is being used by Turner
Broadcasting’s CNN to power CNNx, a service
that allows viewers to move from the live TV
stream into on-demand segments that provide
additional background information to
complement news content, then return to the
live stream.
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June 2015
33
Encoding
“The number of
operators opting for
managed services
is growing.”
Elemental is also powering Comcast’s X1
cloud-based DVR service, for which its encoding
solution will cater for multiple playout device
requirements. What is significant here, says
Wymbs, is the willingness of a major broadcaster
to entrust key services to the cloud, although in
this case it is a private cloud, run in a dedicated
data centre. Meanwhile, in Malaysia, the operator
Astro is using Elemental’s technology alongside
public cloud resources to power its Astro on the
Go OTT service.
“The guys at the top of the food chain,
generating the most revenue from the content, are
adopting the newest technologies,” claims Wymbs.
Another client is DirecTV, which is using
Elemental’s HEVC solution to run its on demand
4K/UHD service, launched in November 2014.
The final significant advantage to unifying the
infrastructure is that it should help operators to
improve audience and viewer profiling and to
introduce additional personalisation. These
ongoing trends should create a continuous cycle
of development, says Harmonic’s Lattie. “The
shift towards multiplatform consumption and
personalisation will drive and increase the
delivery of time-shifted and on-demand content.
“The ever-growing matrix of content and
viewing methods – via network or device – will
usher in a new category of just-in-time video
infrastructure not required in the traditional live
linear distribution model. On-the-fly processing
solutions centered on transcoding/packaging and
34
June 2015
www.csimagazine.com
content customisation will be required to meet
consumer demand and keep infrastructure costs
in check,” he predicts.
HEVC migration
At the same time, those requirements will need to
encompass more UHD services at some stage,
which will put more pressure on network capacity
and drive demand for better video compression,
says Lattie, because “headend upgrades are
always more economical than network upgrades”.
For this and other reasons, operators will
certainly be using higher efficiency codecs,
particularly HEVC, over the next few years. “High
efficiency codecs probably have the most
potential to broadly and dramatically improve the
video viewing experience,” says Brightcove’s
Riske.
“While many focus on these codecs as enabling
4k resolutions, it’s equally important to consider
that these codecs will radically improve the
quality of the video available in low bit rate
environments, such as over mobile networks or in
locales with low broadband penetration.”
Carl Furgusson believes the fact that mobile
devices tend to be replaced much more quickly
than STBs will also encourage operators to move
towards HEVC. “Some devices already have
HEVC capability in them and there’s going to
be a tipping point for operators,” he says. “Again,
the big push will be to lower data rates and
CDN costs for operators, and lower data charges
for consumers, and to improve the quality
of experience over the last mile. That will
create another refresh of encoding and
transacting devices.”
The final factor driving innovation in this area,
says Felts, is the fact that operators of all kinds
now realise that in a growing number of markets
the big internet players like Google have become
primary competitors. “Operators want to move
away from this long cycle of deployments, where
from the beginning of a project to deployment
can take nine months or a year,” he says. “They’re
changing the architecture and the organisation to
be more agile. The real challenge for them is to
launch new products more quickly.”
Ultimately, says Wymbs, this is all about
changing viewing habits. “The shift away from
viewing time-bound content is happening,” he
says. “Operators have to react. I think the
majority of leading operators are taking action,
implementing software-based approaches that are
flexible and can keep up with technology changes
and consumer behaviour shifting towards
fragmented viewing habits. They are unifying the
infrastructure to deliver content.”
How effective those services are will depend in
large part on the quality of encoding and
transcoding solutions. Ultimately, it is the strength
of these technologies that will enable the launch
of new services and the maintenance of high
quality service provision, even under the most
extreme consumer demands.
Data corner
The UK connected landscape
A peek inside the UK connected home shows a
change is just around the corner, says Guy Bisson
of Ampere Research
O
Source: Ampere Analysis
older 25-34 age group, with 96 per cent watching
non-linear content weekly (either from a VoD
service, DVR or via catch-up). This contrasts with
65 per cent of 18-24 year olds. The main source
of video differs noticeably by age group, with the
two youngest segments preferring VoD content
UK homes owning device (m)
Source: Ampere Analysis
ne of the key challenges for
entertainment execs is judging
correctly the point at which
consumers will jump ship from
one medium to another. Two
things are needed: a largescale shift in consumer
behaviour and a device environment able to
seamlessly facilitate the transition. Our latest
research has taken a long, hard, quantitative look
at the situation in the UK and thrown up a number
of facts that suggest the hype around OTT and nonlinear viewing habits can no longer be written off.
Here are a few of those facts: 30% of UK
consumers believe that within five years, their
household will no longer watch broadcast TV at
all. Fifty-seven per cent of Smart TV owners and
nearly 50 per cent of tablet owners watch online
video on their device at least weekly, with 41% of
homes owning a Smart TV and 76% owning a
tablet. Consumption on these large-screen devices
is noticeably higher than on smartphones with 37
per cent of smartphone owners never watching
videos on their device.
When it comes to sources of video, Youtube
dominates, with nearly half of UK consumers
watching content on the platform in the past
month. While BBC iPlayer and ITV Player hold
the fort for the traditional broadcasters, one
noticeable trend is the rise of Facebook as a
platform for video.
Discounting social media use and looking at
Facebook solely as a video platform, it was used
by 16% of UK homes in the last month, making it
a bigger platform for streaming video than
Demand 5. Facebook’s video reach is also bigger
than each of iTunes, Google Play and Amazon
Instant Video. Perhaps also interestingly, pirate
video sites are also a more widely used source of
content than each of iTunes, Google Play and
Amazon Instant.
There are differences between the age groups.
It is very noticeable that 18-24 year olds watch
less TV than their older peers and this goes for
both linear and non-linear viewing. In fact, the
peak in non-linear viewing occurs in the slightly
streamed over the Internet rather than from their
main TV service provider.
Our research also indicates that Over-the-Top
service Now TV is the core driver for the
on-going growth of traditional platform operator
Sky, pointing to a future shift to OTT that may be
nearer than we think.
What’s important about these findings is not
any individual fact, but the combination of
indicators that suggest the UK is close to reaching
a point of no return for a shift in the future of
entertainment.
Connected
Not Connected
total
Microsoft Xbox 360
3.89
1.90
5.78
Blu-ray Player
2.50
3.05
5.56
Sony PlayStation 3
3.47
1.40
4.87
Sony PlayStation 4
2.35
0.63
2.98
Microsoft Xbox One
2.16
0.49
2.65
OTT Box - Chromecast
1.27
0.49
1.76
OTT Box - Now TV
1.19
0.49
1.69
OTT Box - Apple TV
0.97
0.38
1.35
OTT Box - Roku
0.57
0.30
0.87
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June 2015
35
Q&A
Q &A
Improving the wireless experience
Bulent Celebi of AirTies (left)
Goran Nastic spoke with AirTies executive chairman and co-founder Bulent
Celebi about overcoming the challenges of in-home and in-building WiFi
GN: Tell us a little about AirTies for those
who might not be familiar with the company.
BC: We formed the company in 2004, with the
vision that everything electronic inside the house
was going to get inter-connected to each other and
connected to the internet and that this had to be
done over WiFi. Since that time, we’ve developed
a number of wireless networking products. We’ve
also developed some IP-based set top boxes
(STBs) and gateways and today we’re expanding
very rapidly throughout the world, focused on
solving WiFi and WiFi related issues.
WiFi is a huge problem. Maybe give us an
overview of some of the challenges. Things
like the positioning of the access points
(APs) in the home can cause interference
and also having just brute speed may not be
enough because different devices behave in
different ways. What are some of the pain
points as you see them, both with your
customers and the sector as a whole?
36 June 2015
www.csimagazine.com
There’s several questions boiled up there. Firstly,
how does WiFi really operate and how do you
address that? Right now WiFi operates as a star
topology. The main router, AP or gateway comes
in and that’s where that particular AP is located,
so all traffic is going over that single device. You
can buy the latest and greatest 802.11ac chips,
you can buy fancy routers with six antennas,
multi-user MIMO etc. The fundamental problem
with all of those is that they’re making WiFi faster
if you’re in the same room. Yes it is getting faster
and more capable. Things like beam forming
multiple video streams does help in the range,
however a wall is such a big impediment that you
stick two walls in between and it’s all gone. You
can make things a little faster but if you’re in a
house like in the UK with stone walls or if it’s big
there’s no way it’s going to cover it all.
That’s problem number one. Then even if you
put a repeater in that still ends up being a bandaid solution because depending on where the
repeater is located and where the client is actually
trying to tie to it can actually hurt the
performance instead of improving it. What we
keep proposing is that you need multiple APs
that are coordinated with each other and figure
out what path to route and things like that.
That way these devices have closer locations that
they can connect to and you can have a high
capacity backbone between multiple APs that are
physically closer to each other, maybe in every
other room, and they form a high capacity
network. That’s the first order of solving that.
The more profound portion - even for us and
we’ve been working on the WiFi problem for the
last ten years and we keep finding new issues - the
problem is what happens to the mobile client. We
were finding that mobile clients are ‘sticky’. What
network the mobile device connects to is decided
by the device itself, whether it is a particular
network or AP and whether it is at 2.4Ghz or
5Ghz. What we find is if you are in the family
room with the router and you turn the tablet on
connected to that router everything is fine, you
Q&A
could walk to another room and past a repeater
that has a much higher signal strength but it won’t
connect to it, it will stay connected to the original
router. You can keep on walking to the top room
and by that time the signal has decayed quite a
bit. When that signal decays that much the tablet
is consuming 75-80% of air capacity of the total
WiFi network. So all the people still in the main
room, who think they have all these bars and are
connecting at these fast rates are in actual fact
not, they’ve been slowed down by your tablet
that’s up in the bedroom. That’s called the ‘bad
apple’ problem which brings down the entire
network capacity.
Then when you start thinking about the fact
that all these devices have low cost chips - because
power and size are the most important things
for a mobile client – then they’re sticky and
mobile because they’re constantly moving around
the house. And then you have a whole bunch of
them inside the house, which together creates a
perfect storm that for all intents and purposes
crashes the network. The network can’t handle it
and we end up seeing bad esoteric performance.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t and you
don’t know why.
You mention the number of devices; in
Europe the average home has at least six or
seven connected devices if not more, and
that will only grow and the problem will get
worse. So how can AirTies help, can you give
us some examples of the work you are
doing?
Outside of the mesh networking, we just
announced with Singapore Telecom (SingTel) a
new technology we call ‘dynamic client steering’.
What we do there is we’re basically taking the
decision of what network to connect to away from
the client and moving it to the network because
the client has no knowledge of what the network
looks like, where its bottlenecks are what its
capacity is and so on. So we move this
information to the network. Our AP mesh nodes
are constantly talking to each other, they’re seeing
which client is connected to which AP and what
the signal strengths and link connection speeds
between the clients and different mesh nodes
are and they collectively select the best path to
optimise the capacity and link speed of the client,
and then we force the client to go there. When
you do that you get a dramatic improvement in
the total capacity of the network.
And this isn’t specific to SingTel, it could
work anywhere? Do you take this approach
with other operators like Swisscom?
This could apply everywhere. SingTel are the
furthest along. With Swisscom, just as a pure
mesh implementation, they are implementing
to stream video to multiple TVs, the earlier
generation of this solution. Both these
implementations are based on .11ac.
So going forward, can we expect with
AirTies and the wider 802.11 standard to
boost WiFi performance?
There’s a lot of work still going on. We’re now
talking about 8x8 devices but these are adding
more capacity and the multi user MIMO is saying
we’ll have multiple streams to connect to
individual devices and therefore try to increase
capacity, but it’s relying on the beamforming
capability such that I will move my beams around
so I have a certain set of signals going one way
and another in a different direction. Now, if I
stick a wall in between it goes away so I only solve
the problem in one room. If you’re in Starbucks
it’s great but it won’t solve the typical in-home
The Air 4820 access point
“Outside of the
mesh networking,
we just announced
with SingTel a new
technology we call
dynamic client
steering.”
problem. We are starting to see is that more
people are thinking about what we really need to
do is re-optimise how the network operates,
especially if you’re in an apartment complex or
multi-dwelling unit (MDU), where your neighbour
can take away some of your air time. Maybe they
should be operating in a different set of channels
than you. How do you coordinate those type of
things? We really need to start doing the types of
things that the mobile guys have been doing for
years with 3G, 4G and frequency planning and
those kinds of things as it comes down into the
consumer’s house because we now have a very
complex network there but you have to do it all
with no IT manager.
OK, before we finish is there a key message
you’d like to put across?
WiFi has now clearly become the latest last mile
problem, even the last ten metre one. It needs to
be solved and a lot of people are focused on it.
We’re not going to be the only solution, I’m sure
there will be many others, but some sort of
premium WiFi, above and beyond what we
currently have today is absolutely required.
That sounds good and on that note we
will finish up by saying it would be good
to track your developments and see where
we are in a year’s time or thereabouts
and look forward to speaking to you and
AirTies again.
www.csimagazine.com
June 2015
37
Smart home
Interconnected health
I
settings, ensures preventive
maintenance in case of
suboptimal performance of
equipment, and gives full
transparency to both the
tenants and the service company. BaseN manages
the collection, storage, analysis, control and visual
presentation of real-time data from device-specific
smart meters (eg, washing machine, laundry
dryer, stove, oven) and sensor-equipped building
components (heat pumps, ventilation units etc).
Smart homes start to ensure the wellbeing of their residents
VolkerWessels houses from outside
n traditional houses inhabitants act as
‘living sensors’ for indoor condition
problems. In most cases air quality,
humidity level, CO2 concentration and
other indoor measurements are analysed
only after complaints from tenants
regarding headaches or some respiratory
symptoms. However, even mild symptoms may
signify the development of severe lifetime
sicknesses like asthma.
We now live in a world of smart homes and
connected objects. However, true value comes
from even smarter means. Whereas the Internet
of Things (IoT) is at large about simply
connecting everything, more can and should be
done when it comes to analyse and control.
How do existing smart home solutions improve
the wellbeing of the houses’ residents? Things, as
well as people, are influenced by their
environment, and the environment and other
conditions change over time. That’s why it is
essential to record the entire lifecycle of a
building and the people (and things) living in it.
On top of all that stored data, smart algorithms
make automatically aware of any changes and
create predictions for the future. All that creates a
virtual smart counterpart of the entire building.
This counterpart is known as spime, a term
originally coined by author Bruce Sterling. It is
defined as “a futuristic object that can be tracked
through space and time throughout its lifetime”.
38
www.csimagazine.com
June 2015
However, spimes are nothing futuristic
anymore, they are already out there and in use
throughout all kinds of industries - the
construction industry included. Global Internet
of Things (IoT) operator BaseN has already
‘spime’d’ houses in The Netherlands in
cooperation with construction giant
VolkerWessels. Building components of the newly
built houses, eg heat pumps and ventilation units,
were equipped with sensors. Their lifetime data is
gathered from the very beginning and correlated
through other conditions inside and outside the
building. Access to this data is provided both to
the tenants and the facility management. The
building’s energy and water consumption and
environmental conditions (CO2 concentration,
indoor temperature, humidity level) are managed
through the building’s spime.
The spime, for example, automatically adjusts
ventilation if the level of CO2 concentration in
the house is detected to be too high. The tenants
are also able to access all the information on the
air quality through their customer portals. In
addition, production measurements of the
rooftops’ PV cells are fed to the spime, providing
useful performance data to the facility
management as well.
The fact that the spimes record the full lifetime
history of the houses allows tracking changes in
energy consumption and environmental patterns
over time. This enables optimisation of various
The future of spime’d houses
There are still improvements, which can be
done both on the houses’ maintenance and
construction phase to make the houses ‘smart’.
Existing energy and water consumption
management systems can be complimented by
additional features, thus providing more security
to prevent water leakages in the apartments for
instance. This can be done by introducing a
‘home away’ feature, which notifies the tenant
when water is consumed at home, while he
or she is away. The feature has already been
implemented in another BaseN project,
Adjutantti, the first of its kind low-energy
apartment house in Finland.
During construction works quality of
building materials might be influenced by various
factors: the woods can be partially wet after heavy
rains at the construction site and the concrete can
be utilised by the workers when it is not at the
appropriate level of dryness. However, due
to scheduling issues, constructors are often
pressured to use the materials when those
are not in a perfect state. Spiming building
materials already during the construction phase
will help solving this challenge. Additionally,
sensors kept in the concrete also after the house
construction has been finalised, allow for
constantly analysing the moisture levels of the
houses’ walls, thereby ensuring that the house
‘breathes’ the way it should.
The most important aspect, though, is
the effect on the quality of life of the building’s
inhabitants. Their home’s spime will always
ensure that they live in perfect living conditions
automatically adjusting, eg temperature and
lighting, and will allow for immediate preventive
action, such as in the case of deterioration of
air quality. The home becomes an active
enabler of a person’s health, wellbeing and
happiness.
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ATX Networks designs, manufactures, markets and delivers a broad range of products to
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