Overview:
A few years ago, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) were excited at the prospect of drastically reducing the cost of mobile infrastructure by replacing proprietary hardware with open RAN alternatives. However, open RAN has been more difficult to implement than initially envisaged and it is only now that limited deployment of open RAN by major MNOs is beginning to happen.
This Viewpoint looks at the benefits and challenges of deploying open RAN infrastructure across 4G and 5G networks and provides details of the deployment plans of major MNOs around the world, including information about key trials and initial commercial services.
Table of Contents:
- Snapshot
- Key Planning Assumptions
- Introduction
- Benefits of Open RAN for MNOs
- Greenfield Open RAN Deployments
- Legacy Network Open RAN Deployments and Trials
- Enterprises
- Testing and Integration Initiatives
- Market Challenges
- Viewpoint
Number of Pages: 14
Author: Gareth Owen
Published Date: February 2020
Overview:
The Radio Access Network (RAN) market is currently dominated by a small number of incumbent players. However, open RAN represents a big threat to this established order as it provides opportunities for smaller companies offering ‘open’ products to enter the market.
This report provides an overview of the emerging open RAN ecosystem, with a focus on the RAN software providers, alternative fronthaul technology providers and vendors developing open RAN compliant base station components. The report also assesses challenges facing these new players and the likely strategy of incumbent infrastructure providers to maintain market share while embracing open RAN.
Table of Contents:
- Snapshot
- Key Planning Assumptions
- Introduction
- Open RAN Ecosystem
- TIP OpenRAN RFI
- Challenges Facing RAN Vendors
- Viewpoint
Number of Pages: 14
Author: Gareth Owen
Published Date: February 2020
Overview:
Next generation 5G mobile technology will place unprecedented demands on the scalability, efficiency and flexibility of the Radio Access Network (RAN) which has led to a radical rethink of the entire RAN architecture. This report provides an overview of C-RAN technology, outlines the benefits and challenges of implementing an open RAN architecture for both 4G LTE and 5G networks and discusses the key technical challenges and unresolved issues facing the industry.
Table of Contents:
- Snapshot
- Key Planning Assumptions
- Introduction
- Open RAN Standards
- Open RAN Alliance (O-RAN)
- TIP OpenRAN Group
- RAN Architectures
- The Fronthaul Challenge:
- Baseband Virtualization Options – Physical versus Virtual
- Technical Challenges
- Viewpoint
Number of Pages: 12
Author: Gareth Owen
Published date: February, 2020
Overview:
2019 heralded the launch of the long-awaited 5G era and during the next five to ten years significant additional spectrum will be needed if 5G is to reach its full commercial potential. Unsurprisingly, spectrum availability for 5G was a key topic addressed at length by the world’s spectrum regulators at the recent World Radio Conference (WRC) held by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Sharm-El-Sheik, Egypt.
This Viewpoint reviews the key outcomes of the WRC-19 conference with respect to future 5G spectrum availability and discusses some of the conflicting issues raised with respect to the sharing of spectrum with incumbent users. The report also outlines current plans to allocate further 5G spectrum at the next WRC meeting in 2023.
Table of Contents:
- Key Outcomes at WRC-19
- New Spectrum for 5G
- Protections for Satellite Transmissions
- Looking forward to WRC-23
- C-Band Re-allocation
- The 6 GHZ Band
- Fixed Wireless Broadband in Ku-Band
- Other 5G-Related Applications
- Viewpoint
Number of Pages: 10
Author: Gareth Owen
Published Date: January 2020
Overview:
The rapid adoption of AI has spurred the development of a new breed of AI chips with the performance needed to meet the high processing and low power requirements of AI machine earning and deep learning application and there are now more than 80 start-up companies around the world developing AI chips for training and inference.
This report analyses the AI chip market and focuses on start-ups targeting both the cloud server and edge devices markets. Profiles of 10 of the most promising non-Chinese companies selected on the following criteria are provided: technology, levels of funding, availability of commercial products and key investors. The companies profiled are: Blaize, Graphcore, Habana Labs, Wave Computing, Gyrfalcon Technology, Efinix, Syntiant, Flex Logic, Mythic and AlphaICs.
Table of Contents:
- Introduction
- Technology Focus
- Key Markets for AI chips
- Key Players – Cloud Data Centres
- Key Players – Edge Devices
- Investments and Investors
- Key Challenges
- Conclusions – Cloud, Data and Edge
Number of Pages: 50
Author: Gareth Owen
Publishing Date: January 2020
Overview:
5G smartphones are on the rise. We envision 5G to have the fastest ramp up of all generations of cellular technology. Monthly tracking has become important to identify the technology leaders.
In this monthly tracker we provide the brand level and model details of 5G smartphone sales. We choose to provide sell through sales instead of sell in shipments as it eliminates inventory. However inventory build is also important so we provide quarterly sell in shipments as a reference point in this report as well.
We track brands like Samsung, LG, Huawei, Vivo, Xiaomit and others. We also provide model level sales of 5G flagships like Galaxy S10 and Note 10 as well as Mate 30 5G.
This report covers data from April 2019 to November 2019. Our next report is due in February 2020.
Table of Contents:
- Global 5G sales by brand (monthly sell through)
- USA 5G sales by brand
- Korea 5G sales by brand
- China 5G sales by brand
- Other region 5G sales by brand
- Global 5G sales by model
- Global 5G shipment by brand (quarterly sell in)
Author: Tom Kang
Published Date: February 2020
Overview:
Global Cellular 5G Portable PCs will ship 37 million by 2025. 5G expected to reach mass-market level by 2024, we expect laptops will increasingly have cellular connectivity as standard and those without cellular connectivity will slip towards a minority by the mid-2020s We expect more smartphone OEMs to leverage their experience in Qualcomm Snapdragon designs to enter the Windows on the ARM PC market. All will be cellular capable, and most will include eSIM. We also expect some of the smartphone OEM to enter this space, leveraging their experience by employing the same snapdragon solution for smartphones, extending to the thin form of connected PC, with windows on a snapdragon. Another factor which will drive always connected & new generation of windows 10 and beyond are the mixed reality features coming to windows platform which will have significant use case in education, industrial and enterprise verticals as well as for creative professionals, advertisers, and gaming developers.
In the age of IoT Revolution, In-built connectivity for PC was the next step of evolution for the PC industry. Going forward, we can see more PC vendors opting for always-connected PC solutions
Table of Content
- Cellular Portable PCs Introduction & Ecosystem
- IoT Value Chain – Connected Portable PCs Positioning & Key Players
- Global Cellular Portable PCs Market Status
- 5G Cellular Portable PCs Ecosystem
- Key Takeaway
Number of Pages: 15
Author: Satyajit Sinha
Published Date: December 2019
Overview: The next generation of connectivity (5G, WiFi 6, 802 .11 ay) is poised to enhance the way we interact with the connected devices. Extended Reality – XR (VR/AR/MR) is one such technology that will benefit from the introduction of 5G and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This report talks about XR ecosystem in 5G era. Exploring the new technology impact on the XR and its ecosystem adoption.
Table of content:
- XR – Promising future ahead
- XR – The killer application in 5G era
- Key Technology driving XR in 5G
- Standards & framework for XR in 5Gera
- XR Value chain
- Key regions driving adoption 2019 – 2023
- Adoption by key cellular technology 2019 – 2023
- XR Push in current 5G rollout
- Key Takeaways
Author: Shobhit Srivastava
Date: December 2019
Overview:
Global Cellular 5G IoT will ship 30 million Gateways by 2025. Over the next decade, the IoT gateways market will grow by three-fold. Huawei will continue to lead in Europe and China in the near to mid-term. However, in the US, brands like Cradlepoint, Sierra Wireless, Cisco, Samsung and Inseego will lead in the 5G era. We expect cellular IoT gateways’ wholesale price to fall to US$500 by 2022, due to falling in module/SoC prices and growing scale. However, as the industry transitions to 5G NR-SA and greater order of mmWave deployment, the dealing price of 5G CPE, will be offset, with new 5G NR-SA components.
Table of Contents:
- IoT Gateways Introduction & Ecosystem
- IoT Value Chain – Gateway Positioning & Key Players
- Global 4G/3G Cellular IoT Gateways Market Status
- Cellular IoT 5G Gateway Ecosystem
- Key Takeaway
Number of Pages: 21
Author: Satyajit Sinha
Published Date: November 2019