Book

After 2 years of research on the business transition to the Next Generation Wireless Networks, I managed finally to publish a part of it to the book Fourth-Generation Wireless Networks: Applications and Innovations. Chapter 9, entitled "Potential Scenarios and Drivers of the 4G Evolution" is my contribution, including the assumptions and data analysis, modeling in order to define the "4G readiness" concept. An index of countries is presented that are the players and the forntiers to the 4th Generation evolution. These are ranked on their readiness to deploy the new technology, based on technology, economic and consumer drivers. The research is accomplished with Professor Hosein Fallah.

I strongly recommend you to purchase this book, if your interests are around this field either for your perosnal use or for your university's library. The book also presents a vision for the coming years in terms of emerging fourth generation (4G) wireless technology trends and best practices. It explores the resulting challenges and technical opportunities that will arise in creating and delivering 4G networks for the emerging applications and services. This book also examines the fundamentals of advanced physical layer and radio resource management as the basis for cross layer and cross network optimization that will emerge for increased mobility and services in video, cloud computing virtualization, entertainment, education, health, and security.

FTTH

I remember during the UBB project, trying to prove the need for 1Gbps speed, the maximum bandwidth needed for heavy Internet usage was no more than 35Mbps and seriously there arent any heavy users in Greece yet. Technologically it is possible to offer 1Gbps, but the demand for that speed will be created in 10-15 years


But, for Greece, is it really the right time to bring up the fiber optic networks case? Will FTTH implementation take Greece out of the economic slump? Usually the impact of technology, i.e. broadband implementation on an economy is positive, adding growth based on macroeconomic fundamentals (Solow model) but also empirical studies. It is said that broadband brings more rapid growth in employment, the number of businesses overall, and businesses in IT-intensive sectors, relative to comparable communities without broadband. But still these are theoretical academic studies with little practical use.


However, the model should be different per market. Should a small country with a huge deficit right now, having the EU commissioner threatening and supervising its economy and public expenses, care about fiber optic networks? Is that the right investment to warm up and stimulate the economy? Is there a real interest from businesses and households into hight-speed broadband that turns the FTTH implementation into a one-way solution? Have the businesses and households already understood the value of the Internet, and how they can make money when Greece is still the EU lagger in broadband penetration? Rather worry, when there is no serious interest on SD IPTV that could easily run on ADSL or VDSL speeds. And still, the market is small, the young care more about their cell phone functionalities and the mobile internet rather than DTV or HDTV. If Greece was Finland or any other Scandinavian country, cloudy and cold most of the year, it would have made perfect sense, to offer HDTV asap.


Greece is a developed country with very good infrastructure and communications national coverage based on telephony (#29 in the world) and mobile wireless network (99.9%). The first half of 2009 Greece showed a 2.19% increase in the broadband penetration rate. Is that a positive sign of demand and interest to run after the FTTH?


However, there is no serious planning for DTV, when other EU countries have already launched such as Spain or are ready to launch the new service. Greece is a beautiful, touristic country focusing on services. Is that really critical to offer HDTV (havent heard of any other service needed) to the tourists, when the price of the hotels is skyrocketing every summer and the rate of the visiting tourists is going down? Certainly the tourist will not come to Greece to enjoy the HDTV. Are there any e-gov services that need a high speed connection to advance into the next level? How can a country in crisis, with more taxes coming up, afford a triple-play of 60-70 euros/month if we compare to the Portugese case, that is similar size to Greece? Why is the download speed a serious problem for the households that fiber will overcome? Instead, implement P2P policies and add value to the downloads

Rushing to migrate into an advanced technology without having serious services planning or making full use of the DSL could increase the digital or better the bandwidth divide between the rural and urban areas with its implications. Is there a serious national, individual and organisational level's benefit measured or are we following others? Is there a reasonable ROI for the investors?


What are the other priorities? From an insight view, a serious spending on redesigning the tax system, that could track all the illegal activities, shrinking the deficit, promoting and educating into e-gov services, adding more speed and equipment to the school labs, that to my experience they run on a '2Mbps' speed, a real obstacle when running a seminar on new technologies. Serious spending and supervising the EU funds spending and investing into SMEs projects.


In the end of the day, examine what the market wants and dont rush into building a fiber optic network that will start creating revenues much much later from what it is expected, causing another balack hole for the economy. Technologists should collaborate with economists and consult with countries that have already implemented the fiber network and understand the rationality. Revise the techno-economic study, including some serious technological planning, setting as first priority the social benefit and not the investors'. Support the FTTH case study with more social services, broadband stimulus applications proving the real need for high speed broadband service, supporting the rural areas of Greece i.e. the islands that to my opinion should be covered from mobile broadband solutions following similar developing counries model. Thus the price of the mobile broadband should go down and offered more widely to the ruaral areas. HSPA+ (21Mbps) is already offered in Greece.

Proper technological choices and services diversity could be the solution and serious thinking on what people really need, collaborating with the governement agencies and running surveys to rural and urban areas. A small group of people shouldnt decide on behalf of the majority, cause its a huge public expense per year and a political decision that could easily turn against them in the future (goverment, investors, technologists)if not carefully supported and planned with a serious economic and technological model. Greece needs an ecosystem than an advanced leading technology that will bring no serious economic growth, cause tge country is not ready for that.


stay tuned~

dividends

Spain is leading the digital dividends matter, (GSMA newsflash) with the Spanish Ministry of Telecommunications issuing a press release stating that from 1 January 2015 the spectrum frequency band 790-862 MHz in Spain is to be reserved for services other than television broadcasting, such as mobile broadband. There are some great benefits that will fix some the 3G mobile broadband bottlenecks, such as rural coverage and in-building penetration offered by the UHF digital dividend spectrum.


Is that early or late? Giving the fact that most spectrum will be needed in the beginning of the 4G evolution by 2011 or 2012, then 2015 might be really late. On the other hand, the 4G could be deployed in different ways and by 2015 to achieve full expansion and harmonisation and that should be the Spanish position. Definetely the markets need some time to adpat a new technology that varies, but a 3-4 years sounds reasonable. We shouldnt forget that we transit every other 10 years from 1G to 2G and then 3G. Every generation is different and with diverse innovative trends.


The establishment of a common harmonised frequency band for mobile broadband services is very critical for the success and the best performance. That is translated into reliability and customer experience that will raise the operator's ARPU.


There are many developed countries that are still wondering and trying to make decision; perhaps they will follow Spain's clear decision if they could resolve their market issues with the TV broadcasters and similar 'obstacles'. A harmonised approach across Europe and not only will encourage economic growth and deliver consumers new services at lower cost.


The question that arises now is, if we give priority to mobile broadband services where will the DTV stand? what is the trade-off, winners-losers?

Negroponte

The 4th International Conference on Broadband took place in Athens the 20 and 21 May 2009. Among the speakers was Nicholas Negroponte,who is the founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child non-profit association. But what I would like more to emphasize on, is his speech that was so playful and wise, multicasting millions of bits to the audience. All of his netbooks that are sent and operate in the 3rd world countries are adjusted into the local dialects, each containing a capacity of 100 e-books, making even Microsoft to blush. In that way a small online library is created in the class, supporting different books exchange, ending up into an online innovative source of knowledge. But the most impressive, was his comment on Gb/sec broadaband speed compared to a book. 'A whole book transfers 10 million bits per hour, where the HD TV 10 million bits/sec'. Now, imagine, those two different scales and how much we can handle and where are we heading to in the future. Ofcourse there is no correlation, but how about being blown to 1 billion bits per sec in the near future which is the Gb speed? Its called the Ultrabroadband evolution. The online evolution is a fact, and we are at the point of no return, vast amount of information; more storage rooms, data centers and server farms will be demanded in the future, as the traditional books and newspapers will soon disappear. Anyways, I really enjoyed his speech, very active and intelligent speaker, with a high-tech attitude and philosophy. Definetely, one of the best speakers, I ever shaked hand and I recommend all of you to follow his project and the important humanitarian work he is accomplishing during the last years.

Speed

Cosmote, the leading mobile telephony Greek operator, announced first yesterday, the availability of the new mobile broadband technology, HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access). It supports up to 21Mbps downlink and up to 5.8Mbps uplink. In the live company's network, the measurements showed a range of 'real' 15Mbps downlink.

I am just really wondering whether there is a real need, when other markets are still examining the 'go ahead', and some other developing markets are skipping it, simply visioning and experimenting LTE instead that will go beyond 100Mbps.

It seems like they are knocking on their competitor's doors, Vodafone and Wind that is time for a change, new investment and faster mobile Internet. Can they afford it?My personal opinion is that due to the geographic difficulties, when other markets will evolute to LTE in 5 years or so, HSPA+ will remain the king in Greece.

Cosmote is heavily promoting the new fast mobile service, as it is offering an extra free 2Gbps download capacity in any new business package. In that case the user enjoys in a monthly basis a download capacity of about 2,5Gbps in the same price or cheaper to Vodafone's Blackberry Storm 1,5Gbps program. Strategically, we are moving forward, satisfying a short term user's need, but with no significant plans for any further evolution to 100Mbps range mobile broadband speed. Market roomers and dicussions are giving HSPA+ a 10 years viability! The bottom line is that besides Web surfing and email, there arent to my knowledge any bandwidth-hungry mobile services developed or offered from Cosmote network/cloud. But perhaps again the previous common services would be more than enough for the user right now, as he is new in this mobile broadband experience.

The Greek Internet user likes speed, as he is getting used to a fast ADSL home connection and demands similar speeds on his mobile phone. But speed with no services adds only a small value to the operator's network, unless there is a short-term new services plan.

Well, lets wait and see the other player's reaction. Greece is a saturated market, with mobile diffusion of over 90%, thus speed could definetely differantiate an operator, but not that much if it happens to be the leading operator, that is already 10% ahead of second operator.

Yesterday, I attended the Greek Telecom regulator's -EETT - conference and Νicholas Negroponte's speech really stood out. A blog entry on the matter will be posted soon.

ExelixisNet news

ExelixisNet and Rockamedia LLC are forming a joint venture bringing new media services in the European market and developing countries, with active presence in the Greek market. We serve the content needs of different clients such as ISPs, Telecom operators, TV stations and other similar media players that are looking for high quality content to explore new sources of revenues into multiple screens. Rockamedia LLC, has over 25 years of experience licensing content with a specialty in music ans related entertainment and a strong network of content suppliers, complemented by ExelixisNet that specialized in client's needs analysis, new platforms and internet distribution solutions. Our main services are summarized in the following list:

• Accommodate the purchase of the selected programs for different sites
• Work with the client for the final delivery and content’s quality assurance
• Arrange the agreement/contract
• Help facilitate the client’s needs
• Support the client any time for issues with the current and future needs, ensuring that the most complex solutions will work flawlessly
• Applying deep industry expertise and relationships with licensing, rights management, to ensure smooth integration over a trust customer relationship
• Advising and helping the client optimizing the content’s usage


Currently, we are working with some clients in Greece, and we are planning for more, since we are gaining popularity and trust due to our high end services and marketing activities.

-E

webtv

The future of WebTV is still unknown, altough there are tons of ideas and imagination all over the market. The investors are lacking confidence, since they cannot inspire the advertisers and the business model is really poor so far, especially for small markets like Greece. On the other hand we shouldnt forget that the number of the surfers is increasing challenging the TV numbers, but perhaps the WebTV as an interent service needs some time to mature.


If you check the traffic patterns between entertainment and news sites, you will be surprised. A site like CNN is dominating the entertainment such as Joost and Hulu, where hulu that has high quality content is not available to Europe.

I have been already part of some lobbying around WebTV and the DTV evolution in Greece, but it needs some more time to see results or even some serious attempts. Due to the economic crisis, things are more difficult, since the investors are not willing to risk a cent, especially in uncertain bz planning that includes in most of the cases unknown WebTV advertising revenues.

-E

4G

After a few year of intensive research on my PhD thesis and the paper on the ITS conference, I managed with my advisor's assistance and feedback to submit a good portion of my research on 4G business scenarios with title "POTENTIAL SCENARIOS AND DRIVERS OF THE 4G EVOLUTION", as a full chapter to the book:
Fourth-Generation (4G) Wireless Networks: Applications and Innovations


Therefore, I am very excited for the result and the feedback.


Whoever wants to join me, from February 16 to February 21, I will attend the 3G Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

stay tuned
-E

Wind

...the Greek operator is seriously "flying". Perhaps it should be the only operator globally that focuses that much on air flights in and out. Not only now you can be in touch via SMS and accepting calls in the airplane, a service that is supported in most airlines such as Quantas, Malaysia Airlines, Emirates and TAP, but also you can be connected to the Internet. In both cases the communication is based on satellite networks. This is the outcome of wind's collaboration with Aeromobile and OnAir networks.


Additionally, you could become a pilot flying over Athens and getting some flying lessons for free if you buy the new Sony Ericcson C905 in the Family program. There are 1,000 flights waiting for the lucky mobile users. Greece is a small market and with 3 major operators, the competition is really high and innovative offers at this point of the mobile revolution is the only weapon today. Surprisingly, Wind is the only operator that comes up with great ideas and soon might climb up to the 2nd place which now belongs to Vodafone. The lesson is that the only field that is left to compete is efficient cost programs related to minutes and attractive gifts such as learning to fly and not only that could push the user to switch operator and get locked in for at least 1 year contract.


Whats left? I guess my favorite, travel packages and vacations to exotic places..