The Pervasive Communication Network

The saying that “change is permanent” applies to the networks that support the way people communicate. There is more competition on the supply side, with more companies   offering traditional telecom equipment, and new start ups offering other communication avenues. There is also strong change on the demand side since subscribers except more for less, drastically reducing the costs of a basic speech connection (with help from regulator authorities).

The need for broadband network is ever more evident and the thirst for ever increasing high speed connections and throughput is unquenchable. With high speed networks in place, profitable applications will surely follow. The more high speed throughput is delayed, the more innovative applications will be delayed and so will revenue substitutes to the price erosion experienced by basic voice call, which was in the past the bread and butter revenue generator of the communication network.

The next generation communication network will have the following characteristics:

• It will be a high speed broad band network with architecture to allow speed increases more easily and less disruptively to subscribers and services.
• It will offer various modes of access but under a common network  with common management systems and security infrastructure (to enable faster intruder detection and associated actions)
• It will be an actively secure network. This means that the systems and sentries in place will not be reactive but rather active with scenario and role playing to predict circumstances and avoid them.
• It will easily accommodate new business and revenue models. Stronger communication devices with more powerful processors and enhanced memories means that peer to peer communication will become a strong motivator for new revenue models and revenue potential. The next generation communication network will support centralized control for important functions such as security and resource control, but will not discourage (but may even encourage) other communication architectures and methods.
• It will follow the 80/80 rule, rather than the 80/20 rule. This applies mostly to the wireless side which in the past stated that 80 percent of the business comes from 20 percent of the subscribers. With the internet and new usage habits implying new peer applications, the network shall be designed so that 80 percent of the business will come from 80 percent of the customers. This means, especially on the wireless side, that the traditional GSM/3G architectures which are still based on heavy signaling, may not suffice to accommodate the eventual demand. A   flat architecture with distributed networking will be required (LTE is addressing this, to a certain point). Also, radio coverage based on cellular architecture may not suffice, due to the high number of stations required and the resultant radio pollution. New access methods and new propagation techniques will come into place to alleviate the resultant radio burden.
• Finally, the resultant network will require a general architecture that resembles or evolves to a ambient network to allow easier evolution to next generation techniques as well as the ability to interface with other older networks, or networks with different characteristics, and be adaptive towards these networks when it comes to handling transient traffic in the best possible manner, and with a managed impact to both the quality   characteristics and     duration of that same traffic.

By : Antonis Hontzeas 

 

With a plethora of new devices, new ideas and new applications (for example: Kindle 2 and related e-books, bots and agents travelling throughout the network all the way to the mobile side, powerful interfaces having simulated humans as interfaces instead of avatars etc…) it is clear that most of the evolution pressures are occurring at the access point of a communication network. This gives any network operator a host of new revenue generation opportunities, which must not be impeded if the operator and communication industry is to survive the current effects of price erosion  felt on the demand side and eventually diffusing to the supply side (in addition with the existing heavy supply competition). The only way to address this new reality is through change, implying the shedding of old outmoded concepts and taboos, and embracing new tools and ideas that will eventually lead to the next generation communication networks.

 

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