Qualcom buys DesignArt Networks for more than $100 million

Chip maker Qualcomm Incorporated made an unofficial announcement that it has purchased mobile backhaul infrastructure designer DesignArt Networks for more than $100 million.

An Israeli start-up company founded in 2006, DesignArt creates infrastructure solutions for 3G/4G mobile backhaul networks. It focuses on creating data-centric mobile radio access networks for wireless backhaul infrastructure using integrated system-on-chip platforms and embedded SW solutions.

Back in April, Intel and Qualcomm had both expressed interest in purchasing DesignArt. Qualcomm beat its chip maker rival to the reported tune of around $120-140 million.

Qualcomm is expected to make an official announcement soon. DesignArt will probably be integrated into its new owner's Atheros Division, which was originally semiconductor developer Atheros before Qualcomm purchased it in 2011 for $3.1 billion.

Qualcomm Incorporated received the 2012 U.S. Fleet Manager's Choice Award. It is considered to be the best supplier of advanced telematics services by Frost & Sullivan and more than 90% of Qualcomm's customers. Its recent acquisition of DesignArts further enhances its expertise in mobile backhaul products.

Windstream picks Goodman Networks as preferred FttT supplier

Wireless network service provider Goodman Networks Inc. will serve as the preferred supplier of Windstream Corp. while the latter company deploys Fiber to the Tower (FttT) mobile backhaul solutions in the U.S.

Goodman Networks is a leading U.S. company that designs, engineers, deploys, integrates, and maintains wireless networks in the United States. It helps Windstream generate the additional backhaul bandwidth needed for LTE/4G growth by delivering fiber connectivity from Windstream’s network to the cellular towers of leading wireless service providers.

Goodman Networks' backhauling solutions aim to create efficient processes and establish program planning between Windstream and its wireless service customers. Backhauling will lower deployment costs and, incidentally, reduce Windstream’s carbon footprint as fewer number of trips are needed to upgrade the network for LTE/4G applications.

“We believe that Windstream’s leading-edge FttT solution provides wireless carriers a unique ability to meet their growing need for wireless backhaul," said Josh Shipman, EVP of Sales and Business Development at Goodman Networks. "We share many of the same wireless customers as Windstream and look forward to helping them deliver this technology to these customers.”

Interested in another article? Why not try this one: Mobile backhaul industry expected to be worth $9 billion by 2016

Mobile backhaul testing needs updates, says Frost and Sullivan analysts

Current methods of testing mobile backhaul require updates that reflect the ongoing shifts to new technologies and architectures, said analysts from Frost & Sullivan.

The 3G telecom industry is currently shifting to Long Term Evolution (LTE) and 4G technologies. At the same time, mobile backhaul is moving to new architectures like Internet protocol (IP) and Ethernet, with backhaul speed going from TDM to hit up to 10 GB at certain facilities.

Due to the recent, massive, and rapid proliferation of media-rich and bandwidth-intensive applications, network operators are reevaluating the mobile network infrastructure. Testing companies are also implementing certification programs that intend to ensure telecom-network standards are upheld. The certifications' homogenous network devices work together to implement OEM technologies across the networks.

According to Mariano Kimbara, a senior research analyst for Frost & Sullivan, these paradigm shifts are creating opportunities for mobile backhaul testing. This migration presents a number of key growth opportunities for test equipment vendors,” he told the Backhaul Bulletin.

Mr. Kimbara went on to explain that mobile backhaul test equipment vendors would find it profitable to develop solutions that ensure mobile backhaul testing can operate with multiple networks. Customers are looking for a one-stop-shop investment to get all test deployments from a single source,” he said.

Mr. Kimbara explained that one of the main factors driving demand for the mobile backhaul test equipment markets is the continuous replacement of time-division multiplexing (TDM) technologies into Ethernet and IP technologies. According to him, the industry is going through an unprecedented high growth in mobile traffic and data. The massive demand stresses the importance of a new set of dynamics and realignment for mobile backhaul.

Within this transition, it is crucial for IP and Carrier Ethernet to stay ahead of higher-bandwidth and quality-intensive service demands, such as data, voice and video services delivered over the network,” Mr. Kimbara said.

The change in the infrastructure architecture that delivers LTE services is opening up growth opportunities of testing. By 2011, there were approximately 30 commercial LTEs. And Mr. Kimbara expects that voice over LTE (VoLTE) will be first implemented in 2012.

For at least the next two to three years, the industry is expected to experience a combination of both E1/T1 (for voice) and Ethernet/IP (for data services) technologies in the mobile backhaul market,” he said.

Mr. Kimbara further said that the hybrid-network approach poses several key challenges to the industry, as such networks must be compatible with both legacy networks and new architectures. Carriers are thus forced to look for cost-efficient ways to sustain two separate, different networks. At the same time, the new architectures are attempting to match the standard set by TDM networks.

Dell'Oro: Mobile backhaul market will hit $9 billion in 2016

Dell’Oro Group had just released its 5-Year Forecast, which predicts the mobile backhaul market will hit $9 billion by 2016, with routers and switches accounting for almost a third of the market value.

According to Dell'Oro's Mobile Backhaul Market Research division, the demand for mobile backhaul continues to grow at a fast pace. Backhaul operators are deploying new cellular sites and transitioning to an all-IP network. Dell'Oro expects that the operators will keep evolving their backhaul networks by further improving routers and switches at cell sites and the edge of the network to achieve better throughput and efficiency.

The report goes on to predict that backhaul transport will grow at a 2 percent compounded annual growth rate to $6 billion by 2016, with microwave backhauling accounting for over half of the sites. Meanwhile, the router and switch equipment sector should grow at a 9 percent compounded annual growth rate to nearly $3 billion, which is 30 percent of the market.

Continuing, mobile backhaul operators will be rolling out macro cell sites to improve coverage. At the same time, they will deploy micro and pico cells or small cells in metro locations to increase backhaul capacity. Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) solutions are expected to become the choice to provide backhaul for small cells.

Dell’Oro Group's Mobile Backhaul 5-year Forecast is a thorough overview of trends and forecasts for the mobile backhaul market. Among the information it presents are tables on manufacturers’ revenue, backhaul links, average selling price forecasts for the Mobile Backhaul Transport and Routers & Switches, worldwide and regional cellular subscribers, and cell sites.

EDX releases SignalPro v8.0 network design tool for small cell network designers

Confronted with the growing complexities of BWA, M2M, and mobile backhaul deployments, EDX Wireless recently announced the release of the v8.0 version of its EDX SignalPro wireless network design and optimization software.

"Version 8.0 of SignalPro has been designed with the needs of increasingly complex Broadband Wireless Access (BWA), Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and backhaul deployments in mind," said Mark Chapman, CEO of EDX. "Looking forward, we see this release as a critical step in supporting the automation of small cell deployments as they emerge. We are pleased to be able to offer this level of wireless network analysis and design automation to our customers," CEO Chapman said, and added that SignalPro's newest version "will greatly simplify the design and optimization of large and integrated networks."

v8.0 improves SignalPro's Point-to-Multipoint (PtMP) planning capabilities. It also adds a good number of new features as an inline upgrade for the entire EDX range of products.

SignalPro v8.0 supports native 64-bit operation, allowing it to rapidly process data for the kind of large projects usually found in traditional Smart Grids and the new small cell systems. Enhancements to the EDX product's PtMP design and analysis capability will allow it to be used for large-scale BWA, M2M, and integrated backhaul design.

Like previous releases, v8.0 also supports an extensive range of study types. Multipoint system links can thus be analyzed using virtually any type of technology.

In addition, the SignalPro + Network Design Module package also has the Automatic Frequency Planning. This assignment mode considers a comprehensive set of system constraints that can be thoroughly programmed to coordinate CPE channel and server assignments, thus optimizing the channel plan. Meanwhile, its Automated Site Selection utility picks hub sites and CPE's from a candidate list based on an RF-optimized site selection algorithm. This simplifies project design for systems with known candidates, initial estimates, presales analysis, and RFP responses.

In addition, SignalPro v8.0 has a fully programmable query function and statistical analysis utility, allowing it to show key statistics and study results.

2.5M distributed antenna system nodes sold by 2017, says report

A new report suggests that the rapidly increasing popularity of mobile devices will lead to the purchase of 2.5 million Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) over the next five years.

According to "Global DAS Market: DAS combined with Public Safety, WiFi, and Small Cells," the DAS landscape will greatly expand over the next few years. The report's author -principal analyst Joe Madden of Mobile Experts- predicts that there will be about 2.5 million DAS nodes shipped by the end of 2017.

"The DAS market will roughly double in size over the next five years,” analyst Madden predicted, “with a dramatic increase in the combination of DAS with Wi-Fi, public safety radio and LTE networks. In addition,” he opined, “when high-capacity small cells such as picocells are more widely available, we can expect small cells to replace macrocells as the primary signal source for indoor DAS systems."

Madden’s report also warns that DAS node providers are barely able to keep up with the demand for their products, especially given the rate the world is adopting wireless networks. (This is in line with the related demand for more bandwidth and the mobile backhauling techniques employed by operators to generate more capacity in an existing network.)

Subscribers were shown to prefer wireless networks that let them network multiple mobile devices to achieve better communications at their leisure. As more and more people embrace the use of mobile devices, laptops, and ultrabooks, the demand for faster, more capacious wireless networks –and the Distributed Antenna Systems that generate those networks- will only continue to grow until 2017, when the economic system is expected to hit its ceiling and demand tapers off.