Open road to UBB 2020

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Society is undergoing its fourth industrial revolution, namely, the digital revolution. Just as the steam engine came about during the first industrial revolution, cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things (IoT) come about during the digital revolution, moving civilization from the information age into the digital age.

In the digital age, the ICT infrastructure is converging, and cloud and broadband are becoming the two basic production tools for all. This ICT infrastructure convergence is represented in the following aspects:

• Cloud-based service model

All information services in the digital age will be provided in the cloud. In our daily life, we use Uber for transportation services and Airbnb for places to stay during traveling; for enterprises, Salesforce and Office360 offer information services; new emerging technologies, such as self-driving car and artificial intelligence, will all be available in the cloud. With cloud-based services, efficiency is maximized. Massive amounts of information, large-scale storage, and high-speed computing can all be centrally provided in the cloud. Centralized services allow costs to be shared among large numbers of users, maximizing ROI. Both the consumption process and the entire service production process, including planning, design, and development, can now be implemented in the cloud. The BNSF Railway, one of the largest freight railroad networks in North America, has already used cloud services for transportation planning. Southwest Airlines also uses cloud services to improve operation efficiency.

• Broadband-based service provisioning

As the information service model is provided in the cloud, broadband is the basic tool for accessing services. In households, Internet access is provided to more than one single computer. Most commonly, three to five terminals are used at the same time for browsing web pages or playing online videos. As such, the basic broadband for households was redefined from 1 Mbps to 25 Mbps by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the early 2015. The Gbps broadband services oriented to 4K even 8K videos are also on the way. Individual mobile broadband services have also developed from mobile data services to mobile 2K/4K video services, which require high mobile bandwidth. In addition to network bandwidth, network coverage is also a critical factor affecting service development. To address this issue, different countries have developed their own broadband coverage plans. The ITU released "Connect 2020" in October, 2014. All ITU Member States committed to achieve "Connect 2020" targets, for example, 55% of households should have access to the Internet by 2020, and 90% of rural population should be covered by broadband services by 2020. The European Commission also proposed "Europe 2020". Its Digital Agenda aims at the EU being covered nationwide by broadband above 30 Mbps by 2020 and 50% of the EU to be subscribed to broadband above 100 Mbps by 2020.

UBB 2020 strategy overview

Huawei proposes the UBB 2020 strategy for industry, business, and network development by learning from the development trend of the global ultrabroadband industry and telecom operators' business operation strategies, aiming to help telecom operators seize opportunities and address challenges in the next 5 years. It contains the direction of ultra-broadband industry development, prediction on business opportunities, and suggestions for telecom operators' business transformation. Huawei's core responsibilities are to propel ultra-broadband industry development in a sustainable, orderly, and healthy way, effectively serve global telecom operators, and provide the optimal end-to- end business and network solutions to help operators achieve business success in UBB business operation in the next 5 years. Therefore, the UBB 2020 strategy also includes solutions for new opportunities and challenges.

Huawei UBB 2020 strategy includes one industry vision, three strategic propositions, and five business and network solutions. Huawei is committed to improving this connected world. In a fixed broadband environment, governments, industrial organizations, and subscribers are mainly concerned with the following elements: broadband coverage (range), bandwidth level (depth), and service experience (content). These three elements reflect social values as well as the developmental stage of the UBB industry, national broadband level, and subscriber satisfaction with broadband services.

UBB industry development brings great opportunities to operators, yet users' demand for real-time, on-demand, all-online, DIY, and social (ROADS) offerings, Internet-based operations, and competitions from OTT vendors are forcing operators to carry out ICT transformation. Transition from traditional connection providers to ICT service providers has always been telecom operators' major concern. Huawei believes that operators will have to reconstruct their business models, networks, operation modes, and ecosystem in the next 5 years. Huawei recommends that operators use the Telco OS system to revamp their operation modes. This has been stated in Huawei's SoftCOM White Paper and not explained in this document.

The UBB 2020 strategy helps telecoms operators in the following aspects: business transformation, network rearchitecture, and open ecosystem establishment.

Full article: http://www.telecomasia.net/content/huawei-sponsored-section

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