TGP Posting Guidelines

[Tee Emm]

TGP Posting guidelines are now available for the new (and old!) group members.

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TGP Posting Guidelines 

About This Page:

This page summarizes the posting guidelines and recommendations for the members of the TGP group. Where possible, the page answers some frequently asked questions as well. New members are highly encouraged to read and understand this page so that the group contents remain relevant. This page will be posted to the list every second month as a beacon.

1. All posts made to the group should have a direct relationship with telecommunications AND Pakistan. Please note that the AND is a logical operator here. Posts that related only to telecommunications events, news and updates happening anywhere in the world are not necessarily fit for TGP. Similarly, TGP is not a forum to share political or social issues faced by Pakistan unless telecommunication has something directly to do with them. 
2. Software and IT industry news and updates are NOT fit for TGP. 
3. Do not post old news items. Most of the members of the group live their lives off telecommunications in Pakistan so posting old news may make you sound awkward.  
4. Breaking news that are fit for TGP (as mentioned above) can be posted on the group. It is considered a good practice to include the full reference of the news source (typically the sanitized URL ). Where possible, the text of the news should also be posted in the message so that subscribers who rely only on the mail body can have a look at the content of the news that is being shared.  In case the news is based on personal knowledge, a disclosure of your position will help enhance the authenticity of the news/update.
   
5. Grapevine is occasionally allowed on the list. The moderators will decide on the fly if the group can accommodate some at that moment.
   
6. Please avoid direct personal references in worthwhile grapevine. You can always give indirect references to companies and persons to communicate an update and yet remain safe. Let good faith and good intention guide your postings to the group.
7.  Students and non professionals who show a certain acumen towards the group topics can join the group and can post on the group. Moderators will decide if the post is fit to be posted. 
8. Blatant advertisement of your product, company or services are considered bad manners on the group. However, like in a  chit chat with friends over a coffee table, you are welcome to mention what you or your company do, serve or produce. Of course, relevance to TGP is a must. 
9. Analytical posts, that take up a news and derive some analysis and serve as food for thought for the rest of the group are the best possible contents generated at TGP. Regular good posters earn a do-not-moderate status and can post to the group in real time.
10. Feel free to ask for help with hiring, policy making, resource search etc from your TGP friends. You are expected to do your home work and research before asking for help, especially for common topics and university projects.
11. All posts belong to their respective authors. Please ensure that you have the rights to post whatever information you share on the group. Indirect references that do not amount to verbatim information sharing are generally safe and should be used when you are not sure about the posting being safe.
    

July 5, 2008

[Salman Ansari]

I have been following WiMAX closely since the last 4 years and am very uncomfortable with the hype and the reality of the product. This disquiet stems from the way the RF propagation  (OFDM)  is viewed like a line of sight radio. The ‘distance : bandwidth’ availability, the huge controversy brewing about the way WiMAX at 3.5 GHz blanks out the C-band of Satellite potentially killing off Paksat 1R completely.

 

In addition to this is the R&D the vendors are doing at the operators and users expense, the log-in requirements on WiMAX instead of always on (and imagine that this service is being offered as a VoIP service – how does one get my phone when I am not logged in?) and whole host of other issues.

 

I am currently  in the US and using VoIP on cable (it stinks, no QoS noise, etc), experimenting with WiMAX from Clearwire (and it stinks even worse) with BTS separation of less than 400m (the gigantic backhaul costs) and the issues that they are having on mobility on 2.5 GHz. I get much better service from Nayatel in Islamabad!

 

Wateen seems to have hit a roadblock and Mobilink is holding its breath, specially from the entry level pricing, issues.

 

We truly need wireless broadband to succeed in Pakistan as this is the only way to spread Broadband across the country. But first we need to reign in the vendors from promising too much (then doing R&D on end users and the operators) and the systems roll outs and marketing are based on reality.

 

From my limited survey, the feedback from users in Pakistan has been very varied and mostly negative.

 

I wonder what the experiences are from the techies, planners, operators and end users.

 

Salman

[Haris Shamsi]

Salman Sb - with your expereince and expsoure, offcourse it would be very naive to challange your points, however i do have few observations which i want to share and seek guidance

 

I still remeber the matureness curve of DSL technology in Pakistan ( also in Saudi as when STC launched the pre jumpered DSl exchanges i was working for an ISP there) and it is not very different than what is happening with WiMax Techonlogy. The only difference i can see is a wired and wireless last mile. IPOA, PPPoE, Line noise, proper gain margins, sync un sync issues were among few which we have seen during DSL matureness. I am pretty sure WiFi has also gone through the same cycle.

 

If you compare the Stake holder Size (both in terms of investment & Numbers) with any other technology (during early adoption phase), its very very high. I think this gigantic stake from chip makers, vendors, suppliers and offcourse operators would eventually result in driving WiMAX to a  mature technology. As far as the coverage and Bandwidth issues are concerned i think with MIMO & MIMO matrix B you will be able to provide a 56 Mbps Sector capacity - this is already a standard of wimax forum as i guess.

 

As far as the login passwrod page is concerned , in my humble opinion this has nothing to do with WiMAX technology. Its just an implementation methedology to push a profile to the customer Session. This coulod be easly done through the backend also with a proper core design. i know atleast 1 operator which has finalized doing it without username and passwrod and has successfully tested it. to some this method can make WiMAX zone easy to use as "pay as you go" and have "self provisioning", for others may be its just a hassle. However i think its more related to the busniess model which an operator is adopting.

 

I am a user of wimax internet since last 3-4 months now (honestly never tested the voice from my connection) and the expereince is very good. I rate my self as a power user of internet and didnt face any major issues on the connection - other than the maintenance notices (once a week). The only limitation i faced is the private ip allocation onthe network which is holding me to run services like www, MX, etc from my connection which is offcourse a design related issue rather than technology itself.

 

Keeping the copper conditions of pakistan and PTCL support issues, right of way issues, Arial Fiber mafias etc i think broadband wireless is the only solution available right now for broadband penetration.Also with MIMO the cpe cost is going down day by day (98 USD almost for MIMO wave 2 indoor CPE on 2.5) i think it makes a good business case.

 

my 2 cents

 

Good Day.

Haris Shamsi

[bmug...@gmail.com]

Haris, I guess Salman is speaking from the consumer experience perspective, on which he is right that at the moment this technology is somewhere in between concept and veracity for the end user and things like login page do raise flags for the consumer, you know how consumers are and behave even if they were to be sent to heaven they would raise several questions as to why this apple tastes so differently to the one they took on earth. Cutting over to Salman, there is only one case of Wateen where counterfiet-marketing took place at a mass level however in this particular case of Infinity, the same is not true, what I personally like is they started off with "grow with us" phase.
 

[Faez Itrat]

The issues raised by Salman sb are very valid and we all know and admire him as one of the finest minds in our industry but i just wanted to say that considering the situation in Pakistan where even if the vendors are testing and benchmarking their technology, atleast from the user perspective they are getting more and more options and getting a chance to break the monopoly of few.

 

 

Even at this point we are still not able to utilize the matured technology(DSL etc) at its fullest  because of various 'other' issues which has nothing to do with matureness of technology rather its more on the domestic infrstructure i.e. last mile and various others.

 

I believe the WiMAX technology as it stands today is mostly geared towards retail side and residential and SOHO customers are most likely the choice for operators at this point. I believe as more and more indoor plug n play deployments are being made, ultimately majority of metropolitan areas specially in cities specially karachi, lahore etc will get an option alternate to the currently available so called cable-nets and home networks. 

 

I being a technical person did a comparison of services when wateen started to the services being offered by them as of now and also mobilink and i think the product has pretty much matured with ease of use.

 Although we know that vendors are doing a lot of R&D over operators network as the techology is towards maturing phase, in parallel to it we have created a resource pool of engineers and experts  who are now doing deployments outside pakistan as well which i believe is a positive step in itself and bringing pride to Pakistan.

 

 

Faez

On 7/6/08, Haris Shamsi <cyber...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Salman Ansari]

Dear Haris

 

Thanks. This is an excellent exposition of the state of art in WiMAX.

 

I am totally with you when it comes to Wireless being the solution to get out of the ‘cable mafia’ whether it is the cable operator, fibre monopolies or the PTCL. It is also for this reason that I am testing and would like to propagate Broadband over Power Lines as an interesting option to pursue. With CPE costs going down to US$ 40 and the LAN bandwidths going to 400Mb/s it can function as a disruptive technology to drive the market and break the shackles.

 

While you are right on all counts on the technology development plane, I am concerned about the actual functioning of the network when loaded fully. The bandwidth available may become dependent on the near-far effect and may show up like a CDMA cell shrinkage thereby depriving the users of the QoS what they get initially.

 

Secondly, in order to compete and give good quality performance the Business Plans of most carriers get skewed because of the large number of BTS sites which will be needed to overcome the coverage issue.

 

I guess the initial deployments will generally use WiMAX to connectivity and WiFi for in-building penetration. However, as you also observe the backend and business processes and core design needs to be tweaked by the current providers in Pakistan before this technology gets completely discredited.

 

Regards

[Wasim Baig]

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 10:59 PM, Salman Ansari <sal...@super.net.pk> wrote:

<snip>

Apologies for this, but can we please make sure we create a new thread for new discussion. This thread was for TGP Posting Guidelines.

--
wasim h. baig | principal consultant | convergence pk | +92 300 8508070

[Salman Ansari]

Yes! I caused this distraction. Sorry.

 

Salman

 

From: telecom-gr...@googlegroups.com [mailto:telecom-gr...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Wasim Baig
Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2008 11:36 PM
To: telecom-gr...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: TGP Posting Guidelines

 

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 10:59 PM, Salman Ansari <sal...@super.net.pk> wrote:

[Ashar]

On Sunday 06 July 2008 10:59:19 Salman Ansari wrote:
> It is also for this reason that I am testing and would like to
> propagate Broadband over Power Lines as an interesting option to pursue.
> With CPE costs going down to US$ 40 and the LAN bandwidths going to 400Mb/s
> it can function as a disruptive technology to drive the market and break
> the shackles.

Given that the wiring on the power network is even worse than the copper in
the phone network, do you think the technology could cope? Has there been any
testing on real Pakistani power lines? We have problems getting electricity
over Power Lines - getting connectivity might be asking too much. But it
would be great if it worked at low cost.

Ashar

[Haris Shamsi]

Further - i havent seem much deployments of Internet over Powelines in the world. The most difficult part to manage (opex eater) is the distribution network for internet. With kunda system, grid conditions etc it would be very difficult to manage. I am not sure how feasable would be the idea of installing smart grids etc but again for any busniess model i think the major consideration would remain "THE OPEX"

 

Any idea of a per home/port capex for such solution ?

 

Good Day,

Haris Shamsi

[Muhammad Bilal Khalid]

believe me it has nothing to do with our Electricity conditions as well as KUNDA system, i have worked alot on that, as far as other question about world is concerned, Hutchison Hongkong Deployed it recently and its working fine, and other US operators as well, as i am intouch with all, its very cheap in even OPEX as well as CAPEX, cheaper than DSL, and more Reliable.

 

pasting a link which would tell you about US

 

http://cid-65cf3f59d6a848dd.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Broadband%20over%20PowerLines%20speed%20hits%20400%20Mbps%20now.AVI

 

yet Pakistan is deprived of this Facility, but i am hopeful

 

Bilal

---

From: telecom-gr...@googlegroups.com [mailto:telecom-gr...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Haris Shamsi
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 11:14 AM
To: telecom-gr...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Broadband over Power Lines Re: TGP Posting Guidelines

[Ashar]

I bet Hong Kond doesnt have wiring like this.

http://flickr.com/photos/rajaislam/2479563481/
http://karachi.metblogs.com/2008/05/10/kunda-supply-corporation/

Ashar

On Monday 07 July 2008 02:23:48 Muhammad Bilal Khalid wrote:
> believe me it has nothing to do with our Electricity conditions as well as
> KUNDA system, i have worked alot on that, as far as other question about

> world is concerned, <http://hgc.com.hk/eng/res_net_bb_powercom.html>

> Hutchison Hongkong Deployed it recently and its working fine, and other US
> operators as well, as i am intouch with all, its very cheap in even OPEX as
> well as CAPEX, cheaper than DSL, and more Reliable.
>
> pasting a link which would tell you about US
>
> http://cid-65cf3f59d6a848dd.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Broadband%20
>o ver%20PowerLines%20speed%20hits%20400%20Mbps%20now.AVI
>
> yet Pakistan is deprived of this Facility, but i am hopeful
>
> Bilal
>
> _____
>

[Muhammad Bilal Khalid]

Even with this type of wiring, as I said it has nothing to do with Kunda
system until unless you knock it down Transformer and Pole altogether.

Bilal

-----Original Message-----
From: Ashar [mailto:as...@xnet.com.pk]
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 12:50 PM
To: telecom-gr...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Muhammad Bilal Khalid
Subject: Re: Broadband over Power Lines Re: TGP Posting Guidelines

I bet Hong Kond doesnt have wiring like this.

http://flickr.com/photos/rajaislam/2479563481/
http://karachi.metblogs.com/2008/05/10/kunda-supply-corporation/

Ashar

On Monday 07 July 2008 02:23:48 Muhammad Bilal Khalid wrote:
> believe me it has nothing to do with our Electricity conditions as
> well as KUNDA system, i have worked alot on that, as far as other
> question about world is concerned,
> <http://hgc.com.hk/eng/res_net_bb_powercom.html>
> Hutchison Hongkong Deployed it recently and its working fine, and
> other US operators as well, as i am intouch with all, its very cheap
> in even OPEX as well as CAPEX, cheaper than DSL, and more Reliable.
>
> pasting a link which would tell you about US
>
>
>http://cid-65cf3f59d6a848dd.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Broadban

>d%20 o ver%20PowerLines%20speed%20hits%20400%20Mbps%20now.AVI

[Haris Shamsi]

Bilal - do you have per port capex of this solution ? I have seen home plug protocl of Aztech working in house wiring from one node to other and propagating the singnals to all wires going to the DP ..... . If as you said its working great in hong kong can you share some more information ? in terms of number of users per grid , handling capacity etc.

 

Also i am just thinking of getting the ROI from densly populated areas like interior pindi, lahore karachi etc ? please share your expereince also  in terms of a busniess model ....

 

By the way this reminds me of : -

 

Kirchhoff's first law, Kirchhoff's point rule, Kirchhoff's junction rule (or nodal rule), and Kirchhoff's first rule.

The principle of conservation of electric charge implies that:

At any point in an electrical circuit where charge density is not changing in time, the sum of currents flowing towards that point is equal to the sum of currents flowing away from that point.

An analogy to this principle is:

Two rivers that converge and then later break up into separate rivers. The principle states that the sum of the water flowing in the two upstream rivers is equal to the sum of the water flowing in the two downstream rivers.

 

 

[Faisal Khan]

Home-plug is the LV (Low-Voltage) side of it. For dense areas (commonly known as MDUs - Multi-Dwelled Units), the distribution etc. is done on MV (Medium Voltage) and even for Dense locations, there are only so many units that can be assigned without the needs of logically and phsically segregating a network, i.e. for physical connectivity, there is a limitation on the number of nodes that can be assigned.

 

200Mbps capex for homeplug is anywhere from US$ 40-US$120 (depending what type of equipment you get). However, be known that such homeplus solutions CANNOT connect/communicate with BPL signals coming in from MV lines until and uless the homeplug solution is from the same OEM.

 

Hence, Homeplug vendors are a plenty. MV/LV-MDU vendors are a few and they make their own homeplug devices which are considerably more expensive than your linksys/netgear/etc. vendors. The reason being is that 200mbps IPL/BPL oems are using i2 chipset which is upward compatiable with the 400mbps chipset that is out there.

[Muhammad Bilal Khalid]

200Mbps capex for homeplug is anywhere from US$ 40-US$120 (depending what type of equipment you get). However, be known that such homeplus solutions CANNOT connect/communicate with BPL signals coming in from MV lines until and uless the homeplug solution is from the same OEM.

 

 

Answer: Not exactly, i have experience while i was doing a project with Scotish Hydro UK, my techies used for MV/LV Main Concentrator Unit from Spanish Vendors as well as some from Israel and US, but for CPE, we used Equipment of Korea, and Taiwan, i never faced any such problem.

 

Bilal

---

From: telecom-gr...@googlegroups.com [mailto:telecom-gr...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Faisal Khan
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 3:22 PM

[Shahzad Alam]

May be this technology has passed many iterations of R&D on "customers" like few have opinion about WiMAX, but i have personal experience of using Internet over power lines during 2006/7 and it was not on Utility Service provider infrastructure rather it was on internal wiring in one of the Hotel located at Dubai Internet City. The link was not stable at all even though Hotel management tried to work around something in different locations and over different modems. And When i visited second time they tried to provide the same solution with the excuse that the whole infrasturcture is being replaced with conventional Ethernet LAN.

 

Having said that being a technical person, i always give benefit of doubt to technology over other malfunctioning variables but i believe lot needs to be done to prove this technology a real "practical" cost effective solution for masses under challenging electrical infrastructure situaton of Pakistan.

 

Regards

Shahzad