Investment decisions in the wireless industry applying real options

The wireless industry is one of the most capital intensive high-technology industries. This paper applies real options techniques to estimate investments under uncertainty in two new ventures: (a) deferral of the expansion from 2.5G to 3G networks; and (b) expansion of a 2.5G network using Wi-Fi as an alternative technology. The cases are examined and analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively, using realistic assumptions and parameters. Investment cost, number of subscribers, pricing of services, and risk are at the core of investment decision processing. In both cases, sensitivity analysis of the value of the (real) option considering the above key parameters was conducted, to extrapolate useful findings that should be taken into consideration by the decision makers in wireless companies.     

The disruptive potential of PWLAN at the country-level: The cases of Germany,the UK,and the USA

This paper analyzes the impact of WLAN technologies for incumbent MNOs based on an empirical cross-country study of the players in the public WLAN-hotspot market using the theory of disruptive innovation and theoretical extensions for the industry- and country-level. The main research question to be analyzed is whether and why PWLAN has shown a disruptive or sustaining impact trend for incumbent MNOs in the hotspot markets of Germany, the UK, and the USA in recent years. The results imply that incumbent MNOs and new entrants have taken advantage of the opportunity provided by PWLAN, but the market success of both types of players varies between the countries analyzed. Incumbent MNOs dominate in Germany but not in the UK and the USA. The reasons for these country-specific differences were further investigated, and the results suggest that the analysis of disruptive potential in telecommunications needs to include country- and firm-specific factors, which are, again, largely influenced by the local regulation.     

局域网负载均衡应用与研究

本文介绍了局域网Internet出口智能负载均衡系统的实现方法以及强大的优势，在未来的企业信息化的建设中，负载均衡技术将会发挥更大的作用。     

Revisiting Wireless Internet Connectivity: 5G vs Wi-Fi 6

In recent years, significant attention has been directed toward the fifth generation of wireless broadband connectivity known as ‘5G’, currently being deployed by Mobile Network Operators. Surprisingly, there has been considerably less attention paid to ‘Wi-Fi 6’, the new IEEE 802.1ax standard in the family of Wireless Local Area Network technologies with features targeting private, edge-networks. This paper revisits the suitability of cellular and Wi-Fi in delivering high-speed wireless Internet connectivity. Both technologies aspire to deliver significantly enhanced performance, enabling each to deliver much faster wireless broadband connectivity, and provide further support for the Internet of Things and Machine-to-Machine communications, positioning the two technologies as technical substitutes in many usage scenarios. We conclude that both are likely to play important roles in the future, and simultaneously serve as competitors and complements. We anticipate that 5G will remain the preferred technology for wide-area coverage, while Wi-Fi 6 will remain the preferred technology for indoor use, thanks to its much lower deployment costs. However, the traditional boundaries that differentiated earlier generations of cellular and Wi-Fi are blurring. Proponents of one technology may argue for the benefits of their chosen technology displacing the other, requesting regulatory policies that would serve to tilt the marketplace in their favour. We believe such efforts need to be resisted, and that both technologies have important roles to play in the marketplace, based on the needs of heterogeneous use cases. Both technologies should contribute to achieving the goal of providing affordable, reliable, and ubiquitously available high-capacity wireless broadband connectivity.     

Migration to 3G wireless broadband internet and real options: The case of an operator in India

The paper focuses on third generation wireless technologies and on alternative technologies for wireless local area networks. The authors present the evolutionary migration path from second to third generation systems. Technological, economic and behavioral factors related to decision-making towards the migration are proposed. As an example, the paper studies the case of the national incumbent operator of India. It analyzes qualitatively the migration problem from the perspective of the operator, the equipment manufacturer and the users. For the quantitative analysis, real options are used to value the investment decisions. The analysis suggests that the initial (sunk) investment cost, the average revenue per user, the growth of the subscriber base and the volatility of the markets are the key factors in the investment process.     

Wi-Fi第四张无线网络的魅力

Wi-Fi是一种可以将个人电脑、手持设备(如PDA、手机)等终端以无线方式相互连接的技术。Wi-Fi是一个无线网络通信技术的品牌,由Wi-Fi联盟(WiFi Alliance)所持有。目的是改善基于IEEE802.11标准的无线网络产品之间的互通性。使Wi-Fi设备无需接入传统家庭、办公室或热点网络,即可实现相互连接。     

面向密集部署的超高吞吐率Wi-Fi融合应用技术

为了降低网络密集部署对超高吞吐率（VHT） Wi-Fi性能的影响,提出了VHT Wi-Fi基于软件定义网络（SDN）的网络架构、无线网络侧虚拟化和增强型认证与快速切换技术,以提高系统的共存性、抗干扰性和安全性。实验结果表明,VHT Wi-Fi与SDN、网络功能虚拟化、伽罗瓦/计数模式协议结合,吞吐率性能获得约10%的提升,在保证安全性同时平均切换时延降低至40 ms,可保障VHT Wi-Fi在密集部署网络中发挥重要作用。     

基于Wi-Fi技术的气象装备实训平台设计

为实现对气象装备保障人员的便捷高效培训,运用无线通信技术,设计了基于Wi-Fi技术的气象装备可移动实训平台。系统通过无线通信模块将气象设备的串口协议数据转换成网络协议数据,再使用Wi-Fi无线技术将数据传输到计算机端,最后在计算机端将网络协议数据转换为串口协议数据,通过虚拟串口传送给气象应用软件,以此建立起气象设备与气象应用软件之间的无线透明传输链路,降低了布线复杂程度,提高了扩展的灵活度。实训平台采用移动式、无线通信和气象设备集中设计,解决了气象设备培训中设备种类多、布线复杂的难题,为气象设备技术保障培训提供了标准化培训环境。在对市级技术保障人员的实际培训中,验证了实训平台在实际操作中具有一定的实用性,可有效提高培训效率。此培训平台的设计为气象装备保障人员的培训提供了新的方法。     

LADM-IndoorGML for exploring user movements in evacuation exercise

The users' movements in the indoor environments differ based on the condition of the environments. During an indoor emergency, an efficient evacuation is required to help the users to move to the safe areas. Many types of incidents could impact the movements of users and this requires studying the behavior of the people during the evacuation. The reaction of the users to the incidents could affect the evacuation procedures and that could lead to several types of injuries or death. Each user understands and perceives the indoor environment differently and this plays a critical role in the evacuation. Furthermore, the users of the indoor environments have different rights to access the indoor spaces, which affects the movements of the users during an incident. This paper aims to support the evacuation of a building (educational building) in a crisis by using the integrated model of LADM-IndoorGML and the representation of the 3D model of the building. This research is presenting the initial assessment based on real world application. To reflect evacuation cases, we extended the conceptual model of LADM-IndoorGML to define the access rights for users of indoor environments during crisis. An evacuation exercise has been held at the Faculty of Applied Science at TU Delft to study the access rights during an incident. During the evacuation, Wi-Fi data has been collected for the users of the building for further analysis. A 3D model has been built for the Faculty of Applied Science to analyze the movement of the users. The collected data of the Wi-Fi access points have been structured and imported into the freeware database PostgreSQL/PostGIS. Furthermore, the geometry of 3D model was used to visualize the users’ movements as individuals and groups of users according to their connection to Wi-Fi access. Appropriate visualization has been created using QGIS. This paper demonstrates the entire process of analysis and visualization of users’ movements based on the Wi-Fi logs by using the extended LADM-IndoorGML. The outcome of the research has showed that the results for individual users and group users attached to the same access point differs. The study has also exhibited the importance of the time resolution on Monitoring the movements of a single user or group of users. The completed study clearly demonstrates that with the proposed extension, the integrated LADM-IndoorGML model is able to support the decision-making process during an incident in educational building.     

The Wi-Fi “congestion crisis”: Regulatory criteria for assessing spectrum congestion claims

“Wi-Fi congestion is a very real and growing problem.” So said then-Chairman of the FCC Genachowski in a recent proceeding, and this sentiment is widely heard. However, we are aware of very few engineering studies that have a bearing on this matter, and their conclusions are equivocal. Beyond this, evidence for “congestion problems” in the 2.4 GHz ISM band is anecdotal at best.While some users no doubt sometimes have service difficulties they ascribe to congestion, that is not sufficient to prove that there is a policy problem. In order to provide a basis for policy decisions, we offer an analysis of congestion metrics and results in the engineering literature. We conclude that there is little consensus on how to measure congestion, and that network metrics are difficult to correlate with user experience.We therefore propose a list of user experience-oriented service impairment criteria that, if met, would demonstrate that congestion exists to a degree that justifies regulatory intervention: For more than one of the key scenarios that are supported by an operator or technology there is a significant increase in the percentage of users who cannot complete a valuable task on a persistent, ubiquitous basis in spite of the use of state-of-the-art engineering/deployment best practices, and users׳ willingness to pay the market rate for the best available service level.Based on our assessment of public reports and experimental data, we conclude that there is currently no evidence for pervasive Wi-Fi congestion. We do not claim that the absence of evidence of congestion amounts to evidence for the absence of congestion. However, we do question the argument that congestion occurring somewhere, sometimes is a justification for regulatory intervention.