Mobile Telecoms: Wireless: The Next Generation
移動通信：無線：下一世代（節(jié)選）
A new wave of mobile technology is on its way, and will bring drastic change
醞釀中的新一代移動技術將帶來巨變
Evolution or revolution?
漸進還是革命?
Technology divides the industry in another way, says Stéphane Téral of IHS, a market-research firm. One camp, he says, wants 5G “to take an evolutionary path, use everything they have and make it better.” It includes many existing makers of wireless-network gear and some operators, which want to protect their existing investments and take one step at a time. On February 11th, for instance, Qualcomm, a chip-design firm, introduced the world’s first 4G chip set that allows for data-transmission speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second. It does the trick by using a technique called “carrier aggregation”, which means it can combine up to ten wireless data streams of 100 megabits per second.
技術還以另一種方式分割電信行業(yè)，市場研究公司IHS的斯特凡·泰拉爾(Stéphane Téral)認為。他說，一個陣營希望5G“走上漸進的道路，利用現(xiàn)有一切，逐步改善”。這里面包括了許多現(xiàn)在的無線網絡設備廠商及部分運營商，它們希望保護已有的投資，逐步改進。比如，2月11日，芯片設計公司高通(Qualcomm)推出全球首款數(shù)據傳輸速度高達1Gbps的4G芯片組。所運用的技術名為“載波聚合”，意味著每秒可以聚合多達十個100Mbps的數(shù)據流。
The other camp, explains Mr Téral, favours a revolutionary approach: to jump straight to cutting-edge technology. This could mean, for instance, leaving behind the conventional cellular structure of mobile networks, in which a single antenna communicates with all the devices within its cell. Instead, one set of small antennae would send out concentrated radio beams to scan for devices, then a second set would take over as each device comes within reach. It could also mean analysing usage data to predict what kind of connectivity a wireless subscriber will need next and adapt the network accordingly – a technique that the 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey wants to develop.
泰拉爾解釋說，另一陣營主張采取革命性的方式：直接躍升至尖端技術。這可能意味著，舉例說，靠單一天線與基站覆蓋范圍內的所有設備作通信的傳統(tǒng)蜂窩結構移動網絡將被舍棄。取而代之的是，一組小型天線將發(fā)射集合無線電波束掃描設備，在搜索到設備后，第二組天線將逐一接管。這也意味著可能需要分析使用數(shù)據來預測無線用戶下一步需要何種連接性能，然后對網絡做相應調整——這正是薩里大學的5G創(chuàng)新中心希望開發(fā)的技術。
One of the most outspoken representatives of the revolutionary camp is China Mobile. For Chih-Lin I, its chief scientist, wireless networks, as currently designed, are no longer sustainable. Antennae are using ever more energy to push each extra megabit through the air. Her firm’s position, she says, is based on necessity: as the world’s biggest carrier, with 1.1m 4G base stations and 825m subscribers (more than all the European operators put together), problems with the current network architecture are exacerbated by the firm’s scale. Sceptics suspect there may be an “industrial agenda” at work, that favours Chinese equipment-makers and lowers the patent royalties these have to pay. The more different 5G is from 4G, the higher the chances that China can make its own intellectual property part of the standard.
這一革命陣營中最直言不諱的代表是中國移動。其首席科學家易芝玲認為，按目前的設計，無線網絡難以持續(xù)。要傳輸更多數(shù)據，天線能耗會越來越大。易芝玲表示，其公司的立場是基于必要性：中國移動是全球最大的通信運營商，擁有110萬4G基站及8.25億用戶(超過歐洲所有運營商的總和)，公司的規(guī)模進一步加劇了現(xiàn)有網絡結構面臨的問題。持懷疑態(tài)度者猜測其中也許存在一套“產業(yè)化安排”，偏袒中國設備制造商并降低這些公司須支付的專利使用費。5G與4G的差異越大，中國就越可趁機讓自己的知識產權成為全球標準的一部分。
Whatever the motivation, Ms I’s vision of how 5G networks will ultimately be designed is widely shared. They will not only be “super fast”, she says, but “green and soft”, meaning much less energy-hungry and entirely controlled by software. As with computer systems before them, much of a network’s specialised hardware, such as the processor units that sit alongside each cell tower, will become “virtualised” – that is, it will be replaced with software, making it far easier to reconfigure. Wireless networks will become a bit like computing in the online “cloud”, and in some senses will merge with it, using the same off-the-shelf hardware.
不論動機如何，大家普遍認同易芝玲對5G網絡最終設計的展望。她說，這些網絡不止“超快”，還是“綠色和軟性”的，即耗能低得多，且完全由軟件控制。跟此前的電腦系統(tǒng)一樣，5G網絡的專用硬件(例如每一基站上的處理器單元)大部分會“虛擬化”，即會由軟件取代，重新配置起來容易得多。無線網絡將變得有點像在線“云”計算，而且在某種意義上將與之融合，使用相同的現(xiàn)成硬件。
Discussions have already begun about how 5G would change the industry’s structure. One question is whether wireless access will become even more of a commodity, says Chetan Sharma, a telecoms consultant. According to his estimates, operators’ share of total industry revenues has already fallen below 50% in America, with the rest going to mobile services such as Facebook’s smartphone apps, which make money through ads.
有關5G將如何改變通信行業(yè)結構的討論已經展開。一個問題是，“無線接入”服務會否變得更像是一種日用商品，電信咨詢師切坦·沙爾瑪(Chetan Sharma)認為。據其估計，在美國電信業(yè)的總收入中，運營商所占的份額已跌至50%以下，其余份額為移動服務商所占據，比如像Facebook的智能手機應用，它們通過廣告盈利。
The switch to 5G could help the operators reverse that decline by allowing them to do such things as market their own video content. But it is easier to imagine their decline accelerating, turning them into low-margin “dumb pipes”. If so, a further consolidation of an already highly concentrated industry may be inevitable: some countries may be left with just one provider of wireless infrastructure, just as they often have only one provider of water.
向5G轉型，運營商或許可以通過銷售自有視頻內容等方式逆轉目前的頹勢。但更可能的是其業(yè)務加速下滑，淪為低利潤的“啞管道”。倘若如此，這個本來已經高度集中的行業(yè)可能難免進一步整合：部分國家也許會只剩一個無線基礎網絡供應商，正如它們往往只有一家供水公司那樣。
If the recent history of IT after the rise of cloud computing is any guide – with the likes of Dell, HP and IBM struggling to keep up – network-equipment makers will also get squeezed. Ericsson and Nokia already make nearly half of their sales by managing networks on behalf of operators. But 5G may finally bring about what has been long talked of, says Bengt Nordstrom of Northstream, another consulting firm: the convergence of the makers of computers and telecoms equipment, as standardisation and low margins force them together. Last year Ericsson formed partnerships first with HP and then with Cisco. Full mergers could follow at some point.
縱觀云計算崛起之后IT行業(yè)近來的發(fā)展(戴爾、惠普、IBM這類公司難以跟上步伐)，如果有所啟示，那就是網絡設備制造商也將受到擠壓。愛立信和諾基亞已有近半銷售額是通過為運營商代管網絡而取得。另一咨詢公司Northstream的本特·諾思通(Bengt Nordstrom)表示，5G可能最終會令人們一直談論的一件事成為現(xiàn)實：在標準化生產及低利潤的壓力下，計算機制造商和電信設備商將合二為一。去年，愛立信先后與惠普及思科締結合作伙伴關系。日后可能出現(xiàn)全面并購整合。
Big, ugly mobile-phone masts will also become harder to spot. Antennae will be more numerous, for sure, but will shrink. Besides the rectangular array that China Mobile is testing in Shanghai, it is also experimenting with smaller, subtler “tiles” that can be combined and, say, embedded into the lettering on the side of a building. In this sense, but few others, the future of mobile telecoms will be invisible.
巨大而丑陋的移動通信天線桿也將變得蹤影難尋。天線會變多，但體積肯定會縮小。除了中國移動在上海測試中的矩形天線陣列，公司還在試驗采用更小型隱蔽的“瓷片”(tile)天線，可以組合并嵌入建筑物墻面的文字中。在這個意義上，遑論其他，移動通信的前景將變得難以覺察。
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