Mobile Telecoms: Wireless: The Next Generation
移动通信：无线：下一世代(节选)
A new wave of mobile technology is on its way, and will bring drastic change
酝酿中的新一代移动技术将带来巨变
Evolution or revolution?
渐进还是革命?
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.
技术还以另一种方式分割电信行业，市场研究公司IHS的斯特凡·泰拉尔(Stéphane Téral)认为。他说，一个阵营希望5G“走上渐进的道路，利用现有一切，逐步改善”。这里面包括了许多现在的无线网络设备厂商及部分运营商，它们希望保护已有的投资，逐步改进。比如，2月11日，芯片设计公司高通(Qualcomm)推出全球首款数据传输速度高达1Gbps的4G芯片组。所运用的技术名为“载波聚合”，意味着每秒可以聚合多达十个100Mbps的数据流。
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.
泰拉尔解释说，另一阵营主张采取革命性的方式：直接跃升至尖端技术。这可能意味着，举例说，靠单一天线与基站覆盖范围内的所有设备作通信的传统蜂窝结构移动网络将被舍弃。取而代之的是，一组小型天线将发射集合无线电波束扫描设备，在搜索到设备后，第二组天线将逐一接管。这也意味着可能需要分析使用数据来预测无线用户下一步需要何种连接性能，然后对网络做相应调整——这正是萨里大学的5G创新中心希望开发的技术。
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.
这一革命阵营中最直言不讳的代表是中国移动。其首席科学家易芝玲认为，按目前的设计，无线网络难以持续。要传输更多数据，天线能耗会越来越大。易芝玲表示，其公司的立场是基于必要性：中国移动是全球的通信运营商，拥有110万4G基站及8.25亿用户(超过欧洲所有运营商的总和)，公司的规模进一步加剧了现有网络结构面临的问题。持怀疑态度者猜测其中也许存在一套“产业化安排”，偏袒中国设备制造商并降低这些公司须支付的专利使用费。5G与4G的差异越大，中国就越可趁机让自己的知识产权成为全球标准的一部分。
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.
不论动机如何，大家普遍认同易芝玲对5G网络最终设计的展望。她说，这些网络不止“超快”，还是“绿色和软性”的，即耗能低得多，且完全由软件控制。跟此前的电脑系统一样，5G网络的专用硬件(例如每一基站上的处理器单元)大部分会“虚拟化”，即会由软件取代，重新配置起来容易得多。无线网络将变得有点像在线“云”计算，而且在某种意义上将与之融合，使用相同的现成硬件。
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.
有关5G将如何改变通信行业结构的讨论已经展开。一个问题是，“无线接入”服务会否变得更像是一种日用商品，电信咨询师切坦·沙尔玛(Chetan Sharma)认为。据其估计，在美国电信业的总收入中，运营商所占的份额已跌至50%以下，其余份额为移动服务商所占据，比如像Facebook的智能手机应用，它们通过广告盈利。
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转型，运营商或许可以通过销售自有视频内容等方式逆转目前的颓势。但更可能的是其业务加速下滑，沦为低利润的“哑管道”。倘若如此，这个本来已经高度集中的行业可能难免进一步整合：部分国家也许会只剩一个无线基础网络供应商，正如它们往往只有一家供水公司那样。
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.
纵观云计算崛起之后IT行业近来的发展(戴尔、惠普、IBM这类公司难以跟上步伐)，如果有所启示，那就是网络设备制造商也将受到挤压。爱立信和诺基亚已有近半销售额是通过为运营商代管网络而取得。另一咨询公司Northstream的本特·诺思通(Bengt Nordstrom)表示，5G可能最终会令人们一直谈论的一件事成为现实：在标准化生产及低利润的压力下，计算机制造商和电信设备商将合二为一。去年，爱立信先后与惠普及思科缔结合作伙伴关系。日后可能出现全面并购整合。
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.
巨大而丑陋的移动通信天线杆也将变得踪影难寻。天线会变多，但体积肯定会缩小。除了中国移动在上海测试中的矩形天线阵列，公司还在试验采用更小型隐蔽的“瓷片”(tile)天线，可以组合并嵌入建筑物墙面的文字中。在这个意义上，遑论其他，移动通信的前景将变得难以觉察。
