Albert Domingo, PhD

There currently is a large variety in the policy and regulations that are steering the developments of telecommunication networks worldwide. Specifically, in the deployment of future-based fixed broadband networks (Fiber-to-the-Home), different regions and countries are taking a different approach. For example, where the US ruled that broadband providers should not be subject to last-mile unbundling, some other countries from Europe (Portugal, Spain), as well as countries in the Asia-Pacific… Mostrar más

There currently is a large variety in the policy and regulations that are steering the developments of telecommunication networks worldwide. Specifically, in the deployment of future-based fixed broadband networks (Fiber-to-the-Home), different regions and countries are taking a different approach. For example, where the US ruled that broadband providers should not be subject to last-mile unbundling, some other countries from Europe (Portugal, Spain), as well as countries in the Asia-Pacific region (Japan, New Zealand) are regulating it with different approaches. By comparing a selection of OECD countries on their policy approach, competition status and fixed broadband pricing, this paper aims at evaluating the impact of certain policy approaches on network development and market evolution. The paper concludes that there is no clear trend between the GDP per country and its broadband entry pricing (i.e. the lowest price for a 25Mbps download offer. Countries that have less parallel infrastructures (DSL, cable DOCSIS and/or FTTH) typically have lower broadband retail pricing. Unbundling or wholesale obligations clearly lead to a higher number of competing service providers (offering services using the same underlying infrastructure network), but does not necessarily lead to lower retail pricing. Countries with government investment in rural and/or urban areas report more service provider competition than countries without government investment. This might be a natural trend, or following from the fact that if governments invest invest in urban and rural areas, they make clear that only one fiber network is going to be sustained. Mostrar menos

Although it is clear that the evolution of fixed access networks requires the installation of Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) to all households, the business case for deploying such networks is very uncertain. It requires significant upfront investment, while not being assured of sufficient timely revenues to cover for it. Although many studies focus on modeling the costs and forecasting the revenues, limited research deals with how both sides can impact the overall business case. This paper compares… Mostrar más

Although it is clear that the evolution of fixed access networks requires the installation of Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) to all households, the business case for deploying such networks is very uncertain. It requires significant upfront investment, while not being assured of sufficient timely revenues to cover for it. Although many studies focus on modeling the costs and forecasting the revenues, limited research deals with how both sides can impact the overall business case. This paper compares different deployment strategies used in current FTTH network rollouts, and examines their impact on the overall business case. Deployment strategies are defined as ways to plan the installation of the network and uptake over time, influenced by a variety of situation-dependent characteristics. By studying the different parameters that allow characterizing and grouping ongoing FTTH projects worldwide, we can analyze what drove the choice for the deployment strategy, and how the latter impacts both cost and revenue side of the business case. The paper concludes that deployments driven by demand are less risky and therefore more sustainable. On the other hand, publicly funded or initiated projects obey to different goals than demand and can be unsustainable if they are not able to engage the planned penetration rates. Mostrar menos

Both users and operators are aiming for faster networks to host higher-quality contents. Legacy infrastructure models are still mainly based into facilities investment competition. The large investment to deploy a new network into the market has been a huge barrier for new entrants and it has moved regulators to favor infrastructure sharing and unbundling models to seek for competition. Moreover, the in-building deployment problems and the high costs of civil-works are hindering the optical… Mostrar más

Both users and operators are aiming for faster networks to host higher-quality contents. Legacy infrastructure models are still mainly based into facilities investment competition. The large investment to deploy a new network into the market has been a huge barrier for new entrants and it has moved regulators to favor infrastructure sharing and unbundling models to seek for competition. Moreover, the in-building deployment problems and the high costs of civil-works are hindering the optical fiber deployment to the home.

On the other hand, the high demand for broadband creates new consumer habits towards digital contents and does not only rely on the network access technology to get connected. This need brings new opportunities for more innovative deployment models. This paper estimates the impact of having the end-users more actively involved in the deployment of fiber networks to reduce the overall investment. Mostrar menos

After the success of the last Mobile World Congress, it continues to surprise us with more news that could be considered a world record achievement. In the year of "wearables" fever devices, such as bracelets and fancy watches as mobile gadgets, car industry increased their presence along the Congress with the re-discovered mobile apps and plenty of connected vehicles to mobile control options. Yet, one of the most silence successes was the MWC Wi-Fi network providing service to more than… Mostrar más

After the success of the last Mobile World Congress, it continues to surprise us with more news that could be considered a world record achievement. In the year of "wearables" fever devices, such as bracelets and fancy watches as mobile gadgets, car industry increased their presence along the Congress with the re-discovered mobile apps and plenty of connected vehicles to mobile control options. Yet, one of the most silence successes was the MWC Wi-Fi network providing service to more than 100.000 devices. Mostrar menos

Local Governments have decided to take advantage of the presence of wireless sensor networks –WSNs- in their cities to efficiently manage several applications in their daily responsibilities. The enormous amount of information collected by sensor devices allow the automation of several real-time services to implement a set of improvements in the city management like self-learning traffic lights patterns during rush hour, to save water consumption in parks, or to efficiently route garbage… Mostrar más

Local Governments have decided to take advantage of the presence of wireless sensor networks –WSNs- in their cities to efficiently manage several applications in their daily responsibilities. The enormous amount of information collected by sensor devices allow the automation of several real-time services to implement a set of improvements in the city management like self-learning traffic lights patterns during rush hour, to save water consumption in parks, or to efficiently route garbage collection trucks throughout the city. The sensor information required by these examples is mostly self-consumed by city-designated applications and managers. Mostrar menos

In this draft paper, we review data on retail service offerings in the United States and from
around the world and tentatively conclude that prospects for 1Gbps services becoming
more widely available are not implausible even at current pricing levels. The analysis and
our conclusion in this paper should be regarded as preliminary and partial, but ought to
provide some comfort to those who might fear that significant improvements in
broadband service quality cannot be… Mostrar más

In this draft paper, we review data on retail service offerings in the United States and from
around the world and tentatively conclude that prospects for 1Gbps services becoming
more widely available are not implausible even at current pricing levels. The analysis and
our conclusion in this paper should be regarded as preliminary and partial, but ought to
provide some comfort to those who might fear that significant improvements in
broadband service quality cannot be achieved without dramatic increases in broadband
service pricing. Indeed, the pricing data and recent service offerings by Google in the
United States and by others abroad suggest that order of magnitude improvements in
broadband speeds are achievable with pricing close to today's range. Mostrar menos

White Spaces in UHF where though as scarce and not existing. After analyse it in Catalonia is shows the availability and that in Spain will also be available, although regulation is not allowing the implementation of other technologies than TV that may use UHF band. It also shows that after the shift for LET implementation there will be plenty of available frequencies in every region inside the area studied

This work describes the implementation of an Open Data platform fed by real-time data that are provided by different city sensor networks. The aim of the paper is to show how real-time data enrich Open Data portals and require a new architecture to deal with massive amounts of continuously flowing information. The paper introduces the concept of sensor networks as a key component in the smart cities framework. Additionally, it describes the implementation and deployment of a real-time Open Data… Mostrar más

This work describes the implementation of an Open Data platform fed by real-time data that are provided by different city sensor networks. The aim of the paper is to show how real-time data enrich Open Data portals and require a new architecture to deal with massive amounts of continuously flowing information. The paper introduces the concept of sensor networks as a key component in the smart cities framework. Additionally, it describes the implementation and deployment of a real-time Open Data platform. Finally, the paper discusses the impact on both citizens and city services based on potential mobile applications that may be developed using this platform. Mostrar menos

Spectrum sensing is one of the key topics towards the implementation of future wireless services like SuperWiFi. This new wireless proposal aims at using the freed spectrum resulting from the analog-to-digital transition of TV channels for wireless data transmission (UHF TV White Spaces). The benefits range from better building penetration to longer distances when compared to the set of IEEE 802.11 standards. Nevertheless, the effective use of the available spectrum is subject to strict… Mostrar más

Spectrum sensing is one of the key topics towards the implementation of future wireless services like SuperWiFi. This new wireless proposal aims at using the freed spectrum resulting from the analog-to-digital transition of TV channels for wireless data transmission (UHF TV White Spaces). The benefits range from better building penetration to longer distances when compared to the set of IEEE 802.11 standards. Nevertheless, the effective use of the available spectrum is subject to strict regulation that prohibits unlicensed users to interfere with incumbents (like wireless microphones). Cognitive Radios (CR) and dynamic spectrum allocation are suggested to cope with this problem. These techniques consist on frequency sweeps of the TV-UHF band to detect White Spaces that could be used for SuperWiFi transmissions. In this paper we develop and implement algorithms from GNURadio in the Ettus USRP-E110 to build a standalone White Spaces detector that can be consulted from a centralized location via IP networks. Mostrar menos

Help4Mood is a project inside 7th European Framework Programme (FP7) for developing a
computational distributed system to support remotely the treatment of patients with major
depression at home. Core components are integrated with Health Level Seven (HL7) standard. One
of the main goals of this system is to use the paradigm of a Virtual Agent to support the first
symptoms of clinician alert of a patient, to interact with him an to prevent some causes of relapse.
The system… Mostrar más

Help4Mood is a project inside 7th European Framework Programme (FP7) for developing a
computational distributed system to support remotely the treatment of patients with major
depression at home. Core components are integrated with Health Level Seven (HL7) standard. One
of the main goals of this system is to use the paradigm of a Virtual Agent to support the first
symptoms of clinician alert of a patient, to interact with him an to prevent some causes of relapse.
The system processes inputs from different devices (to monitor sleeping, eating and motor activity)
in a decision support system, and the Virtual Agent interacts with the patient before clinical
support from hospital is needed. The technical framework is using the open source HL7-standardbased
healthcare integration engine, Mirth Connect, to interact with the different subsystems,
analyze data and give different priorities for messages in queues. Particularly, the use of standard
HL7 will contribute to interest in the project results and the potential impact through the
development, dissemination and use, as stated in the analysis of the European commission Mostrar menos

Nesxt Generation Access Networks, NGAN, are the infrastructures that will allow deploying ultra broadband in houses and companies during the following decades. Nowadays the investments are not speed up because of many reasons. One of them is related to the high-fixed costs that NGAN will require for update all the existing copper-based or even for building new infrastructures.

Sharing infrastructure is a diffuse concept that surely will get down these huge investments and will contribute… Mostrar más

Nesxt Generation Access Networks, NGAN, are the infrastructures that will allow deploying ultra broadband in houses and companies during the following decades. Nowadays the investments are not speed up because of many reasons. One of them is related to the high-fixed costs that NGAN will require for update all the existing copper-based or even for building new infrastructures.

Sharing infrastructure is a diffuse concept that surely will get down these huge investments and will contribute to clarify the business models to each stakeholder and put some light on it. Sharing infrastructure is supposed to mainly affect the civil-works investments where ducts deployment is one of the heaviest parts of it. Thus, ducts-sharing must definitely be a good policy to alleviate the overall high-costs of NGAN roll out and hopefully will push forward in extending the places where competition is foreseen - called dark and grey areas - shortening the overall returns. The model presented tries to answer the following research question: Is there a price that would allow competition through sharing existing ducts? Under this perspective other derived questions are analysed: Is the neutral-open network the only way to achieve competition in FTTH? Should the regulation of NGAN be set as ex ante to give confidence to investors and operators that are intending to deploy new NGAN networks? Is there a minimum period to maintain those regulations to allow competition in case that ex ante procedure is set? The developed model allows analyzing most of these scenarios including a set of variables that have a direct impact on the last-mile of NGN deployment. The model also includes the main roll-out parameters (demand, cost/revenues, adoption/penetration, costs of deployment -geography rural vs. urban, materials prices, engineering prices, duct sharing price -, the technical design), excluding the ones linked to the backbone network. We assume FTTH as pure-fibre NGN access model. Mostrar menos

FTTH deployment model for cities and its possible competition and need for investment. It was shown that a maximum of 3 operators could be deploying their own FTTH network and the in-building case as one of the main problems in cities.

The Open Window to Senegal is born as a continuation
of the Eye-Health project, carried out in the High Pyrenees
region, north-east Catalonia, Spain. Eye-Health dealt with the
difficulties entailed to life in isolated and poorly populated
villages, where no hospitals or specialized doctors are placed.
Open Window to Senegal’s main goal is to make specialized eye
health available in the region of Kolda, using a telemedicine
system designed specifically to improve… Mostrar más

The Open Window to Senegal is born as a continuation
of the Eye-Health project, carried out in the High Pyrenees
region, north-east Catalonia, Spain. Eye-Health dealt with the
difficulties entailed to life in isolated and poorly populated
villages, where no hospitals or specialized doctors are placed.
Open Window to Senegal’s main goal is to make specialized eye
health available in the region of Kolda, using a telemedicine
system designed specifically to improve ophthalmologic medical
care. This consists of a cooperation between the family doctors of
every village with specialized ophthalmologists of the main
hospitals of the regions nearby.
In the particular case of Senegal, this project is especially
important as the country’s medical resources are limited, and
need to be optimized in order to reach the biggest part of the
population, mainly those who are far away from resourceful
hospitals. The authors hope this is a first step in a series of
assistance projects that will help improve and optimize health
care in regions of the world where inhabitants still can’t reach a
sufficient welfare. Mostrar menos