Integration versus Outsourcing in Stable Industry Equilibrium with Communication Networks

For the selection of a firm's structure between vertical integration and arm's-length outsourcing, the importance of the thickness of the market had been emphasized in the previous literature. Here we take account of communication networks such as telephone, telex, fax, and the Internet. By doing so, we could illustrate the relationship between communication networks and the make-or-buy decision. With communication network technology differing in each type of firm, both vertically integrated firms and arm's-length outsourcing firms coexist, which was never indicated in the previous literature. However, when common network technology is introduced, such coexistence generically does not occur.

Innovation networks in China, Japan, and Korea : evidence from Japanese patent data

The growing importance of innovation in economic growth has encouraged the development of innovation capabilities in East Asia, within which China, Japan, and Korea are most important in terms of technological capabilities. Using Japanese patent data, we examine how knowledge networks have developed among these countries. We find that Japan's technological specialization saw little change, but those of Korea and China changed rapidly since 1970s. By the year 2009, technology specialization has become similar across three countries in the sense that the common field of prominent technology is "electronic circuits and communication technologies". Patent citations suggest that technology flows were largest in the electronic technology, pointing to the deepening of innovation networks in these countries.

The innovation process of a privately-owned enterprise and a state-owned enterprise in China

This study compares the innovation process of a privately-owned enterprise and a state-owned enterprise in China using their patent data. Huawei and ZTE were selected for this study because they experienced the same historical environment in the same industry from the same region in China leaving their owner types as their critical difference. This study investigates the difference in the innovation process in R&D between a privately-owned and a state-owned enterprise by analyzing (1) domestic and international patent application pattern, (2) co-application and co-applicants, (3) knowledge accumulation inside Huawei and ZTE, and (4) knowledge spillover to domestic and foreign firms.

Estimation of Perceived Quality in Convergent Services

Triple-Play (3P) and Quadruple-Play (4P) services are being widely offered by telecommunication services providers. Such services must be able to offer equal or higher quality levels than those obtained with traditional systems, especially for the most demanding services such as broadcast IPTV. This paper presents a matrix-based model, defined in terms of service components, user perceptions, agent capabilities, performance indicators and evaluation functions, which allows to estimate the overall quality of a set of convergent services, as perceived by the users, from a set of performance and/or Quality of Service (QoS) parameters of the convergent IP transport network

Which could be the role of Hybrid Fibre Coax in Next Generation Access networks?

Next generation access networks (NGAN) will support a renewed communication structure where opportunities lie in the provision of ubiquitous broadband connectivity, a wide variety of new applications, appealing contents and a general support to the sustainable growth of diverse sectors. From their deployment it is expected a wealth of innovations, jobs creation and a new wave of economic growth. In this paper we discuss which could be the role of Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) in the Next Generation Access Network (NGAN) roadmap. Thus, we propose a simplified model for making approximate cost calculations for HFC deployment based on the geographic and sociodemographic characteristics of Spain. Considering the latest evolution of HFC based on DOCSIS 3.0 from integrated (I-CMTS) towards modular (M-CMTS), the results from the model are compared with the most competitive NGAN for ultrabroadband speeds: Fibre to the Home (FTTH) based on Gigabitcapable Passive Optical Networks (GPON)

Integración Wi-Fi en un proyecto ICT

La instalación de Infraestructuras Comunes de Telecomunicación (IICCTT) en el interior de las edificaciones para el acceso a los servicios de telecomunicación facilitó la incorporación a las viviendas de las nuevas tecnologías de forma económica y transparente para los usuarios. Actualmente, todos los edificios de nueva construcción deben presentar un proyecto ICT firmado por un Ingeniero Técnico de Telecomunicación de la especialidad correspondiente o un Ingeniero de Telecomunicación. La legislación que las regula afecta a todo tipo de viviendas con independencia del poder adquisitivo del comprador, y contribuye de manera decisiva a que disminuyan a corto y medio plazo las desigualdades sociales en lo relativo al acceso a servicios de telecomunicación tales como telefonía, Internet, telecomunicación por cable, radiodifusión sonora y televisión analógica, digital, terrenal o por satélite, etc.. Desde 1997, el Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación junto con otras organizaciones públicas y privadas ha participado en la elaboración de la normativa aplicable a las Infraestructuras Comunes de Telecomunicación, dando lugar al actual decreto, el Real Decreto 346/2011, de 11 de Marzo. El propósito general de este proyecto es diseñar una red Wi-Fi a partir de las canalizaciones e instalaciones del proyecto ICT de un conjunto de viviendas unifamiliares, para que todas ellas dispongan de conexión a internet de forma inalámbrica. Para llevar a cabo este diseño, se ha realizado un estudio de las características del estándar IEEE 802.11, conocido como Wi-Fi, analizando las posibilidades de comunicación inalámbrica que ofrece, así como las limitaciones que presenta en la actualidad. Se ha analizado el proyecto ICT del conjunto de viviendas, estudiando la viabilidad de utilizar sus instalaciones para implementar la red Wi-Fi, añadiendo tanto las canalizaciones como los dispositivos comerciales necesarios para llevar a cabo dicha implementación. Además, se ha estudiado la posibilidad de integrar la red Wi-Fi utilizando el cableado de televisión de la propia ICT. Por último, se ha estudiado la gran importancia que al Hogar Digital se da en el Real Decreto 346/2011, de 11 de marzo, por el que se aprueba el Reglamento regulador de las Infraestructuras Comunes de Telecomunicaciones para el acceso a los servicios de telecomunicación en el interior de las edificaciones, presentando los aspectos fundamentales que se persiguen con la domotización de la vivienda como mejora de vida de sus habitantes. Abstract The installation of Telecommunications Common Infrastructures (TCIs, in Spanish Infraestructuras Comunes de Telecomunicación –IICCTT-) in the buildings, in order to gain access to telecommunications services, facilitated the incorporation into the houses of new technologies in an economical and transparent way for users. Nowadays, every new construction building must have a TCI project signed by a Telecommunications Engineer or a Technical Telecommunications Engineer with the appropriate specialization. The legislation that regulates TCIs affects every kind of houses, independently of the buyer´s purchasing power, and contributes decisively to decrease in short and medium terms the social inequalities concerning the access to the telecommunication services, such as telephony, Internet, wired telecommunications, audible broadcasting and digital, analogical, land, satellite television, etc.. Since 1997, the Telecommunications Engineer Official College, together with other public and private organizations, has been elaborating the regulations for the TCIs, giving rise to the current decree, the Royal Decree 346/2011, of 11th of March. The general purpose of this project is to design a Wi-Fi network based on the canalizations and installations of the TCI project of a housing development, in such a way that every house is provided with a wireless connection to the Internet. In order to carry out this design, the characteristics of the standard IEEE 802.11, known as Wi-Fi, have been studied, analyzing the wireless-communication possibilities that it offers, as well as the constraints that it presents currently. The TCI project has been analyzed, studying the feasibility of using its installations to implement the Wi-Fi network, adding the canalizations and commercial devices required to execute the aforementioned implementation. Besides, the possibility of integrating the Wi-Fi network using the television wires of the TCI project has been investigated. Finally, it has been studied the great importance that has been given to Digital Home in the Royal Decree 346/2011, of 11th of March, that approves the regulatory Regulations of Telecommunications Common Infrastructures for the access to telecommunications services inside the buildings, presenting the essential aspects that are pursued with the house domotization as a way to improve the quality of life of its inhabitants.

Magneto-optic current sensor with Faraday mirror for linear birefringence compensation

Fiber optic sensors have some advantages in subjects related with electrical current and magnetic field measurement. In spite of the optical fiber utilization advantages we have to take into account undesirable effects, which are present in real non-ideal optical fibers. In telecommunication and sensor application fields the presence of inherent and induced birefringence is crucial. The presence of birefringence may cause an undesirable change in the polarization state. In order to compensate the linear birefringence a promising method has been chosen. This method employs orthogonal polarization conjugation in the back propagation direction of the light wave in the fiber. A study and a simulation of an experimental setup are realized with the advantage of a significant sensitivity improvement.

Integrated luminescent chemical microsensors based on GaN LEDs for security applications using smartphones

Development of PCB-integrateable microsensors for monitoring chemical species is a goal in areas such as lab-on-a-chip analytical devices, diagnostics medicine and electronics for hand-held instruments where the device size is a major issue. Cellular phones have pervaded the world inhabitants and their usefulness has dramatically increased with the introduction of smartphones due to a combination of amazing processing power in a confined space, geolocalization and manifold telecommunication features. Therefore, a number of physical and chemical sensors that add value to the terminal for health monitoring, personal safety (at home, at work) and, eventually, national security have started to be developed, capitalizing also on the huge number of circulating cell phones. The chemical sensor-enabled “super” smartphone provides a unique (bio)sensing platform for monitoring airborne or waterborne hazardous chemicals or microorganisms for both single user and crowdsourcing security applications. Some of the latest ones are illustrated by a few examples. Moreover, we have recently achieved for the first time (covalent) functionalization of p- and n-GaN semiconductor surfaces with tuneable luminescent indicator dyes of the Ru-polypyridyl family, as a key step in the development of innovative microsensors for smartphone applications. Chemical “sensoring” of GaN-based blue LED chips with those indicators has also been achieved by plasma treatment of their surface, and the micrometer-sized devices have been tested to monitor O2 in the gas phase to show their full functionality. Novel strategies to enhance the sensor sensitivity such as changing the length and nature of the siloxane buffer layer are discussed in this paper.

Research activities of Spanish antenna groups

When we look at the history of electricity and electromagnetism in Spain we discover that the most important Spanish researchers are generally out of the official institutions or stable research groups until the 20th century [1] [2]. In the 20th century most of the scientific research is done in stable research institutions and universities and the most important electromagnetism research centres in Spain are located in the Faculty of Physics of the most important universities, the National Scientific Research Council (CSIC) and the School for Telecommunication Engineering created in 1923. But the greatest impulse of research in the antenna and radiowave propagation field is done after 1960 reaching the first national URSI conference in 1980. After that year, the relation between groups and the number of research groups is continuously growing and the relation to industry is also increasing. When Spain joins the European research organizations (COST, ERC...) and the European Union in 1985 the research support experience a fast growing and the participation in the European research structures. In the antenna design field, there exist some specializations although most of the groups have dome specific projects in almost all the antenna analysis and design fields. Here, we have selected the most important and characteristic area related to each of the research groups and institutions. The easiest way to classify the research work in antennas is the selection between antenna analysis, design and measurement. After that the selected frequency bands technology, the type of antennas and the related circuits can be a good criterion to describe the variety of research work and specialization between groups.

Sensor magneto-óptico de corriente con supresión de birrefringencia lineal mediante espejo de Faraday

Fiber optic sensors have some advantages in subjects related with electrical current and magnetic field measurement. In spite of the optical fiber utilization advantages we have to take into account undesirable effects, which are present in real non-ideal optical fibers. In telecommunication and sensor application fields the presence of inherent and induced birefringence is crucial. The presence of birefringence may cause an undesirable change in the polarization state. In order to compensate the linear birefringence a promising method has been chosen. This method employs orthogonal polarization conjugation in the back propagation direction of the light wave in the fiber. A study and a simulation of an experimental setup are realized with the advantage of a significant sensitivity improvement.

Influencia de la Ciencia Ficción en las TIC y las Telecomunicaciones

Desde el comienzo de la Historia, el ser humano ha pensado en su futuro, ya fuera por el hecho de preocuparse por su supervivencia o por razones más filosóficas, como el porvenir como especie. Pensar en el futuro es anticipación. El género de la ciencia ficción es el que más se basa en la anticipación. En muchos subgéneros de la ciencia ficción se tratan temas futuristas, viajes espaciales a otros planetas, inteligencia artificial, etc. Por otra parte, en la actualidad vivimos un período donde los cambios en las TIC (Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación) son prácticamente diarios, aunque podría llegar a decirse que los cambios se producen hora a hora. A veces, muchos de estos avances nos parecen producto de la fantasía o la ciencia ficción, o salidos de alguna película futurista. Sin embargo, dichos avances son perfectamente posibles y explicables a través de la ciencia actual. A través de este proyecto se pretenden analizar estos avances, relacionándolos con distintas obras de ciencia ficción. Una gran cantidad de los avances tecnológicos tienen su origen en alguna obra de la ciencia ficción, ya sea literatura o cine. Otro objetivo es realizar un estudio de diferentes propuestas tecnológicas de diferentes obras de esta rama que no se hayan realizado todavía, y analizar su viabilidad, su utilidad y los posibles cambios sociológicos que produciría en el mundo en el que vivimos. El tercer objetivo es evaluar la aptitud y actitud de los ingenieros de telecomunicación en cuanto a la innovación y la proyección hacia el futuro de los estos posibles cambios tecnológicos. Abstract Since the beginning of History, humans have thought about their future, either concerned about survival or by philosophical reasons like the future as species. Thinking about the future is speculation. The science fiction genre is the one that is based on speculation. Sub-genres of science fiction covers futuristic themes like space travel to other planets, artificial intelligence, etc. Today we live in a period where changes in ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) are almost daily, although we should say that changes occur in a matter of hours. Sometimes, many of these advances seem a product of fantasy or science fiction, or coming out of a futuristic movie. However, these advances are perfectly possible and explainable by current science. Through this project the intention is to analyze these developments, relating them to various works of science fiction. A great number of this technological advancements have their origin in a work of science fiction, either literature or film. Another objective is to study different technological proposals of this genre that have not been done yet, and analyze their feasibility, usefulness and potential sociological changes that occur in the world we live in. The third objective is to evaluate the ability and attitude of telecommunication engineers in terms of innovation and future projection of these potential technological changes.

On the economics of energy consumption in 4G networks: the case of Spain

Reducing energy consumption is one of the main challenges in most countries. For example, European Member States agreed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 20% in 2020 compared to 1990 levels (EC 2008). Considering each sector separately, ICTs account nowadays for 2% of total carbon emissions. This percentage will increase as the demand of communication services and applications steps up. At the same time, the expected evolution of ICT-based developments - smart buildings, smart grids and smart transportation systems among others - could result in the creation of energy-saving opportunities leading to global emission reductions (Labouze et al. 2008), although the amount of these savings is under debate (Falch 2010). The main development required in telecommunication networks ?one of the three major blocks of energy consumption in ICTs together with data centers and consumer equipment (Sutherland 2009) ? is the evolution of existing infrastructures into ultra-broadband networks, the so-called Next Generation Networks (NGN). Fourth generation (4G) mobile communications are the technology of choice to complete -or supplement- the ubiquitous deployment of NGN. The risk and opportunities involved in NGN roll-out are currently in the forefront of the economic and policy debate. However, the issue of which is the role of energy consumption in 4G networks seems absent, despite the fact that the economic impact of energy consumption arises as a key element in the cost analysis of this type of networks. Precisely, the aim of this research is to provide deeper insight on the energy consumption involved in the usage of a 4G network, its relationship with network main design features, and the general economic impact this would have in the capital and operational expenditures related with network deployment and usage.

Corpus de tesis de ingeniería : paralelismo de las conclusiones entre inglés y español

El objetivo de este Proyecto Fin de Carrera es abordar el análisis del capítulo de conclusiones de tesis de ingeniería de telecomunicación a partir de un corpus comparable en inglés y español. A través del léxico podrán conocerse las expresiones típicas y la estructura de capítulo de conclusiones, tanto en inglés como en español. Para empezar este Proyecto, se ha compilado los corpus que se quieren comparar, en total se ha digitalizado tres corpus, uno con 24 conclusiones de tesis doctorales en español, otro con el mismo número de capítulos de conclusiones de tesis doctorales en inglés (PhD) y por último un corpus de conclusiones de tesis de fin de máster y de grado. El primer análisis que se ha realizado es el de la estructura de las conclusiones a partir de los títulos y subtítulos del capítulo. Se han comparado los títulos más utilizados y se han comentado las coincidencias y diferencias entre los corpus. La estructura vista a través de los subtítulos, se ha comparado con la propuesta por la autora Glasman-Deal (2011) en trabajos académicos de investigación, principalmente en artículos de investigación. La siguiente parte del Proyecto se ha centrado en el estudio del léxico, para ello nos hemos ayudado de la herramienta informática Wordsmith tools de la que se han explicado sus herramientas y funciones más útiles para este trabajo entre ellas el plot, que informa número de archivos en la que aparece cada palabra en el corpus. Las palabras con mayor plot son las más usadas por todos los doctorandos cuando escriben el capítulo de conclusiones .Se han elaborado unas pirámides donde se han colocado las palabras propias del género académico de las tesis por orden de uso. Las más usadas, con mayor plot, en la base y según se asciende aparecen las que tienen menor plot, con el fin de ver de una forma gráfica el peso que tiene cada palabra en el corpus. El siguiente paso del análisis del léxico ha tenido el objetivo de diferenciar los contextos de uso de las palabras incluidas en las pirámides. Se ha diferenciado entre los usos de las palabras dependiendo de su denotación académica o técnica. Esta comparación ha permitido comprobar que dentro del mismo corpus un sustantivo como contribuciones tiene connotación positiva o negativa dependiendo del contexto. Con los ejemplos aportados por los corpus se proporciona una base para el análisis lingüístico, centrado en los sustantivos, en este trabajo. Para finalizar el Proyecto, se ha implementado una base de datos con los resultados obtenidos del análisis de los sustantivos en la que se pueden ver las palabras que corresponden a cada nivel de la pirámide y ejemplos del uso de estas palabras. The aim of this Project is to analyze the concluding chapter of PhD thesis in the field of telecommunication engineering by means of a comparable corpus in English and Spanish. Through the lexis we will be able to capture useful expressions and the typical structure of the chapter in these specialized thesis, either in English and Spanish. To start with, three corpora have been compiled. The first one consists of 24 concluding chapters of PhD thesis in Spanish; the second, is made up of the same number of chapters of PhD thesis in the English language; and finally, 24 further chapters of Master and Degree thesis in English were digitalized and prepared for lexis analysis. Second, the study of the structure of the chapter of conclusions has been carried out. In this part the most common titles in the chapter of conclusions have been analysed and compared so as to find differences and similarities between the two languages compared. Moreover, the structure found through the subtitles in the conclusions of the thesis has been compared with the structure proposed by Glasman-Deal (2011) in her book Science Research Writing. Third, the study has been focused on the lexis of each corpus. These corpora have been treated with a lexis analyser called Wordsmith tools. The variables of frequency and plot have been applied to withdraw the most widely used nouns from the list of all the words found in any of the corpus. A pyramidal structure has been designed in order to show the academic or gender nouns - the ones usually found in the concluding chapter of thesis – nouns with a higher plot in the corpus. Two different types of context have been found for these nouns: technical and academic denotation. To show the difference in use of these nouns, arranged examples of contexts are given for each of the words studied. Finally, a database has been implemented to arrange the results of the lexis study. In this database the most significant examples of each noun are shown.

Sistemas de provisionamiento para abonados de telefonía móvil

Este documento trata de la instalación del sistema de provisión de abonados “Provisioning Gateway” (PG) para el proyecto Machine to Machine (M2M) de Ericsson, una tecnología que permite definir los abonados o dispositivos serán usados en las comunicaciones máquina a máquina. El proyecto ha sido realizado en Ericsson para una compañía de telefonía de España. Se hablará de la evolución que han sufrido las redes de comunicaciones en los últimos años y las aplicaciones que surgen a partir de ellas. Se hará especial hincapié en la tecnología de red más utilizada hoy en día, el 3G, y en su sucesora, el 4G, detallando las novedades que incorpora. Después se describirá el trabajo realizado por el ingeniero de Ericsson durante la instalación del PG (Provisioning Gateway), un nodo de la red a través del cual la compañía telefónica da de alta a los abonados, modifica sus parámetros o los elimina de la base de datos. Se explicarán las distintas fases de las que se compone la instalación, tanto la parte hardware como la parte software y por último las pruebas de verificación con el cliente. Por último se darán algunas conclusiones sobre el trabajo realizado y los conocimientos adquiridos. ABSTRACT This document describes the installation of Provisioning Gateway system (PG) for Machine to Machine (M2M) project in Ericsson, which is a technology that allows companies to define the subscribers that will be used of machine to Machine communications. This project has been developed in Ericsson for a Spanish telecommunication company. The evolution of telecommunication networks is going to be introduced, describing al the services developed in parallel. 3G technology will be describer in a deeper way because it is the most used technology nowadays and 4G because it represents the future in telecommunications. Después se describirá el trabajo realizado por el ingeniero de Ericsson durante la instalación del PG (Provisioning Gateway), un nodo de la red a través del cuál la compañía telefónica da de alta a los abonados, modifica sus parámetros o los elimina de la base de datos. Se explicarán las distintas fases de las que se compone la instalación, tanto la parte hardware como la parte software y por último las pruebas de verificación con el cliente. Furthermore, this document shows the installation process of PG system made by the Ericsson´s engineer. Telecommunication companies use PG for creating, defining and deleting subscribers from the database. The different steps of the installation procedure will be described among this document, talking about hardware and software installation and the final acceptant test. Finally, some conclusions about the work done and experience learned will be exposed.

Popularity based distribution schemes for P2P assisted streaming of VoD contents

The Video on Demand (VoD) service is becoming a dominant service in the telecommunication market due to the great convenience regarding the choice of content items and their independent viewing time. However, it comes with the downsides of high server storage and capacity demands because of the large variety of content items and the high amount of traffic generated for serving all requests. Storing part of the popular contents on the peers brings certain advantages but, it still has issues regarding the overall traffic in the core of the network and the scalability. Therefore, we propose a P2P assisted model for streaming VoD contents that takes advantage of the clients unused uplink and storage capacity to serve requests of other clients and we present popularity based schemes for distribution of both the popular and unpopular contents on the peers. The proposed model and the schemes prove to reduce the streaming traffic in the core of the network, improve the responsiveness of the system and increase its scalability.