Customer Premises Equipment Research Articles

Design of Microstrip Antenna Arrays with Rotated Elements Using Wilkinson Power Dividers for 5 G Customer Premise Equipment Applications

Microstrip antenna arrays are proposed in this paper for the customer premise equipment (CPE) applications in the frequency range 1 (FR1) of the 5th generation (5 G) mobile networks. The proposed antenna arrays consist of three FR4 substrates. Antenna elements and feeding networks are optimized separately through parameter studies and then combined to form the proposed antenna arrays. Bandwidth-enhancing parasitic elements on the top substrate are broadside coupled to the microstrip antennas in the middle substrate, which are probe-fed by the microstrip feeding network using Wilkinson power dividers realized in the bottom substrate through the ground plane and the stud supporting air layer between the lower two substrates. Two antenna arrays, with four and eight antenna elements, are proposed for different gain specifications, 10 dBi and 12 dBi, respectively. Bandwidths of 10-dB return loss for both arrays fully covered the 5 G n78 frequency band (3.3–3.8 GHz). 20 dB isolation between antenna elements can also be achieved using the proposed layouts with rotated elements. The dimensions, radiation gain, and efficiency of the proposed antenna units, four-element array, and eight-element array are 65 × 65 × 11.4, 115 × 115 × 11.4, and 115 × 215 × 11.4 mm3, 6.2, 10.5, and 13 dBi, 74%, 56%, and 50%, respectively. The proposed antenna arrays exhibit the advantages of simple, low-cost, low-profile, and high-gain characteristics, which is potentially applicable to 5 G CPE outdoor unit (ODU)-related devices.

Assessing embodied carbon emissions of communication user devices by combining approaches

The use of information and communication technologies are increasing in society. Carbon emissions can be found throughout the entire life cycle of access networks, data centers and communication user devices. The focus of this study is the embodied carbon emissions of user devices associated with accessing networks, hence tablets, smartphones and feature phones, laptop and desktop PCs, PC displays and customer premises equipment (CPEs). The purpose is to investigate the embodied carbon emissions by applying different approaches: i) the commonly used approach where estimated product carbon emissions are scaled up by shipments, ii) allocation of the electronic sector companies’ reported data combined with materials data for the products, and iii) the upstream carbon emissions reported by user device vendors (final manufacturers). Despite its sensitivity to allocation the second approach is considered to give the most reasonable overall result of about 180 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) related to chosen user device types and shipments in 2020. Underreporting of scope 3 in the data sources of the vendors, and sensitivity to specific product data sets with very high display values are two major concerns of the other approaches. Representative embodied emissions for user devices are derived for 2020: 50 kg CO2e for a smartphone, 20 kg CO2e for a feature phone, 100 kg CO2e for a tablet, 200 kg CO2e for a laptop, 350 kg CO2e for a desktop PC, 100 kg CO2e for a PC display and 30 kg CO2e for a CPE.

MmWave Physical Layer Network Modeling and Planning for Fixed Wireless Access Applications.

The large bandwidths that are available at millimeter-wave frequencies enable fixed wireless access (FWA) applications, in which fixed point-to-point wireless links are used to provide internet connectivity. In FWA networks, a wireless mesh is created and data are routed from the customer premises equipment (CPE) towards the point of presence (POP), which is the interface with the wired internet infrastructure. The performance of the wireless links depends on the radio propagation characteristics, as well as the wireless technology that is used. The radio propagation characteristics depend on the environment and on the considered frequency. In this work, we analyzed the network characteristics of FWA networks using radio propagation models for different wireless technologies using millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies of 28 GHz, 60 GHz, and 140 GHz. Different scenarios and environments were considered, and the influence of rain, vegetation, and the number of subscribers was investigated. A network planning algorithm is presented that defines a route for each CPE towards the POP based on a predefined location of customer devices and considering the available capacity of the wireless links. Rain does not have a considerable effect on the system capacity. Even though the higher frequencies exhibit a larger path loss, resulting in a lower power of the received signal, the larger bandwidths enable a higher channel capacity.

Online Identification Method of Tea Diseases in Complex Natural Environments

An intelligent Internet-of-Things (IoT) hardware system in the field tea plantations was built, comprising collection of tea images by HD zoom cameras in a cluster structure and deployment of the detection model by cluster-head edge computing nodes. Data was sent to customer premise equipment through edge nodes and gateways and then to cloud platforms, which provided a hardware platform for identifying remote tea disease online. Field-placed cameras were used as the main acquisition means to study various diseases on Yashixiang, a typical variety of Chaozhou Dancong tea, in different seasons and weather conditions and shooting angles in a natural year period with complex backgrounds. In turn, we constructed a natural environment high-quality dataset covering major diseases e.g., tea anthracnose, tea leaf blight, tea grey blight, Pseudocercospora theae, etc. and explored the feasibility of deep learning algorithms for automatic identification of Chaozhou Dancong tea diseases. Results showed that the recognition rate of Swim Transformer reached 94% in complex natural environments. This paper demonstrated the effectiveness of the dataset and the feasibility of deep learning algorithms applied to the automatic identification of diseases of Chaozhou Dancong tea, laying a foundation for the practical application of the technology in complex natural environments.

Bandwidth Enhancement of a Compact Dual-Polarized Antenna for Sub-6G 5G CPE

An ultrawideband dual-polarized antenna for fifth generation (5G) customer premise equipment is investigated and designed in a compact environment by using a double-loop-dipole structure and a co-planar-slot feeding concept. First, the existing design of dual-polarized octagonal loop dipoles is introduced at first. Then, a novel double-loop-dipole structure and co-planar-slot feeding are proposed and demonstrated in detail from the current distribution and physical structure sides. Finally, the proposed antenna is designed, fabricated, and measured. The measured results present that the proposed antenna has a wide bandwidth of 86% from 2.2 to 5.5 GHz with the VSWR less than 1.8, high polarization isolation of 25 dB, and stable radiation patterns over the desired frequencies of 2.3–5.2 GHz. It is worth mentioning that the proposed ideas can effectively aid in impedance bandwidth improvement without adding additional cost for sub-6G 5G applications.

Modelling Television White Space Frequencies for Broadband Internate Connectivity in The Rural Area of Nigeria Using Dynamic Spectrum Access Technique

As a result of the switchover from analogue to digital transmission, Television White Space (TVWS) presented itself as good opportunity to supplement the existing licensed spectrum to ease the spectrum scarcity. Rural communities were usually not connected due to poor returns to the internet providers to provide broadband access to the areas. This research has prepared the framework and feasibility study for deploying broadband internet services using Television White Space (TVWS) technology in Ugbawka, a rural area in Enugu state, Nigeria. In this work, a Network Ping was run on five websites using three major internet service providers as backhaul to establish facts of poor or even non-existent internet services. Using Ping Plotter 5 Pro, accessing ieee.com using MTN yielded a Round Trip (RT) average of 846.433 ms, with a loss of 83.8% packet over 10mins count. Radio Frequency (RF) Explorer and Carlson transceiver, Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) were used for field trials to determine availability of TVWS Frequencies. A database app was developed by writing some codes in the Basic for Android (B4A) Intermediate Development Environment (IDE). Empirical outdoor propagation model was developed with a 2.15 pathloss exponent. An algorithm was developed, titled, TVWS Optimization Quadrature Amplitude Algorithm, (TOQA), where throughput of this project performed better by giving 60Mbps and 70 Mbps at Signal-Noise-Ratio (SNR) of 5dB while the conventional algorithm gave 30Mbps and 25 Mbps at same SNR value. The Bit Error Rate was lower than the conventional models used, giving the TOQA values of 10-3 at SNR of 5 dB and 10-6 at SNR of 30 dB while the conventional method gave 10-1 and 10-3 respectively at the same SNR values. A 34.0% improvement was achieved when the dynamic access technique offered by this project was implemented on the TVWS network.

Development of Database Accessibility for Frequency Scheduling of TVWS Broadband Connectivity in Rural Areas Using Dynamic Spectrum Access Technique

As a result of the switchover from analogue to digital transmission, Television White Space (TVWS) presented itself as good opportunity to supplement the existing licensed spectrum to ease the spectrum scarcity. Rural communities were usually not connected due to poor returns to the internet providers to provide broadband access to the areas. This research has prepared the framework and feasibility study for deploying broadband internet services using Television White Space (TVWS) technology in Ugbawka, a rural area in Enugu state, Nigeria. In this work, a Network Ping was run on five websites using three major internet service providers as backhaul to establish facts of poor or even non-existent internet services. Using Ping Plotter 5 Pro, accessing ieee.com using MTN yielded a Round Trip (RT) average of 846.433 ms, with a loss of 83.8% packet over 10mins count. Radio Frequency (RF) Explorer and Carlson transceiver, Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) were used for field trials to determine availability of TVWS Frequencies. A database app was developed by writing some codes in the Basic for Android (B4A) Intermediate Development Environment (IDE). Empirical outdoor propagation model was developed with a 2.15 pathloss exponent while the indoor propagation model gave a pathloss exponent of 3.47 . An algorithm was developed, titled, TVWS Optimization Quadrature Amplitude Algorithm, (TOQA), where throughput of this project performed better by giving 60Mbps and 70 Mbps at Signal-Noise-Ratio (SNR) of 5dB while the conventional algorithm gave 30Mbps and 25 Mbps at same SNR value. The Bit Error Rate was lower than the conventional models used, giving the TOQA values of 10-3 at SNR of 5 dB and 10-6 at SNR of 30 dB while the conventional method gave 10-1 and 10-3 respectively at the same SNR values. With an Average of 56.2% network latency recorded in Ugbawka, TVWS will make a great impact on Internet connectivity if deployed.

Effect of Ground Electrodes on the Susceptibility to Damage of Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) under Impulse Conditions

One of the requirements for the safe operation of customer premises equipment (CPE) is an adequate grounding system as a means to divert high fault currents to the ground. In this work we report on the results of an experimental study of the impulse characteristics at a charging voltage of 30 kV on the surge protective device connected to 16 earth electrodes and installed at two sites, giving various ground resistance at low voltages, RDC values. All of these grounding electrodes were installed and tested under the same charging voltage to determine the effectiveness of ground electrodes toward the damage of a modem at the premises. We observed that modems did not experience damage when the ground electrode of the distribution pole (DP) had an RDC below 30 Ω in general and below 46 Ω when ground electrodes installed in low resistivity soil were used. The impulse polarity did not affect the damage susceptibility of the CPE.

Estimating the resource intensity of the Internet: A meta-model to account for cloud-based services in LCA

According to an analysis by the International Energy Agency based on industry data from cisco, the internet protocol (IP) data traffic has more than doubled in 2019 compared to 2016. In addition to an increased number of people and devices with internet access, new trends on the application level can be identified as drivers of this exponential growth. Carsharing, Industry 4.0, or smart home applications are examples of the rising importance of the Internet within new product systems. Therefore, it is indispensable for environmental analyses to account for both, the positive and negative effects of increased internet usage. The existing approaches to account for the resource consumption of information and communication technology (ICT) equipment have different system boundaries or focus exclusively on energy intensity, what offers the basis for further development.This paper provides a new approach for the life cycle assessment of cloud-based services. The presented meta-model accounts for different access technologies and physical topologies. It is based on a literature analysis of bottom-up studies focusing on the energy intensity of the Internet. Furthermore, a new approach is being developed to integrate the carbon intensity of the manufacture of the used network equipment. The meta-model is applied to selected case studies, which reveal the high relevance of customer premise equipment and data centers in the use stage, whereas data centers seem to be the dominating element concerning the manufacturing stage.

A compact ultra-wideband crossed-dipole antenna for 2G/3G/4G/IMT/5G customer premise equipment applications

A compact ultra-wideband crossed-dipole antenna for 2G/3G/4G/IMT/5G customer premise equipment applications

Identification of Most Influential Parameters for Interactive Communication using DOE Technique

Multimedia applications and platforms are widely being accepted in industry, business and academia as an alternative to classical communication equipment and techniques. Applications and platforms like distance learning, video conferencing, instant messaging, on-demand entertainment and group collaborations are the general usage areas. Advancement in the multimedia industry evolved around the development of infrastructure for delivery and algorithms for content compression. Though, end to end quality is not only affected by such factors. Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) and their particular configurations also play a vital role in the customer’s perceived quality i.e. Quality of Experience (QoE). An effort was required to identify the most influential parameters affecting an interactive communication application. Experiments conducted using Design of Experiment (DOE) technique which helped in the sensitivity analysis. In this study, three parameters Resolution Limit (RL), Scaling Factor (SF) and Frames per Seconds (FPS) were identified from the literature. The experiment was conducted in a controlled environment as per the L9 orthogonal array. Correlation and Fleiss Kappa were used for data validation whereas Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) analysis was performed to identify the most influential parameter. SNR analysis helped us conclude that FPS is the most influential parameter that affects video quality at the CPE.

Estimating PQoS of Video Conferencing on Wi-Fi Networks Using Machine Learning

Video conferencing services based on web real-time communication (WebRTC) protocol are growing in popularity among Internet users as multi-platform solutions enabling interactive communication from anywhere, especially during this pandemic era. Meanwhile, Internet service providers (ISPs) have deployed fiber links and customer premises equipment that operate according to recent 802.11ac/ax standards and promise users the ability to establish uninterrupted video conferencing calls with ultra-high-definition video and audio quality. However, the best-effort nature of 802.11 networks and the high variability of wireless medium conditions hinder users experiencing uninterrupted high-quality video conferencing. This paper presents a novel approach to estimate the perceived quality of service (PQoS) of video conferencing using only 802.11-specific network performance parameters collected from Wi-Fi access points (APs) on customer premises. This study produced datasets comprising 802.11-specific network performance parameters collected from off-the-shelf Wi-Fi APs operating at 802.11g/n/ac/ax standards on both 2.4 and 5 GHz frequency bands to train machine learning algorithms. In this way, we achieved classification accuracies of 92–98% in estimating the level of PQoS of video conferencing services on various Wi-Fi networks. To efficiently troubleshoot wireless issues, we further analyzed the machine learning model to correlate features in the model with the root cause of quality degradation. Thus, ISPs can utilize the approach presented in this study to provide predictable and measurable wireless quality by implementing a non-intrusive quality monitoring approach in the form of edge computing that preserves customers’ privacy while reducing the operational costs of monitoring and data analytics.

Performance Evaluation of MGfast Systems Over Coaxial Cables

A trend for the 5th generation fixed broadband access networks is to provide data rates as high as 10 Gbps to the subscribers. Since fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) connectivity is still expensive, the use of alternative architectures is attractive in some scenarios. In this context, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is standardizing the MGfast access technology to provide multi-gigabit transmission over copper media. This paper evaluates the performance of MGfast systems adopting RG-59, RG-6 and RG-11 coaxial cables as interface between the distribution point units (DPUs) and the customer premises equipment (CPE). The operation mode of MGfast is assumed to be synchronized time division duplexing (STDD) and a simple loading method for power allocation is employed. Simulation results show that, for loop lengths less than 100 m, data rate as high as 11 Gbps can be achieved using a transmission profile that goes up to 848 MHz. Assuming a profile that goes up to 1696 MHz, the data rates can be as high as 23 Gbps.

A Case Study: Broadband Over Powerline for Rural Area Deployment in Sarawak

Broadband over powerline (BPL) is a technology that allows connectivity to internet connection riding via the low tension (LT) power line communication (PLC). A hybrid BPL technology was proposed to the rural area of Sarawak as an alternative option to expand the internet connection without the need to reform a new pathway for internet connectivity. The data signal is transmitted via a communication tower to the access point(s) that is mounted on an electricity pole that provides a low voltage (LV) line. There are three types of custom-designed equipment that has been integrated into the hybrid BPL: the Head End (HE), the Time Division Repeater (TDR) and the Customer Premise Equipment (CPE). Two longhouses at the Bawang Assan, Sarawak settlement has been chosen to initiate the pilot project that required the cooperation of the technology provider, power producer, and the internet service provider. This paper presents a proof of concept (POC) on the deployment, advantages, and limitations for the BPL in a rural setting.

Deep Learning Assisted Fixed Wireless Access Network Coverage Planning

Wireless network coverage planning is crucial for mobile network operators and fixed wireless network providers to estimate the performance of their networks and plan future antenna mast deployments. To generate accurate coverage maps for target buildings, traditional wireless coverage planning tools either require manual input of Customer-Premises Equipment (CPE) antenna locations or need to compute received signal strength from nearby Access Points (APs) to all geolocations in the area of interest which consumes computational resource unnecessarily. In this paper we propose a Deep Learning (DL) based universal enhancement to wireless coverage planning tools which automatically extracts potential CPE antenna locations from aerial images of the target buildings. We evaluate the performance of the pixel level object detection provided by Mask Region-based Convolutional Neural Network (Mask R-CNN) trained on an image dataset with suburban and rural residential properties across North Yorkshire, UK. We also demonstrate a complete task flow to generate informative building coverage reports while combining the DL based building detection with the WISDM industrial wireless coverage planning system.

Enabling Sector Scheduling for 5G-CPE Dense Networks

5G customer premise equipment (5G-CPE) is an IoT gateway technology that integrates 5G and Wi-Fi and therefore can provide Wi-Fi connection for IoT devices and meanwhile benefit from the advantages of 5G. With the increasing number of IoT devices, transmission collisions and hidden/exposed terminal problems on the Wi-Fi connection side become more and more serious. Conventional mechanisms cannot solve these problems well. In this paper, we propose a Wi-Fi sector (Wi-FiS) design, which is compatible with Wi-Fi, to solve them fundamentally. Wi-FiS divides the whole coverage area of Wi-Fi into multiple sectors and utilizes beamforming technology and sector-based scheduling to improve system performance of Wi-Fi dense networks. For a single-cell network, Wi-FiS differentiates uplink and downlink operations and totally excludes collision in downlink. For a multicell network, Wi-FiS can avoid hidden and exposed terminal problems, while enabling parallel transmissions among multiple cells. We then develop a theoretical model to analyze Wi-FiS’s throughput. Extensive simulations verify that our theoretical model is very accurate and Wi-FiS can improve system throughput of Wi-Fi dense networks significantly.

LTE massive MIMO (Pre-5G) test with an updated boat user terminal solution for land-to-boat scenarios in Oslo fjord

Autonomous shipping is considered to be one of the most important technologies in the maritime industry. Remote control of autonomous shipping is supported by communication solutions featuring long coverage, high throughput and low latency. Since 2018, together with the Norwegian Internet Service Provider (ISP) Telia, we have performed tests with a massive MIMO (Pre-5G) LTE base station, using the 3.7 GHz band, in Horten close to the Oslo fjord. The first Pre-5G tests with user terminal mounted on a 40 feet sailboat performed in 2018, showed great potential for maritime applications in terms of throughputs [1]. The Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) used in 2018 was a LTE Pre-5G terminal from Telia for fixed LAN use, and a modified version of it in 2019. However, since both the base station and the user terminal/CPE are not originally designed and optimized for maritime radio propagation environments, the test results in 2018 unveiled that a CPE designed for land usage experienced limited coverage and instability caused by received unstable signal level. Since 2019, a new user terminal prototype dedicated and optimized for maritime propagation conditions, was designed by Super Radio AS. This new CPE was tested in autumn 2019 under the similar setups as in 2018. The test results of the Reference Signal Receive Power and throughput are analysed and compared the test results in 2018. The comparison proved that the new user terminal solution showed considerable improvement with respect to stability and throughputs in the harsh maritime environments, which means that the new designed solution can be a potential maritime terminal solution for the remote control of autonomous shipping. The prototypes mounted at different places of the sailboat also show different system performances at the same TX-RX distances, which indicates the potential of exploiting the system diversity in the similar propagation environments.

Virtualization of customer equipment: Challenges and opportunities

Emerging concepts such as Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Network Slicing have been pushing new and flexible ways for providers to manage their services through the simplification of the hardware, allowing a faster deployment of new services and the optimization of their capital and operational expenses. Accordingly, the customer premises equipment (CPE) used at the customer site for his/her access to the network has been changing its paradigm in order to allow both customers and providers to benefit from virtualization. In this paper we review the latest developments and proposals on the CPE virtualization, discussing its challenges and opportunities, as well as point out for future directions.

RoIP Compression Method in Burst Noise Upstream Environment for CATV Network

A hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network uses both optical fibers and coaxial cables for cable TV networks. Coaxial cables are mainly used for access networks. Recently, fiber to the home (FTTH) is being widely deployed. For cable TV companies to utilize readily deployed FTTH, legacy coax network-based customer premise equipment (CPE) such as cable modems and set top boxes may have to be replaced with fiber network based CPE. In order to reduce the expenditure incurred in this process, radio over Internet Protocol (RoIP) technology has been proposed. In the RoIP system, RF signal for coax generated by legacy CPE toward the headend is first sampled, and digitized, and then encapsulated in IP packets, which are then sent to the headend using FTTH access technologies such as passive optical network (PON). In the process of digitizing RF signal, a huge amount of data much more than the base band data is generated. So, a data compression method is required to lower the upstream bit rate maintaining the signal quality. Most compression methods are significantly degraded due to the interference caused by burst noise in the upstream link. Therefore, this paper proposes a new compression method which combines linear predictive coding (LPC), block scaling and non-linear quantization for CATV upstream links. The proposed method is demonstrated to greatly reduce the impact of burst noise while maintaining the compression performance.

Isolation Improvement of Two Tightly Coupled Antennas Operating in Adjacent Frequency Bands Using Filtering Structures

In this paper, a mutual coupling reduction technique using filtering structures between two antennas resonating in adjacent frequency bands is proposed. Two patch antennas resonating at low band (4.8-5.0 GHz, part of 5G Band N79) and high band (5.15-5.35 GHz, part of IEEE 802.11 ax 5 GHz Band), which are close to each other in frequency spectrum, are used as an illustrative example. The decoupling structure consists of two open-loop resonators with filtering function coupled to the feed line on its edges. By loading the filtering structures, the isolation between the two antennas is improved from poorer than 15 dB to more than 25 dB when the reflection coefficients are still satisfactory in their respective operating frequency bands, showing significant improvements compared to the reference antennas where no filtering structures are introduced. The proposed method can be easily applied to either mobile terminal or 5G CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) devices where both 5G and Wi-Fi are installed as well as many other antennas with similar application scenarios.