An increasing adoption of digital signal processing (DSP) in optical fiber telecommunication has brought to the fore several interesting DSP enabled modulation formats. One such format is orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), which has seen great success in wireless and wired RF applications, and is being actively investigated by several research groups for use in optical fiber telecom. In this dissertation, I present three implementations of OFDM for elastic optical networking and distributed network control. The first is a field programmable gate array (FPGA) based real-time implementation of a version of OFDM conventionally known as intensity modulation and direct detection (IMDD) OFDM. I experimentally demonstrate the ability of this transmission system to dynamically adjust bandwidth and modulation format to meet networking constraints in an automated manner. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first real-time software defined networking (SDN) based control of an OFDM system. In the second OFDM implementation, I experimentally demonstrate a novel OFDM transmission scheme that supports both direct detection and coherent detection receivers simultaneously using the same OFDM transmitter. This interchangeable receiver solution enables a trade-off between bit rate and equipment cost in network deployment and upgrades. I show that the proposed transmission scheme can provide a receiver sensitivity improvement of up to 1.73 dB as compared to IMDD OFDM. I also present two novel polarization analyzer based detection schemes, and study their performance using experiment and simulation. In the third implementation, I present an OFDM pilot-tone based scheme for distributed network control. The first instance of an SDN-based OFDM elastic optical network with pilot-tone assisted distributed control is demonstrated. An improvement in spectral efficiency and a fast reconfiguration time of 30 ms have been achieved in this experiment. Finally, I experimentally demonstrate optical re-timing of a 10.7 Gb/s data stream utilizing the property of bound soliton pairs (or "soliton molecules") to relax to an equilibrium temporal separation after propagation through a nonlinear dispersion alternating fiber span. Pulses offset up to 16 ps from bit center are successfully re-timed. The optical re-timing scheme studied here is a good example of signal processing in the optical domain and such a technique can overcome the bandwidth bottleneck present in DSP. An enhanced version of this re-timing scheme is analyzed using numerical simulations.

Thesis (MBA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / The ability to bring products to market which comply with quality, cost and development time goals is vital to the survival of firms in a competitive environment. New product development comprises knowledge creation and search and can be organised in different ways. New product development requires the close collaboration of virtually all functions within a company. The existence of an effective cross-functional team, with clearly-defined objectives, is thus critical to the successful development of any new product. Furthermore, the success of new products depends mainly on the new product development process. The purpose of this research study is to review literature on new product development processes and the effect it has on organisational performance and also to take a critical look at the new product development and implementation (NPD & I) process applied in Telecom Namibia (TN). This study also provides insights to various TN stakeholders, particularly senior management and relevant individuals involved in product development, enabling individuals to recognise the role product development plays towards sustainability of the company. The study also provides a working guide for managers to identify opportunities for improving the new product development (NPD) process. The primary research objective is to critically audit the effect of new product development processes on TN’s performance. The secondary research objective is to develop frameworks and methodologies for guiding the development of effective strategies that have been tested in numerous businesses. A major finding of this study is that the success of new products depends mainly on the new product development process and that it has a major impact on organisational performance.

Avec l'arrivée de l'époque de l'économie informatique, la société présente une demande et un besoin plus exigeants sur le secteur de télécommunication. Depuis les années 1980s, les réformes du marché mondial de la télécommunication s'orientent vers l'introduction de la régulation, la favorisation de la concurrence et la privatisation. Cependant, le marché de télécommunication chinois suit toujours le mode de gestion traditionnelle, c'est-à-dire monopolisent les entreprises d'état influencées elles-mêmes par le gouvernement. Le retard des réformes freine le développement de cette industrie et l'état malsain, dans lequel coexistent le prix trop élevé, le service peu satisfaisant et le chiffre d'affaires non suffisant, exige plus d'ouverture. Par rapport à beaucoup d'autres secteurs, celui de la télécommunication influence de façon plus profonde et stratégique le développement complet, cohérent et durable de l'économie chinoise. Par conséquent, les réformes de ce secteur attirent beaucoup d'attention. En plus, comme l'industrie de télécommunication a connu très tôt les réformes orientées vers le marché et qu'elle a donc un système relativement complet, ses prochains réformes seront pour les autres secteurs un exemple et une référence. Le présent travail s'intéresse ainsi aux réformes de l'industrie de télécommunication chinoise, ainsi que les performances qu'ils entraînent. C'est un sujet qui est non seulement significatif et crutial pour le développement cohérent de la société économique chinoise, mais aussi nécessaire et imminent pour une réponse. Le présent travail comprend six chapitres dont le contenu et la structure sont suivants : premièrement, la thèse suit l'ordre "caractéristiques - concurrence - régulation - réformes", et basé sur les théories de monopolisation naturelle, de concurrence effective et d'organisation industrielle, elle met en ordre et analyse la création, le développement et la mutation de l'industrie de télécommunication moderne de Chine, ce qui constituera le fondement théorique pour la recherche sur les performances des réformes de l'industrie de télécommunication chinoise. Deuxièmement, en tenant compte de l'impact des facteurs institutionnels sur l'organisation industrielle, la présente thèse met en avant un cadre d'évaluation RSCP (règlement-structure-comportement-performances), qui a pour objectif d'établir une concurrence effective dans les réformes du secteur de télécommunication de la Chine. Troisièmement, le présent travail divise, de manière chronologique, le parcours des réformes du secteur de télécommunication en 4 étapes (depuis le début de la réforme et l'ouverture de la Chine) : gestion monopolistique, soutien politique, introduction des concurrences et concurrences complètes préliminaires. En analysant la situation actuelle de la réforme du secteur de télécommunication de la Chine, la thèse tente d'évaluer ensuite ses performances. La thèse calcule à la fin l'indice des performances des réformes du secteur de télécommunication de la Chine et effectue ensuite une analyse statistique et des tests d'hypothèses basés sur le modèle de régression linéaire multiple. Le résultat montre que les réformes orientées vers le marché du secteur de télécommunication de la chine favorise, dans une certaine mesure, le développement de l'industrie chinoise de télécommunication, réduit efficacement les dépenses en services, augmente le nombre d'utilisateurs, et optimise la structure des services de télécommunications. En même temps, l'étude constate également que la qualité et la capacité du service doivent encore être améliorées. / With the advent of information economy people all over the world have a higher and more extensive demand on the communications industry. Since the 1980s there has emerged a dominant trend in countries around the world to deregulate the telecom industry and introduce market-oriented reforms. Up until the 1980s the Chinese telecom industry was still monopolized by the government and the country’s market-oriented reforms in the industry lagged behind many other rapidly developing nations. The problem of high expense, low service quality, and insufficient service capacity made it urgent to open up the Chinese telecom market. Compared to other competitive industries it can be said that the telecom industry comprehensively and strategically influences the overall harmonious and sustainable development of a national economy. Reform in the telecom industry covers a wide range of areas and is closely associated with the national welfare and people’s livelihood. As such it attracts great attention from the public at large. Compared to other industries in China whichare also regulated by the government, China’s telecom industry (the first to carry our market-oriented reforms in the country) is relatively mature as such it can be said that its future reform provides a reference point for market-oriented reforms in other industries as well in the country. Taking this fact into consideration the present thesis chooses market-oriented reforms and the performance of that reform in China’s telecom industry as our research objective. We consider this to be an essential element for the harmonious economic and social development of modern China. It is therefore an urgent issue to be addressed. The whole thesis consists of six chapters and its main content and structure are as follows: Taking into account the characteristics of competition – regulation – reform as a starting point, the thesis utilizes natural monopoly theory, effective competition theory, and industrial organization theory as the conceptual and theoretical basis for our work.It reviews previous work completed in the area then conducts an in-depth analysis of the foundation, development, and characteristics of modern telecom industry, laying atheoretical foundation for studying the performance of market-oriented reform in China’s telecom industry. Secondly, taking into consideration the impact of institutional factors on industrialorganization, the present thesis puts forward a regulation–structure–conduct –performance (RSCP) theoretical framework based on China’s national conditions and takes effective competition as the goal of China’s telecom industry reform. Thirdly, the thesis groups, in a chronological manner, China’s telecom reform into four different phases (since the beginning of the reform and opening up of the economy) which have been identified as: monopoly operation, policy support, introducing competition, and preliminary perfect competition. It then conducts an analysis of the reform background, reform procedure, and reform measures. By analyzing the current situation in China’s telecom industry reform, the thesis attempts to evaluate the performance of the reform in China’s telecom industry. The thesis then calculates the performance index of China’s telecom industry reform and conducts a statistical analysis and hypothesis testing based on correlation analysis and multiple linear regression models respectively. The result shows that market-oriented reform in China’s telecom industry, to some degree, promotes the development of China’s telecom industry, effectively reduces the expenses in telecom services, boosts the number of telecom service users, and optimizes telecom service structure. These positive developments notwithstanding, the study also finds that service quality and capacity are yet to be significantly improved in China’s telecomindustry.

This paper studies five mergers in the European wireless telecommunication industry and analyzes their impact on prices and capital expenditures of both merging carriers and their rivals. We find substantial heterogeneity in the relationship between increases in concentration and carriers' prices. The specifics of each merger case clearly matter. Moreover, we find a positive correlation between the price and the investment effect; when the prices after a merger increase (decrease), the investments increase (decrease) too. Thus, we document a trade-off between static and dynamic efficiency of mergers.

Titel: Service Recovery inom telekombranschen - Hantering av eWOM Nivå: C-uppsats inom företagsekonomi Författare: Allan Mohammad & Jens Olsson Handledare: Akmal Hyder & Michelle Rydback Datum: 2019 - juni Syfte: Syftet är att analysera hur telekomföretag hanterar negativ eWOM genom arbetet med Service Recovery. Metod: Studien präglas av en kvalitativ forskningsmetod där datainsamlingen utgörs av tio semistrukturerade intervjuer som sedan bearbetats. Resultat & slutsats: Utifrån studien framgår det att de tillfrågade butikscheferna inom telekombranschen inte har specifika riktlinjer och strategier för att hantera negativ eWOM utan att det hanteras mer centralt inom företaget av andra avdelningar. Studien visar att butikscheferna lägger stor vikt på att skapa förståelse för kunder och utformar hanteringen av deras missnöje därefter. Studien visar också att negativ eWOM kan ha en positiv påverkan på företag då de kan korrigera arbetssättet för att få färre missnöjda kunder. Studiens bidrag: Studien bidrar till forskning inom området marknadsföring eftersom den ger en ökad förståelse för hur telekomföretag i Sverige hanterar negativ eWOM. Det praktiska bidraget är att studien kan underlätta för telekomföretag genom förslag på nya strategier för att hantera negativ eWOM och effektivisera Service Recovery-processen. Förslag till vidare forskning: Forskningen kan fördjupas genom att utgå från ett kundperspektiv. I studien ges en kortfattad beskrivning av kundens perspektiv. Studien utgår huvudsakligen från ett företagsperspektiv. Ett kundperspektiv kan bidra till att studien ses ur en ny synvinkel och kan därmed stärka studiens resultat. Ett förslag är också att utvidga den geografiska avgränsningen för ett generaliserbart resultat. / Title: Service Recovery in the telecom business - Handling of eWOM Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration Author: Allan Mohammad & Jens Olsson Supervisor: Akmal Hyder & Michelle Rydback Date: 2019 - June Aim: The purpose of the study is to analyze how telecom companies handle negative eWOM through Service Recovery. Method: The study is characterized by a qualitative research method and the data collection consists of ten semi-structured interviews, which have been processed later on. Result & conclusions: The conclusion of the study is that store managers in the telecom industry do not have specific guidelines and strategies for managing negative eWOM. Negative eWOM is handled by other departments within the company. The study shows that store managers place their emphasis on creating understanding of customer needs and approach customer dissatisfaction based upon customer needs. The study also shows that negative eWOM can have a positive impact on companies as they can develop working methods to get fewer dissatisfied customers. Contribution: The study contributes to research in the field of marketing as it provides an increased understanding of how telecom companies in Sweden handle negative eWOM. The practical contribution is that the study can make it easier for telecom companies by proposing new strategies to handle negative eWOM and streamline the Service Recovery-process. Suggestions for future research: We believe that the research can be deepened by viewing the situation from a customer perspective. In this study, we have provided a short description of the customer perspective. The main focus is the business perspective. The customer perspective can contribute to a new point of view and can thus strengthen the result. For further research, we also suggest that researchers expand the geographical boundaries to generalize the result.

Durante as décadas de 50 e 60, muitas empresas norte-americanas iniciaram um processo intenso de diversificação. Este processo atingiu seu ponto máximo com mais uma onda de fusões do final da década de 60 e que culminou com o surgimento de conglomerados corporativos gigantes. Nos últimos 15 anos, a tendência tem se revertido como mostra os recentes estudos de COMMENT e JARREL (1994), BERGER e OFEK (1995) e LIEBESKIND e OPLER (1993), que documentam o retorno à especialização. Este movimento em direção à especialização aparentemente resultou da visão de que diversificação de empresas não-correlacionadas diminui o valor da empresa. Argumentos teóricos sugerem que a diversificação tem tanto efeito de aumentar o valor da empresa como de diminuir. Os benefícios potenciais de se operar diferentes linhas de negócio como se fossem uma única empresa incluem maior eficiência operacional, menor possibilidade de perder projetos com valor presente líquido positivo, maior capacidade de alavancagem financeira e menores impostos. Os custos potenciais da diversificação incluem o uso de recursos em projetos que diminuem o valor da empresa, subsídios entre unidades de negócios que permitem unidades com baixo desempenho se aproveitarem dos recursos gerados por unidades com alto desempenho e conflito de interesse entre os executivos das unidades de negócio e da corporação. Não há predições claras sobre o efeito global da diversificação no valor da empresa. Foram utilizados dados de unidades de negócio para estimar o efeito da diversificação no valor das empresas no setor de telecomunicações da economia norte-americana. Comparou-se a soma das unidades de negócio diversificadas com valores imputados pelo modelo com os seus valores reais dentro das corporações a que pertencem. As empresas diversificadas tiveram seus valores em média, durante o período de 1990-99, entre 0,2% e 6,4% acima dos valores imputados pelo modelo. O trabalho está dividido da seguinte forma: o capítulo 1 apresenta o problema de pesquisa, mostrando sua origem e importância; o capítulo 2 revisa a fundamentação teórica e detalha alguns resultados de estudos anteriores sobre os efeitos da diversificação; capítulo 3 descreve a amostra utilizada e o modelo de pesquisa aplicado; o capítulo 4 mostra os efeitos da diversificação nas empresas do setor de telecomunicações do mercado norte-americano entre os anos de 1990 e 1999; o capítulo 5 apresenta as considerações finais com sugestões de novos estudos sobre este assunto. / During the 1950s and ´60s many US corporations undertook massive diversification programs. This process reached its climax with the merger wave of the late 1960s and the accompanying rise to prominence of huge conglomerate firms. In the last 15 years the trends has reversed, with studies by COMMENT and JARREL (1994), BERGER and OFEK (1995) and LIEBESK and OPLER (1993) documenting a return to specialization. This push toward focus apparently resulted from the view that unrelated diversification decreases firm value. Theoretical arguments suggest that diversification has both value-enhancing and value-reducing effects. The potential benefits of operating different lines of business within one firm include greater operating efficiency, less incentive to forego positive net present value projects, greater debt capacity, and lower taxes. The potential costs of diversification include the use of increased discretionary resources to undertake value-decreasing investments, cross subsidies that allow poor segments to drain resources from better-performing segments, and misalignment of incentives between central and divisional managers. There is no clear prediction about the overall value effect of diversification. In this study, it was used segment-level data to estimate the valuation effect of diversification on US Telecom companies. It was compared the sum of imputed stand-alone values of the segments of diversified companies to the actual values of those companies. It was documented that diversified firms have values that average, during 1990-99, 0,3% to 6,4% above the sum of the imputed values of their segments. Chapter 1 describes the main goal of this study and its genesis. Chapter 2 reviews the related literature and details the predicting resulting from prior theoretical work. Chapter 3 describes the sample and explains the empirical approach. Chapter 4 assesses the overall value effect of diversification using imputed segment values and a comparison of profitability between diversified and single-segment firms. Finally, Chapter 5 describes the final considerations about the diversification’s effect on firm value.

Telecom service providers are adopting a Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) based service delivery model, in response to the unprecedented traffic growth and an increasing customers demand for new high-quality network services. In NFV, telecom network functions are virtualized and run on top of commodity servers. Ensuring network performance equivalent to the legacy non-virtualized system is a determining factor for the success of telecom networks virtualization. Whereas in virtualized systems, achieving carrier-grade network performance such as low latency, high throughput, and high availability to guarantee the quality of experience (QoE) for customer is challenging. In this thesis, we focus on addressing the latency challenge. We investigate the delay overhead of virtualization by comprehensive network performance measurements and analysis in a controlled virtualized environment. With this, a break-down of the latency incurred by the virtualization and the impact of co-locating virtual machines (VMs) of different workloads on the end-to-end latency is provided. We exploit this result to develop an optimization model for placement and provisioning of the virtualized telecom network functions to ensure both the latency and cost-efficiency requirements. To further alleviate the latency challenge, we propose a multipath transport protocol MDTCP, that leverage Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to quickly detect and react to an incipient congestion to minimize queuing delays, and achieve high network utilization in telecom datacenters. / HITS, 4707

現今小規模電信業者面臨因應不同的生命週期而出現不同的經營問題，或許併購是可值得思考的一種方式，但並不是絕對解決方式，重點是要找出對企業最有價值的策略。如何進行併購？需思考適合企業本身的方式，才能將併購後之綜效發揮至極大，故完善的評估作業，是小規模電信業者在併購前必作的課題。 本研究試針對小規模新進電信業者，研討可能透過的併購方式，使企業有增加企業價值及成長機會。其可能選擇之併購型態、併購動機(包含營運綜效、市場綜效、財務綜效、稅務綜效)及併購後可能產生之負面影響分別就問卷，訪談及個案分析找出最適合小規模電信業者併購策略方式。 研究發現台灣大哥大及遠傳電信在合併過程中都屬於主併者、同源式併購、併購雙方而言皆為合意併購。於提升品牌競爭力、增加經濟規模及範疇以及有效運用資源上有明顯之效果，但就市場綜效及財務綜效短期內並不明顯。另外根據問卷及訪談也發現大部分受訪者認為小規模業者應考慮作為「被併者」而非「主併者」，合併策略以「水平式」及「合意」方式為佳。合併之營運綜效前三名排名分別為「增加市場佔有率(用戶數)」、「增加生存能力」、「增加經濟規模」，市場綜效前三名為「可提升網路涵蓋率」、「可提高市場談判籌碼，進而降低進貨成本」、「可創造更多新用戶」。財務綜效前三名為「可改善財務結構」、「可提升股價」、「可增加其現金流量與穩定性」。至於稅務綜效則分別來自於利息費用可產生之稅盾以及小規模業者之虧損可作為合併個體所得稅之抵減項目。最後，調查中也發現併購後可能會因企業文化相異，導致企業人才流失，資源重覆投資，或因整合不易，導致營運成本增加。關鍵字：併購、小規模電信業者 / Currently, in Taiwan small telecom operators were facing different life cycles as well as operating issuing. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is a possible way which is worth to consider, but should not be the ultimately way, because the main point is to identify the most valuable strategy for the operators. How to make a successful M&A? Small telecom operators (STO) should identify an appropriate way for their own to achieve the maximum benefit for M&A. Therefore, a complete evaluation M&A is a very important topic for STO before merger. This study concentrates on M&A of STO, and tries to analyze the possible ways for STO to increase corporate value and growth opportunities through M&A. The research uses questionnaires, interview and case study approaches to analyze types of M&A, motivations of M&A (including synergy of operating, marketing, financial and tax effectiveness) and possible negative impacts after M&A. The case study finds that both Taiwan Mobile and Far East Tone Telecommunications in the M&A process were "the main acquirers", the type of M&A is "homologous-type merger" and "friendly takeover merger ". The both cases also indicat that the brand competitiveness improvement, increasing economies of scale and scope, and effectiveness of resources using have significant effects, but the effects of market synergy and financial synergy are not so obvious in the short term. In addition, questionnaires and interviews also suggested that most of respondents believe that the small telecom operators should consider to be "acquired firm" instead of "acquiring firm" "horizontal" and "friendly takeover" are the better M&A strategies for STO. The top three operating synergies were "increasing market share (number of subscribers) ", "increasing the survivability", and "increasing the economics of scale". The top three market synergies are "improving network coverage", "enhancing bargaining power and reducing purchasing costs", and "creating more new subscribers". The top three financial synergies are "improving financial structure", "increasing stock price", and "increasing cash flow and its stability". Synergy of tax is coming from the "tax shield", which is result from interest expenses and operating loss for STO, respectively. Finally, the study also finds that the negative post merger effects include corporate culture change which increases employees’ turnover rate, duplicate investment, and increasing operating costs due to difficult integration. Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions, Small Telecom Operators

<p>As the competition is increasing both nationally and globally, the companies are looking for new ways to decrease costs and gain innovation. The latest hot topic is Open innovation (OI), which can be seen as the ultimate limit in terms of accessible expertise, since it makes no difference in valuing an idea in terms of its origin. The trend is that companies are increasingly acknowledging the relevance of external resources, engaging in OI rather than relying exclusively on internal research and development (Chesborough, 2006). There are many types of supplier relations and innovation networks that the companies can take part in, but OI can be seen more as an approach and mindset that should determine <em>how </em>the companies act, whether it’s a question of being more open for ideas from another department, or even towards a competitor company. The companies are often using different types of collaborations and strategy and, potentially, trying to move up “the scale” towards OI.  With this thesis work I propose that there are many different aspects that the companies have to be aware of when moving up the scale from in-house development towards global OI. In reality, not many companies are taking the full advantage of OI, nonetheless knows the perquisites for doing so. OI may be the trend for development of companies, but today the nature of this is complex as companies are using different layers of the supplier and collaboration types in different parts of the organization. The success stories which Chesborough uses to exemplify the concept of OI do not address the grey area, or place on a scale, where many companies are situated in. This study will therefore explore the complexity in managing these collaborations that is not so present in the literature. How do you manage a collaboration that includes supplier relation, partnership and a want for OI at the same time? This means that there has to be a selection on which projects to collaborate with, as well as strategies for collaborating in a more innovative way and the steps that needs to be taken to get there.  In this thesis I am going to use this broad definition of innovation:</p><p>Innovation is the total set of activities leading to the introduction of something new, resulting in strengthening the defendable competitive advantage of a company. (van der Meer, 1996)</p><p>My partner company in this study is a global Telecom company (DU Technology) who would like to learn more about this and improve their collaboration with an Indian Service provider (ITC). These companies will be used as a case study to provide an example on how complex the movement towards OI can be, and what it demands from the companies to succeed. As the companies are working in a global context, I will also highlight the importance of an understanding for the cultural differences that affects collaboration and how to manage these when they are not a part of your own company. <em></em></p>

<p>Background: In today’s highly competitive business environment, knowledge is viewed as a key strategic resource. The privatization process of telecom operators in different countries created a demand in telecom management skills, and Swedish companies like Swedtel AB became involved in exporting and transferring their knowledge and management skills. </p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis paper is to identify all stages (from origins to final destination) of the Knowledge Transfer process and to contribute to the understanding about the mechanism of Knowledge Transfer between organizations.</p><p>Scope: This research is limited to the investigation of the transfer process of strategic management knowledge from consulting company Swedtel AB to privatized telecom companies in Lithuania (Lietuvos Telekomas) and Nicaragua (Enitel). </p><p>Results: Theoretical model of Knowledge Transfer was identified and tested. The model of this research was only partially supported: processes were identified in practice as described by the theory, however model required modifications in order to better reflect the reality.</p>