Businesses have realized tremendous efficiency gains with the advent of cloud-based services and mobile computing, driving down operational costs and creating unprecedented growth opportunity. However, these technologies, along with the arrival of the “app store economy” and the deployment of intelligent connected devices, are...
Multiprotocol label switching has been around for 20 years and has served the enterprise well as the go-to method for global connectivity. It’s popular as a response to business needs for reliable and predictable network performance across the wide area network. MPLS provides access...
When Forrester Research came out with a report claiming that traditional telcos could become an endangered species, many thought the industry was doomed for a swift decline. With increased changes in the market and commoditization around the services that telcos provide, the simple reality...
3.5 GHz spectrum rules create opportunities for equipment makers and service providers
The explosive growth in mobile broadband traffic and its concomitant strain on limited spectrum resources has required the Federal Communications Commission to engage in creative frequency allocation. To that end, the Commission...
With all the challenges facing mobile network operators around the world – increasing competition, diminishing average revenue per user, network management costs, demanding customers who want more bandwidth – it’s no surprise that mobile virtual network operators are taking flight. Indeed, even big names...
Just 10 years ago, enterprise technology was tied to a desktop or workstation, iPhones did not exist. Social collaboration meant instant messaging. Can you imagine a world today without mobile connectivity? Without the instantaneous access to information, or the inclusive social nature of mobile...
In this third of our “5G is coming!” series of articles, we look at the radio access network and its transformation projected in the “5G” era. As outlined in our first article, 5G is about supporting the Internet of everything and has therefore the...
IDC forecasts that the installed base of the “Internet of Things” will be approximately 212 billion “things” globally by the end of 2020, and that these Internet-connected devices will generate nearly $9 trillion in annual sales.
Make no mistake; IoT is here and it’s here...
In today’s world filled with cellphones, tablets and other smart devices, operators are on the hot seat to manage network services quickly in order to avoid a slow and overloaded network. Software-defined networking is generating a lot of attention, mainly as a tool to...
Earlier this month, my wife and I celebrated a special milestone: we met for the first time exactly 8,000 days ago in London (I was cooking tarragon chicken and, yes, the rest is history).
Counting the days feels like a strangely precise excuse for a...
Increasingly, enterprises want the rapid provisioning and elasticity, self-service capabilities and on-demand advantages of cloud applications and services. But, they also want enterprise-class security, availability and manageability. Unfortunately, many are finding that’s easier said than done.
On the one hand, enterprises trying to build their...
You know the saying, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” That’s exactly what first responders need to do in emergencies or developing events. They need to be able to act responsibly and quickly, streaming real-time, high-definition video to remote command and...
While there are many benefits to living and working in our always-on connected world, there is one downside for business: It takes a lot more to impress mobile consumers than it did just a few years ago.
Those awestruck early adopters who interacted with smartphone...
Smart city development is on the rise. In fact, the smart city market is set to experience a compound annual growth rate of 22.5% between 2014 and 2019, growing from roughly $411 billion to $1.13 trillion during that five-year period, according to MarketsandMarkets.
For example,...
If you were to talk to an average mobile phone user, “4G” LTE access and over-the-top applications would be at the top of the list in terms of what is required from the network operator and handset. We’ve heard for many years now that text messaging is...
As consumers, we’re delighted with each new wireless innovation that enters the market – like when we can take calls from a watch or when our children control their toy robot from a smartphone. As far as we’re concerned, the more connected the device,...
As mobile phones have become “smarter” over the past few years, they have also become essential to our everyday lives. Beyond merely connecting people, smartphones stream videos and music, monitor our health, manage finances and pay bills, and offer easy access points to the...
Since 2009, there has been a significant push to encrypt all Web traffic in order to protect Internet users against surveillance of the content of their communications. The goal was to transition from HTTP, which is notorious for being easy to manipulate, to the...
The bigger 5G bang will be in the network
In the first of our series of articles, “5G is coming: Wireless telecoms is dead, long live wireless IT,” we identified flexibility and simplification as two of the key cornerstones upon which future “5G” systems will...
How to manage mobility in a complex mobile world
Out of the gate, the Apple Watch was criticized as not actually doing much other than serving as a fashion accessory with some nifty configurations. Consumers and businesses alike felt that there weren’t that many practical...
What is the real promise of mobility in the enterprise? Is it the ability to read and respond to e-mails on the road? To dial into a conference call? To work from home?
These are all productivity enhancements, to be sure. But a key facet...
More millennials enter the consumer marketplace each year and their effect is drastically influencing a multitude of industries. Millennial consumers are mobile driven and hate not being able to engage with businesses on their terms. With the increased adoption of mobile devices, there has...
Now that we’re well into the 21st century, any business that wants to be taken seriously needs to start leveraging every digital tool available to it. If you don’t, rest assured one of your competitors will. They could easily leave you in the dust...
The cable business typically doesn’t feature high on lists of dynamic industries that rapidly adopt innovative new technologies in order to deliver compelling new products and stellar customer support.
Under the surface, however, cable operators are using virtualization technologies to achieve major changes in how...
