By: Tim Young
We all know the challenges of wireless data capacity in an era of exploding demand. A report just out from Amdocs indicates that 94 percent of service providers are planning for a
20-fold increase (or more) in the next five years. IP traffic is up everywhere, and even if the hyper-explosive growth rates of the past few years are cooling slightly, the growth that remains
is still exponential. What’s more, the data glut is coming from everywhere. Gone are the days when a few bandwidth hogs gobbled up most of the network capacity with P2P applications
and other such niche activity…
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By: Douglas A. Suriano
As operators move toward service-oriented, all-IP networks, they must expand their focus beyond data traffic and RAN signaling to also now include Diameter signaling. In other words, Diameter
communicates, “Every who, what, where, when and why question in the network,” as stated by Yankee Group’s Brian Partridge in his report, “Policy Exchange Controllers: Enriching Diameter
Signaling for LTE and IMS.” This represents a different mindset for operators, in that an increase in Diameter messages correlates with an increase in revenue-generating applications…
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By: Jesse Cryderman
If you are reading this story over a wireless connection, chances are it is being delivered by Wi-Fi. Whether by tablet, smartphone, laptop, PC, or connected television, when users are
stationary, which is 65 to 80 percent on average, Wi-Fi is king. These days, if you're anywhere near civilization, you are likely under the umbrella of Wi-Fi coverage. From small town America to
the Tube in London, to flights in between, communications service providers (CSPs) are beginning to cash in on the Wi-Fi revolution, and for many good reasons: Ubiquity: While 2G, 3G, and 4G
networks around the world operate on varying standards, Wi-Fi is the same in Santorini, Greece as it is in Seoul, Korea…
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By: Jesse Cryderman
For many years now, telecom industry pundits have heralded the all-IP network of the future with messianic fervor. The one-network-to-rule-all-networks promises to flatten all competing
transfer protocols and standards into a single, packet-based passageway that is separate from the access technology. Its foretold gifts will eviscerate expenses and create ubiquitous service
experiences across all platforms. There's only one problem: it's still not here. Are we waiting for a fairy tale, or is the Next-Generation Network (NGN) any closer today than it has been in the
past? With the rapid rollout of LTE networks, the promise of VoLTE, and the move to DOCSIS 3…
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By: Renee Stromberg
Communications service providers (CSPs) need to continually provision, de-provision and reconfigure both services and network elements to optimize network performance, reliability and security
as well as sell business services to their customers. For those who manage this process the job is demanding, time-sensitive and prone to human error. Their ability to perform these continual
and often manual configuration tasks affects both revenue and expenses. What CSPs need is a way to automate the process in a way that optimizes speed, accuracy and reliability for all services and
network elements…
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By: Cyril Doussau, Vikas Trehan
Mobile network operators (MNOs) have recently seen a significant increase in network traffic as a result of subscribers’ dependence on mobile data services, presenting a considerable barrier to
sustaining MNOs’ bottom lines. In fact, according to Nielsen, 2011 saw an 89 percent increase in mobile data consumption. Mobile traffic is expected to grow even more over the next year, further
expanding the amount of network congestion that MNOs must proactively manage. Although not a recent development, this growth has forced MNOs to increase their network capacity by migrating their
TDM backhaul to Ethernet…
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By: Sam Sciacca
As utilities build more sophisticated power grids, they will require new, improved data networks for a variety of roles, many of which could be served by telecom providers. Because these
two industries have different market drivers and technology paths, they have had an uneasy history of collaboration. But developments on both sides have produced new opportunities. Having
worked with both sides, I can offer a sense of power utilities’ technical requirements, as well as insights on utility culture and a thumbnail history of how the power and telecom industries have
interacted over the years…
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By: Sunil Diaz
Consumers and carriers alike are excited at the pace of advancement of the Next Generation Network (NGN), but the buzz surrounding the evolution has far outshined the challenges with migration
from legacy networks to offering next generation network based services. Convergence in the telecom industry has also left many service providers scrambling to handle the increased complexity of
their own operations. However, help is on the way. There are enterprise solutions paving the way for service providers to more efficiently roll out services and become industry leaders – or Next
Generation Service Providers (NGSPs)…
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By: Becky Bracken
Fiber is the future, but it's a major hassle. Fiber is expensive, fragile, requires real estate, permits and takes time to deploy. But fiber is more important than ever. The delivery of LTE
wireless services will require fiber-fed towers. And as demand for data and the next generation of Communications and Entertainment (COMET) services continues to explode, wireless networks will
have trouble keeping pace. “Fiber is the only medium that truly future proofs a network,” fiber management company Clearfield, Inc…
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By: Becky Bracken
Net Neutrality asks a lot of networks. Tier 1 Internet backbone providers hold the digital age in the palm of their hand. Heavy stuff when you think about it. Each second, more of everyday
modern life is lived and recorded online. And just a few very powerful companies control it all--from world's economy to vacation snapshots. The internet, with its punk-rock, intellectual-anarchist
roots, is intended to provide every user with equal access to the world. It's that equal access that built the fortune of Ebay, which offered people in all corners of the world a global
storefront…
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By: Christopher Smith
This should be a golden time for telecoms service providers. Traffic volumes are rising inexorably, while ever-larger numbers of ever-more diverse types of device from smartphones to connected
TVs are being adopted around the globe. While things might seem rosy on the surface, the individual reality for many service providers is that they’re now confronting a world where profit margins
are being increasingly eroded, competition from all directions is getting continuously fiercer and maintaining customer satisfaction is getting harder by the day…
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By: Tim Young
“Hello ma baby, hello ma honey, hello ma ragtime gal. Send me a kiss by wire. Baby ma heart’s on fire. If you refuse me, honey you’ll lose me, and you’ll be left alone. Oh baby
telephone, and tell me I’m your own.” - “Hello! Ma Baby”, a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1899 (and probably most familiar to modern audiences as sung by Michigan J. Frog).For well over a
century now, the telecommunications network has been growing and evolving. As the network changes, subscriber behavior changes, and as that behavior changes, networks change further in
response…
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By: Jesse Cryderman
Industry in flux Earning and subscriber reports from major communications service providers (CSPs), vendors, and over-the-top (OTT) challengers illustrated a highly competitive industry that is
in flux. While the lead dogs in the US wireless market--Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint--all performed well in the second quarter and added new contract subscribers, smaller wireless service
providers did not fare so well. MetroPCS, Cricket (Leap Wireless), and US Cellular and T-Mobile reported a decline in subscriptions…
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