Letter from the Editor

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. It’s a complex relationship, and it’s never wholly apparent which direction the causal arrow is pointing. Back when ragtime singers were crooning about their wishes for a smooch from a different sweetie, such an idea was laughable. Now they’d be able to FaceTime their darling and connect from afar. Which would hopefully quench that heart. No one likes heartburn.

And think of the differences in the physical network between the last year of the 19th century when that song was written and the network today. Heck, think of the differences between the network in the last year of the 20th century and the network today. The explosion of wireless networks, fiber, cable broadband, and countless other network developments has been staggering. It’s a brave new network.

This month, we take a look at the new network and explore the delicate interplay between what subscribers want and what CSPs can deliver. We check out the challenges of data capacity crunches, and also look at how CSPs are attempting to reign in the costs of fiber deployments. We explore the potential of self-organizing networks, as well as the impact of the growing push for all-IP environments. We look into the impact of Diameter signaling and examine the impacts of current trends like Smart Grid and carrier WiFi.

We hope you enjoy, and as always, feel free to let us know what you think of this and every issue at editor@pipelinepub.com. Send us your thoughts by wire.

Best,

Tim Young, Editor-in-Chief