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Today’s assurance vs tomorrow’s assured networks, Part 1 (Reality Check)

Our networks have matured over the years, and as we roll into a new realm of 5G, we’re left revisiting, revising and even reinventing our approach to service level agreements (SLA) and assurance. Bluntly put, our current approach to SLA assurance is, well, not...

Sequans CEO rebuts analyst’s designation of Qualcomm as “king of IoT silicon” (Reality Check)

Editor's note: On June 22, RCR Wireless News published a contributed piece from analyst Mike Krell of James Brehm & Associates LLC titled "Analyst Angle: 5 reasons Qualcomm is soon to be anointed king of IoT silicon." Here the Georges Karam, president and CEO...

It is high time for IR sensor 2.0 – and this is why (Reality Check)

The IR sensor is a crucial component in many everyday products, ranging from medical equipment to mobile phones. But the technology is 50 years old and in serious need of an upgrade. The next generation IR sensor 2.0 for IoT will be much thinner...

Strong US TV and video market leads to controversial mobile network prioritization solutions (Reality Check)

Operators face the question of how to manage their networks in the face of strong domestic TV and video demands There are few things mobile operators do which are more controversial than prioritizing some types of network traffic over others or limiting the quality of...

The spectrum game and the millimeter wave challenge (Reality Check)

Spectrum is an operators’ money pit, and its cash cow, and 5G is unlikely to change that any time soon. But in the era of 5G, the focus will change from “how much” spectrum to “what kind”. The path to 5G commercial rollouts is...

Using an “ABC” approach for successful digital transformation (Reality Check)

In the present era, it may be difficult to imagine communication service providers (CSPs) not moving toward digital transformation in some way. The new evolving technology ecosystem, demanding customer preferences, and competitive threats present a new playground where CSPs can play. But while CSPs...

New business cases, technologies driving NB-IoT toward market acceptance (Reality Check)

With the announcements by three major U.S. telecom carriers this year, and significant activity taking place in China, narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) has come out of the shadows in a big way. The announcements by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile that they would be stepping up...

Are you really ready for 5G? (Reality Check)

Using AI-driven analytics to please customers and streamline operations in a 5G world Every day we’re being bombarded with emails, blogs, and vendor dissertations about 5G addressing everything from new media delivery to gigabit speed to mobile devices.  With seemingly limitless bandwidth possibilities, the value-add...

AI makes a better salesperson than a network engineer (Reality Check)

In the relatively rare instances that artificial intelligence is already part of a telecommunications network, it is generally there to optimize connectivity and the network itself. However, when deployed correctly an AI salesbot can act as a salesperson, driving sales and increased profitability across...

Congress is wrong to question Huawei’s academic partnerships (Reality Check)

The fruits of the research we fund are a public good not a threat to America Recently my company Huawei was strongly criticised by several members of the U.S. Congress. They asked the U.S. secretary of education to investigate whether our co-operation with U.S. universities...

5G Presents the Biggest Opportunity for U.S. Operators, But Poses the Most Challenges (Reality Check)

The global bandwagon for 5G has undoubtedly left the station in the first half of 2018. One can hardly blame the anticipation among global telecom operators and handset manufacturers after they experienced the first flat year in global smartphone shipments since the category was...

5G can’t get here fast enough, but who will thrive when it does? (Reality Check)

It’s no surprise that the future of today’s service providers hangs in the balance. Their role as traditional communications and broadband service providers is constantly challenged and the rise of global internet powerhouses, capitalizing on services that were once their bread and butter, is...

Harnessing people-powered data for smarter(er) cities (Reality Check)

One of the busiest train stations in the world is New York’s Grand Central terminus.  In peak hours around 1,000 people arrive at Grand Central every single minute and head out into the great metropolis.  Impressive numbers, especially from a smart city perspective because...

IoT isn’t about data, it’s about creating new business opportunities (Reality Check)

Over the last decade, the Internet of Things (IoT) has allowed organizations to gather data from machines that have never produced data before. As time has gone on and the cost of technology has decreased significantly, this data is now being collected in economical...

Expectation vs. reality — where are CSPs in their development of partnership ecosystems? (Reality Check)

  In 2018, with the commoditization of voice and data services firmly in the cards, the digital market appears to be the market of choice for communication service providers (CSPs) hoping to boost stagnating revenues. The problem is, in the digital market, the competition no...

Integration: The smart home hub killer (Reality Check)

  I am glad to report that the smart home market is in rude health. One recent research report from Parks Associates found that 17 percent of US broadband households own an Internet-connected entertainment device and a smart home device, with an additional 13 percent...

The AI quest for clues to improve customer service and engagement (Reality Check)

Communications service providers (CSPs) deliver an essential service — connectivity. Everyone wants to be able to communicate, but some might argue that all CSPs deliver the same thing, acting as the carrier of voice and data without a broader relationship with the subscriber. For...

Global or stay close to home: Which marketing strategy will drive T-Mobile and Sprint post-merger? (Reality Check)

  Recently, Sprint and T-Mobile confirmed their merger. Back when the possibility of such a consolidation was announced, there was a lot of speculation about what this could potentially mean — not just for the telco industry, but for marketers within that industry as well....

Handle with care: How the IoT enables monitoring of sensitive assets throughout the supply chain (Reality Check)

  Over the past decade, the Internet of Things (IoT) has transformed logistics, enabling shippers to track the location of assets as they move through the supply chain — in real-time, if necessary. However, although enterprises have become savvy at using the IoT to track...

Does GDPR portend a cross-border data privacy policy? (Reality Check)

The recent data privacy scandal surrounding Facebook and Cambridge Analytica has opened up an interesting period of collective soul-searching regarding huge tech firms that operate utilizing “big” data. The overarching question that is being asked and, frankly, still needs to be answered is “what...

Cost or consequences: Getting the most out of FTTH technology (Reality Check)

  Cost: it stays on top of mind. Whether it’s pricing a project, estimating for the quarter or budgeting for the next year, cost looms large. So when a survey of WISPs from Clearfield this year revealed that deploying in a cost-effective manner is important, it...

3 tips for developing an edge computing strategy (Reality Check)

Businesses have benefitted over the last few years from a wide variety of options for IT infrastructure, but edge computing has arrived and is redefining the way we approach today’s data center. Edge computing refers to compute, networking and storage capabilities that take place...

Everything as a service, including 5G (Reality Check)

  Today, you can get almost anything as a service: shipping as service (Amazon Prime), music as a service (Spotify), TV as a service (Netflix), mobility as a service (Uber), and, of course, infrastructure as a service (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform). This...

3 things operators wanted to know about mobile video…but couldn’t find out because it’s encrypted (Reality Check)

There’s no doubt that mobile video is the megatrend no operator can ignore. Understanding what users are watching, for how long, when and in what format should be elementary for mobile network operators. However, rising encryption levels on networks make traffic analysis almost impossible...