BROWSING: Opinion

Reality Check: Protecting the mobile network and devices

Despite the increases in today’s mobile malware, many mobile operators and subscribers continue to be virtually blind to the full extent of the problem – they simply react to incidents as they occur and

Reality Check: LTE self-organizing networks and the RF optimization engineer

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace. In the current, fast-developing ICT industry, mobile networks are evolving in heterogeneous and complex ways. It's also true that this...

Reality Check: Managed services for OSS – what Latin American service providers need to know

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace. Spurred by the need to modernize and even transform their internal systems to meet growing demand for voice and data...

Reader Forum: Why Wi-Fi offloading is needed with the expansion of 4G networks

Solving operators’ “capacity crunch” has been a primary goal of mobile data offloading to Wi-Fi networks. Even with the expansion of 4G networks such as LTE and WiMAX, the benefits of mobile data offloading to a carrier-class Wi-Fi network are extremely compelling:

Worst of the Week: Cats in action

This week saw me whisk away to lovely Atlanta for the DAS Forum’s DAS in Action event. Now, this is not one of the bigger events on the yearly wireless telecommunications calendar, though I do give it credit for having one of the better names.

Reality Check: When customers are empowered, everyone wins

“The customer is always right” is an axiom that has never held more truth than in today’s hypercompetitive mobile market. Subscribers around the world have become accustomed to always-on mobile services,

Reality Check: Billing systems must transcend ‘business as usual’ to keep pace with demand for digital services

With the proliferation of mobile devices around the world, which includes the recent invasion of tablets, the number of mobile Web users has grown to 1.2 billion.

Reader Forum: Shifting the MNO battleground toward RAN capacity optimization

Mobile network operators have recently seen a significant increase in network traffic due to subscribers’ addiction to mobile data services, presenting a considerable barrier to sustain MNOs’ bottom line – in fact

Reader Forum: ‘TMI’ to ‘TLC’ – Using analytics to turn big data into trusted customer experiences

Anyone exposed to a teenager has been witness to the hand raise and muttering of the letters “TMI” (a.k.a. too much information). I may not be hip to all of the latest and greatest in texting lingo

Worst of the Week: Numbers game

I have never claimed to be a numbers sort of guy, and in fact what drew me to a journalism education was the promise that all number games could be solved using a calculator.

Analyst Angle: Who am I? Privacy and Personal identity on the smartphone

Personal identity is an intriguing issue philosophy – I spent countless hours in university debating whether or not you are still yourself if you forget everything about your past, or your brain is moved to another body, or somebody else’s brain is transplanted to your body.

Reader Forum: Intelligent packet acquisition at the edge — The key to gaining network visibility

Businesses, governments and consumers won’t tolerate even the slightest break in service in this age of cloud computing and mobile access to the Internet.

Reader Forum: What women want

At this year’s Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain, one wondered sometimes if large sections of our industry have equally lost touch with what consumers want.

Reader Forum: Going mobile – Why mobile-optimized websites will make or break a company

If you look around as you shop in a store and find people using their phones, you may not guess what one-third of them are doing.

Reader Forum: The middle mile – Enabling the smart grid with 4G

A new era of energy services is on the horizon. Soon, utilities and municipalities will have the capability to support activity such as demand control, video monitoring of grid assets, real-time information access for customer service and mobile technician.

Worst of the Week: Sticks and stones … may sink my stock price

This week we were reminded again of the power of words. And in this case when I say we, I mean Sprint Nextel’s stock price. And when I say “words” I mean “underperform.”

Analyst Angle: What the new iPad says about the LTE market

Apple’s recent introduction of its newest iPad, simply named the “new iPad,” came with the usual fanfare associated with any new Apple product – a dose of excitement, a frenzy of buyers and a horde of analysis regarding why Apple included or didn’t include certain features and technologies.

Reality Check: Femtocells versus Wi-Fi hotspots – What is the best solution for Brazilian carriers?

Brazil’s recently passed Conditioned Access Service law, which was passed last September, or the new Brazilian pay-TV law seemed to diminish market rumors that femtocell adoption would be encouraged by Brazilian Regulation in 2011, due to a regulatory change on femtocell-related taxes.

Reality Check: Why Is Android vulnerable

Android devices are clearly the target of mobile malware with a 400% increase in Android infections in the latter part of 2011. So why is the Android platform so vulnerable?

Reader Forum: 10GigE delivers mobile backhaul scalability

The explosive growth of 3G and 4G applications has placed significant demands on mobile backhaul. Wireless service providers require 50 megabits to 100 Mb at large capacity sites today, growing to 300 Mb to 1 gigabit by 2015.

Reader Forum: The connections that wired a city for the Super Bowl

Most of us are familiar with “wireless triangulation,” which involves identifying the approximate location of a wireless device using IEEE 802.11 standards.

Worst of the Week: Small print, big lies

This week Verizon Wireless, often viewed as that carrier that is doing so well that it does not need to dirty its hands by acknowledging its competitors, unleashed a “4G Throw-Down” video punkin' all those that claim to provide a superior 4G network experience.

Reality Check: DAS and rural carriers

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace. Miles of telecommunications fiber have been installed nationwide over the last few years, much by rural telecommunication...

Reality Check: Tech perspectives – Winning the tablet market

Almost overnight, tablets have become a key component of many computer companies’ growth strategies – and for good reason. Based on one of our recent studies, tablet demand will surge to 200 million by 2014,