According to data from Cisco, global IP traffic will hit the zettabyte-per-year mark by 2016, and increase another 60% by 2018. What's more, the number of devices connected to networks is predicted to almost double the world's population in the same time frame. The...
Current state of 5G trends
What is "5G?" Many organizations and entities with a stake in the outcome are attempting to answer that question. A useful example is the push by the GSMA for international, industrywide agreement on a 5G definition and a set of...
Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
In the world of wireless, generations of technology come and go in what seems like the blink of an eye. As much as this rate of progress is wonderful, there are certain aspects of how quickly we change technology that are worrying.
Let’s quickly recap
The...
Last week I attended the inaugural 5G Forum event that was organized by Informa in sunny Palo Alto, Calif. The location for this new event was interesting, especially considering that most of the discussions centered around what “5G” will be and what it will...
Large data centers started using software-defined networking principles a few years ago to create interconnect “fabrics” out of many switches, something difficult to do with conventional routers and switches and protocols. Looking at carrier networks, moving from today’s routed network to an SDN network...
Last week was already overflowing with earnings news (we will cover AT&T and Verizon Communications earnings in great detail next week), when Bloomberg broke the story last Thursday of the likely Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger demise. CNBC confirmed this rumor on Friday morning, and...
The need to be connected to the “smarter world” is ever increasing with the rise in the number of mobile devices. LTE is now a global reality for millions of subscribers and the age of the “Internet of Things” is well and truly upon...
You’re running late, you’re lost, you need directions. Today, all you need is your smartphone to get you where you want to go, not a dedicated GPS device. Take a look around and you'll notice professional surveyors who used to rely on clunky GPS...
We’re all familiar with the big cell towers we see around town that house the antennae and communications equipment connecting our ever-present wireless devices. But we are much less familiar with the technology that provides the compute power for these cell towers: the baseband...
Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
The recent move by the European Commissioner for Competition against Google was, quite frankly, stunning from my viewpoint.
The objections the EU centered around the Google shopping system seemed rather trumped-up and struck me as an attempt by Europe to punish success. Google is not...
Verizon and AT&T tackle video for value creation
When I was a manager in the engineering and operations workforce in Sprint’s local division (later to become Embarq, and then CenturyLink), I remember a discussion with the VP on a process improvement project. “Jim, everything we...
A closer look at Wi-Fi’s evolving technology and services
Once viewed as a threat to mobile operators' valuable 3G and 4G services, Wi-Fi (family of technologies under the IEEE 802.11 protocol) is now seen as a cost-effective way of helping operators meet their customers’ insatiable...
Launching a new application in the market is always a risky business. The app should respond to user needs, and be innovative and easy to use. Still, through the development and testing processes, engineers often tackle issues that are beyond their expertise. Seeking a beneficial...
Last week, a post on GetVoIP discussed an important trend in the hosted telecom carrier arena: The unified communications sector is more directly targeting small and midsize businesses. This has given rise to arrangements in which the heavy lifting is done away from the...
Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
It has been said to let he who is without sin cast the first stone. If applied to privacy and snooping in the digital age, there would be very little stone chucking indeed.
I have long been of the opinion that the concept of "privacy"...
Is virtualized VoLTE the answer to fighting OTT challengers?
It’s quite clear that mobile telecommunication operators are being redefined by LTE and the transition to all-IP communications. The transition of telephony services from circuit-switched legacy to voice over LTE now seems a certainty. However, Ovum has...
Top 10 events of the first quarter: recap of Pt. 1
We started the first quarter review before the Easter/Passover holidays with five events.
1. Sling TV announced at Consumer Electronics Show: Our bottom line was that this was a big idea with decent implementation, amazing...
We are in the midst of the mobile age, a time in which consumers are continually connected through a series of mobile phones, tablets, smart watches and other devices. It’s hard to believe we have gone from using mobile phones only “in case of an emergency”...
For communication service providers searching for new revenue streams, direct carrier billing opens the door of opportunity as it enables them to directly participate in the over-the-top market by providing a payment option for consumers to charge their mobile phone bills. This also means...
Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
As I think back over the recent Competitive Carriers Association 2015 Global Expo in Atlanta for this Generation Wireless column, I begin to see three major trends: leveraging big data to make smarter networks; capitalizing on existing spectrum assets; and preparing for changes in...
