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16-fiber MPO provides an attractive path to 400 GbE (Reader Forum)

Nobody ever said the Ethernet Roadmap was a direct route. When the 25G Ethernet Consortium (Arista, Broadcom, Google, Mellanox Technologies and Microsoft) proposed single-lane 25-Gbps Ethernet and dual-lane 50-Gbps Ethernet in July 2014, it created a big fork in the roadmap. Networks had to...

Who disaggregated my RAN? Part 3: Open RAN and fronthaul: The last mile

As we saw in the last article in this blog series, the disaggregation of the RAN has opened up a number of new and exciting opportunities for a larger ecosystem to grow and thrive. But nowhere has the momentum been felt more than in...

Older Americans face new coronavirus Risk: Robocall scams (Reader Forum)

  As the coronavirus pandemic has evolved and new data emerges, we know COVID-19 poses a risk to everyone regardless of age and gender. That said, the health risk to older adults is high: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report eight out of 10 coronavirus deaths in the US have occurred in adults 65 and older.  Communicating the health risks...

Who disaggregated my RAN? Part 2: RAN ecosystem–new and improved

In my first blog in this new Who Disaggregated My RAN? series, “How it All Falls in Place,” I provided the background that led to the industry’s push for the adoption of an open and disaggregated RAN.  Based on my engagements with the entire ecosystem...

Can we conquer the challenges of open RAN rollout? (Reader Forum)

Network operators  worldwide are turning to open radio access network (O-RAN) architectures in an effort to simplify 5G RAN deployment and management, allowing more efficient scalability to meet rising data demands. With the recent formation of the Open RAN Policy Coalition, and a liaison...

Get your core (network) in shape during COVID-19 (Reader Forum)

Most of you reading this blog will be doing so under lockdown. Whether or not you are reading this while working is another matter, but regardless, you will be using data. In this current time, when so many people are staying indoors to prevent...

Who disaggregated my RAN?

Disaggregated RAN: How it all falls in place The promise of 5G is unlocking significant change and sparking the 4th Industrial Revolution, driving use cases such as industrial IoT and improved healthcare, to augmented reality, autonomous vehicles and smart cities. But if 5G is to...

What happens to deployment TCO when mobile operators deploy OpenRAN only for 5G? (Reader Forum)

When you see the many announcements around innovation in OpenRAN for 5G, what you may not realize is that the 4G and 5G-only OpenRAN approach is only suited for greenfield deployments. So, what does that mean for brownfield or existing wireless networks? There are...

Is latency key to realising 5G’s potential? (Reader Forum)

Much of the discussion around a new generation of mobile technology traditionally focusses on its increased throughput, and this seems no different for 5G. Everyone from Zoom video conference users to Unknown Battlegrounds players regularly experience that other key characteristic of digital communications systems,...

Wi-Fi turns the knob to 7 (Reader Forum)

  With the recent FCC announcement to make the 6 GHz band available for unlicensed use, it is important to understand the significance of this event. This decision carves out 1.2 GHz of contiguous spectrum (5.925 – 7.125 GHz) and represents the largest amount of...

The importance of reliable indoor mobile coverage during lockdown (Reader Forum)

Nextivity: Uninterrupted 4G coverage in public sector buildings in the U.K. cannot wait As COVID-19 lingers on relentlessly, mobile telecoms and home broadband services are providing society with some semblance of normality. Everyday life involves homeworking on a level the world has never seen, socialising...

Monetizing the enterprise–the main obstacles facing operators (Reader Forum)

5G deployment is a lengthy and expensive process, with operators globally looking for that killer use case to monetise the latest generation of mobile technology. Mobile operators have long known that the enterprise is one of the key areas for 5G ROI. According to...

Sharing spectrum licenses to boost network capacity in the greatest time of need (Reader Forum)

We measured spectrum usage in two markets and were able to verify that T-Mobile and AT&T are using spectrum licenses on loan from others to improve their wireless services.    National U.S. operators T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T were loaned spectrum licenses that were not being used...

Why small cells are a big part of 5G capacity (Reader Forum)

The deployment of 5G wireless technology over the coming decade is expected to rely on the deployment of many small cells. For example, the CTIA primer on small cells* estimates there will be 800,000 small cells in the USA by 2026. Mobile operators will look to...

How 5G and edge GPUs will unleash AI in the IoT platform (Reader Forum)

The combination of 5G and edge computing promises to fast-track the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the Internet of Things (IoT). With 10 to 20 times faster speeds and dramatically lower latency, 5G makes it much more feasible to process AI workloads locally...

Is the US behind in 5G? (Reader Forum)

Before the COVID-19 crisis, the Altiostar management team was scheduled to attend an FCC public event on 5G as well as the White House Summit on 5G, both of which have been postponed. Both of these meetings were called to discuss how the U.S....

Connected devices have a key role to play in era of pandemics (Reader Forum)

Technology has a history of helping to track and treat viruses. And, with the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic, people are rightly asking themselves how new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), AI, and Big Data can be...

Why COVID-19 will accelerate the rise of experience service providers (Reader Forum)

What happens when the demand for new experiences becomes endless?  There is no going back to before the COVID-19 pandemic. The world better understands that a lot of experiences we used to do in-person can now be done digitally. Social distancing has created a ripple...

Online is the new normal and connectivity is king (Reader Forum)

COVID-19 has fundamentally shifted the ways in which we live and do business, and it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future having accelerated a transition into a new way of life almost overnight.  For enterprises, this has been highly disruptive. The coronavirus...

How wireless operators have risen to the COVID-19 challenge (Reader Forum)

  Chief among the many shockwaves stemming from the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. is the country’s rapid transition to remote work. And with this disruption has come a dramatic transformation in the volume of wireless network traffic and in consumer connectivity habits and behavior:...

How to manage your network during the coronavirus pandemic (Reader Forum)

If you thought the election of Donald Trump was a game-changer, or Britain’s departure from the EU was a shock, 2020 would like to have a word with you. It’s already been the most disruptive year in a generation or more, with entire nations...

The role of Wi-Fi in a 5G World (Reader Forum)

Google trends is a fascinating tool that provides unparalleled insight into what people across the world are thinking and doing. A quick glance at the search trend for the term “5G” reveals a growing interest in this wireless connectivity technology  (in case you are curious, here is...

5G and the age of pandemic: A look at the US (Reader Forum)

Overview Wireless technology is central to interactions with families, friends and coworkers, so we expect our devices and networks to be there when needed.   In this pandemic, questions are already being asked:  When consumers abruptly changed locations and traffic patterns, were the networks ready...

Is 5G the telecom silver bullet? (Reader Forum)

The race to roll out 5G technology is well underway. But 5G represents far more than the previous major transition, where, from 3G to 4G, we simply enjoyed faster speeds and greater coverage. 5G will power multiple use cases, many of them new and...