Mobile Backhaul, Next-Gen Switching: Still 'Crazy' After All These Years? NPRG Analysts Say Mobile Traffic Will Surpass Most Estimates,

NEXT GENERATION NETWORKS — July 2011

Still 'Crazy' After All These Years? NPRG Analysts Say Mobile Traffic Will Surpass Most Estimates,

The analyst now contends that Cisco's Visual Networking Index greatly understates future mobile data growth. And this bigger-than-expected mobile boom, he says, could lead to the acquisition of a major wireless provider by an over-the-top company like Apple, Facebook or Google…

Feature Articles

Alcatel-Lucent Ventures, Ericsson Ready Cloud-Based Solutions to Help Wireless Carriers Address Mobile Boom
There were 600 million mobile broadband subscribers last year. By 2016 that should reach 5 billion. At the same time, as this month's NGN cover story notes, mobile devices and applications are becoming faster, more intelligent and, thus, more bandwidth intensive.

Achieving Differentiation through Operational Excellence: Repeatable Processes Drive Automation
Recently I came across the following definition of operational excellence: “It is the result of applying the scientific method to achieve the goal of a business.” That sounds simple enough, but what does it really mean in the context of discussing differentiation?

Feature Article Out of the Comfort Zone: Making the Leap to Policy 2.0
It’s just shy of a year since AT&T gave up on the flat-rate, unlimited plan and industry observers marked the end to the mobile broadband buffet. In March of this year, Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, remarked how over the past four years the company’s data traffic increased by 8000 percent.

Columns

Publisher’s Outlook

Facebook's Zuckerberg, Closed App Stores and HTML5
Seeing the open web become a closed ecosystem controlled by a handful of companies is a fear every person who uses technology should have. Imagine a world where the apps you use have to be policed for content by some entry-level kid in a cube somewhere. That isn't a world I want to live in, but Apple designs such amazing devices that many of us give up application freedom because Apple's products are just so great to use.e…

Editor's Notes

More Crazy Talk
I've been a telecommunications trade publication staffer for about 20 years. After working for a couple of years as a mainstream newspaper reporter, I got my first job in telecom publishing as a copy editor (and, later, a reporter and news director) for Telephony magazine…

Eye on the Money

Making Broadband Data Profitable and Subscriber-Friendly: Yield Management, Segmentation and Value
Once upon a time mobile telephones burst on the scene. At first they were a luxury good. We charged by minutes, a few people bought them, and things were good, I guess.

Guest Room (with Fredrik Lundberg)

Guest Room Service Provisioning Bottlenecks Challenge Telecom Industry Growth
New services are the engine of a telecom service provider’s profitability and are critical to customer acquisition and retention. In the consumer market, service innovation centers on digital media, social networking, and gaming. Enterprise services are also rapidly expanding from voice and data to include managed and cloud-based services plus valued-added capabilities like traffic prioritization and scalable bandwidth delivery.

Hot Topic (with Harish Nalinakshan)

Hot Topic Managed Networks: Is the Fox Watching the Henhouse?
The rise of managed networks and the managed services providers that support them marks a significant shift in the mobile industry. It is estimated that three-quarters of mobile network operators’ infrastructure worldwide is under the management of just four companies...

Mobile Services - Beyond Voice

Real-Time Vs. In-Time Services
The promotion of high-speed mobile broadband services is in full swing as evidenced by a flurry of new television commercials from U.S. mobile service providers. A recent ad shows how a sports event video is interrupted as a critical play is about to be viewed by a sports fan on his mobile device.

Next Wave Redux

Next Wave Redux Bandwidth Management - Sell Speed, Not Caps
Internet access providers face real economic issues, but solutions thus far have been less than stellar.

From the Desk of Michael Khalilian

From the Desk of Michael Khalilian Smart Grid Forum Launches
The NGN Forum recently announced the technical working groups that will comprise the Smart Grid Forum. These new groups will cover smart grid topics such as M2M, NGN information technology, security, infrastructure and network management, green energy, applications development and business intelligence, and Advanced Metering Infrastructure.

Mobile Musings

The Future of Mobile Value-Added Services
Mobile Musings The Future of Mobile Value-Added Services By TMCnet Special Guest Jim Machi | July 01, 2011 Share 0digg This article originally appeared in the July 2011 issue of NGN. From a pure business perspective, a mobile value-added service is an additional service for which subscribers pay extra. In other words, the service offers some kind of value, and the subscribers are willing to pay for it.

Mobile Video View

Mobile Video View Live Streaming Coverage with 3G & 4G Networks
There are a lot of queries on the Internet about using 3G and 4G networks to provide live streaming coverage from an event all the way to the viewer’s laptop or smartphone – without using wires – like the big TV networks do.