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. One of my most memorable recollections about my time there was our publication of a cover story about Victor Schnee, who was then an analyst with Probe Research.

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.

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. The commercial shows the ubiquitous animated pinwheel displayed as the video stream is interrupted. All of us have seen this on either our fixed or mobile broadband connections when streaming high-quality audio or video content

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.

Managed Networks: Is the Fox Watching the Henhouse?
This puts MSPs in a tricky position. Not only do they now have to manage the equipment they manufacture in house - in some cases, they also have to manage equipment that has been manufactured by their competitors. As such, a number of interesting dilemmas present themselves:

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.

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. A full list of working groups with descriptions can be found at www.SmartGridForum.org

The Future of Mobile Value-Added Services
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. Today, the two most popular services worldwide are short message service and voicemail, but there are literally hundreds of them, differing around the world and ranging from CRBT to specialized portals to daily jokes or horoscopes. With the advent of 3G and even 4G services worldwide, and the additional bandwidth these networks offer, several new trends are emerging.

Bandwidth Management - Sell Speed, Not Caps
A second mistake was the introduction of caps with overage charges to a service that had been flat rate and unlimited. People prefer certainty and will pay extra for a flat rate service and it's true the cellular industry successfully offers tiered plans (for minutes) with caps and overage charges, but the cellular industry started with high per minute prices and came down, repeatedly. The Internet access market started with speed tiers and is now trying to add data caps. That's difficult to swallow, plus data caps are completely alien. What is 10 GBytes, and how long does it last?

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.

HTML5 to Allow 15-Year Post Internet Boom Mega-Cycle
Investing legend Roger McNamee, managing director and co-founder of Elevation Partners, was interviewed on CNBC recently and explained why he is bullish on the tech sector. He commented that Apple is winning and told us why. He continued by saying companies are trading down from Windows to tablets and saving thousands per year on support. This will free up $100 billion worth of revenue per year in this category, he said.

Telcos Continue to Buy Into the Cloud
Fresh off from closing its purchase of Qwest, CenturyLink Inc. last month announced plans to buy Savvis Inc., a leader in the cloud infrastructure as a service and web hosting space, for $2.5 billion. The deal - which involves cash, stock valued at $40 per share, and the assumption of approximately $0.7 billion in debt - is just the latest move by a telco to purchase a web hosting company.

Cablevision iPad App Review
The battle to take control of TV 2.0 continues with a new application (iPad link) from Cablevision allowing customers with iPads to view about 300 channels and 2,000 videos on demand from anywhere in the house. I say in the house because you really aren't supposed to watch outside of your home according to the company's terms of service, and you must have a password-protected router, a secure Wi-Fi network and you must not stream Cablevision content via Apple Airplay to other devices. Customers must further agree to use the app for personal, not commercial, use and they can register three iPads and use two simultaneously. Support for other devices is said to be coming soon.

Broadband Atlas
Broadband Wars was the headline of NGN Magazine's last cover story, which published in January. It talked about how big cable TV companies started out as the leaders in the broadband arena, being first to market with widespread high-speed Internet access, but how, over time, the balance has shifted between the telcos and cablecos in terms of which group offers the highest data rates and which has the most broadband customers.

A New Voice Being Heard?
Analytics Research forecasts that mobile phone data traffic will increase tenfold through 2015, and this is expected to continue throughout this decade.

Will Your Apps Work with New Converged IP Broadband?
As telecom service providers we are concerned how new applications will perform over the next generation networks to attract subscribers and enhance the user experience. Users have embraced new applications such as games, social media and content delivery and have periodically experienced lack of quality of service with the performance of such services.

Measuring Broadband Speed
A recent paper, "Understanding Broadband Speed Measurements" by Steve Bauer, David Clark and William Lehr, reports on their review of 400,000 tests made using the M-Labs network diagnostic tool. Fully 38 percent of those tests never managed to fill the access link. This means 38 percent of the tests never measured the available speed!

Digging In on Digging Safely
Before reaching for that shovel to start digging, these homeowners - and professional excavators - should call 811, the national call-before-you-dig number. 811 is the free, nationwide number established by the Federal Communications Commission in 2005 to prevent the unintentional strike of underground utility lines while digging.

Beyond SDPs
Years ago, The Economist famously defined a product (as opposed to a service) as "something that can be dropped on one's foot." We are in a similar definitional situation with one of the industry's most important concepts - the service delivery platform.

How to Achieve Success with Mobile Barcodes
The integration of mobile barcodes into marketing and advertising initiatives is an ideal way for a brand to activate a campaign, making it engaging and interactive for the consumer. Mobile barcodes open up new opportunities for marketers to build lasting relationships with consumers in a targeted and measurable way. Consumers can connect with their favorite brands quickly and easily - not only participating in interactive communications at the moment of impulse to help foster the feeling that they are a valued customer but sometimes even helping them to make informed purchase decisions by providing comparative pricing, detailed product specifications and so on.

Expanding Reach and Relationships
Over the past decade, hundreds of companies have benefitted from TMC's Community program, attracting a laser-targeted group of potential customers who are looking to learn about a specific topic area. TMC populates these communities with thousands of articles per quarter - which in turn attracts millions of interested viewers a year to our sponsors.

Mobile Backhaul, Next-Gen Switching: Taqua Takes the T7000 in New Directions
Taqua built its name selling Class 5 replacement solutions to tier 2 and 3 service providers. It still does that today, but now the company taking the T7000 Intelligent Switching System in new directions. The company is leveraging its popular solution to address converged switching and wireless backhaul - and it's going up market in the process.

Sorting It All Out: The Cloud, the Network, and the Smart Home
Distributed resources can efficiently perform processing tasks that otherwise would require provisioning each endpoint for peak utilization. The network has to find where resources (washing machines) are available, decide how best to distribute the content requiring remote processing (find available washing machine), and if necessary, figure out how to bring the processed content back to where it's needed (ensure that clothes return to their owners). These functions essentially define cloud networking.

4G - An Independent Assessment
Originally, the ITU defined 4G as a network delivering 100mbps to mobile users and 1 gbps to fixed users. This means significant new technology compared with 3G. As these 4G technologies were developed, anything using 4G technology came to be called 4G, regardless of its current performance; thus, today's WiMAX and LTE are called 4G. Recently, AT&T's marketing department went even further, calling its advanced 3G technology a 4G service. It's not clear that one will stick.

Mobile Payments - Coming to a Phone Near You?
There has been considerable media coverage of the mobile payments market recently from U.S. media outlets. Smartphones are said to be poised to replace your wallet, and all the cards in it, by performing financial transactions of all types even at point of sale using new short-range wireless technologies such as near-field communication. Here is another case of the North American market lagging the rest of the world, with the news coverage positioning mobile payments in general as a new technology.

NGN Forum 2011 Initiatives for 4G, IMS, Smart Grid and Plugfest
NGN Forum's planned initiatives for 2011 activities will focus on the following areas: applications delivery guideline and architecture implementation; ROI business modeling; and operator challenges, including best practice documents development.

CSP Roles in the Application Revenue Stream
Service delivery platforms: We all vaguely understand that we need one (or know we do). Yet whenever I ask five people for their definition of an SDP, or whenever I ask a similar sized group to describe the business drivers behind SDPs, I get five different answers. I think this reflects very different perspectives on communication service providers' places in the industry. I think it can help us all make better business, technology and investment decisions if we really think through where CSPs fit in the emerging value chain.

Broadband Stimulus & USF Reform
I did a whole lotta interviews and session coverage at the recent ITEXPO. And I can honestly say that I took something away from each and every meeting, speak and panel. But one of the more fun interactions I had was with Rick Peppers, president of engineering firm Telplexus.

Miami is Calling
Next month is ITEXPO, the big show put on by Technology Marketing Corp., the parent company of this magazine. It's consistently been a strong show about which I hear nothing but good reviews. And it's in sunny Miami, which is a pretty attractive spot to many folks, particularly in early February. So we hope to see you there.

A Real Next-Generation Network
What if an operator took an IT-centric approach to services? Is there a business model that could cut costs dramatically while increasing profits and customer satisfaction. Yes! The proof is the Iliad network, marketed in France under the brand Free. Starting from scratch in 1999, Iliad has built a broadband triple-play business with over 40 percent market share in greater Paris and 25 percent across all of France.

Video Communication Services Take Off in 2011?
In my July article I talked about how mobile handsets were starting to support video capabilities. Well six months have gone by, and now we are facing the new year with video devices and communications services once again in the spotlight.

Video - Take Two
One thing is certain, use of video in a telecommunications context is growing, as evidenced by the popularity of mobile clients for YouTube, NetFlix, Skype Video and, more recently, Apple FaceTime and Qik, among others. The challenge now for network operators is to monetize successfully video-based services.

The Broadband Infrastructure Investment Paradox - Deciding When to Move Fiber Forward
Regulatory upheaval, an economy in recovery, line erosion and increasing competition - communications service providers have never faced such a tumultuous environment fraught with uncertainty. Yet, at the same time, the importance of and demand for the services that they provide has never been higher.

It's a Real-Time World
There was a time when nearly all functions were performed in batches, in non real time. Most OSS/BSS functions were batch, as was most billing. This was partly a technology limitation (real time was complex and expensive), but it also reflected the fact that most services didn't demand real-time handling. Not anymore.

3G and 4G Group Data Plans Needed
This is why I read with interest the news that Best Buy is selling a bundle of an iPad with a free MiFi with a 2-year contract.When you amortize the use of this free device across all your family's gadgets such as the Nintendo DS, iPod Touch and future products you know you'll buy, it seems to make sense to have one.

What Have We Learned, Really?
Three of the five commissioners voted for the initiative, which is an effort to retain the openness of the Internet. The net neutrality rules "require all broadband providers to publicly disclose network management practices, restrict broadband providers from blocking Internet content and applications, and bar fixed broadband providers from engaging in unreasonable discrimination in transmitting lawful network traffic."

Despite Advances in STBs and OTT, Hybrid TV Is Still TBD
But despite these missteps, the dream of a world in which people can access both cable TV and Internet content and applications from their televisions -­ or, for that matter, from any screen they choose - remains alive and well. And service providers like the telcos and cablecos, which some believe are losing ground to more affordable over-the-top competitors, could be next to the plate.

Achieving a Smooth Migration: Building a Next-Generation Backhaul Network
Current 2G and 3G fiber-fed mobile backhaul networks use highly reliable SONET network elements to transport DS1 services from cell towers to MSCs effectively. Service providers are using OC-3 and OC-12 circuits to interconnect multiple cell towers in a UPSR, providing non-service-affecting site scalability and survivability.

NGN Forum to Unveil 4G and IMS Applications Guidelines
The NGN Forum will be completing its IMS and 4G Technology and Business Case document 4Q 2010. This paper will develop new business models and use cases for applications running over broadband IP networks.

OTT Video: Service Provider Friend or Foe?
Is it enough for them just to continue to increase mobile data access speeds? The simple answer is no. Mobile operators cannot just stand on the sidelines while new entrant companies develop over-the-top business models while the operators make the network investments.

Smartphones - Good or Bad for Network Operators?
Smartphone dominance continues to accelerate. As a result, application stores are fast becoming integral elements of the mobile phone user experience. Of course, many in our industry point out the fact that the vast majority of applications installed on smartphones are actually not for the purpose of communication. That most are games, utilities, personal productivity aides, document readers, media players and such. That other than for the initial download, they do not generate revenues for network operators. But is this really the case?

The Real Economics of Upgrading the Network for Mobile Broadband
Popular devices such as the Android smartphones, the BlackBerry, iPhone and iPad have driven a dramatic increase in the number of data sessions in mobile networks, with greater than 10 times the normal number of session attempts relative to voice-only handsets.

Warning: Mobile Broadband Watershed Ahead, Instructions Not Included
Practically speaking, and with the exception of a relatively few advanced Western economies, far more people will have access to mobile broadband than to fixed broadband. Even in places like Korea, Europe, and North America where fixed broadband is prevalent, mobile broadband will offer a significantly different experience - one of real-time interactivity, convenience, mobility (duh) and location relevance.

Net Neutrality Negates Innovation
The net neutrality debate needs to return to its virtuous origins: delivering the best Internet experience for consumers. Instead, today's discussion often centers around an academic exercise about the hypothetical scenarios communications service providers could impose on subscribers. The latter approach ignores the economics of good business and Internet innovation, which ultimately are in consumers' best interests.

The Call for Optimization
To address the vast growth we're seeing from mobile devices and applications, service providers like AT&T, Clearwire and Verizon are building better and faster wireless networks, which use LTE and/or WiMAX technologies that fall under the 4G umbrella.

NGN: ITU Misses the Boat
As I move my monthly column from Internet Telephony magazine to NGN, I can't resist reflecting on this magazine's title. The English words "next generation network" are exciting. I'm in favor of progress.

Google, Verizon Jointly Address Net Neutrality
After several weeks of reports about closed door net neutrality meetings at the FCC, and articles talking about who has or has not been negotiating special deals on this front, Google and Verizon last month jointly unveiled a seven-point policy framework on what they believe should be the guiding principles around this controversial topic.

An Update on Dilithium
There are rumors circulating that Dilithium Networks has gone bankrupt or is in receivership. You may recall I first wrote about the company's video transcoding and delivery solutions in April of last year.

Return of the Jedi: Enable the Ewoks
Recently, Google and Verizon have teamed up to suggest a net neutrality framework, which is outlined on page 3 in this magazine. In light of that, Jonathan Askin in TechCrunch compared Google to Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader, in the Star Wars series. In his analogy Verizon is the Empire. I'd like to expand the theme. I want to use the analogy as a call to arms to Internet engineers, who should wrestle this argument away from legal frameworks and bring it back to the reality of network operations.

Mobile Broadband Advertising: Being Part of the Content Value Chain
In the last installment I talked about the necessity for innovative pricing. The gist of that column was that in mobile broadband, one size fits all is really one size fits none - and is optimum neither for consumers (who have diverse needs, wants and budgets) nor for mobile operators. By tailoring various plans to various consumer niches, consumers can get more closely what they want, and communication service providers can maximize revenue.

Keeping It Real
The last 10 years have seen a huge increase in the importance of personal electronic media in people's lives. Mobile communications, digitized music, user-generated content and social networking have changed the way we behave. As a consequence, our expectations of personal electronic media have evolved.

Does Web 2.0 Go Mobile?
We all have gotten so used to hearing the term Web 2.0 that we are becoming immune to what it means. To be fair, there is a common understanding that it means a new level of interactivity for users on Web 2.0 websites. This interactivity promises to go way beyond clicking on hyperlinks to include live voice and video communications, user-generated content, and messaging.

Data centers Still Steaming in Iceland
As ash from last spring's volcanic eruption in Iceland was starting to disrupt seriously European travel plans, the data center industry began seeing increased media focus surrounding the event's impact on development in the area. Green data center projects, like our Verne Global campus, certainly have received a fair share of attention as carbon emission concerns intensify and Iceland continues to establish the industry's most optimized alternative.

NGN Forum Launches the Smart Energy & Smart Grid Forum
The NGN Forum focuses on two main areas: next-generation communications and NGN energy applications. The IMS Forum's NGC group will continue to focus on the areas of IMS, SDP, 4G, VoIP, RCS/RMS, IP video, IP billing, IP security and interoperability/plugfests.