TMCnet Next Generation Communications Week in Review

With the coming of the fall season in the Northern Hemisphere, September marks the beginning of the busy season, and the Next Generation Communications community activity this past week is a good indication of how things are picking up. 

Usual practice here would be to put a feature article from one of the community tabs in its appropriate category below, but the announcement from community host Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) this week about its apiGrove open source API management platform warrants special attention. APIs are the future, and managing them at the infrastructure layer is going to be critical. You should not only check out the announcement, but take the apiGrove for a test drive. It is as simple as a 30 minute download. 

News

As seems to be the trend in the last few weeks, and as is indicated in various reports in the industry as to where service providers are placing their CapEx investments, things wireless dominated.

• For example, MetroPCS Communications recently announced the world's first commercial launch of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) services.  
• Altair Semiconductor, a developer of 4G LTE (News - Alert) chipsets, is significantly expanding its global activities by increasing chipset volumes to India, Europe, Asia Pacific and the U.S.
• A report by Market Analyst says analog integrated circuits (IC) market will see "rapid expansion" through 2016, driven by smartphone sales. This dovetails nicely with the report that there is an upswing in GaAS Epitaxial Substrate production as demand for handset power amplifiers rises.
• The importance of the RAEPoint Fixed Head Wireless Relay was highlighted.
• China Mobile (News - Alert) Research Institution joined with Aeroflex for TD-LTE Network Testing.

And, last but not least there was some non-wireless news with the announcement that Alcatel-Lucent and Concurrent joined forces to provide multi-screen video solutions to cable operations. The solution combines the Alcatel-Lucent Velocix solution with Concurrent's MediaHawk VX video delivery platforms and TV-VOD Edge Servers to bring expanded video offerings to TV set-top boxes, tablets, PCs and smartphones.

Features

Features this week included:            

Service Providers 

• TMCnet Contributor Susan Campbell’s look at the critical area of mobile backhaul.
• Research findings as to why and how service providers can play a central rather than peripheral role in helping Australia’s businesses become global leaders of the digital economy.

Enterprise

•  Ms. Campbell also turned her attention to the benefits of virtual desktops and how they enable enterprises to accelerate business process optimization.
• We also detailed how Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniTouch can work with Microsoft (News - Alert) Lync so that heterogeneous environments are optimized for things like mobility integration and real-time communications.

Weekend reading

Additional weekend reading you should consider includes:

• Alcatel-Lucent’s e-zine Enriching Communications,  BYOD Accelerates Appetite for Personal Cloud  
• The Alcatel-Lucent TechZine article, Reliable Cloud Computing - Key Considerations.

Plus, check out the Resource Center for access to whitepapers, videos and case studies. In particular the featured eBook, Innovating Innovation, and the whitepaper Getting Smart about Smart Cities - Enterprise Market Analysis are definitely worth a read. 

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX.  Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.