Not surprisingly Next Generation Communications activities started to pick up steam as summer comes to a close. In fact, since many of you were away last week before looking at all the interesting things that happened in the last few days I wanted to draw attention back to an interesting announcement from last week, Alcatel-Lucent’s apiGrove open source API management platform. As I have noted previously, APIs are the future, and managing them at the infrastructure layer will be critical and apiGrove speaks to this directly and is worth taking for a test drive.
Now to this week which saw activities across a broad array of markets, technologies and services.
News
In an area that tends to receive little attention but is vital to the future of networking, Telefonica (News 
- Alert) announced that Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) network management systems will be integrated going forward with Telfonica’s operations support systems (OSS).
Alcatel-Lucent was also in the news on a few other fronts. First, it was revealed that ALU, in support of the 'Broadband China' initiative, China's program to deliver high-speed broadband to more than 250 million homes by 2015, will assist in increasing the capacity and reach of China Telecom's (News - Alert) fiber optic data network. Second, Ankabut, which serves as UAE's National Research and Education Network educational hub, announced that it was using ALU to help expand its distance learning capabilities. And, the importance of SMEs adopting mobile strategies that properly accommodate the BYOD phenomena will be the subject of a roundtable discussion in the UAE this coming week hosted by ALU and FVC.
In other industry news:
- TMCnet contributor Mini Swamy detailed how Altair Semiconductor’s achieving Verizon Wireless 4G LTE (News - Alert) Chipset certification was good news for Ecrio, a provider of real-time communications client software solutions for the mobile industry. It paves the way for the successful integration of Ecrio's (News - Alert) Mobile Communications Client Suite (MCCS) client software into Altair's global FourGee chipset portfolio.
- Mobile payments also shined with the announcement that EMVCo and the NFC Forum have entered into a collaboration to optimize the development and testing processes of Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled mobile devices.
Industry trends were also in the news with the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) publication of its latest statistics on worldwide LTE deployments, and TMCnet Contributing Writer Frank Griffin’s roundup of some the latest on wireless service providers’ search for new revenue streams.
Features
Features this week included:
Service Providers
- The move to extend distance learning was also the subject of an interesting feature by TMCnet Contributing Editor Susan Campbell about enabling the Classroom in the Cloud.
Enterprise
- The move from rich communications to social communications will have profound impacts and as a recent piece by Alcatel-Lucent highlights.
Industries
Weekend reading
Additional weekend reading to consider includes:
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 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.
