TMCnet Next Generation Communications Week in Review

The old year for the Next Generation Communications Community ended and the new one started with the same focus, LTE (News - Alert) and finding a way to quickly make fixed broadband services ubiquitous dominated. What this portends for 2013 is a lot more of the same, as well as a concentration in the enterprise on unified communications (UC) and business video and all things related to the cloud and data center transformations.

News

As noted, 4G LTE was front and center in the news. This included TMC (News - Alert) coverage of:

• Moves that seem to make it likely that China will finally allow its carriers to offer next generation mobile services using 4G LTE in 2013.
• The Sultanate of Oman leading service provider Omantel announced the second phase of deployment of its 4G LTE network.
• The market for 4G LTE mobile voice services in India has heated as Airtel (News - Alert) and Infotel enhance their offerings.

In other industry news, if you are attending CES (and I am jealous if you are) be sure to check out the myriad of innovative cloud-based solutions coming out of Alcatel-Lucent’s (News - Alert) Connect program at the show where they will be located at South Hall 3 - 31412.

And, in what was a surprising finding in a survey done by Globo, it turns out that a majority of respondents said that if their organization had an explicit BYOD policy that forbade personal device use in the workplace they would abide by the rules. 

Features

As with the news, the feature also had some interesting items relating to things wireless and 4G LTE to go along with one on VDSL2 vectoring as an emerging solution to quickly and inexpensive deploy fixed broadband service in places where fiber deployment is lacking and could be years away.

Service Providers 

• Dealing with the challenges of offering a compelling quality user experience on Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) is a growing concern for service providers which Alcatel-Lucent’s lightRadio Wi-Fi offer, combined with ANDSF and Hotspot2.0 can solve.  

• Plus, speaking of challenges, the convergence of 4G LTE and IP is putting pressure on service providers to move to next generation network management solutions, as TMCnet Contributor Mae Kowalke highlighted in a look at the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 Service Aware (News - Alert) Manager.  

• Good news for service providers is that VDSL2 vectoring provides reliable 100Mbps which means that existing copper is a viable and competitive broadband alternative when fiber is not currently and option.

Industries

• Ever wonder why your onboard connectivity experience when riding the rails is less than desirable? Turns out that using backhauled 4G LTE is a path forward for railways to make your ride more enjoyable. 

Weekend reading

For this weekend’s suggested reading, I would recommend two  Alcatel-Lucent TechZine articles:

• Is Symmetrical Bandwidth a Myth or a Must?
• 3 Innovations that Make VDSL2 Vectoring Easy to Deploy

Finally, if you have not done so, download the recent webinar, SDN: Let’s Cut The Hype, What is the Reality? Plus, the community Resource Center has updated whitepapers, videos and case studies. And, I am continuing to push the ebook, Innovating Innovation, and the whitepaper Creating Your Smart Grid: A How-To Guide is an extremely valuable primer on this hot subject.