TMCnet Next Generation Communications Week in Review

As you can see in what follows, it has been quite the week for Next Generation Communications news. While all of the news is interesting across a broad swath of the industry, the announcement from community host Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) of its Smart Plan solution that will help consumers get better control over their mobile data plans and mobile service providers be more responsive and agile in meeting customer needs is a highlight. This is something to not just pay attention to but if you are going to Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress event in a few days is worth stopping by the ALU booth to check out.

Now for the rest of the news. As noted it is eclectic to say the least. That said, the optical space is a good place to start.

• Optelian’s (News - Alert) MPX-9100 was announced to help service providers move from 10Gbps to 40G and 100G performance without expensive infrastructure overhauls.
• Fujitsu (News - Alert) has a new FLASHWAVE CDS Micro Packet Optical Networking Platform (Packet ONP) that is capable of delivering 80G of non-blocking (any to any) ODU0/1/2 switching within a 2RU rack space..
•  France Telecom - Orange (News - Alert) recently upgraded a connection between Paris and Lyon to 400 Gbps using equipment from Alcatel-Lucent.
• Tier-1 global service provider Telefonica has teamed with optical solutions company Infinera (News - Alert) to demonstrate terabit technology.
• Comptel and Alcatel-Lucent have been contracted by service provider Chorus in New Zealand to provide it with a new fiber fulfillment and inventory solutions.

In front of the annual mobile industry bash in Barcelona there was quite a bit of wireless activity this past week that included:

• Radisys Corporation announced it is collaborating with Mavenir Systems to deploy VoLTE in Europe and U.S.
• PureWave selected Gore protective vents to equalize the internal pressure for advanced LTE small cell base stations.
• Aviat Networks announced METCO, a telecommunications company in the Middle East, has integrated its microwave backhaul solution to power Zain Kuwait's LTE network.
• Qucell picked Radisys' Trillium LTE Solution for its small cell deployments.

Before leaving the wireless news, it should also be noted that market research firm Mobile Experts is out with a new forecast that says, base station transceiver shipments will grow from $11 billion in 2012 to $17 billion by 2017.

In other news on the forecasting front, ABI Research has a new report that predicts global broadband service revenues will reach $251B by 2018.

Finally, in the emerging hot market for software defined networks (SDNs), F5 has confirmed its intention to take over LineRate Systems filling out its portfolio to help data centers transform.

Weekend reading

As is my custom, here are some recommendations for your weekend reading starting with two Alcatel-Lucent TechZine articles:

• How to Manage and Optimize Vectoring Networks
• New Currency for the Identity Economy

If you were unable to participate by all means check out the recent webinar, SDN: Let’s Cut The Hype, What is the Reality?Alcatel-Lucent WebRTC dynamic video composition on a web page, and Alcatel-Lucent iCocoon: Immersive Video Conferencing System.   In addition, the community Resource Center has updated whitepapers, videos and case studies.  In fact, two videos I continue to recommend are: