Carl Ford : 4G Wireless Evolution
Carl Ford
| 4G is the next evolution in wireless technology. Discover how 4G will transform the wireless industry

Longview IoT Boosts Energy and Wireless Efficiency

Some of the biggest challenges slowing down the adoption of IoT are security, efficient battery usage and optimized wireless communications.One company has...

Full Story »

Hallmark's Simple, Inexpensive Way to Boost Customer Satisfaction

In an effort to boost margins, companies often push more users to automated solutions such as FAQs, chatbots, voice bots and anything...

Full Story »

Huawei Places the World's First 5G VoNR Video Call

Huawei recently completed the world's first voice over NR (VoNR) call. The voice and video call service was made using two Huawei...

Full Story »

IGEL Advances Future of Work

IGEL is a provider of a next-gen edge OS for cloud workspaces. The company’s software products include IGEL OS, IGEL UD Pocket (UDP) and Universal...

Full Story »

Tata Communications and Cisco Collaborate on SD-WAN

Tata Communications and Cisco have extended their partnership to enable enterprises to transform their legacy network to a customized and secure multi-cloud...

Full Story »

How to Win the 50-Year-Old China Trade War

Today and this week in-fact is historic - the left and right in the U.S. agree that we have a major trade...

Full Story »

Extreme Elements Enables The Autonomous Enterprise

Extreme Networks just announced Extreme Elements which in-turn enables the autonomous network and subsequently the autonomous enterprise. In a dynamic webinar, Dan...

Full Story »

A Slow News Day, but not Inactive

August 17, 2009

I have a few blogs to post, but I am not sure the audience is here right now.  I was shocked to see how much noise was coming out of some of the previous posts.  I was talking to some good friends about security issues.

Lots of people talking about finding new opportunities in security from the telecom world, but I am not sure they have a real understanding about the role they would have.  Many friends have suggested that they would be adding security functionality, but in truth the best that a telcom person should hope for is to be the interface to where the action is.

Lets take the recent Facebook & Twitter Denial of Service attacks as an example.  It turns out the attack was not on the site itself but the content of a specific user on the system.  This focused attack is related to the content.

Telecom does not normally look at the message it just provides the transport media. 

The point of making this observation is that to the security experts wearing the black / white hats the migration to 4G wireless is just more of the same of the Internet.  The concepts associated with ISUP  and other out of band control signals are periphereal to where the attack is most likely to occur, which is the application layer.

  The OWASP list of attacks are not about signaling. They are about attacks in the application itself









BTOP Extended for those who are Ready

August 13, 2009

On July 9, 2009, RUS and NTIA published a Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) and Solicitation of Applications in the Federal Register announcing general policy and application procedures for the BIP and BTOP.  74 Fed. Reg. 33104 (2009).  In the NOFA, RUS and NTIA encouraged all applicants to submit their applications electronically and required that certain applications be filed electronically through an online application system at http://www.broadbandusa.gov.  74 Fed. Reg. at 33118.  RUS and NTIA established an application window for these grant programs from July 14, 2009, at 8 a.m. ET through August 14, 2009, at 5 p.m. ET (application closing deadline).

 

I can't be the only one suffering! Address Book MisManagement

August 13, 2009

As a bell head the concept of state was indoctrinated into me.  I am not sure if this was through Osmosis, the continue using of the Bell System Practice as a head rest, or the "My Network" mentality.

Today the peers run rampant on my machine.  I get a .vcf file or an AIM message and you would think I was dealing with the bankers of the old lending tree add.  (I would use the old WaMu ad but the bankers were all clustered in those ads).

Particularly annoying right now is Plaxo.  Which seems to have lost its state awareness on the fact that I downloaded the integrated app to my address book and yet everytime i get a .vcf pops up again.

Other nonsense includes the ability to take from Google but not push to Google.  (Not sure why Google has not taken this problem on themselves).

The continual facebook loss of my password (and my mistrust of anything that claims to be facebook).

And of course my Apple Time Machine, that has decided I have to reinput all my license keys after the fiasco of the stolen machine.

I want control of my identity and I want control of the identity systems independent of software packages.

I thought the data portability group was going to bring me something to this end, but they seem to have other issues that motivate them.  OpenID in theory should be this, but so far the services seem to have more control than the users.

I think this should all be linked to a presence enginge managing presentity with a key chain to my devices.  I have not seen anything like this as independent service, but maybe I am wrong. 























Clearwire Adds Just 12,000 Subscribers in Q2

August 13, 2009

Highlights (or lowlights) from the Clearwire Aug. 11 earnings call (the press release is here):

-- Clearwire reports 12,000 net subscription adds for Q2, down from 25,000 for Q1. Ouch. Execs on the call say this number is good and signups are strong, but no getting around the fact that 12,000 is not a big number. Remember this is all mainly Portland, since Vegas/Atlanta didn't launch until end of quarter. The net adds includes losses from pre-WiMAX subscribers, which may be significant.

Clearwire Adds Huawei to Infrastructure Suppliers List

August 12, 2009

In a separate announcement before its earnings call Aug. 11, WiMAX provider Clearwire announced that China's Huawei has joined its list of infrastructure vendors, specifically to provide radio access network (aka RAN) equipment. According to the press release:
Specifically, Huawei will provide several key infrastructure pieces, including base stations, element management system (EMS) components, and related network hardware and software.

Clearwire said former suppliers Motorola and Samsung remain on the WiMAX provider's preferred list, along with Cisco, Ciena and microwave backhaul specialist Dragonwave.

According to Clearwire chief technology officer John Saw, Huawei will be providing base station technology that offers "a significant improvement in coverage and quality," thereby leading to lower costs for Clearwire network deployment. The Chinese supplier's aggressive pursuit of matters WiMAX includes 2,000 engineers working on WiMAX, according to Charlie Chen, senior VP of marketing for Huawei USA.

Clearwire said Huawei gear will first be used in Hawaii and Seattle, two markets where Clearwire has scheduled live rollouts for 2009.




XG Technology: Building for the Broadband Experience

August 12, 2009

XG Technology has been driving the next generation of wireless services and is now on the brink of a roll out that will enable the service provider to be both Internet and voice friendly. While other companies are now ignoring the voice to develop data services on their voice network. xG has developed their voice strategies based on the wireless network they run IP over. WIth layer 2 optimization xG is designed to support the end points.  The commercial release of their products are sold under the brand xMAX.

Recently they announced they were participating with the Stimulus with services they are building for  Townes Tele-communications
XGTechnologyFrankPeake.mp3.

Frank Peake and Shaski G joins us in a discussion about xG's latest advances and the opportunities in the market today.








How Close is the Future: Verizon

August 11, 2009

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article about the deals Ivan Seidenberg has made as the head of Verizon, while the deals have been great for the corporate coffers, the stockholders and the buyers of the assets of Idearc, FarPoint and the Carlyle Group have suffered.

In some ways you can think of Verizon as the Carrier's version of General Electric with the same mantra of "if you can not be number 1 in a business get out of it." 

Verizon has also managed to shed personnel in the deals making it a kind of force reduction solution, (we could look at this as the anti-matter to Cisco's acquire the company for the talent strategy).

At the heart of Verizon we can see one major goal enabling HD Video.  Its true for their FIOS vision, and its true for their LTE vision at Verizon Wireless.

So how are they doing at delivering on this vision?  And how many iterations does it take to get it right?  FIOS is now starting to be talked about favorably by friends that have it.  That future point that Verizon aimed for of the three HD TVs per home watching a game has arrived. 

For Verizon Wireless, that vision is still to be delivered upon, the MediaFlo and VCast promise is in transition. 

At their developer's conference you heard the message of Video as the future.  Yes they want applications, but they want to be the screen you look at, more than the headset you speak into.  This is the vision of FIOS, and its probably even a more illuminated vision for Verizon Wireless with LTE.

Think of the Term FIOS.  As a techie I see the IOS and think of Cisco's Internetwork Operating System attached to the word Fiber.  Its about the delivery of services via glass that was probably the vision being shared by the techies before the marketing took over.

Likewise at VDC, Verizon Wireless was promoting the Wireless equivalent.  Roger Gurnani stated that the Network API they were promoting was just the beginning.   They have an idea of where they want to be in the future, now the question is how fast can they get there?

The cash cows that have been sold seem to have lost their productive years based on their filing for bankruptcy. If you are making a deal with Verizon here is the caveat emptor, the asset they are selling probably does not fit into their vision of the future, so you may be paying a premium and should ask yourself what is your vision of the future. You better have a vision that goes beyond the dairy. 

Verizon does.





















ATT vs. Telefonica The Long Tail Effect of Apple's App Store

August 10, 2009

where the wireless Internet has been available the longest, there is where iPhone sales are least.

Gerry Purdy's Newsletter

August 7, 2009

Mark my words: over the coming years, our cell phone will become the wireless networking relay station of choice for all of our portable devices - from Netbooks to Notebooks to eBooks and support for the phone's own wireless data activities as well. But, getting there is not going to be easy.

FanFare Software Interview with David Gehringer

August 5, 2009

This focus of capital equipment utilization has been coming but the economy is making this a laser focus right now.
Featured Events
Pages