Carl Ford
| 4G is the next evolution in wireless technology. Discover how 4G will transform the wireless industry
CloudTC and N-Able Acquired
"Australian-owned IP PBX systems company, Vixtel, has completed the acquisition of Silicon Valley based glass phone developer, CloudTC, for an undisclosed figure,"...
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ProfitBricks: Where InfiniBand Meets Cloud 2.0
In a recent meeting with William Toll and Pete Johnson of ProfitBricks, the pair were ecstatic to explain how their company has...
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Proactive Care Puts Operators One Step Ahead
By Thomas Fuerst, Senior Director, Multimedia Solutions MarketingAlcatel-Lucent
Monitoring and analyzing network data proactively saves operators time, money, and customers.
When a network service fails, it makes headlines, ticks off customers, and costs that network operator money. When a failure is headed off in advance, on the other hand, there might not be praise-laden headlines, but it's newsworthy nonetheless.
The traditional approach to customer care has typically been: a disgruntled customer calls customer service and complains of a service interruption or problem; the rep, learning of it for the first time, sends out a technician the next day, and eventually finds a resolution. Often, customers are left feeling put out, and the operator has spent significant time and money resolving the problem. Even worse is the customer who doesn’t call and just feels this is ‘typical’ of their network experience. That is a customer at risk of leaving.
Proactive care flips this dynamic on its head by using predictive analytics to identify potential outages or errors in the network and stop them before they occur. It consists of three main parts: one, constantly monitoring and measuring data on the network; two, real-time analysis of the data; and three, the most important, acting on that analysis to fix the problem.
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10 Lessons from Volleyball
I've played volleyball for over 25 years. I have traveled around the US to watch the pros live - both indoor...
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Emerging Threats Combats a Million Plus Pieces of New Malware a Week
There are 250,000 plus new pieces of malware being produced each day equating to one piece per person in the US in...
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NFV-Based Software Telcos Need OSS/BSS Interoperability
One of the goals of ETSI NFV is to allow new entrants to provide solutions to carriers based on software instead of...
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SysAid's Lifshitz: The Cloud Will Dominate ITSM Market
Cloud computing has really become a household word with mainstream media outlets running stories on television about the growth in the space...
Full Story »The Enemy with SIM
March 22, 2012
Today, I am in Rome. And when you are in Rome... I try to read like the Romans do. In this case Telecom Italia has proven once again that the enemy is within.
Avaya Buys Radvision for $230 Million
March 15, 2012
Silver Lake has the golden touch? Having helped Skype become a stand alone entity, It has been interesting and confusing from time to time to watch Avaya under its care.
I expected Avaya was going to benefit from portfolio proximity of Skype, but it never happened.
Since then Cisco has bought Tandberg leaving Radvision's role as a subcontractor dubious.
With Avaya gaining the skills of our friends at Radvision, I think the migration to Video and the improvement of their SIP stack can be assured.
Additionally it opens up a huge opportunity to work with third parties in new ways. Since for many of us Radvision has been the basis of our development.
Mergers often require insight, beyond the immediate upfront strategy.
I think there is a gold mine here if Silver Lake manages it well.
I expected Avaya was going to benefit from portfolio proximity of Skype, but it never happened.
Since then Cisco has bought Tandberg leaving Radvision's role as a subcontractor dubious.
With Avaya gaining the skills of our friends at Radvision, I think the migration to Video and the improvement of their SIP stack can be assured.
Additionally it opens up a huge opportunity to work with third parties in new ways. Since for many of us Radvision has been the basis of our development.
Mergers often require insight, beyond the immediate upfront strategy.
I think there is a gold mine here if Silver Lake manages it well.
Coalition of the Illing
March 14, 2012
For a while T-Mobile became the defacto way for the rest of the world to have access to GSM in the US.
Now we have China Mobile having a role in the development of Clearwires Time Division [TD] LTE network. TD - LTE is a standard spear headed in China and its export to the US could have far reaching implications.
While most deployments today are based on Frequency Division, TD-LTE can solve a few ills for companies where spectrum interference is a possibility.
With Cricket having signed a five year deal with Clearwire for access to their China Mobile implementation. This could lead to a rich market for China to start exporting smart phones and other devices.
TD - LTE is also a logical place for WiMAX companies to focus their migration but we have been on a hard path with these companies before. Now the question is can the missing economies of scales be found with the Chinese driving the demand.
I think the answer is yes.
Now we have China Mobile having a role in the development of Clearwires Time Division [TD] LTE network. TD - LTE is a standard spear headed in China and its export to the US could have far reaching implications.
While most deployments today are based on Frequency Division, TD-LTE can solve a few ills for companies where spectrum interference is a possibility.
With Cricket having signed a five year deal with Clearwire for access to their China Mobile implementation. This could lead to a rich market for China to start exporting smart phones and other devices.
TD - LTE is also a logical place for WiMAX companies to focus their migration but we have been on a hard path with these companies before. Now the question is can the missing economies of scales be found with the Chinese driving the demand.
I think the answer is yes.
And the Wisdom to Know the Difference
March 14, 2012
In the world of 12 steps you confide in your sponsor, you reach out to the newcomer and you stay focused on recovery.
So it was with some dread that I saw the http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/insider-trading-charges-center-on-alcoholics-anonymous-meetings/ picture of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous in the deal book of the NY times.
While it is nice to know that even stock brokers can experience recovery, and its also nice to see the SEC chasing leads on insider trading. I am not sure where the line was crossed.
It bothers me that a "member" was dealing with a merger with a Japanese company and perhaps was being tested by the saki toasts.
It does not say if the person was his sponsor.
So it was with some dread that I saw the http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/insider-trading-charges-center-on-alcoholics-anonymous-meetings/ picture of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous in the deal book of the NY times.
While it is nice to know that even stock brokers can experience recovery, and its also nice to see the SEC chasing leads on insider trading. I am not sure where the line was crossed.
It bothers me that a "member" was dealing with a merger with a Japanese company and perhaps was being tested by the saki toasts.
It does not say if the person was his sponsor.
4G LTE In Israel, The Shoemaker Sons needs Shoes
March 12, 2012
According to Haaretz Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon appointed a committee to start pending the rules for the 4G LTE Auction. The auction will be worth about .5B NIS based on licenses of 140M NIS each.
Israel has always been an exporter of communications and its understandable to be slow to innovate on wireless standards. As we have seen from WiMAX the cost of being first is often being off on a tangent.
However with 4G LTE being so essential to development in other countries and with companies like Siklu looking to catch the attention of deployers. It would be nice to find a way for the Ministry to enable some alternate strategies particular some innovations in architecture.
I believe the base stations and small cells need a lot of innovation to match not only demand but the probable need for alternate access methods.
Its time for the Shoemaker to focus on his son and Israel to display by deploying at home.
Israel has always been an exporter of communications and its understandable to be slow to innovate on wireless standards. As we have seen from WiMAX the cost of being first is often being off on a tangent.
However with 4G LTE being so essential to development in other countries and with companies like Siklu looking to catch the attention of deployers. It would be nice to find a way for the Ministry to enable some alternate strategies particular some innovations in architecture.
I believe the base stations and small cells need a lot of innovation to match not only demand but the probable need for alternate access methods.
Its time for the Shoemaker to focus on his son and Israel to display by deploying at home.
Hey Meg, HP Needs to Bundle Not Balkanize
March 12, 2012
According to Richard Waters of the Financial Times, Meg Whitman has an easier time figuring out what's wrong rather than what's right. Here are some ideas.
In the discussion he pointed out HP's 23 drop in consumer revenues as opposed to apples 75% revenue increase.
Apple the Turtle continues to Beat the Industry
March 8, 2012
The iPad 3.0 has arrived with incremental features and a community of loyal Apple customer ready to toss 1 & 2 for 3 as if they were a 1982 Kaypro. Pretty amazing.
As Jeff Orr of ABI Research stated in there press release
“Individually, none of the new iPad features create an insurmountable advantage for Apple over its competition,” says Jeff Orr, group director, consumer research. ASUS is currently shipping a quad-core tablet and even Chinese vendor Huawei announced one last week.
As Jeff Orr of ABI Research stated in there press release
“Individually, none of the new iPad features create an insurmountable advantage for Apple over its competition,” says Jeff Orr, group director, consumer research. ASUS is currently shipping a quad-core tablet and even Chinese vendor Huawei announced one last week.
VoIP Outage Reporting Discussion April 24th.
March 8, 2012
The FCC has expanded the outage reporting requirements to interconnected VoIP providers. This have caused a few message boards to light up with discussions, so we have gathered some of our best advocates to explain what is required and how to manage the process.
Join Fred Campbell - WCAI, Glenn Richards - Pillsbury Law, Brita Strandberg - Harris Wiltshire and David Young - Verizon as we gather to discuss the new rules.
The conference call will be on April 24th at 1:30 EDT and you can sign up to be on the call here.
Join Fred Campbell - WCAI, Glenn Richards - Pillsbury Law, Brita Strandberg - Harris Wiltshire and David Young - Verizon as we gather to discuss the new rules.
The conference call will be on April 24th at 1:30 EDT and you can sign up to be on the call here.
Verizon Wireless HomeFusion PSTN Sunset 10 GB at a time
March 6, 2012
According to the Washington Post today Verizon Wireless is offering an alternative home access service for $60 a month and 30GB service for $120 a month.
The most important aspect of this service is that it finally breaks the cross elastics that the carriers have been using for their MiFi services. Embedded in the pricing of the MiFi services was equivalent rate to a T1. If you did the price analysis it was there in black in white.
The most important aspect of this service is that it finally breaks the cross elastics that the carriers have been using for their MiFi services. Embedded in the pricing of the MiFi services was equivalent rate to a T1. If you did the price analysis it was there in black in white.
If You Can't Trust your Certs....Tales from GitHub
March 6, 2012
Once again we have discovered that PublicKeys can be thwarted and in this case the victim was GitHub. Now I have to tell you, I am constantly asked to run a security event. And the reality is that I have security training, but no one wants to admit that they need it. Especially a place that supports open source.
