Greg Galitzine : Greg Galitzine's VoIP Authority Blog
Greg Galitzine

Wireless

DragonWave Recognized for Wireless Backhaul Success

November 17, 2008

In case you haven't been paying attention, wireless backhaul is a hot space.   Tom Keating wrote about it here, among other places.   Rich Tehrani has been covering the space too, as evidenced by this blog entry.   And Richard Grigonis has covered the space -- in depth -- with a series of articles that can be found here, here, here, and here.   Today comes word that DragonWave Inc. a global supplier of high capacity, wireless native Ethernet backhaul solutions has come in at number 133 on Deloitte's 2008 Technology Fast 500,   According to the release, "rankings are based on percentage of fiscal year revenue growth over five years, from 2003-2007. DragonWave's growth rate over that period was 1400%."   1,400%!   As Adam Sandler would say... "not too shabby"...   According to Peter Allen, DragonWave's president and CEO:   "Our ability to develop products that meet our customer needs in a timely fashion has allowed us to penetrate new markets and expand our global footprint. Our microwave products are enabling telecommunications service providers to rapidly roll out new services in a cost-effective way.

Smule's Ocarina: Number One With a Bullet!

November 18, 2008

    Talk about your hot viral apps!   Smule, the developer of the wildly popular Ocarina application for use on Apple's iPhone, today announced that it's jumped to the top of the charts in several Apple App Stores around the world, including the United States, Canada, France, Sweden, Holland, and Spain among others.

Available for $0.99, the Smule Ocarina is the first true wind instrument available for the iPhone.

Rich Tehrani and I did a recent TMC Newsroom video on the Ocarina application -- feel free to check out that recent video newscast.   Apparently users have created over 250 musical scores, which according to the release announcing the success of Smule's Ocarina, include Yesterday, Beethoven's Ode to Joy, Harry Potter Theme, Zelda Theme, Blister in the Sun, Frosty the Snowman, and Amazing Grace.   Amazing indeed.



Opera Mini 4.2 Released

November 25, 2008

Opera Software released latest version of its Opera Mini 4.2 browser for mobile phones. The company reports that speed trials have shown a 30% speed increase for users in the US, due to the addition of a new Opera Mini server park in the US.   According to the company, this release also marks Opera Mini's official availability on the latest version of the Android mobile platform. A technical preview of Opera Mini was previously released for an earlier version of Android in April 2008. I covered that here.   One of the neat things about this version of Opera Mini is that it offers support for more than 90 language versions, including Amharic, Armenian, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kirghiz, Lingala, Marathi, Malayalam, Mongolian, Oriya, Punjabi, Pashto, Sinhala, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Uzbek, Khmer, Kashmiri, Lao and Turkmen.   This is great news for native speakers of those languages and on a personal level allowed me to use words like Pashto, Lingala, Assamese and Urdu -- in context -- on my blog.  

14 Join Open Handset Alliance, Android Gains Momentum

December 10, 2008

So yesterday, the Open Handset Alliance announced that 14 additional companies were joining the Android alliance, demonstrating "their support for Android as an open mobile platform and their commitment to its commercial success."   The newest member companies are: ·         AKM Semiconductor Inc., ·         ARM ·         ASUSTek Computer Inc. ·         Atheros Communications ·         Borqs ·         Ericsson ·         Garmin International Inc. ·         Huawei Technologies ·         Omron Software Co. Ltd. ·         Softbank Mobile Corporation ·         Sony Ericsson ·         Teleca AB ·         Toshiba Corporation and ·         Vodafone   Adam Leach, principal analyst at Ovum believes the move will lead to a greater number of devices based on the Android operating system over the next year.   Said Leach, "This announcement signals greater confidence in the OHA and the Android platform within the mobile industry. The extended membership will lead to a greater number of Android devices in the market next year and could lead to much-needed consolidation in the mobile Linux space."   "Google and its OHA partners have the opportunity to build critical a mass of supporting handsets during 2009," Leach added. "If [Google] achieves this momentum in the handset market in 2009, then it has the potential to challenge Nokia and the Symbian Foundation for dominance in the handset software market."

DataViz to Develop Android Apps in 2009

December 11, 2008

DataViz is well known in the industry for its Office compatibility and productivity solutions that enable users to access their office documents on mobile platforms such as Palm OS, Symbian OS, BlackBerry, Java, Linux, Windows Mobile, Windows and Macintosh.  Their solutions include mobile Office suite, Documents To Go, and wireless Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync client, RoadSync. Well, now we hear that they will be developing Documents To Go and RoadSync for Android in 2009.
    No word yet on exactly what features will be supported with Android. If you wish to be notified on availability, news updates or provide feedback please the company has set up the following URL: www.dataviz.com/android

Goin' Mobile With Skype

January 9, 2009

Out in the woods

Or in the city

It's all the same to me

When I'm drivin' free, the world's my home...

When I'm mobile...

 

 

Ok, I admit it. Sometimes I can't help myself. I reach for the most clichéd classic rock lyrics when writing about IP Communications. It happens.

Praise for LTE, WiMAX' Bad Week

January 9, 2009

  Market researcher ABI Research has released a new study that points to continued enthusiasm for LTE deployment.   Coming on the heels of a turbulent week for WiMAX (see: Intel's $950 million investment write-down and Nokia ceasing production of its only WiMAX device) it's a positive sign indeed for this 4G technology.   Now before we get carried away with the premature burial of WiMAX, it's important to note that Clearwire did light up a new city this week (Portland, OR) and has plans to start service in up to nine other cities in 2009. Let's wait before we get out the shovels.   Still ABI's report Long Term Evolution (LTE) draws attention to the fact that Verizon, (possibly sensing some blood in the water?) has reportedly moved up their LTE deployment plans by a year, from 2010 to 2009.   ABI notes that globally, 18 operators have announced LTE rollout plans.   Writing in the recent report, ABI Research senior analyst Nadine Manjaro said,   ABI Research believes that NTT will also deploy LTE in Japan in 2009. We forecast that by 2013 operators will spend over $8.6 billion on LTE base station infrastructure alone. For operators that have already deployed 3G networks, LTE will be a key CAPEX driver over the next five years.   Manjaro also notes that LTE application development could be a major driver of investment as operators explore which services to deploy.   As an example, Manjaro looks to Sprint and Verizon and their plans to provide third-party access to their GPS data.   The resulting new applications will tie mobility and presence aspects together to create more compelling services than in the past.

Backhaul Looks Good

January 16, 2009

Dragonwave's Vice President of Product Management Dr. Alan Solheim, author of The Middle Mile column that appears regularly on TMCnet, has a new column just out that offers up a hopeful message in light of the rest of the economic bad news that's out there these days.   According to Solheim, the outlook for the backhaul market is bright:   ...the opportunity in front of the backhaul segment in general, and that for packet based radios in particular, is relatively bright. If any networks get built, backhaul wins. If any backhaul gets built, packet radio wins. So while I wouldn't break out the champagne just yet I do believe there is a case for optimism amidst all the doom and gloom.

Mobile Backhaul Certification

January 21, 2009

A new certification program, designed to act as a benchmark for mobile operators, backhaul providers and end users was launched by the IP/MPLS Forum today.

 

The Mobile Backhaul Certification program will initially focus on certifying standards-compliant implementations of Circuit Emulation services over MPLS as defined in the IP/MPLS Forum's MPLS Mobile Backhaul Initiative (MMBI), which defines how MPLS can be used to backhaul TDM traffic for mobile operators.

 

The certification program will lay out a set of guidelines and test procedures and will be administered by Iometrix, the Forum's certified lab partner.

 

According to Andrew G. Malis, Chairman and President of the IP/MPLS Forum:

 

The Mobile Backhaul Certification Program represents a needed step in the evolution of MPLS solutions which have already proven in lab trials to be ready to meet the needs of operators around the world.

 

The first group of certified vendors will be announced at the MPLS Ethernet World Congress in Paris this February.

Femtocells in the News

January 28, 2009

The femtocell is indicative of much in the technology world these days.   Analysts are generally in agreement that the market opportunity is large, and yet fits and starts - typical of early days in any sector -- abound. Verizon's newly released Network Extender has met with mixed results. T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home service was well received, but ran into a bit of a patent issue late last year. And Ars Technica is reporting today that AT&T slipped up and released details of their offering into the space:   The new offering will be called 3G MicroCell, supports voice and 3G data, and allows 4 simultaneous calls or data sessions.   The product details reported on a new AT&T page, since pulled, were discovered by Engadget and SlipperyBrick.   Adding to the femtocell conversation, IntelliNet Technologies today announced the development of a new integrated femtocell gateway, which combines a femtocell access point controller with a carrier grade security gateway in an industry standard AdvancedTCA platform.   The idea behind this offering is to give service providers and wireless operators the ability to manage thousands of femtocells at once.   Anjan Ghosal, president and CEO of IntelliNet Technologies said:   Cellular phone service is now in line with traditional wireline as a subscriber's primary mode of communication.
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