Recently in 4GWE Category

This past February at ITEXPO East 2009, I was honored to host the first panel in the world (that I know of) on the topic of HD Voice. Since that time lots of other people have jumped on the bandwagon which I think is great. A tremendous amount of credit goes to Polycom actually for being a true pioneer in the HD voice market. For over a year in fact the company has sponsored a Global Online Community on TMCnet titled HD Voice.

As you can see in the video below, one of the drawbacks to ubiquitous HD voice adoption is the wireless carriers. This is why I am thrilled to let you know Orange Moldova seems to be the world's first carrier to embrace HD voice in all its glory.

The challenge of course is you have to have a specific Nokia handset the 6720c to take part in the HD voice party. And of course you and the party you connect with have to be in Moldova - which by the way is sandwiched between Romania and the Ukraine.

Other facts of interest - the country's network has recently been upgraded to 14.4 Mbps and the Nokia phone uses Adaptive Multi Rate - WideBand (AMR-WB) technology. This is great news for the communications market as this new standard could be helpful in generating new sales of communications servers and endpoints as the world transitions to better sounding communications solutions. Expect the discussion to continue at ITEXPO East 2010, January 20-22^nd in Miami, FL.

Isn't it incredible how areas of tech go out of favor quickly? RFID for example was talked about everywhere a few years back but now it doesn't get the attention it once did. Perhaps we are so overwhelmed with social media sites, 4G and smartphones that we don't have time to look at how RFID is evolving. This is why I was quite happy recently to see solid coverage of RFID on the Next Generation Communications blog and related Global Online Community which live on TMCnet.

What caught my eye is how Alcatel-Lucent has renamed its contactless tikitag service to touchatag while enhancing its related APIs and barcode support. There is tremendous application potential here - you can use this technology to improve event and travel ticketing as well as electronic payments and coupons.

Then there is the opportunity to use the technology to share contact information and distribute targeted advertising. Other areas of interest are smart toys and the ability to access corporate and government data based on location. This blog entry goes in a bit more depth and developers should check out the related community.

I almost forgot -- what caught my eye today was the fact that Alcatel-Lucent has announced a Vienna Jungle Scrum competition which challenges developers to come up with the most innovative near field communications (NFC) urban game. According to the blog post:

Urban gaming - also known as location-based gaming - leverages GPS and NFC technologies to create real-world games, like point-to-point races, scavenger hunts, problem solving - not unlike a localized, mobile-device based version of the popular reality TV show, Amazing Race - as well as interactive local tour applications.

The Vienna Jungle Scrum is open to developers across the globe through September 18, 2009, with winners being awarded a total of €5000 in cash prizes.

It seems with all the interest in location based applications, a blend of GPS and NFC can bring more value than GPS alone. I will be watching this space very closely and hope to see some game-changing (pun sort of intended  )applications soon which brings RFID back into the mainstream.

I travel a great deal and have had a chance to test AT&T's wireless

service in areas such as Dallas, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Los Angeles, San Francisco and others. What I have noticed is the service is improving and aside from occasional glitches, surfing the web on an Apple iPhone 3Gs is a more pleasant experience. I don't think it approaches Verizon Wireless yet but then again, VZW doesn't have to deal with the onslaught of wireless data requests generated from legions of iPhone users. AT&T has an opportunity of a lifetime to upgrade its network before it loses iPhone exclusivity (assuming it does).

To say the company is rushing to improve its service would be an understatement - in fact it is doubling its data speed through the use of HSPA in six cities -- Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Charlotte. This is great news as the next ITEXPO and - East 2010 and the collocated 4G Wireless Evolution will take place in Miami this January and these upgrades should be in place by year's end. I am looking forward to testing the service out then.

A big theme at last week's ITEXPO was broadband stimulus and a number of people told me they have bookmarked and are using the new Broadband Stimulus GOC (Global Online Community) on TMCnet as their home page so they can keep up with the exciting developments in the space and the billions of dollars which will be distributed.

Here are some of the recent articles from the site if you haven't visited yet. Be sure to check out the community for yourself. These are certainly exciting times for the broadband market - indeed, any time the government gives billions of dollars in subsidies it is an exciting time - in any market.

Thank you all - sponsors, analysts, members of the press, keynoters, partners, attendees, speakers, friends, colleagues and the TMC team. ITEXPO West 2009 was one of the best events TMC has ever put on thanks to your support.

I will be collecting my thoughts for a while and will have more to report soon.

For now, please enjoy some photos and news from the event.

He is worth billions and he still works as hard as anyone I know. He travels the world and closes business. He actually said selling things turns him on. It shows - the companies he has started are some of the most successful around. I hope to have a fraction of his energy at his age.

Based upon the crowd here at his address and the focus by audience members on every word Terry is saying, it seems we picked a great keynoter for this event. Here is a clip of Terry speaking and the crowd shot of who was there.

At 4GWE/ITEXPO West 2009, Corporate Vice President of Alvarion Ltd., Mohammad Shakouri began a presentation by explaining how he will help the audience make money. From there he spent time discussing the various levels of broadband penetration in the world - citing how the US is falling further behind - currently considered second world according to him.

Shakouri gave examples of global customers which are benefitting from WiMAX and LTE technology and the audience seemed genuinely interested in his comments and thoughts.

Here is a clip.

His went on to share UC best practices and shared what he believes you should look for when buying new communications systems.

Here is a brief video of the the presentation and the crown in attendance.