Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T and SMBs, FoIP, FCC and Testing, High-Leverage Network

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Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T and SMBs, FoIP, FCC and Testing, High-Leverage Network

We all know about the rise of smartphones. But SMBs are increasingly relying on wireless technology, and major carriers are taking notice.
AT&T recently conducted a study, which revealed small businesses are, in fact, "increasingly dependent on wireless technology." The study's authors found that wireless technologies are "increasingly being seen as crucial for the survival of today's growing businesses."
Nearly two-thirds of businesses -- 65 percent -- said it would be "a major challenge" to survive, if they could survive at all, without wireless technology.
Study officials concluded that there's a "rapid increase" in the perceived importance of wireless technology, since in a similar AT&T study from 2007, only 42 percent of businesses said it would be difficult to survive without it.
Read more here.
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Testing wireless networks is expected to become more important under the FCC's recently announced National Broadband Plan, which is expected to boost national access speeds to 100 Mbps, and release 500 MHz of additional spectrum for wireless broadband.
As you might expect, of course, mobile VoIP providers, carriers and mobile device makers are grinning and drywashing their hands in anticipation. Also keeping an eye on proceedings are those who oversee wireless networks testing.
Major carriers are taking testing much more seriously. Verizon Wireless has employed real-life test men and women to test the company's network, and over the past ten years has "more than tripled" the size of that fleet, company officials said, currently fielding over 100 test vehicles.
Read more here.
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Fax - due in part to fax server and FoIP-based technologies - is certainly not dead, as some have wrongly said. It continues to be an important and cost-effective means for business-to-business and business-to-customer communications.
In fact, more than 90 percent of U.S. businesses have fax machines in the office, a recent white paper from Dialogic (News - Alertreports, adding that "sales of fax machines in recent years have maintained a steady growth rate... more than 7.5 million fax machines were sold in 2002 alone."
Recent advancements in fax technology have resulted in a renewed interest in fax in the business environment. This white paper looks at one such advancement, the introduction of the V.34 fax standard, which the paper concludes "can help increase productivity and reduce costs."
Read more here.
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Alcatel-Lucent officials say they believe that a holistic approach to eco-sustainability "focuses on building intelligent and environmentally responsible end-to-end communications networks that add value to our customers' business."
To that end, they say, Bell Labs researchers recognize that a systems-based approach is required to make "meaningful improvements" in network energy efficiency.  The Green Touch Initiative was launched "to define systems-based products that will reduce the telecommunications carbon footprint while continuing to meet market expectations for performance and capacity."
According to a recent white paper from Alcatel-Lucent, more than 50 percent of enterprises consider "greenness" when selecting a vendor, and nearly 80 percent of executives say Green IT is becoming more important to their organizations. Gartner Group findings reinforce these assertions, indicating that "environmentally-friendly IT" ranks among the top 10 trends and technologies.
Read more here.
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Recently Willem Herbiest, vice president, multimedia solutions for Alcatel-Lucent, discussed driving the high-leverage network.
"About five years ago, IPTV started to come up, and service providers started to deliver content services, distribute content to end users," he said. As he noted, this had "quite a significant impact" on the network.
The reasons for that, he said, were because the network wanted to deliver them at top quality. But if you look at the IP network which was built at that time, he said, about 80 percent of the capacity was being consumed with content delivery - "video, music, whatever."
Read more here.


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