On-Board Processing, LiveOps and Flexibility, Alcatel-Lucent LTE, Cloud Computing New Zealand

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On-Board Processing, LiveOps and Flexibility, Alcatel-Lucent LTE, Cloud Computing New Zealand

If you're interested in signal gain, double-hop elimination, IP multiplexing and mesh networking without a teleport, check into satellite communications.

"On-board processing has the potential to bring video on-demand, capacity growth and convergence of ground and space networks, thus promising to revolutionize satellite as we know it," says Giovanni Verlini in a piece appearing Satellite Today.
  
The article tackles the question, "what exactly is on-board processing, and what are the characteristics of the payloads equipped with this technology?" As Jeff Snyder, group vice president, SkyTerra Communications explains the answer, satellite architectures "can be put into three categories: conventional bent-pipe radiofrequency systems, on-board processed bent-pipe systems and on-board digital processed systems."
The first type, Snyder says, "is used in fixed service and direct broadcast satellites, the second type in systems such as SkyTerra satellites, while the last type is typical of systems such as the Iridium constellation."
And it might not appear so at first, but Snyder assures us that "the differences between these systems are significant. On-board processed bent-pipe systems typically perform frequency channelization of signals by digitally processing them at baseband or near baseband." This means the channelized signals can then be "conditioned and processed prior to up-conversion for retransmission."
Read more here.
...
LTE networks "offer the promise of supporting the explosion in traffic arising from a new generation of mobile devices and applications," according to a recent white paper on the subject from Alcatel-Lucent.
The introduction of LTE has several implications on the transport network. The paper does a good job of explaining six important implications:
Higher capacity at lower cost. Traditionally, bandwidth demand in mobile networks was driven primarily by voice services and exhibited a steady growth rate. Now, demand for mobile data services is growing, and these services represent an increasingly larger portion of network traffic, overall operations, administration and maintenance.
Multiservice transport. Service providers have traditionally used either TDM (T1/E1) interfaces or microwave to backhaul 2G/3G cell site traffic to the mobile telephone switching office (MTSO) and more recently have begun to adopt Ethernet backhaul as well. Given the ubiquity of these technologies, it makes sense to rely on them for transport and service providers have invested in infrastructure supporting this model.
Low latency and quality of service. The delivery of real-time, performance-sensitive services, such as video or VoIP, introduces stringent requirements for the transport layer in terms of QoS management and end-to-end delay management from the eNodeB to the Evolved Packet Core and between eNodeBs.
To meet the stringent QoS requirements of real-time traffic, the IP backhaul network must integrate many of the qualities and attributes of switched networks: predictability, reliability and manageability.
Read more here.
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Maynard Webb, CEO of LiveOps, says that while all this happy talk about flexibility is great, and that hey, flexibility itself is great, flexibility "comes with a cost. The cost is accountability, which is necessary to gain the opportunity to work where you want, when you want, and how you want."
Webb is excited by "what accountability yields: a work environment ruled by meritocracy." Would that it were always the case.
You certainly can't argue that Webb doesn't practice what he preaches. "I came out of retirement to work at LiveOps because of the opportunity to support and promote such a culture," he says, adding, perhaps superfluously, that "meritocracy is at the heart of LiveOps' business."
Their technology platform "tracks real-time information about our independent agents' results," he explains: "All of the freelancers who use our platform for work have access to this data. The technology also provides access to information about how each freelancer compares to other independent agents, creating a healthy sense of competition and providing incentive for improvement."
Read more here.
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New Zealand-based industry observer Darren Greenwood recently wrote an opinion article arguing that the "local cloud" might be a "happy compromise" for places like New Zealand.
"We do not want our best and brightest heading to Singapore, Texas or wherever, in even greater numbers than they currently do," he says. "It could be a real issue for both Australia and New Zealand. It's also a security issue, because it means less control."

He builds a convincing case for the argument that cloud is currently siphoning off a lot of talent. "Rackspace is a big Texas company gone global, and is a larger version of Auckland-based Revera, which also operates in Australia. Despite having customers in Australia, Rackspace prefers to keep the work in America." 

And IBM, he notes, is building a huge data center in Auckland, due to open next year in the Land of the Long White Cloud, the indigenous Maori people's name for New Zealand. But this is an anomaly, as most such places are in America.

Greenwood recounts a Microsoft official telling him that they host their cloud in Singapore. "Such regional or globally-based services means it gains economies of scale and can offer all kinds of wonderful things at a great price, even to smaller organizations in Australia or New Zealand."
Read more here.
 


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