At the recently-concluded ITEXPO East in Miami, TMC's Juliana Kenny had the chance to interview Olivier Amiot, director of Marketing, Enterprise and Consumer Solutions for Sierra Wireless. He gave a presentation about consumer products during the M2M Evolution segment.

When asked if there was a certain targeted audience for this presentation, he said it was for Internet application engineers and companies trying to understand better how to get into these markets.

TMC's Bob Emmerson wrote that Sierra Wireless unveiled four new products recently:

Two 4G mobile hotspots: the AirCard 753S and AirCard 754S connect up to fiveWiFi-enabled devices simultaneously to the Internet over Dual-Carrier HSPA+ and LTE networks, respectively. Both products are scheduled for commercial shipments in the second quarter of this year. The company will also offer a suite of accessories designed to enhance performance and functionality, e.g. car chargers, silicone skins, extended batteries, and cradles with integrated antennas for indoor use and desktop charging.

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Recently TMC's Patrick Barnard had a chance at ITEXPO 2011 East in Miami to sit down and talk with Grandstream’s sales manager for Latin America, Jorge Otero, who talked about the new Grandstream initiative -- breaking into video.

"2010 was an exciting year for us, we had a lot of new products," Otero said, saying over the past few months they've introduced a few new models in their IP products surveillance line. It's a camera for office or residential space, easy to install, and "price-sensitive," Otero said. It would be used for things like bringing together IP surveillance and IP telephony. All video surveillance have professional capabilities for security protection. "It's almost plug and play, with the right tools," he said, adding that it has options for bandwidth usage -- "anywhere from five to 30 frames per second."

They've been introducing them over the past year, and are introducing a waterproof one for outdoor placements soon. "It will be available for users with indoor and outdoor needs," he noted.

Video is becoming a critical part of business communications right now, Barnard noted, adding that now that networks are building out bandwidth constraints aren't as much of an issue anymore. "Our IP telephony is growing, too, and video phones, or 'multimedia phones,' as we like to call them, are growing now as well," Otero said.

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A recent Webinar dealt with what you could learn from the design and implementation of a successful voice of the customer program, featuring a real-life case study from restaurant chain Hayden's Grill and Bar.

The Webinar noted that understanding your customers is critical in today’s hypercompetitive world, and explored areas key to putting together a successful voice of the customer feedback program. It was a combination of best practices review, including a real world example from Brent Skaggs, CEO of restaurant chain Hayden’s Grill and Bar.

"We offer our guests an incentive at the end of the survey," Skaggs said. "It's a way to get them back in a little quicker."

Presenting was Sheri Teodoru, CEO, CFI Group. She manages offices across four continents from CFI Group’s world headquarters in Ann Arbor, Mich. Teodoru joined CFI Group in 2000, where she worked on clients including Cable & Wireless, General Motors, Kraft Foods, Compuware and NASA. She also has experience with Kraft Foods, Quaker Oats and Kolcraft Enterprises.

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Whew, it's getting crowded out there. The world's insatiable demand for global mobile data bandwidth is flying high with absolutely no sign of slowing down -- in fact, get ready for the upcoming tablet wars to whet everybody's appetite for more bandwidth.

Usage shot up 73 percent in the back half of 2010, "fueling a near 200 percent rise in usage over the course of the year, research by Allot Communications shows," according to industry observer Michael Carroll.

"The network optimization firm’s latest report into the state of the market shows that overall demand grew 190 percent in 2010, with the bulk of the growth fueled by use of video streaming services, which grew 94 percent in the July to December period alone," Carroll noted, adding that growth left video at the top of the pile of mobile broadband applications with a 37 percent share of the total market during 2H10, ahead of file sharing with 30 percent, Web browsing (26 percent), and VoIP and instant messaging (4 percent).

Carroll spoke with Jonathon Gordon, Allot’s marketing director, who said the bulk of video traffic is over-the-top services like “YouTube, CNN or the [BBC’s] iPlayer... Indeed, YouTube dominated streaming video during 2H10, growing 190 percent and accounting for 45 percent of all streamed video on mobile networks."

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