March 31, 2008
COVER STORY
The new service providers
"Service provider" and "network operator" are becoming independent terms in wireless. Read more of this feature article on how companies are evolving...
Truphone rides mobile trends
If there's one new service provider perhaps most poised to upset the mobile status quo, it's London-based Truphone...
Can Ovi improve on the walled garden?
It all starts with a funny name: Ovi. It conjures up the image of an egg, but in Finnish it means "door." Nokia is fond of saying it's both a gateway and a destination, and at least from a strategic point of view, it's right...
Sprinting toward a new business model
Think Xohm and chances are you're thinking WiMAX, the underlying technology for Sprint's new 4G network...
Google remains mobile's question mark
Was Google the real winner in the 700 MHz auction? It seems unlikely because the Web search giant didn't actually win any of the spectrum up for bid...
What's driving the new wireless paradigm
New competitors are leveraging a handful of key of trends enabled by ongoing and inevitable technology advances to change the mobile service provider space in critical ways. Among the tech trends to watch...
EDITOR'S LETTER
The Google factor
There's a certain paranoia in the telecom industry when it comes to Google. At one point, there was a similar paranoia about Microsoft, but that has been displaced by a mutual reliance the software giant works closely with the telecom industry on multiple fronts, and if the two also sometimes compete, so it goes...
FORWARD MOTION
700 MHz: Meet the new operators -- same as the old operators
If there were any surprises in the 700 MHz auction, it was that there were no surprises...
Google's new ploy
Just as it played a major role influencing the outcome of the 700 MHz auction -- despite not winning any spectrum -- Google recently called for unlicensed over-the-air TV spectrum, known as white space, to be used for broadband services, although it doesn't want to provide those services itself...
In the spotlight: Alianza CEO Brian Beutler
Unified communications is moving quickly from enterprise trend to bottom-line requirement for companies of all sizes. To meet this growing need for simplicity, UC pioneer Alianza last week announced a partnership with Digital Bridge Communications to serve as the exclusive provider of the telco's UC applications...
XO's big bet pays off
XO Communications privately presented the chart below to top investors last December to illustrate the carrier's recent and dramatic shift in spending...
BEA's telecom guy
While the big issue on its plate these days may be the pending and still controversial merger with Oracle, BEA Systems has its hands full in the carrier market as well...
768 kb/s still isn't enough
Telecom industry professionals think the current Universal Service Fund should be used to expand rural broadband, according to a recent Tellabs survey, and they believe location and economic status should not determine the extent to which broadband is available...
Bypassing the carrier
Consumers are loosening carriers' tight grip on mobile networks when it comes to the content ecosystem, according to a recent study by ABI Research...
Indoor ONT market matures
Optical network terminals, the customer premises gear in fiber-to-the-premises networks, are increasingly moving from outside the home to indoors, as more equipment vendors offer that option...
Online gaming finds its voice
Headset-wearing online gamers are used to talking smack when gunning down or dunking on an opponent, but yesterday's often-flaky peer-to-peer voice connections are giving way to more sophisticated deployments...
Reinventing the landline
Enterprises have several choices when it comes to telephony. IP phones sit on many office desks, but dual-mode voice-over-IP handsets and cellular-only offerings are becoming more common...
SMBs see VoIP push
CLECs, cable companies, incumbents and even software giants such as Microsoft are seeing the light of delivering integrated data/voice-over-IP services to small- to medium-sized businesses...
Martin takes reins at Aktino
Industry veteran Lonnie Martin, a longtime ADC Telecommunications executive who also helped found White Rock, has stepped in to lead Aktino, an Ethernet-over-copper company hoping to capitalize on the current boom...
OPINION
Video, any way you demand it
After I installed a Vudu set-top box in my living room, I didn't leave the apartment for an entire weekend...
INNOVATION
Light-labeling in optical networks
For the past few years, AT&T Labs has been tinkering with a technology called "light-labeling," which can help monitor and manage performance in optical networks...
WIRELESS
Milking 3G
With 4G dominating the attention of the industry, 3G seems to have fallen by the wayside. However, a sizable evolutionary path for both CDMA2000 and wideband CDMA still exists...
Hidden power
Femtocells are a hot topic in telecom, touted as a way to make mobile customers happier through better coverage. But the in-home devices could have a hidden benefit: easing electric bills for mobile operators...
WHAT'S NEXT
Wireless 2008: Hip to be green
Femtocells. LTE. WiMAX. There’s no shortage of hot wireless topics to keep people talking this year. Decoupled from technologies and standards, however, is another trend that started brewing last year and has quickly captured its own share of attention: environmentally friendly network solutions and practices...
