News

13 June, 2018

5G is a garden with forking paths

Everything used to be so straightforward. Customers couldn’t get enough mobile service – first voice, then data – and 3GPP brought vendors and operators together on a single path to delivering more of it, writes Dr. Nick Johnson, the chief technology officer of ip.access. Ubiquitous coverage with infinite capacity was a reasonable expectation. The ITU did its bit with a handy bite-sized definition for 4G. There was a target we could all aim for. We all did. And we all pretty much hit it.

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12 June, 2018

5G challenges are not all about wireless networks

The imminent rollout of 5G mobile networks has major implications for the supporting backhaul infrastructure which need to be addressed sooner rather than later, writes Stephan Wanke, the vice president of Professional Services at Colt Technology Services

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07 June, 2018

Solve the service assurance complexity of 4.5G and 5G

The first pre-standard launches of 5G are due toward the end of 2018, writes Scott Sumner, the vice president of strategy at end-to-end network and application performance experts Accedian. However, standardised 5G will probably not arrive globally and at scale until 2021-2022. In the meantime, operators are upgrading their existing LTE networks to 4.5G.

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01 June, 2018

AI and the future of wholesale

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rarely far from the headlines these days. While the technology isn’t new, the hype that surrounds it has reached fever pitch – we’re constantly hearing about the latest AI-based innovation transforming its industry. Little wonder then that organisations of all stripes are rushing to implement their own AI solutions, keen to realise the benefits it promises, writes Ravi Palepu, the global head of telco solutions at Virtusa.

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25 May, 2018

How CSPs can address the challenges of preparing for 5G

In April, UK regulator Ofcom announced that the auction of frequencies for 5G mobile networks had raised £1.36bn – even though 5G isn’t expected to launch until 2020. However, several US telecom operators are planning to launch their 5G services by the end of the year, writes Michal Medrala, the head of OSS Project Management at […]

24 May, 2018

The mobile industry needs to balance complexity with seamless customer experience

The mobile industry finds itself in the middle of a paradox. Consumers would like a totally seamless mobile experience at all times, with virtually flawless coverage for everything from voice calls and messaging to live traffic updates in their cars as well as streaming video on the train to work. The paradox comes from the increasingly complex mesh of wireless networks which underpin the operator’s abilities to provide an ongoing, positive customer experience, writes Paul Carter, the chief executive of GWS.

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21 May, 2018

How can the telecoms industry successfully adopt digital twins?

In space exploration, NASA needed a way to monitor and control each of its spacecraft, space stations and satellites that were sent from Earth, writes Ganesan Arulanandham, a consulting partner at Wipro.

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14 May, 2018

Build, buy or hire a UC platform: what’s best for who, when and how

Traditionally, service providers built their own telecoms platforms, whether developing in-house or via an external vendor, writes Bertrand Pourcelot, the director general of Centile Telecom Applications.

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20 April, 2018

Can networks carry big video’s ultra-high definition burden?

The past decade has seen the multi-fold growth of online content consumption on mobile devices. We’ve never spent as much time (and data) on our smartphones, getting work done, browsing the web, scrolling through social media and … watching videos, writes Brendan Gill the chief executive of OpenSignal.

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06 April, 2018

SON shines sometimes as CSPs get ready to automate operations

Self organising networks (SON) have, in recent years, gained limited attention as communications service providers (CSPs) focus on virtualisation via software defined networks (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV). However, as CSPs recognise the value of SON for their future operations, large deals for the technology are being done, writes George Malim.

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