Fibre-based infrastructure requires vision and recognition of the fact that many of today's social, economic and sustainability problems can only be solved with the assistance of information and communications technology (ICT). In many situations the capacity, robustness, security and quality necessary for this calls for fibre optic infrastructures. This need will increase dramatically over the next 5 to 10 years as industries and whole sectors (healthcare, energy, media, retail) carry out the process of transforming themselves in order to much better address the challenges ahead. more
There is no doubt that LTE is going to take a prime position in broadband developments. With competitively priced services, innovative smartphones and an increasing range of very innovative apps this market is set to continue to boom. So how will all this impact the overall broadband market? ...this is not an 'us or them' issue between fixed and mobile broadband. As a matter of fact, the companies that are rolling out LTE are increasingly dependent on deep fibre rollouts as they need to handle massive amounts of data, to which the mobile infrastructure technology is not well-suited. more
Spain's economic anguish has had a number of repercussions for the country's telcos, with stable or declining revenue causing much nervousness as operators struggle to fund essential investment in spectrum and both fixed-line and mobile networks. Earlier this year Vodafone felt the pinch, announcing plans to cut its Spanish workforce by up to 1,000. Though general economic conditions have not helped, the move partly resulted from its own decisions. The company saw revenue drop for several quarters and so decided to save money by cutting handset subsidies. more
Tonight begins the third annual SIP Network Operators Conference (SIPNOC) in Herndon, Virginia, where technical and operations staff from service providers around the world with gather to share information and learn about the latest trends in IP communications services - and specifically those based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Produced by the nonprofit SIP Forum, SIPNOC is an educational event sharing best practices, deployment information and technology updates. Attendees range from many traditional telecom carriers to newer VoIP-focused service providers and application developers. more
As the recent Senate vote on gun reform legislation has shown (wherein 42 of the 45 dissenting senators had recently received donations from gun industry lobbyists), getting things done for the good of the people is a hard task where legislation is concerned. It has been thus with the US's broadband infrastructure for years. A number of states have legislated against community broadband networks, often resulting from the lobbying efforts of the main telcos affected. State Legislatures commonly pass bills revoking local decision-making authorities from communities, effectively making them dependent on the dominant cableco and DSL provider. more
The 7th meeting of the UN Broadband Commission in Mexico City was again a good combination of announcements about new plans, results of previously undertaken activities, and views on the future of broadband. Very noticeable was the enthusiasm and acknowledgement of the impact of ICT, and of broadband in particular. In September 2012 the Commission launched its working group on gender equality. Research undertaken by the various members of the workgroup provided somewhat similar results. more
With WICT-12 over, and now the preparation for the forthcoming WTPF underway, and of course also we have the WTDC and WTISD coming up, one could be excused for thinking that that world famous, but hopelessly unintelligible, cartoon character from the 80's and 90's, Bill the Cat, has come out of retirement to work as head of Acronym Engineering at the ITU. However, no matter how unintelligible the acronyms of these meetings can get, the issue of how we come to terms with a technology-dense world is a serious matter. more
Many nations, particularly from the developing world, look to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for advice on telecommunications issues and, increasingly, Internet governance issues. The ITU's Fifth World Telecommunication / ICT Policy Forum (WTPF-13), 14-16 May 2013, Geneva, Switzerland, will be the first WTPF to focus exclusively on Internet issues. more
The FCC has long battled for a more efficient deployment of unused spectrum, endeavouring to adapt rules governing 'white space' TV spectrum (largely gifted to broadcasters years ago, and generally in the 700MHz band) to newly released spectrum (in the 600MHz band). This will considerably improve wireless broadband coverage where it is needed most... Certainly, in the US's disjointed broadband sector there are considerable challenges ahead... more
We're jamming! Well, jamming in the cable industry, in the Caribbean. This year's Caribbean Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA) annual conference ran from January 22 to 24 and was billed as "the Caribbean meets the future of cable TV." Indeed, the topics were all forward-looking -- network upgrades, new plant expansions, delivery of content over multiple devices, search and navigation tools -- the list goes on. It's an event where folks in the broadband business get together to share ideas and best practices. more
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