Ajay Khanna, CTO at network optimisation specialist Celcite, explains how the company has evolved from working on the resource needs of US operators a decade ago to one of the hottest areas in LTE network infrastructure: the Self-Optimising Network (SON).
In the history of bank robberies, the £30 million stolen by the Eurograbber attack in 2012 ranks as one of the all-time biggest, globally. And when you consider that this sum was stolen from more than 30,000 accounts across 30 banks in four European countries, using malware that affected both PCs and bank customers’ mobile phones, it must also rank as one of the most sophisticated thefts ever discovered, writes Terry Greer-King, UK managing director of Check Point*.
The internet is an incredible resource for growth and innovation; it sparks creativity and connects people across the world, whilst supporting the global economy. RIPE NCC’s Paul Rendek explains how internet infrastructure and development in the Middle East is a completely different landscape compared to two years ago.
In 2012, SKT and LG U+ in South Korea, as well as MetroPCS in the United States, all announced the launch of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) networks. Equally, in recent months, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 10.1, complete with VoLTE capability.
The banking industry, integral to our commercial and personal lives, has always evolved with the times to embrace new challenges and consumer attitudes. Technology plays an obvious and increasingly important role in this evolution, writes Clayton Locke, chief technology officer at Intelligent Environments.
In 2011, communication service providers (CSPs) lost €10.4 billion in text messaging revenues, according to Ovum. This, Ovum argues, was down to the increasing popularity of over the top (OTT) social messaging services, such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Given that €6.5 billion was lost in revenue for the same reason in 2010, CSPs find themselves under increasing pressure from OTT providers who are offering competing services at cheaper prices.
Earlier this month, I attended the Spectrum Management Forum 2012 in Munich and was interested to hear several presenters criticise the Combinatorial Clock Auction (CCA) format. The CCA format which has clock and supplementary rounds where bidders bid on indivisible packages of spectrum and where prices paid are determined by a second price rule has in the last few years found increasing favour by many governments for spectrum auctions. Under the second price rule, the price a winner of a particular package pays for its spectrum is determined entirely by competitors’ bids.
In recent years we have seen networks and devices evolve to offer customers faster and more reliable data services than ever before. Customers have become accustomed to accessing their photos, playing games and watching videos and much more from their smartphones in their home markets. Despite this, when it comes to international roaming, only a small proportion of consumers are enjoying these services when they are abroad.
With the launch of iOS6, Apple’s peer-to-peer video calling service – FaceTime – is available on 3G and 4G cellular networks.iOS6 is already on more than 100 million devices, a fair proportion of which will have access to cellular networks. That’s a lot of mobile users that could start FaceTime sessions on an operator’s network. And this is very early days.
“At the time it didn’t seem like a big deal,” explained Neil Papworth, the twenty two year old British engineer, after sending the world’s first ever text message back in 1992. Almost 20 years ago to the day, Neil marked his place in history, revolutionising communication as we know it, all by sending a text message that read “Happy Christma.” The elegant simplicity of this message soon went on to define the very nature of the platform which has grown to become a cornerstone of mobile communication in the 21st Century.
The uptake of LTE services across the globe is gaining momentum. The Global mobile Suppliers Association’s (GSA) ‘Evolution to LTE Report’ released in September 2012 showed there are currently 96 commercial LTE networks in operation, set to grow to 152 by the end of the year. Devices with LTE support are coming out in a steady stream now, and while handset manufacturers and mobile operators work out the interoperability challenges, Far Eastern operators SK Korea and CSL Hong Kong have already announced the first international roaming agreement. International LTE roaming is coming.
The network is the backbone of our company. It’s been our core product for over 20 years. It began in the 90s with 2G and the first steps toward a digital revolution for mobile. 2G was great for making phone calls and sending texts. At the time, it was revolutionary, but very quickly it became a basic expectation for the people of the western world.
The challenge of the ceaseless growth in data usage, is transforming the telecommunications industry. How operators maximise use of data could also significantly change the characteristics of their business.
The use of mobile devices such as smartphones, tablet computers and laptops has transformed the way we run our personal lives and now they are having a huge impact on our work lives too. Mark Danton, general manager, Global Security Programme, BT, talks about the issues facing financial institutions as they weigh possible gains in productivity against the security risks.
Despite the huge and never-ending investment in newer and faster wireless technologies, it’s generally assumed that the mobile network operators are primarily responsible when their apparently clogged pipes fail to meet subscribers’ performance expectations for delivering content from over-the-top (OTT) providers, or when the latest and greatest smartphone fails to repeatedly deliver the user experience that their owners expect. But as often happens, this conventional wisdom is wrong.
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