A ComputerWeekly columnist says "It's not long ago since I was asking in various broadband-testing reports - do we really need widespread gigabit ethernet? But now the question is, do we need 10 gigabit ethernet (10GbE)?" If his outlook typifies that of enterprise IT managers, carriers had better pay attention.
There's good news on the WiMAX from both Sprint and Covad this week. Sprint says the WiMAX network built with Samsung gear in the Washington, DC/Baltimore area, along with two of the vendor's devices, have met its technical standards, and Covad says it's successfully completed a lab test of the fixed WiMAX service it will offer businesses in California.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with Don Van Doren of UCStrategies.com and Unicomm Consulting. He and his partner Marty Parker have some revolutionary ideas around using unified communications to drive business value. Key to their philosophy is a concept called "Unified Communications - Business Productivity" that shows an exponential increase in ROI versus the more common "increased productivity" case.
Another aspect of hyperconnectivity that we haven't hit on much is the growth of connected machines and devices. More and more consumer electronic devices are getting attached to the network all the time, making all sorts of new content experiences possible. But what happens when the machines aren't just content delivery and consumption devices, and they start talking to us?
Over at Computerworld, there's a story with a solid comparison of WiMAX and LTE (via Cell Data Networking). There's been plenty of sparring already about which technology is better, but what's striking is how similar the two technologies really are. The biggest similarity, though, isn't a technical one: it's that they both promise to deliver high-speed mobile data services. With that in mind, is the world big enough for both technologies?
In the eyes of Shamus McGillicuddy, with videoconferencing, the more the merrier.
The statement is simple, but it stretches across the value proposition of Telepresence as a technology and even unified communications. End users must change the way they do business and often adapt business processes to attain the full value of the solution. A single telepresence room, from any vendor, doesn't have a lot of value. Who would you call? and what are the chances any partners are using the same vendor solution since interoperability is still months/years away?
Muni Wi-Fi continues to wobble, while muni WiMAX gains some steam. The municipal Wi-Fi project in Philadelphia was probably the highest-profile one of its kind across the US, but like other muni wireless projects managed by Earthlink, it's in danger of being shut down. Earthlink decided last year to get out of the muni wireless business, and in some cities, like Corpus Christi, Texas, and Mipitas, Calif., it's been able to transfer networks to city ownership. However in Philadelphia and in New Orleans, efforts to get somebody to take over the network have so far been fruitless.
I'm headed to the UC Strategies conference in AZ this week. I'd love to meet some readers and take a deeper dive into your UC questions and deployments. Also, I'll send the first person to come up and say they read this on Hyperconnectivity.com an autographed copy of my book.
Nortel Goverment Solutions unveiled their highly secure unified communications platform based on their new Application Server 5300 platform. According to the press release it meets the unique security, control and availability requirements of the DoD (Department of Defense).
Written by Alex Lewis and Carlo Longino
