Role of Interconnect Network in enabling HD Voice

VoIP traffic has been growing exponentially in recent years in both fixed and mobile networks, as enterprises and consumers seek to improve efficiency and reduce costs by increasing their adoption of IP services. At the same time, the emergence of HD voice promises to deliver on the potential of VoIP by offering clear and life-like reproduction of audio.

http://emags.tmcnet.com/emags/2011/uc/UC_Jun2011.pdf

Beyond the Border: Differentiating IPX services with value added features

Beyond the Border: Differentiating IPX services with value added features

http://www.tmcnet.com/voip/columns/articles/114420-beyond-border-differentiating-ipx-services-with-value-added.htm

IPX - Connected Planet Article

Connected Planet Article:

http://connectedplanetonline.com/IP-NGN/news/sonus-plays-ip-match-maker-with-ipx-ipv6-solutions-0603/

Moving up the Value Chain and Capturing New Revenue Streams with IMS

NGN Article: Moving up the Value Chain and Capturing New Revenue Streams with IMS

http://www.tmcnet.com/ngnmag/features/articles/147370-moving-up-value-cha-and-capturing-new-revenue.htm

Smartphone OS update

In an earlier blog posting, I had commented on the smartphone OS market. Since then, Symbian Foundation has transitioned to a licensing body and Nokia has taken full ownership of the Symbian OS. Today, very few other handset manufacturers use the Symbian OS in their products. However, recently, Nokia released some smartphones based on the Symbian OS (such as N8 and C3) that seem to be doing very well in the market.

I continue to believe that, in the long run, Android and iPhone OS will triumph in the marketplace. The iPhone OS relies entirely on iPhone sales. Android, on the other hand, runs on a variety of phones from different handset manufacturers. As a result, in the long run, Android will be the No.1 smartphone OS in the market. Windows has a good product in WP7, and there are rumors that Nokia will OEM MIcrosoft's WP7. However, it is unlikely that WP7 will take away any market share from Android and iPhone OS. In the long run, there will be only 2 OS running on smartphones - iPhone OS running on all iPhones, and Android running on all other smartphones.

My ranking of smartphone OS:

• Android
• iPhone OS
• BLackberry OS
  
• Microsoft WM7
• Symbian
• Linux-based
  

LTE Releases - A Commentary

3GPP is responsible for defining the specifications for a number of wireless standards such as GSM, GPRS, UMTS, HSPA, IMS, and LTE. 3GPP specifications are organized and issued as “Releases” – Release 99, Release 1, Release 2, etc. However, each Release and, in many cases, each specification within a Release, includes changes and updates to multiple standards such as GPRS, UMTS, IMS etc. For the average reader, this is confusing and it is sometimes difficult to ascertain which section(s) of a specification or which update applies to which standard.

For example, the Release 8 March 2009 version of the 3GPP specifications is considered to be the first stable reference release for all LTE commercial products. This is not necessarily obvious to an average reader. Subsequent LTE releases are all expected to be backward compatible with this release. In fact, Release 8 is the first 3GPP release that defines the LTE specifications.

Release 9 builds on the functionality specified in Release 8, and includes a number of enhancements. These include enhancements to Home Node B (also called Femto Cells), definition of the requirements for LTE Home Node B, Emergency Calls for VoIP, MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service), LTE Self Organizing Networks, among others.

Release 10 introduces “LTE Advanced” which is expected to provide true 4G speeds at 100Mbps peak. This is achieved by aggregating spectrum for better bandwidth. This release is expected to be available in March 2011 and will be backward compatible with the previous releases. Release 10 is expected to be a “major” release – any operator deploying Release 10 can apply the trademarked label “LTE Advanced” to its network. Release 10 is expected to provide full support for LTE Home Node B (LTE Femto Cells), as well as fully specify LTE Self Organizing Networks (SON). SON is important in LTE due to the flat nature of the network in which Node Bs interface with each other over the X2 interface.

LTE specifications are expected to support both Voice and Data, contrary to popular notion that it only supports Data. Support for Voice is enabled through a series of updates to the 3GPP specifications, such as the support high quality VOIP encoding in Release 7 (to match the quality of circuit switched voice calls), support for IMS emergency calls in Release 7, and updates to the radio and core network in Release 8. Support for Voice in LTE will be based on IMS, and is being specified in conjunction with a GSMA initiative called “Voice Over LTE” (previously called OneVoice).

GSM Association - time for a new name

At the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the three largest CDMA operators in the world, Verizon Wireless, KDDI, and China Telecom, announced that they were joining the GSM Association. Qualcomm, considered by many to be one of the leading proponents of the CDMA technology, is also an associate member of the GSM Association. This then raises the larger question: should the GSM Association drop the word “GSM” and re-label itself as Mobile Association or something similar? With both CDMA and GSM/UMTS operators deploying LTE in the next several years, the differences between the 2 sets of operators are starting to blur. The GSM World Congress realized this trend and renamed itself to Mobile World Congress some years back. It may now be time for the GSM Association to follow suit and re-label itself as well.