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Just a couple of years ago, the concept of allowing third-party access to operator assets was practically unheard of in the telecom industry. Today, the picture is quite different. Service exposure is about to create a whole new set of business possibilities for operators, developers and content providers.

There is more to a good user experience than attractive products and services that solve problems and function according to a given set of requirements. Creating products and services that provide compelling experiences for users requires planning, resources, and processes for monitoring progress and measuring quality – crafting UX.

Requiring only half the bitrate of its predecessor, the new standard – HEVC or H.265 – will significantly reduce the need for bandwidth and expensive, limited spectrum. HEVC (H.265) will enable the launch of new video services and in particular ultra HD television (UHDTV).

Media processing in the cloud: what, where and how? The evolution to IP technology, VoLTE and new video services will have a profound impact on the way person-to-person media processing will be performed in the networks of the future. This evolution raises some questions: what media processing will be needed, where will it take place and how will it be implemented?

Delivering a broader portfolio is a challenge. Providing subscribers with the products they pay for in real time – good QoE – and has put the separation of online charging systems (OCSs), the policy and charging rules function (PCRF) and fulfillment systems to the test. To bridge the gap between content and communication services and close the gap created by the shift to real-time charging greater synchronization between OCS and PCRF is needed.

The evolution to denser radio-access networks with small cells in cluttered urban environments has introduced new challenges for microwave backhaul. A direct line of sight does not always exist between nodes, and this creates a need for near- and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) microwave backhaul.

An architecture based on software-defined networking (SDN) techniques gives operators greater freedom to balance operational and business parameters, such as network resilience, service performance and QoE against opex and capex. With its beginnings in data-center technology, software-defined networking (SDN) technology has developed to the point where it can offer significant opportunities to service providers.

The data volume in mobile networks is booming – mostly due to the success of smartphones and tablets. LTE Broadcast is one way of providing new and existing services in areas that can at times be device dense, such as stadiums and crowded city centers. Built on LTE technology, LTE Broadcast extends the LTE/EPC with an efficient point-to-multipoint distribution feature that can serve many devices with the same content at the same time.

Cloud computing has come a long way from simply being virtual data warehousing – the shapeless blob used to illustrate a network owned by another operator or organization, or to represent unknown architecture. Today’s cloud solutions manage anything as a service (XaaS). This includes anything that an enterprise, government, organization or individual might need to go about their day.

Growth in the number of smartphone and tablet applications deployed in public data-centers, and the rising use of cloud services by enterprises can lead to stretched resources, suboptimized networks and, ultimately, an inferior user-experience. Perhaps now is the time to reshape the cloud.