In the widening universe of communication services, contextual awareness will be increasingly important. Operator offerings and future communication solutions will need to be flexible enough to adapt to various contexts and operators will need to provide platforms for communication solutions, rather than individual communication services.
By significantly raising the quality of voice communication with more natural sound and improved intelligibility, HD voice will play a key role in ensuring that voice continues to offer value for operators and users of both fixed and mobile networks.
A decade ago wireless technology was dominated by mobile telephony. Today, there are around 5.8 billion mobile subscriptions. In the US market, for example, LTE networks cover more than 50 percent of the population and this figure is rapidly increasing. LTE enables an ever-widening range of services, enhanced QoS, efficient use of resources and flexible spectrum utilization. All of this in turn creates a wealth of new business opportunities, leading to tougher competition among service providers and application builders. Applications using highly accurate wireless-device positioning are constantly being developed and enhanced. This increases user expectations, which consequently creates demand for smarter services.
Deploying mobile broadband in 1800MHz spectrum is part of the solution to the rapid growth of mobile broadband, which is forcing operators to add both coverage and capacity, applying a holistic spectrum strategy that covers voice-centric and mobile broadband network deployments. As the penetration of 3G-capable terminals increases, the 1800MHz spectrum used for GSM services becomes an increasingly attractive candidate for refarming to mobile broadband services based on LTE and HSPA.
Many mobile operators around the world have HSPA technology to thank for their mobile broadband success. But as subscription rates continue to rise at incredible rates, fed by huge smartphone sales and the demand for bandwidth-hungry data, mobile operators face increasing challenges to keep their customer bases satisfied. HSPA evolution provides a cost-efficient answer.
As network operators seek to differentiate their broadband offerings, manage traffic and optimize operations across fixed and mobile access networks, policy control has a central role to play. Implementing a converged end-to-end policy control solution in broadband networks reduces operational complexity, enhances subscriber retention and creates opportunities for cross-bundling of services.
LTE meets, and in most cases exceeds, the requirements for a 4G technology – and is consequently a key enabler for future 4G mobile broadband delivery.
In the vision of more than 50 billion connected devices, everything that can benefit from a connection will be connected. People are already online, connected and interacting. The next step is to get things and places online and interacting. And we are moving fast in that direction. The vision of more than 50 billion connected devices by 2020 may seem ambitious today, but with the right approach, it is within reach.
By discussing three areas of data management – data consolidation and optimization, customer experience management and new business models – and presenting a conceptual structure for data usage, this paper outlines how operators’ ever-growing data assets can be transformed into revenue streams.
This paper describes why it is important for network operators to adopt a new approach to network design, what the networks must achieve in terms of their key operational characteristics and how certain design principles can be applied to fulfill these objectives. Well-designed scalable, smart networks will grow Total Value of Ownership (TVO) by providing a good balance between controlling costs and handling unforeseen changes in business strategy.