Indian operator Tata Communications has launched its first public telepresence rooms at a few locations in India, allowing people without their own telepresence facilities to rent them out on an hourly basis. While this strategy puts telepresence within reach of many businesses, it once again highlights the problem interoperability poses.
First it was WiMAX, then it was LTE. Now it's time to check up on what's going on in the CDMA camp for 4G. A lack of traction for the CDMA camp has pushed the CDMA Development Group to work on making its 4G effort, UMB, play nicely with LTE and WiMAX -- a smart strategy, regardless of how the group came to it.
I've long called lack of interoperability a major barrier to entry for enterprise telepresence. It's tough to shell out up to $600,000 per room if you can't be sure it'll work with anyone else. It's a bit like the early videogame days when one friend had a Sega Genesis, another Nintendo, another Neo-Geo (remember that one?), and on and on. Regardless if you have the best solution you need someone to talk to on the other side or it's worthless. That's where Virtela's new solution comes in.
Nortel is one the key IT partners for VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games) and working with Ward Chapin, CIO of VANOC, on a technology plan that leverages Nortel's unified communications suite. Chapin is in charge of linking 53 business units within VANOC and UC is how he's going to do it.
"40-Gig Networking: Should You Make the Investment?" asks Light Reading, as it wonders if 40G is worth the trouble with 100G systems on the horizon. The question seems to be easily answered, when you consider that 10G systems are straining to meet current traffic levels, and demand continues to grow at a steady clip, while 100G systems remain a ways down the road. But some of the hesitance to invest in 40G when 100G is clearly on the horizon can be alleviated by using gear that utilize existing networks and fiber to offer 40G capacity, and can then later be upgraded to 100G.
A couple of weeks back, I pointed to a report detailing some 300+ WiMAX deployments, illustrating the technology's already impressive uptake. Over at GigaOM, Stacey Higginbotham has delivered an update on US mobile operators' plans for 4G -- and it's heavy on LTE.
NBC has announced they're implementing a unified communications solution at the Olympics. Better late than never I suppose. All the same this is contrary to the popular [and incorrect] opinion that a UC rollout is a necessarily long process.
I really dislike the term "killer app." But even more than the term itself is the mindset it carries, the thinking that for every network, there's one single application that's going to make or break it. That's fallacious: is there one single "killer app" for the internet? For broadband networks? Much of their value is derived from their flexibility and their ability to enable all sorts of services and experiences. When thinking about mobile networks, perhaps the biggest fallacy of all is assuming that operators have to deliver this much-sought-after killer app.
Robin Gareiss at NetworkWorld wonders "Unified Communications is catching on, but what is unified communications?". What's interesting about the article is that the definition is derived from interviews with over 100 IT executives. So what does the average IT exec think about unified communications?
Research & Markets has just publish a report on "Driving Efficiency with Unified Communications". What's important to note is that it mentions using unified communications to streamline business processes. It's no longer just pundits like myself, Don Van Doren, Blair Pleasant and Marty Parker pushing this trend. Mainstream media and analysts are a little late to the party but better late than never.
Written by Alex Lewis and Carlo Longino
