Head of Communications and Analyst Relations, 4G Americas: “We are seeing such incredible innovation and growth in the mobile broadband wireless industry.”

Vicki Livingston, Head of Communications and Analyst Relations, 4G Americas

Vicki Livingston, Head of Communications and Analyst Relations, 4G Americas chaired the ‘The future of LTE’ track at the recent LTE North America conference, which took place in Dallas, Texas, and hosted the LTE North America 2013 Awards. Here she gives here insight into the challenges facing operators in the coming year and what were her key take-away from the conference.

What do you think will be the biggest challenges as US LTE evolves in the coming year?

Among the challenges facing mobile network operators in the US is the need for more spectrum, specifically internationally harmonised spectrum. The President and the FCC have recognised that to remain a leader in mobile innovation, the US must allocate 500MHz of spectrum over the coming years for mobile broadband services to serve society and to continue enabling innovation, connectivity and the economy. The right steps are being taken already; for example, with the November letter from the National Telecommunications and Information Association (NTIA) endorsing the repurposing of federal spectrum for commercial mobile broadband as recommended by the private sector. NTIA’s letter will help to free up the valuable 1755-1780MHz spectrum, allowing it to be paired with the 2155-2180MHz band that is internationally harmonised for deployment of mobile broadband LTE technology.

LTE North America 2013 Awards round up

Gallery

Last week in Dallas North America’s LTE industry leaders came together for the fourth annual Telecoms.com LTE North America Awards to celebrate innovation and recognise excellence in the LTE community.

The evening was a great success, paying tribute to the exciting and innovative work that is being done across the industry. All of the categories were very closely fought and the quality of the entries was extremely high. It was the perfect evening to reward everyone for their hard work after a busy first day at LTE North America 2013

LTE North America 2013: round-up

Gallery

While Europe can stake a claim to be first with LTE, and Asia can boast of being the most advanced right now, the US is undoubtedly the largest market for LTE, with customers in the many millions. With the likes of AT&T have virtually completed their roll outs, Sprint really getting going, and many smaller players also pushing LTE, there was a lot to discuss at this year’s LTE North America 2013, which was the only 4G industry event taking place this year.

Altair Semiconductor wins LTE North America 2013 “Best Chipset” Award

PRESS RELEASE

HOD HASHARON, Israel and DALLAS, TX – November 22, 2013 – Altair Semiconductor, the world’s leading developer of high-performance, single-mode LTE chipsets, today announced it has won the “Best Chipset/Processor Product” award at the 2013  LTE North America conference.

LTE North America – Day One highlights

The LTE North America conference had a hugely successful first day, packed with interesting presentations, panel discussions and superb networking opportunities.

Highlights from the first day include:

• 1,300 attendees at the first day of the conference and exhibition – Record attendance!
• 41% Carrier representation
• Great discussion at the analyst breakfast briefings
• Packed opening keynotes from Verizon, 4G Americas, Net America Alliance and Sprint
• Fantastic debate around mobile evolution from Arthur D Little, LG Enterprise Solutions Team, Samsung and Blackberry provoking great interaction and questions from the audience
• Four busy tracks concentrating on voice, device and service innovations, LTE roaming; spectrum management, HetNets and network optimization

Big thanks to Telmar for their delicious Pumpkin coffee!

Poken proving a big hit with all attendees so far

https://twitter.com/Bill_Walter_/status/403573343007162368

Speed Networking went down superbly well with all 60 participants who took part

Finally, here are a few of our favourite Tweets from the floor of Day One

How do subscribers choose a network operator? Perceived quality of experience, primarily speed. #LTENA @FlashNetworks pic.twitter.com/u7oNyEqAaA

— Amiram Mizne (@AmiramMizne) November 21, 2013

Qualcomm talking about LTE running in unlicensed spectrum instead of Wi-Fi. Religious discussion ahead? #LTENA

— Art King (@ArtKingg) November 21, 2013

Targeting 120 MHz in reverse auction – some feel this is too optimistic. -Chris Pearson @4GAmericas #LTENA

— Andi Cook (@Ask_Andi) November 21, 2013

Germano: "SON deployment just the tip of the iceberg" #LTENA @LTEWorldSeries

— SOLiD (@SOLiDUSA) November 21, 2013

Improving connectivity is the next big element in improving the customer experience. #LTENA

— Andi Cook (@Ask_Andi) November 21, 2013

Interesting discussions on speed in #LTE at #ltena #ltews. How important is browsing speed to the LTE experience?

— Flash Networks (@FlashNetworks) November 22, 2013

Great to see industry friends at #LTENA with @wiseharbor @monicapaolini @EGubbinsAnalyst @krehbehn @suerudd @LTEWorldSeries @ArtKingg

— Ronny Haraldsvik (@Haraldsvik) November 21, 2013

Targeting 120 MHz in reverse auction – some feel this is too optimistic. -Chris Pearson @4GAmericas #LTENA

— Andi Cook (@Ask_Andi) November 21, 2013

Enjoyed being a part of LTE past/present/future #LTENA panel moderated by @tagakarim this morning.

— Alok Shah (@abshah1234) November 21, 2013

had the pleasure as always to speak with Chris Pearson President of @4GAmericas at the @LTEWorldSeries #LTENA Thanks @VLivingston33

— bnetTV.com (@bnetTV) November 21, 2013

LTE North America 2013 – Signaling Day: Pictures

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@GBabble
#Diameter use cases #LTENA @LTEWorldSeries @Diametriq

@GBabble
Bridging the Generation Gap @Diametriq #LTENA @LTEWorldSeries #Diameter

@GBabble
Signaling day speed meetings #Diameter @Diametriq #LTENA @LTEWorldSeries

‏@sfriedmanbecker
#LTENA session on how #F5 Diameter SDC with context aware routing solves challenges for carriers so we enjoy LTE

@Tom_Wint
Dianne of @infonetics & @monicapaolini up first #LTENA #signaling

@Tom_Wint
@diametriq drinks at #ltena draws #Signaling day to a close! Roll on tomorrow!

LTE North America 2013 – Signaling Day Round Up

LTE North America started today with the Signaling Focus Day. With a busy room and a buzz around the place already the next two days are shaping up to be a fantastic experience for all involved.

With interesting presentations and panel discussions around signaling it was a great way to start three packed days of learning and networking.

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The Highlights:

• Over 130 attendees in the room to kick off the session
• Signaling for Success: Very popular opening presentation from Infonetics – “Singaling storm showing no signs of abating”. AT&T case study showing World Series Game 4’s total traffic is equal to more than 560,000 social media posts
• Joint presentation from Diametriq and Connectem about Bridging the Generation Gap – Interworking between 3G, 4G and More
• Sharing Real World Uses Cases and Learning from Diameter Network Deployments Across the World – really interesting discussion points from the interactive panel discussion
• Presentation on Software-Defined Intelligent Networks from Oracle that got people thinking
• Interesting thoughts on Using Diameter to Scale Tier 1 networks given to us by F5

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Don’t forget tomorrow the LTE North America Awards are coming to town!

This year including live music, the top players in North America’s 4G industry will be in attendance to network and find out who all the big winners are as well as enjoying themselves in a relaxed setting from 7.00pm.

This is just taster of the first of our packed three days. Day 1 of the conference tomorrow will bring record numbers of attendees and exhibitors at the only 4G event in North America this year. If you missed today it’s not too late to be involved, get yourself down to the event tomorrow and register at the desk!

http://americas.lteconference.com/

Sprint looking to live up to its name with 1.3GHz TD-LTE demo

Sprint has demoed speeds of over 1.3Gbps in tests with its infrastructure partner NSN

Despite its name, Sprint, the US carrier, was for the past couple of years, left in the slow lane for data as it saw its rivals Verizon Wirelesss, and AT&T streak ahead and launch LTE. However, in recent months it has gone through a large amount of network evolution, retiring its iDEN network, and acquiring Clearwire, giving it access to a large swathe of spectrum, enabling it to complete with the big guys.

Recently it announced Sprint Spark, which it dubs an ‘ultra-fast’ LTE service delivering speeds of 50-60Mbps. In a recent interview with the LTE World Series, Dr. John Saw, SVP, Technical Architecture, of Sprint said it plans to do this using a bunch of LTE Advanced technologies, specifically carrier aggregation to make 40, 60 and 80MHz bandwidth pipes, and MIMO techniques.

It hasn’t happened quite yet though, and according to this test in early November 2013 from the Wall Street Times, Walt Mossberg, who performed LTE 20 speed tests in three locations, AT&T is the fastest overall network. However, it does vary greatly by region, and if you look at 2min 54 in the video on the page you’ll see that in Silicon Valley, the heartland of all things tech, Sprint easily wins with average speeds of over 20Mbps, nearly double of AT&T.

However, it’s not content with stopping there. As demonstrated in the video below it has conducted tests with its new partner NSN, where, in test conditions, it has achieved a heady 1.3Gbps on the downlink in a single sector, around 10 times the throughput of today’s commercial networks. This is using its TDD spectrum on 2.5GHz band. TD-LTE is of course particularly efficient use of spectrum and the high frequency enables the faster speeds.

As impressive as that sounds, it’s worth stepping back and observing that this is only slightly faster than the speeds that up until just a few years ago, the ITU officially designated at 4G. True 4G was originally only meant to be used for networks that could deliver 100Mbps on the move, and 1Gbps when stationary. Anything below that was really an enhancement of 3G, until the US networks starting marketing 4G as basically anything. Anyway, semantics aside, it’s impressive that LTE is moving forward at a rapid pace.

The video is presented by Steven Bye, Chief Technical Officer for Sprint. While Steven is a regular at Informa’s LTE events he isn’t at LTE North America, but the aforementioned John Saw, SVP, Technical Architecture is appearing, and will be giving a keynote speech on Day One of the LTE North America 2013 conference, taking place on Thursday 21^st November 2013.

VP of Government & Industry Affairs and Deputy General Counsel, Utilities Telecom Council: “Utilities are likely to use LTE to leverage the worldwide economies of scale that will likely follow.”

Brett Kilbourne, VP of Government & Industry Affairs and Deputy General Counsel, Utilities Telecom Council

Brett Kilbourne, VP of Government & Industry Affairs and Deputy General Counsel, Utilities Telecom Council is taking part in a panel discussion on “Perspectives on the Urban/Rural Issues for FirstNet” on Day Two of the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Ahead of the show we talk to him about how LTE use public for safety and utilities overlap.

What is the opportunity that public safety LTE provides for utilities companies?

Utilities need access to broadband spectrum to support their increasing communications needs for smart grid and other enhanced applications. They currently have extensive land mobile communications systems, but these are mostly narrowband.  They also have extensive microwave, but these are for point-to-point communications and don’t generally provide wide area coverage and mobile communications. The opportunity afforded by public safety is to share the 700MHz PSBN to support the increased communications needs of utilities, and to promote interoperability and emergency response with public safety during emergencies.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

Adding Capacity Is a “Small Cell” Matter

This post is by Philip Sorrells, Vice President, Site Solutions, CommScope

Everybody’s talking about them, but what exactly is a small cell? In many people’s minds, a small cell is a very low power femto cell, installed in a home or office. It’s a radio device. In my mind (and in many others, too), a small cell is anything that is not a typical macro site, deployed to solve a network capacity problem.

Small cells can be indoor or outdoor. They can vary in power level. Some are carrier grade, some are for consumers. But what defines a small cell is not one of these characteristics, but rather what a small cell is trying to do—add capacity in some manner besides a standard macro site.

With that definition in mind, I see four viable “small cell” paths for wireless operators to explore for expanding wireless capacity:

• Distributed antenna system (DAS) – the original small cell. DAS has proven itself in the field for around for 25 years or so. DAS networks often are multi-operator, multi-technology, high capacity solutions. As Infonetics’ recent research predicts, the DAS market will continue to grow as DAS has already established itself in the operators’ toolkits.
• Pico cells or mini remote radio heads. These solutions are targeted at adding capacity in medium to large buildings, for one operator only.
• Multibeam antennas and sector splitting. Certain sectors in macro sites, or whole sites themselves, can be in locations that see tons of data traffic. Such hot sectors need new solutions for adding capacity, increasing gain to penetrate buildings better and/or cover more outdoor space. Splitting a sector in two about doubles the capacity, and with twin beam or multibeam antennas, one antenna can handle the job.
• Concealed, integrated metro cells. These are basically mini macro sites, designed to address the common problems of site acquisition and licensing in congested areas. The remote radio unit, antenna and other RF path equipment are concealed in one monopole type structure.

All of these four solutions need to address the challenges of site acquisition, power, backhaul and network performance to meet operators’ needs.

What do you think of these small cell approaches? What advice can you give about deploying them in the field?

I will be talking more about them in my presentation at LTE North America on November 21 at 12:15 p.m. titled “So You Want to Go Small? – Practical Considerations for Adding Capacity in a Small Cell Approach.” (Quite a long title for a “small” subject, I know.)

Interview: Senior Technical Advisor, Canadian Safety and Security Program: “the real challenge is in ensuring that the public safety community has total confidence that the technology will work.”

Claudio Lucente, Senior Technical Advisor, (Contractor), CSSP

Claudio Lucente, Senior Technical Advisor (Contractor), Canadian Safety and Security Program (CSSP) is speaking on Day Two of the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Ahead of the show we find about about importance of LTE to Canadian Public Safety systems.

To put things in context please give me some background on the Canadian Safety and Security Program.

The Canadian Safety and Security Program (CSSP) is a federal program led by Defence Research and Development Canada’s Centre for Security Science, in partnership with Public Safety Canada. The program’s mandate is to provide science and technology solutions, support and advice to various issues impacting public safety and security, including chemical, biological, radiological-nuclear and explosives threats, critical infrastructure protection, surveillance, intelligence and interdiction, emergency management systems and interoperability, support to domestic operations and responder safety and operational effectiveness.

The CSSP is providing technical support and advice to the development of a Public Safety Broadband Network (PSBN) in Canada, which is a significant national effort coordinated by Public Safety Canada, involving different policy, governance, and technical issues and many different partners in both the public and private sectors. Through the CSSP, we’ve put in place Technical Working Groups involving approximately 80 participants from all levels of government, industry and academia who are working together to provide technical advice and recommendations on the PSBN initiative. This includes looking at operational, interoperability and security requirements, as well as proposing a preliminary architecture design for the PSBN.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

Interview: CEO, Net America Alliance: “With our hosted solution and operational tool set, our members can be generating revenue within an hour of a tower going live.”

Roger Hutton, CEO, Net America Alliance

Roger Hutton, CEO, Net America Alliance is delivering a keynote address on Day Two of the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Ahead of the show we speak to him about how the rural carrier collective is progressing.

How is the NetAmerica Alliance project going?

It has been a busy and a great year for the NetAmerica Alliance and for our members. As we enter the last quarter of 2014 we have doubled the number of alliance members since the end of 2013. Many networks are entering their second year of commercial service, and all members are seeing growth in consumer demand for 4G LTE service. We are delivering on our fundamental belief that just because you live in rural America does not mean to have to compromise in terms of the the type of communication services available to you.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

Interview: VP Group Marketing North America, Orange: “marketing strategy and pricing parameters are vital to the success of 4G.”

Philippe Andres, VP Group Marketing North America, Orange

Philippe Andres, VP Group Marketing North America, Orange is speaking on the subject of “How Do LTE deployments alter the attitude towards Wi-Fi?”, in the Hetnets track on Day Two of the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Ahead of the show we find out more about Orange’ is taking a lead in LTE and his thoughts on marketing and pricing.

How is Orange taking the lead in LTE around the world?

There are several examples. Starting with the UK, EE, our joint collaboration with Deutsche Telekom, was until this summer the only 4G LTE operator on the scene since it launched in October 2012. It has taken full advantage of this, and now has LTE market leadership, with more than 1.2 million 4GEE customers.

In September, Amena, Orange’s low cost brand in Spain, launched a new innovative 4G service and aims to cover 15 large cities by the end of 2013. In October, Mobistar, our Belgium subsidiary announced it was speeding up 4G deployment network and to make 15 cities accessible by the end of 2013 and to cover 40 cities more during the first quarter of 2014. Meanwhile, Orange Romania is the first carrier to offer 4G in the entire capital city Bucharest, and we also launched 4G LTE in Poland in the capital city Warsaw.

In addition, in France, we will have 40 per cent population coverage by the end of 2013 and we are the only carrier speeds to offer up to 150Mbps, and 70 per cent of our smartphone range is compatible with this. Finally we are regularly distinguished by the French regulator ARCEP for our network’s quality of service.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

Are you ready for Poken at LTE North America?

As you arrive at LTE North America 2013 in Dallas this year, you’ll notice something different attached to your lanyard at registration. Namely a small plastic token, shaped vaguely like a hand. This is a ‘Poken’, a new way of swapping information with the people you meet at the conference.

Think of it as a digital business card. After all, in an age of touch, swipe and beam, handing out an oblong slip of paper seems a little outdated somehow.

Interview: Senior Technology Architect, Telus: “operators should look towards policy management solutions to ensure subscribers get a consistent QoE.”

Ricky Gill, Senior Technology Architect, Telus

Ricky Gill, Senior Technology Architect, Telus is speaking in the “Handling the Mobile Data Explosion” track on Day Two of the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Here, we get a sense of the opportunities and challenges that the data explosion represents.

How has LTE impacted the Canadian telecoms market?

LTE has provided a limited impact on the overall market but hard trends have emerged that are adding disruption to the status quo. Roughly 50 per cent of Canadians have a smartphone, so there is room for the penetration rate to grow and help to counter balance the decline in voice/messaging revenue due to OTT IP voice and messaging services. That line will cross and operators will rely on VoLTE to decommission their legacy networks to manage costs. In addition, investment in RCS services will increase in an attempt to compete or co-operate as required. The big three Canadian operators will refocus their traditional TV service offerings as well, as the uptake of paid-for OTT services continues to increase at a higher than projected rate.

 The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

Interview: Chairman, Small Cells Forum and AVP Small Cell Solutions, AT&T (USA): “Small cells represent a critical tool in any operator’s arsenal.”

Gordon Mansfield, Chairman, Small Cells Forum and AVP Small Cell Solutions, AT&T (USA)

Gordon Mansfield, Chairman, Small Cells Forum and AVP Small Cell Solutions, AT&T (USA), is delivering a keynote on Day Two of the of the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Ahead of the show we find out how and why small cells are going to become a critical part of every operator’s network.

How would you sell the benefits of using small cells in a network?

It’s a well-publicised fact mobile data usage is continuing to grow with no sign of this abating; as such, carriers need to increase network capacity. While there are a number of means of bolstering capacity – moving to 4G, improving spectrum efficiency, Wi-Fi offload – nothing comes close to frequency reuse through increased numbers of cell sites which improve capacity by up to 1600x. In addition, small cells yield noticeable benefits for the macro network; a 2012 Forum study showed that by placing four small cells within one macro, not only is data offload of over 50 per cent achieved, the macro network performance is improved by 315 per cent. Small cells give operators a relatively low-cost means of augmenting their networks where improvements are needed, whether it’s a busy urban area or remote village with poor coverage. This isn’t to say small cells will supersede macro cells or that they overcome all spectrum limitations, but they do now represent a critical tool in any operator’s arsenal.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

Interview: Statewide Interoperability Coordinator, Nevada Division of Emergency Management: “In the drive to go IP, we should pause to consider what the best transport for voice is.”

George Molnar, Statewide Interoperability Coordinator, Nevada Div of Emergency Management

George Molnar, Statewide Interoperability Coordinator, Nevada Div of Emergency Management is speaking in the Public Safety LTE track on Day Two of the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Ahead of the show we speak to him about some of the key issues surrounding LTE for Public Safety networks.

What are the key benefits you feel LTE brings to public safety networks?

LTE enables us to focus more on the content of communications instead of the technology. By providing reliable and evolving capabilities, LTE enables public safety agencies to better serve their communities. By enabling more and better communications, we enhance responder safety and enable better decision making in the field.

Are there still limitations with LTE technology that will need to be overcome in terms of providing mission-critical voice and data?

LTE isn’t the final stage in communications technology evolution. The ability to provide robust data rates in high-noise situations, with congestion, and to distant users, is important. The ability to rapidly prioritise users and applications for life and property protection is a must. Bandwidth management will be increasingly critical as more demands are made on limited spectrum. Applications designers for public safety tout the amazing things their products can do; only with adequate bandwidth can this work. System designs will need to adapt to increasingly heavy continuous high bandwidth demands.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

Interview: Vice President, Advanced Technology & Strategy, U.S. Cellular: “Carrier aggregation and small cells are two features of LTE Advanced that provide an immediate benefit.”

Narothum Saxena, Vice President, Advanced Technology & Strategy US Cellular

Narothum Saxena, Vice President, Advanced Technology & Strategy US Cellular, USA is taking part in a keynote panel discussion on LTE Advanced on Day One of the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Ahead of the show he explains what the key aspects of LTE Advanced are and why the technology is so important to operators.

What are operators getting so excited about LTE-Advanced, and in particular Carrier Aggregation?

Carrier aggregation allows the operators to increase the bandwidth by aggregating different blocks and sizes of contiguous or non-contiguous spectrum which could be intra-band or inter-band. It allows for efficient management and utilisation of spectrum. For example, if a carrier has 10MHz of AWS (Band 4) and 10MHz of lower 700MHz (Band 12) spectrum they can operate two independent LTE networks, but with carrier aggregation these two different bands can be aggregated into one 20MHz downlink pipe. It’s a more effective use of spectrum that potentially increases throughput. From an operator’s perspective, this provides many benefits such as supporting higher number of users and apps of the future that demand increased bandwidth.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

Interview: SVP, Technical Architecture, Sprint: “We have the ability to build a bigger pipe than the competition because of our spectrum position.”

Dr. John Saw, SVP, Technical Architecture, Sprint

Dr. John Saw, SVP, Technical Architecture, Sprint is delivering a keynote address on “Analyzing the LTE Opportunity”, on Day One of the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Ahead of the show he tells us more about how Sprint is differentiating itself from the competition and gives us the low down on its Spark brand. 

It’s a crowded market out there. How is your network differentiated from the competition?

How we’re different is pretty simple. We have the ability to build a bigger pipe than the competition because of our spectrum position, especially in the top 100 markets. We have a lot of contiguous spectrum at 2.5GHz, and this allows for carrier aggregation to build the big pipes we need to ultimately offer better performance, faster speeds, and unlimited data. We actually want customers to use our LTE network because we will have the capacity to support the demand for high speed data. Where it’s really coming together (how we’re different) can be seen in Sprint Spark^SM – an effort that we expect to bring together some of the most advanced technologies in wireless to deliver unprecedented speeds.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

Today’s other IPO: Voice-over-LTE specialist Mavenir goes public

While Twitter was the tech IPO that everyone was talking about last week, this was one that was of great interest to the telecoms industry. Mavenir has staked its future on the telecoms moving to IP and with VoLTE deployments looking like big news for 2014 it seems like a safe bet.

Gigaom

All eyes Thursday morning were focused on Twitter’s blockbuster IPO(s twtr), but behind the scenes another tech company made the leap from private ownership to the publicly traded markets. Shares of Mavenir Systems(s mvnr) made their debut on the New York Stock Exchange today under the ticker symbol MVNR.

Mavenir (see disclosure) makes equipment and sofware for mobile carriers that lets them move their legacy voice and SMS services to new LTE networks. It powered MetroPCS’s groundbreaking voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) and IP-SMS launch and is working with several other global operators, ranging from Sweden’s Tele2 to T-Mobile in the Czech Republic, to modernize their core communications services.

Mavenir built its business on 2G and 3G SMS infrastructure last decade, but the company has been staking out its future in enhanced communications services – providing carriers with new features such as mobile video chat and integrated messaging pioneered by over-the-top communications providers…

View original post 257 more words

Interview: Master engineer, Sony Mobile Communications, Sweden: “It’s important for the industry to make sure VoLTE roaming happens not too long after its launch.”

Master engineer, Sony Mobile Communications, Sweden

Daniel Lönnblad, Master engineer, Sony Mobile Communications, Sweden is speaking on Day Two of the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Ahead of the show we speak to him about implementing VoLTE on Sony handsets.

What are the latest developments that Sony is working on with its handsets?

Sony has multiple interoperability testing (IOT) activities in its carrier lab and is also directly working with network vendors.

Which technology is going to be more important for carriers – WebRTC or RCS?

It is hard to say which will be most important; they are both technologies that enable a richer calling experience. With the right APIs RCS could be a very strong offer for third-party software vendors, at least in mobile phones.

Interview: Principle Member, Technical Staff, Verizon: “Verizon is pushing hard for VoLTE deployments.”

Michael Freiberger, Principle Member, Technical Staff, Verizon

Michael Freiberger, Principle Member, Technical Staff, Verizon is speaking on the subject of LTE’s backhaul design on Day One of the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. 

How is data usage continuing to develop on your network, and how much of your data usage now goes over LTE?

Verizon’s 4G LTE network now covers 95 per cent of the U.S. population with speeds in the 10 to 12 megabit range. At last count, we have close to 50 LTE-enabled smartphones, tablets and Internet devices. Considering that voice calls currently reside in a separate band, the 10-12 megabit capacity capability of LTE is being used for data and video. Verizon is pushing hard for VoLTE deployments.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

Interview: Director of Engineering, Union Wireless (USA): “Right now we are still in a wait-and-see approach on VoLTE.”

Kevin M. Kleinsmith, Director of Engineering, Union Wireless (USA)

Kevin M. Kleinsmith, Director of Engineering, Union Wireless (USA) is speaking on the subjects of VoLTE and backhaul at the LTE North America conference, taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Ahead of the show we speak to him about the details of what is required to implement VoLTE on a network.

Is there any difference between the challenges of VoLTE roaming within the US, and roaming internationally?

There are several key differences in domestic roaming and international roaming. The biggest challenges come from the way the VoLTE call would be handled by a local breakout or would it have to go all the way back to the home network. Breaking it out as local as possible would be ideal, however, now we have to change the way the billing is currently handled. The GSMA-NA groups related to this, such as IREG and BARG, are trying to resolve the best practices, but until the industry agrees on a practice, a lot of smaller companies are simply going to have to rely on their major partners or third-party vendors on the proper solutions given their specific relationships.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

Interview: Senior Manager Antenna Solutions Group, AT&T: “Small cells offer operators a system that is potentially more cost effective than other solutions.”

Jim Parker, Senior Manager Antenna Solutions Group, AT&T

Jim Parker, Senior Manager Antenna Solutions Group, AT&T is speaking on the subject of, “Challenges of deploying high density venues: From DAS to 4G”, in the HetNets track on Day One of the The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Ahead of the show we speak to him about the AT&T Antenna group and its focus for the next year.

What is the core function of the AT&T Antenna solutions group?

In order to provide our customers with the best mobile broadband experience, AT&T established the Antenna Solutions Group (ASG) in order to extend the capabilities of our macro network in large public venues. ASG deploys a wide range of technologies including: neutral-host Distributed Antenna System (DAS), small cells, and Wi-Fi. Neutral host DAS and small cells provide a coverage and capacity solution for cellular voice and data traffic. In venues where Wi-Fi is deployed, it is primarily a data-only solution that can be used to offload traffic from the macro network.

The LTE North America conference is taking place on the 21st-22nd November 2013, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Click here NOW to download a brochure for the event.

The 3G/LTE Enterprise Opportunity Beyond Basic Coverage and Capacity

This post is by Ronny Haraldsvik SVP/CMO of SpiderCloud

Small cells and enterprise are hot topics that inspire many well-known industry analysts. One of them, Joe Madden with Mobile Experts with Mobile Experts, sees the implications: “The in-building wireless market is the next frontier. That’s where data traffic happens, and the variety of building types and enterprise types will create a very dynamic market.”