Is wireless becoming a valid alternative to fixed broadband?

Are wireless technologies such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) and WiMAX2 closing the gap on fixed broadband? 

A recent blog by The Economist discussed how Long Term Evolution (LTE) is coming to the rescue of one of its US correspondents, located 5km from the DSL cabinet and struggling to get a decent broadband service. 

Peak rates are rarely achieved: the mobile user needs to be very close to a base station and a large spectrum allocation is needed.

Mark Heath, Unwired Insights

Click to read more ...

ICT could reduce global carbon emissions by 15%

Briefing: Green ICT

Part 1: Standards and best practices

Keith Dickerson is chair of the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) working party on information and communications technology (ICT) and climate change.

In a Q&A with Gazettabyte, he discusses how ICT can help reduce emissions in other industries, where the power hot spots are in the network and what the ITU is doing.

"If you benchmark base stations across different countries and different operators, there is a 5:1 difference in their energy consumption"

Keith Dickerson

Click to read more ...

Differentiation in a market that demands sameness

Transceiver feature: Part 2

At first sight, optical transceiver vendors have little scope for product differentiation. Modules are defined through a multi-source agreement (MSA) and used to transport specified protocols over predefined distances.

 

“Their attitude is let the big guys kill themselves at 40 and 100 Gig while they beat down costs"

Vladimir Kozlov, LightCounting

Click to read more ...