Last week we notified the five winners of our inaugural VNI Service Awards competition.  When we launched this program on March 26, 2013 our goal was to inspire others about the human aspect of what it means to be connected. We wanted to learn how various communication technologies were being used. How does having access to the Internet and mobile services impact the daily lives of people and their community? This is how we want to measure the value of being connected, and having access to reliable communication channels.

The final scores were based on a combination of the judge’s scores, and a ranking assigned to the number of comments per story. It was difficult selecting the top five stories as there were many tied scores. We had to go to two decimal points to get the final list. The point spread between the five winners was only 0.75 out of a max of 5.00 points. Read More »

Tags: economic impact, mobility solutions, research, sms, social responsibility, vni, VNI Service Adoption, VNI-SA

The Small Cell Industry has gathered in London again – last week for the Small Cells World Summit, and this week for the Wireless Broadband Alliance Wi-Fi Global Congress.  The explosive growth of these two events over the past few years is a testament to the vital role that both licensed and unlicensed small cells are playing in Next Generation Mobile networks.

Cisco has been deploying carrier-grade Wi-Fi networks for many years, and we are in fact in our 4th generation of outdoor product.  We define carrier-grade as a controlled Wi-Fi network that is secure, robust, and scalable.  But increasingly we’ve heard a new requirement from our customers: make it invisible. Read More »

Tags: aironet 1530, BT, Service Provider, small cell, wi-fi, wifi

By Joe Chow, VP/GM, Cisco Connected Devices BU

Part of the tech-buzz at this week’s Cable Show, in Washington, will be about customer premises equipment – set-tops, cable modems, gateways.

Of the CPE buzz, half of it will be about “RDK,” and the other half about how to divvy up what functions live in the house (via the CPE), vs. in the cloud.

That’s our prediction, anyway.

Let’s start with RDK buzz. It stands for Reference Design Kit, and is an industry effort to a) build new cable-specific hardware faster, and b) get new services and apps to the market faster, on that hardware. It was spearheaded last year by Comcast, and is expected to widen to other service providers.

At the Cable Show, we’ll be showcasing Read More »

Tags: cable, CPE, ncta 2013, Service Provider, videoscape, videoscape unity

By Conrad Clemson, VP of strategy, Cisco Service Provider Video Technology Group 

Well, we’re nothing if not patient. For those of us who’ve been active in cable VOD (video on demand) since it began, 12+ years ago, it’s totally great to finally see glimmers of acknowledgement for the category. It’s like knowing your kid is truly gifted at something, but not seeing validation of it until a dozen years after it seemed “time.”

I’m talking about this item, from the May 20 edition of the New York Times. Titled “Viewers Start to Embrace Television on Demand,” it plucks out all kinds of killer data points — like the fact that VOD views of ABC shows are up 32% (without fast-forward) over the last year. Cisco’s own VNI forecast issued 5/29 shows that VOD will be the fastest growing and highest penetrated residential TV service globally, with 402 million subscribers, reaching 29% of digital TV households globally by 2017.

Of course what started as movies on demand has changed over the years. It’s now more like Read More »

Tags: cable show, cloud dvr, cloud tv, multiscreen, ncta, ncta 2013, Service Provider, videoscape unity

If you’re reading this, chances are high that you’re on your way or already in Washington, D.C., where you’ll spend the next few days attending this week’s Cable Show. We’re there too, not surprisingly, with a lot to share with our cable friends and colleagues. And I do mean a lot. Let’s see if I can be brief about it.

By now (I hope!) you’ve heard about our Videoscape Unity platform. That’s the one that’s focused on a sophisticated but easy-to-use, consistent interface that blends video, social networking and other information, using the best screen for experiences that are personalized, synchronized, and more social…All at the “speed of now.”

At the Show, we’re highlighting the Videoscape Open API framework, an Read More »

Tags: cable show, ncta, ncta 2013, Service Provider, videoscape, videoscape unity