I was driving home the other day when I heard a radio report on densely populated California cities. What’s interesting was a mention of a small California city that is ranked as the nation’s fourth most dense urbanized area. I guess that a lot of people don’t know Delano, a central valley city with a population density of 5,483 people per square mile. It’s surprisingly more dense than the New York-Newark, N.J. metropolitan area which is ranked the 5th.
Many people with many devices in a densely populated area can pose a challenge to WiFi networks. I was talking to a Cisco customer in the New York City area a few days ago. He said that deploying WiFi was not as straightforward as it used to be. There are many RF interferences near his office and many new SSIDs that he never saw before.
The amount of mobile data generated globally is growing very rapidly and shows no sign of abating. This growth is largely driven by smartphones, tablets and connected devices, as well as mobile applications and content. The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) has been tracking this for quite some time – the latest update predicts that mobile data traffic will double globally in 2012 and increase by another 78 percent by 2014.
In addition, there is a corresponding worldwide growth in the popularity of Wi-Fi. The number of Wi-Fi hotspots is expected to reach 2.7 million by 2014, with usage growing 200 percent. This growth is inspired by new enabling devices, recent technology improvements, public and private availability, and tiered mobile data plans from service providers.
With this in mind, Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) has consulted with leading service providers from around the world to develop and evaluate 16 Wi-Fi business models that can provide a reasonable return on investment. Opportunities for monetization fall into four broad categories: (1) business effectiveness, (2) end-user services, (3) inter-carrier wholesale, and (4) value-added services.
Come watch a special edition TechWiseTV, featuring Ike, to learn how Cisco takes you Beyond BYOD. Take the BYOD challenge for a chance to win a trip to the London Olympics or other fun mobility gadgets.
Today’s enterprise mobility requirements go beyond simply connecting mobile devices. It’s about securing any access, simply managing the complexities while scaling efficiently, and ensuring an optimal user experience while easing the IT burden. Gallant Ike does all of this and more with Cisco Enterprise Mobility Solutions.
It’s been a great week for AT&T at the IP&TV World Forum, and by proxy, a great week for Cisco!
In case you hadn’t heard the word from “over the pond,” the IP&TV World Forum recognized AT&T with not one, but TWO accolades: Best TV App, for its U-verse for Tablet, and “Best Consumer Device,” for the U-Verse TV Wireless Receiver (built by guess who!)
The IP&TV Industry Awards, which occurred in London on the evening of March 21, honor service providers for their innovation, excellence, and achievement in the IPTV sector.
The AT&T Wireless Receiver, which launched across U-verse markets last October, is an IPTV set-top equipped with video-optimized Wi-Fi. From a consumer perspective, it means hanging the TV set anywhere, and not necessarily near a coaxial wall outlet — a no-wires way to arrange the TV to go with people’s lives, furniture, and living environments.
In Cisco-speak, we call this fabulous device the ISB7005 wireless DVR set-top, coupled with our VEN401 wireless access point. The former is a set-top that can go anywhere in the house; the latter is the video-optimized wireless access point.
So allow me to raise a (virtual) glass, on behalf of the hardworking team here at Cisco who helped make these technologies possible — and to our colleagues at AT&T, for making it happen! Clink and congrats.
To borrow from Walt Disney, it’s a small (cell) world after all . . .
Not only was this Cisco’s message at Mobile World Congress 2012 but, in the weeks since, the mobile industry has been singing the same refrain. The media, analysts, our partners, customers and competitors have enthusiastically joined the chorus, acknowledging that the post-macrocell era is upon us.
As Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers has said, “radio type no longer defines the network architecture — and small cells are critical in delivering the mobile Internet.” To be competitive, mobile operators must support heterogeneous network access including licensed and unlicensed (Wi-Fi) radio, have an intelligent core and offer cloud-based services that deliver more applications faster in a scalable, flexible and resilient environment.
