Forward

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  Our global society continues to demand seamless and high bandwidth communications to all wired or wireless devices. Few people realize that in 1982 by the market discontinuity of the consent decree between AT&T and the Department of Justice, our emerging communication infrastructure was born. This court decision would lead to the “big bang” of our modern-day communication network. Entrepreneurial spirit and innovation would lead to ubiquitous digital communication, higher data rates, the world wide web (www), massive search engines, and social networks. In our opinion the largest paradigm shift is attributed to voice over TCP/IP networks, bankrupting metered voice services, and eliminating the need for synchronous data (64kb/sec) switching systems. This paradigm shift ensured the growth of broadband and the demise of narrowband.

It used to take 18-36 months to implement new features in a public communication network. Now, new communication and web portals come online to millions of users, in a matter of hours. With fiber optic connectivity deep into local/regional networks and cloud availability from almost anywhere on earth, new services servicing millions of subscribers can be made available overnight without loss of service (network congestion).

  5G will change where and how we harness compute power and promote the unforeseen product and service innovation. Once 5G attains critical mass with a robust ecosystem, 5G will touch nearly every organization, promising new revenue potential across a myriad of industries. 5G will expand usage of edge computing, which locates network functions, applications, compute, and storage closer to end-users, creating near real-time performance along with high bandwidth and low latency. While the promise of 5G is universally recognized, the path to implementing 5G is unique to every organization. Enterprises will ultimately create a footprint in 5G and unique edge design and purpose-built to that organization. Organizations can choose from an isolated on-premises private 5G network, independent of the public operator 5G network, or one that shares mobile operator 5G network resources. They can choose multi-tenant public options delivered as a service, with network slicing and virtualization to provide a single-tenant experience. And then there is a cloud. Cloud rapidly multiplies private and public 5G architectural options, and it is believed that 5G will create a wide range of brand-new applications and services in cloud computing. 

  As envisioned above, the next phase of evolution will result from the combination of 5G, Mobile Edge Computing, Blockchain, Network Slicing, and A.I. used in operations is turning “science fiction” into “scientific reality.” The next revolution of connectivity will not be bound by the “pipe” that feeds our smart devices (Cable, SatCom, FTTH, Cellular frequencies, etc.). “OTT (over the top) is somewhat currently agnostic of its pipe, as sessions can seamlessly flow across all broadband networks, devices, and shared across users,” In the words of Akshay Sharma Former top Gartner telecommunications infrastructure analyst, “Whether it is sharing of Netflix or video gaming accounts, or multi-casting to big-screen TVs including AppleTV and Google’s Chromecast, 4.5G/5G will enable the convergence of Information Technology and Communication Technologies (IT/CT) opening newer Telco-provided Enterprise applications with newer consumer services converging applications, networks, and data centers.”

 During the coming months, you will hear the term; “Mobile Virtual Network Enablement, which is a “Software-defined”, video-based solution, transforming core video operations and will coexist with software-defined edge routers, mobile packet core solutions, and newer cloud radio access networks (RANs), all being elastically controlled as needed, in a “pay-as-you-go” monetized business models. This transformation will occur at the edge of the network for radio and edge computing.