Catching up on CTIA in Orlando

Its been a months since the show ended but I am now just catching up on comments for CTIA. First, I must say that CTIA was vibrant! There certainly was a buzz around handsets... Yet, there was far more...

Comparing CTIA with 3GSM, I was pleasantly surprised to see the diversity of vendors and solutions for the North American market.

Interesting areas:

Mobile Video- there were at least a dozen companies pitching mobile video streaming of all kinds. From the PC to the handset, mobile streaming of entertainment content etc. Mobile social networking was again in play.

Handsets- Wow, the presence of Motorola, Samsung, LG was absolutely amazing... Samsung seemed slightly smaller compared to their presence at 3GSM while Motorola seemed dominant.

The smaller presence of TEM's was also notable. The Mobile environment certainly seems to have transitioned to a consumer centric (vs. tech centric) position.

I listened to the chairman of EMI on the distribution of music on mobile. The key theme was around the globalization of the music business around mobility. Interestingly, the same globalization is increasing the "reuse" of stars beyond the usual places like the US. The chairman mentioned the launch of certain European and Indian stars to global audiences, where one heart throb can be launched in a multiplicity of countries.

Orlando as a venue left me wondering whether the show will be there next year. The buzz of Las Vegas or the variety of New Orleans were certainly missing...

Catching up on VON- San Jose

I am just catching up on comments from VON... This was the first, in a few years, where VON was particularly quiet... It feels as if there is a maturation of the VoIP industry (a good thing...)

There were many video related applications that touted models for video distribution via P2P, video social networking etc. Not clear how long these will last or which ones will survive...

My favorite find was audible magic (www.audiblemagic.com), a company that can recognize licensed musical content as it passes through any network location! Very interesting science behind recognition of music under pretty much any compression scheme...

Mobile Video- the next best thing in Mobile Services?

At the IMS panel last week, the application that was discussed the most was video over mobile networks. The same theme was quite apparent at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona mid February. Is the time approaching where we will all use video telephony to call each other?

Share your thoughts?

IMS

I attended the IMS Evolution Summit last week in Coral Gables, Florida, organized by IQPC. Excellent organization, attended by nearly 50 of the who's who in telecom, who are pondering upon the changes being brought by IMS....

Observations:

#1 IMS is becoming real.... Real in the sense that we are understanding the value it brings- applications, applications applications. At the same time, the industry is re-learning what is becoming deja vu all over again. That is, the transition from legacy networks, whether its it TDM or soft-switch, is one of the largest challenges to overcome.

#2 IMS will be an evolution, not revolution. Beyond the legacy issue, many of the capabilities IMS promised is now becoming available on pre-IMS solutions. IMS now has to offer even more to be able to overcome the natural evolution of the existing systems

#3 Interoperability is making progress, yet is not complete... Results from testing with the Multi-Service forum suggest that basic interop is now mature, while interop at the higher layers needs more time.

Life in the Telecom Valley

My blog is about telecom- the large industry that delivers the reliable voice and other communications to all of us, around the world, 7 by 24...

Life in telecom is taking an interesting turn these days. Convergence between Mobile and wireline networks is changing the once-sacrosanct rules! Read and share your thoughts about this change and how you are in the maelstrom...