Carl Weinschenk

The unprecedented growth of demand for wireless data is radically reshaping the telecommunications landscape. The extraordinary thing is that despite this explosion, the likelihood is that even more dramatic growth lies ahead. Currently, advanced forms of LTE are being deployed. These will be followed by 5G, which is moving from carrier and vendor labs to […]

Ransomware, a threat that has been in the news in recent weeks, grew aggressively during the first quarter of the year, according to Kaspersky Lab. The firm found that ransomware attacks increased 350 percent. The firm identified 11 new cryptor families and 55,679 new modifications, according to Information Management. The company said that the United […]

The small- and medium-sized (SMB) market is a potential jewel to carriers. It’s always been that way, but legacy technology made it expensive and cumbersome to tap into and kept the focus trained on enterprises. SMBs, like enterprises, always need more bandwidth and sophisticated services. The emergence of carrier Ethernet, the flexibility of the cloud, […]

Making 5G into a money-making reality is fraught with challenges. In most visions, the primary obstacle is figuring out how to harness very high-frequency wavelengths to achieve the glitzy speeds being promised. It is a gamble that not all carriers are taking. T-Mobile plans to offer 5G but will use 600 MHz spectrum to do […]

AT&T last week said that it has completed deployment of its Long Term Evolution category M1 (LTE-M) network. The carrier, which said that the deployment was completed ahead of schedule, said that it will extend across Mexico by the end of the year. At that point, it will cover about 400 million people. The Internet […]

Things were going well for proponents of telework and telecommuting. The practice was growing steadily. It was aided greatly by the parallel development of a generation of sophisticated mobile devices; the emergence of the cloud; and a growing belief that reducing commuting helps employee morale, the environment and the companies’ image. The success is undeniable. […]

Considering how fundamental the changes are, software-defined networks and network functions virtualization (SDN and NFV) are evolving quickly. The basic facts suggest a slow transition. The basic concepts represent a near-total reimagining of the way in which networks are configured. These new approaches must be superimposed onto networks for which they were not designed. A […]

How computers actually work is a mystery to many people. How quantum computing works is a mystery to just about everyone. Indeed, putting the word “quantum” in front of anything renders it incomprehensible to a vast majority of people. In short, traditional computer operations are binary. They are based on the oft-mentioned “ones and zeros” […]

The evolution of bring your own device (BYOD) work structures was linear: As mobile devices grew in power and sophistication, they were used more often by an increasing percentage of people at work. The corporate use of wearables is not as clearly mapped out, however. Consumer and corporate use is evolving in parallel. That makes […]

The increase in data flow to and from small cells, macro base stations and residential and business users is making the world of fronthaul and backhaul much more interesting. There are wired and wireless approaches to fronthaul and backhaul, though the two can be combined to increase efficiencies. It is ironic to note that the […]

Charter Communications will test 5G in Florida, according RCR Wireless. Last month, Charter asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to test in the 27.5 GHz to 28.35 GHz spectrum. Approval was granted yesterday. Charter will use 25 pieces of equipment from Ericsson to test in 53 locations in Orlando, St. Cloud, Kissimmee and […]

Mobile carriers want to be able to use equipment from multiple vendors in their networks. An attraction of open source and standards-based approaches is the promise of this capability. At least two groups are trying to establish ecosystems of vendors to create standards-based 5G networks. One of them consists of Samsung Electronics America, Cisco and […]