Greg Meckbach is editor of Network World Canada and has worked for ComputerWorld Canada, Communications & Networking and Computing Canada. 
Howard Solomon is assistant editor of Network World Canada and has worked for Computing Canada and Computer Dealer News. 
The year of fixed mobile convergence?
(1 votes, average: 1 out of 10)
Loading ...The Yankee Group last week released its predictions for 2009, and the Boston-based research firm is predicting for the first time in history, sale of wireline switches, when measured by the total number of ports on switches shipped, will decrease.
This is because wireless local-area networks will become “the primary means of deployment” and not just an augmentation, the Yankee Group said.
In a report dubbed “It’s the Economy, Stupid: Yankee Group’s 2009 Predictions,” the company said consumers will demand “better value” from their mobile services, while subsidies for smart phones “will strangle operator profits.”
The move to wireless LANs is well underway. Canadian organizations such as McGill University, Carma Developers and the Central East Community Care Access Centre, are using the technology.
Earlier, security concerns discouraged some companies from installing access points.
But now, industry experts agree that using version 2 of Wi-Fi Protected Access, or WPA2, should alleviate most security concerns.
WPA2 uses Advanced Encryption Standard, and if that’s not secure enough for your data, then your data should not move over any network. In fact, if AES isn’t good enough, you shouldn’t even store the information electronically. Instead, you should write it by hand on paper, memorize it and eat it.
As for Yankee Group’s predictions for mobile carriers, Rogers Communications is a case in point. Offering Apple Inc.’s iPhone 3G had mixed results for the carrier.
In its financial results for the quarter ending Sept. 30, Rogers said the cost of providing the service (including equipment sales) had a “dilutive impact” on the growth of its operating profit. But it also gained “higher than average” revenue per user for postpaid iPhone users with both voice and data plans.
Whether data plans will help carriers in the long run remains to be seen. Simply put, if your company wants to cut costs without firing workers, it might pay to take a good hard look at wireless data. Though it pays to let sales staff keep in touch with clients while they’re on the road, not everyone needs to send megabytes of data every day using cellular networks.
Perhaps as the economy worsens, fixed-mobile convergence will really take off, as companies find they need to keep their workers productive all the time, but want to cut back on telecom costs.
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December 17th, 2008 at 12:46 am
[...] The year of fixed mobile convergence? [...]