M2M

Wireless operators are increasingly investigating opportunities in machine-to-machine (M2M) communications to expand into new markets and increase revenues. An expanding array of consumer and industrial applications is positioning M2M for consistent, long-term growth, according to analysts and vendors alike. For instance, Analyst firm Berg Insight estimates “the number of cellular network connections worldwide used for machine-to-machine communication will grow from 108.0 million connections in 2011 … to 359.3 million connections in 2016.” In the U.S. alone, Yankee Group anticipates “cellular M2M connections for enterprise purposes to nearly triple from their 2011 levels of 81.3 million to 219.2 million in 2015.” Meanwhile, the Cisco Visual Networking Index predicts that between 2010 and 2015, the growth rate [...]

Today’s wireless networks are exploding with data use. Unfortunately, they are also constrained by capacity limitations. Soaring demand for mobile devices and bandwidth-intensive, mobile applications is simply overwhelming network infrastructure for most organizations. Previously, anybody interested in increasing their indoor wireless capacity would just add new macrocells and microcells. But that also meant increasing their network complexity. Now, there’s a new way to deal with the data explosion – distributed antenna system (DAS). The Wireless Infrastructure Association (PCIA) defines DAS as “a network of spatially separated antenna nodes connected to a common source via a transport medium that provides wireless service within a geographic area or structure.” In simpler terms, DAS opens the door to [...]

Happy belated Earth Day. We saw a tremendous amount of green news on April 22, from “The Top Ten Greenest States in U.S.” to the Earth Day Network’s “Billion Acts of Green” and even “Earth Day 2011: See which stars are going green.” But at Nexius, the April 21 publication of the Greenpeace report, “How Dirty is Your Data?,” managed to dominate the Earth Day-related news and reinforce the importance of green initiatives in business and technology. What makes the Dirty Data report stand out? It highlights a growing trend in which more companies are being evaluated – more publicly – based on their green tech initiatives. Subtitled “A Look at the Energy Choices That [...]

The smart grid vision is becoming a reality and a hot topic, so hot it recently was heralded as the standout session topic at the hugely popular Consumer Electronic Show January in Las Vegas. Research firm Berg Insight predicts that “over the next five years, smart meter technology is projected to move from 15-20% market penetration to almost 50% in Europe and North America, while Asia-Pacific will go from less than 1% to as much as 25%.” Of course, the smart grid flames are also being fanned in the U.S. by $4.5 billion in federal stimulus funds. So what, exactly, is all the buzz about smart grids? And what’s in it for network operators? The [...]