Alcatel-Lucent

Author’s grandfather, Lawrence A. Wagner, on an airfield in Santiago, Chile, 1931.

By John Fredette, Corporate Communications, Alcatel-Lucent.

Two weeks ago, while helping my mother move for the first time in 48 years, I came across some photos of her father. Lawrence “Sparks” Wagner was one of the first communications officers for Pan American Airlines. Radio communications fascinated him; in fact he had one of the very first radio sets in Baltimore, Maryland.  In the early 1930s in South America he had to carry a gun to protect against animals as he and his colleagues oversaw the clearing of jungle land for new air strips.  He knew seven languages and was learning Chinese for his upcoming post on PanAm’s China Clipper route when he was tragically killed in a plane crash at the Lima airport.

Based on stories from my grandmother I believe I know what type of person my grandfather was.  New technology fascinated him as did the idea of expanding frontiers.  He understood the risks, but he wanted to be part of the vanguard of pioneers who were creating a global network of international flight.  I am sure he would be amazed by how wireless communications have developed in the last 80 years.  I see a direct connection between what we are doing today in developing broadband wireless around the globe and what my grandfather’s industry was doing in the last century.

Certainly the physical dangers for the majority of us in telecommunications are very limited. But there are risks.  The risks are not necessarily for us as individuals but rather for our society and its organizations as we plough full speed ahead in developing and broadening the phenomenon referred to as ‘hyperconnectivity’.

Today, more people in more places have access to communications networks and are building (digital) links that are stronger and more prevalent than ever before in history.  Hyperconnectivity means always being easily connected by whatever device and wherever you are. It makes almost limitless amounts of data readily available. It is interactive and it is always keeping track of all those interactions.

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By Adolfo Hernandez, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s software, services and solutions division.

Today’s web and app-driven world has awakened newfound interest in the role the network plays in the future of technology. In this post, we’ll look at the reasons driving that interest and how what was traditionally a hardware-dominated industry is evolving to one that is more software-centric.

It’s what’s inside that counts. That’s where true beauty lives. Your parents knew it. Your teachers knew it. Heck, even Intel knew it. And, slowly but surely, the telecom industry is realizing it as video drives changes in the network.

That inside beauty of the network is software.

To build a more intelligent network – one that requires moving, dispatching, allocating and caching video to new and different devices – requires software. Software is the tool we use to ensure caching is done efficiently, to ensure transactions are processed, to code the APIs to enable us to expose elements of the network, to deal with things like advanced communications, charging and analytics.

Yet, this is certainly not the traditional software most people would think, not even in the back office or IT processing of an enterprise. The software to make the network intelligent must be telco-grade software able to operate in the hallowed five-nines environment. It must have absolute integrity and reliability. But it also must possess the latest and greatest technologies, be build on community-driven development models, implement the right industry standards, and be built on a flexible, cloud-aware architecture.

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Philippe Camus at the FABFEST conference

A look back at the FABFEST lunch debate chaired by Philippe Camus and Jean-Bernard Levy on Tuesday, April 3rd.

Over the years, the changing digital landscape has gradually blurred the line between the previously distinct worlds of Media, Telecoms and Internet.

The 2012 edition of FABFEST (check out the event website), an event that brings together players from all of these fields, closed with a debate between sector professionals and government stakeholders on how they see the future of original creation on digital distribution platforms and networks. The debate was led by Fabienne Schmitt, co-head of the High Tech Media department for the French financial newspaper Les Échos.

As network specialists, Alcatel-Lucent believes that developing high-speed infrastructures and networks encourages “creativity and imagination”. “As soon as people have access to high-speed broadband, their needs change and they develop new ways of using it,” explains Mr Philippe Camus, chairman of the board of directors. However, he feels that Europe is lagging behind other regions such as the United States who are already deploying the new equipment. Mr Jean-Bernard Levy, chairman of Vivendi’s management board, would tend to agree that Europe is struggling to keep up with the digital agenda. The key question is how to finance the infrastructures. Last July, Mr Levy, along with Mr René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, and Ben Verwaayen, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, presented 11 proposals to the European Commission on the issues of high-speed internet and the goals for 2020. Particularly noteworthy was the proposal to set up a two-sided market model to draw on funding from both end users and “platforms that use infrastructures to transport content”.

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By Rajeev Singh-Molares, President APAC, Alcatel-Lucent

I recently participated at the Boao Forum in Asia. Boao is a forum for leaders from government, business and academia to share their thoughts on pressing issues in Asia and the world.

At this year’s Forum, China’s Vice Premier Li Keqiang, – one of the senior next generation leaders – made it clear that the government intends to continue to open up the economy and invest in the quality of its citizens’ lives.

He and many participants talked about the fact the Chinese economy is slowing down for the first time in decades. Growth will be 7.5%. There was a lot of talk about the impact of this slower growth rate and the relationship between China and the rest of the world.  The interdependence and economic slowdown – particularly in Europe – has had an impact on Chinese exports. However China’s trade with emerging markets and the US will mitigate – to some extent – the crisis in Europe.

Listen to this podcast with Rajeev about the Boao Forum:

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By Debbie Fisher, Market and Consumer Insight, Alcatel-Lucent.

As we continue our blog series around smart cities, research now shifts to the beautiful city of Zurich — best known by many for being the city with the highest cost of living. But to the citizens of Zurich, their city is one that today offers a high quality of life. And given this positive view, it’s no surprise that citizens are also very satisfied with the city’s overall “smartness.” This view is backed up not only by local residents, but also reported in Mercer’s 2011 Quality of Living ranking.

I’ve just returned from Zurich where we interviewed several citizens on their definition and vision of a smart city. As well we asked which services they thought could make a difference in their lives. Along with unseasonably warm weather, I heard what I can best describe as the “sunny,” satisfied disposition of Zurich citizens. The most commonly repeated phrase seemed to be “I have everything I need.” We’re proud to hear that our customer EWZ, via its ewz.zürinet, plays an important part in providing residents with the needed infrastructure. Internet access is nearly ubiquitous and allows for a virtual workplace. Swiss Railway and Zurich Traffic apps are already available for iPhone users and support the heavily used, efficient trams and trains.

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