Mobile and application services are the future of the Internet. They will run on smart devices such as Mobile Internet Devices (MID) and smart phones. They will leverage an intelligent network, deploying solutions over an open and common platform. The mobile Internet represents access to an abundance of contextually relevant information from a number of devices across a variety of networks. It incorporates data-optimized wireless networks and leverages the web as an execution platform.

Content itself will originate from the web and other service providers, from personal collections and from sensory data. The presentation of this content will adapt to accommodate multi-modal, multi-device interactions enabled by edge gateways.

“What is 4G wireless?” Ask this question of any five people you know in the mobile broadband industry. It’s highly probable that you’ll receive five very different answers. In fact, ask ten or even twenty people and the outcome is likely to be the same.

The number of definitions of 4G wireless that exist today seems only to be limited by the number of opinions one seeks. Definitions might just include technologies such as HSPA, HSPA+, LTE, LTE Advanced and WiMAX. And in some cases the definition may even reference IMT-Advanced.

"As the most advanced technologies currently defined for global wireless mobile broadband communications, IMT-Advanced is considered as '4G,' although it is recognized that this term, while undefined, may also be applied to the forerunners of these technologies, LTE and WiMAX, and to other evolved 3G technologies providing a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed," espoused the ITU in a PR released in December of 2010.

IT should view the bring-your-own-device phenomenon as less of a threat and more as an opportunity. Here's why.

In a webinar on BYOD that I just did, a survey of the 500-plus participants showed that security is the way-out-in-front, lead concern of IT managers when it comes to implementing a bring-your-own-device program. More than 60% of those people voting reiterated what I hear every day. "Is it safe? Can we really trust users and their personal handsets with enterprise secrets?"

Security is, of course, the one part of IT where one can never be "done". Each week brings new concerns, new threats, and some previously unknown and unforeseeable challenge. Perhaps it's news of yet another IT breach, or, even worse, a discovery, not yet public, that something has gone terribly wrong and confidential information might be compromised. With security constantly under fire, then, aren't we just making things worse by allowing essentially any device on the corporate network? Aren't we just waving the proverbial red flag in front of the hacker community, daring them to do their worst once again?

While wireless equipment suppliers have developed a new generation of small cells designed for public access in mobile data networks, operators have to overcome some deployment challenges that these diminutive base stations create, according to a Heavy Reading analyst.

As Light Reading Mobile's recent report, there is a diverse range of public access small cell products designed for use in various places, including indoor venues, outdoor urban hot spots, or rural areas.

But product availability is one thing, deploying it is another matter.

If you subscribe to the data and timing presented in the National Broadband Policy (NBP) - Connecting America, the US will likely begin to witness the effects of a spectrum crunch as early as next year.  The US wireless carriers continue to argue that ever increasing smartphone traffic is threatening to overwhelm their networks, and are asking the government for help. But if or when it will actually happen is the subject of much speculation and some experts maintain that technology already has the answers. 

“Arguing that the nation could run out of spectrum is like saying it was going to run out of a color,” quipped Dr. David Reed, now Senior Vice President, Chief Scientist Group, SAP Labs.  As far back as a decade ago, Reed, who was at that time a professor at MIT, has challenged notions of spectrum scarcity, asserting that regulatory allocation of spectrum “is a legal metaphor that does not correspond to physical reality.” 

Reed’s argument is deeply rooted in RF engineering and physics but can be quite simply stated as, “the capacity of a certain bandwidth in a certain physical space increases with the number of transceivers in a given space.”  In other words, the more radios you have the more capacity you have.  On the surface it may not seem Reed’s assertions are well grounded, especially if you see it through a model based on assigned allocation of spectrum.

It wasn't until I was walking out of the venerable FIRA convention center at Mobile World Congress for the last time late on Feb. 29 that I realized it was a leap day.

And overall, this seemed fitting, because an informal message I took from the event is that 2012 meets many of the criteria to be what I consider a technology "leap year." Although much more difficult to define, and lacking the cadence of a calendar leap year, the impact of a technology leap year can be much more profound than simply having one additional day to analyze telecom trends.

Essentially, I define a technology leap year as one in which critical technologies take the leap from development to commercialization and monetization phases. The upside is more innovative services and applications for end users; the downside for some vendors and carriers is that it accelerates the rate of legacy service erosion.

Research In Motion didn't quash fears of its demise at BlackBerry World 2012. The company faces real threats that need to be addressed now--not later this year, when BlackBerry 10 launches.

What a difference a year makes. A year ago many critics were still talking about the "cloud" as if it were a massive amount of hype.

That has changed completely – no one dismisses the cloud any more.

At the same time, what has dawned on the information industry – IT and telecom – is the realization that the cloud is really going to be accessed overwhelmingly from mobile devices. Yes, that means what is really critical is the mobile cloud.

The new Heavy Reading study, "The Mobile Cloud: Ready or Not, Here It Comes," provides a strategic overview of why and how the mobile cloud is going to develop at an ever-accelerating rate, and the implications that development will have on the telecom and IT industries.

Make no mistake – those implications are enormous. The mobile cloud is going to be the battleground on which the interests of a stunning list of powerful companies and industry segments come crashing together. These include not only the giant carriers (Verizon, AT&T) and mobile device makers (Apple, Samsung), but also a full contingent of Internet-based companies and software giants (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and more).

Reports of the fabled "Facebook Phone" have resurfaced, this time linking HTC to the social network. Here's why you shouldn't believe them.

HTC has decided to strengthen its relationship with Facebook, rather than Google, and will forge ahead with a dedicated Facebook phone, reports DigiTimes. Citing sources familiar with HTC's plans, DigiTimes believes the company will bring a Facebook-branded smartphone to market during the third quarter.

The reasoning behind the decision, said DigiTimes, is because HTC feels burned by Google's tighter relationship with competitor Samsung. HTC built the first Nexus phone for Google (Nexus One), but Google has picked Samsung over HTC for the last two Nexus smartphones (Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus). Worse, supply chain sources suggest that Samsung has already been chosen by Google to make the fourth Nexus device. This has left HTC feeling like it needs a new partner in the smartphone space to help set it apart. 

We all love a fight, and for a long time small cells and Wi-Fi offload have been presented as competing approaches, mostly with Wi-Fi as the initial, cheap-and-cheerful solution that would eventually be replaced by carrier-grade small cell deployments in high-density areas.

This is not what is happening. The pressure on mobile operators to increase capacity – and especially capacity density (i.e., mbps per square mile) – is so strong that they cannot pick between small cells and Wi-Fi, but they equally need both. And this is because operators increasingly realize that the two technologies not only offer an incremental increase in capacity, but they can play a different, complementary role.

Location-based services (LBS) are services provided based upon the knowledge of the location of a user/device and/or the location of others that user/device wishes to interact with. These services can include location-tracking services in which the service provider tracks a user’s location and position-aware services, which are based on a device’s knowledge of its own location. Location-based services differ from presence services, which make use of the ability of the network to determine something about a user’s status, such as whether the user is online, talking on the cell phone, etc. Both presence and location-based mobility services offer a great deal of promise, especially to mobile service providers looking for new market growth opportunities. 

In an industry that thrives on marketing claims, there’s a lot more at stake for carriers who are preparing to deliver 4G voice than simply being the able to announce that they’re the first to market.

From medication reminders to wearable body sensors, mobile health solutions will become a vital part of our lives and many organizations' services.

LONDON -- Strategic Opportunities in Service Provider Wi-Fi -- Mobile operators need to make better use of Wi-Fi, but one of their biggest challenges is identifying where they can add value to the user experience, according to Heavy Reading Senior Analyst Gabriel Brown.

Barely two years old, Instagram - an iPhone photo sharing app and service - has emerged as the “billion dollar baby” of social networking.  It began as a simple application, developed byStanfordUniversitygrads Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, which added a vintage Polaroid look to photos taken with an iPhone camera.  Last week Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock.

As an application Instagram has a certain “cool factor” about it; the effects can make even blasé pictures look like creative genius.  But is it so much the “cool factor” that warrants a billion-dollar buy-out, or is it the fact that it has a rapidly growing user following, currently pegged at over 27 million?  For Facebook, the allure of Instagram is most certainly associated with its growth and the focus of its users.

Research In Motion needs to explore strategic options, one of which could be licensing out BlackBerry OS 10.

This won't save the company. Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins, in the job only three months, seems to be doing everything he can to turn the ailing smartphone maker around. He's promised significant changes, new leadership, and a plan to make it all come together. That means RIM is considering multiple options. One of them, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, is licensing out its BlackBerry operating system.

The arrival of 4G and a myriad new smartphone and tablets is resulting in mobile office ‘makeover’.  The early days of mobile office were simpler, at least for IT departments.  Mobile users were all issued the same device, likely it was a BlackBerry.  It was managed by a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) and the liability for security and usage resided corporately. 

Today’s mobile enterprise users are demanding more.  With the increasing consumerization of enterprise mobility, new devices and applications are becoming an integral part of their everyday personal lives.  Users now want these same devices to provide them with access to their enterprise needs.  They don’t want to carry two devices and they want the freedom to choose their own device.

Sprint badly needs to accomplish two goals: sign up new customers, and keep the customers it already has. The first part of Sprint's one-two punch strategy to accomplish these goals went into effect in October, when it began offering Apple's iPhone for the first time. On Wednesday, Sprint wound up the second punch, which it will deliver by the end of June: the HTC EVO 4G LTE smartphone.

The EVO 4G LTE will be one of the first devices offered by Sprint that's capable of accessing its forthcoming LTE network. Sprint has promised it will launch LTE in six markets by mid-year, and the EVO 4G LTE's availability will likely coincide with the network's arrival.

India's largest operator, Bharti Airtel Ltd. (Mumbai: BHARTIARTL), launched the country's first 4G services based on Long Term Evolution Time Division Duplex (LTE TDD) in Kolkata (Calcutta) on Tuesday.

Bharti's 4G network in Kolkata is supplied by ZTE Corp. (Shenzhen: 000063; Hong Kong: 0763), while the operator has selected Nokia Siemens Networks for its coming LTE TDD network in Maharashtra. (See ZTE Wins 4G Deal With Bharti Airtel and NSN Manages for Bharti.)

In the context of mobile payments, the rollout of Google Wallet might easily be viewed as being as critical to the industry as Google itself has been to the Internet search engine. But not unlike the Internet search engine, there’s not just one name in the game and with a competitive marketplace emerging even before widespread user adoption, it will be an interesting if not exciting game to watch.

A joint venture between AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile, Isis is currently Google Wallet’s only visible mobile wallet competitor. Although it has been around since 2010, Isis has until recently maintained a relatively low profile compared to Google which announced its plans almost a year afterward.

Long Term Evolution is global, it's fast, and it's available now on 57 networks in 34 countries. Too bad it faces significant obstacles.

The mobile broadband industry is becoming a victim of its own success as an unprecedented number of bytes flow across the airwaves. Yet efforts to free up additional spectrum are going nowhere fast, putting carriers between an extremely slow-moving government and enterprise and consumer customers who want their apps and data--now.

That's the overall conclusion of a number of revenue assurance and fraud management reports and white papers issued recently, though the angles and conclusions of the various studies vary quite considerably.

The vision of achieving truly converged networks is one that has been fraught with obstacles that preventing it from delivering full benefit to users.  These obstacles were initially the result of the absence of standards, and by extension, technologies, to bridge the disparate platforms of wireless and wireline networks. 

With the evolution of all-IP networks and adoption the adoption of SIP (session initiated protocol) the potential for a seamless convergence of services for both mobile and wireless networks has become real.  But in spite of these advances in technology growth of FMC (fixed mobile convergence) services supported by converged networks has until recently, been relatively slow.