Fall 2010 - Northern Virginia Technology Council

Q&A
NVTC sat down with Sprint Chief Service and Information Technology Officer Bob Johnson, Verizon
Wireless Maryland/DC/Virginia Region President Michael Maiorana, Comcast/NBC Universal
Washington, D.C. President Kyle McSlarrow, and Cox Business Northern Virginia Vice President J.D.
Myers for a discussion of rapid data growth, wireless technologies, business continuity, and how
telecommunications tools are contributing to enterprise productivity and innovation.
By Allison Gilmore
PhotograPhs by DaviD KiDD
nvtc What are some of the biggest trends shaping telecommunications
right now?
Bob Johnson: There are three overarching trends that are all
somewhat interrelated. The first is a proliferation of both new sales
and embedded customer purchases for PDAs and smart phones.
The mix of those devices has increased from 30 percent a year ago
to more than 50 percent today and will probably be close to 70
percent by the end of next year. So that’s a huge shift.
That trend leads to a couple of others. In particular, we have significant
growth in mobile broadband data consumption because
of the capabilities that these phones bring to bear and because of
the high-speed processes that they have embedded in them. As a
result, what you’re seeing is customers are really focused on the
browsing capabilities and the applications that these handsets can
now leverage because of the high-speed data networks and, frankly,
the customization. The personalization trend is also coming to
bear right now, as customers are looking for applications that they
want to be able to use every day.
Kyle McSlarrow: We see the same trends. Data consumption
is going only one way, and that’s up. It’s amazing, the voracious
appetite that residential and business America has for
increased data.
There are trends within the data too. Only a few years ago peerto-peer
networks were an increasing part of data consumption on
the network at the residential level, whereas over the last few years,
increasingly it’s been less about peer-to-peer networks and more
about streaming, including video. So we’re trying to pay attention
to the trend lines within the data consumption so that we can
meet our customers’ demand.
J.D. Myers: In these discussions of rapid data growth, the big
thing that we haven’t talked about yet specifically is wireless data
growth. According to a Cisco white paper, wireless data will grow
80 percent annually for the next six years in the U.S. For us, this
represents the need for more capacity from cell towers to switching
facilities — basically wireless backhaul.
Our wholesale business experienced 30 percent revenue growth
last year, which is tremendous, and wireless backhaul is the biggest
contributor to this. This growth corresponds to the rapidly growing
need for data and high-speed data connections by consumers,
whether they’re browsing or using their PDAs for different things
like GPS activities. That data requirement is really driving our
business to continue to provide capacity for providers like Sprint.
Also, data is driving other technologies that are becoming
more prevalent in our business. For instance, we have the ability
to provide wireless hot spots in prominent areas like hotels,
restaurants and parks so that PDA customers can get onto Wi-Fi
networks, allowing them to have more capacity for, and give priority
to, voice calls by offloading the data demands in those highly
populated areas. We’re offering solutions to allow carriers to do
that too, which is huge from a data perspective.
Mike Maiorana: Two of the biggest trends that I see in wireless
communications are the rollout of fourth generation (4G LTE)
wireless networking and the enabling of machine-to-machine
(M2M) communications.
The performance and capabilities of our 4G LTE network are
allowing customers to do things that they never could do before
in a wireless environment. In particular, we’re getting 10 times
faster speeds than with a 3G network, which enable applications
such as video sharing and surveillance, conferencing, streaming
and high definition. And, LTE provides reduced latency and enhanced
security, with robust and non-evasive mutual authentication,
user identity confidentiality and integrity protection of all
signaling messages.
Further, M2M technology is really going to ignite the continued
growth in the wireless industry. The new connectivity enabled
by our 4G network is providing solutions like remote diagnostics,
which allows large-scale apparatus and machinery to be constantly
monitored for problems that can be repaired more quickly.
M2M also allows cargo to be tracked and monitored through
live streaming video and allows remote adjustments to be made
Fall 2011 www.nvtc.org THE VOICE OF TECHNOLOGY 23