By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email
Remember the phones when we were growing up? The main one in my parent's house hung on the wall near our kitchen and had a cord long enough to use for mountain climbing. In all the years of growing up, the only "phone change" that was ever made was an "upgrade" to the "Touch Tone" dial pad.
Was the upgrade needed? Probably not. the tones were certainly cool but most of the IVR (interactive voice response) applications were still years away. But the IVR touch tone apps did come and it would be impossible for most of us to get through the day with a rotary dial phone.
In researching this blog I discovered that touch tone was actually introduced in 1963 when I was just two years old so the technology was over a decade old before my parents switched over.
Of course this begs the question, if people can get by with rotary dial tone for more than a decade after touch tone was introduced, what's with the big rush today to adapt new phone technologies the day after the technology is released?
Save Time & Make More Money!
Increased efficiency and the "soft dollar" savings that follow is always the main selling point of new technologies, but is it always true?
The question is quite relevant to IT directors these days especially in the wide area network (WAN) sector because the 4G, LTE, WiMax wireless data networks being rolled out by AT&T, Verizon and Sprint are in a position to offer credible competition to the land-line based cable and phone companies that have a monopoly of sorts on a businesses access to broadband data and Internet access.
But how's an IT director to decide when and if to make the jump from 2G or 3G wireless to 4G?
I decided to put the question to Mark Gianinni, the CEO ofAccel Networks, a business grade wireless data integration company that specializes in creating wireless data networks for multi-location companies across the company.
Click the audio player below to listen to the interview. Click here to download an MP3 recording of the podcast. Scroll lower to read the transcript.
Dan Baldwin: Hello. This is Dan Baldwin, and today I am speaking with Mark Gianinni, the CEO and co-founder of Accel Networks. Mark, thanks for being with us today.
Mark Gianinni: Thank you, Dan.
DB: The subject of our Podcast is: The business implication of 4G wireless, do you need to migrate? And if so, why?
Question #1. Mark, can you give us a history of business wireless 2/3G?
MG: Sure. Our perspective of cellular data dates back to 2006 when the prevailing technology was 2G. Data rates were approximately 100 kilobits/second up and down. The latency was up around 500 to 600 milliseconds. Of course, 2G transitioned to 3G.
For purposes of comparison, data rates essentially increased by a factor of 10, up around 1 megabit/second. Latency was cut by approximately 2/3, and there was a tremendous growth rate as a result of that improvement.
Today, in terms of 4G when you compare it to 3G, data rates are going to approximately -- and when I talk about data rates, I'm talking about actual field result data rates, no lab data rates -- but you can think of data rates as essentially tripling, or quadrupling, from 1 meg to 3 to 4 megs down. The upload speeds will approximate 2 megabits/second up.
1:56 I would say most importantly, and most noticeably I guess is the right word, to the customer is that the latency is going to be reduced -- is reduced-- dramatically. 4G will deliver latency at 100 sub 100 milliseconds, so you are down there with cable and DSL. That will have a major, major impact on the adoption rate and growth of cellular broadband going forward.
DB: Question #2. Can you describe what are the businesses that most often can use this sort of fast wireless data land applications, and what specifically are the land applications that they need this to move into?
MG: Well, from our perspective the majority of our customers are large enterprise organizations with geographically dispersed networks.
In terms of industry, it is virtually every industry ranging from retail, to energy, to health care. In terms of applications, it runs the gamut, everything from credit card authorization, and when we are talking about 4G you can include in that imaging in the health care industry, and a whole host of applications that I am sure we are not even aware of at this point but will capture the imagination of enterprise networks as 4G gets fully deployed.
DB: My special add-on comment here then is, what I am hearing you say is in the past, people and businesses, they're choosing the land-line broadband connections, either wired or cable, but what you're saying here is with 4G you become the third option because almost anything they're putting out over those other networks they can now put out over wireless.
4:16 MG: That's absolutely right, and in addition to being equal to, or better than, wired data rates and latency, obviously cellular broadband can be deployed, installed and up and running in a fraction of the time it takes a land based line.
DB: You don't have to dig any trenches.
MG: Exactly. And, you don't have to wait on the provisioning process of the Telco which everyone knows can run 3 to 6 weeks.
We typically for example, for Accel our typical from receipt of order to installed and running is 3 to 5 days.
DB: That's great.
MG: So, there is a dramatic difference. I would like to get back to the point on the latency, because it's very difficult to overstate the impact that is going to have. In addition to opening up a number of existing applications that today don't tolerate latency above 100 milliseconds, the other aspect of 4G is that it is truly going to deliver voice over IP or voice or LTE.
5:45 When you combine the data rates and the ability to add a voice application to the same circuit, it becomes a very compelling business case.
DB: You've taken us into our next question. Question #3: The implications we hear about 4G, WiMax, LTE for our businesses, do we need to migrate? And if so, when?
What I just heard you say is, most businesses if they are kind of happy with the 3G wireless land, they are really going to be happy with the next generation. Can you kind of describe for us how the roll out is going, and when they can expect it, and is it something that they're tracking, or is it something that Accel Networks is tracking so you come to them and say okay now 4G, LTE, WiMax or whatever is ready, and we've already instituted that into the network?
MG: Accel Networks is entirely focused on cellular broadband. We don't offer any other type of service other than cellular broadband, so we of course are very, very plugged in in terms of where the carriers are in their deployments, where the modem manufacturers are in the release of their new products, and where the industry is in terms of delivering value add applications like VoIP.
We spend a part of every day watching the synchronization of those different moving parts into something that we can offer our customers, our channel partners, our agents a fully bundled service with our SLA (service level agreement) attached to it.
7:44 DB: That takes us into the next question. Question #4: How is Accel positioned to help the business end-users upgrade to 4G solutions.
What I am hearing you saying is, the individual business enterprise, they don't need to concern their IT department so much about what equipment is ready, what areas are ready, what networks are ready because it sounds like you're almost equipment or network agnostic.
You're going to let the customer know we've already integrated and tested that equipment, we've integrated and tested those networks, and it is fit to go for you in these specific areas.
MG: Yes, we will do the same. Our approach in 4G is the same as it is in 3G, and that is we are a multi-carrier service provider. We will use all 3 carriers intermixed in every customer's network to deliver a consistent quality of service across all of their sites.
The issue of which carrier, and which specific technology, is really Accel's burden, not the end-users burden and not the agent's burden.
It is our duty and responsibility, and we've been very successful at homogenizing the service experience across different carriers and different technologies so that at the end of the day, I think if you went and asked an Accel customer who had maybe 500 locations on our network which of their sites were covered by which carriers, I don't think they could tell you. They couldn't tell the difference between them.
That is what we consider a major success.
DB: Great. This is Dan Baldwin. We've been talking with the co-founder and CEO of Accel Networks, Mark Gianinni. Mark, thanks for your time today.
Did we miss talking about anything with regards to the migration to 4G/LTE for our businesses?
MG: The only thing that I would point out is, I don't think there is any magic inflection point when a customer should or desires to upgrade from 3G to 4G. It's all going to be driven by, and it should be, by a combination of business case and network performance as it affects their applications.
10:18 DB: I assume that if our business enterprise listeners want to get more information, they can contact you and you can put them in contact with one of the Accel Networks authorized distributors?
MG: Absolutely. We are a big, big supporter of our channel distribution partners, and our agents and master agents, and we would be more than happy to make the appropriate referral.
DB: Mark, thanks for talking to us today.
MG: Thank you, Dan.
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