Shulist Group Inc.

We are always fans of big numbers. Way back in 1995 we heard that Bob Metcalfe (inventor of ethernet networking) predicted that the flood of data on the Internet, at the time, would bring it to its knees in 1996 or he would eat his article. We later read he munched up the article in front of an industry conference in 1997—a man who lives by his word. We’ve always been interested in the growth of internet data, predictions of its demise and the crow-eaters who predict.
Continue reading ‘Ready For The Exabyte Deluge?’ »

Over at Michael Geist’s blog (its on our must read list) he commented on Canada being a spam haven. Having read his particular blog a number of times we felt it necessary to comment. We think he’s on the mark when it comes to suggesting that Canada needs stronger spam laws but may be off the mark in concluding that Canada is a spammers delight.
Continue reading ‘Spammers In Great White North?’ »

Over at Billing and OSS World they are running an interesting poll. Its asking about the degree to which you would trust your mobile provider to personalize information to you. It seems to us that this is a great question to open the debate about just what service providers are doing with our information. Over the next few weeks we are interested is seeing the results as the votes get tallied.
Continue reading ‘Trust Your Mobile Provider?’ »

We are were rather embarrassed recently by a friend asking if we’d seen Canada’s Telecommunications Hall of Fame? Why no, we’d never knew such a thing existed. What with the demise of many of the Telephone Pioneer organizations it seems we’ve lost much of our telecom history. Gone are the days that in almost every telecoms office building there was some historical display managed by the Pioneers.
Continue reading ‘Telecom Hall Of Fame’ »

Many of the vendors and carriers who advertise (or request) “carrier class” or “carrier grade” products, really do not know of what they speak! In most cases this is said as though it were some worldwide unspoken standard. This is not the case. In our experience the need to develop a standard by which you can measure or compare independent solutions sets, against a defined expectation, is a must, if you wish to be successful in selecting, deploying and managing support system solutions.

In our work in the past we have been asked for definitions of carrier class (or grade) standards. We think there is a range of options that any carrier might find acceptable. So at the risk of being considered buffoons, here goes:
Continue reading ‘Carrier Class Defined’ »

We pay attention to a small group of visionaries in the telecoms domain and Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi is one of those. We heard him speak a number of years ago when he was the CTO over at AT&T. So when he pontificates we listen attentively. In our observations he always had a special interest in OSS and BSS and often spoke of them.
Continue reading ‘10 Things Service Providers Need’ »

I should have paid more attention to my prof when I was learning about radio systems. It seems to me that there was just too much to learn and, at the time, fiber was the leading technology. So it was with great interest that I heard that a radio system simulator was being released for free. A UK company, Actix, announced this last week. Actix you get a silver star for doing that! Normally they spend their time doing network optimization and performance engineering systems for all those frazzled wireless carriers trying to squeeze a few more bucks out of the ever more complex infrastructure.

What flavor do you want?

Actix has a number of products and they have released the student version of their Radiowave Propagation Simulator (RPS) which can model WLAN, WIMAX, Mesh, UMTS, CDMA2000, and LTE. Maybe all those G-Block spectrum guys could do a network on the cheap?

Continue reading ‘Roll Your Own Mobile Network’ »

In the telecom industry the difference between the hype of new technology and actual implementation of solution sets, that includes that technology, is anything but rational thinking. As a long time colleague of mine used to say, “between vision and reality there lives hallucination”.

IP-Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) started out as the brainchild of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), which incidentally is celebrating its tenth anniversary as a specifications body—a rather long time given the turbulent world of mobile telecom. IMS was part of its Release 5 specification, back in mid-2003, and further revised in Releases 6 & 7. While there is nothing wrong with the basic premise of IMS, there is a world of hard work in going from the concept to the reality of service delivery.

Continue reading ‘IMS Redux’ »

Those of you who know me know that I am always excited about the prospects of a Halloween evening. It’s my most favoured holiday of the year and one which for the most part involves a little home grown creativity. Apparently Ian Portsmouth over at Canadian Business magazine seems to have managed to draw a little small business common sense out of the annual event. You can read his list here.

Three Truths of Cycling: A Leader’s Insight

A few summers ago I had the opportunity to ride one of the most pleasant bicycle routes in Ontario. My daughter invited me down to join her on a ride through Wolfe Island which is a ten minute ferry ride south of Kingston. Now Wolfe Island is no Tour de France but it is a great location for some easy rolling. It also has spectacular views of the Kingston waterfront, the lake boat shipping channels, and summer sailboat races. Not to mention that the locals on the Island have a completely different perspective on how life should proceed.

During part of that ride my daughter was not her usual talkative self and we filled the gaps in the conversation with the spectacular views and thinking about where we were. It was during one of those lulls in conversation that I made an important connection between leadership coaching and the truth about bicycling. Continue reading ‘Bicycle Leadership’ »