Hill Associates Telecom Newsletter

Can’t remember your password? Fahhget about it!
Does your IT professional get red in the face when you admit that you write your password down to remember it? Help is here, for both of you: graphical passwords. Read about the Draw-a-Secret (DAS) technology and what it offers. Who knows, this technology could lead to logging in by writing our signature. Kiss those alphanumeric passwords goodbye!

A little wireless trivia
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first cellular phone call in the U.S., the CTIA asks for your help to determine the top 10 significant events in the history of wireless communications. View other historical wireless moments and cast your vote today!

IT horror stories
In the spirit of Halloween, CIO Magazine put together several stories of technology horror. The Tales of Technology Terror: Personal Stories of Tech Disaster tells of the most horrifying moments in IT professionals’ careers. Our favorite is still last year’s 25 stories of IT Tales of Horror.

YouTube takes on parenting
In this viral video, comedian Anita Renfroe shares what she believes a typical mom says to her children during a 24-hour period. Amazingly, she manages to do this in just under three minutes to the tune of the "William Tell Overture." Hysterical!

Will Sprint and Clearwire formally join together?
Sprint Nextel is considering the next steps for its wireless broadband unit, including a possible merger deal with WiMAX partner Clearwire. Despite the sudden exit of CEO Gary Forsee, Sprint’s acting CEO Paul Saleh (the current CFO) is pressing forward with its commitment to a WiMAX rollout. Sprint is one of the first to get on board with Google’s open platform mobile experience. Will Cisco’s recent acquisition of WiMAX vendor Navini finally spark the takeoff?

Are you the next big spender?
U.S. telecommunications companies are expected to spend $56 billion in 2007 and almost $400 billion over the next five years on engineering, furnishing, and installing products and services, according to a recent report. Reasons include the conversion of wireless systems from analog to 3G digital and the need for additional wireline capacity, especially as consumer broadband expands further for services such as IPTV. According to a report by Canalys, IPTV’s worldwide subscriber base is expected to grow to 40 million by 2010. Verizon and AT&T will certainly lead the list of spenders, but how much are you in for?

Public hotspot club
FON considers itself the world’s largest wireless computing network, according to Business Week. Why? It has built a global network of 475,000 Wi-Fi hotspots to date, using the community spirit of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Founded in October 2005, and now partnering with the likes of BT Group and Dell to sell FON routers, the company could become one of the first to really cash in on the promise of Wi-Fi. Don’t get too excited just yet—we heard that prediction in March 2006 as well.

IRTF ponders new routing architecture for the Internet
The growth in the size of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing table entries has led many of the world’s leading network engineers to search for new alternatives to improve the Internet’s ability to scale. Billions of new users from developing countries will want to surf the ‘net. The Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), a sister group to the better known IETF, is leading the discussion for how the world’s backbone routers will operate. Included may be not only new routing architectures, but also new ways to do addressing. The eminent global deployment of IPv6 is only part of the discussion.

I want my MIMO
With the new 802.11n Draft 2 specs coming (hopefully sooner rather than later), it was interesting to see the 2007 Network World test results of five leading products. These are still pre-standard, but there is definitely an increase in interoperability, as well as throughput. Overall the WLAN industry continues to expand and make technological progress. Look to upgrade your 802.11g or 802.11b infrastructure next year perhaps. And in the meantime, don’t give in to irrational exuberance about whether “n” will replace Ethernet.

Survey says: Fibre out; iSCSI and Ethernet in
Many consider Fibre Channel to be the leader in storage networking. After all, it’s got a lot of support and it’s fast; however, it’s got some competition. A recent Network World article has iSCSI and Ethernet ready to take over. When the new iSCSI over Ethernet adoption takes off, a new king just might be crowned. If you are feeling a bit out of sorts on this storage stuff, you might want to check out our Fundamentals of Storage Networking ExperTech, which you can preview here or order online at our store.

The greatest networking arguments of all time
Which side of the fence are you are on in the great debate of Macs versus PCs? How about Blackberry versus Palm, or CDMA versus GSM? Network World has assembled 50 of these great debates for your consideration.

Have you tried an ExperTech yet?
Check out the ExperTech titles available for preview at our online store. Remember that all of these, and other titles, can be customized to meet your needs and goals as you consider your focus for 2008. Give us a call to discuss how these can be used to augment your initiatives. Look for a new telecom and datacomm curriculum coming to the store soon. With five subject areas, 17 modules, and about 40 hours of recorded content, this comprehensive series belongs in everyone’s digital library.

How’s your technical knowledge?
Having difficulty remembering exactly what that telecom term meant? Our wiki continues to expand, with over 900 telecom articles, and 250 related five-minute audio snippets called PodSnacks. We continue to receive requests for content, and we appreciate your comments and feedback. Don’t forget to spread the word about our podcast series called the Hill Associates Week in Telecom (tHAWT).