Industry Insight: Three’s Company – T-Mobile and Sprint Merger Approved

The approval of the $26.5 billion T-Mobile and Sprint merger by a federal court in New York opens the gates for a long awaited deal close. Contested by thirteen US states as a marriage that would water down competition and cause harm to the consumer, the transaction is expect to create a formidable third telecommunications player in the US market. The hopes and fears associated with the combined company will depend on thoughtful integration and realization of compelling synergies that could substantially change the competitive dynamic of the US telecommunications industry.

5G: The Carrier-Grade Digital Infrastructure for the Software-Defined Factory of the Future

With the advent of 5G there has been growing interest in what the next-generation mobile network technology means for industry. Operators and industrial OT (Operational Technology) players have been investigating the use cases and potential value that the 5G promises and technology can bring to manufacturing, supply chain and the factory of the future. It is commonly known and expected that 5G will bring about massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC), Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) and enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), but what do these use cases mean for manufacturers? Are these really the 5G promises that matter for the smart factory and the ongoing evolution of Industry 4.0?

Industry Insight: AT&T’s Alliances with Microsoft and IBM/Red Hat – A Tale of Two Clouds?

July has been a watershed month for AT&T as it enters into two major “cloud deals”, one with Microsoft and another with the newly merged IBM and Red Hat. At first glance, the two deals seem oddly contradictory – a collision of proprietary Microsoft cloud (although about half of Azure workloads run on top of Linux) with open source cloud from the combined IBM and Red Hat. But why two cloud deals? What makes them different? What does it mean for the companies involved?

Hybrid Approaches to AI for Realizing Intelligent Networks in the 5G Era

You can’t blame technology vendors and service providers for pushing the limits of marketing hype with Artificial Intelligence (AI). After all, it is hottest buzzword since cloud computing. But digital service providers in the emerging era of 5G need practical, real “AI” solutions to cost-efficiently scale their operations and deliver the quality of service that will deliver the promise of 5G to themselves as well as their customers. Hybrid approaches to AI are needed to accelerate return on investment as operators evolve their infrastructure and operations for a 5G future.

Sprint Business Analyst Day 2019: Key Takeaways

neXt Curve attended Sprint Business’ Analyst & Consultant Day 2019 held in Sprint’s office in Midtown Manhattan on the 25th of June with the goal of understanding how Sprint is progressing their enterprise strategy, executing on the evolution of their network toward 5G and building out their IoT platform and service offerings in becoming a “digital service provider”.

Digital Transformation World 2019: Key Takeaways

neXt Curve was in Nice, France attending the premier global event for digital transformation in the telecommunications industry held from May 14th through May 16th and hosted by TM Forum.  Leading vendors and operators converged to discuss what it will take help the telecom industry reinvent itself and aid telecom service providers in becoming digital service providers.  Now that 5G has arrived in select markets around the globe, the pressure is on for telecom operators to transform their operating models to capture the value promised by the next generation network.

The Fight for 5G Superiority will be Fought in The Cloud

Since the term “Cloud Computing” was coined, CSPs (Communications Service Providers) have had a tremendous challenge developing viable cloud capabilities and offerings for their enterprise clients that compete with emerging digital infrastructure players such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.  With 5G on the horizon it is ever more critical that traditional telco operators find their cloud mojo lest current cloud leaders and new intermediary entrants make a move to the middle to take the great 5G promise away from them.