I often get asked by friends and family whether we will ever get rid of the wires in our lives. As most of us in the industry are aware, no single access technology, either wireless or fixed, will meet consumer and enterprise demands — not to mention national bandwidth mandates. It will take multiple access technologies working in harmony to achieve a seamless ultra-broadband service experience. This is especially true at the edges of some urban and suburban locales and in many rural markets. But in order to make this kind of hybrid access possible, we will need to evolve our network cores to intelligently leverage a range of multi-access technologies.

It may come as a surprise to realize that almost half the world’s population live in areas that are underserved from a broadband prospective. It is estimated to be a potential $80 billion¹ market worldwide. These areas may be served by only one kind of wireless or only fixed access, and may have no connectivity at all. For any number of reasons, it is important for us to find a sustainable and affordable way to connect this “next billion” users.

For various business, geographic and technical reasons, the use of a single access technology may not be able to meet even current needs, let alone future targets. Hybrid approaches that aggregate different access technologies will be the only way to cost-effectively and, thus, sustainably meet the needs of the next billion.

Supporting multi-access services has been challenging; we often have different physical cores for fixed and wireless networks. So, the capabilities of a converged core must evolve and be augmented to ensure the delivery of the desired converged services. This converged core must address everything from evolving residential multimedia services, such as wireless video sharing and the Netflix-bingeing we all love, to latency sensitive real-time gaming and mission-critical applications for governments and enterprises, including IoT and critical machine-to-machine (MTC) communications.

A multi-access core will enable service providers, as well as vertical enterprises and industries, to boost bandwidth and increase their footprint and revenue to include currently under-served markets. It will also provide highly secure and reliable networks that utilize dynamic policy control for flexible bandwidth management, which is critical for sustainability.

An enhancement to a well-known reliable transport protocol is making multi-access aggregation possible. It is an evolution of TCP called multi-path TCP or MP-TCP. Because it’s an extension of TCP, it can be easily deployed in existing wireless and fixed access networks. For bandwidth-intensive services and applications, MP-TCP hybrid access creates sub-flows that spread data for a single connection across multiple network paths. As we shift our behavior over the day or evening, network policies can seamlessly allocate and manage wireless and fixed resources to efficiently match our demand — especially critical for scarce rural connectivity.

As well as supporting MP-TCP, the converged multi-access core will have to be ‘cloud-native’ by design to deliver the necessary scale and flexibility to support a very diverse set of connectivity types, services and applications. What I mean by cloud-native is that it can’t just be a simple port of existing software onto a server platform. The software must be architected to support attributes such as software-function disaggregation. That’s where the virtual network function software is modularized and broken down into small components that can then be scaled dynamically in a building-block approach, as necessary.

For increased flexibility and reliability, a cloud-native design also requires a state-efficient, virtual-network-function (VNF) design with a common data layer.  Meaning in other words, massive connectivity to support huge numbers of IoT and MTC devices while maximizing the use of computing resources to realize the economics of delivering diverse and demanding services and applications. This is one of the strengths of a true cloud implementation. Also for bandwidth-intensive or delay-sensitive IoT/MTC applications, it should also be possible to distribute the appropriate disaggregated core functions to the edge of the network to support real-time services and applications.

So, let’s consider the Nokia Hybrid Access solution. It has two main components; the Hybrid Access Gateway (HAG), and the Hybrid Access Customer Premise Equipment (HCPE). With Nokia’s Cloud Mobile Gateway (CMG), the HAG capability can be deployed with existing vendors’ fixed and wireless access infrastructures, so it’s suitable to meet a range of business and deployment requirements. The Nokia Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) — already deployed in many of our customers’ networks — also provides a potential further upgrade path that they may wish to consider. Either option supports virtualized or physical network element environments.

There’s a lot of talk these days about digital transformation and the 4^th industrial revolution, or “4IR” as it is sometimes called. A cloud-native, multi-access core will be at the heart of this transformation. It will provide the core platform for a global interconnected fabric connecting the world, including that half of the world that is underserved today. Enterprises will require it to take full advantage of a wide array of networked and automated systems and applications. And, for CSPs, it will enable them to competitively profit from the growing appetites of under-served consumer, residential and enterprise users as well as meeting the ambitious broadband targets set by governments globally.

Check out this video on why we think hybrid access is the way to go:

¹:Broadband transformation for 21^st century digital rural society (Nokia, 2016)

Visit our Nokia cloud mobile gateway solutions page for more information.

Share your thoughts on this topic by replying below – or join the Twitter discussion with @nokianetworks using #5G #cloud #cloudnative #IoT

The post Ultra-broadband is an $80B opportunity for the multi-access core appeared first on Blog | Nokia.

Source: Nokia Networks
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You’ve been on the workout grind, but you’re ready to add an extra challenge without shelling out for a personal trainer or buying a bunch of new fitness equipment. You’re in luck; there are actually some pretty simple techniques you can use to boost the effectiveness of your workouts instantly. Bonus: They help you save time at the gym! Here are five to try during your next workout:

1. Get explosive with your movements. Adding powerful bursts to your strength training movements can help you target more muscles at the same time. “Explosive movements also cause your heart rate to spike, which taxes your cardiovascular system,” says Ruben Belliard, founder of The Training Lab in New York. So how do you do it? It’s all about pushing your body off the ground as part of the movement. Replace bodyweight squats with jumping squats, or instead of normal push-ups, try exploding up from the bottom and attempting to clap your hands together before finishing out the rep.

2. Add intervals to your cardio. Running three miles at a steady pace is fine, but if you want to keep seeing results, speed things up by throwing in some intervals. “You can push yourself harder because you only need to go fast for a little bit,” says Belliard. “Your body isn’t accustomed to going at that pace, so you’ll see more results; improving your heart function and recovering faster between training days.” A good way to do this? Play little games with yourself. “If you see a tree ahead, see how fast you can get to it,” says Jimmy Minardi, personal trainer and founder of Minardi Training.

3. Limit rest. It’s natural to want to rest when your workout gets tough, but try to keep those breaks to a minimum. “Instead of taking a break after each move, cycle through a complete set of the moves, then take a break,” says Belliard. “The shorter the rest, the more taxing the workout will be on your cardiovascular system.” Little by little you’ll notice you won’t need as much rest in future workouts because you can catch your breath faster.

4. Focus on form. When you get tired, it’s natural for form to suffer. Unfortunately, this can be a huge waste of time. “100 bad push-ups are less beneficial than 10 really good ones,” says Belliard. If you notice your form slipping, break your movements into smaller chunks so that you can do them all correctly.

5. Change up your routine. Your body can adapt petty quickly to the same old workout, which is why getting into a rut can stop you from seeing results. One way to make sure you’re doing lots of different movements: Take the workout outside. “I see people at the gym who aren’t getting any healthier and who look bored to tears,” says Minardi. “Find something you love to do outside—like trail running, mountain biking, or kayaking. Each time you work out, it’s going to be a little different, which will keep your body challenged.”

 

The post 5 Ways to Take Your Basic Workout Up a Notch appeared first on Fitbit Blog.

Source: Fitbit Blog
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	How to Initiate a Live Chat Session This quick video will demonstrate how to initiate a Live Chat session within Dell EMC Online Support as well as how to chat about an existing Service Request (SR): https://dell.to/2xWJB6c
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Source: Dell Blog
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	Setting NetWorker Environment Variables on Unix or Linux This video demonstrates how to set environment variables in NetWorker on Linux or Unix NetWorker server or client: https://dell.to/2xU7kE3
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Source: Dell Blog
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	How to Regenerate UCSM Keyring’s Certificate This video demonstrates the reason for getting the “default Keyring’s certificate invalid, reason: expired” error, and how to renew the Keyring’s certificate: https://dell.to/2xWhmo3
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Source: Dell Blog
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In case you missed it, we recently outlined our vision for Windows Mixed Reality at an event in San Francisco. Not only did we unveil the newest addition to our Windows Mixed Reality Headset family, we kicked off the holiday shopping season by opening up pre-orders for Windows Mixed Reality headsets at Microsoft Store and Microsoft.com. We also announced that that SteamVR is coming to consumers this holiday, and that AltSpaceVR is joining Microsoft. Learn more on the Windows Blog: https://msft.social/b9ULwk

Source: Windows YouTube
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https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/playstationnow/
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/psnow/games/

PlayStation Now is the subscription service that lets you stream hundreds of games to your PS4 and Windows PC. With a single subscription, you can play over 500+ PS4 and PS3 games, including PlayStation exclusives, greatest hits, acclaimed masterpieces, indie gems, and games for the whole family.

Free 7-day trial available.

Visit psnow.com for more information.

Source: Playstation YouTube
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