Yesterday’s blog post about wireless network capacity showed the opportunity for network equipment providers to supply gear to service providers facing base station and backbone exhaust.

Canadian technology firm Sandvine has been successful in helping service providers with intelligent network management. Sandvine has acquired more new clients so far in 2011 than all of last year.

As I wrote yesterday,

As smartphone penetration rates continue to rise, together with adoption of attractive streaming video and audio services, networks will continue to be challenged to provide satisfactory user experience.

As if to validate my comment, Rogers reported yesterday that smartphones now represent 48% – almost half – of its mobile customer base. Investment in capacity increases takes time – to plan, engineer, install.

How do network operators provide a superior user experience as traffic volumes continue to increase? Sandvine has a solution for service providers to intelligently manage congestion.

A story in itWorld Canada discussed a Credit Suisse report that suggests that more than a third of network base stations face capacity constraints and networks are operating at 80% utilization levels.

The survey results have led the investment bank to predict sales from network equipment providers, such as Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent.

Consumer demand for high speed data continues to exacerbate network edge and backbone congestion creating  capital spending opportunities on both sides of the border. I have heard technical support people suggest that the network will operate better if the user adjusts their handset to use 2G only and shut down the HSPA network. Amazingly, they say this with a deadpan tone of voice – although I am certain that this makes for great coffee room chatter around the call centre.

As smartphone penetration rates continue to rise, together with adoption of attractive streaming video and audio services, networks will continue to be challenged to provide satisfactory user experience.

How is your network provider performing?

The coming year should see increased levels of investment as carriers try to stay ahead of continually increasing demand.

[Telax call center software solutions]

When Canada went to the polls in May of this year, the election and subsequent cabinet shuffle delayed the release of a National Digital Strategy. Despite all of the best intentions for a Spring 2011 release of the federal strategy, it was to be expected that the new Industry Minister would seek to put his imprimatur on a piece that largely falls under his mandate together with his colleagues, the Ministers for Heritage and Human Resources. After all, telecommunications and the Telecom Act are within the purview of Minister Paradis.

Still, consider that many of the areas most commonly assumed to be part of a digital strategy actually fall under provincial responsibility: education, health care, social safety nets. There are a number of provinces facing elections this fall – perhaps providing incentives for provincial parties to turn their minds to progressive election agendas.

Canada’s largest province, Ontario will have an election on October 6. We will be watching the platforms of the major parties (Liberal, Conservative and NDP). Manitoba’s provincial elections are two days earlier (October 4); PEI residents are voting October 3; Newfoundland and Labrador voters go to the polls October 11; Saskatchewan’s provincial elections are a month later (November 7).

Will the federal government stay on the sidelines with the release of its national digital strategy in order to avoid conflicts with Ontario provincial election? Will any of Canada’s provinces scoop the federal government with the release of a comprehensive digital strategy?

Toronto will become Canada’s first city to have 3 area codes beginning in March 2013 with the introduction of 437, joining 416 and 647. The CRTC is already planning for the next number exhaust – it has set aside area code 387 as the next block of numbers, once Toronto runs short of the nearly 24 million numbers that can be assigned from the first 3 area codes.

Assigning an area code is an interesting art. In the olden days of rotary dial, the “best” area codes were the ones with the smallest number of pulses. In those days, area codes had a one or zero as the middle of the 3 digits, and the other two digits were anything but a one or zero. So, the most desirable area code was 212 and New York, the most populous region was given that assignment. The next best were 213 and 312, assigned to Los Angeles and Chicago.

It wasn’t about favouritism as much as the assignments considered the amount of time involved in dialing and transmitting the digits at a rate of 10 pulses per second. A zero took a full second for the 10 clicks; the digit 2 was sent in one fifth the time.

You can tell a lot about regional population densities in the mid twentieth century based on which area codes were assigned. Northern Ontario’s 807 and Newfoundland’s 709 were among the longest codes assigned.

Digital processors have enabled fully interchangeable area codes and central office codes, dramatically increasing the available pool of numbers. Still, there are some important considerations in choosing an area code. For example, the CRTC notes:

The Commission considers that it is a good assignment practice to use an area code that has not been used as a central office (CO) code within the area to be served, or in areas adjacent to it, because this reduces the potential for customer confusion when dialing. Since area codes 437 and 387 both meet this criterion, the Commission determines that area code 437 is to be used for current area code relief and that area code 387, for planning purposes, is to be set aside as the most suitable area code for future area code relief in Toronto, Ontario.

Toronto, a city of just over 3 million people, will have 24 million phone numbers available for assignment, plus another 24 million numbers serving the suburbs and Niagara region with area codes 905, 289 and the soon to be assigned 365 code. A major driver for consumption of numbers has been the introduction of competition. Generally, each competitive service provider in each exchange is assigned numbers on blocks of 10,000.

The North American Numbering Plan is one of the key areas of telecommunications administrivia that is important, but frequently goes without celebration. A hat tip to those numbering planners and those working on next generation routing schemes for more efficient assignment practices.

There is too much complacency in Waterloo.

Employees don’t seem to get it – RIM needs to crank it up a notch, in every position, at every level. I watched an ad featuring Apple’s Facetime and had to ask myself why Blackberry Messenger – RIM’s key differentiator – has had so little enhancement in the past couple years. Blackberry’s Desktop Software offers very few options for synchronizing (Yahoo and ASCII), but the Yahoo sync has been broken for months since Yahoo updated its calendar. RIM hasn’t bothered to update its code.

Despite having regular employment reviews that provide comfort, RIM should be looking at every position to see if it is really needed or if it can be outsourced. Some of this kind of shakeup needs to happen right away, if only to get everyone in Waterloo, the Board included, to realize that they need to develop a heightened level of urgency.