Dialogue with Industry Executives Explores Latest Global Communications Trends at IEEE GLOBECOM 2013

New York City, December 11, 2013 -- IEEE GLOBECOM 2013 being held from December 9 – 13 in Atlanta, Georgia, was highlighted on Tuesday evening by the Dialogue with Industry Executives featuring the perspectives and visions of senior communications professionals representing leading Atlanta-based communications organizations. Tino Mantella, the president of the Technology Association of Georgia and session’s moderator, led the discussion that focused on topics ranging from new big data, video delivery and connectivity trends to industry employment tips and the emerging use of drones in consumer communications.

After the initial introductions, Chris Walters, chief operating officer of The Weather Company, emphasized the “significant changing demands of consumers” as a driving force for revolutionizing weather forecasts with “real-time information all the time.” This includes the ongoing expansion of data collection from more than a billion global locations and the insourcing of information from thousands of weather stations based throughout consumer backyards. Louis Gump, president and CEO of LSN Mobile continued the thought by noting how localized WiFi was increasing global interconnectivity given that carriers already cover 97 percent of the U.S. population and offer coverage in all but four countries worldwide. The ongoing convergence of all the different technologies and its role in changing how we interact as human beings was also addressed by Cameron Coursey, vice president of product development at AT&T’s Emerging Devices Organization, who spoke about the growing use of “wearables” and their ability to merge data with other sources enabling us to “figure out what makes us tick” by analyzing simple habits such as eating and sleeping.

Gump then explored how “the definition of television is changing in front our eyes” and its evolution from “a piece of fixed hardware stuck in a room” to a "powerful device providing on demand programming and continuing deeper depths of interactivity." Lew Tucker, vice president and chief technology officer of Cloud Computing at Cisco, noted the complexities of today’s news given that ordinary citizens are now performing journalistic duties and providing real-time video of live events without the vetting processes that accompanied reporting in the past.

After Mantella interjected about the possible use of drones as package delivery devices, Walters spoke about “the amazing way they can help tell stories, collect content and keep live reporters out of harm’s way,” while Gump cited their vast potential for “capturing imagination, connecting people and covering communities better” with the far greater coverage of local events such as children’s soccer games. As for the job market in the communications field, all agreed that “the ability to bridge the gap between technology and business was the hardest talent to find” and “the people who are great at it are extremely rare” in today’s technical world. This includes going beyond a tunnel-vision focus on goals with an “emotional awareness that pulls people together.” Tucker added that “dreamers and people with an idea and the persistence to make it happen” were equally important for advancing the next wave of communications worldwide.

Earlier in the day, IEEE GLOBECOM 2013 officially commenced at the Hilton Atlanta with Lew Tucker’s keynote on “Cloud Computing and the Promise of Networking-as-a-Service.” Following the conference theme of the “Power of Global Communications,” Tucker spoke about the “Internet-of-Everything” and the big data explosion that will eventually connect us to devices providing real-time information from cars to thermostats to create an industry generating more than $14 billion in revenues over the next 10 years and a network traffic of 77 zetabytes per year by 2017. This will include the “carrier networks that will look more like clouds than today’s multilayered hardware dependent equipment domains” by 2020.

According to Tucker, “it’s all about the applications at the end of the day” with “cloud computing winning as the easiest way to develop and employ applications” as well as create better “two-way communications between applications and infrastructure.” This includes the evolution of the cloud containing “everything-as-a-service,” pay-as-you-go models and built-in resiliencies driven by open source cloud platforms and Open Stack Software Architecture, which are “massively scalable wherever possible” and “allows the developer to focus on the applications rather than the plumbing.”

Afterwards, IEEE GLOBECOM 2013 initiated its comprehensive agenda highlighted by more than 800 technical paper presentations, hundreds of addresses from industrial leaders, senior-executive panel discussions, the exhibitions of global technological corporations and numerous business and industrial forums focused on the “new world” of IPv6, smart grid, cloud computing and network infrastructure advancements. This included a full day of Industry Forums & Exhibitions dedicated to topics like Smart Metering: Enabling Communications and Associated Security and Privacy Challenges,” “Network Function Virtualization,” “Current Challenges with Cyber Security in Software Defined Networks” and “Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications: The Ultrawideband Frontier.”

Other significant events to be held over the next few days will include the:
-Keynote address of Branko Bjelajac, IEEE GLOBECOM 2013 General Chair and CTO for Landis+Gyr, who will speak on “Information and Communication Technology – A Key Enabler of Smart Grid Innovation” and its role in transforming and modernizing the sustainability, production, distribution and consumption of electricity on a global scale.
-Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) research demonstrations highlighting the latest novel approaches for overcoming the inflexibility, high power consumption, operational complexity and hardware obsolescence issues found in today’s network infrastructures.
-Technical presentations detailing the latest findings in e-Health, Internet of Things (IoT), game theory, power-line, satellite, space, green and social networking communications.
-Industry Forum & Exhibition (IF&E) Program presentations exploring subjects like the “Internet of Humans & Machines,” "Impact of Deploying IPv6 based SDN on Enterprise Networking,” “Big Data Cloud Networking,” “Next Generation WiFi” and “Internet Governance – why should the technical community care and where do they fit in?"

IEEE GLOBECOM 2013 will then close its schedule of technology, industry and business presentations on Friday, December 13 with a second full day of workshops and tutorials highlighting subjects like online learning, energy harvesting, network gaming and mobile communications.