Editor's Corner

I recently had a chance to speak with UTStarcom's director of worldwide marketing, Brian Caskey about what he calls "fixed-mobile entertainment," a term I'll certainly co-op in the future. Caskey explained that "Fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) is really giving the consumer the best kind of connection you can in any given situation--when you go into a house, a home, an office, whatever--you're going to lose that call eventually. FMC means that regardless of where you are, you're going to keep that call up and therefore, keep them on the call." While we typically think of voice when discussing FMC, Caskey argues that won't be the case for very long. The future of mobile TV, in fact, depends on FME: "The next step for FMC is to get media to the customers. When you're watching television at home and you know you have to go out and take your kids to ballet, or whatever, with fixed-mobile entertainment, you're going to have the ability to stream that to your handset--and that's really the way this mobile TV thing is going to work moving forward."

Obviously, the cross-platform functionality of next-generation networks is going to mean a revolution in the digital home, but current FMC standards like unlicensed mobile access (UMA) can't handle video and other media. FMC and FME in the years ahead will require a more robust network set-up, like that offered by an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) infrastructure.

To learn more about IMS, and the killer apps it will support, come to FierceMarkets' IMS Executive Summit in Washington, D.C. The two day event has two tracks and boasts a who's who in networking. The Diffusion Group's Colin Dixon is moderating the killer apps panel. Register now and enter my last name, "DOLAN" for an instant $200 off admission.

ALSO: TDG's Colin Dixon spoke at a FierceIPTV Live Webinar yesterday on best practices in deploying an IPTV service. Tektronix sponsored the webinar, which featured Keith Cobler and Jon Hammarstrom of Tektronix as well as Keith Wymbs of Tut Systems. Take a listen to the archived webinar here and be sure to stick around for the lively Q&A session at the end. - Brian