Telecoms Articles and Tutorials
Below you'll find telecoms articles, tutorials and how-to pieces on all aspects of next generation telecoms, including telecoms network technology, telecoms OSS and BSS, how the telecommunications industry is changing, telecoms regulation in the UK, the EU and worldwide, and security and assurance for telecoms networks and services.
The articles are created and maintained by our expert telecoms training instructors and consultants, and we hope you find them useful tutorials for learning the basics of a telecoms topic; they can be bookmarked on any of the popular social networking sites if you'd like to come back to a particular article later, or recommend it to others. We also supply an RSS feed (at the bottom of the left sidebar) if you'd like to be notified of new articles as they appear.
Transport Options for Metro Ethernet
Three main options for delivering an Ethernet service to customers over the last mile are in widespread use. This articles describes the options, and where they might be used... 22nd October 2009Quality of Service versus Traffic Management in Packet Networks
Quality of Service and Traffic Management are related, but different disciplines in packet switched networks, as this brief article explains... 22nd October 2009Traffic Management Techniques for Packet Networks
Regardless of the technology used, certain fundamental traffic management techniques can be applied to optimise utilisation and handle congestion in packet-switched networks... 16th June 2009QoS Standards for IP Networks and Services
The migration of telecoms networks from circuit switching and ATM to IP poses major challenges for maintaining the QoS necessary for applications such as voice, video and streaming services. This article describes the key ITU-T and 3GPP standards relating to QoS... 16th June 2009Protecting Critical Management Protocols From Attack
Several management protocols widely used in networks have little built-in protection, so they must have additional protection provided to avoid compromise of complete systems... 5th March 2009Platform Hardening to Improve Security
Any IT system that is visible to the public, such as a web server or mail server, must be "hardened" to minimise the risk of successful attacks against it. This article outlines some of the key tasks and techniques... 5th March 2009Diffie-Helman Key Exchange
The Diffie-Helman protocol enables two communicators to generate a shared secret value (normally a session key) to be used for secure communications, without ever transmitting this value across a network . 13th January 2009Hash Functions and Message Digests
Hash Functions and Message Digests provide a means of generating a unique "fingerprint" of a message, and are a vital building block in many security protocols... 13th January 2009Cisco IP Access Lists
A common implementation of firewall rules in both stateless and stateful models is the use of Access control Lists (ACLs) on Cisco routers. In this article some examples of the Cisco implementation of stateless and stateful firewall rules are examined... 13th January 2009The Architecture of Secure Shell (SSH)
Around twelve separate components are included in a server-side implementation of the SSH protocol. The main functions are discussed in this article introducing the functional architecture of SSH. 12th January 2009Capabilities of the Secure Shell Protocol
Remote logins and console session are often carried out using telnet, rlogin, or similar protocols, which carry user names and passwords as plaintext, and also carry the subsequent session traffic as plaintext. Secure Shell (SSH) protocol provides a simple, flexible and free alternative... 12th January 2009European Union Regulation of Telecoms
The EU commissioner has just announced that a year after warnings were issued to service providers concerning high prices for data roaming charges, she intends to apply a similar price cap to these services shortly. Over the last 30 years the EU has become more and more central to telecoms regulation in member states... 9th October 2008History of Telecoms Regulation in UK
Telecoms regulation in the UK began in 1901 with the licencing of private telephone companies, and has gone through nationalisation, privatisation, regulated monopoly and duopoly, convergence with broadcasting and with the Internet, and alignment with EU directives. It continues to adapt as our use of communications changes... 9th October 2008Standards For IPTV over DVB-H
The DVB-H standard is designed to support unicast broadcasting of IP datagrams to handheld devices, including mobile phones... 24th September 2008Competing Standards for Mobile TV
There are three competing standards for the delivery of TV content and VoD to mobile handsets; DVB-H, DMB, and MediaFLO. All three standards can use the available spectrum being considered and licensed for mobile TV. In addition, MBMS from mobile operators can deliver content using existing 3G network capacity... 24th September 2008Prestigiada Empresa de Telecomunicaciones Requiere Instructores Bilingües (Español/Inglés)
Necesitamos expertos telecom que hablen con fluidez el español y manejen igualmente el inglés para que se unan a nuestro equipo existente sobre una base de contrato... 28th August 2008Signalling Transport (SIGTRAN) Using SCTP
SS7’s stringent requirements on message delivery and timely responses places challenging requirements on transport of SS7 messages over IP. While traditional UDP and TCP lack necessary features, the SCTP transport protocol can fill the gap... 7th August 2008VoIP Standards Compared
“The best thing about standards is there are so many to choose from”, or so the quote says. This is true of the VoIP standardisation world, and from the mid 90s the standardisation track for media control protocols has been following largely parallel tracks in the ITU-T and IETF... 6th August 2008Voice Quality Measurement
VoIP is vulnerable to poor quality through mechanisms that did not affect traditional circuit-switched, PSTN telephony. Excessive delay, delay variation (jitter) and packet loss can all make the quality of calls to end users unacceptable. Fortunately the means to define and measure voice quality have matured in the last several years.... 6th August 2008First Public Telecoms Training Course in Lisbon
Technology Training Limited has scheduled its first ever public telecoms training course for attendees in Portugal, "NGOSS in NGN:Hands-On", 28th - 29th August 2008, to be delivered in English. 22nd July 2008NGN Telecoms Information Assurance
With the deployment of NGN telecoms networks and services, and increased access to alternative providers, additional risks must be managed to ensure telecoms networks remain secure without unnecessary cost to operators or their customers. UK government and the telecoms industry is collaborating to provide this NGN assurance... 16th July 2008Development of the 802.16/WiMAX Standards
The 802.16 standards for wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (wireless MAN) have been under development throughout the last decade. Consolidation with HyperMAN, formation of the WiMAX Forum, and the introduction of mobility have been key milestones in the standards... 15th July 2008MPLS Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
MPLS VPNs are a key service for telecoms providers to offer across their converged NGN network, and provide a native IP service from a customer perspective... 15th July 2008Provider Backbone Transport (PBT)
Provider Backbone Transport (PBT) is also known as PBB-TE (defined by IEEE 802.1Qay March 2006). It allows virtual circuits to be built across Carrier Ethernet networks... 15th July 2008Carrier Ethernet and Provider Backbone Bridging
The traditional flat and open addressing structure of Ethernet is unsuitable for use in MAN and WAN networks, where traffic from each customer must be kept separate, and large address spaces are required. Developments in Carrier Ethernet can accommodate this.... 15th July 2008Evolution of Enterprise Architecture Models
Enterprise Architecture is a discipline that has been strong in the United States of America since the early 80s, and which has developed through different frameworks and gained momentum gradually ever since... 14th July 2008Introduction to TOGAF
The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is a framework for Enterprise Architecture which provides a comprehensive approach to the design, planning, implementation, and governance of an enterprise information architecture... 14th July 2008Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Organisations have begun to look for standard ways to describe and document their processes and systems using Enterprise Architecture frameworks such as Zachman, TOGAF, TEAF, FEAF... 14th July 2008Operation of HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application level protocol which is widely used as a means of transferring data on a client/server model between web clients and web servers within the World Wide Web (WWW)... 22nd June 2008SKYPE's Roadmap and Architecture
Skype is certainly the most successful of the Internet-based telephony services launched in recent years, if success is defined as numbers of users, acceptance and/or public profile... 22nd June 2008Convergence of Mobile and Fixed Telco Architectures
The architectures of mobile networks (through 3GPP) and fixed-line networks (through ETSI TISPAN) have gradually converged over the last decade, here's how... 22nd June 2008The TISPAN NGN Architecture
The TISPAN High Level Architecture is closely aligned with that of 3GPP, but adds some elements to replace the inherited GSM components... 22nd June 2008Primer Curso Público en México
Technology Training Limited ha programado por vez primera su primer curso público para asistentes en México y de Centroamérica , "Introducción a NGOSS en NGN", 2-3 Julio 2008 10th June 2008First Public Course in Mexico
Technology Training Limited has scheduled its first ever public course for attendees in Mexico and from Central America, "Introduction to NGOSS in NGN", 2-3 July 2008, to be delivered in Spanish. 29th May 2008Understanding Ofcom Spectrum Management
This article explains how Ofcom have managed spectrum in the UK market, and their immediate plans and principles for further use... 25th May 2008UK and EU Regulation of Voice
The last 10 years has seen numerous battles over the rights and obligations of VoIP providers. This articles outlines how the UK and EU regulators have changed their position over that period... 25th May 2008Understanding IPv4 Subnets
A brief article explaining with examples how the mask can be used with IPv4 addresses to create subnets from classful addresses...coming soon... 24th May 2008Understanding Classless Inter-domain Routing (CIDR)
An example of Classless Inter-domain Routing (CIDR), showing how the address allocations for different-sized address block down to the individual IP address is implemented 24th May 2008Understanding Internet Registries
The move from classful address assignment to classless assignment through Regional Internet Registries (RIR) and Local Internet Registries (LIR), and why it was necessary... 19th May 2008The role of ENUM in NGNs
When PSTN callers wish to contact NGN subscribers, they cannot directly dial their NGN address; instead the network must be able to map between E.164 addresses and NGN addresses. ENUM facilitates this... 16th May 2008Consultancy for Large County Council
Case study of our consultancy assignment for a large council....coming soon 12th May 2008Training Matched to the Business Need for Telcos
Conventional technical training for telcos focuses on the network; but often the real training need is to address the whole vertical stack used by the business: Networks, OSS/BSS, Process and Organisation..., 11th May 2008Understanding IPv4 Addressing
Understanding IPv4 address formats, address classes, masks and reserved addresses is a tricky but essential skill for just about anyone dealing with IP networks or services... 1st May 2008Understanding the ISO 7-Layer Model
The functions of the layers in the ISO 7-layer model explained, as well as the different ways in which they can be viewed, and the relationship to TCP/IP... 1st May 2008The Shift From Telco to ICT Provider
Ubiquitous IP means applications can potentially be unified end-to-end. There are early but compelling signs that this is finally happening, and huge implications for the telecommunications, media and computing industries...coming soon... 30th April 2008Next Generation Networks (NGN)
Next Generation Networks (NGN) are being implemented globally as a means to radically change the cost base, agility and service capabilities of telecoms providers: key enabling technologies include IP, MPLS, ADSL, Metro-Ethernet, SIP and H.248... 29th April 2008Next Generation Access (NGA)
Next Generation Access (NGA) increases the bandwidth of telecoms access networks to match the capabilities of the NGN core and distribution layers using fibre or wireless technologies. This articles explores the motivation for NGA, the key technologies, and the positions adopted by government, regulators and operators... 29th April 2008Development of the Internet
How has the Internet developed from a small-scale research network at DARPA through to its dominant position in Enterprise and Telecoms networks and services... 16th April 2008
