The best and worst of 2008

Mobile application stores

The ability to easily download and install mobile applications via handset-accessible stores has kept Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and Windows Mobile users busy.

Systems integrators

Large global service providers are emerging as significant systems integrator players, competing with traditional computer services companies.

Broadband video

Over-the-top video providers are inching their way into the living room, and service providers have the option of embracing them, ignoring them or competing with them. Many are learning, in this case, that it's wise to keep their enemies close.

IP pipe

While improving on cable TV service is still very much the goal of IPTV, the IP pipe is where the promise lies. Interactivity was the favorite way to leverage IP this year, with apps that were more social. Next year might be when consumers actually use them.

Mobile data shift

Mobile data used to mean one thing — messaging — but with the rise of smartphones such as the iPhone, the carriers are starting to see their fancy 3G networks used for what they were intended.

Femtocells

Though there are still few femtocells in operation, they've given the mobile industry a glimpse into life after the macrocellular network.

Location-based services

Two years ago, location-based services were being written off. Now every mobile app has a map.

top buzzwords

Control planes

From Juniper Networks to Soapstone and Gridpoint Networks, vendors pushed control planes this year as the key enabler of new services.

Right-sizing

Is anything ever just the right size?

Ethernet QOS

As expectations for Ethernet's performance rise — to handle voice traffic in wireless backhaul, for example — a once best-effort technology now has to learn how to tell time.