About a year ago, some of the AstraQom team bought its CEO a one year Audible membership. It is the perfect gift for highly engaged professionals as he is. We agree with Audible's CTO Guy Story who says, "Our number one use case is listening in the car ...  We can turn the worst time of the day, being stuck in traffic ... the best."

Amazon purchased Audible in June 2008. The two had a strategic partnership for many years prior. Even in June 2008, Audible had over 80,000 programs including audiobooks by authors such as Stephen King, Jane Austen, Allan Bloom, and Zan Perrion (a popular Canadian nonfiction motivational writer). 

"When your eyes are busy, but your mind is free," is a wise statement made by Audible in reference to taking advantage of time available to be entertained, informed, inspired, and more. Audio books and stories help us to multi-task in ways that make us feel good and productive.

We at AstraQom interviewed Mr. Guy Story, Chief Scientist and CTO at Audible, because we see many opportunities for customers and industry friends. First, current and potential authors should consider creating audio books. Use professional narrators or self and get help from the Audiobook Creation Exchange by Amazon. Second, try Audible free for 30 days.

Listen to other AstraQom podcasts and check out our AstraQom blog posts and AstraQom Facebook page. Visit the June 25 - 26, 2013 Amsterdam Connected Cars Conference, too!

AstraQom, the Ottawa, Canadian-based global phone, hosted industry solutions provider, shares the excitement of 4GWorld, which takes place October 24-27, 2011 in Chicago at McCormick Place. Andrew Mitchell is the program and content director for this event, the largest global 4G Expo that brings individuals and organizations together with all the leading mobile operators deploying 4G today.

One of our goals at AstraQom is to share, with those in our industry and its vertical and horizontal ones, fantastic event opportunities, so I appreciate Andrew's willingness to help me do that in an audio podcast interview, about the history of 4GWorld, trends and issues in 2011 ...

Mr. Mitchell has 30 years of experience in telecommunications and wireless, on the operator, carrier, and enterprise segments, and he states, "The event is now in its third year as 4GWorld and is focused on all things ... mobile broadband and wireless ecosystem. The show has its roots in 2005 and 2006 when it began as an event called  WiMax World ... WiMax has evolved with the introduction and advent of LTE technologies. Basically where we've taken this show is to 4G. We acknowledge that WiMax, LTE and HSPA have a presence and role to play in 4G environments. Also ... a role for outside the infrastructure and outside of the network. What we've done now is bring the best of what was an infrastructure-centric event through WiMax World and the best of an applications and content event Mobile Internet World together as one single event under on roof 4GWorld ..."

Focus will be on both technology and business implications. The hottest topic on the technology side is small cell and remote radio heads as an approach to bringing the wireless base station closer to the user. This increases network capacity and quality air interface is  distributed.

"We overlook the fact that there are laws of physics that apply here. While we can generate some terrific **RF technologies and tremendous bandwidths, we do have an exponentially growing user-base making demand for this bandwidth, so we need to find ways to address that. One of those ways is to introduce heterogeneous networks and small cell technology,"  Andrew Mitchell defines a key issue and two potential elements of support.

He adds, "There is also a growing demand to get this data and connectivity away from those base stations, away from those small cells and back into the core network. We'll examine backhaul technologies [at 4GWorld] as a summit at our event on Monday October 24th ... also spectrum for operators is a real concern. It is as important here in the U.S. as it might in emerging markets."

Interoperability between these diverse systems in different areas is another discussion point and need. Andrew mentions that the access to valuable RF spectrum that is in most jurisdictions ... considered as a natural resource.

The part two of two of this podcast with Andrew Mitchell, Content and Program Director for 4GWorld 2011 is available here. Visit http://www.4gworld.com to sign up and participate now. Be sure to visit http://www.astraqom.com, the host of this podcast and http://www.didx.net, an additional sponsor. Both will be at 4GWorld October 24-27 in Chicago, Illinois at booth 728. We'll be sharing more opportunities regarding the exciting 4G World, too!