May - 2014 - issue > CXO View Point

A Closer Look at My Role in an Ever Changing Industry

Debajyoti Pal

CTO & SVP-Ikanos Communications

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Forward

Today, the technology innovation is being driven more by the needs of consumers including what is needed in a so called "connected home". There are a couple of things that are very much needed now. A couple of examples of these are,

•Guaranteed ultra-high speed broadband connections coming into homes. There is a need for high bandwidth in the upstream direction. Current solutions don’t satisfy this growing demand.
•Distribution of high speed bandwidth to enable simultaneous multi-screen HD, 4K or 8K experience

On enterprise/infrastructure side, one of the big unsolved problem is backhaul for Pico cells for ubiquitous high bandwidth 4G/LTE coverage. LTE promises ultra-high speed wireless connections. However the availability of high speed can only be guaranteed if a Pico cell is nearby. In order to provide ubiquitous coverage these must be placed densely, e.g. every ~250m or so! However these cells must be fed by high speed links which do not exist today!

Thinking Out of the Box

I always encourage and challenge people to think out of the box and find a number different ways to solve a challenging technical problem. Often I or my direct staff would get involved and participate in the process. Sometimes I ask people to solve a challenging technical problem, while I myself and or my staff spend time solving the same problem. We typically compare the different solutions and then pick the one that serves best serves our needs.