In 97 countries around the world, there are now more mobile devices than people. No wonder mobile networks are clogged with massive amounts of new traffic! Mobile operators are struggling with how to provide the mobile broadband experience customers expect, in a cost-effective, scalable, and profitable manner. I believe that Wi-Fi, the “silent sleeper” of wireless access networks, may hold the answer.
The mobile industry is on the brink of a fundamental change. Just think of some recent key developments:
Many mobile operators are working hard to simply manage this incredible tidal wave of mobile data traffic, but one operator, Vodafone Hungary, is thinking one step ahead: How do we not only manage, but also monetize our mobile traffic?
We sat down with two of Vodafone Hungary’s strategic and technical leaders to discuss how Vodafone Hungary is planning to leverage the intelligence in the Cisco ASR 5000 mobile packet core to design new services, deliver differentiated services, and develop new business models.
Mobility and cloud computing are colliding. So, what does this mean for the future of mobile devices? How soon will video-conference calls on our mobile devices become commonplace? How can service providers (SPs) enhance their competitive position by delivering cloud and managed services?
While research has been conducted on mobile and cloud computing as separate trends, to date very little data has existed on the impact of mobility and cloud together. To understand this dynamic market better, the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) surveyed more than 1,000 business users to understand their current and future needs with regard to the mobile cloud.
Every few months there seems to be a rumor or speculative comment about our commitment to our set top box business. Let me be as clear as I can: we love set top boxes. But, you don’t have to believe me. Let me point you to Cisco’s Q2 Fy12 earnings transcript where Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers stated, in part:
“In terms of set top boxes, we are very much committed to this marketplace. Our SP customers asked us to partner with them as they move from traditional set top boxes to IP set top boxes to the cloud, our Videoscape solution. Receptivity so far has been very, very good in terms of our strategy.”
(February 8, 2012)
His full comment is below which gives you a little more flavor of our commitment to our Videoscape solution, but I hope that this clarifies any erroneous, un-sourced comments that might be out there in the marketplace.
John Chambers full comment (page 6): “Our video strategy is in very good shape. We have by far and away the strongest end-to-end architecture for video going from the cloud to the end device, enabled by our Medianet architecture and the Videoscape platform. This makes video much more practical, easier to use, and easier to consume. Along with Cloud and mobility, video is one of the most significant transitions our SP and Enterprise customers are experiencing. Following a very strong Q1, SP video had another very strong quarter with 23% revenue growth year over year. In terms of set top boxes, we are very much committed to this marketplace. Our SP customers asked us to partner with them as they move from traditional set top boxes to IP set top boxes to the cloud, our Videoscape solution. Receptivity so far has been very, very good in terms of our strategy. We have demonstrated our capability to bring video to large volumes of any combination of devices whether it is Cisco, our peers and even our competitors.”
The report showed that global mobile Internet traffic is expected to grow 18-fold over the forecast period, reaching 130 exabytes annually by 2016 – the equivalent of 33 billion DVDs going across mobile networks every year.
But what does this significant growth of mobile traffic mean for mobile operators? How will the changing mix of mobile devices and connections (such as smartphones, tablets and M2M) impact their networks, their businesses, and strategic partnerships? We asked some of the industry’s most experienced and knowledgeable independent analysts and consultants to give us their perspectives.
To see the complete report, including global, regional and some country-level forecast projections, go to www.cisco.com/go/vni, and watch a VoD of the February 14, 2012 VNI Mobile event here.
Over a billion mobile devices are online today. Just last quarter, Apple sold 52.4 million iPhones and iPads. The airwaves are humming, and there’s already traffic congestion along the mobile services highway.
The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) report released on February 14, 2012 predicts that the volume of mobile data traffic will grow 18 times over by 2016. That totals 10.8 exabytes per month by 2016, nearly 11 quintillion (1018) bytes: a staggering number, five times the volume of the entire global Internet in 2005.
Will your mobile infrastructures be ready for all that traffic?
In years past we’ve delivered on what we call “Megatests” -- comprehensive evaluations that validate our performance claims. The most recent “Megatest” was initiated by Light Reading to assess Cisco’s CloudVerse architecture, and represents the industry’s first and only end-to-end test of public cloud infrastructure. The first of four reports focused on the Unified Data Center, including Unified Compute (Cisco UCS), Unified Fabric (Nexus family), and Unified Management.
Today in a global webcast from the Royal Opera House in London, we announced our annual Cisco Visual Networking Index Mobile Forecast, 2011-2016, to a global audience. While some people may have been anticipating a decrease in mobile traffic considering the importance service providers are placing on mobile traffic offload and the tiered pricing plans being put in place for subscriber, just the opposite occurred. Even in the face of those downward pressures along with the continuing economic uncertainties, the total amount of traffic in the forecast period is expected to soar 18-fold from 2011 to 2016, reaching 130 exabytes annually. To put that amount into perspective, an exabyte is 10 to the 18th power of bytes which is a large number in its own right; 130 exabytes is the data equivalent of having 33 billion DVDs streamed in the airwaves around us each year. Read More »
During our customer reception for the V6 World Congress 2012 we had an opportunity to discuss the impact and opportunity of IPv6 on the industry. Ragnar Anfinsen, Senior Architect CPE of Norway’s Altibox AS was kind enough to share his thoughts with us.
Although they’ve got it running in the lab and their core network, the next step will be to enable IPv6 Read More »
Despite the “buzz” around IPv6 right now for many customers it’s not easy to actually test drive an IPv6 connection. When we got the opportunity to sponsor the Wi-Fi customer access at the 2012 v6 World Congress, we jumped at it. It became an opportunity to showcase both the simplicity and effectiveness of the Cisco Carrier Grade IPv6 (CGv6) solution. The CGv6 solution is the industry’s only IPv6 transition solution that has been performance tested and validated by a third party, in our case by EANTC.
Wi-Fi is a topic of particular interest to mobile operators Read More »
In case you might have missed it (or don’t read Russian) I wanted to call out two newsworthy items related to Cisco and 100G technology.
Last week at CiscoLive! London we announced the availability of 100GE interfaces on the Nexus 7000 to reduce bandwidth bottlenecks in the data center and help our customers meet the demands of emerging cloud computing applications. With this announcement Cisco becomes the only vendor in the industry offering an end-to-end 100G solution which includes the core (CRS), edge (ASR 9000), data center (Nexus 7000), and coherent DWDM optical transport (ONS 15454 MSTP). Furthermore we’re also one of only a handful of companies in the networking industry that owns (through our acquisition of CoreOptics) the underlying technology needed to make 100G (and beyond) a cost effective reality. With the high forecasted growth rate of the global Internet we believe that our customers will strongly benefit from the unique breadth of our solution to meet both their business and technology requirements.
Cisco end-end 100 Gbps Solution-- Core, edge, optical, data center.
These days, many people take it for granted that they can stay informed, connected, and entertained anytime and anywhere.
But as with any change, these new capabilities and new expectations bring new challenges. With more devices, ubiquitous internet access, and content digitized at their finger tips, consumers now face new struggles-- from managing content libraries fragmented across devices to worrying that they’re paying again and again for the same song or movie in order to access it when and where they want.
As Connected Life continues to evolve, the advancing front is being driven by the cloud. The cloud provides answers to the new challenges consumers face living their Connected Lives. Read More »
Do you know how networks will transition from IPv4 to IPv6?
If you aren’t planning to attend the V6 World Congress next week let me invite you to a webinar on Wednesday February 8,2012 at 1:00 PM New York / 6:00 PM London time. . Besides the vendor perspective from Cisco and other industry participants, this event hosted by Heavy Reading Read More »
