Mike Thompson, Director of U.S. Telco Operations, also gives an overview of Cisco’s consumer strategy and highlights the rigorous IPTV testing executed through the recent Megatest sponsored by Light Reading. Cisco recently participated in the world’s first independently conducted mega test by European Advanced Network Test Center (EANTC). The mega test challenged a vendor’s IP infrastructure-including data center, core, edge, aggregation and access-with simulated support.

The panel entitled, “Emerging Technologies and Business Architectural Impact: Cloud Computing, P2P applications, Social Networking and Infrastructure Required to Scale”

• Vijay Gill, Google
• Donn Lee, Facebook
• Benson Schliesser, Savvis
• Raymond Zhang, BT
• Prof. Ashwin Gumaste, India Institute of Technology-Bombay-Visiting Professor at MIT Multimedia Labs
• Hokuto Sanematsu, KDDI-America
• Paul Geraci, Technology Survey Group
• Kireeti Kompella, Juniper Networks
• George Swallow, Cisco

Seemed that everyone wanted to be on this panel; so to structure the discussion, I prepared a set of questions for the panelists as follows [with their inputs] - [each question could have been a topic for a separate panel session]:

From the SCTE 2009 show floor, Mark Palazzo, GM of the Cable Access Business Unit, discusses the many ways Cisco is leading the drive to more sustainable products and technologies to power the future. Mark highlights Cisco efforts to reduce our carbon footprint through efficient packaging, reduced power consumption, higher headend densities, and more.

From the show floor at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2009 in a snow covered Denver, John Horrobin and Vasu Vasudevan discuss the priority of IPTV for cable operators in today’s market, what it will take to make IP video work at scale in cable networks, and when we can expect to see it fully in action.

Heading into 2010, what are the next big issues? Many have discussed the impact of IPv4 depletion and advances in deploying/migrating to IPv6. We recently announced the Cisco Carrier Grade IPv6 (CGv6) Solution, which complements Cisco’s existing IPv6 portfolio and will provide the technology from the core to the network edge enabling a cost-effective and efficient migration from IPv4.

And, well, at Cisco we’ve not been shy about our excitement around our Cisco ASR 9000 - the world’s most powerful edge router. It’s beautifully engineered, is getting great reception by our customers, and has become a little bit of a celebrity (not to mention being the perfect gift).

And, now is the time when you can have your own (even personalized as you’d like) Cisco ASR 9000! Yes, that’s right. You can be the envy of all and have the router that can stream HD video to every house in LA in a day right next to your bobbleheads and work items.

The time has come for routermania! And, we want you to participate.

To our mobile operators and service providers, this intended acquisition is very much in line with our “4G=IP” vision we’ve stated in the past would, if completed, extend Cisco’s world-class offerings in three key areas.

1. Scaling mobile operator networks towards 4G LTE solutions, while protecting investment in 3G technologies, to meet the exponential growth in data services
2. Offering personalized applications to deliver integrated user experiences, create differentiation, and increase ARPU.
3. Developing innovative business models that deliver incremental revenue streams to address the shrinking voice revenues.

For more details on this announcement, our formal corporate forward looking statement disclaimer, and more insight on the trends causing the need the 4G mobile internet, please see the post by Simon Aspinall, another of our regular SP360 contributors, that is highlighted on our corporate sister blog, The Platform: Cisco to Aquire Mobile Internet Leader Starent Networks