SP360: Service Provider Insight into Service Provider Trends and Technology

TelcoTV 2009 Conference and Expo: Mike Thompson on IPTV Solutions

IP video is a key component for serving communities, and IPTV, in particular, represents essential next-generation services which open up valuable revenue opportunities. Please stay tuned to learn more about revenue opportunities and the streamlined delivery of any-play services with an end-to-end solution that supports a wide range of IP video capabilities.

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.

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Posted by Zoya Fallah at 07:27AM PST

GigaOM Network Events: NewTeeVee Live 09 - Murali Nemani Speaks on the Future of Video

Murali Nemani, Director of Service Provider Video Marketing, gives us a sneak peek of his presentation scheduled at the NewTeeVee Live 09 GigaOM Network event. Here he discusses the three particular marketing dynamics that are affecting the video landscape and Cisco’s view of how video will evolve in terms of consumer experiences and the implications on the video ecosystem.

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Posted by Zoya Fallah at 08:32AM PST

MPLS Conference 2009 - Big Topics, Great Panel

Yes indeed, we had an awesome panel that I moderated at the MPLS Conference 2009 held in Washington D.C. on October 26 2009.

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]:

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Posted by Monique Morrow at 09:49AM PST

Cisco at SCTE 2009: Sustainable Technologies from the “Green Pavilion” and Digital to Analog

Green Pavilion Showcases Sustainable Technologies for the Cable Industry

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.

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Posted by Murali Nemani at 08:02AM PST

Cisco at SCTE 2009: Cable IPTV and Advanced Advertising

Cable IPTV for Video Heads

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.

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Posted by Murali Nemani at 08:26AM PST

Supercomm 2009: Top of Mind

Closing out Day 2 from Chicago at the AR/PR dinner. There were many topics that were top of mind with service providers and industry influencers as heard at the keynotes and during our own customer meetings. Ranging from our latest research released as the Cisco Visual Networking Index Usage Study to Net Neutrality, both here in the U.S as well as abroad.

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.

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Posted by Doug Webster at 04:02PM PST

“Routermania” (or, having and sharing the world’s most powerful edge router)

With the release of more information this week from the Visual Networking Index , it’s clear that traffic is increasing and bandwidth usage is on-the-rise (no slowdown in sight). As our video consumption becomes more voracious, service providers around-the-world are gearing up and getting ready to deliver.

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.

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Posted by Doug Webster at 02:02PM PST

Supercomm 2009: Impressions and Activity from Day 1

Hello from Chicago! I wanted to take a moment to share some highlights from our first day at SUPERCOMM 2009. We’re seeing the continued momentum of the Cisco IP Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture and its technology innovation which help enable service providers to deliver an increasing array of innovative “Connected Life” experiences to their customers.

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Posted by Nick Adamo at 05:51PM PST

Cisco Announces the Visual Networking Index Usage Study

The average broadband subscriber in the world generates 11.4 Gigabytes of traffic per month, and the top one percent of users generate over 20 percent of the global internet traffic. These and other interesting insights can be found in the new Usage study of the Cisco Visual Networking Index. Compiled in coordination with over 20 service providers around the world, the VNI Usage program takes a snapshot view of current traffic patterns existing in the network today as a complement to the VNI Forecast program which details forward looking trends over the next half decade.

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Posted by Doug Webster at 08:29AM PST

Cisco Expands its Mobile Internet Solutions with Starent Acquisition

I am excited that Cisco has announced its intent to acquire Starent Networks! This important addition, occurring at a time when mobile internet is undergoing massive transformation, would help enable Cisco to better meet the unprecedented needs of our mobile operator and service provider customers as they deliver the next wave of multimedia applications and data services.

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

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Posted by Kittur Nagesh at 04:46PM PST

From ITU Telecom World 2009 to MPLS Conference 2009

I had quite a few engagements at the ITU Telecom World 2009 Conference held in Geneva last week.

One panel I had participated in was the Cloud Computing panel. We had an awesome and engaging discussion!

The session was NOT recorded, though a blogger captured some of its essence.

Understanding “cloud computing” value-add propositions from the point of
view of a consumer, an enterprise and a service provider was really the heart of our discussions.

Sound Familiar? I articulated a sense of the value of cloud computing in an ITU TV interview.

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Posted by Monique Morrow at 02:18PM PST

Infrastructure as a Service - Deliver Tangible, Revenue-Generating Services

Hello again. I trust this finds you well!

I have some exciting news to share - Cisco has announced Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) enabling technology.

We are convinced that with Cisco-enabled IaaS, the Service Provider (SP) has the potential to generate increased revenue, deliver higher margin services, and address the need for trusted end-to-end offerings. Additional benefits to the SP include:

• Better returns on investments - through high margin multi-tenancy services
• Ability to create new competitive offerings, and
• Potential to open market opportunities with both, the small business and enterprise segments

Enterprise-class or small and medium business customers, now have access to IT/networking resources at service provider scale without the need to invest in or take on the complexity of managing large scale IT infrastructures. This allows customers to increase their agility and productivity - to better anticipate and respond to business needs.

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Posted by Simon Aspinall at 02:39PM PST

Mobility Experts Collaborate in the Mobility Community

Since my last post talking about the launch of the SP Mobility Community, there have been thousands of visitors and many great discussions. The community is starting to have a life of it’s own and it has been exciting to watch the growth and participate in the conversations. If you are not already a member, please check it out...here are some hot topics in the past month:

• 4G Raising the Bar
• Open Source in Mobile
• Fred Baker Answers Your IPv6 Questions
• How distributed is a distributed EPC?

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Posted by Kittur Nagesh at 09:59AM PST

A Wake-Up Call for the Internet

Hello, from Geneva where I’ve been attending the ITU Telecom World Conference for the last few days. It’s been three years since the last show, and it’s energizing to see the ever increasing recognition as to the increased role that the network can play in improving business and change lives. While different sections of the show tend to focus on different topics, much of the discussion at the “Internet Pavilion” (hosted by ICANN, ISOC and NRO) by global leaders and attendees has been on the future of telecommunications.

One of the key concerns that surfaces when discussing the future of IT is the imminent depletion of IPv4 addresses and the need to accelerate deployment of IPv6 in the wake of massive growth of IP-enabled devices. I know, I know…IPv6 discussions have been around for awhile. But here are some real eye-openers gained this week that really show that this is a topic that must be addressed much sooner than later:

• ITU forecasts the number of mobile subscriptions to top 4.6 billion by the end of this calendar year.
• Wireless broadband subscriptions (600 million) exceeded fixed broadband subscribers in 2008.
• A quarter of the word’s people - approximately 1.9 billion - have access to a computer at home (not to mention the proliferation of so many other mobile and IP-based devices)

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Posted by Doug Webster at 01:47PM PST

ITU 2009: John Chambers Wraps Up on Final Day from Geneva

John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco Systems, summarizes his experience at ITU highlighting how the network will become the platform for innovation, how broadband is enabling job creation and entertainment, and how service providers are looking to partner with Cisco in new innovative ways moving forward.

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Posted by Doug Webster at 11:24AM PST