SP360: Service Provider Insight into Service Provider Trends and Technology

Now for the letter "C": Change the equation from quad play to "any play"

With this post, I bring you to the letter C. In my two earlier posts, I emphasized how service providers, in order to become experience providers, need to follow the ABCs:  Adopt a Connected Life, Boldly innovate, and Change the equation. This entry will focus on changing the math and equations!

Quad-play (data + voice + video + mobility) is too limiting. It is all about delivering a seamless experience of any service, to any device, to any location. To do this, we need to change the math to:

’data x voice x video x mobility’ = "any-play" 

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Posted by Suraj Shetty at 11:10AM PST

The Open Path to New Business Model Creation

In the past, the typical SP business model was built around the notion of vertical integration - with the assumption that all essential elements of a service were created within the SP organization.

However, many believe that the future will likely include a variety of new SP business models—some requiring extensive open collaboration with business partners.

Cisco sponsored the recent Telco 2.0 Executive Brainstorm event in London, which was devoted to the topic of new business models for telecoms, media and technology. Cisco’s Ross Fowler was interviewed, during the event. He describes how Cisco’s open innovation strategy will help SPs make the transition to an IP NGN-based experience provider.

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Posted by Jeff Spagnola at 08:47AM PST

Downloadable Security - Both Sides of the Fence

A lot has been written about a downloadable conditional access system (DCAS) in the cable industry (including a post I wrote a few weeks ago), but what’s going on over on the telecom side of the video marketplace?

In the IPTV arena, we’re working through the issues relevant to secure download within the IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF). Our approach will use some similar technologies to what DCAS is delivering for cable, but it is not the same technical solution.

The target of the IIF (which is one of the committees of ATIS, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions), is to deliver what is called "initial closure" of our first version of this secure, open-specification download stack by the end of 2007.  The work is taking place within the Digital Rights Management Task Force which is one of 4 active IIF Task Forces.
 
Some current IPTV set-tops have a proprietary download mechanism that is not secured by hardware. This makes these set-tops less secure than the DCAS approach over on the cable side since DCAS calls for downloading into very secure hardware. The ATIS IIF downloadable solution under development will allow use of secure hardware but not mandate it.

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Posted by Tony Wasilewski at 07:33AM PST

AusNOG - From Sydney, Australia

The Australian Network Operators Group (AusNOG) held their first conference on November 15-16 2007 in Sydney, Australia,

Platinum partners included cisco and pipenetworks; Google and Vocus Communications were Gold partners; and, eIntellego, APNIC, Western Australia Internet Association and Communications Day provided Silver Partnership support.  Participants at the conference included a plethora of carriers and ISPs from the region.

Cisco speakers included Ric Pruss and Monique Morrow, both whom structured their presentations around the impact of dynamics and trends with regard to peer-to-peer networking constructs; RFID and sensory systems, content distribution as some examples to the overall infrastructure architecture, thus highlighting "the network as the platform" issue, and provoking discussions around subsequent industry preparation.

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Posted by Monique Morrow at 09:31AM PST

Where’s the remote?

This is just one of the questions that can be answered with the application idea that Rhonda from California submitted to the Connected Life contest  (and which won her a runner-up award). 
Remote Frequency Identification (RFID) tags would be put on your most frequently lost items, whether it be your keys, eyeglasses, or wallet, so that when you lose them, you’d be able to find their location by using an application on their home computer (or any networking device for that matter).  The application would show a map of the home and identify the hidden item.  More details of Rhonda’s idea, a video describing it, how she’s going to spend the money and why it’s a good idea for pet tortoises can be found here.

Speaking from experience of living with a two-year old who as a tendency to put the remote in the laundry bin... or the freezer.... Or in her doll’s stroller... which all-too-often creates a frantic game of hide-and-seek throughout the house just to see The Office, I’d be willing to pay a pretty penny for this capability.  And fortunately, with RFID prices falling and home networks becoming commonplace, this idea has a very legitimate chance of coming to our Connected Life in the future.

Posted by Doug Webster at 10:02AM PST

Google and the Open Mobile Phone

I participated in the Rutberg Wireless Influencers conference last week.  Various interesting sessions, but the biggest buzz was about Google’s announcement of the Android mobile device platform and the Open Handset Alliance.  Some industry watchers expected a new device, like the Apple iPhone.  Instead Google proposed a software environment that would allow any company to create new applications, including Google of course.
Android joins multiple existing mobile device platforms, including Symbian supported by Nokia and others, Qualcomm’s BREW, the fading Garnet OS (formerly Palm OS), and Microsoft Mobile Windows for Pocket PCs and Smartphones (and some cars).  The Google proposal seems most aligned with the open source mindset, and certainly illustrates the colliding worlds of the mobile industry and Internet industry.  The concept is promising, but will it attract a critical mass of application software and device developers?  And will mobile operators allow such devices to connect to their networks?

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Posted by Larry Lang at 10:23AM PST

Recap of Cisco Service Provider Press Tour

Jeff Spagnola, vice president of marketing for the service provider segment at Cisco, met with a wide range of trade press, business press and industry analysts during trips to New York and Boston on the week of November 5. In the brief video here, he recaps some of those conversations and their various areas of focus, which included service provider transformation, business managed services, Cisco in WiMAX, globalization efforts and emerging markets.

Posted by Jeff Spagnola at 05:19PM PST

Quo Vadis: MPLS?

The MPLS 2007 Conference, took place in Washington D.C. from October 28-31, and was advertised as:

"The year 2007 marks the 10th anniversary of MPLS International Conference and over the past 10 years, the conference has helped industry grow and have been the venue of the launch of new technologies that are driving the Internet towards next generation "

Approximately 500 participants internationally attended the conference mainly comprising the service provider and vendor community. Bruce Davie, Cisco, and Yakov Rekhter, Juniper highlighted the service modularity and extensibility that MPLS possesses in spite of approximately 10+ years of existence. Davie went on to discuss challenges to MPLS such as "different packet header" and forwarding paradigm; network management; asserted to, that challenging MPLS with no control plane and great network management seems like it begs the question of standards-based networking.  Davie concluded that MPLS and IP remain entrenched because they enable valuable services such as L3VPN for MPLS; and that the rise of Ethernet is unlikely to change the fact that that the world depends on IP.

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Posted by Monique Morrow at 09:00AM PST

The Need for Speed "Up"

Verizon recently announced a plan option for its fiber-based broadband service where the focus is not just on the downstream speed (what you receive in your home) but rather the upstream speed (what you send to others). Here are the details from AP/Yahoo.

This example, as is the case with broadband offer from SureWest and increasingly other providers, is indicative of providers fundamentally changing their model to match the needs of the rising, ever-changing, dynamic, at times confusing, and yet so appealing "empowered consumer" and their inherent desire for interactive, personalized experiences. No longer are users content with a "passive" experience, such as broadcast television in which both the content and the timing of delivery was determined by others.  If users were interested in a particular show, they had to organize their lifestyle to accommodate the show’s schedule.  With technology advancements, consumers were able to soon "Pick" content from their providers, where they were able to view the movie they wanted to watch using video-on-demand, or pick the type of content they wanted to surf with the introduction of the Internet.  Soon thereafter, the desire of the consumer was one where they were interested to "participate"—where they could share their interests and interact with others through virtual communities.  Even more quickly, this desire for expression evolved to where the consumers themselves "Produce" the content.  They are no longer dependent on content created by others, but are able to create, remix, or develop content themselves and then share it with a global audience.  This is where we are now, and is exemplified by the YouTube phenomenon, which started from nothing and within two years is one of the premier content distribution sites across all forms of media.  It’s not just the amount that people watch, which is mind boggling and estimated to comprise of 10% of the internet traffic worldwide, but it is also the amount of new content added from empowered consumers - on average, six new hours of content are uploaded every minute of every day.

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Posted by Doug Webster at 10:26AM PST

And the Connected Life Contest Grand Prize Winner is....

Amir from North Carolina, USA!  His idea was Personal digital butler, a virtual "Worthington" if you will, orchestrating your house and its appliances to more efficiently service your needs.  Here how Amir described it:

I would like my home (heating/cooling, lights, doors, TV, stereo, computers, phones, game consoles, alarms, et al.) to be integrated via a Cisco router/ command center (wired, via blue tooth, and/or WIFI). I’d like my cell phone and car to connect to this command console. I’d like my house/appliances to text me info and allow me to send text instructions. The Cisco command center would learn my habits, preferences/needs and suggest settings. All settings as well as all my music, pictures, videos and files will be stored on a central file and accessible via a secure Internet connection.

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Posted by Doug Webster at 10:46AM PST

Michael Powell and the new Homo Digiteus Species

Michael Powell, former chairman of the FCC and current Cisco board member, visited our product development leadership offsite earlier this week.  He spoke about the broad impact of computer and communications technology on society, often illustrating with examples from his two sons.  Adopting the tone of an amazed and amused scientist, he described them as members of a new species, homo digiteus, whose life-long experience with technology creates expectations of connection, personalization and interactivity.  For example, his son Bryan explains he doesn’t like television because “it doesn’t DO anything,” so instead he surfs the Internet, plays a digital game, or text-messages friends.

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Posted by Larry Lang at 10:03AM PST

Never Seen Before Footage: Cisco Powered & Managed Services Channel Program

Richard Duggan has the latest news on dramatic new changes to the Cisco Powered Program, offering greater value to Service Provider customers.

Tom discusses the new Cisco Powered managed services designation and the opportunities it provides for service providers and the end-user experience.

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Posted by Jeff Spagnola at 02:12PM PST

Service Provider Business Models Drive "The Connected Home"

The connected home is closer than we think. Believe it or not, it’s not a technology issue, in my opinion. I think that the bigger issue in terms of deploying home networking and connected home-type systems is the business model for service providers. You know the story. You can go out and buy a whole bunch of home networking gear from retail stores and install it in your home. Its point-to-point type technology, does some very handy, straightforward things, and it works very well at a good price

When you try to connect your home network to a trusted, secure network, like the ones where you find our digital set-tops, who’s going to handle the set-up, connections and management for all these additional devices? If a service provider does it and you can’t print your daughter’s term paper because the printer in the basement doesn’t work, and the service provider has to then send a truck, well there go all the profits for a year.

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Posted by Bob McIntyre at 12:04PM PST