SP360: Service Provider Insight into Service Provider Trends and Technology

Social Media Marketing for Telcos - A Conversation with David M. Scott Part 3

David Meerman Scott explains the New Rules of Marketing and specific actions service providers and companies can take to better connect with their customers. This is the third in a series of videos conducted by Stacy Spognardi of Cisco focused on opening up a discussion about social media within the service provider community (and beyond). David examines the benefits of buyer personas and how companies are using social media marketing.

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Posted by Zoya Fallah at 07:57AM PST

TMCnet Covers Cisco: From Visual Networking to IPv6, and other highlights from 2009

I had the opportunity to sit down with TMC’s Rich Tehrani recently, where we covered a wide range of topics, from recent announcements on the ASR 9000 and Visual Networking Index to what trends we see as being big for 2010 (read:  IPv6).  Plus, it allowed me to experience the wonders of the green screen (the desk in front of us is virtual…now if only I can get that technology full time, I could mask my receding hair lines and easily remove a few pounds!)

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Posted by Doug Webster at 02:30PM PST

Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) for Service Providers

Hello again – I thought it’s a good time for another post on the SP data-center.

You might have already seen the announcement regarding the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE). We believe this is wonderful news for our customers and partners; and represents an unprecedented collaboration between three highly regarded leaders in the IT industry: Cisco, EMC with VMware.

This coalition was created to increase customers’ business agility – specifically, through greater enterprise IT infrastructure flexibility, and lower IT, energy and real estate costs through pervasive data center virtualization and a transition to private cloud infrastructures.

We define a private cloud as a virtual IT infrastructure that is securely controlled and operated solely for one organization. Private clouds can be managed either by that organization or by a third party (e.g. a service provider), and that it can be housed either on or off of the organization’s premises - or in combination. Private clouds allow enterprise customers to rapidly use a virtual IT infrastructure.

By now the benefits of the private cloud computing concept are probably becoming evident to you: better control and security than today’s data center with the agility required for business innovation at substantially lower costs from virtualization. Stated another way, if your business needs multiple IT services – you no longer need to consider the challenges of assembling your own hosting/support/provisioning, management tool complexities, planning equipment for future growth, etc. as the first option – because you now have access to a pre-tested and pre-integrated private cloud model.

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Posted by Simon Aspinall at 11:55AM PST

Social Media Marketing for Telcos - A Conversation with David M. Scott

David Meerman Scott speaks with Cisco’s Stacy Spognardi about “New Rules of Marketing” and specific actions that companies can take to connect with their customers. This is the first of multiple-part series of interviews with David where we’ll look into buyer personnas, marketing tools-to-use and ask the question of whether social media is simply a fad.

(Part 2 of this session follows after the jump.)

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Posted by Zoya Fallah at 08:56AM PST

Now is the Time to Plan for Your IPv6 Transition

The Mayans had foresight that 2012 is going to be an epochal year. Now whether you agree the world is going to end or carry on is up to you. However what we do know is that the telecom skin encircling the planet, aka the Internet, will be suffering if we do not act now.

As the 4 billion IPv4 addresses run out sometime early next decade (current estimates: 2011-2012), the Internet will stop growing if we do not find ways to tackle the exhaust. The successor to IPv4 - IPv6 - allows 340 undecillion addresses or more than 50 billion billion billion per person on earth. Phew! However, the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is not trivial and in a previous post I pointed out Large-Scale NAT (LSN) as one solution, which was also mentioned by Jeff Doyle of Network World. While LSN is a way to ‘preserve’ the life of IPv4 investments, new technologies are needed to ‘prepare’ for IPv4 and IPv6 co-existence. Both of these approaches will pan out over many years, and in the interim providers need to continue to ‘prosper’ from the boundless opportunities of the Internet.

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Posted by Mike Capuano at 07:18AM PST

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