General Category Archives

May 12, 2008

What Makes a Great Partnership?

When the value of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

As service providers around the world are continuing their journey to transform themselves to “experience providers”, one potential avenue for increased revenue is creative new partnerships with web service providers, or WSPs. WSPs like Google, Yahoo, MySpace, FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Travelocity, EBay and others, are establishing themselves as essential to consumers, and are driving huge increases in time spent on-line and overall bandwidth consumption. Service providers to some extent are struggling to monetize this growth in traffic on their networks, and in fact, some have gotten in trouble with regulators and in the court of public opinion by trying to “manage” WSP traffic.

Service providers would be far better served by exploring how to create win-win partnerships with these companies, ones that both differentiate traditional service providers with existing and new consumer customers and position them as essential and value-add participants in successful delivery of the WSPs’ offerings. There are a number of very promising service provider capabilities in which WSPs would likely be willing to invest, and which would create very compelling mutual value for both sides.

For example, the network can provide location and presence information for WSPs, along with additional information about what content, applications, or stores each customer actually accesses. This enables WSPs and SPs to deliver more targeted advertising and content offers, increasing the value of each advertising impression and actual sales transactions for highly valued content.

An example of this type of relationship is between Sky and Google. Sky has formed a precision advertising alliance with Google in which Google’s advertising platform will be used across Sky’s network of sites. The partners will explore the potential of advertising on mobile phones, with the option of moving into TV advertising, potentially using data gathered from Sky’s set-top boxes to target customers.

Another SP asset is its operations and “channel” relationship with customers. Today, many SPs touch the consumer with a retail presence (e.g., AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile branded stores), indirect channels (e.g., Time Warner Cable’s relationship with Best Buy), customer service and sales call centers (complete with customer account information), and monthly billing relationships with end users. These channels can be used for marketing WSP services, and can be used to sell services and process transactions on behalf of WSPs. SPs can bundle (on their bill) or physically “mash up” WSP services to create higher value customer offerings.

For example, Verizon Wireless and TiVo have integrated their products. Verizon Wireless customers can browse television listings and program their TiVo digital video recorders from their cell phones. The deal increases use of Verizon’s premium services, and helps attract customers more likely to use Verizon’s other multimedia capabilities. Another example is AT&T and Yahoo! – in 2001, they formed an alliance to deliver broadband services to consumers and small businesses. The co-branded service offers subscribers access to a variety of Yahoo! content and tools, including a personalized homepage, e-mail, storage, security, parental controls, instant messaging, music, and gaming. The two companies share broadband DSL, e-commerce, and ad revenues.

There is another winner in this equation. Imagine the possibilities as a consumer of services tailored for your interests and brought to you seamlessly by your service provider. What if you were in your car, you heard a song you liked on the radio, and you could whip out your mobile phone and use it to purchase, download and store the song automatically in your iTunes music library? What if you were able to opt in to receive special travel offers to anywhere in the world through your local service provider? What if the offer included links to Rick Steve’s or Fodors or Frommer’s, “mashed up” with video clips of the destination and MapQuest routes to local attractions, so you could choose what or where you want to visit, plan your itinerary, buy tickets to attractions before you get there, use your mobile phone to get and follow directions from your hotel, and scan a barcode on your mobile phone when you arrive to gain admittance? Or add on to the capability to program your DVR from the road – what if you could access video surveillance of your home while you’re traveling, so you know your home is safe while you’re gone?

The sky is the limit! Not only could SPs and WSPs gain revenue from working together - imagine how loyal a subscriber you might become if your SP were to give you access to even a fraction of these kinds of innovative new service offerings.

Now that would truly be a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.

P.S. OK, I think I might be an Internet addict, too…

Posted by Nick Adamo at 05:49 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 07, 2008

The Crazy Eights of EDGE QUEST

Hi. A few days ago I was recording a podcast for Cisco EDGE QUEST Game Tournament with uber-gamer/podcaster extraordinaire, Randy JordanThe Instance who runs a World of Warcraft podcast. After the session, we continued our conversation on communities developing around massively multiplayer online games (or MMOGs for short… which I believe is also the name of an alien robotic race on Star Trek) and how actual and virtual world lines are blurring. I was explaining that as a marketeer in the Web 2.0 world, we didn’t want to make our customer communications “too virtual” and that through this game and $10K winner-take-all tournament, that we really wanted know what the players are thinking.

He said, “Ah, so it’s time for an EDGE QUEST Eight.” I replied in some educated way, saying “wha?” Randy responded (fortunately not referring to me as “Grasshopper”) that we should ping a select group with 8 questions and then have them distribute it to others, and so forth, effectively letting the Human Network itself disseminate it and compile feedback.

With all of the other Web 2.0 vehicles it sounded reasonable enough, so as we say in Texas, let’s giddyup. Here is the first version of the EDGE QUEST Eight. The following eight questions are designed for 1 sentence answers - so jump in and tell us what you think. You can respond in our comments field or in your own blog.

Fear not folks, this is for fun…

Here we go.

1. How many hours do you game each week (sandbag accordingly if your boss will read this) and what’s your favorite one?


2. What do you consider your biggest accomplishment in your gaming life? (Come on, I know you have one…! Mine was mastering the expert slope on the Intellivision ski game… If only my actual skiing were a tenth as good…)
   
3. How key is the speed and quality of your broadband connection when you play games, and how much (if any) would you be willing to pay your provider for a faster, better connection?


4. I am sure you’ve seen lots of game contests where you play to win skins or stickers or a virtual t-shirt… but have you ever participated in an online gaming tournament where the winner won money, and how much of a draw was this prize to encourage you to participate?


5. What will you do with $10,000 if you win the tournament?


6. Also if you win, what would you do with the Cisco ASR 1002?


7. We have a lively debate going in the office along the lines of “fantasy edgequest” (you can tell we tend to live this stuff….): One camp says the eventual winner will be a technical networking type (and game enthusiast) who loves Cisco, the other says that pro gamers will come in dominate the leader board. What say you – which camp will dominate?


8. Our intent with this game is to find new ways to engage with our customers and to have fun in the process (not to create a separate gaming line of business for the Company…!) Is it effective, do you know more about the Cisco ASR 1000 as a result of playing, and should we continue to engage you with such games in the future?

Again anyone can answer these questions either in the comments below or in your own blog but to start, I’d like to hear what these eight bloggers (staying with the theme) have to say:

1. Veronica Belmont


2. Brian “Scrabble” Boyko


3. David Deans


4. Mathew Georghiou


5. Scott Johnson


6. David ‘Fargo’ Kosack


7. Mary Beth Schoening


8. Paul Young

As always, thanks for reading…Live long and network!

Posted by Doug Webster at 10:25 AM Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

May 06, 2008

Cisco EDGE QUEST Tournament of Aces Design Bake Off – Artists on your Marks…

Hi. Cisco ASR Edge Master Webster here.

The Cisco EDGE QUEST Tournament of Aces is underway. And, many of you are tearing-it-up in as you work towards a top 100 score that will give you the opportunity to compete for US $10,000 and an ASR 1002 router (signed by the lead architect).

As I mentioned in my last post, throughout the qualifying round (May 5th through June 11th), we’re going to introduce tips-n-tricks, news and fun, creative ways to engage with us during the tournament. So…

A question for you….
Of all the questions that I’ve had on the EDGE QUEST game, I was expecting to get the most around what we did to make the Cisco ASR hypercraft fly (that would be a fun request to try to get past our engineers in a roadmap concept commit meeting…). Nope. Instead, I’ve had the most questions about the look of the Cisco ASR hypercraft. “Why not add stripes?” “Can you make it all black?” “How about teal with red stripes?”

Enough is enough.

Do you think you have a better design idea for the Cisco ASR craft? If so, bring your artistic vision and skills to the Cisco ASR EDGE QUEST Hypercraft Design Bake Off.

How does this work?

• Easy -- Simply, go to our Facebook page and choose one of the three Cisco ASR 1000 Series router models and start designing. Add new parts and color away!


• Submissions can be scanned or uploaded until 9 p.m. Pacific Time on May26 (5 a.m. UTC on May 27).


• The top two designs will be revealed on May 27, and then it will be up to YOU to pick narrow the field where one will be chosen.


• All can participate (and because it is about a router, see if you can’t apply the time to your “training” development goal for the year…


• For 'terms of submission', click here.

Why do it?
Bragging rights and a chance to see your design “in lights.” Your craft could very well be featured in the final EDGE QUEST Tournament of Aces winner take all "Money Round" that will take place on June 16, 2008.

Have fun, get creative, and submit your design today. Who knows.. may be with your design, the engineers will listen a bit longer to the “flying router” idea…

Live long and network!

Posted by Doug Webster at 10:25 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 05, 2008

Cisco Edge Quest Tournament of Aces – Can you handle it?

Hi. Cisco ASR Edge Master Webster here.

I’m pleased to be officially announcing the Cisco Edge Quest Tournament of Aces. Thousands have played Cisco Edge Quest, an online game we introduced when we launched the new Cisco ASR 1000 Series Routers, the world’s most powerful compact router. In the game, players maneuver a hypercraft modeled after the router through various levels and increasingly use its capabilities to defend the network edge. It’s fast, fun, and hey, since learning comes through playing, it may even be able to be applied toward your “training” development goal at work…

Now in this tournament, you can play, challenge a friend, and see if you score high enough during the qualifying round to be eligible to compete in the “money round” -- a 24 hour winner-take-all battle where the highest scorer receives US$10,000 and a Cisco ASR 1000 Series Router (signed by the Senior Vice Presidents aka Network Commanders Pankaj Patel and Tony Bates along with lead architects of the product… I mean when was the last time you had a “signature edition” router?!)

The Tournament of Aces will starts today, May 5 through June 11th, with top 100 qualifiers then going on to compete in a 24 hour battle on June 16th which will feature some brand new levels.

Why do this? What tips and tricks are we willing to share?
Why not, is more like it?! Come on, you know you like games, have hummed “Pinball Wizard” before, and liked seeing your name in lights on the high score board at the arcade – let’s do it again, this time for $$! Watch this short video (fyi, there’s a surprise ending…) that I co-hosted with the game developer Ken Miller from Somnio Solutions of Austin, Texas, and learn the “who, what, why and how” about this fast, fun and online game.

As they say, however, “that’s not all.” We’re taking the virtual, visual and viral marketing efforts that we did for the Cisco ASR 1000 launch even further. Through our Facebook community, podcasts hosted by none other than the gaming guru himself, Randy Jordan of The Instance who runs a World of Warcraft podcast with tens of thousands of global subscribers, and future communications, we’re going reveal additional tips, tricks and market insights that can help you boost your score (and not to mention your water cooler bragging rights). The more you watch, listen and play the more knowledge you’ll gain to help you on your EdgeQuest.

Are you eligible?
Yes, there are some restrictions (eg, I am OUT of the running, and lucky for you, because beta testing this game has given me plenty of practice). So, please do consult, the official terms and conditions for participation in the Cisco Edge Quest Tournament, please visit www.cisco.com/go/edgequest.

Don’t miss this opportunity to play, learn, network, and to do some office trash-talking! You too may be able to earn the title of Edge Master.

Live long and network.

Posted by Doug Webster at 06:29 AM Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

May 02, 2008

Top 20 Reasons…You know you’re an Internet Addict

In advance of our recent Cisco ASR launch in which we embraced a whole range of Web 2.0 vehicles, we thought that creating a Facebook group to bring about a community of like-minded folks around technology was only appropriate. Our hope was that the group would gain traction not so much to market to but rather to learn from and frankly just as a forum where we can have some fun, too.

Fortunately, things turned out just that way – while the Cisco ASR launch happened two months ago, the Facebook group that we call “Support Group for Uber User Internet Addicts” is still going strong with over 700 members, and it’s starting to create a life of its own. Of the recent activities we’ve had on the group (another one kicks off on Monday), this particular survey really generated a lot of participation. We asked the group, “You know you are an internet addict when…” and true to form, they collaborated in Human Network fashion came through with quite an entertaining list, below, proving that Web 2.0 not is a great platform for collaboration, but also that those uber-users are quite fun, too. Enjoy!

Live long and network,
Doug

BTW, if you’re reading this blog, you’re an Internet Addict too, so you might as well fess up to it an join too… !

Top 20 Reasons you know you’re an Internet Addict when… (drum roll please):

1. You joined a Facebook "Support Group for Uber User Internet Addicts"
2. You're surprised when people ask why your business card lists your email address as the same as your Facebook, LinkedIn, MSN IM, Plaxo Pulse, Gizmo Project and Yahoo IM IDs and even more upset if your boss will not let you list that fact on your business card. (submitted by Suzanne Bowen)
3. You install a webcam in your fridge so you can see what food you have to buy on your way home from work ;) (submitted by Jesper Kellerstam)
4. You're seriously considering a laptop to accompany the magazines by the commode. (submitted by Jody Carbone)
5. People call you by your screen name more then you real name.
6. You extend your wireless coverage all the way to the community pool... well, just because you can do stuff like that and someone might want Internet access when they're sitting at the pool. (submitted by Joel Barrett)
7. Your best pick up line is… I Stumbled Upon your Twitter, Reddit and found it Del.icio.us.
8. You have more networking gear in your home lab than the one at the office (submitted by Nathan Gregory)
9. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is your best excuse for ending a conversation.
10. You actually blog your review of an ongoing movie halfway through in a movie hall during the interval on your GPRS enabled cell phone. (I actually did it :D ) (submitted by Sreeraj S Arasa)
11. The last social function you attended was a LAN Party
12. You sit with your girlfriend in the living room, but instead of talking to each other you use messenger, Sametime, Skype to ask her for a cup of tea! (submitted by Isabell Otterbein)
13. Your online gaming rig came with an integrated espresso maker.
14. If you launch a blog for your baby before he or she is born, track its search engine ranking on a daily basis, and actually consider the possibility of ad revenues. (submitted by Jeff Brainard)
15. You can’t believe that “l8r, OMG, TTYL, and BFF” are not in Webster’s Dictionary.
16. You talk to your kids and collect family information through Facebook. (submitted by Debbie Zioni)
17. You haven’t watched TV on a TV since Al Gore invented the Internet.
18. You have pets named, "Avatar, "Linden," and "Digg." (submitted by Gabriel Garcia)
19. You can’t laugh anymore, you only LOL!
20. Your Facebook page gets more traffic than a drive though window.

Come on now… if you read the whole list, you really, really need to join…..

Posted by Doug Webster at 07:28 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 01, 2008

SofNet 2008: Soft-what?

I’m in London this week for a Next Generation Network conference that I’ve been attending each of the last four years. The first two times, the conference was very much around the transformation of service provider networks from TDM to IP with BT’s 21st Century Network being the shining example – and rightly so, considering their ground-breaking effort firmly puts them as one of the leaders of the industry.

Last year, the conference moved to Milan, where the topic was IMS, or IP Multimedia Subsystem. While many of the vendors were jumping on the IMS bandwagon with abandon, Cisco has what I believe to be a more balanced view of IMS. Rather, instead of looking at it as an end-all-be-all approach to deliver services over the IP network, a provider should look at it as one potential part of the solution but not the only one needed. Because IMS is based on SIP, it can’t support many high demand and important current and future services that are non-SIP, from web-browsing to IPTV – and many of the services to be delivered over IMS, such as VoIP, are already delivered over IP in a non-SIP fashion, making its value quite questionable. Add lengthy standards body procedures into the mix, and it makes sense not to bet everything that IMS is going to be an SP savior.

Interestingly enough, at the same conference this year, back in London, IMS is barely mentioned and when it is, it is only in a small context role or when talking about historical efforts. Instead, this year the main theme of the conference is “Sofnet” which is software+network. The thinking by some, many of whom are quite respected in the industry, is that in order to compete with over-the-top players, such as google, which can deliver services far faster than most traditional providers, these providers need to move to be more about software themselves, being what some have referred to as a telco moving to a “softco.”
Ok, so I understand the general direction that they are taking, and to some extent agree with it but fear it is being taken to an extreme, and in the process, losing site of the advantages they bring. Plus, I have a few issues with this “softco” notion:

1) SPs have always had software – whether it was in their infrastructure, such as Cisco IOS, their Billing or Operations Systems, or databases, software was a fundamental part of their business. Instead, I’d argue that they just need to put greater emphasis on software for the role of service creation, much as they are doing with TelePresence and other visual networking applications today.

2) Providers shouldn’t want to be like Google. Here me out here -- Google is doing great, and should be lauded on their success. But service providers have invested billions in their infrastructure and instead of trying to duplicate what a challenger is doing in the way they are doing, the provider industry should be focused more a few moves ahead, much like a chess game. In my opinion, providers will be much better off focusing on the differentiators that their network can give their heightened application play as well as that of others. If they create a robust, reliable platform, and provide means for other applications to take advantage of the benefits it delivers (for a price, of course), then all parties win – the SP gets more revenue, the application provider can give more reliable and even tiered offerings, and the customer gets a better experience.

3) Lastly, perhaps it’s my military background, but in general, I don’t think providers should be “soft” – they are titans of industry, delivering all aspects of communications and helping to not only bring the world closer but to also help turn it into more of a community. Soft? Not in my book.

Some of these thoughts were summed but J.P. Rangaswami, Managing Director, Service Design at BT (and one of the most thought-provoking speakers I’ve heard in quite some time): “Sofnet is not a concept of tomorrow, but rather what the industry is trying to catch up to today.”

I’ll go even further, because as the industry has looked at some of the latest trends, whether it be IMS or the ill-fated PBT, they have embraced it with too much enthusiasm with the hype pendulum swinging far to one side. Instead, I believe, the pendulum is best suited more in the middle, to adopt some of the best practices of other industries and challengers with what they have at their disposal them – a hardened IP platform full of possibilities and opportunities for themselves, their partners, and their customers.

Nothing soft about that at all.

- Doug

PS. I’ll write about some other observations from the conference in the weeks ahead, and will definitely plan to attend again next year. Because despite some cold, rainy weather, and a disconnect on name or hype cycle, the conference is a great forum to exchange ideas. Plus, you can't help but being amazed at how much potential this industry has to quite literally change the world.

Posted by Doug Webster at 08:52 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 28, 2008

Welcome to the Exabyte Era, part 2

In a previous post, I wrote about our Cisco IP Traffic Study, entitled “The Exabyte Era.” It’s getting a lot of attention now as its topic is being featured as one of the drivers of the need for new platforms such as our recently launched Cisco ASR 1000 and because the adoption of web 2.0 and “all-things video” is getting increasing relevance to the industry, the market, and our daily Connected Life, whether it be at home, at work or on the move. It is well worth a read and was even was featured on the front page of the New York Times, a few weeks ago.

Here are a few of the takeaways for those who like the Cliffnotes versions:

At Home, the story is video, video, video. Here are some video’s effects as a driver of bandwidth growth.

• Three years from now, Internet video will be six times what it is today, and twenty times what it was in 2006.
• In 2011, online video will generate 1 billion DVDs worth of traffic each month.
• Online video will drive 30% of consumer Internet traffic by 2011.

At Work, new business services and applications will drive the growth:
• By 2010, telepresence will generate more traffic than the entire US Internet backbone in 2000.

On the Move: the coming ubiquity of Mobile Data
• Mobile data traffic in 2011 will be sixteen times what it is today.

The next few years should be quite exciting for the industry, and, because providers are actively investing in their networks to get ahead of the end customer demand for bandwidth and value-added service, the next three years will have quite a beneficial impact to all aspects of our own Connected Lives as well.

Posted by Doug Webster at 12:51 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 24, 2008

What is an Exabyte?

“What comes after Petabyte?” was my question to Arielle Sumits, our lead researcher on the IP Traffic Study a few years ago, when we started the effort a few years ago. Even with a wide variety of very regional and granular market forecasts on topics such as “VoIP subscription growth in Western Europe” and “IPTV subscriber forecasts for AsiaPacific,” we didn’t have visibility on what these all mean to the network as a whole. And having a global focus with a global customer base, we needed a global view. Since the market didn’t offer one, we set off to create one (and from Arielle’s standpoint, she likely did it to cease the never ending questioning from me along the lines of “But what does this all mean?” Depending on my level of caffeine consumption, my questioning can often be a far too fast and quite annoying… as my wife, Annie, can firmly attest).

So in a quest to silence my questioning, Arielle went about a very extensive modeling effort, piecing together all of the more granular third party forecasts of subscription forecasts from analyst firms, such as (in alphabetical order) ABI, Dell’Oro, Gartner, IDC, Informa, Kagan, MRG, Ovum, Pyramid Research, ScreenDigest, Synergy Research, Telegeography and Yankee Group. She then factored in usage data and assumptions such as average amount of time a subscriber watches TV a day, if they have high definition, how much of their viewing does that entail, if they have a PVR, how much does that affect the streaming of video to the home even it the content is never viewed, etc. Finally, the model was worked back with Cisco engineers to determine the total sum of the impact of on the network.

The result we reached (and by we, I mean Arielle) was a sizable figure… one that was in excess of 1000 petabytes, which then caused me to ask my infamous “What comes after Petabyte?” question. The answer, courtesy of Wikipedia, was “Exabyte,” hence the “Exabyte era” was born.

Now, in its sixth iteration, our global IP Traffic Growth study is forecasting 29 exabytes of IP Traffic per month or nearly 350 exabytes per year by 2011, only three years from now. While that seems very aggressive to some, our CEO John Chambers has pointed out that, in this fast-moving industry, often seemingly aggressive forecasts can eventually prove to be conservative. This may very well be the case here, not just because we (and yes, I mean Arielle) intentionally based the forecasts on the lower end range of usage assumptions to maintain credibility of the project as research instead of marketing, but also because the growth of the applications and the rapid adoption of them by empowered consumers. For example, once my father began receiving high-definition television (a day that will always be cherished by him), he now does all that can to watch nothing but high-definition content, which takes up far, far more bandwidth than standard definition. And even at Cisco, when we (and by “we,” I really mean our incredible IT shop) launched its large deployment of TelePresence sites in our offices around the world (at my last count we were over 175 and reducing our travel expenditures by 20%, not to mention carbon emission reduction), our internal traffic grew not by 42% year over year but in the hundreds of percent.

So with nearly 350 exabytes forecast for 2011, I am faced with an interesting question as the seventh round of our study commences and the time frame is extended a bit further:

What comes after exabyte?

Posted by Doug Webster at 07:20 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 22, 2008

Ideas, Musings, and Perspectives from the Blogosphere

Here are a few items that came across my reading queue this past week that I found of interest and thought that you may too…

Enjoy and thanks for reading,
Doug

Second Life is pretty intriguing and here’s a New York Times blog post about amping up the reality part of virtual reality even further.

At Cisco, our customers are often awe-struck when we conduct a presentation over or give a demonstration of Cisco TelePresence – with its high definition screens and spatial sound, the experience becomes so real that you have to resist the urge to shake hands with the participants on the other side of the table (who actually are thousands of miles away). As innovations such what is presented in the video on this post build upon virtual reality and “transposed reality” such as Cisco TelePresence, the holodeck and remote Holographic “presence” that was envisioned by NTT years ago and even demonstrated by Cisco the past fall, may very well enter the mainstream far sooner that many think.

I thought the study highlighted in this post was of even more interest after Google announced their impressive quarter later this week. Though as members of a market driven economy we try our best to extrapolate forecasts from any and all indicators, the Invisible Hand of the market often proves too elusive.

Mary Shacklett highlighted the opportunities that broadcasters of all sizes have in the new Internet evolution, using Arena Football as an example of an organization using a non-traditional approach and getting non-traditional and much higher success metrics as well.

Ray Mota, chief strategist of Synergy and one of the major voices in the telecom industry analyst arena, debuted his personal blog this week -- with his first few posts being about the rising Green trend in the industry. Whatever the topic, though, keeping tabs on what’s top of mind with him offers great insight as to what’s top of mind with his very broad range of his customers – I’ve already book marked the site and recommend you add it to your “read” list as well.

Network World’s Layer 8 blog did a story on the first pitch of the New York Yankees home season being out of this world. As you may recall, Nick Adamo, our SVP of Service Provider Operations, is a huge Yankee fan, so here’s to hoping that such a frontier-breaking start to the season (not to mention a visit by Pope Benedict to Yankee Stadium) will help the team this year because if Nick isn’t happy…

Lastly, check out this blog – it’s not about technology or even about service providers. But the fact that the Wall Street Journal has an entire blog on one of the biggest, best, cutting edge music festivals from the live music capital of the world, Austin (which, as a citizen, I am proud to say is the coolest city in the country and the heart of the Great State of Texas), well, that just makes the go-to-business publication all the more hip and in touch with its readers (especially this one).

Posted by Doug Webster at 06:55 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 17, 2008

Politics as a Visual Networking Case Study

“Internet’s pervasive political punch” read the front page headline of San Jose Mercury news, that one of our lead SP business analysts, Shruti Jain, showed me on a recent trip to Silicon Valley. While we have been talking of internet revolution for over a decade, the extent to which current presidential campaign in the U.S. is using Web 2.0, underlines importance of the network across all aspects of our daily lives, and across all aspects of the political spectrum for that matter In this case, the network transforms the campaigns from being largely national based on predominately paid placement and news coverage to having a trans-national reach using “grass-roots” methods being driven by individual voters. This approach can both shed light on the emotions associated with the democratic process while helping to bridge the gap between the traditional voters and the younger generation who are going to be defining the international political scenario of the future.

In this current campaign, there are many examples of the candidates using the network as the medium. One of the most prominent examples, is a speech in mid-March from Illinois Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama on race in America. Clips of the speech were shown on news outlets throughout the country, but his campaign posted the entire 37 minutes speech on YouTube as well. The result, even though the video was a bit grainy and took some time to fully download and buffer, was that instead of relying on written transcripts of the entire speech published in select newspapers or hearing hearsay from one of the few hundred in personal attendance at the event, many people around the world could not just hear the speech but feel the emotion of it as well – in essence, even with the technical flaw, they were able to “experience” it to some levels. At last count, the speech had been viewed nearly 4.2 million times – far exceeding the reach, depth, and connection with the audience that a traditional advertisement could bring.

So where does this leave the provider? Cable and IPTV providers rely on such television advertisements for revenue. Broadband providers deliver such YouTube videos but have no way to monetize the delivery of them beyond basic subscription fees.

The answer? It can be varied and is something that is sure to get quite a bit of commentary from those in the industry (In fact, it was the topic of a great conversation I had last week with Phil Marshall from the Yankee Group who has both great ideas and a cool accent…) In my personal opinion, the answer is to break down the silos that exist between broadband and television, between Web 2.0 and traditional vehicles, between social media and paid placement, between professionally produced and user-generated content. There is still quite a way to go before such silo-breaking can occur, both in terms of deployment, technology, and regulatory environments. However, like the efforts of the current campaigns, the resulting visual networking experience for the audience would be even more personalized and impactful. And for the provider? It will be a way to gain both more relevance with the customer and more avenues to drive revenue and deliver more value in the process.

Posted by Doug Webster at 06:46 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 04, 2008

The Impact of India Inc. on Telecommunications

I recently returned from my first ever trip to India, and experienced firsthand the juggernaut that this country has become across most of the major industries in the world. You almost can’t open a newspaper or an Internet browser these days without seeing the impact this world-changing nation continues to have. Experiencing an average of 9% GDP growth per year for the last 3 years alone, India’s quick rise to global prominence and economic influence has been fueled in large part by the phenomenon of “globalization”, or the outsourcing of well-defined business processes to fast-growing Indian IT and professional services companies.

In recent years, leading companies in India have begun re-defining globalization by turning the tide, expanding out and establishing leadership positions, or acquiring companies outright, in a variety of industries previously dominated by businesses from established nations. According to KPMG, Indian companies acquired 62 companies in the first 8 months of 2005, to the tune of $1.7B, and the pace just keeps accelerating. The world’s largest steel company, Arcelor-Mittal, was created less than two years ago by the successful pursuit by an emerging markets bellwether firm of an established Western counterpart, consisting of a small group of 100+-year-old companies. And if the purchase of a Jaguar or Land Rover is in your future, you will soon be making the check out to an Indian firm, Tata Motors.

India Inc.’s acquisitive bent is showing up in the IT management and telecommunications spaces as well. Wipro recently acquired Infocrossing, a U.S.-based provider of remote infrastructure management, enterprise application and business process outsourcing services, for about $600M. In very short order, the combined entity won a $275M multi-year outsourcing deal for Missouri HealthNet Division, an agency run by the state government to provide health care services to Missouri residents. Tata Communications, the newly re-branded combination of VSNL, VSNL International, Teleglobe and Tata Indicom Enterprise Business Unit, has announced it is seeking acquisitions across the globe in the managed services space, focusing on companies with technological prowess who lack the scaling capabilities to go global.

While they haven’t announced any U.S.-based acquisitions yet, India-based mobile giants such as Bharti Airtel are looking toward the U.S. to add to their already mammoth number of subscribers. The growth rate of mobile subscribers in India continues to accelerate, rising to a healthy 8+ million per month and born out of the rise in the last 15 years of a robust middle class of some 300M people with money to spend on such luxuries as telecom services. Bharti Airtel is the largest mobile carrier in India, reaching 50+M subscribers by November, 2007, and continuing to add 2+M subscribers per month. Now, Bharti Airtel is adding to their numbers and expanding outside their home footprint by launching their new “Airtel CallHome” service for calls made from the U.S. to India. The service is targeted at the more than 2.5M Non-Resident Indians (NRI’s) currently living and and working in the U.S., but still with family in India. The service features single-key access dial to the customer’s ten most frequently dialed numbers at an average of 30% less cost than competitive offerings – it also includes other benefits, such as a customer referral reward program (offering free talk-time), configurable dialing for up to 50 numbers, and soon, access to other value-added services, such as astrology horoscopes, cricket scores and other services that promote connection to the customer’s Indian roots.

On both the business and consumer fronts, Indian communications and outsourced IT/managed service providers will very soon be a force to be reckoned with by U.S. carriers and hosting providers. Around the globe, the telecommunications industry is going through tumultuous change as traditional wireline, cable and mobile carriers all vie to grow revenue by retaining existing customers, gaining new ones and growing ARPU through flexible and innovative new service offerings, and managing cost. All are starting from varying positions of strength, and all are moving into each other’s territories, in order to accomplish these objectives; cable providers have branched into voice, wireline providers are launching new video services, and the mobile carriers are trying to convince everyone to take their triple play on the go.

Leading service providers in the U.S. are carefully following these trends and evaluating the global landscape. I would not be at all surprised if companies such as Tata Communications, Bharti Airtel and others became the world’s largest carriers in the next 10-20 years, with footprint in every major geography. These companies are incredibly innovative in their development of next-generation business and consumer telecom services, and they are nimble in their design and deployment of services because they don’t have existing infrastructure that they have to continue to “sweat” to gain the maximum ROI. They are dreaming big about what is possible, and moving quickly to design and implement new services, custom-fit to both their local customer base, and to those outside their traditional footprint.

So, what do you think about the “globalization of telecommunications”? As the geographic and technology lines continue to blur, how do you think all the players across the globe will be able to compete? How will they differentiate themselves from everyone else and retain loyal subscribers?

Posted by Nick Adamo at 09:50 AM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

March 26, 2008

Ideas, Musing, and Perspectives from the blogosphere…

Measuring the pulse of the industry and keeping up with trends is a necessary part of many jobs, including mine – here are a few though-provoking posts that I have come across this past week that I thought may be relevant to you as well. Thanks for reading.

Jon Arnold wrote an interesting post on Rethinking the Service Provider Business and discussed how revenues can be gained upstream (traditional subscriptions) and downstream (advertising, government services, etc.)

John Battelle covered the recent spectrum auction in the US and assessed that while Google may not have been declared the winner, they may have achieved their goal.

Jeff Kaplan discussed Managed Services 3.0 a few months ago and now is looking into “software as a service” aspects that are expanding what’s possible for a user’s business service experience. Plus, his pragmatic approach that focuses on the outcome versus the nomenclature associated with the execution is refreshing, as all too often these debates can digress to a focus on minutae.

Phil Leigh has a video tutorial around the Hulu and Future of Television, which not only showcases the interesting features of the online television application, such as ad content, social media interactivity, and content choice, but it also foreshadows what the TV experience will be like on our living room televisions in the coming years.

Lastly, on a similar note, a post on worldtvpc.com paints a vision along similar lines as Phil but points out some scaling challenges that service providers and infrastructure companies, like Cisco, are working to address to help make this future a reality.

Posted by Doug Webster at 11:05 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 17, 2008

From Global Industry Leader Forum to the IETF-71

Last week was quite a busy one for myself, as I had participated in the first ever industry and international regulator forum on March 10, that was chaired by Sanjay Ahuja, CEO Orange, Global Leader industry Forum held at Pattaya, Thailand.

I was a panelist in session 1, Universal access, chaired by Chairman and moderator, Mr Ph. Jorphochaudom, President CAT, Thailand.

The Global Symposium for Regulators, GSR, March 11-13, followed this session and was attended by Cisco’s RM Pepper, Sr. Director, Government Affairs. Pepper participated in GSR Session 1:

Overview and Basic Infrastructure-Sharing and Extending Open Access to National Fibre Backbones in Developing Countries

Cisco SP Marketing with support from Carrier Standards Director, Rajiv Kapoor funded a social event at this venue in Thailand.

The GILF and GSR were successful for the ITU since the venue was able to attract greater than expected ~ 600 attendees including regulators from 96 countries discussing topics important to making the Information Society more inclusive in improving the lives of people around the world.

The high-level platform for industry leaders led to an interactive exchange with regulators and policy-makers, covering issues related to universal access and rural connectivity, emergency telecommunications as well as stimulating business investment and expansion.

Wrapping up the outcomes of the industry leaders' meeting, Chairman of GILF Mr Sanjiv Ahuja, who is also Chairman of Orange U.K. and CEO of Augere, made a commitment on behalf of the ICT industry to do what is right. "We will serve our customers fairly, properly and with respect, and satisfy the needs of the local economy and the community that we function in," said Mr Ahuja. "We will compete fairly, openly, fiercely and vigorously in every market in which we participate; in return we ask the Regulators to give us as much leeway as possible within the laws of the country." He added that as "leaders of industry we have to balance our shareholder interests with consumer interests in the regulated business that we work in."

Addressing one of the key themes of GSR-08, he noted, "Network sharing is a potentially powerful tool operators can use to cost-effectively extend telecommunication services, including broadband connections to many millions of people."

"The presence of CEOs, industry leaders and major suppliers will enhance the investment environment and stimulate business connectivity at the regional and global levels," said Mr Suranan Wongvithayakamjorn, Secretary-General of NTC. "The ITU initiative in organizing the first Global Industry Leaders' Forum will be a crucial step in laying down a telecommunications platform for emerging and existing industries."

The meeting,was opened by Mr Mun Patanotai, Minister for Information and Communication Technology of Thailand. He said GILF offers a unique opportunity for industry leaders to interact face to face with regulators and policy makers with mutual benefits for all concerned.

"GILF is an opportunity for business leaders to express their views on how national regulatory frameworks impact their ability to invest and roll out networks to all the world's citizens," said ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré. Speaking at the opening Press conference, he said there are currently 3 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide, which represents half the world's population. "Our goal is to ensure that all the world's citizens will have access to information and communication technology services by 2015," Dr Touré said.

The ITU press release on both venues is available here.

After GILF, I entered Philly on March 11 to participate in the 71-IETF hosted by Comcast. There were several highlights at this venue, one of which was the shutdown of IPv4 during the Wednesday plenary as to encourage IPv6 only participation. This was an event in planning by the Internet Society. Further, at the Technical Plenary, March 13, IAB Chair Olaf Kolkman provided an overview on the TMPLS topic citing a few people for their efforts.

This plenary included several presentations, e.g. Marshall Eubanks, The Video Tsunami: Internet Television, IPTV and the coming Wave of Video on the Internet.

And Professor Keith Ross, P2P Live Internet Video.

The subsequent discussions around these presentations were around the architecture of the Internet, and, mechanisms required for video, eventual live streaming and P2P transport.

This dialogue continues!

Posted by Monique Morrow at 07:23 AM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

March 12, 2008

Going Green - ICT & Climate Change - Energy Sustainability

Now that the importance of limiting greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming is well recognised, the role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in combating climate change is being widely discussed. The ITU-T has initiated two symposia on ICT and Climate Change to be held in Kyoto in April and London in June 2008 indicating the importance being attached to energy sustainability. All groups in the ITU-T are being urged to take energy consumption into consideration.

There has recently been some bad press about the environmental impact of the Internet with reports that it accounts for 5.3% of world energy consumption and results in the emission of as much CO2 as the airline industry and that the electricity consumption of one avatar on Second Life emits 1.17 tons of C02! However, there are a number of studies that clearly indicate that much energy can be saved by using ICT rather than traveling. A report to the Consumer Electronics Association by TIAX in July 2007 describes the impact of telecommuting and e-commerce on energy consumption (including liquid fuel consumption) and greenhouse gas emissions in the USA. A report by the European Telecommunications Network Operators (ETNO) “Saving the climate @ the speed of light” also presents calculations of the potential savings in C02 emissions that could be made in the European Union through the use of various ICT applications.

The ITU-T has also discussed the use of ICT in monitoring climate change, data analysis & climate modelling, providing emergency services & disaster relief and transport management systems and provides online resources.

And so is ICT a part of the the problem of part of the solution?

Part of the problem

• Internet - 5.3% of world’s energy consumption


• Contributes more CO2 than world’s airlines?

Part of the solution

• Monitoring climate change


• Data analysis & climate modelling


• Emergency services & disaster relief


• Travel substitution


• Smart Work Centres


• TelePresence


• Webex


• Transport management systems


• Sensor networks and process control (e.g. switching off unnecessary devices and production on-demand.

Cisco is fully committed to the Green Revolution and will increasingly be moving towards Green in it's products and in its' social responsibility.

Posted by Rajiv Kapoor at 11:49 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 10, 2008

Towards IPv6

The topic of IPv6 is not new in the industry. In fact, IPv6 has been hotter now than ever, particularly around IPv4 address exhaustion and application readiness. Cisco’s Tony Hain is an IPv6 Forum Fellow.

Cisco IPv6 product manager and evangelist, Patrick Grossetet has been driving IPv6 development at Cisco.

Geoff Huston, Chief Scientist APNIC has been exploring IPv6 transit.

In fact, this past January 2008, Google held an IPv6 summit where both Tony and Patrick had been present.
Google’s Vint Cerf hosted the summit; and Vint facilitated the IPv6 discussion with industry thought leaders, architects.

Patrick spoke about planning for IPv6 integration. One can view the YouTube dialogue at: Google IPv6 Conference 2008.

• What will the IPv6 Internet look like?


• IPv6, Nokia, and Google


• Planning for the IPv6 Integration


• IPv6 and the DNS


• IPv6 on Windows

Conclusion, service providers will be pivotal in IPv6 implementation internationally. The industry is still grappling with the issues around IPv6 transition for infrastructure, applications and content. IPv6 implementation is not a matter of if rather, it is a matter of when.

IPv6 stay tuned!

Posted by Monique Morrow at 10:29 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 05, 2008

Introducing the World’s Most Powerful Compact Router… (And changing the notion of what’s possible in routing in the process)

Yesterday, we introduced the newest addition to the Cisco edge portfolio, the Cisco Aggregation Services Router 1000 series, which is a testament to innovation of our engineers, a foundational platform to help providers transform the edge of their networks, and a proofpoint to our IPNGN architectural vision. We have a massive amount of content that can provide quite a bit of detail on the product and Suraj has already highlighted the virtual, viral, and visual aspects of the marketing that went into this launch. For this forum though, I think there are three key aspects of this platform which will have particular ramifications for the providers business.

The Cisco ASR 1000:

Establishes a new price/performance class at edge
Placed between the Cisco 7200 and 7600 series routers in the Cisco edge portfolio, one ASR is equivalent to 160 Cisco 7200 series routers. Compared to competitive, multivendor solutions, it costs less than half, requires only a third as much Opex annually, and uses just a fraction of the space. Synergy Research did a study of it before launch and wrote, “Not only offering a distinct capital expenditure advantage, owning a Cisco ASR Series router over a five-year period, in comparison to the competitors’ appliances, also constitutes a OpEx saving ranging from 1.6 to 4.7 times per year.”
Benefit to providers: Get much more for far less for faster return on their investment

Enables “Instant-on” service delivery
Embedded capabilities on every Cisco ASR 1000 permit new services to be activated with a keyboard versus a truck roll. Think about that – this is pretty amazing, because no appliances or even blades are needed if the provider wants to turn on a session border controller or firewall within the router – it fundamentally raises the bar as to how services will be delivered in the future.
Benefit to providers: Put customers on (and bill for) a service faster for less cost, not to mention reductions in sparing costs, increased customer satisfaction, and more.

Reduces carbon footprint
Compared to competitive solutions, a single ASR can save the equivalent carbon emissions of upwards 17 tons of coal annually (or upwards of 77 barrels of oil).
Benefit to providers: This high degree of energy efficiency is important not just from a social responsibility standpoint, but also, because power takes up such a large amount of operations expense, it directly affects a provider’s bottom line.

As you know, we usually don’t talk about such product detail in this forum. It’s important to do so today though. While we spend most of our time in this blog discussing high-level issues affecting the service provider industry, it’s important to note that we are constantly innovating to help our provider customers have as flexible, capable, and robust of an IPNGN as possible to make the most of their business. The Cisco ASR 1000 is a great and timely example of that continued commitment. So while some may look at this as another product, we look at it as much more -- another proofpoint towards our architectural vision, another proofpoint towards enabling our customers to succeed.

Posted by Doug Webster at 01:13 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 04, 2008

Virtual. Viral. Visual (… it’s getting easier to be green with Web 2.0)

Communicating virtually, virally and visually empowers the end user to receive information at home, at work and on the move – and, in an environmentally friendly way.

Can these make up the mantra for the launches and marketing in the 21st century? At Cisco, we think so!

“Everything Web 2.0: and “Green everything”seems to surround us in traditional media, online and, as we increasingly discover, even in the grocery store around the corner. Certainly, this is the vision for Cisco, for industry and for the way the world will operate going forward. The launch of the ASR 1000 Series Router Series is a turning point for the way we will take products to market - virtually, virally, visually and green.

Take a look at some of the fun and engaging ways that Cisco marketing took innovation to the 21st century level and applied web 2.0 technologies and other leading environmentally friendly marketing tools to engage both Business Decision Makers (BDMs) and Technology Decision Makers (TDMs) in support of this exciting announcement.

• Funny, network heavy user "uber user" testimonials with tell a friend function for viral distribution, also posted to YouTube


• Engaging Facebook user group offers a forum to celebrate / discuss our network addiction


• Cisco Edge Quest 3-D game to highlight product innovation and encourage viral distribution


• Second Life launch event enables attendees to “experience” the platform in the virtual world


• Social media web widget (as shown below) leverages social media resources
• On-line, live product introduction broadcasts with Q&A in nineteen languages.


• Early "teaser" release on Cisco QuantumFlow Processor (QFP) to heighten industry buzz (i.e., how will this innovation be applied?)


• "Follow-the-sun" worldwide TelePresence sessions for international coverage

The blog world has been a-buzz with posts…(Jon Arnold, NetworkWorld, 6200 Networks, etc..)

Is Cisco the first company in the industry to do a virtual, viral, visual and green launch?
We’d love to hear your views!!

Posted by Suraj Shetty at 06:34 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 03, 2008

SP CTO Update

Since my last posting welcoming the Chinese New Year in January, I have been fairly busy and yes standards has been definitely top of mind. So in January 2008, the ITU-T SG 13 was hosted in Seoul, South Korea.

The crux of the meeting was around TMPLS OAM Requirements, draft G.8113 and TMPLS OAM Mechanisms, draft G.8114 in Question 5 of SG 13. IETF-IAB sent key leadership members to participate in the meeting as representatives of the Internet Society or ISOC. The IETF-IAB had expressed grave concerns around TMPLS, re-use of label 14 and interoperability overall with existing MPLS networks. The IETF-IAB had participated in an interim meeting held in, September 2007 jointly with ITU-T SG-15 leadership, where an agreement to collaborate in the form of a Joint Working Team, JWT-Ad Hoc team had been reached.

Study Group 13 approved to terminate the AAP (Alternative Approval Process) for two T-MPLS OAM draft Recommendations, G.8113 T-MPLS OAM Requirements and G.8114 T-MPLS OAM Mechanisms, which were consented in April 2007. At the subsequent SG-15 meeting in February 2008, there had been discussions around framing the JWT work in five work areas:

1. Forwarding Plane
2. OAM
3. Control Plane
4. Survivability
5. Network Management

The JWT-Ad Hoc team will be jointly lead by Malcolm Betts, ITU-T SG 15 Q.12 Rapporteur and David Ward, IETF.

So the work is just beginning….

Changing the topic, I will be participating in the Global Industry Leaders Forum on March 10 in Thailand, in a session on Universal Access to be chaired by CAT CEO, Mr Ph. Jorphochaudom.

This venue, will be followed by the Global Session of Regulators.

Cisco Sr. Director of Government Affairs will be participating in a panel discussion on March 11.

Stay tuned for disruptive technologies and business models in my next blog!

Posted by Monique Morrow at 08:02 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 26, 2008

Welcome to The Exabyte Era

The next big wave of IP traffic growth is upon us, which will be having dramatic impacts on the providers and their networks. At the “Core” of it all (please forgive the pun and foreshadowing…) is the empowered consumer, who is using video and Web 2.0 networked-based applications in ways unforeseen just a few years ago and, in turn, is helping to inspire major changes at the business customers as well. Randall Stephenson, Chairman and CEO of ATT, recently made a comment that the bandwidth glut of the past is gone and, ironically, was exhausted by “primitive” applications (Click here for a Light Reading story of Mr. Stephenson’s comments) – as more sophisticated applications come about into the mainstream, such as telepresence and more high-definition video, the need for bandwidth will sky-rocket.

From Cisco’s perspective, we are projecting this surge in the amount of bandwidth required to be massive, growing from 6.6 exabytes a month in 2007 to nearly 29 exabytes per month -- more than quadrupling in less than a half decade.

To put this in context, 29 exabytes a month is equivalent to:
29,000,000,000 Gigabytes.
Or nearly 144 times all of the world’s printed matter.
Or nearly six times all the words spoken. Ever.
Or 7,250,000,000 DVDs streamed online.
Or 1160 times the amount supported by the U.S. Internet backbone in 2000.

These growth figures were gained from a modeling exercise we did using third party analyst forecasts on service growth and then, with the base assumptions on the use of those services, determined the resulting traffic impact on the network itself. Such insight helps both Cisco and our SP customers prepare for what’s ahead as implications are wide-ranging throughout the network including the hub of it all, the Core, which we’ll be talking about more soon.

I’ll cover this study further in a future post, and, if you just can’t wait, please check out the great whitepaper that Arielle Sumits, our lead researcher on this topic, put together on the study.

In the interim, don’t forget to register for the big announcement and launch event we have planned for March 4th. I’d very much welcome your thoughts on it.

Until then, thanks for reading,
Doug

Posted by Doug Webster at 05:25 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 14, 2008

Valentines’ Day Quote from Cupid

Ok, so I know I’ve already mentioned the uber-users campaign we have going on and the Web 2.0 aspects it brings to us, but considering the day and the challenges that so many of us have had with finding love – past, present or future – I figured it would only be appropriate to get a better idea of the challenges that Cupid goes through as well…

Happy Valentines’ Day!

Posted by Doug Webster at 07:32 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 11, 2008

Are you a network uber-user?

We just kicked off a new marketing campaign, focused on the uber-users of the network, to act as a run-up to a major announcement we are planning in a few weeks time. Instead of taking a traditional approach of interviewing enterprises and providers as to the challenges they are facing with network, we directed our questions to the likes of Santa Claus, the Stork, Cupid, the Easter Bunny, and a Unicorn, all of which face some daunting operational issues which must be addressed by the network.

Such an approach is a bit different for Cisco. Admittedly, we are showing our fun side which many of our customers and constituents have encouraged (at dinners with analysts, I’ve heard “why are you always so serious in briefings… you’ve earned the credibility to joke around now and then”). Beyond just the tone, though, and more applicable for this forum, our uber-users campaign is also a way for us to embrace the viral marketing benefits that are possible with Web 2.0. With the “tell a friend” function, we are hoping to have these passed about amongst our customers, and in the process, target the news of our upcoming announcement to the parties that are interested in it the most, far more efficiently and broadly than what we could achieve through other, often costly means. This represents us to not only talk about the Human Network but to benefit from it as well. (Our promotional effort will have ties to the larger Human Network campaign itself too, but we can talk about that later….)
So what’s your take on this?

And, are you, too, a networking uber-user?

Posted by Doug Webster at 11:27 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 04, 2008

Negotiating with a 2 year old (aka Rising Expectations)

It was a long day of travel with the family, and while I am a bit more used to the rigors of travel, it is particularly taxing on the kids. My oldest responds one way to travel, invariably wanting to go swimming even when we check into a hotel late at night, just to burn off energy stored while in a cramped seat. My youngest, though, wants to try to regain the routine she is used to at home.

To accommodate her, my wife and I packed her favorite blanket, her sound machine to help her sleep, and her favorite doll du jour. On this trip, though, when we got to the room, I quickly realized that I was not well prepared, when my little girl looked up at me and said it:

“IwantDora.”

It was 9 o’clock at night – well past her bedtime, and I just wanted to get her settled. Showing an episode of her favorite show would have made total sense, but I simply forgot to pack the DVD, and for some reason, there isn’t as much of demand for the exploits of the bilingual cartoon character and her friend Boots on primetime TV as there is at my house. I had nothing, and had to break the bad news to her.

“IwantDora-please!” was the response.

Given that she is two, tired, out of her regular rhythm, and awfully cute (yes, she takes after her mother), I wanted to do whatever I could to pacify her and make amends, but I couldn’t. Unlike our home with its multiple digital video recorders (DVRs) where we can watch any show at any time, our hotel room was downright antiquated. We had to watch shows on the schedule of the broadcaster with only a few options to choose from. For quite literally her entire life, she has never had to do this – DVRs aren’t a great new technology but more tablestakes in her on-demand, high def world where video calls to her cousins are common and she can reach her father anytime, anywhere on speed dial.

In discussions on the service provider industry, we talk about rising expectations of consumer and the evolving dynamic that users have with their providers, but this was a case where it was front and center for me – and obvious that what I may think of as understandable limitations of a technology for me isn’t at all reasonable to others.

I can only imagine what the expectations my daughter’s two year old will have in a few decades. Hopefully, when that time comes, she’ll be a better negotiator than her father, who committed to both buying her a car when she turns 16 and a trip to the vending machine…

Posted by Doug Webster at 05:15 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 30, 2008

A Taste of Telecom Diversity

This week's post is about a fascinating trip I've been on in Asia these last couple of weeks - visiting Indonesia, Vietnam, India & Thailand. Each of these countries is going through tremendous transformation and the network infrastructure is key to them propelling themselves to a much stronger position in the world. The state of the telecom infrastructure for each of these countries could be topics of a blog or book, so let me focus this post on Vietnam.

Getting off the plane in Hanoi reminded me of my first visit to Beijing in 1996 - the airport, the officials, the process all seemed to be similar to what I recall in my first visit to China. Leaving the airport in the taxi, I suddenly felt that I had arrived in Bangalore - small streets that are packed with cars, motorcycles, scooters and other transports. The ride from the airport to the hotel took about 1.5 hours in which I had time to ponder the current state of local economy, telecom market and infrastructure in Vietnam.

Vietnam has a population of over 80million, has 61 provinces and 3 major cities. The local economy is healthy and there is a large and growing presence of multinational companies investing heavily locally in manufacturing plants - companies ranging from Canon to Intel are investing heavily. The few local hotels are overbooked and overcrowded with business travelers flocking to be part of the country's growth.

In terms of telecom, the market is fairly deregulated. There are a number of Service Providers (wireline and mobile combined). The latest estimates indicate 10M fixed line subscribers, 25M mobile subscribers and only 1M internet subscribers. Of the service providers, 4 to 6 are planning or already offering triple play services and in addition there are 6 mobile operators (3 GSM & 3 CDMA)….and a 7th license was announced the day I arrived. As in most of the other south Asian countries, majority of the mobile subscribers are prepaid and the ARPUs are extremely low ($4-$6USD/month).

As if this was not fascinating enough for the commute to the hotel, I was intrigued by the sights I saw. No, it was not any historical monuments or landmarks, it was the local infrastructure - the streets, the houses and most of all the cables hanging on the poles alongside each road in the city of Hanoi. I found myself so fascinated that I had to stop the driver and get my camera out of my bag to take pictures. For the next 36 hours I took numerous pictures to share with colleagues and friends….and post on my blog.

I was surprised at the wiring centers on the poles that had cable television, copper telephony and likely even fiber running in mass alongside the road. Each street intersection was like a wiring center and all along the roadways, there were cables crossing the street overhead every few feet. There were cables running through the trees and around the trees. I know what you are thinking and yes I thought of it too….why not look at wireless to solve this problem? Of course that is a great option but given the buildings/homes are built with concrete there's likely going to be in building/home coverage issues. Actually speaking of homes, check out the picture of a typical home....clearly land is extremely precious and expensive and the only way to scale is up...so a house typically has a few feet frontage and deep and tall...I mean 4 to 6 stories tall.

While all of these are solvable, imagine the wonderful opportunity of modernizing this infrastructure and there's clear motivation from the local operators and regulators to make this happen and happen fast.

Well, I am off to the next city now but have a long commute to the airport in Bangalore and can't wait to find more interesting things I can share with you.

Posted by Kelly Ahuja at 02:59 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 14, 2008

Holiday Nerd

Happy New Year! During the holidays, I visited family back east, sharing good meals (too many) and good times (never enough). My inner nerd also enjoyed checking out their new networking gadgets.

My mother-in-law received a WiFi picture frame, a great device for grandparents everywhere. Particularly compelling is the ability to email photos directly to the frame, via Seeframe. After transferring photos from our digital camera to a PC, we just email them to a particular address, and they start appearing in her living room, with no technical gymnastics on her side. (Keep the email address private, to avoid unpleasant pictorial surprises!) Even quicker, we can send photos directly from our camera phones to the frame, for near-real-time grandchild updates. This ability to send photos from a mobile phone to a picture frame serves as a reminder that possible innovations for fixed-mobile convergence are much broader than just handing off phone calls between cellular and WiFi radio access.

My sister showed me her new iPhone (also good news for the niece who received her hand-me-down phone). She'd already mastered bringing up maps and satellite views, and the whole family gathered round to share favorite YouTube videos. As she pinched to shrink and spread to enlarge, I was reminded how much a good user interface opens up technology to those interested in its benefits, but impatient with its impenetrable rituals. As I described the Cisco technology working behind the scenes to make this experience possible, I was also reminded how little anyone cares, as long as it works!

My parents recently subscribed to FiOS, and they're pleased with the telephone, video and Internet services. The system included a WiFi router, installed with WEP security enabled. (In contrast, about ten of their neighbors' WiFi access points were visible, and each one I tried was wide open.) From my laptop, I measured almost 20 Mbps downstream and about 5 Mbps upstream. They'd experienced one problem with no dial tone, but when they called for support (on their mobile phone), they discovered the problem was an extension left off the hook, an old fashioned problem indeed. The FiOS equipment had been installed with a tidiness that reminded me of central office cable lacing (although of course now they use nylon cable ties). But what impressed them most was the courteous and thorough service provided by the installing technicians, a reminder that the technology debates about Ethernet and passive optical networks, hybrid fiber-coax and video over IP matter little outside our industry conferences.

Posted by Larry Lang at 08:16 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 10, 2008

China 2008: The Year of the Rat and the 2008 Olympics

Greetings from Beijing on January 10 2008!

On February 7 2008, the Chinese Lunar year will commence as the Year of the Rat or “Wu Zhi”, and 25% of the world’s population will celebrate the Chinese lunar year, of Wu Zhi.

Moreover, the number 8 signifies luck and it is no surprise that the Olympics in Beijing will commence on August 8 2008 or 8/8/2008. Beijing 2008 Olympics, will be one of the greatest and the most influential sports events worldwide.

By 2008, thousands of athletes from more than 200 countries will participate and billions of audiences will watch the games, creating a huge amount of information management, interaction and broadcasting -- and Chinese Service Providers will be on the forefront in operating the networks, in addition to demonstrating technology showcases that these games will be hosted on.

With new technology and video feeds that will operate over the Internet, China will highlight its 5000-year history, Chinese styles, cultural splendour, contemporary spirits and mass participation shall be part of what spectators can expect to experience.

From digital Olympics we will experience digital transformation of Beijing itself that is designed to endure beyond the 2008 games, such as:

 Guaranteeing the successful construction of all facilities for Olympic Games in Beijing (Stadiums, transportation system)
 Enhancing the management system of Beijing municipal government through Olympic events (emergency, public security, etc)
 Elevating the maturity of information service for Beijing
 Promoting several technology industries for and beyond 2008 Beijing Olympic (digital TV, advanced call center, integrated PDA, wired automobile, rich service content)

These are exciting times for China, Chinese Service Providers, and the world--- “let the games begin!”

Posted by Monique Morrow at 01:43 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 21, 2007

Happy Holidays

Posted by Doug Webster at 07:37 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 18, 2007

What’s on your wish list this holiday season for your Connected Home?

Wouldn't it be nice if all the devices, and technology, in your home worked better together?

Here are some of my thoughts for your shopping list ...

Music – I like having music distributed throughout my home and having a single music library from which I can play my personal library or Internet radio c