Industry News/Trends Category Archives

April 29, 2008

Insatiable Demand for Bandwidth Continues

So you've read about our IP traffic study in some past posts -- If you've been wondering whether traffic growth is really occurring and what's the impact of this growth to the networks, I can firmly attest that absolutely it is. Every major service provider I have interacted with over the past 6 months has talked about how their traffic is growing faster than before - but not necessarily at the same rate for all.

What's behind this traffic growth? Personally, all you have to do is look inside any of our homes to see the drivers. Let's take mine as an example. My 15 year old son has stopped watching television and lives his academic and social life in the virtual world through a laptop or through a game console. My 12 year old daughter is also spending more time online with her friends but with slightly different interests. What's most intriguing is that my 8 year old son is watching videos online continually. Even my wife prefers to occasionally catch snipets of her favorite shows from the www than on live television. As soon as a provider can deliver faster bandwidth to my house, they can count on me as a customer. Where am I going with this? I know that I am not an exception but more of the standard of homes with kids. It is clear that video is the big driver of this growth and will continue to be as we increase the number of creators of content and consumers of content and ways that it can be consumed.

Early in April Cisco announced that sales of Cisco CRS-1 have doubled in less than 9 month from 900 to 1800 units. This is clearly a sign that service providers around the world are conducting expansions of their networks but want to be assured that as traffic continues to grow they will be able to scale their networks. The multi-chassis capability of CRS-1 allows SPs to scale their systems where needed while the 16, 8 and 4 slot single shelf systems allow the SPs to grow the footprint of the core network to accommodate the rapid increase in the number of subscribers and the bandwidth per subscriber.

The question we need to ask ourselves are - will this insatiable demand for bandwidth continue at the rate of the forecasts? Or will it be even higher?

Posted by Kelly Ahuja at 11:16 AM Permalink | Comments (1) | 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 21, 2008

TelePresence: A New Presence for Managed Services

I am thrilled and excited about today’s announcement that AT&T will offer the industry’s first (1) intercompany; (2) managed Cisco TelePresence service. The Human Network is realized when more people able to experience it and when the experiences we have at home, at work and on the move feel less like technology and more like life…, partners like AT&T certainly share this vision.

Intercompany: SizeMatters.

One of the key parts of this announcement is the “Intercompany” capability. An intercompany Cisco TelePresence network service, which enables customers to maintain close contact with their extended supply chain or community of interest, has the potential to transform business. Furthermore, as more people use a network service –Telephony, Internet, Web 2.0 social networking, or Intercompany TelePresence, the more valuable the service becomes. Greater value attracts more users, creating a positive feedback loop and continued usage growth – that’s the “Network Effect”. It is no wonder the NewAT&T shares this vision with Cisco;according to Wikipedia, network effect was presented in the 1908 annual report by then AT&T President Theodore Vail --- 100 years ago!.... and now IP DNA meets network DNA, fitting anniversary event ….

Speaking of IP DNA, this brings me to networking and Internet pioneer, Robert Metcalfe and his law. In this context it inspires:

“The value of intercompany TelePresence - and the network service that makes it possible - can be expected to increase not linearly, but in proportion to the square of the number of users.”

As more companies use intercompany TelePresence, its value for the user and for the provider multiplies. This is certainly true as the network approaches critical mass. A blog post by Bob Metcalfe is interesting and humorous reading on his law.

AT&T Managed TelePresence Solution will be available in the second half of 2008 with reach to 23 countries throughout the world. Additional country availability planned for 2009. Early trials of the solution are underway now.

Managed TelePresence: “Managed” Matters

Managed business services deliver reliability, high availability and confidence. With Cisco TelePresence, enterprise customers connect with each other, partners and suppliers through this highly scalable and secure solution across the world. Adding an ongoing managed service aspect to TelePresence brings confidence that the experience will be delivered.

The AT&T solution is an innovative turnkey bundle that integrates AT&T global MPLS VPN network, Cisco TelePresence application, and strategic application management for rapid turn-up and ease of use, assuring the customer experience.

AT&T Managed TelePresence will deliver...

• a bundled, fully-managed service that offers a turn-key solution for enterprises.


• a “meet-me” business-to-business connectivity feature that allows multiple companies in different locations to connect to one another


• Web-based application for scheduling, directory assistance and reporting


• Managed network service enabling converged network solution backed by Service Level Agreements to optimize TelePresence application

As company’s increasingly look to TelePresence in their workplace, the confidence that it can be fully managed should only help them adopt and scale it throughout their business...

In a CNN article last week (check out the video link), Ovum analyst David Molony said “There's no excuse for enterprises not to have [TelePresence] because it fits with global growth strategy, improved working practice, carbon reduction programs, etc -- and the business case is demonstrable."
What do you think? Will a managed TelePresence solution help speed market interest and adoption?

Posted by Al Safarikas at 06:33 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 15, 2008

Open Sesame

With all the "open" talk at at CTIA recently, Ali Baba might have thought Las Vegas was home of the forty thieves (not to mention casino odds). The FCC was concluding the 700 MHz auction, which included rules for the C Block that require "a platform that is more open to devices and applications." Google had agitated for such a requirement, but Verizon Wireless won the auction, bidding $9.4 billion.

How will Verizon Wireless comply with the openness rules? They revealed some plans in New York city, on March 19, when they unveiled their Open Development initiative. I arrived at the event with some skepticism. I've written before about how the Internet business model challenges the culture of the mobile industry (see Where Worlds Collide). But after an enthusiastic welcome by Tony Lewis, the vice president of Open Development, the Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg gave a keynote that addressed these issues directly. He recognized the intersecting megatrends of mobility and the Internet as prompting a new wave of applications, which no single company can create by itself. Instead, Verizon embraces an ecosystem approach, which motivates this new Open Development activity.

After his speech, he spent the rest of the morning participating in the meeting, including conversations during breaks with participants like myself. Senior members of the Verizon Wireless team also spoke, including president Lowell McAdam, chief marketing officer Mike Lanman, who described both retail and wholesale commercial models, chief information officer Ajay Waghray, who described self-service activation options, and chief technology Tony Melone, who along with members of his team, spoke about the device certification requirements. The main session concluded with remarks by James Piwowarsk of OnStar, which is built on the Verizon Wireless network. Many questions remain, but clearly this initiative arrived with much energy and attention at senior levels of Verizon.

What are their motivations? To some extent, they must want to seize the initiative in defining "open." Market-driven moves towards open mobile networks will yield more flexibility than top-down government regulation, as envisioned by the Skype petition to the FCC. The Apple iPhone terms with AT&T defined a new business arrangement, and Google Android promises more to come. But fundamentally, Verizon must expect the Open Development initiative will be good for their business. OnStar has generated millions of incremental dollars for Verizon, and they surely hope for similar innovation from the Open Development program.

This business motivation will disappoint some, who think "open" should mean "free" (as in, "no charge"). But it's unreasonable to expect that Verizon Wireless would give away its services after investing billions in spectrum and equipment (including some excellent Cisco products!). Verizon Wireless will need good return on investment, while leaving room to prosper for those using its Open Development program. Let me offer some guiding principals for this balanced openness:

1. Open means open. In other words, you can do what you want, unless you objectively harm others, presumably by harming the network.


2. Objectively harmful behavior will be discouraged or prevented, but competitive behavior will not.


3. When possible, excess resource consumption will be controlled by billing ("economics"), not blocking ("regulation").


4. Egregious behavior may result in immediate blocking or deactivation ("jail"), but the definition of such behavior will be technically objective and well documented in advance.


5. Compliance testing will be decentralized and competitive, to avoid bottlenecks and encourage reasonable costs.
   
6. You get what you pay for, with clear public commercial terms.


7. A network operator may offer value-add services (quality of service, text messaging, etc.). But such offerings are optional, not part of the base definition.

Whether Verizon and other operators embrace such principals will determine the real-world impact of all this talk of openness. With the right balance, the mobile industry could say "open sesame" to more riches than in Ali Baba's cave.

Posted by Larry Lang at 01:57 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)

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 19, 2008

"It’s the application stupid!"

Anticipation was building... show organizers even changed the event’s name to “Mobile World Congress” (MWC) to acknowledge the evolution of the industry. The stage was set for a technology debate around HSPA, LTE and WiMAX. Many were prepared to engage in the rhetoric and race for mobile access technology supremacy. There was plenty of hype as Intel, Ericsson, NSN, and other corporate titans attempted to increase mindshare for their particular solution or approach.

In the end, it was the small guys who captured the attention and headlines─the companies who focused on the delivery of a rich mobile user experience. "It’s the application stupid" was the theme that stole the show (see "Green Porno—a series of short films designed for cell phones and computers; provocatively named for search recognition). As Softbank CEO, Masayoshi Son and Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin pointed out in their keynotes, the Internet, entertainment and mobility are where the world is heading. Mr. Son even went so far as to say, "Voice will be offered for free" Wow... how times have changed.

So what is the killer app?

Well, you could say new search techniques from Yahoo!, Skype for mobile, fixed-mobile services, social networking, video chat, financial services, targeted advertising, or just the high-speed access to the Internet; the list goes on and on. Indeed, application innovation was a common thread throughout the MWC halls; big guys and little guys each demonstrating what is possible now that we have deployed high-speed mobile broadband (pick your access type). Combine that infrastructure with fast handset processors that support appealing graphics and one could confidently suggest that mobile operators are ready and primed to serve as a growth engine for their shareholders and the Connected Life economy at-large.

With all the excitement around new applications that use the high-speed data path of a mobile network, one has to ask, “How will the mobile operator make money on all this Internet traffic?” Is it the Apple-ATT over-the-top approach? Or Verizon Open access initiative? We have seen this movie before in the fixed world and the service providers’ ability to increase bandwidth and revenue from end-users (simultaneously) has proved difficult in competitive markets. My suggestion to mobile carriers: leverage the intelligence in your network. Turn these “smarts” into sustainable business advantages by allowing consumers to personalize services and offering tiered, premium services (for a fee) that consumers value and are willing to buy.

By all means, don't give it away.

Stay tuned for more.

Posted by Jeff Spagnola at 03:53 PM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

January 02, 2008

Why I’m old

ATT recently published their top 10 ringtones for 2007. The lists includes songs like “A Bay Bay” and “Crank That” and includes artists like “Mims” and “Akon,” with the top one being (drum roll, please):

Party Like a Rockstar by Shop Boyz

My biggest takeaway from the list? I’m old. Really old. I don’t recognize any of these songs – at all. And have maybe only heard of one or two of the artists. (I think a gray hair popped out on my head just by writing that….)

But professionally, my biggest takeaway is how impressive this is. In this blog, you’ve likely read about our thoughts of service providers are becoming experience providers. It’s our perspective on the evolution of the industry where providers will deliver an ever expanding array of new services, about how they can offer their subscribers the means to personalize those services, and how in the end, they will be able to increase their relevance to their users and their own revenues all the more.

While ringtones may not be new, it is a great example of one of the routes ATT is taking on this evolutiong to experience privder. It doesn’t really matter if this tall, dorky Texan doesn’t relate to ringtones, as this service feature isn’t necessarily meant to appeal to me as many of their other business-focused services do. Rather, this is meant to appeal to another, likely younger, and most certainly a hipper segment of their user base. Different, personalized services for different subscriber interests, delivered over the same network, increasing both the value of the experience to their customer and the amount of their bottom line to their shareholders. Brilliant.

Long live the experience provider – may they continue to “party like a rockstar.”

Posted by Doug Webster at 10:26 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 18, 2007

GK3 Event on The Future from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

“Knowledge is Power – Experience it! was the key theme of the GK3 Conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last week. The conference tracks were on “Emerging People; Emerging Markets and Emerging Technologies.

There was also a parallel session with the International Task Force on Women and ICTs and the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development.

Cisco was one of the many companies participating in both the Emerging Technologies track of GK3 and in the International Task Force on Women and ICTs. Michela Cipeletti , Cisco Director Engineering, participated in the ITF/UNGAID roundtable and panel discussions. Both Michela and myself with support from the Cisco Network Academy team, presented the “Becoming an Engineer” tape at the ITF tent in the exhibition hall. There were very enthusiastic discussions with a plethora of people from Mongolia, Africa, Indonesia, Guatemala, Ecuador, India etc.

On December 12, I participated on the Gk3 panel discussion-Emerging Technologies track in the session entitled “The Future of Access.”

The session was quite lively and hosted by Steve Song, Fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation.

Other panelists included Allison Gillwald, Research, South Africa; Joe Deering, head APAC Nokia-Siemens; Ross O;Brien, Director, Economic Intelligence Unit, Asia. Steve presented the panelists as artists each painting a view of the future of access from their perspectives.

Nancy White provided the art on the white board as the panelists and audience were interacting.

Whether one spoke about WiMAX/mobility/social networking etc, the most poignant discussion was around Africa and the various barriers to the adoption to these technologies such as politics. In fact, we all concluded that politics is indeed a critical path when speaking about the Future of Access.

Later that evening, Michela and I met some of the Digital Divide Data (DDD), young Entrepreneurs particularly from Laos and Cambodia. These young people are so passionate about implementing a vision/dream and using IT as a base to establish collaborative wealth mainly via education.

Finally on Dec 9-10 there was the i4D Film Festival co-organized by the Center of Science, Development and Media Studies, and Global Knowledge Partnership. The attempt was to bring community of film makers together, "Beyond the Mainstream" where film makers = farmers, vegetable-sellers, slum dwellers, street children.

See also interview with Vint Cerf, Google, “GKP Through the Looking Glass."

Posted by Monique Morrow at 11:06 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 29, 2007

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”

An IP NGN allows providers to confidently and profitably deliver a suite of integrated "any-play" services – meeting the needs of their customers well into the future. With unique “any-play” experiences service providers can truly evolve themselves into experience providers.

Recently I was in India where Cisco announced its new Globalization Center, and along with it, the Cisco iPrize for innovation. The live audience in Bangalore, India witnessed a unique, seamless experience, a truly “any-play” demo. Cisco CEO John Chambers and Cisco SVP Marthin DeBeer, separated physically by thousands of miles and over 12 time zones, were able to co-announce the iPrize competition.

In this embedded video, you will see a three-dimensional hologram image of Marthin standing next to John on stage. Marthin’s image is literally being teleported thousands of miles away, via the network and TelePresence, from California to India.

One Indian reporter writing for the Hindu Business Line explains how the three-dimensional holographic conferencing system was used for the event. The reporter goes on to muse that this rich, seamless “any-play” experience will not just be for executive keynotes and announcements; rather, such TelePresence technology, could enable “your grandmother to virtually walk into a living room and talk to you - her image traveling overseas and countries over the Internet”.

From “any-play”, we now get 3-D holograms and teleportation. But I am certain that the best is yet to come from the ubiquitous network. With innovation, the equation will keep changing, but I like this kind of math.

Beam me up, Scotty!

Posted by Suraj Shetty at 09:10 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 27, 2007

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.

Why all the fuss about business model evolution? SPs must do more to differentiate themselves in what is becoming an increasingly commoditized market, or risk becoming simple utilities, according to a report released by Strategy Analytics. However, building new business models -- and even adapting old ones -- has proven to be very difficult.

Crafting compelling new business models will depend less on the access technology and more on quality-of-experience capabilities in provider networks. Because almost any IP device can be voice-, video- or data enabled, service providers are becoming "experience providers," delivering many services to many screens over converged fixed and wireless networks.

Finding highly-skilled partners with complementary capabilities is a proven way to accelerate SP go-to-market plans. However, the challenge is isolating the best-fit potential partners for any given service delivery-related requirement. Therefore, the ability to broker between diverse groups of third-parties is highly valued.

Active membership in the Cisco Powered Program is one approach that forward-looking SPs can use as a “marketplace” to connect with potential new service delivery partners. The program also incorporates access to a growing list of Cisco marketing and technical resources that can be applied to envision, build, market and sell services that deliver a truly unique customer experience.

Posted by Jeff Spagnola at 06:47 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 16, 2007

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?

When asked at the conference about the Google announcement, Lowell McAdam, president and CEO of Verizon Wireless, raised concerns about risks such openness might pose to users. For example, what if malware infected an Android-equipped phone and started relaying your exact location to a stalker? Such scenarios are frightening, of course. But Verizon Wireless might also have business concerns about losing their ability to monetize services beyond basic mobile IP connectivity, if they lose control of mobile device software.

Google's motivations are not entirely philanthropic, either. Surely they understand the potential power of mobile advertising. And they must worry that the current mobile ecosystem doesn't lend itself to their participation, at least not to the dominant degree they enjoy with the fixed Internet. So when Google says "open", remember they especially mean "open for Google."

Mirroring such business maneuvering on a small scale, the conference also featured a friendly Texas Hold'em poker tournament. The dealers kept funding losers with more chips, so risk aversion disappeared and valuations for bad hands soared. I'll leave the obvious analogies to the dotcom bubble as an exercise for the reader.

Posted by Larry Lang at 08:23 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 14, 2007

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.

Recap Of Cisco Service Provider Press Tour - The funniest home videos are here

Posted by Jeff Spagnola at 03:19 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 13, 2007

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.

Yakov Rekhter highlighted differences between MPLS and Provider Backbone Transport or PBT and concluded with the following assertion:

“PBT is a new technology that promises to offer some of the same benefits that MPLS has been providing for years.
It is unclear if and when PBT will reach the level of maturity and sophistication comparable to what MPLS has today with respect to the features that are needed for packet-based transport point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, and multipoint-to-point connectivity, protection, traffic engineering, QoS (including deterministic quality of service and OAM.PBT in the transport layer still requires MPLS in the service layer and as a service layer technology, PBT is limited to just Ethernet.”

By the way, the arguments in these transport discussions are not skewed to Ethernet vs MPLS --- in fact both technologies have co-existed for years. If a purported technology offers somewhat identical benefits as one that is rather mature, does this premise constitute a leapfrog and/or, disruptive paradigm?

The service providers who presented at the conference like Telecom Italia, Verizon, FT-Orange, Sprint, NTT, KDDI acknowledged the adoption of MPLS as pivotal to their service architectures; and certainly did not articulate a desire to move to so called “PBT.”

Ok, you may ask, well “what did one expect at an MPLS Conference?” The vendor panel discussion was rather circular with 9 or so vendors each stating their obvious positions --- yawn, yawn – there were no fireworks here!

The more interesting opportunity in the industry is to move at the service and application level. Looking at the bigger picture in terms of trends and impact to architecture, massive quantities of data will be generated on small scales (RFIDs, sensors or so called pervasive computing etc); further, there is an explosion of new creators
or consumers of content, so called “prosumers” like perhaps some of us. Oh, yes, the promise of Web 2.0 is supposed to drive greater consumer choice, participation and control – social networking indeed.

You may wonder why the 2007 Time Magazine “Person of the Year” award was YOU!

Uhmm, MPLS vs PBT vs whatever – is there something wrong with this picture? With all of these dynamics, have we thought about the impact to the overall network? The Internet?

Ah, stay tuned!

Posted by Monique Morrow at 07:00 AM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

November 01, 2007

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.

That may be a bit of over-dramatization, but it's the business equation. The business model isn't there yet. However, we believe that controlling some of these things from the network will make it easier, and prevent some of those maintenance costs. Then Digital Rights Management (DRM), Bandwidth Availability, and Quality of Service can all be used to improve the consumer experience and protect the programmers’ rights.

I like to use my house as an example of today's technology. We have an Apple TV connected to our plasma HD set to use mostly for photographs. We have a half terabyte drive sitting behind the monitor on the desktop. My wife has an iPhone. All these things connect together. We move video back and forth, and it's pretty painless. Apple has simplified those interfaces. Unfortunately the only connection to the network for these devices is iTunes over the broadband pipe, which limits the breadth of video access that is provided by the set top, which we all know is a network edge router!

In the long-term, what the service providers want to do is simplify the transition of those interfaces, probably by controlling a lot of it from the network. And I'll remind you that the edge of the network is the digital set-top.

We have over 33 million Scientific Atlanta digital set-tops connected at the edge of the secure network. If you have enough smarts and enough CPU processing power at the edge, and you've got all the admission control and policy management in the trusted network, you can then reach out to these devices and you can start to control them in a much more efficient way.

And I think the best example of that being done today with a simple interface is what Apple's doing. We think that in the future, service providers are going to offer those kinds of services.

Posted by Bob McIntyre at 10:03 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 31, 2007

India: Service Providers and Rural Village Connectivity

There is no doubt that service providers will play a key role in reaching rural villages in India where approximately 70% of the population is located. Work has been underway for sometime to use broadband-based kiosks for farmers in conveying crop information; or establishing e-education centers to boost literacy and so on.

I was in India in 2004 the day the country launched its broadband policy and I witnessed the corresponding excitement around the hope of the technology to connect a nation and beyond. There are a plethora of projects that target broadband penetration in India’s rural villages, some of which are described on Frost & Sullivan’s web site .

Companies like Reliance Communications have been on the forefront providing services to rural villages. In fact, Reliance Communications announced in May 2007 that it would provide services to over 2,34,000 villages (2 Lakh and 34,000; 1 Lakh = 100,000 in what is to be “the World’s largest and fastest Rural Infrastructure project.”

Cisco and BT have recently partnered to assist OneWorld in the Lifelines India project, a telephone-based information service for rural farming communities in India.

With such ICTs and the depth of their extension to our “connected world,” we now see the opportunity for user-created content that may be driven by websites, blogs, wikis –, the Web 2.0 environment indeed! Whether it is empowering the farmer in India with tele-kiosks that provide weather and crop updates; or, providing an e-education center for students in Kerala, the IP Transformation
is common to this process

Finally, we are witnessing the tip of the iceberg in opportunities for Indian Service Providers to be the catalysts of digital inclusion, and this story is just unfolding!

Posted by Monique Morrow at 07:01 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 30, 2007

IMS or Web Services: is there a Debate? IMS in a World of Web-Based Applications

Although IMS has been around for the last 7 or so years and may not be the panacea originally proposed, it can’t be discounted in the world of IP. Several of our customers in US SP have announced plans to deploy IMS as it will be an important platform for voice as well as other SIP-based applications. At the same time, we see increasing development of new innovative applications that don’t use SIP, but would benefit from the capabilities of an IMS control infrastructure. We need a framework that enables a feasible coexistence of both types of applications.

There are the obvious market drivers driving the “IP Everywhere” mentality. These trends have caught IMS and are raising questions about the longevity of IMS:

1. ubiquitous high-speed access
2. handset evolution: screens and access
3. interesting, relevant content and applications (2.0 applications, MySpace, YouTube)
4. the prospect of a Google Phone and other disruptive innovations

Just a few years ago, we were upswept in the mantra “voice is the killer app.” After the telecom downturn and the many failed applications (e-wallet, MMS, etc.), how could we think any differently? Did anyone really want anything more from a mobile phone than voice and the occasional text message? IMS fulfilled the need of SIP-based voice services. It was the savior of an industry searching for ways to quickly and efficiently buildout networks and deploy applications. It allowed horizontal implementation rather than perpetuating dependence on a slow, vertical silo. Wow, IMS was it.

Enter Generation Y. Enter the generation who pushed the boundaries, who changed the way we think about mobile applications and breathed life into the stale telecom market. This generation demanded more services, multi-tasking devices and quick innovation. It is also a generation with a short attention span and a high demand for “me.”

And with that, web services seem to have usurped IMS. At once we rushed to create our Second Life avatar so we could extend ourselves into a virtual world. We voyeuristically peeped into You-Tube – and became addicted! We echo the diary of our lives on the pages MySpace. We blog; we Wiki. We communicate at an insatiable pace. Enter new players – the “over the top” providers (Yahoo!, Google, YouTube, etc.) and the world of Web 2.0 killer apps. And we wanted all these things now, seamlessly moving from device to device or environments.

With all the demand for the 2.0 services over IP, what happens to voice? What about quality of service? What about the investments made in IMS? We can’t expect service providers to systematically dismiss IMS networks—or voice services—while at the same time allowing the new over-the-top applications to consume all the available bandwidth. How can carriers deliver on the demand for mobile broadband without sacrificing quality of voice services or wallet share?

Take a carrier like Verizon that was (and remains) heavily invested in IMS and has gone one step further in developing A-IMS (Advances to IMS). Yet they need to embrace web services to remain competitive in a tight market constantly struggling for customer retention and profitability. Used concurrently with web services, A-IMS provides the control hooks so when voice is used simultaneously, quality is maintained (SIP and non-SIP applications). Now receiving PowerPoint, video or any other file is not going to interrupt your call. Plus, the proposed architecture would allow mobile operators to continue running circuit-switched voice indefinitely, rather than being forced to rip and replace and immediately switch to IP and VoIP (which of course will cut deep into the pockets of the mobile carriers who don’t charge the typical one-rate of the VoIP vendors). They can then offer services when they are absolutely ready or when the current revenue model is exhausted.

The A-IMS architecture provides a predictable experience and buys time to control the transition from current networks to the all-IP networks of the future. IMS will be a key ingredient in ensuring that fixed and mobile services of all kinds can work together. SIP and non-SIP-based applications will be treated equally. Additionally IMS provides end-to-end management for VoIP applications running over IP mobile networks, to ensure quality of service.

While IMS might not be the total telecom network of the future, its coexistence with web services certainly is. Developers will continue to leverage this network for real-time interactive multimedia services, such as IMS-enabled IPTV, gaming, video conferencing and click-to-call with a standards-based, open architecture.

Posted by Nick Adamo at 10:28 AM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

October 01, 2007

Flexing the Business Model to Keep the Customer

Earlier this year, I read an interesting article in the USA Today by Barbara De Lollis on the rebound of Air Canada. As an aviation nut, I am always interested in the inner workings of the airline industry, but in this case, it was a interesting case study for what’s possible with service providers too.

The article covered how Air Canada went from struggling to be a “profitable pioneer” – it did so not by changing its industry, for as at its most basic level, it still delivered people and cargo from point A to point B as it did before. Rather its change was more to its business model, largely focused on changes to allow customers to “personalize” their air travel experience to meet their own respective needs. For example, instead of having just non-refundable or refundable tickets, it unbundled them so that, as a flyer, you can have a non-refundable outbound but a more flexible return ticket, should the meeting end ahead of schedule and you can get to the airport earlier. If you want to reserve a seat, you can for a small charge; or if you don’t care where you sit, then no problem, just take any unreserved one. If you don’t check a bag, they’ll give you a $5 refund. Don’t care for frequent flier mileage, they’ll give you money back for that as well. And they increased the entertainment options as Dameon D. Welch-Abernathy from Phoneboy shares with us here. With all the options, some may think that the margin would plummet, but what they’ve found is that 75% of their customers are upgrading and taking advantage of one of the services. So by giving greater control and options to consumers, Air Canada became the preferred carrier for many and helped to boost their bottom line.

This same focus on personalization, a more flexible business model, and the customer’s overall “experience” can just as easily apply to providers. With a platform built on IP, they now have the means to offer very unique, blended services which aren’t necessarily voice, video, data, or mobility but a mix of all them all. And those services don’t have to be significant entities unto themselves, such as TelePresence, but they can just as easily be smaller features, such as network-based parental control or turbo button on broadband, which may not be of value to all subscribers but could be of high value to some. By having a number of choices to for the customer to select, the provider can permit each subscriber to craft the type of experience they want and, in turn, build their loyalty. So while the fundamental “services” providers offer is the same, the way that they offer them can be different, resulting in a better experience for customer and better profits for the provider.

I hope this example gives you a greater appreciation for the power and value of personalization. For Air Canada, their focus on personalization has enabled them to become the premier Canadian Airline and their rewards program has been hailed as the best in their industry based on its flexibility and the increased customer patronage and loyalty that it has created.

Posted by Doug Webster at 09:53 AM Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

September 19, 2007

Unified Communications = Opportunities for Service Providers

There continues to be lots of “buzz” in the marketplace around Unified Communications (UC). Just last week I met with several enterprise customers in Europe and there was consensus amongst them that service providers can play a key role in the delivery of UC.

Some observations that I gleaned include the following:

1) The definition of UC is all over the map. Some people include integration of identity management and presence in their definition of UC; others include desktop video and collaboration tools. Still others fall into the camp of defining UC just as simple IP telephony I see this broad interpretation of UC as an opportunity for service providers to provide leadership and clarity to their enterprise customers.

2) Rates of deployment vary. Some companies have already deployed 60,000 IP handsets….others are just beginning to roll out an IP telephony deployment across their enterprises. My take on this is that there isn’t one “correct” way on how or when to implement UC. Service providers have the opportunity to differentiate their offers in the marketplace and meet the needs of enterprise customers.

3) It’s not just about technology. One thing that everyone agreed on is that UC requires security, regulatory compliance, and risk management. UC is a transformational technology which requires the enterprise customer to evaluate the business processes associated with these capabilities. UC is not about the technology, but it’s more about the business process involved and the implementation and operations of the technology.

4) Interoperability is essential. The adoption of UC will only happen if vendors such as Cisco, Microsoft, and others recognize that the enterprise customer wants an open platform.

Overall, the demand for UC is high. Service providers have an excellent opportunity to consult with their customers and assist them in their efforts to apply UC to their business.

Posted by Jeff Spagnola at 02:28 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

September 17, 2007

Experience Provider ABC’s

Today we expect to be seamlessly connected anytime, anywhere, and on any device – what we all want is a Connected Life. Service providers that can deliver a premium end-to-end “Connected Experience” to their customers will be rewarded with greater customer loyalty, brand recognition, and increased profitability. What’s this means is that service providers have to make the transition to becoming Experience Providers.

There are three main attributes, or ABC’s, in transitioning into an Experience Provider. These are:
1. Accelerating the Connected Life
2. Boldly taking on new innovative business models
3. Changing the equation from quad-play to any-play

Over the course of my next few blog entries, I will discuss these three attributes and invite you participate in the discussion.

Today’s topic is “Accelerating the Connected Life”. A Connected Life requires providers to deliver personalized experiences that include seamless communications, collaboration tools, personalized content, and rich applications and mash-ups. Customers want a provider who’s dedicated to the end-result whether it is over cable, mobile, satellite, or a landline. The Connected Life experience weaves in a multitude of applications, opening up a multi-faceted on-line “connected” dimension and includes not only traditional providers but also those over-the-top (OTT) providers, including Yahoo, Google, MySpace, etc.

NTT DoCoMo is a great example of a provider delivering unique experiences in Japan. By accelerating the Japanese Connected Life and pioneering the “lifestyle infrastructure”, NTT DoCoMo has weaved their services into the lifestyles of millions of users.

According to Takeshi Natsuno, Senior VP, NTT DoCoMo, if I was a consumer in Japan, I would never have to open up my wallet. Instead, I could use my mobile phone to book and purchase an airline ticket, then hop into a taxi and head for the airport, download my e-boarding pass, pay for the cab at the airport, buy something to eat, drink and read, as well as book a hotel room while waiting for the flight, and then take a cab to the hotel after I land.

People all over Japan today are enjoying such connected lifestyle experiences. Masao Nakamura, President/CEO of NTT DoCoMo said “the mobile phone has become something people keep nearby constantly, 24 hours per day.” Clearly there are many other service providers that are transitioning into experience providers and I plan to cover a variety of examples in future blog entries.

Increasingly customers will lose patience with multiple-step relationships with their providers. One face, one experience with seamless connectivity and interactivity is the goal. Providers with a relentless focus on the connected life experience will win their fair share of the market and surface as the brands to follow.

Achieving this Connected Life requires providers to boldly take on new innovative business models. In my next entry, I’ll show some risk-taking moves that are yielding big-time results.

Posted by Suraj Shetty at 09:41 AM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (3)

September 13, 2007

Designing the Connected Life

At Cisco, we’ve been working with service providers around the world to help craft their new “offer” – no longer will they be offering just voice, or video, or data, or mobility, but rather integrated experiences that blend all of these throughout their subscribers’ daily lives, whether they be at home, at work, or on the move. We call this the “Connected Life” and are actively working to enable it for providers to deliver. But we recognize that while we have had many ideas on this and are actively innovating on many of them, we certainly don’t have a monopoly on them. So many of the participants on the Human Network have some great ideas as well.

We wanted to add their voices into the process as well, and one of the ways we are doing is to invite consumers to participate through a contest called “Help Design the Connected Life.” We’ve received ideas from all over the world – in fact, many more than we anticipated, and the ideas have covered the gamut in terms of creativity, enthusiasm, and vision. We’ll be higlighting some of their ideas on this blog in the weeks to come, but if you’re interested in participating, there is no time like the present, as the contest ends on September 14th. (click here to submit your idea).

But even if the timing doesn’t work for the contest, please know we’re always interested in getting your thoughts and opinions, whether in this new SP360 blog and the many other interactive forums we host. Thanks for visiting with us today and for your collaboration to help design the Connected Life.

Doug Webster
Director, Marketing
Cisco Systems, Inc.

Posted by Doug Webster at 02:37 PM Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)