analysis & commentaryCOMMENTARY FROM OUR STAFFAm I missing something here?At something called the Personal Democracy Forum held this week in New York, Columbia Law Professor Tim Yu expressed his support for a national broadband policy by decrying what he called the high price of broadband in the U.S. ... Making sense of the new SymbianWhy buy a company just to give away its prime assets the next day? That’s exactly what Nokia is doing, scooping up the remaining 52% share of Symbian and then donating the whole operating system, its associated software and accompanying intellectual property to the newly minted Symbian Foundation... Experiential services offer variety of revenue opportunitiesFacing new market realities, service providers understand growth will not come from adding subscribers, but from finding new ways to monetize existing relationships... Defining the WiMAX subscriber30.75 million customers--that’s a lot. It’s the number Clearwire projects to have in 2017, but what does that really mean? Clearwire, through its tie-up with Sprint, Comcast, Google and a host of others, plans not only a nationwide WiMAX network, but a completely new business model, alien to the telecom industry today. And that business model implies that a subscriber on tomorrow’s 4G network won’t be the same as a subscriber on the 3G network of today... Has IPTV hit the tipping point?Microsoft’s announcement today of new ecosystem partners for its Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV system is intended to underscore the faster pace at which IPTV is being rolled out globally. And in fact there has been steady expansion of this service, especially in Europe and Asia... Central to changeMy first up-close look at a central office was an unusual one: The Hinsdale, Ill., CO had been badly burned in the infamous 1988 Mother's Day fire... Best-effort: Weakness or strength?There's an absolutely fascinating dynamic in play right now one that without a doubt will determine the shape of the industry for years to come... Them that's got getsA former co-worker used to say, "Them that's got gets" -- and nowhere is this truer than in today's wireless industry... Will PBT go away?PBT was supposed to be simple. And it is, according to Fujitsu Network Communications, which today announced that it is now going to push the connection-oriented technology as the “ideal” choice for metro Ethernet transport... New iPhone, old-style subsidiesBy now, you’ve seen all the coverage of the iPhone 2.0. But for our industry, the news behind the news is AT&T’s changing relationship with Apple... What Verizon’s SureWest and Alltel deals have in commonIt’s always fun to interview someone who has a good answer to every question--and Steve Oldham, CEO of Sacramento-based SureWest Communications, recently provided that kind of interview. I talked to him about the company’s strong take rates for triple-play services and about one service the company won’t be selling any time soon--wireless... Marching toward the inevitableThere is no doubt in my mind that, over the next year or possibly two, broadband service providers will begin offering service options based not only on bandwidth but on quality of service... Riding the FMC hype cycleFixed/mobile convergence (FMC) is another telecom victim of the hype cycle. The technology gets promoted, marketed and heralded as game changing; the buzz wears off; the benefits emerge followed quickly by the return of a second wave of hype; reality sets in and the hype dies down yet again... Are you smarter than Ethernet?At NXTcomm08, you’re likely to hear a lot of talk about making Ethernet more sophisticated, more discerning, and most of all, “more intelligent.” Of course, stressing the need for a more intelligent brand of Ethernet isn’t very flattering to the plain-vanilla kind. But let’s face it, Ethernet has always been in some ways like the Forrest Gump of the networking world... BT: A green leaderWith everyone talking about “going green, it’s easy to become skeptical about such claims. What BT announced today, however, goes well beyond talking... Time to get readyYears ago, before the advent of cell phones, a friend of mine used a calling card to call home from a phone booth after her car broke down. When the next phone bill came, she discovered her one-minute emergency call cost more than a 30-minute Mother’s Day call to a far-distant state... Adieu, Arun SarinVodafone CEO Arun Sarin is retiring. After five years as head of the world’s most far-flung operator, the man believes his job is done. He may be right... IPTV -- The great divideAT&T is completely sold on IPTV, and is singing its praises to anyone who will listen. But Qwest Communications and a handful of others aren't convinced. So what’s an independent telco to do? ... Who knew? 'Open' Web players turn to 'walled garden' modelsMajor Web players, so quick to be critical of the ‘closed’ telecom industry and its walled-garden approaches to services, are now turning to exactly the models it criticized -- even as they tout open user profiles and so-called data portability... DPI vs. P2PA few years ago, peer-to-peer traffic was well on its way to becoming the bane of Internet service providers’ existence. The machine-to-machine nature of the traffic enabled P2P users to be constantly consuming available bandwidth, without paying anything extra, and ISPs weren’t prepared... That time of yearTrade shows are simultaneously my favorite part of my job and something I absolutely despise. I love trade shows because they bring together a lot of people I otherwise wouldn't see regularly, and they give me a chance to pick the industry's brain, so to speak, in one brief period... Who's open now?When Verizon Wireless started talking open, I was suspicious. Traditionally, Verizon has maintained strict control over its mobile data services from what applications customers could access to how much data they could download over their broadband access plans partly to protect its customers, partly to protect its multibillion-dollar investment in 3G... Are MVNOs banding together?The latest scuttlebutt has Virgin Mobile and Helio discussing a merger deal. The world is a dangerous place for MNVOs considering the rash of bankruptcies and closures in the last two years. Apparently the remaining ones are considering forming packs in order to survive... Learning by walking aroundPublic speakers often like to poll their audience on a topic to keep people engaged and to gauge how to tailor comments to match the needs and sympathies of the audience. But as a journalist who often attends telecom industry speeches, I sometimes pick up some useful information by jotting down the results of these informal polls... Five things you need to know about Sprint/ClearwireThe long-rumored deal is done. Sprint and Clearwire today formally combined their WiMAX businesses, aided by investments from Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Here’s what you need to know... Cheaper! Faster! Slimmer!In a research note released last week, Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi is recommending a carrier subsidy on the iPhone to bring the price down to the $200 level. He predicts this will lead to a significant boost in sales... Repeating historyThere seems to be one lesson that the telecom industry keeps relearning, and it is simply this: Without a business plan that includes profits, the best technology won’t succeed... The numbers don't lieEarnings reports are a study in spin -- read a press release announcing even the most dire earnings, and you'll be hard-pressed to find the gloom and doom among the highlighted statistics... Back office on the hot seatWhen I sat down to chat with Kevin Hart, chief information officer for Level 3 Communications, this week at a trade show focused on back-office operations, I expected to talk about SOA, eTOM, CRM and an array of other tech/IT acronyms... |
advertisement CONTRIBUTED COMMENTARYLook! Up in the sky!OPASTCO, a small telco trade association, just released a report forecasting that small telcos, on average, will lose 17% more access lines and 13% of their revenues between now and 2010... Open wide and say, “uh, no”Paired with recent a recent demonstration of Google’s Android platform at its I/O Conference, one could assume we’re on the verge of who new world of openness where networks and devices are no longer joined at the hip and applications roam free like the deer and antelope of yore. Then again, one would be wrong.... IP's customer advantageMost operators around the globe are engaged in next-generation network transformation projects or IP transformation projects, moving from multiple single-service TDM networks to a single multiservice packet network... Mobile TV: "Catching the wave" in the U.S.?Many of us have experienced TV to mobiles, but this unicast experience is suboptimal -- the images break down easily and the proposition is untenably expensive for the large majority of potential users. In contrast, broadcast TV to mobile phones, which does not suffer these problems, has been commercialized already elsewhere, but is just now reaching US shores in force... Why carrier-class Ethernet is an intelligent choiceServices that enable increased bandwidth and the ability to scale alongside business needs will become even more critical to enterprises seeking to increase productivity without increasing costs. One such service allowing this is carrier-class Ethernet... Capex with a capital CCapital expenditures (capex) remain the most closely watched metric for determining the direction and level of investment that telecom carriers are making in network equipment and services. The problem is that capex is never linear in its behavior. Predicting what the carriers are likely to spend on their networks is a black art, at best... Why I like UMAWhen I recently heard someone refer to the technology known as Unlicensed Mobile Access as if it were a woman’s first name, I couldn’t help but consider my own thoughts about the technology... SMBs are going mobileDoes anyone work 100% of the time from the desk anymore? I doubt it. Small- to medium-sized business employees become more mobile every year, and the technology tools needed to support them must change at a faster pace... Carrier femtocell pricing doomed?I’ve been a proponent of the femtocell concept since the first rumblings of the concept came out of the startup community. We like femtocells -- everything about the topic. And really, what’s not to like about something that gives you a “five bar” wireless experience inside your home? ... Going green: From fringe to mainstreamAlthough the mobile industry has adopted a variety of environmental initiatives, significant opportunity exists to more tightly integrate environmentally sound practices with standard business operations to strengthen brand and increase competitive advantage... Waiting for Ethernet's third guyCarrier Ethernet equipment vendors generally fall into two camps these days. Most carriers would prefer to camp somewhere else... Net ushers in experiential TVThe past five years have presented major changes in the TV industry such as extensive, free video-on-demand catalogs and time-shifting with digital video recorders... Slicing the pieThe Landscape of service providers vying for a slice of the more than $2 billion U.S. business market for carrier Ethernet services has split into three segments: incumbents, competitive providers and cable multiple systems operators... Green packets and broadbandFive global forces drive growth and transformation. They are at work everywhere, albeit at varying levels of intensity, and they will change the telecommunications world... Getting to the core of WiMAX performanceThere is more to WiMAX networks than base stations and subscriber devices. The core network plays a crucial role in delivering the performance operators need... The bandwidth requirement conundrumBandwidth prognostications today focus on only the stream side of the equation -- adding up the total bandwidth requirements of all streams concurrently supported by the multi-service experience delivered. What these prognosticators forget, however, is that files are another matter... Content still clueless on DVRFor all the sympathy content producers have tried to elicit it's still remarkable to see how little they respect the consumer’s time, money and intelligence. Get this: We no longer own the pay-per-view movies we pay for and record on our digital video recorders... Find the buried treasure hidden within your networkIn an ideal world, telecoms should already have achieved an efficient and lean operational model by now, especially after years of M&As, spin-offs and transformational levers such as re-engineering, outsourcing and even offshoring... The big bandwidth liePerhaps it all started with Brian Roberts. Standing on the stage on a balmy Las Vegas morning, Roberts wowed the bleary eyed crowd by downloading a 4 gigabit collection of encyclopedias and dictionaries in just a shade under four minutes... IMS: A pregnant pauseAs a tribute to the recently deceased Arthur C. Clarke, please indulge a slight detour into science fiction to better emphasize the thesis of this column... Power crisis looming?Telecom power is a little like Rodney Dangerfield … it gets no respect! Well, not really. But, DC power is one of the last elements to be designed into a telecom network, after the packet-this and optical-that systems are selected... Wireless 2008: Hip to be greenFemtocells. LTE. WiMAX. There’s no shortage of hot wireless topics to keep people talking this year. Decoupled from technologies and standards, however, is another trend that started brewing last year and has quickly captured its own share of attention: environmentally friendly network solutions and practices... Ask Steve: IP communications and SMB adoptionIP telephony and unified communications: two great tastes that taste great together. These topics are near and dear to our hearts as we enter 2008. IP communications and SMB adoption are our topics this month in Ask Steve... Observations on the unified communications marketWe recently conducted research on the Unified Communications (UC) market, and encountered some interesting results that run against prevailing wisdom... The economics of SMB go-to-market strategyTalk to almost any communications executive today and they will tell you that small and medium businesses (SMBs), or companies with fewer than 500 employees, are viewed as an increasingly important market segment... IPTV's DVR strategy is flawedIPTV is reaching the mainstream, but there's still a big gap between what providers are offering and what consumers really want. A great example is the... Survival of the fittest -- Carriers need partners not vendorsProviders need more today than just high-quality infrastructure. In today’s climate of “what have you done for me lately,” the litmus test for choosing an infrastructure vendor is not only equipment, but also services that deliver quantifiable benefits to the top and bottom lines... Telco transformation: A do-or-die propositionFor the telcos, the 20th century was all about growth. A telco’s size was measured by its access lines. Its mission was to add more lines every year. But the 21 century offers a different challenge... Converging on an opportunityAs an industry, we see signs that the convergence of the Web, wireline and wireless networks is well underway. The next logical step is the delivery of content to all three screens – TV, PC and mobile device. What will this mean for the people who will use the services?... Unlimited offers – New plan or new business model?Much has been written about $99 unlimited voice plans recently announced by Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. The hype is deafening. But the fact remains that 99% of mobile customers don’t need $99 unlimited voice or kitchen-sink plans... |
