Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - Networking Archives

Avaya Takes Networking Lead in SPB

2013-05-15T22:19:19Z

At Interop Las Vegas 2013 Avaya was demonstrating their real-world Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) solutions and while interoperating with Spirent, HP and Alcatel-Lucent. Many of you will remember when Avaya was actually the enterprise division of Lucent before the company spun off just over twelve years ago. Randy Cross the company’s director of PLM discussed how there is a rapid move to software in the networking market and SPB is an evolution of MPLS allowing services to be created dynamically on the server where the applications reside or on the switches nearest the users.

This is one of the main benefits of SPB in-fact… It allows customers to simplify network creation and management by requiring service provisioning only at the edge of the network. Avaya thinks the new protocol has a bright future as it saves time, effort, and reduces human error by dynamically building and maintaining the network topology between nodes using intermediate system to intermediate system (IS-IS), a carrier-grade link state protocol. Another benefit lies in its ability to establish a multi-path fabric for traffic distribution and subsequently maximize bandwidth utilization on all paths while being able to execute seamless, sub-second network changes.

The company showed multicast over SPB utilizing its VSP 4000 multiservice edge switch and later demonstrated a sub 200 millisecond failover to me in their booth. I can’t vouch for the actual speed of the failover recovery as I didn’t have a stopwatch but it seemed quite rapid.

Cross told me using this technology and the VSP4000, you can extend the service enabling fabric to the edges of the network supporting a distributed enterprise.

He further explained that they deployed this technology with video surveillance company Pelco and were able to show that SPB provided three times better performance than IP multicast (PDF) without needing to reset the IP cameras frequently.

Another big benefit of this technology is building metro area networks (pictured) where a data center can have VSP 7000s or VSP 9000s while the VSP 4000 can sit in the basement of a building providing all the benefits of MPLS with security and isolation at a lower cost. This can be as simple as having a few engineers lighting up the metros quickly with fiber to the building and a truck roll to deploy the box he explained.

Other benefits of this solution include simple commands of a few words to allow services to come up quickly between nodes as well as the ability to transfer virtual machines rapidly between the gear of various equipment vendors.

Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst, ZK Research had this to say about the news, "These four vendors coming together to showcase SPB interoperability in a public forum such as Interop is significant. In comparison to alternative fabric technologies, SPB offers more vendor support, offers greater scaling and has implementations which are closer to the actual standards – facilitating this type of interoperability testing. Companies that are looking to virtualize data centers and reduce network complexity need to consider an approach based on Shortest Path Bridging."

GENBAND Perspectives 2013 Live Blog

2013-04-30T13:06:04Z

Check out What's on Tap for the GENBAND Perspectives Summit? by TMCnet's Rich Steeves

See me live at 2:00 pm today here at GENBAND Perspectives 2013 where I speak on a panel "Harnessing the Power of Social Networking" in the Grand Cypress Ballroom here at the Hyatt Regecy Grand Cypress.

I am in Orlando for GENBAND Perspectives 2013 and the show is about to begin. last night there was a poolside reception which was rained out - but the venue was able to move about 1,000 people quickly indoors where the reception continued without a hitch. OK, a few of us had some wet clothes but other than that things have gone well so far.

Drummers kick off event

GENBAND Chairman David Walsh takes the stage. "Digital life is interactive. We are constantly interacting with it. None of it can happen without secure digital networks." Will companies, lead, follow or get run over? They have to decide he said.

General discussion about how many new domain names are registered... How many emails are sent - how much of it is spam (hint: almost all), how many people are on the Internet, etc.

He segued into a discussion of OpenTable and Uber - apps which don't use people but they facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers for restaurants and car services. 1 in 8 married couples met online he continued.

He made a funny telecom joke - if you got hear early, you could use SinglesAroundMe to find a date and then use Uber to get a car and OpenTable for a restaurant location - this is the new triple play.

He also discussed WhatsApp and Viber - he uses and loves both. He mentioned these OTT services are great but not ubiquitous. GENBAND is developing tech to allow these services to be federated.

Discussion moved to WiFi - he discussed the law of wireless gravity - bits will find their way to lowest cost infrastructure as fast as possible. "Spectrum is constrained and expensive. We can use math and science to make it more efficient but it isnt as effective as fiber which you can deploy more of to add capacity."

New York will become a carrier by converting phone booths to wireless hotspots - they will be able to become an ad agency and deliver content to various geographies and generate revenue. Hotels are also telecom carriers because networks are built where people gather and vice versa.

Discussion of how much heat is generated by data centers - they are power an water hogs (for cooling). Intertech is their partner and they provide more efficient cooling solutions.

We are beginning to see the start of cyber-warfare they also have an investment in Mandiant - the company finds and remediates problems. Also they are working with ISC8 to help find faults before they happen because quite often you find a threat 40 months after the intruder got into your network.

Devices are more valuable than ever. We want to help you [carriers] become a vital part of this evolution.

Charlie Vogt President and CEO takes stage

Discussion of the pace of change, GENBAND success - growth, speed of growth and forecasts of future growth. 80 of top 100 service providers are their customers. They are a hug part of Verizon FiOS, BT, Shaw, NTT, Telus and a number of other carriers. At CIBC and University of Texas at Austin - they are providing significant telecom infrastructure.

We are watching a video about how GENBAND empowers service providers and enterprises - by boosting scalability, efficiency and profitability - "Making Networks Smarter."

$100M annually in R&D is invested by the company. Small cells, WebRTC and cloud are a few areas of these investments.

Verizon CTO Tony Melone takes stage starts off - tech can build a better future... Together with partners we will take on societal challenges, healthcare, public safety, education, etc. Gave example of a wireless telepresence robot to allow remote students to learn. Also, "Make the world more sustainable and improve healthcare and remake entertainment with state of the art infrastructure which delivers superior experience consumers want."

Apps have to run on secure, reliable, available infrastructure - this is the vision at Verizon. We strive to deliver this day in and day out. 4 platforms.

4G/LTE - largest footprint in US and world... We achieve speeds faster than advertised today. US is ahead of world in 4G - thanks to our competitors trying to catch us.

IP - important in everything we do

FiOS - our Quntum services offers 300 mbps to consumers - soon we will offer 1 gbps if they need it. Reminds us we constantly underestimate tech needs/growth.

Cloud: Terremark: this is an important part of our portfolio.

We built 4G on 700 mhz spectrum and will put AWS to use soon. We need more spectrum and will go out an get it as needed. He doesn't understand why some want to limit telco access to spectrum.Explained the company is using the spectrum it acquires - it doesn't shelve it. It is investing billions in spectrum build-out in-fact. Won't launch before it is ready- it is not trivial to build a nationwide VoLTE/wireless VoIP network.

Video is 50% of global traffic on backbone some estimate as high as 90% in not too distant future.

Gave shout out to GENBAND, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and others who allow them to provide more cost-effective services.

Moved to smart-home discusion - FiOS - PON - 18M homes, mid-30% penetration roughly. 150 HD channels and reminded us up to 300 mbps to the home. They will migrate the backbone from 2.5 Gbps to 40 gbps and when this happens, they can provide 1 gbps to home.

In their broadband home router - they want to add intelligence so new devices can connect quickly and then connect to the cloud without user set up. They want to mak it easier for consumers to get access to the latest technology.

They see FiOS more as a business play - allows them to enhance their investment in the asset. They are being aggressive in moving from copper to fiber. Will accelerate this move based on what they learned in Hurricane Sandy.

"Cloud is real and growth continues... Means different things to different people." They focus on enterprises - secure connections to cloud with a breadth of services. Managed apps and services...

Thinks their platform will be ideal for partners to build upon. This is how they want to help solve the challenges in the world.

He then showed a video - some of it is below:

We enable so much of what is possible with innovation - we shouldn't forget how important we are - we need to continue building trust with customers - provide reliable networks etc.

M2M 40% growth - 50B devices by 2020 to be connected - partnership with QUALCOMM, Mphase - make it easy to take non-traditional devices - connect to Verizon Wireless network.

How can we make tech make the lives of our customers better and improve societal issues like healthcare.

Tim Wagner of Samsung takes the stage to discuss the company's transformation of the last three years - how the company has become a smartphone leader from a feature phone leader... Said no other company has done this. Largest electronics company in world... $200B organization. Selling 1,500 devices per minute.

Talked about how their commercials made their competition seem like the device was for old people - basically talking about Apple and the ads where Samsung users wet to the lines where Apple customers were waiting to buy.

Now discussed how much their social media presence has grown. Also - discussed hoe 500+ customers launched the Galaxy S4 phone at once. Around 120-125M Galaxy devices have been deployed. This doesn't count TVs appliances, feature-phones and other devices.

Discussed Samsung SAFE for enterprise - connects device to MS Exchange and ActiveSync, on device encryption, VPN support, MDM support from AirWatch etc.

Says they have systematically defragmented Android - makes the devices consistent across carriers and form factors and price points. IT manager can test one device and add SAFE - not each device.

26 devices run SAFE today.

Gave case study examples of successes.

AA has 16,800 Galaxy Note devices - allows American Airlines to provide same level of service to top First or Business Class. Their business is transformed - no more manuals or paper tickets.

Helping customers with tech implants - heart issues - allows them to know if they have heart problems through app on phone. First tablet approved for cockpits in US. DISH Networks - reducing four-hour window, use Galaxy Note to track installers and reroute them based on success at install. Allows them to check reception from top of ladder - don't need to go back down to test repeatedly. Can upsell and gt an electronic signature. Takes a four-hour window to potentially a 90-minute window - changes their business.

65,000 unit Galaxy win at HP.

Moved to discuss Samsung Knox - starts from metal of device to software... Allows work/life balance - keeps you from losing personal photos when enterprise wipes your device.

When turned on - looks for Samsung OS - if it doesn't find one, it will not boot up. Worked with NSA on this - security enhanced Android. Any unapproved apps are deleted/killed. General Dynamics is selling these to the government. They decided to focus on Government realizing that other regulated industries will follow.

Also have a container for business and personal use.

We have the most number of smart devices that are out there he said.
education, healthcare, manufacturing, hospitality and other vertical solutions are their focus going forward.

Samsung and GENBAND collaboration - enhance productivity, anytime, anywhere access to data - creating "Smarter Office." Discussed better business value.

He gave an example of allowing you to tap a phone to a tablet and being able to transfer a all from your office to your mobile device so you can listen to your conference call on the way home and spend more time with your family. Then explained they think GENBAND is the ideal partner to help them provide all this value to the market.

Samsung has an Oprah Moment - everyone in the audience gets a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 - now that is amazing!

This concludes the live blog for now - I am about to prepare for my talk in a few hours - right after the lunch break.

xCom Global's International Wireless Solution is Fantastic

2013-03-02T23:22:43Z

Perhaps the best part of my trip to Barcelona, Spain to visit Mobile World Congress 2013 was not having to worry about wireless broadband the entire time I was there. You see I was sent a review unit of the XCom Global wireless broadband device which allowed me to stay connected the entire time I was in the country without having to worry about roaming charges, overage charges and heaven knows what other sorts of fees and taxes one deals with when leaving their home country.

The company sent me a used Novatel Wirelss MiFi 2372, instructions, an extra battery and a case of adapters for various outlets throughout the world. They gave me a SIM for Spain and I was off and running. Did it work? Yes. Was it awesome? Yes. Verizon charges $25/100MB for international access and if you are a heavy data user like I am - you will pay through the nose.

XCom Global solutions come in a variety of flavors including USB modem and hotspot

As a result of the XCom Global modem, I didn't need to use my wireless access that often. The few times I did use it resulted from the XCom Wireless modem shutting off or disconnecting. It did this from time to time but I did make it one whole day without having this problem at all. Perhaps the used modem had a flaw. But of course this is speculation.

It's worth pointing out the testing environment I used was brutal - the Mobile World Congress convention center. It was full of WiFi access points - probably more than the average person will ever see at once on their device.

The good news is that in four days of using the modem in this environment, it worked amazingly well. As long as I was connected I was able to communicate. Sure, sometimes it slowed down but regardless of how deep I was inside the steel and concrete I was always able to get a signal.

At nights I took the device to the gym and streamed a combination of Siris XM satellite radio, Pandora and Slacker. I never had a prblem with the music quality or buffering issues. A few times I noticed the WiFI icon on the phone disapeard meaning I was streaming over native 3G. As you can imagine, this did cause my phone data usage to increase quite a bit.

The cost for the service is $14.95/day and for this amount you get a real price in advance without hidden fees, charges or bill shock.

Would I recommend the service? Absolutely. My only concern now is traveling without it. Sure I can just pay Verizon its roaming charges but the beauty of the unlimited plan is I live my life the way I like to. I stream music if I choose to. If I want to approve a video shoot my team sends me via e-mail, I can do it while in the cab. I don't have to wait to get to the room and use WiFi.

In short, XCom Global's wireless broadband device makes me more productive and increases my enjoyment when traveling. I'm not sure how to put a price on that.

Metaswitch Asks: Are You Ready to be a Software Telco?

2013-03-02T12:26:58Z

Virtualization has made the IT world much more efficient and cloud technology allows applications to scale up and down at will in a far more cost-effective manner while requiring little to no CAPEX. There is hardly an industry which hasn't been affected as software and hardware vendors have worked together to make sure they are ready for this new world where a single server can run multiple instances of an application on servers which are flung far around the globe. Even the PBX-world has gotten into the game with many vendors - especially those doing business with Fortune-class companies supporting virtualized software communications servers.

In a recent conversation with Steve Gleave (pictured) and Carol Daniels of Metaswith at Mobile World Congress 2013, I learned the company is taking the move to virtualization seriously and their recent product launch of 19 months ago - the SBC, was developed to run in a such an environment.

The benefits of this evolution are obvious - carriers will be able to utilize the same virtualized technology they use in their data centers in their networks and purchase in a far more flexible way. Moreover, their services will run on bare-metal servers and will scale far more rapidly. This means they can take advantage of public clouds, virtual private clouds, private clouds and hybrid clouds - all the amazing choices a typical enterprise has today. Security, cost and CAPEX versus OPEX decisions will likely drive their decisions - again, just like an enterprise or data center decision-maker.

One other crucial benefit of this move is there will be more choice for carriers looking to deploy solutions from the more innovative companies in the market. Typically these are the players who do the most interesting things but they quite often run out of money before carriers deploy their solutions and subsequently they go under. For me its been about 30 years spent meeting the principals of these doomed entities - early in my career at trade shows such as TCA, SuperComm, ICA, Computer Telephony and NATA which took place in the eighties and nineties.

The large-scale euthanizing of innovative telco suppliers (and many of the events they attended as a side-effect) has created a cycle of uncertainty where carriers want to be sure their solution partners are going to be around for the long-haul. Moreover they want them to be there to scale rapidly and service what they sell. In the world of hardware this means a new vendor has to have very deep pockets to be able to sell to large carriers.

What has become common in the market is for CSPs to wait for the larger players to emulate what the smaller guys are doing and just buy from the company they arre used to doing business with. Or in other cases, the smaller players would be "coerced" into agreements with large equipment providers who would take part of the revenue from the sale and provide the gravitas, relationships and support needed to keep the large carrier happy. This is how Acme Packet got its start for example and in doing so, took out the competition in the SBC space last decade.

The point is, now hardware players will become software companies which means the bar for purchase from a large telco while still high, has dropped down quite a bit. This was the goal by the way of the ATCA modular communications initiative last decade from Intel where hardware vendors could all write software on a single hardware standard but the Intel division certainly wasn't pulling its own weight as evidenced by the fact it was sold off to Radisys in 2007 for $25M.

This time though the chicken-and-egg problem may finally have eroded allowing current carriers to be far more flexible in the new services they offer and upstart carriers can rapidly scale and compete with incumbents without having to purchase massive amounts of central office equipment to get started.

Gleave further discussed the industry's proactive push towards Network Standards Virtualization through the ETSI working group by the same name. The backers of this initiative are the largest global carriers such as AT&T, BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Verizon and 52 other vendors joined together to support this initiative this past January. Obviously there seems to be a huge push to shake up the way comms systems are designed.

You may remember, Metaswitch once owned a separate company called Data Connection which was very strong in developing and selling low-level protocol software stacks and related solutions. The two companies merged some years back into the parent company. Gleave emphasized, "We have software experience." He continued with a bit more confidence, "Writing for multicore and hypervisor environments are skills we believe we have as well." He added in a manner which seemed to be subtly taunting the competition, "All the core functions [of our solutions] such as IMS have been rewritten from the ground up to run in the cloud."

Expect the Metaswitch you know as the application server, gateway and SBC company to still do all these things but in software, running in virtualized environments on bare-metal servers. Their goal is to sell these solutions to you in order to turn your hardware telco into a software telco.

As a result of the meeting I asked Steve Gleave to speak on being a software telco at ITEXPO in Las Vegas, August 27-29 in Las Vegas. He is a great speaker and worth the trip to come see. I would mark your calendar now.

Teoco Shows Predictive Geotargeting at MWC2013

2013-02-27T17:50:02Z

At Mobile World Congress 2013 Teoco explained how they have carved out a niche in the market focusing on BSS and OSS analytics while taking advantage of geolocation to ensure operators not only serve their customer with greater profitability, they can also capture new revenue models.

The Virginia-based company has provided carrier solutions in the past such as service assurance such as capacity planning, managing network congestion, etc. They also provide network optimization like suggesting what direction a tower should tilt. Finally, margin assurance is a big area of focus - which in one case they say saved a customer half a billion dollars in five years through a variety of analytics projects such as reducing access charges, modifying contracts with suppliers, fixing uneven roaming scenarios, tower location analysis, network routing and other projects.

Jonjie Sena and Faye Henris spent some time with me providing details on how geoloaction teechnology coupled with analytics which sits on top of the above core businesses is where the real opportunity lies.

The company's INrange offering is a predictive analytics geolocation solution which determines with a high degree off accuracy where a user will be in the future. By looking at call detail, tower hand-off records and a slew of other data, including how long a person stays within a certain radius, the solution can help carriers target ads to customers in a brand new way - based on their likeliness to pass by a shop or head in a direction.

Sena explains that if geotargeted ads get a 4-5x premium over traditional advertisements, ads which predict where you will be and can influence behavior should be far more valuable. In fact he points out 70-80% of purchases are pre-planned suggesting typical location-based ads can at best get 30% of consumer spend. The idea here is there is a lot of money being left on the the table by carriers who currently get a very small portion of the advertising market.

Customers for their part need to opt-in to receive offers and can select which vendors they want to hear from and even what sort of offers they want. Another benefit of the technology includes no reliance on GPS which means no battery drain.

Carriers have watched tens of billions of advertsing dollars be made off networks they provide and have hoped to get a piece of an increasing consumer spend since the days of IMS promised carriers would be in control of the apps their customers use. Apple and Google quickly dashed such hopes and plans. Carriers however still own crucial data which can be very useful in providing premium ads, meaning if they play their cards right, they could get a piece of an ever-expanding ad pie.

Altair Semiconductor's 4G Chip Bet Pays Off

2013-02-26T16:54:16Z

As wireless markets globally move to 4G, Altair Semiconductor has targeted this newer network standard with a single-mode line of chips which cost less and use less power than mult-mode solutions which have to grapple with 3G and older standards. As consumer electronics devices become more price-competitive, choosing a streamlined solution means OEMs/ODMs can reduce their costs and pass part of the savings on to customers allowing more inexpensive solutions to be marketed.

The big news for the company at Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona was the release of a new chipset for LTE-A, the 3800/6300 FourGee line which can download at 150Mbps and upload at 50 Mbps. The chips support carrier aggregation and a wide frequency band span of 400-3800MHz with 6 concurrent LTE bands for both primary and diversity antennas, enabling global band combinations. There is further support for VoLTE and HD-voice as well as interference cancellation an peripheral interface support for a wide variety of applications from consumer electronics to M2M.

The company hopes it becomes the go to source for connectivity in an "internet of things" world and spokesman Matthew Krieger (pictured) brimmed with excitement about how their solutions are replacing competitors in the market. Moreover they see larger competitors selling 3G-disabled solutions as a sign they are on the right track.

Other recent achievements have to do with certification on the networks of Telefonica and Verizon, meaning ODM/OEM customers no longer need to get their products certified themselves.

Krieger continued to tout current success in the market and spoke of future opportunity which they believe will be quite bright as 4G markets in India and China begin to emerge.

Ciena Launches New Services Play

2013-02-25T23:53:23Z

Ciena has some exciting news when it comes to the world of service provider networks. We know the company as an equipment provider which has had years in the business but now they have branched out from not only upgrading networks but businesses. Chuck Kaplan VP Industry Marketing (pictured above) spent some time with me at Mobile World Congress 2013 explaining how his company has spent years helping customers not just spend money on their solutions but make it as well through a new consulting initiative.

The first step in the process is to redefine carrier services for a new world where data usage has tremendous spikes which are caused by things like cloud service utilization. They started down this path by helping a European provider by writing a 125 page SLA and from there they made it generic allowing it to apply to other carriers as well.

The company then started assisting its customer in selling to vertical markets like healthcare, wholesale and financial. They handle sales training which includes teaching the sales team about the specific vocabulary for each market.

The final piece is geoanalytics or identifying customers near a fiber plant. They refer to this concept as a profitability mapping and when you consider building a mile of fiber can take six months and cost $100k, finding customers who can be quickly served makes a lot of economic sense (so does the term they chose to describe it.) Of course this doesn't preclude the customer from serving a cluster of new customers who can be easily served with a wireless solution which connects to nearby fiber.

Kaplan tells me the company's differentiator in this new market is a solid handle on selling to verticals and helping carriers offer new cloud services. Moreover Ciena touts its aggregate experience in helping carriers throughout the world - something which gives them unique perspective on helping new carrier customers.

For now the company has focused on fixed-line carriers but may expand to wireless over time.

Thoughts on Alcatel-Lucent

2013-02-08T19:42:16Z

One of the greatest challenges incumbent companies face is the ambivalence and corporate politics incumbency breeds and it only gets worse in what we call the age of acceleration where competitors arise faster and technologies shift more quickly than ever. Nortel, NSN and Alcatel-Lucent are all companies who enjoyed decades of leadership in the carrier market and in the process decided to provide generous benefits for their workers which would eventually help make them uncompetitive.

There is more to it - in the late nineties, Lucent acquired companies so quickly that its workers didn't know exactly who did what. Nortel too made a great deal of acquisitions. The challenge for both companies was they didn't integrate their new assets into their companies effectively.

Cisco on the other hand was a master of buying companies with good technology and rapidly rolling the products out to its global salesforce allowing sales of the acquired companys' products to accelerate rapidly. To some degree they play an arbitrage game of taking a good local technology and providing it globally with a solid salesforce.

Few other companies have mastered the art of the acquisition like Cisco.

When Alcatel decided to Merge with Lucent Technologies the competition told me privately that the merger would take a few years to integrate well and then the new entity would be a force to reckon with. There was certainly much to look forward to - the merger of the best of US and french technology. In reality - the way things have been going lately, some have said the Franco-American company with power bases in New Jersey and France resembles the offspring of Snooki and Pepe Le Pew.

Of course this is why Alcatel-Lucent recently announced that CEO Ben Verwaayen will be stepping down.

On the financial front, ALU just reported a net loss of $1.85 billion for 2012. The explanation was that it has been suffering from lower than expected sales in Europe and China and it took a write-down in its wireless and optics businesses.

Highlights from the earnings release:

Sales fell 5.7 percent to $19.3 billion in 2012.
Adjusted operating profit was $156.6 million.
Margin of 2.9 percent was below the 5-9 percent Verwaayen had promised.
Cash was depleted $908.6 million in 2012.
Fourth quarter sales fell 1.3 percent from a year earlier as only the U.S. market was strong

The net loss stemmed largely from a write-down of $1.9 billion, which the company said was "related to the depreciation of goodwill and fixed assets, and the corresponding impact on deferred tax," which CFO Paul Tufano said was linked to the lower value of ALU's wireless and optical assets.

Like Nortel, Lucent had a number of problems this past decade and also had to deal with numerous acquisitions made at inflated telecom and dotcom bubble valuations. Moreover, Asian competitors have been ferocious and are taking the company on in ways it frankly can't compete with.

Last week at ITEXPO in Miami I had a chance to speak with Payam Maveddat of Taqua about telecom competition from Asia - this is before the Alcatel-Lucent news even broke. I reached out to him to get his precise words:

As I travel internationally to promote our US-based technology overseas, it has become evident to me that the holistic approach of the Chinese government of combining infrastructure financing and development, including roads, railroads, refineries, power generation, farming, and telecom does not allow for other companies to be able to compete on the same playing field in these developing markets and I am not surprised that Alcatel-Lucent is struggling to survive in this environment.

Of course there is more to it - Alcatel-Lucent is losing business in its own backyard as it hasn't innovated fast enough, some say it didn't cut deeply enough and its R&D investments are smaller than those of Huawei, a company with a smaller product line and access to cheaper labor.

Moreover, the company has (or had anyway) a strong enterprise PBX line of products but they are hardly heard about anymore - at least in the US. Of course the spin-off of Genesys makes little sense if you truly value your enterprise business. But the company has decided the carrier space will get the majority of its attention based on its outbound comunications with media and analysts.

Another area for expansion is the cloud where the company could have come up with many more services for resale by carriers, VARs and MSPs.

Having said that - the company's expansive line of business is bewildering and Oracle's acquisition of Acme Packet could signal yet another ferocius competitor - Oracle knows how to integrate and grow acquired businesses and if they pick up GENBAND things get a lot more interesting in the market as they can compete across a much broader product line.

TMC's Peter Bernstein had this to say about this news:

I’m on record as saying that the next 12-18 months will be a tipping point in the ICT industries, and what happens in this time period will dictate industry structure for years to come. This includes the telecom equipment sector, service provider as well as enterprise, where the accommodation of change and moving quickly are not historic attributes. In that respect, Verwaayen may turn out to be prescient about his successor needing to be focused like a laser on execution.

And he is right. So much can happen over the course of the next few years which will determine the future for years to come in the telecom and datacom markets.

Finally, we can't expect European and American leaders to get their act together in a manner which allows them to compete with China Inc. in developing markets. This means players like Alcatel-Lucent will have to have better products at better prices to become more competitive than Huawei, ZTE and a host of ther new entrants. Sadly this isn't likely but the positive news is the company is still a leader in advanced technologies like optical and wireless as evidenced by its announcement of a 400G/s optical connection spanning 275 miles in France.

See Payam Maveddat of Taqua's keynote from ITEXPO Miami last week - "Federation as a Service"

See GENBAND President and CEO Charlie Vogt be interviewed by me at ITEXPO Miami last week

Latest ITEXPO Miami 2013 Show Daily

2013-01-26T01:03:22Z

There is so much happening at ITEXPO next week I thought it made sense to share the latest show daily from the event - Friday, Jan 25, 2013. Some of the companies mentioned are Microsoft and specifically their Lync platform and UC connection, Truphone, TransNexus, Sangoma and FiberMedia. There is also a great conversation about BYOD versus BYOI or bring your own identity. There's lots more - check it out for yourself to see some of the exciting happenings at the show.

Belkin Buys Linksys from Cisco

2013-01-25T01:08:52Z

In a continuation of Cisco exiting the consumer market, the networking giant has announced it has sold this division to competitor Belkin for an undisclosed amount. Belkin will continue to honor all valid warranties and will now own about 30% of the U.S. retail home and small business networking market.

Cisco has had many failures in the consumer market for an obvious reason. They are in the business of selling expensive products to IT managers in large, medium and small companies where the margins are far better than they are in the consumer electronics space.

A past example of failure is the Cius tablet which was discontinued. Before I even saw it I said the following:

The downside risk is fairly obvious though and that is that software is cheaper than hardware and most anything the Cius can do, an iPad or other Android tablet can as well.
And then there is the consumer electronics angle - Cisco purchased Flip and shut it down a few years later because the company isn't very good at competing in the consumer space where margins are razor-thin. Obviously the growth of smartphones helped kill the pocket-sized video camcorder market as well.

Then there was Umi telepresence which I predicted would fail as soon as I heard about it.

Cisco has gotten its mojo back lately and even though its having problems in its video business, it seems to be on solid footing as competitors like HP and Dell are strugging. Of course IBM is doing great and Huawei and ZTE still are formidable.

So the news here for consumers is great as Linksys is back in the hands of a company that gets consumers. Subsequently Cisco has more time to focus on acquiring and/or developing new products for the enterprise and carrier networks.

Xirrus XR-520 AP For Smaller Areas

2013-01-24T14:18:15Z

Xirrus is known for large-scale WiFi systems and conferences and stadiums are a typical area where you will see the company’s products. It seems however there are times when Xirrus customers want to WiFi enable smaller areas. For this reason the company rolled out the XR-520 AP which they tout as the only software-programmable AP in its class with a radio that can run in either the 5GHz or 2.4GHz bands.

Lest you think the company is competing with the likes of the consumer router/AP companies whose products you can pick up in Wal-Mart and Best Buy – fear not… Xirrus touts the inclusion of significant horsepower in the form of a dual-core Cavium network processor.

The new AP also has a suite of integrated services such as wireless IDS/IPS, stateful firewall, spectrum analysis, guest access, and Bonjour Director for Apple iOS device optimization.

The news isn’t earth-shattering but does show that companies over time all look for growth and generally go up or down-market. There wasn’t much farther up the wireless networking company could go so the move down makes sense. It also allows them to move more product as the market for smaller APs is obviously larger than the market for huge ones. It’s a nice addition to the company’s XR-500 line of solutions.

Here are some past interviews which TMC has done with Xirrus and Cavium

Xirrus details their WiFi growth

Xirrus CEO Dirk Gates speaks with Rich Tehrani

Cavium Network Processor Interview

There are many more Xirrus video interviews - here is the complete list.

Limited Space Remains at ITEXPO SDN Workshop

2013-01-23T21:08:53Z

Software-defined networking is considered by many to be one of the most important, and potentially disruptive, developments in networking since the rise of the Internet. To date, networks and connectivity have come first, and applications have followed. SDN turns this model on its head, approaching networking from an apps-first standpoint.

By now, you may be aware you have access to a software-defined networking workshop at ITEXPO (admission is included with ITEXPO registration) but you may not know space is filling up fast. Please be sure and register ASAP as seats are limited. Here is a detailed agenda for more.

The fun begins Tuesday, Jan 29th at 12:00 noon. See you there - thanks.

These are the important sessions detailing what we believe everyone in technology and communications should know about:

Software-Defined Networking 101

Join an interactive discussion in which TMC’s Paula Bernier asks SDN experts the questions you need to know about the software-defined network, including what it is, what components it involves, what benefits that enables for whom, and what to expect in the SDN realm going forward.

Presented by: ACG Research, Alcatel-Lucent, Infinera, TMC

SDN in the Enterprise Data Center

This session will explore enterprise and data center applications of SDN

Presented by: Woodside Capital, ACG Research, Plexxi, TMC

The Role of SDN in Network Evolution

While SDN is based on a completely new vision of networking, data center operators, enterprises and service providers will most certainly not be replacing their networks entirely to jump on the SDN bandwagon. This session will offer an opportunity to hear from the big names in networking, what they’re doing to address SDN, and how they see this new technology tying into existing networks.

Presented by: ACG Research, Alacatel-Lucent, Huawei, Infinera, Plexxi

SDN Roundup

This session will provide a round-up of what we learned about SDN today and other noteworthy information about SDN, like market forecasts.

Presented by: TMC, ACG Research, Woodside Capital

In Summary, at the pre-conference/workshop you will get:

A detailed overview of SDN
An examination of the technologies and components involved in SDN
A Summary of the use cases of SDN
A Comparison of the players involved in moving SDN forward
Expert analysis on what SDN could mean for networking as we know it.

A Trip to the Corning Museum of Glass

2013-01-21T19:34:48Z

Over the past five years or so, glass has evolved from being just a display for our technology to the interface itself. If you dismiss all prior and unsuccessful attempts where a stylus was used, the iPhone began this trend. Now the terms smartphone and tablet are virtually synonymous with a touch-based interface which relies on glass. Corning, the company behind Gorilla Glass proudly counts just about every company in tech as its customer and says it has its glass installed on over a billion devices including products from Samsung, HP, Dell, Lenovo and Sony.

In order to find out more about Corning, I made the trek this past weekend with the family to the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY to learn more about the company’s history. It was a fascinating trip – worth the 4.5 hours’ drive in each direction. You can walk around a seamlessly endless variety of works-of-art based on glass and related materials. In addition you can see 15 minute shows on topics like hot glass where a glass design is made in front of your eyes. In addition there is a flameworking demo where you can see more glass made – but in this case the flame is handheld – not from an oven. The glass breaking demo was fascinating as well – you learn about why glass breaks and how it can be made more safely.

In 15 minutes you can see how glass works of art are made

Finally the optical fiber demo did an amazing job of explaining in plain English the technology which is responsible for letting you see these words.

One of the interesting quotes from the museum wall

Of all I saw, most fascinating was Colladon’s Experiment (below) where you witness that light stays trapped in a stream of water due to internal reflection. The light escapes and becomes visible only when you break the surface tension of the water by doing something like letting a drop of water hit the stream. Once this happens, you can instantaneously see the hidden light. This is the same principle behind the fiber optics market and this discovery is one of the many which made the high-speed internet possible.

Vince Desparrois works full-time at the museum and I can't imagine anyone explaining fiber optic technology in plain English better than him

Throughout the facility are videos and signs giving you a sneak peak into how glass became an essential part of WWII and also is used in telescopes, periscopes, microscopes and fiberglass insulation. You also get insight into how glass had to be developed for each of these applications and what became possible as a result. Most interesting of all were two common themes. Many of the inventions made by Corning scientists happened as a result of experiments but turned out to be accidental. I’m not taking anything away from these scientists mind you – just reiterating what they explained themselves.

Of course there are also lots of example such as the CRT-based TV where innovation came through sheer persistence. For example, allowing the development of rectangular glass which many said was impossible to make.

Moreover, many of the innovations the company created like optical fiber were invented before the market was really ready to embrace them.

The museum is great for techies and non-techies, adults and children. For an additional fee you can make your own glass work of art.

Sadly Gorilla Glass was what I hoped to see as part of the day but it was conspicuously absent. Thankfully I brought a smartphone and tablet with me to the museum so it really wasn’t missed.

xG Technology Scores Another Potential Win

2013-01-15T18:29:37Z

Yesterday I discussed how xG Technology scored with a big $6M win and today the company has announced Cornet Technology has entered into an agreement with xG to resell $5M worth of the company’s products to the government and DoD.

Cornet Technology, Inc. is a privately-held concern which designs, engineers, and manufactures a wide range of advanced command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) solutions targeted at U.S. and international defense and aerospace agencies.

The deal covers part of an end-to-end two-way video streaming solution for vehicles that is currently under development.

For a company which so many predicted wouldn’t make it – the potential for $11M in sales in two days is pretty impressive. Still, while the news of this partnership is great for company backers and employees, it isn’t a done deal quite yet.

A few other points. If the company is successful selling to the government via this deal - it could do exceedingly well selling to other governments around the world and to more US agencies as well. Also, M2M could be a market which can benefit from the company's solutions.

On the negative side of the ledger is the potential for ubiquitous WiFi coverage and Super-WiFi technologies to make the company's solutions less valuable over time.

Chinese Government Funds Global Telecom Roll Outs Through ZTE

2012-12-20T17:32:34Z

With global uncertainty the norm, many carriers have struggled to get financing for new infrastructure projects and in fact they have been a bit hesitant to spend on areas other than wireless where ROI is much more predictable. Subsequently, the financial challenges facing Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks, ZTE and others aren’t expected to dissipate any time soon. What may be a surprise to some though is how ZTE, a Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer with relatively low costs could have lost $414 in Q3 of this year while seeing sales drop by 13% and gross margins cut in half.

In response to this decline, China Development Bank (CDB) an entity controlled by the Chinese government has given the company a $20B line of credit at very low rates allowing it to streamline operations, continue its expansion and perhaps most importantly finance its customers’ purchases.

According to Chris Antlitz, Networking & Mobility Practice Analyst at Technology Business Research (TBR), ZTE is investing heavily in smartphones, tablets, enterprise network communications technologies, LTE-Advanced, heterogeneous networks, software and services automation and will now be able to fund resource builds, such as new Global Network Operations Centers (GNOC) to support continued growth in the managed services business.

The company hopes this continued strategy of investments in technology and financing its customers will allow it to leapfrog Alcatel-Lucent and NSN to become the number three provider of telecom equipment by 2015. TBR agrees and you can see below (click to enlarge) their projected ranking of each of the major telecom vendors. They assume ZTE will grow 10% each year. They also believe Huawei and Ericsson will continue to grow but at progressively slower rates. Other vendors will see a decrease in sales according to their estimates.

The bottom line is ZTE could be the number three telecom equipment vendor in a few years thanks to the deep pockets of the Chinese government.

The challenge the non-Chinese manufacturers have is bloated infrastructure, unions and legacy costs such as pensions associated with being in business for decades. Alcatel-Lucent for its part recently secured $2.1B in financing but much of this money will go to pay debts and to buy time as the company looks to spin off assets. It’s worth noting the Paris-based company has patent assets which includes those developed by Bell Labs and the aggregate number of these valuable pieces of intellectual property is at 27,900 and counting.

Perhaps they will sell some soon? After all Kodak just landed $500M using a similar strategy.

It will be very interesting to see if politicians tackle this issue as it does seem ZTE just received a major advantage in the market and could threaten global jobs as a result. The flipside of course is with American politicians actually using the funding of GM and Chrysler as a political advantage – explaining that without the government’s help, both companies would have gone under – there really isn’t a moral high-ground in a negotiation. Then there was that whole broadband stimulus bill.

Time will tell and 2013 should be a very interesting year for the whole market as mobility usage continues to skyrocket but not all players will benefit equally from this growth.