WAN Services /

The 'brighter' side of war

By Daniel Briere
Network World, 09/24/01

Call us the old fogies. We're the ones who say, "Remember back in 1986?" Or 1993? Or, in this case, 1991?

In the telecom world, 1991 was the year everything jumped up a notch. Why? Because of the Gulf War.

Now unless you were in the reserves or a member of the armed forces, 1991 was probably the year when you finally found a great morning activity - getting out of bed and riding your exercise bike or walking on your treadmill while watching the war on television. But for the telecom industry, the experience was truly transforming. The State Department issued travel warnings. Overnight packages were delayed due to security pressures. No one really wanted to get on a plane, domestic or international.

Recall that in 1991, e-mail systems were very disparate and not well interconnected. E-mail addresses still had numbers in them - and not ones you could choose. Videoconferencing use stagnated in the ISDN morass. Conference calling was kludgey. So most people didn't use these technologies much - at least, not at the level of business-class use that we have today.

But there is something about not getting on an airplane that will change your mind about things fast. And there's something about surging usage that gives service providers and equipment manufacturers incentive to solve customer problems.

The Gulf War caused people to do things differently because they truly wanted to. This was personal, a matter of safety and security.

E-mail and fax usage soared. Videoconferencing services and equipment sales increased. New trials of frame relay and other data transmission-based video were announced. Anything that would help increase communications without a physical presence was the topic of the day.

And what is critical is that usage levels did not return to prewar levels after the cessation of hostilities. Why? Because habits were changed for good. People got used to sending e-mail attachments. They became familiar with videoconferencing and found it not so scary after all.

Fast forward to 2001. Today, many technologies are languishing because of lack of widespread acceptance. In this slow market, there are not many signs that the hockey-stick spike toward standard business practice will occur anytime soon.

Webconferencing, Webcasting, voice over IP, next-generation VPNs. The list goes on. We hear a lot about these technologies and growth is occurring, just not at a stark pace where every business in the U. S. is using them radically and regularly.Until now.

The emotion and constraints imposed by the recent terrorist events are going to take us through another era of transformation. As sad as it is, these terrorist attacks are going to revive the telecom industry sooner and faster than anyone imagined.

Expect Webconferencing to become a standard feature of most businesses within the next two years. Webcasting is going to become popular for training, press conferences and earnings announcements. Phone calls are going to be more popular. This means more voice mails, more conference calls, even more interactive voice response and automated call distributor installations. Every mature family member will have a cell phone. Having to drive more places will mean more added features such as voice-activated dialing, car-based connectivity and remote-access technologies.

It all builds on itself, and as in 1991, the key thing is not just this momentary spike in traffic. These technologies are going to be founded deep in new emotional roots - new habits - that are going to permanently change the way we conduct business.

For a telecom industry that has seen its own share of battlefields in the past 18 months, these changes will serve to create some positive news for a lot of people.