Eye on the Carriers

By Johna Till Johnson

Investing in (all kinds of) infrastructure

11/02/09

October 27 marked the 105th birthday of the New York City subway system, which is both gratifying and depressing.

Firing up those femtocells

10/15/09

The folks over at the Femto Forum, in conjunction with the European telecommunications standards institute, recently announced a "plugfest" for March 2010. The plugfest will serve as a forum to for interoperability tests among femtocell network gateways, security gateways, femtocell access points and chipsets.

Hello net neutrality, goodbye Internet

10/01/09

As the old adage goes, "Be careful what you wish for — you might get it, and wish you hadn't." Proponents of net neutrality might want to keep that in mind now that net neutrality regulations from either the FCC, Congress or both are a virtual certainty.

Transformative technologies for the 21st century

09/16/09

Innovations seem to have a natural economic life cycle: an obscure invention (say, electricity, or the internal combustion engine) sparks an entire constellation of industries, which grow exponentially for a while, then settle into a stagnant maturity.

Can UC me now?

09/01/09

Unified Communications is a buzzword that's front-and-center for many organizations this year. Some are already deploying various UC technologies (UC is one of the top three "recession-proof" technologies in Nemertes' 2009 benchmark). And many are building out long-term UC strategies.

Telecommuting on the rise, though not necessarily within IT departments

08/19/09

IT departments are behind the virtual workplace curve despite rise of unified communications and other technologies that ease telecommuting.

The battle over voice, the war of UC

08/05/09

Last week, I wrote about the possible implications of the new lineup of FCC commissioners. They certainly haven't wasted any time: On Aug. 3, the FCC launched a full-scale investigation into the decision by Apple and AT&T to reject Google's voice application for the iPhone.

The FCC has a full court: What's next?

07/30/09

With the recent swearing-in of the FCC's chair, Democratic Commissioner Julius Genachowski last month, and the Senate approval of the nominations of Democrat Mignon Clyburn and Republican Meredith Attwell Baker as commissioners last week, the FCC is back to its full strength of five commissioners.

A look at cloud computing's dark lining

07/22/09

Unless you've been living in a cave all summer like one of my friends (it's in Finland, he's an artistic genius) you've probably heard the buzz about cloud computing.

Make sure yours is a WAN with a plan

07/15/09

Now is an excellent time to be reevaluating your WAN strategy. New technologies such as carrier Ethernet and Session Initiation Protocol trunking can help cut costs and increase availability. WAN and application optimization technologies can make better use of existing facilities. And many companies are experiencing a (likely temporary) pause in the unrelenting expansion of branch offices -- making this the perfect time to take a few steps back and revisit the overall networking strategy.

When private information and business concerns collide

07/08/09

I often advise IT professionals of the need to step up to working with their companies as strategic advisors around technology-related issues. This means helping business folk understand the strategic and practical implications of new technologies — and recommending policies that make sense in light of what technology makes possible.

Do you recognize your job description?

07/02/09

IT is undergoing one of the most significant transformations in recent memory -- yet most IT practitioners (including telecom managers) are only dimly aware of what's happening.

Events in Iran prove Bradbury wrong

06/25/09

Here's one of the more ironic juxtaposition of events in recent memory: Last week, famed science-fiction author (and anti-censorship advocate) Ray Bradbury came out against the Internet — just as the 'Net's ability to evade censorship played a crucial role in advancing the cause of democracy in Iran.

Too few fighting the good fight on privacy

06/17/09

I'm constantly amazed by the brazenness of certain large companies and governments when it comes to abuse of privacy. The most egregious recent example: The Chinese government announced that starting July 1, it will require the installation of rootkit software on all PCs sold in China — ostensibly to prevent its citizens from visiting "objectionable" sites on the Web. (If you believe that, I have a Great Wall to sell you.)

Faster, better, cheaper -- pick one

06/10/09

It's an old engineering adage that you can't have it all. As the saying goes: "Faster, better, cheaper — pick two." The idea is that any system can optimize at most two parameters, to the detriment of the third.

GM to Cisco: A momentous passing of the torch

06/04/09

It's official: General Motors is off the Dow, and Cisco Systems takes its place. The transition is more than just a dry Wall Street accounting maneuver: From a cultural, economic, and societal perspective, it marks a seismic shift in how our world is organized.

Videoconferencing hits the big time … for real

05/28/09

It feels like 1989 all over again. Wacky haircuts are back (I think I saw a mullet the other day). "Alternative rock" sounds a lot like what used to be called "new wave." Big shoulders are back. And we geeks are waxing rhapsodic about the wonders of videoconferencing.

Embedded intelligent networks are mushrooming

05/21/09

One area I'm paying a lot of attention to these days is what I'm calling "embedded intelligent networks," or networks that integrate seamlessly into physical reality, enabling us to monitor and ultimately manipulate the real world across the net.

Carrier salespeople can be (unintentionally) funny

05/14/09

Most IT professionals hate doing telecom RFPs. No surprise — much of the effort is process and paperwork, two things that many find tedious and boring.

The Internet sky really is falling

05/06/09

Many folks are familiar with the modeling we've done over the past few years highlighting the fact that Internet demand is outstripping capacity, specifically access capacity. The findings were, to put it mildly, controversial: We've been called everything from carrier shills to nut-jobs. (No, the research wasn't sponsored. And we never claimed your fillings were receiving extraterrestrial radio signals).

Of subways, government subsidies and broadband

04/30/09

There's a lot of talk these days of the "Internet as public utility." In fact, if you parse the language of the stimulus package, you definitely pick up that perspective as part of the motivation for investing $7.2 billion in Internet infrastructure.

Managing mobility is all about details: Part II

04/23/09

Last week, we talked about some great ways to get your arms around the challenge of managing the mobility initiative inside your organization. We covered the components of a mobile strategy and the need for device standardization, contract consolidation and user-profile-based issuance of devices. But as I said, there's more. What follows are some additional components of an effective mobility policy.

Managing mobility requires casting a wide net

04/16/09

Mobility represents one of the fastest-growing line items in most IT budgets as an increasing number of employees request and receive mobile services. Yet most companies don’t even have a mobility strategy: Only 40% of the IT pros I work with have deployed one (though another 40% say they’re developing one).

Of heroes and wonks in the IT ranks

04/09/09

A few weeks back, one of my clients remarked that he architected his data center network so as to "avoid the need for heroes." His point was that if the network were sufficiently robust, there would be no need for 3 a.m. heroics to keep things running.

Is the Internet doomed to fail?

04/01/09

Has the Internet passed its "use-by" date? There are worrying signs that the Internet's architecture may not be able to scale effectively much longer.

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