* Industry players, pundits and profiteers debate issue at Next Generation Networks 2005
We use the telephone network for voice and some IP data; we use the Internet for data and some voice.
We’ll use one network for both someday. But today, there’s considerable debate on what that next-generation network will be – an outgrowth of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or the Internet.
That debate took center stage at last week’s Next Generation Networks 2005 conference, the annual gathering of industry players, pundits and profiteers.
“There’s considerable uncertainty right now on what the next generation network will look like,” states Conference Chair Dave Passmore, research director of the Burton Group.
And how. It creates standoffs between standards organizations such as the ITU and the IETF. It considers the exploding impact of wireless, video, message-based routing and peer-to-peer applications on foundational IP routing structures developed at a time when those technologies couldn’t even be conceived. And it asks whether the Internet should be rebuilt using a “clean slate.”
But most critical of all is that the uncertainty has the potential to reach into the pockets of carriers and their customers. The direction of next-generation networking could determine the how tightly customers are tied to carriers forced to reinvent their business models to stay alive.
“We need to acknowledge the fact that something is wrong with the business model of the public network,” says Tom Nolle, president of consultancy CIMI.
Adds Passmore, “Providers want to take back control of the Internet. They feel it’s out of control.”
