Our predictions for 2003

In keeping with our annual tradition of prognostication, today we offer you our top 10 predictions for 2003. Of course, a couple of these are tongue-in-cheek – but we’ll leave it to you to figure out which ones.

By year-end:

1. Videoconferencing over IP will have become THE mainstream corporate application for the conference room, and ISDN video-based systems will be relegated to the Smithsonian next to the first PC.

2. Videoconferencing to the desktop and mobile phone will remain a novelty.

3. A major European service provider will convert to a voice-over-IP core, based on Session Initiation Protocol, for a significant portion (greater than 30 %) of its voice traffic. Two North American long-distance voice providers will publicly admit the amount of VoIP traffic in their core.

4. 3G wireless subscribers will double worldwide, with most growth in the Asia-Pacific region. However, the main reason for 3G will remain voice capability – data will be only a value-added service akin to Short Message Service.

5. A major incumbent local exchange carrier in North America will file for bankruptcy.

6. The enterprise market will continue to demand innovation in convergence applications; the service provider market will not.

7. Steve’s Network World VoIP Tour will open on Broadway as a musical to rousing critical acclaim. The show will be titled “Convergence/Convergence” and Matthew Broderick will play the part of Mr. Taylor.

8. The whole world (except for a few skeptics) will finally believe that voice over the Internet doesn’t suffer from quality-of-service degradation.

9. A newsworthy denial-of-service attack on a carrier’s VoIP core will occur.

10.  The worst of the telecom meltdown will be officially declared “over,” and our industry will finally be able to mention the word “start-up” again without outrageous laughter.

All the best for 2003. We hope to see some of you at Comnet.