Well, the FCC is back to the net neutrality drawing board, drawing inevitable comparisons with the classic movie. The link I referenced is a good primer on the concept, written by someone who, like me, is skeptical about the concept. It’s not that I don’t believe we need some regulation, but it’s important that the…
Telco as a Platform?
TelecomTV had its first “Telco as a Platform” event, and the concept is surely interesting. Of course, these days, we can’t assume that “interesting” means or even implies “helpful”. So, let’s look at the referenced article and see what might have been a hit, and of course what might have been missed. For those who…
Where are We with Digital Twins in General, and for Networks in Particular
OK, I admit that I have a significant interest (some might call it an obsession) with digital twin technology. I think it’s justified, though, because I truly believe that the next critical step in information technology is its integration with the real world, with our work and our lives. To make that happen, to make…
The Role of AI in Networking: Enterprise-Positive, Operator-Maybe
Is networking the next bastion of AI hype, or is there actually a lot of value we could harvest there? That’s an important question, one this Light Reading article shows is already being asked. It’s true, as the article suggests, that mobile operators are hopeful, and also true that so are operators overall and even…
Seeking a Realistic Model for Feature Hosting
We seem all too often to miss our chance to ask important questions while there’s still time to plan out the optimum answer. So it is, I think, with the concept of service feature hosting. We haven’t really even tried to define what a service feature is, in fact. And while the decade-ago Network Function…
Taking Another Look at Telco Health
There is just no end to the bad news, or at least the bad stories, regarding the health of the telcos. Light Reading had an interesting piece, one that fairly link the problem to the mobile hype, meaning 5G and 6G. The linkage is fair, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. It also seems…
Enterprises and the Cloud: What’s Happening?
If enterprises are now admitting that everything isn’t going to the cloud, what is actually going, and staying? I’ve never believed the all-cloud hype, so for me that question is the most important. A related question is how much cloud reality is now reflected in enterprise planning, and since planning wrong got us into the…
Is a Netco/Servco Split Smart for Telcos and Markets?
The whole issue of telco profits is complicated, but one potential path to addressing the issue is to separate infrastructure from services—what’s often described as a netco/servco split. The notion is discussed in a Tata white paper, but I want to develop, justify, and offer my own views here. This turns out to be a…
Meeting the Operations Challenges of Virtualization
One of the most beneficial tech advances is virtualization. As the term is commonly used in both computing and networking, virtualization is a means of partitioning a resource in such a way that users of the resource see themselves as the only tenant. The result is lower costs with minimal (hopefully) QoE impact. Every enterprise…
Where are We in the Cycle of AI Hype?
OK, you know that I believe AI is over-hyped. You may have seen some recent stories in even non-tech media that show others hold the same view. Lets get to things we need to know…like whether the AI hype problem is with AI overall or just generative AI, and whether AI might actually be better…