Cisco, like pretty much all network equipment vendors, is facing profit pressure. That might account for what sure seems like a hiring decision aimed at boosting its hardware creds, as Network World suggests. There are a lot of reasons Cisco might be doing this, and most of the reasons I’ll cite have likely contributed to…
One thing that should be clear to everyone at this point is that one access technology doesn’t fit all, at least with respect to broadband in general and broadband Internet in particular. Thus, the question isn’t when we’ll converge on one (fiber is the one most mentioned) but what indicates the best, or even a…
We hear a lot about the edge and edge computing, but we hear a lot about many things that don’t all turn out as we expect. How important will edge computing be? What do we even mean by “edge computing”? You get all sorts of answers to these questions. Gartner says that by 2025, 75%…
Remember the “turbo button” idea? An Internet user could push it and get a burst of additional speed. Don’t sprain your fingers pushing at it, because it’s D..E..A..D. Remember the notion of a gaming-themed Internet service with ultra-low latency? It just received what’s likely a mortal blow, according to a Light Reading story. There are…
There’s no end to the bad news for telecom spending, apparently. A recent SDxCentral article illustrates the problem and perhaps exposes one of the underlying causes, but I think it’s also important to draw a connection back to one of my blogs last week. Yes, in an indirect way, net neutrality policies are responsible for…
When you ask questions you sometimes get solid answers. Sometimes, you get answers that are less than solid. Are network equipment vendors jumping more into the enterprise market? Yes, unquestionably they are. Is that the right move? Yes, but…. That makes the question we need to look at simple; how solid is that “yes, but”,…
Yes, we apparently need to look at an old topic again. One of the persistent challenges we’ve faced with networking in the age of the Internet is that of “neutrality”. Interestingly, it’s an issue that really arose before the Internet was much of a factor, coming out of the “privatization” of the previous monopolies on…
As I’ve noted in earlier blogs in this series, this week, one technology option for customer experience management stands out…AI. OK, maybe it stands out because AI stands out of most everything these days. Maybe it’s because AI is at least one reason why HPE wants to buy Juniper, and Cisco wants Splunk. But there’s…
Customer care is important everywhere, but probably nowhere as much as with any form of “service”, meaning the delivery of a capability, application, or experience through a network connection. The changing nature of the “services” we’re talking about has created major challenges for those who want to manage the customer experience, challenges that extend the…
It’s not surprising that of 344 companies that offered views on their strategic priorities in the last six months, 321 listed “improved customer care” at the top of their list. Customer care is also a major cost item, a big component in opex for service providers and a major cost for enterprises. Even equipment vendors…