We have network infrastructure, and we’ve had several models describing how it might be built better, made more efficient. So far, none have really transformed networks. We knew, through decades of FCC data on spending on telecommunications, what percentage of after-tax income people were prepared to devote to network services. We now know that the…
I blogged yesterday about the general impact scenarios for COVID-19. Today I want to look at some more network-specific points, in particular the general impact on network capacity and the capex response and the impact on 5G planning. It’s easy to say that network operators, faced with significant traffic growth, will respond with massive capital…
I keep getting notes about the bargains in tech and telecom stocks, followed by the promise that stocks could dip another 30%. I keep seeing stories about how we could hit 20% or 30% unemployment, which would surely make anything you’d pay for almost any stock today the furthest thing from a bargain. The recovery…
We may need a summary of my cloud centric view of network infrastructure. I blog four days of every week and I don’t want to repeat myself, but some who don’t follow me regularly may have a hard time assembling the complex picture from multiple blogs. It is a complex picture too, one that can’t…
It seems impossible to shake the debate on “containerized” virtual network functions for NFV, even as we should be debating the generalization of cloud-ready models. Red Hat and Intel, both with a considerable upside if network devices were suddenly turned into hosted virtual functions, has launched an onboarding service and test bed to facilitate “CNFs”. …
Containers and Kubernetes rule, which makes it unsurprising that they figure in a lot of recent announcements. In fact, VMware and HPE have both launched major initiatives that focus on the “dynamic duo of IT”. Both of them show why the combination is important, but they also show that it’s still possible to undershoot the…
A lot of companies in the networking space are “reorganizing” or “refocusing”, and most of them say they’re getting more into “software” and “services”. Their intentions are good, but their plans might be as vague as I’ve summarized them to be. In 2020, every company in networking is going to have to face significant pressures,…
What lessons should tech be learning from COVID-19? Not the personal lessons that employees and employers learn about contagion and how to prevent it; we know most of them by now. Not the supply-chain lessons, which in the end could be resolved only if everyone made everything themselves. Not even lessons relating to statistical analysis…
I think there are three steps to 5G success. Some of the steps are intuitive, some are counter-intuitive, and one may be downright offensive to some of the 5G proponents. I’m sorry about that, but I have to call things as I see (or, in this case, model) them. The first step is to recognize…
If business services are as critical as they seem (to the cloud, 5G, IoT, AI, and more), then we need to understand as much as possible about them, and how they’re a candidate for driving technology change. As I noted in an earlier blog, there’s a trend today to jump on business services as the…