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…
Exploring Cisco’s Hardware Move
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…
Broadband Access: One Size Doesn’t Fit All
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…
Taking a Deeper Look at Edge Applications
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%…
Turbo Buttons, Future Network Services, and the Edge
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…