The US may get funding from a proposed infrastructure package to “close the digital divide”. While this could be a boon for areas that lack good broadband services, these sorts of initiatives have been tried before, and some technologies have failed. Others may improve broadband based on current definitions of “good” quality, but have little … Continue reading Defining a Good, Realistic, Broadband Policy
Is the high price of 5G spectrum hurting telcos? AT&T has been under particular pressure from the financial industry on the point, but claims to be confident in their finances. There are a lot of moving parts involved in deciding whether spectrum costs are a risk, and the answer may be critical to the long-term … Continue reading Do Spectrum Prices Threaten Telcos?
Network operators have faced challenges in profit per bit for over a decade. The major concern has been with the “wireline” segment of their business, the segment that provides business access and VPNs, and consumer home broadband. Some of them have fared better than others, and since those challenges are surely expanding with the work-from-home, … Continue reading How Will Network Operators Fare in 2021?
Like most years past, we’re entering 2021 with a healthy population of exaggerations regarding tech issues. Since, as I’ve said many times, “news” means “novelty” not “truth”, I guess that’s inevitable. The problem is that 2021 is going to be a pivotal year for tech overall. We’re recovering from a pandemic-generated economic slump, we’re facing … Continue reading All That’s Tech Glitter Isn’t Gold
Is ATT right about fiber? The CFO says it’s a “three for one” revenue opportunity, which is why the operator says they’re likely to add to their fiber inventory. One clear message you can draw from that is that a one-for-one or two-for-one might not have been enough, which leads us I think to the … Continue reading Can a Fiber-Centric Strategy Help AT&T?
What can we learn from 3Q20 earnings? Company reports on revenue and earnings often provide us with important information about the real market trends, not the hype trends we so often read about. There were high hopes for this quarter from many companies, but did they pan out? What can we read from the results … Continue reading Quarterly Earnings Reports Give Us a Changing Picture of Tech
If you want to make money selling carrier cloud infrastructure, you’re running out of time. There are three Light Reading stories to buttress this view. First, Verizon and AT&T are both working through plans to build private wireless networks for enterprises. Second, IBM has joined other public cloud providers in going after network operator carrier … Continue reading How Cloud Platform Vendors Avoid Losing Carrier Cloud
Sometimes the real story in something is deeper than the apparent news. Nobody should be surprised by the decision by AT&T to suspend any new DSL broadband connections. This is surely proof that DSL is dead, even for the skeptics, but DSL isn’t the real issue. The real issue is what’s behind the AT&T decision, … Continue reading Tracking the White-Box Revolution
I know I talk a lot about “demand density” in my blogs, so much that you could think I’m saying it’s the essential underpinning of network evolution. Well, it kind of is. The future of networking is written in dollars, not in bits, and demand density is the fundamental dollar reality. I’ve been working through … Continue reading Why Optimum Transformation Depends on a Hidden Metric
Vendors are finally discovering the virtue of opex reduction. Cisco has included the network sector in its overall AI/ML strategy, complementing “intent-based networks”. Juniper’s Mist AI deal, combined with their recent acquisition of Netrounds, shows that they’re looking at more ways to apply automation, testing, monitoring, and other stuff that qualifies as operations automation. The … Continue reading Filling the Holes in Opex Reduction Strategies