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Telecom
Next Generation Communications
Overcoming the Barriers of Time and Distance
New Services and Technical Breakthroughs Smooth the Path
Someone recently asked Joseph Ferra, chief wireless officer at Fidelity Investments, whether he had any concerns about wireless technology that would keep him up at night. His answer: "The only thing that would worry me to that extent would be if I weren't doing anything with wireless right now."
Ferra can sleep soundly. Fidelity, already a leader in the use of mobile technology,is planning to expand its m-commerce offerings enterprise-wide under the brand umbrella "Fidelity Anywhere." Wireless subscribers can now not only open and access trading accounts and place orders via mobile devices, but can check 401K balances. Before long, they will also be able to interact in a variety of ways with a host of other Fidelity-owned businesses.
Why is Fidelity so bullish on mobile wireless technology? Because, according to Ferra, despite the fact that data subscriptions represent only a very small slice of the current market, it is already clear that wireless is destined to become a primary means of communicating and transacting business. When that happens, he explains, the winners will be the companies that moved in early, built brand recognition, and evolved along with the technology. "Early on," he says, "people looked at wireless as a differentiator, something that would set them a little apart from the competition. Now, it is less a differentiator than a requirement."
Although corporate spending on communications gear and services has stalled recently, industry watchers are confident that most businesses regard investment in their internal and external communications infrastructures in the same way, and that the current purchasing slowdown will be short-lived. Probe Research, Inc., for example, is forecasting that, although the $6.1 billion that large and medium-sized enterprises will invest in Internet access services this year represents a considerable fall-off in the annual growth rate for the market, cash will flow more freely in 2002 and beyond. By 2006, Probe expects that business consumption of Internet access services will top $13 billion.
 Tighter corporate budgets aren't the only reason spending growth has dropped off for this year, according to Probe executive vice president, Hilary Mine. She attributes part of the decline to plummeting bandwidth connectivity prices. Internet access suppliers aren't able to charge as much for a number of reasons: a sharp reduction in the previously almost insatiable demand from venture funded dot-com startups; intensifying competition, and excess supply resulting from rapid and aggressive build outs of carrier networks. So, although corporations have been spending less, they have also been getting more for their money. And, as Mine points out, even companies that signed on for service when the market was booming can benefit. "This is a great time to renegotiate contracts," she says, " and I think most savvy IT executives are talking with their existing service providers."
It is also a good time for customers interested in value-added services and service level agreements (SLAs). Competition and pricing pressures are motivating Internet access service providers to look for new ways to maintain revenue growth. The result is that most are either introducing or considering a variety of value-added services, according to Mine. Among them are: bandwidth on demand (likely within 18 months); priority bandwidth, VPNs, (virtual private networks), telecommuter remote access packages, e-mail, VoIP, videoconferencing, streaming media, Web hosting, application hosting, security, and storage packages. Many of the items on this menu are, of course, already available from other sources, but Mine expects that ISPs will be aggressively looking to acquire or partner with ASPs and others in an effort to establish presence rapidly in these areas. For enterprise customers, the possible advantages include one-stop shopping for managed services, a single point-of-contact and more comprehensive SLAs.
Recent breakthroughs in standards and equipment have also yielded a number of ways for corporations to expand their networks and enhance their internal and external connectivity, without either emptying the coffers or adding to the complexity of network management. Some important areas of active development this year have been transparent LAN services, VPNs and convergence enablers.
Transparent LAN services
With 10-Gigabit Ethernet switches now available, service providers are beginning to offer high speed services using Ethernet switches, IP routers, and optical networking equipment. These transparent LAN services offer a very attractive alternative for several reasons: First, they provide more bandwidth for less money than investing in additional T-1 lines; second, since corporate desktops are already running Ethernet, these services require no protocol translations and can be provisioned quickly; and third, obtaining bandwidth this way means that you only pay for the bandwidth you require, as needed.
"Prices vary, depending upon the provider," says Michael Pierce, research director, Global IP Business Services for Probe Research, "but some are offering twice the bandwidth for the same price companies are already paying."
VPNs
Virtual private networks (VPNs) are not new, but until recently they required installation and management of equipment on customer premises. That made them a very costly offering for service providers, because they had to send out a technician to manage equipment at every VPN end point. Since the release of a standard that provides for a network-based VPN, all of that has changed.
Because service providers can now provide VPN capability from within their own networks, minimizing the points of potential failure and significantly lowering operational costs, these offerings have now become much more widespread. "I would guess that more than 70 percent of the major players have either introduced, or are planning to introduce some pretty serious VPN services," says Hilary Mine.
Just because network-based VPNs cost providers less, doesn't mean they are necessarily priced any lower. The big plus for the enterprise customer is the speed with which they can be set up or changed. "The real advantage is the increased agility these VPN services bring to your company's network by eliminating the wait time for adding new physical connections," says Galen Schreck, an analyst on the eBusiness Infrastructure Team at Forrester Research. "If you add a division or spin one off, you can redraw the architecture of your network and implement the changes within hours."
VPN services for mobile workers are also starting to crop up. A number of wireless mobile services and products are now available to permit secure roaming and connections to the corporate network.
Convergence
Enum theoretically provides a mechanism enabling users to reach someone anywhere in the world on any communications device - home, office, cell phones, pagers, instant messagers, PCs, laptops, or handhelds, etc. - simply by typing a telephone number into a Web browser. The word "theoretically" is important here. Although a number of IP telephony equipment and software vendors have announced that they plan to include Enum support in products this fall, at this stage it is not at all clear who will administer the directories necessary to make all of this happen, or how to prevent confusing fragmentation of services among the many interested parties.
Another milestone in convergence is the emergence of Web services as a development platform for a new breed of modular, Web-resident, applications that can simplify transactions ranging from m-commerce purchases to complex interactions among trading partners. Web services make use of several emerging standards - Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP); Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) and, Web Services Description Language (WSDL) - to allow businesses to locate, connect to, and exchange data in XML (Extensible Markup Language) message format with business partners. Because Web services are based on open standards, they will permit users to receive information on any device, wherever they are, and to interact with multiple applications or perform transactions such as fund transfers without multiple sign-in and verification procedures. For a business, Web services could provide a single interface to data residing in a trading partner's multiple systems.
Barriers do remain. Carrier standardization is still the sticking point for many aspects of next generation communications. The biggest remaining limitation to network-based IP VPNs, for example, is the fact that they cannot easily connect sites serviced by different carriers. "It is a ridiculous situation," says Schreck, "as ludicrous as not being able to call a customer because he has a different long distance carrier."
Fortunately, there are already some solutions in the works. Mine notes that Qwest is planning to offer temporary VPNs for non-Qwest customers. And according to Schreck, Smart Pipes, a third-party VPN service provider that specializes in providing outsourced configuration and management services to carriers, eventually hopes to be able to provide a toolbox that will allow carriers to build multi-carrier VPNs, so that where a teleworker or business partner obtains their services will not be an issue.
IP without a Radical Rebuild
Doing business now means staying in constant touch with a far-flung population of co-workers, business partners, and employees. The office is less a physical space than a portable support system. Operating effectively in this environment requires full-featured mobile communications solutions that coordinate seamlessly across multiple locations.
AG Communication Systems, a subsidiary of Lucent Technologies, provides open-architecture, IP network-based solutions - advanced worldwide Centrex, virtual offices, virtual call centers, and high-speed data transmission - that allow businesses to achieve flexibility and location independence without scrapping their existing communications infrastructure.
The company's iMerge Centrex Feature Gateway gives service providers the ability to offer the full spectrum of voice, data, and Centrex features over Internet protocol (IP) networks, using their existing Class 5 switches. The iMerge Network-based Call Signaling (NCS) Gateway offers residential customers IP voice services through cable television networks. ClientCare Call Center DE is an enhancement to Centrex service that provides complete call center functionality from one central office, independent of the switch vendor. The SuperLine integrated access system offers fully-featured voice lines and high-speed data (700 Kbps) over existing copper.
"We give service providers and their business customers what they want most right now: the ability to take advantage of the efficiencies of IP networks, while preserving their investments in existing equipment," says Ken Arndt, vice president of marketing at AG Communication Systems.
www.agcs.com
1.888.888.AGCS (2427)
Agilent Teams with Monet to Enable High-Speed Wireless Data Network
Monet Mobile Networks believes that fast, "always on" Internet access can be both mobile and affordable. The company's goal is to provide fully portable, high-speed data connections to U.S. business and residential customers, and to do it in a way that makes the service simple to set up.
Construction is already underway on the enabling infrastructure: a standards-based data network, employing the PCS frequency band and third-generation (3G) cdma2000 technology capable of supporting data transmission speeds up to 144 Kbps. One of the most essential but most challenging aspects of the plan involves delivering consistent quality of service to a customer base that is moving from cell to cell.
Rather than trying to assemble its own large, multi-disciplinary team to build out the network, Monet decided to tap the expertise of Agilent Technologies, a global technologies company that helps communications companies plan, design, install, and optimize next generation networks.
According to Rick Compton, Monet's chief technology officer, the ability to turn to Agilent as a single source of specialized equipment, technical knowledge, and measurement expertise has improved the odds of success significantly. "To try to replicate those capabilities ourselves would have been time-consuming and expensive" he says. "For us, business success hinges on our ability to roll out a reliable network quickly and to make efficient use of capital."
www.agilent.com
1.800.452.4844
Intelsat: Space Age to Internet Age
Rarely does an industry pioneer still define the leading-edge after nearly four decades. However, Intelsat, whose name is virtually synonymous with the concept of global satellite communication, continues to do just that. Companies around the world look to Intelsat for affordable, reliable, and innovative communications solutions that include not only broadcast services, but Internet access, corporate networks, and voice communications.
When NBC needed to broadcast the 2000 Summer Olympics from Sydney, it turned to Intelsat, with its fleet of 20 satellites connecting more than 200 countries and territories and 99.995 percent service reliability, to bring the games to enthusiasts in the United States.
More recently, when the cable that provided an Internet connection between Shanghai and the West Coast of the United States failed, Intelsat satellites restored the link, and access to U.S. content for millions of Internet users in China within 48 hours.
Like its customers, Intelsat is evolving. Last month the organization completed its transformation from an international cooperative to a private company.
Intelsat's history is a history of firsts - from the launch of the world's first commercial communications satellite and development of the first global commercial satellite communications system, to pioneering the Internet via satellite market. Now, in its new incarnation, Intelsat expects to continue to break new ground, helping its customers achieve and hold leadership within their own industries.
www.intelsat.com
1.202.944.7500
Written by: Joanne Kelleher
Edited by: Sigrid MacRae
Designed by: Monique Delage
Produced by: Mary Beth Nolet
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