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iPad – Telecom Armageddon or Savior?

April 19th, 2010 by Cam Cullen; Category: Industry, Technology

I was having a discussion with a service provider (wireline broadband, interestingly enough) and he asked me if I thought that the iPad would have a significant impact on his network. My initial reaction was no, but as we talked through the issue, my opinion shifted.

When asked that question, my first thought was that the iPad would not affect a wireline broadband network that much, right? It is only a small number of devices (relatively speaking), and it is not like it can be used for file sharing. Sure, it can stream video, but how often are you going to sit and watch video on an iPad?

Then I started thinking about the real impact of the iPhone. Although the iPhone is a great device, and has certainly caused ATT issues in the US, and other operators abroad, as users take advantage of the media capabilities of the phone, it had a much broader effect on the industry as a whole (that incidently led directly to the iPad). Read more [+]

Economy of Scaling To 10G Networks

April 6th, 2010 by Jon Linden; Category: Industry, Products, Technology

“PacketLogic is now available with gigabit interfaces!” This is not today’s announcement, but it’s also not ancient history. We launched the second generation of PacketLogic with (almost) gigabit capacity in April 2004. Four years later, in May of 2008, we released our high-end PL10000 family with 10G interfaces and what is still the highest capacity of any DPI system available in the market today.

What I’m saying is that we love breaking speed records. Now we’re doing it again; but in a very different way. The new PacketLogic PL8720 is the first 10 Gbps DPI system that comes in a slick, real estate and power efficient 2RU appliance with the market’s highest port-density per rack unit. Most importantly, it’s cost efficient. Read more [+]

Deloitte Says 2010 Looks Great

March 11th, 2010 by Jon Linden; Category: Industry

The very nature of predictions is that they can be wrong. But sometimes they’re more substantiated, sometimes the source is more credible, and sometimes you just want them to be true. The former two apply to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu’s “Telecommunications Predictions” that I read every year. When they predict, for this year, a 100% growth for products that help decongest the mobile bottleneck, then I also confess to wish for them to be true.

While over-all mobile operator spending is expected to grow 7% in 2010, some pockets of technology – where one of the first segments they point out is deep packet inspection (DPI) – can grow more than 10x thanks to a pressing need. In 2009 the last walled gardens were torn down, smart phones became data smart, user interfaces encouraged use of data services, and 3G connections became a true option to fixed broadband (I use it as such at my summer home and when travelling). Data volume has grown and will continue to grow accordingly. Read more [+]

Mobile World Congress…It is all about the Apps!

February 18th, 2010 by Cam Cullen; Category: Industry, Technology

I have spent the week in Barcelona attending the Mobile World Congress event. Anyone that thinks that there is no vibrancy in the networking world should have been here to see the show. The halls were packed, the booths were busy, and the meeting rooms fully booked. There is a lot of excitement about where the mobile industry is going, and the opportunity that exists for mobile providers going forward.

One thing that jumped out at me during the show was the growing focus on the applications that are driving mobile usage. Yes, there was plenty of LTE hype, and lots of platform and operating system buzz (you should have seen the line for the Android developers lab as well as the push Microsoft made for Windows 7 Mobile), but focus seems to be shifting towards the applications that are driving mobile usage. The operators are keen on pushing new applications, because they will drive up data usage and increase the urge for users to upgrade their devices and service packages. Read more [+]

Does LTE ♥ DPI?

February 8th, 2010 by Cam Cullen; Category: Industry, Technology

There is a lot of talk in the industry about DPI and mobile operators. There was an article on Light Reading in 2008 titled “DPI (hearts) LTE” that explored this topic. The general belief is that mobile operators MUST have DPI in their network to survive and compete, due to a number of bandwidth and usage challenges. Operators are bracing for users that will treat their mobile connection in the same way that they use their fixed broadband networks today (i.e. streaming video, file downloads, peer-to-peer, etc). Since laptops are expected to be one of the earliest LTE devices supported in many of the early LTE deployments, the data requirements of LTE must be addressed from the initial deployment.

The debate has been stoked by the inclusion of a loose requirement in the SAE-GW for Deep Packet Inspection, aimed at application classification and QoS at Layer 7 (not traditional router-style Layer 4 filters). Many traditional GGSN/PDSN gateway vendors have begun to message that DPI is a part of their LTE solutions, and the expectations of mobile operators are rising daily. RFPs are coming at a rapid pace from mobile operators, and every one includes a request for information on how DPI can be deployed in an LTE network. Read more [+]