Free
Subscription
sign up here

There are dozens upon dozens of cutting-edge, sexy buzzwords floating around the communications industry these days.  “Network Monitoring”?  That’s not really one of them.  However, it’s at the heart of so many promises of improved service and increased visibility.  The ability to monitor networks and inspect the packets flowing across them is the key to improved service assurance, security, and, by extension, higher levels of customer satisfaction, maximization of existing infrastructure, rescuing of stranded bandwidth,..

» read complete article

It is already the end of summer here in Chicago, and as always, I’m tempted make exclamations about how time moves far too quickly. However, without the relentless onward march of the clock and the calendar, there’d be no news to report!  There are plenty of timely news items for you to chew on this month.  Nimbuzz is growing in popularity and makes one wonder about how service providers will adapt to the changes Nimbuzz and services like it are forcing upon them. Telcordia has a new product release that reflects today’s...

» read complete article

Two different cable companies serve the building where I keep my office. I’ve thought about switching because my current provider raised its TV rates, but inertia and inconvenience are giving me pause. The other provider just sent me a promotional offer. On the surface it looks like it’ll cost me about $10 per month less. The fine print, however, says they’ll charge me for equipment rental – which my current provider does not – and an installation fee when I sign up. It also says they’ll charge me a cancellation fee if I terminate service...

» read complete article

“He is most free from danger who, even when safe, is on his guard.” 

-Publilius Syrus, First Century, BC

Network monitoring, as the many and experienced voices in this month’s issue of Pipeline prove, is a valuable thing.  It’s crucial to maintain awareness and, therefore, control of the activity taking place on your network for a variety of reasons.   Communications being a business, the chief reason is generally...

Today, network monitoring can mean many things: billing, charging, policy control, bandwidth management, traffic shaping, deep packet inspection, net neutrality, these are all issues that can be considered aspects of network monitoring.

The practice itself is nothing new. Various forms of network monitoring solutions have been around for years. What is new is how a number of loosely connected issues are converging to solve the growing problem of effectively charging people according to their bandwidth usage. As a result, network monitoring has become perhaps the biggest cog in the customer experience machine, working to reduce churn and boost revenues.

» read complete article

Frequently, I read various trade articles, and it strikes me that we typically only talk about progressive, new innovations that stress novel ideas in the post-Internet era. Perhaps I’m a bit jaded, having gone through the ups and downs of the industry (e.g. the go-go-90’s, the tech bubble bust, and the latest recession). That said, when one looks at the telecom industry today, it’s really not that much different conceptually than nearly 25 years ago when the divestiture or break-up of Ma Bell (AT&T) occurred to stimulate competition, growth,..

» read complete article

Proactive traffic monitoring becomes more complicated in a high-capacity, converged network for a number of reasons. First, converged networks are exacerbating what I will call the fire hose problem, or the fact that tools are trying to monitor a specific traffic type that is traversing the network in an increasing larger pipe of mixed voice, video, and data traffic. This is like filling a water glass with a fire hose as the traffic arrives at the monitoring tool and “overwhelms” it; as data rates increase, this problem grows exponentially.

One of the key trends in today’s marketplace is the recognition that service providers are undergoing a major transformation of their business. While much of their revenue continues to come from providing the traditional pipeline, the market is also demanding an ever-growing range of new services such as VoIP, teleconferencing, and audio and video data streaming—applications that by their nature carry high bandwidth requirements, as well as specific performance requirements. Because these applications require a more costly...

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” 

Indeed. Within the world of technology and communications, it’s important to remember that the vast majority of problems come down to human error. Furthermore, even the problems that are not someone’s fault are allowed to grow into larger problems due to the inaction of people.  Sometimes that inaction...