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The coffee was particularly good that morning, and they had ordered just the right number of bagels. Good thing. No one likes a stale bagel. Everyone was assembled in the conference room. The prospectus packets were glossy and perfect. The morning meeting was going smashingly. All that’s left is to bring in the video conference feed from the Vienna office to press a few of the finer points and these potential clients would be sold.
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• How a Bundle of Fibers Could Change Everything
By Tim Young |
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Everyone knows that the face of telecommunications is changing. The model that is emerging, much to the detriment of traditional telcos, is a growth of triple play in the cable sector and increasing adoption of digital voice by current cable subscribers, while telcos travel the much harder road of developing and marketing video options for their own triple play bundles. One constraint on the telcos has everything to do with bandwidth. Traditional telephone networks don't seem to cut it. There is a better way, and it could change everything. Unfortunately, it's not a quick fix.
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The last few weeks have brought us many changes in the VoIP news sector. Some encouraging, and some not so much. In any case, the VoIP world gets a few mentions in this issue, along with the usual mergers and acquisitions, new hires, and various other news items we thought would pique your interest. Here’s your NewsWatch for September, 2007.
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• Self-* Networks: Helping Networks Help Themselves
By Wedge Greene |
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Self-* (self-star) Systems
Continuing our discussion on Autonomic Networks and Autonomic Communications, we dive into designing and building what we call self-* (pronounced self-star) systems. Self-* is a shortcut term for systems which are designed specifically to be self-organizing and self-managing, including properties such as: self-defining, self-configuring, self-awareness, self-optimizing, self-protecting, self-healing (self-monitoring, self-diagnostics, self-restoration). That is a big-bite!
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• VRF Visibility: The Key to MPLS Performance Assurance
By
Bruce Kelley |
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To satisfy demands for secure, cost-effective transport of converged voice and business applications, most telecommunications providers have introduced MPLS-based VPN service offerings. Enterprises are taking advantage to break out delivery for voice and video into high-priority classes and tiered choices for their more latency-tolerant business applications. In order to meet service quality expectations, carriers are facing some new challenges...
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Since the beginning of network computing, networks have been designed as a collection of independent devices that have a limited awareness of each other, and no awareness of the collective whole outside of the basic routing fabric. As a result, networks have always had a limited ability to dynamically adjust to problems or events occurring within the network and are incapable of adjusting to any changes outside the network.
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For over 60 years the telecom business has focused on the Network, the domain of “big iron” — switches, routers, antennas, and towers. Service Providers have invested billions of dollars in it, and it still requires a fantastic human effort to maintain, upgrade, and enhance. In most cases, it is still the foundation of differentiation and the biggest barrier to entry in a connectivity-driven communications industry. The Network has understandably been paramount in a business model which, until recently, was about renting it out to users on a per-minute basis.
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Ben Franklin famously quipped that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That is certainly true of telecommunications. The adage long predates telecom but, like every aspect of Franklin's working and personal knowledge shows great prescience and forward-looking insight. With competitive pressures as they are, preventing a major network problem is vastly preferable to allowing a glitch to interfere with a customer's QoE and potentially jeopardizing that customer relationship.
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