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By Wedge
Greene, LTC International
Selecting the future you
During the crest of the ATM standards
movement, one of the mavens of routing
and I were sharing a car back from an
ATM Forum meeting in Denver to the brand
new Denver airport. We were both long
time IETF junkies who had joined the
ATM Forum at its inception because of
our respective jobs in telecommunications – he
was a switch engineer for a vendor and
I was a telecom engineer for a service
provider. He asked me a question that
burned into my mind and stayed in my
memory: One of those pivotal questions
on which your life turns.
He said he was getting tired and overwhelmed
from attending both IETF meetings and
ATM Forum meetings, and with leading
and participating in working groups in
both. “I think I need to choose
between the IETF and the ATM. Wedge,
which do you think will win out; which
is going to be the winning technology?” Up
until that moment it never occurred to
me that one technology was better or
would displace the other. I only saw
a complex network of many technologies
delivering different kinds of communication.
I truthfully answered that I did not
know, and I was going to keep feet in
both ponds for now; but that the IETF
seemed more robust, if undisciplined, … and
definitely more fun.
That, I remember, was his last ATM meeting,
and he certainly wound down his involvement
and went on to start spearheading the
introduction of large network architecture
design into the internet. I held on with
both forums, but the question kept working
through my mind. Soon thereafter, at
the ATM Forum meeting in Alaska, when
faced with the Anchorage Initiative (which
stated ATM was now complete enough to
implement), I stood as one of only two
companies to stand and speak against
it in the general session. I voted our
companies negative position and never
went to an ATM Forum meeting again. I
had made up my mind to cast my lot with
IP technologies as well.
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“I
think I need to choose between the
IETF and the ATM... which is going
to be the winning technology?” |
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Earlier,
I made a similar choice in 1990
when I had opportunities to work
for a major energy company or
join MCI in starting its data
division. Energy or Telecom:
which would be the best opportunity?
Predictive modeling or communications
protocols: which would be more
satisfying? I chose telecom,
and for the last decade of the
20th Century, I clearly chose
correctly. Still, industries
swing back and forth and certainly
the energy sector has done better
this decade. Did I make a mistake
in not switching?
But why this preamble about
questions at the balance point?
I believe similar questions face
us today: traditional or non-traditional
communications? Traditional or
SOA software development systems.
Traditional or next generation
OSS models? Where should we cast
our carriers? Who will win out
at the turn of this decade? Every
one of these questions is crucial.
Is telecom still relevant?
Traditional communications is
a world where the service providers
are responsible for building
the networks, providing the new
communications services, and
managing the lot. Non traditional
communications is the evolution
of the “Stupid Network”:
a world where innovation comes
from computer companies (e.g.,
Microsoft, Apple, Intel), Portal
companies (Google, Yahoo, eBay,
Amazon), and software companies
(Oracle, SAP, IBM) and networks
are distributed lily pads in
a peer-interconnected pond.
Putting it on the line for this
pivotal question, The Insight
Research Corporation has just
released a new study "The
Future of Telecommunications
2006-2011". I am not here
to review this study or say they
are right or wrong, but rather
to show that they are clearly
touching on a major question
confronting us today. In the
wake of the burst bubble and
the dual trends of service provider
consolidation and growth of the
internet fringe industries, what
will tomorrow’s communications
world look like?
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