Capitalising on your network - #5 leading voices share their views

The Total Telecom Network Management Show has put together an eBook offering insight from 5 leadeing voices on issues including:

>> Innovation in the network

>> Guaranteeing Customer Experience

>> Differentiation through the network

>> A coherent approach to managing your network

Features voices include:

>> Andrew Lippett, Senior Consultant, STC

>> Dan Pitt, Executive Director, Open Networking Foundation

>> Douglas Loewe, Managing Director, Interxion

>> Madhusudhan Mysor, Chief Network Officer, Tata Communications

>> Sami Susiaho, Head of Edge Technologies, BSkyB

To download this complimentary eBook Click Here

The Total Telecom Network Management Show takes place in London on the 1 & 2 July 2013. Already well over 200 delegates are registered (see some of the companies below), making this an event not to miss. Come along and network with your peers (Register before the 13 June for the best price), or why not take advantage of one the remain exhibition stands to showcase your products and services?

For more information contact us on +44 20 7608 7030

Download 'Why is network management important today?' eBook

This July we’ll be bringing together the speakers included in this eBook along with other leaders in the sector to discuss Network Management. The conference provides the unique opportunity for those involved in the management of the network to discuss it as a convergent and interrelated issue. By bringing the industry together, the show will allow for discussion with peers, an opportunity to learn about the problems on the horizon (how best to deal with them) and opportunities to network with solutions providers.

Network management is essential to enhancing user experience and quality of service, generating profit for operators, enabling quick launch of new services, and ensuring growth, we aim to enable the much-needed dialogue to facilitate improvements in these areas.

Ahead of the Network Management Show 2014, we've been interviewing our speakers to get their views on the hot topics.

Speakers include:

• Sami Susiaho, Head of Edge Technologies, BSkyB
• Douglas Loewe, Managing Director, Interxion
• Andrew Lippett, Senior Consultant, STC
• Dan Pitt, Executive Director, Open Networking Foundation
• Madhusudhan Mysor, Chief Network Officer, Tata Communications

Take a look at our speaker’s responses by downloading the eBook here >

I hope you find this eBook interesting and enjoyable.

Interview: Dan Pitt on Network Management

Ahead of the Network Management Show 2014, we've been interviewing our speakers to get their views on the hot topics.

This week we spoke to Dan Pitt, Executive Director, Open Networking Foundation, who will be discussing 'SDN: The key to consistent, unified management of diverse networks' on Day Two of the event.

Why is network management important in the telecom industry today?

For as long as the telecom industry has existed, the network has been its main investment and its main source of revenue. Network management is just the careful stewarding of this precious resource that represents the lifeblood of the business. When properly executed, network management enables the network operator to maximize revenue at minimal cost. In the Open Networking Foundation, we work to provide network operators with much more effective tools for network management and control. Our focus on software-defined networking (SDN) directly contributes to both the minimizing of costs and the maximizing of revenue.

Where do you see most innovation happening in the network today?

The most innovative development in the network today is the value shift from hardware to software. We all agree that hardware is often the optimal solution for moving traffic through the network, but enlightened operators understand that software under their control and not running in the network hardware provides them the most flexibility for service innovation and for reduction of both opex and capex.

Is how you manage your network an opportunity for differentiation for telecom operators?

The main opportunity for differentiation for telecom operators is in the creation and offering of novel services that generate revenue and attract customers. Creative service velocity relies on a combination of capabilities: flexible but basically generic hardware in the network, operator-unique software under the control of the operator that defines customer-facing services, and network management and control technologies for directing the network hardware to behave in a manner that implements the desired services. These technologies include network monitoring to gauge the state and condition of the network, analysis and orchestration software to translate service definitions into network behaviors, and network control protocols to direct the network hardware appropriately. ONF helps define these protocols.

How do you guarantee the customer experience?

For decades, telecom service providers focused on the sole metric of network availability, often expressed as .99999 (referred to as “five nines”). That worked fine when the only telecom service was telephony. Now that telecom operators offer a wide range of services, quality of experience is an increasingly important measure of service effectiveness. Assurance of quality of experience depends on several factors. An often overlooked one involves human factors and psychology, which are tied to subscriber expectations and are highly application-specific. Probably the operator’s greatest weapon in assuring the desired customer experience is the advancement of computer science, in particular multicore computing, distributed-systems software, and virtualization, as a much greater component of the customer experience takes place in servers rather than in the network than in even the recent past. Finally, the unrelenting surge in network traffic impels the operator to do everything possible to have bandwidth available where and when an application or a service needs it. Operators can no longer afford to overprovision every link in their network or in their data centers. Among their most effective tools to avoid overprovisioning are network virtualization and SDN.

Can operators look at trends such as SDN, Big Data, and network sharing in isolation or must they consider the wider Network Management perspective?

Disruptive technologies typically take time for their deployers to learn enough about them to deploy them effectively. SDN (and probably the other technologies mentioned) represents such a dramatic change in how to even think about networks that its ultimate impact will span much more than network management. Therefore, we recommend that network operators experiment with SDN on a small scale and (as they gain expertise) apply it to their most pressing problems. Different parts of a network operator’s business will undoubtedly have different ideas of how to exploit the new technologies. For the network management team, SDN, Big Data, and network sharing will all be tools to leverage, often together, but only after they are better understood. We recommend that network operators get started right away to explore the potential benefits of SDN, as the two dozen operators who are members of SDN are already doing.

If you are interested in attending The Network Management Show you can find out more here.

Interview: Douglas Loewe on Network Management

Ahead of the Network Management Show 2014, we've been interviewing our speakers to get their views on the hot topics.

 

This week we spoke to Douglas Loewe, Managing Director, Interxion, who will be speaking on Day 1 of the conference on the topic of 'Connectivity and Managing Data Centres: Making Smart Cities a Reality'. Read his thoughts below.  

Why is network management important in the telecom industry today? 

As a carrier neutral data centre, we don’t operate our own network, but we do work with over 500 carriers, so we have a pretty good understanding of what works for them and their customers.

 
One of things our customers say they look for when picking a carrier is the ability to ensure their high value applications have excellent response times for their end users. To deliver good response times you need to have good network management, so in my view good network management is absolutely crucial for the telecom industry.    

 

Where do you see most innovation happening in the network today? 

I think the key innovation has to be around flexibility through things like better speed of provisioning and dynamic bandwidth. Also I think application aware networking is really interesting and something that is changing the networking landscape.    

 

Is how you manage your network an opportunity for differentiation for telecom operators? 

Definitely.  When enterprises come to our data centre they tend to already know which carriers they want to use and the carriers that we hear the most are usually the ones that are well managed, offer flexibility and most importantly can deliver good response times.

 

How do you guarantee the customer experience? 

From what I see when working with carriers, is those that offer extra layers of resilience with good capacity to handle rapid traffic growth are usually the ones that continuously deliver on customer experience.  

 

Can operators look at trends such as SDN, Big Data, and network sharing in isolation or must they consider the wider Network Management perspective?

 

I don’t think any of these can be looked at in isolation. What we are seeing is that carrier-neutral data centres are the place where operators are introducing their SDN and Big Data products first and enterprises are selecting the carriers that can support all of these services and have a integrated approach on them.   

 

If you are interested in attending The Network Management Show you can find out more here.

Help operators navigate the network maze #NMS14

Could you explain one of the key aspects relating to management of today's complex networks to an audience of telecom operators and service providers? The Network Management Show is looking for content partners to help run the workshop sessions on areas such as:

- SDN & NFV
- leveraging Big Data
- network sharing and outsourcing
- automating networks
- delivering outstanding customer experience

If you are interested in the opportunity to be a content partner, download the information file or email sales@totaltele.com

3 Key ingredients to network transformation #NMS14

It would be fantastic if Gary Smith of Ciena had created this video to promote the 2nd annual Total Telecom Network Management Show. He didn't, but the message he gives out loud and clear explains why Total Telecom launched this event and why you should be there.



To find out more about the Network Management Show and how you an get involved visit www.totaltele.com/network

Discover why the Internet of Things depends on network management #NMS14

With the internet of things (#IoT), there will be billions of devices and sensors in the network that the operator must be able to manage. Network management becomes critical to the way an operator runs it's business.

Watch Chris Lewis (Lewis Insight) discuss network management with Graham Wilde of BWCS

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Total Telecom will hold the 2nd Network Management Show on the 1 & 2 July 2014. It is the must attend event for all those who want to discover how to get the most from their network. Download the sponsorship prospectus

FEATURED SPEAKER: Tom Bennett: Director of Network Services and Devices, EE
"Why is Network Management the hot topic in telecoms today?"
Download the conference brochure

15 Huge Reasons Why Network Management Matters

Flick through this Slideshare presentation for some recent big stories from Total Telecom which show why the network management space is so exciting.

15 Huge Reasons Why Network Management Matters from Total Telecom

7 Most Important Stories from Yesterday at Mobile World Congress #MWC14

The Total Telecom team are still producing our news service from Barcelona. Here's the 7 most important stories from yesterday.

• Strength in numbers as Telecom Italia joins M2M group
• TeliaSonera CEO calls on telcos to fight back
• Ericsson awarded a big chunk of Vodafone's Project Spring
• ZTE replaces Alcatel-Lucent in E-Plus network management deal
• Europe needs risk takers, says NSN
• Facebook's WhatsApp buy is a $19bn way of reconnecting with youth
• SK Telecom eyes 2015 for three-band carrier aggregation launch

When will SDN be a reality?

Over hyped or a game changer? Coming this year, next or in 5 years time? Saving cost and driving revenue? What do you think about Software Defined Networking? We want to know, so take a couple of minutes to complete this quick Total Telecom survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H6HBHBF 

Thanks for your help!

10 reasons why is network management such a big issue?

We asked this question to participants at last weeks Network Management Show - here's they're responses.


To watch more video's from the Network Management Show, visit our YouTube playlist

Top reasons why network management matters:

1. Customer Satisfaction: QoS / QoE
2. Threat Protection / security
3. Prevent monetary loss and brand damage
4. The network runs operators business

Just over half U.K. telecom and IT decision-makers surveyed said they have a BYOD policy

A recent study from MDS reported in Tellabs Insight (Q1 2013) shows that businesses are both slow to bring the latest devices on board and lack policies for bring your own device (BYOD).

The research goes on to suggest that this is a great opportunity for service providers as they could do more to support the growing demand for BYOD. MDS argues that service providers could educate businesses about the BYOD opportunity and help manage the use of BYOD.

If this is of interest to you, you should attend the complimentary roundtable BYOD: Getting your network management strategy under control where discussion themes will include:

• Exploring the pros and cons of various enterprise mobility management approaches and tools to secure mobile data, and develop, deliver and manage mobile apps
• Is it possible to choose a tool that can keep up with all the changes in the mobility arena?
• How to protect corporate app data and ensure only authorised users and devices gain access
• What can service providers do to help implement BYOD into the enterprise?

The roundtable discussion takes place on Day 2 of the Total Telecom Network Management Show which takes place at 200 Aldersgate London on the 2 and 3 July 2013.

For more information, download the brochure

We need a 21st century policy framework #networkmanagement

Great quote from Craig Silliman, Verizon’s senior vice president of public policy and government

relations, reported by US finance website Daily Markets

“A highly innovative 21^st century communications marketplace requires a 21^st century policy framework to match the Internet ecosystem that broadband and mobile innovations have helped create.  We need a framework to address today’s issues: not local wireline voice competition, but privacy, cybersecurity, network management, spectrum policy and more, many of which have a global component.”

If you are interested in these issues, you should come to the Total Telecom Network Management Show, which amongst it's great speakers, includes Verizon's Paul Simpson

Gather Round The Table

Shaking up the formats at the Network Management Show are our new roundtables. Held both afternoons after lunch, respected industry leaders will moderate discussions on a variety of key topics.

Seats will be allocated on a first come first serve basis, so Register Today to join in the debate.

There's lots of choice, which you can view on the event website, but here's a selection you might find interesting:

Software Defined Networking and Virtualisation: Revolutionising network architectures
Moderator: Gerry Feeney, Member, Open Networking Foundation
• It might transform network architecture – but what is the right definition of SDN and what roles do overlays, VPNs and APIs play?
• Closely tied to SDN is network virtualisation but how can it be achieved and how can the network functionalities be defined?
• Is SDN the only automation option or can other approaches be used that are just as effective?
• Is OpenFlow a key part of SDN?
• What are the application deployment issues related to SDNs?
• What kind of intelligence and management tools are required for SDNs?

Storage & Implementation: Getting the most from data centres
Moderator: Douglas Loewe, Managing Director, Interxion
• How to deploy next generation data centres
• Examining the benefits of consolidating or rationalising in the data centre
• Assessing the limits of data centre infrastructure
• Exploring the key network hardware requirements for software defined data centres

OSS: New system challenges and improvements
Moderator: Glen Ragoonanan, Lead Analyst, Analysys Mason
• How to identify operational support system requirements of new services and technology
• How to reduce the impact on customers and the network challenges of new systems
• How to use KPIs for OSS analysis and governance
• How to establish performance levels, areas of improvement and development

IPv6: Evaluating its adoption on mobile networks
Moderator: Latif Ladid, President, IPV6 Forum
• Exploring the challenges in implementing IPv6 on mobile devices, applications and networks
• Examining the various IPv6 mobile deployments and their technical choices
• Looking at the role of IPv6 in home networking and cloud

Telco Cloud: Business case advantages and getting over IT integration
Moderator: Darren Fields, Global Head of Sales, Global Cloud Services, Telefónica Digital
• Why telcos are moving into the cloud arena and what advantages do they have over other service providers?
• Why enterprises look for cloud providers that have complex IT skills and can integrate multiple systems, and why this is a major issue for carriers

Telco Big Data: ‘The oil to fuel operator growth’
Moderator: Terry Norman, Founder, Wireless Explorer
• How some operators are looking to transform themselves into companies that primarily manage data as well as providing communications services
• How big data can enable operators to make efficiency savings, increase cross-selling and improve the customer experience
• Do operators require partners, not vendors, to deliver strategic insight via improving, protecting and exploiting their big data?

Don't miss out, register today....

The Network Management Show is organised by Total Telecom and takes place in London on the 2 & 3 July 2013.

Your Network Management Concerns

This summer Total Telecom launches the Network Management Show, an event dedicated to the issues faced by those running today's telecom networks. 

By attending, telecom operators and enterprise users will learn:

• Why network management is now such a major issue
• How this impacts their business strategy
• The issues surrounding network delivery and optimisation 
• What impact emerging services and technologies have on network management. 

Total Telecom want to understand what issues and technologies are of the greatest concern to you! Please spare a few minutes of your time and complete our survey. As a thank you for your support, you will receive a summary of the report and 20% discount off a full conference ticket to attend. 

Click here to complete the survey

To find out more about Total Telecom Network Management Show visit www.totaltele.com/network 

Network Management Sponsors Announced #NMS13

The first raft of sponsors for the 2013 Network Management Show have been announced and are now on the website. They include market leaders in the Network Management space, endace, FlexiTon, Gigamon, Ixia, and Zoho, with more to be revealed shortly.

We have also just launched the second stage research into the show, and would invite you to complete our online survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NMS0213 This follows up on our research at the end of 2012 with a more in depth dive into the themes that matter to you in this thriving arena.

2013 is already fulfilling our predictyion that 2013 will be the Year of Network Management with recent major announcements including:

• Telenor launches Hungary's nationwide LTE network with ZTE
• DoCoMo contracts Nokia Siemens for Guam LTE network
• Nokia Siemens to supply network for Polish Railways
• Alcatel-Lucent gets $1 billion Reliance Communications contract

All these stories and more can be found covered on the Total Telecom website: www.totaltele.com

In addition registration for the FREE expo and seminars is now open. You can register online by Clicking Here

The Network Management Show takes place at ETC Venues, 200 Aldersgate, London on the 2nd and 3rd July 2013. Find out more on the website www.totaltele.com/network

 Complete the REGISTRATION FORM

 Download the PROSPECTUS

 Fill out the SURVEY FORM

Most carriers struggle with coverage - says Cisco

"If you take a look at what most carriers struggle with today, it's really with coverage" says Kelly Ahuja, general manager of Cisco's Service Provider Mobility Group.

This simple statement might make you think that Cisco are launching some clever technology to increase the amount of bandwidth available, but actually it was in relation to paying $475 million for Israeli company Intucell.

What's really significant about this is that the acquisition is all about planning, configuring and managing cellular networks automatically - that's right it's another massive network management deal.

This comes hot on the heels of other massive deals including Alcatel-Lucent's recent Reliance win and Riverbed's $921 million acquisition of Opnet and shows a clear trend for network management coming to the fore in 2013.

For more on network management:

• Check out the RSS feed from Total Telecom
• Find out about attending the Total Telecom Network Management Show

2013, The #YearOfNetworkManagement 

ETSI explains why Network Management is a big issue

My eye was caught by ETSI's press release flagging the launch of the Industry Specification Group. It goes on to explain how virtualization can be beneficial to telecoms networks, but then has a wonderful paragraph which encapsulates much of the reason why Network Management matters to telecom operators.

To quote:
"Telecoms networks contain an increasing variety of proprietary hardware appliances. To launch a new network service often requires yet another appliance and finding the space and power to accommodate these boxes is becoming increasingly difficult, in addition to the complexity of integrating and deploying these appliances in a network. Moreover, hardware-based appliances rapidly reach end of life: hardware lifecycles are becoming shorter as innovation accelerates, reducing the return on investment of deploying new services and constraining innovation in an increasingly network-centric world."

We wish ETSI well with their latest endeavour, and thank them for the nice explanation on why network management matters to their members!

Total Telecom is launching the Network Management Show in London on the 2 and 3 July 2013. To find out more:

>> Download the sponsorship prospectus

>> Download our Network Management Research Summary

>> Visit the website www.totaltele.com/network

1 billion reasons why network management matters #TTNMS

US$1 billion, it's a huge amount of money, but that's the value of the contract +Alcatel-Lucent have just signed with Reliance Communications to outsource network management for both its wireless and fixed-line operations - Read the story on Total Telecom

As part of the deal, Alcatel-Lucent become the new employer for 4,000 people as Reliance seek to provide better service to 130 million subscribers by following the path of outsourced network management, also followed by local rivals Bharti Airtel.

With these kind of sums at stake, it's no surprise that recent Total Telecom research shows network management is a huge and growing issue for the telecom industry, although interestingly network outsourcing is specifically is viewed with mixed feelings by operators with an almost even split between those who already view it as a major issue, those who think it will be an issue in the future, as illustrated in the accompanying chart.

To find out more insight into Network Management, download our research summary.

11 great #telecom video's from 2012

The Total Telecom video channel, Total TeleVision is stuffed full of fantastic interviews, so we've picked out 11 of the best, produced in 2012 that you really should watch.


Addressing the opportunities in Asia: Jim Clarke - Telstra Global

Building the trust of your customers: Don Peppers - Founding Partner, Peppers & Rogers Group

Europe has to change: Luigi Gambardella, Executive Board Chairman, ETNO

OTT is good for operators: Andreas Bernstrom is CEO of Rebtel

Telco's need to act more like internet companies - Ben Atherton, CEO, Samba Mobile

The regulatory climate in 2012 - Georg Serentschy, Chair 2012, BEREC

The switch is on - are you keeping up: Steve Gleave - VP Marketing, Metaswitch

The Top 500 Telecom Brands - David Haigh, Brand Finance

Video is everything: Storing & distributing content Lucy Dimes of Alcatel-Lucent

What do 'you' mean by customer experience - Johan Langer of Ericsson spoke to Brian Dolby at Total Telecom World

Why is Zain Jordan the "Best Place to Work" - Ahmad Al Hanandeh - CEO