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

WCA Winner's Report: Ciena - The Innovation Award 2013

In the build up to the opening of this year's World Communication Awards. We've been speaking to last year's winners to get the inside track about their winning entry. Follow our series of 'Winner's Reports' over the next few weeks.

Next up: Ciena (GeoMesh) - The Innovation Award 2013

Please summarise your winning entry

Ciena’s GeoMesh leverages multiple industry-leading technologies with field-proven pedigrees for robustness and reliability in the areas of optical transport and switching intelligence into a seamless global network solution that addresses current and future global connectivity needs. GeoMesh simplifies the PoP-to-PoP transport layer by leveraging coherent transmission and ROADM-based Optical Bypass, while adding service intelligence and the robustness of an intelligent switching layer, governed by the OneConnect control plane. This unique combination of industry-leading technologies yields global networking solutions that unite submarine and terrestrial networks like never before. For the first time, networks operators can significantly simplify their global network designs overland and undersea, increase network capacity via simple 100 Gb/s channel upgrades, and bolster network resilience, even in the face of inevitable natural and manmade network faults. GeoMesh epitomizes the convergence of submarine and terrestrial network technologies, yielding previously impossible economies of scale across the entire network. GeoMesh has removed the technological barriers that once forced global network operators to design two network types, submarine and terrestrial, and then inefficiently hand off traffic between the two network types. GeoMesh allows network operators for the first time ever to design and build networks that span upwards of 10,000km and even longer, using a common set of technologies operating at 100G rates.

How do you feel your product or service differentiates from its competitors?

The three building block technologies that comprise GeoMesh are all revolutionary technology innovations in their own right. However, what makes GeoMesh truly unique, and provides so numerous coveted benefits to the many tier 1 network operators who have rapidly adopted these technologies, is when they are combined into a single GeoMesh network solution. It is the combined industry-leading hardware and software innovations that make GeoMesh revolutionary and thus unique in the industry with no equivalent offerings from any other network vendor.

What further innovations do you see in the area of your entry in 2014 and beyond?


A significant and growing portion of traffic carried over both submarine and terrestrial networks is cloud computing traffic flowing between large data centers. Now that GeoMesh has successfully united submarine and terrestrial networks to the benefit of both service provider and end users alike, the next targeted innovation is to integrate dynamic bandwidth-on-demand capabilities that maximize end-to-end bandwidth utilization, while enabling innovative new services that differentiate on attributes other than just price. Looking further into the future, SDN and NFV are also additions to the GeoMesh solution that are being investigated.


Want to enter the awards this year? Entries open on May 7th. Keep an eye on the website for further information - www.worldcommsawards.com

African Mobile Market - Boom or Bust ?

The boom in African mobile telecommunications appears to be under threat due to an uncertain investment environment, owing largely due to overcrowding of companies and ruthless competition for clients.  

In a recent article published on www.totaltele.com, Mary Lennigham, Editor at Total Telecom says “Cooperation between governments and operators has driven significant growth in the African mobile industry over the past decade. However, there are no guarantees that this growth will continue”, the article goes on to highlight key points from a new report by Booz & Company, stating that “a number of issues must be addressed as the continent moves towards the next phase of mobile development”. 

The report states that investors are hesitating due to extreme pricing pressure, continued regulatory risk and escalating unattractive investment environment, thus jeopardising the next wave of telecoms investment and growth in Africa.  

Indeed, Dr Bitange Ndemo, Ministry of Informations and Communications Permanent Secretary backs up the claims in the report by Booz & Company saying that “there has been market erosion of up to 20%, mostly because of competition that has seen cuts in tariffs in the sector. A new entrant or investors would have a lot of problems as the major firms are struggling due to stiff competition”.  Certainly the four major firms, namely Bharti Airtel, Orange, Safaricom and MTN are competing aggressively for subscribers, with tariff cuts in both voice calls and data services being extremely significant, making it difficult for new entrants to enter the competition.

However it may not be all doom and gloom as the next wave of growth could be spurned by increased focus on innovation, roll out of new products and investment in expansion of data services and value added services. Indeed services like M-Pesa or other mobile financial solutions and mHealth, which according to the GSMA, will generate £1.2 billion by 2017, are expected to create significant growth in the African Market. Perhaps also as adoption of 4G networks and LTE expands in the coming years, increasing mobile penetration in Africa, there is scope for new entrants and investors to gain from the continent.

ForgetMeNot Africa, is one such company aiming is to bridge the digital divide for Africans by providing Internet messaging on every mobile phone.  Their innovative technology connects the huge gap between the Internet and mobile messaging worlds allowing any mobile phone to send and receive email and chat-message on any carrier’s network. Today ForgetMeNot Africa has bloomed into a carrier class Unified Messaging service provider, leading the way for innovators to profit from Africa’s tentative investment situation.

Jeremy George, COO at Forget Me Not Africa, will be part of the panel discussing "How mobile deployments are playing out in Developing Markets". To find out what the current challenges and opportunities for operators are within these regions and what predictions we can make regarding the future of these markets, join Total Telecom Wireless World, on the 12th-13th of June, 2012.