NGN: Greener pastures still overseas

Venture capitalists, IP network infrastructure companies and Wi-Fi firms attending this week’s Next Generation Networks conference in Boston all seem to have one thing in common: They see international markets as having richer opportunities for telecom spending in the short-term while the U.S continues its slow recovery.

During the plenary panel, "Next Generation Network Demand: Where Will it Come From?" a positive spin on the ongoing economic recovery was presented by Roland Vander Meer, venture partner at Comventures, who suggested that broadband subscriber numbers could grow at a 30% clip for the next few years. This, in turn, could power increasing investment and carrier spending in telecom.

However, Howard Anderson, senior managing director at YankeeTek Ventures, who insisted that investment and spending by U.S. companies will "suck for another two years," shot down his vision. Other panelists and attendees seemed to concur with Anderson’s view that spending by international carriers is the most significant bright spot in the worldwide telecom industry.

Anderson specifically cited spending in China and by carriers in other Asian markets as leading the way, a contention that couldn’t be argued about by companies like Procket Networks, an IP networking equipment provider; or Boingo Wireless, a Wi-Fi aggregator. Though Procket’s PRO/8812 IP routing platform has been deployed by some small carriers, such as a New York City ISP, its biggest wins and leverage in the carrier markets have come from NTT in Japan and other Asian carriers, said Cary Hayward, director of marketing at Procket Networks.

Boingo also is seeing European carriers surface as the most aggressive pursuers of its private-label carriers services program, said Dave Hagan, president of Boingo Wireless. "We’re making a pretty big move into Europe," he said. "The carriers are pretty aggressive over there about offering their customers Wi-Fi roaming capabilities."

Boingo announced a key relationship with Telecom Italia last month. Another recent relationship forged with international carrier Infonet also is focused on enabling the carrier’s customers for global Wi-Fi roaming.

"International carriers seem to be over the conflict that Wi-Fi potentially presented with their other Internet access services," Hagan said. "U.S. carriers are adopting it only defensively."