NXTcomm 2007: A scouting report

Bigger, smarter, faster

This year's NXTcomm promises to be unlike any that came before it — and not just for the obvious reason (that there were none). With a rising tide of video traffic flooding public telecom networks in unprecedented ways, it's no surprise that one of the recurring themes of new wireline equipment to be unveiled at the big trade show this month will be increases in capacity. Last month, for example, Occam Networks added 10 Gb/s Ethernet aggregation to its 1 Gb/s gear. Other vendors will be announcing similar capacity upgrades during the show. With Verizon Business in the process of upgrading parts of its 10 Gb/s backbone to 40 Gb/s this quarter, expect to see at least one vendor at NXTcomm announce new 40 Gb/s gear in particular.

In keeping with the “supersize me” theme, Juniper Networks will be showing off its new and much-hyped Ethernet core router, the MX960, but the company is also rumored to be working on another big core router to compete with Cisco Systems' madly successful CRS-1. As the CRS-1 recently reached a run rate of about $1 billion in annual sales — and another core router vendor, Avici Systems, just threw in the towel — the core is hot right now. So attendees will no doubt want to know whether rumors are true that there is a new entrant in that category.

In addition, during the summer in which Verizon is starting its commercial deployment of Gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) gear in earnest, expect to see at least one major new GPON product receive an unveiling at NXTcomm.

With the neverending spread of Ethernet, you'll also see the addition of Layer 2 functions and technology to a range of existing gear, including edge routers and optical equipment. At least one major vendor will introduce a new platform for combining optical networking and Ethernet traffic. And vendors of carrier Ethernet gear will boast of added intelligence and functionality to their equipment as well. — Ed Gubbins

IMS subdued

Don't believe it for a minute when vendors tell you they won't be talking IMS at NXTcomm. Their intention may indeed be to keep the focus on the applications that IP multimedia subsystem architecture enables rather than the evolving standard itself. They may want to steer the conversation to the here-and-now rather than the someday-soon of IMS. But except for the conference sessions designated as IMS-related, one or two probing questions at a vendor's booth or from your session seat will undoubtedly force the discussion.

One group in particular, however, won't have to dance around the topic or try to couch it in an application discussion. That group is the IMS Forum. The Multiservice Forum will have its say as well, but the IMS Forum will be delivering timely data about the state of interoperability between IMS product vendors.

This week, the organization is conducting its second of three yearly plugfests. At NXTcomm it will have the results. Plugfest II has graduated from platform interoperability to testing and developing future test plans for voice over IP, IP PBX and fixed/mobile convergence application and service layer interoperability.

The closest to hype the IMS Forum will get may come from enthusiastic board member Manuel Vexler. Vexler will speak directly of IMS. Thanks to the plugfests, he dwells in the world of IMS reality, not hype — although no one is immune. Through the fests he sees what works and what doesn't. If asked about where and when to look for more widespread IMS adoption — some sign of its success — he gives the forum's version of IMS hype.

Here's how he measures it: “If you look at the traffic into a service provider and you can tell how much of the access network traffic is over IP, that is good candidate traffic for IMS. It is a measure of potential demand, and I think you would be surprised at the amount of that kind of IP traffic that is in the network today.” — Tim McElligott

IPTV ubiquity

Forget seeing the summer blockbusters, all the video you'll ever need will on the NXTcomm show floor as IPTV takes over. While actual deployment of the service in the U.S. remains spotty, the technology to deliver video as packets over fiber or copper lines continues to mature.

Signs of that maturity are many, including:

Scalability: SureWest has the largest U.S. deployment to date, but AT&T says it is now adding 2000 subscribers a month. At NXTcomm, middleware maker Kasenna, along with HP and Intel, is showing off the benchmarking of its system at 1 million customers, while other companies such as Thomson Grass Valley and UTStarcom will have IPTV systems on display that have been deployed for hundreds of thousands of customers in Europe and Asia, respectively.

Interoperability: Instead of locking customers into one vendor's set of products, more IPTV exhibits will tout mix-and-match capabilities. For instance, Cisco Systems, which provides everything from headend gear to set-top boxes, will be showing its ability to work with the three leading U.S. middleware providers — Microsoft, Minerva or Myrio, now part of Nokia-Siemens. And SES Americom will be exhibiting an end-to-end system for rural telcos, IP Prime, which can use either Microsoft or NDS middleware. Integra5, which makes software for advanced services, also will be announcing new middleware compatibility.

New applications: Everyone agrees that IPTV can't be just more TV. Look for new integration of TV, PC and mobile phones from companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Integra5 and others.

Integration: This may seem to be contradictory to interoperability, but ease of deployment has come to depend on putting all the pieces together seamlessly. To that end, a number of vendors will be demonstrating that, including Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Falcon IP, Nokia-Siemens, SES Americom, UTStarcom and Thomson Grass Valley. — Carol Wilson

WiMAX in the undercurrents

While NXTcomm is more a fixed access event than mobile, expect wireless to seep in as converged technologies come into deeper focus this year and as wireless network starts to look a lot more like the broadband wireline networks that dominated the show's predecessors.

This has been a breakout year for WiMAX technologies, which, in many ways, resemble the broadband access technologies wireline operators have been deploying for a decade. The flat-IP architecture and data-centric focus does away with the traditional cellular network architecture. That's one of the main reasons that WiMAX has sparked the interest of fixed access operators from CLECs to incumbent telcos to ISPs, and why many of them are looking mainly at deploying WiMAX technologies in a fixed broadband scenario.

But WiMAX also brings the same mobility advantages of the cellular network in addition to its increased speeds. Because the technology was first batted around by the traditional wireless players, it's easy to think of WiMAX as an enhancement or an alternative to the cellular network. But with the exception of Sprint and a few other large mobile carriers in Asia and Europe investigating the technology, most operators are looking at WiMAX from a mobile operator perspective. Many of them are ordinary telcos or ISPs looking for an alternate broadband access technology, not 3G carriers looking for 4G.

That momentum will pick up this summer as vendors' first phase WiMAX gear is certified, commercial products are released and multiple carriers start moving out of trials and into launches. While truly mobile WiMAX won't be available until next year, when phase II equipment emerges, most carriers exploring the technology are likely indifferent — their first focus is still broadband. — Kevin Fitchard

FMC unplugged?

It's fair to say fixed/mobile convergence is a concept that has suffered a bit of a backlash. While services such as Orange's Unik have succeeded, others, such as Deutsche Telekom's T-One, haven't worked out. Also, some people in the telecom industry have started to talk about FMC by making a distinction between today's “limited” convergence and tomorrow's “true” convergence — as if the future will yield a more pure and organic version of FMC. True convergence, they say, will be marked by seamless connectivity regardless of network or device. This is a vision more based on a fully IP multimedia subsystem-based network foundation than on today's use of current unlicensed mobile access technology.

Fair enough, but to get anywhere with FMC in the future, the industry must keep moving forward in baby steps. At NXTcomm, a handful of companies will be making new product and strategy announcements related to FMC (all parties declined to provide more specifics as of this writing), and companies like Motorola are expecting brisk booth traffics from service providers trying to figure out how to execute their FMC road maps. The technology picture recently got more convoluted with the sudden rise of femtocell home base stations and gateways, and any NXTcomm attendee looking for FMC advice should ask vendors whether or not femtocells fit in their FMC platforms.

Further vendor cooperation might be the key to helping service providers figure out how convergence affects every part of the networks, from core to device. Motorola itself announced an FMC ecosystem at the end of May that company officials said they hope can be a catalyst for getting various vendors to work together to advance FMC. — Dan O'Shea