Religious wars

Telcos, particularly those of the larger variety, rarely are ones to admit they're wrong when it comes to a chosen technology strategy. Most would sooner openly discuss their CEO's exorbitant compensation package than face a tribunal of vendors screaming "I told you so" when they reverse course.

It may still happen, though.

A little background: When the "religious wars" (as the truly nerdy press members called it) broke out between IP and ATM, the telco world fell in lock step with ATM. It was the more expensive technology, but it was invented for the carrier network, smelled like a carrier technology with all of its peripheral acronyms and provided a quality of service that couldn't be matched by IP at the time.

ATM lost the fight in the enterprise fairly fast because of cost issues, and over time was overwhelmed in the carrier space as service providers have come to the hard reality that not every service must carry the "telco quality" moniker in the same way as landline voice. But talk to enough vendors in the access market about triple play deployments and the same idea keeps coming up: Carriers still want to extend the life of their entrenched ATM gear, and while this makes perfect sense for accountants who want equipment fully depreciated before it's removed, it makes little sense from a strategic perspective.

The most significant deployments of triple play services are now pure IP. At this year's Supercomm, vendors are going to flood the exhibit floor with new IP-focused DSL products that have nary a whiff of ATM. You may see ATM support as part of a checklist item somewhere in the product specs, but it won't be the major feature. Even those that are lumped into the "ATM camp" admit that pure IP boxes are the future.

The war is over. It's time for the last holdouts to make their concession speeches and move on.

E-mail me at vvittore@primediabusiness.com