Management World: Ex-AT&T CTO offers 'top 10' vision

5 –Sensor networks, IP-connected appliances and devices will proliferate trillions of end points on the network. This will create network-aware devices in new places – for instance, cars or license plates – and a gigantic network management challenge for carriers, he said.

4 – Wireless Internet access will explode, driving rich mobile applications with WiFi, WiMAX and 4G connectivity. Eslambolchi said he was a big proponent of WiMAX initially but now sees LTE winning in the long term and eventually pulling voice traffic onto it within a decade or two.

3 – Networks will become personal, creating a new class of personal devices and services convergences. This will be reflected in the need for operators to ultimately manage services, not networks, he said, in this new environment.

2 – Security requirements will continue to increase exponentially. Security is a major challenge in IP networks. The TDM world had intelligent networks and dumb devices and thus few attacks. “IP bigots” wanted to turn that on its head, Eslambolchi said, but dumb networks and highly intelligent devices don’t scale and cause tough management challenges. The right approach is in the middle, with a combination of smart networks and smart devices combining to deal with IP network security.

1 – Wireless IP becomes dominant, impacting network design and operations. “I predicted 15 years ago that IP would eat everything, and it has become true,” he said. The problem is that the Internet was designed for basic messaging, not as a multiservices environment. Managing that complexity on a network and protocol not designed for it is the service provider’s number-one challenge moving forward, he said.