TMW: Cambron challenges software developers

DALLAS--Noting a history of transformational success in the telecom network infrastructure, Keith Cambron, president and CEO of AT&T Labs challenged members of the TeleManagement Forum to match network transformational advances.

“I don’t see the kind of progress in software design and business systems design that I have seen in the network. [Advances] in the optical world and IP world have left the IT world standing still from a software development viewpoint. I hope you will find a way to help us standardize and break through those barriers.”

AT&T is no longer the vertically integrated business it was in 1913, Cambron said, thanks to technology and regulatory led transformations over the years. A new round of consolidation is presenting the next challenge. But Cambron said technology goes its own way depending on what’s possible. Network engineers have done a wonderful job of coming up with a network that is truly vendor agnostic, he said. Layer 3 MPLS in particular now provides the foundation for all services and with emerging technologies such as IMS the call control framework serves the new service well.

Cambron said network consolidation will continue, but now service providers are in an execution phase and the focus from here on out has to be on business systems. Our strength [at AT&T] is in system integration and as a carrier, we spend a lot of time figuring out how to make things work together. “We now have to figure out how applications work as well in other countries as it does in the U.S.,” Cambron said. “The size of the network applications has to be scalable in ways they never were before.”

He added that the consolidation of carriers means there is a need for fewer suppliers with more capability and breadth that can be faster to market. “So the economic pressures on those suppliers are great,” he said.

Cambron said AT&T has achieved about an 80% efficiency improvement in network operations. “Network management systems are easier to design and maintain,” he said. “But service management is a different story. It’s too specialized. We must do better over the coming years,” Cambron said.