Nortel's Dunn touts unlimited communications strategy - For Starters

Unlike the so-called killer application phenomenon or revolutionary 'out with the old, in with the new' telecom mantra once touted by industry pundits, Nortel Networks' CEO Frank Dunn argues the industry will take on a more evolutionary pattern that rewards both service providers and their customers with new revenue and access to meaningful services.

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Speaking at the recent ITU World 2003 show in Geneva, Dunn said the success of the evolving telecom industry will be the product of multiple services and technologies that eliminate the unwritten network boundaries.

However, innovations in optics, packet voice and wireless will be able to drive a new set of services that can be accessed via any medium. But this is not just for the developed world. In the greenfield or undeveloped world, Dunn points out that there's also an opportunity to leverage next-gen technologies to offer compelling services.

Overall, the next-gen telecom network could be defined by one word: adaptive. Such an adaptive network will cross multiple boundaries that will leverage a high-speed optical foundation to deliver new services in wireless, video and voice over packet.

As they move to this evolution, operators are looking for technology elements that can deliver services more cost effectively than can be delivered via the existing network, Dunn said, and while the approach for delivering services until now has been somewhat of a siloed approach where each service has a dedicated bin, the converged network will remove those barriers.

When this convergence takes place, the boundaries between wireless and wireline networks, for example, would no longer exist as these technologies would operate on one common network.

"When we talk about the next generation, and ask is it broadband, is it 3G, Wi-Fi or content, our answer is all of the above," says Dunn. "Everyone's looking for that killer application and new technology that's going to replace all old technology, but this industry goes through a cycle with a new capability that adds value to the existing infrastructure. Over time, it plays a more significant role, but there won't be one technology that will dramatically change everything overnight."

COPYRIGHT 2003 Horizon House Publications, Inc.
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