Telco Execs: Convergence Means Opportunity -- And Risk

CHICAGO -- More thorough network deployment, seamless communications on converged devices and network security will be critical as the telecommunications industry continues to evolve, four industry executives said Wednesday at Supercomm.

William Owens, Nortel vice president and CEO, called for more service to rural America. While there's been a lot of focus on triple play and other high-tech advances, the industry is overlooking opportunities in rural communities, said Owens, who himself grew up in rural North Dakota.

Ignoring these opportunities is putting the U.S. further behind in terms of broadband deployment vis-a-vis the rest of the world, said Owens, who pointed out that the U.S. has fallen from 11th to 16th among countries in terms of percentage of broadband penetration.

As the industry continues to advance into next-generation networks, there are growing security concerns, Owen added. "The 80 largest U.S. companies have lost at least 4 percent of their revenue due to network reliability and failure of security," Owens said. "It affects a company's stock price by at least 2 percent when there's a rumor of a virus on their network."

With hundreds of new security threats emerging every day, there's more need for deep packet inspection, said Owens, whose company in December announced a partnership with Symantec to offer such a service. Nortel has the deep inspection capabilities, while Symantec has the experience in virus protection.Technology can also aid national security, said Owens, though he questioned "how many decades" it would be before there's frequency and network capabilities dedicated to a homeland security network.

As convergence continues, telecom providers need to determine if they will be providing the pipeline, the service or some combination of both, said Lothar Pauly, Siemens Communications president and CEO.

Siemens is teaming with Microsoft to provide converged services and devices that can use these services, like combining the abilities of a cell phone with a digital video recorder, Pauly added.

Single companies or partnerships need to offer the converged services to ensure seamless communications, according to Pauly, who called IP and SIP the key architectures for future convergence.

Convergence offers new opportunities, agreed Patricia Russo, president and CEO of Lucent Technologies.However, she cautioned that providers need to provide these converged services with certain assurances that the digital phone conversation will be private, that contact lists and other information on phones and other devices are secure, that a teenager opening an email can trust that it indeed came from the name in the header, just to name a few.

"The need for security has been heightened since 9/11," Russo added, pointing out that it's much more difficult to secure today's array of devices and applications than it was during the days of the rotary phone and the telephone monopoly.

Another critical factor for telecom networks will be the increased use of fiber, according to Krish Prabhu, chief executive and president of Tellabs.

As homes add multiple high-definition televisions, there will be an increasing need for as much as 50 Mbps of bandwidth per home, and, therefore, an increasing need for fiber, Prabhu explained.

Fiber to the home would easily provide such bandwidth, though the cost of provision would be high. Fiber to the curb, with copper for the last 500 feet can provide 100 megabytes of bandwidth at a much lower cost. Fiber to the node is even less expensive to provision, but provides lower bandwidth for the end users.Fiber to the Internet will be a critical component as video moves to the Web, Prabhu added. Though there are less than 1 million homes with fiber today, that number will grow quickly through the rest of the decade, Prabhu predicted, citing the popularity of HDTV. HDTV, he said, requires 17 Mbps to work well.