HEAnet, Juniper, ADVA Demo Automated Router and Optical Layer Provisioning

Communications networks are not loosely-coupled systems, as a user's PC, tablet or smart phone is loosely coupled to that user's web services, local applications, peripherals

HEAnet, Juniper Networks and ADVA Optical Networking have successfully demonstrated the automated setup of optical circuits between Juniper Networks routers using an ADVA Optical Networking Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) optical network, using a common signaling protocol.

The typical end user of services won't care. The carriers that have to create and maintain services will care quite a lot.

Using the control plane, HEAnet was able to provision end–to-end circuits between the routers over the optical network, using equipment from multiple suppliers. That typically is harder than first appears.

The deployment of the control plane enabled the initiating router to discover, reserve and then build an optical circuit across the optical network without any user intervention beyond the original user commands on the initiating router.

Rapidly growing traffic levels in both metro and core networks are driving many network operators to deploy a new network architecture based on integrated packet-layer routers and optical-transport systems, the companies say.

That is the optical core network equivalent to the requirement that retail service providers likewise operate their networks at lower cost as well.

“This is one of the first customer GMPLS interworking tests between router and optical equipment manufacturers,” said Eoin Kenny, project leader, HEAnet.

Sprint Offers Switchers $175 to $75

Sprint is offering up to $175 to business customers who switch from other wireless carriers, and $125 for individual customers who buy a smart phone. Sprint will pay $75 for individuals who buy a low-end "feature phone."

The credit is meant to "give customers a chance to try Sprint without having to worry about fees or charges for terminating their contracts with their current carriers," Sprint spokesman Lloyd Karnes said, according to CNN.

To get the credit, all accounts must be ported from existing contracts, and they must remain active for 61 days. A two-year contract is required. The offer began May 4.

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Will ChromeBook Fly?

There is a substantial belief in some quarters that Google's Chromebook is going to be squeezed between the tablet and the PC, much as the entire "netbook" category is seen to be squeezed between the tablet and the standard notebook.

If there is a new category here, it might be the market for "PC as a service." We seem to be moving towards applications, infrastructure and platforms as a service. It might not be so appealing to rent devices as a service, but we'll have to see.

Trust in Companies, Government, Media Has Dropped: What Do You Do?

It is tougher than ever to maintain a brand's equity these days. Overall levels of consumer trust seem to have dropped, and the velocity of change has increased, mostly because online word of mouth is so prevalent.

"Young & Rubicam’s BrandAsset Valuator indicates that the percentage of brands that consumers deem trustworthy fell from more than 50 percent to 20 percent between 1997 and 2008," says Chris Stutzman, Forrester Research analyst.

In some ways, those numbers are not surprising. A new study by Edelman suggests there has been a dramatic drop in consumer trust levels in government, business and media since 2008 as well.

The study by Edelman of 5,075 people in 23 countries of people 25 to 64 in the top 25 percent of household incomes in each country suggests U.S. citizens and consumers have less trust in their institutions.

Just 27 percent believe "you can trust the media to do what is right," a dip of 11 percentage points from 2010 levels.

About 40 percent of U.S. respondents believe "you can trust the government to do what is right," down six percent from 2010.

Only 46 percent believe "you can trust business to do what is right," a drop of eight percentage points from 2010. See this.

Given that climate, it is not surprising that brands overall face more skepticism. But one problem these days is that market share numbers do not entirely reflect brand respect or brand trust, in the short term.

Nor do "brand awareness" measures help as much as they might. Consumers might be aware of brands, and have negative opinions. The new challenge for brands is that news travels faster these days. It is tweeted, blogged and posted in real time, all day long.

In the past, it might have been sufficient to measure trial volumes, purchase volumes, repeat purchase behavior, referral volune or churn. In the past, it might have been useful to rly on "perception" measures such as interest, relevance, reputation, quality or value metrics, satisfaction scores or awareness.

These days, brands also have to contend with a tidal wave of ratings and reviews, formal and informal, generated across a huge range of channels, all day long, across huge and growing numbes of web channels.



In a June 8, 2009 article from Marketing Vox and Nielsen BuzzMetrics SES magazine Chris Aarons, Andru Edwards and Xavier Lanier argue that "25 percent of search results for the world’s Top 20 brands link to user generated content." See this.

"In 2010, more than 87 percent of the U.S. adult online population used social media to offer more than 256 billion influence impressions of products and services," says Stutzman.

Nor is volume the only issue. It is the velocity of potential word of mouth effects that also is a challenge. Opinions can move abruptly across the web. For that reason, Unilever uses YouGov's Brand Index to monitor eight measures of brand equity on a daily basis.

For marketers more accustomed to national or quarterly measurement, that will come as a bit of a shock. But Unilever's approach makes sense in a world where consumer sentiment, measured by tweet streams, for example, can suddenly go negative or highly positive, fluctuating relatively wildly between quarterly or annual measurements.

The practical implications are that an annual or quarterly measurement frequency cannot react to suddenly-negative or suddenly-positive consumer sentiment. In either case, a brand wants to be able to respond.

Consider a sudden news event, such as a major product recall. If the product being recalled is a popular automobile, many consumers will assume the supplier will want to offer incentives for people to buy, in the wake of the negative news. They will want to "buy on the dip," in other words.

But a brand has to move quickly to sense the sentiment, in order to act, either to counteract negative sentiment and sales trends, or to reinforce positive sentiment.

Twitter is only part of a content marketing program, but a monitoring effort sometimes can lead to more effective content being produced.

Visa to Launch Digital Wallet

Visa plans to launch a "digital wallet" service in the United States and Canada, sometime in the fall of 2011.

Visa said the wallet and services platform will store Visa and non-Visa payments accounts including PayPal information and will support near field communications payments through Visa’s payWave application.

The card network sees the wallet being used for e-commerce, mobile shopping, micropayments, social networks and personal payments. Notice the range of applications the service will embrace: digital wallet is more than "payment transaction."

Visa Looks Beyond the Card With One-Click Digital Wallet

Google-Backed Corduro Launches Mobile Payments Service

Google-backed mobile payments startup Corduro launches this week with a combined mobile wallet/payments processor for Android and the iPhone.

Like Square, Corduro is primarily a way for merchants to take payments on mobile devices. In some cases, not all, it can be up to 30 percent cheaper for merchants to process a transaction using Corduro or Square, compared to taking a credit card payment.

Google-Backed Corduro Promises Even Lower Mobile Payment Fees Than Square

Roku Owners are "Cutting the Cord"

Some 15 percent to 20 percent of Roku owners are cancelling their cable or satellite services agreement and are relying solely on a broadband connection to get their television programming, says company VP Jim Funk.

If that trend holds, and if Roku adoption increases rapidly, that would be a big deal, indeed, as it would represent a rate of abandonment of multichannel video subscriptions that is virtually unprecedented.

The Roku box, which connects via WiFi or Ethernet to a television set, streams a variety of free and subscription channels.

Beet.TV: Roku Owners are "Cutting the Cord" in Substantial Numbers

Sprint claims high margins from its growing M2M business - Rethink Wireless

Sprint says its machine-to-machine mobile services unit is generating average revenue per unit of between $5 and $10 a month, and a very high profit margin. But there is a wide range of applications and revenue cases.

Digital signage can generate $150 a month for the carrier. Smart meters generate less than $1, but offer potentially massive volumes, says Geoff Martin, Sprint manager of platforms.

When mobile executives talk about 300 percent to 500 percent penetration of mobile services, M2M is part of the equation. The assumption is that everybody has one mobile device, some have more than one, and lots of machines using mobile connections as well.

Sprint claims high margins from its growing M2M business

3 Types of Cloud Computing

Most observers classify cloud computing into three basic buckets. Here's a discussion of the different cloud computing categories.

Small Business Skype Usage: Not a Reason for Microsoft to Buy Skype, But It Might Help

A recent survey of about 700 small and medium businesses by Inzenka found that 52 percent of small business respondents said their employees use Skype. About 63 percent of medium-sized business respondents said "at least 25 percent of our employees use Skype," according to Consultant Dan Sachar of Inzenka.

Why Windows Phone Will Beat Android

The conventional wisdom is that Android and Apple's iOS will be among the top-three smart phone operating systems globally, over the next several years. The question is whether Research in Motion or Windows will occupy spot number three.

"While we acknowledge the momentum that Android is experiencing and will continue to experience in 2011 and 2012, we believe that Nokia and Microsoft are a very powerful tandem, and that will show in its full force by the end of 2013," says Stela Bokun,Pyramid Research senior analyst.

The argument is that Nokia's volume manufacturing prowess will allow Windows devices to rapidly move down the cost curve. Quite a few other large handsets vendors in the world, such as Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson also are backing WP.

Android's scale advantage can be overcome, says Bokun.

Why Windows Phone Will Beat Android

44% of consumers use social networks to enhance TV viewing | jatiN mahindrA doT coM

Thinkbox recently conducted a survey of 3,000 U.K. consumers and found that 60 percent of people concurrently watch TV and go online at least two or three times a week.

Some 37 percent go online while watching TV every day. About 44 percent use social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, while watching TV.

About 37 percent have chatted online about TV content and 19 percent have shared TV content on a social network.

44% of consumers use social networks to enhance TV viewing

Hp Veer 4G: About as Small as a Smart Phone Probably Can Be

One limitation is key size, for a device that cannot be operated completely using voice commands. The other issue is screen size, a more important consideration now that people are watching more video and using web apps. Bigger screens drain batteries faster, and might take up more room in a pocket or purse. But when working with web apps, or watching video, bigger is better.

Google I/O Opening Keynote

If you have about 54 minutes, here is the complete opening keynote at Google I/O, Google's developer conference.

IP Telephony Remains a PBX Business, But Hosted is Taking Share

IP telephony adoption has increased dramatically in the last two years: from 17 percent in 2008 to 27 percent in 2010, an increase of 59 percent, among small and mid-sized companies, according to Consultant Dan Sachar of Inzenka, a management consultancy.

Based on a survey of 700 small and medium businesses, Inzenka, a management consultancy, estimates that about 33 percent of small and medium business IP telephony deployments use hosted IP telephony.

About half of those respondents who have deployed IP telephony report they have adopted a premises solution. About 19 percent of respondents indicated they are buying a converged access service of some sort, including SIP trunking, bonded copper. It isn't completely clear what IP telephony solution is being used, for those 19 percent of respondents.

But it would seem logical that there is an IP PBX on premises at those locations, or the purchase of a SIP trunk or other access method that would qualify as "IP telephony" would not make much sense.

That assumption would be in line with past surveys that suggest 75 percent of so of new IP telephony deployments use a premises system, while about 25 percent use hosted IP telephony.