Peering Potrential

In principle, most international voice traffic is amenable to interconnection using some type of neutral peering federation.

The reason is that it is expensive and time-consuming to negotiate separate bilateral interconnection agreements with the ever-growing number of carriers.

If all one wanted to do was pass traffic back and forth between mobile networks, a company might have to negotiate more than 300 separate agreements.

The advantage peering federations provide is a simpler, faster way to create those business and technology agreements by joining a federated interconnection provider's community, much as Internet service providers peer with each other.

In principle, much interconnection now handled by bilateral agreements could shift, not to mention wholesale traffic, which generally isn't exchanged using a bilateral agreement because the cost of doing so is prohibitive.

Win Some, Lose Some for AT&T, Verizon, Qwest

Verizon grew consumer average revenue per unit by 9.6 percent during the quarter; AT&T grew ARPU 5.4 percent and Qwest grew ARPU 7.8 percent.

But there were gains and losses: video and fiber-based broadband were bright spots. Voice lines were not.

The former RBOCs added 2.3 million RGUs during the first quarter, helped by wireless.

During the first quarter of 2008, AT&T, Verizon and Qwest also lost lost 2.237 million access lines, though. So far, the tier-one telcos basically continue to trade market share with cable, gaining on the wireless front but not keeping up in wired services.

The quarter was by no means a disaster. But neither have the former RBOCs yet stabilized the market share battle on the wired services front.

33% Broadband Penetration at 10 Mbps = Half of Global Electricity

If a third of global citizens ever do wind up with some form of broadband access running at 10 Mbps, and current core network technology does not change, about half of all global electricity supplies will be consumed just for the transport and access of that bandwidth.

Obviously this doesn't scale. Among the solutions is use of more photonic techniques in the core and access networks.

Executives at ADVA Optical Networking argue it is better to use layer 2 rather than layer 3, and optical transport instead of layer 2, where possible.

High-density routers and switches in data centers also will help. In the access network, optical rather than electrical technology is preferable, especially passive optical networks.

What Video Does to Bandwidth Demand

When Facebook added video streaming features, there was a sharp spike in bandwidth consumed by Facebook users. That's one reason Cisco is so confident about its expectations for continued growth of global IP traffic. Video is coming, and video drives lots of bandwidth consumption.

There also seems to be a high degree of consensus that IP bandwidth demand is growing between 50 and 60 percent overall. Access and wide area network operators are reporting annual growth of about that amount on a fairly wide basis.

Downhill Slide for Yahoo?

Things seem to be going from bad to worse at Yahoo. First the controversial spurning of Microsoft's acquisition offer. And now news of major executive departures. The list includes Jeff Weiner, EVP, SVP Vish Makhijani and Brad Garlinghouse, SVP.

Some 50 top Yahoo executives have left the company since January 2007.

Observers and its own executives seem to have lost confidence in Yahoo top management, to say the least.

Cox, Qwest Ranked Highest for Data Communications Services

Cox Communications ranks highest in data service satisfaction among small and medium business customers while Qwest Communications ranks highest among large enterprise business customers in the same category.

Cox Communications leads the small and mid-size business segment, performing particularly well in five of six factors: performance and reliability; sales representatives/account executives; billing; cost of service; and customer service. Verizon follows Cox Communications in the segment rankings.

In the large enterprise business segment, Qwest ranks highest in customer satisfaction, receiving highest ratings from customers in five of six factors: performance and reliability; sales representatives/account executive; billing; cost of service; and offerings and promotions. Verizon also follows Qwest in the segment rankings.

Firefox 3 is Available, Seems Faster

The FireFox 3 beta does seem to execute faster, which is what Mozilla promises. Still some incompatibilities with apps such as Google Gears and Google Browser Sync, though. That's what happens in beta.

Mozilla says eight million copies have been downloaded in 24 hours. Mozilla also seems to be up past 12.5 million downloads in just a bit less than 24 hours.