Overtones (Overture Blog)

Please see last week’s entry on "How Did We Get Here?” for a recap of the history of AT&T.

After the breakup of AT&T, one of the assets that the new RBOCs (now ILECs) had was the copper plant that had been constructed under monopoly conditions.  Part of the deal to enable competitive carriers (CLECs) was providing access to this copper plant and services under the umbrella of “special services”.

The theme of the recent Ethernet Europe 2013 - held in Frankfurt, Germany - was “SDN, CE2.0 and Cloud Convergence.”  In our busy, multi-tasking world, it seems the trend is to extend that frenzy to industry conferences as well.  This annual Light Reading conference was co-located with the MEF's quarterly face-to-face meeting.  Holding conference sessions on cloud convergence and CE2.0 in one session while right next door, the MEF technologists were hammering out the latest details of the next generation of specifications created an energetic vibe and opportunities to network during the breaks.  Nan Chen from the MEF provided good-natured jabs aimed at the hype surrounding Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) before hinting at a forthcoming announcement from the MEF around cloud services.  In hallway discussions between sessions, the audiences seemed to agree that Chen's foreshadowing was focused on the MEF work on new Carrier Ethernet features designed to make it easier to implement and manage dynamic capacity services. 

I recently started watching the “Downton Abbey” series, which takes place in the second decade of the twentieth century.  The characters are facing massive changes in their lives due to the rapid evolution of technology, including the growing presence of cars, phones and electricity.  Very quickly the characters will go from viewing these inventions as alien intrusions to being necessary parts of the infrastructure of daily life.  They will change how they think.

In previous blog entries I have covered some of the aspects of applying the cloud to the problem of telecom services.  In this segment I close the loop and talk about how we can apply the concepts previously discussed.  As with the characters in Downton Abbey, making this transition will require us to change how we think.

In previous blog entries I discussed the value of cloud principles and tools.  A critical aspect of cloud development is the use of applications developed using open interfaces and standard protocols.

In previous blog entries I have talked about applying cloud and NFV (Network Function Virtualization) principles to the edge of the network.  In this entry I will talk about why these principles are important and how they can benefit the service provider.  These benefits fall into three categories related to services:

• Service creation – The process of defining, implementing, and marketing new services
• Service activation – The enabling of a service instance when ordered by a customer
• Service assurance – The measurement and reporting of compliance with the Service Level Agreement (SLA).