There is still a significant BSS/OSS challenge for cloud: Making MPLS and Carrier Ethernet services into on-demand offers to match the expectations of the cloud crowd is not a simple proposition, nor is adding on-demand capabilities to existing portals.

Verizon hits smaller towns and expands markets in the south with its latest 4G LTE update

An Infonetics survey suggests the optical 40G craze will be short-lived, as expected. The study confirmed that 40Gbit/s is being viewed as a stopgap, something to be replaced by 100Gbit/s once the latter is more widely available. Schmitt has been arguing for a couple of years that the 40Gbit/s generation will be a short one.

If a new Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) project bears fruit, cable operators might be able to delay costly fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployments, or even avoid them altogether.

Many are using DP-QPSK with coherent receivers for 40G long haul, as well. 100GBase-LR4 Ethernet will be the dominant technology for the metro and enterprise applications, with 10GBase-ER4 used for longer links.

Operator covered 74 million PoPs with LTE at the end of 2011 with 11 new markets launched, including congested areas such as San Francisco and NYC. AT&T also closed the year with more than 80 percent of its total mobile traffic on Ethernet backhaul, and Stankey said its 3G network performance has stabilized. Now, the wireless operator is focusing on turning customers' perceptions from neutral to positive, he said.

"Cloud" has gone from hot to hype to happening in the space of two years. So the trends in the cloud arena are much more practical and much less theoretical (i.e., sexy). But they still exist. Here are some notable shifts for cloud in 2011 that will continue to play out during the next year.

Heavy Reading's Alan Breznick explains how MSOs intend to boost commercial revenues using Ethernet and cloud-based services

In an announcement Thursday, the organization known as Gig.U -- for its goal of bringing Gigabit-per-second networks to research university campuses and towns -- said it had received "dozens" of formal replies to its request for information (RFI), a process by which the group sought any and every idea on how such networks might be built, with or without the blessing of traditional big-company service providers.

Every penny counts for Clearwire as it looks for $50M more on a planned stock offering

Ari Banerjee from Heavy Reading and Cyril Doussau de Bazignan from InfoVista outline the role Performance Assurance plays in assuring subscriber QoE during a backhaul transition from TDM to Carrier Ethernet

MetroE is "poised to do to legacy TDM-delivered data services what cable modems did to dial-up," O'Toole said of the technology's potential. That's because MetroE's bandwidth boost will be key to supplying revenue-driving cloud services because they require more data to run down the last-mile connection -- something that legacy TDM systems struggle with.

I recently had the opportunity to visit with Jim Poole, Equinix’s general manager for global networks and mobility, regarding the company’s strategy and the work that it is doing with Amazon. Our conversation followed an earlier webinar that I moderated with Jim and GoGrid Executive Chairman and Founder John Keagy

Cable companies have a major opportunity to win enterprise business away from telcos, but need to interconnect their networks to provide national coverage and deliver higher-quality customer service, Terry Canning, senior vice president of Canada-based Rogers Business Solutions, said here today.

U.S. cable continues to pry away the telcos' grip on the business services market, with MSOs poised to pull down about $6 billion in commercial revenues in 2011, according to Heavy Reading 's latest estimates.

There is still a significant BSS/OSS challenge for cloud: Making MPLS and Carrier Ethernet services into on-demand offers to match the expectations of the cloud crowd is not a simple proposition, nor is adding on-demand capabilities to existing portals.

Verizon hits smaller towns and expands markets in the south with its latest 4G LTE update

An Infonetics survey suggests the optical 40G craze will be short-lived, as expected. The study confirmed that 40Gbit/s is being viewed as a stopgap, something to be replaced by 100Gbit/s once the latter is more widely available. Schmitt has been arguing for a couple of years that the 40Gbit/s generation will be a short one.

If a new Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) project bears fruit, cable operators might be able to delay costly fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployments, or even avoid them altogether.

Many are using DP-QPSK with coherent receivers for 40G long haul, as well. 100GBase-LR4 Ethernet will be the dominant technology for the metro and enterprise applications, with 10GBase-ER4 used for longer links.

Operator covered 74 million PoPs with LTE at the end of 2011 with 11 new markets launched, including congested areas such as San Francisco and NYC. AT&T also closed the year with more than 80 percent of its total mobile traffic on Ethernet backhaul, and Stankey said its 3G network performance has stabilized. Now, the wireless operator is focusing on turning customers' perceptions from neutral to positive, he said.

"Cloud" has gone from hot to hype to happening in the space of two years. So the trends in the cloud arena are much more practical and much less theoretical (i.e., sexy). But they still exist. Here are some notable shifts for cloud in 2011 that will continue to play out during the next year.

Heavy Reading's Alan Breznick explains how MSOs intend to boost commercial revenues using Ethernet and cloud-based services

In an announcement Thursday, the organization known as Gig.U -- for its goal of bringing Gigabit-per-second networks to research university campuses and towns -- said it had received "dozens" of formal replies to its request for information (RFI), a process by which the group sought any and every idea on how such networks might be built, with or without the blessing of traditional big-company service providers.

Every penny counts for Clearwire as it looks for $50M more on a planned stock offering

Ari Banerjee from Heavy Reading and Cyril Doussau de Bazignan from InfoVista outline the role Performance Assurance plays in assuring subscriber QoE during a backhaul transition from TDM to Carrier Ethernet

MetroE is "poised to do to legacy TDM-delivered data services what cable modems did to dial-up," O'Toole said of the technology's potential. That's because MetroE's bandwidth boost will be key to supplying revenue-driving cloud services because they require more data to run down the last-mile connection -- something that legacy TDM systems struggle with.

I recently had the opportunity to visit with Jim Poole, Equinix’s general manager for global networks and mobility, regarding the company’s strategy and the work that it is doing with Amazon. Our conversation followed an earlier webinar that I moderated with Jim and GoGrid Executive Chairman and Founder John Keagy

Cable companies have a major opportunity to win enterprise business away from telcos, but need to interconnect their networks to provide national coverage and deliver higher-quality customer service, Terry Canning, senior vice president of Canada-based Rogers Business Solutions, said here today.

U.S. cable continues to pry away the telcos' grip on the business services market, with MSOs poised to pull down about $6 billion in commercial revenues in 2011, according to Heavy Reading 's latest estimates.