Telwares perspectives on mobile BYOD

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Telwares mentioned in dark fiber article

From Bill Snyder’s colum:

From feast to famine: Dark fiber gets hard, and expensive, to find

Early in this about-to-close decade, fiber optic cable was going to be the answer to everyone’s bandwidth problems. Before the dot-com bubble burst, “everyone who owned a right of way, from railroads to telcos, got greedy and started laying cable,” says Glenn Ricart, an Internet pioneer who is now CEO of National LambdaRail. Not surprisingly, the result was a glut of dark (this is, unconnected and unlit) fiber that lasted for years.

But prices are soaring as the shortage disappears. And it could affect the connectivity choices open to enterprises.

Dark fiber can provide high-speed connectivity at a low cost. Instead of paying telcos to incrementally adjust the bandwidth on a physical link as needed, dark-fiber customers can simply light up the circuit with inexpensive 100Mbps or 1Gbps termination gear. What’s more, the use of dark fiber means the circuit can be used for other protocols as well, not just IP.

Until this year, prices were generally reasonable, but have doubled in the last 12 months as the inventory of dark fiber shrinks. By contrast, prices for lit fiber have gone up just 10 to 15 percent, says Ricart.

One reason for the big uptick in prices appears to be a surge of buying by Google and perhaps Amazon.com and Microsoft, which will need ever more bandwidth as they expand efforts in cloud computing. “Google has bought an awful lot of dark fiber from people like us,” Mark Lewis, director of service development at Interoute said at an industry conference in November. It’s not hard to see the connection between cloud computing and fiber: If services are located outside the enterprise, there’s a much greater need for connectivity. Cloud computing still plays a relatively small role in enterprise IT, but buying fiber now is an insurance policy against the day when capacity is needed.

Meanwhile, companies holding dark-fiber inventory have taken portions off the market to push prices even higher, Ricart says. That’s a tactic that wouldn’t work if there weren’t an imbalance between supply and demand in the first place.

Ultimately, the market should correct itself, says Michael Voellinger, executive vice president of IT and telecom consultancy Telwares. “The investment opportunity surrounding low-latency capacity solutions in the context of the cloud and bandwidth-intensive applications and content is enormous. The dollars will flow into fiber,” he says.

Voellinger expects the shortage to be short-lived. But it took about nine years for the glut to turn to a drought, so it’s not at all clear how long it will take for the balance to swing the other way.

The shortage is not uniform, notes Ricart. Enterprises in the largest markets can still find the capacity they need, but in second- and third-tier cities, there is a crunch. His advice: “If I were a CIO in a lower-tier market, I would think about locking in connectivity.”

AT&T / CWA Contract Expiration and Potential Strike – Update

Update Sunday: Negotiations are continuing past the strike deadline. According to various statements by the CWA and AT&T, the two sides remain focused on wages, health care costs, and job security. More detail will be posted as appropriate. Telwares maintains:

SUMMARY OF ISSUE:
•On April 4th 2009, a series of five regional union contracts will expire between AT&T and the Communications Workers of America affecting 112,000 employees. A sixth contract due to expire later this year is also in scope.
•Members of the CWA have ratified a strike if negotiations are unsuccessful.
•AT&T is seeking concessions related to active and retired employee health benefits, essentially sharing more of the burden with employees.
•The CWA is seeking to finalize a variety of wage issues and mitigate the AT&T position on sharing more of the medical costs.
•AT&T has been preparing for several months to accommodate a strike by training non‐bargained employees for assignment throughout the organization.
TELWARES PERSPECTIVE:
While a strike would clearly put a strain on AT&T’s resources, we do not believe this will materially affect continuing operations within AT&T in the short term. The Telwares concern for existing clients and prospects grows larger if a strike were to happen and extend for more than a few weeks. At that point, we believe there could be real jeopardy for clients relating to account support, service provisioning/troubleshooting, and network implementations/migrations.
KEY ENTERPRISE CONSIDERATIONS:
•Contractual risk mitigation ‐ how are labor disputes handled in your contract(s) and is there remedy available to you if needed? The majority of AT&T agreements to address labor disputes as part of Force Majeure language – due diligence is required.
•Account maintenance and support ‐ if resources are stretched within AT&T, what is the contingency plan specific to your relationship with them, in practical terms?
•SLA delivery ‐ what provisions are wrapped around the SLA’s in your contracts, and again, are there sufficient remedies in place if service were to degrade?
•Implementation and/or migration of new services ‐ if new services are planned or in‐flight, what is the contingency plan to accomplish the transaction? What remedy is available to your organization?
oIn addition, there may be implied delays in contract negotiations or legal review/approval process due to any labor dispute. This should be challenged aggressively.

AT&T / CWA Contract Expiration and Potential Strike

Update to previous entries…negotiations are continuing.

SUMMARY OF ISSUE:
•On April 4th 2009, a series of five regional union contracts will expire between AT&T and the Communications Workers of America affecting 112,000 employees. A sixth contract due to expire later this year is also in scope.
•Members of the CWA have ratified a strike if negotiations are unsuccessful.
•AT&T is seeking concessions related to active and retired employee health benefits, essentially sharing more of the burden with employees.
•The CWA is seeking to finalize a variety of wage issues and mitigate the AT&T position on sharing more of the medical costs.
•AT&T has been preparing for several months to accommodate a strike by training non‐bargained employees for assignment throughout the organization.
TELWARES PERSPECTIVE:
While a strike would clearly put a strain on AT&T’s resources, we do not believe this will materially affect continuing operations within AT&T in the short term. The Telwares concern for existing clients and prospects grows larger if a strike were to happen and extend for more than a few weeks. At that point, we believe there could be real jeopardy for clients relating to account support, service provisioning/troubleshooting, and network implementations/migrations.
KEY ENTERPRISE CONSIDERATIONS:
•Contractual risk mitigation ‐ how are labor disputes handled in your contract(s) and is there remedy available to you if needed? The majority of AT&T agreements to address labor disputes as part of Force Majeure language – due diligence is required.
•Account maintenance and support ‐ if resources are stretched within AT&T, what is the contingency plan specific to your relationship with them, in practical terms?
•SLA delivery ‐ what provisions are wrapped around the SLA’s in your contracts, and again, are there sufficient remedies in place if service were to degrade?
•Implementation and/or migration of new services ‐ if new services are planned or in‐flight, what is the contingency plan to accomplish the transaction? What remedy is available to your organization?
oIn addition, there may be implied delays in contract negotiations or legal review/approval process due to any labor dispute. This should be challenged aggressively.

IBM and Sun

Most industry and financial outlets are reporting that IBM is in discussions concerning a $6.5B acquisition of Sun, which would make this the largest purchase in IBM history – and a clear premium amount on the Sun brand and market capitalization.

Sun was a dot com rock star, but has been forced into cost-cutting mode like so many others in the industry. IBM has maintained its credibility as a steady earner so far – so this news has sent Sun share prices on the rise today. This should be of interest to the CIO community, especially in light of Sun’s focus on open source, and could play into a broader strategy around IBM’s impact in telecom, finance, and cloud computing in the enterprise.

More to follow…

Risk versus reward: Mobility and Security

Many large organizations are still wrestling with the concept of mobility in terms of security and asset ownership. Cost is a key consideration, with most organizations perceiving ownership as more expensive than reimbursement (Telwares historical and trend data shows this NOT to be true). The benefits in terms of productivity and availability are undeniable, but there’s a potential risk and exposure cost associated with all of that portability. Telwares has assisted hundreds of global clients in developing and deploying risk mitigation strategies for mobility, and our perspective on owning and securing mobile assets has not changed: it must happen. With the absolute explosion of smartphone penetration, it is more imperative than ever to ensure the basics – policy, robust security process, training and most of all awareness. This transcends Sarbanes compliance – it spans into brand credibility, revenue impact and the ability to effectively compete.

Think it’s negligible? the Identity Theft Resource Center has published a report and summary for breaches in 2008: Data on the Move. Here’s the facts: almost 21% of all breaches came from smartphones, PDAs, thumb drives and laptops – all mobile assets. That 21% placed nearly 18.8 million records in jeopardy.

Think about explaining a breach to management and your shareholders – is it a demonstration of what you proactively executed to minimize risk, or a demonstration of lessons learned?

Read more here: http://www.idtheftcenter.org/

Put this on your watch list…

AT&T, after reporting a 23% decline in profits, is now facing labor talks across its wireless and wire line businesses during 2009. There are various dates and time frames for a potential “work stoppage”, but spring will be the season to watch. In fairness to both sides of this issue, AT&T is facing the impacts of the global recession, rising costs to support lights-on operations, and the need to invest in innovation to remain competitive. The unions are also facing the impacts of the economy by virtue of compensation for members, health care (which will be a focus), and the retiree question of benefits. There are compelling facts on both sides – but you, as a consumer, business or large enterprise need to evaluate risk in this scenario, and be ready to act accordingly. This is not a doomsday scenario, since we are positive agreements will be reached on some level (look to the Verizon and Qwest talks). That said, there are several key areas of risk for businesses to evaluate given the potential for a strike, however brief. We would recommend for existing and potential new clients to evaluate:

• Contractual risk mitigation – how are labor disputes handled in your contract(s), and is there remedy available to you if needed?
• Account maintenance and support – if resources are stretched within AT&T, what is the contingency plan specific to your relationship with them, in practical terms?
• SLA delivery – what provisions are wrapped around the SLA’s in your contracts, and again, are there sufficient remedies in place if service were to degrade?
• Implementation and / or migration of new services – if they are planned or in-flight, what is the contingency plan to accomplish the transaction? What remedy is available to you

The Sprint debate

If Dan Hesse has accomplished anything at all in his tenure as CEO of Sprint, he has managed to spark many conversations about Sprint’s pricing, technology, marketing, and brand approach. The most recent announcement concerning the layoff of 8000 workers, as a cost cutting effort, has accelerated the specific discussion around Sprint’s long term viability – do they have a strategy to move forward, given the global economy and market dynamics?

Telwares believes the answer is yes, and for reasons that apply to Sprint’s competitors as well. First, the “bad news” press about layoffs and cost cutting are universal in nature. It’s everyone, not just Sprint, and is a matter of economic reality. Second, whether you like the technology or not, the legacy Nextel brand and platform is still viable – as measured by performance, subscribers, or market equity. Third, the Palm Pre launch should put Sprint squarely into the cutting edge device landscape, and should provide enhanced subscriber adds as a direct result. We all know Sprint needs that sorely.

If there’s jeopardy in the Sprint strategy, we (Telwares) would point to two major areas of concern: how do the cost cutting initiatives affect their ability to execute across the business, and how does the negative media affect their ability to garner acquisition business? Both of these items are critical to overcome. Increasing customer satisfaction was a primary Hesse initiative, and the layoffs just cannot help that. The negative media will undoubtedly inspire more scrutiny from both consumers and business alike, so the message and clarity on long term vision become very important.

The wireless marketplace is doing fairly well given overall conditions -there’s reason to be bullish across the category.