During Tuesday morning’s keynote, Randall L. Stephenson, Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer, AT&T Inc. described his vision for the future of telecom.  In
short, there isn’t on.  Rather than simple wired and wireless voice and
data, Stephenson envisions a future of voice, video, data and other services
served over IP networks at unimaginable speeds.

“We are in the very early stages of a major shift in telecomm that will have
a major impact of the way we live,” Stephenson explained. “We are doing
things with technology today that we couldn’t have imagined a few years
ago.”

Stephenson illustrated his point by pointing out that eighty percent of the
world’s population lives within range of a cell tower, wireless voice minute
use is growing ten percent year over year and wireless data traffic is
quadrupling annually while landline home phone use continues to fall.

“To realize the full potential of all this connectivity, it takes the
combined efforts of many different companies and technologies,” Stephenson
explained.  “NXTcomm brings all the players together to accelerate this
innovation, improve quality and reduce coasts.”

Sol Trujillo, CEO, Telstra expanded on Stephenson’s remarks when he took the
sage immediately afterward.  Trujillo explained how he is leading
Australia’s largest telecommunications company through a five-year
transformation based on detailed customer research.

“Our industry has the best opportunity for growth since the mid nineties,”
Trujillo said. “But this time it is being driven by consumer needs.”
Trujillo stressed the need to continuously research and re-evaluate consumer
needs and desires.

According to Trujillo, consumers want uncomplicated, intuitive, time saving
personalized devices that are easy to use and offer a lot of value for the
money. Trujillo believes that network’s performance now has a larger impact
on the consumer’s experience than does the design of the hardware or human
interface.

Both Trujillo and Stephenson mentioned the importance of a seamless
ecosystem of hardware, software and high-speed networks in delivering
consumers a quality experience.  Their compelling and energizing vision
opened NXTcomm08 show floor on a high note.

Merriam-Webster defines a network as “an interconnected or interrelated chain, group, or system.”  While technically accurate, this definition fails to adequately describe the network’s potential beyond simple content delivery and communication.  As network bandwidth approaches the throughput of the data busses found inside personal computers, enterprise network topology may begin to look more like a motherboard than a traditional distribution system. Continue reading “The Network as a Platform”