Ciena Insights is Ciena's official news blog, keeping you informed about Ciena news and happenings, and giving you a forum for engaging in conversations with Ciena. Bo Gowan is the blog moderator, and Ciena's social media manager.
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AT&T’s wireless data traffic has grown 20,000% over the last five years.
Let that amazing stat sink in for a minute. In a recent blog post, AT&T exec John Donovan used that figure to put the U.S. wireless operator’s enormous mobile network challenge into perspective.
It’s a challenge shared by many of the world’s wireless operators, and one that will be top-of-mind during Mobile World Congress next week in Barcelona, one of the industry’s largest annual mobile technology conferences.
The false mobile bandwidth hog
Some may mistakenly peg the issue of mobile bandwidth and mobile backhaul networks on a small number of voracious end users. For example, a recent study by Arieso of a European mobile network showed that 1% of mobile subscribers consumed a full 50% of total bandwidth.
But is the mobile user to blame, or just adapting to the almost magical new capabilities offered with today’s smartphone devices? Case in point, the same Arieso study highlighted that the new iPhone 4S has nearly doubled the amount of data being downloaded by users when compared to its close cousin the iPhone 4.
The dawn of true mobile demand
The Arieso study is a great illustration of the problem: as features on smartphones become more compelling, demands being put on operator networks increase. Recent studies have shown that a majority of smartphone owners now use their phone to shop while in a retail store and 20% stream video. Indeed, the real question is whether that top 1% of mobile users should be considered a group of bandwidth gluttons to be controlled, or a peek into the future of mobile bandwidth demand.
And even with smartphone penetration hitting 40% across Europe and North America, the real stress test for worldwide mobile network operators may not be today’s iPhone and Android devices, but a completely new generation of phones that have been given the moniker of “Superphone.”
Defining the 4G Superphone
What exactly is a Superphone? While the definition of a Superphone isn’t quite set in stone, some degree of consensus has arisen over some of the features that make up a Superphone. This includes a screen size over 4 inches that is capable of 3G gaming and at least 720p HD video, a camera with resolution between 5-8 megapixels and HD video capture, 3D graphics acceleration, motion sensors, near field communications (NFC) and...
John Hawkins is Ciena’s resident Carrier Ethernet expert. In his many years in the industry, John has held board/chair positions for a variety of IEEE and MEF committees related to Carrier Ethernet.
Having been around the Carrier Ethernet conference circuit for as long as I have, I’ve always thought it was interesting how some topics seem to pop up again and again. For years, the subject of what operators call “operations, administration and maintenance” (OAM) would come up as almost an afterthought (sometimes a “P” for “provisioning” was also tacked on for good measure). It was touted as critical to network operators, yet somehow had the aura of being “un-sexy” and hard to get people excited about.
It was often assumed that networks could be managed, somehow, by someone, somewhere. Hardware vendors (I’m including myself here) would essentially say – “oh yeah, and all this can be managed – but that’s a topic for another day.” The details were largely left as an exercise for the student.
I always suspected the reality was quite different and that OAM was front and center in terms of the problem space Carrier Ethernet needed to address. Now a recent survey from the folks over at Heavy Reading seems to confirm that the chief consumers of Carrier Ethernet (the carriers) agree that the topic is of great importance to them.
The survey asked dozens of members of the Ethernet Executive Council (which now consists of 108+ executives and other senior experts from 68+ service providers) “What are the most important service innovations in the Carrier Ethernet & Cloud markets over the past 18 months?” The most popular response by more than a 2:1 margin was “End-to-end OAM/performance monitoring with SLA verification/assurance.”
A related question asks “What are the most important technology innovations in the past 18 months?” to which, again by more than 2:1, the number one response was OAM.(1)
So now the question (and conference buzz) seems to have moved from “how important is it?” to “what are you doing about it?” After all, if OAM is so important, are carriers actually rolling out the tools that have been developed? Well when the poll asked the question “which OAM tools is your company using to ensure & measure Ethernet SLAs?” Y.1731, RFC 2544 and 802.1ag tools all received over 50% of the votes (multiple votes being allowed).
Heavy Reading Senior Analyst Stan Hubbard put it this way: “Service providers worldwide are looking for OAM tools that will enable them to gain better control over operating expenses and improve the customer experience by more rapidly turning up service, monitoring service performance, providing customers visibility into that performance, and pro-actively managing faults. We’re starting to see this impacting networks, but there certainly is more to be done especially when considering how OAM operates on an end-to-end basis across multiple carrier networks. We’ll keep an eye on this trend with the Ethernet Executive Council in future surveys, as this is a key area of differentiation for Carrier Ethernet.”
At Ciena, we have concentrated on providing the broadest suite of OAM tools, running across multiple network layers (L0, L1, L2, even L3) to offer comprehensive OAM capabilities for thousands of service instances. An interesting note is that no two customers seem to use these tools in the same way, preferring instead to use them as building blocks to integrate with their own operational paradigms and to differentiate their offers from those of their competition.
For instance, hardware based 802.1ag OAM is increasingly useful given the sheer number of customers being added to the network on a daily basis, many of which want individual stats for multiple services. Maintaining all those stats is difficult in software given the accuracy of measurement required. But providing a high level of accuracy translates into real service differentiation for the provider.
In another case, a customer has preferred implementing Two-way Active Measurement Protocol (a L3 protocol) to measure SLA performance since their back-office systems had already been making use of the protocol prior to installation of the Carrier Ethernet gear. This saved time and expense of re-tooling the in-house procedures and personnel.
These sorts of subtle situations are unique to each customer, so it is not surprising that Ciena is finding rich opportunity to consult and collaborate with our customers to offer premium service levels broadly across their service footprints.
So it seems the industry has come a long way since the days of the proverbial last chart of the deck saying “oh yeah, we do OAM too.” The adoption rate is seemingly the proof in the pudding. What will the next popular conference topic be, I wonder? See you out there!
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[1] Heavy Reading, Ethernet Executive Council State-of-the-Industry Survey Report, 4Q 2011, January 2012
Last week at Ciena's annual Americas Partner Summit in Boca Raton, Florida, Ciena hosted a gathering of our BizConnect channel partners from North and South America. One of the highlights of the three-day event was an awards ceremony to present the winners of Ciena's 2011 BizConnect Awards for the Americas (EMEA winners will be named at the EMEA event next month).
These BizConnect channel partners were recognized for going above and beyond in their partnership with Ciena:
Solution Provider of the Year - North America CenturyLink
Solution Provider of the Year - CALA Desca
MSP of the Year Comcast
Services Champion of the Year LightRiver Technologies
Sprit of BizConnect - North America Ronco Communications
Spirit of BizConnect - CALA Adexus
Global Partner of the Year AboveNet
Below are pictures from the awards ceremony, and congratulations to all the winners. You can see many more pictures from the event in our Facebook album.
This week in Boca Raton, Florida, Ciena is hosting its annual Americas Partner Summit. The event brings together Ciena's BizConnect channel partners from North and South America (separate events for other regions will be held next month).
Last year I was able to attend the event, seeing first-hand how our partner team worked closely with our BizConnect partners on extending Ciena's reach to a broader market (see Video: Ciena Americas Partner Summit 2011).
The feedback I heard from last year's event was very positive. But our partner team doesn't seem intent in resting on that success. Before this year's event started, I was able to talk to Rick Olivieri, Ciena's Global Partner Strategic Marketing Director, about what new to expect this time around.
"The meeting this year is unique in that it’s not a about Ciena showing up and throwing up a bunch of content and positioning. The meeting doesn't start off with a keynote, but with roundtable discussions," said Rick.
"The roundtable format this year has been developed as an opportunity to learn and share with peers and the Ciena leadership team successes and strategies for winning in the marketplace. We have taken great care to structure the conversations for maximum interaction, with senior Ciena experts in the respective topics, and with partners who have experiences in each of the areas. Partners have agreed to collaborate and discuss and learn from one another during these interactive sessions."
This education and knowledge sharing is a result of some recent visible successes for Ciena and our partners. As an example, just today Ciena and BizConnect partner Telindus-ISIT announced a Carrier Ethernet deployment with Dutch provider UNET, providing an expansion and upgrade of its metro and access network. The new network adds scalability to the network and significantly accelerates and automates service creation and activation for UNET's business Ethernet services offering.
The roll-out of Business Ethernet Services has been a topic that is top of mind for incombent and competitive service providers alike, and is sure to be a recurring theme during this week's event as well.
Next Monday I'll have a follow-up post that summarizes all the events and activities from our America's Partner Summit, including a bunch of pictures. Until then, here's a few pics from last night's welcome reception to hold you over.
Lyndon Ong is in Ciena’s CTO organization and is a key member of the below OIF testing event, acting as the editor of the of the interop control plane protocol specification used by all vendors.
The Optical Interworking Forum (OIF) issued this press release today naming Ciena as one of the vendors participating in an OIF sponsored control plane interoperability event. The goal of the interoperability testing is to marry Ethernet as the predominant access and client interconnect technology, and OTN as the dominant transport technology.
Ciena was a leading member of the event, acting as the editor of the Interop control plane protocol specification used by all vendors. Below are some of the highlights, with the full results of the interoperability testing to be released by the OIF at next month’s OFC/NFOEC conference in Los Angeles.
The set of carriers participating in this year’s OIF interoperability event includes some of Ciena’s major customers as well as potential customers who will have the opportunity to observe testing of participating vendors’ OTN equipment. The carriers involved in this year’s event include AT&T, China Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom/Orange, KDDI, NTT and Verizon.
Participating vendors include major optical switching vendors both in North America and around the world, showing implementation of interoperable OTN switching equipment using the OIF E-NNI (External Network-Network Interface) control plane specifications for interworking in the control plane. Included are switching vendors Alcatel-Lucent, ADVA and Tellabs, plus control plane stack vendors Metaswitch and Marben Technologies. Huawei Technologies has participated in data plane interoperability testing but not in control plane testing. Test equipment vendor EXFO has provided OTN test equipment for data plane testing.
Ciena equipment has been placed in Verizon’s Waltham, MA lab and in the FT/Orange lab in Lannion, France for testing purposes. The interoperability topology is shown below:
Ciena domains in the Verizon and FT/Orange labs include Ciena 5410 and 5430 optical switching equipment outfitted with OTU2 and OTU3 interfaces and OIF E-NNI software support. Data plane testing tested interoperability of multiple client services adapted to OTN, including Gigabit Ethernet over ODU0, 10 Gigabit Ethernet over ODU2, as well as SDH STM-16 over ODU1 and STM-64 over ODU2. Gary Sawosik and Nick Lingis of Ciena are conducting the testing in the carrier labs, with Kapil Juneja and Navin Chand of Ciena India providing support.
Control plane services tested included setup and teardown of ODU0 and ODU2 connections across the multivendor network with OTU2 links connecting most vendors and OTU3 links used within the Ciena domain. The control plane E-NNI interfaces support OSPF-based OTN routing and RSVP-based OTN signaling, and interwork seamlessly with Ciena’s internal control plane protocol.
Ciena has a long history of promoting control plane interoperability for optical switching and...
Over the last few months we've been overflowing with coverage about the submarine networking space. Between the recent PTC'12 event in Hawaii and a string of submarine customer news with PCCW Global (here), Southern Cross (here), and Tata Communications (here), it seems like advances in submarine networks is all we've been talking about lately (see tag: submarine).
But up until now I have neglected to tell you about one of the coolest parts of Ciena's submarine story: our 40G/100G submarine test bed nestled away in our Ottawa R&D Lab.
Late last year when I was visiting Ciena's Ottawa campus as part of our annual Ciena Vectors Summit customer event, I got to meet Darwin Evans, a member of Ciena's submarine system development team. Darwin is based in Ottawa, spending much of his time in our R&D labs, and specifically with our 40G/100G submarine test bed.
What is a submarine test bed, you ask? That happens to be the same question I asked when Darwin gave me a tour.
In short, the submarine test bed is a way for Ciena to physically demonstrate our ability to deploy new technologies like 40G / 100G transport and optical mesh networking over existing 3rd party submarine networks.
Unlike some of the more traditional submarine cable network vendors, Ciena isn't in the business of deploying the actual submarine cable infrastructure that is laid on the ocean floor to connect countries and continents.
But with the world's existing 10G submarine networks now painfully inadequate to handle booming intercontinental bandwidth (see Submarine Networks World: More bandwidth, lower prices), new optical technologies that are already in use with terrestrial networks are now being applied to the submarine space to extend the life of these extremely expensive subsea network infrastructures.
That's where Ciena's submarine test bed comes into play. Our R&D guys have put a significant investment into creating dedicated submarine optical network test beds that are able to replicate a customer's specific submarine network characteristics, including fiber type, varying span distances, and repeater spacing.
A variety of submarine network operators have used Ciena's submarine test bed lab to ensure compatibility of their existing subsea infrastructure with the introduction of 40G and 100G technology, and for several of these customers the test lab was a critical part of their decision-making process.
In the below video, Ciena's Darwin Evans shows us part of the submarine test bed lab, and talks about the important role is plays with our submarine customers.
Last month, Ciena CEO Gary Smith added more frequent flyer miles to his account than I've collected in the last 10 years as he travelled to a variety of destinations across the Asia-Pacific region. After a quick stop along the way in Hawaii for the PTC’12 trade show (see Gary Smith talks submarine networks), Gary made a series of stops to visit employees and customers in APAC.
This included several "All Hands" meetings over lunch in our Mumbai, Gurgaon and Japan offices, as well as two Ciena-hosted receptions with several of our customers. And while these event made for some great pictures (see below) the most interesting part of his whirlwind tour is likely the interview Gary had with local trade publication Light Reading India, one of several interviews he had with media and analysts during the trip. In his Light Reading India interview, Gary talked about a range of topics related to Ciena and our activities in this fast-growing market.
There are largely three things that we have identified for the long-term strategic play. First is clearly to support the Indian domestic market with customized offerings, that is, making a strong presence in the local market, strategically. Second is identifying qualified talent. We always wanted to have our direct presence and capability in India. We are pleased with the productivity in India. [Third] We have three of the major carriers in India as our customers. We do have local partner support here in India but we can't name them.
On challenges in the Indian market:
If you look at the issues, the country is facing a lot of infrastructure challenges such as multiple fiber cuts. Other challenges [include] finding the most economical way to scale the network. A very specific issue in the Indian market is over-supply. While the market opportunity here is certainly big, the existing number of 15 operators is way too many. Hence, consolidation is going to be the key. The market needs to balance it, sooner or later.
Also, much has been said about the declining service quality, but the question comes -- are you as a subscriber ready to pay more for better service quality? So, it’s important for a market to define itself and set priorities.
On markets where Ciena will compete
In terms of markets, we believe that the Middle East, Russia, Brazil and India are amongst the fastest growing countries. We witnessed a growth of over 10 percent last year, which we believe is a great thing.
As the market for Business Ethernet Services continues to grow worldwide, with both more demand from enterprises and more providers offering Ethernet services, it's no longer good enough to just "be in the game" and expect customers to come knocking.
In order to win, today's Ethernet service providers have a key quality in mind: differentiation.
Service providers must provide an offering to their enterprise customers that provides clear differentiation from other offerings, be it faster time to service, more stringent SLAs, or a more flexible and dynamic service. Without this differentiation, the service provider offering risks being lost in the crowd of basic Ethernet connectivity offerings.
This new reality is evident in two new Business Ethernet Services customers announced today by Ciena. Canadian service provider Fibrenoire and e|net in Ireland are both deploying Ciena's Carrier Ethernet Solutions (CES) portfolio with service differentiation in mind.
For Fibrenoire, which operates an IP MPLS network covering Québec and Ontario with more than 3,000 km of optical fiber, that means deploying Ciena's 3960 and 3920 Service Delivery Switches to enable Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL), Ethernet Private Line (EPL) and Business Internet services that can be closely monitored and finely tuned to specific customer needs.
"In the highly-competitive business services market in Quebec and Ontario, it is essential that we differentiate our solutions from those offered by other network providers – we saw an opportunity to do that by delivering better quality service for a superior customer experience. With Ciena’s proven Carrier Ethernet Solutions, we are able to monitor our network, and make adjustments rapidly and efficiently, to support our market-leading Business Services service level agreement," said Jean-Francois Lévesque, chief technology officer at Fibrenoire in today's press release.
For e|net, differentiation is created by adding Ciena's 3916 and 3930 Service Delivery Switches to an infrastructure that already features an array of other Ciena CES devices connecting 94 towns and cities across Ireland. Combined, the network can provide enterprise customers with sophisticated QoS and SLA capabilities along with a "low-touch" management and provisioning system that enables rapid and low-cost lighting of new services.
"Carriers rely on e|net for quick and reliable access to connectivity and Ciena’s Carrier Ethernet Solutions offer us the portfolio needed to effectively build and expand our Carrier Ethernet network. That means e|net can quickly light new connections for customers, providing them with the guaranteed service quality they require," said Conal Henry, chief executive officer at e|net in today's press release.
By the way, if you haven't read about the branding change we recently made going from Carrier Ethernet Service Delivery (CESD) to Carrier Ethernet Solutions (CES) you can read about it here (see What's in a name? CESD becomes CES).
We even crowned a favorite picture of 2011 thanks to over 100 votes submitted on our Facebook page. The winner...London Tower (see below).
2.) Submarine networking had a big news month, mainly driven by the annual PTC'12 event hosted in Hawaii. Ciena was a big participant in the event, and we covered the show activities via our social channels. That included a video of Gary Smith talking submarine, some pictures from the event, posting our Submarine Cable Networks overview deck on Slideshare, and going live with a few new Submarine videos on our YouTube page.
But the big Ciena news from PTC'12 was the announcement from existing Ciena 40G submarine customer Southern Cross on plans to deploy Ciena 100G technology on its submarine network by the end of 2011 (see Southern Cross to deploy Ciena 100G for Pacific Submarine Network).
Ciena wasn't the only one making news around the show. Other news highlights included a new submarine network connecting Bermuda, Telefónica International Wholesale Services adding new routes between the U.S. and Europe, and even a new submarine cable connecting Iraq.
3.) Our 100G customer list grew again with the addition of Lightower and PCCW Global (another piece of Ciena submarine news for the month). You can see both of their network diagrams in this blog post highlighting the two deployments. We also posted a new 100G Infographic: the connected global village, which provided examples of how bandwidth is being consumed around the world and how coherent 100G can help.
4.) We eliminated our CESD portfolio. OK not really. We're still in the Carrier Ethernet business, but we did kill off the Carrier Ethernet Service Delivery (CESD) brand name -- simplifying it to the more straight-forward name of Carrier Ethernet Solutions (CES). You can see the portfolio home page here, and you'll see the new CES branding reflected in all new press releases and product references. You may still see the CESD name on older collateral and blog posts, but going forward we'll use the CES name.
5.) We launched a new ciena.com home page and several new regional sites. You can read an overview of the new ciena.com page here, which highlights the broad array of new videos at your disposal, and learn about the new Italian and Polish-language versions of the site here. Of course, you could also just go to www.ciena.com to check it out for yourself.
If you haven't stopped by the Ciena home page recently you'll see something new, as we've rolled out a redesign of our ciena.com home page.
The beautifule new main image area now scrolls through four customer case studies that span four separate market segments. Below that is an improved "What's New" section that thankfully still includes our blog preview box (but you already know how to find us anyway).
But the change that is really worth highlighting is "below the fold" of the page, as scrolling down reveals a host of new videos that are categorized into three new sections - Why Ciena, Our Solutions, and Our Technologies.
Ciena has been integrating more and more video into our website over the last year, and this latest update pushes that to the next level. In fact, there are 29 feature videos that you can now access straight from the ciena.com home page -- and many of them are brand new.
Disclaimer This blog may contain links to content published on third party websites that are unaffiliated with Ciena. The links to this information are offered for your convenience. Ciena does not control nor does it endorse or adopt such content. Ciena accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of third party content within or accessible from the linked sites.
mobile network showed that 1% of mobile subscribers consumed a full 50% of total bandwidth.
John Hawkins is Ciena’s resident Carrier Ethernet expert. In his many years in the industry, John has held board/chair positions for a variety of IEEE and MEF committees related to Carrier Ethernet.
But up until now I have neglected to tell you about one of the coolest parts of Ciena's submarine story: our 40G/100G submarine test bed nestled away in our Ottawa R&D Lab.
Last month, Ciena CEO Gary Smith added more frequent flyer miles to his account than I've collected in the last 10 years as he travelled to a variety of destinations across the Asia-Pacific region. After a quick stop along the way in Hawaii for the PTC’12 trade show (see 
For e|net, differentiation is created by adding Ciena's 
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