The mobility business case

A hot topic among my clients these days is defining a mobility business case. The rationale is simple: Mobility budgets have been rising more than 10% year over year for the past three years — even though IT budgets overall have been declining.

By Johna Till Johnson | 22 December, 2010 04:16

Tags: software, service providers, mobility, LAN & WAN, applications

Data-leak lessons learned from the 'Climategate' hack

In case you've missed it, someone recently dumped a large cache of e-mail files and documents from the University of East Anglia University's prestigious Climactic Research Unit onto the 'Net. The CRU is one of the leading climatology research institutions, and its data and models provide much of the infrastructure on which the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is based.

By Johna Till Johnson | 26 November, 2009 07:41

Tags: security, global warming, climategate, anthropogenic global warming (AGW)

The battle over voice, the war of UC

Last week, I wrote about the possible implications of the new lineup of FCC commissioners. They certainly haven't wasted any time: On Aug. 3, the FCC launched a full-scale investigation into the decision by Apple and AT&T to reject Google's voice application for the iPhone. As Sanford Bernstein telecom analyst Craig Moffatt notes, "The issue of application suppression affords the Administration a back door route to Wireless Net Neutrality, something that has been openly espoused by new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski."

By Johna Till Johnson | 06 August, 2009 09:09

Tags: unified communications

A look at cloud computing's dark lining

Unless you've been living in a cave all summer like one of my friends (it's in Finland, he's an artistic genius) you've probably heard the buzz about cloud computing.

The Internet sky really is falling

Many folks are familiar with the modeling we've done over the past few years highlighting the fact that Internet demand is outstripping capacity, specifically access capacity. The findings were, to put it mildly, controversial: We've been called everything from carrier shills to nut-jobs. (No, the research wasn't sponsored. And we never claimed your fillings were receiving extraterrestrial radio signals).

By Johna Till Johnson | 07 May, 2009 08:30

Tags: bandwidth, IPv6

About those 'Net capacity issues: There's more

A little over a year ago, my colleagues and I modeled current and projected Internet capacity and anticipated demand to see if the curves ever crossed. The short answer: Yes, sometime before 2012, access (though not core) capacity would no longer be enough to serve demand.

By Johna Till Johnson | 05 December, 2008 06:21

Tags: broadband

What's an ISP? (That's not a trick question)

As President-elect Barack Obama begins fleshing out his agenda, one promising sign is that he considers Internet infrastructure to be key, judging from both his stated goals and the caliber of people he's asking to advise him on policy.

By Johna Till Johnson | 26 November, 2008 09:34

Tags: isp

Telecom planning in a time of turmoil

It's gotten pretty hard to miss the financial news lately: September was the worst month for stocks in years, and October looks to surpass it. Despite the US government's massive US$800-billion bailout, the US economy is still roiling, and Europe's is doing even worse.

By Johna Till Johnson | 10 October, 2008 14:11

Tags: telecommunications

How IPv6 is like the US financial crisis

Not long ago, the powers-that-be detected an impending crisis. To resolve it, they rushed into action crafting a proposal that represented an unprecedented upheaval of existing infrastructure. On the grounds that "something needed to be done" to avert the crisis, they brushed aside objections that the upheaval was too convulsive and might nonetheless fail to address the underlying issues that had created the crisis in the first place.

By Johna Till Johnson | 02 October, 2008 10:38

Tags: IPv6

Residents "own" last-mile in Canadian broadband trial

You've got to hand it to the Canadians. Not only do they come up with great hockey, outstanding comedians and my friend Dave Keck (an up-and-coming science fiction writer) they've also generated one of the most innovative ideas ever for last-mile connectivity.

Crafting a WAN? Consider the edges

Many IT executives consider the WAN to be a monolithic entity: a giant network that connects all the organization's sites across a common infrastructure.

Building a new data center? Think WAN

Practically every company I talk with is consolidating data centers, constructing new ones, or both. These aren't the old "glass house" models of the 1980s and 1990s: They're next-generation designs with racks of blade servers, virtualized clusters and storage-area networks.

Don't be pooh-poohing social networking

A while back, I wrote about the concept of social networking. The upshot: Although the wisdom of crowds may be overhyped, the phenomenon of social networking isn't.

Going green, virtually speaking

Broadly speaking, there are two main reasons for companies to go green. The first is to reduce energy costs, thereby saving the company money. As one IT executive put it to me recently, "Green computing is all about saving greenbacks."

Navigating the wild world of wireless

Verizon's proposed US$28 billion acquisition of privately held Alltel signals the start of hurricane season for wireless providers. And this season might just include the perfect storm: Technology shifts, consolidation and business-model changes are combining to reconfigure the world of wireless.