With COMPTEL PLUS Fall 2010 quickly approaching (Sept 12-15, 2010) in Dallas, TX – I thought this easy guide to dark fiber would be helpful.  It’s a quick read and may provide you with the guidance you very well need.

1. Control.  We all want control of our network and the solutions we offer to carry the data communications it enables.  The only way a company can get full control is if they have the core, base fiber – ‘dark fiber.’  Dark fiber is the raw fiber, in the ground, along a specific route that is just waiting to be lit.  It’s the Light, when the fiber is lit, that enables the carriage of data communications.  Routes can be diverse, but the most control is on the electronics and equipment that companies use to light the fiber.  With a variety of very capable and leading vendors to choose from – the control is all yours. 
2. State-of-the-Art.  Yes, I’m using that marketing term in association with dark fiber.  Not all fiber is created equal.  Of course light can only travel so fast, but with the latest and greatest technologies, dark fiber is ‘state-of-the-art’ technology that can enable communications – and a lot of it.
3. Flexibility.  Dark fiber can be lit, re-lit and then lit again.  Remember, it’s the gear that lights the fiber.  With dark fiber, you have the flexibility to switch out equipment to leverage the latest and greatest technologies without having to forklift an entire network.
4. Expandable.  Flexibility, state-of-the-art and control all provide for an easily expandable network system that can grow as your business grows.  It gives you the ability to know what your fixed costs are and the flexibility to add software enhancements that increase the network capability providing you with options to expand not only the bandwidth capability of your network but your footprint as well.
5. Allied Fiber.  Seriously, this company is changing the way dark fiber is bought, sold, marketed and more importantly how accessible it can be (did I say affordable too?).  Find out for yourself.  If you’re interested to know more about dark fiber and why you should be looking to buy some for your network visit www.alliedfiber.com– also check out the dark fiber community on TMCNet – http://dark-fiber.tmcnet.com/- an abundance of information is just at your finger tips.  To schedule a meeting with Allied Fiber, who will be attending Comptel, email pr@jaymiescotto.com.

Good luck on your quest for control of your state-of-the-art dark fiber network that provides you with flexibility and expandable capabilities a network geared for the future should have.

Contributed by: Randy Weinberger, IceHook Systems  

Randy Weinberger, IceHook Systems

New York City mayor and billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg is a big believer in the saying, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.   It is a simple and obvious statement that can apply to every business opportunity.  When it comes to running a voice network, the key to measurement begins with the ability to capture as much information as is possible.  Again, this seems simple and obvious.  Only here’s the thing…many carriers are willfully discarding vital network data in the name of saving storage space.   More specifically, carriers are not recording all of the Call Detail Records (CDRs) that their platforms’ generate.  In fact, in many cases, service providers discard far more CDRs then they retain.

Let me explain.   Since most next-gen switches are server based and rely on hard drives to capture CDR’s, by default many platforms are configured to save space by not recording CDR’s for each hunt attempt.  Only one CDR is written, and therefore it is typically the last route choice that is populated in the outbound trunk field.   For example, if a call hunts through two carriers before ultimately failing on a third, no records are written to indicate the failed attempts on the first two carriers. In other words, the two carriers that also failed the call get a free pass.  Some platforms do indicate the number of hunt attempts in the CDR, but there is very little high level reporting that can be done with this data.  Furthermore, even if you were to determine that a particular carrier failed a call, the error code is not recorded thus there is no indication why the call failed.  This severely impacts decision making.  Fundamental statistics like Answer Seizure Ratio (ASR) become nearly impossible to measure accurately.  Also, how do you size your network properly when you don’t have a complete account of all call attempts?  Finally, not having access to failure codes makes trouble shooting more of a guessing game then something you can rely upon when making decisions that can cost your company thousands of dollars an hour.

Fortunately, almost every platform, be it Genband, Mera, Sonus, or even FreeSwitch have settings which enable them to record every hunt attempt on every call.  Of course you will have to keep some things in mind before you decide to implement this.  First of all, capturing each hunt attempt will consume storage space, so you may not be able to store as many call records locally.  Secondly, you have to ensure that your reporting software can account for dealing with multiple CDRs per call.  Some packages cannot and as a result your reporting will indicate that you are receiving double or triple the amount of call attempts then you actually are.

Despite the increase in storage and reporting requirements, I cannot think of any reason why any carrier would not keep and utilize this data.  Failure to do so is essentially throwing  away the opportunity to perform the following.

• Capture granular detail of each leg of every call for trouble shooting purposes
• Accurately measure vendor performance
• Compile high level reporting for network sizing purposes

Like Mayor Bloomberg might say, “If you don’t capture it, you can’t measure it.”

Article written by: Daniel Reinhold-Shor

It is well know that as a region, Latin America is seeing great growth in their markets and with it the broader use of technologies is increasing as well.   The concept of internet banking has boomed within the Latin American region, with over 70% of retail banks now offering internet banking to clients.

The financial institutions of Latin America are taking the opportunity to capitalize on the convergence of the Telco and IT industries by developing services for customers with a mobile focus.  Is the region capable of making the transition to a mobile focus?

With new forecasts from ABI Research indicating that in 2015 about 244 million people worldwide will carry out financial transactions using their mobile phones, the answers seems to be yes.  This coupled with the Gates foundation announcing a grant of 12.5 million dollars in support of mobile banking initiative in the region allows for the popularization needed for financial institutions to make the most of this change. 

The help of the Gates foundation allows for people who previously couldn’t afford to go to a branch and open an account when they could be earning money the chance to develop savings through mobile accounts. 

There also needs to be the adaptation of applications that is a hurdle for financial institutions and there is more than one way to develop the right combination. An attendee of the FST LA Summit Rodolfo Gasparri, CIO of Banco Mercantil explains “It’s a balance that one must do, what level of security and retrieval of information required, ie, measuring how long until the functionality is guaranteed, usually there are beginning to segment and define critical applications”.

An added bonus that makes these equations easier to attract consumer usage is with the new information that Intel is acquiring McAfee for $7.68 billion in cash.  This is good news for IT directors and managers at major financial institutions because smart phones will automatically be installed with security software when coupled with Intel hardware.  This leaves consumers feeling safer about participating in personal information and financial transaction over their mobile devices.

The topics of integrating technology service to ease the transition of mobile banking as well as enterprise level services are of major interest to industry leaders like Kelson Corte, CIO of Banco De Brasilia, Mario Gaete, CIO & COO of BCI, Stuart Pallant, CIO of Americas at Standard Bank and Laura Rodriguez, VP of Technology at Banco Meridian SA who are attending the FST Summit from the 1^st through the 3^rd of December in Mexico. 

Mobile banking is not the only place seeing growth.  Trading communications are also seeing increased benefits for the financial industry when prioritizing and speeding up market transactions.

Known for its ability to provide maximum resiliency and reliability, the IQ/MAX turret supports redundant network connections to help increase productivity and provide unparalleled trading support. The system also allows traders to prioritize information in order of importance to enhance speed of transactions, and the benefits have been seen by the likes of Laura Rodriguez of Banco Meridian. 

The increase in Latin Americas presence from an economic standpoint really developing niche markets for the implementation of technologies that the financial institutions are really embracing.  The future of this area is bright and with potential still needing to be fulfill it will be exciting to see the impact technology will have as an example outside Latin America.

Since the public announcement of Allied Fiber’s network was made on May 24, 2010, the company has made great strides to educate the marketplace about it’s network offering. Not a week goes by that Allied Fiber isn’t mentioned in an article about new dark fiber cable systems, solving mobile backhaul interconnectivity issues, illustrating new ways that Container Data Centers can be used and deployed for a wide variety of network solutions.

As I continue to follow, promote and work with the Allied Fiber team, the vision and solutions that the company will solve in the next few years are tremendous. Only an imagination can truly appreciate how communications in America can be vastly improved through the construction of Allied Fiber’s network. So join me, as I share some of my own imagination.

It’s a long-haul or short-haul distance that I can route my data communications.  This gives me the flexibility to stop every mile or so along the route, servicing rural markets that have traditionally been bypassed.  With Cell towers now gaining access to more and more bandwidth, communities can literally be lit up, able to connect to the rest of the world through their home computers, mobile devices, cell phones and more. Technology enabled appliances, no longer limited to the lit up urban regions of the US can be deployed, allowing more and more people the opportunity to ‘spread’ their wings. With more people working from home, their ability to work nearly anywhere will be even more possible. Even those families that dream of a vacation home on a lake will have more control of their ‘far’ away homes, making them accessible even when they are not there.

As a professional I share the vision and freedom that I would like for myself but also know that more modern infrastructure will further enable global communications to become more ubiquitous. Imagine the opportunities for better jobs, access to greater education systems, the ability to connect to medical professionals without the need to travel – these visions are becoming the reality as more and more communities are lit up.  These opportunities will enable the US to level the playing field and bridge the divide between those that know and those that don’t know, city dwellers and country folk, farmers and doctors, share educational experiences, research and open up the minds of those that want to. It is all possible with the aid of technology that powers communication networks that provide access to nearly everywhere.

Allied Fiber’s network is being constructed to enable dreams through communications connectivity.  This is the opportunity to tap into the future. Allied Fiber now has lease options available for network operators to tap into.

To find out more about Allied Fiber, visit www.alliedfiber.com or email sales@alliedfiber.com.

Why use one port to access just one service, when you can use one port to access three services simultaneously? PacketExchange offers customers the ability to access all three of their Internet solutions providing companies the ability to optimize the way they connect to the Internet.  By entering through one port, companies gain access to PacketExchange’s Public Peering, Private Peering and the Public Internet network solutions.

PacketExchange’s Public Peering network interconnects to nearly all of the Global Internet Exchange points, providing easy global connectivity without the need to create your company’s own connections.

Their Private Peering network allows customers to easily connect with any other users already connected to PacketExchange.  The solution provides private line connectivity among this ‘community’ offering the highest quality connectivity solutions that include guaranteed low latency, fast re-routes and maximum efficiencies.

PacketExchange offers access to the Public Internet through their IP network leveraging the Donut Peering Model.  This design leverages direct connections with Tier 2 networks to create a faster, more direct path to end users. PacketExchange’s mission is to deliver ever-increasing amounts of bandwidth to a media-rich Internet while maintaining optimal performance.

To learn more about PacketExchange’s Internet exchange services, visit www.PacketExchange.net or email sales@packetexchange.net

Written by: Caitlin O’Hagan, Account Manager at Jaymie Scotto & Associates

Namecast, the advanced global DNS traffic management solutions provider has taken another leap ahead as it gains ground in the DNS industry, by offering its latest round of enhanced features, which include advanced CDN load balancing, pro-active application monitoring and geographic filtering on its proprietary DNS platform.  These enhanced features differentiate Namecast’s solutions by offering ISPs, content providers and global enterprise businesses inherently more control, customized features, and access to monitoring tools not available on the market today.

Namecast has upgraded its platform to meet the growing demands of its customers that struggle with limitations offered by traditional off-the-shelf software.

“We founded Namecast to provide the marketplace with a full-control, easily modifiable solution to ensure disaster recovery plans, uptime requirements and general IP network optimization solutions,” comments Namecast’s CTO and Founder, Afsheen Bigdeli. “It is important to us that our customers feel we are meeting their needs and to provide customized platform solutions to meet their specific business requirements.”

The upgraded platform adds new features for load balancing between CDN providers based on priority, time of day, or advanced geographic filters. Users can also utilize Namecast’s application monitoring to balance traffic or fail over between CDN providers based on standard ICMP, TCP and HTTP monitoring probes, as well as download speed, streaming video status, and origin server load.

Namecast’s globally deployed application probes monitor web content based on pre-defined customized criteria. In the event of an outage, Namecast’s platform can seamlessly redirect DNS entries to enhance performance and preserve uptime. Changes are instantly propagated across Namecast’s network without any delays.  The company’s cloud based solution requires no changes to current architecture or applications, and can be deployed within minutes.

For more information about Namecast, or to learn how they can assist your business needs, please visit www.Namecast.net or email info@namecast.net.

Have you ever noticed how slow your connections seem when you are watching television, talking on the phone and using the Internet at the same time? One carrier often provides these three services, which means data is sent and received for all services at the same rate, causing high latency and inconsistent performance.

PacketExchange, the leading provider of private network services with Internet economics has developed a method to ensure data is transferred based on the priority or class of services required by each network device.

Since television is high quality, especially HDTV, the data requires a high bandwidth with low packet loss. Telephone services also require low packet loss, although they use a much lower bandwidth. Since the Internet is not high quality, it does not necessitate the same level of data transference as television and phones. PacketExchange breaks that one connection usually provided by carriers into three separate prongs to send and receive data for the telephone, television and Internet based on their priority.

For more information about PacketExchange, please visit www.PacketExchange.net.

Written by: Caitlin O’Hagan, Account Manager at Jaymie Scotto & Associates

Arbinet provides buyers and sellers with multiple options to meet all business needs. Rather than shopping in a specialized store, which only carries one brand or service, Arbinet’s network of suppliers gives shoppers the ability to view multiple companies and brands. You are no longer required to settle for the one available service; with Arbinet, you can search through their extensive network of providers to find the company which best fits your needs.

Arbinet is the company who brings buyers and sellers of voice and IP communications capacity and content together. It provides international voice services to retail, mobile, wholesale, prepaid and VoIP providers in addition to offering high performance access to the global Internet for service providers, carriers, ISPs, hosting companies, VoIP providers and more. With more than 1,100 customers and suppliers on its voice platform, Arbinet has the ability to offer termination to over 1,400 destinations worldwide. 

 Arbinet offers three services to manage international voice:

• thexchange^SM  thexchange offers companies one connection to access a complete marketplace, anonymously, where buyers and suppliers trade, route, manage and settle international voice traffic.
• Carrier Services  Carrier Services offers a modified approach to the traditional wholesale process.  This solution customizes routing plans based upon each customer’s specific needs for price, quality and feature capability.   All managed and processed through the Arbinet state-of-the-art platform offering one connection to multiple carriers.
• PrivateExchange^SM   PrivateExchange simplifies carrier management by controlling multiple direct routes via a single interconnect. Members can connect to other Arbinet members, customers or suppliers and immediately begin exchanging traffic – you negotiate your routes together.

In addition to voice services, Arbinet provides settlement services, Global Number Portability Correction and OptimizedIP.

Arbinet’s voice and data solutions empower global carriers and service providers to create more efficient and cost-effective global interconnections.

Arbinet’s Points of Presence (PoPs) in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Frankfurt and Hong Kong, with dedicated sales teams operating in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific assist in creating these global interconnections. 

For more information about Arbinet please visit www.arbinet.com or email sales@arbinet.com or datasales@arbinet.com.

Written by: Caitlin O’Hagan, Account Manager at Jaymie Scotto & Associates

On August 11, 2010 Allied Fiber, America’s ‘All Access’ Network,  participated in the Oppenheimer Annual Technology, Media & Telecommunications Conference which took place at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston, MA.   During his 30 minute presentation, Hunter Newby, the CEO of Allied Fiber explained sort of the nuts and bolts of this new, carrier-neutral integrated dark fiber, colocation and tower network that they are building throughout the US.

What is most interesting about Allied Fiber is that it is a completely new business model, one that bridges together disparate pieces of the telecom puzzle into one holistic solution providing a complete layer 1 communications platform.   Beyond the integration of fiber and wireless network infrastructure, here are some highlights of the Allied Fiber solution:

• Allied Fiber is addressing the lack of accessible dark fiber in the market by making carrier neutral dark fiber available
• Key to Allied Fiber is that it’s substantially diverse from all existing long-haul networks
• Allied Fiber is employing the most advanced fiber optic cables in its ducts to meet the ever increasing bandwidth demands for wireless, Video over IP and other advanced technologies
• Allied Fiber is meeting the increased demand with 432 fiber strands in each duct (up to three ducts)
• Allied Fiber is designing, owning and operating its own regeneration huts/colocation facilities along the Network optimally placed for long/short-haul and wireless backhaul providers

So what does this network look like? 

It has both Long Haul Routes and Short Haul Routes.  The Short Haul routes are accessible approximately every 60 miles for the purpose of regeneration or power boosting the light carried in the Fiber.

The company’s Fiber to the Tower (FTTT) product is offered on even shorter distances, approximately every 1-2 miles, making lateral extensions from the main fiber rout to to towers more accessible.

And to make it all possible, Allied Fiber offers colocation and regeneration facilities along its route, approximately every 60 miles.  Offering lease racks, cabinets and maintenance for customers accessing this network.

The company certainly has a large undertaking, but with the level of experience in its leaders who have illustrated industry success there is no doubt that this network will succeed.    The company has pre-designed solutions illustrating how its network works with Data Center Builders, Tower Operators, Hardware providers and more.  Their partner page describes these solutions in great detail.

For more information about Allied Fiber visit their website, www.alliedfiber.com or email pr@jaymiescotto.com.  To request Hunter Newby to present on a panel at an industry conference or an investor conference, please contact ilissa@jaymiescotto.com.

To stay in the ‘know’ follow Allied Fiber on TWITTER:  @AlliedFiber and subscribe to their LinkedIn Group:  Allied Fiber

Complete mobile access to internet services available on most PCs and laptops has become a requirement for most of us and at the center of this movement are 4G networks. 

Without the ability to have open bandwidth packages, we would not have been able to stream every game available during the World Cup nor would have smartphones enjoyed their massive popularity…  but what are the implications of a 10,000 percent increase in mobile data downloaded by smartphones by 2015, as claimed by Rajeev Suri, Nokia Siemens Networks CEO?

Network providers need to deal with the challenge of keeping up with the mass usage of 4G capabilities once implemented on a wider scale.  With mobile data and wire line bandwidth demand predicted to grow with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of respectively 130 percent and 34 percent, stronger infrastructure is needed across the industry. 

Operators can address the growth in bandwidth demand with increasing capital expenditures (Capex), but, Eric Kuisch, GM Network Services at KPN and attendee of NG Telecom Summit 2010, believes the only sustainable way forward is proactively controlling bandwidth supply and demand. At peak time, a small percentage of customers utilize most of the bandwidth. Dynamic Bandwidth Control improves customer experience, while operators benefit from reduced Capex and additional revenue streams from new services. 

It’s going to be a 4G world – ubiquitous broadband everywhere (LTE/WiMax, FTTX, femtocells) plus ubiquitous cloud services providing service applications, computing horsepower and storage. This will make today’s iPhone/ app stores look like clunky prototypes and further questions arise for the role and development of Telecom’s.

What kind of business models might exist; how will money flow round?  What are the implications for today’s communications service providers and how can they avoid being relegated to the sidelines as bit-pipe providers?   These are just a few of the questions getting tackled at NG Telecom Summit 2010 by leaders in the industry like Jens Backes, VP Mobile Broadband at T-Mobile International, Javier Garcia De Castro, Director of Strategy at Telefonica, Ger Coolen, CTO at Vodafone Netherlands, and Felix Frueh, VP Technology & Products, Deutsche Telekom.

There are a number of areas where cooperation is going to be what provides Mobile Network Operators with the competitive edge over the newest entrant to the mobile world of companies like Google and Apple.  When MNOs do not provide value to the customers and new common initiatives seem to instigate new chances to provide value to customers, a consequence could potentially be the inability to improve the revenue potential of Telecom operators.