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Tag Archives: Corporate Backbones
Could Broadband be the Shining Light of US Infrastructure?
As the political gears in the United States’ electoral machine begin to pick up speed, it’s fascinating to see the topics that are driving discussion. As you would expect, economic growth, employment and social welfare are some of the hot issues being bandied around by potential candidates. Yet one topic that has been largely absent from this early round of dialogue is the state of the country’s transport and communications infrastructure. Looking at some of the latest figures, this may be something that is about to change.
A recent Economist article highlights the critical condition of the country’s heavily overburdened air, rail and road systems. According to research from the World Economic Forum, the country’s infrastructure has actually deteriorated in recent years. In a global 2010 poll, the US was ranked 23rd for its transport systems. With much of the country travelling on antiquated air and rail networks or using roads that have fallen into disrepair, it isn’t surprising to find that this is impacting upon journey times.
Another Building Block of Low-Latency Trading: Efficient Optical Transport
So, in the drive to wring even the tiniest inkling of latency from your trading network, you’ve painstakingly identified the shortest routes between trading venues, information feeds and co-location facilities. Cognizant that eliminating a mile of physical fiber on these routes translates into a 16-microsecond savings in roundtrip latency (and that the difference between winning and losing deals in contemporary electronic trading is measured in much smaller increments), you’ve mapped routes that bypass as many detours under roads and up and down manholes as possible.
The next step is to dive into the guts of the gear enabling optical transport along the fiber network. Amplification, color conversion, dispersion compensation and regeneration are the main optical-networking functions commonly performed by hardware transmitting and receiving light. But the ways that these processes are carried out differs significantly among equipment providers. Managers of financial networks must investigate the impact of each, end-to-end across their infrastructures, in order to ensure that latency budgets are minimized.
The Idea of a Consolidated Network
There was a lot of traffic at this year’s Ethernet Europe in London. The two-day conference and exhibition saw a high number of industry experts and a Carrier Ethernet debate that shifted away from hardware and technology to deployment scalability and service development.
While a few years ago, there was a lot of debate about the different choices of backhaul technologies including fiber, copper and microwave, there is now much greater agreement on making use of all technology alternatives available to build networks aligned with business needs. The ubiquitous delivery of services and their efficient management to enable new applications became far more important – whether for business, mobile backhaul or wholesale.
A New Battleground in the Net-Neutrality Debate: Device Neutrality
April’s proving to be an interesting month for those following the net-neutrality debate. Within the first week we’ve already seen the US Court of Appeals swing into action and dismiss Verizon and MetroPCS’ anti-net neutrality lawsuits filed against the FCC. Thrown out on a legal technicality, many expect these lawsuits to be re-filed shortly. However, while most eyes where following the legal wranglings on Capitol Hill, a new battleground in the neutrality debate has emerged and this time it’s focused on devices.
Since its launch, the iPad has been a disruptive tool. One need only look at publishing to see how the iPad has led an entire industry to question how it operates and, more importantly, how the public wants to consume books and magazines. The same can be said for other media too. In fact, it’s the very issue of consuming film and TV on the iPad that has raised a heated discussion on the topic of device neutrality and the rights consumers have to access video content on mobile devices.
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Cord Cutting Corporate Backbones Device Neutrality Ethernet Access FCC Grid/Cloud Computing iPad iPhone Jeff Lawrence Long Haul Transport Metro Core Transport MetroPCS Mobile Backhaul Mobile Devices Net Neutrality Packet Optical Transport Playon Time Warner Cable TV Verizon Video Wireline Backhaul
The Challenge of Big Data
One of the many things that excite me about working in the tech sector is collaboration. Working collectively on new ideas and new technologies with people spread across the globe continues to inspire me on a daily basis. While on vacation a few weeks ago, I was able to watch such collaboration in action at a conference held by Om Malik on the topic of big data.
With a global delegate list and many people remotely interacting through social media channels, the Structure Big Data conference explored all aspects of managing today’s enormous data demands. However, there was one particular discussion that caught my attention. Focused on the challenges of moving big data around the world, this particular dialogue dived deep into the hurdles both business and domestic users face when trying to access data when they need it, where they need it.
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Bandwidth Demand Big Data Cloud computing Collaboration Conference Core Network Corporate Backbones Data Access Encryption Facetime Fixed Infrastructure Grid/Cloud Computing Long Haul Transport Low-latency Low-Latency Transport Metro Core Transport Mission Critical Mobile Backhaul Mobile Infrastructure Om Malik Online Communication Packet Optical Transport San Connectivity Skype Structure Big Data Venture Capitalists Wireline Backhaul
