WCA September 2011

Telecom news

telcos and the quality of their eco-marketing,” said Phil Sayer, the company’s principal analyst. “Europe’s telcos need to work much harder to articulate how sustainability performance adds value to core telecoms services.” Purpose-built switches hold their own in a decelerating data centre equipment market After tremendous growth of over 50% in 2010, the data centre network equipment market has slowed in 2011. As reported by Infonetics Research (24 th June), that market grew to $8 billion last year and is forecast to top $10 billion by 2015. Now, however, some 2010 drivers (like pent-up demand) have disappeared; and new challenges (such as slowing public sector spending) have arisen. In the first quarter, sales were down and year-over-year increases were moving down. There is a bright spot, however. Matthias Machowinski, the Infonetics directing analyst for enterprise net- works, noted that purpose-built data centre Ethernet switches continue to enjoy strong growth “as buyers transition to these devices to better address performance requirements in their data centres.” In addition to data centre Ethernet switches, the market analysed by Infonetics includes application deli- very controllers (ADCs) and WAN optimisation appliances. The international market research and consulting firm noted that: ✆ Driven by emerging economies, the data centre equipment markets in Asia Pacific (APAC) and Central and Latin America (CALA) posted strong year-over-year growth in IQ11 ✆ With a market share of over 80%, Cisco Systems (San Jose, California) continues to lead the data centre Ethernet switching market ✆ ADC market leader F5 Networks (Seattle Washington) increased its revenue only slightly in the first quarter, but gained four points of market share as rivals Cisco and Citrix (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) declined

Operators are responding to rising interest in gigabit broadband worldwide

Swedish broadband equipment maker Tilgin has launched Simba, a platform for home gateways that can handle gigabit speeds. The company said that lower-priced computer chips enable it to offer gateways running at 1Gbits per second for the price of 100Mbps models. Tilgin told Mikael Ricknäs of the IDG News Service that it expects the first operators to offer products based on Simba with broadband subscriptions at 1Gbps before the New Year. In Network World (27 th June), Mr Ricknäs noted that Tilgin is not the only vendor pushing gigabit broadband. In the US in March, Google announced plans to offer broadband at 1Gbps to residents of Kansas City. Google technology evangelist and TCP/IP co-creator Vint Cerf said in a mid-June speech that the purpose of the project is, in Mr Ricknäs’s paraphrase, “to demonstrate what happens when you have gigabit speeds available.” In Japan and Hong Kong, gigabit speeds are already on offer. Network World mentioned these initiatives elsewhere: ✆ Also in June, the American cable operator Comcast demonstrated a 1Gbps connection over a live broadband network by downloading 23 episodes of a TV show – close to nine hours of content – in about 90 seconds ✆ Britain’s BT Group has announced plans to test broadband at downstream speeds of 1Gbps and upstream speeds of 400Mbps this year ✆ According to the marketing manager of Bredbandsbolaget, the Swedish operator is planning to launch a gigabit broadband service this Autumn Five European operators take notice that the biggest buyers of telecom services are serious about energy and the environment

In the European market, AT&T, BT, Orange, Swisscom, and Telefónica were found to lead their peer group on energy, environment, and social metrics. According to Verdantix, these providers boast the broadest portfolio of services that target sustainability growth markets like electricity and gas smart-metering. The five leaders also have invested more than their competitors in measuring and communicating to their customers the benefits they deliver. Swisscom has a “green tool” that enables customers to assess savings in energy and CO 2 emissions consistently across all services. AT&T, Orange, and Telefónica each has a chief sustainability officer who reports at board level. ✆ While Verdantix sees a big market opportunity for telecoms to act as sustainability “enablers” to their customers, it also acknowledges a need to more effectively define the benefits of sustainability in financial terms. “Right now there is a gaping disconnect between the ambitions of the

“Our study found that telecoms operators who can’t communicate their own energy, environment, and sustainability performance are now at a competitive disadvantage. This is particularly true when bidding for public sector telecom contracts.” The reference, by director David Metcalfe of Verdantix, was to “Green Quadrant Sustainable Telecoms Europe 2011,” published 13 th June. The London-based independent analyst firm reviewed 18 of the largest telecom operators in the European market, across 50 criteria. The key finding is that AT&T, BT, Orange, Swisscom, and Telefónica will improve their ability to win contracts for services like telepresence, cloud computing, smart meters, and Web hosting because of their superior energy and environmental performance. Interviews with 15 senior IT and telecoms buyers with combined revenues of over $247.9 billion disclosed a growing trend for these powerful buying constituencies to inquire into energy and environmental responsiveness. Two global banks told Verdantix they require telecoms to have ISO14001 certification before spending money with them.

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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2011