Service-level agreements no longer enough
Nov. 13, 2008
Longtime readers know I'm a fanatic about service-level agreements. I regularly advise clients about SLA best practices, negotiation and enforcement strategies. And we talk often about how to develop service-level ...
Tales of the multitasking mind
Nov. 04, 2008
I've been thinking a lot about multitasking lately. Well, actually, I've been thinking about multitasking in 10-second segments, sandwiched in between replying to one of the several instant messages on my screen, ...
Ways to recession-proof your WAN
Oct. 30, 2008
When it comes to the overall economic situation, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that the economic crisis shows all signs of subsiding into a garden-variety recession, rather than spiraling into a ...
Young workers today are fundamentally different? Nonsense.
Oct. 22, 2008
It's trendy these days to describe the so-called "millennial" generation as somehow fundamentally different, especially in their almost instinctive use of technology.
A glimpse of the (networked) future
Oct. 15, 2008
Charles Stross' vision of how networking -- the human kind and machine kind -- evolves is thought-provoking. His ideas on privacy and identity authentication alone are worth the price of admission. Like most great ...
Telecom planning in a time of turmoil
Oct. 09, 2008
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 U.S. government's massive $800-billion bailout, the U.S. economy ...
How IPv6 is like the U.S. financial crisis
Oct. 01, 2008
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 " ...
Calculating the cost of communicating
Sep. 24, 2008
At a recent trade show, I happened to mention that some of my more forward-looking clients have created "communications calculators” that enable them to predict -- with a high degree of accuracy -- what the ...
Is 'green IT' real? As real as your bottom line
Sep. 18, 2008
A few weeks back, I wrote about the rise of green tech. Many folks have been asking me how real this trend is. I'm not sure what they mean by "real" (I'm a virtual gal, myself), but here's my best shot at an answer.
A proposal for governing the 'Net
Aug. 22, 2005
We need a body like the IETF but providing a forum in which parties focused on operations and economics can work together.
What's next for BellSouth?
Jul. 25, 2005
BellSouth needs to make a move - but which one?
Taking on the industry
Jun. 20, 2005
Sprint, Verizon, SBC and BellSouth have joined with Comcast and other cable companies to fight the threat of government-run municipal Wi-Fi across the nation.
Innovation in the crucible of war
Sep. 11, 2008
Last week I wrote about the importance of innovation. That got me thinking about one of my favorite topics: technology innovation in the military.
The innovation gap is real, all right
Sep. 03, 2008
Recently Judy Estrin, former Cisco CTO and current Silicon Valley luminary, published a book called Closing the Innovation Gap. I haven't read it (yet), but she reportedly argues that the United States has what she ...
The many modes of communication
Aug. 27, 2008
Your E911 strategy, remote access policies and more depend on examining what "communication" means
Buying bandwidth for fun and profit
Aug. 13, 2008
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 ...
FCC right to tell Comcast: Hands off
Aug. 06, 2008
Regular readers of this column know I take a nuanced view when it comes to net neutrality: On one hand, carriers shouldn't be limiting or blocking traffic based on source, destination or traffic type, with the exception ...
Crafting a WAN? Consider the edges
Jul. 31, 2008
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.
The carrier commodity conundrum
Jul. 22, 2008
We all know that these days, bandwidth is "free." Specifically, it's a commodity service whose cost is so low that it's no longer a significant component of telecom costs.
Building a new data center? Think WAN
Jul. 16, 2008
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 ...
The hidden costs of remote and mobile workers
Mar. 29, 2004
The first step is to recognize they exist. Conduct a company-wide audit to uncover hidden telecom expenditures. Who's using them, and why?
Don't be pooh-poohing social networking
Jul. 10, 2008
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
Jun. 30, 2008
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 ...
Does your phone make you smarter?
Jun. 26, 2008
We've been hearing a lot lately about how communications technology reduces productivity and makes people stupider — mainly by interrupting people too often, in too many ways. Some studies have gone so far as to ...
With Amazon's Kindle, it's love at first byte
Jun. 19, 2008
It's not that often electronics can change your life — but it happened to me a few days ago, when I bought an Amazon Kindle.
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