Cisco is rubbing its hands with glee at the thought of the billions of dollars service providers will be spending to retrofit their networks for "Phase II" of telecoms, as described by John Chambers in his keynote at the NXTcomm conference in Chicago this week.

Jim Duffy of Network World writes:

"Chambers sought to dash a popular notion that telecom is clawing its way back from the dead after the bubble days of 1999-2002. Instead of a resurrection, telecom and the Internet industries are entering a stage of reinvigoration and evolution due in large part to the upsurge in use of Web 2.0 and collaboration technologies -- like Cisco’s Telepresence videoconferencing systems and recent WebEx Web collaboration acquisition."

No longer are enterprises driving the use of new and faster technologies, now consumers are demanding more powerful technologies that enable them to take part in social networks, share videos and update wikis.

Duffy's story continues:

“Consumers won’t be paying for dumb plumbing,” Chambers said. “They’re paying for the [communications] experience. The next generation [of innovation] is driven from the consumer up” and it will last for the next decade, he said.

Are there more pressing issues Cisco should be addressing first before tackling the bigger picture?

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