NGN: A Single, Converged Network on Offer

Traditionally, everyone thinks that only telcos and telecom
service providers are bothered about and responsible for next generation
networks (NGNs). The fact is that NGNs would have an impact on the enterprises,
their local area networks as well as the wide area networks. This became
apparent at the Mumbai chapter of the discussion on next generation networks.
The event, which was organized by VOICE&DATA, tried to demystify NGNs.

The panel in the three sessions, as well as the delegates,
agreed that a converged network for voice, data and video, as other multi media
applications, can be defined as a next generation network. It would enable the
service provider to give anytime, anywhere access, while the end user can have
multiple applications running on it.

Issues like security, compliance, SLA, equipment management
and service, which exist in the current network were expected to continue in the
NGNs too. On the Capex and Opex front, however, there was an agreement on the
cost going down with increased usage, as managing and monitoring these networks
would be relatively easy.

Rajeev Garela, CIO, Wipro BPO said the need for NGN would
arise from the fact that businesses would like to be ahead of the competition.
He said as businesses are changing, NGNs are becoming imperative for networks.

Alok Shinde  director, Frost&Sullivan	Bihag Lalji  head IT, Ambuja Cement	Gururaj Kanade  CTO, Network Solutions
Harish Khanna  CTO, Avaya Globalconnect	N Ravi Chander  services principal, HP	KM Bindal  ex CIO, HPCL

Session I The CIOs Vision

The panel for Session I said the different requirements of
different sectors means arrival of NGNs on a need basis. "Business
priorities may differ from business to business, organization to organization;
IT needs and expectation from NGNs would also differ accordingly," said
Harish Khanna, CTO, Avaya Globalconnect.

Mobility and availability of information anywhere, anytime,
and on any device were identified as the key drivers for NGNs. Bihag Lalji, head
IT, Ambuja Cement said different organizations would have different bandwidth
requirements and there should be some method, which probably NGN would provide,
for people to connect with each other in a cheaper way.

R Muralitharan, CTO, Transworks looked at the intelligence
which NGNs would bring and said networks should be a means and not an end to
achieve better service delivery.

Alok Shinde, director, Frost&Sullivan tried to bring in
the evolutionary aspect of NGNs. "The CIO is looking at NGN to do things he
is doing now in a better manner. He is looking at it from the budget
perspective, from the manageability perspective. So the managed services, be it
in the security part or services part, becomes important with NGNs," he
said.

Gururaj Kanade, CTO, Network Solutions said the CIO has to
move away from the fire fighting tendencies and use his IT infrastructure in a
strategic manner to fulfill business goals.

The panelists also took up issues like conflict between
service providers, equipment vendors and enterprises. Though every one agreed
that issues were there between these three poles, awareness and adherence to the
dotted lines of SLA would solve the problems to a great extent. Pay per use was
a way suggested as a business model for the dynamic allocation of bandwidth
expected to come with NGNs

The forum was united on the government and regulators role in
bringing competition to the market as it serves best for customers.

Pravin Joshi  area sales manager, Network Connectivity Group, Panduit	R Muralitharan  CTO, Transworks	Prasad Babu  SE Manager (India & SAARC), Juniper Networks
VS Manikkam  head IT, Coverter Adhesive and Chemicals	Rajeev Garela  CIO, Wipro BPO	Sunil Kankal  director solutions, Silgate Solutions

Session II The Bottlenecks

In this session the panelists tried to list out the
bottlenecks on the road to NGN; the discussion ranging from architectural
limitation to compatibility between equipments to basic questions like
availability of components.

"The service provider has to either come up with some
software applications to upgrade the technology which take years to install or
is very expensive," said VS Manikkam, head IT, Coverter Adhesive and
Chemicals.

KM Bindal, Ex CIO, HPCL asked for a change in the mindset of
people.

"To be honest people like us, vendors and service
providers, are not educated enough on the pitfalls. It calls for sitting down
together and being transparent," said N Ravi Chander, services principal,
HP India is making a quantum jump in telecom but the backend infrastructure is
horribly wrong, he added.

The panel discussed the negative side of proprietary hardware
and solutions and how they have not been able to take the challenges of new
technologies. On regulatory and legal issues they said the CIO can take the risk
on the financial side but not on the legal front.

NGN is on the radar screen of the CIOs but the key question is that apart from
the large corporates how many enterprises, especially the large SMB segment,
would be able to invest in NGNs?

Session III Are Enterprises Ready?

The panel brought forth the view that both service providers
and enterprises have been experimenting and evaluating NGNs at their own level.
"Service providers are gearing up. They should be ready in the next eight
to ten months time is what I foresee. The background work is already
there," said Prasad Babu, SE Manager (India & SAARC), Juniper Networks.

The key is how NGNs are positioned so that the enterprise
understands the service, and the pricing and the cost factor is attractive
enough for the enterprise customers to take voice out of the wide area network
and use a IP centric kind of a solution, he added.

Garela differed with Prasad on service providers being ready
and said they were not positioning offerings properly-which is very critical
for an infrastructure.

The example of NTT DoCoMo Japan was cited to prove that
creation of infrastructure was essential for service providers and they should
allow others to run their applications over it. It is not necessary for the
service provider to deliver everything himself and should aim at creating an
ecosystem for the same.

Sunil Kankal, director solutions, Silgate solutions said
transparency of the services being provided is also an important element to make
NGNs a success. The discussion ended with the thought that at the end of the day
the management is not interested in the technology you use. The deliverables are
important. Tangible, measurable benefits should be there for next generation
networks to be a success.

Anurag Prasad