Telecom Trends
I just returned from RAD Data Communications’ annual partner meeting in Eilat, Israel and came across an interesting article while I was there. Zohar Zisapel, (founder of RAD and 26 other networking companies in the RAD Group with aggregated 2005 revenue of $640 million) shared his thoughts on the most important upcoming telecom trends. I usually pay attention to what Zohar has to say because:
a) he’s my boss ;-)
b) with as many successful start-ups as he’s founded and his exposure to a wide array of technologies he generally has his finger on the pulse
Here are the biggest take-aways from Zohar’s article:
1. Wireless devices are getting smarter and more flexible, and are getting better at preventing transmission interference. These improvements can effectively increase capacities tenfold in the very near future.
With WiFi advances, for example: “…who of us wouldn’t want to get rid of the telephone and television cables in our homes? Why do we have to renovate our house every time we want to move the plasma screen? Why does every office need its own Internet and telephone infrastructure?”
2. Zohar sees particularly interesting developments in those areas that combine technologies; for instance video and communications as in the case of video conferencing and IPTV. Video and mobility is another interesting proposition, as in the case of video in cell phones and cars (both for communication and entertainment).
3. Yes, it’s the era of the social Internet, web 2.0, whatever you want to call it. But as to starting a web 2.0 company? You should act quickly, very soon it will be too late to catch this boat…
4. The world is not flat; it slopes towards Asia. There are more cell phones in Asia, more Internet users, higher growth of Skype users and even more blogs! The growth rate of all of these is faster in Asia than anywhere else in the world.
5. Higher bandwidth applications lead to demand for well, more bandwidth. This in turn creates demand for more security for that bandwidth, and more storage for all that content.
I think so myself, which is why I am expanding RADirect’s load-balancing, security and storage practices to accommodate this trend.
6. We’re entering an era of major technological battles; WIMAX vs. 4G, cable vs. ‘traditional’ service providers, Skype and VoIP vs. classic telephony, wire vs wireless. This is a tremendous opportunity for all of us, providing that we manage to identify the right trends and choose the winning technologies…