When TMCnet first interviewed Shawn Morris, a senior IP consultant for NTT (News - Alert)America two months ago, the company had become increasingly involved in next-generation communications sessions at conferences and events.
And so, we wondered, what's next in 2010's second half?
"In 2009, we spent a great deal of time getting in front of the right people to talk about NTT Communications (News - Alert)," Morris said. "We were approached by several industry event organizers to present our views on new technologies," such as global management and others.
Looking at 2010, he said, "we'll continue our involvement in industry conferences. Our focus on providing IP transit to our customers uses the work our engineering teams are doing in next generation technologies. These are the types of topics prospective customers want to hear us talk about when evaluating our services."
TMCnet reporter Marisa Torrieri asked Morris what challenges does NTT America (News - Alert), and the IP transit industry in general, face in 2010?
"One challenge the industry is facing is how to support IPv6 going forward," he said, adding "fortunately, this is a challenge we addressed several years ago, by implementing a native, dual-stack network."
He noted that yes, the economic climate has been "challenging," but that 2009 was still "a strong year for NTT America, and we expect 2010 will be even better."
But "by far," Morris said, the biggest challenge is going to be the continued growth of bandwidth used by their customers. "We need to find a way to scale the infrastructure while maintaining stability." He pronounced NTT America "well-positioned to face that challenge," as they're in the process of selecting a next-generation Ethernet aggregation platform that will be 40-100 gigabyte Ethernet capable."
As Morris said, "It's a great challenge to have, and one that can only be solved with next generation IP networks."
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David's articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.
Edited by Marisa Torrieri