The Neo carriers no longer need or want capacity to be delivered via a carrier owned PoP-why can’t it be delivered directly to their nodes in some huge data centre. Data centres on this scale are bigger than traditional carrier PoPs and are wholly dedicated to the transport and interconnection of high speed data links complete with NOCs and network management facilities. Since they also have links to very large data users in commerce or government they are also directly connected to the high end of the traditional carrier customer base. As regards subsea cables the carriers have allowed the Atlantic networks to drift along, lulled by cheap upgrades made possible by advantages in optical transmission and not seeing any strategic benefit in the network. However sooner or later there will be a crisis or demand will finally outgrow supply and when that happens –or before if a small group Neo carriers decide they no longer want to work with an aging infrastructure
and interconnection architecture optimised for the 1990s. When that happens the traditional carriers may wake up and
realise that their once single greatest asset, the scale and reach of their networks is no longer relevant because the Neo carriers have re engineered things to connect to their data centres and indeed all their
traditionally large customers can now interconnect directly there too. What’s left? Well a lot of legacy voice business with no value and a huge sprawling local delivery network serving mostly low volume and low value households and small businesses? Added to that a recent study shows that much more than half of data in the US domestic market is moved on fixed not mobile networks and yet legacy operators have invested vast sums in the mobile sector. West vs Strategies
East.
Different
What is interesting is that it seems that established carriers in different parts of the world are reacting very differently to these changes. US and European or Atlantic carriers have seemingly decided to let the international segment of the network fall into the hands of others.