Nortel Buzzboard

The official Nortel news blog

Older: Nortel demos Carrier Ethernet interop at CEWC
Newer: Philippe Morin talks more about the MEN business

What does an Internet traffic jam look like?

By Bo Gowan September 24, 2008 12:04 pm EDT

Is there an Internet traffic jam?   Is one coming?  And would you know what it would look like if you saw it?

While the debate on if the Internet is running out of bandwidth rages on, Nortel has teamed up with InternetTrafficReport.com to create an interactive demo called “Experience 40G” that shows what an actual Internet traffic jam might look or sound like.

Using this interactive website, you can view the average latency and packet loss for Internet networks in various global regions over the last 24 hours.  The tool also provides an overall “score” from 0 to 100, based on overall network performance.  See below for a shot of the global map view of the tool.

From there, you can select individual metro areas, and get an hour-by-hour summary of packet loss over the last 24 hours.  For example, from the below chart it looks like Edmonton has had some major issues over the last 24 hours.

By clicking on any of the bars that show packet loss, you can then see a demonstration of how a HD video or VoIP call streaming over the Internet would be affected by that level of packet loss. It’s amazing to see what even a small percentage of packet loss can do to a streaming video. For example, just a 6% packet loss results in a video that looks like the below.

All of this, obviously, relates back to the growth of video and other traffic on the Internet, and the need by carriers to find a way to easily and cost-effectively add bandwidth to their network backbone.  Nortel’s 40/100gig solution is one way to do that.  Also today, Nortel announced that KPN in Belgium has deployed Nortel’s 40gig-ready optical solution in it’s network.

Categories: Nortel News, Optical/MEN
Tags: , Trackbacks (1)

Trackbacks/Pings

  1. […] for 40G that shows how much traffic its flowing on the Internet in different part of the world. Nortel Buzzboard has more […]

    September 24th, 2008 at 3:49 pm from 40G Here, 40G There | All About Nortel

Comments

  1. Looks interesting. Lots of opportunity here. Another wave of Internet backbone buildout is coming fueled by explosive growth of Internet video and the impending demand of 4G data networks. A growth market for sure.

    On the other hand, Cisco went to the press today with more info on their UC collaboration capabilities. The media coverage put it mostly in the context of competition from IBM and Microsoft. I didn’t see any references to Nortel.

    Sooo… explain to me again why it’s a good idea for Nortel SHAREHOLDERS to sell the MEN business, run by a guy with vision who grew up in the business, so more $ can be invested in the Enterprise business, run by a process zealot who ran light bulb factories in Europe?? Forgive my cynicism… I - JUST - DON’T - GET - IT. SHOW ME THE MONEY! Why is this the right strategy?!

    September 24th, 2008 at 4:04 pm by Another Nortel Watcher

  2. Hey ANW - Mike Z, Roese and the rest of Nortel’s leadership has been talking for a while about transitioning Nortel to be a software and services company. If that’s Nortel’s direction and focus, then the MEN business (which is mainly about fat pipes) is an outlier to that core strategy. Let me get back to you with some more info though later today.

    September 25th, 2008 at 9:33 am by Bo Gowan

  3. ANW - more info on this….aside from the above that Enterprise is closer than MEN to the software/services direction that Nortel is going, here are a few stats:

    Nortel Enterprise revenues in 2007 were $2.62B, a 14.3% increase over 2006. Nortel MEN revenues in 2007 were $1.525B, a 4.1% decrease over 2006.

    The entire market that MEN addresses is estimated at $15B for 2008. Estimates are that the 40/100G market will hit $2B in 2011. Enterprise was a $41B market in 2007.

    The enterprise market is vastly larger, and we’ve shown strong growth in enterprise over the last two years. Just because Nortel wasn’t featured in yesterday’s Cisco UC news doesn’t mean we haven’t made a lot of progress in this market. In fact, based on revenue growth, Enterprise is the fasted growing business unit in Nortel.

    September 25th, 2008 at 12:15 pm by Bo Gowan

  4. Bo, thanks for the data. How much of the $41B enterprise market do you feel is addressable by Nortel, or are you saying that $41B is the addressable market size and you achieved 6% market share in 2007?

    Sometimes it’s better to aim to be a category-killer in a smaller category than to place your bets in a category in which you can’t afford to invest enough to be a leader. Category-killers tend to find ways to expand their opportunities and enjoy strong margins (Cisco, RIM).

    September 25th, 2008 at 12:42 pm by Another Nortel Watcher

  5. Bo…there is this article over at Lightreading also, which speculates that Huawei is best suited to purchase the MEN business:

    http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=164584

    September 25th, 2008 at 1:50 pm by Sabir Shaikh

  6. @AWN - That $41B figure is the enterprise market that Nortel addresses now.

    September 25th, 2008 at 2:19 pm by Bo Gowan

  7. Bo - Then I question why Nortel is placing a big bet in a market that it has only 6% share in. The big players can manipulate the lucrative deals to ensure that Nortel remains margin-challenged. Increasingly, your IBM and Microsoft partners will control the channel. The risk is that eventually they will lose interest in you and shift to a younger and prettier trophy partner. Where will you be then?

    September 25th, 2008 at 8:39 pm by Another Nortel Watcher

Leave a Reply