Hi Denis,
If by wrinkle you mean "uptick" in purchasing of new gear, there definitely was an initial spike, and there has been some sustained purchasing, but the net effect of this is still elusive for several reasons. One, the slope of the denial curve is already being traveled down. Where three months ago numerous initiatives were announced, today some of those same initiatives find themselves on the shelf or being postponed until the new year. It happens every time.
Secondly, and speaking only of NY City, and from a more-limited vantage point this time around, I think it's fair to say that some of the increases that are occurring due to D/R preparedness have probably been negated by some measure by the postponement of other projects, or because some of the originating and end-point locations for those projects no longer exist. Or, as in the case of one client, because of a feeze on new implementations due to the major institutional disruption they experienced. In those instances I could see where some assets have been diverted, which results in a zero net increase in spending for the time being.
It's still too early to tell from actual numbers, since the ordering and delivery cycles for both hardware and the requisite fat pipes that they depend on are between three to six months, or longer, especially where new building penetrations (the proverbial "second" or "third" points of entry) are concerned.
So, thirdly, because some of those new routes could take up to a year or more to install, the time frames for ordering new gear associated with those routes could lag, accordingly.
I think there's probably been more re-arranging and re-pointing of existing assets than purchases of new assets, although there have been more alternate carrier and ISP routes ordered than existed previously, with a renewed emphasis on dual-homing through diverse ISPs for VPN and other Internet related applications (which are driving some ISPs nuts due to the complexities imposed by some enterprises' addressing schemes).
We'll see more reliable estimates and representations of actual numbers in the trade mags and brokerage reports soon enough, I'm sure.
I got a kick out of some of the percentage increases that the newbie carriers are citing in the article you posted, btw. A 100 percent increase in customer lines could be 60 if they previously were suppporting only 30. Those numbers, for some of the orgs mentioned, aren't far off, btw. Maybe on the high side for some. It's only shtick when they avoid citing absolute numbers.
FAC |
