Nortel CEO: Wireless Data Is Next Frontier
(10/22/98; 12:00 PM EST)
By Kimberly Caisse, Computer Reseller News
ATLANTA -- The creation of a wireless infrastructure will be the next frontier in data-networking, said John Roth, CEO of Nortel Networks, in a keynote speech here at NetWorld+Interop.
In 1996, data represented only 2 percent of all wireless transmissions, Roth said. Voice made up the other 98 percent. It is projected that in 2005, data will take up 70 percent of the wireless infrastructure, and voice will drop to 30 percent.
Given these projections, wireless will become the predominant carrier of voice and data traffic, he said.
Enough radio spectrums exist in areas other than some cities to support data traffic, Roth said.
"These are the kinds of things we'll be doing next," he said.
David House, president of Nortel Networks and head of its Bay Networks division, said during the keynote that he envisions a day when he will be able to create a "personal profile" on his PC that will let him coordinate how he can be contacted, whether it be an e-mail, page, phone call, or a combination, and still keep his laptop connected to the LAN when he is traveling -- all done wirelessly.
The wires that now connect people and businesses around the world are being removed, Roth said. "Europe is one of the first areas that is starting to take them down," he said.
But before a wireless infrastructure can be widely deployed, Nortel Networks first has to address how it will support voice, video, and data in its products, which is the reason the Toronto-based company acquired Bay.
Nortel Networks said it plans in 1999 to ship a server dedicated to performing telephony functions such as call-center applications, House said.
"The point here is there is more to telephony than voice over IP," he said. Voice over IP is easy; taking down telephony features to the server level is much harder, he said. For example, there are more than 300 telephony features and more than 4 million lines of code in Nortel Networks' Meridian PBX.
The enterprise is not going to make a move toward this kind of product if it has to take a step back, House said.
Roth said Nortel Networks is no exception. He wants to move all the company's business applications to the Web, but it can't operate on a network with only 99.8 percent uptime. Nortel Networks needs more, he said.
"We've got to get this up to the same reliability as our voice network if we're going to put our business applications on the Web," Roth said.
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