A Chicago start-up called Neutral Tandem has been assembling a tandem network that can route calls differently than the original Bell infrastructure that has been the backbone of the public switched telephone network (PSTN). A best practice for today is that you don’t want to route all your traffic over one carrier.

You want route and carrier diversity to maintain the highest standards of reliability and redundancy. These are standard concepts for network design that you would think everyone would embrace. Unfortunately, there are still some carriers that would rather keep turfs closed over general connectivity and the national interest.

Package Traffic vs. Packet Traffic

A good analogy would be to look at what happened when UPS went on strike several years ago. If your organization had everything going out through UPS, you were out of luck. If UPS split some of that traffic up and sent it through FedEx, you would not have been totally out of commission. Network traffic is no different than package traffic. Having routing diversity and carrier diversity makes for a more robust solution.

Some people figure this out from a strategic planning standpoint and develop guidelines for business continuity in the face of any disasters.

The vast majority let the disaster happen and then try to figure out disaster recovery after the fact. With the swiftness of today’s business climate, you can’t rely on disaster recovery efforts any more. Planning ahead, which would include having routing and carrier diversity, is the new rule of thumb.

In an earlier column about network infrastructure and connectivity, I put forth some questions about the development of new network infrastructures and funding of those initiatives:

Who is putting their money where their mouth is? There are many organizations looking at various solutions for upgrading network infrastructures and most are in the planning stages. Where is the real investment and implementation presently going on?

This is from a recent Chicago Tribune article about neutral networks:

Alone among big cell-phone operators, Verizon Wireless objects to linking to Neutral Tandem’s network. Neutral Tandem has taken the matter to the [FCC and argues] that Verizon Wireless not only is being anti-competitive, but its stance threatens the nation’s homeland security.

Neutral Tandem executive vice president and co-founder Ron Gavillet conceived of the alternative switching network a few years ago when he realized that tandem switches, which are used by telecom companies to exchange network traffic with each other, were becoming a new bottleneck to the industry.

“Tandem switches were all owned and operated by Bell companies,” Gavillet said, “and they had no incentives to upgrade the switches with new technology because that would primarily benefit their competitors.”

Most telecom traffic has shifted from the traditional wired networks operated by Bell companies [and has first moved] to wireless carriers and more recently also to Internet telephony and voice services operated by cable television providers. All these newcomers have been dependent on incumbent Bell firms through their tandem switches.

Major Municipalities

This is a subject that is spilling over into municipal concerns. They are in front asking for the FCC to take a close look at this. New York City and Chicago have filed comments with the FCC and both cities are concerned with what happens if some disaster occurs. As I have stated in the past, one-in-a lifetime disasters tend to happen every year.

You only have to take a close look at the debacle in New Orleans and Louisiana to understand what happens when communications are cut off for whatever reason and the agencies and remaining infrastructure is unprepared to handle the results.

Network architectures have to be updated. This is no small task.

Pumping millions if not billions of dollars to upgrade the network infrastructure of a city, a county or even a state has to be considered as a given rather than something that’s just hoped for in competing global economy. If there is a company willing to step up to do some of this upgrade, why are other incumbents resisting those efforts?

Wireless is not the universal solution. The total cost of a real network is substantially more than some wireless routers. Basic design concepts that go back to developing the PSTN state that you do not want to put all of your eggs in one basket.

There will be more people questioning the stubbornness of some carriers that resist improvements on the whole network infrastructure. It is encouraging to see there are concerns emanating out of cities. Some are starting to understand that the network infrastructure is becoming a critical concern as the platform for continuing and expanding commerce.

Carlinism: Rules of thumb can become obsolete.