Cutting costs with broadband

By Rodney Weidemann for Cisco
London, 13 Apr 2005

Broadband is not only about Internet access, it is about the entire impending Internet Protocol world, claims Telewest director Joe Foster.

The director of network engineering and technical strategy at UK-based Telewest, Foster was discussing the concept of convergence and customer triple play (voice, data and video on demand services) at Cisco`s 'Capturing the broadband opportunity` briefing, held in London yesterday.

He says that because broadband and convergence go hand-in-hand, a converged network will offer a company both capital and operational cost savings once a company gets the various individual services supported on a single network.

"Convergence should not only be seen in terms of a product or transport type, but also in terms of equipment and network functional role consolidation, the result of all this being the cost savings described," says Foster.

"It is only the collective case that will deliver the cost savings that companies are striving for with convergence."

He points out that Telewest`s converged network has reduced the company`s total spend considerably, offering savings in the region of 40%, which is substantial when the spend is calculated in millions of pounds.

"There are, however, an awful lot of disparate parts that need to be brought together to realise the true advantage of a converged environment, which is one network catering for multiple markets while protecting the company`s underlying infrastructure investment," he says.

Foster points out that converging a corporate network to allow for voice, data and video on demand on a single infrastructure is nonetheless something that needs to be approached with caution.

"While we would obviously like to solve 'world hunger` in terms of the IP network, convergence must be done carefully and in small chunks, in order to ensure it is correctly handled," he says.

"Perhaps the hardest thing when converging a network is handling the legacy systems. A greenfields environment would always be preferable, but you have to build on what you already have, which is why it needs to be taken slowly."