Service providers worldwide are upgrading their networks to deliver Carrier Ethernet services and infrastructure to service enterprises, other businesses and residential users. For these carriers and their customers, Carrier Ethernet offers significant savings and the ability to turn up added bandwidth and new services more efficiently and quickly.

Yet some service providers have been hesitant to embrace Carrier Ethernet technology because they’re uncertain how to combine their existing networks and services with Carrier Ethernet. But realizing the benefits of Carrier Ethernet without abandoning revenue-generating legacy services and infrastructure may be easier than you think.

That’s why xchange has partnered with Overture Networks to bring you the Webinar called Making Ethernet Easier, which I invite you to attend, Sept. 11 at 2 p.m. Eastern.

The Webinar will offer hard data on the cost savings and new service revenues to be gained by Carrier Ethernet. You’ll also learn how to provide Carrier Ethernet services over any access infrastructure. This event will help you discover how to use Carrier Ethernet to deliver current IP services over your existing access. And it’ll clarify how to simplify your central office architecture by building a multi-service layer 2 access network using Carrier Ethernet. All of this information is aimed at helping participants forge an affordable path to get to Ethernet as soon as possible.

Talk to you then!

Related Articles:

NXTcomm Welcomes ‘Carrier Ethernet 2.0’

An Update on the Move to Make Ethernet Carrier-Class

I may sound like a broken record here (you remember what a record is, right?), but I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore! I’m referring, of course, to my services from Cox Communications Inc.

Loyal readers of my blog have heard me rail from time to time about my erratic cable modem service and how it knocks out not only my Internet access, but also my thin client’s access to the corporate server and my IP phone.

Well, listen to this! Cox yesterday and today has shut down the TV, Internet access and wireline voice services to my home and those of my neighbors. Two days! No wireline voice! And, while I got an automated message saying service might be out part of the first day, a lot of my neighbors had no idea what was going on.

That said, the Coffee Plantation in my neighborhood, which offers free Wi-Fi, is doing a great business. But having to leave my home office two days in a row has gotten me a bit unhinged. (Not only do I have to get out of my PJs, but I also have to leave alone my new Border Collie – hope she’s not eating the sofa. Oh yeah, and my productivity is suffering too.)

So, sorry Cox, but I’m just going to have to pick up my home phone and call your customer care line to disconnect my service. And this time I mean it!

Oh yeah.

Dang!

I know I should be using this lofty perch as a forum to discuss important regulatory and business issues. But I have to focus on my immediate need, and I need more cowbell.

If, like myself and much of the rest of the country, you are a fan of Saturday Night Live, you’re probably in on this joke. I’m referring here to the SNL skit in which Christopher Walken plays a music producer who, in working with a band to record the Blue Oyster Cult song (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, repeatedly talks about his need for more cowbell.

While I’m generally in the camp that chooses to avoid recounting funny commercials and TV episodes, I’ll make an exception in this case. You’ve probably already seen the wildly popular skit. If you haven’t, or you find yourself in need of more cowbell, I’ve provided the link above.

But, you may be asking yourself, what prompted my need for more cowbell at this particular time? After all, the skit originally aired more than eight years ago. The answer is a new iPhone application available at the App Store.

Like the Apple product line, the cowbell application is beautiful in its simplicity and entertainment value. It simply creates a cowbell icon on the iPhone or iPod Touch that the user can touch to play the cowbell solo or as an accompaniment to his or her favorite songs. Oh yes, and every once and awhile, you hear Walken in the background saying “I Need More Cowbell!”

For those who don’t care for SNL or this particular skit, this cowbell application seems ridiculous, I know. Yet this is the kind of goofy little application that seems brilliant (ok, maybe not brilliant, but definitely funny) to others. It only makes me love my iPod Touch even more. And word of this silly little application got me to visit Apple Inc.’s App Store, at which users have downloaded more than 60 million programs for the iPhone, as The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

Like the cowbell and some of the games I downloaded from App Store, most of those applications are free. But the Journal reported that downloads at this new online outlet, whose apps are created by third-party developers, have been brisk and could reach half a billion dollars in revenue soon. This demonstrates how creative folks in the developer community can produce great new applications under the right conditions.

However, Apple will hand over about 70 percent of that money to the developers and use the rest to support the applications. This open developer platform strategy, Apple said, is really about driving more sales of the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Sources

iPhone Software Sales Take Off: Apple's Jobs