In the last big downturn for telecom, Continuous Computing was on the receiving side of business as big infrastructure companies cut back on R&D and laid off engineers. The same thing could happen again.
Mike Coward, CTO and co-founder at Continuous, isn’t banking on it. “I don’t think anybody is confident in this market,” but if it happens, the company is ready with the latest it has to offer in LTE and femtocells, two of the biggest buzzwords in the industry.
To help network equipment providers keep up with market demands, Continuous Computing is offering two solution suites for the wireless and deep packet inspection (DPI) markets as part of its new “Solutions & Services” business practice, which launches today. The company’s wireless and DPI solutions enable equipment vendors to accelerate the delivery of carrier-class systems to market by upwards of 12 to 24 months, according to Continuous.
Coward says the speed at which LTE is progressing is probably faster than any other technology he’s seen; the standard isn’t even completely ratified and Verizon Wireless is planning trials this year. That’s putting heat on vendors to get their gear up to snuff.
The trend for equipment providers to move into the managed services space also provides opportunities for Continuous, because the vendors are moving resources from R&D over to the services sector. (During the last downturn, the company grew 90 percent from 2000 to 2003.)
Coward says the future is in LTE, though he credits WiMAX for pushing the LTE community to move faster. LTE is generally the technology pursued by incumbent carriers, while WiMAX is geared for new entrants or new markets, and with dwindling capital, many new entrants can’t raise the financing they need to operate. “We’re seeing the demand for LTE grow very, very quickly,” he says.
The growth area for DPI in wireless lies in the need to manage data traffic. Cellular systems were not built for the laptops that now have embedded modems. DPI can be used in wireless to look at traffic and make decisions about how to prioritize packets. For example, an operator might give higher priority to an e-mail than a YouTube video.