Fast Net News, DSL Prime, DOCSIS Report

Some people thought Matt Bross of BT was a madman for wanting to "turn off the phone network" and convert everything to IP as quickly as possible for huge savings. I became a believer at SUPERCOMM years back when Bill Smith of BellSouth led a discussion of four Bell CTOs that concluded Bross 21st Century Network was the way to go. Ross Ireland of AT&T agreed and was plainly unhappy that his CFO Randall was holding back the funding that would need.

    All this was at the special once a year event where the  top engineers of the Bells would come together for a public discussion. The official speeches came from the pr department, covered policy and were predictably boring. But when the engineers started answering questions and exchanging ideas sparks would fly, especially in the informal press conference that traditionally followed.

      ATIS at CTIA Orlando is reviving the tradition.John Donovan, AT&T CTO, is joined by his peers from Qwest, Verizon, Clearwire, Spring, T-Mobile, Metro PCS, Telus, and more. Matt Bross is back, now CTO of Huawei. Key suppliers like Bob McIntyre of Cisco join in. I learn from people like this who solve problems every day.

     Where do correct ideas come from? Social practice.