SubscribeCisco, a networking equipment and service provider, has announced a joint effort with Flash Networks to provide a new Intelligent Traffic Management “solution” to “maximize data revenues, network utilization, and subscriber satisfaction.”
The “solution” is being sold primarily to wireless bandwidth providers to help manage the “explosion of mobile data traffic” expected in the next five years.
“Our successful partnership with Flash Networks enables operators to meet the challenge of maximizing revenues while protecting network assets by providing tiered services that ensure fair bandwidth usage and protect the network from traffic congestion,” said Sergey Belonozhko, Area Sales Manager for SP at Cisco.
The Intelligent Traffic Management solution supports personalized data plans where service providers can notify subscribers when they are near usage quotas, provide a temporary bandwidth boost, offer data plan extension to support additional IP services, or enable subscribers to set personalized usage caps that can be updated in real-time based on personal financial limits. This same solution is used to both insert targeted advertising based on subscriber browsing patterns, and to block inappropriate content for safe browsing.
It is being touted by Cisco as a way for operators to implement service tiers to maximize revenue while at the same time reducing traffic load on networks, reducing the capital investments required to grow them with demand. Customers end up with “gauges” and warnings to get them to reduce their usage, or give the operator an incentive to up-sell the customer to another tier of service (or make the customer purchase additional bandwidth.)
A nice tidy arrangement for all concerned, except the customer, of course. Cisco has been one of the more active “exaflood” promoters, with their talking points even turning up on Australian breakfast television. They promote the “Internet is over-flooded and will brownout” scare tactics to establish that premise in the minds of consumers, sell the “solution” to help manage the traffic growth, give operators the tools to help them raise prices, limit usage, and provide gauges to customers to get them to be paranoid about their usage, and then take their earnings to the bank.
Consumers get notification that their access has been capped, are told to recall the mainstream media stories about Internet congestion, and go along with the plan.
It’s part of the grand scheme for uninformed customers to simply accept higher prices and service quotas and limits, all while companies providing the bandwidth earn higher revenue than ever.
Journalists need to quit being corporate stenographers and paving the way for looting by the Cisco and TW axis of greed
makes me ashamed to be cisco certified.
Techzen: There is nothing to be ashamed being cisco certified. You learned to deal with their hardware and software not what was going on in the managment board rooms. What goes on in those board rooms will sooner of later tell if they will will be around a year from now. That sure cant be your fault.. How often did we work at companies where we knew the jobs but a dozen guys in suits trashed the place only because they could. I hear Cisco is in a possible mode of being bought. Their value dropping like a stone.
Now, I can understand where they’re going here. Wireless networks do have the tendency to run out of bandwidth quite a bit. So, that is a stance they can stand at with this. What disappoints me though is the fact that Cisco seems to be running on this bandwagon of the internet running out of bandwidth. They should be spending the time to figure out how to make the next fastest piece of equipment.