As with all good things, the CE World Congress comes to an end today. The main part of the agenda was the MEF 21 Award Ceremony, which took place this morning. Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) is responsible for setting up test specifications for several standards and certifies them. More information about this process can be found here. Read more...

What a way to end Broadband World Forum Europe 2009! Today, Juniper Networks hosted a panel discussion looking at evolving the data center model and was also present on a further three panels. As the chairman of Juniper's panel discussion, data centers are a topic close to my heart. Indeed, with the growth of content-rich services such as IPTV and Web2.0 over the past four years, most of the data on the network is hosted in data centers, which makes the topic particularly interesting for today's telecoms sector. It certainly sparked some interesting ideas from the panelists! Read more...

Fiber to the home (or FTTH as it is more affectionately called in our industry) has been a point of discussion for many years and the topic popped up again at this year's Broadband World Forum Europe earlier today. This is not least because Europe's FTTH Council produced its annual survey showing that more than two million people in Europe now have fiber broadband direct to their home - an 18% growth over the last survey compiled in late 2008. Read more...

It won't have escaped our industry peers that today was the opening of the Broadband World Forum Europe 2009 in sunny Paris. And it seems the sunshine has inspired the keynote speakers with positive viewpoints on our industry. The keynote address that impressed me the most was from Jean-Philippe Vanot, Senior Executive Vice President, Innovation and Marketing at Orange, who discussed how the ICT industry could provide a solution to the financial crisis. Indeed, this picks up from a theme initiated by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) in an August 2009 report that said that ICTs had been hard hit by the financial crisis but that they are to play a key role in the recovery. Internet related businesses are faring better than the electronics or semiconductor industries but on the whole, investments in R&D and innovation are clearly seen as necessary for future competitiveness and the development of new growth areas. This in turn leads to job generation and a positive impact on GDP. Read more...

Crack open the champagne! I am delighted to share with you that Juniper Networks and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) have won the "Network and Services Management and Operations" category of the Infovision Awards 2009. The awards were announced today at the Broadband World Forum Europe 2009 in Paris. Read more...

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When my 20-something niece set up a full blown web site for her wedding with blogs, pictures, videos, maps, hotel references, wedding registry, and twitter postings, I could only think of one thing: Broadband. Read more...