Pieter Poll

In the second part of a two-part interview, Qwest Communications Chief Technology Officer Pieter Poll lends his views on cutting-edge technologies including VDSL2 bonding and PBT. (Read the first part of this interview here.)

On VDSL2 pair-bonding, which AT&T has targeted for deployment late this year: Good commercial availability of the modems is a 2009 [thing]. A little earlier in terms of equipment, but maturity of the equipment and driving price points where we’d want them may take a little while. I think it all speaks to 2009 as probably the right time frame. Other companies may choose to put linear video on VDSL2. Qwest isn’t saying we don’t want to deliver video signals over broadband to the home. We’re saying: The way we understand linear video today -- in terms of network TV, CNN and so on, in linear broadcast fashion -- is not the video model we necessarily see using the broadband pipe for. I don’t think the bandwidth demands are changing at all; it’s the services consumers are looking for. Video is video, whether it’s delivered from a European, streaming-video quasi-TV station or your local CBS affiliate delivering their linear broadcast signal. We’re doing a fairly significant fiber-to-the-node program this year. [Bonded VDSL2] would follow that footprint as we start to introduce higher speed products and other services that would leverage that footprint.

On PBT: Qwest is always interested in technologies that are going to make things simpler to operate and reduce costs, which are the two big promises of PBT. However, my view on PBT is that the alleged cost reductions have not really appeared yet. There’s an argument that if you try to address the transport problem with T-MPLS, T-MPLS is more expensive because there’s an MPLS control plane involved. Loosely speaking, that’s the argument. I’m not sure I buy that one yet. I appreciate the challenge with developing MPLS control planes. But I think there are people in the marketplace that have developed MPLS control planes and are able to leverage that and not necessarily place it at a cost disadvantage. I think there is an interesting application on PBT against MPLS. Whether that’s conceptually simpler to operate is something we’re having to look at. We have no current plans to purchase or deploy PBT technology. We’re very pleased with what MPLS has done for us so far and what we plan to do with MPLS looking forward.

On using routers as hair dryers: At OFC, I was probably misquoted or underestimating. A router rack probably dissipates somewhere in ballpark of 10 kilowatts. Unless you have a much more powerful hair dryer than I’ve ever seen, that’s probably more like 10 hair dryers. It illustrates a couple points. As we think about what our industry contributes to the greening of the globe, we are continuing to drive down the energy consumption per bit per second. We want to be more effective in how we move information around. It’s not quite fair at this point to pick on router suppliers by saying it’s 10 kw on a rack. They will show you what it is per kilowatt per bit per second, and that is far more effective than older technologies. It’s just that it’s so dense that we have a lot of heat we have to move. Qwest is serious about green networking. We have initiatives on how we remain responsible corporate citizens. As we select gear, we ask hard questions about this. We ask about what are called “swap metrics” – base wattage and performance — which are more standard in the server type of industries. We’re starting to ask questions about materials disposal and the impact on the environment as it relates to how things are manufactured. We want to be responsible in how we get our hands on equipment that we’re using as well as the energy it’s going to consume and what disposal means at some point in the future.

On third-party applications: Qwest absolutely embraces the concept of third parties. QZone is perhaps a step in that direction. QHome provides capabilities that bridge the data world where ISPs and applications partner. MSN, in the consumer segment, has services that bridge with the wireline telephony world. So if you have Messenger on your computer, it will give you a pop-up when you have a call going into your residence or wherever your phone might be. You’ll have call logs. Your voicemail will appear integrated with your email. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The point is really around integration. The way we achieve that integration is we created a parlay interface, which we made available through our wireline infrastructure. That parlay interface is available to others that want to leverage third-party capabilities. It’s tarriffed and available. It’s a step toward starting to create interfaces that really allow the power of the third party to leverage communication networks that people are using. We’re absolutely behind that. If you look at our five strategic tenets, not just the one around partnerships--the one around simplicity is what we’re trying to get to here. As a communications company, we don’t believe we can create everything for everyone.