During our recent interviews with operators of completely IP-based networks in the region, we were struck by the number of respondents who noted that IP networking brought not only technological change but also organizational change. By altering their network architecture, service providers are finding that they also have to alter their communication and cooperation practices.

Organizational shifts are forced by IP's friendliness to convergence. Although not every IP network operator runs all of its services across the same network - even some 100% IP service providers operate legacy networks that are not yet fully integrated - part of the technology's great promise is that it enables all services to be provided over the same system.

Running all services on one underlying technology, of course, brings great benefits in OPEX and product innovation, since the common protocol allows quicker service introduction, use of commonly-available skills, and the ability to mash up services into new products as the market demands. The flip side to this flexibility, though, is that the common platform also represents a common pool of network capacity, which can be more difficult to monitor. In traditional infrastructures, each product family had its own optimized technological base, which often meant that demand growth was slower and easier to forecast. More importantly, unexpected demand in one system would not affect the operator's other products. But in the IP-based world, bottlenecks can sneak up on service providers who are still learning their way around the new technology.

Our interviews with executives who had experience with more traditional network architectures indicated that the following factors need to be accounted for when carriers design and operate IP networks:

• Many 100% IP networks are located in Greenfield developments or areas where network use is growing rapidly.
• IP-based services can prove more popular than expected due to their ease of use, lower cost, and friendliness to third-party mashups.
• Since a capacity burst in one service can affect all other services, SPs need to pay special attention to traffic monitoring and modeling.
• Product planning must focus not only on customer needs, but also on interaction with other network services. This holistic approach to network utilization can encourage a holistic approach to product planning and marketing as well.

The upshot is that network designers and product planners should incorporate healthy margins into their capacity planning, and make sure they know how to add capacity at short notice. Once they have internalized the idea of holistic network usage, holistic product planning will follow.

For a broader perspective on this material, see our All-IP Carrier Networks in Emerging Markets, to be published shortly.