OREANDA-NEWS. July 22, 2011. NTT America, a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com) and a Tier-1 global IP network services provider, today highlighted several key trends and upcoming industry developments in the broadband and IP transit industry.

 “New technology innovations, global developments and the changing nature of how both businesses and consumers are using the Internet are all impacting our industry greatly,” said Michael Wheeler, vice president of NTT America’s Global IP Network business unit. “Now is the time for businesses to make the adjustments needed for success in the future.”

 Wheeler outlined the following industry developments that will continue to affect the industry throughout the remainder of 2011:

 Industry consolidation:

As IP transit providers continue to struggle with constraints on capital following the global financial crisis, industry consolidation will continue. Already this year, the industry has seen this consolidation several times over, with CenturyLink/Qwest/Savvis, Terremark/Verizon and Level 3/Global Crossing most notably.

 Emerging technology:

IPv6 will remain at the forefront of industry discussions, as the transition will be extremely gradual. While NTT America’s IPv6 traffic on its NTT Communications network nearly doubled on World IPv6 Day, many content networks and service providers will still be slow to adopt the new protocol permanently.

However, the seemingly infinite amount of addresses provided by the new protocol have the potential to pave the way for new opportunities for existing technologies such as digital rights management (DRM) and radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices. It is these opportunities – instead of an IPv6 “killer app” – that could incentivize a faster transition.

Customer landscape:

Demands on the Internet will continue to grow as the application of video evolves and people continue to increasingly live their lives on the Internet via sites like Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. In fact, according to Forrester Research, 2010 marked the first year that consumers are spending just as much time online as they are in front of their televisions. Further, a late-2010 study cited in Multichannel News revealed that North American households are using a median of 4 Gigabytes per month of Internet bandwidth, rising steadily from 3 Gigabytes per month in 2009. Overall, Internet usage is transitioning from cache and storage to real-time and over-the-top (OTT) content.

Global developments:

Latin America continues to rise in prominence as the next big emerging market, and with Netflix’s recent announcement that it will begin offering service in the region, many industry researchers are suggesting that streaming content from the company could overtake cable in terms of adoption.

 Additionally, in spite of the March 2011 Japanese earthquake, NTT America’s network remains strong. Its sophisticated infrastructure and high level of redundancy ensured that while its transpacific route was affected by the earthquake, actual service interruptions for its customers were negligible.

NTT America leverages the strength of the NTT Communications Global IP Network to provide the high-quality and flexible service its customers need to remain competitive and profitable regardless of current industry conditions. As a Tier-1 provider, the company provides seamless service from a single global ASN (ASN2914) over NTT Communications Global IP Network, directly connecting content providers, ISPs, CDNs and enterprises at the highest performance levels available. 

NTT America provides flexible and fast dedicated access to the global Internet and the most aggressive Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in the industry. The company supports its customers by shaping IP transit bandwidth delivered over both Internet protocol version 4 (IPv4) and the next generation Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6).