Two years after first announcing my retirement plans, I'm really doing it. No, really.

There was surprising optimism in the sector at the MEF18 event, but will it be reflected in revenues going forward?

Many larger network operators are bringing software development in-house, developing their own orchestrators and other tools, and using more open source to get the results they want, without vendor dependence.

Here's a quick snapshot of my impressions from this week's NFV-Carrier SDN: Automation and Monetization event in Denver.

The FCC lies about getting hacked and net neutrality proponents cheer when Alex Jones is censored, but so what?

Consumers are now shifting away from wireline for broadband, as well as for phone, as more people either prefer wireless access or don't really care.

Web giant contributes seed code to new open source group within ONF that is redefining SDN and promising faster innovation and upgrades.

Internet users have grown used to being tracked online, but will they ever accept the fact that some applications need special treatment by ISPs?

New ads call for Internet Bill of Rights that applies to ISPs and content giants, but what are the chances Congress can get this done?

Better Internet access for rural areas is getting a lot of attention from the Trump administration but the plan of action seems less than solid.

Assuming they can get the software architecture right, open source projects represent a faster way to consensus on big issues, he says.

Legacy business services aren't that easily shed when customers resist change but service providers need to find a more aggressive path forward.

PCCW exec David Hughes eviscerates the telecom 'poor me' mindset but with a light touch, Carol Wilson writes.

New services are taking hold, as businesses overcome their trepidation over virtualization and the technology matures, says Jim Sabey.

CenturyLink's Bill Walker is an IT guy, tasked with helping transform a legacy telco. He shared some very practical ideas about how to do that – notes from the trenches, as it were – in this video interview.

Software-defined WANs were the hot topic a year ago at Light Reading's NFV-SDN event, and a lot has happened since. What grabs the spotlight this year?

Its IZO SD-WAN Prime aims to help companies automatically address congestion issues on Internet links to remote sites.

A quick trip in the Wilson way-back machine shows telecom operators have been at this a long time, maybe too long?

Russo, the man who cashed in pretty quickly on his first major success, Cerent, is leading a much longer-term effort to bring software-defined networking to the access realm at Calix.

SD-WAN market set to surge but it's not replacing MPLS anytime soon, and there will be security and operational challenges ahead, according to a 451 Research survey.

Lowell McAdam says cable merger no longer seems likely but is still open to other ideas – like a Comcast merger.

Harmonization, minding the product gap, getting 5G right, mimicking Red Hat and praising the Linux Foundation's expanded role all make the list.

Open Networking Summit presentation makes clear that AT&T's journey to differentiated services is one most operators will need to take.

The Senate's vote to cut privacy rules for ISPs just means there's no longer confusion on Internet privacy protection because there isn't any.

Under Ajit Pai, the FCC is doing what major telecom players have wanted by rolling back regulations. Now we'll see if this fuels innovation and consumer benefits.

Sometimes it's not technology issues slowing virtualization, it's the buying and selling process, vendors say, and they'd like an industry solution.

The telecom industry is in a period of rapid change, but then that's been true now for decades. The pace may change but the problems and even some of the solutions seem to repeat themselves.

AT&T pulls back from offering Gigapower customers a chance to protect their privacy for a price, even as FCC considers making it mandatory.

Don't worry, they say, the code will work it out. There's apparently nothing open source can't tackle.

Level 3 finds enterprise security managers who believe firewalls can save them are getting some nasty surprises.

At one moment in Denver this week, the three largest US operators were very agreeable to the idea of open sourcing APIs to make business easier.

AT&T's former security guru is taking his expertise to a much broader audience – and this time he's giving it away.

Security is a looming issue as IoT devices prove to be easily invaded, but is the broadband industry prepared to act?

Internet giant's initiative rewrote the local broadband story for many cities in the US.

FCC Chairman has been among the most aggressive ever in pushing his competition agenda, but is he running out of time to finish the job?

AT&T and Verizon are vying for the status of biggest OpenStack champion, a stunning reversal for the open source software and a sign of things to come.

FCC proposes forcing broadband ISPs to get explicit consent from customers before using browsing data, ignoring the real online privacy threats.

Forget the 'Thrilla in Manila'; the competitive battle among open MANO groups will more likely be fought with Manila folders than fisticuffs.

Done well, targeted video ads based on Internet browsing history wouldn't be such a bad thing, but there are trust and transparency issues to address.

Virtualization is critical to telecom's future but it could open up a new can of net neutrality worms – the time to talk about that is now.

The rise of business videoconferencing has been a long time coming, but can integration with UC and low-cost, fully featured systems finally take hold?

Latest broadband deployment report shows more than half of rural Americans can't get the 25 Megs of broadband the feds say they need, even as rural telcos says FCC support is confusing and inconsistent.

Enterprise software company chooses CenturyLink as one of its IaaS partners for key cloud enablement of its core product.

Shifting populations, nimbler political structures and a focus on getting things done makes the globe's cities the place to focus.

Here's a look back at the highlights from the live events Light Reading held last year, including best keynote and best event.

Not the publicly traded incumbents, say two of the industry's veteran financial analysts.

To spur IoT apps and services, Verizon is offering ThingSpace and its accompanying APIs for free to developers, but there is a clear revenue strategy.

Group built on competitive carrier roots is trying to broaden its reach to represent a wider swatch of the competitive Internet.

AT&T has invested more in the US than any other firm in the past four years, but is its capex shrinking? Yes, no, maybe, for many reasons.

So North America is out of IPv4 addresses - that's incredibly anti-climactic. Unless it isn't, in which case you're in trouble.

As Masergy discovered, even working aggressively to make the business case for NFV in virtual CPE doesn't mean it's the answer everywhere.

AT&T, Verizon, NTT, Telefonica, CableLabs, Cox and Masergy are all bringing a real-world view of their NFV deployments to date to Dallas next week.

When even social service benefits require online access, 365 Data Centers is helping one Bay Area agency keep its clients connected.

Eight weeks in to getting gigabit Internet service over fiber-to-the-home, I still can't answer that question.

Some folks say they'll never forgo six-nines reliability and 50 millisecond restoration standards, but there are definite signs Web 2.0 approaches are taking hold.

After almost three decades of writing about fiber-to-the-home, I'm finally getting it and I'm going for the whole gig.

Alliance with Deloitte creates one-stop shop of cyberattack mitigation by adding governance, risk management and compliance consulting.

Rutberg's Rejeev Chand gets FCC's Clbyburn plus Google Fiber and DISH execs to play the true-false game, with interesting results.

New open source group provides substantial industry insight at MWC -- here's hoping they keep up the effort to keep non-members informed.

In the wake of major breaches, enterprises are working harder to get compliance, but not hard enough to stay that way.

Even the best specialized routers can't keep pace with the 100,000-plus % increase in mobile data traffic, Donovan tells MWC.

Response to FCC head Tom Wheeler's expected re-regulation of broadband access lines was predictable, but also maybe irrelevant.

Metaswitch CTO says virtual functions implemented on IT-grade cloud infrastructure require extra engineering help to handle network volumes.

Technology guru John Donovan pledges to make AT&T's network 75% software-defined by 2020.

Board of directors allegedly wanted faster pace of change from one of the telecom industry's change pacesetters.

But what took them so long?

There's a lot happening at the network's edge, and it's worth watching.

As promised earlier this month, Verizon is letting businesses turn up network and security services on a per-workload basis.

Cloud provider backs off M&A plans, but is that the last word?

The ONF is developing standards that will let you go to school on SDN and then test for certification to prove what you know.

In the mid-80s, there were hot debates about how to power phones over non-copper lines. Guess what? Those debates are back.

One early indication of whether the tw telecom deal will bear the hoped-for fruit will be how its dynamic bandwidth capacity is handled.

Incumbents don't want cities and towns to build their own gigabit networks, but what's their alternative plan?

It's up to network operators to make sure "open" retains some meaning and doesn't go the way of "natural" foods.

The beauty of the early Internet was that it was distance-insensitive but as video takes over and the cloud grows, is that changing?

The move of NFV management and orchestration to an open source model seems inevitable, but how it happens is as transparent as the World Cup refs' game time calculations.

tw telecom has been a rumored takeover target for years and Level 3 a rumored suitor. But is there more to this deal than just getting bigger?

Of course they are all related to virtualization - what else would I write about in Nice?

The TM Forum is actively seeking industry input to its ZOOM project to enable NFV orchestration, but what if it went truly open source?

Metaswitch CEO urges telcos to transform their business models along with their networks and start behaving like software companies.

PayTV service is not the future for AT&T so there have to be other reasons for buying a satellite TV distribution network.

Telecom players need to give their CSRs more intelligent tools to address customer issues, or see training and turnover troubles persist.

AT&T's ready, Google's ready, but are the municipalities they want to serve ready to play -- and bring along access rights and other free stuff?

Frank the Buffalo is the popular face of Frontier on Facebook and elsewhere, even if his no-BS promise left some customers cold.

Wall Street traders are using high-speed services and collocation to their advantage in trading stocks but is their advantage legal - and is it fair?

Consumers are already exploring their OTT options and one cable operator sees good business in helping them do that more easily.

The telecom industry's merger fever has created a morass of old, outdated and mismatching data records for some operators, which could hamper plans for growth.

Dropping circuit-switched voice in a rural Alabama area and a Florida suburb doesn't address competitive interconnection issues

Media response to this deal has been a little too hysterical, given the deal's true nature - but does that reveal a bigger problem?

This time, it's Netflix crying foul as broadband ISPs refuse to connect directly to its CDN without extracting extra fees.

The technology industry has a history of throwing gizmos, gadgets, and yes, gigabits, at teachers, but they have little effect without purpose and training

Just what does 'open' mean in the telecom world? I asked six carriers.

Today's carriers want to keep their progress under wraps -- NFV and virtualization in general are the exception to that rule.

MKM report predicts Cisco and Juniper may acquire optical networking companies Infinera and/or Ciena to prepare for virtualization.

Here's one person's view of what didn't go as expected this year.

Heavy Reading's Graham Finnie looks at how IMS and virtualization are similar -- and different -- in his LR University session on policy and SDN/NFV.

We're already months into planning our 'Specs & Plugs & Rock & Roll' show, but there's still plenty of time to tell us what you'd like to see at The Big Telecom Event (BTE) in June 2014.

Sale allows AT&T to exit from a wireline footprint that no longer fits in with its long-term business ambitions.

A cable exec admits he's never considered partnering with neighboring telcos on gigabit networks - should he?

CloudNFV is being open about drawing on work of existing and new standards bodies -- are others building NFV this way?