In the eyes of many customers, self-service is not a compound word but rather a four-letter one. It’s not that there’s anything inherently bad about IVR or web self-service applications – it’s that there’s something bad about most contact centers’ efforts to make such apps good. Relatively few contact centers extend their quality assurance (QA) practices to self-service applications. Most centers tend to monitor and evaluate only those contacts that involve an interaction with a live agent – i.e...

Network Instruments has announced the newest edition of the Observer Performance Management Platform. With redesigned, easy-to-use interfaces and workflows, expanded web user visibility, increased transactional intelligence, and enhanced integration with third-party tools and applications, Observer Platform 17 offers the network team a comprehensive, intuitive approach. What’s New Several components of the Observer Platform have changed significantly with this release. Observer Reporting Server ...

As mentioned in one of my previous blogs (Exposing The Ghost In The Virtual Machine), virtualization has been a great success story. At the same time, it holds hidden dangers that need to be managed. I want to take a couple minutes to outline those dangers and how to overcome them. So, here are the dangers that can be hidden in a virtualized data center: Potential security issues due unknown malware Potential outages due to lack of proper performance data Regulatory compliance issues due to lack...

Corporation’s networks today are expanding exponentially but, more importantly, today’s networks are the backbone and heart of a companies’ ability to perform its day-to-day business. When network failures occur, businesses cannot operate, revenues are affected, and loss of credibility/customer experience can be catastrophic. Maintaining a consistent high level of service availability drives greater customer satisfaction, it builds greater credibility, that in turn creates greater revenues by ma...

The following blog post is by Steve Brown, the director of product marketing for Network Instruments, a business unit of JDSU. The management of IT resources has changed significantly over the past several years. With the implementation of cloud, unified communications (UC), and Big Data initiatives, locating the source of application or service delivery issues has become increasingly complex. As a result, the network team often functions as a first responder, ensuring the continued and uninterr...

Ixia is proud to announce the new Ixia Net Optics iBypass 3 Switch. This switch sets a new standard for flexibility, efficiency, and usability in copper bypass switching by supporting up to eight bypass switches in 1U – 4 times the density of our last gigbabit copper bypass switch. In addition to space efficiency, the iBypass 3 achieves class-leading power savings of 48% over the last generation of bypass switch! Ixia bypass switches provide a permanent and trouble-free access port for in-line n...

Network Instruments, a business unit of JDSU (NASDAQ: JDSU), has announced the latest edition of its cornerstone Observer® Performance Management Platform. Observer Platform 17 provides network managers and engineers a comprehensive, intuitive approach to: Proactively pinpoint performance problems and optimize services. Integrate monitoring into the deployment of IT initiatives, including cloud, service orchestration and security. Easily manage access and share performance data with IT teams and...

Virtualization continues to be an important data center success story. This technology has reduced physical plant hardware footprints, power costs, and cooling costs – significantly improving the total cost of ownership for the data center. At the same time, however, virtualization technology has also introduced a set of problems. These problems have decreased the visibility into what is happening within the virtual network, and can be summarized as follows: Lack of visibility hides potential se...

Canadian triple-play cableco Cogeco says it will consider launching a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service if the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) implements stricter regulation regarding wholesale access to the infrastructure of national mobile network operators Rogers, Telus and Bell. As reported by Reuters, Cogeco’s CEO Louis Audet said that he hoped for new regulations to encourage MVNOs, in a statement to the press ahead of CRTC hearings on wholes...

Telecoms group Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) and its subsidiary Bell Aliant yesterday announced in a press release the initial results of BCE’s offer to purchase all Bell Aliant’s outstanding publicly held common shares and to exchange all outstanding Bell Aliant preferred shares. BCE revealed in July that it would buy out all minority shareholders in Bell Aliant for a total consideration of approximately CAD3.95 billion (USD3.68 billion); sellers will receive cash and BCE common equity. 81.2% a...

New Features & Improvements: WiFi: Enforce licensing for 802.11AC NICs. LANforge will now only allow WiFi stations to be used if there is an 80211AC license key for the wiphy device. Customers that have previously purchased 802.11AC should request a new license from their sales contact before upgrading to LANforge 5.2.13. There will be no charge for the new key in this case. Improve Layer-3 UDP performance, especially with smaller packets. Testing shows about double the number of packet...

Optimal Visibility and Control of Your Data Center Ixia’s portfolio provides complete network visibility into physical and virtual networks, improves network security and optimizes monitoring tool performance. The Anue NTO ensures that each monitoring tool gets exactly the right data needed for analysis. This improves the way you manage your data center and maximizes return on investment. What Our Customers Say “The Anue NTO makes my life easier. It makes complex data monitoring simple and allow...

The IVR is an integral part of any call center. Customers can call the center and get what they need without ever talking to a human, allowing agents greater availability to handle the more pressing calls. Yet despite their obvious advantages, most IVR systems aren’t perfect and can benefit from some improvements. How do you know when your IVR is due for some revamping? One of the best ways is to dial the number yourself. By putting yourself in the shoes of the customer, you’ll get to experience...

Russian-backed telecoms group Vimpelcom and its Egyptian-based subsidiary Global Telecom Holding (GTH) jointly announced today that they have agreed to sell all of their debt and equity interest in the Globalive group of companies in Canada, including Globalive Wireless Management Corp (Wind Canada), the operator of the Wind Mobile cellular network. Canada’s Globalive Capital (formerly AAL Holdings), the controlling shareholder of Wind Canada, and a group of investment funds are acquiring the en...

In our area of technology, we often think of our products in terms of how they compare to the rest of the products in the same market segment. Maybe we can highlight one facet of a unique feature and point out how nobody else offers it – or at least not in that way. It is tempting to compare features line-by-line when you have competitors who offer products that are generally similar. But now I have the opportunity to talk about a market where nobody else has gone. Ixia can show something that i...

Quebec-based quadruple-play cableco and mobile operator Videotron has launched commercial services over its new 4G LTE network, four years to the day since launching its original 3G cellular network. In its press release Videotron announced that its LTE mobile broadband service reaches nearly 90% of Quebec’s population and supports speeds of up to 150Mbps, with data packages aimed at consumers and businesses. The Quebecor subsidiary has rolled out its LTE 2100MHz network in an infrastructure bui...

When it comes to ensuring consistent VoIP quality, what you don’t know can hurt you. Surprise changes to the network can leave end users unhappy and administrators scratching their heads. Even the smallest configuration and settings changes can have the potential to immediately and adversely impact applications. They can also be difficult to troubleshoot. To locate the source of any VoIP problem, it’s important to understand how critical changes in configuration, codecs, and user behavior can ki...

Canadian cableco Shaw Communications has completed the purchase of US-based data centre provider ViaWest for USD830 million plus USD370 million debt from private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners and other shareholders, following the agreement announced at the end of July. ViaWest, based in Denver, Colorado, operates 27 data centres in eight markets in the western US, with around 1,300 mainly mid-sized company clients, and will continue to operate as a standalone entity. ‘The ViaWest acquisi...

The Phantom Virtualization Tap™ (Phantom vTap™) v3.5 release is now available. This software solution provides IT monitoring staff access to packet data in virtualized data centers, allowing you to pinpoint performance issues and improve network security. With this capability, you can remove virtualized data center blind spots by exposing the approximately 80% of hidden inter-VM ("east-west") traffic that exists in this environment and that raises the risk of undetected threats or perf...

Rival Canadian cablecos Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications have announced they are jointly launching an online streaming TV and film content subscription service, named ‘shomi’, which will arrive in a beta version in November, exclusively for Rogers and Shaw customers at first for CAD8.99 (USD8.24) per month. shomi content will initially include more than 14,000 episodes, including 340 TV shows and 1,200 movies, the operators announced, while the price is slightly above the current mo...