The Central Office As War Room

This chapter’s intent has been to induce the potential network operator to view the central
office and central network hub as a dynamic and evolving entity whose evolution will reflect a
changing service model. Any network operator who survives and succeeds is going to have to
retrofit the central office on a fairly frequent basis, and these operators should obtain facilities
that will easily accommodate growth and change. While the basic network elements are not apt
to change significantly within the foreseeable future, the operator will probably require greater
and greater computing power and storage capacity to run the new applications that will surely
emerge in the marketplace. I cannot emphasize enough that broadband services no longer
constitute a utility business. Rather than providing some fixed offering, the network service
provider is increasingly called upon to provide solutions to individual communications problems.
In a real sense, the ability to innovate is becoming a core capability for the last-mile
service provider.