Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

IP over Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (IPoDWDM) is a network architecture that integrates optical transmission capabilities directly into IP networking equipment such as routers and switches. This approach represents a significant evolution from traditional network designs, where IP and optical layers were managed as separate domains with distinct hardware and operational teams.

Power networks (DSOs, TSOs and generation) are under pressure from every direction. They need to improve reliability and sustainability, deliver real-time customer insight, and meet increasingly stringent regulations. In response, power generation has evolved from a simple centralized model, through to a decentralized model with generation from a mix of diverse sources such as centralized generation from carbon-based, nuclear and renewable generation plants, through DERs even located at people premises.

Last year, I wrote about how AI-driven search trends reshaped my digital marketing strategy in ways I hadn’t seen in two decades. At the time, the story was mostly observational: traffic patterns were changing, conversions were holding, and AI-generated search answers were clearly influencing buyer behavior. Fast-forward to the first quarter of 2026, and one thing is clear — this shift didn’t slow down; it accelerated.

Pandemic-era shortages are still fresh in many minds. As consumers, we remember empty shelves and long lines driven by panic buying and stockpiling. In telecom, the story played out differently but with the same root cause: factory shutdowns interrupted chip fabrication just as demand for networking and optical equipment surged.

Operators today are navigating unprecedented complexity—rising costs, accelerating customer expectations, and increasingly dynamic networks. In this recent video interview, my colleague Kevin Wade and I explore why AI‑driven automation has shifted from a “nice‑to‑have” technology to a core business requirement for telecom operators and beyond.

For decades, telecom network operations have depended on traditional OSS tools – complex, services-heavy platforms that take years to modernize and even longer to deliver measurable business impact. This year at MWC, the leading OSS vendors showcased a variety of new AI extensions for their portfolios and marketed them as the fastest path to autonomous network operations. They are not.

While the race to expand networking infrastructure to support AI applications continues on land, the same expansion is occurring undersea. Subsea cables spanning Earth’s oceans must evolve to keep pace.

As digital transformation accelerates, the underlying infrastructure supporting your enterprise or service provider network faces unprecedented pressure. The exponential growth of data, driven by cloud computing, 5G, and particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI), demands a fundamental rethink of how you approach connectivity.

In the telecom industry, leaders are under pressure to deliver more—more capacity, more agility, more reliability—while managing rising complexity with fewer resources. The network is the circulatory system of the modern telco, yet it’s still often operated like a patchwork of manual roads, each requiring constant human intervention. This model worked when traffic was predictable and growth was linear.

Imagine pulling up to a gas pump, inserting your credit card, and having the display on the pump say “denied”. You call your credit card company, and they say, “Oh, we don’t know, maybe it’s the merchant’s fault, or the card reader is bad…, we can look into it and get back to you in a few weeks.” Most of us would be pretty upset with that response.