Nortel CEO hypes hyperconnectivity

Nortel Networks CEO Mike Zafirovski said yesterday that an inflection point has been reached in communications with hyperconnectivity and an explosion in demand for multiple connections anywhere, anytime, from any device.

It is a phenomenon being driven by the proliferation of handheld devices and the convergence of wired, wireless, and IP. Cameras, MP3 players, security systems, appliances, and much more are all demanding to be connected, he told the company's annual meeting.

He said that hyperconnectivity, which encompasses person-to-person communication, person-to-machine, and machine-to-machine, is fueling huge increases in bandwidth demand because of the complexity, diversity, and integration of new applications and devices using the network.

Nortel quoted researchers at IDC as predicting that the amount of information created in 2007 would surpass, for the first time, the network storage capacity available. However, it will be some time before the hyperconnectivity inflection point will feed through to Nortel's figures. While it predicted that first-quarter revenue would rise 4% to $2.48bn, it expects revenue for the whole of 2007 to be flat to slightly down, though it has been hit by the sale of its UMTS Access business to Alcatel-Lucent.

CFO Peter Currie left the company at the end of April, and chief legal officer David Drinkwater has taken over his job on an interim basis.

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