MCI's Capellas Sees All-IP Future

LAS VEGAS -- The future of computing and telecom is converging on an IP layer -- and Michael Capellas said Tuesday that MCI plans to be a major player in making that future a reality.

"Ultimately, you will have to go to an IP layer because the applications will demand it," said MCI's CEO, at his keynote speech that opened this year's Networld+Interop trade show here. "But it won't happen overnight."

Capellas, the former CEO of Compaq, didn't mention MCI's recent financial struggles, but instead gave an upbeat speech about the trends that are pointing toward an all-IP future, including the rapiudly increasing use of rich data like voice and streaming video.

"The density of data is going to go up by a factor of 300" over the next few years, Capellas predicted. That means that network providers like MCI, he said, need to be more than just providers of data pipes, but must partner with customers and other vendors to better integrate the delivery of IP-enabled content and applications.

"If all this happens, the telecom industry needs to be better at partnerships," Capellas said.Though a planned demonstration of a Microsoft Office-based live collaborative application failed to work, Capellas said one of his goals is to see telephony "completely embedded" into the computer desktop. The operating system and the telephony network are collapsing onto each other, he said. "And we want to be the company that enables the next generation."