Re: OT: is this true? I am worried about studying for CCIE R&S

For many people, mobiles already have replaced VoIP systems.

I do not have a desk phone now, nor do I expect to ever have one during the
rest of my career. If I ever do get issued one once again, I will find it
somewhat quaint, and it will probably just sit on my desk gathering dust,
probably not even plugged in.

There are some parts of the world where, for economic or cultural reasons,
deskphones will hang on, but there are also large parts of the world where the
economics don't stack up.

See this: http://etherealmind.com/ip-telephony-over-no-cisco-voice/ for some
more on it. For those who say "But there's plenty of demand here for Voice
engineers!" - check the comments too. Certain places will retain demand, but
the long term outlook for it is not great.

Back to the R&S angle, I think the point is that you need to be aware of
industry trends. No, OpenFlow won't change everything overnight. But the point
is, networking will probably change dramatically over the next 10 years, and
if you plan on staying in this industry for another 20-30 years, you need to
stay on top of those changes. In many ways networking was pretty static for
the last decade, but now there's a whole heap of pressures forcing change. You
need to both look at the long term direction of your career - e.g. do I study
CCIE R&S, or move towards application development - and the short-medium term,
where you read enormous amounts, and stay on top of changes, so you don't want
to get left behind.

Sometimes I meet engineers who have gotten painted into a corner, where they
know something really well, but they've gotten stuck, and the pool of
potential employers is rapidly shrinking. OK, maybe they've got a good job
now, but what happens if they have a falling-out with their employer? Not many
options.

Times change. But good engineers will adapt with those changes. Find a field
that interests you, learn all you can, but keep your eyes open to change.

 - Lindsay

On 26/05/2012, at 4:49 AM, Dark Fiber wrote:

> Remember when cell's phones were going to take the place of voip
> systems?

Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
Received on Sat May 26 2012 - 13:37:03 ART