Opal's inaugural Next Generation Network Forum, staged at the Imperial War Museum, London and Old Trafford, Manchester, was the platform for a strong message to the industry and end users... ‘The IT network decisions you make this year could affect your company's success for the rest of this decade'.

The day-long seminar saw some key players in the industry - including Peter Hall from analysts Ovum, Richard Osborne of Cisco Systems, Greg Zweig of Sonus Networks, and Marcus Jewell of Mitel, discussing the challenges facing businesses as voice and data services converge onto one network and means of business communications evolve.

Common themes throughout the day included the growing challenges of migrating ICT networks, the difficulties in making the business case for converged services, and how the cloud can facilitate real business transformation.

The event was chaired by Opal's transformation director, Andy Lockwood, and involved breakout round table sessions to discuss the issues. Lockwood spoke about how the network decisions made by IT managers this year could affect a company's success for the rest of the decade, and how the state of many businesses' networks is posing the real barrier to their development.

Lockwood said: "The event was a huge success with some insightful debate and high profile speakers. My takeout was clear; Next Generation IP networks allow businesses to take the next step in the evolution of their business and many have already revolutionised their operations and reduced IT running costs while making their networks more efficient, flexible, manageable and future proofed. Businesses can simply not afford to ignore the benefits of NGN."

Other talking points from the speakers included the unstoppable nature of cloud computing and the need for greater business grade bandwidth, the evolution of networks with the rise of video applications, reassurances on the benefits of SIP trunking and tips on marketing NGN technologies.

Opal has used the event as a spring board to release a white paper on the issues covered, entitled Make Your Next Network Decision Your Last.