COO Rob Piconi shares how this company’s performance analysis and service assurance solutions are speeding new technologies to the telecom marketplace.

Rob Piconi knows perhaps more than most that behind every great new telecom development is a long and laborious march to the marketplace. Today’s cutting-edge technology, from Internet telephony to mobile TV, doesn’t leap from the lab to a live network without considerable time, money, and effort.

As COO of Spirent Communications, Piconi is committed to helping telecom innovations get to the marketplace faster—and making the customer experience better once they arrive.

Spirent Communications, Inc. is the telecommunications test unit of $500 million Spirent Communications PLC, a global provider of performance analysis and service assurance solutions to the telecom industry headquartered in the UK.

Rob Piconi

The company specializes in lab-based performance analysis tools and network diagnostic instruments and related software, covering a variety of telecom technologies, such as Internet protocol, broadband networking, and wireless communications. The world’s leading telecom service providers, including Cisco, Alcatel, AT&T, China Telecom, NTT, Ericsson, and Telefonica use Spirent’s solutions to ensure that technologies and revenue-generating services are deployed efficiently and effectively.

Using Spirent’s solutions, companies can evaluate the performance of the latest technologies before their products and services are delivered in live networks. And as new communication services and applications are introduced in the market, Spirent provides tools for pre-deployment lab analysis and post-release service management and field testing to improve troubleshooting and service quality. Spirent also enables large companies and governments to secure and manage their networks.

Time is of the essence
In addition to his COO role, Piconi heads Spirent’s performance analysis/broadband division, which provides expertise and solutions to accelerate the development and deployment of devices, networks, applications, and services. “Testing functionality, conformity, interoperability, and scalability under real-world conditions in the lab shortens the development cycle,” Piconi explained. “That improves quality and reduces the cost and risk associated with service rollout.”

It also helps Spirent’s customers get their product to market faster, crucial when today’s great idea could quickly become tomorrow’s Betamax. “We’re playing in the most cutting-edge industry in the world,” Piconi said. “New protocols are being developed daily by our customers. They are asking us, ‘What should our test processes be? What is our time frame?’”

Indeed, Spirent is involved with next-generation wireless and wireline networks, as well as a wide range of next-generation architectures and services, including IMS, 3G, 4G, voice, data, mobile video, IPTV, and push-to-talk over cellular. Keeping up with all of these emerging technologies and associated applications can be a challenge. “We use standard processes no matter what the technology,” said Piconi. “But as customers come up with new technologies, we have to stay ahead of the curve. It forces us to stay on our toes.”

One of Spirent’s most significant products coming to market is its Spirent TestCenter. “This is a converged platform that enables customers to test multiple services and technologies without using multiple boxes,” Piconi explained. “It does three things: helps customers optimize their capital expenditure, reduce their operating expense, and deliver new services quicker into the market. It’s a true innovation in the market. It can help our customers be 12 to 24 months ahead of the game.”

Setting the standard
The COO position at Spirent is a new one, with Piconi stepping into his role this past January on the heels of successes at Lucent Technologies. At Lucent, Piconi led the broadband solutions business group, which included Ethernet, access, optical fiber, and IPTV/video businesses. He was also instrumental in developing the company’s integrated virtual supply chain and product realization model, a significant transformation of Lucent’s processes and infrastructure that received widespread recognition for its cash and P&L results.

“Spirent has made several key broadband acquisitions, and a big part of my challenge is to look at assets and technology across the company and how we integrate these to create value quickly,” Piconi said. “I’m also charged with looking at operational effectiveness and efficiency to see how we can pull costs out of our products and infrastructure.”

If there is a Rob Piconi management style, it manifests itself first in passion. “It starts with being passionate about everything you do,” Piconi said. “I love technology, and I love creating and bringing new things to market.”

Like celebrated CEO Jack Welch, whom he has studied extensively, Piconi believes in the power of face-to-face communication. Coming in cold to his new role, he carved out regular time to meet with employees and customers. “You have to get the pulse of the people. You can’t manage at a high level; you have to get out and meet people one on one. That’s a big part of my style.”

Likewise, Piconi is committed to regular communication with Spirent customers. “You can never be far removed from your customers. They will tell you where you are strong and where you are weak—and what the competition is doing. You can’t just sit in the office; you have to be close to your customers and sales team.”

One of the most exciting trends in telecom is that of convergence, the coming together of voice, data, and video (often called triple play by the industry). “Mobile TV is a good example of convergence,” Piconi explained. “You now have the ability to receive video service at home and on the road. But he is quick to point out that with all of this whiz-bang technology comes an added responsibility to the consumer, what the industry has come to call quality of experience, or QoE.”

Piconi believes that maximizing technology is critical but that, ultimately, companies have to do it for the end user. Working with a telecom provider in Spain several years ago that was deploying a new triple-play IPTV service, he saw up close the frustrations that customers faced in using new technologies. “If they don’t work right, you lose that subscriber,” he said.

“It became clear to me that there needed to be an industry awareness and focus on the juxtaposition between technology and the subscriber experience. When you bring new services to market, the quality has to be top notch because consumers have a lot of choices, and they will switch. It is very difficult to get a disgruntled customer back at any price.”

Steffen Smith is an Atlanta-based writer and can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .