SDN and NFV will together initiate the most radical change the network has ever experienced and so, as a consequence, present huge changes and challenges for all the organisations and individuals involved. We’re talking ‘ripple effect’ Watson.

In this fourth 2 pint problem-solving session, Martin Taylor, CTO of Metaswitch Networks, along with TelecomTV's Martyn Warwick and Ian Scales, discuss roles and relationships and how they might change. Will telcos bring network design back in-house; will the biggest network operators buy integrators and SDN specialists; will big vendors be forced to play nice with small vendors? And what about jobs and roles? How will they change?

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Back in the 19th Century, Sherlock Holmes, the world's first consulting detective, lived at 221B Baker Street in London. And sometimes even the great sleuth himself was baffled by the intricacies of a particular problem. When that happened he sat in his upstairs flat, cross-legged on a pile of cushions, and smoked and smoked and smoked until he had analysed, rationalised and solved the case - and fumigated the apartment. These were his famous "Two-Pipe Problems".

This TelecomTV series is called "A Two Pint Problem" and is filmed in a pub hard by Baker St. Each episode examines, over a beer or two rather than a pound of ready-rubbed shag tobacco, one of the problems facing the global comms industry in an era of unprecedented change.

As Holmes said, "Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person." We hope to prove this to be true.