Tellabs Blog

At Tellabs, we publish a customer magazine, formerly known as Inspire. It's a big project every quarter, as we work closely with customers to convey how Tellabs mobile, optical, business and services solutions helped them succeed. It's always a bit nerve-wracking when we go to press, but this quarter almost knocked us off our feet.

The week was winding down before the fourth of July weekend when my boss called to ask where the magazine was. I proudly replied, "It's on press!" thinking he would be pleased.

To my surprise, he wasn't. In fact, I could tell by his voice that there was a big problem.

What he said next stunned me for a moment. "Al Qaeda just launched a magazine called Inspire!"

After a few double-takes and some cursing, we decided to change the name of Inspire magazine. It was a little bit like having to retire your first car—you know, the one whose engine you repaired yourself for years.

But, for the first time in my career, I actually got to say, "STOP THE PRESSES!" Luckily, we were in time to save ourselves from a wasted print job.

Over the weekend, we worked diligently to rename our magazine to Insight. The new name is actually an improvement. It better describes what our customers are looking for and reflects our evolving brand. We quickly got the magazine back on press and made our deadline.

While I'm still a little peeved about getting hijacked, I'm happy to introduce Insight.

• Leading Edge Tellabs is hiring Ethernet and IP engineers around the world, says Dan Kelly.
• 4G Mobile's Core Difference Why build the limitations of traditional Internet into the mobile Internet? asks Dr. Vikram Saksena.
• Cover Story: DWDM Makes a Difference at TIME A new optical network gives Malaysia's TIME dotCom a more competitive edge.
• Russia's Transport Transformation Mobile operators are ditching E1s for Ethernet, to keep up with mobile data traffic.
• Woodstock Goes All Out with Fiber GPON fiber reaches out to rural U.S. homes, and eventually, businesses.
• The Core of the Mobile Broadband Experience Most mobile operators want a common core network for 2G, 3G and 4G, says industry analyst Gabriel Brown.