Beyond VoIP

Tom Keating's been following the launch festivities for the Zune, and I thought I'd add my 1 cent with a recent blog posting by James Kim from Cnet.com., where he writes about speculation that Microsoft might significantly subsidize the Zune to generate music subscription services revenue (similar to the Msoft Xbox strategy re: console pricing and game sales). Interesting and potentially quite disrupting if true!

Here's a link to Msoft's Zune Virtual Pressroom, for what it's worth...

While profitable domestic U.S. arbitrage scenarios are hard to come by today, with all the cutthroat competition for transport and termination and resulting price pressure, the International marketplace still holds a number of intriging opportunities.

George Dinsdale,  a VoIP industry vet and principal at IGP (Internet Global Phone), a small but fast-growing ITSP that sells minutes between the US and a number of international POPs (including the Phillipines and South America), recently told me about how IGP is completing local Brazilian calls by routing them through New York. He said it's simply cheaper to do it that way!

Indeed, there are many other scenarios -- and I've love to hear from anyone who has an interesting "arbitrage anecdote" to share!
Continue Reading...

OK, I know what you're thinking: Doesn't Marc have anything better to do on a Saturday evening than post a blog entry? Well, yes...and no...

You see, I just bought a new PC today, and I felt I just had to share my experience b/4 details started to fade -- and to illustrate why I believe Dell is still a fearsome competitor and should not by any means be counted out of the game despite all the hubbub regarding exploding batteries, spotty customer service, and accounting irregularities.

I was initially looking for a mainstream system that had to incorporate the lastest technology like a Core 2 Duo processor, fast memory, 250 Gb hard drive and a number of other bells and whistles, like a flat panel monitor and a double-layer DVD burner. I didn't need the fastest screamer game system available -- just something relatively fast and capable of supporting Vista down the road. The system will be used mostly for business, but also sometimes for entertainment and various multimedia endeavors. Continue Reading...

 

ClearSight Networks, a company that specializes in VoIP monitoring and analysis products, has enhanced the newest version of its ClearSight Network Analyzer to provide Triple Play/IPTV support in real time.

The new Version 6.0 adds Triple Play network monitoring to the standard product at no additional cost. 

Continue Reading...

I recently met up with Donovan Jones and Jason Fischl, CounterPath's President/COO and CTO respectively, and they told me that revenues are growing around 20% per quarter -- a very nice clip even if Donovan does say so himself! Given that almost every service provider and hardware vendor I met up with at the last VON show that had a softphone product was licensing it from CounterPath, this number is perfectly believable -- and in my view set to grow even larger.

CounterPath Solutions is without question one of, if not THE leading provider of VoIP and Video over IP SIP softphones (with over 191 customers and more than 6 million IP endpoints deployed), and they recently announced an alliance with Intrado Inc., the leading provider of VoIP E911 services to develop new functionality within CounterPath’s softphone to support automatic location identification on mobile VoIP 911 calls. For most prospective large corporate and government users of VoIP, this is a very important development, as access to emergency services is actually a mandated policy that in many cases severely restricts the use of softphones.

The technology will enable the softphone to integrate directly with Intrado’s systems in order to detect and send location information automatically when a 911 call is made from a wireless VoIP end-user device. This means that calls made from a softphone on a laptop or smartphone, for example, will be directed to the appropriate public safety answering point (PSAP) and that emergency operators can link the caller's current physical location with the phone number used to dial for help. Continue Reading...

Thomson just unveiled a new GE DECT 6.0™ (Digital Enhanced Cordless Technology) wireless handset, Thomson’s first product with integrated Skype™ capabilities. The new device, GE Model 28300EE2, supports both landline and Skype calling, as well as Internet and traditional line conferencing. The phone will be available this fall at a suggested retail price of $149, and up to 6 handsets can be linked together to provide Skype calling in multiple rooms of a house.

DECT 6.0 is a wireless technology built into Thomson’s new wireless handset offerings, and is widely used throughout Europe and Asia. The GE 28300EE2 features speakerphone capability built right into the handset, and a color LCD screen makes for easy viewing of colorful Skype messaging as well as regular caller IDs. The handset comes with a 100 name capacity address book, including separate call “logs” for traditional and Internet contacts. Melody ring tones permit easy identification of favorite incoming callers such as friends and relatives, and the phone boasts up to 120 hour standby time and 10 hour talk time.

Other key features of the GE 28300EE2 DECT 6.0 Wireless Handset for Skype include:

• PC compatibility

• Call waiting support

• One-touch link for wireless home networking capabilities

• No signal deterioration -- digital signal processors ensure high call quality even when multiple handsets are running simultaneously

• Voice encryption for high security

• Skype & land-line conferencing capability of up to four users simultaneously from the handset

• Comes with two handsets (and additional accessory handsets, GE 28301EE1, are available)

• USB PC connectivity and software

• Mute / hold button

• Intercom function

• Integrated Skype caller ID (and support for traditional phone company caller ID services)

• Ringer off -on switch

• Convenient four-way navigation button for screen

• Headset jack

Continue Reading...

Packet Island Inc., a provider of VoIP lifecycle management solutions for the SME VoIP market, received its first round of venture funding from a group of venture capital firms led by Startup Capital Ventures. The other VCs participating in the Series A round are Garage Technology Ventures and Rincon Ventures.

According to Andy Aczel and Preveen Kumar, co-founders of Packet Island, “We took two years to build a solid SaaS platform that had the architecture to support the deployment model and economic sensitivity of the SME market. By focusing our SaaS platform to solve the VoIP management needs of the IP Centrex market, we’ve been able to address a burning problem in a fast growing space, and gain industry recognition by means of key industry awards. We wanted investors who had the breadth and depth in the markets we were going after, and that’s exactly what we got with our VC syndicate led by Dr. John Davidson from Startup Capital Ventures.”

Dr. John Davidson, co-founder and CTO of LAN pioneer, Ungermann-Bass, and General Partner of Startup Capital Ventures, says  “As a long time participant in the networking industry, I have seen the remarkable scaling down of the price and size of enterprise networking gear without seeing an attendant reduction in complexity. Continue Reading...

Congrats are due to Steve Guthrie, all around good guy and a VoIP industry veteran, on his recent appointment as Director of Global Product Marketing for the IP telephony business unit at Integrated Research. Steve was formerly with Xelor Software as VP of Marketing.

In his new job, Steve will play a broad marketing role across the company’s Americas, Europe and PacAsia regions. One key initiative is to help lead the company from its Cisco-only focus to a multi-vendor strategy where the company's PROGNOSIS VoIP management solutions integrate into Cisco, Avaya, Nortel and Alcatel environments and provide a single view for these disparate systems that so many large enterprises have deployed across their global operations.

Since joining IR last month, Steve has already been in front of a half-dozen prospects and customers, on site with a customer where IR is managing 22,000 IPT nodes, and together with several MSPs that have end-users ranging from several hundred nodes to many thousand nodes.

Steve's new business contact details are below.


*****************

Steven Guthrie
Director, Global Product Marketing, IP Telephony
PROGNOSIS -- precise performance monitoring

(m) +781-248-6956
(f) +781-662-9166
(im) [email protected]
(e) [email protected]
(w) www.prognosis.com Continue Reading...

Global telecommunications and information technology consulting firm Detecon, has been featured by the International Engineering Consortium's "Analyst Corner" to discuss key
business and technology issues for IPTV. For this engagement, the firm has produced a short, special report entitled "IPTV: Technology and Development Predictions", which details the state of this emerging technology, and covers IPTV architecture, middleware issues, video on demand and other key aspects of IPTV.

According to Detecon, IPTV is ready for prime time. The technology of most IPTV components is mature and the cost of equipment is far more reasonable than it was previously. Content providers understand that TV is changing and emerging digital media has created new ways to distribute video content. Continue Reading...

As Rich Tehrani wrote recently, IP peering was one of the main themes to emerge at this past VON event in Boston. Another peering trend, SIP Trunking, which involves the direct IP connection of a SIP-enabled IP-PBX and SIP-compliant VoIP service provider, was also evident at the show and generated a few notable announcements.

First and foremost, the SIP Forum formally announced their embrace and ownership of SIPconnect -- a SIP trunking specification originally pioneered by Cbeyond Communications, Broadsoft, Cisco, and other vendors.

Another announcement from Bandwidth.com entailed their recent roll out of a SIP trunking solution aimed at the SMB and enterprise business market. They announced distribution deals for that product with Mitel and VoIP Supply, both of which will bundle the offering with their hardware solutions for business looking to maximize the value of their IP PBX systems. Continue Reading...

According to research firm TeleGeography, over the past five years wholesale international Internet service providers have experienced demand increases that are virtually unprecedented in other industries. At the same time, equally stunning price declines eroded much of the benefit of this traffic growth. According to the latest research in TeleGeography's Global Internet Geography 2007, these trends continued through the 12 months from Q2 2005 to Q2 2006, but with a significant twist: International IP traffic growth actually accelerated over the past 12 months, while the pace of price erosion abated noticeably in many of the world's most competitive markets.

According to Eric Schoonover, Senior Research Analyst with TeleGeography, "Carriers should not become too optimistic," adding, "At the moment, nearly all markets have growth rates that more than compensate for the steady decline in wholesale prices, providing opportunities for carriers to increase return on investment. This is particularly true in high growth markets, including Latin America and Asia."  For example; in Buenos Aires, the average price for STM-1 access to Internet networks (known as "IP Transit") fell only 11 percent to $187 per Mbps in 2006; at the same time, average Internet traffic from Buenos Aires increased by 119 percent.

For carriers, investors, and hardware/software vendors, such trends are a welcome change of pace from earlier years, when demand could barely keep up with price declines. Continue Reading...

If Mary Hodder, the brilliant mathematician CEO of Dabble, has anything to say about it, the answer is a resounding yes, and no...

Let me explain. Dabble -- currently in beta -- was founded with the singular mission to be the primary "search engine" of choice for videos from all over the Web. Dabble gathers video data from hundreds of hosting sites, as well as from tens of thousands of other websites, and then keeps a record of where Web-based videos are located, descriptions about the video, who made it, what it's about, how popular it is, and so on.

This record, called "metadata", makes it easy to search and find videos. But Dabble goes further than simply indexing this metadata -- and this is where similarities to Google end. The site also employs the power of social networking, where the community of Dabble members adds details and notes, corrects mistakes, and shares what's valuable to them about the media, enhancing the metadata in a massive team effort that goes far beyond what any one site can do alone.

Although you don't need to join Dabble to perform a video search, there are many benefits to becoming a Dabble member. Continue Reading...

Now that we've entered the high season for trade shows -- and travel -- I thought I'd share a surefire method for getting a great hotel room for the absolutely lowest price on the planet. Please note that I haven't made this public through my writings before -- although it is a technique that a number of people have discovered. Consider it a small reward for reading my blog.

The technique involves the coordinated use of two Web resources: Priceline.com and Biddingfortravel.com. We all know about the "Name Your Own Price" feature on Priceline, where you bid a price for a hotel with a particular star level in a particular geographic zone of a city where you want to stay.  Continue Reading...

The secret is out, and Emergent Network Solutions is the acquireree. Full press release of the deal follows:

Stratus Acquires Emergent Network Solutions for Next-generation Telecom Software and Services

Adds network convergence, VoIP and IMS solutions

FALL VON CONFERENCE, BOSTON, September 12, 2006 – Stratus Technologies, Inc. of Maynard, Massachusetts announced today the acquisition of Emergent Network Solutions of Allen, Texas, an innovator in advanced telecommunication software and services that enable carriers and service providers to integrate current and emerging network technologies. The purchase amount is $11 million, with provisions for additional performance-based payments.

Emergent’s focus on products and solutions for voice over the Internet (VoIP) and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) builds out Stratus’ strategic business initiative and current solutions for Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) and Service Mediation, which enable disparate network technologies to operate together seamlessly. Stratus is committed to offering carriers and service providers interoperability between traditional wire-line networks, mobile and cellular networks, and rapidly growing VoIP and IMS services like those made possible by Emergent.

Continue Reading...

I arrived at VON Fall in Boston this morning, and thought I'd share my initial impressions of the event so far.

The exhibit floor looks quite good, with 350 or so booths and decent traffic. The vendors seem pumped and ready for an expected 9,000 attendees over the course of the week. Other numbers being bandied about include 175 registered press and analysts, and 325 speakers on the conference roster.

I sat in on the opening keynote featuring Jeff Pulver and Ted Leonsis, Vice Chairman of AOL and President of AOL Audience. Continue Reading...