Beyond VoIP

I recently received an email from Redknee, a leading provider of infrastructure software that monetizes and personalizes services and content for mobile users, that listed the Seven Laws of Converged Billing. According to the company, these laws highlight how operators can use real-time, converged rating and billing to reduce churn and improve subscriber offerings.

The Seven Laws of Converged Billing includes best practices and tips for operators worldwide, as they seek to improve their offerings and reduce operational costs. I thought they were worth running in their entirety:

1. A Firm Foundation for the Future: The communications industry will be embarking on a transformation characterized by ubiquitous broadband access, mobility, and low power multimedia/computational capabilities. Continue Reading...

I've recently noticed an alarming trend: I've been receiving a growing number of spam Skype chat messages recently -- a sign that people are farming the Skype database to send promos and other distracting stuff.

Here's the latest one I received today:

[1:26:48 PM] Best Wishes says: Hi,
I’m Sarah, a volunteer at the New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV). In the spirit of celebrating the upcoming Chinese New Year, I would like to invite you, your family and friends to join us on a journey across oceans and centuries to the world of China’s legendary golden age- the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). The 2007 NTDTV Chinese New Year Spectacular at Radio City will bring you world-class vocalists, a live pit orchestra, and large-scale traditional folk dances along with fantastic scenery and beautiful costumes.

Continue Reading...

Rafe Needleman, who contributes to the excellent Webware blog from cnet.com, recently posted a review about a new Web 2.0 mashup site called FindNearby.net.

In a nutshell, the site mashes up Google Maps, Amazon, eBay, Craiglist, and WalMart.com. Once you enter in your location and an item you are looking to purchase, the site locates the items for sale that are nearby. A cool feature is the color coding of pins on the map that identifies whether the item is being auctioned off, sold at a retail store, or put up for sale by a private party.

There are also a number of related "spinoff" sites including wii.findnearby.net (image above) and ps3.findnearby.net to search for game consoles, and new ones on the horizon including datesnearby.net.

Now, all that's needed is some click-to-talk and other real-time communications functionality to put the proverbial cherry on the sundae! Highly recommended!

Continue Reading...

In dire need of a new laptop, I decided to make the plunge into Vistaland. I shopped around for "the best value for the buck" deal and after  much debate -- and after discovering a 20% off coupon on Dealcatcher.com -- I ordered a new Dell Inspiron E1505.

Actually, when I went looking for a new system, I was going to stick with Windows XP, since it's working for me and I saw no compelling reason to change. But when I placed the order for the E1505 about a week ago, Dell gave me a choice of Vista Premium or Vista Business -- no sign of XP on the configuration screen. Continue Reading...

Word on the street is that two of the country's largest cable companies, Time Warner Cable and Comcast, are gearing up to introduce new SMB VoIP packages in the next few months.

After winning large numbers of residential customers in their respective markets (Comcast has signed up over 2 million and Time Warner over 1.9 million), they're now setting their sights on the "commercial" VoIP market.

Comcast will be upgrading its network to the tune of $250 million this year to ready it for business class services, and estimates that there are 3-5 million prospect companies throughout the region it serves -- a legion of SMBs with 20 employees or less that represents a $12-15 billion revenue opportunity.

The cable MSOs have been formidable competitors in the markets they play in, and the plans by these two players follow in the footsteps by Cox Communications, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications and Videotron Telecom -- all of which have started to dip their toes into the SMB space.

I expect the going will be slow throughout the year, as these companies get the wrinkles ironed out of their offerings. But the handwriting is on the wall: look out all ye incumbents -- the cable cos are a' comin to take your customers away...
Continue Reading...

Brilliant Telecommunications Inc., a developer of ultra-precise Network Timing Protocol (NTP) server technology, has secured $7.1 million in a Series A funding round led by ONSET Ventures. Also investing in the round were Asset Management, Draper Associates, Draper Richards, and Intellect Capital Ventures, LLC.  Brilliant plans to use this financing to accelerate product development, streamline operations, and fund commercial deployments.

Brilliant has developed an intelligent platform for packet-based networks that addresses the growing need for highly accurate timestamps across broad markets. Continue Reading...

Managed VoIP service provider (MSP) Whaleback Systems has added Dave Zwicker as its VP of Marketing, responsible for market planning, branding, product marketing, marketing programs and press and analyst relations.

For those of you who don't meticulously track the comings and goings of industry folk (honestly, who can keep up?), Zwicker joins Whaleback from VoIP network management solutions vendor Viola Networks, where he also served as VP of Marketing.

Other stints have included serving as VP of Marketing for Adlex, an IT service delivery management software supplier, and VP of Product and Segment Marketing at 3Com Corporation, VP of Solutions Marketing at Enterasys Networks and VP of Marketing for Indus River Networks, a Virtual Private Networking start-up company.

Like snowflakes in winter, Snom Technology AG keeps pumping out new SIP-compliant business IP phone models -- each one more polished than the last.

The latest model, the snom 370, offers a larger display, expanded memory and VPN access.

The snom 370 features a larger display area with built in greyscales to provide users with a clearer view and allow for more information on the screen.

The expanded memory capacity enables the phone to support more applications, such as presence indication and presence displays of other users. The phone can also provide users with the ability to customize the display by depicting graphics and high resolution pictures to show the status of contacts. Continue Reading...

While VoIP services continue to gain traction around the globe, it's easy to forget that in some backward parts of the world, it is still considered a major criminal offense to engage in the VoIP business.

Recently, I was tipped off to one of the latest reports of VoIP perp raids in Bangladesh, thanks to Moshe Maeir of Flat Planet Phone Company.

The report, which Moshe posted to his company's blog, first appeared on the New Nation web site -- and to save you some surfing, I've copied the details of the report below:

RAB busts Tk 2.5 crore VoIP devices
By bdnews24.com, Dhaka
Sun, 28 Jan 2007, 09:21:00

The Rapid Action Battalion raided areas in Tongi early Sunday and seized about Tk 2.5 crore of voice over internet protocol devices.

The VoIP devices are used for creating telecommunication networks to make overseas calls. RAB officers arrested Arifur Rahman, 30, Ali, 17, Sayed, 17, and Jahangir Hossain (age unknown).

Continue Reading...

I had to chuckle -- and scratch my head -- when I heard about the "glum" news regarding the financial performance of Ebay's VoIP operation, a.k.a. Skype. According to Ebay CEO Meg Whitman, "The monetization efforts we outlined at the time of the acquisition are not developing as quickly as we had hoped." During 2006, Skype generated $195 million in revenue -- after Ebay laid out $2.6 billion for the company in 2005.

Am I missing something here? A lackluster "monetization" result was basically guaranteed given the decision to give away free Skype Out calls for the entire 2006 calendar year for North American subscribers. Continue Reading...

I just returned from travels south, to Fort Lauderdale and Internet Telephony EXPO -- and arrived in Winter in New York. It was bound to arrive at some point (although I thankfully missed the deep freeze, eight-degree temperatures of a couple of days ago).


The show was great -- well-attended and full of good content in the conferences.  Jon Arnold and I spent some time together basking in the glow of our recent announcement.  See Jon's post about show highlights.

And yes, I did spend a little time in the sun -- and barely escaped serious harm. Continue Reading...

Jon Arnold and I figured that since most everyone else was making some sort of announcement, issuing press releases and generally making noise  -- especially to pull in the crowds at Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO East going on right now -- that it was OK to make some noise of our own.

Hopefully it will be music to your ears

---

         




NEW YORK, TORONTO, and FORT LAUDERDALE, January 23, 2007-- Robins Consulting Group (RCG) and J Arnold & Associates (JAA) – both leading IP Communications industry research, marketing and consulting firms – have proudly announced a new partnership that includes the two firms joining forces to provide an array of marketing, communications, strategy consulting and market research services to their growing roster of IP communications technology vendors and service providers.

In addition, RCG and JAA will be jointly developing new information resources, including an electronic newsletter and related Web site, which will offer unique industry analysis, a healthy dose of opinion, provide a new platform for other industry thought leaders, and offer valuable coverage and information not readily available elsewhere about the rapidly evolving IP communications industry.

Veteran industry thought leader Marc Robins, RCG's founder and Chief Evangelism Officer, has been involved in the IP communications industry since its inception, and has served the industry as a leading reporter and analyst, conference producer and magazine publisher, and marketing executive and consultant. Continue Reading...

For those of you who are frustrated by the sky high prices of new HD-DVD or Blue Ray players (running @$600 to $900, respectively,) there's a novel solution to getting your HD-DVD on your PC or TV on the cheap.

Apparently there's a way to "hack" the Xbox 360 HD DVD player -- officially designed to be exclusively connected to the Xbox 360 console -- that lets you watch high def movies on your PC or TV, without the need for the 360 console.




At about $200 , this currently qualifies as the cheapest  HD DVD drive around.

According to the folks at HDDVDFreak: "The hack seems to be as simple as finding a generic HD-DVD drive driver, then getting PowerDVD or WinDVD with the HD-DVD upgrade on, then plugging in the drive over USB and sticking a disc in. Presumably, you could even remove the drive from the casing and plug it directly into your PC over SATA, mounting it in a spare drive bay and earning some serious kudos."

For a full description of the procedure, the guys at uneasysilence also provide links to drivers and other related information, and provide snapshots of the surgery to free the drive for PC insertion. Continue Reading...

Just heard from Andy Mercker, one of the VoIP industry's best and brightest marketing professionals, on his new gig -- he's moved on from Sphere Communications, where he was director of marketing, and has joined VoIP call recording and monitoring specialist Telrex, as its new director of marketing.

I fully expect Andy to raise Telrex's industry profile up a few notches, and to contribute significantly to its success, just as he did at Sphere.

In addition to his move, Andy gave me an advance peek at an announcement regarding the CallRex™ Professional 3.5,  a new release that provides a bunch of enhancements to Telrex's flagship product, including greater scalability, enhanced multi-site support and a distributed-services software architecture, streamlined storage and archiving, and additional security.

CallRex was the first VoIP call recording solution verified to record encrypted VoIP calls for Cisco CallManager 5.0, and CallRex version 3.5 now provides additional security to ensure that call recording files cannot be secretly altered.

The market for VoIP call recording and monitoring seems to be heating up significantly, and there are a few companies starting to launch major marketing initiatives looking to win business, including Telrex and Teleformix.

According to Andy, VoIP call recording and monitoring refers to the process of recording and monitoring business-class IP telephony systems, and this market segment is poised for rapid growth due to the fact that:

· IP telephony obsoletes legacy call recording and monitoring technologies, creating a new market opportunity for VoIP-based solutions.

· Call recording and monitoring is becoming a standard business application used for regulatory compliance, dispute resolution, customer service, training, security and more.

Continue Reading...

Today, I received an email from Moshe Maeir, Chief Flattening Officer at The Flat Planet Phone Company. I hadn't heard of this company before, or such an unusual title, so suffice it to say I was a bit curious to check them out.

From what I could gather, Flat Planet offers hosted IP-PBX services, mobile to VoIP connectivity (the company is a member of the iotum Relevance Enabled Channel Partner Program), disposable numbers , virtual IVR and other hot communications services, geared for individuals and small businesses that aspire to become instant phone companies. Flat Planet offers to help you "Start Your Own Phone Company in an Hour", and is charging an extremely low annual fee of $199 to become a Flat Planet partner (i.e., reseller.)

According to the company's Web site, the Flat Planet Phone system includes a complete hosted softswitch, as well as a billing and customer management system -- and the pitch is that no additional investment, equipment or manpower is needed to get set up and running.

The benefits of becoming a Flat Planet partner includes a custom-branded Web site, and tools to market the Flat Planet services under their own brand name. Continue Reading...