August 2004 Archives

Add cable player Charter Communications' name to the growing list of VoIP service providers.

Charter Communications Inc. is the latest cable operator to announce Internet telephone service, entering the market by way of agreements with Sprint, Level 3,and Accenture.

Currently the nation's third-largest broadband service provider, Charter plans to have more than a million telephone customers by year's end.

Level 3 and Sprint were tapped to provide long-distance and local telephone service; Accenture will provide telephony provisioning services.

"These agreements enable Charter to significantly increase telephony deployments in each of our Divisions during 2005," said Tom Cullen, Charter Executive Vice President of Advanced Services and Business Development.

It's a new world people. Every day brings more proof.

Triple Play. It’s on everybody’s lips these days. I had the chance to speak with some good folks at iPlay3 this afternoon, and I thought I’d share some of what they’re up to.

iPlay3 is a consortium made up of NetCentrex, Envivio, and Highdeal — each a successful vendor in their own area of expertise. Together they offer an integrated triple play solution featuring voice over IP, video over IP, and a pricing/rating solution that leverages any type of broadband IP infrastructure including Fiber to the Home (FTTH), DSL, Cable, and Wireless.

Essentially the iPlay3 solution is meant to enable voice, video, and OSS services from the service provider’s headend or central office. Utilizing the service provider-owned IP network, the services are delivered to a set-top box in the subscriber home.

IP video is delivered using Envivio’s complete suite of 4Caster MPEG-4 AVC (also known as H.264) broadcast encoders, 4Sight interactive MPEG-4 streaming servers, and 4View MPEG-4 H.264 decoders. IP video services are delivered and managed using the 4Front MPEG-4 application server and client portal.

IP telephony is delivered using NetCentrex’ MyCall Residential solution, a carrier-class VoIP platform leveraging all broadband networks worldwide. MyCall Residential delivers Class 5 telephony features, regulatory capabilities, and interactive services.

Highdeal’s Transactive OSS provides the multi-tier pricing, rating, and settlement capabilities. Transactive delivers triple play pricing, carrier-class rating, customized and detailed billing, automatic management of partner settlement plans, and profitability simulations and reporting.

All in all, iPlay3 offers an interesting and attractive application which features benefits to service providers and consumers alike.

Carriers are able to realize new revenue streams and curtail churn by offering integrated services, and consumers benefit from a single bill, new enhanced services such as on-screen caller ID, video conferencing and the like, and a services portal, which allows them to access account features and purchase additional services without having to get up from their easy chair.

Once you eliminate bandwidth issues (as in the case of a FTTH deployment) and are able to offer an integrated solution set to carriers who in turn can offer their subscribers cutting edge services it seems to me that you end up with a winning scenario.

iPlay3 also told me a few things, which I can’t quite share with you yet, but watch this space for more information right around the Labor Day timeframe. I look forward to sharing their news with you then.

Global IP Sound (GIPS), issued a press release today announcing that Skype, the peer-to-peer Internet calling service, is leveraging GIPS VoiceEngine to offer its customers improved voice processing and quality.

“Skype is proving that Voice over IP quality can be better than the public switched telephone network. With over 19 million downloads since the launch of the beta version, this application has clearly launched the market for Voice over IP and set the quality bar,” said Gary Hermansen, President and CEO of GIPS. “We are very pleased with the market response in respect to the voice quality that Skype delivers.”

GIPS VoiceEngine handles voice-related tasks for VoIP soft clients in both personal computer (PC) and personal digital assistant (PDA) environments.

“We chose GIPS for its best of breed quality when we created Skype software,” said Niklas Zennström, CEO and co-founder of Skype. “The ability to give users voice quality that meets and exceeds their expectations is a key component of our success, and our alliance with GIPS is an important element in our growth.”

GIPS VoiceEngine, which is fully customizable, simplifies the integration of speech codecs, communication with sound cards, real-time performance, RTP protocol handling and other voice-related tasks to deliver superior quality and minimal latency for real-time communications over the Internet. The solution is compatible with all IP telephony standards (G.711, SIP, H.323, etc.) to allow manufacturers integrate both standard and customer-specific codecs quickly and easily.

Lingo , the U.S. Internet broadband phone service introduced by Primus Telecommunications, Inc., in June, announced today that they will offer customers the opportunity to select international telephone numbers from cities in 12 international countries for their broadband phone service.

When a U.S. Lingo customer selects a number from an available country for their service, their family, friends, and business associates in that country can call the Lingo customer on that number at the price of an in-country local call.

These numbers, referred to as Lingo “International Universal Numbers,” allow a customer, for example, to add a local Paris or Sao Paolo phone number to their Lingo service, even though their primary home or business office is actually located in a New York. Callers in the international location(s) can then dial that number from their phone to reach the Lingo customer – at the cost of a local call.

Lingo customers currently may sign up online for two phone numbers on their Lingo phone line. They have the opportunity to keep their existing phone number, or may select from a broad range of phone numbers in over 220 U.S. area codes.

The International Universal Numbers are available in the following countries/cities:

• Australia/Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney
• Brazil/Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro
• France/Paris
• Guatemala/Guatemala City
• Hong Kong
• Italy/Milan, Rome
• Japan/Tokyo
• Netherlands/Amsterdam
• Puerto Rico/Caparra (San Juan)
• South Korea/National, Seoul
• Taiwan/Taipei
• U.K./London

According to Jon Arnold, VoIP Program Director at Frost & Sullivan, “Adding international phone numbers is a natural extension for Lingo, as it builds on Primus's global voice network. Primus already has extensive reach into markets outside North America, and by offering phone numbers in major centers such as London, Paris and Tokyo, Lingo truly becomes a global product, with a strong value proposition for anyone with international voice communication needs."

A soldier currently deployed in the Sunni triangle north of Baghdad in Iraq was able to watch his wife graduate nursing school in Norfolk, Nebraska using technology supplied by VidiTel.

In cooperation with Freedom Calls Foundation and Connecting Point of Norfolk, Sgt. Gabriel Synovec, Alpha Company 185th CSB, was able to watch his wife, Kim, graduate from Nursing School at Northeast College in Norfolk, Nebraska on August 6th. After the ceremony, Sgt. Synovec was also able to see and talk to Kim, his parents, and other relatives.

Freedom Calls recognized the fact that most front line soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, faced with extended tours of duty, are not able to speak with members of their families for months at a time. They decided to take advantage of today’s available technology to remedy the situation. Soldiers may now attend and participate in milestone family events such as graduations, births, birthdays and weddings and the like via video conference over the Freedom Calls Network.

The benefits of the Freedom Calls service includes higher morale for our soldiers overseas as well as the family communication that helps to alleviate the stress and pain felt by the families of the soldiers when they get to communicate with their loved ones half a world away.

Freedom Calls is building a communications network independent of military networks employing state of the art WiFi, VoIP, and Video Conferencing technology to enable our troops to communicate free of charge from their base camps with their families at home by Internet telephone, instant messaging, and video conference.

Back in July, Army Spc. Joshua Strickland was able to sing "Happy Birthday" to his daughter Shelby on her first birthday — from Iraq.

As reported in the Valdosta Daily Times newspaper Strickland was deployed overseas in January. Not wanting her husband to miss Shelby's first birthday, wife Dorothy used the technology provided by the Freedom Calls Foundation to link Joshua to his daughter's party.

Strickland’s fellow soldiers led him to the Freedom Calls facility under the false pretense that he would get to speak with his wife and daughter by phone.

Imagine his surprise when he saw Dorothy and Shelby for the first time in months.

What’s even more touching, Strickland was able to hear his little girl say "Daddy" for the very first time.

It’s nice to see technology being used for something a bit more heartwarming than identity theft. My hat is off to the folks at Freedom Calls and their partners.

If you are interested in making a contribution to Freedom Calls Foundation, please click here.

“VoIP applications will be the value-add that consumers are seeking to justify their investment in broadband. We expect that broadband Internet access and our VoIP applications will fuel each other's growth, so we're in for an exciting time in the next few years as consumer and business telephony services shift towards this new method of delivery for familiar services."

So said John Todd, CTO of VoIP Inc., regarding the company’s announcement hailing the roll-out of residential VoIP phone service, called eGlobalphone, to consumers throughout Florida.

The company has plans to expand its service footprint to Texas, Ohio, Washington, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, and Missouri next week. The service will be expanded to other areas in the nation over the coming months.

Much like their competition, eGlobalphone Service requires that customers have a high-speed Internet connection to the home or business. As I alluded to yesterday, competition is just heating up and we can expect a vast number of new entrants into the Consumer and Business VoIP Service provider space.

eGlobalphone Service offers consumers a number of features including:

• Call Logs, which track incoming and outgoing calling;
• Do Not Disturb, which allows customers to receive calls only when they want, while letting emergency calls ring in;
• Personal Conferencing, which enables users to set up a meeting with up to nine additional callers;
• Locate Me, which enables home phones to find customers by ringing up to five phones in sequence;
• Voicemail with eFeatures, which allows customers to hear their messages from any phone or PC and forward the voicemail to anyone on the Web via e-mail.

Service requires a plug-in Multimedia Terminal telephone adapter (MTA) provided by VoIP, Inc., and a broadband Internet connection and regular telephone supplied by the customer.

Residential plans start at $29.95/month and feature unlimited calls to the continental United States and Canada. Business plan pricing begins at $49.95/month and also feature unlimited calls to the continental United States and Canada. All basic features are included, and customers should be aware there is a one-time $29.95 activation fee.

The eGlobalphone Service works with most cable modem or DSL broadband connections. The MTA is compatible with most home computer networks and may be used in conjunction with various home networks. And, the adapter can be used from almost any location where there is a telephone and a broadband connection. That gives customers the ability to stay connected when they travel.

The company's stated goal is to sign up 2.3 million business and consumer customers by 2007.

If you’ve been following several recent conversations on TMCnet.com you aware that Rich Tehrani had some issues with Vonage and switched to AT&T’s CallVantage service, citing — among other things — AT&T’s superior service.

In an August 10 blog entry, Tom Keating praised AT&T for their timing and for their marketing savvy in making the decision to leave the consumer long-distance business and begin offering VoIP service in earnest.

Well, I guess my colleagues are on to something.

In a press release issued yesterday, AT&T announced the results of a recent Yankee Group survey which found that AT&T achieved the number-one ranking by the Yankee Group in its Service Provider Scorecard.

AT&T's ratings were strongest in service and support, corporate reputation, technical competence, and sales and marketing.

"Some companies are transforming, others are climbing the value chain, and others are focused on executing excellent customer care. As a leading provider to the enterprise market, AT&T is advancing in each of these areas," said Bryan Van Dussen, director of telecommunications research at Yankee Group.

“AT&T is known for being an innovator in communications and a leader in serving the complex networking and technology needs of businesses — now we’re raising the bar on customer experience,” said Kathleen Flaherty, AT&T’s chief marketing officer. “The Yankee Scorecard results certainly add credence to our claim and solidify our position in the industry as the leading provider of communications services to business customers.”

The Yankee Group ranked the seven largest U.S. telecommunications companies that provide network services to the enterprise business market. In addition to the four categories mentioned above, the Yankee Group scorecard also focuses on financial performance, billing, and price. The methodology included the analysis of more than 1,000 survey evaluations (approximately 750 survey respondents) and the ranking reflects the perceptions and satisfaction of network managers.

The tip of the iceberg is just breaking the surface.

With announcements from the likes of Verizon, AT&T, SBC, et al still generating ripples of buzz, Covad Communications splashed into the party with yesterday’s news that they will begin offering business-class VoIP services in 42 markets around the nation. And the constant stream of carriers announcing VoIP service offerings is not going to slow down any time soon.

Covad acquired VoIP services provider GoBeam back in March and what we’re seeing today is clearly a result of that investment.

Covad’s VoIP services are available in the following markets:

Allentown, PA; Atlanta, GA; Baltimore, MD;Boston, MA; Boulder, CO; Camden, NJ; Chicago, IL; Chico, CA; Colorado Springs, CO; Danbury, CT; Denver, CO; Dallas, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Fresno, CA; Gary, IN; Los Angeles, CA; Manchester, NH; Nashua, NH; Newark and Northern NJ; New York, NY; Oakland, CA; Olympia, WA; Orange County, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Phoenix, AZ; Providence, RI; Riverside, CA; Sacramento, CA; Santa Barbara, CA; San Diego, CA; San Jose, CA; San Luis Obispo, CA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; Stamford, CT; Stockton, CA; Tacoma, WA; Trenton, NJ; Ventura, CA; Washington, DC; Wilmington, DE; and Worcester, MA.

Covad plans to roll out the service to all 113 major metropolitan statistical areas served by their nationwide broadband network by the end of the year.

Analysts, too, have a positive view of the news. Patrick Hurley, Director of Research at TeleChoice, Inc., had this to say: “When businesses are considering voice over IP services they shouldn't expect today’s consumer VoIP services to keep up with their needs. However, when a provider like Covad adds voice over IP services onto their nationwide broadband network, they can provide these business customers a truly integrated voice and data service that provides customers the quality and reliability they need."

Covad currently provides two services for VoIP — Covad vPBX and Covad PBXi. Covad PBXi is designed to work seamlessly with existing PBX equipment. Covad vPBX is designed as a full PBX alternative.

Covad’s Dashboard brings an array of capabilities into one common user interface including local and long-distance services, visual fax and voice mail, Instant Messaging, audio and Web conferencing, call logs, directory services, “Find me/Follow me” and other features, all managed from one place using one phone number. Covad currently offers several VoIP products custom-tailored small- to medium-sized businesses, and for enterprises needing a virtual Private Branch Exchange (PBX).

Features of Covad's VoIP services include:
• Local and Long Distance telephone service.
• Voice Optimized Access (VOA) - the ability to prioritize voice traffic over the network to ensure impeccable quality of voice service through Covad's network.
• Nationwide coverage.
• Automated provisioning capabilities.
• Service backed by comprehensive service level agreements (SLAs).
• Covad Dashboard an easy-to-use, award winning Web based user interface.
• Call logs.
• Find Me, Follow Me functionality that allows a user to receive calls on multiple devices from the user's VoIP phone number.
• Unified visual voice and fax mail.
• Voice and Web conferencing.
• Automated Attendant.

NeuStar, Inc., a provider of trusted information exchange services for the communications industry, today announced its clearinghouse solution for policy-based IP services enablement, routing management, and real-time network control. The IP Clearinghouse provides network intelligence required to link islands of VoIP and other IP- based services among service providers' networks and those of their customers. It is designed to save costs by providing real-time information needed to accurately route and manage end-to-end IP connectivity, by enabling direct peering for calls, messages, or sessions.

Building on NeuStar's existing Convergent Clearinghouse platform, this new suite is geared to assist service providers to quickly launch services while reducing capital and operating expenditures. The offering is available immediately and is deployed today with major service providers.

NeuStar's IP Clearinghouse core is a real-time registry built on ENUM technology that contains over 100 million entries and supports over 20,000 updates/day. ENUM, widely recognized as the key enabler of convergence, is the IETF Standard for converting a telephone number into an Internet domain name. Together with the companion standard SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), it powers a new generation of open communications services for businesses and consumers, the first of which is end-to-end VoIP.

NeuStar's IP Clearinghouse services include:
• VoIP endpoint directory and discovery services based on ENUM to maximize end-to-end IP routing and information exchange.
• One-stop access via DNS to real-time network routing data, including number portability and pooling information.
• High-volume policy-based AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting) services for dynamic network control.
• Wireless data roaming management features.
• Comprehensive provisioning interfaces to assure interoperability between IP and PSTN networks.

Day 2. This morning’s keynote presenters, Martin Steinmann and Anna Dorcey addressed the assembled crowd of conferees and discussed the topics of Open Source and the developer’s role in society.

Starting things off, Martin Steinmann, a member of the Board of Directors of SIPFoundry, spoke to the audience on the subject of SIP and Open Source, and the opportunity created by these two major factors as they drive change and growth in telecom.

Linux and Open Source have evolved from a cult-like philosophy or religion in the early 1990’s to enjoy status today as a successful alternative to Windows and other aspirants. Mr. Steinmann pointed to the success of Apache servers and the incredible market share they enjoy in IT organizations all across the world.

Combining VoIP and Open Source, he said, yields some positive results, namely: accelerated adoption, reduced cost, and increased interoperability. That spells opportunity. In summary, Mr. Steinmann commented that the Web took off courtesy of HTTP. VoIP will take off when standards-based SIP is ready for prime time. The mission of Mr. Steinmann’s organization is just that: to promote standards-based SIP. “Innovation,” said Steinmann, “will be based on open standards.”

Ms. Dorcey, the Director of Avaya's DeveloperConnection program spoke to the room full of developers about their role in society. Echoing the sentiment of Intel’s Michael Stanford who spoke yesterday, Dorcey made clear that developers need to think about the impact their applications will have on society and in real world scenarios. Technology is about solving real needs, and developers need to design apps with that in mind.

She cited Thomas Edison, and noted that the developers at this event were all following in his footsteps, as the inventors of the 21st century. Today’s crop of developers – certainly the audience at the VoIP Developer Conference – are creating applications that will change the way we communicate.

She summed up her presentation with a quote from IBM’s Rational Chief Scientist and IBM Fellow, Grady Booch. Of developers, Booch had this to say: “…software will touch every aspect of life and thusly developers will only grow in importance to society.”

With that said, Ms. Dorcey urged the conference attendees to take their mission seriously as their work will have a definite impact on our society in many ways.

The VoIP Developer Conference got off to a fantastic start this morning, with keynotes from Chris Wood of AT&T’s CallVantage service and Michael Stanford of Intel.

Speaking to a full house, Chris Wood, director of AT&T’s CallVantage service laid out the basic groundwork for the conference by pointing out that VoIP introduces some substantial changes to carrier product development, for example driving the need for networks to evolve from multiple, closed proprietary legacy services to integrated standards-based open IP architecture.

Wood went on to describe his view of the building blocks for growth – the very things that the VoIP development community will need to focus on to drive the adoption of this technology. Open, scalable, reliable development tools, access to key markets, simplified devices… these are just some of the things companies need to think about to be successful in this space. One of the key messages of Wood’s speech was the need to remember who the customers are. Several times, the audience heard him mention the truism that customers buy solutions, not technology.

The second speaker of the morning was Intel’s Technology Strategist Michael Stanford, who hammered home the message that “convergence” is not something that’s going to, maybe, sometime happen – it’s already here, and we’re in the middle of it.

Developers have a choice ahead of them. They can continue to offer simple voice – which will be less expensive to provide, courtesy of VoIP. Or they can integrate voice into a multitude of applications, increasing the value of both the voice element as well as the value of the solution overall.

Stanford discussed the need to leverage the existing set of development tools to create new and exciting applications. By using existing tools, developers can lower the cost of creating these apps. Lowering cost drives innovation, allowing companies to increase their investment in software development for differentiation.

As an example of what VoIP makes possible, Stanford described what he calls an “Ambient Phone” application. One of his colleagues was traveling in Hong Kong. Using the Skype VoIP service, he called his wife, who was just waking up back home. She carried her computer with her into the kitchen and the couple continued their conversation. Seeing as Skype enables free calling, they left the connection up at the end of their call, and continued about their business, he in his hotel room, she in the family’s kitchen half a world away, listening to each other all the while, interacting occasionally as if they were in the same room. At one point, the couple’s daughter came into the kitchen: “Hi Dad!” The concept of communicating on this level is unthinkable before VoIP enters the equation.

Both speakers delivered the message that the market is expanding and that VoIP developers have a tremendous opportunity ahead of them. As VoIP becomes more mainstream, and as the underlying enabling technologies become more readily available to the world at large, developers will have to create new and interesting applications, changing the very way they view their target audience and delivering truly innovative methods of allowing the world to communicate.

Something miraculous happens when I travel to the West Coast. All the travel companies advertising sunny California probably shudder when they hear that I'm heading out this way. I bear clouds. I bring rain when I travel to San Diego. I bring clouds to Anaheim. I grey out the skies over Santa Barbara. I interrupt tanning at Venice Beach. I don't mean to do this, but I do. I'm sorry.

So here I am, in not-so-sunny San Jose, gearing up for the VoIP Developer Conference. Grabbing a moment to check my e-mail I came across an announcement from Excel Switching, a Silver sponsor of the event.

Excel plans to showcase their new 1010 AnyGen platforms.

The platforms are designed to provide application developers with scalable signaling gateways, media servers and media gateways that all leverage a common graphical management environment. The 1010 platforms expedite IP and TDM network convergence across both fixed and mobile networks and speed service deployment of profitable and innovative applications. Excel’s SwitchKit software tools offer a set of Web-based OA&M tools plus an advanced develop environment that supports call control plus IN (MAP, CAMEL, INAP and AIN) and IP (SIP and H.323) signaling. In addition, through its partnership with Vocalocity, a provider of VoiceXML and SALT software, Excel hopes to enable developers to leverage VoiceXML and an easy-to-use service creation environment for rich speech-enabled and IVR-based applications. The company figures that the combination of Excel and Vocalocity should further speed time to market while reducing development and operational expenditures for both application developers and service providers.

This is just one example of the important industry news you can find on the Exhibit Hall floor at VoIP Developer Conference. If you happen to be in the area, come on down to the DoubeTree Hotel in San Jose, and drop by the show. It'll be worth your while.

Wait! Stop the presses!!! ... I think the sun is coming out...

Will wonders never cease?