I just got off the phone with Chuck Harris, VP of marketing at CopperCom who told me about their recently announced comprehensive transition program for CLECs faced with the need to migrate from UNE-P to a facilities–based model.

The program consists of a three major elements, including a rental program, which is essentially a “try before you buy” offering, allowing carriers to rent a CopperCom CSX softswitch, deploy it into their network, and eventually buy the CSX outright. Harris told me that in general, service providers stay in the rental program for about a year before making the decision to purchase the equipment.

The next element comprises CopperCom’s comprehensive operations consulting services, whereby trained personnel will help customers wade through the swamp of agreements and requirements and regulatory concerns as the carrier transitions to a new business model. Step three, closely related to consulting program entails CopperCom offering turnkey network services whereby they will take further steps to help their customers transition.

The program already boasts 20 or so customers that have taken advantage of various elements of the offering prior to the formalization of the program that CopperCom is announcing with this release.

Clint Wiley, president of New Frontiers Telecommunication, a Hagerstown, MD-based CLEC offered his comments, “CopperCom has been an instrumental partner to New Frontiers in our transition to a facilities-based operation. The guidance and flexibility of the CopperCom team, combined with the ability of the CopperCom softswitch, was critical to making our network deployment a success.”

I plucked this one off the wire....

Time Warner Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are in advanced talks over Microsoft buying a stake in Time Warner's America Online unit, the New York Post reported on Thursday.

Citing two unnamed sources familiar with the matter, the Post said the talks concern Microsoft acquiring an AOL stake and then combining it with Microsoft's Web unit MSN.

Microsoft would pay some money to Time Warner for the AOL stake, leaving the two companies approximately equal partners in the venture, the Post said.

A Time Warner spokeswoman declined to comment. Microsoft was not immediately available for comment.

Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners who said he himself was not aware of the talks, said that he thought any such deal could be premature for Time Warner, even if a combination could reduce costs.

"It feels to me like AOL is at the cusp of really proving itself from a portal perspective," he said.

According to published reports, residential VoIP subscribers are expected to dramatically increase in number spurring revenues for VoIP equipment to more than triple between 2004 and 2010. This prediction comes to us courtesy of iSuppli.

According to the El Segundo-based research firm, “the number of residential VoIP subscribers worldwide will rise to 197.2 million in 2010, up more than 40-fold from 4.8 million in 2004. The significant jump will help drive worldwide wireline VoIP equipment revenues to $24.5 billion in 2010, more than three times the $8.04 billion in 2004 sales. In 2005, VoIP equipment revenues will rise to $12.9 billion, up 60% from 2004.”

iSuppli predicts that the residential segment will be the fastest-growing portion of the entire VoIP equipment market, with revenues expanding to $10.6 billion in 2010, up 650% from $1.4 billion in 2004.

Looks like eBay is going ahead with their plans to buy VoIP service provider Skype in a move purported to add free Web telephone calls to its online auctions and fuel growth.

According to news reports, eBay said it plans to pay $1.3 billion in cash and $1.3 billion in stock for the Web communications company. It would make a further payout of up to $1.5 billion by 2008 or 2009 if financial targets are met, giving the deal a total value of up to $4.1 billion, executives of the two companies said.

$4.1 Billion? Excuse me, but that’s insane.

The report quotes individuals associated with the transaction explaining the merger as a move to strengthen the bonds between eBay buyers and sellers. eBay merchant sites will also be encouraged to use Skype software to allow customers with last-minute sales questions to click to talk to a customer service agent.

Executives of the two companies justified the combination by saying that the power of so-called "click-to-call" services to convert shoppers into buyers represents a far more lucrative form of selling proposition than advertising can. Skype also plans to add video calling and other features to its software.

Maybe they should have purchased Xten, a public softphone maker, who they could have had for a few tens of millions.

According to a report coming from DigitalMediaAsia this morning, IPTV is poised for tremendous growth. Not surprisingly, China is predicted to be the runaway leader with nearly 5 million subscribers expected by 2010.

And, according to Telecom Web, Hong Kong telco PCCW profits recently soared by over 40 percent,  because of the carriers’ leading edge deployment of IPTV. In June of this year, PCCW’s now TV had over 440,000 subscribers, up 22 percent from 361,000 at the end of last year. It competes in the Hong Kong pay-TV market against operators such as i-Cable Communications, the leading cable operator in Hong Kong.

I received a pitch this morning to speak with a company in the Web conferencing space, and unfortunately I’m facing a whole series of cascading deadlines, and I will have to pass. However, it was still a successful pitch (IMHO) chock full of interesting stats regarding the Web conferencing market. Also it was couched in terms of the recent increase in fuel prices, i.e., “As gas prices continue to rise, people are looking for alternatives to business travel and long commutes.”

In the interest of sharing, I thought I’d include the statistics, which are compelling enough on their own, but really paint a picture when grouped together.  Thanks to Courtney Riley over at Ogilvy for reaching out to me, and sorry I can’t take the briefing with your client.

Here are the stats:

Web Conferencing
~ According to a 2004 study by Frost and Sullivan, Web Conferencing revenues will exceed $2 billion in 2009, up from $1 billion in 2005.

~ Average of 44% of 2004 IDC survey respondents planned to increase their conferencing usage by 100% in the next 6 months, up from 28% in the 2003 survey

Travel
~ According to In-Stat/MDT, 44 million workers will have telecommuted in 2004, and the number of remoter workers will reach 51 million by 2008

~ By 2010 more than 70% of work will take place at a different time/different place or same time/different place

~ 82% of workers collaborate with people in other locations

According to Wainhouse Research
~ More than 40 percent of people in the U.S. workforce are taking fewer trips

~ More than 70 percent are interested in alternatives to travel

~ 63 percent rate access to collaboration technology (such as voice, web and video conferencing) as very important, as opposed to 44 percent prior to Sept.