Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I for one have so much to be thankful for this year. Here's wishing you all a safe, healthy and happy kick-off to the holiday season!
November 2005 Archives
According to the just released DITTBERNER's Worldwide Q3 2005 NGN Shipments Analysis, over 27.3 million media gateway, softswitch and integrated VoIP ports were shipped during the quarter. That amounts to a 67.8% increase in the worldwide VoIP port shipments over the previous quarter.
Huawei Technologies dominated the quarterly results shipping 12.36 million VoIP ports, displacing Nortel from the top spot. Siemens maintained its second place gaining 16% of global market share. According to DITTBERNER’s numbers, the aforementioned Nortel slipped down to the third place with 13% of market share.
Essentially this underscores the fact that the service provider market is hot. So if you are a service provider or an equipment manufacturer targeting service providers, or are simply looking to learn more about the service provider space, you have to make your way to
This year, the content offering for service providers is incredible. The conference will feature tracks and sessions on the following topics:
Conferencing & Collaboration Over IP
Consumer VoIP Marketing Summit
Service Provider Equipment Solutions
VoIP Traffic Management Summit
So if you’re looking to learn more about the service provider arena, there’s simply no better place than next year’s very first VoIP conference and Service Provider Summit.
Airena, Inc., this week announced the integration of its AirSet personal information management and group collaboration service with Skype to bring Internet telephony and chat to AirSet groups.
AirSet is a Web and mobile "Lifeware" service enabling users to manage all their groups, all in one place, and access the data from anywhere. The solution provides an Ajax-enabled suite of group collaboration tools including a shared calendar, address book, to do lists, blogs, and Web links. AirSet's BREW and J2ME clients turn any mobile phone into a remote control for your life by synchronizing over the air to AirSet contact, calendar, and list information. AirSet also provides free desktop synchronization to Microsoft Outlook and Palm Desktop. With the Skype integration, group members can now speak with each other and schedule group conference calls or Instant Messaging chats using the Skype client.
According to Brian Dougherty, CEO and founder of Airena, "If you work in a big company, you might use groupware like Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange to coordinate a group's activities. But what if you work in a small or medium sized business? And where is the groupware for the rest of our lives? That's where AirSet shines.
"We all have important groups in our lives tugging at us from different directions, demanding our time and attention. Work colleagues, family, friends, social groups. AirSet's 'lifeware' service solves this problem by letting you manage the schedule, contact, and information-sharing needs for all your groups, all in one place, accessible from anywhere."
According to the release announcing the new Skype integration, the benefits include:
- Easier Conference Calls: AirSet organizes your life into the groups you interact with most frequently - family, friends, work colleagues and social groups. Now you can select a few members from any AirSet group and schedule a conference call through Skype with one click.
- Quickly See Online Status of Group Members. The Skype online status icon appears next to each AirSet group members' name so you can quickly see who's available in each of your groups for a telephone call or IM chat.
- Chat with Group Members: You can also select one or more members from the group list and initiate a chat using the Skype Instant Messaging feature.
Skype integration is currently available for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems using Internet Explorer 6.0 or later and Firefox 1.0 or later.
IBM today announced IMS (Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystems) offerings to help telecommunications service providers transition to Next Generation Networks.
According to the release, IBM offers telecommunications industry clients pre-integrated business solutions that are based on an architecture which integrates IMS with existing service environments. The solutions are fully tested and designed to meet carrier grade quality standards. The IBM IMS architecture is built on components to reduce integration costs and leverages the IBM SPDE framework for continuity of Service Delivery Platform (SDP) evolution along with SOA and Web Services where appropriate. The solutions also enable service providers to evolve their current environments with predefined roadmaps that are customized to their specific requirements.
The IBM IMS set of offerings includes integrated hardware and software components based on Rational,
As I mentioned in my blog yesterday, TMC is launching IMS Magazine, with a scheduled first-issue date of February 2006, and an editorial focus on "The Promise of IMS," among other critical topics.
The mission of IMS Magazine is to teach the service provider community about the massive opportunities afforded them in the move to IP Multimedia Subsystems based architectures.
Each issue of IMS Magazine will focus on the important news and events happening in this rapidly growing market. The magazine will also focus on case studies and deployments in the real world and the latest services on the market. In addition, readers can expect targeted editorial enabling them to make better purchasing decisions.
IMS Magazine will be available in print in the
The Associated Press is reporting from
According to the AP, “The World Summit on the Information Society had been overshadowed by a lingering, if not vocal, struggle about overseeing the domain names and technical issues that make the Internet work and keep people from
The report quoted
The deal leaves essentially maintains the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as the managing entity.
According to U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Michael D. Gallagher, “The onus now lies with the developing world to bring in not just opinions, but investment to expand the Internet to their benefit.”
I bet the National Taxpayers Union will be happy to hear the news.
Rich Tehrani let the cat out of the bag yesterday, with regard to TMC launching two new magazines in 2006. I'm very excited about the opportunity to help produce these two publications that will be dedicated to two of the hottest areas in our industry: SIP and IMS.
I'd like to get a little ahead of the game and provide you with a "sneak peek" at the editorial calendars for both magazines. Here is what we will be focusing on in SIP Magazine for the first three issues:
JANUARY
What is SIP?
SIP Versus Skype
SIP & IMS
MARCH
SIP’s Role in Presence
SIP, SIMPLE & The Future of Messaging
SIP Endpoints (Hard, Soft, WiFi Phones…)
SIP-Based
MAY
Leveraging SIP for Advanced Services
NAT Traversal & Firewall Issues
SIP Development Tools
And here's the editorial lineup for the first few issues of IMS Magazine:
FEBRUARY
The Promise of IMS
IMS Defined: Key Network Infrastructure Components
APRIL
The Role of SIP in IMS
The Developer
JUNE
IMS
Real Life Rollouts: IMS Case Studies
We're always on the lookout for relevant companies and relevant editorial, so if you see something that interests you, or if you feel you have something to add to our content offering, by all means let me know. I'm always happy to hear from you.
Caught wind today of a new Yankee Group survey. The Yankee Group’s recent Technologically Advanced Family (TAF) Survey reveals consumer trends and analysis regarding voice over IP.
Here’s the release:
Yankee Group Reveals VoIP Trends in 2005 Technologically Advanced Family Survey
Consumer confusion challenges VoIP adoption
Boston, MA, November 17, 2005 — Yankee Group today announced additional results of its 2005 Technologically Advanced FamilySM (TAF) Survey, which reveals crucial consumer voice data and analysis for industry players wishing to capture the buying power of early adopter consumers, as well as mass market, late mass market and laggard market segments.
Key survey findings include:
- The VoIP market remains immature. Despite some gains, consumer awareness of the technology is low and confusion remains high. Nearly 35% of
VoIP-aware US households do not believe that VoIP is a telephone service that can be used with a regular telephone. - In 2005, about 38% of VoIP-aware households believe that VoIP telephony provided a better feature set than traditional telephone service representing an increase of 15% since 2004.
Customer confusion is driven in part by the different positioning strategies of the VoIP providers. For instance, cable companies are positioning their VoIP telephony service as the same as regular phone service which diminishes the need for awareness as a prerequisite to adoption.
“The traditional new product adoption curve is broken with VoIP telephone service,” said Kate Griffin, Yankee Group, program manager, Consumer Technologies & Services. “Traditionally, new technology products educate and build awareness in the early adopter segments of the market, and then progress incrementally toward less technologically advanced segments. VoIP is simultaneously being marketed as a traditional phone product with mass-market appeal and as a new and different VoIP product with appeal to more price-sensitive and technologically advanced segments.”
Although the growth of broadband has helped to increase awareness of VoIP, significant adoption obstacles still exist including customer inertia and service providers’ failure to provide a compelling reason to adopt the technology. The TAF survey revealed that although price continues to be the strongest message, providers’ attempts to expand the value discussion beyond price to incorporate VoIP’s enhanced feature set are starting to show some positive effect.
Non-partisan is one of those terms that makes me chuckle. Not taking sides is by definition taking a position, albeit an alternate one. I’m always reminded of the Rush lyric, “…If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.”
I saw a news item today from the National Taxpayers Union (a non-partisan group), regarding tomorrow’s United Nations meeting in
The brief goes on to discuss everything that’s wrong with the UN proposal. While I tend to agree that I would like to see Internet governance remain in the hands of ICANN, I still get a kick out of non-partisan groups taking a stand.
I first wrote about the Internet Root Server issue back in October.
I’ll be checking back tomorrow to see what the UN meeting yields. No doubt whatever they decide it will be
Stay tuned, this could be the very beginning of an Oil for Bandwidth scandal.
Here’s the text of the release from the NTU:
Study Predicts Political, Economic Turmoil If UN's Internet Governance Schemes Succeed(
"After so many conspiracy hoaxes over the years, there is now a serious, ominous effort to replace the efficient and adaptable non-profit entity guiding the Internet with a new UN-sponsored agency," said NTU Government Affairs Manager and Issue Brief author Kristina Rasmussen.
Rasmussen's study traces the push for a government-dominated online environment to the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), created by the UN in response to detractors of the current, US-based International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). As the author notes, the advertised reasons for this proposal - increasing access and receiving global input - seem to be masking some less noble motives and outcomes:
- Censorship. Despite having made a declaration of support for freedom of speech, many WGIG members come from nations that severely curtail this right;
- Taxes. Since the Internet's infancy the UN has crafted detailed proposals to tax online traffic. Rasmussen calculates that one 1999 plan for a "bit tax," adjusted for today's number of Internet users, would raise 12 trillion dollars this year - roughly equal to America's Gross Domestic Product. Even less ambitious money-raising models such as the independent, Switzerland-based "Digital Solidarity Fund" could feasibly be transformed into future collectors of compulsory Internet taxes and fees.
- Bureaucratic Corruption. Given recent oil-for-food scandals, UN-style Internet agencies would present the inherent risk of "giving ruling members of regimes in the developing world shiny new computers rather than furnishing the poor with Internet access," Rasmussen said.
Although the US State Department (and more recently federal lawmakers) are moving to oppose a UN Internet takeover, and ICANN officials are advocating privatization, the author contends that vigorous opposition to WGIG's plans from taxpayers around the world is vital.
"Manipulating Internet content through an internationalized, tax-funded structure may be an attractive outcome for politicians seeking to suppress dissent and prop up financially ailing bureaucracies, but not for friends of economic and information freedom," Rasmussen concluded. "The concept of international Internet governance should be rejected, and the proposals of the WGIG report moved to where they belong - the 'trash' bin of every policymaker's computer."
NTU is a non-partisan citizen organization working for lower taxes and smaller government; the group is a founding member of the World Taxpayers Associations (www.worldtaxpayers.org). Note: NTU Issue Brief 157, WGIG - A Byte on Internet Freedom, is available online at www.ntu.org.
I’ll be moderating a Web seminar tomorrow, Tuesday, November 15, 2005 entitled “Moving to the Future with VoIP.” The Webinar will feature Chris Miller, Distinguished Member of Consulting Staff, VoIP Services at Lucent Technologies and Will Stofega, Research Manager VoIP services from IDC.
The speakers will explore the market conditions, economic factors, and emerging applications that are driving a network migration to a VoIP infrastructure. The discussion will also present Lucent client-based examples of VoIP Readiness Assessments, Security Plans and Migration strategies that provide an insight into real-life situations and issues any network operator can use.
Attendees can expect the Webinar to cover the following areas:
Understanding the importance of a methodology for implementing VoIP and the need to address a number of key elements including technological readiness and security.
Exploring the factors that need to be addressed in order to successfully migrate to VoIP or another next-generation technology.
- Uncovering the common pitfalls and mistakes we see our customer making as they make the transition to VoIP technology.
- Hearing the latest trends on VoIP and network convergence and where networks are headed.
Registration is now open, so click here to sign up now!
According to the Associated Press, Bill Gates recently warned his executive team of a massive and disruptive “Sea Change” due to the tech industry’s shift to an Internet-based software and hosted services model.
According to the AP report, in an e-mail to top executives, dated Oct. 30, Gates urged company leaders to "act quickly and decisively" to move further into the field of offering such services, in order to best formidable competitors. "The next sea change is upon us," Gates wrote.
"This coming 'services wave' will be very disruptive," Gates wrote. "We have competitors who will seize on these approaches and challenge us — still, the opportunity to lead is very clear."
Gates included a memo from Ray Ozzie, one of Microsoft's three chief technical officers, in which Ozzie recommends broad changes in order to remain competitive.
The AP reports that in the memo, dated Oct. 28, Ozzie concedes that Microsoft has not led the pack on Internet-based software and services, and now faces intense competition from companies like Google, Inc. Ozzie said Microsoft needs to focus on key tenets of the new model, including a shift toward offering free, advertising-supported offerings and more sophisticated, Internet-based methods of delivering products.
Lucent Technologies today announced that BellSouth has selected elements from Lucent's IMS-based (IP Multimedia Subsystem) solution, including network integration and technical support, to be the platform for BellSouth's Voice over IP service for residential customers in its nine-state territory.
Today's announcement is the third announcement in
Lucent continues to make IMS a priority, and Wall Street has taken notice. As reported online at Forbes.com, UBS Investment Research analyst Nikos Theodosopoulos noted in a research report that Lucent “has momentum” in IMS-based (IP multimedia subsystem) solutions, “but it likely won't be a factor until 2007.”
“Lucent is gaining momentum in the IMS market after not being involved in any of the initial VoIP rollouts by RBOCs," Theodosopoulos said.
The analyst set a price target of $3.10 for the once high-flying telecom equipment maker. As I posted this entry Lucent was trading at $2.75.
Go figure.
While I was busy writing my previous post on the need to focus on promoting VoIP to consumers, I get an e-mail from the VoN Coalition touting it’s just announced Internet Voice Campaign. I guess there must be some truth to what I said about getting consumers over the hump and convincing them that VoIP can be right for them. Timing is everything.
The campaign is conceived to raise awareness and help educate consumers about the benefits of voice services delivered over the Internet. Its mission is to increase adoption and usage of voice over IP (VoIP).
"Internet voice services are now opening a whole new frontier in communications, with the potential to dramatically change the way we connect with family, friends and colleagues. However, too few consumers today are aware of the power and potential of Internet voice communication," said Jim Kohlenberger, executive director of The VON Coalition. "[We have]… been at the forefront of educating policymakers about the benefits of Internet voice innovations. Now, we want to help educate consumers about the new services, increased choices, better prices and improved features that the Internet can deliver. By working together, we hope we can encourage more Americans to take full advantage of Internet voice services."
The Campaign will conduct a survey later this year and begin a consumer awareness campaign that articulates the benefits and features of Internet voice coupled with consumer messages about cost and ease of use. The survey will reach beyond simple awareness of voice to find out what types of services and products consumers would want to see offered through an Internet voice service.
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee voted to approve legislation that would among other things, prevent the shutting off of VoIP service for providers who failed or were unable to comply with the FCC’s November 28 deadline. S. 1063, or The IP-Enabled Voice Communications and Public Safety Act of 2005, passed Committee unanimously.
As reported on the US Senate Commerce Committee Web site, the bill, S. 1063 has three primary objectives:
First, the bill provides authority and guidance to the FCC so that they can craft a comprehensive scheme to address 911 and E-911 services. Specifically, it gives the FCC authority and direction to set regulations to ensure that 911 and E-911 services are available to Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) customers taking into consideration the technological and operational feasibility of providing such service. It charges the FCC with setting a reasonable time frame for companies to come into compliance with the regulations. It also provides states with authority to enforce the FCC’s rules.
Second, the legislation ensures that IP phone companies have access to E911 components that may be controlled by competitors, which the FCC Order published in June did not do.
Third, S. 1063 provides the liability protection that public safety and industry groups need to be able to provide 911 service. This ensures public safety professionals are protected when taking calls from IP Voice service providers at all Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs). Industry also needs this protection in order to acquire needed capital and insurance to be able to continue to bring this new and innovative service to consumers. The liability protection that is afforded in this bill is the same liability protection that current law extends to wireline and wireless companies for providing 911 service.
In addition, the bill provides a waiver process by which IP-enabled voice service providers may continue to add subscribers after December 31, 2005. These provisions address additional issues for IP Voice service providers in making E-911 calls in a system built around a wireline network. A waiver requires a provider to demonstrate to the FCC that the provider is technically or operationally unable to comply with its rules and then permits the FCC to grant waivers of limited duration, of not more than a year, that may also be limited in geographic area.
All in all, this can be viewed as a victory for VoIP providers. Still, in the interest of consumers, and in the interest of promoting VoIP as a viable alternative to traditional POTS offerings, our industry needs to see this Bill as a point from which to continue to build out state-of-the-art emergency capabilities, not as an excuse to sit on our hands waiting for some arbitrary future legislation that may or may not extend the deadline even further. Only when VoIP providers are able to consistently and confidently provide basic connectivity, reliable levels of quality, and the ability to reach emergency services can they even think about layering next-generation applications on top of their VoIP service.
And as I have been saying for years, it’s these services which are the Holy Grail of VoIP. Lost in all the arguments surrounding how to best market services, is the fact that we need to first get consumers and enterprise users alike to accept VoIP as a legitimate alternative, on a scale far beyond what we have seen to date. To this day, I still hear people knocking VoIP with charges of low quality, suspect reliability, and general technological immaturity. It’s tough to argue with them sometimes. When I had VoIP installed at my home, it worked fine for a few days, then I encountered a period of terrible voice quality, followed by a complete lack of service. It turned out to be a problem with the existing wiring in the house, but the fact is that I had no service for a while. I’m patient, and I am a huge proponent of VoIP, so I stuck with it, but I can sympathize with those users whose first impression is not a positive one.
And while I understand the need to get behind marketing terms like VoIP 2.0, Voice 2.0, Purple Minutes, etc., especially by and among those of us within the industry, it’s equally important that we do not lose sight of the fact that we need to provide consumers the MOST BASIC of services as a platform upon which we can then offer the real benefits of VoIP. Then we can begin to live the dream of personal, mobile, extensible, presence-aware, high-quality voice and all the incremental revenue-generating services that we as an industry have been talking about for years.
How I took off on that tangent, I still don’t know. But for all we’ve done and as far as we’ve come, we’ve still a long, long way to go before the technology I write about in this blog and in Internet Telephony magazine becomes invisible to the user, and what that technology enables simply becomes referred to as ‘communications.’
Stealth Communications is hosting the first Voice Peering Forum today. The event features experts from leading global companies discussing the latest innovations and implementations in VoIP.
TMCnet’s Executive Editor Robert Liu is covering the event (read his synopsis here) as is Rich Tehrani, TMC’s president and VoIP evangelist.
Rich Tehrani breaks down the event on his blog today.
According to Rich, 2006 will be the Year of VoIP Peering.
With all this talk today of VoIP Peering, I thought I would take the time to remind everyone that Internet Telephony EXPO East, which takes place January 24-27, 2006 in
VoIP peering continues to take the world by storm as it allows service providers and enterprises to interconnect VoIP networks directly without the need to have calls from one VoIP network to another travel over the PSTN. Using the PSTN to transmit calls that originate and terminate via VoIP is like printing an e-mail between the sender and recipient, then retyping it back into the computer and sending it off to its destination. Benefits of peering? Less cost via fees and taxes, less regulation, better quality and being a part of what will eventually be the defacto way we transmit VoIP calls between disparate networks.
Last year’s VoIP Peering Summit in So.
TelEvolution just announced SoftGnome, a virtual extension solution designed to go hand in hand with the company’s PhoneGnome solution.
SoftGnome is designed to enable PCs, PDAs, and WiFi handsets to be connected to a PhoneGnome equipped landline telephone.
Andy Abramson has much more to say about the solution here.
According to David Beckemeyer, founder and CEO of TelEvolution, “SoftGnome is an extension of PhoneGnome that you can use virtually everywhere. By using a SoftGnome configured PC, PDA, or wireless handset, anyone can take their home phone service with them, anywhere there is Internet access.”
Just to be clear, this solution is not to be confused with Travelocity's Roaming Gnome, although the potential marketing link is too good to be left alone.
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