September 2004

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RSS: Wherever you go!

September 29, 2004

Now you can take your RSS feeds with you, wherever you go. I thought this was an interesting release in light of the fact that I wrote about RSS today.

TMCnet News Alert and RSS Feeds - Powerful Resources

September 29, 2004

I've been getting lots of great feedback on TMCnet's News Alert Service. This is a keyword based service allowing you to track anything we cover and we cover just about every technology that you need to know about. Once a day, you receive an e-mail for each tem you are tracking. Common terms from this week are WiMAX, CRM Excellence, DOD, WiFi, VoIP, White Paper of VoIP, SIP, H.323, Linksys, Bio-Key, VoIP Developer, Avaya, and Cisco.

Canadians Receive $10,000 VoIP Conference Value - Free

September 29, 2004

I read an article about Canadian businesses dragging their feet on VoIP deployment and thought it would be a good gesture to give away Internet Telephony Conference & Expo conference passes to the first five Canadian companies that contact me. The show takes place next week, October 4-7 so please don't delay. The Platinum passes are valued at $1,995 each. I think this is a good gesture to the fine people of Canada.

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WiMAXcon Learning Center Open for Business

September 28, 2004

WiMAX technology is progressing amazingly quickly and it seems like this technology will help bring broadband communications consisting of voice, video and data to the masses. I am personally thrilled to announce that our WiMAX Learning center is doing incredibly well, having some of the industry's key players participating in it.

As a reminder, this will be a place where attendees can come to learn about technology in a 100% objective environment. No sales pitches.

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TMC Announces VoIP Service Provider Award

September 28, 2004

First of all congratulations to all the award winners! Many service providers have been asking me how they were selected for the Internet Telephony VoIP Service Provider award. Apparently they want to put out press releases, etc. Here are the details on this honor:

Cisco VoIP Success - DoD and Bank of America

September 28, 2004

Cisco has been making serious headway in the VoIP space lately. Two recent stories show that they aren't slowing down one bit. In a CNET story titled Cisco inks another big VoIP deal, Bank of America is going to deploy 180,000 Cisco phones! This is on top of recent successes with Boeing and Ford. Meanwhile Washington Technoloy reports that Cisco VoIP products were approved by the DoD or Department of Defense to us laypeople. The specific equipment that received certification includes Cisco Catalyst 3550, 4500 and 6500 switches; Cisco 2600 and 3700 gateways; and CallManager 3.3 call processing software.

AT&T CallVantge and D-Link DVG-1120M Help

September 26, 2004

I received this rather detailed e-mail on configuring hardware for AT&T CallVantage. Havent tested this myself but it looks important enough to pass along. This is likely the AT&T Callvantage article being referred to. Hello,

I just spent the entire day trying to figure out how to get port forwarding working on the DVG-1120M or a way to get it to work behind a firewall/router, i came across an article you posted on it a few months ago. I have found out several distressing facts about the DVG-1120M and AT&T's service that you might find interesting.

* Bad networking logic, when the 1120 connects it sends some information about its connection to at&t using an http form post method, part of the connection data that is sent is the 1120's WAN IP, most routers support NAT but none support filtering IP's out of http data thats just not done..

Posted in VoIP

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Browsing the Google Way

September 23, 2004

Google may be launching a new browser according to a story by BBC. The Register also has a story that talks about this new browser and mentions that Google has recently hired a senior Java developer from Sun. Bloggers too are getting into the act, predicting that Google has the opportunity now while the industry is losing trust in the security offered by Internet Explorer.

If Google does launch such a browser, we can expect it to be successful. After all, they have invented the user interface for search. MSN and Yahoo! are basically copying the Google search page.

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Asterisk Interest Soars

September 23, 2004

When I first wrote about Asterisk, the open, Linux based PBX it was for the January issue of Internet Telephony Magazine. I expected Asterisk to do well but I didnt expect the groundswell of activity that I have recently witnessed. For example, at our Internet Telephony show last February in Miami, their booth was mobbed. At our VoIP Developer show last August in San Jose, once again their booth was mobbed and their networking reception had steady traffic, including many people that drove down from Linux World which was taking place in San Francisco the same week.

I am sure they will once again be mobbed in LA, where Internet Telephony Conference & Expo will take place in less October 4-7.

AT&T's VoIP Teleworker Trials

September 22, 2004

AT&T has certainly been on an announcement frenzy. Here is their latest announcement on their VoIP teleworker trials for multinationals. AT&T and others realize how huge the VoIP opportunity is internationally and that is where most of the money will be made.

Posted in VoIP

Mayor Daley is Watching

September 21, 2004

The New York Times had an interesting article titled Chicago Moving to 'Smart' Surveillance Cameras (registration required) in which Mayor Daley says the cameras will make the city a safer place. 250 cameras will be installed and using sophisticated technology, they will be able to spot a person acting suspiciously around a sensitive area. For example if they leave a package outside a building or walk in circles, authorities will be alerted and the police will be dispatched.There are obvious big brother implications here but in a world where terrorism is such a threat, many would err on the side of caution. Still, I believe it be to be in politicians to be as sensitive a possible to those who may take offense to the rapid rise of cameras in public places.

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Service Providers Can Learn From SMS.ac

September 17, 2004

A few years back I attended the 3GSM show in the south of France and no, it wasn't sunny... Pretty cold and drizzly, thank you very much. Suffice it to say, I covered the whole show -- Every Exhibitor. Not much else to do there I am afraid.

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Technology Headaches at Home

September 13, 2004

Sure, technology is great but the problem with it is if it breaks, and it always does, it takes time to fix. I am experiencing the fun of dealing with ever-braking technology. I have a Dell laptop at home and it has two problems,. The first is that it overheats and shuts off from time to time.

New Vendor Party Announced September 14 in NYC!

September 10, 2004

TMC just announced a new party for vendors in the speech and contact center business to come network. It should be lots of fun. Here are the details. Hope to see you there. ESPN Sports Zone
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
8:00-10:00 PM

Here is the invite and RSVP info for the speech event.

VoIP Conferencing Heats Up

September 9, 2004

Conferencing via VoIP is the way to go and WebEx recently decided to take the VoIP plunge by using media servers from Convedia. Convedia should be proud as WebEx now joins Genesys who took the Convedia VoIP plunge a few months back. In related news, the Wall Street Journal reported today that shares of Ptek Holdings (PTEK 1 Month Chart) took a plunge when one of its largest customers, IBM decided to switch conferencing vendors. In part of the quarterly report filed by Ptek their was an illuminating statement: "IBM is actively exploring the use of new technologies, such as voice-over-IP to help lower its costs of conferencing." Looks like the conferencing market is moving very rapidly to VoIP.

Concerto Software Acquires Rockwell FirstPoint Contact

September 8, 2004

Yesterday, I flew out to Chicago to cover the merger of Concerto Software and Rockwell FirstPoint Contact (RFC). I am thrilled to be reporting on what may be the most important contact center acquisitions of our time. While in Chicago, I will address the over 1,000 employees of the combined company and explain my take on the transaction and why it is important to the industry from my, independent perspective. Ive covered hundreds of M&As and this one ranks up there at the top.

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Hurricane Frances and Communications Technology

September 3, 2004

A number of communications companies are intimately involved in the hurricane in a number of ways. here is a summary.The Peoria Journal Star Online reported in an article titled 100 people will be hired to answer hurricane calls that these agents will be hired to take calls from hurricane victims. The agency in this case asked not to be named, this is an example of how contact centers are positively affecting America. Often referred to as teleservices agencies or business process outsourcing companies (BPO) these agencies handle volumes of calls for charities, corporations and even the government.

Can Sony Beat Intel at its Own Game?

September 3, 2004

A recent article titled "Videogame Whiz Reprograms Sony After 10-Year Funk" appeared in yesterday's WSJ. The article discusses how Sony has lost it's way and as commoditization begins to creep into the market they need to innovate and stay ahead of this this natural progression in the market. Ken Kutaragi, the creator of the PlayStation has been asked to remake the company's electronics strategy.Kutaragi points out that a product like the PlayStation has its innovation in the processors not the outside box which he likens to a costume. This is why he has decided to pour $4.5 billion dollars into semiconductors over three years and one of their creations will be a cell chip which IBM and Toshiba are also involved in creating.

VoIP Now Legal in South Africa

September 3, 2004

We had a number of African service providers and calling card vendors at our
last Internet Telephony show in Miami this past February so this article on VoIP in
Africa becoming legal surprised me as i assumed VoIP was legal there. In any
event, it is now. Many teleservices outsourcing companies have told me that they
are exploring South Africa as a logical place to build call centers as India
burns out. I suppose this regulation paves the way for outsourcing to take root on this continent.

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Nortel Delays Financials Again

September 3, 2004

A CNET Nortel story this morning was pretty shocking as this company has delayed reporting its financials by a month. Last winter, Nortel invited a number of analysts to talk about how great things were going with the company. I wrote up a glowing report titled Nortels Bright Future. I wasnt alone as I read similar stories from other people at the meeting.

Video Games to Provide WiFi Telephony

September 2, 2004

We all know that WiFi telephony is coming. I just assumed we would get it from Motorola, Nokia or Samsung. I just read that we may see wireless VoIP first from video game makers and it wouldn't surprise me as kids love to talk -- Nintendo DS jumps on the WiFi VoIP bandwagon? The video game market is really one of the fastest growing areas in VoIP as multiplayer games work better when you can communicate with one another -- see Convedia Turbo charges Genesys Conferencing with boost courtesy of VoIP. Video conferencing will probably catch on quickly in this segment as well.

ToVox is Growing in the Speech Market

September 1, 2004

Interest in speech is picking up. After three years of what I call the telecom nuclear winter, we are seeing rays of light and they seem to be eminating primarily from VoIP and speech. I wrote about a speech company called TuVox a while back and now they put out a release talking about their fifth quarter of record growth. Here are some of the companies mentioned in the release that are implementing speech: Columbia House, Netflix, Oriental Trading Company, United States Postal Service, MCI, TiVo, Activision and Definity Health.

VoIP Goes Retail

September 1, 2004

Amazingly, the buzz about VoIP these days is more about distribution that
technology. Just a year ago critics were saying this stuff doesnt work and now
you cant go to a retail outlet without being inundated with VoIP phones,
videophones, access points, etc.

WiFi telephony products will amplify the product offerings soon.

Here is a great VoIP article in the San Jose Mercury News about videophones from
8x8.

Here is the release on our site about the same topic.

Internet Telephonys own Greg Galitzine blogged about VoIP in retail today in fact. Great blog entry. Nice going Greg.

Skype, Charter Communications and Covad Heating up VoIP

September 1, 2004

Skype recently launched the beta version of a Mac OS X client for their VoIP service. With over 20 million downloads and nine million users, these guys are taking the VoIP world by storm. SkypeOut lets Skype users connect to PSTN customers at around 2 cents per minute and Mac users for the first time can get connected to the largest peer to peer VoIP network on the planet. For more on this announcement please check out Up for grabs: Skype for Mac in Beta by TMCnets Johanne Torres. We are so excited to have Niklas Zennstrom, the co-founder of Skype keynoting TMC's Internet Telephony Conference and Expo next month in Los Angeles California.

Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

September 2004