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BT and Tatara

March 14, 2005

BT chooses Tatara Systems Inc. SIM Authentication technology to form part of a ground-breaking voice-over-WLAN trial in the United Kingdom.

BT is making an aggressive bid to capture marketshare in the dual-mode market for GSM and WiFi. Trial participants will be issued with HP iPAQ 6340 personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, enabled for WLAN and GSM voice connectivity. Initially the trial restricts Wi-Fi access to Adastral Park only but ultimately users will be able to make voice calls over WLAN networks at the office, at home, or at a public hotspot. When out of range of a WLAN network, the user will make voice calls over the standard GSM network.



The Tatara Subscriber Gateway and the Tatara Service Manager Software Developers Kit (SDK), elements of the Tatara Mobile Services Convergence Platform, form a key part of the technology infrastructure that BT is deploying to enable the trial. The Tatara Subscriber Gateway, already installed at BT’s Adastral Park R&D labs at Martlesham Heath, UK, enables trial participants to automatically identify themselves securely to both WLAN and GSM networks through a single subscriber identity module (SIM) card installed within the iPAQ. The connection between the PDA and the Tatara Subscriber Gateway is enabled using Tatara’s SDK, which is installed on the iPAQ device.

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W800i and W800c

March 14, 2005

If the future of consumer devices is convergence then take a look at what SonyEricsson is doing as a guide to what the future will look like. Let’s start by saying you’ll want to have lots of memory handy because we are at a point today where you can generate a tremendous amount of megabytes from the camera on one of these babies.

The Sony Ericsson W800 which comes in variants for GSM – W800i and for GSM in China – W800c will be some of the most powerful devices out there and most interestingly they hark back to the heritage of the Sony Walkman. Sony is positioning this device a s serious music player. It plays 15 hours of music while the phone is on or 30 hours when the phone is off. If you charge the phone every night you can actually listen to music all day, every day. This is an incredible accomplishment. I am not sure why the iPOD Shuffle will be needed when phones like this become commonplace. This explains of course why the iPOD will soon become a phone as well.

The W800 weighs only 3 1/2 ounces and they still found a way to integrate a 2 Megapixel camera! The camera also functions as a video recorder. The phone comes with a 500k Memory Stick Duo card. BTW, I hate the memory stick duo card because it is not as economical (read cheap) as the SD format and the capacity is always behind SD by an order of magnitude. Still I purchased a Sony Camera that uses this format and just purchased a Sony Video recorder this past weekend that uses the same format. Yes Sony, I view your products with mixed emotions. Speaking of mixed emotion, someone once told me the definition of mixed emotion is watching your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your new Mercedes. That’s one definition that won’t make my VoIP Dictionary! Seriously. Sony makes great products and as such they are worthy of purchasing… Even if they lock you into proprietary technologies. I look at it this way… If I can by a superior A/V product the extra memory cost is what the company spends on R&D. In other words Sony still makes money on the backend while their competitors don’t.

With the included memory card you can store 150 music tracks which is very impressive. Perhaps ou don’t even need another memory card. Oh and by the way, you get a pair of headphones with the package as well. Expect the camera in Q3 of 2005 and no price has been determined.  

 

 

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Wayport and Cingular

March 14, 2005

This in my opinion is the beginning of WiFi telephony taking hold in a so called dual-mode configuration allowing GSM and WiFi telephony calls to be made via a single device. I may be reading into this a bit but this seems inevitable and Wayport is the biggest competitor to T-Mobile hotspots. T-Mobile of course competes with Cingular a fellow GSM network in the US.

WAYPORT AND CINGULAR ANNOUNCE WI-FI ROAMING AGREEMENT IN HOTELS AND AIRPORTS

Cingular to Package Wayport Wi-Fi High-Speed Internet Access with its EDGE High-Speed Data Service

New Orleans, March 14, 2005 – Wayport, the nation’s largest provider of Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) wireless and wired high-speed Internet access to mobile travelers in nearly 7,000 locations, announced today that it has reached a strategic Wi-Fi roaming agreement with Cingular, the nation’s largest wireless carrier.
The agreement will enable Cingular customers to access select Wayport neutral-host high-speed Wi-Fi network hot spots in hundreds of hotels and airports.

“The addition of Cingular to our growing list of strategic roaming partners further strengthens the commitment we have made to our neutral-host strategy,” said Dave Vucina, CEO of Wayport. “By opening up our network to key industry players such as Cingular, Wayport continues to drive the maximum number of customers to our partner locations.”

Subscribers of Cingular’s Wi-Fi Access will be able to use Wayport’s Wi-Fi service in hotel common areas and at airport terminals and gates. Wayport’s current and future partner locations will benefit from the additional customers and the marketing power of what is now the nation’s largest wireless carrier. With this agreement, Cingular will offer seamless access and simplified processes for connectivity and billing as part of the bundled features that will meet the productivity needs of their mobile subscribers.

“This alliance with Wayport allows us to complement our national EDGE high-speed data network by offering fast broadband access in hotels and airports through WiFi roaming agreements with companies like Wayport, “ said Abhi Ingle, of Cingular’s Business Markets Group.

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ITEXPO Praise

March 14, 2005
We received these nice comments about our Miami ITEXPO recently and I thought they were worth sharing. My sincere thanks to the attendees, exhibitors and TMC team for helping to make this a record-breaking industry event.

"From the time that I first contacted the sales rep (about 6 weeks before the show) to see if there was room for us to exhibit I was impressed with TMC.

Once the conference started, and the exhibit hall opened, our expectations were exceeded on attendee quantity and quality. There were several times that we were overwhelmed by the number of people passing our booth and stopping to talk to us. As we looked around, the halls of the show floor were wall to wall attendees in every direction and they were really looking at each booth as opposed to just strolling the floor, they were there to do business, not just walk the show."

Todd Hirshorn
InPhonex

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P2P VoIP Aastra VentureIP 480i

March 14, 2005
You’ve no doubt heard me praise the concept of p2p VoIP. This is an area of tremendous growth potential in my opinion. One of the players in the space, Nimcat Networks is supplying technology to Aastra Technologies, enabling them, to sell a p2p SMB phone system. The first product of this partnership is the VentureIP 480i.

P2p technology allows these phones to recognize each other and each phone is designed to do some of the work of a traditional PBX, eliminating the need for a central telephony server.

Here are some of the features of the system:
Some say this concept will really take off when p2p is embraced by the larger PBX manufacturers. Based on releases like this one, we will likely see adoption from companies like Altigen and Vertical before we see Cisco jump in. Some believe the large PBX companies need a solution like this as it makes it less expensive to service SMB customers. Others say that the likes of Avaya and Cisco will never embrace such a concept – or they will when they are forced to.

My opinion is that if p2p VoIP in the enterprise works as advertised, we will see a slow and steady adoption curve of these technologies in the market. I believe international markets will embrace p2p before the US. If the enterprise market does adopt p2p phone systems I believe we will see Skype get into the game and we will see office phones with a Skype Inside logo.

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