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Off To Dallas -- Almost

Here I sit in JFK fielding calls from reporters on FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's appointment. I am excited about speaking at the Interactive Intelligence seminar in Dallas tomorrow and that is even with my two-hour flight delay.

Getting back to the appointment -- there seems to be some genuine enthusiasm over this appointment in the industry. Many have told me they think this is great choice and I agree. Ultimately policy decisions are a delicate and complicated process so it may be a while before we see any substantial policy changes but at least the steering wheel is being held by capable hands.

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Rich Tehrani Applauds Selection of Kevin Martin as FCC Chairman

It is my belief that Mr. Martin is the best person to fill the role of FCC Chairman and as such we expect him to achieve great things for the country and consumers everywhere. I applaud his philosophy of light-touch regulation in broadband and believe he will be remembered as someone who has done great things for broadband growth while protecting consumer interest.

Chairman Martin is a person who understands telecommunications, politics and is a champion of competition and consumer choice. He is not afraid to be controversial if he believes he is right. In short he is an ideal leader at a time when we are at a crossroads in communications technology, media ownership, digital television and a host of other broad issues such as WiMAX proliferation and competition.

What will define Commissioner Martin is how he carefully balances the needs of the incumbent and competitive service providers while taking into account what is best for today's consumer and tomorrow's competitive landscape.

The VoIP industry hopes that Mr. Martin will continue the pro-voice over IP stance the commission has espoused for the past few years. In keeping with this philosophy we hope to see VoIP regulation where necessary such as e-911 and CALEA. We wish Commissioner Martin well in his new, well-deserved position and we further look forward to him leading us into a world with more broadband competition and enhanced consumer choice.

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KEVIN MARTIN SWORN IN AS FCC COMMISSIONER

Washington, DC - Kevin J. Martin was sworn in today as a member of the Federal Communications Commission for a term that runs to June 30, 2006.

Before joining the FCC, Martin was a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. He served on the Bush-Cheney Transition Team and was Deputy General Counsel for the Bush campaign. Prior to joining the campaign, Martin was an advisor to FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. He has also served in the Office of the Independent Counsel and worked as an associate at the Washington, DC law firm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding. Before joining Wiley, Rein & Fielding, Martin was a judicial clerk for U.S. District Court Judge William M. Hoeveler, Miami, FL.

FCC Comissioner Kevin Martin

Martin received a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Masters in Public Policy from Duke University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

He is a member of the Florida Bar, District of Columbia Bar and the Federal Communications Bar Association.

Martin and his wife, Catherine J. Martin, reside in Washington, DC.

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DSL Evangelism

Here are some DSL adoption stats from the DSL Forum. The report seems one-sided but if the stats are accurate it marks impressive growth for the DSL market in general. I eliminated all but the salient points of their news.

• DSL Subscribers Worldwide Sail Past the 100 Million Mark
• 35.5 Million New Global DSL Subscribers in 2004

• North American DSL Surpasses 16 Million in 2004 While DSL Subscriber Base in Latin America Grows More Than 100%

Global DSL subscribers sailed past the 100 million mark in February 2005, according to the latest data produced for the DSL Forum by industry analyst Point Topic. Figures for 2004 reveal that people are choosing DSL for broadband access at the rate of one every second. Growth in DSL - the world's most popular broadband technology -approached 60%, with more than 96 million global DSL subscribers by the year-end. In the USA specifically, another 4.3 million DSL subscribers were added in the year, bringing the total number of US DSL subscribers to 13.7 million. Canada now has 2.65 million DSL subscribers and Latin America sits at 3.4 million, with Brazil leading the way with more than half of the region's subscribers.

Aericas - Total DSL Subscribers by Country and Region, Q4 2003 to Q4 2004

Country	Q4 03 Total	Q4 04 Total
Argentina	114,000	310,000
Brazil	1,013,000	1,900,000
Chile	200,000	20,000
Mexico	180,000	560,000
Rest of Latin America	155,000	360,000
Latin America Total	1,662,000	3,390,000
Canada	2,200,000	2,650,000
USA	9,400,000	13,7300,000
North America Total	11,600,000	16,400,000

Source: DSL Forum and Point Topic 

Newer broadband markets showed the fastest growth throughout 2004. Detailed global charts are viewable at http://www.dslforum.org/PressRoom/0510_Factsheet.pdf. Turkey, which is now approaching half a million DSL subscribers, showed 725% increase in the year, the Czech Republic 589% and Ireland 351%. Mexico, Malaysia, New Zealand and Lithuania all experienced DSL subscriber growth of 100% or more.

Beyond the US, other established DSL markets also sustained strong growth in subscriber numbers. China, the world's largest DSL population, saw a 2004 increase in DSL subscribers of more than 8.5 million. Rapid growth in European Union subscribers in both established and emerging broadband markets, reinforced the EU's position as the number one DSL region worldwide.

France came first with 3.25 million DSL subscribers added over the year.

The UK grew by 2.8 million, Italy by 1.73 million and Germany by 1.4 million.

"It is a significant success to have reached the 100 million subscriber milestone, with rapid growth in every region of the world," said Steve Kingdom, newly elected president of the DSL Forum. "It is also fitting that this accomplishment was announced at CeBIT 2005, as consumer electronics and the connected home have been, and will continue to be, major drivers in DSL deployment. We must now turn our sights to facilitating the achievement of our target of 500 million DSL subscribers by 2010."

Tim Johnson of Point Topic said: "While ADSL continues to dominate current DSL connectivity, deployment increasingly includes newer DSL options. ADSL2plus is rapidly growing in Sweden, Norway and France, with trials beginning in the USA and services coming on-stream in the Netherlands in 2005. This is increasingly the basis for triple play services. VDSL had at least 5 million connections by the end of 2004 - mostly in South Korea, Japan and China. VDSL2, delivering 100 Mbps over a single phone line, may provide new impetus when that is standardized in May 2005.

We are also starting to see increased roll out of symmetric DSL services, with 1.2 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 2004."

Global DSL subscriber details were announced at CeBIT 2005 (Hall 13, Stand D37), where the DSL Forum is exhibiting the interactive DSLHome™ Showcase, bringing CeBIT visitors the opportunity to experience firsthand how DSL can improve their customers' lives. Focusing on educating attendees about the potential of the newly evolved IP-centric DSL architecture, and the variety of exciting services that DSL empowers, the show provides a tour of the intelligent home, including hands-on demonstrations of video on demand, streaming video, IP telephony, online gaming, medical applications, parental control and video conferencing.

About the DSL Forum

The DSL Forum is an international industry consortium of more than 200 leading service providers, equipment manufacturers and other interested parties, focused on developing the full potential of broadband DSL to meet the needs of the mass market. Working to streamline processes, develop specifications and share best practices, the Forum's work sets the stage for effective deployments, and explosive global DSL growth. By evolving DSL technology to embrace new applications, the DSL Forum is tailoring DSL to meet the needs of the next generation of multi-media services and the online community. Recognized as the voice of the DSL industry, the Forum has set a target of 500 million broadband DSL subscribers by 2010.

More information about the DSL Forum is available from its industry site www.dslforum.org. Information tailored to end-users is available on www.dsllife.com.

Detailed global charts are viewable at http://www.dslforum.org/PressRoom/0510_Factsheet.pdf 

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VoIP MP3 Player

You have heard me talk about the VoIPOD for a while now and that is why I was excited to read on MacWorld that a South Koprean company will unveil an MP3 player with VoIP in May. The company is Ezmax and the model number is the EZMP4200P.

The device is 70 millimeters long, 24mm in diameter, and weighs 24 grams without the AAA-size battery. As well as MP3 music files, it plays a number of other formats including WMA (Windows Media Audio), ASF (Advanced Systems Format) and Ogg. The device is capable of voice recording, comes with an FM radio and has a two-color (blue and yellow) 128-x-64 pixel OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) screen.

The device is available in three models, each with a different flash memory-based storage capacity: 256MB, 512MB and 1GB.

EXMAX EZMP-4000

The company aims to launch the product in South Korea and European countries in May. The entry level unit will cost about $150.

This is big news as I believe the consumer electronics market is the holy grail of VoIP meaning we need to seed this exciting and vibrant market with must-have devices to generate more VoIP minutes.

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Harris Interactive VoIP Study

Harris Interactive just released a new telecom study and they say consumer attitudes and technology drawbacks are barriers to adoption. This seems in  line with where the industry is. We still have some work ahead of us in educating the world on why they need to adopt voice over IP in their home and business.

Salient points:

• While nearly nine in 10 (87%) business decision makers are aware of VoIP (76% at least somewhat familiar), one-third (36%) of consumers are aware of VoIP (56% at least somewhat familiar).

• Furthermore, while 12 percent of business decision makers familiar with VoIP currently use it, only three percent of consumers familiar with the technology use it.

Barriers for adoption

The survey suggests that there are several barriers to consumer adoption of VoIP. Some of the barriers relate to attitudes toward the new service. Among those who are aware of VoIP, but do not use it:

• I just don’t know much about VoIP (47%);

• VoIP providers have failed to show me a convincing story (36%);

• I’m waiting for VoIP to become more mainstream (34%);

• Recommendations would help me move toward VoIP (27%);

• Potential savings are just not worth the hassle (25%);

• VoIP seems too complicated (equipment, installation) (22%); and

• VoIP is an unproven technology (22%).

Other barriers stem from the perceived drawbacks of the technology. Among those who are aware of VoIP, but do not use it:

• VoIP might not support 911 calling in my area (62%);

• VoIP could be subject to security and privacy issues (60%);

• In a power failure situation, VoIP would not work (58%); and

• The quality of my calls could be worse than with traditional phone service (52%).

Good news for service providers

While these barriers obviously pose challenges for VoIP service providers, there is some good news about this new technology. Of those consumers surveyed who currently use VoIP, many say they are either very (13%) or extremely (27%) satisfied with their service while an additional 44 percent say they are somewhat satisfied. The same can be said for businesses that use VoIP. Of those business decision makers surveyed who use the technology, one-third (34%) say they are very satisfied and seven percent say they are extremely satisfied with their VoIP service. An additional 54 percent report being somewhat satisfied with their service.

Also, of those business decision makers surveyed who are likely to use VoIP technology within the next year, nearly three-fourths (72%) are projecting a savings of between 11 and 40 percent in their annual telecom budgets. (See Table 8)

"Addressing the perceived barriers to VoIP technology presents a challenge for service providers, but the potential savings by businesses may be the leverage providers need to not only attract the attention of more businesses, but to seed interest in consumers as well, says Joe Porus, chief architect for Technology Research at Harris Interactive. "And when consumers take into account the overall satisfaction levels of both businesses and consumers who already use the technology, adoption rates may begin to grow."

TABLE 1

AWARE OF VoIP

"New technology has come on the scene…referred to as Internet Telephony VoIP. Are you aware of this term?"

Base: All adults

TABLE 2

FAMILIARITY WITH VoIP

"How familiar are you with this new technology?"

Base: Aware of VoIP term

TABLE 3

CURRENT USAGE OF VoIP

"Are you currently using VoIP?"

Base: Familiar with VoIP

TABLE 4

LIKELIHOOD OF ADOPTING VoIP

"How likely are you (your company) to use VoIP within the next year?"

Base: Does not use VoIP

Click for more.

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