April 2005 Archives

I woke up around 6:00 AM to CNBC where they were talking about how IBM killed the global markets because they preannounced that they will miss their numbers and weren’t so optimistic about the future. Interestingly on my recent San Jose tour, I heard that enterprise customers were holding off on purchasing in Q1. I mentioned it in last week’s podcast actually – make sure to check our podcast page for today’s cast… We do these on Fridays.

Where is Rich Tehrani speaking? Everywhere it seems. And I love it. I can’t wait to discuss the growth of the speech market. What many people don’t realize is that speech technologies are changing the way business operates. It not only reduces the need to offshore, many VoIP providers are considering speech as a way to differentiate their offerings from one another.

Benchmarks for Creating Successful Speech Automation Solutions Wednesday, April 27, 2005 10:00 -11:00 am (Pacific Time)
	Join us to learn how AAA (Automobile Association of America), the world's largest automobile club with over 44 million members, has used voice automation solutions to delight its members. Call Center Best Practices - "6 Tips to Deploying Voice Self-Service Solutions that Customers Love." • Why one AAA club (AAA -Minnesota/Iowa), has chosen to implement a series of voice automation solutions. You'll hear their lessons learned and results of these applications on their bottom line. • How to enhance your brand with an outstanding caller experience. • Potential pitfalls many companies make when moving to voice automation solutions from traditional touch-tone applications. • Tips for ensuring a seamless handoff between your voice automation application and your live agents. • 6 benchmark best practices for creating voice automation solutions that your customers, partners and employees love to use. Sponsored By:

I will be hosting a webinar with PRSourceCode on Tuesday, April 19^th at 12:00 Noon. PR professionals can learn how to present ideas to myself and fellow TMC team members. This will be a good opportunity for many of the PR people that want to learn how to increase the number of editorial opportunities we take advantage of here at TMC.

There are a lot of secrets to getting press. Sign up for the webinar if you want to learn them and engage in a dialogue.

See you (virtually) there!

Perhaps the biggest news in the VoIP space, ever is this announcement. I have been saying for a while that these devices need to be under $100 for consumer adoption. 8x8 did a very smart thing with this announcement:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

8x8 SLASHES PRICE OF PACKET8 VIDEOPHONE TO $99

SANTA CLARA, Calif.  – April 14, 2005 -- 8x8, Inc. (Nasdaq: EGHT), provider of  Packet8 broadband voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and videophone communications services, announced it has reduced the price of the Packet8 Broadband Consumer VideoPhone from $250 (after rebate) to $99 and decreased the monthly service fee from $29.95 to $19.95, effective immediately.

Available direct to consumers at www.packet8.net, the newly-priced Packet8 VideoPhone is being sold with a two year service plan which includes unlimited voice and video calls worldwide to another Packet8 Videophone as well as unlimited local and long distance voice-only calls to any phone number in the U.S. or Canada. The $19.95 per month, 24 month service plan carries an early termination fee of $299. Existing Packet8 VideoPhone subscribers will see a decrease in their monthly service of $10 beginning with their May 1 billing statement.

Motivated by over 12 months of consistently positive user reports and outstanding technology reviews, 8x8 decided on an aggressive price reduction strategy to accelerate the rate at which consumers are subscribing to the Packet8 VideoPhone service, the first and still the only broadband consumer videophone solution on the market today.

"We believe that by dramatically lowering the cost of entry, we will diminish the hurdle facing consumers who have shown strong interest in purchasing our broadband videophone but are precluded from doing so because of the price," said 8x8 Chairman & CEO Bryan Martin. "Once we get our technology into the hands of more consumers, we feel confident its appeal will take hold and bring about the critical mass necessary to make videophone conversations an everyday experience."

Since its introduction in June 2004, the Packet8 VideoPhone has been recognized in numerous business and industry publications including the Wall St. Journal, The New York Times, the San Jose Mercury News and Laptop Magazine. Some of the season's most popular television shows - Alias, King of Queens, Will and Grace, Third Watch and Law and Order SVU - have incorporated the VideoPhone on their sets and in the plots of various episodes.

"8x8 has established itself as a leader in videophone technology and, as such, we feel compelled to reach out aggressively to consumers with the message that voice and video communication is here to stay," continued Martin. "Though other companies have talked about marketing videophones, none have taken an active role in promoting the technology to this generation of broadband internet users."

The $99 VideoPhone offer is good while supplies last. In addition to this one-time purchase price, new subscribers will be charged an initial $29.95 activation fee, a $19.95 per month service fee, applicable taxes and a monthly $1.50 regulatory recovery fee, a new fee being introduced on all Packet8 phone numbers effective May 1, 2005.

About 8x8, Inc.
VoIP (voice over internet protocol) service provider 8x8, Inc. offers internet-based telephony solutions (www.packet8.net) for individual residential and business users as well as small to medium sized business organizations. In addition to regular Packet8 VoIP service plans, priced as low as $19.95 per month for unlimited anytime calling to the U.S. and Canada, 8x8 now offers the Packet8 DV 326 VideoPhone, the industry's first stand alone broadband consumer videophone. Packet8 Virtual Office, 8x8's VoIP system for small to medium sized businesses, is a hosted PBX solution comprised of powerful business class features.

I have had a number of questions about when TMC Labs will be taking applications for their annual Internet Telephony Magazine Innovation Award. The deadline is rapidly approaching so please apply now for TMC’s most prestigious award.

60 is about what I am seeing for VoIP URLs during the week. What caught my eye this week were the following:

voip911callcenter.com
voip911dispatch.com
voip911service.com
voip911system.com
tucowsvoip.com
tucowsvoip.net

The 911 names above are registered to:

Gaines Enterprises

Here is a great post from Tim Denton on how we can solved the VoIP 911 problem. Excerpt:

Today, when you purchase a local telephone service from an incumbent local exchange carrier (i.e. ILECs, e.g. Bell Canada, TELUS, Verizon, SBC, etc.) emergency telephony comes with it. Should you wish to purchase from them an emergency-only telephony service, you are politely forced to take the local telephone service that comes with it as well.

Today, both services are bundled and provided over the same infrastructure by the ILECs.

Competitors are now unfortunately in the same position than in 1996 now that the ILECs have moved the target once again to triple play, that is emergency telephony, voice, video and television over the same infrastructure,

It is thus now apparent that the revenues generated from telephone and DSL services provided from co-location cages and over unbundled loop departing from the central-office will be too little to be able to compete against the services provided by the ILECs from fiber-to-copper conversion equipment located much closer to the subscribers.

After being burned once with co-location in the central offices, it is not surprising to see competitors being reluctant to begin deploying equipment in the field that is connected to ILEC loops intercepted at the ILEC outside plant patch panels.

However, this is unfortunately the way that facilities-based competition needs precisely to go as there is no way to provide emergency telephone service over a fiber to the home (FTTH) infrastructure.

There are 2 issues here - 9-1-1 emergency service and uninterrupted power availability.  They are somewhat related but can be considered individually.  Obviously, when the power is out and you have an emergency, you need both of these at the same time.  Separately, however, the 9-1-1 emergency service is the most important.  The uninterrupted power availability is less important.  We must understand, however, that not even the power companies provide reliable, uninterrupted power availability and we all live with this. Evidence is that both the telcos and the cablecos are now involved in providing substandard emergency telephony services where neither the telephones,  nor the customer modem, are  powered from the network.

Tim suggests that 911 be unbundled from the ILECs control and this makes sense to me. I also subscribed to this blog today as it seems like a great read.

From Marketwatch:

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday announced the creation of a new coalition to push for a re-write of the nation's telecommunications laws.

The group, called TeleCONSENSUS - includes roughly 60 companies, local Chambers of Commerce and trade associations.

The group also includes three Baby Bells - Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), SBC Communications Inc. (SBC) and BellSouth Corp (BLS) - as well as the National Association of Manufacturers and Time Warner Inc. (TWX).

"The Telecom Act is almost 10 years old, which is an eternity in the high-tech world," said Thomas Donohue, chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Speaking at the launch of the new trade group, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Commerce Committee, said he will "start with a clean sheet of paper" on telecom reform and hopes to have legislation through the House in the spring or summer and then "see if we can't come together" with the Senate.

Reform backers say the 1996 Act, which didn't even mention the Internet, is woefully outdated at a time when new technologies like Internet telephony, known as VOIP, and video over broadband are breaking down the walls that once separated different types of telecommunications services.

The Chamber estimates that reforming telecom laws would add 212,000 jobs over a five-year period and lead to $58 billion in new investment.

Donohue said the Chamber is prepared to commit between $100,000 and $500,000 annually on telecom reform advocacy.

Asked about reform prospects, Donohue said he doesn't expect it this year but hopes telecom legislation can be enacted during the current two-year Congressional session.

I just came across this post on my blog about Indiana telco regulations from The Honorable David Ford, Indiana State Senator of District 19. You have to scroll down to see the comments. I am not sure how I missed this before and am extremely humbled to have my blog be a forum for this crucial dialogue between the government and the people.

I have to admit that after the Warren Buffet letter to TMCnet, this may be the most important thing that has happened to our site. Oh yes, there was the time when Al Gore keynoted one of our events and we were told he was monitoring our site from time to time.

I wonder if George Bush ever gets a chance to check out TMCnet. Does Air Force one have VoIP? I wonder.

Recently two service provider execs had conversations with me where they told me they hate the mentality of today’s VoIP market. Everyone it seems is talking “exit strategy.” Now I am sure everyone wants to be the next company Cisco picks up but what concerns service provider executives is -- how do you run a company if your goal is to be retired on a beach in Hawaii in the next few months.

After all, is an exit strategy what you should be aiming for? What about a customer acquisition strategy? A profit generating strategy or even better, a success strategy? We all went through one bubble where companies did their best to get picked up before they had any real customers. The focus was more on impressing VCs and other investors/acquirers and not on actually doing anything useful at work. How about a successful PR strategy aimed at customers? A marketing strategy aimed at those that will purchase from you?

Has the entire VoIP market become a breeding ground of companies that are only selling to one another? Are there no customers out there? I have to hand it to Packet8 and Vonage who shifted their strategy immediately to focus on consumers when service providers weren’t buying. They showed entrepreneurial spirit and drive. They didn’t throw in the towel and just try to unload technology and the company.

What really scares me is due to the shortsighted nature of many of the companies in the VoIP space, some enterprise and a service provider customers are only considering purchasing from companies that are publicly traded. Can you see how damaging this can be to start-ups if all customers were to adopt this purchasing position?

This is why I am sounding the alarm bell early. Stop talking exit strategy. Who cares?!? Customers want you around for the long-term so you need to be focusing on a success strategy.

Last year we were invited at the last moment to host a party at Supercomm with the IPCC. We sponsored a cruise for over 100 people and it was one of the best events I was ever part of. I even bought a tux for the occasion (you know you can rent them now?

After the cruise was over, someone at he IPCC suggested we have the party again the next year in the Hancock Building. Not being from Chicago I somehow decided he meant Sears Tower.

Long story short, I reserved the most amazing room in the Sears Tower and we are hosting a party this year on Tuesday, June 7^th 5:30-8:00 PM (right after the show ends)

The party is for SuperComm Exhibitors and service providers as well as friends and associates of TMC (you know who you are :-) and of course that stray relative or two of mine that happens to be in the area.

There will be music, food, amazing views, a photographer and some of the Chicago Luvabulls in attendance.

Here are the details. Please RSVP in order to get on the list.

Hope to see you there.

June seems like it is so far away but it really isn't. I can't believe it it's so close. I am really happy that Supercomm invited me back to speak at their event. I had great fun speaking last year and am sure the audience participation will be just as good this year as last. We have some great speakers on this panel and Mike Khalilian is a first rate moderator and knows more about VoIP than just about anyone else around.

I am speaking on a panel titled:

VoIP Services & Networks

Monday, June 6, 10.00 am - 11:30 am in Room S105 of McCormick Place in downtown Chicago.

Here are some details direct from Supercomm. Note that I have been graciously promoted by Supercomm to CEO. No complaints about the promotion (do I get a raise?) but really I am happy with the current responsibility level.

Chairperson: Michael Khalilian, Chairman and President, IPCC

Speakers:

Hugh Kelly, President and Chief Executive Officer, West Ridge Networks
Vish Raju, Vice President-Product Management, SIPQuest
Rich Tehrani, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Technology Marketing Corporation
Earl Turner, Senior Director-VoIP Technology, Time Warner Telecom

You want to know how popular VoIP is? Just ask Skype, a company whose website just blew past the 500 mark on the list of most popular sites in the world! The numbers come courtesy of Alexa.com, an Amazon company. They currently rank at 462 out of sites worldwide. This rank as of today puts them five spots ahead of the Wall Street Journal! Six spots ahead of Circuit City and ten ahead of PayPal! For those of you that care – (I don’t of course -- the wife is always reading;-), they beat Victoria Secret by 22.

Netcordia just announced an addition to its product line, the Enterprise 2000, which provides network diagnostic support for large networks up to 2,000 routers and switches. It also has configuration policy analysis, which, as you know, is an emerging market in the network management space.

As the name implies, the product supports up to 2,000 routers and switches or up to 60,000 interfaces. With the addition of configuration policy analysis in this model, NetMRI users can easily check every configuration file for accurate policies. The analysis can be automatically performed on a daily basis, or on an ad hoc basis, making this a readily adaptable management tool for busy network managers.  he auto-generated reports highlight the exceptions in a glance, providing correctional guidance as well as a compliance proof source.

The NetMRI line has three other models that have been shipping since 2003, the Campus 200, the Enterprise 500 and the Enterprise 1000.  The models all provide the same interface, reports, root cause analysis, and functional support of VoIP, Wireless, VLANs and IP as the other models; they differ in the size of the network supported. The NetMRI product line starts at $24,900, and ranges up to $149,900 for the Enterprise 2000 Model.

As I have said all along the network testing market is red hot due in large part to the success of the VoIP market which is driving sales of network monitoring and diagnostic products.

According to the AP, Up to 10 times as many people as originally thought may have had their profiles stolen from a LexisNexis database in the United States, publisher and data broker Reed Elsevier Group PLC said Tuesday.

The company reported last month that criminals may have accessed personal details of 32,000 people via a breach of LexisNexis' recently acquired Seisint unit. It now says that figure is closer to 310,000 people.

Reed said it identified 59 incidents since January 2003 in which unauthorized persons, predominantly using IDs and passwords of legitimate Seisint customers, may have fraudulently acquired personal identifying information on thousands of people

Information accessed included names, addresses, Social Security and driver license numbers, but not credit history, medical records or financial information, the company said.

The company said the 59 identified incidents of fraudulently obtained information - 57 at Seisint and two in other LexisNexis units - are largely related to the misappropriation by third parties of IDs and passwords belonging to legitimate customers. It stressed that neither LexisNexis nor the Seisint technology infrastructure was breached by hackers.