March 2006

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RingCentral

March 31, 2006

Any business can use a shot in the arm. While you're at it why not put some steroids in that shot? Hey if they can do it in professional sports, why not try it in your company? Of course I am kidding. Well kind of. I think I have found a way to help your small company get big quick.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: business, communications, smb, voip : Related Tags: phones office, customers company, broadband connection, office phones, company, service

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Do Banner Ads Work?

March 31, 2006

This morning on CNBC there was a market researcher from ACNielsen explaining that graphical banner ads don't work. Joe Kernan was interviewing the researcher and was almost ranting about how banner ads don't work. He was agreeing 100%. He says he never looks at them.

Posted in Technology

Tagged: acnielson, cnbc, joe kernan, squawk box : Related Tags: today because, market researcher, banner, advertising, kernan, researcher

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Explaining TDM

March 31, 2006

The following quote was made by Dr. Christian Stredicke at the second day of the Voice Peering Forum Spring 2006 in Miami.

This is the year where a purchasing manager has to explain why they are buying TDM equipment.

Prior to this time you had to explain why you were purchasing VoIP equipment.

Posted in VoIP

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Quoted in Investor's Business Daily Cover Story

March 31, 2006

I was quoted today in the cover story of Investor's Business Daily or IBD. The title of the story is Supreme Court's eBay Patent Right Case Has Both Sides Saying Innovation At Risk. Here is an excerpt containing my quote:

----

"The reform has to happen at a more fundamental level," said Ken Dulaney, an analyst with research firm Gartner. "Congress has to go back and reform the laws.

Posted in Technology

Voice Peering Forum Miami 2006 Day One

March 31, 2006

When I arrived at the show today I met with Shrihari Pandit the person who invented the concept of the Voice Peering Fabric (VPF) and we spoke for a great while about all the things going on with the VPF and all the new members who have joined. Perhaps most important is AT&T. Incidentally I blogged about the rumors of AT&T joining the VPF a few days back.

I went to Excel's booth first -- whoops -- the new name is Cantata and when I got there someone was literally going off on a competitive board vendor based in Israel. He continued to explain how technicians from the company are supposed to call but never do.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: 5ess, at&t, carrius, class 5, peering, vpf : Related Tags: voice peering, company

Snapshot Pages

March 30, 2006

Feel free to check out TMCnet's snapshot pages such Google, Skype, Nortel, etc. The purpose of these pages is to allow easy bookmarking of pages that can help you keep tabs of important companies and topics/issues.

We have recently automated at least some of our blogs to have keywords automatically link to the snapshot pages. This post serves as an FYI to my readers as well as a test of the system. Here are some more... Lucent, Avaya, IBM, NCTA, CeBIT, BellSouth.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: google, lucent, nortel, skype, voip : Related Tags: snapshot pages, pages, snapshot

Voice Peering Summit in Miami -- Just Arrived

March 30, 2006

I just landed in Miami and am pretty excited to be at the Voice Peering Forum later today. I met with Andy Voss of Sansay already and hope to catch up with more colleagues and friends later today.

I am still working on my presentation for the keynote tomorrow. Hopefully the crowd won't stay out too late and will be sufficiently caffeinated for my presentation. If not I will just have to blow them away with content and enthusiasm

I am currently eating lunch/working on Miami Beach (where the hotel's only open restaurant is located) and it will be very very difficult for me to go inside soon.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: peering.vpf, voip : Related Tags: voice peering, later today, miami

State of the Industry

March 30, 2006

The following is a portion of my April 2006 Internet Telephony Magazine Publisher's Outlook:

I have been on a trade show tour recently and I can't tell you how excited I am to have chosen the VoIP industry as my home. There are more new products and innovations being announced daily and, everywhere you look, there is boundless optimism. More importantly, we're seeing real sales and profit from not only the vendors to the VoIP market, but the customers themselves.

I am seeing a revival in the contact center industry as well and companies like Mitel and Inter-Tel are announcing new contact center initiatives. These companies weren't traditionally entrenched call center players, but they are increasingly getting into the space.

In addition, IMS is taking off.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: call center, ims, voip : Related Tags: contact center, companies, center, industry

Continuous Computing Problems

March 29, 2006

At the last Internet Telephony show I heard a bunch of complaining about Continuous Computing. Complaints about service levels, responsiveness, etc. In addition I overheard a conversation of an irate Continuous Computing partner.

I am sure every company has a customer or two that that feels this way about them from time to time. In my position I get to hear many customer complaints… Perhaps too many.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: continuous computing, voip : Related Tags: continuous computing, nearly engineers, computing, continuous, company

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A Competitive Telecom Proof

March 29, 2006

While it’s been decades since my last geometry class here is the first proof I have written since high school. After rereading this a few times it is obviously not a proof but still reminds me enough of one for me to post it. Hope you enjoy it.

1) Phone companies don’t support net neutrality
2) The argument goes, why should they have to subsidize competitors if they own the pipes?
3) The nature of the Internet will be changed worldwide as phone companies convince the US government that net neutrality is bad
4) They argue they cannot afford to build out their networks if companies like Google can ride for free and make money
5) Although they promise not to interfere with the Internet and imply they will only add a high-speed lane they charge for, most experts expect them to enforce their monopoly positions by extracting royalties from companies they compete with
6) Industry experts argue net neutrality is fair
6A) Phone companies are about making money for shareholders and not about being fair (which they are legally bound to do)
7) Recently phone companies have started to complain that cable companies will not run their ads
8) Cable companies argue that they shouldn’t run ads from their competitors
9) AT&T, filed a complaint yesterday with the FCC claiming that cable companies are trying to thwart competition.
10) The phone companies argue the cable companies aren’t fair
10A) #6A applies to cable companies as well
11) While broadband policy in the US centers around who has the best lobbyists and lawyers, other countries continue to surpass the US in broadband access because they have real broadband competition or because those countries have decided that real broadband access is a priority
12) Over 1.1 million French subscribers pay as low as €29.99 ($36) monthly for a "triple play" package called Free from Iliad that includes 81 TV channels, unlimited phone calls within France and to 14 countries, and high-speed Internet.
12A) For now France lags behind the US in broadband penetration
13) Iliad has created intense competition in France, and that has resulted in faster broadband speeds. Free offers download speeds of up to 24 megabits per second.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: google, net neutrality, triple play, voip : Related Tags: cable companies, phone companies, france telecom, verizon google, companies argue, companies

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Wireless Disruption

March 29, 2006

The following is a portion of my April 2006 Internet Telephony Magazine Publisher's Outlook:

I think this year will see serious wireless disruption. In my life, I have witnessed many a technology look to replace Ethernet only to find out that Ethernet was an evolving standard that kept changing with the times.

So, instead of replacing Ethernet, we just kept upgrading it. No matter what new technology came onto the scene, it never gained traction.

History repeats itself and, if you picture WiFi as the wireless equivalent of Ethernet, then you can figure the technology will keep evolving as well to fight off the replacement technologies.

In this case, I think WiMAX may be the technology that gets hurt by WiFi. Technology already exists to extend the reach of WiFi, but I anticipate this will be the year where we see a technology emerge that extends the range of WiFi in such ways that WiMAX loses its edge in many applications.

Posted in Wireless

Tagged: disruptive, ethernet, wifi, wimax : Related Tags: wireless disruption, technology, ethernet, wimax, range, wireless

Going on a Road Trip today

March 28, 2006

I am about to leave for most of the day for a one-day trip to see some exciting VoIP and related companies. I am not sure if I will be blogging as I will be in the car for much of the day. If I get a chance I will for sure. I am glad to see the weather picking up. It was about 45 degrees when I got to work today.

Here are some news items of interest I noticed and wanted top pass along:

BroadSoft Announces IMS-ready Media Resource Function Server
Amdocs Brings CRM to Kazakh KaR-Tel Contact Center
Nortel To Host Bharti Contact Center" href="http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/03/28/1509441.htm">Nortel To Host Bharti Contact Center
Centillium Marries Optical Tech, VoIP
BroadSoft Announces IMS-ready Media Resource Function Server

Posted in VoIP

The Problem with TV

March 28, 2006

The following is a portion of my April 2006 Internet Telephony Magazine Publisher's Outlook:

Most business magazines will tell you the phone companies will have a tough time unseating the cable companies when it comes to TV transmission. Here is why every one of those magazines and newspapers is wrong: HDTV selection stinks today. Apparently, I spent a fortune for a 60" HDTV so I could watch but a handful of channels on it.

Most of what I watch is not HDTV and I either can have a black square around what I view or choose to stretch the picture to fill the whole screen. Every actor gains 20 pounds if I use the latter approach, and I am sick and tired of paying more for a TV that, most of the time, makes my TV viewing experience worse.

The phone companies should supply 50 HD channels, or even more.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: hdtv, iptv, voip : Related Tags: phone companies, companies, channels, phone

VoIP Peering keeps Reappearing

March 27, 2006

Everywhere I look there is more VoIP peering news. Take a look at this New Telephony story on peering. Well it is a story about my peering panel last week at Comptel but it is a good story and news nonetheless

Furthermore I just learned that XConnect is doing amazingly well with their peering network. Almost 200 ITSPs are connected to their network and they've partnered with a consortium (mentioned in above article) that includes all the cable operators in the Netherlands, including Liberty Global's UPC Netherlands.

There will be a time soon where the service providers that aren’t peering in one or more peering communities will be the exception.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: peering, voip, xconnect : Related Tags: peering, story

VoIP: More Symbiotic than ever

March 27, 2006

Just over a year ago I got fed up with the term parasitic being used to describe VoIP vendors. Countless people I knew actually went out and got broadband connections so they could use Skype. I understood fully well that VoIP providers are not parasites as many called them but instead added a tremendous amount of value.

I was inspired to write VoIP: Not Parasitic.

I argued that broadband and VoIP providers are symbiotic meaning both services benefit from one another.

Today I read an article on Techdirt that was pointed out by Ted Wallingford. The argument goes, why is Verizon paying CBS to carry their stations via IPTV and thinking of charging companies like Vonage? For many people, Vonage was the reason they purchased broadband access in the first place.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: iptv, parasitic, symbiotic, techdirt, voip, wallingford : Related Tags: broadband, providers, vonage

On to VoIP Peering

March 27, 2006

The following is a portion of my April 2006 Internet Telephony Magazine Publisher's Outlook:

On to VoIP Peering
Everywhere I turn, people remind me that I declared 2006 the "Year of VoIP Peering." At least, it seems that everyone agrees. The numbers I am seeing coming out of the VPF, for example, are staggering. The total number of minutes carried each year seems to grow exponentially on their peering network.

In addition, there are rumors that AT&T will join the VPF. The announcement was not made formally, but my sources tell me there is a good chance it will happen.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: peering, voip, voip peering : Related Tags: peering forum, voice peering, peering

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Telecom Whitepapers

March 27, 2006

Xavier Van de Lanotte, President VXTConsulting, Inc. forwarded me some whitepapers he wrote some years back. I am passing them along because in some ways they are ahead of their time and they also show where Xavier thinks the telecom market is headed.

The first is titled Historical perspective on Telecom Industry Lessons Learned and the other, Challenges for the Telecommunication Services Company.

Posted in VoIP

Internet Telephony Magazine April 2006 Publisher's Outlook

March 26, 2006

The following is a portion of my April 2006 Internet Telephony Magazine Publisher's Outlook:

There is Enough Broadband Competition

I get the general sense that our government believes we already have enough broadband competition. I think that the FCC believes service providers should be allowed to charge anyone and everyone who uses their pipes whatever they need in order to pay for the maintenance and further build-out of their networks.

We have witnessed the slow dissolution of the CLEC market in the past years; we have seen the slow and steady decrease of ILECs; and we have just about reassembled the former AT&T.

Many taking this side of the argument will point out that cable and VoIP companies are generating sufficient competition along with wireless, broadband over power line, and satellite.

In the late nineties, we thought the market would be best served with thousands of CLECs serving customers. That was the environment the government set up. Now it seems that the FCC is happy with just a handful of strong competitors.

Many have seen me quoted in such newspapers as The New York Times as a proponent of net neutrality, but let's face it, the lobbyists with the Ferraris work for the phone companies.

In addition, it is fairly obvious that current FCC Chairman, Kevin Martin, has little or no interest in net neutrality.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: ajax, chairman, enhanced services, fcc, martin, net neutrality, voip : Related Tags: service providers, phone service, cheap phone, telephony magazine, enough broadband, government

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SSD

March 25, 2006

As I spend more and more time in hotel rooms I find my laptop often wakes me up at night due to the various applications that are set to run after hours. There is the disk defragmenter, the anti-spyware program, the virus scanner, etc. it is a wonder I get any sleep at all with all my computer is doing right next to my head in most hotel rooms.

Sure I can turn the computer off but then I am a day behind in my protection from hackers, viruses and worms.

Obviously I am looking forward to faster and quieter hard drives such as this one from Samsung based on SSD which stands for solid-state disk technology. The storage device features immediately accessible, static NAND flash memory rather than the rotating discs usually used in hard drives

What’s more, SSD weighs only half as much as a hard drive.

Posted in Technology

Tagged: hard disk, samsung, solid-state disk, ssd : Related Tags: hotel rooms, laptop, storage

Web Portals

March 25, 2006

With all the news available on the Internet I am not sure how we will be able to keep up without portal pages such as the ones mentioned in this post from Om Malik.

Posted in Technology

Call Center Mexico

March 24, 2006

I was reading yet another article today from David Sims, this one focusing on VoIP security. It is quite good and I also saw that it is running on TMCnet’s Call Center Mexico channel. I was not aware this channel even existed but am pretty excited to see TMCnet addressing the needs of the Mexican communications community.

Posted in CRM, SIP, Speech Technologies, VoIP

Tagged: call center, crm, mexico, voip security : Related Tags: center mexico, offshore group, mexico challenge, vangtel premier, mexico video, mexico

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EVDO revision A

March 24, 2006

EV-DO Revision A as a relatively new technology for wireless broadband access that will rock our worlds. For those of us who live on the road, we may not sacrifice our broadband connectivity at all. We’ll be able to do anything and everything with 3.1 Mbps downloads and 1.8 Mbps uploads. I am still not sure I’ll want to upload 100 8-megapixel photos over this connection but I am sure I won’t need to deal with WiFi hotspots ever again.

I have a rule that says if I am going to be in a location for more than an hour I will sign up for WiFi but if not I will use the current EVDO card that I have.

Posted in Broadband, IMS, SIP, VoIP, Wireless

Tagged: 595, ev-do, evdo, nortel, revision a, sierra wirless, sprint : Related Tags: wireless, technology, broadband, revision, operators, based

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Alcatel may Purchase Lucent

March 24, 2006

According to Greg Galitzine, Alcatel could pick Lucent up and in the process create an entity that has more sales than Cisco. If the two companies do merge, they will create an IMS and IPTV monster. In addition the wireless strength of such a company would be potentially unequaled.

Posted in Broadband, IMS, IPTV, SIP, VoIP, WiMAX, Wireless

Tagged: alcatel, ims, iptv, lucent, voip : Related Tags:

Ensim News

March 23, 2006

If you are a service provider you know time to market is key and anything you can do to shorten this is worth exploring. Now what if I told you there is a vendor who wants to speed your time to market and in addition wants to simplify the way you deliver hosted services?

Ensim aims to help you with some of your most challenging problems and then some. Their Unify application enables service providers to centrally create, control and deliver hosted IP and application services.

We live in a world where you need to deploy a number of disparate best of breed solutions to customers. At the same time you need to be cognizant of the fact that the competition may be offering similar services.

Posted in VoIP

China Blog News

March 23, 2006

There are 15 million blogs in China and the momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Blogging software developer Six Apart has reached a partnership with Chinese blog company Bokee to localize and distribute Movable Type, Six Apart's web publishing platform, to Chinese corporate users and educational institutions, beginning in the second quarter this year.

Posted in Technology

Tagged: blog, china, six apart : Related Tags:

VoIP Service Provider Directory

March 23, 2006

Now is the time to get listed in TMCnet’s VoIP Service Provider Directory. We expect this directory to be the most widely used resource of its type worldwide. It will allow users to search by location, area code and type of service such as residential/business. You will also be able to compare services from different providers.

The service will be rolled out very soon. Please forward this link to any service providers you know of so we can keep this directory up to date and as accurate as possible.

Posted in VoIP

Comments

Great White Monopoly

March 23, 2006

When you own the lines you can get away with murder. If this sort of activity isn’t an example of a monopoly at work, I am not sure what is.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: canada, monopoly, shaw, voip : Related Tags:

Asterisk Saves Your Marriage

March 23, 2006

I now know a few people who have installed Asterisk at home. When I first heard the idea I thought it was crazy but there are lots of interesting things you can do with the software. In one case a person who installed Asterisk configured the system to stop an affair between someone and his wife. What he did was make sure that calls to each person were directed to an extension on the PBX that never answers.

Very clever.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: asterisk, voip : Related Tags: installed asterisk, asterisk, person

Hunter Newby on Net Neutrality and VoIP Peering

March 22, 2006

You may know Hunter Newby from Telx as he writes a VoIP peering column for Internet Telephony Magazine. I often speak at events with Hunter and this past week I was speaking about voice peering at Comptel while Hunter was at another event on the same day addressing the same topic.

Hunter asked if there were any good questions from the audience and I told him that there was a question about how peering affects Net Neutrality.

Hunter's response was as follows and I thought it worthy of passing along:

The Darwinian solution to Net Neutrality is private Internets. Voice peering occurs in this context. So, it is already having an impact.

Hunter is right on.

If you want to see Hunter and I speak together in one place and get some sun while you are at it, be sure to be in Miami next week for the VoIP Peering Summit sponsored by the VPF.

I just finished speaking today in St.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: hunter newby, net neutrality, shrihari pandit, telx, voice peering, voip, voip peering : Related Tags: voice peering, hunter newby, hunter, peering, voice, neutrality

VoIP for SMB Community

March 21, 2006

Covad has just joined with TMC to build an online community for small to medium businesses. The community can be found at VoIP forSMB.com and it will be an objective resource for the SMB community devoted to news and education on communications and technology. In addition it will include a VoIP for SMB blog.

If you want to learn more, check out the video on the home page!

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: smb, voip : Related Tags: community

New Telephony on my VoIP Peering Panel

March 21, 2006

New Telephony does a great job describing my peering panel today in San Diego at Comptel. Here is an excerpt:

The panel will be moderated by Rich Tehrani, president of communications media company TMC and founder of Internet Telephony, SIP and IMS Magazines, and will include Jim Dalton, CEO of Transnexus; Don McNeil, vice president of carrier services operations at XO Communications; and Shrihari Pandit, founder of Stealth Networks Inc.'s The Voice Peering Fabric, a leading VoIP peering provider based in the United States.

Tehrani says 2006 will be the year of VoIP peering. He points to the announcement just a few weeks ago of a joint initiative of cable operators in The Netherlands – comprising UPC Netherlands, Casema, MultiKabel, Essent and CaiW – with more than 7 million subscribers and more than 450,000 VoIP subscribers. They awarded a VoIP peering contract to a partnership of XConnect, a provider of VoIP interconnection services based in the United Kingdom, and Kayote Networks, a provider of interconnectivity products for routing and peering.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: comptel, voice peering fabric, voip peering : Related Tags: based united, peering panel, peering, networks, provider, telephony

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin Speech

March 20, 2006

Today, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin spoke at the Comptel Spring 2006 show to a group of a few hundred competitive service providers. Comptel is not the first place you would imagine the Chairman would speak. In fact I thought I would see George W. Bush speaking on the benefits of Democracy and the perils of nuclear energy in Iran before I would see an FCC commissioner address Comptel.

In general Comptel is an organization that has embraced lobbying the government to increase telecom competition.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: comptel, fcc, martin, net neutrality : Related Tags: chairman martin, kevin martin, service providers, broadband networks, strong competitors, martin

Cramer Bullish on Mindspeed

March 20, 2006

Jim Cramer who used to be bearish on VoIP is now a massive bear based on tonight's Mad Money program where he went "madder" than usual discussing how fast VoIP will grow. Apparently this article in the Washington Post is what started this fire. He surmised that Mindspeed would benefit greatly from the rapid growth in the VoIP market.

On a side note, in a past show Jim mentioned Skype would be a reason to bet against ILECs.

Getting back to Mindspeed, there are so many public companies benefiting from VoIP from Avaya to Inter-Tel. I am surprised he picked Mindspeed and focused on them so heavily.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: jim cramr, mad money, mindspeed, voip : Related Tags: mindspeed

WiFi on Airlines

March 20, 2006

I am looking forward to more widespread adoption of broadband on domestic flights. Here is an article from itWorldCanada discussing the issue. I was quoted in the article and so was Greg Welch from GlobalTouch Telecom:

But many other players, not just big telcos, may also try to get a piece of the action, says Greg Welch, CEO of GlobalTouch Telecom Inc., a VoIP provider based in Los Angeles, Calif.

"This could be a telecom play only, but other providers of ancillary services may also be interested," he says. "Content providers like Google or Yahoo! may get involved, and even a company like Microsoft may want to get into this space and get control.

Posted in Broadband

Tagged: airline, airplane, broadband, voip, wifi : Related Tags: globaltouch telecom, tehrani points, business, tehrani, providers, telecom

Intrado E911 Enhanced

March 20, 2006

GPS technology is helpful in locating people in open areas but anyone who has tried to get a GPS system to work in a parking garage knows how difficult it can be have the system find the satellites that triangulate your exact location.

Fortunately Intrado is doing its part to help overcome this limitation and has found a way to make VoIP 911 in buildings more accurate than ever. They are working with a number of partners who have developed separate but ingenious ways of ensuring you can be found in-building in case of an emergency.

One partner, Rosum Corporation, utilizes triangulation of television signals to pinpoint location. Another, S5 Wireless Inc. has developed a special chip which works with remarkable accuracy inside buildings. The S5 chip costs under $1, is smaller than a pencil eraser, and has a battery life of about 3 years.

Posted in VoIP

Comments

Google vs. KinderStart.com

March 19, 2006

The overwhelming power that Google possesses is awe-inspiring. Your web traffic can be so tied to your Google ranking that a slight change in how you rank could ruin your business. Furthermore, when you are blacklisted by Google your site doesn't appear -- even if you search on your site's name!

Being blacklisted means you have done something wrong in the eyes of the search engine and is probably the worst fate a site can suffer.

In some cases the site's ranking can drop so they are near the last listing Google shows for a search term - result number 1,000. Recently BMW's German site was blacklisted on Google and this may be the highest profile site Google has decided to blacklist.

It is still a gray area that differentiates legitimate search engine optimization techniques from those that are not allowed.

Posted in Google

Tagged: blacklist, google, kinderstart, seo : Related Tags: search engine, blacklisted google, search engines, lawsuit google, being blacklisted, google

Comments

Friends of Skype

March 18, 2006

I just found my blog on Skype's blog listed under friend's of Skype. Very nice.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: skype, voip : Related Tags: friends skype, skype

Comments

iPod Neutrality

March 17, 2006

While we in the US are all busy talking about Net Neutrality and the pros and cons of each side of the argument, French government officials are beginning to implement music neutrality, which will force Apple to ensure its music service and players work with competing services and players.

They are doing this to prevent monopolistic practices by Apple. However in my opinion the iPod/iTunes combination is not a monopoly at all. There are competing music services and players. It is fairly easy in fact to develop a new music player or music downloading service.

One might be able to argue that the broadband situation in the US is much more monopolistic than iPod/iTunes combo.

The arguments in both cases are similar.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: france, ipod, net neutrality : Related Tags: broadband providers, services players, neutrality advocates, music, neutrality, services

Bill Gates On the $100 Laptop

March 17, 2006

Bill Gates is not enamored with the cheap computer that is part of the one laptop per child initiative. He would prefer it have a larger screen a hard disk and I would surmise use Windows instead of Linux.

Posted in VoIP

Comments

Application Blog

March 16, 2006

One of the trends I have been seeing in the market is increased communications integration into Microsoft applications such as Outlook and Internet Explorer. The goal being to allow communications to be initiated while you are in the applications you use most often. Broadsoft has such a toolbar and they have recently upgraded it allowing increased functionality. In addition Broadsoft customers who are generally service providers can allow their customers to customize the toolbar with things like intranet links or a corporate logo.

On a similar note -- I recently met up with Brian Ross from Pika Technologies and we were talking about Vonage and Brian explained that if Vonage had a toolbar that allowed call control from the desktop it would make the service that much better.

Posted in VoIP

Verizon XV6700

March 15, 2006

Until recently I carried a Blackberry 7750 and a bluetooth phone. I am a Verizon Wireless user and no other network has been as good in my past experience. Both my devices reside on this network. Perhaps the new Cingular has a better network but for now I am sticking with Verizon.

Recently my phone died and I went to the Verizon store looking for a new one.

Posted in VoIP, VoIP

Comments

More IMS Forum News

March 14, 2006

As you may know I speak at Comptel next week. Here is a release I received today about the event and the IMS forum. I thought it worth sharing:

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IMS FORUM EXECUTIVES TO SPEAK AT UPCOMING COMPTEL PLUS;
HOLD QUARTERLY MEETING OPEN TO ATTENDEES

Leading Industry Group to Exhibit at COMPTEL PLUS Booth 424, as well as
Provide Expertise, Insight on Emerging Industry Demand For Network Convergence, Bundled IP Services and Applications

Fremont, CA (March 14, 2006) – The IMS Forum, the industry association recognized as the Voice of IP Convergence, today announced that it is hosting a meeting open to all attendees in Room Annie B, at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, on Monday, March 20, 2006, from 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM, at the upcoming COMPTEL PLUS Conference & EXPO in San Diego. In addition to exhibiting at booth 424, the Forum announced that Chairman Michael Khalilian, Marketing Committee Chair Farshid Mohammadi (General Manager, UTStarcom), Marketing and Technical Advisor, Manuel Vexler (CTO, CopperCom), member Sara Hughes, (Director of Product Management of Tekelec), and member Matt Byrd (Director of Product Marketing, MetaSwitch) will be leading and participating in panel discussions at the conference as well.

The mission of the IMS Forum is to accelerate the adoption of IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) by providing an environment for discussion and resolution of real-world implementation issues, such as interoperability and standards-based architectures in the application layer.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: ims, peering, voip : Related Tags: director product, forum presenter, michael khalilian, services applications, industry association, forum

Skype Bluetooth Headset

March 14, 2006

I don’t believe this is the first Skype Bluetooth solution but this CSR announcement shows yet another company linking its success to the enormously successful p2p VoIP software company. The Skype ecosystem is growing rapidly and of course this phenomenon just strengthens Skype as a major VoIP standard.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: skype, voip : Related Tags: skype bluetooth, skype

Speaking in Atlanta

March 14, 2006

I am speaking in Atlanta today for Interactive Intelligence. I have totally reworked my presentation and it includes elements of Web 2.0 and using consumer VoIP software to your advantage in a contact center. The weather was pretty bad when I got here but cleared up shortly thereafter. I speak next week at Comptel (pdf) as well -- the topic there is VoIP peering where I moderate a panel.

I just started using Skype video and find it a great way to keep in touch with the family when on the road.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: comptel, peering, skype, voip : Related Tags: speaking atlanta

What is SIP Scared of?

March 13, 2006

SIP has competition. Should it be scared or go about its business? Security is another issue to be concerned with. Here is an article that briefly touches on SIP and what could possibly threaten the burgeoning session initiation protocol standard.

My take is the biggest competition to SIP is Skype. Niklas Zennstrom said at a past Internet Telephony Conference that here are more Skype endpoints than SIP endpoints. Can Skype single-handedly take on virtually all other vendors including Microsoft, Avaya and more recently Linksys? It will be interesting to watch.

Join the SIP Revolution: The SIP Community reads SIP Magazine. Be sure to pick up your complimentary subscription (print or digital).

Posted in SIP

Tagged: sip, skype, voip : Related Tags: skype

Small Business VoIP Community

March 13, 2006

Be sure to bookmark the following sites if you are interested Voice over IP in the SMB space. TMCnet and Covad have teamed up to bring you VoIPforSMB, an innovative news and analysis site designed to navigate the turbulent waters of small business VoIP.

In addition check out the SMB VoIP Blog which I will be contributing to.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: covad, smb, tmc, voip : Related Tags: business

Comments

Companies Worth Watching

March 13, 2006

Here is an overview of some companies I have recently met with:

Bluenote Networks continues to make noise. The company makes products that leverage p2p and SOA to enable companies to communicate more effectively. Soon they will open up an API allowing other developers to have access to their platform so they can augment it with new and exciting applications.

In addition they will focus on enabling voice communities from the most basic click to talk applications on your website to enabling a site like ESPN to host conferences made up of basketball fans.

So far Bluenote, Sphere and Avaya have been pushing SOA and communications integration and I think this concept has legs and will take off in 2007.

Spectralink is introducing DECT-based phones aimed and the SME market. DECT is a wireless phone standard that originated in Europe and is heading to America.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: bluenote, cisco, sipera, spectralink : Related Tags: security, company, companies, voice, happen, agents

SIP Magazine Publisher's Outlook, Issue 2

March 13, 2006

Here is my second Publisher's Outlook in issue number 2 of SIP Magazine. Hope you enjoy it. It doesn't have a title yet. Possible options are Avaya boards the SIP train, Avaya SIPs its way to the top of the market (too corny), A SIP enabled phone on every SMB desk, Avaya's SIP Strategy -- Beat em by Joining them (referring to Cisco phones -- if you have to explain it, it probably is a bad title.) Thankfully Greg Galitzine is better at writing titles than I.

Posted in SIP, VoIP

Tagged: avaya, cisco, sip, voip : Related Tags: outlook issue, avaya supports, nimcat networks, solutions company, cisco phones, avaya

Late Start Today

March 10, 2006

Had another one of those rough nights last night as my youngest daughter got sick which of course means no sleep. Thankfully she seemed OK this morning. So I got a late start and am having blogging withdrawal. Instead of focusing on my blog for the moment I have to work on my presentation for Aculab’ ACE event in May.

In addition I have to get my Publisher’s Outlook done for issue 2 of SIP Magazine. I will post the article when I am done. As of right now I expect Avaya to dominate this article with mentions of a few other notable companies as well.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: sip, voip : Related Tags:

Blackberry NTP Legal Analysis

March 9, 2006

The news of the day is whether the United Nations Security Council will impose sanctions on Iran. Sanctions are the ultimate weapon of pain (not including war of course) and are meant to bring a country to its knees in order to get them to do something. In Iran's case the UN Security Council wants the country to stop developing nuclear material that can be used in an atomic weapon.

This controversy got me thinking about how tough it is to get consensus in the UN to impose sanctions on a country. Moreover I started to wonder if a single patent suit can't bring a country to its knees imposing even more pain than sanctions.

Such was the case with the RIM Vs.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: blackberry, mofo, morrison & foerster, patent, rim : Related Tags: country knees, technology market, patent holders, morrison foerster, blackberry competitors, patent

China Grants VoIP License

March 9, 2006

Forbes reports that China may be getting on the VoIP bandwagon soon. Expect the company to develop a technological platform for VoIP by March 20 and release VoIP regulations around May.

One wonders if this is good or bad new for Skype. This news made me think of a past China Skype news post in fact.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: china, skype, voip : Related Tags: china

Payola

March 9, 2006

One of DC’s top radio hosts and overall great guy, David Burd explained how payola works to me a while back when I asked about why so many of the same songs are played continuously on the same station. He explained that recording labels used to pay the stations to keep playing the same music. In our discussion we also talked about how this practice is not happening so much anymore.

My conversation with the “Burdman” took place a number of years ago – back in the days when I had more time and regularly contributed as a technology reporter for the station.

I was reminded of this conversation when I saw this article about how Eliot Spitzer is going after radio stations for taking payola in return for playing songs from artists such as Liz Phair.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: payola : Related Tags: payola

Heading Back From Orlando

March 8, 2006

I am heading back from Voicecon today. I had a great show and met with a number of companies that I look forward to writing up over the next few days. A few companies that had products worth highlighting are Verizon, Avaya, Litescape and Citrix. There are others as well but these were a few that come to mind.

I have to work on the Publisher's Outlook for SIP Magazine today and am thinking I may write about Avaya's numerous announcements in the SIP space with a sidebar on the other companies launching new and worthy products.

There seems to be some "weather" coming to Orlando today so I may have more time in the airport than I expect.

Posted in VoIP

Comments

Unified Communications

March 7, 2006

Cisco's John Chambers reported at a keynote speech at VoiceCon that Cisco has increased production 10% a year and are cutting travel by 27% in 2006 due to Unified Communications.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: communications, unified, unified communications : Related Tags: unified communications

Quoted in the New York Times

March 7, 2006

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic as a number of reporters have been asking me about VoIP and net neutrality in order to get my opinions on the matters. I have lost track of all the different reporters and am trying to get a better handle on who writes what and when in fact.

I was very excited to see that my comments were used in an excellent article by Ken Belson from the New York Times titled The High-Speed Money Line. The premise of the article is that it is unclear what consumers and content providers would have to pay ISPs if net neutrality is not enforced.

Here are my quotes

"There's no limit to what they could charge for this high-speed lane and they could make the slow-speed lane as slow as they want," said Rich Tehrani, president of Technology Marketing Corporation, a media company that promotes Internet phone service. "There's no way to know today what the prices might be, but it could be anything, and that's the fear."

Mr.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: google, net neutrality, skype, voip, vonage : Related Tags: internet phone, speed, internet, times

Multisite Call Center Webinar

March 6, 2006

I wanted to invite the readers of my blog to join in learning about Multisite Call Center Strategies to Reduce Costs and Increase Productivity. Here is an e-mail explains the webinar in more detail.

---------

Dear Colleague,

As an industry professional, we wanted to let you know that a Complimentary Webinar will be occurring on Tomorrow, March 7th at 11:00am PT. Please feel free to register for the event by the link given below.

"Multisite Call Center Strategies To Reduce Costs and Increase Productivity"

Date: March 7th
Time: 11:00am PT (2:00pm EST)
Register here: Register here: http://www.tmcnet.com/Webinar/telephonyatwork/

Today's enterprise customer service strategy can include multiple in-house agent sites, multiple outsourced call centers and a geographically-dispersed staff of home-based remote agents. Traditional IT and telecom infrastructures, however, were never designed to support this distributed strategy. Newer, "multi-tenant" contact center technology solutions can dramatically reduce acquisition and management costs by enabling all sites and agents to share common unified infrastructure, without sacrificing data privacy, network security or local control.

Posted in Broadband, CRM, SIP, VoIP

Tagged: call center, voip : Related Tags: register register, tmcnet webinar, contact center, customer service, network security, register

DiamondWare

March 6, 2006

The future of VoIP is in how it will enable and integrate with future applications. That is where the excitement is for me. After covering the space for ten years I am happy to see that new applications are beginning to emerge that are enabled by VoIP. It will be interesting to watch the market and see which applications will gain critical mass.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: diamondware, itexpo, stereo, voice communitis, voip : Related Tags: message delivered, diamondware, conversations, applications, stereo, conference

AT&T BellSouth Merger

March 5, 2006

The merger between telecom giants, AT&T and Bellsouth was expected and was mentioned in an Executive Suite interview I had many months ago with Aaron Cowell the CEO of US LEC.

With this merger it seems that the old Ma Bell is set to make a glorious comeback. For many years this nation thought the reason that Ma Bell was broken up was because it was a monopoly and was stifling competition.

It seems recently that politicians have deemed the last few decades of competitive telecom to be a failure and the progress made by allowing different LECs to compete with the likes of companies like AT&T and MCI was apparently a bad idea.

So brick by brick, the old AT&T is being put back together.

It was always obvious that an independent AT&T prior to the SBC merger was a huge thorn in the sides of the ILECs. LECS know how to lobby and so did AT&T. This ensured the incumbents played on an even playing field with AT&T.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: at&t, bellsouth, net neutrality : Related Tags: cable companies, cingular wireless, faster access, merger happen, phone service, internet

Comments

IP Multimedia Subsystem

March 4, 2006

IPcommunications.com spoke to Walt Brown, a network systems architect for Intel's Communication Infrastructure Group, to find out exactly why IMS contains the magic bullets that will help bridge circuit- and packet-switched communications as networks evolve to the next generation of functionality. Brown also works on the Telecoms & Internet converged Services & Protocols for Advanced Networks (TISPAN) group, a standardization body of European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). TISPAN incorporates elements of 3GPP IMS in its next-generation network architecture. The organization focuses on fixed networks and convergence with the goal of promoting a subsystem-oriented architecture in which network resources, applications and user equipment are standards based and common to all subsystems.

The resulting article is an excellent primer on IMS, why IMS is needed and where it fits from a social and technical perspective.

"One of the big problems is that there are two sets of history coming at the marketplace," said Brown.

Posted in IMS, SIP, VoIP

Tagged: 3gpp, ims, ip multimedia, sip, tispan, voip : Related Tags: packet switched, multimedia subsystem, circuit packet, brown, standards, tispan

Comments

Why Blackberry Settled

March 4, 2006

There are a few reasons why RIM settled with NTP and paid more than $600 million. RIM lost focus as a result of this lawsuit and the competitors are circling while smelling blood. RIM's devices need to rapidly improve or they will be left in the dust by the likes of Palm, Motorola and others.

Perhaps the biggest reason is that they see customer sales plunging as the negative press has customers looking under rocks for any other option.

As Russell Shaw points out the stock price gains alone by settling are worth the amount they paid to NTP.

In the end this whole fiasco was a major blunder on the part of RIM. This case should have been settled a long time ago and by now RIM should have been launching new and innovative products at a rate similar to Apple.

What they need to do now is come out with so many different devices that whatever your need, you'll find the right Blackberry for you.

Russell really went all out with his analysis of RIM's thinking.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: blackberry, ntp, patent, rim, settle, uspto : Related Tags: stock price, jeans homepage, fewer subscribers, million dollars, million, blackberry

Comments

Is 'Net Neutrality' Enforceable?

March 4, 2006

TMCnet’s Patrick Barnard sent me a blog entry as this doesn’t pass as an article in its current form. Pat doesn’t have a blog at the moment so I figured I would post it for him. There are some thought-provoking ideas here and I hope this post stimulates a debate on the issues below.

What really makes this post valuable is that many CLECs accused the LECs of underhanded behavior that caused them to fail. What the LECs were accused of doing often times were not easy to prove.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: fcc, internet nondiscrimination act, net neutrality, voip, wyden : Related Tags: network operators, “net neutrality”, packet prioritization, network operator, “net neutrality, network

CallVantage Service Update

March 4, 2006

CallVantage is going through what seems to be an unusual sort of maintenance where the 911 database cannot be updated if you move during the next few weeks. I surmise this has to do with integrating CallVantage with SBC systems.

I wonder if there are FCC implications here. What happens if someone doesn’t pay attention to these messages? Is it their fault or the fault of AT&T?

Here is the actual message that was sent to customers:

----------

This is a very important notice for AT&T CallVantage service customers. We are conducting important system maintenance from March 3 , 2006 for a few weeks.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: 911, callvantage, fcc, voip : Related Tags: callvantage service, service location, telephone adapter, adapter another, responder assigned, service

Fusion Telecommunications

March 3, 2006

It is worth checking out Tom’s analysis of Fusion telecommunication’s “intriguing” p2p solution.

"This technology will give Fusion the opportunity to expand its existing suite of paid service offerings and participate in the growing peer-to-peer telephony market through its efonica brand, including the free call segment now dominated by Skype," said Matthew Rosen, President and Chief Operating Officer of Fusion.

Fusion claims that the technology took more than five years to develop incorporating a "unique approach that builds upon globally accepted VoIP standards and seamlessly integrates with Fusion's carrier-class network and back-office infrastructure". According to Tom, the release was inexplicably vague as to what exactly they have done from a technical perspective, but the P2P SIP certainly caught Tom’s eye.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: p2p, sip, voip : Related Tags: fusion

Internet Nondiscrimination Act

March 3, 2006

By now you may have heard of Senator Wyden’s “Internet Nondiscrimination Act of 2006.” Under the proposed bill, network operators would be prohibited from charging companies for faster delivery of their content to consumers over the Internet or favoring certain content over others.

“Creating a two-tiered system could have a chilling effect on small mom and pop businesses that can’t afford the priority lane, leaving these smaller businesses no hope of competing against the Wal-Marts of the world,” Wyden said in a prepared statement today. “Neutrality in technology enables small businesses to thrive on the Internet, and allows folks to start small and dream big, and that’s what I want to protect with this legislation.”

Senator Wyden should be commended for introducing this bill and bringing the issue to the public spotlight. From my perch, it is obvious that if the government doesn’t get involved, the future of the Internet will be very different from its past.

VoIP has changed the way the world communicates and has been the biggest thorn in the side of incumbent providers. Imagine an Internet where VoIP providers would have to pay extra to give you service.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: internet, isp, net neutrality, wyden : Related Tags: imagine internet, changed world, internet, companies, quality, businesses

VoIP Peering Keynote in Miami

March 2, 2006

Join me in Miami for my keynote at the Voice Peering Forum. I declared 2006 as the year of VoIP peering and I think I was spot on. Come to this forum and find out where the world of VoIP peering is today and where we are going in the future.

Here are the details:

Voice Peering ForumTM
Spring 2006
March 30 & 31 (Thursday & Friday), Miami, FL, USA

Register Now via vProfile (see Attendee Qualifications)

The Forum

Stealth Communications is pleased to announce the Voice Peering Forum Spring 2006, with our local host Progress Telecom. The forum will be held on Thursday and Friday, March 30-31, 2006 at Wyndham Miami Beach Resort, in Miami, Florida.

With the success of the Voice Peering Forum Fall 2005, VPF continues to bring together industry experts who are c-level executives and business directors to share their insights on the latest business and technology implementations while keeping you up-to-date on current issues and treads.

Come and learn how VPF Members and Partners reduce their operating costs, simplify their network and increase revenues through:

Voice Peering Implementations
Bi-Lateral Peering (Least-Cost-Routing) and Multi-Lateral Peering (ENUM)
Transitioning to IP based trunking for voice origination, voice termination and SS7
Voice Peering Technologies and Techniques
Strategy, Design and Best Practices for VoIP Security & QoS

The Voice Peering Forum Spring 2006 will also feature:
One-on-One Meetings and General Networking with 350+ attendees
Tutorials and crash courses on VoIP gateways, session controllers and testing equipment
Guide to key Carrier Hotels and Ethernet Providers of North America

Join us at the Voice Peering Forum Spring 2006!

Preliminary Agenda

Thursday, March 30, 2006

08:00 am - 09:00 am

Registration, Networking & Continental Breakfast

09:00 am - 09:30 am

Keynote Address
Keynote Speaker:
Gary Kim, Editor-in-Chief, VoIP Business News

09:30 am - 10:15 am

Welcome and Introduction
Presentation by:
Shrihari Pandit, President & CEO, Stealth Communications

10:15 am - 10:30 am

Coffee Break

10:30 am - 11:30 am

Voice Peering implementations by VPF Members
Moderator:
Gary Kim, Editor-in-Chief, VoIP Business News
Panelists:
Dave Ioime, Senior Product Manager, AT&T Wholesale
Alan R.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: peering, stealth communications, voice, voip, vpf : Related Tags: voice peering, peering forum, speaker tbapanelists, please contact, beach resort, peering

ATA Technology Forum

March 2, 2006

I will be speaking at the American Teleservices Association 2nd annual Technology Forum on April 25, 2006. I will be covering the future technologies needed in your call center. I hope to see you there. Here are the details:

2nd ANNUAL
TECHNOLOGY FORUM
TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2006

This event is a full-day of learning and networking, including lunch and cocktail reception. We are excited to again be holding this forum at one of the area's premier conference centers:

THE DORAL ARROWWOOD
CONFERENCE CENTER

RYE BROOK, WEST CHESTER COUNTY, NEW YORK

Posted in CRM, SIP, Speech Technologies, VoIP

Tagged: call center, crm, voip : Related Tags: technology forum, forum

Online Gaming Eats Bandwidth

March 2, 2006

Patrick Barnard has some thought provoking analysis in his online gaming article on TMCnet. The point he makes is that online gaming is going to eat up a great deal of bandwidth and as time goes on, gaming will compete with IPTV and VoIP as another bandwidth-hungry application clogging the Internet.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: bandwidth, broadband, gaming, voip : Related Tags: online gaming, gaming, online, bandwidth

Comments

1&1 Free .info Domains

March 2, 2006

According to some studies, nearly 70% of the companies that own top .com domains such as MTV, BMW, Gap and Coca-Cola-maintain .info addresses.

Web hosting company 1&1 sees this as an immense opportunity and is now providing free .info domains for the first year after registration.

This is one of the smartest marketing moves I have seen in the domain name game. There aren’t too many new ideas out there in this business. Certainly this is a great one.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: .info, 1&1, domain names : Related Tags: still offering, offering domains, domains, offering, still

Comments

Viper Networks

March 2, 2006

There are many newcomers to the VoIP market. Indeed every day there are new companies entering the space and claiming to be leaders at this or pioneers at that. Viper Networks is one of the companies that has been in the business for a long time, is publicly traded and is headed by Ron Weaver the dynamic VoIP pioneer that believed in VoIP way before it was fashionable.

Recently Ron became Chairman of the Board and Farid Shouekani was named as the new CEO. I never met Farid and decided that I wanted to get his take on the future of VoIP.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: farid shouekani, ron weaver, viper networks, voip : Related Tags: viper networks, market, international, companies, devices, growth

Net Neutrality News

March 2, 2006

TMCnet has a new page dedicated to net neutrality news. Feel free to bookmark it if you want to keep up with the latest developments in the space. I get the feeling we will be discussing this concept for a while. Furthermore, if broadband providers are successful at charging consumers and content providers for tiered Internet service, the debate will become a global one.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: fcc, lecs, network neutrality : Related Tags:

Net Neutrality Thoughts

March 2, 2006

The Wall Street Journal has a great article on net neutrality and in it there are quotes from people against net neutrality from companies such as Vonage and Cisco. On the opposing side of course are LECs. Here is an excerpt:

"Any model that allows the consumer to have more control and more choice makes sense to us," says BellSouth Chief Technology Officer William Smith, who is contemplating the new models but has no immediate plans to implement them.

Mr. Smith often laments the fact that his parents, who use the Internet for only low-capacity activities such as Web surfing and email, pay fees similar to those of heavy users who suck up capacity by downloading music or using BitTorrent, which is used by millions to download movies and other material off the Internet.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: bellsouth, lec, net neutrality, voip, wsj : Related Tags: premium bandwidth, broadband providers, network access, called premium, broadband access, bandwidth

Comments

VoIP VP of Marketing Looking to Switch

March 1, 2006

If you are looking for an experienced VP of Sales & Marketing with years of enterprise VoIP equipment experience in public companies both small and medium, drop me a line. The person I am speaking of is looking for VoIP, security and/or Wireless IP companies in either California, Colorado or the state of Washington.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: marketing, voip : Related Tags: looking

Dinosaurs and VoIP

March 1, 2006

I am a self-proclaimed dinosaur nut and when I saw an article from Greg Galitzine equating dinosaurs with VoIP I just had to read it. There are serious parallels between evolutionary pressures and VoIP and you can equate frequent droughts on the earth with droughts in the financial markets. If a species (company or set of companies) can make it through a drought they will be much stronger at the end of the drought and flourish.

The reason is that competition is diminished and their population is strong while newer species competing for the same resources (customers) are weak.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: dinosaurs, voip : Related Tags:

Comments

Net Neutrality Article

March 1, 2006

If you are trying to get a handle on the impending net neutrality debate in Congress, read this article from Patrick Barnard that does the issue tremendous justice.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: congress, net neutrality : Related Tags:

Vonage Crosses 1.5 Million Line Mark

March 1, 2006

You have got to give the company immense amounts of credit for this accomplishment. Nice going Vonage. At this rate the company seems like it will have a better IPO than previously thought. Their churn rate is lower than expected and their growth rate is extremely impressive.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: churn, ipo, voip, vonage : Related Tags:

Ether

March 1, 2006

Tom Keating reports that a new company called Ether has found a way for bloggers and other people with something valuable to say to charge for their services. For example, accountants and lawyers. Ether will take 15% for providing this service, meaning the Internet will be a savior for knowledgeable people looking to make some extra money.

What is interesting to me is that after years of seeing call center agents being moved from fixed call centers to home agents, the trend has truly been democratized. I am aware of a call center that hires nurses to answer questions about the parent company’s medical products.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: ether, voip : Related Tags: ether

News From the Blogs

March 1, 2006

Andy Abramson alerted me to a controversy between AMD and Intel that centers around conferencing in Skype. It seems that AMD feels Intel has coerced Skype into adding functionality on Intel but not AMD chips. If this is true, it is a pretty smart move by Intel. Of course I am not sure of the antitrust implications as I suppose AMD would have to prove that they couldn’t get Skype to make a similar deal with them.

Posted in VoIP

Tagged: consumer electronics, gadgets, voip : Related Tags: intel, skype, apple

Comments

Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

March 2006