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IPX: Big Peering Potential

Sure, you have heard me wax poetic about VoIP peering and you may even remember that 2006 was the year of voice peering according to Yours Truly. What you may not know however is that the voice peering federations and organizations to date could potentially be dwarfed by the IP eXchange or IPX.

This new peering federation is being put together by the world's wireless carriers. As you can imagine, these behemoths generate a good deal of minutes and this news could be great for the peering market as a whole.

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I'm Talking in the Rain

Quite often people are in places like a bar room brawl, a rain storm or even a war zone and they wish they could take crucial phone calls. After all, it could be an important caller letting you know for example that your Blackberry service is down.

Until now, when you were in such situations, you were out of luck... You had to let the call go into voicemail and catch it a bit later.

Thankfully, Plantronics has helped us solve this problem with the introduction of the Explorer 370, a headset that is designed to meet US military standards.

The Explorer 370 is certified to MIL-STD 810 standards issued by the United States Army's Developmental Test Command to prove that equipment qualified to the standard will survive in the field.

So what's my take? This is a great move for Plantronics as there are some heavy headset users who break these devices and as the 370 is water resistant, you can now comfortably talk in the rain. This is great news for people who want to be in touch at all times and they happen to spend a good deal of time outdoors.


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Android Happenings

There are lots of great things happening in the world of Android over at Mobile World Congress. PC World has a good article on the topic and in it they discuss which processors are Android-compatible and why some exhibitors at the show are surprised that Google's new mobile operating system is so popular.

Perhaps most interesting is how secretive some vendors are being with their Android-based solutions. Marvell was pointed out as one of the companies not allowing photos. According to the piece, TI was one of the companies which has Android running on more than one of its processors.

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Rim Outage Again

Not since April of 2007 have we seen a Blackberry outage this major. Over ten million Blackberry customers are out in the Americas at the moment and this is regardless of service provider. RIM is having consistent problems with this device. By consistent I mean when your network outages are annual or more often, there are obvious systemic problems that need to be resolved.

Having said that... The e-mail and spam of some of the most important people in the world go through a single company's network... There are likely few other companies who have to deal with what RIM does and hopefully they will get these problems solved quickly.

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Intellectual Property, The Other Defition of IP

It's funny... I have been writing about the enhanced services made possible via IP communications for over a decade. To some degree, these services are here and while I think there is a great deal of room to go in this area, it seems that companies find it easier to use patent litigation as their preferred enhanced services revenue generator.

Basically using the other definition of IP, intellectual property.

Case in point is Verizon who is suing cable companies now. First there was Cox and now Charter. Fresh off a positive interaction with Vonage, this makes logical sense. One wonders however if anyone wants to get into a patent war with a cable company. They have deep pockets and lots of their own patents to countersue with.

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Tandberg Video works with Microsoft OCS

Microsoft unified communications gets video interoperability with Tandberg products.

Specifically, TANDBERG MXP endpoints can now register and authenticate directly with Office Communications Server 2007 allowing them to appear as contacts in an Office Communicator 2007 user's contact list. By clicking a name in their contact list, users of Office Communicator 2007 can now visually connect with any TANDBERG MXP device registered directly with Office Communications Server 2007.

In order to make this happen, your products need a software upgrade. Once upgraded, users can also take advantage of the single user identity inherent in Microsoft Office Communications Server. For example, an individual can be reached automatically at their high-definition (HD) desktop videoconferencing system when in the office and on their Office Communications Server 2007-enabled webcam while traveling.

Additionally, the TANDBERG Codian MCU 4500 Series extends TANDBERG's interoperability model with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 by allowing conferences from the TANDBERG MCU to appear as contacts. This enables users of Office Communicator 2007 to conference with any other standards-based video systems. HD video users on a multipoint conference continue to receive HD quality.

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Communications Being Purchased Incorrectly

In the world of communications a sad fact is that in the past few years, technology has evolved to the point where communications is being more integrated into business processes than ever.  Regardless of industry,  communications has evolved to the point where it makes companies productive and efficient while simultaneously lowering costs.

What makes this sad is that companies are still looking at communications purchases as plain vanilla telephone replacements. In other words, they say... My phone system is about to die, let me get a new one.

What they don't say is, I can boost my productivity by an order of magnitude... I can increase sales, reduce customer turnover and make it easier for my employees to be in touch with coworkers and customers at all times.

Sadly, as much as the media focuses on the power of communications and regardless of buzzwords like CEBP or communications enabled business processes, the people who make purchasing decisions still don't seem to get it.

Perhaps the problem is that the tech people are still making the decisions. MIS directors and others with similar titles aren't necessarily part of the businesses of the companies they work in.

As time goes on, more business people need to get involved in driving adoption of telecom products and services. It seems that like many other technologies, there will be some companies that understand how they can differentiate themselves and others who will continue doing business the same old way.

Instat just put out a press release that more or less confirms what I already knew. Here is an excerpt of that release:

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Majority Use IP Comm to Transform Business Processes

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Feb. 11, 2008 ? Approximately 54% of US companies that have adopted IP communications have integrated it into their operations in a way that has changed business procedures and processes, reports In-Stat. However, adoption is still driven by traditional buying decision triggers, such as equipment end-of-life, lack of capacity, business partnerships, and internal IT initiatives, the high-tech market research firm says.

"Contrary to popular belief, current deployment of UC applications, such as collaboration and unified messaging, are spread uniformly across businesses of all sizes," says Keith Nissen, In-Stat analyst.

"Unified communication applications are not just for large enterprises."

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• Less than 33% of businesses using IP communications currently use UC collaboration and unified messaging applications.
• At least for 2008, the majority of IP communication and UC sales opportunities remain in the large enterprise business segment.
• The lack of wide-scale IP end-point deployment will impede UC adoption.

The research, "UC: From A Technology Adoption Perspective"

(#IN0803984WWI), covers the market for unified communications. It provides a brief analysis of the business IP communication and unified communication adoption process. The document presents findings from an In-Stat survey of over 1,000 US businesses in a wide variety of vertical industries. It debunks the commonly-held belief that UC applications can be marketed as add-ons to existing IP communication installations. It also sheds light on the factors triggering IT buying decisions.

For more information on this research or to purchase it online, please visit this page.

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Starbucks Goes AT&T

Great news for caffeineoholics who need internet access and want it for free. Through an agreement between Starbucks, AT&T and T-Mobile the three companies have come up with a way for AT&T to provide internet access at Starbucks locations. In addition, T-Mobile hot spot customers get to use the Starbucks stores as they do now.

Finally, Starbucks Purchase Card customers get two free hours of internet usage each day. Want more? For another $3.99 you get two more hours of access. Want even more? For $19.99 per month you can get a whole month's worth of access and in addition, access to 70,000 hot spots throughout the world.

If you are a current AT&T broadband customer, you will get access to unlimited internet access at Starbucks locations.

The way I see it, this deal is a win for everyone as Starbucks gets more customers to come into the store, T-Mobile still gets access to Starbucks locations so their network doesn't shrink in size and AT&T gets the advertising value of being in Starbucks around the nation. In addition, it gets some monthly wireless subscribers and finally they get yet another reason for people to keep their broadband access with AT&T.

See Also:

• Starbucks to Offer Free Wi-Fi With AT&T
• More Than 12 Million AT&T, Starbucks Customers to Get Free Wi-Fi Access for a Rich In-Store Experience
• Starbucks to Expand Technology Relationship with AT&T  Starbucks ditches T-Mobile, will offer free, paid Wi-Fi with AT&T

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Digium Guarantee Program

Good news for the open source market as Digium now offers a slew of new warranty related announcements meaning that purchasers of Digium software and hardware will get better warranties and and a money-back guarantee if a product does perform as advertised.

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