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We are thrilled to announce a slew of top notch keynoters for the upcoming ITEXPO which takes place in Miami, FL Jan 20-22, 2010. I will share them with you by first explaining why they were invited:

A keynote picture from ITEXPO East 2009 in Miami

Open Source

One of the biggest trends in tech this last decade has been open source and while you may not know this, I was a UNIX (the Linux precursor) system admin at TMC back in 1982 or so and I am a big fan of this OS which is reliable, stable and the strong basis for cost-effective solutions in a number of fields. Without a doubt, Asterisk is the major force in the open-source communications space and as such, Digium's CEO Danny Windham (the company behind Asterisk) was the perfect choice to address the audience of businesses, carriers and resellers. By the way, Digium Asterisk World (DAW) is collocated at this show and I hear it just sold out of exhibit spaces and my team is looking for ways to get the waiting list
of companies into an expanded DAW pavilion on the exhibit hall floor.

Digium Asterisk World Photos from ITEXPO East 2009 this year

Google Voice vs. AT&T

Google Voice has been one of the most disruptive influences in telecom these past years and this service has single-handedly become a point of public argument between the search leader and Apple and AT&T - with the FCC acting as referee of sorts. The argument revolves around net neutrality - the concept that carriers will apply discrimination to traffic on their networks based upon traffic, application type or source. Google obviously wants their services to run on any network in an unencumbered fashion while AT&T has said since 1995 when they were SBC that they want to charge for their pipes. AT&T actually then pointed out to the FCC that Google Voice does not terminate all calls on its free Google Voice service meaning it is not adhering to the principles of net neutrality. The reason of course as Google points out is traffic pumping and bizarre intercarrier compensation rules which allow some rural carriers to charge exorbitant rates for calls terminating in their areas. Craig Walker founded Grand Central, the company purchased by Google and the basis for Google Voice and as the Group Product Manager for the Real Time Communications Group at Google, he was a natural person to invite to speak with us at the show. It seems his accomplishments have unleashed a firestorm of controversy which should hopefully clean up some of the ugly mess that is telecom policy and regulation.

Exhibit hall pictures from ITEXPO East 2009 in Miami

HD Voice/SIP and Video

Another major trend in our markets is that of HD voice, video adoption and of course SIP endpoints. AT ITEXPO last year, we had the first panel in the world focusing on HD voice (video) and since then I am excited to see other conference organizers throwing their hat in the HD ring. A major player in all of the above spaces is Polycom and they have done an amazing job of working with disparate vendors on interoperability issues which has moved the market forward by reducing the friction caused by proprietary endpoints. In the world of video, the company has been a major player - developing telepresence systems all the way down to video phones. To get a bead on where this market is heading we invited Polycom Co-Founder, and the CTO of the Voice Communications Group Jeff Rodman to join us as a keynoter.

HD Voice Panel I moderated from ITEXPO East 2009 in Miami

Skype

No matter how you break out the IP communications market, Skype is likely a factor in changing the market in a pro-consumer manner. By giving away global voice calling with quality which far exceeds the PSTN, they have disrupted while getting users used to better voice quality. On top of that, they give away video calling as well, making them a company which excites consumers and scares carriers and anyone else who dares compete with their network of hundreds of millions of subscribers.

Interview I had with Skype's Ian Robin

Skype has been making a major push into the enterprise and is working on enhancing relationships with carriers as well. They are even looking for channel partners who can share in the newly created revenue streams from a number of products like Skye for SIP. When you take all of this into account, it does make great sense to invite Skype Chief Strategy Officer Christopher Dean to speak, doesn't it?

Smartphones, Wireless and Smart Ecosystems

One of the biggest trends in the world of communications is smart devices and ecosystems. What is an ecosystem you ask? Well it is a group of companies who develop products which work with a product or service offered by a host company or companies. The iTunes App Store may be the best example but certainly Avaya's DevConnect or Cisco's Partner Programs are good examples as well. You may know that TMC has focused a tremendous amount of resources on educating the world on smart ecosystems via our new SPEC site. I truly believe ecosystems have a bright future.

In order to bring attendees up to speed on all these topics we invited two top keynoters to present on the matter. Sprint's Mathew Oommen is the vice president of device and technology development at the company and uniquely positioned to share with us his company's view on the future of wireless technology. Oh and by the way, be sure to check out my recent interview with Sprint's Wayne Ward who heads up the company's M2M activities (did I mention there is a collocated M2M conference at ITEXPO?).

To get a handle on wireless devices as they pertain to ecosystems we invited Brian Higgins the Executive Director for Ecosystem Development within Verizon Wireless to join us so we can learn where the company thinks the market is headed. Verizon has been very ambitious in its goal to develop an ecosystem of products and applications which interoperate in the hope of one-upping the iTunes App Store.

We continue to work to add fantastic new speakers to our roster and you can expect this ITEXPO to be the most comprehensive and educational ever and a must-attend. I personally hope to see you there.

Oh and by the way, we have secured great rates this year at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel - you can save $150/night if you book now - the rate is $249 vs. what is typically a $399 rate at prime season. There are many advantages to staying at the show hotel such as networking, etc - and I have always been a fan of the Loews. In fact I was a guest the first day the hotel opened about ten years ago or so.

I just came across an article by Glenn Hall on the TheStreet.com which details outrage at the fact that Verizon charges $350 for their early termination fee - essentially this fee just doubled. His point is that as devices get more and more powerful and device envy increases, we should encourage upgrades. And his point makes good sense.

The challenge for Verizon Wireless is the incredible amount of money they have spent on their network. Having just come back from a trip to Huntsville, Al I can tell you that once again, Verizon proves it has the fastest network and the network which is the most reliable in more places.

I know because I carry a Verizon MiFi device as well as have another Verizon radio embedded into my laptop and I also carry an iPhone. AT&T has a poor network. It is getting better but it is poor and 3G just doesn't exist in many places I travel to. Not so with EVDO from Verizon, it is almost everywhere I go and is almost always blazing fast. Many times it is faster than a local WiFi hotspot which charges $10-$12 per day!

At the end of the day, consumers who want the best network have to pay for it. You can't get something for nothing. The fact that we are able to go into a Verizon store and purchase a $650 phone for $199 and then expect to upgrade it for free a short while later is nuts. Verizon spends billions on its network and I for one want them to continue spending because the productivity of the nation and my company increases in lockstep.

By the way, this leads me to an interesting point you may be interested in, for wireless broadband use, TMC has standardized on Verizon but for devices, we have standardized on the iPhone. One of the things I hear most often when I travel to telecom and tech events is, "If the iPhone was offered on Verizon Wireless, I would get one." The reason of course is the network. Unless you happen to only go to the relatively few places where AT&T has a strong 3G network, you likely would benefit from this great network and again, you can't get something for nothing. One last point -- if you are a Verizon Wireless customer, you want them to continue improving the best network in the US.

Today I am headed to Huntsville, AL where I will be giving a presentation on the state of the industry to Adtran customers and I am really excited to be meeting with a number of carrier representatives and resellers at the event. Typically to get from New York to Huntsville I drive from Nashville, TN which a direct flight from New York but a 131+ miles away. Today I am connecting via Detroit directly to Huntsville - I am a bit surprised that there is such a direct flight when there isn't one from NY to Huntsville but then again I know there are auto plants in Tennessee which could explain why there are flights from Detroit.

Anyway, I was reminded of the importance of face to face communications as I saw this video interview of Scott Kargman by Suzanne Bowen. Suzanne works for DIDX, a company supplying DIDs to carriers worldwide. Scott runs Crossfire Media, a TMC partner in our M2M, 4G and Smart Products initiatives or SPEC. Check out the interview which took place at Supercomm 2009 in Chicago.

At Supercomm 2009 in Chicago I had a chance to speak with MRV Communications a leader in the carrier Ethernet market boasting among other things, access solutions for 10/100 GE, 10GE, SyncE, 1588, SHDSL and fiber which share a common OS and management interface. The 20-year old company was an early innovator in the field of lasers and now employs more than 4,000 engineers, has 6 R&D divisions and $538 million in revenue coming from a broad range of connectivity products primarily targeted at carriers and campus networks.

A common theme at the show was backhaul solutions and MRV too is looking to help carriers as they transition to 4G networks and more importantly the company like others in the market is helping service providers leverage packet-based technologies while giving up little the more expensive and proprietary circuit switched world has to offer.

Case in point is the company's new synchronization over packet addition to its Optiswitch 900 product line. The goal of this entry is to facilitate the migration to 4G/LTE in mobile backhaul networks. Specifically the environmentally hardened (allows it to be installed almost anywhere) 904-MBH is a compact carrier Ethernet demarcation device supporting IEEE 1588v2 and synchronous Ethernet.

Company execs explained that they didn't want to have two separate boxes and this new device is the first to to enable synchronization-gateway functionality between synchronous and asynchronous physical layer networks for both 3G and 4G networks.

In addition, this device supports traffic management for enhanced QoS meaning carriers can ensure timing packets have ultimate priority over other packets.

The company also announced its new LambdaDriver IP switching module (OPN 800/1600) for migration to packet optical transport networks. These new carrier Ethernet aggregation switches have 8 GbE ports for access to XFP-based ports for backbone network connections. The products tie into the GMPLS control plane and allow MPLS enforcement and are tunable as well.

The company has put a big focus on SLA assurance and their new OAM techniques are embodied in their new network provisioning ands management software. Among other things this new solution hopes to squeeze fault isolation to minutes instead of hours in order to facilitate more rapid truckrolls. The GUI-based Pro-Vision software platform is touted as an easy-to-use tool allowing central management. In addition, it is designed to allow quicker time to revenue for carriers through its use of pre-defined individual service platforms.

A constant theme recently has been using Ethernet in carrier networks whenever and wherever possible. Logically this is what has to be done as the cost per bit is continuing to decline and margins are being eternally squeezed. Lowering the cost of network infrastructure is the best way to combat this trend. MRV has a suite of solutions they have been successfully selling in the space and they hope to continue in their pursuit to provide more and more strategic solutions to carriers worldwide as they transition to next generation networks.

Here is an extremely informative overview of the challenges facing NSN from Caroline Gabriel. It leads off discussing the fact that Siemens is thinking of pulling out of the joint venture. The article points out where the company has been successful and where it has not. One area which is worth delving into is a mention of NSN pulling out of WiMAX without having significant LTE business. While the two areas are obviously related, pulling out of WiMAX was likely a decision based on the potential revenue available in the market based on current analyst estimates. In other words, would it make sense to keep spending millions on WiMAX R&D until the LTE business takes off? Probably not - it makes sense to put your best and brightest on the product area with the most potential.

Having said that, I am a huge fan of Rethink and their analysis is always thought provoking. I look forward to reading it each weekday. If I get a moment I have to remember to have someone on my team reach out to them to see if they want to blog or write articles on TMCnet.

In the last two weeks I drove (well I was in the car anyway) for more than 1,500 miles meeting with tech companies in Montreal, Ontario, Massachusetts, Rochester, NY, Los Angeles and San Diego. The last stop on my latest trip was at CTIA where I saw dozens of companies from around the globe.

Most of my travels involve learning about companies in the communications and technology space and often advising them on how they can be more successful. Sometimes I get to see some very innovative solutions which I can't share at the time for a multitude of reasons (embargos, etc) and other times I get a firsthand look at things which I share as soon as I can. In many cases, companies ask me about TMC's experience in helping companies with their thought leadership, branding and lead generation activities.

As CEO of a media company which builds online, in-person and print communities for millions of global purchasing decision-makers each month, I have an unusual role of also writing about many of the companies, products and services I see. What is fun for me is finding new ways to bring buyers and sellers together. Buyers want to quickly learn about which products they should consider before purchasing and sellers are looking to sell as much as they can while spending the least amount in doing so.

It is an amazing place to sit because extremely often I see industry-changing technology which languishes because an engineer sets the marketing budget and has the corporate communications skills of sheetrock. Remember, I have an engineering degree so I feel I am uniquely qualified to beat up my brethren. Then there are the companies I visit where their products shouldn't be accepted for free, yet they sell in volume and make massive margins because they are able to communicate the benefits properly.

Then there are a slew of "Hail Mary" companies which have really cool products but no business model to speak of. Sometimes I can convince the founder of such a company to modify their offerings to actually make money but other times the companies die on the vine because they think they know best - after all, I just meet a thousand companies plus like them a year - what do I know?. Sometimes though the amazing happens and they  get purchased by a Google, Cisco or Oracle and thus the "Hail Mary" designation.

I am thrilled to act as a trusted advisor on PR and marketing issues and I figured it is unfair for me to only share information with people I choose to visit and subsequently I spoke on a webinar a month or so ago about hosted SEO which was well-attended and generated lot buzz in the industry. So many companies wonder about search engine optimization and what the trick is to ranking high. While there are lots of factors to consider, the basic premise is to write lots of content which people want to read and share with others.

SEO consultants get paid to help companies rank higher and in some cases they can boost a company's search rank for a while. But in the end, steady and relatively large amounts of content are what companies need to generate to rank high on various terms.

I could go on about building communities and improving SEO for hours - I am truly passionate about figuring out how to instantly bring a group of people with similar interests together on a single web portal. Coming from the world of magazines, it used to take TMC six months to build a mailing list and in many cases you really needed 18 months to do it right. Oh and did I mention you had to mail at least half a million subscription offers and it would cost you about $400,000 at a minimum to rent lists, print and mail your subscription forms? To show you how much things have changed, TMC has been involved in projects in the past few months where we built communities on new topics which are up and running and attracting hundreds of thousands of people in a matter of a few weeks. It is truly amazing to see how media has evolved through the use of news-generated, laser focused community building.

Again, these topics are a major passion of mine and something my team at TMC has gotten great at focusing on. The next webinar I will speak on takes place Thursday of this week, October 15^th at 12:00 PST and on it I will discuss how you can partner to boost your search engine marketing. I look forward to seeing you there. Be sure to register now so you don't miss it. As a reminder, you can view the archive if you aren't around at this exact time. Just be sure to register. Also, be sure to bring any questions you have. I look forward to answering them this week.

xG Technology proclaimed in 2005 that they have a revolutionary technology which allows wireless broadband using unlicensed and licensed frequencies. They said they could build the equivalent to a WiMAX network without the need to spend a massive amount on spectrum auctions and moreover, their technology had better range than WiMAX.

It seemed too good to be true and after some years of waiting, the communications industry got impatient. After all, this revolutionary technology had the potential to change the way wireless networks are deployed. If it was real, where was it? Again, it seemed beyond what was possible and after time, even patient old me figured the story didn't add up. I even asked the company to show us the technology so we could set the record straight.

xG responded with an invitation for a visit a short while after.

I drove to xG Technology's Florida headquarters and met the management team and drilled them with questions. I was the first person from the outside to see the company's xMax technology in action and wanted to come back with an accurate story. Of course, I wanted to know what you want to know - are they going to change the wireless world or not? Are they going to give WiMAX and LTE a run for its money? Most importantly, I wanted to understand how it is possible for a company few have heard of to go up against the major wireless players and win - doing something in a different way.

The results of my questions can be summed up as follows... The company bit off more than it could chew in 1995 and should have waited before talking.

A discussion of xMax, frequencies used, etc



It is obvious now they underestimated the complexity of what they were trying to accomplish. xG had to develop a wireless technology in a noisy spectrum from scratch. This is far more difficult than developing technology in a licensed spectrum where interference is a relative afterthought. They had to build base stations, chips, test gear and even a phone. In the world of WiMAX you can purchase chips from one vendor, test systems from another and phones from other companies. Time to market in WiMAX is much shorter as an entire ecosystem is developing products which interoperate and interconnect with one another. Imagine building it all yourself in spectrum which most engineers will tell you is not usable.

When you realize the size, scope and you might even add lunacy of the undertaking, it makes sense that the company spent $100 million dollars developing it all. Moreover, while they have about 50 engineers today, they averaged about 30 during their corporate history. It does seem impossible when you think about it.

Now that we got that out of the way - on to some specifics about the solution.

What frequencies does it run on? Currently 902-928 MHz but it is software definable meaning the solution can potentially be used in white space situations as well.

I had a chance to see the digital and RF boards which end-user devices would incorporate. At this point they are 2-8 times as large as a comparable WiMAX chipset but I would expect them to come down in size over time and as they are produced in volume.

xG xMax digital and RF boards

Voice is transmitted over the network via SIP with header compression and other techniques which minimize latency, bandwidth use, etc. The company's first handset the TX60 has integrated WiFI.

TX60 with soon to be added flip antenna

Perhaps the most interesting stat is they estimate that 700 MHz spectrum costs about 12 times more than equivalent xMax coverage when you factor in the cost of the frequency auctions.

Mobile base switching center

I was further told that one of the company's customers Townes Tele-Communications, Inc. has a few towers and their 100 foot tower has a range of 2.5 miles while one at 350 feet in the air has 6-8 mile range and is superior in coverage area to the nearby GSM equipment.

Now for the real-world test. President and CTO Joe Bobier handed me a TX60 phone and told me they are still working on their battery management technology. This phone had none I was told.
 

With that we made a call and I started talking to the command center from a few feet away. The voice quality? It was good. As good as any cell phone for sure. We then went into the test vehicle which had a massive power inverter for laptops which run diagnostics on the phone in a real-world setting. The quality was still great.

xG Technology command center

 

We drove for 30-45 minutes and the voice quality never diminished except in one spot where everyone warned me voice quality would be a bit choppy. Generally There was no latency or anything which made you think you were talking on any phone which is inferior to what you may use today. I kept asking the people on the other end to count to ten when we were near overhead wires or in areas I suspected there would be poor reception. Other than the spot mentioned above, the quality never diminished.

Mobile testing in South Florida

As the test ran on, the phone got "fry an egg on me" hot and at some point the sound stopped working. The phone was still connected according to the laptop but you couldn't converse. We called once more and after a while the voice couldn't be heard again.

It is worth pointing out that the phone was plugged into the laptop which graphed its diagnostics and this meant the phone was charging and subsequently running hotter than it would have on batteries alone. It was as hot as early WiFi phones I had tested some years back and Joe suspected the heat was the issue with the phone. I have no reason to doubt this assertion.

In summary, it works. Was it a perfect demo? No. But they never are and when you compare this to what the wireless carriers have had years to perfect, you come away very impressed. There are lots of discussions we can have about noise floors in the 900 MHz spectrum and how the company deals with interference but they are beyond the scope of this article. Moreover, we drove around enough residential and commercial areas that I am satisfied that I experienced a real-world test.

Who is the target for this technology? Incumbents (playing in other areas) CLECs, cable companies, mobile operators, OEMs,content providers such as Google, MVNOs, etc.

What does it cost? Well for a cool $2 billion you could have 70% POP coverage for 452 metros or about 90% of the population of the US. This would include at least a megabit of bandwidth per channel.

I know what you are thinking. Can it scale? The answer of course is I don't know but any customer is going to test it out before they buy and the company knows this. In addition, the description of how xG lays out its channels leads me to believe they have thought this issue through well.

But in the end there is nothing like a real-world volume test to know for sure.

So was it worth the trip? Yes. Can xMax from xG Technology change the wireless world? Quite possibly. But before we go too far down this path it is worth mentioning that areas of coverage are exclusive meaning only one carrier can pick up each city or metro area. This is an important consideration for companies looking to become a next-gen wireless carrier.

For now I believe the question has been answered. At least for my demo, xMax worked well and is real. When you realize that this company may have found a way to take a frequency riddled with wireless garbage and turn it into a fully functioning wireless voice and data network you start to see how much of a game changer this could be for the wireless industry.

In the year 2000 when society was in the midst of realizing how technology and the internet in particular was going to change the world, I noticed there was a need by companies and carriers to better understand the hosted communications space. There were a number of companies with very compelling business models being launched such as Congruency, the early pioneer and leader of the communication ASP movement.

Shortly after realizing the need for education in the market, TMC launched a magazine titled Communications ASP. The magazine was a hit with advertisers and readers for about six months until the VC community and the tech market as a whole seemed to turn on the term ASP" I haven't a clue to this day why the acronym wasn't accepted but it seemed to get lumped in with other technologies which were left for dead but emerged later - like "ecommerce," "VoIP" and others.

Suffice it say this publication and dozens of companies in the space were sentenced to death when funding was cut off by investors. I credit Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce.com, for defying gravity and keeping his ASP and the entire movement going.

This leading hosted CRM company showed Wall Street that the ASP model was a good one and now we take for granted that hosted communications and hosted everything else is something the market needs - especially in a slow economy. But now we call it "cloud-based" computing or "hosted" or "on-demand" or whatever seems to be trendy at the moment.

I was thinking about the history of ASPs during a meeting with Evolve IP's Scott Kinka, the senior vice president of network services. Kinka's company supplies hosted voice, security, UC and messaging services to companies in the U.S. During our conversation he kept mentioning call center wins and how companies are embracing hosted contact center solutions.

He in turn referenced Paul Adams, the director of product management for enhanced services at Broadsoft, the company supplying Evolve IP with equipment which allows their company to in turn provide services to their SMB, enterprise and call center customers.

I know Broadsoft very well as a major player in IP communications - their BroadWorks platform is a vital cog in the carrier machine of providing services for customers.

During a recent conversation with Adams, I asked about the company's call center strategy and he explained that they added contact center functionality about three to four years ago, and since that time they have been adding features, allowing the product to support more formal and larger centers.

Recently BroadWorks 16 expanded contact center functionality even more with the above trend being adhered to. I asked him how his company's products compare to premise or CPE equipment and he explained they are competitive with many hosted solutions but aren't focusing on the high-end centers where their needs to be a focus on blending (inbound and outbound agents coordinating calls) and multichannel routing. Interestingly, Scott goes into the sales process explaining this limitation upfront and it hasn't been a barrier to winning large deals, which he says are in the 400- to 500-seat range.

One of the advantages Broadsoft brings to the table is its integration with UC solutions and FMC. You see, Broadsoft's  end-customers get to take advantage of the latest in numerous technologies and they get it all integrated into their contact center solution.

And as agents become more informal and mobile, the company's ability to track calls while they are connected, including hold times, etc. mean that reporting becomes more accurate and call center management becomes more detailed and effective.

BroadWorks 17 is the next version in the pipeline and we can expect it to have enhanced reporting and ACD functions. A while back, Broadsoft purchased competitor Sylantro to pretty much become the 800-pound gorilla in the space. As the company continues to innovate and roll out new products, it can instantaneously upgrade the world's hosted contact center solutions provided by carriers. This is great for customers and yet another challenge for CPE vendors. But it seems there is still room to innovate on the high-end where Broadworks is not looking to compete - at least for now.