VoIP Blog - Tehrani.com http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ VoIP Blog with the latest news in the VoIP, call center and CRM space, with plenty of opinion & analysis... en-us Copyright 2008 2008-05-14T20:30:09-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 More Shots Of Ottowa http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/more-shots-of-ottowa.html 36148@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ Taken at the Westin. I just finished my tour of the country and now I spend a day with Nortel execs learning about the optical, wireless, UC and a variety of other markets the company plays in.

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]]> 2008-05-14T20:30:09-05:00 More Shots Of Ottowa http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/more-shots-of-ottowa.html 36147@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ Taken at the Westin. I just finished my tour of the country and now I spend a day with Nortel execs learning about the optical, wireless, UC and a variety of other markets the company plays in.

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]]> 2008-05-14T18:40:03-05:00 Early Morning Canada Shots http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/early-morning-canada-shots.html 36145@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ I am looking forward to my meetings today and the weather seems to be cooperating. Hope you enjoy these great views.

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]]> 2008-05-13T20:25:03-05:00 Early Morning Canada Shots http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/early-morning-canada-shots.html 36144@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ I am looking forward to my meetings today and the weather seems to be cooperating. Hope you enjoy these great views.

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]]> 2008-05-13T20:20:02-05:00 Early Morning Canada Shots http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/early-morning-canada-shots.html 36143@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ I am looking forward to my meetings today and the weather seems to be cooperating. Hope you enjoy these great views.

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]]> 2008-05-13T20:15:06-05:00 Early Morning Canada Shots http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/early-morning-canada-shots.html 36129@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ I am looking forward to my meetings today and the weather seems to be cooperating. Hope you enjoy these great views.

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]]> 2008-05-13T09:20:07-05:00 What the HP/EDS Deal Means http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/technology/what-the-hpeds-deal-means.html 36128@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
Moreover, as computers get more powerful they suck the life out proprietary solutions. It is very difficult to build a proprietary hardware system and not get undercut by a competitor who uses PC-based technology.

Software should be immune to this trend but open-source has made this segment of the market more challenging. Open source firewalls, routers, CRM software, etc. There is virtually no area of software where open source hasn't appeared.

But as software evolves and once separate systems such as telecom and datacom continue to become more interdependent, a strange thing is happening... The need to integrate disparate solutions has grown. In fact it is growing faster and faster and many companies in tech rely on integration to drive the majority of their profits.

Avaya, IBM, Aspect and others are adding more resources to their integration teams and in doing so they will make more and more money. Companies need the integration and there is no threat of open source or commoditized hardware to worry about.

If you are a computer company, you realize why you need to become an integration company. IBM realized it years ago and others are discovering the need to integrate as well.

Where will all of this lead? Into larger and larger integration/hardware/software companies making money from a variety of sources. The challenge of course will be how do integration firms stay independent when owned by hardware or software companies. In the overall scheme of things, this is likely not so important as when you are making tons of money on integration, you may not worry so much about purchasing a few servers from the competition.

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]]> AT&TAppleAvayaCRMCall CenterCiscoE-CommerceGoogleMicrosoftOpen SourceSpeech TechnologiesTechnologyUnified CommunicationsWiMAXWireless aspectavayaconsultingcrmedsfirewallhpibmintegrationopen sourcerouterweb server 2008-05-13T08:06:59-05:00 Digium Picks Integrics to Power Carrier Solutions http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/open-source/digium-picks-integrics-to-power-carrier-solutions.html 36127@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
Of course this doesn't mean that a product which happens to work great in a small to medium business is also able to simply flip a switch to become the heart of a service provider install.

In other words Asterisk + "a variety of additions" is what Mrs. or Mr. service provider needs to use this popular open source product to power services to their customers.

In an effort to simplify the process of adding Asterisk to the service provider environment, Digium -- the company behind the world's most popular open source communications software has partnered with Integrics, the maker of Enswitch.

According to an article on the subject by TMCnet's Susan Campbell, Enswitch allows service providers to use Asterisk in order to provide, full-featured, telephone management and billing solutions, calling card integration, toll free and number translation services, voice mail, call queuing, ACD, fax to e-mail, and multi-level IVR.

I am pretty impressed with the feature-set of Enswitch. For example, they provide XML and PDF invoices for customers, wizard-based activation, simple sales tax management, web-based administration, sophisticated authentication mechanisms, shared speed dials, .csv integration, dial by name, unlimited classes of service, etc.

In fact you may be hard pressed as a carrier to find a feature that Integrics hasn't thought of.

So what does such an announcement mean to the market? Well first off, service providers are likely to feel more comfortable working with products from Integrics as they now have the Digium brand, muscle and market power behind them.

In addition, we can expect the service provider market to embrace open source at an even more rapid pace than they are already doing.

Certainly I will report more as I hear it but my $.02 on the matter say this is a good move for all involved and for the broader telecom market.

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]]> AT&TBlackberryBroadbandCall CenterCiscoConferencingFCCIMSIP CommunicationsIPTVITEXPONortelOpen SourceSIPScienceSecurityTechnologyUnified CommunicationsVerizonVideoVoIPWiMAXWireless asteriskbillingdigiumemailenswitchfaxintegricsivrmark spenceropen sourcepdfpostpaidprepaidservice providersip 2008-05-13T07:06:43-05:00 Day One in Canada http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ip-communications/day-one-in-canada.html 36125@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ trip up to Canada considering the weather in New York was stormy when I left. It felt like 40 degree weather with 40+ MPH gusts. Somehow we took off and had a flight that wasn't too turbulent.

We landed without a hitch and I had a chance to see a few companies today. Amazingly and thankfully it was sunny and warm in Canada. How about that?

What shocked me most however is the speed of the 1xRTT network up here. Not only is it expensive -- it is lousy. I had to download voicemail at 6 kbps. Working at this speed by the way should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.

One person I met with today told me that Rogers will soon roll out EVDO. I didn't get a chance to verify this BTW -- just passing it along.

Thankfully on a positive note -- I ate dinner at the Perspectives Restaurant at the Brookstreet Hotel. Thank you Terry Matthews for building such a nice hotel. I am sure if he didn't build this multi-star shrine, there would be some crappy hotel option. To protect the innocent I won't give examples of chains I prefer not to stay at.

Not that I am really in need of such luxury -- I really care most about fast Internet access and a comfortable bed.

Having said that, I can't describe how good the food is and the menu choices were excellent as well.

Well -- another big day is ahead of me tomorrow so some much needed rest will be taking place. Have a good night and see you tomorrow. If you see fewer blog entries than usual it is because I am instructing the growing TMC editorial team to cover the news as there is only so much 6 kbps blogging torture anyone should endure.wink

But having said that, here are some of today's articles you should read from other TMCnet writers:

Here is a complete article list.

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]]> IP Communications brookstreetip communicationskanatamitelontarioperspectives restaurantterry matthewsvoipwireless 2008-05-12T21:09:38-05:00 Great White Trip http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/great-white-trip.html 36118@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ I am headed northward today to Canada, one of my favorite places to go when it isn't winter.wink

I expect to meet with a number of communications and technology companies and report back on the details very soon.

Have a great day and feel free to peruse TMCnet to stay up to date.

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]]> 2008-05-12T08:15:09-05:00 Happy Mother's Day http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/personal/happy-mothers-day.html 36116@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/

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]]> Personal 2008-05-11T12:08:22-05:00 Proof Our Brains Are Underutilized http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/science/proof-our-brains-are-underutilized.html 36115@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ woman can remember every moment of every day going back to the age of eight years old. If anything, this condition called hyperthymestic syndrome from the Greek thymesis, for remembering, and hyper, meaning well above normal show us that perhaps many of us do only use 10% of our brains.

Once anonymous and referred to in scientific texts by initials, Jill Price has recently come out in the open about her condition and calls it a curse as she is able to focus on every bad decision she has ever made.

Speaking of bad decisions, I realize I am off my main news area of focus but hey -- it's Saturday -- don't my readers need a break from communications and tech from time to time? 

But getting back to Ms. Price, she is a school administrator and this begs the question as to why she hasn't decided to put this incredible memory to use in politics, counting cards the military, etc.

Finally, I would imagine such a gift would be a blessing if applied in business. BTW, we are always looking for top talent here at TMC.

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]]> Science hyperthymesticjill pricememoryphotographic memorysciencethymesis 2008-05-10T11:29:52-05:00 UMAThought Leader Steve Shaw on TMCnet http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/wireless/umathought-leader-steve-shaw-on-tmcnet.html 36109@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ Few people know more about UMA than Steve Shaw... He really lives and breathes this market. This is why I am thrilled Steve will be writing for TMCnet with a special focus on unwired mobile access or UMA.

Here is his first column -- which presents a good overview of the market and really plants the seed for future articles.

As always, we at TMCnet do our best to present our audience with the best writers in the market and we are thrilled to continue to be the primary global resource for communications and technology purchasing decision-makers.

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]]> AT&TAppleAvayaBlackberryBroadbandCall CenterCiscoConferencingConsumer ElectronicsFCCIP CommunicationsMicrosoftNortelSIPSecurityTechnologyUnified CommunicationsVerizonVideoVoIPWireless broadbandfmchotspot @homehz2.0imimsinstant messageip communicationskineto wirelessmedia centermyspacesipsocial networkingsteve shawtextingt-mobiletvumauma todayunwired mobile accessvoipvonageyoutube 2008-05-09T12:04:18-05:00 10 Reasons SPOT Watches Died Out http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/microsoft/10-reasons-spot-watches-died-out.html 36107@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ hear these gadgets will no longer be supported by Microsoft.

Here are the reasons the watch is gone:

1) High Cost: Many of these devices cost around $400+ and this is simply too much for a digital watch.
2) Ugliness: The watches are horrid looking but the Tissot High-T which was the best looking one of the bunch was priced high and is now discontinued.
3) Battery Life: 4-5 days of life was just not enough for a watch. One month is more acceptable.
4) Reliability: My experience with these watches (at least from Tissot) is that they break often.
5) One-Way Signals: The network only works in one direction so traveling to another location means telling the service ahead of time that you are going to be away from your home "range."
6) Weight/Size: Not everyone wants a big and heavy watch.
7) Watch Popularity: Watches are less popular in general -- SPOT watches are no exception.
8) Cell Phone Competition: They say the latest generation won't even use a watch because they have phones. Phones do everything a spot watch does and more.
9) Geek Factor:  Do I need to explain this one?
10) Cost: $10/month is a lot to spend if you are also paying a phone bill.

Having listed all of these items, owning a watch that vibrated 15 minutes before each meeting really helped me stay on track. In addition, it was easier to glance down at my watch for information because in many cases my phone was in my pocket or not in reach.

Sadly, the High-T was the only device in this genre that vibrated and I am not interested in devices that beep as they interrupt meetings, etc.

So basically I really am not as enthused  about SPOT watches as I once was.

I suppose life goes on and I can now focus on using my cell phone to do all the things my watch used to do.

Then again, I am sure Apple's iWatch will probably be the must-have gadget of 2010.

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]]> Consumer ElectronicsFCCMicrosoftWireless alertsappleappointmentscell phoneconsumer electronicsfmgadgethigh-tiphonemicrosoftnewstissottrafficwireless 2008-05-09T10:51:35-05:00 Cablevision's WiFi Network in New York City http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/broadband/cablevisions-wifi-network-in-new-york-city.html 36105@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/

WiFi is not new and providing WiFi to a city is not new. What is new and worth noodling on is the fact Cablevision will soon have a WiFi network in New York City -- well over the next few years really.

The network will be voice-ready -- supporting WiFi telephony/VoWLAN and speeds could reach 1.5 Mbps.

Over the decades, Ethernet technology has always evolved to kill the competition. Although LTE and WiMax will be viable options, one wonders what would happen if WiFi continues to evolve -- like Ethernet to eventually cover more and more areas of the world.

Of course this scenario seems unlikely based on the fact that most companies haven't figured out how to make money in the WiFi ISP space. Still, it will be worth watching to see how this all plays out.

After all, I still don't have a WiMax or LTE radio in my cell phone or laptop.

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]]> AT&TBlackberryBroadbandCiscoConsumer ElectronicsFCCGoogleIP CommunicationsMicrosoftNortelSIPSkypeTechnologyUnified CommunicationsVerizonVideoVoIPVonageWiMAXWirelessYahoo 3gcablevisionethernetevdoispltenew yorkVoWLANwifiWiFi telephonywimax 2008-05-09T07:00:44-05:00 PAETEC: Success Under the Radar http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ip-communications/paetec-success-under-the-radar.html 36103@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/
To my knowledge I am the first analyst or reporter ever invited to this event and this fact coupled with my desire to learn more about the company made me jump on a plane to meet with the company's execs and customers.

In a keynote speech there were slides showing how much farther ahead the Company is than the competition in terms of service. At the same time, PAETEC was frank in recognizing they still have room for improvement, admitted their imperfections, and shared their plans for growth. They frankly want to change the dynamics of the industry.

Now let's sit back and think about that for a moment. When was the last time a competitive carrier said they would change the industry? Certainly during the telecom bubble there were hundreds of companies with such lofty dreams. But it is 2008; is such a desire even feasible? Does it even make sense for the company to look at me with a straight face and tell me this?

I sort of expected a punch line at first. But why should this be funny? They've grown every year for the past 10 years. They have already purchased McLeodUSA and USLEC, and they are profitable. I suppose what made it unusual to me is the fact that PAETEC has never had a press briefing with me or virtually anyone else on the TMC team over the years. I have met with some company executives in the past of course but not the traditional phone call and/or meetings about news.

But despite the company's shyness, the more I learned about PAETEC the more I began to understand why they have tremendous potential.

Vision

The first may be their vision, or maybe ambition says it better. They want to be a trusted advisor with unmatched service for business-class data and voice communications. And they want to be the premier alternative to the ILECs for businesses, nationally.
Corporate Values

PAETEC's stated mission is to be the most customer- and employee-oriented communications provider. To that end, they have four corporate values they follow with near-religious zeal: 1.) Caring culture, 2.) Open communication, 3.) Unmatched service and 4.) Personalized solutions. If satisfied employees lead to satisfied customers, PAETEC's bigger ambitions might just be within their grasp.

Corporate Culture

Picture a high-energy, entrepreneurial organization with a leader who is proud but humble, sharp as a tack and not afraid to use humor in his management style. I am referring to Arunas Chesonis the Chairman and CEO of the company.

Broad Product Line

The company has a number of product categories which focus on data and voice services in addition to reselling PBXs and routers, data center solutions, fixed wireless, telecom expense management application suite, and Allworx, which makes award-winning IP-PBXs and peripheral products for small to mid-sized companies.

Customer Focus

Rarely have I seen such a customer focus at a service provider. There is a relentless pursuit of quality at PAETEC. Customers tell me they are proactively notified if there is a problem and they are given refunds if PAETEC makes a mistake. This is in contrast to incumbents who can make you sign complex legal disclaimers even if the mistake is theirs.

As large as the company has become it is obvious the founders are tight -- as if they came back from a military battle where they had to watch each other's backs.

The formation of the Company taught PAETEC how to treat companies they acquire and moreover the company was smart enough to keep brands like Allworx separate to ensure they don't lose name recognition. I have often written about how many companies put ego first and change the names of companies they acquire and in the process lose millions of dollars worth of brand recognition. Nothing makes less sense to me than killing successful brands to satisfy a corporate ego.

Another division acquired eight years ago is PINNACLE, a company you may consider to be in the telecom expense management (TEM) space. But they really do much more as the company's software and services really manage the lifecycle of equipment and services companies utilize.

The latest version, V6 has a very slick user interface, a great search utility and a focus on making the design easy to use for people who more or less live in the program. It is also web-based and does not require any browser buttons to operate efficiently.

In my discussions with company execs it became apparent they believe the quick hit a company gets from discovering billing errors via TEM software is short-lived and by reducing the time it takes to find important data and streamlining communications between systems, companies can continue to reduce costs over time.

In other words, TEM is an important part of a holistic management solution.

PINNACLE does an amazing job of managing telecom and related equipment and services and I was surprised that I hadn't heard more from the company in the past.

And therein is the interesting part of my time with the various PAETEC divisions. The company has the infrastructure and cost management controls in place to become ever larger. They have savvy business leaders at the top if the organization and a relentless focus on quality and customer satisfaction.

What some may say they lack is awareness in the market. The company is an anomaly because generally companies with virtually no well-known brands don't do so well. In this case however I believe the relentless focus on customer satisfaction has led to very low churn levels and higher than average customer recommendation levels.

Couple this with the fact that many of the company's customers explain just how the telecom duopoly is getting worse as AT&T and Verizon are still trying to digest disparate provisioning and billing systems and this digestion is adding to their TCO levels. These customers really want more competition.

Many Fortune 500 IT and telecom managers in fact tell me the large carriers have people who want to provide excellent service but the internal controls and politics make this impossible. The systems actually keep customers from getting adequate service levels.

This is why I think PAETEC will be successful in its goal of taking a few more percentage points of market-share from the larger players in the market. While doing this, expect PAETEC to expand into other areas such as mobility management, business intelligence and more. They will be in other countries soon as well. They look for acquisitions that fit within their corporate strategy and make sure they buy companies where there is a very good chance they will get a solid ROI.

Given the state of the telecom market and the desire for customers to have multiple vendors, there is certainly room for a service provider who has an array of services that reach beyond the traditional telco demarcation line. This coupled with the unique customer focus really has me enthused about this company's future.

Will PAETEC change the dynamics of an entire industry and make others like Verizon take notice? Who knows? There are too many unknowns in this market to make such predictions. What I do know is that customers tell me they are sick and tired of the incumbent telcos and they want carriers who care about them. It is tough to imagine how a company with relentless attention to customer detail playing in such a market can do poorly.

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Comments on this Entry:

(Peter Radizeski on May 8, 2008 10:20 PM) I hear Chesonis talk about his employees. I don't see the big difference. His sales people bounce from company to company like everyone else. And my personal experience with Paetec as an agent has been less awful.But let's talk about Paetec changing the industry. How? They sell the same stuff everyone else does. In fact, they missed the boat on both Ethernet over Copper and SIP Trunking.The thinking that getting to a Billion dollars in revenue is the answer to surviving is crazy. Intermedia hit $1B in sales, but crashed under integration issues and $3B in short term debt. (And if you carefully read the latest 10-k, Paetec points that out).There are at least 5 ways to stand out and be remarkable in telecom, but everyone would rather mimic the Bells. Oh, well.

(Noel Huelsenbeck on May 11, 2008 2:50 AM) As a TEM and carrier consulting company we work with Paetec quite a bit, and while they're probably the best CLEC, keep in mind there are a few challenges when selecting them. For instance their switches serve large geographic areas. We had several clients in Florida lose service when all the LEC customers still had service because the Paetec switch, which was a hundred plus miles away, got hit by the hurricane. Another example is the San Diego area which is served by a switch either in Orange County or LA. If those areas have an earthquake San Diego Paetec customers could be out of service. So while you may benefit from lower costs and better customer service you may be sacrificing some reliability. Our advice is check to see where the switch is located prior to getting service so you can gauge the risk. The other challenge is their billing, which is above average for simplicity, but below average for long distance and toll free usage. Their calls are billed in 30 second minimums and two decimals. Savvy telecom analysts know that by switching to 6 second or at least 18 second minimums and four decimal billing can provide 3-12% of savings. Our advice would be to evaluate your usage to see if it makes a big difference. If you spend a few hundred dollars it's not a big deal, but some of our clients were spending thousands or tens of thousands with 30 second minimums and two decimal billing. When we moved them to four decimal billing they lowered costs by 10%. Also I agree with you, TEM is an important part of a holistic management solution, we use that approach, and Paetec is smart for having purchased Pinnancle. I'm surprised more carriers haven't followed that model and purchased a TEM provider. Several I know of have tried, by creating their own or partnering, but to my knowledge Paetec is the only carrier that has a stand alone TEM company. And it seems to be a great relationship. As long as they stay impartial and don't give you a hard sell to move to Paetec it would seem to be a good idea.

]]> AT&TBroadbandCall CenterCiscoConferencingFCCIP CommunicationsMicrosoftSIPSecurityTechnologyUnified CommunicationsVerizonVideoVoIPWiMAXWireless Allworxat&tattAvayabroadbandCeragonciscodragonwavedslfmcfortune 500information technologyip communicationsip pbxitMcLeodUSAPaetecpbxPINNACLEroisip trunkingt1t3telecomtelecom expense managementtemUSLECVerizonvoipwirelesswireless backhaul 2008-05-08T18:16:21-05:00 Vonage Record Quarter: Jeff Citron Interview http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/vonage/vonage-record-quarter-jeff-citron-interview.html 36102@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ podcast interview with Jeffrey Citron where he talked about the company's growth rate and the number of new initiatives at the pure-play VoIP service provider.

Citron explains that they are pleased with their financial performance as their revenue was $225 million and this is a 15% increase from the previous year. One great bit of news is that expenses increased and adjusted operating income is now $8 million.

These results were ahead of expectations and in addition to the news on earnings, Citron was proud to explain how well-received his new  products have been. Visual voicemail and unlimited international calling are some of these new items.

Moreover, the company has a new prosumer product and another called Companion which installs on your computer and works in conjunction with your phone service.

Perhaps most importantly, Vonage is becoming a double-play provider by reselling Covad broadband DSL service.

The company seems to be more enthusiastic than I have seen in some time and more importantly they are becoming product-focused once again.

This coupled with the morale boost of better earnings will likely be the catalyst the company needs to carry this momentum towards higher levels of profitability and growth. After all, having a quarter that beats expectations in a slower economy is something the company should be proud of.

You really have to check out the podcast to learn the details.

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]]> AT&TBroadbandCRMCall CenterCiscoConferencingConsumer ElectronicsE-CommerceFCCGoogleIP CommunicationsMicrosoftNortelOpen SourcePatentPodcastSIPScienceSecurityTechnologyUnified CommunicationsVerizonVideoVoIPVonageWireless covaddouble-play-triple-playip communicationspodcastvisual voicemailvoipvonage 2008-05-08T16:27:24-05:00 SkyFire: The Cure for iPhone Envy http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/microsoft/skyfire-the-cure-for-iphone-envy.html 36080@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ Apple device from my HTC 6800 on Verizon.

I was close to deciding to switch to Apple (you already know I hate the soft keyboard) when I received my text message invite to the Skyfire Beta 0.6 release of their new browser. I had heard incredible things about the browser and any improvement over Pocket IE was welcome.

After downloading the new browser, I immediately visited TMCnet as it is a rich site with Flash, Java and all sorts of technologies which can make mobile browsers choke. To my surprise, TMCnet came up almost as fast as it does on a laptop with an EVDO card. This led me to surmise that the browser works with a back-end server handling compression, etc. In fact the limited Beta program reinforces this assumption.

In fact after further review it is apparent that the Skyfire browser is actually a graphics viewer meaning everything in the browser window is just a small graphical version of a browser being rendered elsewhere.

What I like about it is the fact I can immediately see an entire web page. I can then quickly double-tap to zoom into a view where I could read comfortably.

Because the resolution of Microsoft Windows Mobile devices is far inferior to an iPhone's (why?) you cannot read as comfortably on a Windows Mobile 6 device as you can on the one from Apple. The cure for this problem is a technology called SmartFit which ensures text does not scroll so wide that reading it will require you to scroll to the left and right. Basically it limits the margin size on articles and other web text.

The Safari browser on an iPhone allows you to use two fingers to expand and contract the zoom levels of the device. Skyfire allows a rapid double-tap which will zoom in a predetermined amount and you are further able to customize the auto-zoom level.

Perhaps the biggest improvement this browser brings over the version of IE that comes with Windows Mobile 6 is the ability to drag a finger up and down on the screen to focus on different parts of the web page. You no longer need to navigate using arrow keys or anything else. This is the way browsing should work - at least on a touch-screen device.

Another major benefit of this browser is the fact that it has a start page which is actually very useful. There is a page of featured content titled "Info" where Yahoo, Wikipedia and The New York Times occupy the top three spots. Next to this tab is another for Sports, Social, Shop and Media.

The Media tab has sites which work well with the browser and surprisingly YouTube videos look very good on this phone. You certainly won't confuse the quality of these videos with the ones you see on your PC, but they are still very good and obviously your experience will vary depending on connection speed.

You are also able to get last.fm to work meaning you can stream music. But attempts to get Pandora or Slacker to work were not successful. For those of you who are interested, links under the Media tab include Break.com, DailyMotion, Metacafe, Yahoo! Video, Flickr, Veoh, Photobucket and Blogger.

What is compelling however is the two other high level tabs which represent your bookmarks and history. You see these items are synced with the company's servers and you have a login and password which means you can also access this information from any browser.

Another plus is the ability to search from the start page and see results from Google or Yahoo. In addition when using a program like Google Reader and others, the browser does not divulge it is running on a phone and subsequently you get a full screen experience. You do not get the often crippled mobile version of popular websites.

Google Reader becomes very useful when you can approximate desktop viewing in such a fashion.

The problem however is that if you want to forward a link via e-mail, you can't. There is not only no way to forward a link via e-mail, there is also no way to know what URL you are viewing so you can manually cut and paste it to share with others.

Having such a powerful browser with no ability to share links is akin to having a Lamborghini in a parking lot or heavy traffic.

But the good certainly outweighs the bad. For example, another feature the browser offers is help in filling in text fields. Once you click on a dialog box you get a relatively large standard box at the bottom of the phone where you can enter text in a more legible fashion. You can also benefit from Windows Mobile 6 suggested words which come courtesy of the auto-complete function.

My areas of improvement include being able to e-mail web links as mentioned above.

There also needs to be better battery management as the browser has a persistent connection to the server. It is for this reason in fact that the program has an exit button which the company recommends using to conserve power.

In addition, the connection with the server is frequently severed. This could be done intentionally to conserve power but the program requires you to restart it before the connection is reestablished. This action can take five seconds or more.

Obviously it would be great to be able to reconnect to the server without restarting the program and moreover it would be great to have settings which auto-disconnect from the server at a predetermined time to save power. One minute increments would make sense.

I would further have a setting to disable or allow web pages to auto-refresh.

Since the browser is graphical, you aren't able to cut and paste text. To offset this, I suggest a function which allows the zoomed text or even all text on a page to be auto-copied to the clipboard.

It is worth mentioning that the browser is stable but in about twenty or so sessions, it did lock up the phone once. This is a small price to pay and in my experience, Windows Mobile devices tend to lock up even when not running Beta code.

In conclusion, this browser is fantastic. It brings some of the best features of the iPhone Safari browser to the world of Windows Mobile. The ability to take advantage of leading-edge technologies like Flash and others means you can actually use many sites which were previously off limits to mobile browsers.

Speaking of mobile browsers, you will soon be able to use this program on other platforms but to date only Windows Mobile devices in the United States are supported.

I recommend this browser and suggest each download be accompanied by at least one spare battery purchase.

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]]> AppleBlackberryBroadbandConsumer ElectronicsE-CommerceFCCGoogleIP CommunicationsMicrosoftSIPSkypeTechnologyVerizonVoIPWirelessYahoo 3gapplebetaBloggerBrowsercdmaDailyMotionevdoflashFlickrhtcHTC 6800iphonejavajavascriptlast.fmMetacafemicrosoftPandoraPhotobucketrebootsafariskyfireslackerVeohVerizonwindowswindows mobilewindows mobile 6Yahoo Video 2008-05-08T06:04:51-05:00 Skype as David, Telcos as Goliath http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ip-communications/skype-as-david-telcos-as-goliath.html 36073@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/ launch a competitor to Skype.

But before I proceed with my thoughts, as often the case with such amazing speculation, it is good to air out the details before dismissing them outright. After all, an informed reader may think they know better than me and I have been wrong in the past. Pobody's nerfect as they say.

The Details

Apparently ThinkPanmure, a research firm has been speculating for years that incumbent telecoms from around the world will work together to make a software package that will interoperate on various networks and leverage 3G and wired broadband investments. The goal would be to create a Skype killer if you will.

The theory will be that the customer needs to use broadband supplied by one of the member service providers to be eligible to use the software/service. In this way, the service provider should be able to upgrade said customer to other services such as IPTV.

The History

In the late nineties, Net2Phone popularized the VoIP client and they were soon wiped away by Microsoft's NetMeeting. Microsoft had a pretty slick software package which used the H.323 protocol and as the nineties progressed this software package became the baseline for IP communications interoperability between clients and things like media gateways.

So the first Skype competitor was actually invented years before Skype and then perhaps the second one from Redmond also died a slow and painful death.

The Analysis

The question is, can a service provider be a software company? The answer is probably not. They likely can't compete where Microsoft failed. Unless they have an unfair advantage.

What would be such an unfair advantage you ask? Simply, their wireless networks. One company who saw this trend early was Bridgeport Networks (now part of CounterPath) who came up with a product called the MobileStick to allow cellular providers the ability to add multimedia services to wireless telephony and also to take traffic off their precious wireless networks.

I would be the first to tell you that the incumbent telcos cannot compete in the software business but they could work with a third party company to pull this off and also leverage their SMS, push-to-talk and cellular networks to cajole customers into using this services.

Think about how many people would install such software to be able to have PTT walkie-talkie access to people with PTT-enabled devices.

Once customers have a soft client installed they could also subscribe to video on demand and television services via the same client.

The Conclusion

Telcos make terrible, terrible, terrible software companies but if they find another company to handle this part of the equation, they could easily leverage their current services to differentiate their client from others.

So the idea is sound - but reality dictates that if a single service provider moves at glacial speeds then a consortium of a dozen or so carriers would likely move at 1/100th the speed of the slowest glacier on earth.

So in conclusion we have a great theory and with the appropriate amount of WD-40 this idea could turn into reality and be somewhat successful.

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]]> AT&TAppleBlackberryBroadbandConsumer ElectronicsIP CommunicationsMicrosoftSIPSkypeTechnologyVerizonVideoVoIPWiMAXWirelessYahoo attat&tBridgeport NetworkscellularCounterPathh.323ip communicationsMicrosoftmobilesticknet2phonesipSkypetmcVerizonvoipwd-40wifiwimax 2008-05-07T09:28:12-05:00 Traveling Upstate Today http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/personal/traveling-upstate-today.html 36065@http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/

I am on the road again today and I could not have picked a sunnier day to be on the road. it is cool -- about 60 degrees and not a cloud anywhere to be seen. I am actually in New York State, not Connecticut and I have to give a shout out (is that an appropriate term for a tech blog?wink ) to the folks over at Targus as I am using the PA248U Notebook Chill Pad which is keeping my laptop nice and cool on my lap.

This thing has really saved me a few times -- especially on the couch on a weekend and I do recommend it to those who hate having a laptop scorch their thighs.