Recently in IP Communications Category

Companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the decades to ensure their contact centers are as efficient as possible. In a business where you have hundreds of agents in a call center you have to worry about any excess spending and you must minimize waste. Calling queues and skills-based routing are just some of the simple technologies call centers have used for decades to efficiently connect the right agent with a caller. Amazingly, the average healthcare worker makes 2-5 times as much as the average call center agent and we don't spend the money to automate healthcare processes the way we have in the contact center. Obviously hospitals use technology but their processes can be automated the way ACDs and predictive dialers have automated the contact center.

There is a tremendous opportunity to automate healthcare through unified communications and other related technologies and Nortel is one of the companies looking to seize this market. I recently visited the company's corporate campus and saw a demo of their solutions in action and yesterday I had a chance to speak with Wes Durow, VP Nortel Enterprise Solutions about how his company is helping hospitals and municipalities with their healthcare automation needs.

Have a listen.

At ITEXPO West 2009 in Los Angeles, I had a chance to sit down with the founders of inVox, the company behind a new easy-to-use cloud-based IVR system which allows rapid application development. Here is a video of my interview with company execs.

I travel a great deal and have had a chance to test AT&T's wireless

service in areas such as Dallas, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Los Angeles, San Francisco and others. What I have noticed is the service is improving and aside from occasional glitches, surfing the web on an Apple iPhone 3Gs is a more pleasant experience. I don't think it approaches Verizon Wireless yet but then again, VZW doesn't have to deal with the onslaught of wireless data requests generated from legions of iPhone users. AT&T has an opportunity of a lifetime to upgrade its network before it loses iPhone exclusivity (assuming it does).

To say the company is rushing to improve its service would be an understatement - in fact it is doubling its data speed through the use of HSPA in six cities -- Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Charlotte. This is great news as the next ITEXPO and - East 2010 and the collocated 4G Wireless Evolution will take place in Miami this January and these upgrades should be in place by year's end. I am looking forward to testing the service out then.

A big theme at last week's ITEXPO was broadband stimulus and a number of people told me they have bookmarked and are using the new Broadband Stimulus GOC (Global Online Community) on TMCnet as their home page so they can keep up with the exciting developments in the space and the billions of dollars which will be distributed.

Here are some of the recent articles from the site if you haven't visited yet. Be sure to check out the community for yourself. These are certainly exciting times for the broadband market - indeed, any time the government gives billions of dollars in subsidies it is an exciting time - in any market.

Thank you all - sponsors, analysts, members of the press, keynoters, partners, attendees, speakers, friends, colleagues and the TMC team. ITEXPO West 2009 was one of the best events TMC has ever put on thanks to your support.

I will be collecting my thoughts for a while and will have more to report soon.

For now, please enjoy some photos and news from the event.

Richard Fung a software developer at Alston Tascom won the Jeep at
ITEXPO West 2009. Congratulations Rich!



click Play button above to play video

Here is a photo of beautiful Los Angeles on day three of ITEXPO West
2009. I am looking forward to seeing you all in the exhibit hall at
the Los Angeles Convention Center in a few hours.

Here is a link to the photos from ITEXPO West 2009. Attendance is very
solid and there is a buzz all over the Los Angeles Convention Center.
The show has another 90 minutes to go this evening and one more day
tomorrow.

I hope to see you soon.

http://www.tmcnet.com/voip/conference/west-2009/overview/w09-photos.htm

After an introduction for me, Dr. Don Brown, a true communications visionary and veteran began a presentation at ITEXPO West 2009 which asked where the value was in communications. He explained CEBP and unified communications were terms made up by marketers and he didn't really like the term buddy list either.

In a matter-of-fact manner, he explained where the problems in communications were. One example were the problems associated with processes in a company - they are not automated and they are not easily repeatable and they need to be improved.

He explained his company's mission is to make these processes more efficient and productive - the same way they apply technology to the contact center using skills-based routing (referring to the way a call is directed to the most appropriate agent based on a skill like knowledge of hotels in Hawaii.) He called the idea an all in one process automation platform and I get the feeling we will be hearing a lot more about this topic in the future.

Dr. Don has keynoted many TMC events and this was certainly his best presentation ever - he was enthused and excited about what his company is doing. So am I

He is worth billions and he still works as hard as anyone I know. He travels the world and closes business. He actually said selling things turns him on. It shows - the companies he has started are some of the most successful around. I hope to have a fraction of his energy at his age.

Based upon the crowd here at his address and the focus by audience members on every word Terry is saying, it seems we picked a great keynoter for this event. Here is a clip of Terry speaking and the crowd shot of who was there.