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Julius Genachowski Makes Brilliant Move at FCC in Hiring Henning Schulzrinne as CTO

December 29, 2011

Earlier this month, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the appointment of Henning Schulzrinne as Chief Technology Officer – a major move forward for the FCC and the US communications regulatory environment. This move was made in-part because the FCC has had to keep up with fairly rapid changes in the communications and networking worlds. Telephony was once a circuit-switched service provided by a handful of large telecommunications companies and a number of regional players.

It was relatively easy to understand and regulate. But when VoIP and other forms of IP communications came on the scene, the world became less defined.

Posted in 4G, AT&T, Broadband, FCC, HD Voice, IMS, IP Communications, ITEXPO, SIP, Skype, Smart Grid, Technology, Unified Communications, Verizon, Video, VoIP, Vonage, Wireless

American Superconductor and the Case of Chinese Industrial Espionage

December 15, 2011

Last year I had a chance to sit down with Jason Fredette of American Superconductor about their state of the art technology which allows wind turbines to be more efficient. Moreover the company talked about its strong focus on superconductor wire which is a small fraction of the size of traditional copper wire. I was intrigued – I figured this is the sort of company that becomes the next major tech innovator… One that will do very well for investors.

Fast forward a year and a company trading at more than $30 per share a year ago is now trading at around $3.82 and just had another round of layoffs.

Turns out the company is in a major lawsuit with Chinese Sinovel – the country’s largest wind turbine manufacturer and once American Superconductor’s largest client. On a recent conference call this past November 9th, 2011 the company detailed its lawsuits, shared that they caught a past employee sending proprietary information to Sinovel and the fact that this employee is in a European jail for economic espionage and fraudulent misuse of data.

Company President and CEO Daniel McGahn said the company is seeking nearly $1.2B for contracted shipments and charges.

Posted in Green, Smart Grid, Technology

FreeWave Technologies Provides Secure, Long-Range Radio Communications

October 26, 2011

Submarine cable systems between the UK, Canada and Paris became essential in the 1850s as the British government found itself in a situation where it would fight wars, sign treaties and still have thousands of soldiers in the field fighting – totally oblivious to the end of conflict. This cost the UK a tremendous amount of money and reducing this cost became a priority. Once the cables were laid they also became invaluable to the shipping industry as they allowed ships to be rerouted to ports which would be more lucrative destinations.

Nowadays with 3G, 4G and WiFi networks overlapping in much of the developed world we take instant communications for granted but this is not the case.

Moreover there are many applications where secure, low-power and virtually instant communications is required but infrastructure to facilitate such communications may not exist. Think of a market consisting of the needs of industrial communications, military comms, smart grid and machine-to-machine (M2M).

One of the companies playing in these spaces is FreeWave Technologies and in a recent conversation with CMO Ashish Sharma he told me about how his company provides long-range data communications solutions to a range of markets including oil and gas, agriculture, clean water, wind and solar.

In a typical application – let’s say in oil and gas, a radio can be connected to equipment which measures pressure, temperature and other levels and at a preset interval – let’s say 15 minutes and can report back to a NOC tens of miles away regarding the status of the equipment in the field.

Posted in FCC, Gadget, IP Communications, M2M, Networking, Security, Smart Grid, Super WiFi, Technology, Wireless

Why Blocked AT&T, T-Mobile USA Deal is Good for Growth

August 31, 2011

Critics might say, in the history of M&A, it is difficult to recall one instance where more jobs were created as a result of two companies coming together. Yet this is the argument AT&T has been making for just less than three months after the merger announcement with AT&T and T-Mobile USA was announced. In part the argument was reinforced by the company's commitment to bring remote call center jobs back to the states.

Moreover, AT&T’s claim that this merger would be good for consumers is an interesting one as critics might say it is fairly easy to argue either side.

For example, if the merger were to go through, AT&T would have tremendous incentive to upgrade the speed of its network because as of the last year it has started to charge for bandwidth – eliminating unlimited plans. In other words, the company would be motivated to speed up its network to ensure it could charge customers more per unit of time they use network services.

In the alternate scenario, improving network speed would be something done to stay competitive and passing on the higher costs of network improvements to consumers could only be done if other carriers decided to do the same thing.

Posted in 4G, AT&T, Blackberry, Broadband, Call Center, Cloud Computing, Consumer Electronics, FCC, Financial, Google, IP Communications, Merger/Acquisition, SaaS, Satellite, Smart Grid, Social Networking, Technology, Unified Communications, Verizon, Wireless

What the Post-Hurricane Irene Cavalry Looks Like

August 28, 2011

The closest thing we have to a modern-day cavalry has got to be these utility trucks hopefully on their way to restore power to millions of east-coast residents. This modern day cavalry in the videos below was spotted in Stamford, CT near the Ridgeway Shopping Center in the middle of town.

Estimates have ranged from one to two weeks to restore power in the area - hopefully these guys will get the job done more quickly.

Posted in Personal, Science, Smart Grid

PSTN Death is Near

July 7, 2011

I vividly remember driving my car in 1999 – two years after the company where I am CEO, TMC decided to launch Internet Telephony Magazine and thinking VoIP was going to change the way communications works and eventually kill the PSTN. It seemed to me that within five years most of the world would make the transition as the cost disparity at the time was quite large between the PSTN and VoIP connections. Moreover, there were a myriad of free calling services using VoIP such as Dialpad which were ad supported, putting even more pressure on traditional telecom networks.

Within a few years the dotcom and telecom bubbles burst (we collectively said goodbye (details) to Dialpad and its competitors) and the cost for using the PSTN dropped substantially in order to better compete with IP communications alternatives. So my internal projections which I am not sure I ever wrote about before turned out to be too optimistic.

The period between 2001-2004 could easily be referred to us the nuclear winter of VoIP – well communications in general is more like it – not to mention tech.

Posted in 4G, AT&T, Broadband, Cisco, Consumer Electronics, Gadget, Google, IP Communications, Networking, Nortel, Optical, SIP, Satellite, Skype, Smart Grid, Super WiFi, Technology, Verizon, VoIP, Vonage, WiMAX, Wireless

Sprint Tries Desperately to Block AT&T, T-Mobile USA Merger

June 28, 2011

At a time when wireless broadband is becoming so important to US consumers and businesses, how can it make sense to have less choice in the market? Moreover, as carriers shift from all-you-can-eat pricing to a tiered system, isn't it obvious that wireless charges for consumers are going to skyrocket?

These are some of the arguments opponents to the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA are making but AT&T spends so much on lobbying and is so well-connected, they seem to be close to getting their deal done.

The situation for Sprint is so dire, the company's CEO Dan Hesse is doing virtually anything he can to prove the deal is bad for consumers. This includes an 18-state push and tripling of the time he spends in front of Congress and regulatory bodies.

Generally any action has positives and negatives associated with it and Hesse has to prove that on balance, AT&T will either provide inferior service or higher prices as a result of this merger.

Certainly the momentum is on the side of AT&T and not Sprint but the government does need to sign off on this deal and if he can find enough sympathetic listeners he may be able to kill this deal or at least make AT&T have to give up some very painful items to get it done.

More from Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

Posted in 4G, AT&T, Apple, Communications Developer, Consumer Electronics, E-Commerce, FCC, HD Voice, IP Communications, Networking, SIP, Smart Grid, Social Networking, Technology, Unified Communications, Verizon, VoIP, Wireless

Home Automation Could Be Next Tech Bright Spot

June 22, 2011

The future looks bring for home automation and energy management vendors

Hold onto your hat tech investors – we already have some hot sectors like consumer electronics, wireless, the cloud, VoIP, collaboration, healthcare automation and security to name a few. Now, home automation is looking like it could be the next big thing as evidenced by this great article by TMCnet’s Peter Bernstein who goes through seven reasons why we are at a home automation/energy management tipping point. What got him started down this path is the fact that iControl Networks just received a $50M cash infusion and has impressive investors and partners.

I don’t want to steal any of his thunder but my personal thoughts are we are getting to a point where disparate products need to start working better with one another. For example, I can watch Netflix on my TV directly via the Samsung widget or via Xbox – but each has a different interface and neither is really pleasant to use.

Posted in Consumer Electronics, Gadget, Green, Smart Grid, Technology

China Patent Wars: Huawei Sues ZTE

April 28, 2011

Huawei today filed lawsuits in Germany, France, and Hungary against ZTE a fellow Chinese manufacturer of telecom equipment - with strength in 4G/LTE technology among others. The interesting point here is the company is being sued for patent and trademark infringement and what this shows us is a greater concern for patents and trademarks in China. At least from Huawei.

According to the company, they paid US $222 million themselves in patent licensing fees to obtain the legal right to use patents and technologies of other companies in the industry. In fact TMCnet reported two weeks ago that Huawei and Motorola Solutions settled patent disputes.

This is great news as Huawei had a reputation years back for copying technology from companies like Cisco and after losing a court case they seem to have become more serious about patents and trademarks.

Last month I pointed out how a sales boom for tech and media is being unleashed by China as a result of it announcing 3,001 people have been arrested for rampant product piracy and seized fake or counterfeit medicines, liquor, mobile phones and other goods.

This is all great news for western companies who have invented technology which China wants to and will continue to use.

Posted in 4G, Apple, Avaya, Blackberry, Broadband, Financial, Gadget, IP Communications, M2M, Open Source, Satellite, Smart Grid, Technology, Unified Communications, Verizon, Video, VoIP, Wireless

Facebook Opencompute.org Disrupts Data Center Market

April 8, 2011

And just like that, the vanity server gets decapitated

Google continues to suck the life out of profits in industry after industry for the benefit of consumers. For example, sure Garmin is worth $7B but it was once worth $25B! Why? In-part because you can now get free turn-by-turn GPS of excellent quality with your Android phone. In the cloud-based email space the company has given away capacity ahead of others like Yahoo, challenging them to increase the amount of storage they provide. The company was one of the firs to provide open APIs for mashups - like for Google maps.

But some areas where the company is not so open is where they consider themselves to have secret sauce which they keep more secure than crown jewels.

Posted in Facebook, Google, Green, Science, Smart Grid, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter

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