Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - Smart Grid Archives

Photoluminescent Paint Markers Could Save Taxpayers Billions

2013-02-07T18:21:43Z

Earlier today I discussed how governments can likely save billions of dollars by consolidating their overlapping digital library efforts. While on the topic of saving – this video below shows a new technology which allows roads to take advantage of photoluminescent paint markers which could eliminate the need for streetlights in many areas. I’d estimate the savings from this technology in the billions as well and there is an additional benefit related to not needing to replace light bulbs which burn out.

The downside? There would be an additional cost related reapplying the paint when a road is resurfaced – an event which takes place more frequently on roads damaged by snow plows, salt and sand.

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

2011-12-29T17:48:30Z

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. Vonage didn’t own the “pipes” to people’s houses but they provided telephone service. Thus the move from circuit switched communications to packet switched was underway. This raised issues of net neutrality but also changed the way communications service was to be regulated. Moreover, the FCC under Kevin Martin decided that VoIP providers had to rapidly deploy E911 service just like LECs and CLECs. This additional cost caused some VoIP players to go under but as Martin told me in a keynote interview at a recent ITEXPO – it wasn’t anything personal but a safety issue which needed addressing.

Fast forward to recent times… You know I have spoken about the death of the PSTN in this space and moreover I decided to dedicate a keynote lunch panel to the topic at ITEXPO as well. Although we are a number of years away from the inevitable death of the public switched telephone network, it will happen. Moreover, much of the technologies and standards to make this transition aren’t yet in place.

And to make matters worse it is only a matter of time before special interest groups get into the action and make statements about how the evil government and phone companies want to take away grandma’s telephone service.

So when the switch happens… It needs to be absolutely perfect. Flawless in fact.

This brings us to the news of Schulzrinne who has played an absolutely crucial role in the standards process and advancement of IP communications. Recently he was chair of the Computer Science department at Columbia University as well as co-chair of the Internet Technical Committee of the IEEE Communications Society. Perhaps most importantly he co-designed the Session Initiation Protocol which we affectionately know as SIP. Also the Real Time Streaming Protocol, the Real-time Transport Protocol and the General Internet Signaling Transport Protocol.

Schulzrinne has spoken at past TMC events and been an important part of the content we have created over the years – going back to the early days of Internet Telephony Magazine which launched in February of 1998. Here is a search (with news feeds) on TMCnet where you can see some of the mentions and coverage related to Schulzrinne.

The FCC is a government agency which generally means it is bogged down by bureaucracy, red tape and politics so a logical question is how much change can one man bring? I am unsure. But this move is a stroke of genius by Julius Genachowski and I give him the highest marks for his foresight in choosing Henning for such an important position at a time when the nation’s communications network will be experiencing absolutely revolutionary technological advancements.

American Superconductor and the Case of Chinese Industrial Espionage

2011-12-15T15:18:56Z

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 9^th, 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. Moreover, AMSC has filed 2 copyright infringement lawsuits. He said, “We believe the strength of our cases are undeniable.” He continued:

We have hundreds of e-mails and messages between senior-level Sinovel staff members and our now incarcerated former employee. These messages give a detailed account and timetable of the crime. They demonstrate that Sinovel requested this stolen IP. They show that certain senior-level Sinovel employees knew that this IP was obtained illegally. And they provide evidence that Sinovel employees were aware of the damages that the theft could potentially inflict on AMSC. We have the contracts that were signed by our former employee with Sinovel and parties related to Sinovel, promising to pay him in excess of $1.5 million. We also have the e-mails containing the actual IP transfer. And we will share with the courts evidence from multiple wind farms in China demonstrating that Sinovel has been utilizing the stolen software to upgrade its wind turbines in the field with LVRT functionality that we developed.

We believe the case is clear cut and the evidence is very damning. We have confidence that the Chinese courts and arbitrators will consider all of these facts and that we will achieve a favorable outcome. While we acknowledge that this is a commercial matter, many have pointed to this case is an important litmus test for future energy cooperation between China and the West.

How China deals with this issue which has been going on since this past March will determine the fate not only of both companies but send a signal to the world about how serious China is about protecting intellectual property.

Of course, it is too soon to condemn China or Sinovel but it does seem the evidence is damning if what McGahn says is accurate.

There seems to be incredible potential for superconducting cable to make wind turbines more efficient and moreover to dramatically increase the efficiency of the power grid. As with any new technology - it will likely have unforeseen benefits in many areas. It is a shame these lawsuits and espionage have distracted American Superconductor as they continue to develop leading-edge technology.

I reached out to Daniel McGahn for more and did not hear back immediately - I will update the post when or if I hear back.

My past blog posts on related topics:

FreeWave Technologies Provides Secure, Long-Range Radio Communications

2011-10-26T21:37:37Z

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. As a reminder, quite often drilling takes place where there isn’t much infrastructure around so cell towers are generally non-existent as is fiber, copper, etc. Solar power assists the FreeWave devices in running and lasting for years if necessary, providing readings and other important information.

The company is based in Boulder, Colorado where it makes all of its devices and to date and has placed about 700,000 radios in the field. Each radio by the way is tested and calibrated from -40 degrees F to 168 degrees which believe it or not is only slightly more extreme than the seasonal temperature variations in Boulder :-). Sharma reinforced the fact that his company’s radios are secure and transmit data reliably. He went on to say how crucial reliable information is as it could help determine whether or not a drill needs to be shut down preventing oil spills and gas leaks.

In the military space, the company’s radios are placed on many unmanned vehicles (UAVs) providing command and control communications.

The company’s radios run on a variety of frequencies from unlicensed, licensed and military such as 900MHz to 2.4 GHz, 869 MHz, 700 MHz, 1.4 GHz, 400 MHz and 1.3 GHz.

FreeWave makes many radios and perhaps my favorite is the embedded MM2 (pictured) because it looks like something small enough at 14 grams that I could probably put about 10 of them in my shirt pocket.

The company is pretty excited about their new LRS400 Series allowing for the first time radios which operate on licensed frequencies in the US. It operates on frequencies of 435 MHz-470 MHz, 1.427 GHz-1.432 GHz with up to 2W of output power.

The LRS455-EU (pictured) is global radio which operates in both FCC and ETSI modes meaning a single unit for use across the continents and less maintenance costs.

Where can the LRS455-EU be used and under what conditions?

One of the more interesting points made by Ashish is the fact that the radios communicate in a proprietary fashion means they are generally more secure than traditional communications systems where hackers can more easily figure out how to tap into the data stream. Generally this also means costs are higher but for many applications the importance of secure communications outweighs potential cost savings.

In the past 160 years, undersea cable investments have only increased as the Internet has propelled forward our need to not only communicate over distance but to communicate with more people and devices than ever. Likewise it seems the opportunity for secure, long-range wireless communications will not let up and Sharma thinks the market today is worth hundreds of millions if not a billion dollars.

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

2011-08-31T17:47:13Z

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. In the situation where free market competition is in play, companies will have to be more innovative, trying new tactics to get a leg up on the other wireless carriers. And in this scenario, consumers win.

Last month I asked if this merger would slow wireless innovation and one of the points I made was that T-Mobile USA and Sprint have been more aggressive working with smaller equipment providers who rely on deals with smaller carriers to keep their investors interested and motivated to pony up more cash in the hopes of eventually landing a big global carrier at some later date.

It seems the FTC agrees as they filed a civil suit this morning to block the deal citing that T-Mobile has been a disruptive force in the market. The complaint further cites a T-Mobile document in which the wireless carrier explains it has been responsible for a number of significant "firsts" in the U.S. mobile wireless industry, including the first handset using the Android operating system, Blackberry wireless email, the Sidekick, national Wi-Fi "hotspot" access, and a variety of unlimited service plans. T-Mobile was also the first company to roll out a nationwide high-speed data network based on advanced HSPA+ (High-Speed Packet Access) technology. The complaint states that by January 2011, an AT&T employee was observing that "[T-Mobile] was first to have HSPA+ devices in their portfolio...we added them in reaction to potential loss of speed claims."

The size of the breakup fee is $3B in cash and potential a billion dollars or more in spectrum so we can expect AT&T to fight this decision tooth and nail. It is worth pointing out that Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile USA believes the breakup fee is worth $6B.

But one has to wonder what AT&T knew and what inside information they had to decide to go ahead with this deal. After all, there are few if any business leaders who believe the Obama administration and by default the federal government is pro-business. Steve Wynn is perhaps one of the most vocal and worth listening to. And if there is even a hint that consumers would be hurt in this transaction, wouldn’t it obviously be denied?

So what possessed AT&T to go forward on this deal if they didn’t have amazingly good inside information?

And the timing – it just couldn’t be worse – AT&T CEO Randal Stephenson was on CNBC this morning touting how good the merger would be for the US economy – pledging in part to bring 5,000 wireless call center jobs back to the US if the deal was approved.

Then a few hours later the DOJ makes the announcement – almost the moment after the CNBC segment was complete.

If there is an interesting twist in this news it’s that the Communications Workers of America Union is very supportive of the merger as according to CNBC, AT&T is a union shop while T-Mobile USA is not. They even said publicly that the DOJ lawsuit is the wrong decision for jobs. As the Obama administration is extremely pro-union, having the CWA on-board could have been a big reason that AT&T felt confident they could get this deal through.

So I can’t help but to conclude that DOJ used common sense here and although AT&T’s arguments as to why this merger would be good for jobs and consumers is likely true for the short-term, over years, having one less wireless carrier would mean less innovation not just from the perspective of competitive pressure in the marketplace but from the resulting death of a slew of wireless equipment and service providers who rely on smaller carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile to get their start as telecom equipment providers.

It is worth reminding my readers that I have pointed out often in the last few months that call center jobs in India are becoming a problem because Indians don't look favorably at the work anymore and moreover, the competition for labor is so great that wage inflation and turnover rates are skyrocketing. The videos below give you a further taste of what I mean - so we might expect AT&T Mobility and other call center jobs to end up back in the states regardless of the results of this attempted acquisition.

What the Post-Hurricane Irene Cavalry Looks Like

2011-08-29T02:18:24Z

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.

PSTN Death is Near

2011-07-07T14:13:04Z

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. But the last six years has seen continuing evolution in IP communications with VoIP peering and SIP trunking just some of the latest solutions to make a cost savings and productivity–boosting technology even better.

And from the consumer standpoint – they all know about Vonage, Skype – have cell phones and use IM and social networking to communicate. So it will come as little surprise to you that according to an article from TMCnet’s Peter Bernstein:

As of May 2010, 23% of respondents lived in a mobile-only household
37% of adults in the 18-24 and 30-34 age groups lived in a mobile-only household
Only 6% of the US population will still be served by the public switched telephone network (which is defined as TDM access line service) by the end of 2018

Simply stated, the PSTN is dying.

Industry leader and past TMC conference speaker Tom Evslin a person who I couldn’t respect more, even suggests the government needs to get involved to ensure there is universal access as we enter a transitionary period. Specifically he explains that USF dollars help maintain the network and as more high-value customers leave it, there are fewer dollars to maintain service in areas which are expensive/hard to reach and potentially devoid of alternatives.

Specifically he says:

Although it offends my free market sensibilities, I think government also must be involved in assuring that everyone who now has PSTN service has access to either a broadband or cellular communication alternative.

BTW – it is always tough to argue with free-market sensibilities – my confidence in the government doing anything right beyond putting out fires, enforcing contracts, and keeping us safe through the military and police force is pretty low. Of course this is in part because I see the law of unintended consequences rearing its ugly head virtually every time the government acts. See Net Neutrality: More Unintended Consequences and Dear Government, Please Stop "Helping" Us for details. Want more? Google effectiveness of Obama stimulus.

But getting back to the discussion on the PSTN – Bernstein suggests a separation between the pipe and service business. But are we to rely on the government or a separate monopoly to upgrade these pipes for us or is it better to allow a combined service/pipes company provide both? In the latter situation, the combined entity has increased incentive to upgrade the pipes quickly so as to provide value-added services over the connection.

Of course in my example I assume that one company will be responsible for maintaining both a copper and fiber network – would it make sense to have multiple companies maintain networks which are unprofitable for one company to maintain?

Moreover, would it be better to wait for Congress, the Senate and White House to come to an agreement on which fiber pairs should be run to our homes? Or will a separate company manage these networks and if so, who runs that? Will the FCC decide? By the way, is the new company regulated? Will it be forced to dig up and replace the technology from time to time? And finally, who pays for it?

Of course this situation is far from simple to solve and I wonder if satellite providers may not be a missing puzzle piece requiring more study. Then there are new technologies such as white spaces/super WiFi which could theoretically work in a meshed capacity to solve some of the remote access issues we now face.

I’d love to hear from you if you have some thoughts on how to resolve the situation and bridge the gap.

Be sure to check out TMC’s Super WiFi Summit, September 13-15 in Austin, Texas to learn more about this promising technology and how it could could be part of the solution to sunsetting the PSTN.

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

2011-06-28T20:52:51Z

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.

Home Automation Could Be Next Tech Bright Spot

2011-06-22T14:50:39Z

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. Moreover, consumers have music, photos and videos strewn throughout their devices and bringing them together to accessible by all devices is what consumers want. Apple will give you an iCloud but what happens when you want to tap into it with an Android device?

Earlier today I wrote about how Facebook is integrating deeply into smartphones – if the companies who play in the space aren’t careful they may watch the leading social network becoming the digital hub for all their rich media as well.

China Patent Wars: Huawei Sues ZTE

2011-04-28T15:14:56Z

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. Moreover, adhering to and dealing with patent and trademark law increases the costs for Chinese companies, driving up their expenses to be more in line with their competition around the world.

This is a good thing and as you may recall, competition from Huawei and ZTE were in-part responsible for the Nortel bankruptcy. If China is playing on a more level field, the entire market wins as inventing the next generation of technology is expensive and risky... If all the margins are squeezed out, the entire tech and telecom suffers.

For more, check out my entry relating the Apple App Store to the Opec of the West.

Facebook Opencompute.org Disrupts Data Center Market

2011-04-08T09:08:56Z

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. Case in point is data center design, their virtualization middleware and search algorithms.

But Facebook on the other hand isn't bound bay the same parameters and as such they just released their opencompute.org design for what they call the most efficient compute at the lowest cost. They say this new design is 38% more efficient and 24% less expensive to build and run than other designs. They looked at electrical design, power distribution, thermal and mechanical design. The company removed components which weren't needed and they call it a vanity-free design which is devoid of plastic bezels. As a result, the company says the servers are efficient, cheap and reliable while the power supply is over 94.5% efficient. It is worth noting at this point that Google too made a big stink about power supply inefficiently some years back but and even put out a paper (PDF) on the topic in 2006.

Another interesting twist is the data center is used to cool the servers so they use less fans per server. This results in servers which weigh about six pounds less each.

The company says they have opened up everything they can from motherboard specs to server chassis to power supply specs and CAD drawings. They are looking for feedback so they can improve. Moreover they request users take what they have done and implement and adapt it.

A big benefit to Facebook is further entrenching themselves as a cool place to work for younger workers and others who care about energy efficiency and green designs. But perhaps the most important benefit of all is legitimacy - the company just changed its perception as a group of college kids who stumbled onto a great idea and who have trouble keeping data private to one which could potential save corporations, carriers and governments billions of dollars in the near future.

And if you're Google, you aren't very happy already as the company recently told its workers their 2011 pay relies on getting better at social and the company has already paid off employees with tens of millions of dollars to keep them from defecting to Twitter. When management wakes up this morning, expect them to be taking an extra dose of Tums.

But that's not to say Google is in any immediate danger of being dethroned as the advertising leader. But in the battle of hearts and minds - one in which tech companies compete to be the most cool to employees, customers and the tech space in general - Facebook has won a major victory. Not necessarily at the expense of any other company (for the moment) but the result of this move will be even more openness from tech companies looking to compete more effectively for all the resources available in the market from the most talented workers to free publicity from the media.

Cisco Says HTML5 Part of Wireless Future

2011-02-14T15:55:43Z

At the latest 4GWE event collocated with ITEXPO, TMC's Juliana Kenny spoke with Dr. Cullen Jennings, Ph.D., Distinguished Engineer, Cisco to learn about the future of mobile including HTML5 and other technologies which will part of the wireless multimedia future.

The video below has details.

Electronic Warfare is the Future. Are You Ready?

2011-02-14T15:16:46Z

Stuxnet is Victory at Entebbe 2.0

The Stuxnet worm alleged to be the work of Israel and the US was designed to target and disable Iranian centrifuges by increasing their speeds to dangerous levels while reporting to operators that all was well. The latest report from the New York Times shows this worm has also hit five industrial sites in the land of Ahmadinejad.

It’s no secret most of the world does not want Iran to get nuclear weapons and the best weapon being used to deter the country’s nuclear program was sanctions and if they are working it would be tough to know it as the country are prospering greatly as the price of oil is much higher than what Iran has budgeted.

So electronic warfare is a nice and neat way to disable a portion of the country’s operations without the need to go to war, risk lives, etc.

Because of the nature of this attack some predict the Iranian nuclear program has been set back by two years, making this attack historic in its ingenuity. It is really Victory at Entebbe 2.0. As you may recall, Operation Entebbe was a daring hostage rescue mission pulled off by the Israel Defense Forces in 1976.

Cyberattacks are not new by any means but the level of sophistication and damage created by this attack make it something bad guys everywhere will be trying to emulate. And this means as we interconnect more systems from smart grids to smart homes… From automobiles to transit systems and full cities, we need to understand the stakes are higher than ever. Rogue countries and terrorist organizations have a new standard to try to beat and it is not out of the question to see countries engaging in more frequent cyberwars in the future. This could be in conjunction with conventional wars like when Russia and Georgia had their recent conflict or full out cyberwars like Stuxnet or when Russia targeted Estonian web servers with DDoS attacks.

For the tech industry this means massive new budgets will be allocated to not only defending against such attacks but developing ingenious new ways of disabling enemies.

And while cyberwar sounds less ominous than having bombs dropped on your head, there is no telling what sorts of damage citizens of the future will be facing if cyberterrorism and cyberwar escalates.

ITEXPO East 2011 Behind The Scenes

2011-01-31T19:46:37Z

ITEXPO East 2011 here in Miami begins officially in two days - but tomorrow has become a worthy conference day with power networking and education via three events from SIP trunking to cloud computing and communications. As the show gets set up, my team was good enough to send a photo I could share to let you see the behind the scenes work which goes into putting ITEXPO and collocated events together. For more, here is an updated schedule and the latest show daily.

Be sure to check out the Twitter feed on the expo show site to keep up to date on the ITEXPO buzz.

ITEXPO East 2011 Tues, Feb 1, SIP Trunking, Cloud Computing & More

2011-01-30T21:35:44Z

Be sure to get to ITEXPO on Tuesday, February 1^st to take advantage of what has shaped up to be a great pre-conference day of networking and learning about communications and technology.

First up us Ingate's SIP Trunking Workshop at 1:00pm. Here is the schedule for the day:

1:00pm – The Case for SIP Trunking
1:30pm – Delivering SIP to the Enterprise
2:30pm – The Value of a Service Provider Demarcation Point
3:30pm – Ensuring Interoperability: The Key to Service Revenue Growth
4:30pm – Addressing Security Issues
5:30pm – Generating Revenue from HD Video
6:30pm – Wine Reception

Then at 2:00pm is Telecom One-on-One, a JS&A Power Networking Event. Bring lots of business cards and the sooner you start planning, the more meetings you can schedule and the more networking you can do. I attended the last one in NYC is was quite impressed with all the quality meetings I witnessed.

Finally at 4:45pm - Interactive Intelligence presents Cloud-Based Communications, an interactive event for Fortune-class organizations at the Gansevoort Hotel. This panel and reception is promised to be full of relevant discussion about the cloud and the benefits afforded to companies migrating their applications out of their own data centers.

Here is the list of panelists you can see – I am on it and can’t wait for it to start:

Tim Passios, Interactive Intelligence – Moderator
Jon Arnold: Independent analyst – communications and smart grid expert
Rich Tehrani: Yours truly
Gary Kim. Respected writer and media figure
David Yedwab: Independent analyst
Alan Percy: Often the face of AudioCodes
Thomas Howe: voice mashup and cloud communications guru

See you in two days.