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Avaya Takes Networking Lead in SPB

2013-05-15T22:19:19Z

At Interop Las Vegas 2013 Avaya was demonstrating their real-world Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) solutions and while interoperating with Spirent, HP and Alcatel-Lucent. Many of you will remember when Avaya was actually the enterprise division of Lucent before the company spun off just over twelve years ago. Randy Cross the company’s director of PLM discussed how there is a rapid move to software in the networking market and SPB is an evolution of MPLS allowing services to be created dynamically on the server where the applications reside or on the switches nearest the users.

This is one of the main benefits of SPB in-fact… It allows customers to simplify network creation and management by requiring service provisioning only at the edge of the network. Avaya thinks the new protocol has a bright future as it saves time, effort, and reduces human error by dynamically building and maintaining the network topology between nodes using intermediate system to intermediate system (IS-IS), a carrier-grade link state protocol. Another benefit lies in its ability to establish a multi-path fabric for traffic distribution and subsequently maximize bandwidth utilization on all paths while being able to execute seamless, sub-second network changes.

The company showed multicast over SPB utilizing its VSP 4000 multiservice edge switch and later demonstrated a sub 200 millisecond failover to me in their booth. I can’t vouch for the actual speed of the failover recovery as I didn’t have a stopwatch but it seemed quite rapid.

Cross told me using this technology and the VSP4000, you can extend the service enabling fabric to the edges of the network supporting a distributed enterprise.

He further explained that they deployed this technology with video surveillance company Pelco and were able to show that SPB provided three times better performance than IP multicast (PDF) without needing to reset the IP cameras frequently.

Another big benefit of this technology is building metro area networks (pictured) where a data center can have VSP 7000s or VSP 9000s while the VSP 4000 can sit in the basement of a building providing all the benefits of MPLS with security and isolation at a lower cost. This can be as simple as having a few engineers lighting up the metros quickly with fiber to the building and a truck roll to deploy the box he explained.

Other benefits of this solution include simple commands of a few words to allow services to come up quickly between nodes as well as the ability to transfer virtual machines rapidly between the gear of various equipment vendors.

Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst, ZK Research had this to say about the news, "These four vendors coming together to showcase SPB interoperability in a public forum such as Interop is significant. In comparison to alternative fabric technologies, SPB offers more vendor support, offers greater scaling and has implementations which are closer to the actual standards – facilitating this type of interoperability testing. Companies that are looking to virtualize data centers and reduce network complexity need to consider an approach based on Shortest Path Bridging."

Alianza Wants to Host Your Software Telco

2013-05-14T21:33:33Z

The software telco(r)evolution representing the move from hardware to software is perhaps the biggest trend in the world of carrier telecom this decade. Whenever we see such disruption in a market, it becomes an opportunity for new entrants to displace existing companies. As you may recall, Sonus Networks and Acme Packet (now Oracle) were just a few companies which were born and prospered during the transition from circuit to packet switched carrier networks.

In the past I have written about Metaswitch and their software telco solutions through NFV or network functions virtualization and their open-source Project Clearwater initiative which allows a carrier to run IMS on standard servers for free.

In both instances the company has shown leadership in the move to software which runs a telco. Another company I consider a software telco pioneer is Alianza. I wrote about them in 2011 when they announce d a deal with Clearwire to provide the company with hosted voice solutions.

I spoke with Kevin Mitchell the company’s Vice President of Marketing, about his company today and this is what you should know. Alianza has a relationship with Level 3 Communications who provides the termination, origination and wholesale services while the company provides a cloud-based voice platform. He says the company provides everything a voice service provider would need to buy, build or manage. In fact the two companies are working together to provide customers with the Level 3 Carrier Cloud Voice Solution. He continued that this could apply to a green field situation or even a migration to IMS.

The concept of “software telco” is a move from “bespoke or custom” hardware to software – there really is no reason why the solution can’t live a cloud and be delivered as a service. In fact, Mitchell tells me that his company embraces much of the concepts embodied in NFV… He says they run their own software and leverage VMware and HP servers for session management, applications and features.

Kevin further explained that a service provider using Alianza instead of hosting their own equipment wouldn’t have to deal with the CAPEX associated with the servers and other equipment needed to run the network. In fact they would just need to provide the CPE such as ATAs, soft clients or IP phones and pay Alianza as they grow. He also said that not all of his customers have the budget for SIP, VoIP and IMS expertise and as a result they turn to his company so they can in-turn focus on improving their video services and broadband speeds.

Moreover, he touted the company’s 350 web methods for integration and control functionality allowing smooth back office, customer care and billing integration. He also explained that carriers aren’t locked into preset calling/service plans… They have complete control of how their customers receive and are billed for the service they receive.

A wave of cloud-based companies are providing enterprises with cloud-based services from payroll to CRM and call recording. To date, communications service providers haven’t had many options to choose from in this area and the nature of their business dictated in many cases that they manage everything themselves.

With the advent of NFV, carriers told equipment providers that they wanted to be able to design their networks in the same way an enterprise designs its data center… Using virtualized software running on OTS servers. As this transition continues, there is no reason why a carrier shouldn’t or wouldn’t consider working with a cloud-based provider for their IMS services as well.

After all, if you are going to become a software telco, you have to explore what the benefits are of controlling all of the software yourself. Why not get a head start and host your services from a carrier that exists already, providing you APIs and referenceable customers? This of course is the vision Alianza hopes many carriers will continue to consider when evaluating their software telco options.

Be sure to learn everything there is to know about NFV and the birth of the software telco at Software Telco Congress, Nov 19-21, 2013 in Santa Clara, Ca.

Does Wearable Tech Make You a Jerk

2013-05-03T00:07:06Z

To the fashionable, the latest technology innovations have typically been frowned upon. Wearing a bluetooth headset is more accepted than ever but still has a stigma in certain social circles. Apple is an example of a company that understood and embraced this challenge and at one time had the highest valuation of any publicly traded company as a result. This also explains why the iPhone 5 doesn't look out of place next to an expensive watch.

In fact, smartphones are status symbols today and feature phones tell others you aren't with it or are cheap.

Google is not Apple but they have certainly learned a lot from Cupertino and applied much of it to Google Glass. Even though this new wearable tech device is sleek in comparison to its capabilities, some believe wearable tech makes you look like a jerk. In fact CNBC's Carl Quintanilla even mentioned so on live TV today. Interestingly the audience didn't think he did. Or maybe they were being polite. Watch it for yourself and decide.

One day, wearable tech could become as ubiquitous as smartphones or perhaps even replace them. Society's acceptance will in-part determine how the future unfolds.

If you want to learn more about wearable tech be sure to be at TMC's Wearable Tech Expo July 24-25 in NY where we'll explore all the latest industry innovations if their full "jerky" glory.

GENBAND Perspectives 2013 Live Blog

2013-04-30T13:06:04Z

Check out What's on Tap for the GENBAND Perspectives Summit? by TMCnet's Rich Steeves

See me live at 2:00 pm today here at GENBAND Perspectives 2013 where I speak on a panel "Harnessing the Power of Social Networking" in the Grand Cypress Ballroom here at the Hyatt Regecy Grand Cypress.

I am in Orlando for GENBAND Perspectives 2013 and the show is about to begin. last night there was a poolside reception which was rained out - but the venue was able to move about 1,000 people quickly indoors where the reception continued without a hitch. OK, a few of us had some wet clothes but other than that things have gone well so far.

Drummers kick off event

GENBAND Chairman David Walsh takes the stage. "Digital life is interactive. We are constantly interacting with it. None of it can happen without secure digital networks." Will companies, lead, follow or get run over? They have to decide he said.

General discussion about how many new domain names are registered... How many emails are sent - how much of it is spam (hint: almost all), how many people are on the Internet, etc.

He segued into a discussion of OpenTable and Uber - apps which don't use people but they facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers for restaurants and car services. 1 in 8 married couples met online he continued.

He made a funny telecom joke - if you got hear early, you could use SinglesAroundMe to find a date and then use Uber to get a car and OpenTable for a restaurant location - this is the new triple play.

He also discussed WhatsApp and Viber - he uses and loves both. He mentioned these OTT services are great but not ubiquitous. GENBAND is developing tech to allow these services to be federated.

Discussion moved to WiFi - he discussed the law of wireless gravity - bits will find their way to lowest cost infrastructure as fast as possible. "Spectrum is constrained and expensive. We can use math and science to make it more efficient but it isnt as effective as fiber which you can deploy more of to add capacity."

New York will become a carrier by converting phone booths to wireless hotspots - they will be able to become an ad agency and deliver content to various geographies and generate revenue. Hotels are also telecom carriers because networks are built where people gather and vice versa.

Discussion of how much heat is generated by data centers - they are power an water hogs (for cooling). Intertech is their partner and they provide more efficient cooling solutions.

We are beginning to see the start of cyber-warfare they also have an investment in Mandiant - the company finds and remediates problems. Also they are working with ISC8 to help find faults before they happen because quite often you find a threat 40 months after the intruder got into your network.

Devices are more valuable than ever. We want to help you [carriers] become a vital part of this evolution.

Charlie Vogt President and CEO takes stage

Discussion of the pace of change, GENBAND success - growth, speed of growth and forecasts of future growth. 80 of top 100 service providers are their customers. They are a hug part of Verizon FiOS, BT, Shaw, NTT, Telus and a number of other carriers. At CIBC and University of Texas at Austin - they are providing significant telecom infrastructure.

We are watching a video about how GENBAND empowers service providers and enterprises - by boosting scalability, efficiency and profitability - "Making Networks Smarter."

$100M annually in R&D is invested by the company. Small cells, WebRTC and cloud are a few areas of these investments.

Verizon CTO Tony Melone takes stage starts off - tech can build a better future... Together with partners we will take on societal challenges, healthcare, public safety, education, etc. Gave example of a wireless telepresence robot to allow remote students to learn. Also, "Make the world more sustainable and improve healthcare and remake entertainment with state of the art infrastructure which delivers superior experience consumers want."

Apps have to run on secure, reliable, available infrastructure - this is the vision at Verizon. We strive to deliver this day in and day out. 4 platforms.

4G/LTE - largest footprint in US and world... We achieve speeds faster than advertised today. US is ahead of world in 4G - thanks to our competitors trying to catch us.

IP - important in everything we do

FiOS - our Quntum services offers 300 mbps to consumers - soon we will offer 1 gbps if they need it. Reminds us we constantly underestimate tech needs/growth.

Cloud: Terremark: this is an important part of our portfolio.

We built 4G on 700 mhz spectrum and will put AWS to use soon. We need more spectrum and will go out an get it as needed. He doesn't understand why some want to limit telco access to spectrum.Explained the company is using the spectrum it acquires - it doesn't shelve it. It is investing billions in spectrum build-out in-fact. Won't launch before it is ready- it is not trivial to build a nationwide VoLTE/wireless VoIP network.

Video is 50% of global traffic on backbone some estimate as high as 90% in not too distant future.

Gave shout out to GENBAND, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and others who allow them to provide more cost-effective services.

Moved to smart-home discusion - FiOS - PON - 18M homes, mid-30% penetration roughly. 150 HD channels and reminded us up to 300 mbps to the home. They will migrate the backbone from 2.5 Gbps to 40 gbps and when this happens, they can provide 1 gbps to home.

In their broadband home router - they want to add intelligence so new devices can connect quickly and then connect to the cloud without user set up. They want to mak it easier for consumers to get access to the latest technology.

They see FiOS more as a business play - allows them to enhance their investment in the asset. They are being aggressive in moving from copper to fiber. Will accelerate this move based on what they learned in Hurricane Sandy.

"Cloud is real and growth continues... Means different things to different people." They focus on enterprises - secure connections to cloud with a breadth of services. Managed apps and services...

Thinks their platform will be ideal for partners to build upon. This is how they want to help solve the challenges in the world.

He then showed a video - some of it is below:

We enable so much of what is possible with innovation - we shouldn't forget how important we are - we need to continue building trust with customers - provide reliable networks etc.

M2M 40% growth - 50B devices by 2020 to be connected - partnership with QUALCOMM, Mphase - make it easy to take non-traditional devices - connect to Verizon Wireless network.

How can we make tech make the lives of our customers better and improve societal issues like healthcare.

Tim Wagner of Samsung takes the stage to discuss the company's transformation of the last three years - how the company has become a smartphone leader from a feature phone leader... Said no other company has done this. Largest electronics company in world... $200B organization. Selling 1,500 devices per minute.

Talked about how their commercials made their competition seem like the device was for old people - basically talking about Apple and the ads where Samsung users wet to the lines where Apple customers were waiting to buy.

Now discussed how much their social media presence has grown. Also - discussed hoe 500+ customers launched the Galaxy S4 phone at once. Around 120-125M Galaxy devices have been deployed. This doesn't count TVs appliances, feature-phones and other devices.

Discussed Samsung SAFE for enterprise - connects device to MS Exchange and ActiveSync, on device encryption, VPN support, MDM support from AirWatch etc.

Says they have systematically defragmented Android - makes the devices consistent across carriers and form factors and price points. IT manager can test one device and add SAFE - not each device.

26 devices run SAFE today.

Gave case study examples of successes.

AA has 16,800 Galaxy Note devices - allows American Airlines to provide same level of service to top First or Business Class. Their business is transformed - no more manuals or paper tickets.

Helping customers with tech implants - heart issues - allows them to know if they have heart problems through app on phone. First tablet approved for cockpits in US. DISH Networks - reducing four-hour window, use Galaxy Note to track installers and reroute them based on success at install. Allows them to check reception from top of ladder - don't need to go back down to test repeatedly. Can upsell and gt an electronic signature. Takes a four-hour window to potentially a 90-minute window - changes their business.

65,000 unit Galaxy win at HP.

Moved to discuss Samsung Knox - starts from metal of device to software... Allows work/life balance - keeps you from losing personal photos when enterprise wipes your device.

When turned on - looks for Samsung OS - if it doesn't find one, it will not boot up. Worked with NSA on this - security enhanced Android. Any unapproved apps are deleted/killed. General Dynamics is selling these to the government. They decided to focus on Government realizing that other regulated industries will follow.

Also have a container for business and personal use.

We have the most number of smart devices that are out there he said.
education, healthcare, manufacturing, hospitality and other vertical solutions are their focus going forward.

Samsung and GENBAND collaboration - enhance productivity, anytime, anywhere access to data - creating "Smarter Office." Discussed better business value.

He gave an example of allowing you to tap a phone to a tablet and being able to transfer a all from your office to your mobile device so you can listen to your conference call on the way home and spend more time with your family. Then explained they think GENBAND is the ideal partner to help them provide all this value to the market.

Samsung has an Oprah Moment - everyone in the audience gets a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 - now that is amazing!

This concludes the live blog for now - I am about to prepare for my talk in a few hours - right after the lunch break.

AT&T: From Dumb Pipe to Security and Home Automation

2013-04-26T21:49:39Z

There has been talk within the telecom industry for many years regarding whether communications service providers would eventually just become providers of dumb pipes or provide added value they can charge for. The move to IMS in-part was supposed to allow these companies to add more apps and services to their offerings, allowing them to generate more revenue.

When Apple opened up its iPhone platform, hundreds of thousands of apps began to do many of the things telcos would have liked to provide. Moreover, many functions which telcos used to charge for like SMS were given away for free from the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook.

A natural place for these companies to look for growth is an adjacent industry – one which could not easily be disrupted by an app or a technology shift.

This explains AT&T’s move into the home security market with its Digital Life solutions which also tackle the task of home automation. TMC reported on this news in the past but the big roll out was today in Atlanta, Austin, Texas, Boulder, Colo., Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Riverside, Calif., San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis and select areas of the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area. The company plans to introduce Digital Life in up to 50 markets by the end of 2013.

“We know how important security is to our customers, and this was our top priority when we set out to build Digital Life,” said Kevin Petersen, senior vice president, AT&T Digital Life. “People rely on their mobile devices more than ever, so Digital Life offers an easy and convenient way to secure their homes, protect their families and simplify their lives from virtually anywhere.”

The system is designed to be user-friendly and control cameras, door locks, lights, thermostats, small appliances and provide the capability of setting alerts or programs which manage your home.

Customers can choose from two base plans: Simple Security, which is their basic home security package; or Smart Security which includes enhanced security features and the option to add home automation.

Simple Security - Includes 24/7 home monitoring, 24-hour battery backup, a wireless keypad, keychain remote, recessed sensors and an indoor siren for $29.99 a month plus $149.99 for equipment and installation.
Smart Security - Includes the benefits of Simple Security plus a choice of three of the following features: motion sensor, carbon monoxide sensor, glass break sensor, smoke sensor or takeover kit. Smart Security begins at $39.99 a month plus $249.99 for equipment and installation.

Customers who select Smart Security can add these automation packages:

Camera Package - View live video from inside and outside of the home for an additional $9.99 a month plus equipment and installation.
Energy Package - Control appliances, lighting and thermostats for convenience and energy efficiency for an additional $4.99 a month plus equipment and installation.
Door Package - Allow a pet sitter or repairman into your home remotely with automated door locks, or check to see whether your garage door is open or closed for an additional $4.99 a month plus equipment and installation.
Water Detection Package - Detect water leaks before damage occurs for an additional $4.99 a month plus equipment and installation.
Water Control Package - Detect leaks and shut off water at the main water source for an additional $9.99 a month plus equipment and installation.

According to wireless analyst Jeff Kagan, "This is the kind of new and innovative service we can expect from the wireless industry going forward. This is an exciting opportunity for AT&T, and a competitive threat to the traditional home security and automation business. I think we can expect to see much more innovation in this space thanks to this move from AT&T. This service connects every part of a consumer's home to the AT&T Mobility wireless network. Home automation and security is the next generation of services we will see AT&T offer across the country."

ADT is the leading player in the market with nearly 16,000 employees and over six million small business and residential customers. They will have to contend with a new and very large competitor in AT&T.

I reached out to Sarah Cohn, Director, Media Relations about the company’s thoughts on the new competition and she said, “With nearly 140 years of experience, our customers have told us that what matters most to them is the quality and reliability of our home automation and security solutions. Telecom and cable companies have been in the security space before, and we welcome their re-entry because we believe it will not only raise awareness of smart home technology, but also expand the category, ultimately helping to attract new customers to ADT Pulse.”

Of course AT&T has the ability to not only offer home automation but can further bundle television, wireless and broadband service into an attractive package which may cut into ADT’s margins if they choose to compete for market share. Consider this the new quadruple or quintuple play. Moreover, AT&T has retail stores which means this real estate has just become more valuable as some customers will certainly be swayed to purchase from the company which allows them to speak to a salesperson about their home security system in their local shopping center or mall. In fact, home automation can be a complex concept to many - seeing solutions in action at a store is likely the best way to sell such solutions.

There is always the chance that AT&T’s marketing clout will grow the market and as a result, the entire home security and automation sector will see a boost. Either way, for AT&T, the move to offer television and now security and home automation shows that communications service providers do have numerous options when it comes to extending their revenue base beyond just dumb pipes.

How a Call Center Translation Service Went Mainstream

2013-04-24T18:24:08Z

Virtually everything in our lives has gotten more expensive over the years such as housing, cars, postage stamps, food and energy and yet telecommunications and broadband service costs continue to plummet. This state of affairs is in-part due to Moore’s Law and a side benefit of the declining connectivity costs has been bringing the world closer together. In the nineties you could bankrupt yourself quite easily if you direct-dialed from one country to another yet today IP communications has lowered the price of such calls to zero or a few pennies a minute depending on your location and device.

In 1982 a company called LanguageLine Solutions was founded to focus on helping translate conversations via telephone and since then, the company has grown to 6,000 interpreters who speak 98.6% of the 6,809 languages spoken in the world today. In this same year, TMC launched a magazine focusing on the call center market (now called Customer) and wrote about this company frequently in the subsequent decades.

I recently caught up with LanguageLine representative Linda Taffy who walked me through many of the new services the company offers such as Language Line University which measures the proficiency of multilingual agents. LanguageLine Direct Response is a service which allows your customer who speaks limited English to hear your message when they call in. From there, they first speak with an interpreter who greets them and then changes from being the greeter to an interpreter again. The company also offers a localization and translation service which helps companies keep their websites and documents accurate in other other countries and languages.

Perhaps the most exciting service is Language UC which is a video chat solution which runs on Macs, PCs and tablets. I had a chance to see a demonstration of sign language via an iPad and it was quite fascinating. What I learned was the sign for coffee which is an arm churning looks more to me like butter. But I digress. With this service you could be a traveling salesperson who could go to any country and communicate effectively in meetings by connecting to LanguageLine UC as needed.

Some of the benefits of LanguageLine’s services are you don’t have to hire full-time people on staff and can instead pay as you go. It is worth noting the video service has a license fee as well.

There aren’t too many companies still focusing on the same core business for over 30 years but LanguageLine is certainly one of them. With their new app/video service, they have certainly elevated their offerings and brought themselves current with the times and made their solutions something the mainstream market can use. You might even say the company is now a bit ahead of the times.

On Screen Size, Apple is From Mars, Samsung from Venus

2013-04-24T15:57:29Z

For many years now I have waxed poetic about the need for Apple to create a large screen phone. With the latest iteration of the iPhone, the “5” they decided to elongate the device but not make it wider. To me, this mistake is the worst that Apple has made since ignoring the market for seven-inch tablets and then playing catch-up with the iPad mini.

At first, when asked about larger screen phones, Apple said that they didn’t fit in the hand. Of course this was a shock to many people who not only were able to fit larger phones in their hands but to those of us who saw the ad for the iPad mini where the company showed it FITTING IN A HAND.

Now the story from Apple has changed – Apple’s Tim Cook said yesterday that large screen phones require trade-offs. Specifically he said:

My view continues to be that iPhone 5 has the absolute best display in the industry. And we always strive to create the very best display for our customers. And some customers value large screen size, others value also other factors such as resolution, color quality, white balance, brightness, reflectivity, screen longevity, power consumption, portability, compatibility with apps and many things.

Our competitors had made some significant trade-offs in many of these areas in order to ship a larger display, we would not ship a larger display iPhone while these trade-offs exist.

Some of these points actually do make sense and I speculated as such last September but perhaps the most important aspect of a portable device like a smartphone is its battery life and no one gets a whole day of use from an iPhone 5 if they actually use it for much of the day.

In other words, Apple already made a major trade-off sacrificing a full day of battery life to keep the iPhone 5 thin and light.

And every day Apple Store employees get hammered with the question, “When will Apple come out with a larger screen phone.” How do I know? Because I ask them, and this is what they tell me.

The biggest weakness Apple has right now is a device which fits between the size of the iPhone 5 and the iPad Mini. What smartphones does Samsung sell which are bigger than the four-inch iPhone 5? The list is extensive. The Galaxy S3 is 4.8 inches in size, the S5 is five inches in size. The Galaxy Note 2 is 5.5 inches. Want a tablet from Samsung, you can choose from the following sizes: 7”, 7.7”, 8.0”, 10.1” and 11.6”. Apple has merely two tablet sizes. Let’s stipulate for the moment that the iPad and Mini give enough options to consumers looking for a large and small tablet… Even so, we have to agree that Apple needs at least one wider smartphone.

I have consistently warned Apple of the multiple device threat starting on July 8^th, 2010. I saw Apple’s Achilles’ heel as being its limited product line competing with myriad screen sizes from a plethora of competitors. I saw how the PC market overtook Apple in the eighties due to improvements in price/performance from a multiple vendors and I realized screen size was the equivalent differentiator in the mobile space.

Yet Apple has changed its story on the topic – first telling us that larger phones don’t fit in the hand (how do they look at themselves with a straight face?) and now that they have trade-offs. The trouble is, these product trade-offs are causing customers to walk across the Verizon store from the Apple section into Samsung’s arms.

I have tremendous respect for Apple but when millions of customers vote with their wallets and tell you they prefer a larger phone – even with trade-offs, you have to listen to them. Or am I wrong? Let me know.

For more – see the post which shows how hand sizes vary widely and making a statement that “our phone fists in the hand” doesn’t take into account how much hand sizes vary.

Interactive Intelligence Explores Small Call Center Roots

2013-03-18T13:00:00Z

Interactive Intelligence is an example of a disruptor which went mainstream and in the process changed the way contact centers operated. Soon after launching in the mid-nineties the company would attract huge crowds to its booths at trade shows as it showed off all-in-one solutions which combined the dialer, ACD, PBX and more into a complete solution which operated seamlessly together. The company was first to espouse the concept and is responsible for getting the competition to emulate them.

In a recent meeting with Joe Staples, CMO and Senior VP of Marketing he told me the company has successfully acted upon its growth strategy from 2006 which was designed to increase its sales to large companies such as Rolex, BMW, Crutchfield, Sony Honda and many others. Their average deal-size in 2005 was in fact $87k and it is now $306 with its number of deals over $1m increasing from just one to 49 on a comparative basis over these seven years.

Interactive Intelligence hasn’t lost track of the companies that helped it get started as evidenced by the launch today of its new CaaS Small Center solution, which gives small contact centers with up to 50 contact center agents many of the same features the vendor has offered for years to the most sophisticated contact centers in the world. Pricing for CaaS Small Center starts at a flat fee of $99 per agent, per month. Included in the offer is the ability to add the company’s cloud-based PBX features for up to 100 non-contact center users.

Joe was sure to point out how mature the company’s offering features recording, UC, real-time speech analytics, quality management, multichannel communications including voice, web chat and social media, routing and real-time speech analytics with keyword spotting. There is also integration with Salesforce and other services out of the box. Finally there are guaranteed service levels, geo-redundancy from 11 global data centers, security, compliance including JITC, and customer isolation through virtualization.

He further explained the company focused on keeping the offering easy to use with limited set-up options and deployment within 15 days instead of months. Other areas of note are the ability to sign a one-year contract to lock in your price – a dedicated implementation manager, Quick Spin which allows you to try before you buy and of course a month-to-month commitment if you prefer this option

Interestingly Interactive Intelligence has gone from a disruptive new entrant in the market to an established player. By offering much of the power of its full contact center solutions in a simple, cost-effective, no-commitment way, it has to some degree slowed the disruption it could see from a new breed of cloud-based solutions providers. Moreover, the benefit Interactive brings to the table is stability as well as scalability – companies want a system that grows with them.

Staples says 65% of contact centers in the world have less than 50 agents but they are often underserved because they buy from a startup or just go with an add-on solution provided by a PBX vendor. In fact, one of the company’s newest customers for this new offering switched from another solution which didn’t allow them to see how many calls were waiting in the queue.

The purpose of CaaS Small Center is to allow these call centers who have the same needs as their larger brethren to access the same features and functions they have on a pay-as-you-go or should I say pay-as-you-grow-basis.

Comverse Gets Social at MWC2013

2013-02-28T17:49:07Z

Comverse showed me their Share solution at Mobile World Congress 2013 which allows carriers to deliver a Facebook app giving the user a portal into their subscriber account. Once you enter the app, you are prompted to enter a phone number and are subsequently sent a text message allowing you to get a code which enables authentication.

At this point you can check your account balance, send notes to customer care and more. The operator benefits as well because they can mine the user likes and preferences allowing them to determine for example if they may be a candidate for a bundle or special offering.

Moreover by integrating the traditional knowledge a carrier has about a customer, for example what device they use, they can offered targeted ads. For example if they are an Android user with a Samsung device near contract-end, they may be interested and likely to click on an ad for an HTC One.

In addition, Alice Bartram, AVP Portfolio Marketing told me there is a strong push into the cloud, allowing a service provider to outsource their MMS to the company and thus minimize CAPEX spending. Moreover, there is a focus here at the show on telling operators that Comverse is the right partner to bring them into the world of new services. This is done by first bringing existing services into the world of IMS and then enabling new next-gen IP services to be rolled out quickly.

Point being, we aren't moving to an all-IP world tomorrow but that is the destination. As we travel down the road, carriers need to be able to provide new as well as legacy services to their diverse subscriber base.

Smith Micro Extends MDM Standard to Chipset Level

2013-02-28T14:45:02Z

Smith Micro's main message at Mobile World Congress 2013 was that wirelss broadband connectivity is going to become easier. Carla Fitzgerald, VP Marketing Wireless & Mobility explained how the company has worked with chipset vendors to get its QuickLink MBIM Middleware installed at the chip level in various computer systems.

She said, "Connectivity originally started as an application where the user was once forced to be an IT administrator." She continued, "But now with standards like MBIM and Smith Micro working with chipset vendors, connectivity will be automatic regardless of operating system."

The benfits for users will be the ability to have backward and forward compatability across not only operating system versions but operating systems as well meaning you could take a USB stick modem and seamlessly have it work regardless of your system. Currently the middleware supports just about anything you would want to use such as Windows 7, Vista, XP, Mac OSX and Linux.

There are obvious benefits for carriers as well since this advanacement "lubricates" the system meaning it should be simpler for users to connect to networks regardless of the device they purchase.

Teoco Shows Predictive Geotargeting at MWC2013

2013-02-27T17:50:02Z

At Mobile World Congress 2013 Teoco explained how they have carved out a niche in the market focusing on BSS and OSS analytics while taking advantage of geolocation to ensure operators not only serve their customer with greater profitability, they can also capture new revenue models.

The Virginia-based company has provided carrier solutions in the past such as service assurance such as capacity planning, managing network congestion, etc. They also provide network optimization like suggesting what direction a tower should tilt. Finally, margin assurance is a big area of focus - which in one case they say saved a customer half a billion dollars in five years through a variety of analytics projects such as reducing access charges, modifying contracts with suppliers, fixing uneven roaming scenarios, tower location analysis, network routing and other projects.

Jonjie Sena and Faye Henris spent some time with me providing details on how geoloaction teechnology coupled with analytics which sits on top of the above core businesses is where the real opportunity lies.

The company's INrange offering is a predictive analytics geolocation solution which determines with a high degree off accuracy where a user will be in the future. By looking at call detail, tower hand-off records and a slew of other data, including how long a person stays within a certain radius, the solution can help carriers target ads to customers in a brand new way - based on their likeliness to pass by a shop or head in a direction.

Sena explains that if geotargeted ads get a 4-5x premium over traditional advertisements, ads which predict where you will be and can influence behavior should be far more valuable. In fact he points out 70-80% of purchases are pre-planned suggesting typical location-based ads can at best get 30% of consumer spend. The idea here is there is a lot of money being left on the the table by carriers who currently get a very small portion of the advertising market.

Customers for their part need to opt-in to receive offers and can select which vendors they want to hear from and even what sort of offers they want. Another benefit of the technology includes no reliance on GPS which means no battery drain.

Carriers have watched tens of billions of advertsing dollars be made off networks they provide and have hoped to get a piece of an increasing consumer spend since the days of IMS promised carriers would be in control of the apps their customers use. Apple and Google quickly dashed such hopes and plans. Carriers however still own crucial data which can be very useful in providing premium ads, meaning if they play their cards right, they could get a piece of an ever-expanding ad pie.

Mobidia Tackles Bill Shock at MWC2013

2013-02-27T15:45:23Z

Chris Hill (pictured) the VP of Marketing at Mobidia was euphoric in telling me about the growth of the company's new app My Data Manager which has had 3.5 million downloads in the past 12 months. As bill shock becomes a larger problem which is amplified by the speed of 4G networks, users - especially when roaming, are literally a movie away from being hundreds of dollars above their typical monthly costs if they aren't careful.

The app runs in the background on iOS and Android and monitors app usage and cellular usage anonymously sending data back to the company if the user agrees to it. To date, over one million people have signed up to allow their data to be tracked meaning Mobidia has some incredible information about mobile use trends. For example, eBay and Amazon were way ahead of the next ecommerce site on Black Friday.

Another tidbit of information is messaging and voip apps seem to have dominant players which are different in each country. Skype of course is a constant and Facebook Messenger is growing rapidly but other players seem to have regional strength.

The company monetizes the app via this data - selling it to investors, and even a VoIP company buys the data to compare themselves to others in the market. Carriers too have become customers and can use the data to target specific plans. For example, heavy Pandora users can be given special offers to use a Spotify plan.

Hill tells me a new frontier is mobile advertising and they are looking for ways to use their data in this space as well.

We often see fremium apps do well as some users become paid over time and ad-supported apps do well as advertisers pay the bills. Mobidia may be one of the few new companies using big data and the subsequent analytics they imply to generate a nice living from giving away an app to the masses.

Vantrix Optimizes Media Delivery at MWC2013

2013-02-26T16:04:50Z

As audio and video traffic over wireless networks has grown exponentially, operators around the world have struggled to deal with managing the challenge. Enter Vantrix who focuses on bandwidth management and more specifically media optimization according to company execs execs at Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona.

The company showed off its solution running on the QuickFire Networks T-Video line - an offering which deals with ever-more complex video by attacking the problem with a combination of hardware and software. Using Intel 2.3GHz Core i7 processors the T-Video V1100 reduces the footprint of video transcoding solutions by a factor of five using 44 cores per rack unit. As H.265 video becomes prevalent, Mark Hopper, the VP of Product Line Management (pictured) for the company says video systems will have to increase their footprint size by 20-30x to keep up with video which has ten times the complexity factor - referring to the differences between H.265 and H.264 video.

The company's modular software architecture allows transcoding and coding to be put on specific components on a hardware platform such as the GPU.

Dealing with bandwidth constraints often has to do with looking at the worst offenders which means of course dealing more specifically with applications. This is where the company's high performance scripting engine comes in. Part of the Vantrix All-Content Bandwidth Optimizer 3.0 solution, the engine is able to do DPI on packets and further take rapid actions based on a preset list of rules. For example in four lines of script an operator was able to optimize Pandora traffic to minimize the amount of packets it consumed. Other case studies include determining/setting Netflix bitrates as opposed to allowing the service to make this determination for itself. Finally OS upgrades were targeted by a carrier who wanted to reduce users downloading them via peak times. By slowing the downloads, they were able to encourage users to acquire these updates at a later time or on WiFi.

The one constant in the world of wireless bandwidth is there never seems to be enough of it. Targeting media and applications which tend to take up the majority of bits on the network and grow at an ever-expanding rate is an effective way for carriers to attack this burgeoning problem.

Ciena Launches New Services Play

2013-02-25T23:53:23Z

Ciena has some exciting news when it comes to the world of service provider networks. We know the company as an equipment provider which has had years in the business but now they have branched out from not only upgrading networks but businesses. Chuck Kaplan VP Industry Marketing (pictured above) spent some time with me at Mobile World Congress 2013 explaining how his company has spent years helping customers not just spend money on their solutions but make it as well through a new consulting initiative.

The first step in the process is to redefine carrier services for a new world where data usage has tremendous spikes which are caused by things like cloud service utilization. They started down this path by helping a European provider by writing a 125 page SLA and from there they made it generic allowing it to apply to other carriers as well.

The company then started assisting its customer in selling to vertical markets like healthcare, wholesale and financial. They handle sales training which includes teaching the sales team about the specific vocabulary for each market.

The final piece is geoanalytics or identifying customers near a fiber plant. They refer to this concept as a profitability mapping and when you consider building a mile of fiber can take six months and cost $100k, finding customers who can be quickly served makes a lot of economic sense (so does the term they chose to describe it.) Of course this doesn't preclude the customer from serving a cluster of new customers who can be easily served with a wireless solution which connects to nearby fiber.

Kaplan tells me the company's differentiator in this new market is a solid handle on selling to verticals and helping carriers offer new cloud services. Moreover Ciena touts its aggregate experience in helping carriers throughout the world - something which gives them unique perspective on helping new carrier customers.

For now the company has focused on fixed-line carriers but may expand to wireless over time.

Volubill Updates Charging and Policy Solutions at MWC2013

2013-02-25T18:54:32Z

Volubill the "converged charging and policy" company brought their solutions up to date at Mobile World Congress 2013 with the introduction of 4G LTE solutions. One of the interesting differentiators the company provides is allowing carriers to personalize virtually anything. For example, customer Orange Madagascar recently launched 18 new packages and will soon launch another 14. Each took 15 minutes to configure, test and deploy. Examples of such packages could be gaming or even Spotify where a users could have unlimited Spotify minutes included in their bundle.

Another area of growth is WiFi-offload where carriers can use the company's solutions to provide tracking of these minutes. Moreover the company also allows carriers to deal with EU regulations coming in July of 2014 related to local break-out which means carriers in a local country will be able to become the customer's predominant carrier while the user is in their jurisdiction.

In other words if you have a carrier in the UK, when you get to Paris, you will be able to choose from any wireless carrier in the country you just entered. Currently all data traffic is funneled back to the carrier in the users home-area. John Aalbers the company's CEO (above) explains that carriers have now started to offer inexpensive daily roaming packages to roaming customers to eliminate bill shock and possibly make this new law a non-issue.

Volubill's solutions will enable local carriers to track and bill these temporary customers.

John says the company is about connecting the revenue model of its customers with usage models. In other words they are trying to line up the value provided with revenue charged. "The goal here is to provide the right service with the right quality at the right price," he says. The company hopes to be at the center of helping wireless carriers provide future services in a profitable manner.