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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.

Exciting New ITEXPO Keynote, Michael Tribolet with magicJack VocalTec

2011-09-01T02:08:15Z

Two months back I told you that IP communications veteran Michael Tribolet, someone involved in the founding and growth of the VoIP space joined magicJack Vocaltec and would be at ITEXPO West in Austin Texas, September 13-15, 2011.

I have great news to share and that is that Michael will be keynoting at the show at 8:45 am on Sept 13. He kicks off what is perhaps the best keynote line-up ITEXPO has ever seen - he will be followed up by representatives from Cisco, IBM, DHL, Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe and many more.

I have known Tribolet for about a decade if not longer and he worked at some of the most influential game-changing companies in his career. For example, he Vice President of Operations at Dialpad - a VoIP leader in the nineties allowing tens of millions of global callers the ability to call into the US for free.

He then went to Vonage America and became President and watched the company change the face of VoIP - causing the cable companies to realize IP was their future as well. The ensuing competition between Vonage and the cablecos is still fascinating to watch.

Now at magicJack Vocaltec, Tribolet is once again at one of the game-changing IP communications companies and no doubt has fascinating insight on where the communications business has been and will be going. I am looking forward to hearing him speak and hope to see you there as well.

LNP Still a Problem After 7 Years

2011-08-04T18:04:04Z

Years back I had problems with number porting to a VoIP provider and now - seven years later the problem still exists as evidenced by TMC's Tom Keating who recently tried to and couldn't port his number to a VoIP carrier.

Interestingly I recently got to know an LNP specialist at a SIP trunking provider who was telling me about LNP horror stories. Certain carriers in rural areas just didn't have to port. I couldn't get anyone from the provider to go on record so I never wrote about the situation.

Here is my article from 2004 complaining about LNP, one from Tom Keating in 2006 and here is Tom's latest story about the trouble he just had with a number port.

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.

Important HD Voice Research Report Available

2011-04-07T22:16:49Z

You probably know I have been a huge proponent of HD voice as to me it’s an inevitable outcome of transitioning away from the PSTN to IP-based networks which allow us to upgrade CODECs without having to downshift our conversations to technology which was invented many decades ago. When I was a kid, television was an 11 inch black-and-white screen which seemed to always have Walter Cronkite on it and changing the channels was a manual and rotary process.

Yet, the incredible tech advancements we have seen in the television space haven’t yet fully materialized in the world of telephony. Sure, I can have high-quality conversations if a call stays on IP networks and there is no need for transcoding or jumping onto the public switched telephone network. But for most calls we all make, this technology advancement is unheard – so the problem is solved but not in a way which really helps on most of our calls.

My thoughts and a panel of experts from ITEXPO East 2009 Miami on the future of HD voice

The good news is the opportunity to improve the quality of all phone calls will only grow over time as equipment is replaced, IP communications becomes more widely embraced and peering of VoIP networks becomes the norm, not the exception.

That’s why I am thrilled to announce that TMC – the company where I am CEO has partnered with HD Voice News to publish the first comprehensive report on the market and opportunity for HD voice technology and services.

I recently had a chance to look at the report and give the author, Doug Mohney my opinions. It was an impressive piece of work and Doug’s credentials in the market after being a contributing editor here at TMC for years, working at Fierce Markets and VON Magazine in the past make him the go to guy when writing such a report.

The one point I’d like to leave my readers with is why is it we spend so much more money on gear and services which support HD TV but when it comes to voice, we don’t do a good job educating or differentiating services – let alone charging more? The answer is there are still challenges such as HD voice interop and the dreaded PSTN. This report should hopefully help the key decision-makers at carriers, enterprises and equipment companies see where the challenges and opportunities lie in taking the communications market to the next level. Here is a press release discussing the report in more detail and a site where you can order the report.

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.

Austin, Texas Selected For ITEXPO West 2011

2011-01-27T23:13:32Z

I have some very exciting news to share regarding ITEXPO. I alluded to it a few weeks back and now it’s here. ITEXPO West 2011 will be moving to the Austin Convention Center in Austin Texas, on September 13-15, 2011. ITEXPO was launched in San Diego, CA at the Hotel Del Coronado and moved to Long Beach and eventually Los Angeles. This move reflects the requests of many exhibitors and attendees.

One exciting benefit of the move for the communications and technology community is free WiFi in the convention center. The convention center is also located 15 minutes from the airport and is within walking distance of 6,000 downtown hotel rooms. Moreover, many refer to the city as the live music capital of the world.

It should come as no surprise that with less regulation, fees and taxes, the business-friendly Lone Star State is doing far better than California in terms of business growth and unemployment rates and although I look forward to bringing more events to California in the future, it is worth noting that show organizers want to host conferences in cities and states where the politicians create the most favorable business climate.

Moreover, Austin is surrounded by technology companies and the communications corridor of Dallas/Richardson is within driving distance. The response so far from those in the know has been very positive and we look forward to seeing you there and discussing the move further next week, Feb 2-4, 2011 in Miami at ITEXPO East 2011 and as soon as the show is over, expect the ITEXPO site referring to Austin to be up and running.

-50F With Wind Chill. Escape to ITEXPO in Miami

2011-01-24T20:01:54Z

You know I would never stoop to reminding you about the weather to persuade you to attend what I believe to the be the best tech and telecom conference in the world - OK, maybe I would.

So I was driving along this morning on the way to work and noticed I couldn't feel any of my fingers. I decided to check to make sure I was wearing gloves. I was. Then I realized I couldn't feel any of my toes and yes I had shoes on.

I then looked at the temperature reading and it said one degree. I decided to risk my life to take the picture above while driving - I could have pulled over but hey, I was late for my first meeting and I would do just about anything for you, my faithful reader. Attention law enforcement professionals - some elements of this blog post may have been overly sensationalized in order to provide dramatic effect.

But getting back to Connecticut where TMC is based - one coworker who lives in Danbury, CT said it was -11 degrees when she left her house this morning. And that's nothing. If you can believe it... CBS News reports temperatures with wind chill hit as cold as -50 degrees F!

BTW, in AP biology back in high school we learned that -40F is the same temperature as -40C - this little bit of trivia courtesy of Mrs. Beers my 11th grade teacher. Hope I spelled her name right.

Oh, but back to the point of this meandering post... It is freezing out. There is one show in Miami next week where you can go to network with those who matter in the world of tech and telecom. Almost forgot to mention it is called ITEXPO East 2011. Every important topic is to be discussed from super WiFi to SIP to open source to virtualization and cloud computing. It is all there - in Miami under a single roof where you will also get to hear keynotes from former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin as well as executives from BT, Adobe, Aculab, GENBAND and Digium - the creators of Asterisk. Its the only industry event with a networking party at Mangos, one of the hottest spots on South Beach. Yes, there are other places to network as well.

So I hope to see you there and I look forward to greeting you in person.

Here is the ITEXPO show site, collocated events, free workshops, exhibitor list and giveaways you can win such as a new Jeep.

Sears Goes High Tech With Video Streaming

2011-01-04T15:03:19Z

One imagines the person above represents the typical Sears customer... Will this news lure the person below?

As reported by Gary Kim on TMCnet, Sears is now launching a new streaming video service under its Alphaline brand which is expected to provide a full line of consumer electronic products.Unlike subscription based competitors you do not need any sort of long-term commitment to use the service which prices new releases frequently at $3.99 per rental while TV episodes are priced at $1.99 per rental.

Powered by Sonic's RoxioNow backend, just like Best Buy and Blockbuster, the service will be embedded in a variety of connected Blu-ray players, mobile devices and TVs.

A few thoughts come to mind… It seems television episodes are priced high when compared to movie releases. I wonder if $0.99 or $1.29 isn’t a more reasonable episode price.

Moreover, with so much competition in the space and the ability for new retailers to easily come to the market via the use of Sonic's RoxioNow backend, we can expect there to be a race to zero in content distribution. Obviously content providers will always have some pricing power so we can’t get to zero unless sponsorships and/or ads make up the cost.

Speaking of racing to zero, Tom Keating just reported on his TMCnet blog that Axvoice is pursuing this race with its unlimited VoIP service for just $99 per year. He points out the cost is under the important psychological barrier which would be $100.

In a way, Sonic’s service reminds me of Level 3 in the early days of VoIP service. The carrier’s carrier dealt with much of the backend for retail IP communications providers and helped get a great deal of companies into the space more quickly

And just like VoIP in fact, movie distribution will become a more competitive business as Best Buy, Blockbuster, Sears and others take share from Netflix, cable and IPTV companies. The question is how much traction will these companies ultimately gain and will they scale large enough to make the video endeavor worthwhile?

And for Sears, a company with a stodgy brand, this move could possibly make it a little more hip which may even help its sales in other areas.

See Also from TMCnet’s Telecommunications community:

· Proposed CenturyLink and Qwest Merger Settlement Placed Before UTC

· Online Platform Offers Free AT&T, Verizon Industry Research

· The Capacity Crunch: What Causes It?

· 4G Is Changing Mobile Telecommunications

Skype, FCC, IBM and Tech News Before New Year's

2010-12-30T20:03:34Z

While the week before Christmas and New Year’s is typically slow with regards to news, the huge blizzard which hit the northeast really started things off with a bang. A foot-and-a-half of snow hit the area around TMC headquarters in Norwalk, CT with drifts totaling a few feet in height. Airports were backed up and some streets took days to plow well.

Skype has been busy

Ironically, at a time when so many really needed to communicate virtually, one of the main vehicles for VoIP and video wasn’t working right. In fact, Skype really stole the show in terms of news having a major outage, then fixing the outage and finishing off the week by releasing iPhone-friendly video conferencing.

The FCC too has been busy

The FCC too has been busy pushing out Net Neutrality guidelines (public response) as well as publishing a few important papers. The first discusses the problems we may encounter as IPv4 addresses are exhausted and we move to IPv6. The paper begins by discussing now NAT is a kludge and is being used to translate addresses between v4 and v6 and as such there will be performance issues which will linger until the world moves fully to IPv6.

The commission also put out a document detailing ways to watch a broadcast TV station if it happens to be dropped from your pay TV service. Certainly this document is a response to the recent fight between Fox and Cablevision where a few stations were dropped from the cable provider. Coincidentally Cablevision serves the Fairfield County area, home to TMC HQ and we missed watching Fox Business during the dispute.

VoIP and now modern man come from Israel?

Recently I went to a Middle Eastern restaurant where the falafel tasted like it was hanging around since the time modern man emerged on the scene. Perhaps my instincts were accurate as it seems according to Israeli scientists; the holy land was not only the birthplace of IP communications but potentially for our first upright-walking ancestors. There is no word yet on whether any ancient pita has been uncovered but scientists continue the dig unabated.

Microsoft, McDonalds, Mazda & CBS Used ads as cover for data mining?

A new lawsuit claims the above companies worked with Interclick to run ads which tracked consumer behavior in an extremely granular manner. Isn’t it amazing how we live in a world where one generation shares online the details of every activity they engage in from sex to drugs and other illegal activities while another generation wants to be sure advertisers aren’t aware of who is clicking on their ads?

IBM: Five predictions in five years

It is the time of year where people make predictions and IBM is no exception making five predications for the next five years which will affect the planet, your commute and 3D technologies. Will they be right? Will they be wrong? Expect me to write a follow-up piece in another half-decade with my thoughts.

ITEXPO adds speakers

The latest ITEXPO and Social CRM Expo Speakers are as follows. The show is in one month so be sure to book travel and register soon:

ITEXPO

Steven Shalita, Vice President, Marketing, NetScout Systems, Inc.

SP-07 “Achieving Operational Efficiency by Optimizing Service Delivery”

Holger Stotz, Director, Strategic Sales Support Voice Platforms, Siemens

V-01 “De-mystifying Hosted Communications”

Matt Clark (Moderator), Principal, Valuation Services, Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP

SP-01 “Differentiating Yourself with Bundled Offerings”
SCRM-03 “How Social Media is Changing Customer Behavior”
SCRM-04 “Turning Social Media into a Business Asset”

SCRM

Blair Pleasant (Moderator), President & Principal Analyst, COMMfusion LLC

SCRM-09 “Safe and Social Web 2.0 in the Enterprise”
SCRM-10 “How Social Platforms are Revolutioninzing IT”

Cecilia Edwards, Head of Strategy, Telligent

SCRM-08 “Secrets to Building a Sustainable Online Community”

Jay Hallberg, Co-Founder and Vice President, SpiceWorks

SCRM-10 “How Social Platforms are Revolutioninzing IT”

The Year ahead for information technology

Lance Whitney writes an article about the year ahead for IT on TMCnet’s InfoTech Spotlight site. It is certainly is worth a read and as you may have guessed involves products which begin with a lowercase i.

There is certainly lots more – I will likely be writing and posting to Twitter and this blog all weekend long. Let me take a moment to wish you all a happy holiday season and New Year. Let’s hope 2011 is a fantastic year for all my readers – I hope all your families are healthy and happy. In addition, here’s hoping that the next year will be positive for all of us from a financial perspective allowing much prosperity based upon lots of exciting new products and services which I just can’t wait to write about.

Net Neutrality: More Unintended Consequences

2010-12-24T00:05:00Z

What if the FCC could force FedEx and UPS to charge the same rates for delivery regardless of how many days it takes to get a package delivered and/or the weight of a package?

Stairway to Trouble

A large tech company found many of its workers were using gadgets when walking up and down the stairs and as a result after numerous internal meetings they decided in order to create a better work environment they would communicate with the workforce about the perils of multitasking while walking on the stairs. As you might have guessed, the decision was made to put signs in the stairwells warning people to not multitask.

The problem of course was that more and more employees started to read signs while they traversed the stairs – including the people who weren’t multitasking to begin with. Obviously this increased the risk of someone falling down the stairs.

The law of unintended consequences once again reduced the impact of good intentions – many might even argue it would have been better to leave well enough alone.

The Internet is the ultimate democratic tool

Today, the Internet is the ultimate democratic tool allowing any person in the United States and many other countries to have access to virtually all information which exists online. Only occasionally have there been companies which have acted in ways which have limited the ability of consumers to access services or information.

Works fine as is

So generally speaking, the Internet works very well as is and except for limited cases, democracy is flourishing because of it and access to broadband is becoming more widespread as prices have generally gone down for bandwidth.

Moreover, consumers can stream massive HD video files at their whim and in some cases do over the lowest cost tier of DSL quite often costing under $20 per month.

Some could easily argue that the current state of broadband while far from perfect is increasing broadband speed to consumers at lower prices – a goose laying golden eggs so to speak.

Do we need net neutrality?

In an ideal world where theory trumps practice, net neutrality makes sense – allowing all packets and services to be treated fairly equally. If you are in college, this may seem like the perfect utopian world because in this realm you don’t worry about investors or how companies have to make money, payroll or maintain networks.

In the real world however there are major concerns which arise when unelected bureaucrats get involved in private industry to regulate at a granular level. For example, does the spammer deserve net neutrality protection? What about the company pushing malware and other senders of questionable but not illegal content?

My favorite part of the argument is who decides what is appropriate to send? Someone in Washington? A lobbying or special interest group?

This leads us to the obvious question – why don’t spammers get together, form a trade group and spend money to lobby for spam to be protected under net neutrality principles?

Competition is Lacking

Perhaps the best argument for net neutrality is that there is a lack of competition and too much market power resting with a few companies. Well, this seems to be the case in industry after industry. But isn’t this the situation in the market for shipping packages today as well? Think about the following:

What if the FCC could force FedEx and UPS to charge the same rates for delivery regardless of how many days it takes to get a package delivered and/or the weight of a package?

Is this concept not generally what net neutrality is?

The FCC’s Intentions?

The FCC says its goal is to ensure open access to applications by consumers which in-turn will increase broadband adoption which in turn will increase investment in broadband which in turn will accelerate the cycle.

How Will They Accomplish Network Neutrality?

The principles are fairly straightforward as broadband providers will need to:

Be transparent in how the manage their networks – for example if they impede certain traffic or applications they need to explain why.
Not block or impede lawful content and/or devices and applications.

Interestingly we could make the same argument about shipping – if packages were not discriminated against, the price to ship would be reduced and as a result there would be more shipping. This in turn would lead to more investment by FedEx to upgrade their trucks and airplanes.

Why is net neutrality needed again?

So what the FCC is saying is that in order for broadband carriers to be more successful they will force a certain behavior when carrying traffic which they deem to be in the best interest of the carrier.

But if carriers are already abiding by net neutrality principles and doing otherwise would harm their business by reducing broadband adoption, why do we need to force them to do what is in their best interest?

The Unintended Consequence

The FCC’s meddling in a system that works fairly well could kill the goose that lays the golden egg in the following way. Video streaming is already catching fire in the US and with these new rules in place, video providers may be able to secure ever-greater investment for streaming video content online. On the face of it, this is great news but there are a few problems which we should be concerned about.

The rapid decrease in TV set prices and the proliferation of new devices such as tablets means consumers are already be sucking down more and more high-quality video content to their machines. The government may have just added a turbocharger to a race car meaning carrier networks may end up being even more severely strained under the load.

In addition, many broadband carriers make tens of billions of dollars in affiliate fees. Accelerating the move to over-the-top video means the broadband providers will see a more dramatic than expected decrease in revenue.

In other words the cycle the FCC is so concerned about protecting may have been disrupted by this move.

Even worse, they may have just changed the slope of the bandwidth per dollar curve because as competitive services take away profits from multi-play providers, they may have less money and incentive to invest in faster broadband connections.

My changing perspective

Of course we want what is best for consumers and time after time the government says it wants to help but doesn’t. I have lived through bubble after bubble which has either been induced by or amplified by government interference and to be honest I am horrified at the prospect of any more help. Even when the government did things which no one could argue with like increasing competition in the telco market by allowing CLECs to form, they set up a situation where a massive bubble formed and popped.

This bubble may not be something we can blame the government for but it shows even the ideas with the best intentions can have ramifications which are very bad for the markets they are looking to help.

Unintended consequences

Generally speaking unintended consequences may be understood to apply to tangential problems which manifest themselves as a result of some action. Recently however John Stossel had an entire television show which shows quite often government programs designed to help a certain group of people often hurts the very same group.

CNBC too had a special which shows how government guaranteed student loans are contributing to the cost of college increasing at an astronomical rate. They suggest this nearly one-trillion dollar problem may be the next government-induced bubble fueled by good intentions which will burst.

Something to like

The free market-lover in me however has to give credit to the FCC for increasing carrier transparency. I believe in the age of the Internet, transparency will allow citizens to stay informed and make better decisions. Moreover, social networking allows consumers to shame companies into acting in ways which society deems correct.

In fact with proper transparency, citizens using the Internet can do a far better job regulating the companies they buy from than unelected bureaucrats.

Where do we go from here?

The future role of the FCC and federal government boils down to the type of government we want to pass down to our children. If these central planning bureaucrats consistently fail in getting the desired results via well-intentioned regulation, should we change our approach or keep protecting ourselves from falling down the stairs by posting more signs in the stairwell?

3G and 4G Group Data Plans Needed

2010-12-20T15:45:52Z

I am beginning to change my tune on the embedded cellular radio vs. the external MiFi device debate. Does it make sense to purchase a tablet with embedded 3G or 4G or is it better to go with an external 3G/4G device which becomes a personal hotspot?

To date I have decided that my laptop should have embedded Verizon 3G via EVDO while the iPad - embedded AT&T 3G.

But if you have a family and your kids need (OK need is a strong word - desire is probably more appropriate) connectivity, should you embed their devices with 3G modems as well?

Obviously the bill can get pretty big pretty fast and if you have kids who only occasionally need wireless access when WiFi isn't available it is crazy to sign a multi-year contract for $40 or more per month. Sure you could get a cheaper plan but if you opt for an iPhone instead an iPod Touch to take advantage of a wireless carrier's larger 3G wireless footprint you have to buy a voice plan as well which starts at $39.99/month - then of course you'll want to add a text message plan, etc.

This is why I read with interest the news that Best Buy is selling a bundle of an iPad with a free MiFi with a 2-year contract.

When you amortize the use of this free device across all your family's gadgets such as the Nintendo DS, iPod Touch and future products you know you'll buy, it seems to make sense to have one.

But one wonders if carriers aren't doing themselves a long-term disservice by not coming up with some sort of group or family plan for devices. In this way they get consumers to ante up a bit more - let's say for example $10-$20/month per device for dedicated 3G.

After all, even if you are typically in range of the MiFi, there will be instances when you'll want your device to have its own cellular radio.

Of course Virgin Mobile offers a MiFi 2200 with 100 MB per month for just $10 so therein lies the pricing challenge. But still, carriers are leaving money on the table by not becoming more aggressive in competing with MiFi devices. They should realize the threat is changing consumer behavior - making direct 3G and 4G connections in each device less important.

From my perspective, they should want consumers to put cellular radios in every device they purchase to maximize revenue. And if they don't reverse this trend soon, it may be too late to educate the market on the reasons for wanting every device to always be connected.

Callvine Simplifies Mobile Conferencing

2010-12-19T20:14:42Z

Yesterday I was at a party where one of the guests was telling me about her job managing real estate for her family. I inquired about where her office is and she held up her cell phone and said my car is my office. This conversation reminded me about a recent conversation with Callvine Founder and COO Mark Dzwonczyk who tells me his company has found the secret ingredient to take conferencing to the mobile professional. After a couple of years of work, the company has an app which I tried on an iPhone (iTunes preview) allowing you to quickly set up groups which you can use to SMS and conference.

On a recent trip to Boston I was in the train station and needed to connect with a few coworkers. I group texted them via Callvine and asked when we could talk. Ten minutes was agreed upon. I subsequently set Callvine up to conference us in ten minutes. At this point an email and SMS message went to all conference recipients and at the scheduled time our phones rang and we pressed one to get into the conference.

The software allows you to see a dashboard of the call so as people join, you can see who is there. You will also hear this information but it is a nice touch to be able to see it on a screen. You can use the app to put someone on hold or mute as well – always a handy feature to minimize the effects of that one heavy-breather we have all had to deal with from time to time. Or the coworker who is doing double-duty as stay-home-parent taking care of the loud canines or kids. You can also privately SMS from the app – perhaps sending a message such as “Did you know most people breathe through their nose quite fine?” :)

Obviously this service isn’t limited to work as you could set up groups of family members and friends – soccer parents, etc. You can also initiate an immediate call with a single button if you so choose. When you land at the airport you can notify all your cousins in LA for example.

Perhaps one of the most important benefits of the service is that you don’t need to remember complicated dial-in instructions which seem to have pin-codes with never-ending digits. Cutting and pasting text from a calendar app to and phone app while on the highway is not recommended and obviously entering in a pin code the length of the factorial of your social security number isn’t the safest thing you can do either.

Dzwonczyk tells me that once you get the app into your organization, you eliminate the awkward beginning to conference calls where people are fumbling with how to get on the line. “Calls just happen at the right time,” he continued, “The whole team is there in 15 seconds… The next time, everyone has their notes ready.”

I learned something about the iPhone while on the call with Mark… You can make a five-way call on an iPhone – I have only tried three. But of course you use 5X as many minutes when you do this as every connection counts as a separate call. Callvine allows you to conference in people without adding to your minutes total. You get billed by your carrier for only one call.

In addition, you can access it with any phone and there is no need for IT to get involved. Have a dropped call? No problem – just make sure Callvine’s number is in your speed dial and using ANI, the system will get you right back into your call.

Calls under ten minutes are free and if you want to speak longer you can buy credits through the iTunes store. And for around $6 (not finalized) you will be able to speak with up to five people for an hour or up to ten people for 30 minutes. The company is considering an unlimited plan as well.

In my use of the service, one time the phone dashboard didn’t show up and I couldn’t figure out if there was a manual way to initiate it. Moreover, I think there should be a way to have replies to text messages go to all. I say this because in one case I sent a group text about having an immediate conference call and one person responded and the other didn’t. Have a group replay may have sparked the straggler into saying he was on a separate call and needed to reschedule.

Another note for new users is you should tell others what Callvine is before they get their first messages as they could be potentially confused by the messages and think it is spam or a malicious contact, this happened to me in a few cases.

A web portal would be also be useful and I was told we can expect one next year. Obviously this is a necessity if you have someone else scheduling your calls and they happen to sit at a desk and prefer to use a PC.

Having single-click ability to make calls or send text messages makes Callvine a must-have device for people who have smartphones. There is no cost to try it and you will likely find it makes you more productive quite quickly. I believe the service will be even more useful it if comes out with a dashboard for tablets allowing drag-and-drop addition of contacts into and out of calls as well as other advanced call control features such as whisper, etc.

Sample Callvine Screen shots:

MagicTalk and MagicJack Plus Coming Soon

2010-12-14T23:14:19Z

I’ve followed the IP communications business for well over a decade and in 1997 my company TMC decided to launch a publication called Internet Telephony to focus on what we believed would be a massive trend towards IP communications. At first we were ridiculed because there was a point in time when the technology was seen as a replacement for Ham radio only. It took some years but the industry caught fire and saw incredible innovation – even a bubble or two grew and exploded on the way to where we are today.

And as amazing as the market has been for 12 years or so, we didn’t see VoIP-on-a-stick become ultra-popular until a few years ago. I still remember seeing an infomercial for MagicJack on a weekend in August 2008, and I recall my eyes lit up as I absorbed the whole production.

An information screen presented when you sign up for MagicTalk service

I have never tried the device mind you but I have heard a competitor or two dismiss the quality of the stick – so I was very interested to hear the founder of the company – now VocalTec, CEO Dan Borislow tell me about his commitment to voice quality. It seemed like an obsession actually as he continued to explain all the focus his company has on making the absolute best quality calls.

Typically you won’t find the lowest cost provider of service claim quality is where they are focusing so this made the conversation that much more interesting.

For example, the next version of the product, which for now is called the MagicJack Plus, will have an on-board ARM CPU – something your smartphone wields as well as memory and hardware-based echo-cancellation. The size will be similar to the current MagicJack but this device will not have to be plugged into Ethernet – you can use USB or AC as it has an optional WiFi module which works in a USB daisy chain fashion. Dan explained he has tested the device with Clearwire and Verizon 4G and the call quality is great using these networks as well. The best part of all may be it takes only 15 seconds to get it up and running.

We spent some time talking about the company’s ads – he mentioned that others say they have become stale but he emphatically explained they keep working as well as ever. Besides, he said how much can you change a 15-second ad and still get everything in? He says his company runs more 15-second ad spots than any other company in the country. Moreover, he gave a shout out to Best Buy and Radio Shack among others for continuing to sell the products in large numbers. At this point Borislow explains there are 15 million MagicJack users.

Another information screen presented when you sign up for MagicTalk service

He told me his company plans to abandon its femtocell strategy he had announced over a year ago as most smartphones have WiFi built-in now. He thinks it is better to instead focus on apps and in the next 90 days or so we should see these rolled out across a number of devices. As you might expect, once again, he said his company will focus on rolling out high-quality VoIP calls on their applications. He mentioned that prior to iOS 4.2 which allows multitasking; it didn’t make sense to have a VoIP app on a smart phone anyway.

MagicTalk, the company’s software based VoIP service is scheduled to go live this week and yet again, he focused a good amount of time going over the voice quality we can expect. I downloaded the Beta copy of the software and gave it a whirl and was very impressed. The sound was great, it integrated with my headset seamlessly and the UI was easy to understand and use. In my tests I called cell and landline phones. If there is any downside it is in full-duplex situations where both parties are talking simultaneously. Generally this is rarely an issue on phone calls which aren’t testing the line for quality. In summary, it’s free to download, sounds good and it lets you call the US and Canada at no cost for now… What’s not to like?

Interestingly, Borislow wasn’t bashful about saying that competitors are having a hard time competing with him… NetTALK for example another voice stick service – he claims their product doesn’t work and mentions how difficult it is to scale a SIP network to massive numbers. He says it is nearly impossible to do and mentions that is why Google Voice doesnt always work and the quality isn’t so great. Likewise, he says his company blows the call quality of Skype away. Moreover, he explained that 94 percent of the company’s calls hit the PSTN meaning a wideband codec isn’t generally that useful. Having said that, they use their own G.711 wideband codec between endpoints – even if one is a MagicJack and the other is MagicTalk.

Few people would go on record saying their product is better than Skype, Google and all others but I give Dan Borislow a lot of credit for saying what he feels and I certainly spent more time beating up MagicTalk as a result – I wanted to be sure that his product has the quality he said it did.

Again, I wasn’t disappointed.

We can expect heavy promotion of MagicTalk as soon as the product is released officially. He thinks they can achieve about 15 million users of the service. So far there are 270,000 Beta users.

I did find a couple of problems with the software – it crashed once when I wasn’t using it and I had trouble dialing another user via the supplied 10-digit number users are assigned Update: you must dial the preceding and trailing asterisk of your assigned phone number and it works great. Hopefully both this issues will be solved in the general release.

Marketing is obviously the company’s strength and as such when we can expect to see new and different messaging rolled out soon – he mentioned perhaps a raffle of $1 million awarded to anyone who makes a call using the service as an example.

He says he is ultra confident that once people try the software they will like it and based on my experience – he is likely right. Again, it’s free, has good quality and is easy to use… What’s not to like?

One last point which captured the essence of the discussion… I asked him about a social networking strategy for the company and this is what he said:

I never hit my kids in their life but to get my daughter off Facebook I am going to have to hit her… I have to be part of it.

Obviously this was not a run of the mill discussion and Dan Borislow may be the most interesting and/or unique person in the telecom space. Now, let's see if he can use his entrepreneurial "we are the best, hands down" attitude and unique marketing talents to take on Skype and Google effectively.

Finally Headsets Get Smart

2010-12-10T22:52:11Z

You get a call, you pick up the headset and put it on your ear and then turn on the headset to connect the call.

One of these steps is not needed.

The Apple iPhone popularized the motion sensor/accelerometer and Sonos uses this technology to keep its remote control powered down until it is picked up.

Now headsets can join the motion sensing party and the latest one from Plantronics, the Voyager UC Pro which ships early next year will acknowledge the fact you have picked it up by switching the call to the device.

What could be better than a world filled with smarter devices, making our lives easier? Thanks Plantronics... This is a really good idea.

TMC broke the story earlier today for more on this new bluetooth headset.