It was a bit chilly, this weekend and I thought a chicken potpie would hit the spot. I also noted that I have not given you my chicken potpie recipe. It seemed like a good idea. I took a bag of what looked like chicken potpie filling out of the freezer to thaw over night in the refrigerator. The next day when I poured the contents into a saucepot, I discovered it was clam chowder. Interestingly, neither of these recipes have I put into the blog. However, when I thought about adding one of them to the blog, there was one major problem. I've never measured the ingredients for either. It is a bad idea to guess at measurements for a recipe. So, while we had a wonderful bowl of clam chowder topped with a biscuit crust, it is not the recipe of the week. Instead, I created a quick version of my formal dinner salad using pear preserves. Normally, this salad would have either a blood orange or apple juice gastrique as the primary dressing component. However, it takes a bit of time to boil down the juice to make syrup to which you add vinegar and sugar. The Mixed Salad with Pear Dressing was done in just 15 minutes and was a great accompaniment to the clam chowder potpie. I used pear preserves yesterday but that required some chopping and such. Using pear jam or jelly will make a smoother dressing. Enjoy!

Pairing Up

The past week has seen several announcements where key players in the IP ecosystem have decided to pair up to offer new services. The Skype and Verizon announcement of having Skype's voice traffic go over the Verizon network was interesting. The rumored pairing of Skype and AT&T would also make for interesting move on the part of the ILECs. It is unclear to me what their ultimate VoIP/SIP Trunking strategies are.

The other pairing was Orange and T-Mobile. We have heard rumors that T-Mobile wants a partner for some time in the US. That remains elusive. However, in pairing with Orange, they will become part of the UK's largest mobile phone company. As mobility is the current wave for telecom, the IP community should keep a close eye on the new offerings this may present.

While not quite a new pairing, it was interesting to read where Dimension Data, a Broadvox partner,  believes that telepresence will be of interest to the SMB market sooner than expected. As a large Cisco VAR/Systems Integrator, Dimension Data has noted that falling costs and better features may allow them to position the new Cisco/Tandberg telepresence products to a broader market more quickly than expected.

Finally, there are those cities that want to pair up with Goggle as part of its gigabit to the home project. Where ever this project lands, it will become a showcase for what high-speed broadband can enable. The goals of the effort are simple; develop new ways to deploy a fiber network, test new applications, and promote open Internet access. It should be great fun for 500,000 households.