Jorge Rodriguez is the best source I've found of fantastic testimonial as to how empowering ITEXPO is. He has completed the trixbox workshops and now runs Telecomm Managed Networks Inc in which he sets up and hosts 180 call centers in his very successful business based on open source technologies. He recommends trixbox and DIDX in this video and cannot seem to say enough about his happiness with monetizing IP communications because of ITEXPO conferences.
See all the workshops and professional certifcations available at http://www.tmcnet.com/voip/conference/west-08/tmc-university.htm. For a limited time, I believe there are also scholarships you can apply for. ITEXPO West 2008 is scheduled for Sept 16-18, 2008. Sign up at http://www.itexpo.com. (Come meet at exhibit 153.)
July 2008 Archives
It's my new office chair that I frequent, thanks to Lauren's example. I feel really creative in it while working with 10,000+ NGNs that we serve and the world of many more out there to monetize or at least benefit highly from IP communications.- how do your IAX2 vs. SIP customers differ in QoS, call setup time, complaints, etc.
- what roadblocks has IAX2 helped you overcome?
- what roadblocks has IAX2 introduced?
- other issues relevant to you and your customer/vendor's use of Asterisk and IAX2
Also see several of the best IP communications events listed at http://www.didx.net/events including IT EXPO West 2008 and Astricon 2008. Gas card or American Airlines voucher card could help you get you there.
Ping.fm is a simple service that enables you to update just about all your social networks. Use AIM, Google Talk, iGoogle, WAP, iPhone/iPod Touch, SMS or E-mail and let Ping.fm relay your message to a multitude of social networking sites such as twitter, jaiku, wu, tumblr., Pownce, Livejournal, Blogger, Mashable, Xanga, plaxo, brightkite, facebbok, myspace.com, identi.ca, hi5, bebo, friendfeed, and Linkedin.
I did say Biz Message in the title of this post because many people don't realize how valuable and how natural business development and networking can be on social network sites. I've always wanted to see a good debate regarding this topic as to which social networking sites feel and seem the most conducive to natural business networking, (not forced).
After 10 years, Hunter is moving on to a new venture as the Chief Strategy Officer and a Director of a Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation focused on the communications industry. He's quite well-known for his column on TMCNET VoipPeering. There are a few leaders in IP communications that I believe fit the description of a good leader who can facilitate a good company to become great in the book From Good to Great by Jim Collins, and Newby is one of them.
Jaxtr has launched one-number dialing in India. What will this do for you and me? 1. Save money on international calls, in some cases as low as 1 cent or 43 paisa per minute.
2. Get a local India phone number. (So all my friends in India can call me like I'm local? Cool. Just need a plate of nihari and roti for dinner tonight, and everything will be perfect.)
3. No calling cards needed.
4. Plus Jaxtr has local numbers in 60 or so countries, so that anyone can make a call to a local phone number and have it ring to their friends, family, colleagues, and customers anywhere in the world.
5. There are approximately 190 countries and territories in the world, so... what do you do if you live in one of the other 130? Use Jaxtr's click to call while you wait for the magic of Jaxtr to probably very soon get phone numbers in your area.
Still don't understand how this works? See for yourself at Jaxtr's website on how it works!
Press release...
Facebook group...
Credit card fraud and chargbacks are a number one nuisance and detractor from "monetizing IP communications." The FBI's Financial Report to the Public for 2007 report losses of $52.6 billion, affecting 9.91 million Americans alone. (Quoting Redif)
According to a recent survey of 112 DIDX members (wired and wireless carriers and mashups) 39% said that online credit card fraud is a major obstacle to realizing their financial potential.
What is a chargeback? Basically, it's when one of those lovely purchases of your service have been made and then BOOM! The transaction is reversed. Rather than money being added to your account, it is deducted. Someone is monetizing your IP communications.
Why do they occur? Accidental double-charging, bank errors, customer disputes, or it's the way people go shopping 24/7 and never planning to pay a dime. There are websites, forums and lists dedicated to that last one. "Oh, buy it, we can just charge it back."
The problem is that when you as a merchant have too high a percentage of chargebacks, your merchant account id placed on the Visa/MasterCard Terminated Merchant File (TMF/MATCH list). All Merchant Account Providers review this list regularly.
Ways to reduce the number of chargebacks and amount of fraud:1. Consider offering alternatives such as Moneybooker, "your wallet for the Internet, to shop and send money worldwide."
They claim no chargeback risk. Our company and I do use them and there have been no chargebacks. They state that Moneybookers is hard currency and non-reversible. Check out their policy.
2. If the customer is face to face with you, great! Examine the card and ask for additional ID.
Look at the expiration date and make sure it is signed. Compare the signature to that on their passport or driver's license. if the customer hasn't signed, you can request that the customer signs the card. If the customer refuses, you can decline to accept the credit card. But most of us are selling a service over the Internet.
3. Verify the Verification Numbers
Many sources on the Internet say this reduces chargebacks by 26%, according to Visa AND any pass-through fees that may be charged when a credit card transaction is made. On the back of most MasterCard, Visa and Discover cards is a 3-digit security code located right after your credit card number. American Express cards have a security code on the front of the card right above the account number, usually 4-digits long. I'm not the finance expert, but I would suggest studying the law in your country to find out the restrictions on keeping a record of the security code.
4. Use Address Verification System (AVS)
AVS checks to ensure the address entered on the order form matches the address to where the cardholder's billing statements are mailed. People ordering products and/or services using a stolen card number will never use the real cardholder's billing address, so this is your chance to stop the order before it's too late. On the other hand, if your client makes all his or her purchases for SERVICES online with the purpose of using his or her own credit card and giving his correct billing address , but with a plan to always charge back (and to say that they did not authorize the charge), that's all our tough luck. AVS only works with orders conducted in the US. I'm not sure about those outside. Would love some comments from experts.
5. Automate fraud blocking in your billing software.
Develop in your billing software a method of adding domain names, IP addresses and so on where you have experienced chargebacks from customers, so that you can automate blocking of future purchases from them. You are logging your customer's' IP addresses aren't you?
I disagree with people who say that a large percentage of chargebacks occur in developing countries. From my experience over the past 10 years, fraud occurs in the richest to poorest countries, homes, and businesses. Don't become xenophobic or ethnocentric.
6. Let customers know the name that will appear on statements.
Customers might have signed up for your "Everything over IP" service, and do not recognize your company name that will appear on their monthly credit card statements. Inform them now, so they will not accidentally charge back.
7. Watch out for orders using free and anonymous type e-mail addresses.
Beware of the Jabberwocky... sorry, my past of teaching English and listening to too much Garrison Keillor is sneaking in here... of accepting orders from people who use a free or anonymous e-mail address when ordering. Tracking people who use these is difficult. It's easier for them to get away with their credit card fraud, than if they used their Internet Service Provider (ISP) or their own company web site e-mail address. To check if an e-mail address is a freebie or not just take the part of the address after the "@" symbol, add "www" to the front of it and see what website it brings up.
8. Signatures on delivery of a service purchase which is what most of us sell in the IP communications industry.
If your business delivers products, you can get a signature on delivery. Keep these for your records. If you sell services, consider Verified by Visa.
9. Request clear copies of ID, credit card front and back, and credit card statement.
While if you require these, it does not mean that Visa or MasterCard will judge in your favor, it is yet another way to deter fraud. If I am about to buy a service over the Internet with the intent to charge it back later or with the intent in the first place of using someone's credit card fraudulently, and I am asked to supply this documentation, I am very likely to stop the purchase... or I will complain loudly.
10. Post your company's stance in your terms and conditions URL and anywhere else appropriate in regards to your fraud prevention methods.
Consult with a lawyer who has experience in online transactions. (I see a real need for a telecommunications law channel on TMCNET.) Look at how other companies in your industry do this to get ideas.
Monetize your IP communications. Don't let chargebacks stop you.
My colleague Rehan Ahmed (also our company CTO and Chief Product Architect) told me a few weeks ago, "You've got to get an Asus Eee laptop."
I've been using a D620 Dell Latitude for a couple years, and anyone who knows me ... will know that I stick with things until they are gone, i.e., my 1994 Toyota Camry (manual transmission with nice sports fin and tinted windows). So, it was tough to spend the $ and to add another PC to my stash.
But hmm... it's voIP-enabled from the start with Skype preinstalled... it is smaller than my purse and comes with other apps such as Xandros' Anti-Virus, Mozilla Firefox, Open Office and Google everything just about. Other necessities are included like Internet Radio and quick easy logging on to wireless networks. I used it the first time in Panera (my favorite cafe because of their awesome free Wifi).
The small size is kind of a double-edged sword. Small means very portable and fewer shoulder aches, but the keyboard is challenging, but not as challenging as my Blackberry and Nokia e61i.
I taught middle school for almost two decades (English, Internet research, civics, and gifted studies), so I absolutely gravitated to the "Learn" apps. Really, I had a blast playing with the Periodic Table, Planetarium, Function Plotter and other tutorials and games. Neato! For example, click on any element, and get the abbreviation, picture, energy info, chemical data, and even a model of the atom.
It's got a webcam; managers for music, photos, and videos; voice command options; and direct link to skoool.com. Up to 3 USBs can be connected without extenders. Memory cards from my digital video and photo cameras have a home on the right side.
I like it.
Commetrex CEO Michael Coffee and Director of Marketing Communications Alex Adams are some of the most welcoming persons I've interviewed in the IP communications industry. All three of us enjoy running, drinking coffee and serving carriers with flexible and empowering technologies. Check out my Qik video discussion with them.
Commetrex empowers the enterprise and carrier with products in 4 categories--media-processing resource hardware, media-stream software environments, media-processing technologies, and telephony middleware-- are imbedded in every multi-line integrated-media system. Other manufacturers offer them as part of an integrated closed- architecture system platform that cannot be modified by the OEM.
But Commetrex offers these system elements as separate products that can be used individually or as part of an integrated platform. And, source code is licensed for each product. This combination of modularity and source-code licensing are the keys to "captive-technology jail" that Commetrex hands each customer.
They are also a member of the Texas Instruments' Third-Party Developer Network.
Commetrex is exhibiting at Internet Telephony West in Los Angeles Sept 16-18, 2008 at booth 127 and is also a gold sponsor. Really looking forward to seeing Mike and Alex and their team and the rest of you reading at ITEXPO West!
Dialexia, who make IP communications work (that really is their maxim), is unique and non-traditional in many ways. Unlike other company directors' typical title pairing, Mohamed El-Mohri is the CTO and President and his partner Ahmed Aina is the CEO.
Ahmed joined from MediaSoft Telecom, which was a CTI tools developer, as CFO (sold to Bell). Mohamed was a service provider since 1998 using H323 platforms. His graduate studies involved speech technology, cognition and synthesis. The two began as an ITSP offering termination, using the AAA Radius protocol for billing and CDR and Quintum and Cisco for gateways. In 2001 they discovered SIP and decided to develop their own products and founded Dialexia.
Like many of us, they were and are driven to participate in IP communications global conferences in order to learn and develop business to perfect their solutions. In 1998, they first attended the CTI shows in L.A. and then switched to VON (their original favorite show) when they began fax to email services.
"IP communications companies want to listen to, network with, be educated by, and develop business with new and old companies with fresh ideas, so this is why we are enjoying ITEXPO most, where we take away more valid leads than any other conference. Rich Tehrani and the TMCnet group promote interaction between us and them and between us and our market," says Mohamed. "I was shocked the first time Rich called my office and really listened to me."
Mohamed mentioned they have participated in VoiceCon, Cebit, Gitex, and France's COIP (no fee to get in, small, where 75% of discussions resulted in real business). They used to attend Supercomm and decided to try it again after viewing the new NXTCOMM08 among the DIDX-sponsored events and were pleased with the improvements. They met Patton who exhibited at NXTcomm08, and now they bundle their products with Dialexia's PBX.
I laughed when he shared with me the phenomenom of most shows where those attending booths of many large companies see the exhibitors finish eating their booth cookies and then they attend to you. Dialexia also attended a voIP conference in Shanghai but found a communication barrier like many USA-based companies might experience. Perhaps conferences will pay attention to this insight and add features that assist with language barriers to developing business.
Back to Dialexia history, it registered with Microsoft in 2002 and beta-tested for the RTC. Next... a search for SIP stack which led them to DynamicSoft (later acquired by Cisco in 2004 for $55 million) and later chose Indigo of Belgium because Dialexia wanted to develop using Java. Their first PBX was built in 2002 for SMB and from there the softwitch with billing for small to medium-size ITSP, all SIP! Two quality products...
Monetizing IP communications was a reality!
"A few glitches in the beginning were quickly ironed out. I.e., when there was no RTP, the need to sniff RTP was important and listen before ending the call," states Mohamed El-Mohri with refreshing honesty. "We added an RTP relay. We went to the SIP IT interop forum in Ottawa, New Hampshire, and Calgary for more testing."
Dialexia's Dialgate product uses its Imozaik terminationg platform. Any complaints from ITSPs get support in-house as Dialexia uses what it sells. They partner with Quintum and Mediatrix based in Canada. Check out Quintum Tim Thornton's Linkedin recommendation of Dialexia with credit for being a valuable beta site for several of Quintum's SIP directives.
Regarding requirement, they have beta-tested with Grandstream and are using AudioCode, Polycom, Linksys... whatever their client asks for.
The company started with a client base of residential and SMB and added ITSPs next. It has eyes on IPTV and fixed mobile convergence for the future under Imozaic. Dialexia currently sells the Imozaic portal for softswitch to start an ITSP quickly. They added the module plugin to Joomla to communicate with the softswitch.
One of the last two questions to Mohamed was, "What do you do differently and better than others in regards to human resources, your team?"
"There is no difference among us. I sit next to them and work with them. We go to lunch together. We don't hide anything. We share everything. It's not teamwork. It's family work," Mohamed El-Mohri shares. "Anyone who needs to leave us, we want to know why. Sometimes we realize we are growing people who may end up working elsewhere which is a compliment to us. We teach them all SIP from scratch."
In conclusion, what's up new? A conference server, a voice conference bridge embedded in the IP-PBX for enterprise solution. It will also be available via license to ITSPs who take advantage of Dialexia's softswitch. Dialexia is ready to rollout a hosted PBX soon because of massive number of customer requests. It will be IMS-ready. Last, Dialexia is in the process of offering implementation of the DIDX SIP trunking and DID from 55 countries for their softswitch customers, another way to help its customers monetize IP communications and make more end-users very very happy.
Hajimemashite (honorable first time greeting in Japanese) nihao, assalamalaykum, bonjour, hallo, shalom and hello in your first language! Can we get "IP Communications" officially listed in Wikipedia? Query "IP Communications" on Wiki and get redirected to "Internet Protocol."
I just asked some industry and non-industry friends on Facebook for examples of IP communications. One reply was, "You mean mash-up or web 2.0?" I know what those are, so... okay, query "voip fitness" and find a collaboration announced by Samsung and Adidas for the SGH-F110 miCoach Fitness Mobile. Will it advise me during my training runs with comments such as...
1. You are working at XX% of your maximum heart rate.
2. You have completed X miles or kilometers, X more to go.
3. You should slow down because your heart rate is too high.
4. Now, that you are on your cool down, who can I dial for you?
Expected release release date, right about now, mid-2008. (Thanks, FatBoy Slim.) Techlivez predicted the price to be $170 - $210 USD. As of July 16, 2008 it's available on Smart Mobile Gadgets, ATgsm.com, and Porta Gadgets.
It has a 2 megapixel camera, perhaps for capturing pics of license plates of cars that enjoy clipping runners and tabulating points per dismissal. Connectivity is available through Bluetooth and USB. It even has an FM radio receiver (88.1 WUWF's NPR, FreshAir, World Cafe and more, yahoo!)
I interviewed 11 global runners + myself and my husband to find out what they (we) would pay for this gadget. A summary of what they said, "If it tracked the heart and my pace, provided immediate voice and secondarily text feedback, and was able to recommend the best training intensity for the next workout, then the acceptable price would be $300 - $500."
It's compatible with AT&T, TMobile, Rogers, and fido. It does not work with Verizon, Sprint, Telus, and Bell. Only works on a GSM network. (Same reason I had to switch from Verizon to AT&T's Cingular Wireless to use my Nokia E61i, which I bought in order to use Fring, Gizmo Project, Global Roaming, MobileMax, Qik, Truphone and more.)
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