November 2008 Archives

     

Feeling squeezed? 

You've got a great company, innovative services, you're all dressed up and nowhere to go?

Sign up to attend ITEXPO East in Miami set for Feb. 2-4, 2009. Thousands from around the globe will be in one place, ITEXPO. See videos from past USA and international participants on the Youtube channel. Clips of Digium, Celtrek, D2 Technologies, TW Telecom, FaxSipIT, Fonality, DIDX, an angel investor, Trixbox, GotVoice in Russian, German, Spanish, Swahili and English on topics such as open source, Asterisk, call centers, unified messaging, converged applications, voip, voice to email, embedded systems, peering, hosted rebranded softswitches and CRM platforms... www.itexpo.com is where you sign up, get your flight lined up while it's inexpensive, and if you are international, click here to see Coming to America Getting your Visitor's Visa at

http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1264.html  and more in detail http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1286.html.

Listen in on two of telephony industry's brightest minds of Matthew Hardeman of IPiFony and two guys from FrogNet after an ISPCON session in November 2008 in San Jose. Watch and hear at Viddler.com.

Frognet started in 1996 as a dial-up ISP company. The availability of open source telephony software is only one part of the business operation equation. Other real costs to manage an ISP business include price of equipment acquisition, human capital, training, data conversion and integration. More importantly, finding and hiring motivated CS talent must be factored into this equation.
 
The three guys discuss the other costs for internet service providers. Digium's Asterisk open source software helps new internet service providers bring soft switch applications including VOIP and other telephony services to the marketplace. DIDX was a media sponsor for ISPCon 2008. Brian Coburn and Anne Tredway recorded this discussion at the San Jose Conference Center in November.

Check out FrogNet's site at http://www.frognet.net/.
  

Listen to William J Intrater of adknowledge explain in the exhibit hall at www.ispcon.com at http://www.viddler.com/explore/suzannebowen/videos/8/. Find more about adknowledge on their website at  http://www.adknowledge.com/. My aim is to help you monetize IP communications!

Watch Jessica Zhu discuss VoIP in China at http://qik.com/video/568128. And to think this bright lady replies in English (first language is Mandarin) to the ISPCON session that she is an ISP wannabe! Find out more at http://www.vopromote.com.  But can you read Mandarin?

Also, BTW, she'll be at www.itexpo.com Feb 2-5, 2008 in Miami, Florida. See you there.

Dr. Saad Al Barrak, CEO of Zain Group,  won CEO Middle East magazine's Telecom CEO of the Year award and Bespoke magazine's 2008 Visionary award last month in Durban, South Africa (where my friends and business partners Herman and Melinda Dewitt are.) Others who were nominated for the awards: Kingdom Holding's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal; Coca-Cola's Chairman, Neville Isdell; China Exim Bank's President Li Ruogu; Shun Tak Shipping's Founder Stanley Ho and General Electric's Chairman, Jeff Immelt.

It "recently rebranded all its operations from Celtel to Zain on August 1, 2008. Africa customers make up two-thirds of Zain's total customer base." My colleague Rehan Ahmed was in Kenya (Nov. 2-7 to catch the predicted Obama win celebrations there for business re: DIDX) one of the countries where Zain was originally launched in 2006. We've been following this company from that moment to now and forward.

Why? As I have blogged before, they offer free roaming in 22 countries (out 190 possible on Earth). More on Zain at  http://www.itnewsafrica.com/?p=1689, http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4DMUS_enUS209US209&q=zain&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zain.

Using a reader-friendly approach that minimizes industry jargon wherever possible, the book Wireless Broadband: Conflict and Convergence clearly explains the business, regulatory, and technology issues of the future market for wireless services, covering:
• Broadband and the information society
• Drivers of broadband consumption
• Global wireless market analysis
• Broadband IP core networks
• Convergence finally arrives
• Contention and conflict: regulatory, political, financial, and standards

Who are the authors? Vern Fotheringham and Chetan Sharma! Check out some blogs and websites about them or belong to them... http://www.chetansharma.com/blog/, http://www.chetansharma.com/, http://www.ee.washington.edu/research/colloquium/2007-08/VernFotheringham.html.

Chetan will be moderating a session at Tomorrow's Wireless World in the Bay Area... consisting of high-level delegation of executives from the Finnish wireless industry. The topic is "Your Wireless Future" and the participants include Centre of Wireless Communications, Codenomicon, Elektrobit, Nokia, Oulu University, Sesca Group, and VTT. Registration is at www.acteva.com/go/suomi and Use Promo Code "Sharma".
 
Fotheringham is the Managing Director of IP Broadband Ltd.  He is also a managing member of Community Broadband, LLC a consulting firm specializing in advising municipalities on IT and telecommunications matters.  Previously he was the President and CEO of ADAPTIX, Inc. a world leader in the development of next generation broadband wireless system technology.  ADAPTIX, Inc. pioneered the core technology of what is now the IEEE 802.16(e) standard for OFDMA high-speed, scalable, interference immune, metropolitan area IP broadband radio systems. 

Order a copy of the book at http://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Broadband-Convergence-Vern-Fotheringham/dp/0470227621.

Travel a lot internationally?

How can you cut your cell phone bill and start getting more phone calls from those who are important to you all over the world?

Listen in on Youtube. Now, you can take those savings and start monetizing your IP communications.

Barry Murphy and David Hamil from Softex talk to us about why they participate in Gitex. They do voice management solutions and are having fantastic success at Gitex 2008 in recruiting clients, distributors and resellers in the EMEA region. 

I think they should participate in ITEXPO, CTIA Wireless, SuperComm, and CommunicAsia in 2009. You, too.

Watch and listen to the interview with Khalid Athar of Teletimes International magazine at Gitex 2008 on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sV6nsPlZ1k.

Topics in this magazine give me and you a unique view of the world, especially us in the West but at the same the magazine does write on personalities, services, issues, businesses of the West and East and also the big picture, the world. Some titles in the magazine lately include:

Will saturation kill innovation
Has the clock struck 3G
Licensing of broadcast mobile TV service in the Emirates
IT workers hit hardest by offshore outsourcing
ITCN Asia 2008
PTCL revolutionizes communication with IPTV services
Dell seeks tremendous prospects in Pakistan's ...
Google bets on Android future
Turkmenistan Wireless Internet offer hints at end to state monopoly
Essar Global to invest $50 M in Kenya's mobile market
 

Why exhibit at Gitex and what does WorldSim do? Arif Reza, the director of WorldSim, shares its reason for participating in Gitex. They are looking for distributors and resellers. Their solution enables clients to receive free calls from 60 countries in the world. They save business travelers up to 90% of their cell phone roaming charges. They are based in London, UK. See http://www.worldsim.com.

Watch Arif on video at the Gitex 2008 channel on Youtube.