October 2009 Archives

Have you heard of Lleida? They are a leader in the new SMS over IP and more services. First, they are the first SMS mobile operator in Spain and a veteran member of GSMA. Second, what made me notice them was an excellent press release about their entry into the USA mobile operator market starting with Florida. We met at CTIA Wireless and Entertainment in San Diego this year where I recorded a quick interview with their CEO Sisco Sapeno on my CTIA playlist.

A final aside... really interesting that when I was interviewed this past week by Mr. Tehrani at the TMC booth, I was asked what are the latest trends in DID? Two of the trends I mentioned follow.

1. A larger and larger majority of those joining DIDX to buy and sell DID and DDI are global mobile operators. The last few were from Kenya, Singapore, and Malaysia.

2. An increasing number of those joining are also from Africa, Asia, new areas of Europe like Spain, and also those with a "market" in Asia.

3. "SMS" over IP is hot. So hot, our http://www.didx.net/api has filters for only DID that are "SMS compatible."

I'll let the readers debate why.

Remember when Xbox brought VoIP to the world of gamers in 2004? In fact, Ventrilo and Teamspeak. Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 have offered VoIP clients. The following was on the official Nintendo site for only a short period of time before being pulled:

"To redeem a Nintendo DSi Download Ticket number, such as for the Nintendo DSi Speak Channel, enter the number off the Nintendo DSi Download Ticket in 'Settings and Features' off of the main Nintendo DSi Shop page, then select 'Nintendo DSi Download Ticket."

Really? Can't wait to see more. I asked my nieces and nephews their thoughts. They don't call it VoIP. They see it as simply using the game system to talk, type/chat, play the game, and most important, make new friends over the Internet.

Arrived in Chicago last night for http://www.supercomm2009.com/didx and immediately realized my Nokia E71 is lost. But now it is found, and the savior will ship it to me today. I'm sitting in the lobby of our hotel which has free WIFI, breakfast, fitness center, and shuttle to CTA station. Browsing Twitter and Facebook, answering email, and noted a new BEST PRACTICE for conferences from KoreaTech. The Vietnam International Communications Summit & Expo 2009  (scheduled for November 18-21, 2009) in Hanoi is kicking the excitement off with a writing contest. The topic is "Best Idea in Future ICT Vietnam."

"People from all types of jobs and different parts of society are welcome to participate by sharing their interesting ideas, no matter about future ICT products' innovation, applications and service improvement, which may lead to healthier growth of the ICT industry in Vietnam and give future development insights to the industry professionals from the end users' view points. All original works must be typed in English or Vietnamese and are submitted to the organizers no later than October 30, 2009. The winning pieces will be judged by its innovativeness and feasibility and the winners will be awarded with attractive prizes. For more information on the contest, please visit show website www.Vietnam-Comm.com."

People enjoy competition when they feel it is fairly judged. Several will be held during the expos for the Hanoi event to enhance both exhibitors' innovativeness and public participation. For instance, the competitions of booth design and most interactive booth design competition will be voted by visitors. To demonstrate appreciation to those exhibitors who showed valuable contribution to the ICT industry development in Vietnam, a few more awards of appreciation will be presented to exhibitors at the expos.

P.S. Another best practice for conferences is to fill in the descriptions of presentations of presenters in advance of the event. Even after I have asked everyone I can think of ... involved in one conference I presented at this year, to at least fill in the description of my presentation I submitted two weeks before the presentation... it still is blank.

H. Douglas Barber and Jeffrey Crelinsten completing white papers that examine Canada's innovation performance and culture. They surveyed 18 early-stage or start-up R&D firms in Canada. Ten were insolvent and the other 8 either merged or sold out with 5 of them profitably.

The main problems appeared be either no emphasis on sales and customer service and all emphasis on r&d development and a preoccupation with development and ideas led to fast "burn rate."  Also lack of shared goals, lack of diversity and experience on the Board, "lack of enterprise expertise amongst investors, and general lack of enterprise competence and experience."

Robin Williams once said on his Live on Broadway session, "Canada's like a loft apartment over a really great party."

Hmm... I know some very bright, fun, innovative men and women who are Canadians.

But could there also be a problem with infrastructure and especially in the area of telecommunications? I personally think it hurts that long distance calling from one area of Canada to another is still exactly that... long distance with a per minute charge. I can use my cell phone and call any number in the USA and all areas are local for me and included in my cell phone package. Listen to the CEO of Eqo (based in Canada) in a podcast of Bending the Needle with Martyn Davies discuss this reality.

My Dad was an airplane mechanic in the U.S. Navy, and when he retired, switched to automobile mechanics. (Somewhere in between he took a break with theology.) We were talking about cars last week in the middle of me making him a guinea pig in testing different mobile voip applications and instant messenger applications with voice on laptop to laptop. This conversation which I meant to record was on Truphone.

The conversation was about the history of the battle between the environment and automobiles. He's particularly interested in Ford's Ecoboost technology which led me to do some research.

In May 2009, the White House shared a new fuel engine policy in which there would need to be 35.5 miles per gallon fleet averages by year 2016. Carmakers and investors worried about the cost, of course. That's only seven years. Ford's Taurus and Lincoln MKS and MKT already have the Ecoboost engine installed for 2009 and forward. Talk is that an SVO-type Mustang is next.

On the legal side, Ford is filing to patent its Ecoboost invention and technologies.

"Green" engines are said to have been used in the most popular vehicles by German carmakers. What is Ecoboost?  It combines turbo-charging with direct fuel-injection to realize up to 20 percent better fuel economy than traditionally experienced with standard engines of the past. Some of Ford's patents for this "arena" of applications have been granted.

My Dad says he thinks we waste a bunch of energy trying to become more environmentally-friendly, but he likes how Truphone 3.0 is compatible with Skype, GoogleTalk, Yahoo, AIM Twitter, and MSN IM, and it soon will make you local very inexpensively from many areas of earth. He says, "This VoIP stuff just may make it where you don't need to get into your car or airplane as often to go anywhere because you'll already be there virtually with something like Truphone."

Bending the Needle, Fresh Air, VoIP Users Conference and Geekspeak galvanized me to start podcasting. What a choice! What a garden! What a candy store! Just download to your favorite MP3 player, go for a walk, be entertained and/or educated.

So when will you start podcasting? Everyone's doing it. Why not? It's fun. It lets you do so many things: interviews, debates, FAQs, lectures, verbal demonstrations, testimonials, commercials, and even games.

Check VOIP Music eLearning for a great list of free and paid podcasting tools. I'd like to add one more called Podcast Generator on SourceForge. It was developed and is maintained by Alberto Betella of Italy. See credits.

A list of the IP Communications and Social Networking Celebrities I've had the honor of podcasting with:

1. Daniel-Konstantin Mierla of Kamailio (genuine OPENSER) SIP Server and Asipto

2. Graham Francis, CEO of The SIP School, 10% off compliments of DIDX, well worth

3. Michael Elfellah of Global Digitec on GPS Independency through DID and More

4. Ludymar Reveron of IPSmarx, Calling Card Business Headquarters and More

5. Harmon Wilfred of ITTelnet, Beat the Economic Meltdown

6. Ilene Adler of Vantage Communications, Gender Equality in Technology Professions

7. Sarah Dawood and Neil Christy of Cafe Headlion, be a part of their Global Marketing Library

8. John Nishimoto of Paetec, cool CLEC

9. Leif Madsen, Pioneer in Asterisk (Rock Star)

10. Allison Smith, Voice of Asterisk

11. Luca Filligheddu of Twilio and Truth in Business

12. Joel Driver, Asterisk Developer and Entrepreneur

13. Jonathan Leoung, a Social Marketing for Business Natural (No Commercial Feel)

14. Roman Khalenkov of PortaOne, Full Source Code and 24/7 NOC

15. David Mandelstam of Sangoma and Lessons in Customer Service

16. Michael Schelin of Schelcomm and Being Green

17. Maria Gomez on Colombia Business

18. Dilawar Syed of Open Silicon Valley Forum and other Entrepreneurial Empowerment Projects

19. Art Smith on MexiConnect and Local Presence for ExPats as well as Emergency Op Center

20. Carol Davids and Warren Bent on the * VoIP Conference and VoIP Lab at Illinois Institute of Technology

21. Atiq Rehman about ITCN Asia and Technology Development in Pakistan

22. My Colleague Dan Shomail at Super Technologies, Inc.

23. Anthony Minnesale and Brian West of FreeSWITCH and Cluecon

24. Jaymie Scotto of Jaymie Scotto and Associates, Virtual Marketing

25. Rabah Djanati of Teledep and Assists Customers with R&D

26. Bernd Wiegmann, Symbian Developer and Creator of TrackLoc, Punch2Go and Tandem

26. Omar Chohan of SACS International on Leveraging IP-PBX and the Blackberry Rim

* Sign up for the VoIP Conference at the Illinois Institute of Technology. They have a sophisticated and dynamic VoIP Lab. How exciting to be a part of IP communications education with the talent enrolled there. The conference is Oct. 25-26, 2009. You can still sponsor, too.