November 2009 Archives

Victor Adoga, Manager of the National Numbering Plan for the Nigerian ommunications Commission (like USA's Federal ommunications Commission), was someone I was not expecting to meet at NXTCOMM in 2007 in Las Vegas. We discussed that day the stereotypical depiction of Nigerians as opposed to the reality of innovation, hard work, entrepreneurship, and integrity evident in many.

Victor shared with me once, "I proud and happy being a Nigerian. With the right kind of leadership, given the vast natural and human resources we have, Nigeria has the potential to be great. It is a country free of natural disasters and blessed by God but corrupt and bad leadership has being our tsunami.....laugh! but gradually and hopefully with the planned electoral reform, the fraudulent process that brought us most of this inept and corrupt leadership will forever be thrown into the abyss of history."

I told him I wanted to keep in touch with the NCC. We have. Yesterday, I called Victor (Nov. 24, 2009) and asked about NCC's latest projects. He agreed to let me interview him for DIDX podcast channel.

We made this call from my cell phone to Victor's and so the call quality is a bit inferior, but the content is exciting, thought-provoking, and paradigm-shifting.

Listen to him here about telecommunications QoS, bringing together service providers with consumers for realtime solutions, something like "Court TV" for solving issues and educating Nigerian citizen consumers of their rights, and also converged communications plans such as possibly combining the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission with the Nigerian Communications Commission.

There are over 17 million mobile phone subscribers in Nigeria as of 2009. There is a recent explosion of GSM and CDMA operators. The Nigerian Communications Commission is intent on educating its consumers of their rights in regards to telecommunications services and seeing a better future.

Visit http://www.ncc.gov.ng for more information.

"There is enough natural gas in the United States to supply the country with its energy needs for the next century", said energy advocate T. Boone Pickens.

I surveyed several in my Facebook and Linkedin business networks to get their opinion on this, so check out what some had to say.

1. "If your country would make a slow transition from using foreign oil to gas already in United States of America, I think you'd have the newest cure for terrorism. All you would need then is to replace the world's rich people's addiction to drugs made from poppy with something like um... laughter and bungee jumping?"

2. The investment brokerages and banks need to pay attention to this and start advising their clients to invest in domestic gas.

3. I always love when the little guy finally gets the attention he deserves. Remember the song "Short People." Lol.

4. Let me quote OfficialWire article: "He points to a research study by the Colorado School of Mines that puts the estimated natural gas reserves in the United States at more than 2,000 trillion cubic feet." They are quoting T. Boone Pickens here. Not to be confused with T-bone.

5. How about if we get a Saudi Arabia Asterisk Users and Business group started and maybe bring together all those who are already developing voip solutions there? This will help Saudi Arabia do more business with the outside world in something besides oil.

Q&A with Jeannie Diefenderfer

Jeannie Diefenderfer is Senior Vice President of Global Engineering and Planning for Verizon Business. Please read on to learn more about Jeannie and her participation in PTC'10.

Why are you attending PTC'10?
Verizon (and its predecessor company MCI) has supported and attended the PTC for well over 15 years. PTC provides an excellent opportunity to share ideas. I see PTC as a key conference that attracts a wide range of global senior industry representatives. I am thankful to PTC for this opportunity to present the Verizon message, meet with industry leaders and strengthen relationships around the world.

What do you expect as a result of attending PTC'10?
I expect to meet and discuss issues with industry leaders, to grow my understanding of the industry, and create new relationships with others at PTC. As a result of my participation at PTC 2010, I hope to continue Verizon awareness, to share our experiences and vision in a way that will stimulate thoughts and ideas amongst other executives and academics in this wonderful industry. I look forward to sharing our future efforts and interested to understand more about what others are seeing in their markets.

What are you going to talk about at PTC'10?
One of my key responsibilities includes the planning and engineering of Verizon's fiber to the premises (FTTP) platform which supports the award-winning FiOS Internet/Data/Voice and TV service in the United States. As such, the focus of my presentation will be U.S. domestic - showing our leading edge capabilities across the spectrum.

Point your browser to PTC'10 to find out more about the conference and expo (Jan. 17-20, 2010) whose byline is "Embracing the Cloud: Enabling Connectivity and Innovation."