Facts suggest why India Convergence is an event, a gathering of so many bright innovators and service providers. According to TRAI’s monthly telecom subscription report, there are more than 996.66 million unique mobile subscribers now in India. Just in the month of September 2016, it gained 8.49 million new subscribers. Reliance Jio began consideration to acquire a VoIP licence in mid 2015. At the end of October 2015, Indian Angel Network (IAN) shelled out an undisclosed investment in UK-based VoIP service provider Aznog (formerly known as CalLiberate). During the same time period, Infosys announced it would spend $70 million to purchase an information management consultancy that can bring next-generation data analytics to oil and gas clients. In early October 2015, Sistema Shyam Teleservices announced it would launch a set of Internet calling plans. The move would make it the first telecom operator to conspicuously bypass traditional partnerships by encouraging subscribers to make and/or receive national and international long-distance calls using any OTT (over the top) voice services app such as FaceTime, Google Chat, Messenger, Nimbuzz, Skype, Tringme, Viber, Virtual Phone Line, WhatsApp and others. Sistema Shyam Teleservices is Russia's Sistema JSFC Indian unit.
Bharti Airtel Ltd's chairman Sunil Mittal recently noted that the company is open to acquiring assets and spectrum. He said that Mukesh Ambani with the start of his Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (mentioned earlier) $15 billion fourth-gen wireless services would shake up India's telecommunications industry. On the other hand, Vodafone India Ltd plans to merge four of its operating businesses ahead of a share listing as an IPO soon.
Messaging and VOIP application maker Nimbuzz plans to hire 100 engineers which will practically double personnel within a year. The Gurgaon-based cmopany plans to tap into new business revenues in the WiFi and advertising spaces. Vikas Saxena is its CEO. (I've mentioned Nimbuzz several times on Monetizing IP communications blog.)
Mobile, wireless, VoIP, OTT, Internet of Things and telecommunications, in general, are poised to be the springboard for exciting new business and for the growth of industry giants and up-and-coming players. Don't miss India Convergence January 20 - 22, 2016. Be sure to set up flight plans to include ITEXPO East scheduled January 26 - 28, 2016. I'll be at both, gathering information about these players' opportunities as well as yours and sharing it to promote the business development needed. Just meet me at both!
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* Convergence India Conference 2016
* Recommended Information Technology and Communications Conferences by DIDX
Wholesale bandwidth and colocation are two of the telecommunications buzz phrases that bring to mind Cogent Communications. In a DIDx audio podcast with Cogent Communications' John Sacco the definitions of both are explained well enough to introduce a Bandwidth and Colocation for Dummies' book.
Colocation is the housing of one's servers in a professional data center environment that is more resistant to flooding, hurricanes, power outages and so on. The locations may have greater bandwidth capacity, specialized services, lower latency, less jitter and packet loss such as remote hands and security. Redundant power and generators can also be available. Companies choose to take advantage of colocation facilities by placing their mission critical devices there.
Wholesale services tend to offer a deeper discount than commercial pricing. The second is specialized, i.e., for Fortune 500 companies. A more specific example is Netflix, one of Cogent's largest customers. Wholesale services is perfect for ILECs, CLECs, data centers, hosting providers, ISPs and companies at a lower rate which makes it amenable for them to resell to their clients.
Almost 1/3 of the above kind of traffic takes place over Cogent Communications' infrastructure and services. They are actually the most directly peered network in the world. Cogent network is fully optical. They recently have expanded into the Asian area such as Singapore and Tokyo.
John Sacco explains what dedicated versus shared Internet access is, upload and download speed, over-subscription and the ordering process. Cogent Communications does not over-subscribe, and it offers only dedicated Internet access. He shares information about different types of wholesale bandwidth including ethernet, DS3, wavelength, and lit and dark fiber optic cable.
"When you light dark fiber, it becomes lit with wavelengths of 1GB, 2.5GB or higher. You place equipment on either side of a dark fiber strand and light the dark fiber into the light spectrums, and they can be 10, 15, 20 different light spectrums of every color you can think of like a rainbow. Picture the rainbow, and every one of these light waves' colors is a wavelength," Cogent's Sacco explains.
On a totally different track of talk, we discussed goals in helping our communities. John Sacco participates in Relay for Life and Little League type of activities, but he is most involved in his friend's charity program The Stockdale Foundation that helps less fortunate high school graduates who cannot really afford to or do not want to go to college. It targets those who want to pursue a technical career. John's friend's daughter passed after a car accident, and to turn such a sad event into something positive, he started the charity program in her honor.
Mr. Sacco shares information about www.cogentco.com referral program opportunities such as those of vendor referrals and master agents to round out the interview.
* 1999 was a great year as Prince once sang, "Say the telephone a ringin'."
Search engineer top mentions of Cogent Communications in 2015:Congratulations to our dear industry friends David Uzan of Omega Telecom and Moshe Maeir of The Flat Planet and a Phone.
The Flat Planet Group, the company who can set up a phone system in a matter of minutes, and an example of this is Yahoo stores, has announced it closed an agreement to buy Omega Telecom a licensed telecommunications carrier based in Cyprus.
In the past few years The Flat Planet Group acquired several call centers in Cyprus. This helped the company to become familiar with the local telecom market. The kinds of services that The Flat Planet Group was providing include local DID phone numbers in 50 countries with Dynamic Caller ID. Such a feature helps call centers see a positively increasing number of calls answered and therefor, sales closed. Why? Seeing a specific caller ID builds trust in the receiver of the call.
There are 6-7 other active licensed carriers in Cyprus, including OTEnet Telecom, PrimeTel, and Cyta.
"When the CEO of Omega told us that he is interested in selling the company, it did not take us long to make an offer," said Moshe Maeir on The Flat Planet and a Phone blog. "Why are we excited? Well for a number of reasons. Cyprus has become a major financial center due to it's central location, membership in the EU and low tax rate. Many of these companies can profit from our IP services. In addition we will now have our own range of geographic, premium (900), national (77) and toll free (800) numbers. In many cases we can offer a substantial payback for use of our numbers, which makes it even more profitable."
Moshe Maeir is known among the Who's Who of global voice over IP, IP communications, and innovation of the same and more such as Jeff Pulver, Jon Arnold, Luca Filigheddu, Michael Eisenberg, Rich Tehrani, Mark Spencer, Om Malik, Rehan Ahmed, Garret Smith, and Thomas Howe. He calls himself the Chief Flattening Officer. Moshe is an exciting speaker. At ETel, he shared information on "his company's ability to setup a phone system in a matter of minutes, and used as an example Yahoo stores."
In the next few weeks, The Flat Planet and a Phone will finalize its plan to purchase Omega Telecom and hire a local sales team in Cyprus. Contact The Flat Planet Group for more information.
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