Jeff Pulver is in the House! At ITEXPO
It is the ability for us to converse once again. Conversation is something near and dear to every one of us, but it's been a very long time since conversation has been cool. We’ve been moving away from human interaction. We’ve really really moved more to digital, but as a kid growing up, I actually got my passion for communication as a young kid because I discovered amateur radio. Anyone here ever use amateur radio? So you guys know. It's like being able to have your friends basically in your radio. You turn on your radio. You find people talking. You can connect and disconnect and be able to find a community. When I discovered radio, I realized that you know the secret of loneliness is basically getting a ham radio license, where I could just connect with the world. That was my savior. That basically helped me understand communications design.
To this day, I am grateful for it. Being able to reach out and just say “C Q” and then have the contact come back. The letter “C” and the letter “Q” in ham radio and in radio lingo that means “seek you.” Do you remember ICQ? That was actually invented and created by Yossi Vardi who was a ham operator, and one of his sons [Arik] helped to create the company [Mirablis that rolled out ICQ], and ICQ was actually created by amateur radio operators, creating an Internet CQ, the ability to seek contact. Those early days of messaging certainly provided a channel for us to connect with and to be and for me it was 1995 and the discovery of Internet phones. The first iPhone did not come out in 2007 from Apple. The first iPhone was available in 1995 by Vocaltec, an Israeli company.
Until not that long ago, they had the domain. But iPhone enabled the possibility for people to actually talk on the Internet without the need for a service provider and that was the first time in the history of the Internet that voice became an app, not a service. That distinguishing mark, as a hobbyist had actually enabled me to see things pretty clearly. As a ham operator those of you who are hams and those of you who are not, maybe you’ve seen too many episodes of “Mash” will remember Radar O'Reilly. As a kid what I used to love to do is to do phone patches, that is to connect the radio with the telephone and connect people from overseas back into wherever they wanted to reach. My parents never really cared whether I was calling in to New York City where we lived across the country when we had long distance. I just really was into that idea of patching, so in '95 I had a mailing list...I was running the iPhone mailing list as a hobbyist and I was really curious about what happens next.
Somebody asked a question, “Is it possible to interconnect a telephone and computer.
I said, “Yes. It does it off my home patch at work..”
Then a month later I won something with the help of two friends one in Indonesia and one in Tokyo. We launched FreeWorldDialup. It was the world's first Internet telephony network, and it basically allowed people to...by the way there was no jitter buffer, no echo cancellation, sounded like crap but it worked. It was proof positive that you let people try things out, magic can happen. In 1995, and you have 16 million people, it went viral. I learned a lot from that experience particularly how passionate I still was about communications.
I learned about regulation because it took six months and 300 phone companies filed a petition with the FCC. Basically to stop the sale Internet telephony software and to regulate people who made software as phone companies.
Then, through this mailing list, the VON Coalition was born, 110 companies who had never met through the ether and created a coalition that exists today all because of the possibilities that exist in that communication. That was my night job. I had a day job, and luckily, I got fired, and that saved my life. For me what I've seen with that it's about communicating, about connecting.
iPhone gave me the ability to talk on the Internet and then I got really involved with Twitter back in 2006. For me, I found Twitter to be the radio of the Internet. Forget about their price performance. Forget about it as some public company but what they offered was a chance and opportunity for us to talk. It was certainly a different conversation than what we would have face to face. If offered a voice for anyone just like radio to be heard by anyone and anyone in this case, their voice would be amplified. With amateur radio two people, and a third person could be listening for an hour, kick in and say, “Hello.” On Twitter, it happens spontaneously with no end point in mind. With amateur radio, we worry about propagation [Propagation prediction engine forecasts the minimum and maximum usable frequencies between two locations over a specified 24 hour.] We could be talking about high frequency bands.
On Internet, as long as you have connectivity, people from all over the world talk to you. It’s this art of the conversation that I actually find is going to come back in to vogue because the punchline of my entire presentation is that after the evolution, the one thing that actually becomes cool again is talking, so I've always believed that voice is the killer app. There are lots of other apps out there, but being able to have intimate conversation with somebody. You see them right to the eyes and talk to them and feel it. That's magic and the ability to actually understand that, that's the secret sauce.
For me, when I'm looking out for where we are going in the future today...I'm just curious how many people here are involved in building chatbots. A handful, maybe.
How many people here have ever used computer game? If you'd ever in your life played a video game, you've used a chatbot. By default, you played with the code with a predetermined outcome based on what you did based on If and else, and then that's it. So forget about the fancy name for chatbots of today. If you've ever played a game, you've actually interfaced with a chatbot. What's happening today after 20 years of Voice over IP, we've had a parallel of other developments going on, developments in deep learning, artificial intelligence with natural language, and certainly the computed power has just become phenomenal.
What we're seeing today is the rise of code known as conversational interfaces. These are things which be below your radar or above your radar with major platform companies from amazon and IBM and Slack and Kik and others are providing APIs. We are at the very early stages of what will be, but if you remember the Internet '94, '95, and '96, that Internet was mostly *brochures where you create a website. What do I put on a website? I don't know, my company, not very interactive, it's information.
Today many of the chatbots...if you go on Messenger, go to where they are,it's really information. You could say that it's a toy. It's a gimmick, but there's something there.
Just curious, how many people here use Alexa? How many people here are happy because they have Alexa? Anyone here use Google Home? Someone, a few. Well, but that's the beginning. There will come at time by the way when Alexa is listening to you, and she will butt into your compensation. I promise you. Right now, she just listens to you, but there will come a time when she will pivot. She [Alexa] will actually interject information. She will go from being passive to active voice.
There will come a time when she's going to actually be a part of your conversation and what we are seeing as part of a fundamental shift in communication is the ability to communicate. So when you look at these chatbots, they're growing up so many chatbots that are being deployed today that are not brochures marketing commerce and those of you involved texting and call centers may have seen a sudden shift from voice call centers to message centers.
It would blow your minds you have any of this message center how much of those messaging centers are being run by AI, how many millions of people every year are actually interacting with bots and not knowing it. That's where it starting right now with net mass majority of the conversation interfaces that re being deployed are in our message center. There are lot of brands that are doing this for fun, but you can look for opportunities to show what you can do. Where it goes to from there, you’re not going to recognize. I promise you; I might not get the timing right, but I estimate seven years [from February 2017] when you look back in 2017 see how you used the Internet then and compare that to seven years from now... you will feel you lived in prehistoric times. What I am seeing is an inflection point like we haven't seen in 1998.
It's a point in time where everything's going to change. I could be dramatic and tell you that every is going to die and websites will disappear, but I think they will. You see if you think about and you wanted to come to Florida to the conference... if you didn't have someone do it for you perhaps you went online to look for a good ticket price, look for a hotel... maybe to see who else is coming down. It took time. It's not like it took two nanoseconds. I spent 25 minutes of my own time, trying to figure where to stay and where to go and what flights to take. If you look at how we surf information out today and if you have a company website whether it is update or not, this information about you... if you're engaging in business with other people, you are sharing information cloud-based, some of it is private and some is public... if you think about how inefficient that all is... there will come a time real soon when almost every company that you want to business with will have a conversational interface associated with its domain. Perhaps several.
You yourself as an entity will be able to be a chat bot, or it may be called something else. You send out a request that I'm making a trip to Florida.
“Alexa, please book me my trip.”
She'll understand what that means and she's going to go out have conversations with other conversation bots to figure out what's best, based on your preferences and actually book your trip. That's not going to happen on the website. That's going to happen because the data is sitting in different cloud-based areas, where it's well-known where it is. It's not going to be visible to you. Websites will become vanity sites with markers on the highways that you were there. Websites are something you can use as a pointer but not necessarily for business anymore. The need for apps will dramatically go away. If you've ever talked to app developers, they will tell you there is a quick slide of how many downloads that are not happening .
In areas where chatbots are dominating today are taking over, taking over in droves. We're seeing the opportunity here is to be part of the bandwagon. The message I have for you today is you want to see what the hot space is. When you have natural language interfaces, running with AI, what is it run over? It is riding on voice over IP. That's right, the technology which is inherently taken for granted which some of us didn't take for granted for years... that magical sauce is what is going to drive a trillion-dollar of business in the not-too-distant future. I saw a demo the other day of someone who had a conversational interface connected to a PBX so no more IVR Hell. No more. Gone! Seriously gone. All of the sudden you now, you want to talk to somebody, you will talk to somebody.
It's like, “Hi! Welcome to Pulver.com. How can I help you? “
“Can I talk to Jeff?”
“Who's calling please?”
Of course, you are talking to a bot. I get to decide if I want to talk to a person or not and then, the call will go through.
Kind of spooky, right? By the way, if you want information about the company, the bot can be programmed to do that and it will sound like whatever you want it to be, any voice.
We have evolved the technology in phoneme so much, that with a little stretching you can actually shoot to the moon and get anyone's voice there. You can record any friend, anybody and you can actually voice over anybody you want to be. Even just recorded voice that's naturally available... this changes everything so when you look to the future of communications, you understand how much time is being spent on wasted time on that task... multiply that times almost a billion people the eighty percent of the world that Facebook represents. There are almost 2 billion people* online with a lot of waste of time. Chatbots will change that. The evolution of communications is still underway and there's going to come a time where everything changes. So, if you think you have your web strategy done?
Sorry, if you think your app is the killer up forever, I’m sorry, it's not. I am not sorry really. The artificial intelligence part of this is just the beginning and though we live in a convosphere.. my friend's idea, I will borrow it from time to time... that's the environment where we talk one to one, one to many anyone and many to one, but in the new world we also have us to machines, machines to machines and machines back to us.
You know when we are wearing devices, and these devices are talking to each other and leaving us out of the conversation, is that a higher level of consciousness? Or are we just irrelevant?
I don't know, but that's happening now, too, and so when I look to the future of communications, I have never been so excited about where the future goes. When we have the ability that have deep learning to understand what in this world is happening, we get to actually get re-centered. We have a chance to actually have meaningful conversations with people again. Of course, when they are three people chatting in a room, don't be surprised if two other objects are robots cutting [into the conversation.]
If any of you have ever watched any science fiction in the past ten years, a lot of stuff that was visualized by Gene Roddenberry, H. G. Wells and many other people, [they referred to this] and that's happened. There is something to the fact that comic book writers can tell us where the future's going. We need to hire some of these people to create the magic that we want to rely on.'
It is happening in the labs, and over the next seven years, we're going to see the future unfold that's going to blow your mind. Forget about what you're used to. Every assumption you know is wrong. We belong to the future of disruption.
There is a lot of buzz about job loss in relation to artificial intelligence. There are things about ethics we have to figure out. There are a lot of things that haven't been figured out.
I am fearful about the dark side growing and so, I would like to work toward the light side of things. It is to understand that there are forces created than us that are involved in pushing us forward. Twenty years ago I never would've imagined what was going to happen in the evolution of Internet communications. You know, some people still struggle to make unified communications happen. It happens in some places. It doesn't happen in other places, but it's happening.
What's going to be unified in seven years is going to be us humans figuring out for the very first time how to talk to those robots and maybe how those robots will be organizing us. How information can now be shared in a very efficient way because don't forget when it's bot to bot communication, they are not speaking voice but they will communicate. Our ability to be in position to be more efficient and to figure out what how many minutes apart we will save for the deployment of these bots. You know we'll no longer be bored playing games on your iPhone.
You actually will have more time to have more connections with people. I mention this in a conference I'm doing about Stars, Space and the Future. I have found that there is a level of spirituality in the world, and it's rising. There's a consciousness that's growing. I think it's all connected to how what's happening in terms of the use of these technologies.
I'm remiss to say that it's just one or the other. It's a combination of everything. When I look at where the future is... in many ways, it's never been so bright, never been so scary. Back in November, I got all these promotions for buying things leading up to and after Thanksgiving with Black Monday, Cyber Thursday, and Cyber Friday, I kept on thinking... wouldn't it be nice if somebody bought me a gift that I always wanted but nobody knows, a gift that I would never tell anybody that I want. Then I realized the one entity that really knows what I want is my browser. It knows what pages I'm going to clicking away. Maybe what lenses I'm looking for my camera clicking away. So I do predict that in the near future, your bot may be your best friend one day and will buy you a gift. Something that only it knows what you really want because it knows your habits. That could get you in trouble though. And chatbots when they change their name, it's not so much about the bot, but it is about code. I think we have an opportunity, by the way, to introduce a new computer language. I mean how many people here learned Basic when they were kids? Really? No one? I took it for granted.
I took it for granted that language was something we were going to learn. Somehow we stop evolving some languages. I hope in the near future, there will be a new language for bot creation, that's universal, that's not tied into anyone's back-end APIs so people can just write code whether they're seven years old or eighty-seven years old, you know, that people can write code that is meaningful for you. As much as Basic [computer language] was meaningful for us kids, growing up... for the generations are coming forward, being able to interconnect the intersections of AI computing in the conversation. I think the bot language is needed; hopefully, it will come forward.
So anyway I want to thank you for my time, for listening to me today. I'm Jeff Pulver. You can find more information about me on my website Jeffpulver.com. If you are passionate about the stars, I am always happy to have those conversations.
I’ll just leave on this note. This is a life lesson I learned since I got involved in this industry. A few years ago...if you haven't seen me in a while, it is because between 2012-2013, I figured out how to outsource about 120 pounds, and I outsourced it because when you say you lose something that it can kind of find you. I outsourced the weight, and then, I got into even better shape. It was actually seven hours before first ever organized race. I was sitting down having lunch with two friends in Tel Aviv, and I had a seizure. The seizure resulted from dehydration and low electrolytes. I didn't know that, but the physical impact of the seizure film in position where I dislocated my right shoulder, fractured two bones and severed muscles off my bone.
It took from a state of very good health to being basically dependent upon somebody. I couldn't button my shirt or tie my shoes. I started to think about life and started to understand that you can put anything you want. Sometimes you have to appreciate the moments to breathe and to be around the people you like and understand in some level that's all that matters. Maybe. So I dedicated my Instagram back then to sunrise and sunsets. If you are ever on Instagram, I'm jeffkenipulver. I spent my time starting to understand and appreciate that every moment matters. So I don't take anything for granted at all.
I try not to put off things that I could put off until tomorrow. I try to be present, and I learned mindfulness very hard way because right before this accident which took seven months to recover from and then I had PT for another few months... I was working on a conference and while I was flying on Oxycodone I put out an email to my friends saying, “Hey, I got hurt and I can't do this conference anymore. This is what happened to me.”
I got about 600 emails back. Every email I tried to reply, but I was in pain. I hit next, and there was another one. Then I finally closed my laptop and I realized that I had to heal. I realized that I actually had to focus on me and it took my entire life for me to get there. I leaned mindfulness by being in the position where I had to mindful to myself.
So I am really passionate about the future of communications, really passionate about where things are going; I have a great appreciation for every moment we have. Then some of the cliches you hear about growing up all of a sudden start to matter. For me, a lot of songs I used to listen to... the words now resonate with me deeply.
So I just want to wish you all great health, great opportunities to be at every moment that you can... be yourself and thank you for your time.
*True...2 billion people in the world enjoy Facebook; whereas, there are over 3.5 billion using Internet in the world according to Statista. While we are at it 79 % of Americans use Facebook and 32 % use Instagram (2nd most popular in US). 31 % use Pinterest, 29 % LinkedIn and 24 % Twitter. 180 million people use Youtube in the US, more than any other country with Brazil, Russia, Japan, India, UK and Germany having anywhere between 69.5 to 31.3 million.
]]>Nick Newsom, CEO
Nick has been involved in phone technology for over 20 years. From his early days as a ham radio operator, Nick founded Ytel to give small and medium size businesses access to call center and communications software normally reserved for large corporations. Nick leads with transparency and putting customer service as the number one priority.
Matt Grofsky, CTO/CIO
Matt provides Ytel with avenues to do things differently. As a software developer with close to 20 years experience, Matt is aggressive on deliverables and is able to get projects done. Matt is a successful inventor and has founded companies with Nick for the past 15 years.
1. In a few words that would make sense to even my Dad or a newbie to open source development, what does your company do for its clientele?
Every day our company Ytel helps thousands of businesses, and each year we support billions of communications. Providing businesses with communications software, Contact Center Software, and large scale phone call and text message campaigns. We are a registered telephone carrier which means we are very competitive when it comes to pricing and we have more control over call quality. We work directly with other telephone carriers like AT&T and provide our Customers with nationally recognized support and quality service.
2. What's the latest news for your company?
Ytel is constantly growing. The latest news for our company is that we have almost doubled in size in about a year and are not slowing down soon. Our CEO, Nick Newsom, was recently highlighted in Forbes to discuss work-life balance and how it has helped our company nearly double in size.
Product wise, we are working on the release of V3 of the message360 API. We are seeing a ton of traction from new companies using it to automate and enhance customer communications. We were recently awarded Leader in Call Center Software for X5 Cloud Contact Center by GetApp. Read the full story here!
3. What do you look forward to the most about Cluecon conferences?
We look forward to networking with attendees and continuing to advance our knowledge with FreeSwitch tech.
4. How is your company involved in the global open source community?
We use and support open-source software in our enterprise environment. The reason we are sponsoring at ClueCon is so that we can give back to Freeswitch for giving so much to us. [Nice! @DIDX, also a Cluecon sponsor, and probably every attendee, whether as a developer, exhibitor, sponsor, speaker or other type of participant, totally agrees.]
6. How can the IP communications industry participate in the opportunities of chatbots, Internet beacons, virtual assistants, AI, IoT, blockchain and/or crypto currency? So many IP communications companies have felt that voice would always be their business as usual service.
Chatbots, AI, and Virtual Assistants are slowly replacing human interactions as the first line of contact in a company's Marketing, Sales and Support pipeline. These technologies often enhance security, privacy, and safety for both consumer and the business. Communications between the user and the AI communications channel can be authenticated and encrypted if used in a webchat environment. In the case of a banking system, it can also be encrypted for storage by the user or those with authorization to view it from a secure system.
Internet beacons and IoT devices, however, require that use of the devices or technologies understand what information is being obtained about them and where it is going. Both Internet Beacons and IoT devices have the capability to transmit information about a network, the device's/Pixel's geographical location and even personal data. In the case of Medical technologies, for example, you would want to make sure that any identifiable information is encrypted in transit and stored encrypted.
Companies used to a voice only offering should look at these growing technologies as another avenue of communication. Customers are increasingly looking for easier and more private forms of communications. It's not uncommon for someone to be too busy to make a phone call at work and rely on SMS or chat for communication. From an IoT perspective, it is becoming more common to see task specific devices grow in popularity. What used to require a software management on a dedicated computer for thousands of dollars can now be accomplished on a self-contained IoT device for a fraction of the cost. Just make sure the default password is changed if it has that option.
7. What are the best social networks, websites, and forums where people can learn from you, collaborate with you and do business with you?
Twitter: @Ask_Nick
Twitter: @AskYtel
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asknick/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ytel
Twitter: @Code_Munkee
Keybase: https://keybase.io/code_munkee
David Casem, their CEO and Co-Founder, shares insight on industry buzz terms like BYOC and UCaaS for 2017, how Telnyx fits in, what their Mission Control Panel and API enables, what is important in regards to SIP trunking and direct inward dialing, and how they make decisions in regards to which events like ITEXPO and OpenSIPs Summit to participate.
Suzanne: What are the top 5 key buzz terms in open source, unified, real-time and Internet communications that readers need to understand in 2017?
Dave: CPaaS
WebRTC
UCaaS
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
BYOC (Be Your Own Carrier)
Suzanne: How is Telnyx taking the lead in any of those areas?
Dave: As a next-generation provider, Telnyx has been leading the way when it comes to CPaaS and UCaaS, and it’s great to see these terms gaining traction within the industry. Having a cloud communications platform built on top of our own API gives users the ability to pull out any features they see in the portal, allowing them to leverage our APIs to embed voice in their own environments across a number of devices. This allows their clients to truly have a unified communications experience.
Another buzz term you’ll continue to see this year is WebRTC, which is something we support, as well. We offer a client for users to implement WebRTC into their own browser-based applications, and we will continue to release additional clients and SDK around functionality.
Due to companies like Telnyx that can support encryption and enable embedded communication, we’ve helped move the pendulum into the more application-centric environment, moving away from hardware (device-centric). Our Mission Control cloud communications platform, enables a BYOC model, providing independence for a lot of organizations to control their telephony environment. In turn, solutions providers are now able to support any device - BYOD - while still delivering quality and secure communications.
Suzanne: Telnyx connects over 8 billion devices in a world of approximately 7.5 billion population where of those that have mobile devices and the average is 2.9 devices person. Even I usually either have a smartphone and a tablet or a smartphone and a laptop with me at all times. What I am getting at it is that Telnyx serves customers all over the world, not just in USA and Canada ... and it is not a small guy. Tell us about your "Be Their Own Carrier®" through Telnyx innovative multi-tenant Mission Control Portal and RESTful API."
Dave: The Telnyx Mission Control Portal and API empowers managed service providers to Be Their Own Carrier® by enabling them to instantly provision and configure carrier services around the world. Everything from submitting port requests and building SIP trunks to making routing changes and adding features like E911 or CNAM can be done instantaneously within our cloud communications platform. Whether your clients are adding new offices in the US or expanding into the European market, Telnyx gives you the power to activate new local numbers on the fly and connect calls across the globe.
In addition, the Mission Control platform was specifically designed to support and enhance multi-tenant environments. By leveraging our connections and tagging feature, you can easily segregate your customers for easier management of your services. You also have the ability to generate reports by customer.
The Mission Control platform is built on top of our public facing-API - everything you can do in the portal can be done via our API. This means that not only can MSPs Be Their Own Carrier® but so too can application providers. Hosted phone systems, call tracking solutions and all sorts of applications can automate and embed communications within their platform. There’s no need to house your own inventory or try and build your own connectivity to the PSTN, you can simply leverage our API (or SDKs) to offer communications directly in your own application.
Suzanne: A good quality sip trunking and direct inward dialing service are a key components in a business's path to success. Each company really depends upon its service provider. DIDs have often been said to be going, going, gone soon, but with so many IoT, verification, marketing, and other business enabling services increasingly dependent upon the voice call and the text as methods of data sharing, customer updates, identity verification and more...not any time soon gone. What makes the best SIP trunking solution, and why, in your opinion is the DID still a necessity?
Dave: Evaluating a SIP trunking provider comes down to two main items: the quality of the voice and the usability of the platform. Of course, the provider’s support and cost structure are going to be important, but they aren’t worth taking into consideration if the carrier cannot offer the functionality you need while delivering a quality voice connection.
There are two major considerations that can impact the quality of the phone call. The first are the interconnections your carrier has in place. When you place a call through your provider, are they terminating the call over a direct interconnection with the carrier of the dialed number? Or, are they sending the call through some aggregator that, in turn, sends it through another aggregator and so on? You want to make sure that your SIP trunking provider has tier-1 interconnects and terminates your calls directly rather than going through some aggregator because it’s cheap.
The second consideration is the network and infrastructure that your provider has in place. The internet wasn’t designed for Real-Time Communications and therefore, VoIP is vulnerable to the latency, jitter and packet loss that occurs on the public internet. Quality SIP trunking demands that your provider take measures to combat these risks. In many cases, a VoIP provider will deploy servers in multiple data centers and allow their customers to route calls to the closest server. This can help to reduce latency but does not address the potential jitter and packet loss. In order to address jitter and packet loss, your SIP trunk provider needs to have its own private network to carry the traffic themselves and eliminate the public internet where possible.
Suzanne: Telnyx has sponsored several must-attend IP communications and technologies events in the past year or so such as ITEXPO, Asterisk World, All About the API, Channel Partners, Cluecon, Enterprise Connect and next... OpenSIPs Summit in Amsterdam May 2-5. This will be our DIDX.net team's first time to participate in OpenSIPs Summit 2017. We have many good reasons for doing so. Why has Telnyx chosen OpenSIPs Summit?
Dave: Our two main goals at these events are always to learn and to engage. We want to see how our industry is evolving with new trends and technology, we want to stay up-to-date, and we want to know what’s out there - we don’t want to get stuck in our own bubble. These events are also a great way to engage and meet new people, show who we are as a company, our technology and how we can help organizations, and really just spread the gospel - this idea of democratizing the PSTN and being your own carrier.
Suzanne: Which social networks can readers follow and interact with Telnyx?
Dave: Follow us on twitter @telnyx, like us on Facebook facebook.com/Telnyx/ and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/telnyx
The perfect example of a communications tech company that is setting the bar (with development such as OpenSIPs) for many of us is Telnyx, a key sponsor for OpenSIPs Summit 2017. The trendsetting business sponsors, speaks at, exhibits and hosts parties at events such as ITEXPO, Enterprise Connect, Cluecon and OpenSIPs Summit. Visit their website and be thrilled with the encouraging words: "BE YOUR OWN CARRIER® Bringing businesses the next evolution of real-time communications." Dave Casem, the CEO and founder, started the company in 2009 because he knew he could provide maximum flexibility and great value-add features in wholesale space. He's got a fresh, honest, outgoing attitude, and so does his team and the solutions his company provides. Meet him and other smart, collaborative communications technology business and technical developers like him at OpenSIPs May 2 - 5.
Pictured is Telnyx headquarters in Chicago.
Send your technology developers to OpenSIPs Summit 2017, or find the developers you need there. Your marketing and executive teams need to immerse themselves into the new IoT, big data, voice and video over Internet, chat, Internet SMS, mobile app, social media and other integrated service opportunities that are powered in the background with OpenSIPs. Have your software and app developers mix with the brightest minds behind the biggest Internet communications and technology development sensations.
Learn how to propel your company into one that its users never want to
leave. Make your startup, your CLEC, your MNO or MVNO, your multi-location contact center business, and your mobile app and social media company something that appeals to all generations: the team playing, civic oriented GIs; the optimistic, technology envisioning baby boomers; the entrepreneurial, individualistic Generation X; the digitally literate, highly organized Generation Y / Millennials; and the savvy consuming, more interracially mixed Generation Z / boomlets.
Don't have any developers on the payroll yet and need some to start a new service or to improve and expand? At OpenSIPs, discover the right people to hire and the right consultants to guide you now who are trusted, experienced and knowledgeable. Take advantage of one on one talks, panel discussions, intense workshops and more.
OpenSIPs Summit is May 2 - 5, 2017 in the most exciting city of the world: Amsterdam, Netherlands! At the Summit, your human resources will participate in sessions on native clustering support, enhanced SIP (session initiation protocol) capturing capabilities, Quality Based Routing, VoIP security and more in presentations and workshops with world-renowned international speakers and collaborations. An exciting Round Table talk is planned. There are design clinics for one to one conversations about your project or application for expert opinions and perspectives. Plus one full day of total immersive Advanced OpenSIPs training with highly effective, veteran project developers and leads.
Pictured is Bogdan Iancu, founder of OpenSIPs.
A special boat dinner trip is planned during OpenSIPs Summit 2017 through breathtaking canals of Amsterdam, Netherlands, thanks to VoiceTel, VoiceCenter (Israel), VoIPGrid (Netherlands), Qxip, RateTel (with an impressive array of business partners), Telnyx (Chicago), and OpenSIPs Solutions. The arts, music, nightlife, excellent public transportation and total walkability make the city so much fun outside actual Summit hours. With the friendly participants of OpenSIPs such as me Suzanne Bowen, VP DIDX.net and co-founder of Suzahdi (leather jacket fashion brand), you will have others to hang out with practically anytime. Plus ... someone will win a totally, bad-to-the-bone leather jacket by Suzahdi.
Speaker proposals and sponsorship applications are being accepted for a limited time at http://www.opensips.org/events/Summit-2017Amsterdam.html. Just click on "Call for Speakers" and the sponsorship link at the bottom of the page. Register now. See you in Amsterdam May 2 - 5, 2017 at OpenSIPs Summit!
]]>In the golden year of 1999, Asterisk, a software implementation of a telephone PBX, was founded by Mark Spencer, and Super Technologies, Inc., a VoIP company, was co-founded by Rehan Allahwala and me Suzanne Bowen. But the classiest person in the IP communications industry was and is Allison Smith, AKA The Voicegal and The Voice of Asterisk. And now... she is a beautiful, strong, sultry fantasy character in the Mymero iPad game app that Floris de Vries, an engineer and entrepreneur, created. How cool is that?
See, Mark, Rehan, Allison, Floris, Michel (whom I will mention soon) and I have a few things in common. We all have industry friends, customers and vendors in dozens of countries in the west and east hemispheres. Mark and I are from pretty much the Deep South. Allison is from Canada. Floris is from the Netherlands. Rehan is from Pakistan. We each have and will continue to help shape the way the world communicates and the way it plays and works. I'm #thankful for them and what they all do.
I met Floris de Vries on one of my hipster shopping trips on Kickstarter. (I know. I am too old to be a hipster.) I introduced Floris, who also owns The Penultimate Truth Soundcloud, to Michel Vaillancourt, a Canadian VoIP entrepreneur, steampunk fiction author and greenthumb because they seemed to have some things in common. Michel likes steampunk, the Society for Creative Anachronism, table-top role-playing Games, and MMORPG gaming as well as, Hal-Con, WolfCon, NovaCon, ConSeption, DraCONis, and Steamcon. Michel conducted a Mymero adult-oriented memory game interview with Floris.
It was cool that one of Floris's Mymero memory style game of fantasy characters' Kickstarter perks was an invite to be one of the fantasy characters in his adult memory card mobile app game Mymero. I chose that perk. Allison Smith was the first person I thought of to give the making of the character. I introduced Floris and Allison.
Allison Smith's Mymero character's skills are grit, honor, wealth and persuasion. Her character is human and of the noble class. Her costume is scarlet satin with smoky black leather and jeweled embellishments. Her tattoos rock. Her lace up boots...I think some day, I'll get my Suzahdi fashion brand to make her a replica in costume custom fit and designed. When I shared with Allison that I thought she'd be perfect as a character in the game, she responded with her well-known charm and grace and humor, "Why you would give up the chance to strut around in Middle Earth Barbie wear is beyond me."
Her trusty companion Bailey stands stalwartly by her Mymero character's side. Have an iPad? You can download the Mymero game which is said to be available in December 2016 or January 2017. Have a lovely Thanksgiving past, present and future, and see you at ITEXPO Feb. 8-10, 2017 in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Jeff Pulver, father of VoIP, is the keynote for 2017 IDEA Showcase there. Cool!
May you all join Allison Smith as a star in some fantasy game someday. #Thankful!
Gregory's company Conexiant Telecom was one of the five companies that sponsored the ITEXPO West 2012 All Conference Party along with OnSIP, DIDX, Coredial, and Taqua. What has happened from the time of Classroom Connect startup to this point in 2012 for Gregory Giagnocavo, I had to know and to share with you. Mr. Giagnocavo agreed to let me record an audio podcast interview with him about thoughts on social media use online, which business trends matter and why, how his new company Conexiant is different from other telecom companies, wholesale telecommunications in general and which industry events we both recommend others to participate in. The "Conexiant Greg Giagnocavo on Telecom Needs of Wholesale" audio podcast is available to download and listen to any time offline or to stream online now.
Some questions we pursued:
2. Trends? Most of us talk about lofty ideas that barely anyone can imagine working, but Mr. Giagnocavo's answers were extremely down-to-earth, practical, credible and wise. What can make or break a company is very likely to be how it deals with customers who need customization of services and who need their vendors to truly be available 24/7.
Hmm? I pause and then think, "Brilliant!" Why not? Makes me think about the no-nonsense advice of Tim Brown's"Big Idea 2013: Stop Designing New Things" article. (Brown is the CEO of IDEO.)
In what ways is Conexiant Telecom different? Seven points stood out in Conexiant Telecom CEO's answer.Meet Gregory Giagnocavo, CEO at Conexiant Telecom; me and other representatives of DIDX; and 1000s of exciting companies and people to develop business with at ITEXPO East January 29 to February 1, 2012. Start networking now on Facebook and Linkedin. Why not sign up to do the ING Miami Beach 1/2 or whole marathon the weekend before, scheduled January 27th? A few dozen ITEXPO East participants plan to run the half. Let me know if you will be there. Visit http://www.itexpo.com and http://www.ingmiamimarathon.com/ to sign up.
Visit http://www.conexiant.net or contact info@conexiant.net for business development or to sign up for services.
Luckily, Jason Tapolci (pronounced Tapplesigh), President of VoIP Innovations and co-owner of ABG Capital, agreed to let me record a talk with him about his company and what's up.
VoIP Innovations is a wholesale VoIP origination and termination carrier for over 1,000 ITSP’s, Hosted PBX Providers, call centers, calling card providers, and carriers. They specialize in providing the largest DID and termination VoIP footprints in North America. Their network includes over 500,000 DIDs in stock of over 8,500 rate centers in the USA and Canada. Recently, VoIP Innovations expanded their footprint to include DIDs in over 60 countries, and they offer A-Z termination. What I really like is the refreshing confidence that is evident in their About us page: "In the Wholesale VoIP telecommunications industry, coverage is king. Partner with a Wholesale VoIP provider that has the power to build a kingdom."
VoIP Innovations Audio Podcast
I invite you to listen to the 18 minute audio podcast where we discuss the following:
- Quick history of VoIP Innovations
- Overview of their products and services
- The power of automation with their Titanium III back office
- The fact that their DIDs can easily be E911 registered or one can bring in a third party footprint and have them registered
- In a nutshell explanation of the law according to E911 around 7:00.0
- A very enlightening story of the recent history of wholesale telecom that has caused prices to be almost as volatile as those of gas (mention of Verizon and Synapse Global (might not be spelled correctly)
- Huge growth in the number of mom and pop ITSPs and call centers with predictive dialers
- Mobile and communication trends such as SMS capabilities added to DIDs, voicemail has decreased at least 10 % and will decrease even more, anything that 4G enables rules
We both will be actively participating in ITEXPO West in Austin October 2 - 5, 2012. Meet them at booth 713! To find out their launch exclusively saved to begin at the conference and also what kind of fun item will be displayed at their booth, listen to the audio podcast.
I'll be at booth 227. Come by and see me, too. I will be connecting visitors interested in having mobile applications developed with an industry veteran. Plus, I'll be taking pictures, interviews, and videos to share via social media and networks for business such as on Linkedin, Pinterest, Twitter, TMCnet Monetizing IP Communications blog, and more.
Jason Tapolci and I both agree that ITEXPO events feel like a huge family reunion of 1000s with new brothers and sisters at each one. He made an interesting comment that I also can corroborate, "Everyone buys from who they sell to, and they sell to who they buy from."
Don't miss out! Visit http://www.itexpo.com to register for the conference and http://www.voipinnovations.com/ to start building your kingdom.
Once you have played around and created your composition, press the pound sign on your cell phone and there you go. Your musical piece is added to the crowd-sourced orchestra or hip hop jam on the wall. You have participated in this collective crowd-sourced fun, fun music-making.
Bloc Jam takes the magic of musical improvisation to the streets, transforming building façades for anyone to take part in a session of collective musical making via one’s mobile phone keypad, direct inward dialing and other technologies.
”Where were you? Where were you? No, 9 4 5 6, up there. Look,” says one of the cellular DID music makers in the crowd in Montreal at the collaborative concert on the wall of UQAM.
“You can follow your beats afterward. It’s easy to follow. We can hear everyone’s beats,” they continue in awe. “But isn’t your own beat your favorite?”
“Oh yes, and you do keep your eye on it. That one’s the best,” says another in delight.
It’s a Bloc Jam video on Youtube by Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat in collaboration with Rob Seward and Kelsey Snook and presented at MUTEK Extra_Muros 2010. More at http://www.blocjamradio.com. Find out how you can arrange for this kind of cool activity in your area of the world. Sige! (That's Tagalog for "go for it.")
This was brought to you buy DIDX, Astraqom, Michel Vaillancourt, and PinoyKubo. DIDX.net offers a wholesale location online where telecoms, social networking providers, DID mash-ups, mobile operators, and MVNOs to buy and/or sell DID virtual phone numbers in voice, music, transactions, and other exciting and unbelievably unique uses. AstraQom is a member of DIDX and runs the new PinoyKubo social network for Filipinos and Filipinas all over planet Earth. Meet most of at http://www.itexpo.com West in Austin, Texas September 13-15, 2011 and other TMC events each year.
]]>2600 Hertz Project's media engine is powered
by FreeSwitch. At least six of 2600 Hertz Project team and also I (Suzanne Bowen) will be at Cluecon in 2011.
The slideshow shares a chart/diagram and a couple pictures regarding 2600 Hertz Project.
Anywhere throughout the Internet
Way out there
Lie the goals that you made up
Once in a first class seat (a few sheets to the wind in the Cloud)
Everywhere despite lack of spectrum
Videos, voice, and text stream seamlessly
Over every device that you wished for
Text could even be converted to VM ... ooh ooooh
This day I'll wish upon an Asterisk
Wake up where the latency will be far behind us
Where companies deploy IP networks
High inside the Cloud puffs, where they'll store it all
Somewhere after the last of PSTN ...
Techistan International Awards invites you to apply for the Unified Communications Award as well as 25 other awards at http://www.tinyurl.com/techistaninternationalawards. You'll get lots of publicity in return. Tell them that JamesOpera from Fiverr sent you.
Press, news, blogs and tools to help you take advantage of unified communications:
VoiceServe Teams with Super Technologies' DIDX to Mass Market its Mobile Dialers
4PSA Wins Product of the Year Award (Unified Communications)
Microsoft to Talk Cloud at TechEd
All the 2011 TMC Unified Communications Award Winners
A Hodge Podge of Opinions and Analyses about Microsoft Acquisition of Skype written by me Suzanne Bowen