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| Peter Radizeski of RAD-INFO, Inc. talking telecom, Cloud, VoIP, CLEC, and The Channel.

August 2008

You are browsing the archive for August 2008.

GenBand's M6 Acquired by Broadsoft

August 29, 2008

A couple of clients use GenBand. They are in for a shock today as Broadsoft announced "their acquisition of GENBAND's M6 Communication Applications Server, formerly VocalData, product line and related customer base." Broadsoft will now have 435 client companies.

Broadsoft says, "Yes, a bit of consolidation and widening of partnerships .... I think it will serve the M6 customer base very well."

On a CLEC listserv, the discussion recently was about this space - the Hosted VoIP Application Services space.

Startup Success book

August 28, 2008

So I get a marketing newsletter today and it has an ad/referral to a new book about Startup Success. The author has been CEO of 2 companies -- neither of which has been a success. One filed for bankruptcy and one has burned through millions in investment money with little to show for it. In fact, he was removed from his position at the second company.

SPIT and Vomit

August 27, 2008

We had the huge DNS security hole a couple of weeks ago. Now we have the BGP security flaw. What next?

Well, according to a presentation by VOIPSA, there are threats out there to target SIP.

PR Machine in Full Swing

August 26, 2008

The PR factories are pumping out releases working up to IT Expo West. At least, they changed it from puking on me to invitations to speak with an exec. This came in about an hour ago:

Free phone service wasn't even a thought ten years ago. New technology breakthroughs are lowering costs for providers and increased competition with new telecom startups and the growing number of Voice over IP (VoIP) users is bringing prices down. .....

Obama-Biden

August 25, 2008

Obama is probably the candidate with the most tech-savvy staff. Ron Paul was better, but unfortunately for the US, he is not running any more. Instead we again have two choices that make me weep. How did 20+ candidates come down to just these 2?

Hotspot Revenue

August 24, 2008

In-Stat's study on hotspot revenue, according to Communications Direct:

The number of hotspots providing public wireless LAN access continues to grow globally and more people are using them, reports In-Stat. But access revenues do not appear to be keeping up with the growth in use, the high-tech market research firm says.

My favorite part is the summary that makes some obvious conclusions, as we see here:

  1. According to an In-Stat consumer survey, people are increasingly using hotspots for personal reasons.
  2. Survey respondents are showing an increased reluctance to pay for hotspot access. Nearly 50% of respondents said they would only use a free hotspot.
  3. Access revenues will start to decline due to increased competition and users' reluctance to pay.

So no one wants to pay for wi-fi access.

Thunder and Lightning and Sun

August 24, 2008

LightYear Wireless MLM

August 21, 2008

If you Google Lightyear Wireless, you will get 400K+ entries. Everyone looking for instant riches via multi-level marketing is looking at Lightyear's new deal to deliver cellular services via Verizon Wireless. Telecom folks don't pay attention.

This is an MVNO deal, which is when a provider buys cellular minutes and resells it under its own brand.

PCI Compliance: Best Practices Webinar

August 21, 2008

Metaswitch not a Coppercom

August 20, 2008

Who's Winning Consumer VOIP Battle?

August 20, 2008

When you look at the numbers, the companies winning the consumer VOIP battle appear to be the cable operators. Ike Elliott has a post about Over-the-top VoIP Providers dying in the residential space. Vonage is spending $65M per quarter to maintain its subscriber numbers at 2.6M. It's churn is barely being replaced by new customers.

Just SIP It

August 20, 2008

That was the slogan that AireSpring was using at the Channel Partner show in Boston - "Just SIP it!" The problem, as I see it is, is that 85-90% of the Agents have any idea what SIP is.

I sat through the VOIP/SIP BootCamp that FreedomVoice sponsored. People just can't wrap their head around VoIP and SIP.

I sat through the Covad presentation on their Integrated Access product, which i sreally SIP Trunks with call paths.

Cable Takes Some Punches

August 18, 2008

Cox, Comcast, Time Warner, Charter, and CableVision showed up for a panel at the Channel Partners Expo in Boston today. As you can imagine the agents let them have it. The question the panel asked is Why Cable? Why, indeed.

VOIP Company Numbers

August 18, 2008

I often quote that there are over 1000 VoIP Providers, including every Tom, Dick and Harry with an Asterisk box. Invariably, I get asked about consolidation. Well, cable has taken the lion's share of VoIP. Far and away the MSO's have become the giants in the VOIP world.

11 Ways to Market Your Event

August 14, 2008

Payroll by Ma Bell

August 13, 2008

How Safe is the Cloud?

August 12, 2008

Network World has a story about how an online storage site, Linkup, formerly known as MediaMax, shut down this week after 45% of the data was lost. Who's fault is it? Well, the article tries to figure that out.

As we have seen, outages are everywhere - Amazon, Google, etc.

Will Sprint Sell Nextel?

August 11, 2008

According to an article on Y! news, Sprint may be trying to sell Nextel, but not without hurdles. "Sprint faces pressure from the FCC to relinquish a key chunk of iDen wireless airwaves for emergency communications networks." To me that means, spin it off as a public-private safety network.

Although analysts suggest that Motorola has left the iDen technology behind, NII uses the iDen network in Latin America.

Jajah Translates

August 11, 2008

The Baller Herbst Report on Broadband

August 7, 2008

There is a Broadband report that you should all read: Bigger Vision, Bolder Action, Brighter Future: Capturing the Promise of Broadband for North Carolina and America (The Baller Herbst Report)

Here are some great excerpted quotes:

Broadband is not simply a consumer service or good, like cable television or an XBox. Rather, it is also a distribution system, a personal tool for interacting with the world, and a catalyst and enabler of an endless array of other products, processes, and services. Broadband will increasingly become integrated into virtually everything that we do at work, at home, and at play. From economic development to entertainment, from education to health care, from environmental sustainability to public safety and homeland security, from our smallest hamlets to our largest cities, from our young people to our senior citizens, almost everything and everyone will come to depend directly or indirectly on affordable and ubiquitous access to broadband.

People Don't Understand Me

August 7, 2008

So a friend of mine sends me some emails about current events. "Here's something to blog about." I reply with the URL to my post about it that is up already. In the course of the email conversation, I realize he has no idea what I am talking about. His reply is below:

What I wrote: The FCC made a ruling on Comcast's network management (or P2P traffic interference).

A Secret to Hosted PBX

August 6, 2008

While speaking with the CEO of FreedomVOICE this week, we were discussing how important it was to keep it simple. KISS is a great concept because complex installs means too many things can go wrong.

This week Polycom announced that they had certified FreedomVOICE as a reseller. That's one way FreedomVOICE keeps it simple: standard on one quality phone that is becoming industry standard.

Telco TV

August 6, 2008

Gary Kim and IP Business have a couple of decent articles on Telco TV. (They call it IPTV, which by strict definition it is not for most telcos. FiOS uses RF just like cable). the first article frames the debate: Should Telcos Have Gotten into IPTV?

Twitter-ing

August 6, 2008

I dabble in Twitter. I find it very challenging to plow through my various inboxes, blogs, clients, LinkedIn, and to find time to Twit as well. It's just too much noise. (So is doing anything by Committee.

FCC, Comcast and Muddy Water

August 5, 2008

Is Ma Bell Looking to the Sky?

August 5, 2008

Over at Xchange magazine, Bob Wallace writes about the possibility of Ma Bell buying one of the DBS companies. Since Murdoch owns DirecTV and he fought so hard for it, I don't see him giving it up.

However, DISH did split its business into wholesale and retail divisions to make room for a sale. And they did have a subscriber loss this quarter.

Advertising, Revenue and Content

August 5, 2008

With the Comcast Appeal ruling on Network DVR, it will mean that our 1 hour shows will likely be 30 minutes content and 30 minutes commercials instead of the current 42/18. It also means more re-runs, reality TV, infomercials, and "product placement".

TV is no more ready to change its model than motion pictures or the music biz. Everyone cries that the Internet and Piracy ruined their business.

Lessons from Jack

August 4, 2008

Rich Tehrani has a post about magicjack. He saw one of the company's many infomercials. (Someone said that Isenberg is hawking them in one!) Anyway the one thing MJ is doing is promoting VOIP without talking about VoIP. Vonage does it as well.

Interesting blogs

August 4, 2008

apparently, Carl Icahn has a well-read blog. Probably due to his abuse of companies and people wondering where the next train wreck will be (like MOTO and Yahoo). In his latest post, Carl promises not to show up at the Yahoo! annual meeting. He thinks he would turn it into a media circus.

What's Next for AOL?

August 4, 2008

All Depends, Doesn't It?

August 4, 2008

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