August 2008

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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. Now it comes down to Sylantro and Broadsoft really.

Posted in mergers, voip

Tagged: broadsoft : Related Tags: sylantro broadsoft, asterisk based, broadsoft, system, genband

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.

Posted in off topic

Tagged: rant : Related Tags: startup success, success, telco

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. BTW, VOIPSA is the VoIP Security Alliance.

Posted in security, voip

Tagged: security, voip : Related Tags: security alliance, security, vomit

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.

Posted in PR, communications, video, voip

Tagged: pr, video, voip : Related Tags: video phone, phone service, phone, innovation, service

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?

One who is a tired old candidate that, I think, is out of touch with where we are and what the major issues are.

Posted in off topic, politics

Tagged: politics, rant : Related Tags: issues, congress, obama, biden

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:

According to an In-Stat consumer survey, people are increasingly using hotspots for personal reasons. Survey respondents are showing an increased reluctance to pay for hotspot access. Nearly 50% of respondents said they would only use a free hotspot. 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.

Posted in broadband, wi-fi

Tagged: hotspot, internet, wi-fi : Related Tags: access revenues, hotspot revenue, hotspot access, access, people, hotspot

Thunder and Lightning and Sun

August 24, 2008

I see that The Mozilla project has added functionality to Thunderbird, the email client I use. With Sunbird calendar and Lightning plug-in. "Since it's an extension, Lightning is tightly integrated with Thunderbird, allowing it to easily perform email-related calendaring tasks." My question: Is anyone using this combo as a replacement for Microsoft Outlook?

My Outlook pst file is about 1GB and email contents date back to my start in telecom in 2000. Can T-Bird run with 1GB in email, contacts, hundreds of folders, thousands of calendar items and hundreds of tasks and reminders? Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.

Posted in Internet, apps, email

Tagged: email, mozilla : Related Tags: email, lightning

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. PNG tried this.

Posted in cellular

Tagged: lightyear, mlm, mvno : Related Tags: lightyear wireless, wireless business, verizon wireless, directly verizon, lightyear network, lightyear

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PCI Compliance: Best Practices Webinar

August 21, 2008

Qwest sent me an invite to a webinar: PCI MOVING FORWARD: Best Practices to Achieve and Maintain Compliance.

PCI compliance is a constantly changing security requirement for all businesses that process, store or transmit consumer credit card information. Shifting parameters, looming deadlines and increasing responsibilities all pose a challenge to becoming compliant and staying that way. This joint webinar between Qwest Business and Cisco Systems will introduce ways to reduce risk and shorten the journey to compliance.

Date: Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Time: 10:00 a.m. Pacific/1:00 p.m. Eastern

Posted in compliance, security

Tagged: pci compliance : Related Tags: compliance, webinar

Metaswitch not a Coppercom

August 20, 2008

Metaswitch landed a big gear sale to Embarq. In doing so, it avoids going the way of the CopperCom. You need a big carrier to be a vested customer so that you can sustain the R&D and tech support departments.

Posted in telco, voip

Tagged: metaswitch : Related Tags: metaswitch

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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.

Posted in cableco, communications, telco, voip

Tagged: voip : Related Tags: local cable, cable companies, winning consumer, couple years, cable, numbers

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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. However, they just call it a dynamic T1. It is easier for the agents to grasp, I guess.

Posted in telco, voip

Tagged: sip trunk : Related Tags: universal inter, chapter should, sales folks, inter operability, agents, inter

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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. It sounded like the program is temporary or "in trial".

Posted in cableco, conferences, smb

Tagged: agents, cable, channel partners, smb : Related Tags: cable

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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.

I think dial-tone replacement companies like Vonage do not have much hope, since cable has been quality control and bundling.

Posted in PBX, duopoly, telco, voip

Tagged: deltathree, hosted pbx, voip : Related Tags: hosted

11 Ways to Market Your Event

August 14, 2008

We are organizing BarCampTampaBay for Oct. 11 & 12, 2008 at USF College of Business. These are the first 11 ways we are marketing this event:

Local bloggers - contact, invite, interact with. Local organizations like the Chambers of Commerce. LinkedIn - your network first! MeetUp.com - create a group, just $75. Eventful.com, Upcoming.yahoo.com, Craigslist - free event listings Newspapers - weekly, commununity, and trade. Magazines, too. twitter - again your network first. podcast about it and get others to do so; interview with podcasters. create a website or a blog eventbrite.com for sign-up sheet make a Facebook group

Posted in Marketing

Tagged: event marketing : Related Tags: event

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Payroll by Ma Bell

August 13, 2008

AT&T bought USi in Oct. 2006. My friend Jack sent me an email from ATT Wholesale:

With AT&T's Payroll Services, powered by USinternetworking (USi), an AT&T Company, your payroll management headaches are history! You still keep control with full access and visibility, but we handle the tough jobs for you. Our know-how and tools will save you time, reduce your risk of errors and keep dollars in your pocket.

Would you let the folks that can't get your phone bill correct handle your payroll and payroll taxes?!

After thought: why is this ATT WHOLESALE?

Posted in Web 2.0, saas, telco

Tagged: payroll, saas : Related Tags: payroll

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. Five Nines is difficult especially now. My thoughts are that there are more hackers worldwide with broadband.

Posted in Web 2.0, backup, data center, saas, security

Tagged: SAAS, security, Web 2.0 : Related Tags: linkup linkup, linkup

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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. There is enough of a subscriber base to look at investing in improving that technology. To do a forklift upgrade to the iDen network would be expensive -- it means replacing all radios and handsets.

Posted in Yahoo, telco

Tagged: iden, nextel, sprint : Related Tags: safety network, network, sprint, nextel

Jajah Translates

August 11, 2008

Jajah releases a translation service.

Just in time for the Olympics, Internet telephony company JAJAH and IBM late Wednesday night introduced a free,real-time, machine-translation service for any mobile telephone. The initial service is for Mandarin and English, however the two companies plan to translate other languages later this year.

Jajah is thinking about ways that VOIP can be more than just dial-tone replacement. To make money on VOIP, it has to be a productivity tool.

Posted in voip

Tagged: jajah, voip : Related Tags: translation service, jajah, service

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.

Posted in broadband

Tagged: baller, broadband, e-nc : Related Tags: herbst report, baller herbst, broadband, applications, difference, users

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).

His reply: Ok, got that.

There are 2 blogs that give an excellent view of the ruling - one is from OpenID and the other from Prof.

Posted in off topic

Tagged: insider, translation : Related Tags: common carriage, traffic interference, common, reply

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. (I still give big props to Aastra's phone).

Posted in PBX, voip

Tagged: freedomvoice, hosted pbx, polycom, qos, voip : Related Tags: freedomvoice, hosted

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? Currently, they are losing more voice customers than they are gaining TV subs -- and TV subs are not as profitable as the telephone revenues you are losing.

Posted in broadband, telco, video

Tagged: iptv, telco tv : Related Tags:

FCC, Comcast and Muddy Water

August 5, 2008

The FCC made a ruling on Comcast's network management (or P2P traffic interference). There are 2 blogs that give an excellent view of the ruling - one is from OpenID and the other from Prof. Susan Crawford.

I wonder why they just don't use the Common Carriage definition. If cable is a Common Carrier like telcos then stuff like DPI and traffic interference are a no-no. What? You mean Embarq and others are infringing on Common Carriage with something like NebuAd and Sandvine? No. Couldn't be. Not with the FCC around protecting the consumer and stuff. Oh, wait. ILEC's have a hall pass. I forgot.

UPDATE: Kevin Martin 's Open Network Manifesto on NYT.

Posted in FCC, bandwidth, broadband, cableco, duopoly, politics

Tagged: comon carriage, dpi, fcc : Related Tags: common carriage, traffic interference, common

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. But with $2.9B in quarterly revenue, how does Ma bell afford it after all its acquisitions and its CAPEX spending needed to complete U-Verse and Internet backbone builds?

Both DISH and DTV provide service to RBOCs.

Posted in cableco, mergers, telco, video

Tagged: att, dbs, directv, dish : Related Tags:

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.

Posted in cableco

Tagged: cable, dvr, tv : Related Tags: internet, metering

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.

Posted in Marketing, sales and selling, voip

Tagged: selling, voip : Related Tags: service, selling, phone, because

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.

On Brad Feld's blog, he points to Alex Muse's blog post about Muse's biggest failuer (LayerOne and $20MM).

Posted in off topic

Tagged: blogs : Related Tags: comments

What's Next for AOL?

August 4, 2008

It seems that TimeWarner is ready to eject AOL. One part will be the remnants of the ISP business, which I think EarthLink will grab, but Tara Seals at Xchange mag thinks that United Online (NetZero folks) or MSn would bid. I don't think in this economy that there will be bidding war for dial-up users, a declining revenue vehicle. Also, EarthLink is out looking to buy dial-up base. United Online is focused on its online properties (classmates and points.com) and they just bought FTD. MSN is not an ISP, but an internet portal for companies like Qwest. MSN likely would want the advertising piece of AOL, which I think Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft would bid for.

Posted in Internet, mergers, telco

Tagged: aol, dial-up, internet, mergers : Related Tags: united online, think, online

All Depends, Doesn't It?

August 4, 2008

"Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat, Jr., a former judge and lawyer whose 1952 "Whiskey Speech" became a monument to political double-talk, died Friday after a battle with Parkinson's disease." When you read his speech, you will see that perspective is everything. Like so many issues we face today, it is all in how you paint (or spin) it. Have a Good Day!

Posted in politics

Tagged: politics : Related Tags:

On Rad's Radar?

August 2008