On Rad's Radar?

SAAS and Security

2008-06-09T19:35:28-05:00

Here's the downside to SAAS: security breach and down time.

This week Amazon was down twice, which is hard to believe because I can not remember them being unavailable. Yahoo! Mail has had outages. Twitter is constantly down.

Every data center, even those precious Tier 1's, have had outages. When power is out, redundant systems do not always kick in. But you don't know that until that Bad day happens.

And security breaches are happening every week. Comcast's site was hacked. TJ Maxx was broken -- the largest hack ever. Sweetbay Supermarkets was breached. Bank of New York Mellon Loses 4.5 Million UNENCRYPTED Bank Records. Harvard Hacker steals personal information of 10,000 University students and applicants.

What do you do? As a small business how do you prevent the hacks? It's not like BoNYM didn't have good security. It's a full time job to keep intruders out. Firewalls, IDS and other methods can work, if they are configured correctly and actively monitored. How many folks do you think are talented enough to handle that? How much do you think they cost to hire? Exactly.

IT talent is tough to find and even tougher to retain. That's another reason SAAS will be big with small business. Maybe even with medium sized businesses. The problem will be how the SAAS companies handle redundancy, business continuity, back-up, security -- and when that fails Indemnity. Co-Location companies do not offer Indemnity. But if you are handing your data to someone, you will want to know some stuff about them. Like what's being done so that my data is not lost or stolen? What happens if it is? Who pays the fines? What does my Privacy policy say that covers me using an SAAS provider? These are just some of the things to think about when you think about Outsourcing. As long as you audit your vendors, you won't have to think about these things too often.

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Tags: saas, security

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When to SAAS - Jun 09, 2008
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When to SAAS

2008-06-09T12:04:27-05:00

On LinkedIn Answers, there is a question about when you would use SAAS in place of in-house apps. Bob Raffo points out some reality:

Failure: CEO sees SaaS as a low cost replacement for in-house systems and as a path to reduce IT headcount. CIO is seen as a marginalized procurment manager.
That's mentality is a definite problem. But then often IT and automation are all about reducing head-count. SAAS for smaller organizations is an idea based on available talent and time. Most very small businesses do not have a full-time IT person. But today technology has far outpaced the average person's ability to keep up with it. So hosted and managed software is ideal, especially for something as unyielding as Small business email. Companies are finding success offering hosted Zimbra. HyperOffice has had success offering a Collaboration suite of services. We have all heard about NetSuite and SalesForce.com. VoIP is a Hosted application. So is UC (unified communications).
QuickBooks offers an online version that I personally find works well for my small business. Other people like FreshBooks. Part of it is functionality, part of it is Usability. How steep is the learning curve.
In VoIP, providers that leave as much "sameness" have less headaches. The blinking Call park problem has undone quite a few installs. Undone by too many tech calls that resulted in a frustrated employee and a huge expense to the provider.
I had read somewhere that about 90% of downloaded software goes unused. People have good intentions, but either never actually install it or just never use it. Some of that is CHANGE. People hate change. And what business owner has time to unlearn a system and learn a new one?
This is where video could play a role. The more you can show demo features, uses, testimonials, tech support, the easier adaptation.
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Tags: saas

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SAAS and Security - Jun 09, 2008

IP - no the other IP - Apr 07, 2008

Copyright On Rad's Radar?

TWC Metering Bandwidth

2008-06-05T10:15:17-05:00

This week the US is abuzz with news that Time Warner Cable will be performing a trial in Texas on metering bandwidth. TWC set caps and overage is $1/GB. Now, as someone who once had a metered EVDO card, it is amazing how fast 40MB in a day in just email (and attachments) adds up.

Considering that YouTube, MySpace and Facebook are the top 3,4,&5 visited sites in the US, hitting your cap will be quick and easy. And that doesn't include photo-sharing, iTunes, Microsoft updates (114MB for the Office pack this morning), online gaming, VoIP traffic, etc.

How does your average Joe know when they get close to the limit? I can see this being like cell phone bills. Your kids kill your usage and you get stuck with a huge bill that makes you mad at both your kid and your provider.

I can also see how virii, malware, and spam are going to be a huge fight. If 80% of email is spam (and I can attest to that), do I want to pay to receive it? Consumers will be fierce about the controls that TWC will have in place for these bandwidth bandits.

Remember that TWC makes its money on Broadcast TV, so downloading movies, episodes and other entertainment weakens the appeal of broadcast TV.

On the other hand, cable is more expensive than DSL. It already gets a premium for its service, so I'm curious why TWC is taking this route (other than to protect its BTV franchise. It's only 5% of its customers that eat 50% of its bandwidth -- why not just fire those hogs?

I think at some point the FTC has to take a closer look at Broadband and Phone advertising, because Unlimited is more diluted than bank stocks. And Privacy with systems like DPI and NebuAd in place by the carriers is long forgotten. But as long as they update their Privacy Policy they are good to go. If I'm not mistaken, it was this kind of policy and oversight that led to the current mortgage and credit crisis. You can't let the wolves police themselves. However, government wants less privacy. I mean, come on, if the NSA could just get a feed from every ISP, the Bush Administration would have a chub.

AT&T and VZ must be smiling. A move like this means they will see a bump in DSL subs, and hopefully in the FTTx subscriber numbers as well.

Many mistakenly suggest that only cable has a bottleneck issue. It's disheartening because DSLAMs need backhaul (just like neighborhood nodes and cell towers). All traffic has a bottleneck somewhere. In subdivisions fed by mini-DSLAM's or remote DSLAMs, do you think it is a GigE fiber connection feeding it? Not likely. Probably an NxT1 feed. So if you sell 48 ports at 1.5MB or 3MB.... well, you get the idea. Cellular, fixed wireless, cable, even telco (remember the AOL busy signals? and fast usy when trying to dial LD or International?) - all have bottlenecks. Knowing that and selling UNLIMITED just seems like at some point Unlimited will mean anything but. Or as we are seeing today: Unlimited as we define it today.

All business is a Pendulum. We have come full circle back to the early days of AOL, when you bought time on the network. 10 hours for $10. Atleast, hours was an easy measure. Gigabits is a tough one. (GB software meters coming soon!)

What do you think about metering Internet usage?

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Tags: bandwidth, internet, metering

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Bandwidth Hogs - Apr 28, 2008
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Verizon Rumors

2008-06-05T10:09:11-05:00

Rumors yesterday and today about Verizon wanting to buy Alltel. Supposedly, Verizon Wireless partner, Vodafone, is spreading these rumors. I don't see a merger of that size getting by anti-trust. But I have been wrong in the past. But these rumors, like the ones where DT was looking to buy Sprint-Nextel, have the scent of someone playing the stock market delta game. Raise a balloon and make some money on the stock delta for the day. But that's just my jaded opinion.

UPDATE: The cse can be made that Alltel and VZW are a good fit. Both are CDMA and have cross-roaming agreements (which explains the Alltel commercial claims of more network everywhere). Alltel went private 18 months ago and since then the credit crunch is probably affecting the new owners, so a sale would be a quick turn around. The private buy out was at $27.5B for the fifth US cellco at 13M customers.

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Tags: alltel, vzw

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PR Folks... Listen Up!

2008-06-03T11:53:30-05:00

I don't know who added my email address to some list and distributed it to every PR firm in America, but please stop sending me your press releases. Lois from HWH PR; Tim from Inkhouse PR; Brittany at SSPR; Shannon from Springboard PR just to name a few.

I write 4 blogs. I get more than enough email as it is without getting "story ideas" from a PR person. None of you have read my blog (which means this post will be a useless rant unless they have alerts on for their own firm). You don't even know what I write about but you send me your press releases. Believe me, I can find my own stories. I'd say thanks for reading, but you don't.

Just so you know, it isn't just me either. Very few writers or bloggers (like Andy at VoIP Watch) need press releases. We have Googe Alerts. And PR news wires. But if you want to catch our attention, send me an email saying that the CEO or CTO wants to do a podcast with me -- or wants to an interview (even by email).

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Tags: pr, rant

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The IT Oil Effect

2008-05-28T12:26:29-05:00

With oil approaching $150 a barrel and consumers wallets emptying out way too fast, IT departments will need to get ready to support many more tele-workers (or remote workers). You would think at this point - with all the Green Think and the traffic congestion in most metro areas - that companies would have opted for tele-working by now. IBM is pushing for it. We have ways of monitoring people remotely (just look at an online Driving class). We also have collaboration suites, web conferencing, shared whiteboard, email and IM, and Blackberries. People are connected -- maybe too much.

This also brings up another matter. Employers aren't really paying you for 8 hours. They are paying you for the productivity you produce in 8 hours. Now this rules out people in call centers or customer service positions who are being paid to "be in a chair" for 8 hours at a shift. But I look at my last project where I was commuting to and from Chicago on the Sunday-Friday schedule, when a majority of my work could easily have been completed remotely. Just because the supervisors want people in Cubeville doesn't mean that's ultimately the best idea.

Talent Acquisition (and management and retention) are the largest obstacle for growth. There wouldn't be a fight to raise the number of H1B Visa's if skilled workers were plentiful and easy to find. It's tough to re-locate workers in a soft real estate market to. Jane can't move if she lost 20% value in her home.

Warren Buffett commented on the US economy stating that we were already in a Recession and that ”It will be deeper and last longer than many think.” Add a credit crisis, foreclosures, increased costs of living, less pay, no savings, dwindling home values, and the pot doesn't look to good. Employers will have to help employees out -- or else give big raises to keep employees commuting 46 minutes on average.

Creativity thinking will be needed. You would hazard that with broadband, Unified messaging, Web 2.0 apps, and SAAS, it shouldn't be that much of a stretch to have employees work from home a couple of days per week. But you better coordinate with your IT department because those are the guys who will have to make it happen (and work).

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Tags: economy, tele-work, um, web 2.0, web apps

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WISPA Ratifies New CALEA Standard

2008-05-28T11:27:16-05:00

The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) has ratified a new CALEA intercept standard for wireless ISPs. The new standard makes it possible for ISPs to comply with the lawful intercept requirements of CALEA without requiring a trusted third party (TTP) to deliver intercepts to law enforcement.

The new WISPA standard takes advantage of existing Open Source software such as tcpdump and OpenCALEA to intercept network traffic moving to and from a target. Capture files are stored on a server in PCAP format so law enforcement can pull the intercept files on demand. This store-and-forward approach is preferred by law enforcement because it does not allow packet loss, and it does not require law enforcement to have the facilities required to receive streaming intercepts.

The all-volunteer WISPA CALEA committee worked for nearly 18 months to deliver the new standard. The committee produced two versions of the standard: Version 1 provides the industry’s first safe harbor for ISPs with wireless access points (APs) that cannot disable NAT, and Version 2 supersedes Version 1 in 12 months and eliminates the “NAT exemption.”

The WCS also creates a new XML framework for reporting out-of-band (OOB) signaling. CALEA requires OOB events to be reported, so a new standard for reporting these events was required. OOB events cannot currently be delivered using off-the-shelf software tools, however open tools that support the WISPA XML framework are expected from a number of different vendors and Open Source projects soon.

WISPA’s new IP Network Access (IPNA) intercept standard can be freely downloaded from the WISPA Web site at http://www.wispa.org/calea/WCS/. In addition, WISPA has developed an implementation guide for service providers who need help implementing the new intercept standard. The guide can be downloaded on-line for $100 USD, and it will be available June 1st.

About WISPA

WISPA is an association of wireless Internet service providers and equipment vendors that work to promote the development, advancement and unification of the wireless Internet service provider industry.

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Tags: calea, wireless, wispa

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No Holds Barred Proxy Fight

2008-05-28T10:25:55-05:00

Well, it looks like I will get to see a real live proxy fight up close. (Well, as close as the web will get me.) Carl Icahn has sent a letter to the Yahoo! Board about this actions and disappointment. Icahn has already bought 59M shares of Y! stock and wants to buy $2.5B -- then sell it to Microsoft for a quick buck.

Icahn is busy messing around with Motorola. He owns most of the debt at XO -- and won't allow a re-finance which would actually help XO. I understand that he is a Corporate Raider looking to make big buck as fast as possible, but how about helping America out, Carl? By screwing every company you touch, you aren't helping anyone but yourself.

Your kind has not helped the economy one bit. Have you ever actually built anything? Or do you just use companies as Arbitrage pawns for your hedge fund games?

At Wikipedia, these are the companies that Icahn has a hand in: "He has taken substantial or controlling positions in various corporations including: RJR Nabisco, TWA, Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Uniroyal, Dan River, Marshall Field, E-II (Culligan and Samsonite), American Can, USX, Marvel Comics, Revlon, Imclone, Federal-Mogul, Fairmont Hotels, Kerr-McGee, Time Warner and Motorola." How many of those companies are doing well or still exist?

Icahn actually states that Microsoft could do more with Yahoo: "I and many of your shareholders strongly believe that a combination between Yahoo and Microsoft would form a dynamic company and more importantly would be a force strong enough to compete with Google on the Internet." Ha! Microsoft search, Ask.com, Infoseek, AltaVista, et al have all tried to make a dent, but most couldn't even make a dent in Yahoo let alone Google.

One reason: Google is simple and clean. Y! and MSN are cluttered portals with screaming ads. Another reason: Google is a verb. Yahoo never reached that status even when they were buying big media advertising.

Icahn's proposed board is a collection of pirates that have never run anything more than hedge funds. The exception is Mark Cuban, who made his fortune selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo before the bubble burst -- or Cuban would just be a footnote in history. So basically the new board will come in, buy up stock, sell it to MS at a premium, bank the mullah, and then watch Y! disappear. Sad.

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Tags: google, icahn, yahoo

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Bandwidth Hogs

2008-04-28T23:24:43-05:00

According to Om's article about P2P and Broadband Usage, Arbor Networks data shows that Pareto's Principle works:

On fixed and mobile broadband networks where consumer services are provided (i.e., NOT interprovider or typical dedicated Internet access for commercial enterprises):
10% of subscribers consume 80% of bandwidth.
0.5% of subscribers consume about 40% of total bandwidth.
80% of subscribers use less than 10% of bandwidth

How to deal with the 20% is the problem ISP's face. Comcast throttles P2P, which is about 20% of the traffic. Video is another big chunk. Caching can help a little. And no one wants FCC mandated network management rules. So what would be the answer?

The commentors across the web expect the bandwidth that is purchased. Apparently, none of them have designed, built or managed a network. Every network - even your home LAN - has a finite bandwidth. (Think about your own inside wiring in the house - for many it is so poor that it cannot carry the 100MB or the 1GB throughput that many homeowners want). Even HPNA taps out at around 50MB. There are bottlenecks in every network. Remember the busy signals when AOL stopped billing by the hour? The network wasn't built for that kind of usage. Just as the Internet is not really designed to carry real-time traffic such as voice and streaming video.

One management suggestion is to fire the 20%. No rule says you have to supply them with basically a dedicated line. (I would suggest adding that to any TOS and AUP you offer, just to spell out what exactly the service you provide is). Some ISP's have turned back to metering. This may be an answer, but it's like the cell phone owner who gets the crazy bill one month. In the old days, if you called international, you would get a huge charge from your LD carrier (at&t, mci or sprint) - and call them yelling. It would happen when the grandkids visit or they try to download a movie that takes 5 tries and ends up eating up 20GB. There's no one answer, except that the FCC should mandate. Use the FTC to enforce Truth in Advertising.

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Tags: bandwidth, fcc, internet, network management, p2p

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TWC Metering Bandwidth - Jun 05, 2008
Is Peering Breaking Down? - Apr 21, 2008
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PM and Collaborate

2008-04-25T09:11:42-05:00

Having worked on committees, I can tell you that email and listserv usage make for a really challenging way to run a project. Now that I am in Chicago managing an MPLS migration, I realize that Microsoft doesn't have decent tools for this either. Outlook and MS Project help to schedule stuff and create a time-line, but when you want to look at spreadsheets or other docs, it's still cumbersome.

I have used a Wiki, which wasn't perfect, but it has a version manager, so you know what changed and by whom.

Yahoo Groups is pretty good for the communications side of things, because it contains a listserv, an archive, a schedule, a file storage section. Yet, Y! is a pita to get people without Yahoo! emails signed up. And it still doesn't do anything for document version management. Collaboration is a tough thing.

Emily Chang's Hub points out new apps every day. (LifeHacker.org and SarahinTampa.com points them out too). Emily has pointed me to STIXY, which is an online collaboration tool. (Free in beta). The invite people and version management are good. The GUI is like setting up Blogger. I have not gotten too deep with Stixy yet. (You have to get the team to buy in to using something they are not familiar with, which come to find out is difficult).

Another app that I have not tried yet is HomeCourt. This app (according to its front page) answers: Who is responsible for what; who said what and when; and where are the files for this project. Not all of it, but the responsibility part is pretty important, not just for CYA, but to find out who is holding up the project. Time is money.

I notice 3 years ago when my brother got his PMP certification, that PM kind of bloomed. However, it is mainly about how to create documentation. As someone not used to that, it is a cumbersome process (and truth be told, I can not figure out why you would have to spend so many hours just to deliver more status reports.) I guess the gold is in the project detail docs. In my current case, explaining what MPLS is and why it was chosen. How will it be integrated into the current network architecture. Define Class of Service; VLAN's; policies; IP Addressing schema; diagram the network and the NOC. These are documents that many data centers do not have. I can see why they don't (too many man-hours to produce) and why they should (easier to "franchise" the business. IOW, it is knowledge that you want to preserve in your business. When Dan leaves (or dies), what happens to all the knowledge about your network, your gear, your customers???? Gone. How do you replace that? Hence, why documentation is an important piece. (It's still one big hairball to create, but becomes an asset to your business).

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Tags: apps, collaboration, project

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Secret Portals - Mar 25, 2008

Is Peering Breaking Down?

2008-04-21T00:57:58-05:00

We have seen Cogent have peering disputes with Level3 and Telia. There are scuffles regularly, usually about the size of the peering point. Obviously, the "Tier 1" providers would rather sell transit that offer Peering. There's no money in Peering.

With the mergers of MCI+VZ and BST+AT&T+SBC in 2005, conditions were made pertaining to the status quo on all peering connections being maintained. However, it was a three year term agreement -- and unlike most telco contracts, this one doesn't auto-renew. Already AT&T is re-negging on its peering inter-connection with, not some small guy, but with Sprint. [ DSLReports].

First, let me make the note that by Tier 1 carriers, I mean, AT&T, MCI-UUNET-VZB, Sprint, Level3, PsiNet-Cogent, Qwest, Global Crossing and Verio. You might be able to make a case for AboveNet or Savvis (C&W USA), but basically I went with the carriers that Savvis, InterNAP, Mzima, and TWIX aggregate and resell.

Meanwhile, the price of IP is seemingly dropping, especially as it is being bought in bulk more and more. (By bulk I mean OC-12 or larger ports, where the price can be sub-$10 depending on the vendor and commitment). But I wonder how all this will shake out as Peering Inter-Connection Agreements are re-structured. Maybe Level3 will be fine because they have the largest Looking Glass -- L3's network sees more ASN's than any other. AT&T and MCI are next. If Ma Bell is will to go to battle with Sprint, what do other ISP's have to look forward to?

Certainly the economics of selling sub-$20 per MB bandwidth gets skewed when all bandwidth is transit now, instead of maybe 50% now. Peering points will become much more important. (As will CDN's). Limelight and Google already allow networks to connect with them at carrier hotels like Equinix and Telx. From the user experience, as long as the ISP's bandwidth touches 55% of the ASN's needed for its traffic, the experience should be fine.

The Exaflood will be interesting because current peering points would break down under that kind of Internet Usage anyway. (AT&T thinks that the international carrier community has to spend $155 Billion by 2010 in order to upgrade networks for the coming flood. I wonder if they were counting on the IPv6 forklift upgrade in that figure).

And that brings me to my final three points:

One, how will peering work when one stream is IPv6 and the other is still IPv4? I'm sure Cisco has hardware for this, but that will add latency to the peering point.

Two, what happens with backlash? The Internet is really an inter-connected collection of autonomous networks (LAN's and MAN's connected to a great big WAN). As with Cogent's outages, the fallout is a Butterfly Effect.

Finally, since Inter-Carrier Compensation has been on the agenda at the FCC for about 10 years, I cannot foresee the FCC being much help here. In fact, as I observe Martin's dalliance with Network Management (over the Comcast torrent issue), all I can do is cringe. The FCC nows has 9 lawyers to every Engineer. Do you really want Lawyers deciding issues such as Network Administration and Peering? I don't, but Peering is on my Radar.

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Tags: bandwidth, internet, peering

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TWC Metering Bandwidth - Jun 05, 2008
Bandwidth Hogs - Apr 28, 2008
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The Playbook

2008-04-15T00:50:03-05:00

Every year, sales gets harder and harder. Finding qualified salespeople (the closers and hunters) is challenging. Then try to find someone who can lead or manage the salespeople. Sales Leadership is an elusive thing. One key reason is that sales training is missing.

We don't teach sales in school. Many companies have cut training budgets. However, sales is a process. If you want success, you develop and follow a system. From lead generation to qualifying the prospect to proposal to contract, there are a series of questions, actions, and follow up involved. Keith Rosen covers this in his book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Closing the Sale.

In his latest book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions, Keith Rosen gives every business execute the playbook to coach the sales team to be champions. Great athletes have coaches. And sales professionals know it all anyway. (Just ask them!) So it is more about Coaching than it is about micro-managing, if the desired outcome is a productive sales force.

Buy it for less than twenty dollars today or tomorrow and receive a bunch of bonus material from sales champions like Zig Ziglar and Tom Hopkins. Let me know what you think.

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Tags: books, coaching, sales

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The Microsoft Response Point

2008-04-14T23:28:10-05:00

At Voicecon, John at Aastra showed me the nifty new Asterisk based PBX that was just introduced. Aastra also offers Microsoft's Response Point PBX, the key system replacement for 5 to 50 employees. The MS RP system is about $2750 -- about the same cost as PBX systems from other vendors in the Small Biz space. If Aastra offered me a choice of Asterisk or Microsoft, it would be a no-brainer to go Asterisk.

My Response to MS RP is that my experience with MS O/S offerings has been no fun. After the latest XP Updates, my audio driver and USB ports stopped working. (My USB ports are STILL not working -- hints anyone?). My Sprint PPC-6700 is an MS based smartphone that locked up on me while surfing Yahoo! Sports via IE. Remember Win98, SE, ME???

To me, placing my phone system in the hands of bloated coders who are newbies to voice is scary. I can barely get by with limited email, but if I don't have dial-tone, I could lose business. (Heck, MS IPTV makes me think that at some point I will miss the end of the game because of an update or reboot.)

I wasn't the only one feeling this way either. Read the review at Entrepreneur mag.

I will say now that MS and Cisco are fighting it out in Tele-Presence and VoIP, the noise level will spill over into mainstream. That means more opportunities to sell Hosted PBX, IP Phones, Unified Messaging, and Telco 2.0

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Tags: microsoft, pbx, unified messaging, voip

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There's a crowd in the SMB Space - Mar 25, 2008

Digital Life with no insurance

2008-04-14T23:05:33-05:00

We live in the Digital Age. Digital music, photos, e-cards, downloaded movies, etc. The mementos of life are now just electrons. Not many cards, letters, film. Nothing tangible.

Here's the kicker: Most people don;t have back-up either.

If you buy 100 CD's and strip off your MP3's and your iPod breaks or gets lost, you still have the CD's. When your hard drive fails, will you have DVD back-ups of your wedding photos? Your 40th birthday party? Or will it all be lost when BIOS can't find the drive? If your cell phone gets lost or broken, you have lost your address book. And in some cases have no way to call people since we are not dialing numbers any more - but contact links in the digital address book.

Despite Katrina, 9/11, and dozens of other weather based disasters, people still don't back-up data. One reason is that back-up is neither automatic nor easy.

To back-up an 80GB hard drive (the first time) using an ADSL line at the standard 378k upstream will take hours. Even storing your 2GB Outlook PST file can take a while. Add in the expense along with the hassle and the it-won't-happen-to-me mentality and you can see why there are so many back-up providers. None have become the Vonage of back-up. You know, huge ad spend with annoying music to explain what and why to back-up. The NYT had an article about one provider who I have never heard of: SugarSync.

Back-up is Insurance against the very real possibility of data loss. Hard drives do fail. Cell phones do get lost, stolen, and broken.

Back up is peace of mind. At least use a flash drive or external hard drive.

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Land-Slide

2008-04-14T21:55:18-05:00

The world of landlines for the phone companies is a diminishing return. Telcos hold on to every revenue stream until the very end. I mean, Bell Labs discovered ISDN and DSL in the mid-1960's, but it took years to make it to market. Why cannibalize the $1500 T1 business?

Today, the landline voice business is diminishing. (Every quarterly report marks the decline). The cellcos have all released $100 Unlimited plans. Landline replacement might creep up.

One reason ILECs bundle DSL is to stall the slide. Only recently have consumers been given a choice of Naked DSL. That choice was mostly at the behest of the FCC in the AT&T-BellSouth merger. (However, AT&T makes the consumer jump through hoops to get it.)

Last week, Verizon was accused by the MSO's of misusing CPNI information for retention purposes. Customer Propriety Name Info was a hot issue last year over customer records being sold online. Telcos were supposed to tighten up CPNI rules. They have --- for everyone but their own employees, who have used the customer databases as a marketing tool.

Verizon, Sprint, and Alltel have spun off their landline business. Alltel became Windstream, which later acquired a smaller ILEC named CTC in NC. Verizon was able to "sell" off its rural New England division to tiny FairPoint. Sprint spun off its wireline business and named it Embarq. The focus is on cellular.

To stave off some landline loss, Embarq is rolling out a new landline phone - eGo.

"The new eGo product is a cordless phone which connects via DSL and offers visual voice mail and news flashes, Dow Jones reports. It will also offer a local business directory enquiries service and an online phone book." [source]

Another ILEC, CenturyTel has made some moves lately - buying GulfTel; acquiring 700 MHz spectrum; and selling a couple of markets to Zayo.

The landline business is consolidating to shore up declining revenue. (Telcos always think scale is the answer). At least, now a few telcos are trying to be innovative - with wireless overlays and new handsets.

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IP - no the other IP

2008-04-07T23:08:33-05:00

My friend is kind of a patent attorney. He just got back from BarCamp Orlando (350 strong!). When he and I discuss Web 2.0, the one thing lacking is IP protection. Sure, everyone uses distributed computing in clouds and clusters, but no one stops to think about Intellectual Property rights.

It is more than just the ownership of the idea for something like Flurl or Vidoop. IP means licensing and asset management. There is a legal opinion that you shouldn't patent unless you can afford to defend it. The opposing opinion is to patent your idea so you legally own it.

When you look at the thousands of VOIP related patents, you know which way that sector went. It just seems like when web app dev is being discussed, IP isn't.

The other pitfall to this is Who Owns the Data? Lots of apps are moving to SAAS (software-as-a-service), where the data is kept on a 3rd-party cluster. How does Privacy work in that distributed model? Who is responsible for a security breach? These are factors that need to be considered as we expect SAAS to go mainstream. No business which owns licenses for, say, accounting software or Office is going to move to a web application that is not patent pending and without a clear delineation of privacy, ownership, and archive. These are just some things to think about when starting a business or application development.

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Tags: saas, web 2.0, web apps, web dev

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OpenID and Vidoop

2008-04-07T22:26:53-05:00

While I was at FOWA, I learned a little about OpenID. I interviewed Kevin Fox, from VIDOOP, an OpenID provider. Want to learn more about OpenID? Listen to the MP3 of the Interview. (It was not my best interview, but Kevin is very enthusiastic about Vidoop.) In under 10 minutes you will have a good overview of OpenID.

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Tags: openID, vidoop, web 2.0

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The IT Oil Effect - May 28, 2008
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Satellite Radio

2008-04-02T21:43:42-05:00

You really should vet the material that you put in federal filings. Vonage learned that when they explained their technology enough in their IPO paperwork to enlist a patent infringement case from, well, everyone. In the Sirius-XM merger, it seems that neither company was operating within the 1997 FCC rules that established their charter. (How very RBOC of them). (see story)

Now Big Media (in this case Viacom) is yelling because the F agencies decided to approve the merger. It appears that Sirius doesn't compete with XM. Duh?

Consumers pick one or go back to old radio. Not many consumers would buy two different satellite devices. That's while the rule was that every device (satellite receiver) was supposed to be able to work with both broadcasters. -- And they did not. [Actually, according to Y! news, they did develop an inter-operable radio but no manufacturer would make it. It wouldn't be subsidized so who would buy it?

There were other rules ignored, including "You can't merge." Pish posh. Rules are for little people.

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Tags: satellite

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Bandwidth Pricing

2008-03-25T23:57:19-05:00

One thing many companies complain about is the price of bandwidth. The fact is price varies - greatly. Telegeography has a sampling of how much prices fluctuate. Why do they fluctuate?

Older contracts do not have declining prices, so people who bought a 5 year deal are paying more than people shopping now.

Where is the bandwidth? In about 8 cities - NYC, LA, DC, MIA, Dallas, ATL, CHI, and San Jose - bandwidth is really inexpensive (inside carrier hotels) because it is very competitive. In these cities, just about every carrier has capacity and wants to sell it to you. As you move outside those 8, capacity, availability, lit buildings, and competition change -- so too does the pricing.

The loop, the transport, the delivery of the bandwidth is the expensive part. It needs to be factored in.

In some of the examples, customers might have bought transit from companies during a period when they were having a fire sale or just plain wanted to take business away from another carrier. Or one carrier knew that capacity was limited (or the other carrier had implementation issues), so they could charge more.

If you need it now (and you want it in Ethernet instead of TDM (OC-x)) be willing to pay extra.

Looking for bandwidth? Drop me an email let me know what you are seeing.

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Tags: bandwidth, transit, transport

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Lobbying and FISA

2008-03-25T23:28:05-05:00

Telecomweb reports on a study into the lobbying effort behind FISA bills. I'm only peripherally following the FISA bills. (David Isenberg is all over it on his Blog). The main gist is that the telcos want retro-active immunity for wiretapping everyone and everything. (So does the White House). But that kind of goes against the grain. It passed the Senate but thankfully the House is holding strong. (It would have been nice if the 3 senators running for office had voted on the FISA bill.

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Tags: lobbying

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There's a crowd in the SMB Space

2008-03-25T23:19:52-05:00

Microsoft is now ready to jump into VoIP for the SMB space with VoIP trunking and the Response Point phone system. Microsft joins Cisco, Linksys, a multitude of Hosted PBX players, Mitel, ShoreTel, and the rest of the hardware clans in competing in the SMB space.

My question is what space do they mean? Medium business of 500 to 1000 users? Small business of 250-500 employees or 100 to 250 workers? Or the under 100 employee segment that itself is segmented into under 25, 25-50, 50-100, and under 10. That's a huge sector that is heavily divided. Not just in size either. Every segment thinks about voice differently; has different needs; and must be sold to differently. I'll be curious to see what the marketing plan is. (So far I have not seen a plan to get to the SB space. Just the Medium size).

I had drinks with a VP of telecom for an IT distributor and we ended up discussing how the Hosted VoIP players will sell to the small business. There's not enough incentive for the headache. It will require the companies to throw money and manpower at it. Something they have been reluctant to do.

This space has been termed (by Seth Godin I think) the Fortune 5 Million because there are at least 5M small businesses with payroll in the US.

If you are playing in this space, drop me a note at peter at rad-info dot net.

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Tags: microsoft, phone system, smb, voip

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Buzzed WiMax

2008-03-25T23:14:09-05:00

Buzz Broadband in Australia is claiming that WiMax sucks. The WiMax vendor, AirSpan, says that the network design was poor. Others have said that the 3650 MHz spectrum used for this WiMax trial has limitations that you don't see on 2.5 GHz. Telecomweb and DSLReports have more.

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Tags: wimax

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Secret Portals

2008-03-25T22:15:28-05:00

You'll notice that Web 2.0 apps like to open to private beta. (I think Google started this with Gmail but don't quote me). Lately, the requests for an invite to GrandCentral (voice management portal acquired by Google last year) have piled in. It's the new viral marketing.

And now come the portals. Aastra's XML developers portal. Simple Signal. Open Social. iPhone SDK. Broadsoft. Lots of companies have decided it is much cheaper to let others develop apps for their platform. It's a form of social networking. You have a community site for users and developers that you get feedback through. It's a corporate marketing decision. As the Web 2.0 dev folks know, having an open API means more uses for your platform.

Now comes the part where we try to figure out the revenue model -- and the IP ownership. In today's patent troll world, who owns the Intellectual Property of what you use, develop, store?? (It's the one big question that was left unanswered at FOWA).

We'll see how it shakes out.

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Tags: apps, web 2.0, web dev

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Muni Wi-Fi is Dead!

2008-03-24T19:31:53-05:00

Media outlets are puking with the story that Muni Wi-Fi is dead. From the get go there were factions that wanted this to fail. (ILEC/cellcos and MSO's being just 2 parties)>

But there were groups that needed this to work: Intel, MOTO, Tropos, the Wi-fi Alliance, CityNet, MetroFi. and EarthLink. Unfortunately, too many government officials thought this would be some kind of windfall. And, as is often the case, too many manufacturers blew smoke. It ended up costing way more to build than any theory predicted. It didn't work nearly as well as expected. And the number of paid subscribers was woefully low.

When the bell tolled, everyone was a genius. But people missed some tidbits. It could have worked as a public-private partnership ith public safety as an anchor tenant. It was likely to replace DSL or cable modem, but could have worked for mobile users and casual users.

One point that escapes many people is that Handsets sell cellular. The more you can do with a handset, the more you pay the carrier. Period.

Muni needed Nokia to help push the Muni Wi-Fi/obile market. It also needed more dual-mode phones. And let's face it: EarthLink did an awful job marketing this and bundling this (Hello: Helio dual-mode phone?! DSL and cable modem users having access??) And since ELN isn't exactly a network company, the build was a mess too. It's unfortunate.

BTW, ELN is for sale if any private equity people are interested, please call me.

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Sprint is Done

2008-03-17T18:10:01-05:00

This is the tale of one guy trying to activate one handset on Sprint. My current cell phone is on Nextel. My EVDO card bills on SPrintPCS. They have not been combined in 2 years. So after 20 minutes trying, I email Sprint and get this reply:

I understand that you wish to activate your handset to the current plan. As your account is on the Nextel network, the handsets with the Sprint logo cannot be activated on the Nextel account. Therefore, I request you to activate a handset with the Nextel Logo or a power source handset.
Further, as you wish to share your plan, the current plan National Free Incoming Plan will not be compatible as it is the individual plan. It need to be updated with a plan compatible with the family plans.

I call today and spend 40 minutes talking to 8 different people as they shunt me from department to department until the VoIP calling falls apart and the CS rep hangs up on me because he can not hear me. Eight different people. Three couldn't even see my SprintPCS account. Even when I tried just to activate the PPC6700 on the SprintPCS account, there were issues. This does not bode well for Sprint. You can't even activate handsets for existing customers. How do you raise ARPU? More importantly, how do you retain customers?

I am currently locked out of my SprintPCS online account. No idea why. One person said it might be due to an update.

This is telecom. Broken. Like the economy. Just when we need communication services to be strong.

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No Privacy Anymore

2008-03-17T16:37:54-05:00

Amidst the FISA bills in Congress, rumor has it that cellular companies gave open access to the US government for wiretaps, just like the little room at AT&T's San Fran CO. That's swell.

According to this article, the list of folks listening to your VoIP calls, reading your email, tracking your location, tailing your web usage, tapping your cell and landline calls, and other nefarious acts is long. It includes Ma Ball, VZW, law enforcement (LEA), governments around the globe, your boss, and criminals.

This week we also have the FBI's VoIP documents leaked to Wikileaks.

In the face of all this, what happened to PGP? You know, the little encryption program. I can't believe in today's environment there isn't easy to use encryption. (If there is, please point it out).

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Voice2Text

2008-03-17T16:08:59-05:00

How far has Speech Recognition software come since Dragon Speak? Voice to text is picking up some momentum. Rich Tehrani writes about Visual Voicemail with SpinVox, SimulScribe and GotVoice as ways to get voicemail as an email.

I would think that mobile people would rather have voicemail as an MP3 or WAV file. It is easier to listen to voicemail while driving or running through an airport than reading it. Also, a hot button for UC for small business is the ability to forward the whole voicemail message with vm attached to co-workers to handle tasks while out of office.

SimulScribe already has some traction with smaller phone companies including FreedomVoice, M5 in NYC, and Hunt Telecom in Louisiana as well as with the Big Boys (Alltel, Ma Bell, VZW, T-Mobile). All 3 small carriers have found success with SimulScribe (i.e., it works). I only have a trial I did with SpinVox to say that it works better than Jott. SpinVox is from the UK and has US carriers, Alltel and Cincinnati Bell.

Jott is a note taker. You dial a number; give the name of the email addressee; then clearly speak the message you want texted. Luckily, Jott also offers a link to your original recording because for my telecom notes it is frequently wrong. (But that might be an unfair test).

It looks like we are getting to the point where we can have text or voice (which is a plus for the visually impaired). It just depends on your preference. I wonder when the reading will improve. You know, that mechanical voice that "reads" the words aloud. I would suggest a British or Southern voice

I'd like to point out that these services were brought to you from a third party, not your "Innovative" carrier. While Bell Labs may be in the rebuilding stage (and the US lacks the necessary PhD's required to do all the research), it is the start-ups that are driving innovation and creativity. So the next time you read how Ma Bell or VZ proclaim to the FCC or Congress that they need deregulation, please write the governing body about the lack of invention. (No R&D budget but a hefty lobbying and legal budget?? What's with that?!)

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Podcasting

2008-03-17T00:37:07-05:00

Podcasting is all the rage right now. I use Power MP3 Recorder on my laptop with a Y-connector to my phone to record. While I thought the recording was the challenge. It's not. The challenge is in wrapping the podcast is a professional package with lead-in music and intro as well as closing music and notes. You can tell the difference between a polished podcast and the amateur kind.

I've noticed that recordings of conference calls have poor quality as well. Lots of things affect the quality of a conference call. For example, if you call into a conference bridge via a cell phone, Skype or a VoIP line, there tends to be a quality issue, especially if the bridge is VoIP. I have had people dial in to a bridge while driving with the window down. People have put the conference on hold resulting in a soundtrack for the call from that company's on-hold music (or worse recording). When the sound quality of the recording is poor, it affects the product.

After you get through post production of the podcast, there are 3 factors left: hosting, distribution and marketing.

Get on iTunes. Utilize an RSS feed. Take advantage of the 20+ podcast directories. Blog about it and list it on your website (use a text link). Add it to your newsletter. Marketing is telling people about it. From the podcasts I have heard, a couple of hundred listeners is medium sized. Just get your story out there.

Hosting requires a lot of storage and bandwidth. The average podcast I have seen is about 40MB. One hundred people listen weekly you have pushed 16GB in a month.

There are a number of companies that can help you podcast including Podworx, Podgarden, Podpress, and Podbean. If you want a little intro into Podcasting, go here or here.

BTW, you can thank the iPod for making podcasts more mainstream. WIthout the advent of the MP3 player going mainstream, podcasts would still be by and for geeks.

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Back from Vegas

2008-03-13T17:55:12-05:00

What a whirlwind week in telecom. Just back from the Agent Expo in Vegas. It started Monday with the surprise announcement that Level3 had fired its President, Kevin O'Hara. O'Hara was Pres and COO and co-founder. But Integration has been a Nightmare. It has cost the company millions in lost business and opportunity. Jim Crowe stepping in as President and Neil Hobbs has been appointed as executive vice president, operations. The CFO, who resigned in October, is now staying. Hopefully, this will be the beginning of the fix.

IN other related news, Time-Warner Telecom is re-naming itself (because its license of the name ends in May). Instead of using the Xspedius moniker when they bought the former e-spire last year, CEO Larissa L. Herda announced the new name: tw telecom (duh!)

In DSL, Verizon announced a 7MB retail service. (Previously, ISP's sold the 7MB DSL). But I guess the marketing is out past the implementation. Read this story..

As long as I am piling on VZ, here's a blog from one of thier tech support folks at the Consumerist.

Ericsson says that it has gear ready for the 700 MHz spectrum. So finish the auction and come get some. (Unfortunately, in the US, the spectrum won't be available until after the DTV (digital tv) migration empties those channels.

The one thing noted is that most people and businesses need broadband -- and more every 2 years. So the thinking is telecomm may be recession proof. (Ha!)

AOL, who can't decide what they are, have spent $850M to buy Bebo, a social network site. Bebo has a stronger presence outside the US. I don't know how this helps AOL. This company had millions of subscribers, ad revenue, walled garden, and all that content from Time Warner -- and look at it. Waste.

Bill Gates is in sync with the Wireless ISP Association (WISPA). Gates urged the FCC to free up more vacant television airwaves to be used for wireless services such as broadband Internet access. (It's called white spaces and Microsoft had a device that was supposed to use this spectrum. The device sent to the FCC for testing failed. I don't know if it was a blue screen or a dead battery

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On Rad's Radar?

SAAS and Security

When to SAAS

TWC Metering Bandwidth

Verizon Rumors

PR Folks... Listen Up!

The IT Oil Effect

WISPA Ratifies New CALEA Standard

No Holds Barred Proxy Fight

Bandwidth Hogs

PM and Collaborate

Is Peering Breaking Down?

The Playbook

More Video

The Microsoft Response Point

Digital Life with no insurance

Land-Slide

IP - no the other IP

OpenID and Vidoop

Satellite Radio

Bandwidth Pricing

Lobbying and FISA

There's a crowd in the SMB Space

Buzzed WiMax

Secret Portals

Muni Wi-Fi is Dead!

Sprint is Done

No Privacy Anymore

Voice2Text

Podcasting

Back from Vegas