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Alan Percy
| Observations by Alan D. Percy on VoIP enabling technology, industry and our personal reach for success.
Plixer Scrutinizer Network Traffic Analyzer Preview
I've been testing Plixer Scrutinizer, a network traffic analyzer product for several weeks now. It's a great product that supports NetFlow used...
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A New Conversation Experience: Alcatel-Lucent's 4G Consumer Communications Solution
Beecher Tuttle
Subscriber demand for more innovative, bandwidth-hungry services has driven most every service provider to build a 4G LTE network capable of providing greater capacity, reduced latency and improved pricing. But to unlock the power of a 4G LTE investment – and to continue to deliver revenue-generating voice and messaging services – carriers must look to embrace Voice over LTE (VoLTE), a core component for a new set of rich media and collaboration services that also enables operators to deliver voice without having to rely on legacy 2G/3G networks.
In short, VoLTE helps service providers capitalize on their new 4G investments. VoLTE enables operators to offload legacy infrastructure and to deliver data simultaneously with crisp HD voice. By blending mobile voice with video, converged IP messaging, the web and social networking, service providers can create new revenue-generating communication services that differentiate them from competitors. The technology is also proven to harmonize conversations across disparate providers, devices and apps.
But perhaps more than anything, VoLTE provides operators with the flexibility to respond to ever-changing technologies, market conditions and user demands. The competitive freedoms of VoLTE allow operators to experiment with and deliver new communication features for broad markets and even strategic industries like mobile healthcare.
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Netflix Temporarily Offline? On Movie Night? Ahhhh!
Oh joy - was checking my Netflix DVD queue to see if any interesting movies to stream as well as which ones...
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Telefonica Launches Skype Competitor Tu Me
Telefónica today launched a new mobile app called Tu Me, which essentially takes the approach if you can't beat Skype, join em'....
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Viber Announces BlackBerry Beta and Windows Phone 7 Beta
Viber today announced the availability of Viber for BlackBerry Beta and Windows Phone 7 Beta.Both Viber for BlackBerry Beta and Viber...
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Nokia City Lens Augmented Reality Launches on Lumia Phones
Nokia today released its City Lens app for Windows Phone, an app that is an augmented reality browser. Users open the app,...
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Big Mac versus Hamburger
When selling Hosted PBX and other unified communications, it's a lot like giving someone a Big Mac. Extra sauce, more calories, cheese...
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Ultrabooks Finally Get Needed Attention From Intel
Intel is running a new ad touting the long-lasting Ultrabook which has hours of battery life. And while I applaud Intel for...
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Ooma Telo Review
Back in 2007 I wrote an article "Ooma goes Booma" because Ooma's claim-to-fame feature was that it worked by 'sharing' your PSTN...
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When is Placing Third Good?
This last week, we at AudioCodes were pleased to announce that we had been ranked by Infonetics Research in their overall market...
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Skype Aware of IP Security Flaw Back in 2010
Some more interesting information has come to light regarding the IP revealing security flaw in Skype. Researchers from Inria, a research institute...
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Avengers Tech and Toys Assembled
Let’s face it, superheroes are pretty cool and aside from Batman and a few others, most of them are low tech. Try...
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Is it Cloud versus Agents?
Is it Cloud versus Agents?As an Agent, I sell bandwidth and transport almost exclusively. I am learning that the Channel does not...
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Comments on Last Week's DevCon5 HTML5 Conference
HTML5 is an important topic as cross-platform development without the need to work with app store guardians means developers are generally free...
Full Story »Skype Responds to IP Address Privacy Vulnerability
Yesterday it was reported that a simple script could expose any Skype user's IP address. A Microsoft representative saw my article and...
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When is Placing Third Good?
May 3, 2012
This last week, we at AudioCodes were pleased to announce that we had been ranked by Infonetics Research in their overall market analysis of the Enterprise Session Border Controller. While our share was a small 5%, putting us in third place and well behind Acme Packet and Cisco, we pondered what this meant and how to share the news with the market.
After thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that this was indeed good news. Being ranked third puts us on the podium, next to some good company and competition. Not unlike our initial entry into the Media Gateway market in 2002, you have to start somewhere.
After thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that this was indeed good news. Being ranked third puts us on the podium, next to some good company and competition. Not unlike our initial entry into the Media Gateway market in 2002, you have to start somewhere.
Social Media v Corporate Culture
April 25, 2012
Earlier today, I sat through a webinar titled "Social Media and the Law", a discussion on the laws that effect social media. Much of it was pretty predictable - stories of employees leaking information, brokers
An article in today's USA Today also discusses the hazards of Tweeting first, then doing the fact checking second.
Back to the webinar: the event was hosted by a company that offers "social media management" software, allowing companies to review, approve and track virtually all social media postings by employees.
Image via CrunchBase
promoting stocks, sexual harassment, etc. As with email and instant messaging, people seem to have a tendency to type first, then think.An article in today's USA Today also discusses the hazards of Tweeting first, then doing the fact checking second.
Back to the webinar: the event was hosted by a company that offers "social media management" software, allowing companies to review, approve and track virtually all social media postings by employees.
Is it You or Your Answering Machine?
April 16, 2012
As humans, we can tell the difference right away - usually. I'm not sure about you, but more than once I've called someone, then started chatting with what turns out to be their voice mail or answering machine. Feeling fooled, I usually stammer through leaving a message, often forgetting why I called in the first place.
If you think about it, what are the tips that we hear when calling someone that tell us that they answered and said "hello" vs. voice mail?
If you think about it, what are the tips that we hear when calling someone that tell us that they answered and said "hello" vs. voice mail?
Why are we talking about UC Video?
April 12, 2012
Having just returned from Enterprise Connect and seeing display after display showing large video "immersion" experiences, I am impressed with the technology.
However, earlier in February I visited an end-customer of ours for a case study interview. During our tour, the interviewee was very insistent that we stop and see his new video conference room. Was it an integrated Tanberg, Polycom or other video solution?
However, earlier in February I visited an end-customer of ours for a case study interview. During our tour, the interviewee was very insistent that we stop and see his new video conference room. Was it an integrated Tanberg, Polycom or other video solution?
UC Migration - Moving off the PBX?
April 9, 2012
This last week, I spent quite a bit of time getting ready for this month's webinars titled "Moving off the PBX?", part of our UC Migration series. In preparing, we've had many internal discussions about the criteria and goal of moving to a pure Lync environment and unplugging the PBX.
While no one set of rules can encompass all the criteria needed to make the decision, a few common issues come to mind:
What is the current investment in the existing PBX? Is it under contract? Paid for and ammortized?
Is the PBX relatively current or is it far behind on software versions?
Are there any special applications that organization is using?
Emergency Calling and E911 with Lync
April 4, 2012During this last week, I did an interview with my friend Doug Green for his Lync Special Report. Here's a "trimmed" transcript of our discussion:
DG: What new solutions from AudioCodes should we expect to see for Microsoft Lync and other Unified Communications efforts?
AP: A new area that we’ve recently introduced solves E-911 emergency response challenges for enterprises with support for Emergency Location Identifier Number (ELIN).
DG: What are the challenges with E-911 in enterprises?
"Dumb Pipes"? Lessons from the Electric Company
March 5, 2012
Much has been discussed during my recent travels about whether Internet access is a basic human necessity - reinforced by a recent survey and report from Cisco. Frankly it doesn't surprise me - access to the Internet has clearly become a core utility enabling business and our economy to move forward.
As the Internet becomes a core utility, a related question is will the Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSPs), wireless providers and cable operators will have to settle on a role in the market as a "dumb pipe" (meaning delivering IP connectivity as their primary offer) vs. content and applications.
If history is any lesson, new utilities (like the founding of General Electric by Thomas Edison in 1890), create a product looking for an application and customers. To get the market started, utilities will often manufacture and sell products that create demand for the utility services.
As the Internet becomes a core utility, a related question is will the Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSPs), wireless providers and cable operators will have to settle on a role in the market as a "dumb pipe" (meaning delivering IP connectivity as their primary offer) vs. content and applications.
If history is any lesson, new utilities (like the founding of General Electric by Thomas Edison in 1890), create a product looking for an application and customers. To get the market started, utilities will often manufacture and sell products that create demand for the utility services.
Launch of Microsoft Lync Migration Webinar Series
February 8, 2012AudioCodes and Microsoft to present
“Migrate to UC with Microsoft Lync” educational webinar series Monthly webinar series to feature presenters
from Microsoft and industry-expert guest speakers
One of the projects I've been working on this last month is a eight-part monthly educational webinar series focused on enterprise migration paths to Unified Communications (UC) with Microsoft Lync.
My goal of the eight-part webinar series is to educate businesses and the partner community on various Lync deployment options, best practices and technical “tips” on how to effectively make the migration to a full Unified Communications environment with Microsoft Lync. I've worked dilligently to secure a group of industry experts, VSPs, VARs, and Microsoft as presenters for the series, responding to feedback from previous event attendees who continue to ask for more in-depth sessions with greater technical detail, more “how to” content and additional customer case studies.
Guest SpeakersThe UC Migration webinar series will feature presentations from:
- Thomas Binder, Architect Voice CoE, Microsoft
- Michael Nelson, Vice President of Integrated Access Solutions (IAS)
- Pascal Menezes, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft
- François van Hemert, Architect Voice CoE, Microsoft
- Tarek Radi, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft
- Jon Morrow, Senior Program Manager – Unified Communications, Microsoft
- Chris Sheridan, Solutions Architect, Sentri and a vTSP for Microsoft
…and others to be announced
Webinar series abstract: Unified Communications with Microsoft Lync offers to dramatically improve employee efficiency and reduce communications costs.
E-SBC Panel at ITExpo East - Thoughts from the Panel
February 1, 2012
I'm here at ITExpo East 2012 in the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, FL (yes, someone has to pull this duty) and we just finished up the opening panel titled:
“E-SBCs: Handling Users, Applications and Enterprise Networks"
Joining me on the panel was a group of esteemed group of competitors, sharing our respective thoughts on Enterprise Session Border Controllers, their role in today's network and the future. Here's a quick summary of what we discussed:
What are the barriers that have held back further SIP implementations and E-SBCs? - education, awareness and organizational issues between the telecommunications and networking expertise within businesses.
What drives the adoption of E-SBCs?
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of 2011
December 31, 2011It's that time of the year for both a look back at 2011 and a look ahead at 2012. Here's my personal list of the Telecommunications Industry's Good, Bad and Ugly:
The Good
Unified Communications has finally hit critical mass this year. As evidence, 2011 marked the one year anniversary for Microsoft Lync, scoring some significant customer wins. Avaya, Cisco, Shoretel, IBM and other vendors are seeing the conversation change from "if" to "when" Unified Communications is adopted in businesses.
