It's with great pleasure that I read about Apple opening up the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch platforms to developers this week.  This move surely is due to pressure from the iPhone user community (and trying to keep up the the Microsoft Mobile developer community)

If you participated in my session at Internet Telephony this January, you know how strongly I believe this is a big deal.  History has shown over and over again that allowing the creative minds of application developers to fill market needs is the best way to expand the market and build new solutions.  Imagine what life would be like If you limited application development to the AT&T and IBMs of the 70's?  You'd still have plain-old-dialtone and IBM 3720 terminals on our desks.  No Google, no Wikipedia, no Linux. 

This is also why I think IMS is a huge mistake.  IMS is based on the concept that the carriers will develop and deploy all the applications.   The carriers should stick to managing the core of the network and delivering services over the last mile.  Letting the Google, Microsoft and smaller developers of the world create applications is a far better way to great applications deployed quickly. 

Still don't believe me?  How long do you think it will take to create the equivalent of Google Maps for my Verizon phone?  Years (if ever).

I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes next for the iPhone and family!

This next week is going to be a busy one with the re-monikered "VON.x" (what was wrong with VON?), and Digium|Asterisk World all at the same time and under the same roof.  I've been invited to speak at five different sessions in both events, so you may see me running from one end of the building to the other during the week.

Where you can catch up with me during the show:

Tuesday, March 18th
1:30 pm: Digium|Asterisk World Theater – Building Reliable SIP Solutions using Digium|Asterisk (Part I)
2:30pm -3:00 pm: VONDEX Theater – Taking SIP from the Lab to the Bank
4:15 pm: Digium|Asterisk World Room A7 – The Strategic Purpose of Open Source (panel)

Wednesday, March 19th
2:00 pm: - Building Reliable SIP Solutions using Digium|Asterisk (Part II)

Thursday, March 20th
10:45 am – 12:00 pm: VON.x – Designing High Availability VoIP Solutions (panel)

If you'd like to catch me one-on-one, I'd highly recommend making an appointment by dropping me an email at:  alan.percy@audiocodes.com

Lastly, as a special treat to my readers and participants in past webinars: If you stop by the AudioCodes booth #827 and ask the questions "Show me how to Break Free?", we'll give you a FREE copy of SIP Beyond VoIP. 

This story is about unintended consequences - most notably how the weak US Dollar affects those of us that live on the border with Canada. 

This last week has been particularly difficult for those of us who are frequent travelers out of the Buffalo Airport.  It's seems the perfect storm has hit the Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF) and it really messed up my travel plans earlier this week: 

#1 - This last weekend we received a good 12+ inches of fresh snow (the skiing was awesome), which even snow-hardened Buffalonians can find a pain-in-the-neck when it comes to getting around town.    Unfortunately, piled up snow takes up valuable parking spaces.

#2 - It marked the start of "Spring Break" weekend for most of the local colleges and public schools in Canada.

#3 - Our neighbors to the north who have new buying power, have figured out my little secret.

It seems that an article in the Toronto Star last summer tipped off my Canadian neighbors about the inexpensive flights and easy access in and out of the Buffalo Airport.  If you've ever flow out of Toronto's Pearson Airport, you know how expensive and difficult travel is for most Southern Ontario residents.  With Buffalo only 90 miles down the QEW, the lure of lower fares and access to JetBlue and Southwest Airlines has created a new North-to-South migration path.  The result?  Full parking lots, very long security lines, and jammed-to-the-gills flights.

While I appreciate the new travelers will bring with them their loonies to spend here in Western New York and wherever their destination takes them, I still miss my airport.  Parking close to the terminal and the predictability of normally short security lines are now distant memories.

I thought the "International" in Buffalo Niagara International Airport was referring to the occasional charter flights to Mexico, not the license plates in the parking lot.

Back to work....

As I mentioned in my last post, Verizon has started installing Fios down our street.  It's fascinating process to see how the contractor buries the conduit that will eventually carry the fibreoptic cable all the way down the street and to each home. 

You can see in this photo looking across the street just one of the excavators, trucks and other heavy equipment the contractors are using to do the installation. 

What is amazing to me is how difficult this installation actually is to complete and the pace.  It took a crew of four guys and untold pieces of equipment to run a conduit under the street to the curb box on my side of the street.  In four day they have finished about six houses with many more to go before being done with just my one street. 

Oh, and if you wondered if our regular phone lines survived the digging - they dug those up within 15 minutes of unloading the equipment.  Thank god for cell phones.