Recently in VoIP Category

An interesting article in today's USAToday about FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's efforts to expand access to the Internet to more Americans.  If you've been following along, you know that I've been writing and talking about the importance of Universal Broadband for the health and wealth of all Americans.

Many that live in urban and suburban America don't realize this, but once you leave most metro areas, broadband access to the Internet is very difficult to get and very expensive.  I know this first hand because I've been trying for years to get broadband access to a summer cottage that our extended family shares.  We can get phone service, but for broadband we have only one option - Satellite - and frankly, that's not a good option due to the 3 second latency.

When I spend time with other year-round residents in the neighborhood, I'm amazed at the difficulty they have in doing what we consider every-day activities.  This effects not just the entertainment part of the Internet, but real business too.  Weather forecasts for farmers, tax information and filing, educational materials are all very difficult (if not impossible) to accomplish with dial-up Internet access.

However, I do struggle with the "free wireless" idea that FCC Chairman Martin is pushing in his interview.  Nothing is ever free and the complexity of installation and operation of a wireless network needs to be professionally managed and supported (partially) by those using it.  

I'd rather see an approach that provides incentives for the existing wire line and wireless operators to expand their infrastructure and coverage to Universal Broadband.  

Universal Broadband is actually very good for our industry as it will speed up the transition of all telephony over to VoIP, increase demand for ATAs and core network media gateways, softswitches and other supporting systems.

Frankly, we just need the leadership - I hope that FCC Chairman Martin can find the common ground to get the operators to support the concept of Universal Broadband without starting a fight over "free wireless".

After it seems like an eternity of waiting, Verizon is finally starting the process to install Fios on my street.  They have most of my home town of Orchard Park, NY strung with fiberoptic cable from pole to pole, but those of us that are serviced by underground cables were last in line.

Anyhow, now I understand why Verizon plans on spending an average of $1,000 per household to install Fios.  First all the utility companies (gas, water, telephone, cable...) all have to mark/flag their lines.  (Our front lawn looks like a miniature golf course)  Then the Verizon guys come out and....sit in the truck.  So far this truck has been parked in front of my house for two days with at least two guys sitting in it.  God knows what they are doing, but there they sit - idling the engine.

$1,000 per household?  Verizon has spent that so far just in fueling this idling truck.

In reading this morning's paper, I saw an article about something that I have been preaching for the last few years: Broadband Internet Accessibility.  See: The Buffalo News: Buffalo News Editorials: Boost Internet access

Those of us that live in urban or suburbia are lucky in that we have access to a range of choices for broadband internet service.  This allows us to choose between DSL, Cable and Fiber optic technologies needed to connect our homes and businesses to the internet.  It's gotten to the point where we expect this connectivity to do everything from shopping on-line, to banking, to preparing our taxes.  In our industry, this also provides the needed connectivity for VoIP service providers like Skype or Vonage.

Unfortunately, there is an un-documented line around the ring of suburbs that surround most cities - the broadband-free zone.  Beyond this line you have one choice - Satellite Internet which is very expensive.  Because of the distance above the earth that the geo-stationary satellites orbit, satellite broadband has terrible multi-second latency (due to the transit time up to the satellite and back).  Satellite internet is fine for surfing and email, but unusable for real-time voice or video conversations.  The result - if you live outside the "burb's", no VoIP for you!

But bringing terrestrial broadband to rural users is more than access to on-line shopping and VoIP, it's about access to government, libraries, educational content and on....  The internet is quickly going from a luxury to becoming a necessity, much like electricity did in the 1930's.  For those of you that study history, you'll remember the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, that created a means to bring electricity to rural farmers and others that live outside the urban centers.  If you travel to other countries (like Mexico), you'll find that to this day, few people that live outside the urban centers have utility-supplied electricity, which puts those people and businesses at a tremendous disadvantage.

It's good to see that our elected officials have woken up on this issue and are starting to develop a strategy for helping rural farmers and others have access to broadband internet.  This could give my home state of New York a huge advantage over the long-run - making rural businesses more competitive.

Whether it be stringing more cable, EVDO or WiMax wireless technologies, bringing the internet to the rest of the population will help our industry cut the cord on the legacy TDM infrastructure.

Imagine if the US Government found an un-charted new island, just off the coast of Florida with plenty of ready-to-develop shovel-ready beach front property, and decided to parcel the island up and auction it off to the highest bidders.   Sound crazy?  Well that's exactly what is happening over at the FCC this next year as the 700 MHz band is freed up by ending analog television transmissions.

While I'm a huge proponent of creating space for new services and giving opportunities for new business to capture this unique opportunity, I worry about how this is working financially.  Follow me just for a second:

-The FCC decides to cut the cord on analog television
-This requires that most of the the US spend $ to buy a new TV or a converter box
-Then the FCC auctions off the airwaves to wireless carriers (the FCC puts the $ in the General Fund)
-Then the wireless carriers charge us $ to use those airwaves?

Google to bid for U.S. mobile airwaves - Yahoo! News

It sure sounds like a bit of a financial shell game to me - how about you??

By now, everyone who cares has heard about the Skype outage (see: Skype Outage Article).  This is not another blog entry about reliability, peer-to-peer vs. centrally managed applications or about Skype's twisted use of other's PCs for their infrastructure.  Instead this is a discussion about popularity.

Back after the launch of Skype, we all rushed to sign-up and get with the "in-set" that Skyped each other.  I was one of the few that recognized that user names were a land-grab and made sure to secure my name right away (I'm "AlanPercy" on Skype).  I initially (and still) found Skype a very useful tool for making calls from hotel rooms in remote places, conversing with long-lost college friends and side-chatter during conference calls.  It seemed that a rush of my friends and colleagues were all becoming Skype users and it was easier than every to reach out to those that I cared about.

However that last few months, I've noticed a pattern of fading use.  I've found that when I open Skype that fewer and fewer of my favorite friends are activating Skype or even using it to reach out.  Looking at my own behavior, it seems that my mobile has become the preferred way people find me - as it's always on and always with me.  I also find that I use text messaging on my mobile more frequently.

Has Skype crossed the "useful" boundary, has the outage caused a lasting affect, or is there something else the people are using to communicate? 

Interesting food for thought....

Last week, Rich Tehrani and I had an opportunity to compare notes on a few questions:

This last week I've been doing some reading and discussing with others the role that video will play in our daily lives and communications needs.  Just as background, we have two Tivos at home and the Slingbox that Jeff gave us at VON last year.  And yes, I have the mobile slingbox client loaded on my phone.

Since having and using Slingbox for the last year, I'm a convert and yes, I am convinced that people will pay for video on demand services via the Internet (both broadband and mobile).  The question is what will the business model look like?

This is what I suspect will happen: 

First - the current content providers (read TV Networks) will be key in providing access to the media and will eventually host the programming on a pay per view / subscription basis.
Second - your current entertainment supplier (read cable/SatTV supplier) will offer you access to this content. 
Third - you'll use either set-top box from the cable/SatTV company or your computer or your mobile to view the programming.

To make this work, a couple technical hurdles must be crossed:

Streaming - anyone that thinks that the content providers will let you download the whole program onto your laptop is dreaming - even YouTube doesn't do that!  Content will primarily be delivered via streaming - mostly to counter pirates and manage ad time.
Transrating / Transcoding - let's face it, with so many different devices and network conditions, no one format will work all the time.  Something will have to take the responsibility to convert the video to match the device and network conditions AT THE SOURCE.
Authentication/Billing - lastly is making sure that the subscriber is who he/she says they are and track usage.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts?