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The Global Investment in Broadband Infrastructure

This article originally appeared in the July 2011 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY


Fear of the unknown continues to plague the minds of many in the United States today. Some live in fear of 2012, the Mayan calendar prophesies and the supposed end of the world. Although a cataclysmic event for the entire Earth is not totally out of the question (on a limited basis just ask the people in Fukushima, Japan), there is something more probably realistic that will end and that is the end of a way of life.

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The Who, Will and When of Broadband

November 20, 2011 11:08 PM | 0 Comments

Originally published in June 2011 - Internet Telephony Magazine

The Who, Will and When of Broadband

The last two articles covered the Why and How of Broadband, respectively, explaining what the real motivations are for towns, counties and countries around the world to invest in fiber infrastructure to create broadband and how, absent government funds, the investment is financed through a pure commercial model. Now that the components have been laid out they are more easily understood and acted upon. For those that have yet to take action it might help and add a little bit of motivation to take a look at some of the broadband speed statistics from around the world.

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The How of Broadband

August 30, 2011 3:21 PM | 0 Comments

The How of Broadband

This article originally appeared in the May 2011 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY.


Last month the “Why of Broadband” was covered. There are several motivations for investing in a real broadband network, but the state of North Carolina did everyone a favor by spelling out with clarity the financial implications to the state if the investment is not made. The reality for North Carolina in analyzing an investment in broadband was not the return on the investment that would be realized in terms of dollars and revenue generated as a result of the effort, but rather that if the investment is not made the state stands to lose everything it already generates in tax revenue.

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The Why of Broadband

June 9, 2011 8:46 PM | 0 Comments

From my recent article in IT Magazine

What a great report! There are so many different pieces of information, but the answers tell the story of the questions that were asked and what the motivations of the state were to ask them. North Carolina's primary motivation, and really that of any state, country, etc., is to protect the tax base by maintaining and even increasing the value, attraction and magnetic strength of the land. If the actual percentages in each bullet are put aside, as we can assume that the responses from other states would be the same, the truth comes out about the hopes and fears of the state.The fear is the bad side, of course.

* New job creation is not only as a result of broadband Internet access, but also a requirement for the job.

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A Model For Access - Axcess Ontario

From my article in IT Magazine - March 2001

All around the United States there are many examples large and small of states, counties, cities and communities that are building dark fiber infrastructure to support network and ultimately application demand. They are often open access systems that encourage network service providers and carriers of all kinds to come and light the fiber. This model creates an even playing field through competitive pricing, terms and product offerings through control of the underlying physical fiber and interconnection process.

Collectively these open systems form a fragmented picture of similar, yet disparate pieces that all seek uniformity.

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From the Internet Telephony Magazine article

Unfortunately over the past ten years the vast majority of businesses have been conditioned to not ask about anything beyond their own internal networks and to rely on the public Internet and the ISPs to provide them access for interconnection to all things not on their own IP networks. This encouraged ignorance has created a very detrimental situation in the United States called net neutrality. The situation is that net neutrality has nothing to do with the Internet itself (in the realm of public layer 3 and up to layer 7), but rather network access to the Internet (the physical link, layer 1 and 2). The issue is that due to ignorance the FCC (News - Alert) is now attempting to regulate the public Internet instead of attempting to create a real plan to resolve the issue of independent, physical access to it.

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After many years of covering only VoIP Peering I have now decided to expand my coverage of the developing network landscape and not only cover VoIP Peering, but also more broadly - Infrastructure. 

From my recent Internet Telephony article 

Infrastructure Peering - The Topic for the Next Decade

Here are the Top 3 of 5 reasons why I made the change

1. There is quite a bit of network infrastructure that goes in to supporting VoIP and VoIP peering. I do not believe that everyone fully understands and appreciates this.

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VoIP, as it is in any application, needs the wonderful world of Layer 1 in order to exist at all.

On a personal note - Allied Fiber has news in this regard

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Allied-Fiber-Complete-Construction-1300-Route-Mile-Phase-One-Component-Nationwide-Carrier-1358123.htm

Of course, none of the Layer 1 infrastructure is any fun without the apps!

The Cycle continues!
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The interest in Voice Peering and VoIP Peering seems to be increasing at quite a pace. There are many that look at "minutes" as revenue and others that look at "data" as revenue. Either way they are billed as flat-rate, incrementally, or the cap with overage charges. In both minutes of use and data plans the real money is made in breakage (un-used minutes/data, or the over charges. Continue Reading...
Great news for the VoIP faithful - the market has continued to grow even through the global economic downturn, so says a recent Frost and Sullivan report. The downturn was probably a catalyst for VoIP growth as the economics are so compelling to switch from TDM to VoIP. From this TMC article , Mimi Swamy writes that Frost & Sullivan Program Director Elka Popova believes that SIP trunking will gain momentum. VoIP and SIP trunking, if done propoerly with the right investment, essentially enables VoIP Peering. Continue Reading...

Voxbone adds South Africa

June 9, 2010 3:58 AM | 0 Comments

There are so many amazing changes about to happen in Africa. The entire Continent is going to change in the next 3-5 years.

The network building activity is covered in the Dark Fiber Community blog. The subsea and terrestrial fiber networks being built all over Africa are bringing real positive change to the economies, health care, education and standard of living for the countries within the Continent.

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If you did not believe multi-lateral VoIP Peering was real it is time to get real - even South Africa has a multi-lateral VoIP Peering platform! Thanks to XConnect and Multisource this developing market on a quickly developing continent now has a very useful tool to deal with the growth of VoIP and related applications.

From their announcement The IP-Peering Federation will:

"..establish a multilateral peering federation, which will offer operators advanced VoIP and next-generation network (NGN) peering capabilities via an in-country interconnection hub.

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On Feb 9th, 2010 I participated on a panel titled "Raising Venture Capital in a Difficult Market" at an Atlanta Telecom Professionals event in Atlanta, GA. The panelists included Gordon Rogers of Atlanta Technology Angels and Alan Urech of Stoney River Capital.

The ATP always puts on great events and Atlanta is a terrific market for technology development and raising capital for ideas that turn in to products and successful businesses. The culture there is of a breeding ground for innovation.

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XConnect Revenue Doubled in 2009

February 3, 2010 7:06 PM | 0 Comments

XConnect will announce tomorrow that their revenue doubled in 2009. This is great news and yet another positive sign that there is growth in VoIP Peering. Whether it is private peered traffic, or through a VoIP Peering service provider such as XConnect there is certainly a shift happening. The use of services such as XConnect obviously makes it easier to gauge the trend.

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AT&T declared the PSTN and POTS a relic of the past in this announcement and asked the FCC for a timeline to shut-down.

This is ironic for several reasons

1. In the 2003 Triennial Review the FCC gave the RBOC's Broadband Relief in return for allowing the CLEC's to still have access to UNE.

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