VPF Peering Right Along

March 7, 2009 1:06 AM

I had the chance to catch up with Shrihari Pandit CEO of Stealth Communications, owners of the Voice Peering Fabric. Aside from the usual highly stimulating conversation the short story is:

  • The VPF now has over 350 (increasingly enterprise) members
  • Over 56 Million active numbers in the VPF ENUM registry hitting peaks of 1 million successful calls (lookups) per day
  • An annual run-rate of over 537 Billion minutes as of March 5th

There is a lot happening with the VPF, so much that Shrihari hasn't even had time to communicate it all. The progress is evident in the increasing number of members, and call volumes which seem to be accelerating even in this down economy. It looks like the enterprise IT managers might be beginning to realize the benefits of VoIP Peering now that many of them have migrated to VoIP and been running with it for a while.

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Better Math is the Future

February 8, 2009 8:31 PM

From a February 8th, 2009 Rice University News Release

"In the first real-world test of a revolutionary type of computing that thrives on random errors, scientists have created a microchip that uses 30 times less electricity while running seven times faster than today's best technology. The U.S.-Singapore team developing the new technology, dubbed PCMOS [pronounced "pee-cee-moss"], revealed its results in San Francisco TODAY at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), the premier forum for engineers and scientists working at the cutting edge of integrated-circuit design."

"...PCMOS piggybacks on the "complementary metal-oxide semiconductor" technology, or CMOS, that chipmakers already use. That means chipmakers won't have to buy new equipment to support PCMOS, or "probabilistic" CMOS. Although PCMOS runs on standard silicon, it breaks with computing's past by abandoning the set of mathematical rules -- called Boolean logic -- that have thus far been used in all digital computers.

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UStimulus

January 31, 2009 3:06 AM

There is a lot going on in the world of broadband development these days even if it is one-sided and a bit misunderstood. The US House passed the $819billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - with no Republican support at all. What does that tell us? I'm not really sure.

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Internet-based VoIP Peering

January 22, 2009 3:34 PM

Skype IS Internet-based VoIP Peering and a very good example of it. Proving the point that multi-lateral (free) calling is preferred over the next best choice in a least-cost route Rich Tehrani just blogged about an Om Malik analysis of Skype's numbers in an eBay filing.

Two very powerful elements of multi-lateral VoIP Peering, compounding viral growth and user cost savings realized from it, were captured in this comment by Rich,

"The problem as you might imagine is Skype-to-Skype minutes are growing much faster than SkypeOut and this only makes sense when you consider broadband is spreading and computers are getting much cheaper. In fact you can potentially justify a netbook from your telephone savings of a month or less in some countries/situations."

The "problem" being referred to is that the growth of multi-lateral is a hit to Skype revenue.

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Build It, They Are Already There!

January 17, 2009 3:47 PM

I was searching for some current data on the effects of broadband development on the economy and came across this posting. I actually was not very surprised that it's from a fellow TMC blogger. The reports mentioned tell the true story. Broadband drives productivity and growth, both personal and business, which drives the economy.

Build it, they are already there!

Let's hope we can get it going fast enough to save the US!

VoIP Is NOT Internet Telephony

January 14, 2009 12:08 AM

Aside from the obvious relationship there is an apparent not-so-obvious distinction that needs to be made. Internet Protocol is NOT the Internet and Voice over Internet Protocol is NOT Voice over the Internet. Voice over the Internet is also referred to as Internet Telephony although even those two applications of voice have their differences as well and should not be used interchangeably.

Knowing the difference is to better understand the real "threats" that face voice over the Internet and VoIP separately and that difference is critical.

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Internet Being Repaired

January 6, 2009 3:32 PM

Here is an update on the Middle East undersea cable cuts.

Internet services are reportedly back to normal after having capacity reduced by as much as 47% for some countries since December 19th, 2008 due to 3 undersea cables being cut in a total of 4 places.

  • Sea Me We 4 was repaired by France Télécom on December 25th. However, this cable broke again at a different location the same day, offshore of Alexandria, Egypt, and the repair team had to be dispatched to repair the new breach there.
  • The second breach on Sea Me We 4 was repaired yesterday January 5th
  • The second cable, FLAG, was fixed on December 31st
  • The third cable, Sea Me We 3, is reportedly going to be repaired today

When the undersea cables are cut all services are impacted - voice, data, Internet, video, broadcast TV, HD, whatever...

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YouTube Honor

January 3, 2009 2:38 PM

I've been using YouTube as a way to disseminate information via video for a couple of years now and I just crossed a milestones of sorts. Recently an interview from the June 2008 Voice Peering Forum in San Francisco with me, Rich Tehrani and Gary Kim was posted and it has been recognized by YouTube -

YouTube: Honor for video: Most Viewed Today (#88 + #100 within Science & Technology)

Dubbed the Teleom Talk Show it has now been viewed 4780 times. That's not as popular as some of the other content posted on YouTube, but for our little sliver of the world it's not so bad. The really amazing thing about it is the direct response that I have received from the viewers.

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Voice Peering Conversation with Verizon

December 29, 2008 6:13 PM

Over the past couple of years I have hosted several video interviews on topics ranging from carrier hotels and undersea cables to Ethernet transport and voice and VoIP peering.

Recently my interview with Jim Castagna of Verzion from the June 2008 Voice Peering Forum was posted. Jim is one of the smartest people I have met and had the pleasure of discussing voice interconnection with. Given that he is with Verizon implies that he would have a broad knowledge of such things, but it is that he IS with Verizon and knows of such things that I find so fascinating.

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3Com has a very interesting and useful way of psoitioning their VoIP equipment - they call it Voice Boundry Routing. You can download the whitepaper, but here is the piece that summarizes one of the key points of enterprise VoIP peering

With an enterprise-wide deployment, organizationscan greatly improve the reliability of
their telephone service for both customers and internal users because there are many
available paths known by the network of call controllers, as compared to only those
paths known by a single call controller. This constantly updating network-mode of call
path determination is a major improvement in call routing services. At any point in time,
the network of call controllers knows the greatest set of possible call paths.

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KINXCONNECT

December 23, 2008 7:00 PM

There is positive motion in the VoIP Peering world! After just speaking with Eli Katz CEO XConnect about their recent announcement with the Korea Internet Neutral Exchange (KINX) I learned a few things about why Korea is a logical place for this to be happening.

First off, Korea has the second highest average broadband speed to the home (something like 75meg) in the world. That's good for starters as VoIP doesnt take up that much space in the grand scheme of apps over IP, but it doesn't hurt.

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On Dec 19th there were several major undersea cables cut in the Middle East.

As reported on the www.orange.com website

Paris, December 19, 2008
Three undersea cables cut: traffic greatly disturbed between Europe and Asia/Near East zone

* 3 cables cut this morning (Sea Me We3 partly + Sea Me We4 + FLAG)
* France Telecom Marine cable ship about to depart

France Telecom observed today that 3 major underwater cables were cut: "Sea Me We 4" at 7:28am, "Sea Me We3" at 7:33am and FLAG at 8:06am. The causes of the cut, which is located in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia, on sections linking Sicily to Egypt, remain unclear.

Most of the B to B traffic between Europe and Asia is rerouted through the USA.
Traffic from Europe to Algeria and Tunisia is not affected, but traffic from Europe to the Near East and Asia is interrupted to a greater or lesser extent (see country list below).
Part of the internet traffic towards Réunion is affected as well as 50% towards Jordan.
A first appraisal at 7:44 am UTC gave an estimate of the following impact on the voice traffic (in percentage of out of service capacity):
- Saudi Arabia: 55% out of service
- Djibouti: 71% out of service
- Egypt: 52% out of service
- United Arab Emirates: 68% out of service
- India: 82% out of service
- Lebanon: 16% out of service
- Malaysia: 42% out of service
- Maldives: 100% out of service
- Pakistan: 51% out of service
- Qatar: 73% out of service
- Syria: 36% out of service
- Taiwan: 39% out of service
- Yemen: 38% out of service
- Zambia: 62% out of service

Putting aside the obvious physical layer issues going on here the effect that these cable cuts are having on voice network services is staggering.

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In a recent article the 911 system of Canada was cited for having a few major flaws when it comes to wireless and IP phone access. The issues have caused delays that actually cost lives.

The truth is that everyone has issues that need to be resolved. It is all in how issues are dealt with.

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Cell Phone Congestion

December 17, 2008 3:32 AM

Very interesting and telling - crisis preparation, what a concept!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/12/16/inauguration.phones/index.html

Apparently a capacity crisis has been predicted for the Presidential inauguration.

The cellular phone systems around the National Mall will be overloaded if the expected record crowds show up, according to a spokesman for CTIA -- The Wireless Association, a nonprofit organization that represents wireless carriers.

It is easy to see when the growth in traffic is expected. I suppose the same crisis would arise if normal traffic loads in heavy traffic areas were to have the present capacity reduced dramatically. The plan for the temporary cell sites proposed to alleviate the congestion would probably serve well as the basis for a wireless disaster recovery plan.

Voice Control

October 28, 2008 1:41 PM

The latest news from North Korea, but probably not something they want to get out on the wires, is a twist on information control. Apparently N.K. is instituting a "a clampdown on cellphone and long-distance telephone calls to prevent people from reporting on food shortages." VoIP peering, or peering at any level doesn't work so well when there are no devices to use. This would be interesting to verfiy. I wonder if a reporter could email in the story out of N.K.?

North Korea clamps down on mobile phone use to stop news of food crisis
http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=25808&email=text

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