September 2006 Archives

EEStor's Amazing Battery that Isn't

September 29, 2006 5:06 PM

Whatever you call EEStor's new ceramic power source/ultra capacitor, just don't call it a battery, according to Ian Clifford, CEO of Feel Good Cars, an electric car company based in Toronto that plans to incorporate the technology in its cars.

Although EEStor is still operating in a sort of stealth mode, a patent issued in April for the device indicates that it's made of a ceramic powder coated with aluminum oxide and glass, and doesn't contain any hazardous materials or chemicals, so it technically really isn't a battery.

The patented device, however, is designed to store electricity -- and boy what a storage device it is! If reports can be believed, the device is designed to be charged up in 5 minutes, and provide enough juice to drive 500 miles on about 9 bucks of electricity -- or the equivalent of 45 cents a gallon. At today's gas prices, it would cost around $60 for the same trip. An electric engine incorporating the device is expected to cost around $5,200 -- a slight premium over gasoline-powered engines. Continue Reading...

VoIP Mashups in a Web 2.0 World

September 29, 2006 4:00 PM

O' Loyal Blog Readers,

Here's another sneak peek at an upcoming column in Internet Telephony magazine.

*******************

A great deal has been written about the concept of “Web 2.0” – with much of it in search of a workable definition. The term has certainly become wildly popular, with more than 56 million citations in Google. But there is also much disagreement about what it means – while some dismiss it as a creation of marketing and PR hypesters, others embrace it as the new model for Web-based businesses and services.

According to Tim O’Reilly in his seminal piece “What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software,” he writes that the concept of “Web 2.0” “got its start during a brainstorming session between O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International a few years ago, when Web pioneer and O’Reilly VP Dale Dougherty noted that far from having "crashed", the Web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity.”

Indeed, it’s clear that the rise of “Web 2.0” has created a dazzling array of new companies, business models and services. Continue Reading...

With the new Core 2 Duo processor line setting new benchmarks and achieving the mantle of the fastest-ramping product in the company’s history, with 5 million units shipped since it was introduced less than 60 days ago, Intel CEO Paul Otellini announced the company's plans today at the Intel Developer Forum to deliver the industry’s first quad core processors for PCs and high-volume servers.

The first processor, targeted at gamers and content creators, will be shipped in November and be called the Intel® Core™2 Extreme quad-core processor. It supposedly will feature a dramatic 70 percent performance improvement over today’s Intel Core 2 Extreme processor. The company’s mainstream quad-core processor will be shipped in the first quarter of 2007 and will be called the Intel® Core™2 Quad processor. For servers, the Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5300 series brand for dual processor servers will be shipped this year, and a new low-power 50-watt Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor L5310 for blade servers that will be shipped in the first quarter of 2007.

According to Otellini, Intel was the first to implement advanced 65nm silicon manufacturing technology in 2005, integrating power-saving features into the process that was critical to delivering power-efficiency at the transistor level. Continue Reading...

Managed Service Provider (MSP) Whaleback Systems just completed a $7.5 million Series B round of financing, led by Castile Ventures with participation from new investor Egan-Managed Capital and existing investor Ascent Venture Partners. The financing will be used to expand Whaleback's channel and geographic market coverage and to fund aggressive feature development for Whaleback's CrystalBlue SMB Voice Service.

Unlike traditional systems, the Whaleback CrystalBlue Voice Service is 100 percent premises- based and software-driven. It includes an IP PBX with Key System Unit features and Road Warrior Functionality, and features an all-inclusive, unlimited nationwide calling package for SMBs that need between 5 and 1500 stations.

Castile Ventures is investing its third fund in innovative enterprises developing future generations of enterprise, mass market and service provider information technology. Continue Reading...

Zune for $99?

September 25, 2006 2:53 PM

Tom Keating's been following the launch festivities for the Zune, and I thought I'd add my 1 cent with a recent blog posting by James Kim from Cnet.com., where he writes about speculation that Microsoft might significantly subsidize the Zune to generate music subscription services revenue (similar to the Msoft Xbox strategy re: console pricing and game sales). Interesting and potentially quite disrupting if true!

Here's a link to Msoft's Zune Virtual Pressroom, for what it's worth...

VoIP Arbitrage is Alive and Well

September 25, 2006 1:27 PM

While profitable domestic U.S. arbitrage scenarios are hard to come by today, with all the cutthroat competition for transport and termination and resulting price pressure, the International marketplace still holds a number of intriging opportunities.

George Dinsdale,  a VoIP industry vet and principal at IGP (Internet Global Phone), a small but fast-growing ITSP that sells minutes between the US and a number of international POPs (including the Phillipines and South America), recently told me about how IGP is completing local Brazilian calls by routing them through New York. He said it's simply cheaper to do it that way!

Indeed, there are many other scenarios -- and I've love to hear from anyone who has an interesting "arbitrage anecdote" to share!
Continue Reading...

Why Dell is Still Unbeatable

September 23, 2006 6:52 PM | 1 Comment

OK, I know what you're thinking: Doesn't Marc have anything better to do on a Saturday evening than post a blog entry? Well, yes...and no...

You see, I just bought a new PC today, and I felt I just had to share my experience b/4 details started to fade -- and to illustrate why I believe Dell is still a fearsome competitor and should not by any means be counted out of the game despite all the hubbub regarding exploding batteries, spotty customer service, and accounting irregularities.

I was initially looking for a mainstream system that had to incorporate the lastest technology like a Core 2 Duo processor, fast memory, 250 Gb hard drive and a number of other bells and whistles, like a flat panel monitor and a double-layer DVD burner. I didn't need the fastest screamer game system available -- just something relatively fast and capable of supporting Vista down the road. The system will be used mostly for business, but also sometimes for entertainment and various multimedia endeavors. Continue Reading...

ClearSight Helps Analyze IPTV Performance

September 22, 2006 11:25 AM

 

ClearSight Networks, a company that specializes in VoIP monitoring and analysis products, has enhanced the newest version of its ClearSight Network Analyzer to provide Triple Play/IPTV support in real time.

The new Version 6.0 adds Triple Play network monitoring to the standard product at no additional cost. 

Continue Reading...

I recently met up with Donovan Jones and Jason Fischl, CounterPath's President/COO and CTO respectively, and they told me that revenues are growing around 20% per quarter -- a very nice clip even if Donovan does say so himself! Given that almost every service provider and hardware vendor I met up with at the last VON show that had a softphone product was licensing it from CounterPath, this number is perfectly believable -- and in my view set to grow even larger.

CounterPath Solutions is without question one of, if not THE leading provider of VoIP and Video over IP SIP softphones (with over 191 customers and more than 6 million IP endpoints deployed), and they recently announced an alliance with Intrado Inc., the leading provider of VoIP E911 services to develop new functionality within CounterPath’s softphone to support automatic location identification on mobile VoIP 911 calls. For most prospective large corporate and government users of VoIP, this is a very important development, as access to emergency services is actually a mandated policy that in many cases severely restricts the use of softphones.

The technology will enable the softphone to integrate directly with Intrado’s systems in order to detect and send location information automatically when a 911 call is made from a wireless VoIP end-user device. This means that calls made from a softphone on a laptop or smartphone, for example, will be directed to the appropriate public safety answering point (PSAP) and that emergency operators can link the caller's current physical location with the phone number used to dial for help. Continue Reading...

Thomson just unveiled a new GE DECT 6.0™ (Digital Enhanced Cordless Technology) wireless handset, Thomson’s first product with integrated Skype™ capabilities. The new device, GE Model 28300EE2, supports both landline and Skype calling, as well as Internet and traditional line conferencing. The phone will be available this fall at a suggested retail price of $149, and up to 6 handsets can be linked together to provide Skype calling in multiple rooms of a house.

DECT 6.0 is a wireless technology built into Thomson’s new wireless handset offerings, and is widely used throughout Europe and Asia. The GE 28300EE2 features speakerphone capability built right into the handset, and a color LCD screen makes for easy viewing of colorful Skype messaging as well as regular caller IDs. The handset comes with a 100 name capacity address book, including separate call “logs” for traditional and Internet contacts. Melody ring tones permit easy identification of favorite incoming callers such as friends and relatives, and the phone boasts up to 120 hour standby time and 10 hour talk time.

Other key features of the GE 28300EE2 DECT 6.0 Wireless Handset for Skype include:
• PC compatibility

• Call waiting support

• One-touch link for wireless home networking capabilities

• No signal deterioration -- digital signal processors ensure high call quality even when multiple handsets are running simultaneously

• Voice encryption for high security

• Skype & land-line conferencing capability of up to four users simultaneously from the handset

• Comes with two handsets (and additional accessory handsets, GE 28301EE1, are available)

• USB PC connectivity and software

• Mute / hold button

• Intercom function

• Integrated Skype caller ID (and support for traditional phone company caller ID services)

• Ringer off -on switch

• Convenient four-way navigation button for screen

• Headset jack

Continue Reading...

Packet Island Inc., a provider of VoIP lifecycle management solutions for the SME VoIP market, received its first round of venture funding from a group of venture capital firms led by Startup Capital Ventures. The other VCs participating in the Series A round are Garage Technology Ventures and Rincon Ventures.

According to Andy Aczel and Preveen Kumar, co-founders of Packet Island, “We took two years to build a solid SaaS platform that had the architecture to support the deployment model and economic sensitivity of the SME market. By focusing our SaaS platform to solve the VoIP management needs of the IP Centrex market, we’ve been able to address a burning problem in a fast growing space, and gain industry recognition by means of key industry awards. We wanted investors who had the breadth and depth in the markets we were going after, and that’s exactly what we got with our VC syndicate led by Dr. John Davidson from Startup Capital Ventures.”

Dr. John Davidson, co-founder and CTO of LAN pioneer, Ungermann-Bass, and General Partner of Startup Capital Ventures, says  “As a long time participant in the networking industry, I have seen the remarkable scaling down of the price and size of enterprise networking gear without seeing an attendant reduction in complexity. Continue Reading...

Steve Guthrie Lands at Integrated Research

September 19, 2006 3:03 PM

Congrats are due to Steve Guthrie, all around good guy and a VoIP industry veteran, on his recent appointment as Director of Global Product Marketing for the IP telephony business unit at Integrated Research. Steve was formerly with Xelor Software as VP of Marketing.

In his new job, Steve will play a broad marketing role across the company’s Americas, Europe and PacAsia regions. One key initiative is to help lead the company from its Cisco-only focus to a multi-vendor strategy where the company's PROGNOSIS VoIP management solutions integrate into Cisco, Avaya, Nortel and Alcatel environments and provide a single view for these disparate systems that so many large enterprises have deployed across their global operations.

Since joining IR last month, Steve has already been in front of a half-dozen prospects and customers, on site with a customer where IR is managing 22,000 IPT nodes, and together with several MSPs that have end-users ranging from several hundred nodes to many thousand nodes.

Steve's new business contact details are below.


*****************

Steven Guthrie
Director, Global Product Marketing, IP Telephony
PROGNOSIS -- precise performance monitoring

(m) +781-248-6956
(f) +781-662-9166
(im) [email protected]
(e) [email protected]
(w) www.prognosis.com Continue Reading...


Global telecommunications and information technology consulting firm Detecon, has been featured by the International Engineering Consortium's "Analyst Corner" to discuss key
business and technology issues for IPTV. For this engagement, the firm has produced a short, special report entitled "IPTV: Technology and Development Predictions", which details the state of this emerging technology, and covers IPTV architecture, middleware issues, video on demand and other key aspects of IPTV.

According to Detecon, IPTV is ready for prime time. The technology of most IPTV components is mature and the cost of equipment is far more reasonable than it was previously. Content providers understand that TV is changing and emerging digital media has created new ways to distribute video content. Continue Reading...

SIP Trunking Continues to Gain Steam

September 18, 2006 4:44 PM

As Rich Tehrani wrote recently, IP peering was one of the main themes to emerge at this past VON event in Boston. Another peering trend, SIP Trunking, which involves the direct IP connection of a SIP-enabled IP-PBX and SIP-compliant VoIP service provider, was also evident at the show and generated a few notable announcements.

First and foremost, the SIP Forum formally announced their embrace and ownership of SIPconnect -- a SIP trunking specification originally pioneered by Cbeyond Communications, Broadsoft, Cisco, and other vendors.

Another announcement from Bandwidth.com entailed their recent roll out of a SIP trunking solution aimed at the SMB and enterprise business market. They announced distribution deals for that product with Mitel and VoIP Supply, both of which will bundle the offering with their hardware solutions for business looking to maximize the value of their IP PBX systems. Continue Reading...

According to research firm TeleGeography, over the past five years wholesale international Internet service providers have experienced demand increases that are virtually unprecedented in other industries. At the same time, equally stunning price declines eroded much of the benefit of this traffic growth. According to the latest research in TeleGeography's Global Internet Geography 2007, these trends continued through the 12 months from Q2 2005 to Q2 2006, but with a significant twist: International IP traffic growth actually accelerated over the past 12 months, while the pace of price erosion abated noticeably in many of the world's most competitive markets.

According to Eric Schoonover, Senior Research Analyst with TeleGeography, "Carriers should not become too optimistic," adding, "At the moment, nearly all markets have growth rates that more than compensate for the steady decline in wholesale prices, providing opportunities for carriers to increase return on investment. This is particularly true in high growth markets, including Latin America and Asia."  For example; in Buenos Aires, the average price for STM-1 access to Internet networks (known as "IP Transit") fell only 11 percent to $187 per Mbps in 2006; at the same time, average Internet traffic from Buenos Aires increased by 119 percent.

For carriers, investors, and hardware/software vendors, such trends are a welcome change of pace from earlier years, when demand could barely keep up with price declines. Continue Reading...
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