IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

I think everyone has at least one horror story about navigating through an Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) menu over the phone.  You know what I am referring to...those “Press one for this, press two for that”.   One example of the miserable part about these systems is when you have to listen through the entire thing only to find out that the option you need isn’t an option at all –OR- when someone (usually my kids) talks to you during the recording and you miss some options (most likely the one that you needed!), so you have to listen to the entire announcement again.  This, my friends, is IVR hell.  Well I just stumbled upon a company that is addressing IVR hell head on, and with a whole bunch of ingenuity mind you…

Fonolo has created a novel concept.  They have transcribed the menu prompts of the major destinations – meaning they created a visual tree of the IVR menu structure, and you can navigate it online via clicking through the options.  Then you input all the information necessary.  Once all the inputs are registered by Fonolo from you, then Fonolo will place the call and automatically get you to the point that you need to be in the IVR menu.  This point may end up being on hold for a human, but just think of all the time you have saved just getting to that point.


Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don't necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

The release of ”The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe”, a report produced by IDC and sponsored by EMC, is fascinating on several levels. First, the fact that someone is trying to quantify the digital universe is an interesting and welcome exercise. Second, the extent to which the size of the digital universe is consumer generated is gratifying. Third, the extent to which enterprises exercise control over digital content is disconcerting. Fourth, the growth of your “digital shadow” as IDC calls it is more than disconcerting. And fifth, you realize after reading the report that we have not developed any coherent public policy to govern the digital universe.

To the first point, putting aside the obvious self interest EMC has in publicizing the extent of digital storage, it is a very useful exercise to capture the growth of the digital universe. Information is the key to successful management and studies such as these add to our understanding of the broader trends and dynamics taking place in the digital universe.

The second point and third points are in reaction to this statement in particular –

"While 70% or more of the digital universe is created,
captured, or replicated by individuals — consumers and
desk and information workers toiling far away from the
datacenter — enterprises, at some point in time, have
responsibility or liability for 85%."

It is great to see that individuals are the primary generators of digital content and that the production of digital content is not concentrated in the hands of the few. This makes sense since the tools required to generate digital content are much more democratic than the tools of the last century. Today someone with a computer, web camera and an iPod can create halfway decent content. Add in an actual video camera and some editing and mixing software and you can pretty much create high-quality content that used to require full-blown production studios. Now you can simply upload that content to the Internet whereas in the past you had to either be a broadcaster, publisher or movie distributor.

The scary part is that 85% of that content falls under the control of enterprises at some point. While for the most part these enterprises have refrained from exerting control over the content there have been cases where they have tried. The good news is those attempts largely failed. The bad news is they only failed because they became public and public opinion was quickly marshaled against the efforts. That is not a sustainable process in the long term and soon enough the public is going to grow tired of these spontaneous crusades.

Where things start to get scary is the notion of a “digital shadow”. As defined in the IDC report, your digital shadow consists of “digital images of you on a surveillance camera and records in banking, brokerage, retail, airline, telephone, and medical databases. It is information about Web searches and general backup data. It is copies of hospital scans. In other words, it is information about you in cyberspace. Your digital shadow, if you will.”

IDC estimates that your digital shadow comprises roughly half of your digital footprint. In other words, half of your digital footprint consists of content you created and half consists of information about you that is collected from a multitude of sources. It is this latter aspect, and particularly the ability to aggregate that information, that really scares me whether such aggregation is performed by enterprises or government.

Which brings me to my last point. There is no coherent public policy governing the generation, transfer, use, and disposal of digital information. European regulators have made some attempts in this area, most notably with the Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of personal data as well as Directive 2006/24/EC on the “retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC.” Nothing comparable exists in the U.S. unless you count the disclosure statutes of numerous states.

What concerns me is that the approach of the U.S. government is to encourage enterprises to establish their own policies that they will enforce through the control they exert over 85% of the consumer-generated content. These policies will serve the enterprises well and give them access to a treasure-trove of personal information that they can do with largely as they please especially if they share it with law enforcement. This Administration’s efforts to collect calling data and credit card data attest to that.

But what about consumers? Don’t they have a right to this information? Indeed, don’t they have a property right in their information? In the United States we allow citizens to kill an intruder in our home. Shouldn’t we have some equivalent right (albeit less severe) for intruders into our digital “home”? What we are seeing develop is an information gap between what enterprises know about their customers versus what customers know about enterprises. A similar gap is widening between what the government knows about you and you about your government. That gap has to be closed and the quickest and most complete way to do that is to acknowledge the property interest that individuals have in their digital information. Once acknowledged, we can then begin to apply traditional property law and policies and close the information gap that is widening all too fast.

While visiting with several individuals a few weeks ago at the Ziff Davis Unified Communications Summit in Seattle, WA I noticed that some people hadn't yet realized the power of one aspect to the overall value of unified communications which relates to presence awareness. That is leveraging presence not just in instant messaging but in other communication vehicles can play an important role in transforming your business impact as an IT organization. As a result I thought I would dedicate this post to help create ideas around things that can be done to assist in helping IT in leading the way.

Here at Global Crossing in an attempt to leverage this core components of Unified Communications in an ongoing effort to incorporate the advantages of collaborative, converged services within our enterprise we've transformed internal applications from static non presence aware to anticipatory engaged communication tools that are supporting contextual collaboration with presence-awareness throughout the enterprise. In this instance presence-awareness (whether someone is available in simple terms and how to contact) is utilizing capabilities including chat, computer-based telephony, conferencing, IP video, and e-mail across tools that leveraged across the enterprise drive in principle more efficacy from consumption and corresponding execution. In fact it is my opinion that since presence has been embedded into our application infrastructure to enhance our collaborative capabilities it is natural to see transformational improvements occur around our "quality of experience" associated to the overall user experience. This is so because enabling enhanced customer experience truly enables the IT organization to drive one more component to our IT organizations transformational success in enabling the business to not only "react" but be proactive by achieving extensibility required within the distribution transparency model required for execution. Said another way the fact that presence awareness has been integrated into our application infrastructure means this action will further enhance our agility to enhance operational efficiency by allowing application "pivots" to be present thus accelerating communication by eliminating in some instances serial cognitive task execution.

As the industry landscape continues to evolve there are a few constants that will remain the same: (1) increasing business demands require more innovative, transformational capabilities between employees, partners and customers and (2) continually driving operational velocity reductions around the cost basis of delivering information technology services is imperative. It is commonly believed by many vendors such as Avaya, Cisco, Intel, Nortel and Siemens as well as software developers such as IBM and Microsoft that presence technology will continue to become an increasingly important tool at driving traditional costs out by attacking the serial nature of traditional work execution thus increasing operational efficiency.

So why is presence so important to Unified Communication services? Presence is important because it can become the intelligent communication application for converged IP communication services such as those demonstrated by our IT organization at Global Crossing. Determining where a user is and how best to reach them in our case by leveraging presence enabled applications that have been integrated into our infrastructure with the "glue" to increase the overall value of our converged IP services brought to the table and help realize substantial business transformation value.Said another way presence-aware applications offered on a converged IP communication service help evolve traditional serial actions of quickly determining and thus engaging with employees regardless of location, modality or scheduling which allows our globally dispersed users to communicate and collaborate in real time providing productivity in a truly global and mobile workforce environment. Combined converged IP communication services with presence technology provide for accelerated collaboration between our employees, partners and customers by knocking down the walls of traditional serial communications and by accelerating communication through anticipatory engagement.

Presence is the value.

With the release of ”Networked Nation: Broadband in America 2007”, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (“NTIA”) takes credit for largely achieving President Bush’s 2004 goal of “universal, affordable broadband access for all Americans.” Not to be too cynical, but NTIA’s claim is akin to Hank Morgan’s claim that he caused the solar eclipse in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

First, the methodology by which NTIA reaches its conclusion is spurious at best. But I shouldn’t be too harsh on NTIA since they are simply following the FCC’s methods. You see, NTIA makes it claim because “broadband service was available in 99 percent of the nation’s zip codes, encompassing 99 percent of the nation’s population.” If one person in a zip code has broadband service, the FCC counts the entire zip code as having broadband access. So by this methodology it isn’t too hard to claim success.

Second, increased broadband penetration was inevitable and would have occurred regardless of public policy. Broadband penetration occurred at a rate that surpassed all previous consumer electronics. In a September 2007 survey, Pew Internet found that broadband was adopted by a majority of consumers faster than other technologies. Broadband took 10 years to break 50% adoption, followed by the CD Player at 10.5 years, the VCR at 14 years, cell phones took 15 years, color TVs took 18 years, as did the personal computer.

So was this adoption due to Administration policy or because consumers know a good thing when they see one?

Third, this Administration considers bandwidth speeds of 200 kbs to constitute “broadband.” 200 kbs may be “Rubenesque” among narrowband speeds, but it hardly counts as broadband, especially when you consider the speeds available around the world. And when you look at actual speeds that U.S. consumers enjoy, the picture is even grimmer. The Communications Workers of America (an obviously self-interested source) produced a report last year showing the median download speed in the United States is 1.9 Mbps, compared with 61 Mbps in Japan, 45 Mbps in South Korea, 21 Mbps in Finland, 18 Mbps in Sweden, and 7.6 Mbps in Canada. And of course U.S. consumers pay far more per megabit than residents in these other countries. According to the OECD, the average price per advertised Mbit/s of connectivity in the OECD is USD $18. Japan, France, Sweden, Korea and Finland have the least expensive offers per Mbit/s
o Japan: USD $0.13
o France : USD $0.33
o Sweden: USD $0.35
o Korea: USD $0.38
o Finland: USD $0.42

So what exactly is there for this Administration to take credit for? Did their policies stimulate broadband penetration, increase broadband speeds, and reduce broadband prices or like Hank Morgan are they simply taking credit for a phenomenon that was already happening over which they had no influence?

The former company I worked for had a saying: “Don’t put all of your telecom eggs in one basket.” It was brilliant in its simplicity, but it captured a very complex and very real problem that businesses at the time faced. Fresh off the fallout of the fire in Illinois Bell’s Hinsdale switching center, companies realized that they were incredibly dependent on their telecommunications networks and that disruption to “the” network would have a catastrophic impact on their business. So companies like Teleport Communications Group (“TCG”) quickly capitalized on needs of large businesses for diversity and became “the other local phone company.” Smart businesses purchased services from both the incumbent Bell Company and TCG so that in the event either network experienced a service interruption, the other was available. This was known as “operational security.”

You would think that in the twenty years since Hinsdale operational security would be a fact of life. But as the reports of the interruption of major undersea cables serving Egypt, India and Gulf Arab countries shows, governments may not have fully grasped this. Many governments are content to continue to rely on their incumbent monopoly for their critical telecommunications needs, oblivious to the consequences of placing all of their telecom eggs in one basket until that basket gets knocked over as it did the other day.

To be fair, some of the carriers impacted by the cable cuts did have diverse routes available so service was not cut off completely. But the incidents highlight the need for governments to examine their interconnection policies from a national security and economic security perspective as much as from a telecommunications policy perspective. Security 101 teaches you that you should always have a backup. In the telecommunications world, multiple networks are most valuable the more they are interconnected. An interconnected “network of networks” is highly robust and able to withstand all but the most catastrophic events that impact a wide geography (e.g., tsunami, nuclear attack, etc.). The more interconnected networks are, the greater their robustness.

So when policy makers hear the arguments from incumbent carriers that they shouldn’t be forced to interconnect, or they should be able to charge “market” rates for interconnection, policy makers need to remind them that they are operating critical infrastructure and that interconnection is critical to national and economic security. When viewed in this light, interconnection is more than just a negotiation point between two large commercial enterprises.

This one is a beauty - on Jan. 10th of this month, the ACLU issued a statement that reported that a FBI wiretap was "unplugged" due to a lack of payment.  The ACLU is quick to point out that this action was taken from the same telecoms that permitted the tap without the proper approvals...

From Michael German, ACLU National Security Policy Counsel: "It seems the telecoms, who are claiming they were just being "good patriots" when they allowed the government to spy on us without warrants, are more than willing to pull the plug on national security investigations when the government falls behind on its bills."

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac
DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don't necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

Google’s Impact on the Wireless Internet

In case you missed the announcement last week, Google has tossed it’s hat into the ring for the last remaining commercially viable wireless spectrum in the US.  The 700MHz spectrum was used to provide analog TV service and becomes available to the highest bidder on January 24th, 2008.  The impact of Google’s announcement is yet unknown, but should prove to be very important in the long run.  

Some interesting datapoints:

•    From Wikipedia - Several countries, including the UK, now have more mobile phones than people. There are over five hundred million active mobile phone accounts in China, as of 2007. Luxembourg has the highest mobile phone penetration rate in the world, at 164% in December 2001. In Hong Kong the penetration rate reached 139.8% of the population in July 2007. The total number of mobile phone subscribers in the world was estimated at 2.14 billion in 2005. The subscriber count reached 2.7 billion by end of 2006 according to Informa[citation needed], and 3.3 billion by November, 2007, thus reaching an equivalent of over half the planet's population. Around 80% of the world's population enjoys mobile phone coverage as of 2006. This figure is expected to increase to 90% by the year 2010.

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Now allow me to pluck the germane data from the above for my point.  Phone = 3.3 BILLION -  Computers =  1.25 Billion.  Google already enjoys dominance for eyes in the computer space, and if they are as successful on wireless phones as they are with PCs, watch out world!

The problem Google currently has with wireless devices, especially in the US, is the locked-down nature of the device to the wireless network operator.  It’s actually a sad commentary that Google has to forge ahead with buying spectrum, but it makes all the sense in the world.   Boy is it interesting watching the impacts to the industry.  Check out Verizon Wireless’ announcement about opening up their network to devices.  Don’t think for a second that these two announcements are unrelated.  They couldn’t be more tied to the hip.

All this guy has to say is, “Good on ya, Google!”


Adam “voiploser” Uzelac
DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don’t necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

The fallout from Comcast’s alleged traffic management practices continues with the filing of a petition by Vuze, Inc., an Internet distributor of high definition content. This petition follows on the heels of the complaint filed by a coalition of consumer groups.

The Vuze petition asks the FCC to “adopt reasonable rules that would prevent the network operators from engaging in practices that discriminate against particular Internet applications, content or technologies.” Vuze says that it does not object to “traffic management” practices, but asks the FCC to ensure that such practices meet the following conditions –

1. The network operators’ network management practices should be based on actual impact on the network, rather than targeting or disproportionately impacting specific services or technologies;

2. Network management practices should be transparent and publicly disclosed, providing consumers, content providers, applications developers, and service
providers greater certainty that their preferred technology and services are acceptable and not subject to interference on broadband networks; and

3. Network management practices should not used as a pretext for discriminating against particular types of content or services that the network operators may view as unacceptable or potential sources of competition.

While I certainly can appreciate Vuze’s interest in establishing such rules, I again have to ask, as I have throughout this entire “net neutrality” debate, why otherwise entrepreneurial people would run to the government for help with what is essentially a problem in their distribution chain? Who is advising these companies to seek redress before the FCC and why are they being listened to? Even a cursory review of the FCC’s record would show that they are a terrible forum for these types of disputes.

More broadly, why is everyone trying to invite the FCC to regulate the Internet? Has the FCC done such a great job regulating telecommunications, cable, and broadcasting that we want them now to regulate the Internet? Think through what jurisdiction over the Internet could encompass. Network operators, ISPs, content providers, equipment manufacturers, software developers, hardware manufacturers, service providers, the list is endless. By the time all is said and done, the FCC would have jurisdiction over an enormous segment of the economy. Is this what we want? If ever there was a sure way to retard our technological progress and innovation, this is it. I said it before and I will say it again, the cure (FCC regulation) in this case is likely far worse than the disease (alleged discrimination).

Parties should try working these issues out amongst themselves before asking the FCC to get involved. No where in Vuze’s petition do they say that they tried to work it out directly with Comcast. Perhaps if they did, they would find a mutually beneficial solution. Perhaps not. But that doesn’t mean “there ought to be a rule.” As I said the other day, there are a host of relationships that need to reach equilibrium before the Internet matures. It would be a shame to freeze some of these relationships in place just to grease the squeaky wheel.

Following recent reports that Comcast “actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files on line,” a coalition of consumer groups filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) seeking an injunction against the practice. The coalition also is asking the FCC to declare that degradation of service in the manner that Comcast is alleged to have engaged violates FCC policies and principles, particularly the FCC’s Internet Policy Statement . Even before this action, the reports about Comcast’s actions sparked members of the Senate to request hearings on the matter.

I have to admit that I was surprised at the sophistication of the practice as it is alleged, and perhaps more so that it was Comcast and not Verizon or AT&T. I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense, it’s just that AT&T and Verizon are generally more experienced in this field, particularly with their Internet backbone networks. In any event, this has all led parties to once again whip up the net neutrality frenzy, even infecting the Presidential campaign.

The Progress and Freedom Foundation (“PFF”) tried to put the issue in perspective with a release pointing out that this wasn’t so much a net neutrality problem as it is a pricing problem that Comcast (and other ISPs) have. The primary reason net neutrality is even an issue is not because ISPs have nothing better to do than sit around and figure out how to mess with particular services and applications (at least not yet). It is because certain services and applications place a disproportionate burden on the Internet infrastructure. Due to the nature of Internet connectivity and routing, often times the compensation for service is not direct or entirely clear. But as the following example illustrates, all parties are being compensated.

Assume Content Provider A purchases its Internet connectivity from Carrier X. Carrier X is directly compensated by Content Provider A for the capacity it requires. If, however, Carrier X peers with Carrier Y on a settlement free basis and passes Content Provider A’s traffic through the peering point, Carrier Y may complain that it is not being compensated for the capacity required to carry Content Provider A’s traffic. And while it is true that Carrier Y is not receiving direct payment within the framework of a settlement free peering arrangement, Carrier Y does have the right to pass its own traffic to Carrier X on a settlement free basis and therefore is “compensated” in that fashion. The settlement free peering is maintained so long as Carrier X and Carrier Y continue to believe they are receiving roughly equal value from the relationship. Moreover, if Carrier Y is still not satisfied that it is being fairly compensated, Carrier Y can compete for Content Provider A’s business and obtain the direct compensation it seeks.

Now assume Carrier Y has a transit arrangement with ISP 1 whereby ISP 1 pays Carrier Y for Internet transit services. When Carrier Y passes Content Provider A’s traffic to ISP 1 for delivery to ISP 1’s end user customer, ISP 1 is actually paying Carrier Y for that traffic. Of course, ISP 1 is also compensated by its end user for Internet access. So, the traffic flow and money flow for the above example looks as follows –

If Carrier X is setting the right price to Content Provider A and Carrier Y is setting the right price to ISP 1 and ISP 1 is setting the right price to its end user, then everyone should be happy. The fact that some parties are not happy is a result of either (1) their own pricing, (2) their inability to compete effectively for certain market segments, or (3) they are greedy. In either event, it is the party’s problem and not a defect in the Internet.

Some carriers want to charge premium prices for “premium” delivery of content in the belief that this will improve their lot. Others suggest carriers simply need to add more capacity as that is a less expensive alternative to the sophisticated traffic management tools that Comcast and others are beginning to employ and would be required to support premium delivery.

At this point, I don’t think anyone knows what the right answer is. This is one reason why it would be foolish to impose a net neutrality mandate at this time. As the above example and diagram illustrates, there are a host of market factors that need to come into equilibrium in order for the market to function smoothly. Considering how early we are in the growth curve of the Internet, those who advocate legislating an equilibrium now run a very high risk of getting it wrong. It is also presumptuous to think that a “problem” even exists just because of a vocal minority. AT&T and Verizon are but two of many Internet backbone operators. Just because they are complaining doesn’t mean there is a problem. Similarly, just because some heavy users complain that their Internet experience is being disrupted doesn’t mean that the rest of us aren’t happy.

So before everyone gets their knickers in a bunch over Comcast’s alleged actions, maybe they should give some serious consideration as to what the problem really is, who is affected by the problem, and what the consequences of action at this time are.