IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings blogs

Harvard visit

Fri, 02 May 2008 00:46:26 +0000

Monday I had the pleasure of re-connecting with a former professor of mine, Nolan Bowie. He was gracious enough to allow me to guest lecture his class which focuses on the future of communications media and the intersection with public policy. I was honored to be asked to share my experiences and insights with such a diverse and eclectic group of truly gifted students.

It was extremely refreshing to engage with Professor Bowie whose ideas are both provocative and conventional at the same time. His ideas are provocative because they challenge the established interests in fundamental ways. But his ideas are conventional because they simply take established policy in one area and apply it in another. For example, just putting the label “national security” on something can dramatically change the way people address a concern. If economic competitiveness is a matter of national security and broadband deployment is a critical component of economic competitiveness, then massive government investment in broadband infrastructure doesn’t seem all that radical, and in fact seems down right conventional.

One of the reasons I was eager to guest lecture was to put forth the idea that the regulatory decision-making process is an obstacle to competition and that these future policy makers at the JFK School of Government need to consider how the decision making process impacts competitors and their service offerings. I have authored a paper on this topic which I will present at the 17th Biennial Conference of the International Telecommunications Society in Montreal on June 25th. (The paper should be on their website after May 5th for those of you interested in reading it.)

April 16th Boston

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:33:48 +0000

My day started with a 7am flight, followed by a soon to be customer visit, I then presented a
IPv6 state-of-the-union perspective at a Futurenet panel discussion along with John Curran Chairman of ARRIN, and Todd Underwood of NANOG. And ended the day with the Massnetcomms 2008 award dinner.

The highlight of my day was at the award dinner, I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Vanu Bose (he is the son of the founder of Bose) who was honored with the most innovative product of the year. Vanu has developed a software controlled radio that can operate across many deployed mobile standards . Instead of fork lifting hardware, you change the software and mobile operators can efficiently rollout new wireless protocols. Kinda like adding a new application on your PC.

IVR Hell Solved

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:33:11 +0000

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.

IMPORTANT!!! SIP 4.0 defined.

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:30:33 +0000

Click here for the SIP 4.0 IETF Draft!

Be sure to note date of posting...

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.

SIP Decentralizing Enterprise Communications

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:09:03 +0000

Of the more interesting developments that are emerging as SIP technologies and products mature is the changing context that Enterprises’ IT organizations operate in. Historically, telecommunications has been defined and provided to the marketplace by Service Providers like Global Crossing, Level 3, BT, etc. The requirements needed to formulate an offering were provided by SPs to the manufacturers of the platforms (Cisco, Juniper, etc). Things are changing rapidly on this front though. Enterprises in some cases are bigger in many aspects of the definition than some smaller traditionally defined Service Providers. In my humble opinion, this warrants of new definition of the Enterprise. The Enterprise is the newest category of a Service Provider.

With regards to SIP, there is ample evidence of its adoption in the Enterprise marketplace and vendors that have catered directly to Enterprises have taken heed. As examples, see Microsoft’s, Siemens’, Cisco’s, Avaya’s adoption of SIP in their product portfolios.

The impact of this is an overall decentralization of the Enterprise communications environment that leads to a more collaborative workforce. If you need some examples, think of the IM communications in support of standard telephony and email infrastructures. Nowadays in our MS OCS/Exchange environment at Global Crossing, when I read an email – I not only have the ability to reply, but IM or click to call in response. This is all handled via a single user interface. This form of collaboration is _NOT_ dependant on the traditional services that Global Crossing provides. (with the exception of the underlying IP transport), but rather the infrastructure is supported by our internal IT department. By the way, this is all decentralization is enabled with SIP.

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.

An Information Gap in the Digital Universe

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:38:54 +0000

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.

IP Convergence: Foundation for Unified Communications

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:48:39 +0000

I had the opportunity to present the latest message from Global Crossing in support of Unified Communications. On March 27th, I attended a panel discussion at Sun Microsystem's Boston campus for masnetcomms.org and on March 28th I presented at a Global Crossing VoIP seminar in Cleveland.

My massnetcomms presentation was focused on the technology enablers (Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), XML, Service Oriented Architecture, Price performance of general purpose computers , Software As a Service model, Network Convergence (IP and access), Protocol Convergence (SIP)) that have created the opportunity for Unified Communication adoption. Unified communications is not a new concept, it’s about 10 years old and really never took off. The early UC models were all hardware centric with specialized devices and lacked seamless integration into your desktop. However today, companies like Microsoft have taken a software only architecture that leverages their installed base of email (exchange) and identity (Active Directory) into realizing a seamless experience on my desktop.

In Cleveland, I shifted the discussion to a more network centric message and highlighted our internal IT success in deploying Microsoft OCS . Global Crossing’s internal IT team began the road to Unified Communications in 2003 when we deployed Cisco VoIP handsets .

The 2003 VoIP deployment was an important milestone in that both the network (LAN, WAN) and operations (Voice vs. Network team) had to come together and provide a reliable and consistent transport for Voice, Video and Data. This is an excellent example of IP convergence providing a solid foundation for our subsequent deployment of Unified Communications.

In 2005 Global Crossing deployed Live Communications System (LCS) (LCS is the predecessor to Office Communications System (OCS) ) and in 2006 our first deployment in support of Microsoft OCS beta. Global Crossing was one of 72 companies supporting the beta and tap phases of OCS and in October 2007 supported Microsoft with their OCS launch in San Francisco.

What we are experiencing is that not only can OCS provide unparalleled integration into our desktop environments, but more importantly business transformation as it is now embedded into our workflow, sales portals and company directory. We are able to work more efficiently , with better communications which will add to a better customer experience.

But the deployment of Unified Communications didn’t start in 2005 when we deployed LCS, it actually started in 2003 when we began deployment of a converged network.

At both presentations the message reasonated with other industry leaders and customers. Clearly IP and network convergence provides the foundation for a successful deployment of Unified Communications.

The Value of Presence ? That is the question.

Mon, 05 May 2008 13:13:38 +0000

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.

Top 50 Open Source VoIP Apps

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:00:37 +0000

The impact of the Open Source movement on VoIP is strong and continues....

Some of the tools that we use and/or tested with here at GC are included, for example SER, Asterisk and one that's not on the list SIPP.

Top 50 Open Source VoIP Apps

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.

Taking Credit Where None is Due

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:49:12 +0000

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?

Solving IT challenges doesn't have to be only focused on reducing costs but rather should focus towards innovation ....

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:47:39 +0000

Time and time again I meet with technology leaders who ask a similar question - that is "How do we continue to cut costs while increasing productivity?" I know it sounds somewhat like an age old question that has been solved several times but I think its important to look deeper at the answers since they are as important as ever. Revisiting prior days as an IT leader whether at Global Crossing or my prior days at Kodak in their IT organization it can be stated that we were faced with many of the same challenges faced by most enterprise IT organizations leading to the above questions. That is "How can we continue to cut costs while increasing productivity....." or variants of that such as "driving operational efficiency while lowering the velocity of spend all the while increasing functionality by offering new and innovative services."

Such questions are based essentially on a few key areas:

1) Cost reduction - there is a need to continuously evaluate how services are delivered, while reducing costs without impacting performance, function and availability. Eliminate unnecessary costs ..... always!

2) Infrastructure Simplification - always evaluate how IT operations are delivered to find faster and more effective delivery mechanisms, while reducing administration and, thus, overhead.

3) Increase productivity by leveraging investments in key areas such as convergence technology - converged communications over a secure, reliable network in order to meet the demands of the business needs can and will provide increased value while maintaining or reducing costs. The key here is to make strategic investments that further extend and continuously enable services at or reduced costs.

4) Continuous Innovation - Chose to focus on innovation in customer experience where improved application performance and real-time interactive applications to improve users quality of experience can be realized. That is - make investments that will pay back dividends by focusing on customers and overall care management.

With these similar challenges Global Crossing's IT organization needed to drive change by delivering on infrastructure services that were not only forward-looking, but also eased our business transformation in a way that helped us meet the demands of the business, as well as prepared us for what was coming next. Fast forward now a few years and when technology leaders ponder solutions to those questions I like to point them down the direction of solving the problems by embracing technology that will not only help them change their business delivery model but also keep them aligned to some core tenants and objectives:

� Information technology and business leaders should align IT strategic plans with corporate and business vision/goals. Don't just have a plan, be sure to align with the corporations goals.
� Provide IT architecture foundations and fundamentals that will facilitate corporate transformation or be the catalyst for it. IT shouldn't be viewed as a cost center rather as something that can be transformational. That said its important that IT leaders lead and be able to see around corners to adapt and be ready for the business needs not just wait for the business to come to them.
� Maximize IT operational efficiencies by investing in key targeted technology areas enabling the future of services. You should be continually assessing whether or not technology investments (old or new) are adding value and returning on investments. If they are not then its time to pull the plug ... but be sure to only do so after you have secured support from business functional leaders otherwise your plan might not make it past the proposal.

In closing don't be afraid to answer the question on how to save money and still provide value. As noted above IT organizations should transform themselves so that they are truly leading not just following.

Interconnection and National Security

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:35:48 +0000

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.

NEWS FLASH: Virtual Reality not as good as Reality

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:47:18 +0000

We've all been there. Travel expenses have to be cut, and yet your work centers are geographically separated, work groups are forged from different work centers, and your management suggests you increase your use of video conferencing. You grudgingly submit to the idea but hope that you still have enough money to do the necessary amount of travel, and you might even try some video conferencing. But will it work?

Corporations have learned a lot since this 2004 Norwegian study that indicated that video conferencing affected corporate travel from 2.5-3.5%. Part of the following study suggests that it's merely a matter of implementing the right culture with the right technology and you can start saving, but what might the long term impacts be of reducing personal interaction amongst employees.

In the online Q&A for Patrick Lencioni's book Death by Meeting, Patrick states:

Q: As technology continues to make life and business more and more virtual, do you think this has positive or negative effects on meetings?

A: I think that the promises of the virtual workplace have not panned out to the extent that everyone expected. The fact is human beings need to be in the same room, face to face, in order to engage in the kind of discourse that leads to good decisions. When we try to circumvent that reality by using audio and video conferencing, we dilute the quality of our conversations, and ultimately, the decisions that we make. Of course, there are certain types of conversations that are fine for virtualcommunication - customer service, basic information sharing, and tactical updates. But trust andconflict and commitment and accountability are not easily nurtured over a network, even a high speed one.

� Copyright 2007 The Table Group, Inc. w 3640 Mt. Diablo Blvd., Suite 202 w Lafayette, CA 94549 w www.tablegroup.com

After having read a few of Patrick's books, I believe this theories are fairly sound. I can see how it would be difficult to mine for conflict on an audio bridge if you can't read body language of everyone simultaneously, although I do seem to find the sore subjects on my own even without video, it just takes a few more questions. I also wonder if Patrick tried using a true telepresence setup if he might change his mind. In this recent post from our own Thomas Hobika, Tom covers telepresence and what is involved. If you can truly create an experience where it is almost as good as being there, wouldn't it be almost as good as being there?

Of course, you still can't get the satisfaction of going to lunch together after the meeting is over. At least not yet. :-)

by Dave Siegel

A Full Agenda

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:36:35 +0000

2008 holds the potential to be a landmark year for telecommunications regulation – if the FCC is willing to take action on the issues before it. A quick look shows the FCC has a lot on its plate. There are the long-standing issues of inter-carrier compensation (yes this docket was initiated in April 2001 and there is still no resolution to it) and special access reform (yes this docket was initiated in October 2002 and there is still no resolution to it either). Both of these issues take on a new urgency with the competing Petitions for Forbearance filed by Feature Group IP and Embarq regarding the application of access to charges to IP services and the coming expiration of Verizon’s merger commitments on special access. Then there are the dual petitions from Vuze and Free Press on traffic management and peer-to-peer traffic that the FCC just put out on public notice. Finally, there is the Joint Board proposal on universal service reform (an issue that has been around since the 1913 Kingsbury Commitment and was supposed to be addressed immediately following passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996).

If the FCC wanted to, it could address all of these issues in 2008 and redefine the telecommunications landscape for the next several decades. I realize that is wishful thinking and unrealistic under the best of circumstances, but at some point someone needs to recognize that the FCC regulates an industry that generates a trillion dollars in economic activity, directly employs one million people, and is responsible for deploying and operating the infrastructure that will support so much of the future global economy. Is it too much to ask for the government to address critical policy issues impacting this industry in less than ten years? Think of the costs of inaction to the economy.

At a time when so many politicians are calling for “change”, a welcome change would be for the FCC to take the action this industry so urgently needs to move forward.

The cables are coming .....

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:54:07 +0000

Today the web site The Inquirer published a story that an undersea cable with 1.28Tbps of capacity has just received approval connecting the US to China. As the story indicates this appears to be the first direct undersea fiber system to receive regulatory approval connecting both countries and although i wouldn't know whether or not thats true it does suggest the tremendous and unbelievable market opportunity within the telecommunications industry.

The most obvious and notable thing to take away from this story other than the system capability is the fact that the consortium that led the activity has not only won the approval but is likely paving the way for other carriers to do the same. This says something not only about the market and industry viability but also about under sea cable systems and the ability to connect different continents - those that have such systems are strategically positioned with respect to not just the market but also serving those customers who leverage those systems.

Although I am sure the regulatory hurdles were numerous the intrinsic value this type of development presents tremendous potential not just from the telecommunication market but also economic development on an aggregate basis across multiple service industries (cable system deployment companies, fiber manufacturers, hardware manufacturers, telecommunication providers, etc).

This is just the beginning my friends ....