IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings - VoIP

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.

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.

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.

and from the "No taps for you" department...

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:06:53 +0000

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 Mobile Phone Alliance

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:15:41 +0000

A number of bloggers have been blogging about on Google's mobile plans for the better part of the year.

Recently I blogged as to how Google may be able to take their may ad revenue business model into the mobile space.

Well today, Google made it very clear with their mobile alliance announcements .

The interesting part of the discussion revolves around Verizon. Specifically, Verizon may be in talks with google in joining Sprint and T-Mobile as part of Google's plans.

But is this the same Verizon that sued the FCC after the FCC adopted Google's open access motions?

Yes it is the same Verizon.

It may be that Verizon needs to be involved and not get blindsided as they did when they choose not to support Apple's iPhone, and lost a tremendous branding opportunity.

Or, it may be that Verizon needs to be involved to make sure it's part of the disruption as mobile business models change.

Another score for the open source business model and for the public as we should see innovation at as faster velocity.

Time will tell!

7 easy ways to use VoIP

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 20:23:32 +0000

7 easy ways to use VoIP

1) Setup a Skype account and get Skype-in/Skype-out.

2) Setup a Gizmo account at SIPphone.

3) Get a Google account

4) Setup yourself with a Grand Central Account(owned by Google)

5) Get a Dual-mode wireless phone.

6) Install Fring on the dual-mode phone.

7) Associate all numbers from Skype, Gizmo, Wireless phone, deskphone, etc to your Grand Central number, and publish your Grand Central Number.

This is what you get from all this:

INBOUND CALLING: When someone dials your Grand Central number, all the associated numbers in your Grand Central profile will ring simultaneously. You have your choice which phone to answer with. You also have the ability to "move" the call or "switch" the call from one device to another associated device. It's the coolest thing - all you do is press the '*' key and all the phones start ringing again. You just pick up another phone and hang up on the phone you are moving from. There are also loads of other features with Grand Central. It's just great!!!

OUTBOUND CALLING: The selection device when placing a call to someone else is normally dictated by your location at the time you are making the call. If you are in a car, then wireless is really all you get due to availability. If you are in an area that has wifi service that works with your dual-mode phone (like an airport or coffee shop), then Fring is your friend because you can use numerous options. If you are in the office with your choice, then use the phone or network of your choice. If I know that I am about to leave the office, I might take the call on my cell. If I am about to settle in to a marathon of conference calls, then it's desk phone with speaker or head-phones on.

VoIP works and VoIP is mainstream nowadays.

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.

Web Services Catching on in Telecom?

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:42:54 +0000

OK, so Web Services has been around for some time now. XML and SOAP have been used as an easy to implement mechanism to serve as an API for distributed applications. However, only until the last year or so has web services come to the forefront of telecom services, and I believe it will be used as a foundation for many innovative solutions that will be built under the Unified Communications/Integrated Communications umbrella.

VoIP has traditionally been relegated to basic telephony services in the telecom industry, such as VoIP/SIP Trunking and Hosted IP Telephony services. However, with the advent of Unified Communications (check out the Unified Communications Conference at the Fall VON Show in October), which brings together telephony, messaging, collaboration, data and mobility into an integrated solution, we begin to see services using VoIP as becoming more visual in nature, bringing telephony into web interfaces rather than to phones, and using multiple distributed applications which are blended to create solutions.

Global Crossing has announced that it is providing innovative Unified Communications solutions to the UK Government. These services will soon be expanded to provide even greater capabilities to the Enterprise, and globalization is a key element of this strategy.

Does this mean IMS? Not necessarily. Many solutions in the market have built interoperability through vendor partnerships using SIP from a voice signaling perspective, and Web Services brings another element into the mix which greatly improves interoperability and improves usability. IMS is not nearly as innovative as Web Services, and certainly not as easily implemented. However, IMS can be combined with Web Services to anchor control, signaling, and provisioning of multiple applications in a standardized fashion. My belief is that it will take the industry some time to pull everything together using IMS.

As an example of how web services can be introduced into telephony, clients can be built into web pages using internet API's which use click to call functionality. In addition, web services can be used in a unified communications "Dashboard" interface where a user can view presence status, conference attendance, manage services through voice portals, and trigger entirely new communications business models. Two innovating vendors highly leveraging web services in the telecom space are Sylantro and Iperia, which bring call control and management extended to web communications, and provide visual voicemail and unified messaging services as a solution. Very cool stuff.

Web Services brings easy programming interfaces to industry standard transport (HTTP) to bring innovation to telecom services. As enterprises become more distributed in nature, with remote offices in multiple countries, their key workers are also becoming more distributed and mobile. Telecom needs to keep up with these trends and the increading demand for requirements of the changing workplace with real time communications. This is bringing traditionally separate applications together via Unified Communications, and the "unification" or blending of these distributed applications can use a combination of signaling techniques and web services functions to bring a highly visual element to the solution.

Ready for a scary thing? Deep Packet Inspection!

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 18:57:49 +0000

According to Wikipedia Deep Packet Inspection is “a form of computer network packet filtering that examines the data part of a through-passing packet, searching for non-protocol compliance or predefined criteria to decide if the packet can pass. This is in contrast to shallow packet inspection (usually called just packet inspection) which just checks the header portion of a packet.”

First off, this is a very real technology. A quick search via google brought the company Bivio Networks to my attention. (* Disclaimer: I have no interest, financial or otherwise with this company.) Bivio’s 7000 series claims that
“when fully configured, the 7000's application processing subsystem offers 45,000 MIPS -- enough to run "any IP network service" at wire speeds up to 10Gbps -- including IDS/IDP, firewalling, VPN, network surveillance, lawful interception, and application traffic management. Developers can use any of the standard Linux components (such as iptables) as part of their deep packet processing applications.

Now let’s look at some of the implications of DPI. A very interesting article on here from ars technica puts things in an interesting light:

“Imagine a device that sits inline in a major ISP's network and can throttle P2P traffic at differing levels depending on the time of day. Imagine a device that allows one user access only to e-mail and the Web while allowing a higher-paying user to use VoIP and BitTorrent. Imagine a device that protects against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, scans for viruses passing across the network, and siphons off requested traffic for law enforcement analysis. Imagine all of this being done in real time, for 900,000 simultaneous users, and you get a sense of the power of deep packet inspection (DPI) network appliances.
Although the technology isn't yet common knowledge among consumers, DPI already gives network neutrality backers nightmares and enables American ISPs to comply with CALEA (government-ordered Internet wiretaps) reporting requirements. It also just might save the Internet (depending on who you believe). “
The power of this technology is simply awesome, and the impacts it can have are serious. The current state of government mandated network monitoring forces some network operators to consider implementing this. One word jumps to my mind, and that’s SCARY – and I am not referring to my driver’s license picture either!

By the way, did I mention that the above Bivio 7000 is listed at $10,000!

SunRocket and the Future of Competition

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 03:15:28 +0000

Today’s reports about SunRocket ceasing operations should serve as a wake-up call to policy makers. After two plus decades of effort, policy makers are anxious to declare victory and call the telecommunications market “competitive”. Unfortunately, reality keeps intruding on their vision as the Sunrocket situation demonstrates.

The fact that the number two provider of VoIP services in the country would just cease operations without any liquidation or bankruptcy suggests there just wasn’t much salvage value to the operation. So when incumbent operators point to VoIP as the great competitive threat, policy makers should keep SunRocket in mind.

“Competition” will remain as fleeting as SunRocket for several reasons. First, as Vonage continues to demonstrate, marketing costs are almost insurmountable for new entrants seeking to serve the mass consumer market. This is why cable companies are the greatest hope for residential competition. Their marketing costs are significantly less due to their existing customer relationships, billing infrastructure, and low-cost access to commercial air time on their own systems.

Second, as the FCC’s response to Verizon’s petition to improve access to multiple dwelling units shows, even the largest carriers need the government’s help in overcoming monopoly power. But as the city of Philadelphia’s deal with Earthlink shows, breaking the monopoly on rights of way can greatly facilitate competition. Unfortunately, most municipalities continue to make access to rights of way difficult and landlords and building owners continue to leverage their monopoly to the detriment of competitive carriers. But this is an area again where cable companies have an advantage over other competitors because of their unbiquitous access to rights of way through the franchise process.

Third, until the FCC addresses the three core problems plaguing the industry – inter-carrier compensation, universal service, and special access regulation – competitors will remain handicapped in their ability to effectively compete. Under today’s regulations, as much as 70% of a competitor’s revenues go right out the door in the form of last mile access. Another 10% goes to the FCC for universal service. So, competitors today must be able to attain profitability on as little as 20% of their revenues. Not too many companies can do that.

Fourth, the notion that VoIP as offered by cable companies will provide the competitive alternative to incumbent operators is superficially appealing, but closer examination shows that the competition is limited at best. Atlantic ACM is predicting cable companies will have 23 million VoIP subscribers by 2012. While that number is large, relative to AT&T and Verizon, it’s pretty small. Verizon has some 130 million access lines, 60.7 million wireless subscribers, over 7 million broadband customers including over 1 million FiOS customers, and over $20 billion in revenue from its business unit, the former MCI. AT&T has similarly staggering numbers.

So the fact that all cable companies combined will have 23 million VoIP subscribers in five years is pretty unimpressive. Moreover, with no presence in the business market, no wireless service of their own, and no Internet backbone, cable companies are only targeting a narrow segment of the overall telecommunications market and clearly lack the economies of scope and scale that AT&T and Verrizon enjoy. In the long run, that favors AT&T and Verizon.

Unfortunately, the SunRocket situation is going to lead not to a re-examination of core telecommunications policy, but instead more regulation of VoIP providers. I suspect the FCC is going to impose an additional layer of compliance regulation on VoIP providers to address market exit. Of course, the FCC still won’t address market entry requirements for VoIP providers.

And that is the sad truth about telecommunications policy in the United States. There is no political base for pro-competition policies. In the 1980s and 1990s, business customers were able to convince lawmakers that the local telephony market had to be opened up. Twenty years later, policy makers think they have succeeded and are now focused on the mass consumer market. VoIP and cable companies were the answer, but as SunRocket demonstrates, it may not be a lasting answer.

Virtualization- Part 1 - The Abstraction of the Internet

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 19:00:45 +0000

A key element of virtualization is the concept of abstraction. Abstraction can take many forms and many applications with profound benefits.

This is the first of a five part series on the evolution of virtualization, with the following planned articles:

Virtualization – Part 2 - The Abstraction of the Computer
The definition of a computer (CPU, data bus, memory, input/output, and disk) , the abstraction of programming a computer (machine code, assembly language, 3rd generation programming languages (3GL), 4GL and 5GL), the separation of a CPU from disk and the application of a Storage Area Network (SAN), blade servers and the realization of GRID computing.

Virtualization – Part 3 - The Abstraction of Applications
Concepts of a Application Programmers Interface (API), examples and pitfalls for APIs and the abstraction of Web Services.

Virtualization – Part 4 – Virtualization of Voice Communications
Telephony basics in the circuit switched voice network and the evolution of the packet switched voice network , aka VoIP.

Virtualization – Part 5 - Real World IT Examples and Benefits
The anatomy and benefits of Virtual Data Centers and Call Centers

We’ll start the series on a model that is near and dear to our hearts – the Internet.

Vint Cerf is one of the founding fathers of the internet and created a transport model of moving packets from one network to another. Seems pretty straight forward but, back in the day this was not an easy task as the networks were typically homogenous deployed by a single hardware vendor (DEC, AT&T, NCR, Apollo, Banyan, etc… ). Each vendor had their own proprietary methods of defining a ‘packet’ (that is,   the number of bits in a ‘packet’; the order of the bits in a ‘packet’; the number of bytes in a ‘packet’; and the meaning of each bit/byte in a ‘packet’), and the way these computers spoke to each other (i.e. the protocol).

The first major challenge was to allow these desperate networks to exchange data. The challenge was met by defining common communication protocols (i.e. TCP/IP, UCP, etc …) , and   a common packet & addressing structure.

This allowed high powered users (Scientists at the world's research institutions) to efficiently communicate across an environment largely made up of heterogeneous computers. Within this structure, application developers at each vendor (DEC, AT&T, NCR, Apollo, Banyan, etc…) developed tools, using the agreed upon common protocols , to transfer files (FTP), login into another computer (TELNET) and exchange email (POP3, SMTP).

Tim Bernes-Lee was one of those high powered users and wanted to find an easier way of navigating thru the internet without having to issue ftp commands or walk thru folders ( i.e. directories). He created an abstraction between what the internet looked like and the commands that facilitated communications . Tim created the notion of the world wide web. The world’s first web site was brought online in 1991.

Tim is credited for creating the following words we all use everyday: www, http and HyperText Transfer Protocol.

These abstractions have lead to an unprecedented number of users to the internet in very little time.   A concept that some call, “Internet Time” .

“Internet Time” is defined by Wikipedia   as:

“Internet time was a common catchphrase that originated during the late-1990s Internet boom. In this period, people who worked with the Internet had come to believe that "everything moved faster on the 'net", because the Internet made the dissemination of information far easier and cheaper. Fast-moving developments were therefore said to run "on Internet time".

Efforts in virtualization of the internet are focused in/around layer 3 of the OSI stack, in the next article in this series we will take a dive into the machines themselves to understand abstraction as it relates to their operation and subsequent evolution, in Part 2 - The Abstraction of the Computer.

We’ll then take a quick look at the applications that ride over them in Part 3 – The Abstraction of Applications.

After understanding the abstraction of the Application, we’ll look at a very basis of communications – Voice , in Part 4 - Virtualization of Voice Communications.

In the final article we will put all of these pieces together in understanding the anatomy and benefits of Virtual Data Centers and Call Centers , in Part 5 - Real World IT Examples and Benefits.

The Seven Wonders of Telecommunications

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:55:52 +0000

The Seven Wonders of Telecommunications

This is a post that was inspired by the latest poll results on the latest Seven Wonders of the World. In case you missed the list: The final tally produced this list of the world's top human-built wonders: Link here

· The Great Wall of China
· Petra in Jordan
· Brazil's statue of Christ the Redeemer
· Peru's Machu Picchu
· Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid
· The Colosseum in Rome
· India's Taj Mahal

I created this list with telecommunications as the focus, and the criteria involved technologies and products that had the broadest and most significant impact to telecommunications.

1) The telephone - I believe this should fall in the “Ya think?!?!” category. Humans have an insatiable urge to communicate, and the phone was the first and most significant step to communications across a significant (beyond yelling) distance. I will say that, at times, yelling can be more effective though. ;)

2) The modem – Here I am referring to the Hayes Communications “Smartmodem” that became the standard for digital communications across an analog network (POTS)

3) TCP/IP – The Internet protocol suite. With the importance of the Internet, this is more/less a no-brainer.

4) SIP – Session Initiation Protocol has won out as the defacto standard for Voice over IP and its associated applications.

5) Ethernet – The reason Ethernet is listed here is simply due to its simplicity. The LAN standard just isn’t difficult to understand and use. With Ethernet creeping into the WAN as well, things are getting bigger, faster and less expensive.

6) WIFI – This article here explains it all. WIFI more important than Starbucks coffee?!?!? That puts is on the list of seven!!

7) Asterisk – I am putting this open-source IP-PBX due to the fact that it single-handedly exposed the craziness in IP-PBX pricing models. It’s better, fast, and a whole heck of a lot cheaper. This would need to get some more maturity before it made the “all-time” list.

Adam “voiploser” Uzelac

I Approve This Message

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:59:34 +0000

Mesaging is undoubtedly the fasted growing method of e-communication in the industry today, spanning both consumer and enterprise segments. In the wireless industry alone, the statistics on text messaging volume are staggering. CTIA's president Steve Largent was quoted as saying that 158 billion text messages were sent in the U.S. alone in 2006, translating to approximately 300,000 per minute, which is almost a 100% growth compared to 2005. He also notes that consumers can use text messaging to save lives. Huh? Well, Amber Alerts is now wireless, so you can receive text message with the Amber Alert information (that is displayed on digital signage) when one occurs, provided you submit your mobile phone number and area zip codes. BTW, I encourage everyone to sign up for this. The reason? We all look at a text message when we receive one, and most of the time we respond to it. This is a very viral form of communication, and an extremely high margin service; up to 85% in some cases. Combine this with Instant Messaging, and the transactional volumes far exceed voice by a huge margin.

Aside of the convenience and trendiness aspects of SMS, texting is also very cost effective. When users are low on their cell phone minutes, they often resort to sending text. Also, due to excessive roaming costs, sending text messages is a way of avoiding expensive voice roaming and ILD rates from the mobile operators.

Identity-based services are a unique way to bridge communications between the wireless and wireline worlds. Many innovative service providers are creating offerings which provide a single number (or second line) to the external community, but which allow the subscriber to manage inbound calling to various destinations (mobile, home phone, work phone, etc.). GrandCentral and TalkPlus are two such providers of this service. This identity is can be enabled through a VoIP DID-based carrier such as Global Crossing, which provides phone numbers and voice origination and termination capabilities. Unique solutions like this are rapidly growing in the industry and are likely to continue, bringing voice beyond basic peer to peer dialing.

Another innovative use of identity based services is one where the purpose is to hide the true identity of the called party. Jangl provides such an application to Match.com which enables dating prospects to communicate with each other without having to know each other's phone number. Obviously, you don't want to advertise your phone number to what seems to be a decent date but who turns out to be an obsessive nut job. Again, a powerful use of application-based communication.

Applications such as this can leverage more than just voice. Text messaging can also be applied just as easy (if not easier) to these identity services, which opens up a powerful enabler and revenue opportunity. In fact, most users with a mobile phone expect SMS to be a supplementary service, even when using a service such as one of those above.

Text messaging has, and will continue to be a key communication service requirement coupled with voice. Wireline has some catching up to do, but you can expect some very innovative additions to enable messaging services to continue to be an essential component of the converged services equation. Expect more from Global Crossing. Stay tuned.....

...and more to come

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 17:48:29 +0000

Note this comment from FCC Chairman Martin with regards to future VoIP regulation –

“Although today’s item does not address all of the remaining policy goals, it is a critically important step. We continue to evaluate the remaining obligations including: numbering (access to numbering resources, number portability obligations, and numbering support obligations) and consumer protection issues (service discontinuance notifications, slamming, and billing issues, etc). I hope that by addressing these obligations, the Commission will be able to continue to protect the interests of consumers and establish a competitively neutral playing field for competing services.”

Curiously, there is no mention of any efforts to provide VoIP providers with the rights that typically attend these obligations.