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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Femtocells the Answer?

There have been some very interesting developments in the wireless world as of late.  Femtocells are basically Access Point Base Stations that permit wireless operators to extend coverage in places where “dead spots” are problematic.  This sounds like a great idea for those that have experienced the issues where a wireless phone call drops due to one moving into an area where coverage is “shady” at best – for instance an elevator or a remote location in a campus or building.  But with this concept, comes some problems that need to be resolved, like E911, Lawful Intercept and other such governmental obligations.  

First note the informal poll below from www.cellcoverege.com - this is a problem the industry wants to address.

Femtocells have been designed to use licensed and unlicensed wireless spectrum.  In the licensed scenarios, there are concerns around Interference with the already established towers that provide subscriber access.  There are limits to the number of adjacencies that mean special attention needs to be spent with regards to the placement of the femtocells. This concern stems from marketing such solutions direct to the consumer base, and this means a “willy nilly” approach to spectrum access for subscribers causes confusion with regards to E911 and Lawful Intercept requirements that mobile network operators much meet.

Though femtocells are gaining momentum as an alternative, there are concerns that first need to be addressed before an expectation of widespread use can be realized.

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.

I so wish I wasn’t typing this.  If you are a new iMAC user – then you might be aware of a certain problem that Apple is denying left and right.  The symptoms started manifesting itself a couple of weeks after we got the machine.  I think that it’s important to recall the situation I was in that led me to a MAC in the first place – it’s a struggle I went through with myself and my family, who were all used to PCs and Windoze.

So this is what’s going on – the darn machine just freezes for no apparent reason.  This was first reported by my better half.  I did some investigation after rebooting and didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.  As the machine came with 90 days of free technical phone support, I called Apple.  They introduced me to the “Kernel Panic”.  For those not in the know, it’s the Apple equivalent of the Blue-screen of death (BSOD) in the Windoze world.  The tech on the line told me it’s most likely due to software I installed, so I removed a bunch of stuff that I downloaded – but still the problem occurs.  Lately, it’s gotten worse.  So much so that there’s a significant return in a simple Google search on this topic.  At the time of this writing, there are approximately 352k returns to that search.  I bet all the money in my front right pocket that this number will only grow in time.

The culprit, at least according to the peanut gallery, seems to be Video Card related, but without Apple stepping up to the plate and stating such – it’s all speculation.  I am going to have to drop my brand new 20-inch aluminum iMAC off to the store that I got it, and hope that it doesn’t take too long to get fixed, AND that it gets fixed. 

Consider this either a warning, or a plea for help – either way, it is what it is.

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.

This video came from the RIPE 55 conference.  Gary Feldman of Demon Internet fame performs for the secret-wg in the closing plenary at RIPE 55 in Amsterdam, October 2007.  

For those not knowing what RIPE is - from www.ripe.com - "The RIPE NCC is an independent, not-for-profit membership organisation that supports the infrastructure of the Internet through technical co-ordination in its service region. The most prominent activity of the RIPE NCC is to act as the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) providing global Internet resources and related services (IPv4, IPv6 and AS Number resources) to members in the RIPE NCC service region. The membership consists mainly of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), telecommunication organisations and large corporations located in Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia."

Video here...

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.

Demo fall 2007

So I was wondering around the blogosphere last night and stumbled across an announcement regarding a company called Tungle.  They recently won the "DEMOgod" award from demo.com.  Demo.com is a conference for emerging Web 2.0 companies.  The conference permits invited emerging companies to pitch a 6 minute demo of their product to journalist, bloggers, etc. The conference was this week (Sept 24-27) in San diego.  The footage of all the demos are available on their website.  

Below is a list of the demos I thought were particularly interesting.  So go grab some popcorn and a drink of your choice, and check them out at demo.com and click on demofall07 to launch the viewer.

MY FAVORITE!! -> 360 Desktop - desktop real estate extender.  This is amazing! <- MY FAVORITE!!
DimDim - free and open source webmeeting alternative.
Earthmine - Geographic 3d visualizing.
Jasper Wireless - "local" SIM - targeting machine communications.
LiveMocha - A new approach to language learning.
SpceTime - 3d browser.
Talari Networks - Enterprise WAN alternative.
Truphone - just created VoIP client for iPhone.
Tubes Networks - a way to share files with others - P2P software.
Yuuguu - collaboration software.
Tungle - Meeting scheduling plugin.
Vello - conference call advancement - outbound calls to all participants.

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.