If you have a Nokia N800 and are living in one of the Earthlink Feather cities Nokia and Earthlink have a great deal for you.
TMCnet's Tom Keating provides some perspective and is promising to give the N800 Internet Tablet a real workout.
Is this the The Truth About e911, Vonage and SBC? If so, Om has done some very good detective work and executed a very high degree of journalistic integrity.
What I like is that Om had the story and sat on it to get more facts and elicit a reply from SBC and balanced the story with input from one of IDC's better analysts, William Stofega who has a keen insight about all things VoIP.
I'm sure this will be a topic of discussion when I meet up with Om for coffee and catch up today when I pass through San Francisco.
Aswath does a parody of the famous "I have a dream" speech by Dr. Martin Luther King. It is brilliant, witty and well done, in a tasteful manner.
A lot of media coverage has fallen on Vonage's complaints about Port Blocking by a couple of companies. The real credit goes to Paul Kapustka, who has been like a proverbial bloodhound on breaking and covering the story from its very start.
Kapustka, editor of Advanced IP Pipeline for CMP. He's been on the story ever since the first issue and always maintained a steady watch.
While Paul is not a Blogger, the line between journalism and blogging is very thin, and Kapustka always links to the blogosphere when stories there help with his writings.
EuroTelcoblog's James Enck discovers a flaw in the Skype multi user chat system and waxes on about it.
One of the aspects of Skype I see is some type of social networking feature being overlayed with it. The Pulver Communicator already has this type of feature built in but until the type of trust system that is available with LinkedIn or ZeroDegrees type of operations, I don't think Skype should let this type of technology be authorized.
Why? Skype's firewall penetration technology is very good at poking the hole through the firewall and even though you trust your friend, I don't think third party trust is really there just yet.
Rich had a few minutes to sit in on part of the Blogging Panel at VON. I appreciate the kudos and his recognition of the creative approach I took.
I'll have to come up with a gimmick for the next one, if Pulver's folks invite me back.
In ninth grade World History, our teacher, Royal Black, yup, that was his name, no jive, was the first person I recall ever using the phrase "history always repeats," so I'm not surprised at Om's post today about the growing pains effecting VoIP.
When I got into the dot.com world outages were nothing uncommon. Heck, @Home had at least one a month in their early days, causing me all kinds of frustration, especially the ones caused by their stupidity.
Now VoIP companies are starting to have issues. These same issues effected the streaming media industry and the WiFi industry. Om draws a comparison to the RBOCs but he should read some of the complaints against them for service outages. He may find that they too have issues and the outages are not reserved for IP only carriers.
A Close Look at P2P VoIP Session by Tom Keating is not self praise by him, as he did a super job at getting five different viewpoints into one room and really had them say what they felt. My client, Dmitry Goroshevksy from Popular Telephony did very well, as did Gary from Global IP Sound.
There seems to be some sort of riff between Skype and GIPS and while I'm not so sure what it is, my guess is that Skype has been getting loads of credit and press while GlPS codec in the middle makes Skype sound so good. I sense the riff based on some comments from others in the industry and Teleo's Peter Sisson being overly profuse in laying on the schmaltz both to me and in the panel about GIPS. Sisson has class.
Niklas Zennstrom of Skype was a last minute bail out on the panel, having his colleague Janus Friis fill in via Speakerphone. While Zennstrom refuses to come to the USA for fear of being served with a law suit by the RIAA (something which they can do to him in London via the Secretary of State and Her Majisty's Government) Friis added very little to the panel, while as Tom Keating points out Goroshevsky and Nimcat's CEO along with Gary from GIPS seemed to basically keep it moving.
What is becoming clear is that one person's P2P is not the same as another's definition. And what is becoming even more clear is that there is room for all of these technologies in the marketplace and that carriers, both new and old, who are using switch and server based technology clearly have to be concerned as do the enterprise legacy PBX guys.
The worlds changing...the question is, has the old guard realized it and are they ready for it.
For SBC Chief, AT&T Deal Is Essential in New Telecom Era is a Q&A in today's Los Angeles Times.
I think the swipe at Vonage and other so called instant phone companies who can buy network access below cost and then resell and the comment about customers in Hong Kong really points to how important AT&T's CallVantage and VoIP overall was to this deal.
Clearly SBC is also gearing up for a name change. AT&T is clearly the logical choice because it has to have the higher recall in brand identity vs. SBC. I say it's time to invest in automobile and truck paint. Here's why.
My guess is the senior marketing folks (remember, Dorman is a marketer first) will evaluate at shareholder expense the options:
1. Stay SBC--this would be the second weakest way to go as the cost to build brand nationwide, but more importantly on a global basis (and we are in the era of the global telco brand) would be even more expensive. Don't forget AT&T just did a deal to sponsor some aspects of Formula One Grand Prix racing while they could easily transfer it to SBC, the ability to tell the story gets harder and more expensive.
2. Come up with a totally new name...NOT. This would be even more expensive and erode the equity in both brands. I mean, if they did come up with a new name, I think it would be ABC for American Bell Corporation, (oh, yes, some mouse house has that name in their portfolio--and I don't think they would be very sporting about giving it up) but while that makes some things cute, I don't think the expense of rebranding is worth the years it will take to build market acceptance.
3. Go with AT&T. It will cost less. It will score higher on the recall tests and it is at the front of all directory listings. What's more globally it still is the most known USA phone company. The one thing I know is all the truck painting companies must be salivating right now. It's only been a few years here in California when the trucks went from Pacific Bell to SBC in look.
Bottom line. I just saved shareholder millions of dollars, as that's what would be spent on studies, research, analysis, focus groups and more, all before the first dime is dropped on new advertising and promotion.
HGC and Skype Partner to Deliver Internet Telephony means fixed line carriers are seeing the value of disruptive technology. For Skype this is a big win. As they roll out more applications it means a greater ability to be a POTS substitute. For the generation that grows up online and connected, cell phone and online VoIP are likely all that are needed.
Information Week > VoIP > New VoIP-Enabled Roaming Client > February 2, 2005
Just as Bridgeport Networks does things inside the network, this works at the handset level as a piece of software. I see the convergence of WiFi, VoIP and Wireless coming...and you wonder why SBC bought AT&T. While I'm sure there are more reasons, I'll leave that to the Om Malik's of the world who are far better than I at analyzing the numbers and politics of telco.
The New York Times also weighs in on why WiFi will be a big voice play.
Cable VoIP Starts to Catch On which is why the Triple Play is catching on. But, I'm looking forward to FourPlay, when the cables or telcos bundle in wireless/mobile phone accounts over one bill.
One of my favorite journalists to read ad blog to follow is Jeremy Wagstaff's LOOSE wire: today he waxes about Skype Coming To Asia.
It is a good summary of what Skype is doing in Korea. If you're not reading Loose Wire you're missing out on some of the best and most witty insight from Asia on the New Economy.
From Netimperative - Google prepares Skype-killer phone service and this makes total sense. Read what they have to say and think why? Yahoo is heading in the same direction, but while Yahoo has Messenger, Google doesn't have an IM client yet. Maybe they will work with someone like Pulver or Popular Telephony. Heck, maybe they will work with XTEN. But you know one thing, Google going into the phone biz could mean an end to having to have your fingers do the walking through the yellow pages.
Don't also forget they own Blogger and have Picasa...a phone service with those apps are also very interesting.
A great story called Signal Lost is on the MSNBC website. It clearly validates my echoing claims by former work colleagues of Pulver's at Cantor Fitzgerald who tell stories about his passion well before many others when it comes to VoIP.
The story is a great read, especially coming from a general interest publication.
The Jeff Pulver Blog: pulver.Communicator: Download Frequency Accelerating!
While Jeff's application which gives you cross IM platform capabilities and FWD VoIP services is not yet at SKYPE levels, what this does show me is that a lot of people like the idea of a Softphone client. That means good things for companies like XTEN, and certainly indicates that AT&T CallVantage really needs to add one.
I'm always flattered when the press turns to me for a viewpoint, but I'm honored to be included in a story with Om.
While Level3 has customers, the big question is how will they handle their enormous debt load. Even if VoIP revenues start to fly from the cable companies, which is now in question, one has to wonder if they are shedding their legacy business (like AOL dial up) how are they going to make up the revenue.
VoIP will hit Euro telcos hardest - vnunet.com but what I find as interesting is that the research company thinks flat rate pricing from the RBOC's will help them buffer the onslaught of the VoIP train.
I actually think the RBOC's flat rate customers are prime to switch. Here's why. They are early adopters, not laggards. Over time they want the best. They are price savvy, so VoIP offers appeal to them easily, and they likely already have the features they want now available with VoIP. By shedding the local line costs they save at least $10.00 or so, and avoid taxes. That's why the RBOC's have to be concerned about the Vonages and CallVantages of the world.
According to a sell side analyst covering DeltaThree it seems in their SEC filings today they have announced a relationship with SBC to do what they are doing for Verizon and more.
The relationship spans just about everything but the network, something SBC already has in place.
Who said the RBOC's are standing still. This is a huge win for DeltaThree, a likely blow to Level3 and a big threat to the cable MSO's who have had the chance to lead.
Reports are that the SBC rollout will be later in the winter months or early spring in select markets before it goes live network wide. With VoIP not knowing any borders, does this mean Phone Wars will be here? Why can't SBC sell in Qwest's territory.
This is also likely going to mean a bundle somehow with Yahoo. Yahoo is very close with SBC and Yahoo will be the entertainment partner is my guess.
PhoneGAIM Targets Skype and Tom Keating gets the jump on the news.
I consider this rather important as the folks behind PhoneGaim are Michael Robertson, and he knows how to market tech. Add this to the Lindows/Linspire PC's, plus now a Windows version and look what you have.
VoIP User gives you a free number in the UK and lets you terminate calls just about anywhere. If you have friends in the UK sign up for one of their numbers that lets you point it to a phone in your country to a PSTN number.
Here's a great use for this is for those that travel and have CallVantage. Get a UK number, have it call your CallVantage Message Center, check voice mail, return calls, and make outbound calls from the UK as if you were in the USA, all for free...
SAM - Skype® Answering Machine --Insecure ?
I called a colleague using skype, not knowing he was in another skype session. His Skype Answering Machine picked up and I left a message.
First the parties on the call with him heard me. Secondly, I heard them. Both calls were clear as a bell to the others.
Many months back Om Malik wrote about the security holes in Skype. This just validated what I already knew.
The bottom line is while this piece of software is not Skype's own, how the program was able to clearly hear an and ease-drop on "encrypted" transmission is beyond my technical abilities, but it happened and the person on the other end told me too. But this begs the question of should you be using Skype for sensitive calls.
With CES starting this week, there are a flurry of announcements coming out with Skype and Vonage leading the charge.
VTech Partners With Skype to Launch First U.S. Cordless Phone for Free Global Telephony
VTech Premieres First Fully Integrated VoIP Phone at 2005 CES
Vonage previews wireless VoIP phone, service
Vonage Announces Partnership With Viseon to Develop Videophone Service
When you look at what Vonage and Skype are doing, it is obvious that the two are heading down the path both seeking telephony domination and seek to accomplish it by working with the tech toy "arms merchants" and suppliers.
How many of these products reach retail is the big key. It is not so much about selling in the idea, as it is selling through to the consumers. So, while I fully expect the male pattern gearness sites to go wowzie over so many of the toy idiot products that are shown this week in the VoIP world, the key to adoption will be what ends up on the sales floor at Staples, WalMart and Best Buy.
For me, I'll be happy with the two line 5.8 handset package from Uniden. I saw a single unit with base last night at Staples, but without additional handsets. I want that so when I upgrade my CallVantage box to the new two line, Linksys WiFi router I can have both lines working (sans hunting/rollover for now but I may have that figured out too).
Techdirt:Cablevision's Bundle Is Working as they seem to have brought the price to a point where it's FREE according to TechDirt.
So let me get this straight. They advertise for free. They reduce the cost of services. They hurt the phone companies. Next !
WSJ.com - Write to The Wall Street Journal has a letter from the guru of VoIP, Jeff Pulver. It's a great read and makes many salient points.
Give it a read.
Mark Evans :: 2005: Year of the Quadruple Play a few days ago I talked about the four way play, or what I call ForePlay. Here's another viewpoint on what is going on in Canada.
RED HERRING | Wireless cat and mouse talks about Xcelis and their concept to outsmart the mobile operators. My guess is the way to stop this is to limit the number of mobile to mobile minutes to the same number to xx per day or per billing cycle, or just eliminate them. That would stop this company dead in their tracks.
Dialpad Lowers Rates to over 380 destinations for 2005 which got me thinking. Are rates going to drop as services get added.
Let's face it, pricing for minutes is pretty much, at least domestically in the USA and Canada, a thing in the past with even the RBOCs having an all you can talk plan in place that is as good as the VoIP providers, minus all the services the VoIP players offer in the bundle--though I suspect the RBOC's will get competitive in this arena as soon as they can get a tarrif passed in all states.
But now, with cost per minute rates being almost unnecessary for domestic calls, and with International Long Distance dropping to un-before seen levels, one has to realize that the Skype and VoIP effect on Telephony is clearly being indeed disruptive.
I suspect we will see an acceleration of deployment of new services, and even less expensive bundling of existing features.
Welcome to VoIP Nuke.com! where Keith really sounds off on the big box retailers who I have already deemed clueless when it comes to knowing how to sell VoIP.
It's bad enough that you can't surf the Internet at the computer section to see how the screen looks when you go to your favorite sites, but where as with a TV or Cell Phone, you can try before you buy, one would think that Voice quality demos would sell even more for the players at retail.
The problem is that the relationship with retail is via Linksys, and all their experience has been to date has been with routers, hubs and access type devices, not phones. I plan on talking to the Linksys and Vonage folks at CES, and also will hammer on a few others. This is too easy of a problem to fix.
Om Malik on Broadband: Net2Phone Goes Local and I suspect given where some of the recent money came from, that some of the cable companies are about to sign with them, but not necessarily in the USA.
Techdirt:Does A Mobile To VoIP Bridge Break Any Laws?
Sometimes one needs to be older to remember things like calling cards and dial around numbers from MCI and Sprint. I don't see any difference bridging to a VoIP line from a cell phone, to call international today, than it was to dial one of the "alternative" carriers back in the 70's and 80's from a mobile or cell phone (80's) to make a long distance call after dialing into an 800 number.
Like they say, history always repeats, but it would be funny if Sprint decided that the action was illegal after all these years.
CyberTel gears up with the US Troops. This is really nothing more than a play on the calling card/pre-paid idea. With handsets that connect to a PC via USB and SIP this is not that hard to do. What makes this meaningful is the need is there and this saves the soldiers money.
On the flip side, if a soldier is PC enabled and can download Skype, then this is meaningless, because with Skype and a headset the call is free.
While I read this story in today's New York Times, I keep seeing lots of opportunities down the road between Sprint and AT&T.
With Sprint finally having make it work, don't just be best at offering pipe dreams, and AT&T which knows how to develop, deploy and deliver in a way very similar to IBM and Microsoft, I feel that the wireless play plus VoIP means a lot more in bigger ways.
Even though I'm signed up now to VerizonWireless for my cell service after finally feeling that the new offering, though more expensive than T-Mobile would be better, and it is with EVDO, I keep sensing that bundled Mobile, Mobile Data and VoIP play is what is needed in the future and that this combination of Sprint plus AT&T, with the Nextel add on, could be awesome.
Om Malik on Broadband: Peerio's Dmitry Trashes Skype, PBX
Classic Om....on ever insightful Tom Keating, two of my favorite VoIP bloggers.
Globetechnology: Should your PC be your phone?
The Toronto Globe and Mail reruns a comprehensive VoIP roundup story from Thomas Fitzgerald of the New York Times News Service. It's one of the most complete summary of the major players.
Those of you with access to the Wall Street Journal will be interested in the paper's Cranky Consumer who tested, or sought out to test, a range of VoIP services that are available in the Metro New York Area. I like the Cranky one because they reporter does a very good job of showcasing both the pluses and minuses of services reviewed in very specific terms.
While I'm not surprised about the comments made about Cablevision, Vonage or CallVantage, as the type of comments have been well documented here and elsewhere, I was also not surprised about the comments about Lingo from Primus or VoiceWing from Verizon. Both have gotten mixed reviews on the many user boards on the internet.
What I was surprised though was that the Crank didn't include Packet 8 in the test. Packet8 is publicly traded and they ride on Level3, another widely traded company. While I see value in having Cablevision and Time Warner included, the exclusion of Packet8, or their failure to be a party to the test is simply silly.
Broadband soars in 2004 means that VoIP will grow in 2005. All one has to do is look at adoption history of technology. The path is leading to VoIP. How the broadband players manage to acquire customers will be key.
If history here in the USA is any indication the cable companies won the battle vs. the Bells when it came to broadband adoption. So far, based on the Cablevision growth to 250,000 users cable MSO's are getting a major jump on the RBOCs.
Om has more on the subject with links to different sources.
Qwest offers Internet phoning soon. The move shows how the RBOC's are really playing in the space as another of them comes to the game.
Verizon Takes Next Big Step Toward VoIP with the conversion of a Central Office from Class Five Switch architecture to IP.
That makes me wonder if a call terminates in say, Santa Monica, from Mount Vernon Washington, does Verizon have to pay the city the Utility Tax they would like to impose?
To me it sure sounds like VoIP is VoIP regardless of how it ends up.
Irwin Lazar's "Real-Time Communications Blog has some predictions.
I agree with Irwin that consolidation will occur, and that the idea of hosted PBX will grow. Give it a read.
SIPthat.com: Xten SIP Softphone for Linux is a nice step. Now this will work on the Linspire PC's, like the new $499 laptop.
IP Inferno: Vonage's New Retail Deal writes about the potential Vonage has to sell VoIP at retail and some of the issues.
I agree with Dan. A recent visit to some of the stores selling VoIP (Staples, Best Buy, CompUSA) from the various carriers shows a total lack of understanding about the service and each carriers differentiation.
The Linksys display, a co-pack of both AT&T CallVantage and Vonage is a great idea, but the sales associates at Staples don't know A from V.
Until the floor staff can articulate VoIP better than Jeff, Keith (VoiPNuke), Om, Tom or yours truely, the power of mass market retail won't really be capitalized upon. Sadly, this is too easy of a problem to fix.
A UK communications carrier says what we know but makes some interesting predictions of what VoIP will do to the incumbents labeling VoIP telecom's black hole.
Americans are more worried that service quality over government regulation will hold back the adoption of VoIP-based telephony, according to a Spirent Communications report.
Well, I think the quality issues are being reduced and that more people are realizing that unlimited Long Distance and all the bundled features at one price sure beats the RBOCs offerings. At the very least, VoIP is putting pricing pressure on the RBOC's, why else are the Baby Bells looking to get into VoIP so fast now.
A telecom consultant in South Carolina writes a nice story about the FCC and VoIP regulation. The thinking here is rather consistent with what all of us waving the VoIP flag have been saying. Keep the states and local governments away from VoIP for now.
Jonathan Greene who blogs on many things digital has a viewpoint on his blog about Skype complainers.
For the record Jonathan and I had a Skype call last night, first on my laptop with a Labtec mic, then on the Pocket PC using Skype 1.0. The quality on both was fine, with the laptop near perfect. Obviously the lack of a suitable mic on the PPC was the issue there.
Then I ordred a pizza on Skype Out on the PPC and it all went to crap. I hung up and then called the pizza parlor over AT&T's CallVantage and the call, like the pizza was delivered perfectly. Roasted red pepper, mushrooms, cheese melted perfectly. For San Diego, my local ex-NY pizza guys deliver what's expected. Skype Out on the PPC didn't.
I'm starting to work on a story about which carriers connect on net to each other.
If anyone has any info on this, please, pass it on.
Thanks,
Andy
Speakeasy, one of the more highly regarded and established DSL players has rolled out a new package that eliminates the need for a residential phone line from the regional Bell companies here in the USA.
While they may not be the first to do this, they are continuing to be a company to watch. Consistently they offer services that go against the grain of what the DSL or Cable companies currently offer. For example, they encourage open use of hot spots versus having their subscribers lock down access.
While the first offering is limited to 1.5 megabit connections, you can expect them to over time increase the speeds.
Kudos to the folks running Speakeasy who still understand that the Internet is not about control of the user, but the environment to create new and better technologies to benefit the mankind.
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