VoIPWatch

Interconnects for FWD

Jeff Pulver reports in his blog that interconnects between users of Free World Dial Up and both Vonage and Packet 8 are just about to happen.

This means with the tap of a few buttons on a PC or PDA users of the free service, who want to reach their friends using the pay VoIP service will be able to call them. I wonder, if users of the Vonage softphone will be able to make calls outbound though using their number and a password, like users of iConnectHere can do over FWD?

If that begins to happen, then FWD becomes a super gateway to the next gen carriers, allowing callers to place calls, using the best rates and grades of service....hmmm...there is obviously more to FWD than we have learned.

The VoIP PR Machine

Well, the local efforts are really beginning. Each week brings more news about CONSUMERS fighting and switching to VoIP. This time, it's the the Fort Worth Telegram telling the story, and given a nice plug to 8X8 Packet 8 service.

For Vonage, Packet8 and any other player in the game now, its a war of time. As the cable MSO's (multiple system operators) beging to roll out the VoIP, the marketing expenses for the independents becomes higher. For the cable operators they already own the customer, have commercial time and bills that already reach the consumer to stuff.

If I was one of the direct VoIP marketers, I'd be looking into the infomercial route, right now, and selling into the markets where the cable companies have yet to announce or deploy. Target marketing is the key.

Wharton Watches VoIP

The University of Pennasylvania's Wharton School's [email protected] has an interesting article about VoIP that was picked up by CNET's News.com.

While it rehashes a lot of what's already out on the web about the subject it does peg VoIP adoption largely to broadband. While this is one way to look at it, what most people are missing is the fact that the Telcos can begin deployting VoIP in the network, are deploying it in some cases or have been using it for more than a few years.

What we're really looking at, which in so many words the story indicates is more than the use of VoIP, but true IP end to end telephony. Call it broadband telephony, my new contribution to the lexicon.

Stay connected,

Andy Abramson

Video and VoIP

Video is the next frontier with Voice over IP. When you think about it, we've been in an audio based communications medium for over 100 years. Now that people have broadband and with SIP, the ability to layer in real time voice and video, with presence based messaging (IM/Location based) can't be that far behind.

One Southern California college is working with the idea, as a way of extending the classroom.

When you think about it, with all the hoopla around mobile phones with digital cameras, it's not that big of a stretch to live video chat. Think Nextel with pictures.

Will the Adult (i.e. Porn) industry be first to lead this sector, or will it be the youth market in Europe or the far east?

Stay connected,

Andy Abramson

Survey Says......

A survey announced today from Park and Associates shows that fifty percent of the broadband connected households in the USA are interested in VoIP.

Now, that doesn't mean they will all switch. Some may opt to add the service a way to cut cost. Others may replace the fax line as a test to see how wel it works. But when half of the more Internet savvy customers say "YES" then it means the traditional long distance companies need to figure out what to do.

This is great news for the 8X8, Vonage, Level3, FWD, XTEN's of the world, as it will be more than the carriers which win.

Comgates Acquired and Looks To The East

A company I previously served as an advisor on marketing and public relations, which got caught up in the telecom bubble, the dot.com meltdown, VC squeeze plays and being based in Israel at a time of high tensions sold off their technology today.

COMGATES, which had developed one of the best softswitch technologies around was bought by Telco Systems/BATM Advanced Communications, and in addition to the core technology they also got a huge bonus in Jacob Tirosh who led the development of the COMGATES platform which supports "multi-protocols on the fly" allowing calls to go over the best quality and least costly networks.

More than a business executive, Tirosh, who was a former ARBINET executive before founding COMGATES, is regarded by some as one of the brightest minds in the space of algorithms and protocols.

Much of what I learned and now know about this sector came from hours of conversations with Jacob. Here's wishing him well on his new venture. Besides, who wouldn't want to have to spend time in Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing and Seoul the next few years.

If any part of the world will drive expansion and adoption of VoIP, its the Far East. Two reasons come to mind. One is the connected nature of some of the countries with fiber, not copper. South Korea and Singapore come to mind here. The second, and more enticing reason, is the country of China. If you look at how fast the world's most populated nation is adopting technology, it will be no surprise to see them go deeper, and past h.323 into SIP.

The COMGATES acquisition also likely includes the intellectual property for the protocol mediator, which like others out there, allows the interworking function to occur seamlessly.

Stay connected,

Andy Abramson

Making VoIP Easier

Manufacturers of routers and gateways like D-Link have for over two years ago talked about integrating VoIP capability with their Ethernet routers, with the goal of keeping people more connected and providing one less interface in the chain.

Last week at CES I saw the Motorola box that Vonage is now peddling, replacing the Cisco ATA-186. Now Zoom has brought forward a device to do the same thing designed primarily to work with DSL lines.

The reasoning is quite simple. More carriers will be out there who want to go after the early adopters. While the big USA telcos go after the customers they already have and work to get them to switch, the new upstarts will go after the bigger, more lucrative offshore market. For companies like D-Link, Zoom and Motorola the deep well is not here in the USA, it's outside the country. Like the days of the gold rush and oil boom, sometimes there's money to be made selling picks and shovels, or in this case routers and cables.

Stay connected,

Andy Abramson

h.323 Buggy

h.323, which I picked on recently, saying that it's not what SIP is has been found buggy again. Face it, h.323 is an old technology which has been eclipsed by a much more robust and capable protocol, SIP (session initiation protocol).

Many of the older VoIP companies out there are still using h.323. Some are using protocol mediators to support the IETF's Interworking Function allowing the translation from h.323 to SIP, but it seems the older flavor of IP Telephony has some bugs which can allow a network to be compromised.

Don't you think it's time for the network operators to switch? What I find interesting is the timing and how close it came to Level3's flurry of announcements. No company is posied better to gain from the switch from h.323 to SIP nor in a better position to stir up the pot by depositioning older technology when their sales force is about to go great guns to get new business.

3 Goes Global

I'm always keen to what Level3 is up to. Now they are terminating VoIP calls internationally. At the same time, once left for dead Global Crossing have announced a deal to make PSTN to IP telephony calls work more easily within their network.

Both of these carriers have lots of bandwidth, numerous POPs and customers. It will be interesting to see if a reconstituted carrier like Global Crossing, which is using a buy versus build strategy when it comes to technology can compete again with Level3 as they did during the dot.com heydeys.

Why The Slowdown

I'm fighting a cold, and to be candid, most of the stories I'm seeing about VoIP the past few days have been lame rewrites of what we already know.

The most exciting news is coming from Jeff Pulver, who on his blog, is getting ready to push his own legislation proposal to the FCC. If anyone has the right insite about VoIP it's Pulver.

I'm also getting a tad tired of seeing h.323 companies pushing their products as Next Generation. SIP is next gen far and away. h.323 is last century technology and deployment.

More when I feel better.

Andy