Category: Telecom Industry
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The New Breed of Tablets from Cisco, Avaya and RIM – will they matter?
Continue Reading: The New Breed of Tablets from Cisco, Avaya and RIM – will they matter?Cisco, Avaya and RIM are all rushing out “tablet” devices now for the enterprise market – but will they actually matter? Will enterprises really want to use these high-end and high-priced tablets versus all the new consumer tablets like the iPad and all the various Android and Windows tables in the queue?
Don’t get me wrong … it think it is awesome that Cisco, Avaya and RIM are all coming out with new tablets. Ever since getting an iPad back in early May it has become a constant companion on my travels around and I use it for so many different purposes.
The touch interface is also so incredibly “natural”… I watch my daughters using the iPad and just have to think: “Why shouldn’t computers just work this way?”
Any user interface improvements that improve the communications user experience are very definitely a GOOD thing!
So I commend Cisco, Avaya and RIM for coming out with tablets.
I just still find myself wondering why I might want to pay to buy one of these tablets. I had this exchange yesterday with analyst Brian Riggs on Twitter:
As I said, I already have a SIP client on my iPad (and there…
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Daddy, what’s a “dialtone”?
Continue Reading: Daddy, what’s a “dialtone”?I had to laugh when I saw this tweet from Dave Troy last week:
With the ubiquity of mobile phones and the change they bring to the dialing paradigm, will the generation growing up now only really know about “dial tone” as a historical artifact mentioned in places like Wikipedia?
For those of us who are older, we grew up with idea that you picked up the phone, listened for the dial tone, and THEN dialed your number. But only AFTER you heard the dial tone indicating that everything was working.
Today of course we pull out our mobile phone, enter a number or choose it from our address book – and then hit the “send” or “call” button (or whatever icon is on your phone, usually a green one). We don’t “listen for a dial tone”… because there isn’t one! Similarly, on the SIP phone on my desk that is connected into our corporate IP-PBX, I enter the phone number I’m calling and press the “Dial” button.
Again, no “dial tone”.
Amazing times we live in…
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Skype, less than a year after eBay sale, files for $100 million IPO
Continue Reading: Skype, less than a year after eBay sale, files for $100 million IPOBack almost a year ago, I wrote about the sale of Skype to private investors – Onward the disruption – Skype’s sale to private investors is a great step – and wondered how this “new chapter” would work out for Skype. Judging by the news today, it seems to be working out quite well!
Through a SEC filing, blog post and news release today, Skype announced that it is filing for an Initial Public Offering that could raise as much as $100 million USD. Skype’s blog post naturally had none of those numbers but others have dived into the details of Skype’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Some of the articles out already:
- The Next Web US: Skype Going Public With $100 Million IPO
- GigaOm: Skype Files for a $100 Million IPO
- Read Write Web: Skype Files for Initial Public Offering
- TechCrunch: Skype Files For $100 Million IPO With Miniscule Profits
- Business Insider: Skype Files For $100 Million IPO
Longtime readers know that I’m a huge user of Skype and have written here quite a bit about Skype. I’ve certainly had my issues with their direction, but I continue to be one of their paying customers and use…
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Cutting the landline cord – and losing family identity….
Continue Reading: Cutting the landline cord – and losing family identity….We are in the midst of a truly fascinating cultural shift right now:We are losing the “family identity” that has been the main characteristic of telephony for the past 100 years.
Think about it… the other day we were at an evening event and met a great couple with whom we would like to stay in touch. We exchanged contact info and they, like so many people these days, have “cut the cord” and do not have a traditional landline but instead have individual mobile phones. The result is this:
I can’t call the “Smiths” and speak to someone.
Instead I can call “John Smith” or “Jane Smith”.
If I have a message I want to get to the family I have no simple way to do that. I can no longer call “the family phone” and leave a message on their answering machine inviting them over to dinner.
Instead I need to call one of the individual phones – and perhaps both to be sure the message gets through, given that cell phones can be lost or need recharging or that sometimes voicemail messages simply don’t get through.
And if a young child wants to call a young…
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NetworkWorld interviews SIP pioneer and now Skyper Jonathan Rosenberg
Continue Reading: NetworkWorld interviews SIP pioneer and now Skyper Jonathan RosenbergThis week Network World ran a great interview with Jonathan Rosenberg about his new role at Skype. Jonathan is now the “Chief Technology Strategist” at Skype, but he’s known in the industry as one of the co-authors of the original RFC 3261 that defines the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and also for his many years working at Cisco. He’s been extremely active within the IETF, writing a seriously large quantity of Internet-Drafts. I think, in fact, I first met JDR at an IETF meeting… and subsequently was on at least one panel with him (I think a VoiceCon or Interop in New York).It’s been interesting to watch Skype accumulate more and more people with strong SIP backgrounds, and hiring Jonathan was definitely an interesting – and good – move on Skype’s part.
I don’t know that the Network World interview broke any amazing new ground for those of us who have been watching Skype closely, but if you haven’t been paying attention to Skype, Jonathan gives a great view into what the company has been doing lately and where it is going. It is definitely worth a read.
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Google buys GIPS for $68 million – to take on Skype? Apple? Microsoft?
Continue Reading: Google buys GIPS for $68 million – to take on Skype? Apple? Microsoft?The big news out this morning was that Google is acquiring Global IP Solutions (GIPS) for $68 million USD. GIPS may not be a familiar name to many folks, but for us in the communications / telephony space, they are widely known as the supplier of audio codecs (and increasingly video) to companies creating real-time communication products, including Yahoo, AOL, IBM and many others. Many of us, though, knew them best as the initial provider of the wideband iSAC codec to Skype.To put this in more normal language, if you know how good a Skype conversation can sound… how rich the audio can be… how it can sound like the person on the other end is right there in the room with you? The quality of that audio connection is because Skype uses a “wideband codec” to send the audio from one end to the other. Up until 2007, GIPS provided the primary wideband codec that Skype used.
At some point in there, Skype realized that, particularly giving away a free product, it needed to control more of its technology stack and stop paying licensing fees to GIPS and so it bought a company, Camino Networks, that had its…
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Voyces.com launches as a “Independent voice on voice communications”
Continue Reading: Voyces.com launches as a “Independent voice on voice communications”Congrats are definitely in order to Alec, Andy, Jamie, Larry, Luca and Thomas on the launch of their new portal called “Voyces“. As Andy Abramson writes in his first post on the site:A few months ago a group of us, all of whom will be blogging here, got together and realized that with the declining media environment, less pages in the trade press and the failure of the remaining outlets to be able to provide enough coverage of what is still a very much growing sector, that there was a need to be filled. That need was the Independent voice on voice communications.
Alec Saunders writes in his first post about the changes in the communication space and says this:
The cost of entry to be in the business of delivering communications products is dramatically lower than it has ever been, and continues to fall. As a result we’ve seen an explosion of creativity in this space – a renaissance of sorts in which companies and individuals alike merrily combine communications, web, mobile and desktop technologies into a heady “witches brew” of innovation.
I’m delighted to see this team of six come together. I’ve known several of them…
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Brief interview in 101st Telecom Junkies podcast episode to update VoIP Fraud/Hacker case
Continue Reading: Brief interview in 101st Telecom Junkies podcast episode to update VoIP Fraud/Hacker caseEarlier this week I had a fun moment joining a cast of characters to help the Telecom Junkies podcast celebrate crossing over 100 episodes. In the 101st episode, now available for listening, host Jessica Gdowski invited 7 of her previous guests back to give brief updates. So I joined Martha Buyer, Mark Fletcher, Hank Levine, John Lyon, Dave Spofford, and Allan Sulkin for the ~20 minute show.In my case, I’ve been a guest on the show three times previously, most notably in August 2007 with “Interview with a VoIP Hacker” where we interviewed Robert Moore shortly before he was heading to prison.
Moore was part of the VoIP fraud case masterminded by Edwin Pena and discussed on another Telecom Junkies episode back in July 2006. I was also on another Junkies episode in November 2007 about VLAN Hopping.
In this 101st episode recorded this week I gave a brief update on the Pena/Moore case (Pena recently pled guilty) and then talked about VoIP and Unified Communication security issues. It was literally just a few minutes, but I was glad to join briefly and help Telecom Junkies celebrate. 100 podcast episodes is indeed a milestone to celebrate! Congrats!…
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Frontier continuing to move ahead with purchasing Verizon landline biz…
Continue Reading: Frontier continuing to move ahead with purchasing Verizon landline biz…Given that I’m a Fairpoint customer, and wrote previously about Fairpoint’s bankruptcy, I continue to watch with a bit of fascination the ongoing effort by Frontier to purchase Verizon’s landline business in a range of other states. Recently, three more states approved Frontier’s acquisition of Verizon’s business. And Frontier continues to make assurances that it will somehow not wind up in the same situation as Fairpoint…I still find the whole process bizarre. I do understand the fundamental motivation… here in the USA, there are only three wires going into (almost) every home:
- electrical power line
- phone line
- cable television line
If you want to get your service into a home in the USA over a wire, you have to ride over one of those three wires. That’s it.
So I can see the logic someone out there is thinking… he/she who controls a wire has a platform to launch services.
There are, though, two major problems I see:
1. WIRELESS, a.k.a. WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING WIRES – While there may be only three wires going into the home, there are a lot of wireless signals going into the home. While it may not have the performance of wired…
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Google enters the hosted voicemail game – Google Voice now lets you keep your existing phone number
Continue Reading: Google enters the hosted voicemail game – Google Voice now lets you keep your existing phone numberYesterday Google made another fascinating move in the telephony space… letting people use Google Voice with their existing phone number. This is key because previously if you wanted to try out Google Voice you had to get a new phone number that was different from any of your existing numbers.
Now a business or individual can move their existing number over to Google Voice… and Google can try to convert users over to their service from other services.
[UPDATE: Note that Google states that you can use Google Voice “with your existing mobile phone number“, i.e. not a landline phone number. Others have pointed out that essentially all you are doing is forwarding your unanswered calls to Google’s voicemail service instead of your mobile carrier’s voicemail service. In this way, Google Voice is basically just like Jott or any of the many other similar services out there. Except, of course, it is from Google.]
When you use an existing number, Google Voice gives you these services:
- Online, searchable voicemail
- Free automated voicemail transcription
- Custom voicemail greetings for different callers
- Email and SMS notifications
- Low-priced international calling
With a new phone number under Google’s control, you get additional services like conferencing,…