Startup round-up

Written by Om Malik and Niall Kennedy on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on session.

Fee-happy broadband cable shows its true “net neutrality” colors

 As the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee held hearings about net neutrality yesterday, it's worthy to note that cable broadband service providers have been strangely noncommittal about their feelings on the issue.Net neutrality is the principle that high-speed Internet service providers should not charge- and not be allowed to charge - fees to high-bandwidth services to [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on News and General and Regulatory and Providers and trends and BellSouth and Comcast and SBC-AT&T.

VoIP Carrier Market to Reach $4.7 Billion by 2010

The market will grow from $1.6 billion to $4.7 billion with IP Multimedia Subsystem technology.

Written by VoIP Magazine Featured Stories on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.

My People Brings Voice Response to VoIP Service

Users can speak to dial, receive wake-up calls, and hear the weather forecast.

Written by VoIP Magazine Featured Stories on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.

Iotum Takes On Conferencing

A

Written by Om Malik on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on VoIP (the New Phone) and Start-Ups.

Prediction- Google-powered Star Office suite for Dell

 CNBC reports that Google is in negotiation with Dell on a $1 billion deal that would let Google install some of its software on all new Dell computers.Fellow blogger Rich Tehrani writes that for that amount of money, we should expect something "radically" new. He surmises this could be a Google-branded browser, or even a [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on General and Software and trends and Google and Images.

WiFi Tax, Maybe Not

Harold Feld says STOP THE WIFI TAX RUMOR.

This is, bluntly, a misreading of the plain language of the President’s budget proposal. Lord knows there’s plenty there not too like, but there’s no “wifi tax.” My analysis (and a little historic context) below. O.K., here is what the President’s 2007 budget actually says about spectrum user fees. I have put the critical words (skipped by the industry press) in bold. “Ensuring Public Resources Are Used Effectively”

Written by Om Malik on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Unwired.

DEMO’06 Report, Day One

Business2blog: Michael Copeland reports on Moobella, an open source icecream start-up, Blurb and a bunch of others. I am glad to be away from all that buzz, and reporting other stuff. “Coolest concept of the morning came from the Multiverse Network, which has developed  a platform to easily and (more) cheaply build massively multiplayer online games,” writes Copeland.

Written by Om Malik on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Start-Ups.

Are you a pro- “Open Internet?” Libertarian or Republican? Better read this

 I try not to get overly political on these pages, but I feel the need to make an exception here.Reading my colleague Anne Broache's excellent coverage of Tuesday's net neutrality hearings before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, it is plain to see that those Committee Members who would prohibit broadband Internet service providers from imposing [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Vonage and General and Regulatory and Providers and trends and Google.

Murdoch To Icahn: Buy a Clue

Carl Icahn wants to break-up Time Warner. His banking cronies are egging him on. It is a dumb idea. I have said it before, and will say it again. Maybe Wall Street should pay attention to Rupert Murdoch and ignore Carl ‘Clueless’ Icahn.

Look at Time Warner. They are very well run. If you split them apart, there’s no more than $1 or $2 in it for shareholders. And that’s without thinking about [capital gains] taxation. I don’t know what Icahn thinks he’s doing. Icahn has gone out on a limb. Even if he succeeds in getting it broken up—and that would be very sad—I don’t think he’d make money out of it.

Murdoch’s New Groove - MSNBC.com

Written by Om Malik on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Random Access.

Is AT&T-SBC tiff with SF newspaper really about fear of Google?

 Even though I think Internet entrepreneur and savant John Battelle has way, way overhyped a Web 2.0 that doesn't exist as an embodied, sensient force, I have a tendency to regard his observations and reportage with the utmost credibility.That's why my head turned when I read John's latest Searchblog piece entitled "AT&T/SBC Plays Hardball." John comments [...]

Written by Russell Shaw on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on News and General and Google and SBC-AT&T.

Vonage opens SIP credentials?

A source informed VoIP & Gadgets Blog that Vonage plans to open up their SIP credentials to enable users to configure their own SIP softphones and SIP hardphones to work with the Vonage service at no additional charge. Today Vonage still has kept the SIP credentials "closed" preventing users from using their own SIP devices with the Vonage service. One of the main reasons why Vonage has kept the SIP credentials "closed" is that they charge $9.99/month for their SIP softphone client, which then gives you access to your "personal SIP credentials". It comes with 500 minutes along with a different SIP URI and PSTN number than your main Vonage phone number. The obvious question is why would Vonage do an about face, open up the SIP credentials and start giving away SIP credentials access for "free" when they curerntly charge for them?

According to the source, he stated that Vonage doesn't make that much revenue on softphone subscribers. But he stated the main reason for the about face is that Vonage is starting to feel strong competition from the MSOs/cable companies, Packet8, SunRocket, and the other VoIP broadband players. He also pointed out that several Vonage competitors already offer SIP credentials, including Broadvoice, SIPgate, and others.

People are looking to leverage the IP phones they already have with their VoIP service provider. Why wouldn't Vonage want to leverage the millions of Cisco IP phones and other SIP-based hardware phones out there? Additionally, Asterisk is a very popular open-source IP-based phone system that many Asterisk users have configured with SIP trunks for outbound termination. Vonage is shooting themselves in the foot by forcing the Asterisk community to use Vonage's competitors for PSTN termination.

It's worth mentioning that another reason why Vonage hasn't opened up their SIP credentials is "fraud". That is, how does Vonage prevent its users from openly sharing their SIP credentials with others? There are ways of ensuring that users don't abuse an open SIP credential system. You could monitor usage patterns and look for abuse or you can do something similar to what BroadVoice does - they charge the user 3.9 cents per minute if more than one simultaneous outbound call is active using the same set of SIP credentials.

The source summed up his thoughts when he stated, "If Vonage wants to continue to build their customer numbers and retain the ones they have, then they need to continue to innovate. Offering SIP credentials to users is a perfect way to ensure the loyalty of 'techies' and 'teenagers' that also often recommend a VoIP service provider to their parents and friends."

As for a time-frame when Vonage would open their SIP credentials he claimed it would happen at the end of 1Q.

TrackBack (0) | Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us

Tags: Vonage, SIP credentials, Asterisk, Packet8, Broadvoice
Related Tags: Vonage, vonage, credentials, users, charge, source

Written by tkeating@tmcnet.com on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Vonage.

Startup Eqo Brings Skype to Mobile Phones

New service lets cellular-to-cellular or cellular-to PSTN calls travel over the Internet.

Written by VoIP Magazine Featured Stories on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.

eMusic Makes It Free (For 30 Days)

Everybody loves free music downloads (remember Napster?) and now eMusic is offering a 30-day free trial with up to 100 downloads from its 1 million song catalog.

I checked out the jazz section; good to see Rahsaan Roland Kirk represented, but no such luck with Weather Report and (Mahavishnu) John McLaughlin -- acoustic or electric. (Does anybody remember?

Still, solid selection of djembe music for the inner drummer in all of us ...

TrackBack (0) | Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us

Tags: Napster, eMusic, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Weather Report, Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, djembe drum, music downloads
Related Tags: window, symrealonload, symrealonunload, SymRealOnUnload, SymRealOnLoad

Written by tkeating@tmcnet.com on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on MP3 Players & Digital Audio.

USF tax and long-distance

A controversial proposal by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin Martin plans to hike the Universal Service Fund (USF) charges for phone users who make few or no long-distance calls. But what is long-distance any more? If you're a broadband VoIP user using Vonage, Packet8, etc. technically nothing is long-distance in the traditional sense of the word. Actually, a VoIP call from a Vonage user in Los Angeles to another user in Los Angeles travels a "long distance" since the IP packets have to travel from Los Angeles to Vonage HQ in New Jersey where an outbound call is made back to L.A. Even if Vonage has "local" gateways in California of their own or through an ITSP (such as Level3), the IP packets can still be routed across routers located in different states before finally terminating on the PSTN -- technically making it an intrastate long-distance IP call.

Of course, this new USF proposal is targetted at traditional landline users and not VoIP, but I'm sure some new USF tax on VoIP proposal won't be far behind.

TrackBack (0) | Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us

Tags: FCC, USF, tax
Related Tags: distance, Vonage, vonage, Angeles, proposal, angeles

Written by tkeating@tmcnet.com on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on VoIP.

What you always wanted to know about VoIP

Written by VoIP and ENUM on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.

Swiss Army Meets the MP3 Generation: Make Sense?

Funny story on yesterday's Tech Confidential about how Swiss Army knifes are kluging on MP3 players to create strange tried-and-try analog/quick obsolescence digital combinations. Does anybody buy these things? Would you?

TrackBack (0) | Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us

Tags: Swiss Army knife, MP3 player
Related Tags:

Written by tkeating@tmcnet.com on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on MP3 Players & Digital Audio.

Acme Packet deploys Applied Micro Circuits network processor

Applied Micro Circuits popular network processor which includes a traffic manager, network processor and data manager is being used by Acme Packet. Session border controllers play a vital role in the VoIP market by satisfying critical security, law enforcement requirements and service assurance at service provider network borders. Applied’s nP7250 network processors, nPX5720/25 and nPX5710 traffic managers are being used in Acme Packet’s Net- Net SD and Net-Net SR devices. Acme Packet has incorporated Applied Micro Circuits network processor platforms in all deployments of Net-Net family of session border control solutions.

via [VoIPCentral]

Written by gautam.chabbra on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Business.

Calypso launches the C1250i Wi-Fi GSM VoIP mobile phone

Calypso Wireless would be demonstrating the C1250i Wi-Fi GSM VoIP mobile phone at the 3GSM World Congress trade show 2006 to be held in Barcelona, Spain from February 13th to 16th. This phone runs on the state of the art Intel PXA processors and Microsoft Windows CE 5.0. It is the first product which is capable of seamlessly connecting to both GSM and Wi-Fi networks. It enables users to connect to internet 200 times faster as compared to any other wireless service available in United States. This phone has amazing video capabilities and it enables real time phone to phone video conferencing. According to the company it is the future technology which has been launched now.

via  [MobileWhack]

Written by gautam.chabbra on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Phones.

Indian telecom companies focusing on IPTV

IPTV is going to emerge as a major additional revenue stream for Indian telecom companies. Many companies have already started working towards this area. BSNL, Bharti Tele-Ventures, HFCL Infotel, MTNL and Reliance Infocomm are some of the major companies of India which are already in an advanced stage of adopting IPTV. Bharti is set to deploy IPTV in the next six months.  Reliance Infocomm has been already conducting IPTV trials in Delhi, Mumbai and Jamnagar for the past one year. BSNL and MTNL could emerge as the first companies to roll out IPTV. It is expected that by 2010 the total number of subscribers for IPTV would cross 120 million worldwide. Asia Pacific would have a market share of 47 % and India would emerge as a major market.

via  [ContentSutra]

Written by gautam.chabbra on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Business.

Meru’s Radio Switch receives Internet Telephony’s 2005 Product of the Year Award

Meru Networks Meru’s Radio Switch has been chosen by Internet Telephony magazine as the recipient of 2005 Product of the Year Award. The radio system can deliver up to 648 Mbps of WLAN bandwidth which utilizes 802.11 standard radios and scales up to 1.2 Gbps of bandwidth across its coverage zone. The radio switch can achieve this performance by layering up to twelve channels in a single coverage area. Meru’s radio switch family includes the four radio RS 4000, eight radio RS 8000, twelve radio RS 12000 and a built in omni directional antenna which is awaiting a patent.

via  [PRNewsWire]

Written by gautam.chabbra on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Solutions.

Tagged, Sealed & Delivered

Tagworld, a MySpace competitor has raised undisclosed millions from Draper Fisher & Jurvertson. One question: why the mystery and why the press release if you don’t want to disclose the funding. (Okay that’s two questions!) Oh wait, it is to let the world know that Tim “King of Free” Draper is joining the board of directors.

Don’t count on a Skype-like exit, as yet guys! Given all the problems facing MySpace, I wonder if anyone will exercise caution when it comes to social networking investments. Another company, Tagged recently raised $7 million from Mayfield. Other notables on Tagged board of directors, Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel.

Written by Om Malik on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Venture News.

SBC Flexes Its Chronicle

David Lazarus, a columnist for San Francisco Chronicle might have messed with the Texas one too many times. Tweaked by his writings, SBC has decided to pull all the advertising from San Francisco Chronicle (about $5 million.) How quaintly old fashioned! John Battelle reports on the ongoing saga and warns Google, “Because this is your new competitor, Google. Get to know them. As you offer free WiFi to all of San Francisco … and undermine AT&T/SBC’s broadband business …hard ball players like SBC are going to go after you, and rest assured, their motto ain’t “don’t be evil.” “

Written by Om Malik on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Web 2.0.

Net Neutrality Not An Optional Feature of Internet

The Senate Commerce Committee is currently holding hearings on Net Neutrality. Webcast . The Bells are not be directly represented, cable companies views will be shared by Kyle McSlarrow, NCTA President and CEO. Walter McCormick, President and CEO USTA and Earl Comstock, President and CEO, CompTel. will also say their piece. Silicon Valley will be represented by Vinton Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google and Jeffrey Citron, Chairman and CEO of Vonage. This op-ed, hopefully will make everyone care about “network neutrality,” especially in Silicon Valley.

By Daniel Berninger

The desire of AT&T, Verizon, et al to end network neutrality and assert fees for access to connected customers represents a death wish. Imagine the prospects of an info tech industry without “software neutrality” where Intel charged a fee to enhance software performance. Pay Intel and your applications run faster. The incentives driving Moore’s Law disappear in this pay-to-play model. Intel’s profit maximizing incentives become serving the interests of software companies willing to spend the most on “enhancing software performance” not the end users of computers. The meritocracy driving competition between software companies disappears as Intel picks winners and losers based on willingness to pay. Innovation becomes permission based at Intel’s discretion. The Internet does not exist without net neutrality. Consider the misleading assertion that tinkering with network neutrality simply amounts to adding class of service as in the case of air travel or HOV lanes on highways. Network neutrality refers to the uses of the Internet not the quality of access. There already exists an infinite range of classes of service as regards Internet access. End users pay for what they get regarding the performance and capacity of Internet access. Internet content and service providers like Google, Amazon, and Vonage already pay for access to the Internet.

The telco and cable companies have in mind creating another type of customer not a class of service. They want suppliers to pay for the right of transit. It amounts to airlines charging Time Warner for the right of readers to take Time magazine on an airplane. It means charging Ford tolls in addition to drivers for the right of Ford cars to use highways.

The pursuit of tolls based on content and application type requires something that does not exist in the Internet today. It requires a linkage between content type and transport. Equipment providers like Cisco increasingly deliver products offering packet by packet inspection in the name of network management, but implementing the access fees means giving billing systems the ability to monitor and track the types of applications and content customers use. Setting aside the chilling privacy concerns, the telephone network’s linkage of usage to transport represents the primary obstacle to service creation I observed during five years at Bell Labs in the 1990’s. Forcing innovators to change the network in order to implement an application means an end to innovation. The end of innovation means the end of growth in demand for Internet access.

An end to innovation probably represents the main motivation behind opposition to network neutrality rather than merely the desire for a second revenue stream from Internet access. The dominant providers of Internet access have powerful incentitives to protect their existing voice and video revenue streams from Internet enabled innovations. The ability to add tolls by Internet application end the prospect of Vonage and VoIP as a threat to Plain Old Telephone Service. It ends the prospect of new Internet enabled video distribution models that might compete with CATV. Network neutrality allows end users to choose winners and losers in an application meritocracy that threatens service providers long dependent on barriers to entry. The idea that Yahoo could pay Verizon to improve performance over Google means Verizon not the end user decides which search engine wins.

Beware of the monopolist that wants the “market” to decide. If there actually existed a healthy market for Internet access, users would certainly switch away from service providers tinkering with performance based on kickbacks from content companies. The toll collecting ambitions of the telco’s and cable co’s hinge on the absence of market forces. The fights against municipal wireless initiatives and lobbying budgets that exceed R&D budgets arise to defeat any leakage of market power. Network neutrality forces a virtuous cycle where winning requires making offers faster and cheaper. This dynamic accounts for growth in the info tech industry as platform improvements expand the range of possible applications.

Eliminating network neutrality means giving one participant in the value chain a tool to extract a greater share of revenues without delivering greater value. The best effort Internet holds far more promise than the metering of scarcity associated with QoS because “best effort” continues to improve. The improvement in modems set the pace for expansion of the dialup Internet during the 1990’s. Lowest common denominator broadband access continues to govern Internet health as access capacity and performance determines addressable applications. Continuous improvements in cost performance represents the key to growth just like every other area of info tech.

The network management quality of service argument for ending network neutrality misses the fact QoS does not work outside a private network environment where a single entity controls usage end to end. The implementation of QoS remains limited to private networks, because it makes the negotiation of interconnection compensation intractable.

The large info tech companies like Cisco, Microsoft, and Yahoo view themselves as arms dealers content to accept business from both sides of the net neutrality debate. Intel has proven a more consistent friend of the Internet as with its Digital Communities effort supporting municipal broadband initiatives. Intel may recognize the connection between meager US broadband offers and the decline of the proportion of Intel revenue attributable to the US from 41% to 18% over the last 5 years.

The future growth prospects of the trillion dollar info tech industry depend as much on network neutrality as on Moore’s Law, so the arms dealer point of view represents a very short sighted one. The Bell company and cable MSO efforts to protect existing revenue streams means preserving the 20th century telco business model of controlling scarcity. The growth of the info tech industry comes from delivering surplus value as the means to generate demand. The info tech industry needs the find a way to protect network neutrality, because the Internet will cease to exist without it.

Daniel Berninger is a senior analyst at at Tier1 Research.

Written by Om Malik on February 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Wired and Guest Columns.