July 24th, 2006
You are currently browsing the articles from the VoIP Digest written on July 24th, 2006.
Recently, I wrote an article titled
"The Perfect VoiP Softphone and IM client", where I listed my top requirements for the perfect softphone. Indeed, my perfect softphone client was much more than your typical softphone so I offered an alternative name - "unified communications client". For instance, one really cool feature in my "wishlist" is "
Streaming of my personal video and audio files to my buddies. Think Slingbox or Orb Networks."
Basically, my proposed feature would allow you to remotely access your home entertainment system and view live TV, change channels, or even view pre-recorded content. Heck, most softphones already do audio via VoIP and video for videoconferencing calls, so it's not much of a technical hurdle to add video streaming support from a TV tuner card or other video source. Place-shifting TV content is a fast growing phenomenon among not just techies and gadget freaks but the Average Joe with a TiVo box in their home. If this can be extended to software, in particular VoIP software, the potential to build "buzz", ramp up very quickly, and to compete with the likes of
Skype is there. The problem today is that all VoIP clients are a dime-a-dozen; they're all the same, with the same features, i.e. SIP standard, video, IM built-in, free calling promotions, blah blah blah. See
The VoIP Clone Wars Have Begun... for more proof. Something uinique such as remote TV access -- access to your remote PC's multimedia content could be a key differentiator to go up against the likes of Skype.
Home entertainment and mobile entertainment are two very fast growing industries. Just look at the video iPod, Sony PSP gaming system, and many home theater setups with 5.1 surround sound and expensive plasma displays. With customers spending fortunes on their multimedia content and hardware, customers are clamoring for easy access to their personal multimedia content - it's one reason why the iPod is so successful. Now just image if you could have a single software client that does it all - IM, VoIP, unified address book (IM & VoIP), videoconferencing, access to your multimedia collection, including MP3s, pictures. AVIs, DiVX, Quicktime, etc. Why run 5 clients with 5 separate buddy lists, each with its own advantages/disadvantages when you can simply run one application that does it all?
Well, there isn't a software client today that "does it all", but SightSpeed comes
damn close.
Continue reading SightSpeed 5.0 VoIP and remote TV (Slingbox) functionality impresses...
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype and VoIP and video and im and conferencing and tv and Place Shifting and slingbox and sightspeed and tivo.
Every other person you know is talking of the bad quality of his/her VoIP call and now we have a study proving this. Go to Brix Network's Test your VoIP site and check your call to know the quality.
Prioritizing network traffic for VoIP is being raised: The Brix Networks study revealed out 1 million VoIP connections tested through its Web site about 20% of all calls had unacceptable quality. This is up from about 15% of calls made about a year ago, Cnet News reports.
Even as broadband speeds increased, a lot of the same network is used for all Internet activity. Kaynam Hedayat, chief technology officer for Brix, said "the decline in voice quality is happening because voice services are increasingly competing for resources on the same IP network as other services such as video, music downloads and interactive gaming."
Not all want networks to be prioritized: Internet giants like Google, Yahoo!, Earthlink and Vonage are opposed to this because they fear that the network providers will monopolize by charging high fees and take out competing traffic. Phone companies or cable operators own the networks.
Prioritizing is already happening in large enterprises finding video surveillance difficult because of the video's high band width. Enter IP network switches: SteelBox has developed a video surveillance device, an IP network switch that's capable of prioritizing and storing large amounts of video data without sucking up enterprise network and storage resources, reports Byteandswitch.com.
While prioritizing worries the Internet providers it also brings up the net neutrality question - the idea that network operators must generally give equal treatment to all content that travels over their networks.
However, by an 11-11 tie, the Senate Commerce Committee failed to approve a Democrat-backed amendment that would have ensured all Internet traffic is treated the same no matter what its "source" or "destination" might be. A majority was needed for the amendment to succeed.
So, looks like prioritizing will happen and what the costs are going to be for consumers remains to be seen. But, VoIP could get better, quality wise and who knows we may get good video through the networks now.
Written by shiama on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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Take it easy, it's only availabe in Japan!
Nintendo has started selling its Nintendo DS Browser in Japan via several dedicated Japanese online sales sites.
Opera Software's full-featured browser enables Japanese gamers to surf all their favorite Web sites on the Nintendo DS or DS Lite.
The browser is sold as a separate DS card, just like Nintendo DS games, and will come with an extra memory expansion cartridge so that users can access full Internet content by utilizing Wi-Fi environments at home, Nintendo’s dedicated Wi-Fi Stations and free accessing spots.
The Nintendo DS Browser is available in Japan at a retail price of 3,800 yen (tax included) and can be purchased online at Nintendo-authorized sales sites. (That's a little less than $33.)
The Nintendo DS browser represents Opera Software's first product deployment with Nintendo. Nintendo has also selected Opera to be the browser for its new game console, Wii, expected on the market during the fourth quarter of 2006.
www.opera.com
www.nintendo.com
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Much excitement today about Microsoft's announcement that it is planning on developing an iPod competitor to take on Apple directly.
What's funny is that Microsoft goes one way, Apple goes another (so what else is new?).
Seems Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer has strongly hinted that Apple plans to offer a mobile phone. (Slimmer than Moto?)
"We don't think that the phones that are available today make the best music players -- we think the iPod is," he said. "But over time that is likely to change, and we're not sitting around doing nothing."
This from The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Bloomberg.
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Skype Journal on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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The New York Times’ story on Yahoo v Google, says that only 44,000 Google Talk users. That can’t be true, and just doesn’t make sense.
comScore data shows a total of 976,000 unique users in June. comScore quantifies this number with “total activity” metric, which perhaps should be the only number that should matter. I have asked for clarifications from comScore. They have promised to get back shortly with more details. Worldwide, comScore data shows a total of 7,126,000 Google Talk users, and around 3 million people actually using the service daily.
Written by Om Malik on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Google and yahoo.
Last week we learned how to connect an Asterisk server to legacy phones and phone service. Today we're going to set up a connection to the outside world and set up internal extensions, so we can actually place and receive calls through Asterisk.
Starting the TDM04B at boot We need to finish configuring the TDM04B. Last week we left off with manually loading the drivers for the TDM04B, just to make sure they would. If there are errors in /etc/zaptel.conf the drivers won't load. Getting the drivers to load at boot is easy.
Click Here to Continue Reading
Written by Dal on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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Cistera Networks, Inc., the leading provider of advanced IP phone platforms and application engines in the Enterprise VoIP Telephony environment, announced today that FASTSIGNS International selected Cistera's ConvergenceServer and licensed IPT application engines to enhance the Cisco IP Communications installation at its Carollton, TX headquarters.
Founded in 1985, FASTSIGNS is acknowledged as the signage industry's leading franchise operation with almost 500 locations in the United States and Canada, plus locations in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil and Australia (under the SIGNWAVE® name). Key to the company's success is its commitment to providing leading edge training and technical support for its franchisees. The headquarters IPT deployment included licensing of Cistera's RapidBroadcast™ and QuickRecord™ application engines which are included in the suite of pre-installed application engines available on the Cistera ConvergenceServer.
This solution has enhanced responsiveness as it allows entire calls to be recorded at any time until they are terminated, and then the files can be emailed to the appropriate person for action. So, FASTSIGNS personnel can respond quicker and with greater accuracy to franchisees. It also helps to support strong franchisee collaboration with quick dispute resolution.
James Burton, Systems Administrator at FASTSIGNS, commented, "Working with Cistera Networks has been an exceptional experience. Not only has the Cistera ConvergenceServer performed flawlessly in our current Cisco VoIP implementation, the level of customer service and technical support has been superior. As a systems administrator, I appreciate the product's ability to integrate seamlessly with Microsoft® Active Directory and Cisco® IP Phones, as well as the single unified GUI (Graphical User Interface) that allows me to manage everything centrally."
"Companies like FASTSIGNS are benefiting enormously from the unified administration architecture and the integrated LDAP management toolset native to the Cistera Enterprise Convergence Platform for IPT. The work we've done to build out the robust platform enables comprehensive feature-sets to be deployed faster and more reliably; as well as to be simply administered and maintained," said Greg Royal, Cistera's CTO.
The Cistera ConvergenceServer (CCS), with its robust suite of application engines offers customers advanced IPT applications that are easy to integrate, install and manage. The CCS adds critical competency and features such as text and audio broadcasting, messaging, recording, content streaming and two-way radio integration.
Written by Dal on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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Installing a wireless internet network may put a ski resort on the map, but Vail town council members want to make sure the unsightly "nodes" don't interfere with the improvements to Vail Village.
Communications provider CenturyTel plans to install 84 nodes - cylindrical metal objects nearly 3-feet tall and 1-foot in diameter - to operate a townwide public-access wireless internet network in Vail.
In the proposal, CenturyTel had planned to put 18 of those nodes on Vail Villages's lampposts, which are worth more than $2,000 a piece. But at last Tuesday's town council meeting, council members told the company to find an alternative, and even suggested camouflaging the nodes as fire hydrants or hiding them behind foliage.
"If it has to stay on a lampost, I foresee a problem," said councilman Farrow Hitt.
Bob Stone, from CenturyTel, said the nodes will instead be placed on other city-owned property, such as bridges, restrooms, and parking structures.
Before the contract between CenturyTel and the town gets signed, the revised map of the nodes' placement will go before Vail's Design and Review Board on Aug. 1 for approval.
If the contract does get signed, which both parties say they expect, guests and Vail residents will have access to wireless internet for an hour at a time at 300 kilobits per second by November, in time for the start of the ski season.
"You can sign up for one-hour increments, and at the end of the hour, you have to register for more time," Stone said. "Hypothetically, you could register 24 times a day."
There are no restrictions on the number of people on the network at a given time, said Ron Braden, the information technology manager for Vail.
"We've got plenty of bandwidth, so we don't anticipate that being a problem," he said.
There will also be a private network for city employees and another network on a separate frequency for emergency services, both at 200 megabits per second.
"It gives us another communication method for (police) in-car video for pushing video back to the dispatch center," Braden said.
The current technology Vail public safety officers use through Sprint is only 700 kilobits, Braden said.
CenturyTel is considering expanding the emergency services network to the I-70 corridor.
"It's something that we're planning on adding that we've figured into our plan, but it's not in our contract," Stone said.
Evolving technology
Stone said business will be able to subscribe to a speed between 10 and 100 megabits, and individuals can subscribe to a speed of one to three megabits and faster, if they'd like. Pricing has not been determined, but Stone said the company would be "very competitive in the marketplace."
Braden said his department has wanted to build this network for a couple years now but was waiting for technology to evolve.
The problem was Vail did not want to invest three-fourths of a million dollars it would cost to build and maintain it, he said.
But with CenturyTel as the owner and operator of the network, the town doesn't have to pay anything. In return, CenturyTel gets to sell subscriptions to its network to individuals and businesses in Vail, as well as possibly sell advertising.
CenturyTel would guarantee the town 95 percent coverage outside and 90 percent inside buildings, Stone said.
"It's a really good deal, so it's going to be beneficial to everyone involved," Braden said.
This is the first time CenturyTel has used this new wireless technology, which Stone calls a "WiMAX and WiFi mesh network." Stone said it means "all the nodes are going to know where each other are and communicate with each other faster."
"It's going to be a faster, more high-performing network than anything we've ever done," Stone said.
Vail will be a model for the half-dozen other cities to which CenturyTel is proposing this technology.
"(The company is) looking to build a network that they can blueprint so they can roll it out for the rest of the country," Braden said.
The town awarded the proposal to CenturyTel in May after the company competed with six others in a bid. The deal with CenturyTel would last eight years, after which the town and the company would head back to the negotiations table.
"We'll sit down and talk and decide, 'Do we want to do this more?'" Stone said.
Watching Vail
Since Vail entered into talks with CenturyTel to get wireless internet, the downvalley communities have been watching closely.
Braden put on a presentation earlier this month for representatives from the town of Avon, and the Beaver Creek, Arrowhead and Edwards metro districts, who might want to take advantage of the service.
"That's the direction that technology is heading certainly, and the town is certainly interested in it," said Scott Wright, the finance director for Avon.
Clyde Hanks, with the Beaver Creek Metro District, said he thinks wireless internet would be beneficial to his resort community.
"The free wireless internet access is especially appealing to guests who are here and to anybody who has a mobile device that can pick up a wireless signal," Hanks said. "I think what Vail is doing is really interesting and exciting, and we look forward to seeing their progress."
Source: VailDaily
Written by Dal on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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BandTel announced this morning it is the first to solve the throughput and redundancy problems on high capacity SIP-based networks with its new N-Plus architecture. The solution lifts the burden placed upon servers by creating a clustered architecture that eliminates the need for numerous IP addresses on numerous SIP proxies and eliminates any single point of failure. Of course, TMC has a N+1 RAID-5 Exchange Server, but that didn't stop 2 simultaneous hard drive crashes last week that broke the RAID array bringing down the Exchange Server. RAID-5 redundancy my %@$^&*! On a usually reliable
Dell server no less... Probably a SCSI controller failure.
In any event, BandTel's N-Plus network is based on several pairs of DNS servers that direct the SIP calls to SIP Signaling Transfer Points (STPs), which in turn direct those SIP call on one of "N" SIP proxy's in the BandTel SIP proxy matrix. You can check out the full BandTel news
here...
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Last week we unearthed a few details about the stealthy search startup SPOCK, backed by Clearstone Venture Partners. (The company says its officially all-caps for the name, given it was first an acronym. Well, OK!) This morning SPOCK CEO Jaideep Singh emailed us with some more information about the company and the team he’s accrued.
Jaideep (co-founder and CEO) was formerly a VC at Clearstone, and says he has teamed up with Jay Bhatti (co-founder and VP of Product), a Microsoft alum. The two turned to Jeff Winner to be the founding VP of Engineering, who was an exec at Friendster, eGroups, DemandTech, Netscape, Verity, and Oracle. Hongche Liu (from Yahoo), is the founding chief information architect.
Jaideep still won’t tell us more about the technology for “competitive reasons,” but says an alpha product will likely be available in a few months.
Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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The expectations for mobile WiMAX are growing, and so are the investments and trials. Mobile WiMAX chip maker Sequans said it received another round of $24 million led by Kennet Venture Partners, while Intel anounced new details of its mobile WiMAX chip, “Rosedale II,” and Motorola says it is testing a network in Toyko with partner Softbank.
That’s a lot of attention for one day. Intel said Alcatel will test Rosedale II in its mobile WiMAX networks, while 9 other WiMAX companies–including Aperto Networks, Airspan, Alvarion, Proxim Wireless, Navini Networks, among others–will include the chip in network solutions. A Navini spokesperson said the mobile WiMAX products with Rosedale II could offer wireless broadband access while moving at speeds up to 60 miles per hour (which seems to be a growing requirement for network access.)
Motorola’s Tokyo test network will use Motorola’s access points, access network and prototypes of handheld devices. The network could offer Softbank, which owns third-place Japanese operator Vodafone KK, a better way to compete in the tough wireless Japanese market.
Investment in WiMAX, both mobile and fixed, seems to be growing significantly. Sequans roughly tripled its total funding raised. Last month Navini received $17.5 million in part from investor Intel Capital. And Intel and Motorola dropped that huge investment into Clearwire earlier this month.
While mobile WiMAX products won’t likely be on the market until next year at the earliest, companies are looking to certify products as early as the end of this year. Mobile WiMAX, compared to its fixed WiMAX cousin, is being touted as a much bigger market. Hardware for both markets, fixed and mobile, is expected to generate $1.7 billion by 2009, according to Infonetics. Including services, Gartner puts that figure at $2.2 billion by 2008. Instat says in a research report today that the Asia Pacific region will grow from $106.4 million in 2006 to $4.3 billion by 2011.
If WiMAX, both mobile and fixed, doesn’t take off, it could very well end up being the biggest over-hyped wireless technology of recent years. Though, companies like Intel and global investors are spending massive sums to try to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Unwired and WiMAX.
Last week, SIPphone announced that Gizmo Project softVoIP users would be able to talk free to other Gizmo users in up to 60 countries. It's interesting that Michael Pollock of Solostream was asking, back in July 2005, is Gizmo is really a Skype-killer?
What's more interesting to me is that Pollock stated back then that one of Gizmo's advantages is built-in VoIP recording,
but that Skype should be able to do the same thing natively. Well, one
year later, Skype still has not done that, resorting to third party
plugins and standalone software (e.g., HotRecorder). While there's nothing wrong with that per se, Skype users do have to resort to downloading an extra piece of software.
Service-wise,
when the free North American Skype calling (specifically PC-to-PSTN to
numbers in Canada and the US) ends just before New Year's Day 2007, I'm
wondering if there'll be a surge of VoIP users transferring to the open
source SIP-based Gizmo Project. However, with less than a million Gizmo users and over 100 million Skype users (or 280 mln, depending on who you believe), Skype does not have much to worry about. Yet.
Written by ewriter on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Skype Journal on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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A report from the market research company, Strategy Analytics, shows that an on-demand mobile TV service, offered by the Rok Group, came second in a UK user trial behind Vodafone Vodalive offering. But that’s ahead of Orange and (Hutchison) 3’s offerings.
Rok TV has just gone live in the US, and the company is quite likely to make an impact in one of the biggest markets for mobile and television. Rok has been doing particularly well with those mobile network operators who haven’t sunk billions into 3G technology and just want to offer their subscribers access to mobile TV.
The crucial point is that Rok’s service runs over 2.5G whereas all the other are 3G services. This means, the company will compete with MobiTV, one of the companies that has helped prove that there is demand for television-on-mobiles. Only this month the VC firm Oak Investment Partners led a $70 million investment into MobiTV, which says it has struck deals with numerous mobile network operators globally as well as supplying AT&T’s Wi-Fi network.
Elsewhere, while its rivals struggle to make video work over 3G links–and 3.5G connections using say HSDPA — Rok’s compression techniques are good enough to stream a TV channel to an existing handset using 2.5G/GPRS as the carrier. The company has filed some 34 separate claims as part of its overall patent application. ROK already has the patent in the UK (GB 2410817) and has applied for similar patents on a global basis.
Rok is expanding into all the obvious markets. It has signed a deal with Shanghai Dragon Mobile Information Ltd, an approved content supplier for the world’s largest mobile network operator - China Mobile. It has struck similar deals in Taiwan, Turkey, Thailand, South Africa, Brazil and Russia.
Written by Tony Dennis on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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As several news sites
have reported, Microsoft plans to release a new music and entertainment player and accompanying software under the "Zune" brand this year to challenge the
Apple iPod media player. The latest Apple iPod plays both music and videos with the ability to download TV shows and
now even full-fledged movies via iTunes.
Microsoft hopes to take some of the 70& marketshare from Apple which has dominated the portable media player market.
The sad thing is, Microsoft could have dominated this market had they minituarized the bulky PocketPC years ago. The PocketPC enjoyed some success, but never really took off. Part of the reason was that PocketPCs were too bulky to use as an MP3 player while jogging on a treadmill or just walking down the street. Even when
Dell launched the Axim series of PocketPCs, which were thinner and lighter, it was too late. Blackberries stole the show for remote email access and the iPod stole the show for portable music leaving PocketPCs out in the cold. Even though the PocketPC could do remote email, play mp3s, as well as GPS navigation and other functionality, it unfortunately suffered from doing too many things "ok" and did not do
one thing really really well.Dell discontinued the Axim PocketPC series, and Windows Mobile 5 finally put the final nail in the coffin for PocketPCs. Why have a dedicated PocketPC PDA when you can get a Windows Mobile 5 smartphone that is a PDA plus a phone, and all the other functionality - mp3 player, calendar, email, etc.
Personally, I'd rather Microsoft offer a smartphone that can store >20GB of music and video content rather than try and compete with Apple's "one trick pony" iPod, which doesn't have smartphone functionality. All of the cellphones or even smartphones I have used have a terrible built-in MP3 player or didn't have enough storage. Most smartphones use SD/miniSD cards instead of hard drives to conserve battery power. If Microsoft were to offer a Windows Mobile 5 smartphone with >20GB of multimedia storage, decent standby/talk time, and an intuitive user interface (iPod-like) then I'd buy it in a nano-second.
So Microsoft, take my advice and forget about competing with the iPod with a single purpose "Zune" media player and instead offer a compelling converged device that does everything the iPod can do and more all on an easy-to-use smartphone. As a gadget-lover, this would be my dream device and I'd auction off my current iPod on eBay faster than you can say "buh bye iPod."
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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Thousand-person VoIP conferences
might not be my thing, but 4- to 8-person video conferencing seems like
a manageable sort of meeting. However, despite being impressed by Sightspeed's
4-person video conferencing ability, I'm not entirely sure yet that I
really look forward to videophones, VoIP/ WoIP-based or otherwise.
As
I've more than hinted at, I work from home, and that means being
scruffy and unkempt for most of the week. Regardless of my own
preferences, WoIP (Video and Voice over IP, aka video-VoIP) will
probably become commonplace when more people have broadband connections
(and more RAM on their laptops).
When that does happen, there'll
be some etiquette rules to follow. Nuno at 21 Talks has a screenshot of
a Japanese poster showing recommended body posture and body language for video conference calls.
Here are my own 5 rules of appearance for home VoIP video conference attendees:
(1) Shave, if you're a guy, and have three or four days of stubble. (Unless you're growing your beard, of course)
(2)
Brush your teeth. We may not have SoIP (Scent over IP) yet - thank
goodness, you don't have to bathe - but no one wants to see you
repeatedly running your tongue over your teeth because they feel furry.
And your hand over your mouth isn't fooling anyone.
(3) Comb your hair, for crying out loud. Didn't your mother teach you anything?
(4)
Don't get caught with your pants down. Clothe yourself and spare us the
view of your ripped wife-beater undershirt and the boxers with
something stupid on them - or for women, torn bra and granny panties.
(5)
But seriously, make the area of your home that you're working from at
least somewhat presentable. What will the neighbors think?
I'm praying that VoIP video calls are not common practice for a while. (At least until I have time to clean my place up.)
Written by ewriter on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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Chip manufacturer partners with Wavesat to bring WiMAX to the home and office.
Written by VoIP Magazine Featured Stories on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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eWeek's Paula Musich recently wrote about TalkShoe, an American company that's created a web service that enables VoIP conferences involving thousands of participants.
While
in theory that sounds like a great idea, and the technological
accomplishment is to be applauded, I'm not so sure I'd want to be one
of those participants, unless there were some "rules of VoIP conference
order" established.
Roberts Rules of Order and Parliamentery Procedure
were established for in-person meetings, to make sure that participants
wouldn't all try to speak at once, an activity that sometimes causes
VoIP calls to cut out. But even armchair anthropologists should have
noticed that in the past 12 years in particular, our attention spans
have shortened. Many people can't carry on a polite conversation with
just one other person.
Even someone like myself, who was once
long ago a diehard "manners" person, can't have a text IM conversation
without interrupting the other person, let alone an in-person or VoIP/
PSTN conversation.
Some people blame the Internet for this
reduced attention span; others blame video games. Regardless, given
poor conversational abilities and the still-developing call quality of VoIP, try imagining a thousand-person VoIP conference. I shudder to think.
Written by ewriter on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Netmeeting.
If you're interested in learning about the latest and greatest in the world of VoIP Peering, I'm hosting a webinar about this on Thursday. It's the first of a series of webinars I'll be hosting on a variety of IP topics.
To learn more and/or register, please visit my website, and I hope you can participate.
Technorati tags: VoIP peering, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates
Written by Jon Arnold's Blog on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are at it again. After disrupting the music and voice cartel’s operations, the duo is taking on television. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. I had reported on that as part of the Business 2.0’s June 2006 cover story, The 50 Who Matter Now. In the little profile on the boys, we mentioned, “Their next move is rumored to be a company that will enable peer-to-peer television. If experience is any guide, broadcast and cable TV execs should be afraid. Very afraid.”
Now Business Week has dug-up more details on the company, which has hired software engineers in nearly six major cities. So far, it seems the project, dubbed, The Venice Project, has been funded by eBay millions that lined the dynamic duo’s pockets. Whatever the case might be, this doesn’t look good from an eBay investor’s perspective.They spent $2.6 billion (and change) on Skype, and the two main guys are busy doing other projects.
Business Week says that Zennstrom and Friis are really engaged with the company and what not, but if you been in the industry long enough, you know that is marketing speak at its best.
According to Hani Durzy, an eBay spokesperson, Zennstrom and Friis were always expected to look into new ventures because that’s what they do well. “We have encouraged those guys to explore different ideas and different concepts that they find interesting,” Durzy said.
Hey how about focusing on something the company paid $2.6 billion. Isn’t that what should be top of their mind. I guess that additional $1.5 billion in earn outs doesn’t really matter for the boys. Meanwhile, eBay might invest in the new company, reports Business Week, because the auction giant could provide commerce expertise to this television venture if it makes it to the finish line.
PS: I have a part two of this story coming, but not till middle of this week.
Written by Om Malik on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype and ebay.
Even though trains and planes have already become mobile hotspots, very little attention has been given to mobile access to say users in their cars. That might change soon, thanks to Broadband Antenna Tracking Solutions (BATS), a start-up founded by few professors from Purdue University.
The company is reportedly testing wireless antennas that can automatically track and link users. The idea behind these antennas is to basically connect boats and moving vehicles to wireless networks. In tests, the antenna system prototypes have been able to connect 12 miles over water and nearly 9 miles over land, reports say. The tests were conducted using the 900-MHz Motorola Canopy radios, over Lake Michigan.
Network World says the company launched in January with seed money from the university. The patent belongs to the university, but three Purdue professors own the global licensing rights. The company is supposedly looking for investors, so companies interested in wireless hardware–Motorola, Tropos, Earthlink?–or interested VCs, get your checkbooks out.
Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Unwired and Start-Ups and Wireless Broadband.
For being the only carrier-class IP traffic processing system providing complete, real-time network visibility essential to secure, manage and deliver Services over IP (SoIP) means something. It was very true for Narus . It was chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the top 100 private company for the award.
Narus earned points based on the AO100 editorial panel’s judgment over technology innovation, market potential, customer adoption, media buzz and investor value creation.
Narus as the AO100 Private Company Award winner recognized for leadership in emerging technology was honored as part of the AO2006: Stanford Summit , which received attendance from successful entrepreneurs, business and political thought leaders, and top venture capitalists to spot trends and spark new ideas and initiatives.
The AO100 was selected from over 1,000 companies, peer-nominated by leading venture capitalists, investment bankers and industry analysts. The AO100 consists of private companies at all stages of development, from early to late stage. Now the award is going to test the capacity of Narus for retaining its top spot in the industry two years in a row. We all know about the technology shifting gears with no warnings though Narus’ being leader the industry with best-of-breed technology that secures the health and profitability of Services over IP for Tier 1 carriers such as AT&T, Korea Telecom and KDDI can’t be ignored. But will it be able to keep the pace going…we can wait and watch things unfolding at Narus front.
Written by Peter Poffenberger on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Software.
Giving wide service options to a company’s customer base is nothing new. Though, adding on something more to the existing of services is always appreciable. Not so long ago, MetaSwitch partnered with Dash911 for simplifying its emergency calling implementation by VoIP providers. The joint solution is already being deployed by several service providers including Public Interest Network Services, Inc. (PINS).
MetaSwitch is the leading vendor of Voice over IP (VoIP) Class 5 switching and applications solutions to North American independent and competitive service providers. The integration effort coming from MetaSwitch-based VoIP providers was even acknowledged by public interest network services.
How this partnership would help Dash911? Well, it will combine MetaSwitch's market-leading Class 5 softswitch with Dash911's hosted service platform. This according to MetaSwitch will enable VoIP service providers to route 911 calls to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) based on the subscriber's current location. Thus, VoIP custom call treatments and web-based configuration will be available to subscribers from the MetaSwitch platform. The partnership information came out of MetaSwitch at the National Telecommunications Carrier Association (NTCA) VoIPossibilities conference.
While the functionality that is now available to subscribers related to Dash911 operations was previously technically possible, it typically required service providers to develop their own Web interface and back-end integration. This new solution enables MetaSwitch users to meet FCC and CRTC requirements for 9-1-1 call routing, along with an elegant Web interface for subscribers, by executing a single service agreement with Dash911. Dash911 is putting this partnership as a need for mass safety and concern for all service providers but we are reading profitability. Are you reading so? If no, then hope it improves the situation.
Written by Peter Poffenberger on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Networks.
According to
Silicon Beat, VCs have pumped $870-million into Web 2.0 companies during the first-quarter. It's great to see this much enthusiasm but the VC business is full of people who jump on bandwagons, which means there is lots of money going into sectors (e.g. video) with way too much competition. It's not the 31st video-sharing site (aka YouTube wannabe) will make it, right? As much as there is a lot of excitement now, get ready for a river of tears down the road when the revenue fails to materialize and the VC suddently money dries up. It may not be as painful as the bursting of the dot-com bubble because there has thankfully been some sense of pragmatism (and a lack of IPOs to seduce retail investors) but it will not be pretty either.
Written by Mark Evans on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Web 2.0 and Main Page and Venture Capital.
The
power outage in California that knocked MySpace off line is yet another sign of the whole supply-demand equation has gone askew. With North Americans now believing their basic rights include central air-conditioning, it's no surprise the electricity system is under siege. And we're not even talking about power conservation. Maybe it's time for folks in Silicon Valley to focus a little on Web 2.0, and more on alternative and renewable energy. A good start would be reading Tyler Hamilton's
Clean Break blog on a daily basis.
Written by Mark Evans on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Main Page.
EBay customers are upset over San Jose, Calif.-based auction giant’s decision to stop charging users in China transaction fees, mostly because of intensified competition from Taobao (Alibaba) and Tencent, at a time when they are being hit by price hikes as high as 400%.
During a recent earnings conference call, eBay CEO Meg Whitman said, ” What I can tell you is that while I think we are behind a tad in China, we have been steadily improving our performance over the last 12 months.”
The move did not go unnoticed by eBay sellers. A thread on company’s discussion forum has many “eBay store” owners complaining about paying for listings when the same services are free for eBay China. At the end of second quarter 2006, ebay had 255,000 stores on its US network, and about 541,000 stores worldwide. We will follow-up tomorrow with eBay and ask for their response to this outburst from eBay community of sellers. We will update the story accordingly.
“I didn’t know I was subsidizing China and Singapore, and I’m in a rage. I’ve been struggling to pay my fees for the past two months, and it turns out I’m being gouged on a US commerce site to give offshore competitors a free ride? I don’t think so,” posts seller going by the handle of Waterdancer.
The angry responses might be coming as a result of a price hikes for store listings that goes in effect on August 22nd. many are worried that they might be facing tough times in the near future become of the price hikes. These price hikes range from 2%-to-3% increase in the “final value” of the items sold through stores. The insertion fees have been increased sharply by the company as well. The listing fees for items below $25 will be up 150% and over 400% for items that are priced $25 or higher, estimates AuctionBytes. These and several other changes were announced by Bill Cobb, President of eBay North America in an email sent out to the seller community.
“A typical eBay Stores seller who uses Store Inventory format — making no adjustments to his or her selling strategy following these changes — will experience an overall fee increase of less than six percent, based on our analysis of all June selling activity,” he wrote.
Those familiar with ebay say that company is using price increases to keep its revenue growth intact. They say that the price increase is for their largest channel (stores) is being disguised as a balancing exercise with smaller channel, i.e. the auctions. In reality the stores part of the business is under competitive pressure from other market places and ad-driven platforms such as Google Checkout.
Written by Om Malik on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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Skype users have been able to send text messages from Skype for a while. First it was a beta service tested by London company Connectotel released last year, and as of May its been available in the latest desktop software download–looks like there’s still no Mac version! Today mBlox, the SMS-delivery startup based in Sunnyvale, sent out word that it is helping power the new Skype SMS service.
It’s a significant win for mBlox, which says it will carry Skype’s SMS traffic over 180 wireless operators. The company is on a roll and last February raised $25 million from Trident Capital, BA Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, among others. I recently talked to Jay Emmet, the company’s President of Americas, and he said the deal was a part of the company’s plans to push outside of its home bases in North America and Europe. Particularly Asia.
Skype’s desktop to text message application won’t likely gain a fraction of the popularity of Skype’s free telephony service–for one thing it costs money. Skype talks a bit about why the company charges for the service, and says the carriers charge Skype, so they have to pass the fee onto users. But even if only a fraction of Skype users take up the SMS service, the partnership could make mBlox a well-known global brand. Something that could be even more valuable for the startup.
Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on July 24th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.