September 27th, 2006
You are currently browsing the articles from the VoIP Digest written on September 27th, 2006.
Mobile ESPN, the much touted but lightly used MVNO is about to go through a major upheaval, report Rafat Ali & Staci Kramer over at PaidContent. They say that the MVNO could either be sold or shut down before the end of Disney’s fiscal year. “A lot has changed since then, with the sentiment for MVNOs swinging like a schizophrenic off medication,” they write. We have been a tad skeptical of the whole MVNO craze, and are also worried about the possible impact of a MVNO shakeout on Sprint Nextel.
Update: The WSJ says Mobile ESPN will shut down soon and try to reinvent itself as a content provider for other wireless operators. We contacted Mobile ESPN and are waiting for a response.
Written by Om Malik on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Verizon, for the first time gave a clear outline of its FiOS (fiber to the home) plans, telling investors that the company’s big fiber network upgrade is going to cost a total of $18 billion, At present the cost to pass a home is about $933 but the company wants to bring it down to $850 per home and continuously drive down that cost, Associated Press reports.
Light Reading’s Phil Harvey says that it is going to cost about $9000 per home, which seems a bit preposterous to Ron Jeffries. I have a feeling this debate is going to escalate. Instead, time to turn attention to other stuff, which is getting lost in the general optimism around the news.
Verizon said that FiOS TV had about 100,000 subscribers among one million homes where the service is available. That works out to about one in ten FiOS TV ready homes or 10% of the addressable market. By end of 2006, that number is going to increase to 175,000 as service becomes available to 1.8 million households or 10.28% of the total addressable market.
These numbers show that no one is dropping everything and rushing out to buy FiOS TV right now. Verizon’s low-end estimate of 20% market penetration by 2010 (3 million the 15 million homes) seems a tad optimistic, but then who knows what future will bring. The company says profits will come in 2009… just not soon enough.
Now FiOS Broadband - that is a whole different story. They will have 750,000 customers (though 30% are Verizon DSL switchers) by end of 2006, 15% of their total addressable market. Verizon get $40 a month for FiOS TV service (200 channels etc.) and $40 a month for 10 megabit Internet service. Essentially the same amount of money, thought clearly more people are interested in faster speeds that anything else.
Maybe instead of mucking around with TV, Verizon should be selling more premium tiers, and start making more money right now. And they have headroom when it comes to boosting speeds. Dave Burstein of DSL Prime says BPON allows them to do 100 megabits per second down, and 30 megabits per second up. GPON would allow 250 down, 120 megabits/second up.
“Dynamic bandwidth allocation means the 2.4 gig down, 1.2 gig up is effectively shared, so that 99+% percent of the time any user needing speeds in the hundreds of megabits can access them,” he writes in his special bulletin today.
“It is refreshing to see such a large company aggressively deploying new technology, particularly going against the grain of short-term oriented Wall St. thinking,” writes Andrew Schmitt and he is right. Just now if they could think fresh!
Written by Om Malik on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Skype Journal on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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As Dick Parsons, the CEO of Time-Warner recently reflected, Murdoch’s acquisition of MySpace “appears to have been a masterstroke”. Well… good to know that he is taking a similar positive view of the deal as me. My positive outlook reflected my high enthusiasm about social networking and social media in general, which, as those close to me know, I saw coming from a mile away.
I must admit, however, that I did not see the blogosphere coming. The rapid emergence and popularity of blogs most definitely took me by surprise (which is one of the key reasons I decided to blog for GigaOM (thanks Om!)… I needed to understand the phenomenon from the inside, and I get it now). I bring all this up because I believe the blogosphere is about to come face-to-face with the “social media mogul” himself… Rupert Murdoch.
20 years ago, Murdoch saved the British newspaper industry. In an incident known as the “Wapping Dispute“, Murdoch waged war against the print labor unions and forced them to accept less labor-intensive computerized printing technologies. Wapping proved to be one of worst industrial strikes in modern history, yet at the end, Murdoch’s aggressiveness and foresight saved the newspapers from a death spiral caused by technological obsolescence.
Today, the newspaper industry is again facing many challenges and possible extinction. The fiscal problems plaguing iconic brands like the New York Times and the Tribune Company are well documented. But the problem this time is not offset-lithography… it’s the rise of the blogosphere. Simply put, it’s centralized content production and distribution vs. decentralized people media. I have now learned, first hand, how blogging competes with traditional newsprint reporting and publishing.
In a similar vein, Murdoch has learned about the power of people generating content through his ownership of MySpace. Ross Levinsohn, the head of Fox Interactive Media, said precisely that during one of the panel sessions at this week’s OMMA conference… where he states “if Rupert Murdoch can give up control, I think anybody can give up control… if they don’t let the consumers participate in it, it’s not going to go anywhere” (hat tip to I Want Media).
So where does all this leave us? If I was a betting man, I’m going to bet that Murdoch’s next move is to acquire a blogging platform… either Six Apart (which owns Moveable Type, TypePad, LiveJournal, and Vox) or Automattic (owner of WordPress). And if he does, it can prove to be his 21st century “Wapping”.
Written by Robert Young on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Comcast Cable, a company leading the subscriber race for cable VoIP, declared last week that they will not prioritize and tier Internet access. Earlier this year, broadband Internet providers
stirred up a hornet's nest when they announced that they planned to
charge differentrates for different customers and possibly different
types of traffic. Anyone who didn't pay would have their web traffic prioritized accordingly.
This
decision by Comcast should make net neutrality proponents very happy.
(If only all the other cable companies followed suit, then things would
be wonderful.) Comcast, who only entered the VoIP arena earlier this
year, has been doing so well with their VoIP subscriber numbers (one
million already) that they are adding 4000 jobs.
One theory states that broadband ISPs (Internet Service Providers) want
to implement a tiered Internet because of concerns that VoIP calls
would consume their Internet bandwidth, costing them profits if they
had to increase capacity.
Written by ewriter on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Georgia Tech, long known as a very innovative university in
technology-related research, has partnered up with BellSouth Corp and
ISS (Internet Security Systems Inc.) to look into security for VoIP
technology. Both companies will invest a total of US$300K for the
two-year research program involving faculty, grad students and
technologists (from BellSouth and ISS). [via Atlanta Business Chronicle]
Researchers
at Georgia Tech have previously worked on, amongst other things, new
mathematical techniques for compressing images - something that has
definite applications for video over IP clients such as Sightspeed, as
well as video phones.
SJSU (San Jose State University), on the other hand, recently banned Skype on campus, then reversed their decision
after holding a conference call with eBay's government affairs dept.
SJSU's main concerns were over-use of bandwdith as well as security
issues. Maybe the should Skype Georgia Tech? Have your people VoIP my
people.
Written by ewriter on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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EverywhereNet: Might As Well Be On Mars?
Ted Wallingford posted a fascinating article, EverywhereNet is on peoples' minds, in response to Andy Abramson's discussion of something called Open Net.
It's new territory for me, and I honestly don't think I can sum it up
for you just yet. But if you are interested in reading about ideas for
a better national and global IP infrastructure, I suggest you read them both.
Forget iPhone?
Cynthia Brumfield points to David Pogue's NY Times discussion of the rumoured Apple iPhone (not to be confused with the SIP-based iPhone from Teledex). Basically, forget about it.
Jajah Mobile Suite No Threat?
Russell Shaw weighs in with his nine reasons why Jajah Mobile Suite is no threat to cell or VoIP. Common thread: people with existing cellular or VoIP subscriptions are unlikely to switch.
SJSU OK's Skype
Phil Wolff reports at Skype Journal that, reversing an earlier decision to ban Skype
on campus, SJSU (San Jose State University) has okayed the popular soft
phone for now. The post also has a nice summary of the reasons why
Skype would be beneficial to the university. Bravo on both counts.
Written by ewriter on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Teleclick.ca writes
that RIM will be selling Japanese-language BlackBerry communication
devices by mid next year. Meanwhile, a BlackBerry with an
English-language keyboard will be launching this week in the Japanese
market - the first BlackBerry for that market. RIM's recovering nicely since settling their big NTP lawsuit and since then, coming out with this new phone and the BlackBerry Pearl, as well as getting serious about VoIP when they bought Ascendent. In fact, they've announced other phones recently, including the BlackBerry 7130g in India and the BlackBerry 8703e with GPS capability. RIM will be announcing
their Q2 2006 results tomorrow. As part of that, there'll be a
conference call and live webcast starting 5pm ET. Or you can listen to
the replay.
Written by ewriter on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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eBay, apparently is looking to get out of China, long after the so called “giant opportunity” became a thorn in auction company’s side. There was that pesky user rebellion. Just wondering how much did the China plan cost the company?
They had acquired EachNet for around $180 million over a period of time. In June 2003 Ebay paid $150 million to buy 67% of EachNet. Add to this operational and capital expenditures, and the time CEO Meg Whitman spent in China, my guess is that China cost eBay over $500 million. What do you think? As a footnote, I think this could be a good lesson for US-based start-ups trying to go to China and capture that market.
Written by Om Malik on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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The US House of Representatives has been busy subpoenaing people, including five private investigators and at least two HP executives, for the House probe into the Hewlett-Packard scandal.
The whole mess was precipitated by now-former Chair Patricia Dunn when
she had PIs access the private phone records of some board members.
Her actions were outside of any legal action such as CALEA. In fact, records were obtained by pretexting,
an illegal method that involves having people impersonate someone else
to access records. (I've had something similar happen to me. A now
ex-friend impersonated me just over ten years ago and convinced my
phone company at the time to transfer yet another person's phone bill
to my phone. After a shouting match with the company, who denied they'd
ever do such a thing - despite my friend's confession - I switched to
cell phones, and now VoIP, and have not owned a landline since.)
Written by ewriter on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Skype Journal on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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This is just a hunch but the must-have gift this holiday season maybe the Nabaztag. What's a Nabaztag? It's a "smart" rabbit featuring moving ears and lights that uses wi-fi to connect to the Internet. This lets it do everything from reading the news and Web sites to providing weather reports and the time. It can let you know when you have new e-mail and even even tell your children to go to bed. Invented by two Frenchmen, the Nabaztag has been a hit in Europe. The company has started to make a major marketing and sales push in North America where the Nabaztag will sell for about $150. Nabaztag made a big splash this week at Demo where it thrilled seasoned tech watchers such as CNet's Rafe Needleman and GearLog. Would I want a Nabaztag? Well, if it helps put my kids earlier, it would be worth the money.
Written by Mark Evans on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Mobile phones to go, go Moto! Indeed!
Not to be outdone by the likes of other gadgets companies that hve gone the kiosk route, Motorola now plans to sell cell phones and accessories in vending machines.
Motorola has begun selling phones and accessories through "Instantmoto" vending machines at such well-trafficked locations as airports and department stores, including San Francisco International Airport and Macy's on State Street in Chicago. The first stage of the roll-out will be completed by November.
According to sources like the Associated Press, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Chicago Tribune, the machines will stock nearly 12 phones and 18 accessories.
While this is very interesting and makes it even easier to increase mobility, who will be the first company to put a cell phone in a cereal box?
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Yahoo has bought Jumpcut, a Flash-based online video editing site, for an undisclosed sum, the companies announced this morning. With the purchase, Yahoo gains another key buzzword for its web 2.0 acquisition porfolio: mashups.
This was a small purchase, and it’s interesting that didn’t come from Yahoo’s internal development efforts. Yahoo had, however, worked on its own video remixing tool internally. When I met Jumpcut earlier this summer, they had 11 employees, had raised $1 million in seed money, and were trying to close another round. Perhaps it has to do with Jumpcut’s fairly advanced experimentation with Flash, led by former Macromedia developer Ryan Cunningham.
Back at that interview last summer, when I proposed buying Jumpcut might be a good competitive edge for one of the online video sharing sites or portals, CEO Mike Folgner told me he’d wasn’t looking to settle down with just one company, rather to build partnerships with everybody. Ah well…I can understand how a Yahoo acquisition offer could be persuasive.
Jumpcut is very young; Folgner wrote the business plan early last year while at Stanford Business School, raised money in November, and put out the first product in April. Since then the company has cut deals with Warner Independent Pictures and Fox Atomic to get users interacting with professional content, in the first case through piecing together clips into a trailer, and in the second to submit audition clips for a casting call. Folgner was also in the process of signing deals to license music and export video to sites like Blogger, eBay, and TypePad.
Written by Liz Gannes on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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It's
official,
Yahoo! Messenger and
Microsoft Live Messenger now interoperate! As of today, the limited beta is no more and it's fully available to all users. That's right, starting today the combined community approaching 350 million user accounts (arguably the world’s largest IM community) can take advantage of Yahoo! Messenger interop with Windows Live Messenger. Woohoo!
Here are some interesting stats that resulted in a recent poll commissioned by Yahoo! and Windows Live which was conducted by Harris Interactive:
Some IM Users Are Willing to Forego Their Guilty Pleasures for (IM) Inter-Connectivity Feature:
- 29% said they’d be willing to give up watching American Idol
- 16% said they’d give up ice cream for one month
- 15% are willing to give up their morning cup of coffee
- 15% said they’d give up their morning paper
Some other interesting findings:
One in four IM users surveyed said that being able to use one IM service to connect with friends on other IM services is the next great thing since the creation of the cell phone.
57% of the IM users surveyed have a friend or family member on a different IM service.
More than one-third (35%) of students (over the age of 18) use more than one IM service.
Hat tip to
yodel.yahoo.com:
Today I woke up, logged onto Yahoo! Messenger, and pinged my friend Blake Irving, head of Microsoft’s Windows Live Platform Group, to applaud him and his team. Congratulations are definitely in order, as today marks a true milestone in Internet history. For the first time ever, interoperability (a.k.a. interop) between consumer instant messaging (IM) services is possible.
In July, Microsoft and Yahoo! introduced interop on a limited basis and received an overwhelming response. In just two months more than 90 million messages were sent and received across our networks — a level of usage that is a dream for us Internet geeks.
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Note: Nice to see the fully SIP support predictive dialer. Time to flex my blogger muscle and see if they will let me give it a test drive.
Interactive Intelligence Inc., a global developer of business communications software, has released a new VoIP-enabled version of its outbound dialing and campaign management software, Interaction Dialer, designed for contact centers, teleservices firms and collections operations. The latest release of Interaction Dialer, version 2.4, is now based on the SIP standard so it can operate in an all-software, all-VoIP environment to help reduce costs and simplify management. The release includes an all new SIP gateway called Interaction Gateway, an appliance connecting legacy telephone trunks (T1s) to VoIP networks. Interaction Gateway works with Interaction Dialer to give high-volume outbound contact centers accurate predictive call analysis capabilities.
“Interaction Gateway is unique because it provides advanced outbound call analysis -- such as distinction between answering machines versus live speakers, and wrong numbers versus network issues -- while taking full advantage of the open SIP standard,” said Yankee Group senior analyst, Ken Landoline. “Combined, these enhancements result in more effective dialing campaigns, simplified deployment and configuration, lower cost, better redundancy, and unbeatable flexibility compared to traditional outbound dialing solutions.”
According to Interactive Intelligence, the new SIP-based Interaction Dialer can lower costs by between 10 and 50 percent compared to traditional TDM-based dialers by reducing hardware requirements.
The company says Interaction Dialer can reduce costs further using Interaction Gateway at strategic locations to ensure it uses the most cost-effective call routing. To illustrate, in a typical configuration, ISDN PRI trunks from the public phone network are connected to Interaction Gateway. After that point, the entire configuration is voice over IP. This provides unmatched geographic independence. For example, the Interaction Dialer and Gateway servers can be in the U.S., while agents are in India.
“As an outsourced provider of CRM services, our clients drive our technology requirements, and a key requirement across the board is to offer highly customizable services at an affordable price,” said Chris Adomaitis, president of network and telecom services for Dialogue Marketing, an Interactive Intelligence customer since 1998. “Interaction Dialer’s new Gateway option lets us do just that by using a pure softswitch, thus dramatically reducing costs associated with hardware.”
Other Interaction Dialer enhancements include improvements to its patented pacing algorithm, which maintains the optimum balance between low abandon rates and maximum agent utilization; a single “Health View” interface that enables supervisors to monitor and analyze Dialer statistics from campaigns, workflows, and outbound calls; and a “Contact Import Wizard” that simplifies campaign management by providing a tool to import records into call list tables from a variety of commonly used sources, including CSV files, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, SQL Server, and Oracle.
Interaction Dialer was first released in 1999 as an add-on module to the company’s contact center automation software, Customer Interaction Center (CIC). By leveraging CIC’s multi-channel routing, recording, and interactive voice response, Interaction Dialer reduces costs and simplifies infrastructure compared to traditional, standalone dialers. Interaction Dialer, in conjunction with CIC, can also work with existing PBXs and IP PBXs.
In addition to power, preview, predictive, precise, and agent-less dialing, outbound campaign management, and inbound/outbound call blending, Interaction Dialer includes capabilities for telemarketing regulatory compliance, Web-based scripting, campaign staging, real-time supervision and reporting.
A single Interaction Dialer system, along with Interaction Gateway’s “rack and stack” architecture, can support up to 1,000 outbound agents -- more when deploying multiple systems -- while giving multi-site organizations maximum load-balance and fault tolerance capabilities.
Interaction Dialer 2.4 is available immediately and is offered through the Interactive Intelligence channel composed of approximately 250 value-added resellers, and through the company’s direct sales force.
Source: Interactive Intelligence
Written by Dal on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Editor's Note: My good buddy
Tom Keating over at
TMC sent me over some good information on his
difficulties canceling his vonage service. After reading the transcript and listening to the
MP3 (
too funny) I have to say I was thinking at some point there were just going to tell him "no, you can't cancel" citing some issues with there current "stock price" (
ouch).
Ok OK, I am kidding but really. Why is it so damn hard these days to cancel any new service you sign up for? Those kind of tactics just make it so I research even harder before trying out new services and in fact actually reducing the number of new things I try just order at the drop of a dime fearing the hassle and cussing I will need to do when I find out what they are offering was not what it was marketing as. Companies please take note make either make your service better than advertised to make cancelling painless as possible.
/END RANT. Thanks Tom, good heads up on the Vonage Elite Team
P.S. If you have had simliar challenges when cancelling Vonage or another VoIP service please either email it to me or post a comment below. I would like to hear other horror stories.
Written by Dal on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Vonage.
Everybody loves a format war; by "everybody" I really mean the media. Format wars are no fun for the companies backing each format, the companies manufacturing the competing products and the consumers who must ultimately vote (with their pocketbooks and wallets) to determine which side is the winner.
Now, according to a press release, the war is over -- maybe -- before it has begun. 
(The war we are talking about is between two new high-capacity DVD formats: Blu-Ray, which is backed by Sony (see hardware below); and HD-DVD, backed by Toshiba. The reason for the battle? High-capacity DVD disks are needed to store High-Definition movies on a single disc.)
This according to UK-based New Medium Enterprises, which claims it has solved a technical production problem that makes it possible to produce a cheap multiple-layer DVD disc containing one film in different, competing formats.
What's really interesting is the production cost of the new disc, estimated at approximately 9 cents each -- compared with the 6 cents for a standard single-layer play-back DVD. (These figures are from ODMS, a Dutch company that is one of the world's leading makers of production lines for optical disks.
(So why do we shell out $20 for a DVD? Very nice profit margin for the big boys ...) 
What a coincidence that this announcement comes only a week after three employees at movie studio Warner Bros. filed a patent for the application of multiple formats on a single DVD disc.
So out with the old and in with the new -- Is the new war going to be between the competing multi-layer technologies?
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Skype Journal’s Phil Wolff posts that after lots of brouhaha, San Jose State University’s Computing and Telecommunications department (SJSU UCAT) have said they will not ban Skype.
Apparently, a Monday meeting between SJSU officials and Skype-owner eBay’s governmental relations team did the trick.
Although Phil was not in on that meeting, he recommends that any [...]
Written by Russell Shaw on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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I didn't attend VON, so I cannot attest to the traffic numbers or how the "buzz" was at the show just a few short weeks ago. However, I found some interesting posts from bloggers and websites that discussed the VON show. One interesting comment was from Eric Chamberlain, from
Voxilla that said, "This was my first VON show. Turnout appeared light and my peers confirmed that turnout was around 20 percent lower than in past years. It's been a while since I worked a trade show and maybe I've spent too much time in Berkeley, but it felt like we were nickel-and-dimed for every little thing at the show."
20% lower than the previous year? VoIP is growing like gangbusters, so why the low turnout at VON? Has VoIP peaked? Does the lower turnout explain why Pulver has changed the name of the show from "video on the Net" to "Voice on the Net" in an attempt to broaden his audience appeal? TMC runs several VoIP-related tradeshows, including the flagship
Internet Telephony Conference & Expo show, so if VON is
any indication of lower turnout at VoIP shows, this doesn't bode well for TMC's shows.
Although VON is a direct competitor to my company, I'd much rather see VON do well than do poorly. So I asked Rich how our next show, coming up in 2 weeks in San Diego was doing -- registration/attendee-wise. Rich said, "Since early Summer, ITEXPO registration has been running well ahead of 2005 - and the momentum has not stopped. This event is on pace to have the most exhibitors, most paid conference attendees, and most exhibit hall attendees in the history of the show."
Rich continued, "The registration numbers for this show look fantastic and we expect attendees from up to 70 countries. In addition to buyers -- something ITEXPO always attracts -- we have been focusing extensively on recruiting the most influential, press, analysts and financial people. We expect ITEXPO to be the best attended IP communications show in the world. The show will take up a significant portion of the San Diego Convention center and this is a can't miss event."
Now if it was just one comment on VON, I could easily discount it. However, Voxilla isn't the only one that was dissapointed in this past VON show. Marc Robins, an industry analyst and reporter had a
mixed review when he wrote, "The exhibit floor looks quite good, with 350 or so booths and decent traffic. I did detect a bit of boredom on Jeff's part with respect to VoIP -- he seems to be tiring of the technology and clearly finds Video over IP a more compelling area right now."
Interestingly, and on a related note, I came across some i
nteresting comments to a paidcontent.org article.
Dave: VON = voice on the net NOT video
Rafat: Dave…it is Pulver’s new thing…he’s still calling it VOD, for video on the net.
So even VON attendees are confused and aren't yet aware of the name change.
Skype Journal writes about how Pulver demo'ed a high definition trailer of the Ghost Rider movie. While I'm sure it was pretty entertaining to watch a high-def trailer of a movie coming out, do we really attend tradeshows
to be entertained? Most attendees to telecom/VoIP shows are there to be educated, to learn about new products and how to apply them in their business. Another portion of attendees there are vendors and they are there to sell their products, partner with other vendors, as well as demonstrate a "market presence" by exhibiting at the major VoIP tradeshows. Yet another portion is analysts and reporters that are there to report interesting news. Is seeing Ghost Rider in high-definition during a keynote interesting news? I suppose in context Pulver could be simply setting the stage for what the future holds in the video-on-demand space - in particular within the
IPTV space. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but it certainly shows a change in direction for the VON show.
During his keynote, Pulver pulled up on screen a virtual live conference room in "
Pulveria," an online space he created at
Second Life. From within this virtual world, 3D avatars watched his keynote address over the Internet. While it's a cool concept, and I actually checked out the Pulveria conference room, I hear the keynote's video frame rate was a dismal 6FPS or less for most attendees. The virtual tradeshow/conference using IP is still a way off. Besides, there's nothing like "pressing the flesh".
So with all this focus on streaming video to Second Life, HD movie trailers, etc., is this further proof that Voice over IP (VoIP) just isn't as exciting to Pulver any more? Jeff just celebrated his 10th year anniversary for VON, which was previously known as "Voice on the Net" but for whatever reason on this 10th year, he decided to change the name to "Video on the Net".
Video certainly seems to be Jeff's
new love, leaving his former love, "
VoIP", feeling jaded after a loving 10 year marriage.
In fact, I was able to get an
"exclusive" interview with Mrs. VoIP to get her take on their marriage break-up.
Tom: So Mrs. VoIP, tell me, what happened between you and Jeff?
Mrs. VoIP: I don't know. Jeff and I were happily married for so long. Jeff was one of my earliest fans, before I became so famous. He even
stood up before Congess in defense of me.
Tom: That's interesting. Pulver went all the way to Washington D.C. to defend you?
Mrs. VoIP: Yes, that's right. He even lobbied against a proposed tax on VoIP (me) and broadband.
Tom: So Jeff is a lobbyist? Does he known
Jack Abramoff?
Mrs. VoIP: I don't know if Pulver knows Jack.
Tom: Pulver doesn't know Jack? I thought he was a smart guy.
Mrs. VoIP: Oh Jeff knows plenty of things. But he's certainly not the same man I used to know. I used to be the star of his Voice on the Net (VON) show. Now I am just a side attraction.
Tom: So when did Jeff start distancing himself from you?
Mrs. VoIP: Well, it all started once Jeff started
lobbying for net neutrality.
Tom: Yes, but doesn't net neutrality help VoIP? Doesn't it help you against the
"big boys" blocking VoIP packets?
Mrs. VoIP: Yes, it does, but once Jeff took up the battle cry for net neutrality, he was spending less and less time with me. I should have seen the writing on the wall. <blows nose><sniff>
Tom: There there, Mrs. VoIP.
Mrs. VoIP: He did go to bat for me in trying to
get e911 legislation passed, but I could tell his heart wasn't in it any more. I just wasn't as sexy to him any more. <sniff> That's when Mrs. Video over IP stole him from me. First, Jeff wrote a
really long blog post listing the top Internet video TV channels. That damn video chick stole him from me! Reminds me of that LonelyGirl15 chick. I hope Mrs. Video over IP
pulls a LonelyGirl15 on him! We all know that YouTube video chick was a fraud. I, Mrs. VoIP, would never perpetrate a fraud on him! VoIP is an honest biz free from fraud ya know.
Tom: What about
VoIP CallerID spoofing, or those guys that
resold stolen VoIP minutes?
Mrs. VoIP: <crying> Never you mind. It's not very nice to argue with a crying lady you know.
Tom: My apologies. This may be a tough question to ask, but what do you think of Mrs. Video over IP?
Mrs. VoIP: Sure, she's pretty and all. Sure video is a huge multibillion dollar industry. In fact, the online porn industry probably accounts for a huge chunk of Internet traffic - mostly XXX video downloads. I know Bittorrent is #1, but half the stuff being downloaded on Bittorrent is probably video porn. Well, let me tell ya, Mrs. Video over IP outta show some respect cause I started this whole porn industry ya know.
Tom: Really?
Mrs. VoIP: Well, technically it was my Ma.
Tom: Ma who?
Mrs. VoIP: Ma Bell. She made a killing on 1-900 phone sex calls. In fact, she's still doing phone sex even though Ma Bell is over a hundred years old.
Tom: Now there's an image I don't want to ...
Mrs. VoIP: <interrupts> Excuse me? Are you making fun of my Ma?
Tom: No.. no. Not me. Let's move on, shall we?
Mrs. VoIP: Let's just say Jeff would be nothing without me. I made Jeff the successful entrepreneur that he is today. As for Mrs. Video over IP... She would be nothing without Voice over IP. Who wants to watch a video with no sound? Shall we go back to the 1920s of silent film before the "talkies" were invented? I don't think so. Let's say that eventually in the future
everyone has a videphone in their home. Which would you rather have - video and no voice, or voice and no video. Can't communicate with just video, and no sound, now can ya?
Tom: Well, if you know sign language... maybe charades...
Mrs. VoIP: Don't argue with me. I already had one VoIP blogger turn on me, so don't tell me you're thinking about leaving me too.
Tom: Did I say that?
Mrs. VoIP: You didn't have to. I can hear it in your voice. You think Mrs. Voice over IP is sexier than me! You men are all the same! Just try and use your
Vonage line tonight, mister! I'm going to mess up the QoS on the line.
Tom: I hate to break it to ya, but
I switched from Vonage to AT&T's unlimited-plan double-play package which uses the PSTN.
Mrs. VoIP: Damn you! This hurts far more than Jeff leaving me! Not you, Tom. Of all people, not you! Tom, please don't leave me. What do I have to do to make you stay?
Tom: Hmmmmm. Well, do you know Miss Data? No relation to
Mr. Data from Star Trek - The Next Generation.
Mrs. VoIP: <cautiously> Yes... I know Miss Data.
Tom: Not 'slow' Dialup Miss Data. I'm talking about that fast woman. She's gotta be fast.
Mrs. VoIP: What's up with men and liking fast women? She's fast all right. Miss High-Speed Data is her full name. What do you want with her?
Tom: In addition to Miss High-Speed Data, I want you and Mrs. Video over IP in my house as well.
Mrs. VoIP: You want a threesome?
Tom: 
Hey, now, I'm a married man! I just want a Triple Play offering from you and the other two with excellent features, tight integration, and good quality of service. And I want it cheap.
Mrs. VoIP: So you want us woman to be cheap, provide service to you, and feature "tight" integration? Hmph! Oh I see how it is. You want your cake and eat it too. I don't play that game. Have fun playing with your PSTN. Goodbye!
The preceding was all in jest. Any attempts at humor that failed I blame on Jeff. Yep it's his fault for inspiring this blog post. I assume no responsibility for any bad humor. 
In all seriousness, I hope the 20% downturn at VON this year was just a "blip" or a fluke. Was it related to refocusing the show on video instead of voice? Is Jeff becoming too much of a 'visionary 'instead of focusing on technology solutions that
exist today? Hard to say. All I know is that I'm excited to head to sunny San Diego in just 2 weeks for
ITEXPO where I can gauge for myself the pulse of the IP communications industry. By all accounts, IT EXPO should be a great show. I'll be reporting from the show - including all the interesting VoIP news expected to come out. I will be sure to also post my analysis of the attendee traffic numbers - for better or worse - here on my blog. You can count on me to be brutally honest and to say it like it is.
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VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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As blogged a couple weeks ago, the Nintendo Wii will support Web browsing via Opera, with Nintendo’s Perrin Kaplan suggesting that users would “download an Opera browser using Wii points and surf the webâ€; since then, the story’s gotten even sweeter. The Norway firm behind Opera just announced that their browser will be free for Wii owners until next June.
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In Canada, entrepreneurs never seem to dream big enough. They want to be successful but few of them talk about conquering their markets. Zip.ca, which aspires to be Canada's NetFlix, appears to be an exception to the rule. The Ottawa-based company wants to raise $25-million to enhance its marketing and advertising programs, as well as expand its 52,000-title DVD library. In Canada, $25-million is a big chunk of change but Zip CEO Rick Anderson sees no reason why the privately-owned company can't have revenue of $100-million (about 10X current sales) and a 300,000 DVD library in a few years. With video downloads becoming all the rage, Zip has already positioned itself with technology to deliver downloads and streaming video, although Anderson believes the download market is moving forward slowly.
Written by Mark Evans on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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In a private note to several his colleagues (including your truly) Dave Burstein of DSL Prime reports this morning he has found out that Verizon is about 12 to 18 months away from executing a plan to open the set-top box to all Internet video. This woud be done by means of Verizon FIOS, [...]
Written by Russell Shaw on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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