September 29th, 2006
You are currently browsing the articles from the VoIP Digest written on September 29th, 2006.
VoIP News has a well-thought out post about Vonage,
complete with financials, estimates, and most interestingly the odds on
several scenarios occuring. These scenarios are pretty much in line
with what I've been saying about Vonage's future paths. Vonage is one
of the first (if not the first) VoIP provider to go public, and that
automatically raises their profile.
That means they are a threat to traditional telcos
from the telcos' perspective for many reasons. And for those countries
that regularly wiretap phone calls, VoIP is also a threat to
intelligence and law enforcement agencies. CALEA in the US stipulates that regular telecommunications has to have a backdoor for recording calls, even though experts question whether CALEA can be implemented for VoIP.
So
the question is why aren't other companies going through the same sort
of thing, if VoIP is such a threat? Well, just my opinion, but besides
Vonage being one of few publicly-traded VoIP providers (not hardware
manufacturers), I think it would be kind of obvious if every VoIP
provider was having problems. If there is in fact intentional financial
and technical sabotage, it has to be subtle and not widespread..
Written by ewriter on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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Ken Camp's New IP Media Blog
Ken Camp has moved his old blog about VOIP, IP media, and unified communciations. Congrats and good luck. From what I can tell, posts from the old site have been moved over.
Video Chat: SightSpeed or iChat?
Andy Abramson points to a test that PhoneBoy and Luca Filigheddu did to test iChat vs SightSpeed's
video-conferencing features, and SightSpeed won. I have not yet had an
opportunity to try video-conferencing (see video etiquette rules), but
I do love Sightspeed's video chat
quality. I'm more than impressed with it, and when more people that I
know install it, maybe I'll video-conference then. Now while I like
SightSpeed's video quality, I can watch fairly high-quality IPTV channels with Skype.
Fairweather VoIP Call Quality
The New York Times had an indepth, slightly techy piece a few days ago about call quality
on different types of VoIP service, as well as fairly easy-to-follow
explanation of factors affecting call quality. A interesting piece, but
I hope that the general public reading it don't get the wrong
impression about VoIP in general. I've had excellent quality calls from
both Skype (all the way across the world to a friend who sounded like
he was a few feet away) and from Hullo, which sounded crystal clear.
Written by ewriter on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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Not to be outdone by Dell's deal with Alienware (and not to be confused with the Congressional hearing (aka "HP FUD" -- Fear Uncertaincy and Doubt) now going on, Hewlett-Packard plans to buy niche PC manufacturer Voodoo Computers.
Voodoo makes cool looking, high-end PCs (expensive!) that are popular with gamers. We've blogged about them previously -- some hot boxes!
Will be interesting to see how the PC companies (Dell and HP) fare against game-console manufacturers Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.
Another battle of the titans to enjoy ...
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Andy Abramson talks about GrandCentral,
a new beta telephony service that lets you manage your phone numbers
from a single GC phone number. He explains why he likes it, despite PhoneBoy's and Ken Camp's
dislike. Don't know about you, but I like to have a single phone
number. When I worked for a certain large telecom's consulting
division, I carried my own pager plus one from the company, and my cell
phone, which later became two. Four phone/ pager numbers for
communication is absurd. I only keep one cell number now, a million
email addresses, a dozen VoIP soft phone accounts, but no other phone
numbers other than the one that I received free from Hullo. Still, I know no one using Hullo, so I only have one (cell) phone number to manage, at present.
On the other hand, I can see myself in the near future paying for Call-In numbers for possibly Skype and SightSpeed. Except it'd sure be nice to have a single VoIP-based phone number that wasn't tied to any one soft phone. That would be some VoIP holy grail
(or a single multi-protocol soft phone). Anyone got anything like that?
As far as I can tell, that's not what Grand Central does, but it does
let you redirect calls to find you - acting like a hub for all of your
phone numbers.
For some people, who have multiple phone numbers,
either for regular phones, mobiles, or VoIP soft Call-In numbers,
GrandCentral might come in handy. But it's another phone number, which
you'll have to give out to everyone - unless you'd rather they just
left you voicemail on whatever number of yours that they have.
That's
not really what I want, but then I only work from home now and am thus
in the minority. (For now anyway.) Still, what I'd really like is a
single web-based Call-In phone number associated with either my laptop,
desktop, or cell phone/ PDA, attached to one soft phone which could
handle calls from any of the popular soft phones (Skype, Gizmo Project, Sightspeed, etc.) and IMs (Instant Messengers) such as Aim Pro, Yahoo Messenger or Windows Live Messenger, etc.
Imagine that communications holy grail. It's a tall order. But I think it might happen before the end of the decade.
Written by ewriter on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype and Software and Business VoIP and Networks and Residential VoIP.
7 million -- that's right. That's what Sony's looking at with the latest news on a GLOBAL notebook battery recall.
We've got Apple, we've got Dell, Toshiba and Lenovo (IBM) all facing problems with Sony's batteries in their notebook computers.
I'd be worrying even if my notebook battery was part of this massive recall.
This seems to be one of those problems like spinach and E.coli that that just goes from bad to worse and beyond ...
... Is there more bad news on the way?
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There is a firestorm of controversy going on in the comments section of Rich's article title
Zultys reseller update.
One comment reads, "Obviously TMC is interested in advancing VoIP industry participants, but this promotion of an obviously over hyped company is disgraceful."
Ouch!
There are over 10 comments and a lot of back-and-forth going on.
Check it out
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So you wanna be an Asterisk guru do ya? I bet you wanna be just like this Asterisk Master in the picture. Not the good looking guy on the left
- I'm talking about the Asterisk guru himself, Mark Spencer - on the right.
Well, if you're not the self-taught type, or even if you are and just want some expert Asterisk training to "brush up your skills" -- then you may want to check out
the TMC University program going on at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo which features Asterisk training. Our last show we actually had a full day dedicated to Asterisk training. According to Rich, the room was at capacity and we had rave reviews on how the session went.
Rich has a detailed synopsis of the Asterisk training sessions going on at the show. So go check it out.
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Editor's Note: I love seeing this type of corporate funding of research. People need to understand that in situation where federal funding for these areas is not available that having corporation come in an fund the research and have some claim on the IP is not a bad thing. Ususally in these situations some of the research aways makes it to the public domain in some form.
A group of US academics and industry experts has been created to explore security issues surrounding VoIP technology, it was announced today. The collaboration sees Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) partnering with BellSouth and Internet Security Systems (ISS).
"As communication services migrate to internet-based platforms, it is important that the security and dependability users expect in the current public switched networks be maintained with these new converged technologies," the group stated.
The researchers plan to conduct a security analysis of VoIP protocols and implementations, and explore issues such as VoIP authentication for dealing with voice spam, modelling of VoIP traffic and device behaviour, mobile phone security, and security of VoIP applications running on user agents. "GTISC feels strongly that VoIP security should not be an afterthought," said Mustaque Ahamad, principal investigator and director of GTISC. ISS and BellSouth have committed $300,000 to a two-year research program.
The funding will enable GTISC faculty and graduate students to work with ISS and BellSouth technologists to develop and evaluate solutions that address VoIP security. In return, BellSouth and ISS will have access to the resulting intellectual property.
Source: VNUNet
Written by Dal on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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Note: Another great installment from the Nerd Vittle's Asterisk Factory.
It's birthday week at Nerd Vittles, and today you get the party favor as we introduce the second generation of our free turnkey (aka preconfigured) Asterisk system: nv-TrixBox-1.1.2. As with the first version, it runs on the desktop of any Windows XP home or office computer. If you want a state-of-the-art phone system, look no further. Out of the box, it supports eight extensions and two lines with integrated voicemail and immediate email delivery of your incoming voicemail messages.
To add additional extensions takes about 5 seconds. This PBX features the latest build of Asterisk (1.2.12.1) and is just the ticket for a small business or a school or even a fraternity or sorority house. It's also perfectly suited for your home.
You get every imaginable PBX telephony feature including music on hold, call forwarding, and call transfer as well as a preconfigured AutoAttendant which lets your friends and colleagues direct an incoming call to any of your extensions or even your cellphone. For those with the magic password, you can even dial in and get dialtone to make five hours of free calls each week to dozens of countries around the world ...
Click Here for the Full Nerd
Written by Dal on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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So it's not just me. According to a CRN article, Skype on mobile phones and PDAs has some technical hurdles to cover before it'll function correctly. Skype CEO and co-founder Niklas Zennstrom specifically mentioned Symbian phones being more difficult than expected. PocketPC-based phones
and PDAs do have Skype, but a lot of other mobile communication devices
do not. Or when there is a Skype-related mobile solution, such as SoonR, there are still technical glitches, depending on your phone. So I can almost sympathize with Zennstrom.
In
fact, Skype isn't really the only VoIP service having this problem of
achieving ubiquity on mobile devices. I've had little luck getting
anything to work on Palm Treo 650, a very specific phone. Mino Wireless works, and Chris from EQO says that EQO Mobile
should work, too. (I'll try it this weekend.) But as for actual mobile
Skype, well Niklas Zennstrom says that have nothing to offer yet and no
timetable besides.
Too bad. I guess I'll be waiting with bated breath, and keep my outrageously expensive cellular wireless data network plan
going in anticipation. Wonder how many additional active users Skype'll
gain when they do go mobile? Maybe Skype needs to start acquiring a few
companies with some of that US$2.6B they got from eBay last year. In
the meantime, though, Skype-specific Wi-Fi and dual-mode phones do seem to work, so you might want to consider one of those for a bit of mobility.
Written by ewriter on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype and Software and Wireless and Networks and Phones.
Should Web Traffic Be Prioritized?
Matt Brunk at VoIP Loop considers the types of web-based traffic and makes an argument
for why certain types of traffic might need to be prioritized,
especially since media convergence is pushing a lot of public services
into IP-based access.
Testing Your VoIP And IMS
Ixia has just announced their IxVoice software for testing VoIP and IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) protocols. via Light Reading] IMS is a core part of media convergence. That is, offering a variety of media over via Internet Protocol (IP), and communication between networks.
Telepresence Via Video VoIP
Be Here
is offering their TotalView "VoIP Collaboration Phone" which gives a
full-room view for conference participants. TotalView was announced at
DEMOfall 2006 earlier this week. [via VoIPLoop]
Written by ewriter on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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With all the hoopla around mobile VoIP applications, the mainstream media is beginning to ask the question: where is Skype? Good question actually, one we have been asking for sometime now. Business Week has picked up a report in a finnish newspaper, where (thankfully) Skype Chief Executive Officer Niklas Zennstrom was brutally honest in his answers about the problems his company is having.
“When we begun developing the mobile phone version we didn’t realize the number of technical obstacles. It is challenging and is taking much longer than expected,”
Let me breakdown these challenges:
1. Skype needs a lot of CPU cycles (see your computer’s process monitor) and mobile phone CPUs, even the best of them are not good enough. Skype is trying its best to bring down the CPU cycle requirements, but the performance-requirements are not have a Zen moment as yet.
Skype needs bandwidth - a lot of it, and running it a pure peer-to-peer client is just not possible on many of today’s networks. As 3G becomes prevalent, this issue just might get resolved.
Skype would suck the mobile phone batteries dry within hours because the client is always doing something. Not sure, how this issue gets resolved.
More than that, I think one think Niklas doesn’t admit to is that internal philosophies of Skype are coming in the way of their mobile efforts. Skype has always wanted to offload all the heavy lifting to the client, and basically stay clear of spending on the infrastructure. Right now, they can roll out a solution similar to say iSkoot (which essentially runs your Skype instance on a virtual machine on a server and acts like your desktop.)
Do you really want Mobile Skype?
Do you want Mobile Skype?
Written by Om Malik on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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Unlike US, PC penetration is not that high even in many developed countries, such as France, thereby limiting growth opportunities for broadband service providers. Neuf Cegetel, a French ISP, thinks low cost Linux PCs are the answer. The company has come up with Easy Gate, a device that looks like a yogurt maker, but is a stripped down PC that runs Linux.
The ISP which plans to go public is targeting “technophobes” with this device, that will be bundled free with a 40 Euros a month broadband connection and unlimited calls to landlines in France. Users can buy a screen, keyboard and webcam for about €99. This will help the company grow its user base, especially since it faces a lot of competition from Free and France Telecom.
Actually, it is not such a bad idea and sounds more reasonable than the much hyped $100-laptop. Many hardware makers are currently working on developing low cost Linux PCs, and the prices can fall further. Previously I had written about Novatium, an Indian start-up which has similar ambitions.
Written by Om Malik on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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We must have touched a nerve yesterday when we said Helio might be the next MVNO to fall, now that Mobile ESPN is closing shop. The Helio folks wrote us a long note explaining why they’re not going to follow Mobile ESPN into the darkness, and how Helio is better positioned than other MVNOs.
“It’s easy to get discouraged when something like ESPN happens, but don’t think that a poor execution inherently means a poor business model. While we haven’t given any numbers, Helio has done quite well. ARPU is more than $100 (better than anyone) and the vast majority (over 75%) of members are on All-In (unlimited data and messaging) plans,” writes Justin Ried, Sr. Manager, Marketing and Communications for Helio.
Of course the company had no subscriber numbers and said it would release them “in good time.”
Ried also gave us some details on Helio’s future WiFi plans, and said that the company will launch the Hybrid product next week, which he describes as an EVDO card that works in conjunction with a laptop’s built-in Wi-Fi equipment and includes client software that manages the connections and switches between LAN & WAN networks.
Ried describes the Hybrid product as an opportunity for Helio to see how members use EV-DO and Wi-Fi together in anticipation of our converged devices coming out next year. “Think about how much of an opportunity VoIP is to a company like Helio. Not having to pay Sprint or Verizon for that voice traffic is one thing, new service development is another.”
Helio’s converged technology plans will definitely be interesting to watch, though we’re still not convinced they’ll get the subscriber numbers they want.
Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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Ken Camp has new digs, with the recent launch of a new domain called
Realtime Unified Communications. They just completed migration of their
Typepad based Realtime VoIP Conversation blog His new site has a community forum section, podcast section, and more. I love the clean look. Looks like he's running SixApart's MovableType, so it was probably a relatively painless database migration from SixApart's hosted Typepad. Drop by his new site and say hello.
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RIM, which had a nice second quarter is expected to have an even better third quarter, thanks to the new Pearl device they have just released and is getting an enthusiastic response. The company expects to add 800,000 subscribers in the third quarter, about 50,000 more than analysts expected. As a result, revenue in the third-quarter will be $780-million to $820-million versus previously expected $700 million. Earnings will be between 88 to 95 cents a share versus 78 cents estimated by analysts.
What makes the performance surprising is that RIM’s strong performance is coming when new competition looms large. Nokia E62, to be introduced shortly at $150 price by Cingular is particularly being viewed as a competitor. It can run all sorts of email services. It is a great smart phone, despite its bulk. So why does Blackberry keep winning?
Simple - it is the best damn email device… period! Nothing works like Blackberry. I had been using Nokia E61 with GoodLink, and it rocked. Except when you added the cost of having an hosted exchange and Good service on top of $50 a month data plan, it added up.
The other solutions - Microsoft ActiveSync only work if you have Exchange, and don’t work too well. The connection stops, the syncing stops and what not. Same is the case with other email clients like Seven. Most don’t play nice with Mac. RoadSync is the only good activesync solution. I frankly could not get Blackberry connect to work on my device, so I just gave up.
The frustration of not being able to get email - and I live on email - was enough for me to revert back to NY mode in a day. A quick pit stop at T-Mobile store, a hasty transaction and now I own a Blackberry. No not a Pearl , but 8700 series device. The email - which is being piped in using IMAP is working, so is Google Talk and Verichat.
Email is real push, not pretend push as in other devices. Cost $30 a month, much cheaper than having a converged device. I probably would never use the new device as a phone: Why should I? I have Nokia N73, N80 and 8801 to choose from, and they are just great phones. Nokia E61 would kill Treo, you can count on it. But for hard core email addicts, BB is the way to go. If RIM spent more resources on making its service reverse sync on IMAP (like Seven’s Always On Email service does) it would be perfect. An email-only device minus the trimmings? Yeah, that should sell too.
RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie tells National Post:
“These new competitors coming out have been bringing their A game or best game to this space for over a decade. This kind of competitive reality has been there from the beginning when we didn’t have anything like the resources, position, capacity and experience we have today. It is a much more complex thing. If it was so easy, why did these best efforts not derail us from the beginning?”
Written by Om Malik on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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You have to love Mark Cuban, who says it like it is. At a conference yesterday, he said only a "moron" would buy YouTube. "They are just breaking the law," CNet reported. "The only reason it hasn't been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue." Cuban's no-lawsuit theory may be right but isn't a little curious YouTube has escaped the wrath of copyright owners so far while Napster, et al incited a wave of lawsuits and attacks on consumers? Here's my theory at when it comes to television programs being downloaded. While people are accessing them for free, there is still advertising on them. Maybe this gives copyright owners the luxury of figuring out whether they can work with video-sharing services such as YouTube rather than suing them.
Update: Something I didn't know until today is YouTube a 100MB upload limit, which means only 10 minute video clips can be shown - perfect for segments from the Daily Show and Bill Clinton interviews on Fox; not good for The Sopranos or House episodes. Maybe this is why the TV and movie industries haven't given YouTube a difficult time legally because 10-minute clips are more marketing vehicles than threats. For more thoughts, check out Don Dodge, a former v.p. with Napster, who takes issue with many of Cuban's ideas about YouTube. The New York Times also weighs in with a story on YouTube.
Written by Mark Evans on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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While Research in Motion's strong fiscal third-quarter performance and stock option review are in the spotlight, an interesting theme from yesterday's conference call with analysts was the idea carrers will unveil pay-as-you-go or lower price, consumer-friendly packages. It is based on the idea you can increase the number of high-margin Blackberry users by making price less of an issue. T-Mobile, for example, is offering a $19.99 all-you-can-eat plan as part of its Pearl marketing efforts. Truth be told, one of the Blackberry's dirty, little secrets - and perhaps a key part of its success - is few people really pay to use them. Instead, their companies pay the Blackberry bills so most people don't pay much attention to how much it costs. Jim Balsillie, RIM's co-CEO, said Blackberry users are five to six times more profitable than regular cell phone users, which is why carriers probably love the Blackberry so much. Given the Pearl is more of a pro-sumer device, price will play a role in its success after the initial euphoria is over. Let's see if Canadian carriers, who have adopted pricing discipline as a corporate mantra, will buy into a Blackberry pricing approach.
Written by Mark Evans on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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By Allan Leinwand
The mid-1990s content delivery networking technology deployed by Akamai, Digital Island (now part of Savvis) and Speedera (acquired by Akamai) to distribute content close to the consumer edge of the Internet should be yesterday’s news given the bandwidth boosts, and the ever increasing speeds, both on the edge and the core. And yet, the business is in full bloom, and attracting the attention of private equity crowd.
Why? Because the current digital media boom means bigger, fatter files and more content online. CDNs don’t just deliver small banner ads anymore, but rather YouTube videos, movies from companies like Apple and Amazon and megapixel pictures via MySpace. It costs content providers money to distribute this content and CDNs can save money on Internet peering fees and server load.
Wall Street saw this trend early on, and you can see that in scorching stock performance of Akamai Technologies: Akamai stock price is up 400% in past 12 months, and market capitalization has topped $7 billion. Its’ profit/earnings ratio of about 25, a very nice multiple and a comparable for others in the market to dream about.
Vitalstream, a video streaming CDN, went public on NASDAQ in June and today has a current market capitalization of $188M. Savvis has a $1.4 billion dollar market capitalization, nearly doubling from a year ago.
Private equity guys are paying attention. CacheLogic, a company focused on peer-to-peer CDNs, just got $20M in funding. Limelight Networks, a CDN focused on video and multimedia content just raised $130 million from Goldman Sachs.
What the market sees is that Akamai is vulnerable on two fronts: innovation and expense. On the innovation side, Akamai does not appear to be building the CDN of the future that supports large file distribution, web services at the edge and peer-to-peer technologies. As an example, just look at how Limelight Networks built a cost-effective architecture that exploits their weakness in large file distribution capabilities.
On expenses, they have a large network deployment that requires significant expense to keep operational (and most say unnecessary with today’s Internet). It’s a classic innovators dilemma that the smaller players should be able to exploit if they focus on execution and customer acquisition.
Akamai is paying attention and is using their patent portfolio and threats of litigation to slow the smaller players down. We’ll see if they can use their current market capitalization to keep the smaller players down while they innovate future CDN services the market will require.
Allan Leinwand is a venture partner with Panorama Capital and founder of Vyatta. He was also the CTO of Digital Island.
Written by Guest Columnist on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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