Paul Kapustka's Blog

November 22, 2006

VONosphere Webisode #19 -- Sylantro Global Summit (in Las Vegas)

Webisode #19 of the VONosphere... from the Sylantro Global Summit in Las Vegas, we interview Dave Axam from BT...

(camera by Mike Arledge, WMS Inc.)

Topics: Voice as an application; to IMS, or not IMS; net neutrality, UK style.

Links: BT: 1 million VoIP users by Spring '07

Posted by paul at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2006

VONosphere Webisode #17 -- Covad CEO Charlie Hoffman

Webisode #17 of the VONosphere is a bonus track from the Sylantro Global Summit (which was held Oct. 16-18 in Las Vegas), where we interview Covad CEO Charlie Hoffman...

Posted by paul at 04:10 PM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2006

Waiting for Microsoft and VoIP

Reading Andy's post today made me feel nostalgic about the topic of Microsoft and VoIP. Seems like my "not if but when" prediction is finally coming true.

UPDATE: According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said VoIP is in the cards for 2007. (more after the jump)

Of course, it's not like Microsoft hasn't tried to "beta" all of us before with stealthy voice and video announcements. Still, never a better place than CES to talk about consumer VoIP issues.

MORE ON UPDATE: The money quote from a Journal story posted this afternoon from Japan:

"We are going to enter the voice over IP market [in] the beginning of next year," Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said at a Microsoft conference in Tokyo. Voice over Internet protocol involves technology enabling computer users to make telephone calls with their Internet connections.

Great. But why make the announcement in Japan? So as not to make U.S. telcos (who MSFT wants to sell video software to) angry? Just another puzzling VoIP move from M'soft.

Posted by paul at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2006

VONosphere Webisode #16 -- Interview with Jeff Black, TalkPlus

Webisode #16 of the VONosphere features an interview with Jeff Black, CEO of TalkPlus, talking (natch) about the company's "Voice 2.0" applications for mobile phones.

Topics: Second numbers for mobile phones; more Voice 2.0 applications; TalkPlus

Links: TalkPlus launches (Alec Saunders)

Posted by paul at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

October 19, 2006

VONosphere Webisode #14 -- Sylantro Global Summit

Webisode #14 comes to you live from the Sylantro Global Summit in Las Vegas...

Topics: BT VoIP, Covad VoIP, watching Jon Arnold videoblog.

Links:
BT: 1 million VoIP users by Spring '07

Sylantro gets win in Motorola WiMax deployment

Posted by paul at 05:09 PM | Comments (0)

October 18, 2006

BT: 1 million VoIP users by Spring '07

LAS VEGAS -- Rather than run from VoIP, BT (also known as British Telecommunications plc) has embraced it and expects to have 1 million Voice over IP customers by Spring 2007, according to a BT exec speaking here at the Sylantro Global Summit.

Dave Axam

Dave Axam, BT Retail's GM for future voice services, gave a very entertaining and thought-provoking keynote during Tuedsay's sessions here at the Venetian Hotel. And while the 1 million user mark shows the company is successfully signing up VoIP users, Axam said what's more important is BT's tight embrace of the idea of voice as an untethered application, and not something tied tightly to a single service.

"Is VoIP going to kill us? No," Axam asserted. "Instead, why not have voice be an application that can be tied to other services? For us, VoIP is a springboard for innovation."

Joining the chorus of previous presenters here, Axam noted that making VoIP work well takes a lot of hard work behind the scenes. A master of the soundbite, Axam said that SIP is "like English... it's supposed to be the same language, but if you [listen to] the English, the Aussies, the Americans..." (the laughing of the VoIP-heads in the crowd made it unnecessary for Axam to finish the line); his point was that BT has spent lots and lots of time testing and ensuring the interoperability of CPE and handsets for VoIP.

Another interesting bit of real-world experience led to BT's latest CPE deliverable, a combo ATA/Wi-Fi router with a built-in cordless phone. Axam said that customer feedback showed that end-users often couldn't find the phone jacks on previous ATAs, and that training customer service reps to offer such help was a dubious exercise... "so we just put a handset on the front of the box."

Axam also said that VoIP is no longer a quality laggard. In fact, the company has trademarked the term "high definition sound" because "these days VoIP can give you a better [sound] experience" than traditional TDM phones, Axam said.

(Watch for more from Dave when I post the second day's video report from the Sylantro event, later Wednesday or early Thursday.)

Posted by paul at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2006

Sylantro gets win in Motorola WiMax deployment

LAS VEGAS -- Motorola is using Sylantro's VoIP application feature server products in its new WiMax national service network in Pakistan, according to a Moto exec here at the Sylantro Global Summit.

During his talk Tuesday morning, Michael Krutz, VP of Moto's core networks division, told the crowd here that the systems-integration arm of Motorola wants to work with "best of breed" suppliers when it builds networks, and said that Sylantro had such an offering at the feature server level.

As is often the case with Sylantro deals, there's no public press release announcing the win (since the service providers are sometimes loath to reveal where they're getting technology from) but it is another vote of confidence for the software found in several big VoIP deployments, including those from Microsoft, Covad and AT&T.

Krutz said Tuesday that Motorola isn't like some other service providers who might have an "only built here" mentality when it comes to building big networks.

"I know some operators want to control [everything] themself, but I don't think that's the answer," Krutz said. "We want to partner with others who are the best in breed."

Posted by paul at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)

VONosphere Webisode #13 -- Sylantro Global Summit

Webisode #13 is live from Las Vegas at the Sylantro Global Summit...

Topics: VoIP, Innovation, Web 2.0 meets the phone, Venetian boaters.

Posted by paul at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)

October 16, 2006

A dose of VoIP reality at the Sylantro Global Summit

LAS VEGAS -- In this era of GooTube, it's easy to forget that Voice over IP was not so long ago thought of as something new and revolutionary. Here at the Sylantro Global Summit, however, the once-nascent technology is being served up with a healthy dose of reality, as a dish that still takes time and effort to prepare in order to deliver services that are both reliable and cutting edge at the same time.

In his afternoon keynote Monday, Covad CEO Charlie Hoffman told the crowd of several hundred Sylantro users, partners and developers here at the Venetian resort megacomplex that VoIP has yet to hit the curve part of the hockey-stick chart, calling it a technology that is behind its expected runup rate.

Does that mean Hoffman and others are soured on VoIP? Far from it. Rather, they are just resetting expectations with the lessons learned from the marketplace, which say that finding worth beyond simple cost savings -- the low-hanging fruit of the VoIP market -- is a task that takes time, effort and money.

Hoffman, who told us after his talk that getting big is the only way to survive in a rapidly consolidating telecom marketplace, noted that Covad has spent a lot of time and money training its service reps and resellers, and a lot more money getting its network ready to handle national and global demands. And Nortel's Earl Philmone, from that company's applications server group, told the crowd that even though much of VoIP is standards-based, Nortel and others have spent "as much energy working together [on interoperability issues]" as they did developing new products.

Not to say it was all doom and gloom; Sylantro CEO Pete Bonee talked enthusiastically about how the mix of IMS and Web services (Web services! old school buzzword alert!) might truly accelerate new-feature offerings from service providers and other partners who choose to use Sylantro's VoIP application server software base (which is found amongst VoIP offerings from Microsoft, BT, Covad and Bandwidth.com, just to name a few), not just in the areas of enhanced voice services, but in the true marriage of desktop and voice applications.

Nortel's Philmone mixed his fervor with a little castor oil -- saying things like "IMS delivers the killer environment for killer apps,"
and "even though it [IMS] is calculus, there are people who like calculus," meaning that yes, it's tough work, but there are smart folks willing to sweat a bit.

And as we all learned Monday night, things can get brighter even when they seem at their bleakest. Or something. Hey, you try to blog after watching that game. More tomorrow.

Posted by paul at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)

Live from the Sylantro Global Summit

LAS VEGAS -- Coming to you live Monday from the Sylantro Global Summit today and tomorrow, with blogs and videos (later today) from the gathering of customers and partners of Sylantro, one of the market leaders in application feature servers, the software behind many of the cool new VoIP and advanced IP-based telephony applications.

Sylantro CEO Pete Bonee kicked things off with a great keynote about why IMS (and web services!) will be the future of rapid telephony application development, and where Web 2.0 and the phone will meet. Coming soon from Sylantro, he said, watch for new features like custome ringback tones to be a part of their application list for service-provider customers.

More from today's talks later (including Covad CEO Charlie Hoffman), as well as video from Pete's speech. Stay tuned!

Posted by paul at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2006

Digium and the Asterisk appliance

BOSTON, Mass. -- A small item attracting big attention on the Fall 2006 VON show floor is Digium's Asterisk Appliance and its companion developer kit.

We sat down with Digium leader Mark Spencer for a quick shakedown on the appliance, and the idea of making it open for developers.

Here's a clip from the press release:

The Asterisk Appliance is a standalone embedded PBX. Targeted for small to medium businesses (2-50 users), and remote branch offices of larger organizations (2-50 users per site)...

Watch this space soon for video and audio of our conversation with Mark.

Posted by paul at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2006

Vonage alive and well, Citron says

BOSTON, Mass. -- Rumors of Vonage's demise continue to be just rumors, no matter how many times company chairman Jeffrey Citron hears them.

"We're still the leading national [VoIP] provider," said Citron Tuesday at Fall 2006 VON, in a well-attended industry perspective presentation. In a brief tongue-in-cheek opening to his talk, Citron provided a timeline of predictions of Vonage's demise or its assured destruction, ending with the company's recent announcement of its reaching the 2 million user mark.

Though Vonage's business model and performance have come under more focused attack lately -- sometimes reflected in the company's poor public-market stock-price performance -- Citron said that getting bigger is helping Vonage achieve economies of scale, and might allow profitable operations in the next couple years.

"It's extremely important to achieve scale," said Citron, noting that Vonage is now paying less per user in backbone fees because it can negotiate better deals. But there are growing pains as well, such as the company-declared breakdown in customer service earlier this year, something Citron said was caused in part by adding almost 800,000 new customers in less than six months.

Citron also said that Vonage no longer needs to spend inordinate amounts of its cash on marketing, because it has achieved its goal of establishing a national (or global) brand.

"You can walk into any room, do the 'Woo-Hoo' song and people know it's Vonage," Citron said.

To grow, the VoIP industry must continue to innovate its offerings, Citron said, doing more to make things like one phone number for multiple devices an easier nirvana to reach. "For the future of Vonage, you're going to see a lot more personalization and customization," he said.

Posted by paul at 01:25 PM | Comments (0)

August 31, 2006

Andy on AOL's VoIP future

After Aswath Rao snuffed out the possibility that AOL will be signing off on its VoIP business, Andy Abramson weighs in on why AOL may be instead moving the industry forward, instead of simply departing.

Looking forward to hearing more from AOL in the Voice over IP arena... as well as from Ted Leonsis, who will be speaking at our upcoming Fall 2006 VON show.

Posted by paul at 11:02 AM | Comments (0)

July 29, 2006

VoIP over Wi-Fi? Don't forget lobbyists and regulators

Nice to see that the IP communications industry is becoming more mainstream by the day, with the New York Times article about the promise of VoIP over Wi-Fi. I say promise because the article glosses over the potential snags and long leaps of faith that will be needed to reach seamless-switching nirvana. But that's what we have people like Om for, right? To call B.S. and remind us that blogs are still the more-informed edge of the news?

Tom Evslin noticed the story and checked in from a different angle, noting that in the long run the combination of Moore's Law and aggressive competition means that the days of cellular "minutes" plans are... heh... numbered.

My own addition to the analysis pig-pile: Don't be surprised if Wi-Fi access comes under a lot more scrutiny from the FCC and Congress, courtesy of the big telco and cable lobbying firms. Why? Bet you a buck or more that all of a sudden those fine-print terms of service for broadband access will get a lot stickier, especially for folks who generously want to give their bandwidth away.

My early prediction is that the telcolobby or some astroturf group will come up with a study showing that free Wi-Fi is an abomination of some sort and should be regulated. Or stopped. Point is, the Verizons and AT&Ts will not silently stand by and watch their cellular profits go down the drain. After watching what has happened lately in the regulatory world to VoIP, is there any question that VoIP over Wi-Fi is next in the crosshairs?

For more fun goings-on in this world there is Andy's insider take, always the salsa on the burrito for my VoIP reading meal.

Posted by paul at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2006

Asterisk -- the dark horse in Microsoft-Cisco phone tilt

While most coverage of yesterday's Microsoft/Nortel VoIP-plus alliance included the cursory "analysis" of Redmond now being in pitched battle with Cisco, I haven't yet seen one report that mentions the telecom dark horse -- open-source PBXer Asterisk -- as even being in the race. At the very least, Asterisk deserves a seat at the table.

Maybe it was too easy for most observers to paint the battle as one between two behemoths, with one (Cisco) selling IP phones like crazy and the other (Microsoft/Nortel) bringing the desktop software leader together with a wounded but still market-leading provider of telephony gear.

And sure, there's meat to carve at that food fight. But might it not be similar to those who thought IBM and DEC (and maybe Microsoft!) might divvy up all the server-software spoils, while ignoring the march of the penguins? While I'm not privy to any solid market stats, the background buzz I keep hearing about Asterisk at events, talking to sources, etc., many who are "just putting in an Asterisk box," reminds me of the early days of NetWare -- and remembering that "cheap, open, easy and it works" are often pretty good selling points.

While I'm not quite as pessimistic about Microsoft/Nortel as Russell Shaw -- remember, M'soft has quite a VoIP market already with its XBox live service -- I do think there's much more to this story than which big beast will carve up the prize. Watch out for those penguins. They can be sneaky.

[Full disclosure: Though Digium/Asterisk is often a big exhibitor and sponsor of VON events, I have no financial relationship with the company and do not participate in any VON show marketing deals.]

Posted by paul at 01:45 PM | Comments (1)

June 29, 2006

FCC's VoIP USF order -- in need of appeal?

Almost unnoticed due to the headline-grabbing fight for network neutrality, the FCC's USF order for VoIP may turn out to be a huge blow to the nascent IP communications industry. Jeff Pulver, for one, thinks an appeal of the order is necessary: "I will not watch from the sidelines or from abroad while the FCC sabotages Internet communications," Pulver says in his blog today.

It's a whale of an order to read, but since you have the long holiday weekend ahead, perhaps it makes sense to spend some time perusing the order itself, to see if you agree that it does hold the potential to harm the IP communications industry.

Want a place to join to help? The VON Coalition is a good place to start.

Posted by paul at 09:25 AM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2006

Disasters aren't just hurricanes -- Add your voice to the petition!

Appropriately, Katrina got a lot of attention, but sometimes disasters are small and localized -- but potentially just as disruptive and dangerous for those affected. Look what happens when a small but strategically significant landslide takes place, cutting off all communications to a community. Still think this country is ready for disaster situations? If you think more needs to be done, there is still time to add your voice to the Pulver/Evslin petition before the FCC on post-disaster communications.

Reading more about the outage in Half Moon Bay and the coastside serves as a great reminder that despite all their wishes to build super networks that will rake in big bucks, the infrastructure of the telcos' networks is in many places paper-thin. Imagine the headlines we'd see if Vonage couldn't reach 14,000 customers for more than a day, and had to rely on police officers at street corners for 911 coverage!

Since many big-bucks CEOs and other Silicon Valley execs live in the Half Moon Bay area, we expect to soon see a private microwave (or WiMAX?) network set up to avoid problems from future landslides. But how many other areas are similarly vulnerable to single points of failure? Might it make sense to require AT&T and Verizon to make such infrastructure information public, so that citizens can take action before the next mountain slides down?

Posted by paul at 08:52 AM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2006

Concerned about this year's hurricanes? Add your voice to the Pulver/Evslin petition

If hurricane Katrina revealed anything last year, it was the lack of a comprehensive technology infrastructure to handle post-disaster communications. While we wait and wonder what exactly the dept. of Homeland Security has done with all those billions, Jeff Pulver and Tom Evslin have taken action and filed a petition with the FCC to start the process of bringing present-day technologies to bear on the problem. What can you do? Simple -- follow the instructions here and let the FCC know that you too care about what happens when the next storm hits.

After Katrina last year, there was a fairly sizeable outpouring of concern from the tech community, wondering how we could use our collective smarts to help. Commenting on the petition is a good way to start.

Posted by paul at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2006

Clearwire's VoIP has unclear promises

On the surface, wireless provider Clearwire's debut in the Voice over IP market may seem a sensible choice to users of the company's pre-WiMAX Internet access service. But upon further review, there's a lot less to the company's offering than other VoIP competitors, leaving one to wonder why anyone would willingly buy a non-nomadic, unsecure service that can only be used with a single broadband provider -- Clearwire.

Like we've seen before, Clearwire's press releases may say one thing, but the company's real intentions are spelled out more forthrightly in the terms of service, those fine-print documents that even company execs don't always have time to read.

For the VoIP service, available this week in Stockton, Calif., Clearwire's press release promises a better VoIP:

What differentiates Clearwire from other VoIP providers is that Clearwire’s service operates across the company’s existing wireless network, offering secure, dependable, high-quality voice communications.

(my emphasis)

But in the company's own terms of service, you learn that "secure" isn't always what it seems to be:

You acknowledge and understand that Clearwire cannot and does not guarantee that the Internet Phone Service is secure, and we are not liable to you or any other party for any lack of privacy or security you experience while using the Internet Phone Service.

So... it's "secure," but they can't guarantee that. Feel better already?

Also in the terms of service, Clearwire makes sure you understand that their VoIP is only to be used with Clearwire's broadband service... making its portability limited to however far you can carry your antenna within Clearwire's service area.

In addition, you are required to obtain and use Internet Access Service from Clearwire in order to enable the Internet Phone Service to operate. You acknowledge and understand that the Internet Phone Service may not be used with another provider’s broadband or internet service and we do not authorize you to use the Internet Phone Service with another provider’s broadband or internet service.

So... is that Voice over IP, or Voice only over our IP?

And -- do you trust such a company to keep all your calls private?

Clearwire respects your privacy and, to the extent feasible, treats the content of all communications as private, except as may be required by law. Please refer to the Clearwire Privacy Policy at www.clearwire.com for additional information. We have the right, but not the obligation to you to monitor, intercept and disclose any transmissions over or using our facilities, and to provide subscriber billing, account, or use records, and related information under certain circumstances (for example, in response to lawful process, orders, subpoenas, or warrants, or to protect our rights, users or property).

OK, so you have Clearwire service, but maybe you'd like to use an independent VoIP provider? Danger, Will Robinson... more murkiness ahead. While the company denies actively blocking any outside VoIP provider, its terms of service still has language prohibiting "excess utilization of network resources," which may make you wonder what exactly you are getting when you buy bandwidth from Clearwire:

The excessive use or abuse of Clearwire’s network resources by one subscriber may have a negative impact on all other subscribers. Accordingly, you may not use the Service or take any action, directly or indirectly, that will result in excessive consumption or utilization of the system or network resources, or which may weaken network performance, as determined in Clearwire’s sole discretion. Such prohibited actions include, but are not limited to: using the Service to host a web server site which attracts excessive traffic at your location, continuously uploading or downloading streaming video or audio, usenet hosting, or continuous FTP uploading or downloading.

Last fall, Clearwire did say, quite publicly, that it would start a "partner" program to "certify" outside VoIP providers to make sure their offerings didn't inflict such so-called "negative impacts" on the Clearwire network. But despite promises to post info about the program on the company's Web site, I haven't been able to find any such info lately. (I am currently waiting for an email reply from the company inquiring into the partner program. Let's hope my email doesn't have a negative impact on their service.)

Posted by paul at 03:13 PM | Comments (11)

March 07, 2006

Andy Abramson, Intel media star

Well, we all know how shy our pal Andy Abramson is. But for a few seconds Tuesday afternoon, he had a geek-stardom moment when, during a flashy bit of video at the end of a keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum, there was Andy doing his Karate Kid pose, on the big screen!

The full backstory -- Intel's marketing dept. must have done a thorough search to include the buzziest Web sites in its fast-moving montage video clip (with the requisite thumpo-tech soundtrack) following Sean Maloney's afternoon keynote, where the Origami PC was displayed. But VoIPers watching the screen couldn't miss the 2-3 second display of our pal Andy's site, with his wonderful photo all close-up-like.

Way to go dude! I'd call Sean and ask him for one of those WiMAX cards as payment.

Posted by paul at 10:04 PM | Comments (0)

February 24, 2006

VoIP Line video clip

More video: Check out today's "VoIP Line" report for CMP's The News Show. The video link is here.

And if that's not enough VoIP multimedia, then check out the new Pulvermedia Podcast Network -- via Jeff's post today.

Posted by paul at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)

February 15, 2006

Pulverweb -- the authority on VoIP news

A bit of self-promotion here: If you are interested in VoIP and IP Communications news, do yourself a favor and bookmark or subscribe to pulverWeb, where we bring you the best compilation of news, blogs and views the industry has to offer, updated frequently throughout each business day.

Started as an experiment last Fall, pulverWeb is now the most comprehensive place you can go to find links to the top VoIP and IP news out there -- no matter where it resides. Headlined by the Jeff Pulver Blog -- which is a daily source of info on the IP communications industry -- pulverWeb also now has news archives, so you can click through all the stories you might have missed, plus it will now also feature entries from this blog, and others as we go along.

See something we didn't? Drop us a line at editor at pulverweb dot com, and if it's good we'll post a link. Also let us know what you like, and what you'd like to see. Thanks for reading!

Posted by paul at 03:49 PM | Comments (0)

February 09, 2006

Where's the love for Vonage?

It may be hard to feel sorry for a rich man who may get richer, but given the way that some bloggers are ripping into Vonage's IPO plans, I just want to pour out a shot for Jeffrey Citron, who must be wondering what he did to deserve such disrespect.

And hey! I'm not even on a Vonage advisory board, so you know my opinion is heartfelt.

Is it OK to be skeptical of Vonage as an investment or a business? Yes, because that is part of our job. But do we have to be nasty?

Maybe those who feel free to toss around the word that's the opposite of "blow" should have spent some time Tuesday watching my man Jeff stick up for the VoIP and independent-operator industry at large in front of the U.S. Senate. The new beast known as Google should thank Citron (maybe with a business deal?) for bailing out Vint Cerf, a monumentally intelligent man who was out of sorts talking to polished hams like Sen. Ted Stevens.

Jeff may have a vested interest in the outcome of the Net Neutrality fight, but at least he's got some skin in the game. Where, I ask, is Mr. $4 billion in this fight? Still hiding in some undisclosed European location? Or behind some faulty teleconferencing software?

And, do we really need to belabor the obvious, like saying "gosh, Vonage better really really execute well." Hmmm. Good advice for any number of businesses, no?

What do I think? I think that trying to predict how the public markets may or may not accept Vonage is a fool's endeavor. Dig deep into the S-1, sure, let's get all the facts out there. But let's also not forget that Vonage is taking all the arrows from two deeply fortressed foes, and still signing up people who just want to use the phone for less.

Community building? Perhaps not. But is calling people on the phone likely to be a business for the near future? Perhaps.

UPDATE -- Fri., 2/10: More Vonage smackdown, this time from the erudite Martin Geddes. Hey, he told us so!

Posted by paul at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)

February 08, 2006

Vonage Files For IPO

According to the Wall Street Journal, Vonage has (finally!) filed for its IPO (subscription required to view link)... and as some suspected, Jeffrey Citron is out as CEO (he remains chairman). The story says the company is seeking $250 million, which seems a bit odd... more later, we're sure.

According to the Journal:

Vonage said Mike Snyder will take over Feb. 27 as chief executive from founder Jeffrey A. Citron, who will remain chairman of the board. Mr. Snyder joins Vonage from ADT, a provider of security systems and unit of Tyco International Ltd., where he has been president since 1997.

At the Senate Commerce Committee hearings Tuesday, Citron said Vonage now has 1.4 million VoIP lines in service... while some of us had previously seen the IPO rumors as mere bait for an acquisition, maybe there were no takers for Vonage, which many have deemed to be not worth its VC valuations? Maybe the public market will have the last say.

Posted by paul at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)