Archive for November 17th, 2008
Bandwidth Caps
Bandwidth caps have more to do with preserving TV revenues than network management business. Yes, there are issues of last mile and node congestion for both telco and cableco networks. It is also a function of the band-aid approach that these companies take. instead of one huge upgrade (like say Verizon with FiOS), there have been baby step fixes. It’s also about preserving revenue. If you switch from watching Broadcast TV to just downloading Netflix and Amazon, how do the TV Providers mak...
Xbox Live Getting a Makeover
Get ready for a new look for Xbox Live this week when Microsoft debuts a completely new look for its gaming platform. The date: November 19. The new look will include customizable avatars, an iPod-like display and easier viewing of Netflix downloads. According to Microsoft, the upgrades are meant to turn a somewhat static user interface into “a social media entertainment hub.” So tune in later this week and let’s hear how you like it (or how you don’t). Get more at USA ...
The IP Resale Tumble
As prices of IP bandwidth sink to new lows, resellers - like Bandcon, AlphaRed, and the rest - are facing pressure. In fact, AlphaRed has apparently closed its doors, which could create problems for other resellers that it buys from and sells to, like BandCon who is the CDN for AlphaRed. For every reseller that closes, a new one opens up. (Please note: the other reason that AlphaRed may have closed was that the Washington Attorney General is suing AlphaRed CEO for scareware.) Tags: resell...
Spam Response Rate
1 in 12.5 Million responses to spam — but it is still highly profitable. If the spam was just selling products with $10 profit per sale, it would still be highly profitable. But when you are stealing credit card numbers and identities, it makes spam hugely profitable. Spammers usually run off of botnets of infected computers. Why people don’t update (and run) anti-virus programs regularly is beyond me. Why we haven’t defeated spam yet is another issue. Tags: spam Related Entri...
Cable Continues to Beat Telcos at the Broadband Game
Cable beat the telco carriers two to one for broadband adds in the third quarter of 2008, according to data out today from Leichtman Research Group. Of the 1.3 million total broadband adds in the quarter, 873,745 went to cable, as opposed to 425,868 who signed up for DSL service. We’ve pointed out that cable is gaining over DSL during the last few quarters, and even wondered what the telcos would do as DSL lines fell. Before we credit cable’s fast speeds compared with DSL for its a...
Would Anyone Miss the Yellow Pages?
It seems kind of strange to see a feature story in the Wall St. Journal entitled “Extinction Threatens Yellow-Pages Publishers”. By strange, I mean that it’s not really a story for anyone who actively uses the Web. When was the last time you looked something up in the yellow or white pages? I would hazard to guess the answer is you can’t remember. In my house, the Yellow Pages don’t even make it past the front porch. As soon as they’re delivered, they’r...
Another Skype Partner Acquired: VAPPS Goes to Citrix
We have often reported on HiDef Conferencing as a leader in high quality voice conferencing. It’s a service built around servers that specialize in connecting up to 500 conferencing participants from either the PSTN or Skype, and managing the call participants’ level of participation. Should a participant be connected by Skype, they will hear all other Skype participants across their HD Audio service with all its benefits for providing better voice clarity (thus, the name HiDef Confe...
Nvidia Machine Takes a Spot on the Top Supercomputer List
For the first time ever, a supercomputer using Nvidia chips has achieved a spot on the Top 500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers. The Nvidia-containing machine is ranked No. 29 on the list that was released late Friday; it’s a cluster built by NEC and Sun Microsystems that uses chips from Nvidia, Intel and AMD. As Nvidia and AMD, which bought graphics chipmaker ATI in 2005, push graphics processors for scientific computing, this is a big milestone. The rest of the list was ...
Fiber Lit Buildings
Rob Powell has an update to his fiber list on Telecom Ramblings blog. What is interesting about the chart is that TWT and L3 have about the same number of route miles - 26,000 - but TWT has way more buildings lit that Level3. TWT has 10,700 buildings lit and L3 has about 7550. TWT lights about 250 per quarter. That’s an impressive number. I wonder how TWT does that because 250 buildings times $7000 minimum build comes to $1.75M per quarter of CAPEX. I also wonder how much overlap there is ...
Obama and NAB
I don’t know how this ended up in front of me this morning, but it was an interesting piece about Obama and Radio Localism. Obviously, conservatives don’t want localism because it gets in the way of profit. You can’t profit if you have to pay a DJ in each market AND report some local news. Sheesh! Why do you think we get these licenses anyway - Profit. The guys at NAB are ready to fight Localism. Unfortunately for NAB, word is getting out that license renewal is NOT autom...
Next Stop - Tekelec
Got a short trip this week, and one that I’m looking forward to. I’ve been invited to attend Tekelec’s Industry Analyst Day at their offices in Morrisville, N.C. Aside from having followed Tekelec for many years, I’ve never been to Morrisville (near RTP), so it’s a new travel destination for me. Tekelec has a long history with SS7 and today have a strong focus on IMS and SIP-based solutions. Most of what they do isn’t terribly sexy - routing, ENUM, signaling, ...
How the Recession Will Affect Data Spending
The recession won’t cut too deeply into wireless data spending in the U.S. for now, according to data sent over last night by Chetan Sharma of Chetan Sharma Consulting. In his third-quarter wireless data report, Sharma concludes that the rise in the number of consumer smartphones over the last few quarters means that data spending by consumers will likely offset cuts in revenue caused by the loss of jobs and employer-subsidized data subscriptions. Data is continuing to offset the loss in ...
Ifbyphone Raises $4.6 Million
Another piece of exciting Ifbyphone news rolled in today, as we officially announced a $4.6 Million round of financing. Apex Venture Partners, Origin Ventures, Spring Mill Venture Partners, i2A & Blue Crest Capital Finance LP all invested in the round. “We view this new round of funding as a strong endorsement of our growth and expansion strategy,” said Ifbyphone founder and CEO Irv Shapiro. “It positions us extremely well to continue our expansion during these complex economic times...
Ribbit Launches out of Beta
Ribbit, which was recently acquired by BT, today rolled out its developer platform out of beta at the Adobe Max conference. Ribbits extensive APIs allow you to integrate voice communications into business applications such as Salesforce.com, CRM systems, call center applications, and even social networks. Ribbit launched its programming platform for developers today at the Adobe Max conference. Ribbit likes to call themselves “Silicon Valley’s First Phone Company”. Post-acquis...
Pushing WiFi Speeds To Over 300 Mbps
Normally I don’t pay much attention to product announcements, but a news release from Proxim Wireless caught my eye. They are announcing a new device, that uses dual 802.11n radios to wirelessly transmit data at speeds in excess of 300 Mbps. A single radio version can hit speeds of 170 Mbps. These speeds would make them almost seven times faster than current wireless networks. Many believe that we are headed to Gigabit Wireless Networks soon. The 802.11n standard is still in “draft...
Call for Speakers: SocComm / The Social Communications Summit - February 10-11 2009 in New York City
Today I am announcing a new event Im calling SocComm, an event which will explore the state of Social Communications, where things are headed in the future and where the money is today and will be tomorrow. The success of VocalTecs iPhone in 1995 opened up my eyes to a future where individuals will one day be self empowered to communicate with whomever and whenever they want to, in a world where Voice is just an application and not a service. In 2008 Apple proved it is possible to r...
Updates: iNum, Calliflower and Entering “Last Name” onto a BlackBerry
With both VoiceCon and Under The Radar events in the Bay Area last week, there were lots of announcements in the Voice 2.0 communications space; I wrote up some GigaOm and Web Worker Daily Posts to cover a few of them: On Tuesday Voxbone announced the launch of their iNum Service. Basically it provides a means to have a universal worldwide “local” number that can be accessed through the recently accredited (by the ITU) +883 country code. Last Tuesday I hosted a SquawkBox conference c...
Dial-o, the new typo
Congrats to Shai Berger, the first to coin "dial-o" and winner by popular acclaim of a Sony PSP3, courtesy of Skype. Shai is CEO of Fonolo, which helps you deep dial customer service, sales, and tech support hotlines, bypassing phone trees. Other suggestions for what to call an accidental call: Skypo callerr…pronounced differently from caller. More like Call Err! Bad Call DTMF’d (no other meaning there as in oops I dtmf’ed the wrong number MisD’d as in ...
SiPort Shooting: No Layoffs, Killer Was Fired
The reports of layoffs at SiPort, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based company that prompted killing of three executives are wrong, according to a statement issued by the company. Looks like me, everyone assumed that there were layoffs and that led to the shooting. Last week Silicon Valley was shocked by the shooting of three SiPort executive by alleged killer, Jing Hua Wu who is currently under arrest by the Santa Clara Police Department. Wu was terminated individually and not as part of a general lay...
No More Landlines – Comm Forecast #1
By the end of President Obama’s first term, there won’t be any more landlines left in the country. One of the challenges facing the Federal Communications Commission and the new administration is how to deal with the fallout from the end of this venerable technology. It’s gonna get ugly for some people – people who can’t afford to do without communication – unless we’re proactive about this problem. Here’s what’s happening as you probably know. Youn...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.