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Microcorp Insite is Insightful Now

by On Rad's Radar? in December 9th, 2008   
Topics: , Insite, TEM, Technology, agents, channel, channel partners, microcorp, services, telecom, telecom asset management, telecommunications     

December 8, 2008 - In its annual twelve day count down of hot telecom and data services that their members should watch in the next year, Telecom Association (”TA”) choose MicroCorp’s telecom inventory management tool “Insite” on the first day.

“In 2009, because of the economy, business owners and managers will focus on getting more out of the telecom and data services they already have”, stated TA Founder Dan Baldwin.

MicroCorp’s Insite is a contract and carrier agnostic telecom inventory management tool that helps telecom consultants, agents, and their business clients answer the obvious question, “What are the telecom and data services I already have?”

Baldwin added, “Few multi-location small businesses have a professionally built online management tool that helps them track the productivity of the telecom and data services they’ve subscribed to. Most simply pay the bills as they come in, forgetting what the services were even ordered for. ‘Insite’ solves this problem by giving an ongoing updated look into all subscribed telecom services that the business customer can view and their telecom agents or consultants can manage from”.

Insite is “contract agnostic” in that it does not matter what carrier or contract term the customer currently has. Whatever the telecom or data carrier, the information from the customer’s current telecom and data bills go into Insite. Once Insite is set up, both the customer and the consultant, agent or channel partner can see what the customer is paying for on a monthly basis so all involved can more easily manage the services to achieve maximum savings.

Insite is very well suited for multi-location businesses that currently try to track all their locations’ telecom and data invoices on manual spreadsheets.

See the links below or visit the following web page to listen to an audio podcast about Insite or view a screen video about how Instie works.

http://www.telecomassociation.com/pubs/12days/1/1_index_press_release.htm

ABOUT MICROCORP - MicroCorp Inc. is a telecommunications convergence company that provides multi-vendor solutions to business customers nationwide. MicroCorp customers receive best-of-breed Telecom and ASP solutions from vendors such as Sprint, Qwest, AT&T, MCI, XO, ACC Business, Internap, Raindance, Level 3, and more. MicroCorp products are distributed nationally via a network of over 1,500 employees, agents, system integrators and VARs.
Founded in 1986, MicroCorp Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1995 MicroCorp Inc. became a graduate member of The Advanced Technology Development Center, which is located on the campus of The Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. MicroCorp can be reached at 770-649-1919 or www.MicroCorp.com.

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Raketu Adds VoIP Support for Google G1 Android Mobile

by VoIP & Gadgets Blog in December 2nd, 2008   
Topics: Android, Gadgets, Google, Google Android, Google G1, Mobile, Mobile Phones, TMCnet, VoIP, mobile phone, raketu, services     

raketu-logo.gif Raketu today released its Raketu Mobile for Google’s G1 Android mobile adding VoIP support to the Android phone. Raketu already supports iPhone, Nokia, WinMobile and BlackBerry mobile phones

google-android.jpgThe new service allows anyone with a G1 using roaming data services or WiFi to connect to the Raketu mobile services to make phone-to-phone calls, send sms-text messages and email, send and receive instant messages, store and share pictures, and more, all without a download.

Current Raketu users can start using the new services immediately, and new users can sign up at http://G1.Raketu.com or http://Android.Raketu.com.

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Broadband-enabled Game Consoles: Bye-Bye Pay TV?

by VoIP & Gadgets Blog in November 21st, 2008   
Topics: Microsoft, Netflix, Sony, Video, Video Games & Gaming, Video Hardware & Software, download-to-own, experience, movies, playstation network, services, xbox live     

A report from research consultancy TDG predicts that portals like Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Sony’s PlayStation Network will soon become formidable competitors to incumbent Pay TV services.

Leveraging broadband-enabled game consoles as the next-generation video platforms — and bypassing cable and satellite TV operators, these companies will offer a compelling alternative to traditional TV programming by providing a more immersive, interactive video experience.

The launch of Microsoft’s Experience and the Xbox Live Netflix streaming video service is a perfect example of how potent these services will soon become. There is little doubt these services are finally ready for prime time.

Even before the launch of Experience, Microsoft’s Xbox Live had amassed some 15,000 movies (1,000 of which are HD) and some 13,000 TV shows for download-to-own. The Netflix partnership adds 12,000 movies and TV programs to the mix, all for free streaming to Netflix subscribers.

Sony’s PlayStation Network has collected close to 1,000 movies and hundreds of TV programs for download-to-own. It has also announced plans to expand dramatically its video library in the next few months in order to compete with Xbox Live. 

Many thanks to Advanced-Television.

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Is the $100 Triple Play viable?

by On Rad's Radar? in November 21st, 2008   
Topics: ARPU, Broadband, Internet, LinkedIn, Marketing, Triple Play, Video, Wi-Fi, Wireless, bandwidth, cableco, duopoly, economy, lower, mso, network, profitable, services, telco, telecommunications, triple     

So on Linkedin, Neal Lachman, asked if the $100 Triple Play was Viable in today’s economic molasses. Neal writes:

Bundling voice, video, data services for a higher ARPU was an obvious, great move when broadband services and advanced digital services were first introducded……  However, the market is moving more towards a lower ARPU for the triple play services. This is especially going to play a big role in future operations. The time of high ARPUs is going, and soon it will be history.

I believe operators have to lower their ARPU estimates from 2010 onward, simply because the customer won’t be willing to pay as much. Today operators generate $100+ revenue per month on their triple play services. In 2010 and later, they should be happy if they can reach ARPU of $50. One example is the FTTH service in Holland, where people do not even want to pay more than €50 for their triple play bundle.

My thoughts on it are here:

Telcos like AT&T and Verizon are actually losing money on triple-play. Think about the fact that they were getting $35 for a phone line and $35 for DSL (averages for consumers 2 years ago). Now they have to upgrade the network to offer TV, which is the least profitable service. And do that for $30.

Install and maintain the network that they will be capping. Install home equipment like ONT and STB. To give it away for $100. Now usually the telcos will add taxes and fees on that to increase their profit.  But its the MSO’s who are making out. They went from the least profitable service (TV) to the more profitable services of phone and Internet.

With all of the CAPEX for DOCSIS upgrades as well as FTTx and WiMax build-outs, these companies won’t be able to lower ARPU for triple play.

The cost of TV content is increasing. Must carry TV channels are now asking for a bite of the pie. You have seen the battle that NFL Network and the other sports networks are having to get carried by the systems — and to be carried in the most popular packages.

I can see how the MSO’s and telcos would have to lower ARPU averages in the face of the economic tsunami we are experiencing, but they won’t be offering triple play for $50.

Remember that for the Bells, RGU’s include security, cellular, and now tech support. Cablevision rolled out a $350M wi-fi network in NY. The duopoly knows that to keep churn down, they have to get sticky with ubiquitous Internet Access and to get close to a quad-play. Surprisingly, while Verizon has the quad play in my town (Tampa) - FiOS TV, Internet, phone and Cell - that is not the package that they advertise to my house Every Single Day.

 The cost of customer acquisition, retention, advertising, tech support, customer care, bad debt, security, upgrades, and maintenance are too high for the triple play ARPU to drop below $99.

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AT&T Calls on Wal-Mart, Circuit City for Triple Play

by VoIP & Gadgets Blog in October 13th, 2008   
Topics: AT&T, Call Center and CRM, Circuit City, FiOS, Internet, Time Warner Cable, Triple Play, U-verse, Verizon, Verse, Wal-Mart, cable, services, strategy analytics     

uverse.gifJust when you were ready to give up cable altogether and watch TV on your computer, telecommunication companies start aggressively rolling out fast new ways to get TV, Internet and voice services — do I hear “Triple Play”?

And they really, really want your business. AT&T has announced it would begin selling its AT&T U-verse TV and U-verse High Speed Internet services in Circuit City and Wal-Mart stores across the country.

U-verse uses a hybrid network of fast fiber-optic and conventional copper wires to bring TV, Internet and voice services to your home. Bundles start at $69 a month. It’s trying to sweeten the deal by offering $200 cash back to customers who order certain U-verse packages online.

Why the big deals and incentives? AT&T is duking it out with Verizon’s FiOS and cable companies like Time Warner Cable to get into new homes as customers frustrated with the relatively slow speeds of DSL look for faster service.

And they’re doing it at a tough time. Broadband service providers are having trouble recruiting new subscribers, due to a soft housing market, a weakened economy, broadband market maturity and predictable seasonality, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. 

More at the LA Times.

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Free World Dialup (FWD) No Longer Free

by VoIP & Gadgets Blog in August 6th, 2008   
Topics: FWDin, FWDout, FreeCall, FreeCall.com, Jeff Pulver, SIP, TMCnet, VoIP, World, communication, fwd, membership, service, services, von, world dialup, www.freecall.com     

Saw this news on http://www.freeworlddialup.com/ stating that Free World Dialup, often referred to as FWD is now no longer “free” but now has a $30 annual “fee”. Well, at least they get to keep the FWD acronym since both have the letter ‘f’, but the domain name is no longer accurate.

freecall-logo.jpg Anyway, FWD was one of the first free SIP-to-SIP calling services using their SIP registrar (fwd.pulver.com:5060). It seems to me that FWD has had its loyal but small fanbase, but honestly I think it’s outlived its usefulness. I can setup a FREE account here on FreeCall.com and not only get SIP-to-SIP calls for free, I can also get free calls to many PSTN destinations around the world! FreeCall.com is a relative unknown in the VoIP world, but their service is something I’ve been meaning to blog about. Well, I guess I just did.

Point being, who is going to continue with the FWD service if they switch from “free” to “fee”? My guess is that the vast majority of FWD users are technically savvy folks that knew how to configure SIP settings and were looking for free SIP-to-SIP calling. So converting them to paying customers isn’t going to happen. They will look elsewhere for free SIP services. FreeCall.com just being one example.

According to their website, ”Look for changes to FWD in the coming months. We started an effort to spin FWD off as a standalone enterprise after 12 years of incubation within pulver.com. You will find increased emphasis on hardware IP phones. Softphones and interconnecting with the PSTN represent mere half measures. The full potential of VoIP arrives when we have 4 billion IP phones in circulation.

Also check out this announcement on voip-info.org.

Fee Announcement from Free World Dialup

Dear FWD’er:

Free World Dialup is implementing a $30 USD annual membership fee during the month of August after 12 years as a free service.

A startup taking over a decade to reach conviction about a business model likely sets a record, but we believe $30 USD per year is the magic number. It is 10% of the cost for Vonage’s unlimited usage plan. FWD provided the inspiration for the founding of Vonage in 2001, and Vonage’s hybrid Internet-PSTN offer now generates nearly $1 billion in annual revenue. FWD’s voluntary paid membership experiment last summer demonstrated the demand for a complete break from telephone network. FWD’s future as a Communication ISP will include only those services that do not have a per minute charge. Rather than competing directly with the telco’s or even Vonage, the mission of a Communication ISP is creating new opportunities and modes of communication. FWD will relaunch the website during August to focus on services, applications, and content available to people with VoIP SIP devices connected directly to the Internet.

See FWD CEO, Daniel Berninger’s Communication ISP Manifesto.

If you wish to retain SIP registration and support FWD, please click through the paid membership banner at the top of the home page which links to the Acteva registration service.

Make sure you use the email associated with your FWD account (the one on which this message arrived.)

If you lost your FWD account info, you can use the password retrieval process or simply create a new account.

The first 1000 paid members get “founder” status, but FWD will retain existing free accounts through August 31, 2008. The new paid membership requirement allows for associating any number of accounts with the email address used for payment, so you can keep the free ride alive by finding a friend with paid membership.

I hope you will join in transforming FWD’s nearly one million free accounts into paid memberships as we work to make the Communication ISP the next big thing in VoIP.

Best regards,

Jeff

According to their website, FWD will soon be offering FWDout which will allow users to call out to regular phones with their FWD service for a monthly fee. FWD will also soon be offering a seperate FWDin service which allows users to buy a regular phone number and connect it with their FWD service, so that people can call from their regular phones to an IP phone.

So what are your thoughts? Does FWD have a prayer as a pay-based model? Or have free SIP-to-SIP services plus the plethora of inexpensive SIP-to-PSTN services (Vonage, Packet8, BroadVoice) — not to mention Skype — make FWD pointless? Of course, magicJack charges $20/year for unlimited calling and is quite successful, so maybe Jeff Pulver is onto something here. Though it looks like FWD with be more expensive than magicJack since its $30 for the base package plus a monthly fee for FWDout and/or FWDin. Still, I’m not one to count Pulver out, especially now that VON is gone and Jeff can focus on new opportunities. I wish him luck.

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XO’s IP VPN services

by VoIP & Gadgets Blog in July 16th, 2008   
Topics: CLEC, CoS, Ethernet, IP MPLS, IP VPN, MPLS, News, QoS, SIP, TCO, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VPLS, VoIP, XO, businesses, class service, ip, network, service, services, video conferencing, xo communications     

XO Communications is one of the largest Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) in the country. XO provides voice, data and IP services to businesses and other telecommunications companies in 75 metropolitan markets across the United States. XO Communications offers businesses advanced IP and networking solutions to maximize performance and simplify management of their networks. They also offer SIP services, hosted IP-PBX functionality (the XO One iPBX 50 powered by Avaya IP Office), VoIP origination/termination, SIP trunking, and more.

One of their flagship products, the XO IP VPN is a network-based Wide Area Network (WAN) solution delivered over the XO nationwide IP network. It’s a solution aptly suited to businesses with multiple sites. The IP VPN is an advanced network allowing for faster application deployment, lower network operating costs, robust Class of Service (CoS) capabilities, and more access options than traditional WAN services.

Further, the data is segregated from other customers and the public internet. Importantly, XO offers competitive Service Level Agreements (SLAs) on packet loss and jitter.XO provides secure communications for multi-site networks, delivered over the XO private, MPLS-enabled IP backbone.

I find it interesting that XO uses IP MPLS services rather than Ethernet VPLS services. IP MPLS uses multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) over a public or private Internet connection. The advantage is that it an support any-to-any connectivity with CoS/QoS. MPLS’s class of service (CoS) tagging and prioritization of network traffic, makes it easy to specify which applications should have priority. Packet classification makes an MPLS network especially important to customers that need to ensure the performance of low-latency applications such as VoIP. Additionally, MPLS carriers can offer tiered prices for each CoS tier. The disadvantage of MPLS is that it’s a costly transition and complex operation.

Ethernet VPLS services on the other hand use virtual private LAN service (VPLS) over a carrier Ethernet network to provide a WAN that is configured like a LAN. The advantage is that it’s simple, supports any-to-any connectivity with CoS/QoS and has lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than MPLS. But if XO built out their IP MPLS infrastructure already, it probably doesn’t make sense to switch to Ethernet VPLS.

In any event, XO utilizes a nationwide OC-192 Tier 1 network along with a sizable fiber optic network, including an 18,000 route-mile inter-city network and more than 9,000 route-miles within 40 major metropolitan markets. XO claims they carry more than 15 billion minutes of VoIP traffic across its network each year.

The XO MPLS IP VPN service is a network-based Wide Area Network (WAN) solution delivered over the XO nationwide IP network. The IP VPN offers multi-site businesses more bandwidth for the dollar, faster application deployment, lower network operating costs, robust Class of Service.

Finally, XO has an IP VPN channel on TMCnet worth checking out with some good resources on IP VPNs. It includes a link for signing up for an IP VPN newsletter, news on various IP VPN industry happenings, IP VPN whitepapers, webcasts, and customer profiles. Go check it out.

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Comcast - We won’t block Vonage or any other VoIP provider

by VoIP & Gadgets Blog in July 10th, 2008   
Topics: Bittorrent, Comcast, P2P, SIP, TMCnet, VoIP, Vonage, bat phone, network, services     


According to eFluxMedia, Comcast is “working on rehabilitating its name and implementing reasonable management techniques through a new partnership with VoIP service provider Vonage.” Vonage and Comcast said they will work on ensuring adequate management techniques to avoid network congestion to ensure high quality VoIP services.

I should point out that Comcast tarnished their own reputation when they intentionally degraded P2P traffic, particularly Bittorrent, a heavy bandwidth application. According to a 36 page thread on the Vonage Forums that dates back to 2006, Comcast was accused of degrading Vonage’s voice over IP bat-phone.jpgquality intentionally. Comcat has denied these charges, but many Comcast users that have Vonage have had issues.

Whether conspiracy or not, now Vonage and Comcast stated they will have a “direct line of communications” between their network operations centers to resolve customer issues. Umm, so they couldn’t talk to each other easily before, so now they need a special ‘bat phone’ direct hotline?

According to the Free Press, Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press and author of the complaint, issued the following statement:

“We are baffled as to why it was necessary for Vonage to strike a network management agreement with Comcast to guarantee that their services are not degraded or blocked. Such anti-competitive, anti-consumer practices are already against the law. And beyond that, Comcast has been on the record as saying that they do nothing to deter their customers’ use of VoIP.

“This announcement calls into question the company’s honesty about its treatment of competing services. Was Comcast degrading Vonage’s VoIP service before this announcement? And are they continuing to degrade other services that compete with their products? That these questions remain unanswered by today’s announcement is cause for great concern. This collaboration should do nothing to deter the FCC from investigating and stopping Comcast’s blocking other Internet services.”

The partnership with Vonage is supposedly part of Comcast’s commitment to move to a protocol-agnostic network management approach by the end of 2008. Comcast has announced collaboration with Pando Networks for a “P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” (BRR) and participation in the P4P Working Group organized by the Distributed Computing Industry Association.

It all sounds well & good, but we’ll see if Comcast lives up to their word to play fair and not mess with IP packets. I for one am not holding my breath.

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Let’s get Naked (DSL) Cowboy!

by VoIP & Gadgets Blog in July 9th, 2008   
Topics: DSL, TMCnet, Triple Play, Unified Communications, VoIP, insight, naked, naked cowboy, naked dsl, phone, pstn, residential, service, service provider, services     

naked-cowboy-dsl.jpg
Image of the famous Times Square Naked Cowboy.

An interesting new IDC Insight report reveals that although residential VoIP services have been available in Australia for the past four years, the uptake in naked DSL has been slow compared with Europe and the U.S.

The Insight report titled Residential VoIP: Let’s Get Naked, attributes the slower uptake to several factors including lack of, and high cost of broadband, poor quality of service (QoS), number portability and high complexity. However, over the past 6-12 months, IDC notes there has been an upswing in consumers moving to residential VoIP services due to many of these inhibitors being overcome.

The biggest factor is the regulatory rules regarding Naked DSL, which enables service providers to offer VoIP over DSL copper lines without the unwanted bundled PSTN telephone line. “A key driver to this is the bundled sell of broadband and VoIP together and more recently, the offering of Naked DSL services, which is a business model that has been enabled via regulation more than technical capabilities,” said David Cannon, Program Manager, Telecommunications at IDC.

Last time I tried to get naked DSL in 2005, my local carrier in Connecticut didn’t allow it. I’d be interested to see if things have changed. I might have been willing to put up with some issues with Vonage (mostly due to Charter my cable ISP) if I could have switched away from Charter to naked DSL. Today, I’m back to AT&T DSL with AT&T’s unlimited voice plan. Yeah, yeah, I know, a VoIP blogger not using VoIP at home? When I was single - Vonage. Married - AT&T PSTN. Answer your question? No? Well go read my ‘Men are from VoIP and Women are from PSTN’ article.

Other highlights from the Insight include:

  • Throughout 2007, the Australia residential VoIP market enjoyed strong growth. At the end of CY07, there were an estimated 285,000 residential VoIP subscribers with an estimated value of A$40.67 million.
  • IDC believes that the network based VoIP service will become the dominant residential VoIP service offering in Australia over the course of the next 24 months.
  • Incumbent SPs in various countries across Europe and the United States have been offering Naked DSL services for the last two years in order to stymie their competitors’ rollout of their own DSLAM infrastructure.
  • Many consumers are now more reliant on their mobile phone than they are on their landline phone. A point of frustration for this type of consumer has been that in order to have a broadband connection, you still need to have an active PSTN line. This meant paying two access services fees when wanting only one service.
  • Scalability and flexibility are synonymous with VoIP. The functionality that VoIP delivers, even at its early stages of maturity, supersedes that of the PSTN. This means that VoIP is ultimately a better product that also enables fixed/mobile convergence (FMC) and unified communications (UC).

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Is There More to Netflix/Roku Than Meets the Eye?

by VoIP & Gadgets Blog in July 2nd, 2008   
Topics: Forbes, LG, Microsoft, Netflix, PDAs & Handhelds, Roku, VentureBeat, Video Hardware & Software, Xbox 360, device, services     

home_content_box.jpgBlogged about the intriguing Netflix/Roku deal back on May 20, but now an interesting piece on VentureBeat makes it even more (and more!) interesting.

The new Roku box (doesn’t look like much, does it?) lets you stream any of Netflix’s 10,000+ “Watch Now” movies (movies that can be watched immediately over the internet for free with your subscription) to your TV set instantly. However, a new wrinkle may make the device even more attractive — with a simple software download, other services beyond Netflix will soon be able to use it, according to Forbes.

This changes the device from a nice little purchase (it’s only $99), into a potential Trojan horse for digital content in your living room. Of course, it entirely depends on what other services reach agreements to use the device. Roku would only say that other “big name” providers could bring their services to the device with a simple update.

At the same time, Netflix plans to release another box featuring its “Watch Now” service in conjunction with LG later this year. There’s also an intriguing rumor that the service could come to Microsoft’s Xbox 360. 

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