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blogs / Apr 02, 2008 12:55 PM PST

Who Makes the Any Apps Any Handset Call?

The Wall Street Journal today reported that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wants to reject a Petition for Declaratory Ruling filed by Skype that would establish a wireless Carterfone policy, i.e., that wireless carriers must allow subscribers to use any compatible handset to access any application, content or software. Chairman Martin has confidence that the marketplace solutions obviate any necessary FCC intervention. Such optimism must derive in part from the apparently newfound willingness of one major wireless carrier, Verizon, to support aspects of open access. Perhaps Chairman Martin has confidence in the marketplace based on the magnanimous offer of most wireless carriers to pro-rate their early termination penalties by $5 a month. But here's the rub... ›››

blogs / Feb 29, 2008 11:08 AM PST

The Perfect Phone

Lee Dryburgh initiated a great thread in the Emerging Communications public group entitled What would your perfect phone be? There are 14 messages there at this moment with a lot of good ideas, but my first thought was the term "phone" is too limiting. Indeed, some of the correspondents' ideas also go far beyond the idea of a telephone. Here's what I want and fully expect to see, eventually. ›››

blogs / Feb 14, 2008 3:16 PM PST

Call for Telecom Industry Wake-Up

As many of you know, I'm launching the Emerging Communications (eComm) conference -- taking place next month in Silicon Valley, at the Computer History Museum. Communications innovation has been stagnant, in my opinion, for nearly a decade. Telecommunications and Internet communications both seem to be at somewhat of an impasse. The communications industry needs a forum to help break through the stagnancy and highlight the huge opportunity space that is emerging. The stagnancy has been strikingly more so in telecommunications... ›››

blogs / Oct 11, 2007 11:37 AM PST

The Third Stage of the VoIP Rocket Never Fired

Ten years ago was the dawn of Voice over IP (VoIP). The pioneering Israeli company VocalTec had just released its VoIP software for PCs (it was named iPhone, BTW). Industry guru Jeff Pulver (whom I now partner with in FWD) had begun to hold his Voice on the Net (VON) shows. As the founder of VoIP startup ITXC, I was invited to give a keynote at VON in Boston. The evolution of VoIP, I opined with the requisite PowerPoint slides, will be like a three stage rocket. I was right about the first two stages and dead wrong about the third... ›››

news / Sep 27, 2007 1:55 PM PST

Stealing VoIP Services: Convicted Hacker Interviewed

Convicted hacker Robert Moore, who is set to go to federal prison this week, says breaking into 15 telecommunications companies and hundreds of businesses worldwide was incredibly easy because simple IT mistakes left gaping technical holes. ›››

blogs / Sep 26, 2007 4:02 PM PST

Walks Like a Telco, Yalks Like a Telco… Must be a Telco

Vonage's latest woes are written up by Om Malik in Vonage: How Low Can You Go. More interesting than Om's reportage (Sprint wins case, Vonage ordered to pay damages, stock drops to $1.30) is the commentary afterward, in which one reader takes Om to task for the "gleeful" way in which he reports the demise of the VoIP companies... Boosters made the argument that VoIP was fundamentally cheaper than the TDM systems that phone companies deploy, and so therefore they enjoyed a price advantage in the market place. Anyone in the business of supplying telecom equipment, however, will tell you that the argument is flawed... ›››

blogs / Sep 24, 2007 12:37 PM PST

Telephony is Disrupted Because Voice No Longer Matters… (As Much)

Does "voice" communication really matter as much today in business communications? Think about it. When you need to reach someone today, what do you do? Do you call them on the phone? Or do you send them email? Or a text message? or IM? I know personally that my normal communication flow usually goes something like this: Instant Messaging; I check first to see if I can reach the person on some form of IM... SMS; if the matter is relatively important... E-mail/Facebook/Twitter/other; Previously that would have just been email, but these days I find myself very often sending messages via Facebook or Twitter... ›››

blogs / Sep 05, 2007 11:41 AM PST

Rent vs. Buy: The Driver of Economics

We the people like to own stuff and not pay rent to use it (BTW, rent includes taxes but that's another story). They the oligarchs like to own the stuff and charge us rent to use it. The rise of a middle class has historically meant the rise of a property-owning class. The underclass pays exorbitant rents. The telecommunications world -- or at least the US part of it -- is a battle of rent vs. buy. Economics says that ownership or rentership is all based on access to capital. Certainly capital is a huge part of the equation -- can you spell "home loan"?; but it's not the whole story... ›››

news / Aug 28, 2007 2:41 PM PST

Study Says Email Has Surpassed Telephony as Corporate Communication Tool

New research recently released by Dimension Data suggests that email usage has surpassed telephony as communication tool of choice in the workplace. The research surveyed 390 IT managers and 524 enterprise users across 13 countries in the United States, Asia Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa. According to the research, 100% of the end-users surveyed use e-mail, followed by fixed-line telephony (80%), mobile telephony (76%) and instant messaging (66%). ›››

blogs / Aug 20, 2007 11:17 AM PST

Understanding the Skype Outage

Skype's official explanation. Phil Wolff has a good set of interpolated comments on the official explanation. There are two things to add... As the Register points out, last Tuesday was Microsoft's monthly patch day and those patches required a re-boot. If we believe Skype that their problem started with excessive login attempts, this is the only plausible explanation on the table... ›››

news / Jul 19, 2007 2:44 PM PST

VoIP and IP-Based Network Skills in High Demand

Network World is reporting that VoIP and wireless LAN network skills are in high demand as companies are looking for better support of wireless LANs, VoIP and IP-based networks. From the report: "Forrester Research recently released data that showed the number of network systems and data communications analysts surged by 11% from 2005 to 2006, and the research firm expects that number to grow another 6% in 2007 and 6 % by 2008. With some 178,000 IT workers filling those positions in 2006, Forrester says the market will demand close to 198,000 network systems and data communications analysts in 2008." ›››

blogs / Jul 03, 2007 9:28 PM PST

Google Acquires Grandcentral… and Enters Further into the PSTN Side of Telecommunications

News breaking out today is that Google has acquired GrandCentral for something around $50 million. GrandCentral is a service that gives you one phone number that can ring multiple numbers, provide one common voicemail - and all sorts of the other features (see "howitworks" for a list of features)... So will we ultimately see voicemail inside of Gmail? One would assume that we will eventually see integration with GoogleTalk... ›››

blogs / Jul 02, 2007 2:55 PM PST

SIP, the Holy Grail of VoIP World

For many in the Voice over IP world, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is the holy grail. Once it is accepted by every vendor and manufacturer, it will enable every IP-based device and application to communicate with one another. But for now it remains still a bit of an enigma that raises a large number of questions for everyone. TechTarget offers a VoIP SIP fundamentals guide discussing some of the basics of SIP -- its vulnerabilities, testing and hardware. ›››

blogs / Jun 05, 2007 3:07 PM PST

VoIP: Beyond Digital POTS

I've been involved with VoIP technology since 1996. I've been a public advocate for wideband audio at least since 1997. And I've admired and supported a variety of companies using VoIP to provide innovative services and new user interfaces. But reflecting on the past decade, the only globally significant impact of VoIP has been on prices (by fostering arbitrage). Most VoIP telephony services are just digital POTS... ›››

blogs / May 29, 2007 2:52 PM PST

Skype as a Platform for Secure VPN Tunnels?

Since Skype has an open client-side API, why not use it as a transport to tunnel VPN traffic and blow through firewalls to connect you to a remote system? That's the idea raised by Peeter P. Mõtsküla in his Skype Developer Blog entry: "Idea: skypetunnel". For instance, have a Skype client running on your home machine logged in as one account. Have Skype on your laptop on another account. Initiate a connection between the two of them and wind up with secure, encrypted access through the firewall from wherever you are. Being peer-to-peer, there would be no central servers or infrastructure required (outside the usual Skype p2p cloud.) This would require, of course, a yet-to-be-created "extra" that connected into the Skype client API and was installed on both systems...but that was the point of the article... ›››

blogs / May 26, 2007 8:24 PM PST

Frustrations with VoIP Phone Services

I ought to explain why I've suddenly gone cold on VoIP. It's just I've watched my own behaviour. I've grown tired of the inconsistency of PC VoIP calls, and instead I've reverted to using landlines, mobiles and Jajah (for callback). But I'm still using IM to set up many of those calls! The problem isn't unique to any one client - they're all proving unsuitable for business use with clients (which is most of my telephony needs covered). The worst of all seems to be Skype conference calling... ›››

blogs / May 21, 2007 4:01 PM PST

VoIP/IP Telephony in Estonia: Disrupted by Botnets?

With my post earlier this month about the possibility of SIP botnets [also featured here on CircleID], I've had a number of people asking about more information and wondering about the possible impacts. And while I will write more on botnets in general, as far as the potential impact of "botnets" in general, one need only look over at the current situation in Estonia... Now, perhaps Russia is behind the attack... perhaps not. There are obviously much larger political issues going on between the two states. ›››

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Industry Updates

DNS / May 06, 2008 12:16 PM PST

Oversee.net’s DomainSponsor Presents 3rd Annual DOMAINfest Global

The third annual DOMAINfest Global, the premier conference and networking event for the domain name industry, will be held at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood, California from January 28-30, 2009. Event registration will open later this year. ›››

DNS / May 02, 2008 12:21 PM PST

.NL Auction Sneak Peak!

Join Sedo for our much anticipated .NL auction, being held from May 2nd 4pm (EST) until May 9th at approximately 4pm (EST). As the worth of the .NL continues to increase, so does the demand. ›››

DNS / Apr 30, 2008 12:01 PM PST

dotMobi Requests Proposals for find.mobi

dotMobi today announced that is accepting proposals for find.mobi, a consumer-facing mobile search tool; find.mobi was created by dotMobi's research and development team to demonstrate an operational mobile search engine that made the most of the mobile web and needs of on-the-go users. ›››

DNS / Apr 28, 2008 4:08 PM PST

dotMobi Offers Prime Selection of Generic Domain Names to Spur Mobile Web Growth

As part of its ongoing series of unique methods of allocating Internet domain names, dotMobi is bringing 16 "premium names" to market at Moniker's T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East Auction on May 23, 2008. ›››

DNS / Apr 28, 2008 1:41 PM PST

Sedo’s Better-than-Ever Brokerage Service!

Sedo's brokerage services are being updated with a new process for submitting both buyer and seller side brokerage requests and enhanced communications tools.  ›››

DNS / Apr 18, 2008 11:50 AM PST

Sedo’s Matt Bentley a Featured Speaker at Internet World Conference

Direct Navigation a key theme at this year's conference. Sedo, the leading online market place for buying and selling Internet domain names and websites, will be a featured presenter at this year's Internet World conference. ›››

DNS / Apr 16, 2008 8:00 AM PST

dotMobi Joins Forces with DomainsBot to Help Businesses More Easily Find New .mobi Internet Addresse

DomainsBot, the leading domain name suggestion and search engine company, will now include .mobi in their domain name search and suggestion tool, used by the majority of the world's best-known Internet domain name retailers. ›››

DNS / Apr 10, 2008 10:45 AM PST

.NU and .SH Auctions Start Today! Join Sedo for Side by Side Auctions

Both auctions will start at 11AM CET on April 10th and end approximately one week later at 11AM CET on April 17th. ›››

DNS / Apr 08, 2008 9:02 AM PST

Oversee.net Names David Subar Chief Technology Officer

David Subar will be responsible for building and implementing technology that supports Oversee's core activities in its Domain Services and Marketing Services divisions, while aligning the Company's technology resources for further expansion. ›››

DNS / Apr 07, 2008 8:51 PM PST

Sedo Introduces New Customer Support Center

With almost a 180,000 customers across the US and Canada, this online Customer Support Center will enable our members to benefit from faster turnaround times and more accurate responses. ›››

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