Archive for October, 2005
The FCC approved the SBC Communications / AT&T and Verizon Communications / MCI mergers this afternoon after several days of intense discussions and delays.
Of particular interest is the requirement that SBC and Verizon offer "naked DSL" access, as well as a strong commitment to "network neutrality." What the former means is that DSL service will have to be "unbundled" — in other words it has to be sold as a stand-alone product. So Verizon, for example, cannot force customers to sign up for its circuit-switched voice service in order to be allowed to buy DSL service.
Neutrality means that Internet subscribers must be allowed to use any IP service, such as VoIP, over their Internet connection. The companies will not be allowed to block subscribers from content.
Monday, October 31st, 2005 | Posted in FlyFone | No Comments »
FlyFone is offering a free Internet phone handset to new subscribers to its low-cost VoIP service. Click here to get the FlyFone USB VoIP handset.
Telecom and data network research firm Infonetics predicts that the North America VoIP market will grow from the US$1.24B that it was in 2004 to over $23B in 2009 - an increase of 18 times in just over five years - quite an aggressive prediction.
“VoIP subscriber growth is skyrocketing right along with revenue growth: we’re forecasting triple-digit growth from 2005 to 2006, with 6 million new subscribers a year every year from 2006 to 2008, when there will be over 24 million,” said Kevin Mitchell, principal analyst of Infonetics Research and author of the report.
While Vonage has the largest market share right now, Infonetics says that stiff competition from cable companies Time Warner and Cablevision are making major gains, eroding Vonage’s market share.
The big three of VoIP are Vonage (32% of the market), Time Warner (25%) and Cablevision (19%). No other VoIP service provider has more than a 3% market share.
The Voice over IP Security Alliance (VOIPSA), a non-profit that "aims to fill the void of VoIP Sercurity related resources" is working on a open VoIP security threat taxonomy project.
VOIPSA is seeking help from individuals and organizations interested in furthering the goal of security through a collaborative, consensus process. Some of the issues they’re interested in working on include social threats (such as misrepresentation or theft of service), eavsdropping, interception and modification, and intentional/unintentional interruption of service.
If you’re interested, you can check out VOIPSA’s Taxonomy Wiki or Homepage.
This sounds like a good way to go about documenting, and then later addressing, the security threats facing VoIP and child technologies that come out of it. Since VoIP is already mission critical for so many businesses and even emergency relief organizations now (and of course this is only increasing), working on these security issues is critical.
The "furor," as Wired calls it, regarding the FCC’s ruling that VoIP services have to comply with wiretap regulations is only growing.
The New York Times reports that the ruling’s impact on universities will cost schools more than US$7 billion to comply with:
The action, which the government says is intended to help catch terrorists and other criminals, has unleashed protests and the threat of lawsuits from universities, which argue that it will cost them at least $7 billion while doing little to apprehend lawbreakers. Because the government would have to win court orders before undertaking surveillance, the universities are not raising civil liberties issues.
The order, issued by the Federal Communications Commission in August and first published in the Federal Register last week, extends the provisions of a 1994 wiretap law not only to universities, but also to libraries, airports providing wireless service and commercial Internet access providers.
Meanwhile, a story from Wired tracks outrage from civil liberties groups and technology pioneers:
Critics say the rules make it harder for new U.S. internet telephony companies to get off the ground.
"What the FBI has asked for, and what the FCC has to date given them, would require any new developer of a voice-based technology to submit their application for the FBI’s approval before even one single person on the internet can try it," said John Morris of the Center for Democracy and Technology"If the FCC continues to give the FBI every power it asks for, we will see a tremendous diminution of innovation in the United States and innovation will move overseas to places that are more supportive of small innovators."
The ruling could be particularly troublesome for companies using a peer-to-peer architecture that doesn’t route calls through a central server, and which may not technically be able to comply. The FCC order says that all calls on such a system — not just the ones to and from the traditional network — have to be wiretappable using CALEA standards.
The end result, according to Jeff Pulver, who co-founded Vonage and runs a free P2P internet telephony service called FWD, is that the rules "take away our freedom to innovate and take away inspiration for people to be entrepreneurial in this space."
"This comes at a time when it’s most susceptible to being screwed up," Pulver said. "The technology is still in its adolescence. This is a transformational current — we are talking about the communications and computing industry transforming into something that has never existed before. This is not your parents’ telecom service."
The ruling appears to pull in the best-known P2P telephone service, Skype, which eBay recently purchased for $2.6 billion. Skype offers optional pay services called SkypeIn and SkypeOut that permit customers to receive calls from, and make calls to, the traditional phone system. That means it will have to re-engineer its system to make its customers wiretappable, even during free peer-to-peer calls between Skype users — something that might not be possible. The company did not return a call seeking comment.
These rules are troubling from so many aspects - civil liberties, cost, and the hinderance of tech innovation and development.
Interesting opinion piece from David Coursey over at eWeek entitled "Just Say No to ‘Free’ Phone Service." As is popular these days, Coursey starts off with a slam on the eBay-Skype purchase and the constant stream of (questionable) predictions that eBay CEO Meg Whitman keeps coming out with - this time that not only will telephone calls be free within three years, but also that it will be impossible to actually sell such service:
Opinion: If advertisers are going to underwrite phone service, consumers will lose control, and service will surely suffer.
eBay CEO Meg Whitman, apparently still under the influence of whatever caused her to invest $4 billion in Skype last week, says that within years voice telephone calls will be "free", subsidized by advertising and transaction fees. Further, there will be so much free service that it might become impossible to sell voice telephony minutes.
Whitman made the comment during a quarterly call with financial analysts, some of whom had questioned the Skype purchase. She said the next winner in the communications services business will be the company that quickly builds the largest ecosystem of customers, developers, and other interest groups. Thus, the Skype purchase, as eBay bids to extend its reach into telecom.
I won’t nitpick and wonder who will pay for the underlying broadband service that supports those voice calls. Nor will I wonder what the wireline carriers will change for broadband, should their voice revenue suffer because of "free" VOIP services.
Rather, I will remind people who might be enamored of the idea that "free" phone service is on the horizon of three truths:
1. Nothing is ever free.
2. Somebody always pays, and whoever pays gets to choose.
3. You get what you pay for.
Tuesday, October 18th, 2005 | Posted in VoIP News | 1 Comment »
A few days ago we posted a story from Forrester Research arguing that circuit switched phone companies were winning VoIP service market share in Europe. Today there’s a Reuters story where analysts are citing VoIP as a major problem for US circuit switched carriers:
"The fundamentals … just don’t look very attractive," said Dan Genter, president and CEO of RNC Genter Capital Management, a Los Angeles-based fund that owns BellSouth and SBC. "The secular challenges to the Baby Bells really have not improved."
Among the top concerns:
* Worries about growing competition for basic telephone service, still the Bells’ most profitable business. Cable telephone companies are expanding their efforts, with Comcast Corp. rolling out voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP)service and independents such as Vonage and Skype capturing investors’ attention.
An interesting difference — have the traditional US telcos been less aggressive in marketing VoIP products than their counterparts in Europe, or is the competition in the US VoIP market tougher?
The Japanese government has said it’s considering plans to roll out wireless VoIP services by 2007.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is weighing proposals to provide a service that will allow people to connect to the WiFi VoIP service with cell phones.
With speeds of up to 15 megabits per second, the service would be able to provide high quality voice over IP communications, as well as other data capabilities including streaming media, gaming and other data services presently offered though 3G networks — at the relatively slow speed of 384kbps, compared to this.
No details on the specific technologies under consideration in this implementation are available as of yet. Junko Koizumi, spokesperson for the Ministry, says that she expects the service to be cheaper for customers than those presently available.
A final decision is expected from the Ministry in December, with most of the major telecom players expected to submit license applications next year.
Saturday, October 15th, 2005 | Posted in Skype | No Comments »
And article in PC Magainze lays out some reasons why eBay
may have purchased Skype
:
While many people are still struggling to figure out exactly why online auctioneer eBay Inc. was ready to shell out billions of dollars to buy Internet telephony provider Skype, the company, and many industry watchers, see a wealth of potential in the deal.
According to eBay officials, the addition of Skype’s technology and its 54 million subscribers was an easy way for the auction provider to create a catalog of new revenue opportunities.
In framing the $2.6 billion deal on Monday, eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman said the acquisition will help drive larger numbers of transactions through the auctioneer’s core businesses and will immediately add Skype’s $60 million in projected 2005 revenue to her company’s bottom line.
Beyond the immediate opportunities for the two companies to integrate their products, allowing eBay’s auction customers to communicate via phone, experts say that the e-commerce specialist also joined the ranks of powerful online firms that will use VOIP (voice over IP) technology to launch a new generation of consumer services.
Meanwhile, Forrester Research says that eBay overpaid:
eBay has bought into the Skype hype. The acquisition provides eBay with a real-time communications platform, a community of up to 54 million users, and the potential to expand into the voice business. But none of these is worth the $2.6 billion price tag. Skype provides no sustainable advantage in the communications or communities arena to eBay.
Thursday, October 13th, 2005 | Posted in Skype | No Comments »
Linksys just released the Internet Telephony Kit (CIT200) which includes a base station and wireless handset, preprogrammed to work with Skype. Features include:
- Supports call waiting
- Mute button
- 3 available ring tones
- Intercom support to between multiple handsets
- Built-in speakerphone
- Color LCD panel
- Up to 120 hour standby time and 10 hour talk time
- Hold Button
- Caller ID
- Address Book that supports up 120 contacts
- Ringer -Off/On switch
- Navigation button for screen
- Utilizes voice encryption for high security
- Headset jack for connecting a headset
- Uses DECT wireless technology so won’t interfere with 2.4GHz phones or devices
- Single base station supports up to four additional DECT based phones
- Handset locater button on USB base station
- Handset is light and comfortable to use (4.23 oz/ 0.12kg)
