Russell Shaw's blog describes the emerging world of converged content, plus the Internet and mobile carriers, devices and services that sell and distribute this content to enterprises and consumers.
To the angst of state regulators and budget-balancers but to the delight of the IP telephony industry, the FCC has just declared Vonages high-speed VoIP phone service interstate in nature. The ruling, which was widely anticipated,shields Vonage from state regulations such as certification and rate structures.
I've just received an e-mail from a source at VoicePulse, one of the major broadband IP service providers. It furnishes specific perspective on Ben Charney's piece in CNET News.
I have it on the word of key VoIP industry insider Jeff Pulver -- that consistent with the expectations of industry watchers --the FCC will issue a ruling later today that prohibits states from "imposing economic regulations" on services such as Vonage. In fact, the insider'sPR representatives have sent me a comment on the ruling.
Sprint CEO Gary Forsee both anticipates and hopesthat tomorrow's FCChearing on Vonage's petition to free that company from state regulation will help define the regulatory environment for VoIP and other advanced telephony services.Talking with reporters after a Yankee Group conference on telecommunications, Forsee said that "VoIP needs to be dealt with very quickly by the FCC," and urged the FCC to "make some declaratory rulings reasonably quickly.
Today's Wall Street Journal article entitled "Cable Titans Discuss Offering Cellular Services, Intensifying Foray Into Telecom's Turf," mentions that several leading cable television providers are discussing a joint venture to offer cellphone services. The article mentions potential market-entry strategies as potentially involving the purchase of an existing cellular operator.
In research I performed earlier this year for a private client, I became very familiar with the wireless network router and gateway plans of leading players such as Cisco division Linksys and a host of competitors.As a group, we concluded that Linksys was going to be the router/gateway provider with the strong consumer focus.
Got several replies and trackbacks to my post analyzing the relative merits (or total lack thereof) of taxing VoIP at the federal, state, or local level.The general tone is that VoIP should not be taxed at all, except, perhaps by the call.
Before you come back here, quick-click over to Silicon.com and read some cogent quotes from Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom about why software-only VoIP vendors such as Skype should not be regulated.
Ordinarily, I do not shill for vendor-written VoIP white papers. The sales and marketing imperatives are bound to overshadow any objective insights.
Some very smart people believe that the Session Initiation Protocol, a signaling protocol for Internet telephony and related multimedia communications,is vulnerable to spam attacks."It is important that the SIP community react now, rather than later, and define and deploy anti-spam measures before the problem arises," writes an unbylined author on the Sweden-based VOIP Forum site.
British-based research firm Analysys is out with a study today that claims that within four years, VoIP applications could claim 13 percent of the residential voice market in Western Europe. The trigger, Analysis analysts (say that five times, and fast) is free downloadable enabling softwaresuch as Skype.
Last month at the Fall VON 2004 show in then-Bosox-obsessed Boston, VoIP equipment vendor Veraz Networks announced it would head up an initiative foran open standards Border Gateway Controller. But you already knew that.
Earlier today, Standard & Poor's downgraded its rating for telecommunications service provider Level 3 to what Reuters calls "deeper into junk territory." The straw that wrenched the camel's back seemed to be Level 3's cash tender offers for debt due in 2008.
Phil Solis, wireless connectivity analyst at ABI Research, views attractively pricedchipsetsas the impetus that will drive mass acceptance of VoIP Wi-Fi. His new report, Residential VoIP Markets, places emphasis on plans by Motorola to release dual cell-Wi-Fi handsets with VoIP capability in the next few months.
Voxilla.com reports that on and around Election Day," several VoIP carriers noted spikes in VoIP call volume attributable tovoter turnout efforts placed by campaign volunteers in the highly contested states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.
Innovation
Nintendo Wii-like gesture control technology coming to mobile phone cameras
Telcos
Prof: footnote in eBay Patent case COULD give Vonage a break in theirs
Microsoft
Mobility
For its updated TOS Keith Olbermann nominates AT&T for "Worst Person In The World"
iPhone
Poll: if you could win a free new Zune, iPod or iPhone, you'd choose...