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.
Now that most of the election season is behind us, it is back to work in Washington, and at the FCC. On November 9, look for a ruling on whether IP telephony is an interstate service and as such, can be held exempt from state and local regulation, as well as local and state taxes.
In a new study entitled User Plans for Wireless LANs, Infonetics Research maintains that mobile VoIP solutions will be a key driver for enterprise-level Wi-Fi applications development. Right now, mobile VoIP is a niche application.
Maybe they didn't teach this in business schools, but a near-inevitable chain of events happens when large corporations see opportunity in emerging technologies. In some cases, these companies are just too stratified to nimbly react to this potential, and find they are losing the innovation race to agile start-ups.
You enterprise users may not be used to buying your gear at Best Buy, Radio Shack, and other consumer-themed electronic retailers, but you home users excited by VoIP may be headed that way. Thats the view of Ovum Research director Jan Dawson, who writes that "VoIP is moving beyond Dilbert types and into middle America.
When enterprise-level security issues runin confluencewith technological opportunities, security and network types are appropriately cautious. Maybe there is a causality loop here -- technology-adept but personally cautious types are drawn to IT security as a profession where their own character traits can be positively harnessed.
If you've come here, you'll see the terms, "IP Telephony" and "VoIP" referred to almost constantly. As you heard in school, there are no stupid questions.
Although I am non-partisan here, it would serve no useful purpose to ignore the fact that we vote for President tomorrow. Control of the Senate is also up for grabs.
I promise not to geek out too much on diagrams, but if VoIP diagrams are useful to you, check out "Does It Take Two (or more) To Tango?," a new article in broadband technology trade newspaper CED.
Although some IP companies are making most of their noise in the enterprise space, Viper Networks has chosen to wade into the consumer market waters first. Friday's announcement that they have experienced an 18% percent increase in product activations over the last 30 days is testament to their $49.
Microsoft has just posted one of the most clearly enunciated brief tutorials I've seen about IP telephony. Here, you get a review of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), SIP Servers, plus how to configure your IP gateway for basic services as well as multicast conferencing.
If you are using VoIP for remote communications, you will want to know where the people you are trying to reach are physically located. Bandwidth.
Instead of sipping drafts, how about drafting a SIP? Well, if you are interested in the security aspects of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), some folks at the Internet Engineering Task Force have worked up a draft for a scalable solution that, according to the authors, "defines a Credential Service that uses a SIP subscribe/notify mechanism to discover author users' certificates and credentials and be notified about changes to these certificates.
If you're at a large corporation and aren't planning for VoIP, it may be time for you to get with it. I've been perusing Deloitte's new report, "Getting off the Ground: Why the move to VoIP is a decision for all CXOs.
The Prudential Equity Group's new report on Comcast sees VoIP as a linchpin of the cable giant's projected growth. Forbes.
Some of my colleagues hate Instant Messaging, viewing it as a diversion from business urgencies or strategically contemplative activities. I respect that, but I, and millions of others of enterprise and SOHO users, love IM for its back-channel conversational capabilities.
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...