VoIP Technology

VoIP and Casabi everywhere in '09?

Doug Mohney — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:02:22 -0500

Casabi hasn't tooted its own horn much, but the company's SIP "web light" client and backend server architecture has slowly and carefully proliferated across cable and traditional phone companies over the past three years. Will 2009 be the breakout year for Casabi?

Two weeks ago, Casabi showed up in Cincinnati Bell territory as part of a solution to provide two-way SMS via "landline" (well, a VoIP-enabled solution that mostly acts like a landline). Earlier this year, EMBARQ rolled out their Casabi-enabled solution and Comcast showed of a Casabi solution at CES 2008. If you dig further back, AT&T was seen tinkering with Casabi at CES 2006.

Landline and cable companies like Casabi because it provides more perceived value than a plug-and-play VoIP voice replacement, so they can charge more. It also provides "stickiness" in retaining customers over vanilla VoIP alternatives. Hardware vendors like Casabi because it's just a software load, so it can add value to cordless phones, set top boxes and other devices. VTech has been joined by Motorola, Arris and Sagem in supporting Casabi.

At the core, Casabi is a client-server model that incorporates a simplified web client on an in-home device - cordless phones were the initial target -- for the consumer to use to receive small amounts of information, such as weather reports, sports scores, breaking news, stock quotes and (gag) horoscopes; the client has been expanded to support visual voice mail, IM, two-way SMS, Yellow Pages local search and more. On the back end, Casabi runs a network system infrastructure to deliver both the customized apps for carriers and the data behind them.

Future versions of Casabi will show up on larger tablet-style devices, moving beyond the handset form factor into something a bit more convenient for use in ordering a pizza or looking up sports scores while kicking back on the couch. There's nothing to say that Casabi won't show up in the wireless arena as well. The light client has easily been shoehorned into cordless DECT phones, so porting it to a smart phone should be relatively easy, as handsets like the iPhone, the BlackBerry Storm, and the T-Mobile G1 wouldn't break a sweat running it. Casabi's advantage would be to provide a single user interface between landline home phones and mobile phones. With cable companies moving into the wireless arena, it's not something to ignore.

Ironically, Casabi's surge in popularity comes as Jeff Pulver's muse moved from VoIP and preaching about purple value-added minutes to social media. Pulver spent his last year on the podium calling for VoIP services beyond cheap voice and predicted the ultimate downfall of mobile VoIP services - just another flavor of cheap voice. Casabi provides "purple minutes" beyond voice and this reporter has a gut hunch that we may see social media apps as the next wave of Casabi functionality.

VoIP and tech's murky role in Mumbai attacks

Doug Mohney — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:38:30 -0500

Reports out of Mumbai claim the 10 member Lashker-e-Taiba terrorist attack group was steeped in off-the-shelf consumer technology. The FBI is reportedly assisting Indian intelligence agencies in deciphering "Internet telephony signatures" originating in Pakistan.

Terrorist controllers/handlers in Pakistan used VoIP to communicate with the Mumbai attack cell, with calls flowing out of Pakistan to satellite phones carried by the group. Conducting traffic analysis - number of calls, type of calls, frequency, and length - on the communications stream between Pakistan and Mumbai seems to have occurred, but it is not clear if Indian authorities have access to any media streams - the actual verbal conversations -- of calls.

The FBI is apparently providing support to trace back when calls started coming in to the cell phone. While not being publicly discussed, it is likely that a United States National Security Agency "vacuum cleaner" system sucked up the broadcasted satellite phone conversations in some form; it is unknown if the communications were encrypted end-to-end, but if they were, it would provide an additional complication to learning the substance of the communications between Lashker-e-Taiba and its Mumbai cell.

Players on both sides of the terrorist equation - both attackers and defenders - are aware of the use and application of off-the-shelf technologies for attacks. In October, a short report by the U.S. Army 304th Military Intelligence open source intelligence team examined the potential use and application of mobile phone and VoIP technologies by terrorist groups. While the media generally obsessed over the application of Twitter, the report also highlighted the use of GPS, software to change voices in conjunction with VoIP calls, and Google Maps.

For more:
- The Economic Times of India briefly discusses FBI involvement in VoIP cracking.
- Ars Technica and the media fetished on Twitter as a terrorist tool, but the U.S. Army report highlights other technologies as well.

SPOTLIGHT: 10 ways to get better VoIP deals

Doug Mohney — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:20:14 -0500

With tighter credit and slower sales, it's a buyer's market. VoIP-News pulls out 10 ways to get the best deal on VoIP systems and services - it's not a list resellers are going to enjoy much.

At the top of the list is asking for competitive bids, but making sure you have a tight RFP and perhaps a consultant to garbage-filter convoluted answers to what should be straightforward technical specifications. Working the system with a multi-year contract on software and/or maintenance is suggested along with trying to get free feature upgrades and other goodies thrown in. Bundles are also a good way to save some cash.

Like car salespeople, vendors and salespeople have end-of-month and end-of-year quotas to make, so you've always got some leverage if you pick the right time to negotiate. We're not so sure that last recommendation -- "being a showcase for emerging technology" -- is the best way to save cash; pioneers are typically the guys with the arrows sticking out of their backs.

For more:
- VoIP-News lays out a 10 step program to save cash on your new VoIP system. Article.

BitTorrent battles accusations of VoIP, network clobbering

Doug Mohney — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:02:46 -0500

A full-blown blog-o-war has started between The Register and BitTorrent. A Register columnist said BitTorrent's uTorrent client is going to bring the internet to a crawl because of its preference for using UDP.

The use of UDP as UTorrent's default peer-to-peer protocol allegedly could make the amount of ungovernable traffic go through the roof, clobbering bandwidth, slowing gamers and VoIP. ISPs could control traffic flow by slowing down UDP traffic, but such a move would "utterly destroy VoIP," alleges The Register.

Techno sites have taken the cannon fodder and fired it with differing results. Excess UDP traffic could slow last-mile connections, say some, rather than bringing the whole Internet to its knees.

BitTorrent says The Register piece is "utter nonsense" and a switch to a UDP-based implementation of its client was intended to reduce internet congestion, not kill the Internet proper.

We suspect some of this brouhaha has to do with the fine British journalistic tradition (The Register is published in the UK) of running wild headlines and wilder stories to generate controversy and more readership. Gotta get those web hits up for the end of the year bonuses, wot?

For more:
- The Industry Standard raps on UDP vs TCP. Article.

EQO - Another mobile VoIP player bites the dust?

Doug Mohney — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:28:16 -0500

Techvibes is fingering EQO Communications as the next mobile VoIP player to go down; this despite the company's CEO citing strong user growth, and blaming job cuts initiated last month for two-thirds of the company on the economic environment.

EQO is reportedly closing down because the VCs aren't willing to fork over more cash. In remarks made last month to GigaOm, EQO CEO Bill Tam said that the October layoffs would let the company operate at "near profitability... until the smoke clears."

Guess the (economic downturn) smoke choked the company to death.

Techvibe observed EQO's web pages were cleansed of the management team over the weekend - not really a good sign anyone is home to take phone calls. We've also heard a couple of bits and pieces to make us think EQO was running out of operating capital in November.

EQO seems to be joining an ever-growing list of failed me-too mobile VoIP plays that includes Fring, Jangl, and TalkPlus. Expect at least one or two more to join the list by the end of the year.

For more:
- Techvibe scoops on EQO running out of coin. Post.

Fring cuts 20%, claims biz surging, blogger bashes

Doug Mohney — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:38:01 -0500

Ah yes, Fring, another me-too mobile VoIP start-up play starts laying off people, while trying to convince everyone else to "Don't worry, be happy." With apologies to Bobby McFerrin.

TechCrunch says Fring is laying off 10 people, about 20 percent of total staff (so they had 50 people before the axe came). CEO Avi Schechter says the company is doing well and the layoffs were to insure the company had enough capital to get them through 2009. And oh-by-the-way, we have raised a third round of financing, but can't tell you how much was invested or who invested it; Fring had previously raised $13 million over two previous rounds.

Fring recently cut a deal with Mobilkom Austria to put their client onto phones and claims they are seeing 400,000 new downloads and activations per month. But FMC/UC blogger/guru Ken Camp says he has tried to run the service on numerous devices and has encountered nothing but pain, suffering, and reboots.

If Fring did secure another round of investment capital, we suspect Mobilkom Austria is on the list of contributors.

For more:
- Ken Camp dishes on his bad experiences with Fring. Blog.
- Meanwhile, TechCrunch bites down on Fring's personnel cut. Post.

Nimbuzz, mig33 work to differentiate out of mobile VoIP pack

Doug Mohney — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:16:20 -0500

Nimbuzz and mig33 made announcements over the past seven days to posture themselves as A) Different from everyone else and B) Growing despite all the other "me too" cheap mobile VoIP offerings in the marketplace.

Joining the iPhone/iPod Touch crowd, Nimbuzz has release a free app available through the iPhone App store. The app lets users call, chat and IM through a laundry list of IM communities and social networks, including Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, Facebook, MySpace, AIM, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber. IM buddy calling over WiFi is available to Yahoo, Google Talk, Skype and Windows Live Messenger. And if that's not enough, there's also support for local social networks in Germany, The Netherlands and Poland.

Current numbers posted by Nimbuzz include over 10 million logins per day and it claims to be adding new users at a clip of more than 10,000 per day.

Meanwhile, mig33 says it has doubled its user base from 9 million back in January to 18 million today. Like everyone else, you can IM through it, make cheap long-distance calls, yadda-yadda. Most of the growth is occurring overseas, and the company is doubling-down by providing support for Bengali, simplified Chinese, English, Hindi, Indonesian and Russian.

So how many IM/mobile VoIP/cheap phone call plays can the world support? There's iSkoot, Raketu, Nimbuzz, mig33, Truphone, Skype and that's before we even start sweating hard. Plus, Yahoo and Microsoft and different variants within AIM and GoogleTalk.

For more:
- VoIP News talks about mig33

Six reasons to switch to IP phones

Pete Wylie — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:57:58 -0500

VoIP News has released a six-point checklist for companies considering an IP phone system, and the recommendations come as little surprise. Outdated phone systems, phone system costs and customer accessibility topped the list of reasons a business manager should consider switching to an IP-based telephony solution.

The report also mentioned the efficiency gains across the company after implementation of IP phone systems as a salient reason to abandon PSTN services.

With costs rising and budgets tightening, IP phone systems also can build a strong telecommuting segment of employees, which could lower a company's bottom line by cutting back on office space and travel expenses while making an attractive proposition to quality employees. Who really wants to commute anyway?

Another plus: IP phone systems make those remote employees more efficient through presence and IM capabilities, further adding value to the company.

For more:
- VoIP News has the full report here

Related articles
IBM, Microsoft: Bad economy good for UC
It's not all fun and games: Implementation headaches for VoIP & UC

Truck Roll 2.0

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:00:08 -0500

By Carl Ford

VoIP's image is so goofy that I think the Elephant Man would feel sympathy for this misunderstood waif of technology.

Consider the Connecticut PUC that wants VoIP services to report on their truck roll response time to customers. Will a service like Packet8 or Vonage have to provide the routing numbers and screen scrape "Brown's" tracking portal?

Worst of all, the premise of this being a Quality of Service discussion starts in the wrong place. If I want to talk about customer satisfaction, do I ask them to talk about their issues with the experience, or their frustration waiting for the local field technician? Does Best Buy's Geek Squad need to be involved in these discussions?

In California the VoIP folks are being assigned access-like charges, which means the customer has to pay twice the amount of taxes for an ability to save money and bypass the monopoly. And of course, Nebraska is looking for Interconnect VoIP service providers to pay into their local USF fund.

And the problem with all these rules is it does nothing to change the status quo. It just wants what will be (VoIP), to pay for what will go away (landline services).

In Europe, a good friend was telling me of a conversation he was having with his regulator in which the regulator said that IMS would not solve any of the open issues and customers would be better off with GoogleTalk.

The regulator understands that Voice 2.0 does not mean Truck roll 2.0 will come along for the ride. We can hopefully make the distinction one regulator at a time that access and service are not the same thing anymore, and therefore we should stop treating them as equivalents.

Now fortunately, the people advising Obama are well aware of these issues and will hopefully bring a better understanding of how to bring in the new without it requiring it to look like the old. I am not sure everyone who is working on the team has my same perspective. Sue Ness has been working on ICANN and many are talking about an ICANN for White Spaces, which does not appeal to me personally. I would love for us to embrace IPV6 once and for all and make it part of the plan.

Other former Clinton administration commission members loved the work they did with the USF, and I have advocated that expanding the E-Rate education to support better connectivity in communities for continuing education would be well worth our while. Educations and libraries have been getting the lion share, but there is very little evidence to show that it has done anything other than maintain the status quo. Now if library cards and student IDs were attached to access rights for some Wireless internet technology that promoted better access to local services, we could have a real productivity boost.

I have shared Freedom2speak's website (see http://www.freedom2speak.org) with the hope that people will take a look at all the ways VoIP can be integrated and used that have nothing to do with replacing a black phone. Seeing VoIP this way will be like being hit by a truck.

Deltathree's capital squeeze

Doug Mohney — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:22:33 -0500

How bad is it at deltathree? Bad enough that the company sent out a press release on Friday announcing it had renegotiated its lease with its NYC landlord to free up $750,000 more of short-term working capital.

Under the agreement deltathree's landlord and subtenant of its offices at 75 Broad Street agreed to release and terminate the letter of credit securing deltathree's obligations under the lease. With other negotiated release of other letters of credit, deltathree expects to get net cash of $750,000 based upon funds that were restricted as of September 30, 2008. The company is also working on securing additional capital funding - good luck with that in this market - as it continues to restructure by cutting operating costs. We're not sure how far the restructuring can go, though. Since the beginning of the year, the company has laid off two-thirds of its staff and subleased its NYC offices.

Earlier in the week, deltathree reported its 3Q 2008 results with the major headline in the release reading, "Senior Management and Board of Directors Exploring Strategic Financing and Transaction Options With Financial Advisor." This is typically code for "We're in bad shape, we've brought in someone from the outside to see what kind of a deal they can broker, maybe we'll get lucky and get bought."

The company's latest financials don't look good, regardless of how you want to look at them. Total revenues were $4.8 million, down from $5.4 million in 2Q08 and $7.3 million in 3Q07. Third quarter GAAP net loss is $4.0 million as compared to a GAAP net loss for 3Q07 of $2.1 million. If you take out the write-off for assets they got from Go2Call, 3Q08 non-GAAP adjusted EBDITA was $400K. As of Sept. 30, 2008, deltathree held approximately $3.3 million in cash, cash equivalents, short & long term investments, plus additional restricted cash.

Currently, deltathree is supporting "tens of thousands" of active users around the world through a service provider/reseller channel and a direct-to-consumer channel. The direct-to-consumer group includes the iConnectHere offering and the joip consumer brand backed/promoted through Panasonic's GLOBARANGE hybrid phone.

For more:
- deltathree reports third quarter results and clawback of $750K on leasing.

No VoIP blocking on Virgin America beta; VoIP holes on AA.

Doug Mohney — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:38:04 -0500

Joining American Airlines, Virgin America has demoed its in-flight Gogo broadband service. Official policy for Virgin Airlines is to block VoIP parts, but, rather than just let sleeping dogs lie, it seems to be a rite of passage for tech media wonks to demo work-around as they write about their experiences.

Flying aboard a beta charter flight over San Francisco, Gizmodo's Brian Lam was able to fire up a "really solid" iChat video session that he expects Virgin to filter on "real flights." Lam also notes most airlines are blocking known VoIP ports "For our sanity."

Meanwhile, another Gizmodo post reporting conditions on Gogo reports that video chat was accessible on a West Coast American Airlines flight. About the only thing that Jalopnik editor Wes Siler couldn't get going is a video chat session using iChat (hmm, do you spot the pattern here?) with voice chat he said "worked all too well." A follow-up comment suggests Siler may now be on the TSA blacklist for his actions.

FierceVoIP has previously reported remarks by Aircell CEO Jack Blumenstein -- Gogo's parent company -- if passengers are found using voice capabilities on Aircell's service, "we can exercise the right to turn your access off." And that's in addition to what American Airlines might do violators of the clearly stated policy against VoIP use on their flights.

For more:
- Gizmodo shows that, at least in demo phase, you can do a Video iChat. Blog
- They also show a VoIP session on Nov 19 on an American Airlines flight from LA to NY. Blog.

Kremlinology and the Vocito/GrandCentral app

Doug Mohney — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:52:46 -0500

Back in the days of the Cold War, intelligence analysts would pour over cryptic statements and publicly released photos published in the Soviet-run newspapers to gain clues as to the real state of affairs behind the "Iron Curtain." Today, observers are forced to do the same thing to make educated guesses on what Google is doing with GrandCentral.

The latest clue is the release of Vocito through GoogleCode, a Mac desktop user interface for GrandCentral. Vocito enables users to easily dial anyone from their desktop, utilizing GrandCentral to dial a remote phone and a local phone simultaneously to connect people together. For Mac users, it integrates into Address Book, Quicksilver, supports "tel" URLs and is fully scriptable. You can use it to build and save little applets to automatically dial your phone with a double-click.

But what does it mean? In the general discussion of the product, there's the whole "GrandCentral is currently in a limited beta" - a state they've been in since Obama started running for President. But the author urges us to run out and reserve a GrandCentral number now to "get in on the action as soon as more invites become available." Certainly, there's the implication that more invites will become available sometime in the near future, preferably before Obama has to start his re-election campaign.

For more:
- Go visit the Vocito web page. Maybe there's something airbrushed out of the pictures we've missed.

VirtualPBX launches open-system VoIP peering

Pete Wylie — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:46:00 -0500

VirtualPBX announced today that it is introducing native support for open-system VoIP peering, which will enable small businesses to select their optimal set-up for communications. Clients will be able to customize their telephony offering with the mix of VoIP services, traditional PSTN, softphones and handsets that best suits their individual needs.

VirtualPBX COO Greg Brashier said the company offered a mix of high-end products, useful features, extended capabilities and advanced technology that no one in the hosted PBX market could match.

"All along we've been agnostic as to platform," Brashier said. "Some of our customers want to reduce or eliminate their PSTN use, because of the cost savings of using a VoIP service. But others are more concerned about call quality over traditional copper, so we can facilitate either, or a mix of both for our customers."

Brashier stressed that the blended nature of VirtualPBX's offering was the greatest value driver for the end-user. He also noted that the lack of capital expenditures in a hosted PBX offering makes them even more attractive in the present climate, as businesses look to avoid unnecessary capital expense.

For more:
- see the VirtualPBX release here

BT surveys on UC

Doug Mohney — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:34:35 -0500

Hot on the heels of its VoIP survey, BT is now reporting companies are taking a "phased approach" to adopting unified communication (UC) and collaboration (UCC) technologies. We're going to stick with UC for this discussion since the "collaboration" part is typically rolled into the UC tent.

The largest segment of survey respondents - 37 percent - will implement one UC application at a time. The next largest segment - 29 percent - plans to implement several UC applications simultaneously, with the latter approach the favorite of 42 percent of IT organizations supporting over 10,000 employees.

Survey respondents will look for help in implementing UC from multiple vendors, especially those who demonstrate technology leadership and the ability to integrate products from multiple vendors. Nearly half of those IT organizations will turn to service providers such as (ta-da!) BT.

Also, 22 percent of respondents reported implementing some aspects of a comprehensive UC solution, while 21 percent have no UC underway; the latter cite organizational and cultural issues as roadblocks to UC adoption. Over the next two years, a half dozen UC components will be implemented by a majority of those organizations responding, with unified messaging and presence being implemented most often in the coming 12 months; desktop video conferencing, "immersive video," document management and workflow are also on the to-do list.

VoIP HD conferencing service Vapps picked by Citrix Systems

Doug Mohney — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:09:57 -0500

Citrix Systems quietly has bought HD voice conference provider Vapps for $26.6 million in cash.

Terms of the deal came to light through Citrix's November 14 SEC 10-Q filing. Vapps was one of the earliest service providers to offer high-definition audio conference services, and it works with VoIP or Skype. The company has partnered with Adobe, Skype, Gizmo, Yahoo and MSN to provide high-quality audio conferencing for home offices and SMBs.

So-called 16 KHz "wideband" codecs provide high-quality voice over and above stock 8 KHz VoIP encoding (roughly what you'd get on a PSTN call). Vapps supports up to 500 callers on the line and provides a monthly flat rate service that encourages all day use. Vapps customers reportedly use roughly half a billion minutes per year.

In addition to the $26.6 million in cash, Vapps also has the usual "if they meet certain goals" incentives at a not-so-usual $4.4 million price tag. Vapps and Citrix have been negotiating the deal for "several months."

First-and-only investor Azure Capital Partners is smiling, having made a 3.6 times return on its initial VC stake put in 18 months ago - a bit shorter than the typical multi-year waits VC typically are used to.

Citrix Systems will be able to add the HD conference solution to its GoToMeeting service, giving it an enhancement to its existing offering.

For more:
- NY Times Blog reports the Citrix/Vapps buy

IBM, Microsoft: Bad economy good for UC

Doug Mohney — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:32:44 -0500

Out at VoiceCon San Francisco 2008, executives from IBM and Microsoft said that a bad economy is good for the adoption of unified communications.

While collaboration tools have been around for years, they need to be made simpler and more intuitive, said IBM's Bruce Morse, VP of UC and collaboration. UC, when done right, can make it easier to find the right people to collaborate with in order to make smarter business decisions more efficiently. A dash of social networking might help the adoption of UC within a corporate network.

Of course, what's UC without some cost-savings talk. Morse said by getting groups to work together, travel needs can be reduced and telephony costs can go down as well through reduction of call volume.

Remarkably, Microsoft agreed with IBM on the cost-savings benefits of UC. A spokesperson for Microsoft said businesses can cut costs by using UC conferencing and collaboration features to cut expensive business trips, while integrating communications into business applications can cut the time for tasks such as placing orders, bringing together health care teams, and enabling virtual offices.

Microsoft customers at Boeing and the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles were brought out to testify to the benefits of UC. A Boeing convergence project manager asserted that UC implemented in home offices can displace other services and cut costs, such as getting rid of a desk phone and replacing it with a collaborative desktop, while the CAA's CIO said UC's broader communications tools provide more information to its agents.

For more:
- Network World on Microsoft saying UC is good. Article
- IBM also praises UC. Article.

Tellme partners up

Doug Mohney — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:49:14 -0500

Microsoft subsidiary Tellme has announced it has a total of ten "go-to-market" and professional service partners to build and sell voice-enabled customer self-service applications for enterprises.

Go-to-market resellers include Aspect Software (No big surprise there; Microsoft owns a chunk of Aspect, so play well with your half-sibling), Dimension Data, NEC Unified Solutions, Quilogy and Speech Cycle. Professional service partners include Gold Systems, Mackraz Design, Pivot Systems, Servion and VoxMedia. The professional service partners are working with Tellme to provide (i.e. build) voice-enabled speech apps in key vertical markets.

Tellme is preaching a partner model where the "go-to-market" partner owns the customer relationship and shares in the long-term revenue stream from the use of Tellme-billable services. There's also a bonus point being plugged - since Tellme is a hosted SaaS (software-as-a-service) service and has an in-house cloud computing infrastructure, clients have the ability to rapidly scale without having to invest in capital equipment.

It will be interesting to see if/when Tellme migrates its cloud infrastructure over to Microsoft's Azure platform/service.

For more:
- Read the Tellme release.

Michael K. Powell for Obama CTO

Doug Mohney — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:29:54 -0500

While people are busy navel-gazing about who will run the Federal Communications Commission when Obama rolls into office in January, I'd like to throw a curve ball out of right field and suggest a former FCC Chairman for the to-be-created office of U.S. CTO.

Michael K. Powell has a number of attributes that make him worthy of consideration. He was appointed as a Commissioner to the FCC by Bill Clinton back in 1997, so he's already passed the "smell" test for one Democratic administration - not too crazy, not too right-wing, acceptable to both sides.

You want a guy who has worked with the federal government before, but one who has had some big, bold policy ideas. And you also want someone who has some experience out in the real world. At the FCC Powell was successful dealing with policy issues, working with Congress, and balancing the needs of individual industries, all while fighting the good fight for the average Joe-not-the-plumber.

There's been a lot of crazy talk about plucking someone like Google's Eric Schmidt or Microsoft's Steve Ballmer or Amazon's Jeff Bezos for the post. Can't see it happening; Moving from a big money Fortune 500 high-tech company directly into a low-paying government job is not something I see these guys doing. Bezos would likely get frustrated or bored within 6 months. Ballmer didn't "get" the Internet until it was kicking Microsoft upside the head, and he still doesn't get open source.

Mike likes Net Neutrality. He spelled out a nice clear set of Internet Freedoms before he split to the private sector, laying out guidance for what consumers should ultimately expect and what service providers do when it comes to broadband services.

Mike is a Republican. You can count him against your bi-partisan quota, if you can overlook the fact he was supporting the old guy.

Mike loves technology. Gotta love a guy who said "TiVo is God's Machine" and is a frequent visitor to Best Buy (OK, so I haven't seen him in Best Buy recently and the time I saw him in my Best Buy, he had a camera crew in tow, but I've heard him talk enough about the store to believe he wasn't faking it). He sits on the boards of Cisco, ObjectVision, and the Rand Corporation, so he knows what's going on across a variety of disciplines.

Do not call registry? Thank Mike for working with the FTC - again, working with the established bureaucracy to get a winner end result.

So, once again, Michael K. Powell for U.S. CTO: Bi-partisan pick, knows technology, has D.C. experience in getting things done and will have the best interests of the end-user at heart - the citizens of our country.

See you down at Best Buy...

- Doug

IntelePeer gets $18M

Doug Mohney — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:01:18 -0500

What does IntelePeer do that all the other "I can make a phone call within a web app" companies don't? Whatever it is, it seems to be worth $18 million in third round venture money lead by Vantage Point.

According to Venture Beat, IntelePeer is sorta like Ribbit. The company has its AppworX open communications platform and a voice peering grid network (OK, Ribbit didn't have a voice peering grid, me thinks) so app developers have the ability to create rich media services while using IntelePeer's hosted services to save money.

IntelePeer is calling its offering a CaaS - Communications as a Service. Customers get to tap into the combo of Web 2.0 and Voice 2.0 capabilities on top of the company's carrier-grade telecommunications voice peering network, and there's a network peering grid infrastructure that reportedly handles "billions" of voice minutes per year and has direct connections with more 50 service providers around the globe.

Don't think Ribbit had the whole voice grid peering thing going...

Anyway, IntelePeer claims Microsoft, WebEx, BT, AT&T, Verizon, Facebook and TMCnet as customers, with the main hook so far being a click-to-call feature within various web apps.

Formerly named VoEx, other investors include EDF Ventures, Kennet Venture Partners, and NorthCap Partners.

For more:
- IntelePeer gets the attention of VentureBeat. Post.

Voxbone announces iNum 883 country code

Doug Mohney — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:08:18 -0500

Phone number provider Voxbone has officially launched iNum, a global phone telephone number system, leveraging the ITU's creation of the +883 country code and VoIP technology to provide local number access with international reach. Current use of the numbers is in "private beta," says the company.

Voxbone has teamed up with a laundry list of VoIP players to utilize the new code, including service providers Iotum, Jajah, Mobivox, Gizmo5, Ribbit, Truphone, Rebtel, Voipbuster and Voipuser. Wholesale voice carriers Arbinet, Belgacom ICS, Level 3 Communications and Stealth's Voice Peering Fabric are already routing +883 calls today.

Basically, the 883 country code works like any other international country codes, just as 44 refers to the United Kingdom and 1 to the United States. Voxbox provides iNum numbers for free to carriers and service providers. As the wholesaler, Voxbone will receive calls to these numbers and deliver them to the appropriate service provider, connecting incoming PSTN calls as well as native VoIP calls.

Most participating carriers are expected to deliver calls to iNum numbers free of charge to their users, providing a form of free connectivity between their networks and remote networks.

For more:
- MarketWatch carries the Voxbone iNum press release.

Related article
+883 world numbers on offer - FierceVoIP