Setting the record straight on who, when. where in the evolution of the industry.
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Written by Peter Brockmann
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A recent article in FierceTelecom's newsletter highlighted how Cincinnati Bell was enhancing landline service with SMS. To make the service work, you need a special telephone ($29.99), a bundled service involving both DSL Internet and home phone service and then for a $9.99/month, you can send and receive SMS on the home phone.
Cincinnati Bell promises more integrated features including wireless address books, white pages and email in the future. For incremental $ charges of course.
This is reminiscent of the New Brunswick Tel (now Aliant) service implementation in the mid 1990s: using unused spectrum on the twisted pair plant, they sent data messages to large-screen phones at home. Advertising, News, Sports and other items were broadcast into whole neighborhoods. Nortel made the networking gear, the software and the phones. It only worked in those days as a phone rental because the phones were so expensive. Apparently it was successful for a time when Internet dialup was awkward and painful.
This is also reminiscent of the walled garden model, which really doesn't work in the long run. To create value in the physical connection, Cincinnati Bell has to develop and present applications that users will find valuable and useful. Pricing-wise, the new services must replace some of the value lost as users discover the utility of mobility and VoIP. The business case should be to slow the decline in landline service a la 'REVENUE PROTECTION.' Reduce a 5% decline into a 4% decline is worth a great deal to the phone company, because it's a service you don't have to blow your brains out to deliver. Some of these can and should link up with other networks, but they should be able to deliver informational value on their own.
Landline providers must not sit back and wait for their monopoly to dry up.
They should be thinking of and rolling out services like wake up calls, network clock, time zone change warning calls and messages, remotely visible voicemail (use a browser to see the messages stored in the central office for you) without $10 incremental monthly costs. Of course, advertising jingles delivered instead of dialtone could be scored for discounts - listen to the whole ad and win a 50¢ discount off the monthly bill (provided the advertiser pay s $1.00 for the service).
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Written by Peter Brockmann
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When I moved to New England in the summer of 2004, to take on a senior marketing role at 3Com, we bought a 10-year-old home in one of the prettier neighborhoods of suburban/rural MA. The all-wood home (Cape Cod style of course) did not have Ethernet services installed throughout the three floors.
My goal was to deploy a 3Com NBX V3000 with as many extensions as my family could tolerate (wife and two teenage sons at home with two daughters in college). At the time, 3Com was in the process of beta-testing the V3000 (it was introduced in October 2004) and I was one of the beta users and sites.
My first experience with the NBX proved that as simple to install as the product is, it is not for the untrained end user to install. I was not aware of the default IP address, nor the server's sensitivity to power degradation (it really, really doesn't like being shut off abruptly and tells you so the next time it boots up by taking a half hour to accept a call). Fortunately, I called the beta help folks and cleared up my implementation with confidence in a matter of minutes. I also used the intervening time interval (waiting for the sanity check to finish) to purchase the requisite UPS.
As it turned out, what was simple was using a browser to configure the system. What was not simple was knowing how to make the configuration follow my views of how I wanted calls handled.
BTW, using Safari as the browser bypasses the simple password controls for users/administrators and lets any user be an administrator.
Call Logic for a HomeMy deployment of Norstar (Nortel's digital key system) in my home in Allen TX (1995-2004) involved having all calls ring all stations. After the second ring, caller ID would be presented to the displays. If no answer after four rings, the call would be passed to the message center where it would leave a voice mail in the mail box of the family member. Each extension was identified with a family member, so a message lamp would light up in the girl's room if someone called and left a message for Tina.
If line 1 was occupied, the hunt group service at the Southwestern Bell central office would switch the incoming call to the second line.
Now, in our new home, we did not have as many family members around all the time since our two oldest daughters were away at college, so there was no need for a second line. Besides, the boys (David in particular) were more IM-type communications, and didn't seem to hang out on the phone like the girls seemed to.
So, in this implementation, I deployed the auto attendant feature of the NBX to intercept EVERY incoming call, greeting them by time of day and allowing callers to select from an audio menu (in my voice) of whom they'd like to speak with. Next, I setup six hunt groups to ring all the phones. Each hunt group was labeled differently.
For example, callers would be invited to select 2 to reach Anne. All phones would ring with the hunt group display of "calling for Anne" in the 3102 phone displays, together with the caller ID data. In this way, the family members would be able to anticipate who was calling for whom by looking at the display and respond accordingly. After four rings, the call would ring at Anne's extension twice and then go to Anne's voicemail box.
There was one exception to the hunt group configuration. One unannounced option would ring the 3106c cordless phone only. This was an experiment in giving our oldest son (now 18) the privacy to accept an incoming call at odd hours without having the call wake up his parents since one of the phones was installed in the master bedroom.
Home Network
Early on, I decided to avoid Ethernet cabling challenges having remembered a few wiring hassles in deploying the wiring in our TX home. So, not wanting to blemish the walls and ceilings of our new home, I designed a network for WiFi phone extensions.
I bought an Apple Extreme basestation. It had firewall, modem (for PSTN dialout), Ethernet LAN, Ethernet WAN and USB interfaces and could support a WiFi network of as many as four Apple Extreme devices.
My DSL (and PSTN) line came into the house and was bridged to two ports - one on the main floor where the DSL modem and Apple basestation were located, and one in the basement electronics closet where the 3Com NBX were installed. The filtered voice circuit was terminated into the analog interface of the NBX.
The DSL modem upstairs was terminated on the Apple basestation. I ran an Ethernet circuit from the base station to the NBX Ethernet interface. This was to ensure that the only WiFi component of the communications was between the Apple Extreme bridge and the NBX.
An incoming call is routed through the PSTN to the NBX and then to the appropriate (or all) extensions.
Check out the latest on my home telephony deployment.
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Written by Peter Brockmann
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It was the US Telecom Act of 1996 that changed the game for the US telecom manufacturer - supplier balance.
In a Business Communications Review article in the August 2006 issue, Tom Nolle, wrote an awesome piece about the fundamental way suppliers reflect and react to the power of their customers. He writes that in a market where there are few customers, suppliers must gain scale to offer ever-lower prices for their 'commoditized' supplies.
Since Congress set about enabling the management of local and long distance combinations in the Telecom Act of 1996, the opportunities and issues facing the equipment business reflected the challenges in the services business. Ed Whitacre, as CEO of SBC set the ball in motion by acquiring PacBell, then Ameritech, then SNET and then AT&T. Now he intends to consume BellSouth.
The folks at Nortel thought that the appropriate equipment provider response to the consolidation in the service provider market was to acquire IP bulk. Immediately prior to the Telecom Act, the Internet had been positioned for commercialization. Prior to 1995, the Internet was funded by the US Government and all users had to agree to a non-commercial use policy. That's why Nortel was able to get a Class A address (47.xxx.xxx.xxx) as was IBM and many other large IT industry corporations.
Seeing this consolidation underway, and anticipating that IP would be the critical link to the future of the telecom industry, Nortel acquired Bay Networks for $6.1 billion, and started consolidation in the equipment supply industry, which witnessed the divestiture of silicon manufacturing (Agere) and enterprise PBX business (Avaya) from Lucent, the acquisition of Ascend (remote access and frame relay equipment) by Lucent and the acquisition of DSC and Newbridge by Alcatel.
Did John Roth (Nortel CEO) get it wrong?
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Written by Peter Brockmann
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The role of standards facilitated the development of markets for telecom infrastructure and devices.
The merger of Lucent and Alcatel was approved by their respective shareholders earlier this week and I ponder the development of competitive markets and how exactly did we get here, and what can we do about it?
International standards such as ANSI and its European equivalent CCITT which became ITU, have for several decades facilitated the development of markets for telecom infrastructures and devices. National vendors such as Canada's Nortel, USA's AT&T, Germany's Siemens, France's Alcatel, Sweden's Ericsson to name five, all supplied the necessary equipment to their government PTTs and in the case of Canada and USA, to their sister operating divisions.
Of course, a great deal has changed since the innovating times of the mid 1980s with Judge Green's Modified Final Judgement which managed the decomposition of AT&T into the eight companies - seven operating local companies and the long distance and manufacturing company. Just at that time, Nortel (then Northern Telecom), introduced the all-digital switch - an amazing platform that compressed the fundamentals of the central office switch from a giant analog machine, into a computer. This innovation was leaped upon by the newly created network architecture departments of the local operating companies, and the revolution began. AT&T the manufacturer had lost control of their most important market outside of itself.
And, that's because they had nothing to offer.
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Written by Peter Brockmann
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Voice over frame relay had been around for a few years...
In the early 1990s, I worked in the marketing group of the data networking division of Nortel (then called Northern Telecom). We built terrific X.25 packet switching systems that were optimized for large phone company-style implementations (DPN-100) of lots and lots of analog or low speed access circuits connected over a connection-less higher speed (T-1 (1 Mbps) was the fastest WAN link for the longest time) backbone.
In 1993, the company announced the Magellan Passport, a new platform designed for broadband wide area networks. It could support frame relay, ATM and direct digital connection to the PBX, and did high performance cells (proprietary) over the WAN link to another location. Nortel eventually built in great functionality right into the Passport too. For example, instead of just transmitting the voice circuits to another location, it could interpret the call control signaling data (over the D-channel of the T1 PRI circuit) and could direct specific circuits to specific locations where other Passport switches would convert the cells back into voice circuits for the PBX to terminate on the called party's phone. It became a billion dollar business by the 2000 timeframe. Nortel pioneered the use of silence suppression (removing the silence in human conversations - you talk, I listen - and substituting white noise at the listening ends) and generated substantial cost savings for major enterprises.
In 1996, the company acquired Micom, a specialist in low cost and low speed frame relay access devices that could network dozens of smaller offices into enterprise networks. These FRADs were cheaper, lower performance not as intelligent as the Passport. They required a frame relay circuit between each of the offices, and did not do silence suppression, although they did do high density voice compression/decompression.
Micom had a network of sales VARs, which complemented the Passport which was sold direct to major enterprises. Micom specialized in Voice over Frame Relay implementations. At the time of the acquisition, they were just in the process of introducing a Voice over IP product called VIP. This was a DSP-based PC card that would be installed in a PC. Similar to the Micom FRAD, these PCs would connect enterprise locations over an IP network. The enterprise had to configure each to be aware of the other locations of VIP installations... and the PC architecture really didn't deliver strong reliability, but it saved a fortune in LD expenses in the mid 1990s.
The skuttlebut at the time of the acquisition was that Cisco was considering the acquisition of Micom, but since Nortel was already working with Micom to integrate their platform into the Nortel Passport portfolio, it was a concern that Nortel technology would fall into the competitors' hands. Hence, the argument that 'we have to buy them before the other guys do.' [I was involved with the Internet access business unit at that time.]
Cisco, had a dominant position in routers in 1996 (and 1995, and 1994.... and today). Their routers did not support voice interfaces in those days as the application was not well understood as a 'data applicaiton'. You might recall, that before 1995, there were many protocols in the enterprise LAN: AppleTalk, IP, DECnet, ATM, IPX and it was not yet clear how IP would dominate. However it was clear that routers as a product category were going to get voice interfaces, particularly as Nortel had validated the market and the technology.
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Written by Peter Brockmann
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Larry Howard released the market analysts' report for 4Q05.
I didn't buy the report, but here are the details, confirming rapid transition to IP PBX from digital telephony and strong performance by Cisco.
REPORT HIGHLIGHTS: 4Q05 Enterprise Telephony
- worldwide TDM system revenue falling 15% and IP PBX revenue rising 23% between 2004 to 2005
- worldwide TDM and IP PBX totaled $8.1 billion in 2005, 12% over 2004, reach $11.6 billion by 2009
- IP PBX revenue is forecast to jump up 82% while TDM revenue will plunge 88% in 2005 - 2009
- For the quarter, PBX/KTS revenue totaled $2.2 billion in 4Q05, up 1% over 3Q05, and 10% higher than a year ago
- TDM system revenue was down 6% in 4Q05, and IP PBX revenue nudged 3% higher than last quarter
- In the overall market, Nortel, Avaya, Siemens, Alcatel, and NEC lead in worldwide 2005 line shipments
- Close race between Nortel, Avaya, Cisco in North American IP PBX market line shipments for 2005
- Alcatel leads the IP PBX market in EMEA in 4Q05 and for the year, followed by Siemens
- Cisco dominates the market for IP phones with 42% unit market share in 2005
- Hybrid PBXs were 65% of 2005 PBX/KTS revenue, TDM 23%, pure IP 12%
- 44% of 2005 PBX/KTS revenue from EMEA, 32% from North America, 19% Asia Pacific, and 5% CALA
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Written by Peter Brockmann
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Om Malik reported the Radicati Group 's email forecast.Here's the Radicati Group view between 2006 and 2010:
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Feature
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2006
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2010
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Active email boxes
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1.4 billion
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2.5 billion
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Instant Messaging accounts
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0.94 billion
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1.4 billion
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Emails sent for corporate users
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16.4 Mbytes/person/day
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21.4 Mbytes/person/day
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Percent SPAM
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71%
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79%
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Wireless email users
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14 million
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228 million
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I believe some of these forecast elements need some discussion. Only 500 million more IM accounts? What about those with multiples? I've got a AIM, Skype, Yahoo! Messenger and my enterprise IM account, or is that already factored into this list. What about mobile IM?
I find it hard to believe that there is SO MUCH SPAM out there. Surely, we'll get better tools to destroy SPAM before it even gets to my inbox?
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