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THE VIODI VIEW
by Ken Pyle ([email protected]), Viodi, LLC
In this Issue: VoIP Review, Hope, Quintuple Play, New Network?....
August 4th, 2004 Issue
My 5 year old had a revelation the other day when he suggested that it is sometimes difficult for him to tell the difference between the past and a dream. I guess this is something we all experience, as the line between my dreams and reality is sometimes quite blurry. Most of my cogent thoughts occur while I am dreaming. Unfortunately, very few of those thoughts make it out to my everyday consciousness. The other day I had a dream about finding alternative ways of funding universal service.
Packet 8 – VoIP Service Review:
The impetus for this dream was most likely the amount of time I have been spending lately evaluating the Packet 8 Voice over IP service. After over 75 phone calls and almost 20 hours of talk time, I have to report that the service is definitely acceptable as a second line service. At $19.95 per month, which includes unlimited local and unlimited long distance to anywhere in the United States and Canada, it really is a good value for the average consumer. Regardless, it must be recognized that this is not lifeline service and its performance is still at the mercy of the broadband connection.
Interview with 8x8's Bryan Martin:
The Packet 8 service is from a company called 8x8, Inc. a technology and, now, service company that has been around a long time by Silicon Valley standards (for more on 8x8, please read the interview with their CEO and Chairman, Bryan Martin). What makes 8x8 interesting, in this era of almost daily announcements of new VoIP services and providers, is that they are probably the only player that is vertically integrated from the chip to service level. As such they are innovators with regards to adding new applications, such as video telephony, onto an IP infrastructure.
Speaking of applications, the folks at Comporium, the third largest Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier in South Carolina, are good at layering new applications onto their infrastructure. In June, they announced their “quintuple play”, which allows anyone with their local and long distance service to get discounts for taking three or four of the following additional services: wireless, high-speed Internet (either cable modem or Digital Subscriber Line), digital cable TV (which includes HDTV as an option), and security monitoring.
The discount is a straightforward $180 per year for a customer that takes four services and $240 per year for five services. In addition to bundling, the customer must agree to a consolidated bill, which helps Comporium reduce costs. Comporium is just one example of how the independent telephone companies are on the cutting edge of advanced service delivery.
One of the challenges independent telephone companies face when moving beyond just plain old telephone services is educating their customers of their advanced offerings. All of the usual techniques of advertising are required, but another useful trick is what I call “event marketing”.
That is, the telco hosts or sponsors some sort of community event that brings the community together. The first time I heard of something like this was a Superbowl chili party that was hosted by the local telco. It was used as a way to announce their local cable service. By the end of the party, they had signed up approximately 66 customers out of 100 potential customers passed.
Making an event special, such that people will want to take time out of their schedule, is always a challenge. Mixing a bit of “Hollywood” together with the interests of the Heartland is one way to give an event a bit of pizzazz as well as positioning a telco as a provider of entertainment services. The challenge is to host an event like this and still stay within a telco’s limited budget.
As such, I am pleased to introduce Bob Mills, a recovering attorney and former television comedy writer for such shows as "The Dinah Shore Show," "The Steve Allen Show" and "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts". He spent 17 years penning jokes, routines, parody songs, speeches and television scripts for the legendary performer, Bob Hope.
He now tours the country talking about these experiences and has written a book, "Inside Bob Hope's Comedy Factory", which recounts the fun years of traveling with Bob Hope. His lecture series could be an interesting centerpiece for a telco-sponsored event that also would serve to promote the telcos’s services.
Click here to read an excerpt from Mills' book.
An Interactive Opportunity for Telcos
Lastly, a Viodi View reader sent me a link to an article that does a good job of summarizing the interactive television panel at the IP Video @ Supercomm conference. Allison Dollar, co-President of the Interactive Television Alliance, moderated that panel.
Her organization is hosting a networking event on interactive television that is highly recommended for any telco that is trying to maximize their return on their network infrastructure. This event will mix big name advertisers, with academia and leading technology players to discuss all things associated with interactive television.
I have run out of space in this issue, so my dream about Universal Service will have to wait until the next issue of the Viod View. In the meantime, it is time for…..
The Korner: A New Meaning for IP?
Some may have been critical of the title of an article that I wrote a few issues back, “I hate to IP on Your Parade.” Back to the wisdom of my 5 year old; I believe that we need to have some sort of test to ensure that the acronyms we use don't make us sound silly to our kids. If I told my five year old that an integrated IP network provides the opportunity to have an ARPU that is greater than separate networks, he would come away thinking that Dad has a potty mouth (when, in fact, it is Mom who has the potty mouth).
Well, along these lines, my friend, Bob, tells me of a new optical network that the carrier for whom he works is developing called, Internet Protocol Over Optical Paths. He says it will be facilities-based (thank goodness) and they are expecting this network to flush out the competition. This brief article is one that I have been sitting on for a few months.
If you want to read something very silly, a little juvenile and very top secret (I don't think anyone else in Bob's company knows about this concept), then please click here to see Bob’s description of this proposed network.
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IP Video Conference Agenda
Economic and Product Feature Considerations for Telecom Network Architectures
The Consumer Electronics Interface – Can You See Me Now?
Regulation 101 – What a Telco Has to Consider When Deploying Video & Other New Services
Get in the Game – How do Games Play in a Service Providers’ Plans?
Advertising and other Alternative Revenue Sources
Integrating VoIP Content Into a Telco’s Bundled Service Offering
Making Sticky Bundles – Baking up new ways to gain and retain customers
Speakers Include:
- John Baghdassarian, Independent Film Channel
- Paul Bertino, HickoryTech
- Allison Dollar, Interactive Television Alliance
- Pete Drozdoff, SureWest
- Paul Feldman, Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, P.L.C.
- Prashant Gandhi, Cisco Systems
- David Irwin, Irwin, Campbell & Tannenwald, PC
- Richard Jones, Verizon Broadband
- Scott Keagy, Calix
- Marty Lafferty, DCIA
- Jim Lynn, CC Communications
- Bryan Martin, Packet 8
- Justin Miller, Kalona Cooperative Telephone Company
- John Ney, Project Mutual Telephone
- Sean Riley, Fox Cable Networks
- Kevin Schaff, Thought Equity
- Tony Stanley, Scientific Atlanta
- Jay Stark, Broadstream
- Larry Thomson, Vantage Point Solutions
- Gabe Zichermann, TryMedia