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Viodi View Newsletter - March 16th, 2005

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VoIP Swap Meet?

By Ken Pyle, Viodi, LLC

I did not realize that Jeff Pulver was an avid ham radio operator. It is so obvious, as ham radio operators have been providing wireless packet communications for decades now. From a technical perspective, there are probably thousands of ham radio operators who could have put together the concepts expounded by Pulver, but it seems to be Pulver’s destiny to be the one to articulate this new vision of communications. And just like ham radio operators share ideas and radios at a swap meet, Pulver’s conferences are a great forum for the exchange of ideas among industry leaders.

Pulver’s keynote compared the IP industry to his kids who are just entering adolescence. With AOL’s announcement and rumors of Yahoo! and Microsoft offer of VoIP, it clearly looks like the industry is beginning to mature, but there are still uncertain times ahead. He suggested that the VoIP industry is, “still looking for its Steve Jobs.” He encouraged the audience to, “Seize the moment. If you see an opportunity, take it…time goes by and doesn’t come back.”

It looks like AOL sees an opportunity to add VoIP as another feature for their millions of customers. Their launch in April appears to be a full-service VoIP offering, which will include E-911, Local Number Portability, as well as some sort of integration with the AOL buddy list. He suggested a parallel between today’s VoIP and the Internet in 1996. Jonathan Miller, Chairman and CEO of AOL said, “Feel electricity in the air and this time it is carrying our voices to the masses.” Interesting metaphor, as AOL gave an interesting speech regarding wireless at the WCA a few months back.

I had almost forgotten about Bell Labs, now known as AT&T labs. According to Hossein Eslambolchi, PhD, AT&T Labs has been called a crown jewel of SBC’s purchase of AT&T. AT&T Labs have some interesting projects underway. Probably the most interesting is the multimedia search engine that captures and converts audio in real-time to searchable and indexable text.

In the not-too distant future, it is not too hard to imagine the closed captioning occurring at the device, as opposed to deep within the network, by the network operator. Very impressive, although it seemed similar to at least one other companies Intellectual Property. Will be interesting to see where that development goes. This could make for some very interesting Emergency Alert Systems, as well low-cost web-centric, call centers.

The highlight of the first morning had to be FCC Chairman Michael Powell. Powell received a standing ovation from many in the crowd. Powell enthusiastically congratulated the attendees when he said, “With VoIP, we have given them something to talk about.” He went on to say that because of VoIP, “consumers are increasingly the winner.” He warned that the VoIP industry, “won’t be a rock star forever.” The industry must take care to work with the government to solve 911 issues, protect legitimate law enforcement agency concerns and advance the notion of Universal Service and affordability for all.

He implied that Broadband providers need to respect the Internet Freedoms he first mentioned in a speech last year, if they want a continued light-touch regulatory environment. These freedoms are:

  • Freedom to Access Content
  • Freedom to Use Applications
  • Freedom to Attach Personal Devices
  • Freedom to Obtain Service Plan Information

These freedoms were also mentioned by FCC Bureau Chief of Policy, Dr. Robert Pepper and FCC Wireline Bureau Chief, Jeffrey Carlisle in the forum they led on Monday night. These guys are tireless, as this forum was held from 7:30 to 9:00 P.M. on a Monday night.

A topic of hot discussion at this forum was the Madison River case. It was suggested that this case indicates that the FCC will be very aggressive in pursuing cases where an Internet Freedom is restricted by a provider. Madison River was apparently blocking port 5060, which was wreaking havoc with Vonage’s VoIP traffic. It was also pointed out that there are remedies under anti-trust law that could be pursued.

The ultimate regulation will be market forces. Pepper pointed to the rise of the some 6,000 WISPs (Wireless ISPs) as evidence that substitute products will appear as demand requires. Pepper suggested that 10% of rural broadband customers are served by WISPs.

A comment heard from several venture capitalists over the course of the conference was the importance of regulatory clarity and political certainty with regards to VoIP. The VCs indicated that this climate is restraining their investment. Powell, Carlisle and Pepper all emphasized the importance of the VCs, carriers and other stakeholders to let their views being known in Washington, if a positive changed is to be affected.

Greg Haldejian of Irwin, Campbell & Tannewald P.C did a good job representing IOCs' concerns when he suggested that, “In order to have a broadband service, you need to have a broadband network.” He reminded the audience that there needs to be an investment in the underlying network in order for all of the cool IP applications to work. He provided an excellent case study of a rural IOC, TCT West. He explained how they are using IP over copper, wireless and fiber to bring affordable communications to rural Wyoming.

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