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Viodi View Newsletter - July 20th , 2005

Indie Telco Local Content Workshop Advertisement

• Consumer Tidbits from Parks and Associates
• Quit Battering My Self Esteem!
• Peer to Peer with Telcordia
• An Alarming Development?
• An Alternative Microsoft IPTV Solution?
• IPTV - Not Just for Telcos
• FTTH Communications Purchased By Superwire
• Krazy Ken's Korner - Is that California or Costa Rica?

My favorite kind of conference is the one held in my home town of San Jose, CA. Of course, zero travel time, zero travel expenses and being home with the family are obvious benefits to a local conference. As the unofficial and self-proclaimed ambassador of San Jose, I also enjoy sharing my fine city with my conference colleagues (I also like the fact that their presence helps boost the local economy). You will have to read the korner to see why I was a bit disappointed with the experience one of the attendees shared with me last week regarding her travels to San Jose.

Consumer Tidbits from Parks and Associates

At last week's Parks and Associates’ Experts Analyze the Digital Living Landscape conference,Parks and Associates’ analysts, Kurt Scherf, Harry Wang and Michael Cai, used results from their primary research to illuminate what consumers want from service providers. Scherf has the common sense that one would expect from someone with roots from Iowa and, as such, his presentations and those of his associates are not laced with hyperbole, but are tempered with the reality of the challenges of making technology easy to use for the average consumer. Click here to read some of the interesting tidbits from this jam-packed conference.

Quit Battering My Self Esteem!

Making technology simple and transparent may be the Holy Grail for service providers. Every day it seems, my self esteem is battered by the challenges of making technology work. What should be a 15 minute project routinely turns into 15 hours and I feel pretty stupid for wasting so much time on something that should have been a snap. I had a chance to opine on this subject in Primedia’s recent issue of The Independent. I would definitely subscribe to this magazine as they focus on the independent telco market. In the meantime, you can read the column I wrote by clicking here.

I felt so strongly about this topic that when I was on one of the panels at C-Cor’s 1st Annual Global IP Summit, I blurted out that making technology simple to use had to be the number one priority among service providers. I think my exact words were something like, “quit hurting my self-esteem with technology that makes me feel stupid.” Of course, making complex technology simple is, well, complex. It requires lots of back-office software and communications

Peer to Peer with Telcordia

Telcordia, formerly known as Bellcore, is a supplier with roots in the telephony industry and was largely responsible for making the technically complex telephone network simple to use. Having not paid attention to them for awhile (since I last procured CLEI codes when I was at E/O Networks), I was really surprised to see their large presence at the Global IP Summit. Looking at their web site and their list of cable customers, it is clear that Telcordia has transformed itself from their Bellcore days. Further evidence of their move to the cutting edge is their just announced membership in the DCIA – the group that represents the suppliers of legitimate peer to peer applications and software.

An Alarming Development?

Of course, Skype is a peer to peer application that is directly impacting the traditional telephone industry. Vonage, although it does not use peer to peer, is the brand most closely associated with Voice over I.P. The voice part of the VoIP may become the least significant part of the offering, as people become more accustomed to the associated features. A new feature that Vonage began offering in the past month, but which was not heralded in the media, is their marketing partnership with Alarm.com.

In a nutshell, Alarm.com offers wireless alarm monitoring of individual residences. Vonage, through their newsletter, is promoting the Alarm.com offering – Vonage users save $100 off Alarm.com’s normal pricing. I cannot see any technology tie between Vonage’s and Alarm.com product. It looks Alarm.com is using Vonage strictly as a marketing sales channel. Someone pointed out to me the irony of Vonage, with its E911 challenges, offering alarm services.

An Alternative Microsoft IPTV Solution?

Microsoft has been taking hits lately for schedule delays in implementing its IPTV solution. Could it be there already is a form of a Microsoft-based IPTV solution that is already operational? At Parks Associates Digital Living Room conference, I met a company, Activemania, which has a suite of products, the Actisuite Digital Home Solution, Actisuite Hotel Solution and the Actisuite Palace Solution, that convert Windows-based PCs into media servers. The palace solution gives a hint as to the initial markets served by this Lebanon-based company. They apparently have deployments in resorts, as well as homes and, yes, palaces. They are now planning to expand beyond their home base of the Middle East and they could have some interesting offerings that telcos could deploy in various configurations.

IPTV - Not Just for Telcos:

At the Global IP Summit in Barcelona, David Fellows, Comcast’s CTO, suggested that Comcast will use IP to bridge silos of voice, Internet and video. Fellows asked the question as to why shouldn’t a customer be able to watch HBO on Demand on his PC or mobile device.

Time-Warner has begun to address this question with their TV over Internet deployment in San Diego, whereby Time-Warner’s high speed data customers can now receive 75 channels of cable programming via their Internet connection. Presumably, since Time-Warner is controlling the last mile Internet connection, they can provide a level of service quality that can not be matched as compared to video that traverses the wide open Internet.

At first glance, Time-Warner’s Internet Television effort might be considered to be a pre-emptive move against telco IPTV competitors. As importantly, it may also be a shot across the bow of content owners and their recent efforts to bypass operators by making video content directly available to consumers via the Internet. Additionally, this experiment should provide Time-Warner with valuable data as to what sort of content viewers will watch on their PCs.

FTTH Communications Purchased By Superwire

FTTH Communications, a small, but innovative, facilities-based CLEC in Roseville, MN has entered into a Letter of Intent with Superwire, Inc. Superwire is a California firm that provides managed communications services to small businesses and is building out a bundled service network for the Seal Beach development known as Leisure World. John Schultz, FTTH Communications, will be a big asset to Superwire’s plans going forward. He and his staff are continually coming up with and implementing ideas that make their service offering unique and useful.

Krazy Ken’s Korner – Is that California or Costa Rica?

Brimming with civic pride I was at wits end as to how to work in a paragraph in the last issue of the Viodi View explaining that San Jose had officially surpassed Detroit to become the 10th most populous city in the United States. With a U.S. Census estimated population of 904,522, San Jose is now approximately five times the size it was when I was born in what was still largely a farming community. San Jose is still perceived by many as a bedroom community of that smaller town to the North, even though San Jose is the self-proclaimed “Capital of Silicon Valley.” With San Jose cracking the top ten list, I figured its national and international stature would have to rise.

Needless to say the helium was let out of my blimp, when I heard that one of the Parks Associates attendees had almost been routed to San Jose, Costa Rica, instead of my fair berg. Apparently her travel agent did not realize that these were two completely different destinations. Fortunately, a visa was required for entry into Costa Rica, so the agent at the gate realized the error of the travel agent’s ways and set this road weary traveler on the path to the California version of San Jose.

As a final note and speaking of road weary, the inaugural, Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix will be held July 29th-31st in San Jose. Net proceeds from this Grand Prix go to the Canary Fund. This group is looking for ways to prevent and detect Cancer at its earliest stages.

The folks at Justgiving have made it easy to contribute to the American Cancer Society through this simple to use web link.

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