GigaOM

Deloitte has conducted a survey of 131 businesses from the Global 2000 companies and got their views on VoIP. The key findings show that by 2006, over two-thirds of all Global 2,000 companies will have started deployment of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to the desktop. Other findings around enterprise VoIP deployment include: Continue »

The Carphone Warehouse has teamed up with EMI Music to offer the first Multimedia Memory Cards (MMC) for mobile phones featuring the new CD from Robbie Williams. The MMC card will have some video content for use with PDAs such as the iPAQ and will cost around $40. I think it is a truly dumb ass idea. The CD costs about $20 in UK, while MMC is twice that price. The music is totally DRM-ed which means its for only portable devices. You buy the CD, rip it and put music on a MMC card… rinse, repeat. Continue »

If you paid any attention to Nextel’s third quarter earnings, then you could have picked up enough clues to see that that Flarion deployment would happen much sooner than expected. Nextel is ramping up its capital expenditure, because the network is getting crowded as more folks are signing up for Nextel’s service. iDEN is not going to cut it, and the company has started throwing its resources in making Flarion as a centerpiece of its future strategy. Flarion has the potential to increase the network efficiency, along with bringing real high-speed data services to Nextel customers. Continue »

The uptake of VoIP in small communities is going to be a bit of problem because of E911 issues. Even though the industry is working hard to overcome these issues, it is a nagging issue for first responders. Case in point, Northland county in Minnesota. Continue »

If you were at VoN 2004, then you would think that VoIP is the greatest thing since well, dot.con. A revolution, perhaps! Instead it is more of an evolution. Art Rosenberg of The Unified-View has come out a study which says something to the same effect.

Since all leading voice telecommunications providers are now delivering IP-based telephone system products for an IP network environment, their existing TDM customers are depending on them to support their migration to converged communications. In particular, new voice application products that support a selective migration from legacy TDM equipment are making migration implementation more flexible and cost-effective. Continue »

Verizon Communications is realizing that there is a gold mine in the boonies. The company will be adding about 1.2 million new lines in Idaho, Ohio and South Carolina. Its DSL service is also available in more communities in California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Verizon and other Bells have come under pressure from rural communities which have threatened to roll out their own broadband networks. Continue »

• Tim Higgins: The upbeat mode that prevailed at the show was helped along by FCC chairman Michael Powell’s keynote on Tuesday. The speech garnered plenty of press from the snappy quotes just made for us media types to slurp up. But Powell’s basic message—that any US government regulation of VoIP should be applied with a very light touch—was consistent with his previous pronouncements on this topic.
• Voice Over Wi-Fi Hits VON: Net2Phone announced the first product in its suite of wireless VoIP solutions for service providers: the VoiceLine XJ100 Wi-Fi Handset. Startup DiamondWare Ltd. has announced the Wi-Fone product, a SIP-based softphone for PocketPC, which will be available via its partner, Voiceworks. Xten also released its new PocketPC softphone, X-PRO v2.2.
• Martin Geddes: There’s a lot of confusion at the conference when people say “VoIP”. You have to work hard to understand whether they mean slot-in PSTN replacement using phone numbers, or just any real-time duplex audio stream over IP. One of the best things the regulators could do is introduce some new terms and people will, by necessity, start to use them.So if you’re putting your pension savings into the VoIP business, tread very, very carefully. This boom going to hurt as bad as the .com explosion. One way or another, there’s going to be a lot of roadkill, and a lot of get-rich-quick money from inflated promises.

Those of you who are out there rejoicing WiMAX, Broadband over Powerline and other such incremental technologies, it is time to pay heed to Morris Chang, the 73-year-old maverick who founded Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. He tells The New York Times, that

we’re all going to see lower growth in the next 10 years,” and “Next year “will not be a very high-growth year, but it will be a positive year; beyond that I’m pessimistic. If Moore’s law has not slowed down in the lab, it will surely slow down in the marketplace, and that in turn will have an effect on foundries. Continue »