The disruption potential of VoIP lies not so much in its ability to push down the cost of telephone service than in its ability to get consumers to ignore the telephone business altogether. The nature of the Internet makes VoIP advantageous even after the cost of plain old telephone service goes to zero. For while the network determines all the essential features of traditional telephone service, from audio quality (low) to addressing (telephone numbers), the Internet asserts few constraints on VoIP services or devices. Thinking of communication solutions as an extension of the web and implementation as hosting can help break the grip of the telephone myopia reflected in most VoIP business plans.
Framing the value of VoIP as replacement for traditional telephone service makes interconnection with the telephone network seem essential, but VoIP enables communication solutions that go beyond the
“telephone call.” Think of it as viewing the telephone itself as a more efficient telegraph. The infocom industry needs to unleash new demand associated with new services. A transformation from world wide web to worldwide communication requires interconnection among VoIP providers, not the telephone network. The unwillingness of Vonage and Skype to interconnect with other VoIP providers makes no more sense than Yahoo imposing on users a proprietary browser that can’t be used to access any other sites on the web. Continue »
I received an emailed press release from Comcast this morning about their plans to work with Vonage to address “the reasonable network management of Internet services” that left me a tad confused. Comcast had already admitted to massaging P2P traffic, sparking an online uproar that resulted in the company backing down and announcing plans to use different kinds of network management techniques. (They massaged P2P traffic by either delaying or blocking P2P packets outright, which caused BitTorrent-type services to degrade.)
In an attempt to uncover the real reason behind the release, I called a Comcast spokeswoman and asked her if this was an exclusive deal with Vonage, and if any money was changing hands. She said that the agreement doesn’t preclude others from working with Comcast, that in fact it’s working with a variety of companies and groups. And no, there is no money changing hands.
Still, the press release kept nagging at me. Continue »
Ribbit, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that is pushing a VoIP platform that marries web with voice is subject of acquisition rumors this evening. VentureBeat reported that the company was close to being acquired by British Telecom (BT), but later changed their story. When contacted by me, Don Thorson, Ribbit’s Vice President of Marketing dismissed the rumors but declined to comment any further.
It wouldn’t surprise me if BT (or some European telecom) acquired Ribbit (or any other platform) to expand across the borders and find a way to stay relevant. We had pointed out that a consortium of incumbent carriers were developing their competitor to Skype. Ribbit-type platform could be used to develop apps for the incumbent supra-net.
Ribbit has so far raised $13 million from Allegis Capital, KPG Ventures and Alsop Louie Ventures. The company has attracted about 4000 developers to its platform, though it is hard to tell if it is making any revenues from its platform. Over past few weeks, I had heard about Ribbit being in “play” and talking to likely buyers, but there is nothing concrete to add.
Jajah, in its effort to become a backend platform for VoIP services, has started offering call termination, billing and other such services to one and all comers. They got a big boost when they signed up Yahoo! Now, the Sequoia Capital-backed company has signed up SIPphone, the company behind Gizmo and will handle their call termination. Does this mean Gizmo’s call quality will increase? I certainly hope so – I have stopped using the service because of poor quality of voice.
Instead, I have opted for RingCentral, which recently introduced a Mac OS X soft client (in addition to a PC version) and it is doing a might fine job for me. I was highly skeptical of RingCentral in the past but they have won me over with their high quality service. (Full review, pending!)
Soft phones – whether they are from RingCentral, Vonage, Gizmo or Skype extremely useful. I almost never am close to a landline, but an internet connection is always handy. Using soft phone, I can make quick calls without really breaking away from the computer screen. I am not alone in professing a liking for Softphones. A Frost & Sullivan report says that as a percentage of total IP-telephone market soft phones share will increase from 5 percent to 20 percent by 2014. Softphone sales rose to 416,000 units, worth $18.9 million in 2007, up 30% over 2006.
SIP-compatible VoIP devices already account for as much as 20 percent of landline telephone traffic. But mobile telephones will not remain a safe haven for long, as more companies start to offer VoIP alternatives to operator voice plans. Yet the displacement of analog phones by VoIP devices has not displaced the telephone network itself. Continue »
The business of providing voice services to users of social networks is a tough one – you need huge volume to basically make money off what is essentially a new age call-back/calling card business. That is why many companies that aimed at this market have either retrenched or gone out of business.
Jaxtr, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based company, on the other hand, is ready to double down and stay in the game. Helping it do so is $10 million in Series B funding from Lehman Brothers Venture Partners, announced this morning.
Updated: Skype, the peer-to-peer VoIP provider and a division of eBay, wants to grow up – both as a company and as a communications utility. To that end, it is launching the beta version of its latest Skype client software.
Josh Silverman, the company’s new CEO, acknowledged that from a usability standpoint, things hadn’t changed much, even as Skype kept adding more features such as embedding third-party plug-ins. Skype needed a better, easier and cleaner client — and Skype 4.0 beta, likely to be available for download tomorrow, is a start.
The new client is going to cause an uproar amongst many Skype loyalists used to the IM-like nature of the current software. With this version, the software takes up the entire PC desktop screen, mostly to accommodate a growing number of features. (Skype Journal’s Jim Courtney & JKontherun tell me that you can change the screen size, though it isn’t that obvious or easy.) I found it hugely annoying as it forced me to constantly toggle between the client and the desktop; merely doubling or tripling the size of the client seems like it would have sufficed.
While the emergence of VoIP, or voice-over-Internet protocol, technology has already helped push down the cost of making a phone call, now it’s starting to have a deflationary impact on the world of mobile, where call charges remain stubbornly high. We at GigaOM are constantly tinkering with these mobile services, so we’ve put together a list of seven mobile VoIP apps that we think you’ll find handy. Continue ReadingContinue »
London is one of those few fortunate cities to have a surfeit of telecom competition. From broadband providers to mobile operators, Londoners have a choice. They have decent broadband speeds as well as access to Wi-Fi and 3G networks. And as a result, there has been a big change in their behavior. A new report from Ofcom outlines how Londoners (and the rest of the UK) are using these new wireless and broadband services. It’s a great example of how consumer behavior changes with bandwidth.
In London:
* 40 percent of people watch TV or video content online.
* 20 percent make VoIP calls.
* 32 percent are using their mobile phones to access the Internet.
* 19 percent listen to audio content on their mobiles.
Impressed? I am! I feel London has the user base to qualify as an always-on platform that will soon spur interesting applications, including many that are yet to be invented.
Despite all the troubles with VoIP service providers such as SunRocket and Vonage, VoIP as a technology seems to be doing quite well in the U.S., according to data from Telegeography. As of the end of March, there were 16.3 million consumer VoIP lines, or about 13.8 percent of U.S. households, and 27 percent of households with broadband lines installed.
It’s hardly a surprise, as a lot new additions are coming from people buying triple-play services from cable companies. As of the end of the first quarter of 2008, here’s how the cable VoIP data broke down:
London is one of those few fortunate cities to have a surfeit of telecom competition. From broadband providers to mobile operators, Londoners have a choice. They have decent broadband speeds as well as access to Wi-Fi and 3G networks. And as a result, there has been a big change in their behavior. 
