by Garrett Smith
Thanks for returning. You're a very smart person.
It is That Time of The Year…Again
I am swamped.
Between my duties at VoIP Supply and Sayers Media Group, there is normally not a lot of time in the day to blog.
Never one to limit myself because of a lack of personal bandwidth, I started a Facebook blog one night on a whim. Well, it has REALLY started to pick-up. In fact it has grown so fast in the last four weeks that I can’t keep up with it all and had to find some help in order to continue to grow the site. This is great, but in the meantime it means I do not have time to post with the frequency I once had here…and that is a problem.
So I am looking for guest bloggers. The more, the better. The pay sucks (nothing). You boss is unresponsive to your needs (I am busy, didn’t you read the first paragraph). Did I mention the pay sucks?
On a serious note, this is an awesome opportunity for those of you who have always wanted to blog, but never have. The site has over 2,500 RSS subscribers and gets in excess of 1,000 page views per day. So if you are looking to get yourself a little exposure, this is the place to do it.
So, if you are interested in contributing, drop me a line (smith@smithonvoip.com).
by Garrett Smith
Wimax PC Cards Will Increase the Spread of Wimax Usage
The climate around Wimax technology reminds me of the late 1990s when cellular carrier first started to offer wireless Internet to the world. It is exciting, dynamic and full of promise. Clearwire, the broadband and voice provider that delivers service via Wimax technology, has released a Wimax PC Card in partner with Motorola. The PC Card will allow for easy mobility, something that was lacking with their original wireless modem, which should make this an ideal solution for mobile Internet users where coverage is available. With download speeds up to 1.5 Mbps, the service is comparable to EV-DO and at $80 per month on a one year contract or $60 per month on a two year contract, the pricing is very competitive.
Even though Clearwire’s service is not available everywhere the emergence of their Wimax cards means that Wimax is poised to make a big splash in 2008; that is if you live in a big city. Buffalo should see Wimax around 2020.
by Gokul Gopalakris
As mentioned before the Telecom Professionals Group met yesterday in Cream Center ( a nice little place on Chamiers road,Chennai). This was more of a goal setting meeting than a technology meeting ( Yup, Techies can try their hand at something other than nerd talk as well 
).
The meeting revolved around what we as a group are trying to achieve out here and how do we get there. As the first step, we are opening up our group to include more people interested in Telecom. You could be a student, you could be a professional in any other field. But if you feel you want to know more about Telecom and you want to discuss things with like-minded people, you are welcome to join. There is no membership fee as of now and all you need to come with is an inquisitive mind.
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by Gokul Gopalakris
Aswath’s take on number portability is a definite read. As he has rightly pointed out, the question is who should own the number. The subscriber or the telephone company. The latter owning the number would lead to problems as in the typical case of SunRocket.
But the problem is no service provider in his right mind would give it to the subscriber. That is against the very nature of the Telco company we have come to see. It is quite a long way for that to happen and even then I don’t think the Telcos that exist today would take a step in this direction. Upstarts like ‘Google Telecom’ ( yup, I am one of those who believe sooner or later they will enter the Service provider market in a big way) would probably be the first to do this and force the hands of the other telcos.
Speaking from a Technology perspective, I still have not seen the ENUM movement garnering enough support for this to happen. There needs to be a lot of traction and collaboration in this regards for this to become mainstream.
by Gokul Gopalakris
I have a question which hopefully somebody can answer.
Terminating a VoIP call in TDM is illegal in India ( if you don’t have the license to do it). Question is does this hold good for a 3pcc? ( Third party call control) as well. I will discuss sometime later this day ( when I write the summary for Proto Day 2) the reason why this cropped up.
Basically, let’s say that I have a Soft PBX making calls to two mobile endpoints and then connecting them ( A typical 3pcc call). Is this legal in India? The reasoning behind banning the VoIP termination on TDM was that the existing licensed vendors were loosing out which would make sense in this case as well. So is there a legal section that bans this as well?
Anybody with views on this?
by Garrett Smith
Europe Has Almost Twice The Amount of VoIP Users
Red Herring has a story about a recent In-Stat report about VoIP adoption rates in the US and Europe. The lag that the US is experiencing has to do with two factors that are not present in Europe:
- Lack of a compelling reason to make the switch to VoIP
- Lack of consumer interest in new technology
European land line and cellular long distance charges have historically been quite high. High enough to make the switch to VoIP very compelling. Europe has always been ahead of the US when it comes to bleeding edge telecommunications. Technology is cool in Europe, therefore using VoIP is the cool thing to do.
VoIP providers need to give US consumers a more compelling reason to switch to VoIP…and while they are at it, make it cool to use. If they can do that, adoption rates will begin to soar.
by Gokul Gopalakris
I had wondered yesterday as to when would iPhone be available in India. This article in ibnlive kind of answers all my questions including the one as to whether I can use the iPhone bought in US. Looks like it might available sometime end of this year. This might happen after all considering Blackberry was available in India months after its release.
Thanks to Vijay and Ram for answering some of my questions.
