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ANY OTHER UNAUTHORIZED RE-DISTRIBUTION IS A VIOLATION OF COPYRIGHT LAW. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this Issue: - Heard on the Net - The State of Digital Ham Radio - The pulver.com and Gartner Dataquest Report: "State of the NGN Union" - Feedback Regarding my Proposal for IPv6 Day - Fall 2002 VON: Registration now open - Internet Radio Update: Support Internet Radio NOW! - SIPit 11 taking place Oct 7-12 in Atlanta - VON Europe 2002 Recap - Carl's Corner - Wanted an Economist with a Beautiful Mind - Summer 2002: Kids on the Net Update - pulver.com 2002 Conference Calendar ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Heard on the Net Special thanks to the 700+ readers of the Pulver Report who came out to our party at Supercomm 2002. I hope everyone enjoyed the Herding Cats as much as we did...those who missed the band will have another chance to hear them at Fall 2002 VON. Companies on the Move: During the past month a number of significant deployments were announced from companies which include: SBC, Verizon and KDD in Japan. Look for major US cable operators and Enterprises to announce new deployments over the next couple of months. As more incumbents deploy IP Communication technologies, our industry will continue to grow. In addition, while it may not seem like the best of times for everyone, or anyone, there are now great opportunities to invest in the distressed telecom debt and equity marketplace. The recent Warrent Buffett investment in Level 3 was a great sign of future confidence. People on the Move: - Francois de Repentigny recently joined Bell Canada as Regional Director, Strategic Planning. - Tom Russoto left ACE*COMM and started Broadband Communications Solutions. - Vlad Smelyansky and Mike Poremba have left Webley Systems. - Mark Britto left Amazon.com and has joined Keen as their CEO. Please email: people@pulver.com to report a change in your position. Please refer to: "People on the Move" in the subject. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The State of Digital Ham Radio I've been a licensed Amateur Radio operator since 1975 and over the years I have enjoyed experimenting with various forms of communication besides just CW and Phone. When VocalTec launched Internet Phone back in 1995, a portion of the non-"radio active" Ham Radio Community slowly adopted the product and people like myself used iPhone in a manner which to some of us, made the internet feel like the "iBand". Over the years, a number of projects/experiments have been run by people active in the Ham Radio community who were fascinated by the prospect of interconnecting their PCs with their radios (rather than with their telephones) to create Radio Frequency (RF) links. The iLink Board ( http://www.ilinkboard.com ) has become the unofficial standard amongst ham radio operators who link their PCs with their radio equipment. Back in April 2002, VocalTec stopped supporting their IPhone server network which resulted in accelerating the adoption of other Internet based community products developed by fellow Ham Radio operators. These days there are several "Ham Radio Networks" which I recommend from personal experience. Most of these networks provide free client software which use VoIP and IP based Conference rooms to make you feel like you are on the air with fellow ham radio operators. As long as you have an active Ham Radio license, you owe it to yourself to check out: eQSO ( http://www.eqso.net ) and EchoLink ( http://www.synergenics.com/el ) and be aware of iLink ( http://www.aacnet.net ) and The Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP) ( http://www.irlp.net ). Most of these networks support the use of the iLink Board should you decide to provide a local RF link in your community to any of these respective networks. The cool part about these networks is that it allows licensed, non-active radio operators, the opportunity to communicate with fellow ham radio operators at a time when being able to setup RF equipment for some just isn't practical or feasible. I believe that as more ham radio operators learn about these alternative ways to communicate, more will come forward and take advantage of their broadband internet connectivity and spend some of their time re-experiencing a hobby which they grew up with and once loved. eQSO took me about 2 minutes to install and get "on the air". Echolink was also fast to install but the extra time was spent when the network validated my ham radio callsign. Most mornings I can be found for a few minutes in room "101 English" on eQSO. At night I've been using EchoLink more often. For my summer project, I'm going to try to setup a local RF link for eQSO and help others from the metro NYC gain access to this network. Please feel free to email me if you would like to setup a Sked. :-). 73's de Jeff ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The pulver.com and Gartner Dataquest Report: "State of the NGN Union" pulver.com and Gartner Dataquest have initiated a comprehensive report on the "State of the NGN Union." This report will analyze all aspects of the NGN (enterprise, wireless, service provider, etc.). The results of this analysis will be presented at Fall 2002 VON. A key section of this report focuses on NGN vendor and service provider profiling. Those organizations wishing to have their profile included in the report should contact David Fraley, principal analyst, Gartner Dataquest, via email: david.fraley@gartner.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Feedback Regarding Proposal for IPv6 Day It seems that there are a number of Pulver Report readers who feel strongly that not enough is being done to properly promote and support the rollout of IPv6. One of the readers to reach out to me was Tom Lyon, founder, Ipsilon Networks and ex-CTO of Nokia Internet Communications, who has an interesting paper entitled: "Creating the New Public Network" posted to: ( http://www.ipipu.org/npn.htm ) together with his general announcement for "The Institute for the Promotion of the Internet Protocol Utility" posted to: ( http://www.ipipu.org ). I've invited Tom to give an Industry Perspective at Fall 2002 VON with the hope of engaging more people in getting involved in making IPv6 happen sometime soon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fall 2002 VON: Registration now open Registration is now open for Fall 2002 VON taking place October 7-10 in Atlanta. Please remember to register ( http://pulver.com/von/register.html ) by August 23rd to take advantage of our "early bird" pricing. The Fall 2002 VON schedule ( http://pulver.com/von/schedule.html ) represents our effort to provide an even perspective on how IP Communications is being used today in both carrier networks and in the Enterprise. Some of the points we touch on in the schedule include: wireless, enterprise, service provider and business strategies. I'm happy to announce that Microsoft has chosen Fall 2002 VON to locate their "Microsoft Windows RTC Design Review". This is one of the pre-conference workshops available on October 7th. Also, John Dix from Network World will be back hosting another vendor shoot-out in the general session which concludes the VON Enterprise Forum on October 7th. "VON Radio" is now back so please look for the icon on the pulver.com home page and tune in and listen to the interviews from the speakers and exhibitors who will be part of Fall 2002 VON. Attending delegates and special friends will be invited to help celebrate my 40th birthday on the night of October 9th in Atlanta at our "All Conference" party. Our special music guests include: The Calling ( http://www.thecallingband.com ) and the Herding Cats. Speaking of Herding Cats, we have a special offer to industry forums on a first come, first forum served basis to utilize some of our available breakout rooms for special meetings on Friday, October 11th. Carl intends to run a special carrier summit as well. For more information, please contact Carl via email: carl@pulver.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Internet Radio Update: Support Internet Radio NOW! Many of the independent station operators represented in the Internet Radio industry are currently at war with the RIAA. Even if the RIAA ends up winning this battle, eventually they will lose the war when they are forced to come to terms with their own historic antitrust activities. The current June 2002 CARP decision ( http://www.copyright.gov/carp/webcast_regs.html ) will most likely mean that many internet-only radio stations run by both hobbyists and commerical enterprises which played commercial music will choose to take down their streams and go "off the air." While many of these radio stations will be missed, and I can fully appreciate the issues facing internet radio hobbyists, chances are that some of these commerical internet-only stations never had a sustainable business to begin with if the CARP decision is the only reason given for why they went silent. However, business models aside, it is very important for the Internet user community to show support for Internet Radio at this critical point in the industry's life. To help show your support, PLEASE VISIT: (http://www.voiceofwebcasters.org/fax/carp/smallweb/ ) and use this URL to send a fax of your support to the US Congress. It was because of the CARP decision that pulverradio ( http://www.pulverradio.com ) recently changed formats from playing commercial music to only playing the music of artists who signed our artist webcasting license ( http://www.pulverradio.com/license1.html ). Our license is innovative inside the independent radio industry as it removes our obligation to pay any webcasting royalty fees associated with the playing of the artists' music on pulverradio. pulverradio has become, in effect, CARP free. Not knowing what to expect with our format change, pulverradio's daily listeners went from averaging between 250-500 daily listeners to averaging between 2,000 to 3,000 daily listeners with peeks as many as 6,000. So for us, the change in format has brought a dramatic increase in our listening audience and in turn we have the opportunity to expose people to the music of artists which don't usually get played on commercial radio. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIPit 11 taking place Oct 7-12 in Atlanta ( http://pulver.com/sipit11 ) The eleventh SIPit will be taking place in Atlanta, GA at the Cobb Galleria Monday, October 7th thru Friday, October 11th, 2002. The purpose of this event is to test for interoperability of SIP implementations, determine the source of incompatibilities, and if the specification is at fault, prepare a "fix" for the draft revision. This event is open only to implementors with working SIP implementations. It is not a trade show, public demonstration, conference or workshop. The individual results of the event will be kept confidential, but we will prepare a press release at the end of the event. The SIP Interoperability Test Event (formerly known as the "SIP Bake-Off" prior to the Pillsbury issue) is an event open to implementers with working SIP implementations to move SIP forward to become a global interoperable protocol for real time Internet communication services. These events take place roughly every four months, hosted by different companies and organizations. The first SIP interoperability event took place in April of 1999. The event is managed by a Technical Program Committee. Prospective Delegates should consult the general FAQ posted at ( http://www.sipforum.org/sip/sipit/faq.html ). To register for SIPit 11, please visit: (http://pulver.com/sipit11/register.html ). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ VON Europe 2002 Recap: by Carl Ford VON Europe 2002 was a great blend of SIP implementation discussions and business models experiences. 3G and SIP seem to have come along way on understanding each others views, and while it is scary that SIP needs to have detente between some implementations, it seems that it is no longer insurmountable. Ohad Finkelstein from Interroute was probably the most amazing speaker because he pointed to the fact that many of his competitors' investments are stranded. His prediction was that his needs do not turn around until 18 months from now. That seemed to lead a discussion of business models. On the last day a number of people were sharing that they were "doing whatever it took to make money" and that they were succeeding because they were matching their customers needs and not being religious on technical issues (i.e. protocols). Since we like to drink what we SIP, we brought one of our Cisco 7960 SIP phones with us to Helsinki which is powered by a US based SIP service provider to observe for ourselves the quality of service available when we placed phone calls over the public internet back to the United States. While our cell phones were all reachable on the GSM network, calls from home cost us about a dollar a minute each. Calls we placed over the SIP phone back home not only sounded as good as we remember a phone call can sound like, it cost only a fraction of the cost of the GSM calls. All in all, the tone of the conference was that of survivors comparing notes on what worked and what still was needed. I was also happy to see so many friends. Presentations from VON Europe 2002 are available at: ( http://www.von.com/sides ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Carl's Corner - July 2002 - Wanted an Economist with a Beautiful Mind When is it going to end? We have already seen WorldCom, Qwest, Global Crossing, and a host of other telecommunication companies making the daily news. I would like to say the ILECs are safe, but they may also be hurting too, with the effects of wireless conversion, as the number of access lines in the home are now in decline. At the very beginning of the Telecom Act of 1996, it was reported to me that an executive level meeting between a "Greenfield" and an ILEC had one person say, "You are going to take a trillion dollar industry and turn it into a half billion dollar industry." The answer back was "that was fine if I got the half billion." Few, if any of us, are left standing, and I am trying hard to understand where the economics are taking us as we shrink the market. The problem is we have unwittingly played the options game. We have bought a perishable commodity: fiber. I used to believe that real carriers had conduit and right of way. I thought I could say fiber, but Ohad Finkelstein of Interroute showed us at VON Europe 2002 that conduit with dark fiber is just stranded. Back in the 90s, when I was involved with making the FCC happy for the ILECs, I remember discovering a Video Coax cable circa 1960 to the Polo Grounds which no longer existed. The coax did, but not the Polo Grounds. It turns out that a lot of the fiber that has been laid is in the same situation the coax is bound for: nowhere. Most of the outside plant was useful and therefore valid for the rate base. The economics I had for a data (private line) network were based on a shared cost with Voice services. In these times does that prorating still make sense? Now the question is, what is salvageable? But the issue goes further. We need fewer working parts in the economics of the telephone services, particularly if the customer is going to have the smarts at the edge. If so, we should make the role of outside plant more maintenance and less installation. Self configuration is a must. Customers with 4 or more T's should be directly connected to backbone services. This is in effect the solution associated with CLECs anyway. Wall Street was measuring Carriers by the number of access lines they serve per employee. My sense is a data network cannot support voice status quo costs, so the industry is heading our way. But the disruption is not trouble free. Now I sit and think about the local loop and I have to ask, what will I do if it goes away? Can WiFi give me the support and do I have put my Geek Cap on to take care of it? If I get to the backbone, is the Internet the answer? Of course the answer is "Yes!" but it is now qualified with "how many connections to the backbone do I need to know if I am redundant?" And how do I gain enough control such that the carrier's service outage is irrelevant to my identity as well as to those who will communicate with me? Fundamentally, I know that VoIP technology is the future. I am now questioning how the supply chain will work. In particular, when will we successfully abstract media from the message? Does voice generate revenue? If you have a beautiful mind, I am willing to listen. Feedback/Comments?: Please email: Carl Ford, carl@pulver.com p.s. I'm looking for somebody who used to work in the Bell System who remembers the software program "WANGLY." "WANGLY" supposedly stood for "What's a Nice Girl Like You..." [ working in a place like this]. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Summer 2002: Kids on the Net Update My kids fascination with Crazy Bones lasted about a month, and so far my kids have focused back on Yu-Gi-Oh! card collecting and Yu-Gi-Oh! game playing. One thing which I've enjoyed watching for the past three summers is the level of engagement my kids display whenever they are playing the Pokemom and Yu-Gi-Oh! adventure games on their Gameboys. As a parent, I've enjoyed watching my kids alternate between reading the published self-help guides to the games, looking for additional information on the Internet and talking amongst themselves (and me) to share strategies and ideas. The Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! games have helped my kids in their approach to both problem solving and in communicating and I recommend other parents give it a try. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ pulver.com 2002/2003 Conference Calendar ( http://pulver.com/conference ) "Events for the IP Communications Industry" (tm) October 7-10 - Fall 2002 VON, Atlanta, GA ( http://pulver.com/von ) October 7-9 - Fall 2002 Location Based Services Summit, Atlanta, GA ( http://pulver.com/lbs ) 2003 February 4-6 - 2003 IP Communications Industry Executive Summit, Ritz-Carlton Kapalua, Maui, HI March 31 - Spring 2003 VON, San Jose, CA April 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are aware of others who would like to receive the Pulver Report, please visit ( http://pulver.com/reports/subscribe.html ). To unsubscribe, please visit ( http://pulver.com/reports/unsubscribe.html ) Please send your comments and feedback regarding this issue of The Pulver Report to: jeff@pulver.com. Jeff Pulver Tel. +1.631.547.0800 The Pulver Report Fax. +1.631.396.3996 July 10, 2002 http://pulver.com/reports ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (c) 2002 pulver.com, Inc., All Rights Reserved ========================================================================