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ANY OTHER UNAUTHORIZED RE-DISTRIBUTION IS A VIOLATION OF COPYRIGHT LAW. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this Issue: - Heard on the Net - People on the Move - Companies on the Move - IP Telephony Jobs - 2002: The Year of Survival Continues - 2002 Update: Pulver Points on IP Communication Industry - pulver.com and WHP Wireless Launch Wireline Replacement Market Trial - Fall 2002 VON: Early Bird Registration ends August 23rd - Putting email to Work: Writing more efficient Business eMail - IP Voice over 802.11x Wireless Will Challenge Future Growth of 3G - Reminder: SIPit 11 taking place Oct 7-11 in Atlanta - My Summer Listening Pleasure: Bruce Springsteen: "The Rising" - Kids on the Net: August 2002 Update - pulver.com 2002 Conference Calendar ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Heard on the Net Around the world, in Asia, Europe, the US, Latin America, more and more Enterprises are deploying IP based solutions. Cable operators and other service providers are now deploying their own Voice over Broadband solutions. While many start-ups struggle to survive and continue to seek out alternative sources of capital and while some of the more established companies find ways to restore investor faith and their own creditability, one can not deny the fact that the number of customers for IP based communications continues to grow in 2002. "I'm Still Standing" may very well be the theme song at Fall 2002 VON. People on the Move: - Gary Hermansen recently joined Global IP Sound as CEO. - Kenneth Gustafsson recently left Tele2 and joined Hotsip as CEO. - Michael Jeye left Cisco and joined Westwave Communications as President and CEO. - Thom Baker left Nortel and joined Westwave Communications as Vice President of Marketing. - Shane Cleckler left WorldCom and joined Ingate Systems as Manager of Systems Engineering. - Chris Celiberti recently joined DST Innovis. - Hugh Goldstein left VocalTec and recently joined Arbinet/theXchange as Carrier Executive for VoIP. - Alicia Medina is leaving Ericsson and joining Quini Solutions as Solution Manager. - Rob Stephens recently joined the World Bank as Telecommunications Specialist, Global Information & Communication Technologies (GICT), Policy Division. - Nick Turner recently left NetNumber and joined NexTone Communications as Executive Director, Strategic Sales and Business Development - Michael Khalilian, Chief Technologist, Advisor NTT Advanced Technology recently became the new Chairman & President of the International Softswitch Consortium (ISC). Companies on the Move: - IP Unity recently acquired empowerTel Networks. - Hotsip recently raised a 4.5 million Euro investment from it's current investors. - Internet Photonics recently raised $31M In Third Round Funding. Please email: people@pulver.com to report a change in your position. Please refer to: "People on the Move" in the subject. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IP Telephony Jobs from: ( http://pulver.com/jobs ) As your company has job openings during 2002, please consider posting them with pulver.com. please email: jobs@pulver.com for job posting information. Recent job postings (as of August 12, 2002): - East Coast Sales Executive - NetNumber If you are interested in pursuing this position, please visit ( http://pulver.com/jobs ) for full details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2002: The Year of Survival Continues "go as slow as you need to" "go as fast as you have to" As 2002 reached the halfway point, it was clear 2002 is the "Year of Survival" of the fittest or at least the better capitalized. The IP Communications Industry most likely will see more Chapter 11 and 7 bankruptcy filing with US based companies in 2002 then in 2001. Some companies will emerge from their filing a lot stronger and at least for now, the worst should be over by the end of the year. 2003 should be a moderate recovery year and 2004 looks to be stronger still. But living in 2002 there are some issues I saw awhile ago but were never addressed by the companies engaged in 'Darwinian Denial'. Everybody seemed to believe they should reinvent something already invented rather than create something new. I strongly believe now "...is the time to innovate rather than replicate". Building products that function the same as the older products and simply using IP as a new transport isn't usually a good enough way to differentiate yourself, especially if all of your direct competitors are doing the same. In some ways, one could even start to feel all the hype around Next Generation Networks (NGN) may have been a myth and the only survivors of the pre-1996 Telecom revolution will be the incumbent equipment vendors and service providers who engaged in a wait and see approach, even while their own companies were being challenged by a technology disruption they weren't prepared for. This said, there will be some surviving companies from the new breed of competitors. In today's environment, cash really is king, but yet I'm still finding out about companies which would rather be forced into a Chapter 7 liquidation than deal with the realities of the venture capital marketplace. (Sometimes this is the reality of being venture funded.) Most VCs don't want to "double down" on their current portfolio and who would blame them? These days I wouldn't be surprised if some of the major VC firms shifted focus from venture investing to being a venture voyeur to putting together LBO funds to take full advantage of a distressed and depressed telecom marketplace. It could make for great business sense at a time when nothing else is making sense anymore. This said, from the perspective of a would be Entrepreneur, the lack of venture capital has forced people to put their own money at risk and to invest in their own visions and there is something to be said for this. "Who better than yourself to invest in?" seems to be at least a semi-rational thought. Only time will tell, but I suspect some greatness will prevail over the coming months / years. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2002 Update: Pulver Points on IP Communication Industry Back in June, 1998 I first published the Pulver Points on Internet Telephony. The driving reason at the time was to clarify concepts I felt the media just didn't understand. Below are my updated Pulver Points which take a look at where the industry is today. I would appreciate hearing from the readership of The Pulver Report and receiving your feedback/comments. --------------------------------------------------------------- The Pulver Points(tm) on the 2002 IP Communications Industry: --------------------------------------------------------------- 1. When the history of Telecom books are rewritten, it will be the advent and continued growth of IP Communication Technologies that helped save the future of the Global Telecommunications Industry... IP Communications has already introduced many efficiencies that will only become obvious as time goes on. 2. IP based innovations helps to level the playing field between established service providers and equipment vendors and those who wish to compete. This said, look for incumbent carriers to continue to purchase their technology from incumbent vendors. 3. The base foundation now exists for new service providers to start to deliver on the vision of creating product and services that were never before practical or possible without for the advent of IP based Communications. Such services pulver.com refers to as: "purple minutes". 4. Internet Telephony -- it's a done deal. Future Public Networks will be IP based and all networks will support IP or at least a hybrid of it. Thru the end of 1999 we had been putting Data over Voice Networks... these days we are putting Voice over Data Networks. Look for Voice over Broadband to be a major driver for increasing the number of Broadband subscribers over the next 5-7 years. 5. IP Communications will be used by established carriers to help in their fight against revenue losses due to "Wireless Conversion". Look for incumbent carriers to deploy 2nd line phone services using Voice over Broadband technologies in communities which have started using their cell phones in their homes and may not be depending on local residential phone services anymore. 6. The availability of Internet Telephony to consumers will contribute to incremental minutes creation. These minutes are not replacement minutes to dollars that would have otherwise been spent on regular phone services, but rather Minutes that would not have ever been generated if it wasn't for this technology. 7. Look for further consolidation to occur within the market sector - including both equipment vendors and service providers. There always was a limit to the number of companies that could service and survive in this marketplace and the current economic conditions are helping to accelerate the consolidation. 8. Interoperability is not a salvation but only a half way step. Most IP based Carriers today still need to use the PSTN as a means of interconnecting their networks. Equipment vendors have benefited from the industry's "Protocol Detente" since it has provided a stable set of specs for developers to code against, but protocols don't generally provide a means of creating interoperable feature extensions. As such, look for most vendors to end up supporting "open" protocols with added features/functionality that only can be taken advantaged of by purchasing proprietary products from said vendor. 9. Internet Telephony Technologies will become part of embedded systems of future IP devices. Look for many more Hybrid IP Telephony Appliances in 2003. 10. In 1998 Internet Telephony was all about cheap minutes. In 2002 most arbitrage opportunities no longer exist and Internet Telephony continues to help provide efficiencies in delivering of communications services from developed countries into the third world. Look for continued growth from companies like ITXC and iBasis. 11. Look for Internet Telephony technologies to be supported on most (if not all) Enterprise PBXs in the near future. Regardless of whether or not the customer knows about the technology, the vendor community will continue to look toward IP based innovations to deliver new features and functions. 12. The Quality of Service (QoS) available on the public internet will continue to improve. 13. Incumbent service providers will to start offering Voice over Broadband services as a means of competing against the effects of 'Wireless Conversion' in the residential marketplace. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ pulver.com and WHP Wireless Launch Wireline Replacement Market Trial pulver.com and WHP Wireless will be running a trial in Princeton, MA to assess the long term potential of cell phones to replace wireline telephones in an attempt to test the potential of Residential Cellular Market. The goal of the trial will attempt to come up with a number for the maximum percentage of customers likely to use wireless as their primary telephone by sorting out the temporary from fundamental obstacles to conversion. The number of technical and marketing obstacles to wireline replacement associated with user awareness, charges for incoming calls, reception problems, local number portability, and enhanced 911 will diminish over time. It remains unknown whether there exist fundamental usability or other issues that will ultimately limit wireless conversions. The trial will start September 2, 2002 and run for 12 months with the goal of converting as many of the 1700 households in the town to wireless as possible. In general, we expect the focused customer education programs will allow us to convert at least 50% of the households to wireless. More details regarding the trail are available at: ( http://pulver.com/reports/princeton.html ). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fall 2002 VON: Reminder: "Early Bird" ends on August 23rd. Fall 2002 VON will be taking place October 7-10 at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta, GA. 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 best effort to date to provide an even perspective on how IP Communications is being used today in both carrier networks and in the Enterprise. For the first time at VON, there will be Industry Perspectives provided by three of the US ILECs - BellSouth, SBC and Verizon. There will be speakers representing just about every aspect of the IP Communications industry and the perspectives of carriers, enterprises and end-user customers will all be heard. Personally, I'm looking forward to listening to the audience questions when Dr. Robert Pepper, Chief, Office of Policy, FCC hosts another of his town meetings on Monday, October 7th. Given the state of where things are, I thought it would be prudent to try to co-locate several events/activities at the Cobb Galleria while Fall 2002 VON was going on as a way to better serve our community. As such, the following events are also taking place while we are at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta for Fall 2002 VON - SIPit 11 ( http://pulver.com/sipit ), October 7-11 - TIPHON Meeting #30, ( http://www.etsi.org ), October 7-11 - Location Based Services Summit ( http://pulver.com/lbs ), Oct 7-9 - Presence and Instant Messaging, ( http://pulver.com/pim ), Oct 10-11 - JAIN SIMPLE meeting, October 9th - Fall 2002 SIP Summit ( http://pulver.com/sipsummit ), Oct 12 Attending delegates are 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. Now would also be a great time to also reserve your hotel room as we have a limited number of hotel rooms still available. Special rates are available at several hotels near the Cobb Galleria Centre. Transportation will be provided from the hotels that are not quite walking distance. To make reservations, please call our housing bureau, Par Avion at +1.310.590.4702 or by visiting: ( http://www.pkghlrss.com/events/7450/7450.html ). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Putting email to Work: Writing more efficient Business eMail Over the years I've grown increasingly dependent on using email as my primary form of business to business communication. While I use the phone when I have to, I prefer email whenever I can get away with it mostly because it is still the most efficient form of communication that I'm aware of. When putting email to work for myself, the one technique I find works the best is the use of single subject emails. When writing somebody whom you asking something of, try to just ask for one thing or mention one subject. Chances are that whenever you don't do this, most people will respond to the last question/subject raised rather than everything you asked and you end up going back and asking the same questions again and again. Some of the other rules I follow that seem to work for me include: The "to" address should be well formed - use: Jeff Pulver , rather than just putting: jeff@pulver.com in the to: field. The subject should actually refer to the subject of the email. Refrain from sending email on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Holidays unless the intended recipient is a known 24/7 email person. Otherwise you run the risk of getting your email caught in the daily list of spamm emails. With this in mind, try sending the email during the actual regular business day of the recipient, Monday thru Thursday. I prefer sending text rather than rich text emails, but that may just be my own bias since I'm one of the only people I know who still using PINE as their preferred email client. Make each email personal enough so that the person who receives it knows that the email was written and sent by you rather than your assistant. I'd appreciate hearing your own rules/ideas for writing more efficient business emails. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IP Voice over 802.11x Wireless Will Challenge Future Growth of 3G Networks Free is viral. And it is hard to compete with free. Now that it is clear that the fad of 802.11x networks are not going away, I believe that in time, the viral nature of free access will start to have direct effects on the way 3G starts to play out. Some carriers may be in denial mode right now, but just wait until their shareholders realize what is going on. Add an IP voice component to 802.11x and things just get more interesting. I remember saying "Give me access and let me determine who will be providing service" back at Spring 2001 VON. In the not to distant future, this will be the case and the cost of access will be close to zero. As the QoS issues regarding free access start to get solved, and as the available bandwidth becomes more abundant, look for the companies/ would-be service providers who were shunned from getting 3G licenses to start providing third party services and directly competing against the carriers who ended up unwittingly granting their own kind of governmental subsidizes by the huge costs they incurred to get the 3G licenses without the same baggage and in an unregulated spectrum. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Reminder: SIPit 11 taking place Oct 7-11 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 ). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ My Summer Listening Pleasure: Bruce Springsteen: "The Rising" As we close in on the anniversary of September 11th, I find myself at times reflecting on that day and the people I once knew who worked with me at Cantor Fitzgerald at One World Trade Center. On a personal level, I've found it has been a little easier getting through my streaming thoughts by listening to and reading the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen's latest endeavor, "The Rising." I'll leave it to the music critics to talk about the music and the songs but on a personal note, I found most of the songs to be reflective of my moods and help provide a somber foundation to reflect back from when feeling down. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kids on the Net: August 2002 Update In the last couple of weeks, my kids discovered "Backyard Baseball" and they seem to be really enjoying playing with it. I'm not sure how long this fad will last, but at least with this game, I find it is a lot easier to relate to my kid's game playing and to the strategies they follow during the course of their games. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 ) October 9-10 - Fall 2002 Presence and Instant Messaging, Atlanta, GA ( http://pulver.com/pim ) October 11 - Fall 2002 SIP Summit, Atlanta, GA ( http://pulver.com/sipsummit ) 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 August 13, 2002 http://pulver.com/reports ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (c) 2002 pulver.com, Inc., All Rights Reserved ========================================================================