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January 31, 2004

Living between a Rock and a Hard Place

Earlier this week, it looked as if the Free World Dialup Petition would be on the agenda for the February 12th meeting at the FCC, as the buzz was that the FWD Petition was going to be granted. Now, I'm not so sure. Being one of the "Good Guys", my hope has been that the FWD Petition gets onto the February agenda and that our petition request would be granted. Granting our petition would be a great signal to many others who are looking at introducing end-to-end IP Communication services to consumers in the United States that the FCC is not interested in subjecting these services to traditional telecom regulation under the Communications Act..

Things were looking good with regard to the petition until I learned that on January 28th, the FBI/DOJ sent a letter to the FCC which it wrote: "this letter confirms that the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will jointly file a petition before the FCC seeking comprehensive rules to implement the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA). The petition, which we intend to file within the next several weeks, will address a variety of issues including what broadband service providers and service providers should be subject to CALEA, as well as the procedures needed to bring those services and providers into compliance with CALEA."

Back on May 29, 2003 the Free World Dialup team met with representatives with both the FBI/DOJ and at that time we told them, that if asked, Free World Dialup would work with the FBI/DOJ to provide them access to information that we had which was of interest to them. I never looked to the grant of the FWD Petition to mean that FWD wasn't subject to working with Law Enforcement.

In college, I studied accounting and received a BBA in Accounting. In college, Accounting Majors learn about the rules of Generally Accepted Accounting Principals (GAAP) and one learns that the rules for Tax Accounting are sometimes different. Companies in the US are expected to comply with both GAAP and Tax Accounting at all times and the treatment of an item is routinely different for GAAP and/or Tax purposes. Applying this accounting metaphor, the grant of the FWD Petition should not be a sign, directly or indirectly that others who wish to follow in the footsteps of Free World Dialup that they too would be not be subject to working with Law Enforcement. The FWD Petition was addressed to the Communications Act, not CALEA.

From my side, it would be great if our federal law enforcement authorities recognized the need to be reasonable, working productively towards a reconciliation of contending policy objectives, and in effect not to indefinitely stall broadband and IP communications proceedings that will give consumers and end users choice, innovation and lower prices.

I still maintain my hope that the FCC will add the FWD Petition to the agenda of the February, 2004 FCC Meetings.

Posted by jeff at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Mahatma Gandhi's take on VoIP...

I received an email from Bob Emmerson earlier today:

"At first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." 

The quote above could have been Jeff Pulver talking about VoIP, but the quote comes
from Mahatma Gandhi.  It certainly encapsulates this technology's short
history."

I alwayas find it interesting how a quote from the past can be applied to the present.

Posted by jeff at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Looking for a few beta testers for our FWD / Vonage Interconnect

If you are a Vonage customer (or related to one), and if you use FWD, if you would like to join our small and private beta program of the FWD /
Vonage interconnect, please send email to jeffp @ pulver.com, and I will look to add you to my personal beta tester list.

Please be sure to include both your FWD Number and the Vonage Number you will be testing with.

Please note that this is currently "Experimental" and is not a supported feature. Dialing from FWD to Vonage may not always work with every Vonage number you try to call.

Any support related issues should be directed to the me and not to Vonage.

Posted by jeff at 07:22 AM | Permalink

January 30, 2004

Broadband Parasites are On the Rise!

One take away from our recently completed Executive Summit, is that over the next few weeks and months, there will be pockets of companies who will be offering voice over broadband services in both Canada and Europe.

What was unclear was their exit plans. Do they plan on getting acquired by the disrupted incumbent, or do they plan on getting to cash flow profitability and then file to go public?

During our summit I met two people who will be offering such services in the UK, another based out of Norway with their intent to service all Nordic markets and a semi-stealth company based in Montreal that wants to be the Vonage of Canada.

But the good news is that the entrepreneurship is not limited only to startups. Both BT and TeliaSonara discussed their approach to the voice over broadband marketplace and shared some of their insights from the launch of their own similar products.

During the course of 2004, look for quite a few new market entrants from around the world to rise up with the rising tide surrounding the world of VoIP.

Posted by jeff at 08:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

January 29, 2004

Tauzin Applying Direct Pressure on the AT&T Petition

Rep. Billy Tauzin, sent a letter to the FCC today asking the agency to make their decision of the AT&T petition regarding Access Charges to be known by February 5th.

Late last year, the feeling was that the FCC would rule in favor of the Free World Dialup petition and against the AT&T petition. Recent check of sediment lead me to believe that the AT&T petition would be rolled into the pending NPRM.

And to make a foggy situation even a little more cloudy, the recent addition of the Level 3 Petition asking for forebearence on Access Charges, did not make anything clearer with regard to the way things may be leaning with regard to the treatment of the AT&T petition.

The timing of Tauzin's interest in getting a resolution on the outstanding AT&T Petition shouldn't suprise anyone given the pending VoIP hearings slated to take place in both the House and the Senate during February.

Posted by jeff at 08:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WiFi from Nice Airport

One welcome sign in the Delta Lounge at the Nice, France airport was the free WiFi card that I was given shortly after checking in for my return flight to JFK.

After being in France for a few days and a user of the Orange France "wifi" network, it was a great feeling once again to be able to gain free access to the net.

Posted by jeff at 03:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Limited Hotel Room space for Spring 2004 VON

If you are planning on being a part of the Spring 2004 VON Conference, now would be a great time to make your hotel room reservation, as space is filling up quickly, and if you wait too long, you will end up staying miles away from the event, rather than next door or just blocks away.

Posted by jeff at 12:44 AM | Permalink

At the crossroads of Walk and Don't Walk with VoIP

These days, depending upon whichever virtual streets we seem to wonder upon, there are times when it feels as if one is at the intersection of: Walk / Don't Walk in the regualtory land of VoIP.

While the regulatory aspect of VoIP was quiet until recently, now that VoIP is once again happening, I can only hope that in the future, the right decisions will be made by those who are walking (or driving) this revolution.

And while the regulatory status of various elements of IP Communications will continue to be defined during 2004, look for the use of IP Communications by: end-user consumers, enterprises and service providers to continue to be on the rise.

Posted by jeff at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Getting ready for the trip back to Reality

I've enjoyed spending these past few days spent in Sophia Antipolis, France catching up with some of people who represent a part of the heart and soul of what makes up our VON events.

The content at this year's executive summit was at times significantly better than during past events and we have already started our plans to hold our 2005 Executive Summit once again at ETSI Headquarters in either late January or early February 2005.

On the flight home to the States in a few hours, I will have a chance to transition into reality and start focusing on the demo the Free World Dialup team will be giving to the Internet Caucus on the night of February 11th from 5-7pm on Capital Hill.

Based on the buzz coming from Sophia Antipolis, I expect 2004 to be a great year for the IP Communications Industry, and for 2005 to be even better.

Posted by jeff at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 28, 2004

Update on VoIP Regulations in California

A story in today's Mercury News, Companies shift stance on regulation of VoIP, reported on the meeting that took place yesterday in Sacramento that was a follow up to a November
meeting which the California PUC seemed to be on the edge of trying
to implement regulatory policies to IP Communication Service providers
such as Vonage and Packet8 who have customers in the State of California.

While the rhetoric was toned down, given the current focus
of VoIP on a federal level in the US lead by the FCC and the pending VoIP
hearings in the House and the Senate, even if the California PUC were
to rule to force IP Communications Service Providers to conform to
the rules of traditional telecom service providers, chances are quite
strong that their decision would be overturned on a Federal level.

Posted by jeff at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Carriers are Wrapping it Up...

Our final session of the 2004 IP Communications Industry Executive Summit has just started and in front of us are speakers from: TeliaSonera (2), BT, iBasis, Telio and T-Strategy.

We are getting their feedback with regard to their own service offerings and some of the issues which they are facing in their local markets.

Posted by jeff at 05:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Third Day of Exec Summit opens

The opening session - "The State of Switch Migration" has started with our community trying to define: "What is an IP PBX?" We question the methods on how vendors report / count market share and overall penetration. We also wonder how accurate their reported numbers really are.

Do we count based on total capacity or on what is actually being used?

Posted by jeff at 03:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the Road to MIDEM

The 38th annual MIDEM show happened to be taking place the same exact time that we are in town for our Executive Summit in Sophia Antipolis, France.

The 38th annual MIDEM, an international music event is wrapping up today, a few hours after the close of our executive summit. My hope is to get to Cannes early enough to catch the last bits of MIDEM and get the feel of some of the bleeding edge technology / music convergence for some future innovations.

Posted by jeff at 01:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 27, 2004

ENUM: One of Today's Highlights...

We closed out the Exec Summit today with a session on ENUM which provided a great overview as to where things stand today as well a guide to some of the immediate opportunities which ENUM could offer someone.

After the ENUM update we gathered and took the bus to the Royal Casino in Cannes for dinner and a little gambling. Visiting this Casino has been an annual ritual since we held our first Exec Summit in Sophia Antipolis back in 1998 when we first approached the concept of decomposing the model of what is a Gateway.

Monday night's dinner and guided tour of the trip to St. Paul DeVonce left me a little tired when I started the day today, and by the end of the day I was a more than just a little worn out...

Tomorrow morning we will be wrapping up our summit with a session on the State of Switch Migration followed by Carrier Wrap Up session.

This has been a great event so far and tomorrow we will be confirming the dates for our 2005 Executive Summit which will be back in Sophia Antipolis.

Posted by jeff at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Carrier Grade Invoices

My big take away from yesterday's Executive Summit was a comment made during a discussion of the use of Linux vs. Solaris inside of carriers which lead to a new term: "Carrier Grade Invoices."

One needs to know how much to charge for a platform - and not come in too cheap or too expensive when dealing with carriers. The challenge remains to understand the boundaries which are acceptable.

Posted by jeff at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 26, 2004

Our Executive Summit is Underway...

Our 2004 Executive Summit started almost six hours ago here in Sophia Antipolis, France at ETSI.

This event first happened here in Sophia Antipolis in 1998 and this has been an annual event ever since. Over the years this has become a place where people don't come to pitch products or services but rather to explore various understandings and assumptions within the IP Communications Industry. Back in 1998 we started with the concept of re-engineering the Gateway and helped drive some of the approaches which evolved into the way Softswitches happened.

At our summit, if someone pitches, one can expect to be "beat up" a little by their peers. Our delegates can expect the various issues defined in our agenda to be explored at great length.

Our 2004 Summit has continued with our open, interactive approach we have been known for, and given the interactive nature and dynmamic of our first two sessions, it looks as if our 2004 event will be as good as any of our past events.

For the first time we are recording this event and the audio archives of this event will be available for our own reference in the future.

Posted by jeff at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Washington DC VoIP Hearings: Update

Late last week I learned that the House is planned on having their hearing take place on February 4th and that the date for the Senate VoIP Hearings are not yet confirmed to take place before February 16th.

If the Senate VoIP Hearings don't take place by February 16th, they most likely will still take place before the end of February.

Stay tuned.

Posted by jeff at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 25, 2004

Celebrate Australia Day on Free World Dialup!

In celebration of Australia Day 2004, it is now possible to call your friends and relatives home numbers (non-cell phones) in Australia on FWD by dialing *61 followed by their number.

G'Day!

Posted by jeff at 05:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Looking forward to our Summit

The pulver.com team arrived in Sophia Antipolis, France about an hour ago, and we have started making the final preparations for our 2004 Executive Summit that will be starting tomorrow morning.

Our unofficial kickoff for the event starts tonight when we will be hosting a reception for friends and past alumni of these events.

The next 2 1/2 days should help open the eyes of some people and it will be interesting to watch the partnerships which evolve because of our activities.

Posted by jeff at 05:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Blog Spam --> Blog Graffiti

During the past few days, for reasons beyond my understanding, my blog has become the target of yet more blog spam...so while I like to keep my postings open for feedback from those who are visiting, I've started going thru and closing down groups of pages when I have time to do so.

Flying over to France from New York, I realized that what I've been experiencing is more akin to Graffiti than just plain spam.

For those of you who observe the quickness that a Graffiti artist can leave a mark on a highway sign, subway car or side of a mountain without usually ever being noticed, that is what I felt like when my blog became a focal point of their attention.

I'm thinking of leaving up just one public page where the rest of the Blog Graffiti artists can leave their mark and which will serve as a both an archive and a reminder of who was recently here.

For the record, Puzzles have outnumbered Viagra 2 to 1 so far.

Posted by jeff at 05:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

wifi access - the French Way

After spending the last year enjoying the growing widespread availability of Wi-Fi access in hotels across North America, I was a bit taken when I just checked into a hotel in Sophia Antipolis and was presented with a couple of different options to have access to Wi-Fi during my stay.

In France, Orange and the Accor Hotel group have partnered, and inside of any of the Accor hotels, one can have what they call "wifi access" on a prepaid basis - and choose to pay 10 euros for "anytime 2h" in a 24 hour period or purchase "room" which provides unlimited access between the hours of 12h-9h on a given day.

For some reason, 24/7 availability for Wi-Fi has not happened here yet, or maybe it did and I missed it and this is where it evolved to.

What I find interesting is that this kind of pre-paid Wi-Fi access might be something some of the hotels in the USA and Canada evolve into once they better understand the demographics of the guests who are visiting their hotels.

Posted by jeff at 05:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 24, 2004

Saturday VoIP News Headlines:

  • PSC hoping to determine its role in Voice Over IP - Now the Utah State Public Utility Commission is taking a look at VoIP.


  • AOL enters web phone market

    In the cold of the Canadian winter, the VoIP Market continues to get heated up in
    Canada. Looks like AOL Canada is following a page out of the pulver.com playbook in my description of a Broadband Parasite.

    Posted by jeff at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

    Another "Cost" of Travel...

    ...the amount of time one needs to invest in catching up with their email once they are on-line again.

    I look forward to the time when JetBlue offers Wi-Fi access to passengers in their seats in-flight.

    Posted by jeff at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

    Your Demo Selected for Internet Caucus Tech Fair 2004

    Yesterday I received an email from the Internet Caucus, with the message that our demonstration of Free World Dialup was selected for their 2004 Tech Fair.

    While I never applied to present an idea at my high school science fair, I'm sure the feeling I felt would have been the same had I had that prior experience. ;-)

    This event will be taking place on February 11th from 5 to 7 pm at the Heart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill and looks to be the place where technology and politics will be mixing in Washington on the night of February 11th.

    I'm looking forward to being a part of the event.

    Posted by jeff at 10:13 AM | Permalink

    Leaving for France...

    Later today, I will be flying to Nice, France to help co-host our annual IP Communications Industry Executive Summit. This is an event which I've been producing since 1998 and is returning to the place where we held the first such summit in 1998.

    Over the years, quite a number of pioneers of the IP Communication space have joined us, and we have also served the dual purpose of providing a forum to mix ideas and people together.

    This year we will be meeting up with a number of start-ups focusing on the VoIP space, as well as catching up with some old friends and alumni of past events.

    During the course of the two and a half days we will be taking a hard look at the IP Communications Ecosystem, starting with Chips and ending with Services.

    Carl and I may try to blog this event, but given our track record of blogging events we produce, there are no promises this will actually happen.

    When we return from Sophia Antipolis, our core focus will be shifting 100% to Spring 2004 VON, with a little time set aside for some anticipated visits to Washington, D.C.

    Posted by jeff at 08:00 AM | Permalink

    January 23, 2004

    Spring 2004 VON Exhibit Floor - SOLD OUT!!!

    It's been quite some time that the exhibit floor for one of our events sold out, let alone 9+ weeks in advance of our show.

    I greatly appreciate the support we continue to get from within the industry and I'm looking forward to producing one of our best events ever.

    Spring 2004 VON is the trade show for the VoIP industry and will have our largest exhibit floor in 3 years.

    We have added additional speakers over the past 10 days and there will be about 300 speakers participating in the conference portion of the event.

    At Spring 2004 VON, I expect some significant announcements will be made.

    Remember to register by Feb 13th to take advantage of our "early bird" rates.

    Posted by jeff at 10:46 PM | Permalink

    Going to LA from New York? Try JetBlue!

    Yesterday I ended up going on a one-day West Coast trip from New York to Los Angeles.

    A few months ago I became a fan of JetBlue and whenever I travel for business, I look for routes that are JetBlue "enabled."

    A couple of weeks ago I found out that I had to be near Los Angeles and I was excited when I learned that JetBlue had routes into Long Beach. What I didn't know was that the Long Beach airport was a much smaller airport than LAX, so small in fact that it mades some of the airports I've visited in the Caribbean look large.

    For me, traveling thru the Long Beach, CA airport as my conduit to Los Angeles meant that when I was ready to return to New York, there would be no really long lines at check-in, and there weren't any. The entire process took 10 minutes. Going thru security just took under a minute. At the Long Beach Airport, at least when you fly JetBlue, one can still get to the airport and not have to worry about long lines, lots of waiting and well, lots of additional waiting.

    Being one who never looks forward to traveling via LAX, my experience using JetBlue at Long Beach was such a positive one, that I highly recommend the experience for anyone who needs to get out of (or into) LA and doesn't want to deal with the people traffic at LAX.

    One thing that I didn't realize was that flying JetBlue to/from LA and NY would be a great way to catch up on celebrity sightings. Sitting next to Carl Ford on the flight out was Michael Beach of "ER" and "3rd Watch" fame and flying home sitting in front of Carl was Dule Hill from "The West Wing."

    I asked the flight attendants about celebrity sightings and they told me that this was quite a regular occurrence on their LA/NY routes.

    It seems that these celebrities must have realized that next to a private jet, the easiest and most low-key way to get into or out of LA is using JetBlue at the Long Beach airport.

    Posted by jeff at 04:26 PM | Permalink

    My Blog doesn't Qualifty as a Google News Source...

    I've been a fan of the Google News service for some time and I have been trying to figure out how some websites become a "news sources" for Google and others don't.

    It now looks like I need to create a generic pulver.com blog to post some of the same stories as I've been creating for my blog to have a chance to get Google to consider using us as a News Source.

    Oh well...


    "Hi Jeff,

    Thank you for your email. We have reviewed this site but can not include
    it in Google News at this time. We do not include currently include
    news-related blogs or other news-related sites that are written and
    maintained by a single individual. We appreciate you taking the time to
    contact us and will log your site for consideration should our constraints
    change.

    Regards,
    The Google Team"

    Posted by jeff at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    January 22, 2004

    My "Social Experiment" using LinkedIn

    A few months ago I started my own "social experiment" using LinkedIn after being introduced to it by Kevin Werbach during the Summer of 2003.

    Since my first "connection" I'm now up 162 connections and during the past couple of weeks I've noticed that the number of people trying to leverage my personal social network has increased five fold and is starting to generate enough email traffic to me that I have to stop and take notice every once in a while. My hope is that the connections which I help forward are helping others do business. I have yet to do the reverse but look forward to in the future. ;-)

    In the beginning I spent time trying to introduce LinkedIn to some of my friends and business contacts and was successful maybe 4 out of 10 times. The reminder of these "connections" have just happened due to the viral success of LinkedIn.

    I expect it will take a lot less than 4 more months to double the number of connections that I have now.

    If you haven't tried LinkedIn and need a connection, please feel free to contact me once you sign up.

    Posted by jeff at 04:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    Free World Dialup close to launching Packet8 and Vonage Interconnects

    This has been a productive week in the world of Free World Dialup and our interconnect testing with both Packet8 and Vonage.

    Last night I was able to speak to a couple of friends using Vonage from Free World Dialup and I expect our final testing with Packet8 to commence later this morning.

    Once this is all tested and verifed, it should be just a matter of days (or weeks) before we are able to make a formal announcement about this.

    Posted by jeff at 04:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    Exhibit Space at Spring 2004 VON is almost Sold Out!

    These past couple of weeks have started feeling a lot like it did back in 1999/2000 when our exhibit floors at our VON events sold out months in advance of the conference.

    Based on the recent demand for exhibit space, it looks like the exhibit space for Spring 2004 VON will be sold out in less than 2 weeks.

    It's great to be back and I'm looking forward to getting reunited with some old friends who are coming back into the VoIP industry after stay on the sidelines for the past couple of years.

    Our roster of speakers keeps on increasing and I feel real good about the content at the Spring 2004 VON Conference.

    2004 is the year of VoIP and it will be reflected in Santa Clara at Spring 2004 VON.

    Posted by jeff at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    January 21, 2004

    Going to California for the Day Tomorrow...

    Tomorrow will be a real personal test for my new found love of JetBlue. I'm leaving on the first flight out to California and I'm returning to New York on the same day.

    While I am not looking forward to leaving my home at 5 in the morning, I just smile whenever I arrive at the JetBlue check-in counter as I get to watch innovation in motion.

    My hope is that this trip becomes easier due to their DirectTV service and the fact that their schedule of flights just worked well with my need for a West Coast meeting. The fact that it cost only $99 each way was an added bonus.

    The real test will be on Friday to see if I'm the one with red eyes or if I'm able to lead a mostly productive day in the office.

    Posted by jeff at 07:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    Speaking Today at LinuxWorldExpo in NYC

    Later today I will be in New York City attending LinuxWorldExpo as I am one of six or seven speakers scheduled to speak during an hour long session on the never ending topic of: "The Future of Linux Audio/Video in the Enterprise".

    Personally I'm looking forward to walking the exhibit floor to try to gauge the buzz for real-time Linux Communications and see how much traction IP Communication technology is getting in the land of Linux - not from the technologists but rather from the corporate end-user community.

    Posted by jeff at 07:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

    January 20, 2004

    Celebrate Chinese New Year on FWD!

    We have just enabled free calling into China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan to help members of the Free World Dialup community celebrate the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Monkey.

    To take advantage of this free offer, just dial:

    China- *86 (number)
    Hong Kong - *852 (number)
    Malaysia - *60 (number)
    Singapore - *65 (number)
    Taiwan - *886 (number)

    This promotion will run at least thru Jan 22nd and may be extended to last for part of the entire 15 day celebration.

    Posted by jeff at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

    Interconnects with Vonage and Packet8 are happening...

    I realize it has taken quite some time, but from my vantage point it looks like in the near future, members of the FWD Community will finally be able to call their friends and family members who are using both Vonage and Packet8.

    While I had expected this to happen weeks (if not months) ago, the time is finally close when these interconnects will be in place for everyone to take advantage of.

    Posted by jeff at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

    Sometimes FREE isn't enough

    With the advent of Free World Dialup, I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to advocate the concept of sharing and giving and enjoy hearing stories of people who have been able to take advantage of the FWD Network.

    What I find amazing is that there are always going to be groups of people who don't appreciate a good thing or something that it is free, no matter what.

    Case in point, I recently stumbled across the blog of a FWDer who was complaining that the US Toll-Free connection uses the same CallerID for all of the outbound calls which prevents him from being able to call other services for personalized service since the service called was based on the party's CallerID.

    Maybe it's me, but if someone is looking for the ability to have a personalized phone service, maybe they could just consider getting themselves their OWN phone and using it to call places like: 1.800.555.Tell.

    Posted by jeff at 07:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

    Getting Ready for Sophia Antipolis

    Next week, Carl Ford and I will be hosting our annual IP Communications Industry Executive Summit which will be taking place in Sophia Antipolis, France.

    I started hosting this event in February, 1998 and our activities have mirrored the rise, the fall and now the rise once again of the IP Communications Industry.

    For the 50 or so people who will be with us during the two and a half days, we will be exploring most of the VoIP Ecosystem, starting with chips and ending with service providers.

    Each year while the cast of characters has changed a little, the dynamic which makes up the event has stayed pretty consistent. The meeting takes place at ETSI HQ in a room which is one of the best in the world for such meetings.

    This week I'm gathering my thoughts for the event and I'm looking forward to this pre-VON get together.

    Posted by jeff at 07:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    January 19, 2004

    Wordplay: "She's So Heavy" from Abby Road

    Now that my kids are into the Beatles, they have been spending time listening to the lyrics of some of their new favorite songs.

    Earlier today I explained to Jake that the words: "She's so heavy" did not mean the person was writing about someone overweight but rather phat.

    I find it ironic that after 35 years, there are not many people who still use the term "she's so heavy" (except maybe those still living in 1969) and that 35 years ago, nobody would have had a clue what the word phat meant.

    Posted by jeff at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

    Tech Demos Needed for Congress. NetCaucus 7th Annual Tech Fair

    On Wednesday, February 11, 2004 the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee (ICAC) will host its 7th Annual Technology Fair in the Hart Senate Office Building from 5 to 7 PM.

    Attendees include Congressional staff, Members of Congress, representatives from federal agencies
    and private sector representatives. Attendees review demonstrations in an expo-type format at their leisure.

    The ICAC is still soliciting proposals to demonstrate at this technology fair. The details on how to do that are below in case any of you know someone who may be interested.

    To attend the reception, simply send an email to: RSVP at Netcaucus.org with your name and affiliation.

    To: All Internet Caucus Advisory Committee Members
    From: Tim Lordan

    Call for Internet technology demonstrations for Members of Congress, staff
    and other government officials. Demonstrations will be displayed on Capitol
    Hill on February 11, 2004 at the 7th Annual Congressional Internet Caucus
    Advisory Committee (ICAC) Kickoff Reception and Technology Fair.

    Technology Demo Submission Form Attached.

    We have begun our search for demonstrators for the 2004 Congressional
    Internet Caucus Technology Fair -- scheduled for Wednesday, February 11,
    2004 in the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, DC.

    The goal of this annual tech fair is to bring cutting-edge technology
    demonstrations to Capitol Hill that illustrate the power and flexibility of
    the Internet as medium for communications, commerce, and democracy.
    These hands-on demonstrations help illustrate some of the pressing policy
    issues that face Congress.

    Last year over 600 people attended the Kickoff, including Members of
    Congress, Congressional staff, press and representatives from the FCC, DoC,
    FTC and private sector organizations. If you have an Internet-related
    technology that you would like to demonstrate to Congress and to other
    government policymakers, please submit your proposal to our Review
    Committee by following the instructions below. Please forward this message on to any
    colleagues or friends that may have such demonstrations.

    DEMONSTRATION PROPOSALS/HOW TO APPLY: For the 7th annual Internet Caucus
    Kickoff Reception and Technology Fair, please submit your demonstration
    proposal by filling out the attached Excel submission form
    (kickoff_demo.xls) and sending it via e-mail to vanessa at netcaucus.org. The
    first deadline for submissions is Wednesday, January 7, 2004. The final
    deadline for submissions is Wednesday, January 21, 2004. We do have space
    limitations so we will not be able to accommodate all proposals. If your
    demonstration is not selected in the first round it will be reviewed in the
    second round of selections. Approved demonstrators will be required to pay
    a
    nominal coordination charge (exceptions will be made for government and
    selected non-profit demonstrators -- contact Vanessa Camozzi at
    202-638-4370
    with questions).

    GENERAL DEMONSTRATION CRITERIA: The Internet Caucus Tech Fair Review
    Committee will use some general criteria to prioritize certain demos for
    the Tech Fair. The Review Committee will favor certain demos that relate to
    pressing Internet policy issues (DRM technologies met this criteria in the
    2003 selection process). Also, demonstrations that are hands-on or visually
    illustrative are generally favored. The Review Committee is comprised of a
    balanced group of ICAC volunteers. Demonstrations of both commercial
    products/services -- and non-commercial ones -- that "serve the public
    interest" will be given priority. This criterion is interpreted broadly to
    include innovative Internet technologies that empower individuals (with
    services or information), enable citizens to access information and
    resources that were once unreachable, and facilitate workforce placement,
    community building and market development. These technologies could be
    applied to application areas such as: 1) Shopping, 2) Investing, 3) Health
    Care, 4) Public Safety/Security, 5) Education, 6) Consumer/Citizen
    Awareness, 7) Access to Government Information, etc.

    Please contact Vanessa Camozzi at 202.638.4370 if you have any questions.

    Thank you - Tim Lordan

    About the Tech Fair:

    The Internet Caucus Tech Fair is an annual event hosted on Capitol Hill to
    start out the season for the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory
    Committee. It is typically hosted from 5 to 7 in the evening and features
    over 20 different Internet technologies. Attendees are comprised mainly of
    Congressional staff, Members of Congress, representatives from federal
    agencies and private sector representatives. Attendees review
    demonstrations in an expo-type format at their leisure. The evening is accented by
    comments from Members of Congress and top government officials. In past years the
    event has been host to roughly 600 attendees.

    Links to past Tech Fairs:
    2003
    2002
    2001
    2000

    Posted by jeff at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    "Toll-Free" Dialing into Japan!

    On Free World Dialup, it is now possible to dial "toll-free" 0120 numbers in Japan.

    To dial a 0120 number in Japan, from Free World Dialup, dial: *81 0120 [number]

    Posted by jeff at 10:45 AM | Permalink

    January 18, 2004

    Blog Spamm: over 1,000+ comments today

    This was a mostly quite Sunday except for the attack of the blog spammers who left over 1,000 comments in my blog with the following message in the center of their posting:

    "THIS HAS BEEN AN ACT OF WAR BY THE GNAA AS PART OF THE JIHAD AGAINST SLASHDOT"

    I have no idea what this is all about but it has been annoying going thru my blog and trying to remove all of these spamm comments.

    Hopefully these folks will make someone else the focus of their attacks.

    Posted by jeff at 09:29 PM | Permalink

    Living the email Lifestyle

    During the work week, I've noticed that these days I spend on average sixty to ninety minutes in the morning before leaving for the office and another hour to two hours at night trying to catch up on all of the email received during the day.

    Days that I work from the same location and are on-line the entire day are my most productive days.

    Days when I'm in the office but offline because of meetings have the effect of making me feel "out-of-sync" with whatever may be going on.

    I'm still not sure what methods / products of the near future will help streamline my experience of using email - which by far is the most common form of communication that I use for business.

    It is not that I don't use the telephone - it is just that I don't check my voice mail messages often enough to keep track of everyone who called and I find that relying on email provides me with a means of being able to scale.

    Looking at how I use email, in recent times, there have been an increasing number of circumstances where I have forwarded an email to someone and forgot to directly respond to the person who send me the email in the first place, since the person who received the email forward treated it like an FYI and not as an actionable item.

    Then there is the case of when somebody emails me and I discuss the email internally within my office and I forget to get back to the person who sent me the email. (Same effect as an email Forward but discussion happens in person.)

    I have recently started using a Blackberry but the GPRS coverage in some cities isn't good enough for me to rely on this as anything other than a means to sometimes check my email during the day. When I travel, I do not assume my blackberry is going to work.

    Maybe there is a need for "EA" - emailers anonymous where we all come forward and admit we have a problem and then with group support we can find ways to better deal with our core dependcies of email and better stay on top of the situation. ;-)

    My most overall productive email experience happens on the weekend when I am able to check email ten to twenty times in a day and maintain in many cases quasi real-time chats via email.

    As the amount of my inbound email increases over time, there will come a time when I will need to find a much more efficient way to scale.

    I still stand by my use of PINE and text based email as a way which allows one to not be married to any one desktop and have the freedom to be able to check their email from just about any location around the world.

    Right now I am trying hard to respond to email when it is received as otherwise while it is read, I generally forget to get back to the person who sent it, and this is never the intention.

    As we live the email lifesyle, I expect things to evolve to make keeping on top of email relationships and assumed/inherited responsiblities more streamlined.

    Posted by jeff at 11:26 AM | Permalink

    Sunday Morning VoIP BuZZ

    During the past few weeks, I've started tracking the buzz surrounding VoIP as measured by Google.

    This morning there were:2,250,000 webpage hits on VoIP and 1,130 news stories.

    Posted by jeff at 09:12 AM | Permalink

    January 17, 2004

    Waiting for the first VoIP IPO Registration Filings of 2004...

    At this point it is just a matter of time before we will start to see the first SEC registrations of the VoIP Class of 2004.

    Given the amount of hype and general awareness in the VoIP market sector, I expect we will see some of these companies execute on their IPO dreams within the next 6-9 months. It is just a matter of time before the first batch of filings just happen.

    I also expect to see a number of roll-ups to just happen and what may amount to be one or more "poof" IPOs.

    Posted by jeff at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

    January 16, 2004

    VoIP Hearings scheduled on Capitol Hill!

    On Thursday I heard the "Beltway news" that the Senate Commerce hearing on VoIP is now confirmed to take place [before] February 16th, and that the House of Representatives is having their own hearing as well now, which will be taking place in a Commerce subcommittee on telecom, earlier in February.

    I have not yet seen this news covered by the mainstream media yet so it will be interesting to read and watch the reaction as news of these hearings start to spread.

    My personal hope is to have the opportunity to participate in at least one of the hearings scheduled on Capitol Hill next month.

    Add to this the VoIP Bill which Senator Sununu is working on, and the FCC's NPRM due out before the end of March and 2004 is looking to be the year that VoIP happened in Washington, D.C.

    Posted by jeff at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

    January 15, 2004

    Snow Day!

    When I was in school, I always looked forward to the Winter because there was the chance that I could wake up and find out that there was no school.

    I don't remember more than a handful of snow days while I was in school but the feeling is similar whether you are a kid watching the snow falling at night or a parent who can share the news with their kids that there is no school because of the weather...

    As a kid I never quite understood the term "snow day" because in the Fall we never got out of going to school due to the Fall weather and in the spring we never had a "Spring Day" when we had a chance to 'celebrate the Spring' but a Snow Day not only is a day off from school, but a chance to go outside, make a snowman, have a friendly snowball fight and just enjoy the snow.

    Posted by jeff at 08:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

    Washington DC Buzz: Senate May be Holding VoIP Hearings by mid-February

    While I was in Washington, DC yesterday, I heard from a number of people that the Senate was looking into holding their own hearings on VoIP by mid-February, 2004.

    My hope is that in the event such hearings do take place, that I will be amongst those invited to participate.

    I had a great experience being a speaker at the FCC VoIP Forum on December 1st and look forward to getting more involved on Capitol Hill as VoIP's awareness continues to grow.

    Posted by jeff at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

    January 14, 2004

    Up Early: First trip to WDC this Year

    In a about an hour I will begin my day long trek to Washington, D.C and back again.

    By the time I get home tonight, my goal is to be updated with regard to where VoIP Regulation stands from the perspective of Washington DC policy makers.

    Posted by jeff at 04:51 AM | Permalink

    Introducing VON Canada 2004

    It has been awhile since we have added a VON event to our schedule, but given both the recent attention and growth of awareness within Canada of VoIP, I felt as the timing was right for pulver.com to introduce VON Canada this year.

    VON Canada 2004 will be taking place in Toronto and the tenative dates are May 18-20. We are in the process of working out the reminder of the logistical details.

    VON Canada will be a Canadian event and will be taking a hard look of the state of the IP Communications in Canada across: Enterprises, Service Providers and the Vendor Community.

    Posted by jeff at 04:44 AM | Permalink

    January 13, 2004

    Talking Baseball: Looking forward to the 2004 Baseball Season

    Talking Baseball: I ended the 2003 Baseball season rooting for both the Red Sox and Cubs to make it to the World Series.

    For me, and many others, a Red Sox vs. Cubs World Series would have been real special, plus it would mean that one of the longest droughts in winning a baseball championship would finally be over.

    I'm a long time Mets fan who hopes the Mets can deliver a team this season worth getting to know and one which will justify the anguish and focus that goes through the minds of a fan during the course of a season.

    I just heard that The Rocket, Roger Clemens, decided to come out of retirement to move to Houston, the home of other known rockets, to play with the Astros for the 2004 season.

    The nice part of being a Mets fan is that "hope brings eternal" and that "there is always next year." If 2004 isn't the year of the Mets, my hope is that is the year for either the Red Sox, Cubs or both.

    Posted by jeff at 06:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

    2004: The Year of True Intentions

    Last year I filed a petition with the FCC asking for a declaration that
    end-to-end IP would be declared regulation free. It is tempting for me to
    declare 2004 the "Year of Regulation", but I believe doing so would be a
    disservice to all the other activities that are currently going on.

    SIP will happen in 2004 in a very big way.

    There have been many companies which have recently declared their
    intentions to deliver VoIP. AT&T, Bell Canada, BT, Qwest, SBC, and Verizon
    all have laid out plans to deploy the technology as a service offering
    directly to their customers. In almost all of these announcements, SIP is
    the platform of choice for new deployments. This is in addition to the
    previous announcements from Cable Operators and other worldwide service
    providers.

    In the End-to-End IP game we are half way home. We are off to a great
    start, but I expect to see a consolidation in the types of services the
    service providers will be putting out into the marketplace. I for one,
    hope that we will move from seeing these service providers competing only
    on price and move to the introduction of new innovative services. This
    goes back to my previous discussion of "homomorphic" vs. "heteromorphic"
    communications.

    The intention of traditional carriers to differentiate based on MPLS will
    begin to prove itself or prove a red herring as the backbone continues to
    provide better than best effort performance. When we look back at 2004, I
    believe this will be a great year for the IP Communications Industry
    overall.

    Intentions in the vendor community could be a subject of a "Minority
    Report." The standards used for IP Communications having been stabilized
    for some time and are now at a point where they can violated. Well not
    really violated, they are going to be adapted with proprietary solutions
    that will enable vendors to show compliance at a base level of call
    completion. This will be evident in the Enterprise where telephone
    features will start to get very specific and non-portable.


    As for Wireless world, we will see more phones that combine WiFi with
    cellular in unusual ways. Much like what has happened with Instant
    Messaging being put on the wireless phone as an adjunct, I believe the
    "walled gardens" of the wireless world will still try to separate the
    "data" WiFi from the "voice" cellular for as long as possible.

    During 2004 the Consumer Communications Revolution will continue to grow
    in strength. I expect the number of people taking advantage of open source
    IP Communications software to more than double in the number of people who
    tried it in 2003.

    Looking at my notes, and after reviewing past issues of The Pulver
    Report, my recounting of the recent history of the VoIP Industry is that
    when it comes to naming the "year of:" the following is how I have
    reported it since 1996:

    1995 - Year of the Hobbyist
    1996 - year of the Client
    1997 - year of the Gateway
    1998 - year of the Gatekeeper
    1999 - year of the Application
    2000 - year of the Softswitch
    2001 - year VoIP became part of the establishment
    2002 - year of Survival
    2003 - year of Consumer Communications
    2004 - year of True Intentions

    Posted by jeff at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

    January 12, 2004

    Free World Dialup in the Boston Globe

    Both FWD and I were covered today in the article, "Regulators worry as Net phone service surges" in today's Boston Globe.

    While the FWD Petition was filed 11 months ago, it is seems to be the target of renewed interest by some members of the business press which have recently re-added VoIP to their beat.

    Posted by jeff at 08:04 AM | Permalink

    January 2004 Pulver Report: Will Be Issued shortly

    I spent the better part of the weekend working on this weeks' issue of the Pulver Report.

    Look for your issue to be sent out either later today or on Tuesday.

    Posted by jeff at 12:05 AM | Permalink

    Redefining Communications: Did we speak, Instant Message or was it email?

    This past weekend I spent time speaking to an old friend about the way that over the past few years, IP Communications has really redefined the way we communicate in business and in our inter-personal communications.

    We found it difficult to remember whether we actually "spoke" to some person using voice or instead exchanged ideas using instant messaging or email. What we remembered was that a conversation took place.

    In each case we said "we spoke to" some person, but in reality we don't know whether we actually spoke or just exchanged some digital bits with them.

    I just found it interesting the way that IP Communication technology has had a subtle but real impact in some of our daily lives and I look forward to comparing notes in another few years to reflect back on how our ability to communicate continued to evolve.

    Posted by jeff at 12:02 AM | Permalink

    January 11, 2004

    Sen. John Sununu is working on a VoIP Bill to be Introduced in 2004

    The 2004 Consumer Electronics Show was not a place I would have expected be the backdrop for VoIP related regulatory news.

    I was hoping to get to CES myself, as WHP Wireless has been in Las Vegas promoting their CellSocket and I had hoped to sit in on some of their meetings but my schedule just didn't align with getting there this year. My hope is to get to CES in 2005.

    Looking back, never before in the history of IP Communications in the United States has a year started with so many high profile announcements/statements from both members of industry and the Government.

    And now according to CNET News, U.S. Sen. John Sununu said he's preparing legislation to keep broadband telephone service providers from being "smothered by state and federal regulators."

    A pretty interesting statement if you ask me.

    He continues with "...Unfortunately, if left unattended, I'm afraid the benefits of VoIP will be smothered by state and federal regulators...A clear pre-emptive remedy is needed now. Congress must establish pre-eminence of federal authority in this area and provide major direction for any action by the FCC."

    Welcome to VoIP in the USA in 2004. May we continue to live in interesting times. :-)

    Given all of this talk, I am now strongly considering the necessary steps to help introduce our own "IP Communications 2004" Bill just to be sure that to make sure all aspects of IP Communications are properly covered from my perspective. If nothing else, this exercise could turn into a real-life lesson on the life of "A Bill." - and I will get to see how accurate the old School House Rock song I'm Just a Bill really was...

    Posted by jeff at 07:39 AM | Permalink

    January 10, 2004

    Chasing Guerrero

    The New York Mets confirmed yesterday that they have made an offer to
    Vladimir Guerrero    , one of the best free agents currently available, just around the same time that their season ticket holders have to indicate whether or not they are going to exercise their renewal of their tickets. Now maybe it is just a matter of coincidence or just consequence but I believe these two things are tied together.

    I would like to see the Mets not just chase Guerrero but actually do what it takes to sign him. They may find in turn that more of their season ticket holders will sign as well. :-)

    Posted by jeff at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

    Saturday VoIPBuzz Check:

    A google this morning of the keyword VoIP yields: 2,080,0000 website hits, 1160 news Stories.

    Posted by jeff at 09:28 AM | Permalink

    Chasing Regulation: My Op-Ed Piece on CBS Marketwatch

    A couple of weeks after the FCC's VoIP Forum, I helped write the following story which was published yesterday on CBS Marketwatch.

    While this story was written two weeks after the VoIP Forum, and it took a little time to find a home, these are still words which I believe in.

    Please feel free to share your own comments below.


    Chasing regulation: Voice over Internet needs room to grow

    Strange bedfellows, these two: technology and regulation. One looks forward and the other looks back.

    Today, many service providers and equipment vendors are charging full-steam ahead with Voice over IP (VoIP) technology offerings -- good news for consumers seeking expanded services and lower monthly call charges. With competition and offerings strengthening, it is an ideal opportunity to embrace these technologies and create a public policy that encourages continued innovation within the communications sector.

    That may surprise you, but I will explain. On December 1, 2003, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) held a public forum on VoIP, and Chairman Powell, in his opening remarks, said something really important. He said, "First, do no harm." All of us in the technology world should take note of that, because it is rare that we hear those words, especially from regulators.

    First of all, the terms "VoIP" and "Internet telephony" do not do justice to this technology. What we are really talking about is IP communications, since VoIP is so much more than plain old telephone service -- it is an entirely new way of communicating. The FCC recognizes that, and from the comments on December 1st, realizes that it can't treat IP communications the way it treats princess telephones.

    With IP communications, applications and services are separate from transport. That is not a big deal to consumers, nor should it be. But it is a big deal for regulators, who base much of their regulations on the underlying monopoly-controlled infrastructure. With IP communications, there is no bottleneck. Nor is IP communications based on location, again, not a concern to consumers, but a huge concern to regulators, who base other regulations on where the phone is physically located. With IP communications, you could literally be anywhere in the world.

    It's important to recognize, however, that there are other reasons for regulation, and not all of them center on the need to protect consumers and competitors from the monopoly public telephone network. Some of them, like universal service, assistance to law enforcement, disability access, and public safety, have to do with keeping people secure and connected. And no one is suggesting that those social policy goals be abandoned.

    But that leaves us in an all-to-familiar place -- with regulation, for a variety of reasons, trying to chase after technology, which by nature disrupts the status quo and by nature, never stands still. So my suggestion is this -- that we stop chasing after one another, take a breath, and try to move into this brave new world together, agreeing, in the words of Chairman Powell, to "first do no harm."

    We have already seen evidence this is possible, and I believe that we now have sufficient momentum to develop voluntary standards that preclude regulatory action. This is already happening. For example, members of the VON (Voice on the Net) Coalition and an expanded group of additional companies have just worked out an agreement with National Emergency Number Association (NENA) that provides a short-term and long-term approach to providing 9-1-1 access to users of IP communications. This is significant, and I encourage the FCC to give voluntary approaches like this time to work.

    We all must keep in mind that IP communication is not your father's telephone service, and quite literally, represents a whole new way of doing things. What we shouldn't do is dump legacy telephone regulation on what is a fundamentally different technology, just because we couldn't think of any other way to do it. I believe that our industry, and our government, is better than that.

    And we have time to do it right. IP communications is not about to take over the world. Technology shifts take time, and the reality of the marketplace, much as I would like to say otherwise, is not necessarily reflected in the press. Among other things, VoIP is still dependent on broadband adoption and deployment, which has as long way to go. It is appropriate to consider IP communications when looking at the requirements for the public good, but for the time being, we should leave room for IP communications to continue to innovate, develop, and become a real solution. If there is to be regulation, it should be smart regulation that takes into account the technological characteristics of VoIP and recognizes its uniqueness.

    I applaud the FCC for holding the VoIP Forum, and for demonstrating the willingness to understand the technology rather than instinctively chasing after it. December 1st was a good beginning, and if we all continue to believe in the innovative power of IP communications, regulation will not force the end.

    Posted by jeff at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

    January 09, 2004

    No More Vaughn with the Mets

    When the New York Mets first tried to sign Mo Vaughn back in 1998-99, I thought it was a great idea. I thought their timing at that time was great.

    Of course Mo never came to the Mets when they first approached him and having him sign years later showed whenever Mo played.

    Being a long time Mets fan I am not surprised to learn that there will be no more Mo with the Mets, since the situation with his knees will prevent him from playing in the 2004 baseball season.

    Last year I went to only a handful a games because once the weather for baseball was good, the Mets were just awful. Hopefully this year the baseball season for the Mets and the weather will be more in sync.

    Posted by jeff at 07:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

    George Harrison and my Dad: A Guitar Gently Weeps

    One connection I didn't know my family had with George Harrison's family is that my dad, like many other people who suffered from similar circumstances, was also a patient of
    Dr Gil Lederman, of Staten Island University Hospital.

    I was shocked and appalled to learn that this was the same docter who forced George Harrison to sign a guitar as the Beatle lay dying.

    My dad only spoke of Liderman in praise and I guess sometimes you just never know about a person or their circumstances. Liderman is the doctor who looked after George Harrison during his final days, and has been booted for allegedly violating confidentiality rules.

    According to the New York Post, Harrison's widow, Olivia, and son, Dhani, filed suit against Lederman for allegedly grabbing the rock legend's hand and forcing him to scrawl his autograph, despite a weakened George's insistence he could barely spell his name.

    But according to the paper, Lederman's "most offensive, insensitive and inappropriate act," according to the suit, was bringing his three kids to the Staten Island home where Harrison was staying while undergoing treatment - and having one play guitar for the dying Beatle.

    Posted by jeff at 06:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

    Fast Net Futures 2004: March 29-31 in Santa Clara

    The people creating the future of the Net will come together for the second annual Fast Net Futures, March 29-31 in Santa Clara Convention Center.

    In 2003, two dozen CEO's and CTO's were joined by a dozen top analysts and 60 others drawn from the best in the business. 2004 will be even stronger.

    The path to 100 megabits on fiber and DSL will be covered by Niel Ransom, John Cioffi, and Bernard Deutsch. Brian Roberts of Comcast has upped the broadband stakes, planning to deliver 50-100 megabits on cable; a special panel will look at how he'll get that speed.

    Video Delivery - lessons from the real world From current generations of compression to the capacities of coming video servers.

    Roadmap to the Future with top chipmakers led by Peter Chow. Nearly every broadband chipmakers will send one of their top people.

    There will 14 more panels. The schedule is in the process of being set, based on Dave Burstein asking his speakers what's most timely they can present, rather than the marketing staff of a conference.

    The atmosphere will be lively and informal; speakers are urged to "present only what people don't already know, emphasizing what's new and surprising."

    Audience discussion after every speaker - you'll never have to listen to two speakers without a chance for questions.

    Register today for Fast Net Futures 2004. "Early Bird" prices end on February 13th.

    Posted by jeff at 06:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    FCC Hints it will rule on the FWD Petition

    This week I've spoken to a number of reporters who have all been asking me about what the FWD Petition was all about and what it would mean if the FCC were to rule on the FWD Petition in advance of the NPRM expected to come out next month.

    My hope of course is that if there is a ruling by the FCC that the FWD Petition will be granted and that they will rule that end-to-end IP that doesn't traverse the PSTN will deemed to be neither telecommunications nor a telecommunications service. If this happens, it will be a major victory for the future evolution of the IP Communications industry.

    Towards the end of last year, the noise on the street was that the FCC was going to rule on both the FWD petition and the AT&T petition and the feeling at that time was that if that were to happen, most likley it would mean that the AT&T petition would be denied and that the FWD petition would be granted.

    After reading the recent interview with Commissioner Martin with BusinessWeek, it seems as if the FCC may not immediately rule on the AT&T petition, which if that is the case, given the sentiment last month, and if the AT&T petition proceeding gets rolled into the pending VoIP NPRM, I have to believe that there would be people internal to AT&T who would feel as if they had obtained a minor victory since it would mean that their petition wasn't denied either.

    Sometimes a victory in Washington, D.C. can be measured by "non-defeats." ;-)

    Posted by jeff at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    January 08, 2004

    The Kids are Alright!

    I give my kids a lot of credit. A week after they have been back from vacation they have continued to post to their blog.

    Dylan and Jake have been impressed by the few people who have posted to their blog who aren't also their relatives. ;-)

    I'm not sure of how many other 9 year old twins are active bloggers these days but I am impressed that my kids seem to be sticking with updating their blog.

    Over dinner they asked if they can tell their friends about their blog and I tried to explain that chances are their friends would not have a clue what they are talking about but in the end I figured it couldn't hurt...maybe they will end up educating some parents about blogging.

    Posted by jeff at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    The VoIP "All Stars" will be at Spring 2004 VON!

    Looking at the cast of companies who are scheduled to speak at Spring 2004 VON in Santa Clara - March 28 - April 1st, and it is no wonder why we are expecting a record number of both analysts and press to be in the audience at Spring 2004 VON.

    One of my life lessons is that I've learned to deal with the phrase "being lucky is o.k." and I personally think it is great that the VoIP industry is now the darling of the business and consumer press.

    Many of the companies who have been driving the VoIP news over the past few months (and others who I expect will be in the news leading up to VON) will all be speaking and in some cases exhibiting at Spring 2004 VON.

    Given the positive momentum in the VoIP space, this will be the VON where the venture community will be at, looking for strategic investment opportunities. I also expect to see people gathered trying to put together what will become some of the M&A deals in the VoIP space this year.

    It is never too early to book your hotel room and commit your personal schedule to be at Spring 2004 VON.

    Spring VON 2004 takes place March 29th thru April 1st. On March 28th we start with our own "VON Orientation" class for VON Newbies which is followed by what is now a VON Tradition: Bob Pepper Hosting his "FCC Town Hall Meeting."

    Liz Phair will be our special Musical Guest at the "All Conference" party that I will be hosting the night of March 30th.

    Register by February 13th to take advantage of our "early bird" pricing.

    Looking forward to seeing everyone at Spring 2004 VON!

    Posted by jeff at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    Another Day, More Big VoIP News!

    Yesterday's Nortel and Verizon announcement was significant on a number of levels...but the most important part of the announcement was that this was yet another sign how "real" VoIP is and this very well may have been a watershed announcement in front of other significant announcements that will be made by other equipment vendors and service providers in the weeks and months ahead.

    The "deep freeze" / "nuclear winter" is over. It is already springtime for investors who are long in the communications industry.

    VoIP Buzz Check:
    A google of the keyword VoIP today yields 2,150,000 hits and
    956 news stories!

    Posted by jeff at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    January 07, 2004

    Latest Skype Interview in Business Week

    BusinessWeek Online Technology Editor Alex Salkever recently interviewed Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom on his views where VoIP headed and where Skype fits in.

    The interview is available here.

    Posted by jeff at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    Celebrate Australia Day with FWD!

    The FWD Community will be able to share in the celebrations of National Australia Day on January 26, 2004.


    To help celebrate this day, The FWD Community will be able to place free phone calls on the FWD Network to friends & family members living in Australia, ALL Day on January 26th, 2004!

    G'Day!

    Posted by jeff at 12:05 AM | Permalink

    FWD could reach 500k users by Year End!

    Looking at the current daily growth rate of Free World Dialup, if we are able to maintain our current growth rate, we could exceed 500,000 subscribers by the end of 2004.

    While these numbers may not be in the same playing field (yet) as the number of Skype! downloads, I believe getting to a critical mass of 500,000 FWDers will be a significant achievement.

    Posted by jeff at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    January 06, 2004

    FCC to Rule on FWD Petition soon!

    In an interview just published with BusinessWeek online, in the story, "New Rules for New Telecom", FCC Commissioner Martin was asked:

    "Q: So what's next?

    A: There are currently three petitions pending before the commission. The Pulver petition asks, among other things, that a call from one computer to another computer be treated as an information, not a telephone, service. The two others from Vonage and AT&T (T ) are asking for decisions on how to treat calls that use voice over IP for just one piece of the call's journey, such as transport or to connect to customers in their homes.

    The commission is hopeful that we'll make a decision on the Pulver petition soon. We'll also release a notice of proposed rulemaking that will solicit comments from relevant parties on many of the questions that have arisen about how we should be treating the VoIP services that currently are offered."

    If in fact the FCC rules in favor of the Free World Dialup Petition, it will be a real positive day for the future treatment of end-to-end IP, which I believe is the "end game" when talking about the evolution of IP Communications.

    I look forward to hearing from the FCC with regard to the
    FWD Petition    ! :-)

    Posted by jeff at 07:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    VoIP takes Center Stage in the US Business Press on Jan 5th!

    At the close of the first full business day of the new year, the coverage VoIP continues to receive is nothing short of amazing. A google on the term "voip" yields 1,300 current news stories.

    Some of the stories which made it past my desk today include:

    Monday, Jan 5th - NY Times - A Debate on Web Phone Service
    Tuesday, Jan 6th - Business Week Special Report: Voice over IP

    - Finally, 21st Century Phone Service
    - New Rules for the New Telecom
    - For Whom the VoIP Bell Tolls
    - Skype: Net Telephony as File-Trading

    Monday, Jan 5th: CNET News.com -

    - California eases up on Net phone rules
    - Level 3 wants access charge excepmption

    I'm sure there are some other good VoIP stories to catch up with and the most amazing part of this VoIP coverage blitz is that there were so many "real" VoIP related stories in the news and it was only Monday!

    Posted by jeff at 07:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    January 05, 2004

    A Debate on Web Phone Service: NY Times

    2004 is starting off in a manner similar to 2003 with an early January NY Times story on VoIP, Internet telephones challenge a basic social contract although this time Matt Richtel's focus is on social policy issues rather than the enabling VoIP technology that Simon Romero covered back in January, 2003.

    A follow-on conversation to this story is currently underway in a thred on the Free World Dialup mailing list.

    Posted by jeff at 08:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    Living the Low Carb Lifestyle

    Ever since I made the mental commitment to living an Atkins lifestyle, things have been different.

    For starters, since November, 2002 I've managed to lose and keep off about 65 lbs, (+-) and I've changed my eating habits as a result.

    While I'm not sure whether or not I will ever get to my goal weight, I've enjoying the fact that I've been able to keep most of the weight loss off and while I still run into challenges every now and then, and while it is easy to "cheat" in this diet, if you do cheat, the only one who you are cheating is really yourself.

    While I didn't consider exercising before, I'm now entering a new phase of my diet where I am trying to exercise at least 3 days a week with the hope that besides being in better physical shape, I may lose the additional 15-20 lbs that I've been hoping to do but haven't done just yet.

    If there are others considering Atkins and not sure whether or not it is right for them, check with a doctor. If the doctor says "ok", all I can tell you is that the diet works - but you will have to change your eating habits and you will need to learn how to deal with living in what seems to be a carb focused world.

    I just noticed my local 7-11 stores are promoting "living a low carb lifestyle."

    I wonder how long it will be until the fast food restaurants realize that there are people living a low cab lifestyle whose family members still eat fast-food so they decide to carry some of the low carb bars and other food products at fast food restaurants. My hope is that this trend starts in 2004.

    I've already started seeing "Atkins Specials" on the menus of some restaurants in the Hamptons. I won't be surprised to learn about the advent of Low-Carb resturants opening up in the near future...if I knew anything about the resturant business I would have considered doing this myself.

    Posted by jeff at 12:04 AM | Permalink

    January 04, 2004

    Tracking VoIP Hits on Google...

    I just did a google on the term VoIP and was amazed to find that there were 1,960,000 website hits on the term but even moreso to find 1,250 News stories that included VoIP as a reference. And this Google was done at 10:30 pm EST on a Sunday night!

    While the term VoIP is much more popular than my preferred term, IP Communications, a Google on IP Communications still found 57,100 websites and 56 news stories.

    While I believe the VoIP Tipping Point happened in December, 2003, one stat which will be interesting to track is to see how much references to both of these terms grow during 2004.

    As VoIP continues to grow in popularity, I expect a new crop of "me too" companies to come into existence and I also expect some established players to reposition themselves as VoIP players since that is the trendy thing to do.

    I'm looking forward to the pending IPOs inside of this market sector as well as the pending funding announcements which will be the first encouraging signs would-be entrepreneurs will have experienced in any significant kind of way since the long ago VoIP go-go days of 1999/2000.

    Posted by jeff at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    The End-to-End IP Enabled Future

    Now that VoIP is all the rage and IP Communications is happening, watch for the next big play to start: end-to-end IP.

    While the legacy Public Switched Telephone Network has a 135 year head start, it is now just a matter of time that one day will happen when PSTN connectivity will not be as important as connectivity with IP connected networks.

    The way I see things playing out, the immediate opportunities which exist comprise of enabling end-to-end IP amongst: consumers, enterprises and peering amongst service providers.

    VoIP Enabling technologies like ENUM just mean we can get there even faster.

    Of course what stands in the way is *everything* and what's at stake is something equally as large.
    What I'm talking about is a fundamental disruption in the 25+ Billion dollar communications marketplace.
    A marketplace that will be turned out it's side with the advent of open source driven communications and a population of a self empowered public who believe in an IP enabled future.

    Some undoubtedly will fight the inevitable and just make getting there that much more difficult.
    But as it is has been said before, "resistance is futile." It is just a matter of when.

    By 2008 communications policy may become so significant that it becomes a platform issue for the presidential campaigns.

    Posted by jeff at 12:02 AM | Permalink

    January 03, 2004

    Our own VoIP Bill in 2004!

    Just for fun, I'm exploring the possibilities of trying to introduce a VoIP Bill in 2004.

    I'm looking at 2004 as my personal learning year for Washington, D.C. Politics.

    So much to learn, so little time...

    Posted by jeff at 11:37 PM | Permalink

    Social Networking: LinkedIn and MeetUp

    I've been experimenting with "social networks" for about 6+ months and have subscribed to some of the more popular networks but have ended up concentrating my efforts on just two: LinkedIn and MeetUp.

    I've been using LinkedIn for business socialization and MeetUp as a means to help foster growth of the Free World Dialup user community.

    As of this moment, my LinkedIn network is up to 129 connections and there are 1,042 people who have signed up for the FWD Meetups which are scheduled to take place on the 3rd Wednesday of each month.

    Posted by jeff at 09:05 AM | Permalink

    Vacation Blogging...

    Taking a look at my blog entries during the past couple of weeks I realize that one activity which increased during my almost completed family vacation was the frequency of my blogging.

    This was helped by the fact that we had high-speed internet access for most of the vacation.

    Maybe next time I should consider creating a private vacation blog which integrates digital pictures of our daily activities with narration so that the memories of each day don't fade away that fast and that this way we have something to look back to whenever we want to.

    Now I am happy that I got my kids to give blogging a try and only time will tell if this is something they keep up with.

    One thing I learned this vacation was how to take part in a "Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel" and how to start to build a winning deck when dueling in Yu-Gi-Oh!.

    Personally I find the Yu-Gi-Oh! sub-culture a bit much to stay on top of, but I'm trying my best to be able to best relate with my kids.

    Posted by jeff at 12:58 AM | Permalink

    January 02, 2004

    2004: Year of the Blog

    During the past few months, I've started noticing that some of my early-adaptor friends have launched their own blogs.

    Like email and personal web pages, I believe it is just a matter of time before blogging hits it's own tipping point where just about anyone and everyone will maintain their own blogs.

    Signs are everywhere that this will happen in 2004, although critical mass adoption may not really happen until 2005 or later.

    But just like email when we morphed a society that only the geeks like me had it to a time when just about everyone I deal with has it, the same thing may very well happen in the blogging space.

    If my kids who are turning 10 in late March are able to keep their Yu-Gu-Oh! blog relevant for themselves and their friends at their age, I'm really confident that we haven't seen the true impact yet of what blogging may be able to offer to the average "internet experience."

    For many people, blogging provides one with a personal "content management system" even if they don't know or even care what CMS is all about.

    Posted by jeff at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    Voice over Broadband: Over 1MM users expected by end of 2004; 4MM by end of 2005

    Looking at the consumer adoption rates for Voice over Broadband services in the United States, we ended 2003 with about 150,000 consumers paying for voice over broadband services.

    Looking at the current state of the marketplace, I am expecting the number of paying users to grow to more than 1 million by the end of 2004 and reach as much as 4 million by the end of 2005.

    A lot of this growth is predicated on the continued broadband adoption trend in the US coupled with a positive regulatory stance towards IP Communications which may be needed to keep the service providers from losing interest in offering such services that for some may be considered disruptive to their core business.

    No clear winner as to who will gain the most market share but look for a "ground turf" battle that we haven't experienced in a long time for what will appear to be for companies who want to be your "local" service provider.

    Just between: AT&T, Time Warner, Comcast, Cablevision, SBC and Qwest the battle has just begun. Amongst the "established" telcos, MCI has been offering their voice over broadband service the longest and has the most experience in the space - MCI was first amongst the Telcos to adopt SIP, and one should not factor out either BellSouth or Sprint from having an impact in growing this space.

    Looking North of the US, one should not discount the ability for any one company or anyone else to penetrate the US consumer marketplace and offer services as I recently described as Broadband Parasites.

    Things may get real interesting when/if Japan's YahooBB! or France's free.fr decide to enter the US marketplace.

    Posted by jeff at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    Results of FWD Holiday Promotion: 40,000 New Subscribers!

    On the night of December 17th I decided to launch our year-end "holiday promotion" which ended up enabling free calling on FWD to 9 countries.

    Things were going rather quietly, and our subscriber growth rate stayed constant until the Israeli media discovered our free calling promotion and somebody from Bezeq went berserk and on Israel's Channel 2 called FWD, in effect, the "Napster of Telecom." This coverage in turn created the biggest demand for FWD membership that we ever experienced since the launch of FWD in November, 2002.

    The fact that there are now 232 members of the Tel-Aviv Free World Dialup Meetup comes as no surprise to me. (Many other cities averge 5 to 10 members.)

    One thing that we did observe is that most of the calls placed by the Israelis who joined FWD ended up being domestic Israel phone calls.

    Becoming discovered became a double-edged sword since our servers became overloaded and our virtual PSTN termination capacity (30 ports worth) was running full-throttle on a 24/7 basis and in too many cases causing the overall great quality associated with FWD calling to suffer. ;-)

    Looking at our logs, we ended up adding about 40,000 new subscribers to FWD since December 17th and we completed tens of thousands of phone calls despite the hardware we were using, and I learned a lot along the way about from experience.

    I am currently taking a hard look at the FWD business models and what directions to explore with FWD in 2004.

    I'm open to co-marketing ideas as well as suggestions for new services to add to the FWD network.

    Posted by jeff at 02:52 AM | Permalink

    January 01, 2004

    The New Phone Game: AT&T Story in LA Times

    2004 is starting with VoIP continuing to make Headline News.

    The New Phone Game:
    "AT&T goes head-to-head with the regional carriers it once owned -- seven Baby Bells that have turned into four powerful rivals" makes for a good read in today's LA Times.

    Posted by jeff at 02:22 PM | Permalink

    Should the FCC allocate a special area code for IP Communications?

    After reading the recent story in Red Herring news about Japan's IP Telephony area code, 050, I'm thinking once again that maybe we should put the process in motion to in effect ask the FCC to allocate a special "experimental" area code for those of us who would like to experiment with IP Communication related services.

    At least with a non-geographic area code there should be no expectation of e911 services from consumers and the folks who administer the North American Numbering Plan at NANCY should not have any complaints about either numberspace exhaustion or the distribution of non-geographic area codes around the world.

    While the usage of such numbers would make it possibly easier for some Governments to regulation IP Communications, I believe the benefits of launching such an experiment for outweigh the consequences and this is something which should be pursued.

    I briefly spoke to Commissioner Martin about such a concept for the US during the FCC VoIP Forum on December 1st and I will look to continue the dialog into the New Year.

    Posted by jeff at 04:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

    2004: Looking Forward to a Great Year Ahead!

    It's been a while since I was really looking forward to the start of another year.

    Today doesn't feel like just another New Year's Eve but rather feels like the start of something great.

    For those of us who have lived thru the IP Communications Revolution since 1995, 2004 feels a lot like 1999 did after 1998 was a "break-thru" year for conventional wisdom adoption that VoIP was going to happen, it was just a matter of when.

    Looking back at 2003, it started off with a personal re-commitment on my part when I repurchased the VON events from Key3Media and I spent the better part of 2003 looking at next-generation business opportunities in our space.

    2003 saw the re-launch of pulver.com Consulting and our team has been having fun providing strategic consulting services to some of the largest communication companies of the world.

    I've also seen that with the advent of the Broadband Home, consumers will take advantage of IP enabled communication systems and real opportunities for Broadband Parasites now exist in 2004.

    Free World Dialup ended 2003 with close to 125,000 subscribers and ended the year with a very successful year-end holiday season promotion where we introduced voice over broadband to over 36,500 new people over a 2 week period.

    On the conference front, pulver.com will be producing Spring 2004 VON conference at the end of March together with FastNet Futures 2004, VON Europe 2004 in early June and Fall 2004 VON in mid-October.

    In between our SIP Summit will be back co-located with Supercomm in Chicago in late June and July will see the return of our Developers Conferences.

    I'm also looking forward to SuperNova 2004 happening June 24-25 and the introduction of some new events along the way.

    Later this month, Carl Ford and I will be hosting our annual IP Communications Industry Executive Summit in Sophia Antipolis, France. This is an annual event that we have held since 1998 and is one place where people don't pitch but rather bond and by the time we are done we all have a much better clue of where things will be going.

    Sometime this year I expect to see the first of what may become many VoIP related IPOs and the announcement of yet-unannounced mergers and acquisitions within the space.

    Wi-Fi VoIP is on the verge of happening BIG and I expect to hear more positive news about the use of IP Communication systems in both Enterprises and by service providers both large and small.

    I also think 2004 will be the year that blogging will hit critical mass and in my book 2004 is the Year of the Blog.

    Speaking of books, my new year's resolution for 2004 is to finish my book on the "IP Communications Revolution." Hopefully this will happen sometime this year.

    Happy New Year to All!

    Posted by jeff at 01:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)