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January 31, 2005

Monday Bellster Update

Number of Registered Bellster Nodes: 806
Number of Nodes Online right now: 102
Number of Routes available right now: 858

According to Google, there are now: 95,700 hits on the term "Bellster." (Yesterday there were: 16,300 hits)

Posted by jeff at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Spring 2005 VON: Will be Seen on US 101 (in the Bay area)

During a trip earlier this month to Palo Alto, I got the idea to advertise Spring 2005 VON on Billboards on Highway 101 in and around Silicon Valley. The goal behind this promotion was to make sure that as many people as possible who care about VoIP in the Bay area will know that Spring 2005 VON is happening in San Jose, March 7th-10th.

The billboard ads will commence on February 10th.

Below is a preview of the Spring 2005 VON Billboard:

Posted by jeff at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Spring 2005 VON: The Tradeshow for VoIP!

Spring 2005 VON will be taking place in just five weeks at the San Jose Convention Center.

Our conference schedule continues to just get better and in San Jose we will have one of our strongest conference lineups in our history.

Spring 2005 VON will be the home of our largest (ever) exhibit floor with 230 VoIP focused exhibitors. Spring 2005 VON is currently tracking to break all our previous attendence records and we now expect to end up close to double where we were just a year ago.

The international VoIP industry will be joining us. To date, delegates from 24 different countries have registered with many more expected.

It is already hard to get a hotel room in San Jose. We have been adding room blocks as we can find them. If you still need a place to stay, please visit our hotel info page.

Register today and join us at Spring 2005 VON for the "VON Experience!"

Posted by jeff at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (42)

San Antonio Express-News on SBC takeover of AT&T

SBC has agreed to a $16 billion takeover of AT&T appeared today in the San Antonio Express-News, the hometown newspaper of SBC.

“Twenty one years ago, the kids were told to get out of the house, and now one's coming back to take care of the parents,” said New York-based telecom consultant Jeff Pulver. “A lot has changed in this industry since then.”

Posted by jeff at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

January 30, 2005

SBC and AT&T Merger: "The Unthinkable Happens"

I remember seven years ago when Reed Hundt announced that a possible SBC/AT&T merger was "Unthinkable!" Well the "Unthinkable” might just happen. I like to say nothing is impossible. This is another case of where “Nothing IS impossible!”

Just read the Associated Press story.

On a relative basis, in the world of corporate M&A, $16 Billion doesn't seem like a lot of money. Almost cheap.

If/when this deal closes, it will be real interesting to see how SBC's IP Communications strategy evolves or de-evolves.

I wonder what the future will be of AT&T's Callvantage? Does that business unit get spun off?

I also wonder if SBC has found a second customer for it's Tiptop tariff beyond SBC IP.

It will also be interesting to see how SBC leverages AT&T's Enterprise Business.

And what happens to AT&T International? Does that get spun off?

People talk about parents having to "let go" of their kids and in some ways this is what happened 21 years ago when AT&T was broken up. It is also said that sometimes when the kids get older, they sometimes come forward and take care of their parents. 21 years later it seems this is seems to be happening now with SBC's acquisition of AT&T.

We are living in historic times within the Communications sector.

Posted by jeff at 06:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (69)

LibreTel ends "free calling" on pulver.Communicator

The "free" calling promotion that LibreTel has been underwriting for people who use pulver.Communicator has ended.

If you were amongst the group of people who liked the sound quality of the LibreTel placed calls, please watch the LibreTel website for the launch of their new prepaid LibreTel-Direct broadband telephony service.

Posted by jeff at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (47)

A few camera phone souvenirs...

from my trips during the past four weeks:

Telio Phone Service on Sale in a store in Oslo

Waves in Maui - Near Mama's Resturant

African Blackfoot Penguins @ Hilton Hawaiian Village

Lucky's in Montecito, CA

Posted by jeff at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Vonage Appeal Update

The Minnesota PUC has filed in support of the FCC request to move the case from the 8th Circuit to the 9th Circuit. I'm a little confused about why MN would be willing to take such action. It seems procedurally logical that the case should be moved to the 9th Circuit, given that California was first to file and filed with the 9th, but why would MN be proactive on this? What is extra confusing to me is why the 9th Circuit has placed the case under consideration for inclusion in the "Mediation Program." Apparently, a settlement assessment conference will be held on February 17, 2005, at 10 AM PST. The purpose of such conferences is to "explore settlement of the dispute that gave rise to the appeal," and counsel must have authority to settle at the conference. I don't understand why the court might consider this case for settlement. I seriously doubt that all of the State Petitioners would consider withdrawing or settling their appeals.

In any event, pulver.com has intervened in this proceeding both as pulver.com and as a member of the VON Coalition. I will continue to watch this proceeding very closely.

Posted by jeff at 12:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (46)

The Drakeview on Bellster

Drakeview: P2P phone service Bellster launched.

Posted by jeff at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

January 29, 2005

Story of my PTC'05 Talk (in German)

I'm still playing catch up from being on the road for the past month and I just saw this story, written in German, which I am a part of that touches on some of the points I made at PTC'05 in Honolulu.

Telepolis: Jeff Pulver und "Always On"

Posted by jeff at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Bellster: One Week Later

It has been a week since the launch of Bellster and after a week:

Number of Threatened Lawsuits: 1
Number of Registered Bellster Nodes: 683
Number of Nodes Online right now: 92
Number of Routes available right now: 823
Countries with routes available right now: 23
(Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, UK, USA )

According to Google, there are now: 9290 hits on the term "Bellster."

History of Google Hits on "Bellster":
Jan-29: 9290
Jan-28: 5290
Jan:27: 5390
Jan:26: 4510
Jan-25: 1450
Jan-24: 1270
Jan-23: 970 (launch date)

Within days of the launch, Bellster was Slashdotted, written up in the Wall Street Journal and on CNET and there is a Business Week story in the works. It turns out we also got the attention of BellSouth who told us yesterday that they would like to see the use of the name Bellster...stop.

To date, the launch of Bellster has been covered by quite a number of people/blogs in the blogsphere including:

- werblog: Pulver launches Bellster
- Boing Boing Boing: happiness is a warm dialtone
- one.point.zero: The bellster network phone sharing service
- thevoipblog: Bellster P2P VoIP Creates Free Calling to Regular Phones
- IP Inferno: Bellster, Slashdot, Hotfoon
- FlaminTiki: P2P for phones
- Tim Janen's Blog (deutsch): Bellster Net: 'Phone Sharing'
- LordRich.com: Bellster
- Technology Futurist: Bellster: Calls for Nothing and the Chicks for Free?
- Techdirt: P2P PSTN?
- Geekin': 01 22 2005
- Broadband Reports: Pulver's dream
- Alec Saunders.LOG: Bellster
- VoIPWatch: What Bellster is all about
- Slashdot: P2P Meets PSTN, With Bellster
- Converge Network Digest: Pulver's Bellster Builds P2P Voice Gateway Community
- eurovoip: pulver launched Bellster

Going into this, I didn't know what to expect. The number of nodes and PSTN routes supporting Bellster have already greatly exceeded my goals for this phase of the beta test. Special thanks to everyone who has decided to give Bellster a chance and together we will be able to offer the world access to a P2P Communications Network.

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

Bellster gets noticed by BellSouth...time to go offshore?

I just got word that the legal team from Bellsouth Intellectual Property Management Corp has sent a fax where they write that they "...formally demand that you immediately discontinue all use of the name Bellster."

Guess they also read the Bellster story on Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.

Their demands include that: "we have discontinued all use of Bell as part of any claimed trademark, service mark, source indicator, corporate name or domain name immediately." and "...destroy all tangible material on which this infringing usage appears."

Tangible?

Guess this means that they would like to see Bellster become just: ster? Do they expect that all blogs and news stories that have appeared with the term "Bellster" will just disappear off the web?

I wonder if it is now time to move Bellster offshore...maybe to Iceland? Then Bellster can become: Bellster.Is. :-)

Posted by jeff at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

January 28, 2005

Lost in Translation -- Norwegian Style

Well, according to reliable translators, the Norwegian business daily, DN indicated that I think "Telenor is invisible". I don't know exactly how the reporter came up with that interpretation of my views, but clearly something got lost in translation.

I did indicate that Telenor was once a leader in promoting new technology and services, and doesn't appear on the radar to the same extent anymore. I also suggested that Telenor might want to consider purchasing a smaller enterprise that has already done the leg work to bring innovative services and technologies to consumers. In any event, the mischaracterization reminds me of reports that Coca Cola could not sell in China years ago with the slogan: "Coke -- it brings good things to life." Apparently, the translation went: "Coke -- It will bring your ancestors back from the Dead."

Posted by jeff at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

ZDNet Story Today on Bellster

ZDNet: Pulver debuts P2P Bellster network

--------------------------------------
Bellster Update: 28-Jan-05 4:46 PM ET
-------------------------------------

Google Hits on Bellster: 5290
Number of Bellster Nodes: 598
Number of Nodes Online right now: 90
Number of Routes available right now: 785

-

Posted by jeff at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Back in New York!

After a long week on the road, I'm finally back home in New York!

The trip today took less time to fly from Oslo to New York than the amount of time it took me to go from Nice to Oslo a couple of days ago.

Turns out that the metro New York City area is not only colder than the Oslo that I just left, but there is also more snow on the ground here than in Norway. Go figure! :-)

Posted by jeff at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Leaving Oslo...

In a few hours I will be leaving Oslo and returning back to New York...this has been a long and productive week and I am looking forward to my return trip to Scandanavia later this year.

Posted by jeff at 01:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

January 27, 2005

Camera Phone Pictures from Oslo Today

Posted by jeff at 02:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Bellster coverage in WSJ Today!

Bellster was covered in the US edition of Wall Street Journal today in a story entitled: "Internet Phone Service Launches" which ran on page D4.

Bellster Update: (27-Jan-05 2:37 PM ET)

Google Hits on Bellster: 5390
Number of Bellster Nodes: 543
Number of Nodes Online right now: 87
Number of Routes available: 691

Posted by jeff at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Press coverage from my morning talk in Oslo

Earlier today I spoke at the Norway IT-FORNEBU Group meeting where I gave an overview of the state of the global VoIP industry.

After the talk, I was interviewed by several members of the media, including: DN, the main financial (daily) newspaper (Norwegian Financial Times), Teleavisen (weekly communications paper) and Hegnar.no (main financial site/portal)

In the DN story, I spoke about how Telenor was a leader of VoIP back in 1998 but these days have more or a less an invisable profile with regard to the global VoIP industry. The other stories in: Teleavisen and Hegnar.no provide additional perspectives on VoIP in Norway.

Spending the day in Oslo reminds me of how much I miss being here more often. I'm not sure where I will find the time, but I do expect not to be a stranger to the VoIP activities in Scandinavia during 2005.

(updated: 2.30 pm ET)

Posted by jeff at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)

pulver.com 2005 World Tour: Arrives in Oslo!

Late last night, after what ended up being a 12 hour trip from Nice to Oslo, with an unanticipated layover in Frankfurt, my flight finally touched town on the runway. Driving from Nice might have been faster. ;-0

In a few minutes I will be talking at the Norway IT-FORNEBU Group meeting. This meeting is taking place where the old Oslo Norway airport was. Looking around, it is pretty amazing to see how this Airport has become a technology center. It's interesting that a former airport -- a hubbing point and representative symbol of the greatest advancement in physical transport -- has been transformed into the home of an entity working to help transform the world of virtual transport.

I had thought, "Well, as long as I'm in Europe, why not pop up to Norway to spread the IP word." It turns out, it's about the same as being in Florida and, saying, "Well, I'm in North America anyway, why not pop up to Vancouver, British Columbia."

Time does fly by real fast. I can't believe I haven't been back since last visiting Oslo in June, 1998 when we held our first VON Europe event here.

My hope is that I will not wait another 7 years before I visit Oslo again.

Posted by jeff at 02:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

January 26, 2005

Airport Wi-Fi Helps Flight Delay(s) go by faster...

My flight from Nice, France to Frankfurt, Germany left Nice late enough that I missed my connecting flight to Oslo, Norway.

Having 3+ hours to wait for the next flight would have been 'a wait' not all that long ago... but thanks to the widespread availability of Wi-Fi at the Frankfurt airport, spending three extra hours catching up on email and what's happening on the web didn't seem like a bad way to spend the time. :-)

Next stop...Oslo!

Posted by jeff at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Another Google / VoIP Story...

OpticallyNetworked: Is Google Searching For VoIP?

"...I believe Google has a team focused on VoIP," Jeff Pulver, VoIP advocate and organizer of the VON trade shows, said. "They seem to have a team focused on everything these days."

(via Wi-Fi at Nice Airport enroute to Oslo via Frankfurt)

Posted by jeff at 07:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Bellster Status Update

Jan 26 2005 - 6.00 AM ET

Registered Bellster Nodes: 487
Available on-line Nodes at the moment: 72
Routes available: 702
Countries available: 22

-----------------------------------------
Current "Bellster" Hits on Google: 4510
-----------------------------------------
- Bellster hits on 25-Jan: 1450
- Bellster hits on 24-Jan: 1270
- Bellster hits on 23-Jan: 970

Posted by jeff at 06:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Last day of our Executive Summit...

The final day of our 2005 IP Communication Industry Executive Summit will commence in less than an hour. This year we once again brought together quite a number of the people responsible for making "VoIP Happen" in both Europe and North America.

Later day the '2005 pulver.com World Tour' continues on with a scheduled stop in Oslo, Norway.

Posted by jeff at 03:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (63)

January 25, 2005

IP Inferno and Bellster

When Bellster got slashdotted yesterday, it happened in part due to IP Inferno.

Special thanks to Ted and Dan and the team at IP Inferno for helping to spread the word and sharing their feedback on this evolving project.

Posted by jeff at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Images from the 2005 IP Communication Industry Executive Summit

Posted by jeff at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Niklas Zennstrom drops by Exec Summit for Q&A...via Skype!

This afternoon, Niklas Zennstrom spent about 30 minutes with us for an impromptu question and answer session with the delegates attending our Executive Summit.

One of the cool elements of the Q&A session was that we both used Skype and for the most part the sound quality was so good that it sounded like Niklas was sitting in the room with us.

One of the things that has always amazed me is how much "physical" traveling we all do in our efforts to increase the ubiquity and power of Internet communications and promote "virtual" presence. I felt like with Niklas' "virtual" presence through the power of Skype, we were one step closer to realizing this vision.

Special thanks to Niklas for spending the time with us and for answering our questions! :-)

Posted by jeff at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Day Two of our Exec Conference is underway...

First session of the day: "Rising Tide of VoIP Islands" is drawing to a close. Interesting discussion of various issues in making end-to-end IP happen across the mobile and broadband internet.

Posted by jeff at 05:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Some Bellster Clarifications...

For the record, Bellster is a non-commercial directory service that, like Free World Dialup, simply enables unaffiliated individuals to find one another. pulver.com nor any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, partners, or any other entity with which pulver.com has a commercial relationship, intends to use Bellster for any commercial purpose.

At pulver.com we started working on the "Bellster" project during 2004 as a means to deliver on the original 1995 vision of what was "The Free World Dialup Project." The original model for FWD was to allow individuals to share their phone lines to make calls into their local calling area. At the time there were some hardware glitches that made the original FWD model not quite ready for prime-time...but we had fun trying to make it so.

It took the widespread availability of Linux and Asterisk to first happen, but given these platforms, we focused on the 'glue' that makes up Bellster from the vantage point of being a directory service.

While the focus at the moment is Bellster as an enabler of a non-commercial P2P Communications Network that leverages the public internet, I expect the underlying Bellster technology to be used on a private basis for friends/relatives to share communication services with each other.

-----------------------
Bellster Data Points:

As of: 25-Jan-05 - 04.15 AM ET (3+ days since launch)

Registered Nodes: 408
Active on-line Nodes right now: 63

Known Routes available: 501

-----------------------

Since the launch of Bellster this past weekend, news about Bellster continues to be reported around the world:

Recent Bellster blog postings and other stories:

- FlaminTiki: P2P for phones
- Tim Janen's Blog (deutsch): Bellster Net: 'Phone Sharing'
- LordRich.com: Bellster
- Techdirt: P2P PSTN?
- Geekin': 01 22 2005
- Broadband Reports: Pulver's dream
- Alec Saunders.LOG: Bellster
- VoIPWatch: What Bellster is all about
- Slashdot: P2P Meets PSTN, With Bellster
- Converge Network Digest: Pulver's Bellster Builds P2P Voice Gateway Community
- eurovoip: pulver launched Bellster

Posted by jeff at 04:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Day Two of our Annual Exec Summit starting soon...

Last night the delegates attending our IP Communication Industry Executive Summit enjoyed a networking dinner in a restaurant in Antibes, France.

This morning, in less than a couple of hours, day two of our IP Communication Industry Executive Summit will commence.

Topics up for discussion today include:
- "The Rising Tide of VoIP Islands"
- "100+ Years vs. 10+ Years"
- "Regulation vs. Evolution"

I am looking forward to being a part of today's discussions.

Posted by jeff at 01:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 24, 2005

Bellster on Slashdot

P2P Meets PSTN, With Bellster

Since the announcement over the past weekend, there are now 330 registered Bellster nodes of which 57 are on-line at the moment. ( 24-Jan-05 / 7.36 PM ET)

Posted by jeff at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google and VoIP...

According to news reports I read today, Google seems to be playing it cool regarding the recent rumors associated with a possible VoIP play.

A quick check at the Spring 2005 VON delegate database shows that a number of Google executives in fact will be joining us in San Jose in March.

Maybe Google is 'just interested' in VoIP. I suspect there may be something more to this. :-)

Posted by jeff at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Snow following the 2005 pulver.com World Tour...

Back on January 7, after a successful showing at CES 2005, at the start of the "2005 pulver.com World Tour" I experienced my first snow delay leaving Las Vegas. (Talk about Hell freezing over!)

My trip to the South of France was delayed due to the "Blizzard of 2005" that affected the Metro NYC area this weekend.

At last, we made it to French Riviera and what do we find? The snow has followed us to Nice.

I fully expect to see some snow later this week when I visit Oslo. But in the South of France?

Now, if it had snowed in Hawaii when we were there last week, I would really be concerned that the world has turned topsy-turvy. I’ll know something is wrong if I get to Norway and I find everyone sunbathing. ;-)

I hope this is the last of the snow...

Posted by jeff at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Finally...in Sophia Antipolis at our Exec Summit!

Our flight to Nice was delayed last night leaving JFK. This in turn lead to our late arrival at our Exec Summit taking place at ETSI.

We are now at the start of the second session of the summit...and is now snowing! in the South of France...

Posted by jeff at 06:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

January 23, 2005

Getting ready for Sophia Antipolis, France

Later today the pulver.com team will be leaving New York for our annual IP Communication Industry Executive Summit which starts tomorrow morning in Sophia Antipolis, France.

While the snow kept us from leaving yesterday, our hope is that we will be getting to ETSI within an hour or so of the scheduled commencement of the event tomorrow morning.

The pulver.com '2005 World Tour' continues on...

Posted by jeff at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Jeff Citron and VoIP Featured (Again) in Newsweek!

Last week Newsweek International featured VoIP in the issue's lead story: Signal Lost.

A week later, Newsweek is now running a similar but different story in the US Edition of Newsweek, Hi! The Net is Calling.

Congrats once again to: Jeff Citron, the Vonage team and the entire VoIP industry for the coverage it received this week in Newsweek.

Looks like the start of another great week for VoIP!

Posted by jeff at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Investor's Business Daily Story on Powell Resignation

24-Jan-05: Investor's Business Daily: FCC Seen Retaining Deregulation Drive Powell Championed

..."The world of IP communications will miss Chairman Powell," said Jeffrey Pulver, a VoIP lobbyist, consultant and president of Pulver.com. "Whoever replaces him may not embrace Internet freedoms the same way."

Posted by jeff at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (34)

Bellster...starting to get noticed and growing!

Within 36 hours of the beta launch announcement of Bellster, over 150 new Bellster nodes have joined the Bellster Network.

The Bellster Network currently has the ability to terminate (for free) a limited number of calls into certain cities in the following countries:

+1 - Canada/USA
+7 - Russia
+33 - France
+39 - Italy
+44 - UK
+47 - Norway
+49 - Germany
+54 - Argentina
+55 - Brazil
+61 - Australia
+63 - Philippines
+64 - New Zealand

It seems our concept of phone line sharing is starting to resonate with a number of early-adopter communication enthusiasts and I find this trend very encouraging. :-)

Yesterday I noticed that some Bellster related stories were posted including:

- werblog: Pulver launches Bellster
- Boing Boing Boing: happiness is a warm dialtone
- one.point.zero: The bellster network phone sharing service
- thevoipblog: Bellster P2P VoIP Creates Free Calling to Regular Phones

---

Going into this, I didn't know what to expect. The number of nodes and PSTN routes supporting Bellster have already exceeded my goals for this phase of the beta test. Special thanks to everyone who has decided to give Bellster a chance and together we will be able to offer the world access to a P2P Communications Network that also offers: "Disruptive Disintermediation!"

Posted by jeff at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

January 22, 2005

Long Island under a Blizzard Warning...

Tonight was the night members of the pulver.com team were supposed to be leaving for Nice, France for our 2005 IP Communication Industry Executive Summit in Sophia Antipols.

Snow has already started to fall and the latest forecast is for 18-20+ inches of snow for Long Island by tomorrow morning.

Hopefully this storm will not be as bad as it has been forecast to be and that our trip to France will only be delayed 24 hours.

Safe travels.

Posted by jeff at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A new Social Communication Network: Bellster

Back in the Fall of 1995, with the help of some friends, Free World Dialup (FWD) version 1.0 happened. The original concept was to setup a computer, modem and let a friend (or a stranger) place a call over the internet via your computer. This was done on an experimental, non-commercial, voluntary basis and we had quite a number of people who contributed their own time, effort and energy to make it work. FWD was the world's first internet telephony network and was a pioneer in the field of PC to Phone communication services.

Back in November 2000 I once again looked at re-creating the spirit of the original FWD project but this time we tried to do it using the broadband internet. After several months of work we were able to get the underlying software to work pretty good, but our project became challenged once the hardware devices we optimized the software for, the Cisco ATA-182 were discontinued. We were live in beta in April 2001 when CNET ran the story: Can a peer-to-peer phone network fly?

Fast forward to January, 2005 and with the beta launch of Bellster.net we are finally able to offer a peer-to-peer network where members of the network can share their PSTN access with each other. This ”network” will only become a network once there is a critical mass number of people who are contributing to the success of Bellster.

Bellster is based on a couple of underlying philosophies:

(1) "If you Build it They will Come" -- Field of Dreams
(2) "The Love you Take is equal to the Love you Make" -- Beatles, "The End"

The Bellster challenge for 2005 is to find out whether or not there are still people in the world who would let total strangers place non-commercial phone calls for free in exchange for the ability to do the same thing themselves. At the moment we have a handful of active nodes around the world, and as the word of Bellster spreads, my hope is that our network will be able to deliver calls to the PSTN all around the world.

Bellster is based on Asterisk and operates as an IAX exchange.

If you are interested in experimenting with Asterisk and would like to contribute to the Bellster Social Communication Network, please feel free to visit www.bellster.net for more information and sign up today.

Posted by jeff at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

January 21, 2005

A couple of stories on Chairman Powell's Resignation

Earlier today when news broke about Chairman Powell's resignation, I was contacted almost immediately by a few friends in the media. Below are a couple of stories that were published.

- Forbes.com: Post-Powell Depression

"...The chairman has done the voice over IP industry wonders," says Jeff Pulver, chief executive of Free World Dialup, a VoIP service provider which in February was the subject of one of Powell's salutary FCC rulings. "He certainly set the tone, the pace and the direction for how to address IP communications."

- Advanced IP Pipeline: Powell To Leave FCC In March

"...I can't think of anyone [in the government] who did more for VoIP," said Pulver. "I feel like I'm losing a friend."

Posted by jeff at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

My Wish list for Chairman Powell's Swan Song and Legacy:

Michael Powell announced his plan to step down as Chairman of the FCC. Speculation is that he will stay on through the FCC's March 10 Open Meeting before the reigns are handed over to his replacement. That's less than 2 months to tie up a few loose ends that must be tied up in order to send the IP-based communications industry out into the world with the tools and rules (or absence of rules, if you will) necessary to make the industry self-sustaining. I think Powell has done quite a bit over the past couple of years to enable IP-based communications. Most notably, the pulver and Vonage Orders have given us some degree of jurisdictional certainty and removed the pall of an unworkable patchwork of state regulation (subject to judicial review). Much of the substance still awaits FCC resolution of the FCC's IP-Enabled Services NPRM. I think it will be difficult for Chairman Powell to move this item before March, so the fruits of that proceeding will be subject to the will of a new Chair. Short of the IP-Enabled Services NPRM, there are a few simpler issues (most of which are already in the FCC hopper) that I'd like to see Powell get off his plate before he steps down. I know everyone is going to be bombarding Powell with their own wish lists, but a few additional steps would go a long way to promote IP communications and serve as a beautiful swan song for the Chairman, who, from my perspective, has tried to create a regulatory structure that encourages broadband deployment, ensures a competitive marketplace, and promotes innovation and entrepreneurship. It would be a shame that, but for a few stray issues, we missed our opportunity.

Most importantly, I think Chairman Powell should flesh out what he meant in his Silicon Flatirons and VON speeches when he spoke of consumer empowerment and "Net Neutrality". Chairman Powell enunciated the four net freedoms that all consumers should have in order to maximize the value of the Internet and their communications experience. Chairman Powell indicated that consumers should have the right to access the content and applications of their choice, the right to attach the personal devices of their choice, and the right to service plan information. At the last VON Conference, I think Chairman Powell flagged that he had some intention to take official action to memorialize these net freedoms. What better swan song would there be than for Powell to issue a set of principles setting forth how consumers might be assured these freedoms? Perhaps Powell could even issue a Notice of Inquiry at the March 10 Open Meeting, which NOI could set forth the Net Neutrality principles, establish an FCC role in issuing an annual report on the state of IP communications with ongoing proposals on how to promote broadband and IP communications, and suggest an enforcement mechanism that might ensure that no one could violate the net freedom principles.

Chairman Powell has pointed to IP, the Internet and broadband as the impetus for much of his deregulatory policy. He has also pointed to the ability of the simple net neutrality principles as the vehicle to allow for further deregulation. We, however, cannot point to net neutrality as the enabler of deregulation, then deregulate and never implement the net neutrality principles. That would be an unfair bait and switch on consumers and IP innovators. The deregulated world without meaningful net neutrality principles, is a world in which consumers will be subjected to the unilateral judgment of unregulated monopolists.

Chairman Powell has done much to move the communications industry to a less regulated model, while simultaneously attempting to ensure a sustainable competitive marketplace, an environment that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship, and a regulatory structure that provides for parity across platforms and encourages deployment of more robust, IP-capable, broadband networks. This is an insanely delicate tight-rope walk. As with "Enlightenment", the road to the IP communications future is as sharp and narrow as the razor's edge. I think Chairman Powell has masterfully negotiated the course, but it is essential for him to solidify his vision and the path before he steps down. It is all well and good that Powell has moved on a deregulated path and has attempted to establish parity across platforms and encouraged ubiquitous broadband deployment. Without application of some form of net neutrality or common carrier superstructure, however, consumers and Internet innovators might remain subject to some carrier, some Internet company or some other entities unfair control over the captive consumer. Now, simultaneously with the laxation of the regulatory structure, is the moment for Chairman Powell to adopt the Net Neutrality principles, and ensure that some structure is in place to ensure that consumers can truly control their communications experience and to ensure that innovation can occur at the edge and within the network.

There are a few other stray items on the FCC's plate that could probably be adopted by March. Most notably, the FCC will have to resolve the Level 3 Forbearance Petition by March 22. Adoption of the Level 3 Petition would send a strong signal that VoIP services should not be subjected to the legacy access charge regime. It would also encourage all parties to sit down and finally hammer out a more reasonable, sustainable intercarrier compensation regime.

Michael Powell has demonstrated, during his tenure at the FCC, that he understands the needs of communications innovators and entrepreneurs. He has tried to create a regulatory environment that will simultaneously promote innovations and competition for new communications applications and services and allow for broadband deployment and network upgrades to support new technology and services. We hope that his successor will share his wisdom and vision to further enable America to lead the way in revolutionizing the way people communicate. It was Chairman Powell who eloquently enunciated the need to empower consumers through the promotion of net freedoms, which would allow consumers to control their own communications experience. We trust his successor will build further on the concepts of consumer empowerment and net neutrality to ensure that every consumer has access to a broadband pipe and the freedom to maximize the functionality and value of the Internet and advanced communications.

Posted by jeff at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Reminder: "Early Bird" Pricing for Spring 2005 VON Ends Today

If you are planning on being a part of Spring 2005 VON, taking place March 7-10 in San Jose, CA and have not yet registered, if you would like to save up to US$ 500, please consider registering today.

Posted by jeff at 06:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Getting Ready for Sophia Antipolis, France

Our annual "IP Communication Industry Executive Summit" will be taking place next Monday to Wednesday in Sophia Antipolis, France. Our summit schedule looks pretty interesting and our hope is that during each session we can engage all of our guests in the discussions surrounding each session.

I have been producing this annual event since 1998 and each year I look forward to being a part of it.

Next year we will be taking a break from visiting ETSI and we will be holding our 2006 Exec Summit co-located at PTC'06 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

I hope that the snow predicted for this weekend in New York City doesn't get in the way of the pulver.com team's travel plans to Nice this weekend.

Posted by jeff at 01:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

January 20, 2005

Colorado Introduces "VoIP TAX FREEDOM ACT"

Legislation was introduced in the Colorado Legislature that would exempt VoIP service from state telecom regulation and from state and local taxation except for purposes of funding emergency response services. I don't know the prospects of success of this legislation, but it's a breath of fresh air compared to recently announced efforts by other states and municipalities to impose taxes and regulations on VoIP.

Posted by jeff at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

pulver.Communicator .94.4 Beta now available

The pulver.Communicator team just posted beta release 94.4 which fixes many of the IM related bugs reported during the past week.

Posted by jeff at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Jeff Citron on the Cover of Newsweek International!

Congrats to Jeff Citron, the Vonage team and the entire VoIP industry for the coverage it received this week in the January 24, 2005 edition of Newsweek International.

For some reason when I think I this I can almost hear the Paul Simon classic song: "Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard" and the words: "...We's all on the cover of Newsweek!"

:-)

Posted by jeff at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Spring 2005 VON Exhibit Floor - SOLD OUT!

I enjoy producing VON, THE industry tradeshow for the VoIP Industry and have enjoyed doing so since 1996.

While I was at PTC'05 this week in Honolulu, I heard that the exhibit floor at Spring 2005 VON, taking place March 7-10 in San Jose, CA is now Sold Out!

I thought this was pretty damm cool...and it is just another sign on how mainstream VoIP has become, since more than 225 VoIP focused exhibitors will be with us at the San Jose Convention Center when VON happens the week of March 7th.

The on-line map of the exhibit floor provides a pretty good feel for just how big our show floor really is.

There is not another show where one could find so many vendors, only focused about VoIP and IP Communications -- anywhere -- in the world together -- other than at VON.

Our exhibitor list reflects an international gathering of equipment vendors and service providers that have committed themselves to being at Spring 2005 VON and having an impact.

Special thanks to all of the exhibitors who have contributed to our "sold-out" success!

Posted by jeff at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

January 19, 2005

From Sunshine to the Snow...

I returned a few hours ago from Honolulu, completing a trek started in Hawaii yesterday. Seeing the snow falling when driving home from the airport just added to the effect.

Next up in the pulver.com 2005 "World Tour" are stops next week in both: Sophia Antipolis, France and Oslo, Norway.

Posted by jeff at 08:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Found W-Fi in Salt Lake City Airport...

Just got off my flights from Honolulu...waiting for the connection to New York. Wi-Fi helps make the connection time go by so much faster...

Ah, Living the Wi-Fi Lifestyle.

Posted by jeff at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Maui Waves

While I was Maui yesterday, prior to stopping at Mama's for lunch, I saw some pretty incredible waves. Below is an image I captured using my camera phone:

Posted by jeff at 03:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (28)

pulver.Communicator beta .94.4 will be released shortly...

We are expecting to release the next version of pulver.Communicator - beta build .94.4 within the next 12-24 hrs...

Posted by jeff at 02:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

January 18, 2005

Great Day in Maui...

My day trip to Maui was the start of what turned into a great day!

Lunch was at Mama's Fish House and for an added treat, I was able to spend a few minutes watching the amazing very big waves come crashing into the shoreline.

Now that I'm back in Honolulu I'm getting ready to start the trek back home tonight.

Posted by jeff at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

On Wi-Fi @ Aloha Airlines in Honolulu...

Since I was already in Honolulu, I arranged to see a friend of mine who lives in Maui for lunch later this morning.

I was debating whether or not to bring my laptop to the airport but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Shaka.net offers Wi-Fi access in the Aloha Terminal Gates. :-)

Living the Wi-Fi Lifestyle...

Posted by jeff at 02:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Bill Kennard at PTC'05: "Shift Happens"

My biased take-aways from Bill Kennard's Keynote at PTC'05 Yesterday:

I was pleased to note that Bill spent a lot of time addressing the effect of IP-technology on communications and the paradigm shift it has engendered. He eloquently discussed the dramatic policy changes over the past few years, recognizing a clear move away from network element unbundling as the preferred means to inject competition in communications towards the establishment of a stable ILEC-cable duopoly. He acknowledged the inordinate, wasted time and energy the ILECs and CLECs spent fighting one another while cable ate their lunch. I don't think he specifically stated that the Telecom Act was a failure (I'm not sure if he thinks the Act was a failure), but he did poll the audience on the issue. The results of his survey: although many thought the Act a failure, virtually the entire audience acknowledged that our communications are better off today than before the Act, presumably as a direct result of the Act and the FCC's implementing rules. Bill indicated that the Act was written for a bygone era of analog voice, and that a Congressional rewrite made sense. I, myself, have expressed mixed feelings on the issue -- while legislative updating, to enable IP-based communications, would be helpful, I have recurring concerns about the problems of a rewrite through a highly-politicized process in which the underfunded, politically naive, would-be innovators would not be adequately represented in the debate.

Most relevant to me, Bill expressed some satisfaction that I was given the opportunity to address PTC'05. More importantly he acknowledged my efforts engaging lawmakers and regulators on communications policy. I took his words as a call to arms for the IP-communications industry. We in the IP communications community have to be engaged in the policy debate, both domestically and internationally, or the new rules that will dictate our future will be written for us, by people that don't necessarily understand IP, our concerns, or even the best interests of consumers.

Interestingly, Bill spoke of some of his efforts at deregulation during his FCC tenure. I think Bill was a champion of competition but not widely recognized as a "deregulatory" regulator. I recall that he did relieve the Bells of unbundling of DSLAMs and packet-switches (recognizing that the CLECs had more of these elements or could readily deploy them) but did preserve circuit switch unbundling. He also acknowledged the success of those countries that preserved line-sharing and seemed to lament the FCC's decision to eliminate line-sharing. His FCC did not have the advantage of seeing the full, enabling power of IP technology, and how it makes switch unbundling, in particular, unnecessary, at least in a broadband world with consumer net freedom. It might be my own blush on the talk, but I think Bill recognized that it is IP technology that will empower regulators to move away from a regulation-intensive policy regime. During the Q&A, Jonathan Askin tried to get at the heart of what might separate a Powell approach from a Kennard approach to IP-driven telecom/broadband competition policy. Jonathan asked Bill whether the FCC needed to preserve common carriage principles (at least at the telecom transmission level through UNE unbundling, preservation of Computer II rules, or perhaps something other common carrier-based oversight principle) to ensure competition at the applications layer or service level, or whether Chairman Powell's conception of consumer empowerment and "net neutrality", without full-blown common carrier oversight, was sufficient to ensure competition and innovation. This is the detail where I think Powell and Kennard diverge. While Powell seems to support a lighter common carrier deregulatory model in which net neutrality would essentially serve as a surrogate for more onerous common carrier obligations, Kennard indicated a belief that the common carriage model was still essential to ensure competition. This, to me, seems to be the crux of the debate confronting the VoIP industry, particularly as it relates to the ongoing role and viability of nondominant, unaffiliated VoIP application service providers. I, myself, don't know the answer, and I think both Powell and Kennard's insights would be most enlightening to us all (particularly us new kids to DC and relative policy neophytes) as we attempt to blue sky the next era in communications. I would welcome Powell and Kennard to engage in this debate in a more public forum (perhaps at an upcoming VON). I think this is the single most important regulatory question confronting the VoIP industry. The right answer will be essential to establishing the regulatory structure that will ensure the long-term sustainability of IP-based communications in a manner that both ensures competition and promotes broadband deployment and innovation.

One final note of interest: The Carlysle Group has purchased the local ILEC in Hawaii. I'm curious to see how this acquisition plays out.

Posted by jeff at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)

SIP in Paradise

Our Winter 2005 SIP Summit, co-located at PTC’05 in Honolulu commenced yesterday with a SIP “All Star” line up of speakers which included the people who are directly responsible for helping to make SIP happen.

If the Nobel Peace Prize is ever given out to people who have helped shape the communications landscape, I would fully expect some of the people who spoke today at the SIP Summit would be amongst the nominees.

Special thanks to all of our speakers who traveled a great distance to be part of this event.

Posted by jeff at 04:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

January 17, 2005

My Presentation from PTC'05: From Wires to Wireless

Jeff Pulver - PTC'05: From Wires to Wireless (To IP Everywhere)

Posted by jeff at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

PTC’05 is underway…

Last night I had the honor to give the opening keynote at: PTC ‘05 in Honolulu. The theme of my talk was: “From Wires to Wireless.” I enjoyed giving this talk and I particularly enjoyed PTC’s format of having three respondents on the podium that commented on my talk and asked questions, followed by a Q&A session with the audience.

I also enjoyed the direct interaction I had with quite a number of the PTC ’05 delegates during the welcome reception last night.

pulver.com will be back at PTC’06 next year!

Posted by jeff at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Reminder: "Early Bird" for Spring 2005 VON ends on Jan 21st!

"Early Bird" registration for Spring 2005 VON ends on Friday.

If you are planning to attend this event and if you would like to save up to US$ 500 from our 'regular' pricing, please remember to register for Spring 2005 VON by Friday.

Posted by jeff at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

January 16, 2005

Sunset @ WaiKiKi Beach

Yesterday afternoon, shortly after arriving in Honolulu, I took the picture below using my Nokia 6600 camera phone:

Posted by jeff at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Vonage: 883 People Strong and Growing!

Last night I ran into Michael Tribolet, EVP, Operations at Vonage who told me that they were up to 883 people and are expecting to hire another 400 people in the near future.

Wow!

I remember when Stu Milberg was employee #1 at Vonage. It wasn’t all that long ago

Posted by jeff at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (58)

pulver.Communicator: Download Frequency Accelerating!

Since the October 2004 beta launch of pulver.Communicator, we have observed a steady growth in the number of daily downloads which recently reached about 525 downloads a day on a smoothed moving average.

Since the release of our beta release .94.3 last Wednesday, our download pattern has been anything but 'average.'

12-Jan: Wed - 1504
13-Jan: Thu - 2443
14-Jan: Fri - 3031
15-Jan: Sat - 4520!

These past four days we have also observed a dramatic increase in the number of people who are online at the same time. While I'm not exactly sure what the cause for the growth spurt has been, it has been fun watching the user population grow.

I will be keeping a close look to see what the relationship of new software downloads to new actual users is. We remain hard at work at adding additional features and improving the user experience of pulver.Communicator.

Posted by jeff at 04:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (51)

Newsweek Story on VoIP

Newsweek - Jan 24th Issue: Signal Lost

A mainstream VoIP story that contains a little VoIP "history" and perspective.

This timing of the story is pretty good -- February 15th will mark the 10th Anniversary of the release of VocalTec's Internet Phone. It would be great to see Feb 15th become known as "International VoIP Day."

Have you VoIP'ed today?

Posted by jeff at 04:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

January 15, 2005

Arrived in Honolulu!

After about 14 hours in transit I arrived in Honolulu.

I didn't realize until a few hours ago that it has been 5 years since I last attended PTC.

Back then I remember attending/speaking at a Clarent customer event in Maui and exhibiting at PTC 2000 with our "un-booth."

A lot has changed since my last PTC...but the Hilton looks remarkably the same, although I was happy to learn about the high-speed broadband in the rooms and the Wi-Fi availability in the conference center.

Posted by jeff at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

T-Mobile Hotspot in Delta Terminal @ JFK!

I am glad to see that T-Mobile has made it into the Delta Terminal @ JFK. After flying almost exclusively on jetBlue for the past year and taking Wi-Fi access @ JFK for granted, I was glad to find wi-fi access available, even if it wasn't free.

Being at the airport at 5.30 AM, with about an hour to go before the first leg of my flight boards, having access to the net is a great way to help pass the time…and stay awake.

Posted by jeff at 05:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Wireless Carriers' Misplaced Antipathy for Bluetooth

One of the more interesting revelations at CES last week was how many booths were devoted to Bluetooth. You would think that with all the Bluetooth booths and Bluetooth-enabled devices at CES, that Bluetooth was destined to be the ubiquitous, hot, new technology of 2005 -- the Wi-Fi, the mp3, or the flash drive of 2005 (pick your preferred hot new technology of 2002, 2003, 2004). But where are all these Bluetooth-enabled devices on the American market? It is pretty hard to find a decent Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone. (BTW, can anyone find a Bluetooth headset at a consumer-friendly price point? Where's the Bluetooth-enabled mp3 that doesn't require an extra attachment? I saw some really cool mp3 watches at CES -- but how cool can someone look with a wire extending from your wrist to your head? The sound quality of the fm transmitter signal isn't even close enough for jazz. But I diverge.)

CEA (the association that runs CES) has a Wireless Division that represents a large number of the vendors developing end-user wireless equipment, most notably Bluetooth-enabled devices. I sensed some tension between the vendors building Bluetooth devices, and the wireless carriers, viscerally concerned that Bluetooth will cut into their existing revenue streams -- if someone can Bluetooth a picture from their mobile phone to their computer, so the theory goes, who will send the picture via email over the wireless carrier's network. I think organizations such as CES' Wireless Division should serve an invaluable function in shaping public policy and the communications landscape. I think this group would serve a similar role to those of us who are attempting to empower consumers and ensure that all consumers can attach the personal devices of their choosing onto any access pipe to better control their own communications experience. Wireless carriers (or any carriers for that matter) should not be allowed to shut down a worthwhile technology simply because it might cut into immediate revenue streams. This does not benefit consumers or the economy. And, in the long run, I don't think it will benefit the wireless carriers, whose primary objective should be to maximizes the capabilities of their networks and try to keep consumers on their networks.

My curiosity in this debate was further piqued by an article I saw on ZDnet -- "Carrier disables some Bluetooth capabilities in Motorola phone--customers feel gouged"."

I think the battle between wireless carriers and Bluetooth developers, is symptomatic of growing battles between carriers and developers of end-user empowering devices and technologies. Recall Verizon's desire to discourage states and municipalities from building out public WiFi networks.

I suspect a similar battle will emerge between carriers and those building IP-based customer premises equipment that will allow consumers to control their own communications and disintermediate service providers. That does not change the fact that every consumer will need a broadband access provider. This fact alone assures that there will undoubtedly be a lucrative recurring revenue stream for the providers of broadband access, even if they cannot earn all the revenue for equipment attached to the pipe or for value-added applications delivered over the pipe.

Shouldn't Verizon Wireless be figuring out ways to exploit the new technology rather than shutting it down? Because of Bluetooth technology, I suspect many people might dramatically increase their mobile usage. For example, I would love to be able to use my Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone as a mobile modem for my computer when I am not in a Wi-Fi hotspot.

These are my initial impressions of what may become a growing battle this year.

I welcome your insights.

Posted by jeff at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

January 14, 2005

2005 pulver.com World Tour - Next Stop: PTC'05 (Honolulu)

The 2005 pulver.com "World Tour" Continues...

Tomorrow I'm leaving for PTC'05 which starts on Sunday night in Honolulu. I was given the honor to give the opening keynote address which I've been looking forward to.

Our Winter 2005 SIP Summit is co-located at PTC'05 and will be taking place Sunday thru Tuesday as well.

I'm looking forward to this leg of our "World Tour." Next stop after Honolulu after a brief layover in New York will be Nice, France.

Posted by jeff at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Communications Unusual: A cool bug...feature! - Mixing Skype with SIP

We have been experimenting with using Skype and pulver.Communicator for voice conversations on the same machine at the same time. To date this mostly results in a multi-party voice conference where the person we are speaking to on Skype is also able to hear/talk to the person (or persons) we are talking to using pulver.Communicator. It seems the mixing is happening in the sound card of the Windows XP computer.

I not sure if this is the way this is supposed to be working, but for the most part it has been. So...at least on a local basis, it is now possible for some individuals to do there own personal mixing of voice conversations between Skype and those they can reach using FWD and the 90+ peering relationships they have in place.

“Communications Unusual!”

Posted by jeff at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Newsweek story on VoIP…coming soon!

A story about VoIP and “Disruptive Communications” is expected to be published in the next US edition of Newsweek, followed by a more in-depth story the following week in the International edition of Newsweek.

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

Steven Tyler likes Broadvoice...

Blabbermouth.net: AEROSMITH Frontman Endorses BROADVOICE

Another instance where the music industry and telecom industries converge.

Posted by jeff at 01:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

January 13, 2005

DC News: Open Park Unwires The Inauguration

Ever since I learned of the Open Park projected in Washington DC run by co-founder Greg Staple, I've been both a fan and a supporter.

While I was on the West Coast yesterday, Greg shared with me his plans to "Unwire The Inauguration" where he will in effect be able to provide Wi-Fi access to many of the guests and visitors who will be in DC for the Inauguration.

---

Open Park To Offer Inauguration Week Public Wi-Fi Service Along Pennsylvania Ave. Parade Route and On Capitol Hill

Open Park has deployed a new free public hotspot for Inauguration Week along the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route.

The hotspot will operate through January 22nd at Pershing Park on the north side of Pennsylvania Ave. between 14th and 15th Sts. NW. Coverage will also extend to portions of Freedom Plaza across from City Hall and the northeast portion of the Ellipse. This hotspot will complement our current hotspot on Capitol Hill which provides service in front of the Supreme Court and the site of the new Capitol Visitors' Center.

During Inauguration Week, Open Park will show Washington (and the rest of the world) the many benefits which public hotspots can provide. And, for that, they will need your input and your active participation! Their plan is to post the results on their web site.

Here's how you can help: On January 20 (or before), please head down to one of their hotspots. Log in and send them an email, photo or blog entry. Tell them what's happening and any cool applications or happenings that Open Park's hotspot enabled. They promise to post a sampling of all the communications they receive (and relevant links) on their web site at the special 2005 Inauguration blog.

Send correspondence to info@openpark.net. Or enter your comments directly on the blog. And don't forget to tell your friends about their Inauguration Week service. Open Park's hotspots are free and open to everyone.

---

Posted by jeff at 07:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Andy and Om quoted in same story about Level 3

Andy Abramson and Om Malik, two of the VoIP bloggers who will be featured in our VoIP Blogging session at Spring 2005 VON are quoted in this story published in the Daily Camera (requires free subscription).

Posted by jeff at 07:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Melville Bound Today...

After taking what was a real quick flight on the jetBlue redeye flight from San Jose to JFK, I am looking forward to spending the day today at my office in Melville on Long Island.

Later today I hope to complete my keynote presentation for PTC'05 that I will be giving in Honolulu on Sunday night as well as my talk for our Winter 2005 SIP Summit on Monday.

Posted by jeff at 07:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

January 12, 2005

Great Day in Palo Alto!

Today was one of those days that when I look back to it, I will have no choice other than to just sit back and smile. :-)

The day started with bright sunshine in the early morning and morphed into a great day for business. Things just continue to get interesting...

While I missed flying jetBlue out here yesterday, tonight in San Jose is a jetBlue night. Next stop...JFK.

Posted by jeff at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Advanced IP Pipeline coverage of Vonage Appeal

Advanced IP Pipleline: NY, Ohio Join States Appealing FCC's Vonage Ruling

Posted by jeff at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spring 2005 VON: We are at the Tipping Point from Hype to Reality

After spending last week at CES, my take away was that VoIP has gone mainstream. This was evident on both the CES show floor and by those who joined us at our first Consumer VoIP Summit. My experience at CES only increases my excitement for Spring 2005 VON taking place March 7-10th in San Jose, which is shaping up to be our biggest VON ever.

It was a year ago at Spring 2004 VON where the industry's momentum first became evident and a year later things just seem to be growing even stronger. Every communications provider appears set on rolling out VoIP services this year in a big way. The momentum for VoIP continues to grow daily and 2005 will be the year for IP communications!

The Regulatory landscape for VoIP continues to get shaped and, while the FCC began to provide clear direction in 2004 as to the jurisdiction and regulatory treatment of IP communication services, the early part of this year has seen 3 states challenge the recent Vonage ruling. (At least everyone seems to have recognized the value of, and the futility of challenging, the pulver Order enabling computer-to-computer communications). And Congressmen Stearns and Boucher have reintroduced legislation that could have dramatic consequences on the legal and regulatory treatment of IP communications. We can expect increased activity in Congress, in the Courts, in the States, at the FCC, and in many countries throughout the world.

Regulators, legislators and other policymakers will be abound at Spring 2005 VON. Our unique mix of speakers is a reflection of how pervasive VoIP is these days and collectively they will be sharing their unique perspectives on how the marketplace is evolving and what one should expect to see during the course of 2005.

Our Spring 2005 VON exhibit hall will have over 220 exhibitors, making it our largest exhibit hall in the nine year history of our VON events. There is not another event you could visit where you will be able to see so many vendors focused on VoIP under one roof.

Our early bird pricing ends January 21st and if saving $500 on a conference registration is meaningful to you, please consider registering today.

Oh, and by the way if you don't already have your travel plans confirmed, now would be a great time to book your hotel room before you get shut out of having a place to stay in downtown San Jose. (Details are available at the website.)

I'm looking forward to producing Spring 2005 VON and catching up with everyone there.

Posted by jeff at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

VoIP Has Reached The Tipping Point

CNET: SBC readies Net phone service

"...While they say its only a matter of time before VoIP goes mainstream, experts disagree on the timing. Jeff Pulver, founder of Free World Dialup, says that VoIP has now reached that tipping point..."

Posted by jeff at 02:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Nice plug for Spring 2005 VON in Forbes!

Sneak Peek 2005: Susan E. Stegemann On Telecommunications

Posted by jeff at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Penultimate Word on Vonage Appeals?

Well, the deadline for appeals of the Vonage Order have come and gone.

We've checked with a couple State Commissions and some are either not sure whether they've appealed or are being a little coy about it. It might take a few days to see how the dust settles and who appealed what and where.

Here's the tally as we think it stands:

California -- 9th Circuit
Minnesota - 8th
New York - 2nd
Ohio - 6th
NASUCA - apparently the 8th

I don't it really matters -- CA was first and the case will logically be heard in the Ninth Circuit. Those who know Federal civil procedure better than I, think a lottery only occurs if more than one petitioner had filed within the first ten days of release of the Order. We will likely see routine motions transferring the other appeals to CA.

Posted by jeff at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

January 11, 2005

pulver.Communicator with Skype support is NOW available!

pulver.Communicator beta release .94.3 for XP with Skype support is now available for download.

New Features:
Skype users are now 'regular' IM buddies
- Offers Instant Messaging communication with Skype contacts, via pulver.Communicator user interface
- Initiation of audio communication with Skype contacts (calls are handled via the Skype user interface)
- Launches Skype automatically (for users who are also users of Skype, and who have installed Skype software on their PC), and configures it to work with pulver.Communicator
- Automatic importing of Skype contacts into Skype Buddies group Skype contact presence displayed using native Skype icons
Dynamic behavior of Skype buddies (shown when Communicator user is signed into Skype, hidden when signed out)
- New Ease-of-First-Installation features, including an automatic Account Creation dialog and IM Proxy Account Wizard
- Display name now employed in Conference/Group IM windows (instead of FWD number)
- Improved Buddy List refresh functionality

The manual for beta build .94.3 is available for download.

Note: Prior to using Skype IM in pulver.Communicator, In Skype, go to File / Options/ Instant Messaging Alerts and disable first 3 options of the first 2 groups.

Posted by jeff at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Back in Palo Alto...

I had hoped to spend the entire week in Melville with the pulver.com team, getting ready for our Winter 2005 SIP Summit...but I ended up flying out to the West Coast this morning and I find myself back in Palo Alto once again.

At least the rain has stopped for the moment...

Posted by jeff at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

pulver.Communicator beta .94.3 will be available within 24 hrs

For those people waiting for the release of the next public beta of pulver.Communicator, we are expecting to release beta .94.3 within the next 24 hrs (if not sooner).

Posted by jeff at 06:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

VoIP Blogger Session @ Spring 2005 VON

One of the sessions I'm looking forward to being a part of at Spring 2005 VON is our VoIP Blogger Session which will feature the likes of: Andy Abramson, Om Malik and a couple of other guests. Andy will be moderating. I expect this will be one of the more lively discussion sessions at Spring 2005 VON...AND will be a lot of fun. :-)

Posted by jeff at 05:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Comcast to offer VoIP Services

LA Times: Comcast to Use VOIP to Offer Phone Service

Posted by jeff at 05:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Reminder: Spring 2005 VON "Early Bird" Ends on January 21st.

"Early Bird" registration for Spring 2005 VON ends on January 21st.

Now would be a good time to register if you are planning on attending Spring 2005 VON and if you would like to save up to US$ 500 on our "regular" pricing.

Over 220 exhibitors will be showcasing their products and technologies at the Spring 2005 VON Expo Show Floor.

Our conference schedule continues to get updated daily.

Our Spring 2005 VON Speaker Roster includes:

- Peter Brockmann, VP, Enterprise, Voice Solutions Marketing, 3Com
- Jack Jachner, Senior Director, Alcatel
- Hossein Eslambolchi, CTO, CIO, President GNTs, AT&T
- Kevin Kealy, Security Scientist, AT&T
- Ben Jenkins, Sr. Product Manager, Avaya
- Don Price, CTO, Technical Director, Avaya
- Micky Tsui, VP & GM, Communication Systems Division, Avaya
- Gary Rubinoff, President & Managing Director, BCE Capital Inc.
- Eugene Roman, Group President, Systems & Technology, Bell Canada
- Steve Blumenthal, Sr. VP of Engineering, BridgePort Networks
- Scott Wharton, Vice President, Marketing, BroadSoft
- Alan Nunn, Chief Voice Architect, BT
- Jean-Francois Mule, Director, PacketCable Architecture, CableLabs
- Susan Kennedy, Commissioner, California PUC
- Deepak Kamra, General Partner, Canaan Partners
- Alistair Woodman, Senior Director, Office of the CTO, Cisco Systems
- Tom White, VP, Marketing, Voice Services, Comcast
- Mike Coffee, CEO, Commetrex
- Praveen Goyal, Covad
- Michael Pacifico, Director of Marketing, Cox Communications
- Steven Raab, Director, DellOro Group
- Gregory Keough, CEO and Founder, DigiLinea
- Mark Spencer, President, Digium/Asterisk
- Brian Rosen, President, Emergicom
- Peter Linder, Technical Director Wireline Networks, Ericsson
- Jonathan Christensen, CTO and VP of Products, FaceTime Communications
- Jeffrey Carlisle, Chief, Wireline Competition Bureau, FCC
- Christopher Libertelli, Sr. Legal Advisor to Chairman Powell, FCC
- Robert Pepper, Chief of Policy Development, FCC
- Julie Veach, FCC
- Danny Petkevich, Dir. of Mktg., Infrastructure DSPs, Freescale Semiconductor
- Ronald Gruia, Program Leader, Enterprise Solutions, Frost & Sullivan
- Mathew Frazer, VP, Business Development, Genesys/Alcatel
- Christopher Fine, Vice President, Goldman Sachs
- Ofer Gneezy, CEO, iBasis
- Peter Badovinatz, Sr. Technical Staff Member, IBM Linux Technology Center
- Elisabeth Rainge, Director, Network Management, IDC
- Francis Desouza, President and CEO, IMlogic, Inc.
- Sue Davidson, MD Broadband Telephony, Inclarity
- Olle Westerberg, CEO, Ingate Systems AB
- Walt Brown, Network Systems Architect, Intel
- Ben Teitelbaum, Program Mgr, Voice & Integrated Communications, Internet2
- Douglas Van Houweling, President and CEO, Internet2
- Chris Gilbert, CEO, IPWireless
- David Irwin, President, Irwin, Campbell & Tannenwald, PC
- Dan Freedman, CEO, Jasomi Networks
- Opher Kahane, Co Founder and CEO, Kagoor Networks
- John Oconnell, President & CEO, Kineto Wireless
- James Crowe, CEO, Level 3 Communications
- Rob Hagens, SVP, Architecture & Emerging Capabilities, Level 3 Communications
- Gary Tauss, President & CEO, LongBoard
- Laurie Donahue, Director of VoIP Offers, Lucent Technologies
- Kelly Still, Product Mgr., ClientCare Contact Center Solution, Lucent Technologies
- Stef Van Aarle, VP Strategy and Marketing - Worldwide Services, Lucent Technologies
- Dennis Baron, Director, M.I.T.
- Samuel Guenette, CTO, M5T
- Teresa Hastings, Director, Product Engineering, MCI
- Henry Sinnreich, Distiguished Member of Engineering, MCI
- Richard Whitt, VP, Federal Law and Policy, MCI
- Andrew Randall, VP, Marketing, North America, MetaSwitch
- Ed Simnett, Lead Product Manager, Microsoft
- Simon Gwatkin, VP, Strategic Marketing, Mitel Networks
- Rick Jones, Operations Issues Director, NENA
- Jose Colagrossi, SVP & GM, Intl. Channel Sales, Net2Phone
- Robert Maher, Founder & CTO, Netrake
- Richard Shockey, Strategic Technologies Initiatives, NeuStar
- Stewart Alsop, General Partner, New Enterprise Associates
- Steve Baechle, Technical Director, Newport Networks
- Raj Sharma, President, NexTone Communications
- Brough Turner, SVP & CTO, NMS Communications
- Jim Dondero, VP, Wireline/Optical Marketing, Nortel Networks
- John Egli, Carrier VoIP Marketing, Nortel Networks
- Lynn Garrick, Director of Systems Engineering, Nortel Networks
- Dave Jarzemsky, Rural Market Product Management, Nortel Networks
- Tony Rybczynski, Director- Strategic Enterprise Technologies, Nortel Networks
- John Yoakum, Emerging Opportunities, Nortel Networks
- Doug Morrissey, CTO, Octasic
- Michael Keyhl, CEO, Opticom GmbH
- Dan Coole, VP, Strategic Development, Oz
- Ken Osowski, VP, Marketing & Product Mgmt., Pactolus Communication Software
- Jason Katz, Founder and CEO, PalTalk.com
- William Jahsman, Principal, Park City Consulting Group
- Phil Keenan, SVP & General Manager, Network Systems, Polycom
- Craig Southeren, Managing Director, Post Increment
- Jeff Pulver, CEO, pulver.com
- Dick Notebaert, Chairman & CEO, Qwest Communications International
- Debby Hindus, VP Product Marketing, Rapport Inc.
- David Gurle, Executive Vice President, Reuters
- John Sculley, Venture Partner, Rho Capital Partners
- Ron Dobes, VP Product Mgmt. - Network Services, Savvis Communications
- Nancy Lambros, Principal MTS, SBC Laboratories Inc.
- Dorothy Attwood, Sr. VP, Regulatory Policy & Planning, SBC Telecommunications
- Jerry Doty, Director of SW Engineering, SentitO Networks
- Earl Comstock, Sher & Blackwell LLP
- Ed Basart, CTO, ShoreTel, Inc.
- David Leach, Presence Solutions Evangelist, Siemens Communications
- Bill Rich, Co-Founder, SIP Foundry
- Jan Fandrianto, CEO, Sipura Technology
- Hassan Ahmed, CEO & Chairman, Sonus Networks
- Rubin Gruber, Founder & Chairman Emerritus, Sonus Networks
- Michael Rubin, Director, Product Management, Sonus Networks
- Philip Meza, Research Associate, Stanford University Graduate School of Business
- Timothy Jasionowski, CTO, Streamdoor
- Matt Holdrege, Director of Business Development for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Strix Systems
- David Svanda, Principal, Svanda Consulting
- David Illing, Senior Vice President, Sylantro Systems
- Ravi Ravishankar, Director, Advanced Technology, Tekelec
- Mark Whittier, Vice President, Corporate Marketing, Tekelec
- Alan Clark, President and CEO, Telchemy, Inc.
- Stephan Beckert, Director of Research, TeleGeography
- Tom Evslin, TeleGlobe
- Don Jackson, VP of Advanced Telephony, Tellme Networks
- Walt Magnussen, Associate Director for Telecommunications, Texas A&M University
- Sophia Scoggins, System Engineer Manager, Texas Instruments
- Jim Kohlenberger, Executive Director, former White House Telecom Advisor, The VON Coalition
- Daniel Berninger, VP, Senior Analyst, Tier1 Research
- Michael S. Jablon, Senior Director, Marketing, Time Warner Cable
- Michael Gallagher, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, US Dept of Commerce
- Jeff Paine, Vice President, Strategic Marketing, UTStarcom
- Akif Arsoy, Product Manager, VoIP, VeriSign
- Tom Kershaw, Vice President, VoIP Services, VeriSign
- Piotr Boni, Distinguished MTS, Verizon
- David Young, Director, Technology Policy, Verizon
- Tom Howe, CTO, Versatel Networks
- Jeff Phillips, Vice President, Marketing, Virtela Communications
- Ingrid Simunic, Marketing Director, VocalTec Communications
- Niraj Jain, Director, Business Development, Vocera Communications
- Jeffrey Citron, CEO, Vonage
- Alaric Silviera, CTO, Voxpath Networks
- Jeremy George, Director, Yale University

I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone at Spring 2005 VON
.

Posted by jeff at 02:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Another trip to the West Coast

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving my home early for JFK for what is expected to be a quick trip 27 hour trip to Silicon Valley.

I look forward to the time when high speed broadband internet access can be taken for granted on domestic flights around the US.

The 2005 pulver.com "World Tour" continues...

Posted by jeff at 12:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 10, 2005

A little procedural clarification to the status of Vonage Order Appeals:

It's come to my attention that, at this stage in the appellate process,
there will be no lottery to determine which Circuit hears the Vonage Order
appeal. A lottery would have applied if multiple appeals were filed within
the first 10 days of adoption of the Order. In this case, it's whoever
filed first. Thus, it appears that the Vonage Order appeal will go to the
Ninth Circuit (assuming that California does not withdraw its intention to
appeal). We expect to see motions to transfer each of the other appeals to
the Ninth Circuit.

Posted by jeff at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

More on the Vonage Appeal . . . and then there were three

The NY PSC threw its name into the lottery to appeal the FCC's Vonage Order.

Now there are petitions for review filed with the 2nd, 8th and 9th Circuits.
There had been some speculation that California would withdraw its appeal,
but that seems increasingly unlikely, although I do believe the VoIP
industry has very strong allies at the California Commission. Parties have
until tomorrow to file appeals. I've had some thoughts about filing an
alternate appeal so that we might increase the odds that the case ends up in
a favorable circuit, but, frankly, I like the Order as is and it is too much
of a crap shoot to predict how any Circuit will respond. I'm not sure
exactly why the states think they might succeed on appeal. The FCC Order
seems pretty clear cut and sustainable. I think the better path would be
for us all to accept the decision and move forward with the essential
jurisdictional and regulatory certainty and, perhaps, develop a framework
that would be allow some role for the states without becoming overly onerous
on the emerging industry. It does appear that many at NARUC and many
individual state commissioners recognize the value of this approach and are
taking important steps to build positive relations with the VoIP community.

Posted by jeff at 06:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

CES 2005: VoIP, Poker and Rock'n Roll

CES 2005 provided me with an opportunity to spend a little time mixing together three of my life's passions: VoIP, Poker and Rock'n Roll.

On Thursday during CES 2005, while we were waiting for FCC Chairman Michael Powell's visit at our VoIP TechZone, our friends at Broadvoice were talking about a cameo appearance by Steven Tyler of Aerosmith which would have been real cool. Steven Tyler and Chairman Frank are friends and were in Las Vegas together but never did make it to the Broadvoice booth. Oh well...

At night, the poker room at the Bellagio was the place to find quite a number of interesting people in Las Vegas for CES. It was at night that I had a chance to play a few hands of No Limit Hold'em against the likes of Benchmark Capital's Bill Hurley.

Now that I know that we will be back at CES in 2006, pulver.com most likely will be hosting a reception/party at CES 2006 which will bring together: VoIP, Poker and Rock 'n Roll. :-)

Posted by jeff at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

VizuFon CIP-4500 – A personal Discovery of CES 2005

“Hiding in Plain Sight” took on new personal meaning to me while I was at CES.

Last Thursday, during CES 2005, the FWD team gave me a demo of a personal video phone, the VizuFon CIP-4500. While I’m not sure I was experiencing 30 frames per second of real-time video, the demo between Las Vegas and Vancouver sure looked good. When I told the team the demo was great and that we should look to find a way to resell the product in pulverInnovation’s VoIP Store, I was told that we had already been selling the product for the past month. Oh well…

During CES, Motorola’s personal videophone, the Ojo received a great deal of well deserved attention. Ojo is a real cool looking product I saw for the first time myself when I visited the Motorola booth inside of our VoIP TechZone

During the day Thursday, the person responsible for the Ojo demo ended up going to a DVD to do their demo because he complained about the bad quality of service available over the CES show network. At the same time, the VizuFon was being used a few feet away to give live demos of real-time personal SIP video communications using the FWD network.

From a price perspective, the Ojo is currently priced in the US$ 700-800 price range (which is expected to come down) and currently requires a monthly service subscription fee to be paid to Motorola. The VizFon CIP-4500 is currently being sold by pulverInnovations (and others) for around US$ 450 and can easily be configured to be used on the FWD network at no monthly costs.

Both the VizuFon and Ojo support both H.264 and H.263 video and I was really impressed how good this could be when used over the public internet. When FCC Chairman Powell visited our booth for a demo on Thursday afternoon, the first thing he tried out was a 2-way personal video call using the VizuFon CIP-4500 between Las Vegas and Vancouver, BC. We then demonstrated using Windows XP with a Logitech camera running pulver.Communicator connecting the same person in Vancouver using a VizuFon CIP-4500 on the far end and the observed quality was pretty good as well. After the demos, the Chairman said, “That was cool!”

During the course of 2005, I fully expect personal Video Communications to get one step closer to going mainstream.

Posted by jeff at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (43)

January 09, 2005

The Mets $119 million Dollar Man!

If the news reports are true, Carlos Beltran is about to become the Mets new $119 Million Dollar man!

Amazing.

First Pedro, now Carlos.

The Mets need to learn to build up their own farm system and help grow their talent pool the old fashion way...with young talent!

In the past, when a major star came to the Mets as a result of a blockbuster trade, in many cases it was the person or people who left the Mets as a result of the trade who went on to greatness.

So goes the life of a Mets fan.

My open letter to Carlos Beltran:

---

Carlos,

I hope the Mets are paying you enough money to compensate for any future career opportunities you thought you had.

In the history of the Mets, there are very few players ever who lived up to the hype they had surrounding them at the time of their signing. Things happen. And even if you try your best, the New York media isn't known to be kind to very many people.

History is not on your side. There are not many cases in Mets history when two high profile players were signed in the off-season and they both immediately had great seasons...or even really good seasons.

Carlos, if it is not too late, please consider staying with the Astros...your future spot in Cooperstown may be dependent on it.

Kind regards,

Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Washington Post's Coverage of CES 2005

The Washington Post did a great job covering CES 2005. I especially enjoyed Yuki's text and audio interviews.

Washington Post Live from CES 2005: Gadget Gab

Posted by jeff at 02:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (41)

Doug Mohney Recaps Consumer VoIP Summit

VON Magazine - Doug Mohney: CES: Pulver, Pepper Predict

Posted by jeff at 12:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Jets advance in the playoffs!

Jets win 20-17 in overtime over the Chargers!

The Jets had the game virtually won 17-10 in regulation but it wouldn't be the Jets if something didn't happen. And something did.

Eventually it would take the underdog Jets 14 minutes and 57 seconds in overtime but now they can advance to playing yet again next week and will be playing either in Foxboro or in Pittsburgh depending upon who wins on Sunday.

J-E-T-S J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS - - GO JETS!

Posted by jeff at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

January 08, 2005

Back from CES...next stop Honolulu!

CES 2005 was a GREAT event. And it was great to be a part of it and be a first hand witness to watching VoIP go mainstream at CES. Hanging out on Thursday in our VoIP TechZone provided a great opportunity to catch up with many people that have been aware of our activities over the years but used our presence at CES to finally reach out and say hi.. While CES 2005 isn’t over yet, I’ve already started planning for our 2006 presence in Las Vegas.

While at CES 2005 inside the VoIP TechZone, during conversations with people who didn’t know what our “VON” events were all about, explaining that: “VON is the CES for VoIP” seemed to resonate well.

Last night I returned home from my CES and I'm now starting to get ready for PTC '05 in Honolulu where I will going to in a week. I'm one of three people giving a keynote at PTC'05, together with Bill Kennard, former FCC Chairman and now Managing Director at The Carlyle Group and John Legere, CEO of Global Grossing.

While at PTC'05, pulver.com will be producing our Winter 2005 SIP Summit which has a world-class speaker roster and will provide a great opportunity to catch up on what is happening today inside the world of SIP.

The 2005 pulver.com World Tour is underway!

Posted by jeff at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

January 07, 2005

Andy reports major bug in Skype Voicemail!

Skype Voicemail users please see: SAM - Skype® Answering Machine

Posted by jeff at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

pulver.Communicator: beta .94.3 launched at CES 2005

While I'm in the process of leaving Las Vegas, members of the FWD team are in the VoIP TechZone at CES 2005 offering live demonstrations of the next release of pulver.Communicator.

Our plans are to offer beta version .94.3 (for free) to the public in the very near future.

TechWeb is reporting that Skype is now aware of our support for them in this new release.

Posted by jeff at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

"Free" Wi-Fi at McCarran (Las Vegas) has a price...

While there is "free" Wi-Fi access at the Las Vegas airport at the moment, the network administrators at McCarran are port blocking most applications including: VoIP, IM and telnet. The only thing which seems to be working is web access...and their wireless network is going up and down like a yo-yo.

Today happens to be a 'snow day' in Las Vegas...this in turn is creating flight delays.

At least I have web access as I wait for the weather to improve...

Posted by jeff at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (61)

Leaving Las Vegas...

Later this morning I will be leaving Las Vegas and heading back home to New York. Next time I visit CES I will plan for at least one extra day so that I can take the time to walk around the show floor.

CES 2005 is a great event. I'm just glad that pulver.com was able to contribute to the success of it by hosting our Consumer VoIP Summit at CES as well as the introduction of the VoIP TechZone on the CES show floor.

Posted by jeff at 07:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 06, 2005

FCC Chairman Powell visits VoIP TechZone @ CES

FCC Chairman Michael Powell spent time this afternoon while he was at CES 2005 at the pulver.com VoIP TechZone!

While he was visiting, I demonstrated the latest build of pulver.Communicator to the chairman and also showed him a new US$ 450 SIP video phone that we recently discovered that provides full motion video (30 frames per second) and works real well on the FWD Network. The Chairman also visited with other vendors including: Motorola, Level 3 and was warmly welcomed by everyone who was in the TechZone.

Below are some pictures from my day at our VoIP TechZone:

Posted by jeff at 09:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Heading over to the VoIP TechZone @ CES 2005

I'm leaving for CES in a few minutes and I'm looking forward to spending some time today at the VoIP TechZone we helped put together.

Next year the pulver.com sponsored VoIP TechZone will be three times the size. Given the success yesterday of our 2005 Consumer VoIP Summit, we just signed on to produce the event here again in 2006 and for the additional exhibit space. :-)

Posted by jeff at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My Presentation from our 2005 Consumer VoIP Summit

Jeff Pulver: 2005 Consumer VoIP Summit - VoIP and our Digital Lifestyle

Posted by jeff at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Andy's Rave Review

Andy shares some very kind words about yesterday's Consumer VoIP Summit.

Thanks Andy!

Posted by jeff at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Images from the 2005 pulver.com Consumer VoIP Summit @ CES

Dr. Pepper

Larry Irving and David Isenberg

The Audience

Bill Hurley and Dr. Pepper

The Service Provders

Lunch

Yuki and Jonathan

Parrot Man

Peanuts for the Bird

pulver.com Dinner @ The Palm

pulver.com Dinner @ The Palm

Posted by jeff at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

January 05, 2005

Talking VoIP with the Washington Post

Earlier today during the pulver.com Consumer VoIP Summit at CES, I spent a few minutes talking to Yuki Noguchi of the Washington Post while at the same we both watched a person with a parrot on his shoulder attempt to get into our event. It was a pretty interesting distraction.

Washington Post: Jan 5, 2005: Talking VoIP With Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

pulver.com Consumer VoIP Summit: A Great Success!

The pulver.com Consumer VoIP Summit which was held today at CES 2005 was a success all the way around. It was a great opportunity to reach out to the members of the telecom tech community attending CES together with the people involved on the retail side responsible for selling VoIP services and technologies to consumers.

We ended up with a standing-room only event and this was our most success launch of a non-VON event in the history of pulver.com. We have already signed up to be back next year and look forward to extending our relationship with the CEA.

Special thanks to everyone who contributed to the success of today!

I am looking forward to the opening of the CES show floor and our VoIP TechZone on the show floor tomorrow morning.

Posted by jeff at 09:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

North Hall 253: CES Consumer VoIP Summit

In a couple of hours our Consumer VoIP Summit will commence.

I'm looking forward to welcoming members of the tech telecom community who will be joining us at CES for this inaugural event.

My talk this morning will be a continuation of where I left off back at ISPCON in November and will explore "VoIP and our Digital Lifestyle.'

Posted by jeff at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

CES Unveiled

Yesterday afternoon 75 companies and quite a few members of the media spend three hours catching up with some of the people and companies which are using CES 2005 as the platform to make announcements.

At the venue I caught up with a couple of the people who have been writing about VoIP over the years and saw what appeared to be some pretty cool new gadgets for the broadband home / digital lifestyle.

Posted by jeff at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

January 04, 2005

Arrived in Las Vegas...Getting ready for CES

After a delay and a longer than usual flight to Las Vegas, pulver.com has arrived in Las Vegas. It was the first flight I've been on in a long time that passengers were overheard on the flight giving product pitches to each other. The last time I was in a situation like this it was a flight to COMDEX in the early 90s.

In a little bit I will be heading over to the “CES Unveiled” press event to drop by and catch up with some friends in the media who I'm told will be there.

The CES Blur is about to begin...

Posted by jeff at 07:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Another jetBlue Morning…

In a few minutes I’m leaving for JFK to fly to CES 2005 in Las Vegas on another jetBlue flight.

This past weekend when I took jetBlue from Long Beach to JFK, I couldn’t help but notice that Mr. & Mrs. Patty Smyth and family were on the flight. The give away was the announcement made at the gate in Long Beach: “Mr. McEnroe please see your driver outside the terminal building.” This prompted an announcement a few minutes later: “Will the nice Pete Sampras please see us at the American ticket counter?”

The Smyths were otherwise pretty low key on the flight home. Instead it was Peter “The Pickle Man” Riegert (from ‘Crossing Delancey’ (1988)) also on the flight who made his presence known by pacing the airplane aisle way a few times. By some real strange coincidence, playing on the in-flight DirecTV at the same time was an episode of: Law and Order SVU which Peter Riegert was a guest star on. Just another one of those unexplainable coincidences…

Anyway…once I get to Las Vegas, I will be heading over to the “CES Unveiled” press event in the afternoon. The FWD Communications team will be there to demo pulver.Communicator beta .94.3 for Windows XP which now provides: multi-party, multi-network instant messaging chats across: AOL | MSN | Yahoo! | ICQ | Skype and FWD.

I’m looking forward to being at CES and taking a short walk into the future.

Posted by jeff at 05:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (70)

January 03, 2005

Big Newsweek Story on VoIP Brewing…

I spent about an hour on the phone with Newsweek this afternoon providing “deep background” on the evolution of the VoIP Industry and my involvement in it during the past 10 years.

Look for the Newsweek story to hit in the next week or so.

Posted by jeff at 09:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Back to work; Getting Ready for CES 2005

VoIP will be in the news spotlight again as this week unfolds.

VoIP will be one of the key subjects of CES 2005 in Las Vegas and we are producing our first Consumer VoIP Summit at CES on Wednesday. While CES is going on, we will be hosting the VoIP TechZone on the CES show floor January 6-9th.

I’m looking forward to attending CES and walking the show floor in search of cool wi-fi enabled gadgets and other next-generation communication products.

If you plan to visit CES, please drop by the VoIP Tech Zone while you are in town.

Posted by jeff at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The first BIG Event for VoIP in 2005 is: Spring 2005 VON!

If you are involved in the VoIP industry, mark down March 7-10th as the days you need to be in San Jose for Spring 2005 VON.

In fact, Spring 2005 VON is just 62 days away...and it will be the BIGGEST event the VoIP Industry has seen to date!

Our Spring 2005 VON Conference schedule presents a roster of world-class speakers.

"Early Bird" registration ends on January 21st.

If you are not from the San Jose area and if you will need a place to stay and have not already made arrangements, please take the time this week to choose from one of the conference hotels and book your hotel room.

We are running short of hotel rooms and if you wait, you may get shut-out from staying in downtown San Jose during VON.

Our sold-out! exhibit floor has over: 218 exhibitors. We are also already fielding exhibit requests for Fall 2005 VON where we have over 130 exhibitors already confirmed.

Looking forward to seeing you in San Jose at Spring 2005 VON - the first BIG event for VoIP in 2005!

Posted by jeff at 02:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

VoIP on Google: Over 600% Growth in a Year

About a year ago I started to track the buzz around VoIP based on the number of web hits the term “VoIP” had on Google. Back in January, 2004 a search on the term “VoIP” yielded 2.3 million hits. A year later, a similar search on Google yields 17.7 million hits.

While I’m not sure it is possible to sustain a 669% growth rate year after year, a year from now, a Google on “VoIP” could yield more than 100 million hits!

Posted by jeff at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

January 02, 2005

Dylan and Jake's Yu-Gi-Oh! Blog Returns...

It was about a year ago that my sons, Dylan and Jake started publishing their own blog about Yu-Gi-Oh!, from the perspective of 9 year olds.

During the course of 2004 they mostly forgot about their blog but during our recent family vacation they once again felt inspired to relaunch their blog.

As a result, the Yu-Gi-Oh! blog is back. :-)

Posted by jeff at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Telecom Stock Story in The Kansas City Star

The Kansas City Star: Hold the phone, investors

I still expect to see VoIP related IPos to eventually happen in 2005.

Posted by jeff at 03:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My Letter to the Wall Street Journal: Published!

WSJ: December 31, 2004: Cities Plot a New Tax Raid Against the Web

"Cities Plot a New Tax Raid Against the Web

Your Dec. 22 editorial "A National Telephone Tax?" shines a spotlight on those politicians and policymakers who have been sending mixed messages to the VoIP industry (the new technology that allows consumers to place calls over the Web). However, you missed the more immediate and more brazen efforts by several municipalities to impose debilitating fees on the nascent VoIP industry.

Just weeks after the FCC concluded that VoIP services must not be subjected to 50 state and countless local rules that would make it impossible for any would-be VoIP provider to deploy a national or global communications product, we have heard rumblings from both state and local authorities who intend to extract as much blood as possible. You properly noted recent efforts by the National Governors Association and by some in Congress who would attempt to impose sin-level taxes of upward of 20% on VoIP services. But there are similar efforts by municipalities such as Santa Monica to impose utility use taxes on VoIP services that might have only the most remote, tangential connection to the city. At least Santa Monica had the nerve to confront the industry directly without trying to hide behind a mob of like-minded municipalities.

Unlike Santa Monica, members of the National Governors Association also have blood in their eyes for VoIP, but are attempting to shield themselves within the mob. Then they won't individually take the heat for being the only tax-imposing luddite driving away the VoIP industry.

If it were only Santa Monica imposing a municipal tax, the VoIP providers could simply take their services elsewhere and the only losers would be the Santa Monica consumers who might not benefit from the promise of IP-based communications. If every state were to join forces and impose a similar tax, so the logic goes, no haven would exist for tax-dodging VoIP providers.

This logic fails to recognize that VoIP is a global phenomenon. The municipalities, states and countries that embrace the new technology and foster the growth of IP communications will become havens for IP entrepreneurs. Those that impose unnecessary burdens on IP will find they have become pariahs to the would-be entrepreneurs. The residents of the backward-looking governments will become disenfranchised wallflowers at the communications revolution.

What seems most disturbing about the governors association push to tax VoIP is that it is spearheaded by Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia. Those of us from high tech/telecom backgrounds recognized Gov. Warner as a former champion of new technology and believed his goal was to create a haven for new technology within Virginia. Surely he knows the fragile nature of burgeoning technology and what it takes to nurture it.

This certainly cannot be the same Mark Warner who wanted to make Virginia a hub of new technology and innovation. That Mark Warner would know better than to send us scrambling for more inviting jurisdictions.

Jeff Pulver
CEO
pulver.com
Melville, N.Y."

Posted by jeff at 01:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

January 01, 2005

Vonage is now advertising on...Nick@Nite?

My kids have been pointing out to me that Vonage has been advertising this past week on Nick@Nite. I'm not sure what the target age demographic is for Vonage by advertising on Nick@Nite but my kids have heard seen the Vonage ad often enough to mention it to me.

With their published commitment to spend between $50-75 million on advertising, I wonder whether Vonage will be amongst the first VoIP Service providers to advertise during the Super Bowl.

Posted by jeff at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)

2004 was a really busy blog year for me...

...I just noticed that I posted over 1,000 blog entries during 2004.

Happy New Blog Year 2005!

Posted by jeff at 02:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The pulver.com 2005 World Tour starts in a few days...

In just a few days the 2005 pulver.com "World Tour" kicks off with scheduled January stops in:

- Las Vegas: pulver.com Consumer VoIP Summit @ CES (Jan 5-9)
- Honolulu: Winter 2005 SIP Summit @ PTC '05 (Jan 16-18)
- Sophia Antipolis, France: pulver.com's 2005 Executive Summit (Jan 24-26)

2005 looks to be pulver.com's busiest year...ever!

Posted by jeff at 01:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Happy New Year 2005!

Happy New Year!

Best Wishes to everyone for 2005!

Posted by jeff at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)