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October 31, 2005

FCC Approves SBC/AT&T and Verizon/MCI Mergers:

The FCC today approved the SBC/AT&T and Verizon/MCI Mergers. The FCC press release is available at:

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-261936A1.doc

The Commissioners separate statements are available at:

I did not actively participate in the FCC's merger review, primarily because I have mixed feelings about using the merger process to extract concessions from particular parties, rather than applying broader, uniform rules equally across all similarly situated entities.

I, however, was at a loss (particularly in the wake of the FCC's tepid adoption of Net Freedom/Consumer Empowerment principles and the simultaneous abandonment of Title II to ensure Net Freedom) as to what vehicles existed (and who would have the stomach to ensure) the most positive regulatory environment for the communications industry, for carriers, for application providers, for consumers, for innovators, and for entrepreneurs.

I wanted to see a meaningful assurance of consumer empowerment and net freedoms to be applied equally across all delivery platforms. I, however, did not like the prospect that merger conditions might mean disparate treatment of different providers. I also don't generally support the concept of government extortion of private enterprise. But, I, at least, was at a loss as to how to ensure user control over the Internet experience without some government oversight.

Obviously there will be scads of accounts and analyses in the trades and mainstream press. The only thing I wanted to point out to the IP-based communications community is that the FCC (apparently at the insistence of Commissioner Copps) did take the opportunity to compel the merged entities to submit to mandatory enforcement of Net Freedom/User Empowerment rules. I had been critical of the FCC when it adopted mere principles without any meaningful enforcement mechanism. At least with regard to SBC and Verizon, Net Freedom is enforceable (at least for the next two years (after which time, all bets are off)).

- The applicants committed for a period of two years to conduct business in a way that comports with the Commission's Internet policy statement issued in September.

The other conditions of most compelling interest to Internet-based communications users and providers are the following:

- The applicants committed, for a period of three years, to maintain settlement-free peering arrangements with at least as many providers of Internet backbone services as they did in combination on the Merger Closing Dates.

- The applicants committed to provide, within 12 months of the Merger Closing Dates, DSL service to in-region customers without requiring them to also purchase circuit-switched voice telephone service. The companies will make the offering for two years from the time it is made available in a particular state.

The FCC also compelled some obligations on the entities to provide special access. Frankly, I think this might prove to be an underrated benefit to many unaffiliated IP-based communications providers, who often obtain access like any other end user (rather than as CLECs). It would be unfortunate if SBC or Verizon could discriminate between two end-users - one that is an ordinary business and one that provides Internet-based communications services.

The big caveat -- there do not appear to be any pricing constraints. That might prove to be a pretty big loop hole.

The complete list of voluntary commitments is available in the FCC press release at:

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-261936A1.doc

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Posted by jeff at 05:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (67)

Where is Aristotle When You Need Him? -- The FCC's Convoluted Logic in Deregulating Telecom Services and Regulating Information Services:

I have been trying to line up the logic of the FCC's Wireline Broadband Internet Access Order with the logic of the FCC's CALEA Order. Both were adopted on August 5, so I would think the logic for each Order should have been fresh in the minds of those who voted the items (admittedly, the CALEA Order might not have been fully fleshed out at the August 5 vote, not having been released for 7 weeks).

In any event, could someone please explain to me the FCC's convoluted logic in applying telecom regulation to the Internet in order to impose social obligations (so far CALEA and E-911) on Internet communications providers, while simultaneously removing telecom regulations from wireline broadband Internet access providers in Order to relieve them of their access obligations? Any minor distinction in the definition of telecom services and information services between the Telecom Act and the CALEA statute cannot possibly justify the radically distinct regulatory approaches within the two orders and the contradictory analysis distinguishing and then analogizing broadband and narrowband and narrowband services within the two orders.

First, someone has to explain to me the difference between narrowband and broadband in the FCC's mind as it built the analysis within the two parallel-tracked orders. There is little doubt that the orders were drafted by different teams within the FCC, but the orders were all presumably reviewed and compared by the same managers, by the same General Counsel staff and by the same four Commissioners and their respective staffs. Didn't anyone see any disconnects, any potential hypocrisy? Or, were they all too blinded by their own linguistic and legalistic semantic gymnastics to recognize that the approaches within the two orders are mutually contradictory and utterly RESULT-ORIENTED.

Why are broadband services construed as information services for purposes of relieving IAP of access obligations, but virtually all broadband and narrowband services are construed as telecom service for purposes of CALEA (and E-911)?

The real act of disingenuity on the part of the FCC was determining in the Wireline Broadband Internet Access Order that broadband Internet access services are NOT LIKE narrowband or dial-up services and therefore not subject to telecom regulation, and then, on the same day, concluding that broadband services are JUST LIKE narrowband and dial-up services and therefore subject to CALEA and other social obligations.

I cannot get around the realization that the FCC distorted the facts and used them for opposite ends: (1) we need broadband deployment, therefore we must deregulate broadband networks services by redefining them out from telecom regulation; (2) we have plenty of broadband deployment and we are a wonderful upward trajectory, therefore we can extend CALEA to broadband networks and services.

The companion feat of discontinuity between the two orders is the FCC's argument (1) in the Wireline Broadband Internet Access Order, that broadband networks and services ARE qualitatively different from narrowband networks, therefore telecom regulations need not apply to broadband; and (2) broadband networks are a substantial replacement for narrowband networks, therefore CALEA obligations (and E-911) obligations apply. Which is it? The subtle definitional distinction in the CALEA statute cannot be enough to justify SUCH disparity treatment. This is the starkest example I have seen in recent memory of a government body manipulating language to suit its own ends without any desire for a consistent policy approach. (Maybe, if an accurate account, Scooter Libby's alleged request that Judith Miller say that the information he allegedly provided her about Valerie Plame came from a former Congressional aide is a better example of government misdirection -- maybe).

The logic of the Wireline Broadband Internet Access Order was that the FCC is deregulating wireline broadband Internet access services because (1) carriers NEED incentives to build broadband networks; and (2) broadband networks are qualitatively different from narrowband networks. Paragraph 1 of the Wireline Broadband Internet Access Order sets forth the FCC's objective in treating broadband services differently from narrowband services:

"This framework establishes a minimal regulatory environment for wireline
broadband Internet access services to benefit American consumers and promote
innovative and efficient communications. First, this Order encourages the
ubiquitous availability of broadband to all Americans by, among other
things, removing outdated regulations. Those regulations were created over
the past three decades under technological and market conditions that
differed greatly from those of today. Second, the framework we adopt in
this Order furthers the goal of developing a consistent regulatory framework
across platforms by regulating like services in a similar functional manner,
after a transitional period. Finally, the actions we take in this Order
allow facilities-based wireline broadband Internet access service providers
to respond to changing marketplace demands effectively and efficiently,
spurring them to invest in and deploy innovative broadband capabilities that
can benefit all Americans."

In footnote 15 of the Wireline Broadband Internet Access Order, the FCC stressed that:

"our actions in this Order are limited to wireline broadband Internet access
service and its underlying broadband transmission component. . This Order
does not implicate the current rules or regulatory framework for the
provision of access to narrowband transmission associated with dial-up
Internet access services or other narrowband or broadband information
services when provided by facilities-based wireline carriers."

Here are just a few examples drawn from the CALEA Order that really seem inconsistent with the logic of the Wireline Broadband Internet Access Order:

CALEA Order, Para 11: "In today's technological environment, where IP-based
broadband networks are rapidly replacing the legacy narrowband
circuit-switched network, various types of packet-mode equipment are
increasingly being deployed to "originate, terminate, or direct
communications" to their intended destinations."

CALEA Order, Para. 34: "...we have seen an increase in broadband build-out,
undermining any arguments that development of these systems would be
stifled."

Para. 30: "We attach particular significance to the fact that the House
Report language does not say "the publicly switched telephone network,"
which is generally understood to mean the traditional telephone network.
Rather, it refers to "a publicly switched network," which also describes the
Internet backbone network for purposes of CALEA. Indeed, commenters assert
that "the PSTN is not the only publicly switched network: the Internet is
another."

Para 31. "In view of Congress's understanding that entities providing
access to the Internet and to ISP functionalities in 1994 would be subject
to CALEA, we interpret the statute to reach the comparable access functions
provided by today's broadband Internet access service providers. Permitting
technological developments and advancements to remove services or
functionalities from CALEA's coverage that were previously subject thereto
would be directly at odds with Congress's stated purpose that CALEA is meant
"to preserve the government's ability . . . to intercept communications
involving advanced technologies" and "to insure that law enforcement can
continue to conduct authorized wiretaps in the future."

Para 32. "Public Interest Factors Weigh in Favor of Subjecting Broadband
Internet Access Service to CALEA. We further find that it is in the public
interest to deem facilities-based broadband Internet access service
providers to be "telecommunications carriers" for purposes of CALEA under
the SRP. The public interest factors that we consider in reaching this
determination - the effect on competition, the development and provision of
new technologies and services, and public safety and national security - on
balance, support this finding."

And so, remind me again why the same logic doesn't apply across the two Order adopted on the same day? Am I missing something? Please help me see how to reconcile what appear to be irreconcilable inconsistencies within these two orders. Is there something more than a simultaneous effort to twist words and statutes to suit its own ends, rather than the coming up with a coherent policy framework consistent with the express intent of Congress? I don't mean to be flip. If this is not a pure case of result-oriented, regulatory rewriting of legislation, I am missing something. Please don't give me smart-alecky responses like "Jeff, you are obviously missing a few brain cells." I really would like to understand the logic. I never took advanced philosophy. I never went to law school. Is this just the FCC engaging in one big Socratic Method exercise with the industry to get us to point out the illogic? Where is Aristotle? Where is Wittgenstein when you need him to combat such massive efforts of illogic? I can only hope they are sitting on the DC Circuit.


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Posted by jeff at 06:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (29)

My week ahead: As October ends and November begins, I'm back on the road again.

Today I am scheduled to spent time in NYC for meetings; Tuesday I'm in Philadelphia where I am a guest speaker at the Wharton Entrepreneurship Club; Wednesday it's Boston (again) for meetings; Thursday I'm in Toronto for the opening of the new BCE Capital office, and Friday I'm back in NYC for the Marconi Society Gala.

Sometime during the week I also expect to get another Pulver Report out the door. At least that is the plan…

Posted by jeff at 06:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (23)

October 30, 2005

United Press International: Groups battle FCC's Wiretap Act extension

UPI: Groups battle FCC's Wiretap Act extension

Jeff Pulver, CEO of Pulver.com, a VoIP insider Web site, said the FCC overstepped its bounds in its decision.

"The debate over the scope of CALEA was fought in Congress during the debate and passage of the CALEA statute," he said, "and it was determined that CALEA would not extend to the Internet."

"Frankly," Pulver added, "it is inappropriate for a regulatory body to reinterpret the clear intent of Congress."

Posted by jeff at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (29)

Marc Canter: Breaking the Web Wide Open:

While this post is over a month old, I only recently discovered it. It does makes for interesting read.

Posted by jeff at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (23)

October 29, 2005

This week in my corner of the Blogosphere:

This past week the FCC's Internet Wiretapping Rules were Challenged in Court. pulver.com joined forces with the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), CompTel, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Sun Microsystems to challenge the FCC’s Internet Wiretapping Rules. News of this court battle was covered by: Andy Abramson, Susan Crawford , Susan Crawford: (II), Paul Jardine, Associated Press, ComputerWeekly, Infoworld, InternetNews.com , IP Democracy, Technology News Daily, Washington Post and ZDNet.

Oh, and Tony Rutkowski wants the world to know that he doesn't agree with this challenge.

This week the blogosphere buzz for upcoming Peripheral Visionaries' event grew with recognition from: David Beckemeyer, Susan Crawford and Steve Smith.

This week I also explored the topic of Multicast and I still hold out hope of IP Multicast "happening."

and Andy's endorsement of IP.4.IT was appreciated.

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Posted by jeff at 05:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

The “Obligations” of Social Networks: Revisited

Before "Social Networks" became known as Social Networks, I used to rely on email as a means to meet people on the internet. These days, social networks still rely on email as a means to make an introduction, and the only thing that has changed has been the interface.

I’ve been available on LinkedIn since the Fall of 2003, and along the way have also explored Friendster, Orkut, MySpace and few other emerging real-time social networks.

When I first got started on LinkedIn, I sent out about a dozen invitations to friends to join and thought it would be interesting to sit back, just be a member, and see what happens over time. To date, while I have yet to request to be introduced to anyone new on LinkedIn, yet somehow I now have 784 “connections.”

And now, ever since the IT department of pulver.com helped us "take back the virtual streets" and fixed our long-standing email spam issues, it turns out that the reminders of "social networking introduction requests" from LinkedIn has become the number one source of email interruptions during my work day.

During 2005, I’ve noticed an increase in the number of people on LinkedIn trying to use me to make a connection with someone, and in most cases it comes from someone whom I hardly know and usually never met. What most people on social networks fail to recognize is that in real life “an introduction is an endorsement” and yet it seems that strangers want me to forget about this in the virtual world and just make the introduction.

I have no issue introducing two people who are friends of mine to each other but I generally hesitate blindly introducing a total stranger to a friend since I generally wouldn’t want this happening to myself.

As far as I’m concerned, people shouldn’t be shy in trying to make a direct introduction on behalf of themselves. What is the worst thing someone can do? Ignore your request? As long as the person sending email to: jeffp@pulver.com isn’t yet another college student asking me to in effect help them write their term paper on disruptive communications, I’m generally pretty good at replying to email requests from people whom I don’t know or don’t remember. And after all, if you don't ask, "The answer is no."


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Posted by jeff at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

October 28, 2005

VocalTec and Tdsoft: Getting Together and becoming One

Yahoo! Finance: Tdsoft and VocalTec Announce the Signing of an Acquisition Agreement.

If I'm reading this press release correctly, it seems that Tdsoft in effect just "went public", thanks to VocalTec.

According to the press relase, VocalTec has worked out the terms to "acquire" 100% of Tdsoft in exchange for 75% of their existing share capital. Tdsoft will become a wholly-owned subsidary of VocalTec and VocalTec will remain a public company.

Looks like a real interesting deal and the best possible win/win for the interested parties.

"Following the closing, Ilan Rosen, Tdsoft's current Chairman of the Board, will be appointed as VocalTec's Chairman of the Board, and the company's management team will be led by Joseph (Yosi) Albagli, the current President & CEO of Tdsoft."

So for what was VocalTec, it is the end of the era and the start of a new one.

I wish the New VocalTec the best of success in their future endeavors. I look forward to seeing them at our 2006 VON events.

Posted by jeff at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

IP.4.IT: A Look at the Effects of IP Communications in the Enterprise:

IP-4-IT will be taking place November 14-16 at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas and I’m looking forward to being a part of it.

IP.4.IT was designed from the "bottom up" with help from teams from both CMP Media and pulvermedia. IP.4.IT is focused on the effects of IP Communications in the enterprise and the resulting challenges and opportunities this represents to the office of the CIO. Our goal was to provide a forum for: Enterprise CTOs, CIOs, IT strategists, enterprise architects, and telecom managers to share ideas and evolve their thinking for the possibilities for IP Communications in the enterprise. This is directly reflected in our conference program.

IP.4.IT also explores in detail how Internet infrastructure is being applied to enterprise communications -- including the delivery of applications and VoIP solutions such as call centers, iPBXs and other services.

At IP.4.IT there will be 60 companies exhibiting. Access to the exhibit hall is free, as long as you register prior to November 14th.

We appreciate the support of: EMC, Intel, Microsoft and RIM as our event sponsors.

I am looking forward being in Las Vegas for IP.4.IT.

Hope to see you there.

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Posted by jeff at 07:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

October 27, 2005

Buzz about next Peripheral Visionaries' event growing in the Blogosphere:

The Blogosphere buzz about next Peripheral Visionaries' summit in Washington, D.C. on taking place on November 10th is starting to grow.

Andy Abramson was the first to reference it back in September and during the past few days, David Beckemeyer, Susan Crawford, Steve Smith have all referenced the event in their blogs.

Jonathan Askin has put together a great day long event and this is shaping up to be another amazing summit.

Hope to see you in Washington on November 10th.

Posted by jeff at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Back to the Office. Back to Melville:

It has been over two weeks since I’ve been in my office in Melville (on Long Island) and in between I’ve been in meeting (after meeting) in: Boston, Chicago and NYC. Looking ahead to November, it looks like I may be “visiting” Melville four maybe five times the entire month with trips during November scheduled for: Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, NYC, Philadelphia, Toronto and Washington, D.C..

Looking back, it turned out that in fact it was quite a novelty when I managed to “visit” my office for11 days in a row back in July. Outside of those two weeks in July, 2005 has been mostly a year “on the road.”

After being away, I am looking forward to my return to Melville.

Posted by jeff at 07:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

October 26, 2005

Harrah’s Announces 2006 World Series of Poker Schedule:

2006 World Series of Poker runs June 25th to August 10th

Harrah’s Entertainment recently announced the schedule for the 2006 World Series of Poker. Harrah’s will host the event at the Rio for the second year in a row.

Satellites and live action begins June 25, 2006, and the $10,000 No-Limit Texas Hold’em World Championship Event starts July 28, 2006. In all, the 2006 World Series of Poker will consist of 44 separate events in which players can compete for "World Series of Poker gold bracelets."

The 2005 World Series of Poker shattered all participation and prize money records for a live poker tournament. The 45 events generated 32,341 player entries and more than $106 million in gross prize money. Joseph Hachem of Melbourne, Australia, won the World Series of Poker Championship and a US$ 7.5 million prize.

I'm already looking forward to playing in the 2006 WSOP. :)

2005 WSOP Game #44

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Posted by jeff at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (29)

Heard around the Blogosphere: Coverage of COMPTEL v. FCC (Challenge of FCC’s Internet Wiretapping Rules)

Yesterday pulver.com joined with: The American Library Association, The Association of Research Libraries, COMPTEL, The Center for Democracy and Technology, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Sun Microsystem and filed with the D.C. Circuit a petition for review challenging the FCC's CALEA order.

Back in February, 2004 when the FCC granted what has become known as the “Pulver Order”, which was the first positive rulemaking by the FCC on VoIP, they clearly defined that end-to-end IP Communication services that didn’t touch the legacy telephony network (PSTN) was not a “telecommunications service.” Back then the FCC recognized that voice in fact was ”An Application” and not “A service.” I would have never imagined that a little more than a year and half later I would be party to a challenge of the FCC’s approach to VoIP, but here I am. This FCC seems to have forgotten that voice is “an application” and is acting as if it was “a service”, at least in the context of their approach to VoIP and CALEA.

As more and more people learn the context of what the FCC was trying to do with their CALEA order, I am confident that this is a challenge that will not go away unnoticed and may become one of the rallying cries that wakes up a generation of people who are “growing up on broadband.”

Challenge of FCC’s Internet Wiretapping Rules - In the Blogosphere and the News:


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Posted by jeff at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (40)

October 25, 2005

pulver.com Joins Public Interest and Business Groups to Challenge FCC¹s Internet Wiretapping Rules:

Melville, New York and Washington, DC - October 25, 2005-- The following may be attributed to Jeff Pulver, Chairman of pulver.com regarding today¹s Federal Court notice of appeal challenging the FCC¹s extension of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act to Internet communications:

"From the perspective of Internet innovators and application providers, our current grievance centers on the FCC's attempt to legislate from within an administrative agency. The FCC has essentially rewritten the CALEA statute and extended its scope well beyond intended telecom services and upon the Internet. The debate over the scope of CALEA was fought in Congress during the debate and passage of the CALEA statute, and it was determined that CALEA would not extend to the Internet. Frankly, it is inappropriate for a regulatory body to reinterpret the clear intent of Congress."

"The FCC, under the guise of promoting national security, failed to consider the need to foster innovation and promote economic advancement. The FCC's overbroad misapplication of CALEA will have the unintended effect of imposing unnecessary and debilitating costs on the Internet and the emerging Internet-based communications industry without any real benefit to national security. The end result will be to drive innovation and economic growth abroad, which ultimately will harm America's national security and economic growth."

"The only people whom the FCC-mandated regulation of the Internet will catch are either law-abiding users who do not need to be caught within CALEA's net or the stupidest of criminals, unable to figure out how to stay beyond the reach of the regulatory net by, for instance, using any of the countless communications means or applications other than those of US-based voice application providers."

"The problem emerges when government tries to micro-manage the technology and compels all application providers within the reach of the US government to adhere to uniform requirements. The cost could not possibly justify the benefit. An Internet-based communications provider does not know what information is running between two end-users. All the Internet-based application provider can do is relay the IP addresses of the two parties communicating -- via voice, video, text, email, or other applications -- across the open Internet. Proper application of CALEA upon the telecom facilities used to deliver voice and other applications, combined with traditional subpoena power, would have preserved a more comprehensible lawful intercept regime, without stifling Internet innovation."

"The Internet and the emerging companies transforming the ways in which we communicate are essentially collateral damage in the FCC's effort to free the largest phone companies and cable companies of economic regulation and competitive access obligations. The FCC failed to recognize that digitization and IP technology mean that voice is just a bit, like any other Internet application. The FCC is committed to regulating along service category lines, ignoring the fact that voice is just an application that can be delivered from anywhere to anywhere like any other digitized bit-stream. The FCC would have better served American consumers, the economy and national security, if it had recognized that it can regulate the facilities within its jurisdiction but not the bits traversing the global Internet."

"Why would government draw the line at voice bits? Is voice somehow so much more susceptible to use by evildoers that it should be subject to more extreme intercept laws than email, text, video or other data transmissions? At the end of the day, this Order opens the door to absolute government intrusion upon and regulation of the Internet."

"The FCC dug a hole for itself and the Internet when, in a bow to the largest phone companies and cable companies, it determined in August that Internet access services are no longer telecom services subject to traditional telecom regulation. The FCC did this in order to free the largest phone companies and cable companies from obligations to allow competitive access to Internet users. But, in order to keep these services subject to CALEA, the FCC had to kluge together a new understanding of the CALEA statute and decades of telecom regulation, in order to impose regulation on services that provide voice communications, regardless of whether the services are telecom services or not. At the end of the day, the kluged together rule and illogical analysis is not sustainable."

"The FCC even went well beyond the request of DOJ/FBI/DEA and ordered that CALEA apply to "interconnected" VoIP services, similar to the services subject to the FCC's earlier Order imposing E-911 obligations upon "interconnected" VoIP services. But wait, it gets even more extreme. It seems that the CALEA rules might actually extend beyond "interconnected" VoIP services and arguably apply more broadly to services that traverse the Internet and are simply "capable" of touching the PSTN. If construed broadly, privacy and freedom on the public Internet are truly jeopardized and this is the first effort by a regulatory body to regulate pure Internet-based services, even those that do not interconnect with the public switched telephone network."

Posted by jeff at 01:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (24)

FCC Digs Hole by Redefining Telecom Services; Buries Internet. It is now our job to dig us out.

Today, pulver.com joined forces with the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), CompTel, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Sun Microsystems to challenge the FCC’s Internet Wiretapping Rules. pulver.com is the only privately held company to join in and support this initiative.

I know that it is a touchy issue to be critical of regulatory bodies these days (frankly I miss the recognition that an essential component of effective governance within a democracy is critical debate). It is particularly difficult, in this circumstance to challenge the FCC, when it might believe (and certainly has an arsenal of soundbytes) that its extension of CALEA to the Internet is necessary to protect national security. "Protection of national security" and "ensuring that no network can aid terrorists" are easy soundbytes, but serve only as mindless bully tactics that cow the industry into submission, miss the point and detract from the more nuanced discussion that government should be having with industry.

There was no need to regulate the Internet to achieve any law enforcement purpose, and certainly no need for the FCC to go beyond the request of the US DOJ, the DEA and the FBI, which, in hindsight, made a much more reasonable request to extend CALEA to "managed" communications services that could tend to look like replacement services for traditional, regulated communications services. Government had CALEA power over telecom services and government has ordinary subpoena power that would satisfy government when necessary to ensure national security and public safety. The problem was that, when the FCC played its definitional shell-game and redefined DSL, cable modems, and other Internet access services as "information services" rather than "telecom services" the FCC lost its ability to impose CALEA and other Telecom-related regulations within its jurisdiction. As a result, the FCC felt compelled to play some linguistic and regulatory gymnastics to ensure continuation of CALEA. The end result was catching a lot more voice communication than Congress ever intended to catch within its net (and missing every other form of communication that rides on what were formerly telecom services.

The end result is an over-broad inclusion of the Internet within the scope of CALEA. The end result does not adequately balance the worthy goals of catching criminals and simultaneously promoting innovation and economic growth. Some might say we should give government EVERY tool it needs to catch criminals. To me, that is an overly broad simplistic approach to promoting the public good. Sure, if we had government officials posted at every American's home, we would probably catch a few more criminals, but at what price? And could we post a soldier at every home of every would-be criminal in the world (allegedly beyond US borders)?

Why not shut down the Internet? Why not shut down the PSTN? Why not prohibit anyone from leaving their homes? Why not lock up everyone? These mechanism would certainly curb criminal activity. Doesn't the FCC care about protecting us?

We could devote the entire GNP to ensuring national security. Many of those dollars would be wasted, and certainly we would lose out on many other public goods, crush the US economy, and fail to advance national security. Where do we draw the line between national security, on the one hand, and government interference with individual autonomy and economic growth on the other? And who gets to draw that line? It is not the FCC's place to erase or fudge the statutorily-drawn line, simply because it redefined "telecom services" as "information service" and now has to dig itself out from the hole it which it dragged itself, the telecom industry, the Internet, and America.


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Posted by jeff at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (48)

Cisco's Emergency Solution: Great step Forward

Unstrung: Cisco's Emergency Connection

"The Cisco Internet Protocol Interoperability and Collaboration Systems (IPICS) technology (phew!) is an IP-based system that can connect UHF, VHF, legacy radio, cellular push-to-talk, and PC-based IP phones. A central Cisco IPICS server acts as the connection point among the devices for any communications that come into the network."

I look forward to finding out how well Cisco's IPICS works with existing ham radio equipment. This does look like a possible great step forward and another reason to push to make Internet Field Day a reality in 2006.

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Posted by jeff at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (29)

October 24, 2005

Another Turn of the Screw: FCC Internet Wiretapping Rules Challenged in Court

ZDNet: FBI Net-wiretapping rules face challenges

'"Regulating the entire Internet"

The new regulations also are alarming Internet phone service providers.

Jonathan Askin, general counsel to voice over Internet (VoIP) firm Pulver.com, said that his company is not directly implicated by the regulations because it currently offers only peer-to-peer conversations rather than links to the traditional telephone network. The new rules cover VoIP services that provide a "capability for users to receive calls from and terminate calls" to the phone network.

But that regulatory forbearance may vanish in the future, Askin warned. "From a forward-looking policy perspective, I think the FCC has opened the door to regulating the entire Internet," he said.'


IP Democracy: EFF, CDT and Pulver to Appeal FCC's CALEA Rules

"In adopting the FCC’s order, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said that CALEA can justifiably be extended under the Act to VoIP providers because these newcomers are fulfilling the roles of common carriers."


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Posted by jeff at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

I want my MTV! MBone (and Multicast):

Over ten years ago, before the Internet went commercial, it was possible to get a T1 line using UUNet and have MBone access which supported Multicast for our applications.

Now that broadband has become widely available in the US and around the world, now would be a great time to bring back the MBone, that was in effect the experimental "multimedia backbone" of the Internet. As I watch the disruptive broadcasting space continue to evolve, the advent of having Multicast supported by the companies offering broadband internet access could only help to accelerate the disruption of the traditional wireless broadcasting space. This would actually be in the public interest IMHO, since the radio spectrum for TV would better used for mobile communications that will include TV anyway.

I have recently asked a few friends the question "When will Multicast on the Public Internet Happen?" and the reply I heard most often was "Probably Never." It seems there are no commercial incentives for IP multicast and there is also a belief that it is not in the best interest of the cable companies and DSL providers to enable consumers to have access to a new MBone.

One friend has noted: "Multicasting in the market is, on the global scale, a rather sad story. Except for research networks, I am not aware of true multicast deployments. It appears that most ISPs are afraid of the multiplication effect that can be achieved by allowing their customers to send multicast -- and the difficulties this creates for capacity planning and traffic engineering. True IP multicast-based multimedia conferencing or games are therefore pretty much constrained to the research community. Everyone who needs flexible multipoint communications these days seems to be using overlays (pretty sad from an efficiency perspective). On the protocol side, the Reliable Multicast Transport (rmt) WG and the MBONE Deployment (mboned) WG in the IETF have made real progress. However, many of the companies active in this area in the past have disappeared. RTP works fine for multicast as well but you will find people who want to convince you that multicast is not needed -- at least in their narrow business model view of the world.

To counter the carrier and cable provider's fear and to address foremost needs, namely 1:n content distribution, the concept of source-specific multicast (SSM) was introduced in the IETF several years ago. This allows only one source per multicast group and thus comes pretty close to common distribution needs: for television broadcasts (well: multicasts) and other forms of content distribution.

And here multicasting is actually alive: there is quite a market for satellite-based content distribution via multicast, similar for cable and digital terrestrial broadcast. Even the MBMS service of the 3GPP features cell-local multicasting. And multicast is increasingly used in the context of ISPs on the last mile: when they start enriching their services towards triple play, they need to support efficient distribution of television over IP (even though some still think in terms of ATM) and this gets IP multicast to the last mile. Set top boxes suddenly speak IGMP to tune into program channels and SAP/SDP-style announcements/EPGs (more general: Internet Media Guides, IMGs :-) gain importance.

The final areas where IP multicasting is relevant are corporate networks (for content distribution, for service discovery, to simply DHCP, etc.) and probably mobile/ad-hoc networks (again for service discovery).

At some point, maybe WiMAX and WiFi hot-spots will also see multicasting as this may help with radio resources (particularly if TV is also delivered over WiMAX).."

Right now one of the great ironic twists of Internet Broadcasting comes that the more successful one's programming is, means that there is a need for higher capacity streaming media servers and more and more (and yet more) server bandwidth. Not that I have anything against paying for more and more bandwidth as more people tune-in but the advent of multicast would eliminate this problem.

While the future of broadcasting on the Internet isn't dependent on whether or not public Multicasting is enabled, things would be a lot different if (or when) it were to happen. Gone, for example would be the need for high power "streaming media servers" for pulver.RADIO and pulver.TV. While having access to highly scaleable, high capacity servers would always serve as a backup when someone's Multicast access was being blocked, the advent of Multicast would open up the gates and empower a generation of people to become personal content providers -- both in the video and audio "broadcasting" space as well as other yet to evolve communication technologies.

Of course, these days P2P technologies are getting the job done and content providers can look to deliver personal broadcasts using Bit Torrent. Personally, I also like the idea of uploading content to Google Video, or trying to put together a content distribution deal with Apple.

Now that broadband is happening around the world, it would be great if we can find a way to bring back the MBone in 2006. I would like to believe that there are enough people with common interests to find a way to make this happen. Please feel free to drop me a line if you have ideas on how to make this Internet dream, IP multicast, come true.

I want my MTV! MBone (and Multicast).


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Posted by jeff at 05:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (458)

October 23, 2005

Susan Crawford: CALEA and must-carry

Susan Crawford Blog: CALEA and must-carry

"A cab driver yelled at me last night (I was inside his cab, it was pouring rain, he was Russian) that Americans never fight back against government. He said "It's worse than communism here. I haven't seen a demonstration in 25 years." The Commission's interpretation of CALEA takes several sentences to explain, and its implications may not be obvious. But it's worth demonstrating about."

Posted by jeff at 07:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Sunday in New York City:

A view from the road

Posted by jeff at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Marconi Society Gala Event: November 4th in NYC

After reading about the Marconi Society's Gala Event in the current issue of DSL Prime, I decided to also support this event.

Dave writes:

"The Glittering Prize for Gordon Moore, Claude Berrou Marconi's $100,000 at a Waldorf-Astoria banquet Robert Galvin of Motorola has for decades been Intel's respected competitor. On November 4, Galvin will present Gordon Moore with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Marconi Society at Columbia University. Claude Berrou will be awarded richest award in communications, the $100,000 2005 Marconi Prize for his discovery of turbo codes, which are in the VDSL2 standard and most new mobile phones. Jennie is in Paris as I write, interviewing Berrou's colleagues for a short movie to play at the event.

Earlier in the day at Columbia, a dozen fellows of the Society highlight an event that doesn't require a black tie. Honoring Moore and Berrou will be Federico Faggin (who created the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004), Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf (TCP/IP), Jack Goldman (the "adult supervision" at Xerox PARC), Leonard Kleinrock, Bob Lucky, Harry Sello, Gottfried Ungerboeck, Herwig Kogelnik, Whitfield Diffie, James Massey and David Forney. You rarely have the opportunity to meet so many men who would win Nobel Prizes if engineers were eligible. See you there. http://www.marconifoundation.org to register."

This looks to be a great event. If you can make it to NYC the day/night of November 4th, and if you are involved in the computing / communications space, this is one event you should consider being seen at.

Posted by jeff at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 22, 2005

This week in my corner of the Blogosphere:

This past week concerns about the FCC and Internet Wiretapping continued to be covered in the Blogosphere by: Aswath Rao and Richard Stastny. Andy Abramson shared his thoughts after the Wired News story about Internet Wiretapping was published. One thing I do know is that this is not an issue that will be going away anytime soon, and in fact, the CALEA Order will continue to be in the news, again, in the week ahead.

While I was in Chicago a few days ago, I picked up one of the new video iPods and I’m still liking it.

During the past week there was talk that the Burns-Nelson E-911 Bill was going to get marked up by the Senate Commerce Committee but in the end, the mark up ended up getting postponed.

Reuters ran a couple of related stories this week. One was on eBay’s Meg Whitman who said that “Voice phone calls to be free within years” which was followed by the CFO of SBC, Rick Lindner, who had the Alfred E. Newman “Why me Worry?” response of “I don‘t see it as a significant threat…the fears of what may happen there are overblown." I enjoyed reading Richard Stastny’s comments about these two stories..

I also enjoyed reading Alec Saunders’s ” Voice 2.0: A Manifesto for the Future.”

And Om, FWD also has had it’s share of “very interesting” meetings of late. :)

Posted by jeff at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Experimenting with Video Blogging: Take I

Last month I picked up a Sony HDV Camera and then took the advice of some friends who visit my blog and for video editing I ended up going with a fully loaded G5 optimized for Final Cut Pro.

To help jump start my video blogging efforts, my friend Ernie shot some video on the Fall 2005 VON show floor and during Fall 2005 VON he did a five minute interview with me which is now available for viewing.

Once I figure out the ins and outs of video production, my goal is to add a video element to this blog.

Posted by jeff at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

October 21, 2005

Back to you Richard: Summary of a day in our part of the Blogosphere...

Richard Stastny / VoIP and ENUM: SkypeBay, VoIP 2.0, Google Wallet and the Telcos

I would just add the "Why Me Worry" story on Reuters that SBC sees little threat from Skype.

Posted by jeff at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)

My Presentation from: Excel Conference 2005

This is a copy the presentation that I gave yesterday at the Excel Conference 2005 in Boston.

Posted by jeff at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Meg Whitman: "Voice phone calls to be free within years"

Reuters: Voice phone calls to be free within years: eBay CEO

"In a few short years, users can expect to make telephone calls for free, with no per-minute charges, as part of a package of services through which carriers make money on advertising or transaction fees, eBay's chief executive said on Wednesday..."

Posted by jeff at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (35)

October 20, 2005

Wired News Story on Internet Wiretapping

Wired News: Furor Grows Over Internet Bugging

'...The end result, according to Jeff Pulver,...is that the rules "take away our freedom to innovate and take away inspiration for people to be entrepreneurial in this space."

"This comes at a time when it's most susceptible to being screwed up," Pulver said. "The technology is still in its adolescence. This is a transformational current -- we are talking about the communications and computing industry transforming into something that has never existed before. This is not your parents' telecom service."'

Posted by jeff at 08:48 AM | Permalink

Final Senate Commerce Committee Update on the VoIP E-911 Mark-up:

The Senate Mark-up of the VoIP Commerce Committee E-911 Mark-up has been postponed.

There will still be a Committee Mark-up today on the DTV Bill, which apparently allocates $250 million for emergency response funding.

Although it would have been good to see a strong statement from the Senate promoting a more viable emergency response framework than that ordered by the FCC, I consider the postponement of the Senate Mark-up a victory, allowing the Senate a little more time to develop the right balance between promoting innovation while fostering a better emergency response capability.

Posted by jeff at 04:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 19, 2005

More recent Intelligence on the VoIP E-911 Senate Commerce Committee Mark-up:

The Mark-up of the Senate Bill might be back on for tomorrow. Repots indicate that the mark-up will be based on the original version of S. 1063 and not the revised mark-up that would have provided the industry with some relief.

It does appear that Senator Sununu is trying to include an amendment that would ensure federal jurisdiction for VoIP and an amendment for a stripped down version of the bill that would simply provide for liability relief and access to the 911 network. Indications are that he might not have enough Committee support.

At this point, given that the original version of the bill is not particularly good for the VoIP industry, I think we are probably better off without tomorrow’s mark-up and to live to fight another day with a better template for the mark-up.

Posted by jeff at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)

This just in on the Senate VoIP E-911 Legislation:

S. 1065, the VoIP E911 bill has been pulled from the Senate Commerce Committee mark-up scheduled for tomorrow. The Bill is likely to be marked-up within a few weeks. While there are problematic issues related to the statutory imposition of E-911 obligations on VoIP providers, the Bill will likely be a vast improvement over the E-911 rules that the FCC imposed upon the industry a few months ago and set to be in full force and effect come November 28. For instance, the statute would give VoIP providers some degree of liability protection, similar to the protection currently afford traditional wireless and wireline telecommunications service providers. Furthermore, the statute would give nomadic VoIP providers a longer time horizon to provide E-911, and would likely give VoIP providers a little more leverage in obtaining fair access to necessary infrastructure.

It still possible that the VoIP E-911 Bill will be placed back on the Commerce Committee agenda (along with the DTV Bill), but it is unlikely.

Posted by jeff at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Peripheral Visionaries Summit Additions:

The buzz for our next Peripheral Visionaries Summit on November 10th in Washington, D.C. continues to grow.

Did I mention that we are flying in my favorite cover band -- The Herding Cats -- for the Peripheral Visionaries' after-party at the Washington Plaza Hotel. After a full day of debating IP-based communications technology and policy issues, we can all cut loose and agree on one thing: The Herding Cats put on an amazing show that's fun to listen and dance to. For those of you have not been to my recent VON parties or otherwise heard them, the Herding Cats is a Seattle-based cover band that plays popular rock music with a most unique style. They are in, in their own way, "Peripheral Visionaries" of the music space.

I also wanted to let folks know that we have also added a SURPRISE Lunch speaker, and we will be presenting the first "Peripheral Visionary Award". The Peripheral Visionary Award will go to a visionary whom history has proven to be ahead of his or her time, someone who might have been ignored or even castigated in his or her time, but someone whose vision has been realized over time. Given what is now, at last, being realized with regard to broadband and IP-based communications, there is much that the industry could learn from our surprise recipient -- an Internet, broadband and communications pioneer. I find we have a very short memory in our industry and need to learn from lessons past, from visionaries past, from visionaries present, and from visionaries yet to come (or, at least, yet to be recognized).


Posted by jeff at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 18, 2005

Just picked up a new Video iPod: A Wow!

I just picked up a new 60 gig video iPod. After using it for about an hour, all I can say is: “Wow!”

During the past hour I’ve downloaded a handful of Counting Crows videos as well as a couple of TV episodes. I’ve been impressed with both the performance of the video iPod as well as the quality of the video playback that I have experienced on my PC…and I fully expect the quality of the software to just get better.

The new iPod comes with the ability to view: Movies, Music Videos, TV shows and Video Podcasts as well as play music and view photos.

Kudos to Disney for taking a chance and providing content available for sale on iTunes and viewing on the new video iPod. It will be interesting to watch which other major studios start to fall in line and decide to also make their content available on the internet. It shouldn’t be too long before Viacom and NBC Universal follow in this path. While some studios will align with Apple and others with their competitors, this is one very interesting space to watch.

As I’ve been playing with the iPod, the experience has opened up my mind some more with regard to the “disruptive broadcasting” space and it has become clearer to me how all of these moving parts are coming together to “disrupt” the traditional broadcasting industry in a way that will blindside many. The future is here…and there is no turning back.


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Posted by jeff at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Burns-Nelson E-911 Bill Update:

The Burns-Nelson E-911 Bill (S. 1063 - IP Enabled Voice Communications Safety Act of 2005) is slated for Full Commerce Committee Mark-up, along with the DTV bill, on Thursday, Oct. 19, at 2:30 pm.

At last account, we believe the following to be true:

- There is some sympathy for narrowing the definition of covered services so as not to implicate purer, Internet-based, non-PSTN connected applications, but its still unclear if the includes services will be narrowed.

- There may be a statement included about never turning off a communications service.

- It is likely to include liability relief for a provider's failure to provide E-911 (as is the case with other providers currently obligated to provide E-911.

- It will include the transition to an IP enabled emergency network.

- There is recognition among committee staff that there will not be a nationwide fixed or nomadic E911 solution by Nov. 28, and that rural America is especially unlikely to have solutions. It is unclear, however, at this point what remedy they may be proposing.


COMMITTEE NOTICE:

The Commerce Committee has scheduled a Full Committee Executive Session for Wednesday, October 19, 2005, at 2:30 p.m., in SDG-50. The Committee will consider S.___ the DTV bill, S. 1753 - Warning, Alert, and Response Network Act, S. 967 - Truth in Broadcasting Act of 2005, and S. 1063 - IP Enabled Voice Communications Safety Act of 2005.

Posted by jeff at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

pulver.Communicator now supports Asterisk

The pulver.Communicator development team has just added what they consider "alpha" level support of Asterisk in pulver.Communicator for Windows XP.

We are looking for a few people who are familiar with both Asterisk and pulver.Communicator who would have the time to help us with the testing of this recently added functionality.

Those available and interested can visit this page.


Posted by jeff at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

October 17, 2005

Images from Chicago:

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

The Blogosphere Responds - re: WARNING: The FCC Extends CALEA's reach to the Internet

Last Friday I decided to go public with my growing concerns regarding the FCC, their current approach to Internet Wiretapping, and what this might mean to "Internet Communications" in the United States.

Since then, I've enjoyed reading the feedback shared in the blogs of: Andy Abramson, Jon Arnold, James Enck, Aswath Rao, Alec Saunders, Richard Stastny, techdirt, and Kevin Werbach.

Scott Bradner's column in Network World on Internet Wiretapping is also a great read.

Let's keep this dialog going. :)

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Posted by jeff at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Speaking in Atlanta on November 8th:

I will be in Atlanta on November 8th as I was invited to be the "featured Keynote speaker", addressing the Atlanta Telecom Professionals, as part of their annual Atlanta Telecom Professional of the Year Gala

If you are from the greater Atlanta area, I hope you will consider supporting this event. :)

Posted by jeff at 01:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

October 16, 2005

Richard Stastny on Internet Wiretapping

VoIP and ENUM: Internet Wiretapping

Posted by jeff at 08:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (31)

One Hotel in Chicago that doesn’t offer free Wi-Fi:


…but at least the TV is in color and the Air “is free.”

Posted by jeff at 08:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Looking back at 2002: My Notes from Fall 2002 VON

I just stumbled across notes that I used during for my talk at Fall 2002 VON. 2002 wasn’t a great year for many of us and it took a lot of courage back then to stay the course and follow the dream of what IP Communications would evolve into.

Looking back and then looking forward, it was Skype that started with that clean sheet of paper and maybe it will be 2006 that will be the year for Wi-Fi VoIP. Three years later, my wish list referenced below still remains very much “a wish list.”

My Notes from Fall 2002 VON: Carpe Diem!

In the weeks leading up to Fall 2002 VON I spent a lot of time looking at the state of where thing were, worried about what to say about where things are going, and what I realized is that the same fundamentals that made it clear that the Internet would absorb voice as just another application still remain.

”Our industry doesn't need hype to survive. No one doubts the future of communications is IP communications and I believe that IP Communications is unstoppable. But what the industry still needs are customers, and to get customers we should consider starting with a clean sheet of paper. Why a clean sheet a paper? Looking at our recent past, gateways to the PSTN provided bridges but not much innovation and in fact created bottlenecks. The opportunity we have is to enhance communication between people and we should not be limited by dialing locations and phone numbers. To date, we have been limited in our thinking based on what previously existed rather than what was possible. We were limited by the artificial barriers of being as good as the PSTN when in fact we could always (in theory) deliver something better. We need to be able to build and create without regard to legacy protocols and legacy requirements. Having a clean sheet of paper would give us the opportunity to have a fresh start and to try again to take advantage of IP. It is up to us as an industry to harness the real power of IP and convert its potential energy into kinetic energy. As an industry we still need to take chances and we must continue to experiment.

In the October 2002 issue of Red Herring I found the following quote which seems to make this point: "When Visionary people use different technologies as interchangable parts, unexpected and important combinations results. The Wright Brothers used bicycle parts to build their airplane."

We can't be afraid to take chances and make mistakes. We still need to stumble across our future together and dare to be different and dare to make the mistakes that will turn into tomorrow's inventions and innovations...We need to become viral again! We as an industry need to go back to a time when internet telephony was viral and people were scared of our power, of our future. The community building power first demonstrated by iPhone back in 1995. For 2003 another viral opportunity exists, this time look for the growth of dedicated consumer electronic devices that deliver VoIP over WiFi. Our future is bigger than the past, 95% of what Communications will be was developed in the last six years. Looking at my wish list of what I believe the Industry needs, my short list includes:

- A royalty free, single variable bit rate adaptive codec from dialup to broadband.
- Low cost, low end IP edge devices.
- Service Providers to deploy an architecture that distributes service execution.
- Take advantage of the great QoS available today on the Internet's backbone.
- IPv6 needs to be supported and rolled out.
- The Purple Minutes battle cry has yet to be truly heard.
- Drop the IP in front of IP Communications since we really represent the future of the Communications Industry.

Carpe Diem!

Seize the Day!”

Posted by jeff at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

October 15, 2005

Jeremy Allaire on Distruptive Broadcasting:

Industry Perspectives: The Transformation of Television on the Internet

Posted by jeff at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

This week in my corner of the Blogosphere:

This past week news and commentary about Yahoo! and Microsoft connecting their IM Networks was the common thread across a number of the blogs that I read including: Andy Abramson, Andy Abramson #2, Peter Saint-André, David Daniels, Om Malik, Alec Saunders, Russel Shaw.

Oh, and I also had a word or two to share. While they talk about connecting 185 (MSN) + 82.1 (Y!) million accounts what we don't know is how many unique people this represents both on a individual network basis and then when these two networks are combined, as well as how many of these accounts have been active during the past three to six months. This is a significant announcement on all accounts but I prefer a grounded reality when it comes to the accounting for the combined reach. Also, I understand that MSN and Yahoo! will be using SIP/SIMPLE to interconnect their server domains.

The BIG issue on my mind this week was my: WARNING: The FCC Extends CALEA's reach to the Internet which: Andy Abramson, Jon Arnold, James Enck, Aswath Rao, Alec Saunders, Richard Stastny, techdirt, and Kevin Werbach commented on. Since this isn't an issue that is going away anytime soon, I do hope to hear from other members of the blogosphere on this topic.

(10/16 edits: added Aswath Rao, Richard Stastny, Andy Abramson, techdirt)

I also enjoyed reading Martin Geddes' Gopher 2.0 Conference Announcement and Tom Evslin's discussion of "Bubble 2.0 – The Long Tail of Supply."

Posted by jeff at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)

October 14, 2005

WARNING: The FCC Extends CALEA's reach to the Internet

If you recall, back on August 5th, the FCC adopted its First Report and Order on Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act and Broadband Access and Services. We finally saw the text of the Order some 7 weeks later on September 23. Back in early August, we had suspected that the FCC would likely adopt an Order imposing some degree of CALEA obligations upon either "managed" or "interconnected" VoIP services.

The perceived logic was that the FCC would have to adopt new CALEA obligations for "Information Services" if it was going to adopt an Order in the Wireline Broadband Services proceeding that would designate DSL and other wireline Broadband Internet access services as "Information Services" and therefore no longer subject to Title II Telecom regulations. If the FCC had simply played its definitional shell game, relabeling Internet access services as "Information Services" not "Telecom Services" and moving wireline Internet access services out of Title II and into Title I, then, in one fell swoop, the FCC might have lost the current authority to impose CALEA obligations on these newly designated non-Telecom, non-Title II services. In order to assuage concerns from DOJ/FBI/DEA, the FCC had to simultaneously ensure that CALEA would continue to apply without interruption to these redesignated services. Thus, the FCC adopted (even if it did not release and, maybe, had not fully fleshed out its rationale for) the CALEA Order for VoIP services, concurrent with adoption of the Wireline Broadband Order.

We noticed something rather disturbing in the Order, but something which I, at least, was afraid to articulate for fear that saying it out loud would make it real. It seems, the FCC Order may have gone well beyond what DOJ/FBI/DEA had requested, in terms of the scope of CALEA's imposition on Internet-based communications. Having heard no one else flag this potentially devastating blow to the Internet, I opted to keep my mouth shut and hoped that I had misinterpreted a few alarming sentences from the Order.

You see, DOJ/FBI/DEA had only petitioned the FCC to extend CALEA to "managed" VoIP services. Now, "managed" is a term that could be subject to varying interpretations, but I felt somewhat comfortable that purer, peer-to-peer Internet communications, without managed support from an intermediating service provider, would not fall under the ambit of CALEA (normal, lawful, Fourth Amendment-compliant, subpoena processes, of course, would provide government with lawful intercept authority).

It seems, the FCC (at whose suggestion, I know not) went well beyond the request of DOJ/FBI/DEA and ordered that CALEA apply to "interconnected" VoIP services, similar to the services subject to the FCC's earlier Order imposing E-911 obligations upon "interconnected" VoIP services. But wait, it gets even more extreme. It seems that the CALEA rules might actually extend beyond "interconnected" VoIP services and arguably apply more broadly to services that traverse the Internet and are simply "capable" of touching the PSTN. Paragraph 39 of the CALEA Order is particularly troubling. I have been reluctant to flag this potential problem to the world just yet, but if construed broadly, privacy and freedom on the public Internet are truly jeopardized and this is the first effort by a regulatory body to regulate pure Internet-based services, even those that do not interconnect with the public switched telephone network.

Here is, perhaps, the most disturbing section of the CALEA Order:

"Para 39. We conclude that CALEA applies to providers of 'interconnected
VoIP services' [as defined in the FCC VoIP E911 Order]. We find that
providers of interconnected VoIP services satisfy CALEA's definition of
"telecommunications carrier" under the SRP and that CALEA's Information
Services Exclusion does not apply to interconnected VoIP services. To be
clear, a service offering is "interconnected VoIP" if it offers the
CAPABILITY (emphasis added) for users to receive calls from and terminate
calls to the PSTN; THE OFFERING IS COVERED BY CALEA FOR ALL VOIP
COMMUNICATIONS, EVEN THOSE THAT DO NOT INVOLVE THE PSTN (emphasis added).
Furthermore, the offering is covered regardless of how the interconnected
VoIP provider facilitates access to and from the PSTN, whether directly or
by making arrangements with a third party."

Obviously, it is very hard to argue for such vague principles as liberty and privacy against the backdrop of government's desire to control potential terrorist threats, even against unnecessary and overly-intrusive encroachment on the Internet. I would be the last to oppose government's attempts to protect our national security, but there are lawful processes in place that allow government access to communications without adopting regulatorily-imposed micro-management of the Internet and its enabling technologies and configurations. Companies subject to US law already have to comply with government-issued subpoena. What information can CALEA get at that a valid subpoena could not? The real problem with CALEA's broad extension to the Internet is not the intrusive nature of the law so much as the cost of compliance and allowing government to micro-manage technology?

One illogical point (which creeps into all of the recent efforts to regulate IP-based communications) is that the regulatory hook used to impose CALEA on the Internet is the fact that the IP application being intercepted is the "voice" application. Email, text message, video streams all remain beyond the scope of CALEA, as does every foreign provider of VoIP, at least for the moment. Governments around the world still look to the US for direction and the steps the FCC takes have the effect of dragging the global industry and the regulatory super-structure into a negative tailspin.

I think it is also important to note that the only people whom the FCC-mandated regulation of the Internet will catch are either law-abiding users who do not need to be caught within CALEA's net or the stupidest of criminals, unable to figure out how to stay beyond the reach of the regulatory net by, for instance, using any of the countless communications means or applications other than those of US-based voice application providers.

I am now reaching out to you, fellow Internet entrepreneurs, innovators, enthusiasts and members of the blogosphere. What should our strategy be to protect the Internet from government intrusion? Do we seek clarification from the FCC to narrow the scope of this Order? Do we sue the FCC for over-broad application of the CALEA statute? Is CALEA the best issue upon which to halt the regulatory creep upon the Internet? Frankly, lawful intercept is the one social good that does not readily lend itself to market solutions. The industry will obviously develop better emergency response and disabilities access solutions, but the market alone might not compel every application or service provider or vendor or end-user to use technology and solutions that will allow for lawful intercept. For this reason, it might be problematic to use CALEA as vehicle to stop government interference with the Internet. I welcome your thoughts and extension of this dialogue.


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Posted by jeff at 06:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (807)

Peggy Miles on Internet Broadcasting:

I couldn't help but notice Peggy's blog entry on Internet Broadcasting Then and Now

Posted by jeff at 01:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

October 13, 2005

Dave Burstein on post-Katrina communications, universal service, net freedom and user control of video on the net (the other VON):

I've always been a big fan of Dave Burstein. It reassures me when we are on the same page on an issue. I also find it thought-provoking even when we might diverge. He always finds an interesting angle. I have not spent too much time in my blog focusing on universal service issues and implications. Dave has. Here is some of Dave's coverage post Katrina, in which he considers universal service issues, the role of wireless and the role of IP:

From DSL Prime:

After Katrina:

"The City of New Orleans, starting this weekend, will start to breathe
again," is great to hear from their mayor, but FCC Commissioner Adelstein is
being more realistic. “It was devastation like nothing I have ever seen
before, and hope never to see again. The horrifying images we have seen in
the media over the past couple of weeks were no preparation. Seeing the
destruction and personal loss up close, it is worse than I could have ever
imagined.” (emphasis added)

Rebuilding New Orleans deserves the best thinking in our industry,
supporting Bill Smith and others in building the best network. Some
decisions are easy. If you're ripping up the streets anyway, “Just go ahead
and install fiber" and IP, AT&T's Hossein Eslambolchi tells Leslie Cauley at
USA Today. Wireless towers need bigger batteries. Government radios should
be able to talk on the same frequency. If Cannes and Kyoto are getting 100
megabit, so should New Orleans.

The most horrifying part of the Katrina saga was the deaths because no
one thought to send buses to evacuate the people who didn't have cars. There
have been times in my life I didn't have bus fare either. Thousands of lives
were saved by wired and wireless phones. Some lives, possibly many, were
lost because others couldn't afford a phone. That tells us we need to find a
way to get inexpensive phones to nearly everyone. Instead, BellSouth is
beginning a campaign to raise phone rates, Jessica Zufolo reports. Duane
Ackerman's preacher should remind him of the obligation of Christians to the
poor.

One key way the FCC chairman can save lives is by making sure basic
phone service remains affordable. Only political indifference prevents a
basic cellphone from being available for $10 a month or so, the price in
many countries. BellSouth CFO Ron Dykes has explained wireless networks are
expensive to build but have a very low marginal cost, allowing users to be
added at little cost. The wired network is similar, with the marginal
subscribers at basic rate adding relatively little to the network cost. That
should include a basic DSL service as well - BT is proving that IP voice and
data are cheaper to operate than the traditional network can handle just
data.

After Katrina, two facts stand out and call for forceful action. I'll be
leading a VON session with a few good ideas After Katrina Wednesday at 4:30

- Working telephones save lives - if people can afford to have them.
The high priority policy implication is to keep basic rates low and no one
cut off from emergency services. Verizon and Sprint this week began a 60%
rise in the cost of basic telephony in hurricane-prone Florida, and the FCC
did nothing. Nada. The AT&T/SBC and Verizon/MCI deals are likely to be
approved without eliminating the surcharge they've added to every phone even
if the user makes virtually no long distance calls.

- Redundancy creates reliability. Only a Vonage VOIP line connected
the Mayor of New Orleans and the U.S. President when BellSouth went down.
The cheapest and hence easiest new network to add is wireless. This should
start ASAP, whether it's a municipal build, a public-private partnership, an
out of territory Bell, or Clear Wire as provider. Include a few batteries,
of course, but make it happen. Finance it out of the public safety budget,
or even better, out of the E-Rate. Eliminate the cartel rules on E-Rate
funding that keep out wireless competition.


From Charles Hall in Baton Rouge:
Universal service - wired and wireless - saves lives
“As the flood waters rose, many people were saved because they were able to
use their mobile to call for help, many from their homes' attics and roofs.
It would seem obvious that communities in area likely to be hit by
destructive forces - earthquakes on the West Coast, tornadoes in the
Midwest, terrorists in the major cities - should go wireless broadband as
soon as practical. There would at least be a chance that Internet access and
its communications capabilities would be available - instant messaging and
VoIP, for example. There is no reason in 2005 that every family should not
have affordable high-speed Internet access, especially in an emergency.

With regards to communications, it became immediately obvious that cell
phones are superior to landlines in any such disaster area. Every phone and
cable TV line in the impacted area went down almost as soon as Katrina
struck. Cell phones became the only way to communicate - no email of course
without a phone or cable TV line. Mobile phone service took its hits as
backup batteries ran down and the network stayed overloaded for days. The
loss of electricity also means people can't recharge their batteries.”

Hall, whose Online Reporter is one of the most useful in telecom, had
power restored to his home in Baton Rouge fairly quickly and no major
damage. He's been spending much of his time since Katrina as a volunteer.

***

When Dave and I are on the same page, focusing on the same subject, he still manages to find a compelling perspective that adds to my own thinking:

Should Ed Whitacre and Brian Roberts choose your TV viewing?

Freedom to access content of your choice under attack Cisco, Dell, Amazon and Google just had a major failure in D.C. on what they call the key issue. Last year, under pressure from Mike Powell to protect open access, SBC was very clear. “SBC does not plan to give meaningful preference (in terms of bandwidth allocation) to any particular video service or video content provider. ... We don't plan to limit access from computers or give bandwidth preference to content.” Now, in the language of the Barton bill is a buried provision that allow the carriers to effectively block video that competes with them. Some very bad reporting missed that implication of the exceptions based on QOS and network limits, which are being deployed in a way that will clobber competitive video. The result is far less effective than what SBC had already promised last year. More depth next issue, but I hope my readers at the key tech companies get to work on this one, fast. There's a lot of rhetoric coming from D.C. that is simply false when you read the bills and understand what they imply. I hope it's just that the lobbyists don't understand the issues, not that the tech community so ineffectual. Craig Mundie, this is the big one.

Bill Safire - this is the guts of the next media concentration debate. One telco reports 80% of their programming comes from just 6 companies. Time to wave the flag. I'll have more depth next issue.

--

You can subcribe to Dave's DSL Prime by visiting: http://www.dslprime.com

Posted by jeff at 08:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (55)

October 12, 2005

Microsoft and Yahoo! Interconnect: but not until Q2 2006, so why announce now?

Another sign that we are living in the days of a new bubble: Two internet companies make a joint announcement early in Q4 2005 for a service that doesn’t become available until sometime in Q2 2006.

Today’s announcement of Yahoo! and Microsoft interconnect for IM and VoIP services would have been a lot more effective, if today was also the day that consumers could take advantage of the interconnected services.

I miss the days when a company would make an announcement and deliver on the announcement in the same day, same week, same month, same quarter or even the same year.

Posted by jeff at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (24)

MSN and Yahoo! Finally Connect IM Networks: But is it too late? And Who Really Cares?

This morning there are news reports across the net that Microsoft and Yahoo! have reached a deal to interconnect their respective Instant Messaging (IM) Networks.

Back in the summer of 1999, back when the “Instant Messaging Wars” were in full swing, there was a time when even Jay Leno on the Tonight show was heard making fun of the fact that users of AOL’s instant messaging (IM) platform and Microsoft’s instant messaging platform were not able to communicate with each other. Jay wasn’t making fun of Yahoo! and MSN, it was AOL and MSN.

As far as I can tell, the only possible reason Yahoo! and MSN got together to share their networks was to create a reason for the people who were once actively using their IM services, to come back. In the six years since AOL, Yahoo! and MSN were not allowing IM traffic from each other on their respective networks, the entire IM landscape has changed. These days it is the success of Skype attracting millions of active IMers away from the “traditional” IM networks of: AOL/MSN/Yahoo!/ICQ, coupled with Jabber’s continued success in the Enterprise IM space and Google’s recent entry into the consumer IM market space that collectively eroded the market share of active IM users away from the “traditional” IM players that finally gave a reason for some of the “traditional” IM competitors to find a way to work together. This reminds me of the “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” mentality. It will be interesting to see what actions, if any, AOL now takes.

Now, over the years, it has been proven that if someone wanted to communicate with a friend on any given IM network, they could simply download the software associated with the IM network, get an account on that network, and just communicate. There never were any real barriers for anyone to maintain multiple IM accounts on the competing IM networks. Some of the more sophisticated users who felt they had a need to simultaneously communicate across multiple IM networks ended up using software solutions that included like applications Trillian and pulver.Communicator which offered the ability to communicate across the competing IM platforms. In fact, over the years, the lack of interoperability between the IM networks had become in reality, a non-issue.

Six years into the IM Wars, while the reported linking of the MSN and Yahoo! IM Networks will undoubtedly generate a lot of “earned media”, I don’t believe the news that these two companies interconnected their two IM networks together really matters all that much on its own. It is only to the extent that news of this collaboration helps drive all of the independent IM networks to one day soon empower their customers with the ability to seamlessly communicate with each other, using supported open IETF standards which in turn helps drive more people to use end-to-end IP communication services, that the news today really is a true watershed event and ends up becoming a significant milestone in the evolution of Internet Communications.

I look ahead to the time when we can all give out our IM-VoIP SIP and email URI, using a format similar to: firstname.lastname@example.com, which in the process eliminates the need to give someone a telephone number. The services (or should I say applications?) will use the SIMPLE/SIP standards to interwork, just as phone companies do today.

Posted by jeff at 07:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (77)

October 11, 2005

"Early Bird" Registration for our "Peripheral Visionaries' Summit" ends on Friday

Our Peripheral Visionaries IP-Based Communications Summit will be taking place on Thursday, November 10th at the Washington Plaza Hotel, Washington D.C. The Summit will bring together the leading academics, analysts, innovators, entrepreneurs, and visionaries experimenting with the limits of IP technology, to mix and mingle with the leading advocates and decision makers building the policies that will shape the IP-enabled future.

The goal of this event is to provide a platform within the Beltway to allow thought-leaders to cross-pollinate, to share their perspectives, insight and wisdom, and to develop a better, more complete understanding of how policy and technology might evolve together in a mutually virtuous cycle to advance and create the most positive communications future. I am convinced that this event is unlike any other one day conference most people may have attended, featuring a rare combination of provocative panelists and delegates -- all bringing a distinct perspective to the ever-evolving communications landscape and the public policy affecting it.

By all measures, our last Peripheral Visionaries' Summit, held last May, was a big hit and a pretty rare event in D.C. The give and take between the policymakers, advocates, technologists, innovators, entrepreneurs and visionaries provided thought-provoking commentary. All participants left with a broader vision and a better appreciation for all sides of IP-based communications.

Readers of my blog who believe in the goals of the summit are encoraged to register for this event by Friday, October 14th.

By the way, we will be awarding the "Peripheral Visionary" Award to a surprise recipient whom history has proven to be ahead of his/her time, a visionary who may even have been ignored or castigated, but whose vision has been realized over time.

Posted by jeff at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

ENUM Ignored by Australian Service Providers:

ZDNet Australia: Telcos ignore ENUM trials

"...The tipping point for ENUM to take off in Australia..would be when VoIP saturation in the population reaches a certain level -- potentially 30 percent -- which would encourage VoIP service providers to start offering ENUM with their VoIP services..."

Posted by jeff at 06:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (34)

October 10, 2005

My Day Playing in the 2005 World Series of Poker: Airs on ESPN on October 18th

For about a week back in July, my blog's focus shifted to the 2005 World Series of Poker (WSOP) where I was one of the 5,619 people to compete in the "Main Event" - WSOP Game #42 (1c). This was the largest number of people to ever compete in the World Series of Poker.

The week I spent in Las Vegas while the "Main Event" was taking place was pretty amazing. While I was at the 2005 WSOP, I took a number of photos of the professional poker players and some of the celebrities who were playing in the event. In fact, a photo that I took of Jennifer Tilly made it into her Poker section in about.com.

As a first time player in the World Series of Poker, my initial goal was to make it through the first day of play, a feat which I managed to do. :)

For ESPN, The World Series of Poker is a reality TV show where ESPN has to rely on filming all of the tables during all 8 days of the “main event” using 22 different cameras crews. It only after the event finishes can EPSN then work backwards, knowing who won the game and who made to the final table to then review the tapes to figure out which players to focus on during each of the segments that they air on ESPN.

During the time that I played in the WSOP, the only table that had the famous "mini-cams" was the "featured" table. The people who played at the “featured” table were hand picked by the one of the people running the tournament.

While I was playing at the WSOP, there were literally hundreds of people standing in the aisles around all of the tables. It turns out that watching people playing poker by standing in the aisles is almost as exciting as standing up to watch paint dry. Poker is one of the only sports that is more fun to watch on TV than in person due to the invention and implementation of the mini-cam.

My début in "Reality TV" takes place on ESPN on October 18th at 8pm EST when ESPN airs 2005 World Series of Poker "Main Event" Day 1(c).

During the 14 hours that I spent at table 17 on Day 1c playing poker, there were a few times that a camera crew visited our table. My only hope of not ending up on the editing room floor is for one (or more) of the people I played against to have made it far enough into the tournament to become someone who mattered.

Looking back, the “Main Event” of the World Series of Poker could also be produced as a reality TV show called: “Poker Survivor.” This is something I believe Mark Burnett could eventually have some fun with. There an element of sleep deprivation that eventually comes into play as those who survive during the “Main Event” end up playing poker for 13-15 hrs a day straight over the eight days. Playing in the WSOP is playing in the ultimate game of survival, where everyone is playing for themselves and where everyone is out to get you.

Congrats once again to everyone who survived the first days of play and managed to be one of the people to place “in the money” at the 2005 World Series of Poker.

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Posted by jeff at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (56)

October 09, 2005

New Internet TV Channels: vh1’s VSpot and MTV Overdrive

As Cable TV Networks work on their broadband Internet TV strategy, vh1's launch of VSpot and MTV's launch of MTV Overdrive are interesting version 1.0's of what we can expect other cable channels will be launching in 2006 and 2007.

The end-user experience for viewing Internet TV is only going improve over time.

Welcome to the world of “Disruptive Broadcasting.”

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Posted by jeff at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (43)

October 08, 2005

This week in my corner of the Blogosphere:

This past week news and commentary about the Sprint Nextel Lawsuit was the common thread across a number of the blogs that I read including: Andy Abramson, Andy Abramson (#2), Jon Arnold, Cynthia Brumfield, Mark Evans, Martin Geddes, Olga Kharif, Om Malik, Aswath Rao, Alec Saunders and Russel Shaw. Oh, and I also had something to say about the merits of the lawsuit.

Issues on my mind this week included the question: Are we at the Crossroads of the Internet Communications Revolution? which Alec Saunders addressed and my belief that IPTV Needs a New Name.

I also looked back at the history of VON and announced the re-launch of the FWD website.


Posted by jeff at 06:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Mad Voiper Returns...

This week the MadVoiper returned to the blogosphere after taking some time off to enjoy Fall 2005 VON and play a little poker. He then turned up the cranky knob since after all, he is called: "The Mad VoIPer."

Posted by jeff at 02:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Cameron Crowe: On the Music of Elizabethtown

For Cameron Crowe, the music in his movies plays a role as important as any of the characters in his films. The soundtrack of Elizabethtown follows this tradition.

While exploring The Video Collection @ Google, I discovered this documentary where Cameron discusses the music in his movies.

I happen to be a long time fan of Cameron Crowe as both a writer and a director and in 2004 I had a brief encounter with Cameron that felt like a scene right out of the movie "Almost Famous."

Below is a picture I took of Cameron and his wife Nancy Wilson at the 2004 Rock and Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. Cameron was there in support of his friend Jann Wenner who was inducted at the 2004 event.

Cameron Crowe and Nancy Wilson


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Posted by jeff at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

October 07, 2005

IPTV Needs a New Name:

There is still time to come up with a more descriptive term that is less limiting than just calling IPTV, well IPTV.

IPTV may be easy to spell but to me “Internet Television” it is just as old fashioned as the term “Internet Telephony.”

It was at back in 1997 at an ACM Conference when Vint Cerf said: "I would submit that, someday, the phrase Internet telephony will sound as archaic as 'horseless carriage' sounds today." In 2005 the same can be said about the term “Internet Television.”

IPTV does not do justice to just how “disruptive” the advent of “IPTV” is going to be to the traditional broadcast industry. In my mind, the scope of “IPTV” innovations includes everything from the advent of SlingMedia to events like the Internet broadcast of Live8 to the launch of Internet only TV stations like ManiaTV! with a lot more to come on the horizon.

Following the existing format of the term “IPTV”, might mean that “VoIP” should be called “IPV.”

IPTV to me sounds like IP over TV. At the very least IPTV should morph into being known as: TVoIP. Even TVIP would be an improvement. This way the term follows the “VoIP” format and we can refer to “Television over IP” just like we speak about “Voice over IP” today. Not perfect, but an improvement over the existing IPTV terminology.

If you have a suggestion for a new name for “IPTV”, please feel free to share it here or drop me a line.


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Posted by jeff at 06:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (48)

October 06, 2005

A short history of VON and our plans for 2006:

Looking back, today is around the day ten years ago that I started working on the launch of what became VON. Back then, I worked from an “office” in my home on Long Island. It wasn’t until November, 1997 that I took a room in my accountant’s office in Melville, NY that eventually grew into pulver.com.

Since the launch of VON in April, 1997 in San Francisco, over the years and throughout the world, our events have attracted many of the great minds in our space and VON has over time, evolved into the recognized industry event for the IP Communications space.

Back in October, 1996 when I first started working on the idea of producing the first VON event, I made the decision to run VON twice a year in the US. Historically, our US VON events have always been our “biggest” events and these events have always had a global focus. Our recent Fall 2005 VON once again brought together people from the five major continents, representing over 60 countries in total. Spring 2006 VON will mark the 10th Anniversary of the launch of VON and I’m already looking forward to our return to San Jose.

At Fall 1997 VON, I was approached by several European vendors and asked to consider doing a VON event in Europe which lead to the eventual 1998 launch of VON Europe using the same team that produces our US based VON events. VON Europe has taken place once a year since then. VON Europe is a true pan-European event and at VON Europe 2005 delegates from over 65 countries spent time with us in Stockholm.

In 2003, as I observed the number of companies entering the VoIP space in Canada, As a result, I decided to launch VON Canada in 2004 as a domestic Canadian event focused on the Canadian IP Communications Industry. VON Canada became known as “Voice on the Net Canada” because of a run-in we had with the Victorian Order of Nurses who felt that in Canada, VON stood for them and not for us. In 2005, Voice on the Net Canada attracted delegates from all of the Canadian Provinces and we are looking forward to continued growth at VON Canada 2006.

During 2004 and 2005 as I watched the IP Communications Industry grow, I started working on growing pulver.com into a world class events and media company that could support a worldwide portfolio of various events and other related activities. The first step in the process was the opening of our office in Beverly, MA in 2004. In April this year, Jason Chudnofsky joined our team as CEO and in June pulvermedia was launched. pulvermedia now is the organization that is responsible for all of the events that we produce and is the umbrella organization responsible for our media activities.

As we looked at the global take-off of IP Communications in 2005, a decision was made to follow the VON Canada model and launch a series of domestic, (national) events in countries where VoIP is happening. This in turn lead to the planning and launch of: VON Mexico, VON Russia, VON UK and VON Japan in 2006. Each of these respective events are focused on the state of IP Communications in their respective countries. These events will be a great place to be for companies who are looking to do more business inside of these countries. As I looked at the continued growth of the European IP Communications industry, a decision was made to introduce a second Europe VON event in 2006. This in turn lead to the announcement of Autumn 2006 VON Europe which will be a pan-European event taking place in Berlin. Spring 2006 VON Europe will be taking place again in Stockholm.

It has been an amazing ride with great memories during the 10 years from where VON was just an idea to where it is today, and I appreciate the continued support we have had over the years from the community of people who make up the evolving IP Communications industry. While there are many individual people to acknowledge for their contributions to our success including the members of the pulver.com team over the years, the one person who I would like to thank is my dad for his encouragement in the early days. While he is no longer around in the physical world, and I continue to miss his presence, I continue to try to follow the leadership and entrepreneurship that he taught me.

Posted by jeff at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

October 05, 2005

BusinessWeek Online on the Sprint-Nextel vs. Vonage Lawsuit

BusinessWeek - The Tech Beat: Sprint-Nextel vs. Vonage: First Bicker, Then Make Up?

"I just got done reading a 13-page lawsuit, alleging that Vonage, providing popular VoIP services, infringed on telco Sprint-Nextel's patents. And I have to say that this is the tiniest, and the least detailed lawsuit I've ever seen..."

Posted by jeff at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New Book: 'SIP Beyond VoIP' Reflects Next Evolution in Internet Communications

The new book SIP Beyond VoIP, written by world-class SIP experts: Henry Sinnreich, Alan Johnston and Robert Sparks is now available for sale.

"SIP beyond VoIP" defines the shift to Internet Communications' global Open Standards.

This is a book that should be read by just about anyone who is interested in the technology side of the communications and networking space. The table of contents speaks for itself and it available online.

This is the same book that delegates who attended the Fall 2005 VON Conference received.

Posted by jeff at 08:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

October 04, 2005

So...Did Sprint Nextel also Invent SIP?

It must have been a slow week for the Intellectual Property attorneys at Sprint Nextel Corp.

Earlier today they filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Vonage and Voiceglo, alleging these companies infringed seven of their VoIP related patents.

I have to wonder why Sprint Nextel would single out just Vonage and Voiceglo.

And I have to believe that even if Sprint Nextel can prove some kind of far-fetched patent violation, there should be plenty of “prior art” that would pre-date any of the Sprint Nextel claims from 2001. For the record, it has been over twenty years after voice was first sent over the ARPANet.

From what I remember, Vonage built their service around various SIP RFCs. Does this mean that Sprint Nextel thinks they invented SIP? I wonder who will be next in Sprint Nextel lawsuit parade.

When I read about this lawsuit, the first thing that came to mind were the claims that BT once made asserting that they owned the patent on hypertext links, a claim that they eventually lost.

I have to believe this is a lawsuit with even less merit.

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Posted by jeff at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (178)

New FWD® Website

The FWD® Web Team is proud to announce the launch of a new community focused FWD® website.

This has been a work-in-process for the past few months and will continue to evolve over time.

Posted by jeff at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (40)

October 03, 2005

Are we at the Crossroads of the Internet Communications Revolution?

Shortly after Fall VON 2005, a friend wrote me the following: "I was struck by the amount of border (Session Border Controllers) and IMS stuff at VON. There's something worrisome when the old guard think that SIP and VoIP are just for them."

Over the years, the team that produces our VON events does everything it can to ensure that VON provides the "big tent" that accurately reflects the IP Communications industry market realities both in our conference sessions and on our exhibit floor. At VON, we whole-heartedly promote the integrity of the Internet and its architecture, while providing an expo and platform for speakers that reflect the industry "as is." The VON conferences have been the home for innovation and have also provided an opportunity for the "old guard" companies to come to see the reality of the Internet on its home turf, and to get an accurate glimpse of the current and evolving state of telephony. At Fall 2005 VON, we also started to see the real-time transformation of the communications industry and the computing industry into a new, emerging space.

One of my own take-aways from Fall 2005 VON was that the members of the "old guard" have decided to rebuild their "walled gardens" using the technologies developed by the IETF. While it is great to see the mainstream adoption of IP based technologies, I can't help to also feel concerned about this growing trend of building IP based "walled gardens."

The fact that the "old guard" also seems to have the ear of telecom regulators was not ignored at Fall 2005 VON either.

When I look at the future of IP Communications, I've been fairly consistent over the past ten years that I believe in "true open Internet Communications" and "End User Empowerment." These are virtues I still believe in today.

The session at Fall 2005 VON on Emergency Services for Internet Communications shared a vision of what we can expect in the future by leveraging the power of IP technology from recognized leaders in the Internet community from North America, Europe and Japan. Nothing could have been further from the present focus of regulators’ imposition upon IP-based communications providers of innovation-stifling, backward-looking, cookie-cutter PSTN-based, narrowband, E-911 obligations. (I have yet to see a smoking gun indicating the old guards support is actually encouraging regulators to stymie IP-based communications from independent providers, but I would not be surprised to discover that the old guard has given tacit approval of regulatory efforts to slow-roll potential competition from unaffiliated IP-based communications providers.)

Now, I'm not too surprised that the "old guard" has decided to adopt IP communication technologies as it turns out that members of the "old guard" have been actively funding some of the ongoing work in the IETF. A number of people making the contributions at the IETF are also working for old guard companies. While I would like to believe that these are people who are dedicated to promoting the Internet, and that they are the Internet champions within their old guard companies, the companies for whom they are working may have a different purpose for the work being done.

Today we may be sitting at the crossroads of the Internet Communications Revolution. My hope is that the market will decide not to embrace "walled gardens", but, rather, embrace a future where the effects of Moore's Law and Metcalf's Law enable people to communicate with people with a freedom never before experienced and where the innovations enabled by Internet Communications are given the chance to truly shine.

To quote the Clash: "The Future is Unwritten." With this, lies my hope that we will be making the right decisions on the communication road map for our future.

Posted by jeff at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (33)

October 02, 2005

Red Sox: Winners of the 2005 AL Wildcard. Next stop Chicago.

This weekend fans of both the Red Sox and the Yankees had the best of both worlds...both teams ended the weekend as winners (with identical records) and both will be playing in the 2005 AL Postseason.

With the Mets season over weeks ago, it was great to watch the Red Sox hold on to their composure and beat the Yankees 2 out of 3 games this weekend. This weekend’s series should help set the tone should both teams meet again in the 2005 ALCS.

Lets Go Red Sox!

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Posted by jeff at 05:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Madison Avenue also "Thinks in the Shower:"

A few years ago I observed that I did my best thinking in the shower. I remember seeing a survey last year about this and only 5% of the people surveyed referenced "the shower" as the place they did their best thinking.

Last week, Carl Ford shared with me a print advertisement from Hitachi that included a Patent application glued to the back of the it. The ad copy made reference to "thinking in the shower" and suggested to the reader to fill out the patent application after they took a shower and felt inspired. (I wonder how many new patent applications will be generated by this ad campaign.)

This weekend I've seen a FedEx Kinkos TV Ad that involves a team meeting taking place in a shower because that is where the executive running the meeting gets his best ideas.

I wonder which company will be the next one to showcase "the shower" as a place for ideas and inspiration.

Posted by jeff at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

October 01, 2005

In Search of Kaos: Looking for the next “Get Smart”

The passing of Don Adams, the face of Get Smart, will be missed by the generation of kids who grew up watching “Get Smart” and all of the re-runs.

While much has already been said about Don Adams, the reason I have referred to “Get Smart” over the years as something that has been an influence in my life was because of the writers from the show. Looking back, I found the writing of both Mel Brooks and Buck Henry to be at times visionary. It was the writing of Brooks and Henry that foreshadowed and illustrated the concept of mobility for a generation.

While Science Fiction writers have traditionally foreshowed the invention of many things, I am not aware of many other situation comedies in the history of Television that was known for being a platform for technology innovation.

As the new TV season is underway in the United States, forty years after the premier of “Get Smart” I am still looking for the next “Get Smart.”

Posted by jeff at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I want my ISP-TV!

In 1996, ISP-TV was launched and was one of the Internet’s first independent TV stations. During Internet World in December, 1996, I remember being interviewed by Brock Meeks and Doug Mohney in a temporary ISP-TV studio setup in an Internet Café in NYC’s “Alphabet City.” Ten years later that experience still stands out as one of my defining moments in the early days of pulver.com.

Ten years later, as new independent voices discover themselves and put into production Internet TV stations like ManiaTV!, I’m reminded about how cool ISP-TV really was, albeit ahead of it’s time. And ManiaTV! is no ISP-TV.

I’m not sure what it would take for to convince Doug Humphrey and Doug Mohney to give ISP-TV another chance, but I wish they would. We now are living in times where consumers know how to spell “broadband” and in a time where the cost to produce and view high-quality Internet TV programming is significantly less than it was 10 years ago.

I want my ISP-TV!

Posted by jeff at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)