Reflecting back over 2008 I've tried to think of the things that we real highlights among close friends and colleagues in the industry. I've come up with two highlights. Let me tell you what they are first, then I'll explain why they're highlights.

First from my friends Pat Phelan and Florian Seroussi, we saw TwitterFone. It's an interesting little integration between Twitter and the telephone network that let's you call a number and post a "tweet" from your phone. Speach to text in a nice little integration package.

From other friends Stuart Henshall and David Beckmeyer we saw Phweet. It's a different sort of integration between the telephone and Twitter that lets you set up a conference call via Twitter.

Side Note: Read Stuart's great story about Phweet and his year end wrap post My Year End Review and Thanks).

Why are these two apps important you ask. Let me explain.

I believe the interface to computerized resources is changing in the months ahead. I believe the old fashioned GUI is going to give way to a new VUI (Voice User Interface) as speech-to-text and text-to-speech conversion engines get faster, more efficient and cheaper. TwitterFone exemplifies the prototype of how the next generation of Communications Enhanced Business Processes will operate. While this app might seem silly to people who aren't Twitterholids, it demonstrates how users will be able to interact with voice to corporate systems for placing orders, supply chain management and any number of business activities in the future. As the work force becomes increasingly mobile and requires new tools to be productive, this technology shines a real light on that road to the future.

Phweet does something else that's new. For telephony geeks, we remember that before SS7 signaling was implemented to take phone network signals out of band to a separate network, signaling frequency (SF at 2600 Hz) was carried within the voice badn. SS7 took signaling out of band to a separate packet network. Phweet also moves signaling out of band, but to the Internet. And not just PSTN signaling. It's an example of using IP-based Internet technologies not just as a collaboration tool for ad hoc conference calling, but for using IP as a command and control channel for network resources in a new way.

These are two new solutions we saw in 2008 that excite me still because they demonstrate where we are headed in communications technologies rather than hang on to the past. They don't make any effort to prove VoIP is something new (it isn't). They don't cling to the past. They simply integrate pieces of the past and present in simple elegant ways that demonstrate how we'll be using communications systems and resources in the future.

That's a big deal. Kudos to Pat, Florian, Stuart and David for showing the gloabl communications community what can be built when you simply have a rock solid idea and a thought leadership mindset on how the future will evolve.

Posted by Ken Camp | Permalink | Comments (0) |

My good friend Jon Arnold wrote a great piece this morning on VoIP. Great because of the discussion it opens up. My comments are below the snip.

VoIP in 2008 - "I'm Not Dead"

I've been writing my Service Provider Views column for just about a year now, and VoIP has been a constant theme. Mainstream service providers and VoIP have for the most part never gotten along very well, even though at one point VoIP seemed to be the Holy Grail of telephony.

Technorati Tags: Jon Arnold, VoIP, unified communications

Posted by Ken Camp | Permalink | Comments (0) |

This being the Christmas holiday week, news has really been fairly light. Many companies across all business sectors have been shut down and quietly celebrating family time.

There have been a few stories that caught my eye in between shoveling snow (and yes, it's still snowing in Spokane. We got another 3-4 inches here last night).

Another $100 Million for Palm From Bono & Pals

It must be Christmas, as the guys at Elevation Partners are feeling generous enough to invest another $100 million into beleaguered smartphone maker Palm, which has been slip-sliding away for a very long time. Elevation Partners, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based private equity firm headed by Roger McNamee, previously invested $325 million in Palm (for about 25 percent of the company) and brought in new management -- many of them former Apple executives -- to save what was once an iconic brand and chief instigator of the smartphone revolution.
[Read Om's full post]

Om and I have long been Palm fans and friends, but we swapped a couple of notes about this. While we both think it would be very cool to see Palm remain in the market, this seems. at leastw to me, a foolhardy investment. Palm has demonstrated complete inability to compete over the past 2+ years, and an infusion of cash isn't going to help the weary, tired lack of leadership and innovation.

On a sad note, we've been following this story across a number of sources. Here's Rich Tehrani's post:

A Tale of Bribery, Cockroaches and Raid

One of the most fascinating articles I have read in a long while is about the Siemens global bribery scandal where the company spent $1.4 billion on bribes from 2001 to 2007. Of that, get this - telecom accounted for $800 million or 57%! Consider the company also had divisions in industrial, transportation, control systems, healthcare and other areas and you see just how out of whack the telecom bribery spending was.

This leads one to wonder a few things... What would have happened if $800 million in telecom bribes weren't paid during this time period? Would Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya and others have done better? One would imagine they would have.

Would the terms of the Alcatel-Lucent deal have been different? How about Avaya being taken private - would the valuation had been higher if the bribery by Siemens didn't take place?

Then there is product development. Did it suffer over the past decade? Did Siemens need to innovate if it was selling more product than it should have? Is its innovation behind others?

Furthermore, if other companies were selling less, did they in turn have less money to put back into their own R&D?

Did Siemens in fact cause innovation in global telecom to slow?
[Read Rich's full post]

This story saddens me because I've been a strong voice supporting Siemen's leadership. Rich asks the big question - Did Siemens in fact cause innovation in global telecom to slow?. Time will tell, but it's an interesting problem as to whether Siemens action hurt the entire industry. They certainly hurt countless smaller players in the space, but is that simply part of free market competition? Or are there deeper ethical issues, given that in many parts of the world bribery is simply how business gets done?

For an upbeat note, there's a look at 2009 and what's ahead by Emerick Woods, CEO at Global IP Solutions.

Focus is Everything

As 2008 comes to a close and I look forward to 2009, I am reminded of golf pro Harvey Penick. He once said, "Golf tips are like aspirin. One may do you good, but if you swallow the whole bottle you will be lucky to survive." I think the same principle applies to IP communications and business in general. Focus is everything.

Over the past few years, we saw some great technological advances. The iPhone phenomenon, for instance, is an incredibly promising development for advanced mobile communications. The openness of the iPhone platform and the support for seamless multimedia capabilities is driving a host of innovative applications. The past year also represented a big step forward for Unified Communications, as established players like Microsoft, Cisco, and IBM gained significant traction in the enterprise communications space. Buy-in and competition from such heavy hitters can only mean that we can expect to see greater convergence among applications and devices. Finally, 2008 was a year in which video conferencing became legitimate. From full-fledged telepresence, to more flexible and accessible desktop video conferencing applications, vendors have overcome a host of technical and business issues to offer a wide range of video communications solutions.
[Read the full post]

And our good friend Jeff Pulver, posted 12 ways ti use VoIP to improve the holidays, but these are generally great ideas the whole year through.

Top 12 Clever Things Ways to Use VoIP to Improve Your Holidays This Year:

The following list was compiled by Jim Kohlenberger and the VON Coalition

• Need to pay for presents in a down economy?
• Late on your holiday cards? Send a personalized video holiday card.
• Can't think of anything creative? Sing with the King.
• Forgot to give Santa your wish list?
• Need to Connect for Hanukkah?
• Want a fun way to wake up the kids?
• Want ring in the New Year the right way?
• Have someone who doesn't believe in Santa?
• Need a clever way to send a message?
• Need a half mile of wrapping paper?
• Can't afford to travel this year?
• Want to do something for those serving overseas?

[Read Jeff's post for the full details]

Posted by Ken Camp | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Network World has published their Top 10 predictions for VoIP and convergence in 2009. It's very focused on SMB and Enterprise space, which I'd expect given the state of consumer offerings. Steve Taylor and Larry Hettick have been active in the convergence space for many years now and generally have a great handle on things.

You'll have to read their column for yourself. I'm not going to quote the whole thing. It would do them justice as respected colleagues.

I think they may even underplay #2, the user experience. I think that QoE over QoS is going to be a major focus of 2009, and become the strong message from the market leaders.

I'm really happy to see they agree with me on #4, video. I think video and mobility will be the hottest communications areas next year.
I'm extermely happy about their #5. IMS has been a stalled mess and I think it will stay that way. It's time to quit talking about it in those terms and get on with service delivery. Let's abandon talking about IMS in 2009.

Read #10 for yourself, but I agree with them more on that one than any of the others.


Technorati Tags: Network World, 2009 predictions, VoIP, video, unified communications

Posted by Ken Camp | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Voxbone is announcing a customer win in the VoIP service provider and PBX host Phone.com, and here's the user scenario:

Say you run a small translation bureau, specializing in Portuguese to English. You have a web site that gets many hits from Brazil. If you use the hosted PBX service of phone.com, you can pay an extra $12.88 a month to have (and post) a phone number in Brazil that rings any of your business phone extensions in the USA.

Phone.com is reselling the DID (direct-inward-dial) numbering and international VoIP network services of Voxbone to make this possible, letting even one-person businesses grab access to foreign markets in 46 countries around the world.

In an economy that can be global even to one-man shops, this is news.

PHONE.COM TAPS VOXBONE
TO GIVE SMALL BUSINESSES IN U.S. ACCESS TO CUSTOMERS ABROAD

With a Voxbone phone number from any of 5,000 cities in 46 countries, users of Phone.com's Virtual Office hosted phone system can be called by Parisians/Londoners/Singaporeans as readily as any business physically there

BRUSSELS, Belgium - 16 December, 2008--Voxbone today announced that it has been chosen by Phone.com, a hosted IP PBX provider for small businesses, to supply DID (direct-inward-dial) numbers abroad. Phone.com users who work in the U.S. but have clients in other countries can choose telephone numbers in those countries that when dialed will ring to their Phone.com "Virtual Office." The Virtual Office's customized auto attendant (automated receptionist) then can ask for the called person's extension number and complete the call.

Such calls are local to the caller; Voxbone carries them over its managed IP network to Phone.com, which routes them to its end customer with no perceptible delay. Phone.com customers pay a flat monthly rate for each DID. The numbers can also be directed to ring home phones or cell phones, and to change routing by time-of-day rules. DIDs can be ordered for all included cities and countries through Phone.com's self-service web site, and paid for, like all of the provider's services, with a credit card.

"Phone.com's Virtual Office helps our small business customers look big by running big-company voice applications like automated attendant and conferencing," said Ari Rabban, CEO of Phone.com. "Voxbone's DIDs in foreign markets help our customers look international, and even transact internationally. We chose Voxbone for its long record of reliability, and its ability to aggregate and send us traffic collected from several points overseas. They also have the SIP adherence we needed to operate interactively with touch-tone response, so that callers in foreign markets can dial for extensions."

"The Phone.com agreement shows how Voxbone brings remote marketplaces within the buying reach of small businesses and even SOHOs," said Sebastien d' Ursel, Voxbone COO. "Through our on-demand DID number services and real-time platform, service providers can offer a seamless, reliable, and easy-to-use solution for the cost of one short PSTN overseas phone call."

Voxbone leases international DID numbers and toll-free numbers via VoIP to organizations in North and South America, Europe and Asia/Pacific regions. Using these numbers, Voxbone customers may receive inexpensive, locally dialed phone calls from 46 countries (Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Chile, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States).

Voxbone services, which include DID (direct inward dialing) and toll-free numbers, are deployed by mobile operators, PSTN carriers, VoIP providers, call center operators and NGN (Next Generation Network) service providers worldwide. Voxbone is a recognized member of the International Telecommunication Union and part of the study group that is responsible for numbering standardization around the world.

# # #

About Voxbone
Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, Voxbone provides worldwide DID numbers and toll-free phone numbers over its own private intercontinental VoIP network. The all-IP architecture of the Voxbone core network enables customers to rapidly deploy new communications services with local presence, while simultaneously reducing costs. It delivers high-quality call origination from 46 countries and 5,000 cities, as well as "iNum" numbers that are billed as local calls when dialed through participating carriers anywhere in the world. Through its number inventory, network, self-administered provisioning and comprehensive SIP adherence, Voxbone's global infrastructure enables its customers to expand to international markets quickly and efficiently. Founded in 2002 and privately held, Voxbone is licensed by the EU in 27 countries. For more information, visit www.voxbone.com.

About Phone.com
Phone.com is a one-stop portal and phone company offering a suite of innovative, economical phone services designed for entrepreneurs and households. Powered by VoIP and SaaS technologies, the company currently offers its first two Internet-based communications products, Virtual Office for small businesses and Home Phone for consumers, with monthly plans starting at as low as $9.88. Phone.com's mission is to leverage its memorable domain name, its competitive telecommunications capabilities and its outstanding 24/7 customer support to service a significant market share of SOHO (small office/home office) businesses and households. Founded in 2007, Phone.com is headquartered in Boston. For more information, visit www.phone.com

Technorati Tags: phone.com, Voxbone, VoIP, unified communications

Posted by Ken Camp | Permalink | Comments (0) |

It's nearly the end of another year , and that means all of us who write online will being sharing our year in review thoughts. I'm going to take a slightly different approach and just talk a bit about the state of the unified communications industry as a whole. In this post I'll just begin the conversation, and I'll be writing about some of these in a bit more detail over the next two or three weeks as we head into the holiday madness and the new year.

First, and important to me, is identifying what the unified communications industry really is. It's a broad term that's never been well-defined. Yet used by pretty much every vendor in the space. To me, unified communications has become something of an overworn phrase, because it's more simply just communications across every technology and avenue we have available. If we look at that segment we call unifide3d communications, here's what it includes for me:

• Voice services of all kinds. It doesn't matter whether it's legacy PSTN voice using TDM, or some new-fangled VoIP solution. They're just foundation architecture. The protocols and bits don't excite me frankly. The services do.
• Video of every kind. It doesn't matter whether it's how IP-based video services are killing the old-world broadcast media (and they are ringing the death toll for the old media), collaboration teleconferencing, or simple personal video calling. Video is one of the most exciting and vibrant areas in the entire communications industry.
• Mobility and casual computing are the areas where I see the greatest potential for advances. More on this below.
• Social media isn't simply a web site. It isn't networks. It's how we as humans communicate. I think social media encompasses a broader set of tools that we typically give credence. Naturally there are the social networks, but I think IM and text messaging fall into the social media side of unified communications. I maintain that unified communications and social media coexist in a symbiotic relationship that overlaps even more tightly coupled than the Internet and PSTN are joined. I don't believe one can exist and thrive without the other.
• Connectivity is key. I remember "back in the day" when connectivity was carriers talking about ATM and how efficient a 53 byte cell was going to be at carrying multimedia. What a load of poppycock that was. It isn't about the bits and protocols, it's about the services. Wireless broadband, WiFi and WiMAX services are going to remain crucial. In the old world of the legacy telecommuncations carriers (remember the dinosaurs), the last mile was the all-important piece. While it's till important, I don't think a mile is the right measure any longer. I'd say it's the last hop that matters. That hop can take any technology, but the wireless last hop is where we're going to see growth and energy. Sure enterprise business is going to be tied to a wired technology for the campus setting, but wireless is absolutely the king of connectivity technology moving foward.

There are great things happening in all these areas. There are also some pretty absurd and stupid things happening as well. This is that perfect time of year to give a nod of appreciation to some of the good things, and rant about some of the stupid things we've seen this year.

High on the list of dismal actions is the whole Yahoo debacle. I recall Stuart Henshall and I talking about how foolhardy Jerry Yang's 100 Days of Quiet Thought about Yahoo was. I felt like Jerry rang a bell that said he was going to try to kill Yahoo, and in many ways he did just that. Yang's gone now, and should be headed for richly deserved obscurity. Doubtless with a pocekt full of money for setting Yahoo back five years through inaction and foolhardy leadership. I expect to see Yahoo dissected and continuing to crumble as pieces get sold off. A sorry fate for a company that once led the way to the future.

There's a trend I've been watching recently that seems to be on the rise. A trend and a variation; both are troubling. I've seen a number of small innovators, people I sometimes know, but most often people who truly are innovators doing some very nice work. Yet, they're releasing solutions that simply don't work. They're unleashing crap in the name of early release beta products. To further compound the problem, I've been noticing a high degree of what sales people call smoke and mirrors in the early advertising and documentation of a growing number of products.

Troubling to me because at a high level, I see a growing number of creative innovators with tremendous potential opertaing under what I think is a flawed business plan. I see what appears to be a plan of taking an idea or concept and half baking it into something that can be hyed to that mass of free beta testers known as the Internet in hopes that they'll either catch some good buzz, or get enough ideas to turn the half-baked idea into a product. I don't know whether it's a bad thing or a good thing. Clearly end users get lots of options, but is the value in return for those solutions that never materialize worth the investment? I don't think about it often, but I when I do I frequently think it is not.

There are highlights too. In 2008 we saw video services begin to really make progress toward critical mass for widespread adoption. Skype High Density Video has changed the way people use Skype. The rise in video calls there is tremendous. SightSpeed finally got some well deserved recognition through a major partnership with Dell followed by Logitech's acquisition for a nice $30M. And most recently we've seen what Sheryl and I think is a pretty successful luanch beginning for Vidtel. I think they're going to be very successful and worth watching.

That's enough for now. This wasn't intended to be a comprehensive post, but rather a framework for things to write and think about in the next few weeks as we approach the end of 2008. There are things coming I can't quite share just yet, but every year brings new challenges and suprises. 2009 is no different, with lots on the horizon.

Technorati Tags: unified communications, VoIP, video, SightSpeed, Vidtel, Yahoo, 2008 in review

Posted by Ken Camp | Permalink | Comments (0) |

I just spotted this and I thought it was most definitely worth a look.

Here's the basic info:

Product Description
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) networks have freed users from the tyranny of big telecom, allowing people to make phone calls over the Internet at very low or no cost. But while VoIP is easy and cheap, it's notoriously lacking in security. With minimal effort, hackers can eavesdrop on conversations, disrupt phone calls, change caller IDs, insert unwanted audio into existing phone calls, and access sensitive information.

Hacking VoIP takes a dual approach to VoIP security, explaining its many security holes to hackers and administrators. If you're serious about security, and you either use or administer VoIP, you should know where VoIP's biggest weaknesses lie and how to shore up your security. And if your intellectual curiosity is leading you to explore the boundaries of VoIP, Hacking VoIP is your map and guidebook.

Hacking VoIP will introduce you to every aspect of VoIP security, both in home and enterprise implementations. You'll learn about popular security assessment tools, the inherent vulnerabilities of common hardware and software packages, and how to:

* Identify and defend against VoIP security attacks such as eavesdropping, audio injection, caller ID spoofing, and VoIP phishing
* Audit VoIP network security
* Assess the security of enterprise-level VoIP networks such as Cisco, Avaya, and Asterisk, and home VoIP solutions like Yahoo! and Vonage
* Use common VoIP protocols like H.323, SIP, and RTP as well as unique protocols like IAX
* Identify the many vulnerabilities in any VoIP network

Whether you're setting up and defending your VoIP network against attacks or just having sick fun testing the limits of VoIP networks, Hacking VoIP is your go-to source for every aspect of VoIP security and defense.

About the Author
Himanshu Dwivedi is a leading security expert and researcher. He has published four books, Hacking Exposed: Web 2.0 (McGraw-Hill), Securing Storage (Addison Wesley), Hacker's Challenge 3 (McGraw-Hill), and Implementing SSH (Wiley). A founder of iSEC Partners, Himanshu manages iSEC's product development and engineering, specialized security solutions, and the creation of security testing tools for customers.

Technorati Tags: VoIP, VoIP security, VoIPSec

Posted by Ken Camp | Permalink | Comments (0) |

My good friend Andy, who represents Truphone posted this today. And many of us in the industry, writers, bloggers and analysts have been watching. I saw lots of favorable reviews, but all seemed to be based on the press release. More below.

Some Say My Touch is Tru (Truphone that is)
Yesterday Mike Butcher, TechCrunch UK broke the news about the new Truphone application that works on the Apple iPod Touch, giving the Touch users around the world the ability to call one another. It can be found in the Apple App Store.

What I see as the big deal here is what else the geniuses at Truphone are throwing into the mix. A complete set of calling capabilities that shows just how far they have thought this opportunity through.

For starters Truphone will soon be adding PSTN In and Out Calling to the platform along with calls to Skype pals and MSN Messenger buddies. This in essence means Truphone has made the Apple iPod Touch into a full blown WiFi phone, and truly a universal calling solution.

I'm also told by my friends inside client Truphone that you can make SIP calls too, thus rivaling Fring but offering far better call quality making it a True VoIP 2.0 phoning experience. Since it also "talks to Google Talk" the Truphone folks have practically covered all the calling bases they need to for a first release. I call that downright impressive.
[Read Andy's full post]

Even Andy says "I'm told by my friends at Truphone." I have friends at Trupohe too, but Sheryl and I don't represent them. And we installed the app and made efforts to run it on a two week old iPod Touch.

I agree the potential is huge and revolutionary. Sheryl and I look forward to it working. But what we found was only a call to a SIP client (Gizmo) and the echo test worked. The welcome didn't. Voice mail didn't. Google Talk didn't. Skype wasn't an option, although every indication was that it was.

Beyond that, the help file was locked to a single less-than -helpful screen and the link to documentation pulled a 404 error.

All in all, not stellar for a release with so much splash and a big writeup on TechCrunch.

That said, we hold out hope and watch for things that really work. But this is, from my my view, a second stumble in a row for Truphone whose recent launch of a Blackberry client didn't do nearly as well as it might have.

I'm hopeful for the Truphone gang and I know they're jumping all over this. But I have to say, the Redmond approach of releasing incomplete products that don't function the way they're announced at launch isn't going to serve them quite the way it serves Microsoft.

Stay tuned. We're playing with it more this weekend on the road and may have more to say.

Posted by Ken Camp | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Here's somethine new we just learned about that has Sheryl really excited. We're good friends with James Body at Truphone, and we've been a huge fan of their solution, which recently came to Blackberry. Now they've expanded it to the iPod Touch. Since Sheryl got one for her birthday a couple of weeks ago, she's been looking for a WiFi VoIP solution that will work on the touch.

Here's what we know about the Truphone solution for the Touch:

Types of free calls that can be made:

• iPod touch to iPod touch
• iPod touch to Truphone (some Nokia handsets)
• Truphone (same Nokia handsets plus iPhone) to iPod touch
• iPod touch to Google Talk PC user

Requirements

• A second generation iPod touch (i.e., current model)
• A free download of Truphone for iPod touch
• A headset and microphone like those for the iPhone. These may be bought at high street electronics retailers or from an Apple Store
• Friends also using Truphone!

Making a Truphone call on an iPod touch
This couldn't be simpler: The Truphone application provides you with a virtual keypad that enables you to make the call.

How it works
Truphone works by routing calls over the Internet through a Wi-Fi connection.

Sheryl is busy loading and configuring things. We'll post some more information once it's all up and working and we get to play with it a bit.

TRUPHONE TURNS iPOD touch INTO A PHONE
Make Free Calls to Other iPod touch Owners: No SIM, No Contract, No Money

LONDON-Dec. 4, 2008--Described by Apple itself as the "funnest" iPod ever, the iPod touch may now be the "useful-est," too, thanks to free software--Truphone for iPod Touch --that effectively turns one into a mobile phone*.

Not only is the software free, but calls made using Truphone's application for the iPod touch are also free--just in time to save precious cash when making those holiday calls to friends and family.

Once installed, and with the addition of a microphone adaptor (Truphone microphone adaptor available soon)*, iPod touch owners can make free calls--no matter where they are in the world--to other iPod touch owners, to customers of Truphone's Internet telephony service and to users of Google Talk™ instant messaging service.

Truphone for iPod Touch will become a one-stop-shop social hub with the following features coming soon:

Calling to landlines (PSTN) at low cost (simply set yourself up with a Truphone account);
Instant messaging to Skype and MSN (free);
Calling to Skype users (free);
Calling to MSN users (free);
Check and set facilities for Twitter (free);
Check and set facilities for Facebook (free).

Truphone for iPod touch is easily downloaded from Apple's App Store in exactly the same way as any other iPod touch application.

The software uses the iPod touch's Wi-Fi connection to carry calls over the Internet to its destination. There is no monthly line rental, no subscription or other hidden charges.

# # #

* Microphone adaptor accessory currently available at Apple Store.

Important information
Truphone is not a replacement for an ordinary telephone service and emergency calls cannot be made using Truphone. Truphone cannot advise on the legality of VoIP (voice over IP) services in specific territories or jurisdictions. It is the user's responsibility to confirm that use of the Truphone VoIP software and service is permitted in the location in which they use it.

About Truphone
The first true mobile internet network operator, Truphone allows users of Wi-Fi-enabled mobile phones to make and receive regular telephone calls, and to send and receive SMS (text) messages, using only a Wi-Fi connection and the internet. It has users in 149 countries.

Truphone is the trading name of Software Cellular Network (SCN). SCN is privately owned, funded by both venture capital investment and angel investors.

Apple and iPod are trademarks of Apple Inc, registered in the United States and other countries. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc. Google Talk is a trademark of Google Inc. Google Talk is not a telephony service and cannot be used for emergency dialling. Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. Truphone is a trademark of Software Cellular Network Ltd. All other brands, product names, company names, trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners.

Technorati Tags: Truphone, iPod Touch, VoIP, WiFi

Posted by Ken Camp | Permalink | Comments (0) |

I've been reading a couple of interesting pieces as we catch up from a few days in San Francisco. My friend and colleague Doug Mohney wrote a really interesting piece on Fierce VoIP.

The Fallen - Crashed and struggling VoIP companies

While I compiled the 2008 VoIP Fierce 15, I looked back at previous Fierce 15 lists. SunRocket was a member of the 2006 VoIP Fierce 15, and this got me thinking about the many companies that have crashed and burned over the past few years -- plus those that seem to chronically struggle.

Numerous companies rushed into the VoIP world with expectations of changing the world. Most showed great potential at first, winning vital acclaim in the media, throngs of admirers and predictions of greatness.

And yet, at some point in time, fortunes change. Acclaim turns to scorn, devotees turn to embittered critics and dreams become crushed by the real-world.

Doug listed a number of companies that had made the Fierce 15 list then failed, or at least wandered into obscurity.  I have friends and colleagues at a number of those companies, and what Doug had to say really resonated.

Another good friend, Alec Saunders responded with

Will mobile rebels suffer the same fate?

Doug Mohney's The Fallen - Crashed and struggling VoIP companies is worth a read, if for no other reason than to learn the fates of some of the companies we have all known in the VoIP industry. One could summarize what he has written as:

* the carrier competitors, excepting Vonage, ran out of money. Vonage hasn't run out of money, but it's always touch and go with them.
* the companies developing applications that needed carrier support for distribution in order to really prosper have either sold or closed their doors. In some cases, they were sold and then closed their doors.

Alec's message resonates in a different way. If Doug's post sounds the warning bell for companies in the throes of attempting execution, Alec's sounds a glimmer of hope for the future.

Sheryl and I are working on a series of articles that will look at the emerging mobile, video and communications tools and hopefull yprovide some insights on how to succeed for some of the players looking to make a permanent mark on the industry.

Posted by Ken Camp | Permalink | Comments (0) |