[Video] FriendCaller Revisits Web Calling, No Software Needed
September 14, 2010
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communications, DEMO, news, web 2.0 | Tagged: democon, friendcaller, VOIP | 
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Posted by TechPulse 360
Oracle Chief Opposes Net Neutrality
October 6, 2009
Net neutrality is bad for competition argues Oracle's chief
Larry Ellison sided with operators on net neutrality, a position that was largely overlooked during his last appearance at the Churchill Club last month.
The Oracle chief argued that letting the U.S. government regulate pricing on carriers’ networks is wrong, favouring Google and the likes and ultimately stifling competition.
“I think it’s very dangerous for the government to engage in pricing for companies… In general I believe in free markets and this is the case where government regulation is not necessary,” said Ellison.
Here’s the video excerpt where the Oracle CEO discusses his views on net neutrality:
Leave a Comment » | communications, news | Tagged: churchill club, ellison, Google, Net Neutrality, Oracle | Permalink
Posted by TechPulse 360
US Loses More Ground In Global Broadband Race
May 29, 2009The United States is the world’s largest broadband market.
But the country lost considerable ground last year in the average broadband speeds its residents receive.
And the despite its affluence, the U.S. remains far from the top of the list of developed countries in the number of broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants. With 26.7 broadband users per 100 residents, the U.S. is 15th and trails many Western European nations along with Korea and Canada. Denmark leads the world with 37.2 subscribers per 100 people.
The survey is interesting fodder for the debate that has sprung up over President Obama’s planned broadband spending initiative. With some of the leading nations having received government support, the analysis from the European based Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development points to their advantage.
The U.S. remains the world’s largest broadband market with 80 million subscribers, or 30 percent of those in the developed countries the OECD surveys.
But in 2007, it was 13th in the world in terms of the speeds its commercial providers offer users. Last year it slipped to 19th.
The average download speed available in the U.S. is 9.6 Mbps, or almost a tenth of what is offered in Japan, where the average speed is 92.8 Mbps. Korea, which like Japan uses a lot of optical fiber, provides an average speed of 80.8 Mbps, and countries such as France (51 Mbps), Finland (19.2 Mbps) and Netherlands (18.1 Mbps) also best the states.
The U.S. didn’t lose ground last year in broadband per capita. But that points to an interesting observation that should influence government policy makers as they allocate money to extend broadband into rural areas.
Perhaps some of the money should be used lifts speeds in communities that already have broadband since that is where the nation continues to lose ground.
The US is 19th in the world in average broadband speeds, according to the OECD
Leave a Comment » | communications | Tagged: Broadband, Denmark, Finland, France, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, United States | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
SF Giants Save $1,000 A Day With Internet Phones
May 12, 2009Voice-over-IP phone systems have steadily eroded the sales of traditional PBXs, or private branch exchanges.
Customers that make the change to VoIP hope to save money, but are typically apprehensive about the inconsistent quality of phone calls routed over the Internet instead of a more reliable network built specifically for voice.
SF Giant's Bill Schlough discusses his new VoIP phone system
But the San Francisco Giants, just finishing an implementation, say quality has not been an issue, despite worries early on. And savings amount to $1,000 a day, cutting the team’s telecommunications costs to $135,000 a year from $490,000 previously.
“We’re saving enough with the new system to put another player on the field,” says Bill Sclough, chief information officer.
The Giants purchased a half-rack system from ShoreTel, and, on Monday, Schlough showed it off publicly for the first time. He said the organization evaluated products from Cisco Systems, Avaya and Nortel (all were “solid solutions”), but selected to spend $1 million on the ShoreTel equipment.
The payback will be three years, says Schlough. “Cost savings was the real driver for this,” he adds.
The 42,000-seat AT&T Park has 457 IP phones.
ShoreTel has publicized its success selling VoIP systems to other sports teams, including the Buffalo Sabres and Sacramento River Cats.
7 Comments | communications | Tagged: Avaya, Cisco Systems, nortel, San Francisco Giants, ShoreTel, Voice Over IP | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
Reducing Travel Seen As Top Motivation For Video Conferencing
May 11, 2009Among the simplest money-saving (and greenhouse gas reducing) initiatives within easy reach of corporate America is cutting the travel budget.
Favor the phone over the road trip and instantly thousands of dollars drop to the bottom line.
Businesses find video conferencing appealing when sharing files and collaborating on documents
Turns out trimming the travel budget is also behind the motivation to purchase video conferencing systems, ushering in what could be a long-term shift in the way business in conducted in the country.
According to a survey from In-Stat, 68 percent of companies cite reducing travel as the primary factor behind their plans to adopt video conferencing in the next 12 months.
The survey, released Monday, contacted 893 decision makers at North American businesses.
“US business users find video conferencing to be more appealing and beneficial when the sessions involve sharing files, collaborating on documents, and adding…key individuals to the sessions dynamically,” says analyst David Lemelin.
Companies also show interest in bringing video conferencing to the desktop.
The increasing interest in video conferencing is welcome news to vendors such as Avaya, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Polycom, Tandberg and even Skype, which is planning an IPO.
According to In-Stat, Microsoft is cited as the top vendor among small businesses, while Polycom is favored by mid-sized and larger companies. Cisco saw the greatest increase in users in 2008.
1 Comment | communications | Tagged: Avaya, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, In-Stat, Microsoft, Polycom, Skype, Tandberg, Travel Budget, Video Conferencing | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
Cisco Plans To Bring Real Time Data To Security
April 21, 2009One of the biggest challenges in online security lies in getting the latest information about threats to the firewalls, gateway filters and other cyber sentries standing guard in networks around the globe.
Real time data is hard to capture and distribute.
Cisco hopes to improve intrusion detection up to two fold
Cisco Systems hopes to tackle this problem with an ambitious effort the company will unveil Tuesday at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. The network equipment maker plans to gather data about network attacks from hundreds of thousands of devices installed in networks around the world.
It will use this massive download to pump out network updates every 10 to 15 minutes to routers and other security gear. This intelligence should make networks better able to fend off today’s steady stream of probes and attacks.
Cisco itself receives 2 million attacks an hour, suggesting the huge volume of data the company could receive.
Cisco Correlation will work with its Intrusion Prevention System and other hardware. It is expected to make the new IPS version 7.0 up to two times more effective in stopping malicious attacks.
Leave a Comment » | communications, news, online security | Tagged: Cisco Systems, online security | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
Cisco Sees LTE And WiMAX Coexisting In A 4G World
April 20, 2009The move from 3G to 4G wireless networks will be less an evolution and more a transformation, says Cisco System’s Kittur Nagesh.
The volume of mobile data will grow 66 times in the next five years, says Kittur Nagesh
Data will fly through the air at greater speeds and in much higher volumes, says this director of service provider marketing.
Nagesh, who spelled out Cisco’s view on the 4G migration in a recent interview, said demands for network bandwidth will skyrocket.
Over the next five years, the amount of data traveling over wireless networks will grow 66 times – or at a 120 percent annual pace, he said. About two thirds of it will be video.
As wireless carriers prepare their networks for the coming onslaught, there will be roles for both LTE and WiMAX, says Nagesh. Many people see LTE – an abbreviation of the long-term evolution technology many wireless carriers expect to use for the cellular networks – and WiMAX – a long-range successor to Wi-Fi – as competitors locked in a boxing match. “We feel that is not true,” he said. “Both have a place.”
Over time, LTE will probably be the dominant of the technologies. But it will take years for this to play out.
In the meantime, WiMAX will be strong in emerging markets and take root as well in markets in the U.S. where the necessary spectrum is plentiful.
And with tens of billions of wireless devices in use by 2013, the dual role could be a good thing. All that data will need wireless roads to follow.
1 Comment | communications, news, wireless | Tagged: 4g, Cisco Systems, Mobile Data, Wireless Networks | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
Government Audit Takes Aim At Obama Broadband Stimulus Plan
April 15, 2009If past efforts are a guide, President Barack Obama’s plan to spend $7.2 billion to bring broadband to rural communities may fall short of its goals.
President Obama needs to provide more than just broad guidelines for his $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus
Money allocated under earlier government efforts to bring Internet connections to America’s smallest communities hasn’t always been spent properly.
This is the conclusion of a report by the inspector general at the Department of Agriculture that was released this week and which examined the $1.35 billion in loans that have been granted since 2001.
The report points to a necessity for the new Obama program: establish clear rules and accountability. If Obama fails to lay out clear details for the program, the money will not be allocated with a well-defined purpose and some of it is likely to be wasted.
The report found that some of the earlier loans were made to communities that already had broadband service and which were close to metropolitan areas, instead of in rural areas of the country.
When confronted with Congressional demands to revise the program, administrators hesitated to make changes to the program’s rules, the report found.
The administrators said they were waiting for Congressional revisions to the program expected in 2008. In the meantime, however, they had proposed rules limiting the loans to communities with fewer than four service providers – a definition that could be argued to include most of the country.
If Obama wants his proposal to succeed, he had better offer more than the broad overview he has offered so far.
Leave a Comment » | communications, government, news | Tagged: Barack Obama, Broadband Policy, Department of Agriculture, Stimulus Bill | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
Broadband Showdown Coming To DC: Entrepreneurs Coudl Target Excess TV Spectrum For Broadband
April 9, 2009The government’s broadband stimulus money is creating a showdown of sorts in Washington, D.C.
The Federal Communications Commission will channel about $7.2 billion by February 2010 to companies interested in bringing broadband connections to under-served and not-yet-served rural areas of the country.
White space spectrum being shown here between TV channels
Of course numerous companies are interested: many established firms from the cable, telco and consumer electronics industries.
Perhaps the most contentious part of the plan has to do with the wireless spectrum to be made available by the switch to digital from analog television broadcasting. The release of the new spectrum could bring entrepreneurs into the picture – and more competition to the broadband business.
The change has freed up the unused white space spectrum (54 MHz to 698 MHz) previously used for over-air television signals. Congress set a June date for the release of the swath.
“The decision to open up new spectrum is one of the most contentious the FCC has ever made,” says ABI Research vice president Stan Schatt. “It’s the equivalent of the government opening up a previously untapped oilfield.”
That’s because signals at this wavelength can pass through features such as hills and forests – making the spectrum more valuable.
Service provider startups might see this spectrum as an opportunity to compete, especially in rural areas where there is a lot of white space available. And they might be able to tap into the $7.2 billion of funding waiting to be spent.
The broadcast industry is opposed to the white-spaces plan, concerned a generation of new devices will cause interference. Chip makers, device manufacturers and consumer-electronics companies are in favor, says ABI.
Opening up the white space would be just what the broadband business needs: more competition.
Leave a Comment » | communications, government, hardware, news, wireless | Tagged: Broadband, Digital TV, Stimulus Money, Washington D.C., White Space Spectrum | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
Home Networking Market Declines As Saturation Sets In
April 6, 2009Home networking is a declining market. The economic downturn is one reason. Market saturation is the other.
Many mainstream homes are wired with cable or DSL modems and wireless Wi-Fi routers and gateways.
Despite decline, new opportunities seen in moving video around the home
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Ever increasing demands on the network and the consumer’s need for speed was to propel this market toward successive waves of new, high performance products.
But broadband in the U.S. is moving at a snail’s pace and the need for upgrades doesn’t exist.
ABI Research says core home networking products sales should decline through 2014. But a new source of growth in home networking may give hope to vendors.
That hope is video and its distribution around the home. (Audio, too.) Growth in network-connected devices such as set-top boxes, TVs and game consoles, may provide some market expansion.
Sales of network-connected devices should rise to $94 billion in 2010 from $74 billion this year, says ABI.
Consumers want to find easy ways to move content around the home.
Vendors already in the market include Cisco System’s Linksys, Netgear, Apple, Roku and Vudu. They will be able to print money if they deliver simple-to-use boxes to move content among devices.
Leave a Comment » | communications, economy, news | Tagged: ABI Research, Decline, Home Networking, Market, video | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
