VoIP and ENUM

Raul Casto allows mobile phones for Cubans

2008-03-28T16:57:00.002Z

The first signs of opening: Raul Castro removed the ban of mobile phones for all private Cubans - I did not know that this was not allowed at all. Already this Tuesday he removed the ban of selling PCs, TV-sets and Video recording devices to private Cubans.

The drawback: the tariffs have to be paid in convertible pesos: activation CUC$ 120, a minute in Cuba CUC$ 0.5, a minute outside Cuba from 3 CUC$ upwards.

To put this in relation, one should know that the monthly earnings in Cuba is 400 national pesos, which is about CUC$ 17.

So again only people in contact with tourists may be able to afford this, and not the doctors and teachers.

Cubas Options for the Future

2008-03-25T15:21:00.005Z

As I said in my previous post, the geriatric (and partially dead) trinity in Cuba - Che, Fidel and Raul - is finally coming to an end. They understood to serve the longings of the left wing western postwar and prosperity generations very efficient and let them forget the increasingly fatal situation in Cuba.

In Cuba itself they managed to overcome the so-called special period and opened up the country very selectively for tourism by creating basically two markets, one in national pesos and one in convertible pesos. This causes Cubans being employed in tourism and related occupations to earn much more than engineers, medical and educational staff, also causing doctors to move (to be a doctor you must not be stupid) and now carry luggage for tourists.

But the Cuban system has, by all critics, also interesting and sympathetic traits and one could also learn from the mistakes made elsewhere, e.g. in Russia and Yugoslavia. What Cuba needs is critical solitarity and help - not necessarily for the government, but for the population.

Cuba has 3 options (if we forget the 4th "north-korean" way)

The "chinese" model i.e. through partial introduction of a capitalist economy to keep the status quo of the existing government. Because of the deadbeat economy this seems not possible as it it is with the big power China. Also the touristic earnings and the economic and political power of potential allies - in this case Venezuela and Iran - seems not to be sufficient.
The american "turnaraound" i.e. that the Cubans from Miami - the "Cuban Mafia" - are taking over the power under US disguise. This would mean the introduction of an alibi-democracy in conjunction with revanchism and looting economy. This could be worse than Batista.
The only way out - beside a broad latin american solidarity - is an approach to Europe. Cuba has here already with Spain a strong solicitor. Europe could act as intermediary for negotiations with a (new) US government and lobby for the abolishment of the US embargo in exchange for reforms.

However, Cuba hold out against 50 years of US embargo, done by a superpower on the other side of good and evil. This alone will earn Cuba an honorable entry in the Guiness Book of Records. But now it is time of a rethinking.

Cuban Economy: Status Quo

2008-03-24T15:15:00.001Z

Up to 1990 the Cuban economy was heavily subsidised by the Soviet Union and the Comecon (Eastern Block) - basically sugar for fuel.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba enters the so-called Special Period:

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, the impact on the Cuban economy was devastating. Cuba lost approximately 80% of its imports, 80% of its exports and its Gross Domestic Product dropped by 34%. Along with food and medicines that were imported, half of the oil it used came from the USSR and all oil imports trickled to a mere 10% of previous amounts. Before this, Cuba had been re-exporting any Soviet oil it did not consume to other nations for profit (becoming Cuba's second largest export product before 1990). Once Soviet imports fell, Cuba faced a net deficit of oil, resulting in a need to reduce domestic consumption by 20% over the course of two years. The effect was felt immediately; dependent on fossil fuels to operate, transportation, industrial and agricultural systems were paralyzed. There were extensive losses of productivity in both Cuban agriculture — which was dominated by modern industrial tractors, combines, and harvesters, all of which required oil to run — and in Cuban industrial capacity.

The period radically transformed Cuban society and the economy, as it necessitated the successful introduction of sustainable agriculture, decreased use of automobiles, and overhauled industry, health, and diet countrywide.

In most countries, social programs are the first things to get cut during times of economic hardship. Before the Special Period, Cuba had three Universities and tuition costs were covered by the government. During this crisis, education continued to be tuition-free and to assist in reducing the cost of transportation, additional universities were opened bringing the number to fifty, spread throughout various municipalities.

Cuba’s focus on prevention and health has earned the small nation a world-wide reputation and teams of doctors have been sent throughout the globe to train and assist particularly during natural disasters. Cuba has only 2% of the total population of Latin America but has 12% of all its doctors. Of special note is the fact that 60% of the doctors in Cuba are women. The practice still continues where each community has a doctor that is assigned to it and lives in that area. Even during the Special Period, medical care continued to be subsidized by the state.

Note by author: A lot of discussions even now ends with these arguments, as Michael already said " ... so the people I talked with were actually quite happy with their situation ("We don't earn much, but as opposed to other countries education and health care is for free!" ) and couldn't see that people in developed countries who are considered as dirt poor have a way higher living standard ..."

BTW, what does "health care is free" really mean? As I told you in my previous post, I was now 3 weeks in the hospital, 2 weeks of this in intensive care. And I have to pay not one Eurocent, so it was for free. Of course I have to pay for health insurance in Austria about 5.1 % of my income (in pension). And I am not going into more details of the Austrian health system here.

As the country began to recover more visibly from the shock of the implosion of their economic underpinning, Castro gradually told the Cuban people that this "Special Period" was over; that it had succeeded in generally maintaining the long life expectancies and health statistics of the nation — figures roughly equivalent to those enjoyed in the United States — and that the country was therefore (relatively) prosperous once again.

Cubans suffered a great deal during the decade referred to as the Special Period and are still living under a lower standard than they were before 1991. This period forced Cuba to change from a nation of consumers--dependent on external oil sources--to a more sustainable economy based on meeting basic needs and conservation. Despite the fact that Cuba is a poor country (the average annual gross domestic product is $3,500), and may not be viewed as “successful” by Western standards, the average life span is higher than in the U.S. and the infant mortality rate is lower than the US. Their literacy rate is higher and their citizens have free medical and educational opportunities.

Policies were drawn up to satisfy the growing tourist markets of Canada and Europe with an aim to replace Cuba's reliance on the sugar industry and gain much needed foreign currency rapidly. A new Ministry of Tourism was created in 1994, and the Cuban state invested heavily in tourist facilities. Between 1990 and 2000, more than $3.5 billion was invested in the tourist industry. The number of rooms available to international tourists grew from 12,000 to 35,000, and the country received a total of 10 million visitors over that period. By 1995 the industry had surpassed sugar as Cuba's chief earner.

Today, Cuba welcomes travelers from around the world, and especially Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France , but also Argentina, Chile and Mexico. In recent years, more than 600,000 Canadians, 200,000 British, and 114,000 Germans have visited Cuba annually. Each year, thousands of Americans visit Cuba, even though the official U.S. trade policy usually does not permit travel there. According to TIME Magazine (May 11, 2007), 20,000 to 30,000 Americans illegally travel to Cuba every year (in my opinion even more). Americans usually reach Cuba via flights from Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or Cancun. Cuban immigration officers do not stamp U.S. passports so Americans can keep their private visits, private.

Foreign investment in the Cuban tourism sector has increased steadily since the tourism drive. This has been made possible due to constitutional changes to Cuba's socialist command economy, to allow for the recognition of foreign held capital.

By the late 1990s, twenty five joint foreign and domestic venture companies were working within Cuba's tourist industry. Foreign investors and hoteliers from market based economies have found that Cuba's centralized economy and bureaucracy has created particular staffing issues and higher costs then normal. An additional factor cited by foreign investors is the degree of state involvement at the executive level, which is far higher than average.

Here we have to mention now the two Cuban currencies: the Peso or national peso (where the Cubans are making their living on and the Convertible Peso (CUC$), which is the money for the tourists.

From 1993 until 2004, the Cuban currency was split between the Cuban peso (the currency Cuban citizens are paid in and used for staples and non-luxury items) and the U.S. dollar in combination with the convertible peso, which was used for tourism and for luxury items.

On November 8, 2004, the Cuban government withdrew the U.S. dollar from circulation citing the need to retaliate against further U.S. sanctions. After a grace period ending on November 14, 2004, a 10% surcharge began to be imposed when converting U.S. dollars into convertible pesos. The change was announced some weeks beforehand and was extended by the aforementioned grace period (it has been claimed this was because the amounts of US dollars being exchanged were more than anticipated). This measure helped the Cuban government collect much needed hard currency.

In the joint ventures mentioned above, the salary of the Cubans is paid by the foreign company to the Cuban state in CUC$ and then given to the workers by the Cuban state in national pesos. But of course this not 100% and you should especially consider the tips. E.g. in the hotel Varadero, although all inclusive, some people gave 1 CUC$ tip per drink.

Two parallel economies and societies quickly emerged, their demarcation line was represented by access to the CUC$. Those having access to CUC$ through contact with the lucrative tourist industry suddenly found themselves at a distinct financial advantage over professional, medical, educational, industrial and agricultural workers.

Bar staff, hotel receptionists and taxi drivers became the coveted occupations in urban Cuba, and by 2006, permission to operate a private taxi cab service could cost up to $500 in bribes. Musicians have also found a radical shift in their economic status. El Nuevo Herald reported that the 400 CUC$ a month one band percussionist receives in tips performing to tourists in Old Havana is more than 30 times what he would receive from the Cuban government for the same work.

So a lot of the famous educational and medical staff in Cuba is now working in hotels carrying luggage for tourists.

How long can Cuba sustain this two parallel economies and what are the options in the future? I will try to do this in my next post.

I did also not talk about the political impacts in Cuba since 1990, the development of the trinity - Che Guevara as Jesus Crist Superstar Fidel Castro as godfather now in pension and the country lead by the holy ghost Raul.

Legionella

2008-03-22T14:42:00.005Z

As my son Michael already mentioned, I was hospitalized with double pneumonia based on legionella pneumonia, together with liver, kidney and some other minor problems. First of all I want to thank everybody all over the world who cared and sent me good wishes.

We returned from Cuba on monday, February 18th and I started to feel sick on February 21nd. On February 25th I went to the doctor and got some antibiotica, which basically did not improve the issue. Friday, February 29th my wife decided to call the ambulance and I was delivered to the hospital. As I was told later it took until saturday morning to make all the tests and I was responding normally, but I can only remember up to the time until I entered the emergency ambulance car.

On saturday, March 1st, they decided to put me into intensive care at the nephrology station and artificial deep sleep. I was on kidney dialysis the whole time. My daughter Kathi told me afterwards that I was connected to about some 20 tubes and wires, from dialysis, oxygen, food to uretic outlets.

On friday, March 7th, they tried to wake me up again. What I can remember is that I saw Kathi and my wife only black-and-white, could somehow understand what they said, but could not speak comprehensive back myself. The next day I could speak back and saw them in color, the first improvement. For two other days I was put to the dialysis on and off.

My readings were improving every day now, but my next problem was that I was completely de-mobilized - I could not even sit up. So they had to start to re-mobilize me slowly - on March 12th I left the bed the first time to stand up - held by two men - for 1 minute, still connected to a lot of tubes.

March 13th I was transferred from intensive care back to the normal hospital. The first day I was still unable to leave the bed on my own, but this also improved quickly. The next thing I discovered was that I had lost 10 kg and this was of course one of my mobility problems, because the majority I lost was not fat but muscles. Anyway, I started first with the 3 steps to the toilet and wash-room, take the food not in be, but at the table and then to walk up and down the aisle.

The 3rd week I had to do a lot of checks, such as blood tests, lung tests, thorax x-ray and finally a gastroscopy to find out that I had some gastoenteritis and also some fungi in the gullet - I assume from taking all this medication.

Finally it was decided to release me just in time for Easter on friday, March 21st from hospital, but they will keep an eye on me. Next wednesday I am ordered back already to the nephrology ambulance of the hospital and later the day they will do an echocardiography. So they will keep me on the long line for some time.

So I want to thank the medical and non-medical staff in the hospital, they did an excellent job, and again everybody who cared and sent me good wishes, either direct or via my family.

And last but not least my wife and all of my children who really cared about me and visited me every day two or three times.

Cuba and Varadero

2008-02-25T17:24:00.003Z

I wanted to write a bit about my impressions in Cuba, but my son Michael did a much better
job on his blog Mahalanobis.

In addition I added some pictures on the Mac Web Gallery

since I am currently sick I can only provide limited input

Pension

2008-01-31T23:59:00.002Z

Today was my last working day - although I am already on vacation for 3 month. Currently I am in for a treatment in a health resort - or as we say on a cure - in Moorbad Neydharting in Upper Austria. Not that I am sick, but it is paid for by the state pension fund, and if it does not help, at least it does not harm.

In addition, I am needing new strength and fitness anyway for my retirement activities. - I will keep you informed. Our next plans are to go to Cuba (Havana and Varadero) from the 7th of February to the 18th. We want since a long time to see Cuba before Fidel Castro retires or dies.

I will report afterwards.

Weihnachten 2007

2007-12-24T20:21:00.000Z

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

the Stastny Family

Verizon Wireless opens its network

2007-11-27T19:05:00.000Z

In a press release today - Verizon Wireless To Introduce ‘Any Apps, Any Device’ Option For Customers In 2008 - Verizon promises to open up its network, saying that the New Open Development Initiative Will Accelerate Innovation and Growth.

"BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Verizon Wireless today announced that it will provide customers the option to use, on its nationwide wireless network, wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company. Verizon Wireless plans to have this new choice available to customers throughout the country by the end of 2008.

In early 2008, the company will publish the technical standards the development community will need to design products to interface with the Verizon Wireless network. Any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the network. Devices will be tested and approved (aha) in a $20 million state-of-the-art testing lab which received an additional investment this year to gear up for the anticipated new demand. Any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices.

This new option goes beyond just a change in the design, delivery, purchase, and provisioning of wireless devices and applications.

“This is a transformation point in the 20-year history of mass market wireless devices – one which we believe will set the table for the next level of innovation and growth,” said Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless president and chief executive officer. “Verizon Wireless is not changing our successful retail model, but rather adding an additional retail option for customers looking for a different wireless experience.”

Verizon Wireless will continue to provide a full-service offering, from retail stores where customers can shop, to 24/7 customer service and technical support, to an easy-to-use handset interface and optimized software applications.

While most Verizon Wireless customers prefer the convenience of full service, the company is listening through today’s announcement to a small but growing number of customers who want another choice without full service.

Both full-service and “bring-your-own” customers will have the advantage of using America’s most reliable network.

Following publication of technical standards, Verizon Wireless will host a conference to explain the standards and get input from the development community on how to achieve the company’s goals for network performance while making it easy for them to deliver devices."

The highlighted parts are added by me.
This an interesting move on Verizons part. What could be the reasons. Fred Goldstein sees three things behind it:

1) They have spent the past seven years trying to whittle down the number of competitors to the point where they could maintain strong cartel control. The magic number is probably "three". Powell and Martin failed to deliver -- T-Mobile didn't roll over dead, and upstarts like Metro and Leap kept showing up. T-Mobile is taking a more open position in the US and Sprint's moving that way too. ATT Mobile has the iPhone for a short-term halo effect. So Verizon recognized the way the wind was blowing.

2) Bring-your-own phones cost them $0 in subsidies, a lot less than they pay when you buy the phone from them with the usual contract. So this really helps their bottom line. The unsubsidized price of phones has fallen to a level where a significant number of buyers is willing to pay full fare (again, see iPhone). This makes Verizons network attractive to those very profitable customers.

3) The timing is critical here -- the Short Form deadline for joining the 700 MHz auction is next Monday. The big C block license has this as a rule. Verizon really doesn't want a big new player (Google) to win the license. But in order to bid on it, they have to accept these terms for that one license. It's easier to just accept them for all licenses, rather than confuse matters, especially in light of the other two big reasons. So Verizon is likely to bid on the C block, in order to bank it and keep competitors from using it to really disrupt things.

Nominet awarded the contract to run UK ENUM +44

2007-11-23T20:59:00.000Z

The Tier 1 registry for UK ENUM was awarded to Nominet by the UK ENUM Consortium (UKEC), a limited company set up with the recognition of the BERR (formerly the DTI) to administer the UK ENUM top level domain.

As I can remember UK was the first country to get an ITU-T approved ENUM delegation for a trial (May 16th, 2002). It is really interesting what one can trial for more then 5 years.

Anyway, congratulations.

A Bargain - iPhone for $1477

2007-11-21T12:54:00.000Z

T-Mobile Offers iPhone Without Contract
Associated Press 11.21.07, 7:18 AM ET

BERLIN - Deutsche Telekom AG's mobile unit said Wednesday it would offer Apple Inc.'s iPhone without a contract to comply with a court injunction issued after a competitor challenged its exclusive lock on the handset.

T-Mobile will start selling the phone for 999 euros ($1,477) immediately as well as continuing to offer it for the discounted 399 euros ($590) in combination with a two-year contract, the company said in a press release.

Who would buy this except some idiots?

Interestingly this offer is valid only for a limited time - is it getting cheaper afterwards or even more expensive?

Tim Wu: Yes, Google is trying to take over the world

2007-11-17T20:14:00.000Z

Yes, Google is trying to take over the world
NEXT STEP: TAKE OUT MA BELL

By Tim Wu

Excellent post, I have nothing to add

The Day the Routers Died ...

2007-10-27T17:50:00.000Z

The Day the Routers Died ... from the RIPE NCC #55 Meeting.

Skype goes Mobile

2007-10-19T08:25:00.000Z

BusinessWeek had an article yesterday about Skype Goes Mobile.

There is strangely no mention of WiFi, but 3 has a spare 3G network lying around. So what we have now is the iPhone with no 3G, the mysterious gPhone and now the "White Phone" with iSkoot, (and maybe 3GPP IMS VoIP in 3 years).

Skype's new cell phone will deliver mobile access to its service. The beleaguered carrier hopes to jump-start revenues overseas
by Bruce Meyerson

Bit by bit, big names in the computing world are barging into the cell-phone business. First came Apple's game-changing iPhone. Next came word that Google is creating its own software platform for a new breed of cell phones. Now Skype, which popularized free and cheap phone calls over the Internet, is set to launch a customized cell phone developed jointly with 3 Mobile, a wireless carrier in Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Code-named the "white phone," the Skype handset will be introduced by late October in Britain, Italy, Hong Kong, and Australia, and will reach 3's other five markets later, BusinessWeek has learned. There are no immediate plans to bring the device to North America, though the companies may try to license it to other carriers or sell versions straight to consumers for them to use on other networks.

Connecting with Skype Buddies
What may be most striking about the device is that it's being pushed by a mobile carrier at a time when most of the wireless industry is anxiously fighting to preserve its business model against a siege of new technologies and players. The major wireless carriers are fearful of upstart technologies that are slashing once-robust revenue streams from traditional home and office telephones, so they've made it impossible to use Internet phone services on most of their phones.

Indeed, Vonage (VG) and other providers of VoIP technology will have signed up more than 15 million U.S. homes and businesses by yearend, generating nearly $5 billion of revenue for 2007, says research firm TeleGeography. But on cell phones, VoIP is hard to find. "There are a lot of reasons why mobile VoIP has not yet taken off—and they differ by region," says Stephan Beckert, a TeleGeography analyst. "In the U.S., a key reason is that mobile operators are deliberately trying to keep their customers from being able to use it."

The Skype cell phone, developed with a software outfit named iSkoot, is equipped with multimedia capabilities and high-speed data for mobile Web browsing. But its most prominent feature is a big button right above the regular keypad to activate Skype's popular service for long-distance and international calls. A press on that button triggers an iSkoot-developed application that brings up a list of a user's Skype "buddies" and regular phone contacts. A click on any entry in that list dials the call.

Skype's Challenge: Turning Appeal into Profits
Skype is betting that easy mobile access to its service could spur more overseas call traffic, a revenue-producing business where growth has slumped sharply. Though Skype boasts 246 million accounts, only about one-quarter to one-third of those customers are thought to be regular users, and the vast majority of their calls are free. Skype has struggled to turn its popularity into profits since it was acquired two years ago by eBay, which recently acknowledged it overpaid by $1.4 billion for the business (BusinessWeek, 10/1/07).

Calls on the Skype cell phone will cost the same as on a computer or Skype cordless phone: free when speaking to other Skype users, pennies per minute when users dial regular phone numbers in most countries. 3 Mobile, owned by Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa (HUWHY) , won't charge extra to use the Skype feature. But customers will need to spend a certain amount per month for other services, such as regular mobile calls, ringtones, or text messaging.

A cheap international connection could prove to be a potent draw for wireless users. Currently, few mobile phone subscribers are willing to pay the quarters and dollars per minute charged by cellular companies for international calls. That means 3 Mobile is putting little international revenue at risk by moving to the Skype model. Another intriguing twist: Since eBay owns the online payment service PayPal, success with the Skype phone could provide a springboard for using a cell phone or other handheld device to pay for items, as if it's a charge or debit card. That's been an elusive goal for the wireless industry except in a handful of countries such as Japan and Korea.

A Tough Sell with Carriers
But even if it widens the path being carved by Apple and Google, the Skype phone is really more of a back-to-basics concept. The iPhone adds sleek Web browsing and the simplicity of an iPod music player to a phone. The gPhone (BusinessWeek, 9/13/07) seeks to bring Google's expertise, finding information and showing related ads, to a mobile handset. By contrast, the Skype phone is first and foremost about plain old phone calls.

Whatever the nature of these new services and phones, Apple, Skype, and even handset makers like Nokia (NOK) have found that it's difficult to get them into consumers' hands without the aid of mobile carriers—and their cooperation is rare. In the case of Internet calling, the industry's uneasiness has been especially palpable.

Mobile carriers such as AT&T specifically prohibit VoIP on their phones in their terms of service. Verizon and Sprint Nextel have battered Vonage with patent infringement suits (BusinessWeek, 9/27/07) that may have as much to do with nudging the Internet phone company toward bankruptcy as protecting their intellectual property. And earlier this year, one of the top U.S. cellular companies put a last-minute kibosh on a plan by iSkoot to announce that its Skype application worked on some of that carrier's handsets. The carrier told iSkoot it was still determining its policy toward not only Skype, but VoIP in general.

The arrival of the Skype phone is but the latest sign of evolution in wireless, and counter measures by the cellular carriers a ready reminder that there won't be a revolution any time soon.

Meyerson is Deputy Technology Editor for BusinessWeek.com.

Vacation in Canada

2007-08-31T20:18:00.000Z

As I already mentioned in my last post, I visited the IETF in Chicago in July. In the meantime, my wife, Michael, Raffael and Julia flew over to Canada and visited Quebec. The newly wed couple did their honeymoon on the Bahamas. I joined them after the IETF in Ottawa. Mario and Katharina also came to Ottawa after they stay in the Bahamas.

With our Canadian friends we did a canoeing trip in Algonquin Park and Barron Canyon. We stayed another week in Ottawa to join the wedding of Emil and Meghan.

The picture albums of Kathi's wedding and our time in Canada is available at my Web Gallery.

AT&T Video Share

2007-07-26T23:44:00.000Z

After the wedding of my daughter last Saturday our family dispersed all over the world. The young couple flew on Monday to the Bahamas for honeymoon, the rest of the family on Wednesday to Montreal, and I travelled already on Sunday to Chicago to participate at the IETF#69. The idea is that we all will re-unite in Ottawa, ON on Sunday.

In the Palmer Hilton I get USA Today delivered each morning and today I found an interesting article: "Phones let you reach out and show someone - New AT&T Video Share devices send live video".

My first thought was that AT&T finally invented video telephony, or re-invented it, because video-telephony was demonstrated first by Herbert Eugene Ives in New York 1930, the first commercial service was between Berlin and Leipzig 1936, and then re-invented by AT&T as Picturephone in the early 1960.

But at a second glimpse it is more Push to Video. During a voice conversation you may add a one-way video stream to show the other side where you are - provided you have 3G UMTS/HSPDA coverage (EDGE does not work), and both parties have a special phone (Samsung 717, 727 or a LG CU500).

The bottom line in USA Today:
AT&T Video Share

Requires Video share phone and 3G network access: monthly plans start at $5 for 25 minutes
Pro: Lets you view live video stream over your cell phone while continuing a voice conversation. Simple operation.
Con: One-way video. Video quality is mediocre and sound is poor. Expensive service.

I want to add an additional Con: the problem is still unsolved what you do if you call your wife, and tell her you are still busy in a late meeting and she wants you to turn your video on.

BTW: I have since four years a 3G videophone (both ways), tried it out once and never used it again.

Wedding of Kathi on 20.07.2007

2007-07-21T20:00:00.000Z

I proudly announce that on Friday, the 20. 07. 2007 my oldest daughter Katharina married Mario Reitl in Hietzing, Vienna, Austria.

Next day, on Saturday, the church wedding took place in Hausleiten, Lower Austria

The new and happy couple after the wedding.

Congratulations.

More pictures can be seen at Slide.

Sigbritt, 75, has world's fastest broadband

2007-07-19T19:49:00.000Z

From The Local

A 75 year old woman from Karlstad in central Sweden has been thrust into the IT history books - with the world's fastest internet connection.

Sigbritt Löthberg's home has been supplied with a blistering 40 Gigabits per second connection, many thousands of times faster than the average residential link and the first time ever that a home user has experienced such a high speed.

But Sigbritt, who had never had a computer until now, is no ordinary 75 year old. She is the mother of Swedish internet legend Peter Löthberg who, along with Karlstad Stadsnät, the local council's network arm, has arranged the connection.

"This is more than just a demonstration," said network boss Hafsteinn Jonsson.

"As a network owner we're trying to persuade internet operators to invest in faster connections. And Peter Löthberg wanted to show how you can build a low price, high capacity line over long distances," he told The Local.

Sigbritt will now be able to enjoy 1,500 high definition HDTV channels simultaneously. Or, if there is nothing worth watching there, she will be able to download a full high definition DVD in just two seconds.

The secret behind Sigbritt's ultra-fast connection is a new modulation technique which allows data to be transferred directly between two routers up to 2,000 kilometres apart, with no intermediary transponders.

According to Karlstad Stadsnät the distance is, in theory, unlimited - there is no data loss as long as the fibre is in place.

"I want to show that there are other methods than the old fashioned ways such as copper wires and radio, which lack the possibilities that fibre has," said Peter Löthberg, who now works at Cisco.

Cisco contributed to the project but the point, said Hafsteinn Jonsson, is that fibre technology makes such high speed connections technically and commercially viable.

"The most difficult part of the whole project was installing Windows on Sigbritt's PC," said Jonsson.

What I always say - FTTH is the ultimate solution
(as a first step I dropped Windows and moved to MAC OS X)
and maybe I also get this speed when I am 75.

PEI (Pigeon Enabled Internet) is FASTER then ADSL

2007-07-19T19:39:00.000Z

From Ami Ben-Bassat's Blog

This is a bit old, but still good

A New Israeli test confirms: PEI (Pigeon Enabled Internet) is FASTER then ADSL

"Never underestimate a pigeon carrying a memory card, hovering above your head, ready to download"-yossi vardi

Will B2P (Back to Pigeons) save an endangered technology? On Friday, March 12, 2004, a group of several dozen Internet addicts from Israel and abroad, gathered in the large grass field of the OHALO Center near the Sea of Galilee. The purpose of the gathering was to try and improve Wi-Fly - pigeon-empowered wireless internet and to confront this technology against ADSL. The participants sent 3 homing pigeons to 100 km distance, each carrying 20-22 tiny memory cards containing 1.3 GB, amounting in total of 4 GB of data.

the full story is here.

Apple iPhone Day

2007-06-29T08:30:00.000Z

Today is the day Apple iPhone launches. Thousands queue up to buy. Ok, if you have enough market power, this is how you launch new products - be it the new Harry Potter or a gadget. You simply need the 5% idiots who want everything immediately and for any price to finance the remaining 95%.

The Apple iPhone is really looking nice, but will it succeed?

Michael Robertson from Gizmo and Sipphone has an interesting comparison of the 1-button Apple iPhone and the 51-button Nokia E61: Battle of the Buttons. Since I also have a Nokia E61, this is very interesting for me.

In most points the E61 is better, and I agree what he is saying about the major flaw of the E61: configuring and accessing a WiFi-hotspot is a pain ... but if you have done it, it is fine.

And I also fully agree with his conclusion:

"...If your software needs are exactly what Steve Jobs and AT&T dictate and if you don't mind AT&T's hand in your wallet, then fine."

We will see how this works in Europe.

One week of vacation: sailing in Greece

2007-06-17T15:19:00.000Z

After the conference in Berlin I spent a week sailing in the Cyclades in Greece. I was invited by Rupert Nagler, member of the management board of IPA (the owner of nic.at) to join him for one week on his boat Sea of Joy.

We arrived on Saturday, the 9th of June in Athens, the boat was moored in Marina Zea. On Sunday we left for Kithnos. Our trip continued to Syros, Myconos, Kea, Poros and ended on Friday in Marina Zea again. This was really a very nice and relaxing week.

The Sea of Joy in Syros.

The route we sailed can be downloaded for Google Earth.

+353 Irish ENUM Registry opens today

2007-05-31T19:22:00.000Z

Some things may take a while, some may take even longer. At March 22, 2006 (14 month ago) I posted: Irish-Austrian Consortium Provides ENUM Services in Ireland.

The Irish Commision for Communication Regulation (ComReg) announced today officially that an Irish-Austrian Consortium wins competition for the provision of ENUM services in Ireland.

December 19, 2006 I wondered what was going on and see, instantly they re-acted and immediately afterwards ENUM went into commercial service in Ireland:

IENUM, the Irish ENUM Registry opened service today. Some snippets from the news:

IENUM Limited, a 70% subsidiary of the IE Domain Registry (IEDR), today announced the availability of user ENUM (Electronic Numbering) services for telephone number holders in Ireland.

Ireland is now the seventh country to announce the availability of ENUM services. IENUM Limited was selected as the Tier 1 ENUM registry following the first international commercial tender process. The IEDR's partner in the IENUM consortium is Internet Privatstiftung Austria (IPA), the Austrian organisation which operates the .at domain name and provided the first commercial ENUM registry service in the world.

ENUM domains can now be registered at www.my-enum.ie for Geographic telephone numbers (eg 01 or 045 etc), Mobile phone numbers, '076' Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) numbers, and '0700' Personal Number Service numbers. The cost of an ENUM domain is 1 euro per month plus a validation fee, currently 25 euro payable on first registration, and 5 euro on revalidation.
.....

ComReg's Chairperson, Mike Byrne, said: ComReg is encouraged to see the emergence of ENUM as a full commercial service in Ireland today. ENUM has the potential to be a key enabler of advanced IP-based services. ComReg has been to the fore in encouraging the development of ENUM in Ireland and we are pleased to welcome the opening of IENUM's service which we see as an innovative and potentially valuable new communications facility for Irish consumers.

BTW, next week I will be chairing the ENUM and VoIP Peering Forum 2007 in Berlin, and Mike Byrne will speak about ENUM from a Regulators Perspective. The two day conference will feature also other very interesting speakers:

Carsten Schiefner (DT, RIPE and Denic), Andrzej Bartosiewicz (NASK), John Horrocks (ETSI), Kim Fullbrook (O2 UK, GSMA), Robert Schischka (enum.at), Thomas de Haan (Ministry of Economic Affairs, NL), Chan-Ki Park (NIDA, Korea), Rodrigue Ullens (Voxbone), Xavier Casajoana (VozTelecom), Wilhelm Wimmreuter, Pieter Nooren (TNO, NL), Tony Holmes (BT, ENUM UK, ETSI), Ondrej Filip (CZ.NIC) and last, but not least Richard Shockey (Neustar, IETF ENUM).

On Monday afternoon, Adrian Georgescu (AG Projects) will lead a half-day interactive workshop on sucessfull business model for ENUM.

My presentation can be retrieved from here.

IMS R4? - When is an IMS not an IMS?

2007-05-01T15:37:00.000Z

Mobile Operators are currently implementing 3GPP Release 4 - some vendors call this also IMS Release 4. Interestingly IMS was introduced in 3GPP in Release 5 and improved in R6 and now in R7, which will be frozen in June 2007. ETSI TISPAN has finished R1 last year and is currently working on R2. Since they now will merge with 3GPP, R2 may never be finished as such and the first complete IMS will be 3GPP R8 frozen somewhere in 2009 and deployed in 2011. This will approx. also be the time when IMS mobile handsets finally will be widely available.

So what may happen? Some service providers will implement SIP servers and their customers will live happy with them and the available user equipment for the next 4 years.

Others will implement expensive "IMS" R4 (softswitches), spend much money again to upgrade to R5, R6, R7 and R8. Since no mobile equipment is available, this will mostly be fixed line operators doing PSTN replacement - i.e. investing into a shrinking market.

More about IMS R4 see Brough Turner "Lessons learned implementing IMS" (short) and the full story here.

His takeaway:

Operators await 3GPP Release 7. At least anecdotally, several operators have suggested that 3GPP Release 7 is the first complete, stable, and consistent version they will fully deploy.

He is not saying what operators - I assume he means mobile operators (talking about R7).

Some fixed operators are not waiting - they are planning to deploy the incomplete ETSI TISPAN R1.

One could believe the whole IMS idea is a plot by the mobile operators to kill the wireline operators completely.

UK OFCOM - Regulation of VoIP Services

2007-04-18T10:51:00.000Z

I have to apologize, this is a bit late, but I was on vacation. UK Ofcom released on 29 March 2007 the Regulation of VoIP Services (Statement and publication of statutory notifications under section 48(1) of the Communications Act 2003 modifying General Conditions 14 and 18). A summary can be retrieved from Ofcoms webpage.

The ruling lays out a code of conduct with which VoIP providers must adhere. It does not take immediate steps to require emergency service (999) access. Instead, Ofcom plans to take another look at this area later this year and consult on whether, and how, emergency services calls access might be made a mandatory requirement in the VoIP world.

In addressing those objectives, Ofcom made the following two main regulatory proposals in its 2006 consultation:

to modify General Condition(-3-) 14 (“GC 14”) requiring providers of Public Electronic Communication Services (to the extent it comprises the conveyance of speech, music or sounds) to comply with a code of practice (i.e. the Code on the provision by Service Providers of consumer information to Domestic and Small Business Customers for the provision of Services (“the Code”); and
to modify the definition of a ‘Publicly Available Telephone Service’ (“PATS”) for the purposes of General Condition 18 (“GC 18”) so that only services available to the public for originating and receiving national and international calls and access to emergency services through a normal telephone number have the right to number portability under GC 18, with the only exception of Public Electronic Communications Services for only receiving calls.

Remark: The last bullet is Ofcom's trick to get out of the circular definition of PATS by declaring number portability a right and not an obligation ;-) IMO, since number portability is a no-brainer with VoIP and ENUM, this should not be linked.

In addition, the 2006 consultation set out a number of additional measures that are relevant to the application of the General Conditions of Entitlement (“GCs”) to providers of VoIP services, including:

the discontinuance of Ofcom’s interim forbearance policy as set out in the 2004 consultation. This policy meant that Ofcom would forbear from enforcing obligations in the GCs applying to providers of PATS, so as to reduce any potential disincentive for VoIP providers offering access to emergency services to their customers;
the withdrawal of the Essential Requirement Guidelines (and instead applying the ‘reasonably practicable’ test set out in General Condition 3 (“GC 3”) on a case-by-case basis); and
the publication of draft guidance on the application of PATS obligations in the GCs to VoIP service providers to ensure that they meet their obligations.

The framework also explains Ofcom's current thinking on other VoIP related issues including naked DSL, net neutrality, approach to regulation of nomadic services and the European Framework Review.

Specifically, the new code of practice requires VoIP providers to make clear:

- whether or not the service includes access to emergency services;
- the extent to which the service depends on the user's home power supply;
- whether directory assistance, directory listings, access to the operator or the itemization of calls are available; and
- whether consumers will be able to keep their telephone number if they choose to switch providers at a later date.

Remark: This is ok, I just wonder if the second bullet is now also required for mobile phones.

If consumers choose to take up a service that does not offer access to emergency services or which depends on an external power supply, the code also requires VoIP providers to:

- secure the customer's positive acknowledgement of this at point of sale (by checking a box, for example);
- label the capability of the service, either in the form of a physical label for equipment or via information on the computer screen; and
- play an announcement each time a call to emergency services is attempted, reminding the caller that access is unavailable.

Recognizing that VoIP services have the potential to offer significant new benefits to consumers, including more competition and choice, lower prices and new services such as second lines and nomadic services, my first read suggests to me that Ofcom tried to strike a workable balance between promoting innovation and protecting traditional social goods.

By and large, I prefer Ofcoms's approach to VoIP to what I have seen in many other countries.

Five Busy Weeks

2007-04-02T16:28:00.000Z

The last 5 weeks have been very busy.

It started with an ETSI TISPAN WG4 meeting in Darmstadt 27. February to 2. March. WG4 is dealing with Numbering/Naming and Address Resolution in NGN.

This was followed by the "IIR ENUM Conference in London, UK on 6.-7. March.

The speakers where the ususal suspects: Tony Holmes, Ronan Lupton, Kim Fullbrook, Penn Pfautz, Andy Reid, Richard Shockey, Paul Rosbotham, John Wilkinson, Robert Schischka, Karen Mulberry, Martin Hoffman, Gary Richenaker and myself.

The presentation from Paul Rosbotham (C&W) was very interesting, because he explained the future ideas in UK about Number Portability. Here it fits that Andy Reid (BT) said in his presentation one should look forwards and not backwards. I hope that this proposal on NP is not the last word. My presentation can be found here.

The next week I was in Budapest speaking at the VIB Conference Global VoIP Strategies, 13.-14 March. I was speaking about VoIP Interconnection and my presentation is here.

From 19.-23. March, I was in Prague at the IETF#68.

The ENUM WG is nearing its end and will be closing down soon. The Infrastructure ENUM drafts are ready and may be sent over to ITU-T with a liaison statement, so god and the IESG will. What is required still is a method to create Enumservices without WG involvement.

SPEERMINT is working on use-cases for VoIP and IM. Afterwards the WG will create requirements and then maybe an interconnect architecture.

From 26.-30. March I was again at ETSI TISPAN 13bis, this time in Sophia Antipolis. The meeting produced again over 500 temporary documents.

WG4 is slowly sorting out their documents, creating an umbrella document on Numbering/naming Address Resolution (NAR), pointing to the three main functions (each contained in a separate detailed document):

-processing of dialled digits to target names (major problem: handling of non-E.164 numbers)
-target name to address translation (e.g. ENUM, LoST, ..)
-route determination (finding a route from a SIP-URI)

TISPAN is slowly discovering that they need some kind of NNI and some means to interconnect.

Now I am finally enjoying my easter vacation ;-)

Americans are NOT stupid

2007-03-19T08:06:00.000Z

See here

No comment.

Master Thesis on Infrastructure ENUM

2007-03-15T14:49:00.000Z

Lennart Maris from the Eindhoven University of Technology published his master thesis on Infrastructure ENUM.

Congratulations, this is a nice piece of work.

In the first part, Lennart gives a very good overview on the status of User and Infrastructure ENUM and VoIP Peering.

He correctly identifies the two main application areas for Infrastructure ENUM:

facilitating VoIP interconnection and
facilitating number portability.

He then creates 4 implementation models:

The closed model,
Open Infrastructure ENUM: The email model,
The compromise model and
Next Generation COIN.

These so called implementation models comprise VoIP interconnection and number portability as the two application areas for Infrastructure ENUM. The main difference between the implementation models is the degree of openness. Roughly there are two approaches for the organizational structure of Infrastructure ENUM: an open and a closed approach. Model 1 & 4 represent the closed approach and model 2 & 3 represent the open approach.

He then made a questionaire of stakeholders in the Netherlands: regulators, operators, vendors and interest groups.

The results are very interesting:

No seriously considered alternatives for Infrastructure ENUM technology exist.
No overall consensus for a particular organizational structure exists.
Facilitators, vendors and interest group clearly support the open models.
DGET/OPTA have a neutral position with regard to Infrastructure ENUM and the other stakeholders confirm this position.
Operators are seen by all stakeholders as initiators/locomotives of an Infrastructure ENUM initiative.
It is most likely that in the short term the closed models will arise and in the long term these closed models will merge with other models.
Introduction of Infrastructure ENUM does not require a change in business model except for the email model.

There is only one serious mistake in the thesis: Lennart is assuming that Infrastructure ENUM is only working for VoIP. This is not true. Infrastructure ENUM may also contain PSTN lines, ported and non-ported.

Another minor drawback is the limited reach (only Dutch respondents), but this is recognized in the thesis. It is also recognized that the knowledge of the issues around ENUM and VoIP peering are not the same with all respondents.

Morse Code versus SMS

2007-03-15T14:16:00.000Z

In Dinner for 4 there competed Ben Cook, the fastest US test messenger, and Ken Miller, 43 years in Ham Radio, who is sending the sentence "I just saved a bunch of money on my car assurance" faster.

Guess who won?

Upgraded Blogger Version

2007-02-23T14:21:00.000Z

I upgraded my blog to the new version of Blogger. They said that this will leave the layout unharmed. As anybody can see, it scambled up my Google Ads.

Until I can have a look at this, I apologize for the inconvenience.

In the meantime I found out that this is only happing if you use Firefox

SkypeCarterphone

2007-02-23T14:07:00.000Z

Skype asks FCC to open up mobile networks

Now this will be interesting.

Comment by Erik Cecil:

Bells: Carterphone doesn't apply. In that case, it was a rancher who wanted to use is walkie talkie to talk to the vet from out on his ranch. But Carterphone proves our case. That's because these days there's competition. That rancher has the choice of any number of wireless providers. So he doesn't need to use his walkie talkie. He can use his cell phone.

Martin: Petition Denied. Next.

Or?

No Information Super Traffic Jam?

2007-02-23T13:48:00.000Z

Two weeks ago I had a post about Deloitte & Touche predicting that global traffic will exceed the Internet's capacity end of this year, mainly caused by video traffic.

Now Network World is stating: Don't expect video to exhaust the fiber glut.

“In long haul, there is still plenty of fiber,” says Andrew Odlyzko, director of the Digital Technology Center at the University of Minnesota. “If you look at the total Internet traffic in the U.S., it could be squeezed down one or at most two fiber strands. And on most routes you have hundreds of strands.”

...

Insight Research did a study back in 2001 of fiber utilization among 13 major long-haul carriers. Data was culled from fiber pairs in 24 major cities.Only 7% to 8% of the total capacity was used, and of that only 3% to 4% was actually lit, says Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research. Historically, utilization has been more like 30% to 40%, he says.

Couple with that the slowing growth of Internet traffic. Even though the rate of video growth has been increasing – Level 3 says 50% to 60% of the traffic across its IP backbone is video, compared with 5% to 10% five years ago – the overall growth of traffic on the Internet has slowed to 50% per year from 100% or more in the heady days of the bubble.

“Back in those days, everybody was putting in as much as they could and it made sense,” says Clif Holliday, an analyst with Information Gatekeepers Inc. (IGI). “There’s probably an awful lot of excess fiber in the ground.”

So the bottleneck is still in the access, but also this is improving with fiber-to-the-home.

Last week Siemens transmitted 10 Gigabit/second over a passive optical network. And the last mile was 100 kilometers.

This should be sufficent for HDTV.

KPN will shut down PSTN in 2010 - The Interview

2007-02-05T16:46:00.000Z

The interview Eelco Blok gave to the "Wirtschaftswoche" (in German) has been translated already in English by D.H van der Woude (see below).

What is interesting here is that KPN goes a different path here then Deutsche Telecom:

Mr Blok further implies that KPN has reached an understanding with OPTA that the network
will be open from day one. And he says in quite clear terms that KPN does not agree with
DTAG that there should be a regulatory holiday.

However, last week OPTA published a study by Analysys that concludes that the result of
KPN's All-IP net quill be that even its largest competitors will end up with no business case.

Which would mean that KPN's open network only will used by... KPN.

The translated interview:

„Complete switch off "

Eelco Blok, board member at the Dutch market leader KPN, in an interview over radical fixed net reconstruction and new Internet competitors.

WirtschaftsWoche: Mr. Blok, have you already cried today?

Eelco Blok: Why should I?

The day moves closer, when KPN will shut down the old telephone network, their implicit basis of contracts in the past 100 years.

(laughs) much more I mourn the customers we lose to the competition. In order to stop the customer decrease, we not only must completely change our net, but also the enterprise with all its coworkers.

Is the old telephone network is no longer good enough, in order to develop new products for the customers?

In the future we can exist in the competition only if we offer with greatest possible bandwidth offer the entire product spectrum from VOIP up to IPTV to our private and business customers. This functions only in an ultramodern fixed net, which only uses IP to transmit. In the year 2010 we want to switch off the traditional telephone network completely. In order to guarantee data transmission rates from 30 to 50 megabit per second, we must everywhere in the Netherlands roll out glass fiber to the street corner. For the coming three to five years this suffices to be competitive.

Is such a megaproject worthwhile?

We made additional means available to a level of 1,0 to 1.5 billion euro until 2010. Perhaps we will supplement these investments. A large part of these means originates from the sales of buildings, in which we house our today's switching centers and that we will not need any longer. At the same time our costs can be lowered significantly. The new net needs less technicians. Until 2010 we want to ax 8,000 jobs. Those are 50 per cent of our fixed net workers.

Deutsche Telekom makes the billion-investment dependent on a Regulatory Holiday and wants to force that the competition does not get an entrance to the new high-speed net.

We pursue a completely different strategy. It is clearly in the interest of all to open the new net immediately for the competition. We have aready reached an understanding with the Dutch Regulatory authority. Alternative fixed net companies can share the new net immediately. Thus we are on a line with the European Union commission.The real profiteers are nevertheless Internet companies such as Google and Yahoo, which use your infrastructure almost free of charge in the future for the spreading of videos and television.

We are convinced of the fact that Google, Yahoo and Apple in the private customer business, and in addition, IT-services from the like of IBM, EDS and Microsoft in the business customer market, form a very important part of the competition landscape. We fight no longer only against other telecom companies and cable system operators. Nevertheless we will defend our position in the communication market.

How do you want to achieve that? The competition will be even harder in the new net. Research concludes that Google, Yahoo & co can offer their services in the same quality as infrastructure operators. Which right of existence will you than have?

It can well be that there will no longer be recognizable quality differences and the customers will use these web services exactly like what we offer. But for us there is no alternative. Already now the turnover in the fixed net business decreases each year. We hope that with our television offer this trend can be stopped. That can only work when we renew the entire infrastructure and lower the costs

[03.02.2007] juergen.berke@wiwo.de

KPN will shut down PSTN in 2010

2007-02-05T09:52:00.000Z

Deutsche Telecom said it will shut down the PSTN in 2019, British Telecom said it will have the 21CN fully in place 2015, and now KPN is already at 2010.

I currently have only German references from heise.de and futurezone.orf.at (in German):

KPN will shut down completely its traditional phone network in 2010. Calls will then be provided only via VoIP, says Eelco Blok, responsible for the fixed network part of KPN to the "Wirtschaftswoche".
...

This changes the telecom-infrastructure completely, a lot of workplace will not be required anymore.

This will be done in some cases without the users really noticing it, e.g. with customers from Arcor and Alice in Germany. Also Deutsche Telecom is moving in this direction.

Information Super Traffic Jam?

2007-02-02T20:28:00.000Z

Phil Kerpen has an article on Forbes.com yesterday starting with the following paragraph:

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A new assessment from Deloitte & Touche predicts that global traffic will exceed the Internet's capacity as soon as this year. Why? The rapid growth in the number of global Internet users, combined with the rise of online video services and the lack of investment in new infrastructure. If Deloitte's predictions are accurate, the traffic on many Internet backbones could slow to a crawl this year absent substantial new infrastructure investments and deployment. . .

Huh? I cannot believe this.

Who is predicting this? Deloitte & Touche? or Phil Kerpen?

As Kevin Werbach points out:

So, if you actually read the Deloitte & Touche "study", which is here, you discover that it's **one page** of pretty summary conclusions.

Not one page of executive summary; the entire relevant discussion on "reaching the limits of cyberspace" is a single page in one volume of their 2007 tech trends report.

And if you read that one page, you find that the only source for the claim that backbones are reaching capacity is a piece from CNET News.com in March.

That's a relatively unremarkable article talking about the demand that growing video traffic places on the network. It talks about ISP traffic shaping and distributed caching being promoted in response.

There's nothing in there about network neutrality. In fact, the very next page of the Deloitte and Touche report is about "The net neutrality debate needs resolution," but it's a completely separate article. And the conclusion is: "Both arguments [for and against net neutrality] have merit; both have their flaws." Not exactly the conclusion that the Forbes column drew from the report.

Or as Vint Cerf said: this article must have been commissioned by the RBOCs.

Ah yes, and Tuvalu is going under because of Global Warming.

UK ENUM Tier-1 RFP launched

2007-02-02T20:15:00.000Z

Just for completeness:

The UK ENUM Consortium has finally launched the RFP/ITT for the UK Tier 1 Registry.

The ITT and related documents can be downloaded from here.

Presentations and other details from the workshop that was held on Jan 17th can be found there too.

Organisations planning to respond to the ITT need to inform UKEC of that intent by Feb 7th. Responses to the ITT must be submitted before noon on Feb 28th.

So the UK may also go commercial with ENUM sometimes this year (or 2008).

Verizon rejected Apple iPhone deal

2007-01-30T12:27:00.000Z

USA Today reports that Verizon was asked first and rejected Apple's iPhone deal.

NEW YORK — Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 U.S. cellphone carrier, passed on the chance to be the exclusive distributor of the iPhone almost two years ago, balking at Apple's rich financial terms and other demands.

Among other things, Apple wanted a percentage of the monthly cellphone fees, say over how and where iPhones could be sold and control of the relationship with iPhone customers, said Jim Gerace, a Verizon Wireless vice president. "We said no. We have nothing bad to say about the Apple iPhone. We just couldn't reach a deal that was mutually beneficial."

Verizon's decision to pull the plug on talks sent Apple into the waiting arms of Cingular, which will be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone. The multifunction device is expected to ship in June and cost about $500.

If you read further and see the conditions Apple wanted from Verizon, one could raise the question if Verizon really passed a chance, or as Mark Siegel, a Cingular spokesman, said, "We think this is a win for Apple, and it is a win for Cingular."

We will see - it could also be a loss for Apple and Cingular and a win for Verizon ;-)

+420/0.2.4.e164.arpa Czech ENUM in full commercial operation

2007-01-23T13:05:00.000Z

Pavel Tuma from nic.cz announced today that the Czech ENUM (+420) went into fully commercial operation.

Summary:

No major problems occured while more than 2100 domains were registred through 9 registrars during the trial. All domains are kept in the registry for commercial operation. Few telco operators support ENUM officialy or unofficially, others announced future support and the discussion with the rest (unfortunately including all major ones) is ongoing.

For the full press release see here.

Congratulations.

Stephen Colbert explains the whole AT&T thing

2007-01-19T09:21:00.000Z

Stephen Colbert explains the whole AT&T thing

And I finally understand how anti-trust works in the US

The Devil Wears Prada

2007-01-19T08:59:00.000Z

One week after the announcement of Apple's iPhone the first clone exists (LG Prada):

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea's LG Electronics Co. said Thursday it is launching a new mobile phone that incorporates a buttonless touch-screen that resembles the much-hyped Apple Inc. iPhone _ and will be in stores next month.

LG's Prada Phone is being produced in partnership with the Italian fashion brand. It is set to go on sale in late February for 600 euros ($780) at mobile phone dealers and Prada stores in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and comes to Asia in March.

KE850: no button interface with touch-sensitive screen, MP3-player, 2 megapixel camera, EDGE, memory on cards, a bit more expensive, but available much earlier (and not locked to AT&T)

Major draw-back: NO WIFI.

The official press release from LG see here, for pictures: here.

Wrong Way for Wireless?

2007-01-18T21:48:00.000Z

Forbes.com has an interesting article today if wireless operators are really going in the right direction: Wrong Way for Wireless?

The carriers' logic: Selling games, songs and text-messaging services is much more profitable than plain-old phone calls. And wireless companies' data service revenue grew 88% year over year, according to research firm Telephia.

Yet Rasmus Wegener and Pratap Mukharji, Atlanta-based telecom consultants for Bain & Company, say wireless companies are headed in the wrong direction. Betting on customers to fatten up their phone bills won't work, they say. Instead, they think carriers should focus on their core business, and spend more time and money building customer loyalty. Dissatisfied customers are constantly bailing out on their contracts, and getting new ones is an expensive proposition. But if carriers cut their churn rates by 20%, they could boost profits by up to 15%.

Wegener and Mukharji recently explained their findings to Forbes.com.

XConnect Begins 2007 with Launch of DirectRoute Service

2007-01-18T21:40:00.000Z

A press release from XConnect: XConnect opens its doors to Wholesale Carriers, enabling significant cost reductions on calls terminating to XConnect Registry subscribers.

LONDON, UK, & Honolulu, Hawaii, January 16, 2007 —XConnect, the world’s largest neutral provider of Voice over IP (VoIP) peering services and operator of the XConnect Global Alliance, today announced the production launch of its DirectRoute service, enabling wholesale carriers to profit from Layer 5 VoIP Peering. Some of the high profile customers that have signed up for the service include leading international carriers such as Interoute, Bezeq International, and Touchstone. The announcement was made this morning at the PTC conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, where Kingsley Hill, VP Strategic Federations will speak on a keynote panel on VoIP Peering.

DirectRoute enables wholesale carriers to terminate calls destined for XConnect ENUM Registry numbers directly to the terminating Service Providers’ networks, lowering per minute costs and improving quality by eliminating unnecessary transit operators and associated PSTN/VoIP gateways. For VoIP Service Providers receiving calls via DirectRoute, the service offers a significant source of new revenue; as they are able to to receive calls from wholesale carriers directly into their VoIP infrastructure and to collect per-minute fees on inbound calls.

“The launch of our DirectRoute leverages our unique ENUM Registry and VoIP Peering platform to build on our XConnect Global Alliance TM settlement-free VoIP federations and deliver compelling benefits to both the carriers and VoIP service providers managing PSTN-to-VoIP calls,” said Eli Katz, CEO of XConnect. “We welcome Bezeq, Interoute and Touchstone as founding participants in the DirectRoute program and are pleased to have the support of these recognized leaders within the industry. Wholesale carriers can dramatically reduce termination costs on calls destined for numbers in the XConnect Registry, and VoIP service providers can increase ARPU by monetizing inbound calls to their subscribers.”

Carriers exploit DirectRoute by implementing a query of the XConnect ENUM Registry, discovering which of its calls are destined for registered subscribers and can thus be delivered directly, and at lower cost, into the network of the applicable service provider, without unnecessary transit steps and quality degradation. The query response contains routing information when a number is matched in the Registry or, when not matched, informs the carrier to proceed with their normal LCR routing. The ENUM Registry ‘dip’ is achieved through a SIP or ENUM-Query interface to a local cache of the Registry based upon XConnect’s patent-pending Local Directory Server (LDS). The LDS, delivers carrier-grade, high throughput and minimal latency on queries and automatically synchronizes with XConnect’s central ENUM Registry. VoIP service providers belonging to XConnect’s Global Alliance can join DirectRoute and begin earning revenue with no additional technical or integration requirements.

“Interoute is excited about integrating XConnect's DirectRoute service and to have XConnect join our Arena program” said John Wilkinson, director of voice services for Interoute in London, UK. “By enabling our Arena service customers to seamlessly access the XConnect registry, we expect them to be able to leverage the Federation paradigm to reduce termination costs and deliver high quality service to their end-customers”

“We are excited to begin routing calls to XConnect’s registry via the DirectRoute service” said Nissan Arie, Vice President at Bezeq International, based in Tel Aviv, Israel. “VoIP Peering is a valuable new technology for reducing costs and increasing the quality of service we offer our global customer base.”

“Touchstone is so committed to the VoIP revolution that we dedicate 100% of our efforts to VoIP session management and back-office products” said Mark Baker, CEO of Dallas, TX based Touchstone Systems, Inc, “ we believe XConnect’s DirectRoute is a powerful driver of that VoIP revolution.”

XConnect DirectRoute was recently awarded the 2006 Internet Telephony Product of the Year award.

So VoIP providers also want to participate in collecting termination charges.

Good Bye, SkypeOut

2007-01-18T20:40:00.000Z

Skype introduces per today a call set-up charge (0,045 Euro) for all SkypeOut calls. This adds to the normal charges per minute.

Skype was never the cheapest, but is was convenient. This is over now.

Who was telling me this? Breaking News in a Voipbuster pop-up window ;-)

IPhone - re-inventing the phone?

2007-01-12T13:36:00.000Z

I now took the time to watch Steve Jobs 2 hour keynote at the MacWorld in San Francisco.

I have to admit that Apple is really re-inventing the mobile phone. It is really a smooth combination of a super-iPod, a mobile phone and the best Internet hand-held device if have seen, all topped with with a revolutionary user interface.

Go and see yourself.

There is only one point I do not understand: why is Apple making this long-term, exclusive relationship with Cingular-AT&T?

Only because they wanted to have this Visual (Random) Voicemail feature and that you may use SMS like IM?

See also iPhone update: The decisions are all Apple's on the relation between Apple and Cingular.

...and while Cingular had to make sacrifices to its normal distribution and service model to land the exclusive agreement, Lurie said Apple was forced to bend also. Cingular managed to secure an exclusive distribution agreement for the iPhone and future iPhone models, meaning if you want the hot new device you have to become a Cingular customer, and even if you already are a Cingular customer you have to sign a new 2-year contract—no exceptions, Lurie said. Cingular is allowed to take steps to make sure no rogue iPhones make their way to the market. It will lock the phones and take steps to prevent the phones from being hacked. And while Cingular’s data upselling prospects on the phone may be limited today, Lurie said the companies are discussing options to open up the iTunes software and music services up to its mobile network, which could spell more data revenues for Cingular in the future.

What I completely did not understand was that the audience in the theater applauded to this announcement.

For a more detailed analysis of this see Tom Evslins:

Apple fails to re-invent the Telco Industry - too bad
and
Apple's iPhone Strategy - Readers Comment

Free ITU-T Recommendations

2007-01-12T11:11:00.000Z

The trial period for free ITU-T recommendations starts:

From the beginning of 2007, ITU-T Recommendations will be available without charge for a trial period.

With only a small number of exceptions all in-force Recommendations will be available in PDF form via a simple mouse click.

There is a general belief that the strategic importance of making on-line access to ITU-T Recommendations free outweighs the costs (in terms of lost revenue) to ITU. This is seen as a way to increase the transparency of ITU-T work and encourage wider participation in ITU-T activities. It is also believed that this policy will help increase developing countries' awareness of pertinent issues and help to promote the participation of academia in ITU-T work.

ITU-T Recommendations are available here.

Declaration of Revocation

2007-01-11T10:20:00.000Z

found on Stephanie Miller's website.

Declaration of Revocation
by John Cleese

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories.

Except Utah, which she does not fancy.

Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'; skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters.

You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise."

You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary." Using the same thirty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "uhh", "like", and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

Look up "interspersed."

There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary, then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier).

You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents --- Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.

While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters.

British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football." There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game.

The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.

Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies).

We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005.

You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders," which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day."

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call 'French fries' are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat.

Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or "gasoline," as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon -- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.

iPhone

2007-01-11T09:55:00.000Z

While the largest mobile handheld manufacturer Nokia is going in direction Internet and Skype, one of the leading Internet companies is going into the other direction: Apple.

Everybody is now talking about iPhone and tries to make sense out of it, e.g.:

Brain Teasers on the iPhone and Apple's iPhone Surprises Despite Rumo(u)rs

This is really a nice gadget, although it will show up only mid 2007 (and in Europe end of 2007).
The human interface is well designed, as we are already used from the Macs and iPod.

But it has two serious drawbacks: in the US, you get it only from Cingular and it does not support UMTS. I thought they have learned the lesson from the closed Mac OS after the success from iPod and especially the usage of Intel processors, dual boot (and Parallels).

Since this will never be accepted and work in Europe (see Europe will be different for IPhone), and may hope that also the UMTS problem will be solved until end of 2007.

Then the iPhone will be a very useful FMC device, providing broadband voice via UMTS and WiFi, both for IMS Rel.7 and Skype. And it will be the end-users choice what to use. You may even do not need circuit-switched voice.

The Disruption of the Disruption

2007-01-11T09:41:00.000Z

Adrian Georguescu from AG-Projects sent me the following link to a press release from Nokia: Skype and Nokia to develop novel Internet-calling experience.

Las Vegas, USA - At the CES conference in Las Vegas today, Skype and Nokia announced a collaboration to develop a new mobile Skype(TM) experience on the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, introduced earlier today.

The collaboration builds on the familiarity and richness of desktop Skype and makes it mobile. The Nokia N800's small size and easy wireless connectivity frees Skype users from their desktop, allowing Skype conversations to take place anywhere, as long as there is an available wireless Internet connection. Packed with features such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth phone connectivity, hands-free properties, webcam, media support and messenger keyboard, the Nokia N800 makes Skype conversations captivating experience at home, at work and on the move.

"Skype is the recognized leader of Internet communications with over 136 million registered users worldwide," said Ari Virtanen, Vice President, Convergence Products, Nokia. "Nokia's new N800 Internet Tablet is designed for mobile Internet. Together, we can develop communications devices beyond expectations."

"Skype is very happy to be partnering with Nokia," said Eric Lagier, Director, Business Development, Hardware and Mobile, at Skype. "Working with the leading mobile-handset manufacturer puts us in a unique position to get Skype to the mobile masses. With the introduction of the Nokia N800, we are positioning Skype as the centerpiece of Internet conversations on this WiFi-centric device. The Nokia N800 is an excellent platform for taking Skype conversations beyond the PC."

The first implementation on the Nokia N800 is expected to be made available for download by the end of first half of 2007.

Adrian commented this with the following statement:

SIP, an open standard IETF protocol, is nowadays the chosen protocol over closed networks
Skype, a closed solution, becomes the facto standard of communications over open networks

The world is upside down.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-24T22:35:00.000Z

To all my readers, a Merry Christmas

Ein Weihnachtsgedicht

2006-12-23T11:27:00.000Z

Der Gabentisch ist öd und leer,
die Kinder blicken blöd umher,
da lässt der Vater einen krachen,
die Kinder fangen an zu lachen.

So kann man auch mit kleinen Sachen
Beamtenkindern Freude machen.

Archeological Access Networks

2006-12-21T13:32:00.000Z

During an archeological search near Moscow at a depth of 10 meters, Russian scientists have found some relics of copper line. By provocation, they concluded publicly that Russian ancestors had a telephone network 1,000 years ago.

The Americans, to compete, decided to do a similar search, but at 20 meters deep. They found some trace of fiber glass. It turned out that it was 2,000 years old. The American scientists concluded that their ancestors deployed a fiber-to-the-home-network for digital communication. And this, a thousand years before the Russians!

One week later, in Salzburg, some Austrian scientists published the following: “Following searches in Hallein at a depth of 50 meters, we did not find anything. We conclude that the ancestors of the Celts had a Wifi network more than 5,000 years ago.”

ENUM in Ireland +353

2006-12-19T15:30:00.000Z

On March 22, 2006 I posted:

The Irish Commision for Communication Regulation (ComReg) announced today officially that an Irish-Austrian Consortium wins competition for the provision of ENUM services in Ireland.

I expected that after two or three month ENUM would go into operation in Ireland, because ...

... how long can you negotiate a contract?

Now we know:

Niall O'Reilly, Chair of the ENUM +353 Policy Advisory Board, posted the following message today:

ComReg and IENUM signed the +353 Tier-1 commercial-service contract yesterday afternoon. ComReg's media release is on their web site:
http://www.comreg.ie/whats_new/default.asp?ctype=5&nid=102516

The press release states:

The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) today announced that a commercial ENUM service will open in Ireland in first quarter of 2007.

Now this I can believe, because the registry is done be Austrians ;-)

Why cell phone outage reports are secret in the US

2006-12-18T12:40:00.000Z

From the Red Tape Chronicles: Why cell phone outage reports are secret.

Consumers have no idea how reliable their cell phone service will be when they buy a phone and sign a long-term contract. The Federal Communications Commission could offer some guidance, but it won't. The agency refuses to make public a detailed database of cell phone provider outages that it has maintained since 2004.

A federal Freedom of Information Act request for the data, filed in August by MSNBC.com, has been rejected by the agency. The stated reasons: Release of the information could help terrorists plan attacks against the United States, and it would harm the companies involved.

....

In the beginning, the reports all were from "wire line" telephone providers and were available to the public. But in 2004, the commission ordered wireless firms to supply outage reports as well. But at the same time, it removed all outage reports from public view and exempted them from the Freedom of Information Act.

It is really interesting what you can do now in the US in the name of Homeland Security.

This leads BTW to another interesting question regarding reliability of emegency services and VoIP:

How reliable are emergency services on "wire line" and especially "wire less"?

Experience on QoS in Internet2

2006-12-18T12:23:00.000Z

One argument by telcos why NGN and IMS is required is that there is no QoS on the Internet.

Internet2 is a not-for-profit partnership of 208 universities, 70 companies, and 51 affiliated organizations, including some federal agencies and laboratories. The mission is to advance the state of the Internet, primarily by operating a very advanced, private, ultra-high-speed research and education network called Abilene. By providing very high speed pipes – 10,000 times faster than home broadband, in our backbone – Abilene enables the members to try new uses of the network, develop new applications and experiment with new forms of communications.

Gary R. Bachula, the Vice-President of Internet2, stated at the hearing on Net Neutrality before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Sience and Transportation regarding QoS:

Our experience. Having deployed an advanced broadband network to over five million users for some seven years now, we at Internet2 believe our experience will interest Congress as you consider important telecommunications legislation.

We are aware that some providers argue against net neutrality, saying that they must give priority to certain kinds of Internet bits, such as video, in order to assure a high quality experience for their customer. Others argue that they want to use such discrimination among bits as a basis for a business model. Let me tell you about our experience at Internet.

When we first began to deploy our Abilene network, our engineers started with the assumption that we should find technical ways of prioritizing certain kinds of bits, such as streaming video, or video conferencing, in order to assure that they arrive without delay. For a number of years, we seriously explored various "quality of service" schemes, including having our engineers convene a Quality of Service Working Group. As it developed, though, all of our research and practical experience supported the conclusion that it was far more cost effective to simply provide more bandwidth. With enough bandwidth in the network, there is no congestion and video bits do not need preferential treatment. All of the bits arrive fast enough, even if intermingled.

Today our Abilene network does not give preferential treatment to anyone’s bits, but our users routinely experiment with streaming HDTV, hold thousands of high quality two-way video conferences simultaneously, and transfer huge files of scientific data around the globe without loss of packets.

We would argue that rather than introduce additional complexity into the network fabric, and additional costs to implement these prioritizing techniques, the telecom providers should focus on providing Americans with an abundance of bandwidth – and the quality problems will take care of themselves.

For example, if a provider simply brought a gigabit Ethernet connection to your home, you could connect that to your home computer with only a $15 card. If the provider insists on dividing up that bandwidth into various separate pipes for telephone and video and internet, the resulting set top box might cost as much as $150. Simple is cheaper. Complex is costly.

A simple design is not only less expensive: it enables and encourages innovation.
Nothing to add. Keep It Simple, Stupid is still valid.

Telecoms: The Next Decade?

2006-12-11T09:43:00.000Z

In the last decade the future of telecoms was ISDN and Intelligent Networks. This idea was quite sucessful in wireless networks e.g. GSM. The last killer application was SMS (and still nobody knows why).

In this decade the future is (was?) NGN, IMS and walled gardens = IN over IP. All incumbent standard bodies are very busy in specifying NGN and IMS - ITU-T, 3GPP, 3GPP2 and TISPAN.

Even the IETF got infected. They succeded in making SIP the standard voice protocol used by all other standard bodies - for the price of making it more complex then ISDN and SS7. ENUM WG is tumbling on the border between circuit-switching and Internet, but is used only in private networks. SPEERMINT is trying desperately to find solutions how to interconnect the walled gardens.

The basic idea here is:

the public Internet cannot be used because it has no QoS and because it is dangerous (bad),
nobody is allowed to know which users and numbers I host,
I as a Service Provider interconnect only with a limited set of other SP - the ones I trust (to get money from).

In the meantime the Internet by-passed the Telcos right and left, startup companies like Yahoo, Google, Ebay, Skype, YouTube and thousands of others are overtaking the service oriented Telcos with their services - most of them in The Long Tail.

As my readers know, I was always sceptical about IMS:

it is to complicated (=expensive), especially if implemented in a walled garden,
it will never be finished or too late,
all potential services are already available on the Internet (Me Too),
QoS in the core is not necessary and in the access it will not work.

I told the Telcos to concentrate primarily on their core business:

provide access, because the current killer application is speed.

Now what IS the future of the Telcos in the next decade?:

Some of them seem to get the idea:

Reuters.UK is reporting from the ITU Telecom World 2006 two weeks ago, for the first time not taking place in Geneva, but in Hong Kong:

Telecom carriers go back to the basics: plumbing the Web.

Some statements:

The telecoms industry is struggling to adapt to the Internet age, and while some operators hope they can mimic the success of YouTube and Google, the bravest are toning down their ambitions and refocusing on plumbing the Web.

"The integrated telco model is broken. All innovation is coming from the edge of the Internet. It's coming from companies other than telecoms companies, from the likes of Google, Amazon," said James Enck, an analyst at Daiwa Securities in London

None of the big names in the Internet space have been born inside a telecoms company or, for that matter, any big corporation, observed Charles Dunstone, the chief executive of mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse at a communications conference in London.

"The existential crisis is that telcos are asking: what are we here for? Are we here to provide connectivity or are we here to provide all the other services?," said Stephen Young, analyst at market research group Ovum.

An operator like KPN from the Netherlands, a trend-setter in European telecommunications, is not even trying to make the elephant fly.
"Of course we need help from non-telco people, because it's a totally different world. We're not used to buying content, we're not used to set up the TV user interface and things like that," said Eelco Blok, responsible for the fixed line operations at KPN.

"We're leaving the walled garden behind us," said Frank Sixt at Hutchison Whampoa.

Another insight comes from the OFCOM conference Communications and Convergence:

where Ben Verwaayen CEO of BT made the following statements (citing John Horrocks):

there are real dilemmas in direction for telcos, are we seeing classical convergence of the start of a new industry?
21C is a leap of faith without a safety net
investment lifetimes are falling from 20 years to 3 years and this is a huge commercial change
communications is about collaboration, lifestyle and productivity
unpredictable elements are user behaviour,
power is shifting to consumer over when, where, how information is delivered
networks need to be open (John's comment: please tell TISPAN!)
markets are international but not yet global

And LightReading is asking: Is the IMS honeymoon over?

and simply: IMS: Dead?

Light Reading published a column by Peter Heywood about a week ago, inviting vendors to submit IMS projects for an online album of case studies: Calling All IMS Vendors. The result? Not a single submission – and an email from an ex-CTO of an incumbent carrier questioning Heywood's sanity and stating:

"IMS is dead. What customers want is open voice over Internet… not a walled garden."

Of course all this insight may come too late already - or as Henry Sinnreich stated simply when I told him that some telcos might finally get the idea:

Yes, like the passengers on the TITANIC.

Broadband News from Western Styria

2006-12-01T20:25:00.000Z

Governor Schwarzenegger Announces Appointments to the Broadband Task Force

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the appointment of Ellis Berns, Rachelle Chong, William Geppert, Charles Giancarlo, Paul Hernandez, William Huber, Christine Kehoe, Wendy Lazarus, Lloyd Levine, Michael Liang, Bryan Martin, Timothy McCallion, Sunne Wright McPeak, Milo Medin, Peter Pardee, Peter Pennekamp, Debra Richardson, Rollin Richmond, Larry Smarr, Jonathan Taplin and Emy Tseng to the Broadband Task Force.

The Broadband Task Force will bring together public and private stakeholders to remove barriers to broadband access, identify opportunities for increased broadband adoption and enable the creation and deployment of new advanced communication technologies.

In October, the Governor signed an Executive Order to clear the government red tape for expanding broadband networks and to create the Broadband Task Force, which was expanded to 21 members earlier this month.

"California is No. 1 in so many different things, whether it is biotechnology, stem cell research, protecting our environment, creating jobs or our university system. The Golden State must remain competitive in the telecommunication revolution so that we can continue to attract the best, the brightest and the most creative workforce in the world," said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. "Broadband will help build California so we can grow our economy, create great jobs and stay ahead in the global marketplace."

NTIA approves new .com domain name agreement

2006-11-30T20:19:00.000Z

The National Telecommunication & Information Agency (NTIA) issued the following press release today:

The agency retains oversight of .com domain with safeguards to protect consumers, and Internet stability and security

by approving a new .com agreement between ICANN and VeriSign Inc. This allows VeriSign to operate .com until 2012.

But the interesting point is the amendment negotiated by the Department of Commerce (DoC):

As a condition of approval, the Department negotiated an amendment to its existing Cooperative Agreement with VeriSign to address the competition and Internet security and stability issues identified during the review process. Under this amendment, the Department retains oversight over any changes to the pricing provisions of, or renewals of, the new .com registry agreement. Department approval of any renewal will occur only if it concludes that the approval will serve the public interest in the continued security and stability of the Internet domain name system and the operation of the .com registry, and the provision of registry services at reasonable prices, terms and conditions.

So what is left to ICANN?

Update: see also Heise.de (in German)

A Very Useful VoIP Implementation - A1 goes VoIP

2006-11-16T12:25:00.000Z

This week I participated at the IIR VoIP World Congress in Vienna. There where a lot of very excellent presentations and one could get a good impression of the current state-of-the-art of VoIP implementations by all kinds of operators - fixed, cable, mobile and virtual. It also covered wireless VoIP - WiFi and WiMAX.

Up to now VoIP was mainly done by virtual operators such as Skype, Vonage, sipgate, etc., and then by cable operators offering VoIP as third part of triple play. There was also a very interesting presentation of Italy's Fastweb, offering also triple play based on fiber and ADSL.

It was interesting to see how fixed and mobile operators are approaching VoIP. Up to now they acted very carefully, not to cannibalize their current voice business on the PSTN. Of course they all are planning to go All-IP sometimes between now (21CN) and 2010, and they all put a big effort in specifying NGN and IMS with the quiet hope that the outcome will allow them to continue their business models also in the next decade, but how long can you do this and put your head into the sand?

Some of them start to look around and try to find out what the customers really want:

Customers do not care about technology and networks, they care about end-user devices
The user interface must be simple
They want to be mobile and access their services and applications from everywhere
They want to be accessed by one identifier
They do not want to be ripped off.

This leads to fixed-mobile-convergence (FMC), all-IP and wireless access.

The mobile operators are nearly there with GSM-CS and HSPDA, so the first ones to break out were of course the fixed operators - e.g. T-Com with T-One. This product uses a dual-mode handset to make a fixed-line phone mobile. A draw-back of this solution is that the dual-mode handsets are not really mass-products yet and there is also problems with battery life.

Now we see it the other way round from mobile operators. Mobilkom Austria (Veronika Berger) presented their A1 Voice over IP Pilot.

The product is basically simple: what you need is a normal mobile subscription. You may then download a privately labeled and preconfigured CounterPath Softphone to you PC (but you may use any other Softphone also) and use your a1.net account to link the mobile phone to the Softphone and activate dual-ring.

Incoming calls to your mobile number will ring both your mobile phone and the softphone. For outgoing calls from the softphone you may either use phone numbers (a 200 minutes free package to national numbers is included) or sip URIs for free calls to other SIP clients (free peering)

This product is of course very nice for travellers to save incoming roaming charges, but it is also very useful nationally.

The pilot is currently limited for 2000 users (which were used-up in two days) and for free. Of course the service will be sold later as a package. Since it is implemented on a standard SIP user client, it can also be used on dual-mode handsets as they become stable.

The final product is planned to use IMS, but the pilot is running on an OpenSER.

Of course some other mobile operators in the audience raised the question of cannibalizing current voice revenues and especially loosing the roaming charges, but the answer came already in the presentation itself:

VoIP is a fact - act and make the best of it.

or said in another way: if you are not doing it, somebody else will do it and you lost a customer.

This product opens also up another chance for (User and Infrastructure) ENUM: If the pilot is really launched commercially in a similar way as it is now - you pay a flat fee for adding this functionality to you mobile service and you also get a free minute package for calls to phone numbers from the Softphone:

an ENUM lookup will save money for the operator if the calls to phone numbers can be completed on IP.

From IETF#67 San Diego

2006-11-10T06:10:00.000Z

Jonathan Rosenberg seeking for contributions.

Picture taken by Bernie Hoeneisen

Internet Disconnect

2006-11-09T08:02:00.000Z

Another result of the American Vote 2006?

Former FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani, now President of the Benton
Foundation, forwards an article written by FCC Commissioner Michael
Copps for today's Washington Post.

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

Washington Post-11/08/07

Internet Disconnect

By Michael J. Copps
Wednesday, November 8, 2006; A27

America's record in expanding broadband communication is so poor that it
should be viewed as an outrage by every consumer and businessperson in
the country. Too few of us have broadband connections, and those who do
pay too much for service that is too slow. It's hurting our economy, and
things are only going to get worse if we don't do something about it.

The United States is 15th in the world in broadband penetration,
according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). When the
ITU measured a broader "digital opportunity" index (considering price
and other factors) we were 21st -- right after Estonia. Asian and
European customers get home connections of 25 to 100 megabits per second
(fast enough to stream high-definition video). Here, we pay almost twice
as much for connections that are one-twentieth the speed.

How have we fallen so far behind? Through lack of competition. As the
Congressional Research Service puts it, U.S. consumers face a "cable and
telephone broadband duopoly." And that's more like a best-case scenario:
Many households are hostage to a single broadband provider, and nearly
one-tenth have no broadband provider at all.

For businesses, it's just as bad. The telecom merger spree has left many
office buildings with a single provider -- leading to annual estimated
overcharges of $8 billion. Our broadband infrastructure should be a
reason companies want to do business in the United States, not just
another reason to go offshore.

The stakes for our economy could not be higher. Our broadband failure
places a ceiling over the productivity of far too much of the country.
Should we expect small-town businesses to enter the digital economy, and
students to enter the digital classroom, via a dial-up connection? The
Internet can bring life-changing opportunities to those who don't live
in large cities, but only if it is available and affordable.

Even in cities and suburbs, the fact that broadband is too slow, too
expensive and too poorly subscribed is a significant drag on our
economy. Some experts estimate that universal broadband adoption would
add $500 billion to the U.S. economy and create 1.2 million jobs.

Future generations will ultimately pay for our missteps. Albert Einstein
reportedly quipped that compound interest is the most powerful force in
the universe. Investment in infrastructure is how a nation harnesses
this awesome multiplier. Consider that 80 percent of the growth in
fiber-to-the-home (super-high-speed) subscribers last year was not in
the United States but in Japan. One does not need Einstein's grasp of
mathematics to understand that we cannot keep pace on our current
trajectory.

I don't claim to have all the answers. But there are concrete steps
government must take now to reverse our slide into communications
mediocrity.

To begin with, the Federal Communications Commission -- of which I am a
member -- must face up to the problem. Today the agency's reports seem
designed mostly to obscure the fact that we are falling behind the rest
of the world. The FCC still defines broadband as 200 kilobits per
second, assumes that if one person in a Zip code area has access to
broadband then everyone does and fails to gather any data on pricing.

The FCC needs to start working to lower prices and introduce
competition. We must start meeting our legislative mandate to get
advanced telecommunications out to all Americans at reasonable prices;
make new licensed and unlicensed spectrum available; authorize "smart
radios" that use spectrum more efficiently; and do a better job of
encouraging "third pipe" technologies such as wireless and broadband
over power lines. And we should recommend steps to Congress to ensure
the FCC's ability to implement long-term solutions.

We need a broadband strategy for America. Other industrialized countries
have developed national broadband strategies. In the United States we
have a campaign promise of universal broadband access by 2007, but no
strategy for getting there. With less than two months to go, we aren't
even within shouting distance.

The solution to our broadband crisis must ultimately involve
public-private initiatives like those that built the railroad, highway
and telephone systems. Combined with an overhaul of our universal
service system to make sure it is focusing on the needs of broadband,
this represents our best chance at recapturing our leadership position.

It seems plain enough that our present policies aren't working.
Inattention and muddling through may be the path of least resistance,
but they should not and must not represent our national policy on this
critical issue.

The writer is a Democratic member of the Federal Communications
Commission.

OpenMoko announces the first truly open source cell phone

2006-11-08T23:06:00.000Z

Amsterdam, OPEN SOURCE IN MOBILE CONFERENCE (PRWeb) November 7, 2006

OpenMoko today announced the immediate availability of a completely integrated open source mobile communications platform in partnership with FIC, a world leader in motherboards, graphics cards, mobile solutions, and electronic devices. The announcement of the OpenMoko mobile communications platform coincides with the unveiling of FIC's Neo1973 smartphone, which utilizes the full OpenMoko platform and will be available in January 2007.

See also on the impact of this gadget at the Inquirer.

The only drawback: the current FIC's NEO1973 smartphone does support even GPS, but not WiFi - but this will be fixed soon.

ENUM Day in Australia

2006-10-24T12:24:00.000Z

Australia is currently running an ENUM trial until June 2007. An ENUM Day will be held at November 15th, 2006 in Sydney. The agenda can be retrieved from here.

FON overtakes T-Mobile

2006-10-23T11:17:00.000Z

The ORF Futurezone features an interview with Christine zu Salm, the media managerin of FON in Germany, about the future plans of FON. The reason was of course the new offer from FON to get La Fonera, a preconfigured WiFi Router, for free.

FON is a Spain WLAN company, with participations by Skype, Google and Sequoia, operating currently 100.000 WLAN hotspots worldwide, most of them up to now in Asia, e.g. in South Korea. With the new free offer in Germany (and Austria) they have already overtaken T-Mobiles 24.000 hotspots.

Currently Germany is used as a test market, the plans are to have 1 Million hotspots worldwide by 2010. The basic idea of FON is to open the WLAN hot-spots of residential users in currently 3 different modes:

Linus: You give away the access to the hotspot for free to every other Linus user in exchange for free access by them.
Alien: you pay $3 per day
Bill: You pay half of an Alien, but you get back some money if somebody uses your hotspot.

Most users are Linus.

The question is what FON wants to do with these hotspots in future?

Salm: In November there will be offered dual-mode WiFi-VoIP/GSMs phones for use with the hotspots. This will make our infrastructure also interesting for third parties. The hotspots may also be used for distributing short video-clips (a la YouTube). In addition, the mobile phones may be used for transactions (banking and location dependent services).

Since I am already a Fonero since August (it works perfectly) I am really waiting for the mobile phones ;-)

13th CEPT Conference in Berlin

2006-10-22T16:48:00.000Z

I was invited to speak at the 13th CEPT Conference, which took place in Berlin 11-12 October 2006. The title of the conference was "Regulations und Challange" and the speaker list was quite impressive. A good overview of the state of the art in VoIP from a regulators and incumbents viewpoint was given. The programme and the presentations can be found here, click on programme/presentations to the right.

The motto of day 1 was "Policy Challenges" and featured as speakers Yoshio Utsumi (ITU), Guido Landheer (CEPT), Fabio Colasanti (EC), Michael Bartholomew (ETNO), Kevin Power (ECTA), Tom Lindström (EICTA), Sergio Antocicco (INTUG), Peter Scott (EC), Kip Meek (ERG and OFCOM), Mathias Kurth (RSPG), Rainer Münch (ETSI TISPAN), Kenneth Neil Cukier (The Economist) and Chris Marsden (RAND).

The motto of day 2 was "Regulatory Practices under Challenge" and was split into two tracks. I was speaking in track 2 in "Bulding Blocks of NGN" about "ENUM - Promises or Reality",
together with Alex Mayhofer (enum.at), speaking about VoIP Peering, and Tony Holmes (BT and TISPAN WG4 chair), speaking on "NGN Identifiers".

The conference presentations where very well selected and gave an excellent snapshot of the current developments from the incumbents perspective.

ENUM commercial in Finland +358

2006-10-05T12:58:00.000Z

Ficora launched .8.5.3.e164.arpa User ENUM into public commercial operation after a succesfull pilot phase that started in 2003.

The database was cleared between the pilot phase and commercial operation and thus there are no delegations at the moment.

Juhani Juselius from Ficora:

Our next aim is to get as much support from telcos and registrars for ENUM as possible. Currently I'm optimistic for their support since we are having good discussions with all major Finnish telcos.

Congratulations!

User ENUM is currently in commercial operation in

Austria
Poland
Romania
Germany
Netherlands
Finland

Ireland is still negotiating

Mobile Revenues Dropping for the First Time

2006-09-28T13:00:00.000Z

Mobile revenues in Austria are dropping in the first half of 2006 from 1931 million Euro in 2005 to 1914 million Euro, although call minutes are still increasing. The reason is the strong competition causing a tariff battle.

Austria has 8 million inhabitants using 8,8 million SIM-cards.

The only area of hope are data services for Internet access, currently about 10% of the market, estimated increase until the end of the year up to 15%.

Nobody is talking about video telephony and IPTV, not to mention other IMS services.

The Italian Economics School

2006-09-14T11:40:00.000Z

Looking at Telecom Italia and Alitalia, Le Republica said:

"Make debt public after privatizing the profits."

Telecom Italia may sell TIM

2006-09-12T15:06:00.000Z

The Financial Times and also the International Herald Tribune are reporting yesterday and today about plans from Telecom Italia to spin off there fixed and mobile businesses and finally to sell off Telecom Italiy Mobile (TIM).

Of course everybody here at ETSI TISPAN (including TI staff) is wondering why? Is it because they simply need the money or do they have a good idea to get rid of the mobile part before it goes down the drain, concentrating on broadband and IPTV in future via the fixed lines?

In 2001 Marco Provera (CEO) has initiated a consolidation of the fixed and mobile businesses to save money and leverage a combined mobile and fixed service.Lars

Is fixed-mobile convergence not so a good idea after all?

Lars Godell from Forester Reseach says: "I think that is being driven by TI's own short-term financial considerations and has nothing to do with the overall trends in the industry".

AlcatelLucent

2006-09-12T09:52:00.000Z

I was reporting some days ago that KPN selected Lucent for IMS. Today Forbes is announcing that the shareholdders of Alcatel and Lucent approved to alcatel's takeover of Lucent Technologies in a deal worth $ 10.8 billion. The new company will be called AlcatelLucent.

The companies have a combined market capitalization of around $ 27 billion and pose a threat to other manufacturers such as Ericsson and Siemens.

We are another step closer to creating the first truly global communications solutions provider with the broadest wireless, wireline and services portfolio in the industry," said Lucent CEO Patricia Russo.

Standard & Poor's Equity Research analyst Ken Leon had near-term reservations about the deal as he believed end-user markets for both Alcatel and Lucent remain highly competitive.

Competitors may have an advantage in the wireless and broadband equipment sectors as Alcatel and Lucent integrate operations, which won't happen until the merger closes.

Despite its disappointing financial results, we think the planned merger will benefit Lucent as it becomes part of a strong company," Leon wrote in a note to investors Thursday.

He maintained a "hold" opinion on Lucent shares.

XConnect aquires IpeerX

2006-09-12T07:42:00.000Z

XConnect, already the world’s largest provider of IP Communications Peering and Federation services and the operator of the XConnect Alliance, today announced at the VON in Boston that it has acquired IPeerX, a leading US based VoIP peering company owned by industry-leader Jeff Pulver’s Pulver.com Enterprises.

With the acquisition, XConnect will bolster its global VoIP peering presence and significantly increase the size of its ENUM registry of VoIP numbers. Jeff Pulver, founder and CEO of Pulver.com Enterprises will become a member of the XConnect Advisory Board, and Kingsley Hill, President of IPeerX, will head XConnect’s Strategic Federation development activities.

The acquisition of IPeerX comes on the heels of XConnect’s acquisition in May of e164.info, the Germany-based Carrier ENUM Exchange. This brings the total XConnect membership to approximately 300 service providers in 30 countries, together contributing over eight million active VoIP numbers to XConnect’s ENUM Registry.

XConnect and IPeerX share the common goal of enabling the full potential of end-to-end IP communications services and combined form the largest neutral ENUM registry for VoIP calling in the world.

The customers of a VoIP company enrolled in an XConnect peering federation can enjoy the full promise of IP Communications; free or unlimited calling with hi-fidelity audio and video conferencing, with the customers of other XConnect federation members. Without peering, such advanced services would be limited to those calls within each individual network.

Eli Katz, Chief Executive Officer of XConnect said, “In creating the definitive global ENUM registry, XConnect enables the development of innovative IP services and delivers new revenue opportunities for Service Providers, while significantly reducing the costs of interconnections. This deal is a win-win for the customers of both companies and the VoIP Industry as a whole.”

Jeff Pulver, Founder and Chairman of Pulver.com Enterprises said, “VoIP Peering will drive the adoption of the new generation of IP communications including video, voice and messaging. The success of VoIP Peering depends on having a sufficiently large community of service providers – this deal creates an industry player with the critical mass to succeed.”

“With IP peering federations, the value to each operator and consumer increases with the addition of new participants. Peering federations, and the combination of XConnect and IPeerX in particular, bring efficiency not found in bilateral agreements, bring greater trust and security among peering partners, and most importantly, by connecting VoIP islands, enables operators to offer features only available when there is end-to-end IP connectivity,“ said Lynda Starr, Senior Analyst, IP Communications at Frost & Sullivan.

This is also called Metcalfe's Law by others ;-)

SCIAM - Keep the Net Neutral

2006-09-07T20:45:00.000Z

Finally I received today the August copy of Scientific American. The editors are also talking about net neutrality:

...On balance, those favoring net neutrality make the better case. A system for prioritizing data traffic might well be necessary someday, yet one might hope that it would be based on the needs of the transmissions rather than the deal making and caprices of the cable owners. Moreover, personal blogs and other web pages are increasingly patchworks of media components from various sources. Tiered service would stultify that trend....

...Ending net neutrality might feel safer if the telcos did not often enjoy local monopolies on broadband service. Almost half of all Americans have limited or no choice if they want high-speed connections...

They are also pointing to SavetheInternet.com (favoring net neutrality) and HandsOff.org (against it)

KPN selects Lucent for IMS

2006-09-07T20:30:00.000Z

In a press release Lucent and KPN announced this week:

Lucent to provide key IMS elements and serve as integrator for multivendor standards-based IMS solution to replace KPN’s public switched telephone network

Going to ETSI TISPAN next week I just wonder what the "multivendor standards-based" part of this annoncement really means ;-)

Back from Creta, Greece

2006-08-22T20:31:00.000Z

After the two weeks of vacation in Austria and two weeks in the office I needed another break. So we decided to add one week in Greece on Creta ...

... having some good food and just relax.

I will now try to resync and start blogging again ;-)

A first step in direction FMC by T-Com

2006-08-06T16:21:00.000Z

Deutsche Telekom (T-Com) launched the "fixed-mobile convergence" product T-One. With the dual-mode mobile phone TC 300 a customer may make calls via GSM and WLAN.

The core of the product is the TC 300 dual mode mobile phone, featuring a GSM phone, a WLAN client and a VoIP SIP client. The WLAN client is WEP, WPA and WPA2 enabled. It works at home, at T-Com hotspots and also on every WLAN Hotspot. Since I did not see any browser, you may eventually not use it on hotspots where you need a logon. I did not find any hint yet who is producing the TC 300. People already having a hands-on experience complain the battery drain if you use W-LAN.

The rest of the product is hastily put together from various other products. It comes in two options: one for a normal fixed network connection and one together with DSL.

With the DSL option you get also a VoIP account from T-Com and a 032 number. The "convergence" is done by call forwarding. Incoming calls to the 032 number can be forwarded on no-answer after 20 secs or on busy to the mobile number (which you pay).

You may also use the phone without DSL. In this case you use VoIP only locally at home from the basestation (kind of DECT replacement). In this case you may also use it with your geographic number.

After loosing 500.000 customers in the first quarter of 2006 alone mainly to mobile providers and also to VoIP, T-Com finally decided to react. The question is if the product is good enough.

Web 1.0 - 15th Anniversary

2006-08-06T16:13:00.000Z

Only 15 years ago on August 6th 1991, Tim Berners-Lee from CERN presented the HTTP code in the usenet group alt.hypertext to the public.

On Vacation

2006-07-30T20:17:00.000Z

Immediately after the IETF in Montreal I went on vacation in this farm until now:

Some may wonder why I posted this picture so late, but you should know that my only Internet connectivity was via mobile GPRS and it took so long to upload the picture ;-)

Politics for Dummies

2006-07-16T16:24:00.000Z

I found a webpage explaining politics in the style of "Sendung mit der Maus" (in German), also containing the audios. It is written like a blog, containing an entry every 4 month or so, starting march 2001.

It starts with: "Das ist der Herr Bush. Sieht eigentlich ganz nett aus. Isser aber nicht. ..."

It also contains at the end some further links, one to Thomas Wolf, which points to this video

Basically I still cannot believe it, because I think they are too stupid to plan such a large thing and keep it secret up to now.

On the other hand ...

Net Neutrality for Dummies

2006-07-16T10:04:00.000Z

Jon Stewart from The Daily Show lets Sen. Ted Stevens explain the Internet:

"It is not a truck, it is a series of tubes, and if you do not understand how these tubes can be filled, and if they are filled when you put your message in, it gets in line, its gonna be delayed by anyone who puts in in that tube enourmous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material!"

And the result:

"Ten movies streaming across that, that, Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I ... just the other day, got Internet, was sent by my staff at 10 0'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday. Why?"

He also lets Sen. Frank Wolf explain why gambling on the Internet is so dangerous (I reported on this here):

"With on-line gambling you can do it in your bath room!"

And finally Jon Stewart also finds an explanation why betting on horses and state lotteries are not banned: They are not clogging and even cleaning up the clogged tubes from Sen. Ted Stevens

So one sees, this is really all well co-ordinated and thought through.

IMO no one can invent such things - they MUST be real.

EU Roaming Regulation Published

2006-07-12T21:01:00.000Z

The European Commiission published the draft of the new Roaming Regulation to bring down the high roaming charges within Europe. All regulators and mobile operators started already calculating.

What will the regulation mean for consumers?

Prices paid for international roaming when travelling within the European Union will not be unjustifiably higher than the charges for calls paid within the user’s country.
Consumers will benefit from lower prices for making calls in the visited country, back home or to any other EU Member State.
Consumers will make considerable savings when receiving calls.
Prices operators charge each other (wholesale charges) will be considerably lower than what they are today. This ensures all operators will be in a position to offer lower retail tariffs.
Transparency of roaming charges for consumers will be enhanced. Mobile operators will be required to provide customers with full information on applicable roaming charges when subscriptions are taken out and to update consumers regularly about these charges. Consumers can ask for information on roaming charges free of charge either via SMS or voice call.
National regulators will also be tasked to monitor closely the development of roaming charges for SMS and multi-media message services (MMS).

Gambling on the Internet Illegal in the U.S

2006-07-12T20:34:00.000Z

The U.S. House passed an Internet bill yesterday that would prevent gamblers from using credit cards to bet online. It voted 317:98 for the bill which would allow authorities to work with Internet providers to block access to gambling websites, although some say:

"Prohibition didn't work for alcohol. It won't work for gambling."

others say: "Regulating a $12-billion industry would be better than outlawing it".

On the other hand, the Internet gambling industry is already entirely off-shore though about half of the customers live in the U.S.

Of course there are extemptions: Horse Racing and State Lotteries - How did the old Romans say: "Pecunia non olet"

I basically do not gamble, because you cannot win in the long run - some 35 years ago I studied some mathematics - but what I know is that casinos are a place where you loose about 1% to 10% per play - depending what and how you play.

In state lotteries it is 50%

Is it to block competion - or is the U.S. simply going down the path to forbid everything somebody has fun with:

Starting with smoking and gambling, alcohol will be next, sex, eating fast food (this will be a hard one), laughing, ...

What is left in god's own country: working, eating vegetables and wage war against Irak (or Iran or whatever is suitable.

Free WiFi and FTTH everywhere - a myth?

2006-07-06T08:45:00.000Z

Every major city already announced to provide "free" WiFi hotspots, some of them also cheap FTTH for every household. London, San Francisco, Chicago, I also remember Philadelphia, Vienna and now also Paris. They are announced by (mostly socialist goverened) cities with the intention to bring the city on top of the IT-rankings in the world, but then nothing happens.

In reality you may either find open WiFi networks by private people (the so-called linksys, dlink, belkin, etc. networks), or (in Europe) the very expensive hotspots (nobody is using) from mobile operators, such as T-Mobile and Swisscom. Or the even more expensive (if roaming) 3G UMTS networks.

Generation Gap

2006-07-06T08:23:00.000Z

No ENUM (for now) in NZ

2006-07-04T08:48:00.000Z

The Time is not right for ENUM - says the Telecommunications Carrier Forum (TCF). Not even for a trial.

The Telecommunications Carriers Forum has shot down InternetNZ's plans for a trial of Enum, a phone and Internet addressing system that could help bring low-cost Internet telephone calls into the mainstream.

The argument is very interesting:

A report by the industry body, which represents companies such as Vodafone, Telecom and TelstraClear, says Enum should be delayed till number portability is in place in April next year.

TCF chairman Malcolm Alexander says issues such as privacy and security need to be ironed out before a public trial begins. He also says building the Enum system would bleed personnel away from the TCF's number portability project, which is more important.

"Our priority is the delivery of number portability as per the deadline set by the telecommunications commissioner. The same people, the same engineers would have to do both."

Now the really funny issue here is that (Infrastructure) ENUM is the ideal solution for number portability. But instead of taking the opportunity that NZ is very late in adopting number portability and could choose therefore a real forward looking solution, implementing number portability both for VoIP and PSTN using Infrastructure ENUM. Especially in the US, but also in Europe, the hot issue of the year is IP Interconnect and number portability for VoIP.

No, they first implement number portability in the old-fashioned way first on the PSTN, and when they are finished, they eventually may look around what to do with VoIP. Ah, and not to forget: the security and privacy concerns have to be ironed out.

OTOH, it is nice to hear that the Carriers down under still have one or two engineers left in their company doing this.

FCC's USF for VoIP Order

2006-06-30T12:05:00.000Z

Jeff is fuming about the new order. I have not read it yet, but according to Jeff, it makes all prior regulations of VoIP (both Interconnected and potentially peer-to-peer) look like kindergarten musings.

A Typical VoIP Problem

2006-06-30T11:52:00.000Z

From www.commissionedcomic.com

McJobs in the US: e.g. Bush Pilot

2006-06-28T10:28:00.000Z

Bush Pilot (Audio in German)

Bush Pilot (with English subtitles)

Thanks to Otmar Lendl for pointing out this one.

Your Call is Important To Us - Please Stay Awake

2006-06-27T18:22:00.000Z

Very embarassing for Comcast, particularly if this happens to a blogger:

Two weeks ago, a Comcast repairman in Washington fell asleep in a customer's home. The customer, Brian Finkelstein, a student at Georgetown Law School, took the incident to the Internet. He shot a video of the repairman sacked out in his couch and posted it on his blog, Snakes on a Blog. The video, which he also posted on YouTube, is one of several recent examples of angered customers taping their interactions with customer service, then putting the experience online ...

VoIP Peering in a Box

2006-06-27T16:48:00.000Z

Courtesy enum.at, for free use by VoIP service providers, helpless incumbents and others, a "VoIP peering in a box border element" is made publicly available here.

The peering proxy is unique because it supports different TLS connections featuring different certificates dependant on the destination. In addition, it supports Infrastructure ENUM as defined in draft-haberler-carrier-enum-03.txt and draft-lendl-enum-branch-location-record-02.txt and also the Domain Policy Matching module as defined in draft-lendl-speermint-federations-01.txt and draft-lendl-domain-policy-ddds-01.txt.

In addition, you find there also other documents: registry specifications for User and Infrastructure ENUM, regsistrar manual, client toolkits, etc.

Internet Area Code - TM

2006-06-26T09:06:00.000Z

Fusion Telecomunications launched Efonica, Yet Another Me Too VoIP service (YAMTVoIP). If you read the press release and go to the webpage, one may think they invented VoIP. But as Aswath and Andy already pointed out, it is only a Me Too service. They are bragging like they invented SIP, P2P, etc. and confusing everybody with the term DSP. No it is not Digital Signal Processor, it is Directed SIP P2P or so. They never heared about Skype, Gizmo, Sipphone, Sipgate,Vonage, Telio, etc. etc

Even the famous trademarked Internet Area Code (IAC) is nothing new, I still can remember areacode 747 from Sipphone. How can you trademark such a bullshit? And what is the use of a (up to 17 digit) phone number you can dial only within the system?

So how do you dial an international phone number (from FAQ 27)?

They offer you three ways:

1. Dial the NANP way 011 + Country Code + City/Mobile Code + Number (City/Mobile Code?)
2. Dial the ITU way 00 + Country Code + City/Mobile Code + Number
3. Dial wild west: country code + City/Mobile + Number

Since there is currently no "City/Mobile Code", also called Area Code, in the NANP staring with 0, you may re-use CC 1 also for dialing the IAC "10". This is basically re-using the Access Code for Carrier Selection. So the correct title, if any, should be Internet Access Code.

I am soo tired.

Vermittlungstechnisches Kolloquium in Vienna

2006-06-25T17:40:00.000Z

As already stated here, on June 22nd a "colloquium" took place in Vienna. Main speakers are Prof. Thomas Magedanz (TU Berlin), Henry Sinnreich and Willi Wimmreuter. After the three presentations a panel discussion led by Prof. Jörg Eberspächer (TU München) took place:

Willi Wimmreuter, Jörg Eberspächer, Henry Sinnreich and Thomas Magedanz.

The audience was also quite impressive, from Vienna even Heinz Zemanek was there, but there was also some international audience: Richard Shockey, Tim Denton (Cira) and Timothy Jasionowski (Nokia) where here. For press coverage by Monika Ermert see here.

The evening before some of the participants and speakers met after a walk through the city at the "Gösser Bierklinik":

ENUM and VoIP Peering Forum

2006-06-25T12:06:00.000Z

As announced already here, the ENUM and VoIP Peering Forum took place June 19-20th in London. The event was quite well attended and gave a good overview on the current status and situation of both ENUM and VoIP Peering.

I started with an overview on the general situation on User, Infrastructure and Private ENUM, Richard Shockey from Neustar followed with the situation in the IETF and the US.

Michael Haberler (IPA) presented the current status of the Austrian Infrastructure ENUM trial and also gave a short introduction on the work done in SPEERMINT regarding federations.

Andy Reid (BT) spoke about VoIP Business Models, Steve Heap from Arbinet presented SPIDER, Tony Holmes from BT talked about User and Infrastructure ENUM in IK

Kim Fullbrook (O2) and also chair of the GSMA ENUM Ad-hoc group talked about the view of GSMA on Infrastructure ENUM.

Ronan Lupton presented the current status of the Irish User ENUM. The first day ended with John Horrocks (DTI) and ETSI TISPAN WG4 wrapping up the current situation and asking for what the future will bring.

The second day was chaired by Tim Denton, opening up with a view on the Canadian market., followed by George Smine from Nominum

Eli Katz gave the view of XConnect, to be followed by Sikko De Graaf giving the position of the Dutch cable operators.

After Lunch, Jason Livingood, Comcast and Co-chair of SPEERMNT, presented the views of the US Cable Operators on VoIP peering, followed by Tom Kershaw from Versign. Thf day ended with Sabine Dolderer presenting the status of ENUM in Germany.

The conference was an excellent snapshot of the current situation.

Peer-2-Peer against Walled Garden - A Shoot Out in Vienna

2006-06-15T07:16:00.000Z

Next week (22.6.2006) an interesting event is taking place in Vienna. Organized by the OVE, a "colloquium" is organized at the Siemens Forum in Vienna.

It features presentations from:

Thomas Magedanz, TU Berlin, The IP Multimedia System as Service Platform for NGN
Henry Sinnreich, Adobe, Internet Communications, Content and Applications
Wilhelm Wimmreuter, Siemens, The Rise of Network Independent Services

After this three presentations, a discussion will take place.

The event will be closed with two presentations from:

Fabio Ricciato, FTW, Traffic Monitoring and Analysis in 3G Networks
Edmund Haberbusch, Telekom Austria, Innovative Broadband Applications

The full program can be retrieved from here.

Even George W. Bush will be in Vienna ;-)

Henry Sinnreich working for Adobe

2006-06-14T17:11:00.000Z

Henry announced today (officially) that he is working at Adobe since June 1st. Although I wonder what he will do there, I am sure that we will hear very soon ;-)

Anyway, I wish Henry all the best for his new job.

Each Time You Dial - We Start a File

2006-06-07T16:47:00.000Z

I really wonder what all this discussions about how to intercept VoIP calls and make VOIP CALEA compliant is about. The NSA is monitoring all Internet traffic anyway (courtesy by AT&T, Verizon et. al.), as is stated e.g. here. This also well known even in Austria and Germany.

There even exists a video showing the guys in the NSA Telephone Monitoring Center making fun out of all of you.

(Self) Promotion: ENUM and VoIP Peering Forum 2006

2006-06-02T13:16:00.000Z

Marcus Evans is organizing the ENUM and VoIP Peering Forum 2006, 19-20 June 2006, at the NH Harrington Hall Hotel, London UK..

Since I am chairing, I would like to draw your attention to this interesting event if you want to get the lastest information on Infrastructure ENUM and VoIP Peering. The speaker list is quite impressive and a guaranty to cover all aspects of the current state of the art from both sides of the pond:

Richard Shockey (Neustar, Co-Chair IETF ENUM), Michael Haberler (IPA), Andy Reid (BT), Eli Katz (XConnect), Steve Heap (Arbinet), Tony Holmes (BT), Karen Mulberry (Neustar), Ronan Lupton (Verizon), John Horrocks (ETSI TISPAN WG4), Timothy Denton (CIRA), Albert Gouyet (Nominum), Sikko De Graaf (CAIW), Jason Livingood (Comcast, Co-Chair IETF SPEERMINT), Kim Fullbrook (O2, Chair ENUM Ad-Hoc Group GSMA), Sabine Dolderer (DENIC) and Cris Da Silva (PA Consultant).

The full program including the registration form can be downloaded from here. For contact details and registration see also here. If you have any additional questions call the forum hotline on +44-(0)207-647-2390.

Telio IPO

2006-06-02T12:33:00.000Z

I wanted to write about the Telio IPO today, but Jon Arnold provided all and more what I could potentially say already yesterday. See also James Enck, first as usual, and the press release of the Oslo stock exchange.

I suggest everbody to read the Investors presentation. It clearly shows the (short) history of Telio and the future plans. IMHO Telio is going on the right direction. They started with fixed line supplement and replacement (like Vonage), but are now moving to fixed/mobile converence and all IP.

It will also be interesting to see how their geographic expansion road-map (slide 32) will work out.

Spring VON Europe - ENUM Now? - The Panel

2006-05-24T14:35:00.000Z

So I still owe you a report from the ENUM Now? panel I moderated. As already said in my previous post, I opened up with a short presentation setting the scene.

The first presentation was given by Richard Shockey from Neustar with ENUM - Will it pay. Richard presented a short but excellent overview on User, Infrastructure and Private ENUM. He explained where ENUM stands now, how it can be used as SCP replacement for number portability.

His resumee:

ENUM is the core signaling technology for the NGN-Network to Network Interface
DNS Caching Servers are the NGN IP-SCP
All Call Query - Query on Call Origination
All data associated with a call delivered at call set up

and of course his ceterum censeo: No SS7

Next to present was Albert Gouyet VP Marketing and Product Management from Nominum. Since ENUM is DNS and Nominum is providing one of the most efficient DNS software for ENUM, his take on ENUM was also interesting:

ENUM is taking off, it has reached the tipping point!

From a vendors point of view, ENUM is a new platform for telephony applications, to provide cheaper OPEX and CAPEX and simplify the operational processes.

His resumee - 4x yes for ENUM:

Yes, as its own function inside networks
Yes, as technical issues are being resolved
Yes, as ROI is confirmed
Yes, as a platform for more than just ENUM - Application-level routing directories

Albert was to be followed by Doug Ranalli from Netnumber, but he had to leave the VON in urgent business, so he sent in an excellent replacement: Glenn Marschel, President and CEO from Netnumber.

Netnumber is a solutions provider with his TITAN platform, so Glenn concentrated in his presentation on the (private) Carrier ENUM implementations using this platform for a number of purposes in the US. The range of applications is quite impressive. Netnumber participated also in the launch of SPIDER (see here).

The last presentation was given by Adrian Georgescu from AG-Projects. Adrian is also involved in ENUM since a long time (recently also in the ENUM launch in Romania). Adrian is also involved in the practical side, so his presentation had the title: Provisioning the ENUM Tree.

His major statements where:

ENUM is not an application or a stand-alone product
ENUM provides an ultimate number portability solution
ENUM provides a mapping between namespaces managed by different authorities
Querying multiple trees introduces call setup delays (I will come back on this soon)
ENUM cannot be left in the hand of amateurs

His last statement made me smirk: it cannot be he is talking about the telcos here?

To summarize: IMHO the panel gave an excellent overview where ENUM stands now and where it is heading.

Spring VON Europe - ENUM Now? and what ENUM?

2006-05-24T12:37:00.000Z

I know this is a bit late, but I still owe you a report from the ENUM Now? panel I moderated. I opened up with a short presentation setting the scene. Here a more detailed explanation:

User ENUM as defined in RFC 3761 and to be used in e164.arpa is around quite a long time already. The up-take is quite slow, although there are already over 40 countries delegated in e164.arpa. But only two countries have noteworthy commercial operations (Austria and Germany), a few others are soon to come. Most countries are still in different stages of trials, stuck into legal, regulatory, privacy and validation discussions, thwarted by the existing PSTN operators (not only the incumbents), other countries seem even to have no idea yet what to do with ENUM.

How long can you trial that the DNS works? Of course this is not the real reason. Nowadays in any new development all concerns have to be taken into account up-front and solved, including world-hunger. And if the trial is nearing the end, it is very easy to raise another concern. Existing commercial implementations are of course suffering from Metcalfe's law. If GSM would have been introduced in this way, we would still have trials only, not to mention the Internet itself.

Country opt-in and especially end-user opt-in seems not to be the best idea (yet). So in the mean-time ETSI TISPAN started to investigate Infrastructure ENUM. The basic idea of Infrastucture ENUM was to provide a separate tree for service provider opt-in, without user opt-in and country opt-in.

This approach had three serious draw-backs:

first, all service providers need to agree on ONE common tree and
second, to be globally available, the tree need to be public
and last, but not least, to be reachable via the public Internet and also via ENUM, service providers need to provide their users with SIP URIs.

So also this initial try went nowhere. And anyway, one could always use the PSTN to interconnect. In addition, the idea was also (at this time) a no-no in the IETF, because it was not end-to-end and not invented here.

But in the meantime more and more providers got the idea that peering via IP networks for VoIP applications has some advantages. And since E.164 numbers are still the main vehicle for public user identities (and not SIP URIs), some kind of mapping is necessary. So there was a requirement and a market for ENUM technologies and service providers looked around and started to joined private clubs enabling them to peer (or interconnect) via IP.

These ENUMs have many names (carrier, operator, enterprise, etc. ENUM). The generic term now is Private ENUM. Companies started to offer such "services" in the public Internet, some with restricted access and also within private networks. For more information see here.

These implementations work fine (showing also that no more ENUM trials are needed), but they all have a serious drawback: you may only reach the E.164 numbers hosted by the members of the club. This can be quite a large number, e.g. if one considers GSMA, but nevertheless. To reach other numbers, you may either use again the PSTN, which reduces service availability and QoS and requires transit charges per minute, or a provider needs to participate in quite a number of such ENUM trees.

One solution to this problem could be to provide a globally accessible Ueber-ENUM tree e.g. Infrastructure ENUM in ie164.arpa.

In the second half of 2005 IETF finally got the message, gave up the resistance and re-chartered the ENUM WG to deal also with Infrastructure ENUM issues. In the meantime and after some discussions a (stable) requirements draft exists and also a proposal for an RFC to create a parallel Infrastructure ENUM tree in ie164.arpa. There exists in addition a proposal for temporary national solutions to be implemented immediately during the time the negotiations with IESG, IAB, RIPE and ITU-T may take, but still keep a linkage with e164.arpa. Some trials are already in preparation and I will report here about their progress.

How comes the ITU-T into play?

As mentioned above, the ETSI TISPAN idea failed because a global service provider club defining the policy and also having the responsibilty for the root of a common Infrastructure ENUM tree simply cannot be established at all, or at least in a reasonable timeframe.

So the second choice was to involve the ITU-T and the national regulators again and go down a parallel path as was done with RFC3761 and e164.arpa. The draw-back for service providers is that again a country opt-in is required. It is also up to the national regulators to define what the rules are for service providers to be able to opt-in. That is to define what a "Carrier-of-Records" is within the given country code.

So we may be back again in future from Private ENUM to Infrastructure ENUM. Infrastructure ENUM has to potential, together with the work of the IETF WG SPEERMINT to provide a global framework for IP-based peering or IP Interconnection for real-time and multi-media communictions, helping to migrate finally all communications from the PSTN to IP. Infrastructure ENUM is also the ultimate number portability solution, allowing a global all call query (ACQ) for any E.164 number.

Are we going a full circle? So what about User ENUM?

If Infrastructure ENUM is implemented by the service providers, is there still room for User ENUM?

Yes.

Infrastructure ENUM will be the default routing used by service providers to provide basic connectivity for all their end-users (no end-user opt-in) based mainly on SIP.

User ENUM will not be used by all end-users, it still is opt-in, but it will be used by power-users on the Internet and especially by enterprises to provide them with an overlay network. User ENUM allows additional applications (basically any application locatable via an URI) to be linked to E.164 numbers. One type of power users are the communities now emerging on the Internet. At the last two IETF meeting a number of new innovative Enumservices where proposed and I expect more to come.

So User ENUM is not dead and may be revived soon.

I think I got carried away a bit.

And what about the ENUM now panel? - see next post ;-)

Spring VON Europe - Waiting for Dinner

2006-05-24T12:32:00.000Z

Private ENUMs and VoIP Peering

2006-05-20T15:51:00.000Z

As I also mentioned my short introduction moderating the "ENUM Now" panel most activities regarding ENUM is taking place currently in Private ENUM space. Private ENUM is defined currently as everything not in e164.arpa (User ENUM) and also not in the envisaged Infrastructure ENUM in ie164.arpa.

So basically the US Provider ENUM mentioned in my previous blog entry is also a Private ENUM.

Nearly every week some new developments happen here - a short summary.

XConnect to Acquire e164.info

XConnect, the world’s largest provider of “Plug and Peer” Voice over IP (VoIP) peering services announced that they will be acquring e164.info, the operator of the largest international private ENUM registry. The combined company creates the world's largest VoIP peering community worldwide, serving more than 150 VoIP operators.

So XConnect is now the largest ;-)

SPIDER

On Tuesday at the Spring VON Europe Arbinet and Netnumber jointly announced SPIDER, the Registry of Registries.

The Service Provider ID E.164 Record (SPIDER) registry is a set of low-cost, lightweight shared database tools that enables the efficient exchange of interconnect address information between trusted communications service providers and VoIP communities. The SPIDER registry is managed by SPIDER Registry, Inc., a non-stock, not-for-profit industry group administered by a Board of Directors comprised of IP-communications industry representatives from around the world. The SPIDER registry database infrastructure was created to address a well-defined industry problem relating to the interconnection of VoIP services between the large number of VoIP “islands” or communities emerging around the world.

SPIDER is not ENUM, it is a registry which may push the data in your private ENUM database. In principle the model is workable, here I trust Netnumber and Doug Ranalli. But they claim to be a global registry, so I wonder how this scales if all 4.000.000.000 phone numbers of the world are pushed down to your DNS or SIP Redirect server - good luck.

The charging system is also a bit weird from an European perspective, it is created after the US model in SS7, where you pay per dip, in the SPIDER case for a sucessful dip. Together with the push model this requires that you have your fingers in the customers SW and set up a complicated charging transfer system. To me it seems more feasible to charge per transaction in the database.

USER and/or Infrastructure ENUM in Romania by AG-Projects

ANISP, the Romanian Internet Service Provider Association http://www.anisp.ro representing more than 40 service providers (http://www.anisp.ro/?c=membri) has awarded AG Projects to build the ENUM platform for provisioning of the ENUM tree 0.4.e164.arpa. The Romanian ENUM exchange will be hosted in two RoNIX locations (Romanian Network for Internet eXchange) and will be backed up by an infrastructure hosted within the European backbone. The 0.4.e164.arpa is under the authority of the Romanian regulatory body ANRC, which by end of this year planned to define the final procedures of delegation and administration of the public ENUM tree 0.4.e164.arpa.

“We selected AG Projects to provide infrastructure ENUM and SIP peering services to facilitate on-net multimedia sessions between Romanian VoIP operators. We believe that Internet standards combined with the use of global identities like E.164 numbers in the official 0.4.e164.arpa tree are the key to enable transition from the classic PSTN to rich-media IP services like voice and video over IP” says Mihai Batraneanu, President of ANISP.

So I am a bit confused now: Is it User ENUM or Infrastructure ENUM?

This also clearly shows that two separate trees for User and Infrastructure ENUM is required, before this confusion in increasing.

ENUM starts in Bulgaria

Just over two months after the U.S. (+1) Enum delegation, the country code +359 has been assigned to the Bulgarian Internet Society (ISOC-Bulgaria), adding Bulgaria to the club of ENUM enabled countries. The codes are governed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in co-operation with national governments.

The Aim for ISOC-Bulgaria is to foster the implementation of ENUM public and infrastructure services, delivering local & global number portability based on the best practices from other ENUM deployments around the world, said Veni Markovski, President and Chairman of the Board of ISOC-Bulgaria.

“This development will bring new possibilities for additional services and deliver robust, flexible and cost effective Local number portability solutions, offering new services to the end user and additional revenues for the services providers”, said Alex Nikolov CTO of Enum2Go Ltd who were responsible for the first commercial deployment of Enum services based on the +87810 country code.

Over recent months several more countries have announced major developments in this field; The Republic of Ireland have launched a commercial service, Austria have commenced their Infrastructure Enum trial, and the United Kingdom is aiming to have a commercial service in readiness for November 2006. These major developments, are creating a growing interest from service providers and opening new possibilities for global investors as new service offerings are emerging.

In the week of the announcement of the progress made by Bulgaria towards accession to European Union, this news is yet another reassuring step for the IT sector and the society.

Amen

The ENUM Babuschkas and US Provider ENUM

2006-05-20T14:24:00.000Z

At my short introduction moderating the "ENUM Now" panel I mentioned the ENUM Babuschkas: User - Infrastructure - Private - Carrier - Operator - Enterprise - Federation ENUM (Note: I will report on this panel as soon as I have all slides available)

The US ENUM LLC was not happy with these naming options and decided to introduce a new term: Provider ENUM. But they also allow you to call it "Carrier" or "Infrastructure" ENUM ;-)

So the group reacted quite fast on the restriction imposed not to do Infrastructure ENUM in e164.arpa and simply implements the trial in a separate tree - in this case "e164enum.us."

Congratulations to all involved here!

In a press release from May 16, 2006 the Country Code 1 ENUM LLC (LLC) announced the launch of a second ENUM technology trial that will focus on service provider interconnection requirements:

The U.S. Provider ENUM trial will be based on the "Framework Document for a U.S. Provider ENUM Trial" . The trial of Provider ENUM (sometimes referred to as "Carrier" or "Infrastructure" ENUM) is expected to be conducted over a four-month period beginning in July. This trial will be carried out in parallel with the current End-User ENUM trial and will use a different domain name and separate numbering resources. As with the End-User ENUM trial, no commercial end-users will be involved in the Provider ENUM trial.

TSPs with assigned numbering resources that seek to exchange end-user traffic with other TSPs on an IP basis are encouraged to participate.

The results of the trial will form the basis of requirements for a commercial implementation to assist U.S. service providers. The CC1 ENUM LLC plans are consistent with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) ENUM Working Group efforts to progress a global solution for Provider ENUM. The proposed U.S. implementation, targeted for 2007, should be easily transitioned to the global solution when it becomes available.

I like the last paragraph, because it shows a way forward and is not incompatible with the now envisaged future developments in IETF ENUM WG.

I am sceptical about another statement in the framework document

In addition to the basic trial as outlined below, the trial implementation will provide a platform that may be used to test other architectural alternatives and capabilities, which may include:

Non-terminal NAPTR records
Carrier (Provider) domain branch under e164.arpa
The provision of NAPTR records in Tier 1
Linkage with other, non-NANP Provider ENUM trials
Selective Control of Resolution/Call Admission
Hiding the “root” of the Provider ENUM tree (i.e., e164enum.us) from everyone but “authorized” service providers (i.e., trial participants).

With the exception of 2. and 4., I see some problems, but of course everybody is allowed to trial and play around.

2. and 4 allow to do "Linkage with other non-US trials" as pointed out also in section 7.3.2 of the framework, but please not with a DNAME (this would not work with i.3.4.e164.arpa), but by using the EBL ressource record as described in draft-lendl-enum-branch-location-record. Provided they are allowed to put this record into the sacrosanct e164.arpa.

In this section there seems also to be a slight misunderstanding where ie164.arpa belongs too: ie164.arpa as defined in draft-ietf-enum-nfrastructure does NOT belong to ETSI.

Anyway, once again, well done!

Spring VON Europe - To IMS or not to IMS

2006-05-19T15:20:00.000Z

One hot topic at the VON Sessions was the IMS. There are two camps fighting each other fiercely. Everybody reading my blog and also everybody present at my Industry Perspective presentation on Wednesday knows which side I belong to.

But during the discussions I had to shift my position slightly. It is not IMS per se which is bad, it is how you implement it. You may implement IMS also on the Internet (if you want to), and you may implement a plain RFC3261 compliant SIP server in a walled garden.

So the camps are really the Internet vs. the Walled Gardens, the IMS is only used as an example, of course because it may help you to make the walls higher.

To make this point clear I use a picture from a presentation Jay Batson gave recently:

Title: What is good for operators may not be good for nations.

In my presentation I deleted operators (service providers) and replaced it by manufacturers. Alistair Woodman from Cisco proved this correct the next day in his Industry Perspective when he said: "We manufacturers like complicated protocols and also different protocols: the more the better, we make a lot of money out of Interworking Units".

The picture clearly shows in a nutshell the issue. There is only a minor mistake on this picture: the word IMS should not be placed on the person, it should be places on the gun.

The correct analogy is: the gun is the IMS, the person is the service provider and the manufacturer is the manufacturer.

A gun per se is not bad, it is always the person pulling the trigger. It could be a policeman or a criminal. You can also not blame gun manufactures for simply producing and selling guns. (You may blame them for lobbying and supporting the NRA ;-)

So one may not blame IMS per se, one may only blame a service provider trying to implement IMS in a walled garden, but this can also be done with an OpenSER (an even better gun?).

See also the presentation from Adrian Georgescu on Building Scalable SIP networks using IMS-in-a-Box and P"P networks.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

So since we now have demystified IMS a bit, we may concentrate on the two real questions from a service providers point of view:

1. should he implement his voice and multi-media services using IMS or something else?

2. should he implement his voice and multi-media services in a walled garden or on the Internet?

Question 1: IMS or not?

This is up to him. A service provider should always look what he gets for his money and what he will get in return from his subscribers. My personal opinion here is that this will not work out for IMS based products, at least not for the fully monty standard bodies and manufacturers are promising at the moment, and also not now. Every service provider should keep in mind that he now has to compete with the virtual service providers on the Internet, and they do not need to wait until the promised applications are available in IMS in the distant future. They can implement it now. If the SP does not get his investments back, this is stranded costs, as I also pointed out in my presentation.

One operator seems to have got this message -KPN. KPN is approaching IMS very carefully and will only implement two functions, the S-CSCF (basically a simple SIP-proxy) and the only real asset IMS has: the HSS. Eventually a P-CSCF for their mobile part as an outbound proxy.

I suggest that all operators should look at the excellent KPN presenation Colin Pons gave at the break-out panel: IMS: Walled In or Open very carefully. See also Martin Geddes commenting on this in KPN: a viable IMS vision and here.

Question 2: Walled garden or not?

Here we have to distinguish between three sub-options:

a) Is the SP reachable from other SP's on the public Internet, via bilateral peering agreements or via so-called federations. This is a SP decision and is currently discussed all over the place, in all standards bodies (e.g. SPEERMINT), in national bodies dealing with IP Interconnect and in a number of conferences. I will come back on this in one of my next posts on ENUM.

b) Are the application servers also within the walled garden or are they available via the public Internet? Can anybody provide an third-party service or only for selected third-parties, or something in between. This is an issue not so much discussed yet, but very important for innovation speed and global availability of services.

c) Does the user has access to the SP from the public Internet or is he bundled in via the access? This issue is currently the hottest in the net-neutrality discussion, because this works only if the SP disables the end-user to use the services he provides also over the Internet access.

KPN seems to have here also a very open approach:

The KPN Strategy is: "Making the Internet even more significant for our consumers"

and to concentrate on identity management, presence, location, user preferences and profile mediation, service and personal mobility.

KPN: "Preserve the E2E principle"

The KPN design principles and guidelines state: "No service intelligence shall reside in the IMS core elements"

So I strobgly recommend that operators, carriers and service providers may reconsider their plans of using IMS: the full monty, not all of it, or none of IMS.

This may be of course a problem for the IMS manufacturers, but also for new-entrant VoIP providers hoping that the telcos binge-drink the IMS and fall over.

My two cents for SP:

1. Do not use IMS now, wait until it gets ready and even then do not use all of it.
2. Do not implement the end-user access and the applications in a walled garden.
3. for interconnect, use all options available now, but finally you MUST find a way to peer with ALL other service providers via IP. Do not rely on the PSTN as default.

and finally:

4. Do not believe too much in conspiracy theories like all incumbent telcos and regulators are bad. They are all cooking only with water. Leave the conspiracy theories to the "Da Vince Code" (also a big flop, BTW)