Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Building serious new networking equipment is a bit like a moon-shot.  In the fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) world, several companies have been racing to see who can land their spacecraft on the moon’s surface first… figuratively speaking anyway.  Bridgeport Networks, Ottawa’s own Newstep Networks, Longboard and others, are all racing to build systems that will transparently hand-off applications from the cellular network to the wi-fi network, and back.

So far, it’s all been demo demo demo.  Look at the press release archives for all these companies, and what you will see is one demo after another with one equipment provider, or carrier, after another.

Until last week.

Last week, Bridgeport announced a global reseller agreement with Siemens.  Siemens will now distribute Bridgeport solutions with their products, through their sales force.  Tiny Bridgeport will have one of the worlds largest companies pushing their products. Wow!

It didn’t stop there, though.

Today, Bridgeport and Net2Phone announced that Net2Phone will deploy Bridgeport solutions to their customers.  Net2Phone, if you didn’t know, supplies wholesale VoIP services to cable industry customers.  They supply a few customers in North America, but many more in the Carribean and Europe. 

What a terrific story!  Siemens as reseller, and Net2Phone as wholesale customer targeting the fastest growing segment of the VoIP industry. 

I think the FMC Eagle has just landed.

I got a note in email this morning from egale Canada, the organization that promotes equal rights for Gay and Lesbian Canadians.  It read, in part:

Apparently the folks running the census missed the debate last year where same-sex marriage became the law of the land.

Now that the CRTC has been giving the task of figuring out a regulatory regime for VoIP once again, some of the leading voices in that debate the last time are speaking up once more.  In How to Regulate VoIP, Mark Goldberg points to a paper he authored a year ago titled Regulating Voice over IP, in which he argues the issues of market power, the role of the regulator, and that voice is just an application on the network.  He writes:

A proper decomposition of a voice call reveals that users are being provided with an access element over a copper loop (or more often, a hybrid copper / fibre access network) combined with a switching element, that can be considered to be the voice application element. Since the introduction of common control switching machines in the 1950’s, the voice switch has had a form of central processor with an associated user database. Modern digital switches are primarily a software system with voice services defined through various application software programs. The voice switch examines a database containing a user service profile that determines the features defined for each subscriber. The dial tone application is integrated into the switching machine operated by the local exchange carrier providing conventional phone service. The functionality of a switch has been to provide the voice services application,including the interpretation of dialed digits and proper routing based on these dialing instructions.

 

Indeed!  Furthermore, as open source solutions like SER, Asterisk, and SIPx make their way into the market, the fundamental voice application, switching, is becoming a commodity.  There simply is no need any longer to regulate it.

So what of emergency services — the argument put forward by carriers time and time again, and the one element that strikes fear into the public. 

Emergency service is composed of two unrelated, but important elements:

1. Today’s telephone networks provide power to the phone.  In the event of a hydro outage, phones still work.  VoIP phones don’t do that, because they and the IP network rely on power from hydro. 
2. 911 services rely on telephone company databases to locate the caller.  Because VoIP disassociates the physical network from the logical IP network, it is claimed that this is impossible.

Neither of these are within the purvue of the application provider.  Both are access network issues.  At best, the application provider could be expected to take location information from the access provider, and relay that to a 911 operator.  And you know what?  Those same databases that are used to provision your phone number today, know the address of your DSL line, and so on… the CRTC should mandate that access providers provide this information.

The emergency services argument is strawman advance by incumbents to maintain their position in the market.

Perhaps more than most, Ken really understands the Voice 2.0 vision.  He’s just posted a lengthy review of the iotum & PhoneGnome announcement from last week.  It’s complete, riffs on his “Getting Things Done” reference from the past, and takes the Voice 2.0 vision to the user by importing Toffler’s “Electronic Cottage” into the mix.

Thanks Ken. 

I discovered Flixster last night, and instantly fell in love.  Here’s a social network built around watching movies, something which we at the Saunders household do lots.  The premise is really simple: join, convince your friends to join, share, rate, and watch movies together.  As you watch them, your preferences are accumulated, and together you can separate your personal dogs from your personal favorites.

I got some fabulous responses to the invitations I sent, like the one from an old friend below:

But before I go there, I can tell you that I like complex quirky films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Garden State, and Wild at Heart and Memento and Total Recall.  I like the poetry of Lost in Translation and The Virgin Suicides. I like the mood of The Dead (based on James Joyce’s novel), and the intensity of Black Hawk Down and The Professional, and the tradition of The Homecoming and It’s A Wonderful Life, the humour of Airplane and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, the romance of Notting Hill and The Titanic, the integrity of Fahrenheit 911, the action of Dawn Patrol and Angels One Five and Apollo 13 and True Lies, the heart of Rocky, the drama of The Insider and Quiz Show and Beautiful Mind and Erin Brockovich and Philadelphia and The Firm, the art of The Fifth Element and Blade Runner and Excalibur and Natural Born Killers…..    Wait, wait, I’m out of breath….  oh, and Dr. Strangelove, and the original Lolita with Sue Lyon.  There are just so many great films…..   I also like most of the great new animated films like Shrek and Ice Age and Finding Nemo, many of which come from Pixar.

Did I mention The Professional?  I would say it’s one of my favorites. I have always liked Gary Oldman’s work, and this is where I started to like Natalie Portman.   I particularly do not like films that exploit torture such as Seven and the sequel to Silence of the Lambs.

Now, I just need a few more friends.  If you’d like to join my Flixster network, click here.