Category: UC

Unified Communications

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Business voip

Nortel Has Filed For Chapter 11 – Bankruptcy Protection

The hot news this afternoon is that Nortel has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the USA. This, as I recall, gives them a year to restructure their business under protection of the US Government without having to “worry” about action from creditors. There were  noises on the airways for some weeks regarding the company taking advice over Chapter 11. It goes to show there is no smoke without fire.

Nortel’s asset levels of around $1Bn are dwarfed by their liabilities of $12Bn. With debt due for repayment in 2011 they will have found it difficult to reschedule this debt under current market conditions. I understand that $107M was due tomorrow.

Speaking to staff at Nortel the whole company is affected and an interim “committee” has been appointed as an adviser to the board.

The biggest problem the company was facing, aside from the repayment of debt, was the funding of R&D moving forward. In particular in the enterprise and carrier VoIP space. The Metro Ethernet business, where Nortel is market leader but which is no longer core to their future VoIP plans, has been for sale for some time in order to provide working capital to fund R&D. I understand that some (unspecified) bits have been sold but a further announcement regarding this will be due in a couple of days.

Life is never boring. Nortel expects to come out of Chapter 11 as a new debt free entity. The brand is strong and the company itself is one of the oldest in the telephony business, if not the oldest. I can’t see it disappearing.

Bloomberg’s comment on the news is here.

Categories
Business ofcom voip

LLU Lines On The Up

LLU, or Local Loop Unbundling continues to grow in the UK. The Office of the Telecommunications Adjudicator (OTA otherwise it’s a bit of a mouthful) has released it’s latest numbers which are for December.

llu-installed-base-dec08

It’s quite interesting to look at the curve. Can we see a classic product lifecycle curve here? Low initial growth then a steep incline followed by a tailing off that at this stage is barely perceptible. What concerns me somewhat is that I’m not sure that we should see a lifecycle curve for this product. It is a long term commodity play.

Also if you look at the Ofcom data for fixed line market penetration you can see that there is a long way to go before LLU should flatten out. It also means there is a long way to go before any other player’s market share is comparable to that of BT.

uk-fixed-lines

What is also interesting is that the fixed line market has stopped declining in terms of lines and indeed showed a small growth in 2007. We have to wait some time yet for the 2008 results. At 33.7 million fixed lines represents around 16% market share/penetration for LLU.

It would be interesting to understand why the number of fixed lines grew year on year. My guess is that it is the effect of more and more people working from home with companies paying for second analogue lines to carry a dedicated business broadband connection.

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Business voip

Office Moves

I moved office on Monday. Actually the boys were in over the weekend doing all the work, but I physically sat in it first thing on Monday morning when I got in. So what, do I hear you say?

This is my eighth office since we started in April 2004. It isn’t that I can’t sit still for long, or keep a good office. We have been growing and I keep getting displaced by an expanding customer services department. Although I “don’t do paper” I do seem to have accumulated a 4 drawer filing cabinet full of it. That however, (or at least the paper in it) is the only physical object I have had to move each time.

Whenever I move office all I have to do is log out of my VoIP phone when I leave, and log on to the new one the next time I am in. My laptop plugs into the network cable emanating from the back of the phone and hey presto, I am up and running again.

When you think about it eight moves probably would traditionally have represented a lot of time spent in doing so – adds, moves and changes were always a high cost item in running an office communications network. Not any longer.

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Business voip

ITSPA Video Produced By Illume

Check this video short out.

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Business ofcom UC voip

ITSPA Awards Photos

I mentioned that I would get some photos up once they came back from the developers and here they are. The biggest shock for me is to see how much weight I have put on this year – something to sort out in January!! I also note that I need a haircut.

On the plus side having reflected of the Awards Evening it was a highly successful event from ITSPA’s perspective. Not only was the turnout high but in his speech Ofcom Board Member, Stuart McIntosh, was most complimentary regarding the work that ITSPA has been doing. This is ITSPA growing up.

This is a time of fast moving changes in the industry and it is good to be a part of it.

Tref accepts the ITSPA Award

I accept the ITSPA Unified Award from Dave Axam of BT.

The acceptance speech; erudite, informed, witty yet tempered with the appropriate level of gratitude and humility.

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Business UC voip

Timico Strikes Gold At ITSPA Awards

I’m thrilled to report that Timico won the Best Unified ITSP at the ITSPA Awards at the House of Commons last night. This was for an ITSP who is also an ISP. It’s an exciting finish to what has been a very exciting year for us and is the icing on the cake after the 4th place in the Sunday Times Techtrack.

The event was jointly hosted by MPs Ian Taylor and Derek Wyatt, Chair of the All Party Communications Group and took place in the salubrious surroundings of the Members Dining Room at the House of Commons.

Other winners were BT for the consumer award, Gradwell.com for the business ITSP, AQL for innovation, and Cisco for best hardware.

The Cisco win is also significant because Timico Group company KeConnect is Cisco’s partner of choice for SIP trunks and this provides a nice filip for the partnership going into the new year.

Finally the VoIP personality award was won by Eli Katz for his tireless service to the industry since founding ITSPA four years ago. This came as a total surprise to him as we had decided at the Council meeting not to have this category 🙂

Once I get hold of some photos I’ll do another post – I know how you are all dying to see them.

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Business events voip

ITSPA Awards

Off to the ITSPA Awards in The Houses of Parliament today. A good day out in store. This is the first such award bash for ITSPA and I understand there were 50 entries which must represent a fair percentage of ITSPs in the UK.

Timico is sponsoring the “Best CPE” category which I believe highlights our partnership approach to this business. Working closely with suppliers means better support and fast access to new technologies.

No doubt I will report back after the event.

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End User voip

Standardisation Brings Choice

Most of the Timico staff who have been subjected to my technology staff intro presentation, which is practially all 130 of them over the last 4 years, will have had my spiel regarding the competitive benefits of standardisation (eg IBM PC, GSM phones, SIP). Basically standards increase choice and reduce costs.

Our position regarding the support of VoIP handsets has however been very conservative on the basis that it is impossible for a service provider to provide a quality level of support for a huge range of handsets. Actually this applies in the mobile world just as much as in VoIP although to a lesser extent because GSM is a maturer technology.

I have to say though that as SIP becomes seriously mainstream as the signaling protocol of choice for VoIP my attitude towards handset support is changing. This is bolstered by the availability of a wider range of quality products from market leaders such as Nortel, Cisco and Polycom.

The picture below shows the handsets that we have either already been providing or are in test for production in the near future.

Its horses for courses.

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Business voip

BT's Policy Regarding Number Porting – Cease And Reprovide

When, as is increasingly the case, a customer wants to move his telephone number to a VoIP service the underlying analogue line is ceased. ie it stops working.

If that customer wants to use the (VoIP) number over his broadband connection then he has a problem because the broadband connection stops working because the line has been ceased. He has to wait for a new underlying number to be provided which ain’t a quick process. This is a very anticompetitive scenario because it makes it hard for an end user to reuse a number if it is their only line.

A year ago the industry asked BT to change their process so that the line could immediately have a new number to keep the broadband working. Nothing seems to have happened here so the Internet Telephony Service Providers’ Association is taking up the cause and will be lobbying BT.

I’ll keep readers posted here because this does seem to me to be an issue that is preventing a free market from working.

Categories
Business voip

BT’s Policy Regarding Number Porting – Cease And Reprovide

When, as is increasingly the case, a customer wants to move his telephone number to a VoIP service the underlying analogue line is ceased. ie it stops working.

If that customer wants to use the (VoIP) number over his broadband connection then he has a problem because the broadband connection stops working because the line has been ceased. He has to wait for a new underlying number to be provided which ain’t a quick process. This is a very anticompetitive scenario because it makes it hard for an end user to reuse a number if it is their only line.

A year ago the industry asked BT to change their process so that the line could immediately have a new number to keep the broadband working. Nothing seems to have happened here so the Internet Telephony Service Providers’ Association is taking up the cause and will be lobbying BT.

I’ll keep readers posted here because this does seem to me to be an issue that is preventing a free market from working.

Categories
Business internet ofcom voip

999 Call Traceability

Had a very interesting discussion with Chris Rowsell, Ofcom Project Director, who clarified what obligations the ISP community were likely to have regarding the traceability of calls to the Emergency Services.

Location information requirements for Internet Telephony Service Providers have been covered in a previous post. Ofcom, together with the emergency services establishment, and for obvious reasons, is trying to understand how real time information regarding the location of a caller might be provided.

The only information available that might help pinpoint a location is the IP address from which the call is being made. There are, however, many problems to be over come, and I’m sorry about the technical nature of some of these points for those who just read this blog for the occasional light entertainment. 

  • The IP address might be behind a NAT
  • There might be multiple Internet Service Providers involved
  • The call might be made from a wifi mesh network
  • Many ITSPs are not ISPs  and cannot easily relate IP addresses to locations.

It is physically possible to imaging the process by which this tracing could be done. Timico, for example, has records of where calls are made to and from. These are kept for billing purposes and contain IP address information. Timico can also link the address of a broadband customer to the IP address of that connection.

The act of hooking up both sets of data is far from being real time and  the cost of developing a system to do so would be huge and disproportional to the value. Certainly it would be unlikely to get past a cost benefit analysis. Interestingly the establishment values a human life at £1.4 million for the purposes of these CBAs.

CR accepted that there was currently no practical way of quickly linking the two sets of data. He did intimate that Ofcom would be initiating a project sometime next year to discuss a way ahead. I suspect that this will be a long and arduous process.

Categories
Business ofcom voip

USA FCC Forces Mobile VoIP Providers To Support 911 (ie 999)

In the USA the Government in the guise of the Federal Communications Commission has ordered VoIP providers who allow access through mobile devices to provide their customers with support for calling Emergency Services.

It is perfectly possible for providers to do this. What isn’t possible is the identification of caller location information. In the UK Ofcom has recognised this and specifically exempts users of mobile voip services from having to provide address details. The 999 system recognises a mobile VoIP number as such.

A mobile VoIP user doesn’t of course have to use a mobile handset for this to be the case. A laptop with a softphone is a more likely scenario with users travelling between different office locations.

VoIP providers in the USA are going to have a difficult time of it methinks. They don’t appear to have the same leeway as in the UK and the FCC isn’t telling them how to go about providing the location information.

Categories
Business voip

Fast moving times – fast moving installations

Timico completed a 25 seat installation for a VoIP customer on Saturday 11th October. The whole process of finding the customer, taking the order and completing the contract happened with lightning speed.

The reason for the haste was that the customer was moving into new offices and had left it late to get their communications sorted. The old phone system was completely unserviceable. There was not enough time to order ISDN lines for the new office and to buy a new PBX.

The solution was to install internet connectivity and to go for a hosted VoIP solution. Timico received the order on 1st October and proceeded to order analog lines and an SDSL connection which were then expedited in order to be available the weekend of the move.

An engineer installed the network and handsets on Saturday. The customer moved in on Monday (this morning) and is now up and running. The whole job took 7 working days from initial order to completion. That’s impressive for what was effectively a greenfield site. I guess had Timico not been the service provider for the analogue lines, the SDSL and the VoIP this would have been a lot harder to achieve.

Categories
Business UC voip

Nortel Launches BCM450 Today

Timico sells a lot of Nortel BCM systems. The BCM is Nortel’s telephony/Unified Communications solution for the Small and Medium sized business market and has so far come in three main flavours – 50, 200 and 400. The biggest runner of these for us is the BCM50 which we sell mainly into businesses with between 10 and 20 users per site. The 200 supports 90 users and the 400 196. The BCM50 has a more up to date firmware load than the 200 and the 400 making it a generally more attractive product.

Today Nortel releases the BCM450. The new system supports up to 300 users and has a similar firmware load to the BCM50. The attractions of the platform include a meet me conf bridge and support for the new 1200 series handsets.

This is good news all round. It means that Nortel should be increasingly more competitive in the “M” sector of the SMB market.

Categories
Business mobile connectivity voip

Parliament And Internet Conference

I will be speaking at the Parliament and Internet Conference in London on 16th October. Specifically I am on a panel debating issues surrounding mobile voip.

There are a few issues to debate:

  • restrictions on usage imposed by handsets manufacturers
  • restrictions on use placed by the mobile networks
  • voip numbering in the mobile space

to name but three. The opportunities in this area are going to be immense once some of the constraints are removed so it should be an interesting session.

The conference has been arranged by the All Parliamentary Communications Group. It starts at 9am in Portcullis House and I am onstage at 2.30.

Categories
Business UC voip

Real Life Example Of Geographic Integration Using VoIP

Timico is a classic case study of a business that has expanded by both organic growth and acquisition.

When the company began, 4 very short years ago, almost the first thing it did was buy a Nortel BCM telephony system. On the way up it bought KeConnect which has an Asterisk Open Source PBX and Twang.net which is a user and reseller of Avaya IP Office systems. At the same time the Timico mobile workforce uses hosted VoIP clients based on the Nortel AS5200 Unified Communications platform. Quite a mishmash of telephony solutions.

In years gone by the business would have probably had to factor in CAPEX to harmonise the phone systems around its various locations around a single vendor in order to be able to adequately connect the sites. Even then the connectivity would have been expensive.

This has all changed with the advent of the VoIP SIP Trunk. Using SIP Trunks all Timico sites can talk to each other over a low cost IP connection. What’s more salesmen on the move are able to demonstrate the technology from a customer’s premises using a local wifi connection. 

Just as impressive, Cisco and KeConnect resellers showcasing the Cisco SPA9000 iPBX with the travelling demo kit, are able to connect in to the office technical support using SIP. The same applies in respect of the Nortel SCS500 Unified Communications system, Samsung IP telephony systems and Cisco Call Manager Express and a variety of other manufacturers’ systems.

The point of this name dropping is to highlight that it is a great example of what SIP technology was intended to achieve – seamless connectivity using open standards. Timico’s site to site telephony costs are now tending to very low or zero. I can’t say that SIP interoperability has achieved universal ubiquitous status yet but it is getting there.

 

Categories
Business ofcom voip

999 Update From Ofcom

A customer of one of ITSPA’s members complained to Ofcom recently. He was unhappy about having to provide his address for the use by the Emergency Services in the event that he ever had to dial 999. His position was that the reason he had a VoIP service was that he was able to use it from many locations. Providing information regarding one location was therefore pointless (he said).

The Ofcom reply said:

“Ofcom’s view on this is that location information should be provided to the emergency services in cases where the service is being used at a predominantly fixed location. As such, nomadic users will not have their address provided to the emergency services.”

This is a useful clarification by Ofcom. VoIP users with an inbound number are in any case flagged as such if they dial 999. The operator knows to ask for confirmation of location.

The problem lies with silent calls or calls to 999 that are immediately terminated upon answer. There could be a totally innocent reason for this. For example my 4 year old son once dialled 999 by repeatedly hitting the randomly selected number 9 on our home phone. I received a callback and rebuke from the operator for letting the little dear waste their time.

However there may of course be reasons why the call was terminated that are of genuine concern. Granny consumed in the flames, attacker putting the phone down forcibly or caller collapsing on top of the phone spring to mind. You can use your own imagination here.

Because of this Timico will at least record the main company address of their VoIP users even though we know that a great many of our customers are nomadic users.

Categories
Business voip

Recession = opportunity

You have to have been in a coma to have not noticed all the noise in the media regarding the banking crisis and looming recession. There is an element in me that thinks it is all over my head, not being a banker with million pound bonuses to lose.

Clearly though it is affecting business confidence and a prudent manager will nurse his cash through this period of uncertainty. What the forward thinking manager will also do is to look at how he runs parts of his business to see where the use of technology can provide real savings.

One such area has to be in the use of VoIP to connect the different sites of a business. This effectively eliminates internal telephony charges and likely reduces the line costs because some existing ISDN or analogue lines can be dispensed with.

The technology to do this, known as SIP Trunking, is now pretty mainstream and most PBX vendors provide SIP interfaces to allow the interconnect. Old PBXs are not precluded from this efficiency measure with the use of media gateways.

This is one area of our business that has already been snowballing and I expect to see it grow further with the increased levels of economic uncertainties.

Categories
Business UC voip

ITSPA Autumn Dinner

A very enjoyable evening was spent at a restaurant in Westminster last night as ITSPA held its Autumn dinner. Yours truly was asked to chair the after dinner debate of which, unfortunately, I can tell you nothing because it was held under Chatham House rules – what goes on tour stays on tour 🙂 .

What I can tell you is that the Sponsor of the evening, Telecoms Consultancy Illume now quotes the market for business hosted VoIP seats to be around 300,000 subscribers. Illume conducts a quarterly survey of the ITSP community to come up with their figures.

Interestingly VoIP players have seen the need to move away from selling VoIP as cheap telephony and are now looking at different added value angles such as Disaster Recovery and also the productivity benefits brought about by Unified Communications.

The ITSPA dinners are open to both members and non members and are not only a great networking opportunity but a wonderful source of information. If you want to know more about forthcoming events visit the ITSPA website or its Facebook Group or just drop me a line.

Categories
Business internet voip

September 11th

It is 7 years to the day when the 9/11 tragedies happened in the USA. The event has different memories for us all.  I was attending a SIP Summit VoIP conference in Austin Texas and Tuesday 11th September was the first day. The conference was abandoned after the first day and most Americans hired cars and drove home. In some cases it was a 3 day drive.

The experience of overseas attendees was a strange and highly stressful one as noone knew when they would be able to go home. I eventually made it out on the Saturday on a very nervous flight. The barman at the airport hotel where we were staying said that we were the first regulars he had ever had.

The event was quite significant from a technology perspective. The mobile networks in New York stayed working although it was virtually impossible to get a line. The fixed line network did not work – the Central Office (telephone exchange) in the area had burnt to the ground.

What did remain up was the internet and students at Columbia University, which is where Professor Henning Schulzerinne did much of the development of VoIP signalling protocol SIP, were able to call home using their University VoIP accounts.

Internet Protocol, the IP in VoIP, was designed to run over networks resilient to nuclear attack. 9/11 was a good, if terrible, real life test bed for this. 

Categories
Business ofcom voip

Number porting

Number porting has always been a hot topic in the telecoms world. Why does it take so long? Why can I move a number from “service provider A” to “service provider B” but not from “service provider C”.

In the “old” world porting was (is) an expensive process involving one provider actually forwarding calls to another. The number is never actually ported, just diverted. Whilst the consumer doesn’t see the costs the network operator certainly does.

Way back in November 2007 Ofcom decided to make it easier for everyone, consumers and networks alike and mandated that the UK telecommunications provider industry sort itself out. What’s more Ofcom gave everyone until 31st December 2008 to get a database populated with numbers so that porting would be made easy – within 2 hours for a mobile number, for example.

This would make switching service providers really easy and provide for a more competitive marketplace etc etc.

A working party was set up that includes all major telcos in the UK together with representation of smaller businesses via ITSPA (Internet Telephony Service Providers’ Association) and others. 

This activity seems to be making progress. Portco,  new company funded by industry to manage the porting process, is on the verge of being set up and a supplier/partner to build the database is near to being selected.

The initial requirement is for mobile numbers to be easily ported. Once the database is available the industry is being given until September 2009 to get it populated after which time mobile number porting should be a cinch.

Fixed numbers don’t have to be portable in the same way until the end of 2012 but I imagine that in reality it will happen a lot sooner because it is in the interest of everyone to make it happen.

Categories
Business ofcom voip

Emergency

Monday 8th of September is an important day for Internet Telephony Service Providers. This is the day by which they have to support Access to the Emergency Services by VoIP phone ie 999 must work when dialled.

There has been much debate amongst the global VoIP provider community as to how much regulation should be applied to VoIP. In the USA it centres largely on commercial issues. In other words telephone calls are taxed but VoIP calls were not taxed, at least initially. The argument was that VoIP calls are actually just computer to computer data traffic and not telephony as traditionally defined.

The incumbent telephony providers have fought hard to have VoIP  calls taxed in order to remove the competitive advantage notionally handed to VoIP companies.  Clearly it is in the interest of the VoIP provider community not to be subject to taxation. The justification for this is that it would stifle innovation amongst new market entrants. There is a case for this.

In the UK the argument is different. Regulation is not so much about taxation as personal safety. In this case Ofcom, the UK regulator, has mandated that if you provide telephony services that allow connection to and from traditional PSTN phone numbers you must provide access to the Emergency Services.

The Ofcom pronouncement comes with constraints including making sure that customers are aware that VoIP calls probably aren’t going to work if there is a power cut of if the broadband connection carrying the calls is down.

I am fully supportive of the Ofcom position.  What is going to be interesting is how the regulator responds to companies like Skype who at this time do not support 999 access and as far as I am aware have no plans to do so. Buyer beware.

Categories
End User security voip

Identity theft – Skype style

If your business uses Skype then you could do worse than check out all the cases of identity theft that have been occuring in the Skype user community. For those who don’t know Skype is a free PC based VoIP telephony service that also allows paid for calls in and out from the PSTN. It has always been tagged as an insecure service which potentially opens a corporate network to hacking.

Recently Skype users have been having their identities stolen, and their accounts being used to make illegal phone calls. What’s more if you periodically top up your Skype account using PayPal note that people have found their bank accounts being debited of funds to pay for someone else’s calls. This on it’s own is bad enough but the problem is compounded by the fact that you can’t ring up Skype to complain or get it sorted. Skype relies on email contact for support with apparently slow or non existent response.

What’s more your exposure as a business is exacerbated by the fact that in stealing your identity a Skype hijacker can also steal the business contacts you keep in your Skype account with who knows what consequences.

You can read more about the Skype problems on The Register and if you want to phone a VoIP service provider to discuss how to get a professional service call 08700 949600. 

Categories
Business voip

Cisco/Linksys SPA9000 begins to roll out

We had a Linksys reseller on the phone needing help with setting up his SPA9000. This is a small PBX for the small business market. It sitts very nicely below the Nortel BCM50 in our portfolio of communications systems for business.

Timico recently launched the SPA9000 in a Webinar held jointly between Cisco/Linksys and KeConnect. Yours truly said a few words. It is very satisfying to see the outcome of such marketing activities resulting in channel partners generating sales.

This particular partner needed help with setting up his SIP trunk. He hadn’t read the manual – ah well. That’s what we are here for. It took a few seconds. The solution worked. He is happy and has other customers lined up for the product/service.

the SPA9000Picture of SPA9000

Categories
Business UC voip

Nortel SCS500 – Unified Communications for small and medium sized businesses

Nortel has launched the SCS500. This communications system effectively provides companies with a cross between the features offered by Timico on their Nortel AS5200 hosted VoIP platform and the Nortel BCM phone system.

Timico has found that many companies want to use Instant Messaging in their business but beyond insecure consumer products such as MSN and Skype don’t know how to do it.

Timico’s VoIP for Business service provides IM and is great for businesses where there are lots of distributed locations or many homeworkers. Our real world experience shows that as companies get bigger their needs change and we then sell them a Nortel BCM.

The SCS500 adds neatly to the portfolio with IM and other Unified Communications features. We can now cover pretty much every need of every sized company in our customer base and target market.

All credit to Nortel they have been making great strides to the extent that the Financial Times newspaper recently rated their stock as a “buy”. Their leading position in the Unified Communications market is a reflection of this.

screenshot of SCS500 soft clientThis a picture I pinched from the Nortel website. It shows the SCS500 soft client. I don’t know who Chris Leary is but a larger image would shou you that he needs a shave 🙂 .

Categories
Business video

And the winner is…

Scott Wroe shakes hands with Trefor Davies

After a fiercely fought video competition which brought in some imaginative entries I am pleased to announce that the winner is Scott Wroe from the Timico, Newark, marketing department. The winning video is well worth watching timicofinalscottwroe.

Congratulations also to Andy Twine of Twang.net who came a close second with commendations to James Vestbirk, Jo Barker, Adam Jackson, Harry Singh, Andrew Massing, Richard Wright, Jo Smith, Andrew North, Clare Morrell, Will Curtis, Dean Bruce and Katie Nicholas who all put in a good effort.

 

Categories
Business UC video voip

Tesco’s new VoIP telecommunications infrastructure

Tesco has just announced a new investment worth £100m over 5 years in a new next gen telecommunications platform connecting 1,800 sites over 14 countries. What the announcement doesn’t say is that it is based on Nortel technology. Specifically the multimedia collaboration features are based on the Nortel AS5200 platform. This is the same platform used by Timico for its multimedia Unified Communications based VoIP services. Tesco is using video conferencing and Instant Messaging as well as file collaboration and VoIP.

The Tesco network is big enough to justify it’s own platform. However Timico provides partitions on its Nortel platform so that smaller organisations than Tesco can benefit from the same feature set (without having to spend £100m).

This is a big milestone for the Nortel platform and an endorsement of Timico’s VoIP strategy.

Categories
Business UC video voip

Tesco's new VoIP telecommunications infrastructure

Tesco has just announced a new investment worth £100m over 5 years in a new next gen telecommunications platform connecting 1,800 sites over 14 countries. What the announcement doesn’t say is that it is based on Nortel technology. Specifically the multimedia collaboration features are based on the Nortel AS5200 platform. This is the same platform used by Timico for its multimedia Unified Communications based VoIP services. Tesco is using video conferencing and Instant Messaging as well as file collaboration and VoIP.

The Tesco network is big enough to justify it’s own platform. However Timico provides partitions on its Nortel platform so that smaller organisations than Tesco can benefit from the same feature set (without having to spend £100m).

This is a big milestone for the Nortel platform and an endorsement of Timico’s VoIP strategy.

Categories
Apps Business UC voip

Ribbit & BT – Unified Communications

BT has bought a company called Ribbit based in Silicon Valley, California. Why is this interesting or significant to the UK business community? Maybe it isn’t.

However there is a chance that in the UK we will see the effects of this acquisition in the next year or two. Ribbit provides the hooks to make voice calls from different applications. In itself this isn’t anything special – Timico could do the same thing using it’s Nortel 5200 platform given the time and inclination.

Ribbit has tried to make it easy for 3rd party developers to do so and as a company whose sole reason for existence seems to have been to do this then one must assume that they would be doing a good job of it.

I think my one observation relates to what BT expects to do with the platform. It seems to me that Ribbit is set up as an applicaton for a wide community. I suspect BT might just use it to develop their own embedded voice applications. This to me would be a lost opportunity. Here BT has the chance to position itself at the centre of a Web2.0/VoIP2.0 world in the UK but it needs to keep Ribbit open to all to do so.

In the world of voice, at least in business voice and Unified Communications, it is also important to keep the activity and platform UK centred when selling to UK parties. This is why I believe that a Webex service with a voice platform based in the USA will never have a huge market reach in the UK. The same applies for the apparent efforts of Microsoft with hosted OCS.

Timico is based in the UK, offers UK services and telephone numbers, and I believe will be going head to head with Microsoft and Cisco in this space. Of course in other areas we will be partnering them. Interesting times…

Categories
Apps Business UC voip

Ribbit & BT – Unified Communications

BT has bought a company called Ribbit based in Silicon Valley, California. Why is this interesting or significant to the UK business community? Maybe it isn’t.

However there is a chance that in the UK we will see the effects of this acquisition in the next year or two. Ribbit provides the hooks to make voice calls from different applications. In itself this isn’t anything special – Timico could do the same thing using it’s Nortel 5200 platform given the time and inclination.

Ribbit has tried to make it easy for 3rd party developers to do so and as a company whose sole reason for existence seems to have been to do this then one must assume that they would be doing a good job of it.

I think my one observation relates to what BT expects to do with the platform. It seems to me that Ribbit is set up as an applicaton for a wide community. I suspect BT might just use it to develop their own embedded voice applications. This to me would be a lost opportunity. Here BT has the chance to position itself at the centre of a Web2.0/VoIP2.0 world in the UK but it needs to keep Ribbit open to all to do so.

In the world of voice, at least in business voice and Unified Communications, it is also important to keep the activity and platform UK centred when selling to UK parties. This is why I believe that a Webex service with a voice platform based in the USA will never have a huge market reach in the UK. The same applies for the apparent efforts of Microsoft with hosted OCS.

Timico is based in the UK, offers UK services and telephone numbers, and I believe will be going head to head with Microsoft and Cisco in this space. Of course in other areas we will be partnering them. Interesting times…