Communications

Skype - SIP integration, officially, at last

Stefan Oberg ― Skype's VP & GM for Telecom ― gave the keynote at AstriCon this morning and announced official support by Skype for interoperation with Asterisk open source PBXs.  This is significant!

 

One of the major complaints about Skype is it’s a closed system.  Skype provides PSTN connectivity (SkypeOut and SkypeIn) but no way to connect to other VoIP services.  Of course 3^rd parties have been providing work arounds, but until now there’s been nothing from Skype provoking major complaints from some in the community (see this letter from Gizmo Project founder Michael Robertson).

The Skype-Asterisk deal announced this morning means Skype is officially supporting multi-channel connectivity to an open source SIP platform.  That in turn means an Asterisk box can function as a gateway between Skype and any other SIP-based system, inlcuding Gizmo.  If the Asterisk box is used as a gateway, the Asterisk dial plan adapts between Skype names, SIP URIs and PSTN numbers.  It’s early days, but this looks like a significant win for every VoIP community.  It’s also likely to provide a boost to Skype’s efforts to attract business users.

They announced an early beta program starting today, to be followed by a public beta and, presumably, a stable release at some point.  The additions to Asterisk will be licensed code available from Digium at a price and the Skype-specific code will not be open, but Mark Spencer, CEO of Digium and founder of Asterisk, suggested the connectivity code would be licensed much as G.729 code is today.  (G.729 code requires a license, not for the software, but for to cover royalties to patent holders).

We’ll await further details, but this looks to be very significant.  Stay tuned.

eComm 2009

The eComm 2009 website is live.

As some of you already know, the date was picked through a feedback process conducted on Facebook.  It's March 3-5, 2009 in California.

I attend a lot of conferences and trade shows and, as I look back at the past year, the most interesting conference I attended was eComm 2008.  Typically conference organizers start with a list of sponsors and/or exhibitors and then do their best to build an interesting conference, given their primary objective of facilitating sponsors' and exhibitors' promotional efforts.

For eComm, Lee Dryburgh (the principal organizer behind eComm), started with an idea ― emerging communications ― then went after speakers who had something relevant to say and were known to be good at saying it, finally he sought sponsors and attendees interested in discussing emerging communications.  The result was a really interesting set of talks and a fascinating set of people in attendence.

If you are at all interested in where communications is going, subscribe to the eComm 2009 blog and think about attending eComm 2009.

Attending AstriCon in Phoenix

I’ve just arrived in Phoenix to attend AstriCon, the Asterisk open-source PBX convention.  While I’ve roughly followed various open-source telephony movements (Asterisk, sipX/SIPFoundry, Freeswitch, YATE, OpenSIPS), my focus has been on mobile networks and mobile applications for several years now.  So I need a quick catch up and AstriCon looks to be a great way to start.

If you are attending AstriCon and want to meet, send me an email (the handle is “rbt” and the domain is nmss.com) or call my mobile 617 285 0433.

Off to LA for IT Expo and Communications Developer Conference

I'll be at Internet Telephony Expo West in Los Angeles beginning late morning tomorrow.  I have a few meetings scheduled tomorrow afternoon and two presentations later in the show.  NMS also has a booth on the show floor where I should be when I'm not otherwise engaged.

At 9am on Wednesday, I'm giving a Wireless Tutorial (3G, 4G and beyond).  Caution:  it's nearly two hours and goes into mobile communications in some depth!

Then on Thursday at 1pm, I'm on a panel, Exploring Next-Generation Video Standards, with Jeff Van Dyke (of Dialogic, and formerly of Snowshore).

So far those are my only commitments, but there many people I hope to catch up with.  If you want to meet, send me an email (rbt at NMSS dot com) or call my mobile (617-285-0433).

PS:  Next week I'll be at AstriCon in Phoenix (actually Glendale, AZ), Tuesday-Thursday, if by chance you'll be in Phoenix.

African telecom: corruption mostly limited to publicly run operators

The latest issue (#421) of Balancing Act News Update has an interesting story based on the prosecution (in the US) of former sales agents for ITXC found guilty of bribery in arranging VoIP connectivity contracts.

Six of the seven telcos involved were state owned businesses and in the one with private ownership (Sonatel, the PTT in Senegal that's partially owned by France Telecom), it was France Telecom that got suspicious.  Balancing Act News goes on to point out the problems with bribery:

It will be clear from the summary of the available public documents that this approach to business has a number of pitfalls. The bribed employees in two instances subsequently had to sort out “cost disputes” which were the pretext for asking for more bribes. In one instance, the bribed employee failed to share his gains with the managing director. In the only company with a private shareholder (which also sells wholesale minutes), the bribed employee became isolated under commercial questioning: this provides a strong if not always decisive argument for privatisation.

Based on their conclusion, it appears there is no viable way to do business with the state controlled Telcos in Africa:

From the telco side, what has been known privately for years is now revealed clearly and publicly by the Rwandatel and Sotelma examples. Corruption is systemic and goes right to the top and bribes are expected to be shared with the boss of the organisation and woe betide anyone who tries to keep the money to themselves.

Luckily, the mobile telecom industry in Africa is mostly private and increasingly competitive, with the result that mobile phone adoption is soaring in Africa.  It would be nice to think the PTTs will be cleaned up, but in any event, the benefits of telecom are reaching African citizens via mobile phone services.

Human nature can't endure the current rate of change - from 1883!

I had an interesting discussion over dinner last night with a mother whose daughter is in college.  She was relating how her daughter follows the news, gets her opinions, etc.  Of course her daughter was blogging and using social networks to keep multiple lines of communications open at once.  This led to the typical lament, "the world is changing more rapidly than I can understand."  We hear this in many contexts.  Here's one that's fairly far afield for me, but still typical:

...technology is changing at a pace without precedence in human history. One day's marvel becomes a necessity of ordinary life the next. Rapid technological change permeates the whole of human existence, exhausting our mental ability to comprehend and cope."

By amazing coincidence, yesterday I also stumbled on this article from the Atlantic Journal written in 1883.

"The world is too big for us, too much is going, too many crimes, too much violence and excitement. Try as you will, you get behind in the race in spite of yourself. It's a constant strain to keep pace... and still, you lose ground. Science empties its discoveries on you so fast that you stagger beneath them in hopeless bewilderment. The political world is news seen rapidly, you're out of breath trying to keep pace with who's in and who's out. Everything is high pressure. Human nature can't endure much more."

Indeed, earlier technology transitions have also upset people -- think of the Luddites responding to the industrial revolution.  While the pace of change may be increasing, emotionally disturbing change has been affecting individuals for several centuries.