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Polycom demos Avaya-ready RealPresence at IAUG confab

Unified communications solutions provider Polycom Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) will showcase its end-to-end video and voice collaboration solutions this week at the International Avaya Users Group (IAUG) Global Education Conference in Boston.

Polycom announced it will demonstrate its Avaya-ready RealPresence Platform for universal video collaboration, among other telepresence and video solutions.

The open standards-based RealPresence Platform has interoperability with hundreds of UC, business and social-networking applications, the company said.

Also being showcased at the IAUG confab is Polycom's RealPresence Mobile application, which "extends the reach of video collaboration beyond the conference room."

The app, launched in October 2011, allows mobile device users to securely join video meetings with other standards-based video systems--including immersive theatres, conference-room systems, laptops, tablets and smartphones--in HD quality.

In a statement, Polycom said the company provides a range of Avaya-ready UC solutions, boasting of 37 Avaya DevConnect certifications in addition to open standards-based solutions tested for Avaya interoperability.

The IAUG Global Education Conference 2012 runs Sunday through Thursday at the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center in Boston.

On Tuesday, Bob Hall, Polycom's director of Enterprise Wireless Solutions Strategic Alliances, will lead a breakout session: Improve On-the-Go Employee Workflow and Reduce Cyber Loafing - How Avaya and Polycom enterprise wireless solutions address improved mobility workflow and employee productivity.

For more:
- see the announcement

fiercevoip.com | 20-May-2012 22:53

FCC initiative redoubles efforts for 'smart and streamlined' regulations

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday released its plan to take a fresh look at old regulations so to root out industry mandates that may be inconsistent, redundant, outdated or needlessly impede U.S. global competitiveness and dissuade industry investment.

Genachowski

Part of the administration's Campaign to Cut Waste, the regulatory reform initiative is aimed at making the FCC's rulemaking process more transparent, its regulatory program more effective and industry compliance less burdensome by removing unjustified regulations, streamlining procedures and ridding the FCC of counterproductive requirements that stymie economic growth and innovation.

The Final Plan for Retrospective Analysis of Existing Rules outlines the independent commission's strategy for a prudent and rational regulatory apparatus for the telephone, broadcasting, satellite and wired communications industries the FCC oversees, and keeps with the FCC's charge to protect consumers and ensure a competitive marketplace.

The Final Plan calls for systematic reviews of significant regulations and information-collection requirements to determine if the existing requirements have outlived their usefulness or become unfairly onerous or have unjustified costs.

"Every part of the Commission is involved in efforts to eliminate outdated regulations and to promote private investment and innovation that creates jobs and spurs economic growth," the document reads.

The commission's larger regulatory-reform efforts extend beyond just retrospective review.

The FCC plan indicates that to foster better outcomes in the rulemaking process, there is "early involvement" of the commission's chief economist and FCC staff members consult with the administration's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) on best practices for cost-benefit analyses, for instance.

The FCC rule-lookback plan follows President Barack Obama's nonbinding July 2011 executive order that independent federal agencies--such as the FCC and the Securities and Exchange Commission--join his administration's government-wide campaign against needlessly burdensome industry mandates.

Executive Order 13579 (76 FR 41587) called on independent federal agencies to consider "how best to promote retrospective analysis of rules that may be outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them in accordance with what has been learned."

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, said the Final Plan's release affirms the agency's "extensive efforts" to eliminate unnecessary regulations.

"Our commitment to smart and streamlined government is helping promote a healthy climate for private investment, innovation, and job creation, benefiting all Americans," said Genachowski, a 2009 Obama appointee.

The FCC has long had a statutory-mandated rule-review process. Section 11(a) of the federal Communications Act (Pub.L. 73-416), as amended, requires that every two years the commission consider whether a regulation warrants revision amid changes in technology, research or market structure.

Pai

The law requires the commission "to repeal or modify any regulation it determines to be no longer necessary in the public interest as the result of meaningful economic competition between providers of such service.

Newly minted FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, a Republican, said the review should neither be done hastily nor in the usual fashion.

"In light of the importance of this comprehensive retrospective analysis, I believe that the 2012 Biennial Review should take the form of Commission-level action rather than bureau-level recommendations," " Pai, a former FCC deputy general counsel, said in a statement.

In its efforts to eliminate unnecessary government mandates on the communications industries, the FCC since 2009 has eliminated 219 regulations.

Among recent FCC streamlining instances noted in the Final Plan:

Modification of Outage Reporting Requirements: The commission amended outage reporting requirements for interconnected IP-based services, citing new technologies.
USF Contribution Reform: On April 27, the commission adopted a proceeding to reform the contribution side of universal service. It requires telecommunications carriers and certain other providers to contribute on the basis of their end-user revenues.
Wireless E911 Location Accuracy: In July 2011, the commission proposed measures to improve 911 availability and location determination for users of interconnected VoIP services.
IP-based Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) Technological Standards: The FCC said technological advances have resulted in the migration of the majority of TRS usage from public-switched telephone network services to IP-based services.
Docket Management: The commission amended its organizational rules to facilitate the termination of 999 dormant dockets.

The FCC released its Preliminary Plan for Retrospective Analysis of Existing Rules in November 2011. The five-member commission is among some 30 federal agencies and departments that submitted reg-reform plans to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, following the president's request.

For more:
- see the FCC Final Plan

fiercevoip.com | 20-May-2012 20:22

Wireline faces tepid revenue growth through 2016, analysts say

Business spending on wireline services will remain essentially flat for years to come, as wireless revenues make modest gains, a newly released telecom market forecast indicates.

The U.S. wireline market "will increase slowly," from revenue of $162.9 billion at the end of 2011, to $167.9 billion by the end of 2016, the Insight Research Corp. report, Telecom Services in Vertical Markets, 2011-2016, forecasts.

If Insight Research's revenue projections hold, the telecom industry's wireline segment will have a lackluster compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of just 0.6 percent. Meanwhile, Insight projected wireless revenues will grow 9.4 percent, to $260.6 billion, over the five-year forecast period.

U.S. businesses, this year, are projected to spend $154 billion for telecommunications services; but, by the end of 2016, revenues will have grown to $184 billion, marking just 4.8 percent growth, Mountain Lakes, N.J.-based Insight said in its report.

Analysts blamed a tepid national economy for the mediocre sector growth they've forecasted.

"In light of the current economic uncertainty, companies are continuing to squeeze more out of what they have on hand, choosing to buy cheaper technology less frequently," the report reads. "This underscores the need for telecommunications carriers to abandon business models dependent on commodity offerings and move toward business models that provide services that cater to specific vertical industry needs."

Insight's research director, Fran Caulfield, said the U.S. telecommunications industry's continued "modest revenue growth" driven by business Internet and mobility solutions.

"As U.S. business activity recovers, employment and network traffic increase," she said. "In parallel, business applications shift to the cloud and end users shift to wireless access, driving higher network and wireless revenues for service providers."

To help jumpstart sales, the 120-page market forecast suggested the telecom industry eschew horizontal "one-size-fits-all" marketing and embrace solution-selling into vertical markets.

"Vertical marketing can open new doors, tap niche markets, and build customer loyalty," the report said. "When telecom providers focus on vertical market solutions, they move away from the commodity-voice sale and toward higher-margin, value-added services."

What's more, analysts said, the vertical approach to marketing "strengthens customer loyalty" by developing closer links to a customer's core business through product customization and support services such as documentation and training.

"Over the forecast period, an increasing percentage of the business revenue growth will come from enhanced services, often for vertical industries, as telecom providers seek to avoid damaging price competition by positioning their services as value-added solutions rather than commodities," the report reads.

For calculations of their revenue forecasts, Insight said analysts pulled total telecom revenues, divided the sum between the business and the residential markets and then examined driving forces in each of 14 selected vertical industry markets: wholesale trade; financial, insurance, and real estate services; professional business services; and communications.

For more:
- see the release
- see an excerpt

Special Report: Enterprise Communications earnings in the first quarter of 2012

fiercevoip.com | 20-May-2012 13:58

Donuts and Efficiency: Ways to Recover Time and Money Lost to TAS

On April 12, ICANN closed the TLD Application System (TAS) to ensure security of applicant data. For more than a month, the system outage has cost applicants and others millions of dollars. Here's how to make up for lost time and money.

Donuts supported ICANN's decision to close TAS when it realized there was a data security risk. At a critical moment, ICANN made the right choice. The company also agrees with ICANN's offer to fully refund impacted applicants who elect to withdraw their application.

However, now that staff has communicated to affected applicants (including Donuts) and is preparing to re-open the TAS system, efficiency has grown to become a crucial element of the process. The offer to return an extra $5,000 of the application fee surely is appreciated. For many applicants, though, the real cost is continued delay.

Weeks of system interruption means continued investment of time, money, and resources. Delays on the eve of evaluation — when applicants are more fully staffed and have invested in systems, hardware, office space and, in some cases, pre-funded COIs — cost applicants far more than delays in previous years.

Or, perhaps recovery is not as hard as it might seem. ICANN could exercise reasonable discretion and make up for some of the lost time without overtaxing itself and without harming participants in the process (both applicants and non-applicants). In doing so, ICANN would probably improve a measure of its tarnished reputation.

Why this is important to everyone

This isn't important just to applicants:

• The burden on all parts of the community must be kept to a minimum, including time and resources for review and evaluation. The more efficient this process is, the more the community's full menu of work can be kept in balance.

• The higher the costs are on applicants, the higher the costs will become to end-users.

• The longer the delay, the more acute risks become. As we noted in a previous post, file and user names aren't particularly actionable — but to the extent they might have been any unfair benefit is lost when the application window closes. ICANN should move quickly to reopen and close TAS as soon as is practical.

• Crisp execution brings credibility back to the machinery and processes of TLD expansion.

• Tightening the process brings much-needed predictability to all parts of the community, including, most importantly, consumers and Internet users.

The culture of risk vs. confidence

A risk-averse culture prevails over many of ICANN's decisions and methods. This is evident in the painstaking packet-layer review of the TAS glitch. Donuts understands the Board's and staff's desire to be careful and thorough and to report the full set of facts.

However, how much more efficient and well regarded would ICANN be if it confidently relied on its significant accomplishments, rather than on obsessive war-room "what ifs"?

Such a change in culture is a tall order for an organization constantly dealing with outside choruses of "do it my way or else." The TAS glitch notwithstanding, ICANN has every right to be confident in the soundness of its efforts in the new TLD program.

How to manage the clock going forward

With the clock ticking, end-users waiting, investors marking time with thousands of dollars by the day, now is the time for ICANN to make up the time lost to the TAS glitch. Here's how:

1. Make realistic assessments of the time needed for processes and trim the excess

ICANN has mapped out timelines it anticipates it will need to complete various parts of evaluation. However, the full measure of time for many of these tasks probably isn't needed.

Further, ICANN will gain efficiency as it works through tasks. Look at technical review as an example — a large chunk of ICANN's evaluation task. Although there are several thousand applications, there are probably only 10 to 15 technical operators supporting those applications, and technical operators provide essentially the same set of answers for each client.

Verisign announced it's the back-end for about 220 applications. When evaluators look at the application for Verisign's second client, they will assess the same technical data as they did for Verisign's first client. Put another way, there will be only 10 to 15 technical evaluations — not two thousand. Efficiencies such as these should be applied to reducing the time necessary to handle evaluations.

As Kurt Pritz said in the 17 May 2012 Registry-Registrar regional meeting, "as you realize efficiencies, you should accelerate your plan." That is certainly the case here.

Another example is the Administrative Completeness Check, an eight-week phase between TAS closure and the start of Initial Evaluation. This three-step check was written into the guidebook to ensure: a) all mandatory questions are answered, b) required supporting documents are in correct format, and c) evaluation fees have been received.

However, two of those three items are checked at the time TAS closes (an application can't be submitted in TAS unless all mandatory questions are answered and the evaluation fee is received). There remains just one check — that supporting documents are in the correct format. This check is merely to ensure correct formatting and does not look at the quality of answers. Is eight weeks — the current estimated time for Administrative Completeness Check — necessary for checking file formats?

2. Think well ahead, anticipate bottlenecks early

ICANN would do well to take a few hours with a whiteboard to envision where the potential for bottlenecks exist in the pipeline, from TAS closing to delegation and beyond. It's far better to plan ahead for contingencies rather than wait until a problem is upon the community and more likely to cause another interruption.

Examples:

• How will the Board consider string approvals?

• Could ICANN conduct a test scenario for various types of string contention resolution to see what outcomes are likely and how to prepare for them?

• How will ICANN's legal team deal with finalizing and executing the registry agreements?

3. Keep GAC early warning period to 60 days only

As staff said in its advisory on 5 January 2012, "applicants should know as soon as possible if there is a governmental concern with their application. There is a significant investment in preparing to launch a new registry and ICANN should provide answers to applicants in a timely manner. That is why the GAC commitment to a 60-day window is so valuable."

It can't be better written than that. With a known number of applications, the GAC's capability to handle a preliminary review of strings and lodge early warnings within 60 days total is reasonable. Further, as Donuts has said for many years, the likelihood will be that the GAC's blood pressure will drop dramatically when members see the actual strings applied for (no doubt 99% will be a big yawn for the GAC).

4. Don't change batching method

Digital archery is a reasonable method for organizing batches; it's fair, and it will work. Arguments that it's ripe for "gaming" — whatever the definition of gaming — ring hollow. A skill that anyone can perform is a reasonable method. If an applicant were to have expertise in network operations, however, and thus a theoretical advantage in digital archery, perhaps that's not a bad qualification for a prospective registry operator.

What would introduce new delay into the system, and thus shouldn't be considered, are alternative methods to digital archery. This includes categorization of types of applications, having non-contested strings batched first, and other alternative means. We've looked at a number of alternate methods and each of them would have at least as many criticisms as digital archery does.

Further, there have been calls for changing the approach of batching contested strings together (based on the best archer in the contention set). However, there seems to be reasonable logic behind the current approach. Only one party can prevail in a contention set, but while evaluation is in progress all parties in the contention set must continue to pay salaries, office space, travel, COI, and other expenses — a significant collective sum. It's reasonable to let these parties know as soon as possible who must withdraw. Applicants for uncontested strings incur costs as well, but they will eventually have a TLD to operate. Most applicants in contention sets will not.

Finally, there should be no delay between evaluations of batches. The second batch shouldn't be delayed because, for example, one or more applications in the first are subject to extended evaluation. Similarly, if the evaluators specialize by question(s), there's no reason an evaluator who finished batch one answers couldn't start evaluating their piece of the next batch (even if some other evaluators are still on batch one). Parallel versus serial processing is far more efficient.

5. Reduce evaluation timeframes by rewarding evaluator performance

In 1994, the US state of California experienced the "Northridge" earthquake, which destroyed a section of a vital highway. The contractor awarded the repair work was incentivized to complete reconstruction as early as possible. It was in fact completed early; commuters, taxpayers, and the contractor all were winners.

A de minimis part of the application fee could be devoted to incentivizing evaluation service providers (string similarity, DNS stability, technical and operational, financial, registry service, etc.), with aggregate time savings applied toward moving delegation timelines closer.

ICANN: Manage the process more efficiently

The TAS delay hasn't caused lasting damage to ICANN's reputation yet, but further delays might.

ICANN should respect the interests of the new TLD applicants it so actively encouraged to apply. They will be an exciting and vibrant new part of the ICANN community. Don't repay applicants with a few dollars for dropping out. Demonstrate professional excellence by publishing a complete timeline now, and by completing the program on time, or even early.

Richard Tindal is Chief Operating Officer of Donuts Inc., a TLD applicant.

Written by Richard J Tindal

circleid.com | 20-May-2012 03:18

Onvoy's VoIP-PSTN petition seeks originating access charges

Onvoy Voice Services is urging the Federal Communications Commission to allow local exchange carriers (LECs) to assess originating access charges on traffic within a carrier's MTA, or major trading area.

Jones

The Minneapolis-based, privately held wholesale-services provider has a pending petition for reconsideration or clarification of the landmark 2011 USF/ICC Transformation Order. Specifically, Onvoy's petition relates to pre-existing VoIP-PSTN bill-and-keep interconnection agreements.

In a May 15 ex parte presentation to Wireline Competition Bureau staff, the company outlined "technical obstacles" related to implementation of bill-and-keep for intraMTA traffic exchanged between wireline LECs and CMRS providers.

Onvoy counsel Thomas Jones, in an ex parte letter, reiterated a suggested remedy.

"The Commission should permit a wireline LEC to assess originating access charges on intraMTA calls where the wireline LEC originates the call and transmits it to an unaffiliated interexchange carrier which then transmits the call to a CMRS provider for delivery to the called party," wrote Jones, partner in the Communications, Media & Privacy Department at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

At the presentation with Jones were Onvoy Inc. president Fritz Hendricks and company general counsel Scott Sawyer. The trio met with WCB officials Victoria Goldberg, Randy Clarke and Travis Litman, FCC papers indicate.

Onvoy's petition, filed in December 2011, asks the commission to clarify the default transitional rates adopted in the Universal Service Fund and Intercarrier Compensation (ICC/USF) Reform order do not apply to a LEC that has entered into an interconnection agreement to exchange local and toll VoIP-PSTN traffic on a bill-and-keep basis, even if that agreement contains a change-of-law provision.

The change of law in the order, they argue, ought only apply to carriers that did not have an existing agreement to exchange VoIP-PSTN traffic on a bill-and-keep basis. Moreover, allowing carriers that have been engaging traffic under bill-and-keep to begin charging higher transition default rates undermines the commission's goals, the company said.

"The order clearly permits LECs to assess access changes for the transmission of VoIP traffic despite the face the FCC has not ruled that VoIP is a telecommunications service," the company argued for the petition, adding that the FCC should not bar the collection of tandem switched access charges for calls to and from parties that are not purchasers of "telecommunications services.'"

The FCC Report and Order overhauling ICC/USF rules was published in the Federal Register (76 FR 73830) on Nov. 29, 2011. The rule became effective Dec. 29, 2011.

Onvoy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zayo Group Holdings, a Louisville, Colo.-based provider of bandwidth infrastructure and network-neutral colocation and interconnection services.

For more:
- see the petition
- see the ex parte presentation

fiercevoip.com | 19-May-2012 21:31

Cisco tops AlcaLu, Juniper amid robust U.S. provider spending

Wall Street may be hammering Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO)--the company's share price has stuttered since it released earnings results last week, closing Friday at $16.47, down from a high of $21.30 in recent months--but new data suggest Cisco may currently be the strongest performer in the service provider routers and carrier Ethernet space.

Synergy Research Group said Cisco, in the first quarter of 2012, was the only vendor to swim against a 6 percent drop in vendor revenues for service provider routers and carrier Ethernet. It showed a sequential gain of 2 percent.

Cisco also grabbed a bigger share of the market, closing the quarter with a 56 percent share, which was better than its 50 percent share average for all of 2011.

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), too, saw its revenues drop in the first quarter while adding market share. In Q1, the company held 17 percent of the market, maintaining its No. 2 ranking for the second straight quarter. Juniper Networks remained in the No. 3 spot.

"One positive indicator for Juniper was that sales did bounce back strongly in North America after a very soft fourth quarter," the market-intelligence firm Synergy said.

Cisco's share of the North America market is typically 10 percent ahead of its share of the APAC and EMEA markets. Strong spending in North America, therefore, helped it disproportionately when compared to its competition, Synergy said.

For Q1, North America represented 47 percent of the worldwide market, with Cisco grabbing 63 percent of those revenues.

"We are used to seeing seasonal fluctuation in the market but the swings in this quarter were particularly strong," said Synergy founder and Chief Analyst Jeremy Duke. "This was driven by significant Service Provider spending in the U.S., where networks are running hot."

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 19-May-2012 13:49

Cisco, Tata team for Russia's first public telepresence room

Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) teamed with Tata Communications (NYSE: TCL) and BizKomm, a Cisco registered partner in Russia, to launch the public telepresence room in Moscow's Monarch business center.

The room offers an immersive experience, using full-size high-definition images.

Tata Communications was tapped to offer channel provisioning and management of the service that can link with the Tata Communications Global Meeting Exchange, one of the world's largest telepresence networks. according to a report on TelecomTiger.

"Telepresence is a game changing technology for business. Russia has joined our global network, which is an important step forward in our video business strategy aimed at making the technology available to as many organizations as possible through our global telepresence network", Said Alexander Strakhov, regional sales director, Tata Communications, Russia, CIS, and Baltics.

The companies said they expect international companies, local companies with foreign partners and suppliers, and international recruiting agencies to be major users of the room.

For more:
- see the TelecomTiger article

fiercevoip.com | 19-May-2012 13:26

Genesys celebrates first full quarter after sale from Alcatel-Lucent with 13% revenue gain

Last October, Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) sold its Genesys call-center business for $1.5 billion and, in the process, lost over $500 million in annual revenue from the division.

Genesys just wrapped up its first 100 days as a stand-alone company, and it's a good bet AlcaLu is looking fondly at its former business... and coveting the revenues the company continues to generate.

Genesys is eager to let folks know that life after Alcatel-Lucent is just fine, thank you. The Daly City, Calif.-based company said it continued its "consistent track record of year-over-year revenue growth for full-year 2011."

In its first quarter on its own, the company said it achieved 13 percent year-over-year growth, with annual revenues of over $500 million.

In Q1 2012, the newly formed stand-alone company launched its mobile customer-care solution, Social Engagement, and "maintained a leading presence in the market," with "strong customer momentum" behind its workforce optimization, social customer service and SIP-based solutions, as well as its pay-per-use and hosted offerings.

"We're pleased to report that the new, stand-alone Genesys is off to a strong start," said Paul Segre, president and CEO of Genesys. "Our business is growing and we're continuing to innovate in the customer experience space, driven by a planned 14 percent increase in R&D investment this year and the passion of our people, which is evident everyday in the results we are achieving with customers."

Among other highlights in the quarter:

For the full year of 2011, the company achieved approximately 8 percent growth over 2010;

Saw 35 percent growth in pay-per-use and hosted solutions, and 80 percent growth in workforce optimization.

Maintained a healthy EBITDA of more than 20 percent.

Saw South Africa's Vodacom and the UK's Everything Everywhere going live with Genesys' social customer service solution, Social Engagement.

Reached 300,000 seats for its SIP Server solution, fueling a shift away from PBX-based contact centers to pure software SIP-based solutions.

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 19-May-2012 13:14

Unlikely coalition targets prison phone call rates

Decrying the "exorbitant rates" for telephone calls placed from most state prisons and correctional institutions, a broad coalition of civil-rights groups and conservative leaders called Friday on the Federal Communications Commission to examine the harm caused by interstate prison phone call rates.

Pressing the FCC to protect prisoners and their families from "predatory" fees is an unlikely coalition that includes progressive groups--the ACLU, NAACP, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights--and national conservative leaders, including American Values president Gary Bauer, the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, and Galen Carey of the National Association of Evangelicals.

The coalition, among other consumer protections, seeks an FCC-imposed cap on interstate prison phone call rates. Today, a 15-minute collect call placed from a state correctional institution typically costs $10 to $17, the group wrote in its letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat.

"We write to you as organizations and individuals that represent a wide variety of views on many issues, but that stand united on the need to reduce the exorbitant rates for telephone calls from prisons," they wrote. "Unreasonably high prison phone rates unjustly punish the families of people who are incarcerated, and contribute to rising recidivism rates by deterring regular telephone contact with family members and loved ones."

In their letter to Genachowski, the signatories urged the five-member FCC to act on the so-called Wright Petition that they said has languished before regulators since November 2003. The petition seeks a 25-cent per minute cap for collect calls, and no connection fees, as well as a benchmark rate of 20 cents per minute for calls placed using a calling card.

The petition asks the FCC also to bar exclusive inmate calling service agreements and collect call-only restrictions at privately administered prisons, and to require facilities to permit multiple long distance carriers to interconnect with prison telephone systems.

Promulgating consumer protections from predatory phone rates for inmates and their families "is a critical opportunity for the Commission to exert its leadership," the letter argues.

The coalition and other critics argue that the unreasonable prison phone rates harming inmates' families result from most states' requirements that bids for prison telephone service also include an annual commission to the prison operator. Commissions, typically based on a share of phone revenues, are negotiated during the contracting process.

"The costs of the calls are passed on to prisoners' families in the form of higher telephone rates, while the prison reaps the benefit of the extra fees and commissions," the coalition's letter reads. "Thus, prisons have every incentive to choose bids that maximize fees and maximize telephone rates-a clear ‘moral hazard.'"

Six states--Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma and Rhode Island--forego commissions and pass the savings on in lower inmate phone rates. The other 44 states, in 2011, collectively raised $152 million in revenue for prisons from "predatory rates," said Wade Henderson, president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The issue of inmate phone tolls came before the FCC in 2001, after Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia referred to commissioners a civil-rights lawsuit filed by Martha Wright and 19 other plaintiffs with relatives in state prison.

Filed in February 2000, the class action against Nashville, Tenn.-based private prison operator Corrections Corporation of America (NYSE: CXW) asked the U.S. district court to recoup damages to inmates and families and to nullify phone-service contracts entered into by CCA and several carriers, among other prayers.

After the FCC received the case, the commission issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. That proceeding has been pending before the commission since December 2003, the coalition said.

"[W]e urge you to act quickly to address this problem by capping the charges that can be imposed for interstate prison phone calls," reads their letter to Genachowski.

The lawyer for Wright, who filed the petition and brought forth the underlying litigation, said he's hopeful the FCC--now with its full complement of five commissioners and technology available to carriers--will act on the petition.

"The plight of the families of inmates paying exorbitant telephone rates to remain in contact with their loved ones has languished at the FCC for more than 10 years," said Lee Petro, of counsel to the Telecommunications & Mass Media Team at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.

"With the resolution of other long-pending matters, the recent additions of two new Commissioners, and new technologies developed by the service providers that has decreased their costs of service, prompt action now will give relief to struggling families in these tough economic times," Petro added.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons, which charges significantly lower calling rates that states' facilities, uses its revenue commissions to help bankroll inmate programs and recreation.

In fiscal year 2010, federal prison system charged 6 cents per minute for local calls and 23 cents per minute for long-distance calls. That year, the inmate telephone system generated approximately $74 million in revenue, cost roughly $39 million to operate, and showed a profit of some $34 million, according to a September 2011 Government Accountability Office report (GAO-11-893).

Securus Technologies Inc., which offers communications solutions for the corrections industry, met with FCC officials May 7 and May 17 to discuss, among other regulatory matters, prison calling rates.

A bevy of factors cause inmate-generated collect calls to be more costly than traditional operator-assisted calls, the Dallas-based company told Michael Steffen, legal advisor to Genachowski; Deena Shetler, associate bureau chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau; and Nicholas Alexander, deputy division chief of the WCB Pricing Policy Division.

Particular to prison calls, they said, are costs of bad debt, research and development and site commissions, Securus counsel Stephanie Joyce recounted in an FCC filing.

"Securus explained that site commissions are the product of a public policy decision made by correctional authorities, and in some cases state legislatures, to fund prison operations and inmate welfare funds through the inmate telecommunications system," Joyce, a partner in the telecommunications practice group at Arent Fox, wrote.

In October 1999, the FCC began requiring carriers to disclose the rates consumers will actually pay for phone calls received from prisoners. The rule--Operator Services for Prison Inmate Phones-is codified at 47 C.F.R. § 67.710.

The FCC petition matter is Docket No. 96-128, Petitioner Martha Wright et al., Alternative Rulemaking Proposal.

For more:
- see the coalition letter
- the Securus filings are here and here

fiercevoip.com | 19-May-2012 03:56

So/Lo/Mo for Business

Lest you think the social + local + mobile (So/Lo/Mo) trend is just a fad, last week, Pew Internet released a new report that found that 18 percent of smartphone owners use a geosocial service to check in and share their location with friends. The report also found that 74 percent of smartphone owners get real-time location-based information on their phones — up from 55 percent last May.

Add to these impressive stats the finding from earlier this year that 61 percent of smartphone users search for local business information on-the-go with their mobile devices and you have quite the compelling reason to make sure your local business listings are up to snuff — in both geosocial services and in local search.

Here is a great infographic created by the teams at Localeze, 15miles and comScore featuring some mind-blowing mobile usage stats. You can also download the 5th Annual 15miles/Localeze Local Search Usage Study Conducted by comScore, which was released February 2012, for more information on the importance of So/Lo/Mo for businesses.

2012 Local Search Usage Study – The annual Local Search Usage Study, done in partnership by 15miles and Localeze (conducted by comScore) is a measurement of consumers' search behaviors and how such behaviors affect media-usage trends. (Click to Enlarge)

Written by Erin Bush, Managing Editor at Neustar

circleid.com | 18-May-2012 19:53

Reports: Hewlett-Packard to cut 30,000 jobs

More reports are surfacing that Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), which is in the midst of its latest restructuring, could cut as many as 30,000 jobs as it struggles to find equilibrium.

Whitman

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News, among other media outlets, have reported that sources familiar with the plans said HP CEO Meg Whitman, who in March indicated that cutting jobs could be part of her strategy to reorganize, is looking to reduce HP's 349,600 headcount by about 8 percent.

HP is slated to report its earnings Wednesday after market close.

Whitman, in March, combined the printer and PC group, tweaked the Enterprise business, and said that she couldn't promise there wouldn't be job cuts, as executives continued to try and determine the right course of action for the tech company.

She told employees at the time that, as she tried to determine a course for the company, "everything is on the table."

The company, for the first quarter of 2012, saw revenue slump nearly across the board. Year-over-year sales were down in three of its four major business groups. PC sales slumped 15 percent, printer unit revenue was down 7 percent, and its enterprise server/storage/network (EESN) sales fell 10 percent. The slowdown was widespread with all regions hit.

For Whitman, it was the first full quarter at the helm since replacing Leo Apotheker in September. She became the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company's eighth chief executive since 1999.

During the Q1 earnings call, Whitman said it was key that the company act to stop its revenue decline and to "gain share in every single market."

"I would hope that as we get through 2012, you'll see revenue decline flatten out and as we get into 2013 we'll start to grow," she said. "It depends on how fast we can get after some of these challenges in the business. A lot of this is in our own hands."

Still, she said, a turnaround for a company of the magnitude of HP could take years. "You'll see forward progress," she said at the time. "We've got a journey ahead of us."

For more:
- see this article

fiercevoip.com | 18-May-2012 13:07

Acme Packet rolls out a trio of new platform choices for session delivery network solutions

Acme Packet (Nasdaq: APKT) has rolled out a series of new solutions for its session delivery network portfolio aimed at providing a broad range of platforms to its customers.

During its annual Interconnect customer conference, the company introduced new virtualization-based session border controller (SBC) solutions.

The Net-Net Enterprise Session Director-Virtual Machine Edition and the Net-Net Session Director-Virtual Machine Edition "give service providers and enterprises "the flexibility to optimize their network architectures" by installing Acme Packet's software on a dedicated or virtualized server, the company said.

The Bedford, Mass.-based company also demonstrated new capabilities for its session management solution, Net-Net SIP Multimedia Xpress (SMX), which consolidates up to eight IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) functions, and the SBC, into a single solution.

It also introduced its newest platform, the Net-Net 7000.

Consisting of the Acme Packet Net-Net OS installed on a third-party server for high-performance processing, the platform supports Acme Packet's Net-Net Diameter Director and Net-Net Session Router products.

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 18-May-2012 05:33

Geneva Discussion to Include India's Proposal for Government Control of Internet

Shalini Singh reporting in the Hindu: "The raging controversy over possible excessive state regulation of the internet based on the IT Rules 2011 is now likely to be dwarfed by discussions in Geneva later this week over India's proposal to the United Nations General Assembly, for government control of the Internet… In its proposal submitted to the General Assembly in New York on October 26, 2011, India has argued for a radical shift from the present model of multi-stakeholder led decision-making, to a purely government-run multilateral body..."

circleid.com | 17-May-2012 23:37

DNSChanger Disruption Inevitable, ISPs Urged to Bolster User Support

Up to 100,000 customer modems are at risk of losing their internet connection from July 9 when the FBI disables rogue DNS servers seized late last year. The affected customer modems make up about a third of the 350,000 to 400,000 internet users believed to still have the DNSChanger malware on either their modems or Windows computers.

Read full story: SC Magazine

circleid.com | 17-May-2012 20:28

Case Studies from the UN Broadband Commission

The Broadband Commission for Digital Development, in partnership with ITU, has released its first country case studies looking in-depth at the state of broadband development in four economies and examining links between broadband and the UN Millennium Development Goals.

The case studies, which cover the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Panama, the Philippines, and Romania, look at the effect of broadband connectivity on economic growth and access to basic services like education and health. They offer regulatory guidance and best practices, showcasing success stories and lessons learned.

Romania and TFYR Macedonia both provide strong examples of how adopting pro-ICT policies, establishing effective regulatory frameworks and developing strategic private and public partnerships can play a key role in boosting broadband access, affordability and demand.

A nation with a strong commitment to connectivity as a driver of national growth, TFYR Macedonia already boasts an impressive broadband penetration rate of 32%. Internet access in schools and Wi-Fi-based public Internet access points have been rolled out throughout the country, including remote areas. Schools now offer one Web-enabled computer for every 1.45 children, while university students and academics can freely access knowledge and research resources via the academic network MARnet.

Meanwhile, near-neighbour Romania ranks among the top countries in the world for broadband speed, and scores well for affordability too. The average cost of a baseline monthly broadband subscription represents less than 5% of average monthly income — well within the global targets established by the Broadband Commission last October. Public access is promoted through initiatives like 'Biblionet', which was launched in 2009 and which provides free library-based access through some 795 public libraries equipped with 3,318 computers.

Case studies on Panama and the Philippines, meanwhile, explore the impact of broadband on the economy and on job creation. Both studies evaluate the development of e-applications in the areas of education, public health, media and government services — all of which can help further stimulate broadband adoption.

In Panama, fixed broadband is having a significant economic impact. Analysis of a structural econometric model for the period 2000-2010 indicates that fixed broadband now contributes an annual 0.44% of GDP, with the indirect effects of fixed broadband use estimated to have contributed almost 9.6% of total national economic growth. Accelerating take-up means that this impact has now almost doubled to reach 0.82% of annual GDP, and contributed 11.3% of all economic growth over the decade.

In the Philippines' case study, analysis over the same 10-year period indicates that mobile broadband adoption has contributed an annual 0.32% to GDP, representing 6.9% of total GDP growth for the economy over the past decade. Given the acceleration of mobile broadband penetration since 2005, this impact has also now almost doubled, reaching 0.61% of GDP, representing 7.3% of total economic growth over the decade.

Download the full set of case studies at:
www.broadbandcommission.org/work/documents/case-studies.aspx

Written by Paul Budde, Managing Director of Paul Budde Communication

circleid.com | 17-May-2012 19:19

Software-defined networks stimulating interest

With only a handful of very small software-defined networks actually in production around the world, most SDN conversations are purely academic. But that hasn't impeded the interest and announcements that seem to be on an accelerated pace in recent weeks and months (see sidebar below). Why the flurry of announcements? The reason is because of the enticing potential of SDNs. Industry Voices

fiercevoip.com | 17-May-2012 17:04

LifeSize unveils two all-in-one videoconferencing options

Logitech (Nasdaq: LOGI) division LifeSize this week launched a pair of all-in-one HD videoconferencing options aimed at the expanding market of companies looking for mid-priced, high-performance solutions.

Both make set up easy by integrating video, audio and presentation capabilities, and both use LifeSize video technology as their engines, the company said.

The Unity 50 is a 720p30 tabletop or wall-mounted solution, that features a 24-inch LED display. It requires only two cables for plug-and-play setup, and lists for $3,999.

The Unity 500, which is targeted as a more immersive solution, features 1080p30 HD video on a 40-inch LED display. It, too, needs no tools to set up. List price is $19,999.

"Businesses need to speed decision making and improve productivity across the entire organization," said Michael Helmbrecht, vice president and general manager of video solutions at LifeSize. "We are making HD videoconferencing easier than ever to bring to every home office, executive office or conference room."

Both products are immediately available.

The videoconferencing segment is sizzling. A new report from CompTIA said that it's one of the more widely adopted and anticipated elements of unified communications. Some 71 percent of companies have some form of videoconferencing in place, with another 16 percent planning to add it over the next year.

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 17-May-2012 16:56

Comcast's new Skype on Xfinity is a proposition with little value

Comcast and Skype on Wednesday announced that the partnership they debuted last June at The Cable Show in Chicago finally was bearing fruit.

The cable operator said it's now offering customers in Boston and Seattle a new service, Skype on Xfinity, which will allow users to make and receive video calls on their television sets, in high definition, for $9.95 a month, as long as they're also a Comcast Triple Play subscriber.

Comcast said it plans, by the end of the week, to roll out in eight additional markets--Atlanta, Augusta, Ga.; Chicago; Detroit; Harrisburg, Pa.; Indianapolis; Miami; and Pittsburgh, Pa.--before launching in additional markets this summer.

The service will be delivered to the Comcast customer's HDTV through a kit that includes an adaptor box, a high-quality video camera and a remote control that enables customers to IM on Skype as well as control the volume of their television.

For Skype-to-Skype calls or instant messages, the other calling party does not need any special equipment beyond what is needed to use Skype; they simply need to be logged into their Skype account.

At first blush, it's an appealing option. Comcast has more than 22 million subscribers, a nice pool for Skype to play in. And, many of them likely have little experience with video calling, so it seems like low-hanging fruit, right?

But there's the rub.

Those subscribers have been an antsy bunch. Comcast saw its 20th straight quarter of video subscriber declines this month, losing 37,000 customers.

The reason for those losses most often cited by Comcast executive has been consumer concerns with their own economic situation, with a lousy housing market, and just a general angst about the economy.

There also, however, have been numerous reports that pointed to consumer irritation at the rising price of cable services as a primary cause of that erosion.

So, while the Skype to Xfinity service is an interesting addition to Comcast's palette, the bigger question has to be, will consumers be wiling to shell out and additional $120 a year for a service they can get for free on their desktop and laptop computers? One that's far handier--and mobile--on their tablets and smartphones? And a service that is more private and intimate on those devices as well?

Users already will be high-speed Internet subscribers, after all. They have to be. Is having the service available through your TV a big enough differentiator to make the service truly appealing to a sizeable piece of Comcast's market?

Especially when, in addition to Skype, there are literally dozens of other free alternatives available?

I travel often, and I use Skype, FaceTime, Tango and a couple of other services to keep in touch with the home base.

While at home, I use those same services with my 27-inch HD monitor, an affordable Logitech webcam, and a set of earbuds so my conversation remains private. And, if I want more advanced camera and audio options there are plenty of them available, too.

The price per month? Zero. Nada.

If I need a more robust service, I can rent one, literally, by the day or longer term... for about the same price as Comcast's new offering.

There's just too much disruptive technology on the market, and on the horizon, to see this play as one that should be taken seriously.

The Comcast/Skype pairing was far more appealing last June when it was first announced, before they put a price on this lemon.--Jim

fiercevoip.com | 17-May-2012 16:09

Cisco study finds BYOD has 'quantifiable benefits'

Enterprise IT departments are finding that there may be more benefits than detriments to allowing employees to use their own mobile devices at work. A Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) study found "quantifiable benefits," as well as complexities associated with the "bring your own device" trend that has swept corporate America.

A whopping 95 percent of respondents to the Cisco IBSG Horizons Study said their organizations allowed employee-owned devices in the workplace, and 84 percent said they provided some level of support for the device.

The report also predicted that knowledge workers will own 3.3 connected devices-from laptops to tablets and smartphones--each by 2014, up from 2.8 in 2012.

The survey, which polled some 600 IT and business leaders, found pro-BYOD policies produced two major benefits, "improved employee productivity (more opportunities to collaborate) and greater job satisfaction."

Nevertheless, the trend can still be worrisome. IT departments are most concerned about security and privacy issues, and about the burden of supporting multiple mobile platforms.

From an employee standpoint, the survey suggests that workers want the flexibility to use their own applications at work for access to social networks, cloud-based email and instant messaging.

The report also said that Cisco workers spent an average of $600 out of pocket for devices that allowed them to improve their work experience.

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 17-May-2012 05:00

Survey: Hurdles to UC adoption remain despite wide interest

A new survey shows that larger companies, and companies with a higher percentage of workers who telecommute, are most likely to see greater value in unified communications technologies.

The survey, from CompTIA, the nonprofit association for the IT industry, showed that 80 percent of companies are interested in UC.

Click here to view a larger version of this image.

Despite economic uncertainties, budgets for communications and collaboration solutions are increasing or keeping pace with other technology priorities, at 85 percent of companies surveyed, CompTIA said in its Second Annual Unified Communications Market Trends study.

Among benefits companies expect from unified communications: greater employee productivity, reduced costs and a means to improve customer engagement.

"But to get there, significant barriers must be overcome," said Seth Robinson, director, technology analysis, CompTIA.

Integrating new unified communications tools with existing technologies is one of several hurdles that needs to be cleared, CompTIA found.

Questions that also need to be answered include calculating return on investment, the challenge of making UC mobile, including social networking, collaboration and video conferencing.

Even when those issues are addressed, some companies still have concerns about the reliability of communications systems.

Cloud and managed systems can help organizations sidestep some of the technical issues they're most worried about, said CompTIA, and most, about 70 percent of the companies surveyed, said they'd consider a cloud system or managed services model for their unified communications needs.

"What we are most likely to see is a hybrid approach in many organizations, using the cloud for collaboration and web conferencing, and on-premise infrastructure for data, voice and video," Robinson said.

Videoconferencing was one of the more widely adopted and anticipated UC technologies. Some 71 percent of companies have some form of video conferencing in place, with another 16 percent planning to add it over the next year.

But the technology faces some formidable obstacles to full adoption: the users. Just 27 percent of employees are extremely comfortable with the format, and video accounts for less than 10 percent of communications in companies where it is installed.

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 17-May-2012 02:03

IntelePeer SIP trunking Avaya compliant

Cloud-based communications company IntelePeer announced its IntelePeer CoreCloud SIP Trunking services are compliant with Avaya Session Border Controller for Enterprise R.4.0.5 and Avaya Aura Communication Manager 6.0.1.

The announcement means IntelePeer has expanded the number of Avaya UC products it supports, adding onto its compatibility with Avaya's IP Office that it announced in March. IntelePeer SIP trunking now supports a range of UC systems and products to ensure enterprises can choose between Avaya, Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Siemens UC systems.

IntelePeer SIP Trunking services, combined with Avaya systems and software, enable customers to gain more value and functionality from their UC deployments.

IntelePeer is a Technology Partner in the Avaya DevConnect program--an initiative to develop, market and sell innovative third-party products that interoperate with Avaya technology and extend the value of a company's investment in its network.

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 17-May-2012 01:25

8x8 reports record revenues for year, as more businesses turn to cloud services

8x8 (Nasdaq: EGHT) rode increased revenue from business customers to fourth quarter fiscal 2012 earnings that topped analyst estimates for the quarter and closed out a solid year.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company reported revenue of $24.2 million for the quarter, up 33 percent from last year. Much of that gain was driven by business customers-whose spending increased to $22.8 million, or 44 percent, from a year ago, chief executive Bryan Martin said during an earnings call. Many are looking to reduce capital and operating expenses by purchasing cloud services like those from 8x8, Martin said.

"In this market environment, with what companies are trying to do with their costs, its really resonating," he said. "We're starting to see mid-market customers coming to us; it's very different from where we were just a few years ago."

Martin said a recent win with TRW was a good example. The transportation company was looking to replace a Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) hardware-based platform in an effort to cut costs and reduce the load on IT staff internally.

"They viewed (an 8x8 system) as a way to free up that staff," he said.

"We just see the capex advantages really starting to resonate with these mid-market companies."

Martin said business customers made up 94 percent of 8x8's business in the fourth quarter, up slightly from 93 percent in Q3. Those customers, he said, are spending more. Average monthly revenue per business customer increased from $204 a year ago, to $244 in Q4. As the ARPU increased, so did the amount of services those customers bought.

Contactual, the call center specialist 8x8 acquired last year, continued to be a lure for large business customers. Last quarter, Martin said the acquisition brought 8x8 some 250 business customers, including Jamba, HomeAway and General Electric.

Over the closing three months of the fiscal year, he said, it continued to perform well.

"We've seen success in cross selling to our customer base," he said. "Two to three companies have purchased significant contact center deployments."

The company also continued to modulate business customer churn, dropping it to 2 percent for the quarter compared to 2.3 percent a year ago. Revenue churn was 1.6 percent.

Martin attributed the improvement to Eric Goffney, VP of customer success and support.

"I have been very impressed with what Eric has been able to do in the short time he's been here," Martin said. "He brings an enterprise class approach to customer service... I see a lot of improvement to come in that area."

For the quarter, 8x8 reported non-GAAP net income was $3 million, or 4 cents per diluted share, compared with $2.3 million, or 3 cents per diluted share, in the same period last year. Analysts had expected 3 cents per share.

For the full fiscal year, 8x8 said total revenue was a record $85.8 million, 22 percent better than the $70.2 million for fiscal 2011. Revenue from business customers was $79 million, a 30 percent increase over revenue of $61 million in fiscal 2011.

Non-GAAP net income was $10.3 million, or 15 cents per diluted share, compared with $7.1 million, or 11 cents per diluted share, for fiscal 2011.

8x8 closed at $3.86 per share, down 1.5 percent on the day. After hours, it was up 30 cents to $4.16 a share, a 7.8 percent increase. The stock has traded between $2.83 and $5.44 over the past 52 weeks.

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 17-May-2012 00:46

Frontline and Nominum Deliver Integrated DNS-Based Platform to Enhance Enterprise Security

Long-term partnership expands to deliver carrier-grade security solutions for high-end enterprises

Frontline Systems Australia, an NTT company, is building on a longstanding partnership with Nominum, the worldwide leader in integrated DNS-based applications and solutions, to deliver a new carrier grade DNS/DHCP platform targeted at high end enterprises who are especially exposed to the now pervasive threat of malware and botnets.

Unlike proprietary appliances that rely on open source engines with minimal security, constant patches, and moderate performance, the new solution takes advantage of Nominum's Vantio DNS software running on "off the shelf", carrier grade HP hardware and hardened Red Hat Linux. Frontline Level 1 technical support, coupled with the proven stability and resilience of the Nominum software, as well as extremely robust hardware and OS will ensure an easy, out of the box deployment and ongoing operation.

Nominum's solution is based on a unique three-tier architecture — DNS engines, platforms and applications. The platforms are designed with layers of security protections that remain unmatched, protecting critical DNS servers and the data they contain against DDoS and cache poisoning attacks. Optional Nominum applications add additional protections from malware, botnets and a multitude of other Internet exploits. Every device on the network can be protected and there is no need to introduce any new equipment into the network. Any enterprise that deals with valuable or sensitive data can quickly take advantage of advanced botnet identification and mitigation without any significant changes to their existing network.

"Any enterprise that deals with valuable or sensitive data can quickly identify and quarantine malware-infected hosts frequently missed by other network security equipment. By leveraging Nominum's open three-tier architecture and 3rd-party API's, enterprises can also integrate their own threat intelligence or have alerts published to third-party products such as Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) consoles", said Craig Sprosts, General Manager of Security Solutions at Nominum.

The DNS based security application will be available from Frontline Systems with full technical support and virtualization services. "We're taking the expertise we've gained deploying mission critical solutions at the largest and most demanding networks in Australia, and providing security and IT teams a critical new layer of protection against loss of company or customer data," said Chris Ford, Frontline Systems Australia. "We'll give CIOs and Security Operations teams a brand new tool for monitoring and managing malicious threats brought into their networks from employee devices including iPads, smartphones, USB sticks, or other IP devices."

About Frontline Systems Australia

Established in 1992, Frontline Systems was a privately held IT business headquartered in Sydney Australia with 200+ employees and offices in Singapore, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide. In May, 2011, NTT Communications Corp, the global Japanese telecommunications provider, purchased a significant portion of Frontline. Frontline's business is built around the provisioning of managed services, professional services and enabling infrastructure to its large client base in Australia and Singapore. Our clients include the very largest of Australian businesses from telecommunications, banking and government. Now with NTT's involvement, Frontline expansion locally and through Asia will continue, offering complimentary business solutions to those of NTT Communications Corp.

circleid.com | 17-May-2012 00:21

Rethinking Protection Technologies: A Change Has Occurred

I ordinarily spend a lot of my time talking about the technical aspects of threat detection and examining the tools and strategies that the bad guys are employing to subvert corporate defenses and breach their objectives, so it was refreshing last week to speak with a large bunch of C-level folks from Fortune-250 companies and to get the opportunity to step-back a little.

Talking technical is easy. Distilling technical detail, complex threats and operation nuances down to something that can be consumed by people whose responsibility for dealing with cybercrime lays three levels below them in their organizational hierarchy is somewhat more difficult. Since so many readers here have strong technical backgrounds and often face the task of educating upwards within their own organizations, I figured I'd share 4 slides from my recent presentation that may be helpful in communicating how the world has changed.

The overall context of the hour long presentation was related to the paradigm change from protection back to detection — given the scope and capabilities of modern organized crime. The following slides came from the first quarter of the hour — setting the scene for how protection technologies have failed and what organizations need to do in light of that failure.

In essence, this slide talks about how that adversary has changed from old. Gone are the days of a single hacker looking to break in to an organization and toast all the systems. Sure, some of these guys still exist, but that's not where the threat lies today by any statistical analysis. Instead, what organizations are facing is a complex ecosystem where expertise is plentiful and available for relatively low prices. Most importantly, the adversary is now a professional in every sense of the word and needs to be respected for such. Failure to do so is at your peril.

While the adversary has changed for the worse, so too has the target. Consumerization of IT and BYOD, while buzzwords in every sense of the word, really are fundamentally changing the threat landscape and the ability of organizations to combat sophisticated threats. Speaking with lots of people charged with defending their corporations from within, they really do feel powerless to combat Mac threats, Android malware, etc. or enforce application and desktop policies (for whatever that means in the world of iPads and App stores).

Everything is playing in to the bad guys hands. The devices their targets are using are varied and widespread, they roam and bridge networks, they have hundreds of applications yet few are patched in a timely manner, and the threat of personal information being leached has ensured that encryption of communications is the norm — too bad that those nosey IT security guys can inspect traffic for malicious attacks.

In essence, the onus of securing the enterprise has slipped from the corporate IT folks and landed firmly in to the hands of their enabled workforce — who happen to be poorly suited to the task.

Oh, and then there's the "Cloud". Not the Cloud supplying cheap processing power and high availability mission-critical applications at a fraction of the cost of legacy systems. Rather the Cloud that is the 2nd millennium USB stick — the mechanism for transporting infected files between one device and the next.

IT security departments have invested millions of dollars in their defense in depth strategies. Multiple layers of "protection" (and expense), overlapping redundancies and a continuous stream of alerts have had debilitating effects on thinly-stretched security teams.

Even if those layers of defense had been working, the "solution" for the bad guys was (and is) to "attack in depth". The tools and techniques they now employ are multi-facetted and their complexity is hidden from the attacker. The hard work of innovation and coding was done by some expert far away, and their expertise (along with dozens of others) has been combined into a single campaign.

Last but not least, I talked about the "marginalization of protection". My objective in this part of the discussion was to point out that trying to protect everything has never worked, and will be even less successful going forward. The consumerization of IT and the diversity of devices out there have also forced organizations (including vendors) into an area in which it is simply uneconomical to try and secure.

While effort still needs to be applied to "protecting" the enterprise, my advice is to consolidate those expensive resources around the most valuable things of the organization and only grow outwards from there if you're successful.

In response, organizations need to assume that they are compromised and will continue to be compromised many times over, and often in many interesting ways. The onus shifts to how an organization can rapidly detect a compromise and how seamless the remediation needs to become.

I used to say that the most economical course of action was to simply reimage the computer when you were able to confirm the compromise. Nowadays that may not be quick enough, nor appropriate. Today you should reimage when your threshold of suspiciousness has been reached and, if you can't reimage (e.g. iPads, etc.), then remotely reset the device to factory defaults and wipe any stored content so it can't re-infect itself.

What about those critical devices — such as the CFO's laptop — which can't be reimaged without a lot of disruption? Let's be clear, just because you detected one piece of malware or remote control agent on the device doesn't mean that it's the only one installed. And if you're thinking you can safely remove everything related to the infection, then you're either ill-informed or it wasn't a threat to begin with.

Frankly, if you have critical devices that cannot be reimaged for any reason at the turn of a hat, then you've got bigger problems with your IT operations than mere breaches by professional criminals, and your organization needs to reevaluate its security operations at a fairly fundamental level. If a device is so critical that it cannot be recovered, it most certainly shouldn't be a roaming laptop, accessible via the Internet, and is operated by personnel with higher than average probabilities of being targeted.

Written by Gunter Ollmann, VP of Research at Damballa

circleid.com | 17-May-2012 00:12

2011 UDRP Filings Up at WIPO, Down at NAF - And Still Infinitesimal

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recently issued a detailed press release regarding Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) cases for which it provided arbitration services in 2011 and, once again, the number of WIPO filings was up. According to WIPO: "In 2011, trademark holders filed a record 2,764 cybersquatting cases covering 4,781 domain names with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (WIPO Center) under procedures based on the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), an increase of 2.5% and 9.4% over the previous highest levels in 2010 and 2009, respectively."

Yet that's an incomplete picture. At the other major UDRP arbitration provider, the National Arbitration Forum (NAF), 2011 case filings were down 4% in 2011, declining from 2,177 cases in 2010 to 2,082 in 2011. The vast majority of these cases (96.2%) involved gTLDs like .com and .net; cases were concluded an average of 35 days after filing, but some were resolved in as few as 20 days — and 17%, a full one-sixth of filed complaints, were resolved directly by the parties with no need for panel arbitration. (That noteworthy record again raises the question of why a supplemental Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) process is even needed for new gTLDs, but that's a separate subject.)

So, overall, the WIPO 2.5% increase was balanced out by the NAF 4% decrease and total UDRP filings at the two principal ICANN-accredited arbitration providers were essentially flat in 2011.

The Internet Commerce Association's (ICA's) Code of Conduct condemns intentional cybersquatting, so we are happy to see filings stabilize and would be delighted to see them decline further in the future. But we do think these filing figures need to be calmly placed in the broader context of total domain registrations. And, according to VeriSign's December 2011 Domain Name Industry Brief, domain registrations increased by 8.9 percent in the preceding year.

So, we think it's quite significant that total 2011 UDRP case filings did not increase notwithstanding a near-9% increase in total domain registrations. This marks yet another year in which UDRP filings declined as a percentage of all domain registrations.

While the NAF press release does not include the total number of domains involved in the cases filed with them we can guesstimate that, when we also include the additional second tier UDRP arbitration providers, approximately 9,000 domains were at issue in all 2011 cybersquatting cases filed with all UDRP providers.

That's 9,000 out of a total of about 220 million registered domain names. In other words, for each million domain registrations there are about 41 domains alleged to be cybersquatting in UDRP cases.

We expect that trademark interests will counter that the number of UDRP filings represents just "the tip of the iceberg" of abusive domain registrations, and will also point out that some but not all ccTLDs are subject to UDRP. And we'll concede those points — while also noting that .com and .net registrations totaled 112 million, just over half of all domains, and that these are the gTLDs that attract the most Internet traffic and are therefore most likely to be abused by intentional cybersquatters. So, while UDRP filings are not an exact proxy for the full extent of cybersquatting, they are the best measure we have of instances in which the resulting harm or domain value were judged sufficient by a trademark owner to invest the relatively modest sums of a $1300 filing fee plus associated attorney fees.

We are also well aware of studies — like this from Sophos — indicating that major brand names are subject to significant typosquatting. Despite finding that malware was virtually nonexistent on such websites, that study nonetheless observed that "typosquats are by no means harmless". Yet, other than the 2.7% of typosquatted domains that "fell into the loose category of cybercrime", a significant portion of the remainder of typosquatted websites appear to fall outside the scope of the "bad faith registration and use" standard required for a successful UDRP filing. So it's not just that rights holders have concluded that a particular typosquatted domain isn't worth the monetary cost of filing and pursuing a UDRP — they may have also concluded that they would not prevail. That is, those domains may fall more into the category of annoying nuisance rather than bad faith infringement, and are not generally associated with criminal activities such as phishing or with bad acts such as malware distribution.

Notwithstanding this contextual decline of 2011 UDRP filings, we are quite sympathetic to the costs imposed on brand owners of maintaining portfolios of defensively registered domain names that could be easily cybersquatted if released back for public sale. Reducing this cost is a subject that could certainly be addressed by an open and inclusive UDRP reform process within ICANN — if trademark interests will ever stop working to defer the initiation of such a process.

We'd also point out that if even one-one-hundredth of one percent of all domains registered today were cybersquatting in a manner sufficient to justify a UDRP filing that would currently total about 22,000 domains, and the actual number of UDRP filings last year involved less than half as many domains. In other words, based just on UDRP filings, more than 99.995 percent of all domains are not cybersquatting. That's right, 2011 UDRP filings involved less than one-two-hundredth of one percent of all registered domains. Even if the filed cases understate the incidence of UDRP-violating cybersquatting by a factor of one hundred, the problem would rise to just under one-half of one percent of all domains, with the remaining 99.5 percent being non-infringing.

We note all this not to excuse cybersquatting but to indicate that the problem appears to be small, manageable, and diminishing as a percentage of registered domains year after year based on UDRP filings — and that the UDRP provides a relatively fast and inexpensive alternative to litigation in court. So any trademark interest advocacy for 'rights protections' that are more numerous and stringent than what's already available is not strongly supported by the available evidence.

We'd also note that many ICA member providers of "parking" or other domain monetization services, as well as of secondary domain marketplaces, have established either formal or informal means by which trademark owners can bring alleged infringement claims to their attention and block clearly infringing domains. These services are available at no cost to trademark owners, and should often be their first recourse in advance of filing a UDRP claim.

As for the WIPO press release declaration that, "With the domain name coordinating body, ICANN, allowing for a massive increase in the number of new domains, brand owners' resources will likely be stretched further.", that seems entirely speculative for now — especially since brand owner resources were not stretched further in 2011 with total UDRP filings being flat, and actually declining in the context of an expanding DNS environment. WIPO's statement also ignores the fact that the Trademark Clearinghouse will let trademark owners secure, block, and issue warnings in regard to new gTLD domains in an unprecedented manner to reduce cybersquatting.

So let's wait and see what applications are actually filed for new gTLDs, and then wait to see what registrants they attract and what visitor traffic they generate, and then make a judgment on the impact of new gTLDs on trademark owners that is informed by facts rather than speculation. (We note in passing that NAF's statement makes no similar gloomy predictions regarding cybersquatting at new gTLDs.)

One final thing to remember is that arbitration providers like WIPO can affect the number of UDRP filings by allowing its panelists to alter long-established practices and thereby change UDRP policy in a one-sided manner. For example, recently a WIPO panel ruled that ceat.com must be transferred to CEAT Ltd., an Indian tire company, even though there was scant evidence that the domain had been registered, much less used, in bad faith (See: CEAT Limited, CEAT Mahal, v. Vertical Axis Inc. / Whois Privacy Services Pty Ltd). Another WIPO panel recently ruled in FACI Industries v. BuyDomains.com, Inventory Management that faci.com be transferred to the non-famous metal casting firm of FACI Industries of Bolingbrook, Illinois even though there was ample evidence that the registrant exercised due diligence to avoid infringing the complainant's trademark rights (See: FACI Industries v. BuyDomains.com, Inventory Management). As the dissenting panelist in CEAT stated, "To hold that such a valuable word cannot be used as a domain name simply because "the domain name is a trademark and has no descriptive meaning" is not supported by the Policy and is a very severe restriction on the right to register a domain name that is not contemplated by ICANN in its policies or practices… That is simply a rewriting of the Policy that is entirely unsupported. Clearly, registering a word that both parties say is an acronym and using it for purposes unconnected with the Complainant or its activities does not violate the Complainant's trademark rights or the Policy.”

These rulings open the door to any short domain name that can constitute an acronym for one or multiple organizations being subject to "first to file" UDRP actions encouraged by trademark attorneys. We are already seeing an uptick of new UDRPs related to acronym domains, and if this becomes a flood in the remainder of 2012 — encouraged by the ceat.com and faci.com rulings, which deviate from years of UDRP practice related to acronym domains — does that mean that cybersquatting is up, or that cybersquatting has been unilaterally redefined down by WIPO panelists and that as a result the trademark bar sees a new UDRP opportunity to bring to clients' attention?

These disturbing and controversial acronym domain rulings again illustrate why WIPO and other UDRP providers should reconsider allowing panelists deemed "neutrals' to also serve as advocates for complainants or registrants, given the clear potential for conflicts of interest, and the certain appearance of potential conflicts. It also illustrates that prior decisions should have a more binding precedential effect that they are accorded under the current WIPO Overview. The UDRP process should remain an available remedy for squelching a declining pool of infringing domains, but not permitted to be a mercurial full employment program for creative trademark attorneys.

ICA will continue to press for meaningful UDRP reform, including changes to assure that arbitration "neutrals" do not have inherent conflicts. But for now we are happy to note that total UDRP filings continue to decline as a percentage of all domains and remain a tiny fraction of the overall DNS infrastructure. That's something worth remembering the next time you see allegations that cybersquatting is out of control.

Mr. Corwin serves as Counsel to the Internet Commerce Association

Written by Philip S Corwin, Founding Principal, Virtualaw LLC; Counsel, Internet Commerce Association

circleid.com | 16-May-2012 20:47

Business Case for IPv6 - Part 2

In my previous blog on the topic, I stated that the business case supporting the IPv4 roll-out in the late 90s was the Internet. Although IP depletion will slowly become a reality, the chances are that due to mitigating technologies such as NAT and DNS64, it may take quite a while before organizations in the developed economies will get serious about IPv6.

So where should we look to find a business case for IPv6?

Over the last year or two, the shift towards cloud computing paradigm has started to make some pretty impressive waves. Although still at a relatively early stage, we are seeing both service providers and enterprises coming out with brand new strategies for public and private clouds. Based on the recent developments, we estimate that by 2015, the way in which applications and network services are consumed will be very different from what it is today. The discontinuity here will be just as big as the Internet was some 15 years ago.

As far as the IPv6 business case is concerned, not many people have realized how critical IP addresses and DNS is for the cloud orchestration process. To commission or decommission a virtual machine, one needs to reserve or to free an IP address, preferably within a window of 300 milliseconds. Further, in order for that newly commissioned virtual machine to be easily accessed, a DNS entry is also needed. With Infrastructure 1.0 utilizing IPv4 spaces managed with Excel spreadsheets, the cloud doesn't scale.

To address this issue, anyone serious about cloud computing will have to come to accept that Infrastructure 2.0 is required in order for the cloud computing paradigm to work as intended. If someone is to make a considerable investment in cloud environment, protecting the investment for at least the next 10 years becomes essential. And the way I see it, this is where IPv6 comes in.

In this light, IPv6 can be viewed as a similar enabler to the cloud as IPv4 was for the Internet. From the business perspective, IPv6 enables the cloud to scale into the foreseeable future. Furthermore, by making IPv6 a standard feature in clouds, organizations investing in them can make sure that their basic architecture will stand the test of time, thereby optimizing the cloud ROI.

Written by Juha Holkkola, Managing Director of Nixu Software

circleid.com | 16-May-2012 18:00

Nominum Launches Comprehensive Suite of DNS-Based Security Solutions for Russian Service Providers

Integrated Three-Tier Architecture enables fixed broadband and mobile service providers in Russia to combat growing cyber-security threats

Nominum, the worldwide leader in integrated DNS-based applications and solutions, announces the Nominum Security Suite for fixed broadband and mobile service providers in Russia. This suite offers network and end-user solutions and applications for stopping outbound spam, botnet mitigation, phishing and malware prevention, illegal content filtering, managed security, mobile security, and more. All of these solutions leverage Nominum's high-performance DNS engines, which are proven in the world's largest networks and designed to meet the incredible growth rate experienced by Russian operators.

More than 500 million Internet users depend on Nominum-powered networks around the world every day. To help optimize broadband service speed and safety, fixed broadband and mobile service providers rely on Nominum's three-tiered architecture: the engines, which make networks faster and more efficient, platforms which increase business agility, and applications that increase competitive differentiation.

Russia is fast becoming an area where cyber-attacks are launched since its broadband and mobile data penetration is increasing so quickly. In Russia alone over the last three years, broadband customer growth is more than 110 percent, or just under 30 percent per year. Russia's 3G mobile broadband service providers grew from just over 1.5M customers at the end of 2008 to nearly 16M at the end of 2011. With growth comes a promising market for hacking and theft. In fact, Russia was just reported by Microsoft as the third most malware-infected country in the world.

Nominum's solutions will help service providers in Russia manage the most pressing issues they face today, including:

Reducing outbound spam — preventing the inadvertent blocking of legitimate consumer and business email due to blacklisting of a service provider's network
Identifying and protecting infected subscribers — protecting end-users on fixed or mobile networks from data theft and reducing the risk of network downtime due to botnet attacks
Preventing phishing and malware — proactively warning end-users before they get infected with malware
Filtering Illegal content — preventing users from accessing prohibited content such as child sexual abuse
Managed security — protecting enterprises from theft of confidential customer information or intellectual property

The foundation of these solutions is Nominum's market-leading DNS engines. The advanced security capabilities and leading performance eliminate risk of network downtime while improving the subscriber experience by reducing DNS latency 50-70%. Other unique innovations include the ability to log massive volumes of DNS data in real-time without degrading performance, built-in anti-DDoS protections and the ability to apply unique policies for millions of households on a single server.

"Our legacy began when our Chief Scientist, Paul Mockapetris, invented DNS. As a company, we have focused on evolving DNS from a protocol to an efficient network infrastructure tool that provides high performance and security, to a necessary business tool that addresses the most pressing issues that fixed and mobile service providers face today," said Craig Sprosts, GM Security Solutions "We are excited to bring our tested solutions to the fast-changing Russian broadband market, and help service providers here generate more revenue while protecting Internet users."

In addition to the suite of security solutions, Nominum will also offer the other solutions built for fixed broadband and mobile service providers. These solutions are built on the same three-tiered architecture and are designed to solve a variety of non-security issues such as device provisioning, mobile spectrum efficiency, broader network and subscriber visibility, and more. These solutions have gained worldwide acceptance and adoption and are now going to be available throughout the Russia and CIS markets.

circleid.com | 16-May-2012 06:29

Cel-e-brate v6, Come On!

With IPv6 World Launch coming up it's worth pausing to consider the collective efforts of the Internet industry in enabling and deploying an essential evolutionary technology at what will become truly massive scale. It's easy to be a detractor and believe there has been little progress — but the Internet hasn't melted down and there is no evidence it is about to. Perhaps the issue is that progress occurred in a different way than was predicted or preferred by the experts. The reality is providers everywhere have developed coping mechanisms for IPv4 exhaustion. Innovation, operational sweat, and perhaps some tough negotiating make it happen. But isn't that the essence of the Internet?

Thought leaders across the industry are focusing on transition topics that matter: from economic lifecycles, security, and business continuity to the promising future of the Internet of Things. This is what drives most of us, and those on the front lines in the IPv6 evolution have every right to rise up and celebrate. It's not only a great technological milestone, but a testament to their collective abilities to work together for the greater good of the connected planet.

Today's Internet is the foundation for everything we do and the IPv6 Internet will be too but unfortunately some things never change. While the majority have been busy working on IPv6 for the greater good, evidence makes clear we're likely to come face to face with a growing number of technologists (aka criminals) with malicious intentions. IPv6 hinders them in some ways, but helps them in others. If you have any doubts, a quick search will show a growing number of software tools intended to break or exploit IPv6. Everything we build offers potential for those who are malicious to use their skills for disruption. Security is a continuum and experience suggests it might be worth some cycles to make sure your IPv6 project does not end up on your CEO's shortlist of things that keep them up at night.

Preparing for the transition requires looking beyond just software support and interoperability testing to identifying strategic partners and understanding the long-term cost of ownership. If IPv6 is important to your future you owe it to your business, investors and customers to make sure you have the best technology but are also on the right path with the best, forward looking partners. It's refreshing to see that on the Internet, as has always been the case, a global initiative can transcend the boundaries of political, social, and economic agendas. Maybe we can all even learn a lesson or two from IPv6 on how to tackle some of the critical long-term social and economic challenges facing the world today.

Want to learn more about the transition to IPv6, join us at our webinar on May 30. Click here.

Written by Craig Sprosts, General Manager of Fixed Broadband Solutions at Nominum

circleid.com | 15-May-2012 22:04

Hosters: Is Your Platform Being Used to Launch DDoS Attacks?

As anyone who's been in the DDoS attack trenches knows, large multi-gigabit attacks have become more prevalent over the last few years. For many organizations, it's become economically unfeasible to provision enough bandwidth to combat this threat.

How are attackers themselves sourcing so much bandwidth? It's actually easier than you might think. While botnets comprised of malware-infected computers can be used to launch attacks, you don't actually need thousands of devices. In some cases, attackers are infiltrating hosting company resources (shared hosting, virtual private servers, dedicated hosting, etc.), availing themselves of bandwidth by using hacked, stolen and fraudulent accounts.

Let's say that an attacker manages to get his/her hands on 5 hosting accounts with 5 different hosting companies. It's not unusual for these hosting companies to have 1 Gbps+ of connectivity to the Internet. A lot of hosters don't look at their outbound traffic all that closely or have difficulty policing what their customers do. All an attacker needs to do is install a script on each account and he/she has easy access to gigabits of connectivity.

For hosters, finding the trouble spot can be like looking for a needle in a haystack (especially if thousands of accounts share resources). While the offender might be found eventually and the account shut down, the damage has already been done.

What can hosters do to help prevent this or detect this better?

Restrict outbound traffic from your customers by using ACLs (Access Control Lists). For example, there are few reasons your customers will ever need to make port 80 UDP connections to other hosts on the Internet. Put policies in place to block all outbound traffic except to specific, acceptable, understood destinations or ports. If customers have legitimate reasons to make an outbound connection from your infrastructure, they should be able to notify you and justify it (this will affect a only tiny percentage of your base) so you can make the appropriate arrangements. Some hosters do not even accommodate these requests.

Throttle outbound traffic from your customers. Even for legitimate outbound connections, most likely they don't need to take up 500 Mbps of outbound bandwidth. Simply set a lower limit.

Put alarms in place when outbound traffic utilization spikes. If, for example, all of a sudden the amount of data leaving your network increases by 40%, there's probably an issue somewhere and your tech folks should be investigating.

Restricting and monitoring your outbound traffic will probably save you money on bandwidth costs and decrease the amount of abuse reports. Best of all, attackers will realize they're not getting what they want out of your platform. The less you have to worry about, the better, right?

Written by Miguel Ramos, Sr. Product Manager, Neustar Enterprise Services

circleid.com | 15-May-2012 21:12

Measuring IPv6 at the Network and the Customer Level

George Michaelson, APNIC's Senior Research and Development Scientist recently visited the RIPE NCC to collaborate on various research projects with his RIR colleagues. IPv6 measurements were one of the topics we looked at.

Recent IPv6 statistics from the RIPE NCC show an accelerated uptake of IPv6 in Norway, both in terms of the number of allocated prefixes, and visible announcements in the routing system. This is based on a comparison over time of the amount of IPv6 addresses allocated to each economy, and the amount of visible prefixes per Autonomous System (AS) in the routing tables each day. The graph below shows 50% of ASes in Norway now announce one or more IPv6 prefix.

Some have interpreted this to mean that over 50% of the end users in Norway have now access to IPv6. However, a measurement of end user IPv6 capability by APNIC doesn't necessarily support that, rather, it suggests that end user access to IPv6 remains low in Norway, as in other economies. The graph below shows the percentage of IPv6 preference at the end user level.

Keep in mind that this only includes data until mid-May, hence the drop at the end. For the most up-to-date graph, please visit the APNIC Labs IPv6 Measurements pages.

Are these measurements in conflict?

No, not really. One is a measure of capacity and capability in routing and forwarding, and the other is a measure of end user access. There are many reasons why some routing-active entities don't show up in an end user measurement: the AS may be servicing content delivery and not offering access services, or may be providing transit and data management services for others and have no direct end user traffic.

Perhaps the AS is servicing segments of the user base who only gain access to the global Internet occasionally, or to restricted URLs, or not even the web but only VOIP (which we can't measure in the APNIC technique.)

The difference is not a conflict. It exposes differences in what we see on the Internet and the different conclusions drawn from each.

APNIC's measurement focuses on end user access, and in large part, suggests that there is a continuing problem with end user access to IPv6, even when the AS in question may have associated IPv6 allocations visible in global routing.

In the background article on RIPE Labs you can find much more information, including the methodology and an analysis of the specific situation in Norway and in Japan.

Written by Mirjam Kuehne

circleid.com | 15-May-2012 20:52

Level 3 expands data centers in Latin America

Level 3 Communications (NYSE: LVLT), which has been busily building out its presence in Latin America for the past several months, today said customer demand has prompted it to expand its data-center capabilities in the region.

The company has added capacity to its 14 data centers in the region, with substantial expansions in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador. It's also introduced new hosting and storage services, and increased its backup and storage capacity.

The moves, Level 3 said, are aimed at enhancing customers' efficiency, security and growth, at a time when enterprises increasingly are looking for third-party data center solutions as they move toward adopting cloud computing.

Research from IDC estimates the market for data center services and managed security services in Latin America will reach nearly $4 billion in market size by 2015, growing at a compound annual rate of 11.9 percent between 2011 and 2015.

"Data center service providers that can demonstrate the ability to integrate value-added services and guarantee high service levels will be strongly positioned to capitalize on the region's market growth opportunity, providing the data center and security solution capabilities demanded by customers," said Diego Anesini, telecom research and consulting manager for IDC in Latin America.

In April, Level 3 SVP Mark Taylor told FierceOnlineVideo that the company was "expanding rapidly into South America."
"It's a nice growth story for us," he said at the time, pointing out that Level 3's recent acquisition of Global Crossings "has made it easier to put our POPs in South America."

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 14-May-2012 16:14

Vitelity extends SIP trunking functionality to legacy phone systems

VoIP technology provider Vitelity Communications, partnering with Patton Electronics, has launched a communications bundle, SIP Enable, that allows legacy phone systems without native SIP capabilities to use SIP trunk services from Vitelity.

The privately held company said the product can integrate the advanced technology into a system in order connect to the Internet and utilize additional features, such as SMS, vFax and global DID origination.

SIP Enable improves the functionality for the end-user, said CEO Chris Hall, and provides a cost-effective method to integrate newer technologies into older systems."

"It's exciting to be able bring our SIP trunking service to systems that it was never intended for," Hall said.

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 14-May-2012 15:40

Radvision Q1 revenue tops $17.4M, beats guidance

Videoconferencing specialist Radvision (Nasdaq: RVSN) today reported revenues for the first quarter of 2012 were $17.4 million, down nearly 17 percent from $20.8 million in the first quarter of 2011.

Nonetheless, the Israeli company did outperform its own guidance issued in April, when it said it expected revenue of just $17 million.

Radvision, which is in the process of being acquired by Avaya, also beat its guidance on earnings. The company reported a net loss of $6.7 million, or 36 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $3.3 million, or 18 cents per share, a year ago. Radvision had expected to report a loss of $6.9 million for the quarter.

Radvision said first-quarter revenues consisted of $15.2 million for the Video Business Unit (VBU) and $2.2 million for the Technology Business Unit (TBU). This compares with $15.9 million for the VBU and $4.8 million for the TBU reported in the first quarter of 2011.

The company attributed its better-than-expected performance to higher sales of both its infrastructure and endpoint products, offsetting lower Technology Business Unit revenues.

"Over the past two years we have been successfully transforming Radvision into an end-to-end videoconferencing solution provider with leading technology," CEO Boaz Raviv said, pointing to the debut of its flagship SCOPIA XT5000 that targets the high-end telepresence market.

Radvision, in April, also expanded its next generation HD video conferencing room system portfolio with the SCOPIA XT4200.

"Since our founding in 1992, RADVISION has been a leading innovator in video communications technology," Raviv said. "We are excited to continue that tradition as part of Avaya, a leading global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions."

That deal is expected to close this quarter.

For more:
- see this release

Special Report: Enterprise Communications earnings in the first quarter of 2012

fiercevoip.com | 14-May-2012 14:57

Communications and the London Olympics

Communications will be one of the most critical areas during the London Olympic Games.

The industry is working to establish shared access networks — would it not be nice if they did this everywhere, all the time? They are also working very closely with British Olympic Association, London Transport, the broadcasters and content providers.

Mobile coverage will be the biggest shared infrastructure in the world. There are already 80 million mobile devices in the UK, and to this will be added the millions of devices from overseas visitors and athletes. There will be more people taking photos and videos and sending them around the world. And, of course, the same applies to the thousands of professional photographers and journalists attending the Games. The mobile operators have indicated that there may be periods of 'controlled service', particularly in relation to mobile broadband.

There will be two dimensions to this network — one for officials and athletes, and one for the general public. The network will go live on 1 June and will cater for a range of related and other events:

Olympic Torch Relay, 27 May-27 July;
Diamond Jubilee, 2 June-5 June;
Euro 2012, 8 June-1 July (IPTV);
Farnborough Airshow;
Olympic Games, starting on 25 July.
Over 1,000 BT workers have been assigned to the communications activities surrounding the Games.

Next-generation access network rollouts have been accelerated and core network bandwidth has been increased to facilitate the backbone network, as well as increased fibre access to all facilities, venues, etc.

Extra capacity is needed for the BBC iPlayer service, which will drive up telecoms traffic, with each of 24 HD Olympic TV channels using 3Mb/s. Organisations are made aware of the fact that corporate networks could be flooded if people are watching in the office. This will also apply to international links, as overseas viewers could flood these as well.

If an incident occurs that goes viral on YouTube, this could also swamp networks. There have been warnings that the lack of a national high-speed broadband network could see network meltdowns in such circumstances.

It is anticipated that many public websites can expect as much as five times their normal traffic; organisations should be aware of this and take the necessary measures to cope with it.

Another interesting contingency is that call centres are employing extra staff, as it is expected that enquiry call on-hold time will be longer due to foreign languages. Other increases are expected on retailers' card terminals and ATM usage.

Because of increased security awareness there are elaborate security plans in place — to protect not only the people but also all infrastructures, including the existing telecoms infrastructure around the country. Security plans also take into account other 'unpredictables' that can lead to disturbances, such as unforecasted gatherings, cyber attacks, and large increases in free rich content over the networks.

There is a Resilience and Response Group (EC-RRG) operating the National Emergency Alert for Telecommunications (NEAT) coordination points. There are contingency scenarios for engineers, suppliers, colleagues unable to reach site and so on. They also have proactive procedures in place to reduce risks such as internet congestion, the impact on home working, monitoring video-streaming, terrorist/public order incidents.

Some statistics on the Games:

5.3 million visitors are expected with half a million extra on Day 8.
On 9 days there will be more than 1million extra journeys on public transport.
Greenwich population will be 25% higher on Day 3.
At the end of an event, 10,000-20,000 people will be exiting individual venues, creating bottlenecks.

During the games, there will be major disruption for London-based workers — there is a four-step approach:

reduce journey requirements by avoiding planned utility works;
retime appointments to avoid clashes with busiest times;
reroute transport and logistics as access roads will be closed;
review transport types and use alternatives.

For its part, the regulator Ofcom has devised a Spectrum Plan for the Games, which will see the temporary re-allocation of spectrum from public bodies to cater for bandwidth demands. Spectrum from among three separate bands will come from the Ministry of Defence (MOD), the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), while holdings in the 2.5-2.6GHz band have been reserved for the duration of the Games. Ofcom has also conserved spectrum allocated for private mobile radio (PMR), as also spectrum available for DTTV in the 800MHz band which has not yet been sold off. Ofcom is needing all the spare frequencies it can find to cope with the 350 wireless microphones, 75 HD video streams and 780 talkback channels it expects are needed.

It is also expected that there will be greater work and school absenteeism due to large screen displays that are established right around the country. And businesses are adopting greater flexitime procedures and providing facilities in the workplace.

Organisations have also been advised to, where possible, move staff to Disaster Recovery sites and work from there during the Games. Other suggestions include checking standby generator fuel, batteries, firewall resilience, etc. Teleworking is promoted, with companies advised to plan and test the use of technology remotely by home workers.

Written by Paul Budde, Managing Director of Paul Budde Communication

circleid.com | 14-May-2012 04:37

VoIP-Pal.com acquires patents from Digifonica Gibraltar

VoIP-Pal.com has added five major VoIP patents to its intellectual property portfolio after reaching a deal to acquire Digifonica Gibraltar.

The patents for the proprietary digital voice technologies immediately advances Voip-Pal.com as a technical leader in the booming VoIP services market, which last year saw revenues estimated at $58 billion.

VoIP-Pal.com said the patent portfolio gives it a unique set of network-based technologies and processes that will enhance subscriber and carrier functionality, resulting in a substantial increase of average revenue per user.

The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, also should enhance shareholder value and immediately contribute to significant revenue growth for the company as the number of mobile VoIP subscribers is projected to reach 410 million by 2015.

The company said the technologies are predominantly software based, and capable of scaling over multiple network servers, in multiple countries worldwide, creating worldwide virtual network coverage.

"A conservative estimate shows that potential royalty income alone from the Digifonica Gibraltar patents may exceed $200 million per year for Voip-Pal," said Dennis Chang, president of Voip-Pal.com. "Full descriptions, advantages and revenue estimates for each newly acquired patent will be released as they are individually integrated into Voip-Pal.com's Cloud Server."

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 14-May-2012 04:15

Mitel introduces IaaS play AnyWare for UCC

Unified communications specialist Mitel (Nasdaq: MITL) has rolled out an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) play designed to extend its virtualized unified communications and collaboration (UCC) software.

The product, AnyWare, helps IT organizations deploy Mitel's Freedom Architecture to give them the option to host the virtualized UCC software in a virtual private data center.

The data center, provided by service provider division, Mitel NetSolutions, lets IT organizations implement a virtualized voice, unified communications and collaboration solutions without the capital necessary to deploy these virtual applications in their data center.

Organizations can deploy a private or hybrid cloud model that aims to streamline operations and reduce overall infrastructure costs.

"Mitel AnyWare IaaS provides a sophisticated, SAS70-certified virtual Private Data Center with the resources to support the deployment of Mitel's comprehensive UC applications," said Jon Brinton, president of Mitel NetSolutions.

AnyWare is is optimized for Mitel's purpose-built UCC applications and facilitates centralized UCaaS deployments which can reduce the lifecycle support costs associated with maintaining Enterprise communications infrastructure.

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 14-May-2012 03:23

Call for Nominations to the Public Interest Registry .ORG Advisory Council

The .ORG Advisory Council has been a valuable global resource for the Public Interest Registry (PIR) management for providing advice on policy, outreach, and new services to improve registry operations and support the noncommercial .ORG community. The council consists of 15 members, with at least 2 from each of the following 6 regions: Asia, Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, North America and Latin America, selected by the PIR board of directors in accordance with the Charter of the Council. All seats are for three-year terms.

We would like your help in soliciting the best possible nominees for the open seats. We are seeking individuals with significant Internet leadership experience within the nonprofit, nongovernmental organization (NGO) and domain name arenas who represent the broad and geographically diverse spectrum of the global noncommercial community.

Interested individuals are encouraged to submit nominations, including self-nominations. A nomination statement of approximately 400 words should include details of the nominee's experience with the Internet, commitment to promoting the noncommercial use of the Internet, understanding of the technical or policy issues facing the .ORG registry, and perspectives regarding the needs of the .ORG community. A current biography and digital photograph also are requested.

Nominations must be submitted by 15 June, 2012. To submit your nominations or to learn more about the advisory council, please visit our website. New council members will be announced on 30 June, 2012.

circleid.com | 11-May-2012 19:04

Polycom sells handset unit for $110M, adds to stock buyback plan

Videoconferencing vendor Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM) is selling its enterprise handset business to an affiliate of private equity firm Sun Capital Partners for $110 million in cash. It plans to use most of the cash to increase its stock-buyback program.

As a result of the sale, the business generated about $94 million in revenue last year, the company also lowered its second-quarter 2012 guidance to between 18 cents per share and 20 cents per share, from the 20-22 cents per share range it forecasted in April.

Polycom said the deal is expected to close in the third quarter.

Polycom said it would use about $104 million from the sale to increase the size of its share buyback program. Polycom had only $78 million worth of shares remaining to buy in its planned $800 million repurchase push. The new cash infusion means it will buy $182 million more.

"Polycom has evolved rapidly over the last 18-24 months, and taken actions designed to capture and lead the fast-growing video collaboration market through traditional and new delivery platforms including mobile, social and cloud," said chief executive Andy Miller. "The sale of our wireless handset business is a further step toward focusing our product and technology portfolio on our core unified communications and video collaboration solutions."

He said the divestiture of the enterprise wireless voice solutions business would allow Polycom "to focus on the stronger sales growth and higher gross margins" of its core unified communications business.

Polycom stock has been stuck in a trough of late, losing some 40 percent of its value since the end of February.

Last month, the company posted net income of $15 million, or 8 cents per share, down from $34 million, or 19 cents per share, last year, a 56 percent drop and its first decline since 2010.

The stock closed Thursday at $12.01, and was down 3.5 percent in after-hours trading. Over 52-weeks, it's traded in a range of $11.72 to $34.30.

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 11-May-2012 13:18

If You Build It, They Will Come.

Only two years after signing the DNS root zone, the powerful lure of a secure global infrastructure for data distribution is starting to reveal itself. It is illustrated clearly by two proposed technical standardizations that seek to leverage secure DNS. To some degree these developments highlight the strength of DNS institutions and how they might fill gaps elsewhere in the Internet's governance. But an increasing reliance upon and concentration of power in the DNS also makes getting its global governance correct even more important.

The first, more widely known, development is the IETF's ongoing DANE effort. The DANE standard proposes to improve the Transport Level Security (TLS) protocol, which is used worldwide to secure communication between applications (e.g., a browser) and host machines (e.g., a website server). DANE enables administrators of domain names to specify TLS cryptographic key material in a resource record stored in a zone file. Using DNSSEC, an application could validate the resource record with the practical result that communication between an application and host machine is probably more secure — a good thing.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of DANE is that it takes TLS key distribution out of the hands of the browser/certificate authorities and places it with DNS operators. The browser/certificate authority regime has been shown to be susceptible to attack and lacking in clear lines of accountability. In theory, if an administrator puts signed key material in the DNS, an application can validate it starting from the single trust anchor maintained by ICANN. Like DNSSEC, DANE depends on registrars, registries and Internet service providers not tampering with signed data provided by administrators. Pressure to tamper with data could come from numerous sources, e.g., interests in intellectual property protection, advertising, surveillance, etc. At the end of the day, it will be the DNS contractual regime, the laws that govern the involved parties, and the extent to which those institutions are transnationally interoperable that determines how DANE contributes to various global public policy goals like free expression and free trade in information services. Expect the differences between governments, and their response to domestic pressures, to challenge that interoperability.

The second, and in our opinion, more interesting development is the more recently proposed ROVER (Route Origin Verification) effort which seeks to address the problem of misconfigured routing announcements, whether accidental or intentional. Similar to DANE, ROVER proposes to improve the inter-domain routing by creating new resource records published in the secure reverse DNS (i.e., the in-addr.arpa zone). Similar ideas have been proposed previously, but never took hold. The records would allow network operators to indicate whether an IPv4 or IPv6 prefix ought to appear in global routing tables and identify authorized origin Autonomous System Number(s) for that prefix. This is the same data (i.e., Route Origin Announcements) which appears in the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) being managed by some RIRs. ROVER would facilitate the comparison of validated records stored in the secure reverse DNS against route announcements being made on the Internet. Discrepancies could be flagged and lead to further action taken by the operator.

Again, the most interesting aspect is the interplay between technology and institutional power. The technical community has been debating the merits of Secure DNS vs. RPKI. The debate occurs in the shadow of the major, ongoing concern for network operators concerning RPKI, i.e., how it could allow certificate authorities (e.g., the RIRs) to impact routing. This concern is further complicated with Border Gateway Protocol Security (BGPSEC), which proposes incorporating cryptographic signing and validation of route announcements directly into the BGP. As an alternative, ROVER suggests leveraging the certified resource allocation data stored in the RPKI (or elsewhere) to create and validate route announcements in the secure reverse DNS. But it allows operators to independently apply that data to routing decisions. If a certificate authority revoked a certificate it would not impact routing unless the operator allowed it to. Less appreciated, however, is that ROVER potentially shifts route announcement data, typically stored in the decentralized Internet Routing Registries (IRRs) now, into the hierarchical secure DNS. Given this, the operation and governance of a few zones, namely .arpa and in-addr.arpa, becomes critical. Those zones are currently managed by ICANN. Its use for routing purposes may raise contention that too much power is centralized with this organization. In theory, as manager of the in-addr zone, ICANN could regulate network operators via contract, similar to the way it does some TLD operators. This will need to be examined more closely.

Written by Brenden Kuerbis, Postdoctoral Researcher at Syracuse University, School of Information Studies

circleid.com | 10-May-2012 22:10

IXPs and CDNs Critical to the Future of Competitive Broadband Internet

We continue to see consolidation in the broadband market and various games played by the cablecos and telcos to thwart competition or undermine network neutrality (See links below).

Until regulators create true structural separation between infrastructure and service providers the chances of seeing genuine broadband competition are slim. It is interesting to note telecom regulators in North America have imposed structural separation in the past. In the 1970s when the cable industry was a fledgling startup industry the FCC in the US and the CRTC in Canada passed regulations forbidding telephone companies to acquire and/or compete with cable companies. This enabled the creation of a entirely new business sector — cable television- who now dominates the broadcast and Internet market place. If regulators and governments are interested in stimulating the economy and creating new business opportunities, it is time they study their past successes and breakup up today's oligopolies by imposing structural separation and allow a true competitive market in broadband Internet.

In the mean time the one bright spot in the competitive marketplace is the development of Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) and the collocation of Content Distribution Networks (CDNs). In a recent a talk at RIPE-64 given by Kurtis Lindqvist demonstrated that IXPs will be even more important as broadband speeds increase. With larger and larger data flows the need to interconnect at an IXP to a CDN network or peering network will becoming increasingly important. (See: Kurtis Lindqvist - The History of Peering in Europe and What This Can Teach Us About the Future)

I am very pleased to see that Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has taken a very important leadership role in Canada in this regard. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the CIRA board). CIRA has undertaken an active program to help qualified communities, independent ISPs, regional R&E networks and others to deploy IXPs in their community. CIRA's overall goal is to have local members build and operate the IXP, with CIRA bringing technical expertise, stability, back office functions, governance assistance, content providers and, if required, some financial and gear support. Most significantly CIRA will help the IXP provide a variety of DNS hosting services (which can improve responsiveness and reliability for connected users) as well arranging CDN networks to collocate at the facility.

The combination of these services — peering, DNS and CDN — will provide connected independent ISPs, R&E networks, community broadband networks and other organizations the capability to provide services to their targeted communities and provide a modicum of competition to the local incumbent oligopoly. This service by CIRA will be especially important for small business, community and R&E networks as they look to deliver or use cloud services and wireless applications to their local communities. The integration of WiFi with 3G/4G with anytime, anywhere, any device communications for education and research will also be critically dependent on these facilities.

Further reading:
7 ways Comcast is killing the cable killers GigaOm
Keeping the Internet Neutral New York Times

Written by Bill St. Arnaud , Green IT Networking Consultant

circleid.com | 10-May-2012 21:27

Government lawyers oppose California VoIP deregulation proposal

Industry-backed legislation that would bar California officials from regulating Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service in the Golden State drew opposition this week from lawyers at the California Public Utilities Commission.

The regulatory body's Legal Division is urging commissioners to oppose Senate Bill 1161, which seeks to preempt the CPUC and other state entities from regulating VoIP-enabled voice and data transmissions unless expressly authorized by federal law and state statute.

The CPUC, to date, has no regulatory activities regarding VoIP or other IP-enabled services.

The commission's Legal Division argues that S.B. 1161 is so broadly written that, if enacted, the legislation would impede the CPUC's regulation of non-IP wireline and wireless service.

What's more, they say, the law would deregulate carriers that are not, at present, considered VoIP providers.

In a May 8 memorandum to commissioners, CPUC Government Affairs Director Lynn Sadler reiterated the Legal Division's argument that if the bill were amended to make all of the exceptions needed to preserve the commission's ability to administer its existing programs, "the exceptions arguably would swallow the rule," Sadler wrote.

"Especially, Legal Division asserts the CPUC, as the constitutional agency with the expertise in telecommunications, should retain flexibility to determine whether and how to regulate VoIP and IP-enabled services," Sadler added.

The Legal Division also has argued that under S.B. 1161, the CPUC would be allowed to hear and address complaints from VoIP service carriers but not from consumers, "thereby inhibiting one of the CPUC's primary functions to protect ratepayers," Sadler wrote in the memo.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications, which April 17 voted unanimously to advance the bill.

Padilla has said the bill is aimed at encouraging broadband deployment by providing industry regulatory certainty.

Bipartisan-backed S.B. 1161 is sponsored by TechAmerica, TechNet and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and supported by such companies as AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ).

Also supporting the measure are the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Manufacturers & Technology Association, both influential trade groups.

CalChamber Vice President of Government Affairs Marc Burgat called the bill a "job creator," in a letter of support.

"SB 1161 would ensure that California maintains its competitive edge and continues to provide a regulatory environment that promotes advancements in internet technology," Burgat wrote. "Such continued advancements would result in widespread access to communication technologies and would allow for solutions to challenges in healthcare, energy, education, public safety, and economic development."

Padilla's bill has drawn widespread opposition from consumer groups, including AARP California, Center for Media Justice, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, The Greenlining Institute and the Utility Consumers' Action Network.

Critics say the bill would effectively strip the CPUC of its oversight authority over landline and cellular phone services.

"SB 1161 is a stealth vehicle for the gradual deregulation of telecommunications in California," the Consumer Federation of California declared on their website. "Consumers need the CPUC to have the power to investigate complaints of bad service or unfair charges on bills, regardless of the technology used to provide phone service."

S.B. 1161 is pending consideration by the Senate Appropriations Committee. The panel has set a May 14 hearing on the bill.

For more:
- see S.B. 1161 text
- see the CPUC memo

fiercevoip.com | 10-May-2012 21:06

Canadian Telcos Fast Tracking Ftt to Combat Cable Operators

There are a number of stimuli which are pushing Canada's burgeoning FttH market, and the government and telcos alike have made significant steps to improve the reach and capacity of broadband infrastructure. These measures will show real benefits for consumers in recent years.

From the government's side, its Economic Action Plan, launched in 2009 as a response to the global financial crisis, included a pledge to provide $225 million over three years towards its Broadband Canada Program, geared to extending broadband coverage to underserved communities. The initiative called for the government to pay up to 50% of costs incurred by operators upgrading broadband in rural areas. By the end of 2012, the program's 86 or so projects are expected to have delivered broadband to about 214,000 households.

The government also recently proposed reducing barriers to foreign investment in the telecoms sector, enabling foreign companies to hold more than 46.7% stakes in local telcos. As the experiences of the Netherlands' KPN, Austria's MNO Orange and Ireland's Eircom have recently shown, a fresh injection of capital from unexpected quarters — in these cases South America and East Asia — may help to resuscitate flagging telecom markets in the developed West.

Despite these efforts, much more needs to be done in the government's overall appreciation of broadband as an essential infrastructure. Certainly it has invested in e-health initiatives in recent years, following recommendations from agencies such as the Information Highway Advisory Council. This has resulted in some of the more advanced e-health systems in the world. Yet the government does need to grasp that government-initiated trans-sector policies in Canada are also required to push the development of other key services. In this respect, a fibred national network would be a key infrastructure asset allowing businesses, institutions, utilities to thrive from new business models.

From the telcos' side, operators have been stimulated to invest in FttH through the successes of cablecos which have systematically upgraded their networks with DOCSIS3.0 technology. As a result, many cablecos are commonly offering 100Mb/s services or, to a limited extent, 200Mb/s services. DSL cannot hope to compete, and so to prevent customer churn in areas where cablecos also operate, telcos are been forced to step up their game with FttH.

This development has been a long time in coming — while fibre to businesses in metro areas has been common for some time, deployment elsewhere is still in its early stages, with only a limited number of residential communities being connected to networks. And so operators are fast-tracking FttH deployments: Bell Aliant plans to upgrade a third of its footprint by 2014 and to continue so until 90% is connected. Bell Canada and TELUS are expected to have at least 50% of their network upgraded, while SaskTel has an FttH program to 2019.

The momentum is palpable, and for the government's economic recovery program the years to the end of the decade are more promising.

Written by Henry Lancaster, Senior Analysts at Paul Budde Communication

circleid.com | 10-May-2012 18:20

Service providers begin to experiment with PaaS offerings

Services providers have begun to offer platform as a service (PaaS) as they look to expand their portfolios and respond to increasing customer demand for cloud-based development services. The latest example is Tier 3, which this week announced the rollout of PaaS and database as a service (DBaaS) offerings. The move into the PaaS market isn't going quickly, but there's been a steady trend by some providers into the space. Article

fiercevoip.com | 10-May-2012 04:11

Fonality selects Sonus SBC platform to enhance network

Hosted VoIP and unified communications provider Fonality said it will use a Session Border Controller solution from Sonus Networks (Nasdaq: SONS) to enhance the performance, reliability and capability of its cloud-hosted VoIP and Unified Communications (UC) network.

Sonus said its SBC 5200 session border controllers were selected for their ability to scale and enable all types of SIP traffic.

Fonality will also deploy Sonus NetScore, a network performance analyzer that enables service providers and enterprises to monitor and adjust operational efficiencies.

Fonality offers small and mid-size businesses across North America, Australia and Japan fully cloud-hosted VoIP, UC and contact center services as well as hybrid cloud-managed, premise-based IP-PBX, UC and contact center solutions.

The new customer deal is a big win for Sonus, which steadily has been increasing its share of the SBC market.

In April, Infonetics Research said Sonus' SBC business revenue grow at almost four times the pace of its competition, increasing 58.5 percent year-over-year. Infonetics said the company's share of the SBC service provider market grew to 19.6 percent in the fourth quarter.

For more:
- see this release

fiercevoip.com | 10-May-2012 03:01

Cisco Q3 profit up 20%, but fears of downturn cause shares to slip

Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) shares fell more than 8 percent in after hours trading Wednesday, despite third quarter earnings that rose 20 percent and beat Wall Street expectations by a penny.

Blame it on Europe, or, on the cautious tone Cisco chief executive John Chambers sounded during a Q&A with analysts during the company's earnings call.

"We are still in an uncertain environment economically," Chambers said. He pointed to a stuttering economy in Europe, soft sales in Latin America and uncertainty in the spending intentions of service providers.

Chambers said that in his discussions with cable companies and telcos, they generally sounded an optimistic tone about spending in the second half of the year. But, they, too, cautioned that European turmoil could cause that to quickly change.

Enterprise IT spending had been going strong, but, he said, "that's gotten a little bit tougher."

"We sure don't like the trend in enterprise spending," he said.

So unsure of the situation is the San Jose, Calif.-based company, that it muted its guidance for this quarter-generally one of its strongest--and the rest of the year, suggesting revenue would rise between 2 and 5 percent, below analyst forecast of 7 percent. Cisco forecast earnings for the fourth quarter between 44-46 cents per share, below the 49 cents per share analysts floated.

For the third quarter, Cisco reported earnings of $2.6 billion, or 48 cents per share, excluding one-time charges. Analysts expected 47 cents per share. The company reported $11.6 billion in sales, in line with expectations.

Chambers also said the company has managed to fight off challenges from competitors in the past, and to survive difficult economic periods.

"We will muddle through this with a little bit of bumps on the road," he said.

The company was trading for $17.20 after hours, down $1.58. It's traded in a 52-week range of $13.30-$21.30.

For more:
- see this earnings release
- see this Reuters report

fiercevoip.com | 10-May-2012 02:41

"Toll Free" Broadband Service: Double Billing Ripoff Or Better Than Best Efforts Premium Option?

Representatives of both AT&T and Verizon have stated that their companies will soon offer "toll free" broadband services. So far they have not provided much detail, but the prospect for customer and content provider surcharges should trigger concern, even outside the context of the network neutrality debate.

First let's consider the frame the carrier reps use: "Toll Free." This is an old school "Bellhead" reference to a pricing strategy where the called party pays instead of the calling party. Lots of commercial ventures have offered consumers Wide Area Telephone Service ("WATS") line access using the 1-800 and now 866, 877 and 888 prefixes. So toll free historically has referred to a pricing arrangement where consumers can avoid having to pay for a long distance telephone call.

The toll free reference may be a red herring here, because it's likely that the arrangement will simply mean consumers will not have minutes of use or downloaded bytes debited against a monthly usage cap. Toll free will mean debit-free to the end user with a surcharge to the content provider.

The proposed arrangement appears to parallel what Amazon has secured for cellular carrier delivery of e-books with two big differences. First Amazon is having delivered content costing $10 or more in a single transaction, while ventures like Netflix may be offered expedited delivery of content costing $8 a month for "unlimited" streaming. Also we should appreciate that when Amazon pays the e-book downloader pays nothing and does not even have to subscribe to cellphone service. In both the wireline and wireless environment where "toll free" data will operate, end users already are subscribing to monthly service: DSL, fiber or a hybrid fiber wireline broadband service, and/or cellphone service. So the value a carrier offers appears to be "better than best efforts" Internet routing of possibly "mission critical" bits coupled with a end user sweetener of not debiting minutes or bytes from a monthly basket.

Is this a fair deal, or double billing? End users will end up paying for such premium service, so it's fair to ask when — if ever — one would want better than best efforts routing when plain vanilla best efforts heretofore has worked just fine. The network neutrality advocates have a legitimate concern that carriers will find a way to degrade service to content providers like Netflix and Google making the premium routing a necessity. Bear in mind that Netflix already pays Content Distribution Networks, such as Level-3, for high quality, "toll-grade" delivery. Recently Comcast demanded a delivery surcharge in light of the higher volume of traffic Level-3 hands off to Comcast for final delivery than the amount Comcast hands off to Level-3 for upstream delivery through the Internet cloud. So is Netflix getting hit up for a double or triple payment: once to Comcast for last mile delivery, twice to Level-3 and other long haul Internet cloud carriers and thrice to Verizon/AT&T? Let's not forget that end users already are paying $30-100 monthly for their wired and wireless broadband connections. Doesn't that broadband subscription entitle subscribers to timely and efficient delivery of any and all traffic without surcharges?

Written by Rob Frieden, Pioneers Chair and Professor of Telecommunications and Law

circleid.com | 10-May-2012 01:40

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