September 1998

BY RICH TEHRANI

A friend recently called me to let me know he’d purchased a new computer — he wanted my opinion of the system he had selected. When I called him back that evening, the line was busy. Undaunted, I tried calling again later that night, but the line was still busy — in fact, I couldn’t get through for several days. Days later, my irate friend contacted me again — this time to complain that I didn’t return his call. When we finally did speak, I discovered my friend had been surfing the Web non-stop since he got his computer, producing never-ending busy signals for his friends and family.

Over the course of the last few years, there have been many times when I could not get in touch with someone because they had only one telephone line and were using it for surfing the Web. I’m guilty of this practice, too: When I’m traveling, I often connect to the Internet continuously in my hotel room and lose incoming calls. Now when I consider the vast number of Web users and the dramatic Web usage growth rate predicted by analysts, it’s clear to me the problem will get much worse. Installing a second line is certainly an option, but many users can’t justify the added expense.

HOW ISPs CAN HELP
I first wrote about a solution to this problem in my Publisher’s Outlook titled "The ISP As PBX: Everybody Wins" back in the March/April 1997 issue of CTI. The premise of that column was that a new class of product would allow ISPs to provide a service that allows users to receive calls while surfing the Web. By modifying your modem’s dial-out string, you enable a busy call-forward service on your phone line that redirects all calls to your ISP while you’re online. When the ISP receives the forwarded call, the number received through caller ID is your phone number, which the ISP has stored in a database. By querying the database, your IP address is found and a Java applet on your computer notifies you that you have an incoming call. If you decide to take the call, the ISP can send it to you using Internet telephony. Since the conversation goes from the ISP’s POP to your computer with no routers in between, the quality of the conversation is as good as any phone line, with a slight bit of latency depending on the hardware used on both ends.

CALL WAITING PRODUCTS
Until recently, I had been waiting patiently for someone to make an announcement that they were offering a turnkey product enabling ISPs to offer this service. There are currently a few products that allow ISPs to take advantage of this functionality.

Nortel
Nortel recently released their aptly named Internet Call Waiting. The product consists of a PC-based industrial computer running Windows NT, with an ISDN PRI interface to the PSTN and a 10BaseT Ethernet interface. Nortel’s solution allows your customers to see the name and phone number of the calling party, plus various options that allow users to answer the call, route the call to voice mail, play a message to the caller, or redirect the call to another phone number. Although Internet Call Waiting does not yet support Internet telephony, that capability is planned for a future release.

eFusion
eFusion also offers an Internet call waiting package in its eStream Enhanced Internet Services Application Gateway. eFusion’s product does allow Internet telephony calls to be received by the busy party, provided they have a multimedia PC. Going one step further, this gateway also allows customers to place outbound voice-over-IP calls while surfing the Web. The gateway supports up to 120 lines with an E1 connection, runs on Windows NT, and can communicate with H.323 clients.

Lucent Technologies
Not to be left out, Lucent Technologies has announced an Internet call waiting solution that will be available in the third quarter. Lucent’s product will also allow for additional services such as unified messaging, enabling access to voice mail, e-mail, and fax in a single inbox. They will not immediately support Internet telephony, but plan to in the future.

EVERYONE WINS, AGAIN
Internet call waiting is a great example of an enhanced service which is truly useful, and therefore worth paying for. This type of product is a solution that provides universal benefits. The service provider wins because he can either charge for the service, use it as a stepping stone to offering Internet telephony service, or just offer it to build customer loyalty. The local phone company wins because they are receiving revenue on the busy call-forward service, as well as being paid by interexchange carriers per minute for calls that terminate in their area. The interexchange carrier wins because they have more completed calls. Finally, the calling and called parties benefit by having their calls completed.

It is puzzling to me that phone companies have been fighting Internet telephony by lobbying our government to regulate the industry as soon as possible. The Internet telephony industry is what makes it possible for Internet call waiting products to complete a great deal more telephone calls than is possible today. Telephone companies will be able to increase their revenues substantially because of Internet telephony. Those phone companies that also offer ISP service are now able to make even more money if they opt to charge for Internet call waiting service.

I look forward to the day when all Web surfers can enable an Internet call waiting service. As a caller, the frustration level goes down, and called parties now may have the option of taking these once-missed incoming calls. For those of you that are looking forward to the worldwide implementation of this technology, we’re trying to help. I invite you to e-mail your phone company and service provider with this URL so they can help cut down on annoying and frustrating busy signals caused by increased Internet usage over single analog lines.

Dvorak Bridges PCs, Telephony At CTI™ EXPO Fall ‘98

Although all TMC’s publications include telecommunications-related editorial, my formal training is that of a computer hardware and software engineer, as well as a programmer and MIS director. It is my background from the datacom side of the industry that has produced publications like CTI — the first and only magazine covering telecommunications with a computer magazine look. TMC™ Labs was the first telecom laboratory in the publishing industry covering the telecom sector in a manner similar to computer publications. As the telecommunications market converges with data communications through Internet telephony and CTI, TMC™ is uniquely positioned to bring you the best of telecommunications and data communications expertise.

It is this varied experience that has led us to acquire a keynote speaker for CTI™ EXPO Fall ’98 that bridges the PC and telephony worlds. Those of you familiar with computer magazines have no doubt read John Dvorak’s regular and popular columns found in many mass market computer and data networking publications. Aside from influencing millions of readers every week in his columns and radio shows, Dvorak has also written a book titled Dvorak’s Guide To PC Telecommunications. Dvorak’s experience in data communications and telecommunications as well as his impressive stage presence and reputation as a public speaker make him a perfect fit as a keynote speaker for CTI™ EXPO, the exposition of computer, Internet, and network telephony.

Dvorak’s session, "The Third Age of Computing," will focus on the future of computers — including the movement to palm-based computers and IP telephony. The session will also include a timeline of this evolution. John’s insights are leading-edge, and his ideas are truly unique. One important point John will discuss is that palm-based computers and calculators don’t crash. As form factors shrink and we eventually embrace palm-based size as standard, we can look forward to computers that reboot only when we decide to turn them off — not when they decide to crash.

Having a mainstream computer visionary like Dvorak speaking at CTI™ EXPO truly signals a shift from CTI being thought of as a niche field to a mainstream market. Dvorak will be speaking at CTI™ EXPO Fall ’98 in the San Jose Convention Center, December 2, 1998, at 9:45 a.m.

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Fall For San Jose: Escape To CTI™ EXPO Fall ’98

I recently visited the Silicon Valley area, including the San Jose Convention Center, which will be home to CTI™ EXPO Fall ’98, December 1-4, 1998. The San Jose Convention Center is a gorgeous ten-year-old facility that looks brand new. Add in the fact that the center is connected to the San Jose Hilton, and you have a truly beautiful environment for a trade show (plus a convenient way to get to the hall in the morning!).

I suggest you make your airline and hotel reservations now. Our inaugural CTI™ EXPO in Baltimore, Maryland sold out hotels a full two months before the event. Many attendees were forced to stay in DC and commute to our show each day. I also urge you to make airline reservations as soon as possible, as CTI™ EXPO Fall ’98 takes place a week after Thanksgiving — one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. The sooner you make your reservations, the better. Our preliminary attendance figures suggest that we will have upwards of 16,000 attendees at this show.

The Silicon Valley area is beautiful, and San Jose is close to state parks with hundreds of miles of mountainside hiking trails and the most varied wildlife I’ve seen outside of the Discovery Channel. Plus, there’s beach and boardwalk access in nearby Santa Cruz. First-class restaurants and nightlife, as well as family attractions such as the Tech Museum Of Innovation, are just a stone’s throw from the convention center — combined, they make for an event you can bring your whole family to. San Francisco is a quick 40-minute drive and is absolutely beautiful in December. The city is legendary for its tourist attractions, and has undergone a rebirth as newly constructed hotels and attractions are popping up on many street corners.

Those of us expecting brutal winters due the terror of La Nia should be pleased to have an excuse to escape to the sunny west coast in the late fall.

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