November 1998

• Who Gets The Bill(ing)?
• Melita Enteprise Explorer Manages Distributed Call Centers
• New Frontiers For The Personal Computing Paradigm
• Web/Wireless Integration Enables "Info-On-The-Go"

Who Gets The Bill(ing)?

Internet telephony is arriving. More and more products and services are mentioning Internet telephony and related terms - VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), IP telephony - and the public awareness of the possibilities represented by Internet telephony is increasing. Interest has gone beyond the initial "cheap long distance" headline, and has moved on to look at the across-the-board advantages and possibilities of Internet telephony systems.

One issue that remains to be addressed is how billing will be handled in a growing Internet telephony marketplace, and whether telephony billing will overlap with billing for related areas such as video and straight data transferring. For a standard phone call using the PSTN, billing is an elaborate but well choreographed dance involving the various companies that handle and carry the call. Internet telephony introduces several new participants to this dance, as well as including the familiar companies from the traditional telephony market.

One company that has offered a potential solution to Internet telephony billing is Telephony Experts, whose Telephony Gateway Billing Manager (TGBM) integrates with VocalTec's Telephony Suite and allows access to a centralized billing platform, based on Microsoft's SQL Server 6.5. The Telephony Billing System (TBS) can be used in either a switched or switchless model, and it allows for real-time prepaid/postpaid billing, as well as various features such as QoS, PIN generation, least cost routing, and automatic cutoff of calls when an account exceeds its credit limit or prepaid balance.

In either the switched or switchless modes, all calls are tracked in real time by the TBS through the TGBM, which handles all billing and authorization procedures. In the switchless configuration, VocalTec gateways are employed to originate and terminate calls through the PSTN, while the switched configuration employs Telephony Experts' Talking NT Switching Platform to originate and terminate calls.

At present, Telephony Experts' approach to Internet telephony billing runs on the familiar long-distance paradigm, charging users per minute of usage. However, there are other possibilities on the horizon, one of which involves a metered service approach, similar to your local gas bill. With the increased convergence of voice and data over the same network, a packet-based billing model might become more effective than one based on time. At the moment, the TGBM is designed to handle real-time voice and fax billing. As Internet telephony becomes more familiar, and with billing solutions like the TGBM in place, we should see increased interest in applications such as video conferencing across the public Internet.

Like many aspects of Internet-related technology, Internet telephony billing is an area that still needs some development before it will be as smooth and familiar as its traditional counterpart. Telephony Experts' integration with VocalTec gateways, however, is one step toward making Internet telephony as easy as picking up the phone is now.

-- Chris Donner, CTI magazine

Melita Enteprise Explorer ManagesDistributed Call Centers

Expansion is a real part of the increasingly global economy, and this is true of call centers as much as any other industry. However, expansion that dramatically alters or interferes with a company's business strategies and products can result in losses. In effect, the act of expanding can remove the very reason the company needed to expand in the first place.

The potential for costs to undermine the need for expansion can often be seen when the company in question is a call center. Resources and business processes within a distributed call center can be difficult to manage with any consistency, and a call center might never be more vulnerable to losses than when it is undergoing an expansion. Effective management during, and after, an expansion can be crucial to continued growth of a call center.

Resources such as agents, information, and even hardware (PBX, ACD, IVR) will run more smoothly if they are effectively managed and deployed to where they are needed most, and Melita International's Enterprise Explorer aims to do just that. Enterprise Explorer provides a centralized management system that can be used across a geographically dispersed enterprise. Additionally, the new Enterprise Explorer can manage up to 800 call center agents.

By placing Mixed Media Servers - a new component of the Explorer software - at multiple sites, a call center is able to expand its operations to additional sites without duplicating hardware resources and without worrying about loss of effectiveness in such areas as developing customer relationships or managing information storage and retrieval. The Mixed Media Servers are interconnected between sites through an ATM Network Interface Card (NIC) installed in each server, which then connect using T1/E1, or Internet telephony.

Such enterprise-wide communications increase call center efficiency and make it easier for a growing call center to expand without sacrificing the infrastructure and strategies that have helped it to succeed thus far in the industry. Also, Enterprise Explorer is effective for smaller, single-site call centers, and will be ready to grow with them when the time comes for them to expand

Currently in Beta testing, Enterprise Explorer should be generally available in early 1999.

-- Chris Donner, CTI magazine

New Frontiers For The Personal Computing Paradigm

The idea of the PC - instigated, many say, by the IBM ad campaign for its PS/1 computer - has proven so popular that people can't resist applying it to things other than computers. Or, to be more accurate, people can't resist extending the idea of the PC to anything the PC touches.

One example of this tendency is telecommunications. As the PC platform grows more capable of accommodating telecommunications, the more the users of telecommunications services express a proprietary interest in telecommunications. The greater their demand for customized services. The greater their willingness to consider taking their telecommunications destiny in their own hands. But, since this article is running in CTI magazine, we needn't belabor this point. CTI is, in large measure, the story of removing telecommunications services to customer premises equipment, and elaborating these services on open computing platforms.

So much for the premises. More recently, with the growth of the Internet, the residence and the small office/home office have proven fertile ground for further cultivating the idea of the PC. Basically, the idea, applied to mass market telecommunications services, is to satisfy growing demand for bandwidth. However, for this idea to take root, for the PC paradigm to really apply, someone may have to find a way to provision broadband services in a scalable way.

This is a significant challenge, since bandwidth is typically allocated, if not in one-size-fits-all style, at least in a way very close to it. You can have plain old telephone service, you can have IDSN (well, maybe), or you can have a leased line (if you're really big - but this will take you out of the mass market).

The challenge, then, is to break away from the one-size-fits-all world, to the infinitely customizable world, the very accommodating world, of PC-style telecommunications. One answer to this challenge is Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL). But can ADSL services be provisioned in a scalable way? It can, according to Virata, a company that provides integrated software on silicon solutions for fast Internet access. Virata, a proponent of personal broadband services, works with companies that serve the xDSL, fiber to the curb (FTTC), wireless local loop, and cable TV markets.

In its bid to satisfy the bandwidth needs of home, SOHO, and enterprise users, Virata supports the G.Lite standard. According to Greg Sheppard, vice president with Dataquest, "G.Lite is a lucrative, standards-based service for telcos, providing fast Internet access for consumers. With download speeds of 1.5 Mbps downstream and 512 Kbps upstream, Web pages will snap onto your compute screen. G.Lite also allows consumers to talk on the phone and surf the Web at the same time without adding a second phone line."

Tangible evidence of Virata's support for G.Lite is the company's new single-chip G.Lite modem, Beryllium. Modems which incorporate Beryllium will allow users to access the Internet in the fastest mode available to them - standard Ethernet at the office, G.Lite from home, or 56 Kbps on the road. Beryllium incorporates the physical layer, networking protocols, and the necessary software to develop a high-speed modem or network interface card into one product.

"Combo solutions such as Beryllium," said Sheppard, "take advantage of the emerging G.Lite technology, while still supporting current analog technology and speeds. This upgradability allows consumers to protect their investment in modem technology and receive the fastest possible data connection available."

For more information, visit Virata's Web site at www.virata.com.

-- Kevin M. Mayer, CTI magazine

Web/Wireless Integration Enables "Info-On-The-Go"

To date, wireless messaging has confined itself to conveying information about the user - reminders about the user's appointments, say, or alerts that the user needs to accomplish some specific task, whether it involves returning a call, or running an errand, or whatever. Other types of information - specifically, information that is still time-sensitive, but not necessarily about the user - well, that's seldom transmitted to pagers, PCS phones, or PDAs. Granted, the broadcasting of information to wireless devices had been tried, but with little success.

In a sense, wireless devices, for all their popularity, have been underutilized. However, at least one recent announcement suggests that wireless devices may soon do more than act as a kind of window on the user's personal affairs. This announcement, released by DataLink, suggests that wireless devices may soon present users a more worldly view.

DataLink indicates it has created a platform - called the Internet to Wireless Portal - that enables real-time Internet-to-Wireless information services. Essentially, the DataLink platform integrates three modes of communication: the Internet, data feeds, and wireless communications.

Subscribers use a DataLink Web site to customize the news and information they need, and when they want it delivered. A DataLink service then continuously monitors and filters major news and data feeds. Then, DataLink delivers the information, timed in accordance with the customer's, via wireless technology, to a customer's pager, PCS phone, or PDA. Information may also be delivered whenever a customer-specified event occurs. Such events might include a stock price increase, a press announcement, etc.

Specific DataLink services include MessageX (which enables anyone with Internet access to send text messages to a customer's wireless device via the MessageX.com Web site); Sports2Go (which provides instant alerts to user-specified sports events and news); QuoteXpress (an investment monitoring service that alerts subscribers to user-defined stock market events); and CommodityXpress (which tracks the commodities a subscriber wants to follow).

DataLink anticipates its platform will stimulate a proliferation of real-time data feeds and information service products. Indeed, the company estimates its potential market to be 80 million customers by the year 2000, based on the growth of the wireless market. In support of its claims, DataLink cites statistics about the proliferation of wireless devices. For example, more than 42 percent of the workforce, approximately 48 million people, carry mobile wireless data devices. PCS phones are expected to grow to 100 million units by 2002, and alphanumeric pages are growing at 35 percent per year. According to DataLink, this growth demonstrates the mobile user's desire and need to stay connected to important information.

It will be interesting to see how services such as those provided by DataLink may change the way the Internet is used. At present, the Internet and the Web is sort of a giant information attic. Users poke about here and there, hoping to find something useful, or at least interesting. Were you to look around your attic, you might use a flashlight; were you to look around the Internet, you'd most likely use a PC-based browser and a favorite search engine. Either way, interesting things do turn up, and often. But they're seldom what you had originally set out to find.

With services such as those envisioned (and realized) by DataLink and other companies (check out Quotrek, QuoteAlert, Pocket Quote Pro, Intelligent Information Inc., and Airbroker), the Internet will seem less an exercise in serendipity. People may even stop trying to see the Internet as a giant library, which may not in fact be the Internet's destiny, or even the one it should have. Instead, the Internet may become an ever-present, infinitely customizable, real-time information resource, attuned not just to research and recreation, but the world of action.

For more information, contact the company at 408-367-1700, or visit the company's Web site at www.datalink.net.

-- Kevin M. Mayer, CTI magazine