Know What You Need from UC Before You Buy
For the past four years, since Microsoft made its first pass at unified communications, the market has been flooded by vendors and providers announcing new products, features, and services, billing each as a must-have for successful business. Certainly, there's no question as to their general relevance, but the global UC superstore that has been created really underscores the need for businesses to first understand their goals before seeking out solutions.

Dark Fiber: Glut or Drought?
It is interesting to see how many people in the U.S. communications networking business are so conflicted when it comes to the topic of fiber infrastructure. Some still believe that there is a glut of fiber out there in America, although their numbers are dwindling, and that anyone can just go out in their yard, dig a hole and voila there is the fiber, open and free for all to connect to for any reason. Ah, blissful ignorance, what a blessing for those that do not actually need to get things accomplished.

Next-Generation 911 Trend: End-to-End Solutions for Large Enterprise Customers
As those of us in the communications industry continue to define next generation 911, a new term has entered the evolving next-gen vernacular: end-to-end. What does end-to-end NG911 mean, and what are the implications for large enterprise, government, military customers and PSAPs?

Cloud Interconnects: Bridging the Cloud Networks
One of the most overlooked, yet also one of the most complex and critical, components to a successful cloud deployment is bridging the network between the on-premises data center resources with the off-premises cloud-based services. A network-level cloud interconnect tool is most often associated with a hybrid cloud, where application services are shared on- and off-premises, but these tools can also offer value for public and private clouds as well. At their core, cloud interconnection solutions are network tools: they connect two different data centers over the WAN. But with a few exceptions, we don't see these tools getting mass attention when people talk about creating public, private, or hybrid clouds.

Top Four Benefits of 380VDC in the Data Center
The battles between AC and DC power have been around since the late 1800's. It was Edison (DC) versus Westinghouse and Tesla (AC). The early battles were so intense that Edison went around to state and local fairs zapping animals with AC to "prove" that AC was unsafe. He even went as far as inventing the electric chair to show that AC power was so unsafe it could be used to reliably execute criminals.

Cloud Hunting - A Guided Tour
Cloud computing is generally thought of as the delivery of computing technology via software as a service and an excellent replacement for the traditional customer-premises equipment IT infrastructure. However, many industry insiders now consider that definition somewhat dated and a traditional approach. Private clouds have become quite popular and hybrid combinations of traditional, public and private solutions have also emerged. This mix provides a wide array of choices but still leaves open the question of what is the best model for a organization's needs.

Clouds for Real-Time Media; Considerations and Concerns
You can't go too long shuffling through e-mails these days without seeing something on how IT is looking to move everything to the cloud - whether it's private, public or hybrid, IaaS, PaaS or SaaS. But is the cloud ready for everything?

Automatic Provisioning of SIP Routes with VIPR
The most promising aspect of the VIPR technology is not just the ability to automatically and securely provision SIP routes between VoIP islands, but to also automatically update and remove these routes when a user changes its phone number.

Will Cloud Services Be Good Enough?
Back almost three decades ago, when the grey-hairs among us first started hearing about and maybe lugging around big/heavy cell phones, we knew the call quality would be terrible and dropped calls would be de rigueur. However, the power of mobility was overwhelming, and we accepted the bad sound quality, poor coverage and outlandish per-minute rates because of the benefit of not being tied to a wired desk phone. That is, we accepted mobile phones as users, and now there are more connected mobile devices than people. Now IT is not wrestling so much with how to support mobile devices as with how to support the bring-your-own-device trend.

Talking Video
Video phones have arrived! (But they can't talk to each other.) Videophones have been coming soon since AT&T demonstrated one at the 1964 New York World's Fair. Today, most phones sold in the U.S. are smartphones, and high-end smartphones have user-facing cameras, adequate screens and high-speed data connections. Plus these phones have chips optimized for video processing, notably H.264 acceleration in hardware, which enables the video stream to be compressed for easier transmission without excessive power drain.

What Does the Future Hold for the Premise Network?
I recently presented at the 2011 US Telecom Voice Innovation Conference on the topic, "The Premise Network." While it might not sound so interesting, the premise network is undergoing a great deal of change because work is not just a place to go anymore, it's a state of mind.

Top 5 Limitations of SMS
The story of texting in 2011 is one of David and Goliath. SMS - the Goliath of mobile messaging - has been under attack from numerous upstarts, some not so small.

US Foreign Policy Needs Reform
Go to any of the recent shows in technology and telecom such as CTIA Wireless and Interop and you see a huge presence from Chinese telecom companies like Huawei and, to a lesser extent, ZTE. Talk to the competition and you will hear them say these companies are poised to take over the world.

Reforming Universal Service
After years of discussion and debate, the Federal Communications Commission this fall finally made its move to address Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation. The FCC in mid October voted unanimously to retool these systems, which it noted "have been widely viewed as broken, and long overdue for reform."

VIPR, a Game-Changing Technology for Bridging VoIP Islands
It is 2011, and the videophone on my desk is even more useless than the videophone I used back in 1999. Because of the limitations of the telephone technology it was using at the time the quality of the video was not very good, and the terminal itself was expensive, but it had a formidable advantage over the current technology: I could use it with anybody else that also had a videophone, because the telephone network was and still is ubiquitous.

The Broadband Communications Revolution - Let's Talk
I was sitting in a coffee shop the other day feeling the effects of my third coffee that morning. As I sat and watched the crowd I realized that most of my fellow caffeine junkies sat silently, totally engrossed with their smartphones or tablets, and even those that were not in use were placed strategically on the table in front of them. In my caffeine-induced haze I thought to myself: "Has the smartphone adapted to society, or has society adapted to the smartphone?" I recently sat down with Pascal Dore, the mobility product manager at Media5 Corp., to discuss how the smartphone has become such an integral part of today's world.

The Data Experience
As I enjoyed my children's first trip to Walt Disney World recently, I couldn't help but notice the number of mobile devices being used in the parks for a variety of reasons, from uploading photos to Facebook and Twitter, to finding information about attractions and other activities at the parks using Disney's mobile app (which, incidentally, became quite useful in planning each day's activities).

Is the Cloud Ready for You?
It seems like 2011 is the year of the cloud, and if you believe everything you read, you'd think it was a foregone conclusion that this is where all things IT will end up before long. This scenario may well come to pass, but when thinking about unified communications, I'd say we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

The Excitement in Mobile Internet Infrastructure Growth
The results from a recent Synergy Research Group report on mobile Internet infrastructure show that the market is growing at an annual rate of 24 percent with the two key segments of mobile multimedia gateways and mobile IP backhaul growing at rates of 42 percent and 47 percent respectively.TeleGeography also reported that at the end of the second quarter of 2011 the number of 3G subscribers passed the 900 million mark, showing a 45 percent growth rate from the year prior.

Continuity Planning 101 - A Continuing Educational Series : Eating Your Own Dog Food
Although the Northeast is not unfamiliar with hurricanes, they are very infrequent. This was the first hurricane to officially make landfall in New Jersey since 1903 and one of the worst storms ever to hit the state. With New Jersey already experiencing the wettest August on record, the heavy rainfall wreaked havoc.

A Look Back at an Important Year for E911
It has been quite a year for E911, as legislation, standards and technology have all taken significant steps forward. Here's a rundown of the year's key developments that may impact your organization.

The World is Already Going Real Time - When Will We?
Change is frightening and disruptive. Most organizations resist it - both out of uncertainty and out of fear. Worse, many organizations (e.g.: established vendors, embedded organizations) have a vested interest in the status quo.

Let's Define 4G Before the Government Does
Every few years the American people elect politicians who say one thing to get elected and do another once in office. Conflicts of interest, scandals related to campaign contributors, tax evasion and other related issues have made us numb, and political ethics is a phrase you may have just read now for the first time.

Three Hidden Benefits When Moving to the Cloud
Much like moving into a new home or office, moving applications into the cloud is an exciting time. While the actual move is daunting, it's also an excellent time to discover some hidden treasures. It's a great time to take an inventory of what you have and decide what to throw away and what to put to better use.

Federal Regulation Continues to Move Toward Non-Interconnected VoIP Services
The first FCC order requires non-IVP providers to contribute to the Telecommunications Relay Services Fund, which subsidizes relay services for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing. The order requires such providers to report interstate end user revenues and remit a percentage of that revenue to the TRS Fund.

Wild Nights, Hot & Crazy Days
Apple sold 9.25 million iPads in its fiscal third quarter alone. It owns the tablet space, of course, but Amazon, BlackBerry, HP and Samsung, among others, have introduced tablets of their own in an attempt to get a piece of the action.

Federated Authentication for the Cloud: Follow the SaaS Model
A recent survey reported that 70 percent of CIOs consider security a critical component of any reliable cloud deployment. That same survey, however, also stated that almost 26 percent of the same respondents are moving some amount of their corporate data into the cloud today.

The New American Dream: Real Broadband Speed
America has always offered the promise of a better life for everyone. Over the years the good life has been projected into the minds of the masses as a certain standard that comes with the basic ingredients. Some of the more popular benefits of this society over the past several generations have been the notion of a chicken in every pot and a car in every driveway. In the current generation, one could argue that the new standard is a megabit in every home (or in every hand).

E911 Applications in a Virtual Environment
Virtualization allows enterprises to maximize the efficiency of their data centers by spreading applications and their associated workloads across multiple servers, rather than having each application with a dedicated server. With virtualization, server efficiency increases, and the overall number of servers is dramatically reduced, saving both capital and operating expense costs.

Community Clouds: The Next Big Thing?
It's becoming relatively trivial for an IT organization to seek out a cloud provider that meets its technical and business needs. In fact, most successful cloud providers today are catering to a particular benefit of cloud computing, be it the ability for IT to manage their own resources if they wish (or not to, if they prefer that route), or easy integration into the existing IT infrastructure, or even dirt-cheap turn-and-burn resources that briefly spike then go away forever

Effective Marketing Through Knowledge
In order for your company to win the marketing game, accurate industry information is critical. Some of that information can be hard to come by unless you have access to the right people and organizations. At ITEXPO West in Austin I was reminded of a phrase used by the New York State Lottery - "You cannot win if you do not play". This column will cover my personal experience for a single 24-hour period and how ITEXPO made me a winner.

SIP Trunking and Beyond: New Business Models for Service Providers?
The most obvious ones are communication services that include HD voice or video. This can include two-way point-to-point or multi-point conferencing capabilities. Next are unified communications and the ability to federate these services across business domains. Other services that add value to real-time communications include session recording and integration of real-time communications in web applications.

Wireless Networks: Why Enterprises Are Moving to Controller-Based Access Point Solutions
The controller-based solution offers a centralized management model while the autonomous model has the access point providing all the functionality, including security, networking, management, etc. Most major wireless manufacturers offer both solutions, but the trend is moving fast to controller-based solutions in the enterprise space.

What's Unified Communications, and Does It Really Matter?
For all its innovation and advancements, for the past half-decade the communications industry has struggled with a seemingly menial task surrounding one of its most popular terms - defining unified communications.

The Next Wave in Communications Convergence
Communications convergence has taken many forms, some of which are still going on today. One key convergence from the 1980s involved the converging of open systems-based computing with telecommunications. The computer-telephony integration industry was born, and from that, Dialogic emerged as a key player.

Prediction: Meg Whitman Lasts at HP 12 Months Max
By now you know Meg Whitman is replacing Leo Apotheker as CEO of HP. Look, I personally like Meg Whitman - she is dynamic, energetic and ran eBay for a good while. Two of the major products under her were the auction site with the same name as the company and PayPal.

Prediction: Meg Whitman Lasts at HP 12 Months Max
By now you know Meg Whitman is replacing Leo Apotheker as CEO of HP. Look, I personally like Meg Whitman - she is dynamic, energetic and ran eBay for a good while. Two of the major products under her were the auction site with the same name as the company and PayPal.

Collateral Damage: How White Spaces Could Get Squeezed By Incentive Auctions
Various efforts at the federal level that call for the repacking of TV channels could significantly diminish the potential for white spaces. Perhaps the most prevalent effort on this front is known as S.911, which the Senate Commerce Committee passed in June. Other potential threats to white spaces, according to Stephen Coran, an attorney with Rini Coran, include a discussion draft from the House majority of the Energy and Commerce Committee, a draft from the House minority, language in the debt ceiling bill, and President Obama's jobs initiative.

The Death of the PSTN
Another ITEXPO has come and gone. For those of you who attended, thanks for coming. If you didn't make it there, you missed out on a lot of good education and networking opportunities, but there's plenty of time for you to arrange plans for the next ITEXPO.

The Eyes Have It: Technology & the Fight between Good and Evil
Communications technology played a central role in enabling the villains who caused death and destruction during this summer's London area riots. But don't despite techno citizens! Many of these same technologies are being used by government authorities to fight crime.

Analyzing Google's Motorola Mobility Move
Google this summer purchased patents as part of the acquisition of Motorola Mobility - 24,500 of them to be exact. That gives the deal a $12.5 billion valuation, which puts the value per patent at $510,204 apiece. But the search giant also gets 19,000 employees on top of the 29,000 it already has.

Top 3 Misconceptions about NEBS
The term NEBS stands for network equipment-building system and is a set of technical requirements that was first developed at Bell Labs with a single goal of making network telecom equipment completely fail proof. NEBS-compliant hardware ensures carriers that the equipment they buy meets clearly identified standards regarding temperature and humidity, resistance to fire, equipment handling, earthquake survivability, vibration (both in the office and when being transported), airborne contaminants and acoustic noise.

Is Voice Self-Service Still Relevant?
With the explosion of new channels in the past decade, our customers are able to choose any number of ways to contact and work with us. Many experts are seeing conversations move from the web to mobile devices - a logical and organic channel shift. But where does this leave the voice channel?

FCC Takes Another Look at E911 Rules for VoIP
In July the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking aimed at improving VoIP E911 services. In particular, the NPRM is aimed at revising the scope of services that E911 rules should apply to, and establishing automatic location information requirements for VoIP services.

Continuity Planning 101 - A Continuing Educational Series A Day Late and a Dollar Short
A one-day delay in implementing a disaster recovery/response plan is going to cost a lot more than a dollar. Delays of even a few hours could be very costly, and lengthy delays could devastate a business. Yet despite today's wide array of highly evolved DR choices, delays continue to occur.

Social Media Safeguarded
Firms are using more consumer-style web applications, and 84 percent of firms are increasing their use of web applications, according to Forrester. As consumer grade tools and services such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn enter into the IT security landscape, companies are encountering increasing risks. Internet applications, web services and other consumer online products are swiftly distorting the lines between corporate and personal usage, while data loss and malware outbreaks are snowballing out of control.

Mastering the Electro-Political Engineering of Telecom Standards Bodies
If you have ever been associated with an industry standards body, you know that there can be a lot of complex dynamics surrounding these types of organizations. Sometimes, you have black-and-white, civil war-like clarity between rival standards (e.g., GSM vs. CDMA).

Poor Standards
By the time this article is published it should be well known that the United States government debt rating has been downgraded by one of the ratings agencies, Standard & Poor's. It is somewhat difficult to imagine that an organization that rated Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac mortgages as AAA when in fact they were junk - which helped lead the United States and world into the most recent recession - would have any credibility left to now in turn downgrade the United States itself from AAA.

Discussing the Cloud: Management, DR, Anything Goes!
Over the past year, I've hosted a number of cloud industry panels on the concerns, challenges, and (hopefully) benefits of moving applications into the cloud. I always start the panel discussion by asking for opinions on the No. 1 challenge facing an enterprise when thinking about moving to the cloud, but then each panel session takes off in a different direction based on the panel members, the audiences, and what concerns or news stories are most prevalent at the time.

Technology, Solutions & Spending
Communications technology is pervading virtually every aspect of our lives. That said, investment in such technology continues to grow despite our lagging economy.

Fiber, Broadband, the Net - What Does it All Mean?
It is difficult to have a meaningful and productive discussion between any two or more people if those people all speak a different language. In any business dealing, let alone a casual conversation, if one person for example only speaks English and the other only Chinese then not a whole lot will be accomplished. At least in this situation it is clear that one side does not understand the other. In the world of communications infrastructure, ironically, people are speaking the same language, but in many cases they have different definitions of the words they are using. This leads to mass confusion and bad decisions that ultimately can cause serious problems.

Small Cells to Make a Big Difference in Customer Experience
It wasn't long ago that connectivity was the big challenge. Regardless of where subscribers - both business and consumer users - traveled, there was always a question of whether reliable Internet access or cell phone coverage would be available.

Are College Students the Canary in the Coal Mine for Enterprise Smartphone Use?
As a result, many colleges and universities are phasing out the landlines that have traditionally connected students with their schools and the outside world. Aside from the occasional poor signal through the brick and steel exterior walls of the dorm, this tech trend is changing the game for college telecommunications managers charged with providing a safe campus for students, faculty, staff and visitors.

Video: The Next UC Wave
Today, video calls are confined to the enterprise local area network, or at best within the service provider's own network. This limitation creates islands of use that restrict users to videoconferencing with a limited number of contacts. Since video is not a service that can be deployed via SIP trunking service (SIP trunks support voice only), expanding video calling outside of these artificial boundaries may be difficult.

Competing Effectively in the Global Economy - The New 18th Century
Statistics for the first half of 2011 revealed that while many businesses reported increased revenues and profits, unemployment remained over 9 percent. Globalization was mentioned as a contributing factor, and some analysts predicted that unemployment levels would remain high. The term associated with this latest economic model is the "new normal". Frankly, nothing is new, and change is the true definition of normal.

Simplifying IT with Converged Infrastructures
Over the last 15 years, IT has experienced a massive growth in data center sprawl. At the same time, the cost to manage these assets has climbed. Today about 60 percent of the cost is tied up in management expenditures (acquisition, management and power/cooling) compared to 60 percent being the purchase price of the server in 1996.

SIP Trunking and Beyond - Time to Giddy Up?
SIP trunking has made some great strides in recent years, enabling service providers to cost effectively introduce VoIP services to business customers. It started with a proof-of-concept phase that quickly transitioned to a phase where vendor and standardization efforts combined to ensure device interoperability that helped the market for service provider-offered SIP trunking services expand.

Analyzing the Recent Highs and Lows in Communications-Related News
My recommendation is that every successful login should be greeted with information about previous login attempts, and voicemail systems should also record the calling number for potential future investigation if needed. If there is no caller ID information, the system should only allow one or two login attempts. When users log in to websites they also should be presented with the last failed and valid login.

Austin Has a Lot to Offer, Including ITEXPO West
It's September. For many - including my now middle-school aged (yikes!) daughter and high school math teacher husband - that means it's back-to-school time. A lot of folks, especially this year after a swelteringly hot summer across the country (you know something is up when the Phoenix area is not a standout on the July national weather reports), also look forward to September for its promise of more moderate temperatures.

Flying Your Apps in the Cloud (Or On the Ground)
For most organizations the deployment lifecycle for any application is a continual, never-ending process: from spec to design to staging to testing to deployment…and then start the process over with the next latest and greatest version. When IT adds in new infrastructure challenges such as deploying an application in the cloud, things can begin to spin out of control. It's no wonder that enterprise IT often feels like it's chasing its own tail.

Adapt or Die: 8x8 is Living Proof that Change is Good
Compression Labs was among the graphics chip company's first customers, and it provided the algorithm used by AT&T for its Picturephone. So Integrated Information Technology, with its four-person staff and in business less than a year, already had AT&T using its technology, notes Martin.

Making the Most of Experience
In all areas of technology, the incremental changes we witness are a function of driving an enhanced user experience (well, with the underlying drive for driving increased revenue, as well, of course). But, in order to make money, you've got to create an enticing and memorable user experience.

Infrastructure of the Internet Society
I was invited to speak on a panel at the Internet Society - New York Chapter on June 14, 2011, as part of the INET Conferences. The topic of the panel was "Pushing Technology Boundaries" and covered issues including Internet infrastructure models, the impact of potential technology breakthroughs and community fiber. Prior to the event the panel the moderator, Leslie Daigle, chief Internet technology officer of the Internet Society, sent out a list of questions to the panelists to set the stage and gain certain insights as to the various perspectives.

Diameter Routing: Core vs. Edge
To move and monetize all of this data, behind the scenes operators rely heavily on the Diameter protocol. Diameter controls how content traverses equipment and devices. For example, it carries the messages that give subscribers permission to access websites, applications and services. It delivers charging commands so service providers can correctly bill customers based on usage, time of day and other filters. Diameter is also essential for mobility management, giving subscribers the ability to roam onto partner networks.

The Time is Now for Enterprises, Emergency Communications Professionals to Prepare for Next-Generation 911
Unfortunately, today's 911 technology is not capable of receiving text messages. However, in the immediate near future, that capability and much more is coming with the deployment of Next Generation 911. NG911 is being designed to incorporate emergency calls for service from both traditional telephone devices like land line and cellular telephones and non-traditional methods including text, instant messaging, pictures and video.

Quantifying Unified Communications
SIP trunking is considered an enabler for unified communications. Moving a business' communications infrastructure to SIP reduces cost, supports a range of UC applications, and simplifies integration. As such it is very important for VARs and IT managers to explain the added benefit and value of unified communications. Fortunately two studies released late last year offer supporting data that allows us to quantify in dollars and time the advantage gained by incorporating UC.

Time to Get the Lead Back In?
It's estimated that the electronics industry has spent well over $30 billion to comply with the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (known as RoHS). The RoHS directive was officially adopted in 2003 and restricts the use of six hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment. The most notable restriction is lead. Electronic manufacturers around the world have redesigned their products to eliminate lead solder from printed circuit boards solder.

Thinking of Jumping Into New Technologies? Make Sure You're Getting the Basics Right First
Many contact center professionals I speak with talk about how they need to do more on Facebook and Twitter and how important social media is for customer service.They point out how companies like United and Delta got black eyes on Facebook, or how Comcast resolves customer issues on Twitter.

Managing Your Cloud Infrastructure, On- and Off-Premises
Although I've covered virtual machine and infrastructure management here before, I feel like I've barely been able to scratch the surface of what can be written on these topics. Every year seems to bring newer and better management solutions from the big virtual platform companies as well as from third-party management platforms and virtual hosting providers. Management is arguably the key factor in moving to a more agile IT model so it's great to see strong support for data center-level management from all major virtualization players, especially with vendor solutions that target virtualization in a cloud environment.

Network Neutrality Debate Heats Up in the European Union
Close on the heels of the FCC's Open Internet order, on April 19, 2011, the European Commission published The Open Internet and Net Neutrality in Europe. The report comes amid ongoing debate in the EU concerning the proper role of government intervention in the Internet market.

Potential Disaster -- Not Attending ITEXPO in Austin
Organizations need to have business continuity/disaster recovery plans in place to avoid or minimize the impact of adverse events. Fortunately, the 21st Century has provided us with many great technologies that make this process much easier. Plus, new and exciting products are entering the market every day. This fact alone is ample reason to attend ITEXPO West 2011 Sept. 13-15 in Austin to check out the latest offerings.

Cloud Conversations Maturing - Rapidly
I have to admit, I have been skeptical about the cloud since we first started hearing about it. Wasn't that back in the last century? Perhaps it's because I grew up in the mainframe era and saw how quickly computing power at the hands of users, through the emergence of the PC, changed computing forever - and, I thought, also killed centralization, at the same time. Well, maybe I was wrong. And if the improvement in the level conversation about cloud is any indication, I was really wrong.

Telecommuting Tax: Now the States Are Killing Jobs
Some of you may think Fleischer is complaining too much and he needs to give back more of the money he earns to be fair. But you should know that in New Jersey he has to pay $74,000 so a worker can take home $44,000. He doesn't mention this, but I will; if he then is lucky enough to make a profit he could pay 50 percent to more than 60 percent of that money back out to the government through federal and state tax as well as various fees for things like real estate taxes, regulatory compliance, etc.

Growth in VoIP, Hosting
This issue's piece on 8x8 notes that the company has been profitable 13 of the past 14 quarters and added more new businesses in the March quarter than it's ever added before. That has garnered the company acclaim by such financial watchers as The Motley Fool, which in April 2011 named 8x8 as one of Wall Street's best hidden stocks.

Hot Reseller Combo Solutions - The Time Is Now
A burger, fries and shake combo or a BLT sandwich are perennial hot combinations for the food service industry, but what hot combos can resellers offer their customers?

Is The Mobile Market Beyond Intel's Reach?
A while back Intel made news announcing its 3D transistors being commercialized. This new Tri-Gate technology can enable increased computing power at reduced energy levels. We all know that this sort of breakthrough is crucial in mobile computing and even general electronics can benefit from increased performance at lower power draws. Think about the benefit of such technology in data centers for example.

The Global Investment in Broadband Infrastructure
Fear of the unknown continues to plague the minds of many in the United States today. Some live in fear of 2012, the Mayan calendar prophesies and the supposed end of the world. Although a cataclysmic event for the entire Earth is not totally out of the question (on a limited basis just ask the people in Fukushima, Japan), there is something more probably realistic that will end and that is the end of a way of life.

Reliability of SIP Trunks
A common question about SIP trunk adoption regards reliability. Businesses rely heavily on their voice networks; as such, the standard for reliability needs to be much higher than what's generally accepted for consumer use.

Call It HD Location Information for E911 and Asset Management
Last month, I talked about the shadow side of the mobility advantages of H.323 and SIP phones. While their ability to plug in anywhere on the enterprise voice network can reduce significantly the time and labor required to move and administer phones, this mobility also can create serious problems in terms of Enhanced 911 protection and asset management if you don't have a strategy in place to keep the location of each phone up to date.

Geo-location: Adding Context to Virtual Machine Mobility
One of the most interesting new data center models afforded by virtualization is mobility.

Security Without Thought Comes at a Staggering Price
Over the past few years working as a consultant, I have noticed a disturbing trend occurring in companies across multiple industries. Due to the increasing number and seriousness of security breaches, I see companies tightening their security without stopping to consider the total impacts of what they are doing, what problem they are fixing, and how they will identify and address negative issues caused by the changes implemented.

Dinosaur Desk Phone
Why isn't the desk phone dead? I'm talking about the one on the desk of the generic office worker, the cubicle dweller who has a desk with a phone and a PC. I have a mobile phone in my pocket at all times, and spend most of my day in front of a PC that runs Skype. Aren't they a complete substitute?

So What Does the Skype/Microsoft Combination Mean to UC and Customer Collaboration?
Can the consumerization of IT help customer contact? After all, there's been a steady stream of dizzying innovation in consumer web applications - from an array of new features on social networking sites to mobility and gaming advances. We've also seen many of these innovations adapted for use in the enterprise once they've met requirements for things like scalability, security and the means to integrate with other enterprise applications. And the recent announcement of Microsoft's intent to purchase Skype, a software application that allows users to chat and make voice and video calls over the Internet, got me thinking about what this could mean to customer-company communications.

Break Out the Bubbly
Is social networking a great new way now to connect with friends, family and long-lost buddies? A mechanism to drive work productivity? And the best thing to hit Silicon Valley and Wall Street in a long, long time?

Mobility and Video: Education is the Future
Video is supposed to be the next great thing to come to communications. It may well be, at least at the two extremes of the user spectrum - multi-person conferencing (high-end systems) and consumer video chat (Skype, ooVoo, and others). But where it will continue to find adoption challenges is in the daily business communication space.

Can We Trust the Cloud?
Despite some high-profile hiccups along the way, demand for cloud services continues, and it appears as though there's no place for it to go than up. Analysts forecast ongoing growth for such services, telcos and others are snapping up cloud businesses at a rapid pace, and rumor has it that even Apple is funneling some of its energies into launching a cloud-based offering.

Extreme Makeover: Pac-West Finds New Focus, Leadership
It's been a busy few months for Pac-West Telecomm Inc. The company last fall completely changed its business model from that of a traditional carrier-focused CLEC to a cloud infrastructure company, and it's been investing in and learning more about customer needs around this new strategy ever since. In addition, Pac-West just recently welcomed aboard a new CEO.

INTERNET TELEPHONY Congratulates TMC Labs Innovation Awards Winners
TMC Labs has enjoyed discovering new and truly unique and innovative products and services within the VoIP industry for several years and presenting them with a TMC Labs Innovation Award. Our 12th annual TMC Labs Innovation Awards effort was certainly no exception.

HTML5 to Allow 15-Year Post Internet Boom Mega-Cycle
Investing legend Roger McNamee, managing director and co-founder of Elevation Partners, was interviewed on CNBC recently and explained why he is bullish on the tech sector. He commented that Apple is winning and told us why. He continued by saying companies are trading down from Windows to tablets and saving thousands per year on support. This will free up $100 billion worth of revenue per year in this category, he said.There is a titanic clash for Internet control. Will it be app stores or HTML5? Which wins?

Managing the WAN Exostructure for Cloud SLAs
Last month I tackled the idea of WAN optimization for desktop virtualization and the many challenges that users face when their desktop is moved outside of their office walls. Admittedly, virtual desktops that are centrally hosted off-site might be a stretch for many IT organizations, but the WAN and networking challenges that they will have to deal with for any off-premises virtualized solution are still applicable. In a nutshell, when you move something outside of the data center, you have to deal with the WAN. Nowhere does the WAN play a stronger role than in off-premises cloud computing.

Where It's At
Despite economic challenges, the communications industry continues to move forward on a number of fronts, including HD voice and SIP trunking; and growth on the social networking arena continues at an unprecedented pace, making funds more easily accessible to companies in this camp.

Create a Compelling Customer Experience using History, Memory and Knowledge
By harnessing data, which we discussed in the last column, we're able to use it in smarter ways, providing intelligence across all channels and to our agents. Land's End is a great example of smart data use - you can bet the agent will remember that you're calling to order something for your husband's birthday and ask if he liked the navy jacket you bought him last year.

UC Interoperability - Finally Reaching a Crescendo of Interest
The topic of interoperability within the UC space has been an area of interest of mine for several years. I've been concerned that without broad interoperability, UC applications become islands - and island-hopping is not always easy to schedule nor incredibly cost effective.

Some Harsh Private Cloud Realities
The data center is a crucial part of today's society. Without it, the world would come to a grinding halt. Data center managers are cautiously implementing private cloud computing by incrementally leveraging virtualization technology to automate the management and deployment of applications and workloads - a pragmatic way to transform utility computing with automation.

States Take a Closer Look at Fixed VoIP Services
Despite the FCC's broad finding in the 2004 Vonage Order preempting state regulation of certain VoIP services, several states have recently started to challenge its applicability.

The Who, Will and When of Broadband
The Infrastructure Peering column is off to a great start in the mission to properly educate the masses one at a time and all at once. The last two articles covered the Why and How of Broadband, respectively, explaining what the real motivations are for towns, counties and countries around the world to invest in fiber infrastructure to create broadband and how, absent government funds, the investment is financed through a pure commercial model. Now that the components have been laid out they are more easily understood and acted upon. For those that have yet to take action it might help and add a little bit of motivation to take a look at some of the broadband speed statistics from around the world.

Two Months Later: Has Google's New Algorithm Cleaned Up Search Results?
On Feb. 24, Google announced changes to its search algorithm intended to weed out "shallow and low-quality content" - in other words, content farms, aggregators, and other random web detritus that clutters up your search results. The announcement met with the expected chorus of boos and hallelujahs. Now, about three months later, is it early enough to see how successful the changes have been?

Tracking the Location of IP Phones for E911 and Asset Management
One of the real advantages of H.323 and SIP phones is their ability to plug in anywhere on the enterprise voice network and get voice services. This has cost benefits in terms of labor overhead to move and administer phones. However, unless you have a strategy in place to keep the location of each phone up to date, this mobility can create serious problems in terms of Enhanced 911 protection - not to mention asset management.

How Much Business Continuity Protection Is Enough?
The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan continue to reinforce the misconception that most business interruptions are caused by large natural disasters. Actually, most business interruptions are the result of more commonplace local events but can be just as disruptive.

Is Skype Microsoft's Ace in the Hole?
At $8.5 billion, Microsoft overpaid for Skype. That's the initial reaction of much of the industry and, when all is said and done, that may turn out to be true. But, there are too many compelling opportunities for Microsoft to not have made the move.

FCC Now Requires VoIP Outage Reporting

CTIA Statement on Today's FCC Open Meeting

Frost & Sullivan Recognizes AT&T Leadership in Providing Business Communication Services

Lebanon to resolve Internet congestion in six months

Frost & Sullivan Recognizes AT&T Leadership in Providing Business Communication Services; AT&T wins 2011 North American Business Communications Services Company of the Year

Panasonic Receives Recognition in Today's Facility Manager Readers' Choice Awards

Panasonic Receives Recognition in Today's Facility Manager Readers' Choice Awards

Frost & Sullivan Recognizes AT&T Leadership in Providing Business Communications Services