September 1998

BY RICH TEHRANI

Internet telephony: the very term itself seems an oxymoron. The Internet denotes state-of-the-art in computer technology -- the leading (bleeding) edge. Telephony, however, brings to mind reliability -- pick up your telephone night or day, in any weather, and you're sure to get dial tone. In fact, while your Internet access, cable TV, and electricity are expected to fail, your telephone almost always works. The Internet can be likened to a thoroughbred, racing ahead, constantly leading the pack in innovation. Telephony is more like an old workhorse, always reliable, carrying a huge load on its mature and stable legs.

Combining technologies and industries as disparate as the Internet and telephony is not an easy thing to do, and if not for the huge potential to make or save money with Internet telephony, these unlikely bedfellows would never tread on each other's turf. Although it's taken several years, industry analysts have concluded that corporations and service providers alike are embracing Internet telephony. An industry barely a few years old is providing rapid product launches from corporations as influential and diverse as Natural MicroSystems, Dialogic, Lucent, Cisco, Ascend, and Hewlett Packard.

Telephony is not the only benefactor of the Internet's ubiquity. Industry upon industry is expanding, and in the process, the global economy feels the real benefits. Our entire world is now linked together, available to any one with a Web browser. The multitudes of Web users can are reminiscent of the masses of rush hour commuters traveling the roadways of a major city. As more commuters clog the roadways, the roadways must be expanded - the infrastructure must be upgraded - or traffic slows to a crawl. For those of us that rely on the Web for e-mail, file transfers, information gathering, or entertainment, this is not news.

There are huge initiatives underway by Internet backbone providers to increase bandwidth and provide some semblance of Quality of Service (QoS) in the core of the Internet. What is not so clear is how corporations and homes of the future will tap in to the vast power of the 'Net. Will businesses still rely on T1-based frame relay, while consumers use a mix of dial-up, ISDN, and DSL and cable modems? Will satellite-based communications prove to be less expensive than all of the above or will wireless access be the future last-mile solution for inexpensive bandwidth delivery?

Of all the aforementioned last-mile solutions, wireless is among the more fascinating, as evidenced by the fact that broadband wireless has begun to receive tremendous amounts of press as an alternative to traditional wireline technologies. Curiously, the term broadband wireless seems as much an oxymoron as term Internet telephony. It is difficult for many to accept that the air is a medium that can provide sufficient bandwidth for the foreseeable future, yet some experts are saying that wireless technology can indeed provide enough bandwidth until at least the year 2050.

SPIKE TECHNOLOGIES
One of the most eye-opening visits I have ever made was to a company called Spike Technologies, a provider of broadband local loop products. It was during this visit to Spike Technologies that I realized the vast potential of wireless technology.

Spike's core product and technology is called the PRIZM Broadband Delivery Service (BDS). Essentially, this service consists of a PRIZM base station with a proprietary narrow-beam, compact-sectored antenna that communicates with wireless subscriber units that are in line of sight contact with the base station antenna. A single base station can cover up to 2,800 square miles and can be configured to give each user a 10 Mbps upstream and downstream connection while handling a potential of up to 33,000 users (assuming the frequencies are available). 33,000 users! Finally, ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers) may start seeing some real competition.

Spike Technologies recently installed their wireless local loop solution in Merida, Venezuela, thus enabling the local population who were once without phone service to have Internet connectivity, Internet telephony, and videoconferencing with obscene amounts of bandwidth. To put this in perspective, in the current scheme of things an office of 100 users with average Internet access loads could get by with a full T1 (1.5 Mbps) of Internet connectivity and be very satisfied with the speed of their aggregate connection. Now, imagine how well that same office could get by with the PRIZM's 10 Mbps connection.

In countries where the government owns all of the wireless spectrum, it is easy to implement wireless local loop services, since there is no need to auction off parts of the frequency spectrum to various bidders as is done in the United States. Even in the U.S., though many frequencies have already been auctioned off for various market segments, the majority of available frequencies are still up for grabs. Some of these different market segments include Wireless Communications Systems (WCS); Multimegabit Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS); and more recently, Local Multipoint Distribution Services (LMDS). Spike's PRIZM system works with WCS, MMDs and several unlicensed bands as well.

A tour of the Spike Technologies base station revealed a mini wireless central office. A bank of Radio Frequency modems connect to an Ethernet packet switch, which in turn connect to a variety of devices determined by the service provider. Some of the devices I saw included a high-powered video server capable of providing video on demand services for subscribers as well as Internet telephony gateways from Vienna Systems and Ascom Timeplex. The options available to the service provider are limited only by their imaginations. Remote wireless backups, unified messaging, Internet telephony Centrex with greater than PBX functionality, a Web GUI - these are only a few applications that can be provided.

Getting back to the issue of competition in the local exchange market, as it stands now, it is almost a joke. Although the government forces the ILECs to allow CLECs access to the copper that subscribers are connected to, competition has been painfully slow in coming and the thirst for inexpensive bandwidth among subscribers is only getting worse as time goes by.

Wireless last-mile delivery is a wonderful idea in a world whose time may have arrived. Not only is the cost of equipment much less than the potential cost of retrofitting billions of dollars of telephony equipment and old copper, the time to market as well as the time to get a new customer up and running is much faster than traditional wireline providers can offer.

CONCLUSION
There are many equipment providers in the wireless local loop and wireless cable markets. Spike Technologies is one of many companies that are looking to spur competition to the ILECs and also provide local loop services to countries in need of telecommunications infrastructure.

One day soon, we may be able to choose wireless as one of the many methods of receiving broadband access. As time passes, ILECs must be getting nervous. Charging many hundreds and even thousands of dollars for T1 service may not be possible in the next few years if wireless local loop technology keeps advancing at its current rate. For those CLECs looking to enter the broadband wireless market in the U.S., might I recommend that you begin trials in Norwalk, Connecticut where TMC's offices are located? Please?

I would like to thank the over 8,000 attendees that were present at the first ever CTI Expo in Baltimore Maryland. We were expecting 3,000-5,000 and were blown away by the attendance at our first ever event. We did our best to make CTI Expo the most quality event possible.

With the same attention to detail and strict quality standards that we apply to the editorial we produce throughout the range of TMC publications, we set out to produce a high-quality conference program. We applied all the same standards to selecting both topics and speakers for the whole conference program. Our editors, together with the engineers of TMC Labs assisted in selecting the most cutting edge seminar topics and knowledgeable speakers for this event. And, in order to preserve this integrity and high level of quality in future events, only the speakers with the highest possible speaking scores as determined by our conferees will be asked to return to future CTI Expo events.

LEARNING CENTERS
We also spent a great deal of time assembling a group of state-of-the-art vendors to objectively educate attendees on important technologies. At CTI Expo Spring in Baltimore, we offered two learning centers: one focused on PC PBXs and the other dedicated to Internet telephony gateways. The response to these learning centers was truly incredible (see Figures, accompanying photos). Our learning centers were deluged with traffic for the entire show. We have your interests at heart and as such we work closely with learning center participants to make sure to keep our learning centers as objective as possible so as to promote technology education in a no-pressure environment.

Web Call Back
At CTI Expo Fall in San Jose, December 1-4, we will keep the two aforementioned learning centers and will add three more. The first of the new learning centers will be a Web-based call back learning center. This technology features "call me" buttons on a Web site that customers can click on to connect directly to a live agent. This is a fast growing field and it's only a matter of time before every Web site has such a call me button on it. Approximately 6 vendors will be on hand to objectively show you how the technology can be implemented directly into your call center, helping you increase not only sales but customer service as well.

Remote Access
Next, we will offer a remote access/teleworker learning center, for the first time focusing on all technologies that seamlessly connect remote workers to their home office. From call center agents to just about any worker in your organization who needs to be in touch when they leave the office, we will showcase the industry's leading vendors in a pure non-commercial environment. The learning center environment will be devoid of hype and filled with education, allowing you to make informed product-purchasing decisions for your company.

S.100
Finally we are proud to announce an S.100 Client/Server CTI Learning Center. If you have been following the developments of the CTI market, the Enterprise Computer Telephony Forum (ECTF) has announced their S.100 standard for open, client/server computer telephony application development.

Through the use of open APIs, developers can write programs directly to the S.100 server, allowing resources to be shared by multiple applications. These applications can consist of a PBX, ACD, Predictive dialer, and even a programmable switch. CTI will certainly grow at a much faster rate once open client/server-style standards become commonplace and agreed upon by all. Whether S.100 becomes the future standard or not is up to the market to decide. In the meantime, CTI Expo will provide the first place you can visit to objectively learn about future client/server standards in CTI.

Education Is The Key
It is through this emphasis on educating the market and helping our attendees make informed purchasing decisions that we separate ourselves from other trade shows. All trade shows feature a wealth of exhibitors for you to see. CTI Expo truly focuses on objectively educating you in a non-commercial format that allows a "give and take" between vendors and attendees that is unhurried and truly pleasant. If you enjoy the style in which TMC publications are written, you will appreciate our CTI Expo Learning Centers as well. When you leave CTI Expo, you will have the essential information on the technology and vendors that you need to make intelligent purchasing decisions. CTI Expo will truly aid in the informed purchasing of computer telephony products and services.

We'll see you this December (1-4) at CTI Expo in San Jose, California.