Telecom service provider rate plans come in a variety of formats, most of which are confusing. Telecom rates are quoted by NPA-NXX, LATA, LATA and OCN, LATA and Tier, State and OCN, State and LATA. Sometimes rates are quoted by geographic names, such as a single rate for USA. This practice sounds user friendly, but is ambiquous and can lead to rate disputes. For example, some carriers define USA as the lower 48 states and include Alaska and Hawaii as offshore. And what about Guam, US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and American Samoa? Are US territories part of the USA rate plan?
Then there are jurisdictional rates - that is different rates based on the calling and called number. Example are different rates for inter-state, intra-state and local calls. There can also be rates for local long distance. Local long distance, now that is a funny oxymoron, until you get hit with charges higher than expected.
All these different rate formats cause major headaches for enterprises and small service providers who must constantly struggle to understand their telecom bill and dispute over-charges from their carrier. In fact, a significant industry niche has developed to serve the need of managing the confusing array of telecom fees. Do a Google search on telecom expense management and you will find dozens of companies serving this need.
So all this effort struggling with confusing telecom rates would go away if carriers offered rates in a common format for explicit ranges of telephone numbers. Now I understand that there are a lot very good technical and business reasons for carriers to not do this. However, non-confusing rate plans are a common need for all telecom consumers. So to meet this need, John Todd, the VoIP innovator who created ITAD, is leading a VoIP community effort to define a telecom rate plan that is easy to understand and to load for routing and billing. To review the proposed rate plan format, and offer your edits, go to http://www.loligo.com/asterisk/misc/rates/.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
IT Expo - Miami
Last week I was at the Telephony Expo in Miami, Florida. Given the overall direction of the general economy, my expectations for the conference were low. I expected low attendance and a generally negative outlook from most attendees. What I found, however, was different. Traffic in the exhibition hall was good and just about everyone I spoke to was genuinely positive about their business prospects for 2009. I remember 2002 when VoIP companies were going bankrupt left and right. At that time trade shows were just a gossip hall about who would go broke next. There was no sign of that in Miami last week. Everyone I spoke to was looking for ways to grow their business. From what we see, it looks like the VoIP business will be good in 2009 as customers look for VoIP technology as a way to save costs and offer new services. Click here to see my interview at IT-Expo.
VoIP Outlook for 2009
In early January I was interviewed by Rich Tehrani, TMC President and Editor-in-Chief. TMC has published that interview which is posted below.
[RT] Are you generally optimistic, Pessimistic or realistic?
[RT] How many frequent flyer miles have you amassed?
[JD] Same amount as last year.
[RT] How surprised are you at the global financial situation?
[JD] Our business has been good and the business of our customers appears good. So I was very surprised by the financial crash last October.
[RT] How is your company changing the way it does business as a result?
[JD] So far our strategy and plans for the last three years have worked and will continue unchanged in 2009. This is not because we are smarter than other folks, we are just fortunate to be in the VoIP business that is not suffering the problems of the overall economy.
[RT] How have customers reacted to the slowing global markets?
[JD] We see some caution and some customer’s reports longer time to collect receivables, but overall no significant changes.
[RT] Do you see this time as an opportunity or a rough spot to get through quickly?
[JD] We think this is a long term opportunity. We have already seen competing vendors who offer solutions for PTSN networks hit by financial troubles. We think this downturn is a good opportunity for vendors focused on VoIP solutions that are cost effective.
[RT] What will companies need to do to survive this downturn?
[JD] Manage their business so they can lower their prices and still generate positive cash flow.
[RT] How do your company’s’ products help customers in a slow market?
[JD] The simplest and most powerful value proposition we offer is Least Cost Routing. Service providers can increase their gross profit margins by 20% or more with least cost routing. It is a simple concept, but not trivial to implement. We make the implementation easy. We offer a free 90 day trial period complete with technical support and remote training. Some of our customers save more money from least cost routing during the free 90 trial than it costs to buy our software. This means that our software has a zero payback period for the customer. This is an easy business case for CFOs to understand.
[RT] What do you feel is the strongest segment of the communications space? Technology?
[JD] The RBOC and the Cable Companies enjoy a market duopoly for services to the residential market. A duopoly is every business operator's dream, limited competition but unregulated pricing. The RBOCs and Cable Companies do a great job telling the FCC that they face daunting challenges, but in reality they enjoy a fantastic business model. RBOCs and Cable Companies are the strongest segment in the communications space by far.
[RT] Which would you rather be president of and why? Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco, the United States.
[JD] Google's management is shrewd, but more importantly they are very effective at what they do. They are great operators.
[RT] What does President Bush need to accomplish before he leaves office?
[JD] Making a gracious and cooperative transition to the new administration has been one of President Bush's best accomplishments.
[RT] What does an Obama administration need to do to help communications and technology become more pervasive?
[JD] Enable more competition for broadband services. The duopoly market structure of the RBOCs and the Cable Companies does not encourage innovation.
[RT] Will this slowdown present an opportunity to reinvest in your company/market? If so, where will you invest?
[JD] We see the slowdown as an opportunity for vendors of VoIP solutions. We plan to increase our investment in software development in 2009.
[RT] Which country will present the largest opportunity for your company in 2009/10?
[JD] We have customers in five continents, but we are a US company and the US is our best opportunity in 2009/10.
[RT] If Nokia, RIM, Google and Apple devices are stranded together on an island, who survives and why?
[JD] Apple. No one can beat Steve Jobs for usability and elegance. Apple is the obvious winner of any user device competition.
[RT] I understand you are exhibiting at ITEXPO which takes place Feb 2-4 2009 in Miami. What will you be showing there?
[JD] We are releasing a new software server named OSPrey. It is a VoIP Routing and CDR Collection server. It is not a sexy product, but OSPrey is very effective, scalable and reliable for routing VoIP calls and collecting CDRs. Traditionally, our target market has been the service provider market. But this new product targets enterprises that operate a VoIP network with multiple branch offices. It provides a central application for authenticating and routing inter-office and off-net VoIP calls. It also collects CDRs so enterprises can allocate VoIP charges back to specific branch offices. Our target market is enterprises that use Asterisk and the software is free - not open source, but cost free. We will be exhibiting in theDigium-Asterisk World. We are excited about being part of the Digium-Asterisk World because we think Digium has the right cost structure and value proposition to benefit from the tough economy in 2009.
[RT] What sorts of companies/people should come to your exhibit?
[JD] Enterprise Telecom Managers that manage multi-office PBX networks. The free OSPrey server is designed to work with Asterisk or OpenSER. But we also have a commercial version of the software that is optimized for Cisco VoIP networks (H.323 or SIP).
[RT] Why should customers choose your company’s solutions – and how do they justify the expense to management?
[JD] The cost savings from simplifying network operation and least cost routing makes a very powerful return on investment business case. As I said earlier, we have had customers save more than enough money using our software during the free trial period to pay for the product before the trial ended.
[RT] I am a purchasing decision-maker, why do I need to speak with you before I buy?
[JD] We are the price leader in our niche. Even if you do not purchase the TransNexus solution, the possibility of buying the TransNexus solution will enable you to negotiate a better deal with your vendor. Our mission is to help folks lower the cost of their VoIP network. So even if you do not buy our solution, but we help you save some money by getting a better price from your vendor, then we feel some satisfaction.
[RT] What is your favorite part of your job?
[JD] Getting positive feedback from our customers.
[RT] What do you look forward to in the future and why?
[JD] Continued growth in the VoIP market.
Rich Tehrani is President and Group Editor-in-Chief of TMC
[RT] Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Jim Dalton, CEO of TransNexus. Our conversation went something like this:
[RT] Are you generally optimistic, Pessimistic or realistic?
[JD] I am optimistic about VoIP and pessimistic about the overall economy. VoIP as a technology is losing its excitement as it matures, but in reality we are still very early in the process of replacing the PSTN with a global VoIP infrastructure. We think VoIP has at least 10 years of healthy growth ahead. As for the overall economy, we believe 2009 will be worse than the expectations we read in the press or the stock prices we see in the market. However, we think a very bad economy can be a positive for VoIP. VoIP technology is much more cost effective than traditional TDM telco technology. The cost advantages and flexibility of VoIP are more compelling in a bad economy.
[RT] How many frequent flyer miles have you amassed?
[JD] Same amount as last year.
[RT] How surprised are you at the global financial situation?
[JD] Our business has been good and the business of our customers appears good. So I was very surprised by the financial crash last October.
[RT] How is your company changing the way it does business as a result?
[JD] So far our strategy and plans for the last three years have worked and will continue unchanged in 2009. This is not because we are smarter than other folks, we are just fortunate to be in the VoIP business that is not suffering the problems of the overall economy.
[RT] How have customers reacted to the slowing global markets?
[JD] We see some caution and some customer’s reports longer time to collect receivables, but overall no significant changes.
[RT] Do you see this time as an opportunity or a rough spot to get through quickly?
[JD] We think this is a long term opportunity. We have already seen competing vendors who offer solutions for PTSN networks hit by financial troubles. We think this downturn is a good opportunity for vendors focused on VoIP solutions that are cost effective.
[RT] What will companies need to do to survive this downturn?
[JD] Manage their business so they can lower their prices and still generate positive cash flow.
[RT] How do your company’s’ products help customers in a slow market?
[JD] The simplest and most powerful value proposition we offer is Least Cost Routing. Service providers can increase their gross profit margins by 20% or more with least cost routing. It is a simple concept, but not trivial to implement. We make the implementation easy. We offer a free 90 day trial period complete with technical support and remote training. Some of our customers save more money from least cost routing during the free 90 trial than it costs to buy our software. This means that our software has a zero payback period for the customer. This is an easy business case for CFOs to understand.
[RT] What do you feel is the strongest segment of the communications space? Technology?
[JD] The RBOC and the Cable Companies enjoy a market duopoly for services to the residential market. A duopoly is every business operator's dream, limited competition but unregulated pricing. The RBOCs and Cable Companies do a great job telling the FCC that they face daunting challenges, but in reality they enjoy a fantastic business model. RBOCs and Cable Companies are the strongest segment in the communications space by far.
Having said that, however, I also think that open source VoIP will become much more important segment in the communications space. I do not foresee open source as a strong segment financially, but very powerful in moving the direction of the communications space. The success and impact ofAsterisk is well known, but we also see OpenSIPS and FreeSWITCH continuing to increase their market penetration.
[RT] Which would you rather be president of and why? Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco, the United States.
[JD] Google's management is shrewd, but more importantly they are very effective at what they do. They are great operators.
[RT] What does President Bush need to accomplish before he leaves office?
[JD] Making a gracious and cooperative transition to the new administration has been one of President Bush's best accomplishments.
[RT] What does an Obama administration need to do to help communications and technology become more pervasive?
[JD] Enable more competition for broadband services. The duopoly market structure of the RBOCs and the Cable Companies does not encourage innovation.
[RT] Will this slowdown present an opportunity to reinvest in your company/market? If so, where will you invest?
[JD] We see the slowdown as an opportunity for vendors of VoIP solutions. We plan to increase our investment in software development in 2009.
[RT] Which country will present the largest opportunity for your company in 2009/10?
[JD] We have customers in five continents, but we are a US company and the US is our best opportunity in 2009/10.
[RT] If Nokia, RIM, Google and Apple devices are stranded together on an island, who survives and why?
[JD] Apple. No one can beat Steve Jobs for usability and elegance. Apple is the obvious winner of any user device competition.
[RT] I understand you are exhibiting at ITEXPO which takes place Feb 2-4 2009 in Miami. What will you be showing there?
[JD] We are releasing a new software server named OSPrey. It is a VoIP Routing and CDR Collection server. It is not a sexy product, but OSPrey is very effective, scalable and reliable for routing VoIP calls and collecting CDRs. Traditionally, our target market has been the service provider market. But this new product targets enterprises that operate a VoIP network with multiple branch offices. It provides a central application for authenticating and routing inter-office and off-net VoIP calls. It also collects CDRs so enterprises can allocate VoIP charges back to specific branch offices. Our target market is enterprises that use Asterisk and the software is free - not open source, but cost free. We will be exhibiting in theDigium-Asterisk World. We are excited about being part of the Digium-Asterisk World because we think Digium has the right cost structure and value proposition to benefit from the tough economy in 2009.
[RT] What sorts of companies/people should come to your exhibit?
[JD] Enterprise Telecom Managers that manage multi-office PBX networks. The free OSPrey server is designed to work with Asterisk or OpenSER. But we also have a commercial version of the software that is optimized for Cisco VoIP networks (H.323 or SIP).
[RT] Why should customers choose your company’s solutions – and how do they justify the expense to management?
[JD] The cost savings from simplifying network operation and least cost routing makes a very powerful return on investment business case. As I said earlier, we have had customers save more than enough money using our software during the free trial period to pay for the product before the trial ended.
[RT] I am a purchasing decision-maker, why do I need to speak with you before I buy?
[JD] We are the price leader in our niche. Even if you do not purchase the TransNexus solution, the possibility of buying the TransNexus solution will enable you to negotiate a better deal with your vendor. Our mission is to help folks lower the cost of their VoIP network. So even if you do not buy our solution, but we help you save some money by getting a better price from your vendor, then we feel some satisfaction.
[RT] What is your favorite part of your job?
[JD] Getting positive feedback from our customers.
[RT] What do you look forward to in the future and why?
[JD] Continued growth in the VoIP market.
Rich Tehrani is President and Group Editor-in-Chief of TMC
Incentives for Peer to Peer to VoIP
At the IT Expo in Miami I had the opportunity to speak with Dan York about a presentation I gave on Next Generation Network Peer to Peer Settlement Billing. The critical element missing from the vision of universal peer to peer VoIP communications is an economic incentive for carriers to open up their "walled gardens." Peer to peer settlement through competitive clearinghouses provides the economic incentive for all VoIP networks to openly peer. Peer to peer transaction settlement is a tried and true business model being used by multiple industries. Click here to view the interview with Dan York of Emerging Tech Talk.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Asterisk V1.4 Performance
We recently ran a performance test of Asterisk configured as a SIP Back to Back User Agent (B2BUA). The test platform hosting Asterisk was a $1000 Dell PowerEdge 840 with a Quad Core Xeon X3220, 2x4M cache, 2.40 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB and 4 GB RAM. Redhat V5 was the operating system. The test was configured to simulate a wholesale VoIP operation with three minute call durations and an average of two call retries for every completed call. This was an "out of the box"Asterisk configuration with default settings and no optimizations.
We found that Asterisk on the test server could handle approximately 1000 simultaneous calls with no codec transalation. This works out to be about a $1 per port investment for a B2BUA platform.
When calls were transcoded from G.711 to G.729, the call capacity fell to 320 simultaneous calls. With the added cost of of the G.729 codec royalty and the lower call capacity, the cost increases to approximately $13.50 per port. You can download the test results and all the test plan details from: http://www.transnexus.com/White%20Papers/Performance_Test_of_Asterisk_v1-4.htm
We found that Asterisk on the test server could handle approximately 1000 simultaneous calls with no codec transalation. This works out to be about a $1 per port investment for a B2BUA platform.
When calls were transcoded from G.711 to G.729, the call capacity fell to 320 simultaneous calls. With the added cost of of the G.729 codec royalty and the lower call capacity, the cost increases to approximately $13.50 per port. You can download the test results and all the test plan details from: http://www.transnexus.com/White%20Papers/Performance_Test_of_Asterisk_v1-4.htm
Friday, September 26, 2008
Astricon 2008 - The Momentum Accelerates
I was at Astricon in Phoenix Arizona this week. It was a very good conference with approximately 700 attendees. There was certainly no indication that the market share growth of Asterisk is going to slow any time soon. It was clearly evident at this show that Asterisk is still early in its adoption lifecycle, but the product and community are beginning to mature. This is a good thing.
There will always be nostalgia for the good old days of Asterisk and the first Astricon. The first Astriscon was much larger than expected and had all the excitement of a new movement that is catching fire. Those who were there will remember the eager cheering crowd when Mark Spencer announced the release of Asterisk 1.0 and a free IAXy to whomever could post the news on Slashdot.org first. Everyone there felt special because they had the luck or foresight to be on the ground floor of something that was going to be big. And they were right, Asterisk is going to big.
This Astricon was also exciting, but in a different way. If you are an open source purist, you probably were disappointed that the zany, geekiness has been diluted by the growing presence of boring folks. Boring folks who either use Asterisk in their business or are part of the Asterisk ecosystem. I have been an Asterisk fan since 2003, but as a boring person I find the new maturity of Asterisk more exciting than ever. Asterisk's feature set, scalability and reliability continue to improve. It is now competing successfully with the blue chip PBX vendors such as Cisco and Nortel for the small business market.
At Atsricon, I presented our latest performance test results for Asterisk as a B2BUA. We found that Asterisk running on a Dell PowerEdge 840 with a single quad core 2.4 GHz CPU, running Redhat v5.1 can handle 1000 simultaneous calls of G.711 traffic and 320 simultaneous calls with transcoding from G.711 to G.729. The economics of this solution work out to be $1 per port with no transcoding and $13.13 per port for transcoding from G.711 to G.729. We are working on the final document which we will publish to the Asterisk mailing list.
There will always be nostalgia for the good old days of Asterisk and the first Astricon. The first Astriscon was much larger than expected and had all the excitement of a new movement that is catching fire. Those who were there will remember the eager cheering crowd when Mark Spencer announced the release of Asterisk 1.0 and a free IAXy to whomever could post the news on Slashdot.org first. Everyone there felt special because they had the luck or foresight to be on the ground floor of something that was going to be big. And they were right, Asterisk is going to big.
This Astricon was also exciting, but in a different way. If you are an open source purist, you probably were disappointed that the zany, geekiness has been diluted by the growing presence of boring folks. Boring folks who either use Asterisk in their business or are part of the Asterisk ecosystem. I have been an Asterisk fan since 2003, but as a boring person I find the new maturity of Asterisk more exciting than ever. Asterisk's feature set, scalability and reliability continue to improve. It is now competing successfully with the blue chip PBX vendors such as Cisco and Nortel for the small business market.
At Atsricon, I presented our latest performance test results for Asterisk as a B2BUA. We found that Asterisk running on a Dell PowerEdge 840 with a single quad core 2.4 GHz CPU, running Redhat v5.1 can handle 1000 simultaneous calls of G.711 traffic and 320 simultaneous calls with transcoding from G.711 to G.729. The economics of this solution work out to be $1 per port with no transcoding and $13.13 per port for transcoding from G.711 to G.729. We are working on the final document which we will publish to the Asterisk mailing list.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
OpenSER and RTPproxy Performance Test
We have published results from a performance test of OpenSER V1.3 and RTPproxy V1.0 running on the same host server. The purpose of the test was to understand the relationship between server CPU performance and the maximum number of simultaneous calls. The massive scalability of SIP signaling with OpenSER is well known. For this test the critical component being tested was RTPproxy and the proxying of media.
A quick summary of the test results show that RTPproxy running on a single core of a 2.33 GHz Intel Xeon 5140 CPU can manage up to 750 simultaneous calls. If both cores had been used on both Xeon CPUs, we expect that RTPproxy could have managed 3000 simultaneous calls.
For a summary of the performance test, and to download the complete test plan, go to www.transnexus.com/White Papers/OpenSER_RTPproxy_Benchmark_Test.pdf
We are finalizing a new performance test of Asterisk V1.4 used as a B2BUA. We will present our Asterisk performance test results next week at Astricon.
A quick summary of the test results show that RTPproxy running on a single core of a 2.33 GHz Intel Xeon 5140 CPU can manage up to 750 simultaneous calls. If both cores had been used on both Xeon CPUs, we expect that RTPproxy could have managed 3000 simultaneous calls.
For a summary of the performance test, and to download the complete test plan, go to www.transnexus.com/White Papers/OpenSER_RTPproxy_Benchmark_Test.pdf
We are finalizing a new performance test of Asterisk V1.4 used as a B2BUA. We will present our Asterisk performance test results next week at Astricon.
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