I was at the Comptel show in Orlando, FL earlier this week and everything appeared to be pretty much business as usual. The number of exhibitors were down about 10% from the last Comptel show, but overall the quantity and quality of business activity was good. The last year has not been a bad recession for the telecom sector.
The interesting new development apparent at this Comptel show is the new emphasis on managed services and the emergence of cloud computing. I suppose capital limitations are forcing some operators to avoid capital outlays and prompting others to repackage their services to meet the demand. I had been skeptical about cloud computing, thinking it was just another marketing buzzword for hosted services. However, Kelly Sparks, Chief Architect for Pac-West Telecomm gave me an insightful description of their cloud computing plans. It will be much more than just hosted servicess. The Pac-West Telecomm cloud computing offer will leverage their private network in ways that cannot be matched by cloud computing services offered over the Internet. Their plans make a lot of sense. They will not be competing with the likes of Amazon.com, instead they will focus on customers and telecom applications that need a dedicated network and service level assurance (SLA). In some respects Pac-West will become a distribution channel for their cloud application vendors. An interesting new carrier business model that is beyond simple network management.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Asterisk is 10
Wednesday night at Astricon 2009 in Glendale, AZ, the Asterisk Community celebrated the 10th birthday of Asterisk. It was not your typical trade show party. It was a pretty quirky event with a lot techie guys drinking beer and playing video games, darts, pool, air hockey and foosball. One colleague noted that there were seven females present and that this was an increase from three females at the Astricon party in 2008. Hey, but what do you expect, this is the Asterisk community. It is a bright, eclectic mix of hackers, open source developers and a lot of independent entrepreneurs who install telephone systems for small and medium businesses.
The stereotypical open source developer is an irreverent young guy with an outrageous mohawk and yes of course those folks are an important part of the Asterisk community. But what I find interesting is the large number of older business owners who attend Astricon. These are experienced guys who have been installing data and telephone systems for 20-30 years. If you wonder who these people are, go to the yellow pages and look for telephone systems. You will see pages of small businesses that install telephone systems. This is a highly fragmented, grass roots distribution channel that adopted Asterisk early because it enables them to earn margins they could never make from reselling the traditional PBX solutions. According to sources at Digium, Asterisk based PBX systems serve more phone seats in North America than any other phone system. That is a pretty amazing accomplishment for a 10 year project.
While at Astricon, I gave a number on tutorial on Number Portability. Here is a download link for the Number Portability presentation.
The stereotypical open source developer is an irreverent young guy with an outrageous mohawk and yes of course those folks are an important part of the Asterisk community. But what I find interesting is the large number of older business owners who attend Astricon. These are experienced guys who have been installing data and telephone systems for 20-30 years. If you wonder who these people are, go to the yellow pages and look for telephone systems. You will see pages of small businesses that install telephone systems. This is a highly fragmented, grass roots distribution channel that adopted Asterisk early because it enables them to earn margins they could never make from reselling the traditional PBX solutions. According to sources at Digium, Asterisk based PBX systems serve more phone seats in North America than any other phone system. That is a pretty amazing accomplishment for a 10 year project.
While at Astricon, I gave a number on tutorial on Number Portability. Here is a download link for the Number Portability presentation.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Covad Deploys TransNexus
I am happy to announce that we have been working closely with Covad Communications since the beginning of 2009 as they have expanded their VoIP services. Covad is a technically sophisticated carrier that rigorously explores every operating detail. They left no stone unturned as they tested our software. The Covad type of customer is our favorite type of customer. They know what they are doing and everything they do is planned and tested. They run a professional operation and there are no surprises and practically no technical support issues. More importantly, they are always looking for ways to innovate - a force that helps vendors like TransNexus lead the market with new features.
I am especially pleased with the testimonial from Jake Heinz, vice president and general manager of Covad. “Covad canvassed the vendor space for intelligent routing platforms, and based on feature/functionality, a fair price, and an excellent ROI, we chose TransNexus.” You can read more about this success story at www.TransNexus.com.
I am especially pleased with the testimonial from Jake Heinz, vice president and general manager of Covad. “Covad canvassed the vendor space for intelligent routing platforms, and based on feature/functionality, a fair price, and an excellent ROI, we chose TransNexus.” You can read more about this success story at www.TransNexus.com.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
TransNexus Certified as a GSMA Pathfinder Partner
On October 1st, the GSMA announced the launch of its PathFinder Number Portability Discovery Service. The GSMA is the global wireless organization consisting of nearly 800 wireless carriers in 219 countries. PathFinder was created by the GSMA to provide an interoperable, industry-wide solution that enables the routing of global IP service interconnect traffic.
A couple of years ago the GSMA presented its vision for an all IP world based on the IPX, a global IP network run by GSMA operators. Carriers connected to the IPX would be able to peer IP communucation applications such as VoIP and video end to end over IP networks. The global route discovery provided by PathFinder is a big step forward in implementing that vision.
At TransNexus, we are proud to be one of the first vendor partners certified for the PathFinder service. The TransNexus OSPrey route server is certified to query PathFinder for Number Portability discovery. The GSMA Pathfinder Announcement.
A couple of years ago the GSMA presented its vision for an all IP world based on the IPX, a global IP network run by GSMA operators. Carriers connected to the IPX would be able to peer IP communucation applications such as VoIP and video end to end over IP networks. The global route discovery provided by PathFinder is a big step forward in implementing that vision.
At TransNexus, we are proud to be one of the first vendor partners certified for the PathFinder service. The TransNexus OSPrey route server is certified to query PathFinder for Number Portability discovery. The GSMA Pathfinder Announcement.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
FISPA Annual Conference
Last Friday, I had the pleasure of presenting to FISPA, the Federation of Internet Solution Providers of the Americas. FISPA had its annual meeting in Atlanta last week and I was invited to provide a tutorial on how Number Portability impacts VoIP service providers. I was unaware of FISPA until just last month. In general, when I hear the term ISP, the picture that comes to my mind is a struggling Internet Service Provider unable to compete with the giant carriers.
However, the folks I met at FISPA did not fit that stereotype. Primarily, the folks I met were owners of small service providers that provide all kind of data centric services. They had learned how to become more than just Internet Service Providers, they had in fact become solution providers for their small and medium size business customers. Being entrepreneurial and innovative, they had developed nice businesses serving the needs of their customers that could not be met by large competitors. It was a technically savvy group that also had the business sense for building a business through bootstrap financing. No VCs or corporate high flyers were in the crowd, these guys were all achievers, not marketing promoters. It was a nice change from the typical trade show conference that can be heavy on creating buzz, but lacking any real substance.
I estimate that about one half of the FISPA members provide VoIP services and I expect more will add VoIP to their suite of services. While FISPA is a small group, I expect this organization will grow as more innovative service providers learn how to serve vertical market niches that require focus and expertise that is beyond the scope of large competitors. You can learn more about FISPA at www.FISPA.org.
However, the folks I met at FISPA did not fit that stereotype. Primarily, the folks I met were owners of small service providers that provide all kind of data centric services. They had learned how to become more than just Internet Service Providers, they had in fact become solution providers for their small and medium size business customers. Being entrepreneurial and innovative, they had developed nice businesses serving the needs of their customers that could not be met by large competitors. It was a technically savvy group that also had the business sense for building a business through bootstrap financing. No VCs or corporate high flyers were in the crowd, these guys were all achievers, not marketing promoters. It was a nice change from the typical trade show conference that can be heavy on creating buzz, but lacking any real substance.
I estimate that about one half of the FISPA members provide VoIP services and I expect more will add VoIP to their suite of services. While FISPA is a small group, I expect this organization will grow as more innovative service providers learn how to serve vertical market niches that require focus and expertise that is beyond the scope of large competitors. You can learn more about FISPA at www.FISPA.org.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Astricon 2009 Interview
Recently I was interviewed by Erik Linask, TMC's Editorial Director for Astricon 2009. Below is a transcript of that interview.
Erik Linask: This year marks the 10th birthday of Asterisk. What has driven its growth over a decade?
Jim Dalton: Pent-up demand for a reasonably priced PBX solution for small and medium businesses.
EL: What is your company’s involvement with Asterisk?
JD: TransNexus maintains the OSP module in Asterisk. OSP is the Open Settlement Protocol for secure peering among VoIP peers.
EL: Who is your target customer and what are their biggest pain points?
JD: Our target customers are any service provider who offers A to Z VoIP termination services. They use the TransNexus software for least cost routing, number portability, traffic reports, profitability analysis and billing.
EL: How does Asterisk help address your customers’ pain points?
JD: Actually, there is very little intersection between the TransNexus customer base and the universe of Asterisk users. Nevertheless, we like to be involved with Asterisk because we think it will become more than just a PBX. Asterisk and a couple of other open source telecom projects are the most significant leading indicators for the future of telecommunications. If you are not watching developments in the Asterisk community, you have your head in the sand.
EL: What are the key differentiators of your product over others on the market?
JD: Focus and Price.
For twelve years our focus has been on VoIP routing and accounting. From the beginning our solution architecture has been based on a standards based routing and CDR collection server. This is quite different from traditional least cost routing and billing solutions for telecom. Traditionally, these solutions have been customized to interoperate with each switch vendor’s proprietary routing table and CDR format. Customization for many different vendors is very expensive, but that is just the way it was in telecom. The TransNexus approach, however, is based on the OSP protocol which is an XML based standard for authorizing, routing and accounting for IP transactions. It is a simpler approach with much better scalability. For example, we have customers that manage over forty million routes with the TransNexus OSPrey routing and CDR collection server. By comparison, a softswitch or session border controller is limited to a routing table of just two million routes or less.
Price is the second differentiator. Since our standards based architecture is simpler and more efficient, our costs are lower which means we are profitable even though our solution is significantly lower in price than the competition. In addition, we are the only vendor that offers a free 90 day evaluation trial complete with technical support and remote training. We have had multiple customers save more money using TransNexus software during the free evaluation trial than they paid us at the end of 90 days. I do not know of any competitor that can profitably offer a solution with a payback period of zero months.
EL: You are speaking at AstriCon 2009 – describe your session and tell our readers why they should attend it.
JD: My session will be a tutorial on Number Portability. In the US, 40% of all calls are to telephone numbers that have been ported to a different service provider. If you are routing calls on the dialed telephone number, then 40% of your calls will be mis-routed! The call will still complete to the called party so end users will not know the call was mis-routed, but the cost of routing a call to the wrong carrier who then has to forward the call to the correct terminating provider is very expensive. So this tutorial will explain the basics of Number Portability technology and how Asterisk users and correct their call routing with Number Portability and most importantly save on termination fees.
EL: What else do you expect to see or hear at AstriCon that will be particularly interesting or innovative?
JD: Astricon attracts an eclectic group of innovators. You never know what you will learn at Astricon. That is what makes Astricon interesting.
EL: Where do you see the Asterisk market in five years?
JD: Asterisk will continue to be used in new ways that folks never imagined. But more importantly, Asterisk will have a greater share of the PBX market.
Erik Linask: This year marks the 10th birthday of Asterisk. What has driven its growth over a decade?
Jim Dalton: Pent-up demand for a reasonably priced PBX solution for small and medium businesses.
EL: What is your company’s involvement with Asterisk?
JD: TransNexus maintains the OSP module in Asterisk. OSP is the Open Settlement Protocol for secure peering among VoIP peers.
EL: Who is your target customer and what are their biggest pain points?
JD: Our target customers are any service provider who offers A to Z VoIP termination services. They use the TransNexus software for least cost routing, number portability, traffic reports, profitability analysis and billing.
EL: How does Asterisk help address your customers’ pain points?
JD: Actually, there is very little intersection between the TransNexus customer base and the universe of Asterisk users. Nevertheless, we like to be involved with Asterisk because we think it will become more than just a PBX. Asterisk and a couple of other open source telecom projects are the most significant leading indicators for the future of telecommunications. If you are not watching developments in the Asterisk community, you have your head in the sand.
EL: What are the key differentiators of your product over others on the market?
JD: Focus and Price.
For twelve years our focus has been on VoIP routing and accounting. From the beginning our solution architecture has been based on a standards based routing and CDR collection server. This is quite different from traditional least cost routing and billing solutions for telecom. Traditionally, these solutions have been customized to interoperate with each switch vendor’s proprietary routing table and CDR format. Customization for many different vendors is very expensive, but that is just the way it was in telecom. The TransNexus approach, however, is based on the OSP protocol which is an XML based standard for authorizing, routing and accounting for IP transactions. It is a simpler approach with much better scalability. For example, we have customers that manage over forty million routes with the TransNexus OSPrey routing and CDR collection server. By comparison, a softswitch or session border controller is limited to a routing table of just two million routes or less.
Price is the second differentiator. Since our standards based architecture is simpler and more efficient, our costs are lower which means we are profitable even though our solution is significantly lower in price than the competition. In addition, we are the only vendor that offers a free 90 day evaluation trial complete with technical support and remote training. We have had multiple customers save more money using TransNexus software during the free evaluation trial than they paid us at the end of 90 days. I do not know of any competitor that can profitably offer a solution with a payback period of zero months.
EL: You are speaking at AstriCon 2009 – describe your session and tell our readers why they should attend it.
JD: My session will be a tutorial on Number Portability. In the US, 40% of all calls are to telephone numbers that have been ported to a different service provider. If you are routing calls on the dialed telephone number, then 40% of your calls will be mis-routed! The call will still complete to the called party so end users will not know the call was mis-routed, but the cost of routing a call to the wrong carrier who then has to forward the call to the correct terminating provider is very expensive. So this tutorial will explain the basics of Number Portability technology and how Asterisk users and correct their call routing with Number Portability and most importantly save on termination fees.
EL: What else do you expect to see or hear at AstriCon that will be particularly interesting or innovative?
JD: Astricon attracts an eclectic group of innovators. You never know what you will learn at Astricon. That is what makes Astricon interesting.
EL: Where do you see the Asterisk market in five years?
JD: Asterisk will continue to be used in new ways that folks never imagined. But more importantly, Asterisk will have a greater share of the PBX market.
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