How much bandwidth to the home is enough?
By: By Rich Karpinski
Of course, that's the million-dollar question as service providers, led by AT&T and Verizon, experiment and invest to find the right amount of fiber -- at the right price -- to deliver services to the home...
Head to head on IPTV
By: By Carol Wilson
Last week provided a rare opportunity to see the two largest U.S. telcos lifting the veil on IPTV -- albeit in two very different venues. Peter Hill, vice president of voice and converged services at AT&T, took the stage ...
When a service isn't a service
By: By Carol Wilson
Service providers constantly obsess over their churn rates, and with good reason. High churn means you may be selling a service well but you aren't delivering on that promise -- it's also a signal to Wall Street of bigger problems...
The smart money's on ...
By: By Carol Wilson
One of the best things about my job is the opportunity it gives me to talk to a lot of very smart people. Most recently, I spoke with Andy Lippman, one of the founders of MIT's Media Lab and now a visiting technical fellow at Nortel Networks...
Looking up at Nortel
By: By Carol Wilson
The major global equipment makers have suffered multiple blows in recent years, and no company has been more beat-up than Nortel. Granted, much of what happened at this company has been self-inflicted, but even those scandalized by the repeated financial blunders have to hold out some hope ...
Where will software smarts end up?
By: By Rich Karpinski
Is Microsoft, infamous for the blue-screens of death on its Windows PCs, ready to enter the telephony world of service level agreements and "five 9s" availability? Whether the answer is yes or no, here they come anyway...
Sixty-five percent
By: By Ed Gubbins
TheStreet.com is reporting that AT&T has hired Goldman Sachs to explore a possible acquisition of EchoStar (or its DISH satellite video business), a hypothetical that has been the subject of much rumor and speculation in recent weeks...
No one can hear you now
By: By Carol Wilson
I spent considerable time last week listening to established competitive service providers talk about the eminent danger of rulings in Washington such as last Thursday's partial victory by AT&T in a broadband forbearance ruling...
Live from Dallas, it's Telephony LIVE!
By: By Rich Karpinski
I'm writing this from Telephony's first freestanding conference, an event everyone at the publication is extremely excited about this week. We've got some great keynoters and content-heavy session tracks on video services (which I'm tending), converged services and enterprise services. Do you see a theme here? ...
Read my mind
By: By Carol Wilson
Voice as an application is not exactly a new thought, but voice as part of the rapidly expanding social network fabric is something to which service providers need to pay close attention...
Broadband before its time
By: By Peter Bernstein
Almost 20 years ago, I helped write Probe Research's landmark study, “The End of the RBOCs,” in which we argued that one of the then-seven Bell companies would sell its outside plant in exchange for regulatory freedom to offer any service. This was a novel concept, and it made perfect sense. But it was totally premature...
It's 'put up' time
By: By Carol Wilson
As a die-hard Cubs fan, I could be talking about the baseball playoffs, but in this case, the headline above references promises being made by AT&T and Verizon as they convinced state legislators to implement statewide video franchises...
Innovation 101: Making old things new
By: By Rich Karpinski
There are times when a new product or service arrives completely out of the blue. That kind of innovation, often called radical innovation, is what most people think of when they think of new product development...
Moving up the IT value stack
By: By Ed Naef
As the U.S. business communications market continues to consolidate, service providers need to constantly evaluate new potential revenue sources...
AT&T and WiMAX
By: By Kevin Fitchard
The latest little nugget of speculation circling the industry is that AT&T is about to launch WiMAX services in the near future, something I admit would be a distinct possibility, though the story would be a lot less exciting than it sounds...
Nightmare on Fiber Street
By: By Carol Wilson
The Web is abuzz with stories of Verizon technicians accidentally hitting gas lines and causing leaks, hitting electrical wires and causing house fires, and hitting sewage pipes and causing stinky puddles in the backyard...
What justice?
By: By Carol Wilson
The Justice Department Friday took its belated stance on whether the FCC should impose Net neutrality and -- surprise! -- said no...
Be there
By: By Ed Gubbins
Cisco Systems is holding an analyst day tomorrow, a particular focus of which is expected to be its “telepresence” products for three-screen, high-definition videoconferencing (though the company would prefer you don’t call it that)...
Telephony two-dot-oh!
By: By Rich Karpinski
Tired of the 2.0 nomenclature yet? Web 2.0, Telco 2.0, 2.0 this and 2.0 that? Can't say I could blame you. ...
Hosted vs. managed
By: By David Yedwab
Before discussing the state of managed voice services, I must say that I am confused by the terms bandied about by vendors, providers and other learned industry commentators...
No big dig at Qwest
By: By Carol Wilson
In what seems likely to be his last earnings call as Qwest Communications’ chairman and CEO, Richard Notebaert didn’t pull any punches...
Still crazy after all these years?
By: By Carol Wilson
I first met Victor Schnee in the early 1990s, when he was proposed the then-outrageous idea that the incumbent telephone companies should be divided into separate retail and wholesale units. This was not even the first of his wild thinking -- in 1976, he and co-author Walter Gorkiewicz had forecast the breakup of AT&T in a massive study, “The Future of AT&T.”...
Whither Wi-Fi?
By: By Carol Wilson
Judging by this week’s headlines, Wi-Fi is an up-and-down technology. The launch of the Apple iPhone, with its built-in Wi-Fi, certainly gives this technology a boost. But the news that two cities -- Corona, Calif., and Anchorage, Alaska -- have cancelled municipal Wi-Fi networks that suddenly got too expensive is reason to pause...
Competition reality is in the details
By: By Carol Wilson
I wasn't terribly surprised to learn the United States is trailing Europe when it comes to promoting competition...
Readers react to DVR dilemma
By: By Carol Wilson
Last week's column on the digital video recorder dilemma stirred more reader reaction than normal, so I thought I'd share some of your thoughts...
