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Robert Poe has another of his well thought out "lists" over at VoIP-News where he identifies some of the trends in VoIP for the new year.

I think there will be a few more trends.

1) Consolidation of companies-instead of features being companies, smart money will "roll up" the VoIP features and put them into one business and offer them as service.

2) Voice SaaS-more and more of the VoIP plays will become Software as a Service, with a greater emphasis of real time communication built into web sites. Think about companies like Jaduka and ifByPhone.

3) More micropayments for voice calls via web, mobile that go over WiFi-I see more companies adopting a "voice" channel vs. email or chat via web sites. As customers demand more "live" interaction, simplifying the process to "talk" and "engage" becomes paramount.

4) More APIs creating more new services.

If you're a company like AT&T or BT, Telstra or DT you start to look around and say, "in times like these...... what can we do to be better tomorrow."

That means you look inside, assess who's on First, and What's on Second, then look outside and say, who should I hire to make my company better and stronger and ready for 2.0. Given my history in pro sports, and having actually run a draft in my early days and staged some draft day events, I figured it would be fun to look at the players and figure out what's ahead. Some are sleepers, meaning you would expect others to be listed ahead of them. Others are known quantities who have the chops to stand out in a crowd, but as a GM trained team builder one has to look past the usual suspects and find the gems in the draft. That's what makes teams champions, not only winners.

Here's my hit list if I was the head of VoIPScout of people to take off the playing field in the first round of the draft:

1. Martin Geddes-Without question, Martin is the player to pick. His insight, foresight and ability to assess, target and pinpoint what's next are the skills the super carrier need to have or even for them to be really 2.0. Martin will be the ideal dealmaker, playmaker and most of all, the ideal out-thinker of the competition at every match. Now that BT has Ribbit, Geddes is either the Messiah for another company or the Moses to bring the promise to the promised land.

2. Thomas Howe--Mr. Mashup. He's the king and well documented here in the past for his accomplishments. He's also the former CTO of Comverse and well versed in more than just telephony. Thomas gets data. He nails business process cold. A solid two way player, Howe would be as comfortable in the executive suite as in the lab, as his infectious personality, quick mind and agile programming ability makes him a consistent high scorer.

3. Lee Dryburgh--many consider Lee the foremost authority on SS7 networks. As the father of the eComm Conference, Dryburgh has spent hours looking at the many "me different" companies out there and sees what fits where. He's a pal of Geddes so the two would be an interesting Strategy/Technical connection and a dangerous 1-2 punch. Think of Dryburgh as the midfielder who does the heavy lifting, sets up the plays and makes the team run right.

4. David Beckemeyer-he helped Sky Dayton with Earthlink as the co-founder and CTO, when he traveled to L.A. with a few servers. Then he created the easy to sign-up CD Rom for Earthlnk, well ahead of AOL, giving many millions of people easy access to be really on the Net. Of late he's tinkered with PhoneGnome but remains one of the key technology experts who understands both networks and software and how to make them work together. If Dryburgh is the SS7 God, Beckemeyer is the SIP productizer to grab. What he did with PhoneGnome is really widely overlooked. Using an off the shelf ATA, open source and open standards technology, he made any phone a VOIP phone with an Internet connection and delivered SIP based services in an open way, before OPEN was being evangelized.

5. Alex Kurganov, CTO of Parus Interactive, and the mind behind Webley/CommuniKate, perhaps the most feature rich virtual PBX platform on the planet that does both VoIP and PSTN seamlessly. He's also a master at IVR and Voice XML, and a martial arts master. A player that most don't know, from long time experience we know he'd be the sleeper pick in any draft, but would be an all star on any team that grabbed him.

6. Alec Saunders, co-founder of iotum. Many people forget that Alec was the guy who brought Internet Explorer to market for Microsoft. He's a marketing and product management maven, with a healthy dose of social media know how. What's more he knows how to take code, productize it and make it work for the masses. Proof point. Look what he's done with Calliflower and iotum, winning a Demo God for his dazzling on stage performance there. Saunders scores and also plays a consistent game.

7. Carl Ford-no one has more contacts in VoIP than Carl and his understanding of "whose who" makes him an ideal HR/recruiters dream team member. He knows who has done what, which engineers really wrote the code, and most of all what and who plays well with what. He's also a well versed all around communicator. He'd be an ideal component as the evangelist (ala what Dan York is doing for Voxeo) and there's very few people in telco, especially VoIP who won't take a call from Carl.

8. Stuart Henshall--A product manager with technical ability who can articulate his thoughts well, Henshall knows the ins and outs of social media or as Jeff Pulver calls it "Social Communications". He's bright, speaks very well, plays the game smartly, and is very apolitical. As such he's very good at being an all around player on a team.

9. Alan Duric--Duric is one of these great minds who architects and steers things in the right direction. He's well regarded both at the IETF and within Cablelabs, was part of Global IP Sound/Solutions efforts with iLBC then went to Camino as founder before it was acquired by Skype. Like Dryburgh, Duric is a workhorse, but needs be surrounded by a team that will take vision and work with him to make it reality. A proven player who finishes in the money.

10. Will Stofega, IDC--Will has been steadily becoming one of VoIP best analysts. He did such a good job he got promoted and moved into mobile. That only makes him a stronger candidate and a winner for someone's team in a Research or Biz Dev role. His experience at IDC and with many corporate customers gives him access and understanding. His ongoing reviews of what's coming up, what works with what and how the business models work (or don't work) makes him ideal to join a company needing a smart, no-nonesense biz dev champion.

Others to look at who may make the the top ten picks....James Enck, Jamie Siminoff, Jay Phillips and Erik Lagerway.

So--I've laid out the picks...now lets see who grabs who, and how soon!

Many of the pundits are all basically saying the same thing about VoIP.

Some are calling it dead. Others are saying it's changing. I'm saying that things like VoIP, SIP, etc. are terms for what has become the foundation level building blocks for the 21st century communication.

Some call the notion of a discussion a rehash of things we've all be saying. I say, we're entering the era where communications as we know it begins to change and is also a needed change. We're wel beyond the era of POTS based mentality. For example, how many people use phone company supplied voice mail. I don't mean, have it take a message, which it does well. But for many of us, we use the number that was called and just return the call as we want real time interaction, not voice mail tag. For me, I get few voicemail messages. My calls are either a) scheduled b) triggered from an IM session c) a result of a Twitter exchange d) a result of an email exchange e) those that are random are screened first by either CallVantage, GrandCentral or Webley f) Caller ID has gotten to the point where I know whose calling. While this isn't everyone's behavior, for the connected types it is more and more the norm. Many people just don't listen to VM, but they use SimulScribe or SpinVox to text them the message also.

Next is the growing use of cell phones. People don't want to play tag so they give out their cell number as their primary reach me number. What's missing is the 2.0 services from the cell phone networks, not the interest. Instead of lock me in contracts, carriers need to offer "lock me in services." The kind of services that Alec and Jeff and Ken and Jon and everyone else loves to use, but we all have to go over the top to find them. I'm talking Speech based calling from Mobivox, WiFi based calling from Truphone, roaming services from MaxRoam and SIM4Travel, etc.

At home, I'd rather take a call over my desktop or laptop connected to a Polycom mini speakerphone or right on my Polycom desk phone. The call is higher quality because the HD technology is there. Services like HighDef Conferencing and Calliflower make the call not only sound better, but provide a richer group calling experience.

Marrying these kinds of services together is the era we're entering. It's not about VoIP or SIP or Skype, its about the experience, and that experience is going to be three types. Business, social and personal. Buzzspeak is VoIP, SIP, Skype.

To me, the winds of change are evident. Call me the Revalator, but it is time for a change.

A few days ago, USA Today ran a story that describes how more and more universities, and companies, as well as local governments are cutting the cord, ditching the land line and going mobile.

The trend is nothing unexpected, as cellular calling rates, bundle plans, rollover minutes and newer handsets every few years outweigh outmoded the PBX and desk phone approach of the landline. With more and more telework also occurring, this also means the so called "off premise extension" has been eliminated, as well as the FXO (foreign exchange) two big money makers for the landline telco that with the way cellular plans are set up in the USA no longer relevant.

But, with the cutting of the cord and the move to cellular, we have also seen something happen in business. No one can transfer a call from a mobile to another mobile phone, meaning if Party A calls Party B and Party B deems Party A is better off talking to Party C, at best Party B can do is give Party A the area code and phone number for Party C.

Mobile lacks a PBX environment because of the nature of the way the cellular network is established. The call, which originates at point A and goes to point be is a linear, straight line connection going only through the mobile operators switch. There's no way to hit the so called switch hook and simply "transfer the call" to the person who can help the calling party.

The closest thing to this I've been able to find is Broadsoft's Mobile PBX however it seems this is geared more for the enterprise than SMB, and despite it being in their line of offers, I've yet to see it being offered via any of the USA carriers, let alone any carriers around the globe so while what is needed is technically possible, how many companies and their employees actually have it available to them to use?

Then a quick search of TMC' extensive story library gave me a better picture, thanks to a Rich Tehrani penned story about OnRelay and their capabilities. But unfortunately while the service looks like it's exactly what the market needs, they don't support either the RIM Blackberry or the Apple iPhone, both of which have pretty much become the business executives handset of choice in the USA. As a matter of fact I've even watched the steady migration of some very serious long time executives migrate from a regular handset to the Berry, and now to the iPhone because of one reason unrelated to business. Their kids. Moms and Dads text with their kids (and their kids friends too) it seems and both devices let them do that quickly and easily.

But the issue with both the OnRelay and Broadsoft services are not in their capabilities, design or intent. It's in the distribution side of the house. Who sells it? Where can I get it? How can I put a company on it that doesn't have a full-time IT manager/phone manager to keep it up and running? Better yet, show me someone who has it running that matters, a point pal Dean Bubley made earlier this year. Additional digging led me to VoIP2Air, another company offering a hosted model of a Mobile PBX for users of Nokia N and E series phones or a Windows Mobile device, with what looks to be a UK market area, but their suite of services seems to be what the doctor is ordering, I just don't see a USA operator offering anything similar today though, and the dependence on 3G connectivity or WiFi also has me concerned a tad.

For a Mobile PBX to work right, it has to function where the customer won't have any real concerns. That means it will need to live within the carriers network (ala Centrex) at first simply to make the Enterprise or SMB IT folks happy, not be an over the top, early adopter play. Ergo why Verizon is doing what they are offering. Sure the solution from VoIP2Air will likely work, and work well most of the time, but the real test as Dean Bubley pointed out, is when the carriers/mobile operators themselves deploy their own version of Mobile PBX and start using it. Then, it will be ready for carriers prime time. For those of us who are daring, it means the over the top solutions will improve and improve, begin to gain some traction and act more and more like our mobile switchboard.....sort of like a GrandCentral station for calls.....

My guess is this. When Cisco, RIM, Apple, Nokia, Microsoft and a few others join hands with a few large mobile operators, form a standards cooperative of what a Mobile PBX is, then, we'll really see this. Until that happens, in the mobile world we'll have the FMC oriented Over the Top plays alive and kicking, and smart business operators finding them to use.

This video news report tells a very tragic story of how shortsighted companies have gotten in an era of staying connected.

While Quest and SkyWi may have a dispute over money, the customers of SkyWi likely paid their bills. To leave them stranded, without an option was shortsighted, and the New Mexico regulators had to step in. Thankfully.

Om call 2008 the year of Mediocrity.

Ted points to for whom the Bell tolls.

Let's start with the source of money closest to the hearts of the start ups. The VCs. Over the past 60 days I'm hearing the following "the VC's don't really have the money in the funds they represent. They have to go to the LP's (Limited Partners) to do a cash call. Some are having problems getting the money from their LPs so the deals aren't closing."

Translation-Dear Mr. Startup CEO. Yes we agreed and gave you a term sheet but we don't have the money so we can't fund you. Good luck.

Excuse me. I don't go to Nordtroms to buy a suit, try it on, have the salesman find the pants in my size, pick out a shirt, a tie, some nice cool socks, and have the tailor measure for cuffs, seat and waist alterations and then say, "oh, but I don't have the cash."

What is going on today? Hasn't anyone ever heard of bad faith negotiation? When I asked a VC I know about term sheets and deals. He said "not really" because a term sheet isn't a deal. Then I brought up the famed "no shop clause" and he said "then they'd (the VC) have a problem."

Now lets look at the Telco. They still are the "plumbers" that Ken Camp refers to in his post. As a matter of fact plumbers make a big living fixing the plumbing that's already there, but it's the pipe-fitters and steamfitters are really the ones who make the money laying new pipe under the direction of a general contractor in the big cities (and where unions remain.) Consider this scenario. The telcos commit to installing a T1 from a company like Speakeasy. But the Bell head installer is "delayed" on another job. When he does show up the "inside" guy back at the CO (Central Office) isn't around to do the "inside" test. So the install is rescheduled and that's before the SpeakEasy installer can do his part. Result the customer waits and waits. Business doesn't happen and work is slowed. But the customer still pays the same thing regardless of the install happening on the date promised or whenever the telcos got around to having the install happen. I didn't know we lived in Provence.

What ever happened to the simple fact of keeping your word?

One of the things I learned a long time ago was to say things like "no" or I'm not sure I can do that. Then I would go out and do it. Get it done and come back and say, "it's now done." In my business we do a lot of outreach. We don't promise anything. We make no guarantees. We just go out, and deliver what can be delivered. It's called underselling and over delivering. People hire us for our track record of delivering.

Om doesn't promise pageviews to his advertisers. He promises content to his readers. The readers come because the content isn't mediocre. It's good. In return the advertisers get pageviews. They buy GigaOm because the audience keeps coming back.

Ted doesn't promise crap in his work as an IT consultant. He promises the job will be done right and knows he won't get paid if it's not done right. His business grows because he gets the job done.

The changes that are needed to go from mediocre to good aren't hard to make, but I'll contend that most people really don't know the difference between great and good, let alone mediocre.

Think of it this way. Many people have bought Chryslers because the sales person said "this is a wonderful car for you, sir." If Chryslers were so wonderful would they have needed two bailouts in our lifetime? That's not mediocre. That's pathetic.

Back in 2005 client Iotum went to Demo, captured a Demo god award for Pronto, a conference all and calendar mashup that brought intelligence to the conference calling arena.

Last year client ifByPhone rolled out what Professor Mashup Thomas Howe calls one of the easiest to use Voice API platforms around.

Now I see Ringful has emerged on the scene with a platform that looks so Deja Vu.

They even have the Alias calling that TalkPlus tried back in 2007.

Give me something new (and useful) please. There has to be more than conference calling and Facebook VoiceMail (as if we want another FB VM app)

For a company still at the angel round, Fonolo continues to garner the kind of attention that consumer brands crave to be awarded.

This time it was from trendspotting Springwise, an 8,000+ person early "things to watch, things to know about" organization.

With applications like Palringo, Truphone, Nimbuzz, Fring all available in the iPhone/iPod App Store seeing that the sales of iPod Touch devices being so strong, makes my heart a flutter.

I too bought two of these in the last few weeks, one for myself and one as a gift for my wife. I see the 2nd Generation iPod Touch as being the sleeper product of the year. It's capabilities rival the iphone, and since you can use almost all the apps (minus the GPS other than Palringo which works with WiFi locations too) the market for iPhone app sales just grew.

Over in Korea where WiMax has been up and running under the WiBro monicker, we read that a standard for voice services has been set up, and that KT (Korea Telecom) is gearing up to deploy it.

This news is excellent news for the Voice Service provider industry as it gives them a standard to follow and to work with. It also shows just how quickly WiMax is moving compared to WiFi which only this year has adopted and ratified a real VoIP protocol, something that slowed down the adoption of muni-WiFi.

By having a standard, and a giant in KT already embracing it, Voice over WiMax actually has a future. For Clear, here in the USA, it opens the doors to service providers who can offer a voice carrier something different a chance to sell something new.

In my mind, if I was looking to be different from the regular cellular based mobile operators I would be looking at IVR and Speech Recognition first. With the way the laws are going here in the USA it wouldn't be simply value added. It would be selling an essential service to a new market with a true difference. This is ideal for client Mobivox and their MobivoxPL platform.

You can tell a lot by the way a company behaves in the media. Cisco, is one of those companies which knows how to sing a tune.

It's no coincidence that Cisco has two very interesting stories appear in different parts of the media today. It was planned. What's more if you look closely at both stories you can see that the story angles are not that different. That's called positioning, and when you read the words you see that the Cisco message for 2009 is really more about pulling more of their switches through the service providers by getting more end of the line (i.e. the consumer and the business user) dependent on IP based services and features.

The New York Times story takes a very consumer tone (of course) while the CXO Today story has a more inside the technology business world perspective. Both highlight many of the same initiatives that Cisco is embarking on and draw attention to why those efforts are so important to the publics, not only the company. That's called messaging.

While Cisco may have only made four acquisitions this past year, its clear that they have focus and their Linksys and Scientific Atlanta grabs from prior years are certainly now coming to the forefront.

My guess is that in 2009 Cisco makes some moves that expands their market share immensely. They are still a darling of what's left on Wall Street, they have sales and they are very focused.

Analyst Jon Arnold has written a killer piece this morning for TMC proclaiming that VoIP is not dead, and he's right. The acquisition of Sylantro by Broadsoft sure proves that, but Arnold goes much deeper.

In his well penned muse, the laser focused, hard charging Boston Red Sox fan points out that many are crying the blues, when there's growth and green ahead, calling attention to ten or so companies that are making a difference. (Note: Six of the ten are clients of my agency Comunicano so I'm very happy to see this kind of endorsement.)

Arnold is right on target when he refers to the service providers being the beneficiaries of VoIP. The consumer game is pretty much over. The cable guys are winning that battle Arnold pretty much admits, a point I've been making for a few years. As a result the companies he highlights are all well positioned and well poised to work with both the cable operators, VSP (Voice Service Providers), Mobile Operators and telcos to deliver next generation services, not simply dial-tone and call connection.

Let's face it, none of the service providers have been investing in new networks and new technology to power them to deliver the same old service.

In what was a classic example of a secret not being well kept, Broadsoft today finally announced the acquisition of Sylantro.

Network World questions if the AT&T break up 25 years ago had any real impact on innovation saying that other countries didn't force divestiture and are in the same place.

I would contend that other than Russia and China, no country covers the kind of geography that the USA does, and as such comparison's are out the window.

I'll also contend that what we have today with cable and wireless companies is the Bell System put back together if you look at the map.

For example, AT&T and Verizon are still the most dominant forces in landlines, followed by Quest.

In Mobile AT&T and Verizon are one and two. Sprint is what Sprint was in alternative long distance and T-Mobile is the MCI of the wireless world. Other players like Cricket, Metro PCS and Boost are next rung, just like there were other Alternative Long Distance Players back in the 80s.

When it comes to landlines, the cable guys are picking off subscribers to the point where both AT&T and Verizon, as well as Quest, are finally saying, "we've had enough" and are rolling out the big guns with UVerse and FIOS as a countermeasure. In turn, CableVision counters locally with WiFi, while Cox begins to play with Mobile phone service. Time Warner and Comcast look to WiMax as their out of market play and even a mobile in-market play, as WiMax becomes the 21st century equal to the mobile phone play of the 80's and 90s.

So did divestiture spur innovation? No. It spurred on a type of competition where the people who had imagination saw opportunity to make money by making it easier for new competitors to enter the market plain and simple.

Randall Stross of the New York Times has an excellent analysis and shows some very good reporting around the SMS industry and to what lengths the carriers will go to preserve what they have.

In many ways this makes me think of Twitter and the value it would bring to a mobile operator, much the same way that Plaxo will bring value to Comcast. Loyalty and usage fees from that usage are my first thoughts.

Let's face it. Twitter is sticky. It's addictive. It's messaging. It conforms length wise to SMS very well. Most of all, people are already using various clients on mobile devices already to Twitter back and forth.

I say, some smart mobile operator will bag Twitter in 2009 simply to be in control of it. Heck, maybe even a group of them will buy it up.

Ken Camp has one of his better posts in a very long time, where he muses off of Rich's post about the impact of Siemens alleged bribery efforts. In the post Ken connected three different thoughts, but all with a central theme. In turn it got me thinking.

First, I feel the Siemens debacle is an example of what Ayn Rand dubbed "Anti-Greed" in Atlas Shrugged. It is not the Wall Street "greed is good" line at play but rather what can we do so no one else makes money.

Second Ken, in pointing to Rich's post, draws out the fact that this is likely the tip of the iceberg, and is why you will see companies now documenting things more or being like WalMart, where every sample left has to go through the purchasing team where it's logged.

Third, the Siemens matter, where they "settled" will mean that globally the anti-corruption forces will tag team more, as we're in such a crazy state now where money flows across borders as fast or faster than email, that the rise of the global economy police via the UN and Interpol will come about.

We're no longer, and haven't been for a very long time, living in a nation state world. Borders are simply there for geographic and tax reasons. Multi-national organizations, both civil and criminal exist, and anyone who thinks the local crack dealer isn't part of a global "company" without knowing it is on drugs themselves. What the Siemens folks allegedly did was an example of how old school business works. It was about keeping everyone happy. Other companies in other industries likely do the same thing. The question is which will be the next target for the investigators.

Ted Wallingford's comment about the SMB space got me thinking.

If more companies now have an in house VoIP maven, doesn't that mean there's more opportunities to sell VoIP related hardware, software and services?

The key becomes finding those people. Since many of the job holders have been found via recruiters, that means the smart VoIP sales organization will align themselves with the head-hunting and job placement firms, turn those recently hired into prospects and start selling to them.

Now, how one learns who's hiring and who just hired is an art form, but the smart and savvy make money off of being artful.

I am working hard at not going on the road as much in 2009 as the last 20 months have been rather exhausting. Between the planning of my two wedding events in 2007, the two events, one in Montpeyroux France and the other in San Francisco, plus the extended renovations in my community to 90 homes, plus my own home's expansion, those months have been an enormous toll on my body, and my mind.

In many ways, it has been a learning experience. First, I truly do work from anywhere. My business has grown dramatically in scope and size. Our work output only goes from great to greater heights and the time I spend away from home allows me to pursue my other passion, wine and food as I can always find a great place to find both.

But with 2009 only a few days away, it's time to take stock of what the first quarter has in store:

January 4-8 San Francisco for MacWorld

January 8-11 Las Vegas for CES

January 25 a trip to New York City for meetings

February 2-4 Miami Florida TMC's Internet Telephony and 4G Conferences

February 10-11 New York City Jeff Pulver's Social Media Summit

February 15-19 Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress*

March 3-5 Burlingame, CA for eComm 2009

March 15-21 Decouverte du Rhone, Rhone Valley, France (and likely a few more days on both ends)

So much for traveling less... :-(

I have to wonder what the SF Examiner would have said if they had either Verizon's FIOS or SureWest's FTTH connectivity.

In areas where AT&T is the only option to the cable company, AT&T's UVerse is looking like a pretty good home or workplace upgrade to DSL. I mean, in some areas they are promising 18 megs down, but only a paltry 1.5 megs up.

The cable guys are moving up the ladder with Docsis 3.0 already, with promises of 100 megs down and significant upload speeds that vary per market and system operator.

My second home in Sacramento has SureWest which offers triple play, and 50 Megs up and down, and some of the best customer support around. (They answer fast, fix things faster and basically you don't need much from them)

The great thing about SureWest is I have an open pipe to the Internet. Some FIOS users tell me that they are stuck using Verizon's DNS and SMTP. That's the same way some cable operators are with using their SMTP vs. your own, by blocking port 25. I'm not sure how UVerse handles that, but it is an issue for those who work at home and want to use their own office mail servers.

Bottom line, if the Examiner thinks UVerse is the Product of the Year, all they need to do is go 90 miles east and see what a real Product of the Year is like. Go East Young Man and get SureWest.

History always repeats. No question about that.

First media form to grow big was the newspaper. Chains emerged. Profits soared. The most powerful force in any community was the newspaper. Think about it, every major comic strip from SuperMan, to the Green Hornet to Spiderman had the newspaper as a center piece of the story line.

Perry White, Clark Kent, Lois Lane. Brett Reed. Peter Parker. J. Jonah Jamison.

They were the characters that were the stars of the strips, and later the TV series' and eventually the movies in the case of Superman and Spiderman. The newspaper publisher, editor, reporter and photographer were the king.

City halls created "press rooms." Public Information Officer positions in city government and within agencies were plum assignments, as the access to the media from those jobs was unduplicated. The print reporters deadlines were what set the stage for the news. They made the agenda and set the stage for everything the public knew.

Radio started big time in the late 1920s, but it was really in the 30's and 40s that it took off and through the 90s was responsible for profits as record growth, more people in cars, FM carry static free since the 70s and of course the concept of the format. Radio was never hurt by TV, not the way the printed word was hurt by the Internet, as it was very hard to take TV with you, so radio was the portable "media" of choice for those on the go.

But just as print is for the most part dead, so too is radio as we knew it. Put bluntly, mass media is a thing of the past. All hail personal media.

This seismic shift that occurred is and will be borne as a result of the Internet arrival and from the start some in radio thought they could control the net. They didn't and they can't, so while print was suffering the radio groups made a killing, consolidation, market saturation and domination by a few very well funded groups. But radio has killed off the concept of the music station. It's all corporate programming, without any personality. Sure the best music in radio is over satellite for the masses, but the arrival of the Internet and now it's explosive growth fueled by broadband and cheap 3G access means that personal music is the next horizon.

The media companies that catch on and realize that the radio airwaves were the broadband pipe of the 20th century and embrace the personalization model of content delivery will be the winners.

Radio may be around, but just like the newspaper conglomerates, the large broadcasting consortiums will either embrace a new model, sell off or become the dinosaurs of the 21st century.

Update--> TechCrunch refers to a Pew Research Center report that the net is more popular as a source for news than newspapers. DUH. But the world is moving away from text to audio, and yes Gracie, Video. Think about it. The keyboard on the iPhone is nothing great. The new Verizon Storm, made by RIM, is hardly a touch typists dream come true, and even the Android, despite its more Blackberry like tactile keyboard is only passable for typing.

No, we're moving towards a new form of radio, where the on air talent moves past the folks who write, and where the media moguls control networks not tabloids.

You see, history always repeats.

Update # 2--> Now I read that the NY Times is going to exit their investment in the Boston Red Sox and sell off some other non-core assets. SMART. They still have some of the best reporting and are likely going to gear up for even more media consolidation.

For companies that sell their services solely based on VoIP in the middle, this move by Optus isn't good news.

In essence what Optus is doing and saying to their customers is if you're their contractee, all calls go over the Optus network and the Optus long distance network. No dialing around. No call backs, no VoIP in the middle. No cheap calling.

Well with three other carriers in Australia not behaving like Optus the answer is simple. Do the math. Figure out the break even point. Terminate the contract at that point, then switch and keep using the discount calling services with another carrier.

Last weekend I went into RadioShack and grabbed one of the Acer Aspire One Netbooks for $99.00.

Yes, I already have a few other Asus and even a original release Aspire One from six months or so back, but this one is different. It has 3G inside and works on HSDPA via AT&T. Add in a two year data contract and my price all in is $1,500.00 which for the Mobile Me is about right.

The netbooks are clearly here to stay. GigaOm reports that sales of them have outpaced laptops, with the only major laptop maker missing from the picture being Apple currently.

The reason I like these small and nifty PCs is really simple. They're light. Easy to carry and they do it all. And, now with 3G they make it really easy to stay, connected.

I spent more days on the road this past year than I care to count. New clients. New events. New places. The reason. My house was undergoing renovation, and so was my life.

As a type A, Cell A performer, one who give no, and asks no quarter, my philosophy has been go to where you have to be because despite the saying of "there's no place like home" due to never ending community renovations and my own home's improvements, there wasn't a place that was really home.

But that's mostly behind me for a few more months before I begin phase two. And that leads me to my New Year's resolution a few day's early.

Travel less. Video conference and video call more.

The technology has gotten to the point where we really can see each other very well, without having to be in the same place. What's more bandwidth, processor speeds and yes, compression schemes have all gotten to the point where the availability has caught up with the dream.

So in 2009 if you want to see me...look for me online.

Sure I'll still be logging airmiles, going to conferences, and attending events. But for the most part my travel and meetings will be around those key activities, with less point to point travel and more consolidated and concentrated activities in the same market for a few days vs. a day here, and a day there. That kind of travel doesn't do a body good.

So for 2009 look out, watch out and check out what's to be seen. I know I will be.

VoIP News' Robert Poe picked 25 VoIP innovations he's seen in 2008. I'm very pleased and have to agree with many of the picks, though I'm sure I could find a few more, many of which are on the business model side, versus the practical or cool.

What I was pleased to see though was that the list included eight current or recently graduated clients including Voxbone for iNum, Truphone, Global IP Solutions, iotum for Calliflower, Palringo, Mobivox, GrandCentral and Yugma.

Thanks Robert!!

What else would I have put on the list? That's easy. Fonolo and Junction Networks. Fonolo's deep dialing customer service and support calling system is generating tons of glowing reviews from users and pundits alike.

Junction Networks' OnSip platform has redefined how businesses can use a hosted PBX platform. Their platform and payment model, plus the simplicity of it being SIP based makes it "open" vs. the Packet 8 closed model that Poe cited.

I would also include PhoneFusion's Visual VoiceMail app, that brings what was only an Apple iPhone app to many more handsets too as well as the entire ifByPhone platform as they are actually selling services, not just themselves ala Ribbit.

Lastly, I would have to include the VAPPs High Def Conferencing service. The hours I've spent on conference calls via HDC this year are in the hundreds. And with HDC I've been able to Skype In from anywhere I have an IP connection, saving thousands of dollars in minutes and long distance charges.

It was back in 2005 when at the suggestion of a few friends at AOL, namely Jim Tobin, who is now at Comast, Cindy Harvey and Ragui Kamel invited me to "shake up" an AOL creative session by being the protagonist on a panel that included uber analysts Mark Winther of IDC and other that I coined the phrase, "Me Too, Me Also, Me Different."

Late yesterday I saw that longtime colleague in arms, Doug Mohney has also picked up on the "me too" angle, delving nicely into what I feel is now best described as amenity messaging.

Here's some analysis behind Doug's well penned wrap up:

A free download-able client that included IM, VoIP, presence, and (most of the time) video. Then later a web-based client.

Andy Says--SightSpeed was the first to really do this with all the features, something that was often overlooked. In this day and age with SaaS and "the Cloud" being so important and as devices get smaller and lighter, you have to be built this way to be competitive.

Free client-to-client calls

Andy Says--it's not really free, it's SIP or Public Internet traffic. Vonage has made a killing on customers who call other customers. This is in essence what Skype also has done. Use the Internet for free calls. Someone or some entity supports all that free traffic but not the service provider of the calling.

Free phone number or numbers

Andy Says-no such thing as a free lunch. DIDs cost money period. So unless there is money coming from elsewhere its VC dollars which carry the cost of these or the ill fated ad model being the hope, dream and mistake.

Free features like visual voice mail, multi-line ring and call forwarding.

Andy Says--Again, no such thing as a free lunch. These services cost money, take up server time and space. There has to be deep pockets ala Google with GrandCentral or some other use as a sampling effort. Without a revenue model there are only users. Not customers. I prefer a paying customer over a user any day.

Really cheap long distance and international minutes

Andy Says--There's a difference between free, really cheap and value priced. Wal Mart makes money being every day low pricing, but not the cheapest. That's Dollar Store and Smart & Final. If you want cheap, you get cheap. If you want value you buy at value pricing and get quality you can depend on. At the end of the day, I want less headaches and more quality.

Doug keenly picked up on a few of our clients, notably Mobivox and Truphone, seeing how they now have revenue models, not just free services. In the end, its about business, and the business of business is about making money.

Emerick Woods, the recently named CEO of client Global IP Solutions (GIPS) has taken a stab at what the year ahead looks like.

I suspect we'll see many more of these from others.

I'm a Kindle fan. Ever since pal Jeff Belk turned me on to his one day flying from Las Vegas to San Diego I've been hooked. I have some regrets though. When I was in Europe I couldn't update it and that was a bummer. I only wish it had WiFi in addition to the Whisper Network from Amazon and Sprint.

But that one hurdle aside, I've become a Kindle fan because not only does it let me read books without carrying them, I can also read business magazines and newspapers while traveling without the added weight.

Larry Golob of the GIPS team penned a piece yesterday about the Kindle and brought up a very interesting point near the end where he wrote:

At Global IP Solutions, we are seeing significant interest from customers developing real time voice and video applications for the mobile market. Maybe we will soon see a Kindle with real-time voice and video for those unable to attend their book club in person.

This is in alignment with my divergence concept written about after Telco 2.0 last April. Basically, you take a device which is designed to do one thing exceptionally well and add in additional, and complimentary, functionality. Larry's suggestion of adding voice to the Kindle is a dead on the mark application of my suggestion.

From my perspective, the Kindle can be a lot more than it is today and my guess is that it will be more than what it is in the very near future.

As the economy sours and as we all become more ecological or "green" one of the trends that we're seeing on both coasts here in the USA is the increase in ridership of trains, both commuter and long haul.

Growing up on the east coast I regularly took the Metroliner between Philadelphia and New York City for meetings or to see my girlfriend at the time who lived in Manhattan. Here on the west coast the Amtrak Surfliner is a regular mode for me to get to Los Angeles or Santa Barbara or the Capital Corridor train from Sacramento to San Francisco or San Jose. I also take the train from SF sometimes depending where meetings are in Silicon Valley vs. always driving.

So this story out of Japan is very timely. You see, with an increase in ridership on trains, comes an increase in business riders. That means there is the need for WiFi on trains, especially since the coverage for 3G along the rails is so spotty here.

I've had first had experience on the Heathrow Connect via T-Mobile in London. It works. 15 minutes of high speed travel and connectivity from Heathrow Airport to Paddington Station. The sheer feeling of clearing out my inbox, changing a lunch reservation or reconfirming a meeting is so relaxing. But so is making a Skype call or even a SightSpeed video call from the moving train.

The folks at Amtrak should take note. Some WiFi operator or mobile operator likely wants the business. Hopefully they give it to them because staying connected on the trains means more business and business traveler for Amtrak.

Network World, which has a very strong SMB and Enterprise focus is out with their ten predictions for VoIP.

On the surface this is taking a page out of client iFByPhone's playbook, a company out of the Netherlands has created PushCall. With their latest offering, PushCall makes it passible to click on a banner ad and make a call.

What makes so much of this possible is the same kind of Adobe Flash audio that is powering things like TringMe and now GizmoCall.

The difference between services like iFByPhone and Pushcall is what is going on behind the scenes. Web based companies want more than just click and connect. That's the difference between a neat idea, and a real business model.

Longtime VoIP reporter Robert Poe has pulled together a very comprehensive checklist of what company decisionmakers should be considering when they get ready to make a decision on selecting a hosted VoIP provider.

Om's post about Jaxtr pretty much provides the kind of perspective I have on free services.

The crowd that wants free never pays. With free not being a business model any longer, and with ad supported models about to feel very choked using current ad practices based on the impression model, not the relevance model, these free deals are basically like cancer.

Yesterday my flight from Paris to Newark was delayed by almost three hours. That meant the connection to my American Airlines flight to Dallas would never be made, so at Orly I logged on to their hotspot using Boingo and looked at options.

There weren't any. So I went to AA.com and changed my flight to Wednesday morning and booked a room at the Newark Airport Marriott. Even though the airline knew I did this and was willing to offer a room at another hotel, I wanted to stay at the closest and most convenient property to the airport as a 750 AM flight means getting up early and dealing with jet lag, plus I know what kind of connectivity I'll get at the Marriott, as it's a Boingo roaming location.

When I got to the room I used my own Apple Airport Express, connected it to the iBahn cable, and started using Truphone to make calls.

Nothing was complicated and everything worked.

Now only if they can cure jetlag.

Jon Arnold has moved his blog to a new home.

http://www.ipcom-insights.com/blog/jon/

The speeds for broadband connectivity in the UK are going to increase, with both Virgin and BT rolling out two different versions of high speed networks to their existing customer bases.

Virgin, which uses the same approach as USA cable operators like Comcast, is going to kick speeds up from 20 megs to 50, while BT is going to initially offer 40 megs on a fiber (FTTP) platform that could offer 100 megs symmetrically.

The difference is in the upload. The fiber platform offer the same experience for uploads and downloads, where cable modem is faster on the download. The cable technology is based on the Cable Labs standard of Docsis 3.0.

Verizon claims that 100 megs is also likely, but in a bit of back-peddling, seemed to say that we won't be seeing it any time soon. I'd say politics inside Verizon is at play. The technology is there. The only question is around the willingness to deploy it and when.

As we all know the slowdown in the economy means telcos won't be spending as much on "new" and "shiny" so that means the suppliers get the brunt first.

Last Friday Sonus laid off 50 people.

It's not a surprise that Cisco is seeing growth in the enterprise market with telephony gear. No company is better poised to do well in the on-premise PBX market than Cisco as a result of their market swarm and dominate approach.

While Avaya is number two, the pressure from others will consume them while Cisco will keep eating them up from above. Then there's the growing pressure from Hosted PBX providers. These companies are basically taking away business month after month, reducing the need for small and medium size businesses to make a capital expenditure.

1. They have an App Store. Device manufacturers or OS manufacturers without an App Store don't have an easy way to move apps that move devices.

2. Its got a keyboard. For the crowd that doesn't want a Blackberry it's the platform that has more.

3. It has WiFi. Yes, Virginia, we can stay connected.

4. It has 3G. This drives data plan sales.

5. It has Google behind it. They innovate.

Sylvain (left) is with George, who launched the chain of winebars called L'Ecluse in Paris. He no longer has to work.

Ok, so to be upfront as always, we represent some of the cooler companies around. Boingo and Truphone leads that list, as both are at the forefront of technology and making things easier for the road warrior. Especially the International Road Warrior who makes lots of calls back to the USA and Canada from other parts of the world. I use these services (and others) so as someone take it from someone who does more than just talk the talk. I also "walk the walk" as the original Road Warriors used to say.

This past week Truphone made some killer news with the updated iPhone client, adding the use of Truphone Anywhere to the iPhone, a service that is already working on the Nokias. Now here's the missing gem in the whole story. It's the previously launched Truphone Trusaver. That's the package for $15 dollars where you purchase 1000 minutes (read .015 cents per minute), something that I've had on my Nokia E71 and E90 phones for sometime with my longstanding Truphone number. Getting that package on the iPhone now is a huge plus as the size of the addressable market of iPhone users dwarfs the Nokia numbers of the higher end devices. What's more, the newly minuted Boingo Mobile client for the Nokias and the iPhone, the just released iPass client or the use of either DeviceScape or WiFinder on the iPhone means quick and seamless connectivity on the iPhone too.

So here's where it gets interesting. Boingo Mobile costs $7.50 for unlimited global access to their hotspot network on Boingo Mobile. iPass is rolling out a similar service on the iPhone too for $9.95 or $6.95 on contract. You can decide which is better for you. Of course, I'm biased towards my client, but the iPass program does have lots of corporate customers already so the combination of a corporate billed mobile and a corporate billed WiFi account plus Truphone makes for a happy CFO who stops seeing all kinds of global roaming costs. It also means that the traveling executive can stop having to justify why they called so and so, or worse, turn the phone off completely, and becoming unreachable for fear of a high roaming bill, something CrunchGear editor John Biggs learned the hard way.

So here's the math which makes the iPhone or a Nokia N or E series phone with Truphone plus the combination of either Boingo Mobile or iPass such a killer deal.

Truphone Trusaver 1000 minutes 15.00

WiFi Access 7.95 (I'm using the Boingo base as you can opt for the contract on iPass at $6.95 and the savings is greater but you may not need it every month and then their $9.95 is higher)

Cost $22.95

Figure you use all 1000 minutes in a month (regardless of being on a paid hotspot from Boingo or iPass or not)

Cost per minute $.02295 or less than 2.5 cents per minute to make calls.

What's more Truphone also points out that provided that you have purchased a new American Tru Saver bundle prior to the Expiry Date of your existing bundle, you may roll over any remaining or unused minutes into the next month, to a maximum of 2500 minutes in any monthly period. That's a really compelling offer, especially if you spend weeks away like I tend to do.

Now it gets even better with one other addition. It's the concept of a Rebel SIM on the iPhone. Since many iPhone's are sold as locked devices, you have to find a way to not JailBreak the phones. Unlike my Nokias which are all unlocked, for those of you who want to purchase a SIM in the country your visiting, like I tend to do, the Rebel SIM (and others like them) make it really easy to keep using your iPhone and all the applications. The combination of a Rebel SIM means Truphone Anywhere works with a local calling plan (no roaming charges) where ever you may be calling from, and then lets you take advantage of the Truphone low calling rates when you're not on a WiFi hotspot. When you are, the investment in a Boingo Mobile, T-Mobile or iPass account kicks in and the savings is even greater. Oh, yes and for those of you who really know how to travel, can find hotels that offer wired access, I suggest tossing in a travel router into you go kit, latch on to that and keep making those calls for 1.5 cents a minute.

The money you save over time will let you stay in a better hotel, enjoy their better grade of broadband and a better overall calling experience.

Scouring through the various news items early this AM in London before another day filled with meetings and then a quick Eurostar ride to Paris to catch up with some business and personal contacts there, led me to this TMCNet story about the Skype for Windows Beta candidate 3.0.

I'm not sure if it's just me, or is this the second longest beta known to ma of an already released product, with the first of course being Windows Vista :-)

Maybe that's why Skype has to spend so much time tweaking and fixing. Up until now I've played occasionally with the Beta version of it on my EEE PC's and found that each version gets better, and the decision to allow users to decide which interface the prefer, classic or full screen to have been a smart move.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

That seems to be the motto of AT&T when it comes to in home activation on the Apple iPhone. What a great idea, and very timely.

This means that you can order online, have it shipped to your house. Open the box, connect to a Mac or PC and pick your plan, direct them on how to get paid, where to send your bill, etc.

When we work with clients we shoot for various levels of media and online exposure. We view the media, bloggers and analysts as key sounding board for the products and services to ascertain where something is in the "market ready" timeline.

One client, the angel backed, just out of beta, Fonolo is red hot. Every reporter, analyst and blogger we've put them in front of has given it a "thumbs up" type of reaction, ranging from the most consumer oriented site like the Consumerist, to LifeHacker, to GigaOm (where they won the Mobilize Launchpad crown) to now the Associated Press' Peter Svensson who compares Fonolo to Dante's Virgil.

The last company we saw with the kind of heat like this was GrandCentral, which Google acquired a year and a half ago, where online reaction and mainstream media were so aligned.

Given how Fonolo also has the ability to help call centers reduce their costs of time on hold and 800 number costs, the play is beneficial to both sides of the customer service calling equation. Also, with the kind of consumer acclaim out there for the service and a pent up demand, Fonolo is well poised to be the hot 2009 company in the VoIP space.

The recent hires over the past year by Skype all indicate to me that the so called "considering strategic alternatives" that Skype headhunters heard earlier this year looks to me like the company is being built up to be sold or to make some acquisitions.

Here Are Some Reasons:

1. Skype is not really a part of eBay's eco-system. Last summer at eBay Live Skype's role was so diminimized that you had to use a magnifying glass to see what they were doing there.

2. Skype has been on a "This Is What We Are Doing" kick the last six months. I've seen speeches and presentations where Skype is talking all about their road map. Much of it is mobile and handset device oriented.

3. Skype is moving into hiring a community development manager or director (again.) This will shore up the development eco-system.

Skype is on an expansion kick, but everything they're doing leads me to the two paths. Be sold or buy more.

The fan in me wants to see them given their freedom.

The results of a survey published in Network World revealed the office tools that tech workers can't live without. There are some surprises and it's worth checking to see how much you agree or disagree.

Talk about trying to draw attention about a company after months of hiding as their stock price dwindles. Yesterday I caught wind of Vonage's latest PR stunt. Call Santa.

Garrett Smith, who pens, Smith on VoIP has started a series of postings where he's interviewing the top movers and shakers in VoIP on the topic of Mobile VoIP.

So far I've reviewed the postings about clients Junction Networks, ifByPhone, Mobivox CEO Peter Diedrich and pal Ari Rabban of Phone.com.

Garrett conducts these "interviews" the same way as Rich Tehrani over at TMCnet.com, by email, then follows up when he needs clarification. The insight Garrett is extracting makes these a must read for anyone wondering what's happening in Mobile VoIP and clearly shows what the interview subjects are thinking.

Just read over on CNET (which of late has been very much a news junkies dream site) that Skype updated their Windows Mobile client. I have a Windows Mobile phone on Verizon and actually have used the original client with success in the past. It was one of those overlooked "real Skype" applications that never got any attention, but was there. The question is does the new version work over 3G, as the old one, on Samsungs didn't on Verizon's CDMA EvDO rev A network.

Over at ZDNet, Matt Miller hat tips Jason Harris' Twitter tweet about the Skype Lite client for some, not all Nokia N and E Series devices. I'll have to try it out on my Nokia E71 when I get to London today.

My take. Skype saw the value of what iSkoot was doing and developed their own client. Clearly the "invisible" mobile play of Skype is starting to become more visible. Persistence Presence is where Skype is heading. They have clearly won the IM game that used to belong to AOL, MSN and Yahoo, and none of those folks are at all doing anything any longer to challenge them, with only Gizmo Project publicly innovating. (See http://www.gizmocalls.com even if it has crappy Adobe Flash audio) Skype won't feel any heat from the big three for some time. Two are in the middle of management chaos, while the third can really care less about what Skype does (MSFT) as it still drives sales of Operating Systems of the desktop and by having a Windows Mobile client also drives Mobile sales of Windows Mobile 6.1.

Companies like EQO are dancing with disaster. Fring and others are laying off, or trying to go an advertising model route, another road to nowhere long term. Only companies with a clear vision (i.e. client Palringo comes to mind) of where to take their business are going to survive in the long run, especially when you see companies like client Nokia launching integrating Chat and Mail Messaging platforms, and services like Google creating more hooks into GTalk all the time.

Oh yes, and then there's Apple and their iChat app, which to this day doesn't exist on the iPhone, simply to not take SMS revenue away from the carriers. Skype doesn't care about the carriers, except the few they partner with. And those partners see the value of partnering with forward thinking companies.

Last week I called out Packet8 for sending out what woudl make for better ad content but disguised as a press release, highlighting an offer wasn't really as good as that from client Junction Networks' OnSip. My guess is there are other deals out there as well that are better too so caveat emptor.

Over the weekend it turned into a war of words when a rebuttal post was erected by the CEO of Packe8. His post is a good example of how to use (or not use) numbers to tell your story, your way, regardless if the facts end up being accurate or not in his own online CEO's journal. I also heard from a few readers and his PR person drawing attention to his views. My take, it's all how you look at the numbers and how you decide what's apples, and what's oranges, but only to a point.

This prompted Junction Networks CEO Robert Walpov to do some math on his own as well, and write a response which shows that my math was right, and that somehow the numbers thrown up by Packet 8 prexy Martin were applied too liberally. read Rob's post and see where things differ.

Client Mobivox is making news this week with their new multilingual platform and their partnership with Unyk going to the next level.

Here are the details.

This is very important as Alec Saunders pointed out yesterday, in that Mobivox has been able to transition from a validate the model consumer play into a platform play offering and more importantly delivering services to Jajah and Unyk based upon that proven suite of service offerings.

San Diego based Novatel Wireless makes my favorite 3G USB modem, the 950. Today they unveiled a very cool new product called MiFi. It's really a product line and is a take off of Cradlepoint, but with a big difference.

Novatel has already established distribution with the mobile GSM and CDMA operators around the world. Cradlepoint was hoping for that with a planned acquisition by Sierra Wireless some months back, but that deal fell apart.

Basically the MiFi creates what Novatel is calling a "personal cloud" of mobile broadband access.

Whose the market? Study groups from schools, families on vacation, or road warriors who need more than one device connected to the 'Net without paying for multiple access accounts. This is where data limits on Mobile Broadband start to fall into play and where monitoring of usage is key to not end up with a huge bill.

All you do is put a data SIM in the device, and use the Novatel software an you're off and running. Speaking of SIMs I found this company EmbeddedWorks which offers global data SIMs at a fair price. Today they lack 3G but that's coming they claim.

Two news items of note around Skype and my take.

First is this Skype calling interoperability by 28Tel called Mobile 2 Skype. It sounds a lot like what former client TalkPlus attempted to do and didn't do with Skype, though not due their own efforts. It also reads really like what iSkoot has done by working via the network layer, but without network cooperation, creating a call through capability that reduces calling costs and enables calls to Skype buddies. Client Mobivox offers the same capabilities and a lot more and their voice platform could add so much to 28Tel's offering. Hmmm..I'm not sure if Skype has blessed off on this or not though...Could be interesting if they didn't.

Then there's this "lower priced" calling deal out of the Ukraine via a bank called PrivatBank, with a co-branded service for teh banks customers. Unfortunately, there's no business to business play revealed her yet where Skype customers can easily call their bank via a Skype to Skype call. Imagine one part client Fonolo and another part On-State here at work. To see why this makes sense, give a read of Jim Courtney's Web Worker Daily story of a few weeks ago and his update in SkypeJournal yesterday.

Skype should look at these two plays, pull them together with their co-branded corporate efforts and offer up an all in one solution with Fonolo and On-State. It would be a win win for everyone.

The INQ-1 from the folks at Hutchison3G is now out and available. It combines social media, Skype and 3G connectivity with a GSM phone at very attractive prices, under 100 pounds.

I'm always elated when one of the top bloggers in the Voice 2.0 space sees what we see in one of our clients. In this case the blogger is Alec Saunders, and the client is Mobivox.

I've been privy to this new approach that Mobivox CEO Peter Diedrich has been working on since he first broached the subject over a dinner in San Francisco a few months back. It is timely, groundbreaking and gives Mobivox a wonderful swath of the market to pursue.

Speaking of Mobivox, I've been using their consumer service all week in Spain when out and about to make calls back to the USA. The bugs of the past are gone and the service works flawlessly, as advertised. Basically I just dial into the local Mobivox POP, say who I want to call and Mobivox does it all. If the person isn't in my address book I dial the number then at the end of the call I'm asked if I want to add the dialed party into my contacts...Simple. Easy and IT WORKS!!!

Pal Paul Kapustka over at SideCut Reports has an offer you can't refuse.

He's released his Consumer's Guide to WiMax for FREE.

The report, which I just read is full of choice tidbits, analogies and loads of firsthand insight that makes it a must read. And the price makes it a no brainer.

The report, which is really a primer for consumer media journalists should be made available at Clear stores for both the in store folks and consumers to read. It is full of well written, necessary and timely information about WiMax (and Mobile WiMax) from an objective point of view.

Would I pay $4,000 to $10,000 to have my house made fiber connected? Heck yes.

Having experienced in my Sacramento home just how good SureWest's fiber to the premise service is (50 megs up and down for $200) there's a portion of the buildout recovery in the monthly price. I already pay Cox Communications $119.xx a month for Cox Business Internet and that gives me 15/1.5 but usually better. If Cox would offer me fiber I'd be thrilled as the next standard of DOCSIS 3.0 will supposedly offer more speed, but a fiber build will mean even more speeds and lower latency. That's the key in my book.

Dean Bubley points to a story in the UK about mobile contract defaults and the likelihood of it becoming a bigger problem in 2009. I can draw a comparison to the VoIP industry as well. Here's why.

For the companies that provide a free ATA (Vonage, Packet8, Earthlink, etc.) in exchange for a contract commitment, that device carries a cost, plus the shipping and handling. Since they are rarely ever returned, they can't be recycled to another user. Let's figure they cost on a wholesale basis about $40.00 or so. Add in another $20 for shipping and handling and the company is at $60.00 of invested cost before they pay back. Figuring 12 months of service as the norm, that means if the customer goes disconnect within that time frame that cost has never been recovered. Sure the companies will say they allocate for bad debt, but I suspect thats a number which is going to be going up in 2009.

As a result, I think better options abound. ATA less SIP devices are one. Softphones are a second and most of all, having customers BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) which is something that Broadvoice has been doing for a while, as have many other VoIP companies.