Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

Yankee Group – Fighting Goliath: Can Alternative VoIP Providers Survive?

Tom Keating has a post about the Yankee Group’s report that spells trouble for the single play VOIP companies. I’m in the same court as Tom as I have serious concerns about companies that are only one hit wonders. But for different reasons. The VoIP companies that move beyond consumer telephone services and can deliver small business and grow to support the enterprise will be the winners.

That means AT&T and likely one or two others. Vonage is set to announce a SOHO product, likely a hosted IP-PBX type of offering. AT&T already has rolled it out without the fanfare.

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

I’ve often thought of Skype being for VoIP what ICQ was to Instant Messaging. Now I read how Skype beat out ICQ in the deal with Tom Online in China.

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

Packet8 VideoPhone Makes Television Debut on Sets of Popular Shows

While they are spending money to a product placement agency, that builds awareness, the key question is how will anyone watching know that the service is Packet8?

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

Telchemy has a nice PDF file that helps Network professionals in the Enterprise figure out how to get their network ready for VoIP. If you’re a decisionmaker thinking about VoIP for your small or medium size business, you will want to read this.

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

Telecommunications Companies Become Fastest Growing Online Advertisers, Increasing Overall Share of Impressions by 6 Percentage Points Year-Over-Year, According to Nielsen//Netratings

This clearly shows that the Telecoms think that the online crowd is where they can gain traction first before going to the mass market.

Does that sound like Vonage’s strategy? Now look at AT&T CallVantage. They started with mass market TV and have now moved online and seem to be gaining subscribers month over month according to what I’ve heard. All this Consumer oriented advertising is nice, but watch all the b2b advertising start flying this year.

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

Actiontec’s Internet Phone Wizard connects a regular phone to Skype.

This looks like a neat product, and I hope to see one soon.

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

Light Reading – Networking the Telecom Industry has a report of Sonus landing a deal with Time Warner to supply key infrastructure, like the softswitch that will support the TW VoIP rollout. Clearly if true it signifies that TW wants to use their own network for VoIP management, and is not going to rely on a third party like Level3 or DeltaThree (who just did a deal with SBC).

In business there are two ways to construct a network, buy or build. It would seem when it comes to VoIP TW is doing both, buying from Level3 for AOL/Talk and building when it comes to their VoIP customers who are broadband connected. I’d call that a smart hedge strategy.

For Sonus, if this is real, it further validates their recovery plan and gives them one more big player in their customer list.

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

SBC readies Net phone service | CNET News.com

I blogged news of the SBC Delta Three deal a day before CNET figured it out. But I’ll give Ben some slack, he did get someone from SBC to say something on the record, and reveal where the SBC VoIP service is being tested.

My spies tell me this news was not supposed to leak out as early as it did, and I give credit to sharp eyed Sell Side analyst source who pointed me in the right direction.