Storming the Bells' stronghold: cable operators attack voice by going after a select audience.
The recent announcement that five big cable operators are partnering with AT&T on the carrier's CallVantage consumer Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) offering surely is big news: The group aligns the most recognized names in the telecom industry with a potential pool of more than 40 million customers in...

California launches wide-ranging VoIP probe: fears of a $400 million tax loss begin to sink in.
Now it's California's turn to investigate the future of VoIP. The day before the FCC presented its first ruling about Internet phone services last month, California's Public Utilities Commission pushed forward with its own plan to regulate the Internet telephone business. The impact on the...

VoIP's excellent adventure: innovations in routing can help the technology move into the future. (Inner Workings).
If you are old enough to remember Johnny Carson, you're probably familiar with one of his popular alter egos: Carnac the Magnificent. As Carnac, Carson, peering out from beneath an oversized turban, would "ascertain the answers" to questions that were presumably sealed in a handful of envelopes...

Qwest recently announced plans to offer VoIP in Minnesota. Will other RBOCs pursue a similar strategy?
David H. Yedwab Executive vice president Eastern Management Group The early mantra "IP changes everything" is coming true, eventually--first data networks and computers and software, and now, voice. 2004 is going to be the year that VoIP begins to become mainstream and changes...

Battle lines are drawn on crafting Telecom Act II: legal, regulatory and legislative debates set stage for broad overhaul.
A number of critical legislative, regulatory and legal skirmishes being waged in Washington and in several states are setting the framework for a major telecom law reform effort expected early next year after the upcoming national election is decided, according to telecom regulatory observers. Both Senate and...

Instantaneous messaging system: a distributed approach.
Abstract This work presents the development of an instantaneous messaging system, which is centered on the distributed handling of user groups. The method proposed for handling of groups has several distinctive characteristics: the non existence of a moderator for each group, allowing any user to abandon the...

Contemplating the triple play: the concept gets some fresh currency. (Second Look).
The triple play refers to a residential bundled service offering consisting of voice, video and high-speed access. Instead of dealing with separate service providers for communication and entertainment needs, the customer needs embrace but one. I believe that I first became aware of the triple play notion...

Is the VoIP bubble about to pop? Despite the hype, deployments are limited and customer frustration is growing.
To hear proponents tell it, Voice over Internet Protocol appears almost inevitable. Commercial users will use VoIP to slice their monthly phone bills. Business users will be lured by a host of beneficial services that make their phone calls and phone services much easier to manage. In...

Mobile services roll out in Iraq; For so long denied access to a mobile telephone network, Iraq has three providers and much to discuss.
Finally after a lengthy period of contractual and political squabbling, mobile telephone services in Iraq commenced operations in February 2004. This follows the award of regional mobile contracts--a first for the Middle East, where national mobile licences are the norm to three consortia in December 2003 (see table 1)....

Carving a niche in VoWLAN: Colubris Networks moves into emerging hybrid technology.
The worlds of Wi-Fi and VoIP have converged. Known as either VoWLAN or VoWi-Fi, this emerging hybrid technology promises to help service providers cut network costs and simultaneously improve business communications and interoffice collaboration. Wireless LAN vendor Colubris Networks is one of latest companies to...