Archive for the ‘Telephony’ Category

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AT&T Phone Home (or Find Your CRM System)

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

My home, that is. I believe you may be in the telephone business and probably could actually call customers! –More on that later. I have enjoyed AT&T U-Verse service and would not discourage anyone from subscribing, but be VERY careful about the billing relationship. Let’s start with some good news. I have no photo or video of anyone sleeping on my couch. I will end with a high note about the lack of any need for that.

Suddenly about noon my AT&T service stopped. I thought there must be some new install in the neighborhood or some minor network issue. I had dial tone on my phone so I figured there was not some catastrophic problem. Since I rarely use it to make calls, I did not even try—that might have been a clue! All of a sudden it hit me. The threatening letters to disconnect service were to be effective about this time of the month. I had not been concerned since we had paid online within the last two weeks after some considerable confusion previously about arranging for U-Verse to be paid. I would say we have been getting threatening letters since the service was installed 7 months ago, so what was another.

But with the realization that those threatening letters could have been fulfilled, I looked up the last threatening letter and yes, it threatened that service could be discontinued, so just maybe I better call to see if this may be what happened. Well of course that was it!

AT&T has every reason to believe I am a deadbeat customer so I can certainly see the problem—NOT. Let me check, I have been an AT&T (and predecessors) customer all my life and never had a problem about paying bills. I have had the same phone number for over 30 years, not to mention a second line. I have had DSL service for years. Of course they may not recognize I also have two mobile phones from them. I am definitely a customer who could leave them and not pay at a moment’s notice. And on top of all that, they knew we had previously been having troubles getting the e-payment correct, and I later discover that this is a repeated story of others.

So there I am talking to some poor representative who has to deal with me in a state I don’t wish to be in, and now she doesn’t either. She verifies that my bill is overdue and indeed my service has been shut-off. How could this be we just paid? I was then amazed that in a few seconds she could verify that the e-payment was still incorrectly applied to my old landline account, where she found a surplus of some $230 credit. If she could discover this in less than a minute, do you think that there might be some policy to discover what accounts are being disconnected? Could anyone have discovered that AT&T did have payment but there was a billing confusion? Could it be possible to make a phone call to see if there was a problem we were aware of? Have they heard of email? Instant messaging? Text messaging? Twitter? Oh no, that is Comcast that has learned about Twitter. How about when your competition is using new service tools, that you better discover what that is about?

The final recovery: I did expect that there should be no penalty for restarting service and that was resolved without even a request. My tone of voice made that request unsaid. I was astonished that the incorrect payment could be found immediately. For clarity the origin of this whole mess is that my phone bill is paid in California (where I live) and U-Verse is paid in Illinois, I assume for everyone. I was told that some e-payments could not be arranged to them, which seems hard to believe. This must be a widespread point of confusion for customers.

I am trying to deal with the shock that restoring service could take up to 24 hours. Since this is my life line to the world, I could not imagine that something so simple could be that complicated especially when it took only a minute to discover the payment error. Towards the end of my call I did get a call center incoming call. It was then I realized that AT&T would not want to disrupt the billing of call centers to reach me. ( I blogged previously that I do not answer my legacy phone unless I see a known Caller ID.) While I was ranting to the beleaguered agent about receiving irritating calls while my service was disconnected she hung-up on me. Then MIRACULOUSLY within two minutes my service was restored.

I am supposed to be grateful that this was easily restored—and I am. Maybe I should be impressed that no one fell asleep on my couch, but AT&T this is NO way to run a business. You were supposed to get over being a monopoly long ago. Delivering somewhat state of the art services should be some sort of influence to use technology in the customer relationship part of business. Look at this one angry stupid phone that still has me cranked up. This is not the kind of animated customers a business needs. Thank-you for restoring my service in two minutes—after irritating me for a few hours and making me wonder, is anyone thinking there?

Posted in NextGen Telephony, Social Networking, Tech Life, Telephony | 3,678 Comments »

Let Me Take a Bite from My Hat

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

Magicjack is a remarkable story in some sense, and that may cause some to lose a grasp on common sense. A new story connects Magicjack to the loss of landlines in the U.S. If you are responsible for landline retention I would think you have too many other concerns to think that Magicjack is responsible for a decline in landlines. If that were the case I would think Magicjack should be more concerned.

The Magicjack bundles hardware with a network terminating solution in hopes that users will buy upgraded services. Without upgrades Magicjack can only hope most users make few calls which is a pretty good bet. If users are making all household calls in a traditional landline sense, they are probably losing money.

Long before Magicjack appeared TeleVoce offered PC-to-telephone adapters. There has not really been much change in this market opportunity, except for the TV pitch infomercials that today have a greater of finding viewers with a PC connected to broadband at home. It is easy to get excited about such an offer, but the light of day has shown that most users do not replace regular phone use with such devices. By light of day, I mean years of user behavior records of real use of PC-connected phone use.

PC-originated phone calling is not new and incoming calls are not revolutionary either. Magicjack, as much as TeleVoce, serves users who make international calls (long the stronghold of VoIP) and users who have use for an alternative to mobile for any number of reasons. Magicjack probably has recruited a new segment of users who imagine a substitute phone service. Let me just state the obvious simply. A PC with a MagicJack is not going to connect to the multiple phone jacks in a typical home. It is a personal tool, not a household solution. Let landline providers worry about real issues.

Posted in NextGen Telephony, Product, Telephony, VoIP | 853 Comments »

Marketing in the Wayback Machine

Friday, January 30th, 2009

OMG, I just wasted five minutes checking out IP Man Adventures. On some level it was clever, but mostly it seems just wrong. I don’t like to bash a sincere effort, but this is like Gates and Seinfeld– only worse. I have to give credit for being brave in hard times and making a run at the market. Count me among the shocked if this really works, but it made me write about it so let me spell their name correctly. Broadvox must really want your business.

I am sure some ad agency could explain how this is off target from a purely marketing perspective. Just in the context of marketing VoIP, this seems old. Of course there are still customers in the dark, so to speak, but a cartoon campaign to target contracts with legacy carriers charging too much seems very old. A business that is still targeting minute rates may be old enough and that may be the story– We have an old business concept chasing cost of minutes and we are looking for someone who has missed the last TEN years of telephony! I can’t tell for sure if this is a sad statement about their target customer, or a sad statement about the business model. I felt like I was in some time warp trying to guess what year it was, and trying to imagine how a target audience would respond. I hope for the sake of Broadvox that there is still an appropriate sales target in 2009.

Posted in NextGen Telephony, Telephony, VoIP | 1,481 Comments »

VON Mission Impossible

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

I have not paid much attention to whatever is going on with VON after Jeff Pulver separated ways. There was always some understandable tension with institutional participants (bill-paying power) and revolutionaries. Now I see the revolution is over at VON. There is more evidence of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic than any embrace of what the IP revolution is about where it meets telephony . I clicked on an email link to an article pretending that so-called pure play VoIP is no threat to carriers. I was forced to click to see what this could possibly be about.

Apparently MagicJack, Skype, et. al. have not much to do with real people talking to each other. Every argument has some position that makes it rational, but you have to stretch a bit to find such position that is not crumbling under foot. I choked when I read the analyst quote, “What [the pure plays] offer is not a replacement for full residential phone service.” I wonder who pays for that kind of analysis? OK, I don’t really.

Now I am a customer so one might call me a hypocrite. I have AT&T U-verse, mostly to dump Comcast cable. It is my vote for the future. I do get to keep my legacy phone number as part of the bundle and I am forced to have unlimited national calling. If you like a good laugh you can look up my listed legacy number and call. I won’t answer. That is really a great product. One I really do not need.

So-called full residential service is a dinosaur, a buggy whip. How can I say this? I think I blogged about this recently even. We are not living in an interrupt based telephone call culture. Has anyone at phone carriers noticed this? Anyone know how many calls end in conversation? Anyone see the trend over the last X years? For years the carriers did well with widows’ investments. Maybe they can still eek out some phone traffic from the same widows. The only thing AT&T can be “proud of” is that I appear to be paying for my legacy phone. IF they gave me some option to only send voice mail to an online account, that would be just fine, and not for long. Almost no one calls me or anyone on my 30 year old legacy phone number. Hello?– this is not value. It is not a good product. It is an accident of history. Keep rearranging those deck chairs, but I think you will notice your feet getting wet.

Posted in NextGen Telephony, Skype, Tech Life, Telephony, VoIP | 3,693 Comments »

Tripping on Telephony at CES

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Most telephony new products are about mobile, but I pay almost no attention to every kind of accessory or feature for your mobile phone. No need to hear from me since the mobile mainstream is covered in many places—see Palm in the news. I still use a Palm IIIc (occasionally) and liked the work they did on the human interface, so I hope the new phone is as good as claimed. We know the mobile world needs plenty of advances in that category. Read about it elsewhere.

Of course, VoIP is on my view screen, but there is not much new to report. Try as you might, I don’t think there was a Skype phone anywhere except under the counter, which was a trend started last year. By changing management frequently no one can be responsible for where there should be embarrassment and concern at Skype. Partners are long ago lost in the dust bin. At least they did have a press conference promising new directions and an evening party. It’s good being king. I hope it works out.

The two VoIP consumer plays at CES live in a space I can’t quite imagine. Both Ooma and MagicJack have product and company strengths that defy logic and economics. Ooma has a pending DECT phone with features that I conceived of years ago, then as an open platform. Maybe someday that could happen, but no matter what evolution comes to pass I see a huge money pit that will be difficult to escape from. Too little too late, but they still look cool.

MagicJack has pulled off a significant integration of technology and network, but I don’t see where a business model based on upgrade revenue can work well. The first premise of selling to the most cost-sensitive users and then selling upgrades seems a contradiction. At least Ooma requires an entry fee that establishes some financial commitment. The greater fool theory of investment requires an environment of “irrational exuberance,” which seems quite unlikely in the foreseeable future for both of these companies.

Packet 8 was there representing the mainstream of VoIP, but like many exhibitors had plenty of time to talk to anyone who ventured by. A few other vendors were in evidence with small/medium office contributions. I did not recall seeing the Teligent phone system (by CSI Design) before. It looks like another in a long line of interesting products, but with no means to penetrate the small business market.

The one telephony play of interest was Newber. There have been various alternate or virtual phone number plays in the past and I think it remains a good area for innovation. Newber allows you to use a virtual number to control separate business and personal calls on a single mobile phone– now on iPhone. A fairly simple concept that should have many users, especially if it can work without subscribing to their more comprehensive VoIP hosted solutions.. It also has a location aware function so that calls can be auto-routed to the phone you are near. Pretty cool.

The most under-exploited telephone capability is text messaging. Unfortunately it is mostly locked up in proprietary islands and costly use cases. Cherple looks to have broken through this land of silos. Especially attractive is the consumer solution that allows text messages to be originated on the Internet and sentwithout cost to any US phone. Phones can respond, subject to the user’s text plan cost. This would be a winner in any market where it is possible. I see a big upside for this venture.

Posted in Skype, Tech Life, Telephony, VoIP | 791 Comments »

Which Phone Technology or Application is Dead Now?

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

It is fun (and seasonal) to close the door on something as dead or being totally over. I have been playing with the concept that your phone is dead. There are two dimensions to this telephony question in my mind, technology and application.

It is great to speculate about some view of VoIP that finds it to be dead. You need to have a very specific view to make such a comment. VoIP, as a technology, is everywhere. That game is over– VoIP wins. As an application you could have a different view. Now all the pretenders, and they are legion, exploiting VoIP claiming to have invented some variation on perpetual motion are lining up to be declared dead. I am more amazed that some are still flourishing by any virtual measure. The search for greater fools to make a graceful exit becomes more difficult in the financial times we are mired in now. The grim reaper is stalking these operations.

From a technology perspective I think it would be hard to declare legacy (digital/analog) telephony dead as well. We would be speechless without it. It is a game that may be over in many ways, but gone it won’t be for some time. –How long has fax been dead? I rest my case.

From an application view I have been considering proclaiming your phone dead, or at least “over.” Almost every mode of communication is more useful, than a legacy phone call, that includes mobile. Of course we still talk, but the category of a “cold call” now includes your friends or almost any call. I find this to be the biggest story in telephony. Who made text so cheap to demand that we use it? Instant messaging and now Twitter variations and any other text mode is more useful. Where are you? How do you feel? What’s on your mind? Who would call to ask how are you? Your mother– we can count on that, of course.

While I am in a bashing mode I am pretty harsh on videoconferencing , but this is very different. I have been too close to videoconferencing since 1995. I was suspicious then and have seen it proclaimed as the next thing for so long, I could be tired of it. We have it integrated all over and that certainly makes it easy finally, but the value is still exaggerated. That is a subject in itself, but an unwelcome interrupting call is no more attractive because of video! Family, lovers and never-ending porn variations have real value. This does not make it a vital dimension of communication, no matter how much you love your mother. (A reference to porn and your mother is not good in the same logical sequence, but you get the idea.)

Posted in NextGen Telephony, Social Networking, Tech Life, Telephony, VoIP | 7,538 Comments »

I Come to Praise Skype and Not to Bury It

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

Depending on how you read many of my posts I may seem to be trolling for Skype weaknesses to highlight. Today let me at least praise the keynote presented by Skype’s Jonathon Christensen at the Internet Telephony Conference this week. These industry conferences are not known for too many real edgy positions and controversy, but the title of “VoIP is Dead” for his talk certainly was a wake-up.

Since Skype never liked to use VoIP as a descriptor of their services, declaring VoIP dead may have been some semantic trick to make a point. It was not a ruse. For those entrenched in the world of telephony it was direct message to contemplate beyond your belly button, so to speak. This message in one form or another has been delivered for over ten years, but this was a good summary of what is right in front of our faces.

I do want to take this moment to specifically praise Skype because I have often felt there was a lack of appreciation for the marketplace where they are a key participant. I am pleased to see an acknowledgment, specifically from a post-eBay Skype that there is some vision about the overall environment. Now I would be impressed to see an organization energized by this market recognition. You can see the talk summary at the TMCnet website.

Posted in NextGen Telephony, Skype, Telephony, VoIP | 264 Comments »

What’s Up with Skype’s Market (or Marketing)

Monday, July 21st, 2008

It is not a good sign that I am too busy to comment about Skype and the EBay quarterly report. I don’t watch closely but Skype Journal is a great reminder of these events. Skype should be concerned that I am spending time with Facebook instead of Skype. Of course they might not care what I personally am doing but the numbers of developers and applications on Facebook speak for themselves. Skype should be asking if there is a lesson here. There is.

First developers do not need to pay the platform and find a place among favorite sons and big money. While there are always going to be some advantages to dominant participants, Facebook offers a remarkably level playing field. The platform benefits from developer applications and innovation beyond the platform itself. Skype does have the most versatile telephony platform. In my view they barely appreciate it. It is not exploited as well as it could be. Users certainly have little visibility into the benefits of such. (Compare to Facebook where users rule.)

And here is a real fundamental that is missed as far as I can tell. I think the biggest general malaise around Skype is staring us all in the face. I can barely figure out Skype. Now how can an average user approaching Skype know what benefits may accrue, if it is so complicated and obscure that I can’t even explain it easily to such a user? The Skype Journal posting by Jim Courtney correctly wonders, what is the rate of acquiring real users? Why are so many coming but not staying? Duh. Do you suppose something is lost in the translation and users don’t want to spend hours trying to figure how it can help?

For some reason the Skype website (they aren’t the only one) does not want to clearly express all the various user benefits. You have to probe and probe, go to sign-up pages and present various alternatives to see what you might discover. They make a phone company look straightforward. Names of initiatives change, get modified and restructured so that if you knew what something was last year, it’s not quite the same now. I get the best insight on explanations that come periodically on Skype Journal. If Skype Journal has to explain what Skype features are offered this is a very sad state of affairs.

The Skype value proposition is dependent on where you are in the world. Maybe they don’t want that so visible, but so what. If a new visitor cannot figure out what possible value may be delivered to them, or to their friends and family elsewhere, the user moves on. If the unique capabilities of the Skype platform are not exploited, it degrades into just another IP voice option from a visitors view. I think Skype remains largely dependent on word of mouth for one user to introduce others. In the beginning that was very useful. Check the calendar, it’s 2008.

Posted in Skype, Social Networking, Telephony, VoIP | 24 Comments »

VON.x or exVON

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

Those of us in the VoIP market have a relationship of one sort or another with VON and Jeff Pulver. Often they have been one and the same, certainly as the founder Jeff is the voice of VON. Now that all rumors point to the demise or significant transition, it appears to be an end to an era. This era is not the VON Show, but the state of the market and industry. VoIP is not news, so to speak. Jeff has embraced video, adopting the V as video and now the dot X, so there have already been many transitions, not to mention the ownership dance.

What we really miss and have already been missing is the gathering of thought leaders and friends that we see at each VON. I marveled and have often commented about the irony of Jeff’s inspirational keynotes being unappreciated by most show visitors.

Some of the commentary has unavoidably discussed the simultaneous scheduling of VON.x and VoiceCon. From a trade show industry view this was poor scheduling, but to me more interesting because VoiceCon could easily have been part of VON. Since VON has been dominated in many ways by old school telephony as they adopt VoIP technologies, the “new” unified communication movement could easily fit within a VON community. I have always felt this tension around VON that innovation was always valued, but we must pay the bills– and who could argue with that. Ultimately the brand of VON became difficult to position. The share of the early VON audience continued to decline and there was little need to preach the technological innovations that have made anything over IP as practical.

Speaking of innovation VoiceCon is not the land of innovation, so this is not a battle about leading any new market. That was my point about how this could have ended up as one larger show as innovation became dispersed into the mainstream of VON exhibitors. I recall attending a VoiceCon event (2 years ago as I recall) and finding that the participants had no clue what Skype was. How you could be any kind of a professional in the telecom business and not even know what Skype was is pretty shocking. Sadly there were probably a few attending VON in similar ignorance, but a very small minority.

It is somehow appropriate that Jeff has now embraced the next even bigger movement of social networking. I am on the same bandwagon myself. There is no question that while this is not much about technology, it will be much more pervasive and important than VoIP, as disruptive as it was. Many have already noted that there is no need to worry about Jeff. Hopefully all affected will land on their feet. News must be forthcoming. Jeff’s BlogTV show today was scheduled very early and short as he left for what must be a challenging meeting for him. Jeff could not comment on the recent rumors, but watch the wire and blogosphere .

Posted in Social Networking, Tech Life, Telephony, VoIP | 107 Comments »

More on CES

Friday, January 18th, 2008

It was like being reborn to see CES from an attendee’s view. And from that view I was determined to enjoy the experience without the concerns of maintaining a booth. In the VoIP realm overall it was clear that things have changed from the last couple of years. First Pulver’s VoIP section was missing, but that was just one indicator. In the recent past there have been legions bringing new low VoIP rates and that was not widely evident. The innocence of VoIP is maybe behind us– a good thing.

I have to give credit to Vonage. They may be through the hardest of times which speaks well for having raised a large war chest. Unfortunately that is not so good for those who funded that war chest. This was the first time I have seen an approach to truly deliver house-wide, plug-in-the-wall kind of service. (I don’t see this on website yet?) Vonage, et. al., are great alternative providers, but this approach is a more direct assault on the legacy system. Packet8 and Fonica were the only other classic players of significance to be pitching at the show. Logically, Skype phones should be a category killer but that message is not being delivered. The upstart MagicJack was there and even wrangled space under the USB banner. This is a useful concept but the numbers don’t seem to add up. Certainly they are betting that most will not use the service very much. If you want to make a lot of calls at their expense, go for it while you can.

The traditional telephone handset market is obviously taking a beating along with landline service offers. The one new trend is to include a cell phone docking station (Bluetooth or plug-in) so that mobile and landline can be delivered on a single handset (essentially making the mobile line a second line). Phone Labs showed business versions so your desktop phone can merge mobile and business lines transparently. All that is needed is Skype/VoIP options and everything is integrated.

Probably the most visible technology at CES was Bluetooth. It is very clear it is here—and everywhere. I have generally not been excited about the size of the latest LCD/plasma, but this year I admit to being wowed by the Panasonic 150 inch plasma. The pictures are better than reality. How can that be?

Digitized pen input has seen many variations over the years. I was impressed by a new pen that detects the printed pattern on special paper. The basic idea is not new but this resolution seemed very fine and you could print your own paper—certainly not at the finest resolution but it gives more freedom to the concept. This is from Korea so who knows if you will reach the market.

Starting the day at the “tents” in the parking lot worked well for me. Picking up a hot chocolate or coffee from Yahoo or Target is not a bad start. This is where I discovered the hottest give-away, a Jawbone Bluetooth headset. You had to trade your old headset but getting a really great new one for free was a great surprise. In the same tent was the John Lennon Tour Bus, also with a great gift bag. The bus is a magnificent rolling recording studio. Actually used for professional recordings, the mission is to take the bus to students across the US and make on-the-spot music videos. It is a very impressive non-profit venture.

No question the most impressive presentation at CES was by Intel bringing a BMW Sauber Team Formula 1 to the parking as part of a touring exhibit called Pit Lane Park. I confess to being totally sucked in, stopping by three times. The motorcycle demo by Chris Pfeiffer was amazing. I cover this more on my personal blog.

Posted in Product, Skype, Tech Life, Telephony, VoIP | 18 Comments »

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