Subject: [NEXTEL-1] The Pulver Report - November 19, 2002

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 10:50:10 -0500

THE PULVER REPORT(TM)
Provided by: pulver.com, Inc.

The November 19, 2002 Issue:

In this Issue:

 - Heard on the Net
 - US VoIP Industry Under Possible Attack from the ILECs
 - FCC Seeks Comment on AT&T's IP Telephony Petition
 - What is old is new again: Free PC-to-PC Telephony in Japan
 - Free World Dialup 3.0 is now Live!
 - Pulver Report Holiday Party: December 17th in NYC
 - Reminder: Call for Speakers - Spring 2003 VON week
 - pulver.com 2002/2003 Conference Calendar

------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Heard on the Net

- People on the Move

 Andre F.A. Fournier recently left Airbiquity.

 Keith Ritchie recently left iBasis and joined Telica.
 Ken Petruzzo recently left Avaya and joined AT&T Government Solutions.

 Charles Ansley has recently joined SYMON Communications as President and
CEO.

 Ron Bleakney Sr. has recently joined Brooktrout as VP of Worldwide Sales
 for Brooktrout.

 Tim Rubert recently joined Ridgeway Systems & Software as
 Vice President of Business Development.

 Patrick Sims recently left Optical Solutions to form
 VCLLC/BroadBand Wizards.

Please email: [email-masked] to report a change in your position.
Please refer to: "People on the Move" in the subject.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
 US VoIP Industry Under Possible Attack from the ILECs

There is an effort underway to study how VoIP uses telephone-numbering
resources. The underlying theme is that this could lead to, exhaust and
impact the future availability of the North American Numbering Plan
(NANP). There are two coordinated activities just getting underway. The
first is at the FCC's North American Numbering Council (NANC) and the
second is at the Industry Numbering Committee (INC). The NANC is a Federal
Advisory Committee that advises the FCC on numbering policy, as well as
provide oversight for NANP administration, Local Number Portability, etc.
The NANC received a report entitled "VoIP Numbering Issues" prepared by
BellSouth, Qwest, and Verizon. This report can be found at
( http://www.nanc-chair.org/docs/Nov/Nov02_VoIP_White_Paper.doc ) and will
be discussed at the NANC's November meeting taking place in Washington DC.
It appears that the FCC and likely State Regulators (who are actively
involved in the NANC) are interested in this issue, which could ultimately
affect numbering assignment policy.

What I find particularly amazing about this, is that at a time when the
ILECs 2nd line revenues are declining due to the effects of Wireless
Conversion, the fact is that today, there are many more PSTN numbers being
recovered and available for recycling than will be consumed by the
cumulative total of all of the startup broadband IP Telephony service
providers in the US, at least for the next 3 if not 5 years.
And if the decline rates in 2nd lines get any steeper, there will most
likely be enough recycled numbers to go around for at least the
next 10 years. But give the people at corporate HQ credit at the ILECs
for trying to leverage their "sleeper" positions at NANP and other
industry workgroups to create noise and banter at a level that hasn't
been seen or heard since the ACTA petition of 1996. The fact that they
chose to submit this at the NANP meeting taking place during the 55th
IETF meeting seems a little suspect to me - especially since the people
driving ENUM have been forced to be divided between both places.

In addition, BellSouth and Verizon have submitted a request to the
Industry Numbering Committee (INC) to begin studying VoIP's impact on NANP
number exhaust. The INC is responsible for writing industry numbering
assignment guidelines, which determine when numbers are assigned and to
whom they are assigned. The INC documents can be found at:
( http://www.atis.org/atis/clc/inc/inchom.htm ). The INC has created a
special workshop to begin its study with the intention of producing a
"technical experts" report on VoIP/PSTN telephone numbering impacts. This
report will not only attempt to set numbering policy with regard to VoIP
but will also be used in the regulatory arena as proof positive that VoIP
needs to have additional oversight to control its impact on current PSTN
operations.

It will take a significant effort to achieve a balanced outcome at both
the NANC and the INC. The record along the way will be very important, as
it can be used to gain incremental influence of the regulatory process.

As an industry and as individuals, we need to make sure that the
regulators can tell the difference between the hype and hyperbole of the
cry for help against a competitor (technology) which the ILECs may not
be well positioned to fight. But just because there is the possibility of
competition, this should not be allowed to change the rules of engagement
for anyone, including the ILECs.

But in order for this to be addressed, all of the other telcos of today
who plan on using IP Communications now and in the future, need to come
forward and be counted and heard because in this case, their silence
is not golden and it is in fact what the ILECs are banking on.

It is crucial that VoIP industry interests are well represented in these
activities, which is not the case at present. If this does not happen, it
is not likely that a balanced conclusion will result...which in turn
would not be good for the future of the nascent IP Communications
Industry in North America and perhaps the rest of the world as well.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
FCC Seeks Comment on AT&T's IP Telephony Petition

The FCC is looking for comments on AT&T's Petition for a Declaratory
ruling that AT&T's Phone-To-Phone IP Telephony Services are exempt from
Access charges.

Comments are due: 12/18/2002.
Reply comments are due: 1/7/2003.

for more info:
( http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-02-3184A1.doc )
( http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-02-3184A1.pdf )
( http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-02-3184A1.txt )

------------------------------------------------------------------------
 What is old is new again: Free PC-to-PC Telephony in Japan

During the past month, two groups of major Japanese companies which
include: Matsushita Electric Industrial, Japan Telecom, KDDI
and NEC in one group and a second group which includes: Sony
Communication Network Corp., Nifty Corp. and NTT Communications announced
plans to offer free PC to PC telephony services in Japan - all as a move
to compete against the success of Yahoo! Japan's broadband IP Telephony
services.

It seems that these big companies have all come to the same
conclusion that many of us also did a while ago...that the "killer app"
for the consumer customers of DSL/Cable operators has arrived and it's
called "voice." Over time, the advent of Voice over Broadband will help
drive more consumers to use broadband not only in Japan, but in the rest
of the world as broadband becomes available.

It will be interesting to see if these groups end up being successful in
their quest to gain new customers and can manage to keep them, just based
on their PC-to-PC service and avoid the temptation of offering free PSTN
connectivity as well. Back in 2000, a number of US companies started with
offering free PC-to-PC services and decided to expand this to include free
PSTN calls within the US, but that offer didn't last more than a
year as it turned out that it was the US based venture capitalists who
ended up funding the phone calls, while the companies they invested in
proved that not only did they not have any sustainable business model, but
that once again, "there was in fact no such thing as a free phone call."

In any case, at a time when the Voice over Broadband service providers in
the US are facing a potential fight by the ILECs, to restrict
distribution of telephone numbers, it is good to see that there are still
places in the world where innovation can be driven by big companies
trying to make a difference.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Free World Dialup 3.0 is now Live!

During the Winter of 1995, with the help of Izak from Jakarta, Indonesia,
Brandon from Tokyo, Japan and Connie from Tacoma, WA,
the Free World Dialup ( http://pulver.com/fwd ) project was launched.

Life was a little simpler back then but the promise of the vision was to
enable consumers to be able to make free phone calls by taking advantage
of the internet. Nobody really challenged us on why somebody should
contribute resources for free or asked "what's in it for me?" when asked
to
setup a single-port gateway. Instead, we shared a moment in the history of
the internet when consumers realized the internet could be used for more
than just the sharing of email. Service providers didn't focus and didn't
care much about the "Free" part of Free World Dialup. (A network of
one-port gateways was not a threat to anyone.) This said, we were
responsible
for launching what was the first IP Telephony Network, which was at the
time, a PC to Phone network.

Another effort in 1997 brought forward a free phone to phone service, with
the continued dedicated help of people like Connie acting as the liaison
between the gateway operators. This version of Free world Dialup lasted
until 1999 and provided many people with free PSTN/IP connectivity to
quite a few locations around the world.

It's been a while, but last week the 3rd iteration of Free world Dialup
launched, and this time it is a 100% SIP based, peer-to-peer,
end-to-end broadband IP solution designed for people who wish to use
dedicated IP Phone edge devices. ( Softphone SIP clients also work,
but I am encouraging consumers to use a dedicated hardware device so
that they don't confuse FWD with a pc-to-pc service.)

I first decided to relaunch Free World Dialup this past summer and
after thinking about what this version accomplishes, one could argue
that my talk at Spring 2001 VON became a self-fulfilling prophecy in
as much as back then I spoke about enabling end-to-end IP in a
broadband infrastructure and watching what happens when the end-user
community gets empowered.  My theme at Spring 2001 came from
The Beatles '...and in the end, the love  you take is equal to the
love you make.' This version of Free World Dialup does not provide
any connectivity with the PSTN or any other legacy carrier networks
but rather focuses on connecting people with people.

There are currently over 1,100 people registered for Free World Dialup,
representing individuals from over 50 countries. In the past few days
I've spoken to FWDers from: New York, New Jersey, Mexico and Kuwait
and each time was amazed with the CD quality audio that we were
experiencing. The quality is better than cellular and almost as
good as being there. :-)

You can also join the FWD mailing list by visiting:
 ( http://listserv.pulver.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=fwd&A=1 )

If you would like to experiment using FWD, please register for
the free service and after leaving a test message at FWD# 10001,
please feel free to email me and we can setup a time to talk. ;-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Pulver Report Holiday Party: December 17th in NYC

The 2002 Pulver Report Holiday Party will be taking place
at the Mercury Lounge ( http://www.mercuryloungenyc.com )
in Manhattan, NYC on December 17th from 7:00 to 11:00 PM.

Readers of The Pulver Report who are over 21 are invited to attend
the party. Everyone who attends needs to RSVP in advance in order
to be on our party list.

Our special musical guests will be the artists from RevUp Records
( http://www.revuprecords.com ). This party will be a great place
to hear the original music from these artists and socialize with
other readers of The Pulver Report.

To RSVP, please visit:
 ( http://pulver.com/pr-party/rsvp.html ) by December 12th.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reminder: Call for Speakers - Spring 2003 VON: Deadline is November 29th.

We have just started working on the schedule and sessions for
Spring 2003 VON which will be taking place March 31 - April 3rd at the
San Jose Convention Center.

Please feel free to email: <[email-masked]> your suggestions for
the content which you would like to see covered in San Jose.
Our formal "call for speakers" is open now and the deadline for
submitting speaking proposals is November 29th.

Please feel free to submit your speaking proposal to:
( http://pulver.com/von/speak/ ).

------------------------------------------------------------------------
pulver.com 2002/2003 Conference Calendar
( http://pulver.com/conference )

"Events for the Communications Industry" (tm)

2002

December 4-5  - VON Japan, Tokyo, Japan
                 ( http://www.key3media.co.jp/von )

December 9-10 - SuperNova 2002, Palo Alto, CA
                 ( http://pulver.com/supernova )

December 17   - Pulver Report Holiday Party in NYC
                 ( http://pulver.com/pr-party/rsvp.html )

2003

March 31st    - pulver.com 2003 IP Communication Industry
                Executive Summit, San Jose, CA

March 31
- April 3rd   - Spring 2003 VON, San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, CA
                 ( http://pulver.com/von ).

March 31
- April 2     - Spring 2003 Location Based Services Summit,
                San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, CA
                 ( http://pulver.com/lbs )

April 1-2     - Connectivity 2003
                San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, CA

April 2-3     - 2003 Presence and Instant Messaging,
                San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, CA

June 9-12    - VON Europe 2003,
               Olympia Conference Centre, London, UK
               ( http://pulver.com/europe2003 )

September
22-25        - Fall 2003 VON, Hynes Convention Center,
               Boston, MA

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