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Quick Jump Menu to this Issue’s Articles May 12th, 2004 Overview CTA’s Supplier’s Showcase – Something New in Sacramento Small Company Caucus Gambles on Sacramento: VoIP – The Quadruple Play?
by Ken Pyle ([email protected]), Viodi, LLC
May 12th, 2004 Issue
VoIP is clearly a hot topic, as judged by the packed conference rooms at NTCA’s VoIPossibilities conference. It was the fourth NTCA TechNet Conference and Showcase that I have attended and, by far, was the most popular. Clearly, telcos are concerned – and rightly so – that this is a very disruptive technology. I came away from this conference with the feeling that independent telcos can be the market leaders in this technology, but they will have to stay on top of this quickly evolving technology.
The telcos are the brand leaders in their respective markets. Like any brand leader, they do not necessarily have to innovate, but they do need to enter the market with their particular product at the right time – not too early and not too late. The impression I received from the speakers at this conference is that the timing is right to begin seriously looking at the VoIP technology and the resulting services.
What I repeatedly heard from the various speakers is that VoIP is not a technology play; it is about marketing. The important thing about a VoIP offering is the packaging, pricing, positioning and promotion of the product. The telco is at a distinct advantage over the VoIP start-ups, as the traditional telco already has customer relationships as well as more services to offer (e.g. broadband, potentially wireless, video services, home networking).
David Lewis of TCA and Dave Lewis of ANPI/Newstreets, as well as several others emphasized the importance of good marketing. Substituting the word video for VoIP and the same argument applies. There were many interesting ideas for using VoIP to enter into new vertical markets both within and outside existing exchange areas. It was recommended more than once that a telco have a non-regulated subsidiary so that they could take full advantages of some of the features of VoIP.
The other point that was emphasized is that telcos cannot rely on being protected by regulation. There seemed to be consensus that there will be a re-write act of the telecom act. At the same time, there seemed to be general agreement that telcos do not have time to wait for the telecom act to be rewritten. Still, there is uncertainity and challenges, especially when it comes to CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) monitoring of VoIP. There do not appear to be any simple answers to this issue, at this point.
In short summary, VoIP is here, telcos need to get involved, even if it is only ordering a VoIP service from a competitor for testing purposes, and life is going to get even more hectic and exciting for independent telcos over the next few years. More articles with more specifics will be provided in future issues.
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