Julius Genachowski, chair of the FCC, was quite pleased to announce plans to transfer billions of dollars from the USF to develop broadband in rural and underserved areas of the country. More eagerly, the current FCC wants to connect 100 million homes to 100 Mbps service. A nice alliteration, but again, is it public policy? In many ways the FCC, and ultimately us, is a political football that is tossed in a given direction depending upon the controlling team. Under the Bush administration, many of us felt that competition was stymied by one ruling or position after another that favored the ILECs and larger cable companies. Under the Obama administration, those decisions are being challenged and the unfinished work on defining the future of the USF and net neutrality has swung into a new direction. What then makes us believe that the FCC's announcement will come to fruition?

The congressional leadership may change next year or possibly in 2012. Will we ever again establish ambitious plans to develop a decade long infrastructure effort and complete it? When the decision was made to establish the national highway system, we stuck to it. Politics affected where and when it was completed but ultimately the initiative reached a satisfactory conclusion. This effort to expand the reach and speed of broadband brings out the political differences of the Republican and Democratic parties. Therefore, we can expect the political reaction to be that of Yin and Yang. This is regrettable for two reasons, it waste money and time, and does not serve us, the public well.

There are flaws with transferring this money to private companies to build out infrastructure where they will profit off our tax dollars. Democrats couch this investment as needed for public safety, education and health. Republicans believe that so called "free markets" will produce the desired effect over time. Both may have points but there is a factual component that cannot be ignored. The US is falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to its IP infrastructure. Asia and Europe are racing ahead with bandwidth that is out of reach for 90% of Americans. This will negatively influence our ability to be economically competitive which will challenge every other initiative we might conceive.

In order for the National Broadband Plan to become public policy, we must come together as a nation willing to work unselfishly towards the better good. Our better days can still lie ahead. We must develop and implement plans that look beyond two and four year horizons. When that happens, then and only then, can announcements such as this, be public policy.

More on Friday.

Two thoughts come to mind as I look back on this weekend's dining delights. First, it is good that the Super Bowl comes once a year as I always prepare too much fried food. Second, remembering one of your better dishes is always a pleasant surprise. In preparation for eating during the Super Bowl, I deep-fried Buffalo wings, butterflied shrimp coated with Japanese Panko breadcrumbs, and cornmeal dusted oysters. The shrimp and oysters were an homage to New Orleans and served as po' boys with tartar sauce, chopped lettuce and sliced tomatoes. All good things, but the recipe of the week is a dish that finds it origins in Portugal. The Portuguese combine pork and clams in a stew like dish called Pork Alentejana. While very good, it is indeed a stew. It is usually made with a fattier cut of pork such as a pork butt that has been cooked for a couple of hours and then graced with the addition of clams. When I first combined these ingredients, I made the stew. Saturday, I purloined a pair of beautiful inch thick loin chops that I had no intention of cooking for several hours. Instead I pan roasted them, and made the tomato sauce and clams separately. The dish was excellent and thus our recipe of the week! So, while I will call it Pork Alentejana, it is only out of respect to the Portuguese as this is a fancier dinner party version. Enjoy!

Obama Speaks out on Net Neutrality

A recent YouTube posting of President Obama musing on his opinion of net neutrality shows both an understanding of the issue and an odd perception. While he clearly sees larger carriers as being opposed to net neutrality he offers an unusual defense of the issue. His opinion is that without net neutrality, we may be preventing the development of the next Google or YouTube. I seriously doubt that Google is spending energy and resources to push forward the need for net neutrality in order to make it easier for a competitor to be established. The second odd statement was that the larger carriers wanted to avoid net neutrality in order to make their wealthier customers pay more for the IP services they demand. Really? The greatest consumers of internet bandwidth are the wealthier users. I think not.

I appreciate that President Obama knows the name of his FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski and has an awareness of the issue of net neutrality but someone needs to brief him on the real opportunities and threats associated with the issue. It has a lot more to do with consumer rights than creating new jobs and protecting access to the many Internet applications and services than soaking a few rich users.

You can view the Obama Interview and decide for yourself.

In the meantime, I am going to savor the Saints victory yesterday with one final, "Who Dat?"

See you on Wednesday.

Clearly, the focus of Broadvox and similar ITSPs is to promote SIP Trunking or SIP termination and origination. However, there is a larger and faster growing market in the business community for simple VoIP solutions. According to In-Stat, 41% of businesses with VoIP capability have no legacy TDM voice services, vs. 34% in 2008 and 42% of US businesses now have a VoIP solution in at least one location. Now these are interesting numbers but said another way, 59% of businesses using VoIP continue to use either TDM equipment or voice services to conduct their daily operations. While SIP Trunking offers superior routing, business continuity services, voice quality and reliability over simple VoIP, simple VoIP is easier to implement and requires less infrastructure investment. In the enterprise space, simple VoIP is used to connect between various corporate, regional and branch offices. Usually, IP voice traffic is carried along with other data associated with general business applications. At the enterprise level, an IT department can manage the service and QoS. However, when it is a small business deciding to try out VoIP, there is an ITSP involved.

The best known simple VoIP ITSPs are Vonage and Comcast. Vonage has the better marketed name but Comcast has more than triple the number of subscribers. However, in the simple VoIP business usage space, the real threats continue to be the efforts of AT&T, Verizon and other LECs. This is more because that is where the base of users resides rather than the quality of service or variety of service offerings.

Looking at AT&T as an example clearly shows it is attempting to address the lower end of the market with a variety of products. Although AT&T U-verse is intended for residential/home use, some SOHOs and SMBs are slipping under the radar and signing up for service. Next would be the Business In a Box offering followed by IP Flexible Reach. Only IP Flexible Reach is a SIP enabled product. Each of these solutions becomes more complicated and expensive as you navigate from the residential offering to the true SMB product. As noted in a previous blog, pricing for these products is not dramatically different from that of the TDM offering...yet. With AT&T interested in sunsetting its TDM network, it is positioning its primary business to make the transition from TDM to, I suspect, improved IP offerings. At present Broadvox and other ITSPs can easily beat AT&T's pricing, installation and turn-up timeframes, but expect that to change.

Today, just 17% of all businesses use IP only for their communications needs. The service providers in this space are diverse and remain without a dominant market leader as these early adopters continue to explore a variety of solutions and provide many opportunities to carriers like Broadvox. Which one of the major LECs will stop this loss of business customers first? We'll look at Verizon next.

See you on Friday.

This weekend was a bit out of the norm for me as I decided it had been some months since I researched some local eateries. The result of this is that I usually do not cook when conducting such research. However, this weekend was an exception as I both found a new dish and made one of my standards. First on Friday, we tried the new Dominoes pizza. It was much better than what I remembered from my college days but not as good as the two independent pizzerias that I frequent. The pizza was good, just not good enough. On Saturday, I wanted to have a good burger and BBQ. I went to chain called Bone Daddy's House of Smoke. I ordered an all too forgettable appetizer called a tailpipe. Its only claim to fame is that it is deep-fried. I did get a wonderful burger and my wife had a very good chicken-fried steak. I also ordered a half pound of the brisket and baby-back ribs (hey, you don't eat it all and this is research!). The brisket was nicely seasoned and smoked, albeit a touch over cooked. The ribs were a disappointment. They were barely smoked, mushy and too readily fell off the bone. A good rib should be smoked similarly to the brisket and pull cleanly away from the bone but can be bitten through while maintaining contact with the bone. The ribs were just a mess. We did enjoy the sides, lightly seasoned French fries, beans, and corn off the cob. Finally, I stopped at a Mexican grocery on the way home, El Rancho, and got a half order of Pollo Asado. Pollo Asado is a butterflied chicken marinated and grilled. It came with roasted onions, grilled jalapeños, beans and rice. The food here is intended for Mexican families and is simply prepared. On a previous visit, I ordered an assortment of tacos, which were very good. However, the Pollo Asado was well seasoned, cooked perfectly and a taste sensation. I was quite impressed. Finally, on Sunday, we had an Indian feast. I purchased a potato Samosa, Paratha and Chapati bread. Previously I had prepared a Green Curry with Chicken, Shrimp Curry and Potato and Spinach with turmeric, paneer cheese and spices. I made a quick vindaloo (using pork instead of lamb or beef) to round out the assortment. The meal was excellent! So what dish made it as the recipe of the week? I was supremely surprised by the Pollo Asado. It is easy to make and will be great addition to your assortment of chicken recipes. You can also surprise your family and friends by making an authentic Mexican street food. Remember to accompany it with my favorite sides, Guacamole, Tomato and Onion Salsa and Grilled Vegetable Salsa.  Pollo Asado, the surprise and recipe of the week!

I intend to spend this week looking at the offerings of AT&T and Verizon for IP services and VoIP. The blog was bit long as I had a lot of food to cover. I'll discuss AT&T U-verse, Verizon FiOS and others during the course of the week. My focus will be on the business applications as they are the ones competing with the Broadvox VoIP/SIP Trunking offering.

See you then...

It's been a couple of weeks since I last wrote this blog. The amount of travel and such to start the year was a bit overwhelming and I found time to be a commodity in short supply. I decided I would rather not write the blog than provide something that wasn't my best. Of course, you missed some great food but I will make up for that beginning today. Over the weekend, I had apple smoked buffalo wings. They are the same as regular wings but lightly smoked prior to frying. They were good but I prefer the original style. On Saturday, we had Alaskan King Crab Quiche and Beef Stroganoff made from beef short ribs. Ahhh, they were both excellent. Finally, for the games on Sunday, I made gumbo. The gumbo included chicken, andouille sausage, crawfish, shrimp and crab. The flavor was a knockout. However, the number of ingredients and cooking process was rather arduous. Therefore, in thinking about what worked well this weekend and was recipe ready, I have selected the Alaskan King Crab Quiche as the recipe of the week. We have enjoyed it for over twenty years and, in fact, it was the first dish ever prepared for me by my then future wife. We made a few changes to it to make it our own. I think you will enjoy it!

The Beginning or the End of Competition

AT&T has asked the FCC for a date to enable it to shut down its TDM/PSTN. We have been pointing out for years that the LECs have been carrying more and more traffic using IP every year. AT&T in asking for permission to turn off its PSTN infrastructure is inferring that its investment in IP and mobile is nearly ready for prime time. Will it mean the end of competition as I have read by other bloggers? No. It will certainly change the landscape. When the 900 pound gorilla decides to take a place at the table, then everyone's meal is at risk. However, the LECs, will still be too big and inflexible to take away our business. It will be interesting to see what services AT&T will provide over their IP and mobile networks. It will be even more interesting to see what pricing results. Given their interest in mobility, they are now engaged in a price war with Verizon. As they drive down mobile prices, it places pressure on Sprint and T-Mobile to reduce their prices as well. In the mobile space, AT&T and Verizon are competing with little attention paid to it by the FCC. Once they decided to move into IP, I do not think the regulatory environment will be quite so laissez faire. Moreover, Broadvox and other ITSPs will not go quietly. We are continuing to upgrade our networks, evolve existing products and pricing, and create new offerings.

We will do just fine when AT&T is allowed to move to a single more cost effective network infrastructure. The culture of their company will remain the same. They will still eat only beef and potatoes. In our world, real ITSPs eat quiche.

See you on Wednesday.