April 2004
Hello again. The ATS Network & Billing Update is published by Advanced Technologies & Services, Inc. (www.atso.com), a revenue and service assurance solutions provider. This free newsletter is a guide to telecommunications OSS, billing, and revenue assurance news and other telecom industry analysis. To unsubscribe, contribute an article, or for offbeat news, please scroll to the end. Feel free to forward this newsletter!
In this issue:
VOIP: Separating the Hype from the Reality (Part 2)By: Peter Mueller, ATS
Funny how arguments evolve. At first, we used to hear a lot from the softswitch vendors about how cheap it was to carry voice over the Internet. The circuit-switch vendors countered that quality suffered and that the industry had too much invested in circuit-switches to ever make the drastic cutover to VOIP. (We looked at this argument once before - see our June 2003 article here). All of that seems moot today. Consumers will accept lesser quality if it costs less. After all, pundits point out, the wireless industry has made a living by providing less-clear connections ("Can you hear me now?"), albeit a fundamentally new service. Savagely commoditizing that on pricing and branding become the issue, not quality of service.
No, what's new with VOIP is the age-old debate as to how carriers should be compensated for handling a part of each other's calls. After all, at some point the VOIP carriers need to drop their traffic onto the POTS network, if only for the "last mile". Regulatory-wise, doesn't it make sense to treat VOIP as any other provider? In other words, is VOIP really a new service that consumers will identify with (like cellular was in the late 1980s), or is it just another mechanism for transport? The VOIP carriers are, plainly, asking regulators to keep their regulating hands off their turf. They view the regulatory machine, with all of its 'artificial pricing guidelines' as the bane of the industry, and an impediment to the gradual VOIP-ization of everything. Their letter to to key policymakers on the Hill and at the FCC is attached, and definitely worth a look, if you'd like more insight into these crucial issues.
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Since we're on the topic of Intercarrier compensation, I'll take this opportunity to describe ATS' recent foray into Open Source. As more readers are aware, ATS has - for a long time- been the industry leader in resolving complex intercarrier disputes. Along with our switch validation services, we've generally accomplished this by selling, maintaining and supporting high-end software running on Unix platforms. This worked especially well for us in the early days when all of our clients were the large RBOCs, with large IT staffs. Today, we're finding a growing interest in our services from CLECs and much smaller carriers, who - to be blunt - can't be bothered to buy and maintain yet another system. Besides, they point out, Moore's Law (referring to Intel's founder's observation that computing power was doubling per unit price every 18 months) wasn't yet paying dividends in software purchase . After all, shouldn't vendors have found more efficient ways to offer their services, given the relative deflation in computing horsepower and storage?
ATS has always been committed to providing the best possible service, using the very best technology, at the best possible price. Today, we're announcing that one of our AMA reports (prominently used in several high-profile CABS disputes) is available, free of charge, to customers wishing to test-drive their own data through our system. The site is geared towards technical users (who have access to raw, unprocessed call detail records in AMA format) and billing/regulatory users who rely on detailed usage reports. The report is currently limited to 10 Megabyte uploads. We have seen spikes in usage, but you should generally get your report e-mailed to you within the hour. We'll keep you posted in future issues on our progress in this matter. Click HERE to run your own data through our AMA Service Station.
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Ten Hottest Technologies for 2004
Telecom Magazine has posted its annual "top ten" list of hottest technologies to look for in 2004. No surprises here: Technologies that extend carriers' ability to provide IP-based and WI-FI services are expected to have a good 2004. Security-based tools, such as those that detect network intrusions, are also getting a lot of attention.
OffBeat
News:
The many (many) uses of e-mail.
CLEVELAND - If you are worried about not
being able to say goodbye to loved ones before you die, now you can sign
up to an online service and compose goodbye e-mails to those you love.
Customer Beverly Bright feels better knowing that she has stored "exit
e-mails" for her family. "I thought it was just a really great way to let
your friend and family have messages and thoughts," Bright said. The
service, called LastWishes.com, stores the e-mail message, including
photos and videos, until someone the customer has chosen lets the company
know it´s time to click send. The company goes through a verification
process to make sure that the information is accurate and that the person
really has died. Once you´ve signed up for the service you can update the
information as often as you want.
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