Making a Whitelabel Wholesale VoIP Solution

How would you make this beast? it changes shape hourly. Yesterday it was consumer focused, with enhahnced communications features, and no requirement for the last mile, as the service provider would piggyback off existing internet services. Today it’s facilities based (meaning I have to come up with the last mile), and it’s got a decidedly business focus, with a hosted IP PBX component, DIDs and LD. Plus it’s got to be dead easy to replicate, and has to be able to service hundreds of wholesale customers, and THEIR customers. It’s got to be turn-key and positive revenue generating. I like the looks of Fonality, but I’m not sure how easy it is to implement as a wholesale offering. Alec Saunders has a great folder full of Fonality info that I’m going through now.

The market is clammoring for something easy. Something plug and play that doesn’t take 9 months to roll out. Something to stem the loss of subscribers that are jumping to free, and/or suspicious quality internet only plays.

Is anyone in Canada doing this? Ideally, I’d like to create this solution from canadian-made technology. Hints would be appreciated - suggestions adored.

technorati tags:VoIP, IP-PBX, whitelable VoIP

StarWars and IMS

I picked out the nugget I liked, you need to read the article to get the Star Wars Reference ;-)




Open Gardens: Of Sith lords and the dark side of IMS

It (IMS) attempts to capture the flexibility and ubiquity of Internet Protocol whist ditching much of the Internet's design philosophy.Thats spot on! The Internet succeeded precisely because it was designed as a dumb pipe with the intelligence concentrated around the periphery. In other words, intelligent nodes and dumb pipes go together. 'Dumb pipes' means : all packets are created equal. There is no intelligence in the network, only in the nodes.IMS uses IP , BUT adds some intelligence in the network because it does NOT treat all packets equally.IMS promises to improve the quality of service, reduce SPAM, provide better quality rich applications(such as video) and so on. The often hidden caveat of this promise is the understanding that packets may not all be treated equally. In financial terms, it translates to premium prices for premium connectivity.

Technorati Tags: IMS, SITH, Net Neutrality

Interesting Google Mashups - Palomino

I was lucky enough to get to see a demo yesterday of one of the neatest Google Mashups ever. EVER. Palomino Systems is working on MANY cool applications, but I was able to see one of their coolest by far.  That being said, there was also an NDA involved with the demo - and that means I’m unable to say too much abot it.  Suffice it to say, people will take to this like a duck on water. Like a dog on a T-Bone.

Sorry - when they launch, I’ll be able to say “I saw it first”.  ;-)  Trust me, you will love it.

technorati tags:Palomino, Google Mashup

IE 7 Goes to the Mat with Firefox, Can Trailfire Mediate?

Someone who shall remain nameless upgraded to IE7 on Day 1. On Day 2, his helpdesk managed to get him out of the slippery slope he found himself in. Myself, I chug happily along, sharing the love of Firefox. Until today. I bit the bullet and tried out IE7 on an older, its-ok-if-it-gets-screwed-up computer. And it was interesting. Not exactly good, but interesting nonetheless.

I missed the extensions that I have plugged into Firefox. I missed the snappy themes, the customizable searchabilty, the hotkeys that seem to make so much sense. Oh the blog integration, and the photo integration is still always going to be superior. I like the ability in IE to breeze through all my open tabs, just like one would with PowerPoint, but that’s likely because I am a Powerpoint whore. ;-)

Really, it does indeed come down to the Extensions. No, they AREN’T Add-ins. Add-ins are like remote relatives, nice to see once in a while, but they never get the hint on when to leave… and even after they are gone, there are traces of them around for ages that you need to clean up after.

The one snappy extension/add-in that seems to bridge the gap between both browsers is Trailfire.

Trailblazer plays double duty as both a Firefox Extension; Internet Explorer 7 add-on. In either browser, Trailfire dances right along, capturing the best of both camps, and may be the first smart extension that doesn’t care what browser you use, you can still play along with the rest of the kids.

Trailfire is the first to actually make use of “notes” on websites. Notes that other folks can see, engage with and follow. It opens the door to serious collaboration, and at the same time, there’s nothing stopping the insane from leaving a blaze of flames across your site. It will be interesting to see the impacts of such a viral, social service.

 

For this one, I might even switch from Flock

technorati tags:IE 7, Firefox, Trailfire, Flock

Electric Fruit

Fruit Powered Clock - It’s Alive!

The fruit clock is a digital clock/calendar powered by fruit. While emulating the original battery invented by Alessandro Volta over 200 years ago that utilized lemon juice, the creation of whole fruit in the mid-1900s has allowed the experiment to be perfected with artistic flare.

The kit includes jumper wires, time display, rubber stop and frame for its $14.95 pricetag. And don’t feel bad while people are starving in the world as you destroy the food supply for a “conversation piece”. You read Gizmodo, and are therefore a decent person (though you probably smell a little funny, honestly). – Mark Wilson

Product Page [via newlaunches]

technorati tags:Electric Fruit

Canadian Military Scrambles to Fill Boots?

The military is lowering its fitness standards for new recruits and moving training and administrative personnel into combat units.

O’Connor says military ‘scrambling’ to find soldiers for Afghanistan

Imagine thinking you had a nice, cushy, relatively safe admin job with the Canadian Military. One day, poof, you are handing out soccer balls in Afghanistan. Silly Canadian military. Changing the fitness standards, so more people could enlist? Military standards are standards for a reason, methinks. Perhaps this could be a wake up call. If no one wants to fight, maybe Canada won’t have to fight any more?

Can we have a new election now, please?

technorati tags:Canada, Military, Harper, Reduced Fitness Standards

Harder to Deposit Than You Think

I was awarded a cheque on Thursday.

A “really big” cheque…. No, I wasn’t counting the number of digits. It was four feet long, and presented by Karen Radford.

It was one of those nifty things that you don’t really expect. A good cheque.

Karen joined us at a sales rally, and managed to engage the entire wholesale division for 2 hours on various topics, from Net Neutrality to Income trusts. This is one VERY smart chick. This was my first meeting with her, and I am convnced I could have listened to for days. Did I mention how smart she was? Engaging? Down to earth? Disarming?

Wow.

technorati tags:Karen Radford

Find Your Carnival and Get Your Blog On

What an outstanding idea!

Darren Rowse at ProBlogger has stumbled and shared the most interesting concept - Blog Carnivals.

As far as I can tell, it’s like a very focused forum, and a travelling road show, all in on. What a way to build traffic, awareness and create good conversations!.

What is a Blog Carnival?

A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. There aremany kinds of blogs, and they contain articles on many kinds of topics.Blog Carnivals typically collect together links pointing to blogarticles on a particular topic.A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors,contributors,and an audience. Editions of the carnival typicallycome out on a regular basis (e.g. every monday, or on the first of themonth). Each edition is a special blog article that consistsof links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often withthe editors opinions or remarks.

technorati tags:blog carnival

A Sign of Internet Stupidity... Utube vs YouTube

YouTube Newbies Clog UTube.com
Flood of traffic caused by a domain-name homophone shuts down an Ohio tube and rollform equipment site.October 13, 2006If the Internet really was a series of pipes and tubes – as U.S. Senator Ted Stevens famously suggested earlier this year – then Ohio-based Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment Corp. would have been well positioned to handle all the internet traffic it received this week following Google’s eye-opening acquisition of video sharing site YouTube.

As it turns out, the Internet is really a series of cables and routers and the Ohio company, which sells used and remanufactured machinery to make pipes and tubes, was ill-prepared for the flood of traffic it received on its utube.com website. Ralph Girkins, president of Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment Corporation, said traffic to his site shot through the roof over the past week as huge numbers of confused YouTube wannabes logged on to the internet to check out all those videos they’d heard about on the news. Internet users continued to surf his site looking for videos as late as Friday, and some seemed unable to understand they had reached the wrong website. On Friday alone, Mr. Girkins received more than 100 emails from people asking where the videos were on utube.com.

RED HERRING | YouTube Newbies Clog UTube.com

Funny, the fact that the great unwashed Internet actually emailed the poor, hapless owner of utube.com to ask where the videos where. As if the front page of the website didn’t clue the visitors that they may simply be at the wrong destination. I would think that landing at the Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment site would be a hint that you had the wrong address. Silly internet people.

technorati tags:utube, youtube

Blogged with Flock

When You are Too Angry to Blog

It must be a sign that i’m growing up, when I’m even too angry to blog about a subject, an unjustice, or a ridiculous notion. I suppose it’s a good thing. Life Lesson Number 26: Beer, anger and blogging never mix.

Suffice it to say, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me….

We are at strike one, and right now, I’m not convinced that there can be an opportunity for a strike 2.

technorati tags:Anger, Compensation

The Influencers - Canada's Take on PayperPost?

Welcome to The Influencers - Canada's Word of Mouth Community. You've landed on your personalized My Campaigns Page. In this area, you've got privileged access to join and participate in Word of Mouth Campaigns, earn Influence points for your honest opinions and involvement, access fresh content on interests you care about, share your knowledge with the rest of the Influencer community & track your development as an Influencer.

The Influencers: Canada's Word of Mouth Community

Hmmm, leave it to the Canucks to come up with a decent, "canadian flavoured", word of mouth advertising application.  Instead of just getting paid to say what advertisers want you to say, you are rewarded with "influence points".  Points that are then redeemable, or that you can donate to the charity of your choice.  It's an interesting concept, and one that will likely cause less of a revolt in the blogosphere. I'll keep you posted on my "influence" status.

technorati tags:The Influencers, PayPerPost, Canada, Influence

Ted Rogers Says No To Allstream...for now

Quashing a suggestion that he might bid for MTS Allstream (TSX:MBT), he noted that investment analysts tend to favour acquisitions over large increases in capital spending but “Allstream would cost a huge amount of money, and for a fraction of that - but still a substantial number in terms of capital expenditures - we will go in the business with the newest technologies.”

Rogers Communications triples Q3 net to $154M; stock to split, dividend up

Hmmm….. It’s like no one wants to Allstream to the Prom. She’s standing there looking all cutesy, but no takers.

technorati tags:allstream, Rogers, Prom

What Happens When You Break Up with an ILEC

The CRTC has rules about the type of contact that ILECs can have with former customers for the first 3 months after switching to a new service provider. These are called the Winback Rules and have been the cause for a Charter of Rights challenge.

Telecom Trends

Mark Goldberg always has the goods, especially when it comes to the CRTC, but I'm looking for the syllabus that covers what happens when you start to *go out* with an ILEC.  My first 3 months with BELL, after not dating them for over 5 years have shown Bell to be high maintenance, clingy, they tell all their friends about us, and I have to pay for every date. Yes, this is the first time in 5 years that I've got to deal with telemarketers. And of course, the bill's already been wrong once. I've had my beautiful, secret relationship with my Primus VoIP phone for almost 2 years. No one calls that number and tries to sell me something. To be funnier, it's the VoIP phone number that we give out.

Somehow, evil weevils have gotten their claws into the Bell phone number (hmm, I wonder how?) and they call daily.  It's a good think I don't answer that one.

;-)

technorati tags:BELL, Primus, VoIP, Mark Goldberg, CRTC, Telemarketers

Shrinking Canadian Support for Troops in Afghanistan

Slightly more than half of Canadians support the Afghan mission and believe troops are providing critical support, suggests a poll that found less enthusiasm for the Tories' foreign policies in general.

Slight majority of Canadians support Afghan mission: poll

I have a sinking suspicion that the people were polled were showing support for the canadian troops stuck in Afghanistan, and were NOT showing support for the Canadian government's foreign policies. The fact that Canadians have now been warned by Al-Quaeda should be a bit of a warning shot over Harper's bow........

Unfortunately now, it's too late to change direction, even if changing direction is the right thing to do.  Now, it will appear as if Canada is allowing itself to be blackmailed by a terrorist organization.  It's a damn shitty spot to be in.  And every morning, I watch the planes overhead, and wonder.

technorati tags:Canada, Al-Quaeda, terrorism

Dr Laura - Bible Clarification on Owning Canadians

Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

StockHouse USA

Anyone who’s turned on the radio (and now the TV in the past 5 years has heard of her. Everything is cut and dried with Dr Laura - if it’s “in the bible” it’s a no-brainer. She’s become infamous with her stance on everything from marriage, same sex couples, and has used the “bible” to her own advantages.

Thanks to Karen for pointing me in this direction, where an East-Coaster writes a letter of clarification to Dr Laura, asking for confirmation on many other aspects of the bible. I think you will like it.

technorati tags:Dr Laura, idiocy

Scoble Talks about Blogging... and sex.

Blog cause you want to (and include sex in your headlines)

Imagine.

Sex :-)

Apparently, it's the easiest way to drive visitors :-)

Well, we'll see, won't we.

*wink*

technorati tags:sex, blogging, scoble

What Not To Read before Going to Bed...

As you may have heard, Al-Qaeda has told the Canadian government to end the Afghanistan mission or face a 9/11-type attack: The threat, attributed to a member of the al-Qaeda information and strategy committee, condemns Prime Minister Stephen Harper for refusing to pull out of Afghanistan. It also refers to Canada’s “fanatic adherence to Christianity” as well as its purported attempts to “damage the Muslims” and its support for the “Christian Crusade” against al-Qaeda.

What are the Canadian Terrorist Targets? | DarrenBarefoot.com

Note to Self: Read happy and uplifting things before bed, or suffer the consequences.  Darren's article on the risk of al-Qaeda threats to Canada invaded my subsonscious, and had me dreaming various assorted terrifying events. Sure, daylight savings time didn't help either, but still.

Why couldn't I have read something generic about youtube? Or Something equally safe, like Matthew Ingram's thoughts on the Un-coolness of MySpace?

Tonight. Something reasonable.

technorati tags:al-Quaeda, Canada, Daylight Savings Time

Falling Back

It’s easy to grasp the concept of daylight savings time, unless you happen to be canine. The smapp dog is still on “yesterday’s time”, and has been too early for everything today. WAY too early for waking up, and now, too early for dinner. The fact that her tummy is grumbing is an indication that regardless of what time it is, she’s ready for it to be supper time ;-)

I have a feeling that the next few days are going to bel ike this. An early tummy. ;-)

I’m not the only one who has figured out that pets have a hard time with DST…. Gary Bogue has a curious post about cats and clocks. 

technorati tags:Daylight Savings Time

Voice 2.0 Explained

First coined by blogger and telecom executive Alec Saunders, ‘Voice 2.0′ is a term that refers to the consequences of voice becoming a simple data stream and application, that will integrate seamlessly with Web based business and consumer applications. This convergence of telephony communication and the Web will lead to fundamental changes in the way communication services are provided and a dramatic shift in the industry value chain.

TelecomVistas.com

This article should become mandatory reading for all new entrants and employees at telecom “solution provider” organizations. The dramatic mindshift needed to pull these giant ships out of their present path is going to be impressive. That being said, I’ve heard that it only takes 5% of the organization to create enough buzz, that it makes it easier for 25% of the organization to actually pull the levers of change. Someday I will be able to stop talking about overseas minute volume discounts as if they were a good thing.

technorati tags:voice 2.0

Technorati : Alec Saunders

Rogers, Allstream and Person to Join Together for NewFoundland Fibre Network?

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. (CP) - Newfoundland is considering the construction of a second fibre-optic link to Nova Scotia that would prevent 911 services from shutting down as they did last week, Premier Danny Williams said Thursday.

The provincial government has been scrutinizing the $82-million proposal by Rogers Communications (TSX: RCI - news), MTS Allstream Inc. (TSX:MBT - news) and Persona Communications Inc. for at least several months. If approved, the project would provide a much-needed alternate connection for the only province in Canada that currently depends on a single carrier, Williams said.

A minor fire at a Bell Aliant (TSX: BA.UN) switching station that eliminated residential and mobile phone service throughout the provincial capital last Friday underscores the need for another link, Williams said.

Newfoundland pondering second line to Nova Scotia in wake of phone outage - Yahoo! News

A few obvious questions here: Did the goverment give Bell Aliant ao opportunity to provide their own redundancy and diversity plan? You would think that it would be easier to redesign and augment the network, rather than create a whole new duplicate one, especially for a province where burying fibre must be a considerable expense. That being said, with Rogers and Allstream, they've likely still got "decommissioned but not disassembled" radio towers floating all over the Rock.

Second Question: This isn't the first time that Rogers and Allstream have entertained a wild idea - [remember innikshuk?], will the incusion of Persona add sticking power to the relationship?

technorati tags:Rogers, Allstream, Persona, NewFoundland Networks