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  • HD Version of iPlayer Expected Soon


    The BBC is planning on offering a high-definition version of its iPlayer – possibly by April.

    While the move has been mooted since the online catch-up TV service was launched in 2007, it seems likely the HD service will shortly become a reality.

    Jana Bennett, director of BBC Vision, confirmed that the HD edition was imminent during a panel discussion at the recent FT Digital Media and Broadcasting Conference.

    Other developments with the iPlayer include being added to Freesat, a move expected to take place later this year.

    While the step-up to HD may be welcomed by viewers, it’s unlikely to be viewed favorably by the UK’s broadband Internet Service Providers.

    The popularity of the iPlayer has already put strains on bandwidth – so the arrival of higher resolution video is certain to make the download situation worse.

  • VoIP Solutions Provider Cypress Communications Expanding into Europe and Middle East

    INTERVIEW: Frank Grillo, Cypress Communication’s executive vice president of marketing, speaks to voip-biz.news about the company and its move into international markets
    voip solutions
    One of the US’s largest providers of VoIP solutions, Cypress Communications, is to announce shortly that it is expanding operations into Europe and the Middle East.

    After more than 20 years providing managed communication solutions to clients across the States, the Atlanta, Georgia-based company is to extend its network internationally.

    Frank Grillo, Cypress Communication’s executive vice president of marketing, told voip-biz.news that more than 80 per cent of its revenue and customers come from a very focused base.

    This comprises law firms and businesses in the financial services, commercial real estate and professional services sectors.

    voip solutions, frank brillo, cypress communications
    Frank Grillo,  EVP Marketing, Cypress Communications

    Grillo said the decision to move into Europe and the Middle East came as a result of a new client – a large US law firm of a similar size to Cypress’ anchor tenant, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.

    The full details are expected to be released by the end of March.

    He said a data center is to be established in London, which is to be the initial anchor point in Europe.

    But the expectation is that the expansion will continue.

    "We are extending the Cypress network into other markets," he said.

    "We will initially be marketing to our US customers and serving their needs in Europe and the Middle East."

    Targeting US customers

    Grillo, who was recently, announced as the winner of the voip-biz.news’ Person of the Year award, said focusing Cypress’ initial marketing push on US customers made sense since many existing clients, such as law firms, had offices in Europe.

    The company’s business model is to be modified in the new markets, with more reliance placed on partners.

    In the Middle East, that is likely to be as a network manager rather than as a true end-to-end provider.

    Grillo added: "But from the customers’ perspective, it will be the same."

    As a provider of managed communication solutions, Cypress supplies technology that includes:

    * IP Communications (managed VoIP)
    * unified communication
    * digital and IP phones
    * unlimited calling
    * business-class Internet connectivity
    * firewalls
    * security and VPN solutions
    * audio/Web conferencing solutions

    Grillo described Cypress as a "fairly unique creature", firstly because its experience of hosted PBXs stretches back to the mid-1980s.

    "One of our biggest core strengths is that we get what it’s like to manage desktop phones," he said.

    The second reason was that Cypress’ core customers are high-value employees that depend on a quality phone service for doing business.

    So Grillo said a lawyer charging a client USD $400 per hour expects excellent service when using the phone for an important call.

    "Our clients are people using the phone as their primary tool for doing business," he said.

    Leap of Faith

    Last month, Cypress announced that an existing client, Ascensus, was making the move to IP communications.

    Grillo said this was an example of how customers are willing to put their faith in new systems because of the creditability Cypress has generated in over two decades in the industry.

    In Ascensus’ case, putting its trust in Cypress’ hosted VoIP and hosted unified communications solution, C4 IP, extends to nearly 1,000 associates from six offices — including a 300-person call center.

    C4 IP offers features such as integrated audio and Web conferencing, multimedia collaboration tools,presence, chat and Microsoft Outlook integration.

    "While the technology was new, we were not new," said Grillo. "We were a trusted provided."

    That’s not the case with every provider in the industry, according to Grillo.

    He said the hosted VoIP marketplace has been damaged in the past by providers that he describes as nothing more than "two guys and a truck looking to make some fast money with a bare bones product and the appearance of low cost".

    He said there were only a few providers that offered the reliability and quality required – one he was happy to name was M5 Networks.

    However, Grillo said the current state of the economy meant that those providing poor service were unlikely to fare well.

    "There’s only so much appetite in the market for bad VoIP," he added.

  • INTERVIEW: Ivar Plahte, CEO and Co-Founder of OnRelay

    "Mobile PBX is the future – and the era of everyone having corporate desktop handsets is coming to a close" – Ivar Plahte, winner of smartphone-biz.news’ Person of the Year Award 2008

    Cast your eyes over most office desks and something they have in common is a fixed-line telephone – at least for now.

    Ivar Plahte, CEO and co-founder of OnRelay, has no doubt that mobile PBX is the future – with smartphones increasingly replacing desktop phones to become the sole business phone.

    But then someone who runs a unified communications software company firmly focused on cellular Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) might be expected to say that.

    Founded in early 2000, OnRelay is a pioneer of mobile PBX and launched the first global private mobile branch exchange.

    In January, the company launched Unified MBX, a solution that delivers complete IP PBX functionality to the mobile phone.

    Essentially it turns users’ smartphones into full desk phone replacements, supports PBX functions such as caller ID and calling name and offers business vs personal call separation.

    Ivar Plahte, CEO  and Co-founder OnRelay

    Plahte told smartphone-biz.news that interest had already been huge – with inquiries from 100,000-employee enterprises right down to very small businesses.

    "It’s very cool in the sense that Unified MBX can be deployed in a plug-and-play manner," he said.

    Shift from IP PBX to mobile PBX

    While it may not yet be apparent, Plahte said there were "dramatic changes" currently taking place as enterprises shifted from IP PBXs to mobile PBXs.

    To underline that this isn’t some future-case scenario, he said OnRelay had just finalised an agreement with one of the top five global telecom service providers.

    The company was also deploying its solution in what he described as a "very large enterprise".

    "They said explicitly they do not want a single deskphone – they only want smartphones," he said.

    "This gives a very strong indication that this market we have been pushing for is really emerging."

    Mobile PBX is Fourth Generation

    Plahte said the best way to think of mobile PBX was in generations, with the progression from analog PBX to digital PBX and then on to the IP PBX.

    "Looking at the previous change between digital and IP, the desk phone was very similar – it was still a proprietary type of desk phone," he said.

    "We are talking about two very similar systems, both vertically integrated, coming from the same vendor, hardware-based models.

    "Even if the technology is different, the markets are quite similar."

    That isn’t the case with the move from IP PBX to mobile PBX, according to Plahte.

    The CEO said this was especially apparent in the back office with the change from hardware to software platforms.

    He said that while companies might still want to have fixed phones – such as for call centre switchboards – most users would have mobiles as their desktop phones.

    "A PBX where the backdrop is software, the network is the public mobile network and the predominant device is the mobile phone," he said.

    What has made this type of scenario possible are factors such as the improvements made to smartphone reliability in the last couple of years and the fall in mobile call prices.

    Even so, Plahte said the only way to convince companies to ditch deskphones was to demonstrate the reliability of the solution to them.

    He said businesses already made a sizeable proportion of their calls on mobiles – the novelty was that a mobile PBX meant the handsets could become the only mode of business communication.

    While OnRelay is very aggressively anti-deskphone, Plahte said it was important to assure customers they can "mix-and-match" in whatever way they like.

    "If they only want to use a mobile, then that’s fine," he said.

    "If they are a little sceptical – perhaps because of coverage – then they can have a deskphone that pairs with a mobile and rings at the same time."

    Not making this clear was where a lot of fixed/mobile substitution has been misdirected, according to Plahte.

    "They were telling companies: ‘You have to throw out every everything and only have mobile phones’," he said. "Our proposition is more balanced."

    Competitors Lagging Behind

    While competitors in the form of PBX vendors have been threatening to copy OnRelay since 2003, Plahte said he was confident they had a significant lead over them.

    He said OnRelay also differed from the largely voice-over-WiFi technology being touted by competitors.

    After initially offering large enterprises managed MBX projects, the UK-headquartered company has now launched Unified MBX.

    While OnRelay’s main markets are in Europe and the Far East it is also targeting the US.

    Plahte said the US market was different in terms of:

    – the network: "2/3 years behind Europe in quality of coverage but catching up"

    – smartphone brands: "RIM’s Blackberry and Apple’s iPhone strong, while Nokia is very small in the US

    – contracts: "In Europe a lot of companies pay for their employees’ contracts. That is getting there now in the US."

    – Europe more aggressive in getting rid of deskphone completely: "In the US, the combination of mobile and deskphone will linger for longer."

    OS Diversity is "Disappointing"

    Plahte said the diversity of operating systems on smartphones has been a major headache.

    OnRelay has to port a significant amount of software for every platform and user experience is very important.

    "I hoped operating systems would converge but they are doing the opposite," he said. "For us, that’s disappointing."

    While having to work across four or five platforms has slowed development, Plahte said he never doubted the solution would be launched.
    "I have always had the firm belief that this market is inevitable," he said.

    "It is just a question of time in relation to when this generation of PBX will happen."

    We are interested in hearing your views on mobile PBX – can you see your enterprise becoming mobile-only?

  • TeleGeography Survey Shows VoIP Surge in Europe












    VoIP telephone services in Western Europe leapt to just under 30 million consumer lines by mid-2008 – up from 20 million only a year earlier.

    That figure has continued to climb and totalled 35 million lines at the end of the year, according to a survey by researchers TeleGeography.

    The study into fixed-line VoIP usage also found that while the aggregate pace of growth across Europe remains rapid, fixed line market trends in each country are surprisingly unique.

    Household penetration of VoIP telephony at mid-2008 ranged from slightly less than 50 per cent in France to less than 3 per cent in Spain.

    In terms of annual subscriber growth rates ranged from 544 per cent in Portugal to a comparatively anemic 13 per cent in Norway.

    TeleGeography analyst Patrick Christian said VoIP services are reshaping the fixed line market in Europe.

    But he said regional market differences were were much in evidence.

    "Europe may have a single market, but it’s far from common," he said.

    "However, while the uptake of IP telephony services varies widely, VoIP has been a powerful spur to innovation, even in some countries with relatively modest numbers of VoIP subscribers."

    This has taken the form of "incumbents" having to slash the price of traditional telephone services, to deploy higher-speed broadband networks and to introduce new video-over-IP services in the face of the challenge presented by IP-based competitors.

    TeleGeography projects that the number of VoIP subscribers will continue to grow strongly, increasing from 35 million at end-2008 to 45 million by the end of 2009.



  • Carrier VoIP Equipment Spend Down, IMS To Become Revenue Driver by 2011







    The worldwide market for carrier VoIP equipment has stalled after a pro-longed period of double-digit annual revenue growth that began in 2002.

    This led to the market contracting for the first time ever in 2008, with a drop in revenue of 6 per cent, according to Infonetics Research.

    On a brighter note, a second Infonetics report, found that IMS deployments are likely to become a serious revenue driver by 2011.

    Diane Myers, directing analyst at Infonetics, said the fourth quarter of 2008 confirmed what had been seen in the previous two quarters in North America, with signs in Western Europe and some parts of Asia as well.

    "The market for carrier VoIP equipment has stalled due to large deployments nearing completion and shifting strategic priorities," she said.

    "The global economic downturn will likely exacerbate the drop in VoIP equipment sales."

    The second Infonetics report paints a more optimistic picture for VoIP equipment manufacturers.

    It shows that worldwide sales of IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) equipment, including HSS (home subscriber servers) and CSCF servers, were up 94 per cent in 2008 compared to 2007.

    Myers said IMS deployments are growing, led largely by European operators.

    Fixed-line VoIP services are still the most popular applications delivered over IMS, however the reports suggests rich communication services will be an important part of the shift from fixed-line VoIP services to mobile networks and integration with standardized devices.

    She said the revenue total for IMS deployments is small currently, but will grow rapidly and become substantial in 2011 and beyond as mobile operators upgrade infrastructure.

    "With over 100 service providers worldwide having chosen their IMS vendors, less than half are fully deployed with live traffic," she said.

    "The move to turn-up the remaining deployments, in addition to new deployments, will help fuel the sales for IMS network equipment.

    "Mobile operator migration to IP and adoption of RCS will drive the deployments for IMS during the next four to five years."

  • Skype Seeks To Establish Common Audio Codec by Offering High-Quality Silk for Free







    Skype is to license for free a high-quality audio codec in its latest VoIP software to any developer or vendor.

    Called Silk, the "super-wideband" codec delivers a sound quality that captures the full sound of the human voice.

    Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s general manager of audio and video, launched the licensing program earlier this week at the eComm conference in California.

    He said that the normal phone system uses a narrow band for voice, from 400Hz to 3,400Hz, that cuts off high and low frequencies.

    Silk allows Skype to reproduce the full range of typical voice frequencies audible to the human ear, from 50Hz to 12,000Hz.

    So, while traditional systems carry voice in a standard 64Kb per second (Kbps) channel – which has disadvantages, such as blurring the difference between similar sounds such as "f" and "s" – VoIP can be carried in a fatter pipe.

    This has allowed new codecs to be written to encode and decode voice at higher quality.

    Benefits of this include helping callers identify different speakers on conference calls and making calls sound generally warmer, according to Christensen.

    Additionally, the new codec requires half the network bandwidth of Skype’s previous version.

    Christensen said the codec will be made freely available to third-party developers. They will be able to use it in any device or application, with or without Skype.

    "We think this is a way the whole industry can come up to a new standard of voice quality," he said.

    Skype’s motivation for making Silk available for free is to expand the range of hardware and software clients its calling software works with by establishing a common codec for clients to adopt.

    This goes from PC software, headsets and videoconferencing systems to cordless phones and mobiles.

    Silk runs on x86 chipsets for Windows, Macintosh and Linux systems, and the software has been run on Arm and MIPS chip platforms.

    It is currently available as Skype 4.0 for Windows and as a Macintosh beta version 2.8. A final Mac version and one for Linux are due in April.

  • Acer Plans To Drive Down Price of Smartphones







    It was always on the cards from the moment Acer announced its intention to enter the smartphone arena.

    Now the Taiwanese electronics giant has made it clear that it plans to drive down the cost of smartphones – to a level where mobile operators could give them away for free.

    Acer plans to release two low-priced handsets – the F1 and L1 – in October. Both will be touchscreen devices running Windows Mobile 6.5.

    They will obviously be pitched as entry-level smartphones and will be sold as Pay as you Go models for around USD $62 after network subsidies.

    Acer’s Smart Handheld Business Group head, Aymar de Lencquesaing, speaking at CeBit, said there were four billion mobile phone users on the planet, but only 200 million smartphone users.

    He reasoned that driving down the price and enabling operators to give the phones away free – with a contract – was the "surest way to drive adoption".

  • Mobile Operators Must Cut Data Fees and Offer Smartphone Subsidies







    While prospects for the overall mobile handset market remain gloomy, smartphones remain a bright spot with global unit growth as high as 11.1 per cent in 2009, according to iSuppli.

    The analysts’ optimistic forecast for global smartphone unit shipments translates into 192.3 million units in 2009, up from 173.6 million in 2008.

    A more pessimistic outlook calls for growth of only 6 per cent this year, reaching 183.9 million units.

    Tina Teng, senior analyst for wireless communications for iSuppli, stressed that for the optimistic scenario to come to fruition, wireless network operators had to cut fees for data services and offer aggressive subsidies to reduce consumer smart phone prices.

    "Furthermore, wireless operators and handset brands have to sell consumers on the value of smartphones to encourage customers to upgrade," she said.

    However, if consumer confidence continues to erode, iSuppli’s pessimistic forecast is likely to prevail, Teng warned.

    According to the optimistic scenario, smartphones will represent 17.4 per cent of total mobile handset unit shipments in 2009.

    If the pessimistic scenario holds sway, smartphones will account for only 16.6 per cent of total mobile handset shipments this year.

    The optimistic scenario also foresees a unit shipment Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 21 percent from 2008 to 2013, while the pessimistic view predicts an 18.3 percent growth rate.

    Teng said that with 3G networks becoming prevalent around the world, smartphones are now for consumer as well as corporate users.

    "Consumers increasingly are demanding data-intensive applications that require the kinds of high data speeds supported by 3G networks," she said.

  • TI Unveils Video Processor Aimed at Removing Format Concerns







    Texas Instruments has launched a new video processor specifically aimed at removing video designers’ concerns about video format support, network bandwidth or system storage capacity limitations.

    Called the TMS320DM365 DaVinci, the processor includes production-qualified H.264, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, MJPEG and VC1 codecs.

    The DM365 also has an integrated image signal processing (ISP) solution for intelligent video processing capabilities and a suite of on-board peripherals.

    TI says this has the potential to save developers up to 25 per cent on their system cost.

    The company is aiming the processor at video designers of media playback and camera-driven applications, such as video doorbells and portable media players.

    According to TI, by using the DM365 it will allow them to expand their product portfolio on one platform with the ability to select the right HD video codec for multiple product designs – 1080p MPEG-4 at 24 fps or 720p H.264 and MPEG-4 at 30 fps.

    An example is video security applications supporting 1080p H.264 at 10 fps to provide high-quality video with greater compression efficiency.

    As a result, TI says developers can attain increased video storage without straining network bandwidth.

    In addition, by having a built-in ISP with capabilities including face detection, developers can focus on differentiating their products with smart video features.

    These include enabling intelligent digital signage to detect its viewers and display relevant advertising or video doorbells to instantly recognize family members and automatically unlock the door.

  • Expansion Planned as Csathy Named President and CEO of Sorenson Media







    Sorenson Media has named Peter Csathy as its president and chief executive officer (CEO).

    Csathy is a 20-year veteran of the digital media industry with significant expertise in the online video arena.

    Sorenson Media specializes in online video compression and encoding technology and solutions.

    Csathy said he was looking forward to driving the company into new high growth areas.

    "Internet video is still in its early innings, and we see an opportunity to become a significant player in this multi-billion dollar and transformative industry," he said.

    Peter Csathy, CEO Sorensen Media

    Csathy worked in C-level roles at three successful high-growth companies, including most recently as CEO of SightSpeed, president and chief operating officer (COO) of Musicmatch, and COO of eNow.

    SightSpeed was acquired by Logitech late in 2008, in the midst of the current economic meltdown; Musicmatch was acquired by Yahoo in 2004; and eNow was acquired by AOL-Time Warner in 2006.

    Prior to these positions, Csathy served as senior VP at Universal Studios, with responsibility for driving and executing all national and global new business opportunities, M&A activity, strategic partnerships and initiatives for that company’s Recreation Group.

    He has also worked as a senior executive at Savoy Pictures Entertainment and New Line Cinema, after launching his career as a media and intellectual property attorney for clients in the motion picture and music industries.

    Csathy obtained his JD from Harvard University and his bachelor’s degree in political science, summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota.

    He will direct all areas of Soreson Media’s operations and strategic initiatives.