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  • Skype accused of hypocrisy by Gizmo

    Skype’s Christopher Libertelli recently questioned the major US wireless carriers’ commitment to open networks.


    Today voip.biz-news.com has the response from Gizmo Project’s CEO, Michael Robertson, who accuses Skype of hypocrisy for wanting others to open their networks while refusing to open its own.

    Robertson has written to Libertelli challenging Skype to enable other networks such as Gizmo5 to call Skype users in an official and supported capacity.

    “Mr Libertelli, I recently saw your letter to FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin demanding that wireless companies open their networks.

    While I concur this would be beneficial for consumers, Skype’s actions do not mirror their words to the commission which diminishes credibility for Skype to demand openness.

    I am CEO of Gizmo5, a standards based VOIP and IM network. We invite other networks to connect to our users and currently route calls to and from more than 500 networks big and small on the Internet. We cannot route calls to Skype users in spite of the fact that consumers would like to do this because Skype has a closed network.

    The wireless companies you chastise in your letter to commissioner Martin allow me to send and receive calls to the networks they operate but Skype does not.

    Skype operates the largest closed calling network on the planet.

    We have requested peering information from Skype in the past on multiple occasions and our requests have been ignored. Skype continues to deny Gizmo5 and others in the internet calling world the information and access to allow calls to flow to and from your network.

    It appears that when it is convenient for Skype’s business objectives Skype waves the flag of openness, at the same time conveniently ignoring competitors requests for openness.

    It is disingenuous for Skype to demand mobile operators open their networks so that Skype can infiltrate their systems with their proprietary, closed calling scheme which locks out all others.

    If Skype truly believes there should be open competition then they should start by enabling other networks such as Gizmo5 to call Skype users in an official and supported capacity.

    Until you remove the padlock from your own front door you would seem to have no right to demand that others adopt an open door strategy.

    I’m open to discuss and implement an open peering relationship which will demonstrates Skype true commitment to open networks and make your actions match your words. Contact me anytime at [email protected] .”

    Michael Robertson
    MP3 Tunes – Your Music Everywhere
    Gizmo5 – IM/VOIP/SMS from PC and phone

  • VOD Will Reach Blu-ray Quality – And Beyond

    hdtv.biz-news.com spoke to Mark Horchler, corporate marketing director with video compression provider ATEME, about its plans to deliver video of Blu-ray quality and beyond.

    The Blu-ray Disc Association doesn’t take kindly to satellite and cable providers claiming their products deliver high definition picture and sound “equal” to that delivered by Blu-ray Disc.

    The trade body recently described just such assertions of equality as irresponsible and misleading to the consumer.

    Yet if the noises coming out of video compression provider ATEME are anything to go by, the BDA might have to get used to it.

    ATEME is a leading provider of MPEG-4 AVC / H.264 video compression technology.

    Its offline and streaming encoders power numerous high-end digital video applications, including mobile TV, Video on Demand (VOD) and IPTV.

    These solutions support both standard and HD content, deployed across any platform – from mobile to Ultra HD.

    Mark Horchler, corporate marketing director with ATEME, said there was room for continued improvement with H.264.
    He said the 3rd generation of the codec had just been released and was 25 per cent more efficient.

    “I think we are reaching near Blu-ray quality,” he said. “I have not made a set by set comparison but we are there.”

    Horchler said image quality was continually improving and the company was experimenting with Ultra High Definition video.

    “That’s the future of high definition,” he said. “H.264 will take us to Blu-ray quality and beyond. Blu-ray is largely based on H.264 technology.”

    France, where ATEME was founded in 1991 and has its head office at Bièvres near Paris, is a strong market for the company.

    It recently announced that its H.264 encoding solutions were now serving over one million French IPTV customers in HD.

    This was as a result of major French broadcasters using the encoders to provide HD video over low bitrates.

    IPTV has reached mass market status in France, largely because of its strong ADSL subscriber base of over 15 million customers, value for money offered by triple play services and healthy competition amongst ISPs.

    By the end of this year, France is expected to have up to six million IPTV subscribers, with a quarter having access to HD channels such as France 2 and M6 that use ATEME’s H.264 encoders.

    “France is a leading market for IPTV and is miles ahead of any other country in Europe, if not the world,” said Horchler.

    However, he said that while there was a lack of HD content in some markets, it was only a matter of time before that changed.

    “The potential for HDTV is huge. We are only at the beginning,” he said.

    “As more and more people adopt HD equipment, flat-screen TVs and so on, there will be a snowball effect. People will ask for more HD content.”

    Every market is different

    While IPTV is particularly strong in France, Horchler said that in other countries the infrastructure favored cable or satellite.

    In the US, where the cable market uses MPEG-2, he said there was a strong argument for using H.264 and he believed cable providers would start adopting it.

    “Our solutions carry over all these platforms,” he said.

    Another area where ATEME saw potential for H.264 was the mobile market, something that fitted well with its partnership agreement with Adobe.

    Horchler said the codec could adapt to various sizes and shapes of media device and had a scaleability that allowed the same video to be broadcast on HDTV or a mobile phone, for instance.

    This was a feature that would fit well with the live broadcast of sporting events.

    The internet offers immense possibilities for video and Horchler said he was confident that H.264 would be able to adapt to new opportunities as they emerged.

    He said there were many interesting applications, such as bundling video with advertising services, that were just beginning to take shape.

    “We are in that space. We work with Adobe Flash and this is compatible with 90 per cent of PCs out there,” he said. “I am sure by next year there will be some crazy idea for a business.

    “But the codec will adapt to the business model. It’s so flexible.”

  • There's No Such Thing As Too Much Storage

    As demand for mobile data storage keeps rising, the hard drive industry needs to work harder at adapting its technology and products to keep pace.


    Storage.biz-news.com spoke to Daniel Mauerhofer, of storage giant Western Digital, to find out more about this evolving market.

    Desktop computing remains the largest market for hard drives but the young upstart – consumer electronics – is the fastest growing.

    Demand for data storage is soaring in everything from PDAs, navigation systems and automotive applications to handheld devices that store music, books, news content, movies and television programs.

    In parallel with this is the need for portable data collection devices, something storage giant Western Digital (WD) has been quick to pick up on.

    It recently launched My Passport, a 500 GB capacity portable USB drive that is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

    Not so long ago it would have been inconceiveable to imagine how most consumers would use that amount of storage capacity – let alone in a mobile format.

    Yet Daniel Mauerhofer, senior PR manager EMEA for WD, said that since storage space was now quickly eaten up by even modest amounts of photo, video and music files, finding a use for half a Terabyte of storage wasn’t that difficult.

    He said the advent of compact cameras with the capacity for ever-larger resolution meant even just storing photographs required a great deal of memory space.

    “There’s no such thing as too much storage these days,” he said.

    WD was founded in Lake Forest, California in 1970 and has been manufacturing internal hard drives since 1990. It moved into the external drive market four years ago.

    While its principal markets – desktop and notebook computing – are expected to continue growing strongly, the launch of the My Passport portable series positions it strongly in the consumer electronics sector.

    This hard drive market, which today accounts for sales of 81 million units worth more than USD $6 billion, is expected to grow to 220 million units in 2010 – a compound annual growth rate of 29 per cent.

    Mauerhofer said external drives generated very little revenue for WD three years ago.

    “Now they represent a fifth of our turnover. It’s a billion dollar business now,” he said. “People are spending considerable time on the internet and its penetration is getting better, so people are downloading more and more. We do not see that stopping.”

    For this reason, the consumer rather than corporate user is seen as being the principal buyer of My Passport portable drives.

    This is borne out by the sleek design and color choices for the drives – a far step from the customary image of external drives as functional “blocks”.

    Technology is evolving to cope with the ever-increasing demand for portable storage

    Mauerhofer said the industry currently used Perpindicular Magnetic Recording (PMR), which still had potential for greater capacity.
    So much so that he predicted that within the next 18 months a 1 Terabyte storage drive would become available.

    “There is a big need in the B2B enterprise space for huge capacity coupled with small form factor and it’s a safe bet to say you will find them in our portable products as well,” he said.

    However, Mauerhofer said there would come a point when even the PMR technology reached a capacity limit. This would open up the market to replacement technology such as Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording.

    The consumers’ appetite for storage appears insatiable – but technology has managed to keep ahead of the game. Can it continue to do so?

  • Mobile TV To Become Standard Feature of Smartphones

    Mobile TV has really only achieved great popularity in nations such as Japan and Korea.

    But the market is expected to expand rapidly over the next few years, spurred on by the smartphone which is driving improvements in screen quality, microchips and antennas.

    Smartphone.biz-news.com spoke to David Srodzinski, chief executive of fledgling semiconductor firm Elonics, about his expectations for the future of mobile TV.

    Mobile TV will soon become as accepted a feature of mobile handsets as the camera.

    That is the prediction of David Srodzinski, founder and chief executive of Elonics, a semiconductor company that has designed a silicon radio frequency (RF) tuner used to convert signals into sound and pictures.

    “We do see mobile TV as going to take off just like the camera phone has taken off,” he said.

    “It’s not something you will use all the time, but it’s a part of the phone that will be such a ‘nice to have’ feature that all phones will simply have to have them.”

    David Srodzinski CEO Elonics

    Based in Livingston, Scotland, Elonics recently announced that David Milne, the founder and former chief executive of chip maker Wolfson Microelectronics, was joining its board as non-executive chairman.

    Milne was credited with taking Wolfson from a university spinout to the FTSE 250 and the company made its name as a key supplier of microchips to the iPod.

    Founded in 2003, Elonics has developed RF architecture called DigitalTune that is the foundation for a family of re-configurable CMOS RF front end products.

    Its E4000 device is designed for reception of all major world-wide fixed and handheld terrestrial digital multi-media broadcast standards within UHF to L-Band ranges (76MHz to 1.70GHz).

    It allows designers to implement front ends capable of cost effectively supporting multiple TV and radio broadcast standards and enabling smaller, lighter, cheaper and lower power consumer electronics.

    Elonics has finished market sampling its products and is about to begin mass-production.

    Srodzinski said the immediate focus for the broadcast receiver technology was the traditional TV market, ranging from digital TVs, set-top boxes and PC TVs to multi-media devices.

    But he believed the biggest opportunities lay in the mobile TV market, with analysts forecasting sales of mobile TV enabled handsets rising to 100 millionin 2010.

    “All future potential growth is coming from the cell phone side of the market,” he said. “Smartphones are increasingly a sizeable part of that market.”

    Screen size and quality a key factor influencing the adoption of mobile TV on cell phones

    Srodzinski said that with QVGA screens appearing on increasing numbers of handsets, a barrier to mobile TV was being removed.

    He said that prior to the introduction of QVGA screens, adding mobile TV to a cell phone meant additional costs for the screen, the graphic processors and mobile TV chip set.

    “With the advent of QVGA offerings, such as on the new HTC phones and the iPhone, which have them as standard, the cost add of mobile TV is minimal now,” he said.

    For the screens alone, Srodzinski estimated that the cost add had dropped by a tenth, from USD $50 to $5.
    “All that has to be added now is the mobile TV chip set,” he said.

    But if cost and technological issues were no longer an impediment to widespread uptake of mobile TV, what about users’ appetite for the service?

    Srodzinski expected mobile TV to be something people would use once or twice a week for five to 10 minutes, most probably as a free-to-view service.

    “That user experience will be such a good feature and such a compelling reason, that people will want mobile TV on their cell phones in a similar way to how they want to have camera phones too,” he said.

    “We believe that if mobile TV works and takes off in that way, it will be a major opportunity that will grow out of the smartphone and into middle layer cell phones.”

    The great success of mobile TV in Japan and Korea, where penetration rates now reach 40 per cent, owes a great deal to government intervention promoting the services, according to Srodzinski.

    He said this had created revenue opportunities and lifted technological barriers to entry.

    “What’s holding back other parts of the world has more to do with the infrastructure roll-out and the cost of doing that,” he said. “That and the lack of clear government support.”

    However, Srodzinski insisted that the growth of mobile TV in territories outwith Japan and Korea would accelerate as more people experienced it and saw the quality of the services and content.

    “I think other regions will catch on,” he said. “This is not a technological push situation – it has to be a consumer-led requirement., especially if it’s free-to-air that takes off.”

    While content may be free, any explosion in mobile TV will also have to offer opportunities for revenue to the industry.
    As Srodzinski said: “The question has to be: who makes any money out of it? There’s no particular economic benefit to operators.”

    Undoubtedly an answer to that conundrum will be found, but will mobile TV really take off?
    Please let us know your thoughts on the matter.

  • Smartphones Fuelling Mobile Search Growth


    The increasing numbers of smartphones on flat-rate data plans, coupled with ever-improving handsets, is leading to a surge in mobile search, according to comScore.

    It has published the results of a survey which show that searching the internet from a mobile phone is gaining in popularity in the United States and Western Europe.

    In June, 20.8 million US wireless customers and 4.5 million European subscribers searched from their mobile handset – an increase of 68 per cent and 38 per cent from the year before.

    comScore said Google was the dominant mobile search provider, with an estimated 60 per cent share in all countries measured.
    Recognising the potential yields from mobile searching, Google has attempted to build up its presence in cell phones.

    As a result, the search company is the default search provider for Sprint handsets, the iPhone, and is reportedly in talks to provide mobile search and advertising for Verizon Wireless.

    With the first smartphone using Android, the company’s mobile OS, due to be launched shortly, Google’s share of mobile search revenue is certain to increase.

    In the US, Yahoo has around 35 per cent of the market and is second to Google in most countries.

    The UK tops the penetration rate table for mobile subscribers using search, with 9.5 per cent, followed by the US at 9.2 per cent.
    Industry analysts expect penetration to grow in all markets, particularly with US subscribers.

    Alistair Hill, a comScore analyst, said that as the number of mobile search users increased so did the frequency of activity.

    “The number of people accessing mobile search at least once a week grew 50 per cent in Europe, with France and Spain leading at a rate of 69 and 63 per cent, respectively,” he said.

    “Meanwhile, the number of US users accessing mobile search has more than doubled as a result of expanded 3G penetration and smartphone adoption, as well as the proliferation of flat-rate data plans.”

    Hill said there had also been a substantial improvement to the mobile search offerings in the US market.

    "The number of US users accessing mobile search has more than doubled as a result of expanded 3G penetration and smartphone adoption, as well as the proliferation of flat-rate data plans," he said.

    "We have also seen a substantial improvement to the mobile search offerings in the U.S. market."

  • Launch Date Set for First Android-based Smartphone

    Android launch will heighten competition in a market increasingly dominated by Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerries

    Touted as Google’s answer to the iPhone, the first cell phone powered by the feverishly anticipated Android software is to be unveiled on 23 September.

    T-Mobile has announced a press conference in New York to demonstrate the touchscreen, 3G phone next week – but the handset isn’t expected to go on sale until October.

    As has been widely reported, the phone – possibly called the Dream – will be made by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC and will be the first to use the open-source mobile-phone operating system.

    Android is expected to make it easier and more enticing to surf the Internet on a handset.

    Details about the phone’s pricing have not been released but T-Mobile is expected to subsidise part of the phone’s cost for buyers who agree to subscribe to the carrier’s mobile service.

    Google is anticipating higher advertising revenues from use of the software because of increased use of its Internet search engine and other services while they are away from the office or home.

    The iPhone is currently Google’s biggest source of mobile traffic but the search giant expects hundreds of different mobile devices to run on the Android system.

    The Open Handset Alliance, a group that includes Google, T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm and Motorola, is billing Android as the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices.

    Handset manufacturers and wireless carriers are expected to be allowed to customise the platform, possibly introducing new services, internet applications and user-friendly interfaces.

    Sprint is also planning to produce an Android phone but that is not expected to launch until early next year.

  • Vyke Says Mobile Operators Risk Being Leap-frogged in Evolving Market


    VoIP provider, Vyke, has warned that mobile operators are poorly positioned to cope with latest industry developments.

    Aaron Powers, head of business development at Vyke, said the operators are failing to spearhead new innovations – leaving them open to greater than ever competition from a new breed of rivals.

    "Metro WiFi networks are springing up everywhere; there’s one in Singapore – a whole country covered by WiFi," he said.

    "At the same time handsets are advancing to a stage where they are becoming the access point for services installed by the consumer, meaning they don’t need network-provided services anymore, and this goes straight to the core of mobile operators’ revenues.

    "That leaves them poorly positioned in a rapidly evolving market. They need to be the ones directing these changes in a way that benefits them or they’ll get leap-frogged."

    Powers also criticised telecoms operators for opposing the European Commission’s proposal to cap mobile data roaming rates.

    European telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding is set to recommend restrictions on data roaming fees this autumn.

    She has also made clear she intends to impose caps on SMS roaming charges and mobile termination rates, proposals which have drawn widespread criticism from a number of European telcos.

    Citing a recent GSMA report, Powers claimed that the rising uptake of mobile data services was boosted by a 25 per cent fall in roaming rates in the year to April 2008.

    "Actually when you look at it, a small reduction in roaming rates has led to operators making a lot more money off data by volume of usage," he said.

    "Yet all of a sudden there’s uproar when the EU tries to set a cap – mobile providers have taken a head in the sand point of view."

  • European VoIP Spending to Rise to USD $12bn in 2012


    Market intelligence expert IDC forecasts that VoIP spending in Europe will grow at a CAGR of 22 per cent, from USD $4.6 billion in 2007 to $12.4 billion in 2012.

    The projected increase represents about a third of the TDM-based voice services market.

    Angela Salmeron, research manager for IDC’s European Telecommunications service, said: "The deployment and uptake of consumer VoIP services is increasing rapidly in Western Europe as a whole but there are wide local variations in availability and penetration rates."

    The IPC study reviews and forecasts the evolution of the Western European market for consumer VoIP services from 2007 to 2012.

    A detailed country breakdown is provided for VoIP traffic, spending, and customer subscriptions.

    IDC has also produced a presentation providing the results of a examining vendor shares and trends in the worldwide voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) semiconductor market during the calendar year 2007.

    Segments covered include carrier VoIP media gateway semiconductors, VoIP IP phone semiconductors, and enterprise VoIP IP PBX/gateway semiconductors.

  • VoIP Providers Must Allow Emergency Calls and Give Caller Location


    The UK communications industry regulator, Ofcom, has told internet telephony providers that they must now allow emergency 999 calls over their networks or face the risk of enforcement action.

    Caller location information must also be provided where technically feasible.

    Effective immediately, the ruling for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers affects businesses such as BT, Vonage and Skype that offer services that connect VoIP calls to the public telephone network.

    Operators must now provide the ability to make calls to 999, the emergency number used in the UK, and 112, the number most used in other EU countries.

    Ofcom had previously told operators to place stickers on equipment or on-screen labels indicating whether or not emergency calls were possible over a service.

    The rule, known as General Condition 4 of the General Conditions of Entitlement, also provides that the network operator must provide Caller Location Information for calls to the emergency call numbers "to the extent that is technically feasible".

    Ofcom said that ‘technically feasible’ should be taken to mean that location information must be provided where the VoIP service is being used at a predominantly fixed location.

    In May, a child died in Calgary, Canada after an ambulance was dispatched to the wrong address in response to an emergency call placed by his parents using a VoIP phone. The ambulance had been dispatched to an address in Ontario, 2,500 miles away.

    The requirements already apply to fixed line and mobile communications providers but the VoIP industry had resisted their extension.

    In December last year, the Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition Europe was set up as a lobby group to influence the regulation of internet telephony.

    The group, which includes Google, Microsoft and Skype among its founding members, warned against the “premature application” of emergency call rules to VoIP services that are not a replacement for traditional home or business phone services".

    The VON Coalition said the move "could actually harm public safety, stifle innovations critical to people with disabilities, stall competition, and limit access to innovative and evolving communication options where there is no expectation of placing a 112 call".

  • VOIP Driving Service Revenue Increases


    VOIP is a major contributor to rising broadband value added services, which generated USD $25.7 billion worldwide in 2007.

    According to the latest data from Point Topic this represented an increase of 62 per cent on 2006 and the expectation is that growth will continue to be robust.

    Of the service revenues generated worldwide, 56 per cent come from the combination of Voice over IP (VOIP) and security.

    They are followed, in order of global revenue generated by online gaming, home networks, music downloads and video over broadband.

    John Bosnell, senior analyst at Point Topic, said the success story of 2007 was VOIP. “Overall revenue has very nearly doubled, average revenue per user (ARPU) is up and take-up in major markets, particularly North America and Western Europe is growing quickly,” he said.

    Bosnell said value added services were growing strongly and were increasingly significant in overall revenue terms.

    “We estimate that value added services were 10 per cent of total broadband revenues, which includes subscriptions, in 2003, but by the end of 2007 that has increased to over 30 per cent,” he said.

    “As it gets harder to make a profit in the hyper competitive line rental market the operators and suppliers have to look to add value, and revenue, with their service offerings.”

    Point Topic splits VOIP into two segments, IP Telephony which means VOIP provided by ISPs and Internet Telephony, which includes services like Skype which route through the user’s PC.

    Bosnell said it was difficult to measure active users of the Skype and its cousins, like the applications embedded in the popular instant messaging services, but Point Topic estimates put the worldwide number of active users at around 20 million.

    Whilst the ARPU is relatively low on these services, IP Telephony on the other hand produces around 10 times as much revenue per user.

    VOIP is not a bottomless well.

    At the end of 2007 VOIP accounted for 27 per cent of fixed lines in France, many served via bundled deals. Market saturation is still some way off but not out of sight.

    “We expect VOIP to continue to grow strongly in the next few years and in combination with other value adds, particularly IPTV, global revenues should continue to grow,” concludes Bosnell.