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Our friend Jeff Pulver had a News release that I just picked up from
Yahoo. Looks like the media is taking a huge notice to IP Telephony!
Internet Telephony Technologies Will Help Drive Future Growth of Global Telecommunications Industry
MELVILLE, N.Y., June 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Jeff Pulver, president of
pulver.com, Inc., ( pulver.com ), producer of next week's
''Voice on the Net Europe '98'' conference in Oslo, Norway and Fall
'98 Voice on the Net in Washington, D.C., today published his
observations regarding the current trends in the Internet Telephony
Industry.
The Pulver Points(TM) on the Internet Telephony Industry:
1. Internet Telephony -- it's a done deal. Future Public Networks will
be IP based. Until recently we all have been putting Data
over Voice Networks. Now we will be putting Voice over Data
Networks.
2. Not a 1998 Threat to Service Revenue. Despite the Hype
propagated by the media and mis-informed market analysts -- in the
current US$70 Billion Dollar Global Minutes Marketplace -- 1998
Revenue for IP Telephony Minutes will be no more than US$
30 million.
3. Many PSTN/IP Gateway Vendors will start to support more than
one operating system -- most likely Microsoft NT (Nasdaq:
MSFT - news) and a favorite flavor of UNIX.
4. 1999 May be the year of Gateway Interoperability. As of May, 1998
there are very few (if any) PSTN/IP Gateways which interoperate with
PSTN/IP Gateways of Multiple Vendors. This issue will have a
negative effect in the build out of 1998 public IP Telephony based
Networks. This will have NO effect on trials or the build out of private networks where it is customary to single source a vendor. (But imagine if two Carriers got together and there was close to zero interoperability between their switches? This PROBLEM needs to be addressed and corrected by the Industry by early 1999.)
5. Internet Telephony Technologies will become part of embedded
systems of future IP devices. Look for many more Hybrid
IP Telephony Appliances in 1999. Examples include the work Cisco
(Nasdaq: CSCO - news), Symbol (NYSE: SBL - news)
and Selsius Systems have been doing in this industry.
6. By the year 2000, look for IP to be a supported protocol on
the 5ESS switches of Lucent (NYSE: LU - news), Nortel and
Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERICY - news)
7. H.323 will not be the ONLY protocol used by most carriers and
service providers when they roll out their Internet Telephony
Services. H.323 interoperability has been proven and implemented with
PC to PC Internet Telephony Client Software. Same
can be said for PC to Phone services. But don't count on Carriers and
Service providers blindly accepting H.323 as the sole
protocol to run on their Phone to Phone networks.
8. In 1998 Internet Telephony is all about cheap minutes. This is not
hype but fact. The Internet ''Applications'' will start to
show up in late 1998 and early 1999 -- but it is the excitement of cheap minutes that has gotten the attention of the Global US$
800 Billion dollar telecommunications industry. But it will be because
of the contributions from the Internet Telephony Industry
that the Global Telecommunications Industry will grow to a US$1.6
Trillion valuation in a much shorter time span than it took to
grow to today's US$800 Billion.
9. The Education of NextGen Telcos and PSTN/IP Gateway vendors
has begun. Until recently there was no knowledge of the
legacy IN environment demonstrated by many of the NextGen Telco
Operators. During 1998 I have noticed a strong demand
for experienced Telecom operators who have been joining the ranks of
NextGen Telcos. Equally strong is the demand for
engineers with working knowledge legacy telephony
equipment/environment by PSTN/IP Gateway vendors. The growing
Internet Telephony Industry could be the last major boon for IN
Engineers.
10. Run Internet Call Center applications on well managed Corporate
IntraNets and ExtraNets. Forget about relying on the
Internet for customer Care unless you really don't care much about
caring for your customers.
11. The Regulation of Internet Telephony will accelerate the movement
of minutes off of the Public Switched Telephone
Network and onto Virtual Private Networks.
Service providers, software developers and equipment vendors
interested in learning more about the Internet Telephony
Industry should visit the pulver.com Web site at
pulver.com
About pulver.com: Founded in 1994, pulver.com, Inc.
(www.pulver.com) is an Internet based consulting firm. Pulver.com
publishes Internet technology related research such as The Pulver
Report.
The Company also produces trades shows and conferences including
Voice on the Net (VON). Pulver.com also provides
consulting services to the telecommunications, financial services and
Radio/TV industry. Pulver.com is based in Melville, NY
USA.
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