I'm not so sure that he hasn't gotten "any" traction, although it's probably very safe to say that he's not in the same league, and in some ways not even the same "game" as ENE and WMB/WCG... and most of the others, since their business models differ.
I can't speak for him, of course, but from what I know Jeff's mission has been pretty much fashioned after the original VON (voice on the network) motif, inheriting many of the ISP like thinking of the 'net, whereas the players you read about in the article are already either (1) established in major commodities trading operations, almost entirely energy related, or (2) dependent on bulk capacity swaps and brokered deals, although some of them also deal at the granularity of individual users' minutes, too.
I see that I'm falling into the trap of trying to generalize here, and that's an extremely dangerous thing to do, if someone is serious about entering, or investing in, this emerging space. The number of business models can be as diverse and numerous as the number of players entering it. Indeed, these are days of discussions, and not just a single post on the FCTF. But, continuing:
Jeff, on the other hand, has focused on the tariff arbitrage angle for the most part (at least that's how he began), focusing on spot rates for packet-voip and regular pstn/gstn minutes of use and forward contracts, ranging from several months to up to a year, for same. Leastwise, that's what I can recall from the last time we reviewed his Min-x.com agenda.
Maybe Jeff could stop by here and offer his own views, and provide you with a much better explanation and reply to your question than I ever could.
How about it, Jeff?
FAC |
