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Technology Stocks : Voice-on-the-net (VON), VoIP, Internet (IP) Telephony -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elk who wrote (538)	5/14/1998 10:35:00 AM
From: BuzzVA	Respond to of 3178

We'll let everyone else fight over the lower margin U.S. business, while the few reap the rewards of overseas connections. :~) Then we'll come back in the domestic fray after everyone has beaten themselves up.

To: elk who wrote (538)	5/14/1998 8:53:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3178

Yes, Evan... that is good news from WLV. Any idea when the minutes of use numbers will start to kick in? FNet, OZemail, DGIV, and others. They'll all be using a certain brand of gateway unique to their own choosing. At some point they will need to be compatible, but not right away. Some will use home grown stuff, others will use Ftel, VOCLF or NSPK, etc. Could get crowded, but I don't think that it has to, initially. Pent up demand will unleash when affordability is added to the picture. What are the limits of this pent up demand? Will it lead to frivolous use of an otherwise expensive utility as prices get precariously low, as they very well might, with torrents of added competition? Anyone care to guess how this will play out? Reading this PR and other references concerning international markets causes me to reflect on (1) the age of microwave installations, (2) the onset of fiber installs, (3) the cellular/pcs breakouts, and (4) the emergence of the Internet as a common vehicle, itself. Each of the these disciplines resulted in a form of carrier-hoteling by the upstarts, where they would band together in someone's rental facility to combat the incumbent. Collocation is nothing new. It's only relatively new to the local loop market, the last bastion of regulatory hassle. But it has existed in the wide area and in international venues (especially during the emergence of new technological approaches to competing with the big guys) for eons. Which brings up an interesting question: Do you suppose that many of these international market players of the entrepreneurial type in Hong Kong, Sidney, St. Pete, Moscow, Jakarta are aligned with any individual domestic VoIP carrier here in the states, or to a particular gateway platform? Nah. If you have a player in Perth willing to hand off to VoIP # 1 from the US (or anywhere, for that matter), using a brand-x gateway, you can rest assured that they will also rent space to carriers # 2 and #3 using gateways y and z, respectively, as well. Interesting the way it works, isn't it? There is more of an opportunity in this than a threat, though. At least in the near term. But that is only MHO. Regards, Frank C.