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

To: Stephen B. Temple who wrote (2474)	2/14/1999 3:27:00 PM
From: Stephen B. Temple	Respond to of 3178

I remember watching as Budwesier Clydesdales passed my way on a fine day in Savannah Georgia. The awesome power-mass that drove the train was truly an awesome, and majestic sight. As the original (ITSPs) power the telephony-train, it seems apparent most other companies that stand to gain from IP telephony are cosying up to Tier 1 ISPs and other carriers that own their networks. Leaving smaller ISPs, and wanna-be ITSPs that carry voice-over-IP, in the cold. Given the financial burden of offering VoIP for smaller ISPs, most will probably wait for large carriers like GridNet / PSINet to develop the wholesale service for the little guys to resell. With the lofty task of offering QoS,SLAs, the reason IP telephony vendor attention is shifting away from small players to large ISPs and telcos, is a somewhat-pitiful state of the public Internet that small ISPs and IP telephony carriers use to transmit IP voice. So from a vendors stand-point, owning a Class-5 switch back-boned from a larger ISP-Telco for the most part, will go unnoticed. Truly sensing the word "NexGenTelco" you'll need to offer substantial service's to be heard by the greater number. I don't think customer loyalty will mean a dam thing when your office manager can get enhanced audio, data, Video Conferencing, Internet, local and long distance service, unified messages under the same roof, cutting down vendors all on a single bill. If your already there, providing just short of a full service station menu, you may just keep your client base. If this holds true from recent technical materials, in the long run, this could mean voice-over-IP vendors will give smaller--ISPs fewer credit lines for their equipment. Major relationships with large data carriers will take hold, and "The awesome power-mass ITSPs that drove the telephony-train" today,will carry the V-load tomorrow. The smaller ITSPs will struggle to capture any significant market in telephony minutes. The window of opportunity was open between 96 to 98, but that in my opinion has all be closed to have a larger piece of the IP-pie. In the immediate future, smaller ISPs, like I said, might have to part with the idea of selling voice-over-IP services, waiting for resell. Anthor reason why we may see less vendor-credit for smaller ISPs, is the fact that How? can you have a QoS over IP, when a service level agreements might be between alliances of up to and over 100 carriers. Look at ITXC who resells space to wholesale carriers like CC companies, and has over 125 gateways, which are owned by 36 others, in which less than half of those are ISPs, who takes the "hit" on QoS? The much talked about 4600+ ISPs in 1995 that were suppose to be less than 1500 by end of last year, in my thinking, they were just a few years off, but wait no longer. Speaking of off-net, on-net bandwidth. It would be interesting to see the comparisons for the future with bandwidth-glut coming from fiber. So while ISPs are setting themselves up as ITSPs, and ITSPs are setting themselves up as possible "dominant players". Customers that are buying voice-over-IP, are businesses who want business quality services. Most of these services are available only through service providers that manage IP-capable networks end-to-end, such as PSINet. It just gets more interesting, but more so on a smaller scale. Looks like a Tier-1 to Tier-3 shift all over again. just a few thoughts, Temp'