The GSM Association put it’s foot down in the voice-over-LTE debate today, announcing it was backing the One Voice Initiative, an alliance of several of the major infrastructure vendors, AT&T (NYSE:T), Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD), Orange (NYSE:FTE), Telefonica (NYSE:TEF) and TeliaSonera. One Voice firmly backs the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) architecture for delivering voice over IP-only long-term evolution networks, and by lending its support to the initiative the GSMA is basically saying it doesn’t want to fool around the voice-over-LTE generic access (Volga) architectures being promoted by several vendors and operators in the industry. (more…)
Genband’s bid for Nortel’s carrier VoIP equipment business — if it succeeds — could give the vendor a more direct relationship with the world’s largest carriers than it currently enjoys through its major vendor partners. But the deal could also be seen as further solidification of the VOIP equipment space as the domain of specialist suppliers, according to Elisabeth Rainge, IDC’s director of NGN operations.
“Clearly, given Genband’s acquisitions of assets from NSN, Alcatel-Lucent and others in the past few years, it makes sense that those larger players wouldn’t have a strong interest in taking on the Nortel CVAS VoIP asset,” Rainge said in an email. “For better or for worse, what we’re seeing with this move — assuming it goes through — is that VoIP infrastructure is a market for experts. No longer is it the expertise or possibly even the bread and butter, of the traditional telecom network equipment vendors. This is partly an acknowledgement that voice is an application and partly an outcome of the state of voice infrastructure for the largest operators. In a nutshell, the IP transformation is not only underway but today’s reality. To build on IP networks means treating voice as an application.”
Acquiring assets from major vendors and using them to create products that major vendors want has been key to Genband’s success, though the novel strategy is not an easy one to pull off. Likewise, integrating Nortel’s products with its own will be no small task for Genband, Rainge said, especially since the latter’s existing portfolio is already packed with gear from previous acquisitions.
“Genband has a continuing, and now expanding challenge in product portfolio management. I don’t envy their sales team with so many acquired product lines in the fold, especially for long-lived investments such as we see in the TDM-VoIP space,” Rainge said. “There is no doubt that Genband already offers and supports many voice infrastructure solutions. In taking on the Nortel assets, Genband will need to work to position itself as a product company with its own mission rather than a caretaker of a variety of products.”
One bright side for Genband: The shedding of similar assets from major vendors means the company is unlikely to enter a bidding war for Nortel’s business with much larger rivals.
Allied Wireless, a subsidiary of Massachusetts-based Atlantic Tele-Network (NASDAQ:ATNI), is building a new headquarters in Little Rock, Ark., the company announced today along with plans to hire 200 to 250 workers at the new location.
Allied was created to operate wireless assets acquired by Atlantic that had been divested as part of Verizon Wireless’s acquisition of Alltel. Atlantic had previously hinted that it might choose Little Rock to set up its new base of operations, in part because hundreds of layoffs following Verizon’s acquisition have left a ready pool of available talent there.
In September, 13-year Alltel veteran Frank O’Mara was named to lead the acquired business, which includes 800,000 subscribers in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio and Idaho.
AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) appear to have both benefitted from the recent internecine ad campaign in which the two bickered over whose 3G wireless coverage was superior — though Verizon may have gained more than its rival.
According to a survey released today by YouGov Brand Index, Verizon Wireless’ brand awareness among adults 18 to 34 shot from 37.1% in early November to 62.2% in early December. AT&T’s awareness in the same group rose from 41.2% to 54.5% in that time. Toward the end of November, as the holiday shopping season kicked into full swing, Verizon Wireless had surpassed AT&T in terms of awareness.
That mutual benefit is fortunate for the two companies, since the war brought attention to weaknesses in both of their offerings and underscored the limits of today’s 3G networks. But it also may encourage the two to try to repeat the phenomenon. We haven’t seen the last of Luke Wilson.
For those of you have been following the VoLGA issue, here’s a video that might amuse–or offend–you. The debate over how exactly to extend bread-and-butter voice and SMS services over the all-IP data network is becoming contentious. On one side are the advocates of IP multimedia subsystem (IMS)-based solutions and on the other are those that favor a more generic solution, utilizing operators existing 2G and 3G circuit-switched infrastructure. Even within those camps there are some big disagreements.
There’s no doubt that mobile operators have gotten the religion about boosting backhaul capacity — just today Verizon talked about delivering Ethernet over fiber to more than 1000 backhaul sites. Network equipment vendors, in particular Ethernet specialists, are poised to take advantage of this opportunity, but test and service assurance vendors are snapping to attention too.
The success of SMS — and the explanation for why Web-based IM or other would-be rivals have failed to replace it — is that it * just works.*
It took years and many false-starts for that to be the case, but when mobile operators and their vendors worked out how to interconnect and interoperate formally siloed SMS islands, the telephone industry’s most successful modern app was born.
Mobile operators can either figure out how to replicate this success — or they can kiss their ability to delivery mobile services, and the affiliated revenue, goodbye. And that’s where RCS comes in.
The never-ending search to find the right formula to do for apps on voice-over-IP and carrier networks what the iPhone (and maybe now the Droid?) has done on mobile networks continues unabated. In this episode, we hear from Broadsoft, Metaswitch, Veraz and others. … (more…)
SAN DIEGO, Calif. – An SMS message is the same to a messaging vendor regardless of the protocol, but as 4G networks continue to come online, there will be new issues of support and interoperability that carriers will have to address. Two vendors at CTIA, Sybase 365, the mobile messaging and commerce subsidiary of Sybase Inc. (NYSE: SY), and wireless messaging and device management vendor Interop Technologies are demonstrating that they are ready to take this old standard and migrate it to any next-generation network. (more…)
VoIP infrastructure is a market for experts. No longer is it the expertise or possibly even the bread and butter, of the traditional telecom network equipment vendors. This is partly an acknowledgement that voice is an application and partly an outcome of the state of voice infrastructure for the largest operators. In a nutshell, the IP transformation is not only underway but today’s reality. To build on IP networks means treating voice as an application.”