Bob Emmerson's Blog

Venting mobile frustration

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 09:35:44 -0500

Meanwhile � Germans test their phone arms

While several cities squabble over who will get to host some running, jumping and throwing event in 2012, Germany is this month holding a far more important sporting contest. Around 160 competitors, and the world's press, are expected to descend on Bielefeld on June 25 for Germany's first mobile phone lobbing competition. "People often get annoyed with their mobile phones and want to chuck them as far as they can," said event organizer Virpi Staar. "Now is their chance." There are differing opinions on the best models to use to get the further distance, but competition rules stipulate they must weigh between 200 and 400 grams. Winners of the German event will qualify for the world championships in Finland this August.

More on SIP and Skype and IMS

Mon, 06 Jun 2005 04:44:10 -0500

Comment from Edmond Osstyn, Alcatel:

We all agree that SIP is a peer to peer protocol and so that the nature of SIP based communications is fundamentally different from the more traditional communication services based on a master slave infrastructure or protocols. Noone denies that Skype is fundamentally different from a POTS type infrastructure but the same rule applies to all types of SIP or IMS based communication

The real issue is in other words not if Skype is different from traditional master slave services but if SIP (IMS) based services which are all master slave services should be considered as traiditional communications and thus to be regulated. The statement however becomes much vaguer once Skype claims that they use SIP only end to end and the players like BT in BT communicator use SIP in a different way. Let's be clear, it is possible to use SIP end to end but then you will not be able to escape your private address space unless your PC does address translation in the end point, the to PSTN and to PLMN or from PSTN/PLMN calls will not be possible which are the calls which generate the revenue for services like BT communicator. Equally well;things like QoS will not be enabled

So I can agree that there is a possibility to define some kind of SIP (notIMS) end to end service which does not rely on any network intelligence or functions. Such a service could then be considered distinct from services which are IMS based and which rely on SIP but in a networking context. So the real issue is not whether Skype is different from traditional services but whether it is different from IMS based SIP services and if so whether a sustainable business model is possible just based on end to end.

Replies to Skype comments

Sun, 05 Jun 2005 02:40:10 -0500

The Skype story seems to be a press release. It was forwarded to me by a friend. It's an amusing send-up / wind-up (at least I think so). Not to be taken seriously although if you read the full text somebody did. I also think that the rapper go it right. There's an argument in the UK right now as to the right to use the colour Orange because it's the name of a mobile network operator.

Winding them up!

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 14:13:26 -0500

Skype's peer-to-peer VoIP system, according to founder Niklas Zennstrom, is not a telephone service at all -- thus by rights should be exempt from FCC E-911 and other regulations. Unlike infrastructure used by conventional VoIP providers, which employs central call-direction servers to coordinate communications among endpoint devices, Skype communicates peer-to-peer between end-user clients. "This is not how normal telephone or VoIP systems work," Zennstrom says. "We initially defined ourselves as an adjunct to regular telephony -- an enhancement. But after further internal deliberation have decided to rebrand ourselves as something completely distinct from IP or conventional telephony: Skype is a peer-to-peer word-sharing software client."

More on IMS

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 03:52:44 -0500

Introduction and VON Europe

Wed, 01 Jun 2005 08:40:44 -0500

Introduction: I'm the European Editor of VON Magazine and I write a feature article for every issue. This is my first entry in my first blog so a quick take on VON Europe (Stockholm) is a logical place to start. The event was about 50% bigger this year, which indicates the way things are going, but the really big difference for me was the content. Now it's really happening, in both the enterprise and service provider space.

Jeff has expressed reservations about the way SIP is used in IMS, but if we put that aside it was good to see the progress that has been made. The vendors of hosted voice solutions are porting their portfolio to this platform, e.g. Broadsoft are working with Ericsson, and smaller players are getting into the act. Operax (operax.com)has developed bandwidth management software that give a guaranteed QoS and this is one of the pieces that need to be in place if IMS is going to succeed. I'll be covering IMS ecosystems in the July issue.