./jarnold/about_me.html0100666000006000000600000000530510513005674014544 0ustar apacheapache Jon Arnold's Blog: About Me

Main

About Me

I am an independent analyst/consultant focused on the IP communications sector, and am based in Toronto, Ontario. My company is J Arnold & Associates, and I’m the Principal. The practice was launched in March 2005, and I provide a variety of research, marketing and consulting services to several communities serving the IP communications sector.

Prior to founding the practice, I was the VoIP Program Leader at industry analyst firm Frost & Sullivan for 4 years, so I’ve had a good run in this space since its coming of age.

Before Frost, I had another life as an independent marketing research consultant, specializing in business-to-business (B2B) marketing research. That practice was called Research Solutions, which I operated for 15 years. So, I have deep roots across the full spectrum of marketing research, as well as the experience of running a business for many years. Add a Marketing MBA into the mix, and you’ll get a better sense of my DNA.

My website was launched in June, 2006, and it continues to evolve as my practice grows. You can find out all about me and my services there, and I hope you come visit – www.jarnoldassociates.com.

If that’s too much trouble, feel free to contact me directly – jon@jarnoldassociates.com. I’ll be happy to tell you more, send you a bio, a capabilities outline, or just have a chat.





./jarnold/aboutme.xml0100666000006000000600000013154410374176125014253 0ustar apacheapache Jon Arnold's Blog: ABOUT ME http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/ Copyright 2006 Mon, 13 Feb 2006 11:23:21 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.16 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Video Making Web 2.0 Look Good Video has long held out promise for making VoIP interesting, and it's starting to look like the way to go is with PC-based applications rather than phone-based video calling.

SightSpeed is one of the companies making this real, and today they announced their latest release, which looks very Web 2.0. Much like RIM, the value-add isn't the endpoint device - it's the software platform that supports all the cool features and services that people will be willing to pay for. Sounds like a good business model to me.

Their updated release is very much about building web-based communities. Sure, you can use it to make one-to-one video calls, but that's so Web 1.0. The cool factor is to use it like Skype - build a community of users, and make video-conference calls - in a secure setting. The community idea is built around the use of "public community directory", which will allow users to quickly affiliate with like-minded people. Furthermore, this release includes video publishing tools, so users can easily create their own video content and video blogs. The possibilities for both consumers and small businesses are pretty interesting, and I'm sure we'll be seeing other video-based applications and tools soon to make video - VVoIP - as easy to use as VoIP.

Along those lines, I'd be remiss to not mention another strong player in this space, B.C.-based Eyeball Networks. A couple of their twists include "Anti-SPIT" technology, and a beta version video softphone.

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/video_making_we.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/video_making_we.html Web 2.0 Mon, 13 Feb 2006 11:23:21 -0500 Pulverati - the place to be seen and see who's who The Northeast may be digging out big time from the storm, but it's business as usual on the Net.

Today, Jeff Pulver posted about the early version release of Pulverati, a great idea for those of you trying to keep up with the IP blogger set. In the bigger scheme of Web 2.0, this is a small step, but I think it's a great way to make blogs more relevant and valuable. Think of it - as Jeff says - as a playlist like iTunes, where you get to search by topic and find all the posts about it in one place. I know for me, I don't have time to read everyone's posts - it's much easier to just hone in on the topic I'm interested in and see what's being said.

It's still a work in progress, but I think people will find this a very useful tool, and a one-stop-shop to keep up with those in Jeff's circle. And Jeff is encouraging your suggestions and feedback, so don't be shy - Jeff is a very good listener.

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/pulverati_the_p.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/pulverati_the_p.html Gadgets/Cool Stuff Mon, 13 Feb 2006 11:00:25 -0500 Rogers Cable Ramping up for VoIP - Maybe? Yesterday, Rogers announced its year-end 2005 numbers. Not quite as fancy an event as BCE's earlier this month, but the overall performance is quite good. Revenues are up, profits are up, subscriber growth is up, and churn is down.

As with BCE, wireless is the story, and the basic results reflect a healthy market that has relatively little competition. One thing is for sure, as oligopolies go, Rogers and Bell are pretty well managed. Their vision is another story, but for the most part, they're pretty good at keeping the markets to themselves.

Not much to talk about there. I just wanted to focus a bit on their telecom operations. Unfortunately, I missed the call, but from all accounts, Rogers plans to add 200k to 250k cable telephony subscribers in 2006. That's a healthy number for this market, and at face value, should give Bell - their main, and practically only rival - cause for concern. Mark Evans had a nice post on this, and served as a coda to a recent post of his about the overall outlook for cable telephony subs in Canada.

Having had a quick read through their reported results on telephony, I'm not so sure about where they're coming from on this, and am wondering how they're going to get this kind of takeup.

From what I can see in their filing, Rogers only had about 48,000 cable telephony subscribers at the end of 2005. The service launched on July 1 (Canada Day if you're keeping score), and coincided with the closing of their Call Net acquisition, where they inherited about 500,000 residential POTS subscribers.

So, 48,000 subs in 6 months - I'm assuming these are new adds for their VoIP service. It's not clear if these are coming at Bell's expense, or just conversions from their Call Net subscribers.

Nevertheless, any guesses as to how much we're talking about in terms of revenues? Well - it's $3.8 million. That's not much of anything, and I'm sure Time Warner spends that much on lunch money every few weeks. Of course, there's a honeymoon period with free service for new subs, etc. But, really, this is not going to scare anybody.

Stepping back, Rogers had about 2.3 million cable subs at year end, and a little under 50% have broadband - about 1.1 million. With 48,000 subs, that's a 4% penetration of broadband users. Not bad, actually.

For Rogers to hit their target of 200-250k additions, that means coverting something like 20-25% of their Internet customers. That sounds pretty amibitious to me, especially when you consider how low key their marketing has been so far. So, if that's the plan, we should expect to see some pretty sexy advertising any day now, and some pretty happening bundles to get this machine going.

I'm not saying that it can't happen, but Rogers is pricing VoIP "rationally" and not leaving money on the table the way Videotron is. So, I wouldn't look to Videotron's numbers for a precedent for Rogers.

Ditto in the West, where Shaw is having pretty good success, with what I would consider a premium-priced offering. However, they are in a less competitive market, and their main competition - Telus - is not as formidable as Bell in the East. Telus has had a host of problems that are largely over, but they have created enough dissatisfaction to cause many to jump at the first available alternative - Shaw. Secondly, Telus does not have a consumer VoIP offeirng yet, and cannot counter Shaw the way Bell can with Rogers.

So, I just don't know. It doesn't really add up for me, but you never know. There are many wild cards here, such as where the CRTC VoIP regulations will fall, how aggressive Bell will be with IPTV, and how much priority Rogers will give to its real money-makers - video and wireless - compared to the pocket change they're getting so far from VoIP.


]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/rogers_cable_ra.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/rogers_cable_ra.html Canada Fri, 10 Feb 2006 13:50:43 -0500 Vonage IPO - Media Citings The general tone in the media so far about Vonage's IPO announcement has been wary, skeptical, cautious, etc. This is to be expected given the realities of Vonage's business model, but the real test will be the appetite for their stock among the general public.

Despite all the concerns - which are valid - Vonage has built a brand every bit as strong and pervasive as Skype. It's too early to tell if we're in a bubble economy again, where revenues and profits were afterthoughts, but a strong brand can go a long way. Investors looking for a pureplay in the VoIP gold rush may find the Vonage brand too alluring, and put money on a horse that isn't a thoroughbred, but might be some day.

With over a million people using Vonage, it's hard not think that many will buy simply to support the company that's delivering them a terrific phone service. And if mainstream investors are looking for a VoIP vehicle, what else will they recognize besides Vonage and Skype? A handful will look at 8x8 or Primus, but they lack Vonage's cachet. There are better public companies out there in terms of financial prospects, but most of these are infrastructure plays that won't be on the public's radar. So, you never know - the stock market marches to a different beat, and time will tell just how badly Main Street wants in on VoIP.

Business Week and ComputerWire ran good pieces on Vonage this morning, and both were nice enough to cite me.


]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/vonage_ipo_medi.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/vonage_ipo_medi.html VoIP Thu, 09 Feb 2006 10:51:48 -0500 And the winner for best new artist....Iotum Iotum scored the big prize at Demo yesterday, one of ten companies to win the Demo God Award. That's a pretty impressive accomplishment, and hats off to Alec Saunders and Howard Thaw for bringing their vision this far along. Lots more kudos are in order, and you can follow these in the links in this post. Now it gets real interesting, as they move into fund raising mode to make their Relevance Engine relevant to you and me.

Watching the Grammys off and on last night, I couldn't help think of how Alec and Howard must feel getting this kind of a rush. Alec isn't quite Bono - now that he's a Demo God, that makes him a demi-god in the IP world. But when you see him at the next conference, don't expect to see him in leather and orange tinted wraparound sunglasses - he's not that kind of a guy! At least I think not.

Just a few things to pass on for reference about Iotum's win...

- Here's a full list of the 10 Demo God winners

- Alec Saunders' acceptance speech - well, this is what he would have said...

- Andy Abramson - more well-deserved kudos there - he has been a real driver behind Iotum's momentum, and he's gotta be a happy guy today too

- Jeff Pulver's congrats posting. Jeff had a very good day yesterday. Not only is he an advisor and investor in Iotum, but he's also the Von in Vonage.

- Mathew Ingram of our hometown Globe & Mail ran a nice piece about Iotum today. Unfortunately, it ran too early to include the news of their win, but I just love the fact that Iotum's story got more ink than Vonage's IPO news buried deeper in the business section. Here's a nice tie-in for anyone planning to attend VON Canada in early April. Mathew will be joining Alec, Mark Evans, myself and a few other local IP bloggers (and Jeff Pulver) on the Blogger Roundtable. This was a big hit at Fall VON in Boston, and it's great to see the session being reprised with a Canadian twist.

- it's early in the day, but I would expect to see posts from Mark Evans, Al Bredenberg and other Iotum watchers later on - it's a great story, esp for anyone following the Canadian tech sector

- finally - making it real. There actually is a product launch around all this. Iotum's initial offering is a conferencing application, called Pronto Conferencing - the news hit the wires late yesterday.

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/and_the_winner.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/and_the_winner.html Canada Thu, 09 Feb 2006 09:40:27 -0500 V-V-V-Vonage IPO Announced - Film at 11 Their j-j-jingle sure is catchy. Probably the most anticipated IP news since the Skype acquistion, the word came out this afternoon. Couldn't help notice the juxtaposition of Vonage banner ads riding next to blog posts I've seen today about their going IPO and Jeff Citron stepping aside as CEO.

No surprises, really, but this sure is interesting timing in the wake of yesterday's Senate hearings on net neutrality, which included Jeff Citron.

This is the stuff journalists live for, and the wires are buzzing right now. I just spoke with Business Week, and their take should be posted by the morning. Got a few other media calls lined up now, and will revisit this story later when things quiet down.

Big hat tip to Andy Abramson, who called this story way ahead of the pack.

Also courtesy of Andy, Iotum's official product release - called Pronto - hit the wires this afternoon. It's great news, and I'll have a separate post about that later.

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/vvvvonage_ipo_a.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/vvvvonage_ipo_a.html VoIP Wed, 08 Feb 2006 16:33:22 -0500 Where to Find the Next BIG THING - DEMO I've blogged a few times recently about Iotum, and their upcoming Hollywood screen test today at Demo, out in Phoenix. I know a number of Iotum fans, and they're all rooting for them to do well today. Go Canada, eh!!!

Looking at the bigger picture, Demo is a great showcase for truly promising companies. Much like American Idol, these companies have made the cut from hundreds of worthy applicants, and now they get to audition for their version of a record deal - VC funding.

Andy Abramson has done a great job summarizing the final set of Demo presenters, so if you want to quickly scan the best of the best, have a scroll through the list from his February 7 series of posts.

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/where_to_find_t.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/where_to_find_t.html Gadgets/Cool Stuff Wed, 08 Feb 2006 09:52:53 -0500 Canadian Podcast Series - John Ruffolo on High Tech Investing This week's Canadian IP Thought Leaders podcast was with John Ruffolo, of Deloitte management consultants. John leads the firm's Canadian Telecom/Media/Tech practice here in Toronto, and knows the investment landscape quite well. Today, we talked about the dynamics of the market here, particularly the differences between larger and smaller startups, as well as Canada/U.S. contrasts. Very interesting, especially for U.S. VCs looking at Canadian startups, or vice versa. The market is different here - not better or worse - just different! Sort of like a lot of other things in Canada.....

You can pick up the podcast link and John's profile here. John will also be speaking on the VC panel at VON Canada on April 5. Hope you can check it out - I won't miss it.

Quick sidebar - I finally met John at last week's Deloitte event, which featured RIM's Jim Balsillie - you can read about that here.

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/canadian_podcas_11.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/canadian_podcas_11.html Canada Tue, 07 Feb 2006 20:12:02 -0500 Fill 'er Up - and Gimmee 100 LD Minutes Pleez Well, the Super Bowl is in full swing, but I got stuff to do. It's just about half time now - and the Stones do their thing - and so far,Seattle's the better team. I think the refs blew the call on Pittsburgh's TD, but it stands. Lots of time to go. We all know Mr. Pulver is at the game, but so far, no Jeff sightings on TV. Maybe he'll join Mick on stage - well, it could happen - better get back to work.. :-))

Anyhow, I just scanned today's email, and I just HAD to share Alec Saunders' post today. Great slice of Americana, and a sign of how mainstream VoIP and cheap LD is becoming.

Alec and his Iotum posse are in Phoenix, preparing for their Hollywood moment. They're on the slate at Demo, and are presenting next week. This is a major league opportunity for Iotum, and if it goes well - and I suspect it will - they'll be well on their way to realizing their vision. Another Canadian vendor making a difference in this market - I'm sure rooting for them, and will provide an update when I have some news.

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/fill_er_up_and.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/fill_er_up_and.html VoIP Sun, 05 Feb 2006 19:43:45 -0500 ChangeWave's Residential VoIP Research Usage Update - Part 1 Occasionally I post high level findings from Changewave Alliance's research that's related to IP communications.

They recently published their latest research on residential VoIP usage, drawn from 2,138 Alliance members who were polled in December 2005. Higher priorities have kept me posting about this until now.

Changewave research is not usually offered to the public, but as a member, I get the reports. Since this isn't my data, I just want to focus on some key findings without giving it all away. I'm going to do this in 2 posts, as time is short today, and I'll finish this up early next week.

- 18% of the sample use a consumer VoIP service. This is up from 14% in June's survey, and from 7% in September 2004. That's a nice uptrend.

- Adding to this, 19% intend to use VoIP in the next 12 months. More good news. Does this mean that 37% will be using VoIP a year from now? Not likely. What people say in surveys is not always what they ultimately will do, but the intent level is still pretty significant. I'd put that one in the plus columm.

- Conversely, 53% have no plans for VoIP. Still the majority, but a shrinking one - this camp has steadily been trending down since last year.

- Who's #1? Vonage - no surprise there. They hold a 31% share - down from 36% in June. That's a notable slide in 6 short months - shows you how young and volatile this market really is. Keep in mind that only 18% of the full sample use VoIP, so this sub-sample is only 381.

- Who's #2? The cable guys - 16% now, up from 10% in June. So, Vonage's losses are essentially cable's gains. The only other VoBB provider of note is 8x8 - Vonage's perennial runner-up. They registered 6%.

- Here's my favorite finding. For the above usage question, respondents were given a checklist of VoIP providers. Appropriately, Skype was not on the list, but 19% wrote them in. This actually puts them ahead of cable, but in my books this isn't apples to apples. However, perception is reality, and this speaks volumes about Skype's brand and their mindshare when it comes to VoIP.

Isn't this interesting, folks? Sure is for me. I have to leave you hanging for the rest of the story I'm afraid. Here's what's coming in the next post to finish things up....

- Satisfaction with VoIP providers

- How VoIP is used - primary vs. secondary line

- What's most important in using a VoIP service

- Who you're planning to use when you sign up in the next 12 months

The suspense is killing me. How about you?

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/changewaves_res.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/changewaves_res.html VoIP Fri, 03 Feb 2006 23:33:40 -0500 RIM Speaks/Deloitte Looks Into Telecom's Future It's been a busy week for local events. Yesterday was BCE's annual review day, and today I attended a really good forum about the outlook for communications technologies in 2006.

Today's event was sponsored by the global management consulting firm Deloitte, and I got introduced to this from a good friend who's with their Business Valuations practice (thanks Steve!). They're running a series of these events, titled "Predictions 2006", and today's was a review of what their research is finding in terms the big trends driving communications technologies.

To sweeten the mix, the guest speaker was Jim Balsillie, Chairman and Co-CEO of RIM, fresh off some good news (finally) in their agonizing battle with NTP.

The trends analysis presentation was made by Paul Lee, Deloitte's Director of Research. I thought the caliber of his work was very high, and his insights were quite relevant to the IP space. All told, he's got 30 predictions for 2006 in his research oeuvre - 10 each for technology, media, and telecom.

He could only focus on 3 predictions/outlooks in the presentation, and I wholeheartedly agree with them all. Here's a summary...

1. Search technologies are becoming a key tool as we rush to digitize everything. The mass market doesn't really understand search tools to get the most out of them, and there's room for tools - both free and paid - that go beyond Google's context-based search engines.

2. Technology humanizes technology. As the price of memory falls, the scope of applications to make technology more user-friendly and valuable to us gets bigger. He cited the automobile industry as an example where cars continue to add computer and memory-based features, such as distance monitoring and voice control. No doubt these things make for better cars, and a better driving experience.

3. Life changing technologies are the real winners. Paul noted that when companies or their products become verbs - Skype, Google, eBay - you know they're life-changing. These are true drivers of change in our behavior, and that's what creates market leaders. The implication is that - like the pharmaceutical sector - R&D costs in tech are huge, and the stakes are high for picking the right technologies to invest in.

Paul made many other cogent observations, but for me, his final thoughts resonated the most. His main wrapup takeaway was the message that carriers need to focus more on margins than speed. Amen.

He rightly pointed out that many of the apps that make money for carriers require very little bandwidth - SMS, voice, mobile email, etc. The race to build fatter pipes seems to be singularly focused on upping the ante for more megabits. No doubt consumers will eat this up, and like moths to a flame, they will never tire of downloading movies, music, videos, etc. However, the carriers see relatively little margin from these when the dust settles. Most of it goes to the content providers, the retailers, and even the end-user device manufacturers.

To make this work for the carriers, Paul is of the mind that they are justified in somehow having the content providers bear some of the cost of building all this capacity for consumers. Well, economically, he's correct, but this sure gets us into Ed Whitacre territory, which was not in scope of today's discussion. We may have to pick that one up offline.

After digesting Paul's presentation, things moved on to RIM. Jim Balsillie provided a very good overview of where RIM is going, and what has made it so successful. RIM has built a great brand, and Jim pointed out how RIM is rated as one of the top 3 tech brands, right up there with Apple and Google. Pretty nice company, given that RIM only has 5 million or so subscribers. It's a great business model, and I can never get over how strong the brand has become with such a relatively small user base. And Canadian to boot!

Jim talked a fair bit about how RIM fits into the enterprise workspace, and how well the Blackberry addresses the increased need for real time communications. He actually spent very little time talking about the Blackberry as a device. The strongest message for me was his focus on what RIM's real value proposition is - it's a "secure pipe to move packets", and the Blackberry is just a "presentation terminal".

I hadn't really thought about it that way before, but it's clear to me now that the security of RIM's network is what provides CIOs with the greatest comfort level. I get it - I think he's right. Security is a big deal these days, especially for IP, and secure systems or networks are the holy grail for enterprises.

My trusty travel companion, the Nokia N90 was put to work again. These are the best of the bunch...

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Q&A panel - from left to right, Paul Lee, Jim Balsillie, and John Ruffolo, who leads Deloitte's Toronto tech/telecom/media practice.

Sidebar - John will be speaking as part of the VC panel at VON Canada, coming up in early April.


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Jim Balsillie - a bit grainy, sorry - this setting is not a strong suit for the N90 I'm afraid


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Jim and I shamelessly plugging RIM - why not?

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/rim_speaksdeloi.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/rim_speaksdeloi.html Canada Thu, 02 Feb 2006 14:54:45 -0500 Bell Canada 2005 Review - No Mention of the V-Word Today, BCE - Bell Canada's corporate holding company - held their 2005 Business Review here in Toronto. It's a widely followed and well attended event - lots financial analysts in blue suits, along with a handful of industry analysts and media types. While most of the people were there to hear about the numbers, people like me were looking for where Bell is going and how they're going to get there.

I only stayed for the first set of presentations, which were given by Bell's top 3 execs - Michael Sabia, George Cope, and Robert Odendaal. That was enough for me, and during this time, plenty of key messages and strategic directions were provided. However, to the best of my recollection, not once did I hear the V-word mentioned - VoIP. I found that pretty amazing, and I'm sure most people who read my blog would concur. There's absolutely no doubt that VoIP is having a major impact on Bell, both in their consumer and enteprise lines of business. As big carriers go, Bell is actually very tech savvy, and in my view, ahead of all the RBOCs. But they just can't bring themselves to say VoIP. VoIP. VoIP. VoIP. Say it - VoIP. It's not that hard. V - O - I - P.

For those of you who don't know, Bell is actually a really great company, and they are very much the 800 pound gorilla in Canada. They pretty much hold a monopoly in telecom, have very deep pockets, and are active in virtually all segments of the communications market.

Michael Sabia certainly talked about how Bell is embracing IP, and how it is driving growth. He said that nextgen revenues accounted for 47% of the total in 2005, compared to 53% for legacy. By 2008, the target mix is 65% nextgen/35% legacy. Similarly, nextgen only accounts for 25% of EBITDA today, but this is expected to rise to 50% in 2008. So, Bell fully expects that revenue growth will come from IP, and with its higher margins, nextgen will also drive earnings. Sounds like a plan.

That said, he acknowledged that cable telephony is eroding their landline franchise, but never said it was VoIP. To stem the tide, he said Bell will focus on the brand and customer service. So, it's a marketing and customer support plan - a defensive strategy to protect their customers. No mention about Bell's own VoIP offering - which could be used either defensively to retain customers, or offensively to enter new markets. That's VoIP, but they just don't seem ready to talk about that. Is it just me?

There were many interesting performance metrics cited throughout the presentations, and I'll just quickly reference a few that caught my eye.

- 2005 operating income for residential service was $2 billion. Local access may be in its early stages of terminal decline, but there's still money to be made there. Perhaps more telling is the comparison to 2004 - operating income was down 5.6%. I'll bet the decline will be even higher for 2006.

- Buried a bit deeper in the handout was the number I was looking for - landline losses. In 2005, Bell lost 324,000 landlines, which is 2.5%. This is quite a bit lower than the 4+% level hitting the RBOCs, largely because wireless substitution is less of a factor in Canada. Nonetheless, 2004 landline losses were only 1.1%, so the incidence has more than doubled in a year's time. Mr. Sabia noted he expects that number will continue to rise due to competition, so we can rest assured Bell isn't being caught off guard! Just don't call it VoIP.

- Not surprisingly, long distance revenues are dying. 2005 LD revenues were $2.0 billion, down from $2.3 billion in 2004. This is a drop of 12.2%, by far the biggest percentage decline among all of Bell's revenue buckets. Now, here's the twist. LD minutes were actually up 1.3% in 2005 to 18.3 billion minutes. Interesting, huh? One factor would be their $5 flat rate LD offer which ran in the first half of the year, but was later dropped. It was just too good, and downright uneconomical. Oh well. They're still earning about 10 cents a minute on LD, and given how cheap LD is these days from just about everybody else, their margins must still be pretty good.

- As we all know, the real growth is elsewhere - video, wireless and Internet. Video subscribers were up 15% in 2005, reaching 1.7 million. Not bad for satellite TV. Wireless subs were up 11% to 5.4 million. That's a lot of cell phones for a country of 33+ million. High speed Internet subs were up 21% to 2.2 million.


I'll stop here with the numbers, and wanted to add a few more takeaways.

- Bell announced they are spinning off much of their rural business into an Income Trust. This has been in the works for a while, and will take 1.6 million lines off their books. The rationale is that these lines are in a more stable, slow growth, and less competitive market, which I guess is the ideal scenario for an Income Trust. The RBOCs are certainly thinking along these lines, and the basic message is they want to get out of markets where the upside for IP services is limited. Just a business decision - plain and simple.

- Guess what folks? Now that I've spun a tale of strong growth and profits, here's the bad news. Price increases are coming! They managed to slip that in oh, so subtlely. So, all those high growth, high profit services will now become even higher profit services - Internet access, wireless and video. I guess as long as the market isn't yet saturated, and subscribers continue to love the bundle, we'll pay for the privilege of getting it all from Bell. Chances are we'll barely notice if the hikes are buried in the fine in that all-too-convenient single bill we get in the mail.

- IPTV is coming - no surprise there. During the breaks, they had some live demos of new services and gadgets - it was pretty good. I thought the IPTV demo looked good, and the date for commercial rollout was supposed to be announced today. I haven't seen that yet, though.


To wrap up, I quite liked what I saw, and Bell seems patently aware of the challenges it faces with growing competition, along with managing growth across so many lines of business. I missed the Q&A sessions, but Mark Evans of the Financial Post was there, and he added some cogent commentary about what he saw on his blog post from earlier today.

Here are photos from the event, again, courtesy of my Nokia N90...


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First up, Michael Sabia. I'm afraid the N90 does not capture detail very well when shooting from a distance.

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Latest gizmos and gadgets


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All flavors of video - IPTV (top), HDTV (left), regular (right)


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IPTV - PIP - picture within a picture - neat!


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Mark Evans, National Post

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Ian Angus - not his everyday attire, but he wears it well. We both live in a parallel world - the Toronto Blues Society - you can find him in this batch of photos from last month.


]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/bell_canada_200.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/bell_canada_200.html Canada Wed, 01 Feb 2006 20:35:07 -0500 Canadian Podcast Series - Henry Dortmans on Enterprise IP Happy February!

Apologies for not podcasting last week - was just too difficult being away at the TMC show.

This week's Canadian IP Thought Leaders pod was with Henry Dortmans. He's the President of Angus Dortmans Associates, one of Canada's top telco consultancies.

The other half of this firm is Ian Angus, another well regarded telco consultant. It's a small world - I was with Ian this morning at the BCE 2005 Review event here in Toronto. I'll be posting about that later today, along with a photo of Ian in a suit - something he doesn't wear very often. Stay tuned.

Henry has seen it all, and had some great insights about why and how Canadian enterprises are adopting IP, as well as what goes into their decision-making about it. We could have gone on and on - will have to have him back soon. Here's the link - posted now on the Pulvermedia Podcast Network. And if you really like these podcasts, there's a link there for you to subscribe or open iTunes.

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/canadian_podcas_10.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/02/canadian_podcas_10.html Podcasts Wed, 01 Feb 2006 14:20:21 -0500 Tello - What's the Story? I know I'm late on this one, but people keep asking me about Tello. I had limited ability to blog while at TMC last week, and by now, the story has been well covered.

If you want an insightful synopsis about Tello, and where it fits in the scheme of things, Andy Abramson - as usual - has it pegged - http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2006/01/tello_explained.html

I'll just add my two cents here. Jeff Pulver has the best timing of anyone I know in this market, and I'll say this much - announcing the Tello launch during the week of TMC sure diverted a lot of attention away from the show (perhaps his main rival), at least when the news cames out. That was pretty evident to anyone who was there. The spirit of competition is a 24/7 thing, no doubt about it!

I'm also of the view that Tello is poised raise the ante as all the big players start making big moves to marry voice with the web. VoIP Inc. getting cozy with Google is an example of what's coming now, and I'm sure we'll see more moves like this soon.

Skype has been making its own share of announcements, and I suspect they might see more doors closing now than those that are opening. As the IM platforms add their own voice apps, Skype's appeal may falter, esp if they do not adopt a more open platform. Right now, this prevents them from "federating" with other, SIP-based platforms, and perhaps more importantly, it limits their ability to penetrate the enterprise market, which is where good money can be made. Tello is all about the enterprise, and my take is they have the right vision at the right time to make all these cool applications work seamlessly with each other.

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/01/tello_whats_the.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/01/tello_whats_the.html VoIP Tue, 31 Jan 2006 15:22:09 -0500 ITExpo - TMC's VoIP 2.0 Conference Review Last week was TMC's winter ITExpo, held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Another sign of the times, I guess - the show outgrew last year's Miami venue, and they moved a bit up I 95 to a bigger space. The venue was actually very nice, and was more comfortable than Miami.

The program was quite broad ranging - really too broad in my mind. It seems that as the demand for all things IP grows, shows like this take on a life of their own. So, the show tried to cover everything - enterprise IP, carrier IP, open source, WiFi, peering, SIP, IPTV, contact centers, IMS, E911, etc. The attendence seem quite strong, but I really couldn't gauge how well all of these tracks were supported.

I moderated two sessions - one was quite well attended, and one was pretty light. On the whole, I didn't see anything radical or very new, but to be fair, one person couldn't possibly cover all these tracks. In terms of star power, the two big names you don't normally see at these events were CNBC anchor Ron Insana and Tom Ridge, the Secretary of US Homeland Security. I missed both, but did catch an interesting session from General Motors, talking about the complexities of deploying on IP on a large scale. On the whole, it was a well-produced show - just too broad a pallette for me to take in. You just have to pick your spots, learn what you can, and make the most of your meetings - and enjoy the weather!

Here are some photos, courtesy of my Nokia N90 superphone....


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Mr. T - Nadji Tehrani, TMC's founder - can you tell it was the first day of the conference?


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Rich Tehrani, leading one of the general sessions

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The "Cranberry" - coolest device at the show. It's actually a custom job for Howard Thaw - very neat - great attention-getter, and it's truly a one-of-a-kind. Gotta like that!


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Colleague Tom Howe with Mr. Asterisk, Mark Spencer


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Mark with me - thanks Tom


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Andy "always on" (in more ways than one) Abramson


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Eli Katz of XConnect chatting with Ari Moses of Kaufman Bros.


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Howard Thaw w/Rich Tehrani - Howard's company, Iotum, was a TMC Product of the Year recipient at the show. Go Canada!


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Ari Rabban - paying a friendly visit


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David Simon - PBX.NET - doing booth duty for IPCC


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Micaela Giuhat - Sipera Systems - so happy to be there!


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James Brehm, from my alma mater analyst firm, Frost & Sullivan


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With Ollie and Osvaldo of Miami-based Cyneric - an up and coming IP billing vendor

]]> http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/01/itexpo_tmcs_voi.html http://blogs.pulver.com/jarnold/archives/2006/01/itexpo_tmcs_voi.html Telecom Conferences Mon, 30 Jan 2006 23:48:36 -0500 ./jarnold/about_you.html0100666000006000000600000000355110513005710014747 0ustar apacheapache Jon Arnold's Blog: About You

Main

About You

Yes, you! My inner market researcher compels me to do this. This section of the blog will evolve, but for now, I’d encourage you to drop me a line (jon@jarnoldassociates.com) and tell me a bit about yourself. Here’s what I’d love to learn about people who visit my blog….






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