$200 Million More in Videoconferencing Service Revenue This Year?

An Association of Corporate Travel Executives survey shows that 71 percent of its member companies plan to spend less on travel this year than in 2008.

According to the trade group, that’s a huge and unprecedented shift in corporate travel mangers’ plans from just five months ago.

ACTE’s new survey shows most companies are seeking to spend 10 percent to 20 percent less on travel than they reported in September of 2008.

Using the most conservative figures for estimating the dollar impact of such cuts, ACTE suggests that the 176 member companies responding to the survey will spend about $880 million less on travel this year than they had planned. If the same estimate is applied to the ACTE’s full membership of 2,400 companies, the impact would be more than $2 billion.

That should lead to opportunities for Web and other conferencing services and applications to get more traction, undoubtedly including many users and companies that have not historically relied on conferencing services, especially those with a video component.

Assume just 10 percent of the avoided $2 billion is spent on video-enabled conferencing services. That's a gain of $200 million in service provider revenues.

Enterprise IP Telephony Slows, In-Stat Says

The struggling economy will slow the growth of enterprise IP telephony adoption, In-Stat researchers suggest. Some 32 percent of enterprise-size businesses say the economic situation has slowed their VoIP deployment plans.

Broadband IP telephony remains the most common carrier-based business VoIP solution with revenues exceeding $1.1 billion in 2008, compared to $857 million for hosted IP Centrex service within the United States, In-Stat says. 

Adoption varies significantly by size of business, with enterprise-sized businesses preferring a partial deployment, while small office and home office users are more likely to go IP-only.

About 13 percent of U.S. businesses use both carrier-based and premises-based IP solutions. 

Slightly more than one in three US businesses that have deployed VoIP use it exclusively, In-Stat says.  Many more businesses use VoIP as a partial voice solution. U.S. businesses are also beginning to embrace voice-enabled IM capabilities, particularly among younger workers. 

Mobile Backhaul = 30% of Opex

Mobile backhaul now represents more than 30 percent of mobile service provider operating costs, says Juniper Networks. If one looks at opex and adds depreciation, backhaul can represent 70 percent of on-going costs.

Up to this point, most of the mobile backhaul has been provided by T-1 lines or DS-3 connections, in some cases.

But deployment of 2.5G and 3G technology has lead to an increased backhaul requirement, to say nothing of coming 4G requirements. So where base stations that previously required one or two T1/E1’s for backhaul now need four to six T1/E1’s. The result has been a 200 percent to 400 percent increase in required backhaul capacity and its associated increase in operating expense costs.

Mobile Backhaul Services $15 Billion in 2011

Telcordia analysts predict there will be a $15 billion wholesale transport revenue opportunity in the mobile tower backhaul market by 2011, based on new needs to get broadband backhaul to more than 200,000 wireless network cell sites in the United States. 

Satellite Pioneer Andy Werth Dies

Andrew (Andy) Werth, a satellite industry pioneer, died January 28.  He was 74 and lived in Washington, D.C. 

He co-founded a digital satellite communications company that eventually became Hughes Network Systems. Mr. Werth later became president of the company’s international division.

Andy was an avid cyclist, finishing one place short of qualifying for the U.S. cycling team in the 1952 Olympics, though he won numerous other events in his youth, including the New York State Junior Championship and the Tour of Somerville. A victory in a nine-day cycling event in Canada earned him enough prize money to pay for his first semester of college. He resumed cycling later in life, and won the Masters National Track Championship in 2000, 2003 and 2004. Until slowed by illness, he was an active member of DC Velo, a Washington-based cycling club.

Beyond that, what many of us always will remember is his mentoring and teaching, born, no doubt, of his genial and caring nature. Thanks, Andy. 

Mr. Werth was born in Saarbrucken, Germany on March 2, 1934, to a German father and a French mother. His family fled the Nazis, and by the time he was 10 years old, young Andrew had lived in four countries, learning a new language with each move. His fluency in many languages and ease with international clients helped him establish Hughes’ presence in 17 countries and build international sales to $1.4 billion by the time he retired in 2000. 

Mr. Werth, a graduate of Columbia University and an Air Force veteran, began his career at ITT Laboratories in New Jersey. Following the launch of Sputnik, he was assigned to do research in digital satellite communications in the late 1950s.

He left ITT for satellite operator COMSAT Corp. in 1964, and his first job was working on the Early Bird project team with the manufacturer, Hughes Aircraft Company. He soon transferred to COMSAT Laboratories, where he developed a series of high performance satellite modems and was awarded a number of patents in satellite communications applications. His work in the digital satellite communications was cited in 1982 when he was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the profession’s highest award.

In 1972, Mr. Werth and a group of colleagues left COMSAT to form Digital Communications Corp. (DCC), a company that specialized in building sophisticated digital communications systems utilizing both terrestrial and satellite technology. 

The company prospered and was acquired in 1978 by Microwave Associates and became MA/COM Telecommunications, which was acquired by Hughes Electronics in October 1987, becoming Hughes Network Systems (HNS).

Mr. Werth was initially general manager of the satellite communications division. He later led international marketing and sales for a new satellite technology, very small aperture terminals (VSAT), that eventually became the backbone of the private satellite network industry, connecting millions of retail establishments, hotels, gas stations, and other users. 

Software-Based Telecom (Video in 5 Parts)

Voice has for decades been a "service" sold by the "the line" or as an "application" created by a premises switch. Now voice also is a feature of instant messaging, Web sites, enterprise applications and email. As a result, there now are multiple business models, revenue streams and applications that use the "voice" feature. This panel will examine some of the ways this is happening, and what it means for traditional providers of voice services.

Gary Kim, Editor-in-Chief, IP Business

Rodrigue Ullens, Co-founder & CEO, Voxbone

Trevor Baca, VP, Software Engineering, jaduka

Michael Veys, COO, JAJAH

Eric Reiher, Founder & CTO, Mobivox

Click on "Related Article" at the bottom of this post for the first of five parts. Click "Watch in HD" if you have the bandwidth. 

Voice Peering Drivers and Strategies: 7-Part Video

Gary Kim, Editor-in-Chief, IP Business
Carlos Da Silva, Americas Marketing Director, France Telecom
Paul A. Woelk, Sr Manager, Access Strategy, Sprint
Heather Olson, Regional Manager, Telecom Italia Sparkle
Rodrigue Ullens, Co-founder & CEO, Voxbone

click "Related Article" at the bottom of this post to launch the first video segment. Also, if you have the bandwidth, select "Watch in HD." It's better.

Mobile Broadband Supplemental, But High Risk of Substitution

A huge explosion in mobile broadband use in Europe over the next five years largely will be driven by consumers, and largely will complement, not supplant, wired broadband connections, predict researchers at Analysys Mason.

That said, a separate forecast by Informa Telecoms & Media suggests the potential for broadband substitution will remain high.

Analysys Mason projects148 million mobile broadband connections in Europe by 2014, when they will account for almost half of all broadband connections in the region.

The potential for fixed-line voice substitution also will remain high. About 40 percent of total mobile traffic was generated in the home environment in 2007, says Informa Telecoms & Media.

By 2013 it is expected to reach 58 percent, with about eight percent of total mobile traffic offloaded to fixed broadband. In 2008, the home environment likewise represented more than 43 percent of total mobile data traffic and will climb to 60 percent by 2013.

That's the danger for fixed services providers, particularly in single-person households, households of non-related persons and households where every person in the household above a certain age has a mobile.

Mobile use at home will represent about 40 percent of total mobile usage, while use at work will represent 30 percent of usage, with nine percent of calls initiated while users are moving. About 21 percent of calls will be generated from other public environments.

"In the same way that voice traffic has moved from old fixed line telephony service PSTN to mobile, there is reason to believe that a significant percentage of Internet traffic generation will move away from fixed personal computers to mobile devices including mobile handsets, mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and connected notebooks," says Malik Saadi, Informa principal analyst.

As more casual users adopt mobile broadband, they typically will do so as a complement to tethered broadband, usually opting for prepaid subscriptions rather than monthly contracts, Analysys Mason forecasts. Prepaid subscriptions will account for 59 percent of mobile broadband connections in 2014, up from eight percent in 2008.

New customers will tend to behave differently from early adopters and users who have substituted wireless for wired connections, many observers believe. Most significantly, use will be casual. So, at some point, continued growth of mobile broadband in the U.S. market likewise will require charging mechanisms better suited to casual users, who will not be inclined to add substantial fixed-fee subscriptions when their anticipated usage is relatively light.

T-Mobile Outage: "All Markets West of Mississippi River"

T-Mobile has a  BlackBerry email services outage in "all markets west of the Mississippi River," I am told by tech support. Sunday, Feb. 15, about noonish Mountain time.....

Apparently there also was a Feb. 3, 2009 outage on a more-localized basis on the AT&T network in  Houston, New York, New Jersey and Baltimore/Washington D.C. areas.

There are some reports T-Mobile and possibly some Sprint BlackBerry users had the same issue on Feb. 3, 2009 as well. Undoubtedly there will be finger-pointing, but it would seem to be a RIM issue if multiple networks had outages at the same time. 

58% of Mobile Use In-Home by 2013

About 40 percent of total mobile traffic generated in the home environment  in 2007, says Informa Telecoms & Media. By 2013 it is expected to reach 58 percent, with about eight percent of total mobile traffic offloaded to fixed broadband.

In 2008, the home environment likewise represented more than 43 percent of total mobile data traffic and will climb to 60 percent by 2013.

Mobile voice minutes of use in the home environment represented about 42 percent of total mobile voice traffic by the end of 2008. Mobile voice usage at home will gradually increase to reach 49 percent by 2013.

Mobile use at work will represent 30 percent of usage, with nine percent of calls initiated while users are moving. About 21 percent of calls will be generated from other public environments.

"In the same way that voice traffic has moved from old fixed line telephony service PSTN to mobile, there is reason to believe that a significant percentage of Internet traffic generation will move away from fixed personal computers to mobile devices including mobile handsets, mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and connected notebooks," says Malik Saadi, Informa principal analyst

Wireless and Broadband Grow, Wireline Shrinks, Ofcom Says

Fixed-line call volume and access revenues fell by two percent during the third quarter, the U.K. Office of Communications now reports. Total residential call volumes in the third quarter of 2008 were nine percent lower than in the third quarter 2007, while total business call volumes fell by five percent over the same period. The total number of fixed lines fell by 36,000 to 33.5 million during the quarter as well.

The number of residential and small or medium business broadband connections increased by 322,000 during the quarter to 16.9 million.

Total mobile revenue for the four largest mobile operators increased by 1.5 percent, quarter over quarter, Ofcom reports. Revenue from calls and other charges grew by 2.3 percent, though call volume declined by 0.05 percent, quarter over quarter.

Roaming call volumes increased by 11 percent year over year. The number of outgoing international minutes grew by 14 percent over the same period.

Core Switches on Blade Servers: Nokia Siemens

Core network infrastructure is moving along a path that will have software functions running on standardized hardware, such as blade servers. That's quite a change from a world where you could tell the difference between major brands of Class 5 switches just by looking at them.

So note that Nokia Siemens Networks now has a new strategy focusing on hardware-independent solutions for core networks. Nokia Siemens Networks has introduced a new, open hardware architecture, where Nokia Siemens software runs on off-the-shelf hardware blades.

The long-term goal for the strategy is to provide an open, multi-application, hardware-independent platform, where the same open hardware platform can be used for a variety of different network elements.

The switch means the MSC Server mobile softswitch, which is currently implemented on the Nokia Siemens Networks DX 200 hardware platform, will run on open and standard blade servers.

“This is the beginning of a major shift in the way we design our core network products,” says Michael Clever, Head of Next Generation Voice and Multimedia, Nokia Siemens Networks. “The future of control servers clearly belongs to pure software solutions that give network operators more choices to meet their hardware requirements.

Operating on blade servers should allow for smaller equipment footprint and smaller power draw than the proprietary approach.

The open hardware approach is already being applied to other Nokia Siemens Networks core network “control plane” applications, such as IP Multimedia Subsystem and the hiQ VoIP application server, which then can be combined with the MSS application.

Tweet, Tweet and More Tweet

As of December 2008, 11 percent of online American adults said they used a service like Twitter or another service that allowed them to share updates about themselves or to see the updates of others, say researchers at the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Just a few weeks earlier, in November 2008, nine percent of Internet users used Twitter or updated their status online and in May of 2008, six percent of Internet users responded yes to a slightly different question, where users were asked if they used “Twitter or another ‘microblogging’ service to share updates about themselves or to see updates about others.”

Good thing the company just raised $35 million more in investment capital. It still is growing really fast.

Small Business Demand Remains Stable

Small businesses (zero to 500 employees) represent 99.7 percent of all firms, employ about half of all private sector employees, pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payrolls and have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

It's no surprise that smaller businesses therefore represent much of the underlying demand for communications and information technology purchases as well.

It's a darn-near sure thing that such businesses will represent the only new net private sector jobs for the balance of the year. So it is noteworthy that small businesses were able to add new employees in January 2009, according to actual payroll processed by Surepayroll, which handles payroll data for more than 20,000 small businesses.

There was a 0.3 percent increase in the average small business size between the December 2008 and January 2009 periods, meaning that the average small business grew in size in January.

Hiring growth has been relatively flat of late, with the last five months all being in the 0.2% to 0.3% range. But small businesses added employees every month of 2008, the SurePayroll data shows.

Of course, other data is not so comforting, if lethargic job growth can be called "comforting." A Gallup Poll survey suggests that small-business owners are cutting jobs. About 11 percent of respondents say they have increased the number of jobs at their companies over the past 12 months while 27 percent say they have decreased them.

On average small businesses are still creating more jobs than they are destroying, SurePayroll says. And some of the resilence can be explained by greater reliance on outsourced contractors. In fact, January saw contractors representing 3.78 percent of total payrolls, the highest level SurePayroll ever has seen.

But there are warning signs on the small company start-up front, however, which logically is a result of tight credit conditions.

"In prior recessions, small businesses have ended up being net job creators," SurePayroll says. "This is not likely to happen in this recession because fewer companies are being formed."

Perhaps the only good news here for providers of communication services is that potential small business demand remains a bit of a bright spot.

Charter to Declare Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Charter Communications will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as part of a financial restructuring on or before April 1. Charter says it has reached an agreement with a committee of some debt holders to reduce its obligations by about $8 billion. 

The company had net debt of slightly more than $21 billion as of Sept. 30, 2008, so despite wiping out what remains of the equity value, and paring debt by $8 billion, Charter will still have to contend with as much as $13 billion of remaining debt. 

Controlled by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen and based in St. Louis, Charter has about 5.6 million customers in 28 states.

The cable company has sold the most U.S. high-yield bonds of any company in the past decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Allen bought Charter in 1998, amassed the company’s debt burden while building it into the fourth-largest U.S. cable provider. 

Charter has reported losses every year since going public in 1999. In some ways, Charter is less a victim of the current credit tightness and more a victim of the 2001 Internet and telecom crash, though, as the company has been struggling with high debt loads since that time.