U.K. VoIP Provider Also Has Outage

U.K. VoIP provider VoIP.co.uk had an outage of its own last Monday. Users could call other VoIP.co.uk users, but were unable to place or receive calls from users on the public telephone network. Service was out for the better part of a day.

Microsoft OCS Starts to Disrupt

Microsoft's Office Communications Server 2007 is going to disrupt market share in today's business phone system market. It also is going to take share and rearrange markets in other areas you might not expect, such as the test and measurement space. Huh? Isn't voice quality testing, on both qualitative (subjective) and quantitative (mean opinion scores, for example) dimensions, something that specialized test and measurement firms do? Well, yes.

But Microsoft also is bringing to market its own "quality of experience" server that automatically tracks end user voice quality no matter where a call is placed--from inside the enteprise or at a hotel. No network test probes are required.

That's just one more example of how incumbents are finding their core businesses under threat of rearrangement from upstarts with deep pockets, strategic motivation, different visions and deep expertise in software and networking.

Microsoft OCS Managed Service for SMEs?

Microsoft's Office Communications Server hasn't begun shipping in general release. But that hasn't stopped OCS from garnering significant mind share among enterprise information technology managers. Some recent surveys by the Gartner Group and Wainhouse Research show OCS in the top spot among unified communications providers, according to Gurdeep Singh Pall, Microsoft corporate VP.

Pall positions OCS as an alternative to private branch exchanges (business phone systems) in either the time division multiplex or Internet Protocol or hybrid flavors. But Pall also notes that OCS obviates the need for a PBX of any sort, though it interoperates with IP and TDM systems. That's one reason Microsoft is introducing a new line of desktop phones that work with OCS.

Less attention has been paid to the issue of how small and mid-sized enterprises will some day be able to use OCS. Warren Barkley, a principal group program manager at Microsoft, says a hosted service ulitmately will be made available to SMEs.

Barkley simply noted that small organizations generally lack the IT resources to set up and run an OCS style unified communications system. It wouldn't be the first hosted service Microsoft offers.

Microsoft already offers a hosted collaboration platform, LiveMeeting, and is moving to offer applications such as customer relationship management as services.

Linked In is Like Email; Facebook is Like IM

I've never been a fan of LinkedIn (I'm not a "head hunter," and it undoubtedly is a useful tool for people who do that for a living). It might be a nice utility for updating contact information for a small subset of the people you actually know and communicate with. Beyond that I've never had occasion to use it.

Facebook seems like a better version of LinkedIn, though. I was able to get my son's new address when he went back to NYU without using LinkedIn. To be sure, the information wasn't pushed to me. I had to go view his Facebook page. But I got what I needed without emailing or calling.

So why is LinkedIn like email? It's a tool "older" people use for work. Why is Facebook like IM? It's a tool "younger" people (and increasing numbers of "not so young") use to keep up with other people they actually care about. In some important ways, IM also is a "richer" experience, as Facebook is.

Skype: The Ultimate Windows Externality

"On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption triggered by a massive restart of our users’ Windows-based computers across the globe within a very short time frame as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update," Skype says.

Not everybody buys that explanation. But, if true, it has to rank as the most massive, unexpected software interaction Windows ever has inadvertently caused.

The high number of restarts apparently caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction, Skype says. Some have argued that the outage proves peer-to-peer networks are inherently unstable.

It's hard to test that assertion since Skype uses a modified P2P architecture with a sign-in process that is more "client-server" and centralized than most other P2P networks.

Some think there was some sort of hacker attack, but Skype denies it. "We can confirm categorically that no malicious activities were attributed."

If the Microsoft routine updates were, in fact, contributory or causal, it would rank as the most significant network-wide interaction anybody ever has seen. Just another example of the way applications are reshaping the way global networks perform.

As some of you know I have recently been dealing with interactions caused by a Vista upgrade, mostly of the "we don't talk to Vista" sort. I will say one thing, however. Vista seems to be much more robust than XP was about handling "hibernation" operations. XP used to become unstable after several hiberation operations, at least on my machines. I have not found that to be the case with Vista.

Is Wireless Cable's Achilles Heel?

In the early 1990s, Comcast and other cable partners invested in an earlier version of "SpectrumCo," a business that would eventually become Sprint PCS, only to pull out later in the decade when the going got tough. Cablevision, for its part, also flirted with creating its own PCS network, but ultimately decided against it.

In 2005, Comcast, Time Warner Cable (TWC), Cox (COX), and Advance/Newhouse Communications banded together with Sprint Nextel to creat the "Pivot" service.

Sprint CEO Gary Forsee says that it took longer than expected to get Pivot off the ground and subscriber numbers haven't been released. That logically suggests uptake has been slow.

Recently, Sprint abruptly withdrew from SpectrumCo, the entity that in late 2006 snapped up $2.37 billion worth of licenses to wireless airwaves. The acquisition had spurred speculation that together, Sprint and cable companies were planning their own wireless network.

All of which might suggest wireless continues to be the platform telecom competitors can use to parry cable's wireline thrusts. It is, after all, a simple line extension to add voice and broadband access to a cable network. It is a discontinuous jump to offer wireless services over a completely distinct network. And cable execs dislike discontinuities as much as any other exec.

And the evidence is growing that mobile is way people "do voice."

BitTorrent Throttled by Comcast

Internet Service Providers don't like BitTorrent because it basically destroys their business model (flat rate access) and stresses the very part of their network most vulnerable to high usage (the upstream). Many ISPs simply limit the available bandwidth for BitTorrent traffic. Cable operators that now seem to include Comcast go a bit further and disupt the "seeding" process that allows BitTorrent peers to act as better upload nodes. In Canada, Cogeco and Rogers Cablesystems also "step on" BitTorrent traffic.

If P2P traffic keeps growing the way Cisco predicts, and if no changes are made in the dominant retail pricing model, throttling of P2P applications will happen on a wider scale. P2P attacks network capacity at its weakest link.