The New York Times A New Kind of Revolution in the Dorms of Dartmouth
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""As far as I know, no one has done a wireless voice-over-I.P. network this large before," said David Kotz, a computer science professor at Dartmouth."

"The roll out of voice over Internet protocol is closely coupled with Dartmouth's recent decision to stop charging students, faculty and staff for long-distance phone calls. The college made that decision when administrators discovered that the billing function was costing more than the calls themselves."

The Register Skype: putting the hype in VoIP

"Reading interviews with the KaZaA founders and looking at their new web site, Skype we think that their second revolution has a chance of being even bigger than their first. Perhaps it's called Skype to rhyme with Hype.

The idea is to use peer-to-peer networks to give free voice over IP telephone calls to the masses, and not just calls to a special instant messenger-like registry of friends, but to virtually anyone."

redux [08.25.03]
News.Com Free ride over for VoIP?

"A cheap, Internet-based alternative to traditional telephone service is facing a sudden regulatory backlash that could slow adoption of the fast-growing technology, raise prices and put financially shaky start-ups out of business.

Two weeks ago, Minnesota drew first blood. It ordered so-called VoIP (voice over IP) provider Vonage Holdings to file for a telephone operator's license. Many see the move, the first attempt by a state public utilities commission to regulate an Internet telephony provider, as the beginning of a new regulatory framework for Internet telephone operators in the state."

redux [05.22.03]
Washington Post High Speed With the Highest Anxiety

"Both sides agreed on one point: Nobody has any idea how to turn Wi-Fi into a profitable business.

Of all the talk, Babbio's prickly attack on MCI -- along with his lukewarm comments about Wi-Fi -- perhaps best reflected the painful disputes consuming the troubled telecom industry. While studies show broadband Internet access has reached nearly a third of American homes, it remains unclear what kind of pricing, quality and add-on services consumers should expect from their beleaguered suppliers."

Wired Magazine Why Voice Over Wi-Fi Has Telcos Dialing 911

"Think of it as the love child of the two hottest developments in telecom: voice over IP and wireless broadband. There are more than 3.5 million VoIP phones in the US - mostly at work - up from practically none five years ago. Meanwhile, the number of commercial Wi-Fi hot spots in the US exploded from 2,000 to 12,000 last year. Combine the two and any gadget - laptop, PDA, tablet PC, whatever - can become a voice communication device."

"For big providers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, voice over Wi-Fi isn't pretty. Those companies blew billions on licenses for next-gen cellular networks. Now they may find themselves undercut by the same grassroots groups bringing free, unregulated Wi-Fi to the urban masses."

redux [12.16.02]
The New York Times Web Calling Roils the Telecom World
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"After all, telecommunications and technology companies lost $7.6 billion in global market value from March 2000 to September 2002, as the industry was gripped by stunning collapses, financial scandals and an effort to absorb excess capacity on globe-spanning communications systems.

But alongside the industry's search for its direction after such turmoil are trends that threaten to destabilize global telecommunications further in 2003. These trends could be described as the start of a cannibalization of established services by disruptive new technologies."

redux [08.07.02]
Bob Frankston The Economist, the Internet, Telecom and the Dow

"Of course The Economist is not alone in this fundamental error but "Crash" story is a useful foil for addressing this misunderstanding.

It is a tragic misunderstanding since the woes of the Telecom industry are seen as representing the state of the economy rather than the collapsing of a facade of a Potemkin industry. In 1900's there was a real telecommunications industry just like in the 1800's when there was a thriving business in transporting ice from frozen lakes to warmer climes. Just as refrigeration put an end to the need for buying ice, the Internet has put an end to the need to buy telecommunications services from others. We just need commodity connectivity."

redux [07.22.02]
The Economist The great telecoms crash

"The telecoms bust is some ten times bigger than the better-known dotcom crash: the rise and fall of telecoms may indeed qualify as the largest bubble in history. Telecoms firms have run up total debts of around $1 trillion. And as if this were not enough, the industry has also disgraced itself by using fraudulent accounting tricks in an attempt to conceal the scale of the disaster."

"The danger is that the traumatic scale of the telecoms crisis will cause the pendulum to swing back too far in favour of the former monopolies. In the short term, they are likely to attract investment, to pick up the assets of bankrupt rivals, and to lead the way in consolidating the industry."

redux [06.18.02]
The New York Times Telecom Outlook: First the Bad News, Then the Bad News
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"The turmoil continues in telecommunications, making the long-awaited turnaround increasingly difficult to call. Indeed, in light of a wave of bad news last week and through the weekend, some analysts say the industry's problems could actually become worse before they become better."

" "I foresee a near total collapse as the endgame," said Susan Kalla, a senior telecommunications analyst at Friedman, Billings & Ramsey. "I've become more reactionary in the last month as it becomes clear that almost nothing is working in the industry's favor.""

redux [02.08.02]
BusinessWeek The Tidal Wave Bearing Down on Telecom

""Some of the more highly leveraged companies are really struggling. They don't have the cash flow to make their payments," says James Glen, a telecom economist with Economy.com."

Worse, Baby Bells such as Verizon (VZ ) and SBC (SBC ) continue to eat away at consumer long-distance monopoly of AT&T, Sprint, and WorldCom. That's on top of the woes the big three already face in operating backbone undersea and land-based networks, which they resell to other operators in some places. While Sprint, WorldCom, and AT&T don't face the type of imminent cash crunch as Global Crossing does, a consolidation among even the major long-distance providers is now a possibility."

SMART Letter The Enronization of Telecom

"The fundamental health of the [telecom] sector is likely to get worse before it gets better . . . The combination of: the sector's anemic growth outlook, the cannibalizing competitive mega-trends of wireless substitution, voice to data migration, Bell entry into long distance combined with local competition, and the bubble-induced excesses in debt and over-capacity, all create a powerful wealth destroying dynamic. Telecom's 'debt spiral' has gotten so bad that even the relatively strongest players who are still able to raise significant capital (VZ, SBC, and BLS) don't want to assume any more liabilities or business risk. Consequently, Precursor is reversing its long held view that consolidation can help improve the sector from excess capacity and debt any time soon."

David Isenberg and David Weinberger The Paradox of the Best Network

"Despite the darkened outlook, new communications capabilities are within reach that will make the current Internet look like tin cans and string. The technical know-how exists. Radically simplified technologies can blast bits a million times faster than the current network at a millionth of the cost. These are sitting in laboratories undeveloped, in warehouses undeployed, and in the field underutilized.

It's not even that the communications revolution has been derailed by inept or self-aggrandizing behavior by incumbent telephone companies and their government regulators. Something more fundamental is at work."