Teknovis

Another Skype story…

Rumour has it that the founders of Skype are considering buying Skype back from eBay. The full story can be read in Four years later, Skype’s founders looking to buy it back.

I actually think that this would be a great move for both companies. I do not really see any business or technological reasons why either company is of significant interest to the other. I actually think that they are in totally different market segments – Skype is in telecoms and eBay is in online auctioneering.

Furthermore, I know that many of the Tier 1 telcos see Skype as a significant competitor. I think that independence from eBay would allow Skype to become an even bigger competitor!

I think that the challenges for Skype are to grow its customer base, and to generate more revenue from its customer base. I think that the first challenge is being addressed by increasing penetration into both the mobile market and the business market. I am less clear how the second challenge can be addressed. In my experience, the Skype users that I know have all progressed from the free voice and video calls to buying SkypeOut credit. I wonder what percentage of Skype’s users have actually gone on to make a purchase from Skype.

Tags: eBay, Skype

While I was on the ComReg web site I also noticed that ComReg are trying to increase awareness of E112. Apparently, today is European 112 Day!

For more information about this see ComReg says public should be aware of the phone number 112 for emergency services in the EU.

Tags: ComReg, E112

The Irish Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) published a report earlier this week covering the attitudes of Irish residential customers to ICT. The report is very easy to read, and it contains many interesting findings. My favourite findings are:

• 79% have Eircom as their fixed line supplier
• The average monthly fixed line spend is 48.04€
• The average monthly mobile spend has decreased from 45.64€ to 41.64€
• Vodafone‘s share continues to decline, O2‘s share has seen a marginal increase, Meteor’s share continues to grow, and Three‘s share remains relatively unchanged.
• 56% own either a PC or laptop, and 11% own both
• There has been a continued increase in Internet usage, and penetration now stands at 64%
• 43% think that speed is the most important factor when using the Internet
• 50% of home broadband users do not know their contracted downloaded speed
• 44% have heard of VoIP, 35% of these have used it, and72% of these people use Skype
• 82% believe that technology has improved their lives
• Technology is used for entertainment purposes by 36% for more than 20 hours per week

The full report can be downloaded from ComReg Residential ICT Services Survey Q4 2008.

Tags: ComReg, Eircom, Ireland, Meteor, Mobile Phone, O2, Skype, Three, Vodafone

I am going to continue my series on Irish companies (and organisations) that are involved in standards organisations, and today I am going to focus on the GSM Association. This is appropriate timing for doing this, because the GSMA Mobile World Congress is happening soon in Barcelona. I have never attended this, but I would like to ;)

The GSM Association has several types of membership, and these are described in Types of Membership. I am going to focus on the Associate Membership type, and the members with this type of membership are listed in Associate Members.

The Irish companies that are currently members are:

• Accuris Networks
• AdaptiveMobile
• Altobridge
• Anam
• Arantech
• ezetop
• Jinny
• NewBay
• Openmind Networks

The non-Irish companies that have technical operations in Ireland that are currently members are:

• Alcatel-Lucent
• BT
• Cisco
• Critical Path
• Ericsson
• Flextronics
• Intel
• Intervoice
• Lycatel
• Martin Dawes Systems
• Microsoft
• Motorola
• Nortel
• Option
• RadioFrame Networks
• RedKnee
• Siemens (Also known as Nokia Siemens Networks)
• WeDo Technologies (Due to its purchase of Cape Technologies)

As always, it is sometimes difficult to tell what sort of a presence some of these companies have in Ireland.

There are also a number of Irish companies that are working in the same area as the GSM Association, but these companies are not listed as members. Enterprise Ireland supports these companies, and it rents a large stand at the GSMA Mobile World Congress which these companies can use. More details about this can be read on the 3GSM Ireland web site. The Irish companies that Enterprise Ireland is, or was, supporting that are not listed as members are:

• Alatto
• Ammeon
• Asavie
• AskMoby
• Cellusys
• ChangingWorlds (but see Amdocs to Acquire ChangingWorlds)
• Cibenix
• Cicero Networks
• Cinnara
• Idiro
• Macalla
• Nubiq
• Prime Carrier
• Rococo
• Sentry Wireless
• S3
• Tango Telecom
• WestGlobal
• Valista
• Vimio
• Xiam
• YQ

I am really surprised, and impressed, with the number of companies in these lists!

Tags: Accuris Networks, AdaptiveMobile, Alatto, Alcatel-Lucent, Altobridge, Ammeon, Anam, Arantech, Asavie, AskMoby, BT, Cellusys, ChangingWorlds, Cibenix, Cicero Networks, Cinnara, Cisco, Critical Path, Enterprise Ireland, Ericsson, ezetop, Flextronics, GSM Association, Idiro, Intel, Intervoice, Ireland, Jinny, Lycatel, Macalla, Martin Dawes Systems, Microsoft, Mobile World Congress, Motorola, NewBay, Nortel, Nubiq, Openmind Networks, Option, Prime Carrier, RadioFrame Networks, RedKnee, Rococo, S3, Sentry Wireless, Siemens, Spain, Tango Telecom, Valista, Vimio, WeDo Technologies, WestGlobal, Xiam, YQ

I have a regular land line to my house, and I buy both my voice and my broadband data services from Eircom. In general, I am happy with the price and service levels.

I subscribe to one of Eircom’s bundles that gives me free unlimited national and local calls, and this provides me with significant savings compared to paying for my calls on a per minute basis.

I rarely need to pay for any additional calls for two reasons:

• I use my mobile phone to call other mobile phones (I rarely need to call mobile phones in other operators’ networks)
• I use Skype for all my international calls

However, the single greatest category of phone number that I regularly need to call that results in an increase to my phone bill is 1890 numbers. These numbers are intended to be non-geographical low cost numbers. Unfortunately, Eircom charges me for calling these numbers because they are not deemed to be national numbers. It is both annoying and petty!

In order to avoid these charges I started using the national numbers for organisation that have 1890 numbers. Most organisations list these somewhere on their web pages, often as the International Number. I think that a company must have a national number in order to obtain a 1890 number.

I recently came across a very useful web site, SayNoTo1890, that provides the national numbers for all known 1890 numbers. These numbers are well categorised, and they are updated regularly.

This is a great recession beating tip in my opinion ;)

Tags: Eircom, SayNoTo1890, Skype

I was supposed to participate in a conference call today, and this conference call was hosted by a large and well known organisation. I was really surprised to see from the invite email that the call bridge was being provided by Skype!

This is the first time that I have seen Skype being used within the corporate market. There certainly was, and perhaps still is, a perception that Skype is only suitable for individuals.

Roll on Skype!

Yes, I am a big fan of it ;)

Tags: Skype

Yesterday the Irish Minister for Communications announced details of the all Ireland broadband Internet access roll-out scheme. The essence of this is that every part of Ireland will have broadband Internet access by 2010, thanks to an investment of 223€ million by the Irish Government.

At the moment 10% of the population do not have broadband Internet access, and these 10% live in areas that represent 33% of the area of the country.

Three has won the contract to supply this broadband Internet access, and it will do this using 3G technology. I might be incorrect, but I think that BT actually installed, commissioned, and operates the 3G network in Ireland for Three.

More details about this can be read in Plan to bring broadband to entire country by 2010.

The Irish Minister for Communications seemed quite ecstatic when he was announcing this yesterday. He seems to have the opinion that this will enable significant numbers of new companies to develop, and that these companies will employ many people, and this will lift Ireland out of recession. Yes, really!

I have a more sceptical view :o

From the maps that I saw in the television interviews it seems that the areas in Ireland that will benefit from this scheme are all in really rural locations (mostly the West and South-West). The population densities are very low in these areas! Also, the existing levels of business activity in these areas is extremely low! I do not think that broadband Internet access will change any of this!

So ultimately I think that this scheme means that the majority of Irish tax payers will subsidise a very small minority. I also think that people who live in these rural areas must accept that they cannot expect to have the same levels of service as people who live closer to metropolitan areas. (This of course works both ways.)

Damien Mulley also got some air-time to comment on this government initiative on the RTE news yesterday. I am not sure why, but I feel that he gave a more positive response to it in the television interview than he does on his blog article National Broadband Scheme Launch. Maybe I am wrong about this, because I only saw the television interview once.

Tags: BT, Damien Mulley, Ireland, RTE, Three

I previously wrote about the Irish Companies involved in W3C, so today I am going to list the Irish companies (and organisations) that are involved in the TM Forum. Again, I am basing these lists on the online membership list.

The Irish companies that are currently members are:

• Amartus
• Arantech
• CommProve
• Dataduct
• DCU (There is nothing on DCU’s website about this!)
• Eircom
• Nomos Software
• Openet
• RedZinc
• Selatra (One of its founders is the President of the TM Forum)
• TCD
• TSSG

The non-Irish companies that have technical operations in Ireland that are currently members are:

• Accenture
• Agilent
• Alcatel-Lucent
• Amdocs
• Analysys Mason
• Arris
• Asidua
• BOC Group
• BT
• Cable and Wireless
• Cisco
• Deloitte and Touche
• EDS
• EMC Corporation
• Ericsson
• HERMES SoftLab
• HP
• IBM
• Martin Dawes Systems
• Microsoft
• Motorola
• Nortel
• O2
• Oracle
• Perot Systems
• RedKnee
• SAP
• Satyam
• Siemens (Also known as Nokia Siemens Networks)
• Sun
• Verizon (Due to its purchase of Cybertrust)
• Vodafone

At least I think that all of those companies have technical operations in Ireland. It can be very difficult to tell from their web pages.

Tags: Accenture, Agilent, Alcatel-Lucent, Amartus, Amdocs, Analysys Mason, Arantech, Arris, Asidua, BOC Group, BT, Cable and Wireless, Cisco, CommProve, Dataduct, DCU, Deloitte and Touche, EDS, Eircom, EMC Corporation, Ericsson, HERMES SoftLab, HP, IBM, Ireland, Martin Dawes Systems, Microsoft, Motorola, Nomos Software, Nortel, O2, Openet, Oracle, Perot Systems, RedKnee, RedZinc, SAP, Satyam, Selatra, Siemens, Sun, TCD, TM Forum, TSSG, Verizon, Vodafone

All member states within the EU must implement the number 112 for emergency calls. The idea behind this is to standardise emergency calls. Furthermore, there is an enhanced version of this known as E112 that enables the emergency services to automatically obtain the caller’s location. For more details about this see 1-1-2.

I actually had a cause to use this service once when I witnessed an incident on a motorway. It seemed to work very well, because the emergency services dispatcher told me quite accuratly where I was, although she needed me to tell her which direction I was travelling.

Anyway, I read today that Bulgaria is now E112 compliant in Europe-wide emergency number is go.

Tags: Bulgaria, E112

I read an interesting article earlier in the week describing how Virgin Media has launched its new broadband service. This service will be available throughout the UK in the next six months, and it providers users with a maximum download speed of 50Mbps. This will make Virgin Media the fastest ISP in the UK.

More details about this can be read in Virgin unveils next-gen broadband.

The same article describes how BT is beginning a fibre to the cabinet trial that will provide users with speeds up to 40Mbps.

This is very interesting, because in the middle of 2007 I attended an event hosted by T-Com in Berlin. One of the topics at this event was broadband, and T-Com told us that it would have fibre to the cabinet deployed in the 50 largest cities in Germany in 2008. This would be capable of supplying 17 million homes. At that time T-Com had already installed fibre to the cabinet in the 26 largest cities in Germany, and we were shown some of the new cabinets on the streets in Berlin. It was then easy to spot these new cabinets ourselves, because they are slightly larger than the standard cabinets, and if you listen carefully you can hear the cooling equipment running inside them! T-Com were offering a triple play service of phone, television, and Internet to customers using this infrastructure. There were some BT representatives at the meeting also, and I recall them being impressed :o

Independently, it appears that Virgin Media will start traffic shaping P2P traffic next year according to Virgin Media to dump neutrality and target BitTorrent users. I wonder if the Net Neutrality war is being lost in Europe :|

Tags: BT, Germany, ISP, Net Neutrality, P2P, T-Com, Traffic Shaping, UK, Virgin