New Podcast - Impact of Latest FCC Rulings on Telecom Fraud

Telecom fraud is a secondary focus for me, but every time I go there, the rabbit holes get deeper and issues get even uglier. The engineers at Bell Labs could never have envisioned the PSTN being essentially reduced to a toxic minefield of spam and scams, first from the Internet, and more recently, AI.

This topic has no end of angles to explore, and I do that on occasion in different forums. One of them is a podcast series hosted by Caller ID Reputation (CIDR), and our latest episode is out now.

For this episode, the focus is on two recent FCC rulings to combat telecom fraud, one of which is specific to AI, where it poses a nightmarish threat to consumers if not nipped in the bud. I’m in conversation with Gerry Christensen, CIDR’s Head of Partnerships and Regulatory Compliance, and if you’re not current on this topic, I think you’ll find the podcast time well-spent - here’s the link to give it a listen.

Jeff Pulver is Back - VON Evolution, New York City

Jeff Pulver’s VON event has gone through many iterations, and if you really want to know where voice is heading, you might want to mark this on your calendar. Having tracked telephony and voice for 20+ years, I’ve seen a lot, and Jeff has a knack for being on the leading edge for what’s next.

This edition takes place at City Winery - Hudson River Park location - running Oct. 31 - Nov. 2, and all the details are here on the event site. If I’m not reason enough to come - check out the eclectic list of speakers - it’s pretty rich. :-) Would be great to see you there, and no doubt Jeff will feel the same way too.

Writing Roundup for June

Back-to-back months of hectic travel, so writing has been on the light side. Lots of new work in play, though, and over the next few days I’ll catchup on the backlog and get all of that posted. Until then, here’s a digest of my public writing from June.

Avaya ENGAGE - Takeaways for Act III, BCStrategies, June 30

SIP Trunking vs. VoIP - What’s the Difference?, TechTarget, June 15

Campaign Registry - a Higher Bar for A2P Messaging, Aizan Blog, June 9

POTS Replacement Challenges - My Latest on No Jitter

Am on a roll with my writing at the moment, including some guest posts that are coming to market around this time. My latest is on No Jitter, where the focus is on POTS replacement - something pretty much every business will have to deal with as Copper Sunset unfolds.

As you may know, switching over to VoIP for desktop telephony is fairly straightforward, and most businesses have done that already. Mission-critical applications, however, is another story - fire alarms, elevator phones, etc. - and this needs an entirely different solution.

The good news is that there are vendors with viable offerings, but they’re harder to come across than VoIP providers. Before getting to that, though, businesses need to understand the nature of mission-critical communications, and risks that arise, both for simply staying the course with POTS for as long as possible, or trying to cobble together a solution from parts unknown. That’s the gist of my story - I’m sticking to it, and I hope you read the rest here on No Jitter!

December Writing Roundup

With 2022 coming to a close, I just have one public writing piece for December, and it starts an exploration of a new topic for me - more to come in future writeups.

Telemarketing Fraud Presents an Unacceptable Risk to Businesses, No Jitter, Dec. 20

Writing Roundup - January 2022

The first month of 2022 picked up where last year left off, with plenty of work to keep me busy, along with a handful of virtual events to track. Writing output was on the light side, though, but there’s plenty new coming for February. Until then, I just have these two to share, and hope you give them a read.

The “New Age of Voice” - a Few Minutes with Analyst Jon Arnold, ISI blog, January 20

Getting Beyond Voice: Selling More and Making More with Cloud Services, Channel Futures, January 18

New Age of Voice - Guest Post for ISI

As often happens, one thing leads to another, and that’s the story here. In short, the folks at ISI liked a recent article of mine on No Jitter about the “New Age of Voice”, and they wanted to amplify some of that messaging to their customer base.

They put together a set of questions for me around that, and the result is this writeup, which is running now on their blog. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the link, and as always, comments are welcome.

Next Speaking Opp - VON3 Summit, Next Tuesday - Discount Code Here

We’re all still trapped in our virtual worlds and bubble spaces, but the work continues. For now, all the industry events are virtual - at least for me - and I’ll be speaking at one next week.

This will be for Jeff Pulver’s VON3 Summit, a re-boot of sorts for his ground-breaking VON events back in the aughts. That was a big part of my world, and pretty much anybody else in telecom, as VoIP ushered in the digital era that has revolutionized all forms of communication and beyond.

I’ll hold off on going down that important rabbit hole any further, and will instead steer you to VON3, which runs virtually next Monday-Wednesday, January 24-26. Jeff has a terrific lineup - as always - and am happy to be part of it. I’m doing a session on Tuesday the 25th at 1:50 ET, and will be joined by my long-time podcast partner, Chris Fine, and Jeff. We’ll be doing a fireside chat format where we’ll discuss the evolution of communications technology since the VON days, and what we see coming for 2022.

The overall agenda is pretty packed, not just with communications topics, but other areas of interest that are kinda/sorta related to comms, namely Web3, the Metaverse and NFTs. As always, Jeff draws a diverse crowd, and if you care to join us, details are here, both to review the agenda and to register. Any questions, just drop me a line!

UPDATE to my original post - am adding here a discount code you can use to save 13% on the registration fee - it’s VON3W22. Just apply that when registering for the price break, and if any questions, let me know.

Getting Beyond Voice: Selling Cloud Services - My Latest on Channel Futures

Time for another guest post, and some best practices for channels as they move into selling cloud services. Some are more willing/able than others, but for those who see the bigger picture beyond migrating telephony to the cloud, I think you’ll find this a good read. My analysis is running now on Channel Futures, and as always, comments are welcome.

2021 - The Year Voice Innovation Expanded - My Latest on No Jitter

We’re not done with 2021 yet, and here’s another year-in-review analysis, this time running on No Jitter. Voice has been a core theme in my work for a while, and it sure had a great year, so this piece is a good summing-up for that.

When paired with AI - as is everything else now - voice is poised for even bigger and better things, and my article hints at what’s to come. For more on that, you might want to follow here on my blog, as well as my newsletter and podcast, both of which are very easy to find on my website.

Copper Sunset - Was Guest on Channel Futures Podcast - Coffee with Craig and James

One more item to share before Thanksgiving. I was a guest on this long-running Channel Futures podcast - Coffee with Craig and James - Craig Galbraith and James Anderson. The topic was a current one for me - Copper Sunset - talking about the implications for when copper telephony networks are finally decommissioned.

I was interviewed by Edward Gately, and our conversation begins at the 8 minute mark. I hope you enjoy it, and for more on this topic, you can check out the current episode of my Watch This Space podcast.

Why the New Age of Voice Will Create New Business Value - my Latest on No Jitter

It’s been a busy month, and this is my third writeup for No Jitter during November. Well, if it’s working, keep on doing it, right? This time around, I’m writing about a central theme of mine - The New Voice - which also goes by NAOV - New Age of Voice.

Whatever you want to call it, there’s no doubt - in my mind at least - that as voice takes new forms - thanks in large part to AI - it brings new value to businesses. Telephony isn’t going away , but in this bigger world, it’s just one application for voice, rather than being the application. I’d better stop now, otherwise you won’t have a reason to read my writeup - it’s posted now, and you can read it here.

Voice - Bigger Than Ever - My Latest on No Jitter

Voice has long been one of my core focus areas as an analyst, and while it’s easy to take for granted, the technologies behind it have evolved substantially over the years. There’s still a lot of telephony-centric thinking about voice, and while that remains a valid connection, with today’s technologies, voice has become so much more.

I explored that recently with colleague Chris Fine in our History of Telephony micro-course with PulveREDU, but there are many tangents that need their own track. One is the idea that voice is bigger than ever, and while it’s a big claim, I believe it’s warranted. My latest No Jitter post helps make the case, and if this piques your interest, I’d love to hear back.

Back to School - Our First PulveREDU Course: The New Voice

Jeff Pulver is a long-time visionary, entrepreneur and community-builder in the communications technology space; especially around VoIP, which he had a direct hand in establishing as the successor to TDM. He keeps moving with the times, and PulveREDU is his latest venture. In short, he’s developed an accessible, affordable platform for learning and knowledge-sharing - think along the lines of The Learning Annex, but online.

PulveREDU’s model is to offer one-hour courses/programs, led by established experts, and at a $20 price point, it’s an affordable way to get up to speed on a topic and engage directly with the educators. This isn’t about earning credits or completing a curriculum, but it provides richer learning than just consuming content from the Web. Plus it’s live and interactive, so there’s lots of room for dialog.

The programming calendar is a work in progress, as this is still pretty new, but as the track record builds, enrollment for courses will grow, as will the roster of educators. That’s the leadup, and here’s the pitch.

Our inaugural PulveREDU course is coming soon - it runs live, on Thursday, May 13 from 11:30-12:30pm, EST. I’ll be co-presenting the course with long-time colleague and Watch This Space podcast partner, Chris Fine. Our topic is close to home for us, titled: The New Voice - Exploring New Worlds Beyond the Phone Call, and registration details are here. We really hope you’ll join us, and if you think others will be interested as well, please pass this along.

March Writing Roundup

I’m continuing to stay busy, with March being one of my strongest months ever for new business. That aside, I managed to get some writing done, and here are the highlights.

What are the Challenges of Using Multiple Team Collaboration Apps?, TechTarget, March 31

Hybrid Work - It’s Complicated, No Jitter, March 30

High Availability Direct Routing for Teams, BCStrategies, March 16

4 Ways AI in UC Boosts Collaboration, TechTarget, March 11

Microsoft Ignite - Their Vision for a Post-PC World and Teams Updates, BCStrategies, March 5

My Next Webinar with RingCentral - Video Killed the Telephone Call. Or Did It?

Busy month, and am doing another webinar with RingCentral - more specifically, their UK operations. Back in December, I did a webinar with them in the US on the topic of migrating premises-based telephony to the cloud. A lot of businesses are still in that situation, and not sure why or how they should make this change. That webinar was well-received enough to warrant doing an updated version focused on the UK market.

The webinar will be on Thursday, March 18 - right after St. Patrick’s Day - good plan, at 2pm GMT, which is 9am for me. Here’s the registration page if you’d like to join us, and if so, I’ll see you then.

Guest Spot on Rob Barlow's Unleash The Potential Video Podcast

Toronto-based Rob Barlow produces a video podcast, and last week he had me on as a guest. Rob is a long-time telecom/tech veteran, and we’ve been recently exploring ways to work together locally. Even though I’m based in Toronto, I’m less well-known in Canada than the US, so Rob asked me to explain a bit about my practice. Otherwise, we talked about how the varoius technologies I follow are shaping not just the world of work, but our daily lives.

We kinda gravitated to the “future is friendly” theme, a well-known tag line TELUS has been using in their marketing for years. The episode has been posted now to Rob’s YouTube channel, and it can also be picked up on Spotify. Hope you like it!

Voice-Enabling Microsoft Teams - the UCaaS Opportunity - My Latest Guest Post

I produce many forms of thought leadership, including guest posts on blog sites, often for vendors in our space. To be clear, I don’t write about their products - that’s not what I do - but instead focus on the business problems their customers are having, and the role that new technologies and cloud offerings can play to address them.

My latest along those lines is for SIPPIO, a company I’ve written about before. They’re doing good things in the direct routing space, especially for MSFT Teams, in partnership with AudioCodes. That’s all I have to say about that, and will now steer you to my guest post now running on their blog. It’s gated, btw, so you’ll have to fill out the reg form to get it, but it just takes a moment.

Spotlight on SBCs with Ingate - my Latest on BCStrategies

Every so often I’ll do a spotlight piece on a trend or technology, especially ones that are not well-understood. I’ve been following the session border controller space since inception - 2004 - and it falls squarely into that bucket. Ingate Systems is one of the early players, and they’re still going strong, so that makes them a good partner for this exercise, and recently I’ve been working on this with their President, Steve Johnson.

The output is a fairly long Q&A, where we discuss the evolution of SBCs, why they’re important and what to look ahead for in 2021. Our discussion has been posted now to the BCStrategies portal, where I’ve been a contributing BC Expert for ages. I hope you give it a read, and would love to hear your thoughts.

My Next Webinar with RingCentral - the Case for Cloud Telephony in 2021

Got a new webinar shout-out here - am back with another RingCentral engagement, and it’s on Tuesday, December 8 at 2pm ET.

Heading into the last month of the worst-year-ever, we’re all looking ahead to hopefully better things in 2021. For businesses still going with their premises-based phone systems - the value proposition is weakening, and with many workers happily entrenched at home, it’s going to be difficult to keep supporting them this way in the year ahead.

That’s the gist of the webinar, and I’ll be addressing it at greater length then. I’ll be joined by a RingCentral customer who will tell their story first-hand - and will update you once they’ve been added to the roster. Details are here, and if you want to join us, it just takes a moment to register.