Richard Martin's recent review of the Nokia N95 was very interesting. It showed how the latest offering from Nokia has probably out "Apple-ed" Apple's iPhone and made the first move into high end smart phone space. From the review, it appears that all the N95 does not do is wash your car.... Too bad I'm only up to the E62... :)

However, it appears that not everyone is a fan of the capabilities of this product. It appears that European carriers are disabling the wireless VoIP (wVoIP) functionality on their subsidized N95 handsets. While I would not begrudge any firm from supporting (via subsidy) a technology that would undermine their core revenue stream; the statements from the European carriers about proper testing do not ring true. Perhaps this is an example of wireless providers getting a taste of what wireline providers have experienced for a while with VoIP via landline....

Technorati Tags: Richard Martin, wVoIP, wireless voice over IP, Nokia N95

Coming to you "live" from a rainy Chicago and the 2007 Billing World Conference. This year's conference theme is "orchestration". This orchestration can take the shape of:

• Migrating from voice to non-messaging data services for wireless providers


• Introducing/enhancing telephony services for cable providers


• Moving from a voice only provider to a triple or quad play organization for wireline

An interesting observation from the first day of the day was the number of larger telecom players. They were relatively quiet. However, the number of smaller and/or international service providers was quiet impressive. Many looking to extend their "next generation" services to compete, or at least keep pace, with the expectations of their customers. These customer are no longer simply "rural" customers or "cable" customer. But instead rather savvy consumers of telecom services.

Technorati Tags: Billing World

An April article by Robert Hertzberg highlights an issue that I wrote about recently. Hertzberg looks at the Baseline Magazine Top 100 "Smartest" US Companies. These 100 companies are ranked by their value by employee. However, of these 100 companies, only two would be considered telecommunications service providers by my definition: Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio. It is interesting that none of the traditional telecommunications service providers, large or small, were included on this list.

The article notes that the effective use of business intelligence is a key to the success of the firms on the Baseline Top 100. It appears that none of the traditional telecommunications firms are utilizing business intelligence to a sufficient extent to make the list.... Or the "knowledge value per employee" metric could be biased toward smaller, high market capitalization firms, like real estate investment firms. However, since the metric used attempts to mitigate forces that would favor a particular type of firm, telecommunication service providers should seriously consider benchmarking themselves against these firms to determine areas for improvement in their business intelligence efforts.

Technorati Tags: Robert Hertzberg, Baseline Magazine, Top 100 Smart List

Vonage has taken a lot of lumps recently. And this post is not intended to continue the beating.... However, I found an interesting article from Cassimar Medford about how the Vonage legal decisions could have an adverse impact on venture capital funding for VoIP companies.

In an era where Wall Street dislikes, even discourages, investment in untested, new ideas; I found the concept that venture capital financing of VoIP improvements could "chill" the development of VoIP or at least the public development of VoIP. I would guess that Google and Skype will continue their developments, but VoIP's development could be slowed considerably if different forms of investment, and associated research, are not made available.

Technorati Tags: Cassimar Medford, VoIP, Vonage, Venture Capital Investment

This probably only interests me. However, as I was watching the Sopranos recently, I noticed an interesting shot across the bow of Verizon when Tim Daly's character was mocking the reliablity of his Verizon Wireless voicemail during last week's episode.

Now, as most people know, HBO Mobile and the Sopranos are only available from Cingular. However it seems odd that David Chase who produces the Sopranos would take such an obvious "Sprint Nextel"-esqe shot at a "sponsor's" competitor during a show.... Sell a book, CD, DVD, etc; that's all well within the HBO way of doing things, but not an on-air shot.

Then again, the Sam Adams logo was prominently displayed in Tony's "Bada Bing" office where I would swear I have never seen it before.... :) Perhaps there have been a lot of changes for the last season.

Technorati Tags: Sopranos, Verizon, Cingular, David Chase, HBO