hitting the wire*

When is YOUR Telkom number not a Telkom number…?

.... when it’s been ported.

Changing to a VoIP service provider used to mean keeping your existing Telkom lines to receive calls on the number you have always had on your business card and letterhead. That, or opting for an 087 number that half of South Africa probably still thinks belongs to a sex line. No longer. At last count 8 entities were able to port geographic numbers between each other and well over 100,000 landline numbers have been ported between traditional telcos and VoIP service providers in South Africa.

The Altech court case in 2008 that forced ICASA and the DoC’s hands, and allowed every ISP and VANS in SA to get a full telco license had major implications for the SA market that have still not percolated through to consumers. One of those rights is that of the use of a portion of the geographic number range within South Africa. ICASA are cautious about handing out geographical numbers - the remaining ranges are not large, and there are a lot of licensees out there. That is not a constraint though. Once you have a range of geographic numbers, no matter how small, you have the right to participate in Geographic Number Porting.

Most people are aware that it is possible to keep your mobile number and move to another mobile network operator. It is not as well known that the same has been true for landline numbers for some time now. You can keep your Telkom number and move to Neotel, or the likes of MWEB, IS, ECN, Switch Telecom and other alternative telco’s too.

If you’re a VoIP service provider and in possession of an I-ECS license, you should seriously consider jumping though some of the administrative and technical hoops involved to participate in Geographic Number Portability. You’ll need to make adjustments to routing and billing, you’ll need to set up the processes to interact with the Number Portability Company’s CRDB - the central register of ported numbers, which is not trivial, but…. you will find it easier to sell VoIP services AND you will benefit from interconnect revenue from Telkom! If you have a call centre or two on your VoIP service for outgoing calls and they have some significant incoming traffic, you’d need you head examined not to take a good hard look at how much extra revenue you can make from porting their Telkom numbers. [One caveat though - Smartcall numbers are not portable]

It is good to see one more shift towards a more competitive market and lower telecoms costs.

(If anyone needs guidance on the process of setting up and automating GNP - feel free to give me a call)

Telecoms

Radio over IP - recapturing the spirit of the Internet

(I'm being lazy here and reproducing the blog post I've just done for Umoya, but as there are probably a good few HTW readers who don't frequent the Umoya site, it might be the first time you see it.)

Users of the internet can thank the US military for its existence. Advanced Research Projects Agency Network or ARPANET as it was known then, was born in the early 1960’s when J.C.R. Licklider, then head of the Behavioral Sciences and Command and Control programs at ARPA, the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, set out to design and build what he termed an "Intergalactic Computer Network".

"For each of these three terminals, I had three different sets of user commands. So if I was talking online with someone at S.D.C. and I wanted to talk to someone I knew at Berkeley or M.I.T. about this, I had to get up from the S.D.C. terminal, go over and log into the other terminal and get in touch with them. I said, oh, man, it's obvious what to do: If you have these three terminals, there ought to be one terminal that goes anywhere you want to go. That idea is the ARPANET." [Bob Taylor]

It was a common myth that the architects of ARPANET set out not only to ‘bridge’ disparate computer communications systems, but to make the network resilient under disaster situations like a nuclear attack where a communications node had been destroyed. The internet protocol did provide the building blocks for creating a cheap yet resilient network, but this was not the primary aim.

Recently, Umoya was asked to consider expanding its uniti product to solve a major issue faced by Disaster Management during the Confederations Cup; that of different state agencies not being able to communicate across departments. A SAPS two-way radio mere yards away was unreachable from an EMS radio, which in turn was not compatible with a SANDF radio. Different terminals, functional silos, islands cut off from each other. Not good for effective collaboration.

Over the last few months, Umoya have successfully demonstrated a technology known as Radio over IP, where it is possible to link not only disparate radio handsets and talk-groups, but to link fixed and mobile telephones to radio talk groups. All over IP. A Disaster Management team member sitting in a Joint Operations Centre in Joburg can link a VoIP enabled netbook in George to an NSRI radio talk-group in PE and an EMS radio talk-group in Bloemfontein; using and “drag and drop” application. Not only that, but a manager in his car can monitor and participate in that conversation from his cell phone.VoIP has always had a special place in my heart for the way it is liberating the telecoms voice market. RoIP in these scenarios is for me even more exciting. Coupled with the benefits of uniti as a unified communications platform, this offering looks to add significant value in managing the 2010 Soccer World Cup more effectively.

#RadioOverIP FTW!

IT, Telecoms

Are Vodacom blocking VoIP? Nope - it's AT&T and Apple!

Warning: This is a rant.

I'm on the road today, between a client site in Westlake and the home office when I discover that Vodacom have decided I don't need to talk to anyone. I call my wife 3 times in a row to hear her repeating "HELLO?" in more and more exasperated tones while I bellow fruitlessly into my headset, then rip the headset out of the phone just in case it is on the fritz, not the network. Nada. No joy.

A colleague calls me. Same story.

So I think, no problem, I have Skype and Fring on this pocket rocket-phone, I'll just call via Skype-Out.

Yawellnofine. First this:

Which irritates me intensely, so I think maybe Fring... :

at which stage I'm beyond irritated. If they could have heard me, I'd have called 111 just to vent at them. I resort to an SMS to inform wife and colleague that I'll call when I reach a landline. By the time I'm at the office, Vodacom are allowing me to make calls which involve two-way speech again. How nice of them. They charge us far more than they should for calls, duck and dive when they're pressured to reduce prices, and then it appears they block us from making use of VoIP over 3G.

I need to look into what they're admitting to here and what right they have to do this. Probably find that hidden in their Ts&Cs they have taken the right to dictate what I may and may not do with my phone. If so, that is just wrong. #vodacom #brandfail

Update (2009/10/15)

Thanks to Tim Keller for insight into the real problem here. Typical of the arrogance displayed by the likes of Apple and AT&T, we're impacted. I'm sure Vodacom were not complaining though.

Telecoms, Telecoms

VSAT cheaper than Diginet? Surely not.

It's really cool when you discover something pleasantly surprising right under your nose.

I've just discovered that VoIP over VSAT works really well if configured properly and that VSAT could be a darn good replacement for a large Diginet network. Depending on how long you take a contract for and what you need it for, you can see significant savings like those shown below. Details here.

Done deal!

Today we received the final official unconditional approval from the Competition Commission for the Vox purchase of Storm.

From here, we wrap up retrenchment and redeployment processes and kick off integration processes and of course pay out monies owed for shares and options.

The long wait is over.

OK, so telecoms was fun... anyone for taking on Eskom? ;)

Storm sale.

OK.  I can finally say it.  We've sold.  And yes, it is to Vox.  

Mixed feelings.  A part of my soul will be forever attached to the Storm brand and I'm feeling a sense of loss.  But I'd be kidding myself to say I joined up to grow old with Storm.  I'm not a corporate man and I'm more suited to the chaos & stresses of Startup than the order and stresses of Corporate process and politics.

I have no idea where I will be in a few months time, but I'm quite comfortable with that.

One thing I can say is that I've learned that one can do a lot with a team of competent people who learn to trust each other and play to each others strengths.  Stormers are a great bunch & I salute the lot of you for getting us to this point.

ITWeb article(s)

Business Report article.

The press release from Vox:

Vox Telecom to buy Storm

It is official. Vox Telecom will buy Storm, one of its biggest rivals in the least-cost-routing and VoIP market.

Vox Telecom has announced its intention to buy Storm Telecom in a R360m deal. Storm Telecom provides telephony and internet services, including voice over IP (VoIP), least cost routing, international call-back, virtual private networks and internet access, hosting and security to medium and large-sized South African companies.

It has over 6,000 contracted customers and monthly annuity income of over R22 million.

Vox Telecom will integrate Storm’s telephony business into its subsidiary Orion Telecom, the data business into corporate ISP DataPro and the consumer ISP business into consumer ISP, @lantic Internet

“Storm is a major player in the voice and data markets, with a very strong VoIP platform and customer base,” says Vox Telecom CEO Douglas Reed.

“They also bring VoIP skills that are complementary to ours. The acquisition strengthens our stated strategy of establishing Vox Telecom as the preferred telecommunications alternative to the domestic incumbents. It will considerably improve our position in the VoIP telephony market and augment our corporate customer base profile and market share.”

“This is a very positive development for Storm’s customers as they will be able to still benefit from the current Storm services, but will have a further advantage from the economies of scale that the larger Vox Telecom group offers”, said Willem van Rensburg, CEO of Storm Telecom.

“There will be a seamless transition from a customer perspective, with the same products being supported by the merged entity, but they will also be able to take advantage of the other products and services available from Vox Telecom.”

“We continue to look for acquisitions that are strategic, accretive to earnings and allow us to improve our scale and strategic positioning in the South African telecommunications market”, says Vox Telecom Executive Chairman Tony van Marken. Storm is in our strike-zone and is an excellent fit with our existing businesses.”

Van Marken says the deal also offers “significant synergies once the businesses are integrated. Storm is a significant asset to add to the Group and will be a key contributor to future growth and earnings.”

The R360m purchase price is to be funded through a combination of debt and equity financing. The deal is still subject to approval by the Competition Commission and other regulatory bodies including the Reserve Bank and the JSE.

Watch out Yeigo, here comes Google!

It is one of those immutable laws of business.  If you charge too high a margin, even if  you have a de facto monopoly, someone is going to find a way of stealing your market.  Ask Telkom.  The likes of Storm have made a good living out doing just that!

The likes of local entrepreneurs Yeigo and UK farmboys TruPhone have been beavering away to develop the ability to do VoIP over 3G or WiFi using one a bog standard cell phone.  OK, so one of the new bog standard phones (with WiFi/3G etc), but you get my drift?

Now when the Google guys set their sights on that market, you'd better sit up and take note, I don't care who you are and how smart you are. 

CrunchGear has an article on Google wooing the mobile phone manufacturers.

I finished reading "The Google Story" yesterday; you can't help being seriously impressed with these guys.  They are aggressively innovative, irrepressibly keen to take on huge challenges and have a war chest that is rapidly making Microsoft's look commonplace!

If Google intends taking on the cellular industry with a free phone (and they have managed to make a serious amount of cash with the concept "free"!), the cellular industry and others who are challenging them better take a good hard look at the threat to their business plans.

VoIPTopia @ the June 2007 CT 27 dinner.

I was honoured to be asked by Dave Duarte to give a brief presentation at the last 27 dinner in Cape Town.   The guys from MissingLink have made a video of my 5+ minute rambling available on Youtube.  Before (& if!) you watch the clip you should know that I showed the "VoIPTopia" clip which we created for the Broadband Summit in Feb, which I posted about here.  (that is me... I've just stopped shaving so often)

The last time I watched myself on video was when I participated in a roleplay where I was a CEO of a company guilty of some disaster like a toxic chemical spill on the N1 being grilled by John Bishop (those of you younger than 40 may not recall the sharp, incisive, rather intimidating style of the man).  I won a dare & a case of cider by holding up a mini "Hi Mom" banner at the start.  Ah me, I must try and dig out the VHS clip and get it digitised.  Would be a good for a laugh I'm sure.

Henk was most amused that my notes were in the form of a mindmap - there is no way I can speak from a prepared text:

that's me.

The rise of a new breed of Service Provider.

My first job in Storm, back in the late 90's was to add a Cellular LCR (Least Cost Routing) product to the International LCR product offering Storm launched with.  We were finding that we were losing deals to the likes of Orion and Telepassport because we did not offer "savings on calls to cellular".  TimWG's words to me were something of the order of "create a cellular product for us and just make sure you don't lose us any money".

None of us saw just how big the Cellular LCR market would be.  None of us realised just  how many more cellular phones than fixed line phones there would be by now.

Cellular LCR has always been a problem for the Mobile Network Operators.  The GSM networks were traditionally designed quite "thin", with some base stations only being able to handle 8 or 16 simultaneous calls from phones "passing through".  Installations of "SIM farms" or large Cellular Fixed Terminal CPE installations had the ability to "flatten" the networks in places.  An installation at PriceWaterhouseCoopers succeeded in causing dropped calls for anyone traveling past their offices in Sandton for weeks after their LCR installation went live.  The networks ended up spending many millions of capex to cater for LCR. 

Much better money was being made in charging Telkom to terminate calls originating in Telkom's network to cell phones.  But the fear of losing the LCR SIM business (and the traffic) to the other MNO network forced Vodacom and MTN to offer the likes of Storm attractive packages.  Once the LCR market had tapered off however, we saw them beef up "off-net" call charges to try and make more margin.  We had to become smarter about how we managed our base of SIMs.

Deregulation and the legalisation of VoIP has changed all of that.  Anyone who is trying to sell you on the idea that traditional cellular LCR is here for many years and it is worth committing yourself to a long term contract is blowing smoke.  The future is in aggregating traffic using either VoIP or once it is available a mix of CPS (Carrier PreSelect) and VoIP and passing traffic over interconnects.  Renewing LCR SIMs from now on is risky business.

The way forward is with the new breed of Voice&Data Service Provider (the EC Act calls them Communication Service Providers), who are geared to make most use of the changes in technology and regulations.  You just have to take a look at the M&A activity (traditional data guys buying voice guys, vice versa, and the likes of Vodacom starting their own ISP) to realise what Storm did years ago - the future is in IP.  LCR will be around for a while yet, unless either DoC or ICASA force some unwise and rather radical changes to interconnect rates.  The UK has one of the most competitive telecoms markets around, and cellular LCR is still alive with the likes of Westlake and True Communications.

Peter Walsh of DataRoom has written a good article on LCR on MyDigitalLife - worth a read if you're interested in a balanced outlook on this market.

More on "Unbundling the Local Loop" (ULL)

According to Tim (Storm's joint CEO), it was while listening to a story on bipolar mania on Cape Talk that Lindsay from Cape Talk called him to ask him if he'd be prepared to go on air with Mike Wills (no, I'm not mistaken - he really was on air - standing in for John Maytham).  Tim deftly tossed the ball to the first person he thought of... me.  So, while preparing to recount my lifelong experience with bipolar mania, I was somewhat flummoxed to have Mike Wills announce he wanted me to explain what "unbundling the local loop" was!

(ok, I jest - at least about the being flummoxed part - Tim would be quite adept at talking about mania's of any sort! ;)  More of that I am sure when his own blog goes live (oops... there goes the cat!)

Here is a copy of the interview if you're interested.

And I sincerely trust, Mr Halse, that I'm more coherent here than I was in the Business Day article!

That's me. More or less unbundled.