Voice over IP

VoIP News Briefs - November 11 , 1999

• New end-to-end turnkey solution
• Ready for IP over Voice?
• NetSpeak earnings up (but still in the red)
• Look for more Voice over Broadband
• Spending on VoIP expected to skyrocket

by Gerry Blackwell

New Kid on the Block
Hypercom Corp. and Inter-Tel Inc., both established VoIP players, have joined forces to form a new company, Cirilium Corp., which will offer end-to-end turnkey VoIP solutions for carriers and ISPs.

Hypercom brings to the table gateway platforms, voice processing, and elecronic payment solutions, among other assets. Inter-Tel, contributes call processing software, gatekeeper functionality, pre- and post-paid billing and more.

In its first public performance, at ISPCON in San Jose last month, the new company demonstrated that the technologies from its parents—both standards-based—can in fact interoperate. Well done.

Mind you, we thought various components working together was kind of a minimum qualification for a turnkey system.  [Return to top]

Turning the Tables
Vocalis Limited, a UK company, launched an intriguing new take on Internet voice at ISPCON in San Jose last month—e-mail and Web browsing by phone. Sort of IP over voice.

Sometimes you can't get to a computer or Internet connection. With Vocalis's SpeechMail, ISPs can offer subscribers a service that lets them call in on a regular voice phone and collect e-mails.

The SpeechMail gateway uses speech-to-text technology to read messages over the phone. Some unified messaging vendors already include this service as part of their offerings, but Vocalis believes its product will be an easier sell to ISPs.

The company's other product may be of interest to ISPs offering hosting services to commercial customers. With SpeechHTML, Web site owners can let customers call in and have Web page text content read over the phone. [Return to top]

When Do We Start Making Money At This?
NetSpeak Corp., one of the pioneers of VoIP, continues to bleed red ink, like a lot of VoIP vendors.

Netspeak recently announced a big jump in revenues—$2 million for the third quarter ended September 30, 1999, up from $800,000 for the same quarter a year ago and $1 million in 2Q99.

But it also declared a net loss for the quarter of $2.5 million, or $0.19 per share. That's down from a year ago, though, when the company lost $4.4 million in the third quarter.

So are investors getting restless? Not a bit. The company's stock, traded on NASDAQ, has been trending up. Wall Street apparently believes VoIP companies can do no wrong.  [Return to top]

Voice Over Cable: Can ISPs Play?
Black Hills FiberCom, a cable television and telephone services company in South Dakota, recently began field trialing IP-based, multiline, voice-over-broadband gear from TollBridge Technologies Inc..

The technology will let Black Hills deliver toll-quality T1 and channelized voice over its existing fiber and coaxial cable backbone. The company plans to roll out voice-over-cable services in early 2000.

This news nugget, one of several recently suggesting voice over broadband will be the next big thing in VoIP, would not normally be of much interest to ISPs—except for a recent decision by The St. Louis Board of Aldermen.

The city fathers of St. Louis voted 20-7 to require AT&T to open its broadband cable networks to competing ISPs.

Now, Missouri is a long way from South Dakota, but it looks like the cable monopoly may be breaking down. And lots of other cable companies are testing or deploying voice over broadband.  [Return to top]

How Big a Piece Do We Get?
They're not exactly the first to make this kind of prediction, but the folks at Killen & Associates, a Palo Alto Calif. market research firm, confirmed recently that offering VoIP services might make you rich.

A new Killen report predicts 30 million small and medium enterprises worldwide will spend $8.1 billion for IP voice services by 2003.

The same user companies, plus carriers, will spend another $5.5 billion for equipment to implement IP voice during the same period, the study says.

And that doesn't take consumers into account.  [Return to top]

—End