Verizon Could Get $1.6 Billion in Senate Stimulus Plan

By SAUL HANSELL

UPDATE: Verizon has posted its thoughts on the broadband stimulus on its policy blog.

Four words buried in a provision to help subsidize high-speed Internet service contained in the latest Senate version of the economic stimulus legislation could mean hundreds of millions of dollars a year in tax credits for Verizon Communications, according to telecommunications analysts.

Indeed, John Hodulik, an analyst with UBS Securities, said the provision might give Verizon $1.6 billion in credits in the next two years, even if it does not hire one more person than it currently plans to do.

At issue is the part of the stimulus package meant to bring fast Internet connections to rural and low-income areas. The House bill that passed Wednesday provided $6 billion in grants to broadband projects. The latest Senate bill increases those grants to $9 billion.

Most significantly, the bill before the Senate also includes tax credits for investment in broadband services to low-income neighborhoods, rural areas and places that don’t have any providers of high-speed Internet service.

Companies would get a 20 percent tax credit on investments made on “current-generation” broadband — with speeds of at least 5 megabits per second — in “unserved areas” and 10 percent for investment in low-income and rural areas.

“Next-generation broadband” service — at least 100 megabits per second — also gets a 20 percent credit for unserved, low-income and rural areas. But further down in the bill sits a significantly expanded definition of what sort of customers can be served by a company that qualifies for the tax credit:

A qualified subscriber, with respect to next generation broadband services, means any nonresidential subscriber maintaining a permanent place of business in a rural, underserved, or unserved area, or any residential subscriber.

Jessica Zufolo, an analyst with Medley Global Advisors, said that last phrase–”or any residential subscriber” — means that a company could receive the tax credit for service to any home, whether or not it is in a rural, low-income, or unserved area.

Moreover, right now Verizon’s FiOS service, which runs fiber optic cables to customers’ homes, is by far the largest provider of Internet service that meets the 100 megabits-per-second hurdle.

“On first blush it appears that this will be very beneficial to Verizon,” Ms. Zufolo said.

AT&T and the smaller phone companies generally don’t have technology that meets the 100 megabit-per-second threshold, she said. New technology known as Docsis 3.0 will allow Comcast and some other cable operators to qualify for the credit.

“This is an incentive to get cable companies to deploy Docsis faster,” she said.

Verizon has said it hopes to expand FiOS to three million more customers this year, and another three million in 2010. Mr. Hodulik, the UBS analyst, said he estimates that Verizon will spend $4 billion a year on capital expenses to build out FiOS. And thus it might well qualify for as much as $800 million a year in tax credits, even if it doesn’t change its plans. Mr. Hodulik, however, said that the tax credits might well encourage the company to accelerate its plans and run FiOS past more homes over the next two years.

Even if the tax credits are not given for service to all residential homes, Verizon still stands to be a big winner, according to an analysis by David Burstein, the editor of DSL Prime, an industry newsletter. Many of the homes that Verizon is set to wire for FiOS over the next few years are in neighborhoods in New York, Washington and other cities that qualify as low-income areas. Moreover, he estimated that Verizon might benefit from some of the grants meant to subsidize the expansion of wireless data services.

A Verizon spokesman declined to comment on the potential tax credit. On a conference call with investors on Tuesday, Dennis F. Strigl, Verizon’s president, said the company preferred to see the stimulus in the form of tax credits than grants, particularly if the grants include additional requirements. (He didn’t mention the network neutrality rules by name.) Mr. Strigl:

What we like are things like depreciation and tax policy. What we probably don’t like are grants that have a lot of government conditions on them. So given those two benchmarks so far the dialogue has been pretty good and we will continue to comment on that. I think as you look at our company we have made a lot of investments in broadband and what we don’t want to see is additional government regulation on any new broadband that would have any sort of backward looking impact on the company.

The changes to the broadband part of the Senate stimulus bill were spearheaded by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Mr. Rockefeller has long advocated for expanded broadband service to rural areas. Verizon is the dominant phone company in his state.

The Senate proposal also would not ban Verizon, or any other company benefiting from the credit, from discriminating against certain uses of their Internet service, a principle often called network neutrality. Recipients of those grants would be required to follow network neutrality principles outlined by the Federal Communications Commission.

Barack Obama campaigned for president on a pledge to enforce network neutrality, but telecommunications companies object to the idea as an unneeded restriction on their business and would impose a potentially less stringent test that the recipients meet “nondiscrimination” rules created by the commission. Those tax credits don’t impose any requirements for network neutrality or nondiscrimination.

35 Million Netbook Shipments Expected in 2009: An Era Begins

NEW YORK - January 26, 2009	Contact: Christine Gallen Contact PR www.abiresearch.com
The time is right for the netbook. According to analysts at ABI Research, a confluence of social and technological factors has created a kind of “perfect storm” that will lead to a market explosion for netbooks over the next few years. The firm forecasts worldwide shipments of nearly 35 million this year, rising to an estimated 139 million in 2013.   Practice director Kevin Burden describes this evolution: "PDA’s began our reliance on instant accessible data while traveling. When PDA functionality converged with cellular voice, smartphones became the new darling of mobile professional technology that many expected to evolve into the hub for all data and communication needs for travelling professionals. Today, with a better understanding for what a smartphone is, is not, and may never be, along with a reality check on the usefulness of UMPCs, the market remains open for new device types."   Smartphones did a lot to raise our comfort level with mobile technology as well our expectations for how connected we could be and how accessible information and data should be while on the road. Enter the netbook with its light-weight, medium-sized form factor and low-cost processors leading to moderate overall price points may finally have “right-sized” mobile technology for productive travels.   While the advent of low-cost, power stingy x86 and ARM processors were the technical keys to netbooks, Burden argues that industry and consumer expectations also needed to evolve before netbooks would meet market acceptance. "In recent years, the industry still expected the smartphones to be more than they turned out to be, and most recently, MIDs were thought to be the next big mobile devices segment, but an unclear usage model continues to confuse the market. So today, netbooks’ time has come, and ABI research expects them to enjoy very strong market growth."   ABI Research’s “Mobile Devices Annual Market Overview” delivers an integrated view of the mobile devices market and examines the unique market aspects of individual device form factors, including mobile handsets, ultra mobile devices, broadband-enabled consumer electronics and cellular modems. It includes detailed shipment and revenue forecasts, and is a component of the firm’s Mobile Devices Research Service.

AT&T earnings dip 23.6 percent - Growth with wireless, U-Verse

Posted by Marguerite Reardon

AT&T, the nation's largest phone company, reported Wednesday that its earnings for the fourth quarter fell 23.6 percent year over year, amid a tough economic climate.

The company said it earned $2.4 billion, or 41 cents per share, during the fourth quarter, compared with $3.14 billion, or 51 cents per share, during the same period a year ago. Revenue increased 2.4 percent year over year to $31.1 billion, which was slightly short of analyst expectations of about $31.3 billion.

Even though AT&T saw strong growth in its wireless business and IP data business, it also spent more on operations. AT&T's adjusted operating expenses for the fourth quarter totaled $24.5 billion compared with $23.1 billion a year ago. Its adjusted operating income was $6.6 billion, versus $7.3 billion. And the company also saw its operating income margins fall to 21.1 percent compared with 24 percent.

AT&T announced in December plans to cut 12,000 workers, or about 4 percent of its workforce, in an effort to reduce costs.

"Despite the economic environment, we grew revenues in 2008, and I expect 2009 will be another year of overall revenue growth and solid progress for our company," Randall Stephenson, AT&T's chief executive officer, said in a statement. "Looking ahead, while we are cautious about the economic environment, AT&T is well positioned with a strong balance sheet and premier operational assets, and I am very confident in our ability to execute."

The biggest growth engine for the company was once again its wireless business. Its total revenue for wireless grew 13.2 percent compared with the same quarter a year ago to $12.9 billion. Wireless service revenue, which excludes handset and accessory sales, grew 13.3 percent to $11.5 billion.

Much of this growth was driven by new customers. During the quarter, AT&T added 2.1 million new subscribers, including 1.9 million new iPhone users. AT&T now has a total of 77 million wireless subscribers, an increase of 7 million subscribers for the year.

The company increased its "postpaid" (as opposed to prepaid) customers by 13.9 percent versus the same quarter last year. And it reduced its churn rate to 1.6 percent, down from 1.7 percent for both the preceding quarter and the year-earlier fourth quarter.

1.9 million new iPhone 3G subscribers
But the real highlight of the quarter in wireless was the addition of the 1.9 million new Apple iPhone 3Gsubscribers. AT&T reported that about 40 percent of these customers were new to AT&T, proving that the iPhone has helped greatly in attracting new customers. Apple launched the iPhone 3G in July.

Over the past two quarters, AT&T says it has activated 4.3 million iPhones. The iPhone deal is proving to be lucrative as the company also reported that the average revenue per user for iPhones is 1.6 times higher than with other AT&T products. The churn rates are also significantly lower than the company's overall postpaid subscriber base, the company said.

While adding new iPhone customers in the long run is good for AT&T's business, in the short term it costs the company money because AT&T subsidizes each unit by hundreds of dollars. It recoups the cost of the phone in service fees over the two-year contract of the phone. AT&T is the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone.

80 billion text messages
Overall, AT&T also saw strong growth in data revenue for wireless, which increased 51.2 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2007.

AT&T wireless customers sent nearly 80 billion text messages in the fourth quarter, more than double what they sent during the same quarter a year earlier.

Internet access revenue and multimedia message volumes also continued their robust growth. Wireless data revenue grew 51.2 percent to $3.1 billion, year over year. AT&T noted that the fourth quarter marked the 12th consecutive quarter that wireless data revenue grew at a rate above 50 percent.

Data represented 26.6 percent of AT&T's fourth-quarter wireless service revenue, up from 19.9 percent in the year-earlier quarter.

More than 1 million U-Verse subscribers
AT&T also saw strong growth in its U-Verse broadband and TV service. AT&T added a total of 264,000 new TV subscribers in the fourth quarter, up from 232,000 added in the third quarter of 2008. The company now has more than 1 million subscribers for this service.

AT&T's U-Verse broadband service also helped push growth in the company's IP data services. In total, AT&T grew its consumer IP data revenue, which includes broadband and AT&T U-Verse services, by 21.4 percent.

AT&T executives are hosting a conference call at 7 a.m. PST to discuss results. Stay tuned for an updates.

Bad News: Corning Cutting 3,500 Jobs; Good News: Cheaper TVs

from GigaOM by Om Malik

 Corning, the company that makes the key component (glass) for LCD and plasma screens, today posted its fourth-quarter 2008 results, which included revenues of $1.1 billion and earnings per share of 13 cents, much lower than what Wall Street was expecting. Telecommunications segment sales — the company makes optical fiber, amongst other things — came in at $405 million, down 18 percent sequentially. For those reasons, Corning says it will cut 3,500 jobs, or 13 percent of its work force, by the end of the year. Blame it on a 35 percent decline in LCD volumes that are likely to fall by another 20-25 percent in the first quarter of 2009. Corning sees a further decline in LCD prices — good news to anyone who has money to spend on a big-screen TV. Now’s the time to negotiate for even further discounts, for every manufacturer is trying to clean out their excess TV inventories.

Verizon Reports Largest FiOS Additions To Date

DSL losses compensated by strong FiOS quarter...
08:34AM Tuesday Jan 27 2009 by Karl Bode

Verizon lost 96,000 DSL customers last quarter for a number of reasons, not least of which are the recession, housing bubble and tight household budgets. Not helping much was the fact that Verizon had been diverting a lot of DSL marketing and support resources for promoting FiOS. Also not helping is the fact that Verizon's fastest speed in many markets remains just 3Mbps, and customers in these areas have been defecting to cable. While Verizon's FiOS and wireless businesses are doing well, their DSL business has been hit hard.

To counter this, Verizon has started pushing DSL a little harder. Last October, Verizon upgraded their entry-level DSL tier to 1 Mbps downstream and 384 kbps upstream -- up from 768 Kbps/128 Kbps. The telco also revamped their bundles slightly for the 1Mbps, 3Mbps and 7Mbps tiers, reducing double and triple play pricing anywhere from $5 to $30, depending on what services and speeds users chose.

Earlier this month, Verizon again started offering DSL pricing for life -- a concept they offered for a while back in 2007. According Verizon, (see press release), new Verizon customers who sign a two year contract keep their pricing for as long as they keep the service. Obviously the usefulness of this promotion is limited if DSL prices drop, or if you're able to get better deal by renegotiating one year deals (which is often the case) or switching carriers.

So are the new promotions helping Verizon's DSL numbers? Not so much. But it may not matter. The company released their fourth quarter earnings today which indicate the company lost 68,000 DSL customers. However, Verizon's investment in FTTH is more than offsetting those losses -- the telco adding 282,000 new FiOS customers and/or 303,000 FiOSTV customers, giving Verizon a total of 8.9 million broadband customers. The FiOS numbers are surging because of Verizon's recent ability to more efficiently deploy FiOS to apartment buildings.

Of course things are looking even brighter for Verizon once you include their wireless division, now buoyed by the addition of Alltel subscribers. Not including Alltel users, Verizon added 1.4 million wireless subscribers on the quarter.

Latest FCC report shows broadband competition flourishing

Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2009-01-23 12:57

Lost in the news over the last week was the FCC release of important facts about the status of US broadband competition -- that are exceptionally relevant to the net neutrality/open Internet debate -- a debate which is essentially over whether or not to replace competition policy with regulation because not enough broadband competition has developed.

The FCC released, several months late, the FCC's biennial report on high speed Internet progress through 2007. 

First, the latest FCC data belie the net neutrality charge that broadband competition is not working. (see Table 4 Residential Advanced Services Lines) In 2007:

• Mobile wireless broadband lines grew by 6.4m lines or 237%;
• Fiber broadband lines grew by .9m lines or 121%;
• Cable modem broadband lines grew by 4.2m lines or 14%; and
• DSL broadband lines grew by 3.7m lines or 19%.

Second, to put this broad intermodal growth in context, the report records data that:

• Puts the US leading the world in cable modem broadband users, because the US is the only nation in the world that has a competing nationally deployed wireline broadband infrastructure.
• The report also records data that puts the US leading the world in deployment of fiber connections, because most of the rest of the world, particulary Europe, heavily price regulate legacy copper plant as a monopoly thus discouraging intermodal competition and broadband deployment of fiber, cable, satellite and wireless technologies. 
• The report also records data that shows the US leads the world in wireless broadband, an amazing competitive success story that I will write about more soon.

Bottom line: 

To the extent that the net neutrality/open Internet debate is based on real facts and real directions in broadband competition, there is precious little factual evidence warranting that the FCC, Congress and the Nation abandon the highly-successful competition policies that are in place -- for the completely unproven case that a competitive market cannot provide an open Internet as embodied in the FCC's net neutrality principles.   

The Rebirth of "Web TV"

from ReadWriteWeb by Sarah Perez

One of the most apparent trends from this month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), was the proliferation of flat panel, internet-connected TVs. Nearly every major television manufacturer was demonstrating some sort of web-to-TV integration, including sets that offered Yahoo widgets, MySpace social networking, and Netflix built directly into the TV sets themselves. This isn't the "Web TV" of days past, but a whole new way to internet-enable the living room. This is the year of the "connected TV."

This Isn't Your Parents' Web TV

Remember Web TV? It's still around, believe it or not, now rebranded as MSN TV. With a set-top box and keyboard, you can browse the web from the comfort of your couch. For whatever reason, it didn't take off. From personal experience at, after some initial oohs and aahs, our household quickly grew bored with our Web TV box. If you used the service, too, you probably felt the same.

Why didn't it work? Perhaps people didn't really want to use a keyboard in their living room. Or perhaps it just launched too soon. Its heyday was in the 1990's, a time when there wasn't as much compelling content to view. This was long before the launch of sites like YouTube and Hulu. Because of this and more, Web TV never became the revolution that it intended to be.

But today we're seeing a new attempt to revive the the goal of bringing the "internet to your living room." Instead of Web TV, what we're seeing instead are televisions being dubbed "connected TVs."

The New Connected TV

Sans set-top box, these new "connected" TVs have all the web-enabling components built right in. This apparently is what will be the reason for their success this time around...if you believe the hype.

One of the better integrations involves Netflix's deal with Korea's LG Electronics, Inc.Their partnership which will deliver a new line of high-def TVs with the Netflix service built directly into the set itself. With 12,000 titles to choose from at launch, this connected TV is one that's sure to become quite popular if the company can get the pricing right.

Other TV manufacturers including Samsung, Sony, LG, and VIZIO introduced sets with Yahoo widget technology integrated into their products. These widgets don't just provide Yahoo content like Sports and News, but rather deliver a platform on which widgets can be built. Says Yahoo, their platform allows developers to extend their "brand, services, and content" to new users by creating TV widgets using Yahoo's Widget Engine.

Yahoo Widget Engine, Now for the TV

The Yahoo Widget Engine evolved from the Konfabulator platform, a product that delivered some of the very first web-enabled apps that floated on your computer's desktop. These widgets give you quick access to information and news which you can see without having to keep a browser window open.

Now those same web-enabled widgets can be ported over to digital TVs. The Widget Engine provides an entry-level framework and Widget Development Kit (WDK) which allows developers to code for the constrained hardware capabilities of these new connected TVs. In addition, Yahoo's Widget Channel API will provide access to internet technologies including Konfabulator's JavaScript and XML as well as HTML.

There are already a few Yahoo! TV widgets available now and several more have been announced ascoming soon. In the upcoming section, widgets from Showtime, Netflix, Blockbuster on Demand, CinemaNow, The New York Times, USA Today Sports, CBS Fantasy Football, Rallypoint Fantasy Sports, Acedo Funspot Games, Flickr, and, of course, Yahoo (News, Weather, Finance, and Video), have been announced.

Twitter from Your TV

Lest we forgot: there will also be a Twitter widget available. That widget alone could usher in a whole new area of interactive television. As we've already seen on channels like CNN, some reporters are currently using Twitter to gather real-time information about events from TV viewers. Imagine how many more people could participate if Twitter was enabled on the television itself. Outside of news, other shows could potentially use Twitter for entertainment purposes, enabling a live back channel where you could Twitter your thoughts or questions about the content you were viewing.

MySpace Brings Social Networking to the TV

Among the widgets available today, Yahoo has announced an eBay widget, a CBS Entertainment widget, and a MySpace widget. It's the MySpace one that's garnered the most press so far as it will enable two-way interaction with the social network and your friends while watching TV.

MySpace widget users will be able to receive dynamic updates from friends, read and respond to messages, browse friends' profiles, photos, and requests, and see status and mood updates. It takes the solitary act of watching TV and turns it into what could be a more social experience. It's easy to imagine groups of friends watching shows together, messaging each other throughout the viewing.

The MySpace widget, like several others, will be ad-supported. That raises the question if these new widgets could become a source of advertising revenue for content producers. As more people time shift TV shows for later viewing, skipping through the commercials with their remote, TV shows' advertising revenues have been affected. Now, TV networks could easily create and deliver widgets for their most popular shows, letting fans interact with each other whenever they watched, as they do on the numerous forum-like TV message boards found across the internet today.

Of course, we could be getting ahead of ourselves here with that last idea - nothing of the sort has been announced. Still, we think it would be a great idea. (Who wouldn't want to join a live backchannel of ABC's "Lost", for example? What is that smoke monster?)

Will Connected TVs Succeed?

Will the new internet-connected TVs work where Web TV failed? It's possible. For one thing, this time we're not just transplanting the internet in its entirety to the living room, where many people already stash their netbooks and notebooks for the quick Google search or email check during their TV viewing.

Instead, the TV experience is simply being enhanced by the web-enabled technologies - which you can choose to use or not use as you wish. If you're just relaxing, you may want to just enjoy the normal passive TV experience. But for certain events - favorite shows, sports, breaking news - you may choose to interact with others via the widgets over social media like MySpace and Twitter. Other widgets like News and Entertainment listings will also be convenient ways to get bite-sized information without having to pull out the computer.

The key point here with these new connected TVs is that the widgets don't interrupt what people think of as the "TV experience." Explains Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist and director of the user experience group in Intel's digital-home group, people have extremely strong bonds to their TV sets. "Any effort to add internet content needs to be just as simple and not interfere with the experiences and behavior patterns the users enjoy." What that means, she says, is that the interaction needs to take place using a conventional remote control - not a computer keyboard or on-screen web browser.

The only question that remains is whether people will buy a new TV just for the widgets? Probably not. This is a fun addition, but not a major technology breakthrough like HDTV. Still, if you're out shopping for a new TV anyway, a connected TV may certainly make your list as one of the sets to consider.

HD roundup on the floor of CES 2009

from Engadget by Darren Murph

CES 2009 didn't seen any new size records in terms of diagonal size, but it was still a huge year for high-def. 3D was absolutely everywhere, Blu-ray players were impossible to miss and the internet finally found its way to the HDTV. For a look at all of the hands-on coverage that didn't make it over on this side of the slate, wade through the links below to get caught up.

Read - Engadget HD podcast: CES edition
Read - XStreamHD still kicking, showing off updated hardware
Read - WirelessHD hands on & recklessly-interfering
Read - Live from the '09 BDA press conference
Read - Sling Monitor in-home placeshifter hands-up
Read - TrueHD on an HTPC caught in action
Read - Eyes on Memorex's new MVBD-2520 Blu-ray player
Read - DISH Network ViP 922 HD DVR hands-on and video
Read - Hands-on with ZeeVee's ZvPro and ZvBoxPLUS
Read - Hands on with Dynaudio's updated Focus 220 II loudspeakers
Read - Video: Windows Media Center 7 with touch interface

Live from Palm's CES press conference

Joshua Topolsky, posted Jan 8th 2009 at 2:01PM

12:09PM And that's that! Keep your eyes peeled -- we will have a lot more on this later. (Full Coverage)

Exclusive: New Palm Phone to Have Slide-down Keyboard, Large Touchscreen

 We have information from a trusted source that the latest Palm smartphone running the Nova operating system will be launched Thursday. The new phone will have a full QWERTY keyboard that will slide down under a portrait-oriented touchscreen. This only a mock-up based on information received. The new operating system is described as "amazing" and there will be a full software bazaar on launch. It will have media playback functions along with standard Palm calendar, email, and contact functionality.

Dell Adamo and Sony Vaio Pocket look to spice up the laptop market

Sat, Jan 03, 2009
Victor Godinez   

The Adamo and the Vaio Pocket aren't really aiming at the same market -- the ultra-thin Adamo seems to be Dell's answer to Apple's slender MacBook Air and the Vaio Pocket is a netbook a la Eee PC -- but together they mark the latest proof that laptops are where the action is in the computer biz these days.

The base version of the Adamo looks to cost about $1500, with additional options such as a Blu-ray (you know, Steve Jobs' famous "bag of hurt"). So far there are no pics of the device, but an official unveil is expected at CES.

The Vaio Pocket is much less mysterious, thanks a variety of leaks from Sony. The extra-wide device will sport an 8-inch screen with 1600x768 resolution and come with the ever-popular Intel Atom processor. Price looks to be about $1000, which is pricey for a netbook. So Sony appears to be cornering/creating the "premium" netbook niche.

It's no surprise that computer markets are focusing their attention on laptops these days, as sales of laptops worldwide are now bigger than global sales of traditional desktops.

So expect CES to be very laptop-centric when the show kicks off on Thursday.

VoIP: Dead or Alive?

For past days, the VoIP community has been indulging in a bit of soul searching. The debate — is VoIP dead? To pragmatists such as Alec Saunders the answer is yes. In his well reasoned polemic, 2008: the year VoIP died, Alec succinctly writes, “Voice over IP is just a transport and signaling technology. It’s plumbing.” Harsh, but true!

Of course, on the other side of debate are folks such as Jeff Pulver and Jon Arnold, both with deep interests in the success of VoIP seem to think that VoIP is in for a renaissance. Pulver argues that we are going through Internet Communications Continuum, or “the continued evolution of the IP Communications Industry. In my case, this continuum represents all forms of IP Communications, including: VoIP, Instant Messaging, Presence, IP Signaling, Internet TV, Unified Communications, Social Media and more.”

They continue to think of VoIP as a revolution. Reality is more mundane and as Alec said, boring. Where do we come out on this debate? On the side of realism. About two months ago, Ian Bell on our behalf analyzed the state of VoIP and why it was “dead.” We were egged on by some comments made by Skype General Manager of Voice and Video Jonathan Christensen at an industry conference a few weeks ago.

Towards the end of that post, Ian pointed out that the current spate of problems facing the VoIP sector was lack of imagination on part of the industry because it went “after low-hanging fruit and forcing their innovations to be defined within the walls of the PSTN.” It is not just the failed voice service providers who took the easy way out, but also the so called social voice innovators.

My friend, Daemon sees a lot of hope in the new services that are emerging, but I remain skeptical. Not because I am a hater. Far from it. It is just that the VoIP landscape is littered with carcasses of companies that represented mediocrity and marginal ideas. While there is some hope on the horizon, but again we have been fooled before.