VoIP, or voice over internet protocol, allows users to make voice calls over the internet — simple as that. www.WatchMojo.com speaks with Geek Squad at Best Buy to learn more about this technology, and how it can save us money.

Polycom announced it will demonstrate its Avaya-ready RealPresence Platform for universal video collaboration, among other telepresence and video solutions.

The open standards-based RealPresence Platform has interoperability with hundreds of UC, business and social-networking applications, the company said.

Also being showcased at the IAUG confab is Polycom’s RealPresence Mobile application, which “extends the reach of video collaboration beyond the conference room.”

The app, launched in October 2011, allows mobile device users to securely join video meetings with other standards-based video systems–including immersive theatres, conference-room systems, laptops, tablets and smartphones–in HD quality.

In a statement, Polycom said the company provides a range of Avaya-ready UC solutions, boasting of 37 Avaya DevConnect certifications in addition to open standards-based solutions tested for Avaya interoperability.

The IAUG Global Education Conference 2012 runs Sunday through Thursday at the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center in Boston.

On Tuesday, Bob Hall, Polycom’s director of Enterprise Wireless Solutions Strategic Alliances, will lead a breakout session: Improve On-the-Go Employee Workflow and Reduce Cyber Loafing – How Avaya and Polycom enterprise wireless solutions address improved mobility workflow and employee productivity.

For more:
– see the announcement

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Genachowski

Part of the administration’s Campaign to Cut Waste, the regulatory reform initiative is aimed at making the FCC’s rulemaking process more transparent, its regulatory program more effective and industry compliance less burdensome by removing unjustified regulations, streamlining procedures and ridding the FCC of counterproductive requirements that stymie economic growth and innovation.

The Final Plan for Retrospective Analysis of Existing Rules outlines the independent commission’s strategy for a prudent and rational regulatory apparatus for the telephone, broadcasting, satellite and wired communications industries the FCC oversees, and keeps with the FCC’s charge to protect consumers and ensure a competitive marketplace.

The Final Plan calls for systematic reviews of significant regulations and information-collection requirements to determine if the existing requirements have outlived their usefulness or become unfairly onerous or have unjustified costs.

“Every part of the Commission is involved in efforts to eliminate outdated regulations and to promote private investment and innovation that creates jobs and spurs economic growth,” the document reads.

The commission’s larger regulatory-reform efforts extend beyond just retrospective review.

The FCC plan indicates that to foster better outcomes in the rulemaking process, there is “early involvement” of the commission’s chief economist and FCC staff members consult with the administration’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) on best practices for cost-benefit analyses, for instance.

The FCC rule-lookback plan follows President Barack Obama’s nonbinding July 2011 executive order that independent federal agencies–such as the FCC and the Securities and Exchange Commission–join his administration’s government-wide campaign against needlessly burdensome industry mandates.

Executive Order 13579 (76 FR 41587) called on independent federal agencies to consider “how best to promote retrospective analysis of rules that may be outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them in accordance with what has been learned.”

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, said the Final Plan’s release affirms the agency’s “extensive efforts” to eliminate unnecessary regulations.

“Our commitment to smart and streamlined government is helping promote a healthy climate for private investment, innovation, and job creation, benefiting all Americans,” said Genachowski, a 2009 Obama appointee.

The FCC has long had a statutory-mandated rule-review process. Section 11(a) of the federal Communications Act (Pub.L. 73-416), as amended, requires that every two years the commission consider whether a regulation warrants revision amid changes in technology, research or market structure.

Pai

The law requires the commission “to repeal or modify any regulation it determines to be no longer necessary in the public interest as the result of meaningful economic competition between providers of such service.

Newly minted FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, a Republican, said the review should neither be done hastily nor in the usual fashion.

“In light of the importance of this comprehensive retrospective analysis, I believe that the 2012 Biennial Review should take the form of Commission-level action rather than bureau-level recommendations,” ” Pai, a former FCC deputy general counsel, said in a statement.

In its efforts to eliminate unnecessary government mandates on the communications industries, the FCC since 2009 has eliminated 219 regulations.

Among recent FCC streamlining instances noted in the Final Plan:

• Modification of Outage Reporting Requirements: The commission amended outage reporting requirements for interconnected IP-based services, citing new technologies. 
• USF Contribution Reform: On April 27, the commission adopted a proceeding to reform the contribution side of universal service. It requires telecommunications carriers and certain other providers to contribute on the basis of their end-user revenues. 
• Wireless E911 Location Accuracy: In July 2011, the commission proposed measures to improve 911 availability and location determination for users of interconnected VoIP services.    
• IP-based Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) Technological Standards: The FCC said technological advances have resulted in the migration of the majority of TRS usage from public-switched telephone network services to IP-based services.
• Docket Management: The commission amended its organizational rules to facilitate the termination of 999 dormant dockets. 

The FCC released its Preliminary Plan for Retrospective Analysis of Existing Rules in November 2011. The five-member commission is among some 30 federal agencies and departments that submitted reg-reform plans to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, following the president’s request.

For more:
- see the FCC Final Plan

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The U.S. wireline market “will increase slowly,” from revenue of $162.9 billion at the end of 2011, to $167.9 billion by the end of 2016, the Insight Research Corp. report, Telecom Services in Vertical Markets, 2011-2016, forecasts.

If Insight Research’s revenue projections hold, the telecom industry’s wireline segment will have a lackluster compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of just 0.6 percent. Meanwhile, Insight projected wireless revenues will grow 9.4 percent, to $260.6 billion, over the five-year forecast period.

U.S. businesses, this year, are projected to spend $154 billion for telecommunications services; but, by the end of 2016, revenues will have grown to $184 billion, marking just 4.8 percent growth, Mountain Lakes, N.J.-based Insight said in its report.

Analysts blamed a tepid national economy for the mediocre sector growth they’ve forecasted.

“In light of the current economic uncertainty, companies are continuing to squeeze more out of what they have on hand, choosing to buy cheaper technology less frequently,” the report reads. “This underscores the need for telecommunications carriers to abandon business models dependent on commodity offerings and move toward business models that provide services that cater to specific vertical industry needs.”

Insight’s research director, Fran Caulfield, said the U.S. telecommunications industry’s continued “modest revenue growth” driven by business Internet and mobility solutions.

“As U.S. business activity recovers, employment and network traffic increase,” she said. “In parallel, business applications shift to the cloud and end users shift to wireless access, driving higher network and wireless revenues for service providers.”    

To help jumpstart sales, the 120-page market forecast suggested the telecom industry eschew horizontal “one-size-fits-all” marketing and embrace solution-selling into vertical markets.

“Vertical marketing can open new doors, tap niche markets, and build customer loyalty,” the report said. “When telecom providers focus on vertical market solutions, they move away from the commodity-voice sale and toward higher-margin, value-added services.”

What’s more, analysts said, the vertical approach to marketing “strengthens customer loyalty” by developing closer links to a customer’s core business through product customization and support services such as documentation and training.

“Over the forecast period, an increasing percentage of the business revenue growth will come from enhanced services, often for vertical industries, as telecom providers seek to avoid damaging price competition by positioning their services as value-added solutions rather than commodities,” the report reads.

For calculations of their revenue forecasts, Insight said analysts pulled total telecom revenues, divided the sum between the business and the residential markets and then examined driving forces in each of 14 selected vertical industry markets: wholesale trade; financial, insurance, and real estate services; professional business services; and communications.

For more:
- see the release
- see an excerpt

Special Report: Enterprise Communications earnings in the first quarter of 2012

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Jones

The Minneapolis-based, privately held wholesale-services provider has a pending petition for reconsideration or clarification of the landmark 2011 USF/ICC Transformation Order.  Specifically, Onvoy’s petition relates to pre-existing VoIP-PSTN bill-and-keep interconnection agreements.

In a May 15 ex parte presentation to Wireline Competition Bureau staff, the company outlined “technical obstacles” related to implementation of bill-and-keep for intraMTA traffic exchanged between wireline LECs and CMRS providers.

Onvoy counsel Thomas Jones, in an ex parte letter, reiterated a suggested remedy.

“The Commission should permit a wireline LEC to assess originating access charges on intraMTA calls where the wireline LEC originates the call and transmits it to an unaffiliated interexchange carrier which then transmits the call to a CMRS provider for delivery to the called party,” wrote Jones, partner in the Communications, Media & Privacy Department at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

At the presentation with Jones were Onvoy Inc. president Fritz Hendricks and company general counsel Scott Sawyer. The trio met with WCB officials Victoria Goldberg, Randy Clarke and Travis Litman, FCC papers indicate.

Onvoy’s petition, filed in December 2011, asks the commission to clarify the default transitional rates adopted in the Universal Service Fund and Intercarrier Compensation (ICC/USF) Reform order do not apply to a LEC that has entered into an interconnection agreement to exchange local and toll VoIP-PSTN traffic on a bill-and-keep basis, even if that agreement contains a change-of-law provision.

The change of law in the order, they argue, ought only apply to carriers that did not have an existing agreement to exchange VoIP-PSTN traffic on a bill-and-keep basis. Moreover, allowing carriers that have been engaging traffic under bill-and-keep to begin charging higher transition default rates undermines the commission’s goals, the company said.

“The order clearly permits LECs to assess access changes for the transmission of VoIP traffic despite the face the FCC has not ruled that VoIP is a telecommunications service,” the company argued for the petition, adding that the FCC should not bar the collection of tandem switched access charges for calls to and from parties that are not purchasers of “telecommunications services.’”

The FCC Report and Order overhauling ICC/USF rules was published in the Federal Register (76 FR 73830) on Nov. 29, 2011. The rule became effective Dec. 29, 2011.

Onvoy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zayo Group Holdings, a Louisville, Colo.-based provider of bandwidth infrastructure and network-neutral colocation and interconnection services.

For more:
– see the petition
– see the ex parte presentation

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