RCR Wireless News

Wireless VoIP good for fixed environment, lags for mobile apps
By Heather Forsgren Weaver

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A telecom engineer asked recently whether Voice over Internet Protocol is real? The answer is yes, and it even comes in different flavors.

One flavor is moving from a mobile-phone environment to a broadband environment using the same handset, without dropping the call. This flavor is not here yet but is expected within the next year.

"In the next year we will see a combined VoIP and wireless phone. A cordless VoIP phone using home broadband that becomes a mobile wireless phone away from the home," said Steven Lamont of Accenture.

A similar scenario can be accomplished using an unlicensed wireless local area network, such as the one marketed by Airespace Inc.

"It really gets exciting when you have dual handsets that can roam-switching from a paid mobile infrastructure to an internal 802.11 infrastructure," said Jeff Aaron, Airespace senior manager for product marketing. "One of the reasons could be building coverage so one of the advantages in using 802.11 is the access points. To help avoid interference, we have built-in real-time radio-frequency management to change channels. RF is extremely huge for VoIP."

The second flavor uses VoIP service on a laptop. A broadband connection is necessary for VoIP, but that broadband connection doesn't necessarily have to be Wi-Fi, a cable modem or a digital subscriber line. But like those other environments, you better stay put if you want it to work well, said Bruce Gustafson, director of strategic marketing of wireless networks for Nortel Networks.

"Taking VoIP as it is done in the wireline world but using wireless instead of cable and DSL-that is certainly already being done. The limitations are full wireless mobility. You can use that in Starbucks but not riding in a cab. IP can handle mobility in a data world, but when you talk about voice or streaming video, IP mobility has a way to go," said Gustafson. "It is pretty good as long as you sit still. If you move between cell sites, it is a bit shaky."

Recently, by happenstance, a Vonage Corp. representative demonstrated this second flavor of wireless VoIP. Brooke Schulz, Vonage vice president of corporate communications, demonstrated a Vonage VoIP call over EV-DO-brand named Broadband Access-while participating in a breakfast panel sponsored by the New Millennium Research Council.

"There is a lot of misconceptions out there that wireless is too slow and that there is too much latency, but as you can see it works just fine," said Schulz at the time.

In addition to VoIP services being used by advanced wireless networks and Wi-Fi, the Schulz example also showed that VoIP over EV-DO can be used to call mobile phones without a loss of call quality.

Ironically, the original Vonage demonstration was supposed to use a landline broadband connection but the venue where the breakfast was held was not wired for such access so Vonage was forced to go wireless.

VoIP services are said to be feature rich and more cost-effective than delivering telephony over circuit switches, but that is not true for the wireless environment, said Gustafson.

"The reason we haven't gone wholesale toward wireless VoIP is that VoIP is less efficient than the current air interfaces that we use. If we were to take all of the traffic to wireless VoIP, we would suddenly have less capacity than we started with," said Gustafson.

VoIP may be the killer application for broadband, making it as indispensable in the 21st century as the telegraph was to 19th century or the telephone was to the 20th century.

Before VoIP can reach this lofty goal, however, regulators are going to have to decide what to do with it. Lamont said he hopes that as regulators look at VoIP they will realize that it could be a whole new way of communicating by bringing real unified messaging to the typical user.

"My hope is the FCC is anticipating this new feature and understands we can't stand in the way of technology," said Lamont. "The old days of knowing what type of telephone wire was connected to a building are long gone, and the policy needs to keep up with that."

The Federal Communications Commission has opened a proceeding on VoIP, but it may work too slowly to stop some states from regulating VoIP as a telecommunications service. FCC Chairman Michael Powell has indicated he wants a light regulatory touch on VoIP, but the commission first must decide whether it is a telecom service or an information service. If it is a telecom service, VoIP could be subject to taxes by all levels of government.

Last month, a federal judge stopped New York from regulating Vonage as a telecom service, reinforcing a similar decision in Minnesota.

Today broadband is typically thought of as a battle between telephone and cable since these are the two main wires into a home, but Powell often touts wireless-especially Wi-Fi-as the third pipe into the home. Powell took his staff and the media to the top of a Virginia mountain last year to showcase a company run out of a hilltop farm that offers broadband services to the surrounding residents.

The battle between telephone and cable operators is expected to become even more high-pitched since rules developed by the FCC were overturned last month. Now incumbent local exchange carriers are allowed to negotiate private agreements with competitors that want access to a customer's premises. Wireless carriers don't have to negotiate for that last mile and it is mobile, so a crack might be opening to allow Powell's third-pipe vision to become a reality.

The broadband battle has even become political with President George W. Bush and presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) battling over who has the best plan to bring broadband service to every American.

Bush has set a goal of universal broadband deployment by 2007.

"President Bush is correct-what the country needs when it comes to broadband deployment and spectrum management is less regulation and more innovation. We applaud the Bush administration's proposals, and its efforts to bring broadband deployment and the attendant economic development to communities large and small in the near future," said Dave McCurdy, president of the Electronic Industries Alliance.

Kerry would auction TV spectrum in the 700 MHz band and use the proceeds to fund broadband technologies for first responders. He also advocates more unlicensed spectrum.

"This nation is destined to think big and dream big, and it's time America had a president who once again will look toward a future of discovery with hope and confidence," said Kerry. His plan "recognizes that the promise of the Information Age was not a bubble; it is a breakthrough that will continue to lift our economy and our lives."

June 9, 2004

Communications Daily and Washington Internet Daily

VoIP Providers Call for New Public Policy Platform

A panel of VoIP service providers said regulators should develop new policies based on current market conditions. "The different world calls for different policies," Verizon Senior Vp Kathryn Brown said at a panel sponsored by the New Millennium Research Council in Washington Tues. She said policy-makers should understand that "new rules are appropriate for new technologies and the current rules... are relevant for different purposes and government interests." NCTA Senior Dir.-State Telecom Policy Rick Cimerman said "only a minimally regulatory framework" would create the right incentives for service providers to "invest, innovate and deploy VoIP services."

Brown urged policy-makers to base their decisions on "current marketplace conditions in the new competitive interconnected world." She said regulators should: (1) Create "an environment for increased investment capital from all private interests to flourish." (2) Ensure "research and development efforts are allowed to prosper to an open, collaborative arena that encourages inter-industry cooperation." (3) Limit oversight to promote all services "evenly regardless of technology platform and prevent anti- competitive behavior." (4) Give consumers "as many choices to select the technologies that suit their respective needs" as possible. (5) Avoid imposing price controls and operational constraints on technologies. (6) Continue to allocate spectrum and aid companies' use. (7) Focus on the role the govt. can play in deploying new technologies. "Government is one of the largest users of technology in the country," she said. (8) Encourage commercial negotiations and eliminate burdensome regulations.

Quintessence Telecom consultant Jonathan Sallet said: "The power of IP to cross infrastructure boundaries requires a new look at the past public policy." Sallet said regulators should "try leaving engineering decisions to engineers."

Speakers warned regulators against imposing burdensome, uneven taxation. "If you happen to tax, make sure you do it evenly," Brown said. Sallet said govt. policy should encourage innovation and "the last thing we want to see is taxation" disrupting innovation.

Cimerman said VoIP providers should have the same rights as regular telephone companies, including peer-to-peer interconnection with IP and PSTN entities and access to numbering resources. "All these rights are coming automatically with Title II classification, so even if [VoIP] is classified as Title I, it should" still have Title II rights, he said. "Both Title I and Title II could work, but Title I [would be] a little bit easier."

Panelists disagreed on the role states should play in resolving disputes.

Brown said she agreed "the FCC is not the place" to go to with interconnection disputes. But she said "I do believe we need to move to commercial kinds of relationships. Every other industry has done it. It's really time for us to stop relying on the government to solve our problems."

But Cimerman said "state PUCs ought to be involved" to provide consumer protection, as well as "oversight, enforcement and dispute resolution for

carrier- carrier interconnection issues." He said "even in the commercial agreements, sometimes disputes arise, you go to court." He said states that have expertise may resolve disputes quicker.

Verizon Dir.-Internet & Technology Policy David Young said disputes in the cable industry work out because "the ability for those guys to say 'no' that allows them to really negotiate something." He indicated that, like cable and Internet industries, telephone companies should be able to say "no" to interconnection agreements. But Cimerman said: "I am not sure that Internet model is appropriate because there are a number of alternatives on the Internet side that we don't have on the" PSTN.

Answering a question, Brown said international VoIP could bring about "another set of regulatory issues," such as settlement rates. Young said there were 2 aspects: "There is ability to bypass the settlements" review, and "then work on the ability to provide U.S. telephone service to anybody in the world who has broadband connection." Susan Polyakova

National Journal Tech Daily

Telecom: Internet Telephony Expected To Lead Wave Of New Services
By David Hatch

Voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP), a technology touted by its backers as nothing short of revolutionary, represents the first wave of Internet products to be deployed in the near future that industry experts believe could alter the communications marketplace.

VoIP, essentially phone service over high-speed Internet pipes, is creating sizable buzz in telecommunications circles because it offers lower prices and more options for users. Riding the technology wave is Edison, N.J.-based Vonage, which already commands 51 percent of the Internet telephony market, estimated to be at 300,000 to 350,000 lines.

At a Washington forum on Tuesday sponsored by the New Millennium Research Council, Vonage spokeswoman Brooke Schulz said the company is developing software dubbed the Vonage Soft Phone that will let users place calls over laptops and personal digital assistants without using phone handsets.

The software loads an image of a phone keypad onto the device that is "dialed" to place a call over a wired or wireless network. But some kinks still need to be addressed. When Vonage demonstrated the technology, for instance, a loud echo was apparent. The company also is developing a handset, for launch early in the fourth quarter that will let users make wireless phone calls over Wi-Fi networks, effectively creating a new form of wireless service to compete with cellular. Wi-Fi is becoming increasingly available in public places, such as airports and coffeehouses.

"It's a grassroots movement that we're trying to create here,"Schulz said.

"We're not like a traditional phone company."

Other VoIP applications on the horizon from other companies involve telemedicine, advanced gaming, Internet-delivered video and distance learning, panelists said. Verizon Communications, for example, offers subscription-based, online services delivering music and video streaming of Major League baseball games, said David Young, the director of Internet and technology policy at the firm. Congressmen and FCC regulators are exploring whether to regulate VoIP as a traditional "telecommunications service" or an "information service," a designation that would subject VoIP to less regulation than phone companies. VoIP has its limitations. Users must have a broadband connection to use it, and some complain of erratic call quality. VoIP connections also can be affected by power outages and computer viruses, and policymakers are still pondering public-interest requirements for taking 911 calls and providing access to the disabled.

June 8, 2004

TR DAILY

ROLE OF STATE PUCs SPARKS DEBATE AT IP FORUM

Although the cable TV and telecom industries may generally agree that less regulation of IP (Internet protocol)-enabled services would be good and that public policy should promote facilities deployment and innovation, that consensus breaks down over the issue of interconnection.

State regulatory commissions are the best places to resolve carrier-to-carrier interconnection issues, Rick Cimerman, senior director of state telecommunications policy at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, said today at a Washington forum on the transition to IP networks. State regulators should also be entrusted with the areas of consumer protection and, in some instances, universal service, he added.

Kathryn Brown, senior vice president at Verizon Communications, Inc., said she was "not so keen on [the] idea of having states involved in interconnection disputes." Nor should the FCC be involved, she added. Instead, she said interconnection should be left up to purely commercial negotiations.

Mr. Cimerman responded that the cable TV industry was not necessarily advocating states' dictating an unbundled network element platform for carrier interconnection arrangements. "But even when negotiated agreements have been reached, disputes arise, and somebody has to arbitrate," he said.

David Young, director of Internet and technology policy at Verizon, said parties in interconnection negotiations had to have the right to say no. Mr. Cimerman responded that the public switched network might be the only way to reach a narrowband end user, adding that a cable broadband service provider wouldn't want to have to go through a competitive local exchange carrier to reach the end user if it couldn't reach an agreement with the incumbent local exchange carrier. "But you could," Mr. Young responded.

The New Millennium Research Council sponsored the forum. - Lynn Stanton, lstanton@tr.com

RCR Wireless News

Vonage exec demos VoIP over EV-DO technology
by Heather Forsgren Weaver

WASHINGTON-Wireless Voice over Internet Protocol is here with the advent of Qualcomm Inc.'s CDMA2000 1x EV-DO service as deployed by Verizon Wireless, said Brooke Schulz, vice president of corporate communications for Vonage Corp.

Schulz demonstrated a Vonage VoIP call via EV-DO technology, brand-named Broadband Access, Tuesday morning as part of a breakfast panel sponsored by the New Millennium Research Council.

"There are a lot of misconceptions out there that wireless is too slow and that there is too much latency, but as you can see, it works just fine," said Schulz.

In addition to VoIP services being used by advanced wireless networks and Wi-Fi, the Schulz example also showed that Vonage over EV-DO can be used to call mobile phones without a loss of call quality.

Other products allow VoIP calls to be made over Wi-Fi networks, but if someone does not know you are using a cordless VoIP phone, it would look like a call was being made over a cellular network, said David Young, director of Internet and technology policy for Verizon Corp.

"Voice over Wi-Fi looks like a cellular call, but it is just an application over Wi-Fi," said Young.

Young's company has a wireless subsidiary, so he is more likely to acknowledge the present availability of wireless VoIP, but David Reed, executive vice president of Cable Labs, said wireless broadband is "in the future."

As the morning progressed from a technology demonstration to a policy discussion, Rick Cimerman, senior director of state telecommunications policy for the National Cable Telecommunications Association, said there has been a large focus on the responsibilities of VoIP providers, such as providing enhanced 911 and access to law enforcement, but not much on the rights of VoIP operators.

These operators, which hope to be classified as information service providers in an attempt to escape telecom regulation, need access to the rights that are given to telecommunications carriers, said Cimerman. "Even if you are not a telecom carrier, you need access," he said.