Friday, January 6, 2006

Canadian Podcast Series - Mark Evans on 2006

This week's podcast was with Mark Evans, Sr. Tech Reporter for the National Post. Mark is one of the best ears and eyes on the tech sector here in Canada, and it was great to talk about the outlook for IP in 2006. The newly-branded Pulvermedia Podcasting Network is up and running, the web site is looking good. You can download the podcast here, and read a bit more about Mark's background as well as a synopsis of our talk. Mark also maintains one of the best tech blogs going - it's a must read, esp for the Canadian market.

Quick sidebar - the sound quality of the podcast was spotty and garbled at times. We were on VoIP at both ends - Vonage at mine, and M5 at the Pulver end. Mark has previously speculated that the cablecos here have been tinkering with VoIP calls run by competitors over their networks. Well, since we were talking about VoIP, maybe the MSO VoIP police were listening and figured it was a good time to meddle. Think so??? Lots of people are in this camp - it makes for great conspiracy fodder. Anyone who wants to share their stories along this vein are welcome - leave me a comment....

Next week's podcast - am working on lining up a segment with Alec Saunders and Howard Thaw from Iotum. They're at CES, and it will be great to hear their take on the show, esp from the perspective of a Canadian IP startup trying to crack this market. Until then, the blog posts on CES are coming along - Mark's blog today cites Andy Abramson's rant about the poor WiFi coverage and subpar treatment of the 6,000 media folks covering the show. You heard me right - 6,000 media people - sure gives you an idea of just how big this show is.

2 comments:

Jon Arnold said...

Posted by: Rob Hyndman

Jon - I've been having trouble with the sound quality of my Vonage service lately too.

Hmmm ....

BTW, great content!!

Jon Arnold said...

Posted by: Kenny in Ottawa

I have been using lychos phone and skype for a while. The quality of their service is superb, but suddenly last month I am getting troubles with my calls on both services (lycos and skype), so I guess this is an issue involving my Internet Cable company (does this name ring a bell --Rogers Cable--) I have already complain more than once and one of the guys on tech support recognize they wer violating Network Neutrality, etc, etc. He didn't say they are blocking VoIP but he told me in generic they are blocking certain services online base on the traffic content not even on the port number. So they are sniffing in your traffic take that for granted. I guess I will need to move to dryDSL with Bell. Anyway I just want to know where this is going, is that ISP sooner than later will control what you do online. Are you not supposely paying for that bandwidth. If they want to control what I do, then they should lower their prices. I will keep searching to see if I find something real about this "blocking VoIP - Rogers Cable" thing.
Regards, Kenny from Ottawa.