BlogTV Canada Launch - My Busy Day, Part 1

Yesterday was busy for me, with a breakfast event and an evening event here in town. The events were very different, and I learned a lot at both, and am posting about them now in two parts. This post is about the evening event, the launch of BlogTV Canada - properly known as blogtv.ca. I'm sure this is the first offering of its kind in Canada, and quite possibly North America. Lucky me - plus a great swag bag to boot. I'll share the highlights here, along with some pix from my Nokia N93.

The BlogTV Canada venture is backed by Alliance Atlantis and Toronto-based GS New Media, and is very much a Web 2.0 social networking experiment that has a wide open road in front of it. I have recently been invited to evaluate the service, and in the near term I plan to do some broadcasting of my own there, most likely in conjunction with my oldest son, Max. Stay tuned.

So, I'll just share my basic impressions, and then leave you with some photos. The event was well attended, and with lots of fun energy, and I'm sure loads of creative people. The venue had a bunch of notebooks all powered up for us to use and try out the service. It doesn't take long to figure out the basic features, but I certainly found it helpful to have someone from blogtv.ca sit by me and navigate some of the menus and options. It sure is fun, but to me, it's a lot like YouTube and even virtual spaces like Second Life. Once you go in, it's a whole new, real-time world, and if you have time on your hands - or not much self-control, you can spend hours there.

I chatted with a number of people from blogtv.ca, and got answers to some of my questions, but not all. Social networking is just so new, nobody really knows what to do with it - certainly in Canada - so you have to suspend belief about reality when looking at this. There doesn't seem to be a business model yet, or a clearly identified audience. I heard a lot about this being attractive for the creative community - artists, filmakers, video producers, musicians, etc. - which I totally agree with. These are the people who will really run with the technology and do cool and exciting things with it.

But will it become anything more than another paintbrush in their creative palette, or will a business model emerge? No clear answers on that one, but for now, I don't think they're too concerned. It's all about building community and letting things grow organically. From what I can tell, their main overhead is bandwidth, since everything else is pretty much user-generated. Oh, and to have a few people monitor and moderate what people are doing to make sure nothing really evil goes on. Gotta have that.

The thing I really struggle with is calling this "TV". That's such a 1.0 term, but hey, it's by far the most powerful medium out there, and I hate to say it, but it's the "TV" thing that draws people to it. I don't know why, but people will do ANYTHING to get on TV, and if this is the only way they can do it, then that's what they'll do. Actually, the "TV" part of blogtv.ca is the "channels". The idea is to develop content grouped by subject matter, so there are channels for all kinds of things - music, tech, sports, games, and yes - adult. Just like in the real world. So a big part of this launch was to attract the kind of people they hope will build and bring content, and give others a reason go there.

On the whole, I thought it was pretty neat, and it's great to see Canada being at the edge of the curve. And even better for me to be a part of it. So far, I haven't seen ANY coverage of this event, so I may be the lone voice spreading the word, at least in the IP world. In that case, you heard it here first, folks, and if things go well, I just may become new media guy myself.

Finally - kudos to the High Road Communications team for putting on a great event in a funky part of town - very 2.0.

CODA....

As far as I can determine, blogtv.ca is the first foray for BlogTV outside their base in Israel. As with VoIP, Israel is a hotbed of innovation for video, and BlogTV seems like a typical example. I don't know how successful they have been with it, but it was explained last night that while BlogTV only does live video, the Canadian version does both live and stored video. To me, this is like how SightSpeed differs from Skype video - same difference. I think the stored portion opens up a whole new range of possibilities, and time will tell where the Canadian creative community takes it.

A quick sidebar about BlogTV. My Hebrew is very rudimentary, and when you go to the home site for BlogTV - which is in Hebrew - it doesn't take much to see that there's a lot happening there, and I'm sure they've pioneered all kinds of interesting uses. For anyone who knows Hebrew, you'll see very quickly that the Hebrew word for blog is....blog. As ancient as Hebrew is - it is still an evolving language, but when it comes to tech terms, it's much easier to go with the flow, and just call it what everyone else calls it. Omen.

And now, here's what you missed....


Is this grass roots, or what?







Tomorrow's TV stars? You never know...












Look at me, I'm on TV...but is anybody watching???







Sarah Ward and David Gollom of High Road... only in Canada, eh...






Technorati tags: blogtv.ca, BlogTV, Jon Arnold, Social Media, Web 2.0

How Does 100MB Bandwidth Sound? Videotron and Cisco Can Bring It

Well, here's an interesting story. Just got off a con call with Videotron and Cisco - very interesting stuff. They're partnering to deliver broadband speeds up to 100 MB per second for Videotron's subscribers, using Cisco's wideband "solution", based on their CMTS platform, which is DOCSIS 3.0 ready.

I'm not a specialist in cable technology, but they get these higher speeds using bonded channels, and they explained how they can get up to 24 channels bonded. The question of bonded channels being an immature technology came up, but Videotron is confident enough that it's ready for prime time.

Videotron has been trialing this for over a month successfully with real customers, and they have been working with Cisco on this for 18 months. They plan to bring it to market in the next few months, but no date has been set. I suspect they have a lot of things to work out still, both technology-wise, and in terms of the user experience. It was also mentioned they will be offering this to the business market, which is quite interesting, especially in light of the news on Tuesday about Rogers and Mitel launching a hosted IP service for SMBs.

Interestingly, they did not have to make any upgrades to their network, so this has not required a major investment. Being DOCSIS 3.0 ready, Cisco's Wideband solution interops with multiple cable modems. This of course includes their new Scientific Atlanta and Linksys wideband modems, but on the call, they did explain how the service would support other DOCSIS 3.0 compliant wideband modems, so Videotron subscribers are not bound to using Cisco modems.

On the call, it was stated they have been able to deliver 98 mbps, so the target of 100 is real. They also said that they can achieve "much higher" speeds as well. It must clarified, though, that we're only talking about download speeds. This came up on the call, and Videotron explained that upstream bonding hasn't been done yet, so current upstream speeds will remain the same for subscribers using this service - at least for now.

So, the big question for me is - if you build it, will they come? Clearly, they've been testing this, and believe there will be demand. They opened the call talking about how things like YouTube are really changing the way people use the Internet, and need ever increasing bandwidth. Totally agree.

What we don't know, is how much bandwidth do they really need, and of course, how much is it worth to subscribers? I asked these questions on the call, and they really don't know yet how much bandwidth the market will demand. They may offer 50, they may offer 75, they may offer 100. It's still early days, and you have to wonder just how many people really need 100 mbps. And at what price? They didn't comment on pricing, and that's going to be the key issue.

Regardless, Videotron continues to be a disruptor in Quebec and is sending another message to Bell about their willingness to set the pace and push the envelope, whether it be on pricing or technology. Am sure all the MSOs will be watching this one closely along with Bell.

The press release was just posted to Cisco's site, and I'm sure it will be up on Videotron's later.

I should also note that Mark Goldberg had a good post about this on Monday, following his briefing with them about the news.



Technorati tags: Videotron, Cisco, Jon Arnold, Mark Goldberg

IMS Forum Plugfest - Off to a Good Start

Between being at PTC and TMC the past two weeks, and my recent web hosting problems, it sometimes takes a while to get around to things, and I wanted to be sure to get a post out about this.

The IMS Forum held its first Plugfest January 15-19 at the U. of New Hampshire interop test lab. By all accounts, the event was a success, and their news release came out last week during the ITExpo. Other media coverage of the Plugfest can be found on their site as well.

This is the first of four Plugfests scheduled for 2007, so there's a bigger plan here. The idea is to build continuity and momentum around something that's much needed to move IMS forward - vendor interop. Plugfest was supported by some of the leading IMS advocates, including Sonus, Tekelec, Tektronix, Empirix, Ditech and Trendium.

With all the talk around FMC, this event formed a test bed to actually demonstrate the handoff of traffic among wireless, wireline and cable networks. The IMS Forum is focused mainly on applications than architecture, so there were a number of real world scenarios tested, namely dual-mode, WiFi, IP Centrex, Presence and Instant Messaging.

Having moderated an IMS session at the ITExpo, I can tell you that nobody has a good fix on this. We all know about the promise from the vendors and the pushback from the carriers. I look at this as a long term process where two opposing forces will go through various stages of denial, and eventually acceptance. Blogging colleague Russell Shaw was on this roundtable, and posted his thoughts the other day, and you can get his take on this state of affairs there. I guess patience is the watchword with IMS.

Patience is a good virtue, but vendors don't have all day. And, frankly, neither will carriers, especially once subscribers start demanding the types of services that only IMS can deliver. So, let's just hope that IMS Forum is on the right track here with their Plugfest. I think they are.










Technorati tags: IMS Forum, IMS, Jon Arnold

Rogers Launches SMB Hosted VoIP - First for MSOs?

It's been a totally full catch-up day, and my web hosting problems aren't yet fixed - that's another story.

In the midst of everything going on today, I get news from 2 sources almost at the same time about a really interesting announcement from Rogers. They've just launched a hosted VoIP service for SMBs, partnership with Mitel. I suspect this will be based on the Natural Convergence platform, which along with Mitel, is in the Terry Matthews fold. Talk about an all Canadian story!

It's actually a hosted Key System, and details are pretty sparse. So, I'm not clear just how feature rich or price competitive the service will be. Not to worry - I'm working on setting up a podcast with a senior Mitel executive, hopefully next week, and we should get a more complete story then.

Details aside, this is an important story in that a major cableco is coming to market with a VoIP solution targeted specifically at the SMB sector, especially the bottom end - which is Key System territory. As if Bell didn't have enough to worry about with Rogers going after their landline business, and of course with wireless. The plot sure thickens.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first major cableco to come out with an offering like this. No U.S. MSO has the mix of offerings that Rogers has, and they continue to push the envelope for what the service provider of the future will look like in an all IP world. Only in Canada, eh?



Technorati tags: Rogers, Mitel, Jon Arnold

ITExpo Highlights - Thoughts, Photos and a Podcast

I've been ready to post some highlights of the ITExpo since Thursday, but I ran into a perfect storm of technology snafus, all at once, of course. On Tuesday, Marc Robins and I issued a press release about our alliance to better serve clients with our consulting services.

Two days before I had renewed my web domain, and somehow, someway that led to my email going into a black hole, and my website URL being redirected here to my blog. So, when this press release went out, I wasn't exactly easy to find - how convenient. Well, the email problem has finally been fixed, but not the website. Now that I'm back, that's pretty high on today's to-do list.

On top of this, my notebook all of a sudden went schizo, and was pretty much unusuable most of the time I was there. It seems to be running ok today, but I don't trust it, and went out and got a good backup device yesterday, so at least my data won't be lost if things get out of hand again. This really cut into my blogging plans, as I had downloaded most of the photos in this post before the PC problems kicked in. So, I just had to wait until getting back yesterday, and now I'm able to blog again.

Has this happened to you? I know I'm not alone in the PC glitch department. During one of my panels, the PC used for one of the presentations had a similar out-of-mind experience. Just as the presenter was pulling up his slides, the screen display all of a sudden went upside down, and everything was inverted. Truly bizarre. Despite all the geeks in the audience nobody had ever seen this one before, and we all agreed to move on. So, the presenter ditched to slides and did a great job speaking to the topic - the old fashioned way.

Enough about that. Overall, the conference was quite good, but similar to recent ITExpos I've attended, the focus is quite broad, and you really have to pick your spots. I was so intent on attending some IPTV and Web 2.0 sessions, but they took place when my problems were at their worst, and I just had to drop everything to fix them.

That said, the show caters very well to telecom buyers, which I think has always been its strength. Lots of content around VARs and channels, with plenty of opportunities to evaluate new products and listen to real-world experiences. Two tracks that were very well attended were SIP Trunking and VoIP Peering, both of which are definitely hot topics right now. So, Ingate Systems and Stealth Communications, respectively, were on the money by putting so much effort into getting these tracks together.

If there was a lament to note, it would be Andy Abramson not getting to the show. I was really looking forward to seeing him there, but he had his own set of problems travel-wise, and it just didn't work out.

For a more detailed account of the event, the TMC blogs are the place to go, especially Rich, Tom and Greg's postings.

Oh, and one more thing to add - a podcast! During the show, I did a pod with colleague Thomas Howe, who has recently started a podcast series of his own - highly recommended. While writing up this post, I see Thomas has just posted the pod, so you can listen to it any time now. It's short and sweet - about 6 minutes. Hope you like it!


With that said, here are some photos, courtesy of my NokiaN93 phone...




Meet "the family". Like father, like son. Rich Tehrani with Russell Shaw; Nadji Tehrani with Rick Bisesto of TMC.








Mike Tribolet of Vonage. Had trouble getting a clear shot of him - he was a real moving target up on stage. Sorry about that Mike - must be the "IPO diet" you referred to that's putting a real spring in your step. Looks good! :-) Oh, and hey, didn't I just see you the week before at PTC? You sure get around.






Chuck Rutledge and Joanne Lowy at the Quintum booth; Mosh Maeir of Flat Planet





Neal Shact with his hands full - Blair Pleasant and Barbara Gerdes - lucky guy. Didn't they make a movie about you a while back? Isaac Hayes did the soundtrack - "he's a complicated man, but no one understands him but his woman...". Or am I confusing you with Shaq?








Well, this is one way to get attention. DICE is an Iowa-based job sourcing agency for IT jobs. Yup, he's walking around with a monitor strapped to his back. Is that how they track down IT jobs in Iowa? Sure reminded me a lot of Al Franken, right? The "mobile uplink guy" from Weekend Update on SNL. If you remember - just too funny....







Oh, and just in case things got dull at the Expo, you could always go next door to the Tatoo Expo. Only in America. "Dude, where's the SIP Trunking session? And how can I get a tat of the TMC logo? I've got some room over my right eyebrow. It'll look really cool right next to my Microsoft logo."




Technorati tags: TMC ITExpo, Jon Arnold

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - SMB VoIP With OneConnect

This week's podcast was with Gianni Creta, the CTO of OneConnect. They're Canada's first hosted VoIP provider focused on the SMB market, and are based here in Toronto. I've been following SMB VoIP for some time, and have been looking forward this podcast. Gianni provided his perspective on the SMB market for VoIP in Canada, and we talked about the challenges of providing this service, especially from an operator who does not own the last mile.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Gianni's background.


Technorati tags: Gianni Creta, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, OneConnect

J Arnold & Associates Teaming Up With Robins Consulting Group

Well, as the telecom sector continues to consolidate, the ripple effect spreads further down the food chain. I've known Marc Robins for a while now, and we keep crossing paths in our work. We've been sharing ideas for some time, and have decided that two heads are better than one, and if AT&T can bulk up, so can we!

This morning, we issued a press release announcing our "strategic alliance", and we're very much of the view that together we can do a better job serving this space. I also see that Rich Tehrani has picked this up on his blog - thanks Rich. I'll be off to the ITExpo this afternoon, and look forward to talking more about the news at the show.

The full text of the news release is up on Marc's blog, and it will soon be up on my website. Unfortunately, my hosting service is having some server problems, and my website is not accessible right now. How f'*&@'ng convenient is that????????? I'll let you know when it's fixed!

So, what can you expect to see from us? Well, as the press release explains, we'll be launching a monthly electronic newsletter to provide a regular flow of insight and analysis that goes beyond what we blog or pod about. A web portal will soon follow, which we hope will become a thought leadership destination and position us as the IP Communications Go-To-Guys.

Comments and suggestions are welcome, and yes, we're open for business!


Technorati tags: Marc Robins, Jon Arnold, VoIP consulting, J Arnold & Associates, Robins Consulting Group