Service Provider Views - Why Life is getting harder, not easier

My latest Service Provider Views column is running now on TMCnet. Having just come back from the ITExpo, a few things struck me there that would work well for my next article. This would have been enough material, but on top of that, the last week or so has been full of news that pose new challenges and raise new questions for service providers. Not the least of which is the iPad launch, Jajah's acquisition by Telefonica, and the latest earnings news from AT&T and Verizon.

I could probably squeeze a few more columns out of this morass - and I just might do that - but for now, I've managed to hit the high points in today's column, and you can read that here.

Any way you look at it, January has had more than its share of news that impacts service providers, and could be an ominous way to kick start the new decade. I can't wait to see what February holds in store.

Toronto Blues Society Awards Night - Oscars for Canadian Blues

This post is just for the record, and is part of the backlog from last week I'm trying to clear up. We all have busy lives outside of work, and for me, music is one of those lives - especially blues. I'm not one to post much about my personal life, but in the blues world, this one is worth sharing.

I've been a long-time supporter and board member of the Toronto Blues Society, and one of our marquee events is the Maple Blues Awards. I've posted about this before, and the MBA is Oscar night for Canadian blues. We have a great blues scene up here, and the TBS is right in the middle of what happens here in Toronto. Over the years our MBA program has evolved into a national event, and it's a great barometer of the best blues going from coast to coast.

Last Monday was this year's event, held for the first time in brand-new Koerner Hall in downtown Toronto. The venue was a bit uptown for blues, and is really built for acoustic music, but things worked out just fine. I had to fly out early the next day for the Smart Grid Summit, and combined with a technical glitch, I haven't been able to post this until now.

For all kinds of reasons, I'm happy to do shout-outs like this for the TBS, especially in 2010, as we mark our 25th anniversary (and I've been there since Day 1). The Canadian blues scene is world class, and if you like the blues, there's a lot to like about our artists. The MBA showcases this in spades, and if you're in Toronto next MLK Day - an appropriate date for the awards - you really should attend.

For this year, the full list of winners and nominees is summarized on our website. These won't be household names to most of you, but that shouldn't matter. The music is first rate, and I'll share a couple of photos here. If you poke around the Net, I'm sure you can find some video clips as well. Better yet, come to TO, and I'll take you around to the clubs. And - if it's a Tuesday, you can check out my 13 old son and myself at a local blues jam!

The Maple Blues All Stars - the best blues band in the land - really...



The Twisters - these guys were FUN...

ITExpo Photo Highlights

Never a dull moment at the ITExpo last week, and as per my earlier post today, here are some highlights of goings-on I caught outside the Smart Grid Summit. I'll preface this by tipping my hat to Rich Tehrani and his 24-7 team for putting on another successful ITExpo. More importantly - and as noted more extensively in a previous post - TMC continues to be open to new ideas for making the Expo a richer experience as well as reaching new audiences.

I'm very appreciative of the support they've shown for our Smart Grid Summit, and no doubt my cohorts feel the same for the other co-located events run under their tent, namely 4GWE, M2M, the Cloud Summit and Startup Camp. From what I can tell, all were successful, and I'm sure all of these will be back bigger and better this October for the LA ITExpo. With that said, here are a few photos to give you a flavor for what I mean.


Rich Tehrani kicking off the ITExpo keynotes


Rich hosting the lunch time panel exploring the implications of the Avaya/Nortel deal


Perhaps the sleeper event of the week - Larry Lisser's Telecom Startup Bootcamp. A bit like American Idol - here are the judges who gave their feedback after each startup pitch. The room was packed, which says a lot considering the event took place Thursday night after a full day of ITExpo activity.


Shai Berger of Fonolo during his pitch. I had mixed feelings about the pitches I saw, but they all had interesting ideas for sure. Shai shares his thoughts on his blog, which in turn takes you to Andy Abramson's blog, both of which are good reads. Like Andy, I have a vested interest in Fonolo, so I'll leave it at that for now.


Next stop - the show floor. Not as big as in the past, but healthy traffic. I didn't get to spend enough time with exhibitors to gauge the quality of attendees, but the energy level was high every time I got out to the floor. First, a couple of shots from the Smart Grid Pavilion - small today, but should be much bigger for the next summit. Below is the Redline booth and then Livecage, who did a series of video segments for us.




Here's the Ontario/Canada pavilion - busy as always


Keeping on the Canadian theme, here's the reception they hosted Wednesday night. An open bar and a motorcycle giveaway will always draw a crowd, but I'd like to think people were at least a little bit interested in what our companies are doing up here...


In what's becoming a tradition, no Expo is complete without an invite to Andy Abramson's wine dinner - good to the last drop. Big thanks to Andy for sharing his wine with us as well as Andrew Hanson and Freetalk for sponsoring. If you haven't seen how Skype is approaching the small business market with a Jazinga-based IP PBX system, then you need to do some homework. Or just call me.

Smart Grid Summit - photo highlights

After the Summit finished up on Friday, I had an extended family visit for a few days, and am just back to everyday stuff now. Had some technical difficulties with my new PC, and wasn't able to post my photos from from the show, so I've got those coming here in two posts. First, this post about the Smart Grid Summit, followed by some photos from the rest of the ITExpo.

Too much time has passed for a thoughtful review of the summit, but we did have a fair bit of media attention, and I'll be posting a roundup article citing all of this for our Smart Grid portal later today. If that doesn't do the job, then drop me a line and I'll be happy to tell you more.




We had four keynotes during the Summit. First up, Dr. Ron Sega, Colorado State University



Kevin Suitor, Redline Communications


John Bryan, Secure Smart Grid Association


Ryusuke Masuoka, Fujitsu Labs of America


Here are a few shots from the panels. Fist, Christine Hertzog moderating the Game Changing Apps session.


Shidan Gouran and the Standards/Interoperability panel


One of my sessions - What Utilities can learn from Telcos


Rose Gabriele moderating the Modern Network Solutions session

smart grid summit - day 1

Way, way too busy to give you a recap from our first day, but I can say it went really well. Our room was over-full from the beginning, and stayed that way all day. I'll get a recap article out to our portal ASAP, and have some photos to post here. For now, I'll steer you to the ITExpo Show Daily, which covers all aspects of what's going on here.

Will have more to report tomorrow - so please bear with me and keep visiting the Expo website.

Smart Grid Summit - Lots of Reasons to Come

Tying up loose ends today, and flying to Miami tomorrow for the Smart Grid Summit and ITExpo. I've been posting off and on about this for the past few days, and wanted to do one more post summarizing the highlights of what you can expect to see at our event, running this Wednesday - Friday.

Today, I posted Part 3 of my Smart Grid Summit preview series articles. You can read it here, and to get the full story, you can read Part 2 here, and Part 1 here.

That pretty much tells the story, and I hope to see you in Miami. If not, please check in regularly to the portal, where I'll be posting daily recaps. Also, one of our media partners - Livecage - will be doing live video streaming, and once it's running, I'll let you know where/how to find it. In fact, if you go to their website now, you'll see a couple of placeholder welcome video messages for our event. Trust me, it will look a lot better once we have our speakers up there!

Google and China - What it means for telcos

This is the Google mega-story of the day, and I think it's a big one for all kinds of reasons. Have you ever seen a company get so much global attention over such a short period of time across so many unrelated businesses? That's a story unto itself, and the irony isn't lost on me when I think about their name.

Google's differences with the great firewall of China are all over the news, and I'm here with a bit of a different take. In my latest Service Provider Views column on TMCnet, I'm more concerned with what all this means for privacy and how that impacts service providers.

Up until recently, service providers were in a very different business than Google, but today that line sure is blurry. So, it seems to me that whatever challenges Google is facing - especially with China - is going to matter to service providers. Pretty fertile ground here, and I'm sure I'll be revisiting it soon.

You can read the article here, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.