Does L.A. Really Want Citywide WiFi?

The City of Los Angeles is considering building out a citywide Wi-Fi network. It's a good idea, but rumor has it that they are considering an anchor tenant model, similar to what Earthlink tried to be in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Anaheim and a few other cities. The model, which some former execs I know from Earthlink … Read more

I’m Moderating At ITExpo, Jeff Bonforte Returns To Startup Camp

Later this month many of us in the telecom world will head to Las Vegas for the second ITExpo of the year. I agreed to moderate three panels and pal Larry Lisser is staging another StartUp Camp, and has wrangled Yahoo's Jeff Bonforte to handle the keynote. While the panels are interesting, and mine will … Read more

Skype Dropping API

Pal Om Malik tells us all that Skype is dropping their desktop API access in favor of a URI approach. Reading through the story and then going into the Skype Developer web site makes me feel this is a play on the whole Microsoft approach to WebRTC that is slowly emerging. At the same time … Read more

Why Are Our Wireless Networks So Closed?

Last week OnSip revealed how SIP traffic on Verizon Wireless' LTE network is blocked, mostly on MiFi's more than smartphone devices, but over the last week I've noticed how fast GoogleVoice loads up on AT&T and T-Mobile and how slowiy it has been on VZW. The same with Apple's FaceTime and Skype–at least here in … Read more

The Changing Face of Collaboration with WebRTC and More

While the standards bodies and heavyweights (Google, Microsoft, Firefox) all duke it out on the WebRTC standard the developers and visionaries of how work will get done in the future are not standing still in attacking the collaboration space at all. And its just in time as I'm tired of traveling and am finding that … Read more

Verizon (VZW) Wireless Firmly Commits to VoLTE is BYOC Far Behind?

Image via CrunchBase Verizon has become the second USA carrier to really get behind VoLTE as the way voice will be handled on their LTE network following the early lead moves taken by MetroPCS long before they were acquired by T-Mobile earlier this year, reports GigaOm's Kevin Fitchard. As usually, AT&T would rather someone else … Read more

WebRTC News for Thursday June 27 2013-Early Edition

Image via CrunchBase The "news" is slowing down, but it's clear that WebRTC is heating up. Last night I gathered up a bunch of folks in town for the conference and invited them to a dinner of what I named the "Like Minds Group" here in Atlanta. Companies represented included leading execs from AT&T, Amdocs, Cisco, … Read more

TokBox Launches OpenTok with WebRTC For Customer Service

Breaking News–On the second day of WebRTC World in Atlanta, TokBox, now owned by Telefonica Digital, has made some news with a customer service oriented play called OpenTok, reports TechCrunch. This is no surprise, not from them, or the category that TokBox is attacking, as customer service with chat boxes tied to web pages are … Read more

WebRTC News for Tuesday June 25 2013-Midday Edition

The big news of the day comes from TechCrunch which is reporting that Firefox 22 now has WebRTC in it , and with the release, it becomes the first stable version of the popular browser that supports the WebRTC protocol. In looking at the update the very first item is WebRTC, clearly showing that the developers are playing … Read more