Providing VoIP service since: 2004

Challenges: Limitations due to being self funded; competition from Skype

Number of subscribers: 200 business customers

Advice for upcoming VoIP providers: Ensure that you gain appropriate funding and form strong partnerships

Areas of innovation: Providing Windows based soft PBX with Outlook integration and also developing private communications on VoIP for social networks

Voice-Web mashup strategy: VoIP for social networks with a degree of privacy to protect the user from abuse calls

Company URL: www.voip-express.net

Providing IPTV service since: August 2007 (in Norway)

List of challenges: Integration between ERP systems and IPTV provisioning systems; STB problems; VOD software bugs; Content owners that do not allow the company to sell channels one at the time (only bundled in packages); difficulties raising enough capital; content distributors that own distribution infrastructure.

Number of IPTV subscribers: not disclosed

IPTV equipment sourced from:
Set-top box: Motorola 1510 and 1910.
Middleware: Dreampark
Encoder: Latens
VOD Server: BitBand

Continue reading "Company Profile: Comvie" »

Providing VoIP service since: August 2004. GoIP started with its own developed VoIP system for retail service. Subsequently GoIP International was formed to offer service as an Application Service Provider (August 2005) for consumer VoBB and Mobile VoIP. Retail business sold off to debitel.dk (www.debitel-ip.dk)

Most memorable challenges so far: Providing system deliveries faster to service providers, and avoiding custom development.

Number of service provider customers: 18

Continue reading "Company Profile: GoIP" »

Providing IPTV service since: Launched first of eight phases in June 2004. Have IPTV deployed in 72 towns in Central and Western Oklahoma.

Major challenges so far: Integration of IPTV solutions, keeping subscriber acquisition costs down in order to compete with incumbent Cable providers and the DBS providers.

Number of IPTV subscribers: 8500

IPTV equipment vendors:
Set-top box: Amino, Entone and Scientific Atlanta
Middleware: Myrio (NSN)
Encoder: Tut/Motorola
VOD Server: Harmonic
Test and Monitoring: In house
Security: Verimatrix
Advertising Server: ETI

Continue reading "Company Profile: Pioneer Telephone Cooperative" »

Providing IPTV service since: September 2006

Service Details: Launched its Freewire IPTV service in September 2006 to UK University students living in on-campus accommodation - university halls of residence connected to JANET, the UK universities’ high speed broadband network -- and the initial launch was all free-to-air content. A pay service was launched in September 2007, the start of the new academic year, again to students in halls of residence. The next phase of development will see the Freewire being rolled out as an off-campus residential proposition using DSL in March 2008. Freewire also plans a white label IPTV solution.

Challenges: Content rights issues and regulatory environment as the service expands internationally. These aspects are often very different and provide a new set of challenges in each region that have a bearing on time to market. Currently Inuk Networks is launching Freewire in the Republic of Ireland and Canada.

Number of IPTV subscribers: Freewire is currently available in over 100,000 student bedrooms in halls of residence across the UK.

IPTV equipment vendors:
Set-top box: Telsey, plus Inuk Networks own developed Virtual Set Top Box application for PCs & Macs
Middleware: Zignal
Encoder: Tandberg
VOD Server: Edgeware
Test and Monitoring: Various
Security: Widevine
Advertising Server: PacketVision

Continue reading "Company Profile: Inuk Networks" »

Faroese Telecom is the incumbent operator of Faroe Islands, a small cluster of 18 islands with population of around 50,000. Its VoIP trial – which envisaged enterprise and residential VoIP offerings - prolonged unnecessarily for over 2 years. The company had thought a thousand flowers would blossom. So far they have not.

The delays caused in IMS enabled miracles has not discouraged Faroese Telecom. The company has found a ‘niche’ market to offer VoIP services. The main economic activity of the islanders is fishing and people remain onboard almost throughout the year to make a living. Monetizing the communications requirements of this segment, Faroese Telecom is offering telephony services to the ships and vessels which operate in the surrounding seas. It has a sister concern that gives these ships the satellite broadband connectivity. Faroese Telecom offers VoIP over these satellite broadband connections.

Continue reading "Faroe Islands don’t give two hoots about IMS" »

Providing IPTV service since: 4th quarter 2005

Challenges faced in deploying IPTV: The biggest challenge has been the expense of deploying IPTV. Being a small company and not having the deep pockets to afford leading edge technology has been the biggest challenge, as well as the buying power of ordering large quantities of set top boxes. At the same time, working through the uncharted territories, experimenting with unproven technology and trying to figure out what works with the company’s network has also been a major challenge related to IPTV.

Number of IPTV subscribers: 740

IPTV equipment sourced from:
Set-top box: Amino
Middleware: Minerva
Encoder: Optibase

Continue reading "Company Profile: Citizens Telephone Cooperative" »

Providing IPTV service since: Early 2004

Most memorable challenges so far: Being an early adopter in the IPTV space, the majority of Surewest challenges have been technology related. The company had to work closely with all of its technology partners to ensure workable integration across all of the components that comprise the IPTV ecosystem.

Number of IPTV subscribers: Over 20,000

Sources IPTV equipment from:
Set-top box: Amino
Middleware: Minerva
Encoder: Variety of MPEG-2 encoders; uses BigBand BMR for IP encapsulation and rate clamping
VOD Server: Kasenna
Test and Monitoring: Ineoquest
Security: Irdeto Access, Widevine
Advertising Server: Outsourced through Viamedia

Continue reading "Company Profile: Surewest" »

Providing VoIP service since: May 2006

Challenges: Managing VoIP over public Internet

Figures: 20k retail residential subscribers; 35-40 business customers; 30 active resellers worldwide

Advice for VoIP service providers: Solid business plan so that you don't waste time, but also some flexibility with respect to the local market conditions

Expected growth: The current goal is ~100K retail customers by June 2008.

Areas of innovation: embedded click-to-call capability for business websites; online callback functionality; softphone apart from handling VoIP will also integrate other online features; innovation in the area of solutions for callshop owners; networking subscribers of multiple VoIP providers.

Company URL: www.webacall.com

If you would like to be covered on our site, please write to us.

Providing VoIP service and platforms since: Year 2000. ipaustria is one of the first fully licensed VoIP carriers in Austria to handle geographic phone numbers and emergency numbers/calls.

Target market: ISPs that are looking to offer private labelled VoBB services.

Figures: 37k retail residential subscribers; 65k retail business (provider portal) subscribers. Business and carrier customers in 21 European countries.

Challenges: Building service provider portal to handle phone numbers, billing, features

Areas of innovation: A self admin/quality-check tool to for VoIP connection.

If you would like to be covered on our site, please write to us.

Providing VoIP service since: June 2007. Pynk Global is part of Mellick Enterprises Pty Ltd that has been in the telecommunications business since 1996.

Markets served: Call Centers. The company also has its own Call Centers in Australia and Manila selling a range of telecom products. Built in-house call center product which the company later productized. Offers one-second billing to call center customers with no minimum charge. In November 2007 Pynk re-launched residential and business VoIP services.

Figures: Since launch Pynk has doubled its customer base each month, now routing over 2 million minutes per month.

Continue reading "Company Profile: PYNK Global" »

I would like to confess today that I have been a little prejudiced about the small service provider segment. I thought the only thing they did was call termination (in case of VoIP). Having spoken to a few small service providers over the last couple of months, I think I have been wasting my time with the ‘Tier 1s’. The Tier 1s might have genuine concerns about scalability and robustness in new applications they test. However even an analyst needs some excitement once in a while.

Sometimes you want to taste and know about half baked stuff too. While the services offered and applications built by smaller providers/vendors may not offer 35 nines, many among us would still want to know the story. It is with this intention that we start coverage of small service providers and vendors from now on. In short that means greater coverage during 2008 for Voice 2.0 and small service provider segment.

If telecommunications is going to change for better, the change agents are likely to be smaller service providers and vendors going forward. Coverage of small service provider/vendor segment on iLocus will mostly come in form of company profiles. If you are a small telecom company and have a story to tell, just email us at info@ilocus.com and we will cover you. That simple!