I woke up this morning to the news that VoIPWatch was selected by Feedspot as the number one blog for VoIP in their Top 25 Voice over IP Blogs, News Websites & Newsletters in 2019 (VoIP). Honors like this are nice to receive, especially when I see the rest of the blogs listed. Having been at this since 2003 it's nice that when it comes to being judged by others, VoIPWatch stands above and beyond all the rest. Continue reading

Let's say you like wines from New Zealand, but the wines you want are from a producer whose wines are not available for sale in your state of residence. The reason this happens is more than likely due to the importer not signing on a distributor in that state. So while the wine sits in another state, aging away in some warehouse, you don't have the opportunity to legally buy the wine you want. So despite customer interest and demand for the wine, the thirst has to be quenched by another wine that you settle for. Or, maybe you get... Continue reading

When the first MiFi's came out I always referred to them as PocketSpots. Having used more than a few along the way, they were broadband on the go. I had a few of them from Novatel, most of which were initially locked down to AT&T or Verizon. There were more along the way from Sprint and T-Mobile too. As I traveled internationally I even bought a few out of the UK that were made by Huawei, and some via eBay. I remember one from Telstra in Australia that was great while I was there, as I could connect my MacBook... Continue reading

About ten years or so I first met winemaker Domaine Magellan's Bruno Lafon, the Burgundian transplant to the town of Pezenas when visiting with Sylvain Fadat of Domaine d’Aupilhac. As a long time Languedoc wine hunter I was impressed with what I tried that I made note of his work and kept an eye out for the wines in the USA. About the time the 2011 vintage wines were showing up I started to buy Lafon's Magellan whites and reds, and my friends all enjoyed them with me. In addition to his premium level reds and whites, Lafon started to... Continue reading

I will always admit, I'm partial to the wines of Sylvain Fadat and Domaine d'Aupilhac, his small winery in the town of Montpeyroux. While Sylvain makes some super approachable, early drinking wines, like the high quality, value priced Lou Maset red, the wine that now defines Sylvain comes from his 20 year old vineyard, Cocalieres, the same vineyard I was married in (and to) back in 2007. Cocalieres is a magical spot for me, as much as it is for Sylvain. Going back over 20 years I remember the boyish excitement in Sylvain's voice when he told me he had... Continue reading

Twilio started out as a "developer first" company. That means they started building their business at the developer level and have started working their way up the ladder with the larger customers. Of late though, they have been sending all kinds of signals that they are wanting to be an "enterprise focused" business and shedding that "developer first" focus. Transition periods are uually very tough on customers who were there at the start, but are not part of the audience for where a business is going. Levels of service usually degrades. What used to be real-time handholding becomes self service... Continue reading

The government that governs least, governs best has long been a bastion of the USA. For centuries our laws and regulations have been based on letting industries self-govern and self-regulate. It's only when they don't that the government steps in. That's what is happening with robocalling. Despite input from industry giants including the mobile operators, telcos, service providers like Bandwidth.com and visionary companies like YouMail, the fact that robobcalling has reached the point it has, and that more calls today go unanswered than ever before is at pandemic proportions. Robocalling, or automated dialing, was originally created as a time saver... Continue reading

A few years ago, Dialpad launched a very timely and on the money campaign all about the "Anywhere Worker." That was something I could identify with easily for a lot of reasons. When I launched Comunicano in 1993 the goal was to never have a physical office. This was well before the idea of remote work in marketing and advertising was considered normal In May of 2006 I launched the pioneering blog, Working Anywhere - the blog that was about just that. My mistake was I didn't keep that as active as VoIPWatch..well, mistakes can be corrected. In 1976 when... Continue reading

I caught up with Mitel's SVP of Global Technical Operations, Peter Polizzi, last week to talk about Mitel's efforts with pro sports teams around the world. Their efforts include a league-wide effort with Major League Baseball, a handful of UK soccer teams and a recently announced goal scored with the NHL's Los Angeles Kings. What Mitel is doing with baseball is showing how a cloud-based telecom system can be so much more than just voice, video and messaging when the cloud and the communications hub are put to work in real-world scenarios. Highlights included: Facial recognition of fan entry-this is... Continue reading

Distract. Defame. Destroy. ..that's the game that's being played out against Amazon and Jeff Bezos. And it's wrong!!! All one needs to do is look at the Medium post by the founder of Amazon as he artfully set the stage to bring to light an attempt by to silence him and his newspaper, the Washington Post, the publication that has always been one of the nation's bastions of what is known historically as the Fifth Estate. Here's what has happened so far: Distract-The publishing of details of Bezos' alleged affair. I say alleged as no one knows if he and... Continue reading

Comunicano is the premier value creation communications agency serving the telecom, collaboration and mobile industries for over 25 years. Over the past 18 years Comunicano has led the communications for startups and companies in transition, leading to 47 successful exits via M&A or IPO, generating more than $5 billion dollars for investors, founders and employees. We've driven value and growth for companies acquired by Google, Yahoo, eBay, Cisco, Citrix, Symantec, IBM, Nokia and more. If your company is looking to grow in value, attract the right customers, establish the proper ecosystem and align with the right investors or future acquirers,... Continue reading

I am starting to play around with the idea of a VoIPWatch Podcast. I'm using the agile development model. Try and see what works and what doesn't. Here's the first attempt. Continue reading

Google has started to release Live Transcribe, an app that will be helpful to many, but especially the deaf. The timing may be a bit late, but perhaps Delta and other airlines may want to quickly deploy it to their customer service agents around the globe. Last week a story broke how a Delta gate agent quarreled with a deaf couple over being assigned seats together, and then refused to board them. While there are always three sides to every story, there's a point in life where compassion has to win out over policy, especially when people flying together want... Continue reading

The SIM Swap thief was convicted in Santa Clara County court and received a ten year sentence for the crime. Clearly, the tech centric community is sending a message. Commit a crime in our backyards and they'll prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. This is likely encouraging news to others like industry colleague Michael Terpin who continues to battle in civil court against AT&T when his account was compromised and some $24 million dollars of cryptocurrency taken from him. Terpin isn't the only person to be victimized in a SIM Swap Theft (SST). Part of the reason is... Continue reading

I'll admit, I'm enamoured with the wine of the Ventoux region and have been for many years. A few years back I suggested to Los Angeles' Emporium Thai restaurant owner John Sungkamee that he add Even Bakke's 2012 Clos de Trias Rouge to his small wine list that I helped him assemble. One night, at a WineSiders dinner John brought a bottle of it along. That caused pal Jordan Ogron, owner of Tesse, and its companion wine shop, Boutellier, to take notice and add the wine to his list, with the 2013 release that was very much in line with... Continue reading

I love Barcelona, except when Mobile World Congress, the city's largest annual trade show is in town. Prices go up. Transportation bogs down. Hotels are impossible to book, and even the restaurants pull out their MWC menus. So when I read this morning about the Catalan government passing a regulation that hinders the use of car hailing apps like Uber and Cabify I wasn't really surprised. The new regulation requires the drivers to wait 15 minutes before they pick up a passenger. This move has "protectionist" legislation written all over it as "protectionist colusion" between the taxi industry and government... Continue reading

Back in July Google Voice started a beta program to roll out the legendary service on a global basis. A few days ago they made the service available in more countries. One of their big additions was VoIP calling as this meant that calls no longer had to be forwarded to a mobile phone's number. It also meant that calls could be originated over WiFi as well as LTE/4G with pristine quality, and providing a second line without the need for a second SIM card. My experience with it has been both joyous and a bit of a let down.... Continue reading

A long time ago, in a land called Vonage, a customer's babysitter tried to call 911 and the call didn't reach the police. That and other incidents like that are from an era the growing business communications company would like to forget. But just like Skype In and Out are as much like a real phone line to many, and as more cable companies have migrated from POTS lines to VoIP service, we always said during the hey day era of VoIP that the "duck test" is the dividing line. For those who don't know what the duck test is,... Continue reading

Zoom has been a staple in my company, Comunicano, the past few years along with UberConference as part of our collaboration tools. We switched to Zoom from GoToMeeting just before Citrix sold off our former client to the LogMeIn because the quality just couldn't be beat. With their announcement yesterday, Zoom brings what they announced last fall at their annual users conference, Zoomtopia to life, and in turn is setting a new bar in what I am coining as unified collaboration. I'm most intrigued by the deployment of green screen feature. This is something I've long thought was needed in... Continue reading

Yesterday I was told by my bank that they won't use VoIP numbers for text verification purposes when it comes to essential customer identification services such as resetting your ID, password or sending a replacement ATM/Credit Card. In light of the Terpin vs. AT&T case and similar actions against T-Mobile that surround SIM swapping, the use of non mobile numbers which VoIP providers offer end users provides for far greater control over the use and management of their numbers. This would seem to indicate that the banks are still working in the dark ages by relying solely on mobile operators,... Continue reading

TokBox has released their annual study, "Video Chatterbox Nation" I have to admit, I like the design style and the way the report is presented. Reading it reveals key data points surrounding live video communications use, especially with the millennial crowd. As someone who has been in the live video world, since the days of SightSpeed (now Logitech Video), and who recalls the early days of Skype video, not much is a surprise to me. Adoption is clearly being driven by the universal availability of FaceTime and Google Hangouts on devices like iPhaones and Androids, as well as easy to... Continue reading

When it comes to the PR world I'm a veteran player. As much as I hate to admit being a PR guy, I have been one for a very, very long time. I can remember when the only way I could be reached when I was the public relations assistant for the Philadelphia Wings in 1974 was by phone. A call would come into the switchboard and it would be transferred to my eidxtension. By the time I was with the Philadelphia Flyers two years later I had my own direct dial number and an answering machine the size of... Continue reading

CES was last week. This week is the Detroit Auto Show. We go from geeks to gearheads. There's also the National Retail Federation Show in New York City. Trade show season is in full swing. Meetings happen around the events. New products and services get rolled out. All this is happening around a federal national shutdown, that likely is causing some frustration at airports and ports. Nonetheless, as they say on Broadway, "the show must go on." Continue reading

A few weeks ago I launched the "What’s going to be big in telecom in 2019" poll. Well it caught the attention of the leadership team at TMCNet and we decided to join up. So now it's both TMCnet and my company, Comunicano that are asking that question in the first annual VoIPWatch Poll. We'll reveal the results at this year’s ITEXPO in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, January 31 at 4:15 pm just prior to the start of the IDEA Showcase, which I'll be helping judge again this year. Just as Comunicano has always been at the forefront of driving... Continue reading

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and this week's CES is clearly showing how what was once the way companies did business, has changed, and at the same time, what's old is new again and companies who once fought with each other are finding new ways to be allies. For example, Apple stopped licensing in 1997. Now they're redefining licensing by making it easier for anyone to access their iTunes platform. That's called distribution. What's next? Letting anyone make an iPhone-I think NOT. Taken on face so far, it's clear Apple, Google and Amazon are dominating CES. News... Continue reading