Hop 255

AFL Rights and Broadband

Good to see the AFL is thinking laterally in respect to broadband and its tv rights. As discussed here earlier the box seat is not what it once was and being changed by the advent of broadband. A growing number of telcos are pruchasing the media rights to the leading football codes in their countries. Most recently Belgacom.

Skype and the virtual office

Not much new here but put it all together and you do have a virtual office with Skype as a center piece.

BitTorrent Search Engine

New BitTorrent search engine discussed at BBC. Search engine is here but seems to be down as I write.

microsoft smart network data services

New anti-spam microsoft initiative described here.

the ZombieMeter

CipherTrust's ZombieMeter is up and running. Cute idea to do it 24x7 and I hope the other security companies follow suit with something similar. Symantec puts out a similar indicator on bot infected computers but every six months. CipherTrust also have data on the first three weeks of May which hopefully they will keep updated in a time series.

Internet Governance, RIRs and Skype

The skype journal is carrying Niklas Zennstrom's VON presentation. His suggestion for the VoIP calls to emergency numbers problem - "Build up national IP geo mapping databases managed by national authorities".  Hop255 has commented before that Skype needs to hire an adviser on government affairs and regulatory issues fairly quickly. His speech is reflective of that.  On the one hand, Skype would like regulators to leave them alone but by now probably recognise that they will face some regulation at some point. But in this presentation, most likely without knowing it, Zennstrom has walked smack bang into the middle of the debate on Internet Governance. His proposal could well be interpreted as supporting the efforts by the ITU to have a part of the IPv6 space allocated to countries to manage. You can read the counter argument, made by Jeff Huston, here. Essentially Skype is inviting governments to manage IP space for VoIP. This might seem a solution to fend off regulators on the 911 issue but it puts IP addresses in the hands of some governments who might very well like to block Skype. In those countries where the incumbent still manages numbering or has access to the database, as they presumably would in one way or another under this proposal, the scenario may not be good for Skype or its users.

Skype phone and broadband growth

New Skype handset. Still a bit pricey but they, and others, should fall in price with volume and release earlier of Skype specs. Broadband also growing strongly.

Vonage versus Skype

An engadget interview with Jeffrey Citron here.  Citron says that Vonage is less expensive at a 1000 minutes of calls to non Skype users. I am not sure how he arrives at that number. The Skype rate for calls to the US from the US, for example, is 1.7 euro cents. Vonage's US$24.95 (19.83 euros) unlimited deal works out to 0.19 euro cents per minute at 1000 minutes. The actual cross over is around 1160 minutes per month.  And users would not be better of with the 500 minute plan (US$14.95) if they intended to make 1000 minutes of calls because each of the additional 500 minutes would cost US$0.039 giving a total of $34.95. Accordingly, the only price benefit of Vonage is if users make more than 1160 minutes of calls per month. In addition, as Citron downplays, Skype has an advantage on international rates. A Vonage call terminating in Australia costs 0.03 euros (US$0.04) compared to 0.017 euros for Skype. Skype charges the same rate (0.017) for a call to the UK whereas the Vonage rate is 0.023 euros (US$0.03).  So if Citron's boast to be cheaper than Skype in some markets is true they don't appear to be major ones. Skype's 0.017 eurocent rate applies to a large part of the developed world. Vonage rates vary to a greater extent with a 0.047 euro cent rate to Belgium compared to 0.017 euro cents for Skype. Flat rate style pricing (i.e. Vonage) is popular with US users but Skype is less expensive unless they intend to make more than 1160 minutes of domestic calls per month. The Vonage numbers for the UK look even worse than the US. For many US users, if they have a cellphone with a large bucket, the advantages of cell plus Skype might well outweigh cell plus Vonage. It will be interesting to see who gets out the first dual mode mobile terminal with their software preloaded.

Skype Blog

Skype has launched a blog with a statistics page.

Vodafone and Roaming Prices

Lots of coverage of Vodafone's announced new pricing option for roaming. Mostly commentators attributed it to customer complaints (but they have been doing that for years) and EU investigations (which take forever and haven't influenced roaming prices in the past).  Not much mention that this could be the first retreat due to competition from Wi-Fi, Skype (3 million online at once today for first time), Vonage etc and forthcoming dual mode terminals. I find the latter factor more persuasive. And the structure of the new option is unlikely to reduce Vodafone's bottom line to any great extent, if at all. Most mobile calls are short and the set-up fee will cover a good portion of the reduced per minute fee. The real reported benefit for users will be that they only incur a connection charge for incoming calls while roaming. Unfortunately, I doubt there will be much knock on competitive impact outside the business market where I would expect this to be replicated quickly. That is simply because most users don't select their carrier based on roaming (well at least they don't do it based on termination prices). But if Vodafone starts to advertise this feature maybe they will.  Meanwhile, Telmex is trying to defend claims it is blocking VoIP without being very convincing. Perhaps they could explain exactly which argument it is, that they make, which shows why Skype and Vonage work fine elsewhere but experience problems for broadband users in Mexico.  A wooley mid 1990s discourse on bandwidth hogs, botnets and P2P does not cut it particularly at the high rates Mexican broadband users pay. Even India has a more competitive market than Mexico as evident by MTNL's innovative pricing structure announced today with no fixed cost for broadband and a relatively low rate per megabyte. For a low GDP per capita country this is great stuff and would no doubt drive growth in Mexico if given a chance. Unfortunately, in Mexico, there is little broadband choice with low cable and fixed wireless coverage and no unbundling or line sharing with DSL.