Last week I wrote about one approach for service providers who want to respond to the threat of Microsoft Teams – to provide an integration of Teams into existing PBX functionality. That article has prompted quite a few conversations, and through these discussions I’ve realized that we should think about our possible responses in a… Continue Reading
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What can telcos offer businesses who use Teams?
A couple of months ago I wrote about the threat Microsoft Teams poses to telcos – where the big risk is that a business customer will cancel their PBX trunk, or their hosted PBX / UCaaS service, and instead switch all their seats to use Microsoft Teams instead. Obviously, this would be bad news for… Continue Reading
Starlink: a new competitor for rural ISPs
If you provide internet service in rural areas, there’s a new competitor knocking at the door. Or rather, on the roof. Starlink is a new satellite internet service created by SpaceX, which promises blazing fast speeds and (eventually) worldwide service even in rural areas. What is Starlink? Announced in January 2015, Starlink will be a… Continue Reading
IP Networks for Voice Applications: Best Practices
What term do you use to describe the company you work for? Are you a telephone company, a service provider, a carrier, or a network operator? These days I’m seeing more use of this last term – network operator – in large part because the network is becoming more important than the application (voice). Most… Continue Reading
Can telcos compete against Teams and Zoom?
Microsoft recently announced that Teams had 115 million daily active users, up from just 20 million a year ago. Zoom had been growing rapidly before the pandemic hit (see graph below), and has seen a similar dramatic spike since March. As more and more businesses rely on these platforms – not only for video, but… Continue Reading
FCC reduces compensation for toll-free calls
On October 7 the FCC released a new Report and Order about toll-free access charges, in response to concerns about arbitrage causing inefficiencies and excess costs in the system. I’ve written before about toll-free traffic pumping, which is one of the FCC’s concerns. They’re also seeing situations where calls are inefficiently routed from rural areas,… Continue Reading