This morning I sat in on a good discussion at Pulver’s IP Communication Summit. Here are some of the highlights. The last question to each panelist was to speak to the single most important factor affecting their business in 2006 – in bold below.
Ofer Gneezy / iBasis : Wholesale telephony rates have stabilized. Two of the largest wholesalers have been acquired (MCI and ATT), and it will be interesting to see if their new parents continue as much emphasis in this area. Most important factor to my business is the trends – PTTs are continuing to shift wholesale business to hyper-efficient wholesalers that have been built from the ground up with no extra fat.
Terry Matthews / (Convedia, Mitel, Ubiquity, well, lets be honest 65 or so odd telecommunications companies so I won’t list them): The world’s carriers are starting to move to services, to replace the revenue they are losing on voice. They need to bill for these services, they need to control their delivery. There’s a huge move to IMS, as a platform that the carriers can use to reinvent themselves. Most important factor in the next year is XML message routing, which Terry described as a whole new layer in the internet - more details here at Solace Systems site.
Ari Sonesh / CosmoCom: I didn’t capture many of Ari’s insightful comments (I’m not exactly a pro journalist here), but did note one point of personal interest that he has added video to IVR – IVVR. The biggest factor in 2006 won’t be technology, it will be the telco’s ability to add and sell services based on technology.
Jim Dalton / TransNexus : Biggest trend in 06 is open source and it’s application to telecommunications.
Jeff Pulver / PulverMedia: in response to Terry’s comments on IMS Jeff used a Dunkin Donuts vs. Starbuck analogy. Dunkin Donuts (IMS) fixes your coffee (app) for you and usually gets it wrong. Starbuck (traditional IP networks) lets you put in your own cream and sugar so you get your coffee (app) just the way you want it. We know who wins. The biggest trend in 2006 is video, and the massive disruption in the way video gets delivered. Everything from SlingMedia, to Video iPod as a distribution channel, to ipTV.
And, a great closing reference from Ofer “The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributedâ€.